Chapter Text
Seconds dragged by and Danny stayed in the same taut ready stance, his eyes closed so tight nebulae swirled behind his eyelids. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his parents.
There wasn’t a sound, not the huff of breath nor the creak of bodies shifting in chairs, and as the artificial stillness grew, Danny fretted. Had he fucked up and not transformed at all? Was his family simply looking at him in mellow befuddlement? Did his secret remain a secret?
No, that couldn’t be true. Danny could feel the sleek, skin-tight pressure of his HAZMAT suit and the weight of his gloves, the buzz of ghostly power in his veins. He was standing in full view of his parents as Phantom. They knew.
Time trundled forward, bringing the transitory moment from buoyant to awkward. If Danny’s parents were waiting for an apt moment to lunge for the ghost weaponry, they could at least do him the courtesy of getting on with it. Danny’s face was beginning to hurt from cringing.
Dread stewed in his stomach. His parents’ reactions could hardly be worse than this waiting, Danny concluded. He braced himself and cracked an eye open.
Jazz was staring at their parents, and their parents were in turn staring at Danny. Jack was hunched forward in his chair, his face creased in thought, and Danny could practically see the gears turning in his dad’s head. Pieces were coming together inside that Fenton Brain of his. Maddie appeared to be ahead of her husband, her wide, pained eyes and arched eyebrows told Danny that she understood. All of it.
Maddie met Danny’s timid gaze, and the tense pause broke.
“Oh, Danny,” his mom said, and in one flowing motion she stood, rushed forward, and pulled Danny into a tight hug.
A jerky, stilted breath filled Danny’s lungs, and he melted into her familiar embrace. His chin tucked against her shoulder, her arms wrapped around his middle, their hearts pressed close to each other. Danny’s hands still shook, and as he curled them around Maddie her breath hitched and she drew him closer.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Maddie said, rubbing his back in slow circles. “It’s all going to be okay.”
“We should have known it was you!” Jack cried, leaping up. Danny’s heart shuddered, and he instinctively checked for weapons. But then Jack’s chipper grin pushed away the terror. “Only a Fenton could kick that much ghost butt!”
A startled, wet laugh tumbled out of Danny. Jack ran up to the pair and engulfed them both in a fervid bear hug, the orange material of his HAZMAT suit filling Danny’s field of vision.
Mashed between his parents, their warmth and affection surrounding him, the weight of a thousand lies and a million fears loosened inside Danny and flaked to nothing.
His parents knew that he was Phantom.
They knew and they hugged him anyway.
“We love you, Danny,” Jack rumbled, and Danny could feel the words resonate in his dad’s chest. “We always will.”
Danny’s throat constricted, and tears swam in his eyes. He grasped his parent’s suits in a fierce grip and sobbed.
Great blubbering gasps tore out of his chest, the sharp taste of salt tinged his tongue. Snot leaked from his nose and smeared Jack’s sleeve. Tears fell and plopped on Danny’s white gloved hand, splattering like paint.
Another set of arms joined the huddle, and Danny looked up long enough to watch twin teardrops slip down Jazz’s overwhelmingly-relieved face as she leaned into her family’s group hug. Danny reached out his hand and Jazz grasped it. Together they cried.
Nobody else moved a muscle until Danny released his death grip on them and eased away. Suddenly self-conscious, Danny wiped his damp face on his sleeve and smoothed the creases on his suit. Jack and Maddie stayed close, taking in the ghost hero with new awareness.
“So,” Jack said. “Phantom, huh?”
Danny shrugged. “Yeah.”
Jack stroked his chin. “Explains a lot.”
“It does?” Danny asked perplexedly.
“Sure!” Jack waved a hand in the air. “Sneaking out at night, struggling with school, the mood swings…When you factor in the ghost stuff it all adds up. And it explains why our gadgets always target you. And how you know so much about ghosts, it's literally firsthand information. Oh, and why Phantom—er, you—is always showing up with our tech! Not to mention…” Jack eyed Danny and Danny squirmed under his scrutiny “You look exactly the same. God, Mads, how’d we miss it?”
“Jack,” Maddie said carefully. “Let’s take this slow.”
“I’m okay, Mom,” Danny reassured her.
Maddie placed a steadying hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”
Danny straightened. “I’m sure.” He transformed once again, slower this time and without shutting his eyes.
Even though they had seen this already, Maddie gave a soft gasp and Jack tensed. Danny didn’t hold it against them. He was sure it would take a great deal of getting used to.
Danny ran a hand through his raven hair. “You guys probably have a lot of questions, huh? I’ll try to answer as much as I can. But, um, some of them might be…hard.”
Maddie and Jack shared a worried look.
“C’mon,” Jazz said, stepping back and tapping a kitchen chair. “Maybe we should sit down for this.”
Danny nodded and joined her, settling into the chair at the head of the table. His parents took two beside each other.
“You need anything?” Jazz asked Danny.
“Uh, maybe a glass of orange juice?” Danny replied. “Please.”
Jazz headed for the fridge. Danny turned his attention to his awaiting parents.
“So. Um. I’m Phantom,” Danny began.
“You’re Phantom,” Maddie repeated, the phrase awkward lifting from her lips. “Our son Danny Fenton is—Danny Phantom.” She rubbed her temples. “Danny Phantom. Good Lord, kiddo, you’re less subtle than your dad.”
Danny chuckled sheepishly. “That’s what Sam and Tucker always say. But in my defense, only the Phantom part caught on.”
“Sam and Tucker,” Maddie said. “They know?”
“...Yeah,” Danny confirmed. “Jazz, too. But only later.”
“This is the thing you wouldn’t tell me, isn’t it?” Maddie directed this inquiry at Jazz, as Jazz set a blue glass full of OJ in front of Danny.
“It wasn’t my secret to share,” Jazz said, crossing her arms and sitting across from their parents.
Maddie nodded slowly. “I agree.”
“Really?” Jazz said. “I mean. Good.”
“I wish you’d told us, of course,” Maddie added. “We…we missed so much, and I’m trying not to think about all the danger you two have been in…But although it pains me to say it, you were right to let Danny tell us in his own time.”
“But Danny, why did you tell Jazz and not me or your mom?” Jack asked. That was a loaded question, made more so by the hurt Jack was barely managing to force from his face.
“I didn’t,” Danny explained. “Jazz figured it out on her own.”
Jack loosened and gave Jazz a fond smile. “Of course she did. What about your friends?”
“Oh.” Danny paused. “Well, I didn’t tell Sam and Tucker either. They were actually…they were there the day I…half-died.” He winced.
His parents stilled, the full implications of Danny being Phantom slamming into them. Maddie felt for Jack’s hand and held it, squeezing hard.
“And how–” Maddie’s voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “How did you…half-die?”
Danny cupped his hands around his glass and rubbed his thumb against the stylistic grooves. “...You remember the portal accident?”
Jack nodded.
“Yes, of course,” Maddie said. “You were in the hospital for a few days, the doctors said you got—” she cut herself off and raised a hand over her mouth. “...You didn’t get lucky, did you, Danny?”
Danny shook his head. Maddie broke eye contact and cradled her head in her hand.
“What happened, Danno?” Jack asked, voice soft and hushed.
“The portal wasn’t working,” Danny said thickly. “Completely non-functional’, you said, and you gave up on it, even though I could tell you were disappointed. Sam and Tucker came over the day after you stopped trying to get it going, and we decided I should check it out. I thought maybe I could fix it…” He lowered his head. “I thought that would cheer you up. And honestly, I was curious. So I put on that HAZMAT suit you made for me—”
“The white and black one…” Jack interrupted, understanding blooming in his eyes.
“The white and black one.” Danny gestured to him. “Anyway. I went into the portal. It looked dead, like you guys said. But then I poked around a bit and saw the On/Off button, just, stuck on the wall inside.” He chuckled. “I knew right away you forgot to turn it on and that’s why nothing happened before. And…I pressed the button.”
Danny faltered, the memory of that day heavy in his mind. He took a slow breath and carried on.
“...It hurt. Like getting struck by lighting, if lightning was also acidic and radioactive. I could—I could feel myself dying. I thought I was going to. And I guess I kinda did, but for some reason, not fully. We think it might have something to do with the energy in the portal, the way it's a connection between the Ghost Zone and Earth, but we don’t know for sure. I fell out of the portal in my ghost form, and I was sure I was…dead. Really dead. Sam and Tucker thought so, too. They freaked out, and that freaked me out, and we were all just screaming at each other until I accidentally triggered my shift and became human again.”
Danny’s eyes flitted between his anguished parents and his still-full glass of orange juice. “I was pretty messed up, electrical burns and concussion and all that, so Sam got it together enough to run and get you. And, well, you know the rest.”
Jack was uncharacteristically sober, sorrow etched on his face.
“It was our fault,” Maddie said, stony. “Our portal…killed you.”
“Only half-killed!” Danny hurried to add. An embarrassed flush coloured his ears. He wasn’t quite sure how to comfort his parents, usually it was the opposite way around.
“Besides,” Danny prattled, “it was mostly my fault. I walked straight into a ghost portal, without disconnecting the power or checking the failsafe system. And then I turned it on. With me inside. That’s, like, a classic breach of safety protocol. And I’m fine! Mostly.”
But Danny’s clumsy attempt at reassurance was for naught, because Maddie and Jack were off in their own world.
“Jack, we…our negligence…” Maddie mumbled.
“I know, Mads, I know,” Jack said, pained. “We could have lost him.”
“And–and after he went through all that,” Maddie said, helplessness leaking into her tone, “we–we shot at him, chased him, treated him like some sort of animal. Christ, Jack, we threatened to vaporize him.”
“Yeah,” Jack murmured, and he glanced in Danny’s direction, eyes flitting away from Danny’s. “We did.”
“Um, Mom?” Danny interjected hesitantly. “Dad? I’m okay, really. The accident was years ago. And you guys didn’t know it was me you were fighting. That’s on me. I–I should’ve told you sooner, I promise I don’t blame you.”
At this, Maddie visibly pulled herself together, and lifted her hunched shoulders. “That’s up for debate, Danny. Me and your father have a lot to discuss. But—” she offered Danny a small, tired smile “—we can do that on our own time. Right now we’re talking about you. So…why don’t you tell us the whole story.”
Danny blinked. “The whole story? That’s gonna take a while.”
“We have all the time in the world, Danny,” Jack told him.
“Right,” Danny said to himself. “Okay. The whole story, then.” He held up a finger. “You can’t get mad later if I forget something though.”
“Scout’s honour.”
“I was awful at using my powers at first. I knocked over a bunch of your ghost stuff in the basement, and some of the scorch marks are from me too. And when I fought the first ghost, the Lunch Lady, I did some serious damage to the school just ‘cause I kept aiming stupidly. Sam calls it ‘collateral damage’. It still happens now sometimes. I don’t ever do it on purpose, obviously, though Action News was convinced I was for a while. It’s just hard to avoid. And when it's between breaking some city property or allowing someone to get hurt….”
“Do you ever get hurt, Danny?”
“Occasionally I guess. Never really hurt. I heal different as a ghost, and I’m more resistant to damage. Jazz patches me up if I ever get something more than a scrape.”
“I’m sure there’s something we can do to lower your risk of injury…”
“Aw, Mom, you don’t need to baby me. I’m good at this, remember?”
“None of that, young man. We’re here to help you now.”
“Can I have another waffle?”
“Yes, Danny, you can have another waffle.”
“See? That’s helpful!”
“You can walk through walls? And disappear? And fly?”
“Duh, you’ve seen Phantom do it a billion times.”
“But we didn’t know Phantom was you!”
“Vladdie’s a ghost!?”
“Yup. And a super annoying one too, Plasmius got his fair share of hits on me. And before you ask, yes, I tried the Harmonizer on him—after I bribed him with a signed Packers poster—but it didn’t do much. It only works on obsessions, not human personality traits. Vlad’s Vlad-ness is all him. He’s not trying to clone me anymore, though, which is a plus.”
“He tried to what?”
“So you and Jasmine designed the Harmonizer? I’m so proud of you two, that’s an amazing piece of engineering! How’d you figure it out?”
“Most of the ghosts I fought a lot didn’t come across as really evil to us, so that meant something else was causing their behaviour. Took us a while but eventually we figured out the whole obsession thing. We combined some of the ghost tech you and Dad already worked on with our own ideas, plus I consulted with Clockwork. He fine-tuned it so it was painless.”
“Clockwork?”
“He’s a sort of, um, ghost deity, I guess you could say. He lives in a watchtower in the Ghost Zone and keeps an eye on things. I go to him for help quite a bit, but I don’t think he minds. He controls time, basically. Or, takes care of it. I dunno the specifics. One time…one time we accidentally went forward in time and met my…evil future self. Potential future self. Clockwork is pretty sure that timelines like that one don't have a high chance of occurring at this point. But…it was bad. He lost his family, and it broke him. He…killed people. He killed himself so he would be a full ghost. He tried to combine himself with Plasmius, but it didn’t take—which is fortunate cause that is something I never want to see.”
“And he went by Dan, which, eugh.”
“Exactly, Jazz. Anyway, Clockwork saved me and trapped Dan. So…it’s probably fine.”
“I had no idea ghosts could be mind-controlled…Neat!”
“Jack.”
“Er, I mean, I’m sorry Danny, that must have been awful.”
“It wasn’t great, no. Luckily Sam is a badass and jumped off a train, which snapped me out of it. And the staff smashed into a jillion pieces, which is fortunate. Someone else controlling my emotions is not something I want to experience again. It was like sleepwalking, except I was more aware, and I wanted to do everything I did.”
“So, the bank robbing and kidnapping…?”
“Freakshow’s doing, yeah.”
“Mm.”
“I imagine you’ve overshadowed us a couple times, huh? The parent-teacher conference comes to mind...”
“...Maybe.”
“We’ll be discussing that later.”
“You have an ice core, is that right, Danny?”
“How’d you know?”
“We sorta, maybe, kinda scanned you without your consent. By accident! That’s how we discovered Phantom was a…what’d you call it…a halfa?”
“Halfa, yeah…And I remember hearing about that on TV. How do you scan someone by accident, anyway?”
“Not our finest moment, I have to admit. The Scan-O-Tron has a mind of its own.”
“Do you have any ice abilities? You must, right?”
“I can generate ice. That’s how I stopped Undergrowth.”
“The plant guy?”
“Yup. Frostbite helped me learn to control that power. Without him I’d still be a shivering mess. He lives in the Far Frozen. He’s a Yeti.”
“A Yeti! Interesting. Are there many mythical ghosts?”
“Quite a few. Frostbite and the rest of the Yetis, Pandora, Dora, the Fright Night…Probably more but I can’t remember off the top of my head.”
“The Fright Night is the Ghost King’s minion, isn’t he? Pariah Dark?”
“Been doing your own research, huh Dad?”
“I have! So how did you defeat Pariah Dark in the end, anyway?”
“Er, I kinda stole your ecto-suit…”
“Aha! That’s why it was all beat up!”
“Sorry about that.”
“Valerie seems nice.”
“She did try to blow me up more than once.”
“Besides that. She fights ghosts! And teamed up with my son! That puts her in my good books.”
“She has been fun to hang out with after we became ghost hunting partners. It's weird, though, ‘cause I’m friends with her as a human and a ghost.”
“It’s only Jazz, Sam, Tucker, and Vlad who know.”
“Yeah. Well, except for Wes.”
“Who’s Wes?”
“He moved to town last year, and he figured me out right away. He’s tried to prove I’m Phantom since then.”
“Someone’s actively attempting to reveal your identity against your will?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds! Wes is a nice enough guy. Currently we’re in a ceasefire, till after this situation settles down.”
“Let me have a chat with him, I’ll set him straight.”
“Dad, no.”
“So, me and the local ghosts are on good terms. Ember is teaching me to play guitar. They all give me a hand with the aggressive ghosts who attack the city when I need it. And…that’s it,” Danny concluded, leaning back in his chair. “I think. Maybe. There is a lot.”
Unsure what to do with himself after word-barfing years of ghost lore, Danny reached for his waiting glass of orange juice and took a few long gulps.
Jack stood and stretched out the cricks in his joints. “Hey, Danny, c’mere.”
Danny set his glass down and complied, raising an eyebrow. Jack snagged Danny’s arms and hauled him into another hug.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, “for everything. We hurt you, hell, more times than I can count. If I were you, I wouldn’t forgive us. I’m supposed to make you feel safe, and I failed. I promise I’ll do better. And I’m sorry for the many days I didn’t. I love you, son.” Jack released Danny, and grasped his shoulders. “And I’m crazy proud of you.”
Maddie rested a hand on Danny’s arm, and smiled at him. “What he said.”
“Thank you,” Danny said awkwardly, uncertain what to do with the praise.
“Not to interrupt a healing moment,” Jazz said, then pointed at the clock on the microwave. “But it’s almost 5 o’clock, and we have no plan for dinner.”
Jack laughed, and a sense of normalcy, somehow, descended upon the family. “Kid after my own heart! Well, whaddaya say, Danny? I think after all that, the least we can do is let you pick what’s for dinner.”
Danny pondered briefly. “Pizza.”
“Pizza it is!” Jack proclaimed. “Veggie for Danny, pepperoni for me and Maddie, Hawaiian for Jazz, and an order of hot wings, that sound good to everybody?”
The other three offered a jaunty set of thumbs-up.
“I’m on it!” Jack turned for the phone.
“Blech.” Danny stuck his tongue out at Jazz. “Hawaiin, disgusting.”
“Could be worse,” Jazz said. “I could be boring like Mom and Dad and only eat pepperoni for fifteen years.”
“Good point,” Danny said.
“How’s it feel?” Jazz elbowed him.
Danny looked to his parents, thoughtfully discussing which pizza place to order from. Joy welled up in his heart. His parents still loved him. He always thought they would, but until now there was a dark shadowy corner of his brain that spat out images of once-caring faces twisted with rage or torturous experiments conducted in a vain attempt to make Danny human. But the evident proof before him spoke otherwise.
Of course there were bound to be some hard times ahead, and the awkward collision between the son his parents knew and the ghost he had embraced becoming might never fully settle. Even so, the days to come looked brighter than he could have hoped.
“So good,” Danny replied.
Jazz smiled at him, and Danny smiled back.
“Oh, shit!” he blurted abruptly, digging in his pocket for his silenced phone.
“What?” Jazz asked, startled. “What’s wrong?”
“Sam and Tucker!” Danny cried.
Thirty-eight unread texts and 9 missed calls crowded the phone screen.
Danny cringed.
Chat Group: a nerd, a goth, and a ghost walk into a bar...
4:59 PM
spider_sam: SHIT DANNY
spider_sam: FUCKING ANSWR
spider_sam: YOURE SCARING US
5:01 PM
dannymite: im okay!!!!!! i told them and it went well, not even grounded
dannymite: pls dont break down the door
spider_sam: daniel james fenton, cordially FUCK YOU
t.f: dude sam was fully about to smash a window
dannymite: sheesh
dannymite: ill talk to you guys tomorrow DON’T BREAK ANYTHING
spider_sam: sorry for wanting to save your sorry ass
dannymite: thanks sam <3
spider_sam: >:(