Danny Phantom - Blog Posts

Guys, I'm so sorry. This chapter is a beast. I'm only on the first scene on my second draft and it's already over 4,000 words. My bad. Hope long chapters don't bother anyone!

The way I wish I could draw so bad cause I have so many little scenes that would do better as tiny comic strips

The best comedy bit I've ever seen in a show (from a personal perspective) is in fact, Mr. Lancer swearing in classical literature titles. It's always so perfect for the situation and makes me cackle every time. Whoever thought of that deserves an award.

Chapter 2 is done!

Of All The Stories In The Stars, Ours Has Yet To Be Told (13344 words) by StarsWhisper Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton Characters: Danny Fenton, Dash Baxter, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Paulina Sanchez, Kwan (Danny Phantom), Valerie Gray, Pookie (Danny Phantom) Additional Tags: Aged-Up Character(s), on the way to college, mentions of child abuse, Mentions of homophobia, Redemption Arcs, Bisexual Danny Fenton, everyone becoming good friends, learning how to live, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Second Chances, lots of classical literature references, Canon-Typical Violence, Angst, Lots of Crying, Some hurt/comfort, almost everyone has shitty parents, More tags to come as I think of them Summary: It's the end of senior year and Dash and Danny are having the worst time of their lives. Dash's father finds out he's queer and tries to kill him. That lands him in prison with divorce papers. Dash goes to therapy to cope and learn how to change his behaviors while taking some time off from school. He now needs to learn how to navigate the world and figure himself out. Danny fears he'll never figure out what he wants for his future beyond being the hero of Amity Park forever and he's running out of time to figure it out as he watches everyone he knows move on without him. Plus there are always the people hunting him down that he has to worry about on top of that.

~

“You’re sure your parents aren’t going to mind us reversing their bio-engineered poison in their own lab?” Sam asked, squeezing a few drops of the Fenton Venom onto a microscope slide.

Danny was swirling a vial of solvent and venom over on the next table. “They won’t even know we’ve been down here. They’re visiting Vlad in Wisconsin.” Danny scrunched his face up, wanting to vomit.

“Your mom is visiting Vlad?” Tucker quirked his eyebrow, setting up the monitor to receive images from the microscope Sam was working on.

“My dad wanted to show him the progress they’ve made with the Fenton Venom. I think she just went to make sure Vlad doesn’t kill him. Or maybe she’s just putting up with it. My parents rarely go anywhere without each other.” The liquid in the vial turned blue. Danny sighed, placing the vial in the holding rack with all the other blue ones. This was getting him nowhere.

“So that’s why you’re so insistent on finding an antidote for the Fenton venom, you’re worried Vlad is going to steal some from your parents and use it against you.” Sam secured the slide in place, motioning to Tucker to begin capturing the photos.

Danny switched his gloves, careful not to touch the outside of them even the slightest bit, and grabbed a new vial. He only had one solvent left before he was out of options on his end. “Of course, he’s going to steal some. But mostly, I just wanted to get it done while I have full unsupervised access to the lab. That shit hurts. I’d rather not deal with it again. If Dash hadn’t been there, I probably would have lost my arm.”

Tucker saved the images in a folder labeled ‘slide one’ and motioned for Sam to switch slides. “Danny, we know all about your big, brave jock saving your life. You can stop bringing it up at any time.”

Sam filled the next slide up with the venom, this time also adding a bit of Danny’s blood. She slid it under the microscope. “Oh, Sam, Tucker,” She wistfully sighed- Danny frowned at her-, “he was my hero. He’s the Perseus to my Andromeda and I-”

“Whoa!” Tucker interrupted her. “Guys come look at this.”

Sam locked the microscope knobs into place and walked over.

“Hang on. I have to finish-” the vial turned blue, -“okay.” He set the vial down, threw his gloves in the trash, and leaned against the back of Tucker’s chair.

“Okay, so these are the photos from the first slide.” Tucker opened the ‘slide one’ folder, slowly clicking through them. “This is what the structure of the Fenton Venom looks like by itself. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?”

“Hang on,” Danny pointed at a dim little rod shape on one of the photos, “what’s that?”

“It’s the mitochondria,” Sam snickered.

“Ha-ha,” Danny tapped the screen again, “very funny. Can you not see it?”

Tucker zoomed in on where Danny was pointing. He squinted at the monitor. “There’s nothing there dude. But, funny that you say that because of what’s on the second slide.” He minimized the folder and clicked on one labeled ‘slide two’.

“Wow, that’s freaky,” Sam whispered.

“Those!” Danny wildly tapped the screen again, pointing at the shapes. They were brighter now and congregating around the drop of blood. “What are those?!”

“You’re saying you saw these,” Tucker drew a red circle around a few of the creatures, “on that last slide?”

“Yeah, there weren’t as many and it wasn’t showing up as well, but they were definitely there.”

“Interesting.” Tucker pulled up the first file again, aligning the two images side by side. “Sam, can you see them in the first photo?”

Sam leaned in. “Point at it, Danny.”

Danny pointed.

“Nope.” She popped the ‘p’.

“Very interesting,” Tucker added to the notes area on the image. “Can you guys check if it’s the same on the actual microscope?”

Sam peered through the microscope at the second slide, making sure to take her time and really look. “Is this the spectral microscope?”

“It should be.”

“Okay, then no. I don’t see them.”

Danny stepped up, looking in. They were there. But, they were flickering; like ghosts. “I see them. They’re phasing in and out of the blood cells.”

“Very interesting,” more notes were taken, “now look at the first slide.”

Sam switched the slides out and took even longer to study this one, making absolutely sure she wasn’t overlooking anything. “No, I don’t see them.”

Danny took her place. “They’re still here, but they look dead. They’re not moving and they’re kind of shriveled up.”

“Extremely interesting.” More typing, “So they come alive when introduced to ghost energy and then they consume and destroy it and so far only ghosts can see them without the help of the spectral camera.” Tucker placed a hand on his chin, studying his notes. He turned to Danny. “You said you couldn’t use your powers at all while the venom was on you, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Would you say it was almost like the time when Vlad used The Plasmius Maximus to lock your powers away? You know, when he basically kidnapped you and your mom?”

Danny thought for a moment, recalling the memory. “Actually, yeah. It was almost exactly like that!”

“Tucker,” Sam intoned, “are you saying Danny’s parents made an ectoenergy-eating bacteria based off one of Vlad’s inventions?”

“It’s a possibility. We don’t know for sure it’s just ectoenergy that it affects though. Did any of it get on Dash and burn him in any way?”

Danny shook his head. “No, he was really careful about it.”

“So, we just gotta test it.” Sam grabbed her syringe full of Fenton Venom and walked over to the sink.

“What are you doing?” Danny screeched.

“I’m testing it.”

“Are you crazy?! It could literally melt your flesh off!”

Sam rolled her eyes at him. “Calm down, drama queen. It’s one drop and I’m right by a sink. The second it stings, I’ll wash it off. Unlike you, I don’t need a Prince Charming to heroically save my entire arm.” She turned on the sink, moving the faucet to the side so it didn’t immediately splash on her arm.

Danny squeezed his eyes shut, turning away from the sink, queasy at the thought.

“What the hell.” Tucker quipped.

Danny peeked one eye open. Sam’s arm was fine, the poison sliding off her arm with no issues. He breathed out, relaxing.

“Where would your parents even get the technology for a poison that only affects ghosts?” Sam washed her arm off, making sure to clean the sink out as well in case Danny accidentally touched anything.

Danny frowned, looking back at the monitor. “I have no idea. But it can’t be good.”

Tucker pushed off from the counter and wheeled his way over to the microscope. “Well, we can’t really make a vaccine for bacteria, so we’ll just have to stick with cleaning and antibiotics.”

“Ugh,” Danny whined, “no! I don’t want to deal with it again.”

“Then don’t get hit.” Sam teased.

“Well, what about the other ghosts.” Danny gestured to the portal.

“What do you mean ‘what about the other ghosts’?” Tucker asked.

“Will antibiotics work for them?”

“Why would we care if they get hit?” Sam crossed her arms and leaned against the counter.

“Because, it’s- they’re not- they don’t deserve that.” Danny dropped his gaze to the floor, frustrated that he couldn’t find the right words to make them understand. “Not all of them mean harm, and even if they did, they don’t deserve to have every inch of their being eaten away. We don’t even know what happens to the ghosts if they disappear.” His heart twisted as he thought about ghosts like Young-blood getting hit.

“You want us to mass produce ghost-antibiotics so you can distribute them to the entire ghost zone?” Tucker questioned in disbelief.

Danny hugged his arms to his chest, hand rubbing the spot on his shoulder where he’d been hit. He spoke in a voice so soft he wasn’t sure Tucker and Sam would hear him. “Could we?”

Sam and Tucker shared a look. It would be hard and they’d have to steal Danny’s parent’s credit card, but it was technically doable. Sam shrugged. Tucker sighed, swinging his chair back to the monitor. “Let’s get started.”

“All right, I’m gonna need more of your blood for testing, ghost savior.” Sam dug under the cupboards for her phlebotomy kit. “And you owe us some Nasty Burger for all the labor.”

Danny smiled, letting the tension drop out of his body. “Thank you.”

“Careful, Danny,” Tucker giggled, “saying that might make her fall in love with you.”

“I am not in love with Dash!” Danny huffed as he plopped down in the chair Sam was by. He lifted his arm so she could tie the medical band around his upper arm.

“Uh-huh,” Sam snickered, “says the guy who was staring at him for all of Financial Lit.”

Danny’s face burned. “I was not!”

“Okay, Danny,” Tucker spun around, arms playfully crossed over his chest, “then tell me how the stock market works.”

Danny flinched at the cold wipe Sam moved over his arm. “I wouldn’t know that even if I wasn’t staring at Dash.”

“Ah-ha!” Tucker cheered, throwing his hands in the air and promptly spinning back to his computer.

“You sure walked right into that one.” Sam laughed, pushing the needle into his skin.

“Ow, warn a guy!” Danny slumped in his seat, admitting defeat. “Okay, fine. I was staring. But not because I like him. He just looked so sad and I was trying to figure out a way to invite him to our graduation party without sounding desperate.”

“You are desperate, Danny. You’re acting just like you did with Valerie.” Sam took the needle out, covering the wound with a cotton ball. She walked the blood vial over to the storage fridge and washed her hands. Danny didn’t need bandages since his smaller wounds healed quickly.

“That was different! I’m not trying to date Dash, he just needs some friends right now-”

“Yeah and what happens when he inevitably falls back into his old habits and tries to string you up from a flag pole again?” Sam scolded.

Danny scowled, throwing the cotton ball in the trash. “What’s going on with you? You’re usually extremely pro-change.”

Sam rolled her eyes at him. “Yeah, but come on, Danny, people like him don’t change.”

“And what people can change, Sam? Or do you really think people are defined by the mistakes they’ve made?” Danny halted his lab activities, crossing his arms.

Tucker glanced between the two of them, trying to decide if he wanted to step in and calm them down, or just let them hash it out. He decided on the latter and got up to grab a drink from upstairs.

“I’m not talking about you, Danny. You don’t need to take this so personally. Your scary eyes are showing.” Sam leaned against the sink, gazing directly into Danny’s glowing green eyes.

“He’s my friend now, Sam.” He ignored her comment, too mad to care. “I am going to take it personally. Look at how hard he’s trying. He checked himself into therapy, you know? That was his idea. He wanted to get better.”

Sam scoffed. “Great! Let’s applaud the bare minimum!” She clapped her hands, hard, the sound echoing around the lab.

“You should when it’s a step up from what they were doing before. People can’t change without encouragement.” Danny closed his eyes, counting to ten. He needed to calm down. Or scream. “What happened to trusting me on this?”

“I do trust you! I always trust you!”

“No, you don’t!” Danny lost it, the anger exploding out of him, fingernails digging into his arms. “Unless it’s something you’ve directly asked me to do, you question every decision I make!”

“Name one time I’ve ever told you not to do something you wanted to do.”

“Danny you can’t like Valerie, she’s literally hunting you for sport!”

“Well that was-”

“Danny, you can’t go to the museum tonight, I need you to sneak me into the administrative office so I can cancel the order of frogs to the biology lab! Don’t you care about the lives of these amphibians?!”

“The protest-”

Danny didn’t care that he was cutting Sam off at this point. He’d been bottling this up and going along with it every time because that’s what friends did, but he’s reached his breaking point. “Danny, you can’t pull pranks on Dash, that’s using your powers for evil! Danny, don’t use your powers to make yourself look cooler in front of the cute waiter! Danny, you’re overthinking that fight, just forget about it! Danny, I wish we’d never met! Danny, calm down, this could be the thing that turns you evil! Danny, don’t-”

“Okay!” Sam stomped her foot and threw her hands in front of her. “I fucking get it! What do you want me to do? I can’t go back and change any of that?”

“Start trusting me!” Danny’s lungs were heaving in air by the gallon, trying to reclaim every ounce he’d just spat into the air. “You’re one of my best friends! Why can’t you trust me and just give Dash a chance!”

“Why do you need him to have a chance!? Why is it so important that he change?!” Sam was raving now, unwilling to back down no matter what point Danny made. She was doing all of this- fighting ghosts, making antibiotics, playing sidekick- for him, wasn’t she?! Why couldn’t he be grateful!?

“Because it proves people can! And if he can, then I know I can too and won’t end up evil!”

“With the way you’re acting maybe you can’t!”

Danny froze like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him. The anger faded, replaced by a chilling numbness as he stared at Sam, her hair falling out of her buns, cheeks flaming red, and venom on her tongue.

“Jesus Christ,” Tucker uttered, stopping on the last stair.

“Glad to know you believe in me, Sam.” Danny changed into his ghost form. “I’m gonna get some air.” He flew up through the ceiling and out into the sky, speeding away from his house. He didn’t really care where he ended up, as long as it was away from there.

Tucker stared at Sam as she heaved in lungfuls of air and pulled at her hair, screaming under her breath. Yeah, he should have intervened. “That was frigid, Sam.”

“Oh, fuck off, Tucker!” She stormed over to her lab station and started throwing everything back into its spot. She was done. Forget making the stupid fucking antibiotic.

“So, you’re not gonna go after, Danny?” Tucker sat back down at the computer, sipping on his juice.

“Why should I?” She slammed a drawer closed, letting the stuff inside rattle around. “He just thinks I’m some smothering, controlling monster.”

“Would he be wrong if he did?”

Sam whirled on him. “You think so too?!”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just saying you should think about it. Using his ghost powers for personal gain is only okay when the gain is yours. Whenever you have some agenda or some point you want to prove, you expect him to drop everything and be at your beck and call. But if he wants to push something, it’s suddenly wrong and evil because it doesn’t align with what you want.” He leaned back in his chair, not surprised when Sam’s anger turned toward him.

“Like you’re the model version of a perfect friend.” She spat.

“I’m not trying to attack you, Sam.” He circled around to the computer, saving all his files. It didn’t look like they were getting any more work done tonight. “And, no, I’m not. I’ve had my fair share of arguments with Danny, where I’ve snapped at him or asked something unfair of him. Nobody’s perfect.”

Sam didn’t respond. She threw herself down into one of the chairs. She glared at the floor like it existed solely to offend her.

Tucker took a deep breath. “You wanna know a secret?”

Sam shook her head.

Tucker continued anyway. “I’m absolutely terrified of the things I’m capable of. Every single time I have a chance at even a fraction of the power Danny has, I become this power-addicted version of myself that I hate. And it’s not just whatever power the ghosts use, it’s these intrusive thoughts I have all the time, and power just makes me act on them without thinking of the consequences. The part of me that wants to take advantage of Danny and his powers is always gnawing at the back of my mind and that scares the shit out of me.”

He paused, taking a deep breath to steady his voice that was on the verge of shaking. He wiped his palms on his pants. “Apologizing doesn’t make you weak, but doing the same shit over and over again and refusing to look at yourself does.”

Sam let the room fall into silence. She sat deep in thought, going over every incident Danny had mentioned, replaying the look of anguish on Danny’s face. He hadn’t been blaming her; he had been pleading with her.

And she’d been too blind with rage to see it. She dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my god, I suck.”

“No, you don’t. You’re learning.”

“He’s never going to forgive me, Tucker.”

Tucker laughed. “We’re talking about the same Danny, right? You know, the same one who forgave Dash just because he put a band-aid on his boo-boo? The same one who just asked us to make ghost medicine for the same guys who have been beating the shit out of him for the last 5 years? That’s the Danny we’re talking about?”

“Well yeah, but I basically just told him I thought he’d grow up to be evil no matter what. That’s so fucked up of me.”

“Do you believe that?” Tucker sighed, stood, and grabbed a broom to busy his hands with.

Sam took a deep breath, wiping away the tears she knew were forming. “No. At least, I don’t think so.” She took a moment and a few breaths before continuing. “I think I just get jealous of the new people in our group because they change the dynamic. I like it when it’s just the three of us.”

“Is that the truth?” Tucker hummed, looking around for the dustpan. “Or is it just an excuse you’re using?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, even if it is an excuse, I can tell you it’s bullshit. After the last time I got possessed, you know the one with the Nordic amulet junior year, I thought Danny was going to boot me to the curb for sure. I mean, how many times can a friend get power and try to force you to do things for them before you get tired of it? But he didn’t. He asked if I was okay and I broke down crying. I told him he should just toss me into the ghost zone for being such a hypocrite and for every other awful thing I’ve done. You know what he did?”

Sam shook her head.

Tucker dumped the dust in the trash can, putting the broom back where it belonged. “He started crying and hugged me. He couldn’t believe he’d missed how upset his friend had been. He reassured me that he wasn’t going anywhere and that people learn from their mistakes, but that he did appreciate the apology. And that was that. As long as you apologize, you’re not losing Danny anytime soon.”

“You’re right.” Sam stood up and gave Tucker a hug. “Thanks Tuck. Sorry, for being a big idiot.”

“It’s chill. Now go find Danny, he’s the one you need to apologize to. I’m gonna take this opportunity to play some games on the high-processing computer.”

“Classic. I’ll be back.” Sam hurried up the stairs and out of the house.

Danny set his feet on solid ground and slid down the nearest wall, hugging his knees to his chest. He was too tired to keep flying around aimlessly. He just wanted to sit here and cry.

The wall behind him and the sidewalk he was sitting on were cold to the touch; it was comforting, easing some of the ache in his muscles. His shoulders shook as the tears fell silently. Maybe Sam was right? Really, who was he to think he could change anything about Fate? It was only by Clockwork's will that he wasn’t destroying everything he knew and loved.

He was starting to think he should have died in that portal. Maybe everyone would have been safer that way.

Manic barking startled him. He looked up just in time to see a little rat dog charging at him. He had just enough time to throw up a ghost shield before the dog could start chewing on his ankles.

“Hey! Go away!” Danny yelped. The dog’s leash was rattling as it scratched away at the shield. It must have run away from whoever was walking it. Lucky for them. “Down!”

“Pookie! Get back here!”

Danny looked over to the voice to see Dash sprinting in their direction.

“Get down!” Dash picked the dog up, struggling to keep it in his arms. “Quiet, Pookie. Sorry about that, I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

Danny dropped his shield. He wiped the tears away from his eyes. “Your dog’s name is Pookie?”

“My mom named him,” Dash lied, still breathing hard. He looked Danny up and down. “Was there a ghost attack around here or something?”

Danny frowned, confused. “Uh, no, I don’t think there was.”

“Oh,” Dash shuffled, adjusting his hold on the dog, “it’s just that no one really sees you around unless you’re fighting off an attacking ghost.”

Right, Danny glanced down at his jumpsuit, he was Phantom right now, not Danny. “Uh, yeah. I was just-” he looked around for an excuse, “patrolling?”

“Right,” Dash drawled. “Are you okay?”

Danny pressed back against the wall, dropping eye contact. Dash’s voice was incredibly genuine, but there was no way he could tell him anything. He pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. “I’m just trying to get some air is all.”

Dash smirked at him. “Not crying?”

“Not anymore.”

Dash’s smirk fell. “I have some cake inside. I mean, I’m not really sure if ghosts can eat or if you even personally like cake, but maybe it could help cheer you up?” Heat flooded his cheeks as he held his breath and Pookie for dear life.

Danny squashed the urge he had to accept immediately. Cake sounded sick right now. And being alone wasn’t doing him any favors. He shook his head. Bad idea, Fenton. “How far is your house?”

Dash pointed to the building Danny was leaning against.

“Oh.” Danny really should have realized where he was sooner.

“It really wouldn’t be any trouble.” Dash rushed. “You could consider it your official thank you.”

Alarm bells blared in Danny’s head. Getting close to Dash as Phantom was a dangerous game. Especially now that Dash was hanging out with Danny Fenton; it would be easy for him to start to notice the similarities. “I shouldn’t, your parents might not appreciate a ghost in the house. Especially this late at night.”

Dash drew in a breath. “Actually, it’s just me and my mom. And she happens to be at work right now. But, if it makes you feel more comfortable, I have a balcony out back.”

Absolutely not, Fenton. You should go home to your probably empty house and deal with your emotions in a more constructive way, like blowing shit up in the ghost zone. He made eye contact; Dash was bouncing on his toes like a toddler who’d just asked for his favorite chocolate bar. Sam would be so mad at him.

He caved. “Okay.”

“Really?” Dash blurted, coughing to cover his eagerness. “Yeah, okay. Uh, I’ll go grab that and meet you out back.” Dash practically sprinted for the door, taking one last glance at Danny like he didn’t believe he was even there before closing the door behind him and Pookie.

Danny took a deep breath. Okay, he could be so chill about this. He flew around to the back, immediately spotting the balcony Dash was talking about. It must be new, he didn’t remember it being here the last time he’d been to a party here. It was a simple sitting balcony with low rails. He dragged one of the chairs over to the edge so his feet could dangle between the bars while he sat.

He sighed, laying his head over his crossed arms on the railing. Dash had a surprisingly good view of the stars from here; very little light pollution reached this far into the rich kids’ neighborhood. Andromeda glittered overhead, mocking him. He stuck his tongue out at her.

The glass door behind him slid open, Dash slowly stepped outside, two plates of cake in hand. He visibly relaxed when he saw that Danny was in fact sitting there. “I was sure you weren’t actually going to be out here.”

Danny smiled up at him, accepting the plate being handed to him. “How could I not be? You bribed me with cake after all.”

Dash dragged a chair over next to him, chuckling. “If I knew that was all it took to get the town hero to hang out with me, I would have done it sooner.”

Danny let out a sad chuckle, taking a bite of cake. It was delicious. “Wow, is this homemade?”

“Yeah, I made it with my mom last night.”

A rueful smile crossed Danny’s face. He used to bake with his mom too. “You talk about your mom a lot. You must really love her.”

Dash shrugged his shoulders, embarrassment creeping up on him. “I mean, yeah. She’s the only good parent I have. She stood up for me against my dad and was my biggest supporter when it came to therapy. She went with me to my first appointment cause I was so nervous. I think I got pretty lucky in the mom department.”

Danny felt a twinge of jealousy creep over him. He squashed it down. “That’s really cool, Dash. I’m happy you have her. And your baking skills cause this is amazing. I might have to get you to make me cake more often.”

Dash’s heart leapt right into his throat. “Thanks,” he wheezed. Real smooth, Baxter.

Phantom took a deep breath, oozing melancholy, and took another bite of cake. His gaze was fixed on the stars, eyes not glowing as much as they usually do. His eyelashes were still wet with the tears he’d been crying before Pookie had found him.

Dash twiddled his thumbs, sweating like crazy. What did one even do in this situation? Should he ask what’s bothering him? Did he not want to talk about it? How long had he been crying there? Dash exhaled, setting his plate on the table behind him. “Can I ask what’s wrong?”

Phantom closed his eyes, letting his shoulders slump forward. His fingers were shaking where they held onto the plate. He didn’t say anything for a long time.

Dash panicked. Had he overstepped? He wasn’t leaving so maybe he was just hoping Dash would get the hint and ask something else.

“I got into a fight with a friend of mine. She said some things and I snapped at her then stormed off.”

“What kind of things?” Dash gripped the edges of his chair, leaning forward to try to catch a glimpse of Phantom’s face.

Phantom was silent again for a moment. He sighed, placing his plate down and dropping his head into his arms again. “She thinks I’m inherently evil and no matter what I do I’m gonna end up destroying everything I love because apparently, people can’t change.”

Okay, so not at all what Dash was expecting. He blinked. “Didn’t you just fly into a burning building to save some kids last week?” Dash asked, stupidly.

Phantom shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s right. I am a ghost after all. It could only be a matter of time before I lose control of myself and make some stupid mistake I can’t fix.”

“I don’t think so,” Dash spoke way too quickly and confidently for someone who by all intents and purposes should not be having this conversation. “I don’t know a whole lot about ghosts and I sure as hell don’t know more about you than your friend does, but I’m pretty sure I’m looking at someone that doesn’t have an evil bone in his body. Seriously, you’ve been protecting this town, mostly on your own, for over five years now. You’ve beaten back ghost kings and ancient plant ghosts bent on devouring the world and you still make time to save people from a literal burning building. And no one had even stopped to thank you! Everyone can make bad decisions, but not everyone can selflessly save the world day after-” Dash yelped as Phantom pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. Holy fuck he was cold!

He hugged the hero back, mourning the loss of his body heat as it was sapped out of him.

Phantom was crying again, this time directly into Dash’s shoulder. “Thanks,” he whimpered.

Dash tightened his hold, determined to not let go until Phantom did; his grip was tight enough that Dash was worried he’d come out of this with bruises and he wondered when the last time Phantom had been comforted was. “No problem,” he whispered.

“Twice actually. I forgot to thank you for patching me up the other day.” Phantom’s voice cracked and shook. He wasn’t even trying to conceal the tears this time.

“It’s no big deal.” Dash’s heart was pounding. He had entirely expected the hero to let go by now. His shoulders were shaking under Dash’s hands and all Dash could focus on was how toned the hero’s back was.

He was the worst.

Danny was honestly scared to let go and see what expression Dash had. Really, what kind of hero just falls apart in front of the first person they see like that? But, Dash was shivering now so Danny pulled back.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to completely break down on you.”

Dash shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Anytime, really.” Dash looked like he wanted to throw himself off the balcony, pink dusting his cheeks as he avoided eye contact.

Danny thought it was a good look for him; it softened the hard edges of worry on his face. Looking closer he discovered that Dash had freckles. It made sense with how much time he spent outside, but it was amazing how he’d never noticed them before.

He let his eyes roam over the guy in front of him. His hair, which Danny had thought was a buzz cut was actually just really short and gelled back. He kind of wanted to mess it up to distract from the fact that he’d been crying. His eyes fell back to Dash’s, who was not looking at his eyes but rather somewhere on his chin.

Oh.

Oh.

Dash had a crush on Phantom. And he certainly was not helping to make that seem like an impossibility.

Danny cleared his throat and backed away entirely, picking up his piece of cake again to keep his hands busy. “Have you ever thought of becoming a baker?”

Dash startled, scooting back in his chair and keeping his gaze firmly fixed anywhere but on Danny. “Uh, no. I’m not nearly good enough for that.”

“I wouldn’t sell yourself short.” Danny shoved the last bit of cake in his mouth and set the plate down on the table. “I should get going. There could be ghosts about. Thanks again.” Danny stood and stretched.

“Yeah, anytime.”

“Careful,” Danny teased, “if you keep saying that, I might take you up on it. Goodnight.” Danny waved and flew off, feeling a lot better and calmer than he had before.

Dash was so screwed. Oh, where was Paulina when he needed her?

Sam was sitting on the stairs in front of his house when he returned. She looked like a mess; her hair was down, makeup smudged, and her shoes were sitting on the stair next to her.

She was crying.

Danny ducked into an alleyway to change back and take a few deep breaths before walking over to her. “Hi.”

“I was looking for you,” she muttered weakly.

“Oh.” There was an awkward pause. Danny opened his mouth, “I’m-”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me, Daniel Fenton.”

Danny snapped his mouth shut. He sat down next to her, pulling one of the hair ties off his wrist and holding it out to her. She took it wordlessly, pulling her hair back into her famous half-up ponytail, exposing the purple half. He could see smudges of purple on her coffin earrings; she must have re-dyed it recently.

Sam took a deep breath, the cold air stinging her lungs. “I’m sorry.” She finally spoke. “You’re right. I’ve been incredibly overbearing, hypocritical, and judgmental. I haven’t been fair to you and I’m sorry for even bringing up the idea of you being evil. I’ve done a lot of thinking while I was out looking for you. I think, deep down, I’ve been trying to live vicariously through you. For so, so long, I have been trying to prove to my parents, to myself, that I am my own, unique individual. I’ve taken control of every little niche thing I can get my hands on just to say ‘look, I can control things too, you’re not special.’ And where has that gotten me?”

She threw her hands in the air, standing up from the stairs and kicking a rock down the road. She took a few deep breaths before continuing.

“When you got your ghost powers, I think some part of me saw it as another way to prove to my parents that I had control over something they didn’t. Well, my fucked up proof has turned me into someone who can’t even give her best friend the most basic respect. I’m sorry.”

If Danny wasn’t dehydrated, he would have started crying again. He tried speaking again.

“I’m not done. As for how I’ve acted with Dash and to an extent Valerie, I think I’ve always just been afraid that you’d stop being my friend if you found someone cooler. People who have it more together than I do. So, I thought, if Dash couldn’t change, you couldn’t leave. And that wasn’t fair of me either. I’m really, really sorry.”

There was a bout of silence.

“I’m done now.”

Danny stood, opening his arms for a hug. Sam didn’t hesitate to fall into it. “I didn’t know all of that stuff with your parents was affecting you that badly. You’ve been carrying that all by yourself?”

Sam cackled into his shoulder. “I didn’t know until today when you called me out on my shit and I had to do some reflecting. I should probably take a page out of Dash’s book and talk to a professional about that huh?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. You can always talk to me, Sam. I’m not going anywhere and I’m sorry I ever made you feel that way.”

“I said not to apologize to me.” She squeezed him tighter, just because she could.

“I’m so terrified all the time.” He whispered, feeling the tears start to well up in his eyes again despite the lack of water in his system. “Because you were also right. If cheating on a test was all it took in that timeline, what other little mistakes could lead to me destroying everything? Logically, I know I’ll do everything in my power to never, ever end up like that. But, sometimes, I start to think that if it happened once, it can happen twice. I would rather be obliterated than ever end up hurting anyone. That’s why I kind of clung onto the idea of people like Valerie and Dash changing for the better because it proves to me that I don’t always need to be that scared, I just need to trust myself to make the right choices. I’m sorry I blew up at you- and for using the scary eyes on you.”

“God, Danny, I’m so sorry I’ve been contributing to that. I forget just how much you have to carry because you never share it with us.” She pulled away from him, looking him in the eye. “From here on out, I’ll tell you when I’m feeling like shit and you tell me, and we can drag Tucker into it, and that way we don’t all bottle up our emotions and explode on each other. Deal?”

Danny let out a deep, hearty laugh. “Okay, deal.”

“And if you really want to indoctrinate Dash into our group, I’m okay with that. You’re right, he is trying really hard and is almost an entirely different person than he was freshman year. I’ll do my best to stop shoving people into little boxes.”

Danny sighed, relieving tension in his body. “And I’ll do better at talking with you guys before jumping the gun on decisions that affect the group.”

Sam ruffled his hair and bent to pick up her boots. “Alright, nerd. Let’s go kick Tucker’s ass at some games.”

“Tucker’s still here?”

“Yeah, he’s really capitalizing on free high-speed computer time. Race you and loser has to clean up the lab?”

“You’re on.”

Yall, just got the first draft of chapter two done in one day. I am so proud of that. Anyway, when I promised Danny more screen time I delivered but I added so much Sam and Tucker screen time that I had to cut the chapter in half (more like 2\3 and 1\3) in order to not make it too long. Expect chapter two within the next couple days!

First Chapter Up!

Basically, I was inspired by @tatumsdrawing mechanic au and I started this project mainly cause I found a severe lack of fics with stuff I wanted to read and decided to contribute.

Of All The Stories In The Stars, Ours Has Yet To Be Told (7031 words) by StarsWhisper Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton Characters: Danny Fenton, Dash Baxter, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Paulina Sanchez, Kwan (Danny Phantom) Additional Tags: Aged-Up Character(s), on the way to college, mentions of child abuse, Mentions of homophobia, Redemption Arcs, Bisexual Danny Fenton, everyone becoming good friends, learning how to live, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Second Chances, lots of classical literature references, lots of astrology references, more tags coming when i think of them Summary: It's the end of senior year and Dash and Danny are having the worst time of their lives. Dash's father finds out he's queer and tries to kill him. That lands him in prison with divorce papers. Dash goes to therapy to cope and learn how to change his behaviors while taking some time off from school. He now needs to learn how to navigate the world and figure himself out. Danny fears he'll never figure out what he wants for his future beyond being the hero of Amity Park forever and he's running out of time to figure it out as he watches everyone he knows move on without him. Plus there are always the people hunting him down that he has to worry about on top of that.

~

“Do you blame yourself?”

Dash eyed his therapist for a moment before dropping his gaze to the floor. She was sitting comfortably on her big fluffy chair, legs crossed and clipboard in hand; Dash wondered how she was able to be at such ease all the time while the people she talked with were always so visibly on edge. The couch he sat on always felt too wide and isolating for just one person. It didn’t have enough stuffing and the wood always dug into his skin and made his bones sore.

“What?”

“Well, it is quite common for children in these situations to assume the blame for-”

“I’m not a child. I’m almost nineteen.”

She hummed, scribbling something in her notebook. Dash hated when she did that. He knew it was helpful, but it made him feel small. He didn’t like feeling small. She stared at him, waiting for him to continue the conversation. He hated when she did that too.

Dash snorted. “Blame myself for what? My dad trying to kill me? The disappointment in my mom’s eyes when she looks at me? That half the school hates me because of how I’ve treated them? You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“The divorce,” she answered, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, “but it sounds like there are other things on your mind. Would you like to talk about those?”

“No.” Dash sighed, shifting and failing once again to get comfortable. “I just… I feel so…” Angry? Sad? Guilty? Relieved? Scared? “...ashamed.”

“And why do you feel that way?”

“I don’t know.”

She waited patiently in silence. He shrunk in on himself, head tucking into his shoulders like a turtle.

“I just should have known better.”

“What should you have known?”

Dash huffed. “I don’t know, everything! That I was treating my mom like garbage; that I was acting just like my father even though I hated him; and that if I stayed on that path I would end up alone and angry and awful just like him. I just should have known better…” He let his words trail off, threading his fingers together and squeezing, hoping his therapist wouldn’t notice them shake.

“Dash, no one can be expected to know everything right away, or else every baby born would be Albert Einstein. We have to give ourselves the grace to learn. Shame is a powerful tool; it tells us what we feel the need to improve on. If we feel shame over our actions, we then know where to start to correct our course.”

Dash sighed and leaned back into the couch. “Then I have a lot to learn.”

“What have you learned so far?”

“That I suck.”

“Let’s try again with more constructive language. What have you learned so far?”

He took a deep breath, trying to keep the tears at bay. It was okay to cry, he just didn’t want to. “I need to start actively making decisions in my life to change. That I can’t keep going the way I’ve been going and expect to end up happy.”

“What does change look like to you?”

“I don’t know.”

She quirked her eyebrow, remaining silent.

“I actually don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I can convince my friends to stop bullying people.”

“You stopped, right?”

“Well, yeah. I did, but every time I tried to tell them why, they just laughed at me. How am I supposed to get them to change?”

“Let’s try focusing on the things that you can control. You may not be able to control other people, but you can control your environment. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, but that’s really hard to do. I mean, a quarterback with no friends during his senior year isn’t exactly a fun time.”

“I understand. Maybe you could try taking it in baby steps. For your homework today, I’d like you to write out at least a five-step plan for the change you want to see in your life.”

Dash took a deep breath, resetting his lungs. “Okay.”

“Is there anything else, you’d like to talk about, we’re almost out of time.”

“No,” then, “thank you.”

“Of course, it’s what you pay me for.”

Dash stepped outside, letting the door to the building slam shut behind him. No one ever talked about just how physically exhausting therapy could be. He wanted nothing more than to curl up with Pookie on his comfortable couch with some snacks and mindless T.V. But, he’d promised his mom he’d pick up groceries on his way back. He turned down the main road and began his long trek to the store.

“Shame is a powerful tool,” He grumbled under his breath. “It sucks.” He kicked a rock down the road. Maybe step one of his plan would be to finally convince himself to go back to school tomorrow. He kicked the rock again. Or maybe he could get away with graduating from home.

“Duck!”

Dash threw himself to the ground; growing up in Amity Park you learn not to hesitate. If someone says duck, you duck, no questions asked. A bird ghost smashed into the brick wall behind him; ghost feathers showering around him. He scrambled over to the alleyway, ducking behind the trashcans. Once he was safe, he peeked his head out to see the bird ghost stand up and shake its head. Phantom rushed past him, landing a kick straight to its chest.

He pulled his ghost-catching thermos out of apparently thin air and pointed it at the ghost. It screeched at him as it got caught in the blue whirlwind and clawed at the edges of the device; ultimately losing as Phantom capped it. He turned toward Dash. “Sorry, are you o-”

A bright, sickly green light shot through the air, clipping Phantom’s arm, glowing ectoplasm splattered across the ground. He screamed and dropped to the ground, cradling the injury with his other hand.

Dash leaned around the corner, straining to see what could have happened. The Fentons were standing there, Mr. Fenton holding a gun pointed right at Phantom.

“Ha-ha! Did you see that, Maddie! I got him on the first try!”

“Great job, honey. But go easy on the Fenton Venom; we want him alive or we’ll be limited in the experiments we can do.”

Dash frantically waved in Phantom’s direction; he was struggling to pull himself off the floor and was flickering like he was trying to disappear but couldn’t. They made eye contact- Phantom’s wide and panicked- and Dash pointed to the alley behind him, hoping against everything that the hero would understand what he meant. Then he full sprinted out of the alley and collided with Mrs. Fenton, knocking her into her husband and successfully grabbing their attention.

“Mrs. Fenton!” He screamed once they had all regained their balance. “Thank god you’re here. I saw a ghost!”

“You saw a ghost!” Mr. Fenton whipped around, gun in hand completely forgotten.

“It was huge! Like the size of a car! And it had like these, these, giant fangs and I couldn’t-”

“Dash, calm down.” Mrs. Fenton chirped. “Where did you see this ghost?”

Danny waited until he knew for sure his parents were distracted by Dash before making a B-line for the alley, trying not to let any of his blood fall onto the ground and give him away. He tucked himself behind the trashcan, desperate to keep all of him out of sight. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air. He moved his hand to check on his injury.

There was a fairly decent-sized chunk taken out of his arm and the area around it was bubbling and falling away, dissolving before it could actually fall off. It burned like hell. His hand was tingling from where he’d touched the injury.

“Figures they’d make a poison at some point,” He hissed, blinking his eyes to keep the tears at bay, he needed to be able to see right now. He tried turning invisible again, but this time he didn’t even flicker. “Fuck, what is this?”

“Oh, man that looks bad.”

Danny whipped his head around to see Dash staring at him. Panic swelled in his chest.

“Don’t worry, they’re gone, chasing a ghost that’s not even there.”

Danny sighed, resting his head on the building behind him. “Thank you.” When Dash didn’t immediately leave he added, “I’ll be okay in a moment, when I can get my powers back.” He left the ‘please go away’ to be implied.

“Right,” Dash nodded, swinging his backpack around and digging through it. “You wouldn’t happen to have like a ghost doctor or something would you?”

“No,” Danny bit back the scream of pain crawling up his throat. God, it felt like he was being torn apart molecule by molecule. It didn’t matter how many times he did this torture thing, it never got any easier to handle the pain. “Ow!”

“Right, okay,” Dash pulled a first aid kit out of his bag and then tossed the bag to the side of the alley, before dropping to his knees next to him. “Okay, I’ve got this.”

Danny leaned away from him. “What have you got?”

“Don’t worry, my mom’s a nurse and she’s taught me a lot of first aid. We need to wash that poison off before it does some real damage.” Dash looked around for a container of some kind and had to settle with one of the trash can lids. He put it next to Danny and started rummaging through his kit.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? What if you make it worse?”

Dash inhaled sharply, like he was practicing extreme amounts of patience. “Look, you’ve saved my ass, like a lot, now let me save yours. Plus, it’s not like you have a lot of options right now, right?”

Danny wanted to argue, but Dash was right. Short of crawling across town to either Sam or Tucker’s house without his parents catching him or his arm falling off, he didn’t have any other options. He was still hesitant about it; at least he was until the poison hit a major nerve and his entire arm blazed with pain. “Shit!” He yelped, a few tears trickling down his cheeks. “Okay, fine. But fuck up my arm and I’m haunting you for eternity.”

“Deal.” Dash uncapped a bottle of distilled water and gently grabbed Danny’s arm, moving it over the lid and rotating it so the poison wouldn’t run over more of his skin. “Okay, this is probably going to sting. Just try not to move.” He tipped the bottle.

The water hit his skin and it did in fact sting. Danny inhaled sharply through gritted teeth and yanked his arm away. The water splashed off his arm and hit his leg, burning less than the direct poison, but still burning. “Shit!”

“I said sit still!” Dash whisper-yelled, quickly rinsing off his leg. “Sorry,” Dash frowned, “I’m sorry. Just, please try not to move. We don’t know what this stuff is and we definitely don’t want it getting anywhere else.”

Danny dug his nails into his palm, a few more tears falling from his eyes. He took deep breaths, trying to ignore the sting of the water. He flinched when the water hit the deepest part of his wound. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m sorry, I yelled. I didn’t mean to.” Dash threw the empty bottle of water away and grabbed a second one. “Hang in there, I need to make sure I got all of it out before we bandage it. Did it get anywhere else?”

Danny held his hand out to him. Dash grabbed his hand as gently as possible. His hand got off easier, looking more like road rash than poison. It didn’t sting as much when he poured the water over it. “Sorry.”Dash apologized anyway.

Danny chuckled.

“What’s so funny.”

“Nothing, I just don’t think I’ve ever heard you apologize this much. Are you sure I haven’t died again?”

Dash’s face turned red with shame. He capped the water bottle and turned to grab the antibiotic ointment. Figures Phantom would know about his past, he’s been around a long time and he was pretty sure ghosts saw things that others might not.“Thanks for noticing. My therapist says I’ve been making exceptional progress lately.”

Phantom burst out laughing, tears flowing freely now. His shoulders shook with the strength of his laughter, causing his hair to fall into his face. Is laugh was big and boisterous and deep. A soft pink glow illuminated his cheeks. He placed his free hand on his forehead, desperately trying to reign it in. His eyes were scrunched shut and his lashes were wet with tears.

It was ethereal.

Dash shook his head; focus!

“Sorry,” Phantom finally choked out, still gasping on the remnants of laughter, “sorry. I’m not laughing at you. Therapy is so cool. I promise I’m not laughing at that. It’s just-” another giggle- “I’m asking you about your vocabulary while I bleed out in an alleyway. What a crazy Tuesday, huh?”

“I’m just glad you’re not crying anymore.” Dash hyper-focused on putting the antibiotic ointment on the burns on Phantom’s hand and wrapping it with gauze.

“I wasn’t crying.”

“It’s okay to cry.”

“I know it’s okay, I just wasn’t.”

“Okay.” Dash chuckled, moving over to bandage his arm.

“Really, I wasn’t.”

“I bet this is handy, huh?” Dash changed the subject, pointing to his arm where the flesh was slowly, but surely stitching itself back together.

“What is?” Phantom turned to look where he was pointing.

“Your ghost healing stuff. Now that the poison is gone it looks like you’re doing fine.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess it is.”

Dash finished securing the bandages in place. “Not that I don’t- that everyone doesn’t appreciate it, but why do you do it? The hero stuff I mean. Surely a ghost would have better things to do in the afterlife?”

Phantom gingerly moved his arm around, testing its movement. He grinned at Dash. “Well, yeah, but who else is going to do it?”

“The Fentons and the Guys in White don’t seem too keen on retiring anytime soon.”

Phantom frowned, his brows furrowing. “Uh, yeah, and while they can be helpful, they’re not always the most reliable or efficient ghost hunters. Plus, they don’t know half the things I know about ghosts.”

“Right, that makes sense, I guess.” Dash began picking up the first aid stuff. “Has anyone ever said thank you?”

Phantom startled, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Um, no. Surprisingly, you’d be the first.”

A shout echoed in the distance. “Let’s circle back around, Jack. Maybe we missed an alleyway.” It was Mrs. Fenton and she was close by.

“If you can, you’d better,” Dash said to Phantom, who- when he turned around- was already gone, “go.”

He hurried to collect the pieces of his first aid kit and packed it up. His heart was beating so fast. Who would have thought he’d be the one to help his- the town’s hero out? And that he was really pretty when he laughed?

Dash reached for his backpack and stuffed everything in, before dumping the mixture of water and viscera into the trashcan and fixing the lid back in place. He sprinted out of the alley and down the road before the Fentons could find him and ask what he was still doing there.

He stopped to catch his breath and calm his racing heart. He had (in a less than technical sense) held Phantom’s hand today. Paulina was going to be so jealous. That was if she even wanted to talk to him. He didn’t really know what his friends would think about him now.

He sighed, that was a tomorrow problem. Right now his problem was getting to the store before they closed. And getting new supplies for his first aid kit.

Dash walked toward his old table as slowly as he could. Step one of his plan was just to see how everyone reacted. He’d go wherever he needed to from there, whether that be going friendless for the last month of high school or explaining to everyone why he wanted to stop being mean to people and hoping they’d agree.

Dash’s heart fell when he saw his usual spot next to Kwan was taken. In fact, the whole table was full. Paulina and Star were laughing at something one of the football players had said. Kwan was the first one to notice him.

“Oh, Hi, Dash!” He waved.

Dash waved back. “Uh, hi, Kwan.” Dash looked between them and instantly knew he had lost the battle.

Star kicked Kwan under the table. “Uh-hem.”

Kwan retracted his hand.

Paulina wouldn’t look at him. She looked sad, torn.

“Sorry, Dash,” Star murmured, “but one of the club rules is you have to be in a certain tax bracket to sit at the table.”

“My mom’s not poor.” Dash weakly defended.

“It’s the rules,” Star fiddled with her fork, “you know that.”

Dash inhaled. “Alright, whatever.”

“Dash, just so you know,” Kwan said before Dash could leave, “it’s not because you’re gay.”

“Thanks, Kwan.”

“We’re not homophobic.”

“Thanks, Kwan.”

“It is just because you’re poor.”

“Thanks, Kwan.”

“We’ll need your hall pass punch card back,” Paulina spoke softly, still not meeting his eyes.

“Fine, I’ll bring it by after school. I really thought you guys were better than this by now.” He turned and left. He glanced around the cafeteria and then headed for the door outside. Not a lot of people used the ones out there anymore because of all the ghost attacks. He’d be able to do some homework at least.

Dash sighed. A part of him still really wanted to tell Paulina about yesterday. And he’d had plans with Kwan to go see the new Nightmerica movie later this month that he’d been really excited for. Guess that was out of the question now.

As predicted, there were only a few freshmen at one of the tables. Dash sat at the one furthest from them. This was alright; a change of environment, just like his therapist had said, just on an expedited schedule. He sighed and pulled out his book for English class. Might as well get started on that homework.

Danny watched as Dash sat down. He hesitated all of about five seconds before he started walking over. A tug on his shirt stopped him.

“You’re joking, right?” Sam snorted, letting go of his shirt.

“What?” Danny shrugged, his best convincing smile plastered on his face. “Look at how sad he is.”

“He looks pathetic.” Tucker chided.

“And it’s what he deserves, to be sad and lonely.” Valerie glared in Dash’s direction.

“Oh come on, guys! He’s not that bad. When’s the last time he even bothered us?”

“So, what he patches you up and bats his big jock eyelashes at you one time and you’re stuck to him like a freshman with a crush?”Tuckertaunted.

“What!? It’s not like that! He’s just trying really hard to change and I think we should give him a chance.”

“Yeah, 'cause he totally gave all of us a chance.” Valerie sneered.

“Look, let’s just go talk to him and if he’s an ass about it, we can leave and you can all say, I told you so.”

“And if he’s not an ass we can invite him over for a sleepover and braid each other’s hair?” Sam giggled, excitedly flapping her hands.

“Yeah! Hey!” Danny frowned. “Come on, Sam. Can’t you be nice for once in your life?” Danny rolled his eyes and walked over to Dash’s table, not caring if the others followed him or not. They did, of course.

He sat his tray down, confidently he hoped. Dash startled, looking up from his book.

“Mind if we sit here?”

Dash hesitated, blinking. He rubbed his eyes, looked around the group like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and blinked again. “Uh, sure, I guess.”

Danny threw a grin behind him at Sam and Valerie and sat down in front of Dash. The others sighed and sat down on his side of the table. Dash was staring.

After a moment, Danny casually- oh so casually- pointed at the book in Dash’s hands. “That for Lancer’s advanced class?”

“Uh, yeah; the concurrent enrollment one. I didn’t really want to deal with it in college.” Dash closed the book and dropped it on the bench next to him, cheeks turning a little pink. He fumbled with his hands like he didn’t know what to do with them now.

“Hey, me too. I’m in the morning section though.” Danny punctured the side of his milk carton with a straw, wincing at the pressure it put on his arm. The wound wasn’t a giant hole anymore, but it still had a little more internal healing to do before his nerves would be back to normal. “Don’t tell Lancer this, but I didn’t really like The Scarlet Letter .”

“Wait, you didn’t?” Sam scolded, leaning around Tucker to make sure Danny visibly saw her disappointment. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Danny shrugged, glancing at Dash who was still staring at him like he’d grown a second head. “I just didn’t like the vibes.”

“I figured if anyone would understand the vibes of having a giant painted letter on their chest, it would be you,” Valerie smirked at him, picking distastefully at her mashed potatoes.

“It’s probably cause he didn’t finish it.” Tucker, oh-so-helpfully interjected as he tapped away at his PDA.

“You didn’t even finish it!?” Sam huffed, flinging her fork down, failing to startle Dash out of whatever staring contest he was having with Danny’s nose.

“No, I got bored.” Danny gazed back at Dash. Had he even blinked? “What did you think Dash?”

Dash didn’t react to the sound of his name. He was completely zoned out, a confused and panicked expression stuck on his face. His nose was scrunched up in thought.

“Dash?”

Dash finally blinked, jerking upright and hitting his hands on the table. He flinched, blood rushing to his face. “Uh, what?”

Sam rolled her eyes.

Danny chuckled. “ The Scarlet Letter , what do you think about it?”

“Oh,” Dash dropped eye contact, “I just barely started it.” He shoved some food in his mouth, remembering that it was there.

“Dude,” Danny laughed, “the test is in like two days.”

“Uh, dude , the test is tomorrow.” Tucker corrected, turning his PDA to show Danny the schedule.

“Shit, it’s tomorrow?” Valerie groaned. “I’ve got to finish those last two chapters fast.”

“You’ll tell me how it ends, right?” Danny batted his eyelashes at her.

“As if, Fenton. Do your own homework.” Valerie playfully shoved his shoulder.

“Ow!”

“Oops, sorry. I forgot.” She shoved his side instead.

“I’m sorry.” Dash blurted. His eyes were fixed intensely on the table this time and Danny thought he saw him shaking just the tiniest bit. “I’m really sorry that I bullied you guys for so long. I was told that I was better than certain people and I had a lot of anger from… everything happening at home and I never stopped to think about what I was doing and that’s not really an excuse, but you guys didn’t deserve that and I’m really sorry.” He took a deep breath, relaxing slightly now that he had gotten everything out.

Danny smiled at him. “Thank you, Dash. I appreciate that.”

Tucker couldn’t help the grin that crossed his face. He had to admit, an apology certainly felt nice. “Yeah, man. That was surprisingly mature.”

“I guess taking a few weeks off has really changed you, huh?” Sam sneered. Danny kicked her under the table. “It is nice to hear you say it though.”

Everyone turned to Valerie who was staring off to the side. Dash held his breath. She turned to him, her gaze softening.

“I suppose it’s been long enough and considering you just got a taste of your own medicine, I’m willing to give you another chance. Just make sure you don’t squander it, yeah?”

Dash released his breath, eternally grateful for Valerie’s good nature. “Thank you, guys. And again, I’m really sorry.”

“Keep saying it and I’m going to vomit.” Sam teased.

A silence fell over their table, everyone trying to release tension by eating their food. Danny wasn’t really sure what he should bring up after something like that and there wasn’t really anything he knew about Dash that Danny Fenton could ask him about. He wracked his brain, hoping to pull something out of thin air.

“So,” Tucker beat him to it, “Danny’s bisexual.”

“Tucker!” Everyone but Dash- who reeled back like he’d just been called a slur- yelled at him.

“What?! I just wanted him to know we’re not homophobic.”

“So, you just decide to out Danny?” Valerie scolded.

“Not cool dude.” Sam punched him in the arm.

“Ow! Sorry, you know how I am with uncomfortable silence.”

Dash was staring at him again.

“Tucker,” Danny sighed, “I am amazed you are capable of keeping any secret.”

“Are you really?” Dash whispered like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to ask such things out loud.

“Uh, yeah, I am.” Danny drew back, hunching in on himself. “Does that bother you?”

“No. Why would it bother me ?”

Danny just shrugged.

Dash cleared his throat. “Have you, uh, have you told your parents yet?”

Danny sighed, making Dash tense like he’d overstepped. “Yeah, I have.”

Dash glanced at him, making eye contact with him for the first time in a moment. “Can I ask how they reacted?”

Danny frowned. “Well, they didn’t try to kill me or beat me up if that’s what you’re asking. But, they didn’t leap for joy either. They kind of just-”

“That’s nice, Danny,” Tucker interrupted, clearly mocking his mother, “but have you seen the Fenton blaster anywhere? I swear I just had it.”

“Hey, that’s great, Danny! Now you can pick two of your chores to do today!” Sam bellowed, doing a really good impression of how his dad laughed.

“Oh.” Dash glanced down at his half-eaten lunch.

“Yeah, not the best reaction, but better than what you got, I guess.” Danny gave him a small, pitying smile.

“Basically everybody knows what happened then?” Dash picked at the table, getting a few slivers in the process.

“Yup, pretty much.” Sam drawled.

“You know how news travels through the A-listers and their parents.” Valerie scoffed. “Everyone had pretty much known what had gone down and why by Monday.”

“Awesome.” Dash sighed.

The lunch bell rang, saving everyone from the depressing turn the conversation had taken. Tucker quickly devoured the last few bites of his burger as everyone but Dash, who was taking his time to pack up his stuff, stood and headed for the door.

“I’m gonna invite him to study with us,” Danny stated.

“He’s good with History, so I’m okay with it,” Valerie shouldered the door open and sped walked down the hall. She had a class at the complete opposite end of the building so she had no time to waste.

“I still think you’re making a mistake Danny. Not a lot of people have what it takes to change.” Sam chided, throwing her lunch wrappers into the recycling bin.

“Come on, Sam.” Danny sighed. “When are you going to start trusting my decisions?”

“I trust you. It’s him I don’t trust.”

“Okay, then trust me when I say I trust him. He apologized. Isn’t that proof of something at least?”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I’ll keep my I-told-you-so ready.”

“Good enough. Tucker?”

“I am currently making a betting chart, I’ll let you know what I decide based on how the bets are going.” He didn’t even bother to look up from his PDA.

“Okay, I’ll catch up to you guys.” Danny waved and waited for Dash while the other two walked inside.

Dash took longer than necessary to pack his bag. He needed a moment to decompress. Lunch had been a lot of big emotions all at once and he really just wanted a nap. He kept his book out, maybe he’d be able to get through some of it during his next class.

Dash watched as Danny leaned against the door, flinching when his shoulder hit it wrong. He rubbed his arm, wincing and taking a step away from it.

“Did you hurt your shoulder or something?” Dash asked as he opened the door, waiting for Danny to slip inside first.

“Oh, uh, I, um, sprained it while helping my parents in their lab. No big deal.” Danny trailed after him like Dash had hoped he wouldn’t. He didn’t know how much more awkward conversation he could take right now.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you if you’d like to join our study group after school today?” Danny somehow kept perfect pace with him, not even once bumping into anyone. It was like he didn’t exist in the same place as the crowd. Meanwhile, Dash kept bumping shoulders with people walking entirely too slow.

“I haven’t even really started the book.” They arrived at Dash’s locker. He opened it, hoping it would save him from this.

Danny leaned on his good shoulder against the locker next to his, clearly having no intention of leaving until he got his answer. “And I haven’t even finished it. Besides, we study for all our classes and Valerie says you’re really good at History. Plus, we can always just listen to the others discuss it and hope that’s enough to get us at least a C+.”

“Is that how you pass all your classes? Cheating off your friends?” He didn’t really know how to talk to Danny now that their dynamic had changed so rapidly. He was still reeling from the fact that Danny chose to sit next to him at lunch and talk casually about an assignment like nothing had ever happened between them.

Danny gasped. “How dare you, it’s not cheating. It’s studying. I’ll have you know I’m not a cheater.”

His eyes were so blue, like they had an internal light glowing behind them. And he had gotten taller over the years, much taller. He was at the very least as tall as Dash if not a few inches taller. He looked a lot less like the twig from freshman year and more like someone who could dominate professional basketball. Well, if professional basketball players dressed like an angsty theater kid. His hair had grown longer in the back and he’d dyed the underside white, creating a (fashionable) mullet situation. He’d started wearing black t-shirts and red flannels; chains dangled from the side of his jeans; he’d pierced his ears and Dash could have sworn he’d seen him wearing fingerless gloves on a few occasions. The only part of his outfit that was the same, were the red sneakers he wore.

“So?”

Dash blinked. That was the third time today he’d been caught staring. Come on, Baxter, focus! “So?”

“So, are you coming?”

“Why are you suddenly so keen to hang out with me? Usually, people tend to avoid the guy that was a piece of shit to them.” He reached for his math book, shoving it in his bag.

A lazy grin crawled its way onto Danny’s face. “Eh, you’re just not as big and scary as you think you are.” He fucking winked at him. Jesus Christ. “Besides, I may not have thrown you in a locker or chased you down the hallway or hung you from a flag pole, but I have played my fair share of nasty pranks on you in the past. And you’ve just apologized so we’re on even ground here.”

“Wait, what pranks?”

Danny spoke over him, “So are you coming or what?”

Dash gazed heavily into his locker. Danny was staring and it made him nervous. He weighed his options; he could either go home and take a much needed nap, tiptoe around his mother at dinner, and then hide in his room all night, or he could go study and maybe catch up on all the assignments he’d missed and had put off doing. “What subject are you good at?”

“Physics.”

“You’re good at physics but not math?”

“I choose not to question it.”

Dash made sure to sigh as dramatically as possible. “Fine, I’ll come.”

“Awesome!” Danny cheered, peeling himself away from the locker and walking backward to his class. “See you after school!” He turned and booked it down the hallway, almost disappearing into the crowd.

Dash sighed again, this time for his own benefit. He closed his locker and leaned his forehead against it. So much for his nap. At least he could tell his therapist he’d started making changes before he’d even finished writing out his five steps. She’d be proud.

Much later that night, Dash pushed open his front door, dropped his bag on the floor, and braced for impact. Pookie came running around the corner, yapping away, and slammed into his ankles. Dash knelt down, vigorously petting his dog.

“Hey, boy! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a sweet little guy? You are! You are!”

Pookie barked lovingly at him, shaking every molecule in his body from sheer excitement. He licked at his hands.

“Gross, Pookie. You’re gonna get a stomach ache from school germs.”

“Dash? You home, sweetie?” His mom called from the kitchen.

He drew in a deep breath, his body tensing from the anxiety rushing through his veins. His mom hadn’t really talked about what happened beyond making sure Dash knew she loved him no matter what. She’s been avoiding the subject. “Yeah!” He slowly made his way to the kitchen, Pookie following dutifully behind.

His mom was standing over the stove, spoon in hand as she stirred something that smelled amazing. She looked tired. She probably just barely got home from work.

“You’re home pretty late, did something happen?” She asked reaching for the spice cabinet.

Dash walked over and reached for the salt, handing it to her. She always put it back just a shelf too high. He peeked into the pan; stir-fry, his favorite. He avoided her eyes, he didn’t want to see the disappointment he knew he’d find there. “No, I was just at a study group trying to catch up on some homework.”

“With Kwan and Paulina?” She asked slowly, like he would fall apart if she made one wrong misstep.

He washed his hands in the sink. “No, actually, Danny Fenton invited me to join his group.”

She stirred the pot in front of her, falling silent for a moment. “That’s certainly a change.”

Dash felt like he was swimming in ice water. “Yeah, I, um, well, I apologized to him for giving him such a hard time and he sat with me at lunch.” Dash figured she didn’t need to know the exact order of events. “Kwan and Paulina don’t want anything to do with me.”

She frowned. “Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry. It’s not because…” She trailed off. She hadn’t said the word yet. Dash hated that she wouldn’t say it.

“No. At least they said it wasn’t; just that I’m apparently too poor for them now. Club rules.”

She pulled some plates down from the cabinets. “That’s probably just their parents spewing venom in their ears.”

“It’s the same thing we did to Valerie freshman year. I kind of knew it was coming, I just hoped things had changed.” Dash grabbed the filtered water from the fridge, pouring them both a glass.

“Thank you.” She plated the food and walked over to the table, Dash following her. “I’m sorry your friends turned out to not be so friendly.”

“It’s okay.” They sat down, eating in silence for a moment. Dash hated the silence the most.

His mom glanced up at him. “So, you apologized to the Fenton boy?”

Dash sat up straight, taking a deep breath before answering. “Yeah. I did.”

“How’d it go? I mean, obviously, you guys hung out, so pretty well?” She added even more salt to her plate.

“It was hard. And scary. But I think it went pretty well. Some of the others were there too, including Valerie. I think they were more hesitant to forgive me and I can’t blame them. But, I think it worked out okay. At the very least they were glad to have my help with History.” He picked a piece of meat off his plate to feed to Pookie, who was lying down by his feet like a good boy.

“I’m really proud of you, Dash.” His mom was looking at him, a smile on her face. He hadn’t seen her smile since the incident. He felt the shame covering him again.

“Don’t say that mom.”

“Why not? I’m very proud of the man you’re becoming.”

He set his fork down, focusing on controlling his breathing, he did not want to start crying in front of his mom again. “Cause I don’t deserve it. I was awful to you and to Fenton and the other kids at school. I haven’t even begun to make up for it, so how can you say you’re proud of me?” Too late, the tears were already halfway down his cheeks. He heard his mom stand up, but he was more focused on rubbing the tears away. Pookie was trying his best to comfort him by rubbing against his leg.

She gently held his face. “Dash, look at me son, please look at me.”

He did.

She was crying too.

“You have nothing to apologize to me for.”

“I said so many awful things to you and I destroyed our family.” He was full-on sobbing now.

“I’m sorry.” She choked out. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see what was going on sooner. You did not destroy our family. Your father destroyed this family. He destroyed this family when he taught my son to see others as less than. He destroyed this family when he taught both me and my son that we were unworthy of love. He destroyed this family when he started hitting my son. And he destroyed this family when he was ready to kill my son over who he loved. You didn’t deserve any of the things he did to you and I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you. It’s my fault, Dash, not yours.”

She pulled him into a tight hug, her tears spilling onto his shoulders. Dash hugged her back and for the first time in a long time, allowed himself to fall apart. He sobbed and cried and yelled and held her tight like his mother’s touch alone would keep every bad thing away from him. When he had calmed a little, just enough to hear her, she spoke again.

“Of course, I’m proud of you. Despite everything you’ve been through, you chose to get help and you chose to still be you. That’s so hard to do and you did it anyway. When I look at you I see someone who wanted something better for himself and went for it; I see someone who is becoming who he wants to be, not who he was taught to be; I see someone who apologized to the people they’d hurt even though it was incredibly hard to do; I see my son. And I am so very proud of my son. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel any other way.”

Dash sniffled, holding on because he wasn’t ready to let go yet. “I thought you were disappointed in me.”

“Disappointed? Never.” She sniffled too. “I was just sad. Sad that my son was sad. And sad that I married someone so evil. But, I love you. And I’m sorry I don’t say it enough.”

Dash finally pulled away, wiping his tears away. “I love you too.”

She gave him a watery smile. She sniffed, inhaled a deep breath, and stood up. “Look at us.” She chuckled. “We’re a mess and our food is probably cold. I’m sorry, I know it’s your favorite.”

Dash leaned down and picked Pookie up. The dog had been going crazy at the two emotionally unstable humans in his house. “I think we’ve said enough ‘I’m sorry’s’ for the night.”

“Ugh, you’re right. Let’s just order some takeout and we can watch The Bachelorette  or something and you can tell me which guys you think are the hottest.”

“Mom!” Dash was mortified.

“What? We haven’t talked about this yet.” She had the restaurant page and phone in hand, already typing in the number for the pizza place down the street. “I need to make sure you have better taste in men than I do. What pizza toppings do you want?”

Dash found himself laughing. It was nice to have his house feel like home again. He helped his mom clean the kitchen and get the couch blankets out of the closet for their impromptu movie night. Just as they were getting ready to hit play, his phone beeped with a text message.

Unknown Number: I stole ur # from, Val. :P Walk with us 2 school tmrw?

Unknown Number: It’s Danny.

Dash smiled down at his phone. What a dork. Dash saved the number in his phone, heart nearly caving in. It’d been all of one day and suddenly his entire life was different. He’d have to remember to thank Danny for being so forgiving.

“Who is it?” His mom asked.

“Uh, it’s Danny. He wants to walk to school together.” He twiddled his thumbs, not sure how to respond to the text.

His mom smirked at him. “Wow, that must have been some apology.”

Dash wanted to crawl under a rock and never come back out.

“Does he know you drive to school?”

“Probably not. I’ll just walk with him and tell him tomorrow.”

“Okay, whatever you say. Hit play, mister.”

Dash hit play on the TV. and typed a quick reply on his phone.

Dash: See you tomorrow

Nerd: Meet @ my place?

Dash: I’ll be there.

Nerd: See u tmrw :D

@any-n-everything Here's why i think Sam and Tucker needed some more thorough development. I mean it's not that they were terrible, and I think the majority of my problems with them suffer from the writing and it being a kids show who's primary goal was to teach kids moral lessons. But Sam had several moments where she disregard what Danny wanted and pushed her own agendas no matter how that affected him and Tucker. Such as the gorilla project (yes it was for Danny's grade but the poor kid got no sleep that night and clearly didn't want to be there), or the one that gets me the most is season 2 episode 1 when she wished Danny and her had never met and then instead of trying to solve the problem in any other way (she already knew at this point that it was the wishing ghost attacking) Like going to get help from any of the other ghost hunter or dealing with the ghost herself which she was shown very capable of doing (and we needed more of because honestly that was a cool aspect of her character) she decided to put her friend, who she supposedly cares about, through the most traumatic experience of his life a second time. She killed him, twice. Because she was the one who egged him on to go in the portal the first time despite him warning her about safety issues, and then she just shoved him in the second time. But then the show wants to convince me she likes him romantically. That's crazy. Not to mention the one time with the trucks that Danny and Tucker liked and she wanted him to use his ghost powers to her advantage despite having in several other episodes berated him for doing the same thing. And (last example I promise) in the show finale when he gave up his ghost powers to protect his family and go back to a normal life because he's been struggling with this for so long, she gets upset! (They all do, I'm not excluding Jazz and Tucker from this, this is just my Sam paragraph). She tells him that she feels she lost a friend and that he's wrong to give up superpowers because now he's not unique or special and she wants friends who are unique and special. Like damn, Sam. Low blow. It's like when a friend only wants to hang out with you to play on your x box and when you don't have the x box they disappear and hate you.

As for Tucker, he's not quite as bad and again I think his character just suffers from the Tv-Y7 rating, but there are a few times where he just straight up disrespects Danny. The only two times we're shown that they get in a fight, Tucker completely does a 180 and makes Danny out to be the bad guy. In the episode where he wishes he has ghost powers he just blames Danny for taking the spotlight and showing off how much better he is, when Danny never did any of that (at that point in the show). Even if Tucker felt that way because of jealousy, he was still really rude with how he spoke to Danny and quite literally put a citizen's life in danger just to upstage Danny. He does it again in the one for where he runs against Dash for class president. (I know that in both of these he was under a ghost influence, but all of the problems started before the ghosts got involved, they just enhanced what he was already feeling.) (And I know Danny and Sam weren't listening to him but that's wildly out of character for Danny and I feel the writers just conformed his personality to the plot to teach the listen to your friends narrative) but he also took that scepter willingly from the mummy ghost. He has like a weird superiority complex that he takes out on people at the most random times. Then in the episode with Nocturne, his best dream is him being all rich and making Danny his janitor! That's not how you think of your best friend! That shows just how much better he thinks he is compared to Danny. Then in the episode where the G.I.W. buys Danny's house and Danny is freaking out, Tucker is like hey man, you have a lot of money now, act like it and enjoy it and calm down. Then gets mad at him when he acts like it and enjoys it! And also he did the same thing as Sam in the finale.

Sorry for the chaotic jumbled mess of thoughts, I have more to say I just can't remember any more specific examples off the top of my head at the moment. But again, he could have worse, I just think they also deserve their own growing and learning moments.

Okay, so I know I'm like 20 years late, but I just finished watching Danny Phantom for the first time since I was a kid and I have a lot to say. (Most of it's been said already in the posts I've seen here.) But the thing I really want more than anything, is a reboot where they're in senior year instead and it's not tv-y7 where the darker themes they mention in passing can be thoroughly explored because can you imagine if they did it right?! (I mean the show is great and so so unique but the potential it had to be better!)

Like senior year going into college, the exestienal dread of having to figure out what you want to do with your life and then dying but not and now having to protect the ones you love from ghosts while making sure you finish with a high enough GPA to get into college cause you're from a family of geniuses and you're expected to but now not knowing if you even can because of the accident and the role you now have to play and watching all your peers get to have that choice and you can't even figure whats going on with your body and it's horrifying and ghosts are (actually) scary as shit (cause it's horror now not comedy) and no one around you really gets it and you learn your friends kind of suck but they're all you have and oh you have a whole realm of enemies who never really stop hunting you for sport on top of the guy who wants to fuck your mom and makes it everybody's business and oh yeah, you're kind of dead!

Oh yeah and the concept of how ghosts become ghosts and the sad truth that Danny's not fighting inherently evil beings but people who died including one five year old! And the fact that his parents would quite literally gut him alive if they caught him. That horror is brushed aside way too much in canon. And then when his parents find out in the two season finales that they do they just "oh Danny you should have told us you know we love you no matter what" like uh you just said if you ever caught his putrid, evil, ectoplasm being that you would rip him apart molecule by molecule but sure, let's pretend the son that you ignore more than speak too and literally couldn't tell that he'd been replaced by a robot that he would have been okay telling you that your ignorance and lack of safety protocol killed him and turned him into the very thing you hate.

Like, please, it would be so good.

some danny doodles as i was rewatching dp ehhehe...danny's ghost redesign is heavily inspired by @wanologic's!

more pkmn headcanons under cut if u even care

LET THE CHAOS BEGIN!

It's been 6 years, huh?

And have a happy Dannypocalypse 2022 I guess

There's no escape from the Danno

Kitty AU, a kitty Phantom. Fluffy boi.

Corona.

Here is the mixed AU again.

Kitty AU, look forward to more. Phantom design coming up!

Danny wasn't fased, he could hear it stalking behind him, he could hear its shallow breathing, he could feel its sharp talons reaching for him...

Phantom slowly approached Danny with a smirk growing on his lips, a devilish look in his eyes. Danny stepped back, unsure of the ghost, he slowly walked back until he hit the side wall of his bedroom with a quiet thud. Danny’s breath hitched as Phantom suddenly lifted his chin, forcing him to be eye level with the ghost. Phantom’s face inched closer, he licked his lips staring Danny down pinning him into the wall with his lower arm. Danny fumbled with is words a blush forming into his face, “Ph-Phantom?” ———- Haha! I have arrived with some spicy content.

I have a few doodles here and there.

Sam- "Danny, are you okay?..."

DannyMay Day 3: Reflection

DannyMay Day 2: Flowers

Ahhh, finally! After an agonizing 17 hours I’m finally finished with my class Radial Symmetry project. Here we feature two heroes and their evil selves from an alternate future timeline, where they destroy the world.

uwu

An old redraw of one of @/promsien’s original pieces

New phone background!

Just a lil college Vlad doodle

Hey, where are my DC x DP people at?

What if Jason came back wrong because the GIW had his little ghost self captured for 6 months?

Imagine it. The warehouse in Ethiopia happens to be on some powerful crossing leylines and a GIW agent is stationed to keep an eye on the area. She sees the Joker and his men. She sees Robin enter the building. Maybe the place is bugged and she even knows what's happening and she realizes... This is their chance. The GIW could get data on a ghost as it forms! This is unprecedented!

So, she waits and watches and records data.

And when the warehouse explodes, when the Batman has come and gone, when the response team has put out the fire... She searches. She finds Robin's ghost as it begins to form. She captures it, the scientific find of the century.

And six months of inhumane, dehumanizing experiments later, the ghost of Robin seems to shred itself as it's ripped violently through all the anti-ecto restraints and containments.

Maybe there's a perfect sphere left behind and Jason doesn't realize that he's missing his core. Maybe the recorded experiment logs are out there, waiting for the right hacker to release them. Maybe Team Phantom rescued the core and are searching for the being it belongs to.

Just some thoughts~

"Why do like that crossover? Those are so different, why would you even think to cross them over? What's the point of it?"

Shit, y'all, it just sparks joy? It's fun to read? Fics get super cute and some get deep into the concept of family trauma and recovery from long-term abuse? It inspires really good art?

DC doesn't have a proper equivalent for Danny Phantom, so go ahead and squish him in there. Give the bats a new buddy, call it enrichment.

The Battle Falcon Arc continues

Can u tell my love for masked character designs. Be it pull-overs or gas masks or helmets or the classic plague doctor mask, one can express so much with just two little squinty eyes

Spreading more Duke and Danny friendship/romantic relationship/what-have-you in this cold cold world. Not enough Danny&Duke content out there so I'm breaking out the mixing bowl to bake some myself

I just like these two hanging out together, they have such good chemistry :D

--------

p.s. the idea of Danny’s mask being a plague doc's mask comes from @void-of-unparalled-chaos

ppp.ssss. the inspo of this comic also comes from @transsunmoonwizzard ‘s tags on the original falcon post. big thanks to you both, hot choco for everyone <3

Like a year ago I mentioned to @asknotbug that I was reading all the "Billy Batson gets adopted into the Bat-family" fics and THEY, THEY told me about the Danny Phantom adoption fics. I held out for like six months but guEsS WhAt I'm ReAdInG nOw?!

Worst of all is that so much of it is really good lmao

Danny Phantom is also super easy to consider as an allegory to being a closeted queer teen in a small Midwestern town. And sometimes it's just about a ghost boy.

Anyway, thanks again @asknotbug, I'm having a great time. May any curses against you fall upon your enemies.