Father's Day Panic
"Hey Danny, what are you planning to do for Dad on Sunday?" Jazz asked, sticking her head into the boy's bedroom to see him drawing something on his bed.
Danny's head shot up, looking at his sister with a panicked look. "It's this Sunday!?" he asked, jumping up from his bed quicker than humanly possible and almost flew over to the calendar on his wall to see it was, in fact, only a few days away. He smacked himself in the forehead, hating himself for forgetting. "Crud! I have no idea."
"Well, don't get him thread, that's my gift." Jazz said, smiling at her little brother.
"What do normal kids give their dad for Father's Day?" Danny asked, looking at his sister for help.
"Probably ties or something, but we've never had a normal Dad so I wouldn't know." Jazz pointed out, leaning against the door frame. "Maybe gift-wrap The Box Ghost or something."
Danny looked over at her in surprise, only to smile as a plan formed inside his mind.
Jack walked into the living room, expecting a surprise from his missing son, only to find his wife and daughter in the room. "Have you seen Danny?"
Jazz looked up from the book she was reading only to shake her head. "No, sorry Dad."
"Oh,… and thanks for my new set of colors, Jazziepants." Jack smiled over at his daughter. His smile dropped as he remember who he was looking for and headed towards the kitchen.
I wish Danny told me what he was doing. Jazz thought. I should never have suggested the Box Ghost.
Down in the basement, Danny Phantom was writing the finishing touches on the card before sitting down the pen. He attached the card to a string and tied it around his elbow, knowing his wrist would be no good.
He picked up the bandana lying next to where he laid the pencil and did his best to gag himself, trying to make it look like he was caught and not like how it really was.
He grabbed a weapon from a table close by and sat down, leaning against the table. He shot the gun towards his feet, creating a green goop around his ankles.
Danny looked up as footsteps made their way down the stairs. He quickly moved the gun so that he could shooting it at his wrists and did his best to move the gun away from himself.
"Danny, are you down here?" Jack's voice boomed as the big man made his way down into the lab. He looked around, only for his eyes to lay on the black and white clad ghost tied up in the middle of the room with a note attached to his elbow.
Jack made his way over, keeping eye contact with the ghost's green eyes. He snatched the note away, ripping the corner off as the string stayed on his arm.
"Dad, I'm sorry but I promised I'd help Sam with her Father's Day present so I hope you like Phantom as a present. I love you, Danny.
P.S. He owed me a favor so I promised he'd be able to walk away alive, so to say. Just don't start dissecting him molecule by molecule and he wants to be free at 8pm. After that, you can go back to hunting his hide."
Jack looked over the page at Phantom, who had started to struggle against the bonds only to freeze as he realized Jack was watching him.
"Danny caught you?" Jack asked, surprised.
Danny nodded his head, trying to keep up the act.
"How?" Jack wanted to know.
Danny shrugged his shoulders, throwing his head to the side.
"And how do you owe my son a favor?" Jack asked, not understanding that part.
Danny narrowed his eyes, trying to point out he'd be able to answer the questions if he wasn't gagged up. Maybe the gag was a bit too much.
Jack sat down the note on the lab table and kneeled down to look the teen eye to eye. He untied the gag and let it fall to the ground.
"This-ack." Danny found in the short time his mouth had had the bandana in it had dried it out. He quickly swashed his tongue around to try and get his mouth back to normal before trying again. "This is only so you can understand ghosts more, ok." Danny defended. The gag really wasn't a good idea.
"Ok." Jack nodded his head, surprising himself at having a conversation with this ghost.
"As to what favor I owe your son, he got me out of a jam a few days ago against one of my enemies so I told him he owed me. I didn't know it would mean being tied up in your lab." Danny said, trying to sound disgusted.
"You're not on a table yet, ghost." Jack said, eyeing the teen.
"Hey, Danny said I wouldn't end up in pieces." Danny growled. "Stick to the rules your son gave you."
"Jack, who are you talking to down there?" Maddie's voice asked, her footsteps sounding close to the bottom of the stairs as she walked down them.
"My father's day present from Danny." Jack said, standing up.
"He caught you Phantom!?" Maddie exclaimed, rushing over to the ghost teen tied up on the floor.
"Maybe this was a bad idea." Danny muttered, seeing the hunger in his mother's eyes as she looked him over.
"Mads, read this." Jack offered, handing Danny's note to his wife.
Maddie leaned back, taking the paper from her husband only for the hunger to slowly die. "Well, come on Jack." Maddie said, sitting the paper down on the table before grabbing a device. "Let's get him sitting up on a table so we can start."
A few minutes later and Danny found himself sitting on an examination table with his hands and feet still cuffed by anti-ghost goop. He now had an EMF monitor attached to his chest to act like a EKG, only monitoring his Electro Magnetic Field, and a few more wires attached to devices he really had no idea what they did.
"None of this is going to hurt me, right?" Danny asked, motioning towards the wires.
"Ghost's don't feel pain." Maddie deadpanned as she watched the numbers on one of the many screens. She quickly made a note on a clipboard in her hand before turning to another screen.
"Sure, and we don't eat or need bathroom breaks." Danny rolled his eyes. "You people claim you're the leading experts in the paranormal, here's your chance to actually ask a ghost for info."
"Oh, and a chance to test this baby!" Jack smiled as he pulled out an even more confusing device and sat it down on the table next to Danny. Before the teen could say anything, new wires found themselves attaching to his head, coming out his white hair like antennas.
"What the heck?" Danny asked, moving his hands to scratch at one of the sticky pads only to have his hand slapped at by Maddie.
"Leave them alone." Maddie ordered. She found herself a new sheet of paper and put it in the clipboard. "Everything ready, Jack?"
Jack double checked the device he was holding before giving her the thumbs up and a goofy smile.
"We have you hooked up to a ghost version of a lie detector." Maddie explained, looking at the ghost for his reaction only saddened to not get anything out of the teen. "I need to ask you a few that are like a control to find what your ghost matrix registers them as through the machine."
Danny nodded his head, really sure this was a bad idea now.
"What is your name?" Maddie asked, sitting down on the chair she had brought down during set up.
"Danny." Jack monitored the readings, nodding his head as if to say the ghost in question's mind was saying it was true.
"Full name when alive?" Maddie asked, eyeing the boy out of curiosity.
"Can I refuse to answer that?" Danny asked, hoping.
Maddie's lips pressed together as if annoyed. "Fine, but next time, when our son isn't making the rules, you won't be able to do that."
Danny sighed, relived he had some slack.
"We need to know what a lie looks like for you, so answer yes please." Maddie said, marking something down on her paper. "The sky is brown."
"Yes." Danny nodded, knowing enough about lie detectors to understand what his mom was doing.
"Ok, so what did you mean about ghosts eating?" Maddie asked, curious.
"Ghosts do eat, not all can eat real world food but we do eat." Danny tried to explain.
"How?" Maddie asked, surprised to see Jack nodding his head as the device said as far as it could tell the ghost was telling the truth. "You shouldn't have a digestive system."
"I don't really know." Danny admitted, shrugging his shoulders.
"Alright, what about bowls?" Maddie asked, scribbling notes down on the paper in front of her.
"What?" Danny asked, confused.
"Going to the bathroom." Maddie explained, looking up at the ghost. "Didn't you say ghosts needed to do that as well?"
"Yes." Danny nodded his head. "I don't know much about that either."
"Do you know anything about a rumor about ghosts reproducing?" Maddie asked.
"Mom, Dad?" Jazz's voice called down the stairs as she joined the party down in the lab. She stopped when she saw Phantom attached to wires and the two adults looking hungrily at the ghost. "Dan-nny Phantom?" Jazz caught herself just in time.
Danny mouthed "help me" as he rolled his eyes towards his parents.
Jazz's mind worked quickly, trying to come up with a way to free her little brother. "Um, that would explain why there's a ghost on the news over by the school."
"Shoot, come on Jack." Maddie exclaimed, dropping her clip board to pull on her hood and goggles. She turned towards Jazz and asked, "Can you watch Phantom?"
Jazz nodded her head yes quick enough for them to see and bolt out of the lab, a screech of tires quickly following them.
"Danny, when I suggested the Box Ghost, I meant someone that wasn't on their list of 'want to kill'." Jazz pointed out as she started pulling off wires.
"Ow, that's my hair you're pulling out." Danny whined as she worked through his white mess.
Jazz shook her head, smiling as she worked.
"Do you think Dad liked it?" Danny asked after a moment of silence.
"I think you made his day in the fact that he thinks you're turning into a ghost hunter." Jazz smiled, showing she'd been listening longer than Danny had originally thought.
"I think I'm farther than just turning into one." Danny admitted as Jazz got the last of the wires detached. She grabbed a white box like device and held it close to his cuffs, getting them to dissipate into the box. Danny rubbed his wrists, glad they were no longer connected. "So what you going to tell them?"
"That you got tired of waiting and it was getting close to 8." Jazz said, motioning towards the clock to see it was already 7:47. "Though, and idea, don't come back home until Mom and Dad are already back."
"Thanks." Danny smiled at his sister as he floated upwards into the air. He looked at her once more before phasing through the ceiling, disappearing into the world to patrol quickly before his parents got back home.
As Danny made it over the cemetery, he noticed a small boy of about ten years old knelling in front of a plaque, silent tears running down his cheeks. Danny landed a few rows away, behind the boy watching as he saw the spirits of those who hadn't become ghosts as his parents knew but had also refused to leave the world. A male was hovering over the ten year old in almost a protective manner.
"Kid, are you ok?" Danny asked, wanting to make himself known to not surprise the boy.
The kid turned around, quickly wiping his tears away with his arm before smiling. "Ya, I'm fine."
Danny walked over to him on the free side and knelt down to look him in the eye. "Was this your Dad?" he asked, a knot forming inside his stomach.
"Ya." The boy turned away, looking back at the plaque in the ground.
Danny glanced at the name before looking up at the spirit watching them. "Roger?" Danny asked, getting a surprised look from the spirit.
The kid looked up at Danny only to try and follow his line of sight. "Do you see my Dad?" he asked, hope bubbling out of him.
"Ya, he's not a ghost like me, but he's here watching over you." Danny smiled, looking down at the kid.
A weird sound emitted from Roger, surprising Danny that he could understand it. "He says he loves you and wants to see you try for the baseball team." Danny translated.
"Really!?" the kid asked, trying to look around for his father but not seeing anything he turned back to Danny. "Can you tell him I will."
"He can hear you." Danny said, his eyes softening.
"I will, Daddy." The kid said, looking out at the cemetery, not sure where to look. "I love you too."
Roger made a noise again, getting Danny to stand up and look the spirit in the eyes. He nodded his head before turning back towards the kid. "Come on, Matt, your dad wants me to take you home." Danny said, holding out his hand.
Matt took the hand, turning to look at the grave and say, "I'll be back tomorrow, Daddy, don't worry."
Danny gripped the boy as tightly as he needed to send the weightlessness through-out their bodies and flew up into the sky, taking him home the way Roger had asked him to. He dropped off the kid in front of his house and disappeared before Matt had the chance to thank him but stayed around to make sure he got inside safely before slowly heading back to Fenton Works.
"Tough little kid." Danny muttered, a tear escaping as he flew. He quickly flew into the ally way between his neighbor's house and the next before letting the rings appear to change him back. He walked out and smiled as the GAV was back in the driveway.
Danny made it into the house, hearing shouts in the lab as his parents were just learning about Phantom getting away. He walked down the stairs and asked, "Hey, Dad, how'd you like my gift?"
Jack turned around, a smile now on his face. "It was great, Danny-o!"
"Good." Danny smiled, hugging the big man before quickly heading back up to the kitchen. "Happy Father's Day, Dad!." He called down.
Danny: you know, real lie detectors don't work like that one.
AN: Leave me alone! It's called creative licensing.