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Steve sat in the jet, quietly studying the person across from him.

The first thing that he noticed was that he was small. The guy was stick-skinny, and looked like a strong gust of wind would blow him away. His build reminded Steve of himself before he had become Captain America.

The next thing that he noticed was his age; judging from his lack of a beard, his fellow jet passenger couldn't have been more than fifteen years old.

Taking into account his size, age, and the SHIELD uniform that the kid was wearing, Steve couldn't help but worry for the teenager sitting across from him.

Leaning across the jet and holding out his hand for a shake, Steve broke the silence. "Hi, I'm Steve Rogers."

The kid shook his hand. "I'm Danny Fenton."

After another, shorter silence, Steve said, "So, Danny, what do you do for SHIELD?". He was hoping that the kid was just an intern or something, nothing too dangerous or high up.

"I've been training to be an agent of SHIELD for the past two weeks. And now that it's been activated, I'm a member of the Avengers Initiative," Danny said, happiness and some pride leaking into his voice.

Steve was baffled. The teen seemed completely at ease with having one of the most deadly jobs in the world. As far as he could tell, there was nothing special about Danny to make him a candidate for the Avengers. In fact, he looked like he was physically below-average. Steve's growing worry seeped into his voice. "How old are you?"

"Fifteen," Danny said nonchalantly, as if there were dozens of teenaged SHIELD agents running around. His calm tone contrasted with Steve's one of growing disbelief.

If it was possible, Steve's level of concern for Danny rose even more. He had thought that SHIELD was smart; why then, would they recruit a scrawny fifteen year-old to be a member of its most elite team? After several seconds of sputtering, which Danny looked like he was trying hard not to laugh at, Steve managed to ask, "Why?!"

The black-haired teen broke into a smile. "Didn't you get the file? It explains a lot about all of us."

Steve shook his head, still speechless at the thought of such a young person having such a dangerous job. Danny riffled around in the bag that sat next to him, pulled out what Steve thought was called a 'tablet', and turned it on. He passed it across the plane to the super soldier.

Steve took the piece of technology and experimentally tapped at the first file on the screen, labeled "Danny Phantom". As he read the information on the screen and watched the videos, Steve's face went from worried and confused to astonished. He knew that 2012 was drastically different from the 1940s, but having scientific proof that ghosts existed? He shook his head, remembering his bet with Fury. He owed the man ten dollars now.

Looking up from the tablet, Steve said, "So, which file is about you?"

Danny smiled. "You're reading it."

Steve blinked. The pictures of the ghost in the file definitely didn't match up with what Danny looked like. "You're a ghost?" he asked, confused.

"Half-ghost, actually. I'm not completely dead."

This explanation did nothing to help Steve's confusion. It made no sense; either you were dead, or you weren't. He wasn't sure what to say.

Danny looked at Steve's expression and began to explain more. "My parents are ghost hunters. They built a portal to the Ghost Zone, where most ghosts live. It didn't work the first time they plugged it in, so I thought it was safe to explore. I tripped inside, and wound up turning on the portal. We're not sure what happened, but it made me a half-ghost."

"Wow. What did your parents do about that?" Steve asked, curious about how ghost hunters would react to their own son being turned into what they hunted.

Danny looked sheepish now, rubbing the back of his neck and looking around. "Well, I sort of… didn't tell them." Steve stared, which caused Danny to talk more, his voice rising in pitch from his nervousness. "What?! I was freaked out, okay? One second, I was perfectly human, the next I was invisible and sinking through the floor! And they didn't exactly make trying to tell them easy. They hate my ghost half."

Steve kept quiet for a few more minutes, thinking. Then, realization dawned on him. Slowly, he asked, "Your parents are ghost hunters, right?"

Danny looked at him with guarded eyes. "Yes…?"

Steve continued, "And they hate your ghost half?"

"Yes."

"Your parents… They didn't hunt you, did they?" Steve asked, trying to convince himself that such a thing would never happen.

Danny looked at the floor and said nothing. Steve had his answer, and he was not happy. No parents should try to hurt their child, even if they don't know that they're doing it. He ground his teeth and thought furiously to himself that when their mission was over, he would help Danny. He was only a kid, after all.


Danny sat back after his conversation with Steve Rogers had ended. Steve went back to examining the information on the tablet, and asked Coulson a few questions. After the Q and A was done, Danny listened to the painful exchange between Coulson and his idol. When the senior agent said that he had watched the captain sleep, Danny seriously considered turning intangible and jumping out of the plane just to escape the awkwardness.


As Danny stepped out of the jet onto the Helicarrier, which for once was not in the air, he was greeted by a familiar face.

Smiling, he waved to the redhead walking his way. "Agent Romanov, what are you doing here? I thought that you left for Russia as soon as you were done with Amity."

She shrugged. "I got a call. I came back."

Coulson and the Captain stepped out of the plane now, following Danny. Coulson introduced the two. "Agent Romanov, Captain Rogers." He seemed rather proud and excited to be introducing the Captain to people, though he did his best not to show it.

The Captain nodded at her. "Ma'am."

"Hi," she said, unimpressed. She turned to Coulson. "They need you on the bridge; they're starting the face trace."

He nodded and walked off toward an entrance. "See you there."

Danny, Natasha, and Steve began walking together. Natasha spoke. "It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. We thought Coulson was going to swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"

Steve looked confused. "Trading cards?"

Danny jumped in. He had tried to avoid talking to Steve after seeing how visibly upset he was about Danny's whole parent situation, but he couldn't resist. Grinning, he said, "They're vintage. He's very proud. Trust me, you'll hear about them soon enough, just like everyone else on the Helicarrier."

They kept walking and saw a middle-aged man in a brown jacket and pants with a purple shirt underneath. He seemed lost, and was looking around everywhere trying to figure out where to go. He stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the pilot uniforms and black suits busily running around the asphalt. From the pictures Danny had seen, he figured it was Bruce Banner.

Most people seemed scared of the doctor, due to his alter ego. Danny, however, was reminded of Princess Dora and her brother, whose magical amulets turned them into dragons when they got angry. Seeing that Dora was one of Danny's friends in the ghost zone, he didn't have any problem with Banner's 'condition'. The guy seemed as afraid of himself as everyone else was of him, and Danny was pretty sure that if the Hulk made an accidental appearance, he could handle it.

Smiling, he waved and said, "Doctor Banner, hi."

Banner looked somewhat confused at Danny's youth, but walked over and greeted him anyway. "Hi."

Steve greeted the doctor as well. "Word is you can find the cube."

Bruce looked around nervously. "Is that the only word on me?"

"It's the only word I care about," Steve said sincerely.

Natasha, who had been keeping her distance during the conversation, stepped in. "Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

"Is this a submarine?" Steve wondered aloud.

"Really? They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Bruce asked dryly, wandering to the edge. As the propellers began to spin, and the Helicarrier began to lift itself out of the ocean, Bruce grinned to himself. "Oh, no, this is much worse."


Inside the Helicarrier, Danny caught up with Bruce. "Doctor Banner?"

The physicist, who until this point had been pacing the main room and looking around, turned. "Yeah? Sorry, I didn't catch your name."

Danny held out his hand and introduced himself. "Danny Fenton."

For a moment, Bruce looked apprehensive at the thought of human contact, but he shook Danny's hand anyway. Danny continued to talk. "Doctor Banner, I know that you're nervous about being in the Helicarrier. But you don't need to worry. Everything will be fine. And even if it isn't, these people can handle themselves."

Bruce gave a half-hearted laugh. "Sure, sure. Why do they even have a kid like you here? It's not exactly the best place to spend your summer."

"I'm Danny Phantom, part of the Avengers," Danny said. It was weird just announcing his identity to a man he had met twenty minutes ago. However, considering that he knew Banner's secret, it was only fair that he knew his own.

"You're a ghost?" Bruce asked.

Danny was beginning to regret keeping his identity as a half-ghost on a need-to-know basis. The file on him made it seem like he was all dead, so he was going to have to explain this to all his new teammates. "Half ghost," he said. "Lab accident didn't kill me all the way. I'm still more powerful than a lot of other full ghosts, though."

Bruce looked thoughtful. After a moment's silence, and a quick glance around to make sure nobody was watching, he asked, "Do you think your ghost half could stop the Other Guy?"

Danny nodded. Bruce smiled. "I hope we don't have to test that." He walked away, but Danny thought that the man looked a little less nervous than before their conversation.


*Sorry to those who were hoping that Danny's secret would be kept from the other Avengers, but they are definitely on the 'need to know' level.

**For those thinking Danny should have done something more in the last chapter: As Coulson said, the visit had to be quick. And he was following Coulson around because nobody else on the Helicarrier really knew why a fifteen year old boy was there in the first place. –PD44