SD Chapter 10
A/N: Hey guys! So excited for this update. Few things I'd like to point out…
*There is cursing* (I blame us both)
The point of views change. They begin with Robin, then switch to Danny, back to Robin, and then it ends with Danny again.
Time-wise...I apologize it's been late. A month and a half I know...bear with us, we're trying. I haven't had much time to edit because I've gotten recurring strep throat twice in the past month. So just know that the story is NOT on hiatus and we intend to keep writing.
Also, make sure to read Lux's a/n at the end of the chapter. There are some pretty important things addressed there, and they will help to make sense of what's going on in the chapter.
P.S. Please Review! Much love to all our dedicated readers.
Enjoy!
-Sephora
As a detective, Robin was trained to notice all things peculiar.
Danny was anything but normal.
It was in the way he moved his hands, poised to strike at any moment. The way his anger presented itself, turning him from prey to predator in an instant. Robin could see his own actions mirrored through the detective — the characteristics of a hero.
But it wasn't confidence, not really. Not like Robin's own. Rather, it was skill.
As the Red Huntress came to meet them, Robin took note of the sad recognition in her wide eyes when they landed Danny. Unaware that anyone was looking at him, he consciously forced himself to unclench his hands. Robin watched as he then let himself fall to the back of the group as Valerie led them up to the restaurant, hesitating at the entrance.
All eyes were on them as they stepped in, doorbell jingling at the open door. There was a pregnant pause, full of awe, before it was broken by the eruption of too-loud whispers. Used to the attention, the rest of the Titans ignored the stares in favor of the menu near the checkout. Danny stiffened momentarily. Then, in a fluid motion, he made his way towards an empty booth in the corner of the restaurant that faced all the doors and windows. His steps were rigid, deliberate. He didn't turn back to see if they would follow.
Danny was distant during the conversation, too. He barely touched his food despite the fact that none of them had eaten anything on the trip there. His eyes far away, and avoided eye contact in favor of staring at the tabletop. Once they began to talk about the case, though, his focus became razor sharp, but the moment the conversation changed topics, he retreated.
Robin wasn't about to push him to interact. It was clear that he was struggling just to be here. It seemed safer at this point, to let him stew.
And then Valerie made a flippant comment regarding the toy in a child's hand.
Danny's entire manner changed. The tension was suddenly thick enough to cut through the air with a birdarang. His rage was quiet, but it was quickly rising.
"You only hate him because you're still holding a grudge over something that was out of his control." he snapped, voice dangerously calm.
The situation only escalated from there. The hairs on the back of Robin's neck stood on end. The temperature had dropped noticeably throughout the exchange—frost grew on the windows seemingly of its own accord, and Beast Boy shivered. Shooting a cursory glance throughout the restaurant, he knew that he wasn't the only one who felt it. Everyone looked unsettled and vaguely afraid. Robin was surprised to find that, despite the clearly dangerous aura coming off Danny in waves that had Raven look like she was about to pass out, Valerie didn't back down. Could she not sense it?
And then it was over.
Robin said nothing, even as Danny shoved passed him violently out of the booth. Valerie quickly moved to follow him, but Robin was faster than she was. He put a placating hand on her shoulder.
"The last thing you need to do right now is to run after him." He told her, watching the detective storm across the street haphazardly, not even looking to see if there was any incoming traffic. That strange, cold aura followed him like a shadow, compelling everyone to give him a wide berth.
Robin didn't need to mention that she was ultimately the reason he had become unbearably angry. It was obvious, and the last thing Danny needed was an angry reminder of his past — that was something Robin could understand.
She ripped her arm away from him viciously, still angry herself and unused to obeying orders. He took no offense, only gesturing back to the booth where the others still sat. She practically threw herself at the chair, the clink of her armor loud compared through the unusually quiet restaurant. Starfire flinched at the sound, looking distinctly unnerved — she'd never been one for conflict.
Eventually the Red Huntress began to relax, softening her features as she turned back towards them all. Robin raised a brow when she gave a sheepish grin.
"I suppose we'll have to wait another time when Danny's here, to continue the interview." She told them, and Robin had a suspicion she was goading him to allow her to leave. He wouldn't take the bait.
"Danny will be fine, I can fill him in later. For now, why don't you tell us more about Phantom?"
She tensed, frowning. Her eyes flickered from them to the door and back again. Then, as though making a decision, she set her eyes on him firmly, moistening her lips before pressing them together.
"I fail to see how this is relevant to the case."
Robin wasn't moved. He could be stubborn, too, after all.
"Phantom obviously has quite an influence on the people of this town."
Valerie scoffed, crossing her arms. She stared at the boy with the plush who was now eating with his mom. One seat had been set aside just for the toy.
"He was a ghost obsessed with fighting. Some people saw him as a hero, others thought he was just a nuisance—an instigator that couldn't help but start battles. It's been theorized that Amity is tied to his obsession. He's the reason we have so many ghosts."
Robin pursed his lips, "Danny mentioned that he saved the world?"
"Apparently." Valerie rolled her eyes.
"What was his relationship with the Fenton's?"
"The Fenton's hated him. They spent a lot of their time trying to hunt him down for a while but Phantom didn't stop fighting. When Fenton Works blew up he was spotted from multiple citizens fleeing the scene. He hasn't been back since then. He murdered them." She ended her tirade with a growl, slamming her fist on the table. Starfire flinched again, leaving imprints on the table where she held it for comfort.
"Was there any actual evidence that Phantom was the cause of the explosion?"
Valerie looked at him accusingly, "What other evidence do you need? No one else in the town would hurt the Fenton's. They kept the city stocked with defensive measures. They were devoted to the citizens and protected them. Phantom was only here to fight and cause more trouble."
Beast Boy's eyebrows furrowed and the others glanced around. Robin raised a brow in surprise, "You never opened up an official investigation?"
It was Valerie's turn to furrow her brows in disapproval. She shook her head with a frown,
"No."
"So how do you know for sure that Phantom was responsible for the deaths of the Fenton's?" he asked calmly.
Her eyes narrowed dangerously, "Are you accusing me of lying?"
The fire in her eyes revealed her growing anger, and Robin was already shaking his head to appease her. A frown tugged at his lips, "No, of course not Ms. Gray. I'm only interested in evidence. I believe that it would be in our best interest to begin our investigation at Fenton Works."
Valerie nodded rigidly, mouth set in a thin line, "I'll be available in the next few days. You can come whenever you need to."
Robin smiled politely, holding out his hand to shake hers. The others recognized it was time to leave and they stood eagerly, shuffling out of the booth. Starfire was trembling slightly, and Beast Boy looked like a cornered animal. Cyborg was munching on Danny's abandoned fries, eyebrows furrowed, and Raven had her hood up. The clear tension in her shoulders showed her discomfort.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Gray. My team and I look forward to speaking with you in the future." It was something of a lie, considering how the entire situation played out, but the woman flashed him a grin.
"Call me Valerie, or Red. The pleasure's all mine. I hope you find your stay here in Amity helpful."
Robin nodded despite the growing feeling of apprehension in his gut. Unfortunately, he wasn't so sure their stay would be helpful at all. He had a sinking feeling that, after today, the investigation would become even more complicated, and they would leave with only more questions.
But worrying wouldn't get them anywhere — they had a Detective to find.
...
He walked the streets of Amity in a haze. The sun had long since set, and the streets were nearly empty. The only proof that anyone lived in the town was the flickers of blue light coming off of windows and the sound of laughter from inside cookie-cutter suburban houses.
There was something special about being invisible. It was one of the many things that he liked about Jump — it was so full of people going places that he'd just seemed to blend in. Even as a child, he'd had a reputation in Amity. He was the ghost hunter's son. The pariah of the town with his thin frame and his bossy smart-aleck big sister, and his clothes a few sizes too large. He'd always wished to fade into the background, to become a part of the crowd like everyone else seemed to do so easily.
He'd never been invisible here, but now he may as well be.
It still didn't feel real.
The cemetery was closed for the night, like everything else was, but the fence wasn't very high. Not to someone like him. Steadying himself with a deep breath, his quickly leapt over it before making his way to a very familiar burial site.
One look at the names and ages were all it took. The feeling hit him like an oncoming train — quick, agonizing.
His breath hitched.
Danny had never been a fan of fire. It was intense, inescapable. At least ice was something that you could battle by bundling up. Fire was raging, hot, and angry — even water couldn't tame it sometimes. Being here — it felt like he was being burned alive.
Even his cryokinesis couldn't save him now.
For the first time in three years, he began to cry.
...
The town was strangely quiet.
The hype from their impromptu visit had mostly settled down, surprisingly, and the town was nearly empty. The stores on either side of the street were already closed, even though it was barely eight in the evening. Most of their windows had been carefully boarded up, and there was no sign of life save the few remaining stragglers that walked quickly, periodically checking over their shoulders. What were they looking out for?
"This place gives me the creeps." Beast Boy's voice cut through the air as they all walked the pathway through the city. He seemed to draw into himself, with crossed arms and hunched shoulders. Robin spared him a glance, "The sooner we find Danny, the sooner we can find what we need and go back home."
"Dude, I'm serious. It smells weird, and something doesn't feel right," he said shakily. Robin looked at him. His features screamed tension, and his hands were trembling. Robin frowned. He often forgot that Beast Boy had a high sensitivity to smell and could detect even the most minute hormones of the body. If Beast Boy thought that something was wrong, then chances were that there was.
The wind picked up slightly, fluttering both Robins and Raven's capes. Raven's look of discontent shown with the slight downward twitch of her lips, and she drew her hands to put her hood up back. Beast Boy shivered again, though from the cold or from fear Robin wasn't quite sure. The few people around them walked with quicker steps. The sun had set a few hours before, and the abnormally fast drop in the temperature was becoming more and more noticeable. It was a good thing Robin had thought to bring his hoodie.
"Will Friend-Danny be okay?" Starfire asked as she floated forward, not bothered by the chill. Instead she flew to take the lead, taking one hand to rest at her forehead in an attempt to look out further. Her green eyes shone with worry—they'd already been searching for about an hour.
"He'll be alright, Star. He can handle himself." Cyborg answered the Tamaranean from the back of the group. He looked forward with a pensive stare, eyebrows still furrowed and muscles tense, unwilling to speak any further.
"Let's just go back to the T-Ship. It's obvious he doesn't want to be found." Beast Boy reasoned, a pleading note in his voice.
"He should not be alone after observing how his former home town has affected him." Starfire turned back to the young changeling with a disapproving stare. Neon green eyes glowed warningly. No one wanted to get on her bad side.
"Exactly! I wouldn't want to be around anyone if I were him." Beast Boy told her. Any reply Starfire was sure to give him was cut off as someone who was clearly in a hurry bumped right into Robin, nearly sending him to the ground. Quick reflexes alone allowed him to steady both himself and the guy who had run into him.
"Woah, you okay?" He asked, grabbing the guy's elbow to prevent him from falling. The man who apparently had his head down looked back up quickly with wide, scared eyes,
"It's almost dark, you shouldn't be out."
The statement caught Robin off-guard. His brows furrowed as he took his hand backed away, deeming the man capable of standing on his own.
"What do you mean?" He asked. The man looked at him as though he had two heads.
"You must not be around here" he said, taking a step back from the Titans, clearly in a rush to leave, "The ghosts like to have fun after dark!"
The group stared at his back as he retreated, before looking at each other.
The chill in the air took on an eerie, quality, and someone screamed in the distance.
Something was coming.
"Titans, go!"
...
Danny jumped as the sound of the ring blasted through the silence. Fingers numb with cold, he fumbled with his hands in an attempt to release his cell-phone from the confines of his pant's pocket. When he pulled it out he swiped to answer quickly, not bothering to look who called him.
"Detective Fenton," he answered mechanically, waiting to see what was so important for someone to call him so late.
"Oh, Danny."
Danny unconsciously clenched the phone a little tighter.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, body tensing. Had she been injured? Had someone else? Sam wasn't the type to call for chit-chat.
"I read the reports, and saw on the news that the Titans were in Amity. I wanted to make sure that you were okay." His stomach dropped.
"I'm fine." he responded, voice measured and blank. Briefly, he cursed the moments of hesitation before his response.
She sighed,"You've always been a horrible liar, Danny."
He let out a choked laugh.
Danny had always hated that about her, hated how she read him like an open book. He'd hated it, but maybe, just maybe, he needed someone who could see him.
"I never wanted to come back here, Sam." his voice cracked at the last word. He took a deep, shuddering breath. There was a hollow feeling in his chest, like his heart had been scooped right out of him.
"You can't run away forever."
He bristled — the words may've been straightforward and maybe even true, but they made him feel like a coward. He wasn't weak, he wasn't a victim, never had been. He'd been a fucking hero, he'd saved the world, he'd-
The anger was fleeting. It slipped through his fingers like beach sand, leaving an empty shell in its wake.
"I-"
Maybe he was a coward, after all.
She sighed from the other end of the line. He could almost see her with her hair up, violet eyes tired behind dark makeup. She'd probably just gotten off work before calling, "I'm sorry. That was… unnecessary. You had every reason to leave Amity to begin with. If I… if it'd happened to me, I don't think I would've been able to stay either. I mean, my parents are a bunch of assholes, but-"
"You're right." he interrupted, if only to get her to stop talking. The pity in her voice hurt too much, made his eyes sting. He couldn't…
"You're right. I shouldn't… I shouldn't run away from my problems," he swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, "It's just, I don't-"
He'd never been a crybaby. Jack Fenton had made sure of that. Injuries that weren't life threatening had been brushed off. He'd learned where the family kept the bandaids and antiseptic at the tender age of four. He knew how to handle himself.
So why did it feel like he was falling apart?
He forced himself to breathe. His chest was tight, and it made no sense whatsoever because there was nothing left in there, really, just an empty space.
"It's hard."
"I know." Her voice was soft like velvet, like the nights when he'd stumbled in through her window a bloody, broken mess and she'd be waiting with a first aid kit in tow, all gentle hands and soothing whispers.
He'd never been a crybaby, but the tears were unstoppable and he was surprised that there was anything left in him at all, what with the waterworks he was letting out tonight.
She had the decency to not say anything about the muffled hiccups he knew were obvious from the other end of the line, thank whatever god was out there watching. Her breaths were steady and reliable, calming. As he wiped away the tears that were slowing down, he tried to match them.
Finally, he cleared his throat, "Jazz would be having a field day right now, wouldn't she?" He tried to keep his voice light, nostalgic, but he couldn't quite tell if it was working.
"Definitely." she answered immediately, a fond amusement in her voice.
"I wonder what she'd think of me now."
He hadn't changed much, really. He was the same, except a little taller, a little angrier. He was still the little boy who ran away from bullies, in the end. Even if he'd wanted to deny it all these years.
Sam must've sensed where his thoughts were going, because after a moment of silence she said, "She'd say you're a hero, but that you're also human, and that you're still growing."
"I'd hope so. Have you seen Jack Fenton?"
Sam laughed.
The conversation was full of small-talk after that, mostly tidbits about what he'd missed at the station while working with the Titans. Eventually, he'd left the graves, making his way towards the T—ship for the night. Apparently, the thing had pull-out beds, and no one wanted to check into a hotel in Amity after dark.
And then he froze in his tracks. The undeniable sensation of ice cold air seeping from his lungs encompassed him, clawing through his throat to form a visible blue mist in the atmosphere around him. He shuddered, the achingly familiar feeling of his ghost form prodding him to change, to react, to fight.
"Danny?" the voice at the other end was concerned. He blinked out of his trance.
"Sam, something came up. I gotta go."
"Danny, w-" he hung up before she continued, wincing to himself. He was gonna regret that later.
But for now, he had bigger things to worry about.
Danny Phantom wanted out, and he wanted justice.
A/N:
Hello everyone! It's FFN user astrovagant! I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. I know it took a long time, but both me and Sephora are very busy college students with jobs, and while I'm taking the semester off, I'm pretty much constantly out of energy and inspiration. We had a good amount of this chapter done a month ago, but it took a lot of time to bridge everything together and we ended up cutting out bits for later use. We ended up cutting out a good four pages and replacing it with other content, so that took some time.
But I'm not here to ramble about why our update took over a month, I actually wanted to mention something else. Firstly, I wanna thank you guys for the reviews. Sephora forwards them to me when she gets them, and they really increase our morale. It's a lot easier to write when you know that people actually like what you're working on, honestly!
But while I do wanna thank y'all for all the great reviews, there's something I wanted to address. There's been a lot of Valerie bashing in the reviews lately, and it's bothering me a lot. Valerie is one of my favorite characters in the series, if not my favorite next to Danny. There are a lot of loveable characters, of course, but as a black person myself, I really love her specifically. As a kid, it was great to see a black girl taking on a big role in a children's show. It wasn't super common back then, y'know! Media still struggles with representation and stereotypes.
But despite the representation in DP, it isn't infallible. Valerie is written as very stereotypical and portrayed as an angry, ignorant black woman. It's a very common portrayal in media, and it's not surprising considering that DP was put out around ten years ago.
That being said, the amount of Valerie bashing in the reviews is really, really upsetting for me. While Danny and Valerie don't get along here, it isn't entirely her fault. What happened to her and her father was awful, and she was fourteen. Kids aren't known to be the most objective people. Hell, even I'm not objective and I just turned twenty. While she was very quick to blame Phantom for her suffering, it makes a lot of sense given the situation. And it doesn't help that Vlad stoked it by convincing her to start hunting ghosts in his own quest to make Danny's life hell.
Given Valerie's established prejudice against ghosts, her blaming Phantom for what happened makes sense here. I'm not saying it's okay, and I don't like it at all because prejudice is prejudice, but media is horrible at writing oppression allegories. In DP, ghosts are institutionally oppressed. However, people of color are also oppressed! We were oppressed in 2005 and we're still oppressed now, in 2016,
I've been really careful to not write Valerie as an angry black woman stereotype here. Yes she is angry, and yes she is black, but her feelings are very, very valid. She isn't a cinnamon roll, and she's misguided, but we've done a lot of set-up for her redemption, and I hate to see the readers completely ignore the nuance of this situation. So please, please, think before you bash her character.
I'm a little upset, so I'm not very coherent, but hopefully I made enough sense for y'all to understand my viewpoint here and have some more sympathy for her here. Danny's extremely upset, and very illogical, and because these scenes are written primarily from his viewpoint it's important to remember that his narration is entirely unreliable, especially given his emotional state.
Anyway, that's enough from me! I didn't mean to get super political here, but I tend to be kind of fiery about this kind of stuff, haha. I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter, and please review if you're able! We really, really love feedback!
Until next time,
astrovagant