Danny rushed through his breakfast. He had been planning on leaving the house early and then waiting a bit before dropping back in as Phantom. Just to make sure no one would connect the two, even if he had been seen hanging out with himself before. Better safe than sorry and all that.
But, unfortunately, he had slept in a little longer than intended. It wasn't entirely his fault; there had been a couple of ghosts during the night that he had had to fight – including Technus, who put up an actual fight.
Sometimes Danny wished that he knew enough about technology to hack Technus' robots. Or that Tucker was there, so he could do it for him.
It was just wistful thinking, however. Danny had no time to learn hacking. And he definitely wouldn't endanger Tucker – or Sam – by dragging them into his fights.
With his breakfast done, Danny chucked his dishes in the sink and shouted a goodbye to his parents down in the lab. Their echoing voices called back, and he ran out of the door. He would've turned into the alley next to the house, but a little more time between him leaving and Phantom appearing would probably be good.
So he walked down a few streets. Moved closer to Amity's park before ducking into an alley. Shifting to Phantom was as exhilarating as always – the feeling of cold energy crackling down his skin, through him.
Then he zipped off. Back towards his house, although the journey was far quicker now. The advantages of flying at high speeds, he supposed.
He made sure to go invisible before he got back. It was a bit of a habit – making sure that no one connected Phantom to the Fentons. Even if they did have a truce now.
The doorbell rang. Loud footsteps could be heard almost immediately, and Danny smiled despite himself. As much as his dad annoyed him sometimes, he couldn't help but love the man.
"Phantom?" his dad asked, already stepping aside to let him come in. "Mads and I were just in the lab. Want to join us?"
Behind him, the door clicked closed. Danny dropped his invisibility, shooting his dad a smile. "Sure. Lead the way."
Jack nodded, walking past him to the kitchen. Danny knew where the lab was, of course, but Phantom didn't. Sometimes it was a little concerning how natural it came to him, pretending to be someone he wasn't. Someone else.
But then he remembered how often it had almost gone wrong. The times he almost endangered himself or other people. All the work he had put into making it come natural.
His dad entered the lab, and Danny floated in right behind him. His mom looked up, her face brightening when she saw him. "Hey Phantom. Came to get the Thermos?"
"Yeah," he said, hovering closer. "But I'm in no rush, so if you want you could continue your ghost studies."
She nodded, leaning over her worktable. When she turned back to him, she chucked something at him.
He caught it by reflex. Looking down, he saw it was a new Fenton Thermos – shiny steel and green accents just like the last one. It was impeccable, smooth metal with a white lid. The only thing that differentiated it from the last one was the metal ring attached to the cap.
"I added a loop so you could attach it to your belt," his mom explained, seeing his confusion. "Unless you prefer to sling it over your back?"
"No, uh. This is fine." He bent down to hang it off of his belt as she suggested. "I didn't like the back strap a lot anyway – too much risk of it getting crushed if I get slammed into a building or the floor."
"Good thinking, kid." His dad sat down next to Maddie, still with a smile on his face.
"Thanks." He grinned back. Somehow he never got over this – over getting complimented as Phantom. Especially by his parents, by the people who had been Phantom's biggest opponents for years.
It was a little bitter-sweet perhaps. And maybe, maybe, he shouldn't have forgiven them so quickly. But they were his parents. They would always be his parents, even if they don't know. He can't hate them. That's just… not the kind of person he was.
"So, uh." He gestured to the lab as a whole. "Ghost studies? What are you interested in learning about today?"
"Would you be opposed to examinations?" His mom folded her hands together, looking pensive. Her goggles were pulled up – a rare sight in the lab. "There is much we could learn from how ghosts function on a physical level."
Danny grimaced. He didn't think he could count the amount of times he had feared dissection – at his parents' hands, mostly. "I, um."
"Nothing serious!" she assured him. "We will explain everything we're doing, so you'll know what's happening. And you'll be allowed to tell us to stop any time."
"It'll be like a medical checkup," his dad added. "If we know what is normal for ghosts, for you, we'll be able to use that later. If we don't know what your normal body temperature is, we won't know if you have a fever. If we don't know what your pulse is, we won't know if it's dropping. That kinda stuff."
That… made a lot of sense. "And I'll be able to quit whenever I want?"
"Of course sweetie. And anything you're uncomfortable with, you tell us and we won't do it." Her violet eyes were warm, loving. The kind of look he associated with Fenton, not Phantom. He barely repressed the urge to check if he was still in ghost form, even though he knew he was.
"Alright," he said. Then, more strongly, he repeated, "Alright."
He wrung his hands together, then squared his shoulders. "What's first, then?"
"Let's start with body temperatures," his dad suggested, digging a thermometer out of a box. "Normally we would try and measure the temperature of your core as well, but I can't think of a way to do that without, well…"
Danny snorted. "I get it, I get it." He took the thermometer from his dad, looking it over. "D'you think it would work if I turned it intangible? I could try phasing it part-way through my chest so you can measure my core?"
"It's worth a shot." His mom pulled a notebook closer to her, clicking her pen. "Try measuring your temperature normally first, and then you can try repeating that with the thermometer intangible. If that matches your normal temp, you can try using it on your core as well."
"Sounds good." Danny twirled the thermometer around, then stuck it in his mouth. He had to admit that he was a little curious. He knew some of the very basics of how his ghost form worked – but only the things he had to know. How blood and ectoplasm measured up against each other, how ectoplasm was visible in his blood but blood wasn't visible in his ectoplasm. More mundane things, like his body temperature, he had never checked.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Danny couldn't talk with the thermometer in his mouth, and his parents didn't seem to be bothered by the resulting quiet. Maybe they just enjoyed the moment of peace that they had achieved. A ghost and two ghost hunters, sitting around. Like a family.
Which they were, but, well. The other two didn't know that.
Finally his mom gestured for the thermometer. Danny pulled it out of his mouth and handed it over without comment. He simply leaned forwards, elbow resting on his knee, and asked, "And, what's the prognosis? Am I gonna die?"
She snorted, shaking her head at him. "Might be too late for that, Phantom. Although your body temperature is fairly high for a ghost. Still nowhere close to a human, though."
Danny nodded. He had figured as much. Ghosts felt cold to him when he touched them, and humans felt warm. It was to be expected that he was somewhere in the middle, then.
His dad pulled out some other equipment. The stethoscope, Danny recognized. He wasn't sure what the other machine was for, though. He frowned.
"This is used to measure your heartbeat," his dad explained, apparently catching the cause of his confusion. "It might pinch a little – it'll inflate to put pressure around your arm. Do you want to start with this, or with your breathing?"
He shrugged. "Might as well start with the pulse thing, right?"
Kneeling, his dad started fastening the armband around Danny's upper arm. "We'll measure it twice, if that's okay with you. Once now, and then again after a few physical tests. See if your heartbeat gets elevated, and if it does, what your normal max is."
"Sounds good to me." The machine hummed as the band started to inflate. Like his dad had said, it felt a little uncomfortable, a little too tight. But it was alright. And knowing what it was supposed to do, the purpose behind it, made it feel less like a trapping and more like… well, like the machine it actually was.
After a few minutes the armband deflated again. "Well kid, if you were a human I'd be worried." But his dad said it with a smile, so Danny wasn't too concerned. Besides, he already knew his heartbeat was slow, even in human form.
"Good thing I'm not, huh?" He phased the armband off and handed it back to his dad. "Breathing first, or exercises?"
"Let's do breathing first," his mom suggested, looking over the notes Jack had taken. "If you're okay with it, we can test your abilities for the exercises."
He hummed an affirmative and started to unzip his jumpsuit. It felt a little weird to sit around his parents bare-chested, but, well. They had seen him naked plenty of times, hadn't they?
His dad kneeled in front of him with the stethoscope. Danny had to repress a shiver when his dad gently put the thing to his chest – the metal was cold even on the skin of his ghost form.
A couple of breathing exercises later, Jack stepped away again and Danny gratefully pulled his jumpsuit closed. It hadn't been anything spectacular – take a deep breath, now huff it out again – but it was a bit of a hassle.
It might come in handy later, he knew. But for the moment he was mostly doing it to placate his parents.
"Let's do weight next," his mom said, snapping Danny out of his thoughts again.
"Weight?" he repeated, frowning at her. "What do you need to know that for?"
"Curiosity, mostly." His dad shrugged at him, still smiling. "Your structure is a lot more complicated, a lot more human, than most ghosts. We want to see how that impacts your weight."
A scale was dragged out of one of the many boxes in the lab. Internally, Danny marveled at all the stuff his parents owned that he never knew about. Why did they even own some of these things? A heartbeat monitor couldn't be normal equipment for people specializing in researching ghosts, right?
Obediently, he stepped on the scale. Made sure to tamper down his ghost powers as much as possible without shifting back. Floating, after all, came naturally to him in ghost form.
"Interesting." His mom noted down the weight. Danny had to repress the urge to lean over and see what she wrote down. So sue him for being curious! He was the kid of scientists, after all. "Heavier than most ghosts, but not by as much as I expected. Ectoplasm is ectoplasm, I suppose."
Danny shrugged. "I guess so? I never really looked into it."
Now his dad stepped forward again, a measuring tape in his hands. Frowning, Danny turned to him. "And measuring my height is good for what, exactly?"
"You look like you've grown since you started protecting Amity Park, but we have no real way to prove this." His dad held up the tape, as if presenting it. "But if we measure you now, and then try it again later, that might do it. If you get taller, that'll be official proof that you do grow."
"Oh, I see." He cocked his head towards the nearest wall. "Want me to stand against that to make sure I stand straight?"
"Good idea, kid." His dad followed him to the wall, and Danny pressed himself against it. Made sure to flatten himself completely – and made sure not to stand on his toes. He would've worried about his parents connecting his two forms because they just happen to be the same height, but his parents haven't measured Danny's height in forever. And with his teenage growth spurt (his unfortunately very slow growth spurt) he no longer matched that, anyway.
"5'7," Jack concluded with a nod. "A good height for a teenager, but with room for more growth."
"That's what I'm hoping for." Danny shot him a grin, leaving his parents to conclude if it was a joke or not. He already knew that he grew – his ghost form continued to match his human one, and he had kept a fearful eye on his height. He hadn't been able to repress his fears that he might be too ghostly to grow – stuck the same way forever.
Thankfully this hadn't been the case – and he was not doomed to be a teenager forever. Or the shortest one in his friend group.
Well, he hoped he was still gonna catch up on Sam and Tucker. Sam, at least, he could surely surpass. His dad was enormous – Danny couldn't imagine being short for the rest of his life with genes like that.
"So, uh. Powers?" he asked, realizing that things had gone quiet.
His mom nodded, flipping to a new page in the notebook. "Well, we would like to record all of your powers, of course. If we know how many you have now, and how good they are, we could look into a training regime to help improve them."
Wow. It was like Vlad, except less "let me kill your dad". And less knowledge about ghosts, but that was something that Danny was more than happy to give up on in return for the "no killing" thing.
"Sounds good to me. But I can't show you everything. Some things, like enhanced healing, I can't really demonstrate."
"Of course kiddo." His dad pulled out another box, revealing a bunch of weights. "But we'll start with the more mundane things, so we can count them as exercises."
Danny floated closer, then landed on the floor next to his dad. "Let me guess. We're starting with my physical strength?"
He grabbed one of the weights out of the box. It didn't feel very heavy. "So am I just supposed to hold as many of these as possible?"
"Yup." His dad grabbed a weight in each hand, then handed one over to Danny. "I'll pile them on for you, you just have to hang on to them."
Nodding, he took the two weights from his dad. After a moment of thought, he curled his arms against his chest, forming a pit of sorts he could stack them in. "Load me up!"
With a laugh, his dad did exactly that. He started stacking them on two at a time, occasionally glancing at Danny to make sure it wasn't too heavy.
They kept that up for a while before Danny's knees buckled and he almost crushed his dad under the weights. The final weight was noted down, despite Danny swearing up and down that he has carried more than that before.
"We'll try again after getting your elevated pulse," his mom soothed as his dad pulled out the stethoscope and monitor again. "It's possible that you can carry more while you're flying. After all, flying depends on the low-gravity properties of ectoplasm, which might make it easier to carry heavy weights."
"Yeah." The armband was fastened around his arm again. "That makes sense."
So, as it turned out, his elevated heartbeat matched his human one. It made him a little curious to see what it would be in his human form. Maybe he would swipe the monitor at a later moment to test it himself. Like his parents had said, it could be useful to know!
And maybe he was a little curious. Maybe.
Per his insistence, they went back to measuring his strength. And, as his mom had suggested, he was able to carry more while flying. That, especially, was a good thing to know. Knowing that he could lift more while airborne would help him keep people safe, after all.
Testing his enhanced senses was a lot easier. While his range of vision and hearing were the same as a human's, they were more sensitive. He could see further, had almost impeccable night vision (while in ghost form at least), and he could hear noises from much farther away. Taste and scent were, thankfully, equal to when he was human. He couldn't imagine those being of much use, anyway.
After that, testing his enhanced reflexes was a logical choice. His parents would throw objects at him, often without warning. Although they did switch to bits of trash or other disposable objects after Danny destroyed the first few things by reflex.
So sue him, usually if things flew at him while he was Phantom they were meant to hurt him! The few times he had caught the weapons, they had always been turned against him. 9 out of 10 times they would turn out to be explosives, or otherwise traps.
Thankfully he hadn't hit his parents – or anything besides the stuff they threw at him. More training might be a good thing after all, if only to make it so that he wasn't so quick to lash out.
Wow, it was almost like he always used his ghost form to fight ghosts. If only he had more people in the know, he could spend more time as Phantom without fighting. There was, after all, a limit to how much time he could spend in the Zone with his allies. Sooner or later his parents would start missing him.
Maybe he would have to start visiting more often as Phantom. That might be… nice.
"We have no way to test your enhanced healing, so I think it's time to move on to your regular ghost powers. Don't you agree, Phantom?"
Danny snapped out of his thoughts, locking eyes with his dad. "Um. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Starting with the three main ghost powers?"
"Yes. Let's start with intangibility, please?" His mom clicked the pen in her hand, ready to take notes.
"Uh, right." Turning himself intangible, Danny flew out of the lab and back in through the walls. Then he dove through a few tables for good measure. "And as you know, I can turn objects or people intangible as well. But last time Jack said that it felt weird, so I don't usually if I can prevent it."
His mom turned to raise a skeptical eyebrow at his dad. The man just shrugged, a sheepish smile on his face. "It felt kinda tingly. Made me feel weird in the stomach."
"Tingly?" Danny repeated, brow creased. "Yeah, I think that that describes it well. That's how I first started identifying it as well, when I couldn't control it well yet."
"You couldn't control your powers at first?" She turned back to him, looking intrigued. "I would assume that ghosts form with perfect control."
"Nah. Not over all their powers, at least." Danny shrugged. "I know I didn't have good control. I couldn't maintain powers well, and I kept accidentally using them as well. It was kind of embarrassing. And new powers are difficult as well, but that seems to be common. Most ghosts don't gain new powers very often, but they often need guidance with them if it does happen."
She nodded, quickly noting it down. "Would you mind using your intangibility on me as well, then? I have to admit that I'm curious what it feels like, now."
Laughing, he flew over to her and grabbed her shoulders. "Sure. I'll fly through the wall and then back again, okay?"
Another nod, this time of approval. Danny tapped into his intangibility again, this time letting it flow through him and over his mom. She shivered but didn't protest.
He flew them through the wall and then immediately back again. From experience, he knew that it was weird to be fully underground while intangible. A little scary, even. There was always this fear of going tangible again while buried. It had gotten better for him – he often used the ground now to hide for ambush attacks – but his mom wouldn't be protected by that.
"That was…" she trailed off, falling silent.
Letting go, Danny floated a little back. "We warned you that it would feel weird."
"Yeah, you did." She shook her head. "But let's move on to invisibility, okay?"
"Sure." And he blinked out of visibility instantly. Slowly, he flew some laps around the lab. While he could turn himself invisible, he could still give himself away with the wind that rushed past him.
Coming to a halt right next to his dad, Danny leaned in right next to his ear. Then, quietly so his mom wouldn't hear, he whispered, "Don't be scared, it's just me."
Then he laid his hands on his dad's shoulders and turned the man invisible as well.
His mom started, turning in the direction where Jack had been. "Phantom?" she asked, a little wary.
"Sorry," he said from much closer, popping back into visibility. A smirk was on his face, and a wide smile on his dad's face. "I couldn't resist."
She shook her head disapprovingly, but sighed somewhat fondly. "I suppose all ghosts are pranksters, even if they aren't malevolent, huh?"
"Might just be a teenager thing," Jack suggested with a wink. "But it was a very interesting experience! Didn't feel as weird as intangibility, but it was a lot different visually."
"Yeah?" That was interesting. Danny never heard about what his powers felt like to others. The only reason why he knew about intangibility was because his dad pointed it out before – and sometimes people he saved complained that it felt weird. Invisibility he rarely shared with other people. Or never, even. "How's that?"
"Well, for starters, seeing myself see-through was strange." He raised his hands, wiggling the fingers. "And being able to see you while you were invisible was pretty unexpected as well."
"Really?" His mom frowned, eyes darting between the two of them. "You could see Phantom even while he was invisible?"
"I think it makes sense," Danny admitted with a shrug. "He was piggy-backing off of my invisibility, so it makes sense that he was immune to its effects. I can see anything I turn invisible as well – it just makes sense."
"Yes, if you put it like that it makes perfect sense." Maddie shook her head, pen scribbling on the paper. "But knowing that it works the same the other way around is very interesting. Flight next?"
His legs melted together in a ghostly tail. "I've been flying around the whole time. What else do you want to know about it?"
"How fast can you go?" his dad asked, looking interested. "Top speeds seem to differ between ghosts, but you might be one of the fastest we see in Amity Park. And it would make sense – you need to be able to catch up with enemy ghosts."
Danny blinked. Yes, that did make sense. "I've… never measured it. Never thought much about it, to be honest. Do you guys have some way to measure speed?"
"We should." His mom put the notepad down, eyes roving over some of the storage boxes. "There should be a speed gun in one of those boxes. We used it to measure the top speed of some of our inventions – like the GAV and the Specter Speeder."
He flew over to the boxes, hovering over them. Then he turned his hand intangible and stuck it in, rummaging around. "Shaped like a gun, right?"
"Well, yeah, but you won't find it–" his mom started to say. Then he pulled his hand back out, white gloved fingers clenched around a speed gun, "– like that. You can touch things even while intangible?"
"Uh, yeah." He played with the gun in his hand, slowly floating back to his parents. "I can reach out with my power to kind of… 'feel' the objects? Like turning them intangible on touch, except I don't actually supply enough power to do anything?"
"Clever," his mom complimented, taking the gun from him. Then she grew serious again. "Does intangibility affect your speed?"
"Nope." He shook his head for good measure. "But corners do, so I'll fly through the wall."
She aimed the gun at the wall, then nodded at him. "Ready when you are."
Zipping through the wall, Danny forced himself to go as quickly as possible. Not just for himself, not just to prove he could do it, but to make his parents proud.
He hadn't realized how little he saw them with pride in their eyes until now. Seeing how they looked at Phantom whenever he impressed them. It made him realize how far he had grown apart since he had become Phantom. Keeping his secret away from them, from everyone… it had caused a divide. One he hadn't noticed until now.
Confident that he had reached his top speed, Danny dove through the wall. Wind whistled through him – not just his ears, but his entire body – and he saw little more of the lab than colorful blurs.
Once the world had gone dark again, he slowed and turned around to phase back into the lab.
Panting a little from the effort, he leaned back against the wall he had come through. "And? Any good?"
"Well, 186 miles per hour sure isn't shabby, kid." His dad grinned, wide and bright and proud. "That's about 300 kilometers per hour, too."
Danny couldn't help his impressed whistle. "Damn, that's even higher than I thought."
"Language," his mom snapped. Then her eyes widened as she realized that, once again, she had corrected him for cursing.
"Darn, that's even higher than I thought," Danny repeated, emphasizing the first word. He re-angled himself so his feet touched the wall, letting himself stand on the vertical surface so he wasn't floating anymore. "Was that better?"
"How're you doing that?" his dad asked before Maddie could say anything. "Are you standing on the wall?"
"Uh, yeah." He walked around a little, demonstrating. Then with a shrug, stepped onto the ceiling instead. "It's like a subset of flight. But it's kind of useless – most ghosts prefer regular flight."
"Fascinating." His dad's voice was quiet with awe. Or, well, as quiet as Jack Fenton got. "But what would make a ghost prefer this over flight?"
Danny let himself drop from the ceiling again, flipping mid-air to land on his feet. "Usually overshadowing ghosts prefer it. I think it might be because the bodies are so much heavier than the ghost is used to carrying? But I dunno. I don't overshadow a lot, but it never bothered me."
"But you've overshadowed people before?" His mom looked at him critically. Criticizing.
He grimaced. Couldn't exactly tell them that he had overshadowed his dad before to get out of trouble with school. "A couple of times," he ended up admitting. "But only for short moments, and usually only to drive out other ghosts. It's either that or ecto-rays, usually, and neither are well-received."
"No, I would imagine not." But her eyes softened, and the corners of her lips turned up a little. "The lesser of two evils might still be seen as evil, after all."
"Let's not give this one a field test, then." His dad clapped him on the shoulder, and Danny almost stumbled at the sudden contact. "I already know what it's like to be overshadowed, and it's not a power we should train."
"Definite agree." Danny lifted up a little, floating at shoulder-height with his dad. "I don't like using it anyway."
His mom looked over the notebook, then glanced at the clock. "Maybe we should save the rest of your powers for another time. It's getting late, and we haven't eaten since breakfast."
"Same, to be honest." He looked at the clock as well, surprised to see that it had been a good few hours already. "Jeez, it's like 3 in the afternoon already. Time flies, huh?"
"We'll make it a light lunch," his mom decided, closing the notebook and laying it down on a desk. "If we eat too much it'll mess with dinner."
Then she turned to face him, a warm smile on her face. "Speaking of which, do you want to stay for dinner, Phantom?"
Danny froze. Licked his lips, uncertain. "I, uh. I sh– can't. Gotta patrol Amity, make sure no one is causing trouble, y'know?"
She wilted a little, but nodded. "I see. Will you stay for lunch, at least?"
His stomach rumbled, answering for him. Sometimes he forgot how much energy he burned through using his ghost powers – and maintaining his ghost form in general. "Yeah, I can do that. Just can't stay until tonight."
Lunch was a rather familiar event. Not just for him, because this was his family, and it felt natural to sit around and eat together. But also, it seemed, for his parents. Maybe they, too, settled naturally around him because he was their son, even if they didn't know it.
Or maybe he just ate lunch with them too often. He was pretty sure that this was the third time he had eaten with them as Phantom, despite it only being his fourth visit.
The three of them had teamed up to do the dishes. His mom washed them, his dad dried them, and then Danny floated them to the right places using his telekinesis. He had to ask for instructions a few times, pretending he didn't know where the dishes were stored, which was a little weird. But not too weird, considering, well, everything about his life.
Besides, it was good practice! Telekinesis was still new to him, after all. And while he had enough control over it to not drop small items, moving with precision was still tricky.
He didn't even hear the front door opening. Not until a sharp gasp came from the doorway.
The sound startled him so badly that he lost grip of his telekinesis. He lunged forward to catch the glass. Barely saved it from shattering on the floor.
"Phantom?!" his sister said, incredulous. She turned from him, lying flat on the floor with a glass in his hands, to his – their – parents. "Why is he here?"
His mom, having just dried off her hands, took the glass from his hands. He shot her a grateful smile, pushing himself off of the floor again.
"Well, as you could see, we were doing the dishes," he explained, with the smirk he knew frustrated his enemies. The stupid snarky smile that everyone loved or hated.
The dry look Jazz shot him back just made him grin wider. "Uh huh. And was that all you were doing?"
"He was just helping us with some research Jazzy-pants, no worries!" Jack quickly started drying the last few dishes. "Nothing he wasn't okay with."
She still didn't look very convinced. "Right. And he chose to help?"
"Well, yeah." Danny took the dried plate from his dad and put it away – this time not using his telekinesis. It was already tricky enough while he wasn't maintaining a tough conversation. "That's kind of the point of our truce, isn't it? They help me, I help them?"
"Are you telling me you guys have a truce?" Jazz, eyes growing wide, looked between him and Maddie. "Since when?!"
"Couple of weeks, a month? Something like that." Jack handed the last dish to Danny. "He dropped by heavily injured, and we helped him. After that he forgave us for hunting him, and we've been working on being, well, better."
Putting the last plate away, Danny rolled his eyes. "There was nothing to forgive you for, you know? You were just doing what you thought was best."
"Unbelievable," Jazz said, voice quiet. "You're all frigging unbelievable. You're just gonna move past all the trauma, just like that?"
"Uh. Yeah?" Danny shrugged, turning to face her properly. "They didn't do anything too bad, anyway. And they've been really helpful since – I wouldn't be around anymore if it wasn't for them."
"Oh." Some of the tension drained from her posture, and suddenly she looked more tired. Still, she eyed him speculatively. "You're… different. Not how you usually are."
"You know, I've noticed the same," his mom admitted, now also eyeing him. "You act different in public."
"Of course I do." He sat down on a chair, gesturing for the rest to join him. Might as well sit down for the conversation, right? "Out there, I'm like a hero, right? An icon for Amity Park, a protector. So I gotta be a hero. Not just do heroic things, but I have to act like one."
"But the snark is all you, huh?" His mom smiled at him, knowingly, as she sat down. "The constant jokes?"
"Oh, definitely. Besides, it's got a purpose. A well-placed quip can act as a distraction, letting me take the upper hand in a fight." He shrugged. "Gotta take every advantage I can get, y'know?"
Jazz sat down as well, taking the chair opposite of him. "Doesn't that ever hurt, though? To put up a facade, to constantly fight for Amity and never get appreciated for it?"
"Absolutely." He huffed out a breath. "Especially back at the start, when everyone hated me and called me Inviso-Bill instead of my name. When people framed me and ruined the reputation I worked so hard to build up."
He shook his head. "But I couldn't – can't – let that get to me. Protecting Amity Park and its people is more important. Whether or not they liked me didn't matter."
"But why," she insisted, her elbows resting on the table as she leaned forward. "Why is this so important to you? I thought ghostly obsessions were a disproved theory?"
"They are." He rolled his eyes, looking away from her for a moment to collect his thoughts. "But as I told your parents the first time I was around, I got a good reason to protect Amity. Just because I'm dead doesn't mean that my family is."
She pulled back, her eyes growing wide again. "Your family still lives here? Wow. They must be really grateful that you're here to keep them safe, then."
Oh, the irony. One day they would look back to this and laugh. But not now – he wasn't ready to reveal his secret. Not yet.
"Not really," he said instead. "They don't know that I'm Phantom. I never told them – they hate ghosts, and I didn't want to hurt them with that. With knowing that their own kid became the thing they hated most."
His mom sighed, sad and weary. "I just wish you would tell us who they are, Phantom. Maybe we could convince them. Don't you miss them, your friends and your family?"
"It's fine the way it is now," he insisted instead. "They're… getting better. They're changing, slowly but surely. And it's not like I never see them, anyway. I can keep an eye on them, and when the time comes…" He fidgeted with the edge of his glove, looking for the right words. "When the time comes, I'll tell them."
And he wanted to. He really did plan on telling them, eventually. Because, sooner or later, they would all find out.
It had happened before, after all. In alternate timelines, changed realities. And they had always accepted him – in the moment, at least. But he couldn't know it would go afterwards. Would they still let him hunt ghosts? Would they insist on endangering themselves, trying to help?
He couldn't know, and he didn't want to risk it.
"No wonder that Spectra was so fixated on you," Jazz mumbled, breaking the silence. "She was crazy for negative emotions, wasn't she?"
"Yeah." He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus back on the present instead of what-if's and could-be's. "She's a nasty one."
"What's this?" his dad asked, leaning forward as well. "What are we missing here?"
"Phantom saved me from a nasty ghost, back when he was still new." She shrugged, looking surprisingly casual about it. "She wanted to kill me, I think."
"I saved you?" Danny snorted, incredulous. "Dude, without your save with the Fenton Peeler she would've wrecked me."
"Alright, so we saved each other." She smiled, but the corners sagged and she looked more sad than anything. "Either way, what she said was wrong. You shouldn't believe anything she told you, okay?"
Wait. How much had Jazz heard of that conversation?
"I know. That's what Spectra does. She finds the thing that hurts you most, that you feel most insecure about, and digs in. And then the negative feelings make her stronger, and she then makes them worse, and it becomes this horrible spiral you can't break out of." He paused, licked his lips. "But, uh. How much did you hear from that?"
Wow. Smooth, Fenton.
"Not much," Jazz admitted. "Only the last bit, I think. But I heard enough."
She shook her head, frowning. "'Who cares for a thing like you', jeez. Like you aren't constantly out there, making a difference. Like it matters that you're a ghost." Her smile widened again, becoming more genuine. "If my parents, the most ghost-hating individuals in Amity Park, can be convinced that not all ghosts are bad, what does it matter?"
He huffed out a laugh. "Nothing Spectra says matters. She just spews vile lies. And when you fight her off, you start realizing that. I already knew she was wrong. But, uh. Thanks."
"No Phantom, thank you. For keeping Amity Park safe." She looked from him and to their parents. "For doing the right thing, even when everyone was against you. I can't imagine how hard it has been for you."
She turned back to smile at him again. Her hand came down on his, the warm fingers curling around his gloved ones. "Thank you, Phantom. And if you ever need someone to talk to, just remember us. Okay?"
"Uh. Yeah." He tugged his hand away from hers, a green blush crawling up on his cheeks. It felt a little like Jazz was crushing on Phantom, and that thought made him more than a little uncomfortable. "Um. Thanks, everyone. For everything. But I gotta, uh. Gotta go."
"Patrol, right?" His mom shook her head, resigned. "Stay safe, Phantom. And drop by more often, will you?"
Nodding, he was already lifting out of his seat. "I will, for sure." He gave a short wave. "See you guys later, and stay safe!"
As he flew off, he heard the three of them shout back, "You as well!"
Wow it's been like 2.5 months since I last updated this? wild. Anyway, it's gonna be weekly updates from here on out - every Saturday, until the final chapter will go up! I pulled it off for Disinterred so I'm sure I'll manage it for WaNS as well, even if the chapters are longer and the buffer smaller.
As for the chapter itself... yay, Jazz is finally here! Can you believe that I initially started writing WaNS because I wanted Jazz to meet Danny in this AU, and then it took 10.000 words for it to actually happen. Yikes.