Danny Fenton was having a weird and not particularly pleasant week. His Dad had finally encountered the Box Ghost, who took one look at him and glitched out like a bethesda character before apparently regaining his memories. Apparently the Box Ghost was Jason Fenton, older brother of Jack Fenton. The Box Ghost was Danny's Uncle. That was weird as fuck to discover, especially when he implied that Box Lunch would be a person he'd have to deal with soonish. He was going to have a cousin.

His already living cousin, Wes, had decided later that week to ruin Danny's life by asking him right in front of Jazz and Mom if he still had that giant green dog thing he'd crashed a game with. Danny dragged him up to the third floor of Fentonworks, shoved him into his room, and learned very quickly that Wes had figured out that he was Phantom the moment he focused on him. "Orion, man, you can't just imply I'm a ghost in front of Mom or Dad!"

"Why not?" Wes stared at him like he'd grown a second head - he hadn't, he knew the sensation - and Danny took a moment to redirect the energy surging to his eyes over his skin and outward. It blanketed the room in a wave and left what Tucker had described as the feeling of touching an old tv and feeling static on your fingers all over the place. Wes rubbed his arm and raised a brow at him.

"Wes, tell me what Jack Fenton is going to think if you tell him 'hey that ghost kid you shoot at all the time is your kid'? Actually, no, how the fuck did you even figure it out?"

"You look like you put on your suit and then someone turned on the color inversion filter on their camera. Blue skin, white hair, black and white suit." Wes paused and poked Danny's cheek, looking him in the eye. "Your eyes should be orange instead of green though if that were the whole case. How'd this happen? Last time I talked to you, you n Tucker were talking about building a motorcycle that could fly."

"The hoverbike has sorta been put on hold, I'll admit," Danny grumbled, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. He pulled his hands away from his face and Wes was still there, tall and stupid and overly observant. "If I tell you what happened, do you promise not to out me to my parents?"

"I-should I treat this like you're in the closet?" Wes snorted at the idea. "Closeted dead guy. Alright, I can get that. But uh, if you're dead, why are you still…" he wiggled his hand and then gestured at Danny's room. "In a house with ghost hunters?"

"Well, to start with, I'm not actually dead. Not entirely, anyway." Danny sat down on his bed and Wes followed, and after taking a moment to triple check that Vlad's bugs weren't in his room with another wave of energy, Danny told Wes the story of the Accident. It was a short story, but he was slow about it. He'd never really discussed it with anyone, Sam and Tucker just sort of knew better than to bring it up and Jazz probably thought he'd tell her himself in his own time. By the time he finished, Wes looked almost as uncomfortable with the situation as Danny felt.

"You know, not to sound like a cheesy 90's cartoon character but this is why you shouldn't give into peer pressure." Danny snorted and laughed at that, and Wes grinned even when Danny elbowed him. "Ok, so I'm putting together that you did a bunch of dumb shit and found yourself decided to be a superhero. What the fuck was up with the dog, or the mayor getting kidnapped? Your eyes were fuckin red when you stole a bunch of shit that one time too."

"Ok in order of what all happened: Axiom labs euthanized their guard dogs and one of them came looking for his squeaky toy but forgot where it was and no matter how many times I shoved Cujo back into the portal-"

"Cujo?" Wes snorted and ruffled Danny's hair. "Have you been reading the stuff Sam gives you, or did your emo phase just never really end? You have the emo bangs."

"I do not!" Danny huffed, running a hand through his curly hair that, well, Wes couldn't really ruin a mess, could he? "You're the one with actual bangs, sasquatch hunter."

"Acknowledging that Big Foot is real doesn't mean I'm gonna go and shoot it." Wes crossed his arms and rested them on Danny's head. "By the way, any idea when that growth spurt is due?"

"Bold words for someone with his shins within targeting range."

"I can and will put you in a headlock astroboy."

"I can slam dunk you through a hoop like your precious balls." Wes said nothing to this and simply leaned more onto Danny's head. "If I snap my neck because of you I'm suing. Anyway no matter how often I yeeted Cujo back into the Ghost Zone-"

"I beg of you to call it something cooler. Call it the afterlife even, just. Please."

"He just kept digging his way out. So, I looked at his tag, saw that he came from Axiom, and we ended up in there, while getting shot at by the Red Huntress-"

"Valerie, right?"

"H-"

"She appeared as the Huntress literally the same time the dog shit was happening, and I am getting increasingly worried that no one has noticed that she sounds the same in her Red Huntress suit as she does in the Nasty Burger mascot suit." Wes dropped his arms to Danny's shoulder, but still rested his chin in his hair, humming loudly. Danny slid into that spot between and snorted when Wes fell onto the bed.

"I can't tell you how pissed she was that I outed her to her dad about being the Huntress so that she wouldn't get herself killed fighting Pariah Dark. Pretty sure if you tell her or anyone else about that, she'll shoot you."

"I mean, it'd probably get her swarmed by so much hostility she stops shooting at you, so that'd be a plus. I'd just come back and bug you anyway."

"You're a jerk, but I guess you're alright." Danny flopped back. "The mayor thing was a ghost, this douche bag prison warden named Walker in the GZ who decided that since I broke out of his prison I owe him over a thousand years and he'd make my home a prison instead."

Wes stared at him, clasped his hands flat against each other, and took a deep breath. "There are so many things wrong in that sentence. Why were you in ghost prison?"

"I did ghost crimes." Wes looked and sounded like he was in some deal of pain, and Danny couldn't help but grin. "Dad's anniversary present for Mom fell through the portal while I was cleaning up by shooting things into their proper place," he covered Wes' mouth as he opened it, "and so I flew in after it, but it was a real world item as though the Ghost Zone is fake somehow, and that was 'Against The Rules' according to Walker." Danny rolled his eyes. "I got the present out and back to Dad but I had to like, get to him at your mom's place."

"Did you fly all the way from Minnesota to Arkansas for a present?"

"Arcturus, no, not with my powers." Danny laughed, laying back on his bed. "That'd take me like, 8 hours at top speed. No, I used the Speeder."

"Have you modified it to get into space?"

"Not yet."

"Do you have permission to mod it for space travel?"

"Do I have permission to be dead?"

"Touche."

"Anyway, Walker is stronger than me, even when possessing a human, so when all eyes and cameras were on me he possessed the mayor and dragged me back inside to make it look like I was dragging him in. Whole invasion was his idea."

"Danny?"

"And then with the robberies when my eyes were red, did you know about Circus Gothica? Cause me and some other ghosts were under the control of the ring master of the circus, Freakshow, who had this freakin crystal ball thing that could control ghosts attached to his staff. It shattered after a very long fall, thank Astrea."

"That's really fucked up. You've had a fucked up life."

"Yeah." Danny shrugged. "I guess I have."

"Know what's more fucked up about this?" Wes had a too big grin on his face and Danny narrowed his eyes. "Do you remember my mom's last name?"

"Wal..ker...no." The two of them were thundering down the stairs in seconds, Danny half shouting in the livingroom. "Mom was your dad, by chance, a law enforcement officer, or jail warden or something?"

Mom looked up at him from the staff she was tinkering with on the table - note to self, sterilize the table before dinner - and blinked at him a couple of times before smiling and nodding. "Why yes, he did. Warden James Lamont Walker ran the Spittoon prison when he was alive. To my and Alicia's fury and grief he was murdered during a prison break." Mom stared off in the distance, the air around her curling with a dark cold that Danny was sure only he could see. Then she softened up a bit and smiled softly at them. "Why?"

"No reason, auntie, I was just curious about something and Danny thought we should ask you." Wes played with the hem of his shirt while maintaining eye contact and Danny wondered if he had a tell for awkwardness like that. Then he realized he was rubbing the back of his neck. "Do you have any pictures of him?"

"Oh, yes! They're in the shed! My boxes are actually labelled."

"Uh oh, careful, Dad might hear of organization and come to tear it up," Danny said with a laugh, half dragging Wes out the back door. When they were out of his mom's considerable ear shot, Danny said softly, but with feeling, "Fuck."

"Got locked up by grandpa, huh? That's like, the worst way to get grounded ever." Wes snickered and watched Danny run-walk up to the shed, hand glowing so softly you could only see it by staring directly at it as he turned the knob.

"There are odds, slim ones, that this is a whole different Walker. It might even be his first name."

"Who the hell names their kid Walker?"

"Walter, Wayne and Wesley Weston."

"Alright then."

For a few minutes the two of them searched through the mess known as the Fenton Family Shed for a box with a label neither had thought to ask for. Eventually, they found one labeled Scrapbooks and carefully eased it out of the mess of it all. "Y'knonw, Danny," Wes said as they opened the box and started flipping through scrapbooks with just enough care not to damage them. "I'm feelin kinda good about investigating a ghost with you. Is this how it is with you n your boyfriend and best friend?" Danny almost tore a page out, turning to stare at Wes. He must've felt the temperature drop for a second because he looked up with a raised brow. "What?"

"Boyfriend?"

"Tucker. Tucker Foley." Danny's jaw dropped and Wes' confusion morphed into a shit eating grin. "You know, Tucker spends most of his time with you Foley? The one you build shit with all the time? The nerd that you get sick in sync with? I've seen you lose a pencil and then he puts one behind your ear while you look for the one you lost. You made him a custom gaming computer disguised as a console."

Danny's face burned red as a tomato at this point and he shoved Wes. "Shut up I'm not dating Tucker!"

"I have to ask Jazz about this now, you're killing me." Wes snorted and flipped a page. He blinked down at the scrapbook and pointed at a picture. "James Walker. This look anything like him?"

Danny took the book and looked at the picture. Looked at the several pictures of the man with his daughters, wearing a black pinstriped suit in a handful of them. And he let out a long, loud groan. "I hate this week, I hate it so much." Wes started cackling and Danny scowled. "That reminds me." He kicked Wes in the shins and grinned. "Much better. Also, Wes, I gotta tell you. I'm not one of a kind, as far as my living status goes."

"Oh what, there's another schrodinger's little shit flying around out there?" Wes rubbed his ankle and hissed.

"Well, you didn't hear it from me, but that fruitloop we call a mayor may have been elected because he possessed literally everyone that was voting." Wes went silent, and stared at him, and Danny nodded. "Think you can pester him instead of me? He wants to kill Dad and thinks that he can get Mom if he does that."

"Danny. My Dad works for Masters."

"This puts you in the perfect position to mess with him, I say. Just act like you're there to see your dad."

"You oblivious asshole. I fuckin love you, cous."

"Same here, skyscraper."