"Of all the dumb luck," Danny muttered to himself as he walked back towards his house. He had been hoping to just enjoy his time at the pool with no one he knew to see him. It wasn't that he was ashamed to be seen by anyone. On the contrary Danny was actually happy to have finally hit puberty and put on some height and muscle over the last year. He had filled out a decent bit and considered himself a good build which likely came from all the ghost hunting and running around he did all the time.
He walked along the sidewalk in his swimsuit and sandals mulling over the fact that the best time for him to enjoy his swimming alone was going to be under the watch of Dash. He liked to swim in the morning, the water was still cool and there were rarely a lot of people there so he pretty much had the whole pool to himself. Still, the thought that his bully would be there made him feel uncomfortable and annoyed. Sure he hadn't been bullied that much since the start of this year but all the memories of when Dash had shoved him into a locker, stolen his clothes in gym, and pulled various pranks on him that got him in trouble with their teachers were still fresh in his mind making it hard to be comfortable around the jock.
"Ehh whatever, so long as he doesn't pull anything I can survive a week with him. Hopefully he won't have the morning shift next week and I won't see him again until school starts in fall." Danny sighed and looked around as he walked up to his house. He didn't see anyone out so he just walked down the alley beside Fenton Works and phased himself through the walls and into the basement where he had last seen his parents.
As he expected he saw the two of them right where they had been a few hours earlier, tinkering with equipment and weapons that they had built to fight off ghosts. He had finally told his parents about his secret last fall after he had to face off a very powerful Vortex who tried to destroy the town again with hurricanes, hail storms, and several powerful lightning storms. His parents had been shocked to learn that their son was the ghost boy that the town had claimed to be their hero and who they had tried to capture to dissect at various points but put that aside to help him defeat the weather ghost. Afterwards they had had a long talk about everything Danny had been through. While disappointed that he hadn't trusted them with his secret, they understood why he had kept it and told them they were proud of all that he had done. Once he explained everything that happened they realized that some of what Phantom had been blamed for wasn't totally his fault and from that point things progressed relatively smoothly.
"Hey guys." Danny floated down to the floor and landed behind them, "Please tell me you have at least gone and gotten something to eat since I've been gone."
Danny loved his parents, but they had a very bad habit of getting too absorbed in their work and not eating or not eating well in his dad's case.
"Oh hey, Danny! Yeah we got a bit of breakfast awhile ago. How was your swim? And come look at what we've got going on here!"
"It was good, dad, managed to shave 3 seconds off my best time. What are you guys working on though? And you know doughnuts and coffee are not considered breakfast," he frowned as he saw a few mugs of coffee and a box of doughnuts off on an otherwise empty table and went to see what his parents were working on.
"Hi, sweetie," Maddie kissed him on the cheek as he stared at what looked a lot like a samurai sword, "That's great about your time, and this is something really special that we've been working on ever since you introduced us to your friend Wulf."
'Introduced' wasn't the word Danny would use for that little mishap. Wulf had come to Danny when Walker had been trying to catch him again and needed his help. Long story short he had to beat Walker again and send him back to his jail. The problem came from Wulf opening up a portal right over their dinner table right as they were eating, greatly injured and it took a great deal of effort from Danny to convince his parents that Wulf was a friend.
"You guys made some kind of sword?" Danny's brow raised as he reached out to poke at it.
"Not just any sword, Danny my-boy!" Jack picked the sheathed sword up and pulled it out to reveal a slightly green blade that had a wave of energy flowing along the edge, "We call it the Space Shredder! Based on what we saw your furry friend do, we thought up a way to open up portals between the ghost Zone and our world from any place. You know, in case you need to send a ghost back to the ghost zone and don't have the thermos, or if you're stuck in the ghost zone and need a quick escape back to the real world."
"Cool. Can I try it out?" Danny had to admit that while most of the weapons his parents came up with were sometimes big, bulky, or silly the idea of a sword that could cut a path between the ghost and human worlds was pretty cool.
"Not yet, sweetie, we've still got a lot of calculations to run through before we're ready to give it a try. We know what it should do and theoretically it should work, but theory and fact are two completely different things."
"Aww…" Both Danny and Jack looked disappointed at hearing that. Both men wanted to try out the sword, but when Maddie said no there was no room for argument.
"Fine, I guess I'll just go fix us up some lunch then. I'll call you guys when it's ready."
They said thanks and Danny made his way up to the kitchen. Over the years both Danny and his sister had learned how to cook and fend for themselves. It wasn't that their parents were neglectful of them or anything. It had more to do with the fact that neither of them could cook and sometimes they'd mix their food with one of their experiments and create a monster of a meal that tended to end up splattered all over the kitchen and with take out in front of the TV.
Danny had admittedly learned to cook a lot better from the Lunch Lady after a few fights. She had never really been angry at him and when she showed up one day unexpectedly when Danny was trying to make a lasagna she helped him. She later admitted after he had put the dish in the oven that she had been more mad at Sam for changing the lunch menu and really never had much of a grudge against Danny.
That thought made Danny pause as he stood in front of the open fridge to find something to fix. It had been 4 months since she had moved across the country and the impact of losing one of his best friends was still weighing heavily on his heart. None of them really had wanted to move, but her grandmother's health had been declining over the last few years and the warm air of Florida was a lot nicer during the winter than the cold winters they had up here. Sam, though, still ever the Goth, hated all the sun, but didn't mind the walks along the moonlit beach she could now enjoy.
Thinking about Sam though got, Danny thinking about Tucker as he reached for some ham to make sandwiches with. Tucker had gotten early acceptance to a prestigious college out in California and had accepted it as soon as their Junior year was over. Tucker was hesitant to take the offer knowing that he'd be leaving his best friend all alone, but Danny assured him that he was ok with it and that they could always video chat online.
"Besides," Danny remembered saying to Tucker to convince his friend to go, "I'm going to be really busy with the swim team and trying to boost my grades a bit so I can get into a good school."
Even though he was happy for his friend he was still lonely. Besides Tucker and Sam he really didn't have any real friends and so he tended to spend most of his time alone or going out on patrol, even though ghost activity had declined in the last year. Either way though with his senior year coming up, Danny wasn't really looking forward to it as much as most other kids were.
"Ehh who knows," Danny sighed as he finished making a few sandwiches for him and his parents and grabbed a few bottles of water and a bag of chips, "Maybe I'll be able to make a new friend soon."
Danny shook his head to clear away the brooding thoughts he was harboring as he walked back downstairs. He didn't want his parents to worry about him or see him upset. He just had to keep positive and hope for the best.