Hey peeps! Happy Friday once again. I hope y'all are staying healthy. I know my family back in California is struggling with all the smoke.
It's dinner party time! Thanks as always to my beta reading team for their help in perfecting the chapter. :)
Timeline Notes
- Danny Phantom: This takes place after seasons 1 and 2 which cover Danny's freshman year. We pick up before any of the action in season 3 unless otherwise noted.
- MCU: It begins immediately following the Clash of the Avengers at the airport in Berlin, putting this story in 2016 in the MCU timeline
General Notes
"This is dialogue."
"This is alternative dialogue, meaning whispered or spoken from a distance such as on the phone."
'This is thought.'
This and THIS and *this* are emphasis. The *this* emphasis is more along the lines of the snarky or sarcastic.
[This is digital text, such as notifications on a computer or smartphone. It also represents A.I. voices, such as Karen or F.R.I.D.A.Y./"Friday" (because I really don't feel like typing out the full acronym with periods every time she comes up).]
I do not own Danny Phantom nor Spider-Man.
Ch. 04 originally published: Friday, September 11, 2020
FIRE WITH FIRE
04 - Dinner at the Parkers'
Sunnyside, Queens — Tuesday, September 6, 19:54
"Three days, Mads!" Jack spat as he aggressively knotted his tie in the master bathroom mirror. "We've only been here three days and that putrid punk followed us all the way to New York City. What does he want from us? Wouldn't he be rejoicing that we left his haunt?"
"His apparent fixation upon this family is unprecedented," Maddie agreed from the foot of their bed, though her thoughts drifted to Phantom's reported grocery run earlier that summer. "The fact that he has already located our new lab space is not a pleasant thought."
"Well, just let him wait till we get our hardware configured for Tower security! Then he'll have another thing comin'!" Jack proclaimed and turned away from the mirror. "Ready?"
Maddie nodded, smoothing her blouse as she stood.
"Jazz, I hate you," Danny deadpanned and adjusted uncomfortably in his sky blue Argyle sweater vest.
"We have a single opportunity to make a normal first impression," Jazz bit back and fixed her special-occasion-only headband in the entryway mirror.
"We already made a first impression."
"A first impression as a whole family in a social setting, then. The aunt already knows Mom and Dad work with ghosts, and Peter already knows you from school. The least we can do is attempt to appear otherwise sane and normal when all together."
"I don't think our clothes will make much of a difference. My t-shirt and jeans aren't exactly weird."
"It is when you practically wear copies of the same ones every day."
"I do not!"
"You do too! Have you seen your wardrobe? It's like a Captain America fanboy's wet dream."
"Excuse you, I happen to like NASA's colors and-"
"Hey! Kids!" Maddie barked as she entered the kitchen with Jack in tow. "I have had just about enough of your bickering!"
"[He/She] started it!" Jazz and Danny chorused then glared at each other.
"We don't care who started it," Maddie said. "You two have been at each other's throats since minute one in this city!"
Jack removed two platters from the refrigerator. "We should scan the apartment to make sure there isn't some malevolent spirit that's influencing our emotions," he mused.
"I'm surprised we haven't already," Danny quipped.
"Dad's right," Jazz agreed and crossed her arms. With a sardonic tone and knowing glare at Danny, she added, "Maybe it's haunted."
Danny mocked her facial expression.
"See? This," Maddie said with a wide sweep of her hand in her kids' direction, "THIS is what I mean. You two need to grow up and accept the fact that our lives have changed, and overall for the better! Your father and I work for the Tony Stark; Jazz, you go to a fantastically ranked school with better acceptance rates than Casper High; and Danny has a brilliant boy his age living right next door who's sure to have similar interests and be an overall good influence!" Maddie took a calming breath. "So, suck it up, at least when your father and I are in the room. Because I'm not afraid to ground either of you until you get an attitude adjustment," she finished.
Jazz and Danny stood in gaping, shell-shocked silence.
"There, that seemed to get through to you," Maddie added with a smile. She turned to Jack just over her shoulder. "Shall we?"
"Let's wow the Parkers' socks off."
Tony,
I'm glad you're back at the compound. I don't like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself. We all need family. The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine. I've been on my own since I was 18. I never really fit in anywhere, even in the army.
My faith's in people, I guess. Individuals. And I'm happy to say that, for the most part, they haven't let me down. Which is why I can't let them down either. Locks can be replaced, but maybe they shouldn't.
I know I hurt you, Tony. I guess I thought by not telling you about your parents I was sparing you, but I can see now that I was really sparing myself, and I'm sorry. Hopefully one day you can understand.
I wish we agreed on the Accords, I really do. I know you're doing what you believe in, and that's all any of us can do. That's all any of us should. So no matter what, I promise you, if you need us - if you need me - I'll be there.
—Steve
Midtown Manhattan — 19:57
"Tony," Happy prodded. When his boss didn't reply, he repeated, "Tony."
Tony removed his gaze from the wrinkled letter and made eye contact with Happy in the rearview mirror. "What?"
"She wants to see you."
Tony looked out the window at the looming condominium tower at 432 Park Avenue.
"Quit being chicken and go up already!" Happy snapped.
"Alright, alright!" Tony acquiesced and opened his door. He got out, straightened the blazer over his t-shirt and strode across the sidewalk to the entry. "Friday? Work your magic."
[Oh, no, boss,] the AI replied through his glasses. [You're on your own.]
"What if she doesn't let me in?" Tony muttered.
[Then you find out she doesn't want to see you.]
Tony paused. "Maybe we should come back tomorrow…"
[Too late.]
The intercom lit up and began ringing Pepper's apartment.
"Oh, *now* you work your magic," Tony quipped.
[You built me to aid in and improve your life. This is me aiding and improving your life.]
The intercom crackled. "…Tony?" Pepper's voice rang out.
"Hey, uh…can I come up?"
There was a pregnant pause. The never-sleeping life of midtown hummed around Tony.
Finally, Pepper sighed. "Fine," she conceded.
Tony went inside and rode to the 91st floor. He exited the elevator to find Pepper with her arms crossed while leaning against the door frame. Tony paused just outside the elevators.
Neither spoke.
Pepper's schooled visage gave away nothing.
"Hey, Pep," Tony tried.
"Mr. Stark."
Tony winced.
"I see you're still alive," the stoic Pepper began.
"Still kickin'."
"Thanks for the update after Berlin, by the way. Really helped me rest easy."
Tony's brow furrowed. "But I didn't update you-"
"Bingo."
"Ah." Tony nodded in understanding. "Well, would you have taken my call if I had?"
"Would you have taken mine?" Pepper asked. "Trick question," she added before he could reply. "You didn't."
Tony took a couple of very slow, very deliberate steps forward as he spoke. "Considering your last words were something along the lines of 'fuck off,' I kinda figured you were just making sure I'd listened."
"If that's what you think, then why are you here?"
"It's what I thought."
"Well, then-"
"Thought," Tony emphasized, "as in past…tense."
He stopped, and the two were within arm's reach of each other. With squinted eyes and crossed arms, both challenged the other to speak first.
"Thirsty?" Pepper finally asked.
" 'Kill for a whiskey."
Sunnyside — 20:05
May opened the oven and checked the roast chicken within. "Right on schedule," she commented to herself and shut the oven. "Almost ready, Peter?"
"Almost," he replied, running a comb through his hair in the bathroom mirror. He set the comb aside and, with a quick teeth check, went to inspect the table.
There was a buzz at the door, and May went to answer. When she opened it, the four Fentons stood smiling with outstretched armfuls of food. "Hey, guys!" May greeted and stood aside so they could enter. "Welcome to Casa de Parker."
"Thanks, May!" Jack said and held up his tray. "We brought fudge!"
"Oh…uh…great!"
"And stuff for fresh bruschetta," Maddie muttered conspiratorially to the hostess.
May huffed a laugh and directed them to a free spot on the kitchen counter.
"Hey, guys!" Peter said to Danny and Jazz with a broad smile. "Long time, no see."
"Yeah, a whole five hours," Danny drawled.
"Wanna check out my room?"
"Sure."
The three teens went into the bedroom just off the kitchen and took in the plethora of Star Wars memorabilia.
"Are you one with the force?" Danny asked.
"The force is with me," Peter replied and aimed his desk lamp at one of the shelves of figurines. "And so are these first editions," he added with a cocky smile.
"No way! These must have cost a fortune!" Danny exclaimed and leaned in for a closer look.
"Not really. Uncle Ben got them new when he was a kid and passed 'em on to me."
"If you two are going to nerd out on these, I'll join the other adults in the kitchen," Jazz huffed and left the room.
"You can be such a stuck-up nerf herder sometimes!" Danny called after her.
Jazz peeked her head back in the room with an intense glare. "How many times have I told you I hate being insulted with movie references I don't understand?"
Peter's jaw dropped. He looked over his shoulder at the plethora of Star Wars memorabilia and then back at the girl.
"Just keep smiling, Jazz," Danny reminded her with an unsettlingly loving smile. "Neither of us want to be grounded."
A sardonic grin stretched across her face before she schooled the rest of her face into something more earnest. "Truce resumed," she said and vacated the door.
"Truce?" Peter asked.
"We're working on it. Mom and Dad think there's been too much salt in apartment 7A. I guess they're right."
"Well until then you guys don't even have to worry about air conditioning with all the shade being cast between you."
"Ha! Nice."
They fist-bumped.
"Peter! Danny! Hors d'oeuvres are up!" May called from the kitchen.
"Coming, May!" Peter answered.
Maddie was already sitting in the dining nook when Danny and Peter emerged, choosing to be at the head of the table furthest from the kitchen in the dining nook. Jack sat adjacent to her inside the booth with Jazz to his left, the other head of the table sitting vacant for May when she would finally sit. Danny took the chair to May's left, leaving Peter the seat between him and Maddie at the other end of the table. When everyone else was seated, May retrieved a chilled bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge and served some for the adults.
"This is a beautiful little home you have here," Maddie complimented.
"Oh, thank you!" May answered. "Ben's parents bought it for us when we got married, and we've been here ever since."
"You said you're a nurse?"
"Yeah, over at Mount Sinai. I used to do a lot of volunteer work, but our expenses took a sudden jump after we took in this guy," May said with a chin tilt at Peter who replied with an awkward blush.
"What did your husband do?" Jack asked.
"Military police, I think?" May replied and passed the bread basket. "He never really talked about his work. He wasn't really allowed to."
Danny and Jazz shared a look which was not lost on the other teenager at the table.
"Military police, huh?" Jack commented. "Was he already retired when he-?"
"Jack," Maddie hissed in annoyance while the Fenton teens immediately cringed.
May raised her wine glass to her lips, her free hand absently fidgeting with the wedding ring on a chain around her neck. "No, he was on duty when- when it happened."
A painfully awkward silence plummeted over the table. Everybody became fascinated with their own empty plates and condensation-kissed beverages.
Danny looked around. When no one would meet his eyes, he made a decision:
"Heh. Duty."
"Oh, grow up, Danny," Jazz mumbled with an appreciative warmth in her expression.
Danny finally caught their hostess' eye and offered her a half-smile.
After a beat, May returned the smile and gave his nearest wrist an affectionate squeeze. Tension diffused, she asked, "So, kids, how was your first day back at school?"
"Fine," Peter said.
"Uneventful," Danny added.
Peter couldn't help a brief look of disbelief. "Really? Nothing happened?"
Danny scoffed. "Dude, you were there."
"Well, yeah, but—after? On the- on the walk? Home? Nothing?"
Danny glanced at his parents before staring at the boy next to him as if he were crazy. "Why? Should something have happened?"
Peter went slack-jawed for a moment. "Uh—uh, no, it's just…it's a nice neighborhood, so I didn't know if you might've…met someone or…something."
"No one important," he said with a nonchalant shrug.
Peter glared at his water glass.
"Oh, Pete, would you grab the tomatoes for the bruschetta?" May said. "I forgot it on the counter."
"Sure." Peter laboriously got up from the table and walked over to the counter under the window. Anxiety suddenly crawled along his nerves, and he looked across the gap outside into the neighboring apartment. He gasped when he saw one of the elderly occupants grasping their throat and leaning on the dining table.
"Everything okay over there?" May asked.
Peter, shocked, whipped to look at everyone staring at him. "I—uh—I—" He fumbled around with the open Tupperware of basil and chopped tomatoes on the counter and the uncapped olive oil next to it. As subtly as possible, he briefly turned his back on the others and smeared a small handful of tomato on his button-up shirt. "Yeah, I just spilled some on me."
"Oh no!" his aunt groaned.
"No big deal! I'll just go change shirts real quick." Peter dropped the Tupperware onto the table, ran to his room and slammed the door.
May quirked an eyebrow at her nephew's antics before attempting to restart the conversation and serve the appetizers.
"I swear, that boy could not be more clumsy," May said with a laugh. "Last fall? He hit a bad streak. His room was almost completely trashed, and one time he hurt his leg really bad. Tore his ACL clean through! Pete said he fell down the stairs, and boy didn't he look like it. Didn't you, Pete?" she called out.
Everyone contorted to look towards the silent bedroom but lost interest when there was no response.
"I guess he's still embarrassed about it," May added. "The worst of it, though, was when Principal Morita called one day reporting broken lab equipment and failed chemistry experiments left and right."
"Sounds familiar, doesn't it, Danny?" Maddie prodded sarcastically.
"Mo~om," Danny whined and bit into his bruschetta with a vengeance.
Had anyone been at the kitchen sink under the window, they would have seen Spider-Man giving the Heimlich maneuver to the neighbor.
"He got better, though," Maddie added. "I think it was just nerves from starting high school."
"Yeah. Nerves," the boy muttered.
"What was it? Thirty beakers broken?" Jazz teased.
Danny glowered at his plate. "Thirty-four."
A slam was heard in Peter's bedroom, and the boy tumbled out looking thoroughly disheveled. "Sorry about that," he said. "I'm starving!"
"Hey, you alright, man?" Danny asked, leaning in as the other boy scooted in his chair.
"Yeah, why?" Peter answered as he reached for his water glass.
"You forgot to change your shirt."
Mortified, Peter looked down at the red stain on his shirt. With a nervous laugh, he said, "I knew I forgot something," and dashed back into his room to change.
Midtown — 20:20
"And the buyer offered above list price?" Pepper clarified.
"A modern, iconic, high-tech tower a block from Times Square with a big-ass A on it. Go figure," Tony drawled and listened to the ice cubes clink against the single rocks glass in his hand. He took a sip of the whiskey and continued, "But it'll be nice to move all primary operations upstate. Rhodey'll feel less out of the loop."
"How's he doing?"
"He's fine. We got him set up with some cybernetics last week after they let him out of Columbia Medical."
"I'm glad you all got out of that whole business minimally scathed," Pepper said, raising her Sauvignon Blanc to her lips.
"You kiddin'? We shredded ourselves to pieces," Tony sighed. "The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan's on the lam, Barton and Lang are under house arrest, the rest are war criminals, and now Rhodey's fighting paralysis with the best tech we got. Sounds like we got out majorly scathed, if you ask me."
Pepper shook her head. "And now ghosts breaking into the compound?"
"An operative named Ghost. We still don't fully understand how her abilities work beyond having something to do with quantum mechanics. However, it did reveal a massive security hole, so we brought in a few experts to fill it. They're—they're an interesting bunch. But, no one knows phase shifting and alternative energies and dimensions like they do."
"And how's the kid?"
"Pete's antsy. The new guys have a teenage son, Danny, so I moved them in next door to the Parkers. Hopefully they'll get on like wildfire and give Web Head an outlet for his manic energy and the new kid a better influence."
"Something wrong with him?"
"Danny's…suspicious. Crappy track record and abnormal proximity to his parents' ghost tech. I wanna make sure he's not a growing threat."
"Mm."
A brief silence fell over the pair. Both Tony and Pepper knew there was an unanswered question looming over their reunion.
"So…I got a letter from Rogers today."
"Oh, really?"
"He was pretty direct, talked a lot about family, and being there for people you care about."
Pepper huffed a humorless laugh. "We've both been failing in that regard," she drawled.
"No, Pep-"
"I could've tried harder. When all that Sokovia stuff happened and Steve went nuts and you had no one to lean on-"
"Well I was too focused on big-picture stuff before it, and my small picture stuff got neglected."
They shared a small, apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry, Tony."
"I'm sorry, Pepper. I've seen what life is like without you in it, and I don't think I can handle it. We have more baggage than anyone could ever hope for, and we have a lot to work out. But I want to work it out. With you."
Pepper set down her wine glass and pulled Tony into a hug. "Me too."
Sunnyside — 21:30
The oddness with Peter had almost been forgotten by the time dessert came around. Danny and Peter were clearing the table while the adults and Jazz socialized.
"Oh, can one of you take a clipping from the mint plant over in the window?" May asked. "I need it for the digestifs."
"I got it, Mrs. Parker," Danny offered. He grabbed the kitchen shears and went to the living room windows overlooking the street. Just as he took a clipping, a chill chased up the boy's spine. Danny's aura froze, and his breath misted in front of him.
'A ghost? Here? In New York? NOW?!'
Danny gasped and checked behind him to see if anyone was watching. With a quick appraisal of their apartment and the neighborhood just beyond the window, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. However, Danny knew from experience never to let his ghost sense wait. He took a couple of quick clippings and raced back to the kitchen.
"Here!" Danny said and tossed the cut mint onto the counter in front of May. "I gotta go to the bathroom! Excuse me for a minute!" He ran into the Parkers' bathroom and locked the door.
After a quick moment of self-assurance, Danny made eye contact with his reflection in the mirror. "Wow, three days before a ghost shows up. That's gotta be a new record," he quipped to himself. Danny slapped his phone onto the counter and summoned his transformation. Ectoplasm pulsed from his ghost core and manifested his Phantom half. The surge of his aura gently ruffled his loose hair and disappeared in a white-hot aquamarine blip. Danny Phantom re-pocketed his phone and then phased through the ceiling and out into the night sky.
All was calm and quiet in Sunnyside. The last hint of daylight was a mere teal sliver along the western horizon. The heat of a late-summer New York day was beginning to subside, letting the warm evening take over.
Phantom felt another surge of cold within him and shivered. It felt as if the heat had completely gone. The hero wasn't sure what to make of it, as it didn't have the same ethereal tickle of his ghost sense. He shrugged to himself and glanced around. Seeing nothing, Phantom decided to do a quick lap of the neighborhood.
As he flew at tree-canopy level above the street, Phantom saw multiple windows alit with family mealtimes. The entire neighborhood was quintessentially welcoming in feel. The hero grew more and more confused.
Vacuum.
The world was suddenly devoid of noise. Danny felt a subconscious feeling of dread overtake him. At first, there was merely a whisper, a tickle of a warning curling around the hairs on the back of Danny's neck which sent him shivering into a cold sweat.
Tunnel vision overpowered the boy. He found himself taken back to that traumatizing moment months ago, something he tried to forget every day. It was fruitless to struggle against the single-minded focus making him relive it over and over and over again. Danny's heart rate began to spike, and his anxiety was the highest it had been since the day—the day he went in—
Portal.
The whisper of a warning changed, almost as an echo in reverse in the way it compounded in intensity. All at once, Danny whipped out of the memory and back to the moment at hand, discovering he had sunk to ground level and stood in the middle of 49th street facing the entrance to Sunnyside Gardens Park.
Phantom spasmed when a mournful shriek assaulted his ears. He looked up and saw a terrifying cloaked figure hovering just above him and descending at an unsettlingly slow pace. The spirit's cloak disappeared into a thick black smoke trail.
It took a lot for a ghost to scare the great Danny Phantom. This succeeded.
Danny screamed and darted into the air, nothing but the whoosh of air meeting his ears. He could not have been more grateful to have kept his cell phone when he transformed. He withdrew it and called the only person he knew with encyclopedic knowledge of all things spooky and gothic.
"Danny? What's-?"
"Scary dementor thing!" he interrupted. "Azkaban! Chasing me! No thermos!"
"Dementor? Like in Harry Potter?"
The creature shadowed Danny from the ambient light of oncoming twilight.
"Shit!" Danny hissed to himself and tried to gain some distance. He went intangible and phased through the trees. Only the sounds of rustling leaves and sporadic birds' startled tweets broke the dead silence of the thing's aura. "Yeah! Black cloak, no real face, smokey trail."
There was a pause. "How does it feel?"
"What?"
"The feeling? Do you feel anything *weird* around it?"
"It's like all light, and joy, and sound in the world disappear…"
"Sounds like it could be a wraith-"
"WRAITH!" Danny shouted in victory. "ThanksSamgottago!"
Phantom pulled up to a stop above the trees and turned to face the soulless, Ghost Zone-haunting beast. Its mouth widened as its screech crescendoed.
"Sorry, dude, I'm no member of PETA," Phantom proclaimed with a charging ectoblast. Once it reached full power, he released it into the wraith's chest. The banshee-like scream disappeared nearly as quickly as the last wisps of the figure's existence. "Well…actually maybe killing you means I am."
A crunch of metal and a scream of pain brought Danny's attention to street level. He whipped around and saw he had backtracked back to 43rd street right in front of his apartment block.
A large SUV had veered out of control and summited a parked compact sedan. It now leaned heavily on its right wheels, one pressed into the asphalt and the other on the sidewalk, while the left half of the chassis was hooked on top of the sedan's crushed trunk. The front right bumper had trapped the shin of a pedestrian walking his dog under the vehicle's weight.
The driver of the SUV clambered out of his cabin and rushed to the pedestrian's side. "Bro, I'm so sorry!"
"Son of a bitch! Who the hell taught you to park?!"
"Hey, shorty, I park just fine!" the driver defended. "But then I saw those floating things up in the sky and got distracted!"
A small crowd grew as concerned citizens came pouring out of the apartment building.
"It was a wraith," Danny Phantom said and kneeled next to them. "No soul but a freaky, feral pain in the ass to fight."
"And what about you?!" the driver demanded.
"Danny Phantom, though most people just call me Phantom. I fight ghosts."
"Ghosts aren't real!" the trapped pedestrian argued.
With a raised eyebrow, Phantom robotically gestured to where the wraith had just been and then to himself.
"...Fair point," the man conceded with a nod.
"I know what it's like to be trapped under a car. Although usually it's, like, twenty of them. Or a building. Anyway, this is gonna feel a little weird, but I can get you out from under there. Before I do, did anybody get photos for the inevitable insurance claim? Feel free to include me for evidence; Lord knows I'm used to it." When someone nodded, Phantom said, "Alright, brace yourself."
Danny rested a glowing, gloved hand on his shoulder and let his intangibility wash over the man. The pedestrian and the gathered onlookers jumped when the car suddenly shifted so the car was then resting in the man's leg rather than on it. Phantom gently maneuvered him out of the way of the SUV and settled him against a tree trunk.
"Holy crap! Ghosts are real!" someone nearby exclaimed.
Phantom's face deadpanned.
"Yep, it's him," Maddie confirmed from her vantage point next to Peter and May on the Parkers' living room fire escape.
"He's outside our home, Mads," Jack growled as he tried not to wedge himself in the window. He fought against the wooden frame and tumbled onto the fire escape.
"Phantom probably followed us home from the Tower," Maddie spat in reply.
"Who is he?" May asked.
"A ghost vigilante from their hometown," Peter answered.
"How do you know that?" Maddie asked.
Deer in headlights. "I- uh- well I *am* an intern," he suggested. "I heard someone talking about it when Mr. Stark decided to bring you guys out here?"
"I'm surprised we didn't see you there today, kiddo," Jack said. "You gotta come drop in and say 'hi' sometime!"
"I'm...hard to pin down," Peter replied with a chuckle. "But I'll try?"
"Is Danny still in the bathroom?!" Maddie interrupted. "He'll want to see this!"
Jazz's eyes widened. She turned to face the street and announced as loudly as possible without outright shouting, "I don't know, but I think Danny WILL want to see this!"
Phantom looked up at the Fentons and Parkers and visibly panicked as Maddie stepped through the window back into the apartment.
"Crap!" Phantom hissed. To the crowds, he announced, "I'll be right back to get the SUV off the car! I gotta go do something first! Take pictures for evidence!" He blipped from visibility and thought to himself, 'If only I could freaking duplicate successfully!'
Danny Phantom phased into the Parker bathroom just as someone knocked on the door.
"Danny, you doing alright in there?" his mom asked from the hall.
"Just going to the bathroom!?" he called back to her.
"You'll never guess what: that Phantom ghost just showed up and caused a car crash!"
Transforming back, Danny flushed the toilet and hurriedly washed his hands. He looked down at his spotless sweater and got an idea. With a quick splash of water across his midsection, he dried his hands and raced to open the door.
"You'll never believe it!" Danny said. "When I washed my hands, I got water all over my sweater and it soaked through to my shirt." He looked down. "An-and chinos. I'll go change. Be right back!"
Before Maddie could protest, he was running down the Parkers' hall and slamming the door to apartment 7B behind him. Maddie rejoined the others in the window to watch the events unfold.
"Phantom left. Is Danny okay?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, he just got some water on his shirt and went to go change," Maddie replied and wrapped an arm around her husband as they watched.
"We'd better finish this dinner before we all run out of shirts," May quipped with a teasing punch to her nephew's shoulder.
"Okay, let's make this quick!" Phantom barked. He hovered over the crash scene and decided on a plan of attack. "Everyone stand back from the car."
After the hesitant citizens had distanced themselves, Phantom phased through and under the perched SUV. He pushed upwards using his strength and flight until the trapped car's rear suspension no longer groaned from the added weight. The SUV precariously teetered at a dramatic angle, its front bumper cracking the sidewalk while the rear towering over the ground.
Phantom pressed his boot against the side of the sedan's bumper and kicked out. The rubber of the tires squealed in protest, but the car swung out until it was no longer underneath the SUV, wiggling in place as it settled.
"Whoa!" a voice exclaimed.
A warning crawled up Peter's nervous system. Instinctively, he extended the trigger from the web shooter hidden under the cuff on his left wrist. He looked for a distraction and spotted the mint plant in the windowsill. Peter bumped it with his hip, and the terra cotta pot shattered on the living room hardwood.
"What-?!" May exclaimed, and everyone else on the windowsill looked at the mess inside.
Taking his fleeting window of opportunity, Peter fired.
What-?" Phantom began and contorted his head around to look behind him.
A cyclist had locked her brakes when the sedan skidded out into the roadway, her path suddenly blocked. Danny instinctively released the SUV and leaped, bear-hugging the cyclist and pulling her off the out-of-control bike.
The crowd screamed as the back of the SUV swung down towards Phantom and the cyclist before Phantom could react. However, a soft thwip sound was heard, and the SUV jerked out of the way and instead rolled towards the apartment block and onto its side. Glass shattered and tinkled against the asphalt and concrete, and the massive vehicle groaned as it settled in place.
Gaping, Phantom only released the cyclist after she began to struggle against his embrace. He immediately let her go and stepped back. The poor woman frantically patted herself down and glanced back at Phantom in fear.
"Why—why are you so cold?" she whispered.
Danny looked around and saw that the murmuring New Yorkers shared her unease in his presence. "Well…" he began, looking at the toppled SUV, crushed sedan, shell-shocked cyclist, injured pedestrian and growing crowd, "...I guess I'll leave you guys to it. Have a nice night?"
He disappeared.
Danny came running back into the Parker residence and found everyone settling back in at the table, the smell of dirt and mint wafting through the apartment. "Aw, shoot, is it over?" he panted.
"Yeah, you missed the ghost punk trying to make yet another city think he's a hero," Jack spat.
"And destroying half of it in the process," Maddie added.
Only Peter caught Danny's eye roll as he sat down, but nobody noticed both boys seeming a little more fatigued than appropriate for a dinner party.
References as usual! :D
- Strong "*Play dumb* Who's Morales? *Not that dumb!*" Into the Spider-Verse vibes when Peter leaves the room to change his shirt and returns still wearing the same shirt
- Danny's Argyle sweater vest: This was not at all on purpose, but one of my fanfiction friends (whats-up-everybody) told me about the concept art for the original show which had Danny Fenton in an Argyle sweater vest? Like? He would've been way more preppy than the Danny we know and love? So obviously he'd be uncomfortable wearing it. Collective consciousness moment, I guess. Like when I wrote that Young Justice fic about Superboy's first night out of Cadmus and had him stay with Wally, and then I discovered the whole canon comic series which paralleled that hosting choice exactly.
- Cartoon trope meta-joke when Jazz teases Danny about practically wearing the same outfit every day
- Steve's letter to Tony: It's a transcription of the voiceover from the ending montage in Captain America: Civil War.
- 432 Park Avenue: a real condo tower which really sticks out on the skyline because of how rigorously rectangular, white and skinny it is
- Mount Sinai Hospital: a real hospital in Astoria, not that far from the Parkers' neighborhood of Sunnyside.
- Star-Spangled Man with a Plan on the lam: I am…so proud of this line.
- Danny's PETA quip: Because of their controversially excessive euthanasia practices in their 'shelters.' (Don't take this as me being anti-animal rights because I am all for ethically treating animals and I instantly tear up whenever I watch one of those Dodo animal rescue/rehab videos. But I am NOT pro-PETA, and sorry but I'm only a vegetarian between meals.)
Let me know what you think. I love dialoguing with my readers. :)
Fair warning: there might be a *slight* delay in publishing the next chapter because there's a gap between these early finished chapters and the next action I have fully drafted, and I still have some order-of-events to sort out leading up to then. I'll need a couple of weeks extra at most. In the meantime, I have a host of other oneshots and a multichapter DP/Young Justice crossover to keep you entertained! :)