It's Not Easy

This scene took place roughly around before Danny reached Gotham. I tend to listen to music as I write. This was inspired by Five for Fighting's song 'Superman (It's Not Easy)'.

I think that the song fits Danny perfectly in many cases.


New York, The YJ dimension
~1 week before present day

It has been… actually, Danny had kinda lost track on how long it had been since he had been sent to this dimension. The days have been blurring together.

The teen was perched on one of the skyscrapers, resting on a ledge and overlooking the city down below. He wanted to get a good look at the city before he headed out to a new location. Next to him was a nest with a peregrine falcon that would eye him curiously, but otherwise just left the teen alone. While he was passively observing the traffic below and the occasional passing aircraft, the falcon was -unknown to Danny- mimicking the teen's head movements.

"Okay Fenton, to summarize the situation: you're in another dimension with no way to get in touch with anyone back home. Your only way back home was stabbed by your archenemy. While you managed to earn yourself some cash, those funds are now running low. There's a bounty hunter after you, very likely for some crazed-up fruitloop wanting you to be his new weapon or something… and you're talking to yourself."

Danny let out a sigh, his shoulders slumping. "I was hoping that my friends would have found me by now..." His gaze fell on the large bird of prey, who was eyeing him again.

"I don't suppose that you have a functional portal to the Ghost Zone by any chance?"

*KAAA* was the falcon's response.

"I thought not." The teen returned his attention to watching the bustling city down below, trying to distract himself from his ever-present and ever-growing gloom.

Which, as time passed, became harder to do so.

Eventually, with a frustrated huff, the teen sprang into the air and blasted across the city, letting invisibility wash over him. The young halfa soon angled his course upwards, passing birds on his ascension and coming abreast with a departing airplane. His gloved fingers brushed up against the side of the aircraft. Peering inside, he could see all sorts of people from all walks of life, content in their own little world as they either dozed off, fiddled with their tablets, read books, chatted with their neighbors, or whatever else struck their fancy.

Having started at the end of the plane and moved forward to the pilots' cockpit, Danny then took a nosedive back to earth. Reaching lower elevation quite fast, the teen then sped past a freight train crossing a bridge, flying a loose corkscrew around the bridge before pulling away.

He soon reduced his pace, landing invisibility in a sort of plaza and walking through crowds of passersby. Ducking into a hidden alcove, he morphed back and merged into the populace. Dodging bodies, he stumbled on his undone lace, falling to the pavement. Nobody paid the teen any notice: He might as well have been invisible.

Picking himself up, Danny dusted himself off, wincing a bit at the scrape on his hand. The teen studied the wound; an irritated red, barely breaking through the skin to earn some droplets of crimson blood. Clenching his left hand, he held it momentarily before opening it to reveal an uninjured palm. No trace left whatsoever.

He remained in his withdrawn state as he got lunch at a cafe, electing to eat on the patio. The world around him seemed cheery, the outside sunshine in stark contrast conflict. A storm of emotion that remained cut off from a world not of his own.

His own world- home, might as well be light years away. The home he grew up in, with its hodgepodge of gadgets and modifications made to its rooms. The places where he and his friends made lasting memories in. The town that he gave his all in protecting… out of reach.

He missed waking up to his parents' bolsterous ruckus at wee hours of the morning, and his older sister's constant overbearing nature to coddle him. He longed for those weekends with his friends of video games, bowling, and general crazy shenanigans they got themselves in.

He wanted to cry, to scream, to fall upon his knees. To curl up and fall asleep and wake up in his own bed… In a home that he might never see again.

Danny tried to put up a brave front, but the days of keeping his emotions bottled were causing the surface to crack.

He wasn't strong, invulnerable, invincible, unsinkable, or unshakable like everyone thought Danny Phantom was.

He was Danny Fenton. He got hurt just like everybody else. He got scared like everybody else. He had insecurities about himself, made mistakes, wanted to be liked and welcomed, felt love and wanted love in return. He had hopes and dreams like everyone else… and a breaking point.

It may sound ridiculous, but even heroes have their weaknesses.

A scream broke him out of his musings. After procuring a secluded place to transform, he found the source of the scream to be a mugging. A large brute of a man had cornered a young woman. Dispatching the thug was effortless, the man not seeing the invisible ghostly hero.

The girl, though confused, gave a quick sigh of relief and uttered a quick thank you to whatever unseen savior that had helped her before leaving.

A smile ghosted the halfa's face before he flew off. No matter his circumstances, he was glad to have helped someone.

The Samaritan act, however, only gave Danny a brief reprieve from his grief. An hour later, feeling weighed down, Danny drifted lower and lower. For once, even up to when he had gotten his powers, flight had failed to lift the teen's spirits. The clouds couldn't buoy up the teen as he sank further in his despair. Landing in a park, he lost his hold on his ghost form.

The mask that bravely faced hordes of enemies in the past. Those who wanted to wreck his home, cause harm to others, or just wanted his pelt.

The front that fought the king of all ghosts, the evil from a hopeless future.

The heroic youth that took criticism, hatred, fears and burdens in stride.

A name that has been had for good and evil for both ghosts and humans.

What was left was a kid. A kid who wore a bedsheet at one point.

A kid who faced anti-ghost weapons, on this one-way street.

A lost kid, in a hazmat suit.

Looking for a way home.

The park was empty of any people, save Danny. The teen collapsed onto a bench, no longer able to lie to himself nor could he refuse to acknowledge his emotional state. Slumping forward, he buried his face in hands. The only sounds to be heard were traffic, birds chirping, and the distant radio chiming the lasts notes of a song.

"It's not easy… to be… me."