Happy Friday, everyone!

I hope you all have survived quarantine well. Things have been opening up again here in Italy, and it's kind of...sad, because I love an excuse to not socialize AT ALL lol.

I have been busy-busy during this time doing research and outlining and diagramming for my next multichapter fic, which is this! It all sprouted from an idea for a scene which won't appear until later on in the fic. I have been really antsy to do a Danny Phantom/MCU Spider-Man crossover for ages because I love them both so much.

Let's get cracking! I hope you all enjoy it as much as Recognized. :)

A HUGE shoutout to my betas for helping me sort out the concept of this story!


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.]

I do not own Danny Phantom nor Spider-Man.

Ch. 01 originally published: Friday, May 22, 2020


FIRE WITH FIRE

01 - Ghost


Our worst demons lurk in the shadows. They slither, they twist, they adapt. They do anything to hold onto power. The worst part? One never even knows they are there, stalking, waiting, planning, until any hope of vanquish is gone.


New Avengers Facility Esopus, New York — Sunday, June 12, 20:30

Blackness.

He felt nothing but suppressed pain. It ebbed through his whole body, but its lack of intensity was testament to the presence of a strong medication. He felt held down, more so by gravity than any other force, but he couldn't seem to bring any part of himself to move just yet.

As the tendrils of consciousness slowly wove themselves into Colonel James Rhodes' mind, he became more and more aware of his surroundings. He was no longer in a field outside Flughafen Leipzieg-Halle; he was no longer in the dead War Machine armor. There was no fragrance of grass or rush of air. There was only a soothingly calm environment with no daylight burning through his eyelids. A rhythmic beeping alerted him to the presence of an EKG machine monitoring his heart rate.

As Rhodes finally reached full consciousness, he began to feel something off. It wasn't something wrong with his body, though he could tell it was seriously injured; no, something was off about his surroundings. He opened his eyes.

A white mask stared back at him.

Rhodes couldn't help the full-body jolt from the surprise, but he schooled the rest of his reaction. The hooded figure with a full-face mask was wordlessly leaning over him on the bed, leaving less than one foot between their faces.

"Who the hell are you?" Rhodes demanded.

Gone.

Rhodes fought against the pain and suppressed muscle control to sit up slightly and reach for the remote to incline his bed. He sat waiting, not even breathing, but there was no evidence that the masked-and-hooded intruder had ever been there.


Queens — Sunday, June 12, 20:45

"That's not a hug; I'm just grabbing the door for you," Tony grunted as he opened Peter's door. "We're not—we're not there yet."

Peter broke eye contact, clearly trying to fight the awkwardness of the situation.

"Bye," Tony said.

Peter shut the car door, and Happy accelerated away.

[Boss, there's been a break-in,] Friday announced as soon as the car had left.

Tony sighed. "It must be somewhere significant if you're telling me, *now.*"

[The Avengers Compound.]

Tony froze. Happy gave him a concerned look in the rearview mirror.

"What?" the billionaire finally spoke. "How?"

[I don't know, boss," Friday replied, and her system produced a holographic display of security camera footage and other data. "No perimeter breaches were registered, and the motion detectors only identified disjointed movement rather than a single path through the compound."

"Hardware issue?" Tony asked. "Software?"

[I don't think so. All systems are showing no technical faults. There have been similar incidents reported at other secure facilities in the past few days.]

"What do we know about this intruder?"

Friday pulled up a still from one of the security feeds. [He is very athletic and fully hidden, so we have no description of his physical appearance other than height and weight approximations. He carries very little and appears to have the ability to disappear from view and walk through walls on demand.]

"What, so you're saying a *ghost* broke into our base without so much as an alarm going off?" Tony quipped.

[All testimony from Avengers and SHIELD employees corroborate it.]

Tony paused. "That was a joke, Friday."

[Do I sound like *I'm* joking, boss?]

Tony groaned. "I'd more readily assume it's 'ghost' tech before a ghost. Are there any known threats who fit the profile or M.O.?"

[There's an antihero in Amity Park, Ohio commonly known as Danny Phantom, or just Phantom for short, previously 'Inviso-Bill.']

"Oh, kill me," Tony muttered.

[Phantom wasn't a fan of the name either. Nobody's quite sure whether he's good or not, but he exhibits the same abilities as the figure seen at the Avengers Compound. Most locals claim it's from his own superhuman abilities, but he has been reported visibly using tech as well. Oh, and get this, boss: he has a confirmed history of break-ins and robbery.]

"We need to figure out how the tech works before we can fight against someone using it in the future. Do we know anyone who specializes in it who isn't tied up in bureaucratic…grossness? Someone local who knows how this antihero works and has maybe fought him before?"

[We know *of* someone. Well, two people, actually.]

"Well," Tony said. "Fight fire with fire."


Peter unlocked the door to 7B and tossed his keys into the bowl on the table just inside. He fumbled with the new case from Stark and, kicking the door closed behind him, called out, "May, I'm home!"

Peter went into his room and shoved the new metal case under the lower bunk of his bed. He heard footsteps coming from May's bedroom and realized the web shooters were still on his wrist. He leaped for the zip-up hoodie on the back of the desk chair and barely had it pulled on when May appeared in the doorway. He quickly sat down on the edge of his mattress and pressed a hand to his cheek.

"Yeah, he's home now," May said into her phone and inched anxiously into the room. "Yep…yeah, I'll talk to the neighborhood watch… Okay, bye." She hung up and pocketed the phone before beaming at her nephew. "Peter! Welcome ho-oh my god! What happened to your face?!"

Peter froze with a deer-in-headlights expression. He had totally forgotten about any visible damage from the fight in Berlin. "Uh, n-nothing! Nothing! I jus'—just fell!"

"Peter Parker, don't you dare lie to me!" May growled with a pointed finger in his face. "What'd you do?"

"I didn't do nothin', honest!" Peter insisted.

"Well then what happened?" May demanded.

"I...fell? In-into a guy's fist?"

May rolled her eyes and headed for the kitchen. "The first weekend retreat of your fancy internship—which is a GODSEND, by the way!—and you're already pickin' fights?!" she shouted.

Peter felt a building irritation on his wrist and began fumbling with the cuff of his sweatshirt. "I didn't start it; he did."

"I just don't understand what's going on with you," May called from the other room. "This isn't like you, Peter."

Peter heard the magnetic seal on the freezer door break and then reseal shut.

"So who was it? Who hit you?" May asked.

Peter exposed his right web shooter. "Some guy," he called back then muttered to himself, "So itchy, man…God."

A kitchen drawer slammed shut. "What was *some guy's* name?"

Peter couldn't stop himself from curiously pressing a button on the mechanism. "Aahhh…Steve!" he replied. A hologram activated and momentarily blinded the concussed Peter.

"Steve? From 12C?" May asked. "With the OVERBITE?!"

"No no no, you don't know him! He's from Brooklyn."

Peter heard May coming and shoved the web shooter under his left arm. He pressed the heel of his left palm to his face and emitted a feeble, "Ouch…"

May sat down next to him on his lower bunk. "Well, hope you got a few good licks in," she said and held out the towel-wrapped bag of frozen peas.

"Yeah, I got quite a few in, actually." Peter took the peas. "His friend was huge. Like, huge."

May nodded and tried to hide her smirk.

"That's way better," Peter said. "Thank you."

"Okay, tough guy." May let her smile grow and stood up.

"Love you, May," Peter called after her. "Hey, can you shut the door?"

May pulled the door shut behind her, and Peter let the hologram project onto the ceiling as he looked on in amazement.


Long Island — Sunday, June 12, 21:15

It was cliché and unhealthy, but the man didn't care; he smoked his cigar with the highest feeling of deserving. Only the single desk lamp was turned on, illuminating merely the desktop, the wisps of cigar smoke and a single focused spot on the coffered ceiling. The mansion's isolated location and extensive foliage outside meant little light pollution poured through the leaded glass windows. An old fashioned cocktail glass clinked from the ice cubes chilling the Italian bitters inside.

There was a knock at the door, and it opened to produce a perfectly-styled man. "Sir," he greeted.

"Come," the man ordered in his unforgettable voice of gravel.

The unnamed guest entered and shut the door, crossing the dark study to stand in front of the man's desk. "The Ghost operative was spotted again, sir," he said, "this time within the Avengers Compound itself."

"You say this as if it were news to me," said the shadowed man.

"It does mean the Avengers will be on high alert now. They still don't know who exactly the Ghost works for."

"We are prepared."

"Are we, sir?"

The gravel-voiced man scowled dangerously, threatening the man to speak again.

"G-given this," the visitor stated hesitantly, "the organization awaits instruction."

"First Pierce and Stern, then von Strucker and Malick, and now Rumlow," the shadowed man said. "I'm staggered by the extent of this serial incompetence."

"This is why we look to you in this time of need," answered the guest.

The host sighed. "We only have one option left. Contact Bullock and rally his men. We're going hunting."

With a curt nod, the goon withdrew his cell phone as he exited the room. He placed a call and said, "Kay, alert Alpha: Wraith Protocol is go."


Amity Park — Tuesday, June 14, 17:15

"Mom, I'm home!" Danny shifted the paper shopping bag in his hands as he kicked the front door shut behind him.

"I'll be down in a little bit!" Maddie called from upstairs. "Leave the food in the kitchen and take the cleaner down to the lab."

"Alright."

Danny set the bag down on the kitchen table. He went about putting away the perishables, leaving the dry goods still in the bag. Taking the purple spray bottle of 409 cleaner in hand, Danny entered the open door to the lab stairs and went down to the basement. Just as he reached the bottom, though, Danny spotted a figure in white standing at one of his parents' computers.

"Hey!" Danny barked.

The hunched figure twisted so Danny could see his masked face. The intruder immediately sprung into action and charged Danny. The teen, however, saw the attack coming from miles away thanks to his year of combat training, or lack thereof, on the job of protecting Amity Park. Danny ducked to avoid the intruder's first strike, but he didn't see the hidden taser in the other hand.

Danny cried out at the sudden voltage and dropped into a heap at the bottom of the stairs. He scrambled to recover, but the attacker squeezed his hand into a fist, and it alit with energy. With a single punch, he sent Danny flying up the flight of stairs and crashing into the kitchen table.

Surrounded by splintered wood and spilling groceries, Danny moaned and slowly rolled onto his back. "Ugh," he grunted. "If that's how you wanna play it, no more Mr. Normal Teenager."

Danny stood and transformed into Phantom. He drifted from the floor and, going intangible, flew through the foundation and dirt and out of the wall into the lab. The intruder was hurriedly typing at the desktop, and Phantom was able to spot a progress bar in the corner of the screen.

Phantom remained intangible until the last possible second. He tackled the intruder from the side and sent them both crashing into the workbench.

"I don't know who you think you are," Phantom snapped, "but no one messes with the Fentons."

Suddenly, the intruder was intangible and escaped Phantom's grasp.

'He's a ghost? But my ghost sense didn't go off…' Phantom's brow furrowed. "Pretty daring of a ghost to break into the ghost hunters' house!"

The intruder withdrew a weapon and fired it at Phantom.

Phantom, however, dodged the energy blast and let it strike the basement wall. A second unexpected blast caught him and sent Phantom clattering into a cabinet.

The intruder ripped a USB stick from the computer and made a dash for a dark corner of the lab. Phantom charged his hand with ectoplasm and fired. He missed the man's body, but the ectoblast caught the hand holding the USB, and it clattered to the floor, smoking.

Before Danny could charge, the man disappeared from all wavelengths. Phantom assumed he must have left the room intangibly through the wall and chased after, but he was nowhere to be found. Defeated, he returned to the lab and de-transformed just before Maddie came storming down the steps and into view.

"Danny! Are you alright?!" she asked and hurried to assess any injuries.

Danny faked a hurt spot on his torso. "Uh, yeah, I'll be fine."

"What happened?"

"A robber, I guess," Danny replied with a half-shrug. "He threw me up the stairs into the table and left before he could take anything."

"Oh, my poor baby!" Maddie cooed and pulled him into a hug. "I'm so glad you weren't hurt worse."

"I wish I could say the same about dinner," Danny quipped, and they both went upstairs to look at the ruins of the table and ingredients canvasing the floor.

Maddie sighed and gently rested a hand on Danny's shoulder. "I'll clean this up," she said. "You go ahead and sit down for a while and recover."

"If you say so." Danny went into the living room and plopped onto the sofa, grabbing the remote from the coffee table as he sat. Danny put his feet up and turned on the TV which happened to be tuned to the local news channel.

"-lvCo's recent takeover of Sheinhardt Wig Company's parent corporation General Electric amidst the global scramble for a foothold in Wakanda," anchor Tiffany Snow was saying. "All of this follows the shocking foreign policy reversal from Wakanda's own King T'Challa during a press conference earlier this week in Vienna.

"Next up, some local gossip," the woman continued. "One of our viewers shared this photo via social media mere moments ago." The transmission switched to a slightly blurry and very zoomed photograph from a cell phone camera. "I am just as shocked as you are to learn that local ghostly hero, Danny Phantom, goes grocery shopping just like the rest of us!"

Danny paled. There, plain as day, was his alter ego flying through the air, carrying a brown paper bag of groceries. A purple spray bottle and a white bag of flour poked out of the top.

Something clattered in the kitchen, and Maddie came sprinting into the room. "Danny, pause it!"

Danny reluctantly paused the news so his mother could study the photograph.

"Amazing! What is that abomination doing grocery shopping?" his mother asked and put her hands on her hips.

"M-maybe he was helping somebody?" Danny fumbled.

Maddie lingered for a moment longer. "Huh." She tore herself away to return to the mess in the kitchen.

Danny gulped and resumed playback.

Upon returning to the kitchen, Maddie took the torn bag of flour in hand and absently judged its weight. Her gaze fell sidelong on the door to the basement where a purple spray bottle of 409 cleaner likely sat waiting for her.


Queens — Tuesday, June 14, 17:15

A loud "WHOOP!" echoed between the buildings. In full Spider-Man garb, Peter swung between the buildings along Queens Boulevard headed towards Long Island City.

The afternoon air rang with a sudden shrill scream. Peter doubled back and perched on top of an apartment block to assess the situation. A mugger or kidnapper of sorts in a grey hoodie had grabbed a little girl's wrist and was dragging her down a side street. Incensed, Peter leapt off the roof, using a web attached to the neighboring building to arc up and over the street. His angle perfectly set him up for a direct landing on the kidnapper.

But then, a noise distracted him. He glanced and saw a woman sprinting across the street with her long brown hair flowing behind her.

"May!?" Peter muttered to himself and lost control of his flight. Spider-Man crashed into a tree and flailed to grab a foothold, but he took a branch to the midsection and doubled over on it. His suit lost traction and let him slide off and crash to the ground on his back with a loud grunt.

All three civilians were momentarily distracted by Spider-Man's ungraceful entrance, but May recovered the quickest. She lassoed the shoulder strap of her purse over the mugger's head and yanked his face down into her waiting knee, and the man dropped instantly to the pavement.

May rushed to kneel in front of the shaking girl. "Hi, sweetie, are you okay? Did he hurt you at all?" she asked.

"No I'm okay, Miss Parker," the girl replied, clearly knowing May from somewhere.

"Good, good," May said and pulled her into a tight hug. "We're going to get you home safe, alright?"

A scrape of a pebble against the asphalt alerted the two to the stirring superhero a few yards away.

"Ouch…" Spider-Man muttered, voice muffled by the full-face mask. He rose to his feet and brushed himself off.

"Hey, it's Spider-Boy!" the girl cried out with glee and jumped up and down with excitement.

"How many times do I have to say: It's Spider-MAN!" the hero punctuated with a pathetically dramatic flailing of his limbs. He collected himself, cleared his throat and continued in as thick of a Queens accent as he could manage, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine, Spider-*Man,*" May teased.

"Good."

"Uuugh…" moaned the kidnapper.

"Shut up!" Spider-Man thrust out his hand and used a shot of webbing to glue the man's head to the pavement. "Hey, uh, Miss…Parker, was it?"

"Yeah…?" May said.

"Can you call the cops and watch this guy for a few minutes till they get here? I'd be happy to escort Little Miss Sunshine home."

"Uhhh, sure," May agreed, clearly perplexed by something feeling off about Spider-Man.

"Great! Let's bounce, little darlin'," he said and squatted down to the girl's level.

"I'm Leia!" the girl announced.

"No way! Are you a princess from a galaxy far, far away?!"

Leia giggled with an ear-to-ear grin. "Noooo!"

"Aw, too bad," Spider-Man responded with faux disappointment. " 'Cause I happen to know just where you can get some blue milk out on Queens Boulevard…"

"Do they serve blue milk in Queens?" May asked.

Spider-Man scoffed. "*Everyone* knows blue milk is actually melted cotton candy sorbet!"

"Let's get it! Let's get it!" Leia said.

"Alright, alright, cool your jets!" Spider-Man stood and asked May, "Hey, can I borrow five bucks?"

May's left eyebrow shot up. "Does superhero-ing not pay well?"

"Oh. Right. Uh…" Peter had never been more grateful for a full-face mask to hide the look of panic on his face. "Sorry…citizen. I forgot. Who I was talking to. Because you're not my mom; you're not *anyone's* mom. I mean…I don't think. I don't know, you're just a random- …Anyway. I toooootally have five dollars."

"Riiiiight," was all May could formulate as a response to the hero's babbling. She rolled her eyes and found a fiver in her billfold, handing it to Spider-Man without another word.

"I'll pay you back, promise," he stage-whispered to her.

"Don't worry about it," she whispered back.


"Hey, May, I'm back from Ned's," Peter called as he walked into apartment 7B.

"Perfect timing!" she replied and rushed from the stove. May immediately pulled Peter into a long, wordless hug.

"Um…is everything okay?" Peter asked. He couldn't help but worry she had figured him out.

"I just missed you today."

"Don't you miss me every day?"

May pulled out of the hug and gently punched Peter's shoulder. "Jerk."

Peter faked it hurting for her amusement.

"The lasagna's almost ready. Wash your hands."

"I'm not six anymore, May," Peter replied with a groan.

"It doesn't mean you get to skip personal hygiene!"

"No, I meant- no of course you know what I meant," Peter grumbled, May's chuckling only confirming that. He washed and automatically went to fill the water glasses as had become their pre-dinner routine.

"So anything exciting happen today?" May asked.

"Uh, no, not really," Peter answered vaguely. "Ned's trying to decide which LEGO set to buy himself for his birthday."

"Sounds like a big life decision," May joked.

Peter sobered and said as seriously as possible, "You have no idea, May. It's a big commitment."

May rolled her eyes and started plating the lasagna.

"What about you?"

The woman stilled for a moment, and the kitchen went quiet. A second later, though, and the clatter of her spatula against the plate continued. "Nothing interesting."

"Really?" Peter didn't mean to sound so surprised.

"Nope, it was a totally unremarkable day," May said and handed the plate to Peter with a smile.

When she had her back turned, Peter frowned in confusion. Saving a little girl from kidnapping was a big deal, even for a normal person. However, Peter couldn't say anything because he would have to reveal how he knew something happened.

Though she smiled as she sat, May had a detectable emotion hidden behind her eyes, something of worry.

"Because you know you can tell me if anything happens, right?" Peter continued. "I can handle it. I'm here for you."

With a show of lightheartedness, May said, "Pete, I can't tell you something if nothing happened."

Peter frowned and returned his attention to his plate of lasagna.

"Why, did someone tell you something did happen?" May asked.

"No," Peter denied. "I—just sayin' is all."


Esopus, New York — Tuesday, June 14, 17:15

"It was weird as hell, Tony." Rhodes fumbled for the remote and inclined his hospital bed. "I woke up, nobody around except this dude in white with a freaky Jason mask. Didn't talk or nothin', and then he just disappeared. It scared the shit outta me."

"She," Tony corrected and adjusted his position in his chair.

Rhodes paused. "She?"

"Ava Starr, a former SHIELD operative," Tony continued. "Hill ID'd her from the security footage. Pretty typical mad-science-experiment-gone-wrong kind of story: Her parents were playing around with quantum energy and lost control, they died in an explosion which gave little Ava some trouble with phase control and visibility and, you know, dying. Our old buddy Nick Fury decided to weaponize her, but she went rogue after the Hydra Uprising since it was pretty clear none of these goons were planning on helping her condition."

"So what was she doing here?"

"That's what I don't know, Rhodey," Tony admitted. "SHIELD never had any intention of helping her. They never studied her condition beyond what it could do for them."

"Damn," Rhodes muttered.

"Yeah. Poor kid." Tony sighed. "Maybe she thought the Avengers had worked with something quantum and she was hoping to steal it for herself. There's been a string of reported ghost-like break-ins across the country, and all of them describe a mysterious white-cloaked figure who goes to extreme lengths to not be described as 'chatty.' There's no defense against her or anyone or anything like her because nobody ever bothered to study ghosts. Well…*almost* nobody."

"You know a guy?"

"And a gal. Jack and Madeline Fenton out of Amity Park."

"Amity," Rhodes repeated. "Isn't that the—the portal-to-hell house?"

"That's Amityville," Tony corrected. "Amity Park is a small town outside of Middle of Nowhere, Ohio. It also happens to be the most *haunted city in America.*"

"Really," Rhodes drawled.

Tony shook his head and rolled his eyes in a dismissive manner. "However true it may be, there are a heck of a lot of ghost sightings even by Amity Park police, and the Fentons seem to be the only local humans who know what they're doing. I say 'humans' because…we've got another vigilante on our hands: Danny Phantom."

"I think I heard of that kid. It *is* a kid, right?"

"He claims to be a ghost. A good ghost," Tony added with a huff. "Ghost or not, he's also been connected to multiple thefts and kidnappings, so whether he's more Casper or Gozer, who knows?"

Rhodes clicked his tongue and shook his head. "First aliens, now ghosts."

"It's a strange new world," Tony said. "And apparently the Fentons know ghost tech, invisibility and phase shifting like nobody's business. I figure I might as well sign them on at Stark for a year and see what they come up with. If anything, it'll prepare us in case Danny Phantom ever becomes a real threat to global security."

"So, what's next for me?" Rhodes asked. "Retirement?"

"First, a field trip down to Columbia Medical to see what they can do for ya. Then we'll outfit you with a sweet set of wheels and you'll be zipping around the compound in no time. Like our own…less-intelligent Charles Xavier."

"I'm not a telepath," Rhodes deadpanned.

"You are balding, though."

"Halfway there," Rhodes cracked with a smile.


Amity Park — Friday, July 1, 15:30

"I have never been more bored in my entire life."

Tucker blurted the definitive fact from his uncomfortable position draped over the edge of Danny's bed. The mattress supported everything from the waist down while his torso arced backwards towards the floor. He felt around his head for his toppled phone until he eventually gave up.

"How long until Sam finishes the—the thing?" Danny asked from his desk.

"She gets back tomorrow."

Danny took a deep breath and stretched in his chair. "There are only so many Buzzfeed articles you can read before you finally just have to give up. God, I never thought I'd find myself wishing for a ghost attack just so I'd have something to do."

"How long until school starts again?" Tucker asked.

"Break only started a couple weeks ago, Tuck."

"Ugh."

There was a knock on the bedroom door, and it opened to reveal Maddie. "Sorry to interrupt, Danny," she said, "but I have some quick heavy lifting to do down in the lab, and your father's out. Do you mind?"

"No, that's fine." Danny stood.

"I'll come too," Tucker said.

"I can manage, Tuck."

"What the hell else am I gonna do?" his friend rebuffed.

Danny shrugged before following his mom out of the room. "Fair."

"Can you help me up, though?" Tucker called after him.

Danny briefly reappeared in the doorway. "Nah. I would hate to deprive you of a valuable time-killer."

Tucker groaned before contorting himself until he could fully roll to the floor and clamber to his feet. He caught up to Danny and Maddie in the lab where the latter was indicating some boxes of prototypes to be moved.

"Hey, Mrs. F., can I have a soda?" Tucker asked.

"Sure," she said. "Danny, there's a box of them over by the fluids cabinet."

"On it." Danny walked over and found a room-temperature Dr. Pepper sitting on the counter. He grabbed it and brought it to his friend while Maddie busied herself across the lab. "Sorry, Tuck, it's not cold. I can go grab a glass of ice if you want?" Danny handed it over.

Tucker, upon grabbing the can of soda, held it only for a second before setting it down. "What are you talking about?! It's freezing!"

"W-what?" Danny felt the can, and it was indeed barely above freezing to the touch. "That's so weird; it felt just fine a second ago?" Danny looked at his hand, but it seemed perfectly normal. He released a dismissive huff and returned to helping his mother.

Just then, someone rang the front doorbell.

"Would you go see who that is, please, Tucker?" Maddie asked.

"But I don't live here?"

"You're basically family, sweetie," the woman assured. "Go on. I still need Danny for a bit longer."

"Alright," Tucker agreed with a shrug. He went upstairs, taking the soda with him. Tucker took a large swig and opened the door.

"Hi."

In shock, Tucker accidentally spat his mouthful of soda all over the billionaire standing in the doorway. Tony Stark flinched and immediately reached for the pocket square poking out of his blazer.

After a moment of awestruck horror, Tucker finally recovered. "Oh, my god! Mr. Stark, I am so, so sorry! I-"

"No, no, don't worry about it. I'm used to it," Tony replied with only a measure of sincerity. "Who—who are you?"

"A friend…of the f-family," Tucker stuttered. "Please, come in!" He stepped aside to allow Tony to enter.

"Thanks. Where is the family?" Tony asked.

"Oh, downstairs. I'll get them. Please, Mr. Stark, make yourself at home!"

"Very generous of you," Tony prodded.

Tucker gave an awkward smile then sprinted downstairs.

"Who was it, Tucker?" Maddie asked.

"Iron Man."

"What?!" Danny blurted.

"Tony Freaking Stark is in your living room!" Tucker said.

"Oh, there was a message from him saying he might drop by," Maddie calmly explained.

"How is this not something you'd tell us?!" Danny asked. "How are you not freaking out right now?!"

"He's just a man, Danny," Maddie said with an amused expression and went upstairs.

Danny turned to Tucker. "Oh my god, how do I look? Am I okay? Oh my god, I'm about to meet an Avenger!"

"Holy crap, I just spat soda on a guy that has literally saved the world multiple times!" Tucker stage-whispered.

"You what?!"


Chapter 1 Easter Eggs and references (! I love including these):

- Why Dr. Pepper: because I freaking miss it SO MUCH living in Europe.

- Why Esopus, New York for the Avengers Compound location: Somebody figured out what part of the bank of the Hudson onto which Marvel superimposed the facility for the movies' aerial shots.

- Sheinhardt Wig Company: Did anybody catch this sly 30 Rock reference? :)

- Aunt May saving the girl and Peter sees it happen: Something like this was actually a deleted scene in Homecoming which Marisa Tomei talked about in an interview, though they never said what exactly happened in this unseen scene.

- Leia/blue milk: To be honest, it's kind of sad if I have to explain this one for you. It's Star Wars, guys! C'mon… (Fun fact: I've had blue milk at Galaxy's Edge and it's delicious because it was made with coconut milk and spiked with rum.)

- "this dude in white with a freaky Jason mask": from Friday the 13th

- "whether he's more Casper or Gozer": Casper the Friendly Ghost and Gozer, the main villain in the original Ghostbusters movie

- "If anything, it'll prepare us in case Danny Phantom ever becomes a threat to global security.": Ultimate Enemy much?

Let me know what you guys think! Thanks for reading :)