"You can't stay inside forever, Danny," his mother told him that morning as he tried to eat his sad, soggy cereal.
"I know, Mom," he snapped. Because he did know, Captain Obvious. But it still didn't make today any less nerve-racking.
"You'll be fine. Your friends will be there with you, and Sam has her car, right? So the only walking you'll be doing is from her car to inside the restaurant."
Danny scowled at his spoon. "It's not the walking I have a problem with, and it's not like I'm using my crutches anyway."
There was no saying how long they would be out, and using his crutches for longer than a few minutes was still exhausting. So no, that wasn't the reason he was so on edge about this.
The truth was, this was officially the first time Daniel Fenton Phantom was going to be out and about in public.
"People will leave you alone. And worst case, just leave!" Maddie offered a smile as she plucked his now-empty bowl from the table. "This is a big step, but your therapists have been telling you for some time now that you need to do this. It'll be fine, you'll see."
It was just lunch at the Nasty Burger. He'd done it hundreds of times before. And this time, because his parents were just so proud of him for taking this big step, sweetie, Jack had even left him a crisp twenty-dollar bill on the table that morning.
Apparently, Jack had chalked his last wad of missing cash up to ghosts. Assuming that Danny would ever do something like stealing was simply unthinkable.
Danny went about his morning, showering, putting fresh clothes on, and combing his hair no fewer than three times because what if he couldn't convince the public that he was normal? What if they all saw him as a grotesque, dead monster in a human skin suit? Or worse, a traumatized, skinny, weak kid that the Guys in White had trained into their pet plaything?
No, he wasn't a dog, and he could cover up all his fears under shampoo, washed clothes, and a friendly smile that he tried to practice in the mirror but felt silly enough to stop.
And then the doorbell rang.
His core sizzled, and he was almost too slow to stamp it out, to remind himself that it was just Sam and Tucker, that there were no government agents at the door, Danny.
His therapist had said this adrenaline response was natural. Still, it infuriated him the way his heart pounded and fingers tingled pins and needles whenever someone approached the other side of a closed door.
"Danny!" Sam bounded through the entrance.
He barely remembered to put on that smile he'd practiced in front of the mirror that morning. "Hey, Sam! Tucker!"
"Dude!" Tucker pranced inside like he owned the place. "This has been such a long time coming!"
"Yeah, it was kind of—kind of hard for me to get out before."
"No worries, man!" Tucker offered him a high five, and though Danny rolled his eyes, he met his friend halfway.
"Eating alone with Tucker has been torture," Sam lamented, her dark purple lips setting in a pout. "There's only so many times I can take him drooling over his beef environmental disasters by myself before I lose my sanity."
"Well, don't worry, Sammykins, because now you'll have to witness the power of two of us drooling over our beef environmental disasters!"
Sam slugged Tucker in the arm, and although Danny could see there was little power behind it, Tucker still made a big show about gripping his shoulder and wailing, "You wound me, woman!"
"Shut up!" Sam cackled.
Danny watched the dramatic performance as if he were standing on the other side of a glass wall. Every time the three of them hung out, he noticed these little moments more and more. Moments where Sam and Tucker seemed like they were from another planet.
Or maybe Danny was the one from another planet. The hopeless alien trying to blend in with the humans.
"Alright, let's go?" Danny asked, not wanting to delve further into his depressed psychology.
Tucker snapped out of his performance. "Let's go!"
"My car's in your driveway. You good to get in on your own? I mean—uh—" Sam stammered, glancing at Danny's wheelchair.
Right. He hadn't driven with his friends before.
"I'm good. You just—um, throw it in the—you know what? I'll show you." Danny transferred from the couch and headed for the door.
It was warm for a typical January day in Amity Park. There was no paparazzi outside their house either—thank god. Danny was last year's sensational hit, and his overnight fame seemed to be beginning to die down.
Not that he was becoming obscure by any means. He was still on the front page of Reddit nearly every day, and his tag on TikTok had thousands of videos and millions of interactions. But the constant bombardment of people stalking him outside his house was finally dispelling.
Of course, this only added fuel to the fire that was his parents' recent insistence on him going outside. The paparazzi would find him eventually as they always did, and there was nothing he could do about people recording videos of him to post on social media, but Danny would at least get a semblance of normalcy.
He followed them out of the house and into the driveway where Sam's car—a hybrid, she'd been very proud to show off—was waiting for them. He climbed into the car. The passenger seat, because although Danny was fully expecting Tucker to call shotgun, he hadn't.
"So I just put it in the back?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. The brakes are on, so just put it in as is. It won't move or anything."
"Alright." Sam picked up his wheelchair as if she were picking up a baby for the first time. Nervous, hesitant, as if afraid it would break under the lightest touch.
He remembered when he was like that too. Scared he would break it by shifting his weight even slightly incorrectly. But those days had long since passed.
Sam slipped into the driver's seat just in time for Tucker to lean over the center console. "Alright, Team Phantom! Nasty Burger time!"
"Ugh, don't remind me," Sam groaned, but Danny could see her smiling.
With little more fanfare than a nervous glance Danny's way, she turned the car on and backed out of his driveway.
"Should we get milkshakes, too?" Tucker asked. "I mean, what am I even saying? Of course we're going to get milkshakes! Duh! It's Danny's first time out since...since..."
"July," Danny finished all too quickly.
An awkward silence settled over the car. Tucker tried to save it. "Wow, that long? That's..."
He wasn't successful.
"It's okay! Uh, we're really happy that—that you…" Sam's voice also stammered.
God, the awkwardness between him and his friends was painful. Okay, it was Danny's turn to step in. Maybe a joke to ease the tension?
"Yeah. Well, you know, I was—I was too busy being kidnapped."
The dead silence grew, and Danny's heartbeat stuttered. He mentally kicked himself for bringing that up when he absolutely was not ready to talk about it with his friends.
If only they could see that he was Phantom again. That he had his core back and he was fine, he was okay. He wasn't some weak kid anymore, this helpless, fragile child.
"Yeah..." Tucker said, looking at Danny like he had spinach in his teeth and he was too nervous to tell him.
"Listen, I'm good, guys, seriously. I'm just looking forward to—to eating my body weight in Nasty Burger fries," he lied.
He'd wanted to take extra measures that morning to ensure the looming red bag wouldn't be a problem, but he needed to be careful. Sam and Tucker knew him better than anyone else. He couldn't take too much medication or they'd know something was up. But if Danny had a freak-out in the middle of the Nasty Burger, what would they do? How would they react? Would they agree with his parents and say that Phantom should never come out again?
Well, they already thought that, actually. That's why they didn't help him get Frostbite to take his chip out. That's why Danny had to turn to Vlad of all people.
Danny tried to shove that particular strain of bitterness away and tune back into their conversation. Sam and Tucker were chatting about…something that happened in their science class. Danny didn't know what because he wasn't in their science class. He was in the Learning Center because he couldn't handle being in a normal classroom. At least, not yet.
"Yeah, but you'll be back soon," Sam said.
Oops, had he said something out loud?
"We wouldn't be in the same class anyway. You're in—in honors," Danny said. He turned to her, incredulous. "Do I look like an honors kid to you?"
"Well, you never know!" Sam said. "I'm not in honors everything, you know."
"Yeah, we could be in the same English class!" Tucker said. "I'd rather die than join Sam in honors English hell, after all."
"Maybe. But knowing me, they'll invent a new—a new class below all the other ones."
"Nah, no way you're leaving me alone with Valerie. You know she's been trying to talk to me, right? She knows we know she's the Red Huntress. She keeps asking about you."
He did not, in fact, know that Tucker and Valerie had spoken.
"What'd she say?" Danny asked, trying to seem casual as their car passed by a group of joggers who didn't so much as bat an eye at their normal car passing by. He was too used to people staring at the GAV.
"Uh…you know…" Tucker began, waving his hand around. "She said she was sorry for being rude or whatever—you know, back before she noticed my stunning good looks and charm!"
Sam snorted. "You're so full of it."
Danny found it difficult to find the humor. "Seriously, what?"
"Just the normal stuff you'd expect. You know, the same sorts of questions everyone else has. Was wanting to know how long we'd known you were Phantom, and how we'd helped out with the ghost fights and stuff. Nothing really special."
Danny had forgotten that Sam and Tucker had become somewhat public figures when he had been both thrust into the spotlight and taken from them. It was short-sighted of him to believe that they would have been left alone in Casper High
Sam pulled into the Nasty Burger parking lot. "She's been trying to talk to me, too. Same as Tucker. Have you talked to her at all?"
"No," Danny lied, glancing at the red-and-white building. "You know if she still works here?"
"Nah," Tucker said. "She quit last fall. I think Vlad gave her a raise."
That was good. It meant there was little chance Danny would run into her again.
The car came to a stop. The drive had seemed much too short. Though, Danny suspected that even if the drive had lasted three hours, he would still think it was too short. Inside the car, he was safe, he was anonymous. But outside?
Outside, he was none of those things.
Danny took a breath in. Held. Then, on the exhale, said, "Okay." He looked at the gray ceiling of the car if only to avoid his friends' eyes. He didn't want to know if they were looking at him with pity or concern.
He opened his eyes and went to open the door when he noticed the large black SUV parked directly next to them. "Wait, Sam, uh—sorry. Sorry, I can't...you need to..." His cheeks heated up, and he felt the weight of the disabled parking placard in his hoodie pocket. He pulled it out and flipped it over in his fingers.
Sam's eyebrows knit in confusion, but then her eyes met the distinct blue and white stick figure, and her eyes lit up. "Oh shit! Sorry—totally forgot. Force of habit."
She turned the car back on, and Danny's cheeks only heated more. "Not—not a big deal. It's…it's not the distance. It's the space."
"No, no, I get it," Sam said.
Tucker leaned over the center console, not bothering to buckle his seatbelt again for the ten-second drive. "Listen, Danny, all I'm saying is that I can totally piggyback you over to the curb."
"I'd rather take my chances crawling, thanks."
"You're no fun!"
"Tucker, you can barely lift a wet paper bag," Sam quipped.
"You too? Come on, I've put on muscle this year!" He flexed his arm, though nothing bulged out from the sleeve of his baggy hoodie.
Sam snorted. "Doing what? Lifting your pencil from your desk every day?"
"No! I've totally been going to the gym, Sam!"
If he had, that was news to Danny.
But apparently, Sam knew exactly what he was talking about. She parked the car again and turned it off, saying, "Your New Year's resolution doesn't count! You've gone what, like three times so far? That's not exactly going to get you gains."
Tucker mimicked her lead, throwing open the car door and sliding out of his seat. "I told you, I'm easing into it! They say people fail because they go too hard too fast. Hell, you were the one that told me that!"
"Yeah, but I also told you it was important to establish a routine. Have you done any of that?"
"I'm working up to it, woman!"
Danny was about to yell out to his friends, "Hey! I'm still in here! Don't forget about me!" but thankfully, just as the awkwardness was beginning to get to him, Sam opened the trunk of the car and gently pulled his wheelchair out.
"Do I undo the breaks or…?" she called over.
"No, just leave them. I have to, um, transfer."
"Right! Duh!" Sam set the wheelchair next to his door.
Danny tried to make this transfer seem as fluid as possible. He tried to descend out of the car with the practice of someone who had had a spinal cord injury for a decade and was confident in their own body, thank you very much, but he couldn't help but notice the way Tucker awkwardly shuffled nearby, or the child with its eyes glued on Danny as his mother yanked him through the Nasty Burger doors, admonishing him because it's rude to stare.
He was fine. He was fine. It was only the Nasty Burger. He had come here a million times before.
He undid the brakes and gripped the rims of his wheels, his palms clammy against the sleek metal. He felt so small between Sam and Tucker. He was usually half the height of everyone else, but the gap felt so much greater out in public. He wondered how long it would take before someone posted a video of him on social media. This would almost certainly make the fame worse again.
Maybe people would see that he was just trying to return to his old life and would leave him alone. But as soon as that thought crossed his mind, he stamped it out. No way would that ever happen.
"Okay, let's go! I'm fucking starving!" Tucker said, ushering the pace along. He ran ahead and held open the door nice and wide. "Come on, you guys are so slow! Make way, make way, the world's slowest people might come through!"
In times like these, Danny was almost grateful for Tucker's dorky obnoxiousness, if only to help quell some of his seemingly never-ending anxiety.
He opened his mouth to say something about Tucker being a little shit and maybe a threat about sleeping with one eye open that night when his voice died in his throat.
Friend groups and families of all ages packed the Nasty Burger as the weekend lunch rush commenced. And Danny could see them, the people whose eyes lazily glanced over to the loud teen at the door, spotted Danny, and froze. Then they nudged their friends, who also turned to stare at Danny.
The whispers started, and the cell phones rose.
"That's really him?"
"No way!"
"Do you think that means Phantom's back?"
Phantom was back, but Danny couldn't say that much. He could only sit here and grind his teeth into silence.
Meanwhile, Sam and Tucker seemed to be faring far better with the whispers and blatant videoing of their trio. Maybe they were used to it. Or maybe they were trying to pretend everything was normal for Danny because he was fragile now, he couldn't handle the pressure last time that's what landed him in inpatient.
"I keep telling you to come to the gym with me," Sam chatted animatedly. "I'll show you how to build a solid routine!"
"Oh yeah, because sticking to a rigid routine is exactly what I'd call having fun at the gym," Tucker snarked. "Seriously, do I look like the kind of person who'd be into that?"
"You're impossible sometimes, you know that?"
Tucker only offered his signature shit-eating grin in return. "And you still love me anyway!"
Once again, Danny was not a participant in their banter.
"Okay, I seriously wasn't joking before that I'm starving! I didn't eat breakfast."
"That's what you get for waking up late."
"Yeah, yeah. What are you, my mom?"
Danny forced himself to join the conversation as they got in line. Primarily, to distract himself from the blatant onlookers. And, perhaps also, to show that he was a normal kid with normal friends. "What are you gonna get?"
"Triple Nasty combo," Tucker answered automatically. "And probably a milkshake on the side. Duh!"
"That's so much food. The poor animals," Sam said.
"Yeah, and I'll eat it all too. You watch!"
"I'd rather not."
"Well, I already know you're getting a tofu melt because you hate fun. So what about you, Danny?" Tucker asked.
Danny shrugged. He wasn't sure he could eat with his stomach practicing gymnastics inside his torso. The smell wasn't horrible in the Nasty Burger, but it still had that slight processed scent that made Danny's eyes think that every red booth they spotted in passing was a vestige of the red bag.
Shit, now his brain was thinking about it. He wanted to stop thinking about it. Just stop, Danny, it's not that hard.
People got behind him in line. He could hear their whispers.
"…so small in person…"
"…feds messed him up…"
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Normal kid. He was a normal kid.
"Danny?" Sam's tone was too gentle.
He looked up to see that they were now standing in front of the register, and a nervous-looking teenager was staring openly at him. People around gave him a wide berth, most openly gawking at this point. The rims of his wheelchair felt cold, and then he realized shit, that was just the ecto-frost on his palms threatening to freeze him to the floor.
"Um…" Danny pretended to look at the menu, but his eyes couldn't really focus on anything. "I guess a…uh…just—just a regular Nasty Burger. And, um, fries."
That was a normal teenager thing to order, right?
"What, no milkshake?" Tucker asked.
"Not—not that hungry," Danny admitted. He tried to remember if he would have ordered a milkshake in the past. He probably did, right? His shrunken stomach was supposed to be back to normal now, according to his doctors, but he still didn't feel like it was.
"Aw, for real?" Tucker said, but he snapped himself out of it quickly, clasping a hand on Danny's shoulder and flashing a grin. "Don't worry, because I'm such an amazing friend, I'll let you share mine!"
"Oh, yeah, thanks."
The cashier rang him up—only slightly stuttering when she pressed a wrong button and apologized five times for making him wait an extra few seconds—and then the trio headed for a table.
"Needs to be off to the side," Danny said, realizing there was no way he could fit through the narrow aisles in the middle of the packed joint. "Not near the front windows, though."
Like hell was his face going to be the first that everyone saw when they entered the restaurant.
Sam was way ahead of him, though, already beelining for a table along the side. Danny followed with Tucker in tow yapping about some glitch he'd discovered in whatever video game he was playing. Danny appreciated the effort, truly. Video games used to be the primary thing that they bonded over. But now, Danny didn't even recognize the title, and he realized that he wasn't too interested in trying it for himself.
As they passed by the crowd, people practically leaped out of the way. When a middle schooler with her back turned was partially blocking Danny's path, her friends yanked her aside so hard that Danny thought the poor kid was going to fly headfirst into a table. But then she turned, saw him, and her eyes grew comically wide as she yelled, "Oh shit!"
Her friends, of course, giggled uncontrollably at that, chiding their friend for being "so oblivious, oh my god!"
Yeah, this was fine. He was just a normal teen at a Nasty Burger. There was nothing to yell about.
In another universe, they would have sat at a booth along the outer perimeter of the fast food joint. After all, booths were always superior. But not now, not when sitting in a booth meant abandoning his wheelchair to the aisle where the general public could trip and spill their drinks on it.
Danny didn't have to ask Sam to move one of the chairs off to another table. He scooted himself in as if this were rehearsed and they'd done this before, as if this were a normal Saturday routine for them and Danny wasn't so anxious he thought he might actually sink through the floor.
"This is why you never get any better at games, though," Sam snapped at Tucker.
It took Danny a few seconds to realize that they were still in the middle of a conversation.
"But it's fun! Come on, Danny, back me up!"
Danny blinked owlishly at him. "What is?"
There was the barest hint of a flicker in Tucker's face. A brief moment where his eyebrows began pulling together, where his lips dropped, where his eyes flashed, before he pulled his cheeky smile back on and answered in the same bright, whiny tone, "Exploiting the system, of course!"
If Danny hadn't known any better, he would have excused that as a trick of the light.
"But if you spend the entire time cheating, then you'll never actually develop any skill! See, this is why I always crush you one-on-one," Sam argued.
"Yeah but it's fun," Tucker reiterated.
Danny attempted to put on his best bro-code as he backed Tucker up with what was probably an extremely convincing, "Right."
Sam pressed her lips together, and Danny's fingers twitched for his pocket where a little plastic baggy awaited him.
He was not doing well at this whole pretending-to-be-normal thing. Maybe at home it was less obvious, but here, surrounded by dozens of other normal people, his little quirks were too glaring. Too freakish.
If he could take up the offerings of the small plastic bag in his pocket, he could pass as normal. But then Sam and Tucker would know something was up, and oh god, everyone was watching him, right? There were whispers everywhere. Why was being normal so easy for Sam and Tucker? Why couldn't he be like them?
Maybe the pills were like his wheelchair or crutches. He couldn't be normal without them. He was a freak, a zoo animal in an exhibit, and everyone knew it. Maybe he belonged in a little cage where everyone could watch him, point and whisper, one with white walls and white floors and—
A kid stumbled forward, knocking into his wheelchair. Danny turned, and the child hid his face behind his stubby fingers and backed away. He bumped into his parents, who gently said, "Go on," and pushed him forward again.
The child, who couldn't have been older than six, approached him again, now peeking rather obviously out of his fingers. A tuft of dirty blond hair sat on a head almost too large for his body. But Danny immediately zeroed in on the child's black shirt with a familiar white logo on his chest.
Why was this kid wearing his shirt when Phantom hadn't made an appearance in months?
"Hi." The kid stood beside Danny and dropped his fingers from his face. He rocked back and forth on his heels, barely able to hide his nervous excitement as he asked, "Can I take a picture with you?"
Danny's mouth dried instantly. He glanced at Sam's and Tucker's reassuring expressions before turning back to this bouncing child.
Phantom had taken lots of pictures with kids before. But Fenton? Well, before the reveal, Fenton was a nobody. And after the reveal, he'd turned government-plaything-to-crazy-kid. The fact that not only did this random child want a picture with him but his parents were standing a few steps away encouraging it?
Was he dreaming?
Thankfully, his voice returned to Danny quickly enough for him to say, "Uh—yeah. Yeah! Of course!"
The child squealed and closed the gap between himself and Danny, who leaned to the side with his arm out. The kid went right for it, clasping his hands in delight when Danny's hand wrapped around his shoulder.
The kid's parents were quick with their phones, snapping their photos before Danny's brain could finish processing the bizarre nature of whatever the fuck was happening.
When the parents gave their thumbs-up, the kid whipped back around to face Danny, his nerves now fully given way to excitement. "Thank you, Phantom! You're my favorite superhero. Look, I have your shirt!"
For the first time in his life, Danny felt completely out of his depth. Thankfully, Tucker was to the rescue, leaning over with a "Wow! Look, Danny, it matches your suit perfectly!"
The kid clapped. "It does! I got it because then we match!"
"Thank you." Danny hoped he didn't sound too dumbfounded. "Um, what's your name?"
"Theo! Santa got me this for Christmas. I wear it all the time and my friends wanted the shirt from Santa! Bryce has a shirt already, and sometimes we match too!"
"Well, thank you, Theo!" Danny said, having no idea how to respond.
"Come now, let's let Mr. Phantom get back to his friends," his father said.
"Okay!" Theo said, then hesitated, glancing between the wheelchair and Danny before something in his little brain computed and he reached over and tried his best to hug Danny.
And if Danny's brainpower was flickering before, now it officially short-circuited. Because this kid, this kid, was really...hugging him? He took a picture with Danny and now he was trying to hug him?
And his parents weren't screaming and cursing at him for being a danger to their son?
No. Wait, his parents were taking a picture of this? They were smiling?
Danny felt a kick to the side of his wheelchair, and he snapped back to Earth to realize that oh, duh, he was supposed to hug Theo back.
Even though he was afraid that touching the kid might set someone off enough to call the police on him, nothing of the sort happened. He gently wrapped his hands around Theo's back, and then the kid broke free, beaming up at him with a smile so wide, Danny was afraid it might fly off his face.
"Thank you, Mr. Phantom! I hope you feel better soon!" Theo said, skipping back to his parents.
His father high-fived him, praising him for being such a good boy and asking Mr. Phantom first before leading them back to their table across the restaurant. The mother hovered for a moment, hesitating, before walking over to Danny and saying, "Thank you for taking a photo with him. You're Theo's idol. He was so worried about you when everything happened, so seeing you here today meant a lot to him."
"It's no problem," Danny said, and he meant it. He was still reeling that this happened at all.
Not that it was bad. It wasn't. It was actually…kind of nice. Warm in a way he couldn't explain.
He pushed through his jittering nerves because, for some reason, he really felt like he needed to say one more thing. "Tell—tell your son that—that Phantom is working hard to be back soon."
The woman's eyes almost looked watery as she said, "I will. Thank you."
And then she left to join her family.
The whispers followed, but Danny suddenly didn't care. He felt light. Like he was almost flying. His core hummed happily, sending waves of exhilaration dancing along his limbs.
"Wow, that's so cool, Danny!" Sam said.
"Yeah, I guess it is," Danny replied, blinking more stars from his eyes. "I didn't think anyone—anyone would…"
"It's like I said, dude!" Tucker grinned. "You're kind of a big deal. Both you, and Phantom."
"Well, yeah, I noticed." Danny's eyes flickered to that group of middle school girls who were very obviously sending Snapchat videos of him to all of their friends. "I just—I didn't think it would be—be like…that. I don't know."
Sam's lips pulled into a frown. "Danny, you realize that most people are on your side, right? That it's just the angry people who are the loudest?"
"On my—on my side and letting their kid take photos with me are two different things, Sam."
Sam and Tucker exchanged a look. A long look. One that soured Danny's mood instantly because shit, his friends thought he was unstable, didn't they? Were they going to tattle on him to his parents? Or Jazz? Tell them that Danny thought of himself as little more than a freakshow exhibit at the circus and that they should get him more therapy?
"It's—forget it," Danny said. He opened his mouth to elaborate, to make an excuse that the kid just caught him off guard and that he was aware that most people were on his side, thanks, and maybe spill that he'd seen their post pinned to his subreddit, when the girl at the counter called their order number.
He waited at the table while Sam and Tucker got their food. He could feel everyone's eyes on him. He was alone, vulnerable. Everyone was looking at him. Whispering. Wondering.
He heard a snicker behind him. Were people laughing at him?
No, it was just a group of friends, they were talking, they probably were laughing at something else entirely. Not everything revolves around you, Danny. Stop being so egotistical.
Thankfully, Sam and Tucker didn't abandon him for too long. They returned, trays of food in hand.
Sam placed his plate in front of him, and he held his breath. He could feel his fingers start to shake, and he hid them within the sleeves of his hoodie. He couldn't crack, not now, not while he was in public.
Don't think about it. It doesn't smell the same. This is totally different.
Eventually, he had to let out a breath, but not until the world had drowned out of his ears and his head was spinning. Was it from the lack of oxygen or the anxiety biting holes in his skin?
"You're not going to eat?"
He jolted up to see Tucker already halfway through his burger. Sam, too, was looking at him with a lost expression.
Panic swirled in him. Had his friends been talking casually to each other the entire time? Had they noticed his silence?
Did they care?
Was he even really their friend anymore? Or was he just the third they let tag along because they felt bad leaving him behind?
"Oh, what?" Danny tried to let out the breath he'd been holding as quietly as he could. His lungs burned. "Sorry. Yeah, just spaced out."
They stared at him a moment longer, and Danny could feel his face heating up. He could smell the processed food in front of him.
It's not the same thing.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Sam asked gently. "We can take this to go if you need."
God, he hated how she looked at him like he could break at any moment.
"I'm fine," he snapped. He wasn't going to let her see him weak.
His pulse quickened. He needed another pill.
This was the issue with the hydrocodone. It wasn't as potent as the oxycodone. It didn't last as long either. The mental relief wore off too soon.
He should have taken the extra one in his pocket.
Tucker and Sam were having a silent conversation. But this one was so loud, Danny could almost hear it.
"Should we bring him home?"
"I don't know."
"What if he has a meltdown?"
"He can't have one right now. We're in public."
He wanted them to shut up, to leave him alone, to stop looking at him like he was something to pity, like some starving dog begging on the street corner. And so, he raised his burger to his mouth and took a bite.
It was fine. He was in the Nasty Burger. He was fine.
The burger was juicy, and regardless of the smell, it really did taste like a burger. Nothing at all like what he'd eaten before. Which seemed to work for whatever set of stringent rules his brain had decided on, and he could feel the panic begin to trickle out of his skin.
"It's good," Danny commented when his gaze flickered up to see the strained looks on his friends' faces. "Really good."
Sam's face melted in relief. "I'm glad!"
"That's why we brought you out here!" said Tucker. "Figured a taste of the best fast food ever would bring you right back to the good old days!"
Danny wished that was all it took.
"Yeah. I guess the reminder is nice."
Their eyes weighed a thousand pounds on his skull as he bent down and took another bite.
It did taste pretty okay. Nothing at all like the red bag, though it smelled a little like the red bag and ugh no don't think about it, don't think about it.
Their chatter started up again, and this time, Danny tried his best to follow along.
Or, maybe not. Because while they were talking about school, a topic Danny should have at least been familiar with, he was already lost.
"Dash and Paulina haven't broken up yet, idiot," Sam said.
"'Yet' being the key word there," Tucker said. "That means you think they're a bad matchup too!"
"Yeah, they have basically nothing in common other than popularity." Sam swiped a fry off Tucker's plate with a level of ease that made Danny's gut squirm, though he didn't understand why. "That doesn't mean you're suddenly going to become her knight in shining armor. You have even less in common with Paulina than Dash does!"
"Wait, Dash and Paulina are dating?" Danny asked.
Sam rolled her eyes. "Barely. Tucker's convinced he has a chance to ask her to prom. No one thinks they're going to last."
"Prom?" Danny's voice squeaked.
"Yeah, we're juniors!" Tucker nudged him playfully. "We get to go to prom in the spring! It's still a few months away before promposals start, but a man's gotta plan early, right?"
Danny took a slow bite of his burger and chewed, not making eye contact with either of his friends. He'd forgotten that he was an upperclassman, technically. Though, given his current academic situation, he barely felt like a student at all.
But it didn't really matter, because there was no way a damaged, fucked-up hybrid like him was ever going to get a date to prom.
"Hey," a voice behind him said.
He turned just in time for a camera to flash.
The paparazzi instinct was burned deep into his reflexes at this point, and he ducked his face behind his hands.
"Can you still turn into Phantom?" the pap asked.
Sam shot her a glare. "Um, do you mind? We're eating."
The girl ignored Sam. "Can you speak to the rumors about why you haven't transformed since your arrest? Is it true that the government took away your ghost form?"
"He's literally still injured. He can turn into Phantom just fine. Let him heal first," Sam said.
Danny felt his core pulse and winced, pushing it back down. His ghostly half didn't take kindly to the implication that it was weak and needed to stay hidden. It didn't like to lose.
It wanted to appear, to show the world that he was here again, he was back.
But no. No.
"Does this mean that you're done acting as the town's protector?"
Danny ducked his head to hide the green glow of his eyes under his bangs, and he heard Tucker suck in a breath beside him.
Click!
The camera flashed.
Conversations at other tables hushed around him. Other people were picking up on what was happening.
Calm down.
The door opened, and another set of footsteps began stalking over to his booth.
Click!
"Phantom! Hey, Phantom, look over here!"
Another paparazzo.
"Hey, hey!" a gruff voice behind the register called out. "What the hell are you guys doing on my property?"
"Phantom!" the paparazzo said, closer this time, ignoring the Nasty Burger manager.
"Okay, it's time for us to go," Tucker said quietly, stuffing both his and Danny's food back into its paper bag and tugging Danny's hoodie sleeve. "Come on, we're leaving."
If he got up, then that would be another shining example of him running away from his problems. It would be proof that he was weak, that he couldn't handle a few simple questions. It would show the public that he couldn't do normal human things like go to the Nasty Burger with his friends.
But he didn't have enough of the medication in him. His fingers wouldn't stop trembling. He couldn't make a stand without the fog.
"Let's go." Tucker's uncharacteristically serious tone offered no argument, and his eyes were hardened like a soldier going into battle.
In all their years of friendship, Danny had never seen this side of Tucker before. Sam had always been the leader of their group, but in this moment, it wasn't Sam taking charge. It was Tucker not just asking but commanding Danny to follow his orders.
So Danny did. He pushed himself away from the table and followed Tucker to the door, passing by nameless faces and eyes all tracking his every muscle twitch.
He felt like an alien.
He should have just taken the extra hydrocodone that he couldn't afford, suspicions from Sam and Tucker be damned.
It was sickening how instantly he'd caved to the pressure from the paparazzi. He just wanted to look them in the eye and tell them to fuck off.
But he couldn't do that. Not without help.
"Phantom! Look over here!"
"Phantom!"
Had they multiplied?
"Get the fuck out of my store before I call the fucking cops, you vultures!"
Those girls were whispering again. As were the other group of teens next to them. And the group of families behind them. And every group around the store. They were all staring at him, whispering, talking about him because they couldn't believe that Phantom was actually here in the flesh after months of only seeing his name in the news.
He felt hands on the back of his wheelchair, and then he had the stunning realization that Tucker was pushing him out of the restaurant. Had he stopped moving? He hadn't even noticed.
Déjà vu rushed over him, and for a moment, he felt like this was last fall all over again. With him spacey and confused, and Sam and Tucker doing their best to maintain a normal friendship out of some deluded sense of obligation, even though they were acting more like Danny was a toddler they were responsible for looking after rather than their friend. And worse, he couldn't even blame them.
Danny had rarely heard Tucker sound so serious. So confident. Gone was his squeaky, puberty-ridden voice, and now here was the blooming baritone of a nearly seventeen-year-old who had matured far more in the last six months than Danny had even realized.
Both of them had matured, he amended as he looked over to Sam's straight back and squared shoulders. Her toned arms swung and her chin stuck out with a set jaw and purple lips pressed in a line.
They had both grown so much. And he hadn't.
A toddler. He was just a toddler to them.
"I got it," he muttered, trying not to sound too bitter as he regained control of his wheelchair.
The paparazzi followed them out of the restaurant, of course, yelling questions that sounded more like the buzzing of a mosquito than actual words.
Sam's car was right in front of the building where they'd left it, which meant that it was in the prime location for the paparazzi to get a nice show of Danny transferring to the car.
"Sorry that your faces are gonna end up on TMZ tomorrow," Danny said, trying to keep the tone light.
Tucker waved him off with a grin that didn't reach his eyes. "Don't sweat it, dude."
"Wouldn't be the first time, anyway," Sam added.
Yeah, he supposed it wouldn't.
He tried to look more energetic than he felt as he got into the car, turning his head away as Sam and Tucker stowed the wheelchair in the trunk, even as he heard the flurry of camera clicks capturing every moment of it.
He also didn't miss Sam's overly aggressive door slam, or the tensely lighthearted tone Tucker's voice held as he called out to the paps, "Enjoy the rent money!"
Sam snorted, then opened the driver's door and began sliding into the seat. "Yeah, hope your parents are proud of you right now! Harassing a bunch of teens like this!"
"Just a word!" one of the paparazzi yelled back.
"Why haven't you turned into Phantom?" the second asked.
"Is it true that the Ghost Investigation Ward destroyed your ghost half?"
"Why didn't you answer me before? Are you finished working as Amity Park's protector?"
Danny's core twinged, and not for the first time today, he cursed his ghostly Obsession for making things like this utterly impossible to ignore. "I'm not done!"
Beside him, Sam stiffened, her hand poised on her open door, a second too late to close it.
"I'm not done working as Phantom!" His core hummed. "I—I'll be back! Soon!"
"Danny, stop," Sam hissed.
Danny was done listening to what other people thought he should do with Phantom. He was done hiding.
"How soon?"
His core throbbed, and it took everything in him to not transform right then and there. Though judging by the breath Tucker sucked in, Danny could guess that he hadn't managed to keep his eyes from glowing green.
The first ghostly display he'd shown the public since his release from the hospital, and…he wasn't concerned in the slightest at the potential backlash.
In fact, his core was preening like a peacock at the mere thought that the paparazzi had caught a video of his eyes glowing.
Recklessly, he pushed his aura out harder.
"How soon, Phantom?"
Danny grinned. "Soon!"
Happy New Years! So one of my 2025 goals is to finish drafting this fic this year! Looking at the rest of my outline, as well as my pre-written scenes and chapters, I think that's feasible.
Thank you to imekitty for betaing! And thank you all for reading!