Chapter Text
It all began during his parent’s college reunion.
Danny really didn’t want to go, but unfortunately for him, his powers had gotten him in trouble. Again.
He was trying! He really was! But it was just so rough for the poor kid.
He just had more important things to worry about than his curfew. Life sucks when you're regularly falling through the floor. Or when you silverware keeps slipping through your hands during dinner. Hell if he wasn't careful he'd sometimes find himself ominously levitating in the doorway on accident! At least everything ghostly tended to happen when his parent’s backs were turned. But it wasn't going to remain foolproof for long; skittish and nervous behavior around his parents (for a good reason! They were ghost hunters!) started to set off their ‘parental senses’ recently. They were normally a special sort of inattentive regarding him and Jazz, but he had recently noticed them keeping an extra eye on him when he seemed to be having an especially bad day. Like the other night!
'What sort of jackass was sending freemason vultures after dad? And why did it HAVE to be on a school night?'
Danny pressed his cheek against the window, sulking- the cold glass against his cheek used to pretty much cool him off when he was getting frustrated, but lately everything was just...warmer than him. Dammit. He knew why he was so damn cold all the time, but he hated thinking about it- he just wanted to be normal!! Unfortunately for him, nothing of the sort seemed to work out in his favor. Ghosts kept showing up and fucking it all up! His grades were suffering big time! He wasn't the best student but he managed to pull off a mid-B average before his sleep schedule got messed up so bad. Danny wishe- wanted to pretend it was because he was just 'at that age', that he 'didn't care' or 'was slacking' like people said, but no. He had ghosts pulling shit at all hours of the night, usually involving him. Just last week he had to deal with a literal wishing ghost, and getting sick afterwards. Danny grumbled to himself, thinking about all the shit he'd had to deal with. If it wasn't for his failing grades he probably wouldn't have had to deal with overnight gorilla research. And Skulker. Fuck Skulker. All my homies hate Skulker.
He glanced over towards Jazz. She obviously wasn’t happy, but he'd just learned how to tune her out when she was like this years ago. Right after she’d outright start glaring at him, he knew it was time to stare out the window and daydream until she got over herself. This time she was basically radiating displeasure. Every quip from their parents about his responsibilities? Concerned glare. They mention ghosts? Annoyed glare. They mention how much this trip will teach the two of them? Angry glare.
Jeeze! It’s not like he’d meant for them to be forced to spend their entire weekend being dragged across state lines! In fact, Danny had wanted to do the exact opposite! He had plans to hit up the new arcade before finally hanging at Sam’s place. The last time he’d had the chance to do that, a disastrous garage sale/party incident distracted him...
At least their parents stopped bugging them about school and were just singing now. That was much easier to drown out. Danny listened for a moment and groaned. He hoped they'd finally stop for the night soon- it was getting dark and both he and Jazz could use a moment to stretch their legs.
But, hey! Look on the bright side; even cooped up in the RV this was probably the most non-ghost-related thing he's done in a while! Well...even if ghosts were the reason he and Jazz were stuck going to Wisconsin in the first place. But really, when was the last time he'd felt like an average, everyday, ordinary teenage boy?
He thought about how he almost got to be normal a month-or-so ago! He'd been invited to THE party of the year! Him! Wimpy, clumsy Danny Fenton! Jazz really did him a solid there, he'd have to remember to thank her again. But that didn't last long. He'd managed to show up only for Technus to ruin it. He'd been so excited and it ended up just one big let-down. He did get to be the school mascot like a week ago! But...that was also...ruined- by Desiree, no less. And then at the beginning of the year he got to the cute girl he liked to going to a dance with him! It was nice to fit in for once, even is she was using him. Normal teenagers dealt with that sort of petty shit pretty regularly, right? And hey! Paulina was still pretty, even if she was also sort of a dragon at the time. That part wasn't fun, but he got to feel normal for almost a week! It would have been nice for it to continue, especially since it seemed every few days, give or take, another ghost would show up and threaten his sanity, his skin, and sometimes his school.
Danny shuddered, thankful the ghosts seemed to be mostly focused on him, rather than everyone else. He's terrified to think about what would happen if the town at large or his friends and family were directly harmed. If it did happen, it would all be his fault, though. He was the idiot who accidentally turned the portal on. He was the reason the ghosts had free reign to enter Amity. The thought made his chest ache deeply. It hurt, making him bring a hand to it to settle atop the strange buzz that had been making itself more prominent recently.
Why couldn't he just be normal?
If he was normal, then he wouldn't be constantly on edge. He was always worried about doing something ghostly when mom and dad were around. What would they even say if he fell through the floor? What if he flashed out of visibility for a moment? Shit he just learned how to blast things! Sometimes he would feel that energy pooling in his hands when mad... what if he accidentally exploded something? Would they accept him? Did the men in black actually exist? Would they send him off to the FBI or something? What if they wanted to experime- No. No they would never do that to him, right? Even if they caught him it'd be okay. They'd be so pissed though- all the lying he did would get him grounded for life!
Or.
Would they even...notice?
He didn't know which option was worse; shit, with his luck he could yell and 'go ghost' in front of them and they'd be miraculously turned away from him. Knowing how things tend to go for him, he'd be able to do it standing on the kitchen table during dinner and they would still just, not notice. It's not like they're at dinner half the time, anyways. Danny sometimes swears his superpower was invisibility even before his accident. He doesn't know exactly how he feels about that. He should probably feel upset, but sometimes flying (literally) under his parents’ radar came in handy when he had to beat the snot out of the ghosts that wouldn’t leave Amity be.
Jazz was going on about something- probably the fact that they were taking so long to stop for the night. How it was blah blah irresponsible, blah blah dangerous. He could feel more than hear her griping about how it took nearly all day to comb that green crud out of her hair. It was an accident, okay! So, as a standard younger brother practice, he tuned her out and focused his attention on the rest area sign ahead of them. Yes!! They finally parked and he took the first chance he got to run off to the bathrooms and avoid his family for five seconds.
Coming back he saw his parents getting hunkered down into their patented (why did they need a patent for this) Fenton Sleeping Bags™. Jazz was making a point to set theirs up a little farther away from the other two, dad snored and sleep-fought ghosts after all. He sat down on his bag and yawned, not hearing his dad's excited plans for tomorrow. He knew Jazz would wake him up if he managed to not be surprised awake tonight- he didn't use to be a light sleeper, but how the turns have tabled. He made motions to settle in, scrolling on his phone before something Jazz said made his ears perk up.
“-Masters? As in, Vlad Masters? Who was named Affluence Magazine's Billionaire of the Year? That Vlad Masters???”
'What...'
Danny watched his dad perk up in his sleeping bag, giddy even after driving literally all day. "That's the guy! In college, he was my best friend- We were very popular guys. Roommates, lab partners, we did everything together. Until the thick fingers of fate stuck themselves right in Vlad's eyes." His dad frowned for a moment before continuing with another grin plastered on his face. "You know the portal your mother and I built?"
"Well, yeah. It's kind of enormous." Danny answered.
"Well in college the three of us worked on a Proto-portal! Tiny thing, it was, and hot! The thing blasted V-man right in the face during our test. And was usually a stickler for safety! But, I guess we all got a little over-excited to test it!" Jack laughed as if he just told the world's funniest joke. Maddie didn't smile, just elbowed him in the arm. "I mean, I got a little over-excited to test it." He looked away sheepishly as his wife sighed.
"What happened to him? He's alright, right?" Jazz inquired, concern apparent on her face.
"Well he's probably alive, seeing as he's a billionaire. And inviting us over." Danny snarked back, only to earn another glare from his sister.
Jack began speaking animatedly once again, worry lines evident on his brow. "He was hospitalized with a horrible case of ecto-acne! It devastated him...and killed his social life! We actually haven't spoken since that day. But! The good news is, I think after all these years, he's finally forgiven me!"
Jazz was so thrown off from the revelation, and Danny could feel it himself. How could he not?! His parents were friends with a weird billionaire from the sounds of it! And they had never thought to mention it before tonight! Hell, the guy was studying ghosts with them in college! And what even was ecto-acne? Why was his dad so nonchalant about this guy taking like twenty years to talk to him? What did he mean he 'finally forgave him?' Nothing made sense!! Danny didn't even want to touch the implication of his parents being responsible for another lab accident like that with a forty foot pole, the thought of it made him full-body shudder as he remembered how it felt to be blasted with a fully functional one. Masters was lucky he just had some weird ghost acne and didn't end up dea-
'Deep breaths, Danny. You're here. You're alive.'
After a moment of gathering his thoughts together he realized something. His parents neglecting to tell them about an old friend may seem strange, he guessed other parents did the same to their kids. But the fact that they didn't even so much as mention being close with a super rich guy who also studied ghosts with them? That worked on the portal with them? The same portal that was their crowning achievement? They'd talked his and Jazz's ear off about that for weeks, and never once mentioned a third person who'd helped them design a prototype of the damn thing!
Danny thought it was all a little disappointing, honestly.
His parents did often forget to mention important stuff to them. Stuff like ‘don’t mix bleach and ammonia’ - Danny would like to thank whatever God was watching for having Jazz find him before he’d accidentally aliven't-ed himself that at the tender age of ten. Other important 'being alive' curriculum was also omitted, such as ‘don’t eat the chicken that was left out on the stove night night'- Unfortunately there was no God watching him that day, food poisoning was a foul mistress. He'd learned his lesson after Jazz explained to him exactly why he shouldn't have done that. His parents meant well but their selective memory and attentiveness could be an issue sometimes. He didn’t want to be upset with them, but even he had to think about the amount of issues with the house; the chemicals left unlabeled in the same fridge as their food, the kitchen counters covered in something that made 'em glow a few minutes after the lights were off, the tendency to leave untested weapons on the couch. Even the lack of goddamn rails down to the lab. Danny had fallen off those stairs many a time when younger, even though he wasn’t supposed to be in the lab unsupervised before he was like ten. But what did they expect? The lab had zero locks on it! Any curious brat was gonna try to check it out!
Don’t even get him started on the chores he was supposed to do in that death trap! He was a klutz on a good day and he had no clue why he was even allowed down there after his school rightfully banned him from even handling beakers.
Danny didn't want to think about all the chores that had resulted in explosions or minor burns.
All of that was a problem for future Danny though! Tonight he was going to enjoy the relative quiet of being away from his town, even if there was a gnawing Anxiety about it settled deeply into his chest. At least no ghosts had shown up this far outside of Amity.
Yet.
'Stop thinking like that Danny!!'
God he hoped he didn’t just jinx himself. He really needed a break- and that break was going to be spent mooching off of a rich old dude in his mansion. He hoped there was a cheese platter. He deserved all the fancy pepper jack slices he could shove in his face after the last two months of ghost bullshit plaguing his town...
He blinked himself back into alertness, finally outside of his headspace. Cool, dad had finished talking and was snoring soundly. Mom too. Score! He was finally able to look at his phone without all the bumps in the damn road, and that's exactly what he was gonna do. He began checking all his apps, shooting a quick message to his chatgroup with Sam and Tuck to let them know what he'd found out. Now that he was thinking about it, it wouldn't hurt to try looking up information on his parents’ old college friend. He kept switching between articles and his feeds, snort-breathing at a few memes here and there. He felt a tingle in the back of his head, not a ghost power though. Nah, he just had the inkling that Jazz was still mad at him.
Looking up he could see he was right! He had been trying to ignore Jazz’s glares again, but she could really hold a fucking grudge if she wanted to, and he really didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end of it. He groaned. That sure was her signature 'concerned sisterly death glare'™! Couldn't she just like, lay off for the night?
After a few more minutes of scrolling while being watched, he finally relented. Danny cleared his throat and tried to look as apologetic as he possibly could, “Jazz, I said I was sorry for getting you sucked in to this, too. You know I didn’t mean to get us both punished! I get that you're pissed, but I could really do without the glaring.” He didn’t MEAN to get them both sucked in- it’s just how the ghostly cookie crumbled!
He watched her raise a single eyebrow in response. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it, little brother-” she started, closing her book with an audible snap “-but you know- just like I do- that mom and dad haven’t noticed half of what you’ve been doing behind their backs, and they’re just worried. I'm worried too! You've been jumpy and nervous around them, but seem to relax near me, even if you try to shut me out. They both know that you're more likely to relax when I'm around, even if they don’t outright say it. I've always viewed myself as ‘mini mom’ and I think they expect me to be another set of eyes and ears. At least, that’s what my notes have helped me conclude." She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.
"Even if they don’t say it outright, I’m basically your unpaid babysitter until I go to school. Or until you finally decide to grow up a little more, whatever comes first. Admit it, whatever it is that's making you act out is something that you feel may follow you here.” She looked at Danny with a deep concern in her eyes. "I'm always here for you, Danny. Please remember that, even if I am a little annoyed that I had to come here instead of working on my thesis." Great!! She was gonna mother and psychoanalyze him this whole trip. He didn't want her to do that for him, it was completely unfair to the both of the-
Wait...
HEY!! he wasn’t some infant!
He scowled up at her. “Listen, I know as well as you do that you’re also still just a kid. You don’t have to look after me like this, I can handle mysel-”
She raised a hand up, cutting him off. “Danny, I understand. You want to be independent, a lone wolf. It’s all just a part of growing up, I know. But don’t try and tell me you’d be better off without at least another set of eyes looking out for you.”
She smiled at him, a knowing and loving smile she'd always had for him. She honestly believed she was helping him by basically mothering him, by sacrificing her time to keep an eye out for his reckless, clumsy ass. He didn’t want her help! He didn’t want her to be there over his shoulder like a third parent.
The two they shared barely even made a difference, and she'd already done so much for him!
She wanted to help him, but his problems...he couldn't drag her into them. He had a hard enough time just protecting Sam and Tuck from the bullshit he'd get himself into. He didn't want her feeling guilt when she had to watch him get his ass beat, when he was shot, burned, chased...hunted sometimes. He couldn't justify bringing her into a situation that she had no control in, didn't want her to try to stop things that were beyond humanity's control. What would she do in that situation? She would try to stop, to mediate, but very few ghosts even gave him much more than witty banter before shooting. No, she would probably just try to get him to quit ghost fighting. She wouldn't be able to make him though...the ache in his chest over the mere thought of his town, his friends and family, being left unprotected, it drove him to do reckless, dangerous shit a normal human would never even consider.
Jazz wouldn't be able to stop him.
Just like she hadn’t been able to stop his dea-
No.
Take a step back. Let’s not think about that. Not here. Not ever.
Just. No.
Danny offered her a scowl. He didn't want to do this, but he needed her off his ass, needed her to never consider getting close enough to find out. He felt the buzzing in his chest lessen to a comfortable hum, putting on a standard 'younger brother shit-eating-grin'. “Jazz, I'm a straight-D student, and even I know that you didn’t want to be here. They probably only brought you along because they didn’t want to worry about their ‘precious baby girl’ all alone at home while they were hundreds of miles away in the middle-of-nowhere. It probably had nothing to do with you being my babysitter." He smiled with way too many teeth for emphasis. "They just didn’t wanna have to waste money on one for your spazz ass.” He spat at her, he really didn’t want her on his ass this whole time, and this was one way to get her to lay the fuck off.
And it was working!!
Jazz glared at him, anger somehow contained compactly in all of her five-foot-six scrawny frame. Crossing her arms, she yelped, “I’m just trying to help! You aren't gonna push me away too! I won’t let you.”
“Yeah, you and what army?”
She pouted for a moment, before her face was back to her calm, snooty smirk. “Well, I can always tell mom and dad that you’re having some sort of ghost problem…”
She'd meant it as a light taunt, just a jab that she'd use their parents' obsession with ghosts to keep her brother under a watchful eye. Danny felt an awful, deep dread pooling in his gut. He felt the cold numbness he'd come to be familiar with in his ghost form creep into the tips his fingers, the numbness that happened when he felt he would be caught, when he felt as if he was in danger.
No. He didn’t want her to do that, not at all. He tried to think of a way to make her stop, to reconsider what she was saying, to never mention it, to never threaten that again. She didn’t mean bad by it! No! Jazz had no idea what he was going through, and he wouldn’t let her.
She was the one to bandage all his cuts and bruises. She was the one who took it upon herself to put out all the kitchen fires. She was the one to nurse him back to health when he’d had the flu, when he was sick in general.
She was one of the only ones to notice that his ‘little shock’ from the portal may not have been so little.
Jazz had helped him so much, cried over him so much- she wasn't allowed to know he'd become less than human. He didn't deserve to be worried about like that! Guilt clouded his eyes, and he’d not realized how pale he’d gotten from her meaningless, well-meaning threat.
Danny mumbled, not realizing he was thinking out loud until the words passed his lips.
“You know, sometimes I really hate how talking about ghosts is the only way they pay attention...”
He watched as his sister’s face fell. She looked as if she wanted nothing more than to pull him into a tight hug, and he allowed it. If anyone asked, he would say he resisted completely, and whole-heartedly. Put up one hell of a battle against his sister's cooties. He hoped he didn’t turn all gross and sappy from stuff like this...
Jazz pulled away from him and grabbed his hands in hers with a warm smile. “Man Danny you always have the coldest hands, if I didn't know better I'd confuse you for an ice cube!” she chuckled, and it was so warm and so good. He leaned on her, just appreciating how solid and there for him his older sister was. Again, if anyone asked, he'd lie and say he wasn't being all mushy with the spazz. It made him notice just how much he’d missed the sound of her laugh, how much he missed just spending time watching TV or even working on homework together.
Maybe pushing everyone away was a bad idea?
He just didn’t want Jazz’s observant eyes to see him all the time. Being able to vanish was a good thing, sometimes.
The kids broke their contact after a moment, sitting up fully when they heard dad snore, loudly, from his sleeping bag. The two laughed a little in response.
“You know, if you ever need to tell me something, I’m two literally rooms down from you, Danny. And I can keep confidentiality if you need me to. You shouldn’t need to go through-” she waved her hand in a small circle while she thought, “-whatever it is you’re actually going through. Also I’m always available to help you bring your grades back up, even if I can’t stop you from getting so much detention.”
Danny smiled sheepishly, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck.
Yeah, maybe he would take her up on that offer. Once he managed to sleep for a full night, that is- hopefully it'd be sometime in the next century.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep you in mind if I ever need a shrink. But, we should probably follow dad’s example soon...I kind of wanna step out for some air first though. Can you cover for me if they wake up and ask?”
She gave him a thumbs up. “Always, just keep your phone on you! Oh! And don’t wander too far. I wanna be able to see you from the window.”
He was already slipping through the RV's door- Danny desperately needed some air after being cooped up in the damn car for so long, and he was glad he was able to do it mostly alone. Jazz was gonna be nosy and peek ever so often, but he wasn’t too worried about it. It wasn't like he was gonna go ghost in the open like this- especially with the other people sleeping in their cars nearby. And especially not so close to the literal ghost assault vehicle.
He learned exactly why he doesn't wanna fuck with that mess of a vehicle earlier.
Nah, he was just gonna sit here on the bench. He was gonna enjoy the late spring air, all from the safety of the bench. And if anyone tried to accuse him of anything else, he was going to be very adamant he was sitting here, on the bench.
It was a nice night, though; No mosquitoes, the smell of rain in the distance- no summertime humidity making everything stick in places just yet- perfect.
Danny sat, and he thought. And thought. Jazz had been right, though. She may not have been expected to be the third parent, but she was sometimes. And it wasn’t that bad right? She was just overbearing and wanted to bother him as much as possible because they both knew their parent's weren't the most attentive. It’s the older sister’s job to do that, she'd said.
But Danny couldn’t stop himself from continuing to think about the amount of times she’d saved him from something in their own house. It was way more than someone who was still a kid should have had to, but factoring in his clumsiness he wasn't too surprised. He just felt guilty. Guilt at the fact he’d basically gotten in the way of her having friends one too many times. Guilt that he’d make her worry so much. Guilt that she’d hurt herself putting out fires and cleaning spills of things that neither of them should have even been near in the first place. She really didn't deserve to be a parent at her age, let alone a parent to a half-ghost kinda dead kid whose hands made him drop things and whose shoelaces were never tied.
Nobody deserved to deal with that.
Sometimes he wished he could have turned invisible sooner.
Shaking the thoughts from his head, he stood up and stretched. Dear God...it felt like every joint in his back and all the ones in his fingers had to pop after being crammed in a car so long.
If his bones were gonna crack like goddamn glowsticks at the ripe age of 14, he deserved temporary bioluminescence as compensation. He laughed and thought about it for a moment- maybe that would be another freaky thing his freaky body would make him do eventually. The lamest power of all ghost powers- glowstick bones...
The door to the RV popped open quietly and he watched Jazz sticking her head out to look at him. “Alright it’s almost midnight, and mom and dad want to leave at seven am sharp to make it there on time. Make it quick, little bro.” She smiled at him and popped back in.
Why did she call him that as often as she did? He called her plenty of names, but never ‘big sis’ or ‘sissy’. At least, not since he was like five or something. Whatever. It she wants to act like a weird adult he’ll let her do it.
Danny hopped up off the bench and snuck back in, noticing that Jazz was starting to nod off in her seat. She was always the one to wait until he was good before finally relaxing herself. He found himself scowling slightly at the implication- would she have waited up until he was sound asleep?
He really didn't deserve her, sometimes. Danny wrapped Jazz's blanket around her shoulders and gently helped her lay down in her half-asleep state. It only took a moment to wiggle into his own sleeping bag, but once he was good he found himself out like a light in moments.
He could only hope that tomorrow would go alright for all of them.