Chapter Text
Time in.
Danny stared at the empty spot in front of him, not bothering to hide the displeasure on his face. Clockwork had offered him free information, with a lack of confusing riddles. Either something horrible was going to happen, or he would have debts to pay back. Something would happen, sooner or later, and he wasn't looking forward to any of the options.
So Danny decided to delay the inevitable and pointedly ignored the advice he'd just been given.
He looked down at the city, far below his feet.
Now that time had resumed, the cars’ headlights trailed through the streets, and the faint noise of the bustling city pierced through the loud winds up above where Danny was floating. It was like Gotham City never slept. He would even argue that it was more lively at night— he heard a lot more commotion after the sun went down, whether it was outside his borrowed apartment or in the places his shoddy job sent him to.
He flew back down and dropped the invisibility after making sure he was well-hidden behind the large bin that barred half the alleyway he had hidden in.
He only needed to let the transformation rings pass over his body and then he could resume his life. As if being Phantom for five minutes hadn't been the most exhilarating thing he'd done in the past few weeks. It had been two months since he'd transformed into his ghostly half.
Just summon the rings and get back to being good old Danny.
… He couldn't bring himself to. Not right away.
It just felt so nice being his other self after forcing himself to suppress it for so long. He'd barely been able to appreciate the small taste of freedom and lightness when flying up to meet with Clockwork. If he could, Danny would have gone right back up to soar through the sky at high speed. He loved feeling the breeze through his hair, the rush of adrenaline when he went intangible at the very last second.
But he couldn't do that, not without risking being seen. Jazz had told him off enough times before he departed for Gotham. It was for his own safety. He needed to be a boring, normal human.
But he'd been safe right now, hadn't he? Nobody saw him when he transformed. The trash bin was big enough to hide five of him where he was standing. He could be Phantom for a little while longer. Not even for that long, really.
Jazz and his friends had overdramatized everything as they always did.
Nothing would happen. He was safe and hidden, and nobody, especially the GIW, would find him here in—
"Hands where I can see 'em," came what he thought was a familiar voice with an unfamiliar accent behind him, accompanied by the metallic sound of a blade being unsheathed. They said something else, but Danny couldn't hear it anymore.
Danger! fired in his heart from the moment he heard it. All the rest was hidden behind a loud, buzzing static noise. Had he been human—like he should have been, why hadn't he listened—it would have been his heart beating harshly in his ears.
The GIW had found him because he was unreasonable. Because he wanted to be Phantom just a little longer.
Danny slowly raised his arms and slowly turned around with trembling hands. He knew who was waiting for him; at least one man, usually two, fully dressed in white, except for a dumb pair of sunglasses, with a various arsenal of ecto-weapon strapped who-knew-where. He'd be taken back to the cell and—
"Um," Danny said as he finally looked at the person that had threatened him. It was a man dressed in plain dark clothes, with long, unkempt hair running down the front of his bare face. Looking down, he saw a gnarly-looking knife, but nothing that indicated it was made to work on ecto-entities.
Danny found himself relaxing ever so slightly, and static receded from his head enough to register he was being threatened. Before he could stop himself, he asked “What?”
“Don’t fuck with me, I know you cosplaying freaks always hide tons of money,” the man sneered while raising his knife towards Danny’s neck. “So hand it over.”
Oh, so that’s what this was about. This was a mugger— not a GIW agent.
“I really don’t have anythi—”
He finished his sentence with a surprised yelp when the guy lunged at him with a snarl.
Danny’s instincts took over as he half dodged the knife, half let it phase through him to avoid being nicked by the blade. The punch he immediately squared in the mugger’s face was also purely caused by instinct.
The man immediately crumpled to the ground, unmoving.
It only took a few seconds for Danny to understand what just happened. An ice-cold spear of dread pierced down from his throat into his stomach. He’d used his powers against a human.
He transformed back into his other form, rushing to the stranger's side and putting his fingers on his wrist to take the pulse. He also leaned over him, hovering his cheek above his open mouth.
“Oh thank god,” he whispered to himself when he felt a steady pulse and a puff of air against his face… before grimacing because that was one hell of a bad breath. This guy needed some mints or something.
Danny stood back up and adjusted the bag that reappeared on his back with his transformation, before booking it out of the alleyway. There was only one stop between that cursed alleyway and his borrowed apartment and it was a phone booth, so he could call the police… and maybe an ambulance just in case.
As soon as Danny had calmed down from punching a poor man in the face, he promptly resumed ignoring whatever warning Clockwork had given him. He could barely remember it anyway. Something about having to keep the balance between his two sides. Not worth it, in his opinion.
Plus, if anything happened, Danny would do as he always did, power through it.
Well, a few weeks into being a completely normal and boring human, he was starting to think that maybe—just maybe—Clockwork gave him that advice for a reason.
His limbs didn’t stop turning invisible, intangible, or both for the whole day. His voice was either an echo whispering down a hallway, or loud enough that he thought his wail was spilling from his core. He’d lost tips because he accidentally froze up the food he delivered, and received suspicious glances when he accidentally dropped things from the packages by spreading his malfunctioning powers to them.
Even worse, he started sinking into the ground when his focus was somewhere else, even on things as easy as checking a client's address. It took thrice as much work to bring himself back above ground because his powers were just not listening to him.
Anything would set them off. The more it happened, the more Danny panicked at the idea of being caught by anyone. There were only so many times he could look over his shoulder as if he was doing a shady deal.
Thankfully, for now, nobody had seen him use his freak powers.
Though, that barely reassured him. This day in particular had been the worst, and all he could think about was finishing his shift, getting back to his place, closing the blinds, and letting his Phantom side out.
He'd figure out what to do from there.
Clockwork hadn’t told him how to keep the balance, just that he had to do it.
He would probably use the flight to clean the spiderwebs on his ceiling, and hope that hanging around as a ghost would be enough. Being seen outside even just once was already too much. He'd promised as much to Jazz, Sam, and Tucker.
He dropped the last package to his client, got a nasty glare about how cold it was, and started making his way back to the apartment once he'd offered the same oversaid apologies. His focus was entirely on keeping his powers from misfiring, he kept his phone open in front of him so as not to look too suspicious and refused to look up as he hurried through the damp streets of Gotham.
Maybe he should have.
Somebody called for help deeper in the alleyway he'd just stepped in. Peeking from behind the large shape of a bricked chimney in the wall, Danny saw someone gasp for pain and fall to their knees after being hit in the stomach.
He took a step back to hide himself.
Breathing in.
And out.
He'd promised he wouldn't do any heroics.
He couldn't interfere.
Lay low.
Anger zapped down in his veins anyway. He clenched his spasming fists to get rid of the sensation.
Phantom can’t be seen.
He heard the threats down the alley, the spits and jeers from the attacker and the whimpers from the person he knew was on the ground. He failed not to listen to them.
He flattened his back against the bricks behind him despite his entire being begging to jump in and help. He had to remain Danny, the normal guy. It didn’t matter how much he wished to help, nor how much he would actually be helping.
His nails dug into his palms as he clenched his fists tighter. His entire body was trembling.
Don’t transform.
There was a thump followed by a snap, and a breathy, sobbing cry of pain.
Phantom rushed out of his hiding spot laser-focused on the attacker as he bodied him away before he could land another kick on his target.
“Leave them alone!” He shouted at the same time he pushed, before puffing out his chest and letting his usual cocky attitude respond to the danger. He stood as tall as he could, looking at the assailant. Daring him to try just one more thing with looks alone felt natural. Like the missing piece of a puzzle slotting back into place.
He would even have snarked out some quips, if the situation allowed it. But it didn’t. It wasn’t like Amity Park where they were dealing with ghosts. This time, someone was curled up around their ribs, panting and whining softly as their eyes flickered between Danny and the very human attacker, before they screwed their eyes shut with a hiss of pain.
Danny should have transformed much earlier.
“Who the fuck are you?!” His attention was brought back to the bad guy. He snarled some insults towards his height and some of his ghostly traits before spitting on the ground. “Piss off, freak. This isn’t any of your business.”
Phantom puffed his chest up and readied himself for an attack.
It really wasn’t his business, like the guy said.
At least, it shouldn’t have been.
It was complicated.
Besides, he didn't have the time to think about what the consequences of this might have been. That was a problem for Future Danny, because the bad guy lunged at him with his fists raised.
He blocked the hit with his forearm and softly punched back— it was more of a push, really. The mugger incident was still fresh in his mind, and he didn’t want a repeat. He had to mind his powers.
Thankfully, this time, the guy wasn't knocked out. Instead, he staggered backward, coughing in surprise at the unexpected hit. It took him a few seconds to catch his breath.
Phantom firmly grounded himself in front of the victim, making a show of readying himself in case of another attack. They wouldn't be touched one more time if he could help it.
The man looked up and down at Phantom, reevaluating him, before glancing at his target. After one more second of thinking, he huffed in disdain. “I don’t have time for either of you.”
He took off running in another direction, keeping a hand where he'd been hit.
Phantom didn’t bother with pursuing, more concerned for the person still wheezing in pain behind him. He crouched near them as they were sitting up with shaky arms. “Are you alright?”
A nod, then a wince. They held their side tighter and the wince evolved into a grimace. Something had definitely happened to their ribs, and according to the noises he’d heard before stepping in, it was most likely broken.
He could have prevented this.
The least he could do was help and call an ambulance before going anywhere else.
As he phased through the walls of his shoddy apartment, Future Danny groaned loudly into his hands.
Why!
He could pass the mugger as a fluke, a mistake. But he had no excuse for this time! Two very conscious people had seen him— had stared at him even! There was no way they wouldn’t have noticed ghostly traits. The glow most of all, since Gotham was allergic to any kind of street light at night!
Why didn't he think things through? He always had to act on his emotions! If he wanted to help so bad, he could have helped as Danny Fenton just fine too! His fighting skills weren’t only bound to Phantom. That would have been a lot less suspicious than a random white-haired and bright green-eyed glowstick.
Though… if he fought as a human, the hit he'd received would have left a nasty bruise. It would have taken days to heal and would have hurt while he was doing deliveries. As it was, it was a small discoloration anyone would get bumping into furniture and it'd be gone by the next morning.
His powers could have acted up while fighting as a human too. What if it had made it worse? What if he accidentally phased through the man? Or sank into the ground and got stuck? That kind of attention was also bad even for his human half!
He transformed back into Fenton as he hovered above the bed. He dropped onto the ratty mattress with a muffled grunt.
He should just have listened to Jazz and avoided any heroics.
He gathered up his deflated pillow into his arms and smothered his face into it.
This sucked.
Why did he have to lay low? He had the power to help. He enjoyed helping.
Hell, according to Clockwork, going out as Phantom could be a good idea. It would feed the balance or something, and be one less issue for him. On top of that, he would get to help, make it safer for everyone and— no.
No.
He shoved his face in the pillow even harder.
That was the opposite of what he was supposed to do.
He had to cut off the whole hero thing. He couldn’t risk his parents selling him to the GIW again. If there was word of a ghost in Gotham and they caught him again…
A shiver ran down his back as he suppressed short-lived memories of sharp needles and cutting tools poking and prodding at his body.
There couldn't be a next time as Phantom in the streets. His ghostly half had to stay confined to the privacy of this building in disuse, in the apartment he borrowed free of charge.
Going ghost would be only when he required it. Nothing more and nothing less.
The little girl went from clinging to him shaking and crying, to clinging to him shaking and in awe. She looked at the cityscape as they soundlessly floated back to the roof of the tall building. Soon enough, she was back in her mother’s arms.
“Thank you, flying mister!” She loudly said, voice wrecked from her screaming but with a grin so wide it made Phantom feel alive.
The mother held her close, peppering her forehead with desperate, relieved kisses. She was shaking as much as her daughter, and tears were trailing down her face.
Danny looked at them for longer than he should have.
He could still feel the comfort of his mom’s hugs, and the warmth of his dad’s hand on his shoulders. He wondered if they would have embraced him just as tight if he had told them about his accident sooner.
He cleared his throat and stopped staring when he realized where his mind was going. He grinned at them both. "Be careful running on roofs next time, yeah?"
He gave them a little wave and prepared to fly away.
“Wait!” the mother called out before he could leave. He stopped and turned back to her with a curious glance. “What’s your name?”
Oh crud, he wasn't expecting that. He was just getting his ghostly zoomies out when he subconsciously followed some panicking shades. Next thing he knew, a little girl was plummeting towards the ground, screaming at the top of her lungs, and then he saved her. He wasn't supposed to be asked for his name!
He stuttered and sputtered, mind firing off in a thousand directions at once and simultaneously imploding in the void. His imagination was barren of names— any name, Danny, it’s not that hard!—and when his brain truly blue-screened, he answered “Phantom.”
He mentally smacked himself and immediately flew away after a strangled "bye!". He would stay far, far above the clouds this time.
The only thing preventing him from properly screaming into his pillow was the risk of his ghostly wail bleeding into it.
The power mishaps had lessened by a lot since he was transforming more often, but a risk was a risk. He didn't want to accidentally level the building, even if it was already marked as good to demolish. It would be hard to find another free place with this level of comfort.
Three months’ worth of efforts to lay low was down the drain. All because he couldn't help himself.
… He terribly missed Amity. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz would know exactly what to say for him not to get caught up in those situations. They would keep the itch at bay, help him work through his impulses.
They'd said they would call as soon as they could. He just had to be patient. Surely that would be soon, right? It had been three months.
Before his thoughts could spiral back towards his life in Amity, he stood up with a last groan and set out to prepare the first instant meal he'd left in the shopping bag, in the coldest corner of his apartment.
He could still feel the little girl grabbing onto his arms when he caught her.
Danny was glad he’d been there. She would have died otherwise. While he still felt guilty about going against Jazz’s plans, he wasn’t sorry about being seen this time. He could live easily with it, if it meant saving somebody’s life.
Even more so, they both had looked so grateful. That was practically unheard of back home—at Amity. It wasn't home anymore. Vlad’s schemings had made sure that Phantom was seen as a neutral entity at best, and that was only thanks to a handful of people that relayed his good actions by word of mouth.
The gratefulness was… it was nice. It made protecting and saving people worth it. Made the idea of patrolling his corner of Gotham even more appealing. Helping people filled a void Danny hadn't even noticed was there.
He aggressively shoved a burning forkful of instant noodles in his mouth. Anything to stop himself from somehow being convinced that heroics were a great idea, actually.
He grimaced at the taste. The sauce packet definitely didn’t blend with the water, and the concentrated amount of spice burnt at the back of his throat. He distractedly twirled the noodles around his fork with light disgust. The physical price to pay in exchange for cheap food was a harsh one.
When the thought of being a vigilante again crept back into his mind, he blew on his food before eating it, this time. It was a lot less effective as a distraction; in fact, he kept thinking about how hard it would be to juggle his job and vigilante work. He already had a hard time when it was school and ghost stuff, so surely it wouldn't be any easier now, right?
Then again, he knew his limits better now. There weren't any ghosts that forced his attention away at all times in Gotham City. And his delivery job would allow him to roam all around the city, which would make it extra easy to help around.
If he ever ran late for an order, he could use his speed as Phantom to make up for it.
Plus, the fights would probably take way less time than his brawls with the ghosts. It was easier to fight crime, when crime couldn't turn intangible or use an increasingly annoying set of powers against him.
Danny sighed, soothing a burnt spot on his palate with his tongue. This was going nowhere.
Mechanically, he stood up and started cleaning up. He threw away the empty box of noodles, and started dusting the drafty room. Then he went to sit down on the ground, on the project he was tinkering with— making functional, off-the-grid kitchen parts.
He spent the rest of the day finding frustratingly good reasons not to be a hero again as he fixed kitchen cupboards. Unfortunately, all of the reasons found a counter-argument as to why being a hero was a good idea.
“You’ve done this how many times?!”
Despite just being a phone call, Danny looked down at his shoes the same way he would have pointedly avoided Jazz’s searching eyes, had they been talking face to face. He was glad she didn’t have access to his body language at the moment, or she would be using her psychological superpowers to find even more things to be frustrated about.
Would you look at that, his shoes were quite scruffed. He would need to change them soon-ish. If he had the budget for it.
“Danny.”
“Four,” he mumbled, and sank lower on the floor he was sitting on, back against the wall.
Apparently, his shoes weren’t a good enough distraction, because he could feel a nervous sweat working up his neck at the tense silence only interrupted by Tucker’s snickering.
“Four times?!” It was Sam shrieking this time. “In a week?!”
“Three days.”
“Danny, that’s worse!” Jazz chided with that tone of voice that never failed to make him roll his eyes. It was a good thing he didn’t count the mugger as part of those encounters. She would have acted even worse. It was irritating enough to have his sister get on his case, he didn’t need her to sound even more like their mother. “You agreed to hide Phantom!”
“But these people were in danger, Jazz!” he answered with the same frustrated huff as his sister. He hadn't expected to react so strongly at the mere idea of hiding Phantom again. It was supposed to be a reassuring and fun call, where he knew everything was alright for them back at Amity. "I acted before I could think about what I was doing."
He tried focusing on something other than his shoes. Like his recently drilled-in, brand-new cupboards. They were barely holding together. He let his gaze linger on them, before adding with a mumbled “Also… Clockwork came to see me.”
He ignored the reactions — surprise, wariness, and concern — and explained the conversation he’d had with the ghost, and how his ghostly part started bleeding in his human one.
He didn’t want to spill all of his insecurities, but he went over every reason why he should be a hero again. With the way his thoughts spiraled back to doing good deeds, it wasn't hard to present his argument and get his point across.
He could help. He had the power to help. In fact, if it wasn’t for Jazz wanting him to play it safely, he would absolutely be helping more than he had already.
Sure, the GIW was always a risk, but any kind of government-approved team would have a hard time doing anything in crime-riddled Gotham. Besides, they would be easy to spot, with their bright white uniform in the dark and gloomy atmosphere of the city. And their parents were loud. He would hear them before he saw them.
Silence from his friends and family answered him, until Sam heavily sighed. The kind of sigh that was torn between aggravation and pride, one Danny was intimately familiar with from all the shenanigans they got up to in Amity together. "Well Danny, looks like you've made up your mind already. Speech and everything."
Danny felt heat rise to his cheeks. It wasn’t how he had planned this conversation. He wanted them to help control his impulses better. But Jazz had to use the mom voice on him, when she knew how annoying it was. Much like his fights as Phantom, the words had come stumbling out before he could think.
“Dude, if you really want to be one of the Gotham Vigilantes, you’re gonna have to blend in,” Tucker piped up over the steady typing of his mechanical keyboard. “You ever got around to changing your costume?”
“Kinda. Still takes focus.” Danny nodded, despite being the only one in the room. Or the whole building. Then frowned as his brain caught up to the rest of what Tucker said. “There’s vigilantes in Gotham?”
He heard three exclamations in various states of disbelief at the other end of the line. One of which made his name sound like a swear word.
“You really haven’t even researched Gotham at all?!” Once again, he didn’t appreciate the overly concerned tone Jazz was using. He let it slide off his back thanks to the roll of his eyes he’d suppressed earlier.
He had enough on his plate between trying to live in an abandoned building and his lousy job. Why and where would he have researched anything about Gotham?
“You never heard about Batman at all?” Sam snarked before he could answer anything. He heard the smirk in her voice, and he knew she would be teasing his lack of knowledge for years to come. “I'm surprised, considering Gotham's amount of themed criminals.”
Oh. Well, that explained the unsettled crowds and hostile environment he sometimes had to deliver to. He only thought the vibes were off those days, or that it was a dangerous part of town. It also explained inexplicable higher pay and tips those days.
“Yeah, they’re like all over TV! They’re super famous. It’s Batman, Danny.” Tucker kept sputtering as if Danny had said some sort of blasphemy.
Even if he did know about Batman— the Justice League was mentioned enough at school, especially by the A-listers —he just never knew that Gotham was Batman's city!
He had less chances of being teased if he replied to Tuck, so he honed in on his comment. “How should I know? I don’t have a TV.”
Which, in his defense, didn’t help staying informed of anything. Local news, celebrities, or even the weather. It was a perfect excuse to blame his lack of Gothamite knowledge.
He’d never concede Jazz a win when she acted like she knew better than everyone.
“Sam could buy you one,” Tucker retorted instantly, too used to helping Danny weasel out of an embarrassing conversation to double down.
However, the familiarity stopped there. Uncharacteristically, Sam wasn't offended by that comment. "Yeah, I can send you some of my pocket money and—"
"Sam, borrowed apartment, remember?" Danny interrupted her before she could finish that sentence. They'd already involved themselves more than they should have. It may have been safe for them in Amity now, but sending him direct money would be way too suspicious. They all knew this. Before the mood could become as gloomy as the cityscape, he decided to tease her. "I don't wanna be your sugar baby."
"I, for one, wouldn't mind being a sugar baby. You should join in on the fun, Danny." Tucker snorted. If he'd been there, Danny would have elbowed him in the ribs. His best friend would have slung his arm around his shoulders with a smug look in retaliation. Tucker wasn't there. He spoke up again. "By the way, I managed to erase all traces of you from Gotham's cameras! Who knew they were that easy to access."
"It took you two hours." He could clearly picture Sam's flat look and hand gestures in his mind. As well as Jazz’s badly hidden chuckle, that she would hide behind her hand when Tucker would inevitably turn towards her with a betrayed look.
As his two best friends started bantering, Danny found himself relaxing despite the longing crawling at his bones. He missed them all terribly. He would miss them even more when they would need to stop their hours-long call, even more so when none of them knew when they would be able to call each other again.
Under Jazz's advice, Danny looked up the "Bats of Gotham" after sneaking into a public library. He quickly realized why they were so annoyed with him. They were everywhere.
How hadn't he seen any of them, nor any of the rogues in the whole three months he'd been living in Gotham?
Danny made up his mind; the dangerous rogues, he would leave to the experts. The Birds and Bats knew how their rogues acted the best, after all. Phantom would be taking care of small crimes instead, which would honestly leave them all in a win-win situation.
The next step, according to his friends, was seeing which part of their suits would be easy to replicate so as to better blend in. It would take practice to change anything on his jumpsuit, so he would need to start small.
Scrolling through some 'birdwatching' forums, he took in the different practical bits of their suits that Jazz, Sam, and Tucker had mentioned. Danny kept all of them to the forefront of his mind as he stepped into his bathroom space, where he'd installed a broken mirror found in the trash.
He inhaled, closing his eyes and visualizing the changes on his suit.
And exhaled, as he let the numb vibration of his transformation rings lazily pass over him.
When he opened his eyes, it was to a black domino mask arching over his eyebrows. Just like Sam liked. It made them cool and mysterious, she said, before catching herself and explaining how the mask's shape forced a different perception of the face. Perfect to hide an identity.
Trailing down his body, he saw that his belt was now upgraded to a full-on utility belt. It was as badass-looking as Tucker mentioned it to be. He'd raved about how many electronics he could have shoved in each of the pockets. Danny figured more pockets was always a good thing.
With one last glance at his hands and feet, he saw that the reinforced gloves, forearms, and boots were fitting snugly around his body. Jazz had almost started going through scientific papers on why work wear protection was important, and how it would prevent much damage even to his ghost half.
He only needed better control of his glow, although it was slightly dimmer than usual.
Seeing Phantom—seeing himself— in the mirror made his entire being sing with joy and relief. He was allowed to exist. He was welcoming back a part of himself he'd shunned away for far too long.
With a grin, he closed his hands into fists. Phantom was ready to protect Gotham.