Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As far as lab work went, it had been a quiet day. A bit of spectrophotometry here, a touch of titrating there, and then the only task left after lunch was to autoclave a stack of petri dishes. The half dozen agents milling around the facility was a touch ridiculous considering the sheer lack of work for them to do, but hey, when you got paid by the hour it wasn’t as though anyone was about to volunteer to clock off early.

Still, there were only so many times that one could check that the samples had all been stored properly and that the labs were perfectly clean. Agent H would have gone out to at least pretend that he was trying to catch a ghost or something, but the radar had been quiet all day except for a couple of blips that the field team claimed to have already dealt with. Realistically, it was probably Phantom who captured whatever ghost had managed to slip through the portal, and H resigned himself to a boring afternoon. Maybe when O and K returned he’d tease them a bit for letting the town’s resident spook one up them again, but even that joke had started to get a bit old.

There was the distant crash of heavy doors swinging open with enough force to hit the wall, accompanied by annoyingly familiar shouts, and H rolled his eyes. Speak of the devil, and unfortunately, that stupid field team would return early. “Should we go see what they’ve messed up now?”

Agent J sighed and stopped pretending to check the bunsen burners for rust spots. Not that it mattered, but they had to look busy somehow. “I suppose,” he drawled.

The pair strolled into the hallway without haste, but then an echoing scream sent a jolt of dread sliding down H’s spine.

“Please, let me go! I’m not dead!”

J shot him a worried look over the rim of his glasses, and they jogged around the corner.

Agents O and K were dragging a glowing net between them, their suits spotted with splashes of ectoplasm and something red. “We got him!” O crowed when he caught sight of them, giving the net a particularly hard tug. Whatever was inside sobbed at the sudden movement, kicking weakly against the confinement. A white boot, smeared with filth, simply tangled more firmly in the net. “We caught Phantom!”

The ghost took a deep, shuddering breath, and H finally noticed the growing pool of ectoplasm and something… else…

“I’m not dead,” the ghost child sobbed, and J audibly gasped as glowing tears dripped off his chin.

“What do you think you’re doing?” H hissed, rushing closer and kneeling in front of the trapped creature. Ectoplasm, cool to the touch but lacking its customary freezing bite, soaked through the knees of his white pants, along with what looked a lot like swirls of garish red blood.

Phantom was bleeding heavily from a gash across his chest, his suit hanging in ragged tatters around the wound. He recoiled within his prison, hands flying up in a tangle of net to hover between them.

“We’re… we’re bringing him in for experiments. Lots and lots of painful experiments. Because he’s a ghost.”

H glared at K. “Your work here is done.”

Phantom scooted back as far as he could, tremors racking his small body. He was just a child, and there was so much blood…

“But—”

“I am your superior!” H roared, leaping to his feet with a growl. “You two are field agents. Field. Agents. You do not get to conduct experiments. You do not come into this building except to bring us samples. And you do not harm anything with a heartbeat!” He leaned over and grabbed Phantom’s wrist, ignoring the way the boy flinched and tried to pull away. The gore-streaked glove came off easily, and it only took H a moment to find what he was searching for. “He has a pulse,” he snapped, “though you should have realised that as soon as you saw blood!”

He felt J step up behind him. “You two can make yourselves useful by cleaning your mess off the floor,” he instructed, before moving around to crouch behind Phantom.

H nodded to his partner, and together, they slipped their arms around Phantom and lifted him into the air, net and all. He sobbed and curled in on himself, but seemed to have the sense to stop struggling. The other agents had gathered behind them, drawn by the noise, and H jerked his head at the closest one. “Go get me a trauma kit,” he ordered.

The agent sprinted back down the hallway, and J steered H through the closest door. It was just another lab, nothing too special, and they gently deposited their load onto one of the benches.

Phantom shivered, his eyes and freckles glowing brightly as tears continued to slip down his cheeks. “Please don’t hurt me,” he choked, wrapping slender arms and a good helping of net around himself. “I d-don’t wanna b-be dissected.”

H removed his reflective glasses and met that terrified green gaze. “Take it easy,” he soothed. “We’ll cut you out of that net, and then take a look at your injury, okay?”

Phantom ducked away when J leanded closer with the scissors. “What, so you can make sure I’m not a damaged sample?”

H shook his head and held out empty hands. “Phantom. What do you think we do here?”

“Cut up ghosts.” Tears clung to his eyelashes, and he sounded so hopelessly resigned.

“Do you see any dissection tables here?” J asked gently, isolating a strand of glowing rope and cutting through it.

Phantom glanced around. “It’s in another room then,” he insisted. “O and K always say—”

“O and K are field agents who almost never set foot in the actual laboratories,” H interrupted. “They’re hunters, not scientists, and they should have stopped shooting when they saw blood. We would have taken it from there, and you certainly wouldn’t be bleeding all over my suit. You’re not the first hybrid the Guys in White have come across. Why didn’t you ever tell us you’re alive?”

Phantom stared, his mouth hanging open as the arms clamped around his body began to relax. “I… I didn’t know,” he breathed. “You always talk about dissecting ghosts…”

“I think you’re confusing us with the Fentons,” J huffed, making another cut. The net fell away from Phantom’s head and slipped over his trembling shoulders, pooling around his waist.

“Oh.” He looked down at his hands, still hopelessly twisted in the rope, and fluid began to drip off the counter. His voice had suddenly grown very quiet, and J didn’t like how the colour had leached from Phantom’s cheeks and lips. “I guess… they do talk about it a lot…” His forehead creased and he leaned back against the wall, breathing in sudden short gasps.

“Forget the net,” H said, shrugging off his lab coat and pressing it over the gash. “Go see what’s taking them so long to get that damned trauma kit!”

He felt the tiny body go limp beneath him.

“Hey,” Phantom rasped.

“Don’t talk,” H ordered as J ran out of the room. “You’re gunna be alright, kid.” He was so young, and H’s hands shook as he applied pressure over the terrible wound. The first hybrid in two decades, and he was a child who was bleeding out right beneath the agent’s fingers…

“Please,” Phantom breathed, and white light flickered around his waist, “don’t tell m’ parents.”

“Where’s that first aid kit?!” H screamed, pressing down harder on the boy’s chest as that light swept away the ghost and left a sickeningly familiar kid in his place.

The Fentons’ son gave a wan smile with colourless lips, face grey and bloodless. “Don’ tell ‘em,” he slurred again, and his head lolled forward as dull blue eyes slid closed.

Chapter Text

The Guys in White had a very simple mission statement: Protect the living from the dead, and the dead from the living. The living and the dead came from vastly different worlds, and where they accidentally met chaos tended to follow. Keep them separate, keep them safe.

Then a fourteen year old hybrid had been dragged into their facility, bleeding all over the hallway floor and screaming for his life.

H didn’t know how O and K had managed to misinterpret their mission statement so thoroughly. Sure, they were supposed to catch ghosts and bring them to the lab, but without harming anything! Scientists such as H would take over from there, checking for any damage and trying to figure out what kept the spirit trapped in the mortal plane. Some ghosts were then returned to the Ghost Zone through a small permanent natural portal beneath the building, whilst others were perfectly happy to return to their haunts and keep out of trouble. The majority of the experiments carried out in the facility actually involved ectoplasm itself, with the focus of the last few decades ranging from the substance’s effects on the living to different ways to potentially harness its chemical energy. If anything sentient developed during their testing, it was typically released into the Ghost Zone. Peace was always better than a fight.

The Guys in White were intimidating sometimes, but never violent. Agent H liked to think of himself as a protector of both worlds, helping to maintain a delicate balance. He was content to live like this, working in the quiet white rooms, tinkering away at different ideas to improve coexistence between the living and the dead. Sure, sometimes it got a bit boring, but nobody’s job was perfect. Working here paid decently, and left him feeling like he’d done some good in the world whenever he ended his shift.

Things had been peaceful up until a few hours ago.

It had rattled him. The kid just looked so scared, and then his skin had turned a pale grey pallor and he’d passed out practically in the agent’s arms. There wasn’t anything remotely like this in the handbook, but it had happened and now he needed to deal with the aftermath.

H hadn’t even bothered to change into clean clothes. He sat beside the bed and watched the gentle rise and fall of Daniel Fenton’s chest beneath the blanket, unable to look away.

In the end, he’d needed a transfusion. They couldn’t exactly take a halfa to the hospital, but the Guys in White had an extensive facility, and a doctor had been stationed in the building next door. Of course they didn’t have any blood on hand to give, but a quick finger prick and blood typing test later and it was confirmed that H and another agent shared blood types with the kid. It was a relief that typing kits were in the labs, and H dimly remembered that they were used to help make internships more exciting or some such nonsense. Teach the greenies how to handle their own biohazardous waste before touching ectoplasm, or something like that.

He typically wasn’t that fond of needles, but he was in the chair with his sleeve rolled up and arm stretched out as soon as they realised the type match. He had sat there, squeezing his fingers around a balled-up glove to try to increase the flow of blood through the tube, and watching as a very still Daniel Fenton was laid out on a table with an IV bag full of ectoplasm attached to the cook of his elbow.

The donation went smoothly, but the juice and sandwich they forced down his throat felt like chewing sand. H stayed in his chair, cradling a bottle of water in his freezing hands and watching as the slightest colour slowly began to seep back into Daniel’s skin. He would remain unnaturally pale for a day or so, and those hastily-applied stitches would hurt like hell, but at least he was still breathing.

J eventually abandoned trying to get H to clock off and go rest, instead pulling up another chair so they could sit and watch the boy together. “Didn’t think my day would get more exciting than rust spots on bunsen burners,” he muttered.

H sent him a sidelong glance. “What do you mean?” The terrible fluid soaking their white clothes had dried into stiff patches, no doubt leaving stains that would be impossible to remove.

J shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “This is a scandal unlike any in the company’s history. Sure, we shot Masters twenty years ago, but we didn’t know any better back then, and he wasn’t even really that hurt. This, though… this is a disaster, and we’re right in the middle of it now.”

He still didn’t understand the point of this conversation. “What, you’re unhappy that we’ll have a roomful of paperwork tomorrow?”

“No, what I’m saying is that we have a chance here. We can work with this kid, help him, and maybe get out of the lab sometimes and learn a bit more about halfas in the process. Masters has a stick too far up his butt to give us anything willingly, but maybe if we help the kid out then he’ll help us in return?”

“I don’t think they get along,” H mused, leaning back as well. He felt heavy and tired, and wondered if it was thanks to the blood donation or the extreme stress of the past hour. Probably both.

“No, they fight pretty regularly,” J confirmed. “Maybe O and K thought since Masters was always going after Phantom that he really was just a ghost?”

“Don’t defend them,” H spat. “If they really didn’t realise that he’s a halfa when he was bleeding red then they don’t deserve to work here.”

“I’m not saying they do.” J gestured to the boy on the bed. “A set of agents’ll probably be assigned to him tomorrow. O and K are our only field team right now since M quit. I was thinking that the two of us could do with a bit of sunshine every now and then?”

“That’s not even a question,” H snapped. “There’s no way I’m letting those morons be assigned to him.”

“Then maybe we should volunteer.”

H jerked his chin in a curt nod. “Go let the directors know before someone else tries it.”

“We have a good chance of being approved, since the Fentons have no idea that they shoot their own son as often as possible.” J stood up, brushing at the bloodstains on his lab coat. “The kid probably trusts us more than he trusts any other ghost hunters.”

“You’re probably right.”

He left without talking further about Danny’s parents or the disastrous field agents, and H was alone again with the boy who’d almost died at the hands of people who were supposed to help him. Daniel slept on, the smudges beneath his eyes dark and deep against his pale skin. He was painfully skinny, and the doctor had found several partially-healed wounds that had obviously been tended to by someone without much medical experience.

The boy was a complete mess, and as H slumped forward in the chair and watched the steady cycle of his breathing, he silently promised to do everything in his power to make this right.

Chapter Text

It had been another long, boring day in the labs, and the end of his shift felt like it took forever to arrive. Finally, it was time to clock off, and H walked into the break room and sighed fondly at the sight that greeted him. J elbowed him with a grin and grabbed a throw rug, draping it over the boy asleep on the couch. Danny didn’t so much as stir when the agent gently brushed his overlong fringe away from his eyes, and H chuckled and headed to the kitchenette.

The room was less of a kitchen and more of an open plan social lounge area for the Guys in White, and ever since they’d nursed him back to health, Danny had become a regular visitor. The higher-ups were thrilled with this new development, with H and J officially assigned as his protective agents. It was now their job to ensure that this rare half breed was safe and well, and had all of his needs met. The assignment shouldn’t have been too difficult, since he was just a kid who still lived at home, but halfas were already notoriously complicated already without the added stress of living under the same roof as a couple of ghost hunters out for his blood.

It became painfully apparent how desperately he’d needed a safe space to eat and sleep, away from potential exploding inventions and malfunctioning prototype weapons, and so the facility had quickly become the ghost boy’s second home. He had mentioned that his friends were more than happy to let him sleep at their places occasionally, but it didn’t take long for the agents to realise that he barely spent any time at Fentonworks anymore, and couch surfing while trying to pretend that nothing was wrong just added to the poor kid’s stress. Letting Danny come here whenever he wanted to was simply the right decision, and if it was an excuse to keep the fridge stocked with something better than instant noodles and week-old milk, then none of the other agents were going to complain.

H removed his sunglasses and pulled a couple of microwave meals out of the freezer as J rummaged in the fridge for soda. They didn’t strictly have to wear their glasses when out of public view, and their young charge had made it clear that he was more comfortable when he could see their eyes. They’d both been pleasantly surprised when Danny tentatively began to frequent their lab beyond scheduled check ups, and in just a few short weeks he’d become a regular sight around the facility. Sometimes he observed their work, but more often than not he either turned up for first aid, help with homework, or just a place to wind down for a while. The boy was far too familiar around a lab, and had even offered to clean up, of all things! It turned out he cleaned the lab at home all the time, without even wearing PPE. J had a fit at that, and on top of Danny’s regular injuries, H had become greatly concerned about the quality of his home life.

He even had a list, about three pages long so far. It was cathartic to write things down since he couldn’t scream it to their faces. If the Fentons ever learned the truth about their son, Agent H was more than ready to rub their noses into every little thing they’d done wrong.

He longed to tell the Fentons. It was a stupid thought, fraught with danger, but he figured that it might be a good idea in the near future. The only thing that stopped any of the Guys in White from marching over to Fentonworks and wringing those blind idiots’ necks was Danny’s growing trust. The directors were adamant that he could keep his secret unless it threatened someone’s life, so that was that and there was nothing H could do about it. The constant injuries were bad, sure, and H had had a few sleepless nights already, fretting over what would have happened if they hadn’t given him a blood transfusion in time… but Danny’s fragile trust right now was worth more than revealing his identity to his parents. The Guys in White couldn’t help him if he decided that he hated them, like Masters had. Nobody knew how the Fentons would react anyway, so the risk was just too great.

The microwave beeped, and H heard Danny yawn as he pulled out the first meal.

“Whatcha cookin’?” he mumbled, voice slurred with sleep.

“Microwave ravioli.” H headed back to the freezer and grabbed another two. “I’ll make some for you.”

“Sounds good.” Danny was sitting up now, clasping the blanket around his shoulders and rubbing his eyes. The dark bags that once weighed down his skin had grown far lighter over the past few weeks, and he seemed to carry himself with straighter shoulders and greater confidence than before. H couldn’t help but feel a little bit satisfied with the boy’s improved health, even if the prick of guilt at causing such constant fear in the first place always tugged at his gut.

Danny ran a hand through his hair, flattening down the dark clumps that were sticking out in every direction. “What time is it?”

“About eight,” J said. “Ectoplasm or soda?”

Danny screwed up his nose. “Soda, please.”

If H ever got the chance to have kids, he hoped they’d turn out half as good as this one. That being said… “You’re having both.”

Danny pouted. “I’m fine, really! I haven’t even been bleeding today!”

“You came here right after school,” he observed, eyeing the battered purple backpack that had been dropped next to the couch. “Did you have anything to eat since lunch?”

Danny grumbled incoherently and got to his feet. He stretched his hands above his head with a groan, back crackling audibly as his spine popped back into place. “I’m fine,” he insisted, dropping the blanket onto the coffee table and making his way into the kitchen area.

“Sure you are.” J handed him a glass of glowing green slime. “Drink this first, and then you can have as much soda as you want.”

“Why did you even give me the choice then?” he grouched, but knocked back the glass and drank it in one go.

J laughed when he scrunched up his face in disgust, swapping the empty glass for a can of Coke. H passed Danny the steaming tray of pasta, tucking a fork down the side and lightly nudging him toward the table. “Go and get started, I’ll have another one ready for you in a few minutes.”

“Thanks.” Danny went and sat down, popping open his can and taking a long swig before digging into his food.

They fell into casual chatter, and the agents joined him at the table with meals of their own and a second serving for him, asking Danny about the science test that they’d helped him to study for. His grades had already begun to improve under their tutelage, and H didn’t even mind the overtime if it meant that they had dinner together practically every night. Snippets of Danny’s life had become dreadfully clear during their casual conversations, and he’d recently mentioned that he usually just ate cereal out of the box in the solitude of his bedroom because that was one of the only foods in his house that never got contaminated. Who on earth kept their lab samples in the family refrigerator anyway? That’s what labelled fridges in the lab storeroom were for! The more he learned about the Fentons’ reckless abandonment of basic laboratory safety, the more he added to his list, and the crankier he became.

Danny was currently regaling them with the story of the haunted hot dogs from two days ago, waving a piece of ravioli on the end of his fork. “...and so they broke out again, and Dad managed to shoot pretty much every piece of furniture without actually hitting the hot dogs, but Jazz had to run for cover and—”

“With how bad lab safety is at your place, you’re lucky nobody's died,” J interrupted, voicing H’s thoughts perfectly.

The room went still. Danny’s smile slipped and his next statement was very, very soft. “Yeah, well, I kinda did, right?”

H’s chest clenched like the words had delivered a physical blow.

That was right. For all of his laughter and quick puns, the skinny, underfed teenager sitting in front of them had been killed by his parents’ negligence. Danny refused to blame them, and once he’d woken up with an IV of ectoplasm in his arm and realised that the Guys in White never intended to hurt him he’d burst into the directors’ meeting in bloody jeans and bright white bandages wrapped around his bare chest, tearfully pleading for them to not pursue any charges against his parents because the portal accident wasn’t their fault and they didn’t know and, most of all, they still love me!

The directors had agreed to keep things quiet for now, but then that night he’d gone to fight the Box Ghost and his parents had blasted him out of the sky.

He’d needed stitches for the second time in as many days, and H and J had been officially assigned as his team. Danny’s initial panic at being revealed to them pretty much disappeared as the doctor had sewn up the gash in his thigh, and he’d sat there tentatively joking with H while J sorted out the necessary paperwork. The kid was a magnet for trouble, and he got hurt all the time. Whenever he left their sight anxiety niggled at H’s thoughts, and he’d already knocked over a handful of beakers and ruined more than one experiment because he was so stressed about Danny. He wondered if this was what it was like to be a father.

Danny was still sitting there, a pillow of pasta drooping on his fork as he stared down at the table. H shook off such melancholy thoughts and nudged him with his foot. “You’re not actually dead though,” he reminded him, “so hurry up and eat before your food gets cold.”

Danny dutifully took a mouthful, and J sighed in the thick silence. “It’s getting a bit late, but once we’ve eaten do you want to go over your math homework?”

The boy swallowed and nodded. “I’m just stuck on one quadratics question.”

“Shouldn’t take long then,” J reassured him.

Danny mumbled in assent and busied himself with his food. H chewed slowly, watching as tension began to trickle out of slender shoulders. Beneath the jokes and morbid puns, the portal accident was obviously a painful subject, and it hadn’t even been a year since it happened! The kid had hardly had a chance to deal with the trauma yet, but H hoped that with a safe environment and some adults who finally took care of him, he would begin to heal.

That was their job, after all. If they couldn’t take care of one scrawny ghost kid then they’d be a pretty poor excuse for Guys in White.

Besides, it was nice to have someone other than his partner to share dinner with, even if it was just crappy microwave meals and some cheap cans of soda. H could only cross his fingers under the table and hope that this would last.

Chapter Text

They’d been doing a lot more field work these days.

H watched in amusement as the regular field agents failed for the third time in a row to capture a blue ghost in pyjamas. O and K were visibly out of breath, leaning against fences and bumping into each other as they tried to trap the spook without being caught in one of its freezing hugs. Their white suits were scuffed with dirt, and they seemed very close to giving up entirely.

Danny Phantom hovered off to the side, laughing his head off. “Are you sure you don’t want me to get him for you?” he cackled.

K growled in frustration as O took another shot, the net sailing gracefully though the cool evening air… and landing in a heap in the middle of the road, having caught nothing whatsoever.

J laughed, leaning against the dashboard. “This is great.”

“Yep,” H agreed.

J pulled out his phone. “Do you think the light’s good enough for me to film it?”

“Maybe.”

Headlights cut through the scene, and K leaped out of the way as a car drove straight over the very expensive glowing net.

The watching agents howled with laughter. “Five bucks says Danny has to catch it for them.”

“No way,” H said, “it’ll escape because he’s laughing too much.”

“Either way, Danny’ll have to catch it in the end.”

They both chuckled, the dim video on J’s phone screen bouncing with the movement. It really was too dark for the camera to catch any of the action, or lack of, and J tucked his phone back in his pocket as the two agents down the road gingerly picked up the net. With the way that sparks spiralled into the night with its movement, it was obviously broken. Yet another expense for O and K’s disastrous report.

Danny was darting through the air, gracefully avoiding the other ghost’s attempts to hug him. His grin glowed as he sped around the area.

“He seems to be having fun.”

H snorted. “Aren’t you?”

“Have they actually caught anything since their guns were confiscated?”

H shook his head. “Nope. Nothing for almost two months.”

J whistled. “You’d think they don’t even know how to catch a ghost without violence.”

He shrugged. “Who knows? I’m just glad they don’t have access to firepower after the way they hurt Danny.”

“He’s grown on you, hasn’t he?”

H nudged an elbow into his partner’s ribs. “Just me?” he teased.

“Well, you’re the one who gave him your blood. You didn’t even give G time to volunteer.”

“Anyone would’ve done the same.”

“Mm-hmm.”

K and O each held an end of the net and tried to fling it at the ghost as it flew by. It dodged easily, and Danny wrapped his arms around his stomach, doubling over in the air and wheezing with laughter.

His smile dissolved a moment later when a green dome of energy flickered into existence around the area, about a football field in size. Danny whipped out his thermos and sucked the ghost away, all humour gone as his gaze darted around the impromptu prison.

“You owe me five bucks,” J said, rolling down the window and waving his unlocked phone outside until Danny caught sight of it. Their car was mercifully within the green dome, and in a blur of green phosphorescence Danny teleported to the vehicle and phased into the backseat.

“You were following me again,” he accused as the Fentons burst from an alleyway at the other end of the ghost shield.

“And aren’t you glad we were?” H responded, handing the money over and twisting to frown at their young charge.

“I would’ve just turned human and let them think I got caught up in things.” Light burst in the back, sweeping away the ghost and leaving a disheveled teenager in its place.

“One day you’ll run out of luck,” J warned. “Our job’s to make sure we’re there to help when you do.”

Danny rolled his eyes and stuck his hand through the closed lid of the console, emerging a moment later with a granola bar. “I know,” he groaned, unwrapping it and taking a larger bite than was strictly polite.

“Have you had dinner?” H asked, watching through the tinted windscreen as O and K tried to salvage their ruined net while Jack Fenton brandished a blaster almost as big as his son. Maddie swept the Fenton Finder back and forth as she walked down the street.

“Yeah,” Danny crunched.

“Dinner that’s not cereal?” J pressed.

“Yes, Dads,” he grumbled, “I had veggie lasagne at Sam’s.”

“That’s not a lot of protein for your core.”

Danny swallowed the second half of the granola bar and phased another one out of the console stash. “Happy now?”

Maddie reached the front of their car, squinting as the dull green light of her tracking system lit up her face.

“Oh no,” Danny drawled, “whatever shall we do?”

He blipped into invisibility as H rolled the window down. “Mrs Fenton. Good evening.”

Maddie glanced back at the agents on the street before returning her attention to the car. “There are a lot of you out tonight,” she observed.

H shrugged. “Those guys broke company policy so they’ve been put on probation. Standard procedure.”

“They’re lucky they didn’t get fired,” J chimed in.

H nodded. “We’re just keeping an eye on them.”

“Incognito,” J supplied.

She frowned, tilting the Fenton Finder so they could see Danny’s green dot flashing on the screen. “My radar says there’s a ghost in your car, and Phantom just disappeared.”

H snorted, hoping she wouldn’t hear how fast his heart was beating. “You really think a ghost would hide in a car with us?” He hated using their reputation like this, but that might just be the thing that got her to back off. Danny’s safety was more important right now than public perception of their organisation.

“Then what’s it fixed on?”

J jerked his thumb toward the engine. “Ectobattery,” he said. “We’re trialling clean ectoenergy, but there are still some glitches in the system. There’s a backup normal battery we can manually switch to if it stops working.”

She tilted her head, lips pursed as she considered the two of them. “You’re really bad liars,” Maddie concluded, holding up a hand when H opened his mouth. “Phantom’s a menace. When he finally crosses you, please make sure there’s enough of him left for me to dissect.”

H’s stomach clenched as Danny took a sharp breath from the back.

“Good night, Mrs Fenton,” J snapped, using the master control to roll the window back up.

Maddie stood there a moment longer, staring at the dark glass before turning to stomp back to her husband.

“Love you too, Mum,” a disembodied voice grumbled.

J shook his head. “Charming.”

H took a shaky breath, not daring to turn to the boy behind him even though the windows were tinted and the Fentons were now several houses away. “Are you okay?”

Danny huffed. “Not really, but at least it’s nothing new.” He crunched something. Probably that second granola bar. “Hey, I know you guys won’t let me out of your sight after that, but there’s something I wanna do before I go home.”

“You’re not going flying while your father’s patrolling with that gun,” H snapped.

The crumpled wrapper sailed through the air, hitting H’s shoulder before forlornly rolling into the darkness at his feet. “There’s a meteor shower,” Danny said, the longing in his voice clear and desperate. “Don’t deny that you’re gunna be guarding me all night anyway after that, so just drive me to the field out near the lake. You don’t even have to get out, you can sit in the car and watch me from there if you want to. Uh, please?”

The two agents looked at each other, and J shrugged. “You’ll just sneak away from us if we don’t.”

“Do you expect anything else?” Danny responded. The Fentons’ shield faded into nothing and a moment later their RV rolled past, Jack peering through the dark windows as they crept by. “Good thing I stayed invisible.”

H sighed and tried to ignore the heaviness around his heart. “Let’s go then.”

The car was silent as they drove, and Danny stayed invisible until they had travelled several blocks. H was left with his thoughts, wondering yet again how the Fentons failed to see what was right in front of them. They were leading spectral researchers and yet couldn't find a halfa under their own roof! The thing that frustrated him the most was that Danny had mentioned that they didn’t even think that halfas existed, and dismissed the idea as impossible when he’d brought it up once. It was so ignorant and closed-minded, and it made the scientist within him want to scream every time he thought about it.

They pulled into a parking space at the lake and Danny phased out of the car before the engine even turned off. His human form was difficult to spot in the moonless night, but then an ectoblast in his hand illuminated where he walked across the grassy field. He flopped onto the grass when he was a decent distance away, the supernatural light flicking off and making his form impossible to discern.

Both agents’ phones vibrated, and J pulled his out and gave a quiet chuckle. Turn the headlights off so I can see the stars.

The headlights went out, and H blinked in the sudden darkness. He couldn’t make out anything except a slight haze in the wing mirrors from the town’s light pollution, a fifteen minute drive back over the hills. His partner sighed, and H shifted before unplugging his seatbelt decisively. He got out of the car without saying anything and, using his phone to light the way, headed in the direction that Danny had gone.

The window whirred. “I’m not lying in the grass with the bugs and dirt!”

H waved his phone in acknowledgement. “You just watch from the car then,” he called as he reached the spot where Danny lay, hands folded behind his head as he stared up at the sky.

“Didn’t see you as an outdoors guy,” Danny said.

H turned off his light and lay down beside him. “Well I didn’t see you as a stargazer.”

He felt him shrug. “I want… well, wanted to be an astronaut. Before… all this.”

“Hm.” Grass prickled against his neck and he moved his arms to mirror Danny’s position. “Why can’t you still try?”

He snorted. “Have you seen my grades?”

“They’re improving.”

A heavy sigh weighed between them. “That’s not the only thing keeping me here.”

“I know.” H wriggled, trying to get comfortable in the grass. The bright spots from his phone began to clear from his vision, and stars slowly appeared as his eyesight adjusted. A cricket chirped and frogs croaked in the nearby lake. He took a deep breath of the fresh evening air and held it while he decided what to say next. “You know, we’re here to help you. Maybe by the time NASA’s ready for your sheer talent you’ll have taught us how to take care of this place so you can leave.”

Danny gave a small, bitter laugh. “I’ll never pass the physical.”

“We’ll whip you into shape.”

“No,” he stressed, and H felt him move. His eyes had adjusted enough by now to see the way that Danny stretched an arm to the expanse above, fingers splayed in a reaching grasp. “I’m not human. I’ll never make it up there.” His words caught and the hand dropped back to the grass.

“Maybe NASA would prefer someone with ghost powers,” H murmured. “Besides, you are human. You still bleed red.”

Danny sniffed. “I also bleed green.”

“You do,” he agreed, “but I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

Danny shifted again and asked a very small “Really? I’m not just a burden for you to babysit?”

H shook his head in the darkness. “Kid, we volunteered to be your agents. J might not want to lie on the ground to watch the stars, but it’s not you — he’s always hated dirt. Don’t know why he works with ectoplasm to be honest.” Danny laughed and H smiled, “My life was so boring. They hired me to study how ectoplasm affects humans when they discovered your friend from Wisconsin—” Danny snorted “—but for the past decade or so I’ve just been researching its energy potential. I joined the Guys in White to help people, and when you turned up and almost bled to death in my arms, there was no way I was letting you get into any more trouble without being there as your backup.”

A soft breeze rustled the grass, and after a minute, Danny sniffed again. “No one’s ever said something like that to me,” he whispered. “Like, my sister and friends help me out, but they can’t always be there, and I know the ghost stuff annoys them sometimes since they have their own lives. They try, but...” A little sob hiccupped between cricket calls. “I never thought… I just… thank you. I really appreciate it.”

H huffed and reached over to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Come on, kid, I gave you my blood. We’re practically related now.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“I’m the scientist here,” he teased, “and I think that’s exactly how it works.”

Danny gave a wet-sounding chuckle, and H gasped involuntarily as a stream of light streaked across the sky. “Did you see that?!” the both exclaimed before laughing together.

H relaxed back into the grass as he felt Danny settle beside him. “Alright, Space Boy. What are some of the constellations up there tonight?”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see a slight green glow dust Danny’s otherwise human cheeks. H turned his head to get a better look, and smiled at what he saw. Danny’s eyes were glowing a gentle green, and his freckles matched. The brighter ones somehow had tiny luminescent lines connecting them, like what you’d see on a constellation star map. A physical manifestation of a keen interest…

Oh. So this was an obsession.

Danny pointed at the heavens, and H readjusted, trying to follow his finger and find the stars that were described in a tumble of words filled with infectious energy. When the next meteor glimmered across the sky they both cheered quietly, and as Danny chattered on about the worlds beyond their own, H knew that asking for this assignment had been one of the best decisions of his life.

There in the cool grass with singing crickets he made a promise to himself: Danny would be safe. He’d graduate high school and college. He’d grow up healthy and strong. He’d join NASA and get to space.

H would do everything in his power to make it happen. Wasn’t NASA just another federal organisation anyway? He was certain he could make connections and eventually pull some strings.

It was his job to help Danny, after all, and H would be damned if he ever let the light go out in those shining green eyes.

Chapter Text

The battle had been airborne, but left a wake of carnage anyway. Tree branches littered the road, smoking where errant ectoblasts had struck. Swathes of suburban gardens were crushed where ghostly bodies had been thrown into them, and a few of the cars parked along the road bore dented panels and shattered windscreens. H raced to follow the grim trail of destruction, heart hammering like a trapped bird against his ribs, and with his eyes on the sky, he almost tripped over the kerb.

Blood and ectoplasm dotted the footpath where concrete had cracked with impacts, and H scanned the sky anxiously as cold sweat slipped beneath his shirt collar. J ran along the opposite footpath, following the dots on his radar. “They went that way,” he called, veering into the park. H sprinted to catch up. People ran in the opposite direction, a sure sign that he was headed toward the carnage.

A cry tore past the trees, Danny clearly recognisable beneath its eerie echo. The tracker beeped insistently and the agents burst into an open expanse of grass.

“I can’t believe you cloned me!”

Vlad Masters’ ghost launched a sizzling pink ectoblast at the younger spectre. Danny dodged out of the way and the shot hit a nearby picnic table, enveloping it in supernatural pink flames.

“It’s none of your concern,” Vlad snapped. His suit was torn and filthy, and the remnant of a once-glorious cape hung in ribbons from his shoulders. Danny didn’t look much better, with holes burned in his suit and a glove missing. Smoke coiled lazily from his hair.

Both of them were bleeding from scattered cuts and burns, red blood and pink and green ectoplasm dripping to the grass below. H couldn’t identify any specifically bad injury on either halfa, but they were far enough away that it was difficult to see small details.

Danny’s comment finally registered in his brain, and H almost tripped over his own feet. “Did he say clone?” he hissed.

J dipped his head, his tone turning frigid. “Yep. Hey, Masters! What the hell are you doing?!”

Vlad glared at them, and Danny took the chance to hit him in the gut with a neon green charge. He grunted, doubling over and dropping to the ground.

Another shot barely missed Danny’s head, swishing his hair as it flew past. H frowned and followed its trajectory, his gut clenching as the Fentons burst from the treeline on the other side of the clearing. “Eat Fenton tech, you ectoplasmic scum!” Jack bellowed, taking another shot as he ran.

Danny ducked, the shot missed, and against all caution, H ran onto the battlefield. “Stop!” he shouted, waving his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot!”

Maddie had already widened her stance, aiming down her blaster at her own child when Vlad launched back into the air. The two ghosts collided, the shot missed by a hair's breadth, and any hope H had of Vlad helping out dissolved as the older halfa punched Danny in the face with the crack of breaking bone.

Danny shrieked and slammed his knee into Vlad’s groin, breaking out of his grip as the older halfa fell to the grass a second time. Green and red fluid streamed from Danny’s nose and he clapped his hands over his face with a strangled sob. “Seriously?!”

Maddie shot again, and Danny barely summoned a defensive shield in time.

“I don’t wanna fight you,” he whined nasally. Blood and ectoplasm dripped off his chin and began to stain the white collar of his jumpsuit. “The fruitloop’s my issue right now.”

Jack took a wide shot in the general direction of Vlad, who rolled his eyes as it whizzed harmlessly into the nearby sandpit. He summoned a pink defensive shield anyway, side-eyeing Maddie as she adjusted the grip on her own gun.

H stepped into the middle of the chaos, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. “That’s enough. From all of you.”

“I don’t take orders,” Vlad spat.

Maddie gave an indignant cry. “I’m just doing my job!”

H groaned. “You’re an inventor,” he pointed out. “It’s not like you get paid to hunt ghosts. And you!” Vlad had picked himself up again and floated disdainfully next to them, blood and pink ectoplasm dripping from a split lip. “We leave you alone because you’re not worth the trouble, but if you keep hurting the one halfa who actually wants our protection, we’ll be forced to take action.” He felt J walked up behind him, a solid, sure presence who would always have his back.

Danny hovered closer as Vlad’s mouth twisted into a sneer, sharp fangs spilling over his lips and glinting in the sunlight. “Shoot me then,” the older halfa spat, “or don’t you have the spine?”

H shook his head in disgust as Vlad’s hands lit up with energy. The Fentons’ guns hummed in response, barrels glowing as they aimed at the ghost.

“Danny, get out of the way,” H said, keeping his hands up and words slow and even.

Maddie’s gaze flicked to him, her forehead wrinkling in a delicate frown. “What did you call him?” she hissed.

Vlad dropped his shield and struck, the twin ectoblasts shooting not at Danny, but at Jack.

“No!” Danny teleported in front of his father in a flash of light. He made it just in time, the blasts hitting a weak shield that exploded into sparks with the impact.

The electronic gunshot of a blaster pierced the aftermath, and Danny pitched forward onto his hands and knees and screamed.

Smoke wafted from the barrel of Jack’s gun and coiled from the middle of Danny’s back.

Danny shuddered, retched dryly, and then that familiar white light flashed around his waist. The yellow charge from the gun crackled across his clothing and sparked through his hair, and he choked again when the transformation rings didn’t move. For a moment it seemed like the world held its breath in anticipation, and then Danny’s rings exploded in a shower of stars that left bright spots in H’s vision. He screamed again, clawing at his chest and curling up so tightly that his forehead pressed into the grass.

“Danny, are you okay?!” J shouted as the gun drooped in Jack’s grasp.

H staggered forward but Maddie stepped into his path, aiming her gun at Vlad.

“You tried to shoot my husband!” she shrieked, and pulled the trigger.

Vlad dodged and Danny keened in pain. H pushed past Maddie, trying desperately to reach his young charge, when the yellow energy finally sank into Danny’s body.

He stiffened, every single white hair standing on end, and screeched at such a pitch that H’s ears stung. Everyone froze at the sound, and H flung himself down in front of the boy. “Danny?” He wrapped a steadying arm around his shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Danny sobbed, and then the white rings were back, moving across his body in shudders and jerks. It was so unlike the smooth transition that H had seen before that dread slid like ice down his spine.

The famous jumpsuit changed wherever the light touched, flickering to a NASA shirt and jeans, then back to the jumpsuit, then the human clothing again. His hair and skin were morphing back and forth as well, and then the changes began to blur and mix together, and Danny howled and writhed in H’sgrasp as the light dissolved into a second cascade of stars. He was a patchwork of human and ghost, his hair streaked white and black, his scars glowing visibly green. His clothes had blended into black jeans and the top half of his jumpsuit sans gloves, but with the NASA logo where Phantom’s symbol usually rested.

Blood and ectoplasm streamed from his wounds, bright against paper-pale skin, and glowing tears dripped into the grass.

“Danno?” Jack breathed, and Danny retched again, wrapping an arm around his stomach and leaning heavily against H.

Someone tore at H’s shoulder, and he sprawled back as Maddie pulled him away from her son. “Danny!” she shrieked, kneeling and taking his face in her hands.

He flinched away. Pulling out of her hold, Danny squinted with eyes that glowed green. “H?” he rasped, and pushed himself to his feet, dodging his mother’s frantic gestures.

H stood up, holding out his arms to catch him as Danny lurched forward. “C’mon, just try to breathe,” he coaxed.

Danny went limp, his dead weight far lighter than it should be. “Hurts,” he wheezed. “Core’s really bad.”

“Okay, we’ll get you fixed up.” H glanced back at his partner. “Go bring the car. And you,” Vlad flinched as J sprinted away, “get the hell out of here.”

“I can help.”

H looped an arm under Danny’s knees and hoisted him off the ground, wincing as he whimpered. “I mean it. You’ve been on thin ice with us for a while now but this takes things to a whole new level. We’ll be in contact once he’s stable.”

“I’m the only one capable of understanding him.”

“You shot him! Multiple times!” H spat, his patience slipping more with every sob and shaky breath of the child pressed against his chest. “I also heard him saying you cloned him?! Seriously?”

“How do you know that’s not a clone then?” Vlad pressed, drifting closer.

“Simple. He came to me instead of his parents.”

Maddie stiffened beside him. “Danny would never do that.”

“Wouldn’t he?” H responded, voice low as he raised an eyebrow above his glasses. “He’s hidden from you in our car plenty of times.”

Recognition flickered in her eyes. “He’s contaminated,” she insisted, “and we need to fix—”

“He’s not broken,” H and Vlad snapped at the same time.

“He’s a ghost,” Jack choked, and H wondered how long he’d been crying. “The gun only works on ghosts.”

“Half ghost,” Danny wheezed, curling his fingers in H’s lapel. He left streaks of red and green across the white fabric, and disbelief bloomed in the Fentons’ expressions.

“And you shot him,” H snapped, adjusting his hold.

“It was a reflex. He surprised me, and he’s… he’s a ghost.” Jack looked absolutely miserable and he stepped forward, but faltered when his son turned away.

“He’s half ghost and half human, and he was defending you!” H roared. Danny pressed closer, pushing his face into his neck. His forehead was cool against H’s skin, but far warmer than he usually felt.

Maddie placed a trembling hand on Danny’s arm and he shrugged her off.

“Please, let’s go,” he breathed into H’s ear.

“Do you want them to come?”

Danny shook his head. “Not yet.” He settled his cheek against H’s shoulder.

“Okay.”

“You’re not taking him!” Maddie cried.

H tilted his head forward so he could look over the rims of his dark glasses and stare her right in the eyes. “My partner and I are his protective agents. You lost your right to him the moment you shot him.”

“I didn’t shoot him!” she insisted. Betrayal flitted across Jack’s face.

“You shot at him,” H said, keeping the words cool and impersonal. There were so many things he could say right now, and he itched to get out his list, but Danny didn’t need to see this right now. “Didn’t you tell me a few weeks ago that he’s a menace that you want to dissect?”

Maddie growled. “You’re not taking him to your facility!”

H sighed in relief as a white hatchback appeared on the access path between the trees. At least J would be here in a moment and he wouldn’t have to deal with this disaster alone. “Mrs Fenton, please. Danny needs medical attention. We have a doctor who’s treated him before and has extensive core medical records. If you want to see him afterward you’ll have to wait for his permission.”

“He can’t stay with you!” Jack insisted, stepping closer as well.

H really hoped that this wouldn’t turn physical — he didn’t know if he could take them all at once while keeping Danny out of the fight. “He’s had his own apartment at our facility for a few weeks now,” he explained. “He’s slept in our break room so much that we figured he needed a safe space. Hadn’t you noticed that he’s never home anymore?” They’d given Danny everything he could want after that night with the shield. H’s heart had ached at the necessity of such an accommodation, but the truth was that Fentonworks wasn’t safe for the boy, and hadn’t been for a long time.

The car pulled up behind them, and J jumped out and opened the back door.

A tear slipped down Maddie’s cheek, and H wondered why she was only starting to cry now. Did she finally realise how much she had hurt her child, or was she disappointed because she’d lost a precious research opportunity?

J brushed past, grabbing the gun where it still lay in the grass. “Here’s my email,” he said, pressing a card into Jack’s hand. “If you actually want to help Danny, then you can send me all the files you have on this weapon.”

H stepped closer to the open door, scowling as the hunters mirrored the movement.

“We didn’t know,” Maddie insisted, skimming her fingers over her son’s bicep.

Danny shuddered and H protectively drew him closer. “You knew he wasn’t a normal ghost!” he spat. “That should have been enough to stop the violence.” He glared past her, to Vlad and Jack. “You’re all as bad as each other. Now get out of the way, or I’ll have you arrested.”

“You can’t keep me away,” Vlad preened, the effect ruined by the blood and ectoplasm that dripped into one of his eyes. The sight gave H a small burst of satisfaction. Danny might be hurt, but at least he’d gotten in a few good hits before the Fentons ruined things.

“Don’t test me.” J hefted the blaster. “I’m sure we could use it on you so we can trial any treatments before we use them on Danny.”

“But… if Danny’s half ghost… which is not possible...” Maddie frowned at H before looking at Vlad. “You’re bleeding red too.”

“My ectoplasm—”

“Is pink, but there’s red as well.”

Vlad stared at her for a long moment.

“Scram,” J said, thumbing the safety off the gun. “I don’t have the patience to deal with you right now.”

“But Daniel—”

“Is far better off away from you, Mr Vampire Ghost whose real name I am this close to using.”

H had utilised the distraction to gently transfer his precious cargo into the seat. Danny held tighter to H’s jacket when the agent tried to pull away, and shuffled over with a sharp hiss of pain, making room for H to sit beside him.

He got in and shut the door, re-attracting everyone’s attention. Maddie started forward but H clicked the lock, then reached across a wheezing Danny to lock the other door as well. J slipped into the front seat while Maddie pulled fruitlessly at the handle. He put the blaster in the passenger seat and locked the rest of the car, activating a portable ghost shield to envelop the vehicle. Maddie shrieked and beat her fists against the dark glass.

He wound down the window a fraction so they could easily hear what he had to say. “You can follow us if you really feel like you need to, but none of you will get to see Danny until he’s ready. Email me the gun’s specs if you even want a chance of taking him home again.”

Danny leaned against H’s shoulder, and the agent pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and gingerly held it under his nose. “We’ll fix this,” he promised.

“Sorry for bleeding on your suit,” Danny mumbled, his head lolling as the car began to move.

“Never apologise for getting hurt.” H stroked his free hand through blood-matted black and white hair. Danny’s freckles glowed weakly, and the lichtenberg scar from his accident, usually so faint you could barely see it, shone bright green along his bare forearms.

“I might still throw up on you,” he warned through the handkerchief.

H shrugged his free shoulder, careful not to jostle the kid. “Better me than the car.”

Danny laughed faintly before grimacing and pressing his hand against his gut. They broke through the treeline, and H ran his hand through Danny’s hair again and contented himself with planning how exactly he’d keep those hunters away until everyone was ready for them. The Fentons would be kept at bay by the facility’s ample security, but if Vlad became a problem then H was sure that Danny would have little issue with loaning the agents the thermos currently clipped to his belt.

The thought was more satisfying then it probably should have been, and as they sped down the road, he wondered if he should grab the spare thermos from Danny’s backpack anyway. Just in case.

Chapter Text

Danny sat in his bed, propped up against several large pillows and sipping orange juice through a straw. “I’m okay,” he insisted for the fifth time.

The doctor brandished a blood pressure cuff. “We just need to check again,” she said, and Danny rolled his eyes but obediently held out his arm. “I’ll scan your core as well.” Once the cuff was velcroed in place she pulled out a small rod that looked a bit like those scanners at airport security, sweeping it across his body.

H rubbed his temples while he waited for the verdict. Danny had been in bed for almost twenty-four hours now, and his core had only started to settle in the last few. The white had slowly bled out of his hair, and his skin returned to its normal human hue. They’d managed to wrestle him out of his bloodstained clothing and into clean pyjamas, and the discarded shirt hanging over the rim of the laundry hamper had shifted from the top of the Phantom jumpsuit back into the plain old NASA tee it had originally been.

Danny would be annoyed about the bloodstains when he noticed them later. H would buy him a replacement, and Danny would grumble half-heartedly but accept the new shirt with gratitude. He’d been wearing rags for so long that he didn’t seem to know how to respond when the agents gave him new clothes. H wondered when his parents had last taken him shopping, and had to push the thought away before it could make his simmering anger boil over.

The blood pressure monitor beeped at the same time as the core scanning rod, and the doctor pursed her lips and observed the readouts. “Well, everything looks a lot better,” she conceded.

“Great—”

She held up her hand. “You’re stable, but I don’t want you using any powers for the next few hours at least.”

“I’m fine.”

“Your core’s still bruised, so you’re in defensive mode right now. I want to wait until your scars have stopped glowing.”

Danny looked down at his bare arms, and H couldn’t help but follow his gaze. Feathery lichtenberg scars still shone as brightly as they had when he’d first been shot. It looked terrible and he wondered if it hurt.

“Okay,” Danny whispered.

The doctor gathered up her equipment. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Let me know if anything changes.”

H nodded, rising out of his chair to follow her to the door. “Thank you.”

She shook her head. “No thanks needed. I’m just doing my job, same as anyone would.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his brutally short hair. “I know, but still. He’s put up with a lot lately.”

“I can hear you,” Danny grumbled, and the two adults chuckled.

“I’ll leave you to it,” the doctor said, before raising an eyebrow at her patient. “Make sure you eat something decent before I come back!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She left with a smile, and H leaned against the door for a moment before turning back to his charge. Danny readjusted the blanket around his hips and slurped his juice, staring up at the constellations of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. They were a little personal touch to the room that was just so Danny, and had been placed with careful precision to match the star chart on the wall.

This apartment was small but comfortable. It was in the middle of the Guys in White’s residential complex, sandwiched between H and J’s apartments, and Danny used it more than his room at Fentonworks. He’d practically vibrated with excitement when he realised he could decorate it however he liked, and the three of them had spent an evening together pinning up posters and sticking constellations to the roof.

Danny slurped his juice again, trying to suck up the small amount left in the bottom of the glass. H grabbed the carton out of a mini bar fridge and refilled his drink, and Danny took another long draught as H reclaimed the chair by the bed.

He had white bandages wrapped around his neck and hands, and a bruise of warring green and purple splotches bloomed around his nose and eyes, as dark as ever. His supernatural healing hadn’t kicked in yet. It was another indication of the damage done to his core, and H felt helpless as he’d watched the bruise grow over the past day.

Danny sighed. “Are they still waiting?”

“J would be back if they’d left.”

The Fentons were in the administration building across the complex, along with Danny’s friends and sister. They’d initially been loud and demanding, but once Danny was more stable and wrapped up in bed he’d phoned his sister and filled her in. Jazz was no stranger to the agents; H and J had met her, along with the angry goth girl and the fidgeting boy in a red beret, when Danny had first started sleeping in the break room all those months ago. It had been a tense event, with many sideways glares and terse words from the teenagers. H was under the impression that they didn’t like him that much.

Well, H liked them. They were protective of Danny, in a way that even his parents weren’t, so H was content to put up with their suspicion. Danny still had people who cared for him enough to look out for his safety, and that was what mattered. The kids seemed to tolerate the agents for the same reason, so theirs had become a relationship of mutual cordiality.

Still, it didn’t mean that H wanted to spend an entire day in a waiting room with the angry goth. J had the patience of a saint, just for that.

Danny’s sister and friends had joined his parents in the admin offices yesterday afternoon and hadn’t budged to go to school or leave for sleep. J kept an eye on them but insisted that it was Danny’s prerogative to decide who told them what, and they’d simmered in tense frustration while H sat beside Danny’s bed and pressed cool cloths against his face and neck until his core stopped flickering like a candle in the breeze.

The single mercy of this entire debacle was that Vlad had made himself scarce. Agents had arrived at his mansion to find it empty, and none of their scanners had registered his ectosignature yet. H could only hope that he’d stay away until they’d sorted everything else out, but he had Danny’s thermos clipped to his belt, just in case.

Danny finished his juice again and placed the empty glass on the bedside table. “I want to talk to my parents.”

“I’ll get your phone.”

“No.” He shook his head and pushed the blanket off his legs. “Can we go see them? I’m just… I guess I’m sick of waiting for them to break down the door.”

H stood and rummaged in the top drawer of the bedside dresser, producing an old iPhone with a badly cracked screen. J had turned it off and shoved it in there when they’d arrived, to shut off the constant ringing while Danny was in such bad condition. “Why don’t you try a call first?”

Danny’s eyes flared with otherworldly light. They hadn’t faded back to blue since his father had shot him. “I need to see them,” he insisted. “I only want to have this conversation once, and I need to do it in person.” He dropped his legs over the edge of the bed and nudged his toes across the carpet until they found his slippers.

“You don’t want to finish recovering first?” H held out an arm and Danny latched onto it, bracing himself as he lurched to his feet.

“It’s been a whole day. I can’t wait any longer.”

“You’re so stubborn,” H grumbled. “Do you want me to help you get dressed?”

Danny glanced down at his Ghostbusters t-shirt and star-spangled pyjama pants. The white bandages were bright against the dark clothing, and the glowing scar that tendrilled around his arms and reached feathery fingers up his neck to lap at his jawline was painfully apparent. He looked so small and fragile.

“I think I’m okay like this,” Danny decided. “My scars hurt too much to change into normal clothes right now. Jeans’ll rub too much and I don’t have anything else that’s clean.”

“It’s your own fault for leaving your laundry until you’re down to your last clean outfit,” H teased.

Danny nudged him with his elbow. “Whatever,” he huffed.

“Are you sure you want to walk that far?” H tried one last time. “I could set up a video call.”

Danny shook his head. “No. I need to do this, and I don’t want them in my apartment yet.”

They shuffled into the hallway and by the time they made it to the elevator practically all of Danny’s weight was leaning on H’s arm. Danny leaned against the wall while they waited for the elevator to arrive, and H crossed his arms and scowled. “The administration building’s too far,” he insisted.

Danny shook his head, pressing his palms against the wall behind him and breathing heavily. “I’m up now,” he said. “It’d be easier if I could fly…”

“Not a chance.” The doors swept open and H offered his arm again. Danny took it, and they ambled into the elevator.

Down in the lobby, Danny sank into the first chair they reached. “Just… give me a minute,” he panted.

H grabbed a cup from the water tower near the empty reception desk. “Here,” he said.

Danny drank the whole thing in one go, his hands shaking from the exertion of their short walk. He was glaring at the floor, and the flimsy plastic cup crumpled in his grip.

H took the cup and tossed it in the bin before sitting in the chair beside him. “Take as long as you need.”

Danny rubbed a hand over his face. “It shouldn’t be this hard,” he whispered.

H stayed quiet.

Danny dropped his hand away and leaned back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “I mean, I have freaking superpowers, but I… I just can’t…”

The silence swelled around Danny’s harsh breathing and the ticking of a clock on the wall. H waited a full minute before speaking. “It’s okay to be scared.”

Danny’s breathing hitched, and his chest heaved, but he stayed silent.

H licked his lips as he searched for the right words. “Just because you have superpowers doesn’t mean you have to be brave all the time. You’re still a person. You’re allowed to be scared, and angry, and sad. You don’t have to do everything perfectly all the time.”

Danny gave a shaky sob. “I do have to be perfect though,” he choked, and H’s heart clenched. “I’m not… If I mess up even once… I’m not like other people. I can’t risk something going wrong.”

H draped an arm around his trembling shoulders. “Danny. Listen to me. This is… this is like growing up. Adult life is full of tough choices and the pressures of responsibility, but you just have a little more a little earlier than most. I remember the first time I got behind the wheel of a car. There’s so much power there, so much potential for good and bad. I was terrified that I’d mess up and accidentally hurt or kill someone. Maybe I don’t have ghost powers and I can’t completely understand what you’re going through, but I know how it feels to be scared of power. You don’t have to do this alone. J and I are here for you.”

Danny sniffed and leaned into H’s side. “But what if I do mess up?” he asked. “What if someone dies?”

“If I worried about that every time I needed to drive somewhere, I’d never get in the car.”

Danny sniffed. “But… what if I mess this up now? What if they hate me?”

He sounded so helpless and vulnerable, and H clenched his teeth as he pushed down a surge of righteous anger. How dare the Fetons make their son feel like this? Danny was such a good kid, and desperately in need of love and support, but his parents had pushed him so far away that he was shaking at the thought of speaking to them.

No child should be terrified of their parents.

H squeezed tighter around Danny’s shoulder. “If you don’t want to see them right now, then that’s okay. You’re allowed to feel whatever you’re feeling. I for one want to kick their teeth in.” Danny chuckled and H took that as a positive sign. “Whatever you choose, I’m on your side. If you want to talk to them, I’ll sit by you. If you want to scream and cry and throw things, I’ll stand out of the firing range and let you have at it. If you want to throw them out, then I’ll happily hold the door. It’s your choice, but you need to face your feelings and let your parents know that things aren’t okay right now.”

Danny took a deep breath and held it for a moment before breathing out with a whoosh. “Okay.”

The ticking clock took over again, and H kept his arm around the kid and waited for his decision.

It didn’t take long.

“Okay,” Danny sighed. “I think… I do wanna talk to them. But on my terms. I don’t want to hobble down there all out of breath and looking like I’m dying. I’m not sure if I’ll yell at them yet but I want the energy if I decide to.”

“Fair.”

Danny nodded decisively. “Bring them here,” he said.

H stood up. “I can check if the meeting room is unlocked. It’s a little more private, if you want.”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

It was unlocked, so H helped Danny move inside and settled him into a chair. The room wasn’t used much since there was an official meeting building full of offices just across the courtyard, and an array of mismatched chairs and various detritus had made their way in there over the years. Everything was a bit dusty and H stepped around boxes of old paperwork and a mop and bucket to crack open the window. Late afternoon sunlight fought to shine through the grimy glass, and H used his handkerchief to wipe away the worst of the filth. A beam of golden light burst into the room as a reward for his efforts, and he glimpsed the sun dipping low to touch the treetops.

He wondered if Danny would be able to bring himself to say everything. H would just have to step back and trust him, but if Danny faltered, at least H’s phone was in his pocket with the list of the Fentons’ crimes ready to go.

“Do you want your friends and sister here too?”

His reply was far too slow. “I guess.”

H scowled and crouched beside Danny’s chair. “Look at me, Danny. This isn’t about pleasing anyone else. If you don’t want them here then that’s fine.”

Danny frowned, working his lip between his teeth. “They’ll be mad if I don’t.”

“Then that’s their problem.” H straightened back up, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

Danny reached out. “What if I… maybe I can call Jazz. Let her know… I’m sure she’ll understand.”

H unlocked the phone and slipped it into his hand. “That’s a good idea.”

Danny dialled a number from memory and shakily held the phone to his ear. H heard someone answer, but he couldn’t make out the individual words.

“Uh, yeah, it’s me… Yeah, I’m okay.” H frowned at him and Danny winced. “Well, better than before, anyway,” he amended.

There was a long pause filled with rapid speaking from the other end. Danny sighed and ran his free hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know, but H and J have helped me a lot lately. Their whole mission statement is about protection, of both the living and the dead. You’re the one who’s always saying that psychology’s complicated and we should always give people the benefit of the doubt. Can’t you try to trust them? For me?”

She said something and he huffed. “Why do you think I didn’t come home? I was so badly hurt I couldn’t walk, and my core still feels like it’s full of ants. I don’t feel safe at home right now, and I have my own apartment here, so do your psychoanalysis on that.”

H snorted as Danny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m just saying it how it is for once. I— Sam, give the phone back to Jazz… No, I’m… Damn it, Sam!” He leaned forward in his chair, shoulders hunching as tension wound tighter in his tone.

H tried to remember if Sam was the girl or the guy; the voice sounded tinny and angry through the speakers, so it was probably the cranky goth girl. He didn’t envy Danny trying to talk over her.

“No, I am not having this conversation again. The agents saved my life… Yes, I know you’ve saved my life as well, but you can’t always be there, and I don’t care if you don’t trust them because it’s been six months since they started helping me and my life is so much better in every way.”

H should have been thrilled to hear that, but Danny’s admission tugged at the sliver of sadness that always seemed to be lodged in his heart. The fact that he was better off with government agents providing parental support said all that it needed to.

He didn’t begrudge the sour attitudes. H knew that if he had been in the same position as those kids, he’d be every bit as distrustful. He hoped they hadn’t given J too much trouble.

“Sam… Sam, listen to me… Yes, I know, and I’m always grateful for your help, but I can’t sleep on Tucker’s floor and in your guest room forever… No, it’s not realistic! ...Please, just give the phone back to Jazz. I’ll talk about it later… Mhm… Okay, bye.”

He groaned, tipping his head back and screwing his eyes shut. “Hi, Jazz… Yeah, no worries… Look, I need to talk to Mum and Dad alone, so can you guys wait while J brings them here? ...I’ll be fine. I just need to do this in person, and I can’t handle you all being there too… Yeah, it needs to come from me… Could I talk to J? ...Thanks.” He sighed, and some of the tension bled out of his shoulders. “Hi J, could you please bring my parents over here? We’re in the office thing next to the lobby of the apartment building… No, just my parents… Yeah, no weapons, please… Cool, thanks. See you in a minute.” He hung up and passed the phone back.

H clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Good work.”

Danny sighed again, and he looked so tired. “I’m not used to saying everything I feel,” he confessed. “If they all came then I don’t think I’d even be able to get a word in.”

H nodded and shot a quick text message to J. Tell them to let him talk.

His phone vibrated a second later with a simple Yes.

Danny shifted in his seat. “Did you guys find Danielle yet?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” H eyed one of the dusty chairs but decided that he’d prefer to stand. “We tried using your ectosignature as a tracking base but hers is either different or she’s in her human form.”

“She’s not at Vlad’s?”

“No. We’re looking though, and as soon as we find her we’ll make sure she’s safe and her core’s stable. We already have some agents ready to be assigned to her, if she wants that.”

“She’s stubborn,” he warned.

H laughed. “If she’s anything like you then I think that’s to be expected.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just… maybe let me know when you find her?”

“You’re not responsible for Vlad’s choices. You don’t have to fix everything he does.”

“I know.” Danny twisted his fingers in the hem of his shirt. “Hell, I just… I feel like Dani’s grown on me already, and it’d be nice to talk to a halfa who’s not a fruitloop.”

“We’ll find her,” H promised, “and our scientists and already studying ways to stabilise her core.”

“But… Vlad couldn’t figure out a way to do it.”

H scoffed. “Do you really think that Vlad Masters is a good enough scientist for that? I’m amazed he even managed to create viable clones, and I’m sure he had help from the ghost of a geneticist or something. Did you know he never graduated from university?”

“You’re kidding.” Danny’s eyes grew wide, their green glow flaring in the fluorescent light. “He’s had what, twenty years of single life, and he never went and finished his degree? And he has the nerve to scold me about academic failures? Bloody fruitloop.”

“Mhm.” H honestly didn’t know how he was going to cope with Vlad Masters. He’d almost told the board of directors that he should just be left alone to mope, but then the psycho had gone and cloned Danny. All of the clones had dissolved into ectoplasmic goo, which was horrifying — H was definitely going to have nightmares about that later — but now there was a little girl. He hadn't even seen a picture of her yet, let alone met her, but if she was anything like Danny then H already knew that every single agent would die for her safety. Well, every one except K and O, but they didn’t count.

Voices floated through the open door, and Danny shrank back in his chair. His face had gone pale at the sound, and his eyes flashed brighter with his distress.

“It’s okay,” H reminded him, “I’m here for whatever you need.”

“Can you just… stand behind me?” Danny wrapped his bandaged hands around the arms of the chair like he was already anticipating the drop on this emotional rollercoaster. “I’d feel better.”

“Of course.” H moved behind the chair. He slipped on his dark sunglasses and crossed his arms over his chest, doing his best to look every bit the intimidating bodyguard.

J poked his head through the door first, impassive beneath his shades. “How are you, Danny?”

Danny shrugged in a stiff jerk. “Alive,” he managed.

“Stressed,” H supplied.

J tried to smile, but with his lips pressed tightly together it looked more like a grimace. He stepped through the door, and H’s heart fluttered as the Fentons followed.

They looked terrible, but then again, a night and a day in the plastic chairs of a featureless waiting room pondering over your life choices would probably make anyone look like they’d aged a decade. Both of them had deep bags beneath their eyes, and Jack’s chin was shadowed with stubble.

Danny took a sharp breath and straightened in his seat. Though he couldn’t see his face, H could see his bare forearms, and the way Danny’s feathery scar glowed brighter was impossible to miss.

He wondered if they’d made the right decision to let this meeting happen so soon, and in an enclosed space with Danny still weak. H jerked his chin to the other chairs, grimly satisfied when the hunters’ eyes snapped to him. “Sit down,” he ordered.

Maddie bristled, and H wondered if she was about to start yelling, but then Jack deflated like a sad orange balloon and sank his bulk into an old green picnic chair. It creaked at the load and for a moment seemed like it might not hold, but then Jack settled and the dangerous protest of sun-weathered plastic stopped. Maddie glanced between her husband and son before her shoulders drooped, and she perched on an office chair that was missing its backrest.

J closed the door and stood by it, and H, satisfied with the changed dynamic of the room, dropped his arms by his sides and waited for Danny to begin.

It took a moment for him to talk. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you.” Maddie started to say something and Danny held up a hand. His parents both stared, whether at the bandage or the scar it didn’t matter — the sight was enough to keep them quiet.

“I don’t know what Jazz, Sam, and Tucker told you, but to put a very long story short, I accidentally got caught inside the portal when it turned on. It made me half ghost. I have a core, but I also have a beating heart.”

H watched their faces, trying to discern their thoughts. Was that guilt on Jack’s face, or disappointment? Did Maddie seem intrigued, or horrified? It was so difficult to read them without any conversation, and H wanted to be ready for anything, just in case.

Danny continued. “I’ve been… Well, I try to live a normal life, but the ghosts like to cause trouble, and no offense, but there aren’t any ghost hunters in town as good as I am. I try to use my powers to help people.” His voice cracked, and H surreptitiously slipped his hand between the slats of the chair and placed it on Danny’s back. “I’ve tried to tell you guys, so many times, but there are always weapons or ghosts or something else going on. Whenever I want to talk to you about anything you only want to talk about you. You’re great scientists, and I do love you, but you’re horrible parents.”

Maddie had inched to the edge of her seat, hands curled over the top of her knees so hard that her knuckles had gone white. “Danny, I think these agents have gotten in your head,” she coaxed. “I love you, Sweetie, but we need to help you.”

Danny pushed himself to his feet, shrugging away when H started forward with a steadying hand. “They were there for me when neither of you bothered to be!” he shouted, fists balling by his sides. “You hunted me, you talked about dissecting me, and okay, fine, you didn’t know, but that’s still no excuse! You’re scientists, so why do you only ever talk about slaughter?!

“Did you even notice that your ghost-proof food made me sick? I was surviving off cereal and whatever food my allowance could buy! Or how I was failing all my classes? Or that I was covered in cuts and bruises all the damned time?!”

“Danny—” Jack began.

“You never once checked how I was going!” he cried, shoulders hitching with a sob. “I died on your basement floor a year ago next week and you haven’t even noticed!” A crack shot through the windowpane and a couple of boxes began to glow green and levitated off the floor.

“Careful of your core,” H murmured, but Danny either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. It was probably the latter, and H couldn’t blame him. The doctor was going to have a fit later, but as an acid green aura ignited around Danny’s form H wondered if it felt as cathartic as it looked. Danny had kept so much pain and anger hemmed in for the past twelve months, and ghosts were emotional beings; it would be emotionally cleansing and probably very good for his mental wellbeing to finally shout his frustrations in the faces of the people who contributed to so much of that heartache.

Heedless of his glowing, Danny kept screaming. “I’ve had to have government agents give me a safe place to sleep because I was alternating between Sam’s guest room whenever her parents wouldn’t notice, and Tucker’s floor. Do you have any idea how it felt to know I was safer on someone’s floor than in my own bed?!

“Did you know that I’d given up on being an astronaut because I failed every class, and that I thought I’d just have to stay home forever and take over the family business if you didn’t manage to kill me first?! Or that I keep weapons in my backpack and never stay alone with you in the same room anymore? Did you even notice that I can’t even hug you because your stupid deflector belts electrocute me every time we touch?!”

Danny fell into harsh, heavy breaths, and his glow faltered like an old light bulb. After a few unsteady inhalations, it faded entirely, and he stepped back and leaned on H’s offered arm.

“Danny—” Jack tried again.

Danny turned away from them and buried his face in H’s chest with a strangled “Don’t.”

Maddie and Jack sat open-mouthed as the boxes dropped to the floor and the windowpane shattered into oblivion, horror clear in their wide, wet eyes.

H wrapped his arms around him, and then the dam burst, and Danny wailed wordlessly and clutched the lapels of H’s jacket. He pressed ragged, open-mouthed sobs into H’s clothing, gasping like a drowning man.

H rubbed circles into his back, carefully avoiding the spot where he’d been shot, and frowned as J shrugged helplessly from where he still stood beside the door.

“Danny-boy,” Jack said, and his tone was broken as he tried to pry himself out from between the stiff plastic arms of his chair. “Son, I’m so…” His words hitched with a sob, and tears broke past the lash line and slid down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

“We’re so sorry,” Maddie offered.

Danny pressed his forehead against H’s chest with another terrible, wrenching sob, and it seemed to tug at his entire frame on its way out. H continued to rub his back — slowly, steadily, in circles that matched the agent’s deep and gentle breathing. Hopefully, Danny would latch onto it and use the cycle to calm himself down.

Maddie stood up and hovered uncertainly by her husband. Jack gave a great heave and grunted when the chair began to release his girth, but then the furniture audibly cracked, and he went sprawling as one of the legs broke completely off.

J smirked and H bit his tongue to stifle his amusement as Jack flailed on the filthy floor, bumping into boxes and upending Maddie’s chair as she pulled the remnants of the seat off his backside. Danny peeked at the action and then turned to face them, but stayed within H’s supporting arms. His sobs quieted into sniffles, and he leaned back against H as his parents floundered with pieces of cracked plastic.

“Can I sit back down?” Danny rasped, and H supported his weight as the boy sank back into his seat. J stepped around the Fentons and passed Danny a handkerchief, which he used to blot away the snot beneath his swollen nose.

Maddie and Jack finally managed to right themselves, and Danny delicately dabbed his bruised face dry. He sagged in his seat, dropping his hands back into his lap with a heavy sigh.

The massive scar from the portal faded, its glow leaching away until it was nothing more than the faintest, palest mark tendrilling across his skin. His eyes changed as well, shifting back to the clear blue of a cloudless afternoon. The absence of supernatural light made him appear even smaller, frailer, and far too young to carry such weight.

The two agents each stood to one side, ready to intervene should his parents try anything.

H glared at the Fentons, silently daring them to make this worse, but what he saw in their faces gave him pause. Their misery mirrored their son’s, and their shoulders hung low, hands heavy and open by their sides.

“Danny,” Jack whispered as tears steadily ran down his cheeks, “what can we do to make this right?”

H hadn’t expected to hear such a question from the over-zealous Jack Fenton. He’d been ready for another argument, for more screaming and tears as Danny tried to convince his parents to realise that the fault lay with their perception and not his ghostly abilities, but the raw openness in the question was enough to give H pause.

It was far more vulnerable than he had thought these people could even be.

Maddie’s hand twitched like she wanted to reach forward, but she kept it by her side. She hadn’t shed a tear yet, but her eyes were overbright, and moisture lapped at her lashes. “Sweetie, please, look at me.”

Danny’s head stayed low, his puffy eyes staring at the bandaged hands lying in his lap.

“I…” His voice cracked, so Danny cleared his throat and tried again. “I don’t know.” He peered up through overlong bangs, and H realised that they needed to schedule a haircut again. “I don’t feel safe coming home right now.”

Maddie’s brow pinched, and her lip visibly trembled.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, the action so similar to Danny’s habit that H couldn’t help but notice. “That’s okay, son.” He seemed to be clinging to that symbol of their relationship, as though reaffirming their blood ties could soften such a devastating blow.

The first tear finally glinted on Maddie’s cheek. “You’ll stay here, then?”

H didn’t miss the helpless way she looked at him and J, like a cornered animal resigned to its fate. It was strange to see the fire leave her eyes, but he guessed that twenty-four hours in the waiting room would have been long enough for some serious introspection.

Danny nodded. “Yeah,” he breathed. “We can… we can take things slow. Maybe have dinner together some nights.”

“Great!” Jack beamed. “It’s almost dinnertime anyway, so let’s go, I’m sure Mads can whip up something amazing!”

Danny shook his head. “I’m too tired tonight,” he insisted, ignoring their sounds of protest. “I have to see the doctor again soon anyway, and I’m supposed to eat before then.”

“We can meet tomorrow,” H promised.

“Not at home,” Danny interjected. “Um, maybe at the Nasty Burger, or something like that. Then for the weekend we could have a picnic if the weather stays nice?”

J gave a small smile. “Maybe they’ll have replaced the picnic tables by then,” he joked, despite the sharp look that Maddie threw him.

“Great idea,” she said. “The three of us will meet there at seven.”

H bristled, opening his mouth to argue, but Danny beat him to it. “No, the five of us. H and J have to come, or I’m not.”

Maddie’s jaw tightened, but Jack gently wrapped an arm around her waist. “Okay, son,” he said. “The five of us, tomorrow night.”

Danny sighed like he held the weight of the world, and leaned back in his chair. “Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

J walked to the door, gesturing for the Fentons to follow.

Maddie glanced at him before looking back at her son. “Danny, I… I love you, Sweetie.”

Danny nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Mum.”

A second lonely tear slid down her cheek. “Okay,” she whispered, and Jack steered her to the door.

“Good night, son,” he called over his shoulder. “I love you! See you tomorrow!”

“Good night,” Danny answered, and J finally ushered them out into the lobby.

H and Danny waited until they heard the front door swing shut, cutting off the sound of retreating footsteps.

Everything was silent for a moment before Danny sighed and raked both hands through his hair. “Well, I guess the only way to go from here is up.”

H nodded, holding out an arm to help him to his feet. “Yes,” he said as he guided them to the door, “and it’ll only get better from here.”

“Promise?”

Danny’s eyes were round and pleading, and H pressed the button for the elevator before dramatically swiping his fingers across his left lapel.

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Chapter Text

Gravel crunched under the tyres as they pulled into a parking space. H could already see Jack down by the water, the ever-present orange jumpsuit bright against the grass. Maddie was near him, her titian hair burning in the sunlight as she unfurled a picnic rug in the air and gently laid it on the ground.

H still wasn’t sure he could have a civil meal with the two of them without saying something churlish, but the agents had promised Danny that they’d at least try.

They were almost a week late with this whole dinner thing anyway. Every time they’d tried to have a meal since Danny got shot, things had fallen through. There had been ghost attacks and school assignments and shenanigans every single day, and none of their planned outings had ended up happening. He could only hope that things went smoothly today — if that stupid metal hunter turned up one more time screaming about skinning Danny, H thought he might just lose it.

Things would be fine. He watched the Fentons for a moment longer and tried to quell the fluttering in his gut.

Despite the constant invisible threat, it wasn’t the ghosts that he was worried about.

The agents got out of the car, and H grabbed a stack of pizzas from the back. J tucked a blanket underneath his arm, and the pair headed over to Danny’s parents.

Maddie saw them first and waved in greeting. H waved back awkwardly while trying not to drop the pizza boxes.

It felt weird. Only last week they’d sat in that tiny, stuffy room while Danny screamed his lungs out, but now they were meeting for a picnic by the lake. H desperately wanted to be friendly with these people, for Danny’s sake, but his pulse fluttered in his ears at the thought of calmly sharing a meal with people who were so oblivious that they’d taken a year to notice that their son was dead.

Jack noticed his wife’s wave and raised his hand too. His smile was so big that it seemed to dominate his entire face, and H realised why Maddie’s wave had felt so wrong; her lips were pressed together in a grim frown.

“Oh boy,” J murmured.

“Keep it civil,” he responded through clenched teeth, trying not to let a forced smile falter. “We’re here for Danny.”

“Right.”

H’s cheeks were starting to hurt from the strength of his smile as they reached the Fentons, and he laid down the pizza boxes with a flourish. A mosquito buzzed past his ear, and he flinched away. This place had seemed so beautiful when he lay in the grass watching shooting stars, but now in the late afternoon sunlight, the field by the lake was unexpectedly drab. Perhaps it had more to do with the reason for their gathering than the actual environment, but as the mosquito whined persistently around his head, H resigned himself to a miserable dinner.

“Where’s Danny?” J asked, smoothing out the blanket on the least bumpy patch of ground.

Maddie frowned, tugging at the hem of her floral blouse. She held herself with a perfectly straight back, shoulders stiff and out of place. “I thought he was coming with you?”

Jack shrugged. “Ah, teenagers. He’ll be here soon enough. Should we start on the pizzas?”

“I’ll call him,” J said, settling down in the middle of the blanket so that there was no chance of his suit touching the ground. H rolled his eyes and barely resisted kicking dirt at his germaphobic partner.

“No need.” Danny shimmered into visibility on the edge of their camp, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders hunched in a red plaid button-down shirt. His typically tousled hair had been combed into something that resembled a proper hairstyle, and H caught the faint scent of cheap cologne on the breeze.

The poor kid was trying so hard, and H watched the Fentons out of the corner of his eye.

“Danny!” Maddie started, hands up and reaching for an embrace, but she caught herself before she could touch him.

He sidestepped at her sudden movement, but his brow knitted in a frown as her expression crumpled. “Hey,” he tried, running his hands over his shirt in an attempt to mask the dodge. “Uh, you’re not wearing your jumpsuit?”

Her fists clenched as she visibly swallowed. “I thought… No ghost hunting for our first dinner together, right?”

“Right.” He took a step closer again. “You always wear it though, and Dad’s still in his.”

“Hey,” Jack interjected, his tone playfully indignant, “you’ve seen the rash I get from normal clothes!”

Danny held up his hands in surrender. “I know,” he laughed, and as humour peppered through the tension, the knot in H’s gut began to unclench.

“You’re more important than my ghost hunting gear,” Maddie murmured.

That was… shattering. H felt like his entire perception of her broke into fragments. Maddie Fenton, who never went anywhere without at least half a dozen weapons, had come unarmed simply because she wanted to… what? Show Danny she wasn’t afraid of him? Gain his trust so she could get him alone and do what she liked down in her lab? Manipulate him into leaving the safety of his new apartment?

Or was she trying, in her own clumsy way, to show her son that she really did care about him?

Danny’s gaze shot back to her. “Oh,” he said, and for a moment the only sound was frogs singing in the nearby reeds. From the way his eye darted over her plain civilian outfit, he was likely wondering the same things as H.

H clapped a hand to his shoulder when the silence stretched into awkwardness. “Come on, the pizza’s getting cold.”

Danny laughed and picked at the cuff of H’s sleeve. “Dude, what happened to your suits?”

J rolled his eyes. “Danielle,” he grumbled, but the effect was ruined by the grin that stretched across his cheeks.

Understanding bloomed on Danny’s face and he snorted. “Oh, damn, I thought she only did that to her agents!”

“She phased red socks into every single washing machine in the laundry room.” J spread his pale pink arms for further emphasis. “Now all of my work clothes are like this.”

Danny laughed and nudged the empty space beside him. “Well, it’s not too bright, so it could’ve been worse?”

Giggles bubbled out of thin air, and the tiny pre-teen culprit fizzed into the visible spectrum as she lost grip of her invisibility. “Oh man, you guys look great!” she cackled, doubling over and wrapping her arms around her stomach. “So worth it!”

J leapt to his feet and pointed dramatically at her. “I’ll have you know that you’ve caused every single agent to violate our code of cleanliness!” he cried, but the shout was light and fun, with the edge of humour that a parent used when mock scolding their child.

“Nah,” Danielle shot back, “you look way better now. Guys in Pink. You totally rock it.”

“You little gremlin,” Danny chided, slinging an arm around her shoulders.

“Danny?” Maddie’s voice was faint, and she stepped closer to the two halfas, face completely blank. H had no clue what she planned to do and he tensed, ready to throw hands if he needed to. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, since she was a grandmaster martial artist and would kick him into the sun, but the sudden unplanned appearance of another halfa might be too much for her to take right now.

He wondered why Danny had brought her, but then the boy levelled those big blue eyes at his mother and Maddie went still.

“Mum, Dad.” He cleared his throat and squeezed Danielle closer. “I… You guys wanted to try to make things better and I… I didn’t want there to be any more secrets between us. So, um… This is Danielle. She’s… like me.”

The girl shrank into his side, her wide, pleading eyes mirroring Danny’s. They could have been copies of each other, if not for the obvious height and gender differences. The Fentons would have to be blind not to see that.

H remembered with a sinking in his chest that they were unobservant enough to not realise they were shooting their son, but surely they couldn’t be this thick.

Maddie’s mouth fell open, and a pause swelled between them. H tensed, ready to jump to the halfas’ defence, in whatever way they required… when the woman sagged, the harsh angle of her jaw smoothing out, like melting ice losing its sharp edge. “Hi, Sweetheart,” she breathed.

Jack barked a laugh and heaved to his feet. “Well, she’s obviously a Fenton! Hello, kiddo!”

Danielle chanced a small smile, and H’s heart flipped. Oh, hell. She was just so vulnerable, and just like Danny, and H wasn’t even assigned to her, but he already knew he’d do anything to keep her safe and happy.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Dani, with an i.”

Maddie let out a long, shaky breath. “Why don’t you have some pizza with us, Dani with an i?”

Danielle’s face lit up, literally. Her eyes flashed a brief green with her enthusiasm, and her blush glowed for a heartbeat before fading back to a more normal hue. “Really?” she chirped. “Thanks! I’ve never had pizza before, I’ve always wondered what it’s like!” She slipped out of Danny’s grasp and plopped down on the rug next to J, grabbing one of the boxes and opening the lid with a ceremonial flourish. They all smiled as she breathed in the scent with an exaggerated breath, oohing in appreciation before working a piece free from its cheesy confines.

She raised it to her lips, closed her eyes, and took her first-ever bite of pepperoni pizza.

H was torn between watching the bliss that spread across her face and keeping an eye on Danny. He glanced to the side but the Fentons were all watching raptly as the tiny girl battled with strings of cheese that stuck to her chin.

“Good?” J teased as she shoved a second bite into her mouth.

“Mmph,” she moaned. “Pizza now, talk later.”

Danny laughed, and it was enough to convince H that it was okay to sit down. The Fentons needed space if they were going to make this work, and if H had to pretend that he wasn’t eavesdropping, then he could do that easily enough. He grabbed a slice for himself and watched out of the corner of his eye as Danny drifted closer to his parents.

“Thanks,” he murmured, so lowly that H barely heard him. “She hasn’t let me out of her sight since she found out I got hurt.”

Jack clapped a hand against his son’s shoulder. “She’s a Fenton,” he repeated, as though that explained everything.

The words hung between them for a moment, and then all stiffness shucked away from Danny’s shoulders. He sniffed, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and launched himself into his shocked father’s arms. “I’m sorry,” Danny blurted, the words muffled as he pressed his face into orange hazmat. “I should have told you guys everything, and I can see you’re trying, but I didn’t even give you a chance, and I’m so sorry!”

Jack stood there for a moment, frozen, and H had the horrible fleeting thought that he was going to push him away. Danny’s soft sobbing cut through the air, and then with a tenderness utterly contrary to the overwhelming enthusiasm that he was known for, Jack engulfed his son in a hug.

“I’m sorry, too,” he croaked, and buried his tears in Danny’s hair. “It’s not your fault, son.”

Danny heaved another gasping sob, worming his arm out of the hug and reaching blindly for his mother.

She stood there, staring at the offered hand, and H suddenly didn’t want to see how she reacted to this peace offering. She was so beyond undeserving that the thought of sweeping aside the past year of Danny’s pain curdled in H’s gut, but the alternative, of her rejecting Danny’s outreached hand, was too shattering to even consider.

For a terrible, eternal moment, nobody moved. Maddie blinked blankly, as though she’d been slapped in the face, but then the hardness in her brow softened and she took her son’s hand. He pulled her in, and she ducked under the circle of Jack’s arms and melted into a group embrace.

H looked away, scowling at Danielle when he caught her staring. “Don’t you dare ruin it,” he hissed, and she poked her tongue out and grabbed another slice.

“I’m sorry, Sweetie,” Maddie wailed somewhere behind him, and H took a careful bite of pizza.

J raised his eyebrows over his glasses, and H raised and lowered one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. The Fentons held their embrace for a minute longer before breaking apart, and H peeked again to glimpse tears on all of their faces and a softness in their postures that had been absent until now.

Danny sniffed and wiped his sleeve over his face before sinking to sit on his parents’ picnic rug. “So, what pizzas do we have here?” His voice was nasal and slightly wobbly, and H clapped a hand on his shoulder and shoved him a box of hot pepperoni.

Maddie and Jack sat down on either side of their son, knees and shoulders bumping as they got comfortable. Jack passed around plastic cups and bottles of soda, and the group settled into something akin to a comfortable conversation as Danielle regaled them with the story of the red socks in the laundry.

They stayed there until the sun dipped low and the first stars peered through the watery wash of twilight. The interaction still wasn’t perfect, with occasional awkward pauses and sideways glances, but overall H had to admit that dinner had been a success. He tried not to feel too jealous, even if Danny sat sandwiched between his parents and leaned against his father when he wrapped an arm around him. He had no reason to begrudge the Fentons this moment with their son. Danny was safe right now, and sure, their relationship wasn’t going to fix itself over a hug or two and some cheap pizza, but it was the first step in the right direction.

They were all sitting out here together, like some weird mixed-up family, and if Danny was this willing to fix things then H would have to sit back and let him do it. He still didn’t think the Fentons deserved such an easy chance, but healing had to start somewhere, and as Maddie fiddled yet again with the hem of her very-distinctly-not-hazmat blouse, he reminded himself that Danny wasn’t the only one making an effort here.

Danny launched into a dramatic recount of his first real fight as Phantom, and H took a sip of his drink and tried to be content. They could make this work. It wouldn’t be easy, and he was sure that there’d be bumps in the road, but if healing began with a casual dinner by the lake then he wasn’t about to argue.

H would just have to share. Maybe Danny would slowly reconnect with the people who gave him life, but H knew he’d always have a special place in his heart for the agents who’d saved him.

The Fentons began to prattle on about Thanksgiving dinner in a couple of months, and if the agents would like to come, but H was only half listening. There was nothing wrong with Danny having four parents. H eyed the beat-up RV over in the parking lot and shook his head in amusement. It was a blessing, really, that the agents had stepped in when they did. Maybe by the time Danny turned sixteen next year, they’d be able to buy him a decent car and some real driving lessons, because H would die and go to hell before he let Jack Fenton, the worst driver in all of Amity Park, try to teach Danny how to steer a car.

H chewed contemplatively on another slice of pizza. Maybe, if they could get past their differences, these social gatherings could actually improve things for everyone involved.

The food disappeared at a leisurely rate, crickets sang in the grass, and the aching tension bled away from H’s bones.

Danny caught his eye when H finally began to fold up the blankets and collect empty pizza boxes. Everyone else was down by the water chattering about frogs, looking for their spawn and explaining to a fascinated Danielle how their life cycle worked. It was a quiet, precious moment, and H would always cherish that Danny chose to sidle up next to him. They stood side by side, breathing together in the soft evening air.

“Can you see Venus yet?” Danny asked, green constellations of freckles lighting up across his cheeks like a minuscule, luminescent star map.

H tilted his head back and found the morning and evening star glimmering in the gloom. The world sank into silence, and for a single, precious moment, his soul filled with peace. “Found it.”

Danny leaned against his side. “Yeah,” he breathed, and H got the fleeting, calming sense that everything was finally going to get better. “Looks like you did.”