Work Text:
Danny wasn’t a good student.
He tried—he tried so hard—but he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t get his assignments done, he didn’t know how to begin studying for an exam, he didn’t know how to ask his teachers for help because he didn’t understand what he did or didn’t know about each class and he didn’t want to bother his teachers anyways it was his fault he was in this position, it would only annoy his teachers if he came crying to them for his mistakes.
He wasn’t a good student.
---
“Don’t you care about your future?” Mr. Lancer’s eyes bore into his. “Don’t you want to work for NASA?”
Danny shrugged.
Shrug and evade. That was his tactic.
“My grades aren’t good enough for NASA.”
“Maybe not right now, but they could be.”
Danny glared at the ground. The tiles were dirty. They likely were once white, but now they just looked grey.
“I’m not Jazz. I can’t just will my grades higher.”
“I never asked you to be Jazz, Daniel.”
Danny shook his head, frustration pooling throughout his body. Didn’t Mr. Lancer understand? It didn’t matter what he did, he would never be able to work for NASA. He wasn’t smart enough. He wasn’t Jazz.
Danny knew what true intelligence was. Hell, between his mom’s PhD, his dad’s ability to create anything out of a pile of scraps, and Jazz’s perfect grades, he knew firsthand what geniuses looked like.
And he knew he wasn’t one of them.
---
“You going out tonight, Danny?” Jazz said from his doorway, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Danny turned around, away from his zipped backpack filled with incomplete assignments and failed exams, and said, “It’s a full moon.”
He stared down at his gloved hand, watching as the glow shimmered around his body. It had been a year since the accident, but he still didn’t know what the hell he was.
“You want some company?” Jazz asked.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
Probably not. He knew Jazz was worried about him, she was only trying to help, blah blah blah, but how was she supposed to help him if he didn’t even know what he needed help with? He wasn’t a good student, he wasn’t human, and if Vlad was right, he had managed to make the entirety of Amity Park his haunt. Would he even be able to leave this city if he tried?
“Alright, I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
He didn’t respond, instead listening for the soft click signaling his safety from the prying eyes of the rest of his family. He knew she was only trying to help, but she was intelligent like their parents. She had friends, she wasn’t bullied, she was human, and she’d never struggled on a single exam in her life. How the hell was she supposed to help him when they were just so different?
Ignoring his untouched backpack one more time—he could deal with those assignments tomorrow in detention—he pulled on his core and shot through the wall like a rocket.
---
“Care to explain, Mr. Fenton?” Mr. Lancer peered at Danny over his manila folder.
Danny sighed and fell into his seat. Another day, another detention for tardiness and missing homework.
“I don’t know.”
“Mr. Fenton…” Mr. Lancer started, but Danny realized that he didn’t want to hear that stupid speech again. He was sick of it.
“I get it, I suck at school, you’re disappointed in me, I need to apply myself more and then I’ll be fine. I know the drill already.”
“Daniel, that’s not what I was going to say.”
---
The cool, spring air brushed against his skin, cloaking his body like a blanket as he dove into the empty sky. He twisted up, pushing his body higher and higher into the night sky.
Danny flipped on his back. The stars were bright tonight, and Danny could see all the constellations draped across the sky like a painting. Star patterns like Sagittarius and Capricorn painted his vision, and he scanned the constellations for their planets, Jupiter and Saturn. Not for the first time, he wished he had a telescope to see Saturn’s rings. It was, without a doubt, his favorite planet.
But nothing compared to the moon.
It was huge, bigger than normal, and it illuminated the Earth with a soft glow not unlike the aura that surrounded Phantom’s body. It was stunning and majestic and everything Danny needed to ease the stress that was crowding his mind.
It was perfect.
He glided along the air like he was in a lazy river, his tension melting away and falling to the ground below him.
Sometimes, Danny wished he had never stepped foot in that portal. Sometimes he just wanted to be an average teen again with average problems and an average home life. But not right now.
In this moment, Danny wouldn’t have had it any other way.
---
“Mr. Fenton, may I ask you something?”
Danny paused, his pencil freezing in the air. So far, this detention had been dressed in silence. It had been a rare afternoon where he didn’t feel choked by exhaustion, and he was actually able to focus on completing his missing English essay.
“Okay, shoot.”
“When you look into your future, what do you see?”
He set his pencil down. “I don’t know.”
And that was the truth. He didn’t know because he was Danny Fenton, a below-average teenager with below-average grades. How was he supposed to know what his future held?
“I see a bright young man who’s slowly but surely figured out where he wants to be. He’s had to struggle to get to this point a bit more than his peers, but he’s reached his goals and is living his life the way he wants to.”
He stared at his paper, his brows furrowing. There was no way Mr. Lancer could have seen all that. He must have been lying. He had to have been lying.
Danny wasn’t...he wasn’t…
---
He landed on the sign. ‘Now Leaving Amity Park,’ it read.
Looking up, he could see the moon in all its glory. It illuminated up the sky, highlighting all the stars around it with its twinkling glow. A bright light flashed along the stars. It lit up, traveling across the sky with an otherworldly speed, before disappearing into the darkness of night.
Danny felt a grin creep along his lips. That was a meteor, no doubt. He closed his eyes and made a wish.
One day he was going to leave Amity Park. He was going to go out on his own, find his own path, and become his own person outside of everything that tied him down here. And then he would be able to return, head held high, and tell Mr. Lancer and his parents and everyone else in his life, “Look! I did it.”
He opened his eyes and stared up at the stars once again. If he reached out, it was almost as if he could touch the moon.
Danny wasn’t a good student, but he still tried. And one day, he was going to try and succeed.