Chapter Text
There were only a few weeks left of summer and Danny was determined to enjoy it as much as possible. So far, today was off to a good start. He’d only had to deal with the Box Ghost the night before, and the morning had been quiet too. Danny was taking advantage of the silence to enjoy the day by flying around town before he had to meet up with Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger.
Closing his eyes and flipping over to face the sky, he let a smile spread across his face. Flying was his favorite ghost power by far and the sun doing its best to warm his face really made the day perfect. Doing a few slow loops in the sky, he turned toward the Nasty Burger and let gravity pull him back to the ground. He landed in an alley behind the fast food joint’s smelly dumpster and let his transformation wash over him, turning him human. His first breath left him gagging on the smell from the trash. Dumpsters were much better as a ghost that didn’t need to breathe.
Danny ducked out of the alley, catching sight of Sam and Tucker just ahead of him headed through the Nasty Burger doors. His second face-splitting smile of the day spread across his face as he jogged to catch the door before it swung shut. It had been too long since he’d seen his friends. They’d spent the summer doing family activities and educational programs while he was stuck in Amity Park.
Sam was in Europe with her parents. They were on a business trip and decided it would be a good opportunity to expand her horizons in directions they approved of. Instead, she spent most days sneaking out of fancy hotels to explore on her own. Her cultural immersion focused less on fancy French food and more on local legends and monsters. Just because she wasn’t in Amity Park didn’t mean there wasn’t opportunity to enjoy her goth interests. Danny hadn’t heard from her for a couple weeks and she’d only gotten home the day before. The time difference had made keeping up communication difficult, especially with Danny’s ridiculous sleep schedule from ghost fighting.
Tucker spent the summer at a college prep program. His parents insisted on making sure his extracurriculars would get him into a top university so he spent 6 weeks out in California where he was supposed to take college classes on computer programming and math. Instead he hacked his way into several government agencies and created an impenetrable security program for the team’s ghost files. The programming classes were basic and the math was boring but it would look good on applications. He’d kept up a solid string of texts with Danny the whole time, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him in person.
Danny picked up his speed to catch up to his friends just inside the Nasty Burger doors. He ran up behind them and looped his arms around their shoulders to pull them into a three person hug. Tucker squawked in surprise. Sam kept herself more composed but still let out a small gasp.
“Dude! You scared the shit out of me,” Tucker scolded. His offended tone set the other two off in a fit of laughter.
“It’s almost like you saw a ghost or something!” Danny gasped, out of breath from laughing. It was so good to see his friends again and he could never resist a good ghost joke. Or even a bad ghost joke.
His terrible joke earned a glare from Sam, but she couldn’t keep a grin from tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Ah, the puns. I thought I missed them all summer. Turns out I was wrong,” she snarked.
Danny put on an exaggeratedly offended look. “My puns are a treasure. Ask anyone in town!”
“They’d say Danny Fenton’s puns are awful. Danny Phantom is the only one around here with any pun skills,” Tucker corrected. He couldn’t let Danny get a big head. It was Tucker’s responsibility to keep him grounded.
“Fine then. Let’s go order, I’m starving. I skipped breakfast this morning. My parents took over the kitchen with their latest project and I wasn’t willing to risk sitting there long enough to eat.” They wandered over to the counter to place their order. Danny glanced at Sam and saw her frown. She was always worrying about his parent’s latest experiment and kept encouraging him to get out of his house.
“So…How was Paris?” Danny tried to break the awkward silence that had come over them with a safer topic than his parents and their inventions. “You were in Paris last right?” Looking back to Sam, he could guess at her internal struggle between one of her favorite topics, keeping Danny safe, and her probably very creepy adventures in the Paris catacombs.
Paris won. “Like you don’t know I was in Paris last. I think the catacombs were the only thing I texted you about for like a week before we got there.” Sam rolled her eyes at Danny’s deflection. “Obviously my parents wanted me to spend time shopping and going to cafes. But I was able to get down to the catacombs a few nights. It probably won’t make you feel better, but Amity Park is more haunted than the tunnels full of bones.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t,” Tucker interjected.
“Anyway,” Sam continued, “it was probably one of the best stops all summer. And I got some books around some of the legends. I want to see what we can prove through the Zone.” Sam continued to discuss the legends she investigated in Paris while they placed their order and carried their food to their usual table in the back.
Once they were settled in, the topic turned to Amity Park and ghost activity. “Nothing too crazy has happened all summer. The most exciting thing might have been Skulker’s new missile launcher. Which I blew up,” Danny said. He didn’t want Sam or Tuck to feel guilty for being gone all summer. It sucked, but deep down he knew they couldn’t always be there with him.
“The Observants left you alone?” Tucker questioned.
“Yep.” Danny took a huge bite of his burger to keep from having to answer more questions. The eyeballs had actually been annoying him all summer. After showing up toward the end of the school year, they appeared every week or so to mildly threaten him in just the right way that he couldn’t do anything about it except tell them to go away. At least they would listen. If what they were saying was true, they had to. Just more secrets he had to keep from his friends. It made him feel like shit.
“Did you find out anything else about that new Ghost Studies class?” Danny asked, changing the subject away from him once again.
Sam looked between Danny and Tucker, annoyed to be out of the loop. “What Ghost Studies class?”
“Um, well, when I was out in California I had some extra time on my hands and decided it might be a good idea to check out what new security upgrades the school had the Fenton’s put in since last year. You know, make sure we could work around anything if we needed to. And I found some info in Lancer’s files about a new class for next year about ghosts. They’re still trying to find a teacher last I checked,” Tucker explained.
“And what were you doing in Lancer’s files if you were looking for defense specs?” Sam asked.
Tucker shrugged. “It’s Lancer. Besides, isn’t it better to know about a class on ghosts than be caught off guard. The Fenton’s are on the list of possible teachers too. It’s got to be important to keep an eye on that!”
“Wait, the school is seriously considering letting the Fenton’s in the school, full time?” Sam asked incredulously. “Haven’t they caused more damage to the school than the actual ghost attacks?”
“As far as the school is concerned, they’re the only ghost experts in town.” Danny resisted the urge to put air quotes around the word “expert”. His parent’s theories were usually wrong, they thought all ghosts were evil, and they still didn’t know there was a ghost living in their own house - not that he wanted that to change. None of that screamed “expert” to him. “But that explains why my parents keep wondering who’s being interviewed. They can’t believe they haven’t been offered the job yet.”
“I did find something interesting yesterday on Lancer’s calendar.” All attention turned back to Tucker. There was something about the way he spoke that had Danny think “interesting” was not a good thing. “There’s an interview for the position this week. I didn’t recognize the name.”
This was followed by silence as the other two processed an unknown ghost hunter potentially showing up in town. There were a few groups and individuals outside of Fentonworks and the GIW that called themselves ghost hunters, but they kept tabs on all of them. None of those groups were any real threat. Someone new on the other hand, that could be a problem.
“You’re sure they’re not GIW using a fake name or something?” Sam asked hopefully.
“I guess it could be,” Tucker conceded. “But subtle isn’t really their style.”
“We’ll just have to keep an eye out for the next few days,” Danny said with a small frown. “And maybe check in with Lancer again.”
The conversation abruptly ended with Danny’s ghost sense going off and the sound of the dumpster being overturned outside. Danny sighed and slipped under the table to transform and find out who was causing trouble this time.