Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The young man wakes up with eyes shut tight, groaning at his pounding head. The worst headache, like he was beaten upside the head with bricks for an hour, keeps him from opening his eyes right away. Faint clicking, like tiny buttons being pressed, gives him enough curiosity to slowly open his eyes and adjust to the light.

He’s lying on his stomach, pressed into a cold floor with strange, blue marks surrounding him etched into the carpet. He feels like there should be blood below him, and both his arms and legs feel like they should be broken, but aren’t. He tests them out, but other than looking a little paler (maybe a bit more blue, actually), his body is fine.

“Hey, new guy.” An unfamiliar voice, someone male and younger, calls out casually. “You up yet?”

He tries to respond, but his voice chokes on something invisible for a second.

“Yeah.” He clears his throat and sits up slowly, going cross-legged in the middle of what looks like a cult circle. “At least I think so.”

“Good.” The voice says, seemingly pleased. “You took a lot less time than everyone else so far.”

The faint clicking continues and he finally looks up at the…teenager, not even a year older than him, if older at all, lying on a plush cream-colored couch, with cushions resting behind his back. The clicks are coming from the Nintendo Switch in his lap, and he seems more interested in his game than the stranger in his room.

He glances around, seeing a large room decorated scarcely with furniture: A simple wood desk and swivel chair behind him, pressed against the wall, blackout curtains over the big windows, and a closed, brown door, presumably leading out, behind the teen, who has his feet swung over the side of the couch and his black zip-up hoodie, half on. The dark sweater contrasts with the teen’s white t-shirt and pale skin under the baggy article.

What stands out the most is the floating, toxic-green crown above his white-haired head. It whips flames around him, and he wonders if it hurts like Kacchan’s real fire.

“Are you a king?” He blurts out, overtaken by curiosity.

As if expecting the question, the boy continues playing his game, but snorts in amusement. “People sure treat me like one.” He says. “Even if I’m still ‘far too young to rule, Daniel’.” He’s clearly mocking someone else.

Finally, the not-king glances the teen up and down. He swings his legs down onto the ground and sets his game down. With the brief glance he gets at the screen, it looks like a farming game.

“You remember your name?” The boy tilts his head in question, waiting for his answer with his arms folded over his chest.

He has to think about it for a second, like he should be giving a different name. But as far as he knows, he only has one name. “Deku.” He speaks. The name leaves a sour sting on his tongue though.

“Danny.” The boy responds with a small smile, seemingly pleased to get his name, though the lingering silence is hardly comforting.

Deku looks around again, feeling confused. His voice is hoarse, and he tries to clear his throat to continue. “Where am I?”

Danny mutters something he can’t make out, while grimacing. “Well, Deku, you’re in the Ghost Zone.”

The title confuses Deku further, so much so that he misses the implication entirely. “Ghost Zone? Where’s that?” The next words felt foreign, like they aren’t his. “How can I get home?”

“Do you remember where ‘home’ is?” Danny raises his eyebrows hopefully. Deku thinks about it, about who he’s missing by being here, but struggles to come up with any words or even a face. After some silence Danny frowns. “Didn’t think so, but it was worth a shot.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” The not-king asks cautiously. It’s almost like he’s tiptoeing around a certain subject, choosing his words carefully.

“Falling.” The words roll off his tongue before he thinks about his mouth moving. “Pain.” He adds, but doesn’t know what makes him say that. “Then nothing.” He finishes simply.

Danny glances down at Deku’s feet, and at the same time as him, notices the absence of shoes on his feet.

Why was that important?

He’s wearing a black school uniform, but the buttons around his neck are loose, and one is missing with a few strands of stitches sticking out in its place, as if ripped off in a struggle. His pants are ruffled and the faint stains of something dark cover his stomach, legs, and arms. He pulls down a few strands of his hair and notices it’s a stark green.

The sharp tsk from the couch brings him back to reality. Danny tightens his lips together, and he seems a bit upset for some reason. “You probably don’t remember much.” Deku nods slowly, confirming this. “But for now, how about you make yourself comfortable in there.”

He points and a purple door appears in the middle of the room, and opens for him, but he’s unable to see what’s inside, greeted only by darkness. He gets to his feet, only wobbling a little bit, and steps towards it without thinking.

It was clearly suspicious; a mystery door appearing out of thin air and a supposed king dodging a topic that was clearly important, but for some reason his body obeyed.

It was like the neon door emanated comfort, peace, you’re safe here.

“Someone’ll come get you in a little bit if you feel like eating.” Danny encourages him to step inside the pitch black. “But I’ll get this figured out before then. Probably.” He makes a bad habit of muttering, apparently.

Before Deku steps in he briefly hears a phone sing a quiet tone. The call picks up after two rings. “Hey Jazz.” Danny says. “I’m gonna need your help.”

But once he’s greeted by the other side of the door, the teen’s conversation gets cut off.

The room he’s teleported to is, in one word, simple. Just a bed in one corner, desk and chair off to the side, a half-full, bookcase next to that, and a wooden wardrobe tucked against the opposite wall. He doesn’t think to check out the books, the desk, or the closet. They’re all old and dusty anyway, maybe even completely empty. This was clearly a room no one actually lived in.

He flops down on the bed, letting his fingers run across the fluffy blue blanket neatly tucked into the sides of the mattress. It’s the only thing not covered in dust. He notices the lack of windows, but there’s plenty of light so that’s fine.

He waits a minute in silence but ends up lying on his back staring up at the ceiling. He notices a fan hanging in the middle of the room, but it’s off.

Danny said someone would be by with food, maybe a servant would come if he was a king, but he wasn’t all that hungry. He can’t remember the last time he ate, or even drank, and he was anything but tired.

A small part of Deku thinks that he should be panicking at the memory loss, but another part of him shrugs and says something along the lines of ‘It’ll be fine’ (or maybe ‘You don’t want to remember’). He closes his eyes and tries to picture the last thing he did before appearing in front of the king.

He faintly hears a school bell. He feels along his shoulder when he notices it getting warmer, almost burning his skin. He shakes his head, trying not to let himself feel the growing heat, and drops his hand back to the bed.

He remembers choking on something slimy, and takes in a deep breath, swallowing the panic bubbling in his stomach. He has to remember to keep breathing or maybe he won’t need to anymore.

Deku hears a voice echo in his head, righteous and respected yet nervous and sad. No. it says to him. They’d only get hurt. For some reason tears well up in his eyes and spill down onto the sheets. He wipes it away quickly, but his cheeks puff up, red and swollen when the tears keep coming and he keeps scrubbing them out of his eyes.

Then comes the sunset. He can’t actually see it in his head, more so just feel the warmth and the awe at witnessing something so beautiful. Like paint on a canvas, spilling over the sides of the sky with reds and oranges and the faintest of blues tucked beneath the oil. It’s like he’s feeling these memories through a dream, like seeing the images ripple in water before vanishing, but he can tell they’re his.

He feels relieved. The tightness in his chest loosens just slightly, and he feels like he can breathe for the first time in years.

Then comes the fear. The deepest, most primal urge of I don’t want to die. His whole world tilts, the autumn sky spinning and folding into itself until it’s just a single color. One second he’s falling, wind whipping daggers at his face and tearing apart his clothes, his skin, his self, until it’s just him, just Midoriya Deku.

Then a bit of pain, like all his bones snapped and crunched together at once on the cold ground (and he’s acutely aware of the blood staining his uniform). He hears screams, tires screeching, and the thick, warm trickle of blood down his face.

Then…nothing but darkness.

He opens the eyes he didn’t realize he closed, still staring up at the motionless ceiling fan. The quiet is deafening, and he wishes the fan was on now, if just to keep him from remembering whatever that was. Though even as he lies still, he’s already forgetting.

Deku waits in silence for whatever comes next.

“I don’t know what to do, Jazz.” Danny scratches at his scalp in irritation. “He’s not like the others. He barely remembers anything so I can’t find his hometown, or his friends, or even get a last name out of him. And as far as I can tell, the dude doesn’t even know he’s a ghost!”

“Slow down, Danny.” Jazz’s voice is scratchy in the poor cell service, but she remains steady and calm. “You haven’t even told me his name yet.”

“He said his name is Deku.” Danny sighs and begins to explain. “But it doesn’t feel like his True Name. It feels like I’m saying ‘loser’ when I call him that.”

“Okay.” Her speech slows as she thinks. “So he doesn’t remember much about his life. Which probably means he’s feeling really confused and, if he hasn’t figured out he’s a ghost yet, he won’t take it well. Especially if he finds out you’re keeping the information from him.”

“Exactly!” Danny throws his free hand up, exasperated. “I don’t know how the hell to handle a teenage ghost who doesn’t know he’s a teenage ghost. He’s gonna blow up The Keep if I tell him now, and I don’t want to fight a ghost fresh outta death. Pretty sure I’d get beat up for fighting a baby.”

“Only if you lose.” Danny rolls his eyes at her cheerful yet unhelpful response. “In all honesty, it might be best to take him outside of the Ghost Zone and introduce him to the concept slowly. If he’s a teenager, go do teenage things and let him work it out by himself, and only help him along if you think he needs it.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” He’s skeptical, but he still trusts his sister’s input. “What if he panics when he can’t touch anything? Or if the ghosts cause trouble and I have to leave him by himself? What if-”

“Danny.” Jazz placates him with a single word. “Relax. You’ll both be fine. Introduce him to the town slowly. Show him some fun! He might even tell you his True Name if he remembers it. Just…” She pauses, pained. “Try to keep him at ground level...and far away from school.”

She doesn’t need to tell him to keep Dash from coming near, if what they both suspect is true about the new ghost.

“Okay.” Danny lets out a long sigh, releasing the tension wracking his whole body in a big shiver. “Bring him to Amity, where he may or may not blow everything up-” Jazz seems like she’s about to interrupt his pessimism, but he continues, “and show him a good first time as a ghost.”

“And get his True Name.” Jazz adds. “You got this, baby bro. I love you.” The phone call clicks off two seconds after he gives her a sappy ‘love you too’, and Danny lets his phone drop to the couch and slouches down to join it.

It’s fine. he thinks. Just convince a baby ghost to give him your name, to not freak out when no one can see him, and not blow up the town when he figures out he died.

Simple as that.

“Alright!” He smacks his face lightly, trying to hype himself up. “First things first, Nasty Burger.”

Chapter Text

Deku doesn’t know how long he’s been waiting in silence for someone to interrupt his blank staring, but the door creaks open what feels like five minutes after he stopped crying.

"Heyyy, buddy." Danny’s head peeks in the door, and Deku can see the office behind the door. Danny’s hair is now black, and his skin is a slightly different shade. He notices the crown is gone too. Does he have a shapeshifting quirk power?

"How would you feel about some fresh air and a burger?" The king scans Deku up and down again. "And some new clothes."

Deku looks down at the mess of a uniform and his dirty socks, and nods. "Shoes would be nice." he says, giving a lopsided smile. Danny is briefly confused when he first speaks, but washes it over with a friendly smile before Deku even looks up. "I don’t know about food though, since I’m not hungry."

Danny nods back. "We’ll deal with that later." It seems like a loaded answer (again with the dodging around a topic), and he opens the door for him. "We’ll find you something to wear first."

Once Deku steps through the door, Danny closes it, then opens it again, showing off a change of scenery. Instead of a bedroom, a walk-in closet appears behind the door.

Deku hadn’t really paid attention to the door-appearing quirk power, and he chalks it up to thinking it was just part of the castle. But could Danny control it himself? Could he change the size of the door to accommodate bigger things? Could he only change where the door leads by closing it? Does the door only lead to other parts of the castle, or could it go anywhere?

"You alright?" Danny’s concerned tone cuts into his thoughts, and Deku’s eyes refocus on the environment. There’s an odd pause where they’re just staring at each other. "You were mumbling a lot."

"I’m fine." Deku reassures him, smiling. "Just lost in thought."

"Right, well, I don’t think you wanna be in a stuffy uniform anymore." Danny nods down at his outfit, pointedly not mentioning what Deku now realizes is blood. "You like t-shirts, hoodies, jeans?" He rifles through the closet, shoving aside a few royal-looking garments, before finding where his normal clothes are hung.

Danny begins to talk to himself. "It’s kinda cold outside right now, so probably avoid shorts. I don’t have many hoodies that aren’t NASA. Sam took most of my band shirts. And ancients knows Tucker will pounce on you if you wear anything techy."

Deku isn’t paying much attention to the murmurings, but a clearly unused white dress shirt sitting overlooked intrigues him, and Deku reaches past Danny and pulls it down. Danny stops rifling and takes it from his hands, holding it over Deku’s chest to appraise it.

"Pretty boring choice, dude." Danny hands it to him. "But if you wanna complete the look, I’m pretty sure I have some ties."

He pulls out a small drawer from the wardrobe, letting Deku see inside. There are three velvet ties inside; one light blue, one striped green, and one maroon red. Deku pulls the green one right away. He holds the two articles to his chest and raises his eyebrows at Danny.

"Like I said, boring." Danny smiles kindly. "But the green suits you. I’ve got some sweaters if you feel like spicing it up, but otherwise…" He switches to the other side of the wardrobe and pulls a few pairs of jeans out and onto the floor. "Aha!" He says, yanking a black pair of pants from what’s leftover and handing it to him. "We’re about the same size, so hopefully it fits."

Deku feels pretty satisfied with the new outfit, but it’s still incomplete. "What about everything else? I hate to impose, but I also don’t want to ruin the new uniform with my dirty underwear."

Danny hums and bites his lip in thought. "I didn’t think about that. I hope you don’t mind having some of mine." He pulls a few more drawers out, choosing gray boxers and a pair of green socks to go with his tie. Deku picks out a pair of red shoes from the shelves close to the floor.

"The shower’s in there." He points at the thin door hidden in between the wardrobes. Deku grabs all the clothes he picked out and bows in thanks to Danny before heading inside to wash up.

Danny quietly shuts the wardrobe door once he hears the shower start. The door that led to the wardrobe is replaced by the normal door that leads to his actual bedroom, which he really doesn’t use considering he doesn’t live in the Ghost Zone.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, hesitating to make the call. Screw it, he thinks, I need the help. And speed-dials the group chat.

"Hey man, what’s up?" Tucker’s voice comes on way too loud at first, and Danny can hear Doom gameplay in the background.

"Are you okay?" Sam chirps up, voice laced with concern. Last Danny knew she was reading her new book.

"I’m fine, I’m fine." He reassures them quickly. "I just-" He stops mid sentence and shakes his head. "You know how the Observants have been trying to get me to ‘act more like the king I am’?"

Sam is the first to respond, clearly annoyed in his place. "What did they do now?"

He chuckles under his breath. They were the usual cause of his annoyance, as his friends knew all too well. "It's not actually them this time."

Tucker fakes a gasp. "Shocker."

"Technically..." Danny draws out the word slowly. "It is them. Partly."

They both snicker, but Sam is the one to voice her snark. "There it is."

"As part of my ‘kingly duties’, they have me deal with some of the newly formed ghosts Walker doesn't want to deal with." He explains, pacing around his room while listening for the shower to stop running. "If they tell me their name or where they’re from, I can just guide them back home. Fine, right? Everyone goes home happy."

"Oookay?" Sam says, urging him to continue. "So what happened?"

"New guy shows up today." Danny frowns. "Blood on his school uniform, barely remembers his name, and hasn’t got a clue who he is or where he’s from. All he remembers is falling, then, well, a big splat." His frown deepens, and he pinches the bridge of his nose in pain. "He doesn’t have any shoes on. I think he died without them."

The other end goes completely silent.

"Sounds like someone who should talk to Sidney." Tucker sounds strained as the game audio on his end stops abruptly. "Or Mr. Lancer."

"But he doesn’t know he’s a ghost." Danny clarifies. "He talked in Ghost Speak at first, but I don’t think he knew he was." Deku did talk in English when he went to check on him, but that was a concern for another time. "So I can’t just say, ‘Here’s your new friend who’s a ghost, and by the way you died, so you’re one too. Good luck!’."

He flops down on his bed dramatically. "Jazz says I should show him around Amity, but it’s hard to do that without the ghosts popping in to cause trouble. I hate to ask on everyone’s day off, but can you guys come with me to make sure he’s okay if things go sideways?"

"Dude, don’t even worry about it." Tucker pipes up. "We’re your friends, so if you need help showing a bro around, we got it."

"We could use some Ghost Speak practice anyway." Sam agrees, shifting her phone from one ear to the other. "What’s his name?" she says, and Danny can hear her going through her closet, probably trying to get dressed so early in the morning.

"Deku, so he says. Part of the goal today is getting his real name." Danny gets out of bed when he hears the shower faucet squeak in the bathroom. "Meet me at Nasty Burger in ten?"

"We’re already on the way." Tucker says, before his end of the line goes silent.

"It’ll be fine." Sam reassures him once it’s just the two of them. Danny doesn’t know if he believes her. "We’ll be able to handle this."

"Don’t jinx it. With our luck, you never know." Danny smirks when he hears Sam snicker in the background. "I’ll see you there."

"I’ll be there."

Click.

There are already two teens sitting down at the table that Danny leads Deku to, one dressed in all black, one dressed, well, like a traffic light. He greets them as "Sam" and "Tucker", but Deku sees the P.D.A Tucker has in his hands, and his eyes practically light up. Tucker seems all too excited to tell him about the make, the model, her name, and any other thing he deems important enough to tell a stranger.

Sam squints down at her phone the first time Deku talks, but she wipes the surprise off of her face before he can really notice it, typing out a message to someone. While Deku and Tucker are chatting it up, Danny goes to the counter to order food, pulling out his phone when it chimes.

Though Deku doesn’t recognize any of the brands Tucker talks about, he still engages in some pretty interesting conversation. Tucker doesn’t seem to recognize any of the brands he talks about, though. Sam quickly pulls him away from that topic, a little too awkwardly.

Dodging again.

But they share a look with each other when Deku just shakes his head as he admits not knowing any of the bands Sam talks about. When Danny comes back, they both simultaneously sigh in relief. Danny holds the food up above their heads on the stained, red tray, before sorting out everyone’s meals.

"Didn’t know what you’d like, so I got you the Nasty Combo." Danny sets down his food first—a simple burger and fry combo—then sets down a salad for Sam and the greasiest nachos he’s ever seen in front of Tucker.

"You’re not eating with us?" Deku asks when the platter is cleared, and the table in front of where Danny now sits is still empty.

"Not hungry." Danny shrugs casually.

Deku stares down at his food. The fries drip with oil (and probably some sweat from the guy cooking them too). He puts his hands on the soft sesame buns but takes them off a mere second later, suddenly finding himself not wanting to touch it.

On the other side of the table, Sam stabs at her salad with a crummy plastic fork, and Tucker greases his hands with nacho sauce while gnawing down on his breakfast. Danny is seemingly staring off into nothing, but the corner of his eye flicks back to Deku every few seconds. He can’t help but feel like Danny’s friends are trying to keep an eye on him, while pretending they’re not.

Deku decidedly doesn’t like the weird treatment he’s being given. Just like in the castle, they’re dancing around him, like he’ll blow up any second.

His face is sour as he pushes the food aside. "I don’t think I’m hungry either." He presses into his upset stomach, fists clenched tight. "I need to use the bathroom."

"Hey-" Danny tries to put an arm on him to stop him, but he dodges it. No one seems to notice him on his sprint to the bathroom, and he has to step around everyone loitering around and chatting, but he makes it without incident.

Deku presses his back against the door, sighing and sliding down just a little. He rubs his hand against his head, letting his palms cool his face. Why was this so hard? He pinches his nose in frustration. This should be easy, it’s just fast food.

He finally looks up at the single-stall bathroom. The tiles are grimey and the toilet paper is bare bones. Even the mirror is dirty with who knows what. It’s so infrequently washed that it makes his skin look blue in the poor lighting.

Blue?

He takes a few steps closer, squinting at his reflection. He touches his freckled cheeks, and notices that it’s freezing cold, like he was soaking his face in an ice bath for ten minutes. More so than that, his eyes.

A deep, blood red color, with no retinas or corneas, or anything that makes an eye an eye. He leans against the sink to get close and pulls his eyelids down to see if it’s just a trick of the light, but it’s clearly not. In fact, it’s like someone replaced his real eyes with shiny marbles while he slept. He moves them around, watching them from his peripheral. He can see the color swirl inside the eye, and if he focuses, he can feel it too. The feeling makes his skin crawl, and he quickly stops poking at his face.

He blinks once, twice, three times as hard as he can. No matter how many times he blinks, his skin stays blue, his eyes stay red.

Who is that? It can’t be him, that thing in the reflection can’t be him. His breath shudders, and black mist swirls at the bottom of the stall, but goes unnoticed. But it is him, that blue-skinned, red-eyed thing, is him. Is this what everyone else sees? Was that why no one could bear to look at him?

He swallows the lump in his throat, and it goes down like a lead brick. Danny probably knows what’s going on, and maybe that’s why he’s been watching him the whole time. Deku rushes back out of the bathroom, ignoring the people still standing outside.

This time, though, they didn't return the favor.

"Woah." Deku hears one say, a teenager with braces and a short skirt. She giggles at his disturbing appearance. "We got a new freak. Someone better call the Fentons."

"One’s already here." The girl standing beside her, previously playing on her phone, half-whispers to her friend. "Though I wouldn't count on that loser to help."

The word, even when it’s not directed at him, makes him freeze in place. More than freak, more than monster, more than any other word someone could use to describe anyone, why does loser make his stomach churn?

He tries to ignore the snickering behind him and look for his friends, but it appears that everyone who wasn't looking at him was laughing at the blond jock who was holding Danny up by his shirt and jeering in his face.

"Can we not do this right now, Dash?" Danny, despite being held up by the skin of his teeth, seems more annoyed than worried. Deku pushes forward through the small crowd to get a first-row seat to what everyone else thought was a show.

Something nasty in Deku bubbles, urging to let loose, like a fire crackling too high to the ceiling, and he chokes it down, but he can’t help his hands clamming up when Dash’s voice pitches to the voice of someone familiar.

"You know this is where I go for breakfast, Fentonia." Dash says, nearly spitting in Danny’s face. "That’s my table."

"One." Danny holds up his free hand and lifts one finger. "You shouldn’t be eating burgers for breakfast if you’re a football player." Deku sees Sam nod in approval from the side. Her and Tucker don’t seem too worried about Danny’s safety, surprisingly.

"Two." Danny smirks and lifts a second finger. "It’s really sad that you have a favorite table at a fast food restaurant. Should I get you a therapist?"

Sam mutters, "Or a dietician."

Dash growls and shoves Danny into the nearby table. Deku hears Danny’s shoulder pop with the action. "Alright, since you want to be that way, Fentonail, I’ll beat you to a pulp right now instead of later." He cracks his knuckles in preparation and steps forward with an all-too-familiar wicked grin. "That way everyone can see what a loser you are."

The bubbling, the crackling fire, the smoke inside of him, bursts out all at once, and he charges Dash down on sight.

The table, or perhaps Dash’s arm, makes a snapping sound against the benches and he falls to the ground with a harsh grunt and a pathetic "What the hell?!"

Deku grabs his hair and throws him into the middle of the ring of people, who shriek and quickly back off, and stomps his foot on top of the bully's chest, forcing him to stare at Deku in his bright red eyes and face darkened like soot and lined with jagged cracks like burning charcoal.

"Leave my friend alone." He demands, and when he speaks, it snaps like the sounds of a campfire, full of righteous fury.

The bully reels back in horror, his face pale as a sheet as he scans Deku’s deadly glare. He nods feverishly, scrambling out from under him. Dash shoves the lookers aside, nearly knocking them down, and rushes out the door, letting out a boyish whimper. Deku watches through the stained windows as he takes off down the middle of the street in a mad dash.

The room falls silent as everyone stares at Deku. At least they can see me, he thinks as he is yanked away by Danny, shoving people aside with a harsh "Move!" as he pulls him out of the restaurant, Sam and Tucker trailing behind. Maybe they’ll finally tell me what’s going on he thinks as he lets himself be dragged out.

Chapter Text

Deku lets himself be dragged out of the restaurant, but he can’t bring himself to feel any embarrassment about the people watching their every move and whispering about them. Sam and Tucker are whispering something to Danny, something he isn’t supposed to catch, but still does (because he’s literally right behind them).

“A whole crowd just saw that, dude.” Tucker’s voice turns nervous as he glances at the packed restaurant, then back to Danny as he struggles to keep up with their brutal walking pace. “You think they’ll call your parents?”

“I hope not.” Danny mutters back. “Ancients knows they’ll scold me for hours just for being in the same room as a…” Danny whispers the next part, but unfortunately for the trio, Deku is mere inches from him and hears it anyway. “Ghost, let alone having lunch with one.”

Their pace slows as they get to the edge of the parking lot, where there’s little people or cars to see the four of them. Danny lets go of him, finally. He turns to his friends, running a stressful hand through his hair, before gasping.

Deku nearly misses seeing the mist come from Danny’s mouth as he processes the thing they just called him, but he doesn’t miss his friends’ reactions.

“Hey, dude.” Tucker suddenly grabs Deku’s shoulders and spins him around. Deku tries to turn back around to see…whatever it is about Danny they’re trying to hide, but Tucker’s head is in the way. “I just remembered I left my PDA at the booth. Why don’t you come help me find it?”

“Are you crazy? You want him to go back in there?” Sam grabs Tucker and yanks him back, therefore pulling Deku towards her too, causing him to stumble.

As Deku catches himself from falling, he notices a trail of black and white flying off in the distance. Danny? Sam and Tucker’s conversation (about keeping him busy, no less), gets drowned out. Deku doesn’t like being left out or distracted or left in the dark, so if anyone would clue him in, it would be Danny, who can apparently fly. Was his quirk flight? Wasn’t it the doors?

By the time Sam and Tucker notice him lift off, it’s too late.

Deku doesn’t know how he can fly, nor why that doesn’t seem like a weird thing to do, but it feels amazing. He can’t even begin to describe how liberating flying through the air is, or how his very being whoops and hollers when he soars higher and higher, towards Danny. It’s like his body is laughing and cheering and screaming in happiness at finally getting what he always dreamed of.

And oh how his soul cries that Kacchan was right

Sam and Tucker get quieter and quieter, left stuck on the ground while Deku flies towards the two people in the sky. Rays of green, blue, and red, what looks like electricity and fire and ice, shoot through the sky. Deku starts flying faster towards Danny and whoever else is up there with him, but the other person, what looks like a man made of metal with a fiery green mohawk, disappears within a beam of blue before he can get there.

“Skulker just has to show up, doesn’t he?” Danny mutters as Deku flies up behind him, capping what looks like a metal thermos. Danny was not only a king, but also a superhero? The idea makes him so happy he grins without thinking.

“You’re a superhero?!”

Danny startles, nearly fumbling the thermos out of his hands and sending it rocketing downward, but catches it with a relieved sigh. His eyes flick over to Deku, then he closes his eyes and sighs even harder.

“Yeahhh…” He trails off, glancing at the floating, blue-skinned, red-eyed Deku who finally realizes that maybe whatever was happening with him was worth dodging around (and that perhaps Sam and Tucker had the right idea trying to stop him from flying). “We need to talk.”

Danny escorts him across town, high above the city, urging him to try and remain unseen and to not pull anything like what happened in the restaurant until he could “figure out what to do”. Deku notices him sending off a quick text to who he assumes is Sam and Tucker, but they continue flying in silence before he can ask.

They continue to fly past plenty of buildings, but Deku is still ecstatic that he has a quirk powers. He resists the urge to fly loops or try to do those beams that Danny did, instead deciding to stare down at the city streets.

He stops looking down mere seconds later. The sight of seeing the ground from this high up, makes him sick enough that he feels like vomiting up the lunch he hadn’t eaten. He decides to focus on the sky, taking in the cloudy blue in front of him.

Suddenly, Danny puts his hand on his shoulder, and a chill washes over them. Deku looks at his hands, but can’t see them anymore. How many quirks powers does Danny have? And he could transfer them to others? Slowly, Danny lowers the two of them down towards a brick building labeled “Fentonworks” in neon lights. The window to someone’s bedroom is open, but somehow they go right through the bricks and into it without crashing.

There were plenty of questions Deku had for Danny, but before he could ask any, Danny transformed his body from his monochrome hero self into his black haired self. Were they both called “Danny” or did he have a hero identity? The idea of meeting an actual superhero excites him yet again, but Danny merely sighs and sits the two of them down on the bed.

“Deku, you’re…” Danny starts, but stops to gather himself. He releases a tense breath. “You’re a ghost.”

Deku pauses, but his mind blanks on the idea (they had called him that earlier, why had he forgotten already?).

“I’m guessing you died a couple days ago.” Danny continues, face coiled tightly in discomfort and pain. “New ghosts don’t tend to remember everything right away, let alone how they died, but I can take a good guess as to how. And that ‘how’ is probably why you don’t remember.”

Deku thinks about the moment he arrived in Danny’s room. Missing shoes, blood on his school uniform (which school?), his name not feeling right, his appearance being that of something monstrous, his freak out when he saw a bully.

Putting all of that together, he finally gets the full picture and remembers what he had tried to forget.

“-don’t you dare get into UA, nerd!” Midoriya feels the hand on his back pop with the added scorching heat. It burns through his uniform, the same way it always does. But he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t nod or react in any way that’ll upset Kacchan further. In fact, he has to remind himself to breathe and blink before he chokes on the pressure.

It almost seems to work, and for a moment Kacchan is distracted by one of his friends (what he would call extras) calling out to him, telling him to hurry up, but his attention snaps back to Midoriya the second he releases the tension in his shoulders even slightly.

Refusing to make eye contact, for fear he would outright cry in front of the whole class (all those that stuck around to watch the show anyway), he keeps his focus on the ground.

“And Deku?” Even without looking he can tell Kacchan is sneering at him. “You want to be a hero so bad?” He tenses when his shoulder burns hotter. “I’ve got an idea for you.”

He wants so badly to plug his ears and forget about today altogether.

“Take a swan dive off of the roof and pray you get a quirk in the next life.” Kacchan finally lets go of his shoulder, laughing cruelly and stepping away with a smirk. He barely listens to the jeers Kacchan’s friends throw his way on their way out.

"That's not for you." Deku mutters, scaring the fish off when he lifts the soaking thirteenth analysis notebook out of the fountain. The ink bleeds through the pages and he’s almost worried about the koi munching on the leftover soot floating in the water.

He frowns deeply, knowing it's far beyond repair. He’d have to write it all down again. He sighs in disappointment, and stuffs the ruined notes in the trash when he gets the chance on his walk home.

Sometime in between leaving behind his drenched notes and getting to the bridge, everything fades into the background. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t think to listen for the villain tucked away from daylight.

Their eyes lock, and the pure terror makes his legs quiver too hard to run away for a couple seconds. It only takes those couple of seconds for the sludge monster to make the first move, and siege him in his slimy grasp.

“Don’t worry.” It says, and he whimpers, trying desperately to get loose. Its grip is tight, wet, and cold around his arms and it wraps against his mouth before he can cry out for help. “I’m just hijacking your body.” The fear increases tenfold as the slime works its way into his mouth, sliding down his throat. “It'll only hurt for about 45 seconds, and then it’ll be all over.”

“W-Wait!” He waves his hands, trying to stop the hero, his hero, from leaving. “Please, I need to know.” He swallows hard, afraid to even speak. “Can someone…can someone become a hero, even without a quirk?”

The question startles even the pro hero into silence. His face coils together in pain, and Midorya grows nervous at the lack of a response. The wind picks up around him, cooling his sweating face. He’s more afraid of the answer he gets than he ever was of Kacchan.

All he needs is a ‘yes’. Even if he knows it isn’t true, he just needs All Might to say ‘yes’. All he needs is for someone, anyone, to say that quirkless Deku can be a hero.

“Honestly, no.” All Might decides, shaking his head. “They would only get themselves hurt.” His eyebrows furrow at Midoriya’s tears. “There are other options for those wishing to be heroes.” He tries softening the blow, still managing to smile. “Perhaps a police officer or doctor would be better.”

But all the teen can hear is those same words again. Useless. Worthless. Deku. If All Might was saying it, then it must be true. The weirdo, nerdy Deku, who dreams of being a hero, will never be anything more than the things everyone calls him.

He stands at the edge of the building the hero left him on, shoes placed behind him, vision wavering at the drop. He swallows the lump of nerves caught in his throat, and takes in a deep breath. The idea of jumping scares him; a primal part of him is the one that’s scared, the human part, who doesn’t want to die, but the thought is slowly being drowned out by a wave of calm.

It’s just a couple seconds. A few moments of falling and then...nothing. That’s what he thinks is waiting for him, anyway. Silence, peace, calm, nothingness. Loser Deku will finally get the silence he craves.

He tests the feeling of tilting over the edge, noticing himself feeling less scared every time he brings himself back up. The drop is less intimidating, less horrifying. He can’t help a tiny laugh at how fast the fear is vanishing.

Just a couple seconds. He can even close his eyes (but maybe he wants to watch). He takes a deep breath in, then lets it out. He crosses his arms over his chest and lets himself tilt slowly over the edge.

His heart pounds in his chest, but he feels calm nonetheless, watching the street, the building, the sky, the sun, the world spin around him as wind whips his face. He closes his eyes, and waits for the end he knows is coming.

He blinks back into the world with a harsh gasp. He’s struggling to breathe, chest tight and stomach heavy. Danny is rubbing circles on his back. “It’s okay.” He whispers. “Calm down.”

He keeps hyperventilating for a few minutes, just trying to picture anything but the rapidly approaching ground, the sound of his bones shattering upon impact, or the warm puddle of blood underneath him as his limp body grows colder. Eventually it all fades away, and all he hears is Danny’s breathing, the quietly rotating fan on his desk, and the sound of metal clattering from below the house.

He eventually comes back to his senses entirely and looks up at Danny with tear-ridden eyes, vision blurry until he blinks it all away with a harsh sob.

“Welcome back.” Danny gives a lopsided smile and opens his arms for a hug. He takes it, crying harder and louder without meaning to. “Not many ghosts can go through what you just did and stay sane. It takes a lot of strength. Good job.”

The praise feels so good. He finally hears someone say those things to him, after what feels like years of abuse, though he only remembered it just now, and can’t help but feel happy, despite the tears.

Eventually, his tears dry up and he lets go of Danny’s comforting hug. He didn’t seem to mind his shirt getting soaked if it helped a friend.

“You wanna tell me your name, new guy?” Danny asks softly.

“Izuku.” He chokes out. The name feels right. It’s his name, not Deku or loser or weakling. It’s his name, finally. “Midoriya.”

“Well, Izuku Midoriya, welcome to Amity Park.”

Chapter Text

Though Midoriya has gotten through his toughest part, they’re nowhere close to getting him home. Even though he’s remembered his death, or at least most of it, the details of just where on Earth he came from or the names of anyone he knew are fuzzy at best.

And trying to get him to remember the events before his death only results in him accidentally lighting fire to Danny’s sheets. After putting it out, the two of them breathe a sigh of relief.

Which leads them to their next problem: Getting his ghost powers under control.

If he freaks out every time he tries to push himself to remember or if he comes across Dash again, Danny’s parents would hunt him down in a flash. Keeping them from even finding out about the new ghost in town is going to be incredibly important.

The issue is that Danny doesn’t actually know all that much about controlling a new ghost’s powers. He’s had to figure it out on his own, either by being shot at or, rarely, by asking Frostbite. And he had tried to explain it like Frostbite, but Midoriya doesn’t understand what "let the energy grow until it has nowhere to go but out" means. He can’t control his own energy yet, and his fire isn’t so overwhelming at the moment that Danny can just give Midoriya a little ectoplasmic push, so the advice is useless.

Eventually, he just collapses on his bed and stares up at the ceiling.

Midoriya joins him, taking his spot next to him as Danny sighs into his hands. "Sorry, Danny."

He runs his hands across his face, trying to wipe his exhaustion with them. It isn’t even lunchtime and he wants to go back to bed. "Not your fault. I think you’ve got a fire core, so my ice core doesn’t mix well with yours."

Though Danny is quickly running out of ideas, he can practically hear Midoriya light up at the new term. He seems to get excited about the littlest of things. "Do you know anyone with a fire core?"

The short answer is yes.

Ember, Skulker, and Vlad all came to mind.

Since he became king, though, none of them have stopped hunting him. Apparently, for the first two—and for every other one of his enemies—their life-endangering fights are mere playfighting. Like cats Clockwork had likened it to when he explained it with a smirk. So those two would rather play with the king than help him help a new ghost.

And Vlad is Vlad. A crazy fruitloop he wants to keep this baby ghost far, far away from.

He knows Frostbite will do anything to help his king, as will Dora and Wulf. But Dora doesn’t fight unless she’s a dragon, and Wulf doesn't speak English. Though apparently that might not be a problem for Midoriya. Sam had sent him an interesting text at Nasty Burger that told him the baby ghost had a knack—or maybe a ghost power—for speaking different languages.

Anyway, none of his ghostly allies have fire cores, and any ghosts he knows who do aren’t friends.

So the longer answer is no.

"No." Danny physically sees Midoriya deflate. The kid seems so excited about ghost powers, so being told he can’t control them without help that he doesn’t have is probably disappointing. "But I can ask a friend to explain it to me."

He lifts off the bed and quickly transforms. Midoriya gazes up at him, and Danny gets the idea that he’s holding back a lot of questions about his hero identity considering he hasn't actually explained any of that yet. One thing at a time, though.

"I’ll be back in like half an hour." Just before phasing into the floor, he warns "Don’t go anywhere. And if you hear someone shouting about ghosts, pretend you don’t exist."

Midoriya nods once, pointedly making himself comfortable on his bed, and Danny phases himself down into the basement, where the ghost portal stands proudly. His parents are tinkering off to the side, but neither notices him appear and subsequently disappear into the Ghost Zone.

He touches down on the Far Frozen’s icy tundra before even ten minutes have passed. Danny is greeted by a few soldiers out on patrol, but they quickly lower their weapons at the sight of their king dropping by. He waves off their request to escort him as he drifts across the snowy landscape. His ice core is happy to be in its element, so he has to wipe off his unwillingly joyful grin once he arrives in Frostbite’s lab.

"Great One!" Frostbite and his coworkers immediately stop what they are doing to greet him, all sporting pleased smiles.

"You don’t have to drop everything just to say hello." Danny rubs the back of his neck and gestures for them to go back to what must be important work that he so graciously interrupted. "It’s still just me."

"Nonsense!" Frostbite sets a large and heavy paw on his shoulder and laughs heartily. "It is not every day the Ghost King himself traverses to the Far Frozen merely for a talk. It is only out of respect that we do so."

The idea that he used to look up to Frostbite as a mentor but was now basically being praised for existing made him a little uncomfortable, but the yetis have been insistent no matter how many times he tries to get them to treat him like a normal ghost.

"Well, it’s not a talk this time." Danny admits, letting Frostbite lead the way out of his lab and towards the back, where a break room for the scientists sits. "I’m here for some advice."

"What kind of advice were you looking for, young ruler?" The yeti sits himself down on the giant chair, gesturing for Danny to take the one on the other side of the round, glass table.

Instead of giving the whole story about Walker, Mirodiya’s freak out at Dash, and the kids’ death remembrance, Danny keeps it simple. "I've got a new ghost I’m helping out. I’m trying to help him keep his powers under control until I can find a way to get him home, but I’m struggling. I tried giving him the same advice you gave me, but he doesn’t get it."

"I see." Frostbite hums to himself in thought for a moment. "Does this youngling have fire powers, by chance?"

"He looked like a piece of burning coal today, so I think I’m pretty safe to say yes."

His reaction towards Dash probably hadn’t come out of nowhere considering how he died, but that doesn’t help that his parents could have shown up if they weren’t locked in the basement working on something at that moment.

"Therein lies the problem." Frostbite gives a half-smile at his predicament. "Cores are something I mentioned when you were struggling with yours, young halfling."

Danny nods, having at least remembered the term and a little bit about it.

Frostbite continues. "There are many types of cores, but the three most common are fire, ice, and electric. There are other rarer types, but those are usually limited to the Ancients. Time, space, light, and dark are some of them. You might recognize a few."

Nocturn and Clockwork came to mind as two obvious ones.

"The Ancients can have many attributes, including ones that are similar to a different core, but for young ones such as your friend, there is little crossover."

"What does that mean?"

"Simply put, it means that you are correct in assuming that your ice core and his fire core wouldn’t have much overlap in the early stages, if his is indeed fire." Frostbite shrugs apologetically. "My advice for you, my king, is to find someone with a fire core who could help explain it to your friend better than me or my people could."

Danny grumbles at the idea of asking any one of his enemies for help, floating up in disappointment.

"Do you not have a relationship with Plasmius?" Frostbite stands as well, gesturing to escort Danny out. "Perhaps if you were to ask, he would help."

He’s right about that, but that fruitloop would probably only do it if he got on his hands and knees and begged for his help.

"Thanks for your help, Frostbite." Danny says once they’re outside, greeted by the icy wind.

Frostbite grins, mouth full of sharp teeth that would be intimidating if not for the fluffy exterior attached to them. "You are very welcome, my liege."

"You can just call me Danny." He knows it won’t stop him or his colleagues from calling him these stuffy royalty terms, but he tries every time anyway.

"Of course." Frostbite waves him off happily, and just as he’s about to take off, he tacks on, "And good luck with your friend, my king!"

Danny rolls his eyes at the title and launches himself up, quickly taking off towards the Fenton portal.

So basically, unless Midoriya can avoid anything and everything that’ll set him off forever, only Vlad can help with this little problem. He groans into his hands as he drifts forward. And Danny will just have to suck it up and ask the fruitloop, no matter what his stupid demands are.

At least he’ll be doing it for a good cause.

As long as his "good cause" hasn’t blown himself up while he's gone.

Knowing his luck, though…

Chapter Text

Izuku sits in silence, staring out Danny’s room for a little bit, content to watch the cars and buses pass by, but he grows bored eventually. It isn’t that rude to look around a little, right? He isn’t even going to touch anything. And hopefully the people who Danny had warned would be screaming about ghosts won’t even notice someone taking a stroll around his room.

His touchless poking around the room starts with simply gazing up at the king’s walls. He mentioned that he liked NASA, and there are plenty of posters of astronauts and constellations taped to the walls to confirm that. His dresser has a model rocket ship atop it, and even the ceiling isn’t safe from the star stickers dotting it. Izuku wonders briefly what kind of things he liked before he died.

Did he play video games? Did he play an instrument? Did he read books? Trying to remember any of the little things is hard when all his memory wants to play back is him falling and falling and spinning and shattering.

He’s jumped out of Danny’s bed and floated over to his desk in the space of two seconds. The weightless feeling overtakes that memory and forces it back down to the basement of his mind. Danny has papers and textbooks scattered across his desk—pens and pencils are stuck in between pages, and a few corners are folded to mark his place—but the most intriguing thing is that Danny has left his computer unlocked.

Izuku had promised himself he wasn’t going to do anything but look, and he isn’t going to. He can’t help but notice that Danny has left a few files open on the bright screen. Pages of hastily typed-out notes under pictures of strange-looking people—some blue just like him, some metallic like the robot Danny fought at the restaurant, and all glowing a faint white—sit in different corners of the screen.

Izuku leans in to read them, enthralled by the lines of black text under the girl with blue fire for hair.

Ember Mclain:

Fire core.

Another fire core? Why can’t Danny ask her for help? He said no when Izuku asked if he knew any others. Did he just mean there isn’t anyone who can help? He shakes his head and keeps reading.

Level 6 ecto-entity.

Powers: hypnotic and/or harmful sound waves from instrument; flame control.

Weaknesses: broken guitar; name not said.

‘Levels'? 'Name not said'? Quirks are always weird like that—they’re called "quirks" for a reason—but he isn’t sure he’s ever heard of an oral weakness like that. Does that mean she has to have someone around to say her name at all times? Does it have to be someone specific? How often does it have to be said?

The pen in his hand works a kilometer a minute, and his mouth soundlessly copies the trail of questions flowing out of the ink and onto the notebook paper loose on Danny's desk.

Can she just say her own name and get the same results? If she’s left completely alone for longer periods of time, what happens?

“Oh, dear, what do we have here?”

The voice, though feminine and nothing like the monster that choked Izuku, somehow drips with the same slimy tone. He backs off of the computer screen to come face to face with a woman, looking not much older or younger than his mom a middle-aged woman. Her bright red hair spikes up unnaturally, and her outfit comes across as strange, though the last thing on Izuku’s mind is how high her skirt rides up. It feels purposefully distracting, somehow.

“Poor little thing.” She grabs his chin and forces it toward her piercing eyes. “So lost in your own little world that you barely notice anything around you.” She takes the pen from his hand and tosses it across the room without a second glance. “Is your own life so unimportant that you’d rather scribble it all away with questions no one cares about?”

He can barely even squeak when she stares at him like everyone else always does—like he’s the gum beneath their shoes—but he manages to shake his head in defiance.

“No?” Her expression turns giddy for a moment before settling back into her calmness. “You would rather grace the world with your miserable weakness than remain trapped in your pages? How selfish of you, Deku.”

He shoves her away, making her nearly trip on her heels to right herself. Her words ooze disgust, but she never stops smiling. “And now you’re pushing everyone away again, aren’t you? Poor thing, so lost and alone that you can’t help but think that everything is about you.”

Shut up, shut up, shut up. He holds his pounding head like it’ll help her go away when she finally gets bored with the loser Deku, like everyone always does.

“Does your head hurt? Do you need to lie down, little boy?” She coos at him, an almost mischievous purr curling its way out of her blood-red lips. “I know the best rooftop.”

“Stop,” He whispers, the strongest memory rearing its ugly head, “Please.”

It suddenly feels like every piece of happiness he’s gotten since he appeared in the castle is flowing out of him, curling around her talons, and he’ll never get them back.

“I’m just trying to help you feel at home, little boy.” She gives him a smile that would be comforting if not for the way his vision starts to fog up the longer she leaves her hand on his shoulder. “Home is pretty far away, isn’t it? Oh, but maybe you’d rather leave it all behind and be my new patient? You don’t remember anyone who really cared about you there, after all, do you?”

He doesn’t; he really doesn’t. No friend, no parent, and no teacher’s face came to mind. Even the voices he hates the most are all but vanishing whispers, their hateful words disappearing too. Everything but his worst day and the fateful sunset that had led him here in this unfamiliar city are suddenly all but a misty evening fog.

Nevertheless, he shakes his head and shoves her possessive, tight grip off of him. The draining headache dissipates just slightly. “Get your hands off of me.” He takes in a small breath, finally remembering that he has to keep doing that before he forgets altogether. “You’re not someone I want to listen to.”

“Everyone resists treatment, boy.” She never stops smiling, and her voice never stops trying to sing his sane thoughts away. “I’m only trying to help. Teenagers don’t know what’s best for them, you see? They should listen to the adults in their lives.”

The curtains ruffle in the breeze, and Izuku hears a distinct metal scraping for a small second.

“I told you, I’m not going to-”

A bright white beam lands on the woman’s back, and she screams not in agony, he thinks, but in frustration, as she gets sucked into the thermos in Danny’s hands. Izuku breathes deeply and listens to the complete absence of words in what might be the first moment of pure calm since he came here.

“Are you okay?” Danny, too, is breathless. He’s still in his black and white suit, floating a meter off of the floor, but switches back to his black-haired form after Izuku collapses to the ground once more.

Izuku swallows the hard lump in his throat and manages a nod. “Yeah.” His voice is cracked and dry, but he manages to not throw up under the suddenly overwhelming nausea, too. Not that he’s had anything to eat to throw up, anyway.

“I’m so sorry, man. I never thought Spectra would find you so soon.”

Danny reaches out to help him up, but he must see his wide eyes and shivering body because he decides against touching him. He instead sits down in front of him, cross-legged. He speaks gently, like Izuku is going to break any second.

“Look, can you breathe with me? Just in and out, alright?”

Izuku feels like there’s something in his heart begging to burst out and burn this room, this world, to charred crisps for what she said to him. He breathes along with Danny, though, and tries to calm the war of fire and ash raging around his insides. The flame feels foreign and wrong, like it had never belonged to him in the first place. The anger that fuels it doesn’t feel like his, either. It takes a while for the fire that isn’t his to die down to the flickers of hatred that sparked from love, but Danny helps all the way.

“Alright now?”

Izuku nods and floats upward. The black mist hovering around the floor warms his feet, but it vanishes soon after he notices it.

“Okay, so obviously we have to do something about that.” At first, he’s not sure if Danny’s talking about that woman—Spectra, he had called her—or the fact that, every time something like that happens, he feels like he’s going to either explode or melt like lava. “And I maybe wasn’t telling you the full truth when I said there wasn’t anyone with a fire core.”

“Ember, you mean?”

Danny startles for a second, but quickly whips around to face his computer and sighs. “Knew I was forgetting something.” He turns back and shakes his head. “No, not her. She’d probably rather brainwash you than help you. The next best option isn’t much better, but he’ll help.” Then, bitterly, “For a price.”

Chapter Text

“Okay, look.” Izuku—Midoriya had asked him to call him by his first name just before they took to the skies—is taking to flying a lot quicker than Danny had in the beginning. “There’s a few things you need to know about this guy before we get there.”

With the way the baby ghost barely holds back his excitement at every town they pass on their way to Vlad’s stupid rich person mansion in Wisconsin, it’s a wonder he hasn’t tumbled to the ground yet. When Danny gets too distracted, he loses control of his flight.

“Okay.” Izuku catches up to him easily, though he does get distracted by watching the cows and deer grazing the fields of Wisconsin more often than a teenager should. It’s like he’s never seen these boring, grassy plains before.

“Rule one before we even touch down: don’t bring up football.” Izuku looks puzzled, as one should. “He’ll never shut up about the Packers if you ask.”

“Packers?” Izuku asks, but quickly shakes his head like it doesn’t matter as long as he follows Danny’s instructions.

“Rule two.” Danny grabs Izuku’s shirt to keep him from drifting off course. Danny hates that he remembers the path to the fruitloop’s house, but he’s the only one of the two of them who does, so he has to take the lead. “If another ghost shows up like Spectra did, don’t freeze up. You don’t have enough control to fight one without burning everything down yet, so just run away.”

Danny will take care of any ghost attacks for now. No decently strong ghost is stupid enough to mess with Vlad in his haunt, not if they value their afterlife, but the smaller fry, though not a problem for both halfas, will be a struggle for Izuku. Danny doesn’t even know what his reaction will be to a harmless blob ghost after Spectra of all ghosts got to him before literally anyone else.

“Superheroes don’t run away.”

Danny nearly halts on the spot, hearing the baby ghost sound so firm. They continue flying, but Izuku catches up and flies side by side with him now. Though fresh-out-of-the-accident Phantom would have loved hearing someone call him a superhero, Danny knows that’s not what he deserves to be called now.

He’s the protector of Amity Park; he’s the King of All Ghosts; he’s the bridge between humans and ghosts. But Phantom is also the person who overshadows people against their will, shoots at civilians, and destroys public property. Not on purpose, only for the sake of protecting the town, but not too many adults will call him a hero.

“Rule three.”

Danny just has to take Izuku’s deep, disappointed frown in stride and march on. They’re getting close now, and he doesn’t have time to debate with this innocent baby ghost about just how messed up ghosts can be morally, willingly or not.

Someday, he’ll have to break his fall on someone’s car, accidentally destroy machines phasing through them, or overshadow someone against their will to keep them safe. He’ll see then that leaving it to someone stronger or leading the attacking ghosts away are the better options sometimes, even if that means everyone thinks you’re just running away like a coward.

“Let me do the talking.” He says, firming his voice when it had broken up before. “You don’t know Vlad or what he can do. He probably won’t be all that interested in you, anyway.”

All Vlad will really care about is hearing Danny beg for his help. He doesn’t know what his demand will be, and he doesn’t really want to think about it. Something to do with his mom or dad, no doubt. That’s all Vlad really thinks about behind his punchable face.

“Got it.”

The rest of the flight is mostly quiet, save for a small interaction about five minutes from the front door. He’d normally be there in a flash thanks to his raw speed, but Danny has to fly much slower than usual to give Izuku a chance to keep up.

“It’s just ‘Danny,’ then?”

Gone is Izuku’s righteous anger, faded back into his curiosity. A small part of Danny is thankful. Anger doesn’t suit him. He shakes his head. He never explained his transformation, his secret identity, or even the fact that he isn’t a full ghost like Izuku is.

“When I look like I do now-” He gestures down at his jumpsuit, then up at his snow-white hair, absent of the King’s Crown of Fire at the moment. “I’m called Phantom. Danny Phantom.” Izuku nods. “When I have black hair, you can just call me Danny.”

He could go into True Names, how he technically has two because of the half-ghost thing, and the fact that he’s hiding his identity not from the ghosts but from his parents, but it’s not the time or place.

Izuku’s eyes widen just slightly, and he starts mumbling something too quiet for Danny to hear, but they’re out of time for questions since Vlad’s mansion is rapidly approaching. When Izuku goes to fly past it, his gaze and attention suddenly unfocused, Danny grabs him by his shirt and pulls him down towards the front door. Danny would normally just phase into the stupidly large place, trying to ignore niceties during whatever evil plan Vlad had, but if he’s going to ask for a favor, he’ll go through the gates like a normal person.

Izuku stumbles when he lands on the steps of the manor, and Danny feels a bit better about him doing the same after his first few times flying long distance. Izuku’s eyes trail all around the perfectly maintained front area, the hedges trimmed precisely, and the fountain always running even in the coldest Wisconsin winters, thanks to whatever ghost invention and/or core manipulation of Vlad’s that keeps every inch of his haunt just slightly above room temperature at all times.

Danny sucks in a deep breath, hands wavering and definitely trying to fight what he’s about to do, and presses the doorbell. The other side of the door remains silent for several moments; Danny actually gets worried. He’s not sure how long it takes for someone to respond when their house is that big or whether he should consider the possibility that Vlad went out to lunch or something.

“Umm…” Izuku stares at the door, then at Danny, then at the door again.

Before Danny can dare himself to ring again, the door swings open.

“Hello, how can I-?" Vlad’s fake rich person smile fades into his usual, less-fake one swiftly. “Daniel. How rare of you to use the door. I assume that means we won’t be shooting at each other?”

“Sadly, not today.” He manages to grit his teeth and not call him fruitloop at Vlad’s smirk appearing.

“A rarity, indeed.” He chuckles quietly. “To what do I owe this house call, then? Perhaps you’ll join me for tea this lovely afternoon?”

Danny holds back a growl, and Izuku probably doesn’t understand that the seemingly kindly older man smiling down at them is the most dangerous person he’ll ever meet. “I need your help.”

“Oh?” Vlad seems almost childishly giddy for a moment, but smooths it over just as quickly. “Today must be my lucky day.”

“My friend here,” he points to Izuku, “needs some help with his powers. Fire isn’t exactly my specialty.”

As if he hadn’t even noticed him, Vlad meets eyes with Izuku, gazing him up and down. He hums. “You’re quite young, indeed. I imagine Daniel isn’t the best teacher, either.”

He’s right, but that doesn’t mean Danny has to be happy about the hinted insult. The fact that Vlad never uses his True Name doesn’t exactly help the frost suddenly forming in his fisted gloves go away.

Izuku remains silent, just as he was told to.

“So teach him.” Danny says, and Vlad raises an eyebrow at him. He grits his teeth so hard that it feels like they might shatter. “Please.”

Vlad smiles, and this time his eyes wrinkle in pure happiness. “Naturally! When someone asks so nicely, I have no reason to turn them away. I will expect something in return, of course.”

As long as it doesn’t involve disowning his dad or asking his mom to marry the fruitloop, both likely, he can cope with whatever evil thing Vlad will make him do. He nods and urges him to just get the demand out before he can't hold back the urge to blast everything to pieces anymore.

“Your parents.” Danny nods once, sharply. “Tell them you’d like a visit from your dear Uncle Vlad this weekend.”

Danny nearly completely blanks out, but snaps out of his daze quick enough. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Danny waits for Vlad to tack on something else, but it never comes.

“You do realize you can just sneak in if you’re trying to steal their inventions.” That’s the only thing he can imagine the fruitloop wanting to be invited over for aside from flirting with his mom.

“That is my demand.” Vlad smiles again and holds the door open for the two of them. “If you agree to it, then come inside.”

Danny looks at Izuku, who, in turn, is staring back at him. It’s Danny’s choice, after all. He has to be the first one to go inside. So he shuts his confused mouth and steps forward. Izuku trails behind, uncertain, but Vlad puts his hand on his back to guide him inside.

“Come with me, child.” He gently pushes Izuku along. “What did you say your name was?”

Chapter Text

“‘Let the energy build’? ‘Force it out’?” Vlad looks almost offended, sending a quick glare behind Izuku to where Danny stands. “Preposterous. Daft. Commendably stupid advice for someone with a brand-new fire core.”

Danny had tried to warn him not to speak to the silver-haired man in the black suit named Vlad more than necessary, but, well, he does need to talk with him if he’s going to have any chance of not setting Danny’s sheets on fire when they get back to whatever town they left to come to here, whenever ‘here’ is. Izuku had forgotten to ask about that even once, and he feels pretty silly about it looking back.

Izuku is sure this isn’t how the older man’s house usually looks, considering Danny was surprised to be led to this large, mostly empty room. Most of the floor is made of those squishy blue mats that martial arts are done on top of, and the soft-yellow walls are blank save for the thick, metal targets of different sizes hung on the side of the room where Danny stands, watching the two of them.

“Now, focus on me, child.” Vlad pulls him out of his thoughts every time he even starts to get distracted, almost as if psychic.

Izuku nods up at him and tries to follow every word of his advice, even if his gut is telling him not to forget about Danny’s warnings.

Vlad touches his finger to the center of his chest, poking his rib cage gently. “Your core sits here. It is more important than everything else in your body. You may lose a limb or have your skull crushed, but as long as that-” He taps again, and Izuku nods along with the action, then continues, “is safe, you will heal. Not perfectly, mind you, but you will live, so to speak.”

“Like a heart?” He knows that having your skull crushed when you’re not dead will change that fact, but thinking about it like this is easier than trying to imagine something that seems so... magical. He can’t even feel his ‘core,’ anyway.

Vlad hums and folds his arms behind his back. “Yes and no,” he says. “Think of it more like the anatomical version of a ghost’s soul. It has no emotions, not truly, but like the indomitable human spirit, as long as that has a reason to live, it will live.”

“Now.” He says, and it’s clear he thinks, or at least is going to treat, Izuku like he understands it fully. “We are not going to try and aggravate your core when it’s this young.” He sends another quick glare behind Izuku, and he hears a growl rumbling in Danny’s throat from the sidelines of the sparring room. “We are going to teach you how to reel it in, to keep it from flooding your senses in times of crisis.”

That is Izuku’s biggest worry, but admittedly, he’s a little more excited with the idea of learning how to wield his fire quirk than trying to hold it back. He nods nonetheless.

“I’m sure you’ve felt it at least a little during those moments.” Vlad says, and he taps his own chest exactly where he did Izuku’s. “Watch,” he commands gently. Wordlessly, Vlad’s chest begins to turn a faded red, though if he squints, the color is more like a muted neon pink.

Fire? It obviously doesn’t hurt him, and there’s no heat. A form of radiation, then? Would water weaken his attacks if his quirk is radiation-based rather than fire-based?

“Focus.” Vlad snaps his fingers once, and Izuku startles at the sharp sound, willing himself to refocus. He’ll just have to ask his questions later. Or maybe ask Danny for a notebook to write all of it down before he forgets.

“Sorry.”

He dips his head in a quick bow, a tiny bit of embarrassment flooding his chest for a second. So lost in your own little world that you barely notice anything around you. Spectra is right, in that way. Her words still stick in his mind, even though Danny had told him that she can vaguely see your memories through touch, and is good at feeling around for what will hurt the most.

“That.” Vlad suddenly says, and smirks down at him, pointing to his side. “Not fully calm, but not lighting up.”

Izuku looks down at his blue hands and arms and sees the red-orange, jagged lines marking them up like lit coal. When he was at that restaurant and caught a glimpse with that bully, Dash, it was red-hot and burning up his insides, fuming under his skin. Now, it’s muted—merely the magma of a volcano not yet ready to burst from underground.

“When you anger, we need to keep it at that instead of letting it burn hotter.” Vlad says. “We aren’t at the point where you are able to completely control it, but if we can instead manage the core breaks before they happen, we will be one less panic attack away from blowing up Amity Park.”

“Core breaks?” This time, it’s Danny calling out his confusion.

Vlad gazes behind Izuku like he’s only now remembering they have an audience. “Did your lousy instructor not teach you even this, Daniel? I shouldn’t be surprised given the awful advice you then tried to preach at your friend.”

Izuku feels the space behind him grow shockingly cold and sees the frost beginning to cover the walls and floors when he turns around. Danny himself is turning blue, but in a different shade than Izuku. While his looks like a flame burning so hot it turns blue, Danny’s looks more like the icicles donning a gutter after a snowstorm.

The crown appearing atop his head, burning green flames that flick around wildly, seems to only amuse Vlad, and he continues, unbothered.

“‘Core break’ is the ghost terminology for one losing control of their core’s affinity.” He chuckles quietly. “Why, you are verging on one at the moment, dear boy.”

The room warms back up, though with the way Vlad’s hand glows faintly pink at his side, it isn’t clear just who is letting the room thaw.

Vlad’s voice softens just slightly. “We aren’t here to shoot at each other, Daniel.” He says. “Remember that.”

Thankfully, Danny seems to calm down enough that his face turns pale again, and the ice biting his skin melts into a puddle at his feet. The spiked, green crown remains, but turns a bit translucent as the flames vanish much like a candle being blown out.

Is it part of his powers or a physical artifact? Does it make him stronger? If it can appear when he’s angry, where does it go when he’s not? If he takes it off, can he summon it again?

Danny mutters something incomprehensible as he looks away from the two of them. “Just get on with the lesson so we can go home.”

“Of course.” Vlad turns back to Izuku as if that interaction hadn’t just happened. “That warmth you felt,” he says, “you must practice keeping your core at that level day-to-day. I assume until now you have let the whims of the world either keep it docile or hostile, so to speak, but if you practice keeping it in the in-between, you’ll yield better results.”

Vlad paces gently in front of him as his hands move to the cadence of his words. “The lower-level ghosts will likely leave you alone, sensing you have some strength that they ought not to challenge, and when you are put in a mentally challenging situation or must face a stronger ghost that someone-” He glances at Danny, then continues, “isn’t around to protect you from, you will be more practiced in keeping the heat tempered."

Izuku reaches for the feeling he got when remembering that vile woman’s words, but his skin remains a pale blue, and the sensation slips from his grasp each time, no matter how much he strains. Vlad presses a pink-tinted finger onto his chest. Izuku feels the radiation-like heat gently poke at the core he hasn’t been able to feel until just now, and when Vlad backs off, he yanks on the sensation hard and locks it into his memory as best as he can.

This time, when Vlad’s influence dies down, he’s able to fan the flame back and shape the power under his skin into his own. It’s a simple flicker in his red-crackled palm, barely more than a spark, but it’s his and he’s in control of it. Not Spectra, not Vlad, not Kacchan Danny, but him.

It feels good.

“Wonderful work, little dragon.” Vlad’s voice tilts higher in what sounds a bit like pride, but settles back to neutrality swiftly after Izuku lets the flame recede into his core. When he clutches at his shirt, he feels warmth like a heat pack under the fabric. “But of course, we can take a break. Everything I have to offer isn’t taught in a mere day. Might I expect you tomorrow, young student of mine?”

For all the excitement bubbling along with the fire, wanting to learn all he can about his powers and all the things about ghosts that Danny doesn’t know, he is admittedly tired. His arrival in Danny’s room, nearly burning down a fast food restaurant (and then Danny’s room), then dealing with an awful ghost—all that has happened in one morning. Though he hasn’t asked if ghosts need to sleep yet, he sure could use a nap.

But he turns back to Danny because he isn’t the one asking the favor and doesn’t know what his friend is thinking when it’s clear the two of them don’t get along.

He isn’t sure whether it’s Vlad behind him not forcing the matter or simply because Izuku looks so much like a puppy begging for a treat, but Danny sighs and nods once. “Sure.”

“Wonderful!” Vlad says, clapping his hands together. “I shall see you both after you're done with your silly little human school, then.”

Danny frowns, but doesn’t growl or snap or cover the room with ice again at the nickname. “Whatever.” He says, and gestures with his head for Izuku to follow him as he begins to fly upwards. “We’re going home now.”

Home. There isn’t a place he can call that yet, but Danny’s space-covered room is the only one he’s really known since coming here. He trails up behind him, but waves down at Vlad just before leaving. His new teacher waves back, smiling, until he and Danny go through the roof and start going back to Danny’s town, apparently called Amity Park.

“What a creep. Mondays are already bad enough. Now I have to see him, too?” Danny mutters to himself as Izuku flies next to him.

He always seems to know where he’s going, so Izuku just has to keep his eyes on him and try not to get lost amongst the grassy fields and beautiful, wide open skies.

“He wasn’t so bad.” The words slip out before he can think, and Danny groans out loud into his hands, drawn out and exasperated.

“Please never say those words again.” He says. “I don’t want my friend to like my archenemy.”

‘Archenemy’ seems dramatic for the nice man that’s teaching Izuku how to be… whatever he is now, but since Danny seems about one Vlad-compliment away from retching, he’ll just keep his mouth shut and let their flight be a peaceful one.

Chapter Text

It’s only when he gets back into the safety of his bedroom and Izuku plops down on his sheets without setting them ablaze that Danny realizes something very important: He never actually told anyone about what’s been happening for the past couple hours.

He went to the Far Frozen; Spectra broke into his room and scared poor Izuku; they went to Vlad’s house willingly and, for once, didn’t fight; he agreed to invite the fruitloop over to his house without having even the slightest idea what he wanted.

But Sam and Tucker weren’t there for any of that, and he’s been too busy and frazzled to call. When he transforms into Fenton and lands on his floor quietly, the first thing he does is pull out his phone.

Knock, knock, knock.

Danny nearly fumbles his phone, and Izuku jolts from his sleepiness, his knuckles starting to crackle with the sudden guest frightening him. He shoves the device back in his pocket.

“Danny?” Though her voice is muffled behind the wood, Danny nearly breaks down at his sister’s concerned voice. It hasn’t even been that long since their phone call, but for some reason, it feels like it’s been two years.

He clears his throat and tries to sound not like a clingy little brother. “It’s open.”

She cracks open the creaky door gently and takes in the state of the room before taking a step in. When she deems it safe, she closes it behind her and meets eyes with Izuku.

“Hi there.” She’s using the same voice one would for feral kittens, and she lowers herself just subtly enough that Izuku probably doesn’t notice. “I’m Jazz. Danny’s sister. What’s your name?”

“Midoriya,” he says as he smiles up at her. “Izuku. Please call me Izuku.”

"Well, that’s a nice name.” She takes a couple slow steps in. Danny’s glad that she’s being as nonthreatening as she can be; the last she heard about ‘Deku,’ he was unstable enough that he had told her he was worried about the Keep being blown up.

The vibrant shades of red that make up Izuku’s eyes start to swirl around like they do just before he starts muttering to himself. “If you’re Danny’s sister, does that make you a princess?”

Jazz, to give her credit, doesn’t startle as much as Danny does. He hadn’t really thought about that, since the whole ‘Ghost King Phantom’ thing is pretty recent, by ghost standards. Ghost Zone rules are always a bit weird, but if Dora being Aragon’s sister makes her royalty too, then what does that make Jazz? Or Danielle, for that matter. Last they knew, she flew off to Paris on a journey of self-discovery or something, but she’s ectoplasm related to the king, too. Technically.

“Well, my dad already calls me that.” Jazz laughs, but it’s a bit too forceful to be purely joking around. Danny can practically see the gears in her head turning, too.

Princess Jasmine Fenton has a nice ring to it.

“All those fancy titles are too stuffy for me already,” Danny adds. “I don’t wanna get my sister wrapped up in all that nonsense, too.”

Izuku hums a couple of times, furrowing his eyebrows, and then the muttering starts. Danny turns back to his sister.

“I have a lot to talk about.” He admits, and he can’t help but look down at the floor. The last couple of hours were… different. “A lot.”

She steps over just close enough to pat his cheek gently. He resists the urge to pull her into a hug and sink down to the floor for… ever. No other baby ghost has given him this much trouble, and, really, he doesn’t even know where to go from here. It’s a pretty pathetic thing for the Ghost King to think, but he always wants to have his big sister by his side at these times.

“We can talk,” she says gently. She gestures with her head behind him, and Danny catches the way Izuku is starting to nod off. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

She leaves the way she came, and Danny waits a normal amount of time, hopefully, before he steps to his bed. “I got some things to take care of,” he says, gently pushing Izuku back onto his pillows. “You can take a nap, if you want.”

Thankfully, without much fight, Izuku nods off.

When Danny had his accident, he couldn’t sleep for a week straight because of how jittery and unstable his powers made him feel. The fact that it’s not even been a day and he’s able to have human-like needs is... good? He knows that some of the ghosts do sleep and eat by choice, so it’s at least not something to worry about.

Probably.

Danny waits, watching, until a few seconds after he sees the little crackling donning his friend’s skin die down into nothing. Only then does he feel safe, sighing and phasing down into the kitchen. His parents have ghost alarms in the house, but after the eighth time the self-defense guns shot at their totally fully human son, they turned them off.

He finds Jazz in the kitchen, sipping what smells like instant hot chocolate from a white mug at the table. He takes the spot across from her, gratefully starting to nurse the similar mug she made for him. It smells of watery cocoa and sadness—a far cry from when she has the time to make true hot chocolate for him using the good Swiss bars—but somehow tastes better than it should. After eating nothing, then dealing with this morning, Vlad fruitloopery included, a warm cup of sugary chocolate made by his sister is the taste of heaven.

“Start wherever,” she says, and doesn’t push past that point.

“Well…” He trails off, honestly not knowing where to start. “I got his name?”

She giggles, and this time it sits right with his core. That’s how she usually sounds. “That’s good. What else?”

Both of their mugs are empty, save for the gross remnants at the bottom, by the time he’s finished. He might have taken more time than he needed to explain everything to her, admittedly. It was basically the first moment of the day where he didn’t have to worry about the baby ghost with unstable powers running loose or blowing everything up, so who can blame him for wanting to talk with his big sister for a little longer?

“I’ll call Sam and Tucker,” she offers, grabbing both of their dirty dishes to take to the sink. “And I’ll let Mom and Dad know not to bug you. At least not until we can figure out where the baby is staying.” Danny’s gut sinks a little at that reminder. Because there is no way he can hide the ghost in his room from his parents forever, no matter how oblivious they can be. “You should probably check on him.”

Just before he can fly through the ceiling again, Jazz gives him a small peck on his forehead. “You handled this pretty well, all things considered,” she says softly, smiling. “I’m proud of you.”

He wipes his forehead off with an embarrassed blush flushing his cheeks red. “Gross, germs.”

“Yeah, yeah, cooties.” She starts shooing him away, going back to rinsing out the dishes.

He fights off his own smile as he phases back to his room. They used to fight over the smallest of things all through their childhood—she was the overbearing, grade-obsessed, bossy older sister for most of his life—but since preventing his worst future, preventing Dan, things changed.

Izuku is still sound asleep, even snoring a little, when Danny checks on him. He doesn’t want to leave him alone, but watching someone sleep is always a little creepy. He has homework to do, as much as it hurts to admit that now is as good a time as any to do it. Grumbling, he floats over to his desk.

He really should clean it, anyway. There are pens scattered around it, and several loose papers are right alongside them. Jazz would scold him if she noticed the folded corners of his books, too. What was he even working on last, anyway? He glances at the papers, skimming the dull contents. A book report on a book he barely read the first chapter of, some chemistry problems that taunt him, and any number of half-done things that really don’t matter when your biggest worries have to do with running the entire Ghost Zone.

The paper he almost misses by a hair on the corner of the desk makes him stop. It’s not in English, let alone in his handwriting. Whatever letters it’s in aren’t even something he can even begin to understand.

At least, not while he’s Fenton.

He transforms, bright lights thankfully not waking up the sleeping ghost behind him. Fenton only knows English, but for some reason, since he became king, his Phantom side can now translate all languages into Ghost Speak. Since all ghosts are ‘born’ with the ability to speak the language perfectly, it's even simpler.

The letters never change on paper, but every time he uses this ability, it doesn’t matter. There’s no confusion or fumbling with the vocabulary in his head; he’s just able to read it.

A series of questions side by side, each reading from the top of the page down:

Does she has to have someone around to say her name at all times?

Does it have to be someone specific?

How often does it have to be said?

Can she just say her own name and get the same results?

If she’s left completely alone for longer periods of time, what happens?

The next character starts, but suddenly goes unfinished, leaving a pen smear across the page where it would have gone. It’s easy to guess who’s handwriting this is, and what happened to leave the next question unwritten.

Danny sighs and slides the paper into a pile along with the rest of them. The action goes half done before he pauses.

Sam, Tucker, and him have really only been concerned with documenting the things they'd come across, because that's what they assumed were the most important to note. Writing down questions like these makes him wonder. What if they’ll need to know the answers to these questions eventually?

If Ember ever tries saying her own name, will it be the same? She could get rid of her own weakness that way. What about the other ghosts? What haven’t they thought of yet that this baby ghost could?

As Izuku snores on behind him, Danny suddenly snorts in jealousy. It’s Sunday; a hardworking halfa like him deserves a nap, too. It’s not like he wants to meditate or even think about where the hell Izuku is going to be stashed tomorrow. Because there’s no way he’s coming to school with Danny. Though, it would be nice to see Dash totally piss his pants again.

He transforms and phases downstairs after he makes sure Izuku is asleep again, just to be safe. The couch suddenly calls his name, and he flops all of his weight onto it unceremoniously. It’s stiffer than usual, somehow, but it’s better than the floor. He grabs a pillow and sets it over his face to block out the sunlight trying to ruin his weekend.

Just a couple minutes in snoozeland, and then he’ll be a big boy and actually deal with all of this.

Chapter Text

The blanket Danny finds himself resting under is familiar; it's from Jazz's room, the light blue her favorite color. And the sticky note on the kitchen table is in her unmistakable, perfect cursive handwriting.

Out to get supplies for the baby. Be back later. Love you, Danny. ♥

Danny can't help a small smile at the tiny heart she's drawn next to his name. Unlike so many adults in his life, she's a rock, someone stable he can count on. He thinks back to the day of the accident. She hadn't even been there, nor had his parents. And he had been resentful of her back then, for being this stuck-up know-it-all who didn't care about anything but studying and pretending to be an adult.

Now he knows she was growing up too fast to try and be the only responsible one in the house taking care of an angry, lost teenager.

Now he remembers there's a curious, lost teenager in his room that he needs to take care of somehow.

When he transforms and phases back into his room, Izuku is still napping on his bed. Danny doesn't like that he seems thinner than he remembered. Has he always been this skinny, or is that a result of him not being properly fed since dying? He hasn't eaten any human food, but that isn't abnormal for fresh ghosts. But he should be hungry for some ectoplasmic food, at least.

Danny is, anyway. He had been too worried about all this to touch his food at the Nasty Burger. There has to be some benefit to being King of All Ghosts or whatever people call him. Can't he just snap his fingers and have a chef appear with a full-course meal for two hungry ghosts? Wouldn't that be nice?

Maybe he can at least ask some of the servants from Pariah's reign hovering around if they know how to cook. It has to be worth a shot. Danny turns away from the sleeping Izuku and holds up his hand towards the center of the room, calling forth a King's Door. It's one of the only benefits to being king; anyone who ruled over the Keep can summon doors to it and around the inside of it at will. Or at least he can, but who knows about Pariah?

The nicest part? The portal downstairs can stay locked whenever possible and he doesn't need Wulf to go to the Realms anymore. He's seen a lot fewer ghosts since locking the portal whenever his parents pulled themselves from downstairs to go do whatever they did when they left town for weeks at a time.

He grabs the knob, picturing his room to tell it where he wants it to go, and twists before stepping through and ending up… Not in his room.

The ticking of thousands of clocks, the purple hue of the air around him, the high ceilings covered in endlessly turning gears—that bastard kidnapped him again.

Danny throws up his hands immediately upon realizing. "Didn't we do this last week, old man?"

No snarky voice answers, but he hadn't expected it to. Clockwork doesn't make anything easy or simple. So Danny plods forward deeper into the lair. He doesn't have to think about where he's going; he just has to float along in whatever direction feels natural.

Long Now, Clockwork's lair, is strange like that. If Clockwork wants you there, you'll find your way without having to try. If you're not meant to be there or if he knows you're coming to make trouble, you’ll be lucky to be stuck in a time loop of the same three hallways over and over until you curse his name and give up. At which point the exit will somehow always appear directly in front of you.

Danny was there to see that one day when Skulker trailed after him with the intent to surprise him, and Clockwork had given him this mischievous smirk and showed him what happens when people try to be violent in his lair. Danny also thinks Clockwork might have shown that to him on purpose to teach him a lesson or something. His time lessons are never straightforward, though, so he can never be sure what’s a lesson and what’s him being a jerk.

He doesn’t have to wander far. It's only a couple of hallways down his path that he comes across a dead end, a midnight black door greeting him where a blank wall had been. His arriving here unwillingly and then coming across Clockwork’s pond room easily means he's right about not being taken here for their usual tea time.

The door creaks open for him, the ticking getting just a hint louder, and Danny rolls his eyes at the theatrics, all too in character for this particular ghost.

He floats along the long carpeted path, deep stone bowls of murky water lining each side spaced apart perfectly. He doesn't look in any of them as he goes—it’s not meant for regular ghosts, half-ghosts, or, really, anyone to gaze into, not without Clockwork's permission anyway—he just stops just in front of Clockwork floating at his biggest bowl at the end of the red rug, facing away on purpose, most likely.

"Alright, what do you want, old man?" Danny lands on the ground, crossing his arms and bracing himself for anything the Ancient could throw at him.

Clockwork turns to face him, shifting into a child like he's spiting the old man remark. Danny doesn't like that he's already smiling, the corners of his mouth turned up like a cat who's about to cause trouble. Or, in his case, about to give some vague warning or advice that ranges in seriousness.

"Hello to you too, Danny." At the very least, Danny likes that he doesn't call him some stuffy title like Great Phantom or Ruler of All Ghosts. He may be annoying, but they're somewhat of equals in each other's eyes. Danny doesn't call him Master of Time, either.

"Cut to the chase," Danny snaps a little. "You warped me here, so you have something to say."

"Very well, we'll skip the pleasantries." He has the nerve to sound disappointed, like he isn't the one who couldn't wait until their scheduled tea time to make small talk. He shifts to his adult form. "You've made a new friend, and an interesting one at that. How are you planning on handling him, exactly?"

It's not a good thing that Clockwork finds Izuku interesting, not when he's seen everything and knows everything and is one of the most powerful ghosts to ever walk the many universes. But still, Danny could use some help, cryptic ghost help as it will be.

"He's practically a baby." Danny feels the need to defend anyway. "Of course he's a handful. I'm figuring it out as I go along." He thinks of Sam, Tucker, and Jazz back home. "We all are."

"He must be trained properly, you know this." Clockwork is seemingly scolding him for his attempts at keeping this baby controlled, like Danny hasn't already gotten some advice from a ghost he trusts on this kind of stuff. He's not so dumb he'd try to do this totally alone. Frostbite is a trustworthy ghost, despite Vlad's comment about him.

In fact, Danny thinks back to his little confusing encounter with Vlad and how weirdly helpful he's being about this whole situation.

"He's a fruitloop, but he knows what he's doing. Frostbite, too." That's something he has to cave on, at least. Vlad is the more experienced one and has been very happy to offer up his knowledge for a price. He just never liked the price. If he wasn't so insufferable as to be asking him to denounce his dad, maybe he'd consider it. "What more can I be doing for Izuku? I can't just send him home, anyway. You know I can't make portals to other worlds like you can."

The realization hits him, and he glares up at the purple fiend. Clockwork's lack of response is response enough.

"You know where he's from?" Clockwork tilts his head to the side and smiles again, probably thinking of course I do like a smug jerk. "So you can just send him home whenever you want?"

"Time does not limit itself to one singular world, universe, or timeline," he answers. His face turns back down to normal for his next words. "But do you think sending him away is what's best for him right now?"

Danny knows that's his way of telling him he's an idiot for thinking of sending an unstable baby to his old world where he may or may not survive on his own. Danny himself probably wouldn't have had he not been around a steady supply of ectoplasm and had some leeway to get a handle on his out-of-control powers around people he trusts. Danny is the closest thing Izuku has to those things.

Danny doesn't reply right away; he doesn't have to. Clockwork knows the correct answer.

"I've seen what he could have been in his world and what he can be here." Danny knows Clockwork can't give much more than that. He's gotten the lecture about how saying too much can mess with the timeline. "His fate is not up to me or you," he says. "But which do you think might be better?"

From what Danny knows about Izuku's world, he isn't happy with it. It's clear he wasn't treated right. But he must have had people he cared about, and there had to be someone who cared about him, right? A kid like him—all wide-eyed, curious, and innocent yet mature in his morals—there must have been someone to see the good in him.

If Clockwork rewrote time so that Izuku had never jumped, had persevered despite his suffering, or maybe had had someone reach out with a helping hand, would that be better? Would he have found his way, found his friends, and reached his dream? Or was he doomed anyway, to be beaten and burned and tormented wherever he went, no matter how hard he worked, or how positive he tried to be?

Or will this timeline, where two half ghosts and some humans try and help him be happy with his fate, be any better? Will he be happier being a dead hero here, in this town where he's found people who won't kick him while he's down and will instead help him grow into the hero he so clearly wants to be? Amity Park has grown a lot over the years; Phantom is more widely tolerated, accepted even, by people now, the younger ones anyway. Adults not so much. But the good ghosts, the ones who don't have his bad reputation, have found humans who invite them into their homes. Is this a better place for Izuku to be? Or will he finally remember his old life and cry for the people he misses who he thinks he can never see again?

Danny doesn't know. It isn't like he can ask, either. They both know about the Observants and how much they hate the two of them, most of all Clockwork, who does his best to shift the timelines to the best outcome despite being under their thumb a lot of the time.

"If given the right influence," Clockwork eventually says, "he will be something great. It is up to you and your allies to give him what he needs. Just remember that my lair is open whenever you decide what that might be."

Danny knows a dismissal when he hears one. Clockwork isn't going to give him anything more than that. He probably can't.

"Thanks, old man." The term is said with a little less annoyance this time. Despite everything about the ghost, how much he does like to play with people, sometimes even him, Danny is happy that someone's trying to give him advice.

Clockwork says nothing, only waves his staff forward and swirls the top gently. The black door appears directly behind Danny, opening slowly to his room in the Keep. After all this, Danny had briefly forgotten why he'd summoned the door in the first place. He nods one last time at the Ancient, who smiles a bit more kindly this time, and floats through.

The moment he does, the door disappears as if it had never existed in the first place.

Now, to find some ghost baby-friendly food in this place.

Chapter Text

"It's… blue."

Izuku stares at the purple-spotted lump on the plate Danny's set on his sheets next to a fork. It's almost cartoonishly weird, like something people think aliens eat. What's plated next to it are small balls that look like grapes, if grapes are neon orange and striped yellow. Izuku pokes at the items curiously, but they're both a bit more squishy than he expects. He pulls back, a tiny bit more disgusted despite the nice-looking, gold-flora-decorated plate both things are on.

"It's blue," Danny agrees, sighing. He's back to looking like Danny, not Phantom, as they both sit cross-legged on his bed, facing each other. "I promise it's not toxic; all ghost food just looks real weird."

Even though he's saying that and Izuku has no reason to doubt him, he still just stares down at the plate like it's going to come to life. Ghost food hits him a little softer than it should. It was just earlier in the day that he found out he's dead, and now he's at least considering eating food that dead people eat.

"Okay, how about this?" He looks up at Danny, who takes one of the not-grapes in between his fingers. "I eat something; you eat something. We can go back and forth, and you can, I dunno…" He stops to think but then snaps his other hand's fingers. "You've gotta have some questions about all this. I'll answer what I can until we're done eating. Sound good?"

He does have a bunch of questions; he's sure of it. But everything just kind of jumbles in his head, rattling around until nothing coherent comes up. He looks over at Danny's desk. It's covered in papers and messy like it was before that ghost woman showed up, but having something to write on has helped him keep track of his thoughts and questions.

"Do you have a notebook?"

Danny follows his eyes, then nods and floats up and towards the desk, quickly searching. Papers and a couple of books end up on the floor, and Izuku cringes at the disaster that this is—he doesn't know what kind of parents Danny has, but his skin crawls when he thinks about himself making this much of a loud mess at school—but Danny comes back with an empty notebook and a pen to put in his lap.

"These alright?" Izuku nods, uncapping the pen and flipping the first page of the fresh notebook open. "Okay, so—" He takes one of the not-grapes and pops it in his mouth, quickly chewing it and swallowing it. "I eat, you eat. You can ask whatever you want, and if I can answer it, I will."

Since he doesn't seem to be getting food poisoning from the not-grape, Izuku replicates him, grabbing one and eating it. It tastes nothing like a fruit or berry (it's actually more like a daikon, with a subtle spiciness), so he swallows, feeling a bit more safe about that part of the meal at least.

"Good." Danny seems to let out a relieved sigh. "Okay, shoot. You've got to have questions."

If Danny is going to let him ask whatever, then he at least wants to get a better idea of just where he is. He certainly doesn't recognize any place he's been today. All he's gotten is a quick 'welcome to Amity Park' earlier. "Where am I?"

"A bit of a broad question," Danny jokes, and eats another not-grape. "If you mean in the universe, this is Earth. If you mean in the world, this is America. If you mean in America, you're in Illinois. If you mean in Illinois, you're in a small town called Amity Park. I could go smaller, but that would mean telling you that you're in my room, which is the one thing you already knew."

"America?" Izuku asks. He isn't sure where he's supposed to be, or where he was before he died, but he knows it definitely isn't here. "Illinois?"

"Yeah." Danny just nods. "I see that, so I can imagine you're not from around here." He points down at Izuku's writing. Without even realizing it, he's written down 'America.'

"No, I don't think so." At least, he remembers him living in a bigger city than this one, and he hadn't ever really seen those wide-open skies and grassy plains before. He had wanted to lie down there and just cloud-watch for hours when they were flying to see Vlad. It had looked so nice and calm.

"Well," Danny says, shrugging. "You're here now. I can look up what language that is if you want."

"Japanese," Izuku says. He snaps his mouth shut because he hadn't meant to open it and hadn't told it to speak that word. It's the same thing that happened when Danny asked the last thing he remembered before appearing in his throne room. That can only mean one thing. He hears his skin start crackling and tries to keep it tempered like Vlad had told him to. He's in control of it. He is. Not anyone else.

"Alright." Danny nods again, and his voice is a bit higher pitched now. "You wrote a bit about Ember earlier." It's a clear distraction, but Izuku will take it. He doesn't really like remembering the sunset before he died or the burning of his shoulder as he held a notebook not unlike this one close to his chest. "You're pretty talented. It's taken Sam, Tucker, and me years to study our enemies like that."

Izuku eats another not-grape and doesn't smile. The praise should feel nice, but instead it feels weird. He feels he wishes someone would have said that sooner. "Thanks." He draws a small flower in the notebook next to the unfamiliar word 'Inko' and doesn't ask anything.

Danny frowns when he remains silent, but they continue to eat after each other until all the not-grapes are gone. Danny tries to smile as he offers the silver fork to him for him to try the blue blob, but all he feels is a little sick staring down at the small writing that says 'It's fine now because I am here.'

When someone knocks at the door, Danny sighs in disappointment and drops the fork to answer it. Izuku continues to draw doodles of flowers in the notebook as Jazz comes into the room with a couple of grocery bags, talking quietly with her brother.

When they finish, Jazz comes over, smiling brightly, and sets both bags on the bed in front of him, narrowly avoiding the half-eaten plate. "I brought gifts for the two of you. Well, mostly you," she tells Izuku, then looks back at Danny. "And I told Sam and Tucker the deal, so they're working on figuring tomorrow out."

"Thanks, Jazz," Danny replies for him, sitting down next to him and crowding the bed again. "We appreciate it."

"I heard Mom and Dad talking about leaving town soon for some ghost convention," she adds.

"Good time for some power testing, right?" Danny nudges his arm, loudly adding, "I know some good places where we can really let loose and see what a hero like you can do."

Hero. The word stops him from finishing whatever 'Kacc' was going to be in his notebook. He can't help but brighten up a little to match the siblings' energy. "As long as we're not hurting anyone."

He thinks back to the kid in the restaurant, Dash, he thinks Danny called him, and can't help but think he should see what he can do when he's not lashing out. He's sure it must be different, even if only a little. Knowing what it feels like when he's trying to exert power versus when he's doing it accidentally must be useful for those moments.

"We won't be," Danny soothes casually. Jazz is shuffling clothes and amenities next to him. Izuku feels bad for not thanking her right away. He knows all of this at once can't be cheap. "There's abandoned parts of town that no one lives in. And some nice, sturdy concrete walls for you to throw some fire at."

He can throw fire? Can he control the temperature? The spread? Is it continuous or just a burst? Will the color change along with the temperature, or is that something he has to think about to change? And how useful is that for everyday life? Cooking dinner or making tea in a building with no electricity would be a nice benefit for people.

"There it is." Danny floats off the bed while Izuku continues writing down some possibilities of his powers. Is his skin flammable when he's angered? "Jazz, thanks for all this, really."

She just scoffs. "You know it's all out of Dad's 'sorry we're not around' budget, Danny. He keeps putting money on that card for a reason." It's the most bitter and resentful Izuku has ever heard the cheerful sister sound, her words suddenly sharp and harsh like she's spitting them on the ground in disgust. Izuku can't help but stop writing to listen in.

"I know," Danny says. "But thanks. And for talking with Sam and Tucker. I blanked on filling them in ever since the Nasty Burger incident, which was—" Danny pauses to search for a clock, then sighs to the ceiling. "Jeez, that was like six hours ago. They must have been so confused."

"I know it's been a long day," she says, smiling gently. Her voice is soft again, like she can't find herself to be angry in Danny's presence anymore. She sounds more like a mother than a sister. "You've done so well."

Jazz wraps her brother in a tight hug, which he doesn't resist. Izuku even hears him take in a shuddering, unstable breath. Jazz pats his head and hums a small tune to calm him, and Danny reaches his arms up to reciprocate the hug. Izuku feels like he shouldn't be here watching this tender moment between siblings, so he shoves himself back into his notebook as they start whispering to each other.

He only gets through a doodle of a cow's face and a small note to make katsudon for Danny later before they're done with their soft conversation. When Danny pulls back and turns to face him, his eyes are a bit red and puffy, but he smiles for Izuku.

"Why don't you give your stuff to Jazz so she can wash them and we can get you out of here and in front of a target?"

Chapter Text

Izuku is a quick learner. Where it took Danny weeks to go from phasing his pants down when he got embarrassed in front of his old crush Paulina to having control over the basics, or even just thinking of himself as not really human anymore, Izuku seems to be transitioning easier.

Even now, with a couple of shiny ice targets haphazardly iced across the concrete walls of one of the many abandoned buildings in Elmerton, he's scribbling his thoughts and observations down and only getting better, if slowly. Danny doesn't mind the small breaks in between Izuku testing his powers against his unbreakable, unmeltable ice. He's been handling all of this since the early morning—curse his inability to sleep in even on weekends thanks to king duties or whatever—and it's nice to be able to rest his eyes while the new ghost mumbles out his questions as he harshly marks down whatever he's observing.

The sun is setting soon, too. They've been out here for some time, and though Phantom could theoretically go on for weeks and not get that tired—becoming king, or even just growing stronger over the last years, has raised his stamina and energy levels—Fenton could use a second or third or fourth nap. He knows Jazz is at home, though, and promised him a warm dinner when they got back.

Izuku sets his notebook down on the ground, almost too carefully, gently, then sets his hand in front of him again. For the past twenty minutes, he's been working on maintaining a steady flow of fire, keeping it as consistent as possible while marking down whatever interrupts it.

Danny had jump-started his core's powers by freezing hundreds of tree-thick, slithering vines from Amity Park, shattering them, and freeing everyone about to be fed to Undergrowth's plant army.

This seems a lot safer.

His hand lights up steadily, his blue skin only barely crackling as he strains to keep the blue flame at no higher temperature than a particularly hot shower. Danny can feel it from where he's standing a few feet back, though, and he can tell the flickering is the heat struggling to contain itself. Izuku could very well flood the half-destroyed building with fire, spilling smoke out of the broken concrete roof if he isn't careful.

Danny offers encouragement intermittently, but it isn't clear whether Izuku can even hear him when he's struggling to follow Vlad's advice and keep the temperature stable. That's what he said he was doing when he first started doing this, anyway. Now he might just be seeing how long he can maintain this exact temperature and size before it either vanishes in a puff of smoke or bursts out of control and has to have Danny breathe freezing air on it before it can burn up the damaged crates around the edges of the room.

That one had happened earlier, and Izuku seemed a bit freaked out about damaging the ruined building, no matter how many times Danny insisted no one came here or had lived here in decades. Supposedly, it's ectocontaminated. He feels no such thing when he comes here, no sour tingle in the air, so it might just be the mayor providing excuses so he can one day tear it down and build a mall or some other 'waste of precious earthly resources,' so Sam says.

Izuku mumbles something to himself just before snapping his fist shut so the fire vanishes into thin air, then picks up his green notebook and pen, flips to the last page he was in, and jots something down. Danny should ask to read it later.

He also thinks he should show Izuku the ones on his enemies. Who knows what he might observe just from their notes. Before they moved everything digital, it was Tucker's job to manually write down terrible, amateur notes on his growing, changing, unstable powers and methods to keep disasters down. Izuku would probably like to read that book, too.

He feels Valerie before he sees her flying above them. She has her scanner programmed to ignore him now, but not Izuku. He puts his hand on Izuku's shoulder. "I'll be right back." The baby turns to hum questioningly at him. The last thing he's written is something about the link between his mental triggers and his temperature changes.

"I just gotta talk to a friend real quick." Izuku frowns, so Danny smiles and adds, "You can keep going without me; this'll only take a couple of minutes. You've made some pretty good progress already, so I trust you to be alone if that's what you're worried about. Afterwards, we can take a break from fire to work on invisibility."

That seems to settle whatever Izuku is concerned about, because he returns a smile and goes back to writing in his notebook, and Danny takes to the skies, making sure his crown is sitting invisibly on top of his head. Having it visible is bad news. He's only gotten by not having his parents or Valerie find out because none of the other ghosts dare to be around them long enough to give them the news, if the three of them would believe a ghost anyway. A nice, flaming green crown, though, is a bit hard to ignore.

He doesn't have to wait long, hovering many feet in the air, for Valerie, now dubbed the 'Red Huntress' by their high school, to find him and come to a halt on her hoverboard in front of him with her arms crossed tight across her blood-red suit.

"Another rogue of yours?" she asks. He can hear her displeased frown even from behind her helmet. "I thought you said they weren't your friends, Phantom."

He shakes his head, thinking of their previous conversation about Ember, Skulker, and every other ghost that apparently only causes trouble because they're bored and want to fight someone strong. Valerie finally understands that they seek him out no matter where he is (and will ravage the town until he appears) and that they're on the same side because he's one of the only things in the world that can handle them.

Until all of them are gone, in which case she'll go right back to hunting him.

He still hasn't told her the boy she used to date is the same ghost she wants to hunt viciously.

"This one isn't violent."

She pointedly looks down at Izuku, currently sending small, bullet-like flames rapidly out of his palm and onto his ice targets. Every fire bullet seems to shake the walls just a tiny bit, since most of them spew almost randomly forward and miss the ice.

"I'm teaching him to control his powers so he isn't," he clarifies. "He just died, Red. I'm working on a way to send him home, but he's under my protection for the time being."

It's a warning and he sees her hands clench at it. Good. He doesn't like threatening her and doesn't want to fight her, but Izuku can't. If his safety comes from being a bit more intimidating about this, from reminding her who the stronger one is, so be it.

"So I won't let any of the other ghosts get near him and if he goes out of control, I'll handle it," he promises. "All I'm asking is that you leave him alone, alright?"

She looks down at Izuku writing in his notebook again. Danny waits for whatever her response is. Depending on what it is, he might have to change his plans for Izuku. Keeping him in the castle isn't ideal, not when he wants to send him to wherever his home is eventually and needs him to be ready to live with humans, even if invisibly, but that's better than having him be hunted by Valerie if she decides he's too big of a threat.

"Fine," she says. She sticks an accusing finger at his chest. "If he harms even a single person, though, it's your head I'm coming for."

He gives her a tight salute, straightening his back and legs like a pencil. "Sir, yes, sir."

Her shoulders lower, releasing tension, and she scoffs at his overly stiff tone. It's always a good way to get her to relax a little in the face of Phantom, even if her wariness is merely replaced by annoyance. She looks back down at Izuku again, who's still practicing his fire bullets. His aim is already improving, mostly hitting the target now.

"Just died, huh?" She almost whispers it, sympathy creeping into her voice as she stares down into the building. She told him about her mother just once while they were dating and how she died before she could even see her baby girl graduate high school. She turns back to him. "Keep him under control, and we won't have a problem."

She's gone just as quickly as she arrived. Danny watches her go, disappearing back towards her house, before landing back down behind Izuku.

"All done," he announces, and Izuku startles a tiny bit at his sudden appearance, the ball of fire in his right palm bursting violently into angry, sharp bursts that scatter lit cinders across the ground. Izuku stamps them out swiftly.

"Sorry," he apologizes. He still needs more work on keeping that under control when interrupted or troubled, it seems. Admittedly, Vlad will know more about that than Danny will. "Let's work on invisibility, yeah?"

Two hours later, and a lot of failed invisibility attempts and accidentally phasing into the ground, leading to Danny having to pull him out, Izuku is tired. His blue skin is darker, almost navy; his deep red eyes are so dark they're almost black. Danny remembers sometimes losing control of Phantom's tanned color, turning himself light blue, especially in the beginning or when he's angry.

"We can stop here," he tells Izuku, who's sitting cross-legged on the ground with a half-full notebook in his lap. It's open on a page about theorizing if he could turn his fire into a guided vortex with enough control and power.

Izuku seems like he's about to protest and probably say something about wanting to keep going despite looking like he's going to collapse, so Danny continues, "We can come back. Jazz is probably waiting for us, and I don't want to keep her long. Sound good?"

Izuku shrugs at that, shutting his book and standing up. He seems to like her well enough. They haven't even talked much, so Danny doesn't know why he feels that way towards her, but it's a nice thing they get along when she's his sister. It would suck if Izuku hated her for some reason. Not that Jazz wouldn't try to make friends with him anyway. She's just like that.

They take to the skies shortly after Izuku tucks his notebook to his chest like it'll be taken away and make it home quickly enough. Izuku is keeping up well enough now, despite only flying a total of maybe five times.

He grabs Izuku by the elbow and phases him into his bedroom. After transforming and doing a quick scan of the house, feeling around for his parents and sensing them still in the lab, he nods at Izuku and takes him down the stairs to the kitchen where Jazz is. She's sitting at the table with a book and a cup of half-drunk tea and smiles warmly at the two of them.

"How was it?"

Danny nods, sitting down next to her. Izuku follows suit, sitting across from her. "Good. We're making decent progress." Izuku puts his notebook on the table and continues writing where he left off. Danny will probably need to get him a new notebook real soon with the pace he's writing at.

"Good, good." A timer rings from the stove, and Jazz gets up to pull something out of the oven. After turning the stove off, Danny sees her put a serving spoon next to the dish of meatloaf. She turns to both of them. "Dinner, you two. There's mashed potatoes and green beans over there." She gestures with her head at the counter, where a pot and a pan, still steaming, sit on top of cork board pot holders.

"Thanks, Jazz." Danny can feel how empty his stomach is. Hot chocolate and tiger grapes aren't proper meals for the hard day he's had.

Danny gestures for Izuku to get some too, even if he's not going to touch it much, and soon the three of them are sitting back at the table with plates in front of them. Izuku bows his head and says a quick prayer, and the three of them eat.

Jazz's cooking is always good. She never brings food to life and doesn't cook with ectoplasm unless he asks her to. He grew up distrusting food thanks to his parents' methods of cooking, but never hers. They stopped cooking five years ago anyway, and Jazz took over when it became clear their work was more important than feeding their children.

Danny's at least grateful they still give them plenty of money to feed themselves. Jazz seems to hate them even more for that. He's come to accept his relationship with them; she talks about going to Harvard the moment she graduates and taking him with her when she goes, despite him saying he can probably never leave Amity Park with that portal still open.

Izuku does eat his plate, his smaller portion aside, and Danny scarfs down a second while Izuku thanks Jazz for the meal. She always seems a bit brighter with Izuku around. It must be nice to have someone besides him appreciating her hard work. Sam and Tucker don't like to be at his house too often, let alone stick around for meals when his parents do show themselves and ruin dinner with their 'we want to dissect ghosts' talk sometimes.

They didn't show up tonight. Jazz apparently told them she was tutoring someone all night tonight and that she'd appreciate them not bothering the two of them. It isn't like she has to do much convincing when they practically live down there.

Danny does dishes while Izuku writes some more things down and Jazz sets up the living room for the three of them. When Danny finishes, Jazz has brought all the spare pillows and blankets across their couch. Izuku makes himself a small spot on one cushion, curling up like he doesn't want to even be seen 'imposing' on their living space.

Jazz takes the spot next to him, throwing a blanket across their shoulders while Danny picks a CD of a superhero movie he thinks Izuku will like.

It isn't like it matters. Laying his head on Jazz's lap while she pets his head is one of the only ways he sleeps soundly, but even though he makes sure the two of them are safely asleep first, it's still barely halfway into the movie that he drifts off, too.

Chapter Text

It's a good thing Sam's grandmother is one of the adults who is okay with ghosts. Or, at least, with the ones her granddaughter vouches for.

Sam says nothing but nice things about Phantom? He's welcome to stay in her house, and she doesn't need to tell Sam's overprotective, ghost-phobic parents about him hanging out in her bedroom. Sam tells her that there's a sweet, young ghost named Izuku who just needs a place to hide for a few days? Grandma Ida will help hide him in her basement.

It isn't like the Mansons care to go down there, with its bowling alley that they only added for Ida and Sam, or the movie theatre that Sam's weird, 'underprivileged' friends spend too much time in.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker have to go to school like good sophomores in the miserable classrooms of Casper High. A ghost like Izuku? While he might get fawned over like the younger ghosts tend to—convincing everyone that Ember isn't to be trusted hasn't been totally successful, no matter how much their hero Phantom encourages everyone to stay away—guys like Dash or Dale might just see him as a threat, or, more likely, another nerd to pick on.

Izuku scribbling away in his notebook happily and hanging out with the trio of losers on his first day around the A-listers? That's an invitation to get socked in the face and called a loser behind the benches after school, even if they know he's a ghost that could probably kill them easily. Danny doesn't doubt that they might just be that stupid and arrogant, and he isn't sure Izuku knows how to hold back if he retaliates.

So, it really is nice that Ida trusts Sam like this. Enough to let Phantom phase him down into her basement while her parents enjoy their breakfast with Ida and to let Sam carry his backpack down there, stuffed with some things he thinks Izuku will like. And, most importantly, to distract the Mansons so they don't hear the obnoxiously loud whistle Danny lets out.

Izuku makes himself comfortable on one of the movie theater's chairs, sitting cross-legged in the blue jeans and green hoodie that Jazz picked out for him. He had claimed the hoodie right away, the dark green color and simple, white cartoon bunny on the front suddenly making him reach for it out of everything else. It's baggy around his lanky frame, and he's practically swimming in the excess fabric, but Jazz knows that's what Danny prefers, and with the way Izuku doesn't complain, it must just be a teenager thing.

Cujo comes to his heel quickly enough; somehow he can always hear Danny no matter where he whistles from. He intangibly digs his way up from the ground, and Danny kneels down to pet him fondly, the yapping puppy always happy to get to be near who he's decided is his owner. At least Valerie isn't hunting the innocent puppy anymore. Not that she likes him; she's just decided that anything he has or will destroy is now Phantom's fault, as his owner.

"Watch him, okay, boy?" He says, pointing at Izuku, and Cujo barks again, tongue rolled out like he's not paying any attention, but he is, because he immediately trots over and makes himself comfortable at the ghost's feet, wagging his tail and staying alert despite the comfortable environment for a nap.

Sam sets the lights comfortably dim, a couple of snacks Danny picked out for Izuku on the table next to his seat. Danny, too, reaches in his bag, past the actual school books he still has packed in there, to the three notebooks filled with the trio's amateur analysis from so long ago. He sets them on Izuku's lap.

"This one's on me," he says, pointing at the green one, then gestures at the two blue ones, identical in appearance except one has some singes from an early fight with Ember. "These are on my enemies." Danny hadn't thought of whether or not Izuku can actually read them until right this second, being in English, but he continues a bit more hesitantly, "I know it's not much by way of entertainment for the next few hours, but—"

"No, this is perfect!" Izuku's eyes practically sparkle. Actually, they do. The red swirls, something akin to stars sparkling in the depths, his excited smile evident and a little blinding. He tucks the green one to his chest, his own matching one on the side table. He hasn't let it leave his sight since he got his hands on it. "There's so much I can learn just from this."

Danny doesn't know if he means for Phantom or for himself as he flips to the first page and lets his eyes quickly scan the contents. He must be able to read it somehow, because he's already mumbling something to himself, his hand seemingly itching for his pen like he needs to get all of it out before he forgets.

That's something he should ask Vlad about, actually. King Phantom can read, write, and speak any language his subjects can, automatically translating them in his head, but Fenton can only speak English and Ghost Speak. He hasn't even had time to address that Izuku apparently spoke Hebrew to Sam yesterday morning at the Nasty Burger. He had only heard English, as had Tucker, but her text told them otherwise. Danny hasn't had time to connect all of this to a cohesive theory, but at least everyone is able to understand each other.

He looks over at Sam, then back at Izuku, and she sees the way he's now lost to the world, so the two of them share a shrug. They have to get to school, and Danny needs to get the two of them airborne sooner rather than later. Tucker got a nice head start, choosing to follow their usual route to school to not make things more suspicious for the Mansons.

With a final goodbye to Cujo and Izuku and a promise to get home as quickly as possible—and an excited reminder from Izuku that they're going to see Vlad again afterwards—they're gone. Danny can only hope this time goes better and that he's being a better friend by not leaving him with no one around to help.

School sucks, as it always does. There's nothing new about this time except that Danny manages to avoid detention. Valerie does not. She takes the longest ghost fight for him before he can, though definitely not intentionally, because Mr. Lancer gives her a disappointed sigh and warns her not to follow in Danny's footsteps while handing her the white paper after she comes back from her 'bathroom break' forty minutes later.

Danny can't thank her, not without either making her very confused or making her wonder why Danny knows she's the Red Huntress, but he reminds himself to buy her a nice snack to leave on her bed soon. She's used to Phantom doing things like that now, even if she's not happy about him briefly breaking into her room to do it.

Dash, Dale, and Kwan have some football thing every Monday and Friday, the same as Paulina and Star for their cheerleading team, so Danny thanks their athletics for keeping them out of his way so he can hug Sam and Tucker, who take his backpack, wish him good luck, and say they'll take his things home, and fly off to collect Izuku so they can meet up with the fruitloop.

Cujo is still resting at Izuku's feet when he phases down into Sam's basement, Izuku still looking through the analysis of Phantom, though the only snack he's touched is some trail mix as well as a soda bottle taken maybe four sips out of. Danny might have to bring him some more ghost food; he needs to be eating something, it being human or ghost food irrelevant.

"How are you holding up?" he asks, settling on the ground in front of him. "Ready to go?"

Izuku doesn't reply right away, still staring down at the open book, but notices him quickly enough and smiles up at him. "Hey Danny," he says. Then he tilts his head. "Er, Phantom?"

Danny is still transformed, so he nods. "It's technically Phantom when I'm like this, but you can call me either when it's just the two of us or when we're with Sam, Tucker, or Jazz."

"Is that your hero name?" he asks. "It actually says 'Danny Phantom' in here." He flips to the first few pages, pointing down at Tucker's sloppy handwriting.

"It was 'Danny Phantom' at first," he admits. "But Sam pointed out that it would be pretty easy for people to make the connection to Danny Fenton if they thought about it for even a few minutes. When she made the point, it was early enough that people forgot that I went by anything other than Phantom."

He remembers the stupid 'Inviso-Bill' thing some people came up with and cringes. "So, yeah. It's just Phantom now. All the ghosts know who I am but assume all humans except Sam, Tucker, and Jazz don't to be safe. I never know who's okay with Phantom, so try to keep that in mind if you talk to any humans, alright?"

He thinks of Ida, who's smart enough and close enough with Sam to probably make the connection, and Valerie, who might be close to figuring it out, too, but he's not about to introduce that headache to Izuku. He hasn't even gotten into True Names, considering he doesn't know if Izuku has forgotten that he called himself a False Name, 'Deku,' when he first appeared in front of him. That's a whole headache and a half that he'll get to one day, maybe.

"Sure," he says. Izuku taps his pen against his knee, flipping through to the most recent page of his personal notebook, much closer to the end than Danny expected. "I want to try some new things soon."

The most recent pages, the parts he gets a glimpse at, are of surprisingly well-done drawings of a rabbit-themed costume and a utility belt laid flat vertically, but he lands on a page packed with notes. Since he's Phantom, he can read Japanese. It seems like a lot of theories about what's universal for all ghosts based on the three books—and he's gotten it right that all ghosts have invisibility, intangibility, flight, and overshadowing from the get-go, even though Danny isn't sure that any of the three of them wrote that down in those books explicitly—and what's core-based.

Izuku seems to think that the Lunch Lady has a core that allows her to control food as long as it was once alive and use gravity-based powers to control the things that aren't. It explains her reanimated meat monsters better than any other core, most of which are elemental. The three of them were never really able to pin down what made her telekinetic with their limited knowledge of cores. Frostbite mentioned dark cores yesterday. Danny will have to ask if that fits with Izuku's theory. He really should have asked what light, dark, and space cores entailed. Especially the space one.

Izuku also notes that Skulker might actually be an electric core rather than fire. With his flaming hair, it seems obvious that that's thematically appropriate, but Izuku writes that since his power comes from his technology, his core might be electric, and the flames come from the overheating of his suit redistributing the heat so it doesn't harm the metal. Danny thinks back to how he is out of his suit, the tiny blob ghost, and how he isn't able to fight back with any fire, and agrees that maybe there's something to his theory.

"We can, but we have to go see Vlad first." Izuku perks up, and Danny wishes he had that kind of opinion on the fruitloop. If he hadn't immediately declared war by attacking his family at the reunion, Danny might have accepted his offer to train under him.

"Of course," Izuku says, setting down his notebook. His eyes don't leave it as he floats up to stand next to Danny.

"It'll be safe here," Danny says. He doesn't think it's very healthy for him to be so protective of it; that's how ghosts go on violent rampages if their item gets destroyed. "Sam and Tucker'll be here in, like, half an hour, and I can tell them to look over it." He pauses, unsure if Izuku will react negatively to this if he's not careful. There must be some reason he's protective of his notes above everything else so far, after all. "If that's okay? They won't destroy it or hide it from you, I promise."

"That's fine!" he says, smiling brightly. He touches his finger to the book, running it across the spine while he thinks. His skin starts to crackle deep red just the tiniest bit, popping quietly with unlit sparks. "It… actually makes me happy to hear someone might be interested in my stupid notes."

There's a lot of underlying sadness in that last part, which Danny thinks might break Jazz's heart a little if she heard that. "I don't think your notes are stupid." Izuku's eyes snap back up to him, and Danny continues, "Like I said, I think you're very talented, and I'm sure your notes will help us a lot in the long run. Your drawings were really good, too." More detailed gear than anything Danny can come up with, anyway. He might have to find someone who can make that a reality for Izuku. "And I can get you more notebooks, so don't feel bad about writing so much."

Izuku bites his lip, and his eyes start to water a tiny bit, but no tears fall. Danny decides he shouldn't keep pressing here, when there might be a lot more than just some little self-esteem problems behind his wobbly smile.

"Ready?"

Izuku nods, scuffing the back of his hands across his watery eyes and trying to pretend he wasn't about to cry from a little bit of praise. "Ready."

Chapter Text

It's so nice to be able to talk with someone who knows more about Izuku's 'core' than Danny does. Vlad even puts up with his inane questions, even if he flinches when Vlad moves his hands a lot as he talks. He's trying to get over that, but he keeps expecting someone with a sharper voice to be behind the violence that isn't happening.

Vlad really is a nice man. He waits for Izuku to finish his questions before beginning to answer them and seems to at least tolerate listening to some of his theories when he asks about them.

Sometimes it's just a yes or no, though, no reciprocation of his excited curiosity.

Yes, you can think of your core like a heart or a soul if that helps visualize it.

No, it does not pump blood, nor do you have blood anymore.

Yes, the ectoplasm in your body is the same ghosts make food out of, though it is toxic to humans.

No, you may not bloodlet to feed yourself if you're hungry. That's the ultimate last resort because it's wildly taboo and can be incredibly dangerous for the health of your core.

After what feels like too long, at least in retrospect, Vlad waves off his next set of questions and opts to simply ask if he's ready to begin. Which, yes, of course, how could he forget what Danny very kindly brought him here for?

"I assume he taught you at least the basics." Vlad nods back at Danny, still floating with his arms crossed, staring at the two of them in Vlad's training room. Danny is always in his Phantom form around Vlad.

"Mhm," he says. "He's been really helpful."

It took him a bit to get used to not following the laws of physics anymore and not being afraid of sinking into the ground forever or smashing his face into a wall during his first attempts, but it's going steady. Danny being slow to get annoyed at his incompetence definitely helps.

"I see," Vlad says. Izuku thinks there's maybe a small, impressed upwards tilt to his voice. "I suppose it has been a sufficient amount of time for him to master the basics on his own and become a suitable teacher." He seems more like he's talking to himself, more a mumble than words meant for him. "We'll review later, however."

"Okay." That makes sense, in case Izuku has messed up along the way and is doing it completely wrong. "What's first?"

"Small things, child," Vlad says. Izuku tries not to deflate a little bit. He made some theories about what's possible with this quirk, but he had decided to wait until Danny was there in case he set fire to his friend's basement. "You're temperamental for the time being, and a big risk not just for those around you, but at risk of being attacked by weaker ghosts looking for someone to mess with."

"Don't I know it?" Danny grumbles from behind him, a bit of bitterness leaking in. Izuku doesn't think he was meant to hear it, so he doesn't respond.

Vlad, though, takes his place by smiling and saying over his shoulder, "Yes, I've heard about your playmates in Amity Park. I'm surprised they don't get bored of being beaten so constantly."

Danny scoffs and responds, "For once, fruitloop, I agree."

"Being king certainly has its disadvantages, doesn't it?"

Danny lets out a noise that almost sounds like a snarling dog. "If you say something about giving you my crown right now…"

Vlad chuckles low and slow, rolling his eyes. "I know you wouldn't listen, nor do I have any interest. Consider it a friendly reminder of your tedious responsibilities that I do not envy." He looks back at Izuku, smiling kindly like he hadn't just taunted Izuku's friend in front of him. Maybe Danny hadn't been completely wrong about not trusting Vlad. "Back to the matter at hand. Have you been working on what I told you, child?"

Izuku nods, holding up his palm for a small flame to spark to life. He had been working on keeping it steady yesterday while forcing himself to try and remember his past. A dual goal: partly to work on controlling his fire, partly to try and remember more. If one affected the other, it made sense to practice like that.

He remembered a few things, too. A few words, sensations, and one image.

Endeavor. An indifferent news anchor describing raging fires over shoddy radio speakers. He feels hatred and anger here.

A child's hand scruffing his hair, not softly, but still friendly. He smells the woodchips of a playground.

The scent of fresh pages being flipped through. Hero Analysis for the Future. He's happy and tastes something sweet like cake for a moment.

A woman, her face puffy and red, her gentle hand cupping his cheek. He's looking up at her from his place on the floor. His cheeks are covered with tears to match hers. He feels like a disappointment, a loser, a weakling here. It's the first time he thinks death might not be so bad.

He made sure to write those down, no matter how much it all just reminds him of the ugly truth that he followed through on that thought. The woman, he must know her. He can't remember her voice or her name or her clothes or what her body looks like; it's just her crying face and her soft hand that still lingers in his mind.

He shakes his head to clear it. He can think about this more later. He's here to learn.

"This is what I can do right now," he tells Vlad. It's the most consistent thing, anyway. He's working on those fire bullets, but with his lack of aim, he doesn't think he's comfortable showing that to anyone with confidence. "I know it's not much, but…"

Vlad is nodding, examining his blue fire burning brightly. Blue fire is supposed to be hotter than red, but even this close, he doesn't feel any heat. In Danny's notes, he writes that it's the same for his ice; that he's unaffected but that it's cold enough for his friends to start shivering standing close to his sculptures for even short periods of time.

Vlad reaches his hand out to touch it with his pointer finger. He, too, is unaffected. He hums in what seems like approval. "Good," he says. "We can put that lesson on hold for a moment as well. I'd like to teach you more passive skills."

Izuku can't help but frown a bit, letting the fire die in a puff of smoke.

"Fret not, little dragon," Vlad says, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. "This is a compliment to your growth. I'm merely going to show you a few things that will help you in your day-to-day, and we can come back to this."

He nods slowly. "Okay."

"Has the boy shown you the 'scary eyes' or tried to get you to activate your aura yet?"

Danny answers for him. He's still floating there, watching the two of them with his crown in its full glory when Izuku turns to look at him briefly. "No."

"Then we'll do that now." When Vlad folds his hands behind his back and stands straighter, head tilted up looking down at him, Izuku feels a bit intimidated. And Izuku must be tired because Vlad's silhouette seems like it's glowing a bright pink. "Can you see that?"

If he's talking about the obtrusive neon change to the sophisticated man, then yes, so he nods.

"This is an aura. Your friend might have shown you his green one." Izuku shakes his head, and Vlad hums in disappointment. "A shame. I'm sure a king's aura willingly shown would be beautiful up close. I've only seen it in far away and in anger, you understand." Danny makes a strange, strangled-sounding noise from behind him, but Vlad doesn't so much as look at him. He holds up his hand, pink emanating from his palm, and swipes it across the space in front of Izuku.

Izuku feels a weird tingling sensation across body, starting from his chest. He remembers where Vlad said his core is, and thinks that's what this is. When he goes to press his hand to his chest, it's glowing a sharp red. He feels a bit sick seeing that particular shade, remembering how he looked when he first met Danny: a deep red violently splashed across his chest, ruining his uniform.

"A healthy reaction," Vlad says. "I've triggered yours to react to mine this one time so that you can feel what it's like and control it yourself from now on."

Izuku latches onto the sensation, the strange pulsing no longer uncomfortable.

"Weaker ghosts aren't too smart, but even they can sense your aura as a relatively strong person-shaped ghost and will leave you alone."

"Person-shaped?" Izuku doesn't remember reading anything like that in Danny's books.

"Ah, no one has told you." Vlad looks behind him at Danny for a moment. "Pity. Very well, a quick lesson. There are a few classifications for ghosts: Person-shaped, animal-shaped, and blob-shaped. In that order is their strength. The Ancients are all person-shaped, as are most powerful ghosts. They have intelligence similar to humans, or even above it. I'm sure you can figure out what that means for the animal-shaped ghosts." Person-shaped means person intelligence, animal-shaped means animal intelligence. It's simple enough. "Blob ghosts are exactly as they seem. Sentient blobs of ectoplasm. They are only intelligent enough to fly around searching for food and shelter while avoiding danger."

Izuku wishes he would have brought his notebook, nodding along to Vlad's lesson. He'll have to ask what the Ancients are later.

"Using this classification, weaker animal-shaped ghosts and all blob-shaped ghosts will avoid you if you use your aura around them. Even rudimentary, animalistic ghosts will know when a fight with you is a bad idea." Vlad continues, "The 'scary eyes' technique is much in the same vein."

"The 'scary eyes'?" It feels like a childish term, but it's a familiar kind of childish, like a teenager's first quirk description.

In response, Vlad's eyes glow a bright pink, very similar to his aura. It's not even just a change of the iris; his eyes lose all semblance of humanity and turn into eye-shaped marbles of bright, blinding pink. When he blinks, they're back to normal. "The 'scary eyes' were something the little badger and I came up with during our fights. An intimidation tactic. Most person-shaped ghosts won't be threatened by them, you see, but humans will see someone with glowing eyes and intuitively know to not mess with them."

That does make sense, he supposes. If he saw Danny with his eyes glowing green just like Vlad's neon pink, he would know to watch what he said until he calmed down.

"Please, try it. It's quite intuitive."

Izuku doesn't think it is, but Vlad doesn't offer to explain or help, so he does his best. He feels his core in his chest, forces tension across his face, and tries to project some of his anger into his eyes as he forces them a tiny bit wider.

"Wonderful, child. A bright red for a fierce dragon." He can't feel a difference, but Vlad's pleased reaction tells him he's done it. He'll have to try it again in front of a mirror later. It's only now he realizes the last time he saw his own reflection was in that restaurant. It isn't a pleasant memory.

"That's something you may practice on your own," he says. "Let's review the base powers."

Izuku nods, and when Vlad instructs him to show him the three, invisibility, intangibility, and flight, he does his best. It feels insufficient, but Vlad says nothing about his skill until he's settled back down on the ground in front of him.

"You're making extraordinary progress," he notes. "When Daniel started, he was no better than an ecto-pup. Falling through floors, drifting upwards randomly–"

"You can stop now," Danny snaps at Vlad, who's been recalling this with a smile. "That was a long time ago."

"Yes, those two years really make a difference," he says, deadpan like Izuku has never heard him. "Fret not, little badger, I'll have you know it even took me two months to be any better than that." Danny lets out a scoff at the subtle slight but says nothing. The difference in how Vlad treats the two of them is stark and surprising. "We all start somewhere," he tells Izuku once it's clear Danny isn't going to reply. "For you, though, it's remarkably fast. You're going to be powerful; that much is clear."

His words should be making him happy, but he doesn't feel like he deserves it. He's just lucky enough to have someone to teach him, lucky enough to get this quirk, lucky enough to stumble into success. It's just luck, not skill, and he knows it's not enough to get him to a place where anyone can depend on him. That thought hurts more than anything else. He's seen Danny's notes on these powerful ghosts and the damage they cause and wants to help, to fly side by side with a true hero, but he doesn't know if he has what it takes.

Vlad hums once, frowning when he remains silent. "Shall we take a small break?"

"Can I work on my fire? Just for a little bit?" He feels a bit like he's pleading, pathetically and childishly, but he feels like he's saying and doing all the wrong things and is close to being given up on despite the praise. "I know I'm making this hard. I just want to get better."

"It's quite alright, child." Vlad's face tenses up slightly. He must have said something wrong again. "You're not a bother. I just wish to have a word with your friend."

Danny is suddenly by his side, a cooling, blue hand on his shoulder. Izuku is crackling again and takes a deep breath to calm himself down. "It's fine, Izuku," Danny says, soft like he's going to crumple in his grasp. "Me and the fruitloop can talk while you practice."

Izuku focuses on the freezing temperature on his shoulder, latches onto it, and tries to spread it to the rest of his body. He can smell the start of smoke on his brand-new hoodie and, if for no other reason than the sake of Danny's nice sister's kind purchase, forces himself to picture himself writing in his book to soothe his temper.

"Good," Vlad says, approval coming off of his smooth tone when he's quicker to calm down than last time. "You may practice. Little badger?"

"Yeah, yeah," Danny says, rolling his eyes as Vlad leads the two of them towards the far wall. "Let's make this quick."

Chapter Text

"Have you noticed yet?"

Vlad stands tall, despite Phantom floating next to him a few inches off the ground. He could float a little higher to spite him, but Izuku is practicing his fire bullets on the supposedly indestructible metal targets on Vlad's walls, and he doesn't want to start anything with Vlad that would interrupt him, even from the side of the room.

"Noticed what, exactly?" Aside from Izuku's aim being a bit better than his first attempts. Danny has seen some of what's in his notebook; he's looking forward to seeing if all of that is even possible.

"He's copying," Vlad says, casual and sounding almost impressed. "Everything he's done so far but I can't confirm that without knowing all he's accomplished."

"Copying?" Danny can't help but be curious about that statement, considering he seems like a mostly normal fire core ghost so far.

"Language, powers, auras. Yes, copying." Vlad's eyes never leave Izuku's training, which is fair considering he's his student for the time being.

"Language?" Has Vlad pieced together that part? Izuku is speaking in different languages for different people; for Phantom, it's ghost speak; for Sam, Hebrew; and for Fenton and Tucker, English. But he's never heard of any ghost but himself and his king's translation doing that.

"Not knowingly, it seems," Vlad says. "He speaks in Russian for me, but I assume for you, it's different. I've followed his lip movement. It's never correct for what I hear, and it doesn't seem like he's realized. Surely you've noticed?"

Vlad must know his answer with the way he says it, a bit condescending and smug, like always. Sure, he's seen Izuku write in Japanese yet speak two different languages, but it seemed too odd to piece together coherently.

"Of course not," Vlad continues. "I imagine your hands are full. It's only natural you haven't connected this yet. Would you like to hear my theory?"

Yes, if there is one. But no, with the way he asks. He nods anyway, biting back a snarky reply. Despite Vlad's flaws, he is more experienced and, admittedly, smarter, considering he's an old man while Danny is only about to turn 17.

"Normally one replies aloud when being kindly offered information," Vlad drawls. "But oh well. Has he touched you?"

"Wha—?" Danny pauses at the strange question. He thinks of every interaction, every time they've been close to each other. He supposes they must have brushed against each other when he was first offering him new clothes, at the earliest. Other than that, he has put his hand on his shoulder a few times. "Yeah, I guess."

"What a coincidence, I have as well." Danny nods along. They're lucky Izuku doesn't react negatively to that, at least not when they're gentle about it. "Has anyone else?"

"Uhh…" Danny trails off to try and think. "Jazz might have. Maybe Sam and Tucker, too."

"I surmise he's copying via touch. Although proximity might be all he needs instead. I'd need to study him more to know for definite. But nevertheless, you made contact with him, and now he speaks in others' mother tongues. A copy of your kingly ability, if slightly different. I touched him, and now he's able to make fire bullets."

Vlad lets his radioactive pink coalesce in his open palm before shifting it into several tight balls of fire. Danny holds back a startle at the power he's never seen Vlad do before. He fires three at the ground in quick succession, the rest dying out by his command. Smoke steadily flows out of the burn marks, much like Izuku's.

"That is something I have practiced for years, and something you do not have," Vlad says. "I thought he was simply learning from you, what little you can show him with your focus on ice and inexperience in teaching, but this makes it clear it's not just you he's copying off of. I've never shown him that, you see. So he's doing it unwittingly."

Danny can't help but be impressed, if that's true. It's at least a better theory for the language switching than Danny's group came up with. That is, the non-theory they had. He's seen what's in Izuku's notebook; can he do all of that immediately just based on theory or does he have to meet someone who can do it first? Copying others by touch or possibly even just by being near them. He's never heard of that before. It's a bit of a scary ability…

Does it have to be direct touch? Or, if it's not that, how close does he have to be in order to copy? Izuku certainly made contact with Danny's king's door and the room it led to, in case it specifically had to be Phantom or his powers he needed to be near. But it's all so unknown, he has no idea.

"Quite like you, isn't it?" Vlad says, and if Danny didn't know any better, he almost sounds impressed.

Danny huffs a small laugh at the notion of him being on the same level as Izuku's inherent talent. The ability to easily and quickly learn new things is something he knows he doesn't have. His grades prove it. His parents being disappointed at him for not understanding their projects after all they've done through his childhood to get him to be interested is proof, too. All he can do is fight slightly better every time someone decides to mess with him.

"I sense doubt, little badger." Vlad's right on that, so Danny just nods and keeps his eyes on Izuku. He's trying different levels of power behind his bullets, slowly growing in size. His skin crackles like kindling at the strain of the steady effort, and there's a thin layer of smoke around his feet, covering the blue mats in black. "When your core manifested, who did you see?"

"Frostbite," he answers. After the Undergrowth incident, he nearly froze to death in the Far Frozen before the kind yetis found him. "He taught me the basics, and I learned the rest by trial and error."

"If you can recall, did he touch you?"

The event is a bit blurry, but if not Frostbite himself, a yeti or two must have touched him in order to carry him back to their base. "I think so, yeah."

"And you gained control over your core then. You fired ice out of your eyes just after that, a skill that took me years," Vlad says. "You learned about barriers after I showed you, and you were able to copy them with the same level of skill as I."

Danny shrugs along. It's not really that uncommon to learn by watching others, especially with how often he got into fights with ghosts that used to be stronger than him. It was either get better or keep having his bones broken. "So?"

"You learned telekinesis from your enemies, as well as channeling electricity," he continues to easily list. Danny only used those a handful of times, but, yeah, he guessed he did. The electricity after facing Bullet, Walker's buddy with an electric core, more notably. And Skulker, if Izuku is right about him not being fire-based. "Did you not master your previously terrible body augmentation after your run-in with that circus ring and master creating duplicates just after meeting Danielle, your clone? I've heard she's remarkable at that."

Vlad could create hundred of duplicates, but he couldn't maintain them for long, he'd once told Danny. Maybe for a day, and with limited power usage. But Danielle could make many and keep them running at full strength for weeks at a time. And sometime after meeting her, he suddenly became much better at duplicating. "What's your point?"

Danny thinks he knows Vlad's point; he just doesn't like it. Because it means Izuku will only get stronger the more people he comes into contact with, the same as him. He thought all this time it was just him learning by watching, but he can't count the number of times he's been grabbed and tossed around, most of the time directly after meeting a new ghost. He really had gained their powers or gotten better at the ones he had just after that, hadn't he?

"I said he would be strong, didn't I? I had always theorized about why you were growing so fast with little to no effort, but I hadn't thought it might be touch or even just proximity-activated until meeting my talented little learner and seeing the similarities."

He chooses to ignore the possible compliment in favor of complaining about the part that definitely wasn't. "Hey! It did take effort, fruitloop. Not everyone can be perfect like you."

"On the contrary, I learned new powers more slowly than I care to admit to you," he says, and still manages to sound smug despite admitting weakness. "And I've rarely seen other ghosts stray from their cores. Even I have trouble with that. Have you really not noticed that?"

Ember always uses fire, Technus always uses electricity, and Klemper always uses ice. He's never seen any of them use other cores' affinities. But he uses electricity and fire sometimes, albeit his is always his own ectoplasmic green as opposed to Vlad's obnoxious pink. And he's been a victim of Vlad's use of electricity a few times, but it's never as strong as his own. It certainly felt like it in the beginning, but Vlad's was never that strong in the first place compared to an electric-cored ghost like Vortex or even his own once he learned to do it.

But he did learn to do it when none of his rogues seem to have done the same. How has he not noticed all of that?

It hurts to say it out loud in front of Vlad, but he's finding it's easier to talk with the fruitloop when he's too busy watching his student to glare down at him in victory. "I… guess not."

"A shame." Vlad tisks disapprovingly. "I had almost grown confident you were getting smarter."

"Whatever," Danny grumbles. Despite that last comment and every other slight against him since they arrived, it is nice to have a theory to connect all of this.

Wait. Spectra touched Izuku, didn't she? He tries to recall what he told him happened, and, yeah, she had. That's how she saw his memories and figured out what to say to be able to feed off of his misery. Seeing memories and eating emotions to fuel her youth, that's her power.

Can Danny do it now, too? He's never tried. He had no idea his learning was more than just growth by watching, if Vlad is right. More importantly, can Izuku do the same for ghosts he meets?

Danny doesn't even want to think about this, let alone tell the poor baby. Despite not knowing him for too long, it's clear it might break his heart. All he wants to do is learn and clearly looks up to the concept of heroes. To hear he's gained the ability to feed off of others and make them miserable unwillingly? Danny doesn't even want to think of how it might send him spiraling down a loathsome hole or make him isolate himself to prevent any harm.

"Let's just..."

Danny crosses his arms over his chest, tension spreading without his consent. Izuku shouldn't be told this, but he does have the right to know. If not now, then soon, before he touches someone and sees into their head without having any idea why. Danny just doesn't know how he's supposed to tell him without risking a core break and/or possible nuclear explosion.

"...Let's just continue the lesson."

When Danny touches Jazz, can he see the memories of their parents that she hates, or her dreams of going to college, or the nights she sits awake waiting for him to get home safely?

Has it ever activated without him realizing, Jazz's worry or Sam and Tucker's sadness at seeing him in pain giving him strength just by hugging him?

He doesn't like thinking about it.

Vlad is quiet for a moment, and they both just continue to watch Izuku. The metal targets are singed but still hanging proudly despite Izuku's bullets growing into something that could easily destroy a building over the course of their conversation. He's smiling brightly at his progress, unaware of the danger he could pose if he aims that at a human.

"Yes, let's," Vlad eventually says.

He sounds like he's talking to himself more than Danny, like he's preparing what to say to Izuku now that he's figured it out. Danny hasn't told him how Izuku became a ghost—that's not his story to tell—but Vlad can at least figure out that he didn't have a pleasant life beforehand with the way he's quick to insult himself. Jazz is just better about that than Danny is. All he can do is tell Izuku what he thinks of him honestly and hope it's better than ignoring the self-hatred instead.

Vlad walks back over to Izuku with his hands grasped behind his back. Danny would have to be an idiot to not notice that his shoulders are tensed up and his fist is gripped tight as he approaches his student, who's crackling and sparking and only getting stronger by the moment.

You're going to be powerful, Vlad had said to Izuku earlier. Danny only now understands that Izuku could be the kind of powerful that Dan was for the wasteland of a future that his grief caused.

Hopefully they're the right half ghosts to stop another powerful ghost from destroying the world if he goes down a dark path that he could easily find with what he's been through.

Chapter Text

The week passes by before Danny realizes. It's a steady rhythm they've found, and Izuku seems to love the routine when Vlad welcomes him to stay for several hours after Danny is done with school.

Watching on the side, he's taken in what he can from their lessons, pride be damned, but it's hard to concentrate sometimes. Cause, if Danny didn't know any better, Vlad seems… happy. Vlad really only smiles when he wants something out of people or is about to promote himself to others. And it's always this too-sharp, too-perfect smile that has fooled many people.

Danny has never seen this kind of smile on Vlad's face. It's soft, fond, caring, even vulnerable. It's the kind his mom has in old pictures of her holding a newborn Jazz, or the kind his dad has in home videos of making fudge with 10-year-old Danny. He only has that smile on his face when he thinks Danny isn't looking, specifically when he's intently watching him take his shot at training Izuku, with what limited hand to hand combat knowledge Sam has taught him.

Vlad had talked many times about wanting a family of his own, if Maddie would have chosen him. Danny had always thought he was lying to get under his skin. But seeing this, seeing how he treats Izuku, seeing how he looks at Izuku? It's hard to imagine that under all his scheming he was ever lying about wanting to be a father.

Still, he makes sure to keep it in his head that Vlad wasn't ever to be fully trusted. They had two years of experience with each other, and knew better than to give the other that. But perhaps Danny could at least briefly leave Izuku alone with Vlad every once in a while with the knowledge that he wouldn't hurt him.

The day comes, unfortunately.

Danny keeps his promise, since Vlad kept his. A little visit from 'Uncle Vlad' as he nicely asked his parents. His dad practically jumped out of his seat in excitement at his son finally taking an interest in being friends with his buddy. His mom was seething on the other side of the table, her hands clenched tight around her coffee mug with an even tighter smile on her face. Danny feels bad about making her do this—they both know how creepy he had been to her, despite knowing she was a happily married woman—but he owes Vlad this, and he'll be around the entire time to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Though… weirdly it seems less likely than ever that he would try anything. How he treats both him and Izuku certainly seems like a good indicator for whatever goes on in that twisted mind of his.

And, just going by the last week, it's almost surreal.

It's like his obsession with having Danny, Jazz, and Maddie as his family and killing Jack just… faded into the background when he met Izuku. Danny isn't really sure how to feel about that, at the end of the day. Cause if it's true, then what's their reason for fighting? Him and Valerie have a truce, now that their reason for fighting, Cujo ruining her life and her thinking they're both evil, has been cleared up and taken care of.

Is a truce between him and Vlad possible, too?

He decides to sit on his bed and play his farming game instead of letting that terrifying idea worm its way into his brain. Izuku is with Sam in her basement, probably going over his notes. He'd been taking more and more as he grew stronger and better. Danny will look tomorrow, since he wants to actually sit down and study it when he's able to. Today has been busy, running around fighting animal ghosts, and now he's got a dinner to attend.

Vlad arrives at the exact time he said he would, the doorbell ringing at 6:00pm on the dot. He saves his game and sets the console on its charger, walking down the stairs and making eye contact with Vlad. His smile is back to its usual too-perfect, and Danny is almost relieved.

He didn't exactly like seeing Vlad smiling like his dad used to before ghosts took over his life.

"Ah, Daniel!" he greets, pushing past his dad's attempt at a bear hug to stand in front of him. His mom, currently holding a tea kettle clearly full of hot water, follows behind. "So good to see you, and I'm glad you invited me over for dinner."

Danny plays his role, as promised. He copies Vlad's smile as best he can, hugs him, and gets ready to pretend to be the happiest son he can for the upcoming dinner.

Sam and Tucker had given him tips for making it through alright, ways to redirect his dad or soothe his mom's anger, no matter what awful thing Vlad says, but… he doesn't ever have to.

It's the most normal dinner Danny has ever had.

His dad still goes off about ghosts, all the new ideas they have after going to that convention—Danny doesn't remember what day they came back since they didn't even bother to greet him and Jazz whenever that was—and his mom joins in once she comes to the conclusion that her family isn't in immediate danger.

But from Vlad, there's no threats towards Jack, no overt flattery towards Maddie, and no creepiness towards Danny. He gets the feeling that Vlad wouldn't be weird towards Jazz, either. She's working on homework with Spike tonight. His mom serves dinner, his dad refills water when asked, and Vlad offers to do the dishes when the two of them bid him goodnight to go down to the lab and finish their work for the day.

Danny doesn't even know what to do when the hour passes peacefully. Vlad rolls up his sleeves and, true to his offer, scrubs dishes. And he's not the only one being weird, because when Vlad asks if he can help, Danny obediently grabs the towel from the counter and wipes the dishes he hands him dry. Maybe he's gone crazy, because one month ago Vlad grabbed him by the ankle and threw him into a wall, nearly shattering his arm. A week after that, Danny broke into his mansion and phased some of his memorabilia into the walls.

They're enemies.

…So why doesn't it feel like it right now?

When the sink is shut off by Vlad's hand, Danny tosses the wet hand towel to the counter. The dishes are put away in their proper place and the kitchen is silent. It's 7:24pm on a Saturday and Danny just did dishes with Vlad Masters.

"I'd like a word with you, Daniel." He doesn't sound angry, or like he's planning something terrible. He phases the water off of his hands easily. Danny, for some reason, agrees with a small nod and no intent to fight.

He wordlessly follows Vlad up the stairs and into his room, quietly shutting the door behind himself. At first, Danny remains standing, just in case this is a ploy, but Vlad pulls his desk chair out and sits down facing the interior, his right leg crossed over the left politely. That by itself makes Danny feel oddly comfortable sitting down on his bed facing him.

"I'll be blunt, my child," Vlad begins. "What are your plans for Izuku?"

"My plans?"

Keep him steady and happy, he guessed. Eventually, maybe, send him home. If he has anyone worth his time back wherever home is. Danny will need more information about his past to make that call.

"Uhhh… Help him? After he's stable…" He thinks of Clockwork's advice and doesn't really know the correct answer, if there is one. "Well, I don't get to make that call. Izuku does. If he wants to go live in the countryside or the Ghost Zone or on the moon or something, I'll work it out."

Vlad just hums a small neutral tone, sighing lightly instead of making a jab at his barely-thought-about plan.

Danny can't help but get curious. "Why do you ask, fruitloop? Planning something?"

Vlad licks his lips and Danny can see the hesitation to share his thoughts in the way he looks at him. "I've grown fond of him. It's clear you don't want to be my apprentice, let alone part of my family."

Danny remembers their fight from three weeks ago, where he'd had his shoulder popped out of his socket, and feels his hackles raise, interrupting before Vlad can continue. "Well if you weren't going on about killing my dad and marrying my mom, maybe I'd consider it."

The words startle himself more than Vlad, actually. Danny has thought that from the beginning, but he hadn't ever shared it with anyone. That small wish has stayed a secret for two years. He'd spent many days, usually just after being beaten up by other ghosts, wishing that Vlad had been different in the beginning. That he had just been a genuinely good person who wanted to help the only other halfa in existence.

He hates the very idea, he hates it enough to make him nauseous just thinking of it, but Danny isn't sure he would have stuck around in Amity Park if that had been what happened. Jazz would have followed him whenever he went, and he would have done the same for her. He hates himself for how often he thinks of how nice it would have been to have that version of Vlad as his guardian.

He hasn't told anyone, least of all Vlad, out of this shaking fear that saying it would ruin the wobbling tight rope of his life. Yet Vlad doesn't really react in the way he expects. He just nods once, a small action not fitting with the shock he should be experiencing.

Instead he continues, almost undisturbed, "I'm finished with that endeavour, Daniel. The goal has always been to establish a family, preferably with you and Madeline, and with Jack out of the picture. I'll admit killing him was the quickest way to achieve that part, and it would have been easy to do so, but I never have seriously tried to because I wanted to be chosen, not feared. By you especially."

Two of a kind. The only halfas in the world.

His eyebrows raise carefully and Danny doesn't dare interrupt. He has no idea what's happening; the room is buzzing, he feels like throwing up, yet he can feel how genuine Vlad is and it's this subtly sweet taste like strawberries on his tongue. Is this how Spectra feels whenever she's feeding off of emotions?

It makes his skin crawl but he's so much more awake, feels so much more alive.

"I'll admit, neither were innocent in my death. It took me too long to see that. But if they had tried to make amends, I would have considered it. I would have accepted being acquaintances with them and being a godfather to you and Jasmine. But tonight was my last test for them. If they could have one meal without conversing about ghosts, and without ignoring what you or I had to say, I would consider them worth the effort. And they failed. So, I've come to the obvious conclusion that it's pointless with the two of them. Neither love nor hatred will change them and their obsession. It killed me, it killed you, and I'm quite sick of looking for regret in people who don't feel it."

Something like pity seems to cross his face. It looks wrong and Danny doesn't like it at all.

"I'm surprised you don't feel the same, little badger."

He isn't sure if that's meant to make him angry, because it should, but his temper doesn't rise. Instead he thinks about how absent they are, how he only gets affection from Jazz, and how he barely speaks to them anymore aside from when they're hunting Phantom. Tonight's dinner had been the first time in quite a while that they'd sat down and talked together, even if it had turned into their usual ghost hunting rant. Their rants which always included hunting down Phantom so they could dissect him…

He doesn't argue that his parents didn't kill him just like they killed Vlad. It was their portal that they made, they made sure he had a jumpsuit fit for him, and they'd left the house that day with a dangerous machine still active in their basement for their curious son to die in.

"They're still my parents. I still love them," he says, too-quiet. The words taste bitter and sour like rotten milk. He wonders how Spectra tolerates the taste of her own lies if they're anything like this. "They'd love me if I told them."

That pitying look Vlad gives him only seems to deepen. "Yes, I'm aware you feel that way." He continues, "You clearly want nothing to do with me, but I still want to pass my talents down. Your friend is a unique case, and a wonderful student. If he so wished, I'd invite him to live with me."

He thinks of Izuku, impressionable and excited to learn, desperately needing someone kind by his side, then thinks of all the times Vlad has kicked him into the ground or burned him, and shakes his head.

"Not happening."

"You don't get to make that call, remember?" Vlad says, throwing his words back at him. It doesn't seem out of spite, for once. It's just more pity. "I'm not taking away your friend, I just wanted to give you my thoughts away from prying eyes. Consider this my offer of a truce, for Izuku's sake. You're free to take it or ignore it. I feel quite sick with this ring around with those people I called friends, that's all. Consider the two of them strangers to me from here on."

He stands up, brushes off his suit, straightens his tie, and bows his head slightly. "However, just know that there's plenty of room in my mansion should any other teenagers decide I am not the villain they think I am. Goodnight, Danny, and do say hello to your lovely sister for me."

Intangibility sweeps over him, he sinks into the floor, and Danny feels his presence slip away towards Wisconsin.

Danny flops onto his bed, stares up at the star-covered ceiling, and wonders what the hell is wrong with him that he hears Vlad say he is giving up on his parents and wants to help someone grow and feels jealous of Izuku.

Vlad even called him Danny for the first time.

Chapter Text

It takes the three of them several hours the next day to go over what Izuku has written over the last week. It's a lot. It's very insightful, don't get Danny wrong, but he has no idea how Izuku writes so much without complaining about hand cramps.

Actually, without complaining about anything at all.

He'll get knocked down during training, obviously unfamiliar with self-defense, but learning quick, he'll overexert himself until Vlad has to urge him to stop before he blows himself up with his own raging fires, and he'll write and write and write—notes, sketches, observations, even down to the little things the ghosts seem to stumble over or get upset at, their weaknesses—yet not complain about a single thing.

Danny remembers being eleven and complaining to Jazz about his cereal being too soggy.

By his best guess, Izuku was around thirteen or fourteen when he died, yet he doesn't complain about things that would make anyone else stressed out beyond belief.

Well… if Danny was ever going to pick a ghost he knew to take the role of an unstoppable, passionate hero, it would be Izuku. He seems to love the fact that Danny is one, even if that's debated among Amity Park citizens.

It's Sunday and Danny's parents are gone again. Out to meet with one of their clients, or so their scribbled-on sticky note taped to the fridge had said. Danny had ripped it off, scowled at the sloppy handwriting, and obliterated it with an ecto ray from his burning green eyes. They were talented enough inventors to make things that had uses besides hunting ghosts, so it was natural they'd sell some off to fund their obsession and their family.

Danny finds himself less accepting of that reality, and their regular absence, after last night, and after he'd accidentally seen the scholarship letters on Jazz's desk this morning when waking her up. He knows she won't leave for college without him—not when they both know his obsession with protection makes it difficult to leave Amity Park unless the portal is shut off, which it almost never is—but he also knows she will never force him to leave with her unless he's fully committed to a life away from the people who raised him.

Despite Vlad's conversation, the one that came with the new knowledge that he does in fact have some of Spectra's emotion-feeding powers now and can no longer comfortably lie—something he has yet to tell anyone, or even think about too hard—he still feels love, or something close to it, for his mom and dad. Respect, he thinks. Or maybe gratefulness at raising him when he was and is such a problem child.

He can't put his feelings into words, not fully. It's too complicated and tangled and he isn't brave enough to admit any of it to Jazz without knowing how his feelings will impact her plans for her future. But he feels enough of whatever emotion it is to feel bad that Vlad's offer to be his student after all he's done and threatened to do is tempting to him.

He was skeptical of Vlad—how could he not be after two years of dealing with his obsession with him and his mom—but, well, Vlad's always had two obsessions, same as Danny. His is space and protecting others; Vlad's is creating a family and the Packers.

As far as he knows, if a ghost has their obsession taken away or destroyed, it's a full nuclear meltdown on whoever did it. When his own was threatened, it certainly felt like it would be easy to slip down that dark route and get revenge.

When Freakshow had nearly killed Sam during that circus mess… It was the first time he'd ever looked at a human and realized that he had the ability to reach into a human's chest, rip out their heart, and crush it in his hand. In the train car two feet away from the man who almost killed Sam, he thinks the only thing that stopped him from killing him was that Sam and Tucker were there.

Then all three of them were safe with Freakshow in handcuffs and he was terrified that he even thought about it for half a second. When he was fully human, he never wanted to hurt anyone else. Obsessions had sunk in as a truly scary thing ghosts have after that.

He supposes that's why Vlad had murder on his mind, too. Jack Fenton was threatening his obsession. But maybe the obsession had never been about that specifically, just about having his own family. And Maddie was the woman he once loved, so she was the obsession’s easiest pick for his wife. If his obsession hasn't disappeared or been taken away, but instead shifted, with his Packers obsession as a safety net, to focus on Izuku as his son, well, then it makes sense why Danny can tell Vlad isn't lying.

That doesn't make it any easier to think about. He's quietly accepted the truce, but where the two of them go from here, he doesn't know. It's scary to even think about.

"Danny?"

Sam's concerned voice pulls him back to the present. They're sitting in her room, in a loose circle on the purple skull carpet. Her room smells of lavender and her worry feels like a sunburn on his arms.

Tucker, Sam, and Danny each have a full book of notes in Izuku's handwriting to go over while Jazz is out running errands for the week. Danny and Jazz usually take turns doing that, but with the new baby ghost in their care, he needs to be the one keeping track of his progress and keeping him from going haywire, which he can't do if he's the one keeping up with their shared tasks.

Jazz is the best sister he could ask for. He tries to be the best brother he can for her, but being half dead makes it hard.

"Sorry," he says. He tries not to rub his arm when it continues to burn lightly.

Their emotions have a stronger effect on him in Phantom form, apparently. When he's Fenton it's not too noticeable. But he doesn't have a choice, since Izuku writes in Japanese. His kingly abilities let his mind automatically translate, but his friends don't have that. So Sam and Tucker each use an old PDA of Tucker’s to rapidly switch back and forth and translate. Sam has given herself the task of rewriting it all down in English on their digital files over the next few days. It's a brave ambition, but it has to be done when neither of them can currently understand his notes as they are without help.

Izuku is sitting in her desk chair watching old footage of his fights on her computer. Sometimes he'll rewind at random times, pause for several moments on something seemingly unimportant, then write something down in his new red notebook.

Danny looks back down at his page, halfway through the book. There's four complete now, where before there were only three—one on him, two on his enemies, none full—and Izuku has written in all four. The fourth is about Izuku himself and a little about Phantom. That notebook is on the floor while another is on his lap. He's the best one out of them to tackle two at once. Danny points at the page, in which the ever talented Izuku has sketched up a utility belt design for him and a few more subtle carrying cases, small bags that firmly clip to their hips, for Sam and Tucker.

"This is a good idea," he says. "I never have a proper place for my thermos or my Fenton phones, and it's not exactly a good idea for you guys to be carrying dangerously hot lipstick lasers in your pockets."

"Tucker?" Sam asks, turning her head to the left. She's only about a third of the way through her book, lying flat on her stomach with her boots chucked to the side the moment they all made themselves comfortable this aftenoon. "Think you can make that?"

Tucker holds his hands up. He's cross-legged with a notebook on his lap, same as Danny. "Sorry, this isn't exactly my expertise. I can program a PDA like nobody's business, but fashion is out of my league. I've never even held a sewing needle before, unless you count passing it to you to help stitch Danny up."

Danny sighs at the several unpleasant memories and can almost feel the itching of his long-healed scars from those early days where none of them knew how to handle gaping wounds with any level of knowledge.

"I'll see if I can find someone to make these for us. If we're going by skill level alone, Skulker would be the best, but I don't think he'll be jumping at the chance."

Sam fiddles with the corner of the notebook. "Pandora, maybe? She makes her own armor." Sam has spent the most time with Pandora out of all of them, so it makes sense she knows that. Sam learns fighting techniques from her.

"Or Dora," Tucker offers. "She's made a bunch of dresses for the girls in her court.” Likewise, Tucker spends time with Dora trying to get her lair, and the Ghost Zone itself, more technologically advanced.

Right now, Danny can't communicate with the human world from his castle with most technology. They've made a few phones that do, using the ambient ectoplasm to power them, but it's not a perfect system.

Danny is grateful to have his closest friends as members of his court, and for them to be accepted by his allies so readily. Even his enemies don't seem inclined to attack Sam, Tucker, and Jazz. Maybe they just know that ticking off their king unnecessarily isn't a good idea.

"We could try Val?" Despite their well-known truce, he sees Sam and Tucker's matching frown. "Yeah, yeah, spare me the lecture about mixing love and violence. We figured each other out, okay? And she knows a thing or two about designing ghost hunting gear."

"And how are you planning on asking her?" Sam challenges, rolling her eyes. "She's not gonna help Phantom, and if she helps Fenton but then sees Phantom with the same gear, neither of your identities will be safe."

Danny sighs and knows she has a point. Valerie isn't stupid, and never has been. It's part of why he fell for her in the beginning. "Alright, so that's out the window. I'll see what Dora says."

"There's always the third option," Tucker says. "If you're so sure you guys are cool, why not tell her?"

Danny doesn't really have an answer to that. It's the same reason he doesn't tell his parents: What if I'm wrong?

The room is silent with a quiet understanding and the three of them go back to pouring over their endless pages. Danny is grateful every single day that the three of them met when they were kids and decided to spend enough time together to understand when the time wasn't right to have that kind of discussion.

Danny shakes off the uneasy feeling lingering in the room, a feeling akin to the tingling sensation of a leg that has fallen asleep, but over his entire torso, and focuses down on his notebook again. Negative emotions don't seem to give him power or energy, he thinks, just weird sensations. He can now understand how Spectra was so easily able to tell what parts of her mockery were getting to him without him having to respond.

But it's also relieving to know that he doesn't get anything good out of his friends’ misery, unlike Spectra. He's been avoiding touching people in case he got her powers to see into people's minds, too.

He's reading the book on Ember currently, with the intent to come back to the fourth notebook after. From what he can see, Sam is on Skulker, while Tucker is on Technus. Those are the ones who showed up most often in fights both videoed and written down, so he supposes it's only natural that Izuku has more to write about those three in particular. They didn't get much footage of the few Ancients Danny has fought because they were a much greater threat that needed all of their attention, but maybe they can recount some of their fights and see what Izuku says.

Danny thumbs over the most interesting part of his notes.

Her quirk reacts to passion. The louder it is the more empowered she is. Groups larger than ten are the start of noticeable change in her quirk output, while groups less than ten have a minimal effect. It does not have to be her name, but the quirk is amplified if it is.

Danny has yet to ask what 'quirk' means, but he's read the word in context enough to know it's Izuku's word for 'powers,' for some reason.

The fire does not release fumes, but does burn hot enough to set things ablaze. The source is her quirk, but if the fire is put out (effective means: water or strong wind/ice quirks) she needs to take at least several moments to light it up again.

Possible weaknesses: being in a vacuum chamber would suffocate the fire without harming the ghost itself, since breathing is not a necessity. If put in a cold enough environment, the heat of the fire would be difficult to maintain without significant passion to fuel it.

It's almost scary, the things Izuku has written. He's taken a quick look at Technus and Skulker's notes too, and he can't help but be conflicted. These things would have been really helpful to know even just a year ago, so Danny is thankful. Primitive animals ghosts and ghosts that haven't realized or don't care that Danny won't tolerate attacking Amity still cause trouble, and, flipping through, Izuku has written some weaknesses for those too. It's helpful, he knows.

But it also makes him worried about looking in that red notebook, the one Izuku has labeled Phantom. It would be the perfect tool for anyone looking to make themself the new ruler.

But for now, he trusts that Izuku is just doing it because he's curious and eager to learn, and not out of malice. He quietly instructed Sam and Tucker to keep that red one a secret, and that's all for now.

His ghost sense is expected multiple times a day, but this time when it pours out of his throat, it feels stronger, enough to be worrying. Even worse, he can tell who it is now that he has Spectra's powers. It's a cacophony of individual ghosts' specific tastes.

"Gotta go?" Sam asks, her concern still burning lightly under his jumpsuit.

He doesn't scratch at it too much because Tucker's sympathy feels like a comfortably warm heat pack on his stomach. Izuku himself has a prickly feeling of curiosity from Sam's desk despite him continuing to write as if uninterested in meeting Danny's enemies.

He floats up, resigned to a fight if he has to. "Yeah. You guys keep going." He glances at Izuku's back. "I'll introduce you to some of them soon, Izuku. I just need you to be a little stronger and more stable."

Izuku turns to face him with a satisfied smile and a friendly nod. "Soon," he agrees. "I have a lot I want to ask them."

Danny nods in response. "If they're willing to answer, then sure." He looks back down at Sam and Tucker. "I won't be long, hopefully."

Tucker gives a thumbs up. "We'll keep going, go get 'em, dude."

Danny disappears through the roof just after Sam wishes him good luck and heads towards the source of several powerful cores seemingly calling out to him. Or maybe it's a king's power, being able to sense when someone has the intention of meeting with him. He really should ask Clockwork about all this new King Phantom stuff. He'll probably be more helpful than the Observants. Their previous king was asleep for much longer than Danny has been alive, so they're eager to have a ruler back, no matter how young and inexperienced.

Or at least that's Jazz's explanation. Danny just gets the feeling they like off-loading tedious tasks onto someone else. And since they already didn't like him, he's just perfect for that.

They're especially obnoxious lately, sometimes pulling him from school, from sleep, even while just shopping, to do things.

Danny follows the signatures all the way across town, into the abandoned building structure he takes Izuku to sometimes, on days Vlad is busy. He sees them before they see him. It's not a good group.

They're sitting around an ectoplasmic fire, silently. Ember, Technus, Skulker, Kitty, and Johnny. He lands quietly behind a wall and steps out, his flaming crown burning proud and hopefully intimidating. Ghosts tend to cause less problems when he has it out.

When all eyes finally catch his, he expects a quick fight, or maybe for them all to scatter like rats.

Instead, their hesitation and fear tastes metallic in his mouth and he takes a single step back until the nasty taste rescinds a little.

"Well we're apparently not fighting." He sees Johnny nod quickly. "But all of you together like this can't be anything good. So spill before I send you back to the Ghost Zone."

His threat is clear and strong enough for Ember to speak up before he can make any more demands.

"Your new friend," she begins, slow like she's testing the waters, seeing if he'll freak out. "Someone told us about him."

He's not stupid enough that he can't come to the obvious conclusion. "And did she tell you how delicious he is? Perhaps tell you that I'm fond of him? That he's an easy, weak target?"

Without realizing, he's looking at their bodies, how they're reacting to his raised voice. Kitty's hands are tense on her lap, sitting on a barrel directly next to her boyfriend. Shadow is rumbling uneasily under Johnny's bike, and the way he's heavily leaning against it makes it clear his legs are shaking. Without speaking, they gently take each other's hands and Danny feels like if he looks them in the eyes right now they're going to flee immediately.

Standing up pencil-straight, Technus's electric hair is sticking out stiffer, his barely hidden fear feeling like the static shock of a carpet on Danny's forehead. Skulker's standing next to Technus and his arms are crossed over his chest. Danny might have thought it was an intimidation thing before, but now that he's seen Izuku's notes he knows it's because his armor is fitted differently on his chest because his core is different than everyone else's. Izuku notes that whenever he's pulled out of his suit, part of his core remains inside, as if he's split it in half to give his suit more power. Danny didn't even know that was possible. Izuku writes that it might only be because he's a blob ghost under the armor, with a more malleable core.

Danny can't help but remember all of their weaknesses as they avoid looking at his bright green eyes and flaming crown. Izuku really has no idea the kind of terrifying knowledge he's brought into Amity Park. The threat of the red notebook hangs heavy over Danny.

Their fear still feels aggressively uncomfortable like the fire crackling loudly between them. Danny disappears his crown and goes cross-legged midair. "I'm not here to fight if you aren't," he says. "We can all go home uninjured if you say whatever you're going to say without attacking."

His attempt to be less threatening seems to work, and Ember nods and continues. "After Spectra came back talking about him, we got curious. So we may have been stalking you two a little." Before Danny can get angry about that, she swiftly adds, "but we were never going to attack him."

"And why's that?" he asks. "You never hesitated with me in the beginning. It was on sight with every single one of you."

None of them apologize, of course, but Johnny does bite his lip and the guilt reaches Danny like a muffled buzzing in his ears.

"So, what?" Danny keeps going when none of them have an answer right away. "Is this an invitation to beat you guys up? Is this a threat towards Izuku? You certainly have had no problem with fighting newborn ghosts."

"Relax, whelp," Skulker says, indignation rolling out of his suit, but his fear is the strongest out of all of them. "King Phantom is not a ghost we want to fight. Your friend is safe from us. This is a warning of sorts, for both of you."

"A warning?"

Kitty speaks next, and her summoned bravery to talk to the Ghost King feels like a cool drink on his throat. It's a pleasant but weird feeling. "He feels different. It's the same feeling we got around you before you became king. Most of us can't get stronger, not like you can. We can get more skilled at the powers we have, but you're different."

Danny doesn't need her to explain when Vlad already has, so he just nods. "And Izuku?"

Kitty pauses, but pushes forward. "He feels like you did. You felt a little off to us two years ago, and now you're King of the Infinite Realms."

"This kid isn't our enemy," Johnny adds. Kitty squeezes his hand in support of his bravery, too. "But you better keep an eye on him. If he pisses off the wrong people or ghosts, he's going to get hunted like you were. And he's nowhere near as skilled as you are."

Danny doesn't need any more hints. Izuku may have Valerie's temporary tolerance, but the GIW are still a threat, as are his parents. He's gotten better at avoiding them, and done a good job keeping Izuku secret from both, but it's a good reminder that Amity never has been and never will be completely safe for either humans or ghosts.

Even lately, he's seen less ghosts and more GIW members sneaking around. He's worried that those two things are connected and one day his rogues are going to start going missing too. He may dislike the trouble they cause, but they don't deserve the kind of fate the GIW have promised him.

"Thanks," he says. "For the warning." No one responds, and he can taste their relief like a good hot chocolate on a cold day. Just before he flies away he gives them a similar warning. "Don't cause any trouble and we won't have to fight."

His flight back to his friends is peaceful, and he thinks that maybe he can at least help Izuku make his own lair in the Ghost Zone.

Somehow.