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Chapter Text

Danny had thought the pain would get more manageable the longer the Guys in White had him. That the more he suffered, the more numb he’d become.

He was wrong.

Every breath he drew made his chest burn - though he was still unsure if that was from the Y-incision (half healed and haphazardly stitched) or the excised lung. Who knew a person could live with only one lung?

He’s a ghost, he doesn’t need to breathe! one of the agents had said.

And if his heart weren’t beating, I’d be inclined to agree with you, another had said. We should be careful, he’s very human.

That had been the one - and only - time Danny’d had hope since his capture. It had still been his first hour in their custody, all they’d done to him by that point had been the muzzle and subsequent electrocutions. When they called him human, he thought they’d stop; he thought that maybe they were more human than he and his little band had believed.

And that was when he’d gotten to listen to a debate on whether or not they could remove at least one of his lungs safely - humans with severe illness or damage to a single lung could often live full lives, after all, they’d said.

For humans, it was a last resort. For him, it was a fun start to a science experiment. In eager and excited voices, while he was chained down to a cold table, a muzzle that burned his skin strapped to his face, they discussed all the things they wanted to do to him before taking his other lung and heart - it was the last thing they wanted to do.

They didn’t want to kill him too soon.

Danny, by now, wished they had cut his heart out the first day, and that (hopefully) it would’ve let him die.

Though it may not have killed him. Apparently, he was regrowing the stolen lung, based on the scientists’ ‘follow up exploratory surgeries.’

And, as fascinating as that had been, it had led to them curiously amputating his hand and sewing it back on.

He still wasn’t sure if he was relieved or horrified when his hand had successfully reattached to his wrist after only a few days. Relieved that, well, his hand wasn’t gone.

Horrified because of how much worse this capture could be if he was unable to be killed.

How short a time had he even been here? He’d already lost track of the days. Had he been here a week? A month? It was amazing what a void time became when every second was an all-consuming pain. 

Danny had tried a few methods, at first, to keep track of the comings and goings of the agents, to see if that helped him keep time. It hadn’t - sometimes he’d see the same agents for multiple back to back experiments, sometimes he’d see them every two or three, sometimes he was left alone.

In the long list of things he was unsure of was if it was worse when the experiments were going or when they weren’t. He was always in pain, regardless, but when he was alone, all he had were his thoughts and the unimpeded view of the reflective glass above him, allowing him to catalog his injuries in excruciating detail.

At least when the scientists were there, he could get lost in the hum of their voices. It was fascinating information, really, it was. So long as he didn’t acknowledge it was him they were talking about. Plus, when they were present, he got shots of extra power suppressant, which made his mind all flowy and the pain hazy, if only for a little while.

Danny laid there, by himself for now, and stared up at the ceiling, at his own reflection. This had been the longest he’d ever been left alone since he got here.

His jumpsuit could regenerate on its own, but it never had been able to fully mend between the scientists’ visits. Now, however, it was in pristine condition, and had been for over a hundred of his slow heartbeats (his only somewhat consistent measure of time in this hellhole).

It was nice to not see the scars that covered nearly every inch of his body, even if they pulsed with pain that still left him acutely aware of them. He almost looked like himself again - if he ignored the glowing green cage over the lower half of his face, connected to a collar circling his throat, skin severely burned along the edges of it all. The edge of the muzzle dug into his skin and the gag between his teeth forced his jaw open. It had stolen his voice, stolen away his ability to scream and beg for mercy.

He could feel where his teeth had cracked and his jaw had fractured from all the times he’d still tried, though. The sounds of his cries stayed stuck in his throat through all of it, and the silent screams were pulled from him whether he wanted them to or not.

Pulling his gaze from the muzzle back to his suit, his mind wandered. If his suit had had so long to heal… why would they leave him alone this long? The last thing they had done was give him an injection directly into his heart that had made his entire body feel sore. Were they finally done with him?

…then why not just kill him? They weren’t just going to leave him here, strapped down like a biology experiment to rot forever, right?

…right?

Chapter Text

Lancer glared at the memo in his hands, fighting off the urge to rip it into shreds as he trembled with rage.

He shared a glance with Ishiyama, who just nodded at him with a frown.

Important notice to all Casper High Staff:

The Guys in White will be active on campus later today to capture the remaining ghosts haunting the school. Do not interfere with GIW personnel, equipment, or ghostly lures brought on campus. Do not notify the students, as we understand that there are ghost sympathizers among them who may incite violence.

-Agent O

Lancer had never hated someone. He was a teacher - patience was a virtue he had developed (even if he had also developed less desirable traits, like favoritism) - and he had never felt this much disdain for anyone in his life. Now, however, he finally understood all the times his stories had characters who had such anger and hatred that they saw red. 

He was seeing fiery crimson as he crumpled the note in his fist, trying to subtly do calming breathing exercises. None of the others understood - none of them could understand.

After all, it wasn’t any of their faults that Danny Phantom had been captured two weeks ago. None of them had been too slow in evacuating, none of them had been in the way when the Guys in White fired at an Unidentified Ghostly Assailant that they hadn’t seen behind them. No, only Lancer had been there to watch the ‘menacing’ Phantom jump in front of a shot that would have injured human and ghost alike.

Similarly, none of them had heard an agent bragging a little too loudly about a trap that had worked perfectly as they snapped a collar around the unconscious Phantom’s neck.

Lancer was many things - dumb was not one of them. Federal agents had intentionally shot at him - an unarmed civilian - so they could capture a ghost who’d barely ever done anything wrong. A familiar guilt curled in his stomach. He blamed himself for being bait. More than that, however, he wondered how he had forgotten a student. Phantom had saved him more often than any other member of Casper staff - he was clearly familiar with the teacher in a way that spoke of knowing each other.

Who was this child, when he’d been alive? How could Lancer not know which happy, joyous, wise-cracking child this had been?

Fine, Lancer thought as he slipped away from the teacher’s meeting, noting and ignoring Ishiyama’s worried look - she probably knew something was amiss by the look on his face.

Lancer hurried, passing through the empty auditorium where he knew over half the school would be once school hours started. It was what the student body had taken to doing since Phantom’s ‘arrest’: protesting with some sort of byline that would make even Samantha Manson proud, though she had been noticeably absent from the sit-in, along with Tucker Foley and Daniel Fenton. It confirmed a long held suspicion Lancer had - that the trio were somehow involved with Phantom. Ms. Manson and Mr. Foley were seen far too often around the specter, and Phantom had access to too much Fenton tech to not have an ally within the ghost hunter’s household.

Lancer hesitated for only a moment before pulling up the student files once he made it to his office. These kids were somehow involved, and - as much as he hated to involve them further - he had no doubt that they’d been spending the past two weeks planning to break Phantom out of the GIW facility he was in. And what better time to stage a breakout than when a platoon of GIW agents would be at the school? They were still a small organization - the building they occupied within Amity Park was a quarter the size of Casper High itself.

Steeling himself in his decision, he found the application Mr. Foley had submitted when he’d requested Casper to make a computer club.

“There you are,” he muttered, pulling Foley’s personal email address from the form. He tried to push aside the mental gymnastics he was doing - first the worry of knowing these agents had already shot at unarmed civilians before, and then the absolute belief that these three would storm the facility eventually regardless. “It’s safer if they do it today…”

Quickly, he smoothed and scanned the memo, emailing it to Foley from the burner email Lancer used for online video games.

The computer gave a ding as the email successfully sent, and Lancer finally gave up his losing battle with convincing himself this was a good idea. It was done. Whatever happened, happened. And Lancer would accept all the blame that came with it.

~~~~~~

Jack paced back and forth, angry tears falling from his eyes as he looked at the official, generic response crumpled in his hands.

Dr. and Mrs. Fenton, he read again, though the words were seared into his brain. It still irked him the way the Guys in White had addressed it, when they were both Dr. Fenton.

In response to your recent inquiry to be able to work with the recently acquired specimen VNM-262 (colloquially referred to as ‘Danny Phantom’), we are denying access at this time.

VNM-262 is a volatile, unusual presentation of spectral energy. It is being kept in a closely monitored environment with only strictly necessary personnel interacting with it, until such time as we can be sure its powers have been successfully nullified and/or removed. 

We will reach out to you when this state has been attained and/or when the subject has been destabilized to a point of being a non-threat.

Regards, 

Agent A

Administrations Assistant

Two weeks. They’d had his son for two fucking weeks already, doing God knows what to him. Well, only God may know exactly what, but Jack and Maddie could guess.

They’d been planning what they’d do in the same situation for two years, after all.

Jack’s tears burned as they ran down his face.

“What now?” Sam asked, looking as tired as Jack felt.

Jack glanced to the couch, studying the two exhausted teenagers sitting there, his equally drained wife on the chair beside them. Dark circles lined Sam’s eyes; Maddie’s jumpsuit was wrinkled and stained with ink; even Tucker’s beret seemed to be sagging under the weight of it all.

As usual, a mix of emotions welled up inside Jack as he studied his son’s friends. Anger that they’d known his secret and allowed Danny to keep it from them. Guilt that they had genuinely feared what Jack and Maddie would do to him if they found out. Relief that Danny hadn’t gone through the last two years alone. Grateful sadness at how hard they were working to try to help them save Danny.

Dozens of papers sat on the table in front of them, proof of their efforts. Requests under the Freedom of Information Act demanding information on Danny Phantom, law books and studies relating to illegal incarceration, cases setting various precedents on America’s mishandling of undocumented immigrants - anything and everything they could think of that might help them get Danny out.

Even Vlad’s lawyers - dead and alive - had offered their advice, but they didn’t have much. The Anti-Ecto Control Act was broad reaching and vague enough that the GIW could do whatever they wanted while court proceedings happened - which could take years.

“What do we do now?” Tucker asked, repeating Sam’s sentiment when neither of the adults in the room answered.

“I don’t know,” Maddie said, her voice betraying how close to tears she was.

“Maybe we should try Clockwork again,” Sam said desperately.

“So he can tell us the same ‘all is as it should be’ bullshit? No, thanks - I’m not up to throwing hands with a god of time. Again.” Tucker answered.

Jack remained silent, rereading the rejection notice from the GIW as he tried to push down the anger that spiked whenever the two spoke. It had taken them four days to tell the Fentons the truth of who Danny was after he’d been caught, after spending that entire time running the parents in circles whenever they tried to reach their son. They’d single-handedly thrown both parents' lives upside down and then directly into crisis.

The ensuing silence was like molasses down Jack’s throat, choking him, overwhelming him. “Fuck!” He yelled, turning and punching the wall behind him, going straight through the drywall in his desperation to break the oppressive quiet. “Fuck!”

All three of them had jumped at his outburst. They were used to Jack Fenton being loud - they weren’t used to him screaming or punching things (that weren’t ghosts). Jack couldn’t bring himself to face them again, instead leaning his head against the wall. 

“How do I get my son back?” He asked no one in particular, the ever present tears flowing harder. “I just want my son back. Please.” Jack didn’t know who he was pleading to. The universe, God, Clockwork, the people around him perhaps. Anyone, anything that would listen to him. “Please.”

Mercifully, Sam didn’t give the retort she’d given so often whenever Jack or Maddie had expressed similar sentiment in the past ten days. “Even if he’s half ghost?”

Jack continued to beg to whoever would listen to give him Danny back as he lowered himself to the floor, his legs unable to hold him up any longer as he leaned against the wall, his pleas swallowed by his sobs.

At least Jazz wasn’t here to see this. She’d gone to school overseas, and then on an expedition to study the psychology of areas that were less technologically developed. Or, at least, somewhere that her cell phone didn’t have service.

What would they say when Jazz finally did get in touch? She’d see the news of Danny’s capture. His arrest hadn't made international headlines - hell, it didn't even make national ones - but it was the only thing Amity's press was discussing. Would they have Danny back safely by the time Jazz inevitably saw an article?

A ding rang through the room like a gunshot as a voice cheerily announced “You have mail!” 

Tucker stared at the PDA in his hand - the source of the noise. “Who…?” he started, trailing off as he read the message, his frown deepening and eyes darkening as he did so. “Those fuckers!”

“What?” Sam asked, grabbing the PDA from him before he had the chance to answer. There was a short pause as she read the email. “Haven’t they done enough damage?”

“What is it?” Maddie interjected.

“An email - I don’t know from who,” Tucker answered, grabbing the PDA back, “but it’s a memo to the staff at Casper High. The Guys in White will be visiting today.”

“Does it say anything about Danny?” Jack asked.

“No,” Tucker sighed. “Just that they’ll be there and not to interfere with them, their equipment, or their ‘ghostly lures.’”

“Sounds like it’s time to storm a government base to me,” Sam said, her face far too serious and tired for someone who was barely sixteen.

“Can I take a look?” Maddie asked, holding out her hand. Tucker shrugged and handed the PDA over. She read it aloud, likely for Jack’s benefit, but he was struggling to not drown in his grief. He’d never been good at insurmountable problems. He’d let it consume him - and then he would come out the other side swinging, full of determination and the bedrocks of a plan.

He’d never had anything this high stakes to get through before, though. It felt like every brain cell he had was dying, replaced by a void of grief.

Jack couldn’t say it aloud, but he didn’t know if there was a way to save his son, to bring him back home. To rectify the mistakes they’d made, to show him that Jack loved him with his entire heart no matter what, to beg Danny’s forgiveness that they’d given him enough reason to doubt. 

While the GIW facility looked like nothing more than an office building, it was armed and defended to the teeth. Jack and Maddie had helped them set up the weaponry, a fact that burned like acid in his mind.

Conversation around him pulled Jack from the tempest of pain his mind had become.

“Something is bugging me with this,” Maddie said, her lips pursed the way they did when she was deep in thought. “The note not to tell the students due to the possibility of a riot, and this ghostly lure they referenced.”

“It’s a scientific government facility that hurts innocents. Everything they say should bug you,” Sam said, an edge to her voice that made Maddie flinch.

“I think we should go to the school,” Maddie continued.

“What? If one of the teams is gone, we can go to the facility directly and have a better chance of busting Danny out!” Sam shouted, immediately shooting to her feet.

“They catch their number one target and leave him under-protected barely two weeks later? The GIW don’t have that many employees,” Maddie pointed out.

Jack glanced over at his wife, a frown forming as he realized she was right. “We wouldn’t have, after all. Not this soon.”

The two Fenton parents shared grimaces as guilt burned Jack alive.

Sam opened her mouth to say something, but Tucker placed a gentle hand on hers and she pursed her lips in aggravation instead.

“So we go to the school, and then what?” Tucker asked, glancing between the ghost hunters. “How the hell do we get Danny away from them?”

“Ecto-weapons can be dangerous to humans, too,” Maddie said, standing and rolling her shoulders, a look of grim determination on her face.

“You’re going to open fire on federal agents in a high school? Are you sure that’s smart?” Sam questioned.

“No, it’s dumb as hell,” Jack answered, heading towards the lab for more weapons. “But we’re getting Danny out of there, consequences be damned.”

When Jack returned, he handed off several ecto-weapons to Maddie, nodding wordlessly. He also handed her a Fenton Thermos, tossing two more to Sam and Tucker, one already clipped to his own belt. “Maddie and I will distract them. Get Danny in a Thermos and get him out of the school.”

“Maybe only one of you should distract them,” Tucker said, rolling the Thermos around in his hands. “Then we can pretend that one was overshadowed or something. Otherwise, we’ll be getting Danny out of there, just to be forced into foster care or something. He needs the portal and its ambient ectoenergy - he can’t lose both of you.”

Maddie was grabbing the ecto-gun out of Jack’s hands before he could react. “Tucker’s right, and I’m the better shot.”

Jack frowned. “If they don’t buy the overshadowed theory, you’ll go to jail for attempted murder.”

Maddie hummed slightly, ejecting the cartridge and studying the sleek, see-through container where green glowed with its own ethereal light. She popped the cartridge back in, cocking the weapon with practiced ease. “You and I both know it won’t be attempted murder, dear.”

The protest almost bubbled past Jack’s lips before he bit his tongue. As much as he hated it, she was right. This might be their only shot to save Danny, and Jack’s desire to save his son easily trod over his pride at pretending he wasn’t a bad shot. So, with more restraint than Jack Fenton remembered ever using before, he kept his mouth shut, and allowed his wife to make the self-sacrifice play. “Danny comes home today,” he promised.

Even if you don’t, were the words they left unspoken as Maddie met his gaze, a brief moment of sadness in her eyes before they hardened to determined steel.

“Let’s bring him home,” Tucker mumbled, standing from his seat with Sam following. “No matter what.”

Chapter Text

Danny had begun to accept that he was abandoned by even the scientists who tortured him when the door to his room finally slid open again, men and women he recognized walking in.

“Secure him,” Operative K barked, gesturing to Danny as though he were nothing more than trash someone forgot to take out.

A scientist - one whose face haunted his memories - nodded, walking to Danny’s side, grabbing a syringe with a needle the size of his outstretched hand from a tray behind him. “Injecting Nullifier D3-742 booster,” she said boredly, shoving the needle through jumpsuit, skin, and muscle alike. Danny tried to scream when it burned through him, but the bit gag between his teeth swallowed the noise the same way it had been the whole time.

“And we’re positive this will keep him completely contained?” Operative O asked from K’s side, idly studying Danny’s restrained form.

How could they call him inhuman when they watched a child cry?

“Positive. We’ve already given the initial dose as of seven hours ago,” - had it really only been seven hours? - “and we’ve tripled the dosage from what has put down other ghosts. Although maybe next time you’ll actually listen to me before issuing a memo like that,” she finished, glaring at the two operatives with frustration.

“Maybe you should be clearer in your own memos, Dr. F.” K shot back.

The scientist - Dr. F - snorted. “Yes, I’ll certainly be sure to be clearer than ‘Successful trial ran on specimen AV3-912, specimen VNM-262 will begin testing on serum G34 at 0900 tomorrow,’ since that was confusing for you.”

 Danny wanted to laugh hysterically. They sounded like his parents - sending playful jabs at each other as they worked.

While they jabbed him with needles.

While they studied him and ignored his pained cries, silent as they were.

…he couldn’t help but wonder how similar this scene would be if it were teal and orange jumpsuits instead of pristine white coats around him.

He wanted desperately to believe it’d be different.

He wasn’t sure if he did.

As they spoke, whatever it was they’d injected him continued to burn, growing from a painful heat to an all-consuming inferno. Tears fell quicker from his face as it felt like a sun was being birthed in his veins, normally full of comforting ice. Every nerve ending had been burnt - he was amazed that his skin didn’t begin to crack and crumble into ash.

“Release left arm restraint,” K said.

“What’s the magic word?” Dr. F sent back, grinning.

“I hate you?”

“No, but close enough,” she said, pressing her thumb to a spot near Danny’s left wrist.

Confusion blossomed within Danny, but hope continued to be devoid of supply. He wasn’t stupid, despite what Lancer and the rest of his teachers may believe.

These people wouldn’t be releasing his tethers unless they were confident he couldn’t fight back.

Still, he tried, struggling to adjust his arm, and only getting a weak twitch for what felt like a Herculean effort. When he attempted to pool ectoplasm into his palm to form an ectoblast, nothing happened.

His weak movement was noticed, and Dr. F grinned brightly - she was a kid on Halloween and he was a full-size chocolate bar based on her expression. Seriously, how did so many heartless people work for the same company? How did no one here have a conscience, have a little voice saying ‘hey, maybe don’t torture someone too young to drive’ ?

They released his limbs one at a time, always checking to make sure his movement remained limited, until they removed the band from across his hips - the last of the restraints.

“Up,” Operative K growled.

Even without the gag, Danny didn’t think he’d have a quip as he sat up. Or, well, as he tried to sit up. His gasp was consumed by the gag as thoroughly as his screams had been. His entire body seemed to explode with pain as he moved muscles he hadn’t had control over since his capture.

“Oh come on,” O said, his eye roll hidden by his glasses but still audible in his tone. He gripped Danny’s upper arm and jerked him roughly into a sitting position. Danny managed to sit up with the ‘assistance’ (for lack of a better word). He leaned forward, nausea clawing its acidic way up his throat. He tried to breathe through his nose, well aware that if he vomited right now, it’d just choke him more.

“How is your pain?” Dr. F asked at Danny’s side, pulling a pin light from her breast pocket and flashing it in front of his eyes.

Danny’s fists clenched at his side. He may have only just learned her name, but he’d long since memorized her face - he'd had plenty of time to study her as she repeatedly slit him open with ruthless efficiency.

“Oh, right, you can’t talk,” she realized, tapping on the muzzle with her finger like one might boop a toddler’s nose. “Hold up your fingers, I believe the amputated hand is working functionally since reattachment?”

His arms felt heavy as he raised them, the first time they’d been moved beyond just struggling against the restraints. He held up nine fingers - after all, before this, he’d thought he’d already experienced ten out of ten pain before, typically involving Skulker or Vlad. However, the Guys in White had been kind enough to show him that he had known nothing of pain, and something told him they would continue to move the goalpost of what ‘ten out of ten’ would be.

“Lying will garner you no sympathy, ghost,” K said.

Danny wanted to argue, to ask how the hell they expected him to answer a question if they didn’t have any intention of  believing his answer, but the gag swallowed his attempts to talk. He was still stewing in his frustration (and trying to ignore the fact every single inch of him ached) when something attached to the collar he wore. Another was attached on the opposite side before he could react.

Humiliation made his face burn as he realized what it was. He was collared, muzzled, and now leashed - how much further could they reduce him to an animal? Did they intend to strip away every inch of his humanity? If so, they were succeeding. After so long in ghost form without reverting to human, without the warmth of his blood in his veins - replaced by chilled ectoplasm, that was spilt out of him like a fountain - he’d never felt less human. The urge to snarl was sudden and strong, surprising him with its newness. He managed to smother it down, refusing to give them more reason to believe he was more animal than human.

K grabbed at the cage of the muzzle, pulling Danny’s face towards him, eliciting a small, noiseless whimper as the jarring movement sent pain through his wounds. “We’re going on a field trip. You’re going to behave. Understand me?” Danny tried to nod, but K’s grip on the muzzle kept his movement limited. He seemed to accept the small confirmation, at least. “Good. Otherwise, my hand might just… slip.” He said, holding up his free hand to show Danny a remote. “And you won’t like what happens after that.”

“You worry too much, K,” Dr. F said, gently running her hand through his white hair, knocking K’s hand away. “You’ll be a good boy for us, right?”

Danny eyed her in confusion. She did remember mutilating him, right? He was fairly certain he hadn’t imagined the various times she’d pressed a scalpel to his skin. She knew they weren’t friends and that he hated her, or she was dumber than Danny in English class. Still, she wasn’t currently actively torturing him and making him beg for death, so he nodded.

“Now we’re going to try walking, okay?” Dr. F asked gently, grabbing both of his hands and helping him off the metal slab. “I know you’re not as used to that, but the nullifier we gave you means no flying.”

Danny swayed as soon as he stood, his knees buckling under his low weight. Dr. F caught him as he fell, whispering soft words of affirmation. Seriously, what the fuck was she doing?

… and why did it remind him so much of his mom, so much that he’d do anything she said to get those gentle words and touches again? He blinked away tears before they could fall. He’d managed to keep thoughts of his parents to a minimum thus far, and he refused to dwell on them.

Unsteadily, leaning slightly on F, he managed to get his feet under him. His knees shook, but they didn’t give out again. 

“I’m gonna let go now, okay sweetie?”

I want my mom and dad.

He rapidly pushed away the intrusive thought, nodding at F. The doctor slowly removed her arm from Danny’s waist and stepped away, the agents around them leveling their guns at him in case he tried to make some grand escape attempt.

…if he wasn’t so weak, moments away from fainting, he might have actually tried that.

“Make a single movement and I’ll blast you sky high,” Operative K said as he holstered his ecto-gun. “Arms out.”

Danny hesitated before reaching out his hands, hating the way they trembled with fear. If K noticed, he didn’t say anything about it as he clasped manacles around his wrists. Danny flinched as the weight pulled at the hand that had been cut off, still tender and covered in stitches. He stayed still as K knelt down, placing similar shackles on his ankles.

Lastly, K pulled out a weird blue rope that glowed with its own light, attaching it to the front of Danny’s collar and both pairs of restraints.

“Don’t worry, dear, it’s just a precaution!” Dr. F said, smiling at him in a way that reminded him far too much of his dad’s smiles when Danny would chat with him over fudge.

It was different from the excited, curious, somewhat sadistic smile she normally wore above him.

Still, Danny found himself hoping she’d continue giving him praise. It had been so long since he’d gotten any.

“You have your keys?” F asked, turning away from Danny, looking at K and O, fishing a small, thin piece of metal from her pants pocket. Danny could tell from their posture they’d both rolled their eyes at that, each of them pulling out identical ‘keys.’

“I don’t see why we’re bringing them,” O said, tucking the key back into his suit jacket’s inner pocket. “We’re not releasing that freak.”

Danny almost expected her to come to his defense from the word ‘freak,’ but F just shrugged. “Company policy - keys gotta stay nearby. You know the higher ups have never actually worked the field. Or the lab. Or anywhere, ever in their lives.”

K laughed at that, a genuine, happy sound, and the noise echoed around Danny’s torture chamber, oddly out of place. “God bless nepotism, right?”

Still chuckling, K went to Danny’s side, O taking a spot on his opposite side. Each grabbed one of the green leashes they’d latched to him, pulling them taut.

“N and M will also be joining us, right?” F asked, walking in front of them, the three of them awkwardly following her past the door, Danny being jerked painfully in opposite directions by the two men.

Danny nearly fled as soon as they were clear of the room, but two more GIW agents joined them the moment they walked out. Operatives N and M, if he had to guess.

“I’m going to get the van pulled around, meet me in front of the complex,” F said, turning down a branching hallway.

“I’ll go with you - you know how much paperwork there is to take a vehicle, even with pre-approval,” K said, handing off the leash he held to either M or N - they hadn’t exactly introduced themselves. He handed the remote he’d threatened Danny with earlier over to O.

Danny’s little group continued down the way they’d been going, and he was surprised to note they hadn’t realized he had superhuman hearing.

At least, he assumed so, based on the fact he could still hear K and F’s conversation.

“Why are you being so weird with him?” K asked.

“Specimen is exhibiting characteristics consistent with teenage years - he seems to genuinely believe he’s a good kid. Positive reinforcement is more effective for that age range,” F answered, her voice cold and calculating. “Makes my skin crawl but you saw the way he looked at me. It worked.”

K’s laugh this time was piercing. “God, you’re right. I can’t…” his voice trailed off as he got far enough away that even Danny’s enhanced hearing couldn’t make out his words.

It wasn’t a surprise, of course. F had been horrific to him the whole time he’d been here - he knew she wouldn’t suddenly be nice to him, be sympathetic to his plight.

So why did it hurt so bad? Why did it feel like betrayal?

Mom, where are you? I need you.

Chapter Text

“Attention, students and faculty of Casper High - please report to the gymnasium.”

Principal Ishiyama’s words were staticky over the cheap intercom, and Dash scowled at the speaker. He crossed his arms over his chest, stubbornly refusing to move from his seat on the floor of the school auditorium, along with over half the student body.

Danny Phantom had been missing for two weeks now, and the teenagers refused to budge until their hero was released back to the world.

Predictably, none of them made any effort to get up and do as they were told. Several minutes passed before Lancer’s exhausted voice came over the intercom. “This meeting is being called by the Guys in White.”

That got them moving. Like one organism, all the students rose from the floor and hurried to the gym, Dash leading the way. He had no plan, no idea, nothing other than a vague notion of beating a federal agent into a bloody pulp, as he slid into a seat near the stage. He craned his neck around, trying to spot any of the ridiculously pristine white suits he knew these fuckers wore.

Dash’s leg shook with anticipation as he waited for the Guys in White to join them, determined to learn where Phantom was and how to free him. The ghost was Dash’s hero - and had saved the quarterback’s ass often enough by now that Dash would never be able to repay the debt. He had to do something!

He hadn’t even noticed who sat beside him until he heard their voices.

“This isn’t going to work, not here,” Sam Manson hissed under her breath to Tucker Foley.

“It’s our best play and you know it,” Foley hissed back.

“There’s no way everyone gets out of this alive,” Manson said.

Dash tuned them out, idly noting that Fenton wasn’t with them. Those three had been out of school, not participating in the sit-in at all. There were rumors they were working on breaking out Phantom - it was no secret that the trio seemed to have more to do with the hero than they let on.

Were they really planning their next nerd night - what was it called, Snakes and Ladders? Whatever, that weird loser imagination game with the funny dice - right now? They held those in the gym every now and again (though they alternated days after Dash cornered Mikey one too many times). Regardless, Dash had actually almost believed they were working towards freeing Phantom until now. This was the one place Phantom wouldn’t be! He was halfway to a decision to beat the ever loving shit out of the two losers when suddenly the door opened and he found himself instead fighting to keep his breakfast in his stomach, an eerie hush stealing everyone’s voice.

A pretty middle aged woman with red hair led a group up the stairs: four guys in those obnoxiously clean outfits, and one smaller form between them who couldn’t have looked more out of place. Dark bags lined the underside of Phantom’s eyes; his hair was limp, and streaks of green ectoplasm could occasionally be seen. His hands were bound, his feet only given enough slack to make small, shuffling movements. Two men held leashes attached to a collar, tightly enough that Phantom seemed to be slightly on his tiptoes once they came to a stop to keep pressure off his neck.

All of that paled in comparison to the fucking muzzle covering his mouth, a bit gag visible beneath it that was pushed back so far into Phantom’s mouth that Dash’s own jaw ached in sympathy. Burn marks were visible on his lower face and along his chin and neck, around the cage.

What the fuck did they do?

He heard Manson gasp and Foley seemed to be physically holding back tears as the six figures on stage settled in.

“Hello, Casper High!” The woman said, her voice echoing easily without a microphone, especially when no one dared as much as breathe at the sight of the hero visibly exhausted and hurt, tear tracks trailing down his face.

Dash saw Lancer standing near the stage, leaning on a wall for support, as green tinged his cheeks in a way that would put ectoplasm to shame. At least Dash wasn’t the only one having to battle with partially digested food. His eyes went back to the battered hero. The two men holding the leashes stepped closer to him, relaxing their pull. Without them holding him up, Phantom collapsed to his knees, head down, and Dash could swear he heard the ghost sob and struggle to breathe. Dash dug his fingers into his jeans, twisting the material as he fought with his brain to realize what he was seeing.

The hero of Amity Park, beaten, bound, and broken. Gagged. Helpless.

Dash hadn’t thought Phantom was capable of being helpless.

The woman cleared her throat, the sound too loud in the deathly stillness of the room. “I am Dr. F, lead researcher on this specimen, and -”

“What the hell did you do to him?!” A voice screamed, cutting the scientist off. Dash turned to look for the voice, surprised to see nerdy Mikey of all people on his feet, yelling at federal agents. Fat tears rolled unashamedly down the nerd’s face. “Let him go!”

“That’s mi amor! Do what the loser kid said!” Another voice popped up - this one Dash recognized immediately as Paulina’s.

And then the door slammed open again and Dash felt the blood rush from his face as the Fentons ran into the room. Fuck, fuck, fuck, they needed to get Phantom out of here, Dash’s brain wasn’t working, they had no plan, and now more ghost hunters had shown up! Fuck!

“Mads, the ghost tracker says the ghost is in here!” Jack Fenton yelled, though his voice sounded… off. The excitement everyone knew from the orange-clad man seemed dampened to such a degree that even Dash noticed.

Maddie Fenton sighed. “Dear, I think we’re interrupting something,” she said, gesturing towards the GIW agents. “My apologies, we were in the area and got an alert of a high level ghost at the high school. Is that Phantom?”

The lady - Dr. F - pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. “It is. We have this well under control, please see yourselves out.”

“Oh, come on,” Dr. Fenton said, her voice all smiles and friendliness as she casually got closer to the agents. “I’m the top expert in ectobiology in the world. I can help.”

Dash didn’t notice the way her hand slowly snuck around her back, grabbing the handle of a gun.

“If we wanted a buffoon’s help, we’d ask for it,” Dr. F said, irritation in her face.

Dash had no idea what to do, his eyes going a mile a minute trying to figure out how he could help. His panicked searching was the only reason he saw the look on Phantom’s face - something like relief. Dash followed the ghost's gaze, realizing he was looking at Foley and Manson. The quarterback could see more of Foley’s face than Manson’s and realized the tech geek was mouthing something, making small gestures towards Maddie Fenton. Phantom tilted his head to the side slightly and Foley nodded, his lip subtly twitching up into a smile. He reached into the jacket he wore - when the hell did Foley start wearing jackets? - and Dash just barely saw the familiar glint of silver and green. Everyone in Amity knew of it; the Fenton Thermos.

Dash was suddenly very grateful he hadn’t pummeled these two. Despite it all, they did have a plan. A sigh of relief escaped him.

…and then more shouting started.

It started with one person, then another, then two more, and then suddenly it was every student screaming at once, demanding Phantom’s release. He vaguely heard Dr. F yelling at everyone to be quiet, the agents behind her trying to say the same but being overrun by the determination of a bunch of teenagers.

And then Dash learned what major electrical voltage sounded like. Cracks of electricity enveloped Phantom. Dash was close enough to see the way Phantom’s mouth tried to open in a scream, only for no sound to come out, his eyes rolling back into his head. If it hadn’t been for the two agents still gripping the leashes connected to his collar, Dash was positive Phantom would’ve face-planted on the ground. As it was, they kept him on his knees, his entire body shuddering with electrical arcs visible to the naked eye.

Somehow, Phantom being forced to remain kneeling as he was tortured was worse than if he’d been allowed to fall. Good God, this was middle of nowhere, Illinois, how was it even possible that Dash was watching a dead child get tortured in the comfort of his high school?

The sound was loud enough to silence the crowd again, quiet sounds of horror surrounding him as they watched their hero punished because of them.

Dr. F smiled, smoothing back her immaculately styled hair. “As I was saying -”

“Phantom, stop whatever you’re doing!” An agent shouted, jerking on the leash in his hands. Dr. F whirled around, watching the same show everyone else had been when she had tried to talk again.

Tears fell freely from Phantom’s eyes, his shoulders shaking as he silently sobbed. Green ectoplasm poured from his nose, making the already pale ghost look even paler as it streaked down his face, dripping to pool on the floor beneath him.

But it was the flickering white circle of light that kept appearing around his waist that had everyone holding their breaths. Phantom had been protecting the city for over a year now - everyone assumed they’d seen all of the ghost’s powers by now. This was new.

The circles continued to flicker in and out of existence, the agents screaming at him to stop, until Dash saw one of them pull a remote out of their jacket, pressing a button that had electric pulses dancing along Phantom’s skin again.

Dash watched as Phantom’s chest heaved for air (that he hadn’t known the ghost actually needed?), the circle appearing again.

Another agent began to shout at the ghost again to stop, but even he hesitated when the circle began to move across Phantom’s body, changing him out of the jumpsuit.

Wait… that shirt -

“No!” Jack Fenton screamed, running forward.

Dash didn’t try to win the fight with his lunch when it decided to make an appearance this time, leaning over and emptying the contents of his stomach onto the cream colored, cracked linoleum.

Even the vomit was a more welcome sight than what he was seeing - Danny Fenton, in the same binds Phantom had been in, in the exact same spot. Tears continued to flow from his eyes, but now Dash could hear the heaving sobs coming from the boy.

Which, honestly, Dash was impressed it was only sobs. He would have been screaming, or possibly passed out.

His jumpsuit had hidden most of the damage. Danny’s skin was a patchwork of purple and blue, red blood replacing the green flowing from his nose, which bled even heavier after the second round of electrocution. Cuts covered his arms and hands, clean slices that looked intentional, and then stitched up.

Suddenly, Dash felt very much out of his depth. He wasn’t an expert in ecto-science or politics or anything like that - but even he figured out quickly that Danny’s situation was bad to begin with.

And now he’d been outed to the government agency who had left scars that Dash suspected should’ve killed him.

“Fuck,” Tucker whispered at his side, and Dash couldn’t help but agree.

Chapter Text

Maddie had been seeing red since they first walked into the room, since she’d seen her baby boy visibly exhausted and in pain. She hadn’t cared that his hair was white or that his eyes were green or that his skin was the wrong shade - she believed Sam and Tucker when they told her Danny was Phantom. It had been a blow at first, and she’d tried to deny it with everything she had.

But then her son hadn’t been home in days by that point. And he’d continued to not come home. And she’d found more proof in his room, proof in the lab, hell, even proof in the bathroom, where green-covered tissue had been buried in the bottom of the waste basket.

So when she saw Phantom, kneeling like a prized animal and exhausted, she’d been furious. Then that sham of a doctor had all but called Jack a buffoon.

Then the electricity.

And then he lost his Phantom form, shifting back to his human half. Maddie already had her theories about this; and clearly the GIW hadn’t known about this either, based on their faces, so it was easy to surmise they’d used a power suppressant which had prevented the transformation - up until they introduced high volumes of electricity. Ghost cores were electrical pulses, so it was an easy one plus one is two explanation, as far as she was concerned.

But she didn’t actually care at this moment. She didn’t care about science or discovery or breakthroughs.

What did she care about, then? In that moment, she cared that she saw amputation marks - cuts too clean and too large to be anything but that - haphazardly stitched back on. She cared that she saw an I-incision on the back of one of his hands, likely so they could pull out tendons or nerves. She cared about the bruises, about the burns, about the blood falling from his nose, about the terrified tears and the muzzle gripping her son’s face.

She cared that, as she watched, red began to soak through the white T-shirt he wore, blooming into a perfect Y before it began to over-saturate and drip down his chest.

Had that been bleeding this whole time? Had they done that poor a job of stitching him up? Or had he popped the stitches during his spasms when he’d been electrocuted with enough amperage to stop an elephant’s heart?

How many times had he been vivisected - her innocent little boy?

…how many times had she dreamed about doing this exact thing to Phantom? How much of a monster did it make her that the cuts likely made by Dr. F were almost in the same places Maddie herself had planned to cut?

Now was not the time for that.

She sprang into action, knocking guns out of two agents’ hands before taking both on in hand-to-hand combat. She clearly had more training, but taking on two muscular men was difficult. She would kick one in the chest just to have to duck the other’s fist, parrying with an attack to the second guy’s throat, right in time for the first guy to have recovered and come for her again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw what she assumed was part of the football team tackling one of the others, Dr. F backing away from them. 

Wait, there were four agents -

“Enough!” The fourth agent called from behind her. “Back off.”

The agent held up the remote that had caused the electrical surge in Danny’s collar. Maddie stopped fighting, holding her hands up in surrender. One of the agents she’d been fighting - K, she realized - grabbed her arms, navigating them behind her back. She felt as a set of handcuffs settled against her wrists, the feel and temperature of the metal telling her these were supposed to be for ghosts, not humans.

Maddie glanced at the football team, kneeling with their hands behind their heads. Well, at least they didn’t have enough handcuffs for all of them.

“Now, we’re all going to calm down and th-” 

A loud, concussive sound blasted around them. The agent slumped down, the remote falling from his hand. It clattered to the floor, the sound so small and insignificant it was almost laughable when compared to the boom that had preceded it.

“Get away from him,” Tucker said, ecto-gun still smoking from where he’d fired it. His hand was steadier than his voice.

The moment of hesitation was all Maddie needed. She slammed her head back, feeling the crunch of Operative K’s nose, causing his grip on her to loosen. Breaking free of him, her knee immediately went for Idiot A’s groin. A went down immediately, falling to the side like a tree that had been chopped down. The football team was up as soon as she was and quickly incapacitated the third agent again. Maddie ducked and weaved to avoid K until she was finally able to find an opening. It was moderately harder to do this with her hands cuffed behind her back.

Her heart raced in her ears as adrenaline pushed her body to its limit, dropping low to swipe K’s feet out from under him. He managed to catch himself on one knee, but Maddie was faster. She swung one of her feet at his head, uncaring of how much force she put behind the kick.

K caught her kick, holding her foot with both hands and keeping it from connecting with his already bleeding nose. In a maneuver that was much easier twenty years and two pregnancies ago, Maddie worked off the momentum she’d built up, pressing the caught foot deeper into K’s hands, using him to balance as she brought her other foot around.

He wasn’t as lucky this time, taking the kick directly to the side of his face and sending him roughly to the floor, a concerning CRACK echoing as his head struck. Maddie wasn’t far behind, landing harshly on her right hip since she couldn’t stop her fall. Pain immediately blossomed up her entire side, but she managed to roll herself back onto her feet.

Her son had been vivisected. She could handle a bruise.

K was unconscious, but Idiot A had finally recovered and was trying to get up. A sharp kick to the back of his head made short work of him, joining K in la-la land. The last agent - Operative O, she finally realized - had been successfully subdued, his hands behind his back and bound with his own handcuffs. She allowed herself a small smirk at that - nearly fifty and a mother of two, and she could still kick federal butt with her hands literally tied behind her back. She could hear the cheers of the teenagers behind her, watching her like a movie. Her ego might have swelled slightly from it.

That hip injury was definitely going to come back and bite her, though. She was not looking forward to that.

Chapter Text

When Danny had first seen his parents burst through the door, terror had made a vivid resurgence. He’d accepted he was too weak to escape the Guys in White on his own, but he’d had faith when he saw they’d brought him to the high school, the one place in the entire city where Danny had an almost 100% approval rate. Someone here would at least try to save him, try to track him to where he was being kept if they couldn’t get him out here. His hope had tripled when he saw Sam and Tucker, the two of them giving him looks of horror and stony determination.

And then Jack Fenton had burst through the door like a grenade, Maddie following after and having a calm discussion with Dr. F.

It had been Tucker who’d managed to subtly catch his eye, clad in a large jacket the halfa had never seen before. Danny had gotten good at reading lips after the Accident - it hadn’t been permanent, but his hearing had definitely taken a hit that day.

…and many days since then. Skulker’s weapons were loud, after all, so all three had practiced reading lips together fairly often. He was lucky the damage was never permanent.

Hopefully, the damage from the GIW wouldn’t be permanent either.

You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. 

Tucker mouthed it repeatedly, giving Danny a chance to lock onto Tucker and realize he was talking to him.

The gag prevented Danny from being able to mouth back to him, so he glanced at the agents around him, raising an eyebrow and hoping Tucker would understand his question. You’re going to help me, right?

 Tucker nodded, giving him a strained smile. We have a plan. Tucker explained, gesturing slightly towards where Maddie was slowly advancing to Dr. F.

Danny tilted his head a minuscule amount, scrunching his eyebrows together. They know? was the unspoken question, his eyes flicking to his mother then his father.

Another nod and some of the tension seeped out from his sore muscles. His friends. His family. His classmates.

He was going to get to go home, something he’d almost given up on. He didn’t hate himself for crying when it was happy tears running down his face. Tucker adjusted the jacket he wore, pulling out a Thermos from the inner pocket just enough for Danny to be able to see it.

He hated that thing but if it could get him out of here, he’d marry it. It may suck the devices in with him but that was a problem for later, when he didn’t have four very burly men ready to beat him until he couldn’t move if he so much as twitched wrong.

Unfortunately, even the best laid plans were subject to failure, and Danny had no doubt that this was nowhere near being even a good-ish laid plan.

Students began yelling for his release, a crescendo of angry teenagers who finally had someone to take their anger out on. Danny heard Dr. F shouting for silence, the agents joining her as the school got more rowdy - he was fairly certain he even heard Mr. Lancer screaming at them to free him.

Danny didn’t get a warning before his body tried to tear itself apart on an atomic level. His howl of agony - he could tell it was trying to become a Wail - was consumed by the gag in his mouth, like so many others before it. This one, however, made him decide he had definitely now felt what ten out of ten pain felt like. His teeth dug into the gag and he could feel more of them crack, felt his jaw try to break in half, but Danny couldn’t do anything to stop it. His body was responding to the electrical impulses being forced into it, not to him or his will. Icy ectoplasm began to drip from his nose and he wondered if this much electricity was liquifying his brain. He was fairly certain he blacked out for a second or two at some point, and he was relieved that he’d been spared even a moment of that pain. His body went limp beneath him, the collar digging into his neck the only thing sparing him from falling over entirely.

Tears coated his face and he couldn’t bring himself to look at anyone - he could guess the look of horror he’d get. Operative K’s sadistic grin told him all he needed to know.

Muscles twitched involuntarily under his skin, ectoplasm continued pouring from his nose, and his grip on consciousness was slipping through his fingers.

He wondered if the Ancients hated him when he felt the familiar warmth of his transformation rings around his waist, trying to tempt him back into his human body, into the wonderful feeling of warm blood in his veins. 

Danny pushed them down, but they kept popping back to life, each one threatening to expose a secret he’d managed to keep even during captivity.

More electricity flooded his system and he decided this was worse than the electricity that killed him. At least when he’d died, his muscles, his nerves, his ability to hurt had disintegrated to ash before reforming; he hadn’t been able to feel the full extent of the pain.

It was a mercy he didn’t realize he’d been granted until it was ripped away from him.

When it stopped this time, he didn’t have the energy to even try to fight his transformation, too busy desperately trying to draw air into tortured lungs. 

“No!” His father shouted as the liquid dripping from his nose turned warm and red. He felt more injuries beginning to bleed, particularly along his chest, the popped stitches each a sharp pinprick in the constellation of his suffering.

Was he even real anymore? Or was he just an existence of agony, a never ending tsunami of pain?

Danny cried, even his tears warm against his cool skin, and he realized that he could finally, finally, hear his own sobs, merely muffled by the gag instead of consumed.

Motion and movement exploded around him, but he could barely remember his own name, much less keep track of what sounded like multiple people fighting around him. Blackness edged along his vision. On instinct more than thought, Danny cast his eyes to the crowd, finding the two people he loved more than the world. He might have been dying, he wasn’t entirely sure. Sure, he’d died before, but this death wasn’t as quick and merciful as the portal had been.

He studied Tucker, trying to commit his face to memory. The dark skin, cheeks still a little round from the youth that hadn’t quite faded yet. The beginnings of stubble, probably a month in the making. His signature red beret.

He had two favorite colors. Red, the same as the hat Tucker had worn since they were kids.

His gaze slid over to Sam and his second favorite color - pale purple. Her eyes had captivated him before, and he allowed them to claim him again. He hoped they’d be okay without him. Without him, they could close the portal, especially now that his parents knew - they wouldn’t have to worry about making sure Danny had ambient ectoenergy.

Danny knew they’d miss him. But every single nerve in his body hurt. He was tired and he was in agony. He was a fighter, but even warriors had their limit.

Movement from Tucker pulled Danny’s attention to him, and he watched as Tuck pulled out a silver object from his backpack. Some curiosity managed to slide around the pain. It was the wrong shape to be the Thermos, and Danny was too far away to be caught in its light.

Sam placed her hand on Tucker’s arm, saying something Danny couldn’t read, his brain too saturated in fog. She glanced up at him, at whatever noise and movement was surrounding him that he didn’t care to see. She clenched her teeth, her cheeks sucking in slightly with the movement. Never breaking her gaze from him, Sam nodded.

Tucker held up the Fenton Silver Thingie (as Danny’s fading mind had dubbed it), aiming it.

Danny realized what it was just before the boom of it firing, and hot blood that wasn’t his own splattered against his cheek. It was an experimental ecto-gun, one that had never been used outside of the house because it hurt humans the same way a normal gun would - it didn’t need to be up close and personal like other ecto-guns did to hurt a human.

His eyes widened and he stared at Tucker in shock, the surprise of it managing to clear some of the fog from his brain. The sounds of fighting resumed to his side, but Sam and Tucker ran to him, throwing their arms around him. They helped him to his feet, half-dragging him away from the chaos behind him. Even when he stumbled, when his legs gave out beneath him, they held him gently. Their touches were soft and loving, and tears fell from his eyes as he finally remembered what a friendly touch felt like.

Once they were a few feet away from the commotion, they lowered Danny to the floor. He swayed and nearly fell backwards, but Sam’s arm shot out to catch and steady him. Wordlessly, without being prompted or asked, she slid around so she was behind him. One arm wrapped around his side, her free hand rubbing small circles against his back after checking he was uninjured there. “I’ve got you,” she murmured. “I’ve got you, Danny.”

Tucker knelt in front of him, pressing a hand against the side of Danny’s face, careful to avoid the burns. “We’ve got you. You’re still here.” Tucker leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. Tears slipped from Tucker’s eyes, some drops falling onto Danny’s face from where Tucker was bent above him. Danny reached up - his hands had plenty of give in this position. He grabbed Tucker’s free hand, leading it to where his heart beat in his chest.

Tucker hiccuped a sob, keeping the pressure of his hand soft, but didn’t move his hand, despite the blood beginning to soak through the spot from injuries higher up on his body.

I’m here. I’m alive. I love you both.

He tried to say it, but only managed a few muffled noises.

“We love you, too,” Sam answered, leaning forward and mirroring Tucker’s position, her forehead against Danny’s back.

How long had it been since he’d felt a genuinely friendly touch? Someone reaching out for him because they loved him, not because they had scalpels and he was an interesting thing? Danny tangled his hands into Tucker’s shirt, letting the warmth of his two best friends envelop him.

“Son,” his father said. Danny turned, seeing the man towering over them. Jack fell to his knees beside them, landing so hard that even Danny winced in sympathy. If it hurt him, Jack didn’t show it, instead reaching out for his son.

Jack hesitated, his hands only inches away, eyes filled with grief and love searching Danny’s face.

Danny gently shrugged his shoulders and Sam and Tucker eased their grips on him. He leaned to his side, towards Jack’s outstretched arms. His father’s face crumpled with relief and he moved closer, wrapping the boy in his arms, burying his face into unwashed hair still streaked with ectoplasm and now blood.

Danny pressed his cheek against his father’s broad chest, the familiar scent of latex, fudge, and engine oil sharply distinct from the sterile room he’d been in for days. After so long in the GIW’s ‘care,’ Danny could do nothing but revel in the feelings of love surrounding him. He knew this moment had lasted less than a minute, but it was the best minute of his young life.

“I’m sorry,” Jack sobbed, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He held Danny like he was fragile glass, and for once, Danny appreciated it. He didn’t think his body could handle a true Jack Fenton hug right now. “I’m sorry.”

Danny wanted to tell him it was okay, he was forgiven, he had done nothing wrong, to beg his father to never stop hugging him. He couldn’t, though, so he just pressed his cheek harder against the squeaky orange material. Sam and Tucker remained silent, their hands resting on his waist and free shoulder, unwilling to let go of him anytime soon.

Jack sniffled and pulled away, placing his hands on either side of Danny’s face. “Let’s get you out of this, okay?” He said, gently tapping the collar chafing Danny’s skin. The halfa nodded - he was tired of being muzzled, of his jaw being forced open around the gag.

Jack pulled away, looking towards the stage. The teens’ eyes followed his gaze. Of everything Danny expected to see, he had to admit this was not it.

Three of the agents were limp - two of them had their hands behind their backs and were propped against a wall. The third was still crumpled where he’d fallen, the pool of red around him slowly inching forward. The fourth was the only one awake and scowling at the various teenage boys up there, several sporting busted lips and black eyes.

Looking at the one Tucker had shot, Danny was sad to see it wasn’t Operatives O or K. They’d be haunting his nightmares far more than M or N - Danny still didn’t know which was which, just that the other was unconscious - as he’d only met those two today.

O and K, however, had been frequent, enthusiastic participants to his torture.

His mother and Lancer were also on stage, Lancer wiggling what looked like a paper clip to handcuffs around Maddie’s wrists. Dr. F was behind them, Dash and Kwan to either side and holding her arms with what looked like far too much force, judging by the pain on the doctor’s face.

Danny just couldn’t bring himself to care about her pain, for some strange and inexplicable reason.

“Do you know how to get this off?” Jack asked, craning his neck to study the collar. “I don’t see any key holes. I don’t want to force it off in case there’s a failsafe mechanism.”

Danny nodded and pointed towards Dr. F, right as the clatter of cuffs falling to the floor caught his attention. Maddie’s hands were finally free, and she rubbed one of her wrists.

Jack nodded to his son, getting up and making his way up the stage. “How do I get that off?” He asked, gesturing to where Danny kneeled between his friends. Danny shuddered as she turned her gaze to him, a scowl distorting her features. Sam’s arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him back to press against her. Tucker held onto one of Danny’s hands, wrapping his other around the crook of the halfa’s elbow.

Danny relaxed marginally in their grips.

“It doesn’t come off,” Dr. F answered, turning to sneer at Jack. “We never planned for it to.”

“You really don’t want to lie to me right now,” Jack said calmly, but the way he rolled his shoulders gave voice to the ‘or else’ that went unspoken.

“It doesn’t come off,” she insisted, jutting her chin out in defiance.

Danny tapped on both of his friends’ hands to get their attention. He pointed to himself and then the stage, using two fingers to indicate walking.

“Are you sure you want to go back up there?” Tucker whispered as Jack and Dr. F argued back and forth, Maddie also providing some not-even-slightly-veiled threats as F refused to talk.

The halfa nodded and the other two stood. They carefully reached for him, wrapping their arms underneath his and helping prop him up. For once, Danny didn’t feel bad about the fact he couldn’t walk on his own. He was vaguely aware of the students surrounding them, all silently staring. After being stared at for so long by various scientists, a cold chill ran down his spine that he knew had nothing to do with his ghost sense and everything to do with anxiety and fear.

“Lady, if you don’t tell me how the hell to get my son out of the damn muzzle you put on him, we’re gonna have a bad time,” Jack said as the trio made their way up the stage. He wrapped his hands along the neckline of her clothes and jerked her up and out of the teenagers’ hands, holding her at eye level with him. Dr. F squeaked and swung her feet as she lost her purchase on the ground.

Danny’s friends led him to his father’s side, and he tapped on Jack’s elbow to get his attention. Jack turned to look at him but it was his mother who spoke up.

“Is everything okay, Danny?” She asked, flinching when she realized her poor choice in words - very, very little was okay right now. Danny pointed at Dr. F and then at the ground. Jack slowly lowered the doctor to the ground, motioning for the two football players to grab her again. Dash and Kwan did so gladly.

Even with all of his friends around him, his family openly accepting him, this was, for some reason, what made him feel utterly safe. The other jocks stood guard around the one conscious agent, their focus unwavering in a way Danny had never seen from them before.

This was his school, his town. And they were protecting him.

Swallowing down the sentimental lump in his throat, Tucker helped Danny cross the two steps to her. Danny hesitated for a moment before deciding he actually didn’t really care about being kind to this woman. He reached into the front pocket of her white slacks.

“Don’t touch me!” She yelled, trying to jerk away from him, but Dash and Kwan held her still.

Danny found the small key, pulling it out with relief. He held the key up for his mother to see. Danny pointed at the key and the collar, held up three fingers, pointed at the key again and held up two fingers, then pointed at the unconscious Operative K and the pissed off Operative O.

“Three keys total to remove the collar, the others are on those two agents?” Maddie surmised. Danny would’ve grinned if he could, nodding again. Sometimes it was nice to have genius parents. 

The Fenton parents went over to the agents, not caring about permission or rudeness as they searched through pockets, until similar keys were pulled from the suits of both men (Operative O cursed up a storm as he was held still and searched).

“Let’s get this off of you, kiddo,” Jack said as he knelt beside Danny, the three small keys dwarfed by the size of his palm as Maddie ran her hand along the smooth metal of his collar.

“There’s some small holes that are the right size,” Maddie said, gesturing to them. She grabbed one of the keys from Jack and Danny felt the pressure as she slid one of the keys into the collar.

Immediately, he was shocked by it. His body involuntarily shuddered and he heard Sam and Tucker cry out in pain, hurriedly pulling away from him as Danny seized from the electrical current. Maddie jerked the key out and the pain stopped, leaving Danny a wheezing mess on the floor, more wounds torn open and blood continuing its heavy flow, soaking through the front of his shirt. He curled up on the floor, softly sobbing.

The pain wasn’t worse than what he’d experienced before - it was maybe a four on his new and improved pain scale. But it had been a surprise, at the hands of his mother - even if it was accidental - and old nightmares surged into his mind. It didn’t help that Sam and Tuck had gotten hurt too.

“Shit! Son, don’t worry, we’re gonna get you out of this,” Jack said, gently brushing some of the hair off his forehead and out of his eyes.

“Maybe they need to be inserted simultaneously?” Maddie wondered, glaring at the harmless looking bits of metal.

“Or in a particular order, or even though they all look the same they have specific spots they go, or these are decoy keys, or any number of other things,” Jack answered, carding a hand through his hair in clear frustration.

“Danny?” Tucker asked, resting a hand on the other boy’s bicep. “Do you know if there’s a particular order?”

Danny shook his head sluggishly.

“I think he needs a hospital,” Tucker said, looking at the Fentons in a panic. Danny wanted to protest that, but he was just too tired to care. Everything hurt and now he was safe with people who loved him, he could sleep and actually rest. 

“Oh!” Sam said suddenly, snapping her fingers. “Danny, do you remember when they put this on you?”

Danny nodded. Ancients, he was tired of nodding. He just wanted to speak and sleep and maybe scream.

“I need you to think really hard about when they put that on you, Danny. Try to remember where they were and when they were there. Were they far apart? Did they stand close together? Could you feel when the keys went in, even if it was just a really small movement? They had to lock it to begin with, after all.” Sam encouraged, her voice soft and soothing as her hand resumed rubbing his back with a tenderness that made him want to weep.

He closed his eyes tighter as he flung through his memories, doing his best to not drown in the memories of some of the harsher experiments they’d run on him. They hadn’t always needed a scalpel to make him hurt.

Finally, through the haze of repressed pain, Danny found the memory.

He nodded.

“You remember?” Sam asked, continuing the gentle ministrations on his back.

Nod.

“Were they inserted separately?” Maddie said. Sam shifted away slightly, letting the older woman take over the questions.

Danny shook his head no.

“So we need to use all the keys at the same time?” His mother urged.

Nod.

“Are you positive?”

Nod again.

“Danny, are you absolutely sure? It may shock you again if we’re wrong.”

He shook his head again. No, he wasn’t absolutely sure. He was only vaguely positive. But he was prepared for the pain this time.

“You’re not sure? Is there something else you’ve remembered, is -” Maddie began, nerves in her voice. He heard Jack put a hand on Maddie’s shoulder, quieting her.

“Do you want us to try doing the keys simultaneously?” He asked.

Danny peeked his eyes open and nodded.

“Okay. I’m going to sit you up, and the others will unlock the collar, okay?” Jack said.

Danny shook his head quickly. His father couldn’t touch him - if they were wrong and he got shocked, Jack having contact with Danny would get him zapped too. Danny gestured wildly at his collar, the key and Maddie, Sam and Tucker, unsure how to accurately mime his way through ‘this will hurt you if we’re wrong.’

“His suit will protect him from the electricity if this isn’t right. But you’ll have nothing to protect you.” Maddie said, the first one to figure out what he meant. “Is that why you shook your head? You worried about Jack?”

Tucker and Sam slid away from Danny, both their hands stained red. Jack grimaced as he replaced them and gently lifted Danny into a sitting position, his blood-soaked shirt squelching slightly. Maddie handed out the other two keys to the teens.

“I promise, I’ll be okay,” Jack said, adjusting Danny so he was leaning against his father to keep from falling. “Are you ready?”

Danny squeezed his eyes closed again and nodded. Jack’s hand found his and Danny held on to his father’s hand like a small child crossing the street.

Maddie took a deep breath. “On the count of three,” she said, the three in position around Danny. “One, two… three!”

Danny clenched Jack’s hand harder, his muscles tensing as he prepared for the shocks he was sure would come. Instead, he heard a quiet click, and pressure that had been a constant presence for Ancients knows how long eased up, just a little. He felt Jack tug at something behind his head and the muzzle on his face loosened slightly.

Tears of relief fell from his eyes as Jack worked the muzzle off his face and Tucker pulled the collar from his throat. The gag went with the muzzle. For the first time in ages, Danny was able to close his mouth, and his jaw protested the now-foreign movement. He ran his sandpaper-like tongue along the back of his teeth, not even caring that they desperately needed a good brushing. His tongue had been pressed under that gag the whole time, his teeth dug painfully into it. He was free of that prison, finally, finally. 

The shackles on his wrists and ankles were soon clanging to the floor, only needing one of the collar’s keys to undo them.

A loud cheer from the assembled students made Danny jump - he had forgotten about their enthralled audience.

“He’s okay!” someone yelled.

“Phantom! Phantom! Phantom!” another chanted.

“Did anyone call for an ambulance? That’s a lot of blood.”

“I'm on the phone with them now.”

“Can we make a citizen’s arrest on that psycho ass doctor?”

Snippets of conversations rang around him, everyone ecstatic to see him or concerned for his current state. It was loud and it was chaotic and it was amazing, to hear so much noise around him. The scientists had never gotten that exuberant.

“Thank you,” Danny managed to whisper, his voice like broken glass from disuse and his mouth being forced open, drying out even his throat. “Thank you.”

“We’re so happy to see you, sweetie,” Maddie said, eyes misting over with tears that didn’t fall as she joined the rest of them in kneeling on the floor.

Danny managed a smile, though the muscles in his face ached, pulled at the burns surrounding his mouth from the muzzle. He didn’t mind, though - it was a good ache. He could smile and he could talk and laugh and scream, he had survived.

Danny leaned forward, towards his mother, and she wrapped her arms around him. Sam and Tucker joined after, with Jack encircling them all, and Danny smiled his painful smile.

Now I can rest, they’ll watch over me, Danny thought, his eyes slipping shut from exhaustion (and probably blood loss). The last thing Danny heard before gentle blackness claimed him was the sound of sirens. But it was okay - he was safe in the arms of people he loved. Everything would be fine.

Chapter Text

Tucker wondered if it was possible for bones to feel exhaustion as he collapsed into a chair in Danny’s room, the beeps and boops of the hospital machinery echoing in the quiet space around him. Sam snored lightly on the couch beside him, a calming noise compared to the anxiety of the instruments attached to Danny.

It wasn’t a secret that Tucker didn’t like hospitals. He didn’t like the smell of antiseptic, he didn’t like the too-clean gleaming of the white and gray around him, he sure as hell didn’t like the too-large needles the nurses kept using. What he liked even less, however, was the idea of leaving Danny alone. He and Sam were in agreement, though none of them said it: they weren’t going to be taking their eyes off Danny for a long, long time. Every scan they’d taken Danny for, every injection they’d given him, every test they’d run - Tucker and Sam had watched and accompanied him. The Drs. Fenton also tended to accompany them - it was exceedingly rare for neither parent to be present.

Tucker glanced up at the clock, running a hand through his wet hair as he noted the time. 2:18 AM. At least Danny’s room had a full bathroom attached to it, even if the halfa couldn’t use it right now.

Sighing, he leaned forward, lifting Danny’s limp hand from the mattress. He ran his thumb along Danny’s knuckles, back and forth - careful to avoid the stitches where his hand and some fingers had been severed and reattached at some point - the motion done more to soothe himself than his comatose best friend. At some point after Danny’s accident, Tucker had begun to believe his friend was practically invincible, that nothing could keep him down for long.

It was a belief thrown into stark doubt as he studied Danny, who seemed small and frail under the tubes and wires. A breathing tube had been forced down his throat to try to take some of the strain off of his one functioning lung. The other was growing back, slowly - to everyone’s disgust at what that meant had been done to him, and to their relief that it was even possible. He’d only woken up once since the school. He’d been in the emergency room and had swung into an immediate panic - it had taken the combined efforts of Jack and Maddie to pin him down while a doctor sedated him. Tucker’s heart had shattered at the sight; Danny hadn’t seemed to recognize any of them when he’d woken up - had been afraid of his friends. A severe stress response following horrific trauma, the doctor had explained as Danny had fallen back asleep, sobbing and pleading for help.

It had been a unanimous decision to keep him in a medically induced coma while his body healed. The number of injuries they’d detailed, more found with each test they’d run, had made Tucker sick to his stomach.

Stress fractures, broken bones, torn ligaments, bruised muscles. Cracked teeth and a dislocated jaw. Malnutrition. Dehydration. Healed needle marks. All on top of the things that had been obvious, like the lacerations and the electrical burns on his neck, the chemical burns on his face. Tendons that were half-formed, like they’d been removed and had to grow back. No one had any idea what kind of mental scars they’d discover when he woke up, but everyone believed he’d have a plethora.

Tucker gently brushed his hand through Danny’s hair, careful to avoid the tube in his nose that was feeding him while he couldn’t eat. It was overwhelming, seeing him like this. White tape kept the breathing tube in place, little sticky pads on his chest reading his heart beat. The little clippy thing clung to his finger - Tucker knew it tracked something, but for the life of him, he had no idea what.

IVs were stuck into the crooks of both elbows. In one, saline kept him hydrated and pentobarbital kept him unconscious. Diluted ectoplasm ran in the other, once Sam and Tucker had explained Danny typically ate ectoplasm every few days to keep his ghost half fueled as well. A blood pressure cuff wrapped around his upper arm, checking it rhythmically. Motorized compression devices wrapped around both of Danny’s legs - an ‘intermittent pneumatic compression’ device to help prevent blood clots. The treatment team had pulled out everything short of fentanyl. This was so far beyond what any doctor had training for. Danny shouldn’t be alive right now to be treated. 

Tucker had to force himself to not look at the half-healed wound that started at Danny’s collarbone and disappeared below the edge of the blanket covering him.

Unable to keep studying this broken image of his friend, Tucker kept one hand on Danny’s and grabbed his PDA from a nearby table, searching through social media, news sites, and fringe theory conspiracy blogs, looking for news on Phantom. Some he sifted through himself, but most were run through a program he’d coded to search the Internet for keywords. He breathed a sigh of relief when he confirmed there had been no news, save for the occasional reference to the fact Phantom was still missing from a few locals, who wished him health and luck ‘wherever he was.’

It was a load of BS, of course. All of Amity Park knew the truth by now, but a collective agreement had spread through the town: Danny Phantom had saved their asses more times than anyone cared to count. It was time they returned the favor.

Videos had swirled around the town of Danny’s reveal at the school, but none made it online. Stored to phones, saved on hard drives, but never loaded to the Internet. In the three days since Danny’s rather public outing, not a single person in Amity Park would risk outsiders seeing the truth. Neither Sam nor Tucker had left Danny’s hospital room, but their parents came to bring them clothes, and the Fenton parents occasionally had to go to their home for ecto-based technology and materials the hospital wasn’t equipped with; and so they got told the details of life outside this small room.

Some things, however, they also learned simply from the shouting outside Danny’s door. Guys in White agents had been stationed there since Danny’s admission, claiming they had jurisdiction over the ‘ecto-entity,’ trying to demand his release into their custody. The hospital had refused, stating it was their duty to stabilize any and all patients that came through their doors, and that Danny Fenton-Phantom was both in critical condition and at risk of rapid deterioration if care was withdrawn.

Tucker had nearly punched the agent who’d said hospitals were only required to treat injured humans, and the ‘thing’ they were treating was no longer classified as such.

Jack had beaten Tucker to the punch, quite literally.

He’d have been more worried about them coming to take Danny away if they didn’t have their own guards. Amity Park police were stationed in the hall as well. Numerous high school students sat restlessly in the halls at any given time, their cell phones open to record and aimed at the agents. Adult civilians joined on a schedule Tucker didn’t know. Doctors, nurses, and hospital security staff constantly monitored the hall. So while they had two agents on Danny’s door at all times, the teenage hero had at least thirty people ready and willing to throw hands with the government to keep him safe.

The agents stayed outside Danny’s door at all times, never trying to enter, alternating out every twelve hours. In total, Tucker had seen five different agents, including O and K. He had the sneaking suspicion that this was the entirety of what was left of the local Guys in White; a fact he had confirmed when he’d finally managed to hack into their systems a few hours after Danny got to the hospital.

He knew he should probably feel guilty. The reason he’d been able to get in finally was because of the phone he’d stolen from the corpse of the agent he’d shot. Tucker had killed someone, after all. But he didn’t care. After all the torture Danny wore on his skin and in his bones, the only people here with questionable humanity were the white-suited monsters guarding his friend’s door.

Regardless, his hack had been successful, thanks to one dead man’s unlocked cell phone. He’d tried to skim the file they had on Danny so he could give the doctors more information on what all Danny had been through in case it would help his treatment, but he’d lost his lunch four paragraphs into a three hundred page document. He hadn’t even tried to look at the attached photos.

When Tucker had sent the file to the doctor running point on Danny’s care, the doctor had been kind enough to not question where the information came from. Tucker hadn’t missed the haunted look in the man’s eyes the next time they saw each other, though.

Tucker changed to a different app on his PDA, the one that linked into the GIW’s servers. No one had noticed his presence in their system yet (and likely wouldn’t, their cybersecurity once he was in was practically nonexistent.) He made sure not to delete anything, only to watch and learn, a simple fly on the (fire)wall.

Memos were shared back and forth about Danny. As far as Tucker could tell, the entirety of the Guys in White was only about fifteen agents and a dozen scientists. Well, fourteen agents, now. One guy in charge in D.C., the five agents in Amity, nine agents in other, more remote locations, and the scientists spread out between the stations.

Tucker skimmed through the newest memo, chewing his lip as he did so. The big boss - Agent Charlie - had made a decision, finally. His heart hammered in his chest as he read, terrified to see what awaited them next.

Daniel James Fenton, aka Danny Phantom, aka specimen designation VNM-262, is an ecto-entity of high power level and poses a risk to national security. The ghost falls under our jurisdiction. However, any and all pursuits of him must be done covertly. We cannot risk the backlash if the populace discovers we held him, since he is able to blend in and pretend to be a human child. Accusations would come in faster than we could dispute them, which would shutter the agency’s doors and leave the general populace vulnerable to ecto-entity assault. Do not, under any circumstances, reveal his dual identity. Keep this contained to Amity Park.

Continue monitoring specimen VNM-262. Do not engage unless absolutely necessary. Operative K will take point on the case. Dr. F is the scientific lead. Report any and all changes to them. They will report to me.

Remember, death is the end. VNM-262 is not a child, he is a perversion of nature. He is an unregulated WMD, whether or not the public realizes it yet.

God bless America.

Agent Charlie

Tucker reread the words several times, letting them sink in. It… wasn’t the worst outcome, at least. He saved a copy of the memo, sending it off to Jack and Maddie’s emails, double checking there were no other memos, triple checking all the files that had been loaded into the system since his last check twelve hours ago to make sure none of them hid secrets the memo didn’t say.

Tucker glanced out the window, the sun beginning to rise and marking the fourth day of Danny’s coma. He hadn’t even realized how long he’d been reviewing the files. His eyes traveled over the machines confirming Danny’s life, over Sam’s face that had finally relaxed in sleep, over scars on Danny’s arms.

They would survive this. Danny would heal from this. Amity would protect him from the government while Phantom protected them from the ghosts.

The sun continued inching its way up into the sky. The black of night bled into blue, hues of purple and pink streaking up from the horizon. Rays of light glittered off the windows of nearby office buildings, jumping from reflective surface to reflective surface. Tucker smiled, letting some small modicum of tension ease from his shoulders. Sunrise was calm and quiet. Sunrise was a cacophony of color.

Life had been difficult since Danny’s accident, and Tucker had no doubt that it was about to get anything but easier. Life had been a fight for a long time now, that wouldn’t stop. But they had more allies than any of them had ever dared to hope. The Guys in White were scrambling to cover their asses, unwilling to let it get out they had brutalized a teenage boy.

He was pulled from his thoughts as Jack pushed the door open. The father nodded to him in acknowledgement before beelining for the chair on Danny’s other side, immediately reaching for his son’s free hand.

Tucker gently squeezed Danny’s hand, careful of the stitches keeping him together, and smiled at the older man.

“Y’know, I think everything’s going to be alright.”

He hoped Jack believed it as much as he did.