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The Fenton Anti-Ghost Ravager worked like a charm. Phantom screamed as the plasma discharge hit, the highest voltage they could pack into a cartridge of supercharged ectoplasm. Jack let out a whoop as it started to fall, convulsing too much to catch itself, and plowed into the ground. Maddie took off at a run, an excited smile all he could see past her hood, and Jack ran after her.
As they’d hoped, inside the new ditch it had dug into the asphalt, Phantom was unresponsive, twitching weakly after the high-voltage shock, electrical signals temporarily overwhelmed by the interference.
“We did it, Maddie!” Jack shouted, leaning down to drag Phantom free. “We got the ghost!”
“It’s not ‘got’ until it’s in the lab, Jack,” Maddie chided, rummaging through her suit. She grabbed a net cartridge and fired it at Phantom, and the conductive threads wrapped themselves around it, leaving the other end attached to another shock mechanism. Maddie allowed herself a self-satisfied smile. “But, this is certainly closer than we’ve ever gotten before.”
Jack laughed in delight, leaned down, and threw Phantom over his shoulder. Phantom whimpered, maybe being stimulated to noise by the jostling, and Jack ignored it. “Let’s not waste any time, then! To the lab!”
This fight hadn’t taken them far from the GAV - they’d arrived shortly before Phantom used their thermos on the technology ghost. Reminded of the theft, Jack reached up, patted at Phantom’s hips, and unhooked the stolen thermos. There! It was about time!
Jack dumped Phantom into the back, then climbed into the driver’s seat while Maddie twisted around to keep an eye on the thing, not even flinching when Jack stepped on the gas.
“Are we starting with the throat or the hands, Mads?” Jack asked, leaning on the wheel. “Hands are so basic, if it has everything-”
“We’ll get to everything in time, Jack,” Maddie reminded him patiently, not taking her eyes off their cargo. She pressed the button, and Jack heard Phantom cry out. “Stay down, spook! We can’t start with the things that might discorporate it, and that includes the throat.”
“Awww,” Jack whined, but he was grinning. “I can’t wait! We’ll have to set up the camera!”
“Yes, Jack. Both the video and a photo camera. We’ll be making history tonight.” There was anticipation in Maddie’s voice, her own excitement tamped carefully down and tied up in self-control.
Maddie shocked Phantom twice more before they got home - it certainly did gather itself quickly. But it was limp again, eyelids fluttering weakly, by the time Jack hauled it up and trotted into the house, beelining for the lab with Maddie just ahead of him.
That damn portal was open again! Jack closed it before the ghost could get any ideas, while Maddie hastily curtained off a portion of their lab and set out folding tables for their supplies. She rolled over the dissection table and wiped it down with anti-ecto disinfectant before nodding to Jack.
“See if you can get that jumpsuit off,” she instructed him, her voice smoothed into something focused and unwavering. Jack grinned. Man, that was hot!
“You got it, Mads!”
He dumped Phantom onto the table and pulled off the netting, then started fiddling with the jumpsuit. Funnily enough, it seemed to be fastened the same way their haz-mats were - Jack supposed that most jumpsuits were similar like that. It made the thing easy to peel off, and the jeans and t-shirt he found underneath were even easier. For the sake of the boy the ghost had once been, Jack left the boxers on; Phantom might have been an evil ghost, but it looked like a teenage boy, and even thinking about taking those off made Jack feel like a weird pervert. Instead, he focused on binding Phantom’s wrists and ankles with the leather anti-ecto restraints, thankful that Phantom had remained limp and dazed throughout the process.
That didn’t last much longer.
“Uhh…?” Phantom murmured, starting to blink. It rolled its head to one side, unfocused green eyes squinting at the restraint on its wrist. “Wha…?”
“None of your tricks,” Maddie ordered, suddenly there. Bless her, she’d grabbed the muzzle from the supply closet, and she pushed the barbed tongue depressor into Phantom’s mouth, strangling its sudden protest. As she fastened it behind the ghost’s head, she continued, “Lies won’t help you here, and this muzzle will keep you from using your sonic attack. Don’t try crying either, ghost.”
Phantom blinked at her, eyes wide and still struggling to focus. It didn’t cry.
Jack pulled the last restraint tight and moved to help Maddie prep the instruments. By the time they’d finished, Phantom was more awake, and it started shaking its head and whimpering behind the gag, pathetic little noises it had copied from injured humans. They tugged at Jack’s heart, but he ignored it, knowing it was just the ghost.
“So, the hand?” Jack asked, finally grabbing a scalpel. Maddie smiled at him.
Phantom started yanking at its restraints, whining and yelping and shaking its head again.
“Yes, Jack. Cut through the flesh layer and peel it back so we can look for bones and tendons. It’ll give us a good idea of what we’re working with. You can start if you’d like.” Her voice was indulgent.
Phantom let out a muffled scream. Jack bounced over to its side and leaned over, scooping up its much smaller hand in his, and it struggled, trying to jerk out of his grip. Jack made the mistake of looking up and meeting its eyes.
Its eyes, wide with terror, shiny with tears. It shook its head, not in general, but at him, pleading.
“Don’t look, Jack,” Maddie coached gently, knowing that he’d always had a softer heart. “It’s just trying to manipulate you.”
Jack swallowed, unable to look away. Its hand twitched in his. It shook its head again.
Something lit up around its waist; Jack couldn’t break eye contact to look. Maddie swore, grabbing a scalpel to press to its throat in the beginning of a threat, but all that happened was that a ring of light swept over it, replacing Phantom with- with Danny, still teary and terrified, begging Jack with his eyes.
Jack’s heart stopped.
“How dare you,” Maddie hissed, pressing the scalpel to Danny’s throat hard enough to bead red. Danny whimpered. “Do you think you can trick us like this, ghost? You are nothing-”
“Maddie,” Jack croaked. Danny’s chest was rising and falling frantically, hyperventilating on the table, tears trickling down his muzzled face. “It’s him.”
Maddie took a deep breath. “Jack, honey-”
“Maddie. Please.” Jack’s voice cracked. His hands shook, and the scalpel slipped through his fingers and clinked against the floor. He started to fumble at one of the restraints. He felt numb and on fire at the same time. “It’s him. Oh God. Oh God.”
Maddie pulled the scalpel away from Danny’s throat, but now she was looking at him with a mixture of pity and concern. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Maddie- Maddie.” Jack choked on his words, but had to pause, had to make her understand. Couldn’t let her do anything they’d both regret. “Look at him. Look at his eyes. Please, Maddie.”
Maddie looked, and then she whispered, “Oh, God.”
She started fumbling with the restraints too. Under their hands, Danny stopped struggling, but his body trembled like a leaf, his breath still coming too fast. Jack quickly got frustrated with his own shaking hands and cut the restraints off, and as soon as he was free, Danny threw himself off the table and stumbled- crawled away. He didn’t go far, maybe still too weak to move much, but he pressed himself against the opposite corner, curled into a ball, and sobbed, muffled and broken.
Both Jack and Maddie stared at him, speechless. Silence blanketed the lab, everything but Danny’s strangled crying, his hand pressed over the muzzle as if to hide it. No- to hold it still, to still the dozen wicked barbs that were digging into his tongue, probably ripping it with each sob.
“Danny-” Maddie choked out, taking a step as if to approach him.
Danny wailed in protest, throwing his other arm over his eyes, and cried harder, hysterical with fear and pain. Maddie stilled, and sank to the ground instead, trying to appear non-threatening. Jack went with her, unable to take his eyes off Danny.
Danny… was Phantom, somehow. Had always been Phantom, maybe. Having seen the transformation, it now seemed obvious: they had the same eyes, the same hairstyle, the exact same curve of the cheek. Danny was so slow to lose his baby fat, like Jack had been; it made him look younger. They had the same lithe build, because Danny only looked scrawny if you didn’t notice the growing muscle, and- and Phantom had worn an old set of Danny’s clothes under his haz-mat. It was a haz-mat suit. It looked like theirs because it was theirs.
And they- Jack was going to- Danny had to beg him not to-
“Jack, breathe.”
Suddenly, Maddie was there, holding his hands tightly. She’d pulled her hood down, so her eyes were easy to see. She looked pale and sick, with thick tear tracks running down her face, but she held gamely onto Jack.
“In,” she ordered him, with only a hint of a shake in her voice. Jack inhaled. “One, two, three, four, five. Hold, one, two, three, four, five. Out-”
Jack breathed, forcing the tingle out of his hands and the ringing out of his ears. His hearing faded back in, revealing that Danny was still crying, not quite as desperate and terrified, but punctuated with weak moans of misery. He’d dropped his arms from his face to hug himself, but still flinched when Jack looked at him, his sobs picking up speed and volume.
Jack’s phone rang. He answered it without thinking.
“He-”
“I saw the news,” Jazz interrupted, sounding like- like she was barely holding onto her composure. “Please, Dad, let him go. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Oh,” Jack heard himself say. “You know.”
Jazz paused, processing that. Maddie stared at Jack, eyes boring into him with a kind of rigid desperation. Jack had no answers for her, and only shook his head.
“Please tell me he’s off the table,” Jazz said at last, weakly, her voice wavering.
“He is,” Jack managed. Danny’s crying had slowed down, and he lifted his head, looking at them with something like hope. Tears poured down his cheeks. “He’s- he’s crying scared, Jazzy, but we didn’t touch him, I swear.” His voice broke.
Jazz took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. I’m coming home. I’ll be there tomorrow. Can you give the phone to him?”
“…He’s muzzled,” Jack confessed. It came out so quiet that Jazz could probably barely hear it.
“…Can you…?”
“He won’t let us close enough to take it off. It’s- it’s not meant to come off.”
“Okay. Okay.” On the other end, Jazz muffled a sob. “P-put me on speaker.”
Jack put her on speaker, raised the volume to max, and slid the phone across the room. Danny still flinched at the sudden movement, but his eyes locked onto the phone.
“It’s okay, Danny,” Jazz called out, pitching her voice as soothing as possible. “Everything is going to be okay. They stopped as soon as they knew it was you, just like you always knew they would.” Danny sobbed some more, muffled and breathless. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I know you’re scared, you had a really close call, but you’re okay. Everything is going to be okay.” Danny whined, fingers digging into the muzzle as if to rip it off. “I know. I know. Can you look at Mom and Dad?” Danny squealed in horror, reduced to animal noises by the thing in his mouth, his eyes wide with hysteria. “I know, Danny, I know. But please. Do they look mad? Or do they look sorry? Look at them.”
Slowly, Danny lifted his gaze to them. His blue eyes - baby blue, Jack’s blue eyes in Maddie’s shape - looked afraid, confused and hurt. He was trembling, still, curled up tightly as if to hide, or to protect the chest they’d wanted to- to cut into. Jack wondered what he was seeing, and, perhaps foolishly, looked.
Maddie’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, her lips parted as she took shaky, deep breaths. She didn’t look away from Danny, but looked dazed, and Jack wondered if she was really seeing him. She knelt on the stone floor, hands pressed flat - a kneeling bow, back bent under the weight of her guilt.
Danny whimpered, drawing Jack’s attention back to him. Jazz seemed to take that as an answer.
“They’re so sorry, Danny. They never meant to hurt you. Will you let them apologize to you?”
Another whimper. It was all the cue Jack needed, and he found his voice.
“I’m sorry, Danny,” he choked out. Belatedly, he realized that he was crying too, strangled sobs shaking his shoulders and tears pouring down his face. “I’m s-so s-s-sorry!”
“I’m sorry,” Maddie whispered, trembling and seemingly locked into her position. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
When Jack dared to look up again, he found that Danny’s eyes had softened and cleared, like he was seeing them for the first time since Jack had laid him out on the table. At the thought, the image superimposed over what he was seeing now, Jack collapsed into sobs again.
Danny whimpered, silencing him. Jack looked up. Maddie looked up. Danny looked back at them. Tentatively, his hands trembling, Danny grasped the edge of the muzzle and tugged pointedly, looking at Maddie. Maddie blinked at him, and Danny did it again, expression shifting to a more pleading look. Slowly, uncertainly, Maddie leaned forward, shifting onto her hands and knees. Danny watched her, nervous but not protesting, and Maddie started to crawl across the floor.
“You’re amazing, Jazzy,” Jack managed, watching Maddie’s progress. “I, I think Danny’s letting Maddie work on the muzzle.”
“Thank goodness,” Jazz whispered, with as much relief as Jack felt.
Maddie stopped when she got close to Danny and simply knelt, watching him patiently. Danny watched her back for a minute, then, hesitantly, crawled forward and sat in front of her. She lifted her hands, telegraphing the movement, and his eyes flicked down to track them. By the time she touched the muzzle, Danny was trembling like a leaf and his eyes were full of tears again, but he didn’t pull away. Maddie unhooked the fasteners behind his head, the easy part, and then placed one hand on the muzzle, the other cupping his head, and started to gently try to work the barbs free. Danny moaned in pain, but closed his eyes and let her work.
“Danny?” Jazz asked, suddenly panicked.
“He’s okay, Jazzy,” Jack croaked, unable to take his eyes off the two of them. His heart twisted and throbbed in his chest. “The- the muzzle, it’s… barbed.”
“…Oh.”
As Maddie worked, tears started to leak from Danny’s closed eyes, but he stayed limp and pliant in Maddie’s hands. Maddie, bless her, was too focused to even cry right now - she’d probably process it after she was done, but for now, she silently twitched the muzzle back and forth, trying to release the barbs with as little damage as possible.
“Jazz,” Jack asked after a while. “Does he… heal fast?”
There was wind on the other side of the line now. Jazz must have finally felt it was safe enough to move into her car and get going. “Yes, he does. Minor cuts and bruises typically heal in hours. But… longer if it also hurt him emotionally. So. Maybe a couple of days, a week at most.”
A week seemed like a really long time for Danny’s tongue to be full of holes that they put there.
“Smoothies and milkshakes,” Jazz said, sounding like she was reassuring herself as much as him, clinging to practicality. “Toothache food.”
“Right.” Jack still couldn’t look away.
At last, carefully, Maddie pulled the muzzle away from Danny’s face. The tongue depressor left his open mouth, and Danny gasped in relief. Then, immediately, he snapped it shut and scooted back to the wall, one hand covering his bare mouth to protect it. Maddie stared blankly down at the muzzle in her hands, then dropped it unceremoniously.
“He’s free,” Jack reported to Jazz, because she’d want to know. “He’s just… shivering in the corner again.”
Jazz cursed, shocking Jack out of his daze.
“We don’t know what shock looks like in halfas,” Jazz said, sounding stressed and frustrated.
“…Halfas?”
“This is an in-person conversation,” Jazz said impatiently, pulling onto a highway. “Just- don’t take his vitals, they won’t make sense to you.”
Jack swallowed. “Jazz… is Danny… a ghost?”
“Later!” Jazz insisted. “Try to get him upstairs, get him something to eat. Drink. Call me if anything happens, I need to drive. Bye, Danny.”
She hung up. Jack and Maddie looked at each other, then at Danny. Danny looked at neither of them, eyes dull and gaze on the floor. He was still shielding his mouth.
“Jack, why don’t you go get milkshakes from the Nasty Burger?” Maddie said at last, lifting her gaze to his. There was an edge of pleading to the look as Maddie scrambled to make things okay. “I’ll get Danny upstairs.”
“Sure thing, sweetcheeks.” Jack hauled himself to his feet with a clumsy stumble; he was too old to be sitting on the floor for so long. It made his bones ache. Then he looked at Danny, pale and unresponsive, and felt even worse. “I’ll- I’ll get your favorite, Danny.”
Danny nodded mutely.
He felt like a coward, leaving them there, but was else was he going to do? At least this would be useful. Probably. And Maddie would probably be able to coax Danny up into the living room, away from where they’d- they’d almost-
Man. They owed Danny a lot of ice cream.
By the time Jack returned, Maddie had successfully coaxed Danny upstairs, and then for some reason set up the couch for a sick day; Danny’s pillow and spaceship comforter were set out, the comforter pooled over his lap. As he came in, Danny met his gaze and tried to smile at him, but his eyes still held a note of hysteria.
Jack smiled back anyway and held out Danny’s milkshake. “Coffee and bacon.”
Danny’s smile softened even if his eyes didn’t, and he accepted the shake and stuck the straw in his mouth. Jack wondered if he could taste it, with all those holes in his tongue. Maddie would know.
Jack gave Maddie hers and sat heavily beside her.
“Danny’s too hurt from the electricity to move very well,” Maddie explained in an undertone, “so he’ll be sleeping downstairs tonight. I was thinking you and I could trade off overnight, since… Phantom usually takes care of nights.”
The guilt in her expression thickened toward the end, and Jack felt his heart squeeze in turn. (How? he still wanted to know. How has Danny been Phantom this whole time? When did their timid son become that- that-)
(…If Danny was Phantom, did that mean Phantom was sincere this whole time?)
“I c’n do it,” Danny mumbled, as if to reaffirm Jack’s thoughts. It was the first thing Jack had heard from him since they’d shot him down.
Maddie took a deep, shivery breath, closing her eyes briefly as she reasserted control over herself. Jack knew the look. “Not tonight, Danny. Tonight, your father and I take care of you.”
Danny gave her an uneasy glance, but didn’t verbally object.
“Trade off at three?” Jack offered. “I’ll go second.” He doubted Maddie would sleep tonight, but that would give her a fighting chance. Maddie gave him a strained, grateful smile and a nod.
“I c’n do it,” Danny repeated petulantly, but it was a cursory protest. Instead of pushing, he set his half-empty glass down on the table, hand shaking with the effort, then laid down on the pillow and almost instantly fell asleep.
Both of them stared at him for a while.
“Calls don’t get much closer than that, Mads,” Jack rasped at last.
“No,” Maddie agreed quietly. “But he’s okay. We’re okay.”