Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny sighs, grabbing his bag and shutting off his computer. He glances through the office and begins making his way toward the exit, trying to avoid any small talk with his chatty co-workers. Fumbling for his keys, he manages to reach his car without any unwanted interactions. He gets in, waits for a moment, then starts the car and drives the same route home.

Once there, he throws his keys into a bowl and falls face-first onto the couch cushions. He lies there for a while, time going by as a vague blur, until he's pulled out of his torment by a ringing noise. He quickly realizes it is the phone going off and tries to reach for it, however, it stood on a small table just out of reach without moving. Not having enough energy to make an effort, he stays put and listens to the noise, hoping it will go away on its own. When it finally stops, he's relieved — only to be called again immediately after. With a groan, he drags himself off the couch and reaches for the phone.

“Hello?” he manages, showing no interest in any conversation. “Is this Daniel Fenton?” the caller asks, in a tone that implies they already know it is. “That’s me.” “Hello, Mr. Fenton. I’m calling on behalf of Casper High School.” Danny frowns. “We are currently looking to add a new course to our curriculum and are searching for a teacher who truly knows what they’re talking about.” Danny interrupts: “Hold on, before you say more, I don’t have any teaching qualifications. What could you possibly want me for?” “Well Mr. Fenton, as you know, Amity Park has been the victim of many ghost attacks, even since you were in high school. We can no longer ignore or fight their existence. Therefore, we’ve decided to teach our students everything there is to know about ghosts—how they behave, what they are, how to defeat them, etc. We know there are very few experts in this field, and of those, you are our best option, so we would like to offer you a job teaching Ghost theory.” ... After a few moments of silence, Danny manages to say he would like some time to think it over before promptly hanging up.

Dazed, Danny stares at the wall and brings his hands to his head, letting out a muffled scream. Then he decides to call the one person he can trust to give him some good advice: his sister Jazz.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t know how exactly his life has come to this, but here Danny was, pulling on a nice pair of pants paired with a blouse and making his way to school. Where he works now! After the phone call with Principal Ishiyama and a panicked one to Jazz, he decided to see where this would take him. It was only a matter of days before he got started on getting his educator licence, this being relatively easy with his degree in engineering and Casper High School helping him with the application. Now it was a couple of weeks later, and school had just started again. He sat in his car, hands on his steering wheel, as he looked down at his bag. Therein lay the lesson plans he had come up with, together with some help from Mr Lancer. He had just pulled into the staff parking lot and hadn’t yet worked up the courage to go inside. A knock on his window startled him as he straightened his back. It was Lancer. “H-hey, Mr Lancer! What are you doing here?” Danny blurted out. Mr Lancer looked at him the way he used to when Danny was still his student – full of disbelief. “Danny, I work here; I have for a while. And you do too, so why haven’t you gone inside yet?” “Oh, uhm, I was just… I will come inside, no problem!” Danny exclaimed, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. Although Mr Lancer was clearly not convinced, he didn’t say anything and just gestured for Danny to get out of the car so they could walk toward the school together.

In the teachers' lounge, there were multiple teachers already sitting and chatting, while others were still preparing their classes. Danny and Mr Lancer walked toward a quiet table and sat down. While Danny was still a little out of it, Mr Lancer went to grab two cups of coffee and sat down opposite him. “So, I know you’re nervous; it wasn’t that long ago that you were still a student here yourself, but it will be alright, Danny. We went through your lesson plans together; they are fine, and it’s only the first day of the school year; it doesn’t have to go perfectly yet.” Danny sighed, clutching his hot mug in between his hands. “Yeah, I’m just worried. I’ve never taught people anything, let alone a whole class of high schoolers!” “Don’t worry, it will all be fine; you just need to get through that first class. That one is always the hardest.”

Chapter Text

As the first bell rang, students started trickling in. Tired expressions on their suntanned faces, clearly not ready for the summer vacation to be over yet. Danny felt a little relieved; tired students felt like there was a little less pressure to make sure this first class went perfectly. Once all the seats were occupied and everyone had settled down, Danny closed the door and stood in front of the classroom. His classroom. “Hello everyone, welcome to this brand-new course of ghost theory! I will be your teacher during this year; my name is Danny Fenton, but please call me Danny. Mr Fenton makes me feel so old.” He started, trying his best not to show his nerves. He was supposed to be an authority figure now, damn it!

Even though most students were still half asleep, there were some students in the back rows whispering to each other. When they noticed the not-so-subtle glare Danny sent them, they shut up. No one wants detention in the first week. “I know you didn’t choose this subject, nor do you know what I will even teach you, so that is what we’re handling this very first class. This course was included in your first-year curriculum as a required subject to teach you everything about ghosts necessary for surviving this town and graduating high school without being mauled by ghosts.” This last part got the attention of his students, who looked up with various expressions: shock, fear, disbelief, and nonchalance. Danny chuckled: “Finally! I have your attention. If you pay attention to the rest of this course, we can ensure that you know how to keep yourself safe to prevent that last part from happening.”

“By the end of this year, you all will be able to identify and differentiate different types of ghosts; you will know the most effective ways to fight them and protect yourself from them.” Danny started, writing on the chalkboard as he spoke. A list appearing on the board of all the different types of ghosts they will handle, and all other subjects they will go over during the course of the entire school year. “At the end, there will be an important test about this! As well as a practical exam proving you can handle yourself in ghostly situations.” Danny continued speaking as his students began to realize that this might be important information to write down. Various notebooks were pulled out of backpacks as students started copying the information on the board. They hadn’t expected a silly-sounding course such as ‘Ghost Theory’ to be so serious and filled with information and tests. “Now, of course, you will have a test every period to test your knowledge, but these will hopefully not be too hard for you.”

“Every few weeks, we will be handling a different type of ghost, where you will learn everything relevant to this type. Including what drives them, how to fight them, their biology, and more.” Danny continued, having to erase part of his board to write down some of the ghost types they would be discussing in their lectures.

He glanced at the clock, which hung above the classroom door. The class only had about 5 minutes left, so he turned to the class, dropping his crayon on the ledge at the bottom of the school board. “Listen, I know this was quite a lot of information, but don’t worry; when the time comes, everything will be handled appropriately and given sufficient time. Now, unless any burning questions need answering, please come to my desk to fill in your name for your attendance records, and you’re free to leave.” Danny said. In his nervousness, he had forgotten to check attendance, so this was his attempt at disguising this fact. He watched as his students gathered their things as quickly as possible, trying to leave the classroom so they could have a few minutes of free time before the next one started.

Danny paid extra attention to people filling out their names, trying to remember them as well as he could, so that for the next class, he could call people by their names. When everyone had left, he let out a big sigh. His first class was over; he had done it, and he was still alive! Well, as alive as he was before this class, anyway.

Chapter Text

The first week had passed in a blur; everything was still so new and nerve-wracking that it all seemed to blend in together. When the weekend came he was beyond grateful to have two days to work through what has been happening. Just a couple weeks ago he was still working a desk job when he suddenly got the offer to teach ghost theory at his old high school. Since that phone call, he hadn't had much time to really think about what this would mean for him.

Monday morning, Danny had just woken up and wandered into his kitchen to make a fresh cup of coffee. Sitting by his kitchen table, warm mug in hand, hair still sleepily messy and still not entirely awake, he opened his phone to check his calendar. He had multiple classes today and during the rest of the week as well, with wednesday and friday being the shortest days. He drank the last sips of his coffee and got up to get dressed and ready for the day.

The drive to the school went pretty much on autopilot, arriving within minutes and making his way to the teacher lounge. There, he greeted a few others and made his way over to the coffee machine, grabbing his mug from the cabinet and making himself his second cup for the day. He sat by one of the tables with his coffee and opened his folderbag, making a few tweaks and checking the class assignments once more. They were the first assignments he would be handing out, so he wanted to make sure they were nice and concise.

His first class started off well; all the students showed up, and he breezed through the introduction, which covered today's topic ("born ghosts" or eternals) and taking attendance (he remembered this time!). But as soon as he started teaching, the students started to pay less attention than they ought to have. A group of people in the backseat started chatting in whispers, which eventually developed into normal conversation. Danny sent a glance their way but eventually decided to step in when it was starting to disrupt the entire class. This got them to quiet down a little but Danny vowed to himself to pay more attention to them in case this escalated again.

Following his brief lecture, he divided the class into multiple groups of four students each. He gave them each a list which contained different types of ghosts and told them that they should work together as a group to sort them into their correct categories. Last week after their introductory class they has spent one class going over different types of ghost categories, and Danny wanted to see how well they remembered this.

Quickly it became clear that some students are not really… equipped for working together yet. Now this wasn’t strange for a bunch of fourteen year olds, but still a little annoying. One group chose to just talk to one another after deciding the assignment wasn't worth their time. One was somehow even worse, the group had finished in two minutes and were now asking Danny whether he had something else they could do. Most students were doing the assignment he had giving them, whether it be reluctantly or excitedly.

He sat at his desk to oversee the groups still working when one student came up to him. It was one of the students from the group that had finished early, he was pretty sure her name was Rachel. She stood in front of his desk with the paper in her hand, asking him to check it over and whether he had anything more challenging. Danny was slightly baffled. When he was that age, he would rather do anything else than ask for more schoolwork! “Uh, you can just do what you want if you’re finished; I will go over the correct answers in a few minutes.”

Right when she had returned to her desk, a small wisp of smoke came from his mouth. He looked around the room before promptly jumping up from his desk and blurting out “I will quickly go to the bathroom; in the meantime, please continue working on this!” and almost running out of his classroom. Several people looked after him, puzzled by his very strange exit.
As soon as he was out the door, he transformed, truly hoping no one had seen him. He needed to hurry back before his class would start suspecting something was wrong. He flew through the roof to look around and saw the box ghost flying around town with a trail of boxes flying behind him. Easy enough! He had beaten Boxy hundreds of times by now; this would only take a minute. When he flew a little closer, he could hear the ghost monologuing. “I am the box ghost! Fear me! I will have every box you could ever dream of; everything will be mine!” Danny shook his head to himself as he took the thermos from his chest, where he kept it intangibly. Before Boxy even had a chance to notice him, Danny took the thermos and pointed it at the ghost, quickly sucking him inside.

Not wanting to spend the rest of the day teaching with a ghost inside him, Danny decided to quickly fly to his parents’ house to send Boxy into the ghost zone. He zoomed off before anything else could distract him and made his way over, emptying his thermos without trouble. When he checked the time, however, he noticed that five minutes had already passed; he needed to get back to the school quickly to avoid raising suspicion, as his disappearance from class was already strange enough.

Luckily, his flight speed as Phantom is still incredibly fast, and he was able to get back quite quickly. He took a moment to straighten his shirt and adjust his hair a little, to look like he hadn’t just flown at 100 miles an hour. When he reached the doorway, he noticed that most students weren’t working on the sheets; instead, they had chosen to talk, apparently thinking it was a better use of their time. Danny couldn’t really fault them for that—after all, he was the same way in high school, and he was the one who pulled the disappearing act. He made sure to make a little more noise than necessary to walk into the classroom, giving his students a few seconds to pretend to be busy. Some students shot him strange or suspicious looks, but not much more than that. The rest of the class passed with relative ease, he shared the answers to the worksheets and ended with a small homework assignment, which was similar enough to the worksheets that he didn’t think it would cause anyone major trouble.

When the last students trickled out of the room, Danny let out a sigh of relief and rested his head on his arms atop the desk. He hoped the ghost sense would be a one-time thing and that he would be able to play it off casually, but something told him that wasn’t the case. When he was a student, it hadn’t stopped during his classes, why would it now? He could only hope his students wouldn’t care enough about his life as their teacher to ask him about it.