Chapter 84

Danny didn't know what he expected when he went to school the next day. Hardly anyone was present when the attack took place since it was after school when most students already left. Obviously, no one would be throwing any parades. Mostly it felt like the same old average day of school. The A Listers mostly ignored him when he walked past them on his way to his locker. He caught Paulina's eye for a brief moment, one corner of her mouth pulling slightly upward before she refocused her attention on what Star was saying. A hole still punctured the locker near their group from the arrow that narrowly missed Dash's head.

There were whispers, of course, about what happened, most of them greatly exaggerated. The A Listers would jump in whenever they overheard someone talking about it to correct their misunderstandings of the event. Perhaps not all of them were present for the attack, but Paulina and Valerie must have explained what they saw to the other A Listers, while leaving out Valerie's role in all of it and that Danny was Phantom.

Danny stopped in the middle of the hall, ignoring the students passing by him. His gaze was focused on where he created the cage of chains to trap the shape shifting ghost. Maybe it hadn't worked completely, but it was enough to save him at the time. He was still impressed with himself for pulling off the idea since he never tried to create anything out of his ecto energy before other than shields and energy balls. The success made him eager to test out other possibilities with the ability. Being able to shape his energy into anything had unlimited possibilities.

"I do hope last night's excitement didn't interfere with your homework."

Danny jumped then twisted around to face his teacher. "M-Mr. Lancer!" His gaze darted about the hall, but the other students were too busy chatting with each other and heading to classes to pay attention to them. "I, um, what?"

Lancer frowned, giving Danny the usual stern look he used for when he knew students were trying to play dumb with him. "I hope you're aware that the school has security cameras."

Danny gulped because, yes, he did know about the security cameras. But when the attack happened, he wasn't even thinking about them. Skulker was hunting Phantom down and already endangered the life of a student. Danny's first thought was to change into Phantom quickly to confront Skulker. Even though he should have been aware of the security cameras, he thought he was safe from exposing his identity when he rounded the corner into an empty side hall with Tucker and Sam.

"I can explain!" Danny said, managing to keep from shouting at the teacher in his desperation. "May - Maybe not entirely. Um," he held up a finger, "just give me a moment."

"Danny," Lancer sighed with a shake of his head, "I'm not going to reprimand you."

"You're not?" Danny lifted an eyebrow, confusion making his mind spin like a top.

Lancer leaned in close, lowering his voice. "Phantom has done a lot of good for this town and provided a good influence on people. I'm sure his sister would be proud of the path he's chosen. However, I do hope in the future he can try to keep his fighting to off school property so we can avoid even more damage."

Danny winced, remembering the hole now serving as the doorway to Lancer's office. "Sorry about that, and about the bottle."

"The bottle I don't mind so much." Lancer shrugged as he stood up straighter. "My sister is always finding stuff like that to send to me as gifts. And the video didn't have sound so I can't say for certain what happened, but it seems to have done some good to destroy the bottle."

"Yeah." Danny rubbed at his neck, feeling a little awkward discussing this with his teacher. How many more people were going to learn of his secret? "That ghost didn't really deserve to be trapped in that bottle forever."

Lancer nodded, not asking any more questions about the attack. "But I do hope this won't cause your grades to suffer."

"No, Sir!" Danny answered promptly. "Keeping my grades up is my first priority."

"Good." Lancer nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. And it's quite unfortunate. After reviewing the security tapes from yesterday, I seem to have hit a wrong button and erased everything before anyone else could see what happened. Ah, technology! So confusing sometimes." He winked.

"Thanks." Danny smiled, fighting back a laugh. Lancer was someone Danny knew he could confide in and would keep his secret, even if Danny never planned on telling him that particular secret. "I really appreciate it."

Lancer placed a hand on Danny's shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze. Then he walked down the hall, keeping an eye out for any misbehaving students.

"What was that all about?" Tucker asked, his friends coming up behind him.

"Lancer knows."

"What?" Sam gave him a flat stare like it wasn't even a surprise to her anymore.

"I couldn't really help it!" Danny turned and walked down the hall to their lockers, his friends falling into step beside him. "Skulker was attacking. He could find me even if I didn't change into Phantom, but I definitely wasn't going to face him as just Danny Fenton. The security cameras caught me, but Lancer took care of the footage before anyone could see it."

"Well, that's a plus," Tucker said. "So he's not going to tell anyone about you?"

"Come on." Danny nudged his friend in the ribs. "It's Lancer. He never goes blabbing people's secrets." He opened his locker and grabbed a few books. "But I'm kind of worried about how many more people are going to end up figuring it out at this rate. It feels like every time I turn around someone else is putting it together and catching me changing somehow."

"At least it's been people who are willing to keep your secret," Sam said. "Though I was worried about Paulina when she found out. Surprisingly, she's remained silent."

"She's really not that bad when you give her the chance." Danny stuffed his books into his bag then closed his locker.

"I'll admit. I was impressed with how interested she seemed in the whole ultra-recyclo vegetarian lifestyle." Sam frowned slightly, almost like she was annoyed with that fact. "I guess if she can act like that around me, then she can't be all bad."

"See?" Danny grinned when Sam rolled her eyes. They parted ways when it was time to head to their classes.

"What's this?" Danny asked when Elle blocked his way, holding out a small black box with a pale blue ribbon slapped onto one corner. His eyebrow arched as he stared curiously at the box.

Months passed since he defeated the shape shifting ghost and Skulker was locked up, and now it was May. Elle joined Casper High when the second semester started. It didn't take her long to settle in and get comfortable with her classes. She had less trouble keeping up with her school work, which made her a lot happier. School was no longer a source of frustration for her, and she admitted to actually enjoying her classes now that she could understand what was being taught.

Elle didn't care about the whole A List versus losers labels, which were so strongly in place at Casper High. She spent time with Danny and his friends then she would go talk with Valerie and her friends. Danny was just happy to see her making friends since he knew she didn't have a lot of friends at her old school. He didn't even want to think about how lonely it must have been to be in that kind of situation. Though it sounded like a place Jazz might have liked, with the challenging academics, but he also believed his sister preferred Casper High.

"Well," Elle said, tilting her head to the side as her eyes rolled before landing back on him, "I wanted to get you something as a thanks for everything you've done to help me out and stuff. But I couldn't really think of anything super awesome and fitting, so I just got you this."

Danny chuckled as he took the black box from her. Elle didn't even know how much help he was giving. Their tutoring sessions petered out as she didn't need his help as much for school work now. But he still appeared at her house as Phantom to help her learn to control her powers, which got better over the months. When he opened the box, he couldn't stop the snorting laugh that left him.

"A rocket shaped chocolate bar?" Danny pulled out the clear wrapped chocolate bar. "Where did you even find something like this?"

Elle shrugged. "It was by total accident, but I thought you'd like it."

Danny smiled as he tucked the box under his arm. Then he tore open the wrapper and broke the chocolate bar in half. "My sister always said chocolate tastes best when you share it with someone," he explained as he held one half of the chocolate out for Elle to take. "Of course, then she kept the good chocolate to herself and always left the icky coconut filled ones for me." He made a face, sticking out his tongue. "Never liked those ones."

Elle laughed as she took her half of the chocolate bar. "I guess that's one plus to being an only child. I don't have to worry about getting stuck with the gross chocolates."

"So how is everything going?" Danny bit into his half of the chocolate bar. "With, like, home and stuff?"

"Better." Elle nodded. "My dad listens more to me. He let me get a small part time job. Okay. It's in the mail room at Axion Labs, and I got it because he gave me the job and assigned my hours, and I can't be fired if I have some school engagement that prevents me from being late and stuff. But I'm earning money doing the work myself. I put a portion of it away for savings, but I'm putting the rest into helping out orphans and the people who really need it. It's," she looked away, chewing on her lower lip, "not very much right now though."

"That's great! It's start, and I'm sure they appreciate you're doing your best to help out." Danny smiled proudly at his friend.

Elle's cheeks blushed pink. "Oh, and I heard from Ember over the weekend. She still won't say where she is or anything like that, but she seems to be doing well. She says she's really putting all her focus into her music."

Danny nodded. "I'm glad she's doing all right and is keeping in touch."

"Hey," Valerie popped up between them, "ready to head to the Nasty Burger?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to give Danny something first," Elle explained.

"I'll catch you later." Danny popped the remainder of the chocolate bar into his mouth then waved as he turned to walk down the hall.

After waking up from the coma, Police Chief Gray made a steady recovery and returned to office. Getting used to the prosthetic arm took a while, according to Valerie, but he was getting the hang of it. A week after Police Chief Gray woke up, the mayor announced publicly that the Guys in White were no longer welcomed in Amity Park, especially after the property damage and injuries to innocent civilians caused on their watch. The mayor assured he was working with Police Chief Gray to return order to the town and keep everyone safe. Danny wouldn't be surprised if the mayor used this to help sway voters when elections rolled around.

His after school activities quieted down a bit. He helped out with common criminals, like he promised he would, but few of his opponents were ghosts. He kept up with training his abilities, practicing forming various things with his ecto energy. He trained how to fight with his mother and Dan, even sparring with Valerie sometimes. Dan spent a lot more of his time at Danny's house, learning to control his ghostly powers in the safety of the laboratory.

Desiree hung around, eager to learn and catch up on all the time she missed out on while trapped in the bottle. At one point, Danny noticed the deep concentration on Desiree's face when she was peering over his shoulders at one of his textbooks. When he asked her about it, she admitted she didn't know how to read or write. Her bottle was passed to some people who were foreigners, but when she couldn't understand them, one foreigner wished for her to be able to understand all languages.

"Just because I understand them when spoken doesn't mean I can understand them when it comes to written language," Desiree explained, frowning.

Danny was more than happy to help teach her how to read and write, and he did his best answering any questions Desiree had about the world today and history. "But, you know," he said one night while he was studying, "if it makes you more comfortable, I'm sure Valerie and Paulina would be happy to help you too. I just mean that you seem more at ease when you're talking to other women."

Desiree smiled at him, though it was tinged with a hint of sadness. "I'm becoming more comfortable around men, but," she winced slightly, "it's still a difficult thing for me."

Danny nodded. He didn't know what happened to her in the past, so he couldn't fully understand what she was going through. But Desiree was trying to work through her issues, and Danny was happy for her. After that conversation, Desiree spent time studying with Valerie and Paulina too.

After his homework was finished for the day, Danny went on patrol. Some nights, it didn't take long for his ghost sense to alert him to something happening. Danny spotted police cars parked outside a little diner on the corner of one street in a pretty poor part of Amity Park. He dropped down and landed near the head officer, recognizing the man from a previous encounter.

"Officer Eaton, what's the situation?"

"Ah, Phantom!" The man grinned. Danny worked alongside the police more over the past few months, which helped with his image, though Lance Thunder spewed out some garbage about Phantom controlling the police department somehow all over the news. Officer Eaton's expression quickly turned serious as he turned to the diner. "Earlier we got a call from one of the employees about a man taking a woman hostage inside. When we tried to approach, the man said he would slit the woman's throat open if we dared to enter the diner." His jaw set tightly, a clear sign he didn't like this situation. "You don't mind, do you?"

Danny saluted him. "I'm happy to help." He shifted to invisible then made his way toward the diner. Before he reached the door, he mumbled, "I'll get the hostage to safety. You can take the man. Just remember. The plan is knock him out and tie him up. No killing."

"We've done this enough times," Dan grumbled. "I know the plan."

"I just wanted to make sure." Danny grinned behind his mask.

Together, they slipped into the diner. The target was completely unaware to their presence. He stood near the window, occasionally peeking out to see if the police attempted to make a move. The woman he held against him remained as still as possible, her tears streaking down her cheeks. She tried to keep her sobbing quiet, but it was difficult with the fear pumping through her while the knife pressed against her neck. The few employees and other customers in the diner were huddled as far from the man as possible, not daring to do anything in fear that their action might cost the woman her life.

Danny slipped up quietly to the pair. He took hold of the woman around the waist then extended his intangibility to her. She sucked in a shaky breath, but her captor seemed completely oblivious to what happened. Danny yanked her forward, phasing her through the man's arm. With the woman safe, Danny backed away several steps, hiding the woman with invisibility.

"Who's there?" the man shouted, swinging his knife around wildly. "Where did that bit-"

Dan punched the man hard in the face. The man went down, collapsing against the wall with blood dribbling from his nose. Dan pried the knife from the man's hand before he could recover from the surprise attack. Once disarmed, the mercenary had little trouble zip tying the man's hands behind his back.

"Are you all right?" Danny asked as he dropped his invisibility.

The woman nodded, shaking from head to toe. "Y-Yes."

Danny nodded, smiling with relief behind his mask. Then he walked over and helped Dan pulling the man to his feet. They dragged the man outside, Dan remaining invisible. "One scum bag," Danny announced, handing the man over to the police, who thanked him for the help. With the job done, Danny flew off and Dan followed right behind him.

"You really didn't need my help for that," Dan said, almost frustrated with how easy it was to capture the man.

Danny shrugged. "I thought you'd like getting in on the action. You always like team ups." He twisted around to fly backwards while he watched the mercenary. "You don't always have to do this while invisible, you know."

"Yeah, but I like letting you get all the credit." Dan shrugged.

Danny landed on the roof of a clock tower. Furrowing his brow, he tilted his head as he folded his arms. "You don't want people to see you as a hero?"

Dan snorted, touching down on the edge of the roof. "I don't care what the public thinks of me. Most of them would just see me as a monster if they saw what I really looked like." He stepped up close to Danny and leaned down until their foreheads met. "The only opinions I care about are yours, your parents and friends, my friend, and the orphans I help out. Everyone else can eat shit if they want to badmouth me."

Danny frowned. "I care," he muttered. He didn't want people thinking of Dan as a monster. Danny didn't even like Dan thinking himself a monster.

Dan clapped his hands to the sides of Danny's head and pushed on the young hero's cheeks. "And that's one thing I love about you. You care so much about people."

Danny frowned, hearing a silent, "Even people like me," in Dan's voice. He could argue again and again that the mercenary wasn't a monster, and he said it on more than one occasion. But Danny knew he couldn't make Dan see himself in a different way. It was up to Dan how to see himself. All Danny could do was remind him there were people who saw him as someone worth loving.

"Well, tonight wasn't very exciting," Danny admitted. The diner was the only action they came across, and it was getting close to when his parents would expect him home from patrolling. "How about we head back and spend the rest of the night playing games?"

"Well," Dan stepped back rubbing at his chin, "I do like blowing stuff up. It's more fun in real life, of course. But I guess doing it in a game a good alternative. No lectures for doing it." There was a grin in the mercenary's voice, and Danny rolled his eyes.

"First one home gets first pick," Danny announced. He floated up a few inches from the rooftop then placed a quick kiss on Dan's lips through their masks.

"Oh!" Dan shouted after Danny took off into the sky. "A challenge! I see how it is!" He followed after the hero, swiftly flying to catch up.

"I've been flying a lot longer than you," Danny called back, keeping his lead.

"You should know better than to gloat before the race is won." Dan pushed forward, and Danny hurried to inch in front of him again.

The rest of the race to Danny's house involved them slinging teasing taunts at each other while keeping it neck and neck, making it more like a game than an actual race. They arrived at the house together, phasing right through the wall into the front room. After they removed their masks, Dan caught Danny around the waist, tugging him in close. He kissed the hero on the lips, and Danny relaxed, reaching up to thread his fingers through the fiery hair.

"What was that for?" Danny asked when they broke apart.

"Claiming my victory prize." Dan grinned.

"Oh," Danny rolled his eyes, "you think you won?"

Dan flicked his red eyes down and back up, looking Danny over, which made the eighteen year old feel somewhat self-conscious. The corner of the mercenary's mouth curled upward in a smirk. "I definitely won."

Danny snorted. "Cheese king."

"And you love it."

Danny merely rolled his eyes, unable to deny it because he did like it. He liked when Dan would text him cheesy messages or open with random space related lyrics. He liked fighting crime alongside the mercenary. He enjoyed quiet moments relaxing with Dan just watching movies. He liked battling against Dan in their game. He liked that his parents accepted Dan, and they could sit and enjoy time together. Everything in his life seemed to be going great, and Danny wanted it to continue, though he was careful not to throw out a wish in case Desiree decided she wanted to grant it.

Danny wrapped his arms around the mercenary's neck and kissed Dan again. It was slow and tender. And a great distraction. Danny jumped away and snatched up a game controller. Dan barked out a protest, and their evening dissolved into them fighting and blowing stuff up in their video game.

Author's Note: I've been working on this story for so long, I can't believe it's over! I hope you all enjoy the ending, and thank you for reading along and sticking it out until the end! Thanks to fastpacedfreefall and akiwitch for encouraging me to write this when this was just a nugget of a thought in my head and for help with some ideas on where to take this story. It's been a lot of fun writing this! And before anyone starts asking, I don't have plans for a sequel, but I'm not closed off to the idea of writing one. I know a few thing didn't get resolved at the end, and I do plan to write a few extra things to close of those threads (I'll be posting them in the Spectacular Sides), such as Nocturne and Technus. So be on the look at for those!

Tetractys: There's an idea for something that could happen! XD But I think Danny's been through enough without having to take a trip to hell.

YumiStar: He just loves hearing Danny's laugh~

jessiejr21: I'm a sucker for a cute ending. X3

xXRainbowCleoXx: Desiree and Paulina are totally going to be bffs! ( If not more~ *shot* XD ) I just love those cute moments with Dan and Danny. X3

SilverAxe: They finally locked up the jerk that killed Jazz! Now he won't be able to hurt anyone else ever again!

Poohbearmorris: Whew! Everyone survived without any major injuries. Though Dash came pretty close to a bad end. Curse you, Skulker! *shakes an angry fist at him* Thank goodness he's locked up! 8D Always good to end on a cute note. 8)