The Bruises

A Danny Phantom fanfic

YAJJ

A/N: The responses that I received from last chapter is the best that I've ever had, and I've never felt so heartened! And so many people were asking for a second chapter that I decided that I wasn't quite done with this story. But NOW I am! No third chapter!

Special thanks to: J, Arette, IvyGreenCat, Guest, popie92, acosta perez jose ramiro, ImAProudMudblood, jeanette9a, The Magnetic Witch, Guest, SailorSea, BlueStar95, Emily, royalfuschia, and Identicality, and to all who favorited and followed my story or me. Thanks so much!

Extra special thanks to SailorSea for helping me start this chapter. I had no clue how to start it before I read his/her review. Thanks so much!

Totally loved doing this chapter, almost more than I loved doing chapter one. This one just... worked out for me. Except for the end. That took a bit. But that's alright because it turned out well.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story! I don't really own anything, actually... that's for when I actually have a life... heh...

Chapter 2

Lancer knew that he was probably the only teacher in the world who would willingly come to his workplace over the weekend just to do stuff. He had papers to correct anyway, so he thought that he could stay there and read and maybe do a few more things. At least being in his room, at his desk, would keep him away from the distractingly violent lull of Doomed.

He set aside A Child Called It, which he had promised himself that he would read again over the weekend, when he reached the next chapter. He picked up a paper and scanned it wearily. That was his promise: read one chapter of A Child Called It, correct one paper. Easy. Except that his students were not good at writing interesting papers, and Dave Pelzer was so much better…

He yawned, leaned back in his chair, and put his feet on the desk, looking up at the sky.

As per the norm in Amity Park, shafts of light streaked across the sky as ghosts flew and battled. One was the town hero, Inviso-Bill (though Lancer had heard him more than once defend himself by calling himself "Danny Phantom"). The other was a strange robot ghost that often attacked the town in search of the ghost boy.

Lancer wasn't really sure what to call this "Inviso-Bill" or "Danny Phantom", or whatever he went by. He liked to see the little guy as a hero, because Lancer had witnessed on more than one occasion a ghost attacking the school, and then the ghost boy being there to stop it. But he did recall spying the ghost boy attacking the mayor and dragging him back into city hall, and no one could forget that time that he'd gone bad and went around stealing jewelry and such. Not to mention the destruction of city and personal property. But still, it was obvious that the ghost boy tried to protect the city and its people from potentially dangerous ghost attacks.

"I don't know why you continue to struggle against me, ghost child. Your life would be so much better if you'd just become a pelt on my wall," said the robot ghost outside. All ghosts had a nasty habit of being more outspoken than necessary, and much louder than anyone wanted. Especially this one and the other robot one, they both loved speaking louder and longer than anyone liked.

It was the same with the ghost boy. "Thanks but no thanks, Skulker. I don't think that my pelt would look too good on your wall, anyway." If one of these three were speaking, you could normally hear them from forever away. That fact was, apparently, not to be ignored today.

Lancer set aside Dash Baxter's paper (F. The paper, in fact, was so bad, that Lancer would have given him a G, or better yet, a Z if it were a real grade. He was, though, glad that Dash had done his own paper rather than bullying a nerd into doing it for him) and picked up his book, muttering to himself about pathetic writing styles and very lacking research.

He was halfway through David's stealing chapter when something smacked into the window loudly. Lancer yelped and dropped his book, letting it clatter to the ground unmarked. He looked up at the window and was flabbergasted by the sight that he saw.

The ghost boy was smashed against the window by the robot ghost, Skulker. His white hair glowed against the glass, being rubbed slowly from side to side as he attempted to escape Skulker's strong grasp. He twisted and fidgeted in the ghost's hold, attempting to actually bite at its hand to force it to release him.

Had Lancer not known differently, he'd have gone forward to at least check that the boy was alright. But, given the history of Skulker the robot ghost and of the boy, all that Skulker would have done was attack him, and the ghost boy would have protected him. So he watched in amazement as the boy tried to wriggle free.

Silver booted feet lashed as the large ghost grasped the boy's neck and smashed him against the window. The boy's neck bent and curved as he tried to take a giant bite out of Skulker's gauntlets to wrench it from him. Skulker didn't look remotely frightened. In fact, he even looked amused at the hero's pathetic escapades.

"Give up, ghost child. You've finally been beaten. And I will have your pelt on my wall by morning."

The ghost child snarled at him in reply, grasping tightly to the gauntlets with his gloved hands. "I won't let that happen, Skulker! If I'm not here, who else will protect this town?"

"This town won't need your protection once the other ghosts are done with it. There will be nothing left of it to protect."

With a wrathful battle cry, the ghost boy bucked from the window and drove Skulker into the ground, turning them both invisible.

More than a little shaken, Lancer sat back and looked to his fallen book, unsure if he even wanted to continue reading it anyway. He'd read it three or four times already, anyway. But he wasn't quite ready to read the next (surely failure of a) paper yet either. It was Paulina Sanchez's, and hers never turned out well.

He stood and went to the window, anxious to see what had become of the ghost boy and his foe. No ghost boy floated above the ground, holding out that silly little Thermos of his victoriously. Nor was there a great hunter ghost holding out the dead and defeated body of the town hero.

Shakily, Lancer stumbled back and dropped into his chair, clutching the arm tightly. This was too freaky. He'd seen many ghost fights in the past several years that the ghost boy had been around—and with him, the ghosts. But he'd never seen one so close before. And certainly not one that the ghost child had been so close to losing before. It appeared as if Skulker had gotten stronger a little quicker than the boy had since their last battle.

CRRRRRSSSHHHHH!

Lancer squealed like a dying rabbit* and leapt from his chair, hitting the dirt before you could say 'ghost'. Debris rocketed into the air to reach the ceiling and slowly settle to the ground. The ceiling fell, and no one could ignore the abrupt cry of pain from the desks.

Once the chaos settled, Lancer pulled himself from his bomb shelter beneath the computer. He lifted his hands from his head and peeked out over his desk.

A crater was nestled into the ground. Desks continued to fall into it slowly as more and more debris settled on them. Each desk that fell elicited a tiny moan from the middle of the crater. When Lancer was finally brave enough to crawl to the edge of the crater, his jaw dropped.

A single, silver arm stuck out of the debris, the tip of a head of white hair showed itself. The Phantom boy!

The arm did not move, so Lancer slipped into the crater and crawled his way down toward the arm. "Great Hound of the Baskervilles, what happened?" he hissed to himself. He slid as a desk moved beneath him, and could not ignore the gasp that came from the center. He quickly found his center of balance and scrambled to the middle, using the agility and swiftness earned to him from his college days to make it down without harming the young hero further.

As soon as he reached the ghost boy, he started yanking at debris settled around him. He scrabbled at it, tossing whatever he could up and out of the hole. Once he finally exposed the rest of the ghost kid's shoulder and parts of his chest, he tugged on him.

The boy screamed, so Lancer dropped him and cursed again. He continued pulling off debris until the rest of the ghost boy was revealed. He gripped the boy and slowly slid himself under the kid's arm, resting him against his much stronger, physically unburdened body. He cursed the whole way up, listening to the hero's whimpers and moans as he was brought to the surface.

Lancer leaned him against the wall, and he got a good look at the boy's injuries. He'd seen them before, but not on the Phantom boy. On the Fenton boy. Only a few injuries he knew of: the massive bump feasting on the back of his head, the nasty scar that ran down his arm, and the small mark just beneath his left eye. "…Inviso-Bill?"

The boy gave a light, dry chuckle and corrected him almost silently, "D-Danny Phantom…"

"Right, Phantom." Lancer sighed. "Are you alright?"

The boy gasped and whimpered as Lancer shook him to regain his attention. He nodded slowly, but the fib was near enough impossible to believe. He clenched his teeth and opened his ectoplasmic green eyes. "L-Lancer…? You okay? Didn't hurt you?" he asked, and there was genuine worry behind his eyes, like he was more worried about the injury-free teacher than about his obviously injury-laden self.

Lancer chuckled darkly, kind of disturbed that the kid wasn't more worried about his own injuries. "Perfectly fine, Phantom." That was, of course, ignoring the scrapes that he'd gotten going down to free Phantom from his debris prison and bringing him up to lay against the wall. "You completely missed me. My classroom is a mess, now, though. Looks like I may have to teach in the hallway or auditorium from now on." He made a pathetic attempt at cracking a joke, but knew that the go was dry and hollow at best.

"S-s'rry," Phantom didn't seem to recognize sarcasm and wit in his sorry state. Two large rings appeared around his cut stomach and slowly traveled up and down him. Phantom took notice of them and released a whine of near-terror. He squeezed his eyes shut, tensed, and concentrated. The rings came back together.

Lancer didn't miss the white shirt or the blue jeans that had appeared where the rings had traversed.

His eyes fell upon yet another recognizable injury: a slice on his hip that had yet to heal. Lancer knew that it had been the cause for his student's pathetic limp. Though it had been many weeks since Lancer had seen the limp the first time, it hadn't gone away in that time. Now he saw it mirrored on Phantom's hip, where his suit was torn by debris that had caught on the way up.

Lancer's thoughts drifted from the injured Phantom to the injured Fenton. The boy's injuries had gotten no better; in fact, they'd gotten worse. Lancer had no—well, very little—doubt in his mind just who the source of these injuries were: The Fenton parents could be known to be violent when it was something that they cared about. Lancer had once thought that Maddie and Jack would have cared enough about Danny to not let this sort of thing happen, but maybe not.

Actually, Lancer had started to go from one side mostly to that side very biasedly. He had started reading up more on child abuse and the like. He had many sites bookmarked on his computer at home, for recognizing the signs and for helping get victims out of there. He had checked out many books from the library, as well, for just this sort of thing. In fact, this was the reason that he was reading A Child Called It—true or not, it was very helpful and told Lancer more and more that his first guess was very true.

A moan and whimper drew Lancer from the dark recesses of his mind and to the present boy by him. Already, Phantom was trying to pull himself up and go back to fighting Skulker, wherever that powerful ghost was. "L-let me up, Lancer…" Phantom gasped, reaching out a bare, pale hand to the air as though to grasp at nothing.

Lancer looked at the boy, gaping, and then back at his hand. When he looked back, he saw him gloved once more and attempting to close his hand around the air to pull him up. "Crime and Punishment, Phantom, you are not healthy enough to go back out there and fight!" he snapped, throwing a hand out as if to prove how much easier it was for him to do than Phantom.

"Hafta, Lancer… I needa get out there… stop Skulker…" begged Phantom quietly, using Lancer to lean up.

"No, Daniel!" spat Lancer. He paused when the boy winced and stopped writhing. His eyes widened when the boy blinked away from him and, when he looked back up, watery blue eyes looked at him where poison green once had. The boy didn't seem to notice, because his hair was soon blacker than night rather than whiter than snow.

In a matter of moments, Danny Fenton lay where Danny Phantom had.

Lancer nearly leapt backwards (and if he had, he probably would have tripped into the crater) with shock. He forced himself to remain calm and pretend that this was perfectly normal…

Oh, who was he kidding?! Danny Phantom was Danny Fenton! His own student! And not only that, struck down and laying in a pile of debris like yesterday's trash!

Danny spasmed and gasped, attempting to sit back up even though he was barely holding onto consciousness. Lancer quickly took the less-than-subtle route and pressed down on his chest, pulling nothing short of a cry of pain from the younger. "L-let m' up…!" gasped young Danny, fidgeting a little and still releasing a cry every time that he did.

"No, Daniel! I won't! You are far too injured to go back out there and fight that ghost! What are you even doing, fighting ghosts?! Shouldn't you leave that to your parents?!" Lancer wasn't really sure if it was safe ground, bringing up Danny's parents like that, but he also didn't really care: he had a more pressing issue on hand.

"Alw's do…" gasped Danny. Finally, the boy gave up the fight and slumped, hitting his head softly on the ground.

"Danny?" Lancer asked slowly, wondering if he'd lost consciousness or just lost the will to move.

Thank god, Danny's eyes blinked open tiredly. He looked up at Lancer as though trying to discern what had happened and who he was, and then let his eyes drift closed again.

"Daniel, I need you to stay awake for me. I'll call the paramedics. Young man, you must stay awake! I'll… fail you right out of the 11th grade if you don't!" Lancer physically winced at how pathetic it sounded, but it got Danny's attention.

The boy only chuckled, opening his eyes momentarily to look, rather amused, into his teacher's face. "T-too late for that, Lancer…" gasped Danny.

Even Lancer could not bite back the tiny, relieved chuckle at that; at least the boy was listening to him. Danny shifted a little, winced, and leaned on Lancer again. Lancer gladly supported the boy, holding him tight by his shoulder. "You'll be alright, Danny, you just need to stay awake for me. Stay awake. We'll get you looked at and all better in no time at all." He promised.

Danny waved his hand limply in Lancer's way. "Don't worry 'bout it. Already… already on it… Phantom heals a lot f'ster than most people…"

Lancer sighed but nodded. "I'm still going to call the paramedics once I know that I can leave you without having to stop you from flying off."

Danny nodded despondently. "Too weak, proba'ly. Phantom won't come out unt'l I can move again, I think…"

"You think? Well, I'm going to wait around for a bit to make sure." He sighed.

Danny nodded, actually looking relieved. Noticing Lancer's look, he coughed, "don't wanna move…"

Lancer managed to cock a small smirk at the young hero and nodded. "Good. Very good. Don't want you to. Wouldn't be healthy." He smiled when Danny agreed with him and leaned on him for support.

This was so much. No, too much. Way too much. First, Danny was being abused, then he's Danny Phantom, and which one is the truth? Those injuries could very easily have come from all of the ghost-fighting, hero-being that Danny did in a day. But then, why did Danny seem frightened of his own parents? What had they done? Were both the truth? That was very possible. Perhaps, in trying to get away, he'd killed himself? Perhaps his parents had killed him? Perhaps his despair had allowed a ghost to overshadow him? Danny did act like they were two different people…

But then again, Danny didn't seem frightened of his other half. He didn't seem worried at all that it might one day decide to completely take him over and never return him. In fact, Danny Fenton seemed more willing to go out and fight Skulker off than to lay and rest, like he should. Was there a reason for that? Lancer couldn't know; he couldn't even try to guess.

Maybe, just maybe, Danny Phantom was who Danny Fenton really was, and the submissive, shy Danny Fenton that he knew was a mask to cover up his hero work?

No, that was ridiculous. Fenton had always been shy; that was why he really only had Sam and Tucker as friends. So who was Phantom to him, and what affect did they have on each other? Why was Fenton really Phantom? What happened that this could have happened to him?

Danny woke from his confused stupor, looking up to Lancer again. "Y' look confused…" he commented, shifting to get a better look at his teacher.

Lancer slowly shook his head, gently so as to not disturb the aching boy. "Just… how this could have happened. I'm just trying to make sense of it all."

"Good luck. Been at it f'r two years, 'n' I still d'n't get it…" Danny let out a pathetic chuckle, coughing and then wincing. He bit his lip and Lancer could see him try to hold back a cry.

"Two years?" asked Lancer curiously. He thought back, and then he knew. "Since the middle of first semester—"

"Freshman year." Danny agreed. He groaned and, after a few seconds of silently gathering his willpower, he shoved himself up into a sitting position.

"What do you think you're—"

"'M feelin' better already…" Danny gasped. He looked Lancer square in the eye. "Look, Mr. Lancer, since I know that you're thinking it…" he looked down at his hands, which rested in his lap. "My parents haven't b'n doin' this. Well… I mean, they have, but they d'n't know. They…" He seemed to be searching for the right word, "…'re ignorant." Danny forced himself to work around the word. He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands tiredly. "They wouldn't hurt me… er, Danny Fenton, on purpose, I know that they wouldn't. All of the cuts and bruises you were talking about are from fightin' all tha ghosts. I don't get 'nuff tah eat 'cause I already have high metab'lism 'n' any food I eat gets worked off in a night's patrol 'nyway… 'n' I don't sleep 'cause ghosts always wake me up, 'n' I hafta patrol, to keep this place safe." He tried to explain solemnly. He looked up at Lancer dejectedly.

Lancer hummed to himself. Of course, what the boy said made sense. After all, the Fenton parents were loving of their children and only presented such to anyone. To think that they could hurt their own child… well, it was a relief to know that such was not the case and that Lancer was just jumping to conclusions.

Danny shifted again and moved a little away from Lancer, looking guiltily into the crater that he'd created. He looked out of the hole in the ceiling and slowly started to stand.

Lancer stood and set his hands on the boy's shoulders, pushing him down purposefully. "Don't, Daniel, you're still too injured to go out there and fight!" he commanded.

"You don' know my limits," said Danny solidly. He didn't, though, try to faze through like Lancer was certain he could do, nor did he try to bring out Phantom.

Lancer lifted his hands cautiously from Danny's shoulders. Encouraged when he didn't move, he slowly crept to his desk, hoping that the abrupt crash didn't knock out his phone lines somehow. "I'm going to call the paramedics and get you some help. Just… stay here. Your parents will probably be here soon to take care of Skulker," for just a moment, Danny actually looked terrified at the prospect, so Lancer quickly amended, "or that Red Huntress girl. Daniel, perhaps I don't know your limits, but I do know that you're still a child and needn't worry about stuff like this. Protecting a town that hates one half and a school that hates the other? It all seems… backwards."

Danny nodded to himself. "It is. But it's not about me, it's about protecting people. Like Spiderman said, 'with great power comes great responsibilities'. Right? They don't have to like me. But if they're in danger, I'll protect them. With my life if I have to."

Lancer held his phone up to his ear, watching the despondent boy curiously. There was a kind of maturity about him that most adults didn't ever get.

"911 what's your emergency?"

Lancer sat back once the paramedics were assuredly on their way, observing the young hero still seated on the floor. "You know…" he started, not really knowing how well this would sound to the boy, "You are a very brave man."

Danny peered up at him through his bangs, one eyebrow quirked in confusion. "Wha' do ya mean?" he asked, looking genuinely curious.

"I mean, no one else would do that. How many people in this school would put their lives on the line for people who taunt and bully them? Not very many, that's for sure. As far as I can tell, you're the only one. Thus, you are a very brave man." Lancer explained rather proudly.

"Oh, ah, er… th-thank you." Danny stammered, blushing heavily.

Lancer did not reply, only nodded at the young, recovering hero. He lifted his chin a little, observing Danny curiously. "Your parents don't know about this?" he assumed slowly.

"Of course not." Danny huffed at him. He lifted his knees and wrapped his arms around them insecurely. "If your parents were ghost hunters and you were half ghost, and your ghost half is the ghost that they despise and have tried over and over again to tear you apart 'molecule by molecule!', would you tell them?" he argued.

"…No, I suppose not."

Danny and Lancer both lifted their heads when a whirr sounded in the distance, and Lancer sighed in relief—the paramedics were on their way for Danny. Lancer watched out of the gaping hole in the wall for them to arrive.

Danny stumbled to his feet, hissing in pain and gripping tightly to a desk to keep his balance. He slid into the seat, gazing warily into the cavity that the desk teetered on.

Lancer testily stood by the desk and planted his hands firmly on the desktop, keeping the boy firmly planted on the floor and out of the crevice.

When the paramedics arrived, Lancer slowly—and only in pieces—explained what had happened. The paramedics laid Danny firmly on a gurney, ignoring his protests ("I feel much better, Mr. Lancer! I'll just call Mom and Dad!" and in truth he did—he looked and sounded much better, fighting with his words with much more vigor than he could have before).

The ambulance tore away toward the hospital, Lancer sitting in the back, out of the way of the paramedics as they checked Danny over for a concussion and broken bones.

Squeezing his hands tight together, Lancer looked over the boy. He puffed his cheeks out and sighed, "Look, Danny, if it'd make it any better, I can cut some of your assignments."

Danny shook his head (the paramedics nearly had a heart attack and told him to 'stop before you paralyze yourself!') and quickly told him, "No! I don't want any special treatment just because of this. I've handled it for this long and I can continue to handle it."

Lancer almost looked put out by Danny's denial, but then he nodded and crossed his legs. When they arrived at the hospital, Lancer stayed with Danny until his parents showed up and took him home, proudly ranting and raving about how they'd captured the robot ghost before Danny Phantom had gotten near it.

Danny tried not to notice when, the next school day, with class held in the auditorium, Lancer seemed to completely ignore Danny's words. He did not pass out the homework assignment that he'd had planned. But he did what he could. So when Danny confronted him about it, looking a little affronted, he only said, "special treatment? I'm not giving you special treatment. But why give extra homework to my favorite class?"

Danny walked away laughing and did not tell his friends why. Just a few days ago, Lancer had told them that "the amount of people not turning in assignments and ignoring my lessons is getting ridiculous!" he had given Danny a very pointed look, which Danny had slept right through. So he knew that couldn't be true.

Still, Danny appreciated the attempt and used the free time to catch up and raise his grade, little by little. He used it to catch up on his lacking sleep, and Lancer was relieved to note that, within the next couple of weeks, Danny was looking more and more like his old, ninth-grade, cheerful self.

Lancer never did worry about Danny and his parents again, because he knew the reason behind Danny's lack of sleep, food, and the bruises that dotted him. And especially on days after a brutal ghost attack, he went easy on Danny's class. Because if Danny could play hero for people who hated him, then Lancer could play helper for his newest favorite student.