Chapter Text
Danny was pacing around his parent’s kitchen table when Dani hissed at him. “Stop doing that. You're making me dizzy!”
Danny stopped just past her chair, grabbing at his disheveled hair. “I'm just nervous! What if I slip and say something wrong?” He could still hear his parents working away in the basement. He had lectured them about keeping his secret identity, well, secret, but they were forgetful. They had put an on switch inside of a highly dangerous portal and didn’t even realize it, after all. Ancients, they didn't even realize that Danny Phantom was their own son until he told them! “What if Mom and Dad say something that gives me away? What if they figure out who I am? What if they tell the GIW?” He put his face in his hands and groaned.
“Well, too bad, Danny, cause you're gonna have to figure it out. Aren't they supposed to be here soon?”
“Yeah, Batman and Red Robin said they'd be here at four…was that too early? Maybe I should have made it later. Uhh, what was I gonna say to them again?”
“Danny Phantom is good, unfair and cruel ghost weapons and experimentation, misunderstood ghosts, and GIW's possible evil headquarter locations.” She said, counting on her fingers and looking at him with a skeptical face. “You've literally practiced it so much I can still hear you muttering it in my head every time you go quiet to think; I dunno why you're so worried. I don’t know why you’d think they’d tell the evil scientists who you are even if they did figure it out, but I think you’ll be fine.”
Danny wished he wasn't so worried either, but Batman was the world's best detective. He didn't think that he could hide it from him, but maybe he could hide it from Red Robin. Danny didn't know much about him other than the fact that he had the same name as Batman's sidekick.
Somehow, it was…he wouldn't say it was easy, but it wasn't difficult to hide his identity from the people of Amity Park. Even though he planned to start his vigilantism as Danny Phantom, no one even picked up on the similarity with the name Danny Fenton. A short while later, he changed it to just Phantom because he realized how dangerous it actually was to be a vigilante with human enemies.
The thing is, ghosts didn't care about your real name. They didn't care about your personal life in general. If they wanted to find you, they could always track down your ecto-signature wherever you went. He’d gotten quite a few challenges to the throne before, when he’d first trapped Pariah, but they quickly realized that he was just as strong, maybe even stronger than the previous king–with the ring and crown–and their numbers diminished.
But humans? They could do a lot with your name. Some humans just wanted to make your life suck. He shuddered, thinking of the fruitloop who was obsessed with his mom. Vlad had been easing up on the crazy schemes lately, but he just couldn’t stop making clones. He had a problem.
The GIW was a much more imminent danger, though, and much more deadly. They actually wanted to kill ghosts and would do anything it took to find out how. The only reason he was sure that they hadn’t figured out his identity or how to kill ghosts is because they would have attacked him by now.
That's why the Justice League was supposed to be helping him, he reminded himself. They actually believed him, a ghost. They had even had a ghost on their team. They trusted him, enough to go to Amity Park and check out what was going on. He just had to convince himself. Eventually.
He gave Dani a weary smile and sat down on the chair beside her. “Yeah… you’re right, Dani. I just wish Jazz were here.” She was always the smart one. She’d know how to talk to them without stuttering or saying anything to make her look stupid. Unfortunately, she was currently on a pre-planned road trip to scout out the universities she wanted to go to, and as much as she had wanted to cancel it to support her little brother, he didn’t want her to waste months of planning. After he insisted that it was going to be alright, she relented and went.
He was beginning to regret it. Just a little bit.
All this would be so much simpler if he could make a duplicate or something like that. At least it would be more convincing if he was in two places at the same time. However, his ability to make duplicates was finicky, and if he tried to make one of them de-transform? His duplication ability just wasn’t stable enough when transforming was added to the equation, even though he had the ectoplasm for it. He already found it impressive that he was able to make them at all.
Dejectedly, he looked over at Dani who was currently floating and searching for the hidden cookie jar that tended to hide all on its own, opening and shutting cupboards as she dug through the cabinets. He rolled his eyes. How was Dani not worried at all?
Hmm. Could she help be a decoy? She was similar looking enough to him that she might pass as him, she was his clone after all, but Dani didn’t have much practice shapeshifting yet. She’d mostly been flying around the world having fun in her human form instead of seriously practicing her halfa abilities. He couldn’t blame her. Training could be awfully boring at times. He honestly ditched it at this point; he had so many powers that he would usually be able to just use one of them. Now though? He was suffering for his laziness.
What was another way he could get a look-alike?
Maybe his parents’ gadgets? There was the Fenton Ghost Catcher, and he could definitely have a transformed and de-transformed version–oh, wait. That had been destroyed already. His parents most likely still had the blueprints, but there was no time to rebuild it on such short notice. He facepalmed, cursing himself inwardly. He’d been the one to shatter it to pieces after–
His eyes widened. Dan.
Hands frantically patting down his jeans for his phone, he took it out and quickly swiped through his contacts. When he reached the number Vlad had set up for Dan, Danny hesitated to click on it. Dan had once been his worst enemy, after all. But then all those time-traveling shenanigans happened after Dan escaped his thermos prison outside of time, and they found out that Dan wasn’t inherently evil; he was just acting on the grief of losing everyone he loved along with the rage of Vlad’s evil ghost half.
Ghosts were made of emotions, and, well, Dan didn’t exactly have a happy life.
After a heartfelt conversation that Danny was way too anxious to recall right now, he and Clockwork gave him a second chance. Dan was put into one of Vlad’s spare clones–which was still pretty weird–but that meant that Dan was the perfect person for the job. It was just a matter of if he’d agree to help or not. Him being the personification of Danny’s stubbornness mixed with Vlad’s pride didn’t help.
Though…Dan did kind of owe him for trying to kill everyone Danny loved.
Danny typed out a message and stared at it. ‘Can u come over to the house rn? I need someone to pretend to be me.’ It shouldn’t be that difficult, right? He’d already done it before anyways. Dan also had tons more control over his shapeshifting powers than Danny, even though Danny probably had more raw power. What good was power if you didn’t know how to use it?
He thought about it a little more and quickly added, ‘I’ll buy you boba after.’
Loud knocking on their front door started up and Danny almost jumped out of his own skin, nearly missing the send button.
Dani looked over at him leaning over in the air after catching his phone that fell out of his hands. “Seems like our guests are here!”
At Danny’s expression, she coolly added, “Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad. We’ve got this.” She grinned at him.
Danny winced.