Chapter Text
Edward couldn’t say that he actually slept per-se — the ground was far too hard and rough for him to have really fallen asleep — but he at least got a little bit of rest, his mind drifting in and out of awareness for a time. He was vaguely aware of Danny and Kwan speaking softly to each other from time to time, Dash’s snores effectively drowning them out so that Edward couldn’t actually hear what they were saying, but for the most part it was quiet. But eventually his body began to protest being laid out on a hard concrete floor for too long, and he was forced to sit up with a low groan.
Danny and Kwan’s heads both whipped towards him as he rose, both shooting him concerned looks. Still, they waited patiently for him to sluggishly push himself upright and stumble over to them, taking a seat next to them so that Dash could continue to sleep.
“How long was I out?” Edward asked, his voice hoarse.
“Hard to say,” Kwan whispered back. “There was a watch in one of the purses, but it’s cracked, and it’s hard to tell if it’s working properly. Maybe an hour?”
Well, it was more than Edward had expected. He grunted as he tried to stretch out his sore muscles, but he quickly had to stop when it started to pull at the wounds on his back. “Well, that’s about all I expect to get, I suppose. How are you gentlemen doing?”
Kwan and Danny shared a wordless look.
“We’re okay,” Kwan replied, apparently designated as the spokesperson. “The emergency light went out for a bit, so we had to pull out one of the flashlights, but it came back on after a minute or two. I think we’re both getting a bit hungry and thirsty, but we didn’t want to take any of the supplies without checking with you first.”
Edward glanced towards their haphazardly organized piles. He did a bit of quick mental math as he tried to estimate how much water they had, how much they’d need, and how long it might take to be rescued. Best case scenario, Phantom would show up any minute, but the longer they were stuck down here with no appearances from the ghost hero, the more Edward suspected that Phantom wouldn’t show. If he was going to swoop in and save them, Edward figured he probably would have done so by now. No, they were likely going to have to wait for plain old humans to get them out of this, and that would absolutely take a lot longer.
He paused for a moment, straining his ears to listen for any sounds of search parties overhead. He could faintly hear what sounded like a low rumble, perhaps the sound of digging equipment? There also sounded like there was something rushing by, almost like water flowing down a river, but given that they were stuck underneath a collapsed aquarium, that could have just been water in the pipes or leaking out of the broken fish tanks. He listened as hard as he could, but unfortunately he couldn’t make out the sound of human voices.
He slumped, realizing that his earlier expectations were correct. They’d likely be down here for a few days, and therefore they’d need to make their supplies stretch.
“Let me make note of what we have, and do some quick math,” Edward told them tiredly. “And then once I know how much we can spare, we can have a little snack.”
He shuffled over to the food and water pile, picking up a scrap receipt and a pen from one of the purses they’d salvaged to start taking notes. He decided to estimate that they’d be down here a week at least, and did some quick calculations to figure out how best to keep them all alive and well with their limited resources. They’d have to ration like crazy to make it through, and it would be highly unpleasant, but, with a bit of luck…
He finished scribbling down his math, circled his final numbers, and then set the pen and paper down with a tired sigh. “Okay. Alright, I believe we can make this work.”
That taken care of, he reached over to the case of water bottles, pulling two out from the pile and handing them over to Kwan and Danny.
“Here,” he said as the boys took the bottles from him. “This will have to last you for the next couple of hours, so drink it slowly, but we should be due for refreshments, I believe. We’re going to have to make these last for a few days, so be careful and don’t spill any.”
Kwan thanked him and cracked his bottle open, but Danny just stared at him with a mixture of confusion and disbelief, the water bottle held loosely in his hands. “Sir, you can’t seriously believe we’re going to be down here that long, right?”
Edward could only give him a tired look. He hadn’t realized that Danny was still in denial about their situation, though that did go a long way towards explaining why he hadn’t seemed as worried as the others. “Yes, Mr. Fenton. I suspect that we will be waiting a while for our rescue. The rescue teams will have to prioritize their own safety, so they won’t do anything until they’re sure that it won’t put more people at risk.”
“But…but the ghost might still be up there!” Danny protested.
“You’re right, which also may cause a delay,” Edward said gently in agreement. “So yes, please prepare yourself to be patient.”
He then turned to Kwan and added, “Mr. Park, would you please go wake Mr. Baxter? I’m sure he could use something to drink and eat too.”
“Yes, Mr. Lancer,” Kwan replied dutifully, before getting up to go wake his friend.
As he walked away, Edward looked back at Danny to find him anxiously chewing on his lower lip, his eyes darting over the broken debris that surrounded him, and Edward felt his stomach drop. Oh no, he should have seen this coming. Now that Danny was beginning to fully understand their situation, he was likely to start freaking out. He’d been remarkably calm up until now, so Edward supposed this should be expected.
Edward couldn’t exactly do anything to change their circumstances at the moment, though, so hopefully a distraction would help. “Here, Mr. Fenton, perhaps you could help me get our meal ready while Mr. Park wakes Mr. Baxter.”
“Huh?” Danny turned to look back at him, his eyes wide and lost as he was knocked from his spiraling thoughts.
“Help me with the food, Mr. Fenton,” Edward repeated patiently, gesturing towards him with the tuna fish sandwich he’d pulled out of one of the lunch boxes. “We’ll need to bring it over to Mr. Baxter so he doesn't strain his leg.”
“But I…”
“You’re probably hungry, too, Mr. Fenton,” Edward told him gently, still holding out the sandwich towards his student. “I’m sure getting a bit of food into you will go a long way towards making you feel better.”
“...okay,” Danny eventually agreed quietly, his shoulders slumping. He took the sandwich from Edward’s hands and started to shuffle over towards where Kwan was helping Dash sit up. Edward grabbed a small container of blueberries to accompany their meager meal and followed after him.
They all sat in a circle again as Edward divided up their food. A quarter sandwich and a handful of berries didn’t make for much of a lunch, but Edward also knew they had much less food than water, and they’d need to ration it carefully. He took his time eating his tiny meal, trying to stretch it out to hopefully make his stomach feel more full, but even with his best efforts, he’d soon finished. The boys had all polished off their portions as well, and so now they were stuck sitting in a circle, trapped in a small space with nothing to do but wait.
This seemed like a very good way to create a panic, so Edward quickly tried to think of something to distract them. His eyes lit up as an idea hit him.
“Well, I was going to cover this in class tomorrow, but given we will probably not be there anymore, I suppose we can go through it now,” Edward said mildly, brushing the crumbs off of his shirt and straightening up as best he could. When the boys just gave him questioning looks, Edward gave them a smirk. “Who wants to start our discussion on Macbeth act three, scene five?”
Silence was his answer. Sighing, Edward prompted, “The latest chapter on Macbeth? The reading I assigned your class for the weekend? The topic that I am quizzing you on at the end of the week?”
At once, the boys’ faces went blank. He could see them all thinking hard, before their brows started to twist up in surprise, and then dread. He watched them all share looks, as if hoping one of the others would be the first to speak up.
As the silence stretched, Edward could feel his own expression fall in dismay. “Did none of you do the reading?!”
The trio of shamefully hanging heads that faced him were answer enough.
“I…picked up the book,” Kwan offered weakly. And then added under his breath, “...to move it off of my GameBoy.”
“My dog ate it?” Dash coughed, though it came out sounding more like a question than anything.
“I, uh…was busy this weekend,” Danny said evasively, rubbing the back of his neck.
“We have a test in two days, are you telling me you haven’t even started reading act three?!” Edward cried, slapping his forehead. “Starlight Brigade!”
To his surprise, Danny suddenly perked up. “Wait, you’ve read the Starlight Brigade books?”
Caught off guard by the sudden change in subject, Edward could only blink at him. “Yes?”
Danny immediately brightened, looking like a kid at Christmas. “I love that series! Have you read all of it?!”
“I have,” Edward confirmed, easing into the new topic with a few more blinks. He hadn’t taken Danny for much of a reader, and while the Starlight Brigade series was aimed at younger teens, there were quite a few books published already, and Edward was surprised that Danny had taken the time to pick them up. “Several times in fact. You’ve read it, Mr. Fenton?”
“Yes! I love sci-fi, and I’ve been a huge fan of the series since it started coming out! Jazz even helped me pre-order the next one, I’ve been dying to get my hands on it.”
“Wait, what are we talking about?” Dash asked, glancing between the two of them in confusion.
“It’s a book series,” Kwan replied.
“Wait, have you read it too?” Danny asked, turning his excitement on Kwan.
Kwan flinched back for a moment, not expecting the intensity of Danny’s enthusiasm, but he quickly rallied. “Only the first one,” he admitted. “But I really liked it. I’ve been meaning to read more.”
“You really should!” Danny told him, nodding energetically. “The first one is good, but it’s a bit slow to set everything up. Book two is where it really takes off.”
“How many books are in the series now?”
“Eight,” Edward answered before Danny could, drawing the attention back to him. “Though the fourth book is more of an anthology of the character’s pasts, so it can be skipped.”
Danny’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah, I guess, but then you miss out on a lot of the character’s motivations. Like, it makes Commander Meouch’s issue with journalists make so much more sense if you read it, otherwise the part where he picks a fight with Mr. Ink seems really out of nowhere.”
“Spoilers, Mr. Fenton!” Edward quickly cautioned, his eyes flicking over to Kwan.
“Oh, shoot,” Danny winced. “Sorry Kwan.”
“It’s okay, I don’t think I’ll remember by the time I actually get around to reading them all again,” Kwan assured him.
“Commander Meouch?” Dash echoed, looking at them all disparagingly. “Mr. Ink? Are you serious?”
“The series is a bit campy, I’ll admit,” Edward said with a chuckle. “But if you can get past the cheesy names, it is a fun read, I will admit.”
He started to say more, but suddenly he became aware of a low groaning sound that seemed to be coming from off to their left. His mouth snapped shut and he turned towards the noise, his students glancing over as well. Their little bubble fell silent as they all strained their ears, trying to listen for what the sound was and where it was coming from.
Edward’s brow furrowed as the groan eventually tapered off, followed by silence. He listened patiently for a few seconds longer, but soon enough it became clear that whatever had made the noise was done for now.
“What was that?” Dash breathed.
“Do you think that was the rescue teams?” Danny whispered quietly, glancing over at Edward.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted slowly with a frown. He deliberately didn’t add that he suspected that it wasn’t the rescue teams, but possibly the building shifting. It was a bit soon for any sort of rescue to be coming for them, he believed, but there was always a chance that something had moved up above them, making the noise they’d heard. He wasn’t sure though, so he kept that little theory to himself. No point in worrying them needlessly.
“Anyways. As we were saying,” he prompted, trying to get his students’ attention off of the possibility that their safe space might not be as stable as they’d first hoped. “The Starlight Brigade series is a bit silly at times, but it does have some excellent themes, and the stories are generally well written.”
“You’d like the characters, too, Dash,” Kwan added. “They’re a team, working together, kind of like the football team. And one of the characters, Ninja Brian, reminds me a lot of Matt.”
“Our Matt?”
“Yeah, Matt Zucker.”
“Huh.” Dash looked like he was chewing it over. “So, like…what’s it even about?”
Danny perked up again, so Edward gestured towards him. “I’ll let Mr. Fenton explain, as he seems eager to tell you. Just remember, Mr. Fenton, keep the spoilers to a minimum.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Danny quickly agreed, practically vibrating with excitement, before he faced Dash and threw out his hands wide. “So! Starlight Brigade follows the main character, Strive, and his team as they try to stop the evil entity known as the Dark Prism after it stole all of the stars in the universe. They travel to distant planets, gathering intel to track down where the Dark Prism is hiding so that they can break into it to free the stars and return their light to the universe.”
Dash’s face screwed up in confusion. “Wait, aren’t stars really big? And aren’t there a lot of them?” He glanced over towards Edward for confirmation.
“Yes they are and yes there are!” Danny confirmed brightly, just as pleased to be discussing space as he was about the books. “Realistically, you’d never be able to actually condense them all into a single spot without creating, like, an insanely massive black hole. And in the book, the people on the starless planets are still surviving even though they should all be freezing to death.”
“I hadn’t even really thought about it,” Edward mused, rubbing his chin, “but you’re right. That is a pretty significant plot hole.”
“The author kind of tries to give an explanation,” Danny said with a wince. “With the nega-drive and the gravity remnants, but honestly it’s a bit weak and hand-wavey. I try my best to ignore it, just assume it’s magic.”
“Fair enough,” Edward conceded with a nod.
“The focus of the story isn’t on being hard sci-fi anyways,” Danny added. “It’s more about the characters.”
“Do you have a favourite?” Edward asked.
Danny ducked his head bashfully. “I actually really like Strive. I know he’s not as cool or experienced as the others, but I find him much more relatable.”
“That makes sense, given he is the main character,” Edward pointed out. “You’re supposed to relate to him.”
“I really liked Ninja Brian,” Kwan said, giving Danny a little smile, “because he reminds me of Matt, but Strive is really cool too.”
Danny smiled back at him bashfully, before looking over Edward. “What about you, Mr. Lancer? Who’s your favourite character?”
“General Jupiter,” Edward replied without hesitation, anticipating the question.
“Who?” Kwan asked, but Danny was openly staring.
“General Jupiter?” he echoed in disbelief. “But she’s only in, like, three scenes in the second book!”
“And she absolutely stole those scenes,” Edward told him with a sniff. “She took charge, whipped them into a team, and set them on their path. I respect a strong female character in any story, and while her part was small, it was very significant for the series as a whole.”
Danny made a considering noise. “Huh, I see your point.”
“She also reminds me strongly of Ms. Tetslaff.”
“Oh.” Danny’s eyes went wide in understanding. “Oh yeah, I see it.”
Just then, there was another groaning sound, although this time it sounded much closer. It was also accompanied by a deep rumble that they could feel shaking through the ground, leaving them all slamming their hands down flat on the floor for balance.
“What’s that?” Kwan whimpered.
“Why is the ground shaking?” Dash asked, his eyes darting towards the ceiling overhead. And then suddenly his eyes went wide and his face paled, just as Edward heard something crack somewhere above them. “Oh no. Look out!”
Edward glanced up, but that was all the time he had to do before a piece of the floor overhead that had been protecting them up until now suddenly broke free and dropped, directly above him. He gasped, his eyes going wide as a chunk of concrete the size of a bar fridge rushed towards him, too fast for him to escape.
“No!” Danny screamed loudly, lunging forward. His hand wrapped around Edward’s wrist just as the debris reached him, his vision filling with his oncoming demise.
His body went cold and numb.
The chunk of concrete hit the ground where he was sitting hard enough to crack it, the impact as loud as a gunshot. Edward’s eyes instinctively squeezed shut as he waited for the pain to hit him, hoping that at least it would be quick.
But then he realized that he’d closed his eyes after the stone had fallen. And as he sat there, his eyes shut and his body tense, no pain seemed to be coming. He also wasn’t dead, because he could still feel himself breathing; in fact, he was nearly hyperventilating, his pulse racing in his ears as the adrenaline rush filled him.
Completely stupefied, his eyes flew open. He let out a little squeak of fear when he looked down and found himself somehow sitting inside the chunk of rock, the top of it coming up to his waist. Had it had a hole in the middle and it had somehow miraculously gone around him? But no, Edward could see no gap in it, and he could feel his crossed legs sitting where the rock should be. How the hell was this possible?!
His eyes landed on the hand clamped so tightly around his wrist that he could feel his bones grinding together, and his gaze trailed up the arm until it landed on the terrified face of Danny Fenton. Edward glanced back down at their joined hands, and then back up to Danny’s face, understanding slowly coming to him.
“Mr. Fenton?” he said breathlessly.
“A-are you okay, Mr. Lancer?” Danny asked, his voice trembling.
“Y-yes, I — ”
Just then, there was another loud sound. They all looked up to see more cracks appearing in the ceiling, the pieces sinking down as something overhead shifted and finally threw off the delicate balance that had kept them safe so far.
“Oh no,” Danny gasped in horror.
“Oh shit!” Dash screamed, falling back.
Edward saw it happen almost in slow motion. Danny looked across at each of them, his face screwed up in dismay before his expression abruptly hardened. His jaw tightened in determination, and then he quickly dove forward, dragging Edward along with him. Edward let out a squawk of surprise, finding himself squeezed tightly in Danny’s arms as he scooped up Kwan and Dash as well. Dash let out a yelp of pain as his leg was jolted, but the sound was swiftly swallowed up by the cacophony of the roof beginning to cave in.
“Hang on,” Danny shouted grimly.
That was the only warning they got. There was a sudden flash of light, painfully bright after being trapped in the darkness for so long, and then suddenly it was Phantom holding them all, his glowing eyes glancing upward towards the collapsing ceiling above. He tightened his grip, hard enough that Edward was actually starting to have trouble breathing, and the numb chill that had washed over him a moment ago grew stronger. And then abruptly they were shooting upwards, through what had to have been thousands of tonnes of broken concrete and twisted steel, until the world suddenly opened up around them and Edward found himself staring down in shock at the ruins of the aquarium from what must have been a hundred feet up in the air.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he screamed in terror, but that was only because Kwan and Dash were screaming along with him. Thankfully Phantom seemed just as eager to get back down to solid ground as they were, because he quickly floated them downward until they’d landed on the roof of the office building across the street from where the aquarium had once stood.
“Are you guys okay?” he asked as he set them back on their feet, his words short and clipped. Kwan and Edward stumbled back, but Phantom took the time to help Dash to sit, since his leg wouldn’t support him. “Did any of you get hit?”
“N-no,” Edward choked out, feeling completely shell shocked. He glanced over at Dash and Kwan, finding them staring at Phantom with their jaws hanging open, but otherwise looking unharmed. “No, I think we’re okay.”
“Good,” Phantom said in a low voice. “Wait here. I need to make sure that everyone else is safe.”
He didn’t wait for them to reply, flying off so fast that Edward almost didn’t see him leave. The three of them were left there, reeling. The sun shone down on them and the birds were chirping in the trees far below, but the change of scenery had been so quick and sudden that it almost didn’t feel real.
“Mr. Lancer?” Kwan suddenly spoke up, sounding very lost. “Did that…seriously just happen?”
“...yes.”
“Did Danny just…turn into Phantom?”
“It appears that he did.”
“But that…that means that Danny is Phantom.”
“So it would seem,” Edward agreed, his mind a complete whirlwind as he tried to comprehend all that had just happened. They’d nearly been crushed to death again, but Danny had saved them and rescued them. He had carried all three of them out of the collapsing building, into the air, and then flown them to safety. Danny, who had just transformed into Phantom. Was Phantom? Edward supposed there could be some element of possession going on, but something about that just didn’t seem right. Had Danny honestly been Phantom this whole time?!
When he stopped to think about it, it all started to make a horrifying amount of sense. Whenever ghosts attacked and Phantom arrived to save the day, Danny was never anywhere to be found. And Phantom’s known closest associates were Sam Manson and Tucker Foley, Danny’s two best friends. Now that Edward had seen the transformation happen in front of him, he also couldn’t deny how similar Phantom and Danny looked, though Phantom’s ghostly aura still made some of his features look different enough that they weren’t identical. The more he considered it, the more he realized that in hindsight the truth could not have been more obvious.
Danny was Phantom. And he had been the whole time.
“But…but I’ve been shoving him into lockers and dunking his head in toilets for years!” Dash squeaked, sounding more panicked now than he had when they’d been trapped under the building. “Are you telling me he was Phantom then too?!”
Kwan and Edward just shared a helpless look, neither wanting to be the one to say it.
Ignoring Dash for now, Kwan shook his head. “I just…don’t understand why he never said anything. Why has he been keeping it a secret this whole time?”
“Only Mr. Fenton will be able to answer that question, I’m afraid,” Edward told him, looking towards the edge of the building’s roof. For a moment, he thought about walking over to look down and see if he could spot Phantom down below, perhaps fighting off the ghost that had attacked the aquarium, but then his knees started to tremble and he realized it would probably be wiser to just sit down for a while. He made a point of doing just that, dropping down heavily with a tired groan to sit next to Dash.
“You’re awfully calm about all this,” Dash commented, giving Edward a side-eye.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Mr. Baxter. As soon as this is all over and settled, I’m planning to go home, draw a bubble bath, make myself a really big martini and then have a good, proper meltdown over a Jane Austen book.”
“That actually sounds kind of nice,” Kwan admitted, sitting down as well and drawing his knees up to his chest. “Although I think I might try to re-read the first Starlight Brigade book again, instead of Jane Austen.”
“An excellent choice,” Edward told him with an approving nod. “Although you may wish to consider Macbeth instead, given your upcoming quiz.”
Kwan and Dash both looked up at him in dismay.
“Wait, you’re still going to make us write the quiz on Friday?” Kwan cried.
Edward shrugged, glancing up at the sun shining overhead. “We were only down there for a few hours at most, by my estimate. We’ll likely have to go to the hospital to be assessed, but I doubt they’ll keep us for long. We’ll all be back to school by Friday at the latest, and you’ll have plenty of downtime to catch up.”
“We were trapped under a collapsed building!” Dash protested.
“Mr. Baxter, if I cancelled tests every time there was some sort of disaster, we’d never write any,” Edward said flatly. “Amity Park sees a different ghost attacking every two days. Your classes are impacted by that enough as it is, it’s my job to make sure that you still get the best education possible, despite the challenges.”
Both of his students let out low groans.
“But,” Edward added, deciding to throw them both a bone. “I might try to add a few bonus questions to the test to help you get some extra marks.”
They relaxed, slowly smiling.
For a while, they just sat there in silence, each of them taking a moment to process the events of the day. Edward found himself constantly glancing upward at the soft fluffy clouds floating overhead. A bird flew by, and Edward found tears starting to prick at the corners of his eyes as it really hit him that they were out of that awful situation. They’d survived. For a while there, he’d had to grapple with the idea that they might not make it, while simultaneously trying to keep his students’ spirits up, so the fact that the sun was now shining down on him from above left him wrestling with a relief so profound it left him shaking.
They’d survived. They’d made it out.
For a moment, he just squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the breeze on his face and the sun on his skin as everything suddenly hit him at once, leaving him breathless. But then the rush of emotion passed, and he was able to open his eyes again, looking up once more at the sky.
Because his gaze was trained upwards, he was the first to spot it when Phantom returned. Edward brightened as the familiar figure appeared overhead, lifting his arm to wave, but as Phantom approached, Edward quickly realized that something was wrong. Phantom’s form was hunched over, his arms wrapped tightly around his middle, and his face was pinched with pain.
“Phantom?” he called, struggling to his feet so that he could meet Phantom when he landed. “Phantom, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“N-no,” Phantom choked out as his white boots hit the rooftop. His voice was thick with phlegm, and it took Edward a moment to realize that Phantom’s face wasn’t twisted with pain; he was crying.
“Phantom. Daniel,” Edward said softly, reaching out to rest his hands on the ghost’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
Phantom let out a short sob, before jerking out of Edward’s gentle hold. “I — I screwed up!”
Bewildered, Edward could only gape at him. “What do you mean?”
“I screwed up so bad!” Phantom cried, tears running down his cheeks now. He stumbled back a few more steps before his legs bumped into the raised ledge around the edge of the roof, and then he sank down to the ground, his hands coming up to clutch at his hair. There was a flash of light, and suddenly he changed back to Danny Fenton, his blue eyes watery and bloodshot as he sobbed. “How could I have let this happen?!”
“Daniel,” Edward murmured again, slowly making his way over to Danny’s side. “Danny, please tell us what happened. I’d like to help, but I can’t if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
It took Danny a few false starts to speak, but eventually he managed to force the words out, though his voice was still choked. “I f-flew down to check on what had happened. It sounds like…the ghost that destroyed the aquarium is g-gone, he took all of the fish and…and left, without attacking anyone else, but…”
Danny’s voice cut out, his eyes squeezing shut in pain as he started crying harder. Edward sank down next to him, ignoring the way that it strained his back, and threw a comforting arm around Danny’s shoulders. Danny whimpered and buried his head into Edward’s chest, his whole body shuddering with the force of his sorrow.
“What happened, Danny? I doubt you’d be this worked up about the fish.”
“...someone died,” Danny admitted, the words coming out so strangled that Edward almost didn’t understand them.
But he did understand them, and hearing them made his blood run cold. For all that Amity Park had to deal with ghost attacks on the regular, there had been surprisingly few fatalities over the years, and so any death from a ghost attack was a big deal. And now that he knew Danny was Phantom, Edward could see how they’d weigh extra heavily on his student’s shoulders.
“Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, tucking Danny in tighter against him.
“I went looking for him,” Danny choked out. “The emergency workers said he was the only other person not accounted for, so I went looking for him. I thought he might have…gotten trapped like us, but…”
Edward went still. “Danny…did you…did you find him?”
“...what was left of him.”
“To Kill A Mockingbird,” Edward said softly in dismay. He could only imagine what that would have been like. “Oh, Danny. I’m so, so sorry. That must have been awful.”
“I just…it’s all my fault,” Danny whispered, slowly pulling away from Edward’s hold. “If I hadn’t been so scared of hiding my secret, I could have just changed into Phantom and gone to save him! But I was a coward, and now he’s dead, and it’s all my fault!”
“Mr. Fenton, you are not a coward,” Edward said firmly, reaching out to grasp Danny’s shoulder again. “And you are not to blame for what happened. As I said down there under the rubble, you are not the one who knocked down the building. None of this is your fault.”
Of course, he’d actually said none of this was Phantom’s fault, but apparently they were one and the same, so Edward figured it still counted.
Danny shook his head in protest. “But if I hadn’t wasted so much time sitting down there being scared…”
“Danny, as much as it pains me to say this, if the man was crushed to death, then he was likely dead from the moment the building started collapsing. You couldn’t have saved him.”
“I could have,” Danny protested, almost petulantly. “I fly really fast.”
“Then you would have had to leave us behind, and we would have all been crushed to death,” Edward argued, which made Danny draw up short. Actually, looking back, it hit Edward that his words were more true than he’d first realized. When he’d nearly been crushed by the falling stone, Danny had grabbed him and turned him intangible with his powers. That’s how he’d managed to fly them out of the collapsing building as well. It stood to reason that he’d also used those same powers on them from the beginning and protected them from the worst of the initial building collapse. “I had thought it was a miracle that none of us was more injured when the building came down on our heads, but now I understand that it was you protecting us from the worst of it, wasn’t it?”
Danny flushed and ducked his head. “I lost my concentration at one point, and then I lost my grip on Dash. That’s why you guys got hurt. If I’d been more focused, both of you would have been completely fine, but I screwed up then too.”
Edward just stared at him in disbelief. “Danny. Without you, we’d be dead. I am more than happy to have a few scratches on my back compared to the alternative. You saved our lives. Again.”
“Yeah, man.” Edward glanced up to see both Kwan and Dash watching them cautiously, Kwan’s arm wrapped around Dash’s back for support. Dash gave Danny a crooked smile and continued. “I mean, yeah, it sucks that my leg got smashed, but at least the rest of me didn’t.”
“We owe you our lives,” Kwan told Danny quietly. “It looks like for a bunch of stuff, too.”
Danny glanced between them, his eyes searching their faces for any sign of rejection or dismissal, but as they all continued to watch him calmly, slowly he began to relax. He sniffed loudly, dragging his sleeve across his face under his nose to wipe away the snot, and then gave them all a tiny smile.
“I am really glad you’re all okay,” he murmured. “And I guess I’m glad I was able to protect you guys, at least.”
Edward just gave Danny a proud smile, and another comforting shoulder squeeze.
Just then, Dash cleared his throat. “So like…” he began, before cutting himself off, looking uncomfortable.
“What is it, Mr. Baxter?” Edward prompted, expecting Dash to offer some other comment about Danny’s heroics. But when he saw the way Dash’s eyes kept flicking towards Danny before glancing away, he started to understand what Dash was about to ask was probably going to be something much less polite. He tried to interrupt, but Dash just blurted the question out before Edward could speak.
“So are you, like…dead?”
Edward winced at the blunt delivery. Even Kwan looked pained. But to Edward’s surprise, Danny actually just huffed out a laugh, and shook his head.
“Not exactly,” he hedged.
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Edward said quickly, offering reassurance. “Given everything that’s happened today, I understand if it’s not something you wish to discuss.”
After all, they’d all nearly died. If Danny was a ghost, at least to some degree, then Edward had a strong suspicion that this hadn’t been Danny’s first brush with death, and reliving his first experience so soon after this one might be a bit traumatic. But once again Danny surprised him, letting out a huge sigh and shifting around until he was sitting more comfortably on the rooftop.
“Well, if you guys know the truth now, I might as well explain everything,” Danny said resignedly. He waited until Kwan had helped Dash scoot a little bit closer, so that they were all sitting down to hear the story, and then he launched into his tale. “It all started when my parents built something called the Ghost Portal in our basement…”
As the story unfolded, Edward found himself absolutely riveted. But unlike his two other students, who were watching Danny with wide eyed amazement as he explained how he came to become a ‘halfa’, Edward was slowly growing more and more horrified. Danny hadn’t just had a brush with death, he’d actually died! And in a manner so terrible that Edward didn’t even want to picture it. At least if they’d been crushed under the collapsed building, it would have been quick! But electrocution? A portal between worlds opening up on top of Danny’s body and ripping him apart at the molecular level? It made Edward sick to even consider it.
As Danny finished speaking, Edward opened his mouth to ask how Danny could possibly go about his day-to-day like nothing was wrong when he’d experienced something so traumatic, when something even worse occurred to him.
“Mr. Fenton,” he said slowly as his horror only grew. “Do your parents know?!”
He was desperately hoping that Danny would say yes; that his parents were in on the whole masquerade and only played at trying to catch Phantom to help him cover his trail. But then Danny winced, and Edward felt his heart plummet.
“No, they don’t,” Danny admitted. “And you can’t tell them.”
“They don’t know?!” Kwan gasped.
“But dude, they try to shoot you all the time when you’re Phantom!” Dash protested.
“I know, trust me, I know,” Danny groaned. “Those ectorays hurt.”
“You gotta tell them!” Kwan insisted earnestly. “You can’t just let them keep trying to hurt you! They’re your parents!”
“Kwan.” Danny could only stare at Kwan as he spread his hands wide in a helpless gesture. “How the hell can I tell them? They hunt ghosts for a living, and I’m half ghost.”
“But you’re their son,” Dash pointed out. “They love you, everyone knows that.”
“But do they love me enough to accept me for what I am?” Danny’s back bowed, and his head dropped to hang low between his shoulders. “I don’t know. I want to believe that they do, but I don’t know. And even in the best case scenario, I still have to break it to them that the ghost they’ve been shooting at and trying to capture for study and torture for years is their own damn kid. How can I do that to them? How can I put them through that guilt?”
Breathing deeply through his nose to maintain his calm, Edward shook his head sadly. “Mr. Fenton, they’re sure to find out eventually. And they’ll be even more heartbroken if something serious has happened in the meantime.”
“I’ve hid it from them for over two years,” Danny said grimly, glaring down at the rooftop beneath him. “I just…can’t bring myself to tell them. Or anyone else, really. I’m just…scared.”
Edward slumped. As much as it pained him to see Danny in such an unhappy situation, he could recognize that Danny was in no mood to discuss the topic any further. “Very well, Mr. Fenton. I understand. But I do believe this will be something we need to discuss later, once everything has settled.”
Danny peeked up at them through his bangs. “Please promise you guys won’t tell anyone about me being Phantom. I — I can’t let anyone else know. It’s not…it’s not safe.”
To Edward’s surprise, it was Dash who managed to reply first.
“Of course, man,” he said quietly, uncharacteristically subdued. He glanced over at Kwan, who nodded in agreement. “Your secret is safe with us.”
“Yeah, Danny. We won’t tell.”
“As I said before, back when we were trapped,” Edward said, giving Danny a small, sad smile. “What happened down there, stays down there. We will not share your secret.”
Danny glanced between each of them, searching their faces, before he slowly started to relax. “Thanks, guys,” he whispered, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
“Now that being said, you and I will have to have a discussion about what this means for your classes,” Edward added.
“What do you mean?” Danny asked, going tense.
“Well, your attendance record is abysmal, and it’s been impacting your grades,” Edward pointed out. “Now that I know why you’ve been absent so often, however, I can make arrangements to accommodate you better, given your…extracurriculars.”
Danny stared up at him in shock. “Wait…you’d do that?”
“You’ve saved the lives of everyone in the city multiple times. This is quite literally the least I can do for you, Mr. Fenton.”
“And the guys and I won’t be giving you a hard time anymore,” Dash added, reaching out to clap Danny on the shoulder. “I’ll talk to ‘em, keep them off your back.”
“You guys…” Danny said softly, looking like he was getting a bit choked up.
“We survived getting buried alive together,” Dash said with a grin, giving Danny’s shoulder a friendly squeeze before glancing at Edward and Kwan. “That means we’ve got a bond now. We stick together, right?”
“Right!” Kwan agreed cheerfully.
“Speaking of being buried, though,” Edward cut in smoothly. “We should probably go down and report to the emergency services so that they don’t waste any time looking for us in the rubble.”
Dash blinked. “Oh yeah.”
Danny, on the other hand, winced, cringing away from the wall at his back that faced the former aquarium grounds. “I don’t want to go back down there,” he admitted reluctantly. “I had to bring the man’s body out, and…I don’t want to see it again.”
Edward couldn’t help but wince as well, though he tried his best to mask his reaction. Bad enough that Danny had been confronted with the man’s remains, but to have to handle them as well? “Danny. Do you…have anyone you can talk to about the things you go through as Phantom?”
Danny looked up at him with a confused frown. “I have Sam and Tucker,” he said slowly.
Edward had suspected as such, but he’d been hoping that Danny had some sort of support outside of other children. “Of course, but is there anyone…older?”
“Jazz knows too,” Danny replied, completely oblivious to how his responses were just leaving Edward more and more upset.
“Anyone else?”
Danny’s face screwed up in thought for a moment, before he shrugged helplessly. “There are some ghosts who are my friends.”
“The Metamorphosis,” Edward muttered under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. Children. All Danny had to rely on were other children and ghosts, who from Edward’s experience, rarely had the same morals as the living. Good heavens, Edward could only imagine how much trauma the boy must have been suppressing. As brilliant as Jasmine Fenton was, Edward highly doubted she’d been able to manage Danny’s mental and emotional wellbeing on her own, though he suspected she was probably largely to blame for Danny still being as well-adjusted as he was, despite everything he’d been through. Either way, he had a feeling that he now had a date with his old notes on counseling from his time at teacher’s college.
When he was sure he could speak without either raging in despair at how much Danny must have been suffering on his own, or breaking down into horrified tears, Edward lifted his head to face the boys again. “I’m sure that the authorities have taken care of the man’s body by now. Either way, we will likely need you to carry us back down to the ground level, Mr. Fenton. Mr. Baxter can’t walk, and I don’t think any of us are in any state to take the stairs, assuming we can even find the roof access.”
“Huh?” Danny glanced across the roof, as if realizing for the first time that they were on the top of a building. Given that he could fly, Edward could imagine that it probably hadn’t even occurred to him that the rest of them might have trouble getting back down. “Oh. Whoops. Yeah, I can fly you down.”
Edward flinched back as Danny’s body suddenly flashed, transforming him back into Phantom. Edward couldn’t help but stare in open fascination, taking the opportunity to study Phantom’s features now that Edward was sitting right next to him. Once again, Edward could only marvel at how obvious it was in hindsight that Danny had been Phantom this whole time.
“Attention all passengers, Air Phantom flight one-oh-one is now ready for boarding,” Phantom quipped as he opened his arms wide.
Shaking his head at his student’s antics, Edward reached out to wrap his arm around Phantom’s neck, while Kwan helped Dash cling to his other side. It was a bit squishy as Phantom scooped them all up, but he showed no sign of straining under their combined weight, merely lifting off with them into the air as soon as his grip was secure. Edward was, for a moment, once again treated to a birds-eye view of the demolished aquarium, but then the vertigo kicked in and he quickly squeezed his eyes shut and kept them closed until Phantom had safely brought them back down to the ground.
The ghost hero deposited them carefully onto the sidewalk just outside the building, and then turned invisible and flickered out of sight. A moment later Danny emerged from the alleyway behind them, coming to a stop next to them like he’d never been gone.
Edward looked across the street, spotting a fire truck parked nearby, with an ambulance lined up next to it. He jerked his head towards it. “Let’s go see about letting everyone know that we’re alright.”
“Here, Dash, put your arm over my shoulder,” Kwan instructed his friend, hunching over to make it easier for Dash to grab onto him.
“Thanks, man,” Dash said quietly.
“Here, I’ll help too,” Danny offered, ducking under Dash’s arm on the other side. Dash and Kwan both looked at him in surprise, before breaking out into grateful smiles.
For a moment, Edward could only stare at the three of them with pride. Just this morning, right before all of this had gone down, the three of them had been at each others’ throats. But now, after surviving such a hellish experience together, he could see that a connection had been formed between them, a bond tying them all together as Dash had said. Edward was pleased to know that, after all that they’d been through, at least there was one silver lining to be found; they’d all learned and grown a little from the experience.
“Are you boys all ready?” Edward asked them as soon as he was sure that they were settled.
“Yeah.”
“Yep.”
“Yes, Mr. Lancer.”
“Good.” Edward gave them all an approving nod. “Then let’s go say hi to the nice paramedics.”
With his head held high and a light, warm feeling in his heart, Edward herded his students ahead towards the ambulance. The moment the paramedics and firefighters caught sight of them, they started shouting, the noise echoing as more and more people rushed over. Edward saw a pair of EMTs pushing a gurney in their direction, and for the first time since the building had started to come down around their ears, Edward felt himself start to relax.
They’d made it. They’d survived. He’d kept his students safe.
His work here was done.