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Danny landed on the ground with an ungodly crunch. Pain flourished in his arm, which was crushed by the weight of the rest of him. He was in the middle of a brawl with Skulker and was thrown too quickly to break the fall correctly. Danny groaned. He’ll have to deal with his arm later, for now, he has a hunter to soup.
Skulker drew closer to his prey. When Danny went to prop himself up, a sharp pain overwhelmed his forearm. Oh yeah, that’s definitely broken. The ghost boy opted to use his powers to float him off the ground. After he met Skulker in the air, the fight progressed until Danny finally wore Skulker down enough to use the Fenton Thermos. The hunter disappeared into the container with a bright blue light, and Danny was proud of himself for defeating the ghost single-handedly (haha get it, cause his arm is broken).
After the battle was over, Danny flew invisibly into his bedroom window. Landing on his bed, he immediately started tugging off his glove. He decided it was best to stay in ghost form since most of his injuries healed faster that way. Crouching down, he used his good arm to grab his medkit that Sam had bought for him. He hasn’t broken a bone since he fell off the monkey bars in kindergarten, so he’s not exactly sure if he can treat it properly.
He placed the medkit on his bed. Gently, he started peeling off his glove. Danny looked down and noticed a faint glowing from the section of exposed skin. He arched his brow. Taking off the rest of his glove he saw glowing outlines of his bones. He rolled up his sleeve to see that the glowing grew fainter the further away it was from the break. In his painful and distracted state, Danny did not register the jiggle of his door knob, until a slight crack of light from the hallway appeared in his room, followed by his father’s face.
~~~~~~~~~
Jack Fenton was sitting in the living room with his wife. It was a little past dinner. Jazz and Danny were both doing homework in their rooms while he and Maddie watched TV. After a while, Jack felt his bladder calling for relief. He begrudgingly got off the couch and began his hike upstairs.
On his way towards the bathroom, Jack heard a rustling from Danny’s room. The large man paused at the door and wondered if he should check on his boy. Having grown up in a loud home with little care for privacy, understanding alone time and giving people space was harder for Jack. When Danny first started spending more time in his room, Maddie had told him that when most teenagers get to this age they require a bit of space. Jazz did too, but Danny even more so.
Jack heard a soft ‘ shit ’ followed by a loud seething sound. Maybe he should check on his boy. The man jiggled the doorknob to announce his presence. With the lack of protest, he popped his head into Danny’s room.
Phantom, GIW Enemy Number 1, was sitting on his son’s bed with pieces of a medkit laid out across Danny’s comforter. The ghost appeared to be too distracted by what it was doing to notice him. Jack’s gung ho attitude was squashed by his curiosity as he watched the ghost examine its arm. One of the bones, Jack thinks it's called the ulna (Maddie was more the biology person), glowed a bright green through the ghost’s skin, aside from a crack in the middle of it. The other forearm bone gave off a faint glow as well. Did Phantom break its arm?
Jack accidentally bumped the door, causing the ghost’s head to whip around. Bright green eyes were wide with fear. The normally snarky, bold ghost was silent and looked on the verge of panicking. For a brief second, Jack started to question everything he ever knew about ghosts. Then he realized that this one had just been caught in his son’s room. The man’s expression soured as he spoke.
“What are you doing here? And where is my son?” The ghost scrambled towards the head of the bed, medical supplies falling onto the floor.
“I’m sorry! He wasn’t in here when I got here I swear! I was borrowing his medkit! Please don’t kill me!” The ghost began to plead rapidly, panic rising in its voice. Jack clearly caught the ghost off guard. Amidst his confusion, he barely processed Phantom’s hasty escape through Danny’s exterior wall.
“Hey, wait, get back here, Spooks!”
“Dad?” a voice called out from behind him. Jack turned around to see his son standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing in my room?” Jack shook himself out of his thoughts.
“There was a sneaky specter in your room. Don’t worry I chased it out.” Danny’s eyes rolled.
“Yeah, sure, Dad. I’m gonna go back to doing homework.”
Jack watched as his son awkwardly walked into his room and picked up the supplies on his floor. Why did Danny have such an extensive medkit anyways? Oddly, his son was only using one hand to grab everything while his other arm stayed at his side. Whenever Danny needed to reach under his bed, he lowered himself using the hand he was grabbing with. Jack noticed him position his other arm and his subtle winces. Man, he should shut up more often. Jack’s brows knit with concern.
“Are you okay, son?” Danny’s head whipped towards the door. His face flashed with a similar panic that was eerily similar to the ghost from before.
“Oh, yeah I’m fine! I, uh, didn’t realize you were still here,” Danny stammered. Jack knelt down next to his son. The raw fear returned to his face. Why was his son afraid of him?
“Danny, let me see your arm.”
“No! I mean, I promise it’s fine! It’s…it’s…” Jack gently moved Danny’s arm to look at it. His forearm was bruised with dark purple and swollen. Danny barely concealed his flinch as Jack cautiously moved to get a closer look.
“Danno, I think this is broken. We should take you to the doctor.”
“NO!” Danny flung away from his father before falling flat on the floor with a yelp of pain. Jack quickly went to help his son, but met the sting of a force field. A bright green bubble surrounded Jack’s terrified son.
“Danny?” Jack cursed under his breath. There must be a ghost in here, but looking around Jack didn’t see anything strange. He didn’t even feel the characteristic temperature drop. It was just him and Danny in the room. Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“Son, I’m not sure what is going on, but I want to help you.” Danny shook like a leaf and fought down a sob.
“Danny, I promise I won't hurt you. I just want to understand what is going on. I'm worried about you,” Jack sighed before looking at the floor, “I know I'm not the greatest at listening, or picking up on social cues, but you're my son, and I care about you more than whatever this is.”
Danny's breathing started to slow back down. The green dome fizzled out, and Jack hugged his son.
“Dad, I have something to tell you.”
~~~~~~~~
That was the day that Jack Fenton, boisterous ghost hunter extraordinaire, learned about the adventures of his son, the half-ghost hero, Danny Phantom.