“You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Danny groans loudly. He makes sure to cap the thermos firmly before he turns around. If he has to spend the rest of the night chasing down the Box Ghost again, he’s gonna go apeshit.
His dad is cursing violently, fighting against the ropes holding him and Mom, who’s doing enough glaring for the both of them. He wonders if it’d be a supervillain move to tell them they won’t be getting free anytime time soon.
“And why is that?” He drawls, indulging himself as he floats in lazy circles around them. “Have I drowned anymore puppies lately? Did I bump into you and forget to say sorry? Wait no, I’ve got it. You overheard me calling your suits tacky. Listen, I’m not gonna apologize for that because I was raised to tell the truth, and if that’s what it takes for you to realize-”
“You’re not always near our home because you care or because you’re looking after our boy,” Mom interrupts, fire in her eyes. “Whatever obsession you have with my family, stop using it to get sympathy points.”
Danny stops. “Sympathy points,” he repeats softly after a short staring contest.
“We heard what you said!” Dad exclaims indignantly. “To that crowd! If you even think of hurting our son, I swear to god-”
Before he’s even aware he’s doing it, Danny opens his mouth and faintly hears himself say scathingly, “Why would I try to hurt your son? You seem to be doing a stellar job of that on your own.”
Two stunned sets of eyes stare at him and he winces internally because yeah. Wow. That was gonna be fun to unpack. He had no idea where that had come from. God, he was going to need so much therapy in the future.
“I’d rather cut my hand off than lay a finger on my boy-”
“What gives you the right-”
Okay. Time for damage control. You’ve got this Danny.
What he means to say is something along the lines of: “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to say that, that was totally out of line. I’ll just get out of your hair now. Good night!”
What ends up coming out is: “I just have a hard time understanding what made you think it was a good idea to leave your unsupervised kid in a lab full of dangerous inventions.”
Their sputtering grounds to a halt, and he has half a mind to punch himself in the face. But in for a penny, in for a pound, and he decides to roll with it. Sam keeps telling him bottling his emotions isn’t healthy. He isn’t sure this is the healthy way she imagined him venting but beggars can’t be choosers.
“Our- our kids are smart,” Mom fumbles after a moment, clenching her jaw. “We taught them lab safety. They know better than to-”
“That doesn’t matter!” Danny nearly shrieks, feeling only slightly remorseful when his parents flinch harshly and make aborted movements to where their weapons usually hang.
He doesn’t like yelling. There are enough ghosts giving the people of Amity a reason to fear them. He’s never wanted to be added to the list.
But Danny is tired. It’s past midnight, he has a English essay due tomorrow he hasn’t even started on, and he doesn’t have the patience or the energy to deal with being insulted right now.
“They’re teenagers! Do you know how dumb kids are?!” He doesn’t know when he started yelling. He doesn’t know if he can stop. Not when his parents are finally looking at him head on, without the scope of a gun getting in the way. Not when they’re listening.
“I was a kid! I was smart and curious and messed with something I wasn’t supposed to because I was a dumb fourteen year old that thought I was invincible,” he shouts, strangling the Fenton Thermos in his grip. His dad is gazing at him, quiet for once. And his mom- his mom is looking at him like he’s a stranger, like she’s never truly seen him before, and for a second Danny just about chokes on the rage rising his his throat.
He’s furious. He’s offended. He’s hurt, because as much as he doesn’t like to think about it, his parents think he’s a monster, and there’s nothing he can do about that.
But most of all he’s tired.
Slumping, he sighs heavily, the anger leaving him as quick as it had arrived. “Look. Believe me. Don’t believe me. I don’t care. It’s late, I’ve already had to deal with the Box Ghost tonight, and I think I deserve a limit to the amount of annoying company that insists on haunting me.” He shoots them a wink, hitching his lips in a strained smile. “Get it? Haunting me? Because I’m a- you get it.”
They’re still not saying anything. They just sit there, watching him with heavy eyes. Danny doesn’t even think Dad his still secretly cutting at the ropes holding them with the knife he keeps hidden in his back pocket. The one Phantom would never have reason to know about.
Whatever. He doesn’t have time for this, not if he wants a chance at finishing his paper before tomorrow’s class. Turning invisible, he laughs slightly when they startle.
“Well,” he says awkwardly, fiddling with the thermos, “not that this hasn’t been so fun and all, but believe it or not I have better ways to spend my time. Go home and get some sleep, yeah? I’ve heard it’s all the rage.”
Flying away from that disaster of a conversation is a relief, and he finds himself hoping it’ll be a while before Phantom runs into them again.
