Happy WIP Wednesday! So last week, we had a tie between Bring Me Home and Answer My Call. The tie breaker didn't come in until Monday after I'd already finished the entire Bring Me Home chapter and half the Answer My Call one.
So y'all will be getting two fic upates today then I'm going to sleep. I'm tired after a full day of work with a call out. XP
If you want a say in next week's update, vote in the poll!
Welcome to Arc 3 of Bring Me Home! 🎉🎉🎉
Story Summary: Danny's parents find out his secret. It doesn't go well. But he's not alone. His friend Tim Drake, better known as Red Robin, and the Young Justice will not let him suffer.
Word Count: 1.7k
Warnings: fanon-typical violence. This is my dissection fic, but I don't think I crossed the line into graphic. Let me know if you disagree.
Arc 1: AO3
Arc 2: First, Last
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Danny waved goodbye to Sam and Tucker as he made his way home from school. They had a long weekend and he planned to fall into bed and take a long nap. And then maybe grab some midnight tacos as Phantom for dinner.
He hummed as he thought about how awesome those tacos would taste when reached his home. Still lost in his daydreams, he unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Only for electric pain to shoot up his arm. Danny screamed, paralyzed to the spot. He tried to pull his hand back, but something held him in place. He fell to his knees, arm still held out and radiating pain through the rest of his body.
“What? Danny!”
“M-mom?” he forced out between cries. “Hurts!”
He could feel his transformation tugging on his core and he tried to force it back.
“Jack! Quick, it’s Danny!”
“Please,” begged Danny. Even kneeling was getting to be too much. Blackness was threatening the edges of his vision so he closed his eyes. He had to keep from transforming. He had to.
He didn’t even have the breath to scream anymore.
He heard his dad’s voice. There was a flash of light. And then nothing.
---
The first thing Danny was aware of was that everything hurt. His muscles were aching and his right arm was practically numb. The next thing he noticed was that he way lying on something hard. He tried to roll over, only to realize he was strapped down. And not just at his wrists and ankles, but also at his waist and neck.
His eyes flew open in shock and he yelled in panic. Had Vlad gotten him?
“It’s awake, Mads!”
Orange filled his vision as his dad leaned over him.
“D-dad?” asked Danny. He felt his core humming in his chest. His core, not his heart. He twisted his head just enough to see a black jumpsuit.
He was Phantom. His parents knew.
His dad’s face contorted with anger, an expression he’d never once seen there before. “Don’t you dare call me that, impostor! What have you done with my son?”
“Dad, it’s me. I swear. I—I can explain.” He tugged on his restraints, trying to phase through them. Only to scream as the anti-ghost shielding shocked him.
His mom’s steps echoed from out of sight. “You aren’t escaping us that easily, ghost,” she spat the last word. “How long have you been possessing Danny?” She finally came into view, goggles blocking her eyes and her mouth hard.
“I’m not possessing him, I am Danny!”
She sneered. “Jack, now.”
“Release our son!” shouted his father. Then he pulled out a spray can and held down the nozzle.
Danny saw the mist approach him and scrunched his eyes closed as he turned his head to avoid the spray. But of course it was impossible. He whimpered as it settled on him, tiny pinpricks of burning. As he lay there, the feeling grew more and more intense until he couldn’t help but cry out.
And that’s when he breathed it in.
It was all agony, inside and out. The mist settled in his lungs, pure fire trying to melt core.
With a flash of light, he was Danny Fenton again. His heart beat in his chest and his lungs screamed for oxygen. The pain didn’t go away, but it lessened. Danny gasped in deep breaths, his limbs shaking in their restraints as he tried to push through the pain.
“Did it work?” asked his dad.
Fingers brushed his hair off his forehead. “Sweetie? Are you back with us?”
Danny opened his eyes, tears gathering and looked up at the face of his mother.
Her expression turned from hope to hatred so fast he thought he was dreaming. “Green eyes, Jack. The ghost is just trying to trick us.”
“The ghost repellent has never failed before. How are you surviving, ghost?”
Danny screwed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see his parents’ faces. “It’s me, I promise. It’s me. I’m alive. I’m alive.”
“Stop lying!” screamed his mom.
Then he felt a sharp pain in his side, followed by a wave of agony. He felt like he was being electrocuted again. In defense, he transformed back into Phantom—his ghost form was so much more durable.
But the pain only got worse. He screamed. His wail was crawling its way up his throat, only to fizzle out into a wave of electricity when it hit the anti-ghost restraint strapped around his neck.
“Loud, isn’t it?” asked his father.
“Let’s shut it up, Jack,” said his mother.
“No, no please. It’s me, Danny!”
They ignored him, though. The pain stopped just long enough for him to gasp in a few breaths. Then piece of metal was being fixed under his jaw and over his mouth. His head was yanked up so it could be strapped in the back. Danny tried to yell into the muzzle, but it muffled all sound.
After that, he lost track of what they did. So many inventions were taken out, used, and discarded. Anything to destroy the ghost part of him or force him out of his living body.
He wished he could obey. That he could just be their son again and not Phantom. But he’d learned many times over the last three years that it was impossible. He was both Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom and spitting himself apart would only ever lead to destruction.
He didn’t know how many times he was forced into a transformation as his body tried to choose the form more resistant to the torture. It didn’t seem to matter, though, if he was Fenton or Phantom. His parents would check his eyes or use the ghost tracker and then the next wave of pain would wash over him.
Eventually, however, even his parents ran out of inventions to use.
“This isn’t working, Jackie.”
“What if we can’t force it out, Mads? What next?”
“We’ll cut it out. You know we’ve long hypothesized about the existence of a ghost heart. What better way to test our hypothesis than cutting the parasite out of our own son?”
Danny’s eyes flew open and he tugged with aching muscles, twisting as much as he was able. His muffled protests were ignored just as much as his words had been.
“Where do you think it’s hiding its heart?” asked his dad.
“We’ll use the Fenton Scanner to find the areas of densest ectoplasm concentration and search each of them.”
His mom stalked out of sight and Danny could hear her rummaging through various bins and cabinets looking for the scanner.
His dad, however, stared down at him, eyes hidden behind his goggles and his mouth in an uncharacteristic frown. “If you’re still in there, Danno, we’re gonna get rid of it. We’ll free you, son.”
Danny wanted to tell him he wasn’t trapped, to say again that he was himself, whatever he looked like. But all he could do was whimper and blink away the tears.
Then mom was back, a small scanner in her hand. She pointed it at Danny and he tensed, expecting more pain.
But he felt nothing. Soon enough, the device beeped and she waved over his dad.
“Look at this, sweetie. It’s working better than I expected. Only two main areas of ectoplasm concentration: his brain and his chest.”
“That’s awfully close to his heart, Mads. I don’t know if we can remove it without hurting Danny.”
“If we don’t remove it, he’ll be dead anyway!” Her last word caught on a sob.
Danny was crying in earnest now, too. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. How long would it take anyone to even notice? Jazz was away at college, Tucker had plans with his parents all night, Sam was trying to get along with her parents to get out of a rich-person function later in the month, and he and Tim didn’t have a check-in until Sunday.
Could he survive his parents for two whole days until then?
He forced his eyes open to see his parents hugging. All he wanted was to be between them, caught up in their embrace. But instead he was strapped down to a hard, cold table.
They separated.
“Hold him still, Jack,” said his mom.
So Danny did the opposite. He ignored the ache of his muscles, the way they protested, to twist and yank and move as much as he could.
But his father’s hands were big and he was strong and Danny was tired. When his dad spread his hands over his shoulders and pressed, Danny couldn’t fight back. Above him stood his mom, holding a scalpel that glowed green.
Danny closed his eyes tightly when he saw her lower the blade. He couldn’t watch this. Then agony as it sliced through his skin.
Danny screamed into the muzzle. The pain was so intense that he could focus on nothing else. He didn’t know if his parents were talking to each other. He didn’t know what they were finding inside of him.
Instinct forced him to hide his core, to push it smaller and disguise it. But he knew that nothing would stop his parents forever.
He had no way to judge the passage of time. It felt like an eternity; it felt like a second.
Then the hands on him ripped away suddenly and new shouts, new voices, rang out in the lab.
Danny blinked his eyes open to see Sam and Tucker above him. Sam was paler than he’d ever seen her and Tucker didn’t look any better. He tried to talk to them, but the muzzle still covered his face.
Sam turned her head away and shouted, “Kon!”
A moment later, Superboy was landing next to her, his face grim. Then Danny’s restraints, muzzle included, fell to pieces. He was free.
He pushed himself up, needing to see, only to cry in pain and fall back down when the cuts on his chest protested the movement.
Sam and Tucker shouted at him, told him to stay still. Their words were fuzzy and hard to focus on. Everything was hard to focus on. But in the brief moment of time he’d been able to see more than the ceiling above him, he saw Tim in full Red Robin get up using his staff to keep his parents away.
Tim was here. And the world went black.
-----
Next
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After about 40k of writing, we're finally back to the scene that started it all! Only now with 4x the number of Young Justice on hand. About three years have passed between Arc 2 and Arc 3, so they've all gotten quite close. There's group chats. So many group chats. Danny's met more members of the Young Justice (and I may write a few of those meetings in the future which is 80% why I decided to make this a series rather than a single work on AO3).
But on the rescue team we've only got Red Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl, and Impulse.
I'm about a third of the way through with major edits for Arc 2. So I'll probably start cross posting to AO3 quite soon! Main changes are in what Tim tells Bruce about where he is and what he's up to.
