Danny and Valerie are hanging out together in Gotham (whether on a date or just as friends) when a rogue floods their area with sleeping gas and knocks everyone out.
They awaken later in a strange arena, arms handcuffed together as the rogue announces over the loudspeakers that they have been selected as “competitors” in a new deadly challenge designed to pit couples against each other.
But instead of the fear the rogue expected, instead they just get sighs of resigned annoyance from the pair as they looked at the cuffs on their wrists.
Danny is an orca, Sam is an angler fish, and Tucker is a common carp! (Also, yes, Ik Tucker's a freshwater fish but I only noticed after I finished drawing and coloring everything….)
Drawing the ocean was legit showing me that ruthlessness is mercy 🥲
Anyways… for funsies, here’s a poll!
Who is Danny giving the gifts to?
Cass 😌
Jazz ☺️
Duke 😍
Valerie 😳
Surprise! 2 mystery partners! 😈
Voting ended onMay 17, 2025
Note: Danny giving the gift to Jazz would be platonic btw. The others would be interpreted as romantic.
Based on the Phic Phight prompt: Being Phantom makes the fits easier and faster, so when Danny feels the beginnings of an itch in the back of his throat, he quickly goes ghost. When the coughing starts, though, his lungs burn like they never have before, each hacking cough tearing his throat to shreds and each wheezing breath costing so, so much. Once it stops feeling like an Alien is trying to claw its way out of his chest does he carefully look past the tears in his eyes to see what he coughed up: blood blossom petals. (Hanahaki AU! Romantic or platonic works!) (from @a-closet-emo)
AO3 Link
[Warnings for graphic pain, and minor asphyxiation]
Being Phantom makes the fits easier and faster, so when Danny feels the beginnings of an itch in the back of his throat, he quickly goes ghost. When the coughing starts, though, his lungs burn like they never have before, each hacking cough tearing his throat to shreds and each wheezing breath costing so, so much. Only once it stops feeling like an Alien is trying to claw its way out of his chest does he carefully look past the tears in his eyes to see what he coughed up: blood blossom petals.
The feelings that rise in his throat are almost as suffocating as those faintly luminescent petals. Danny was never one to believe in signs, but even he thinks this must be one. Her favorite flowers are blood blossoms. Just one more thing she loves that will kill him. If that's not the harbinger of a doomed relationship, nothing is.
It isn't the first time Danny's had Hanahaki. It's not even the first time since Danny became a half-ghost. Most kids get it at least once during their adolescence, and it's easy enough to cure. All a person has to do is confess their feelings, and whether they're accepted or rejected, getting closure makes the flowers go away.
Only idiots and cowards keep their feelings bottled up once those flowers rise in their throats, and, contrary to popular belief, Danny is neither. As worried as he is about how Valerie will take it, he's got enough on his plate without poisonous flowers growing in his lungs. Even the harshest rejection would be better than this.
—————
"Valerie," Danny stopped her after class and gently pulled her to the side, away from everyone, "can I talk to you? It'll only take a second."
"Sure, what's up?"
"Uh..." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "I like you."
"Like me? Are you sure?" she asked, and he chuckled.
"I've been coughing up some weird red flowers, so I'm pretty sure," he said.
She smiled and reached into her pocket. Out of it she pulled out a few, damp sunflower petals. "I like you too." She threw away the petals and held out her hand for him to take, and they walked to their next class hand in hand.
That should've been the end of it. Danny had his answer. The flowers should've withered and dissolved before the day was over as soon as he learned how she felt, and he was even lucky enough that she liked him back.
A hacking cough wracked through Danny's chest, but he knew not to transform this time. Even in his human form, the petals burned like none had before, and his muscles started to seize up from in reaction. Even when the coughing stopped, the fire in his lungs remained from the flowers still growing there. But why?
He'd confessed. She liked him back. So what was the issue?
"You still don't know how she feels." Danny jerked his head up when he heard his sister's voice. "You're dating her, but as long as she doesn't know you're Phantom, you'll never know how she really feels about you."
"Confessing my feelings is one thing, but I can't tell her that," he said, shaking his head. "She'll try to kill me. You know that, right?"
"And if you don't tell her, you'll die anyway," Jazz pointed out. "Sam told me about blood blossoms. Those things are growing inside you. Normally, Hanahaki isn't fatal for months, but as long as you're coughing up blood blossoms, you could die any day now. Not ghost dead, gone dead." Danny didn't have anything to say to that. She was right, after all.
"I'll figure something out," he said finally.
"You'd better do it fast. I don't want to lose my little brother."
Danny took a few days to think over a solution. There had to be a way to get rid of the flowers without ruining his relationship. Being with Valerie was easily the highlight of high school. She was smart, and fun, and interesting, and so protective of him. Even with her grumbling about wanting Phantom dead, he felt safe with her as long as he was human. He didn't want to give that up.
"You're really insane, you know that?" Sam told him flatly when she heard his plan. "I know you can't help your feelings, but why are you so intent on dating someone who wants you obliterated."
"I don't expect you to understand," Danny told her. "You've never had Hanahaki before, and you think romance is lame, but I'm really happy with Valerie. Can't I just want to be happy?"
"You're still insane," Sam scoffed, but she didn't try to stop him from going ghost and flying to Valerie.
The ghost she'd been after was safely contained in one of her ghost traps, and her hoverboard floated still in the air. Danny swallowed hard as he stopped behind her and cleared his throat. In an instant, she had no less than five ghost hunting weapons pointed directly at him.
"I don't want to fight," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "I just have something I need to get off my chest." Her body language showed that she was ready to fight anyway, and her black visor gave him no read on her emotions. Her weapons were still drawn and aimed, but she didn't fire.
"Talk fast," she sneered.
"I know we're enemies," he said, "but somehow... I've fallen in love with you anyway. I know that doesn't change how you feel about me, but I had to tell you."
"You're right," she said. "I still despise you as much as I always have."
"That's all I needed to hear," he said, and promptly vanished before she could start shooting. That was that. It was done. She knew he liked her as Danny, and she liked him back. She knew he liked her as Phantom, and she hated his guts. Her feelings were clear, his were out in the open. That should be the end of it.
So why? Why did his lungs still burn like this? The flowers were blooming even more than before. After a week, he was forced to skip school because he couldn't get out of bed, writhing in pain, vomiting up flowers that shredded his throat and poisoned him on the way up.
There was nothing for it. By all rights, his Hanahaki should have gone away when he confessed to her as Phantom. Actually, it should have gone away the first time he confessed his feelings, but for some reason, it didn't. And the fact that is hadn't killed him yet was a miracle. There was a knock on his bedroom door.
"Go away," he called out hoarsely. His voice was utterly destroyed by that point, so whoever was on the side probably hadn't heard him, or hadn't understood him. The hinges creaked as his door swung open, and there was Valerie.
"Danny?" she said. Her brows furrowed in concern as she looked at her boyfriend, dying on his bed. "You look like hell. You really are sick."
"Valerie?" he rasped. He opened his mouth to ask was she was doing there, but the tickle in his throat returned and he broke into a coughing fit, choking and wheezing as a whole flower tore up his trachea, leaving him convulsing in pain.
"Danny!" Valerie dropped the papers she was holding and rushed over to him, kneeling at his bedside. "What's... these are blood blossoms," she observed, picking one up. They were too obscure to be anyone else's favorite flowers, so they had to be for her. Sam Manson, maybe, but she was openly pro-ghost, so probably not. "Why are you still coughing up flowers? How long have you been like this?"
"Few weeks," Danny responded, his throat so wrecked that she had to lean in close to even hear him.
"A few weeks?" she repeated, shocked. "Danny, it takes months for Hanahaki to start doing this much damage! And why... you confessed, I like you back, why do you still have it?"
"The flowers," he wheezed. "Poison."
"No," Valerie shook her head. "No, blood blossoms are completely edible."
"Not for ghosts," Danny said, and another shuddering cough tore through him. Normally, after less than a month, the flowers wouldn't be coming nearly as fast, but his body was rejecting them even worse than was normal for Hanahaki. More petals spilled onto his bedroom floor. He knew what would happen if he transformed now, but he didn't have the voice to explain. He couldn't get the words out, even if he wanted to.
White rings flickered around his middle, and he screamed in agony as his transformation overtook him. It was tolerable in his human form, but in ghost form, the blood blossoms were truly unbearable.
"Danny..." Valerie breathed, her eyes wide with shock. He could see a thousand thought running through her head behind those eyes, but the next thing he knew, her arms were wrapped around him, Danny Phantom, her greatest enemy. "Danny, please, please turn back," she begged. "If you don't, they'll kill you faster. I... I love you. I don't want you to die."
She loved him.
She knew the truth, and she still loved him.
He started to cough again, hacking and choking. Valerie pulled away to help him into a sitting position and make it easier on him, but there were tears in her eyes. It went on for minutes, but when Danny could finally breathe again, the whole plant had been forced out of his lungs and onto his floor, damp with saliva and traces of blood and ectoplasm, and just as deadly on the outside of his body as it was within.
"Danny!" she shouted over his screams of pain as he fell back on his bed, seizing and writhing. She tried to drag him away and out of the room, but ghosts couldn't pass blood blossoms, and he was stuck there. She looked down that the flowers and back at Danny in a panic. "No! No no no!" She had to get rid of them somehow, or Danny was done for.
The window. She scooped up the flowers and loose petals and vines and she threw them all out Danny's window, ignoring the thorns, not leaving so much as a leaf behind. When, finally, the flowers were gone, Danny had calmed down.
"You're gonna be okay," she promised him, pulling him into a hug again. He returned to his human form in his arms and wrapped his weary arms around her. "You're gonna be okay."
"Valerie," he croaked, then coughed again from his damaged throat, though thankfully, there were no more petals to expel. "I love you, too." Tears dampened the shoulder on his shirt and she squeezed him tighter. This was the first time he'd ever seen her cry before, and it was for him.
Eventually, Danny fully recovered, and he explained his situation to her. She revealed that she already knew about half-ghosts because she'd seen Dani transform, and suspected that Phantom might be one, since they were clearly allies, but she wasn't sure.
"How could you fall in love with me, when I was always so cruel to you?" she asked. "I mean, I dedicated my life to destroying you as Phantom, liking me almost killed you."
"The heart wants what it wants?" Danny answered, sounding uncertain. "My parents try to kill me all the time." He shrugged. "I love them anyway. It's just not that big a deal to me, I guess. Valerie, you're the most amazing person I know. How could I not fall in love with you."
"Well, if it makes any difference, I won't try to kill you anymore."
Danny sighed dreamily. "You're such a romantic, you know that?"
"Shut up." She elbowed him gently. "I understand why you didn't tell me sooner, and I'm sorry."
Danny smiled and leaned into her side, cuddling up to her contentedly. Her body was a lot warmer than his, and he loved everything about it. "You didn't know."
There was no way she could have known without him telling her. Just like she didn't know the blood blossoms she'd thrown out his window would take root there, blocking the safest way out of his house, or that their aroma would waft up into his room, making him weak and giving him nightmares. She didn't know, and he didn't need to tell her. He just wanted to let himself be happy for once.
PhantomBat Next Gen: Danny Edition (click for clarity)
Part 2 of this post
Like I mentioned before, I can’t decide between who are Danny’s kids bc the remaining people (Danny, Duke, Cass, Valerie, Sam, Tucker, Barbara) can be mixed and matched. If I pair Danny and Cass together, Val and Babs can get together. If I pair Danny and Duke together, I can put Cass and Valerie together and Babs with Sam and Tucker. If I pair Danny and Valerie together, Sam can get together with Babs.
There’s just too many choices and I’m a multishipper :(
Bonus! Or what if Danny just gets together with Sam and Tucker?
Idk why, but has anyone ever thought that Death the Endless is literally just the Everlasting Trio’s love child? Like she’s goth, has Egyptian motifs, and is Death. Is that not literally Danny, Sam, and Tucker all in one person? 😭 I can’t be the only one who thinks this, right?
Y’all remember that one post that said DC was a daycare dimensions for powerful entities to send their kids to? Cuz I do.
-DP x DC prompt where Danny, Valerie, and Dani don’t age anymore. Danielle was secretly delighted that they wouldn’t outgrow her since she’s forever 12, but they stop aging at 22, so they did outgrow her anyways. And now they’re always busy running the Realms. Sensing her unhappiness, Danny and Valerie plan a vacation to the Daycare Dimension, otherwise known as the DCU. They could have picked the other daycare dimension, but the DCU feels more like home and has a lot more immortal important people living in cities that never outgrow them. They figure Dani would like meeting kids like herself. What they don’t realize is that the heroes and villains of DC don’t know that they’re the Daycare Dimension and that they’re functionally immortal. Beings far older than the known universe need their dimension and it’s people to stick around so they can send their little hellions there to work on their powers, blow off steam, and watch the people like a TV show. It’s why the heroes always manage to save the day, and why there’s timelines where they don’t.
Context: Danny and Valerie stop aging at 22, Danny due to being a half ghost and Valerie due to the nanobots in her body. To stop them from killing her eventually, Technus and Frostbite worked together to alter them so they’d keep her alive. But it meant that they couldn’t stay in their dimension forever. Sure they could always just stay in Amity Park, but neither Danny nor Valerie wanted to go back. They spent their teen years feeling trapped there and they don’t want to have to spend the rest of their lives knowing that it’s the only place in their dimension they can actually belong. Besides, they got to move around Earth and space a lot with Dani, when the elder two weren’t in school. It’s only after Danny’s coronation that they got too busy to really be a family. Neither Danny nor Valerie are very happy about it, it’s something they both feel guilty about for different reasons due to their upbringings. So their vacation might be a while.
The alternative to this prompt is that there’s some chaos going on in the Realms and they don’t wanna risk Dani’s safety so they drop her off with Constantine or Diana. I imagine this without obsessions. Danny’s just overprotective of Danielle because he watched her melt into a pile of goop.
And that’s their daughter.
Anyways, have fun with this. I’m gonna figure out how to write the first prompt. 😅
One arm holding Valerie close, a welcome warmth that soothed the freezing cold inside of him. What had once been a balancing act on a tightrope so high it’d put Everest to shame, was now stepping stones in a river.
Slants of sunlight passed through the pale curtains, the window shut to the late autumn breeze. It was their anniversary. Fours years dating after getting back together in their senior year of undergrad. They were twenty-four. They’d made it to 24—together.
And the world hadn’t ended.
They were still friends. Still in love. Still learning new things about each other.
They had a lot planned for today. Breakfast together. A trip to the planetarium once his classes let out for the day. The flight back to Amity, re: race. They’d updated her hoverboard and she was eager to test it out long distance.
Getting to just fly with her without worry was already a dream. It was even cooler that they could always count on each to them if they fell. And considering this will be the first long distance test…he mused, chuckling to himself. Better keep the Fenton Cycles on standby.
She shifted beside him, mumbling something into his collarbone. Her bonnet slid up, threatening to come off. With his free hand, he adjusted it, smiling to himself.
This was more than he could have asked for, for 24. Happier than he’d ever thought he’d be.
Sure, they should probably be getting up now. They both had morning classes, PhDs didn’t get themselves. But…he burrowed deeper beneath the blanket, one arm still holding her. She laughed at something in her dream, a full on snort. The clown that he was, he loved the sound of her laugh. Every version of it. Even when she’d been taunting him as the Red Huntress.
She made it to 24. She made it to 24 and she was here, laughing in her sleep and not the last defense against the end of the world. They’d grown up. They’d found peace.
He traced her face with his eyes, letting the memory burn into his mind. He laughed when she rubbed her face into his neck.
“Hm. Mornin’” she said, groggily.
“Morning,” he whispered. “Happy Anniversary.”
She hummed, adjusting herself so they were properly face to face. “Happy Anniversary”
