writer and lurker

See, I'm not human. I'm not going to tell you what I am, but it's really obvious whenever I'm using my abilities, although I can hide it the rest of the time. (My parents are human and even they don't know. They don't like my kind.) I started doing hero work about... eight months ago now. But the people in my city are scared of me, because of what I am. And I wondered if you had any advice about that. Everyone knows what you are, and how powerful you are, but no one is afraid of you. Well... no one reasonable is afraid of you.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions you might have for me, but either way, thank you for everything that you do.

From Danny

Clark set his chin on his hands and considered the email for a while. It wasn't unheard of for young heroes to email him for advice - all of the Justice League founders got them sometimes except, amusingly, Batman, the only one with significant experience teaching new heroes. But it was rarer for those heroes to identify themselves as nonhuman.

His parents must have found him and taken him in without knowing what he was. For those same folks to be anti-alien... Clark's heart ached for the young hero, growing up without the kind of support Clark had gotten. It was admirable of him to stick to it despite an apparently chilly reception.

He set his hands on the keyboard and started to reply.

---

Danny was shocked to receive an actual reply from Superman just the morning after he sent his email. He hadn't expected a reply at all, really - surely Superman had better things to do than read emails from random civilians? But he'd been awake long past his bedtime, kept up by the aching burn on his back from Valerie, and sent it in a fit of self-pity.

And Superman had replied.

To Danny,

The more time passes, the more often I hear from kids and even young adults that I've been making them feel safe for as long as they've been alive. That is worth more to me than you could imagine, and it makes every day of hard work worthwhile. Given what you've told me already, I think you're doing an excellent job of keeping those values in mind.

Believe it or not, my reception was rather lukewarm at first as well, for much the same reason. Batman and my media contact, Lois Lane, helped me straighten the issue out over the first few years. (Yes, I'm sorry to say, it may take years for you to be fully accepted.)

Here are some suggestions:

Try to stick around for at least a little while after each incident you help with. Let people talk to you. Let them see you outside of fights or feats of strength. You are not a combat machine.

Don't be too secretive about yourself. You implied that you have a secret identity, but there are still things generic enough for you to share without giving yourself away. Work with those.

Don't hide what you are, and don't lie about the traits that you have from it. I know it might seem like a simple short-term solution, but it won't help you in the long run. It will just make people suspicious.

Let people know at least part of your motive for helping people. My planet was destroyed, and I want to protect this one. The same goes for Martian Manhunter. Starfire fled her planet and has found this one to be much kinder. Be as open as you can.

Keep yourself safe. Don't be open about your weaknesses, no matter what people say to you. Don't linger too long around people who openly hate you. Don't allow yourself to be a target for hatred.

I hope you find these ideas helpful. And feel free to contact me for further advice anytime you want. I check my email every morning and I'm always happy to help a budding hero.

From Superman

Danny muffled a delighted squeal into his arm. Sam and Tucker weren't going to believe this!

---

It soon became apparent that Danny was either mostly or completely without an adult support system, because he quickly took to emailing Clark every day, usually in the early evening or late at night. Clark continued to read them in the morning and reply to them as thoughtfully as he could, and Danny soon grew to be a constant presence in his inbox. Which also meant...

"You're worrying about Danny again," Lois pointed out over breakfast.

"I wouldn't worry about Danny if he didn't say such worrying things," Clark muttered, rubbing his hand over his face.

Because over the last year, that trend had quickly become apparent. Whatever Danny was, their reception was more hostile than any other Clark had encountered on Earth, matching more to some of the blood feuds he'd heard of on other planets. Every few emails, he slipped in the most concerning little nuggets, seemingly without noticing.

One day my parents are going to invent a shield that actually locks me out of the house and I'll really be in trouble.

I keep trying to do what you said and stick around to talk, but it never lasts for long before the hunters show up and start shooting at me, which makes things kind of awkward.

I don't know what I would have done if defeating that tyrant guy hadn't brought my city back to Earth.

I wish there was some way I could convince the hunters that I'm just trying to help.

And now, most recently:

It's illegal to be what I am now. I'm getting kind of scared.

"I think I'm going to call out of work today," Clark said at last, still staring down at his computer. "I need to do some research."

"'-extra-dimentional ectoplasmic entities, self-identified as ghosts, hereafter refered to as ectoentities, are defined as any being with a physical makeup that includes 9% or more ectoplasm; or which needs ectoplasm to continue its existence. They have been deemed non-sapient and non-sentient threats to public and personal safety. As such, ectoentities are banned from all public and personal property. Knowingly harboring or aiding an ectoentity-' I mean, this is complete bullshit!" Lois hissed, cutting herself off and smacking the printout Clark had handed her. "You talk to Danny every other day; he's obviously sapient. And they folded it into a bunch of stuff about infrastructure, clearly hoping no one was going to read it. Clark, this says 'all necessary force authorized.'"

"I know," Clark responded, feeling sick. "They have a task force, apparently. One that can apparently harm these ghosts. They're clearly trying to prevent public panic by keeping this quiet, but if you searched the right things, I bet a Ghost Investigation Ward squad would show up anyway. There's a clause in there about the Patriot Act; it's on the third page."

Lois hissed like an angry cat, flipping the pages until she found the highlighted section. "You need to be careful what you email Danny. This is broad-spectrum permission to interfere when they even suspect someone's talking about an ectoentity."

"I need to find Danny," Clark replied. "His parents will almost certainly be on the side of this new law. If they find out what he is..." Some of Clark's worst nightmares come from the time he had just begun to understand how he was different from his peers and what that meant. Government experimentation was a recurring theme until well into his 20s. "I need to evacuate him."

"And that means you need to find him." Lois' eyes lit up with the challenge. "He's been cagey, right?"

"Yep," Clark sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I've tried to get more information out of him, to set him up with a mentor, but he clams up every time. Once, he stopped sending emails for a week. I don't think I could take the worry if I didn't hear from him after this."

"So we find him," Lois told him fiercely. "Are you an investigative journalist, or not? A young hero as divisive as this, no way he didn't make the news. What have you got so far?"

~*~

Three and a half weeks later, Lois slammed a newspaper page on the kitchen table, eyes lit up with the manic glow that she got when she was hot on the trail of a new story. "Amity Park, Illinois doesn't exist."

Clark paused, spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. "...okay?" he said uncertainly, lowering it.

"It used to exist, but they tried to erase it. But they couldn't erase everything." She jabbed a finger at an article in the paper impatiently.

Clark bent over it. A quick glance at the top told him that it was a copy of the Elmerton Enquirer from November of thirteen years ago. "'Elmerton Central Rams Face Casper High Ravens in Final Game of Season'?" he read. "What is this-?"

"In the article, it says the Casper High Ravens are the team from a city called Amity Park. A city I can't find a mention of anywhere else."

Clark finally started to catch on. "Is this about Danny?" They'd hit a brick wall on their search for the young hero almost instantly. There were no reports of unknown young heroes anywhere east of the Rockies.

They'd started smaller, of course. Clark had tentatively identified Danny as probably being in the Midwestern part of the Central Time Zone rather than Southern, based on his speech patterns and some of the things he'd said about the world around him. When that didn't turn up anything about any controversial heroes, they'd expanded it to all hero news in general, then to crimes getting stopped without anyone knowing how. They'd expanded the area they were looking at three separate times. Nothing they couldn't explain turned up. Clark was growing increasingly frantic, breathing a sigh of relief every time Danny sent another email. But he also knew that there was no guarantee the boy would keep being safe.

"Yes, it's about Danny!" Lois brought Clark back to the conversation at hand. "This is the only mention of Amity Park I've been able to find, and I had to have it mailed to me by a college friend in Chicago with an ex-boyfriend whose stepson has a best friend that moved to Elmerton to live with his grandmother who obsessively collects old papers that mention the charity she volunteered for. Do you know how hard it is to maintain that chain of communication without incurring the wrath of the Patriot Act?"

"Super hard," Clark guessed, mind already spiralling with the implications. "I'm assuming there's nothing online about Amity Park."

"Some sort of agent pair converged on the east branch public library 7 minutes and 36 seconds after I searched the town name," Lois told him, mouth tight. "I'm guessing that's our Ghost Investigation Ward. They wore all-white uniforms, so they should be pretty easy to spot."

"As long as they're in uniform," Clark replied grimly.

"As long as they're in uniform," Lois agreed. "I was able to find out that Amity Park isn't on any of the map softwares I could access. There was no mention on social media. No local paper online. I couldn't even find a parent portal for the high school."

"The agents didn't see you, did they?" Clark asked, suddenly straightening. "If we need to take an unplanned vacation to the farm-"

Lois waved him away. "I gave myself five minutes. And wore a wig. I still look terrible blonde."

"You look good in whatever you wear," Clark replied absentmindedly, scanning the article. There wasn't much information in it that helped them. "This says Elmerton and Amity Park are rivals. That means they're probably nearby each other, right?"

"I have the sudden urge to visit my old college friend," Lois said with a sharp smile. "Wanna come? We can leave Jon with Ma and Pa, maybe see what else Illinois has to offer?"

These types didn't like people who knew their rights. It wouldn't be impossible to get into Amity Park without using a road, but the agents inside might keep records of who had been let in. "Clark and Lucy Taylor, sir. Have we done something wrong?"

"Not yet," the agent said darkly. He repeated their names over his comm unit, and waited for the voice on the other end to give him a tinny 'they're clean' before addressing them again. "Professions?"

"Between jobs right now," Clark said with a bashful smile. "A friend of mine told me that the high school here was looking for teachers? I teach social studies. I just wanted to have a look." It was a guess. A town blocked off by the government probably had trouble finding teachers.

The agent grumbled something indistinct. "And your wife?"

Clark smiled guilelessly. "She's my wife. What do you mean?" He could practically hear Lois rolling her eyes, but the agent bought it.

"Head on through," he grunted, waving them on. "You might change your mind about living here once you've seen it."

"Oh, it can't be that bad!" Clark chuckled, and raised the window to pull away before the agent could reply.

"Soft lockdown," Lois interpreted, frowning at the road. "They'll probably have us sign an NDA on the way out."

Clark nodded. Less red tape on the way in, less suspicion from casual visitors, less eyes on them. "Not if we don't leave that way." They wouldn't be able to take Danny out through the checkpoints anyway. It'd be best to fly out.

Once they were in, it was almost insultingly easy, considering all the trouble it had taken to get this far. He focused his hearing on Amity Park, but there didn't seem to be any fighting at the moment, so he and Lois headed to a diner for lunch and, more importantly, to chat with the waiter.

"You're from out of town, aren't you?" the waiter checked, catching both of them by surprise. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged at them. "I don't recognize you, and Amity Park is a pretty small town. What brings you here?"

"Well..." Clark dragged it out, scratching his neck in embarrassment. The kid caught on quickly and laughed out loud.

"You're here about the ghosts, aren't you?" Completely unconcerned, matter-of-fact. He hadn't been told to keep it a secret, Clark realized, which meant that the GIW probably didn't want the residents to realize how tightly locked down they were.

"Yes, we are," Lois confirmed, leaning over to catch the kid's eye. "What's your name? So I can write it down."

The kid lit up, which wasn't unusual. People loved to be in the paper. "Kwan Choi!" he chirped. "Are you a reporter?"

Still no concern. The GIW had never intended outside reporters to ever get this far, probably. People at nearby tables were starting to turn around, interested in the proceedings but not stepping forward yet.

"That's right," Lois confirmed, flipping her notebook open. "May I record this conversation?"

"Sure!"

Lois set her phone to record. "So, Mr. Choi, what can you tell me about the ghosts here?"

"They're pretty much everywhere!" Kwan told her, with obvious delight that became disconcerting as he went on. "There's attacks every day, you'll probably at least hear one if you're staying for a couple of days. Ghosts are pretty powerful too, so it's not like you'll miss it. Just follow the sound of smashing concrete. And yelling."

"You don't seem very worried," Lois pointed out mildly, exchanging a look with Clark. Danny had never really indicated how powerful he was, and had avoided mentioning most of his powers. If his rogues gallery was regularly breaking buildings...

"Of course not!" Kwan exclaimed, laughing at the thought. "Trust me, we don't have anything to worry about as long as Phantom's around." He almost vibrated with excitement, obviously waiting for them to take the bait.

Clark was happy to. This was what they'd come here for, after all. "Phantom? Is he a hero?"

"He's the best!" Kwan beamed. "He's a ghost too and he's super powerful! Don't listen to what any of the ghost hunters tell you. Phantom's casualty record is literally perfect and Dash says even Superman can't say that! Course, Amity Park is a lot smaller than Metropolis..." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly while Lois and Clark exchanged a look. "Phantom beats up all the ghosts, even the ones the ghost hunters can't touch, and he doesn't cause as much collateral as the Fentons say he does! They just blame him for all the damage from all the ghosts and that's bullshit."

"So he's controversial?" Clark prodded carefully. He was startled when Kwan actually scowled at him, dropping his bouncy demeanor for a moment.

"You can't do one of those scaremongering articles on him, okay?" the kid argued, looking defensive. "None of that 'he's a scary ghost' or 'is Phantom secretly behind all the ghost attacks' horseshit. He's a hero. We'd be completely screwed without him."

"We won't do that," Lois promised Kwan, earning a beam in return. "Is Phantom the only hero in Amity Park?"

Kwan actually looked thoughtful, and he wriggled his hand. "Depends on who you ask. The Red Huntress is pretty cool too, when she's by herself, but she attacks Phantom a lot, so a lot of people don't really like her. The Fentons and the GIW are both almost as dangerous as the ghosts though, and they're not nearly as good at fighting them."

"The GIW?" Clark asked, just to see how he reacted. He wasn't entirely surprised when Kwan flinched, glancing nervously at the door.

Kwan lowered his voice. "You should probably avoid those guys, all the government people in white suits. They're, uh, pretty liberal with those guns." His nervous expression said it all. Clark's hatred for the GIW grew.

"We'll be careful," Lois assured him. "What about the Fentons?"

Kwan made a face, but he did straighten up, his shoulders relaxing. "If you're reporting on the ghost attacks, you probably want to talk to the Fentons." Another grimace. "Well, want may not be the right word. They know a lot, but they're also wrong about a lot, and they're really anti-ghost. Maybe you can talk to their son Danny instead. Rumor has it that he's where Phantom gets all his Fenton tech."

Bingo. Clark wasn't expecting Danny to fall right into their laps, but this fit perfectly: the son of two ghost hunters, already suspected of having ties to the town's hero. "And where can we find Danny?"

"He lives with his parents," Kwan shrugged. "It's hard to find him anywhere else, unless you want to catch him at school or something." Of course; if there were multiple attacks a day, he probably poured a lot of time into his vigilantism. "I don't know their exact address, but you don't really need to. They have a giant UFO on top of their house, you can't miss it."

"They have a what?"

----

They did have a UFO on top of their house.

"Well," Lois said resignedly. "I think we found it." 'Fentonworks' blinked on the sign, pointing to the door. "Now let's find your adoptee."

"Who do you think I am, Bruce?" Clark asked indignantly.

Lois didn't dignify that with a response, instead making her way toward the door and pressing the doorbell. It rang, and almost immediately, there was a crash, a clatter, and a blast on the other side of the door. Someone yelped. Clark tensed, but a moment later, the door swung open, and a red-haired woman smiled at them, unaffected by the commotion.

"Hello, can I help you?" she asked, perfectly cheerful.

Lois and Clark exchanged a look, and then Lois focused on the woman. "Hello. My name is Lucy Taylor, call me Luce, and my husband Clark. Mrs. Fenton, right? I was told you were the people to talk to about ghosts." It was always best to get both perspectives of a story; even with something as one-sided as this, you had to understand what everyone was thinking.

It was also the easiest way to get in the door.

"Dr. Fenton, actually!" the woman said, with a smile that showed she wasn't offended. "Both me and my husband. Come in!"

She spun on her heel and went inside, and Lois and Clark followed. The commotion had evidently been someone dropping a large energy gun, which had then gone off and hit the ceiling; the scorch mark was still smoldering. The gun was on the floor. Clark glanced at it, and Maddie chuckled, picked it up, and put it on the table.

"Don't worry, it doesn't harm humans," she reassured them both, unconcerned. "I know it can seem a little extreme if you've never met a real ghost, but I assure you, those ectoplasmic abominations deserve no mercy."

The sudden vitriol was disconcerting with her cheerful, upbeat tone.

"Really?" Clark asked, unable to help himself. "From what I've heard so far, they sound pretty complex." Along with Kwan, who was happy to talk as long as his manager would let him, they'd heard stories from all the people at the tables around them. It wasn't just Danny; plenty of the ghosts had shown obvious signs of sapience, from dating problems to earnest chats about new music to a child ghost playing carefully with other kids, supervised by Phantom.

"Oh, this talk again," Maddie sighed, and sat down with a reassuring smile. To show she wasn't offended. She gestured for them to sit down. "Not at all. It's all in the science of it. Ghosts are very good at appearing complex; it's necessary for their manipulations. But all of the emotion and personality that they display is faked. It's an echo of who they were when they were alive. What's really happening is a mindless feeding instinct, since ghosts need human emotion to sustain themselves. The more emotion they can evoke, the more they can feed." Maddie smiled and shrugged, like 'it can't be helped.' "That's why the best thing to do is to put them out of everyone's misery. Someday, I hope, there won't be any ghosts to haunt us."

Clark couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this sick and angry. Maybe when Kon had explained exactly what had happened while he was still at CADMUS. He closed his hands gently, careful not to clench them, so as to not tip Maddie off too much.

Lois set a hand on his arm, understanding. "You want to wipe them out?"

Maddie blinked at them guilelessly. "Well, yes, of course. They're very dangerous, as anyone in this town knows. And as I explained, they're not sentient at all, so there's really no reason not to. It's like putting down rabid animals, really - after all, by rights, they should already be dead."

Clark wondered how often Danny heard his mother call him a rabid animal.

Lois squeezed his arm. "What do your children think of this?"

Maddie's smile thinned, showing that she was losing her patience. "Oh, they're quite pro-ghost, I'm afraid. Most of the children are. I try not to hold it against them; they're very vulnerable to the manipulations of Phantom in particular. It was clever of it to both take the form of an adolescent and wear something resembling a superhero costume. It even formed an emblem after a while."

"How can he be clever if he's not even sentient, ma'am?" Clark asked, quiet and even. Maddie's smile disappeared altogether.

"I see you formed an opinion before talking to an expert," she observed coolly. "One of the children, I'm guessing?"

Before the situation could escalate, the front door opened, and another energy beam fired. Clark shot to his feet, but was too late to react, caught in his secret identity; the beam hit, and the person at the door yelped in pain and reeled back.

"Mom!" they yelled after a moment, more frustrated than hurt. "You're supposed to tell me when you turn on the security system!"

With a sinking feeling, Clark guessed that that was Danny. He glanced up at the ceiling above the door. A smoking gun was pointed at the door.

"I'm sorry, dear!" Immediately forgetting them, Maddie bustled to her feet and across the room, opening a panel in the wall to input a code. The gun withdrew into the ceiling. "I really thought I got it this time, I don't understand why this keeps happening."

"Mom." Danny appeared in the doorway, giving the ceiling a wary glance before continuing inside. He hadn't noticed them yet, focused on his mother as he pleaded with her. "I'm not even asking you to stop testing it, just tell me when you turn it on, please?"

That was a pretty big concession, considering that Clark suspected it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and shooting a ghost that tried to come inside. Into his house, where he lived, with his parents that were supposed to be protecting him. Clark clenched and unclenched his fists, not sitting down yet.

Maddie sighed. "You're right, I'm sorry. Every time I think I've figured out why our trackers lock onto you..." She trailed off with a shake of her head, and gestured for Danny to come closer. "Here, let me fix that up for you. And be polite, we have guests."

Despite her willingness to program the house to shoot him, apparently at random, Danny approached his mom without hesitation and held up his burnt arm for her inspection. A large pink splotch was on his forearm, where he must have blocked the beam, maybe protecting his head or chest. Most tellingly of all, his heart beat slowly, at half the rate Clark was used to hearing.

Maddie winced. "Oh, that's going to blister," she murmured.

"Mom!" Danny whined, glancing down. "Did you turn up the power too? Seriously?"

"I really thought I had it this time," Maddie repeated, contrition tightening her voice. It meant nothing, Clark thought darkly. She grabbed a first aid kit from under the sink and spread burn cream over the injury, then started to wrap it up. To Lois and Clark, she added, "I'm sorry you had to see this. If you could keep it private, I would... appreciate it. I'd rather it not get around exactly how ectocontaminated Danny is."

A hint of apprehension crept into her voice. It was telling. Even the Fentons feared the Ghost Investigation Ward.

"We understand," Lois said smoothly, pointedly not promising to keep it quiet.

For the first time, Danny glanced over at them, and confusion entered his eyes. Then they widened slightly. If anyone was going to see through Clark's thin disguise in less than a second, it would be another vigilante.

Clark wasn't surprised that Danny's only response was to tense nervously and look away again, shoulders rising. He'd gone to lengths to hide his identity and location from Superman, after all.

"Who are they?" Danny asked his mother.

"They're journalists!" Maddie said, bright and cheerful again. She finished wrapping Danny's injury, that she gave him, and took his shoulder to steer him toward the living room. "Luce and Clark. They're doing a story about Amity Park, so we're talking about ghosts."

"Great." Danny looked unenthusiastic. "Can I go upstairs, to do my homework, and like, not be here for this conversation?"

Maddie paused, studying him for a moment, and then tugged him gently toward the living room. (Truly gentle - Clark had seen people yank others and disguise it as a gentle motion before, and this wasn't that.) "No, I think you could benefit from this conversation too."

"Great." Danny looked defeated, and didn't protest further as he was pushed onto the other couch. He glanced at the gun on the table. "That's a new one. What does it do?"

Maddie beamed. Clark hated everything about this.

"It's the Fenton Ecto-Incinerator! It should cause any ghost's ectoplasm to react violently with itself and boil them from the inside out!"

The look of defeat magnified into a recognizable 'I wish I had never been born' expression, with dull, lifeless eyes and slumped shoulders. Maddie didn't seem to notice. "Fantastic." He scuffed his shoes on the floor and stared at his knees. Clark tried to figure out if there was a diplomatic way to ask 'have you noticed that your son obviously needs serious mental health treatment or are you ignoring it on purpose?'

It occurred to Clark that if Danny was a ghost, and his parents didn't know, that implied that he'd died and they hadn't noticed.

Lois, as always, rallied first. "Is that an... efficient way to get rid of a ghost?"

Danny sighed softly. With a wince, Clark realized that he'd missed the part of the conversation that indicated they were against this.

Maddie sighed too, but for a different reason, and she gave them a rueful smile. "No, not particularly. We're still trying to figure out how exactly to destroy ghosts permanently. We'd need to experiment with an intact specimen to manage it, but they keep... escaping." She glanced at Danny, indicating she had a suspicion as to how, but he didn't seem to notice. "Until then, we're trying to use pain as a deterrent."

"I thought they weren't sentient," Clark said, meeting Maddie's eyes. She pressed her lips together before responding.

"Everything dislikes pain, Mr. Taylor."

Clark had to work to retain his patience. "Do you know the difference between sentience and sapience, ma'am?"

Maddie's brow furrowed. "I... didn't believe there was one?"

"Sentient beings are capable of sensing and reacting to stimuli," Clark told her, because everyone needed to understand this, even - perhaps especially - the most horrible of people. "Sapient beings possess human intelligence."

Maddie looked thoughtful. "Hm... perhaps we should amend some of our professional work. That's quite a mistake." She shrugged it off. "But the principle remains the same. They can't stay here, and the pain is a deterrent."

Danny didn't look comforted by the concession. It was possible he wasn't even listening, and Clark couldn't blame him.

"Dr. Fenton, do you realize that that mistake enabled the government to give ghosts fewer rights than are given to lab rats?" Lois asked, barely maintaining a veneer of politeness.

Maddie's voice chilled again. "Ghosts don't need rights, Mrs. Taylor. As I explained, they are evil, selfish creatures, manipulating humans and feeding on the resulting emotion. I assure you, I've read the entirety of the Anti-Ecto Act, and I have no problem with any of it."

Danny stared at his knees and picked absently at a hole in his jeans.

"There's a reason that animal cruelty is illegal, Dr. Fenton. No feeling creature deserves that, whether you believe in their sapience or not."

"Rabid animals are put down as a matter of course. Why should ghosts be any different? Of the two, ghosts are far more dangerous."

Danny poked his finger into the hole.

"They're not sick, they're not dying. Rabid animals are put out of their misery. What is the point of torturing a ghost?"

"By all rights, they should already be dead. It's frankly an abomination that they didn't stay that way. Whatever measure is required to make that happen, I will do it myself - for the safety of our town and my children."

Actually, Clark was starting to get... extremely concerned about Danny's lack of responsiveness.

"Danny," he said, interrupting the intensifying argument. "Can you hear me?"

"What?" Maddie asked, baffled. Lois, however, caught on quickly, her back straightening with alarm. She held up a hand, indicating for Maddie to wait, and watched Clark scoot closer to Danny.

"Danny," he repeated, slightly louder and firmer. He reached out to touch Danny's hand, and Danny blinked, lifted his head, and met Clark's eyes, tilting his head in silent question. Clark repeated, "Can you hear me?"

There was a pause. Danny hummed noncommittally.

"What is-" Maddie started. Lois shook her head sharply, and Maddie fell silent.

"Danny, do you know where you are?" Clark asked, keeping his voice calm and even while his anger with Maddie and the absent Jack Fenton rose substantially. He doubted this was the first time this had happened.

Danny stared at him blankly. It was apparent that he either didn't understand the question or he didn't know where he was.

"Danny?" Fear entered Maddie's voice, and that was all that kept Clark from snapping at her.

"He's dissociating," Lois explained, terse but more patient than Clark at the moment. "It's a symptom of trauma and a sign of extreme stress. Clark's trying to snap him out of it."

"What?" Maddie repeated, horrified, and this time was ignored.

"You're at home, in your living room," Clark told Danny, maintaining eye contact. "Can you see that you're in your living room? Two couches, a coffee table, a television, and a ceiling fan?" Danny glanced around, checking for those things. Couches, coffee table, television, ceiling fan. Danny nodded. "Can you tell me what else is here?"

Danny glanced down at the coffee table, and his eyes landed on the gun. He clammed up again, eyes losing what little life they'd gained and shoulders going limp. Clark suppressed a curse, and glanced at Lois, then at the kitchen. Bless her, she understood, and got up to look for the freezer. Surprisingly, Maddie also responded, and picked up the gun, disappearing into a door to the basement. She returned empty-handed, giving Danny a worried look.

Lois returned from the kitchen with a bag of frozen vegetables, which she dumped into Danny's hands without ceremony. Danny started, blinking down at the bag, then up at Lois in question. She gave him a tense smile and sat down.

"Danny, can you tell me what you have in your hands?" Clark asked.

"...bag of frozen peas?" Danny stared down at them again, then up at Clark, meeting his eyes on his own with visible confusion. "Why?"

Clark gave him a small, relieved smile. "It got your attention, didn't it? You were dissociating. Do you know what that is?"

Danny wrinkled his nose, handling the bag of peas absently as he tried to retrace his mental steps. "I... felt kind of floaty, I guess. Like in a bad dream. I dunno. I wasn't really paying attention." Something about his tone indicated that while he was responsive now, he was still trying, on some level, to 'not really pay attention.' "What's wrong? Can I go now?"

He stopped fidgeting with the frozen peas and left them in his hands, limp and forgotten. Definitely still out of it, Clark decided.

"What's wrong with Danny?" Maddie repeated forcefully, fear in her voice and clearly done with being ignored. As if she had a right, as if she hadn't just bandaged a burn on his arm that she'd put there with carelessness bordering on malice.

"Some people detach from their surroundings as a coping mechanism," Lois explained, clipped but calm. Danny blinked down at the bag of peas in a slightly more ominous kind of confusion, and Clark put a hand on his arm again. Danny jumped, looking up at him in question, and Clark gave him a small, comforting smile, trying to make him feel at ease. "They'll feel like they're just having a dream, or watching something happen to someone else. It's a way of dealing with stress or trauma."

Maddie blinked at her in infuriating confusion. "But... he's just at home. Did something happen while he was at school, or on his way home?"

"I imagine," Clark said calmly, "it's because he was attacked at the door, and then forced to sit and listen while you discussed beings, that at the very least he thinks of as sapient, and justified your desire to torture them to death."

"But-" Maddie cut herself off this time, giving Danny a worried look. "But that's just-" She faltered again, and it was obvious that she didn't know how to deal with the conflict of what was, to her, undeniable scientific truth, and the equally undeniable harm it was causing Danny. "Are you sure?"

"If it was something outside, he would have been unresponsive when he came in," Clark informed her.

Maddie shrank, and Danny looked at her with matching worry.

"It's okay!" he said hastily, trying to shake off Clark's hand. Clark kept it there, and Danny didn't try very hard. "I can deal, I just- today was a bad day is all, I'm just..." He trailed off, lost as to how to play this down.

They stared at each other.

"Yes, thank you," Maddie says frostily. "I'm sure we'll do just fine. Why don't I show you the door?" Clark slips Danny another business card when she turns, in case the woman confiscates Lois'.

"Thank you for your time, Dr. Fenton," Clark says, because Ma and Pa raised him right. "Danny, it was wonderful to meet you. Feel better."

"Yeah," the teen says, eyes darting side to side, presumably looking for a way to flee before having this conversation with his mother.

That's the last thing Clark sees before Maddie practically shoves them out the door and shuts it quickly behind them.

Clark makes for the car, ears already tuned on the house, but Lois darts around the corner instead, hauling on his arm. "I don't care how fast you can get back here, we are not leaving him alone with that woman," she hisses. "Do you think you know enough to guess which bedroom is his? There's nowhere to hide out here."

"I can give it a shot." Clark shoots up, hopefully faster than any nosy neighbors can track, eyeing the second floor windows. A large bedroom, clearly the parents' by the bed. A bathroom, a study, a wildly pink bedroom. He won't judge, but it doesn't seem Danny's style.

Then, jackpot, a room decked floor to ceiling in NASA merch and teen boy mess. He remembers the kid going on and on about meteor showers and an observatory field trip and how cool it is that the Justice League has a base in space. The room is even on the back half of the building, convenient for sneaking in and out as a teenage hero and a nosy reporter.

He's back at Lois' side in a flash. "Got it." He leads her to the window and boosts her up easily, so no one has the chance to see anything super-related as she jimmies the lock. They're through in under a minute, Lois already cracking the door open so she can hear as Clark tunes back into the specifics of the conversation.

"-just don't know why you didn't mention anything sooner, honey," comes Maddie's voice. It's even, but her heartbeat is elevated and he can detect the tension in her tone that normal ears can't.

"I did," Danny snaps in reply, sounding like he's finally reaching the end of his temper. "I told you the third time you shot me that I wanted the front door guns gone and you gave me an hour-long lecture on ghost safety. I told you when the system shot me the fifteenth time that I wanted it on an automatic timer so it'd always be off when I got home from school, at least. You told me holes in the defenses were unacceptable. I told you the twenty eighth, fifty seventh, a hundred and third, and after I lost count, that they hurt, that the burns made it hard to do my chores and to focus on homework, that I got an infection once from one of the wounds. That was the fifty seventh time, if you were curious."

"...the third time I shot you?"

Lois' nails bite into the doorframe. Danny just sounds exasperated. "All that and that's what you gleaned from it? Alright, fine. The third time the house shot me with weapons you and Dad designed, you and Dad programmed, you and Dad installed, and you and Dad armed without telling me."

"Young man, I do not appreciate your tone. We're just trying to protect you from those abominations. I have no idea why the systems always lock onto you, but we're doing our best to figure it out."

Danny laughs, the grating, sharp edge of it making Clark cringe. "You have no idea? Really? No possible idea at all why I could be so ecto contaminated that the weapons can lock onto me? Mom, you make me clean the lab at least once a week and you two never make sure I have proper safety equipment. You and Dad practically live in your HAZMAT suits. Mine hasn't fit since the beginning of freshman year, right before the portal started working. And I know Jazz put it on the list of things you needed to order, but it never did get here did it? And neither did the industrial filters for the HVAC or the extra fridge so you'd stop putting samples in the kitchen. Do you know how many times I've had to shoot my own dinner?"

Lois has one hand clapped over her mouth in horror. Clark slowly opens and closes his fists, wishing anything in the general vicinity was strong enough to take one of his punches without disintegrating. This house is such a nightmare, it's shocking that the other child who lives here hasn't died. Danny's been careful not to mention a sibling outright, but Clark's made an educated guess from some of the anecdotes he's shared. And the pink room clearly belongs to a fellow teen. Though, hell, for all Clark knows, they have died or gotten sufficiently contaminated to get ghost powers.

"Sweetie." Maddie sounds every inch the exasperated parent. Clark can just picture her pinching the bridge of her nose. "Your father and I have made sure you know the rules of the lab perfectly well. We thought you were old enough and responsible enough that you didn't have to be babysat." Forget super strength, Lois looks like she's about to punch something hard enough to atomize it.

"Did you not just hear me-" Danny cuts himself off, voice shutting down into something painfully toneless. "Yes, Mom."

"We'll order you a larger suit and I expect you to wear it while you're in the lab."

"Okay." Danny doesn't sound like he believes her. Clark wonders how many times she's made similar promises.

"For now, we'll have to get back to work on calibrating the defense system, at least once we're done finalizing the Ecto-Incinerator schematics. We'll get it right, sweetie. It might take a few more tries, but you won't have to deal with this forever. And then you won't have to do this dissociating thing any more. Alright?"

"Uh huh. Can I go do my homework now?"

"Of course. I'll be in the lab if you need me."

Her voice is already getting further, walking away, so she probably doesn't hear Danny mutter, "Right, the lab I don't have any safety gear for doing a project I'm going to have to go down there and literally drag you away from to get any attention. Great." He sighs heavily and Clark can hear him run a hand through his hair. "Right, might as well actually get some homework done while I can."

His footsteps hit the stairs as Lois eases the door closed and they both back away. There's no way to seem casual in the teenager's room they've broken into, but Clark sits at the desk to make his height less imposing and Lois chooses to lean nonchalantly by the window.

Danny freezes comically when he opens his door, eyes darting from one to the other. Clark's never felt less like laughing.

"You can leave the door open if it makes you feel better," Lois says softly. "Or tell us to get out and we will, but Danny, I think we need to have a talk."

"Do we?" Danny's hand tightens on the knob. Clark can hear the metal protest. "Because from what I see, you came in here, got my mom all riled up, and bailed."

"I didn't want her to be more defensive with strangers around, but I can understand why that was frustrating-" Clark starts.

Danny snorts and rolls his eyes. "I'm not having this conversation without backup."

Lois holds up her hands placatingly. "Whatever makes you feel more comfortable."

Danny pulls out his phone, then pauses. "Am I telling them that it's a couple of out-of-town reporters or Superman and his... was the wife thing real?"

"It was. Lois Lane, star investigative journalist for the Daily Planet in Metropolis. He's Clark Kent, slightly less good investigative journalist for the same."

"Hey," says Clark mildly. He's not actually offended; he and Lois have been playfully duking for top spot for years now. Turning to Danny, he adds, "I assume these are people who know about your double life?"

"They've been there since the beginning. Accident and everything." Danny's eyes tighten at the corners. It's clearly not a pleasant memory, but most who got their powers by accident didn't have a kind experience.

"Then you might as well tell them. It will make things easier." Danny nods and starts typing.

"You said they were there for the 'accident,'" Lois pipes up. Danny's mouth flattens, but he nods. "Were they close enough that they might be in the contamination range prosecuted by this new law?"

Danny's fingers freeze and he slowly looks up. "Oh, you really don't know, do you?"

The tone sets every one of Clark's instincts on edge, reporter and hero both. He leans forward in his chair. "Know what?"

Hitting send and shoving his phone in his pocket, Danny shakes his head. "Nine percent isn't actually that much when you live in a town with as many fights as Amity Park. At least half the town has enough contamination to qualify. Most of the Casper High students for sure; my rogues like to pick fights while I'm at school."

Clark's jaw drops as he tries to unpack multiple parts of that at once. "I'm sorry, did you just say at least half the population can be detained under this law, most of the teenagers have repeatedly been exposed to a substance that the local experts wear constant HAZMAT suits to avoid touching, and most of your rogues know where you go to school?"

He wore an interesting suit, too. Clark could see why Maddie had mistaken it for a superhero costume, except it obviously wasn't - it was a haz-mat, exactly like hers. Apparently it hadn't done him much good even when it fit.

"A lot of persistence and a lot of contacts," Lois said with a rueful smile. "Amity Park disappeared extremely suddenly, and while not a lot of people noticed, some did. One of my old college friends lives in Elmerton, and Elmerton certainly noticed."

"Elmerton's so close that they're lucky it got spared," Danny said dryly. He hesitated for a moment longer, his eyes flicking warily between them, and then asked, "Why did you...?"

Clark gave Danny a gentle smile, noting that while the shocked hostility had faded, Danny was still nervous. "Well, it was obvious that you weren't safe here," he said. "And not in the normal way for heroes. When you mentioned that your species had become illegal, I combed through recent legislation, and..." He trailed off pointedly, and Danny looked away. "I consider you a friend, Danny. I have for a while now. I wanted to help you, if I could."

Danny ducked his head, looking self-conscious and a little overwhelmed. It wasn't a bad change from the defeated look he'd had during Maddie's lecture. Before Danny could figure out an answer, his friends showed up, and he perked up with visible relief. That made sense; Danny seemed like the type of kid that drew a lot of courage from his friends.

"Oh my god, you weren't kidding," the tallest girl said, eyes wide. She was a redhead, with bright teal eyes that had a touch of unnatural luminescence to them. Clark would bet money that this was Danny's sister.

"Of course not, he's Danny," the other girl scoffed, walking forward without hesitation to swing into a seat right next to Danny. There was a hint of a starry-eyed look to her when she looked at Lois, but - the mark of a vigilante's support team - she didn't let it take control. Instead, she crossed her arms and regarded them warily.

The only boy sat across from them, looking almost as nervous as Danny, and the taller girl perched on the table, uneasy and uncomfortable.

They were just kids. Untrained kids, at that, doing their best for the world.

"Jazz, my sister," Danny explained, indicating the redhead. "She helps me deal with my parents, mostly. Sam, my best friend, she's the only good shot here." Sam smirked. "And Tucker, my other best friend, tech whiz." He waved awkwardly.

"It's good to meet you," Clark said politely, giving them a sincere, if tense smile.

"So," Danny continued, with more confidence now, "you wanted to give me a lecture about how my parents are monsters, I shouldn't live with them anymore, and I should pack all my stuff and move out. Am I right?"

Pause.

"Well," Clark said at last, scratching the back of his head with embarrassment. "That wasn't our intention in coming here, but it was the way I was leaning by the end of that conversation." Danny sighed, and Clark hastened to continue, "I'm sure you've thought about it before-"

"No," Danny cut him off, reaching up to rub his face in obvious stress and frustration. Clark winced in guilt. He was trying to help Danny, not make him more upset.

The only other one who looked sympathetic to Danny's plight was Jazz, who explained to Clark, blushing and apologetic, "Danny's really sensitive about our parents, especially Mom. I know you got a big face-full of the bad lab etiquette and the anti-ghost stuff, but Danny and Mom used to be really close." Something about her tone told Clark that she wanted to defend them too, but knew from experience it was futile.

"As Danny puts it, he's the one that keeps getting shot, and he doesn't need to be reminded how much it hurts," Sam put in, more dry than Jazz, but with the same glance of worry at Danny.

"Of course," Clark sighed, giving Danny an apologetic smile. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Can we talk about literally anything except how much my parents hate me?" Danny pleaded, pushing his hand up his face to run it through his fluffy hair.

Clark took that as a no, and when he glanced down, Sam just gave him a resigned shrug, so clearly this was not new behavior for Danny. Clark resolved to try and approach it again later, much later, when some of the other problems had been solved.

"Practicalities, then," Lois said briskly, bless her. She grabbed her notebook and flipped it open. "So, you said most of the town falls under the Anti-Ecto Act?"

Danny looked relieved by the change in subject. "Most might be a little generous," he hedged. Tucker shook his head fervently, and Danny ignored him. "But yeah. The portal gives off a lot of ambient ectoplasm, which is great for like, me, because it feeds me, and no one else, because it settles into their nervous system." He shrugged. "I never really thought that much of it. At 5%, you maybe start to be able to sense ghosts subconsciously, and you're a bit more resistant to future contamination. At 10%, you can sense ghosts nearby and you might start to see in the dark."

"For the record, he and Jazz were at 20% before the portal even opened," Tucker put in, "at which point shadows cling to you, you develop tapetum lucidum, and your footsteps don't make noise."

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you eat it from a young age," Danny muttered. "Anyway, all of which is to say: it didn't really matter until the Anti-Ecto Act passed."

"But now it does," Clark said quietly.

"But now it does," Danny agreed. "Most of the townsfolk don't know it yet, I think, but that's why the GIW is so careless about collateral damage here. You're not a person until they've tested your ecto levels, and they don't usually bother."

"You didn't..." Clark hesitated, reluctant to say anything that might be construed as an accusation against the young ghost. Danny caught on anyway and ducked his head.

"Well," Danny said quietly, "I didn't know what you thought of ghosts."