#merman!danny

Hi, I plan for this to be a series of inter connected one shots based on some of my favorite prompts. I’m a huge Tim Drake/Red Robin x Danny phantom shipper, so for now most of my fics will feature them. Once I’ve end this series, I’ll try branching out to other relationships Danny could have with the bats.

I can’t remember where I got all of them but I’ll try to tag as I find them. If anyone notices a prompt or plot they’ve seen please let me know or tag the person it came from. I’m knew to posting on Tumblr so I’m still getting used to how to tag and insert links. Thank you.

🤍🖤💚💙💚🖤🤍

Chapter 1

Danny was not having a good day. He’d had a fight with his parents about ghost hunting, stating clearly that he had no interest in their bias views on an entire species based on one encounter when they were young. It had escalated to the point where they blamed his lack of interest on the fact that he was spending to much time with his sister and his female friends. 

He’d had enough! He left mid argument and was contemplating just packing up and moving into the Ghost Zone permanently. As he’d slammed the door he could hear his parents shouts for him to come back and once again blaming his behaviour on a ghost.

What did his sexuality have to do with ghost hunting? And what was wrong with wanting to be more feminine sometimes? He honestly didn’t understand why they found it so weird or wrong for him to swap between genders and pronouns? Jazz, Sam and Tucker accepted him as he was, they didn’t but an eye when he would randomly say ‘she’, ‘they’ or ‘him’, they just continued the conversation with the new pronoun and that was that. They understood and accepted that sometime he felt male or female or neither. He was lucky to have them. 

The day just seemed to continue down hill from there. It was summer vacation so Sam was forced to spend time with her parents at some rich holiday resort, Tucker had won a spot in some sort of tech camp and Jazz was still at College working on a finals thesis and was unable to come back for the summer. He was essentially alone for the summer. He could hang out with Val but she was working a lot and he didn’t want to bother her. He still felt guilty about her dad losing his job, even if it wasn’t entirely his fault.

*****

After leaving the house he’d found a place to transform and let the cool rings of light soothe him and took off into the sky. After finding out they could survive in space it became their favourite way to relax, they’d spend ours exploring space, even hang out on the moon. Thank you high speed and portal powers. Their Phantom form had changed in the last two years. People could no longer tell if they were male or female and he looked less human now. Thankfully, they looked nothing like their alternate future self. When their legs melded together their ghostly tail looked more eel like and their ears were longer and thiner, resembling delicate fins. Jazz and their friends had joked about how the acted like cat ears. Lastly their face was now a pale mint color, almost white and translucent, his eyes were still the same luminous ecto-green with deep blue pupils. The only similarity to Dan, that they could see, were the fangs and longer hair both of which were also present in their human form.

*****

They had been flying around Amity, a somewhat lazy patrol of his claimed haunt, it was a calm night. Ever since they had defeated Pariah Dark the other ghost had calmed down and came to Amity less frequently. A few still came to bug them, namely Skulker, Ember, Johny and Kitty. Young Blood and Boxy more frequently than the others and of course Cujo came by often. Their visits were more to do with fulfilling their obsessions than anything else. Danny’s obsession was Space but so was Protection. They needed to fulfil both to some extent or suffer from a form of ghost hunger. It was a win win situation even if they did go back… home? Was it really still a home? 

Before they could go down that dark spiral again their instincts took over and they narrowly dodged a bright green shot that had been aimed at their head. Whirling around and flying higher out of range they looked at their attacker and just stared.

“of course it’s them.” They muttered. Before repeating it with more venom than they thought they were capable of. Which was shocking because not even Vlad had receive as much hatred in the entirety of the time they’ve known him than in that split second they felt it towards their own parents. “Of fucking course it’s them!”

They blink away the shock of such an intense emotion and huffed. Not even bothering to acknowledge them they turned around to leave. That had been a mistake. They’d barely made it a few paces before pain bloomed across their back as an Eco-blast shredded the fins on their lower back and bit deep into their flesh. They bit back a cry of shock as they felt themselves plummet from the sky. It took a moment but they gathered enough concentration to open a portal. He didn’t care where they ended up as their only thought was ‘Somewhere safe.’

They fell through and just before they lost consciousness, they heard their parents yell after him.

“Get back here you ghost scum, so we can rip you apart molecule by molecule!”

“We won’t forgive you for corrupting our Danny!”

‘Of course… It’s always Phantoms fault…’ Danny’s world turned black as he continued to fall. Maybe when they opened their eyes again all of it would have been a dream.

*****

Somewhere in the infinite green a Grandfather clock chimed. A screen flickered. Time flowed on.

“All is as it should be.”

Chapter 2

(I'm Not A Cynic Song by Alec Benjamin)

Danny pulled their little floating ducks out of their personal pocket dimension and set them to gently drift in the hot spring. They had found it while wandering the forest. Their lower back still ached and they were a little worried about how it hadn’t healed completely yet.

*****

They didn’t know where they were or how long they had been in this dimension but they were safe and alone for the time being. When they’d woken up, the first thing they did was try to figure out where they were. thankfully no-one had discovered them, tucked away in the underbrush of the forest they had landed in. They’d let invisibility wash over them and flew high enough to get a view of the land. They recognised asian architecture and flew in the direction they had spotted a small farming village. With a closer look they determined they had landed in some version of Japan. Instinctually they knew they were not in their home dimension. Everything, even the air and feel of the atmosphere felt slightly shifted to the left. It was like that feeling of entering a hotel room, they were all essentially the same but there were the little details that told you it was a different hotel. 

*****

Brushing the thought, and everything associated with the reason they were injured and alone in a foreign dimension, aside. They coiled their tail in the centre of the spring and sank down until their lower back was submerged in the healing warmth of the spring. Closing their eyes in content they began to hum. Their eyes shot open when they felt a gentle nudge against his arm but smiled gently at the little wisp as it bobbed and drifted in the breeze. They continued to hum and watched in amusement as more joined the first. The little orbs of light ranged in color from soft pale blues to vibrant greens and warm reds, oranges and yellows.

They lost themselves in their song as they twirled in and played with the water, creating little floating ice crystals that caused mist to form around them as hot and cold air danced around each other. Humming soon gave way to words as they swayed to the rhythm only they could hear. 

“I'm just bein' realistic, bein' honest with myself

I've tried bein' optimistic but it doesn't seem to help

So I'll just have to admit this is the hand that I've been dealt

I'm not bein' pessimistic, just bein' honest with myself”

They were thankful to Pandora, who had taught them to sing in an effort to train his ghostly wail, for realising he was taking on the form and habits of a triton. 

“I'm not a cynic, oh, today's just not my day

I've tried to spin it 'bout a thousand different ways

But from every angle, oh, the outlook is the same

I swear that I'm not a cynic, my glass just has no water in it today”

They poured all the hurt, betrayal, anger and loneliness into their voice, allowing them to release it all in a more melodic call than his previous wail. That, as pandora explained, had been an unhealthy burst of emotion and they were lucky they hadn’t blown out their vocal cords the last few times they used it. 

“I swear that I'm not a cynic, my glass just has no water in it”

Through their practice they found they could influence emotions but not out right control them. They were glad, influencing them was bad enough, he didn’t want to manipulate anyone. They didn’t want to spend their life wondering if the people around them truly cared or if they had somehow manipulated them into caring. They may me a budding empath but they still struggled to tell the difference between a sincere emotion and a projected emotion.

“You only get that which you're given, it's not always up to you

Not every Sunday is a picnic 'cause the sky ain't always blue

You can't just change the weather by changing your point of view

Some days you have to wait until the storm just passes through”

Danny’s voice grew louder as their emotions poured out into the lyrics. They knew they still had their friend, their sister, Elle and everyone in the Infinite Realm. They were also the Half Ghost son of ghost hunters and scientist with a heavy bias against Ecto-entities. They will be the rulers of an entire realm in only a few short years.

“I'm not a cynic, oh, today's just not my day

I've tried to spin it 'bout a thousand different ways

But from every angle, oh, the outlook is the same

I swear that I'm not a cynic, my glass just has no water in it today”

They gave a bitter sweet smile as they watched the wisps duck and weave between the ice crystals. They looked around for their ducks and their smile turned a little more sad as they waved their hand and the little ducks joined the dancing lights and crystals. Each one was modelled after his favourite comic book vigilante. They’d had to save them from the dump truck once, they’d been looking for them when he’d asked his parents, their father had made an off hand comment about how he should throw out old toys and they’d panicked. They’d manage to find and save them all just before the truck arrived.

“So like a boat on the ocean, I'll rock with the waves

God, I'm so sick of this notion that I have to fake

Fake my emotions and pretend I'm okay

So like a boat on the ocean, I'll just rock with the waves”

Jazz had bought them for them, after they had told her about being gender fluid and pan, they were probably one of their most treasured possessions. Jazz had gone on a whole spiel about how it’s important that she show support and provide a safe and understanding environment. They hadn’t been listening, they’d been crying. To caught up in their overflowing emotions and happiness. It lasted a day, their parents had been less than understanding, with their passive-aggressive comments and actions. 

“I'm not a cynic, oh, today's just not my day

I've tried to spin it 'bout a thousand different ways

But from every angle, oh, the outlook is the same

I swear that I'm not a cynic, my glass just has no water in it today”

Their frown returned. They had shot them, that in itself wasn’t unusual, as Phantom. Isn’t that a sad thought. What was was that there had been no prior warning. It was a sniper shot, from their mother. Only their heightened hearing and instinct had saved them from ending up dead dead instead of a Halfa. That bothered him

“I swear that I'm not a cynic, my glass just has no water in it today”

They returned to humming the last notes of their song as the dunked under the water to rinse off. They popped back up and gathered their ducks, floated up out of the spring and laughed as the wisps twirled around him. They landed on the ground, allowing their legs to form and walked off into the forest, dancing lights trailing after them. Completely unaware of their watchers.

*****

The shadows slunk away to report their findings. While two birds hesitantly returned to their temporary nest, One worried and wanting to help the being that reminded him so much of his younger siblings. The other having felt a connection to a being that had shared similar experiences, someone they wanted to help and if they wanted to end the beings loneliness… that was no one’s business but their own. Both slept little that night, both determined to find the being again and offer what they could to help.

*****

@im-totally-not-an-alien-2

@alinmenttreasure

@blackroserelina

@blacksea21090

It was ironically easier to keep his secret in Jersey than in Hawaii. All he had to do was say he enjoyed swimming from time to time. Helped his muscles, took him out of his head for a while, no one out there really loved swimming, ya know? He could escape for however long he needed to be in the water before coming back up to land where his kids were. 

But in Hawaii...it was nearly impossible. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his team. It was just part of the stupid curse placed on him after Billy died. Since Billy died trying to help Danny, Danny was cursed with a reminder. It was torture. Sometimes he would be tempted to not meet his watery needs out of guilt, but self-preservation forced him near the end to jump in a bathtub during emergencies. 

Back to Hawaii...water was everywhere. People loved being in it. People flew in from all over the world to swim there. On one side, it was such a big thing that his teams all but forced him back into it. Which helped with his secret. On the other hand, it was hard for him to go on his own without having to explain why it was a need rather than a want. 

During one impossible heat wave in particular things got really bad. He was helping with the restaurant and a case and he hadn’t been to the ocean or a proper swim in over a week. He was reaching the limit by the time he finally caved and tried heading to the ocean....he passed out. He was weak and his mind had gone all fuzzy. 

That’s how Steve found him. Well, not just nearly knocked out and confused. He found him with his merman tail. 

“Danny? Danny!” Steve was a little freaked out but no matter what Danny was like, Danny was Danny. His Danny. And he was in trouble. Steve didn’t need to be a genius to know what was going on. He ran to the bathroom and started the bathtub before coming back down and tried to pull Danny up. He was a bit heavier with a merman tail, but Steve was stubborn. 

“Commander?” Junior called out. They were supposed to meet at the McGarrett home but Steve hadn’t been there. So Junior decided to see if they were at the Williams home when Steve didn’t answer his phone. 

“Jun! Over here, help!” 

The panic in Steve’s voice made Junior run to him. He was a bit shocked at the sight in front of him, but Steve pulled him out of it with an order. 

“Grab an arm. The tub’s filling up. We need to get him inside.” 

Together they got Danny into the tub, which got them a noise of recognition, which was a good sign. They hoped. 

“Uh...so now that he’s in here. May I ask...what the hell?”

“I...I don’t know. Until this works for sure, I’m gonna wait to ask that later.” Steve said. 

“Man...Tani’s gonna freak.” Junior said with a small smile. Tani loved mermaids. 

Steve smiled too but then it fell. Worry and a little hurt coursed through him. Why hadn’t Danny told him?

After a while, when the bathtub was full, Danny began to come to. “Steve?”

“Danny! Hey...I’m here...you okay?”

“Yeah...yeah, I just...too long without water...and too hot...” Danny muttered.

“Danny...how? Why? I...”

Danny sighed, “It was a curse. Remember Billy Selway?” When Steve nodded, Danny said, “Something in that lake cursed me...”

“Why didn’t you say? I would have made sure you always had whatever it is you needed. How many times has this happened?” 

“I couldn’t. It’s a bit like the little mermaid. Not exactly but...I couldn’t tell anyone. They had to...figure it out. And...not many.” 

“But it has happened?” Steve asked, kinda mad at Danny. Not really for not telling him, but for not taking his health seriously. 

“Can we tell others for you?” Junior asked.

Danny shrugged, “Never tried...”

“Can we tell?” 

“It might be easier if the team knew but...can it wait? Til I’m better?” Danny asked. 

“Yeah, sure babe. What do we do?” Steve asked, ready to do whatever Danny wanted.

“This helps but I need the ocean...once I have enough strength to shift back, I need to go for a proper swim in the ocean.” 

Steve nodded. “You got it.”

Naturally, Steve was as fascinated as Tani was excited. He kept wanting to bring Danny swimming with him, or try to join him on his swims. But Danny could breathe underwater and be under longer than Steve, even though Steve tried his damnest to stay as long as Danny. 

Turns ur faves into cephalopods