#micro-management

“When did you get shrunk?” Dash asked as he pulled himself up and looked at him with a puzzling gaze.

Or...maybe he could. Wow. He had always thought Dash was dense, but not this dense...not that he was really complaining. Not if it saved his secret. “Oh uh, my dad got carried away with the uh, invention. I’ve been waiting up here for someone to show up to fix it. You know, since I can’t really do it on my own,” Danny lied. He could feel himself starting to blather like he usually did when he got nervous, and he had to force himself to stop talking.

“But where did Phantom go?” Dash asked as he looked around Danny. “He was right in front of me! I know he came up here…”

“Oh uh...you just missed him?” Danny asked as he jerked a thumb behind his back. Hey, it worked for his dad on numerous occasions.

Dash looked in the direction Danny pointed, then looked back over at Danny again. He narrowed his gaze and Danny could feel him looking at him from top to bottom, almost like he was noticing Danny, and specifically the way Danny dressed, for the first time. “But...wait a minute…”

“Dash,” Danny warned. He could see him starting to put two and two together. The idea of Dash attempting math was trouble under normal circumstances, but this kind of math could only add up to disaster. He had to throw him off. He had to think of something, but his mind was blank. This was really why he needed Tucker and Sam for these kinds of things. They could think quicker on their feet than he could. But while his mind remained blank, he could see Dash’s head fill with memories and missed signs and hints.

“Oh my god…” Dash finally breathed as his eyes grew wide.

“Dash,” Danny warned again. He did not like where this was going.

“You’re...you’re Danny Phantom,” he finally said, and his mouth dropped open like he was surprised to hear his own unbelievable thoughts said aloud.

“What?” Danny tried to scoff as he shifted nervously. He had to downplay this. “C’mon Dash, that’s crazy talk. Don’t start jumping to insane--”

Dash shook his head and interrupted him “No, no, you’re...you’re Danny Phantom. The shoes! The jeans! Missing class! All the weirdness! It’s all...you’re Danny Phantom!” he repeated. He looked in awe at Danny’s nervously shifting figure while he tried to wrap his mind around the concept.

Apparently Dash wasn’t as clueless as he thought…

“Dash you must be--” Danny tried to refute, but the clang of Skulker’s armor on the top of the table interrupted his argument. “This is so not the time. Pull the lever!” he ordered as he ran in front of the Crammer.

“But—” Dash stammered. He looked frozen to the spot, like his mind was somewhere else and not on the deadly ghost determined to turn their pelts into some kind of wallet or whatever he planned to do with them once he killed them.

“Dash!” Danny yelled as he peeked his head out of the chamber. That seemed to shake him out of his stupor, and he climbed to the top of the crammer to switch the settings. He could hear Skulker prattling on in what he likely assumed was his victory speech, but Danny barely paid him any attention as he waited with baited breath for Dash to hold up his end and activate the device. Danny heard the internal mechanics click and whir behind him. He looked back just in time to see a vibrant green light burst out of the crammer and surround him. The force of the light pushed him as he grew back to his original size. As he grew, his power returned to him. He felt refreshed and he transformed just to prove that he could. Back to his full power, he stood tall in front of the miniature Skulker, and smirked down at him.

In one smooth motion he smashed his hand onto Skulker and grabbed him in his fist. “Actually, I’m a lot stronger than I thought,” he teased. He didn’t have a thermos on him, and a quick look around the Op Center didn’t reveal a thermos either (of course not, that was too useful of an invention for his parents to put it in their emergency center), but his eyes did settle on an open freezer. He turned to face the freezer and, just to add insult to injury, he flicked Skulker towards the freezer. The shrunken hunter screamed in a comically high-pitched voice and Danny happily shut the freezer door on him. That should keep him contained while he dealt with Dash.

Speaking of Dash, he flew back over to the Fenton Crammer and used it to return the jock to his regular size. Dash slid off the table and stretched as he appraised the room from his regular height until his eyes fell on Danny. He stared at him, but this stare felt different from the other awed stares he received the whole time they’d been stuck in this predicament, and he couldn’t quite place why.

“You’re...you’re...Fenton?” Dash stammered, trying to clarify what still jumbled around in his brain.

Danny sighed heavily as he placed the Crammer on the table. The gig was up. He knew it was. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Fenton went into the Crammer and Phantom came out of it. So he bit the bullet and triggered the transformation. White rings slid across his body and reverted him to his human form. Dash jumped back in shock and his eyes grew so wide his pupils looked tiny.

“You have to swear not to tell anyone,” Danny demanded.

“You...he...holy shit…” Dash breathed as he placed his hands on either side of his temple. “Holy shit!”

“Dash, focus. You have to swear you won’t tell,” Danny repeated forcefully.

“B-but…” He never finished his thought as he just stared unblinking as his mouth hung open.

“Swear it!” Danny yelled, and he forced his eyes to glow for emphasis.

Dash jumped again and nodded his head quickly. “I-I swear! I swear! I’ll never tell!”

Danny sighed and placed a hand to his head as his eyes turned back to blue. He could feel a headache coming on, and he didn’t know if it was because of the physical activity, playing Honey I Shrunk the Kids, or from this new issue with Dash. Probably all three. He didn’t trust Dash at all. He’d never been able to trust Dash with anything, let alone a secret as big as this, and yet he was being forced to by the cruel practices of fate. Of all the people at his school who could find out… “Look Dash I…” He let that thought trail away because something about the way Dash looked at him made him feel uneasy. This was more than shock and awe, there was something else, and it kept distracting him.

An awkward pause hung in the air. Dash could only stare at Danny, and Danny didn’t know what to say as he shifted nervously from the awkward stare.

“You...all this time…” Dash finally said, and even though it didn’t sound much louder than a breath, it still rang out in the silence.

Danny rolled his eyes. He was already done with this. “Yes Dash, I’m Danny Phantom. I’ve been Phantom this whole time,” he said slowly, trying to help Dash grasp the concept. The sooner he stopped blubbering the sooner he could get some control over the situation and discover what damage had been done.

“The...the whole school year?”

“Yes Dash, the whole school year. Ever since my first day back at school, right before that food fight at the beginning of the year.” Dash shifted uncomfortably as his face paled, and finally Danny understood what Dash was stuck on, why he couldn’t seem to get over this one piece of information. Dash wasn’t struggling to grasp the concept; he grasped it far too well as he recalled everything he had done to Fenton (and thus the powerful Phantom) since the beginning of the school year.

“I know this is a lot. I need you to just focus and listen to me,” Danny tried to comfort as he took a step forward. Dash immediately stepped back and that’s when Danny finally saw it: that flicker of something in the way Dash looked at him…that was fear. He was afraid of him. “I’m not going to hurt you Dash,” he said, his voice sounding more vulnerable as he would have liked. Scaring people may come with the territory of being a ghost, but this was a different kind of fear. It made him feel uncomfortable, like he was something dangerous and deserved to be treated with that level of fear, when all he wanted to do was be a hero.

“But the lockers and the detentions and the fights and–” Dash started to ramble.

“Think about it,” Danny interrupted. “If I had wanted to hurt you, wouldn’t I have done it already? I just spent all this time trying to save you! I could have left you shrunk!”

Dash’s brow furrowed as he sat on those words for a moment. “Okay…yeah…but school is different right? Like before, you couldn’t do it because it would expose you, but now you don’t have to worry about hiding that.”

Danny sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. “As much as I would love to get revenge on you for years and years of bullying, I don’t do that. Keeping my secret wasn’t what stopped me. Believe me, I could have figured something out. But just because I have an advantage doesn’t mean I use it to hurt others: that would make me the bully.”

For the first time since Dash put the pieces together he stayed silent. He averted his gaze and looked at the ground, but his eyes looked unfocused, like he was lost in thought. Did he maybe get through to him? If sacrificing his secret finally taught Dash the error of his ways then maybe, maybe he could consider this a win in the grand scheme of things.

He let Dash sit on his thoughts for a moment as he thought about what to say next, except that all went out the window as soon as he heard voices echoing from below them.

“I’m tellin’ you Maddie, there’s a ghost in the Op Center. I hear him!” Jack’s voice shouted, and he sounded close. Immediately it caught Danny’s attention, and his face paled.

“Jack, why would a ghost be in the Op Center?” Maddie tried to reason. “That’s where the most dangerous weapons are. It’s the last place they’d want to go.”

“Unless they want to destroy them and end the threat! Come Maddie, to the Op Center! If it’s a ghost, we’ll tear him apart, molecule by molecule!” Jack threatened, and Danny flinched as he heard the all too familiar charge of an ecto-gun. Dash looked over at Danny, his curious eyes now resting under a confused brow. He opened his mouth like he was about to ask a question, but Danny quickly shushed him.

“And if it’s our son? You know he always plays up there,” Maddie mentioned.

“Then I’ll tear him apart by making him do chores! Lots and lots of chores…”

Danny heard the lift mechanics spring to life and he realized that he could not risk his parents finding both of them up here. Maybe on a normal day he could come up with an excuse about how they were scoping out a place to train or were looking for workout equipment or something stupid like that, but he knew better than to trust Dash right now. He was a horrible actor on the best of days, and the fact that he couldn’t keep the awe off his face whenever he looked at Danny would alert his mom to something suspicious. He couldn’t trust Dash with lying to save his secret, not right now.

A quick escape was clearly his best bet. He snapped into his ghost form, and he noticed Dash jump again. Clearly he still wasn’t expecting to see weak Danny Fenton change into the powerful hero of Amity Park. He couldn’t give Dash any further time to process it though, and he floated up behind him. He grabbed Dash under the arms and turned both of them intangible. He shot through the roof of the Op Center, praying that timing was with him this time and that they reached the safety of the sky before his parents arrived.

As he flew, he didn’t hear the angered shouts of his parents, and he sighed in relief that they had escaped.

“Maddie look! It’s that ghost Boy flying away from our home!” Jack’s voice shouted from the open window.

Or not. His timing was just not good today.

“And look, he’s got a hostage! That’s how he was messing with our weapons!” Jack continued.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” Danny groaned as he heard a few rapid shots of an ecto-gun from behind him. He spun and wove through the air as he managed to dodge all of his dad’s shots until he was out of range. Sadly, his dad’s aiming pattern was starting to get predictable. Behind him, he could faintly hear an angry “Jack! You might have shot the hostage!” come from his mother.

Danny could feel Dash shaking in his arms. Jock and supposed tough guy or not, he couldn’t blame him. He’d been through a lot in the past couple hours, and being shot at while suspended in the air with little control had to feel pretty helpless. Dash didn’t seem like the kind of person who handled helplessness or loss of control well, and yet for the second time today, he had to put his safety in the trust of the boy whose highschool life he made hell.

“...They don’t know they’re shooting at you, do they?” Dash finally asked. “I mean, the…the Fenton part of you.”

Danny flew higher as he scouted out a secluded place to talk to Dash. “Of course not. You’ve seen how ghost obsessed they are. If they were to find out their only son is a ghost?” He shook his head sadly. “It wouldn’t end pretty.”

“But…I’m confused,” Dash said slowly.

“That’s not hard,” Danny muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Danny replied quickly.

Dash looked up at him suspiciously. “No, you said something.”

“It was nothing. You said you were unsurprisingly confused?”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed, clearly missing the insult. “You’re…you’re a ghost…right?”

“Well-spotted Dash,” Danny quipped.

“No that’s not–” Dash groaned. “That’s not what I meant. I mean…but you’re alive right? You’re not…dead…?”

“Not…completely, no,” Danny admitted. Clearly Dash didn’t want to wait for them to land to start asking questions and unravel the enigma that was Phantom.

Dash swallowed noticeably. “Not completely?”

Danny sighed. This conversation would be much easier to have when they could talk face-to-face. “I’m only a half ghost. And I know you don’t know what that is,” he said before Dash could interrupt him with the predictable question. “I’m human and ghost at the same time; that’s why I can switch between the two forms. So I’m the human, alive Fenton and the ghost Phantom at the same time. Is this making sense?”

“...Kinda?” Dash said, voice filled with uncertainty.

No one ever got this. Even he didn’t really get it, if he was being honest with himself. He’d just more or less accepted that was how he was and left the philosophical and biological debates to Jazz. “Just…accept that’s the way it is. And really, it’s not that important. Well, at least not for you.”

Danny noticed the flat roof of a nearby office building; it was empty and far enough away from FentonWorks and Val’s apartment that they should be uninterrupted. He flew towards it and set Dash down onto the hardened rubber roof. He remained floating at Dash’s eye-level so he didn’t have to keep looking up at the unfairly taller jock. It was definitely a power move, but he needed to keep control over the situation. Dash looked to be more comfortable back on the ground, which would hopefully help him process all this and then they could both (hopefully) figure out how to move on from here.

“How?” Dash asked as he met Danny’s eyes, though he didn’t see the confidence he usually felt from Dash.

Well at least Dash was predictable. He already hit the two most common questions. “The accident that made me miss school,” Danny answered. “I went into my parents’ ghost portal and accidentally turned it on while I was stupidly still inside. It turned on, I got zapped with a ton of ghost energy, it messed up my body, should have killed me but it kinda didn’t, and now I’m half-ghost. Jazz can explain it better: she’s done way too much research on it.”

“Your sister knows?”

“Yeah, she said she figured it out on her own, but I still don’t know if I believe her on that one,” Danny chuckled. “Sam and Tucker do too, though that’s probably a given.”

“Well yeah, duh,” Dash scoffed. “The three of you are always rushing off doing who knows what.”

“Wait, you guys notice that kind of stuff?” Danny asked quizzically. No one had ever really commented on it, so he just assumed they had all done a better job than he thought keeping that under wraps.

“Uh, Paulina and Star are two of the biggest gossips in the school; of course we notice. You three always run off for no reason or arrive late to class. Or you go to the bathroom and never come back. We’ve all got our theories, but no one would ever guess anything like this,” he said, gesturing to Danny’s ghostly form. “We just figured it was crazy Fenton being crazy. That’s why we always call you a freak. Looks like we were right!”

“Thanks Dash,” Danny replied sarcastically. “You know I can just leave you up here, right?”

“Hey! You asked!” Dash defended. “I’m just telling you what everyone thinks!”

Danny groaned as he pressed a hand to his brow and shook his head. He really didn’t know why he expected anything different, or that Dash would magically discover the error of his ways and stop just because they had a couple moments to connect about the evils of bullying. “Do you have any more questions for me? Or can I get to the part where I threaten you with lots of fun, painful, and probably embarrassing punishments if you blab my secret?”

Whatever comfort he’d started to develop with Danny disappeared as Dash stiffened. “I thought you said you weren’t going to hurt me!”

“I said I wouldn’t hurt you for shoving me in lockers or bullying me, though if you want to stop doing that that would be great, but I never said I wouldn’t hurt you if you blab my secret to anyone,” Danny clarified. Whether he would actually hurt him was another matter, but maybe the empty threat would be enough to keep Dash in line.

“But I swore that I wouldn’t!” he defended.

“Yeah, well forgive me if I don’t feel comfortable putting the rest of my life in your hands just because ‘you swore,’” Danny retorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. “And it’s not like you’ve really given me any reason to trust you.”

Dash rubbed his hand along his arm as he frowned. “No, I guess not. But I mean, you’re being a little dramatic aren’t you? ‘The rest of your life’ and all that. Would it really be that bad to be famous?”

Danny closed his eyes as he took a deep, though unnecessary, breath to calm himself down. That was the whole reason for this talk, to help Dash understand. Danny knew all the consequences if he secret was revealed, but Dash didn’t, at least not yet. “This whole secret thing isn’t just about me trying to have some kind of a normal life,” Danny explained patiently. “You saw my parents back there. They hate ghosts. They hate Phantom. It’s all they talk about.”  

He paced in the air gesturing with his hands. “‘Ghosts are monsters! Ghosts are evil!’ ‘I’m gonna tear ghosts apart molecule by molecule Mads!’ ‘Jack, just wait until we get one on a dissection table and see what’s inside!’” he cried out, imitating his parents with caricatures of their voices, but it still didn’t make the words less chilling. “If they find out…there’s no going back from that.”

“You think they’d actually do that?” Dash asked quietly. Danny turned to look at him, and he saw a softness in his features he never saw before. Was that…sympathy?

“Maybe? I don’t know. I hope not,” he admitted with a shrug. When did this start getting so personal? This was not the kind of conversation he’d expected to be having with Dash of all people. “But I don’t have enough hope to risk it, not yet. But I should get to decide when that is, not you,” he stressed.

Dash looked down at the ground and his figure seemed to shrink. He didn’t really say anything, so Danny just pushed on with a change of topic away from the sensitive fear of his parents’ rejection. “And it’s not just my parents. The government has been itching to get their hands on me forever. If they know where I am all the time? Goodbye freedom.” Still more somber silence from Dash. “Are you starting to get why I’m taking this so seriously? Why you need to take this seriously? If you mess up and say anything to anyone, I could end up as a science experiment.”

A long silence followed Danny’s warning. Dash shifted nervously as he fidgeted with his shirt or pulled on his sleeves. He would look up and open his mouth like he wanted to say something, but then would close it and look down at the ground again. Danny had never seen Dash exhibit any kind of nervous energy before, and it was a little unsettling. What was going on in that jock’s head? Was he understanding the seriousness of the situation? Or was he thinking maybe his parents and the GiW had the right idea and was thinking about turning him in? Maybe he’d opened up too much and now Dash was thinking about how much of a freak his classmate and target really was. He’d hoped opening up a bit about the perils that faced him would help Dash see things from his perspective, but now he wasn’t as sure. He just wanted him to say something.

Finally Dash looked at Danny, and his gaze didn’t shift back down to the floor. “Look, Fenton, I know we don’t get along. Never have. I don’t even remember why anymore.”

“You said I stole your teddy bear, which I didn’t by the way,” Danny defended. He still had no idea who did it, but he sure bore the brunt of almost ten years of torment for it.

Dash’s eyes lit up with memory. “Oh right! But then you were so puny, weak, wimpy, scrawny–”

“Again Dash, is there a point?” Danny snapped.

“Right, yeah.” He breathed out a deep breath and his brow pulled into a serious line. “I know we haven’t gotten along. But Phantom? You’re cool. Like, really cool. You’re a hero. I look up to you. And I owe you, not just for today, but for all the times you’ve saved us.” He placed a hand over his heart and met Danny’s eyes. “I won’t say anything. You can trust me on this.”

Now it was Danny’s turn to fall silent. He hadn’t expected…well any of that. He knew Dash was a fan of Phantom (he was never shy talking about it at school) but he didn’t know how deep that respect went, or whether it would translate to him after learning about his secret. He still didn’t know whether he could trust Dash as a person, but he did know he could trust him on this. This wasn’t Dash trying to charm his way out of a situation or lying to get what he wanted. These words felt like the first genuine thing Dash had ever said to him, and he believed them. “Wow. I wasn’t actually expecting that,” Danny admitted. “But uh, thank you.”

“Well I wasn’t expecting any of what you said,” Dash replied. His tone sounded so different, softer and more substantive than his usual braggadocious manner. Was this how he talked to his friends or his family? Was this how Dash sounded outside of the popular high school jock role he chose to fill at school? He’d known him since they started at the same kindergarten together and he couldn’t remember a time where Dash sounded like a real person until now.

Dash stuck his hand out and actually smiled at him. Was he offering a truce? A way to seal the deal on his promise? Danny wasn’t exactly sure, but he took the offered hand regardless and shook on it. He still felt a little worried, he always did knowing someone else out there had the power to send his life crashing down around him with one slip of a tongue, but he felt better that Dash would at least do his best to try.

“Look, it’s getting late and apparently I have to pass a fitness test tomorrow, so I should probably get you off this roof,” Danny suggested. As much as he appreciated the rare chance to bond with Dash, this whole exchange was starting to feel weird.

“I totally forgot about that,” Dash said as he shook his head. “Seems weird to talk about something normal after all that.”

Danny chuckled. “Welcome to my world.” He flew behind Dash and grabbed him under his arms again before he flew off the roof. He didn’t actually know where Dash lived, but he flew towards the more expensive houses in town and assumed Dash would correct him if he guessed wrong.

“So wait, you have all these cool powers. I’ve seen you lift cars,” Dash remarked as they flew over the city. “So why do you need a fitness buddy?”

Danny sighed. “There are some things that are easier to do as a ghost,” he explained. “Like lifting cars. Besides, I am trying to keep this a secret. Wouldn’t it be suspicious if I all of a sudden stopped struggling in gym class?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re probably right,” Dash said. “Man, I didn’t know you had to think about so many things.”

Danny shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

They flew the rest of the quick trip in silence until Dash gestured towards his house from above. Danny found a more isolated spot on the side of the yard that would afford them a little more privacy and he set Dash back down on the ground. “Alright, well I guess I’ll see you tomorrow for the fitness test. Don’t worry, I’ll do enough to pass so we both don’t fail.”

“Thanks man,” Dash replied. “So what are we supposed to do? During school I mean. Like how is that going to work?”

Honestly Danny had been wondering the same thing. “I guess that’s up to you. Obviously I’m sick of being called Fen-turd and I’d prefer to not be shoved into lockers constantly, but it’s been better since I’ve been able to phase out of them.”

“You–oh my god that’s right!” Dash cried as he placed both his hands on the sides of his face. “I didn’t even–wow. Just…dang. I feel…kinda stupid right now.”

Danny almost snapped back an insulting comment, but he bit his tongue. Dash was actually trying right now…and he could try too. Things would never be great between them, too much shared history, but if Dash wanted to stop he’d at least try not to provoke him. “And I know we like, shared a moment, and you’re a fan of Phantom, but that doesn’t magically make us friends.”

“No, no, I get that,” Dash said, and if he was disappointed in hearing that Danny really couldn’t tell, but he felt like he owed it to Dash to be honest. “I’ll find a middle ground. Say being your fitness buddy changed my mind or something like that; they’ll all go along with it eventually. I’ll make it look convincing.”

Danny nodded, grateful to hear that Dash was already acting on that promise to help keep his secret safe. It actually wasn’t that terrible of a plan, and he could only hope it would hold up in practice. “Thanks,” he said with a smile. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow then.” He gave an awkward little wave then flew away, leaving Dash behind at his house.

Given everything that just happened…that could have gone worse. Dash could have still vowed to be outwardly combative. He could have blabbed Danny’s secret out for his own fame and fortune. He could have called him a freak and turned him over to his parents. Maybe he was planning to still do any number of those things now that Phantom wasn’t floating in front of him, but Danny really didn’t get that impression. Dash seemed like he got it, shocking as that was. He seemed like he wanted to help, to pay him back for what Phantom did for him. What that actually ended up looking like, he could only guess, but the feelings of dread that first crept into him the second Dash saw him as Fenton and figured it all out were gone, and he decided to take that as a good sign.

He finally landed in his room and transformed before he flopped onto his bed. What a day he had. He thought about taking a quick nap while he had a chance, but he felt his phone buzz. He fished it out of his pocket and looked to see a text from Dash. He forgot they exchanged numbers when they were assigned as fitness buddies.

“Do ghosts eat food? Do you eat food?” the text read.

Danny shook his head and let out an amused though tired chuckle as he typed out his response and hit send. Another question immediately appeared.

Well, apparently this was going to be a thing now.