Chapter Text
Danny looked around in confusion.
“So Danny, you and your little friends want to hunt ghosts?” Dad said turning around to face them.
Danny turned to look at Sam and Tucker who were 14 again…
“Sorry, Mr. Fenton. I was into ghosts, but they’re so mainstream now. They’re like cellphones.” Sam replied as Danny looked over himself.
How the…? He was 14 again as well. Wait. He remembers this.
“Waste these good looks and all this charisma, hunting ghosts? Criminal.” Tucker continued as Danny watched the portal doors.
“Well if you do want to hunt ghosts…” Danny let his Dad’s words fade into the background as two ectopuses emerged from the portal.
Danny raised his hand and shot them with an ectoblast, pushing them back into the portal.
Tucker and Sam shot him a shocked look. “How…?”
Danny shook his head at them and gestured toward his Dad.
“Thanks for the know-how, Dad. But we have some homework to do that we’re going to do in my room.” Danny said once his dad got done rambling.
“Okay, Danno! Glad to help.” Dad continued fiddling with various beakers as the trio went upstairs.
“Since when can you do that?!” Tucker exclaimed as soon as they were out of earshot.
“Yeah so.” Danny thought over how he was going to tell them. “I’m kinda from the future.”
They blinked at him. “Ha. Ha. Very funny, Danny.”
Danny sighed. “No, really. I don’t know how I’m back in my old body but I’m Danny from about ten years in the future. I’m totally blaming Clockwork for this.”
“Clockwork?” Sam asked carefully, looking at me like I’m insane, which…rude, but fair.
“He’s a ghost we’ll meet later.” Danny already felt a headache coming on.
“Okaay.” Tucker said disbelievingly. “Say we believe you. What’s next?”
“Probably go into the ghost zone to find Clockwork.” Danny started planning in his head.
“Go into the ghost zone!” Sam yelled. “What the heck are you thinking?”
“Oh, right. You guys still haven’t gone into the zone by this point.” Danny whistled. “This is like the very beginning of when I first became a halfa.”
Tucker raised his hand. “What’s a halfa?”
“Oh for goodness sake.”
…
Danny ripped a portal open(much to the amazement of his friends) and flew towards Long Now’s general direction.
After nearly two hours of flying and not getting any closer, he stopped and huffed. “Alright, I get it! You don’t want to talk to me! Can you at least tell me if I am supposed to be back in time!”
He waited for a moment and felt stupid yelling into the literal void before something smacked into his face.
He took it off and found a green sticky note. ‘Yes.’
“You’re not funny, you know!”
…
After opening a portal back to his childhood bedroom, he flopped onto his bed.
“So what happened?” Sam asked.
“He didn’t want me to find him. At least I know I’m supposed to be here in this time, although I don’t know why. Figures he would give a straight answer but only to one question.”
“So what now?” Tucker asked nervously. “We won’t, like, destroy reality by making different choices, right?”
“No. If I’m supposed to be here then this is the way the timeline is supposed to go. I just don’t know why. What am I supposed to do in this time?”
“Well, what was the last thing you remember doing before coming here?” Sam asked.
“I was talking to…The Justice League!” Danny sat up on the bed.
“The what league?” Sam deadpanned.
“It’s a group of superheroes that forms a few years from now,” Danny explained as he floated off his bed toward his computer.
“You’re messing with us,” Sam said disbelievingly. “Superheroes?”
Tucker leaned over Danny's shoulder as he searched the web. “The Batman?”
“I’ve heard of that during one of my parent’s galas. It’s a Gotham myth.” Sam said, leaning over Danny’s other shoulder.
“Nope. He’s real. Also, somehow creepier than me.” Danny said as he opened a new tab and searched for something else.
“The Flash.” Tucker read. “A red blur that saves the day. Huh.”
“Superman, really?” Sam scoffed. “A little on the nose.”
“Yeah, but his personality really fits it.” Danny smiled. Superman was like the stereotypical superhero. “There are four other founding members of the Justice League along with these three but they don’t appear until later.”
“Who?” Sam asked curiously.
“Wonderwoman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Martian Manhunter.” Danny paused. “Shit. Martian Manhunter, he might already be on Earth.”
Danny searched for the first manned Mars landing and sucked in a breath. “It’s been almost two years.”
“And?” Tucker asked. “I remember you talking about that. There was an accident, right? Only one of the astronauts came back.”
“The astronaut, J Allen Carter, that came back wasn’t the astronaut that landed on Mars. It was an alien. The original Carter accidentally release the alien from its prison on Mars and the alien took his place.” Danny explained as he looked up more information. “The alien wants to destroy the planet's defenses to invade.”
Danny gestures to an article about the former astronaut, now Senator Carter’s plan to get rid of all nuclear weapons.
“So that’s why you’re here? To stop them?” Sam questions.
Danny hesitated. “I don’t know. They didn’t need me the first time. The Justice League was formed to deal with them. The League didn’t even know I existed until this year. Err, I mean, the year I last was.”
Tucker patted Danny’s shoulder. “We get it. It’s confusing.”
Sam frowned as she thought it over. “Maybe that was the issue. Maybe you needed to be part of the, ugh, Justice League, sooner.”
Danny thought it over. “I guess? Time to fuck around and hopefully not destroy the timeline."