Danny Gets Bullied A Lot. Everyone Knows This. The Town Knows This. Danny Knows This. Hell The Ghosts

Danny gets bullied a lot. Everyone knows this. The town knows this. Danny knows this. Hell the ghosts in the zone know this. But what most people don’t know is that the bullying doubles as like, a secret protective service for one Daniel Fenton.

Daniel, who grew up in a small town and knows his classmates intimately because they have all grown up together. Danny, who despite the sometimes harsh treatment, never says no when someone asks him for help with math or science. Who has more than once taken apart and repaired someone’s phone at the cafeteria table. Who helped secretly distribute small ecto weapons that he put together in his room for his classmates because they deserved to feel safe and be able to protect themselves.

Danny is a good dude, and Vlad gives everyone the ick. Despite Amity being a small town, there is a significant number of incredibly wealthy people who live there. The Mansons and Paulina’s family being ones of notice. So like, they know wealthy people are kinda Essentric , but not Vlad essentric.

Vlad who they regularly hear Danny complain about (wants to kill my dad marry my mom and turn me into the perfect son). Like all the red flags have been waved. Full steam ahead boys, good kid Danny is uncomfortable and possibly in danger and no one fucks with out emotional support tutor/mechanic.

It’s a whole system. Secret tech genius Star creates a tracking app that specifcally tracks Vlad sightings. Everyone in the school has it. You have to be invited to even download it.

Once Dash shoved Danny in a locker conveniently before Vlad walks down the hall because he’s the mayor and doing a surprise inspection of the school.

Paulina forces her dad to pull over when she see’s Danny arguing outside a limo that the mayor is definitely sitting in. It’s pouring rain and Danny clearly wants to be anywhere else. Paulina calls out to him asks if he wants a ride to the nasty burger because they decided to do the homecoming planning there instead because the weather is trash and they’re all hungry. Danny’s not on the committee but he nods and hops in the car with a grateful smile and says if they need his help with anything to let him know. He could probably modify some of his parents tech into harmless laser lights if they wanted something cool.

All and all, there is a system, so when Bruce Wayne shows up in their little city (because wtf?) with a letter, medical records of dna matching (also wtf how did he get Danny’s dna?) and a declaration that he’s Danny’s biological father, they are ready to add another billionaire to the system.

I mean, the first time Danny got cornered by this dude with a “son I just wanna talk,” the kid literally jumped out a second story window to get away.

Paulina and Sam share a look because they recognize a rich boy mask when they see one and it’s suspicious. Star and Tucker do a bit of digging because millionaires with interest in Danny have always been super sus. Danny is panicking because he knew he was adopted but fat fucking chance it’s Bruce Wayne. Not to mention he knows he’s the bat. Clockwork has sent Danny on enough time stream correcting mission caused by the flash family that he sorta figured out all the JL secret identities.

No fucking chance Bruce “I’m Batman” Wayne just happened to discover a long lost biological child. Nu uh. That vigilanti is not getting Danny to no secondary location because the secondary location is probably the GIW’s dissection table.

Meanwhile Bruces kids are fucking howling because somehow this kid is giving actual Batman the fucking run around. Oracle because she’s a tech goddess, knows that this entire high school of teens has a system around protecting Danny from suspicious billionaires, which is weird that this is apparently a normal thing.

These teens are running Bruce ragged. Danny’s walking down the stairs and Bruce is waiting to try to talk to him when one of the drama kids runs up and loops their arm through Danny’s. “Omg, Paul broke his arm yesterday because he got caught in the GIW’s crossfire with a ghost yesterday and he was out lighting manager. I hate to ask this of you, but could you stand in for rehearsal today?” She asks already dragging Danny back into the school.

Bruce talks to Danny’s parents and is waiting for him at home when half the football team comes barging in behind him. “Danny is tutoring us for the test tomorrow and if we don’t pass then we won’t be able to play next weeks big rival game.” And then don’t wait as the drag Danny to the ops center where he usually hosts tutor sessions.

Danny himself just disappears when Batman tries to approach him as phantom or flys into the ozone, like try to follow me up here you dark furry.

The reason Bruce knows about Danny at all is because the GIW branched out and ended up in Gotham where they target Jason Todd/Red Hood and Batman was not gonna let that slide. He originally showed up in amity for investigative reasons but he clocked Danny as a literal bruce Wayne teen look-alike and his suspicions led him to confirm for himself via DNA that yeah Danny was his. Completely by accident he assures, but also why the fuck does this keep happening to him? Are there more secret children in the world?

Anyway, Bruce has no plans to like, remove Danny from his life. His adoptive parents safety  parameters are questionable at best, but it’s clear they love both their kids very much (this is a good Fenton’s au). Mostly he just wanted to get to know him, see if he wanted to visit Gotham every now and then, and let him know that financially if he ever needs anything that Bruce will 100% foot the bill.

Instead he’s spent a month being misdirected by the teenage secret services and avoided by Danny Fenton/Phantom (because Bruce connected the dots the first time he saw Phantom fight let’s be real).

Not to mention Vlad Master’s really really doesn’t like Bruce. Danny Phantom (before he realized Bruce actually knew his identity) gave Bruce the Spector deflector and said never take it off. Ghosts will possess you and you have money they will take.

The shift in perception happened when Bruce clocked Vlad across the face in a solid punch that probably left the mayor concussed. No one knows what was said, but their was murder in Bruce’s eyes and the low growl of his voice was terrifying.

Literally the next day Danny shows up in his hotel room all smiles. “Any Enemy of Vlad’s is a friend to mine and my own.”