Chapter Text
Midoriya was weird.
That was all Phantom could think about as he helped the other heroes make sure that his classmates made it to the hospital. He hadn’t noticed anything before in the classroom, but now it was like a subtle buzz in the air around the green-haired teen.
A buzz that was just as annoying as the one around All Might.
Except, Phantom liked Midoriya more than he liked All Might. More than just being around the same age as him, the kid was the first to willingly speak to him in the classroom. And his habit of mumbling and being a hero fanboy, oddly enough, reminded him a bit of Tucker.
So, yeah, the buzz was bothering him. It didn’t feel like Midoriya was touched by death, yet. So why did he feel so weird now?
Phantom had plenty of time to ponder this, it turned out, considering that all three of his classmates passed out almost before they were in their hospital cots.
“Danny?” The familiar voice came through his earbuds. “Status?”
Phantom snorted, looking up to make eye contact with a security camera in the corner.
“I know I can see you,” Nezu’s voice sounded both annoyed and heavily amused. “Status.”
Phantom sighed through his nose, leaning back where he sat cross-legged in mid air. “Tired, but I wasn’t doing anything too strenuous so I’ll be fine. Any scrapes I got were minor and already healed.”
“Any chance you’re going to go back out to help with clean up?” Nezu probed, clearly trying to get a better handle on Phantom’s mental state now that his physical state was confirmed to be alright. Phantom shook his head.
“They’re asleep,” he said unnecessarily, waving his hand at Todoroki, Midoriya, and Class President. “I’m taking watch.”
Nezu was silent over the earpiece for a moment. Probably observing through the security cameras and keeping updated with the situation outside, if Phantom had to guess.
“You’ve adopted them, then?” Nezu’s voice was deliberately light and casual, as if what he said was as common as ordering fast food. Tellingly, Phantom twitched a little and didn’t immediately respond.
Instead, he just kept staring at the three other teenagers. All roughed up, bandaged, with age to their faces that shouldn’t have been there yet. Being caught up with the most likely reason Class President had gone after the Hero Killer in the first place, he found it hard to think badly about any of their actions. Sure, Class President lost his real name privileges until he proved he had his head back on straight, but the guy also had no way knowing what Phantom referred to him as in his own head. So.
And then Todoroki and Midoriya had just shown up to save their friend. That seemed pretty normal to him. Slowly coming to terms with his thoughts and instincts, he let his head tilt to the side.
“Maybe,” he admitted. “It’s only been a few days, and I only spent that half of the school day with them before now so it’s too early to really tell. But I might be. And I definitely won’t let them go unguarded tonight, so don’t wait up for me. I’ll stay here.”
Ghost obsessions weren’t a straightforward thing. Contrary to popular belief, they could change overtime if the ghost’s personality changed enough to necessitate a new Obsession. It just wasn’t common, with how stagnant most of the souls in the afterlife were. And they weren’t, strictly speaking, a medical necessity. It was more akin to an instinct— Danny could resist it without getting sick, but it would feel weird. Like a stinging itch in his core. He imagined it to be like what a bird must feel if they weren’t allowed to take their normal migratory route for some reason.
Lost yet confined at the same time. Stifled. Too still. The urge to move a nearly unbearable tickle under the skin.
The problem came, unfortunately for him, from his age. The younger a ghost was, the more power their Obsession had over their impulses. Considering that most new ghosts relied on their Obsessions to help them keep their sense of self and stop from passing on, it made sense. If a new ghost had other things to keep their sense of self together, then their Obsession was just an urge. Except, Danny couldn’t pass on. He was still half-alive, he was anchored to life whether he liked it or not (and he really did appreciate that). Now, all his Obsession was doing was highlighting the need for him to practice control.
It wasn’t like his Obsession was very specific either. What Nezu had likely already guessed from the description Danny had given him in private was that Danny didn’t have to save humans at all. He wasn’t compelled to help or protect humans.
He was just compelled to protect.
In a pinch, protecting something inanimate might work but it would be a very weak gratification unless it was a very important object. But animals were perfect, hence why Phantom had spent so much time making sure that dog from earlier was safely tied in front of a hero agency. If he really wanted, Phantom could probably completely satisfy his Obsession just by volunteering at an animal shelter or helping relocate wild animals or something. Even just being security at a museum might work, provided he cared enough about the stuff inside. Maybe a space museum, or an observatory? Point was, he had legitimate options other than saving humans as a hero.
But he made the conscious choice to still help protect humans. Because Nezu gave them a chance, and Danny was still half human himself. And his class wasn’t too bad, for all that he barely knew them.
He didn’t want his parents to take anything else away from him. Even if it was his faith in other humans like them.
But, as he explained with Nezu, his Obsession would inevitably be stronger if he adopted anyone as ‘his problem,’ or essentially his to protect. They didn’t even have to qualify as family for him to consider them under his protection. And these three…
Well, they just got a head start there. The effort they put into helping one another, once Danny had gotten the full story out of them and their training heroes (minus the flaming buttwipe), he had felt his respect for them sharply rise. He wanted to preserve that, those feelings and those types of people.
The ones who would worry about the consequences only after the ones they cared about were safe. The ones that Danny wished he had known sooner.
—*—*—*—*—*
“The phonies that have overrun society and the criminals who so aimlessly sprinkle around their ‘power’, those are the targets of my purge! All of this is for the sake of a just world!”
Phantom grit his jaw as he watched the video play out on his phone. How he hadn’t noticed the guy ranting and raving behind him while the heroes had tied him up he could only assume was due to his attention being more on making sure Midoriya was okay. But someone had gotten a video of his speech and leaked it all across the internet.
Apparently the fact that the guy was shouting all that while being handcuffed didn’t stop his words from resonating.
“It’s good you jumped in when you did,” Nezu chimed in over his earphones. The sun was already coming up, but Nezu had only taken small naps here and there through the night so that he could monitor the situation as closely as possible. “If he had successfully stopped the Nomu and freed Midoriya, or held him hostage, before Endeavor got there? He would have far more support than he does now.”
Phantom hummed lowly in agreement, not liking how much support the villain was getting anyway. He scrolled through comments on various postings of the video, and at least half of them were expressing some sort of agreement.
It gave him a bad feeling in his gut.
Of course, Nezu did have a plan for this. He seemed to have a plan for everything, now that Danny thought about it. But the plan couldn’t—wouldn’t— go into action with approval.
Slowly, Phantom’s three charges woke up. They were quiet at first, accepting breakfast from doctors and absorbing the previous night. Then, they all moved to sit in more comfortable positions on their beds.
“Now that I can reflect more calmly…” Midoriya started, drawing everyone else’s attention. “That was pretty impressive.”
“Yeah,” Todoroki agreed solemnly.
“I’ve come to think…” Midoriya continued, gazing down at his bedsheets. “That it’s a miracle we’re still alive. I mean, looking at me leg,” he gestured to the heavily bandaged limb. “I think if he wanted to kill me, he probably could have.”
Hmmm.
Todoroki nodded, looking at his own bandaged arm. “Yep. No doubt about it; he let us live.”
Bzzzzz.
Todoroki probably would have said more, but what had at first seemed to be the hum of medical equipment slowly grew into a static buzz that drew their attention… upwards?
There, in the corner near the ceiling where none of them had been looking, was Phantom. Still in his hero costume, no less! Except…
The edges of his form were growing fuzzy like TV static, and his green eyes were blazing with a green glow bright enough to cast his entire face in lime-colored relief. The buzzing was coming from him as he listened to them, what looked like shadowy tendrils starting to writhe around him in angry whips and whispers.
All three of them flinched.
“How long have you been there?!” Midoriya cried, seemingly the only one out of the three of them capable of speech. At the realization that he was being addressed, Phantom blinked and seemed to notice what was happening.
The glow in his eyes instantly dimmed, and the shadows retreated. The buzzing cut out suddenly, almost leaving the room feeling too quiet as Phantom drifted down to sit in a hospital chair.
All three of them noticed how it took him visible effort to remain seated, like gravity was more of a setting that he had to turn on than a force of nature.
“Sorry,” he apologized instantly, rubbing the back of his head. “I didn’t realize how close of a call it was for you guys, I let myself get a bit… upset,” once again his cheeks lit up with that glow-in-the-dark blush as he refused to meet any of their eyes. “And uh, I’ve been here all night. It’s probably silly, I know the hospital is safe and tons of heroes and civilians are recovering here, so there’s even more police and other heroes milling about to keep the peace. But it didn’t feel right to leave you guys without a guard, after what happened,” he coughed into his fist, still embarrassed. “I have been told that I’m overprotective at times.”
All three of the other heroes-in-training stared at him for a long, awkwardly silent moment. They were warring between being awed, touched, and a little confused and uncomfortable at the strong display of emotion that he was showing towards people who barely knew him. But in the end, they each decided to just stick with being appreciative.
“That’s extremely kind of you,” Class President said softly, his voice holding a weight in it that compelled Phantom to finally look up and meet his eyes. “Thank you.”
The blush got worse, and immediately Danny flickered into invisibility.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, the other boys just snorting for smiling at the empty-seeming air where his voice was coming from. It was suspiciously high-pitched and crackly.
Before any of them could tease Phantom for being unable to handle genuine gratitude, the door burst open.
“Ooh, so the hurt locker’s all already awake!” A grizzled voice called out energetically. Not wanting to startle any pros, Phantom slowly faded back into sight.
The grizzled voice belonged to the small yellow hero, Phantom noticed, who Midoriya called Gran Torino. Another much less memorable hero came in behind him, who Class President referred to as Manual.
The grumpy old guy in yellow stepped over towards Midoriya, who Phantom supposed was his trainee for this week of internships.
“Unbelievable,” he grumbled to the green haired boy. “I was to grumble my heart out but… well…” he trailed off, causing Midoriya to prompt him curiously;
“Uh, sir..?”
Gran Torino sighed and continued; “before that, you have a visitor.” All three of the injured teens started to stand as someone else came into the room, who Gran Torino introduced as: “The chief of the Hosu Police Precinct, Mister Tsuragamae Kenji.”
Phantom was the only one who didn’t exclaim at that, the other three clearly recognizing the name while he just stared blankly. He did crack a smile when the dog-headed chief of police made a dog pun, though.
“So, you’re the ones who stopped the Hero Killer,” chief Tsuragamae mused, clasping his hands in front of himself. “You’re UA kids, all right!” He flashed a brief smile, flashing his canine teeth for a second before sobering. “And actually, regarding the hero killer. He sustained several burns, bone fractures, and other serious injuries, and is currently undergoing treatment for them.”
Phantom couldn’t help but give a grim little smirk at that, careful to wipe it away before anyone saw (Nezu was still watching. Nezu noticed). He couldn’t feel sorry for the guy, and he couldn’t help but think that that list of injuries was well earned by the villain. He wouldn’t have minded if there were even a few more on that list, really.
Tsuragamae was clearly using those injuries as a lead up to his lecture on the responsibility of heroes, though. Talking about how heroes had licenses to use their quirks, quirks that could easily do massive damage, and they therefore had an immense responsibility to follow the law and morality. To break the rules was to risk the system crumbling.
“Even if the opponent is the hero killer himself,” the chief was saying, “this is nevertheless a top caliber violation of the rules. You three pups, and the pro heroes— that is to say, Endeavor, Manual, Gran Torino— you six must all be handed down an adequately impartial punishment.”
And maybe Phantom would have protested like Todoroki did, shooting up from bed to shout;
“So are you saying we should have followed the rules and let everyone die?!”
As a matter of fact, those likely would have been the exact same words Danny would have used. But he didn’t get up, he didn’t yell and protest with the others, because Nezu had pre-warned him of this. He knew what was coming.
And he wasn’t exactly eager for when the three calmed down and noticed that he wasn’t included in the chief’s speech.
“Wait,” Phantom tuned back in as Gran Torino held out his hand to stop the angry teen. “Listen to the rest of what he has to say.”
The chief cleared his throat. “That was my opinion as police. As for the rest of what I have to say… well, at the end of the day, punishment or what have you is only meted upon official disclosure.”
Phantom watched as what the chief was saying sunk into his classmate’s heads. He waited, listening as the speech went on until the part he was dreading came up.
“We have three options,” he held up three fingers. “One: a public announcement would invite the praise and admiration of the people for you, but would also necessitate punishment,” he put a finger down. “Two: we could refuse to go public with this affair, and let it be assumed by the Hero Killer’s burns that Endeavor was the man who took him down, and back up that version of events. Or three,” he put one more finger down. “We release only part of the incident, showing your classmate Phantom rescuing his classmate who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and working with Endeavor to put an end to the situation.”
Huh?
Sure enough, Phantom was now faced with three very confused faces. He winced and scratched his cheek.
“Phantom had my express permission to assist in Rescue,” a very familiar voice spoke up, none other than Principal Nezu stepping out from behind the Chief’s leg. “That permission was already documented, and the police has record of the entire night’s supervised patrol training that I was conducting with him as his temporary hero trainer. Even though it was last minute, his quirk use actually did go through the proper channels, and despite being a bit heavy handed during the rescue of Mister Midoriya,” Nezu shot a brief, scolding look at Phantom, who melted into a suspiciously liquid-looking version of himself on the floor. Nezu was unaffected. “He did technically stick to evacuating civilians only, as he was instructed. The video will back that up, as well as the footage and audio from the body camera that Phantom was wearing the whole night.”
As if to punctuate his point, the little badge that Nezu had carefully pinned to Phantom’s chest before patrol floated to the center of the hero-puddle. It was green and white, in the shape of the UA symbol indicative of their school. And in the center of the A was the barely-visible lens of a camera.
“The point of the third option isn’t just so your friend can grab the spotlight either,” Gran Torino suddenly chimed in, expression grave. “Despite being soundly defeated, the Hero Killer Stain has far more charisma than we anticipated. His words have been echoing across Japan, and it will doubtless cause people to flock to his cause. We’ll likely see a sharp uptick in criminal activity, protests, and the league of villains will likely have a lot more candidates showing up to apply for membership.
Midoriya grit his teeth, and Class President clenched his fists as much as he could at the reminder of their enemies from the USJ incident.
“Phantom’s rescue of you, Midoriya,” the Chief continued for Gran Torino, “Carries its own charisma. He batted away the Hero Killer like a fly, publicly cooperated with a hero to stop the Nomu, and got you out of harm’s way. It does run the risk of drawing more attention to you, there will still be some criticism, and you will have to contend with the whole world seeing you being saved. It may cause issues at school for the three of you socially.”
“I vote for option three,” Todoroki said without hesitation, raising his hand. “The idea of Endeavor having to share the spotlight with a trainee hero is obviously the best option.”
“You mean, taking power away from a charismatic villain is obviously the most logical path!” Class President both agreed and argued, his bandaged arms trying to flail in his usual robotic movements. “I also vote for option three!”
Midoriya was the only one who dint answer right away, instead turning to the ghostly puddle on the ground.
“Danny?” He asked, frowning. “Are you okay with being on the news like that?”
The puddle went still for a second, before slowly it rose up and formed the familiar humanoid shape of Phantom. He stared at Midoriya with wide eyes, as if shocked that he was even addressed.
They both missed the proud look that Nezu shot them.
“Me?” He pointed at himself, and Midoriya nodded insistently.
“I know we don’t know each other well, but so far you seem to get embarrassed pretty easily and prefer to avoid attention,” he gestured to the ground to reference the fact that Phantom had literally melted just to avoid a half-hearted scolding not even two minutes earlier. “I won’t vote for option three if it puts you too far out of your comfort zone.”
Phantom wanted to melt again, but for better reasons this time as a lopsided smile was startled out of him at Midoriya’s words.
It suddenly struck all three of his classmates that this— this goofy, insecure half-smile— was actually the first expression of Danny’s that they could tell was absolutely genuine. Not the laughter from that prank in class, not the overly relaxed lounging in his seat, but this. This awkward appreciation, as if he wasn’t sure he deserved it.
“Thanks, Midoriya. But I already gave Nezu and everyone else the okay for it,” he assured them, this time meeting all of their eyes carefully. “I just didn’t want to make any decisions on my own, it’s not my place. You guys had more at stake in this whole mess, I wanted you to hear all the options and make the choice on your own.”
Midoriya held Phantom’s gaze for a moment longer, as if trying to read his mind to make sure he was telling the truth. Slowly, he nodded and turned back to the Chief.
“I vote for option three.”
—*—*—*—*—*