(thank you to the wonderful @nerdpoe for betaing this :D)
Their first meeting was when Danny was 12.
Clark was assigned to interview the owners of Tasty Burger (Dubbed Nasty Burger because of a vandalism attempt by some high schoolers where the name stuck.) about their new and booming restaurant chain that’s rapidly spreading over the midwest. The original store was still run by the original franchise owners in Amity Park.
Clark was shocked to initially see a small local festival called Jack-O-Melons which was a halloween in summer celebration that has proudly been held yearly in Amity since the 80s. The festival was the perfect opportunity to both interview some locals about the new fast food chain and enjoy the festivals activities.
Midway through looking around the booths and asking the willing Amity Parker some questions, he spotted a scrawny twelve year old with a shiner dressed up as a skeleton to hide the bruise with black and white face paint. Immediately worried for the kid he went straight into investigative reporter mode to make sure this kid was in an alright living situation. The boy, who introduced himself as Danny Fenton, happily talked about how Nasty Burger was The Spot to hang out for teens and their food had a near addictive quality, “It’s their sauce man, there’s something in it that makes you want to come back.”
It was nothing special. Clark interviewed the kid, overheard some kids snark about “Loser Fenton getting interviewed, like his opinion has any say in anything.” and deduced that the kid was being bullied. He wrote down Danny’s interview, sent an anonymous letter to the school about Danny being bullied and to take action, gave the kid his work email so he could send the kid a free version of the article he’ll publish with Danny’s quotes, bought the kid an ice cream from one of the nearby fair venders, and went on his way.
A few weeks after sending the free articles to the interviewees of Amity Park, Wayne Enterprises bought the Daily Planet. Clark definitely in no way was pissed off by this particular event. Multiple changes in the company were made, including switching from his current email to a Wayne Enterprises owned email company.
The next few weeks were a hurricane of new policies and new SOP’s to memorize and enforce. With so much happening in Clark’s life, the meeting with the skeleton costumed kid with the shiner was forgotten.
Three years after that interview, Clark is assigned a piece on a supposedly haunted town in Illinois and to either confirm or debunk it.
He interviews a few locals, all signs so far lead to there being a true paranormal situation going on but these creatures aren’t exactly like the usual ghost sightings. Current guess is that they're aliens.
He spots that kid he interviewed all those years ago, now a bit taller, even more gangly, and with an equally as impressive shiner as before.
As he interviews Danny for the second time, he notices a few things; the childish joy in his eyes is gone. The glassy look of his eyes is similar to the citizens of Metropolis who’ve had their lives upended by supervillain attacks. He was skinny. Too skinny. After a small joke about growth spurts and being that gangly when Clark was Danny’s age, the boy made a comment about food coming alive? What on earth?
Clark tried to sprinkle lighthearted jokes into the interview, like how the last time he interviewed Danny he was dressed as a skeleton and now is here to interview folks about ghosts. What a coincidence meeting Danny twice and both partly related to different types of supernatural beings. Must be fate right? Haha.
Danny’s responding laugh is hollow and devoid of humor.
The interview was very informative. Danny tells Clark about the portal in his parent’s basement. He shows Clark the destroyed buildings of recent ghost attacks, he also shows one of the machines that activates the ghost shield around the entire town. Nothing has happened to necessitate the shields but his parents lobbied heavily with the town council to get them approved and installed everywhere.
Clark got more and more concerned as the interview went on. Danny appeared shocked that Clark cared about the ghost attacks. The kid’s brow continuing to furrow and his heartrate jump with each worried look Clark gave Danny as the boy mentioned incredibly distressing things that have happened since the portal opening. When asked if he was ok during the attacks, Danny offhandedly waved off the question, saying that his school gets attacked daily and everyone usually turns out fine by the end of the week. As if that wasn’t enough, the kid casually mentioned that an organization called the GIW raids his school every so often. Danny was busy looking into the distance pointing out destroyed buildings to notice Clark writing down the acronym on his notepad to research later. There’s no way in any world that that statement should be normal for a child to say. It was even more concerning that Danny acted like an adult figure not acting like ghost attacks were fine was unorthodox behavior.
Clark wanted to scream. This kid was 14 and he’s wandering over rubble of destroyed buildings mentioning that, after reading a few internet forums written by people who lived in active war zones and his own experience, he knows what makes the best cover and how to hide. For Rao’s sake, the kid grabbed a broken white and green gun from the rubble, showed Clark the best ways to hold the defunct weapon as a bludgeoning device to defend yourself from ghosts. With every sentence out of Danny’s mouth his heart broke a bit more for this boy whose childhood was destroyed by this ghost portal. (Said portal quickly scrapped Clark’s initial hypothesis of aliens to them being extradimensional beings.)
At the end of the interview Clark asked if he could give the kid a hug, he really looked like he needed it. Danny was confused but accepted, Clark knew that he probably looked more sad as the interview went on and the kid tried to rationalize that Clark needed the hug more than him. The way Danny melted into his arms made his heart shatter. When was the last time this kid was hugged?
A week or so after Clark’s interview with Amity Park, he went to check into his email to see if Lois responded to his request to investigate the GIW, which he since discovered is a government organization that blatantly violates multiple meta protection acts. Accidentally clicking on his old email, it opens to hundreds of emails that should have been forwarded to his new email but never did. Danny had used his email as a weekly diary after first being sent the automatic “this email is no longer being used” reply.
Instantly Clark was on alert and excited, thinking this might be a primary source of the first ghost attacks. Said enthusiasm quickly died down when he realized that that the last email was before the first recounted sighting of any ghosts in Amity.
Scrolling through the emails it appeared they weren’t really anything too special. It was mainly weekly school drama, the new bullying tactics used on Danny (he notes to himself to write another letter to the school), things that happened during the kid’s week, and small reports that his parent’s research was going well, never specifically mentioning that what his parents did was related to ghosts.
The second to last email was also nothing new. More school gossip, Danny being excited that his friends were going to hang out at his house, and ranting about the homework given to him by Mr. Lancer.
The last email however made his blood go cold.
It was short, containing only a single sentence; “I think I died, I don’t know what to do.”
After a quick dip into the JL’s not so legal access to hospital records, he found that Danny was electrocuted a day before the last email. He was brought to the hospital to which they miraculously reported that Danny was not affected by the electrocution and was released from the hospital the next day.
Mentally filing away that Danny might be a meta because of the unique situation of him shaking off an electrocution and his last email. He promises to help Danny right after he finishes this article.
The article spirals into 3 weeks of investigation that made Clark put Danny to the sidelines. The GIW have done some severely fucked up things and have rose from a reporter level issue to a Justice League level issue. During the whirlwind of investigation and plan of attack to dismantle the GIW, Danny was once again forgotten.
It took two years to dismantle the GIW and get permission from the US government to track down and dismantle GIW bases after they were considered a terrorist organization after a large amount of the GIW staff continued to work on eradicating and experimenting on ghosts, completely brainwashed by the false information that was shoved down their throat for the last 4 years. Clark wished it could have been done quicker but getting enough public outcry and legislation to dismantle an entire government branch takes time.
On their fifth raid of a GIW base, the Justice League is prepared for the horrors within their facilities. Prepared may they be, but the brutal treatment of the ghosts make even the most seasoned hero’s stomach churn.
Superman stared in grim determination while opening the locks holding ghosts in their cages with his heat vision, calling out to any ghosts that may still exist to make sure he found all captives when he hears his own voice reply. It wasn’t exactly his voice, the pitch was off, fluctuating between his voice and a woman’s, the undertoning tiger growl pitch during the ghost’s speech making his fight or flight kick in ever so slightly.
“I’m over here. Please… I’m here.”
Superman freezes for a moment before flying over just below the speed of sound and ripping the bars off of the ghost’s cell.
The ghost was a child. Somewhere in their teens, flowing white hair smeared with their own blood, his green skin shining so so dimly.
The poor kid’s throat was shredded, muscles and sinew mangled. The ghostly kid swallows, showing the inside of his esophagus contract as he makes what would have been a scream as he accidentally jostles his dislocated shoulder, the one working eye blinking like he isn’t sure what he’s seeing, the other a shiner, the eye bruised closed.
Superman is moving, not even noticing as he picks up the injured ghost and flies him to the outside of the facility, gently whispering to the ghost that everything is ok and that they’re here to help, dropping him off to the medical crew ready and waiting to treat the injured ghosts within, all of it is a blur. Something in the back of his mind poking at him, this kid seems familiar, this ghost is familiar and he can’t quite place how.
But there’s something else, something he doesn’t register until he’s grabbed the next injured ghost and brought them to the medical team. That teen ghost, the one with the shiner and Not Right mimicry, he has a heartbeat. It’s very faint and he barely even noticed it with all of the other things he’s focusing on, but the ghost has a heartbeat. He spares a few seconds to x-ray the ghost kid who is moments from being sent through a zeta beam to the Watchtower to be sent to medical, the kid has organs, and in the right places for a human too. Out of all of the hundreds of ghosts he’s rescued, none of them have anything besides a single floating core inside of them.
He doesn’t know how but this kid isn’t a full ghost.
Danny’s vision is blurry as the people in black (After the first fiasco with the medical team wearing white coats, they since have changed their outfits to all black during GIW recoveries.) rush him through a makeshift looking teleportation stand.
He doesn’t know what’s really going on, if he’s still alive, if this isn’t another dream or hallucination. All he knows is that when Superman lifted Danny into his arms he would have gasped if his vocal cords still existed. He hasn’t felt that gentle of a touch since that reporter hugged him.
