Hello!

This is a short oneshot I was inspired to write while thinking about Danny confessing to his parents about his ghost half. Enjoy!

I do not own Danny Phantom. Must I even say that anymore?

With her gun trained at his head and ready to fire, Maddie licked her lips in excitement. Finally, they could capture Phantom and study him. They would finally understand the real Phantom, his gears and works.

With her finger slowly adding pressure to the trigger of her net-shooter, she whispered a final, "Gotcha," before pulling the trigger and watching her net shoot out at the floating boy in record speed.

Phantom didn't see it coming. The net extended out like a web. By the time he felt the ropes begin to wrap around his body, it was too late. With a muffled cry he fell downwards, his powers drained as a result of the ecto-powered netting. He hit the ground with a thud, hissing as his shoulder took the full force of the fall. Disoriented and tangled in a mess of glowing blue netting, Phantom looked up at the approaching blue and black clad figure.

The sense of achievement the Fenton woman felt was enormously uplifting. She walked towards her catch with square shoulders and her chin held high. Maddie swung her gun in a circular motion to where it rested on her shoulder, a hand on her hip accompanied by a grin that spread across her face.

The ghost boy watched his unsuspecting mother grin triumphantly down at him, and dread immediately washed over him.

"Looks like all the trouble you've been causing finally caught up with you, doesn't it Ghost boy?"

"I never caused any trouble!" He retorted, struggling to keep the bindings out of his face. "Not intentionally, anyway. What's it gonna take to prove I'm on your side?"

"Oh please," Maddie scoffed. "You're not fooling anyone, you ectoplasmic scum."

Phantom groaned, continuing to squirm under the strain of the ropes. His face would crinkle in annoyance as a binding got caught between his eyes or under his nose. Fighting a laugh, Maddie pulled a knife from her satchel and leaned down.

The ghost boy looked up in fear, desperately trying to inch away from her knife.

"Relax, Ghost boy." She said, tearing the bindings around his face. "It'll be much easier to interrogate you with these ropes out of the way."

With a final slice, Maddie let the ropes fall and sat back to admire her handiwork. She studied her prey's face, now free of netting.

Yet what she expected to see was entirely different from what lay before her. She thought of a vicious, mischievous, immature ghost when she saw or heard news of Phantom. From afar, with all the damage he'd do during his seemingly territorial battles with other ghosts, he seemed nothing more than a threat to Amity Park. Yet as Maddie looked closer at the Phantom she thought she'd see, she instead found the face of a young boy, wide-eyed and innocent. His skin was a cleaner, healthier shade than most ghosts she'd studied, and his hair was not mangled like the rest of them. His bangs kept swooping down into his eyes, which almost made her reach out and swipe them off his forehead. It was an instinct from something she used to do, something that reminded her so very much of the ghost before her. His eyes, wide and afraid, glowed a vivid emerald, as many in the Ghost Zone Maddie had seen in her lifetime. With this closer look, however, she could make out small specks of blue that seemed vaguely familiar.

While she had been peering closely at the Ghost boy, Phantom was thinking of a way out.

As if a light bulb went off above his head, his expression brightened, and he squirmed a little more under the tightness of the netting.

"Um, hey, lady?" He asked meekly as he struggled to look up at her. She blinked, coming back to earth. "Could you loosen up my hands? I mean, I think I'm losing circulation."

Maddie stared down at him, almost rolling her eyes. "Ghosts don't have circulation." She said.

Phantom inwardly cursed. "Oh, well, could you loosen 'em up anyway? My wrists are seriously in pain right now."

With a sigh and a quick mutter of 'ghosts are such babies' or something along those lines, Maddie got around the teenager's body and cut loose a few binds from the netting.

"Thanks a bunch," Phantom said in a sincere voice, causing Maddie to raise an eyebrow. "Now if you'll excuse me," he grinned, "I have some escaping to do."

With a flash of bright green light, the net tore open, and out flew a smiling Phantom. Maddie gasped and mentally slapped herself at her stupidity, her eyes never leaving Phantom's figure as she reached for her net gun.

"Thanks a bunch," Phantom said with a mock salute, a silly grin on his face. "See you later, Mom- I mean, Maddie!"

As said woman trained her gun at the ghost, she blinked, registering what he'd said right before flashing off into the sky. 'Mom?'

In that moment, Maddie Fenton saw and heard what she saw was her son, in the form of Danny Phantom.

And then it hit her. Danny. Danny Phantom. Danny Fenton. The similarity struck her like a ton of bricks, and she stood there with a blank expression. Suddenly her son's sudden disappearances made sense, and so did his dropping grades, and odd behavior. Suddenly Phantom's strange antics made sense too. Suddenly, the lab accident with the Portal came to mind. Suddenly, she could put two and two together and...

A numb, confused Maddie Fenton dropped her gun as she came to a shocking realization.

Her son was Danny Phantom.

Too dramatic ? Too obvious? Too cliche?

Please let me know by reviewing ! Thank you so much . (:

~12Hues