Work Text:
Panicking for all the wrong reasons
Night had already fallen as Vlad left to get Valerie home. She had stayed for Dinner, but then insisted that she had to go or her father would be worried. It took only a few minutes to get her home, after which Vlad went to his office for paperwork and Danny, surprisingly, went down into the lab. From what Val had told him, his friends were planning an ‘attack’. Since they loved to ‘strike by night’, he settled down in an armchair that he had taken down with him, as well as a blanket, a book and tea.
Alas he sat huddled in the lab drinking tea and reading for good three hours until finally something happened. He first picked up the sound of the specter speeder as it neared the portal, then how it was parked in immediate reach from the portal. He put the book next to the tea on a table and stared at the portal, waiting with baited breath for who he knew would arrive in just a few moments. True to that Sam tiptoed in just a few seconds later followed by Tucker who both were carrying a ridiculous amount of weapons. Seriously, how did they plan to fight while packed like that?
Ironically the over-loaded ghost hunters completely missed him when looking through the lab, an extraordinary feat seeing as he was sitting in a completely out of place armchair with probably the best source of light over his head so he could read without straining his eyes. They had moved to the bottom of the stairs by the time he had stopped staring at them dumbfounded and closed his mouth. Shrugging he pulled the blanket aside and went to them, shaking his head as they still took no notice of him. God how dense can people be?
“You two do know that you won’t be able to fight like this?”
“Shush Danny, be quiet.”
It was overly amusing to watch Sam suddenly freeze and finally notice his presence, Tucker had frozen as soon as he had started speaking and already turned around but Sam had been too focused to realize right away that something was awry.
“Wha- Danny?”
He almost snickered as he answered with an exaggerated shrug.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He really couldn’t help the pun. Tucker answered as Sam was still rebooting. He returned his grin.
“Well, half-ghost.”
Both snigger at that and Danny could feel himself relaxing. When did he even get so tense to begin with? He turns to Sam and the tenseness returns. She seems skeptic, closed off.
“How do we know he’s not a clone, tucker!”
She whisper-shouts at tucker, to which Danny starts to frown. Really? A clone?
“… You do know that I destroyed all of his research last time? And that that didn’t help him anyways? How should he make a functioning clone in that little time – from scratch – if he couldn’t when working months? Sam, you are being an idiot.”
Sam looks at him surprised. That was not a thing Danny would ever say to her, he would always discuss things with her, but calling her an idiot?
Really, it was mainly because Danny had enough rest to do that. Usually he didn’t have the strength to even consider calling her an idiot because of what could come afterwards. So, he sighed at her schemes and tried to ignore her constant annoying demands. No, he is not going to destroy those cars, no he won’t break into that, no he won’t steal this…
But now he actually had the strength to be mad at her stupid demands and constant distrust. It didn’t really help at convincing her that he wasn’t a clone though.
“Hey dude, you okay?”
Tucker had noticed the weird behavior too, but instead worried for him. Really, Danny was thankful for that.
He shook his head.
“I’m fine, just well rested enough to get annoyed at Sam… Usually I’m too tired to do that. Anyways, you two wanna go raid the kitchen? The cook is gone and Vlad is in his study. I have to search for the sweets he hid from me anyways! Last time he taped it onto the ceiling.”
Tuckers eyes lit up in joy at the mention of food, and as much as Sam seemed to wish to disagree, she soon was pulled along. The lights in the kitchen flickered on simultaneously with the light of the fridge that Tucker had thrown open.
“There are leftovers in the upper right corner, now if you’d excuse me, I have to search for sweets.”
Sam was watching his every movement as he flouted through the kitchen, making tea while searching for what turned out to be a jar of cookies hidden in the wall and dumping the contents on a plate before setting it down on the small table to the side together with the tea. Tucker was already done eating, something she hadn’t noticed or she would have surely stopped it.
Danny settled down next to Tucker, who had already taken a cookie before Sam could protest. He gestured to the left-over seat.
“Val told me you would come by so I was waiting, she came by earlier and left like, 3 hours ago I think. Vlad teleported her home.”
Sam stayed where she was. Tucker spoke again.
“wait she came over? But Wisconsin is like, half a day by car away?”
“Yeah, she flew on her Board, so it was a bit faster. She told me she had planned to tell Vlad that she had a problem with her equipment and then search me. She was very surprised when Vlad just let her in.”
Danny thought for a moment and then said.
“I told her that I’m Phantom”
Due shocked silence. Sam stared in disbelieve.
“you did what.”
Honestly, Danny couldn’t help but find it funny, but it was his secret and Sam really had no say in who he told.
“It didn’t matter anyways.” He explained. “If she reacted negatively, I would just have known that we could not have been good friends. She can’t really affect me here, and who would believe her if she told anyone?”
Tucker was the one who shook his head to show his disagreement this time.
“Of course she can affect you when you get back.”
And they were at the heart of the conversation. Danny really didn’t look forward to this.
“Tuck, I’m not coming back. I can’t.”
That triggered Sam.
“So he IS keeping you here. Why the heck aren’t you fighting him?!”
“Sam- “
“What?! You are a hero Danny, you can’t just let him hold you here!”
“Sam.”
“I can’t believe this!”
“SAM!”
These disbelieving silences were getting a bit annoying now. Danny sighed.
“He isn’t holding me here, he is not threatening me, he is not blackmailing me. My parents found out I’m Danny Phantom, and he took me in.”
“Dude.” I was Tucker, “you know you can’t trust him, right?”
Another sigh. Danny looked at them both. Sam still looked like she was going to war any second now. Tucker just looked at him pleadingly.
“I can actually, though only in those futures that have my parents betray me. He is trying to better himself, I know that.”
“So he is brainwashing you!”
God, Danny wanted to explode and scream.
“What do you mean with ‘only in those futures’?”
Danny didn’t know if Tucker knew that he just kinda defused the situation.
“Do you remember Clockwork? The ghost of time?”
From the look he got, they did. He honestly didn’t know how much they knew about the Dan incident, or well how much they remembered.
“I know a bit about alternate universes and futures from him. If you wanna make sure you can ask him.”
Honestly, he was glad that he remembered that fact, since they would have never believed him if he told them that he trusts Vlad because of his actions and behavior. He didn’t know what kind of idiot they thought he was.
It was Tuck who spoke again.
“okay, I believe you. So how will things go now?”
Danny smiled a small smile.
“We are getting me into a school in Wisconsin or getting me a tutor, we aren’t sure yet. About the situation in amity Park, some ghosts won’t show up since I’m not there, but we are still working on a better solution. Until then I will have to leave the ghost hunting to you two and Val, maybe you could work out a patrolling schedule or something like that. I will get a new phone soon, so you can write me if I have to come over help.”
“And the ghosts that come after you?”
Danny noted somewhere in his brain that Sam was kinda pouting.
“Well Wisconsin is under Vlad’s control so that will already stop most.”
Tucker nodded, then looked at the clock.
“Okay, I think we need to get going. We should patrol before going to sleep anyways.”
With that Tuck took Sam’s arm and pulled her to the lab. Of course not without protest. While he listened to their voices getting farther and farther he cleaned up the lab. Sam would hopefully come around, but Danny knew her, and was a bit worried what would happen if she didn’t. well no point in worrying. Tomorrow he would go visit his allies in the ghost zone. Who knew what they had heard about this.
Extra:
While Danny cleaned the kitchen, Vlad walked in. Somehow his expression looked… strange.
“So, you trust me because clockwork said so?”
Danny blinked.
“No.”
Vlad blinked.
“You see, it is true that in most alternations, when something happened with my parents, you helped. That says nothing about this iteration though. I trust you because you earned it…. Sam and tuck wouldn’t have believed that though.”
Vlad actually snorted softly at that.
“so, you have seen other futures?”
Danny shook his head to Vlad’s surprise.
“No, actually there is only one future that I know, one that was the most probable and horrible. It will never come to pass, maybe I will tell you about that someday.”
Danny shrugged nonchalantly, but his eyes turned jaded and old. It told Vlad that there was more to it than it seemed.
“If you ever actually wanna talk about it, I would listen.”
Danny actually flinched and dropped the nonchalant mask. His eyes dropped to the floor and his right hand clenched his left arm. He just looked so much smaller. Now Vlad definitely knew that something was up. Dread coiled in his stomach.
“Yeah I’ll take you up on that someday.”
Danny left. The dread coiled.