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The moment Tony started poking his nose around Vlad’s business, Danny’s fate for a crappy day was sealed.
Not that Tony had had the decency to mention that he was investigating Vlad to Danny. Of course not. That would have been the smart thing to do. Instead the man had started his own little private investigation against the one halfa in the universe who’s only hobbies involved spying and being a Grade A fruit loop.
It was a Saturday, bright and sunny, and Danny was going to go through a series of tests designed by the Avengers so that they could quantify and categorize his abilities. When Sam and Tucker had heard about their efforts, they’d joined in, sharing incomplete or outdated lists they’d created during the past four years so that Danny’s abilities could finally be listed out.
Danny didn’t mind really, honestly he was just as curious as they were. He knew he’d grown in power since becoming king, but because of his various royal decrees ensured that ghosts left earth alone, he hadn’t really had any chances to test out his new limits.
It was also nice to be able to chat with Helen about his body and get advice on how to keep himself healthy. She’d taken the news of his ghost half relatively well. In that she’d nearly fainted and had gotten Thor carry her over to a couch to lay down. Still once she recovered, she’d taken samples of his ghost form and then promised to come up with a health plan for him. So now that that was in the works, Danny was going to have the chance to really see what he could do.
He just didn’t expect that chance to come in the form of an enraged Vlad.
Thankfully they were in a larger SHIELD training center just outside of New York City proper. A large, mostly empty, space, that had been vacated for Avengers use months ago. They’d been standing around, working out the final details of Danny’s tests when Plasmius had flown through a wall and fired a powerful ectoblast right at the back of Danny’s head.
Danny, who hadn’t even been in ghost form at that point, was sent flying while the Avengers shouted in shock and prepared for a fight. Thor and Steve both tried to catch Danny, but Danny merely let the transformation pass over him mid air and flipped around, ignoring the now burning wound on the back of his skull. Danny floated in the air, fists glowing green.
“Seriously Plasmius? What the fuck?”
“I warned you Daniel. I told you what would happen before you even came here, if you broke our deal,” Vlad growled, firing another barrage of ectoblasts at Danny, who immediately brought up a green shield to block them.
Below he could hear his two friends urging the Avengers to get out of the way, they didn’t have ghost fighting equipment yet and Plasmius would kill them if they got involved. His friends knew to wait for the right moment to attack Vlad, usually when he was distracted and not looking at them.
“I didn’t do anything!” Danny denied hotly.
“Then why exactly, do I have Stark trying to hack into my systems?”
“I don’t know what Tony does for fun!”
That was not, as it turns out, the right response.
Vlad attacked brutally, refusing to hold back a single iota. Danny found himself immediately on the defensive, pulling at all the powers at his disposal to keep the elder halfa at bay. Danny could just barely hear Loki carelessly speaking. The god sounded like he was calling out a tennis match rather than watching Danny fight for his half-life.
Danny fired ectoblasts at Plasmius.
“Energy blasts!” Loki yelled.
Danny morphed the shape of his ghost form to dodge a brutal attack.
“Form manipulation!”
Danny fired ice blasts to counteract Vlad’s more fire based attacks.
“Cyrokinesis!”
Danny turned invisible and intangible in turn to keep out of Vlad’s grasp.
“Invisibility! Intangibility! Come on Banner, keep up with writing that list of his abilities. This is what we all wanted right?”
“He’s getting the shit beaten out of him.”
“It’s at least what I wanted.”
On and on it went. Vlad refused to let up, he refused to even banter with Danny like they used to. Danny tried to duplicate himself to try and gain an upper hand, Vlad only did the same, but better, and destroyed his clones. The walls of the gym they were in were filled with huge holes and burns from the all out brawl. Eventually Danny found himself being thrown through three different walls by Vlad and growled. He ended up lying beneath a bunch of concrete and debris, injured and angry.
“Fine.” Danny said pushing himself up out of the rubble. “That’s how you want to play it Vlad?”
He stood up, took a deep breath, and tried to shake off his injuries. He was pretty sure the burn on the back of his head was worse, his left hand was broken along with half a dozen ribs. He felt bruised and broken yes, but more than that he felt furious.
Danny didn’t notice as the crown of fire appeared on top of his head in a plume of flames. He didn’t feel the ring of rage take its now rightful place on his right hand. The power from the kingly objects flooded into his veins, a ghostly poison millennia old. Reaching his heart and mind and filling it with a dark viscous promise of victory through desolation. His eyes began to glow with green fire and even his snow-white hair began to look more like a torch of flame as he stalked towards Vlad through the rubble.
Vlad was menacing himself towards the Avengers, and therefore didn’t notice Danny’s stalk. The Avengers and his friends did however, and even Sam and Tucker balked at the vengeful figure he made.
“Danny?” Sam asked.
“Oh Daniel,” Vlad said, not turning around to look at him. “Don’t keep getting up boy, I’ll only hurt you more.”
“V̵̩͖̲̐̌̂̆͠l̵̗͆̎͛̀͋̓a̷̰̹̹͎̐͆̍͠d̵̻͚͚̤͘.” Danny’s voice was thousands of undead mixed together, speaking through him, echoing and haunting. It grated and cut through everyone there, slapping harshly against the concrete walls of the gym and reverberating out in the never-ending cycle of a haunted melody. His voice was amplified by the poison of the crown of fire and the ring of rage, it took his ghostly wail and made it a terrifying cacophony, something that was a curse, a threat, to whomever heard it.
And that made the halfa before him freeze up for a moment. Slowly Plasmius turned to see the King of the Dead standing before him, angry and vengeful all in one. Immediately he lifted up both hands, as if to stave off destruction.
“Daniel…”
“K̷̨̲̗̫̤̐͑͑ͅn̶̢̫̼̋̎̅̽͗̚͝e̷̢̖̠̹̦͛͘͜e̴͎͗͊l̵͓͕̲̟̣͕͗.”
“Little Badger I think you might want to calm down.”
“Ḭ̴̭̤̖̹͍͈̦̙̪̱̥̲͙̃̋̊͆̃͗̄ ̴̦̥̹̞̟̬̝͎̪͛̌s̸̡͇͚̈́̒ă̸̬̫̦̆͒̀̉̂̎̚͘͘͜i̸̧̡̬̞̖͓͙͚̣̾̀̔͆̇̏͘d̷̙͖̞̣̯̉ ̵̛̘͕̻̦͈̣͎̥̩͓̞̙̦̯͖̀̿̄̉K̸͍̾̂͐̿͊̓͑̃͆̔̕̕N̶̢̛̳̙̲͒̇̈́̃̔̄͒͆͋̚̚͝E̵̤̘͛͆̾̇̇̏͋̕͝E̵͕͇̞͉͚̻̖̪̩̞͍̬̓̽ͅL̷̢̢͇̰̩̺̹̺̦̳̉̽̅̌̅͑̓͑̿̇͘͜ͅ!”
And Vlad fell to his knees right in front of Danny. All of the Avengers cringed away from the whole display. Even Steve, ever reckless and brave, was pushing his team back behind him as if he could guard them from what Danny had suddenly become.
Only Sam and Tucker stood firm. They didn’t flinch even as Danny transformed more and more into the sort of monster fit for fairy tales and horror films. They had seen Pariah Dark, they had seen Dan. They had looked those things in the face and they hadn’t faltered.
Danny lifted a hand, ready to deliver a blow to Plasmius’ form, something so devastating as to blast Vlad from existence, leaving behind nothing but a smudge of ash on the ground. The power gathered in his hand, bright and menacing.
“Danny!” Sam yelled.
“Danny, dude, you have to stop!” Tucker said at the same time.
Danny paused at the sound of their voices.
And one pause was all it took.
A beat.
A blink.
A breath.
Danny reached up and threw the crown off his head, flinging the ring off with it. The two magical objects landed on the destroyed floor with a clatter, the fire on the crown sputtering out. Immediately Danny looked like he always did as a ghost, a normal almost comforting appearance to what it had been before.
“Get out Plasmius,” Danny said, his voice his own again. “Get out and don’t come near me again.”
Vlad looked up, his blood red eyes still wide and frightened.
“Daniel.”
“Go,” He said, before looking over at the Avengers. “We’ll deal with this later.”
And then he was gone, leaving nothing but silence in his wake. Danny stood there, still bleeding green ectoplasm from his body, and looked at the Avengers for a moment. He hoped he just hadn’t ruined everything he had just started to build with them. He swallowed back the swirl of emotion in his gut.
“So,” He said. “Guess you got a demonstration of my powers huh?”
The tension popped like a bubble.
“Jeez kid. What was that?” Tony demanded.
“Never mind that,” Steve said. “We need to get you to med bay now.”
“But.” Danny started.
“No buts. Debrief happens after medical care, always.”
“Steve’s right.” Bruce said. “Come on Danny let us help you.”
“No it’s not- You’re not…I dunno scared?”
“Danny, we live with the Hulk full time,” Clint told him. “It’s fine.”
“Oh.” Danny said blinking a few times, a bit stupidly. “Oh.”
And with that Danny let himself be led to the med bay in the training facility.