Work Text:
Hallway
Valerie was making a late lunch sandwich in the kitchen of the apartment. Danny would jokingly call it “linner”. “Hey, Danny. Do you want me to make you a sandwich?”
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry right now, but I might have one later,” Danny said as he walked in the kitchen doorway with a winning smile, “Anyways, I noticed that we are running low on laundry soap and hand soap so, I thought I would go to the store. Do you want me to grab anything else?”
“Um, maybe some more bread,” She said while waving the practically empty plastic bread bag, “And a new carton of milk.”
“On it,” Danny hugged her goodbye, “I’ll be back in less than an hour. Oh, and while I am gone, maybe you can figure out what movie we’ll watch for Saturday movie night tonight. Any movie is a go.”
“Even Sharknado ?” Valerie asked with a smirk while leaning against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed.
Danny rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean.”
“Too bad, I was looking forward to Sharknado . I believe that sharks and tornados are the perfect combinations.”
“Mmhm. Well, I know that you will find an incredible movie for tonight that is not Sharknado . Bye, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Danny stepped out into the hallway of the apartment building and began to walk to the store. Driving was sometimes just a pain, and since he only had to buy a few things, he decided to walk.
Outside, the sun shone fiercely with 4 pm sunlight on a mild autumn day — a day that warranted a light jacket. The trees were graced with warm hues, and the leaves slowly tumbled down with the breeze. Danny felt as if the day was short-lived, with his only outside destination being the store. Danny placed his hands in his authentic NASA jacket’s pockets as he walked. (The jacket was authentic not because it was authentic merchandise, but because it was an actual NASA jacket for employees. Although Danny did not — and would never meet the requirements to be an astronaut, it did not mean that he couldn’t reach his dreams of NASA. He was proud to say that he was able to get his grades up in college in order to do so).
When Danny neared the crosswalk that was about half of the way to the store, his phone buzzed in his pocket. The sound combined with the whirr of the breeze. Since the walk sign displayed the red hand and the cars still rushed past, Danny pulled his phone out. It turned out that it was a message from Jazz who was asking when it would be a good time to get together that month before Thanksgiving festivities started in the soon coming November (both siblings knew that it could be a crazy time with sentient meals and all). Danny began writing his response, but he never finished.
It turned out what Danny thought was the sound of the breeze was actually an inconspicuous flying machine. When Danny realized it was a trap, it was too late. He was suddenly pulled into the machine’s tight quarters, and he was stuck — the whole situation wreaked of Skulker. The halfa just hoped he would not be stuck in there too long because he had places to go.
It was five o’clock, and Valerie was a bit worried. Danny said that he would be back in less than an hour, but it was already an hour plus a few minutes. There could have been a ghost fight that stopped him from getting home, or maybe a mundane incident left Danny trapped at the store. Either way, Valerie was now in investigator mode.
Valerie tried to call Danny, but his phone went straight to voicemail without ringing. Luckily, Tucker put a system in all their phones that shows the phone’s location at different times. The self-imposed investigator started the application up. However, Danny’s phone did not appear on her screen. Valerie did not try to show panic as she went to the app’s settings, but her fingers’ jerky movements gave her away. When looking at the stored data from the last hour, Valerie noticed that the last ping from Danny’s phone was more than forty-five minutes before at two intersections before the store. And then, the signal suddenly disappeared as if wiped off of the face of the earth. She wished that it meant that his phone just ran out of battery, but Tucker’s system worked whether the phone was on or not (something about the device’s unique code that could be tracked, but Valerie did not have the time or mindset to worry about specifics).
“What happened?” Valerie mumbled to herself, “He can’t disappear off of the face of the earth … Unless …”
A beeping sound suddenly pulled Valerie out of her thoughts. Her ghostly energy detector suddenly had a spike. She quickly opened up the radar's system and isolated the location: a street intersection. The intersection that is two blocks away from the store, in fact. Outrage blinded Valerie. It all made sense now! How dare those ghosts go after Danny! How dare they intervene in my life again!
Without wasting a moment, Valerie enveloped herself in her Red Huntress Suit, opened the window, and summoned her board to fly out. Her detector beeped again. As the city flew past her, she looked down at the screen and saw that there was another large spike at her destination. That only fueled her fury.
There! At the intersection, which was oddly void of cars during traffic hour, was Phantom, who was holding out a Fenton Thermos as if he just caught a fellow ghost in it. Of course, it’s Phantom! Valerie shot a blast that aimed all of her anger at Phantom. With his back turned and not knowing, he did not have time to dodge it.
“Ah!” He exclaimed, surprised. Phantom turned around in the air to face his assailer and frowned when he saw her, “I didn’t take you for someone to shoot in the back, Val, but I guess appearances can be deceiving.”
“Stop with the banter, Ghost. And don’t call me “Val”!” Valerie spat with vile. She didn’t notice the hurt expression that flickered across Phantom’s face.“What did you do with Danny?”
“Danny Fenton? I haven’t even seen him, so how could I do anything?” he said innocently, “If you were here one second earlier, though, you would have seen me apprehend Skulker, who was being a big pain by the way. I did my job, and now I would like to go. Bye, bye.” Phantom waved at her and started to fly off when Valerie, who was not too happy with his tone, shot a lasso-like device at Phantom, which trapped him in place.
“I know you did something! Now tell me what you did!”
“Geez, Red! I already told you. I didn’t do anything. I bet he’ll turn up. Now just let me go.”
“The last place he was was right here, so it means that you have to be involved.” Maybe her logic was a bit faulty, but Valerie was blinded by emotion, so she couldn’t see it.
“I didn’t do anything,” Phantom said, with a lack of flair. Valerie could tell he was getting frustrated with the situation. Good! Valerie thought.
“Oh, you “didn’t do anything”, just like how it wasn’t your fault that the dog ruined my life?!”
“It wasn’t my dog! I was trying to stop him. I keep telling you that, when will you believe me?” Phantom seemed to struggle with his bonds, and a bright light suddenly flashed near where the ecto-rope was. All at once, Phantom was suddenly out of the bonds and began to fly away from her, away from the direction of the store.
“Uh! How⁉” Valerie exclaimed and then began to fly after Phantom on her board in a high-speed aerial chase. “When you escape like that,” She mumbled to herself, “It becomes really hard to believe you.”
Phantom went invisible only seconds into the chase, but that was no match for Valerie’s newest upgrade. New optics were put into her suit that allowed ecto signatures to be seen, so even when invisible, she knew exactly where those darn ghosts were. Hence, when Valerie shot a blast right at Phantom, he was rightly startled. Instead of shooting back at her, though, he picked up his speed.
“Two can play at that game,” Valerie said as she also sped up. Valerie continued to fire blasts, and Phantom continued to dodge and swerve. The fact that the ghost never seemed to fight back didn’t seem to make a connection in Valerie’s distressed mind.
Phantom always seemed to be ahead of Valerie as he could fly through buildings where she had to go around them, but she slowly and surely caught up. But where she caught up was not exactly where she would have liked them to confront each other.
Phantom floated in the hallway of Valerie and Danny’s apartment, where the outdoor stairs led to before entering the actual apartment. He seemed to be uncertain of what to do. See, Valerie and Danny had made a ghost-proof perimeter around their whole house, even on the first floor, which belonged to the sweet landlady Miss. Miller. The only part that didn’t have the barrier was the weak spot in the floor that was less than the size of a refrigerator; no matter how hard they tried, the small area could not be “ghost proofed”. That must have been the way that Phantom entered when he dived underground, Valerie did not know how he knew about the weak spot, and she did not want to know. So, that was why Phantom stood in the hall, knowing that he was stuck and knowing full well that entering the apartment next to the hall would be another stalemate.
Valerie heard Phantom mumble, “I thought I was further ahead,” to himself.
The Red Huntress held in a relieved laugh, “Well, Phantom you’re stuck here now. Care to tell me where Danny is?” She hoisted her ecto-gun up and leveled it at Phantom.
“I haven’t done anything with him, I swear. I could help you find him, though. How about that? I bet you he’s closer than you think.” Phantom said with a genuine smile and stuck his hand out for a prospective truce handshake.
“You only know where he is because you put him there, Ghost. Now, You have one last chance to tell me where he is, or I’ll shoot you with this new upgrade that I have,” Valerie swapped her ecto-gun with another similarly shaped object that, despite its looks, was definitely not an ecto-gun. It whirred to life, “I don't know what it does yet, so this will be a nice trial run.” Valerie had a malevolent glint in her eye. She did not mean to be so cruel, but it was hard not to hold back when Danny’s life was on the line.
Phantom’s face twitched into a glimpse of worry before resuming his typical confident look, “Come on, Red. I promise on my life … death? … Whatever, I promise that I have done nothing . I am on your side. You don’t need to shoot.”
Valerie was used to ghosts lying and manipulating her — this was just another one of those times. She shot.
Phantom had no time to dodge as the blast shot out of the device with speeds rivaling the speed of light. He had an inkling that intangibility would not have worked either.
The light blue blast — that was so bright it almost looked white — slammed into Phantom. It traveled across the ghost as electricity does. Valerie was used to Phantom normally trying to shrug off the pain or mask it. That was why she was startled when Phantom cried out in agony. His voice echoed off of the hallway’s walls.
Valerie paled. She stumbled a few inches back at the same time the weapon dissolved into her suit. Maybe she had gone too far. This weapon, this upgrade, was more destructive than anything she had ever used before. It was a weapon meant to be used for an entity on the levels of the world terrorizing Pariah Dark, not frustrating and troublesome Phantom, despite how much pain he might have caused her.
Gravity then seemed to have a hold on Phantom as he fell down to the floor. The blue light still flickered around him, but it had diminished. It seemed like most of the light was instead coming from Phantom. Looking closer, Valerie realized it was coming from him. The sharp blue light was etching under his skin. Was it destabilizing his core?
Valerie tried to resolve herself a bit. Warily and softly but still holding confidence, she asked, “ Wh ere is Danny?”
Phantom’s eyes turned up to look at her from his vulnerable position on the floor. Through pain and clenched teeth, he said, “I should have told you before …”. Then, suddenly, a bright white light flashed around Phantom that merged with the green of his ghostly aura, the blue of the blast’s effects, and the yellow of the hallway’s single light.
As the light faded out, Valerie saw that Phantom was suddenly replaced with … “Danny?” Valerie’s voice had never been shakier, and bile rose in her throat. It was undeniably Danny: vans, jeans, NASA sweatshirt, icy blue eyes, black hair. Yet, the blue energy hummed underneath his skin. Each second the energy seemed to grow stronger, faster, and brighter, and each second, the life seemed to drain out of Danny’s eyes.
It became so clear now.
“Danny!” Valerie said a second time, only this time with a million times more urgency and intensity. Her Red Huntress suit dissolved off of her as she dropped down to her knees on the floor. Valerie frantically reached for Danny’s hand tangled in his crumpled form. It was hot. She held tightly anyways.
Hot tears dripped down Valerie’s face. She started mumbling. “What have I done? What have I done? What have I done? What have I —” A squeeze of her hand drew her out of her spinning head. She forced herself to look up and look straight at Danny’s pained face. The glowing blue lines were deeper and more vibrant than ever before.
“Hey, Val,” Danny said painfully but still full of loving emotion.
Valerie couldn’t help but let out a pained and tearful laugh. How could Danny still be so optimistic? “Hey, Danny,” Valerie whispered out. She couldn’t help a small smile lacing her lips.
“Don’t blame yourself …” How could eyes full of such death hold so much love? “I love you.”
Valerie collapsed mentally and physically. She grabbed Danny into an embrace. “I love you too.” Danny was hot to touch, but it didn’t matter. Valerie pulled her hand through his hair and pulled his head in close. She kissed him on the head and lingered in that position.
The hallway was suddenly placed in its usual yellow glow. Gone was the blue energy. It was there one second, torturing them all, and then gone the next. Danny felt limp in Valerie’s hands. A sob broke out of her — it wasn't the time to hold it in. She was wet with tears, but it didn’t matter. She held onto Danny tighter.
It is all my fault! I was so stupid. I could — No! Danny said not to blame myself, so I won’t. A pained laugh spilled out of Valerie. Even gone he still cares. He’s still trying to make sure I am okay … He’s gone. Gone …
Would Valerie ever see him again, or did she make that impossible? How much harm had she done? Valerie knew one thing at that moment, she couldn’t drown herself in those thoughts if it was only to please Danny’s dying wishes.
Although she hated to do it, Valerie released her hold on Danny. He slumped back. The Huntress choked. She laid him gently down, then walked to the apartment door and opened it. She stepped gently back over to Danny and picked him up with care — she wasn’t going to leave him lying in that forsaken hallway.
Ironically, the place where Danny laid, where he died , looked as normal as any place in the hall. How could she shed so much blood yet leave not a drop? Valerie turned back to the doorway. She couldn’t look back anymore.
She laid Danny down on the couch — the couch that he picked out. She thought. How can he be gone just like this?
Valerie knew that she had to do something. She had to call people. But, that could wait a while. She sat down on the hard floor and leaned against the couch. Tears still dripped down her face. Valerie reached her hand out and grabbed Danny’s hand tight. It was cold.