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Tucker is not surprised that Sam is a big fan of the Phantom dummies. He also isn’t surprised when Vlad sets them up without waiting for an answer, but he is a little surprised when Vlad pitches them to Sam as Tucker’s idea. He doesn’t ask. Something tells him it won’t go over well.
Smallest of all mercies, most of the time Tucker can ignore them. Valerie’s suggestion that they needed to train in more dynamic environments was a fair one, and Tucker tends to find it better for everyone if he takes to that advice more than Vlad’s advice about… well, he spends a lot of time in the forest now, is the point. Sam does too, but while Tucker spends a lot of time in the forest, Sam is currently spending all of her free time in the forest practicing.
…It’s worrying him. Not even for the obvious reason, though that too. This time it has more to do with the fact that Tucker is almost positive she isn’t getting enough sleep. Or food. Or… breathing.
And today, Tucker is positive, is not going to help.
Last night, Phantom had gotten in a fight with Technus at the Amity Park Mall. It had been more destructive than usual, and a couple people had gotten minor injures from getting caught in the crossfire.
Tucker gets a slight reprieve in that he makes it to school before Sam does. He finds Danny leaning against what seems like a random locker, and it catches him off guard enough that he walks over.
“Hey,” he says, and tries not to wince when Danny turns a wary gaze on him. He’s also clearly not doing much better than Tucker knows he was yesterday.
A second later, however, he relaxes slightly. “Hey Tuck,” he says. “Where’s Sam?”
“Dunno,” Tucker says, looking over his shoulder. “She’s not here yet, I guess.”
Danny nods, then looks back down the hallway towards the doors. But he doesn’t look full of dread, so he can’t be looking for Sam.
“Why are you hanging out here?” Tucker says. “Doesn’t Dash like to pummel you if you stand in one place too long before class?”
“Or after class, or ever,” Danny says with a small smile. “Nah I’m… waiting for someone.”
Tucker gives him a curious look. “Someone? This isn’t Jazz’s locker.”
Danny hesitates. “No,” he agrees.
“So who are you waiting for?”
“Uh…”
The door at the end of the hallway slams open, and the person decidedly neither of them is waiting for storms in.
Sam marches right over towards them, and wastes approximately no time before jumping in with, “Did you hear Phantom hurt a little kid last night?” she snaps, leaning back against the locker with a loud bang.
Tucker looks down at his bag, and moves like he’s digging it open to look for something important.
Danny sighs and leans back against the same locker he was standing by before. “No.”
“Well he did,” Sam says, crossing her arms. “Honestly, if he can’t bother to be careful, how is he any better for this town than the other ghost’s he fights? Right, Tucker?”
Tucker jerks upright. “What?”
Sam shifts so Danny can’t see her, narrows her eyes and glares at him. “Right?” she repeats.
Tucker leans away from her, and thankfully, the warning bell rings before he can give a reply.
Sam gives him one last glare and then stalks off to her first period.
Danny sighs, looks back at the locker one last time, and then starts off towards their shared algebra class.
Tucker hesitates a second, but then Danny looks back at him like he expects him to follow, so Tucker does.
“Does she ever talk about anything else these days?” slips out of Tucker’s mouth before he can help it. He winces, glad Sam isn’t around anymore.
Danny smiles a little, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Nah, but she’s always been like that,” he says.
Tucker turns to stare at him. “What are you talking about?” Sam has not always been like this. Tucker spends ages trying to reconcile this Sam with the one who used to light up when she spotted Danny across a room.
Danny turns to look at Tucker like he’s being weird. “Uh, have you met her? She’s this passionate about everything. Remember the time she fought for weeks to change the lunch menu? Or that time she let the gorilla out of its cage in the zoo? Or the time she fought to save all of the frogs from being dissected in class? If she comes up with something she thinks will make the world better, she sticks with it and sticks with it until it’s done.” He looks down, and the smile drops from his face. “It’s actually one of the things I really love about her,” he says quietly.
Tucker looks down and tightens his grip on his backpack. He can’t breathe right.
He doesn’t think Sam would be very happy if he explains to Danny that her thing with Phantom isn’t a passion like changing the lunch menu was a passion.
What he wouldn’t give for Sam to get passionate about lunch menus again.
The second bell rings just as he and Danny make it into class, and Tucker shakes the thought away as best he can.
…
Tucker finds out who Danny was waiting for that morning against lunch. Sam gets to the table first, and Tucker watches Danny walk as slowly as he seems capable of over towards their table from the second he walks in the room.
Sam glances over her shoulder when she sees Tucker looking at something behind her, and though she wasn’t speaking at all before now, she turns back around and says, “I just don’t understand how that Mom still thinks he’s a hero when he’s the reason her daughter got hurt,” Sam says, like they’d been in the middle of a conversation before Danny showed up. “You know what I mean?”
Danny sits down next to Tucker, positioning himself as far away from Sam as possible.
“You know what I mean, Tucker?” Sam repeats, and Tucker turns to her in surprise.
Sam narrows her eyes at him, and Tucker sneaks a glance at Danny to find him poking at his food and keeping his gaze very decidedly away from Sam.
“Uh, I don’t know,” Tucker says anyway.
Sam narrows her eyes and opens her mouth, but before she can say anything a familiar voice calls “Hey, Danny!”
All three of them turn in surprise to find Valerie approaching the table.
“Hey,” Valerie says, sliding in to the table right next to Danny. “Are you free to talk about those book reports we have to write?”
“Uh, sure,” Danny says, and before Tucker can even ask what Valerie’s doing here or what she’s talking about, she grabs Danny by the arm and pulls them both up and away from the table. Danny manages to grab his bag before they do, but then Valerie pulls them out of the lunch room and out of sight.
Tucker blinks after them for another second.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Sam growls, and Tucker turns immediately to her, feeling something in his chest curl up in dread.
“Hey,” he says before Sam can say anything else. “I’ve got an idea.”
Sam turns to glare at him. “What?”
“How about we… don’t care? And let Valerie make her own choices and decisions?”
Sam stares at him. “She obviously doesn’t know, Tucker,” she spits.
“I mean yeah, I just thought—”
“Well don’t bother. Come on, we have to do something,” Sam snaps, grabbing Tucker by the arm and yanking them both up from the table. They get a couple of stares as they leave, and Tucker tries not to shrink under them.
Valerie and Danny are both down a side hallway, meaning Sam can stop dragging Tucker behind her right before the corner and listen to what they’re saying.
“Sorry for the suddenness,” Valerie says. “You looked like you wanted out of there.”
“What, no I’m fine,” Danny says, though Tucker can hear the obvious hesitation in his voice. He looks away from Sam.
“Sure, that’s why you were staring down at the table looking miserable,” Valerie says, and Tucker winces.
“No no, that’s… unrelated,” Danny says weakly. Valerie snorts.
“Look, come with me. I know a spot we can eat alone and no one’ll find us,” she says. Tucker’s eyes widen, and he grabs Sam by the arm and pulls her back towards the lunchroom as quickly as they can.
Thankfully, they make it inside without being caught. Tucker just manages to ignore the stares of the people around them as they walk back to their still empty usual table and sit down.
“I knew it,” Sam hisses, smacking her hands down on the table. “They are friends. He tricked Valerie somehow!”
Tucker doesn’t say anything.
“Tucker,” Sam says, clearly trying to get his attention. “We have to get her away from him. I’m going to need your help.”
“Oh, now you care about Valerie,” Tucker snaps before he realizes what he’s saying.
Sam blinks at him, caught off guard. “What?”
Tucker glares down at the table, lets out a harsh sigh, and then stands up. Then he picks up his backpack and storms out of the lunchroom.
He doesn’t have the energy for Sam today.
…
He ends up at the training grounds in hope of avoiding her, since she’s there less often now. He’s pretty sure he beats the best time on the ceiling course three times over, though he’s not really keeping track.
But apparently, not one second of his life can be even the slightest bit easy anymore, because after less than half an hour there alone, Sam shows up.
“Hey,” she says. Tucker ignores her and keeps at the punching bags he’s moved over to.
“I was looking for you,” Sam says.
“I don’t care,” Tucker snaps.
“What the hell is wrong with you today?”
“You! You’re what’s wrong with me!” Tucker whirls to face her, gesturing wildly at her. “You just— all the time I can’t—”
“Woah, slow down,” Sam says, crossing her arms. “You need to chill.”
“I need to chill?”
“Uh, yeah, if it’s going to affect us working together,” Sam says. “We need to get Valerie away from Danny.”
“That’s it? That’s what you care about, working together to isolate Danny?”
Sam rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to put it that way, stupid.”
“Oh I’m sorry, were you thinking about it a different way?” Tucker pulls up his ecto gun on his wrist without bothering with the rest of the suit. He blasts the punching bag right off its hook in the ceiling, sending it crashing towards the other wall. It doesn’t do much in regards to getting out his anger.
“Think about it however you want, whatever means you’ll actually get off your butt and do it,” Sam snaps.
Tucker glares over his shoulder at her. “So that really is all you care about, then?”
“That’s what’s important,” Sam says, putting her hands on her hips. “Am I supposed to care about something else?”
Tucker shakes his head. “What was he doing that’s so dangerous to Valerie, Sam? Arguing that he’s not miserable around us when he clearly is? Accepting her invitation to go eat lunch alone?”
“Uh, yes. Who knows what kind of things he’ll do if he gets her alone!”
“Spy on them, then. You didn’t seem to have a problem before we learned Danny was Phantom, why is it suddenly off the table now?”
“I could stop it a lot quicker if I—”
“Stop! Stop it!” Tucker reaches up and grabs his beanie in his fists. “Leave it alone, Sam!”
“Why in the world would I do that?”
Tucker glares at her. “Because he hasn’t done anything. And because I’d like you to stop acting like you give two shits about Valerie.”
“What are you talking about, of course I do!”
“Really? Because in our very first fight you flew off right after she got hurt and left me to apologize for you! She was sitting there with a hurt leg, and you just flew off like it didn’t matter that she was hurt—”
“Because I felt like I couldn’t breathe!” Sam screams, and Tucker stops up short.
Sam buries her head in her hands and takes a shaky breath, and Tucker blinks at her a couple times, suddenly not sure what to say.
Finally, Sam pulls her head up. “I couldn’t breathe,” she says weakly. “That ghost lackey of Danny knocked my board out from under me and then Danny just caught me and I didn’t know what he was going to do and I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die. I had to get out of there as soon as I knew he was gone.” She takes another shaky breath and glares at Tucker, though it’s definitely weaker than she’d want it. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Tucker opens his mouth, at a loss for words.
Sam shakes her head a couple times, buries her head in her hands, then gives a frustrated scream. She pulls her head up and twists her bracelet until her suit pops on, then turns towards one of the dummies shaped like Danny, and blasts its head clean off.
Tucker’s next breath catches in his throat and he spins away.
“Of course, I care that Valerie got hurt,” Sam snaps, her voice still sounding shaky, but more put together. “I also care that she’s in a position to get even more hurt and not realize it. Do you only care about one?”
“He hasn’t done anything,” Tucker whispers.
Sam marches around until she’s in front of Tucker and puts her hands on his shoulders. Tucker ignores the way he can still feel her hands shaking. “Yeah, because he’s not going to lead with ‘Hey, you don’t mind that I’m Phantom and hunt you down every other week, do you?’”
“And Valerie’s supposed to come back at that with ‘as long as you don’t mind that I’m the Red Huntress and hunt you down right back?’” Tucker asks quietly.
Sam scoffs. “Tucker, don’t be ridiculous. Obviously Danny knows.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why else would he be hanging out with Valerie?” Sam asks.
So he doesn’t have to hang out with us, Tucker doesn’t say.
“Look, if we’re going to keep him away from Valerie, I’m going to need your help,” Sam says. “You can’t just let me do all the talking. When I ask you to agree with something, or ask you to comment on something you need to do it. And you need to stick with me when something goes down. I need you to back me up, Tucker. You can’t just be a bystander.”
Tucker pulls out of Sam’s grip and takes a couple steps back. He knows she’s realized how he’s started shaking too.
“I’m not saying you have to jump straight into the deep end,” Sam says, her voice surprisingly gentle. “Just… don’t sit there in silence, okay? And don’t just float in the background. Engage. Just a little bit.”
Tucker looks up at Sam. “If anyone damages your board again,” he says softly, the best he can offer right now, “I’ll catch you. Okay?”
Sam pulls in a sharp breath. “Tucker, that’s not what I meant,” she says, reaching down to twist her bracelet back and forth.
“I know,” Tucker says. He looks over at the now headless Danny dummy and swallows. “But that’s what I’ve got.” He looks back at Sam. “I can be defense.”
Sam looks at him for a long stretch of time. Finally, she nods. “Okay.”
Tucker melts in relief, but then Sam says, “But you have to be ready to be offense, you know. I’ve told you I can’t protect you all the time.”
“I will be,” Tucker says.
Sam narrows her eyes at him, and points to the dummies behind him. “Prove it.”
Tucker’s mouth goes dry. He starts to shake his head.
“You can be defense,” Sam says. “But prove it first.”
Tucker looks at her for a moment, but finds her with narrowed eyes, staring at him. She’s not going to back down. She never backs down.
Tucker turns around and looks at the Danny dummies, sitting there harmlessly not bothering anyone.
He turns back to Sam. “Will you leave Danny and Valerie alone for now?”
Sam narrows her eyes further. “That’s not what I said.”
“We need more information,” Tucker says. “We don’t know what— what he’s planning to do. What if by trying to stop it right now we make it worse?”
Sam looks at him for a moment. “Fine.”
Tucker swallows the bile building up in his throat, and turns and aims at one of the dummies— a Fenton one, just for good measure.
He squeezes his eyes shut and fires.