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Honestly, Sam couldn’t picture many ways this day could have gone worse. The Fenton’s ghost weapons have never really worked right, but she thought they’d at least know how to keep their ghost-proof cages from going off totally randomly, and capturing her, Tucker, and Danny. If anyone should be safe from these things, shouldn’t it be their own son? Not to mention that the last thing Sam needed right now was to be stuffed into a confined space that got launched 50 feet in the air with her best friend and her very much former best friend. But here she was, caught in a cage trap in the trees just outside of school, far enough away that no one had seen it happen, with Tucker and Danny.
Tucker hit his head on the side of the cage when it launched upright, meaning Sam was pressing her jacket into the side of his head so he wouldn’t have to look at the blood, and trying not to look at Danny on the far side of the cage, who was looking around like a cornered animal.
And honestly, that was a bit much. For as clear as he’d made it that he didn’t want to be around them anymore, what with his saying it to their face, Sam thought he could at least be in the same place as them for ten minutes.
“What day is it?” Sam asked Tucker, focusing her attention very firmly on him.
“Tuesday,” Tucker said with a wince, moving his head slowly down to shield his eyes from the sun. “And I have a terrible headache.”
“What’s your name?” Sam asked, making sure to not let the worry show in her voice.
“Tucker.”
“What’s my name?”
“Samanth—”
“Shut it.”
Tucker smirked up at her, which eased Sam’s worries a little bit.
“Just hang in there,” she said. “I don’t think you’ll need to go to the hospital. We’ll just head to your house as soon as Danny’s parents get here.”
There was a sharp intake of breath that for a second Sam thought came from Tucker, an instinctual reaction to how little he liked hospitals, but Tucker raised his head slightly to look over at the other side of the cage, meaning it came from Danny.
Sam glanced over too, half caring, and found Danny with his head pressed into the space between his legs, clearly trying to calm himself down. She scoffed and turned her attention back to Tucker, pressing the jacket more firmly into his head wound that took obvious precedence over being around people you don’t like.
Tucker, however, didn’t seem to agree, and a second later said hesitantly, “Uh, you okay man?”
Danny, as the only person “man” could refer to coming from Tucker, jerked his head up so hard he slammed it into the back of the cage. It made Sam wince despite herself, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
“Hey,” she said anyway. “Stop that. I don’t have another hand if you get a concussion too.”
“What?” Danny asked, like he hadn’t noticed the fact that Sam was giving Tucker very unqualified first aid care.
It seemed he really hadn’t noticed, however, because a second later his eyes widened and honed in on Sam’s hands.
“Wait, are you okay Tuck?” he asked, making a half-aborted motion towards the other side of the cage.
Sam stared at him for a second. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’ll be fine,” Tucker said, brushing past Sam’s annoyance. “Why do you look like you’re caught in a trap?”
Danny took a turn staring at them at that. “Have you not noticed the cage surrounding us on all sides?” he asked.
“Dude, it’s your parents’ cage,” Sam said, rolling her eyes. “As soon as they get here they’re going to let you out and start fretting over you.”
Danny didn’t reply, instead reaching a hand up to grip one of the bars of the cage so tightly his knuckles turned white. And that was certainly… odd, but Sam had more pertinent things to worry about.
She turned her gaze back to Tucker’s head, and found the bleeding had mostly stopped and hadn’t soaked through her jacket, meaning he was probably going to be okay until someone else got here, the way the light hurt his eyes aside.
She kept her hand pressed firmly on his head, supported with her other arm, but she also leaned back against the side of the cage as much as her position would allow.
“You’re gonna be alright,” she confirmed to Tucker. “Just stay awake.” She was pretty sure that’s what you were supposed to do, anyway.
“Surprisingly not feeling that tired, what with the way we’re hanging in an already faulty ghost trap 50 feet in the air.”
“You’ll be fine,” Danny said, looking out the side of the cage, though Sam wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “It’s not faulty.”
“It captured three humans and launched us into the air with no obvious ghosts around,” Sam deadpanned. “Who’s to say it won’t drop us all next?”
Danny looked back over at her, but Sam couldn’t read his face. After a second, he just amended, “It’s not that faulty.” Then he went back to looking out the side of the cage towards the school.
Sam sighed but didn’t say anything else, and turned back to Tucker. The wound had stopped bleeding now, but she still wanted to get Tucker out of here sooner rather than later. She looked outside of the cage, but she couldn’t hear any students still at the school. It was well past 3:00, after all, they would be on their way home. But the teachers wouldn’t leave for a couple hours yet.
“Do your parents have like, alarms that go off when one of their traps goes off?” Sam asked, turning back to Danny.
Danny tightened his grip on the bar of the cage. “Mm-hmm,” he said. Sam could see his hand shaking a little bit.
“Okay,” Sam said, turning to face Tucker. “They’ll probably be here pretty soon then.”
But Tucker was still looking back at Danny. “Dude,” he said. “They’ll be here soon. You don’t have to freak out.”
“I’m fine,” Danny said, with a voice that was distinctly not.
“Oh, he’s fine,” Sam snapped, rolling her eyes, and returning her glare to outside the cage. “He just can’t stand being in the same place as people he knows he’s fucked over.”
“Sam,” Tucker said quietly, leaning close enough that Danny wouldn’t be able to hear. “I think he’s really scared of something.”
“Oh please,” Sam said, not bothering to keep her voice quiet at all. “What, just ‘cause we’re caught in a ghost trap—” she stopped.
When she thought about it, it was a real possibility. Before he had kicked her and Tucker to the curb without a second thought, they’d known he was terrified of ghosts. He vanished as soon as they appeared, and didn’t show up until after they were gone. Neither of them had ever known where he went, but he’d always looked worse for wear or shaken when he came back.
And right now they were dangling in a cage meant to trap ghosts. It wasn’t an impossible leap that one would show up.
“Danny?” Sam said, despite herself.
Danny looked over at her, and yeah, now that she wasn’t denying it, the scared mouse look in his eyes was obvious.
“Hey, we’re in a cage meant to trap ghosts,” she said, keeping her voice low and being as comforting as she could stomach. “Why would any of them come here voluntarily?”
But that didn’t seem to help. If anything, it just made it worse. Danny gripped the bar so tight Sam almost thought it bent, but that was impossible. Then he shifted so Sam couldn’t see the bar and leaned his head back against the cage, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Hey, dude,” Tucker said. “It’s okay.”
Danny just glared at him. “Leave me alone,” he snapped, which, honestly, Sam wasn’t sure what she should have expected.
“Danny,” Tucker said, because he didn’t get the memo. “Seriously, dude. It’s okay. We’re gonna be fine. You said it yourself, the cage isn’t gonna break and drop us.”
Danny just shook his head and pressed his head back against the bars, squeezing his eyes closed again. Tucker didn’t say anything else, and neither did Danny.
Sam paused and looked at Danny for a moment, taking in the hunched shoulders and the tension in his face and the shaking hands. He really was scared of something. But if it wasn’t the ghosts, then what was it?
A voice came suddenly from down below, loud and familiar. “It should be just this way, Mads!”
Danny’s eyes shot wide open and he pressed himself back further against the wall of the cage, gaze instantly dropping to scan the ground below them all.
Wait, he wasn’t…
A second later, Mr Fenton appeared, followed closely by Mrs Fenton, and both of them looked eagerly up at the cage.
But as soon as they say who it was, their grins dropped.
“Danny? Sam? Tucker?” Mrs Fenton asked in concern, stepping towards them.
“Uh, sorry Mom,” Danny said, waving. Sam wouldn’t have seen the way his hand was shaking if she wasn’t looking for it. “One of your traps caught me again.”
Again?
“Oh, for pete’s sake,” Mrs Fenton said, putting her hands on her hips. “I don’t understand why they keep doing that.”
“Don’t worry Danno, we’ll have you down in a jiffy!” Mr Fenton called. He aimed his ecto gun at the rope above the cage.
“Uh, wait,” Sam called. “Maybe don’t—”
He fired before she could finish, leaving Sam just enough time to spin around and pull Tucker’s already-injured head into her chest before the cage started to fall. She held Tucker there tightly until it hit the ground a second later, which— ow.
“Okay,” Sam said, pushing herself back into a sitting position. “There really wasn’t a better way to do that?”
“Sorry, sweetie,” Mrs Fenton said as Mr Fenton went to work firing at the bars at the spots where none of them were sitting. “We designed it for ghosts, you know. Obviously we’re not going to give them an easy way down.”
Sam didn’t know quite what to say to that. After a second, she looked across the cage at Danny, and found him warily eyeing Mr Fenton firing at the bars.
Sam turned to face Tucker. “You okay?” she asked.
Tucker nodded, and when he pulled back from Sam’s chest she saw that his wound didn’t look any worse. They’d just head home and let his parents look at it. He’d be alright.
“Sorry about that kids,” Mrs Fenton said, as Mr Fenton slung his ecto gun back over his shoulder, having successfully blown apart enough of the bars for them to get out. “A lot of our equipment seems to react to Danny for some reason. We’re still trying to figure out why.”
Sam looked back over at Danny, who was pulling himself up using one of the bars and not even seeming to notice the fresh cut on his elbow, probably from when they fell.
“Alright, it’s back to the drawing books with this one,” Mrs Fenton said to Mr Fenton. “We’re gonna have to figure out why it’s not working before we try using it again.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mr Fenton said with a sigh. He turned back to face the rest of them. “Do any of you need a ride home? Danno, you want to come with us?”
“I’m okay,” Danny said. Sam shook her head, and Tucker did the same after her.
“Alright, then we’ll see you at home Danno! Sorry again!”
And with that, the two of them walked back towards the school, already talking about how they could potentially fix the cage.
Sam stared after them for a second, not sure what she was feeling.
The first one of them to move towards the shot-open-exit was Danny, and she could see him trying to take deep breaths as he did. As soon as he got out, however, he turned and waited for both of them to do the same.
“Is your head okay?” he asked, looking at Tucker.
“Uh, is your elbow okay?” Tucker asked.
Danny looked down at the wrong elbow first, which was definitely… something. Then he switched to his injured one and just kind of stared at it for a moment.
Instead of responding to Tucker’s question, he looked away from his elbow and stepped forward, then started peering at Tucker’s wound like he actually knew what he was looking at.
“It’s a head wound,” he said after a second. “They look a lot worse than they are. Just watch it and make sure it doesn’t get worse. It doesn’t need stitches.”
“Uh, thanks?” Tucker said hesitantly. “How… how do you…”
“Bye,” Danny said, and walked away before either of them could even start thinking about saying anything else.
Regardless, neither of them said anything for a long pause after he left.
Finally, Tucker turned to face her. “Sam,” he said slowly. “He was scared of his parents.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, as the pieces clicked together horrifyingly in her head. “So, we’re officially the worst friends ever, huh.”
…
Okay, upon thinking about it, they probably weren’t actually the worst friends ever. Danny had still walked up to them and directly said that he didn’t want to be friends anymore and that he wanted them to leave him alone. There wasn’t much they could do about that. But if Danny’s parents had been… that, and they hadn’t noticed, that officially made them terrible friends.
And Sam had a pretty good guess as to why she hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t wanted to believe Jack and Maddie Fenton were capable of it. She’d known them almost her whole life too, after all, just like Danny. She and Tucker had sleepovers with them in charge as little kids, they’d played games, they’d grown and matured and learned lessons with them, they’d been disciplined by them before, they’d asked questions about growing up and had gotten answers, just like they had with their own parents. She hadn’t been able to imagine them hurting her on purpose.
And maybe they weren’t actually hurting Danny on purpose. Maybe they hadn’t realized Danny had gotten hurt yesterday. They clearly hadn’t realized that Tucker had. Maybe if they realized that their inventions were actually hurting Danny, they’d stop. Maybe they didn’t realize the toll this was taking on him. There were a million maybes.
But in the end, the maybes didn’t matter. Because Danny still looked scared when he heard it was them coming. He’d still reacted like it was perfectly normal that he’d fallen fifty feet and his elbow was bleeding. He’d still known whether Tucker’s head needed stitches or not.
(And maybe the other maybes were plausible too. Maybe it wasn’t indirect. Maybe they’d gotten mad that Danny had broken one too many of their inventions, through no fault of his own, and they had—)
But no matter which maybes were true, the way all of it was affecting Danny was a fact. And Sam didn’t even need to talk to Tucker to know that both of them agreed they weren’t going to let Danny deal with it on his own anymore.
So, at lunch the next day they searched around until they found Danny. Somehow, he’d ended up with a lunch tray on the roof.
He looked more stunned than Sam had ever seen him when she managed to push the trap door in the ceiling open and climbed out.
“God, Danny,” she said, pulling herself exhaustedly up and reaching back to help Tucker as soon as she did. “Could you pick a place to hide that’s less impossible to get to?”
“What are you doing here?” Danny asked, scooting back on the roof.
“We came to eat lunch,” Tucker said, letting his and Sam’s lunch boxes slide off of his arms and drop to the roof. Sam grabbed hers and walked over and sat down next to Danny, and Tucker followed just behind her.
“What— I told you—”
“Yeah, and we’re telling you to stuff it,” Tucker said. “Danny, we’ve been friends since the second grade. If you were gonna get tired of us you’d have done it before now.”
Danny looked away. “I—”
“You don’t have to talk about it,” Sam said, and Danny turned to her with wide eyes. “Whatever it is you’re not telling us? You don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready. Okay? Just stop trying to push us away, idiot. We’re not going anywhere.”
Danny looked down at his lunch. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he whispered.
Sam exchanged a worried glance with Tucker. Then she took a deep breath and reached out to grab Danny’s hand.
“That’s not on you to worry about,” she said firmly. “That’s not your responsibility.”
Danny shook his head, like he disagreed, but Sam cut him off by squeezing his hand.
“Dude, if we get hurt because we’re your friends, then it’s on whoever’s doing the hurting,” Tucker said. “Not on you.”
Danny didn’t say anything, but after a second, he squeezed Sam’s hand back, which she was going to take as an answer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, almost too quiet to hear.
Tucker reached out and put his hand over the top of both of theirs. “It’s okay,” he said, and Sam nodded.
“We’re staying here, with you,” she agreed. “No matter what.”