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Danny sucks the ectopus into the Fenton thermos and lets out a little whoop, spinning to face Valerie.
“Ha! That’s six for me!”
“Oh please, I helped you with that one, it’s a half point for each of us,” Valerie says.
“No, it’s in my thermos, that means it’s mine,” Danny says, shaking his thermos back and forth. “Those are the rules.”
“Oh are they? So if I do this,” Valerie says, and before Danny can react, she flies forward and kicks the thermos from Danny’s hand, catching it easily. “Does that mean it’s mine?”
“Hey!”
“Hey, lovebirds, six o’clock!” Jazz’s voice comes over their earpieces, and both of them spin around to find another ectopus coming towards them.
Valerie tosses Danny his thermos back, and raises her gun, firing it and knocking the ghost back a couple feet to give Danny time to fire up the thermos and suck it inside.
“Ha!” he says again, spinning back to Valerie. “And that makes seven!”
“Wha— I did all the work that time!”
“I am gonna have to give that one to her, Danny,” Jazz says, and Danny glares down at where she’s standing on the ground below them.
“Traitor!” he calls.
“In all honesty, I think there’s just one left,” Jazz says, looking down at the list she’s been keeping. “Mom and Dad’s containment unit had 24 ghosts in it, and your thermos has six of them and Valerie’s has five.”
“Uh, that only makes twelve,” Valerie says.
“Oh yes, sorry, I have eleven of them in here,” Jazz says, gesturing to her own thermos without looking up. “Maybe if you spent less time flirting and more time chasing ghosts, we’d have all of them by now.”
“Oh no way you have eleven ghosts in there,” Danny says, crossing his arms.
Jazz gives him a look and holds up her list, which has all ghosts accounted for except for the snake ghost, difficult to find because it’s the size of an actual snake.
“See now that’s not even fair,” Valerie says.
“Honestly, you can’t just get in the way of our competition like that,” Danny says.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the fact of my definite win,” Jazz says, shooting them a smug smile. “I’m gonna take these guys home, have fun competing for second place.”
And with that, she turns and drives off on her scooter, and Danny sticks his tongue out after her.
“You want to just get this last one together?” Valerie says.
“If we can even find the thing,” Danny says. “But sure.”
They both turn and start a route towards the places they haven’t checked yet, scanning the ground and sky as they go. Unfortunately, snake or not, it’s still a ghost, and it can still fly.
After a bit of time and no snake appearing, though, Danny turns to face Valerie.
“Hey,” he says, “I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”
Valerie turns to face him. “Yeah?”
Danny can’t read her face under the mask, which he’s pretty sure he’s not going to enjoy during this conversation.
He takes a deep breath and presses forward anyway.
“So, Sam and Tucker and I are having a movie night this Saturday,” he says. “Sam rented this supervillain crossover movie we were looking forward to but never got to see.”
“Okay?” Valerie says, confusion evident in her voice.
“Would you want to come?” Danny asks.
“Uh,” Valerie says, instantly sounding uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll have all the necessary context.”
“Valerie,” Danny says. “I really think you guys should talk.”
Valerie sighs and pulls her hood off, turning to face him. Her face shows more uncertainty than discomfort, like he thought. “We probably should,” she admits. “I just… don’t know how to start. And they kind of remind me of… things I don’t like to think about. But…”
She trails off, but she doesn’t seem like she’s done, so Danny doesn’t say anything while she thinks.
“But we do have too much in common to just never talk,” Valerie says finally. She looks over at him, and Danny’s glad that he doesn’t see a ton of guilt in her face, like he did after he first told her everything.
“Does it have to be before Saturday?” Valerie asks, turning to face him.
“No, not if you don’t want it to,” Danny says. “I can do the movie night thing with just them. I just don’t want to keep my girlfriend and my best friends separate forever unless I have to.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to,” Valerie says.
Danny smiles a little at her, and Valerie smiles back.
“Okay. I’ll at least try and talk to them before Saturday,” Valerie says. “And I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Thanks Val,” Danny says. “Oh, and by the way?”
“Yeah?”
Danny points his thermos at the snake ghost that appeared in the corner of his eye a second ago and fires it up, sucking the ghost inside.
“Second place!” he calls, grinning back at Valerie.
“Wha— hey! You cheated, asshole!”
Danny gives his best imitation of an evil cackle and starts flying back towards his house, with Valerie following quickly behind on her board.
…
Valerie, once she considers the idea enough, doesn’t want to wait too long to talk to Sam and Tucker. For one thing, she wants answers herself. She’s also pretty sure she can use Saturday as something to kick her butt into gear. If she has a deadline she has to give, it’s a good way to force herself to find them and talk to them. Besides, her space thing only applies to Danny. She doesn’t owe anything to other people who have hurt him.
So, she settles on Thursday afternoon, as a way to have a little bit of time before Saturday, and finds Sam and Tucker in the cafeteria at lunchtime, which is where Danny said they’d probably be. She’ll miss her normal lunch time in the library with Danny and Jazz, but she really does need to talk to Tucker and Sam.
So Valerie finds Sam and Tucker sitting at the table, both looking a little bit too casual and like they’re having an okay time. So she walks right up and sits down next to Sam, startling them both into looking at her.
“Danny invited me to your Saturday movie night thing,” she says.
Tucker blinks at her. “Oh,” he says. “Okay. Do you guys have room for one more?” He angles the last question at Sam, who nods.
“We can get some extra popcorn too, if you want it,” she says to Valerie.
“Sure,” Valerie says. “But that’s actually not why I’m here.”
“I figured,” Tucker says. “Are we talking, then?”
“We have to do it sooner or later,” Valerie says. “I know a classroom that’s always empty at this time.”
So they relocate to the classroom Valerie used to have lunch with Danny in. Valerie leans back against a desk, and Tucker does the same to the one across from her. Sam sits on top of one and starts fidgeting with a wrist ray she’s wearing, that looks ghost-weapon in nature.
Valerie was worried that once she got here she wouldn’t know where to start, but the first thing that comes to mind doesn’t take much effort to come up with.
“So I hear Vlad screwed you over too,” she says.
Tucker smiles a little bit. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”
Valerie looks at him for a little longer, then looks over at Sam too, who hasn’t looked up at her yet. She gives them both a couple seconds to say something else, and then decides she needs too many answers to wait longer.
“Did he send you guys the suits anonymously too?” she asks.
Tucker shakes his head. “No,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “He, uh, pretended to save us from the vampire ghost that was also him, and then pinned the blame on Danny, and said Danny was trying to kill us. And then said he’d teach us how to hunt him first.”
Valerie thinks about that for a second, then nods. “Yeah, that sounds like something he’d do,” she says. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you got tangled up in everything.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you who we were or what we thought was going on,” Tucker says.
“No,” Valerie says instantly. “No, I’m glad you didn’t. I… I would have believed you. In the beginning.”
“Not at the end though,” Sam says, finally looking up at her. “Not by the time I tried to tell you.”
Valerie doesn’t say anything, because she honestly doesn’t know. She figured after the fact that that’s probably what Sam was trying to tell her when she asked to talk, but she doesn’t know how she would have reacted then. Yeah, she was starting to question things, but she didn’t have the full realization of how much she had to learn until she heard the truth from Danny himself. She doesn’t know what she would have thought if she heard it from Sam and Tucker first. She doesn’t really want to think about it.
So instead, after a second, she says instead, “You know, you’re not completely at fault. Even if you are at fault for a lot of it.”
Sam looks down at the desk again like she doesn’t believe her, so Valerie continues.
“Seriously. Some of it is on the asshole who knew he could manipulate you and so decided to do that.”
Tucker nods slightly like he knows, but Sam still doesn’t look back up.
“You’re not the only one who did stuff you regret, you know,” Valerie says quietly, leaning back against the desk behind her. “I hurt Danny a lot too.”
“You haven’t known him since you were 8,” Sam snaps suddenly. “It’s different.”
“Yeah,” Valerie agrees. “It is. I’m just saying. If you ever want to talk. We don’t have to do this waiting game every time. You know you’re not totally alone in this, right?”
“I know,” Tucker says. He looks over at Sam, and after a long, long pause, Sam nods shortly.
“Good,” Valerie says. “I’ll see you on Saturday, then.”
“See you,” Sam mutters, and Tucker gives her a small smile. Valerie gives him a nod and smile back and heads out, giving the two of them some space they look like they need.
She still isn’t positive how she feels about them, but they have exactly the stuff in common that she thought they’d have in common, and it might help all of them just to have people around they can vent about Vlad to. That might be worth it all on its own. Either way, she’s willing to stick around to find out. And trying to just have fun at this movie thing Saturday doesn’t sound like the worst place to start.
…
“Thanks for the ride, Jazz,” Danny says as she pulls to a stop in front of Sam’s house.
“No problem,” Jazz says. “It’s on my way. Plus Mom and Dad would get suspicious if you said you weren’t going to need a ride.”
“On your way where?” Valerie asks from the backseat. “I didn’t realize you were going somewhere too.”
“She’s got a ghost psychology club meeting tonight,” Danny says, glancing back. “It’s getting pretty popular. I think she’s getting a big head.”
“Oh please,” Jazz says, shoving him towards the door. “Not like mine could get bigger than yours. Go hang out with those friends of yours who’ve tried to kill you.”
“You said you’d stop calling them that,” Danny says, but he opens the side door and climbs out, Valerie doing the same a second later.
“I’ll be back to get you in a couple hours,” Jazz says.
“Thanks,” Danny calls, and he gives her a wave as he shuts the door. Jazz waves back as she drives away.
“Okay so basically,” Valerie continues as they walk towards the front door. “These are three supervillains who are fighting each other?”
“Yep,” Danny says. He’s been filling her in on the context behind what they’re watching since Valerie told him she was definitely going to come. He doesn’t know as much as Sam definitely does, but he knows enough so Valerie won’t be totally lost.
“It’s probably just going to be a lot of cheesy action scenes,” he says. “You won’t strictly need the context to enjoy it. Oh, and uh, one last thing entirely unrelated to movies?”
“Yeah?”
“Sam’s parents won’t like you, don’t even try. It’s not you, they don’t like anyone.”
Valerie raises her eyebrows, but just says, “Noted.”
With that, Danny knocks on the door. Thankfully, it’s not a either of the Manson parents, but Sam that pulls the door open.
“Hey,” she says, with a smile that looks mostly genuine (and a little scared, but they both decided not to acknowledge that part).
“You guys are late,” Sam says with a smile. She’s clearly aiming for a casual joke, so Danny decides to help her out.
“I blame Jazz, she drives slow,” he says, smiling back as he walks inside. He waits to make sure Valerie makes it in before reaching out and pulling the door shut after them.
“Smart, blaming it on the person who isn’t here and can’t defend themselves,” Valerie says.
“That’s just how I roll,” Danny says, grinning at her. He turns back to Sam a second later. “Do you need any more help with the popcorn?”
Sam shakes her head. “It’s done. Just gotta carry it downstairs.”
“We’ll help you out,” Danny says, including Valerie by virtue of her not knowing where Sam’s basement is. So instead, they all walk towards Sam’s kitchen, where, surprisingly, there’s no sign of her parents, just four tubs of popcorn on the stove.
Sam seems to see Danny’s question in his face, because she says, “They’re taking Grandma out to eat. It’s just us.”
“They’re giving you the house to yourself?” Danny asks in bafflement.
Sam shrugs. “I think they’re trying to go a little easier on me,” she says.
“I didn’t realize they’d go that easy on you,” Danny says.
“Does this mean I don’t get to meet the parents who hate everyone?” Valerie asks, picking up one of the tubs of popcorn.
Sam smirks a little at her. “Sorry,” she says. “You don’t get two more people to hate you tonight.”
Valerie shakes her head in disappointment. “Damn.”
“Come on,” Sam says, picking up two of the popcorn tubs and letting Danny grab the last one. “Tucker’s waiting downstairs.”
Tucker is finishing setting up Sam’s massive sound system when they get down there, and he brightens when he glances over and sees them holding popcorn.
“Okay Sam your turn,” he says, walking over and taking one of the popcorn tubs right out of her hands.
Sam gives him a deadpan look, but lets him go sit on the couch, taking up half the space, and goes to finish setting up the movie.
Danny sets one of the tubs of popcorn down on the other end of the couch, then turns to Sam.
“Hey, which one’s yours?” he calls.
“Tucker’s got it,” Sam says, without looking away from the screen.
Tucker, who’s about to shove popcorn in his mouth, immediately drops it with a noise of disgust, and Sam and Danny both laugh.
“You could have warned me!” Tucker exclaims, setting the popcorn down on the ground.
“Sam uses vegan butter,” Danny explains to Valerie.
“It doesn’t taste different in the slightest,” Sam says, finishing with the TV and walking back to the couch. She sets the non-vegan tub down and picks up her own, then glances at Tucker. “Move your feet.”
Tucker does, and then Sam plops down next to him and puts her feet in his lap.
Valerie settles down at the other end of the couch, and Danny picks up his popcorn and sits in the spot next to her, resulting in Valerie immediately sliding up to his side and leaning her head on his shoulder. Danny wraps an arm around her shoulders and leans into her too.
“Alright,” Sam says. She turns the TV on, where the movie is already set up. “Who’s ready for this?” she raises an eyebrow at Tucker. “You’re not gonna run out of the room like a chicken, right?”
Tucker gives her a look, but then shrugs. “I’ve seen scarier things.”
“That’s an opinion,” Sam says, hitting “play” on the movie.
“Oh, that’s right, you weren’t there when I found Vlad’s poems about Mrs Fenton.”
“Wait, really?” Valerie asks, wrinkling her nose.
“Ugh, yeah I believe it,” Danny says. “He’s always been really creepy about her.”
“Yeah, I spared all of you,” Tucker says. “You owe me.”
“I’ll owe you more if you’re quiet and let the movie play,” Sam says.
Tucker sticks his tongue out, but turns to watch the movie. Danny smiles fondly at them for a moment and then casts an equally fond glance over at Valerie.
Valerie sees him looking and faces him. “What?” she whispers curiously.
“Nothing,” Danny whispers back, leaning further into her side and looking towards the movie. Valerie does the same a second later.
And though it’s not long before she turns to him and starts asking about the context of what’s happening, Danny doesn’t mind too much, because he’s not paying much attention to the movie before that either.
Instead, he’s deciding that even if things are far from normal yet, he likes the way they’re heading. And if telling people he’s Phantom keeps working out like this at the end of whatever else comes his way, he’ll probably be alright after all.