Chapter Text
The hum of FentonWorks was always there, comforting.
It lived in the walls the way breathing lived in a body, constant and unnoticed.
Sometimes it changed pitch when one of the machines downstairs shifted gears or when something heavy powered on in the lab.
Today though, it felt different, louder, warmer.
Danny sat crossed-legged in the middle of the living room, carefully lining up star and planet stickers along the seams of his jeans. The living room and kitchen had been ‘cleaned for guests’, which mostly meant they moved all projects to the lab, scrubbed every surface with lysol, and ordered an abundant amount of pizza.
Jazz had taped paper planets to the walls. Her attempt at making real constellations filled him with warmth, her small arms only having been able to reach halfway up the wall.
Danny stuck another star to his sleeve.
Kids had filled the living room in uneven clusters. Preschool classmates, a few neighbors kids from the only nearby street that didn't actively avoid the building, and a couple of children who looked like they had been dragged here by confused parents and immediately regretted it.
One kid accidentally activated a quirk earlier and turned all the plastic cups on the table fluorescent yellow, the kid panicked before realizing nobody seemed surprised.
Maddie called it “environmental variance” and wrote something down on a clipboard.
Danny liked the noise.
A shadow dropped beside him.
“Spaceman,” Jazz said, nudging his shoulder lightly with her knee as she sat. She balanced a stack of paper plates in one hand and a plastic bowl of chips in the other with practiced ease.
Danny leaned into her without thinking, sticking a planet sticker to the back of her hand.
Whatcha doin?” she added.
“Things.”
“Stickers?”
Danny nodded seriously, placing another on the side of her shoe. “Very important.”
Jazz hummed like she was considering it deeply, before shrugging. “Fair enough.”
She handed him a plate, quickly ruffling his thick hair, dodging his hand as he swatted at her playfully.
“Cake time!” Jack announced.
The room exploded into excitement.
Danny scrambled to his feet, Jazz easily guiding him through the crowd of children quickly collecting in the kitchen. The air smelled like sugar and ozone and something faintly metallic that probably shouldn't have been part of a birthday party but always was in FentonWorks.
The candles on the cake ignited with a controlled burst of light from one of Maddie’s devices instead of a match.
Four flames.
“Alright Danny-boy,” Jack said, kneeling beside him, too big, loud, and grinning like the world was made of good news. “This is a big one!”
Danny looked up, eyes bright. “Why?”
Maddie and Jack exchanged a familiar look, the one that screams excited scientific exploration.
“The quirk manifestation window,” Maddie said, voice bubbly. “You should get one any day now.”
“Oh!” Danny said, instantly interested. “What could it be?”
Jack straightened like he was presenting facts off a whiteboard.
“Super strength!” he declared. “Just like your old man!”
Maddie scoffed softly. “Or you could inherit a brain mutation, something similar to your sister and I.”
Jazz leaned in slightly. “Or you could get something totally different,” she said. “Something unique.”
Danny blinked. “Like what?”
“I don't know,” she admitted with a giggle. “That's kind of the point.”
She reached over and lightly tapped his forehead. “Whatever it is, it'll fit you.”
The candles flickered, a blonde boy he recognized from class shoved him none too gently. “Blow out your candles!”
Everyone got louder again.
He thought about space, about the stars and planets, about floating.
He closed his eyes.
And wished.
FentonWorks never slept, but it could get angry.
That was what Maddie called it sometimes when systems spiked or readings destabilized.
Danny didn't really understand that part.
At five, he understood a new thing.
Red shoes.
The doctor didn't look at him much during the appointment.
Mostly at his parents.
The words spoken between them floated above his head like he was underwater. He mostly focused on the floor.
“Are you sure?” Jack asked, tone strained.
The doctor nodded solemnly, his eyes not leaving the file open in his hands.
“Unfortunately so.” He took an x-ray from inside the file, placing it against the board of light against the wall. Pointing out specific points in Danny’s foot. “As you can see here. This joint here is a clear indication of quirklessness.”
Danny stared, squinting to see what the man was talking about.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Maddie took the file the doctor offered, flipping through the pages quickly before closing it with a defining snap.
Jack stared at the wall, eyes unmoving from the image of his child’s foot.
The doctor sighed. “Protocol requires specific footwear,” he added. Handing over another sheet, it looked more like a warning page than a catalog for shoes. He pointed at one of the options. “The red ones are the most cost-effective.”
Danny looked down at his feet, wiggling them a bit.
He didn't really understand what had changed.
But the air felt different.
The silence continued all the way back to FentonWorks.
Danny waited for someone to explain, his parents usually liked to do that.
Instead, they followed each other to the lab.
The hum of the building filled the space where words should have been.
Jazz found him later in the hallway. His cuticles picked raw and eyes red, but not wet. He refused to cry over something he didn't understand quite yet.
She sat beside him, sliding her arm over his shoulders and pulling him over. Giving him an understanding squeeze.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
She seemed to pull a bag of brownie mix from thin air, gently placing the bag she wasn't supposed to have in his palms.
“We can make something.”
Danny nodded, a small smile gracing his face.
Years didn't feel the same inside FentonWorks.
At six, his birthday was quiet.
No guests, no candles.
Just Jazz, the only person who seemed to remember.
They made brownies together in a kitchen that still smelled faintly like chemical solvents.
The eggs were hard to crack, slightly bigger than his small hands. He ended up leaving a thin puddle of egg white on the counter.
He got in trouble later for the mess, having to scrub the granite until his fingers were raw.
School was louder in a different way.
Not mechanical in the way FentonWorks was.
Danny learned quickly that red shoes meant people looked at your feet before they looked at your face.
Teachers called on him less, or not at all.
When he answered correctly, they paused and glared at him with heavy scrutiny.
Sometimes, they even accused him of cheating.
He learned quickly, it was easier to be quiet.
Kids could be cruel, those who used to talk to him now blatantly ignored him. He'd come home with scrapes on his hand and knees from being pushed too roughly. Homework scribbled on with markers until his answers were unreadable.
The nicer kids would give him glances, subtly pulling others away when it seemed to get out of hand. Not going out of their way to take his side, just distracting with the mention of a new game to play.
Danny didn't expect them to.
At home, meals became inconsistent.
At first, Maddie forgot. Then Jack forgot too.
When Jazz would ask, they’d say they were busy and hadn’t even eaten themselves.
The take-out containers in the trash told another story.
She tried to compensate, read as many cook books she could get her hands on between her textbooks. Teaching him how to use appliances when she wasn't able to be around.
Eventually, she stopped being home as much. Her higher-level classes taking up the majority of her time.
Danny managed.
When they remembered to go grocery shopping, he'd make himself small meals. Taking just enough to try and not make it too obvious. Using the books Jazz gave him to make something edible.
Other times he'd go to the convenience store on the edge of town, the late night employee usually too tired from his day shift at the urgent care to try and chase off a paying customer. Even if he paid for his snacks with money he'd find in the couch cushions and on his way to and from school.
He never looked at his shoes, and that was enough.
By fourteen, FentonWorks was mostly noise and absence.
Jack and Maddie argued more often in the lab. About results, about failure, about time.
Danny didn't really care to understand the specifics anymore.
That night, the argument was louder than usual.
He sat curled near the head of his bed, knees pulled against his chest as the muffled sound of voices drifted up through the vents. The hum of FentonWorks wrapped around the noise, soft and constant beneath the sharper edge of frustration downstairs.
“...harmonic destabilization doesn't make sense,” Maddie said, voice strained through the floorboards. “The signal should’ve held.”
A loud metallic clang echoed upward.
Danny winced slightly on instinct.
Silence followed for a moment before Jack exploded in noise.
“Fresh air,” Jack said suddenly, too brightly. His voice now bouncing off the metal walls. “We need fresh air! And food!”
Maddie didn’t look up from her notes, her pen stilling just enough to show she was thinking. “Is Jazz home?”
“Nope! Jazzerincess is at a study group tonight.”
Maddie finally closed the notebook in front of her, sliding the pen carefully between the pages before setting it aside. A tired smile across her face.
“Then maybe we should take the opportunity while we still can.” She admitted.
Jack grinned, tension disappearing from his shoulders as quickly as it had appeared. “That’s the spirit Mads!”
Their steps became louder as they made their way up the basement steps.
“Whatcha thinking? Burgers? Chinese?” You could almost hear the drool dripping off his chin.
“How about chinese? I’m pretty sure we had burgers last night.” Maddie, swiped an old burger wrapper off the counter and into the trash as they passed.
“Sounds great!”
Maddie laughed softly under her breath, the sound warm and familiar in a way that made Danny’s chest ache.
“...Can we get fudge after?”
The question was so genuinely hopeful that Danny smiled faintly before he could stop himself.
A fond laugh bubbled from Maddie’s lips.
“Oh,” she said through the laughter. “You are impossible.”
The front door opened, cold autumn air briefly sweeping through the building before it shut again. A moment later the GAV’s engine roared to life outside with its usual sputtering growl, loud enough to rattle the kitchen windows.
Danny waited until the sound faded completely into the distance before uncurling from his bed.
The home felt colder without them in it. Not empty.
Just quieter.
FentonWorks still hummed steadily around him as he padded down the stairs and toward the kitchen in socked feet, rubbing absently at one of his sleeves.
The fridge was mostly empty. A few takeout containers, expired milk, half a bottle of ketchup.
Danny stared for a moment before quietly shutting the door.
That's okay.
He climbed carefully onto the counter, knees pressing again the cool granite as he reached for the upper shelves. He was still short for fourteen, years of inconsistent meals leaving him smaller and thinner than most kids his age.
Crackers, instant noodles, and protein bars.
Manageable, he grabbed a package of crackers.
As he ripped the foil, a sharp fizzing noise echoed faintly from downstairs.
He paused.
Another sound followed. Lower this time, mechanical.
Danny glanced toward the basement door, the buzz in the air radiating from the stairwell.
The lab.
Curiosity twisted quietly in his chest.
He hopped from the counter, knees wobbling slightly at the impact. Laying the open package on the counter, inching to the doorway.
The air grew colder the farther down he went, thick with the familiar smell of ozone and heated metal. The lab lights were still on.
Of course they were.
Danny stepped carefully into the lab, eyes drifting over scattered blueprints, abandoned coffee cups, blinking monitors, suspicious puddles, and tools left wherever his parents had last set them down.
His attention was locked on the machine in the center of the room.
A massive metal frame stretched nearly from floor to ceiling, built directly into the far wall of the lab. Thick reinforced plating surrounding a large circular opening in the center, dark and inactive. Heavy cables and exposed wiring spread outward from it in tangled clusters, disappearing into generators and monitors positioned around the room.
Two thick vertical rails framed the structure on either side, lined with glowing green conduits that pulsed unevenly beneath protective glass.
The inside of the chamber was empty, faint green lights flickered occasionally across the dark interior, almost like a broken warning light.
Danny stepped closer slowly.
The machine seemed to hum in response.
Above the chamber, printed in the familiar family business font:
Fenton Quirk Harmonic Resonance Chamber
Danny remembered watching them build it over the years. At first it had just been sketches scattered across every solid surface of the living room.
Then came the arguments over possible solutions, prototypes exploded. Eventually the giant structure had taken over nearly half the basement.
It was supposed to revolutionize quirk science.
Or at least, that's what they said every time someone asked.
The Chamber was designed to analyze what Maddie called ‘Quirk Frequency Resonance’. According to her, quirks weren't random mutations but energetic phenomena operating on identifiable wavelengths. If mapped correctly, those wavelengths could theoretically be amplified, stabilized, weakened, or even synchronized safely with other quirks.
The problem was the safety part.
So far the thing mostly sparked, screamed, overheated, or shut itself down.
Danny stepped forward, closer to the raised platform in front of it. His sock brushed against loose cables stretched across the floor.
The air around the machine felt strange, heavy. Charged enough that the hairs on his arm prickled slightly.
Near the platform sat an old plastic storage crate overflowing with discarded equipment and prototype gear. Half-curious, Danny crouched beside it and started shifting through the contents.
Old blueprints, broken goggles, a cracked thermos, and a bundle of fabric.
Danny pulled out a drawstring sack, tightly tied at the top. Fumbling with the knot, he was able to get it undone. Inside was a multitude of hazmat suits, different colors and sizes. He remembered when his parents made them in stock, hoping to sell them to prospective partners. They were only able to sell a few before they moved onto other ventures.
None of them were his exact size, either a touch too baggy or the legs being too tight. Glancing back at the machine, the buzzing rhythm from inside enthralling, he grabbed the white jumpsuit with black accents, quickly peeling his fathers smiling face off the chest.
He'd rather it be too baggy than cutting off the circulation in his legs.
He tugged the suit on piece by piece. The fabric hung off his shoulders slightly, rolling up the sleeves and pant legs a tad. It fit surprisingly well considering how old it was.
The gloves were a touch too big, the boots clunky. But the thick white material trapped warmth against his skin almost immediately.
Danny flexed his fingers experimentally before looking back toward the Chamber.
The inside looked bigger up close.
Metal flooring extended a few feet inward beneath the circular frame, surrounded by smooth reinforced plating. Dim green lights lined the interior walls, casting soft reflections across the polished metal.
It honestly looked kind of cool. Like something astronauts would use.
Danny stepped onto the platform. Loose cables snaked across the floor nearby, bundled together haphazardly with strips of duct tape that had started peeling away, one thick cord stretched directly though the entrance to the Chamber itself.
Danny stepped over it carefully before ducking inside, cold air prickled his face immediately. The inside of the chamber smelled sharply of ozone and metal.
He turned slowly, looking around the interior with quiet curiosity. For all the time this thing took up, it didn't seem all that impressive from the inside.
A low fizz crackled somewhere from behind. Danny shifted instinctively toward the sound.
And caught his boot against the loose cable trailing through the entrance.
“Ah-!”
He stumbled hard, one gloved hand slammed against the inner wall of the Chamber as he caught himself.
There was a large metallic CLICK.
For a second, everything stopped.
The humming vanished, the monitors froze, the lab fell completely silent.
Then the machine activated.
Green light detonated through the circular frame as energy erupted violently across the rails. Alarms screamed from every monitor in the lab while the floor beneath Danny shook hard enough to rattle his teeth.
The darkness behind him split open.
Danny froze as the Chamber screamed.
White-hot electricity tore through the suit straight into his body as green energy arched violently around him. The smell of burning ozone flooded the air so thick it felt like he was breathing metal.
Danny tried to scream, jerking hard, but the sound was drowned beneath the roar of the machine.
His knees hit the platform, but he didn't stay upright for long. The force rolling through him like the machine had grabbed hold of every nerve.
His fingers locked involuntarily against the inner wall, still pressed where he’d stumbled. The metal beneath his glove vibrated violently, something in the machine shifting.
Danny’s vision blurred at the edges. The lab beyond the Chamber flickered in and out, monitors flashing useless patterns, tools rattling off shelves, the ceiling lights strobing in harsh rhythm.
Too many sensations colliding in the same space. Heat and cold layered over each other until neither existed properly. His heartbeat stuttered, then doubled, then lost its rhythm entirely before picking up again.
Danny's back arched violently as the energy spiked through him again. The suit smoked faintly at the seams, colors flickering under the strain. His breath caught, then stopped cooperating entirely.
His fingers spasmed, knees giving out completely. He collapsed against the floor of the Chamber, one arm still half-raised, locked against the panel he'd hit earlier.
Danny’s thoughts started to fracture at the edges, the idea of his body became harder to hold onto with each pulse.
The last thing he felt was the suit around him going cold in one instant, then everything broke apart into white light.
Quirks:
Danny - Quirkless
Jazz - Instant Recall - is able to instantly recall anything she has read, seen, or heard.
Maddie - Hypothesis Instinct - generates accurate scientific explanations faster than most based on the input she is given.
Jack - Overcharge Drive - physical enhancer that spikes his strength, durability, and aggression the more excited or threatened he feels. It's unstable and imprecise, he gets stronger, but also clumsier and more reckless as it builds.