#Valerie Gray Appreciation

[the-stove-is-on-fire]

Having thoughts about Valerie again.

But alas, her character development and depth in canon is.... well...

On a surface level Badass Ghost Hunter is a great character hook. Valerie is so cool! Her hunter character design is eye catching and attention grabbing. It's a great design. But beyond that, I want her character to have so much more depth. I want to know more about what kind of person makes the decisions she makes. Because honestly, she deserves it.

So I suppose we DIY this shit, huh?

Who's got some headcanons about Val's non ghost related hobbies and personal life?

The goofy stuff her dad's done since she was little that she pretends to be annoyed about but secretly loves? The things her dad does that she actually finds annoying? Her small joys? Her favorite snack? Her favorite season of the year and why? Her favorite movie or music genres? Her celebrity crushes? Her hopes and dreams for the future? Her best classes in school? Her dream job? What are your headcanons for her extended family? Does she have any aunties and uncles? Younger or older cousins? Her favorite animal? Her opinions on crocs? (The shoe or the reptile) Does she have any odd phobias? (like crocs) What motivates her to get out of bed every morning? What helps her fall asleep at night? What keeps her up at night? (Besides the ghosts) Does she prefer tea? Hot chocolate? Coffee? Cold drinks?

Tell me all the little details you've thought about. The fun ideas and sparks that can make her more.

[shiftereris]

For the ask game you reblogged.

Wes

Vlad

Valerie

Sam

👀

Hey! Thanks for the ask, how are you?

(click for possibly better quality)

[hannahmanderr]

Tag

(AO3)

Valerie had always found the Guys in White a bit bothersome – butting themselves into situations they had no business being involved in – but she never felt particularly threatened by them. She knew they were aware of her and her vigilante gig, but, in general, they stayed away from her and let her do her thing.

That was, until they led her into a van and carted her away to their facility.

They had no reason to be there, in the park. It had just been the Box Ghost, and in retrospect, he wasn't even doing anything other than being a nuisance. Phantom hadn't even been there. Still, the moment she'd touched down after securing him away in her containment device, two agents practically materialized from nowhere and demanded – or, as they put it, requested – that she come with them immediately.

She had said something along the lines of "okay," but there had definitely been an intended follow-up to that "okay." Unfortunately for her, there hadn't been much time for her to protest though before one of the agents cuffed her and practically dragged her into a windowless, white van. It took more self-restraint than she would've liked to bite her tongue and keep from lashing out at them for being treated like some criminal. These guys were feds. She didn't really want them on her case more than they already appeared to be.

One goon jumped into the driver's seat while the other sat her down in the back and slipped something over her helmet that made the world go dark and quiet. "For security reasons," he assured her.

It did nothing to calm her nerves. She'd read about these kinds of special masks before. They were supposedly used by agencies like the CIA and the FBI to transport prisoners, specially designed to block out all vision and hearing. She didn't appreciate being treated like a prisoner when she hadn't done anything wrong (as far as she knew), and she didn't hesitate to voice her displeasure.

She was only met with the sound of her wildly thumping heart echoing in her ears.

Valerie didn't have the best internal clock, but it had to have been at least 20 or 30 minutes before the van came to a stop and her babysitter lifted the mask from her head. Blinding light flooded her vision, and she tinted her visor immediately. After being in the dark for so long, the light was disorienting, to say the least (the fact that the garage was stark white didn't help matters much). The full tint at least helped alleviate some of that.

No wonder they wear sunglasses all the time, she thought.

She was handed off to a third agent, who barely gave her a warning before setting off into the facility proper. They walked no more than a hundred yards before coming to a security checkpoint. The agent swiped her badge and easily stepped through the detector before the security guard turned to Valerie.

"You'll need to remove your suit," he said. "Visitors are not permitted to have weapons in the facility."

Her alarm bells had been going off ever since the GIW had appeared back in the park, but they started ringing at full volume after hearing that. Being without her weapons was one thing, but her suit entirely? That thought was unsettling.

It was deluded of her to think she had anything resembling a secret identity around them. They were government, after all. The minute she'd debuted herself, they'd probably poured a number of resources into finding out who she was. They probably had fingers in many areas of her life. If she didn't comply, they could ruin her life far worse than any ghost ever had. The thought was terrifying, and Valerie Gray didn't do terrified.

Even still, having her suit and helmet on was comforting. For one thing, the armor was fairly strong; should worst come to worst, she could at least defend herself and be protected, but it was more than that. With her helmet on, she could pretend they didn't know anything, that she was just some faceless vigilante. In the back of her mind, she knew it didn't matter in the long run, but it still.

It felt nice to pretend.

She pressed a button on her gauntlet, and a hum reverberated through the suit as it entered standby mode. "There. I deactivated everything," she told the guard, deciding not to mention certain features that couldn't be deactivated. "The suit is staying on, though."

"That won't cut it, miss," the guard said with a shake of his head. "Zero tolerance policy."

"No, I mean like I can't take it off. It won't deactivate while it senses an ectoplasmic presence in the area." Was it a lie? Absolutely. She just hoped it was believable enough for it to slide.

The guard opened his mouth to protest, but the agent cut him off. "Leave it," she said. "We're on a tight schedule. We need to get her to O, now."

If O was the same Agent O that was the co-commander of the Amity Park squadron, then Valerie was really not looking forward to this. She didn't have much time to think about it though before the guard ushered her through the detector and handed her a temporary badge. The agent grabbed her by the handcuffs' connector and led her down the corridor, into the heart of the facility.

Her own heart raced so fast, she was sure it would jump out of her chest.

The facility ended up being more of a labyrinth than she'd been expecting. They wound through endless hallways with white linoleum, stark walls, and bright, fluorescent lighting. She tried to study the route they were taking, searching for any identifying characteristics on the walls and doors- cameras, room numbers, anything really - but the task was much easier said than done. Everything was bare and unmarked. No signs on the doors, no markers, nothing. 

How did the agent even know where they were going?

As they continued, she got fidgety. She wanted to pull out a gun and tinker with it or something. Although her father was less than happy about it, poking around her weapons when she was agitated was something along the lines of a coping mechanism for her. It helped take her mind off things with the added bonus of learning more about her technology, sometimes not even on purpose. 

Right after her breakup with Danny, she'd been messing around with her ecto-rifle so much that she'd accidentally increased its firing speed two-fold. She'd immediately done the same to the rest of her weapons.

Calling up a weapon probably wasn't the best idea, though. Even though they were technically powerless at the moment, the agent probably wouldn't take too kindly to her fiddling with a gun, and causing trouble probably wouldn’t end too well for her in a place like this. As much as she hated it, she needed to keep quiet and compliant for the time being.

Without anything physical to distract her, her thoughts began escalating. Why did Agent O want to see her so bad? Why go through the trouble of tracking her down and giving her the prisoner treatment and everything? Had she seriously done something wrong?

She couldn't think of anything she might've done that would've offended them. In fact, she hadn't been doing as much as of late, period. Ghosts were showing up with less frequency than they had when she first started, and the ghosts that did decide to show up tended to be hard-hitters who were specifically looking to pick a fight with Phantom. In other words, she hadn't had as much hunting to do recently. 

As much as she enjoyed hunting, though, she had to admit the relief was welcome. She’d managed to swing an A- on the last chemistry exam, and her essay for Mr. Lancer was coming along nicely. She’d been able to hang out with Star a bit more, and she’d even gotten to sit and have a pleasant conversation with Danny while waiting for her dad to pick her up from work. Dad was much more pleased with how her life was looking, to say the least.

Oh God, how am I gonna explain this all to Daddy?

The question frayed her nerves so much that she almost collided with her escort, who'd stopped suddenly. A door stood in front of them, unmarked just like every other one she'd seen so far. The agent didn't say a word as she pulled it open. Valerie couldn't see her eyes behind the sunglasses, and she couldn’t read any sort of emotion on the agent’s face. 

She couldn't help but wonder if there was a different, darker reason for wearing them.

She only hesitated a moment more before entering the bare room. It was no less white and lit than the hallways she'd just come from. There was no furniture; a door and a large, frosted glass window took up most of the back wall. Some sort of interrogation window, maybe one of those fancy, one-way mirror things, she figured.

The only other thing in the room was the man who apparently was so desperate to see her, Agent O. He was tapping at something on a tablet, but he looked up when he heard her enter. A smile bloomed on his face, but there was no warmth behind it. "Hello, Valerie," he greeted.

It took a great deal of her willpower to resist the urge to flinch at the use of her name. It had been coming, of course, but at least she’d been able to pretend she was just some faceless vigilante before.

She silently thanked herself for tinting her visor. It did a wonderful job hiding her true emotions.

"Thank you for coming in today," Agent O continued. He seemed oblivious to her worry. "We apologize for the lack of notice, but this situation was completely unprecedented. We believe it may require your certain… expertise. There wasn't much time for formalities or contacting you to set up an appointment."

Valerie crossed her arms indignantly, her fiery stubbornness reigniting despite the nerves. "It's not like I had much choice," she grumbled.

"Yes, well, as I said, this is a situation of sensitive and urgent nature. We couldn't afford to waste time going through niceties," he said, unfazed by her displeasure.

"What could be so urgent that you need to track me down personally and practically kidnap me?" Valerie deadpanned.

If possible, Agent O's face hardened just slightly. "I will remind you, Valerie, that you came with us willingly. There was no kidnapping involved."

Valerie opened her mouth to protest, but stopped before she said anything. It could maybe be argued that she hadn’t consented to being jerked around and cuffed and hooded and carted off, but at the same time, she technically had agreed to come with the agents, as coercive and unofficial as it had been. There wasn't much she could do with that to peg them.

He raised one eyebrow, seemingly waiting for her to object. When it didn’t come, though, he continued speaking. 

"Some interesting information has recently come to light about a certain ghost. Information that some of our scientists are having difficulty wrapping their minds around. We believe your more… intimate knowledge of the ghosts of Amity Park may be of value to us," he said, scrolling on his tablet. The glare of the screen reflected off his dark sunglasses lenses.

She resisted the urge to make a snarky comment about how a teenager knew more than a whole team of adults whose lives were dedicated to this sort of thing. Instead, she asked, "And what sort of help do you think I could be?"

The corners of Agent O's mouth twitched upwards. "What do you know about ghosts with human identities?"

That made her freeze.

Her encounter with Danny Phantom's cousin and Vlad had only been a few weeks ago, and she'd spent those past weeks agonizing over what had happened and the implications. It was hard enough knowing that these sort of ghost-human hybrids - or whatever they were - existed, and then she had to go and discover that the man she trusted had been using her this entire time. 

She’d been desperate to talk about it with someone, but no one knew of her secret identity. The Fentons may have known something about the subject, but they could be overbearing at times. And there was no way she could talk to her father, who still didn't fully approve of her ghost hunting. He would flip a lid if he knew the truth.

She’d nearly spilled everything to Danny when they’d talked the other day. It made sense, in retrospect; he was the person she trusted the most outside of her dad, and he was just so easy to talk to. The idea of just telling him about her ghost hunting had crossed her mind more than once, but the fear of endangering him and getting him hurt - physically or emotionally - was too strong.

Especially now knowing how dangerous Vlad truly was.

Really, at the end of the day, there was one person she knew had the answers and could maybe help her process through it, but there's no way she'd admit she needed his help in a million years.

And so despite her mental turbulence, she’d resolved to hold her tongue. It was probably for the best, anyway. She had a distinct feeling she was never supposed to know about this ghost-human thing in the first place, and a part of her wished she'd never found out at all.

On top of it all, she still wasn't even sure how to feel about the idea of these kinds of ghosts, the ones with human attributes. She'd hated ghosts vehemently for so long, it was difficult for her to think they could be anything but trouble. Dani, of course, had proven her wrong (with a little encouragement), and her cousin had made a good point that it wasn't just the fact that they were ghosts, they were humans too, but just how far did that go? Goodness wasn't an issue with Dani, but Vlad was clearly a monster of a person. 

She didn't feel any remorse for him.

Still, something held her back. She hated to admit it, but Phantom had hit the nail on the head that night: she had no problems with destroying ghosts, but she couldn't bring herself to destroy a human, even if they weren't fully human. As long as there was some human there, they couldn't be all that awful, right? But such logic countered her long-held beliefs.

It gave her a headache just trying to reconcile the two. Most days, she avoided thinking about it. It wasn't her problem, it shouldn't be her problem. And yet she was standing here, having been dragged into it again.

Without moving her head, she glanced towards the window. Was it possible they really found another ghost that was also human? Or did they get to Dani? The thought of that little girl being held captive in this facility caused her stomach to drop.

A chill ran down her spine as she wondered if it could be Vlad behind that window. She didn't think she could stomach the idea of facing him right now. She'd strategically avoided meeting with him these past few weeks for that exact purpose. And if the Guys in White could get their hands on a powerful ghost like Vlad… She wasn't sure how to feel about that.

She forced herself to calm down. Agent O had said ghosts with human identities. That didn't necessarily mean that it was one of these hybrid type ghosts. It could be a ghost like Spectra, who disguised herself as a human therapist, or Ember McLain, who posed as a pop star. 

Actually, in retrospect, there were several ghosts who'd pulled one over on the people of Amity Park, and they'd all had a number of tells that should've given their identities away. Maybe they just wanted to talk to her about this sort of thing. She knew enough about ghosts and their interactions with humans to spot their tells. This was information she could easily give to the Guys in White and be done.

Agent O was watching her carefully. She was taking a long time to answer his question, and she knew he was getting suspicious. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Well, Amity Park has had a lot of ghosts that have posed as humans to try and get to us. It's a fairly common tactic, and overall, people have gotten better at finding them, but – "

He waved her words away. "Yes, we know all about them. I'm talking about human identities on a deeper level. Possibly to the point where they may not be as ghostly as they seem."

Once again, she had to use all her willpower to avoid cursing out loud. Stay calm, think logically, she told herself. She couldn't afford to screw up here. She didn't want them knowing she knew way more than she should. She couldn’t have them knowing she knew more than she should. 

It was every possibility that it was just some random person behind that window with some obscure connections to ghost activity, or maybe some dumb ghost trying to be cool that ended up getting captured. It was very possible that she could walk away from this without revealing anything.

Well, she hadn’t participated in middle school theater for nothing. Knitting her eyebrows together (despite the fact Agent O couldn't see her face) and putting on her most innocent voice, she said, "I'm not quite sure I'm following you."

Agent O turned back to his tablet. "Valerie, you're a smart girl.Think about it: what if there was a specific breed of ghost that could disguise itself beyond the poor masquerades we've seen so far? One that could take on the physical attributes of a human in order to hide?” He broke into a smile. “This may not even be a matter of disguising, either. This could mean the existence of interspecies hybrids with humans, something unheard of throughout history."

He scrolled and tapped until he found what he was looking for, turning the tablet around to show her. She wasn't much of a scientist, so she wasn't quite sure what she was looking at, but she could definitely see a strand of DNA in the diagram, although there was something off about it. Parts of it were discolored and disfigured.

"This is from a sample taken from a ghost's bodily ectoplasm right after a fight in Amity Park,” he explained as she studied the diagram. “Needless to say, we were quite surprised to find actual DNA in the ghost's proverbial blood, considering ghosts are held to not have DNA. Ectoplasm has never been able to retain the same DNA structure that a human can. Maybe that’s why we were even more excited to find that parts of the DNA we found made up genomes resembling that of a human's.”

The diagram and the agent's explanation suddenly made the situation even more real to her. Once again, her mind drifted back to Dani and Vlad. Was this what their ectoplasm looked like? Or even their human blood? Swimming with the genes of a human and the traits of a ghost? And just how many others were out there with this same type of ectoplasm?

She glanced up at Agent O. "How can someone be human and ghost at the same time? It's like being dead and alive at the same time."

He frowned. "We're not entirely sure. Our scientists are still working on their analysis of the ectoplasm and working through their theories. That's not entirely important right now, though. What is important is that it is possible. Just think of the implications."

She was, in fact, thinking of the implications. The thought that there could be more of these kinds of ghosts nauseated her only because she relentlessly shot at just about every single ghost she came across. She couldn't stand thinking that she'd come close to accidentally destroying a human being, part ghost or not. 

For the sake of the situation, however, she pushed those thoughts away. Instead, she said, "You mean there could be ghosts hiding under our very noses and we wouldn't know about it?"

He nodded. "Exactly. But think beyond just that. This could be used to our advantage! A military weapon, far more advanced than any technology on the market right now. A soldier able to sneak up on the enemy without being noticed, one who can't be touched by bullets, and be able to take them out with his bare hands. If we can learn to replicate this," he said, shaking the tablet and splitting his face into a wicked grin, "our army would be unstoppable."

Her stomach churned. "Isn't that kind of illegal?" she asked weakly, hoping her voice wasn’t betraying her. "Taking people and doing that to them?"

Agent O’s eyes grew dark and hungry. "Forgive me for sounding brash, but it would give purpose to some of the more… undesirables."

She wanted to run out of the room right then and there. Feelings of ghosts aside, taking innocent (or even not-so-innocent) people like that and forcing them to turn into some strange half-human creature and then conscripting them to fight in the army against their will… It was sickening. Horrifying, really. She couldn't believe these words were coming from the mouth of an American government agent.

She wouldn't let that happen. Not on her watch.

She took a few deep breaths to calm her anger and her twisted stomach. "I hope you know I'm not here to do your dirty work for you," she bit back at him.

Again, he was unfazed by her outrage. "We're not asking you to do anything like that, Valerie. That's our job. However, you'll be doing a great service to your country today either way. You'll help us get to where we need to be."

"How so?" She really didn't want to hear whatever he had in store for her.

"The ghost we found is being extremely uncooperative. It refuses to tell us anything, even after multiple attempts at eliciting information," he said.

The suggestions of torture weren't lost on her, and it only fueled her anger. If this ghost truly was part human, then these guys really were breaking the law.

But they were federal government. Didn’t they basically get to decide the law?

"You've encountered this ghost before during your time in Amity Park," Agent O continued. Somehow, she wasn't surprised, though her heart sank just a little more. "We believe that a familiar face may be able to… persuade the ghost to give us our information and reveal to us its human identity. We want you to go in there and get us what we need."

She'd figured as much. He was right when he said she wouldn't be doing the dirty work of beginning to replicate the mutation and experimenting and all that, but she was practically doing just that by agreeing to interrogating whatever ghost they had. 

"What if I don't want to?" she asked. There was no sense in drawing this into a long thing, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

He fixed her with a look. "You don't want to make this difficult on you and your family, Valerie. We're only asking one simple task of you."

Oh, hell no. He did not get to threaten her father like that. She’d take this entire facility down with her bare hands before she let them use him as a bargaining chip like that.

And yet there wasn't much choice for her. She couldn't put Dad in that position.

She deflated. The victorious look in the agent's eyes bothered her to no end. "Fine. I'll do it. But you better not even so much as look at my father or I'll tear you - all of you apart." She felt stupid saying it. The threat sounded foolish and hollow, even to her. Still though, he nodded, satisfied.

"Who is this ghost you have anyway?" she asked with a sigh.

"Ah," he said, turning to his tablet once more. "I'll show you." He tapped a couple of buttons and the frosted glass of the window became clear. 

Valerie's knees almost buckled when she saw the ghost bound to a metal chair.

A shock of white hair. A logo plastered around her city. Alien green eyes burning with terror.

Her face burned red under her mask. Whether it was from anger or shame, she couldn't tell. Something inside of her was paralyzed to the point where she could only hear white noise echoing in her head. She was only vaguely aware of Agent O watching her carefully, but she didn't exactly care at the moment.

She had to get in there and talk to him.

But even as she walked through the door and met Danny Phantom's horrified gaze, she wondered how she was going to make it through this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny liked to think of himself as a brave guy. Since starting this superhero gig, he'd gotten into some terrifying situations. Watching his family explode at his own hands was pretty bad. Or almost dying as he tried to keep the most powerful ghost in existence locked up. Or even that time Sam almost killed him for accidentally letting Cujo use her favorite skirt as a toilet. He'd survived all of those and bounced back from them fairly easily.

He had to admit to himself, though, that he'd never been this scared in his life.

As quietly as he could, so as not to get the attention of the two agents assigned to guard him, he tested his bonds for what had to be the tenth time. They still held fast against his hands and ankles.

He didn't like having his hands tied behind him. Every survival instinct that came with his ghostliness screamed that it left his torso very vulnerable to an attack. Not only that, but the hands were what he could defend himself best with. There was a good reason that hands behind the back was a universal sign of surrender and submissiveness in ghost body language, something he’d learned over time. You couldn't fire an attack at someone from behind your back, and you were leaving yourself open to your opponent. You were putting yourself at the mercy of the other.

It was an instinct and an implication he couldn't ignore, especially because the Guys in White were the kind of people who wouldn't hesitate to put a scalpel to him. Thankfully, they hadn't gotten that desperate yet.

Trying to break my hand, electrocution, psychological warfare, he thought dryly, but no vivisection at least. Or would it be dissection?

Admittedly, it was getting harder and harder to keep his mouth shut, in more ways than one. The more stressed out he got, the snarkier he got. It was a defense mechanism, Jazz once told him. An attempt to mask his anxiety and fright using humor and sarcasm, apparently. 

He wasn't sure if he believed her (or any of her psychobabble about him), but if it was true, it was definitely working to hide how he really felt. Of course, his sass just antagonized the agents interrogating him and made them push harder.

But it was also getting harder to keep quiet about the information they wanted. Namely, his secret. He had no idea how they figured it out, but they kept telling him they had proof of his human half. That revelation itself almost shut him down right then and there, but he vehemently denied the accusation. His identity was his most carefully guarded secret, and he would not let it go without a fight. 

No one ever said it wasn’t tiring work, trying to keep Phantom and Fenton as separate as possible. Thankfully, they hadn't mentioned anything about Danny Fenton yet, but they hinted that they knew he had some sort of human form. Part of the torture had been to get him to change into his human form, in fact.

The fact that they didn't know too many of the details about the whole half-ghost thing was somewhat reassuring, and it helped him stay quiet. The less they knew, the better, and he wasn't about to add to their arsenal. He was sure they had a bunch of science nerds foaming at the mouth trying to work out more, but that process would take more time than him spilling the beans.

If he had to stay here and endure to keep the secret, then so be it. He couldn't put Dani in danger like that. And he hated to admit it, but he couldn't even put Vlad in danger like that. As much as he hated the guy, betraying him like that went against every single one of his moral codes.

And so he sat in the chair with his arms and wrists growing sorer by the minute, terrified out of his mind. Agent O, the guy who had been doing the bulk of the interrogation so far, had left a while ago without explanation. It had to have been at least an hour since he left, Danny figured, but he'd lost track of time a long while back.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the door opened. Danny straightened, expecting to meet Agent O and face him with more tenacity than before.

What he didn't expect was for Valerie Gray to march in and slap him across the face.

He could only stare at her, flabbergasted, as she jabbed a finger into his chest. "You dirty liar," she growled, the sound of her voice distorted by her helmet. "All this time, and you've been lying to me since day one."

Danny's heart sank. They had to have told her. She probably put two and two together already, given what he'd told her about half-ghosts during their encounter with Dani. He'd hoped that experience had warmed her up to him a little bit, but any progress he'd made with her had just been undone in an instant.

She was taking the revelation far worse than he'd hoped.

Agent O had entered the room silently and was standing in the corner with his hands behind his back. He watched the two teenagers with mild interest, but his face was mostly unreadable.

Valerie turned to him. "I need to have a minute with him alone," she said, her voice hard. "We need to have a heart-to-heart."

"Anything you have to say to it can be said in front of us, Valerie," Agent O replied calmly. “We’re all on the same side here.”

I’m not, he wanted to sass back, but he managed to keep himself quiet.

"No," she said. "This is personal. You knew that when you brought me in here. If you want me to do this, then you leave us alone. No guards, no cameras, no nothing. This is just between me and him."

Danny watched the argument unfold. It would make sense that these goons would want to be a part of whatever happened in here, but he didn't understand why Valerie was being insistent on not having them around. Normally he'd think she didn't care whether they saw or not. Especially if she was as mad at him as she seemed.

Agent O was also watching Valerie intently. "We need a way to record the information you're getting for us," he said. The calm in his voice annoyed Danny just as much as he knew it drove Valerie crazy. "You're asking us to simply take your word for what happens in here."

"What, you think I'm gonna lie to you?" Valerie retorted. She turned back to face Danny, and a chill ran down his spine. Seeing her like this, with her mask so dark and anger radiating from her body like her own mini aura, was haunting. "There's no way I'm gonna lie to protect him."

His heart shattered.

He shouldn't have been surprised, but it still hurt more than any physical torture to hear the girl who once said she'd give up ghost hunting for him say that to his face.

She looked at Agent O again and pointed to her helmet. "I have recording equipment set up in this thing. If you guys are so desperate for your information, I'll give it to you after I'm done if anything interesting happens, if my word isn’t good enough for you."

Agent O considered this, all while still staring her down. As hurt as he was, Danny sat in awe at the way she refused to back down to this man, both in argument and in her body language. It was one of the many things about her that caught his attention. Too bad in this case, like many others, this steadfastness was being used against him.

After what felt like an eternity, the agent nodded. "Alright. You can have it your way. But we'll expect you to submit to a full debrief afterwards, including surrendering that helmet."

"Deal," Valerie said, a little too eagerly for Danny's tastes, and she stuck out a hand for Agent O to shake. He took it, and Danny saw the muscles in his hands tense as he squeezed the hand harder than he probably should. Valerie, however, still did not waver.

After realizing that she wasn't going to show any sign of discomfort, he let go of her hand and pulled up the tablet by his side. He tapped a couple of buttons, and Danny saw the tiny blinking red light in the corner of the room die down. "Cameras and audio have been disabled," Agent O said. He turned to Danny's babysitters and waved them out of the room. 

Before he exited and closed the door, he gave Valerie a pointed look. "Remember who you're doing this for," he told her darkly, and he shut the door, leaving Valerie and Danny alone.

Danny was taken aback by the tone the agent had used on her. "Valerie, are they threatening you?" he asked. It was the first thing he'd said to her since she'd come in.

Apparently speaking had been a mistake. She whirled on him with an accusatory finger jabbed into his chest, saying, "Don't act like you care about me, Phantom!" Her voice had suddenly grown hoarse and cracked. "You don't care about anything except your own hide!"

So he was Phantom. He couldn't exactly tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "Look, I know how this all seems to you," he said, trying to keep his voice as calm and placating as possible without seeming condescending, "but I never meant to hurt anyone, especially you. Can't you see that?"

To his surprise, she yanked off her helmet and dropped it with a clatter. His heart and core both sunk to the floor when he saw just how upset she was. Her face was pink and blotchy and her eyes were bloodshot. There were actual tear stains on her cheeks.

In all the time he'd known her, he'd never seen Valerie Gray cry.

"Just because you may not have meant to hurt me doesn't mean you didn't," she said, the heat in her voice unmistakable. "All this time I've been hunting you down, and you didn't think it was important enough to tell me?"

"In my defense," he began, a little miffed by her arrogance, "it isn't exactly something I go around telling everybody, you know? Especially people who are always yelling about how much they hate me. Sorry if I didn't think you'd handle it all that well."

If possible, Valerie looked even more hurt. "You seriously think I would hurt a human? Who do you think I am?"

"I didn't know if you would care about the human more than you hated the ghost," Danny snapped. He hated having to explain himself to her like this. Under these circumstances. He’d never been great at knowing the right things to say in these sorts of conversations, and it was even more difficult to figure out what to say under pressure like this.

"So that's it then? I'm just some heartless monster who resorts to shooting first, no matter what?"

Danny didn't answer. He knew she wouldn't shoot. The Valerie he knew would care. She'd be upset, but she'd try to be reasonable and talk it out before making any rash decisions. 

Of course, that was the Valerie that Danny Fenton knew, and as of now, she still didn't know about that. The Valerie that Danny Phantom knew was a ruthless hunter, capable of being reasoned with, but only in extreme circumstances.

He took a deep breath. "The issue is that I really don't know you all that well," he said, avoiding her eyes. At this point, every word that was coming out of his mouth was a lie, and he knew it would come back and bite him in the butt. But what else could he do? "Basically every time we’ve come across each other, it’s ended with you having a gun pointing at me. That doesn't exactly invite much confidence."

"But I helped you with your cousin," she countered.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He hated what he was about to say. "Yeah, but even when you found out about who she was, you had no problem turning her over to Vlad. I had to convince you to go back and help me rescue her."

She was quiet for a long time, her lips pressed into a thin line. Another tear trickled down her cheek, but she made no move to wipe it away. "That was when I trusted him."

That was… unexpected. "What are you talking about?"

"I found out he's been lying to me this whole time, too," she said quietly. "Just like you, apparently."

He felt a pit growing in his stomach. There was no way this was gonna end well, but he had to know. "You're gonna have to be more specific."

She started pacing in front of him, slowly. "I went back, after you and Dani left. I heard him talking to his AI of Mrs. Fenton. I saw him transform." She stopped abruptly and looked at him. "But I'm sure you knew all this, right?"

Danny found himself reeling. After all the lengths Vlad went to in order to protect his identity, after their conversation about their stalemate, and she found out that easily? It seemed impossible. Vlad had always been the untouchable type.

"And now to find out that you've been lying to me too, about the exact same thing!" Valerie was still saying. "Don't you understand? How that feels?" She scoffed. "Never mind. What am I saying? Of course you don't. You only care about yourself."

He hadn't caught up to what she was saying to process her accusation. His brain was still stuck on the Vlad revelation, and rightfully so. The things Vlad could do to her if he knew his secret was blown…

It was less about saving his own hide at this point. He knew his own secret was toast. But Vlad was a powerful man, and Valerie was nothing but a disposable pawn to him. He'd made her into who she was; he could do the same to another unsuspecting victim. She could be removed from the picture easily. The thought sent a horrifying chill down Danny's spine.

"Does he know that you know?" he demanded.

She furrowed her brow. "Does who know? About you?"

"No, Vlad! Does he know you found out about him?"

She opened her mouth, probably with some biting comment on her tongue, but she left it hanging open. In the days to come, Danny would wonder what came over her or what caused her to change, but he saw her soften before his very eyes, just ever so slightly. Maybe it was the desperation in his voice, or her own realization of the danger, or even just exhaustion. 

Whatever happened, though, her eyebrows lifted and the creases near her eyes smoothed out just a little bit. The angry gleam in her eyes died down to a skeptic glare, still heated but with a little less fire. "No," she said slowly, watching him carefully.

He released a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He didn't miss how Valerie's eyes shot down to watch his chest deflate, but he tried to ignore it. "Good. You can't let him know that you know."

The hardened, angry look returned just as fast as it had disappeared. "I know that! I'm not stupid," she retorted. It may have just been his imagination or some sort of delirious hope, but her voice sounded a little less harsh than it did when she'd been ranting a moment ago. "Besides, this is about you, not him. I mean, you lied to me about both of you anyway. And you probably would've lied to me about Dani too if you could've."

"I was trying to protect you," he said, and he instantly regretted it. He hated having to be on the defensive like this, especially when it came to verbal arguments. He tended to get too caught up in the moment and make stupid comments like that one. Ghost fighting was so much easier; no tactful arguments involved, just good old physical fighting with a snarky quip thrown in every now and then.

He braced himself for the tirade coming his way. She was sticking him with one of her worst death glares.

"Protect me?" she seethed. "I don't need protecting. I don't need protecting from anything. And even if I did, I especially don't need protecting from you of all people. That would be like – like you holding a gun to my head and telling me that you're taking care of me. You say you were trying to protect me? Well look where we're sitting right now! Tell me how stellar of a protector you are now."

He hesitated. She was right. For all that he'd done to shield her from the complicated underlying truth, he'd failed. Failed miserably, at that. Here he was, tied to a chair with his secret identity hanging on by a thread, and there she was, driving herself crazy with all the new information she was being forced to deal with. Neither of them were in a favorable position. 

It killed him so much to have to see her like this. It only served as a bitter reminder of his inability to protect her, whether she wanted the protection or not.

"You… you're right," he said, bowing his head. "I did a sorry job of it. And you're your own person. You're capable of defending yourself. I can't control you, or what other people do, or anything. I couldn't stop either of us from ending up here, and I couldn't stop you from finding out about Vlad and Dani. I just wanted you to be able to live as normal as possible and not have to deal with all of… this."

She barked a hollowl laugh. "Putting aside the fact that I refuse to believe you care about me whatsoever, normal hasn't been a thing for me ever since you showed up."

"It's not like I asked for this either, Val," he said. His mouth was beginning to get ahead of his brain, but he couldn't stop the words from coming out. "I haven't had normal for a long time either. I've had to deal with this stuff since day one, ever since I became what I am. I just figured there was no sense in both of us having to deal with it."

"That's not your decision to make!" she shouted. She cupped her mouth with her hand, pausing a moment before speaking again. "This is why I can't trust you! You literally just went on and on about how I'm my own person and you can't control me, but you talk about deciding what I should and shouldn't know. Every other word that comes out of your mouth is some sort of lie or trick, and you expect me to be able to trust you? Or believe that you actually have my best interests at heart or something?"

This conversation was going absolutely swell, he decided. All he was doing was talking himself into a hole. He needed to convince her that he was on her side. Whether or not he got out of here, he needed her to know that he never meant her any harm. Even back when he hated her.

She wasn't going to listen to anything Phantom had to say, that much was clear. She was too hurt and angry. But he still had one last card to play and use to break through to her. 

The only issue was he had no clue whether revealing himself as Fenton would make things better or worse, especially now.

She was staring out the one-way window. He watched her reflection carefully. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her shoulders were creeping forward and up towards her ears. As angry as she was presenting herself and as loud as she generally was, this was the smallest he'd ever seen her.

"The worst part is that I did start to believe in you for a moment there," she said after a long time. Danny looked up in surprise, taken aback by the admission, but he kept his mouth shut. He needed to hear more.

Sighing, she continued, "Everything that happened with Dani shook me, alright? And it wasn't just finding out about her and Vlad. You were almost the weirdest thing about that night. The way that all you could focus on was saving your cousin when I was ready to rip into you. You were just so determined to save that little girl that you didn't care what happened to you. And I saw you when she disintegrated. You just… you seemed absolutely devastated. And then after all that, you stayed behind to keep up your end of the deal. You just willingly offered yourself up to me. I think I was so surprised that I just let you go. I didn't know what else to do.

"And I kept thinking about it, too. I had no clue what to make of it. It went against everything I knew and believed about you and other ghosts. For a while there, I started to think that maybe you hadn't been lying to me; that maybe you really were different from the rest and that you did care."

She shut her eyes. "And now come to find out that you were lying to me the whole time. About who you were and everything. When they showed me you sitting here… I didn't know what to think. It felt like I'd just been stabbed in the back. It was just… I felt betrayed, alright? So betrayed. More than I had with Vlad. I have no idea why, but it felt like I was maybe beginning to understand only for it to turn out you were just playing me the whole time."

He didn't understand why she was being so transparent with him. It was very out of character. Even when they'd dated and she was talking to someone she actually liked, she'd never talked about her feelings in this way.

"I never lied to you about being different," he said slowly. "Obviously, I'm not like the rest of the ghosts. But I never lied about caring for you either. That's the different part of me."

She looked at him through the reflection in the mirror. Her back was still towards him. "Yeah, well, being part human doesn't suddenly make you a saint."

There was a pause, and then, "And what's all this with caring about me and protecting me and stuff? You sure didn't seem to care that much when I first met you. Why would you want to put so much effort into me and then not even tell me the truth?"

The answer was on his lips. He wanted to tell her so badly. He wanted to tell her how much he really did care for her, how much it hurt him seeing her like this, maybe even how he sometimes wished they'd never stopped dating. He wanted to change back and spill his heart out to her and beg for her forgiveness.

It would be so easy. The transformation was like blinking. He could do it without even thinking. With no one watching except for her, all the cameras off and her helmet face down on the ground. He could make it happen.

And yet he couldn't. Shame of his cowardice burned at his face. Any response he could've given her got caught in his throat. He didn't have the words to explain to her. Only his actions could show her, but he was still too scared to even do that.

Do you really even trust her then?

When he didn't answer, Valerie turned to him with an eyebrow raised. "Well?"

He couldn't meet her eyes. "Please don't make me answer that," he said in little more than a whisper.

Through his bangs, he could see the emotions tumble across her face. Surprise, anger, realization, solemnity – they all flashed across in a moment. It was easy enough to tell that her brain was hard at work, trying to reconcile his answer with a suitable explanation. He only felt more dismayed when she finally settled on hurt again.

"I know you, don't I?" she asked.

It almost wasn't a question. He knew that she already knew the answer. She needed to hear it from him, to confirm or deny it. He knew that she didn't want it to be real. She wanted him to tell her that she was wrong, that he was just some random kid she didn't even know existed.

And yet, he'd run out of lies to tell. His silence was answer enough.

"Oh my God," she muttered, burying her face in her hands. "Oh my God, I do. I know you. You're probably someone I sit in class with every day and I've been trying to kill you…"

The sudden turn toward self-blame snapped Danny out of his guilt. "Don't even start with that. Look, you were right. It is my fault for not telling you, okay? I should've just come out with it at the very beginning and put a stop to it before it came to this." Once again, he found himself unable to stop talking even after having been silent a moment ago. "I should've told everyone at the very beginning. I shouldn't have tried to keep it a secret."

He couldn't help but think of his parents. He was supposed to have been home hours ago. Even if he was out late at night, he was usually home for dinner if he didn't have other plans. At this rate, he wouldn't be home for a long time. They'd be worried sick about him.

It would've almost been easier if they knew.

Valerie, clever as she was, didn't miss the implications. "Does anyone else know?" she asked. Her voice was softening just a little. Still very much distressed and hurt, but not as bitter as it had been. Maybe the mini-revelation that they knew each other outside of ghost hunting had made it a little more real to her.

He took a breath. "Most of the ghosts know. Vlad does, obviously," he answered honestly. "Humans?" He shrugged as best as he could, trying to keep it a little casual. "Not many. Only a few." He didn't want to give her too many details. He wanted to hang on to his identity for however long he could.

Valerie pressed her back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them. "Do they know, like, who you are?"

Numbly, Danny nodded. He almost didn't have the energy to lie anymore. The exhaustion from the whole situation – getting captured, being 'interrogated,' dealing with Valerie – it was suddenly beginning to take a toll on him. He just wanted to go home and curl up in bed and sleep for a week and forget that everything was falling apart at the seams.

The silence stretched on. Valerie, arms wrapped around her legs and chin resting on her knees, stared at a spot on the opposite wall. Danny watched her as discreetly as he could, desperately wanting to know what she was thinking. At least she's not yelling anymore, he thought.

Of course, the silence was almost worse to deal with than her anger.

He wondered what the Guys in White were doing. He wondered if someone was on the other side of the mirror, watching the conversation play out to make sure they got the info they wanted. He wondered about the scientists that were probably frantically analyzing his DNA. Did they know what they would be condemning him to if they discovered the truth?

And what was Valerie going to do? Her helmet was still on the ground, face down. He assumed she never turned the recording equipment on; she was the kind of person who would want the answers for herself before even thinking about sharing them with someone else, especially someone like the Guys in White. As far as he knew, she didn't particularly care about siding with them, so to speak.

But they wouldn't take this sort of insubordination sitting down. The last thing Agent O had said echoed in his mind. They had something over her, some sort of blackmail maybe. Maybe it was her identity. Maybe it was her dad.

He shut his eyes. He was assuming that she was going to side with him on this. After all the hurt and anger she'd shown, how could he expect that of her? There was every possibility she would walk out of this room and spill the beans.

And yet she hadn't said anything about Dani. Or Vlad. She'd gone out of her way to protect Dani once she found out she was innocent. At the same time, she was clearly furious with Vlad and no doubt wanted to get him for what he'd done for her. In the end, it all depended on whether she believed in his good intentions or not.

Basically, he had no idea what she would do.

He took a deep breath. Before he could stop himself, he asked, "Do you want to know?"

Their eyes met. Hers were filled with an emotion he couldn't comprehend. He couldn't imagine the turmoil she was facing, having these kinds of revelations thrown on her so suddenly. It hadn't even been that long since they rescued Dani. He'd at least had a little more time to deal with these sorts of things, and he'd had Sam and Tucker (and Jazz, later on) to help him through it. She didn't have any sort of support system, not even her dad.

Suddenly, her expression steeled. She stood up and walked around to the back of his chair. It took him completely by surprise; he craned his neck to try and see her. "What are you doing?"

She didn't answer. He heard the telltale hum of a laser, and he immediately flinched. The pain didn't come, however. Instead, the bonds around his wrists suddenly fell away. He immediately brought his hands back around and massaged his sore wrists.

She circled back around. "Valerie, seriously, wha-" he began to ask, but he was cut off when she knelt down and used the laser in her gauntlet to cut through the bonds around his ankles.

For a moment, he couldn't even speak. She looked down at her boots, unable to look him in the eye. "You hurt me. A lot. You can't really change that, and I don't know if I'll be able to forgive you, at least for a while. I need time to think and go through it and stuff, but we don't really have that right now," she said, fidgeting with her gauntlet. She took a breath before continuing. "Even though part of me still wants to strangle you for lying to me, I kind of get it. I think. I don't know. But either way, these guys don't have the best of intentions, for you and for a lot of other people. I can't be a part of that. I just… can't."

Danny frowned. "What do you mean a lot of other people?"

She shook her head. "The specifics don't matter. You just gotta get rid of whatever they've got on you before they start doing something we'll regret."

It wouldn't be too difficult, he figured. The Guys in White had their security and all, but their scientists weren't known for their intimidation or defense. It would be a little tough to get over to their department (what with phase-proof walls and cameras designed to sense invisible ghosts), but if he turned human and then turned invisible, it might be enough to fool the cameras. As far as he knew, they only started tracking when they detected a certain amount of ectoplasm.

And Tucker had been able to hack into their network before. That had taken a while, and they might've updated their security since then, but Tucker was a whiz. He could get in, delete anything necessary, and get out without being noticed.

"Wait a minute, what about you?" he asked, the thought hitting him like a brick wall. "They were threatening you earlier; they're not gonna be very happy when they find out you freed me."

She kicked one of the shackles that had been around his ankles. "I didn't cut it in exactly a straight line. I'll tell them you broke through or something and that you shorted my helmet. I was lying about the recording stuff anyway," she admitted. "I'll say I couldn't fight back because I had to deactivate all my weapons and they wouldn't come back on in time. They'll believe me. They'll be mad, but they'll believe me. They already hate you enough anyway."

Danny grimaced. He hadn't thought that far ahead; he'd been more focused on Valerie and getting out of here. If the two of them really were able to pull this off, then the Guys in White would be gunning after both of them harder than ever. They could get rid of DNA, they could delete data, but they couldn't erase minds. He'd have to be on his guard even more.

And Valerie would have to be on her guard as well. She claimed they'd believe her, but he knew agents like O would still be suspicious. They'd watch her carefully. Not to mention the fact that she still had to pretend she didn't know anything about Vlad…

It wasn't fair. She hadn't done anything to deserve any of this. Burdened with all of this pressure, having to keep all these secrets, constantly having to worry about her life and her father's.

Sam would tell him he was being ridiculous. He had to deal with those sorts of things, too, she'd say, and arguably on a larger scale in some circumstances, but as he watched her face become more resolute with a sad solemnity, he couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if he'd been able to stop that dumb ghost dog all that time ago.

His crime was playing around his parent's portal and releasing all those new threats into his world. He was paying that price. Her crime had been nothing other than being a normal girl.

No wonder she hated him so much.

"And you're… you're okay with this?" he asked hesitantly.

Valerie rolled her tongue in her mouth. "I don't know. I'm sure I'll wake up in the morning and regret this. But…" she trailed off. He recognized the look on her face. She was thinking something, but she refused to say it out loud. She didn't want to admit whatever it was to him.

He saved her the awkward silence. "You're a good person, Val. Your heart is in the right place, I'm sure. It isn't fair that you got all this dumped on you so suddenly. I'm just really grateful you're willing to do this for me."

"Yeah, well," she said. She blew out a long breath. "You seriously owe me one after this."

He hadn't realized he made up his mind until she said that. "I'll tell you. Uh, my identity, that is," he said quickly before he could second guess himself. His core fluttered and his stomach turned over and he could feel the ectoplasm rushing through his veins, but he felt sure that it was the right thing to do. "You deserve at least that much."

That earned him a look. She studied him for a moment before shaking her head. "No. Not right now. They're gonna question me about whatever happened in here. At least I can truthfully claim ignorance then. They'll know if I'm lying about your identity." Danny considered that, and he had to admit she had a point. 

His heart warmed at the thought that she would lie to protect him.

"Besides," she continued, "it's hard enough finding out that I know you for real. I don't think I can handle putting a name and face to that fact right now." The words came out stunted, like it was too difficult for her to say out loud. "I guess it's like maybe if I don't know the whole truth, I can pretend the rest of the truth isn't real. Or that it's not as close to home. Ignorance is bliss and all."

Danny nodded. He knew he shouldn't be surprised – he thought she'd be demanding him to reveal himself by now – but her motives were understandable. It was odd, seeing her thinking things through like this and not jumping to conclusions or anger like she tended to do when it came to ghost stuff, but it was also incredibly encouraging. He almost wished he could show Sam and Tucker as proof that she could change.

She started to turn away, but he caught her hand. Her mouth opened, undoubtedly to tell him off, but she stopped herself. Danny hesitated a moment before saying, "Whenever you're ready then, okay? I'll tell you." She watched him with analytical, green eyes, and he instinctively looked away. "Besides, you might figure it out on your own or something."

Valerie didn't say anything, instead choosing to pull her wrist from his loose grip. From her belt, she pulled off a stick-like weapon. She pointed it toward her side and clicked a button, causing electricity to spark up the sides and hover dangerously over her suit.

Danny was taken aback. "Wait, what are you doing?"

"Not everything was deactivated," she told him, staring at a spot on the wall behind him. If she was worried about the electricity three inches away from her, she didn't show it. "Just chill, alright? It's only set to stun, and it won't be that bad since I'm human. The important thing is the effects are similar to ecto-electrocution, so they'll just think you jumped me and knocked me out."

His mouth opened and closed like a fish. Things were suddenly moving way too fast for him to fully process, but he could at least process the gist of what she was saying. "I'm not gonna stand here and let you hurt yourself!" he protested.

She glared at him, but the corners of her lips twitched upward into a slight smirk. "You don't get to tell me what to do, Phantom," she said. 

Before he had time to say anything else, she closed her eyes and inhaled, steeling herself for what she was about to do. In one quick motion, she pressed the stick into her side. Electricity scattered across her suit. 

Danny reached out, but he couldn't find it in himself to say anything or even grab the stick away. He could only watch in dismay as her body shook with the shock, her curly hair becoming even frizzier and her teeth clacking together as they buzzed. It was only a couple of seconds before she dropped to the floor, unconscious.

He couldn't help but stare at her limp body. Every instinct was screaming at him to scoop her up and take her with him, but he gritted his teeth and took in one slow breath. He had to trust she knew what she was doing. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, she’d told him, and he'd witnessed it firsthand. She'd be okay.

And if, for some reason, she wasn't…

"I'll come back for you," he promised her, more for his sake than anything.

Pushing away all thoughts of her, he swiped the taser-stick off the ground and set off in search of the research wing.

[daily-dose-of-danno]

AUGH I LOVE VALERIE AND DANNY UGHHH

d... do you have more screenshots of em? would greatly appreciate,, thank you in advance,,,

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE (and I appreciate the ask because now I have an excuse to go get more screenshots of them!!! 💚❤️)

Season 1, Episode 10 - Shades of Gray

Season 1, Episode 18 - Life Lessons

Season 2, Episode 4 - Reign Storm

Season 2, Episode 10 - Flirting With Disaster

Season 3, Episode 11 - D-Stabilized

[picturejasper20]

Things i do like about Danny Phantom (for a change)

-The art design is pretty solid, even better than some animated series nowadays. -The series has some good soundtrack. I like those tones that play during the title cards -The voice acting is excellent -The backstories of some ghosts, specially in the earlier episodes. -The balance between Danny having clever moments and others having one-half braincell. -Danny Fenton is overall one of the most solid protagonists in animated series from these years you can find. He has an overall fun arc of him growing as character over time. -Vlad Masters in some ways is an excellent villain (with all his problems in writing). He is one of the most iconic Nickelodeon animated series villains. He is also pretty complex, which was unique for its time. -The relationship and foil between Danny and Vlad is very interesting. Vlad was literally designed to be a contrast to Danny, having a trio of friends just like Danny before the accident that turned him into a ghost. -Valerie Gray is one of the best written characters in the show without doubt, in spite of barely showing up later half of the show. Her enemy to lovers relationship with Danny is one of the best parts of the series. -Jazz Fenton character overall. She is another of the best written characters and she has good arc. Her sibling relationship with Danny is well developed. -Sam and Tucker can have some fun interactions/scenes. -Danny having his parents being ghosthunters is a cool element in the show that allows for juicy scenarios. -Maddie and Jack being a (mostly) healthy loving married couple -How Jack and Maddie used to be Vlad's friends back in college and how that is tied to his backstory. Their dynamic is offers a lot of ideas to work with. -My Brother's Keeper is peak episode. -Season 1 has plenty of peak moments/episodes. -Dan is a great antagonist. He is a lot more interesting version of the ¨evil clone¨ trope since his character and backstory is more than just that. -Vilains-antagonists from this series are usually entertaining. -The dark shit the series was often allowed to get with for a Nickelodeon show and for those years. -Also some of the adults jokes the series was allowed to get away too -I do like the idea of Freakshow being a human antagonist that can control ghosts. I wish the serie could have had more human vilains/antagonists. -I do appreciate the series trying to explore Danny's classmates in a few episodes or them helping out.

[drpeppertummy]

[distress over weight gain, tummy appreciation]

"You know I've been skinny my whole life?"

"Honey, you're still skinny."

"I've been skinny my whole life and now I'm getting less skinny. What am I supposed to do with that? You know the last time I bought pants? I don't! Connie, I'm having a crisis!"

"I can see that," agreed Connie. She sat on the edge of the bed, watching Val pace around the room. For a man of over five hundred, he was certainly anxious about the concept of aging. Connie wondered how he'd reacted when his gray streaks first started coming in. The majority of his hair was still dark, and she didn't think she'd be around to see what he looked like when it turned fully, but he at least seemed to have accepted the gray that was there so far. Otherwise, she supposed, he would be dyeing it. She had, however, noticed him more than once unhappily examining his wrinkles in the mirror.

Now his latest nemesis was his tummy. Val had an exceptionally trim figure for somebody who appeared to be in his fifties. In the past few weeks, however, he had become aware of the slightest softening of his middle. It was so slight that Connie probably wouldn't have even noticed if he hadn't pointed it out. It seemed like the things he adored so much about her appearance--her friendly wrinkles, her softness, her increasingly silvery hair--were all things he was terrified of having himself. She had pointed this out a number of times, to no avail. Sighing, Connie rose from the bed. She caught Val in her arms mid-pace and held him still.

"Val."

"Yeah?"

"First off, your clothes are all too big. You don't need to buy new pants. Like, the very most you might have to do is wear your belt a little looser, if that. Secondly," she said as she shuffled him in front of their mirror and lifted up his thick flannel shirt, "your tummy is so cute. Look at that." Val looked begrudgingly at his reflection, scowling at the almost undetectable curve of his stomach. Connie stood behind him and put her chin on his shoulder.

"Personally, I think it'd be even cuter if it was softer," she said, giving his tiny bit of belly a gentle squeeze. "Little softer, little rounder. More to grab. I mean, you're adorable, but you're not giving me much to work with here." Val rolled his eyes, and Connie could see a hint of a smile beginning to come through.

"I just don't think it suits me," he said. Connie let go of him, letting his shirt fall back down. She took a small pillow from the bed and shoved it under his shirt.

"No, it does. See?" She patted his fake belly. "This could be your perfect figure!"

"Yeah, right," Val laughed, pulling the pillow out and hitting her with it.

"All I have to do is fatten you up a little, what do you think of that?"

"Connie, you don't cook!"

"Yeah, but if I think hard enough I can probably beam extra psychic butter into your dinner."

"Oh, is that your plan?"

"That or I'll just start throwing extra crap on your plate every time you're not looking." Connie squeezed him tightly in her arms. "Seriously though, Val. Valerie, Valentine, whatever your name is. Getting a little softer is not the end of the world. Looking a little older isn't the end of the world."

"It feels like it is," Val said glumly.

"I know," said Connie, kissing his forehead. "But honestly, it really does suit you. I mean, the whole reason I fell in love with you was because you're so handsome. The personality was just a bonus."

"Is that right?" Val rested his arms across Connie's shoulders, smiling.

"Well, maybe the personality played a bigger part than that." She gave him a soft peck on the lips. "But you are easily the most attractive man I've ever met, and I don't think I'd feel the same way if you looked twenty years younger."

"I was cute though! That's the thing, Connie! I used to be cute!"

"You still are cute, you knucklehead. You're ridiculously cute. And if you wind up with a cute little chubby tummy, it's just gonna make you even cuter," she said, giving his stomach a playful poke.

"Well, you've never been wrong before," said Val, wrapping his arms around Connie and resting his head on her shoulder. "I guess I'll just have to trust you."

[reallydumbdannyphantomaus]

Switch

Spectra underestimates Jazz. I'm sure this won't come back to bite her later. (ao3) (masterpost)

Interlude III

The miasma of Kwan Huang’s misery hung heavy in the air. Penelope reveled in it, breathed it in and felt it tingle through her spine. Nothing felt better than teenage misery. She’d tried making them happy once, but it just didn’t feel anywhere near as good to eat joy. Misery was delicious. Flavorful. The difference between rice crackers and a ribeye—at least, from what she remembered. She and Bertrand hadn’t eaten human food in nearly twenty years.

She kept a hint of it in her hand as she walked out into the waiting room. “That’s the last one for today, right Bertrand?” she said, tossing the concentrated depression at her assistant.

Bertrand sucked the emotion down before replying. “Yes, we’re all done.”

“A very productive day, I must say. That Tyson kid has everyone either sad he’s dead or guilty that they aren’t sad. You really picked a good one.” Bertrand’s face flushed at the praise. “And I think it’ll actually turn out for the best that you didn’t kill that Huang kid. I don’t know what all’s going on with him, but we could probably live on him alone for at least a year.”

“He’s that good?”

“Better. Didn’t that taste amazing? And I only gave you just the smallest morsel.” She burped. “Sorry, dear. Couldn’t contain myself.”

Bertrand blinked. “That was only a taste?”

“Mmhmm. Just a tiny sliver. And, I mean, I barely had to work on him before he was convinced that everything was his fault. He’s desperate to come back so we can work on his self-improvement. And he hates the idea of being a burden, so he’s not going to complain to anyone either. Honestly, I’m half tempted just to kidnap him and squirrel him away as a personal chef.”

Bertrand patted her shoulder. “No, dear. That’s way too reckless. Remember what happened last time?”

Penelope sighed. Sarah had been such a delight, except that Penelope had pushed her way too hard. They’d had to skip town when her body was found and people started asking questions.

This time, it would be slow and steady. They’d milk these kids for years and, with any luck, none of them would kill themselves until they went off to college.

“This won’t be like last time,” Penelope said. “I think we’ll be very happy here.”

—

Penelope waved goodbye at Mikey as he slumped into the hallway. Honestly, he wasn’t half-bad, but he was still a let-down after the young Mr. Huang.

And really, she tried not to pick favorites among her students, but she couldn’t help herself. There was Kwan, obviously, a delicious little grief-and-guilt factory, but a couple others had caught her attention as well. Dash Baxter was repressing so much she hardly knew where to begin, from his clear homosexuality to his building grief that he was trying to hold back like a pebble holding back a waterfall. She was hoping that she could help him repress enough that once it finally broke, he’d drown in the resulting flood.

Metaphorically, of course. She couldn’t feed on ghosts, much to her chagrin.

There was something odd about his relationship with Paulina, too, something more than just the fact that he clearly wasn’t attracted to her, but she couldn’t quite nail it down. Hopefully, she could convince him to bring Paulina to her. Whatever fucked-up thing they had was sure to bring an avalanche of misery if she handled it just right.

Then there was Valerie Gray.

Valerie was a little more closed off, but the grief was there. The guilt, too. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem like the guilt had anything to do with Tyson. She’d poked at that wound as much as she could without arousing suspicion, but Valerie’s guilt never fluctuated. She was a bit of a tougher nut to crack than the others, but Penelope could appreciate a challenge. Maybe, when she was done, Valerie would be an even better meal than Kwan.

A shudder went up her spine at the thought. Two meal tickets of such delicious quality was almost more than she could dream of. Only one week here and already she was eating better than she had in years.

A knock on the door startled her out of her musings. She frowned, glancing at her calendar; she didn’t have any students scheduled right now. Bertrand took this hour to rob banks since neither of them had any interest in living on public school salaries, and besides, he’d just let himself in. Maybe it was Principal Ishiyama, checking in on how her new grief counselor was doing?

One way to find out.

“Come in,” she said, hands folded in front of her and winning smile on her face.

A bright orange head of hair poked in. “Sorry to intrude, Dr. Spectra, but they said you didn’t have any clients right now? I know you’re probably on break, but do you… have a minute?”

Penelope swallowed a scowl. She’d been looking forward to watching cat videos during this break period, but she needed to keep up the appearance that she was always approachable. “Of course,” she said. “What did you need, Miss…”

“Fenton,” the girl said. “Jazz Fenton.” And oh but Penelope had heard the name Fenton bandied around quite a bit. Ghost hunters, apparently, though maybe only in their dreams. There was a new portal in their house, though, which gave Penelope and Bertrand even better cover. With all the ghosts that would soon be pouring out of their ill-conceived dimensional rift, anyone with any idea of the truth of the world would be focused on the invading ghosts, not on Penelope’s questionable therapy.

Plus, more people would start dying soon enough. Oh, she never wanted to leave this town.

“I was hoping you might be in need of an assistant?”

“Dear, I’m sorry but I’m not sure—”

“Well, really I was hoping you could be kinda my mentor?” Jazz Fenton said, talking over Penelope and lowering herself into a seat in front the desk. “I just—I want to help, and if you could train me a little, give me some tips… I mean, I want to be a psychologist, too. I want to help people, like you do. Please, please, I’ll come anytime day or night. I’ll pay you, I’ll do your filing, just please, please train me.”

Jazz was anxious, that much was obvious just by looking at her. Still, there was something else there, too, beneath the waves of nerves. Penelope couldn’t quite tell what it was, but it would be fun to tease out, if she said yes to Jazz’s ridiculous proposition.

Penelope sat back in her chair and considered. On the one hand, having one of these snot-nosed brats hanging around all the time could prove tricky to work around, not to mention the work involved in actually teaching her. On the other, she could use Jazz to her advantage as well. Already, Penelope could envision sending Jazz on glorified spy missions, gathering new intel on the other students, all in the name of psychology training.

Risky, for sure, but Penelope was smart, and humans were so, so very dumb at noticing what was right under their noses. She looked at the young girl in front of her, practically vibrating in her seat with desperation. Good; desperate people were even dumber than average. She’d take those odds any day of the week.

“Well,” she said, tapping her chin, “I am pretty busy right now, but I could use a hand with my administrative work during the lunch hour. And I could maybe find some time to teach you a little of what I know.”

Before she’d finished speaking, Jazz was out of her seat and squealing. She rushed around the desk to nearly tackle Penelope in a hug; Penelope bit back an instinctive hiss. It would be annoying to be around someone so obnoxiously peppy all the time, but it would be well worth it.

Finally, the girl let go and moved toward the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” she said, waving goodbye.

Penelope wiggled her fingers. “Can’t wait!”

—

Penelope inspected her eyeliner in the compact mirror, ignoring the noise of Bertrand pacing. “I can’t believe you agreed to something like this. Are you stupid now, Penny?”

“Berty, dear,” Penelope said, closing her compact, “there’s no need to be rude. I thought it through first. Besides, since when do I consult with you on how I talk to the meals?”

“Since you decided that one of them would be your student and not your prey!”

“I think you forget which one of us is the talent in this arrangement.” Penelope’s eyes flashed and her skin darkened, just a little. “I love you, Bertrand, but don’t forget that I’m in charge here.”

Bertrand flinched. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.

“Don’t I always?”

“Sarah?”

Her hand squeezed on the compact, cracking it. “Get out.”

Bertrand shifted into his blobby ghost form and flew through the wall just as her compact shattered against the floor where he’d stood.

Stupid Bertrand. She loved him dearly, of course, but he was nearly as paranoid as Vlad sometimes. Nearly as paranoid and nowhere near as brilliant.

Penelope glanced at the phone. She could call him. Vlad. She did miss him.

She reached out, then jerked her hand back. No. No. Both she and Vlad had made their choices long ago. She wouldn’t change her mind now.

Bertrand would come back soon enough. She didn’t need anyone else.

—

Jazz Fenton was annoyingly well-prepared. Penelope had assumed that she could breeze through the whole “teaching” part of the agreement: toss out some Freud and a little Jungian bullshit and let Jazz take it as gospel. She hadn’t counted on Jazz Fenton being the world’s most meticulous overachiever.

“Um, Dr. Spectra,” Jazz said, interrupting Penelope as soon as she said the name Freud, “you’re not counseling based on his ideas, are you? Because I’ve read that they’re largely discredited and no one takes them seriously anymore.”

Penelope’s smile stretched over her teeth. “Of course not, dear! But he’s still a good starting point,” she said, drawing out her words for a little extra time to think, “because… he’s really the first person to bring the concept of psychology into the mainstream!” There. That was even true!

Jazz’s furrowed brow smoothed out and she blushed a little. “Oh. Right. So sorry to interrupt, Dr. Spectra.”

“That’s quite all right, dear. It’s the sign of an eager mind!” A little too eager. Now Penelope had to think back to her long-ago college days and remember actual psychology facts. Even then, how much of that was even usable now? Who had been discredited? She had a feeling that google was about to be her new best friend.

Jazz grinned. “Thank you, Dr. Spectra. But, if you don’t mind, I have some specific questions?”

Penelope felt her eye twitch. “Hit me!”

“So, what is your opinion on cognitive behavioral therapy?”

“Well, I think it’s a useful tool when used properly.” There. That was vague enough to pass muster, right? “What do you think about it?”

Jazz tapped her pen on her notebook. “Well,” she said, “I think it’s certainly helpful, but I feel like we’re a little too reliant on it to solve every single person’s every single problem nowadays, you know?”

“That’s a fair assessment,” Penelope said. “Do you have any examples that you can think of? Maybe some of your classmates?”

“Well, I’m not actually a psychologist…” Jazz frowned. “Isn’t that a little unethical? Me trying to diagnose people?”

“Nonsense. If you were posting about it publicly and telling all your friends, sure, but think of this as… as two professionals, sharing opinions. Real psychologists do it all the time.”

Jazz’s face cleared again and her swirls of suspicion died down. Penelope would have to be really careful with what she said; the girl was entirely too well-informed.

(Maybe Bertrand was right.) 

“Hm. Well, in that case, I’d probably have to think about it. Get back to you, you know?”

No. No. This would work. This would work just fine. A good challenge.

Her pleasant smile became just the tiniest bit feral.

“Very good! A bright mind knows when to take a step back and assess, after all.”

Jazz preened. So she wasn’t immune to a little flattery.

She clicked her pen on and pulled out her notebook. Usually, during sessions, this was reserved for making notes of where to hurt and doodling pictures of Vlad getting stabbed. For right now, though, it would be for earnest note-taking of her new student.

“I will admit,” she said, “I did underestimate your base of knowledge. Please, give me a rundown of everything you know so I know where to start.”

As Jazz launched into her (frighteningly extensive) knowledge of psychology, Penelope’s smile only grew. This would be fun.

[kuzann]

Got the chapter edited and posted despite the power going out!

Valerie moves in with help from the Fentons. Vlad runs afoul of the stag and Skulker.

Relevant Characters: Danny, Valerie, Maddie, Jack, Vlad, Sam, Tucker, Skulker, Damon Gray, The Box Ghost

Chapter-Specific Triggers: Blood and Deep Cuts

Excerpt:

Valerie glanced around as she stepped off the ramp of the moving van, a box of dishes in her arms. Danny was conspicuously absent, and Valerie was sure she’d seen a ghost go by in the corner of her eye as she was putting furniture inside... He was probably busy fighting a ghost and would appreciate some form of interference to keep his parents busy.

“So how’s Danny been lately?” Valerie asked as Maddie stepped down beside her. Possibly not the best question if it brought attention to Danny’s absence, but it was the only one she could think of on the spot.

Maddie hesitated, no doubt surprised by the sudden question. “He’s been doing alright,” she replied with a small but fragile smile.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them as Valerie followed her up the front steps. Apparently that was a sore point. Just what had happened between them to get a response like that?

“Are you okay?” Valerie asked hesitantly as they crossed the threshold.

“I don’t know... I thought things were going better until recently,” Maddie began, stopping in the living room but not looking Valerie in the eye. She sighed. “But he’d rather go to someone like Vlad for help... And I’ve tried reaching out to him lately but it just doesn’t feel like we’re any closer.” Maddie stiffened, having realized something. “I’m sorry, Valerie. I shouldn’t be dumping my worries on you like this,” she said as she turned to Valerie.

[omegasmileyface]

The Forest, the Trees, the Fire I: CATALYST

Chapter 5

chaptor 5 lets go Authors: @attackradish, @ectolemonades, me. Artist: @/crunchysart

For the full characters list, word count, content warning, and a directory to all the currently available chapters and related content, see the Table of Contents!

full summary: The world outside of Amity Park has learned about the existence of ghosts, and the time for first impressions has arrived. The delicate public consciousness could be disrupted by the slightest ripple. Danny Fenton is being ripped apart from all sides, and when he finally breaks, the ripples will be very big indeed.

warnings: mind control

words: 3778

AO3 link

first chapter

previous chapter

next chapter

===

Jack Fenton was shocked at the verdict discussed in the GIW's leaked paper. Vlad? A ghost? Sure, he probably would have reached those same conclusions himself given that data, but the paper was very new, only a few days old. It hadn't been through a peer review process. It was only an unproven hypothesis that Vlad was dead. If the paper had been thorough enough to have a valid conclusion, it would have been published officially. This was still in its workshopping stages, leaked before it could finish incubating. Sure, the readings were concerning and deserved to be looked into some more, but it would be unscientific to say his friend was dead. It would be unfair.

Maddie Fenton was less confident. She distrusted the bureaucratic process of the GIW and loathed an unreviewed paper as much as her husband, but there were some things clicking together in her memories. Some hazy events starting to make a lot more sense.

Valerie Gray was hesitant to trust a group that shot at anything with an ectosignature— like she used to— but she had never been a fan of Vlad Masters. An appreciative business partner, sure, but… he was just a sponsor. And he had never set off her suit's alarms or anything, but he had made it, and even when she altered it… there were lots of varieties of ghosts. She wouldn't be surprised if there were types that were specialized in pretending to be human. So when the very agency that had been benefiting from his support was convinced that he wasn't human… Valerie remembered his massive living room and his face on the cover of a magazine and his board position at the company that had fired her dad. She felt tears of anger build behind her eyes.

Jazz Fenton saw the headlines— "Richest Man Alive in the Midwest… Not So Alive?"— in a city that wasn't even completely sure it believed in ghosts. And wasn't that fun? Going from a place where it was a simple fact of life, and you accepted it or died, to the terrifying outside world where reputable sources and established worldviews and "seeing is believing" all fought for dominance on the daily? And amid all the debate, there was the face of her awful godfather on the news with the scariest captions she could imagine. All she could think to do to help was call her brother. 

===

Vlad had no choice but to call for a press conference that evening. Waiting would only make things worse. This was not the kind of thing people could go without word on for more than a few hours. He could say something there that would make things worse, yes, but if he waited any longer to speak, he was good as gone. Ruined like a croissant made with warm butter. Thrown out like a dropped cupcake. Fucked.

It was just too bad that he hadn't thought of what in the fondue to say.

And, oh goodie, there was Daniel the moment he closed the door to his office. Looks like he wouldn't even have a chance to think of something.

"Daniel, I appreciate the moral support, but I really need to prepare for this."

"What are you going to say out there?"

"Straight to the chase, are we? Look, it's a very sensitive matter, and it requires more thought—"

"You don't know? The great chessmaster played with fire and didn't have a plan for what to say when he got burned?"

"Bold words coming from you! I'm surprised you even heard about what happened, with the way your parents tell me you've been missing in action!"

"You know damn well where I've been! I've been actually trying to fix this whole mess, unlike you on the inside, playing around—"

They both heard a car pulling up the driveway. They shared a look.

"Probably GIW," said Daniel. "If they can't be sure you're human, they definitely can't be sure you're not planning something."

"Mm," Vlad agreed. "Let's go to the lab."

The two went downwards, beyond the floor and into Vlad's lab. Oh, Vlad realized, the authorities will probably be clearing the place out as a crime scene after this. The lab was supposed to be inaccessible to humans, but… well, it wouldn't be the first time they'd destroyed one of his houses. He figured he should move his important data before he left for the conference.

"Here, help me pack up or destroy anything the GIW shouldn't get to find. Just stick it through the portal if you think it's worth keeping."

"Fine," said Daniel, "as long as you listen to me while we do that."

Vlad walked to his computer station to update his backups. "Of course."

"So, it's just as well that you don't know what to say. I've got ideas."

"Do tell?"

Danny opened a fridge to find an array of plastic vials labelled with his name and a date from 2004. Ew. He burned those up with an ectoblast. "Your options are pretty much to tell the truth, dispute their findings, or claim to be a full ghost, and I think you can see how two of those would be no-gos."

"Are you certain? You've seemed awfully sure before that having a human side would prevent humans from doing anything unthinkable. Why the new attitude? Are you afraid of getting caught out yourself?"

Danny sighed. "Vlad, if they find out that there's a grey-area between ghostliness and humanity, they'll have a whole new playing field. They could… like, try to make people liminal on purpose as soldiers. It's really better that they have as little information as possible."

"You're so confident that they wouldn't see right through me!" Vlad tossed a box-shaped construct full of hard disks through the portal. "Besides, it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe they'll start to believe in our humanity! Ha."

"Yeah, no way. That's out of the question. And I don't know about you, but I can't think of a single way to deny the ghost allegations without that backfiring immediately."

"So I'm going to have to pretend that I've been 'just Plasmius' the whole time. Great. I look forward to that conversation. Is there a point to this?"

Danny threw some boxes of paper files through the portal without caring if they spilled out. "If you agree to stick to that plan, and don't do anything that could rat either of us out, I'll get you a good place to stay in the Zone and a ride there after the press conference."

Vlad paused. His face was blank, tired.

"…You do know you can't stay here, right? They're gonna know your face everywhere. I don't know if you've figured out shapeshifting, but I think it would be hard to keep it up for long. Your life on Earth is done for, at least until this whole thing is over."

Vlad straightened up. "What about outside the US? There are communities just taking ghosts as another part of life in other countries. I imagine I could hit it off well enough in a small town in China somewhere."

As if Danny hadn't bargained the same thing with himself a thousand times by now. "The GIW haven't hesitated to work abroad before. I can't imagine them stopping once they have a grudge against you."

"I bet I could even find some sort of willing overshadow host—"

"No!" Danny stepped out of the weapon cache he was sorting into "useful (save)", "creepy (burn)", and "God only knows (steal)" piles to look Vlad in the eye. "We both know you don't want to run away to somewhere where you could never see anyone you know, or build another portal, or get too far into the public eye. That lifestyle just isn't for you. You're too desperate to fulfill your ego."

Vlad tried to defend himself, but Danny didn't let him.

"I'm offering you a free ride to a place in the middle of the familiar part of the Infinite Realms, defended from all the enemies you've made, no restrictions. I even made sure it's safe for your cat. Just accept, and it'll be that easy."

Vlad's eyes filled with a manic energy Danny hadn't seen since he turned fifteen. "Goodness, Daniel, I thought you weren't the type for deals. Are you losing yourself in your little jaunt with the High Throne?"

Danny ran his hands through his hair and wondered if Vlad would take going back to cleaning up as a sign of weakness. Then he wondered if he really cared what Vlad thought. "God, dude! Just shut up and take the deal."

"You know, Daniel, if I told them the truth, they would put the clues together and find you. I'm sure you wouldn't like that very much. Either they'd take you away for good or you'd have to leave this dimension behind. Either way, you wouldn't be able to contact any of your friends and family." His eyes were wide and looking behind Danny somewhere. He was smiling. It was the least controlled smile he'd ever seen on Vlad. Something was wrong. "Of course, I'd already be running away. You don't have the resources to stay on Earth on your own, but I have cash. If you wanted to talk to anyone you knew, anyone who could understand, I'd be your only option. You would have to come with me."

"What the hell are you talking about?" There were GIW agents stomping around upstairs and the press conference was in a few minutes. They were running out of time.

"I'm going to tell them about us, Daniel, and you're going to have to come with me! You don't have a choice! You never DID!"

Vlad was actually breaking down! He was panicking because everything was over for him, and reverting to familiar plans! Was he gonna listen? Could he listen? They were both screwed. What was Danny supposed to do? 

His mouth was open before he knew what he was doing. Vlad always did make him a little impulsive.

"You have to take the deal."

He realized he had fucked up when Vlad didn't even hesitate. "Okay." His tone and face were flat, as if he hadn't been experiencing a crisis a second ago. Then his face curled up like he had eaten something bitter.

They both looked into each other's eyes for a moment, and in both faces there was barely hidden fear. Then Danny grabbed the last few bags of tech and tossed them through the portal so he didn't have to see Vlad's face. He had just used a Command. Like, capital C, barely written in the books, "rare Ghost King shit" Command. It only got brought up once in his lessons and he had already hated the idea. He hated even more that he had used it less than two weeks after getting coronated.

He didn't even mean to! But he was so sure that he wouldn't get through to Vlad, and that he and Dani and every liminal Amity Parker would be screwed over permanently, and he was desperate…

Maybe Vlad was right, and neither of them had a choice.

Vlad finally got his voice reconnected to his thoughts. "Are we going to talk about that, little King?"

Danny shut off the portal, then ripped some components out of the tunnel so it hopefully couldn't be easily repaired. "Make sure everything from the mansion that you want to keep is ready to be moved. I'll grab your cat. Meet me at my place when they stop listening and start shooting."

Danny flew off without looking at Vlad's face again.

===

Mayor Vlad Masters took the stage just late enough to spur concern, at 5:03 PM. The sun was already gone, and under the portable lights the news station had brought, he looked absolutely normal. There was less of an in-person audience than usual.

"Hello, Amity Park.

"This morning, a research report from the Garrison Irving Walker Commission was leaked on a number of public websites. The report centered around myself: specifically, an investigation into my history and relationship with ectoplasm. In short, the authors concluded that my ectoplasmic readings suggested that I am a ghost, or that something similar is the case, and pointed to some events in my past as a businessman and ectologist which might support that."

From off the platform, a single person booed.

"For the sake of transparency, I have decided to publically share my side of the story. I would like to preface this by saying that I apologize for the times I have misled anyone before about my identity. I did so knowingly and willingly in hopes that I could go about my business without being interrupted. I have made many selfish and damaging choices before, and I am choosing to cast light on them now. Please allow me to tell you…"

Vlad barely caught the piercing eyes of Phantom— probably a duplicate made solely to intimidate him— hiding behind a light pole across the street.

"…the whole truth.

"In February of 1984, I… Vlad Masters was enrolled in an Ectology graduate program at the University of Wisconsin Madison. The program was even smaller and more ridiculed then than it was a few months ago, and most of the research being done in the program was very experimental and quite risky. Masters and… his lab partners had spent the rest of the school year theorizing the existence of a dimension adjacent to this one, where ectoplasmic events and entities originated. By spring, they were working on a prototype of a portal meant to make such a dimension visible from this one.

"Against all odds, they were able to make some kind of a connection, but it wasn't how they intended it. J— some idiot didn't—"

Vlad clutched his lectern and took a breath. He was clinical. He was neutral. He was an outside observer.

"Not all safety checks were followed on the portal. When Masters was investigating the portal after a failed test, it suddenly activated and expelled a massive amount of ectoradiation into his face, along with some mundane radiation and raw ectoplasm. It was not his fault, but he was severely injured and came down with an ectoradiation sickness which took him out of college and left him in the hospital for a year, slowly dying.

"My name is Plasmius. You may know me as the Wisconsin Ghost."

He avoided transforming, still, in case it might make the audience more trigger happy. Or somehow spark an investigation into half-ghosts.

"When the prototype portal activated, it made a small connection with the ghost dimension, and I just happened to be present to feel it. I followed, and I was subsequently shot into the body of Vlad Masters. He was present, but very ill, and as he slowly died, I slowly gained control. I also gained access to some of his memories, and I could still use my powers in his body without stopping it from being human and looking like him. It seemed the perfect opportunity to pick up his life after he died and I made his body healthy enough to leave the hospital.

"I started using his identity as my own. He became something like a skin to me, so much so that my own form was influenced by his appearance and now looks something like him, but more ghostly. Later on, I would learn to leave his body temporarily, if I needed— rather, wanted, to do something like fight other ghosts. For the most part, though, the life and body Vlad Masters left behind became my home.

"As remorseful as I am to admit it after all this time, I would occasionally use my powers to influence business partners and rivals to gain more money and power. While I was on Earth, living something like a human life, I wanted to see all it had to offer me, and money seemed like the only way to do that.

"Eventually, I, like many ghosts of our time, grew a fondness for picking fights with the Phantom. That, alongside a developing friendship with my— Vlad Masters's godson and his family, led me to relocate to Amity Park."

Across the street, Daniel's duplicate rolled his eyes. Well, Vlad couldn't exactly mention the prank war, now, could he?

"I campaigned for mayorship out of that same desire to experience the full human gambit, and I did influence some voters into voting for me. I apologize for my disruption of the local democracy.

"Since I started to li— reside here, I have focused on my work as mayor as much or more than my business as a ghost. I have—"

Someone threw a shoe at Vlad. He stepped aside.

"I have recently been genuinely attempting to work with the Garrison Irving Walker Commission to keep the humans of Amity Park secure and free among new knowledge about ghosts. I okayed the construction of the research facility in town, and permitted local rights to use defensive ectoweaponry not yet approved outside town. The investigation into me was sudden, and was triggered by my pushback against a policy which would result in the constant surveillance and reporting of every Amity Park citizen's biological information via a tracking of ectocontamination.

"As far as I know, I am the only ghost who was pretending to be a human in Amity Park, and this particular investigation did in fact reveal my presence. In a few minutes, I am going to leave this town once and for all and you won't have to worry about me anymore, but I urge you to think about the fact that the GIW were so ready to write a report like this as soon as I, a consistent supporter of theirs ideologically and monetarily, questioned a proposed move to start monitoring innocent civilians.

"One bit of potentially critical response, and they were pulling up confidential medical information on an individual they had no proof was guilty or inhuman. They were tracing all of my past correspondences and records, without my knowledge or permission, when they thought I was human. They are not the government, or the police, or the court. They are a private institution, and the moment I did something they didn't like, they went behind my back to upheave my life.

"Perhaps, in your eyes, I deserved it. But someday they will do the same to someone who does not.

"Personally, I am glad to return to the realm of the dead, where those in power never do something like this without being physically attacked in response."

Vlad turned invisible, and the small audience turned into a cacophony. The GIW agents in the group immediately started firing. But he was already gone, shooting off toward the Fenton portal, where he was expected.

===

Jack and Maddie Fenton had been paying rapt attention the whole press conference, united in their confusion. Neither of them knew what to feel.

Was it considerate or cold that he refused to mention them by name, despite their massive part in his story? Were his claims about the GIW acting out without good reason true or manipulative?

Should Jack feel remorseful that his honest mistake had killed his friend, or victorious that the Wisconsin Ghost hated the memory so much it stopped him in his tracks? Should Maddie feel sad that her old friend's image had been dirtied in her memory, or vindicated that he really had been different in recent years?

With their hearts full and minds blank, the only thing they could be sure of was that everything was moving very quickly, and without their involvement.

Whether they were there to help fight the good fight or to change the system from the inside, it was finally time the Drs. Fenton gave in and joined the GIW.

Valerie Gray had planned on watching the press conference alone, but her dad had asked her to join him. She figured, now, that his presence was the only thing keeping her from throwing something at the TV.

The Guys in White had kept going too far, just like she was afraid, and the very man she had said she trusted to keep that from happening turned out to be a ghost. Not just a ghost, either, but the Wisconsin Ghost, one of the worst ones. He came, did as much damage as possible without engaging anyone, and left. Val was even pretty sure she saw him threatening Dani, way back when.

He never showed up except to wreak havoc. Of course he was the same as "Vlad Masters", who took over companies just to make life worse for teenagers and got voted in despite nobody wanting him. He had been an okay benefactor, but…

He had been seen naked on live television. She only put up with him so she could do her job. Of course he was a lying, manipulative, stealing ghost!

If there was a proper afterlife, for people who didn't become ghosts, Valerie hoped the real Vlad Masters was there, laughing that Plasmius had finally been forced to own up.

And back on Earth, Valerie locked herself in her room and vowed to never again trust someone who hadn't proven themself.

===

It was a beautiful day in Victoria, British Columbia. Sure, there was a foot of fresh snow, and it really didn't look the same without its summer blooms, but Danielle Phantom had snuck into the Butchart Gardens anyway. They were still magical! A thousand different kinds of leaves, hidden by frost blankets… she loved to see it in any season!

She couldn't resist twirling around in the air when she finally left the Gardens to go back to the levy. Yes, she was visible, and maybe Victoria was just a tad too populated for that to be safe, but… she was living life! How could she turn down a chance to live her day to the fullest when she never knew which one would be her last?

The sunset over the ocean was stunning in its greys and blues and oranges. She almost wished she had saved some film in that disposable camera she bought for her journey through Alaska.

There was only one boat on the water, approaching the harbor. She didn't question it, even when they weren't stopped for nearly long enough to complete a safe border check. They just pulled into the harbor, unboarded, and then Danielle's vision was going blurry, and she was forgetting where she was, and three men in white suits were dragging her over to the boat.

What a vacation, huh?

[pbeltarts]

What are your thoughts on Valerie Gray, show wise and fandom wise? I appreciate the unsubtle symbolism of her name, how she's shades of grey.

Valerie was never my favorite character, but I won't deny she had one of the most interesting arcs of the series. I like that she never tried to be likeable, she didn't tone herself down to make friends easier or be more palatable to others after losing her shit friends bc her dad wasn't rich anymore.

I never really cared for the implied possible romance between her and Danny, mostly cause it never felt that genuine to me. It still had better writing than Danny/Sam but most of the romance in the show was 'eh' to me.

[a-moth-to-the-light]

Looking Back at 2022 Songs!

This month, I’ve been reflecting on the year in music and starting to create my best-of lists (though nothing is final until January 1, of course!). Some really awesome fall releases made me more excited about music than I’ve felt in a while, but then December releases have bored me a lot, leaving me to search for music to feed my craving elsewhere. In terms of December songs, I kind of like the NCT Dream album & Garnidelia's "Soten", and I REALLY like the Ava Max song, but something in my brain recoils at the thought of checking out the month's Christmas-y releases, which are the majority (well, Pheobe Bridgers and Jaurim's might get a pass from me, though we'll see). Yes, embarrassingly, I haven’t even listened to the NMIXX one that everyone seems to like. I just don't feel like Christmas, and if I ever do, I'll listen to Amy Winehouse's "Valerie" on repeat--that's all I really need in terms of holiday spirit. What I'm trying to say is, I'm in a space where my mind and my personal Discord server are cluttered with music from these past 12-ish months (especially as Top Songs of 2022 countdowns from people I follow start reminding me of all the releases I forgot about!), and I need some way to organize it--so here are some of the guidelines I'm using as I slowly piece together my mess of a Top Songs list!

a. longevity/replay value

[or predicted longevity/replay value, to account for songs that came onto my radar late]

-- This can include songs I've had on repeat for just, like, forever, along with songs that I came back to after months and still really like.

-- Does the mood of the song appeal to me?

-- Is the song memorable? Is there something about it I find myself craving?

-- Does the song have enough layers to keep me interested for long periods of time?

b. admiration

-- Would I enjoy writing about this song? Do I have a lot to say about it?

-- Do I look forward to returning to this release?

-- Right now, this category is most heavily weighted for me. In the cold gray of winter, I'm really appreciating songs that force their way past my lethargy and spark something in my brain.

c. impact

-- Which songs made my year?

-- Which songs helped me stay healthy in 2022? Music is my main method of emotional regulation, so the songs that help me with this are invaluable.

-- Which songs will give me 2022 nostalgia years in the future?

[hppjmxrgosg]

Valerie Gray

[deuynndoodles]

she said i don't wanna find a reason to doubt you (and i'm like don't worry, you will) by deuynndrabbles (kyoukaalldey)

Valerie walks up with confident strides, the fear from a few moments ago all but gone, and shoves her finger into the boy’s chest.

“Where the fuck were you before everything got destroyed?” She curses, jerking her head at the debris behind her. “We just lost thousands of dollars because you couldn’t catch one shitty ghost.”

Fenton shoves her hand away, his face furrowing in a frown. “Look, man, I’m sorry that I can’t be everywhere at once.” The apology is weak and sarcastic, and they both know it.

“So you’re just fine with this?” She crosses her arms and looks at him judgingly.

[Consider: a story where it's Fenton that Valerie hates the guts of, and Phantom she's friends with.]

wc 4.9k | oneshot

[ghostey-o-toby]

Have a Val, while I’m at it

[spectral-tentacle]

Chapters: 5/? Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Danny Fenton/Valerie Gray Characters: Danny Fenton, Valerie Gray, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Jazz Fenton, Maddie Fenton, Jack Fenton, Vlad Masters, Skulker (Danny Phantom), Lunch Lady (Danny Phantom) Additional Tags: Denial, Lies, Identity Reveal, Secret Identity, Omega Verse, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Female Alpha Male Omega, Internal Conflict, Ghostly obsessions, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Established Relationship Summary:

Ghosts are disappearing from Amity Park, Danny's powers are weakening for some inexplicable reason, and to make things worse, his secretly-a-ghost-hunter girlfriend thinks she cheated on him with the ghost boy she hates, Danny Phantom.

Somehow he has to maintain his secret identity and his relationship with Valerie, while getting to the bottom of these mysteries.

[pencil-for-a-dog]

I heard some rumors about him (because heroes are good at gossiping)

Summary: Valerie Gray is in her twenties, goes to university, is an established superhero known as Red Huntress and has a boyfriend but, apparently, no one really noticed it until she mentioned it.

The first time someone heard of him in the hero-world was on the edge of a roof, during a casual conversation among two vigilantes of different cities.

“You have a boyfriend?”

“Wow, you don’t have to be that impressed, Spoiler”

Or: 5 times someone hearded of Red Huntress' boyfriend and 1 time they get to met him

Relationships: Danny Fenton/Valerie Gray, Stephanie Brown & Valerie Gray, Zatanna Zatara & Valerie Gray, Kara Danvers & Valerie Gray, Bruce Wayne & Valerie Gray 

Characters: Valerie Gray, Danny Fenton, Stephanie Brown, Zatanna Zatara, Kara Danvers, Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne, a lot more.

Tags: Established Relationship, Grey Ghost, Not Phantom Planet Compliant (Danny Phantom), Aged-Up Character(s), Valerie Gray-centric, Badass Valerie Gray, Valerie Gray Knows Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom, Valerie Gray is Red Huntress, Valerie Gray is a hero, valerie Gray is part of the justice league, whatever is going on between Batman and Red Huntress, Danny Fenton is in college, Danny Fenton is not a full-time hero, Danny Phantom's Identity Is A Secret, Danny appears at the very end, Almost no one knows Danny Fenton is Phantom, cultist, There are like 2 bad words and are censored, Mistakes were made, I do have a beta for this, this idea born at 3 a.m, It was supposed to be a crack fic but I don't know what is this, Tim Drake needs a nap, Tim Drake Needs a Break, I don't know how to write in spanish I know less english, definitely ooc here.

[AO3]

First of all! I'm not a native speaker of english but I did my best, and so di my beta! I really appreciate them for beta-ing for me <3

Second, I edited some things just now (sorry beta!) and my knowledge of comic's characters are more from the fandom than the comics, but I tried to look for the most accepted ways!

Tell me if there's any mistakes! Edit: My laptop/PC almost explode when I tried to post this before xddd

The first time someone heard of him in the hero-world was on the edge of a roof, during a casual conversation among two vigilantes of different cities.

“It’s… kinda quieter than I expected,” said the distorted voice of a woman.

“There’re less screams than what you expected?” Asked the one by her side in a joking tone.

“Not… Not exactly,” she mumbled “I expected more movement and… yeah, more noise.” she admitted in a low volume, a little ashamed of her first assumptions.

“Don’t worry.” She said after a little giggle “Tonight is particularly calm for Gotham”

And she was right. it was an unusually quiet night in Gotham; well, as much as it can be in the cradle of crime without becoming suspicious.

“Is it?”

“Yeah, it’s a slow night Red, even though the crime won’t stop I can allow myself a little break.” She said calmly, moving her legs in the air. There were more bats tonight than the normal, a little break won't hurt… Probably.

The black helmet turned towards her, almost like doing a second take, creating a silence between them.

“Huh.”

“What?” She asked after a few seconds.

“You just sounded a little like my boyfriend.” The other answered after a little pause.

“What?”

“It just took me by surprise, it’s not that weird.”

“You have a boyfriend?”

“Wow, you don’t have to be that impressed, Spoiler” Red replied, clearly annoyed by her tone of disbelief.

“It’s not… It’s not that I’m impressed by you having a boyfriend-”

“Wow”

“-It just took me out off guard.” She said nervously and, without a pause, she took a breath to recover herself and talk again “Sooooo, tell me, what kind of man was capable of winning your heart?”

The Red Huntress laughed a little bit to calm herself and keep talking. She knew Spoiler wouldn’t do that on purpose but her temper was always strong, and more if someone is messing with her loved ones.

She took a breath and started to speak “Well, at first sight you wouldn’t know, because he's kind of lanky but he’s totally a fighter, even if he doesn't know how to pick his fights, or just doesn't choose them at all-."

The sound of a gunshot interrupted her talk and their break in general but, hey, they expected too much for a quiet night in Gotham.

The second time someone heard about him was later that week, not because Steph talked, not even because her comms were online and she didn't notice. Is just that they asked for some help and Danny is way better in that area.

That didn't stop the big bat from getting on her nerves.

To be fair, Batman didn't like her improvised girls night with Spoiler, but there was nothing she could do. The ghosts didn't appear near enough of Amity and she chased them to Gotham city, and after she finally caught them Spoiler asked for a girls night and she was free, so she accepted - even with the knowledge that Bats had something against her and the people who break into his city without permission, because it is his territory. 

Nevertheless, he asked for her to come to the cave after patrolling with Spoiler, and Val, like a sweet, poor and innocent child, didn't think about it too much. Batman may have wanted to talk about the incident, it was near enough to become their problem and it wouldn't hurt to talk about it, after all, the natural portals had been becoming more common and they surely want to be prepared for ghosts.

Spoiler alert: it did.

Before anything, Val wasn't wrong at all, the bats were working with some new technology because of the last ghost incident out of amity, not this one, the one before this, and something wasn't working at all with the new ecto-weapons, and they wanted her opinion about this because Red Huntress' suit is made of this technology.

But she can't stand Batman.

Don't take her wrong, she always admired him, since her earliest childhood and she still does. The day when they offered her a place in the justice league was a dream, meeting all of them, Superman, Batman and The Wonder Woman, it was everything she ever wanted as a kid.

That day still feels like a vivid dream for her.

But once she met him in person he was all growls and grunts and cold looks, especially with her. But she got used to it, now he was just a little annoying. However, the look he gave to her was worse today, was more intense and started in the second she arrived, it's getting under her skin.

"Let me see the problem." She said without losing a single second of time, she might like Spoiler, and Red Hood in a minor level, but it is not enough to make want to stay in the cave longer than necessary.

Batman didn't make a single sound while he guides her to the station where they were working to modify some of their gadgets to make them effective against ghosts.

After some time analyzing and looking for an error she couldn't find what's wrong with the process they're making, it seemed right for her in every step, but something is wrong with it and she can't understand what and she's not going to stay any more time under the big bat sight.

She sighed, it's time to bring a specialist on this.

"I don't know what's wrong," She admitted looking at all of them at once, without having a visible reaction from them. "I'm gonna to call an expert, this is not my field anyways"

"It isn't?" Nightwing asked with clear confusion in his voice.

"Nope, it's more my boyfriend's area." Now, that had a reaction.

"Your boyfriend's area?" Batman asked slowly.

The implied question was right there, almost screaming at her.

'You have a boyfriend?'

And Val smiled, it's not like the polarized glass would betray her.

Whatever the ghost things made to her technology was very appreciated because it allowed her to keep her identity a secret from everyone, even from Batman and his crew.

Especially from Batman.

And she knew because of that he would take every piece of information she drops as if it was a drop of water to a thirsty man in the desert.

And, if it didn't give her all the satisfaction she could get then she doesn't know what the feeling was, but it was a really good feeling.

And this is probably the main reason why Batman has something against her, because he hates not knowing enough and she enjoys his lack of knowledge on her, and Val is not going to please him, not if it isn’t necessary.

And this little piece of information might not be necessary but she's tired and doesn't really want to stay longer in the same room as Bats or in this city at this point.

"Yes, my boyfriend might be the biggest space nerd ever but he's really talented in this area, let me call him to know what's happening here." 

She didn't want to stop and think about how much information she just gave to them with that single comment, it's too late, she's tired and dealing with the bats, she doesn't care at all right now, she just wants to get home as soon as possible, and whatever happens is a problem for future Val.

Future Val has hope that ghost things may be able to help her in this situation and hide everything, even if it makes Bat's glare worse for her.

"Isn't it too late to wake him up?" Spoiler asked. "It's like 3:00 a.m."

Val did a double take.

She forgot they must think Danny is just another civilian.

She also forgot he is, technically, just another civilian now. And he must be sleeping like most people.

"Oh, right. I'm gonna text him, just to make sure he's awake." 

Val loves the pockets of her suit, it shouldn't have them, not in the strange way it does, but Technus practically did her a favor modifying the original one and his ghostly abilities helped her a lot, like keeping her phone safe and undetectable.

It's always nice to see the surprise in the face of anyone who watches her take her phone from the weird pocket.

Are you awake?>

Luckily for her and her mood, she didn't have to wait too much time to get an answer 

Danny 💕

yeah, just finished studying

She frowned looking at the text. She may be glad for not having to wait too long, but Danny shouldn't be neglectful with his necessities. He might be not all human but he's still part human, and sometimes he forgets it.

It's too late to study, why aren't you sleeping?>

Danny 💕

couldn't sleep

do u need smth Val?

Yeah, a little bit of help with some ecto things>

Can I call you?>

Danny 💕

of course

"Fortunately for us all, he's awake and able to help, I'm gonna call him." She said and, before anyone could interrupt it one more time, she called him with her helmet.

She loves her suit, it allows her to make calls, turn them into video calls and doesn't let anyone else hear or see them.

After 25 minutes, a lot of pressure and an awkward silence, during which they probably tried to hack her suit to find out who’s on the other side of the call, the diagnostic was "probably corrupted ectoplasm" because "it's harder to make it work and it's more probable it corrupts something, than work" and "It may hurt the ghosts, but it’s way less effective then using pure ectoplasm against them."

And she repeated everything Danny said word by word and then asked from where they got that corrupted ectoplasm just to get the awkwardest silence of all the night. Once it was clear they wouldn't say a word about that, Val didn't think twice and ran away before anyone could question anything.

On her long way to go home she couldn't stop thinking about sleeping the rest of the night in the arms of Danny. She deserves all the hugs, especially after this night.

The next time someone else heard of him was months after the last time and, unlike the first two times it happened, it wasn't from Red Huntress' mouth. 

"Are you telling me that the Red Huntress has a boyfriend?" A blond girl said without believing it.

"And that's the reason why you couldn't go out with us before?" A black haired teen asked just after her

"That sounds stupid,"

It was from Tim's mouth.

On a video call.

"Yeah, B had been acting like a maniac trying to discover her identity." He said, drinking a sip of his coffee.

"Why?" Bart asked in a curious tone.

"Because the last time she came, she said something pretty specific about this boyfriend, and B thought he could use it to get more information, but, somehow, we couldn't find anything," Tim said, frustrated by the situation. He knows there’s not many people that can manage themselves in any ecto-related field, and even less who are experts on weapons against specters. 

A space-nerd who knows enough should be weirder, and it means that it should be easy to find Red Huntress’ boyfriend, everyone knows that. And yet they couldn’t do it because somehow, somehow, they're still unable to find any information about any of them.

Tim doesn’t want to cry or scream until there's no more oxygen in the air, his vocal cords break, or his mind goes blank, no, that stage was two weeks ago and now is over. He wants to throw the towel away yelling “F*ck you!” with some tears and never seeing it again, he wants to quit, but he runs with coffee and spite and they’re his new target. He wants to curse Bruce, his name, Red Huntress and her mysterious boyfriend for getting them, for getting him, in this mess.

It's not like Tim or the bats knew this but Val was very glad about the ghost things that hid her identity, and Tucker who helps with the things that escape from them, like Danny’s link with any ecto-thing. She's not glad about other ghost things. 

"But you told us it happened, like, months ago" Bart said with a certain level of disbelief.

"Yup." He drank another sip of coffee with a dead-look in his eyes. It makes a perfect match with his eye bags.

"... You can't be serious," Kon said this time

"I'm very serious… and so is he" Tim said in a sight, contemplating to drink a long sip of his coffee, he frowned after realizing he’d drank all of it, took a long and disappointed breath, and keep talking "Guys, you already knew she and B have this strange "rivalry" because we still don’t know her identity, this must be the most awkward pissing contest that we’ve all seen and everyone is getting tired of it. Even Jason is getting tired of it and you know how much he loves when B is that pissed." Another sigh, he hasn’t had a real sleep with all the increase of ghost activity where there was zero before. He doesn't have energy for anything.

"...That sounds even more stupid." Kon commented after a while.

"I know, right?" Tim said, making eye contact with him through the screen, he looked a little like a maniac himself for the validation, Kon noticed. "It's even worse when you have to watch them in their not-so-passive-and-more-aggressive fight-"

"How much time have you been into this?" Cassie asked, interrupting Tim. 

"Too much," A femenine voice answered from somewhere behind Tim, scaring him and surprising the rest of them. "Are you talking about B's latest project, right?"

"What are you doing here, Steph?" Tim asked, turning himself towards her.

"Alf asked me to tell you that dinner is ready" She said, walking to Tim and getting in the camera area. "Anyways, what were you talking about?"

"Hey Steph!" Cassie started before Tim could say anything "Did you know Red has a boyfriend?"

"Yeah, he sounds like a nice guy from what Red Huntress says." 

"What?" Everyone asked at the same time, creating a weird sound. Tim in particular was looking Steph at her eyes with some mix of unbelief, surprise, betrayal and despair.

"I mean, it's not like she talks a lot about him but she drops a comment or two when we talk, she doesn't even seem to notice it and she gets really soft when it happens, it was a little scary at the beginning but you get use to it." Steph threw like if it wasn't the bomb that it is. Maybe on purpose. Probably on purpose.

"Soft? Red Huntress gets soft when she talks about him?" Someone asked as if the information strangled them. But Tim didn’t care, because Steph knew things, she was learning about the guy who was the doom of his existence right now behind his back, the reason why he racked his brains day and night for the last two months.

And she didn’t said a word.

"Huh? Yeah, amazing I know, but not as amazing as the dinner, Tim-"

"Why didn't you say something?" His voice sounded like strangled by all the betrayal he felt. He was drowning in that feeling and coffee right now, maybe too much coffee, and Steph should be drowning in shame, not him in betrayal, just she in shame.

"Because she never dropped anything that important, just some comments of stupid, nerd, sweet and nice he is." She replied rolling her eyes "And I'm Team Red Huntress, I wasn't going to give any advantage to Bruce, duh,"

“Red Huntress being soft?”

"Steph." Tim groaned with a mix of feelings he couldn't even identify. It was more than what his sleep deprived brain could process and now it had melted, was nothing more than mashed potatoes with some ketchup and a half cooked egg in the cleanest pot you could find at 2 a.m after touching the bottom of your life two days ago and still being in the midst of a crisis. He hadn't slept enough for this amount of sh*t and the coffee can't replace sleep anymore. He wants to get in his bed and forget all this situation as he slips slowly into unconsciousness and falls to the earth's-

"Nuh-uh, Timmy, sleep can wait, dinner can't." 

Yes, eating sounds good for him right now.

After that time it became difficult to say when next someone found out that Red Huntress has a boyfriend, because the Bats can be a bunch of dirty gossipmongers like any old lady at tea time. By the end of the month, everyone knew about her mysterious boyfriend.

Well, almost everyone.

"’Sorry guys, I can't go with you because it's date night’? What, is she seeing someone?"

"Her boyfriend, duh, she's been all busy because of all of the ghosts in the natural portals that are becoming more common."

"Ugh, don't say a thing, they have been my new headache for the last month or two."

"Well, you have this free night to get rid of it." The other replied, "However, it's nice to know that it hasn't affected her relationship, the guy seems nice from what she said."

The one who read the message wasn't following this conversation.

"What do you mean?"

"That she has a boyfriend?" And the silence arrived. "Seriously, you didn't know?"

The next time someone found out that Red Huntress has a boyfriend because she told them was this time. Kinda. A text still counts, I guess.

"No! I was out for ages!" Kara exclaimed, making a huge move of arms to express how unexpected the information was for her.

"It was like, a month," Katana said without paying a real attention to the conversation behind her.

Kara shrugged "Ages. A month. Same thing." And then sighed a little bit "The world is changing."

"I know I said something similar but now I know how weird it was for her." Cassie muttered as she watches Kara and Zatanna's talk

"I know, right?" Steph didn't do better when she found out, neither did Zatanna or Katana or most of them. The only exception is Black Canary, but only because she was able to hide it better.

"What do you mean?" Kara asked.

"She mentions him a lot," Zatanna said, getting closer to the blond one.

"No," Kara knows how reserved Red Huntress is, everyone knows that! It's hard to not know what is happening between her and the bats. They all assumed it is some kind of fight because Batman doesn't know her identity.

They think nobody notices how she ignores the strange Bat's question or how Red Huntress will look in his direction every time someone says something like "privacy".

"She does." Zatanna is smiling as she watches Kara's face fall in some mix of unbelief, despair, oh-my-lord-this-is-a-so-weird-dream, hope? And betrayal.

"You are lying," was said in that exact same tone "I can't believe you."

"You’d better," Zatanna chuckles, "I'm not lying about how much she talks about him, it may be like two or three comments per talk, which are not that much but definitely more than what anyone expects." 

"She's not lying though," Steph gets in the conversation, "She makes some comments like "I know someone who dance better than you, criminal" or "I would say a joke but that would mean he won, ugh" You really won't notice unless you know it, and once you do it's really obvious."

""Even he makes better decisions than you"," Kara was mortified as the words got out of her mouth.

"Just like that." 

"How didn't I know?"At this point, Kara already questionated all her life decisions and everything she knew. She knows nothing now and Red was the biggest liar. It doesn't matter that she actually never told any of this theme to them but still a liar.

"To be honest, you need to know where to look to find the clues." Zatanna finally had mercy, Kara wouldn't forgive her right now, this all happened all of sudden, but she is grateful for her mercy.

"Bats almost went crazy because of that" Steph said happily as it wasn't the understatement of the year.

Kara can see that. She feels better now, not even the big bat noticed it at the beginning.

She could live with that.

"So, are we having our girl's night with questionable legality or what?"

The last time they heard of her mysterious boyfriend before they finally met him, was after a year of knowing about him, just after a catastrophe.

A ghost related catastrophe.

In retrospect, it was obvious, the natural portals were becoming more common, the ghost attacks were more and more frequent, something felt wrong and it was only a matter of time until this happened.

A big mess in red and green that happened just because a crazy man thought he had enough power to control all this entities to take over the world.

Key word: thought. He couldn't control them.

Ghosts are chaotic and have some very specific obsessions. Sometimes they opposed and they had to solve it with the best method they knew.

Fights.

It was a mess from the beginning.

Luckily for them, Batman's paranoia does something good, and prepared a lot of weapons and gadgets that works on them.

They were, at least, a little prepared.

The most worrying part of this was the crazy man screaming "You haven't seen the real power! If I don't show you they will!" Because after that he escaped from the biggest heroes in the world, somehow. Probably because of all the destruction.

They hope he won't become a real problem, but knowing their luck, he will.

But it doesn't matter right now, because this story isn't about crazy people and ghosts against the justice league, no. This story is about what the people know about Red Huntress' boyfriend.

So, the last time they heard of her mysterious boyfriend before they finally met him, was in the Atalaya after a year of knowing about him, just after the catastrophe that I just mentioned.

They all were getting some rest after that exhausting fight.

Val was grateful that this place has some kind of living rooms and got the good couches in them, even if now she was part of some pile.

To be honest, she doesn't think she would like to get a break in the meeting room.

Because yes, there's a reason why the most of them are here and it's because they need to close this case as soon as it's possible and, even though they just fought, there's a crazy man who has been learning things he shouldn't know and started to using them, and that, that's a real big problem.

But not Valerie's biggest problem right now.

"Huh," she said as she frowned, breaking their comfortable silence. There was this tone in her voice that said something feels bad, and that's very important when you just fought with a horde of ghosts and some maniac screamed "You haven't seen the end of me! You'll regret this!" Or something like that.

And that's exactly why it called everyone's attention.

"What happened? " Zatanna broke from her position, sitting on the floor with one of her legs close to her chest, her back on the couch and her head in Red Huntress' stomach now.

"My boyfriend hasn't called yet." Red Huntress said with clear confusion in her tone.

"And?" There wasn't anything really bad, it may be just that it collapsed because of a lot of people must have called their loved ones to check on them after the situation.

"Not even a message." She started to sound a little frustrated. "He was in Amity Park visiting family."

And the silence arrived. Everyone knew the problem with that.

Amity has the door to the other side. The portal, the bridge, the hole among the live and the dead.

Ghosts aren't unusual there, even before this.

That city would have been a hell on earth.

"But… Wasn't Phantom there?" Spoiler was a little worried. She may have not met the guy but he sounds strong enough to protect the city and its habitants. She hopes he could be able to protect The boyfriend™. He sounds nice and makes Red Huntress happy. It would be a lame if something happened to him. She moves a little uncomfortable in the puff because her position didn't allow her to look at the Red huntress's head and her neck wasn't happy.

"Uh… I mean, yes, but this is still being a little strange," Red Huntress said in a weird voice. "No one has texted anything to me and he has the costume to get in weird and bad situations" She mumbled, clearly worried.

"... Phantom?" 

"No, D- my boyfriend." 

"... He could be tired," Kara offered from her position upside down on the couch, Red Huntress’ legs above her stomach and Steph's head was close to her own.

"... It wouldn't be the first time," She accepted, a little ashamed, a little more worried.

They all fell in a silence more uncomfortable than the last one, the expectation was growing as the time ran and it was suddenly broken by the sound of a message notification.

Valerie took and turned on her phone so fast she could, and unlocked it. The name wasn't Danny's but it would work.

Sam

He's fine

They weren't really powerful but were a lot, but nothing he couldn't manage, he just got tired lol

He arrived to his house and fell asleep before even touch his bed

The relief washed over her as she couldn't be more grateful for that. Sam and her aren't the best friends but Valerie knows she can trust her with Danny's safety, at least, now that they're young adults. Teenage her wouldn't trust Sam after knowing why the accident happened, especially not with Danny's safety, but as an adult she knows that she grew up and is worthy of trust… Most of the time anyways.

"He's fine, just fell asleep." She said, visibly relieved, bringing calm to the atmosphere in the room. 

"Good to know." Kara said a little sleepy "I'm feelin' sleepy too."

"Yeah, me too," Zatanna agreed as she closes her eyes.

"A nap sounds nice." Valerie was already falling.

"Yay, sleepover in the Atalaya." Steph barely mumbled before anyone fell asleep.

After some seconds, none of them were awake.

The day they met him was just the day after that. And it was in the weirdest but precise way it could be.

"Danny?!"

"Uh, hi V- I mean, Red" He laughs nervously "I'm so grateful you're here because I couldn't text you to warn you and-,"

"What are you doing here?" She asked in some mix of surprise, anger, exasperation and resignation.

"Uh, well, you'll see-,"

"He is the chosen one to bring the ghost king to this realm!" Said the main cultist

"- I'm the sacrifice." Danny chuckles, clearly nervous.

The silence would have fulfilled the entire place if it wasn't for the little laughs of Danny.

"W-What happened?" Kara asked, feeling out

The first time they met Red Huntress' boyfriend is 24 hours after the end of the ghost catastrophe.

They made a meeting just 6 hours after because everyone was tired but there was a menace running away to only-gods-above-knows-where. In the same meeting they agreed to make an assault group to face this menace, it was small but powerful because it was conformed by a Green Lantern, Supergirl, Batman, Flash, Zatanna and Red Huntress. Half of them were there because they were less tired.

Once they were ready, they chased the track of the crazy man™, which was way more difficult than what they expected. But they finally found his lair, a just abandoned building, and they, somehow, were able to get in the middle of, and interrupting, a ritual to summon the most powerful ghost, the ghost king, in which, Danny, Red Huntress' boyfriend, was the main sacrifice.

It was certainly a shock when they arrived just to watch a bunch of people, in some big odd clothes that hide their entire figure, singing in a dead language around a lanky guy, with messy clothes, tied to a table in the center of a summon circle.

Which leads to this situation.

Red trusted Sam one time. Just one time and THIS happens.

She is concerned and impressed.

(Okay, she trusted Sam a lot of times before but how did this keep happening its a real mystery).

"How?" The impulse to cover her face with her hands was surprisingly big. She would like this to stop happening.

"That's not of YOUR concern!" One of the cultists said, he sounded suspiciously like the crazy man™.

"To be honest" Danny interrupted, calling everyone's attention "It's kinda funny, I just woke up and saw that my parents didn't have milk, which is normal, so, I went to buy it and in the middle of my walk someone screamed "You!" But I was really tired to pay attention to it, and I didn't stop, the next thing I knew it's that I'm here." The more of them looked at him with incredulity as he spoke, it sounds just ridiculous.

"... I can't believe you" Valerie really wished she could mean it but, sadly for her, she totally believes it. Dating Danny is a way to find out that Danny doesn't look for problems, problems look for him in the weirdest ways.

"It happened, though." Danny sounded exhausted, maybe of his luck, maybe of his life.

Red Huntress sighed under the watchful and expectant gaze of everyone else. 

"So, let me get this straight," Valerie started. "You went to buy milk, alone."

"Yes"

"And someone screamed "You!", and you ignored it?"

"Yup."

"And that was a kind of warning before getting kidnapped."

"... In retrospective, yes, it was," Someone snorted, she didn't care enough, this was ridiculous anyways.

"Why, Danny, I- just-" Valerie sighed, Sam may differ but she didn't sign up for this "Why?"

"Because I just knew he was the perfect offering the moment I saw him walking on the streets."  The man answered the question proudly. His capacity to feel the power in a human being should not be underestimated.

"Thank you man, I really appreciate that, but I'm not… I don’t look like one." Danny was tense and he was right, he was in his clothes from yesterday because he slept with them. A big age-worn green sweater with a white shirt, that Val just knows is that one parodying NASA's logo with a UFO, peeking out, his oldest and ripped jeans and just one, single, and untied, shoe. Everything was wrinkly and his hair was practically a nest because of the mess that it is. To be honest, he looks like a lanky and sleep deprived nerd that goes to college. Maybe one step from death from the chaos in his life but not like the perfect offering.

It created a silence, a big silence that was just broken by Red Huntress' voice.

"That's it, I'm done." She said in an inexpressible tone "You all are doomed, I'm done with this".

"But V- Reeeeed" Her boyfriend groaned in a miserable voice. "I'm scared and unable to do anything." 

It was the way he said "unable" that impacted Valerie, because it means: "I can't go ghost or use my powers, I'm out of ecto-sauce."

She breathes, magnificent, Danny is powerless right now, it means like she wasn't stressed enough for all this situation.

"Okay, okay," Red Huntress says, lowering her voice and entering a more serious mood. "I can work with that." Her voice was silent and sent shivers down everyone’s spine.

She moved her body into a better position to fight. 

"We can work with that."

And it took just one (1) little move to start the fight.

It was chaotic, half of the cultists went to fight and distract the heros meanwhile the other half started the ritual to summon the ghost king again, just at a lower speed, because, apparently, the amount of people was important to define it.

And they were just six (6) heros against a lot of cultists, but they were four (4) with superpowers or similar, one (1) with a super-suit, and Batman.

The fight was messy and exhausting, the number of cultists never seemed to end, but, luckily for Danny, they didn't know how to fight, so the heros were able to end  it in time.

And now, with a worrying amount of unconscious people and the six of them, well, exhausted, Danny was finally safe, tired and safe.

Valerie went to free him once for all, and when she had her arms under his knees and back, his arms around her neck, she finally felt the relief of knowing he is safe in her arms.

"You-" She said with all her mixed feelings in her voice, trying to explain how she felt. After struggling for some seconds she kept it in silence.

"You didn't have to carry me, you know?" He broke the silence in a low and playful tone under the gaze of the other five heros, looking to Val's eyes behind the polarized glass.

"I know," she mumbled in a breath looking at his eyes, keeping it for a time. Her tone had a little of shame and Danny knew she was worried enough to need this.

Not all the days someone manages to get you when you're vulnerable just to sacrifice you to summon you. He was a little scared too.

"Kiss me." He said after just a few seconds, taking by surprise most of the room. 

"In this place? Under everyone's eyes?" She asked without being really surprised but a little doubtful

His eyes softened as he saw the doubt on his girlfriend, "Can I?" was asked in a whisper looking for permission.

"Yes." She said in a silence but sure of what it implied right now

And with that simple word, Danny moved his hands to her helmet, pressed some buttons and cradled her face in his hands to give her a soft and long kiss, after which he brought their foreheads together to have a moment of intimacy.

"I'm so grateful you saved me, my hero," Danny said in a playful voice, mocking his girlfriend.

"You are welcome, damsel in distress," She replied with a smile on her face.

Danny laughed, surprising the rest of the heroes, who kept looking at the moment.

"That was so baaaad," Danny laughed a little bit more. "I love you." he said when he finally stopped the giggles.

"I love you too, but put the glass on," And Danny did it.

Batman, finally, interrupts the moment by cleaning his throat. "Let's go." he said looking at Red Huntress, and then, her boyfriend. "You can bring him too." And he started to walk out of the place

"Thank you Batman." Red Huntress said.

“Are we going to THE Atalaya?! To SPACE?!" Danny asked.

After the mysterious medical check (Valerie did it alone because neither she or Danny would let anyone else to check Danny's health), they finally had another meeting, mainly because Red Huntress asked for it.

The report wasn't immediately necessary but Red insisted, so there they are. Sitting in their respective chairs with the obvious exception of Red Huntress’ famous boyfriend, Danny, who sat in her lap.

"I called you all here because I wanted to make some presentations now that the cat is out of the bag," Red Huntress said with his boyfriend giggling a little bit because of the last part.

She breathes and presses the buttons on the side of her helmet, revealing her face.

"I am Valerie Gray and he," Danny turns his face to see everyone in the room, avoiding the eyes of Constantine and Zatanna "is my boyfriend, Danny Fenton".

"Nice to meet you". He said with a large grin that allowed them to see his fangs.