Sea Cryptic!Danny Phantom- pt. 8
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If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been to the hospital in the past three years, I’d have enough money to buy a bag of skittles from Target. Most of it wasn’t for me though lol I’ll add this onto the list in a bit, but I tend to do that from my desktop but I’m still currently attached to an IV drip. I’ve also never been this hydrated in my life lmao
——
Danny poked a puffed up pufferfish. The poison floated through his ghost form and did nothing but give him a little zap. Danny chuckled, wiping away a bit of oil that had gotten onto the fish from a nearby oil spill. Jesus fuck. Danny knew that bald headed, easily drawn Vlad wannabe from across the river would do something terrible to Gotham’s waters (not that it needed help being atrocious to Danny’s clean water appreciation).
The puffer fish- Danny gave up on understanding Gotham’s water ecosystem, having realized that it was a cursed mix of saltwater and freshwater and swamp- gave a fearful little wiggle and Danny let it go, turning to the oil particles floating around.
Danny took out his phone.
“Danny? Why the hell are you calling at three in the morning?”
Danny raised a hand and blasted out some ice, gathering the oil up. “Hey Sam. If I got you into contact with Poison Ivy, do you think you could team up to get rid of Lex Luthor’s new holding company in Gotham?”
“Danny, are you asking me to commit an act of ecoterrorism?”
“That’s not even the weirdest thing I’ve ever asked you to do.” Danny placed a hand on the ice mass and flew it, the oil, and himself across the river to Metropolis.
“Deal.” Sam’s voice gets further away as she pulled her phone from her ear. “I’ll text Tucker, see if he could futz with Luthor’s taxes. I heard her doesn’t even give his workers a livable wage, and that’s so not gonna fly.”
“Perfect! Thanks! We could totally meet up and hang out with my new friends!”
“Hah! That Tim guy? The one that wanted you to introduce Phantom to him?”
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, goth girl.”
“Sure, dork. I’ll swing by Friday?”
“Sure! Want me to pick you up?” Danny phased through Lex Luthor’s frankly ridiculous amounts of security measures, still completely invisible and towing a giant mass of oil covered ice.
“Cool. Now hang up. I actually need sleep.”
“Ah, you must be dead tired. I get it.”
Sam hung up, and a second later, Danny got a pic of her holding up a middle finger with her signature purple nail polish.
Danny stared down at the sleeping billionaire. Gross. He let his face re enter the visible spectrum and lowered the temperature of the room drastically. Luthor groaned, waking up as he shivered like a hyped up chihuahua.
Danny bared his teeth, glowing green skin reflecting the black holes of the universe and imploding stars and burning planets as he leaned towards the frozen two bit villain.
“RESPECT THE PLANET,” Danny snarled. He unmelted the invisible ice as he simultaneously made the oil visible, the entirety of the oil spill coating every single inch of Luthor’s penthouse bedroom. Danny winked out, but not before snapping a quick picture of Lex Luthor’s absolutely covered in his company’s oil spill.
If Danny had made sure that there were fish droppings mixed in with the oil… that was his own damn business.
——
Danny floated over to a brooding Batman.
“Do you have two hundred dollars on you?” Danny asked in lieu of a greeting.
Batman grunted a yes.
“Two hundred dollars for a photo of Lex Luthor being hit with karma.”
Batman instantly handed over the cash and received a printed out photo of Lex Luthor (in his Lexcorp pjs) covered by fossil fuel.
"Is this..."
"The oil from his oil spill? Yes."
Batman stared at the picture.
"Why was this more expensive than ID'ing corpses?"
"Cause it's funnier. And dead people deserve more consideration than a egg looking ass polluting everything he touches."
Superman zoomed into the space in front of them, face eager.
"I heard you had something about Luthor?"
Danny figured that Batman probably contacted the hero, and confidently said, "$200 for personal use, $300 for commercial use."
Superman quickly got together three hundred dollars in cash and quickly forked it over. Danny gave him another physical copy of the photo and a usb drive with the photo in a digital format.
"I am so pinning this up." Superman muttered.
"Get out of my city." Batman said flatly. Superman waved a hand, beamed at Danny, and left.
"Did you know Gotham's waters is a mixture of freshwater, swamp, and saltwater habitats?"
Batman grunted.
"Also, please stop stalking Danny Fenton. It's odd."
Batman swiveled his head over. "What."
Danny stared him down. "Stop. Stalking. Innocent. Bystanders. Or else I will recreate the phrase "drowned rat" with you as the subject."
Batman stilled.
"I don't kill, by the way. I can, however, dunk you in the sea and lift you up like a goth version of Simba."
Batman relaxed minutely. "I can't."
"And why not?"
Batman gave him a despairing look. "Have you met my children?"
"... Point."
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Can‘t stop thinking about the usually so confident hotch getting yk kinda shy and clumsy all of a sudden, everyones just so confused as to why he‘s getting a bit quieter or redder in the face with seemingly no reason
But when in a case meeting they notice Hotch gripping the sides of his chair, biting his nails (nervous tick), making himself small in his chair and his leg shaking so much that they can feel it in through the floor
And you just standing behind him, one hand on the back of his chair not even really touching his shoulder with your fingertips and listening to whatever Garcia has to say with your full attention that they realize how Hotch has it bad BAD for you
You don't make it into the round table room until after everyone else is already seated, and unfortunately for you, that means you're out of a chair. Your typical seat is filled by Strauss, who looks less-than-pleased at your late entry, but holds her tongue.
"I'm sorry for being late, everyone," You linger behind the seat facing the screen that Garcia has prepared, your hands resting on the back of Hotch's chair, "There was an accident right in front of me, and I had to give a witness statement. Have we started yet?"
The team is used to Aaron leading conversation, but it's not necessarily weird that he doesn't, and Derek shakes his head.
"All good- uh, Y/L/N." He seems to have been going for a nickname that Strauss would not be amused with, and wisely reels himself in, "We barely got halfway through."
"I'll-" You lean down over the back of Hotch's chair, and it creaks as he shifts in it. You peer down at the case file that's open in front of him, and his eyes are glued to the word victim as you scan the details over his shoulder. He can't move them, he can't act natural, he's stiff as a board and tense in his seat.
"Oh," Your nose wrinkles at the word enucleator, "Gross. Okay, well- uh, go ahead, Garcia. I think I'm caught up."
"Okay. So victim number three was just last night, in this parking garage," She grimaces as the image on the screen, "And wow, that's nasty. But- um, Houston PD has asked for your help, and I really don't want to look at this anymore, so I'm gonna go, and- and let you take over. Do your- profiler genius thing," She stammers, gaze averted from the screen as she rushes out, emphasizing her command with a wave of her hands, "Be gone!"
Reid gets right into things by rattling off statistics on enucleators. They're fascinating, really, but not entirely helpful, and you lean down once more to inspect the case file.
"Sorry," You murmur beside Hotch's ear when your fingertips brush against his shoulder, "My seat was taken."
He doesn't answer, can't afford to open his mouth and hear his voice waver. All he does is nod, once, stiffly, and it casts an uncomfortable ache over your chest. Is he angry with you?
He could be annoyed, perhaps. That you were late in front of Strauss. But he's never been afraid to chew out an agent in front of an audience if it's what they truly deserve, and if he had a problem with your tardiness you're sure he would let it be known.
"Are you okay?" You ask him in that same low murmur, one that sends shivers down his spine to a place he can't think about with you hovering above him. He nods, vigorously so, and his tie moves with the gesture. You decide that he's just uncharacteristically nervous about Strauss's presence, perhaps she's threatening once more to demote him or fire him altogether.
You reach down to place your hands on his shoulders in what's supposed to be a supportive gesture. You squeeze gently at them, feeling his muscles impossibly tense, and the room falls silent as Reid's ramble ends.
"Okay, so these victims aren't connected," Morgan reads off of his case file, "Different genders, different races, different tax brackets, nothing in here that suggests there's a common thread. Opportunity, then?"
"It looks like it." JJ agrees, "I mean, a parking lot at night? That's high-risk. I'm willing to bet this guy just stumbled upon his first chance and took it, then couldn't stop."
There's a quiet round of agreement, some 'yeah's and a thoughtful nods, and the room falls silent. This is Hotch's moment, his time to share his conclusions, his thoughts, his doubts, his orders,, but he can't bring himself to do any of that. Not when your thumbs are gently rubbing out the kinks in his muscles, hidden from view like a comfort you're sharing with him in secret. He can't bring his mind to generate any adequate responses, so he pretends to busy himself with the file in front of him to avoid the probing gazes of his coworkers.
They're smirking. They know what's going on, they see the pink tinge on Hotch's face, they hear his foot tapping the floor beneath the table, they know he's fumbling for words like a lovesick teen.
Strauss is not as amused.
"Agent Hotchner, might I remind you that you're the chief of this team? They are awaiting your instruction."
You press your hands harder into his shoulders, thumbs digging further into his tense muscles to soothe him through his nerves. He feels your hands hold him tighter, feels that staticky feeling threaten to envelop the last part of his brain that had remained clear, and speaks before it can overtake him.
"Wheels up in thirty." He snaps, voice forcibly firm, "Dismissed."
Strauss seems rather displeased with his mediocre orders, but she doesn't say it. She lets Dave herd her out the door with the promise of freshly brewed coffee in the kitchen, and Aaron pointedly ignores the thumbs-up that the older man shoots behind his back as he leads her away.
"She's gone," You breathe, patting Hotch's shoulders as you release your grip on him, "God, she's scary."
"Derek," Emily calls sweetly, "Can you come with me to my desk? I had a newspaper clipping I wanted to show you."
Your nose wrinkles, newspaper clipping? Emily doesn't read the newspaper.
"I'd like to see it too," Reid rushes to follow them, "Uh- JJ, come on, Garcia said she wanted to see you before we took off. She wanted to give you that- uh, thing."
"That thing!" JJ repeats, grinning madly at you as she tails Reid out of the door, "See you on the jet!"
"That thing," You echo in a scoff, "Hotch, did you ever follow through with that drug test on Garcia? I think they might both be on it. Whatever it is."
Hotch manages a weak chuckle, and it brings a frown back to your face.
"Hotch, come on." You plead, "Are you really worried about Strauss?"
No. He's not. He always is, a little bit, but that's not what has his attention. He can't shake the feeling of your hands on his shoulders, rubbing out the knots in his muscles and pressing flush to his form. He wants to feel your hands over him again, in the same places and in others, but there's a bozo running around Texas removing people's eyes, and he can't afford to focus on that now.
"She's got nothing on you," You take his silence for an answer, smiling sympathetically at him, "Come on, Hotch, just forget about her, and lead like you normally would. That's enough to impress her, I guarantee it. You can do this, Hotch."
Looking at your earnest smile, standing only feet away from you when you reach out to grab hold of his hand and squeeze sympathetically, Aaron is certain of only one thing: He cannot do this.
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