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Maddie and Jack had known about Phantom for a while now and things were… Well not … good. But at least they were better.
He could see that they were doing their best, even if their best was very bumbling and awkward and containing a lot of cautious glances and worried looks.
It would get better. Danny watched as Jack worked on repairing one of their blasters that had broken in a ghost-fight two days ago against Technus, stopping to send him guilty glances every few seconds. As if he would be offended by him repairing a weapon. As if it wasn’t extremely hard to focus on what he was doing with his six foot nine dad staring at him forlornly across the lab every few seconds.
Danny heaved a sigh and turned slightly to the right, angling away from Jack, as he tried to refocus on the work at hand. After a few seconds and out of the corner of his eye he could see Jack leaning forward in his chair to get into Danny’s line of sight as he pouted and did his best imitation of a puppy. Despite his size he was damn good at it.
Ancients. It had to get better.
Danny was trying to work on bettering the scanner for the natural portals; since he revealed himself they had been able to increase its accuracy dramatically and he really enjoyed the feeling of being able to freely make improvements to their tech now that he didn’t need to keep half his life a secret.
He had just started to get into it again when the sudden sound of a screwdriver dropping to the table startled him back out of his focus. He looked up to find Maddie staring down at the table with wide eyes and an open mouth before slowly, slowly, turning her wide eyes up to meet his—doing a frankly impressive imitation of a very creepy ghost.
Before Danny could ask what was up, Maddie blurted out, “Who is Dani?”
Danny cringed. Right. He had wondered when that particular question would come to bite him in the ass.
He gave a laugh that sounded fake even to his own ears and fumbled out a, “Oh. Well… Funny story that.”
“You said she was your cousin.” Maddie got up from her chair so that she could slam her hands on the table for emphasis as she spoke. Danny admired the dedication even if he did wish it wasn’t aimed at him. “She can’t be your cousin!”
“Well…” Danny trailed off; unsure how to explain this particular situation without it sounding worse than it was. No scratch that, without it sounding exactly as bad as it really was.
“Are you sure about that Maddie?” Jack asked as he put down the blaster to rub at his chin with an oily hand. “Maybe we’ve missed someone? Didn’t Alicia have two kids recently?”
“That’s his age?” Maddie asked incredulously. “And also dead?”
“Ah, right.”
Danny held up his hands and both of his parents focused back on him. “She’s not really my cousin. It’s just easier to say that than… well, the truth.”
“Then who is she?” Jack asked as he took his hands away from his face; leaving a smudge of black oil like a fake beard on his chin.
Danny hummed, thinking hard. They had promised that they should try and be honest with each other from now on, but how much would they actually understand? How much would they believe him? “That’s a harder question than you might think.”
“How can it be hard? Just who is she?” Maddie asked incredulously, sitting back down in her chair. “She looks just like you!”
“Yeah, there’s a reason for that,” Danny hedged. “And it’s not pretty.”
“Just spit it out, son! We’ve already had to accept that one of our children is a ghost. This can’t be much harder.” Jack said before seemingly realizing what he’d said and sending Danny another one of his, by now, common apologetic looks. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Danny waved him off, knowing that he didn’t mean it in a bad way. It had been hard to adapt for everyone. “Alright.” Danny took a breath. “She’s my clone.”
“Clone?” Maddie asked, face devoid of any emotion.
“Clone.” Danny nodded, keeping his own face as neutral as possible. Maybe he could get away with this if—
“Clone…” Jack trailed off as he nodded in response to Danny before it apparently was his turn to abruptly stand up, but he didn’t slam his hands against the table so Danny decided to take it as a win. “Clone?! You have a clone?!” Aaaand there was the table-slam. Damn.
Danny winced. “Yeaaahh… It wasn’t voluntary?”
“How does something like that happen involuntarily?!” Maddie asked as she absentmindedly tossed Jack a dirty rug to wipe up the smears of black oil his hands left on the table.
“You don’t want to know,” Danny muttered under his breath before speaking up, “The important thing is that she’s nice! More than nice actually, she’s great!”
“The more you tell us about what you’ve been through the more worried we get,” Jack lamented as he grabbed the rug and then proceeded to smear the oil around on the table, the very dirty and stained rug predictably doing absolutely nothing to wipe off the oil.
“I’m sorry,” Danny said for what felt like the hundredth time as he reached out and touched the table, turning it intangible and watching as the oil patch fell to the floor with a wet splat where it was out of the way and could be wiped up later. And then wincing as Jack’s hand and arm fell through the table as well, dropping the rag on the floor, but his father simply gave a small shout of alarm before starting to laugh instead.
Jack straightened up and moved his arm slowly through the table with a look of fascination on his face. Danny muttered out another, “Sorry,” but was then distracted by the rag on the floor suddenly starting to twitch before promptly scuttling away beneath the table.
He looked up, but no one else seemed to have noticed, Jack simply waving him off with a smile and a, “Nothing to apologize for, just not really used to seeing you use your powers. But it’s all good! Thanks for the help!”
He sent another glance to the rag now moving towards one of the dark corners of the lab. He would have to remember to take care of that little problem later.
Maddie nodded. “And it’s not your fault that we’re worried. It’s just…” A lot, she doesn’t say but Danny can still hear it as clear as day.
He couldn’t do anything but agree. “Yeah…”
“Well, regardless of… how she came to be, we should meet her,” Maddie decided, showing off her impressive skills in compartmentalization. “Where does she live?”
“Ah.” Danny froze. Couldn’t they ask him any easy question today? “Hm.”
Maddie heaved a sigh. “Why does every question have to be like this with you?”
Danny fiddled with his hands. “Well, we did say that we should try and not lie to each other.”
“Yes,” Jack agreed with a nod.
“…Does that still apply?”
“Yes,” Maddie said exasperatedly.
“Ok, ok!” He held up his hands in a disarming gesture. “She doesn’t have a home.”
“Doesn’t have a home?!” Jack asked incredulously. “She’s your age, right?”
Maddie frowned. “Is she a full ghost then? Does she stay in the Ghost Zone?”
“…No?”
"To what?" Jack asked with a frown that now matched Maddie’s.
"Both?"
Maddie looked personally offended at that. “Danny!”
“What?!”
“So she’s all alone?!”
“I haven’t really been in a position to do anything about it, now have I?” He couldn’t keep the slight hurt out of his voice even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t.
“No. Sorry.” Maddie amended before taking a deep breath. "So she's also a half ghost? If she’s your… clone?"
Danny nodded, aiming for casual. How did you break the news to your parents that you had a clone that they weren’t aware of? He hadn’t seen any tutorials on YouTube, and he had looked. "Yes."
Something suddenly moved in his periphery and Danny whipped his head around only to find nothing. He hoped it was the damn rag again. He could swear that this house was more haunted than the Zone itself.
“Where did she come from?” Jack asked as he followed Danny’s line of sight before raising one eyebrow at the glaringly empty corner behind him. “Is this something… ghostly?”
Danny knew what he was really asking; he wanted to know if this had something to do with his ghostly powers. “No.” Then he thought about Vlad who was very much a ghost—at least half the time—and added on, “Weeell… In a way?”
“Do you care to expand on that?” Maddie asked with a perfectly pleasant expression.
Uh-oh, overly formal was never a good sign.
Danny made a face. “Not really?”
“Please Danny,” Jack begged and there was the damn puppy dog eyes again.
Danny cursed his weakness. He would have to ask Sam to add psychological warfare to their training regimen. “Well, it’s not… pleasant?”
“That’s fine. We just want to know.” Maddie assured him, but it was still in an overly pleasant tone of voice. Then she took a breath and softened somewhat. “She clearly means a lot to you.”
“She was… created,” he allowed. “In a lab.”
“What?!” Jack and Maddie exclaimed, almost perfectly in sync. It was actually quite impressive.
“Yeah…” There wasn’t really a good way to say it, was there?
“By a ghost?!” Jack asked, almost sounding like his old self again with how he jumped to put the blame on ghosts. Was it weird that it made Danny feel slightly nostalgic?
“Hmmm.” Danny reminded himself that he should try and stick to the truth. “No?”
“A human did it?!” Maddie looked positively scandalized. "What kind of a human could do something like that?!"
Big oof. If only they knew… "Could we save that for a later conversation?"
Maddie slumped down in her chair. "Why does that sound so ominous?"
"Well, because you're not gonna like it."
"Great," Maddie said with a sigh.
Jack gave a sudden barking laugh. "You mean in comparison to everything else you’ve told us lately?"
Danny awarded that with a finger gun and a, “Touché.”
“So?” Maddie asked with a raised eyebrow, still sitting slumped in her chair.
I guess there’s no getting out of this one. “Weeeell… When was the last time you talked to Vlad?”
“Vladdie?” Jack sat up straight at the mention of their friend. Even bigger oof. “What does he have to do with this?”
“This is gonna be a nightmare,” Danny muttered under his breath. “Okay! So! Vlad worked with you on your ectostudies when you were younger?”
“Yes?” Jack asked, seemingly very confused on where he was going with this.
Danny plowed on, wanting to get this mess over with as soon as possible. “But he stopped when he got into the accident with the proto-portal?”
“Ye—” Maddie nodded along before stopping and narrowing her eyes at him. “Wait, how do you know about that?”
Danny rubbed at his neck, glancing away. “Ah. I? Might have? Been there? In a way.”
“Been there??” Jack asked incredulously. “You weren’t even born!”
“Let’s say the Zone isn’t as… linear? As the human world is.” He did not want to bring Clockwork or alternate timelines up in this conversation. This was already enough of a mess as it was.
Maddie blinked at him before slowly asking, “…Are you implying that you’ve time-travelled?”
“Yeees?”
“Of course you have.” And it sounded so resigned that Danny almost felt bad. Even so, a part of him was infinitely grateful that they took his words as truth. He could get used to this whole being listened to and being believed thing. It felt good.
“Well!” Danny clapped his hand, suddenly eager to get the conversation back on track again, regardless of how uncomfortable the topic was. “You know the ghost Plasmius?”
“Yes?” Jack asked even as he sent Danny a look that clearly told him that they wouldn’t let the previous topic go that easily. Well, as long as Danny had enough time to repress it and ignore it before their next conversation, he was happy.
He waved a hand vaguely in the air. “Well... I might not be the only half-ghost around…”
Maddie gaped at him. “What?! Vlad? …Plasmius?!”
“Mhm.” Danny nodded as he fought to keep the smile off his face; the small, scared, part of him that had gotten used to thinking that Vlad’s reveal would equal his own doom was easily overshadowed by the manic glee in outing that creepy, crazy old man to his only friends. Let’s see you try and bribe your way out of this, you damn fruitloop!
“No.” Jack shook his head, stopped to look at Danny. “No?” Shook his head again, more firmly this time. “No.”
“No?” Maddie repeated but Danny nodded again and she put her head in her hands. “How?!”
Danny did his best to briefly explain the whole situation with Vlad and Plasmius and the proto-portal without dwelling too much on his injuries or his time in the hospital. So yes, he might be a bit bitter and didn’t have a lot of spare sympathy for the guy. Who could blame him?
“I can’t believe this…” Jack trailed off, staring down at his clasped hands on the table. “Vladdie…”
“How can we have been so careless?” Maddie asked with anguish in her voice. Danny winced at her distress, if there was someone who didn’t deserve their pity, it was Vlad.
Danny didn’t think either of them had fully comprehended what he had said. That Vlad was Plasmius, He wondered when the other shoe would drop.
“The portal…” Jack breathed out.
“Again?” Maddie asked with pain in her voice.
Danny winced. It couldn’t be easy to hear that you had unknowingly caused the death—or half-death as it were—of two people close to you. “Yeah, again. I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, he’s not been very nice since then?”
And his leading comment seemed to work as Maddie sat up straighter as her pained expression morphed into a frown.
“Wait… Plasmius?!” Maddie suddenly exclaimed, the previous sadness seemingly exchanged with outrage in the blink of an eye. “He’s been awful!”
Danny nodded. There was the shoe. “Yeeaaah.”
Jack looked equal parts shocked and angry as he said, “How could he do something like this?! He was our friend!”
And Danny took great pleasure in describing what had gone down between him and Vlad since the reunion when they first met. He spared no details.
If this was how cathartic therapy and talking about your problems could feel then he might have been too hard on Jazz.
At the end, both Maddie and Jack were interrupting him every few sentences with incredulous and angry exclamations. As he finished his story, Danny was more than happy to let them take over and what followed was an impressively long rant from them both about friendship and betrayal and evil and lousy rotten corrupt billionaires.
Danny discreetly took his phone out and filmed the whole thing, deciding that this absolutely needed to be saved for posterity. And possibly for a ringtone.
As they stopped to catch their breaths for the third time, Danny took the chance to hit stop on his recording, pocketed his phone, and tried to interrupt them. No matter how entertaining this was he really didn’t want to spend the whole day down in the lab with his parents and when the two of them got on a roll they could continue indefinitely without noticing anything around them.
And besides, he was fairly sure that he had seen two rags moving on the floor close to the storage cabinets at the far wall. Were they multiplying? It wouldn’t surprise him. The lab really wasn’t the place for idle or distracted talk.
"Sooo, about Dani?"
“Right, right!” Jack exclaimed, focusing back on him with a somewhat sheepish expression. "Is she okay?"
“Well…” Danny trailed off. “I think so?” At least, she had been okay the last time he had talked to her.
“Hm.” Maddie hummed, clearly not pleased with his answer, but letting it go. “So, can we meet her?”
“I’ll have to ask her first.” And considering everything he had said to Dani about them, he really hoped she would say yes.
“So you have a way to get in contact with her?” Jack asked. It sounded slightly relieved.
“Yeah. If her phone hasn’t been destroyed. Again.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said that, considering their worried glances.
Maddie shook her head. “Well, please ask her. We would love to talk to her!”
“Alright, alright.” Danny agreed. He would also love to see Dani getting a bit more stability in her life and maybe even some caring adults to compensate for the experience she’s had so far with parents.
Before he could walk out and try to track her down, he looked up to see Maddie and Jack exchanging a complicate set of looks and expressions, Danny had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing as Jack started gesturing silently with his hands while Maddie seemed to do her best impression of a piano with her eyebrows.
Whatever they were considering had better be fairly serious as it went on for entirely too long. Danny took the opportunity to glance around the lab and yep; there were now three disgusting rags clustered in the corner closest to the cabinets. Ancients, they lived in a biohazard.
The whole charade ended quite suddenly as Jack turned to Danny and asked, “Would you and Jazz be okay with us inviting her to stay with us?”
Danny did his best not to startle at the sudden question. “You guys don’t have to do that,” Danny immediately countered, worried that they were trying to compensate for everything that had happened between them and him and not wanting to drag Dani into that mess.
“We know,” Maddie said. “But we want to.”
“Yeah, I mean, I’m totally fine with it and I’m certain Jazz would be too. Dani is basically already our sibling. I can’t guarantee that she will say yes, though! She really likes her freedom.”
He saw Maddie open her mouth to no doubt contest his claim that she might not say yes, but Danny held up a hand to stop her. “Just talk to her first, alright?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Jack said and after a few seconds Maddie nodded as well.
He clapped his hands with a smile, already looking forward to meet Dani again. “Great!” Then he sent the four rags another look and turned back to his parents, “And maybe you guys can clean the lab up a bit while I’m gone? Use a blaster.”
After a quick text to her thankfully still functioning phone, Danny found out that Dani was in fact still hanging out close to Amity and hadn’t yet gone off on a new trip around the world.
They met up at their usual spot; the park. Danny didn’t have to search long to find her as she was hovering in ghost form a good few feet in the air above the pond; from the looks of it she was busying herself by flickering between invisible and visible to try and startle the resident ducks. They were mostly eyeing her with what Danny could have sworn was annoyance.
“Yo Dani!” Danny called as he walked up to her; having decided to remain in his human form for once to avoid people noticing him. But considering the spectacle Dani was making of herself maybe that had been a bit naïve.
“Danny!” Dani exclaimed as she quite literally brightened up as she spotted him. “How’s it going?”
“Great! He stopped at the edge of the pond and opened his arms just in time to catch an arm-full of black and white ghost as she latched onto him in a hug. He gave a startled laugh as she lifted him off the ground and spun him around in the air. Between laughs he managed a breathless, “How are you? Still hanging around Amity, huh?”
Dani put him down on the ground after a few more spins. “Yeah! It’s so much easier getting into the Zone from here and I wanna say hi to everyone while I can.”
Danny nodded. “Fair, fair.” He crossed his arms and decided to get right down to it. “Sooo, do you wanna meet my parents?”
“Ooh, that sounds so official!” Dani laughed as she clapped her hands in delight. She then gave him an exaggerated worried look and touched his forehead with the back of her hand. “But are you feeling okay? You know that I’ve already met them right? I mean, you were there and everything…”
Danny slapped her hand away with a laugh and an eye roll. “Yeah, no, I know. But—” He hesitated, put some seriousness into his voice. “Well, now they know.”
Dani blinked at him, seemingly taken aback by the sudden tone-shift. “Know?”
Danny nodded, added some more seriousness into his voice and raised his eyebrows to underline it. “Know.”
“Ooooh, I see,” Dani nodded, subconsciously mimicking his seriousness before she blinked again and broke out into a sudden wide smile. “I see! So it went well?”
Danny couldn’t contain his laughter as he broke his serious façade and leaned back in to hug Dani tightly. “Yes, I think it did.”
“I’m so happy for you!” Dani cried as she hugged him back. She knew how much this meant to him.
“Thanks. Me too.” Danny gave her a last squeeze before letting her go.
Dani smiled at him before it suddenly turned into a thoughtful frown, “But, is that why you want me to meet them? Didn’t you say they were friends with the fruitloop?”
Danny smirked. “I have something to show you.”
He brought out his phone.
“I’m back!” Danny called out as he walked into the house.
For once, the whole family was gathered in the kitchen; Maddie and Jack working on what Danny sincerely hoped was dinner and not another experiment—sadly it was hard to tell— and Jazz was reading and taking notes at the table.
Jack smile at him as he entered. “Welcome home, son!”
“Yes welcome,” Maddie said distractedly as she dropped something glowing into the pot. Danny desperately hoped it wasn’t dinner.
Jazz looked up briefly to send him a smile before refocusing on her book.
Danny decided that there was no time like the present and said, “Sooo… Concerning what we talked about earlier?”
Jack and Maddie had just enough time to look back at him with slightly confused expressions before Dani popped into the visible spectrum next to Danny.
“Whoa!” Jack exclaimed as he promptly dropped the ladle in his hands in to the pot, prompting some of the content to splash onto the stove and start smoking.
Maddie froze up for a second next to Jack, but neither of them reached for any weapons so Danny felt himself relax. Maybe they hadn’t really thought this part all the way through.
Jazz immediately put her book down, got up and proceeded to scoop Dani into her arms with the widest smile and a happy, “Dani!”
Dani herself laughed and hugged Jazz back, ignoring his startled parents for now. “Jazz!”
“How have you been?” Jazz asked as she ruffled Dani’s hair. “I’ve missed you!”
Danny rolled his eyes. He knew for a fact that they met last week.
But Dani just laughed and ruffled Jazz’s hair right back. “You know me! I’ve been fine.”
Jack seemed to recover from his shock first as he slowly approached Dani after Jazz set her down only to then crouch down and speak in an overly soft voice, "Hey there…"
Dani snorted. “I'm not an animal. And besides, we've already met."
Jack looked taken aback, but straightened back up with a flustered expression on his face. "That's… true."
Danny exchanged an amused look with Jazz as she covered her mouth with her hand to try and hide her laughter.
"So, what did you want?" Dani asked casually, proceeding to lazily lean against Danny’s side. "I mean, not that it's nice to, like, talk to you for real without secrets and all that stuff, but I—Wait. What do you know?"
Ah, Danny might have skipped that part. Oops. Jazz’s amused glance changed into one of exasperation.
“Danny told us some about your situation…” Jack haltingly started.
“Oookay?” Dani sent Danny a questioning glance and he looked away pointedly—Dani could handle herself and besides, if she didn’t want to be there she would just leave, it wouldn’t be the first time—instead focusing on the smoking pot on the stove and he frowned as he saw the ladle slowly sinking down into it, melting.
“Are you… okay?” Maddie asked hesitantly, worry clear in her voice.
Dani looked at them with raised eyebrows and an incredulous expression on her face. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, I mean,” Jack send Danny a helpless look but Danny pretended not to see it as he kept his eyes trained on the now ladle-free pot. Something seemed to be rising up from inside it. Someone should really turn that off. Jack continued with a, “You live by yourself.”
“I’ve lived like this almost my whole life!” Dani exclaimed as she straightened up from her position against Danny. Good to see that his parents had the ability to agitate more people than just him. Or other versions of himself? Who even knew anymore.
Maddie seemed to be teetering between exasperation and worry as she said, “But you’re so young!”
“And younger than you’d think,” Danny muttered under his breath as he slowly edged towards the stove. Whatever it was inside it had soon reached the brim and Danny did not want to see what it would do if it got out.
“Yeah?” Dani asked, clearly not understanding what the problem was. And she wouldn’t, would she? Dani had never been a child or a full human. She didn’t know anything else.
Thankfully, Jazz stepped in and took control of the spiraling conversation. “Mom, dad, back off. She knows what she needs and she's been doing fine so far. We just have to accept that she has different needs.”
Danny saw Dani send Jazz a grateful look as he reached the stove. He flinched at what he saw emerging from inside the pot and thanked his nonexistent lucky star that he had gotten somewhat used to seeing horrifyingly mutated things come to life as his second-hand lunch wouldn’t have added anything good to the situation. Yeah, whatever that had been, it was not their dinner any more. He proceeded to grab a pot lid and force it down over the moving mass with one hand, ignoring the slight gurgling sounds coming from inside it, and promptly turned the stove off with the other.
No one spared him a glance.
Instead, Maddie turned her attention towards Jazz, “But she doesn’t have to do it by herself anymore.” She tuned back to face Dani, “I get that you didn’t have any other options before, but you do now.”
Jack nodded. "Mads is right! So… What do you say? Do you want to live here?"
Dani barely hesitated before shaking her head with a, "No."
Both Maddie and Jack looked crestfallen. "Oh."
Danny almost laughed as a rare look of what looked to be guilt passed over Dani’s face. His parents’ puppy dog eyes were truly fearsome! "Wait. Thank you? But. I like being able to move around on my own. I'm just a couple of years old! It's too early for me to settle down!"
Danny pinched the bridge of his nose with a wince, his other hand keeping its grip on the still-rattling pot lid. "That is not the argument you think it is."
Dani spared him a quick glance and a shrug. “But I have thought about trying out this school thing you’re all doing. It seems cool.”
Maddie looked thoughtful before surprising everyone by saying, "Maybe we can get Vlad to pay for school?"
"Oooh!" Dani exclaimed as a delighted smirk grew on her face. "Mrs Fenton! I didn't know you had it in you!"
The thing in the pot made another gurgling sound and Danny discreetly lifted the lid to fire a small ectoblast into it, effectively shutting the thing up. He did not want it to interrupt whatever glorious thing was happening right now.
"That could work?" Jack gave a mischievous grin of his own and Danny couldn’t help but to laugh; if he knew that this was how his parents would react then he would have told them about Vlad a long time ago. His own secret be damned.
Jazz nodded along, her own grin a perfect match to their parents’. "You can study at your own pace with a private teacher. And then, when you're up to speed, maybe you can start at Casper High!"
The pot had stopped moving and making sounds, so Danny deemed his mission a success and walked back over to where Dani stood with an excited smile growing on her face. "I could hang out with you, Danny, Valerie, Sam, and Tucker the whole day??"
“Yes,” Jazz said with a smile.
“Neat!” Dani cheered and Danny leaned over to give Dani a high five, which she immediately accepted.
Danny agreed, "That's awesome!" It would be so much fun to spend more time with her! And they could play soooo many pranks on the people at school.
But then Dani pouted as she asked, “But what about my traveling?”
"You don't have to—" Jack started, but stopped before saying, "Do you want to continue traveling?"
Dani immediately nodded. "Yes!"
"Alright," Jack said and Danny was proud of them for not challenging her about it. "I'm sure we can figure out a way for you to do your studies at a distance periodically if you want. And then maybe you can stop by here from time to time? And we can make sure you have clothes and food and that you're able to rest."
Dani hesitated and Maddie stepped in to add, "We don't want to smother you and we understand that you're not used to having… having a family. But we just want to make sure that you're okay. And that you know that you can always come here if you need help or even if you just feel like it. The doors are always open."
"Doesn't that get awfully drafty?" Dani immediately asked and Danny couldn’t contain his startled laugh. He couldn’t help it, she was hilarious!
Maddie just gave them both an exasperated look. "You two are very alike."
"Thanks," Danny deadpanned as he caught Dani in a headlock.
Dani squealed but still managed to send Jack and Maddie a shy smile while her hands grappled with Danny’s arm around her head. “Thanks though Mr and Mrs Fenton! I appreciate it!" Danny let her go and she immediately elbowed him in the stomach. Hard.
Worth it, Danny thought as he doubled over slightly.
“Mr Fenton! Did you hear that, Mads?” Jack laughed as he slapped Maddie’s back.
Maddie shook her head and gently said, “Just call us Maddie and Jack, please.”
Dani gave them an innocent smile and said, “Alright, Mrs Maddie and Mr Jack.”
“You are such a little shit,” Jazz said with a sigh as Jack and Danny both started howling with laughter.
Dani didn’t look the least bit repentant as she pointed at Danny. “Blame him!”
Jazz was the one who spoke up over all the laughter with a valid question, "Can we trust whoever Vlad chooses to actually be… good? Both at what they do and as a person in general?"
Maddie seemed to think it over for a few seconds before snapping her fingers and saying, "We can check them out. Vet them. Make sure they're trustworthy."
“That’s a great idea, dear!” Jack agreed readily, his smile turning into something just a tad more sharp. “I think we have some things to talk to Vladdie about.”
“Yeah!” Dani cheered, pumping her fist in the air. “Let’s go extort an old man!”
“Soon,” Maddie agreed with a smile of her own and Danny would swear that his parents could be scarier than most ghosts when they set their mind to it. “First, let’s eat!”
They all turned around and came face to face with the still smoking pot; lid halfway on, splatters of unidentifiable green staining its sides and the rest of the stove, something looking eerily like an arm stretching out from its inside and having made it halfway to the knob.
It hadn’t died! The bastard had been playing possum!
Danny walked over to it and lifted off the lid, ignored the sudden shrieking from inside it, and promptly fired off a bigger ectoblast than last time straight down into it.
It did stop the screaming and the movements, but it also made the content of the pot positively explode and cover him in a disgusting, sticky, very questionable splatter.
He really should know better by now.
Dani broke out into guffawing laughter as Danny simply stared down into the almost empty pot and sighed.
Jack had the decency to sound slightly embarrassed as he said, “Well, let’s order pizza.”
Danny started for the stairs and the blessed, blessed shower. “I’ll join you soon.”
He exited the room and smiled as he heard them all talking and calling out pizza-orders and instructions to clean the stove before something else could start growing.
All of them laughing.