Full title is "Third Time ('s a charm)", but that was inconveniently long. Now, you might think that that title is a reference to the fact that all three of the trio get ghost powers in this fic, but it's also a reference to the fact that this is the third time I've written the Accident for this event. Also this was totally intended to be hurt/comfort before the Trio hijacked it with their endless banter but there might still be hints of it left.

Prompt by betelgeuse: "An AU where Sam and/or Tucker also gain ghost powers "

"Nothing is going to happen," Danny said, trying for bravado to hide the worry that niggled in his chest. "I'm gonna go in, check it out, and then come out. It will all be perfectly fine."

"Yeah!" Tucker agreed, nudging Sam playfully. "Chill, dude. Nothing's going to happen."

Sam made a face at the two of them. "I don't know, Danny. I have a bad feeling about this…"

"It'll be fine," he assured her, softer now. His chest felt like a roaring void, a whirlpool of worry. "Come on, give me that jumpsuit if it'll make you feel better."

"You're gonna look like an idiot." She smiled a little as she passed it to him, though. "Your parents are a bad influence."

"Well, it's gotta do something, right?" Tucker cocked an eyebrow at the suit in Danny's hands. "I mean, I don't know about Mr. Fenton, but Mrs. Fenton has to have a reason to wear those things every day."

"I think my dad is just very convincing." Danny pressed the jumpsuit against his chest, guessing at the size. It looked about right. A recent creation, then. Lucky him. "I mean, look at me. I'm gonna be wearing the same thing and I don't even know why."

Tucker huffed, a smile on his face. "You know why."

"Don't give me that," Danny bit back, unzipping the jumpsuit. "Now look away so I can put this on."

"Doesn't it go over your clothes?" Sam asked, before obligingly turning away. "I mean, I'm not an expert, but…"

"Maybe if they're sized properly, but I grow too quickly for my parents to keep up." Danny quickly took off his pants, then pulled up his jumpsuit until it rested at his hips. "So it's tight, and that makes it a pain to wear over regular clothes."

He stripped off his shirt as well, sticking his arms through the sleeves of his jumpsuit and pulling it up entirely. "Almost ready."

"Just tell us when you are ready, man." Tucker shook his head, not turning around. "I don't want to see your pasty bare chest."

"Uh, rude." Danny zipped up the jumpsuit, then ducked down to grab the shoes and gloves. "You can look now. Just gotta put on the last bits."

Sam turned around, then snorted. "Nice socks."

"Your support is appreciated as always," Danny retorted, pulling a black rubbery boot over his space-print socks. "Don't know what I would do without you."

"Yeah, speaking of support…" She reached over to his, then tugged on something on his chest. A sticker peeled off, which she helpfully flipped around to show him. "Bet you don't want to go walking around with this on your chest."

'This' was, in this case, a logo of Jack Fenton's face.

Danny made a face. "I definitely do not. Sam, you're a lifesaver."

"Alright, alright, enough banter already." Tucker batted at Sam until the logo stuck to his fingers. "Ugh, now it's on me. I'm getting rid of this thing."

"Please do!" Danny called after his retreating back. "Knowing Dad, he's got another three dozen of those things lying around."

"Don't speak such horrors into being." Sam swatted him in the shoulder, and Danny ducked down to pull on his other boot. "You should know better than that, Fenton."

"You're overestimating his intelligence," Tucker replied, before Danny could. "I've thrown the sticker into a trashcan. It's up to whoever is cleaning the lab from here."

"Hey!" He stuck out his tongue at his two best friends. "Rude. Also, you've just made it my problem again by doing that."

"Well, I'm not gonna burn it for you, man." Tucker handed him one of the two gloves. "You can do that yourself if you survive this."

Danny rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to die, Tucker. I'm just checking out the Portal from up close, and letting Sam take a few photos. Perfectly safe."

"Nothing in this house is safe," Sam pointed out, quirking an eyebrow. "Our lives are in peril every moment we spent here."

"Alright, well." He shrugged. No arguing with that. "In that case, we're all gonna die sooner rather than later, and checking out the Portal isn't gonna expedite that."

"'Expedite'?" Tucker repeated. "Wow, big word. You learn that from Jazz?"

"You're all bullying me, and I'm leaving." Danny tugged on the second glove for effect, then pushed himself off of the table he was perched on. "Gonna walk right into the Portal, and this will be the last thing you've said to me before I die."

"Thought you weren't going to die?" Sam asked, picking up her camera again, slinging the loop around her neck. "You seemed very confident in that."

He very much was not. Something about the Portal made his skin crawl, made him feel like he'd swallowed ice.

"Right," he said, mustering a grin. "Well. It's the point of it that matters."

"Like you're going to die without us anyway, dude." Tucker huffed, the corners of his lips tugging up into a smile. "Let's be real, we're all in this together. Either that Portal explodes and takes all of us out, or nothing happens and we're all fine."

Sam shot him an icy look. "Just so we're all clear, if something does happen, we're blaming it on Tucker. Right?"

"Right," Danny echoed. "You've brought this upon us, Tuck."

"Nothing's going to happen." Tucker rolled his eyes, then shoved Danny towards the empty arch of the Portal. "You've said it a dozen times yourself. It doesn't work. As long as you don't electrocute yourself on a power cable, you're safe as can be."

"Yeah, no, double down." Danny nodded, pausing in the mouth of the Portal. "That's exactly what's gonna fix this, Tucker. Double down on the promise of death."

"You'll be fine," Tucker said, flapping a hand. "Sam and I will be right here, yeah?"

Sam nodded, lifting up her camera. "For real, Danny. If you're dying, you're taking both of us with you."

"We have so many issues," Danny declared, laughing. "Alright, well. I'm going."

"Don't die!" Tucker shouted after him. The Portal's insides lit up with the flash of Sam's camera.

A click sounded. Danny hadn't even noticed the button before he pressed it.

"Uh," was all he managed before everything turned green, then white, then black.

"We are so screwed," Sam murmured in Danny's ear, and he jerked awake. Huh. When had he passed out?

"I'm saying we blame Tuck," Danny mumbled back, rubbing his eyes with his white-gloved hand.

Wait.

"Look who's catching on!" Sam clapped him on the shoulder, and Danny scowled at her.

Uh.

"Are all colors weird for you guys too, or is that just me?" he asked Sam's bright blue eyes and white hair. "Because I don't think I've ever seen Sam wearing this much white."

"It's criminal," she agreed breezily. "But don't worry, your hair has also gone very white."

"Aw, you didn't even mention his ectoplasm green eyes." Tucker crouched down next to Sam and, hey, his colors were all weird too. His golden yellow eyes crunched. "It matches the Portal behind you. Very nice."

Danny paused, then turned to look over his shoulder. The Portal's arch was still the same shiny metal as before, but its entire inside was concealed behind a wall of swirling green ectoplasm.

"So turns out that it just needed some human sacrifice," Tucker added on, swatting Danny in the leg. "You can tell your parents that, in case they ever want to build another one."

"Uh, no?" Danny turned to glare at Tucker. "You can tell my parents that, Tuck. You're the one who tempted fate by saying we would all die together if it turned on."

"I said it was gonna explode," Tucker corrected, rolling his eyes. "And clearly it didn't."

"Ah, so I just imagined the bright blast of light that spilled out of the Portal?" Sam shoved him lightly. "Just admit it, Tucker, you've brought this upon us."

"Me?" Tucker dramatically clasped a hand to his chest. "You are the one who talked Danny into going into that Portal. Equal blame."

Danny sighed, pressing his forehead against his hand. "Alright, how about this. We're all equally screwed. Can we please put some thought into the fact that we all appear to be ghosts?"

"Friends forever?" Tucker tried cheerfully. Sam kicked him in the shin for this suggestion. "Ow, jeez, I thought ghosts couldn't feel?"

"Let me try." Sam pinched Danny's arm.

"Ow, Sam, why?" He swatted her away. "I already died, I don't need this."

"Looks like your parents were wrong about the unfeeling part of ghosts," she decided, nodding to herself. "In both the physical and emotional way."

"Great, brilliant, fantastic." Danny clapped his hands together, drawing the attention of both of his friends back to him. "Can we please focus? We're all ghosts. Now what?"

Sam and Tucker shared a look, then both shrugged.

"Depends," Tucker decided. "Can we leave this house? Do we have to haunt somewhere specific? What are the rules to ghostly existence?"

"Why are you asking me?" Danny swept a hand around, gesturing at the lab. "Clearly my parents don't know what they're about, either!"

"I mean, they made the Portal," Sam pointed out. "It killed us, yes, but it seems to work just fine now that it's on."

"Great." He rolled his eyes. "Just needed a little blood sacrifice. I'm so glad."

"Alright, smartass, so what do you suggest?" Sam crossed her arms, the glow around her body brightening in sync with her glare. "Your parents are the most dangerous to us, here!"

"You think I don't know that?!" Danny growled back, flailing his arms. "What I really want is for us to go back to being human, but—"

Something in his chest, in the very core of his being, stirred. His glow brightened into a flash of light, and Danny was forced to shut his eyes to avoid being blinded.

When the light faded away again, and Danny opened his eyes, he saw…

"Wow," Tucker breathed, tugging on Danny's white jumpsuit. "Dude, that's crazy. Us next!"

"I don't know how I did that!" Danny swatted Tucker's cold hand away, feeling his heart thump up a storm. "I just felt something weird in my chest! Like I stirred something."

"Something cold?" Sam asked, eyes wide. "Like…"

"Cold-hot-cold, constantly whirring?" Tucker finished for her, turning to stare at her. "Oh my god."

"Yeah, that was it." Something buzzed underneath his heartbeat, and Danny paused for a moment to dissect the feeling. "Oh my god, I still feel it. It's just… quieter."

"Quieter," Sam and Tucker chorused, looking at each other again.

Light flashed again.

"I can't believe that that worked," Tucker grumbled, straightening his now-red barrette. "I mean, seriously. What on Earth is going on?"

Danny made a face, turning to look behind him. The Portal's surface still swirled, stirred by an unseen force. "I don't think it's anything from Earth, Tuck."

"So we're, what, in-betweeners?" He scoffed, and Danny turned back to look at him again. "A little human, a little ghost?"

"I don't know, but you know what I do know?" Sam pushed herself up onto her feet. "I'm gonna go figure that out somewhere that isn't here. We can tell Danny's parents that we've been up in his room the whole time, or something."

"Yeah, that… that sounds like a plan." Danny scrambled up onto his feet as well, then offered a hand to Tucker to help him up too. "We need to figure out what this is. If it's just temporary or what, and what the effects of it are."

"You sound like a scientist," Tucker complained, stumbling when he stood. "But I guess you're right."

"Up we go, then." Danny grabbed his regular clothes, then paused. Nah. He could redress in his room. "Anyone else feeling like their skin is crawling just from being near the Portal?"

"Yeah," both of his friends answered. They all stopped to look at each other.

"We are so messed up," Tucker decided.

"Do you think they have ghost therapists?" Sam ducked to pick up her backpack, and Tucker did the same. "They have to be traumatized as all hell, right?"

"I thought we were, like, part ghosts?" Danny passed by them to head to the stairs first. "Wasn't that what we just decided?"

"Half-ghost therapists, then," Sam corrected. "Same difference."

"I hate every part of this conversation." Tucker started on the staircase behind Danny, then stopped. Looked at Sam over his shoulder. "Are you coming too, Sam?"

A click and a flash of light. Sam appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "Yeah, sorry. Wanted to grab a quick picture."

"Why, in case we ever need proof of how we got so messed up?" Tucker rolled his eyes before making an impatient gesture at Danny to continue up the stairs. "Seriously, someone's gonna find that and it'll disprove all our lies."

"Chill, I know how to hide photos." Sam's heavy boots started clunking up the stairs as well. "It might come in handy later. Who knows?"

"I'm not listening to you two fight again," Danny told them, stepping into the kitchen and turning around. "Seriously, guys, can we please focus on what's happening?"

Tucker and Sam also stepped into the kitchen, sharing a look.

"Yeah, alright." Tucker nodded. "Sam?"

"Uh huh." She nodded back. "Sorry, Danny."

"It's… not fine, but, y'know. I get it." He shook his head, turning back towards the living room, to the stairs up. "But we've got more important things to deal with."

"You make it sound so ominous," Tucker griped, his tone light and joking. "I mean, we only sort of died, you know?"

"You're horrible," Danny told him. "I'm making the executive decision that we're gonna be silent until we reach my room. All in favor?"

"Aye," Sam piped up, slapping a hand in Tucker's face so he couldn't reply. "Let's do it."

Danny laughed, leading the rest of the way up without another word. Even Tucker remained silent after Sam removed her hand.

Finally, the door to his room clicked shut. He hesitated for a brief moment, then turned the lock as well.

"Okay, so we're in private. Now what?" Tucker asked, turning to look between Danny and Sam.

"Just so we're all on one line," Sam's purple eyes darted between Danny and Tucker, "All three of us are now, like, half-ghost or something. Right?"

"Is that even possible?" Danny frowned. "Like, I know my parents don't think ghost and human can be combined, but they obviously don't know everything."

"You think either of us have a better source of knowledge?" Tucker scoffed, shaking his head. "I mean, unless Sam just happens to have some kind of goth-guide about this stuff?"

She shook her head as well. "Nope, sorry. Guess we'll have to figure this out ourselves."

"Ugh," Danny groaned, throwing himself backwards onto his bed. "Alright. First things first… What's first?"

Tucker snorted. "How does this affect our health? How ghostly are we, and how human?"

"Those are two separate things," Sam pointed out. "But, yeah, those sound like a good start. What are things we need to look out for?"

"We need to start a list," Danny decided out-loud. He didn't move to do so.

"Digital or on paper?" Sam asked, grabbing a leaf of paper off of Danny's desk.

"Digital, duh." Tucker raised a PDA in the air. "I mean, anyone might come across a sheet of paper with this kinda secret stuff on it."

"And ghosts typically don't combine well with electronics," Danny pointed out, pushing himself up until he was sitting on his bed. "Sorry, Tuck, but I think it might be smarter to stick with paper for now."

"We can always burn it for safety," Sam pointed out, stealing a pen from Danny as well. "Okay, so to summarize: figure out health, figure out ghost-human balance, and things we need to look out for. Yeah?"

"Can we start sub lists?" Tucker dragged over a chair to their circle, plopping himself down. "Because I think we should look into those ghostly forms and possible ghost powers as well, but that falls under the ghost-human balance, I think."

Danny nodded. "Yeah, sounds good. Maybe split 'things we need to look out for' into two categories? 'Things that might be dangerous to us' and 'things we need to keep an eye on'?"

"Couldn't you have suggested that before I wrote it down?" Sam scribbled on the paper, then nodded. "Alright, got it. Anything else?"

"How did we all become half-ghost, or whatever? I mean, I know I was in the Portal when it turned on, but what about you two?" Danny looked between Sam and Tucker.

"Well, I can answer that." Tucker gestured at Sam and himself. "We were in front of the Portal, remember? When it turned on it pretty much exploded. Blasted all that energy and light outwards. Not sure after that, I think it knocked me out."

"Same." Sam frowned at the paper she held. "We definitely got hit in the splashback of the activation. Like, that surface? It kind of… spilled outwards, I guess? Before settling into the frame properly."

"Hm." Danny scratched his cheek, thinking. "Do you think that that makes a difference? That I was inside the Portal, and you two outside it?"

"What, like a difference in exposure?" Tucker shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe you're a little more ghost, and we a little less?"

"I'll add that to the list."

Danny leaned back a little, prodding the ball of cold energy in his chest. "We need to do more research on ghosts in general, I think. You two still feeling that power thing?"

"In my chest? Yeah." Sam tapped her pen on the paper. "It's kind of quiet, now, but it picked up when I got angry at Tucker earlier."

"Mine too," Tucker supplied, kicking his foot against the leg of his chair. "Don't ghosts have some sort of power center? What did your parents call it again?"

Danny hummed, running through his parents info-dumps about ghosts. "A… something with a C. Core? Yeah, I think that that was it. A ghost core."

"This is exhausting," Tucker decided, leaning back in his chair. "Like, both literally and metaphorically."

"Amen," Sam and Danny chorused.

They hung out in comfortable silence for a moment, before Danny broke it again. "Okay but like, what was up with that stuff earlier? When we looked like ghosts? Can we do that again? Should we do that again?"

"What do you mean, 'should'?" Sam looked up from the paper to meet his eyes. "You think it might hurt us if we spend too much time as a human instead of a ghost?"

"I don't know!" He flailed out his hands. "I don't know any more about this stuff than you guys! But if we're, like, half-and-half, that could be a thing, right? Or maybe regular shifting helps with the ghost core, or something."

"Shouldn't we figure out if we can keep shifting, first?" Tucker pointed out. "If we can't shift, there's no point in discussing its importance, right?"

"Okay, but I don't think we should all go a the same time." Sam tapped the pen on the edge of Danny's desk. "We should use this opportunity to take a good look at each other's ghost forms."

"Why?" Danny frowned at her. "What's the point?"

"There might be some kind of clue hidden in our ghost forms." She shrugged. "And, even if there's not, it would be nice to know what, exactly, we look like. Right?"

"Mirrors exist, Sam."

"Ghosts are very perception-based, Tucker," she countered. "Maybe there are details that you can't see yourself."

"So what if those details only show up to full humans, or full ghosts?"

"Guys," Danny interrupted them. "Can we please chill on the squabbling? Who's trying the shift first?"

"You," they both replied, almost in sync, before sharing a startled look.

"You shifted back to human first," Sam added, like it was an explanation. "And you were in the Portal, rather than outside it like us."

"If any of us is more ghostly, or more powerful or whatever, it's you," Tucker tacked on.

Danny groaned, but, well. He couldn't argue with that kind of reasoning.

"Don't do it while lying down. Stand up," Sam commanded, kicking him lightly in the shin. "You'll have to get up when you turn ghostly anyway."

"I want it to be acknowledged that I hate every part of this." Danny jiggled his leg. "I'm changing clothes, first. That way we can see if our clothes are the same but inverted or if they were set when we got hit."

"We'll turn away." Sam grabbed Tucker's arm and turned him around.

"Thanks," Danny told them dryly, chucking the black gloves onto his bed. He undressed and redressed quickly, then cleared his throat. "Alright, I'm gonna try the ghost thing."

He prodded the ghost core in his chest. Mentally, of course. It stirred, kicked its whirring up a notch, but nothing else happened.

"Maybe you need to coax it?" Tucker suggested, brow creasing. "You said what you wanted from it last time, right?"

Danny scoffed. "What, so I gotta tell it that I want to go ghost?"

Light flashed. Danny stared down at his white boots.

"I hate this," he declared. "Just so everyone knows."

"Duly noted," Sam told him, before twirling the pen in her hand. "Go turn, ghost-boy. Show us your spooky ghost form."

"Hate this," Danny reiterated, before slowly turning in a circle. He thought he could figure most of his appearance out already, since he'd only worn white and black when he went into the Portal. It wasn't that hard to extrapolate from there, especially since both Sam and Tucker had white hair, and his black gloves and boots had clearly gone white as well. "Oooh, my colors flipped, I get it. What color are my eyes?"

"Green." Tucker paused, like he was deliberating it. "Pretty much the color of ectoplasm, I guess. Very bright. They glow."

"They glow?" Danny repeated. He glanced down at the glow around the rest of his body. "What, unlike the rest?"

"Oh, stop being an idiot." Tucker swatted at him, and Danny caught the warm hand. "Rude. I thought ghosts were intangible?"

Well, that sounded like a challenge. Danny prayed this would work, felt the cold energy pour from his core, and smirked at Tucker.

And then promptly stuck his arm through Tucker's shoulder.

"Dude," Tucker swore, jerking away from Danny. "Warn a guy!"

"How'd you do that?" Sam asked, perking up even as Danny's arm returned to its full opacity. "Can we all do that?"

"Spite, I guess." He shrugged, prodding Tucker with his now tangible finger. "I just kind of willed it into being, and I felt the energy from my core run through me."

"So, transparent is intangible…" Sam noted it down, then paused. "What are also basic ghost powers? Flight, right? Or floating, at least?"

"And invisibility, yeah." Danny stared down at his hands. Invisibility and intangibility he didn't really care about, but flight? That would be pretty cool.

He felt himself grow lighter, and grinned. His feet lifted off of the ground, and he leaned back. "That's a yes on flight."

"Dude, you can keep flight. I want to turn invisible!" Tucker declared, before promptly disappearing from sight. "Hey, why'd I go white?"

"Because you went invisible, moron." Sam kicked the leg of Tucker's chair for lack of actual leg, and he startled so badly he became visible again. She kicked him, too, for good measure. "Okay, so powers work in human form as well. What did you say you looked like?"

"Kinda white and transparent, I guess?" Tucker paused just in time for Danny's flight to falter. He crashed down, thudding into the ground, and light flashed.

"Ugh," he complained as his core churned loudly in his chest. "I think I ran out of ghost juice."

"Alright, so we've got a limited amount of energy to run through, and if that runs out, we shift back to human." Sam nodded, her pen scribbling quickly. "So we default back to human, it seems. Tucker, you next? Or did that little invisibility run you out entirely?"

"Uh, I dunno." Tucker got up, then pulled Danny off of the floor as well. "Maybe if I don't use any powers after shifting? We just want to look, right?"

Sam nodded, looking up from her paper. "Yeah. Let's see how far you get. Go for it, Tuck."

"Alright. Uh." Tucker looked down at his chest, like he could prod his core better if he looked at it. Not that he could see it, but, y'know. "Going ghost?"

Light flashed once more, then withdrew until just a glow around Tucker remained.

"Please tell me my skin didn't change color, too," Tucker begged them, his eyes raising up to meet Danny's. They were startlingly warm, a golden yellow. "That would kill me."

"You're already pretty dead," Sam pointed out, ignoring the way Tucker's eyes flared brighter when he glared at her. "And Danny's skin didn't change, did it? You're fine."

"Very warm, actually," Danny commented, gesturing at Tucker's outfit. "It's all warm purple and orange. Well. Your hat is a little more cool-purple, but your pants are pretty orange."

Tucker glanced down, as if to confirm, then made a face. "My pants? What about my sweater? What color is this even, magenta?"

He tugged on it, then twirled his hand. "Huh, it does look a little different from up close. Cooler?"

"Might be the ectoplasm underneath your skin." Danny hummed, considering it. "Since you've got green underneath it instead of red?"

"Might be." Tucker let of his sweater, then paused. Patted down his trousers until he found what he was looking for, pulling out… his PDA. Of course. "I can't believe my PDA got ghost-ified, too. Look at it, all green and stuff."

"Does it work?" Sam asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Or has it literally died?"

Tucker blinked his luminous eyes at her, then turned them back to the PDA. He pressed a button, and the screen lit up. "Works," he stated, somewhat unnecessarily. "But I felt that in my core. I think it might be connected?"

"Good to know." She scribbled it down on the paper. Must've been using shorthand, because Danny was fairly sure she would've run out of paper by now. "I was wearing my camera, so that must be the case for me, too."

"It it helps, I feel no desire to guard it with my very being," Tucker explained, before pausing again. "Well, no more than usual, I guess."

"Very comforting." Sam noted this down, too. "You can shift back, if you want."

"Going… human?" Tucker tried, and light washed over him. Left him standing in his regular clothes, still holding his PDA. "Hey, that worked!"

"Voice activated ghost-core." Danny grinned at his friends. "That's convenient, right? Better than random activation."

"Might still activate randomly. You can just also force it." Sam shook her head, then stood up as well. "Alright, here I go. Going ghost!"

Once again light flashed, and once again one of their trio had turned into a ghost. "Well?"

"What do you think? A ton of white." Tucker dodged Sam's flailing hands. "What, it's the truth!"

"I think your colors are pretty easy to figure out too, Sam," Danny pointed out to distract her. "You were already wearing purple, so you can guess your lipstick and eye color from there. It's blue, by the way. Cyan-ish."

"And your hair tie and skirt stripes are nice and red." Tucker nudged her, playfully. "At least the soles of your boots are darker gray?"

"At least my shirt isn't eye-searingly pink," she countered, lifting the camera that hung off of her neck. Its strap had gone white, too, but the camera itself had barely gone any darker. "Say cheese!"

"Cheese," Danny said. The light flashed, and he tried to blink the spots out of his sight again. "Ugh, I think that that thing is even more blinding than it was before all of this."

"It might be. I definitely felt it in my core, so it might be running off of my ghost powers." She sighed, reaching up to tug on her ponytail. "Hey, guys, is my hair doing anything weird?"

Danny looked. Huh. "Yeah, it kind of is? Looks like a flame. Kinda flickering in a non-existent wind, I guess?"

"Yeah, what Danny said." Tucker reached up past Sam, swatted a hand through her hair. "Feels like hair, though. Might be a ghost thing? Danny's hair looked kind of wind-swept, too."

"Hair no longer obeys the laws of gravity, got it." Sam nodded, and light swept over her, returning her to her human appearance. "I'll add that to the list."

"What good will that knowledge do us?" Tucker questioned, before shaking his head. "You know what? Never mind. I don't want to know."

Sam sat down again, starting to quickly write down everything. "So. Ghost powers, which can be used in both forms, but it might be more exhausting in human form?"

"Definitely more exhausting in human form," Danny decided, experimentally prodding his core. "My core feels way weaker like this, and ectoplasm is more conductive to those kinda powers, too."

"That's good to know. Hunger might be either increased or decreased. I'm feeling kinda hungry myself."

"Starving," Tucker declared, tone grim.

"Same. I think we both used a lot of energy by using our powers." Danny sighed. "At least we have the excuse of being teenagers. I wonder if that'll decrease over time, the hunger? Maybe we need to settle in."

"Ghosts usually need time to get to their full power levels, I think." Sam tapped the back of the pen against her cheek, then noted it down. "Maybe it's got to do with our cores? They were easily exhausted, and I can't imagine that all of that comes from the fact that we're somewhere halfway, instead of full ghosts."

"Might be linked to ectoplasm exposure as well." Danny waved a hand around in a vague gesture. "There's ambient ectoplasm in the air around my house, with my parents being, y'know, my parents. But there's gotta be way more of that stuff in the Ghost Zone."

Tucker hummed. "Do you think that eating contaminated food would help?"

"That's disgusting." Sam made a face at him. "I hate that you raised that possibility."

"We can try it out. I'm used to eating that stuff, anyway." Danny shrugged under their incredulous looks. "Hey, come on, sometimes you're hungry enough that you can eat anything, yeah? It's been a long fourteen years. Ask Jazz, it's not that unreasonable."

"I hate every part of this," Tucker declared heartily. "We might want to stay over more, just in case. If ectoplasm is a big deal to developing ghost cores, we'll pretty much starve them whenever we go home."

"My parents won't notice anyway. The moment they see that the Portal is on, they'll move into the lab and barely leave it." He leaned back against his bed. "And that way we can keep a close eye on our developing powers, too."

Tucker groaned, then pushed himself to his feet once more. "I'll call my parents and ask if I can stay over another day. We'll see how school goes tomorrow."

"Yeah, same." Sam dug a cellphone from her pocket. "Maybe it won't take that long to settle a core."

"Or maybe tomorrow will be the worst day of school ever." Danny laughed at the concept. "Although I guess high school already sucks anyway."

Danny lowered his forehead against his desk. Carefully, so that he didn't make a sound. Didn't want to draw Lancer's attention, after all.

"Same," Tucker whispered, his voice quiet but clearly audible to Danny. "God, this lesson is so boring."

"No kidding," Danny whispered back. Next to him, Valerie Gray jerked.

"Who are you talking to?" she hissed at him. When he opened his mouth, she shushed him. "No, quiet. Don't draw Lancer's attention."

Danny lifted his head to frown at her.

"That was weird," Sam said, far too loudly to miss in the quiet of the classroom. Valerie didn't respond.

"Oh my god," Danny thought, as loud as he could make the thought. "Can we read each other's minds?"

"What? Oh." Tucker somehow conveyed the feeling of an awkward shuffle. "That can't be a normal power for ghosts, right?"

"Maybe it's because we all got hit by the same thing at the same time?" Sam suggested. She was frowning at her book, not looking at Danny or Tucker. "Or it's because we're all so close?"

"Emotionally or physically?" Tucker joked, his lip quivering as he repressed his smile. "I don't care about the other ghost powers, but this is basically a superpower, right?"

"You don't count flight as a superpower?" Danny prodded, staring blankly at Lancer. He was explaining… something. Danny didn't care, the conversation with Sam and Tucker was far more interesting.

"You're so loud," Sam complained. "We're all bored out of our minds, Danny, thank you. Lancer is talking about metaphors in English classics."

"Oops. Sorry." He tried beaming the feeling of a sheepish smile at them. "Okay but wait. Is this distance bound, or can we telepathically talk over long distances too?"

"I'll add that to the list." Sam shifted her notebook, moving a separate sheet of paper out of it. "So, we're all basically superpowered half-ghosts now, or something?"

"It makes sense, though." Tucker flicked his eyes at the windows, then moved them back to Lancer to pretend he was paying attention to the lessons. "We're basically balanced between human and ghost, yeah? So maybe we're supposed to protect that balance for the world, too?"

"The Portal acts as a gateway for ghosts to access Earth, and for humans to reach the Ghost Zone." Danny felt understanding pour in from Tucker and Sam. "But the Portal can't control that, so we have to do that for it."

"We'll need to work on our powers, then," Sam decided, her pen scribbling more onto the very cluttered paper. "And maybe some kind of costumes. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want anyone finding out about this."

Tucker scoffed over their link, remaining still and quiet at the same time. "We kind of come with those built in? We just use our ghost forms. Duh. What we really need are names."

"Well, if we're using our ghost forms, maybe we should have matching ghostly names?" Danny suggested.

"I don't know. We'll need names kind of similar to our actual names." Sam hummed over their link. "That way we'll be more inclined to listen to it."

"What about something based on our last names, then?" Tucker gave an inquisitive prod. "It'll be familiar enough for us to respond to it, but people won't be quite as inclined to listen for it. They'll think of Danny, and Sam, and Tucker, not Fenton, Manson, and Foley."

Danny pushed some laughter over their link, undoubtedly pouring along some joy with it. "I like Phantom for myself, then. It sounds enough like Fenton that I'll answer to it automatically, but not similar enough for people to link it immediately."

"And it's a ghost joke?" Danny could feel Tucker rolling his eyes. "In that case I want to be Ghouley. Get it? Ghoul-ey?"

"You're both the worst, and I'm never gonna know a moment of peace ever again," Sam declared, before immediately following it up with, "I'm gonna be Manes, then."

"Manes?" Tucker repeated, doubt and hesitation pouring through their link. "You're not that hairy, Sam."

"Ha ha," she replied, humorless and dry. "Manes are a mythology thing, Tucker. They're benevolent spirits, basically."

"That lines up pretty well with what we're gonna be doing, I guess." Danny hummed, forcing himself to make the sound across their link only. In front of him, Lancer continued to chatter nonsense. "More experimentation with our powers would be a good idea, for sure."

"Your place after school?" Tucker paused, and Danny caught snippets of thoughts grazing past the link. "No, wait, that's probably not a good idea with your parents. Uh, my house is probably too small to go unnoticed, too."

"We can go to my place?" Sam conveyed a shrug. "My parents are rich, so we've got a huge mansion. We can hide in my room."

"You're rich?" Tucker spilled amazement through their link, but it was promptly washed away by Sam's disgruntlement. "Oh, sore point, sorry. Yeah, no, that sounds good."

Danny watched Lancer talk for a moment, not really listening to what he said. "Actually, I might try dropping past my house first. I can ask my parents for some more information about ghosts. Even if it's not all correct, it'll give us something to work off of, at least?"

"And we might be able to listen along with the link," Sam realized. A vicious kind of joy came from her side of the link. "Hell yeah. Be sure to ask them about ghosts and their appearances. Maybe Tucker and I can tweak ours to match you. The jumpsuit isn't great, but it's better than a white crop top or a magenta sweater."

"It'll make us look more superhero-y, too," Tucker pointed out. "We can all go for black jumpsuits, but accessorize it our own ways. Plus our eyes kind of match, too, don't they? And we all have white hair."

"Our eyes match?" Danny asked, before realizing. "Oh my god, they do. I've got green, you have yellow, and Sam has blue."

"It'll be a good way to test range, too. Tucker and I can go to my place, and you go to yours. Check in regularly to make sure the link is still working."

"Sounds good." Danny made a face when he realized that Lancer had stopped talking. "Oh, we're supposed to work on an assignment, I think. Did anyone pay attention to what Lancer was talking about?"

"No, but I know enough about metaphors anyway." Exasperation leaked from Sam. "We can do the work together via the link, I guess. Might be good practice."

"Hell yeah, teamwork!" Elation from Tucker, so strong that Danny had to work to keep the smile off of his face. "You're the best, Sam!"

"Testing," Danny cast out over the link, standing in his kitchen. "Link still good?"

"We hear you loud and clear," Sam replied. Tucker supplied a feeling of agreement. "Try to get the information into the link with as little paraphrasing as possible."

"You are so demanding," Danny told her, with absolutely no heat. "Fine. Going down."

He hopped down the stairs, into the basement lab. It looked… Pretty normal, actually. The Portal had acquired doors since yesterday, when he had last seen it. They were striped yellow and black.

"Mom, Dad?" he asked, raising his voice. They were on the other end of the lab, working with all kinds of metal parts. "Are you busy?"

"Danny-boy!" his dad boomed, dropping everything in his hands with an enormous clatter. "We always have time for you, kiddo!"

"Can I ask you about…" He hesitated for a moment. Support poured in through the link, immediately. "Can I ask you about ghosts?"

"Ghosts?" Maddie looked up from the pile of parts as well, pulling her goggles off of her eyes to shoot him an incredulous look. "Why… Yes, of course, always."

"It's just…" Danny gestured at the Portal. "I know I've grown kind of skeptical about all that ghost stuff with age, but that's… that Portal is pretty convincing. Can you… tell me about what ghosts look like? So I'll know if I ever run into one?"

His parents shared a look, and Maddie hummed thoughtfully. Danny focused on her when she opened her mouth, trying to commit the words he heard straight to the link. "Well, ghosts are very varying in appearance. Even if they were living beings, before, they don't retain those memories, so they can interpret themselves however they want."

"So it's based on their own will?" Sam asked over their link, and Danny repeated it to his parents.

"More or less," his dad agreed, nodding. "They won't mess with it much, though, because that's a waste of their energy. Most of the time, a ghost will stick to the same appearance unless they go through a major change of power."

"But they could?" Danny prodded. "If they wanted to?"

"I suppose, yes." Maddie cocked her head, her eyes narrowing. "But ghosts don't particularly care about such things. They are very basal beings, Danny. It's all about energy, and changing their appearance usually won't be worth it. You'll know a ghost when you see it."

He guessed so, yeah. The three of them had figured it out pretty quickly. "Yeah, alright. Um. Thanks."

"Always, Danny!" His dad reached over to clap him on the shoulder. "We love to see our kids pick up an interest in ghosts! Is there anything else you wanted to know, kiddo?"

"More basic stuff, maybe?" Tucker suggested over the link. "Anything more about ghosts. Do they have a 'ghosts for dummies' guide?"

"I do, at least," Sam added with a laugh. "We could try comparing it with the Fenton's research."

"Uh, actually." Danny set a smile on his face. "Do you have some kind of… beginner's guide, or something? So I can read up on the basics?"

"We've told you about the basics a dozen times, Danny," Maddie chastised. She clucked her tongue, then frowned. "But, yes, I think we have something like that. Jack, honey?"

"Yes, we needed something to lead investors into the whole ghost story." Jack nodded. "Apparently ghosts weren't as commonly known as we thought."

Danny grinned wider. "That would be great! I know you've told me all that stuff already, but I would feel better if I can read it, too. Just as a refresher, you know?"

Amusement over the link, from both Sam and Tucker. Danny sent them the feeling of flailing his hands at them in return. The amusement increased, now combined with laughter. Ugh. Jerks.

"Here you go, sweetie." Maddie held out a stack of stapled paper. "This is the last copy we had left. Is that good enough?"

"Uh…" Danny flipped through the sheets real quick, sharing the basics through the link. "Powers, abilities in general, anatomy, how and why they function?"

"Sounds like a good start," Sam replied.

"Yeah," Danny said to Maddie, smiling up at her. "Thanks, Mom, Dad. This is great."

"If you have any more questions, you know where to find us." She leaned over to ruffle his hair, and he huffed at her. "Your dad and I would love to talk ghosts with you."

"I honestly can't tell whether they love ghosts or hate them," Tucker stated through the link. It felt like he was frowning. "Like, they constantly talk about how despicable they are, but it's like their lives are centered around ghosts and only ghosts."

"I think they love the science behind them, but hate the actual ghosts," Danny explained, glancing at the stapled paper. "Either way, I don't want them finding out that we're defying what they think they know of ghosts. Are we sleeping at your place, Sam?"

"Might as well." She shrugged across the link. "We can order food, too. My parents won't care."

"Mom, Dad?" Danny shot them a hopeful look. "Can I, uh, sleep over at Sam's tonight? We're gonna work on homework together."

They shared a look. Jack shrugged, and Maddie rolled her eyes in response.

"Yes, honey, that's fine." She ruffled his hair again. "But we want you back home tomorrow after school, okay?"

He nodded, rolling the paper in his hands. "Of course. See you tomorrow! And good luck with your ghost stuff!"

Danny sped back up the stairs, closing the link back to just his thoughts. "We good?"

"Yeah, that was great." Approval from Sam. "Bring the paper, we'll make some copies of it here so we can mark it and stuff."

"Coming right over." He picked up his backpack, closing the front door behind him. "Uh. Your address?"

A wave of embarrassment. "…Right. Here you go, it's—"

"Going ghost!" Danny said, and light haloed around him until he was left in his ghost form.

Sam and Tucker hummed, circling around him. Judgment poured from their sides of the link.

"Well?" Danny asked, cocking an eyebrow at them—both in real life and via the link. "Thoughts?"

"So many," Sam sneered. Disgust and distaste, the link said. "But it'll do. Better than white. What'd you say at school, Tucker?"

"What? Oh, that. The jumpsuits are kind of superhero-y, right?" A mental shrug. "If we're gonna be some kind of superhero-protector people, we might as well commit to the look."

"So black and white jumpsuits, with details in our eye colors? We're gonna need a mirror, I think."

A mental eye roll from Sam. "Danny. Trust me, I have full-body mirrors. What we really need is for you to shift back and make a design first, before you're committing."

"Hm. Fair point." He mentally commanded his core to shift him back to human, and surprisingly, it did. "Are we gonna start by scribbling up some designs and then comparing them, or are we all doing our own takes?"

"Tucker can put together some designs," Sam decided, ignoring any signs of protest they might scour up. "Danny and I are gonna compare those ghost guides."

Ugh, reading.

"Don't give me that, Fenton," Sam bit at him, and, hm. He was definitely gonna work on having thoughts to himself. "It's your parents' work, and your parents' Portal that caused this."

"Which you convinced us to mess with," Tucker pointed out, smugly. "But, yeah, sure, I'll whip up some neat costumes based on the jumpsuits. We want them just different enough that people won't immediately think of the Fentons, right? What about logos?"

Sam and Danny shared a look.

"No logo, got it," Tucker decided based on that, and possibly the disgust they were flooding their telepathic link with. "I'll get on it. Have fun with reading."

"I won't," Danny assured him, waving the stack of papers at Sam. "I'm gonna do this entire thing via the link just to make you suffer along, Tuck."

"We've been talking via the link the whole time." A flicker of annoyance from Tucker. "Seriously, we haven't said a word to each other since we discover we could do this, I think. Certainly not since you've come here."

Danny… had not realized that. Whoops.

"Keeping this a secret is gonna be hell," Sam decided and, yeah. Yeah, it was gonna be.

She thumped him on the head with a book before he could say anything about it. "Read," she commanded, and Danny wasn't stupid enough to keep fighting her on this.

The two of them laid down on the floor, the stack on simplified ghost research in front of him, and the book in front of Sam. A clipboard with a pen laid in between them, with a rough list of things to look out for written down already.

"So are we going down the list, or are we reading through these things and noting down anything relevant?"

Sam paused for a moment. "Yes."

"That was very enlightening, thank you."

"Just read through the list, then a chapter of your thing," Tucker interrupted. "Rinse and repeat."

"Sounds like a plan. Thanks for your support, Tuck."

A pleased rumble. "Always, dude."

"Can we please just read?" Sam grumbled into the link.

Danny reached for the clipboard so he could read through the list. Hm. Just more of the same. Powers, workings of both the anatomical and psychological kind. Strengths and weaknesses.

He reached for the stapled stack of paper, flipping the first page. "Well, here I go. Someone bury me if I die."

"Too late."

"Touche."

They spent the next eternity reading. Or designing suits, in Tucker's case.

"So we've got basically nothing," Sam concluded, looking at the clipboard. They had divided it up in two sections per point: the scientific Fenton take, and the spiritual goth take. For almost all points, they were completely different.

"Yeah. The few things we know about ourselves directly defy the things the books say." Danny shrugged. "Besides, we're hybrids, aren't we? We probably don't follow the known stuff anyway."

"We'll just have to figure it out ourselves," Tucker said, a wave of comforting warm coming from him. "It'll be fine. We'll manage."

A brief moment of silence as they all contemplated that.

"Anyway, I've put together some potential designs for our suits. Who wants to see?"

"If by see you mean 'tear into them' then yes," Sam decided, already pushing herself off of the floor to go look.

Ah. There was the much needed normalcy.

Danny stared at his dad as the man walked to one end of the Portal, then turned around and walked to its other side. Left, right, left, right.

"He's not even remotely talking about ghosts," Tucker complained.

"Have you ever met my dad?" Danny asked with a mental eye roll. "He always talks about whatever you're least interested in hearing about."

His core stirred up, suddenly, a feeling of anxiety pouring from every side of the link.

"Uh," was all Sam managed, then the Portal's surface burst apart. Two ghosts entered the lab through it, violently green octopuses with bright red eyes.

Jack didn't even turn around. Didn't seem to notice in the slightest.

"Now what?" Tucker asked, doubtful. "Are we supposed to keep ghosts and humans separate, or…"

The ghostly octopuses flung their ragged tentacles at Sam and Tucker. Both half-ghosts dodged, falling off of their chairs.

"I suggest that we fight these, at least." Danny shot a look at his dad, but the man had wandered off, and was now talking into a cabinet. "And quick, before Dad notices."

He tugged on his core, shifting into his ghost form with practiced ease. On the floor, Sam and Tucker did the same.

The ghosts paused. Shared a hesitant look, now that they were faced with three matching ghosts, rather than an assortment of humans.

Sam's electric blue eyes brightened as she grinned at them. The color returned in the swirling lines of her suit, creeping over her like vines.

Danny lifted up next to her, cracking his fingers. Flared his own green eyes dangerously. He finally knew the exact color of it, having replicated it in the minimalistic linework of his suit.

Tucker took up the last slot in the line, the golden yellow of his eyes reflected in the circuit-like lines of his suit.

"Boo," they all said, perfectly in sync.

The ghosts warbled and dove back through the Portal.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Sam scoffed. Her side of the link conveyed a mixture of disappointment and challenge. "I'm almost disappointed."

"Look at it from the positive side," Danny comforted. "Now you've got even more time to teach us how to fight as a human before we gotta put it in practice."

"Nah, man, I'm going crazy if I go through another round of training without actually hitting anyone." Tucker settled back onto the floor, soundlessly, and shifted back to human.

Danny and Sam followed suit. "Here's a solution for all of us," Sam said as they did so. "We can just fight each other."

"Hooray," Danny and Tucker both cheered. Sam's glare was heated, stabbing them right in the link. The flares of vivid cyan didn't help.

"I can't believe this," Sam hissed over the link. Agitation, and a lot of it.

"Sam, we still can't see what you're looking at," Danny reported, spacing out of his breakfast. "What's up?"

"The newspaper finally acknowledged our existence!"

"Uh oh," Tucker said, groggily. "That's not excitement."

"They're calling us menaces! And dangers to society!" She practically flooded their link with anger.

Danny, in return, shot her some comforting warmth. "It's fine, Sam. Whatever. When have you ever cared about what people thought of you?"

"But after all the work we've put into it!" She was practically shouting, now. Danny was certain that her eyes were, by now, so bright that her entire room was cast in blue light. "They can't just— ignore every good thing we've done!"

"Sure can," Tucker pointed out. "Look, Sam, chill. People know who—and what—we are. What we do."

She grumbled wordlessly.

"We're the protectors of Amity Park, Sam," Danny soothed. "We are the people who keep this city safe, both the humans and the ghosts. We don't need the newspaper to know that we're doing a good job."

"Ugh. How can you be so optimistic about this with your parents being," a vague mental gesture, "y'know?"

"Oh, trust me, I know." He looked up to where his parents were tinkering with some kind of invention. At the kitchen table, no less. He would have to sic Jazz on them again. "It's just… the right thing to do, you know? Even if we're the ones with these abilities because we were the only ones stupid enough to mess with the Portal, we can still do something."

"We're the protectors of Amity Park," Tucker agreed. "Whether the people of Amity appreciate it or not."

"How are you all so sappy this early in the morning?" She scoffed. "I am not awake enough to deal with this. Yeah, sure, fine, whatever. We're all the great heroes of Amity Park, and the Ghost Zone and whatnot. Forget I ever complained."

"Sure," Danny said, throwing sparks of joy into the link. "So, I think my parents are working on some kind of ghost translation device…"

Both of his best friends groaned across the link, and Danny smiled into his breakfast. It had only been a little over a month, but he couldn't imagine life as a regular human anymore. His core chirped happily in his chest, and his best friends chattered in his head, unheeded by distance.

Life was good.

I didn't really go into the part where these guys settle into their powers, but they definitely develop their own specializations, power-wise. Not elemental, per se, but their own balance in offense/defense/speed. In pure ability, Danny is stronger than the other two, since he was in the actual Portal, while the other two were outside.

This was also low-key inspired by a Tumblr post about the trio as half-ghosts (the telepathy, mostly) but apparently I didn't rb the post and now I can't find it anymore. Whoops.