Written for Phic Phight '20! Aggressivelyclueless/gaunttwisters's prompt was: Halfa Valerie AU: Valerie becomes half-ghost. Apart from that being a total nightmare, this also leads her to discover Danny's secret as well. How is she going to handle it? Like the other event one-shots this one's pretty roughshod; I'll probably sneak back here in a couple of months to clean it up, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy this fic! Title comes from San Fermin's "Happiness Will Ruin This Place."

Mr. Heppenheimer, the latest in a long line of chemistry teachers that have come through Casper High since actual, real life ghosts have begun treating Amity Park like their own personal Las Vegas retreat away from the rigors of whatever normal life is like for ghosts in the Ghost Zone, gives Danny a lingering stink eye. Clearly the last teacher, Mrs. Jamshidi (who barely lasted a month, and submitted her two-week notice while recovering in the hospital after an admittedly memorable encounter with Ember), had left notes behind for her successor. Danny doubted a single word of it was in his favor.

"This practical's worth a quarter of your grade this semester," Mr. Heppenheimer says in his usual droll way. "You're not going to make me regret handing you glassware, are you, Mister Fenton?"

Danny, still a bit sore and off-kilter after another Jack Fenton-approved growth spurt, grins down at him. "No, sir."

Mr. Heppenheimer hums doubtfully. Clearly Mrs. Jamshidi had left extensive notes. "Don't make me regret this."

"Short of a ghost attack, I doubt you will," Danny answers truthfully. He really has gotten a much better control on his powers since the last time any science teacher let him near anything fragile, well over a year ago now. Mrs. Gorman hated him from the start for reasons he never figured out, anyway. He's looking forward to a fresh start.

Of course, worryingly enough Danny's been sensing a pretty powerful ghost lurking around Casper High for over a week now. Along with the usual big green beasties that like to come sniffing around crowds of humans, which he's had to dip out to handle three times now. No one's noticed his on-going ghost sense, though it helps that he's long-since gotten into the habit of keeping one hand cupped lazily over his mouth—just in case. That'll be harder to pass off here in a practical lab, but there ought to be a lot of things bubbling and steaming soon. He just has to be careful until he's got some cover.

Mr. Heppenheimer hums again, more dismissive than doubtful, and lets him approach the counter. His partner in this practical is Star, which is—randomized, definitely. Whatever, also definitely. He and Star have as much in common as him and an actual star, which is to say—nothing. He doesn't even generate heat anymore, not really. He's got a modified Maddie Fenton-approved belt buckle that lets him fake it, but it's not remotely the same thing, and not all that convincing at close quarters anyway. Star, at least, knows him well enough that she's been bringing a mint green cardigan to class ever since they were assigned project partners.

Danny, well-aware he's only good in the eyes of his peers for a laugh and anti-ghost tech, smiles thinly at Star and gestures at her to take the lead. She sniffs pointedly and does just so, which is fine with him. She's well on her way to valedictorian, whereas he's just trying to graduate. If deferring to whatever she wants gets him a passing grade, sure! He'll do whatever she says and accept whatever belittling comment she tacks on along with it. No skin off his back, right?

About twenty minutes into class there's a magnificent crash of glass that puts Danny 110% on edge; it's only Sam appearing at his left with a reassuring hand on his arm that keeps him from blasting a hole through the wall out of pure reflex. Which, maybe, possibly, likely says something about his state of mind after three straight years of fighting the kind of monsters that don't have any place outside of his very worst nightmares, but—whatever. Point is, thanks to Sam, he doesn't trash the lab or draw any unwanted attention to himself, both of which are good things! Another point in his favor: it's finally somebody else's turn to destroy a whole tray of beakers.

"Miss—Gray!" Mr. Heppenheimer shouts after a brief glance at the clipboard Danny hasn't seen him put down in the two weeks since he took the job. "What's the meaning of this?!"

"S-sorry!" Valerie stammers, her eyes firmly on the mess at her feet. Her project partner, Wes, is scowling at Danny. Likely because he believes the mess is entirely his fault. Wes can believe whatever he likes; just because he's the only one not fully in on The Big Secret who figured out The Big Secret out doesn't make him automatically right 100% of the time. Case in point: now. Danny's only touched his notebook, where he's got three pages of dutifully written notes on what Star's tasked him to write as she did all the metaphorical heavy lifting. He could swear on a stack of Bibles that this latest chemistry accident doesn't have a thing to do with him. It's kind of refreshing, honestly.

Mr. Heppenheimer hums again. It seems to be his default over all the loud swearing he'd obviously prefer to be doing. "Clean it up. And do be careful, Miss Gray. I'd prefer to avoid sending anyone to the nurse's office today if I can help it."

"I—yeah. Yes, sorry." Valerie dashes off to the closet where all the safety-slash-cleaning gear is stashed to fetch cat litter, broom, and dustpan. Star scoffs on Danny's right, while Sam, hand still firmly squeezing Danny's bicep, has a worryingly thoughtful scowl on.

"Valerie has been such a mess since her dad lost his job," Star remarks in the usual scathingly cruel A-lister tone.

"He got his job back." Danny points out as he tries to shrug Sam off without making a big deal of it.

"So?" Star's tone has shifted from scathing to incredulous, which means she somehow didn't know something Danny's known since the tail end of their freshman year. It's admittedly bizarre to find himself able to lord some classmate gossip over an A-lister, but—with a glance at Sam to confirm it is, in fact, cool to lord this gossip over an A-lister—he gives Star a slow, sly grin as he gestures her closer. She leans in without an ounce of self-restraint or disgust, which means Danny's moved higher up the food chain since the last time he bothered to pay any attention.

"Valerie's dad used to be some bigwig in Axion Labs," he says, one eye on Sam and the other on Tucker, both of whom in turn are watching the teacher and the rest of the class. Just in case. "After Vlad—uh. Vladco, I mean—took over the company, Mister Gray got his position back despite Phantom screwing him over, and it's been smooth sailing for him ever since."

The sound of Valerie sweeping up broken glass gets discordantly loud, somehow. Danny doesn't have to look at her to know she's glaring daggers at him. He sets his shoulders and sticks the angle of his nose twenty degrees snootier, mostly to spite whatever murderous and/or weepy glower Valerie might be trying to laser into his soul. Which, whatever. He knows the shape of his own soul by now. He knows it's Phantom, plus or minus some degree of fiery white hair and green-tinged skin.

A bit of the old guilt niggles in the back of his head though. Accident or not, it was Phantom who cost Mr. Gray his job in the first place and Vlad who gave it back. And Vlad only did it at all once he realized his favorite little ghost fighting minion would be a better thorn in Phantom side if she didn't have to work a part-time job at the Nasty Burger. Which—well. Danny's glad she doesn't have to deal with that anymore, for all that it does make her a better thorn in his side.

But—guilt. Dumb guilt, but on his plate all the same. He manages to edge the conversation to some other Gossip with a capital G that even Star's not aware of. Oh the things a guy can hear when he can literally turn invisible. It's kind of fun, honestly, to fill her in. The rest of the hour is spent hissing old-as-shit hearsay that still manages to make Star's eyes light up like she's watching Paulina's favorite cabin burn down again. They do, somehow, manage to get their project pushed along to step three, which will pick up with the rest of all the normal and unobtrusive partnered projects tomorrow. He's not sure which of them is to thank for that, but he is more than a little pleased with how neatly he wrote their notes. It's the most like a regular student he's felt in months. It's honestly pretty great!

"We have a problem," Tucker hisses no less than five seconds and no more than ten after the bell rings. It's that perfect middle ground time of everyone shoving all their shit into their bags so they can bolt out the classroom door as fast as normal-humanly possible, so it's also that perfect middle ground time of nobody paying the three of them the least bit of attention.

"You noticed too?" Sam asks with her usual omniscient scowl. Danny truly and whole-heartedly wishes she'd stop with that, but he's yet to find an opportunity where he can say that to her face without coming across as a total shitheel, including now, so he grits his teeth and raises a pointedly baffled eyebrow at the both of them.

"Noticed what?" He asks with a patience he hasn't actually felt since junior high.

"Valerie's—" Tucker does a casual look around to see if anyone's close enough to eavesdrop, intentionally or no, which means this is a Phantom Thing. And if this is something Phantom and Valerie related? Yeah, no, he's in too good a mood for whatever latest gadget or trick Vlad might be cooking up via Valerie.

He holds up a hand with a sigh he automatically pretends is a yawn to cover up the blue wisp that escapes with it. "Can this wait? Better yet, can we just—not? At least for today? I'm really not up for counter-scheming."

"No need for that," Tucker assures way too quickly. The nervous laugh he follows it up with really doesn't help.

"Right," Danny says wryly, but motions to let them talk. Sam and Tucker share one of those weird non-verbal psychic looks where they have a whole conversation in the span of two seconds that goes right over Danny's head. He wishes they'd stop doing that, but if he called them out on it they'd deny it loudly, and it'd be a whole thing, and—ugh.

"Valerie's acting weird," Tucker says once they've finished. "As in, 'we definitely need to intervene' weird."

"Possessed?"

"No. But this might be worse."

"But this isn't the first time she made a mess in class," Sam says.

Danny slips his one (1) notebook and one (1) pencil into his bag. He's learned the hard way to pack light and get real good at shorthand, as well as keep all his textbooks down in the Fenton dungeon where they're least likely to get torched in a ghost fight. Again. "Isn't it?"

"Nope," Tucker says as they make their way to the door. Danny's sure to give Mr. Heppenheimer some ever-so-slightly iridescent stink eye of his own to make him flinch, and then doubt himself for flinching. One good turn, and all that. "Seventh actually. Third a teacher noticed, but she's been weirding out a lot of the other students."

Danny grunts, more interested in shouldering other people out of the way to make it easier for Sam and Tucker to squeeze out into the hall. Hey, may as well get some mileage out of being one of the tallest guys in school, right?

Sam touches his elbow to make sure she's got his attention while they make their way to their next classes. She's got sign language, Tucker's got photography, and Danny's got a free hour to nap in the auditorium ceiling. "She's constantly dropping things, she's always shivering, every lie I've heard her tell a faculty member has been total nonsense, she hasn't gone after a single ghost in almost two weeks—"

"Well, that would explain why there's been an uptick in my fifth period snake-wrangling," Danny remarks dryly, then grins nastily at some girl giving him a serious case of side-eye. She squeaks—actually squeaks!—and ducks behind some broad-shouldered guy in an eye-wateringly neon football jersey.

Tucker wacks his other elbow, scowling up at him. "Dude, this is serious."

"I haven't heard a reason to care yet."

He doesn't have to look to see they're doing another round of psychic Concerned About Our Bestie back-and-forth. Sam's the one who trips him—damn her preference for steel-toed boots—but it's Tucker who shoves him into a nook between two battered banks of lockers. "Danny," they both snap.

He blinks down at them expectantly, staying quiet. Hey, they're the one's worried about the badass ghost fighting black belt who would love nothing more than an opportunity to strap Phantom down to an operating table and go wild with a cattle prod. He's just trying to graduate. Preferably with all his teeth.

"Valerie is acting just like you did freshman year," Sam hisses. "Right after the you-know-what."

Danny barks laughter. "Yeah, right."

Sam and Tucker remain stone-cold serious. Worse, they look worried.

They wouldn't suggest something so crazy without a lot of thought put into it.

Fuck.

It's another two days before Danny gets a good—"good"—opportunity to talk to Valerie one-on-one. During that time he sees first-hand no less than 37 incidents of irrefutable acts of half-ghost-hood. How nobody else—including that ass, Wes!—has caught on yet is nothing short of a miracle. Valerie cut ties with every other person in their graduating class after some disastrous party embarrassment Danny never cared enough to find out the details of secondhand. She's kept her head down and her teeth bared at anybody who's tried to meet her halfway, and it seems everyone's accepted the fact that Valerie Gray is the second worst delinquent in the entire school.

(The first is him, naturally.)

He corners her three minutes before the bell to end lunch will ring. He's got calculus next—an unexpected good turn in his life that still makes him giggle every time he actually has time to do his homework—and she's got English. They can't afford to skip either class, but hey, you only half-die once, right?

She scowls up at him, twitching her head out of a habit she's not yet broken. She only shaved her head a month ago. He's still reeling over how good she looks, and also how much it makes her look like the awesome older Valerie from the horrible future where he and Vlad ghost-melded and murdered a dismayingly large number of humans. If that future is still somehow lingering out there in the tangled fabric of spacetime like a bad hangnail, he's pretty sure that Valerie died, fullstop.

He'd like it if he could do something to help this Valerie not die, fullstop.

She scowls up at him harder. "What do you want?"

He allows himself another couple seconds to just—bask. Yes, she's hot as hell, and if they were both normal humans she could easily break him over her knee like a fistful of kindling. He's not yet gotten an inch of the Fenton width. He's basically all elbows, and it's now all but impossible to find shoes in his size. It's great, really, just super.

Mostly though, he holds his breath and lets his ghost sense settle in a chilly, wriggly knot in his lungs. How the hell did he not realize she was the cause before now?

He smiles down at her. It becomes immediately apparent that this is the worst possible thing he could have chosen to do. He stops smiling. Somehow that's worse.

"We need to talk," he says, and immediately wants to hit himself. Has daytime television not taught him anything? That's the worst thing he could have said!

"I don't think so," she says, and tries to edge past him. He catches her elbow—

—and she's got him smashed up against a classroom door before he can even blink.

"Uh," they say at the same time. He feels one of her hands go ice cube cold against his skin. Since it's him and not a normal person, it's far more likely her hand just dropped to some negative three-digit temperature. If he were human, he'd be at risk for frostbite. As he's not, it's more like a refreshing breeze. He swears he even gets a whiff of the Ghost Zone off of her; like a hard shock of static on his tongue in a midnight snowfall. It's... nice. Is that what he smell-feels like?

Hmm. Distracting himself. Best to stop doing that.

She realizes after too long a beat of awkward silence that one of her arms has gone full-ghostly, and springs back with a half-hysterical yelp. He turns around to look at her again, rolling his shoulder out of a long habit of pretending that Dash trying to rough him up actually feels like anything. She looks—

Well. Kind of like some kind of frazzled toy dog that's had to deal with way too many idiot humans manhandling her, and like she's pissed that all the finger-biting she's tried has only gotten her a bunch of braindead cooing. Danny finds himself sympathizing, and also like maybe he needs to vent to somebody else aside from Cujo on their 3 a.m. Thursday walkies. He considers several facial expressions he could make at her, dismisses all of them, and settles on upping the grimacing and shoulder-rolling. It sort of works? She looks guilty, which is honestly one of the better reactions she could be leveling at him right now.

"We really do need to talk, actually," he says, feigning an apologetic tone while pretending very hard he hasn't noticed her left arm suddenly stops at the elbow.

"Pretty sure we don't," she retorts.

He makes a show of rolling his eyes, and then a show of looking pointedly at her invisible arm. She looks down at herself, does a double-take, yelps again, and hides both of her arms behind her back as she makes several stammering attempts at a believable excuse. Danny winces, torn between sympathy and secondhand embarrassment. Sam was right; this is exactly how he stumbled his way through the first six months of figuring out his powers. At least he had the benefit of a couple of friends and eventually Jazz too to help cover his tracks. Valerie's on her own. She's going to get found out at this rate, and accidentally or not she will drag him and Vlad down with her.

"It's okay," he says calmly.

"Everything's fine I don't know what you're talking about!"

He looks at her, unimpressed, until she looks appropriately embarrassed. "Let's try this again," he says, and puts both hands up to stall when she goes to retort. "Please?"

She purses her lips, huffing through her nose, but nods. Good enough.

"You're not okay," he tells her. "You're freaking out because something crazy happened to you, and you don't have anybody to turn to for answers without risking everything. You think you're a monster, or that you're dead, or you're dying, or some shitty combination of all of the above. You're scared because you can't control what's happening, and you're scared because you know you're gonna get caught at this rate, and you're scared because you know exactly what the GIW does to the ecto-entities it manages to get its hands on, because you're the reason half the ghosts that frequent Amity Park have done time in a GIW containment cell. Right?"

Valerie stares.

She keeps staring.

Eventually her mouth starts making some feeble attempt at protest.

A while after that she musters up the stamina to stammer out, "W-whahaaat are you talking about? I think you've got—ha! The wrong idea! Yeah! I bet you're thinking I'm, uh. Um. Possessed! Yes! I'm definitely possessed! You caught me, oh fuck, I'm definitely just another one of Walker's goons—nobody important though! No nefarious schemes going on either, honest! I just, uh, wanted to take a human… out for a spin? Yes, that's what I'm doing. You definitely don't need to say anything to your parents—"

"Valerie," he says.

Her mouth snaps shut so hard her teeth click. She looks terrified, furious, and miserable all at once. She looks like she knows she's cornered, caught red-handed, and like she fully expects Danny to rat her out. Does she really think so little of him?

He winces inwardly. Of course she does. She's kept him at arm's length since freshman year because he never owned up the truth to her. She's been protecting him from himself all this time by staying away. She only knows the front he puts on for everybody else.

The bell rings. In a matter of seconds this hallway is going to be packed with students, and this is not a conversation to risk anyone overhearing. He looks around. Their options are to either continue this wedged in a janitor's closet (she'd probably shoot him), ghost her up to the roof (she'd definitely shoot him) or duck into a classroom. Luck's on his side for once. He'd cornered her just outside the wreckage of the wood shop; it's not going to be fit to teach in until after they graduate, and even the other, regular delinquents know better than to hang out anywhere with that much Fenton ectobiological hazard caution tape.

He nods toward the door. "Please?"

She looks like she'd much rather go toe-to-tail with Desiree, but the sound of a crowd surging their way decides for her. She bolts for the door, Danny at her heels, and they're in and hidden out of sight before anyone could see them go. He watches through a small hole in a stretch of opaque plastic sheeting, patiently waiting for the rest of the school to disperse into their various classrooms. There're too many holes in the wood shop's walls to risk talking even with all the noise out there.

Eventually the hall outside quiets. The late bell rings. It's about as safe as it'll ever get to have this talk.

"I can explain," she begins, her voice quiet and shaken.

"You don't have to," he says, and turns out the scary eyes as he faces her.

Three years of fighting nightmare monsters hasn't done Valerie the right kind of favors either. A metal cube materializes over her shoulder and flares brightly as it powers up a shot. She in turn steps smoothly into a defensive stance, light humming up and down her as she... doesn't pull her ghost-fighting suit out of the spectral hammerspace it sloughs off to whenever she doesn't need it. He blinks. He looks at the cube properly once it becomes clear she isn't going to shoot him. The light coming off them isn't pink anymore, but the same ghost-green as his own powers.

"Explain," she growls.

Probably not a good time for jokes. He keeps his serious face on, scary eyes and all. "I was in an accident freshman year. My parents couldn't get their ghost portal to work. They got lax about not letting Jazz and I down there unsupervised. I took Sam and Tucker down there one afternoon while they were out. One thing led to another, and I accidentally got their portal to work. While I was standing inside it."

She winces. Not like Jazz or Wes did when he stammered out the story to them just so they'd stop asking. Not in sympathy as they tried to imagine what that would have felt like and falling a thousand miles short (not that he ever said so). She gives him the same look he's seen in the mirror every time a bad dream of that day grabs him by the throat and shocks him awake. She knows.

"Don't shoot," he jokes weakly, and reaches for that cold spark that shares the same illogical, impossible space as his heart.

Another three cubes appear in a neat arc over her head when he changes, not that he blames her. She's just found out she dated her sworn enemy once upon a time. He's definitely surprised she doesn't shoot. She does go a bit deer in the headlights again, but more like a ghost deer that's just as likely to shoot lasers as it might bolt into traffic. "I," she tries. "You. You're. The whole goddamn time?!"

"Okay," he says. "Point of order. Cujo really wasn't my dog yet when I got your dad fired. That was an accident and I'm still very, very sorry about that."

Her eyes go ghost-red. "You wanna try that again?"

He sucks air in through his teeth, sighs out another blue wisp. She's doing it too. Has been the whole conversation actually, and plenty of other times before. He wonders if she's figured out what it means yet. He adds it to the list he's mentally compiling, keeps his hands up, and starts running his mouth as contritely as he can.

The sun's almost set by the time Danny's really, truly, fully convinced Valerie not to turn him into the half-ghost equivalent of Swiss cheese. He's so hungry he feels like he's nursing a gut wound, but he thinks it's the smart choice to not suggest talking all of this out over dinner. It's not like his allowance (and black hole of an appetite) would pay for more than clearing out the dollar menu at Jack-in-the-Box, and no way is he stupid enough to suggest Valerie pay. So he remains perched on one of the few remaining tables left in the wood shop, still in Phantom mode mostly to watch Valerie grind her teeth. She's sitting cross-legged on another table, cubes and scary eyes gone. She's reached the fun sort of balance between bone-tired exhaustion and impotent frustration with no good outlet that isn't the kind of violence that will draw a lot of unwanted attention. She sits there and stews awhile, turning over everything he's told her.

He pulls out his phone—tossing her a wry grin when she flinches—and lets her stew. He shoots out a "safe, taking longer than a thought it would" into the group chat he's got with Sam, Tucker, and Jazz. Tucker lets him know he's rooting for him, and also they handled the Box Ghost's usual afternoon showing with a game of checkers, and Wulf's in town avoiding Walker again. Sam reminds him to work on his book report if Valerie doesn't skin him alive first. He shoots back a neutral affirmative to them both, then pulls up Bubble Blaster to kill time until Valerie feels like talking—

"It was two weeks ago," she starts.

Danny resists the urge to sigh and pockets his phone again. Well, he mimes pocketing his phone. It sort of phases into that weird imaginary skin between his halves with a buzz of protest. When he changes back it'll be in his back right pocket, fully charged.

"Mister Masters," she pauses to make this really complicated grimace, like she'd sort of prefer calling Vlad something like Captain Fuckface but she's too polite to do it aloud. Danny makes a mental note to call Vlad exactly that the next time they run into each other. The fruitloop'll make a hilarious noise, he just knows it. "Mister Masters sent me info on another job. He told me some of his employees at Axion Labs had reported some ghost sightings, and my dad had mentioned seeing some weird stuff too, so. So I snuck out and went to go check it out. It didn't sound like anything bad, just. Y'know. Another ghost."

Two weeks ago her tone would have been one of complete, dismissive disgust. Two weeks ago she was still human though. Danny stays quiet, which is probably the smart thing to do.

"There was something on my radar when I got there. I thought it was gonna be you, honestly—" She glares, a flicker of red coloring her yes. He shrugs and gives her a charming grin that's all, Who, me? She doesn't buy it for a second, not that he expected her too. Two weeks ago Vlad was being a real prick though, setting all sorts of nasty ghoulies he'd Frankenstein'd in his super gross secret lab loose in the downtown area. Danny's honestly not sure if he got any sleep for like, four straight days. There was a lot of doctored coffee involved, by which he means the kind of coffee a regular human couldn't drink without requiring a fairly immediate trip to the ER.

(Tucker Foley tested.)

"Most of the reports were from some department I've never heard my dad talk about, and it's all three levels underground. If Technus hadn't juiced my suit up again I don't think I could've gotten down there—"

That's an alarm bell Danny super doesn't like the sound of. "Again?"

She waves her hand dismissively that's all, So last year, honey, try and keep up. "Doesn't matter. Point is, I got down there, and it—well. It looked like the Fen—uh. Your parents' lab. Kind of identical, actually. In a kinda creepy way."

Yeah, that's Vlad all over. Kinda creepy and not all that original. Oh well. He raises his eyebrows pointedly.

"Uh. Well, my radar went crazy down there, but I still couldn't get a real bead on anything. So I went poking around and found the framework of this—well, portal. I didn't realize it was a portal though, since it didn't look like the one in your parents' lab. It was standing on its own in the middle of the room, covered in cables—"

"Ours is a mess too," he points out. "You can't tell unless it's off though. I'm not really sure where all those cables and weird hunks of tech go while it's on..."

She gives him a look like she's regretting not shooting him earlier. He does the smart thing by not pointing out that shooting him is still very much on the table, and that if history's anything to go by she's a huge fan of shooting him. He can't help but think that opinion might, just possibly, if he's very lucky, have changed in the last couple of hours. Fingers crossed? Those cube cannon things hurt like a bitch.

"I was looking around that thing because it was freaking my radar out when Plas—Mister Masters showed up."

He reels a bit. She must've expected it, because it's her turn to raise her eyebrows pointedly. "Wait," he says, holding his hands up in a time out T. "Wait a minute. You knew he's Plasmius? The whole goddamn time?!"

"No," she snaps. "Only after Danielle."

"That's nearly the whole goddamn time. What the hell, he's been lording you over me as a reason not to blab the truth for years. For fuck's sake, Valerie—"

"You wanna maybe shut up and let me finish, ghost kid?"

He scowls. She scowls back, plus scary eyes. He's pretty sure she's not doing it intentionally, so the effect's not as impressive as it could be. Red continues to be a great color for her though, not that he's dumb enough to say that.

"Plasmius showed up, blasted me into the portal, and hit the switch before I could do anything," she bites out, hunching in on herself like she's wishing the ground would swallow her whole—aaaand there she goes, sinking through the table. He clears his throat loudly, she realizes what's going on and ends up flailing around like an idiot for a few seconds until her body gets physical enough to stay put.

"Sam was right," he muses. "This is entertaining."

"Fuck you," she snaps without much venom. Mostly she sounds tired.

He sighs, hating himself a little for reasons he's not gonna explore right now. He's too hungry for introspection. "Did he evil-monologue why he did that to you?"

"A little. I was kinda out of it, after." She grimaces, gesturing at herself. "I didn't catch all of it. Something about being a distraction for you, though I didn't know that he meant you at the time."

"Oh goodie, this evil plot has layers, and ruining your life is apparently a fucking footnote." He scrubs his face with both hands and changes back into his plain Jane self. Valerie twitches badly, eyes flashing red and a fun eye-watering white shimmer shivering up her whole body. Huh. "Hey, have you tried changing back since that asshat zapped you?"

"Of course not," she hisses, looking at him like he just suggested she go streaking through the administration office. "I'm trying to keep a low profile while I figure out a way to fix what he did to me."

Ah, hell.

"I'm sorry," seems the smart thing to start with. He hops off the table, hands up where she can see them as he approaches her. He takes a risk at reaching for her hands. She surprises him again by continuing to not shoot him. "I'm really, really sorry. But there's no fixing this. You just get—better at being this." He squeezes a little when she starts shaking her head and pulling away, amping up the 'I'm sorry for your loss' face he's had to get way too good at. Superhero, he ain't. "I'm serious. Vlad's been like me—like us—since like, '85 or whenever he got zapped by a proto-portal, and he got really sick after."

Her eyes go big and laser pointer red again. "S-sick?"

"Ecto-acne. Ever hear of it?" She shakes her head. "You'll probably be okay, if Axion's portal is based on my parents' portal, or even Vlad's."

"He has a portal?"

"In Wisconsin," he confirms grimly. "He's been trying to build a second one ever since he moved here, but I kept messing with him. I didn't think to check the basements of any of his evil companies."

"Axion Labs isn't evil," she retorts instead of doing the sensible thing and blaming him outright for the shit she's mired in for keeps.

He raises an eyebrow. "Sure. And Invis-o-Bill really is hellbent on establishing a ghost-human empire capital in Amity fucking Park."

She winces.

"Wait. You didn't actually believe that, did you?"

She winces harder.

"Ohhhh Valerie," he sighs, dropping her hands to melodramatically sag against another table. "I'm wounded. Honestly, truthfully, hurt that you'd think so highly of fucking Invis-o-Bill. Haven't you been paying attention to the shit the gossip mags shill about me? I'm either a ghost blob with delusions of grandeur in a skinsuit or the ostracized son of Pariah Dark and Desiree. You don't think my evil ghost parents have been around enough to teach me how to be a good evil emperor, do you?"

She's trying—and failing—not to laugh. "Shut up. How was I supposed to know what to believe, huh? None of the ghosts ever say shit about you."

"Yeah, 'cause they're cool with keeping my secret!"

She presses forward to jab a finger in his chest. She's still kind of flicker-y at the edges, like she hasn't quite decided she isn't going to go full ghost hunter on him, so it sort of feels like another hard burst of static. Goosebumps break out all down his skin; it's all he can do not to shiver. "What's with that, anyway? Most of 'em are so hellbent on destroying you for stopping them again and again, but none of them have ever come blabbing your big life-ruining secret to me or your parents!"

He shrugs. "Honestly? I don't think it's ever occurred to any of them. I'm pretty sure Skulker's the only one who knows like, for sure that Vlad's the same as me, and that's only 'cuz he likes to take jobs from Vlad now and then. The others?" Another, more expansive shrug as he slides sideways out of her range. So she makes him uneasy. What about it? She's only shot him point blank like, five hundred times if she's done it once. He'd really like to get out of this whole situation without any new burns to hide.

"Huh," she says. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. It's not—I dunno. I think it'd be like cheating for most of 'em to go blabbing to some humans or even Vlad. They wanna take me down, sure, but they wanna do it on their own steam. I'm definitely not complaining."

"Course you're not, because you are ludicrously overpowered compared to most of the ghosts out there itching for a little world domination."

He grins down at her, big and sloppy. "Hey, give it some time and you'll be OP as fuck too."

She reacts to that little nugget of wisdom just like he expected her to; retreating halfway across the room and shrinking in on herself like she's dearly wishing for a bit of time travel to undo what Vlad did to her on a selfish whim. Well. A conversation with Clockwork is an option still on the table. He'll give her a few more days of adjustment before suggesting a fun little jaunt into the Ghost Zone. He's honestly not sure if Clockwork and her are properly acquainted. That should be good for a laugh if nothing else.

"Hey," he says companionably. "I mean it. You're gonna be okay."

She scoffs. He pretends not to hear the dampness to it. "Oh, sure. So long as I do exactly what you say, right?"

"This isn't blackmail," he says, injecting as much calm as he can to his voice. "Honest. I mean, I won't lie and pretend I'm not hoping you listen to me. If you get found out it's both of our necks on the chopping block. Sure, I'll make sure Vlad takes the fall too, so that's some nice revenge wrapped with a bow, but it's not like we'd be around to really appreciate it, y'know?"

She makes another, slightly damper noise. He considers the risk of hugging her against the risk of walking away with all his parts where they ought to be, and he decides the smart thing is to stay put and pretend right along with her that she's definitely not crying.

"I want to help you, Valerie. I've been where you're at. I know how much it sucks. And I had Sam and Tucker helping me while I tried to figure it all out. You... you need somebody to help you. Trust me on this much at least, okay? This isn't something you can do alone."

Her various damp noises evolve into an outright sob. "Fuck."

Yeah. That about sums it up.

"Fuck," she hisses out again, pawing roughly at her face. "This. I didn't want—all this time and you never—I coulda killed you but you didn't—and now I'm—!"

Okay. Yeah. Superheroes don't leave anybody to cry so miserably on their own. He's hardy. Even if she shoots him he can hang out, make sure she's okay to get home on her own. And they both skipped their last two classes. He ought to go rummage around their teachers' desks and try to figure out what tonight's homework is. She's got every reason to burn her textbooks and scream fuck it at the moon (Danny's sophomore year was a personal low point), and it's just as likely Skulker will pull some new scheme to try and skin him tonight as any other school night, but it's the principle of the thing. They're both just trying to graduate at this point, and they're so close.

It might seem so incredibly, completely stupid, to care about graduating with all the other bullshit in their lives. Most days, it is stupid to care. But there are some days that stupid, pointless piece of paper is the only reason Danny chooses to get out of bed. He chooses to remember that he's still human enough for human consequences. He needs that diploma to get into college, and he needs to get into college so he can earn his bachelor's, and he needs to be stable enough to earn his pilot's license, and then somehow net 1,000 hours as pilot-in-command in a fucking jet, and on and on and on, because there's still this stupid, stupid, stupid little voice in his head that won't shut up about how cool it'd be to actually manage to become an astronaut despite—

—everything.

He wants to ask what Valerie wanted to be when she grew up, but that's... not now. That's a conversation for later, if he's lucky enough that she'll trust him with that little, foolish dream every kid clings to even when they're loudly proclaiming how stupid it is. Everybody grows up and realizes how stupid the dream jobs they wanted when they were kids was; it's the real dreamers that grit their teeth and keep working despite—

—everything.

He takes the risk, the leap of faith. He closes the distance between them and plays a pattern across her shoulder to warn her he's coming in for a hug. No cubes or guns or accidental ecto-rays materialize to blast him into next week, so he calls it a win and finishes the deed. She's all hunched shoulders and hard fingers knotted in his shirt, hot tears and probably some snot at war with how neutrally temperature-wise the rest of her feels. Everybody else—everybody human—feels hot as a sunburn if he gets too close. Ghosts are still too cold, though thanks to his handy-dandy ice powers none of them are ever cold enough to hurt like humans do.

Here and now, hugging Valerie and whispering soft, pointless bullshit into her frizzy hair is the closest to human he's felt in—

—in too long.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"Don't be," he replies, instead of Me too.

"Thank you," she says.

"Nothin' to thank me for," he replies, instead of You should be blaming me for this.

"I'm scared," she says.

"It's going to be okay," he replies, and means it.

It's almost nine by the time he makes it to Sam's house, and he's so hungry he tunnel visions twice on the flight over. Lucky him, his friends and secret keepers know how bullshit his anatomy is, and there's a veritable buffet awaiting him when he gets there. Luckier him, his friends and secret keepers know better than to try and hold a Serious Conversation when he's like this, and leave him alone for the better part of 20 minutes before they both start loudly clearing their throats.

He slows his flawless imitation of a combine harvester long enough to muster a, "Hngh?"

Sam and Tucker waste precious moments he could be upping his calorie count with another psychic conversation that they're clearly both enjoying. He scowls, for all the good it'll do him.

"How'd it go?" Sam asks.

"Well," he says, setting his fork down to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Manners, schmmaners. "She didn't shoot me."

"Damn it," Tucker says loudly, and pulls out his phone.

"Seriously?" Danny asks.

"He owes Jazz twenty bucks," Same explains as Tucker begins a furiously-typed text. Danny suppresses the urge to shudder. Something about the haptic feedback on cell phones really sets him on edge. He genuinely doesn't know if it's a pet peeve or a ghost thing. Either way he always has to squash the insane urge to pitch Tucker's phone at the nearest brick wall, and right now that is an honest struggle.

"Seriously?" He repeats. "You bet against me?"

Tucker pauses long enough to level an incredulous glare at him. "Dude."

...yeah, okay. That's fair. Danny would've bet against himself too, if he'd known to.

"Rude," he says anyway, on principle.

Sam and Tucker both make a huge show of rolling their eyes, but at least Sam pushes another three slices of pizza in his direction. They even ordered in, so there's actual meat and cheese on it. He has the best friends a guy could ask for, even if Tucker is an ass nine times out of ten. Serves him right to lose 20 bucks, voting against him against his sister of all people.

"Details," Sam demands. "How's she doing, what happened, is she gonna stop trying to kill you, et cetera."

"Vlad happened," he manages through half a slice of pizza. Sam and Tucker both wince; Tucker hard enough he actually drops his phone.

"Fuck," Tucker hisses. "Why?"

"Dunno yet. And I dunno about you, but figuring out his latest scheme has definitely become number one on my honey do list."

They both nod. Tucker's the one to ask the important follow up. "And Valerie? How's she doing?"

He makes a seesaw motion with one hand. "Again, gotta stress the whole 'didn't shoot me' thing." He grins real sleazily while Tucker groans. "She's not great though. I foresee the next like, two months helping her out taking priority over all the usual ghost bullshit. Short of like, apocalyptic ghost attacks, of course."

"Fair," Sam and Tucker both say. Sam gives him a pointed capital L Look, going so far as to pull his plate a few inches away so he can better direct his instinctive growl at her. "She's not gonna rat, is she?"

"No," comes out more snarl-y than he means it to, but—pizza. Sam takes him at face value at least, and gives him his plate back, with an extra slice of meat lover's for good behavior. She's his favorite.

"We're gonna co-op," he adds, and pretends not to notice the Extraordinarily Concerned Psychic Look Sam and Tucker share over that bit of news. Whatever. They can stress over the idea of Valerie being included in their group. Him? He's gonna polish off the rest of this pizza, pull his one (1) notebook and one (1) pencil out of his bag, and he's going to get as much of a headstart on his homework before patrol as he can. If he actually manages to finish his two pages of grammar problems he's going to call it a great day. Anything else? Well, that's gravy so far as he's concerned.

He grins to himself a little, thinking of Valerie's new phone number burning a hole in his pocket. If anything toothsome decides to show up tonight he got the okay to text her. And honestly? For all that she's in the same bullshit hell as he, Vlad, and Elle are...

Well. It's probably shitty of him, but it's still nice to have an ally and friend in this half-ghost bullshit hell.