Summary: Dan comes to the Fenton house for a different reason than to see Danny, but he ends up noticing something familiar.
Characters: Dan, Maddie, and Jack
Written: November 2015
Note: This is set during chapter 79 of Spectacular Specter.

Chapter 79.5

Dan tugged his hood down a little farther as he glanced behind him, checking the street for any passersby, but the neighborhood was quiet. It didn't surprise him that Danny grew up in such a nice, family friendly neighborhood. He was jealous, he could admit it, of the happy and healthy upbringing Danny had. But he would never wish his misfortune on anyone else. After his parents were killed, everything seemed to go downhill for him. Not everything was horrible. He had some bright points among all the garbage.

The front door opened, and Danny's mother looked surprised to see the mercenary on her doorstep. Dan almost snorted a laugh out loud. Of course she would be surprised. No normal person expects a killer to appear at their front door, with the exception of Lancer.

"I'm afraid Danny's not home right now." Mrs. Fenton frowned like she was truly sorry to tell him that.

Dan shook his head. "I didn't come to see him. Um," he pointed inside, "do you mind if I come in?" He might kill people and enjoy causing destruction, but he wasn't completely without manners.

"Oh." Her eyebrows lifted a touch as her violet eyes widened a fraction. "Of course." She stepped aside to allow him entry into the house.

Some people might think she was crazy for letting a killer into her house, but Danny told Dan last night that his mother was a ninth degree black belt. Dan was happy not to test out her abilities just yet. A friendly spar, however, he wouldn't pass up.

"I don't wish to be rude," Mrs. Fenton said as she closed the door. "But why are you here if not to see Danny?"

"Well, I-" Dan was interrupted by a happy bark as a familiar puppy bounded into the room. "Cujo!" He grinned as he crouched down and allowed the puppy to jump into his arms. He chuckled as Cujo licked at his face. "You're getting pretty big." He scratched at the puppy's ears. "Um," he looked up at Mrs. Fenton, who was hiding a grin behind her hand, "I was saying something."

"Why you were here," Mrs. Fenton offered helpfully.

"Right!" Dan gave Cujo a belly rub when the puppy flopped over with his legs in the air. "I thought it would be good for me to spend some time hanging out with you and your husband. I get you probably still have your reservations about me, but maybe you'll relax about it after you get to know me some more." When he met her gaze, he saw that he was right. They acted friendly last night at dinner, but they would do anything to protect their son when it came down to it.

"And that's your only reason?" Mrs. Fenton folded her arms as one eyebrow rose, her expression skeptical.

"Well," Dan's gaze drifted to the side, "I guess you could say there was another reason. You see, since Danny told me I was a ghost, I've been trying to get a handle on these powers. I'm pretty good with invisibility, though intangibility could use some work. Flying is more like painful falling from big heights. And now I have this fire thing. Danny doesn't want me to use it for destructive purposes, so I should really get control over that." He winced, heat rising to his cheeks. "I, uh, almost burnt down my apartment in a little accident last night."

Mrs. Fenton nodded slowly. "Yes, I suppose helping you learn control would be best for everyone. And you would be all right with us studying you? I don't mean that as in cutting you up or anything like that," she added hurriedly, perhaps seeing the horror managing to sneak into his eyes.

Dan would never admit to being scared about anything. He was a big, powerful mercenary who laughed in the face of destruction! But laboratories gave him the bad vibes. Stepping foot into the laboratory last night was almost too hard until Danny reassured him everything would okay and held his hand. It gave him flashbacks to the laboratory where he was turned into a ghost. He couldn't grab hold of many images, definitely not enough to piece together exactly what happened, but the memory of pain was still so fresh in his mind that he could almost imagine it happened yesterday. So when Mrs. Fenton mentioned studying him, Dan's first instinct was to bolt and save himself from being tortured again.

But these were Danny's parents, and Danny assured him his parents wouldn't dissect him or even do anything to him against his consent. If he decided he didn't want to participate in part of their research, they would likely stop. Their primary goal was to study and learn all they could from ghosts. They weren't looking to harm the ghosts.

"I suppose studying me wouldn't hurt anything," Dan said with a forced smile. "You'll probably be taking mental notes while helping me learn to control my powers anyway." He shrugged like it wasn't even remotely a big deal, and maybe it really wasn't. But being under a microscope, so to speak, didn't leave him with wonderful feelings.

"Well, yes, probably," Mrs. Fenton admitted, and Dan could see where Danny got some of his looks because she had an adorable blush too.

Not that he was interested in her in any romantic sense. He just had a deep appreciation for people's beauty. Some might think it was only because he had horrible, disfiguring scars over his face left over from the explosion, but he always admired people's appearances, even before that incident.

"I guess we'll do the training in the laboratory?" Dan didn't particularly want to go back down there, but it seemed like the most appropriate place, and better suited for any possible accidents with his powers.

"Yes." Mrs. Fenton nodded. "We'll be able to monitor you down there. In case there are any side effects to using them that could endanger your existence. There doesn't seem to be any with the common abilities, like invisibility, intangibility, and flying. But we haven't done a lot of studying on them."

Dan gave Cujo one last belly scratch before he stood. "Then let's get started." He clapped his hands together, hoping his bravado chased away any panic creeping through him.

"So this disguise you're using," Mrs. Fenton led the way to the kitchen, "is that another one of your abilities?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess so." Dan shrugged. "After the whole thing happened, I looked pretty much like a monster. I needed some way to get around without drawing so much attention to myself. It took a while to figure out how to do it though."

"You don't look like a monster." Mrs. Fenton frowned, almost like she wanted to chide him for thinking such a thing. She pulled open the door and walked down the stairs to the laboratory. "Perhaps you don't fall into the category of what most people might think of as conventional attractiveness-"

"It's okay. You don't have to make me feel better about myself," Dan said, shaking his head. "The scars aren't pretty, and I don't expect anyone to tell me they're beautiful. But none of you ran away screaming when you saw me, so I'm taking that as a plus."

A wry smirk twisted across Mrs. Fenton's face. "You would have been great to have at the house for Halloween. Everyone would have thought the scars were just makeup and wouldn't have been scared of you."

Dan's mouth twitched. "I always knew I liked Halloween for some reason."

"You mean other than the free candy?" Mr. Fenton asked, turning around in his seat at a table along the opposite wall.

"You speak my language." Dan grinned as he snapped his finger and pointed at the large man, a burst of green flame burning at the tip of his finger. Dread washed over him for a brief moment when he thought about what would have happened if the flame had fired from his finger. He quickly dropped his hand and tried to will away the flame away before it did any damage. Killing his boyfriend's parents usually wasn't a good thing.

Mr. Fenton's brow furrowed and his mouth became a grim line, like the same thought passed through his own mind. "What's going on?"

"Dan wanted to learn some control over his abilities," Mrs. Fenton explained.

"What's that?" Dan asked, noticing what was on the wall where Mr. Fenton sat. It looked like a corkboard with several notes pinned to it.

"Ah, just some research," Mr. Fenton answered. "Danny gathered it. Notes from his crime fighting. We've," he frowned, turning his gaze to the board, "been trying to track down who killed our daughter."

Dan winced. This wasn't the way he expected the day to go. But his attention was stuck on some of the pages pinned to the corkboard. Two of the papers contained sketches, fairly good and detailed sketches. His lip curled in a snarl when he recognized Skulker. If that jerk did anything to hurt Danny - Dan cut off that thinking before he actually bolted from the house to hunt down the other mercenary and do something of which Danny wouldn't approve.

The second sketch was of a man Dan didn't recognize but who had a vague familiarity to him. Dan wasn't sure why he would even think he knew the man, but he did have the urge to rip off the man's dumb mustache and whack him with it.

The thing that most caught his eye was the card in the center of the corkboard. The card showed a skull surrounded by flowers. He knew the design well. Dan hopped on one foot as he struggled to pull off his boot. He ignored the confused and questioning looks from Danny's parents. Once it was off, he reached inside his boot and retrieved the plastic bag he kept hidden there. He held up the bag. The card inside the bag matched the one on the corkboard exactly, if he ignored the wear and tear of his card.

"Where did you get that?" Mrs. Fenton asked.

"It's all I had after waking up as a ghost," Dan answered. Though at that time, he didn't realize he was a ghost. "I kept it because I thought it might be a clue to whoever did this to me."

"Wait!" Mr. Fenton launched to his feet, and for a big man, he could move surprisingly fast. He grabbed hold of Dan's wrist and leaned in, squinting at the other side of the card. "That's Danny's high school!" he gasped, his eyes widening with worrying. He snapped his gaze to his wife. "And the time it says is right now!"

"What?" Dan and Mrs. Fenton both gasped as the mercenary turned the card around to see the other side.

"But-" Dan shook his head, baffled. "That wasn't what it said before!"

Mr. Fenton jogged back to the corkboard. Ripping the card free, he twisted it around to look at the backside. "This one has the same location and time on it." He looked to his wife and Dan. "I don't know what this means, but I think we should get over to the school and check things out."

Mrs. Fenton and Dan nodded agreement. If something was happening at the school, they wanted to get there, and fast. Dan raced up the stairs after Danny's parents. Danny was still at school. Danny could be in danger. Dan wouldn't let anyone hurt Danny!

Tetractys: All is well with the Gray family! Yay! 8D

YumiStar: At least Paulina has a friend (and Danny) to lean on.

jessiejr21: Me too!