I've always wanted to write a cute Maddie/Danny bonding story. Here's my attempt :)
"Uh Mom? What are you doing?"
Maddie Fenton looked at her son as he came down the final steps into the lab. In her hands was the Fenton Ghost Fisher, extended into the swirling green mass of the entrance to the Ghost Zone a few feet in front of her.
"Your father kept saying that fishing is for men only and-" she smirked as some green octopus-like ghost came out wailing. She promptly released the hook and before the ghost could escape back into the Ghost Zone, Maddie caught it with the Fenton Thermos. She turned back to Danny and shook the thermos triumphantly. "-I'm here to prove him wrong."
Danny cringed. He hated when his parents got into these silly competitions with each other; they usually ended with a final challenge to capture his ghost half, resulting in a lot of pain and panicked escape attempts for him.
"Couldn't you have just gone to a lake for actual fish?" he asked, eying the dangerously pointy hook in her hands.
Maddie laughed. "Now what fun would that be? And besides, these ghosts may be able to tell us the whereabouts of the ghost boy, so not only is this relaxing, but it's good for research!"
"Right," Danny said nervously as she tossed the line back into the Ghost Zone. "Good luck finding him. In the meantime, I'll just-"
Danny trailed off as a blue mist escaped his mouth. Oh great.
Suddenly, a giant white figure with a skeletal face and angry green eyes walked through the portal, holding the bait in one hand and glowing green handcuffs in another.
"Walker," Danny hissed in a low tone, clenching his fists.
Maddie turned around to look at him strangely. "What was that?"
"Trying to catch ghosts while they're still in the Ghost Zone," Walker said in his usual creepy voice. "That's against the rules."
Before Danny or Maddie could do anything to stop him or even put up a protest, they were hit by two bright red ectoplasmic rays and fell to the floor, unconscious.
oOoOoOoO
Danny woke up on the floor of a cold and dark room. He wondered if he fell out of bed again, but judging from the surface of this place, he was far from his room. Through the dim lighting, he could see his mom asleep in a corner a few feet away from him. Instantly, he jumped to his feet. It was difficult to see anything in here, as the only lighting was coming from a small slot in what he figured was the door. Danny fiercely pulled the handle up and down several times, but he was locked in. The coldness in the air around him told him that he was in the Ghost Zone. With his mom. As Danny Fenton.
Escaping was going to be impossible if he couldn't use his ghost powers, but as soon as he started transforming, his mom stirred. Panicking, Danny forced the two rings to disappear and he ran over to help her.
"Danny?" she murmured sleepily. "What happened?"
Danny remembered perfectly what had happened: they had been in the lab, Walker had come through the portal and blasted them until they lost consciousness. But revealing to his mom just how much he knew about Walker and his prison was not exactly an option if he wanted to maintain his secret.
"I think we're in the Ghost Zone. Do you have any Fenton weapons on you?"
Maddie searched through her jumpsuit in the darkness of the cell but came up empty handed. Except for a cellphone.
"No service here," she said sheepishly. Danny smacked his head in frustration.
"Okay, well luckily we're humans. We can pass through stuff in the Ghost Zone…I think," he added hastily, trying to come across as less informed than he was.
Danny walked over to a wall and attempted to walk through it. Unfortunately, it was thoroughly solid and he smashed his face upon making contact with it.
"Danny, what are you doing?" Maddie tried hugging him before he swatted her away, holding his nose to prevent blood from spilling out.
"Okay, this isn't normal. What gives?" Danny peered through the slot hole. It seemed abandoned until suddenly two green eyes appeared before him. Startled, Danny tripped backwards and fell onto his back.
Walker phased through the door and glared down at Danny. "Welcome to our newly-installed human containment unit, punk."
"Who are you?" Maddie demanded as she helped her son to his feet.
"The warden of the Ghost Zone prison," Walker replied coolly. "And you are my newest prisoners."
"What did I-I mean we do that broke your stupid rules?" Danny said indignantly.
"A human hunting for ghosts while they're in the Ghost Zone," Walker said indifferently, looking at Maddie. He then turned to Danny. "I figured I'd give this ghost hunter a new target. One that's trying to live amongst humans as though it were one of them."
Danny's eyes widened in shock. There's no way he could mean what I think he means…
"Hope you like the gruel, cause you're going to be in here a while," Walker grinned evilly before departing as easily as he had phased in.
"Danny, what was that ghost talking about?"
"We need to create an escape plan," Danny said, ignoring the question.
"But-"
"Look, I think if you can create a distraction, maybe one of them will come in and open the door. If they do then…uh, well, I can go look for help," he finished lamely.
Maddie didn't look convinced this would work, but having no better ideas, she decided to go along with it.
Half an hour later, she was pounding on the walls and trying her best to sound as though she were crying.
"Danny," she fake sobbed, punching the walls a few more times for added noise.
Sure enough, a few guards floated through the cell's walls a couple minutes later. Danny's eyes were squeezed shut, but having not heard the door open, disappointment overwhelmed him. Still, he pretended to be dead, hoping his improvisation would somehow produce good results from here on out.
"What's wrong, human?" one of the ghosts asked his mom, sounding bored.
"My son," her voice quavered unsteadily. Danny almost smiled; his mom was an excellent liar. "I think he's dead."
The guards threw up their heads and laughed. They floated closer to get a good look at Danny through the dark, but as soon as they came within a few inches from his face, Danny jumped up and tackled one of them. The ghost fought furiously, trying to repel his attacker, but Danny had a good grasp around its neck, keeping it from going anywhere.
Maddie had tackled the other one in its moment of distraction of the assault on his partner, and both were struggling to get the humans off of them. Danny tried looking for a key, but the ghost was getting more violent the longer he held on.
Finally, the two managed to fling Maddie and Danny away from them, to the back of the cell. Enraged, they held up their hands, which began glowing as they prepared to blast the humans out of existence.
Danny's heart leaped into his throat, knowing this would be damaging, if not fatal, to be hit by those ectoplasmic blasts at this close range. Acting purely on instinct, Danny instantly created a green ectoplasmic shield around himself and his mom, just as the blasts were released from the ghosts' hands. The blasts ricocheted off of the shield and not only hit the ghosts but exploded the door open as well.
Danny fell to his knees after the impact on the door- which sent hundreds of pieces of tiny metal debris flying at them- but he managed to maintain the shield until all was calm again.
"Uhh…I'll explain later," he said in response to the horrified look his mom was giving him. Figuring there was no holding back now, he sent an ectoplasmic blast at the only guard left conscious and grabbed his mom's wrist. They fled their cell, but Danny had no idea where he was going now. This was a new area of Walker's prison, one in which he was completely unfamiliar with.
"Danny, tell me what's going on! What did you just do?" Maddie was yelling behind him over the sound of ghost rays being shot at them by guards that had been alerted to their escape. Danny turned around and shot several of his own green rays back at them, knocking several over but failing to stop the mass of guards that trailed behind the frontrunners.
Not watching where he was going, Danny turned back around and crashed right into none other than Walker himself.
"Escaping again, ghost punk?" Walker grabbed Danny by the collar of his shirt and held him off of the ground. Danny tried kicking him, but he knew he would be virtually powerless against Walker without the unrestricted use of his ghost powers.
"Hey!" a female voice came from behind Walker. Still strangling Danny, he turned around to face the new opponent. It was Maddie, holding the only weapon she had available: her phone.
"Let go of my son!"
Maddie threw the cellphone at him. It embedded itself in Walker's forehead but for a moment, it seemed like it hadn't caused any real damage. All of a sudden, however, it beeped and electrified Walker's entire body. Danny managed to escape just before the shocking current travelled from Walker's arms and straight through to him. Leaving the rules-obsessed warden to his agony, Danny sprinted to catch up with his mom.
They reached the exit, but upon throwing open the doors and jumping, Maddie and Danny suddenly realised they were in free fall. Without the Specter Speeder, controlling their direction and speed would be impossible in human form.
Danny looked into his mom's panicked eyes as she continued falling just a few feet below him. Silently begging her to forgive him, he closed his eyes and transformed.
Now in ghost form, everything felt lighter and much more controlled. Danny swooped down to catch his mom's hand and pulled her towards the direction of home. He purposely flew too fast to have any sort of conversation, and even though he avoiding eye contact, he could sense her gawking stare.
Finally, they reached the entrance of the portal that led back to Fenton Works, and Danny soared through it, as much as he was regretting the conversation or dissecting that was surely to follow in a few minutes. There had been no other way of escaping the prison, he tried reminding himself, but look at the price he had to pay! His mom knew his secret and he was toast.
Landing gently on the floor of the lab, Danny set his mom down but kept his back facing her once the adrenaline rush disappeared. There was a long, awkward silence. He wondered if his mom was searching for a scalpel or trying to find a weapon to capture him with before he could realise what was going on.
After several moments of absolute quiet, however, Maddie spoke in a soft tone. "Danny?"
Closing his eyes and preparing to the worst, Danny turned to face her. Her calm eyes met his now glowing green ones and she smiled. There was confusion etched in her face, but she didn't exactly look angry. Not yet, anyway.
She studied his face for another painfully quiet minute. Danny felt heat rising to his cheeks, both from fear and embarrassment.
Maddie took a step forward, but he immediately responded with a quick jolt backwards, trying to protect himself from a known threat. He felt awful thinking of his own mother as a threat, but after months and months of trying not to get ripped apart by her own inventions, it was hard to feel at ease around her.
Maddie frowned at his reaction. "After all this time?"
Danny shrugged. He had been rehearsing for this moment for a long time as a 'just in case' measure. But he hadn't been expecting the situation to go like this and was now forgetting all of the lines he had memorised just for this scenario. Seeing the expectant look on his mom's face, however, he merely nodded numbly.
Maddie, instead of running for the nearest stockpile of weaponry, smiled. Now it was Danny's turn to frown. He definitely hadn't been expecting this!
And it got even stranger: Maddie walked forward and hugged him. Danny's arms were sticking out, unsure of whether this was a trap or a real, genuine hug from his mom. Finally, he decided to hug her back, hoping this meant that this was her sign of the acceptance he had been wanting ever since the accident.
When she finally pulled back, he noticed tears in her eyes. She brushed his glowing white hair aside and kissed him on the forehead.
"I'm so sorry, sweetie," she whispered, gazing back into the green eyes that she could barely believe belonged to her own son.
Danny smiled and pulled his mom in for another hug. After all this time and all the anxiety he had gone through while trying to keep a secret from his parents, his mom now knew. And she wasn't mad!
"It's okay, Mom."
First time writing this kind of fic, please let me know what you thought! :)
