The Oblivious Partner/Free Day
Skulker was never a painless opponent. Sure, Danny had fought him dozens of times by now, but what could he say? Skulker had a passion for weaponry. Often, Danny would fight him one week only for the ghost to show up again the next week with a new experimental gun designed to inflict even more pain than the last one. This time he'd vanished for a month, and after the first two weeks, it had become a concern—one he didn't have the luxury of considering often, but still decidedly a concern.
So when Danny's ghost sense was set off during his morning science class and he spotted the hunter through one of the classroom's windows, he muttered a brief, "Wish me luck," to Tucker before his louder plea to take the hall pass to the bathroom. This was no time to be careless. Skulker wasn't one to take breaks from his obsessive hunting and had probably spent all of the last month designing something truly awful. Danny couldn't wait to find out what it was this time.
Eager to hurry this fight up to avoid injury and to hopefully get back to class in time to actually understand the lecture, he spared an anxious glance in both directions outside the door and took only a few steps out of view before going ghost and launching himself through the roof.
"Looking for me?" he shouted at the ghost. It was only after Skulker almost immediately pinpointed his location that Danny realized that perhaps he should have forgone the banter for a sneakier approach. Oh well, it was too late now.
Usually he'd exchange banter with any ghost that arrived during school for a few minutes, warming himself up before it came to physical blows. Today, though, he had an English test in 4 hours and only one other class besides science with Sam or Tucker to help him study. He's been fighting for a year and a half now. The warm-up was really more of a suggestion than a requirement by now, right? He had nearly full control of his powers without needing a practice period. He should be fine to jump right in. So he did.
A well-aimed ecto-blast flustered Skulker but wasn't enough to buy him the time he needed to grab his thermos. Skulker was eager enough to reveal his new toy after that, some kind of gun, but beyond that he couldn't tell what it was meant to do. He knew to keep a decent distance now; Skulker was a good shot in general, but he was damn near perfect at close range and Danny couldn't afford to give him that kind of advantage.
He could move fastest by watching where he was going, but the more prudent choice was to float backwards to gain the distance he needed without losing the ability to see and dodge several rapid-fire shots. It also gave him time to reach for his thermos… only to realize it wasn't there. New plan: grab a thermos ASAP. With that, he turned his back on Skulker and sped toward the school. He made an invisible dash for his science classroom where Tucker was still waiting and managed to unnoticeably sift through Tucker's bag to find the thermos without much more hassle. He exited through the same wall he'd just used as an entrance and spun around looking for any hint of the ghost.
A shot whizzed by him, missing his neck by what couldn't have been more than a couple inches, and he jerked his head toward where the energy had come from, finding Skulker floating above the school. He ducked out of sight and waited for the hunter to come to him.
It didn't take long, and Danny had two more ecto-blasts ready the instant the ghost came into sight again. One hit him square in the chest, but he recovered flawlessly and set his sights on Danny again. Most of Skulker's weapons could be avoided with simple intangibility, but it was a gamble to make that assumption for a new invention with no field practice. It would be safer to focus on flying in an unpredictable pattern to avoid getting hit. Plus, he needed to get away from the classroom windows just in case; no one ever knew which weapons would be effective on humans, and Danny shuddered to add any human injuries to his record, even if it was only indirectly his fault.
Narrowly dodging more shots, he darted away from the school while uncapping the thermos. Once he felt far enough from the other students, he spun around and immediately pointed the thermos at Skulker and activated it. Too bad for him, he was a second too late. Distracted by keeping the beam trained on Skulker, Danny didn't notice the final shot until it struck its target. Underneath the instantaneous pain in his chest from the blast itself, he felt a familiar sense of wrongness and prayed he was misremembering.
He was not. He didn't even have to look to know because he could already feel gravity regaining its normal power over him. What was probably one second dragged on as he desperately tried to regain control over his powers, but he had no luck. Danny Fenton came to a crash on the ground after his one-story fall, and boy this would be hard to explain if anyone had been looking out the wrong window at the wrong time, but that was currently only a secondary concern in the back of his mind. Most of his focus was dedicated to how much the ground jarring his left arm had hurt. There were other aches and pains, yes, but the arm was definitely the biggest problem. He looked down slowly, afraid of what he would see.
It… didn't look any different yet, so at least he had that bit of luck. He'd broken arms before though, and he knew the swelling and bruising wouldn't take too long to start showing. A jacket should hide everything important, and he always kept one at the bottom of his backpack for cases like this. He'd just have to get back to the classroom before anything looked noticeably wrong. He'd probably end up with bruises elsewhere on his body as well—especially where the shot had landed on his chest—but he looked passable for now.
His real concern was his healing ability. Normally, a broken arm would take a couple hours to heal, tops, but considering his sudden switch to human form and the fact that he recognized the weapon's feeling the same as Vlad's Plasmius Maximus—though how Skulker had gotten the blueprints for that was still a mystery—he doubted he'd have his powers back soon enough to make a difference in the school day. Maybe he'd be healed before bed if he was lucky. If he was particularly unlucky, the effect might last for days. That was a decidedly stressful thought, but for now he needed to focus on getting back to his science class.
This would be much simpler if he could just fly through the walls to get back in, but that wasn't an option now. He'd have to sneak in the old-fashioned way this time. Running made the pain in his upper arm feel unbearable, so he stuck to as much of a speed walk as he could handle on his way to the nearest side entrance.
The side doors were supposed to automatically lock after the first classes started for the day, but most of Casper High's students knew that wasn't actually the case. For all the administration said they valued security, the budget certainly didn't reflect that sentiment. A simple tug on the door revealed that this was one of the doors that no longer latched correctly. Danny peaked in and looked from side to side. Not seeing anyone, he creeped in before he realized that probably looked too suspicious and straightened up his posture instead. He kept up the speed walk to the bathroom he'd originally claimed he was going to. It hadn't been a fast fight, so he'd need as believable an excuse as possible. He and Tucker had come up with several favorites by now, each requiring different preparations.
He looked in the mirror to double check that nothing was astray. He had one visible cut on a forearm, but it wasn't too bad, and a little dabbing with a wet paper towel made it much less noticeable. It would be covered up with a black jacket, so any further bleeding should be fine if he was fast enough to cover up. The would on his chest was more of a burn than anything else; it constantly stung, but at least it didn't like it was going to leave blood stains on his white shirt. He looked paler than he'd expected to, though he supposed moderate to major pain could do that to a person… half-person? Whatever. Either way, that in combination with the fight taking fifteen minutes decided the easiest excuse.
He wrapped his arms around his stomach and tried for a fast trudge back to his classroom, torn between slowing down to look more believable or speeding up to minimize the studying time he'd lost to this fight. It didn't take too long to get to the classroom, and he made sure to slow down his pace before he entered and made his way back to his seat. His teacher directed a pointed glare at him, but he knew he'd succeeded in faking his misery when the look softened and she moved on with the lecture. He pulled on his jacket, and leaned over—a frustratingly difficult feat for someone who couldn't handle putting any weight whatsoever onto his left arm—to catch up on the studying with Tucker. He could definitely stand to be patched up right now, but there was no way he could get away with leaving the classroom with Tucker. And much as he'd like to, this wasn't something he could fully treat on his own.
It was a mark of how stressed Tucker was over the test that he didn't ask Danny how the fight went by the end of class. Danny wanted to bring it up to see if Tucker would be willing to skip his next class to help, but he couldn't risk looking like he wasn't taking this class seriously by texting or passing notes after leaving for so long already. He was only swinging this whole studying thing by pretending to be catching up with Tucker's science notes. He'd just have to get to Tucker after the bell. Tucker had an art class next, and he was always ready for an excuse to miss out on displaying his subpar painting skills.
The bell rang. Not surprisingly, his science teacher beckoned him to her desk. Danny spared a glance at Tucker first, trying to convey a simple, "Please don't leave me yet!" through the gaze, but he turned his focus to the desk at the front of the room and resumed his well-practiced "I'm sick, take pity on me" gait. It only took a minute to sell his teacher on the idea of an upset stomach after eating ectoplasm-tainted food for breakfast at home, but when he turned back around, Tucker was already gone. Great. He scanned outside the classroom, but Tucker wasn't there. It was too late then. If Tucker had left, his art teacher had probably already seen him in the classroom and it would be too suspicious to skip. Resigned to his doom, he continued the sick trudge until he turned the first corner and then began a healthier pace to his own next class. He'd just have to get through this until he could see Sam.
His math class dragged by. That wasn't to say that math wasn't normally a confusing hour that dragged on, but today was worse. He couldn't seem to find a position that kept his left arm comfortable; everything either hurt like hell or just left an uncomfortable tingle in the upper part. He tried texting Sam and Tucker to get help, but neither answered and he was left with the disappointing conclusion that they were both so focused on studying that they weren't going to notice anything until this test was over. To make things even better, his teacher had seen him putting his phone away after giving up on getting a response and snapped at him. Today was going to be one of those days where he accidentally upset everyone, he supposed.
By the middle of the period, he hadn't made any progress trying to study on his own for the English test, and he'd developed a lovely tension headache that made it even harder to focus on studying or the math notes he was supposed to be taking.
The bell rang, cutting off the class sooner than Danny would have liked and setting off his headache again, but at least he'd be able to get Sam's help if he got to his gym class early enough to cut her off. He slid his notebook into his backpack and tried to gently sling his bag over his right shoulder, hiding a wince and stifling a groan when he still managed to tap his other arm with the bag. Luckily for him, nobody tended to notice him most of the time in school, and this was no exception. He made his way to the hall, sticking close to the wall to avoid leaving the injured arm open to brushing other students.
He managed to make it to the gym without further incident. Now he just had to stop Sam before it was too late to skip class. He leaned against the wall far enough from the entrance to stay out of the teacher's sight. He'd had the impulse to sink into invisibility before he followed the urge and was reminded of this morning's encounter once more as his body stubbornly refused to obey the command. Instead, he'd just have to hope no one noticed that he was ditching class.
The transition period ticked by, and by the time the one minute warning bell sounded, Danny realized he must have missed Sam somehow. There was no way he could get her first aid kit or the spare one they hid in the school without his powers, so he finally gave up and slunk into the classroom. Oh, what he wouldn't give for even one simple painkiller right now.
He quickly found Sam in the bleachers near most of the rest of his class. Normally, they kept a respectable distance from their classmates in Tetslaff's class since the sheer number of bleachers made it easy, but as Danny got closer he realized Sam was trying and failing to discreetly listen in on a few other students studying for their English test. Great. He hoped this wouldn't be a repeat of Tucker in science.
His hopes were for nothing. They'd only had about thirty seconds left before Tetslaff called the class to a start, and every time he tried to distract her from studying to ask for the painkillers he so desperately wanted—because there was no way they could sneak out long enough to really take care of this arm now that they'd been seen—she tried to pull him back to the same damn paragraph of the book. Nothing was getting through to her, and time wasn't on his side. He sighed and committed to another hour of suffering and not being able to focus on studying.
Everyone was released to the locker rooms, and Danny realized he'd have to spark another afternoon of everyone thinking he was self-conscious about his body as he slipped into the bathroom stall to change. Well, maybe he was self-conscious? Not of his body shape like they thought, but weren't the bruises and cuts what drove him to hide? He supposed that counted as being self-conscious. He preferred his t-shirt and shorts as gym clothes normally, but he needed to hide his arm as long as it was clearly bruised and swollen, and he had too many bruises on his legs and probably his torso after the fall, so with a sigh, he gently pulled on his sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee instead. At least today was a free activity day.
"I'd better see everyone in motion until 1:50!" Tetslaff had ordered. It was usually a cause for celebration. Danny and Sam would typically join forces with a few other geeks and commandeer one of the half-sized basketball courts to relax and shoot hoops together, and it would actually usually be a good hour or so. When they had to study, however, they skipped the court and elected to walk laps around the gym floor, something simple that let them focus on the studying. They didn't have to communicate whatsoever to know that was today's plan.
Their English test came right after gym class, and Sam was well-prepared already. She had passed the notetaking and question answering phases and had circled back to rereading the four chapters they needed to know aloud so that she and Danny could both remember the content. Or so she thought. After a dozen times being cut off after only one or two syllables, Danny had given up on trying to tell her that he couldn't focus on this book through the sharp pain in his arm or the other minor aches that he'd discovered came with a one-story fall.
And so, it continued. Sam finished the first and then the second chapter and was moving forward into the third without a single break for discussion. He knew he should be paying better attention even through the pain, but his body was not having this right now. He was so not passing this test.
Suddenly, a poorly aimed basketball was hurtling toward him, and before he'd had time to react, it was already completing its path straight for his arm—his definitely still injured arm. Before he even had time to wonder where it had come from, he was overwhelmed by the suddenly renewed pain.
He didn't have time to think at all before black blossomed in his vision, and through the pain he felt a warmth spreading from his head. That didn't seem right. It was only his arm that was hurt, right? It was hard to tell, but he thought he stumbled when he tried to walk toward the bleachers to sit down. His vision was almost completely black? Grey? He couldn't even process what he was seeing. He could feel something touching his uninjured arm and heard a garbled sound that he thought was someone speaking, but everything felt distinctly wrong. He lost all sense of his surroundings.
When he opened his eyes next, he was glad to find his normal vision. The view was more of a surprise. He'd definitely been upright the last time he remembered, but now he was lying on the floor. He saw someone crouching by him and turned his head to see Sam's worried expression. Ms. Tetslaff was instructing the other students to continue their activities, but Danny could see her heading his way.
His enhanced healing didn't seem to be working right now, but he definitely couldn't afford for people to notice a broken arm healing as quickly as his would when whatever Skulker had done wore off. He needed an excuse, and fast. Luckily, Sam was thinking more quickly than he was and headed off the issue.
"I'm sorry, Danny! But I can't cover for you when you do things like this!" Sam cried. Danny was confused at first but soon realized that Sam was just taking advantage of the excellent acting skills she'd picked up through forced practice over time. "Ms. Tetslaff, please make Danny eat! I tried to make him eat lunch, but he kept saying he was too nervous about Mr. Lancer's test." Danny for his part put in the effort to fake an embarrassed expression, hoping it was convincing enough.
"Fenton! A test is no excuse for poor nutrition!" As least this was one of the less angry rants he'd heard from his teachers. There was even a touch of concern in Ms. Tetslaff's tone that left him feeling a little guilty despite not having done what he was being accused of in the first place. He apologized and finally had the luck to be dismissed with Sam. They'd only been given permission to walk together to a vending machine, but still. It was something. Sam was finally paying attention, and he convinced her to grab her backpack on the way out. Finally, he had a first aid kit. At least they could maybe bind the arm in place to help with the pain that came from moving it.
They did what they could with his arm in a secluded corner of the hallway, Sam biting off a gasp at the colorful bruises that had already started developing there. Danny, for one, was just thankful to finally have those painkillers to take the edge off the misery. At last the headache had started receding. They had twenty minutes left in gym class, but they dawdled next to the vending machines for ten of those minutes and then headed back in time to make two more slow laps around the gym before it was time to change back into their usual outfits.
It was do-or-die time now. Their English test was starting, and he hadn't been able to focus on studying since he'd left his science class this morning. They'd been sneaking in some studying throughout the week, but he still wasn't sure if he'd be able to pass this time. He guessed that was the price he paid to be able to keep his city safe, but the shame still burned strong every time this happened. At least he knew Sam and Tucker would probably do well this time.
However, opening the exam, he was surprised to find that he knew the answers to most of the questions right away. He had to guess on a few, but by the end he was pretty sure he'd finally managed at least a B on one of Lancer's tests. Of all the classes where he might have expected to actually do well on an exam, Lancer's English and literature classes were definitely near the bottom. This called for celebration.
After school at the Nasty Burger, Danny had time to ask how Sam knew to cover for his injury.
"I didn't," she admitted, "but lying is usually the best solution with you."