Screaming muscles spasming, arms trembling, Danny strained heroically against iron, his bloodless fingers clamped onto the beam like a vice. With herculean effort, the superhero managed to bring his chin over the bar by sheer force of will. Barely. He hung suspended another second, quaking like an tremor had struck, before pathetically scrawny human limbs gave out and his jaws clacked together as they slammed into the bar. Danny's head snapped back as his body weight dropped like a stone until he was hanging by stringy, shaky arms, panting.

"That was the most pathetic effort I have ever seen!" Bellowed Tetslaff, trying to fry him with her stare. "You couldn't manage a proper chin-up if your life depended on it! Twenty more laps around the gym and then do it again and I'd better see some real effort."

Having received actual looks that could kill (courtesy of Vlad), Danny was unimpressed with the gym teacher's stare and merely picked himself up, trying to stretch some life back into his limbs. Hauling multiple tons of semi-truck away from death strained even his ghostly strength to the limits. His whole upper body felt like someone had shoved half a dozen bars of molten lead in place of his muscles. Even jogging laps at the slowest pace he could get away with aggravated his sore arms.

Out of the corner of his eye Danny saw Valerie, like an Amazon of legend, chocolate skin gleaming from effort…

…firing a spear of rejection straight into his heart. The Red Huntress, without a single weapon, had dealt her most devastating blow to her worst enemy—in order to go out and hunt said worst enemy. Feeling all the energy choked from him; Danny turned away and resolutely did not look in…her direction.

Nearby Tucker hadn't even managed to reach the bar with his chin, though he obviously gave it his damnest. From beneath the high collar of his modified gym shirt, Danny could see the topmost of Sam's slightly cruder stitches struggle to hold straining flesh together. Suddenly the pain must have become too much. Tucker's eyes snapped wide and all the strength rushed out of his body as he collapsed, dangling from his arms for a second before falling to the ground. Tetslaff rounded on him. "Now that was the most pathetic effort I have ever seen! Join Fenton, Foley!"

Trembling, Tucker stood up and obeyed in silence. He couldn't plead for leniency without showing off his hidden wound and explaining how he got it, which was the last thing he wanted to confess. The techno-geek easily caught up with Danny's sluggish pace. "Dude, you okay?" he asked.

"I should be asking you that. Your stitches looked like they were about to pop," Danny replied softly.

Tucker tried to shift his collar slightly higher, but he hadn't sewed on enough fabric to cover that last stubborn stitch. "You're the one who fights ghosts all the time, figured you could do a few more pull-ups, especially since you don't have any injuries this time. I'm the one who spends all my time playing video games and—"

"—And fighting ghosts too. I'm just tired Tucker. The second I got to sleep there was a car wreck and…well it was a long night."

"You should have called us."

"No time. Besides you could use the rest." Danny eyed the inconspicuous bulge of a bandage beneath the altered collar. "Tuck, if that knife had been even half an inch closer…"

"I'd have gone ghost," Tucker joked.

"Yeah," Danny said, as serious as the grave. "You would have." Danny had been almost grateful for the screech of tires snapping him out of nightmares of knives, blood and a too-pale face beneath cracked glasses. Half an inch closer…

Despite being packed with sweaty teens, the gym suddenly felt far too cold.

"Dude cheer up, it's not your fault. Anyway you put yourself in danger all the time." More seriously he added, "Hell, you think it was easy watching you play hero flying away to fight Pariah Dark?" He stumbled to a halt. "I thought I'd lost my best friend. I thought you had died in there," he added brokenly.

"Move it Foley!"

Glaring at the gym teacher, Tucker continued jogging until they were neck and neck for the world's slowest race. "I…I'm sorry," Danny whispered. The words seemed pitiful compared to the agonizing certainty Tucker must have felt. To lose your best friend. He didn't think he could handle that.

In an alternate timeline, he hadn't.

"We would have been royally screwed if you haven't," Tucker admitted.

"Bad pun." Danny smiled softly.

Tucker continued in a softer voice, "It's just, we risk ourselves and that's our new normal now. Like you said after Walker's invasion if we don't who will."

"But I meant me. I have the superpowers. Something could rip off my arm and eat it and it'll probably grow back! But you...you're…" Danny waved a hand in the general direction of Tucker, trying to think of a nicer word before biting the bullet and speaking the harsh truth. "Fragile."

"You're both fragile!" Testlaff bellowed, making their hearts freeze. How much had she overheard? Damn they needed to be more careful! Anyone who suddenly figured it out could easily let their neighborhood unfriendly ghost hunters know and then it was bye-bye school, hello lab. "And it stops now. If you two don't have the motivation to beat yourselves into shape, someone else needs to beat it into you. Better students." For a moment her eyes landed on Valerie Gray and Danny felt his heart die all over again. Hastily he averted his gaze again. If Testlaff ordered Valerie to train him…that would be a dozen kinds of ironic hell right there.

Then again, maybe somehow they could work things out, if they could just talk it over. If he could reveal that he knew her secret. If he revealed his secret. If she blasted him into all eternity…yeah right. Danny slumped a little further than exhaustion alone warranted.

"Baxter. Manson." Football player and activist looked up from their cardio and weight training respectively. "You're handling these two geeks. Get them into shape! Baxter you take Fenton. Manson with Foley. If you don't pass the Physical Fitness Test I will find a way to hold you both back and make gym class your personal ninth circle of hell." Tetslaff glared at Danny and Tucker. "We clear."

"As a nightmare," Danny snarked. He received another glower from the gym teacher. "Get going!" She snapped before turning her back on them. Letting out a sigh of relief he looked at the bully. Right now Dash Baxter was a thousand times better than Valerie as a trainer.

How fucked up was his life?

Dash grinned openly at Danny, smacking a fist into the palm of his hand. "Don't worry Mrs. Tetslaff, I'll train Fenton real good."

"And I'll train Tucker real well," Sam added with a look far more foreboding than Dash could ever hope to make.

The boys exchanged empathetic glances, each certain the other had gotten the short, burnt, charred end of the stick.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Hopefully this chapter lived up to your expectations. As to why I made Tucker the medic, well he does have that A in sewing class, which a few other people point out. For me there's also a delicious internal conflict between one of his worst fears and one of his friends needing him to save their lives.