Disclaimer: I don't own DP.
Thanks to: Invader Johnny, Above the Winter Moonlight, ZoneRobotnik, DannyPhentom, Darth Synkka, Crystalmoon39, Turtledude83, SweetestChick, Silverstone007, Trish, Cookieplzandthnx, Margot-Eve, This is my jam, KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun, and Guest for reviewing last chapter! I'm so sorry you had to wait forever for this chapter. Been a rough few months, but your reviews and ideas got me through!
I hope that you enjoy this next installment of the Valentine thread (now that the year's almost over, haha. Cue sweatdrop).
Content Warnings: Language, some PG-13 sexual situations/conversations, and violence.
Deliverance
Chapter 27: Dan's Secret VALentine Plans (Part 5)
For a few days, Valerie and Dan fell into a rhythm, needling each other from sun up to sundown. They moved close and pulled away. He finished Crime and Punishment and began War and Peace, which was much longer than the previous and resulted in a strange conversation about adultery and cats.
Dan remained enraptured with Valerie's library and with occasionally helping her to catch up on months of work while guarding against Nathan's presence. Valerie began to trust him to wander without killing anyone, and so she sometimes found him on the couch beside the fireplace in the atrium, reading and keeping an eye on her office. The fire warmed his body in ways that were much simpler than smoking.
He still denied his monetary debts to Valerie.
"Valerie, dear," he complained on the evening of the third night while in her office, "I've already saved Amity Park several millions by not attacking it. That far outweighs a few measly articles of clothing. You should be thankful."
"Thankful?" she retorted dryly. "No, people are thankful when you do something nice."
He raised a brow. "I am doing something nice." The word dripped from him as if it were tainted and worthy of remaining wholly separate from him. "I am not attacking."
"That's common decency," Valerie corrected forcefully. "Expected behavior. A real act of kindness means doing something unexpected for the good of others."
The powerful ghost eyed her for a moment. Then he sniffed and grabbed something from under his chair. "I am not here to act kind." He seemed almost affronted, pulling up a full manila folder. "But your father did request I help him with the agricultural resourcing reports…"
"…What?"
"He said I had to contribute to your pointless society while I'm here," he complained. He flicked a his fingers against the folder. "And since I cannot simply slit his throat, it was either fulfill his request or actually work in the underground farm. Which I did not know existed—I always wondered how the insects of Amity Park all managed to eat in this bubble."
Valerie's eyes narrowed. In the last two days, her father had shown interest in integrating the mysterious D into the resistance—likely because he was assuming D would become a permanent fixture in their lives. That D and her would grow...more intimately connected, per all their physical affection. But his seeming easiness around her and her father had not changed his mind about the value of general humanity.
"Give me that." She snatched the file away from him quickly. "You don't need to see anything."
The powerful ghost huffed at her. "Yes, I do. This is all part of infiltrating an enemy stronghold." That devilish look—the spark of black that tainted his whole being—began to rear its head again. "I may yet obtain world conquest."
Her sculpted eyebrows flew up as she read over his calculations. "You wish," she muttered. To her surprise, it seemed that the resourcing report was clean, the delineation of food to various social sectors quite logical. Damn him for always being impeccable. She began to flip through the pages. "What, no offensive stick figures or anything?"
"No," he hummed merrily. "That's what your paperwork is for."
Her eyes snapped back to him, and she realized in horror that he had leaned over and was beginning to draw stick figures on her official report to the Mayor. He'd already managed to draw a maniacal-looking figure with a raised knife.
"Oh my god, don't do that!" She smacked his hand away with the manila folder, which left a dark streak all the way across the page of her report. Her eye twitched. "What are you, ten? Now I gotta rewrite the whole damn thing!"
Dan gave her a dark look. "And now I must to redo my assassin stick figure."
The exasperation in every line of her body tightened into anger. "You—" Dan's teasing nature was a horrific plague that she could not seem to escape. But she knew that this was his way of getting kicks without killing—which was a massive improvement. For him. She pressed her lips together, giving him a glare worthy of death. "You're gonna pay for that."
Dan's expression grew mischievous, delighted at her irritation. He leaned his elbows against the desk and eyed her straight. "How so?"
She huffed at him. "You and me in the training arena. Hand-to-hand combat. Right now. I'm tired of looking at your face without punching it."
He tilted his head, and then his smirk turned dark. "Challenge accepted." He cracked one of his wrists. "I'll bring you to your knees without an ounce of ghost energy, and you will finally acknowledge me as your natural superior."
"Ha!" she sneered at him. "You'll be the one on his knees."
The training area was a large gymnasium with a matted area. Although a plethora of training weapons hung from the walls, the two of them skipped the weapons entirely. Dan removed his jacket. Valerie pulled off the over-jacket of her uniform, revealing her tank top beneath, and she tucked her wild hair up into a high ponytail.
"Okay," she said. "The first one to hold the other down on the floor for five seconds or longer wins."
Dan's lips pulled into a teasing frown. "Why not to first blood?"
"This is hand-to-hand. Bloody knuckles don't mean a thing."
The man paced on his side of the mat, eyeing her in curiosity, as if to measure her will. "You intend to allow this…challenge to reach such a height?"
"I've never fought you in straight hand-to-hand," she said, circling around him as she stretched her arms. "I wanna know your skill-level without all that fancy power to get you out of a tight spot."
He processed the words for a time. And then a dark, maniac smile stretched his lips. "Oh, Valerie. I love when you talk dirty to me."
Against the fluorescent lights, a few raised scars on her shoulder glimmered. Valerie gave him a glare, a spark of amusement in her eye. And then she launched at him.
His lightning-fast reflexes kicked in. He grabbed onto her wrist, wrenching down as he forced her sideways. He spun her against him until her back hit his chest. His grip was hard and calloused. "You'll have to do better than that," he murmured in her ear.
Something in her body tightened up. Desire. Anger. She sneered, "I'm just warming up." And she swiftly jabbed her elbow into his chest, right above his power core, twisting around before he could recalibrate.
Their steps were a dance, their punches and blocks timed. Dan, even posing as a normal human male, still had strength like a battering ram—but Valerie knew how to leverage his own strength against him.
Her strikes were like a viper's. Hard. Fast.
It was the first time Dan had ever experienced the full breadth of Valerie's black-belt capabilities, as their usual fights were interspersed with weapons and energy beyond their bodies. He was used to relying on his power to defend him—to go intangible if she were about to land a damaging blow, to blast her back if she were too close. This was a whole new side of Valerie. His mind began to hone in on her movements with greater weariness, trying to calculate her next moves to better physically block them.
They circled each other. "You're sloppy," Valerie said. Her voice sounded a bit breathless. "Spoiled from all that power."
He laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. Some facet of him—an element of Vlad Plasmius—had received training in combat, but he'd not practiced such moves in a long time. "What's hand-to-hand if you can blast a city block?"
"I can do both," she said, dark lips twitching in half-amusement. "Looks like you can only do one."
The insult raised his hackles. Something in his false-blue eyes sparked with darkness, and he eyed her as an enemy once more. It was an old habit. He reverted to intimidation. "I'd hate to lose control and snap you in half."
"I'd like to see you try, sweetheart," she challenged hotly.
His lips curled into a snarl, and this time he launched at her. She used his center of gravity against him, flipping her body up to twist to the other side of him. He back-stepped and swung his fist. Valerie ducked and swept her leg out, kicking him hard in the ankle.
Instinctively, he fell in a roll, twisting himself back into a fluid, graceful stand. His body came to a stop, and a bead of sweat broke across his temple. The illusion of his human skin was a large, constant tax upon his power core. The defensive blocks Valerie was forcing him to undertake were cutting into his energy. He gazed at her in cold amazement. He'd thought he'd seen all of her moves.
She cracked her knuckles. "Getting scared?"
"Hardly," he snapped back.
"You're hesitating."
"I'm recalculating." He eyed her curiously. "You've been holding back on me all these years."
Her own temples shined with the sweat of her exertion. "We've never fought like this before. You would have blasted me by now."
And in that moment, a new appreciation for Valerie began to creep into him. If he were not a ghost, Dan doubted he would be able to stand against her. He gazed at her, eyeing her movements, feeling a smile stretch his lips. "This is rather arousing."
Her eyes glinted. "Is it?"
"You have no idea." He cracked his knuckles, mimicking her earlier movements. "I always love challenges."
By now, their fight was attracting attention. A small crowd gathered off to the side, beginning to cheer and call out to both Valerie and her mysterious boyfriend. No one ever dared to fight with the Red Huntress, mostly for fear of injury. It seemed that D was a trained fighter and strong enough to hold his own.
"Ten bucks on D!" a brave soul cried out.
"Nah, man—Val all the way. Twenty bucks she's gonna kick his ass."
"You're on!"
Valerie glanced out of the corner of her eye, and then she looked back at Dan. He looked terribly amused. "Valerie, dear," he called to her. "It appears that several of your comrades will be losing money tonight."
"Not as much as they'll lose over you!" she called back, attacking again.
But Dan was a quick study, his mind sharp and able to anticipate more of Valerie's fighting style. His blocks began more intricate, his movements more fluid. On some level, she was teaching him about the finer points of human defense. Perhaps she knew that.
Time blurred.
In the midst of punches and blocks and twists, Valerie knew that she needed to shut down the fight as soon as possible to avoid wearing down. She still had a few tricks up her sleeve she hadn't used on him. And so she coiled herself up for a final stretch, feinting back to avoid being pinned.
The long fight ended with Dan's back hitting the mat from an unforeseen drop-kick, Valerie's body crashing down to pin him hard—the breath rushing out of both of them—
Dan instinctively tensed to throw her off, but against the mat, she had him well-straddled. Her bare arms glowed with sweat as she pinned his limbs in ways that cut off the flow of ectoplasm. Five seconds passed. Her bare skin was like touching fire. "Got you," she said breathlessly in triumph as beads of sweat trailed down her face. Some part of her looked animalistic at besting him.
People cheered, some whistling loudly. Money grudgingly passed hands.
Dan's baritone voice was breathless. "I let you win," he said. The heat of her body and the demand of physical exercise on top of maintaining a realistic illusion had left him actually tired. "Were—circumstances different—"
"—But they're not," she mocked, her teal eyes narrowed playfully. She pressed her hands harder against sensitive pressure points. Dan's face twisted lightly in pain. "I won."
There was some kind of sadistic streak in Valerie—they both knew it—just as they knew of the sadistic streak in Dan, and likely the masochism in both of them that allowed them to torture each other for so long and enjoy it.
He leaned his head back against the mat beneath him, his dark hair strung about in several directions from losing its tie halfway into the fight. "For now," he warned. He tried to calculate various ways he could fight dirty and flip them over so he was on top of her, but she had him fairly well-pinned. Damn her. Damn that her hips were jammed against his. It was all so very distracting.
The woman reveled in her win for a small time afterwards, enjoying the way his breath shuddered from the exertion of fighting her. Then she pulled back and loosed her hold on his arms, half-intrigued that he showed signs of physical exertion at all. "You're sweating," she said, curious and amused. Despite the steel of her touch in combat, her calloused fingers were soft against his temple where sweat trailed down his face and into his hairline. There was something so human about him in that moment. His skin did not burn as hers did, but it was warm.
He closed his eyes, savoring the touch. It was rare for Valerie to initiate a physical act of affection. "Your heat affects me," he said. "My skin."
The implication—that at least his illusionary skin could reflect the heat she emanated—created new images in her head of bedroom experiences. And then she realized for the first time that she was straddling his hips in a rather compromising position. An overwhelming desire took her as she stared down at him, goose-bumping her sweaty skin until she felt cold. Their lips were not far away.
"This fight," he murmured, his eyes dark with sudden realization. Want stormed through him. "You just wanted an excuse to touch me. To be on top."
She froze, her teal eyes widening at his insinuation.
"Don't worry," he said, lips stretching. "I like you on top."
She pulled back suddenly, almost as if she were burned. She dusted off her pants and readjusted her tank top, which was soaked with sweat. "I need a shower," she said, purposely ignoring his suggestion. Her voice was tight. "You should get one too."
His eyes slid to hers in mild interest, even though his own internal ectoplasmic abilities would regenerate him back to an impeccable appearance. "With you?"
"No," she said sharply. "You'll take one in the men's washrooms down the hall." But something was shaken in her gaze and voice. Her vehement conviction was gone. There was an element of curiosity.
The what if.
It wasn't until they both turned around that they realized several people were still watching. Among them was the infamous Nathan Green, who gazed upon Valerie's sweat-sheened skin, his mind replaying the image of her straddling D.
Sometime later, Dan stood in the heated shower, closing his eyes at the feeling of the warm water. He had forgotten this simple pleasure as well. As a naturally cold being with full regenerative abilities, he had no need for heat. And yet something continued to draw him toward it.
He stared at the illusion of human flesh stretched across his hands, and he clenched his fists, feeling the tendons move. Perhaps his attraction to heat was simply the effect of his illusion. It was the most intricate manipulation of power he'd ever undertaken—built to mimic real human skin, which was itself designed to regulate heat.
Then he began to think of Valerie and the heat of her skin, and suddenly he chilled with goose bumps. He leaned his head into the stream of hot water, closing his eyes and letting the soap bubbles slip off his form. That woman, he thought merrily. That vindictive and bitchy—
Perhaps he'd let her win the combat exercise. Perhaps she'd truly bested him. He did not know, nor did he care. His thin lips stretched with the memory of her pinning him down with that awful glint in her eye. If she ever sat atop him again so smug…He could not guarantee he'd be able to stop himself from groaning in want, much less hold his illusion.
He certainly did not fear exhibiting affection for her. If she were capable of slamming him to the ground, none of his enemies would dare to cross her. He was delighted at the thought. A Queen equal to his King. She would be a powerful ally if there were some way to unite their purposes. And if she were ever to understand that the human race did not deserve her protection or mercy, instead of allowing Nathan to walk all over her…
Dan turned off the hot water and grabbed the towel he'd borrowed from Valerie, wrapping himself up as he squeezed the water from his hair. He began to think that along with Valerie and the best human cooks, he would allow some human engineers to live so they could build him luxurious bathing quarters all to himself. That would increase the number of humans living under his rule, which was a downside, but Valerie would appreciate his toleration of human life, which was a plus.
Dan quickly dressed himself, then began to pull his hair back into a ponytail. His face twisted in displeasure as his fingers hit tangles in the black hair.
As he turned the bend to the outer stalls and sinks of the washroom, he realized he was not alone. Nathan Green stood before one of the mirrors, and he looked over at Dan with some kind of triumph. Suddenly, all of the happy thoughts in Dan's mind squelched down into black rage. "You," he snarled.
"Hello, D," the man said, an odd smile on his face. "I saw Valerie beat you this evening."
Dan couldn't help it. He pushed Nathan against the wall with a harsh shove, narrowing his eyes. "What are you so happy about, snot?"
Nathan's triumphant gaze faltered in pain, but he still looked vindictive about something. "I know she hasn't slept with you."
Dan's eye twitched. Then he slammed Nathan harder against the wall, and this time the towel racks and mirrors rattled. "How the hell would you know that?"
"I know a lot of things," Nathan whispered shakily, that damnable smile lighting his feverish eyes. "I have my sources."
Dan's lip curled down. Valerie must have told that idiot bimbo something, and the idiot bimbo spread the word about their…tentative physical relationship.
"I'm g-gonna stop you," Nathan said, eyes wide. A nervous laugh loosed from his lips. "I'll stop you before she gives in. Before you ruin her."
Dan felt an overwhelming desire to murder the worm right where he stood, but he knew that his false appearance would likely suffer consequences. No—this Nathan before him was not armed or causing massive destruction. He released Nathan and sniffed. "Go ahead and try. Valerie desires me, not you. Nothing will change her disgust at your presence."
Nathan blinked at that. Then slowly, a blush creeped over his freckled face. "What she thinks doesn't matter," he said, voice tight. "She's blinded by you."
Dan looked as if he were seconds away from blasting the Nathan to kingdom come. "What Valerie thinks does matter," he said. Something in his face did not look human in that instant. "It's the only reason why I haven't strangled the life from you. Now leave, worm."
"Y-you're bad for her," Nathan said, swallowing back his fear and the memory of the man's steel punches. "She just doesn't see it."
"Listen here," Dan said, voice spewing venom. "I've watched you stalk her as nothing more than a piece of meat to be devoured. So if you want to play the white knight, go ahead. But you're as dark and as corrupt as I am."
Nathan's body shook. "You d-don't deserve her."
In another burst of anger, Dan tore him away from the wall so the man went spinning into a trash can. He found great pleasure in the way Nathan crumpled like a paper doll. "I don't deserve her any less than you do."
Nathan gasped in pain, his whole body shaking in fear. For a time, he lay crumpled on the bathroom floor. It was all he could do to drag himself to his hands and knees. "You're gonna ruin her," he groaned in pain. "The minute she gives in to you—you'll take everything she's worth."
"Valerie's value doesn't change whether she spreads her legs or not." Dan's voice was dark and rough. "She is invaluable. But for you—" His lips raised in a smile. It was not a happy one. "In your finite mind, that's all you care about, isn't it. Keeping her pure since you cannot have her." He hauled up Nathan by his hair, and the man cried out. Then he slammed the man into the wall again. "This is your last warning," he declared, voice fully displeased.
Nathan's cheek was scraped from the cement blocks lining the walls. He held a shaky hand to his ruined skin, eyes wide.
And then Dan sniffed and walked away, still seeing red.
Affronted by Nathan's continuing interest in Valerie, Dan began to take matters into his own hands. He knew Valerie would not approve of him murdering Nathan, but he needed leverage against the man. Something tangible to blackmail or intimidate him into submission.
The slightest thread of Vlad Plasmius twisted in pleasure at the thought of blackmail. Clandestine espionage.
And so 1:30 in the morning found Dan alone in Valerie's office. He was fully dressed in his street clothes and sitting at her desk. A lit cigarette spun between his lips, the smoke drifting up as he hacked into her computer.
His presence was really more of a clone of himself—he did not want Valerie to awaken in the middle of the night and see that he had snuck off to do insidious things while she was distracted. They'd been having too much fun for such back-steps toward distrust. She would never know that he'd activated his power and used a little invisibility for discretion's sake. He'd left the majority of his consciousness lying on the makeshift bed, eyes closed.
Valerie had been heavy in sleep on her stomach, her dark ringlet curls twisted all around her, face turned away on the bed. She was vulnerable, her neck and back exposed by her thin tank top. The sight had risen up some strangely protective impulses.
As he sat at Valerie's computer now, his face twisted in pensive thought. The screen illuminated his face, providing the only glow he'd had in days. "Now, Valerie dear," he murmured to himself, breathing out a puff of smoke. "What secrets have you hidden from me?"
He dug through her files, her contacts. The military-grade file share had several battle plans and approved emergency evacuation processes in the event that the Shield failed. But these things, while worthwhile, were not the target of his attention. Instead, he was crawling through her email for particular evidence against one Nathan Green. Valerie had remained excessively tight-lipped about the torments Nathan had subjected her to…
His blue eyes darkened with increasing anger as he scrolled through her emails. A whole folder was titled "Legal" and was filled with several communications between Valerie and…lawyers?
He read the first email, dated back almost a year ago. Commander Valerie Gray: Your request for a restraining order against defendant Nathan Green has been denied per unsubstantiated claims. If you feel this message has been sent in error, please contact us.
He found another email: Commander Valerie Gray: Thank you for contacting us again. We have escalated your appeal to the District Attorney, who will contact your personally for a hearing.
Then Dan noticed the name of the District Attorney. Lester Green. The name stung the synapses of his mind. Lester Green. A relative of Nathan's?
The fated email from Lester Green, however, was anything but endearing. Dear Valerie, I looked over your case, which I understand you've applied for two appeals now. I'm sorry to say that your lack of evidence still inhibits us from taking your requests seriously. I'm sure that you, as the Defense Commander and the famous "Red Huntress," are capable of minor issues and do not need the legal defense of the court. We are currently busy with a murder trial. My regards.
Valerie's own emails began to grow more heated. I provided evidence with six wedding rings in less than one year and multiple concerning letters in his own writing. Don't tell me your office lost them. I've been on a legal waiting list for three years to get representation. I can't just shoot Nathan like I can Phantom.
Dan inhaled a puff of smoke, mostly to hide the sudden ice of his power core revving in anger. "What the hell," he muttered under his breath. As he scrolled through, he found a few other instances, some signed with witnesses—all of them denied legal approval as substantiated evidence against Nathan Green. Did anyone know about her appeals? Her father? That Latin bimbo—Paulina? Anyone?
For some reason or another, it seemed the District Attorney was willing to keep his younger relative Nathan in Valerie's presence. But for what? Fame? Did the D.A. want Valerie to get with Nathan so that he could capitalize off of it somehow?
Dan's face twitched in great irritation, fighting down the urge to slit the throat of Nathan Green and this relative of his. It figured that the justice system would be corrupt, even in an apocalypse and at the expense of its own protector. Humans. Nothing made his ectoplasm pump faster than the sheer pointlessness and hypocrisy of human existence.
He began to think of murder again. How easy it would be to sneak to Nathan's room and put the bastard out of his misery. The need—the blood lust—suddenly made his fingers shake. It was an all-powerful desire that he had not indulged in days. He dragged hard on the cigarette, trying to focus on the silence of the room and the heat billowing inside of him. He was angry. Something had to die.
But Valerie... She would not express affection for him if he were to given into the blood lust. He would lose his ability to come and go in his disguise as D. And so he sat there for a time, trying to calm himself down, wondering what the hell regular people did when they were frustrated. He burned through his cigarette. It was not working. All that talk of smoke being relaxing—it didn't do a thing for him.
His finger tapped impatiently against the armrest of Valerie's chair.
Just then, his false-blue eyes caught sight of an email within Valerie's normal inbox. It was an email from her father, from earlier in the evening. Valerie, I know you are trying to catch up with D before the next attack, but we need help on several construction initiatives. Can you spare him for fixing up the Shield?
He stared at the email, eyes hard. Then he leaned his cheek against his hand and thought of the potential advantages and disadvantages to the elder Gray's request. "Hmm."
Valerie awoke in a good mood a bit later than usual. Her eyes opened of their own volition. Her body ached with a few pulled muscles from her hand-to-hand fight with Dan.
At the remembrance of his name, she stretched, looking to the side of her bed for her wayward, murdering and bacon-loving roommate. And then she froze mid-stretch, eyes wide and hair in a wild frizz down her shoulders. The blankets on the floor were pulled away with no one beneath them, street clothes and shoes gone.
No Dan. No half-naked, psychotic ghost asleep in the twist of sheets.
Her heart stopped as her whole body heated up in absolute terror. "Ohmigod," she breathed. She looked at the clock, which was half past five in the morning. She hadn't been awakened by screams or an alarm, so Dan had likely not gone on a rampage. Yet.
She launched off of her bed, grabbing for clothes. Her heart was pounding a horrific rhythm. "Ohmigod, he's loose." She'd been perfectly content with a lazy, sleepy Dan who wanted to flirt more than he wanted to kill. "Oh shit."
With his virus infecting Amity Park's security, her own battle suit would not pick up on his signature unless he left the city. As she had no alarm from her suit, she knew he had to still be within the city. Somewhere.
Tears burned her eyes. A very real fear—that she had again trusted him too much—frayed her nerves. If he injured even one person, it was on her for letting him stay. Maybe he'd gone stir-crazy. Maybe he was tired of playing with her and had to get a kill quota in. Maybe he was trying to steal even more valuable intel.
She struggled her way into her uniform, quickly buckling up and pulling on her combat boots before she raced out the door. She haphazardly pulled her hair back in a low ponytail, her curls still wet in places from her late-night shower. Valerie stumbled from the dormitory corridors and into the main halls of the resistance building. In a spark of inspiration, she raced to the cafeteria, praying that Dan was simply just eating breakfast.
But there was no Dan to be found there either. Only the usual, early-morning suspects.
"Margie," she called desperately to the woman at the counter. "For the love of God, Margie: tell me you've seen D."
The old woman gave her a wide-eyed look. "Why, yes. What's wrong?"
Valerie forced herself to rein in her panic. Margie had seen him. Margie was not dead. This was good. "Okay," she breathed in relief, even though her voice was still heavily strained. "Okay, I just need to know where he went."
The woman's eyebrow raised. "You two have a lover's quarrel last night or something?"
Valerie tried to think back to the previous evening. After he'd returned from bathing, he'd been far more silent than usual and had not even demanded a good night kiss. She'd thought it had just been from him being a sore loser and from being pushed into the public washrooms. "Maybe?" she admitted, although she would have thought a real quarrel would be an argument. With words.
"Well, he walked by in a huff this morning about something. He even fixed all of our uneven tables! I was worried."
Valerie blinked. "Wait. What?"
"He said he had some steam to blow off, and he grumbled some very interesting phrases about our dining tables." Margie shook her head. "That man of yours—he took some tools from your father and rebuilt a few things around here."
The young woman openly gaped. "He…rebuilt stuff? Like, did something constructive?"
"That's why I thought you two quarreled!" Margie said. "Really, dear. What did you do to him? He seemed very upset or worried about something. The only time I've ever seen a man act like that was when he was trying to get something off his mind."
With her luck, those "fixed" tables now had surveillance feeds or permanent signal disrupters. Even a good act from him seemed to carry an undertow of evil. Maybe she really had pissed him off.
A pissed off Dan was not good. He was always so touchy.
"Where is he now?" Valerie demanded.
Margie shrugged. "Outside working on the Shield, I think. He was speaking with your father about it earlier."
Oh, that was definitely not good. Calculating quickly, Valerie activated her battle suit, the panels smoothing over her form. She held out her hand. "I need a bribe. Give me some bacon I can put in my subspace."
The old woman handed her a small, Styrofoam box. "Way ahead of you, deary."
The sun had yet to rise, and only a dull gray covered the outside world. Everything was harshly windswept, with snow piles banked against the building and the nearby Shield towers. Valerie's battle suit began to kick in its internal heating mechanisms.
She narrowed her eyes, and there—in the distance, she could see a dark figure atop one of the towers. She activated her jet sled and stormed up, streamlining her body against the winds. The land grew small beneath her as she surged forward. "What the hell are you doing out here?" she called, almost in panic. "Screwing up even more of my stuff?"
Dan had yet another cigarette hanging from his lips, looking entirely comfortable in the frigid air. He looked as if he were just finishing up. He pushed a protective panel back into place, screwing the nails in with a learned precision. "Relax," he told her dryly as she landed on the platform. "I increased the electromagnetic output and hooked up the tower to a new transformer. It was glitching out and putting stress on this tower—hence the circuitry always shorting out."
She paused, blinking in surprise. She deactivated her helmet to see him for herself, and the harsh cold kissed her face. "But that's helpful," she accused in suspicion.
"Of course it is," he sniffed, raising his chin. "This place is a dump held together by termites. My sense of perfection can't take your people's mediocrity." He waved out to the air. "I also fixed up towers one through five, in case you're curious."
She leaned in. "But…why are you helping?"
He waved off her concern. "It's like playing chess with myself." He knocked on the tower, and it rang a deep, metallic thrum. "A better challenge for next time I attempt to dismantle Amity Park. I won't get bored if the barrier doesn't shatter like glass on the first try. Your father also…deeply appreciates my willingness to contribute to the cause."
"Margie said you were mad this morning," she said suspiciously, walking closer to him as if to inspect him.
He turned to face her, and tilted her chin up, marveling at the cool of her skin and the cold flush across her cheeks. "Yes," he murmured. His baritone voice was a warmth to her. "To avoid breaking our…nonviolence pact, I had to focus on my goal of further infiltrating this miserable city to protect you."
Her nose scrunched, and she pulled away from his touch. "You're probably just engineering new weaknesses into the Shield. Don't try to play me."
"Strengths are weaknesses, and weaknesses are strengths," he said her, casting away his cigarette to the metal platform. "It's all a matter of perspective. You think you're safe inside this bubble, but it's a den of snakes."
The cold air whipped his dark hair up, loosening it from his ponytail. The dark locks flickered against his sharp face, and for a second, Valerie's mind was unable to separate out his illusion skin from his true self. She flinched away—not out of fear, but out of the very odd realization that her enemy stood before her as a friend. It appeared he was not specifically angry with her at all, but something to do with Amity Park.
She tried to ignore the odd thought and said, "Stop messing with the Shield, and I'll give you something in return."
His eyebrow raised. "Oh?"
She leaned over, popped open the subspace on her jet sled, and offered up a piece of bacon from the box.
His false-blue eyes widened in sudden, desperate excitement. "At last," he moaned, snatching the bacon. He bit down in bliss upon the strip of meat, closing his eyes.
She pursed her lips, unimpressed. "What are you, a stray cat or something?"
He gave her a signature smile, which was somewhat less effective with a strip of bacon hanging from his lips. "I am not a stray cat," he said, voice muffled as he bit down on the bacon, ripping away the remainder. "As if a domesticated animal can even compare to my prowess."
"You don't have prowess," she said flatly. "You're just sick."
His expression darkened with something psychotic. "Well." He tilted his head to mimic her. "I suppose I am a bit…sick." He swallowed the rest of the bacon piece, circling around her. "As are you, Valerie dear."
She crossed her arms. "In what way?" she demanded.
He pressed up against her from behind, sneaking his arms around her waist. "You desire me," he whispered in a tease. "That takes someone of significant insanity."
Her face twitched, and she tried to shove him off, but he held tight onto her waist, marveling at the heat emanating from her battle suit. "Get off of me," she complained, face blushing. He was stealing her body heat, and she was once again in the arms of her enemy. "Too much touching too early."
His smile stretched. "No."
She budged against him. "That wasn't a request. Move."
"I'm not a solder," he said airily. "I don't have to listen to you, Commander Valerie."
"It's Commander Gray, and I will force you to let go if you don't."
"You're just afraid of emotion," he said dramatically, holding on tight. "You don't know how to respond to positive feedback."
"I'll show you positive feedback," she muttered, eye twitching as she blushed. "Seriously. I got better things to do than stand here."
"No, you don't," he hummed, leaning his head against hers.
The two of them stood atop Tower 9, wrapped up in each other, his body shielding hers from the cold winds. And then Valerie sighed and leaned her head against his, "I hate you."
They fell silent for a time. He nuzzled his face into her neck, reveling in her heat and the scent of sand and exotic flowers. "What must you do today?" he asked, voice almost soft.
Something about this felt domestic, easy. Comfortable.
"A lot," she sighed. "There's always everything to do."
"Even when the dastardly Dan Phantom hasn't knocked on your doorstep?"
Her voice was dry. "Especially then."
Amity Park had gone almost three days without an attack from Dan Phantom, which prompted a few to wonder if perhaps Phantom had made good on his threats to seek the Ghost King's power. That made both citizens and resistance members uneasy. Some began to state that the end was near. Phantom was going to return with an army. Phantom was going to decimate them.
Dan seemed delighted at the level of fear his absence inspired.
"Do you hear that?" he called to her. He was working on fixing the blinds of her office, which did not want to shut all of the way. The lack of total privacy made him think that Nathan would use it to an advantage. "The insects miss me. My cold, black heart is warmed at the sound of their worry." He inhaled. "I can almost smell their fear."
"They're not insects." She was distracted over her work yet again, typing furiously on her computer. "And that's not fear you're smelling—it's the window cleaner. Remind me again why you keeping fixing things."
He snapped the blinds to catch her attention. "Because you won't let me kill Nathan," he said, almost in a pout. "And if I have to exist in this decrepit environment with you, then I will have it to my standards. Which is perfection. And privacy."
Valerie's fingers paused over the keyboard, and her eyes flickered up to him in suspicion. "I'm surprised," she said slowly, "that you're actually following the whole non-violence agreement."
"I can think of over one-hundred ways to murder Nathan without any traces leading back to 'D.'" The ghost deftly worked to re-twist the strings on the blinds. "But you would make him a martyr against me if I kill him."
The woman stopped working entirely, eyes narrowing. "What does that mean?"
He looked up at her, "You honestly believe his life has value. You would hold it against me. And I will not have him come between us in death." He twisted the blinds shut with a satisfied appraisal that he had fixed the problem. "No, I will have him reveal his own darkness to your people, and your people will have no choice but to confront that Nathan is dangerous. If the insects have even one iota of a brain, they'll lock him up and throw away the key."
Valerie scoffed, but the lines of her body grew a bit uncertain. "He's not dangerous. Just an…annoying pest."
"That's what he wants everyone to think," Dan said, voice dark. "That's what you've convinced yourself to believe because no one else has listened to your complaints."
"What do you—"
"—Even that bimbo Paulina talked about him as if he were some sort of harmless peeping tom. A little sprite to be turned away with a simple talisman." His eyes narrowed. "But he's more. Trust me, Valerie. Evil knows evil."
She held his gaze for some time, the tension heightening between them. "You know I could protect myself if anything happened," she said slowly. "I kicked your ass last night."
He pointed a finger at her. "You sat on my ass and held me down, but that's irrelevant. Obviously, your black belt's not being used against Nathan. Explain to me why you felt the need to appeal for a restraining order against him."
Her face twitched in shock. "What? How did—how do you know about that?"
Dan diverted, accusing, "You don't feel your morality allows you to kill or injure Nathan since he hasn't threatened you. So you turned to alternative means of securing privacy. Like a good, little law-abiding citizen." His voice dripped in sarcasm. "But a piece of paper will not keep him away."
"Hey, it's more than a piece of paper, okay?"
"And you're more than a pushover. What are you not telling me?" he demanded. "Obviously your legal representation has failed to deliver."
Valerie snapped, feeling cornered. "Dammit, it's not that simple—"
"What's not that simple?"
"This! All of this, okay?" Something in her look scared, even as she stood up. "I have a reputation to keep up. People—they believe in Red Huntress. What she stands for. What she does." She swallowed hard. "I represent this city in everything I say and do. I'm expected not to let minor nuisances get to me while upholding justice for all. I'm expected to be invincible. The appeal for a restraining order was just an attempt to control the problem quietly."
"Well, isn't that just patriotic." He looked as if he were seething beneath that human skin of his. "No one has any idea of the depths Nathan has on you, do they?"
She bit her lip. Her silence spoke volumes again.
Dan's expression was guarded as he walked toward her. He crossed his arms. "Tell me what he has done. You're purposely hiding things from me. And from everyone else but your biased lawyer."
She rubbed her temples. "I don't want to talk about this," she said. It was a poor response and hardly even a deflection. "Not right now. I have work to do."
His face twitched in displeasure. "This is more important."
"Dammit—Nathan doesn't deserve to die, and I'm not going to jeopardize anything with my job to stop him. If you want to help me, then keep being D. This is the least Nathan's bothered me in a long time. This plan of yours is working." She hesitated. "It's just…going to take some more time."
He huffed at her. "You are so blind."
"And you're not exactly a voice of reason, Mr. Massacre."
He sat opposite of her desk and grabbed for War and Peace, which he'd managed to read halfway. He grumbled against her for a time or two.
The two fell into silence at that, and Valerie sat back down in her chair with a huff, understanding that Dan was playing mind games with her. She tried to return to her work, but a cold feeling had gripped her now. The thought that she was not in control. That she was missing something.
In the hours that passed, the two grabbed lunch, and Dan received a new administrative assignment from Valerie's father. He moaned at the pointlessness of the paperwork behind closed doors.
"What is it with you humans and paperwork?" he complained once they were back at Valerie's office. "It's entirely inane. Look at this. Fifty pages of change requests for supply shipments to Jasper. Just let them rot in peace."
"No, they're a protectorate of ours." She raised a sculpted brow. "And since you tried to destroy them earlier, consider this poetic justice."
His eyes rolled. "Please. I will still destroy them, regardless of whether I bullshit my way into your administration or not. This is a temporary concession only. The calm before the storm."
"You know I won't let you destroy them."
A merry glint worked into his gaze. "Then expect another bout of that delightful hand-to-hand combat. But with my ghost strength."
"Bring it on," she challenged mildly, going back to her work. As she looked for an extra pen, she realized one of her desk drawers was propped open. She raised a brow in curiosity. "Huh. Could have sworn I shut that…"
But the shine of a box caught her eye. She opened the drawer a bit more and pulled out the unknown object. "What the…? Was someone in my office?"
The box was small, with a sticky note on top. Just in case, the note said in Paulina's bold print. As she stared at the box, she realized in shock what it was and nearly dropped it.
Condoms.
"Oh." Her face flamed up with an incredible heat, and she stared in shock for a second or two. And then something cold raised the hair on the back of her neck.
Dan looked up from his work. "What is it?"
With a squeak, Valerie looked up, eyes wide. Dan was staring with a raised brow, then he looked at the offending box. His disgruntled expression turned into one of great amusement. He leaned forward and grabbed the box with the note. "Fascinating," he said, spinning the box. "It appears that your bimbo friend approves of us increasing our sexual relations."
She stared at him, slightly horrified at his presence in that moment. She blinked dumbly, jaw dropping.
Dan sniffed and then cast the box into the room's corner trash can. The amusement fell from him. "Such precautions are entirely unnecessary, of course. Paulina should not have done this."
Valerie blinked again and tried to find her words. "…What?"
His face grew a bit dark, and his lips tightened into an odd line. "I'm dead, Valerie. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get you pregnant." Then he looked back down at his work, a dark shadow around him. "It's a pointless fear."
Valerie sat in the silence of her own awkward thoughts. This was another one of those topics that was dangerous. Eventually, she stood up and began to walk toward the trash can (it would not do to have the janitors find something so damning in her trash). She pulled out the box with hesitant fingers. "How do you know that?"
"Research," Dan said vaguely, not looking up from the paperwork before him. "You're not the first human to catch the eye of a ghost. Any attempts to create a child between a full-ghost and full-human have resulted in nothing."
A strange and awkward silence came over them. "But…you were human," Valerie said, voice hesitant and roughly suspicious that he was lying to her for some reason. "And ghosts can have kids. Remember that, uh, lunch woman and the box idiot?"
He loosed a short laugh. "Was. I was human." He pulled out a cigarette from his jacket and began to light it. "And ghosts don't make children the way humans do. Sex is a human concept."
She narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"A ghost infant is created on the basis of a mutual obsession, not mutual physicality. Box Lunch, the ghost you were referring to, wasn't born. She was built out of fused ectoplasm from her parents' power cores." His face twitched with disgust nevertheless. "I cannot even fathom those two exhibiting physical attraction enough to simulate human sex."
"…Oh." She wasn't sure if she felt disappointment or elation. If it weren't even possible to get pregnant from him, the concept of a physical affair became a lot more attractive—nothing to hold her back or worry her beyond the simple issue of secrecy. She'd never wanted kids. But the fact that the very option of children did not even exist with him was a…new tension entirely. What did that mean? Why did it bother her to know that she couldn't have children she never wanted with an enemy she was supposed to hate anyway?
"I always wanted one," he said suddenly, exhaling smoke in a dark sigh. "A daughter. A son. An heir to rule with."
Valerie tentatively dropped the box of condoms back into her desk drawer to hid it from prying eyes. "Why?" she asked curiously. "You're not exactly the father type."
His eyes slid to her. "No," he agreed, "I'm not." He could very blindly recall images of the shame and embarrassment that was Jack Fenton. Vlad Masters's father had been cruel and abusive. Dan's impulse for a child did not derive itself out of a need to be a father, for he did not know the meaning of the word. It was simply a selfish impulse for company—for someone to gaze up at him in total awe and adoration. A chance to mold a mind to his will.
"If you don't even have to do it to make a kid, why haven't you yet?"
His nose scrunched. "A child inevitably reflects both parents, and I would not have my power diluted. The other ghosts are idiots, hardly above animals with their pointless obsessions and weak power cores."
A silence came over them at that.
"But none of this should matter to you," he said curiously, setting aside the paperwork. "I would think you'd be joyous to discover my…barriers to reproduction."
Her mouth felt dry. She realized Dan was admitting something that was likely hard for him speak about. A deficiency of some kind. Their ultimate incompatibility—that their relationship was in some way unnatural, per the simple fact that humans and ghosts made babies differently.
"Well, I don't want kids, and I definitely don't want any with you," she spat out on instinct to hide her real confliction. Words began to pour out of her mouth—babbles to bolster herself. "I don't even want sex with you, so who cares."
The spark of vulnerability within him died, and his blue eyes hardened. His lip curled in anger. Then he stood up and smashed his cigarette against the wood of her desk, burning a dark mark.
Her jaw dropped, and anger flared into her. "What the hell are you doing?" She stomped over and smacked his hand away from the desk "Don't wreck my stuff!"
"Don't lie to me," he snarled, his voice nearly echoing with the demonic undertone of his true ghosthood. He stood up to face her. His blue eyes were twisted in genuine anger this time. "Don't pretend with me to save face."
"Oh, yeah?" she challenged, not one bit intimidated by him. "Which one of us is wearing an illusion?"
"You tell me, Valerie," he hissed. Her name sounded like a curse. "I felt it. Your desire for me. Now look me in the eyes and tell me again that you don't want me at all."
Her heart burned in anger against him. "Oh, so we're back to demanding sex, huh? What happened to just wanting to spend time with me?"
He stepped forward, nearly nose to nose with her. "What happened to the unafraid Valerie who could at least admit that I'm not making this up?"
She stopped, her face growing red in a blush. "Well, dammit—I—" Her voice faltered. It seemed all of their arguments recently had been a result of her. "I'm a defense commander. You're my enemy. It's not supposed to be like this." She waved her hand to the air. "And you—you just told me that we're not compatible. That we're physically unnatural together." Her voice broke. "How am I supposed to take that? You know? Maybe that's a sign. A cosmic sign that means we're not supposed to keep going. That this—all of this—is just a lie."
He broke away from her, looking as if she'd struck him in the face. "What's the lie?" he demanded. "Our desire for each other?"
"That we could ever work," she clarified, voice halted. Her face grew pained. "The more involved I get with you, the harder it's going to be when the shit hits the fan and you go back to killing people."
And then dead silence fell between them.
Dan stared at her hard, face pinched in unmeasurable anger. He looked as if he could not speak for some time. Then, he breathed, "You infuriating, bitchy, hypocritical—" He bit his tongue, then started again. His voice was hard with desperation. "I'll make it work. We'll make it work."
He kissed her then, hand reaching for her waist.
Valerie's thoughts scrambled completely. She gasped at the feeling of his kiss, tingles running down her spine. She could feel his passion—his determination. It was all she could do to pull away. She declared, closing her eyes to fight off the pleasure, "I'm not having sex with you."
His long fingers swept against her hand, interlocking with her own. "You already are," he said, eyeing her deep. "In your thoughts. In mine."
The truth hit hard. She looked terribly afraid for the first time, as if she were finally realizing the full extent of her attraction to the infamous Dan Phantom—and his attraction to her. That this was not a simple lust to be cured by someone else, regardless of whether it were natural or not. The flame of a guilty blush on her face gave her away.
His free hand raised to stroke the soft of her dark cheek. "I would create life with you if I could. But I can make love to you in the human way."
Valerie looked up at him, eyes wide. "I, uh…"
He leaned forward. "Give me a chance," he whispered, almost a beg. "Valerie."
Her stomach dropped hard at the sound of her name in his mouth. It sounded absolutely sinful. Every syllable was a moan.
Oh my god. Everything in her tightened up in want for him. When she leaned her head up, their lips touched. It was a fire. He kissed her, and she kissed him.
Their kisses grew heavier until Valerie was gasping against his lips in the spaces between them, hands weaving hard into his clothes and hair. She felt his large hands run down her sides, ghosting along the curve of her breasts and the swell of her waist. He bunched up the material of her uniform, as if he were desperately trying to feel through it.
Tingles began to storm down her spine. This was a whole new level of intention. She didn't even realize Dan had pinned her against a wall until her back hit it, and she squeaked when his hips pressed tightly against hers. Her heart skipped at the feeling. Trying to move made the friction between them greater. She suddenly couldn't think beyond the feeling of him. The burn in her belly. That she wanted this. Him.
The man—he was not just a ghost in this instant, but so much more—groaned, capturing her lips with his. He grew more desperate for her, his fingers pulling at the belt buckle of her uniform, as if to rip it off.
Her hands pulled at the hem of his shirt, fingers digging into his bare side to hold onto something steady. She could feel the twitch of his hard muscles, the erratic rev of his power core.
By that time, he'd managed to unbuckle her belt and was pushing back the jacketed layer, revealing her dark skin and white tank top beneath. His cold hands sensually brushed against the bare skin of her arms, goose-bumping her whole body.
At the feeling of his hands on her skin, she pulled away from the kiss, breathless and in awe. The two of them stared at each other with mindless desire. For a second or two, they hesitated. Then he leaned down to kiss her again, stretching her lips open in a slow rhythm, taking his time to feel her.
And then a knock sounded at the door, and the two of them froze entirely.
"Chica?" a female voice called out. Paulina. Another short, impatient rap pounded on the door. "Chica, we got an emergency in Jasper!" The door opened before either of them pulled away, and Paulina's eyes widened at the sight of Valerie pushed up against a wall by her boyfriend, their clothing disheveled and half-undone. She froze in the doorway, and then a look of horror came over. "Dios mio," she breathed, and she slammed the door shut.
Valerie's brain kicked in again at the sound. She flinched away from Dan. "Oh my god."
Dan's eyes were closed tight in need, his fingers still tight on her arm. For a second, he looked as if he would groan or cry. Then his eyes snapped open, and they were blood red as they narrowed at the door.
Fear swept through Valerie—the thought that Dan would not hesitate to kill Paulina. She shoved him to the side, eyes wide.
"Uh, hold on!" she called out nervously to Paulina. Her voice was hoarse. "I'll be out in a sec."
She quickly restrung her arms through her now-rumpled uniform, buttoning up the front, feeling very distant from herself. Her fingers were shaking, and she looked up oddly at Dan, realizing for the first time just how far she'd let him go. She re-bucked her belt and tightened the rungs to smooth out the uniform against her curves.
He looked miserably put out, his hair a mess from her fingers pulling out his hair tie, his shirt and jacket no longer pristinely fitted against him but skewed. His face twitched, and then his fists clenched. "That—" his husked voice was halted. Rage overwhelmed him, robbing him of words. All he knew was that Paulina was going to die. "That."
She grabbed onto his hair and pulled his face down to her level. "Don't you even think about it," she demanded in a harsh whisper, narrowing her eyes at him. "You hear me?"
His red eyes snapped to her, bleeding back to blue. His lip curled in a growl. "She needs to die," he said, voice low and worn with pain. "She ruined it."
An awkward space opened between them, in which they knew the true depths of their attraction but had not obtained. Valerie was still trembling in ways, her body still burning for him. And yet she forced herself to step back. "I should go," she said. "I can't—" She pressed her full lips together, as if to keep herself from saying more. She looked afraid and vulnerable. She did not trust herself around him anymore. The innocence—that she could pretend it was all a game, just physical fun—was gone.
He reached for her arm, his anger at Paulina giving way to his sudden realization that this woman before him was leaving. "No, wait."
She pulled away another step. "We'll talk later," she said lamely, mind racing.
Then she raced out the door, leaving Dan standing alone in the silence of the room, his body still warm with the heat from her.
Valerie was very unhappy and embarrassed as she stormed down the hall. "Whatever's wrong with Jasper, it better be serious," she snapped.
But Paulina wasn't even paying attention to the original concern. "Oh my goodness," she was babbling, "so not that I meant to intrude, but you two would make such cute babies—please tell me you'd make me the godmother. I'd be the best godmother ever. I'd spoil them and everything. Can I take back the gift I gave you earlier?"
Valerie's eye twitched. "I'm not having kids. Definitely not with him."
"Why not? It totally looked like you were trying to make something." Paulina jabbed her elbow into Valerie's side. "Right? Right?"
The woman's face burned an even brighter red. "Shut up, Paulina."
"Why are you so embarrassed about all this? Sex makes babies. Fact of life." Paulina's voice was airy and sighing. "I mean, I know it'd take like nine months out of your day job, which is why I gave you that gift—but really, Val. I can just see you and him cuddling a baby between you, and it's the most precious thing! Two kickass fighters making a baby and getting all protective."
Before Valerie could think it through, she snapped, "He can't have kids, Paulina."
The beautiful woman paused and looked absolutely affronted. "What? What does that mean?" Her eyes widened. "He doesn't have like, a disease or something, does he?"
"No," Valerie groaned. Oh my god, why did I open my mouth?
"Why can't he have kids?"
Her mind raced. "He was in a…contamination accident. Made him sterile."
Paulina whined. "No cute babies? Nothing? Honey, he's gotta be lying to you. A sexy man like that's gotta be able to have kids. Even if they'd be mutants or something from radiation."
Valerie raised her chin. "Well, maybe I don't want kids," she said, almost defensively. Then she stopped herself. Why the hell was she defending anything?
Paulina blinked. "But what about when you're old and need someone to take care of you?"
"…That's selfish, Paulina. That's not a reason to have a kid."
"But…but—legacy!" the woman began to argue. "Your whole family line will die out if you don't have a kid! You're the last Gray!"
"So?" she challenged.
"You mean that doesn't scare you?"
In some ways, it did. She pressed a hand to her temple, feeling a headache coming on. "Look, a kid sounds nice in abstract, right? Giving life and all that. But maybe it's just not for me. Maybe that's okay." She sighed. "Now tell me what's wrong with Jasper. It better not be Phantom."
Paulina's lips thinned in irritation at the change of subject. Valerie was always so closed off. She huffed. "Jasper's trying to build a better Shield before Phantom attacks again. They want you to oversee the project and approve their plans." Her blue eyes narrowed. "Which reminds me—when did I become your secretary? Since D spends so much time with you in your office, can he be your secretary instead?"
The afternoon gave way to evening, and darkness blanketed Amity Park. Valerie had successfully managed to avoid Dan for over five hours. She worried that she'd truly pissed him off because he had not come around to see her, which usually meant he was plotting something.
By the time she'd left her father's office, the clock blinked 7:00 pm. Her virtual conferences with Jasper's military detail were stressful, mostly because her father had been providing his input from an administrative perspective—and the infamous Dash Baxter had been deployed to man the transportation of building materials. The three of them did not see eye to eye on anything.
"Oh my god," she breathed in complaint, feeling a headache strain behind her eyes. Dan was probably seething at her, pacing holes in the floor somewhere in the resistance to keep himself from shedding his human skin.
She almost did not want to see him. It was a weary fear. An embarrassment to think of him and the things she'd allowed him to do to her in her office. It was even more harrowing to think of that ridiculous condom box and that they'd even had a conversation about what it would mean to sex each other up. She still needed time.
And so she began to calculate. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Right.
Valerie soon found Dan on the couch in front of the atrium fireplace. A large fire radiated heat and light, and he appeared to be comfortably finishing up his book, War and Peace. Biting her lip, she set a cup of hot chocolate before him.
His eyes slid to her, and he raised a brow. "What is this?"
"A peace offering." She sat down next to him on the large couch, holding her own cup tight.
"We're not fighting."
"Not yet."
His lips twitched. "Very well. Continue to seduce me with delicious treats, and I might grant you mercy." He raised the coffee mug to his mouth and delighted in the rich warmth of the chocolate. It pooled down to his belly, where his power core immediately began attempting to convert it to ectoplasmic energy. It was a very inefficient process but far more enjoyable than siphoning energy from the air. "Now tell me why we will fight."
Valerie did not break gazes with him. "I have to work late tonight," she said.
He face-faulted.
His expression made her babble. "Some stuff came in—I'm still behind on a lot. I need to trust you not to…go crazy or anything while I work."
The powerful ghost narrowed his eyes, and his face tightened in displeasure. "You are stalling for time," he read between the lines. "You fear being alone with me now."
Valerie clenched her mug a bit tighter. Honesty was probably going to be the best policy with him, which burned her deep in her desire to appear unaffected. She fell very silent, not sure how to explain what she felt.
He measured her up, trying to calculate a response with the greatest reward. "Did I injure you?" he asked casually, knowing that he hadn't.
Her face tinged red. "N-no," she said. Her knuckles strained almost white against the mug. At least, he hadn't injured her in the traditional sense. He'd burned his touch on her. He'd injured her sense of morality and personal space. And maybe, her pride for thinking she was so above him.
The ghost's lips stretched into a smirk at her stutter. "Then do explain your hesitance with me."
"I said a few days ago I wanted time. To figure this out."
In irritation and amusement, he rolled his eyes. "You seemed quite sure earlier this afternoon," he complained loudly, "when our tongues were battling for dominance and your hands were grabbing—"
She clapped a hand over his mouth, looking horrified. "Don't you dare," she said. Lucky for her, few people were milling about—but some looked over in curiosity at the Red Huntress as she hissed under her breath, pulling her hand away from Dan's mouth in half-fear that he would lick her again, "Dammit, you didn't have to just shout that to the world!"
"I exist to make you miserable," he said, almost happy at the thought. His lips were warm from her fingers now. "And I'd hate to let people think you're so righteous."
Her face burned red. "People know I'm not a saint, okay? No one's a saint. But this is between us, not them."
Dan almost seemed as if he would laugh. With his free hand, he reached out and touched her face. "If it were not for them," he warned, "you and I would have already mussed your bedsheets. They are certainly involved in our relationship, whether in their ridiculous interruptions or perceived moral hold over you. You should know they care about your sex life only for a buzz of their own."
She flinched away from him, her heart skipping oddly at the thought, anger against and desire for him riddling down her spine. Had Paulina not interrupted, she just might have given in entirely, right in her office. Her body ached with the thought as she stood up. "Maybe they're right to worry."
He cast aside War and Peace, and he stood up her to eye her. "Valerie," he said, voice strained, "this isn't a one-night stand. I've known you for ten years." He gently tilted her chin up, and he leaned in with a whisper, "I've desired you for eight."
The heat of the fireplace had leeched into him, warming his skin to the slightest degree.
Her face flamed red again. "That long?"
"A minor internal battle," he whispered, his voice a brush against her lips. "Mostly hormones to start."
She felt raw before him, caught between leaning in to taste his mouth and pushing him away. "You never said anything."
"You didn't understand me then." His calloused fingers brushed down her neck. A soft friction. "And I did not understand my thoughts about you."
The woman closed her eyes, her skin goose-bumping from the feeling of his touch. "We're a bad idea."
"Yes," he agreed. "Horrifically so."
"This afternoon was a mistake," she whispered. "You're gonna get me killed before it's over."
His false-blue eyes deepened, and he set his forehead against hers. "Valerie dear, you know that all plots tend to move deathward."
A shy smile twitched her lips. She leaned against him. "Don Dellillo's White Noise, huh? We're moving up from Shakespeare."
"Can you deny the truth of that quote? You will die with or without me one day." His fingers wove into her ponytail, pulling out the tie so her thick ringlet curls bounced down her shoulders. "I simply wish to be with you before that happens."
"We're in public, you know," she whispered dryly.
Something teasing echoed from his voice. "That did not stop us before." But as they stood in the midst of the fireplace's heat, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. His gaze snapped.
Nathan was standing in the shadows, carrying that damn clipboard of his.
Dan wrapped himself around Valerie and leaned his head against hers. He looked straight at Nathan. An evil, dark smirk stretched his lips, as if to say, Look at this. She is all mine.
The other man's eyes narrowed.
Valerie sighed against Dan's shoulder, feeling guilty for enjoying the feel of his body. "I wasn't kidding about the work I still have to finish tonight."
He tightened his grip on her waist. "You know what they say about all work and no play."
She shoved against him without any real force. "You're the one who causes all this damn paperwork."
And so for the rest of the evening, they fell back into something of their domestic rhythm. Valerie returned to her office desk, grumbling about work, and Dan returned to the chair opposite of hers as an immoral support. He was finishing up War and Peace like a good little citizen and was waiting with the patience of a saint for Valerie to finish up.
Eventually, he lost his way into the plot of the book and became engrossed in the sociopolitical commentary. The time passed back in terms of pages—the smallest spark of familiarity that he might already know the ending.
It wasn't until after 10:00 that he reached the end of the book, fully satiated at its existential angst. He ran his long fingers down the back of the cover. This was one book he had never quoted from—which made him wonder why Valerie even owned it.
But when he looked up to ask her, he paused. The infamous Valerie Gray had fallen asleep over her stack of paperwork. Her ringlet hair was a mess of a ponytail that she'd tried to pull out, one hand still tangled into the locks atop her head.
Dan stared at her, tilting his head in curiosity. Then his thin lips twitched up. He imagined this was quite typical of Valerie Gray—she never knew when to stop, and she often ran herself into the ground simply to accomplish something.
His small smile turned devious. He set his book aside and unceremoniously kicked her foot from under the desk. "Valerie dear," he declared loudly, "it appears you have missed your old-lady bed time and are in desperate need of a hairbrush."
She grumped, shifting a bit at the sudden crick in her neck. "Not an ole' lady…"
"Of course." Something in his voice dripped with delightful sarcasm. "How could I mistake you for a lady."
She groaned. "Lemme 'lone," she demanded, her one open eye narrowed at him.
His eyebrow raised. Valerie must have become more comfortable with his presence. This was a level of weakness he had not seen before. A sleep-deprived, grumpy Val too tired to make a comeback of any kind? It was almost precious.
"I cannot leave you alone," Dan said, leaning forward, "as that would ruin my fun and defeat the purpose of solving your stalker problem." He reached out and swept back some of her ringlet curls with his long fingers. "Come to bed with me."
Her eyes opened a little wider this time, and a damnable blush sprinkled across her nose. "Not sleepin' with you," she mumbled, pulling reluctantly away from her paper pillow of documents. Dan's fingers breezed against her curls. "But I think I will go to bed."
"Your linguistic clarifications wound me," the disguised ghost moaned.
Valerie looked at him, tiredly amused. "Yeah? Well, your metaphors suck."
"I could make several puns with the word 'suck,' you know."
"Your puns suck too."
After a short walk and a half-hearted nothing fight over literary devices, Valerie collapsed onto her bed, kicking off her boots and disjointedly pulling the covers up over her body. She did not undress; the walk to the washrooms was simply too far to comprehend in that moment.
Dan pulled off his jacket, staring at her in dark curiosity. "Do you honestly intend to wear your uniform to bed?"
Her voice was rough and weak with the need for sleep. "No."
"…Then why are you?"
Confusion briefly flickered across Valerie's face until she registered that her belt buckle was in fact still pressing metal against her belly and that the feeling would become irritating in the night. Her tired fingers fumbled with the latch, and she struggled out of the outer jacket top, tossing it carelessly to the floor. It landed right atop of Dan's bedsheets. Her voice was rough and weak with sleep. "Too tired for this shit," she complained.
Dan's lips curled in a dark, lopsided glint. "Well, I'd help you undress, but…you don't trust me."
"You're damn right," she said sleepily. "Don't try anything funny."
"Please," he called out as he turned around to shut the room door. "I'd rather seduce you when you're coherent."
"Good." Then Valerie closed her eyes.
The response made an amused Dan turn his head back to her as he shut the door behind him—but an odd glint in the far corner of the room caught his eye. Then it was gone. The hallway lights had struck something just right—
He paused in curiosity, then stepped back. Had he dreamed it? A glimmer of something. Almost metallic. But when he craned his neck just right, he saw it again, flickering.
It was almost imperceptible to human sight…
His blue eyes narrowed at the wall as he further sharpened his vision. Then his eyes widened, and he looked away, blinking hard. It was a small device. A lens of some kind—a camera.
The implications left him reeling in a cold darkness. Cameras recorded things. And this recorder was taping Valerie. In her room.
He glanced around in discrete paranoia, recognizing a few more glints in strategic areas. "The fuck?" he breathed, putting two and two together. The whole damn place was wired. Every inch of the room was likely visible through the three camera lenses he counted. It seemed down-right criminal to invade one's personal bedroom.
Dan's mind raced. For what reason would anyone watch Valerie like a criminal? Without the light from the door shining just right, even he'd barely managed to find the cameras—so how long had those cameras been there? What were others hoping to gain by it?
Then it hit him. The most plausible explanation. Rage enveloped his heart.
He looked at her form, mostly twisted in the top cover of her bed. And then he launched toward her, desiring to shield her body from the angle of the cameras.
"Valerie." He gently shook her awake. "Val, wake up."
She groaned. "Sleeping," she complained, voice groggy. She pulled the blankets over her head and burrowed deeper into her sheets, hiding her face until all that appeared over the blankets was a mop of ringlet curls. "Go away."
If they were not being watched, he might have smiled. Instead, his face tightened in worry. "This is important. You need to tell me something."
"If it's about sleeping with you, I already told you—"
He leaned over and asked in her ear, "—Does the resistance do video surveillance in everyone's room?"
"…Wait. What?"
"There are cameras in here. One on your mirror, another in the fan above your bed. Another on your door. I did not notice them before. Is this regulation?"
From beneath the blankets, Valerie blinked. The sleep began to drain from her eyes in confusion. "…What?" Her face twisted. "No—we only have surveillance on the main hallways and the armory. Why the..." Her heart began to pound. Her voice wavered in false confidence. "Why would there be cameras in here?"
"You tell me, Valerie."
Some kind of blush-worthy horror overcame her. She was thankful for the blanket of the dark to hide most of it. Oh my god. Cameras recording. In my room. Where I sleep. "If this is some kind of joke…"
"You're being spied on," his voice grew a bit more forceful. "I would not lie to you about this, especially since I'm now on these tapes." His long fingers reached up to stroke her dark cheek. "We cannot afford to raise suspicion in case we're being watched right now."
She closed her eyes and inhaled shakily. "Makes sense. Right." His touch was a cool fire, awakening her even more from the drowsiness of sleep. "But w-why would cameras be in here?"
Only his eyes betrayed his fury, for the rest of him was pleasantly leaning towards her. "I have my suspicions." Then he pulled away and said, "Let's go pretend we're running for a late snack. If we don't look alarmed, he might keep recording. We'll catch him in the act."
"Him?"
"Oh, don't even pretend that you don't know."
Now that he knew the cameras were there, he stepped in the way of them, blocking the sight of Valerie as she quickly rolled out of bed, slipping into her combat boots and pulling back on her jacket. Dan realized that whatever happened next, Valerie would come to know just how deep Nathan's insanity was.
And she would finally allow real justice to take its course.
"What the hell is my life," Valerie whispered to him. Her fingers were shaking.
The hallway was dark and silent.
"His room's this way," Valerie said quietly as they turned the bend. She looked caught between bolting in the opposite direction or shooting everything. Her whole body was tight with calculation and anger. "If I see him, I'm going to kill him. This isn't a good idea."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Dan muttered under his breath.
She took a few more steps and stopped. Her eyes turned suspiciously to Dan. "How do I know you didn't place those cameras there? That this isn't all just a chess game you planned to make me think that Nathan did it?"
He gave her an incredulous look, and for a second, a blip of the old Danny Fenton shined through—that wide-eyed confusion. "You think I did this?"
"You could've," she challenged, crossing her arms to hide her hard swallow. "I never know with you."
His lips thinned into a hard line. "You know that I enjoy a good chess game—but a ploy like this would not work in my favor for several reasons. Nathan did this. And he'll show you himself." He grabbed tighter onto her hand. "You should be more worried about what I will do when I see him."
Soon enough, they stood just outside his room down the long hall—the last one. The door to Nathan's sleeping quarters was dark with only the glow of the security to illuminate it. Dan's face twisted in irritation at the passcode-protected security lock. "Dammit," he growled. He could not simply turn them intangible and fly through if the main halls had security cameras. In his irritation, he simply jammed the door open with his supernatural strength, and it gave way easily enough.
"What the hell are you doing?" Valerie said, eyes wide. "We can't just—"
But as he walked in, ignoring Valerie's hiss of disapproval, he noticed that the room was abandoned. Everything was clean. As a matter of fact, it looked as if the room was hardly lived in. "You said this is his room, right?" he asked, voice odd.
She stopped short at the odd realization that they were still alone. "Well…yeah. Everyone gets one room."
He ran a finger across a nearby dresser, which had nothing on it but a layer of dust. Then he looked at the bed. In the dark, his sharp eyes could see the dust gathering on the bed's pillows. "He hasn't slept here for several weeks," Dan declared. "Does no one check in on him?"
Valerie crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "It's Nathan."
"Good point." He turned around, scanning the room.
Valerie's face twisted as she glanced around. "Maybe he just sleeps in the lab a lot?"
"I doubt that," Dan sniffed. "He would need a place to hide the recordings of those cameras. No—he's got everything that matters to him in another location. Something close that no one would think to check."
She bit her lip. "There's the storage closet on the other side of his room…"
Dan's eyes flickered to her. "Can he access it?"
"I thought only janitors did."
"Then I have a feeling your cleanup crew's never accessed it," Dan declared. Evil knew evil. Nathan was keeping secrets—and what was sounding like a big one. "Did Nathan choose this room? Did he have a choice to get this room? Is the storage closet connected to this one?"
"I don't know," Valerie said uneasily. She pushed off the wall and began to look around. Nothing seemed incriminating about the room. "But I don't like this."
"Neither do I," Dan said. His face was twisted in anger. "Nathan is, I'm sure, about to prove just how wicked he is." He opened the closet and pulled away some of the hanging clothes and discovered with rising anger another door.
Valerie said from behind him, in disbelief, "A door to the storage closet?"
"It sure as hell ain't to Narnia," Dan snarled, nearly pulling it off the hinges as he broke the lock and opened it. But to his surprise, it opened into a dimly lit janitor's closet with various shelves of cleaning products. "…Huh."
The two of them stood in the middle of the darkness, stumped. Dan grabbed onto one of the bottles in anger, as if daring it to be anything else than it was. "We're missing something," he said. He turned around, scaling the edges of the room.
"Wait a minute," Valerie said, eyes narrowing in fear. She walked forward to another door. "I didn't know this was here." The door was simple and unassuming with a sign: Hazardous Materials—Lab Waste. The text below the big block text read, To be managed by acting personnel with RED_01 clearance.
"Nathan's one of the few with that kind of cleanup clearance," Valerie whispered, running her fingers down the sign.
"And why does Nathan have power or special clearance of any kind?"
"I told you; he runs errands for a lot of people." She paused. "And he works in the Lab. But I could have sworn…" Her voice trailed off. A hazardous materials storage room was already connected to the lab.
She grabbed onto the door handle and opened it. Black greeted her in the form of a dark stairwell. It was not a storage room at all. Feeling chills run down her spine, Valerie tentatively began to walk down the steps, Dan behind her. The stairwell opened up into a large, dark room, with shadows on the wall.
Dan flicked on the lights.
Valerie stared in horror. "Oh my god," she breathed. For a time, she simply stood in shock.
It was something of a storage basement—perhaps once meant for hazardous waste. But that was not what it contained anymore.
Her face was everywhere in a massive shrine. Clothes she thought she'd lost months ago were hanging from the walls, including even her favorite bras and panties. Several pictures of her half-dressed body (most likely taken as still-shots from the recorder) were taped in collages along the walls. And there were four computer monitors—three providing a live feed of her room, and one actively replaying what appeared to be an old recording.
Valerie's eyes widened in horror as she stared at a black and white video of herself undressing before her mirror to view the scars on her bare back. She suddenly felt horrifically naked, curling in on herself, desperate to feel the heavy material of her military uniform. Tears sprung to her eyes. "Oh my god," she whispered again. She felt frozen and cold.
Dan's face twitched in anger, his lips tightly pressed and bloodless, his face in a blush. He surged forward and slammed his hand against the computer. It crashed hard to the ground. Large waves of fury and possession rolled off of him as he stared at the live video feeds of Valerie's room. "That bastard." His eyes were dark, red straining against the blue of his illusion. "That son of a bitch."
Valerie looked about ready to hyperventilate. She leaned against the wall, feeling more violated than if Nathan himself had touched her. "Oh my god," she whispered, voice strangling. "He's been watching me." The mountains of CDs, carefully dated by the months, towered against the wall. "For years, he's been—"
Tears rose up behind her eyes. Her face was red with embarrassment and horror. She barely even cared that Dan was now watching her cry—at least he'd had the decency to bash one of the computers.
Dan turned to her and grabbed her chin. His false-blue eyes peered into hers with something fascinatingly like concern. "Are you going into shock?" he asked point-blank.
Valerie barely seemed to acknowledge him. She couldn't shake the horror from her.
"Valerie," he said, staring at her with great serious. "This is not the time to go into shock."
His words seemed to flip a switch in her brain. Suddenly, all of the fear dropped into anger. She broke away from Dan and turned to the wall. Her sharp nails ripped at the pictures of herself hanging up, tears blurring her vision. "I want it to stop," she said. Her voice broke. "Make it stop." Nathan had violated the sacred space of her bedroom and of her right to privacy. This was beyond stalking. "Just stop!"
Dan watched her. "You see it now," he said slowly. "You see what happens when you trust the human race. How your value in human life will fail you every time. You're lucky this is all that Nathan's been hiding."
"Shut up," she hissed in fear, teal eyes watering. She ran her hand through her loose curls, fingers shaking. "Oh my god. We need to get security down here. Like, now."
"Yes," he said, voice hard as he pulled down one of her white bras from the wall and spun a strap on his finger, "because obviously Nathan is a harmless little pest like everyone said. Why would we need security."
Valerie snatched the bra from his hands, horrified. "Dammit, don't. Just don't even start with me. Go get security, and I'll—" Her eyes watered with tears. "—I dunno, try to take down all the worst pictures before anyone else who knows me comes down here."
His face twisted. "You should come with me—they're your people."
"No!" she said, face red. "You go." She did not want him to see more exposing images than he had already of her. She was duly embarrassed, desperate to get him out of that room. "Please. I don't—" Her voice trailed off. "I don't want you to be here."
Dan's gaze darkened in irritation. "What, you think I'm turned on by this? And how do I even contact them, your security?"
"Use Nathan's phone in his room," Valerie's voice shook. "It probably still works. Dial 491."
He stared at her for a second, taking in the red flush of her watery eyes and the vulnerable lines of her form. Her emotions made her more naked to him than any of the pictures on Nathan's wall—and he burned in protective rage. "I would rather hunt him down myself," he said, voice dark. "But then if I saw him—there wouldn't be a body to incriminate."
And without waiting for a response, he turned back and surged up the stairwell with inhuman speed.
Valerie stood there in the silence of Nathan's obsession, still holding onto the white bra that Dan had pulled down from the wall. "Why would…" Her voice broke. Words failed her. She felt very cold and tired and violated.
Surely, this was all a dream. She most certainly was not standing in the middle of a disturbing shrine to her own body, where Nathan had likely sacrificed hours of his life, watching her undress and sleep and cry in her room.
The mattress and blanket in the corner suggested that he was here quite often.
And then suddenly, a soft noise from the corner of the room caught her attention. She flinched. The large air vent's cover suddenly gave way, and a man tumbled out.
Nathan.
The man straightened into a stand, eyes wide. "Valerie," he called. Dust coated his hair and his white scientist coat from hiding in the large vent. It made him look old and dirty. "Y-you scared me when I heard you and D above."
She backstepped in horror. "Oh my god." She activated her battle suit, and its warm, protective panels swept over her body. "What the hell are you doing here."
A few seconds passed in silence.
His smile was shaky, eyes wide and feverish, and he acted as if there was nothing wrong. "I could ask you the same," he whispered.
Her voice was a shaky snarl. "What have you done?" Her breath hitched. "Do you even…understand how insane this is? This isn't normal, Nathan. I knew you weren't normal, but I didn't know you'd do this."
The man bit his lip. "I know you don't want to be here," he said. His mind had been racing when he'd seen Valerie stare in horror around the room, Dan crashing the computer monitor... He knew he would need to act fast to keep his secret. And to save Valerie from herself. "I don't have a lot of time."
"Time?" Valerie demanded. She took a step back. "Time for what?"
Nathan said hesitantly, "I heard about how you almost gave in to D today. Word travels fast." He smiled weakly. "I was planning on doing this later, but right now's as good an opportunity as any."
He pulled from out of his large coat pocket a small weapon. A gun with a glowing-green barrel.
Valerie's eyes widened, and great consternation struck her dumb. "What is—?"
"I designed it, with a little help from our Russian allies," he explained, as if he were sharing a secret. "You never cared to ask if I were a chemical engineer and a fission scientist. If I helped to design the weapons you worked with." He tapped the gun. "This contains armor-piercing rounds with something extra. But if I shoot you now, it'll rip through that suit, and it'll preserve your body from decay. Like a freeze in time." He raised the barrel to her chest. "It might hurt a little."
Valerie backed away, eyes wide with horror. "Oh my god. Nathan." She was too far away to kick the gun out of his hands. He was too close to miss. Nathan had probably planned that, considering he knew everything else about her. "You would actually kill me."
The darkness of the human condition swirled in his face. "I didn't want it to be like this," he whispered. "You were supposed to love me. But D's right—you've chosen to love him. So I have to preserve you before you're ruined. Get it?"
"What happened to that promise of never hurting me?" she scoffed shakily, eyeing the weapon as a chill tore down her spine. "Huh? What about that?"
"This isn't hurting you, Valerie." He looked concerned. "This is setting you free. He's eaten your soul."
"And D's called security," she retorted, raising her chin to hide the odd quiver in her voice. "What do you think you're gonna do, huh? Kill me and him, hide the evidence all while keeping my dead, preserved body stashed down here? You'd never get away with it."
"I would if I left Amity Park." A steady look was in Nathan's eye, as if this was not a new thought for him. "It's for the best. For years, you hurt me." His voice shook with wild emotions. His eyes burned with tears. "I thought you were just shy, but instead you had someone else while you strung me along for fun."
Valerie felt paralyzed. Maybe she could keep him talking until Dan came back. "I never strung you along," she argued. "I kept telling you no. Nathan, I—"
"—Shut up!" he whispered harshly, this time raising the barrel of the gun a little higher to her heart. "Just…stop!"
The evil that had possessed Nathan was far beyond the darkness she fought on a daily basis. Ghosts were supposed to be evil; Nathan was supposed to be good. He was supposed to be weak and kind.
Instead, he'd been twisted into something that was—at the core—human and terrifying.
"It won't hurt for long," he promised, eyes pained. "And then you'll be with me forever. Just the way you are. I'll keep you safe."
"Nathan, don't shoot," she raised her arms up in surrender, trying not to hyperventilate. He still held the tactical advantage. She wouldn't be able to land a hit before he'd shoot that gun. "Dammit, we can talk about this. Okay?"
"I know you don't love me," he said sadly. "There isn't much to talk about. But I'll take what I can get."
Just then, Dan reappeared at the top of the stairwell—only to realize instantly the sound of another voice. Nathan. Every line in his body tightened in a blur. "Valerie!"
He made it to the end of the stairwell just as Nathan pulled the trigger. Bang!
Dan stopped thinking. He lunged for Valerie in a blur, grabbing onto her shoulders and wrenching her down. He activated his powers to turn them both intangible. But then the bullet hit his side before his powers took over. His body jerked hard, and he cried out, reverting out of intangibility.
Nathan, terrified at the sudden appearance of D and his inhuman speed, pulled the trigger again and again. Bang! Bang!
Dan and Valerie collapsed hard onto the floor. Bang! Bang! Dan's body jerked with every hit. Dizzy and dazed from the fall, Valerie raised her arm instinctively. She activated one of the defense mechanisms on her arm sleeve, and suddenly electric wires shot out at the distracted Nathan.
He saw the spark of light, but he was too late to dive or turn to shoot.
The electricity hooked deep into Nathan's chest, and his wide eyes bulged. "Mfh!" He convulsed for a second or two, the gun clattering to the side. Then his entire body fell to the floor in a disjointed silence, twitching several times before his limbs relaxed.
Valerie dropped her arm, breath hitching, eyes wild. Then she retracted the wires. She'd just lashed out against another human being. Potentially killed him.
Over her body, Dan's body shuddered. Strange gasps of real pain escaped from his lips. "Ngh," he moaned, the sound muffled against her shoulder. He tried to lift himself off of her, only to collapse limply with an agonized cry. He rested his head against her chest.
Something about that reaction felt too real to be just an illusion.
Valerie struggled to roll them over, her own limbs shaking. "Oh my god." Dan's face twisted as his back hit the floor. He had taken the bullets in a very human way.
"You didn't go intangible," she breathed incredulously, looking him over. "Why?"
"I couldn't," he winced. "I tried. S-something in the bullet—" he gasped again. His body began to shake, and he blinked to clear his sight. "The bullets—"
She tore his shirt at its side seam, realizing in horror that being shot five times by whatever Nathan had concocted was bad enough to damage Dan. It meant that the bullets would have torn through her battle suit too. The floor beneath him was beginning to pool with blood, which slowly turned from red to green as it slipped from his illusionary control, revealing his true nature and the reality of his injury. It wasn't just an illusion.
The high-powered bullets were eating his energy. He tensed up and winced at the feeling of her hands trying to stop the flow of his blood.
"Oh my god," Valerie was saying, her speech halted in terror. Dan's cold blood stained hard into her skin. He was bleeding out fast. "What the hell. What did Nathan do?!"
She was trying to remember how he'd described them. Something about a preservation effect. That it would hurt a little.
"I kn-know this power," Dan gasped in realization. He winced, pressing a shaking hand against his chest, then groaned as he forced his hand intangible. His fingers sunk into his side, as if to search for the bullets within him. "B-black-hole f-fusion. Feeds on energy. C-can't get to 'em," he breathed, "whether ghost or—human tries." His hand fell back uselessly to the floor in a deadweight, tangible again, fingertips flecked heavy with red blood that slowly turned green as it bled from him.
He had underestimated Nathan's will and intelligence greatly, if not just as much as Valerie had. He laughed, and the sound was worn and ragged. His chest began to convulse. The pain was real. His blood loss was real. His powers were locked.
"This isn't good." She looked worried for too many reasons. "I can't call for help; they'll know. Get up. Please get up."
His illusion began to fade under the strain of his injuries. His dazed, blue eyes bled to his ruby red. Stripes of shock-white hair began to show through the black. Red blood began to trickle down his mouth and nose, as if he were truly hemorrhaging out.
Real tears began to burn her eyes. "…Dan?" she shook him lightly. Her voice broke on his name.
To the last, he held onto his illusionary skin as best he could. He did not want Valerie to suffer under other resistance members discovering that D was Dan Phantom. A few splotches of his blue skin, like bruises, began to strain through his fake skin, purpling down his face and along his neck.
"This is a trick, right?" Valerie breathed desperately. "You're not really dying." Tears began to stream down her face. "Please don't be really dying. You're already a ghost. You can't die again."
His breath of a laugh gave way to an agonized, terrified moan. He was going to go somewhere he had never been. He could feel his entire body unraveling on itself. Even ghosts could fade out, although he feared by the feel of things that he would be leaving a body behind. The fusion bullets were keeping his body trapped to this plane of existence.
But it meant Valerie would stay alive. Unharmed. The death of D would be enough to put Nathan away forever.
Maybe he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do in Amity Park after all.
He gasped for air he didn't need as his body gave out on him. "Val," he breathed. He reached up to run his bloody fingers down her face, desperate to touch her one more time. "V-Val."
Valerie cried and grabbed onto his hand. "You stay here. You got it? I'll get you help." She didn't know what kind of help he even could use. What ghosts would even come to his rescue… "Just—hold on."
As he hemorrhaged, he began to choke on his own blood. No help would come for him. His power core flickered. His body twitched strangely. "D-don't g-go," he rasped, a deep fear overcoming him. "Please."
He was not a hero. He did not know how to die well. How to accept this. If she left, he'd be gone before she returned. Dan focused on the image of a panicked Valerie above him—the raw emotion on her face that hinted of his own value to her. He latched on hard to that. He needed it.
"Okay," she said, lips quivering. "I won't leave you." She had retracted her suit, and his cold blood began to stain her clothes in a way he knew would never disappear. She gently tried to raise his head to drain the blood away from his mouth and nose. He was gasping for air, suffocating from the void of air and ectoplasmic power.
"I don't know what to do," she whispered, terrified. Her shaking, bloody fingers pressed harder against his bare wounds, but there were too many. The ground beneath them was soaking with his blood. "You're bleeding out. I c-can't stop it—!"
As he leaned against the heat of her body, turning in to feel the soft of her side, he thought that this would have to be it. That his choice to jump in front of those damning bullets—it would have to be his magnus opum. His swan song. His legacy to strike fear into the hearts of all.
A story that no one would remember.
The fusion bullets lodged in his side leeched the last of his power core, and its flicker died out. His first knowledge of oblivion. Then, Valerie's image blurred into shadows. He felt only the vibrations of her shriek as he fell into something like a disorienting sleep, everything rushingrushingrushing—
Steps echoed as thunder down the stairwell. Her father quickly appeared with a squad of guards, eyes wide. "Valerie. Baby, we got that call, and we heard—"
She was cradling the limp body of her boyfriend in the midst of Nathan's shrine, sobbing in the middle of a puddle of blood. Nathan himself was still knocked unconscious, electrocution burns imprinted up his neck. But it was D's image—he was sickening to behold, his red blood mixed with something green, his shirt half-torn away to reveal a mass of damaging wounds, skin and eyes disrupted by inhuman colors. Limp and silent in Valerie's arms.
Damien Gray backstepped for a moment. So did everyone else.
Valerie looked up, entirely undone. "Nathan sh-shot him with something," she tried to breathe between sobs. "It did—I don't know what it did." She hid her face in D's black and white hair. "Stop faking," she pleaded, voice breaking. "Get up."
Her father tried to pull her away, greatly pained. "Valerie, he's not getting up."
She struggled against him, holding onto D tighter. "No!" she cried. "It's not real—it's just a trick—an illusion! He's fine, he's totally f-fine—!"
She looked down at Dan again, turning his chin towards hers. "Get up!" she demanded, crying. "I know you're playing. J-just stop. Stop!"
For the longest time, she sat there, dazed. Dan's hollow, red eyes stared up to heaven, vulnerable and afraid. Something about that cut her deep. The great Dan Phantom was never afraid. But it was permanently ingrained in every line of his body now, his lips stained with two bloods.
Valerie's father reached out to her again. "Sweetheart—"
She pushed her father back, teary eyes wild. "Don't touch me," she hissed, sobbing. "I'm not leaving. Not until he wakes up and starts laughing, b-because this is all a trick. And I hate him for it."
Her father's eyes began to water in pain for her. "Baby girl," he said slowly, "he's not going to wake up." He held out his hand one more time. "I don't know what Nathan hit him with, but you need to step away in case of contamination. It doesn't look good. I don't want you to get…sick."
She looked down at herself. She was already covered in green blood, and she laughed through her tears in hysterics. She couldn't even tell him that she knew what it was. "You have no idea." Her laugh turned to a sob. "Not a damn bit. He took those bullets for me. All of them."
Her father tentatively placed his hand on her shoulder. "Come on."
"No," she said roughly. "No, I'm not letting go."
Some of the military men began to worry about the contamination from an unknown weapon. "Commander," one of them begged. "We need you to step away so we can remove the contamination threat."
"No!" she cried out, hiding her face in Dan's hair as she cradled his body. "He'll wake up soon. I know he will. We'll be fine."
This time, the security officers converged on her. "We're sorry, Commander!" one of them apologized roughly. "We have to do this."
It took all six of them to drag Valerie away and into the open arms of her father. "No—you're not taking him!" she sobbed, nearly breaking one man's arm when they finally managed to unlatch her from Dan. Her fingers reached out in a struggle. She was losing him. She had already lost. And as the agents held her tightly, she never looked away from Dan, silently begging him to get up. To groan. Anything.
But he never woke up or moved. And the red blood from his body kept leeching into a glowing green. In horror, she watched as even the glow of his green blood died, until it looked as nothing more than spent, nuclear waste crusting against the concrete.
A/N: Um, so…this was supposed to be a happy miniseries? O_o;
Real life's had me depressed lately with a lot of sickness and stressful work stuff, so maybe that's why this turned out as it has. Also, it's Halloween weekend, which usually means creepy killers…
I'm sorry you all had to wait so long for an update; I'd had several pieces all written out but just didn't know how to connect the dots. I do think this is the longest update I've ever made for Deliverance, though (18,000 words!). I hope that helps to make up the difference. The literary references in this chapter include Don Delillo's White Noise (1985), which is one of the defining books for the postmodern literary movement. The part with Dan saying he'd desired Valerie for eight years is a light reference to Wardrobe Malfunctions, a previous and separate update to this collection. The Valentine universe also further contradicts the Aftermath universe considering that in this one, ghosts can't make babies with humans.
Which reminds me: Should I move Deliverance up into an M rating? I've been debating back and forth lately.
Please submit your thoughts, questions, ideas and requests in a review!
