Getting trapped under a fallen building sucks, but when does Danny's life ever not suck?

Chapter 2: A Different Kind of Pressure


Getting trapped under a fallen building isn't Danny's finest moment. It probably ranks top ten on the list of "Moments That Really Suck and Didn't Need to Happen, But Of Course They Did Because When Does Danny's Life Ever Go Right?" The name needs some work, but the point stands. It sucks. One minute he was fighting a ghost and the next... well. Danny isn't sure what happened next. He remembers being inside a building, and now he's under a building, and he doesn't know how he got from there to here, but here he is.

"Hey. Hey, are you okay?"

Danny has a hard time hearing the voice over the ringing in his head, but he manages alright. It helps that the woman's lips are about level with his eyes. There's not much light to read them by, and he isn't an avid lip reader in the first place, but the words "are you okay" are a pretty good guess considering the circumstances. That and his only other guess is "hard chew today," which would mean one of them has a concussion. Danny might have a concussion anyway.

"Pretty sure I'm supposed to ask you that." Danny tries to push himself up, to let the shield covering them expand. The green wall flickers, growing dimmer, and the pressure on his back grows. He freezes as something above them groans, the sound of scraping concrete echoing around them. Okay, no moving. He should probably be in a lot of pain right now. Thank God for adrenaline.

"Between the two of us, I'm the one with the medical license, so it's literally my job to ask if you're okay and you definitely aren't okay." The doctor beneath Danny blows a strand of hair out of her face. It floats up, tickling Danny's nose, then lands right back over her cheek. She tries again, getting the same result. The doctor wriggles.

"Hey, whoa, what are you–"

Her arm, pinned between them, shifts a little, and she wiggles even more.

"You really shouldn't–!" Her leg, pressed against Danny's, jerks. The shield flickers again as she kicks it and the full weight bears down on Danny for a moment. Dust rains down. His vision goes black. He hopes that's because of the shield failing and not because the weight of the debris is so painful that he blacks out for a moment, but it very well might be. He pumps more power into the shield, just enough to get it back up, and his burden eases slightly.

"Shit." Danny groans. Does a building weight more than a bus?

The doctor stills. "Sorry. That was an accident. Are you okay?"

"Just peachy." The creaking in his bones says otherwise, not to mention the growing cold spots on various parts of his body, but the doctor lady doesn't need to know that.

"Hey, not to make demands after you just saved my life, but do you think you could get us out of this? Pretty sure I've seen you fly through buildings before."

"That would be great, wouldn't it? Except I'm a little tuckered out right now."

"How tuckered are we talking?"

"Um..." A flash of white illuminates their bubble for a moment before Danny fights back the urge to transform. "Pretty tuckered."

"That won't happen again, right? The shield? Because I like not being crushed by a building."

Danny closes his eyes. His power levels were low even before he got into a scuffle with the ghost. Today has been one fight after another, and none of his familiar rogues, either. Danny couldn't even enjoy some pleasant banter with his favourite frenemies. Keeping the shield up is draining what little energy he has. It might be keeping them from being completely crushed, but it still takes effort to hold up so much. It's still him keeping them safe. The problem is he only has enough strength to keep one powering going. But the doctor has a point. They can't stay here for too long. Help would come, eventually, but Danny doesn't know how long that will take, which leaves them with very few options.

"I might have an idea," Danny says.

"Okay." The doctor nods. "Good."

"But I don't think you're going to like it."

"Less good."

"I could turn us intangible and gets us out of here before I run out of energy. But I can't keep the shield up while I do it."

The doctor's gaze jumps to the green walls surrounding them. "I'm guessing it's not, like, instantaneous. You drop the shield and poof we're out of here."

"Nope."

"Huh. You're right. I don't like that."

"It's okay. I can lift a bus, so. This should be okay for a few seconds."

"A building is heavier than a bus."

"I'm trying not to think about that." Danny closes his eyes and lowers his head. He needs... a lot of things. Pain killers. Not to be stuck under a building. For his arm to stop bleeding, because he can feel the ectoplasm sliding down his shoulder, hear the quiet drip-drop of it hitting the concrete beneath him, and it's making the pain harder to ignore. But right now, he needs a moment. Because what he's about to do is going to suck.

"Okay." Danny opens his eyes and meets the doctor's gaze. "I need you to pull your legs up, and shimmy down a bit, and do your best to curl up underneath me. That way when... when everything drops, if it shifts, it's not going to hit you. Got it?"

The doctor does as told. She draws her knees up and curls her head toward his arms. She's taller than him, not by much, but enough that Danny doesn't make the perfect cover. It will have to do.

"Ready," she says.

Danny takes a deep breath and drops the shield. The rubble falls, broken bricks and wood digging into his back. Danny nearly buckles under the weight of it. It takes all his willpower not to immediately throw the shield back up. Something groans. He can't tell if the grinding noise filling his head is the concrete or his bones cracking under the weight. His transformation rings flicker around his waist once more. Forcing them back hurts almost as much as holding up the rubble, and for a moment he thinks it won't work. He doesn't have the energy to go intangible. They're going to die.

Then he moves. He drops, arms buckling, and wraps the doctor in a tight hug. His body goes cold and everything crashes around them. With the last of his strength, Danny pushes, launching them upwards. Light bursts around them as they leave the rubble, and he forces himself further, past the haze of dust, dragging their bodies across the street, out of danger, until he collapses in an alley between two shops. His heart pounds in his ears and it takes a few moments for other sounds to fade in Cars. Distant sirens. The murmuring of a nearby crowd.

Danny tilts his head and looks out toward the street. Pedestrians mill about on the sidewalk, clustered together, staring at the collapsed building across the road. Danny and the doctor hadn't been trapped long enough for much to happen, even though it felt like forever. Holding a building on your back is just like that, apparently. Danny pushes himself up onto his knees, one hand to his head, and scans the sky. No sign of the ghost he had been fighting. He tries to reach out with his ghost sense, but it makes his chest throb and his vision swim. Okay. No more ghost powers today.

When he stands, he has to brace himself against the wall or else risk falling over. His head spins and he's only a few seconds away from throwing up, but he can't stay here. He needs to text Sam and Tucker, find a safe place to transform, treat his injuries, and pass out. Preferably in that order. The black spots flickering in and out of his vision seem to disagree with that. Danny slumps against the wall, smearing ectoplasm across the bricks, and examines the doctor. She looks okay, already on her feet. A little dusty but no visible injuries. Good. That's enough for him.

"Glad you're safe, citizen. Maybe stay away from ghost fights for the rest of the day." Danny waves over his shoulder and takes a few stumbling steps toward the back street.

A hand on his wrist stops him. "And where do you think you're going?"

Danny turns back to the doctor. There are two of her reaching out to him, grasping his two left arms. That's new. He blinks a few times, closes his eyes tight, but the double vision stays no matter how hard he tries.

"Could you let go, please?" he asks.

"Could you make me?"

Danny feels his last dregs of power slipping away like sand through his fingers. It's all he can do to keep a few grains cupped in his palm, just enough to keep him from transforming in front of this stranger.

"You know I'm a ghost, right? That means I'm already dead. I'll be fine."

The doctor reaches up with her free hand and touches Danny's shoulder. His gaze follows her hand until he sees a flap of skin. He has to look away or else he really will throw up.

"It doesn't matter if you're dead. You're hurt. I can't in good conscience leave you like this. You need help, so... let me help you."

There is no way that's going to happen.


Danny keeps adjusting his seatbelt on the ride over to the hospital. It wasn't easy to put on since his left arm is barely functional, but he got it after a little fiddling. The only problem now is that it drapes across his injury—a laceration, the doctor called it. He has to press his palm over his shoulder to protect the wound, slow the bleeding, and keep his shoulder intact. He really is a mess.

"Do you actually need that?" the doctor asks when Danny wiggles his shoulders to move the seatbelt again.

"I don't know how you did that."

"I'm very persuasive."

"I don't know how you did that." Danny is insane. He must be. He is insane and severely concussed. That's the only acceptable explanation for why he got into this stranger's car while his powers are practically down to zero and he could change back at any moment. He tries to keep track of where they are going, watching for street signs and familiar landmarks, but that's a little hard when there are two of everything. It doesn't take long before he starts feeling dizzy and he has to close his eyes, resting his head against the window. Sleep sounds good right now. Just a quick nap. Twenty minutes tops. He can trust his body not to transform in that time, right?

A tugging in his chest says otherwise. Danny grimaces and shoves the feeling down. No sleep, then. But there's no reason he can't close his eyes for a little bit.

"You okay?" the doctor asks.

"Jus' res'ing my eyes," Danny mumbles.

Something rustles. The radio comes on, loud at first, but quickly turns down to a soft murmur. Danny can't hear anything more than a baseline, the singer's voice floating over his head. He latches onto the sound to keep himself awake but finds his focus slipping away as the doctor's quiet humming lulls him to sleep.