It's short, but I like it. :)

Chapter Eight

Revelations

When Danny woke again, both Dick and his sleeping bag were gone. Stretching, he rolled off the bed and shuffled out of his room. He cautiously peered over the banister before making his way down stairs. Jack and Maddie's voices came from the kitchen in the kind of argument Danny often heard them use when going over schematics of a new invention. These discussions had gotten heated and downright scary while they worked on the portal. But usually they were harmless.

"Jack, we're not adding an office space. It will inevitably turn into a mini lab, and we've promised the kids to keep lab work downstairs, in the lab."

"But Madds, I think it'd be perfectly sensible to have a mini lab upstairs. What if we can't get to the one downstairs during an attack? Besides, lab work will be in the lab if the office is a lab."

"That's why we have the ops center!"

Danny silently sat down at the table next to Dick, who had a cup of coffee in one hand and one of the blueprints scattered across the table in the other, looking completely at ease despite the ongoing argument.

"Good morning, Danny," he greeted with a smile.

"'Morning," Danny mumbled, rubbing his eye.

"Want breakfast?" With the back of his hand that held the mug, Dick pushed a box of pop tarts to him.

"Thanks." He fished a package out of the box without checking the flavor.

Glaring down at her seated husband, Maddie slammed her hands on the table, making Danny jump. "For the last time, Jack! It would make more sense to expand the weapons vault upstairs than to add another lab!"

"You're just wanting a bigger walk in closet!" Jack accused.

"You're just wanting to avoid using the stairs!"

"Mom! Dad!" Jazz stood with a duffle bag at her feet and a backpack on her shoulder in the doorway.

"What is it, Jazzypants?" Jack smiled easily at his daughter.

"Would you guys please at least wait until we're gone?" She scowled at them. "You're being childish and quite frankly, it's embarrassing."

"Thanks, Jazz." Danny mumbled around a mouthful of blueberry breakfast appreciatively.

"I suppose we can wait to do this later," Maddie sighed. "What time will your ride be here again, Jazz?"

"Any minute now." She lifted the duffle and tossed it closer to the door.

Jazz flipped her hair as she sat down next to Danny and grabbed the pop tarts.

"Got Bearbert all packed and ready to go?" Danny asked slyly.

Jazz elbowed him in the ribs with no other acknowledgements that he had spoken.

"Ow! Jazz! That hurt!"

"What time do you plan on leaving, Dick?" Jazz asked over Danny's head, like he wasn't there.

Dick looked at his watch. "Well, if I want to make it to the hotel by six, I'll have to leave within the hour."

"Wait, what?" Danny blinked in confusion. "I thought I was going to Bludhaven with you."

"You are," Dick assured him. "Your parents and I talked about it this morning. We thought it would be best if I ride back home today, and you fly in tomorrow. Does that work for you? I figured it would give both of us a bit of time, and you would be able to bring more with you."

"It would give you time to say goodbye to Tucker and Sam, Danny. It's part of why we thought it would work best." His mom spoke gently, as if trying to convince him.

"Uh, yeah. That works. Just as long as I'm going."

"Excellent. Your flight is at three tomorrow, so plan with your friends accordingly. I want you home by one thirty, got it?"

Danny bobbed his head, taking a bite of poptart.

Maddie pinned him with a sharp stare. "I mean it, Daniel Fenton. I don't mean one forty-five or two thirty. I mean one thirty."

"I know, I know! One thirty. Got it."

The look she was giving him didn't leave.

"Mom! I know! I won't be late. I'll even ask Tucker and Sam to hang out here so I can't be late."

"What a wonderful idea." Maddie beamed. "That will do just fine."

Danny slumped into his chair, looking down at his breakfast. By her tone, it was obvious he wasn't going to be allowed to do anything different.

Jazz left with her ride, a quiet girl in the seniors class that Danny had only seen a handful of times, with farewells and promises of phone calls and safety. As he heard the car roll away from the depths of the lab, he regretted avoiding being alone with her all morning. It had been successful attempt to bypass any emotional or advice-ridden conversations she might have tried to start. She was annoying and nosy like that. They didn't need to talk it over, he already made up with her for what he'd said yesterday. Sort of. They were laughing together last night, that counts. A scowl slipped onto his face as the realization that she would probably call him later, meaning he only delayed the inevitable, she was going to try and talk about it.

He punched the release button on the thermos. It's contents shot into the portal and he quickly shut it. Staring at the safety doors, he wondered if Frostbite would let him keep the Infi-map while he was in Bludhaven; that way he wouldn't have to worry about Sam and Tucker while he was away. Given what happened last time he had it, he figured that Frostbite, understandably, wouldn't trust him with it.

With a sigh, he phased through the boxes and furniture filling the entire lab. Once he got to the stairs he dropped intangibility and almost immediately turned around. The thought that maybe he should grab extra weapons for Sam and Tuck made him step back towards the monstrous, wall to wall pile.

"There you are, Danny."

His brother's voice came down from the top of the stairs, causing him to jump.

"Your friends are here, and I'm going to leave here in a minute," Dick called down.

"Alright, I'm coming."

Bounding up the stairs two steps at a time, Danny met Dick at the top. He opened his mouth to ask Dick when exactly he was leaving, but Tucker interrupted him with a sudden hug.

"Danny! You're leaving us! Who's going to go to the beach with me to pick up the babes? By the time you're back, all the good ones will be taken!" Tucker pulled back to shake him by the shoulders. "What kind of useless wingman are you?!"

"Just take Sam with you," Danny suggested with a smirk.

Tucker ripped his hands away as if Danny had physically burnt him.

"Yeah, no. I'm not endorsing him treating women like objects." Crossing her arms, Sam rose an unamused eyebrow.

With a falsely sympathetic hand on his friends shoulder, Danny stated, "guess you're on your own for a while, Tuck."

Tucker's eyes narrowed.

Dick snorted, "it will only be a few weeks, you boys will have plenty of summer left to find yourself a girl."

"I'm more concerned about losing one of my DOOM teammates. The game is a lot more fun and easier with a party." Sam grumbled.

"Oh man, we were just about to fight the Linch King boss for his key!" Danny dragged the palm of his hand up his forehead. "We were so ready for him too. Stupid plant."

"Is it a game you can bring with you?" Dick asked. "I have a computer you can use to play it on. I wouldn't mind you downloading anything onto it."

"Alright! Omega Team Mecha is gonna be slayin' this week!" Tucker pumped a fist into the air.

"We never agreed to that team name, Tucker. It's lame."

"Oh c'mon, Sam! It's a good name!"

"No Tuck, she's right. The name stinks."

"Worst wingman ever." Tucker grumbled, crossing his arms.

Just as Danny rolled his eyes, a cold wisp of air forced its way up his throat and through his teeth. The trio froze.

"Right! Danny!" Sam nearly wrenched Danny off his feet by his elbow. "There's something very important me and Tucker need to speak to you about. Alone." She drug him towards the stairs. "Sorry, Dick. We'll be back down in a bit."

"Is everything okay?" Dick asked the teens retreating quickly up the stairs, eyebrows scrunched.

"Yeah! Everything's fine!" Tucker replied before Danny's bedroom door shut behind them.

Turning, Dick noticed Maddie standing on the living room threshold with a frown.

"I don't know what to do with those three," she hummed. "They're inseparable, and always up to something."

Danny touched back down on his bedroom floor.

"That was fast," Sam commented from the edge of his bed.

Tucker didn't look up at his arrival, instead he continued to scroll through his phone, hanging upside down off the mattress next to Sam.

"Yeah, it was just a non-sentient mass of ectoplasm. It looked like it was eating the leftover dead plants from Undergrowth."

Tucker made a face. "Nasty. Did you catch it?"

"Yeah, I thought about leaving it to help with the clean up, but with my luck it would probably turn into a skyscraper snacking monster once it ate enough."

"Yeah, probably best to avoid any possibility of another city wide disaster," Sam monotoned.

"You sure there aren't any more?" Tucker asked, still not looking away from his screen.

"I looked around and didn't see any. I'm not too worried about it, but we… or you guys should probably keep an eye out for them for a while."

"Sure thing, boss."

"I'm not… you know what? Never mind." Danny shifted back to human, scowling at Tucker.

Setting the thermos down on his dresser, Danny suddenly remembered. "Oh, dude, guys! This morning a crazy big cat with a gazillion eyes attacked me." Danny told them, gesturing wildly. "It was the size of a bus! but it was just playing around like a house cat. An evil house cat."

"Riveting story. I'm glad you survived."

"Haha." Danny plopped down onto the mattress beside Sam, purposefully bouncing her as much as he could. Tucker flailed and dropped his phone with a yelp.

"That's not what I was getting at," Danny continued. "There was this lady hanging around during the fight. She didn't seem scared at all! Even after the cat tried to eat her, she was asking me weird questions and stuff, and she wouldn't leave, even after I told her to."

"Huh, that is weird." Sam agreed. "What kind of questions did she ask you?"

"If I was really dead, and she said she wanted to ask more questions, I called her crazy and left."

"Do you think she was a news reporter or something?" Sam suggested.

"I don't know. She was weird though."

"But was she hot?" Tucker pipped up.

Sam brought her fist down on Tucker's stomach. He flailed again, but this time he fell of the bed into a heap.

"Sam…" he croaked in a pained whisper. "…why…?"

"I suddenly felt like it." She turned back to Danny, who was staring at Tucker, looking a little flushed and little more scared. "So, you're going to be in Bludhaven for an undefined amount of time, leaving us to deal with the ghosts."

"Um, yeah. It was either that or stay with Vlad for an undefined amount of time." He gave a pained smile, scratching the back of his head. "Sorry for not being willing to choose the latter, even if it meant staying in Amity"

"Oh jeez, seriously? Those were your options? Why can't you stay at the house?"

"Beats me." He shrugged in exasperation.

"So, what's the plan?" She prompted.

"I don't know. You guys should swing by my house every now and then to make sure the portal is locked. It shouldn't be a problem because my dad can't get past all of the furniture and stuff down there, but just in case. I guess just handle the ghosts you can and call me if there's a problem and I'll… figure something out."

A quiet lull took the room as they all contemplated the next few weeks.

"Oh, hey Danny, I brought the PM with me." Tucker broke the silence and pulled the device out of his backpack. "I thought that maybe you would want to take it with you."

"Oh, yeah, I did. I want to pull it apart to see if I can figure out how it works."

"Good luck with that, Mr. C minus." Sam jabbed.

"Hey! Ghost hunting is time consuming. Heroism has a price." Danny puffed out his chest, sticking his nose up with an air of goofiness. "My grades happen to be a part of it."

"And yet you have time for video games." Sam's eyebrow shot up. "And what was your excuse before dying?"

"Uh," Danny coughed into his fist. "moving on. Are you guys running low on any ghost hunting stuff?"

Sam quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Right…" Tucker rolled his eyes. "Do you think you could get us a few of those ecto-battery things for the Fenton-wrist-rays? I think that's the only thing we're running low on…"

"That and thermoses," Danny grumbled.

"What? How are we running low on thermoses?"

"We only have three left. Vlad took one. Remember?"

"Yeesh, they're going faster than I would have thought. Maybe you could try and convince your dad to teach you how to make them?"

"Eh, maybe. Are you sure there's nothing else you guys need from the basement?"

Receiving two negatives, Danny sank through the floor. Invisibly, he drifted into the lab headed straight for his mom's cabinet, so over stuffed with gizmos and gadgets that she would never miss the few batteries he was going to swipe. He stilled with the batteries in hand as footsteps echoed down the stairs.

"The installment of the lab was completed a little after we brought Danny home." His mom's voice filtered down.

She and his brother stepped into the lab. His mom flipped on the lights and Dick gave a low whistle.

"This is huge. How did you get the clearance to build this?" He asked, looking around, ignoring the fact it was currently loaded from wall to wall with their belongings.

"A lot of string-pulling, and arm-twisting. But that hardly matters. What matters is that we got it done. Jack and I have accomplished so much down here, it was all well worth it."

Eyeing the wall of weaponry and tubs of sealed chemicals, Dick asked, "are Jazz and Danny allowed down here?"

"Well of course."

Danny had to float out of the way as his mom made her way to the cabinet. He held his breath, hoping that she wouldn't feel the chill he had left behind.

"They're both properly trained in how to handle most of the equipment down here, and they know not to touch anything else." His mom started moving things around so the drawers would actually close.

"Danny doesn't seem like one to follow rules," Dick said with a smirk.

"No," she laughed. "No, he isn't."

Danny floated further back, looking between the two, not entirely liking the direction the conversation had taken. He stiffened as his foot hit one of the boxes with a light thump.

His mom's head snapped in his direction, hand hovering over the ectogun on her hip. Danny sat stiff as she scrutinized the area. Slowly, she raised her hand for her heat-vision goggles, currently hanging from her neck.

Dick, who was busy looking at the tanks of old ectoplasm, didn't notice. "Do you think if Danny broke any lab rules and got himself hurt, that he'd tell you?"

Both he and his mom blinked at the question.

"I would certainly hope so." She answered with a frown, her hand sliding away from her goggles. "He knows how dangerous things down here can be, at least we've told him as much. He should know to be honest with that sort of thing." As she spoke, her confidence grew that he would be honest with her.

Pointedly ignoring the sting of his mom's belief, he studied his biological brother and tried to come up with what would possess him to ask that kind of question. Dick was still squatting next to the tanks, nodding slowly.

"Are Danny and Jazz involved or interested in what you do?" He asked conversationally, standing up.

Maddie's lips tightened for a moment before she answered. "Well, no. Jazz and Danny both have expressed a… dislike of our research in the past. But recently, ever since the ghosts have shown up in Amity, they've both displayed more interest. Danny though, the whole thing seems to scare him. We've been trying to introduce him to more weapons that would help keep him safe, but he's scared of the idea of fighting them. But he wont talk us. I'm afraid he's a bit embarrassed about it. We're not sure what to do at this point."

Confusion, then what seemed to be a spark of understanding danced across Dick's face, before he replaced it with the appropriate amount of worry. Danny stared at him, wide eyed.

Maddie continued, eyes thoughtfully roaming the lab. "His reluctance is understandable. Jack's inventions -and mine, I suppose- tend to misfire or malfunction every time we try and show them to him. That's the way of it though, things work until you really need them to." She chuckled unhappily at the irony.

"Misfire?" Dick asked.

"Well, yes. A good number of our weapons have built in targeting systems, because we want them to be as easy to use as possible. But we haven't figured out the programing for it just yet. It will commonly mistake a human for a ghost, and as my luck would have it, Danny is usually the mistaken target." She sighed. Then noticing the horror on Dick's face, she quickly explained, nervously rubbing her hands together, "but like Jack and I explained yesterday, the weapons are virtually harmless to humans, they just create a mess."

It seemed to calm him as he smiled and said, "right, of course. I'd forgotten." Placing his hands over hers, he told her seriously. "Maddie, I can't tell you how grateful I am to you and Jack for taking care of Danny when my parents didn't."

Danny, who had been slowly easing his way back towards the ceiling, suddenly stopped.

"Danny is… has been…" Maddie smiled at her own lack of words. "We haven't told the whole story of how we met Danny, have we?"

Dick's eyebrows scrunched. "You were at the hospital when they found him…"

He stopped when Maddie shook her head, smiling with tears in her eyes.

"I was pregnant. With a little girl. But I'd gotten sick, and had a miscarriage. She came two months early and only lived for a few hours. Jazz was with a family friend, so she never met her sister. But Jack, he- he had held her, sang to her until she passed." Maddie sniffed, wiping away a stray tear. "Afterwards, he was strong. He was being strong for me. I fell asleep with the drugs they gave me, and when I woke up. Jack was gone. He had stumbled across an infant that had been left at the hospital. The baby was so small, and he was sick. The doctors didn't think he would make it. Jack sat with the baby, singing to him. That's how I found them." She smiled. "At the time I was miffed at Jack for leaving me and, in my mind, replacing our little girl. But Jack just kept saying that the baby didn't have parents, and that he was good and strong, like a Fenton. Daniel's little blue eyes won me over." She choked up. "They looked just like Jack's."

Danny had sunk all the way to the floor, gaping at his mother's teary face.

"I lost the argument with Jack about the adoption, and I have never been happier about losing a fight. He's my baby boy." She let out a breath, then smiled at herself. "I'm sorry, I'm getting all emotional on you. He's my baby boy, and he always will be, no matter how old he is. But I'm so glad he has you. He's been growing distant from us, it's good that he has a mature adult to confide in."

Dick smiled, eyes misty. "Thank you, Maddie. That means a lot to me."

Looking between the two emotional adults, Danny thought it if best he left. Floating back up through the second floor, Danny emerged wide eyed and dazed.

"Took you long enough," Sam poked, not looking up from her phone. "How many did you grab?"

"Uh…" Danny's gaze slowly shifted to her.

She looked up at his lack of response. "Danny, are you okay?"

"I think he knows." He whispered.

"Uh, Danny?" Tucker's voice pitched. "Who knows what?"

"Dick…" Danny snapped out of it, looking at both of them. "Dick! I think Dick knows!"

He flashed human, and started pacing his room, pulling at his hair. "He knows, he knows, he totally knows!"

Sam stood up. Marching over to Danny, she smacked him over the head. "Would you quit it and explain?! Dick knows? How? And what exactly?"

"I don't know!" Danny rubbed his head. "Mom and Dick came down while I was getting the batteries. I was going to just hightail it out of there, but Dick started asking my mom weirdly specific questions!"

"Liiike," Sam prompted.

"Like if I would tell mom if I had broken lab rules and gotten myself hurt or not!"

Sam scrutinized Danny's face, frowning disbelievingly.

"That doesn't mean he knows that you've done it, dude." Tucker walked up to them, also unconvinced.

"Well, maybe, but, you- you should have seen his face when mom told him that their equipment goes haywire around me! He definitely put two and two together."

"Okay yeah, that sounds bad." Sam caved, eyes widening. "But that doesn't mean he knows. You could have been misreading things, so it really isn't a good idea to freak out just yet."

Danny took a breath, nodding. "You're right, you're right. It could have been noth-"

A light rapping on the door had all of their heads swiveling towards it.

"Hey, Danny? Is it alright if I come in?" Dick asked through the door.

Tucker gripped his barrette, and frantically whispered, "oh my god, do think he heard us? What if he heard us, what are we going to do?"

"Tucker, shut up! He didn't hear us!" Sam hissed under her breath.

"Danny?" Dick asked again.

"Uh, um, yeah! Come in!" Danny squeaked.

Opening the door, Dick looked at them worriedly. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything is great. Just fine. Yup!" Danny smiled.

Tucker and Sam grinned as well. Sam looked as though she wanted to kick Danny in the head, but smiled anyway.

"Okay." Dick chose not to pry, but didn't let it go without a lift of his eyebrow. "I'm leaving now. So, I'll see you tomorrow at the airport, alright?"

"Right, yeah. Sure thing. See you tomorrow!" Danny waved awkwardly.

"It was nice meeting you two," he told Tucker and Sam, shaking their hands. "I hope we get to see each other again soon."

"You too."

"Yeah, see you around." Tucker's voice trembled a bit, and he cleared his throat to hide it.

Dick gave Danny's hair a good ruffle before leaving. As soon as they heard the front door close, after Dick had said farewell to Jack and Maddie, Tucker flipped.

"Oh my god, he knows! And if he doesn't, he will before you get back! We're so totally screw-"

Sam hit him over the head.

"He doesn't know! You two can be idiots sometimes! Worst case scenario if he does find out is he tells your parents, or he tells everyone and gets sent to a nuthouse. You're parents aren't going to hate you, they'll just be breathing down our necks for as long as we hunt ghosts. Best case scenario is he respects your decisions and is supportive like Jazz. There is no need to freak out. But if you do keep freaking out, he'll know in the next forty-eight hours.

Tucker visibly relaxed, going over her logic in his head. But Danny frowned uneasily.

"There's a lot more that could go wrong, Sam. What if he tells a superhero? Or what if he tells the authorities and they take me and Jazz away, because my parents endangered us or something. What if he gets creeped out, or angry that I didn't tell him? What would Vlad do if another person learned, especially a person related to a person in charge of a huge corporation that could totally out him as a cheat?"

Sam considered for a second, before she sighed. "Okay, first off, Vlad shouldn't be that big a of a concern; we'll fight him, and kick his butt. Second, I don't think Dick would do something like that to your family, honestly, he doesn't seem like that much of a jerk. And again, Dick is cool. I don't think he'd treat you like that." She finished earnestly.

Tucker nodded next to her, completely agreeing.

"I guess." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know, you guys. We've been wrong before."

"That," Tucker placed a hand on Danny's shoulder, "is your paranoia talking. When you go over there, just be cautious, but don't worry about it."

"Yeah, Danny, be cautious." Sam practically grumbled, switching moods. "Don't go flying around as a ghost in Bludhaven. People will assume you're a villain, and we don't need any super powered humans after you. And don't play with your powers, like we're always telling you not to at school. Someone is inevitably going to walk in on you and blow your secret. And Danny, don't go-"

"Alright! Alright, Sam!" Danny rolled his eyes, and headed out of his room. "Save it for tomorrow. I'm going downstairs to go grab a drink."

"That sounds good." Tucker followed.

Sam scowled and went after them. "You're not going to let me set ground rules for you tomorrow either."

Danny smirked at her, before jogging down the stairs by every other step. "I don't need ground rules, I'll be careful."

Sam huffed.

In the kitchen, Danny rummaged through the fridge, now covered in patchwork. Evidence that Maddie had been working in the kitchen presented itself all over. The table was full of the dishes and Tupperware that had survived along with cleaners, and odd parts and tools. Three bags full of trash and weeds sat in the corner of the room, waiting to be dealt with. Danny had a feeling that would be one of the jobs his mom would inevitably assign him to. All the cabinet doors hung open, or lay on the counter, and the cabinets themselves had been emptied and cleaned.

Just as Danny cracked open his soft drink, someone rang the doorbell. He took a sip, and the doorbell rang again.

His mom from upstairs called down, "Danny, would you get that, sweetie?"

"Aw man," Danny grumbled, putting down his drink. "On it!"

His friends hung back as he slumped to the front door, which looked like his parents had snagged Jazz's bedroom door as a temporary replacement. The doorbell rang one more time, and he opened the door. Any formal FentonWorks greeting he had died on his tongue. The woman last night stood on his porch, smiling sweetly down on him.

"Hiya kiddo, so you ain't dead after all."

HI YEAH, SO I FORGOT TO DELETE A NOTE TO SELF. I THOUGHT FOR SURE I DID. THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO POINTED IT OUT TO ME. (IT'S GONE NOW.)

Hi.

I couldn't find the line break line for whatever reason. It might be because I'm uploading this on a ipad instead of computer... Idk, this site is jinky.

I have been writing a lot. But not for the right stories, my deepest apologies. I am ultra determined to finish both of them tho. so yah.

Side note, I deleted the prologue.

Date Posted: 5-14-18

Rosy is out!

Peace!