A/N - Not much to say about this chapter. As always, the reviews I've been getting are much appreciated! And of course I won't let SHIELD and the others walk all over Danny. He's probably the most powerful hero out of them all, due to the versatility of his powers. Plus, he has indeed saved the world many times over. Enjoy!
Chapter Eight
Science Bros and Agents
The scene Bruce Banner walked in on was confusing, to say the least. Tony had asked him to come meet his new friend, an older teenager he had met at the Expo the previous day. Bruce wasn't sure why Tony wanted them to meet, but he was anxious as always about meeting a new person that he could potentially go green at and beat to a bloody pulp.
This... this was not what he had expected. Hell, what he was looking at wasn't even in the realm of possibilities in his mind. He had never seen Steve laughing so hard, and the black-haired kid next to him was in the same condition. Tony was on the floor, shot glass discarded beside him. His hands were covering his nose and mouth, and he looked like he was in pain.
So, he did the sanest thing he could think of and backed up. Slowly.
Too bad Steve noticed him. "H-hey, B-b-bruce," he exclaimed through his laughs. "N-nice to see you... up and ab-about!" It took him some effort, but the super soldier was managing to get his laughing fit under control.
"Uh... hi," he replied cautiously. Waving a hand towards Tony, he dared to ask, "What happened, exactly?"
The black-haired teen spoke up, taking deep, gulping breaths. "He... he snorted scotch out his nose! I didn't think we were that funny! Maybe... it was the shock factor. I don't think he's ever... ever seen Steve laugh like that."
Bruce nodded, slowly piecing together the situation in his mind. The teen and Steve were laughing, probably because of something the teen said, and Tony was startled into laughing while sipping his morning drink. Great.
"Do you think he-he's okay?" Steve asked, still laughing a little. He saw Danny wipe tears from his eyes, and grinned. At least he was in a better mood than earlier. When Happy dropped him off, he looked very tense and anxious.
Bruce carefully made his way over to Tony. "Well, he didn't he the floor from falling. He's down here on his own power, so I wouldn't worry. It's just... apparently, alcohol burns worse than soda when it comes out your nose," he stated.
The teen's eyes widened. "Oh no, that's... terrible," he managed to get out, before breaking into giggles again. Steve patted him on the shoulder, sitting up, and looked over at the scientist who had yet to be introduced.
"So, Bruce, this is Danny Fenton," he said with a smile. "He's got a real talent with engineering, and he managed to catch Tony's interest yesterday."
Danny spoke up, finally calming down. "I really don't, I mean, I just know a little from what my parents have done. Tinkering with their inventions is interesting. And I still can't believe that I roped Tony Stark into being my programmer, and didn't even realize it until we were done."
He buried his face in his hands, lingering embarrassment coloring his cheeks. He didn't really get why Steve and Tony were so impressed with him. Sure, he was better than his friends with building things, but he wasn't that good. He didn't even know any proper terms!
Steve rolled his eyes and called out to Tony. "Hey, Tony! Bruce is here, you want to get up? You still have to show Danny your workshop, don't you?" The genius was lying on the floor, practically dead to the world.
"Mrphelgrm." Whatever the man tried to say was muffled by his hands. There was a pitiful groan, and then, "Why do I have to get up? Do you know how much that burns?"
Danny stood up and walked over to the genius, grinning. "If you can whine, you're fine. First rule my friends and I made for ghost attacks. C'mon, get up. Unless... you want to be dragged to wherever Steve and I decide to take you."
Steve let out a sharp laugh. "You know, we do have a pool here..." he trailed off, smug little smile on his face as Tony lunged his way to standing, and went to hide behind Bruce for good measure.
"Danny's a bad influence on you," Tony cried, still hiding behind Bruce. "If it wasn't for him, you would never have been willing to do that. Oh no! He's turning you evil! So that's your plan, you... you... teenager! Curse you and your adorable politeness!"
The teenager's response to this was a very, very innocent look, with batting his eyelashes at them and all. "What do you mean?" he asked, voice suddenly dropping halfway through the sentence, completely ruining the effect.
Danny raised a hand to his throat and sighed. "Damn it. It couldn't wait one sentence to do that?" he muttered. "But hey, maybe this time, it'll actually stay..."
Tony glanced over at Steve, who shrugged.
Bruce rolled his eyes and introduced himself to Danny. "I'm Bruce Banner. Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier, but you were kind of preoccupied. Where are you from? Tony mentioned you're only staying the week."
Danny smiled politely. "Amity Park, Minnesota. Ghost central, really. My parents are paranormal scientists who focus their studies on ghosts, so when they got out of college, they moved to a nearby town that had a history of hauntings. Now, it's the most haunted city in the U.S. Kinda annoying, actually, but you get used to it."
"Ghosts? Really?" the scientist asked, surprised.
The raven-haired teen nodded. "A lot of stuff has happened over the past three years. My parents made a portal to the parallel dimension running alongside our own, we've been taken over several times, most of the city has been rebuilt or fortified at least once, you get the picture. It's not the safest place to live, but life there is interesting."
Bruce commented, "Huh. It does sound interesting. Are you familiar with your parents' research, then? It sounds like you know your way around the whole 'ghost' deal."
Danny smiled. "Yeah. It's easy to keep up with when there's a special news channel made for ghost fights, too. One of our news anchors was moved to a new channel set up specifically to broadcast the fights between ghosts that people have managed to record. At first, we all thought it was a joke, but it's been a really big hit."
"I bet." Bruce thought that it would certainly be fun to watch. "So, do the ghosts fight amongst themselves often?"
This time, the teen frowned. "More than you'd think, but most of the fighting is the local hero chasing malevolent ghosts back to the Ghost Zone. That's the parallel dimension I brought up earlier. Funny how everyone thought Phantom was evil at first."
The scientist turned to stare at the teen, surprised by the bitterness in his voice. "I take it you never thought that?" he asked. "What made the citizens change their mind about him?"
The teen shrugged, face neutral. "Time, I guess. Most of the teenage population loved him from the get-go. I guess it just spread after a while, and once people realized that he had been framed or controlled on the two occurrences where he actually did bad things..."
He let out a heavy sigh, and Bruce thought about that. It would be really nice if people didn't view him as a danger for just existing, but that's what the Hulk was. A danger to anyone and everyone except himself. He could sympathize.
"Anyway," Danny drawled, continuing on, "it's been almost three years since Phantom appeared, and he's got a ninety-four percent approval rating." Some pride entered his voice, and Bruce wondered why this Phantom character matter so much to the teen.
"That's good," he began, smiling at the happy tone Danny had used. "Then, I guess一"
"Whatcha talking about?" Tony interrupted, popping up right in front of the two males. Danny jumped back and ran into the edge of the couch, nearly forgetting to keep up the normal teenager facade. If it weren't for all of the time spent hiding his physique during school and gym class, he would have slipped up again.
"Don't do that!" he snapped, eyes shut to hide the rush of green. "Jeez, you scared me!"
Tony snickered, and replied, "Sorry. I'll try to avoid that from now on, but it's time to show you my sacred place. The personal workshop of Tony Stark, complete with a coffee maker and a small pile of blankets and pillows in a corner in case I collapse from exhaustion while working."
Calming down, Danny rolled his eyes. "Y'know, excuse me for thinking this, but isn't collapsing from exhaustion a bad thing?" he asked. Then he had to ignore the little voice in his head that was calling him a hypocrite.
The genius shrugged. "When you've got an idea in your head and need to build it, you don't stop. Even if it takes hundreds of trials to get it right. I think my record is... one week with only four hours of sleep, seven missed meals, and I think Pepper drugged my coffee at the end, there. I wouldn't be surprised."
Bruce crossed his arms. "It's a good thing she did. Much longer, and you probably would have collapsed while working, or started to hallucinate."
Danny nodded. "Yeah, I一 uh, I saw a friend of mine, the programmer, work on a project for a week straight before collapsing last summer. He said he was hallucinating ghosts and dragons. I'm pretty sure it was only the dragons, though."
Bruce and Danny followed Tony as he led the teen down to his 'sacred place'. Danny noticed Steve run down a hallway, and return with a sketchbook and pencil. He wondered if the super soldier drew often, or if it was just a casual hobby.
Down in the workshop, Tony stood with a gleeful expression, rubbing his hands together. There was a large pile of scrap metal to one side of him, and some long, smooth tables with power tools on the other side. Everything looked sleek and futuristic, if one ignored the occasional scorch marks from something that exploded, or a failed test.
"Alright, squirt, show me what you can do. You mentioned containment devices and weapons, right?" the genius exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Danny's shoulders and steering him towards the tables. One of them was entirely a touchscreen computer, and when Tony activated it, holograms appeared around them.
He explained, "This is where I assemble my ideas first. JARVIS detects any obvious errors or whether the pieces don't fit together right, or any other simple issues. It's kind of like a 3D blueprint, you're building a model."
Danny nodded, getting an idea of how it worked. "Do you have a catalog of all the parts you have on-hand? Since I'm not really familiar with this software..." he asked, trailing off.
Tony nodded, and tapped a few things. A list popped up, and Danny scrolled through it, a big smile on his face. The only thing missing for an ectoblaster was the rather unique power cell and filter that renewed most of the ecto-energy.
"I can build you a non-functional ectoblaster." Danny paused, and added, "It's a type of weapon that works on ghosts. It can be harmless to humans, generally only covers them in goo. It's the heat you have to watch for. Ectoplasm can be superheated without melting into a liquid or gas. It's pretty much always a gel."
Tony replied, "That's awesome. You should totally build me one so I can study it and later experiment with ectoplasm-based technology. You know how unusual it is I get to experiment with a new energy source? Very unusual. This would cure my boredom for, like, 84 hours, or something."
Danny just grinned, and selected the pieces he needed to build the blaster. Bruce and Steve, who had been chatting quietly to each other, looked up to see an eager Tony and Danny half-buried in the pile of scrap metal that was actually most of the less-expensive parts the genius had on hand.
Bruce stepped over to Tony and asked, "So, what is he planning on making?"
The genius replied cheerfully, "An ectoblaster, he said."
Bruce nodded slowly. He could easily guess that it was an anti-ghost weapon, and wondered if Danny's parents taught him how, or if he learned on his own time. Tony had said that Danny was very smart, and had a talent for engineering.
Arms filled with parts, Danny was grinning. He hadn't really been able to enjoy building tech yet, either because he had to hide it from his parents, or because it was important to do quickly and correctly. If he hadn't modified those weapons to suit Sam and Tucker... well, they'd have a lot more scars, that's for sure.
"Let's get building!" Tony shouted, fists in the air.
