Chapter 14
He managed to get all his homework for the next day done with enough time to get more sleep than he normally got since the start of school, but he woke up the next morning still feeling angry and frustrated when his encounter with Vlad Masters replayed again and again in his head. Recalling what Vlad told him made him want to shift forms and blast something. But he could hear his parents moving around downstairs in the kitchen and decided that he didn't really want to give them cause to come racing up the stairs with some new invention, ready to fire at a virus, especially if that new invention happened to be the Data Deleter. They still hadn't tested it out yet on a virus, and Danny really didn't want to be their first test subject.
After getting dressed, Danny headed down the stairs, dropping his book bag by the door before he headed into the kitchen. His parents were sitting at the kitchen table with a book opened before them. The sight gained a lift of one eyebrow from Danny before he turned to grab a bowl from the cabinet to fill with Cheerios and milk. When he had his breakfast, he took a seat at the kitchen table, sitting across from them.
"What are you looking at?" Danny dug his spoon into the bowl and lifted a heaping amount of Cheerios to his mouth.
"Check it out, Danny, my boy!" Jack lifted the book, holding it open to the page at which they were looking. He grinned widely as he held it out for his son to see the pictures on the pages.
His parents were easily discernible to him despite that it looked like the picture was taken around twenty years ago. Danny's brain felt blank when he spotted the third person in the picture. It was another man with darkish hair styled like a mullet with a grayish streak down the middle of his head. There was something familiar about him, but Danny couldn't seem to place it. His blue eyed gaze fell to the words beneath the image, a caption reading: Jack Fenton, Maddie Lancaster, and Vlad Masters in front of their Proto Materialization Portal.
Danny nearly choked on his mouthful of cereal when he read the name. After a few tries, he managed to swallow his food then coughed a couple of times to clear his airway. "Why are you looking at your college year book?" He dreaded the answer when he spotted the excited expressions on his parents face.
"Our old college buddy Vlad sent us a message yesterday," Maddie said with something other than enthusiasm in her voice that Danny couldn't quite identify. She smiled, but there was a tightness to her lips. "He said he would be visiting Amity Park sometime soon. We sent him an invite to come for dinner while he's here."
"You can't!" Danny shouted, his eyes bugging out slightly at that news. When he noticed his parents staring at him in surprise, Danny looked away, hunching his shoulders with a slightly abashed look. He didn't really have a reasonable excuse for his outburst since he couldn't tell his parents that Vlad was some digital entity that believed he was confined mostly to the NetZone. He wasn't even supposed to know who Vlad was since his parents never mentioned him. "I mean, it's such short notice, and the house is a mess." He gulped when his parents glared down at him.
"Perhaps because you've been slacking on your chores." Maddie folded her arms, looking the very picture of a frustrated mother telling her child for the millionth time to pick up after himself.
Danny cringed, one eye squinting as he hunched even more into his chair. "I've been busy with homework," which was mostly true with the decrease of virus activity recently. Skulker was the first virus that month to make an attack.
"I think you can manage a few hours of cleaning before Vlad shows up." Maddie walked over to the sink to start washing the dishes from breakfast.
"It's gonna be great!" Jack shouted cheerily as he went back to looking through his old college yearbook. "The three of us, back together again."
"How come you've never mentioned him before?" Danny frowned at his father as he absently scooped up a spoonful of Cheerios. If they were such good friends, it seemed strange that his parents kept silent about him after all these years.
Jack shrugged with his gaze on the pages of his yearbook. "We've written to him hundreds of times since college. But," he sighed tiredly, "Vlad never responded to anything we sent him until yesterday."
His brow knitted in a deep furrow as Danny watched his father, wondering how that didn't seem suspicious to his parents. Their supposed best friend from college was estranged from them for over twenty years then one day, out of the blue, decided to get in contact with them again. His mouth pulled downward as he realized the message to his parents probably came after he left Vlad's domain on the NetZone. It was his fault that Vlad was reaching out to his parents now.
Danny stood up with his bowl in hand as he walked over to the sink. What was Vlad planning by making contact with his parents? He ignored the concerned frown from his mother as he dumped the remainder of his cereal down the drain. He didn't have much of an appetite after hearing that Vlad might be stopping by the house for a visit any day now. After their first meeting, he decidedly did not like the man. His jaw hurt from grinding his teeth in anger at the very thought of having to be present in the same room as Vlad again, and even more at having to pretend that he didn't completely feel like firing an energy ball at his stupid horned haired head.
"Are you sure you got enough to eat, Danny?" His mother pressed a hand to his head, checking to see if it felt warm.
"Yeah, I should probably head to school. Lots of work and," Danny shrugged, "stuff to get done. Don't want to be late." He jogged out of the kitchen before his parents could ask him any more questions. On the way out the door, he grabbed his book bag before heading off to school. It was too early for Sam to be picking him up for a ride. Realizing that fact, Danny pulled out his phone and typed a quick text message to let her know that she wouldn't need to stop by his house.
The crisp air of late November soon to be December made Danny hug his arms around his body, shivering despite his thick, warm hoodie. He looked forward to the warm summer days ahead, several months ahead, and the real cold of winter hadn't even hit yet. Heaving a sigh that came out in a puff of white, he wished time could fly by much quicker. Graduation was inching closer at a snail's pace, but with the improvement to his grades, he had no worries about being held back a year. A smile slid over his face at that thought. Not too long ago, he thought he wouldn't be able to graduate because his grades were so bad. It was a point that Lancer kept trying to drill into him while Danny remained in that phase of not liking the teacher. But it wasn't entirely his fault for being lazy. He tried, but the virus attacks made it difficult to keep up with his homework sometimes. None of the other students at Casper High had that same responsibility that he had.
Danny was almost to the school when he noticed Kwan walking ahead of him. His gaze dropped to the ground as he wondered what to do. The memory of what he saw when spying through the webcam on the jock's computer jumped right back to the forefront of his mind, and the guilty feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. How was he supposed to act around the other man after seeing Kwan's father slam him into the wall? Was that all that took place? Or did something more happen after he cut the connection? He still didn't have the answers to those questions.
"Hey, Kwan," Danny said as he reached the jock. "Dash didn't give you a ride today?"
Aqua green eyes glanced his way, and Kwan shrugged. "Happens sometimes." His voice sounded scratchy, and Danny noticed bags under his eyes now that he was walking beside the jock. Kwan stopped and turned to face the shorter man. His mouth thinned unhappily as his gaze seemed to pierce into Danny, who gulped nervously. "Why would you hack the webcam on my computer?"
The question froze Danny inside, his mouth hanging open as blue eyes widened. How could Kwan have possibly known about that? But then he remembered the look of the jock's room and realized if Kwan was as big a techno geek as Tucker, he could probably track a hacking back to the source. He was already preparing to bolt at the first sign that Kwan was going to pound him into next week for the transgression.
"You actually think I know to hack anything?" Danny managed a breathy laugh that sounded a bit hysterical to his ears. "I need Tuck to come over any time my computer freezes." His mouth snapped shut with a soft clink of his teeth, and he swallowed nervously. From the way Kwan kept staring at him, he was sure that the jock wasn't buying what he said. It wasn't completely a lie. He really didn't know how to hack. Not in the way that normal people would hack another person's computer anyway. He shifted his weight but kept his gaze locked with Kwan's eyes. He felt if he looked away now that would only confirm his guilt to the jock.
"I guess you didn't really inherit your parents' knack for technology." With a shrug, Kwan started walking toward the high school again.
Danny followed, but he had a strange feeling that Kwan didn't quite believe him. With his arms hugged tightly around him to try to gather some warmth, he kept darting his glance toward the jock. What should he say now after that awkward moment? Should he even say anything? They weren't exactly best friends, and the only reason they even spent any time together during the past year was because they were in the same theater class.
"Do you think we'll beat our rivals this Friday?" Danny glanced at Kwan from under his raven bangs that were hanging down over his eyes as he walked with his head bowed. Sam didn't always enjoy going to the football games with him and Tucker, but she went along with them anyway, often sulking at their sides while they cheered on their school's team.
Kwan scratched a hand through his dark locks. "It looks like we might win," he answered as they walked up the steps of the school. "We've got a pretty good team this year, and we've been doing well against the other teams in the district. We might have a chance of winning back the cup this year."
"I'll be rooting for you." Danny grinned and felt like kicking himself for sounding like an idiot.
Kwan blinked at him then smiled in return. "Thanks."
Seeing Valerie down the hallway with a sour glare on her face when she spotted them together, Danny decided now was probably the best time to part ways. "Well, I'll see you in class." He waved to Kwan before he headed off toward his locker, leaving the jock to mingle with the rest of the A list.
When he reached his locker, Danny slid down to sit on the ground, leaning back against the cold metal that he thankfully couldn't feel through his hoodie. He got out some books to get a head start on some other homework, but he couldn't really focus. His brain kept circling back to the news his parents dropped on him that morning. He was sure Jazz would have some psycho babble to ramble on about in regards to their parents' behavior. Heaving a sigh, he leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling that was a sickly off white color.
"How come you came to school early?" Tucker asked when he and Sam arrived, and Danny realized he completely spaced out while he agonized internally over Vlad's coming to visit his parents.
"Yeah, usually we have to wait on you, slow poke." Sam stared down at her friend as she folded her arms, the sleeves of her neatly pressed coat wrinkling.
With a sigh, Danny rubbed at his face. "A friend of my parents told them he would be coming to town soon. And now my parents are all excited about him visiting, and I just want to be past that already." He ran his hand through his raven locks, yanking on them in his frustration. "Why does he have to visit?"
"What are you stressing out about?" Tucker laughed as he opened his locker to retrieve some of his textbooks. "So you'll probably have to sit around listening to boring stories for your parents' college days. Just say you've got a load of homework to get done and sneak off to your room for the rest of the night."
"You wouldn't have to lie about that one either." Sam smirked down at Danny, who returned her look with a frown.
"Hey, I'm pretty caught up on my homework now," Danny argued as he crammed his stuff back into his book bag since the bell would be ringing soon to signal the start of the first class of the day.
Danny really doubted that Vlad would let him escape with such an excuse though, not when Vlad's number one reason for visiting his college friends was because their son was stupid enough to mess with the Fenton Material Portal and land himself with weird digital powers. But of course, Danny couldn't say anything about that to his friends. It was at times like this that he felt unbelievably frustrated with his secret. If they knew that he was really Phantom, he could rant out all his frustrations to them, but he didn't want to risk putting them in harm's way. He knew they would never let him go into a fight without them being there to support him in any way that they could. They were loyal to a fault in that way. He loved them both madly for that reason, but it was also what stopped him from speaking to them about the accident.
"I'll see you guys at lunch," Danny said, slinging his book bag over his shoulder. Tucker and Sam both offered their goodbyes as the three friends parted ways, each heading off to their first class of the day.
jeanette9a: Kwan could track it back to the source which ended up being from Danny's house.
Sammi: Kwan's is a quiet rage. *shot*
midnight: He did. XD And Kwan isn't quite buying his lies.
DB-KT: Haha, maybe. XD;; One day. Danny will have his own place one day. It's a total head scratched for Kwan. XD;; Like how the heck could Danny hack my webcam? It makes no sense~ XD;;