Amity Park was not a large city. Three hours out from central Chicago, it lacked the high-rise life of the major business districts, from public transport to skyscrapers. Bruce was reluctant to admit that there was any sort of charm to the overpopulated town at the amount of construction work he and Natasha passed on their way to their hotel.
After booking in, the two set to work; interviewing the townspeople and visiting popular ghost-infested landmarks – which often resulted in the two of them standing behind orange cones as labourers went about fixing sinkholes in the pavement or gigantic cracks in building walls. The name 'Danny Phantom' swept through the town like a curse, uttered either breathlessly by giggling teenage girls or by the disapproving growls of the elderly. He was a grey speck on the radar, a cross between being the town's saviour and its villain.
Hours later the two heroes had found they were able to quote Phantom's heroic stories off by heart, and it was now becoming much more likely to both Natasha and Bruce that this ghost epidemic was not just a promotional hoax to boost tourism and exports, but instead a city-wide delusion instigated by the townspeople's desperate attempts to ignore the horrific amount of vandalism that seemed to occur in its borders.
Bruce had been sceptical about joining Natasha into the city he'd never heard of. It had been several months since the Avengers had joined forces against Loki and the Chitauri in the fight for the Tesseract, and he had not seen anything out of the ordinary since. So when Natasha called in the team, he'd been curious. Cynicism still flared through him at the idea of ghosts just as much as his teammates, but from the little he knew about Natasha, she always checked first.
They were heading to their final stop of the day; walking through a nice neighbourhood with large multi-level brick buildings that sat on the outskirts of the city's business district, they reached a corner house with a large metallic UFO perched on top and a glowing sign, reading 'Fenton Works',
"Think we got the place?" Natasha quipped.
Bruce feigned uncertainty, "I'm not sure."
They went to knock on the door.
/ / /
"So this 'Exto-Extractor' thingy takes a ghost's energy and turns it into an alternate power source?" Tucker asked as he, Danny and Sam trudged further up the cafeteria line.
"Basically," the line shuffled forward, "Except it doesn't just take some of a ghost's energy – it forcefully rips it out of them. Dad said it could run half a city with a strong enough ghost."
"Like Danny Phantom," Sam suggested.
Danny nodded glumly, "Right. And that's exactly who they have in mind to give the Ecto-Extractor its first test-run."
They moved further up the line, each of them silently musing.
"So..." Sam started, "Do you have a plan?"
Danny shrugged, "I suppose I could get you guys to do a bit of sabotaging for me – I don't really want to go near it in case it locks onto my ectoplasmic signature or something like the booo-merang did."
Tucker and Sam sighed and began filling their trays with food. Danny left his empty. He wasn't very hungry anymore.
Sam nudged Danny in the ribs and pulled out a pamphlet with the NASA logo on it from her spider-shaped backpack, "I was going to give this to you after school, but I think you might need it more now. The Kennedy Space Centre in Florida is holding a week-long camp soon – I heard there's still some spots open. Maybe you could lie low there for the first bit of the summer?"
"But who'd protect the town while I'm gone?" asked Danny, taking the folded sheet and scanning it.
Sam raised an eyebrow, "I'm pretty sure Tuck and I can handle ourselves for a week without you breathing down our neck all the time."
"Yeah, man! Don't worry, the two of us have got this! You won't even have to call in and check on us!" Tuck hi-fived Sam with matching grins. Danny bit his lip worriedly, still uncertain.
His melancholy lifted slightly as Tucker approached an old, beak-nosed woman wearing a hairnet standing in front of a row of bain-maries.
"Rhonda! My most favourite of people! Do you have any filet mignon on this lovely day, perchance? Perhaps some lobster bisque?"
The woman dumped a questionable-looking brown sludge onto his tray.
Tucker's mouth pulled into a taut smile, "Thanks."
Sam laughed boldly at his disgusted expression.
Rhonda merely grunted and gestured with her spoon towards Sam, who quickly shook her head, "I'm an ultra-recyclo vegetarian."
The old lady huffed before picking up a different spoon filled with green goo and dumped it on Sam's tray. It was Tucker's turn to laugh.
Sam poked at the green concoction with her fork, "Great."
/ / /
Jack and Maddie Fenton were probably the strangest couple Natasha had ever met. The two were clad in matching skin-tight suits, similar to her own SHIELD uniform, but in shocking colours of orange and teal. Natasha was glad she's worn civilian clothes today, otherwise she feared they would be a matching set.
As she sat in the large lounge room with Bruce and the Fentons, she studied them; Maddie was a reasonably tall and lithe woman with cropped auburn hair and, more importantly, appeared to be the saner of the two – or at least more reserved. While she resembled a bug half the time with her large red goggles and blue hooded suit, she was still able to hold a calm and pleasant conversation. Her husband on the other hand, was easily excitable about everything, asserting his opinions in a loud and booming voice; his bright orange suit complimented his personality. Jack was also big. Really big. Natasha had never seen a bigger man – except when Bruce let Him out. It was obvious that not all of his bulk was muscle, however, so he wasn't much of a threat in Natasha's eyes. Maddie, however, was still a prospective.
"It's always so good to see people travelling so far to visit our little city. We didn't know we'd become so famous!" Maddie said, "To travel all the way from Washington and... where did you say you came from, Mr Banner?"
"I just came back from a trip in Guatemala."
Jack became excitable once again, "Guatemala! Have you heard about any of the ghosts there? I remember there was one called La Llorona, about a woman searching for her baby, and another—"
"We were wondering if you could tell us about the ghosts in Amity Park, actually," Natasha quickly cut Jack off. He seemed to have a habit of rambling whenever the topic of ghosts came up. Or fudge.
"Well, what would you like to know?" Maddie clasped her hands in her lap.
"There have been rumours about the town being overrun before?"
Maddie and Jack looked uncomfortable, "I wouldn't say we were 'overrun'. More like we were, uh..." Maddie looked at her husband, who shrugged his large shoulders, "Momentarily incapable of controlling the situation," she finished with an uneasy smile.
Natasha paused at that. They spoke as if they had had direct interaction with these 'ghosts' before, "Well what about this 'Danny Phantom'?" The corner of her mouth lifted inter a sneer at the thought of a kid running around, pretending to be some sort of comic-book hero like Superman or something.
"What about Phantom?" Jack growled out with surprising malice.
"Well... who is he exactly?" For a supposed hero, he didn't seem to be very well liked by Jack or Maddie.
"He's a ghost that appeared about two years ago. A no-good evil ghost!" Maddie's voice rose a few octaves as she continued, "He's overshadowed one of our old mayors before and is the reason there's always so much property damage to the city."
"But we finally figured out how to get rid of the ghost-kid!" Jack had thrown off his scowl and returned to his more boisterous self.
"Get rid of? You're going to kill a teenage boy?" All amusement had dropped from Bruce's face, replaced with astonishment and worry. Natasha kept her own face blank despite her moral turmoil.
Maddie chuckled, "You can't kill a ghost, silly. They're already dead."
Jack jumped up from his seat, "Wanna see how?"
Natasha and Bruce nodded warily before following the odd couple through the house into a basement. The SHIELD spy was beginning to feel that she had gotten in over her head as the door clicked shut.
Stepping down into the room, Natasha looked around. Odd weaponry and computer hardware was strewn across the room, scattered on bench tops and peeking out of cardboard boxes. A large sliding metal door was built into the far wall, a small control panel next to it. Natasha's hand hovered over the hidden knife-holster on her hip.
Jack hustled them in and, with a wave of his hand, urged them toward a corner of the room. A tall cylinder with a door stood plugged into the wall by a thick power cord. It seemed almost harmless in comparison to everything else in the room.
Jack smacked his palm against the invention. "Here it is! The Fenton Ecto-Extractor! Capable of powering thousands of homes and businesses for years!"
Bruce seemed to gain some of his colour back as he looked at the cylinder, intrigued, "How does it work?"
"Easy. You put a ghost inside, it detects the abnormal strands of DNA and… BAM!" Jack smacked his fist against the machine, making Bruce jump back. Natasha's training allowed her to be unmoved by Jack's suddenness, "The ghost is sucked clean of almost all of its energy, rendering it useless until it can gather enough ecto-energy to return to its normal state. Easily enough time for one of us to catch it," Jack finished with a wide grin.
"Ah, I see. Energy cannot die, it can only transform. So you filter this 'ecto-energy' to produce a clean power source. Quite ingenious," Bruce concluded.
"Thank you, Mr Banner," Maddie's chin lifted at the compliment.
"But what happens when a normal non-dead human steps inside? Wouldn't they be hurt if they get their energy sucked out of them?" Natasha asked, wondering about the town's sham-superhero.
Maddie looked aghast, "Oh no, definitely not! Only people with a high chromosomal mutation would ever feel anything! Humans would most likely only feel a slight tingling sensation at worst."
"Here, try it out for yourselves," Jack pressed, opening the door to an array of lights and wires.
"Er, thanks for the offer but we really should be going," Natasha said, edging towards the stairs, her back to the wall.
"Nonsense. This will take no time at all," With that, Jack grabbed Bruce's arm, shoving him inside the Ecto-Extractor.
"But—!" Bruce's protest was cut off as the door slammed shut in his face.
Natasha bit her lip nervously, resisting the urge to render the two nut-jobs comatose. Despite the scientists' claims that the machine wouldn't harm the living, there was no way to verify this other than their word. Besides, if they were planning to suck the energy out of a vandalising teenager with a bad dye-job and a bed-sheet, how sane could they really be?
There was a muffled banging coming from inside the cylinder where Bruce was obviously trying to force the door open. Natasha's nerves grew. While she trusted her friend to stay calm, she didn't trust the Other Guyto stay that way.
"Perhaps we should leave this for another day," Natasha tried to convince Maddie as she began typing into the keypad of a controller.
Growls were starting to emerge from the machine, much deeper than Bruce's usual voice. The banging was becoming heavier, leaving slight dents on the outside of the door. He was losing his restraint.
The couple didn't seem to notice the hammering as Maddie finished typing into the remote, holding it out for her husband. Jack snatched the remote from Maddie, jumping up and down in excitement.
"Three, two, one… Banzai!"
He pressed a large red button and the Ecto-Extractor began to emit a loud whirring noise. Violent green light bled from the cracks in the doorway and Bruce's pounding and growling came to a sudden halt. Natasha watched, horrified as the machine continued to glow.
"Turn it off!" she ordered, but neither Jack nor Maddie could hear her as an alarm wailed pitifully through the house.
Jack and Maddie's attention was quickly diverted from the machine. As Jack smacked the button again the cylinder's abnormal light died away, but the scientists no longer held any interest in the Ecto-Extractor. Hurrying around the room, they gathered up an assortment of their odd artillery.
Maddie turned to Natasha, "Stay as long as you like. We shouldn't be more than a jiffy," She said with a pleasant smile, before making a swift exit up the stairs after her husband.
Natasha stood there, uncertain what to do. Turning to face the Ecto-Extractor, she was hesitant to open it. Snatching her trusted handgun out of her purse, the SHIELD agent held it in front of herself; she knew it wouldn't do anything against Him, but the feel of the cool metal in her palms gave her comfort.
Reaching for the doorhandle, Natasha wavering once more before gathering her wits and pulling it open.
.