Danny sped through the rows of warehouses with Skulker right on his tail. Literally. The stupid hunk of metal kept making a grab at it to try and stop Danny. The robotic ghost had found him midway through his science class with Mr Felluca, terrorising everyone and creating a school-wide panic. Class was cancelled. Nobody really minded though, it was Thursday. One day before Easter break.
Dodging around a corner, Danny called back to Skulker, "Dude, this is getting kind of old. Haven't you found any better prey?"
The robot's frown deepened to the point Danny thought his metal mask was going to crack, "In all my years I have found no better prize than a half-ghost. Only once your pelt is hanging on my wall will I be satisfied."
"Well, why don't you go after Plasmius' pelt then, huh? He's a half-ghost too, you know. And he'd be much easier to catch since you guys always act so buddy-buddy!"
Skulker faltered slightly in his flight at that, before roughly shaking his head, "That is not important, whelp. I only focus on the here and now," the ghost raised his wrist towards the halfa, the metal casing sliding open to reveal a shiny new laser cannon, pointed directly at Danny's back.
"Aw, crud," Danny muttered, gathering a burst of adrenaline and shooting forward, angling himself downwards to avoid the green bursts of light from the miniature cannon.
The shots were coming faster and wilder the more desperate Skulker became. Danny dodged and swerved, corkscrewing every so often to evade the ruthless attack. A dead-end was coming up ahead, the high walls of the neighbouring warehouses loomed over the two. Danny tried to keep his flight pattern straight, heading directly for the far wall as he continued to elude Skulker's shots. The bricks was coming up fast. Three, two, one…
Skulker collided with the wall. Hard. Danny was nowhere in sight, having gone intangible and simply sliding through. Popping his head back through the thick metal sheeting, Danny found an indentation where the hunting ghost had collided. Chuckling to himself, Danny pulled off the lid of the Fenton Thermos and sucked an unconscious Skulker in without hesitation.
Pressing the lid back on, Danny pushed himself into the air and headed back to the city at a much lazier pace, carelessly loop-de-looping as he floated in the soft wind. Glancing down, Danny caught sight of the GAV parked over three parking spots haphazardly, almost crushing a neighbouring station wagon. His parents were exiting the car, laden with weaponry, and rushing towards the now empty warehouses, never once glancing up. Danny sniggered once more before heading home.
/ / /
Natasha was far from the cool, calm and collected SHIELD agent she prided herself to be, or even the master assassin she once was. Creaking open the door, she had hardly expected to find a nine foot tall, cramped green monster to be staring back at her.
The air caught in her lungs as she lunged away from the machine, swiftly clicking off the safety of her handgun and pointing directly between His eyes. Natasha could feel herself quaking, her arms shook so violently that the gun threatening to topple out of her fingers. She grasped onto her right wrist, forcing herself to hold it steady. She didn't breathe.
The beast blinked languidly at her from its cramped container, seemingly ignorant of the gun pointed in its direction as it feebly pushed its arm and head out – the walls groaning under the pressure before the door gave up, popping off one of its hinges and sending Him tumbling out of the tube, collapsing on the floor with a moan. It didn't look like He was getting up anytime soon.
Natasha frowned and, gun still in hand, edged towards the creature. She scowled deeper when it didn't seem to take any notice of her and gave it a sharp, quick poke with her foot. He groaned deeply making Natasha skip back to the other side of the room. Giving a small huff, the monster rolled over onto its side, curled into himself and refused to move anymore.
Nervously eyeing the reinforced steel walls of the lab, Natasha quietly crossed the room, all of her senses focussed on Him laying unconscious on the floor, until she reached the bottom of the stairwell, tearing up them with agility she hadn't shown in months and eased the door shut.
Pressing an ear against the door, Natasha forced herself to ignore the blood pounding through her system or her ragged breathing to listen. There was nothing. No guttural roaring, no smashing glass, no crumpling metal, nothing. Just the deep, slow breaths of Him – as if He was merely sleeping. She stood with her ear pressed to the cold aluminium for another minute before she heaved a sigh, flicking the safety back on her handgun. It wasn't smart to leave it off while she was so frazzled, not when there could be innocent civilians arou—
"Hey, are you okay?"
She spun around on her heel sharply, pointing the now safety-locked gun at the intruder.
A tall teenage boy with black shaggy hair and large blue eyes stood before her, looking down the length of her weapon in surprise.
/ / /
Danny slipped into his home invisible. Landing softly on his carpeted lounge room floor, he sighed exhaustedly. Today had been long, and there was still one more day left of the school week. Rubbing his face tiredly, he made his way to the kitchen.
He paused when he heard a deep growl echo through the house, followed shortly by light footsteps running and a door squeaking shut. Allowing the glowing rings to slide over him, returning Danny to his human state, he slinked his way across to the other side of the house toward the source of the noise.
A woman stood facing away from him, with her head leaning against the door of his parents' lab. He'd never seen her before. Maybe she was another one of his mum and dad's kooky school-time friends? Danny walked up behind the woman who suddenly sighed with apparent relief. A sharp clicking noise came from whatever she was holding in her hand.
As her shoulders sagged, he asked, "Hey, are you okay?"
The woman freaked. With amazing – almost inhuman – speed, she twisted around and aimed a shiny black handgun at his face. So that was what the clicking was. Looking at her face –she was very pretty, with a short crop of dark red hair and pouty lips that looked vaguely familiar – Danny saw a mixture of fear and guilt plastered across it.
Studying her face closer, he was certain he'd seen the woman somewhere before, but she looked too young to be one of his parent's friends, and too dangerous to be one of their associates.
Danny frowned suspiciously, "What were you doing in my parent's lab?"
/ / /
How had he snuck up on her? Had she been that scared of Banner's creation that she had forgotten all of her basic training? Quickly lowering the gun, Natasha tried to shove down the blush that was steadily rising on her cheeks. She eyed the boy in front of her, he was exceptionally tall, especially for his age, and she had to crane her neck to get a proper look at his face.
"Nothing important," she replied in a quiet, controlled voice. She didn't wish to aggravate Him downstairs, the boy was already speaking too loudly, "Jack and Maddie were showing me around when they had to suddenly leave."
The boy, who had been looking at her distrustfully, nodded his head in acceptance, an easy smile spreading across his lips at the mention of the odd couple.
"Oh, well mum and dad probably won't be back for another ten minutes or so. Did you want anything to drink?" the boy ambled his way back to the front house, as if he hadn't just nearly been a victim to her Beretta 92.
Looking back to the closed basement door, Natasha reluctantly headed toward the modern kitchen where she found the boy rifling through one of the cupboards.
He glanced at her as she walked in, pulling out two water glasses, "My name's Danny, by the way."
"Natasha Romanoff," the SHIELD agent professionally replied, having regained some of her composure.
"Okay..." Danny seemed to falter at her short response, "How d'you know my parents?"
"I'm from out of town. My friend and I were just visiting the local area, learning about the legends of the city," that wasn't even a lie.
"Huh. A tourist," Danny opened his mouth to say more when his parents came bursting through the entryway. Both had an equally frustrated expression on their face. However, Maddie's brightened when she saw her son and Natasha in the kitchen.
"Danny! I see you've met our guest!" Maddie gave a smile, before turning to Natasha, "Sorry about running out on you earlier, we had important ghost business to attend to!"
"How'd it go?" Danny asked. His lips had curved up into a smile that could only be described as mischievous.
"That gosh-darn ghost got away before we could even begin to sniff him out," Jack said sullenly, "The next ghost I catch will be paying double for this!" he pounded his fist into his other hand to emphasise his point.
Danny simply rolled his eyes at his parents' antics before turning to Natasha, "You said you had a friend with you. Where'd he go?"
"He had to leave. He was feeling… a little green," still not technically a lie. Bruce in a sense had left. He was just being momentarily replaced with a giant muscular thing with anger management issues. She prayed Bruce would change back soon, so they could get out of this crazy town with its psychotic residents and their weird, energy-sucking machines.
She only hoped the Fentons wouldn't go into the lab anytime soon.
Maddie looked empathetic, "Well I hope he feels better soon. Did you want to continue the tour of the lab without him?"
Natasha shook her head, "Actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you more about your personal experiences with ghosts?" she lied coolly.
Jack and Maddie both looked elatedly at their guest, eager to show their battle scars and share their heroic tales.
Danny handed Natasha her glass while speaking to his parents, "I'm going to head off to Tucker's to play Doom, so I'm just going to grab the game real quick and go. I'll be back in time for dinner, m'kay?"
"Alright, honey. Be safe," Maddie replied as the trio sat themselves down at the kitchen table – Natasha with minor trepidation. Danny left to collect his game.
Sitting down and distracting Jack and Maddie was probably the best idea. Keep an eye on them, make sure they didn't go wandering off. It was a safe idea. It was a promising idea. It was a fool-proof idea. At least, that's what Natasha thought until she heard the basement door slam shut.