Danny was lost. The weaving grey and white corridors had all begun to look the same. His only means of direction was to listen to the passing guards yell at each other through walkie-talkies, their voices harried and fearful as they talked about the 'Draugur'. His marking system of charring the walls had only made him more lost and it took too much energy in his human form to continuously travel through the walls.
Kneading his forehead worriedly, pacing in a tight circle, Danny pondered how he was going to pass the guards inconspicuously – his excessive height and somewhat-youthful face had made him paranoid of the stares he caught by passing guards. It was only a matter of time before someone recognised that he wasn't actually part of the military branch.
Transforming back into Phantom was out of the question. The last thing Danny needed was the cavalry after him if he turned visible at the wrong time or place. He needed a distraction, something to divert the guards away from him before they caught on. If only there were two of him…
Halting his scattered thoughts, Danny gave himself a sharp slap on the forehead – a reprimand for his stupidity.
Checking the corridor for spectators and cameras, he allowed the familiar rings to form around his waist, rapidly spreading across his body in a sheet of blinding white. The rings quickly dissipating as Phantom fully appeared. Making a silent prayer of luck, Danny screwed his eyes tightly shut, fists clenched tightly, imagining himself being physically ripped apart. He could feel his body morphing as a duplicate slowly began to form, struggling to break free; his skin stretched taut as an additional arm sprouted out, following shortly after with the rest of the duplicate's anatomy.
Feeling an uncomfortable tearing sensation, Danny peeked opened his eyes, only to stare directly into another pair of glowing green. Danny heaved a heavy breath, before grinning successfully. No matter how many times the halfa did it, Danny could never duplicate himself as fluidly as Vlad could.
Nodding an affirmative at his other self, Danny watched as the duplicate gave him a cheeky salute in response and swooped down the corridor out of sight.
Waiting in the silence, Danny once again allowed himself to become encased in the white glow, reverting him back to his SHIELD uniform-clad self.
Danny began to lightly jog the opposite direction of Other-Danny, whose thoughts and emotions niggled at the back of his mind as each Danny travelled further away from the other.
Passing another bend in the maze, Danny caught the disappearing leg of an agent entering a room up ahead, Danny bolted forward, reaching the door in only a few lengthened bounds. A warning sign was fastened to the thick metal door, reading 'Authorised Personnel Only' in deep red letters. Ruffling his hair up in a hap-hazardous manner, ripping off one of the uniform's sleeves and tugging ferociously at his collar to make it stretch and tear, Danny ignored the sign and banged heavily on the door, sliding a look of distress onto his face. All those years of lying to his parents and classmates had finally paid off.
The door opened inwards and Danny was greeted with the sight of a short, greying man with a sour expression. He didn't seem too fazed by a six foot, eight inch boy with a roughly beaten appearance standing in his doorway. Maybe it would be easier for Danny to blend in than he had originally thought.
"What?" The stout man snarled up at Danny, "Can't you read? The sign says 'Get Lost'!"
Slamming the door with a resounding boom, Danny was left staring at the cold metal.
Blinking in surprise, Danny huffed, trying again with short, sharp rapping – persisting when the door was not instantly opened for him.
The door was yanked back open and Danny hurriedly placed his anxious expression back on.
The other man's face was stormy, "I thought I told you to beat it?" He roared, "So what in the he—"
Danny cut him off, feigning fear, "Sir, its director Fury! He's calling all agents in to capture the Draugur! He wants you all to assemble in the…" He mentally checked the position of Other-Danny, "East Wing utility room. The situation is dire! We're losing fast – I was only just able to escape!"
The man watched him sceptically, "You've seen this 'Draugur'?"
"Yes, I was sent from battle against that… that… er…" Danny struggled for a way to describe himself, "Thing to search for backup! Director Fury's orders, sir!"
The agent leaned on the doorframe, "Really? Well why haven't I gotten a radio call from anyone?" He asked sceptically.
Danny stayed silent, gritting his teeth agitatedly, mentally giving the okay to Other-Danny.
The man's lips were pulled into a smug smile, "No response, eh? I always knew you young recruits were too stupid to have any sense in a crisis – don't know why they bother hiring you grunts. You get in the way more than anything. This little joke is going straight to your commanding officer – who is it?"
Opening his mouth to give a snarky reply, Danny was cut off by an explosion in the distance, the corridor shuddering slightly with the aftershocks.
"Whoa! What was that?" A voice called from the room.
Worried mutterings quickly followed. Danny hid a smirk behind a weak cough.
"Shut up!" The short, greying man roared back into the room, "Until we are notified or warned in any way, we are to continue—"
A sharp crackling emitted from the walkie-talkie on the man's belt, Nick Fury's deep voice echoed through, "We need all available SHIELD agents to report to the East Wing! I repeat; all available SHIELD agents to the East wing, ASAP!"
The line cut dead. With a glare, the officer shoved past Danny, rushing past down the corridor, calling out orders to the men trailing closely behind. Danny clucked his tongue in amusement, strolling through – with a flick of Maria Hill's key-card – into the evacuated room.
Looking around curiously, he found the room lined with heavy artillery, each with a unique and strange design, workbenches stood in rows throughout the room with scattered remnants of weaponry splayed across their tops. A line of computers were shoved up against the back wall. Bingo.
Kicking the heavy metal door closed with his foot, Danny walked up to the closest workbench and began to drag it to the doorway, shoving the bench firmly against the door as a blockade.
Strolling over to one of the computers displaying an array of folders and files, he sat down. Glanced through them carelessly, his eyes widened as he caught sight of a familiar name; Bruce Banner.
Quirking an eyebrow, he clicked on the folder. A long list of icons spread out across the screen. Selecting at random, he frowned as a video player expanded and automatically began to play. Footage of Bruce in his other form played out, smashing through buildings and destroying military tanks with ease. Danny suddenly felt very lucky for only having to verse Bruce when he was in such a drastically weakened state – he had almost died in that battle. The halfa did not want to go head-to-head with a full-strength monstrosity like Bruce.
Closing the video, he shifted through the icons again, clicking arbitrarily. An assortment of documents opened; some presenting designs for weaponry, others playing small videos of ordnance demonstrations. Searching through, Danny became more and more confused – what would the relation be between Bruce and these weapons?
Clicking confoundedly on another icon, labelled 'PROJECT: FriendlyFire', Danny sucked in a sharp breath. A graph had opened in the bottom right corner of the screen, displaying rows of Bruce's health statistics. A range of weaponry was also displayed on the graph, presenting the assumptive effectiveness or ineffectiveness against the green monster.
Quickly closing the documents, Danny scanned for Tony Stark's name, opening his folder to find another 'PROJECT: FriendlyFire' file.
Quickly opening Thor's and Steve Roger's folders, he found the 'PROJECT: FriendlyFire' graph once again in each.
Danny groaned, resting his head in his hands. They were creating weapons to contain Tony and the others; keep them under SHIELD's control.
Half-heartedly clicking back to the mainframe, Danny noted a folder labelled 'Draugur'. He grunted when he found it locked.
Grabbing the phone stolen from the locker room, Danny keyed in a number he had memorised over the years. Holding it up to his ear, he began to chant distractedly, "Come on, come on! Pick up!"
Tucker's suave voice reverberated through the phone, "This is Tucker Foley speaking. If you are an incredibly hot girl wanting a piece of the T-Meister, please leave your number and the time you want me to pick you up for our date after the beep."
"Tucker!" Danny cried happily. It had been a while since he had talked to his friends. He felt a small pang of homesickness.
"Hey, Danny! Where have you been, dude?" Tucker's voice was worried, "I thought this was going to be a short there-and-back trip? You've already been gone for almost two days! Did you get lost or something? Because it turns out that New Mexico isn't actually in Mexico. Seriously, what's up with that?" He asked incredulously.
Danny ignored him, "Tuck, I'm in a bit of trouble and I need your help. Can you hack into some files for me? It's kind of urgent." Danny spared a worried glance at the barricaded door.
"Easy. What do you want me to do?"
"Can you hack into a military branch called SHIELD? They have some things I need to look at."
The self-proclaimed techno-geek sounded almost ecstatic at the prospect, "Just give me a few and I'll call you back."
Tucker promptly hung up on him, which earned the phone in Danny's hand a disgruntled look.
Standing up, Danny slowly made his way throughout the room, inspecting each piece of prototype weaponry carefully. Leafing through the drawers, he found a pile of manila folders labelled PROJECT: FriendlyFire, along with a few others. Throwing a weak ecto-blast at the pile, the files combusted and smouldered into ashes.
Hunting the room for more evidence of PROJECT: FriendlyFire, Danny luckily found none. Hearing the phone chime, Danny hurried to pick it up, "Got anything?" He asked impatiently.
"Nope," Tucker replied dejectedly, "They're sealed tight, Danny. There's nothing I can do unless we hack in directly from the network… Hey, what type of phone are you using?"
Pulling the phone away from his ear, Danny studied the mobile unit, before putting the device back up to his ear, "Something called a uPhone 6?"
Tucker sputtered on the other end, "A uPhone 6? Really? That is so cool – they aren't supposed to be in production for another whole year! It makes my baby look like scrap metal!"
Danny smacked his forehead, "Tucker, focus! I need your help. Can you do it?"
A chuckle was his only response, "Easy, amigo. Since you're so much closer in range, I can just hack into your phone and go from there, no problem at all."
"Okay," Danny replied, setting the phone to speaker and placing it next to the computer.
The mobile's screen blacked out as green ones and zeros flitted across in a strange pattern that only Tucker could understand, until a ping sounded through the phone. The screen blanked again until a duplicate of the computer's files presented itself on the phone.
"Told you," Tucker's voice was smug, "The uPhone 6 is great. A real work of technological art. If used right, you could hack into any bank in the world!"
"Don't even think about it," Danny growled, before a grin spread across Danny's face, "Thanks, Tuck. You've been a big help."
"How long do you think you'll be? You sister's really starting to worry, and Sam and I are running out of excuses."
"I don't know, man. This whole mess has gotten way bigger than just Tony Stark pulling a prank on me." Danny sighed.
"Damn. Oh, hold on, Danny," A muffled feminine voice emerged over the line in the background, as Tucker murmured an agitated reply. A brief struggle was heard until Tucker let out a sharp "Ouch!"
"Danny?" Sam's voice called out.
"Sam, hey! What's up?" Danny called out cheerily. He missed Sam just as much as Tucker.
"I have to tell you something important – no, go away, Tucker!" A slap was heard as Sam growled into the phone, followed by another cry of pain.
"Sam, what's wrong? Are you guys okay?"
"We're fine. The portal, however, isn't. Jazz said it opened up the other night and practically the whole Ghost Zone escaped through it!"
"What?" Danny cried, "Are you serious? The town's safe, right?"
"Yes, everyone's fine. The ghosts pretty much ran away the moment they passed through. Just disappeared. It was scary, Danny. All those ghosts flooding the sky. Tucker doesn't believe me though, Sleeping Beauty here claims he didn't hear a thing."
Tucker's voice was indignant in the background.
Danny reclined in his chair, "Well, if they aren't doing any harm, I'm not bothering with them now."
"Not you too, Danny!" Sam moaned down the phone, "You can't just ignore something this big!"
"It's not that, Sam. I just have priorities – things I have to do first." Looking at the computer screen, he asked offhandedly, "Hey, do you know what a Draugur is?"
A sigh echoed in his ear, "Duh, Danny. Of course I do. We did an entire project on mythological beasts, remember? For history class? It's a Nordic grave-crawler."
"They think I'm a what?"
/ / /
They had the Draugur – or Danny, as Steve preferred to call him – surrounded. The large gym-room was crawling with SHIELD operatives in dark glasses, the Avengers – not including Tony or Bruce – stood either side of him.
Large glowing green guns were pointed in Danny's direction, yet the Draugur hardly seemed fazed.
"Give it up, Draugur," Fury called, "We have you surrounded. These are state-of-the-art radiation-pulse guns. They have the ability to melt you from the inside out in less than twenty seconds."
Steve briefly wondered if such a high level of radiation would cause more damage to humans than corpses.
Danny only grinned as he began to loop carelessly in the air. Steve heard Thor growl dangerously next to him, his hammer clenched so tightly in his hands that Steve saw angry red welts emerge on the god's palm as Thor shifted his grip.
Thor's control snapped as Danny childishly blew a raspberry at the group. He catapulted his hammer at the Draugur, who simply swooped around the projectile, firing a glowing green blast in the direction of the pseudo-god who simply stepped out of the way. It was a terrible shot – it barely met the ground where Thor had stood.
"Stand ready, men!" Steve heard Fury call from the sidelines. Natasha lifted her modified handgun in response, taking aim and firing off bullets. Each one missed as Danny mocked her by flitting about them, taunting her as she angrily reached for another cartridge. Clint Barton covered her as he let his arrows loose rapidly. Danny squeaked in surprised, his torso splitting from his lower half – only a thin wisp connecting his body together as they dodged the arrows. Steve's eyes widen with surprised as the rest of the Avengers and agents halted their offense, shocked at the unnatural contortionism.
Danny quickly morphed himself back into his original state as Thor broke out of his astonishment, charging at him with his hammer as he took a wild swing at Danny's head. Ducking, Danny took on a translucent appearance as he slipped through Thor's body across the room. Thor whirled around, once again hurling the hammer. Danny smiled cockily as he grabbed the hilt of Mjölnir, before yelping as he was dragged with the hammer's force into a far wall, compelling the surrounding agents to drop their weapons and dodge out of the way.
With a moan, the Draugur roughly shook his head, shaking rubble off himself as he stood covered in small cuts, before turning to yank at the hammer that had lodged itself into the metal wall. Futilely pulling at the grip, Danny planted two feet against the steel and heaved, before losing his grip and tripping back. The Draugur turned only to be met with Thor's heavy fist – forcing Danny to tumble to the side.
Nick Fury called out once again, "Take aim!" A loud hum resounded throughout the room as the agents' guns were raised. Steve felt the air electrify, "Fire!"
Steve saw Danny's eyes widen as bright pulsing green surrounded the Draugur, his outline burning into Steve's retinas as he quickly turned his head away, lifting his shield as protection from the burning light. Steve blinked rapidly as it died away, trying to lose the imprint of Danny that had tattooed itself to the inside of his eyelids.
Steve saw Thor grin happily through over-sensitised eyes. Fury following suit.
"Good work, agents. The Draugur is destroyed."
Looking to where Danny had last laid, Steve felt slightly sick looking at the melted and charred remains of the metal wall. A deep, scorched hole was all that was left.
The veteran felt a strange sense of melancholy sweep over him. The Draugur had been completely disintegrated – there was no way that he could have survived.
"Whoa, that was a close one! Guess you guys really play the rule of 'shoot first, ask questions later', huh?" a voice chuckled from above Steve. Looking up, he saw Danny floating near the vaulted ceiling lying on his back, arms tucked behind his head comfortably with a lazy grin.
Steve gawked. How did he survive? He wasn't granted time to consider the possibilities as Danny unwound his hands from behind his head rapidly shooting off more green beams at the agents' weapons – his carefree expression washed away with a look of concentration. The guns exploded on impact, the butts and triggers still clasped in their shocked owner's hands.
Another arrow shot towards Danny, skimming over the arm of the skin-tight black and white outfit. Steve heard Danny hiss as he grasped at the flesh wound– green staining the white gloves he wore.
Danny whipped his uninjured arm out and sent a short blast at Natasha's handgun, sending it flying across the room before angling his arm at Barton – his hand still glowing that eerie green. The bleeding one was aimed at Thor.
"Captain!" Steve heard Natasha call out, knocking him out of his musings.
"Oh, right!" twisting his torso, he reeled back, flinging his shield at the distracted Draugur.
It impacted harshly with Danny's shoulder, shoving him out of the air to tumble to the ground heavily with a yell. Thor leapt forward, swinging his hammer down at Danny's head who rolled out from under him, the weapon forming a small crater where the Draugur's head had previously been laying.
Planting a hand flat on the ground, Steve watched in morbid curiosity as ice began to develop from Danny's fingertips, slithering its way across the ground in an white-streaked trail where it wrapped around Thor's feet, traveling up to his knees – leaving his team member immobilised. Thor thrashed about in response, roaring fiercely, using his hammer to try and break free of the thick ice as Danny rolled back onto his feet.
Rushing over to where his shield had fallen, he watched as the Draugur aimed wild green energy beams at Nick Fury and his agents. All of them missing.
Steve furrowed his brow – he had seen Danny fight in Asgard. Very few of his attacks had missed, and he was more tactically cunning than he appeared. So why now, when he had the upper hand, couldn't Danny hit them?
Mentally shrugging, Steve spun his body, releasing his shield at the boy. Maybe he was just overthinking it. He was just a kid.
/ / /
Danny was once again stalking through the corridors. After destroying the prototype weapons in the lab, Tucker had successfully downloaded a map for the halfa to navigate around the building – which made it a lot easier to walk through the winding bends. He had no idea how anyone who worked in wherever he was knew their way around.
Mentally connecting with Other-Danny, he reeled back into his own head, "Okay, ouch! What am I doing? That really hurts! I thought I told myself to distract them, not get my butt kicked from here to kingdom come."
Grasping at his head, Danny stumbled down the corridor, tripping through the automatic doorway to his right. "Oof!" he collapsed on his back, winded. Grunting, the halfa rubbed his head to sooth the headache Other-Danny had forced on him.
A gasp met his ears, "Are you okay?"
Snapping his blue eyes open, he met the soft chocolate brown of Jane Foster's hovering over him where he laid, her hair forming a halo around her pretty features.
Grimacing, Danny pulled himself off the ground with Jane's aid, "Yeah thanks. I'm fine," his cheeks heated up in embarrassment. He always made a fool of himself in front of pretty girls. At least his pants were still up around his waist. It would be a feat in itself considering he was wearing a too-tight jumpsuit.
Looking around, he noted a large, long black table planted in the centre of the room. One wall was dotted with small screens, a touch-screen control station in front. Glass panes lined the parallel wall, overlooking what looked like an operations room, brightly lit by the natural sunlight filtering through as they weaved through clouds.
Doing a double-take, Danny felt his jaw slacken slightly at the sight of the passing clouds. Was he on some sort of gigantic plane or something?
Pushing back the urge to ask where he was, Danny awkwardly rasped out, "Doctor Foster, right? You're with the big scary blond guy with anger-issues."
Throwing a confused look over her shoulder, Jane made her way over to the wall with screens, fiddling with the controls as she rewound a tape, "I think you mean Doctor Banner. Thor doesn't have anger issues," she replied curtly.
"Well, what's with all the hate against m— er, I mean, the Draugur?"
"Prejudice," she stated, "He's listened to these stories about Draugar terrorising Earth and feeding off human souls since he was young. Probably seen it happen, too. He just doesn't want anyone to get hurt," Jane pressed the play button, "Why are you asking? Don't you hate the Draugur? Everyone else here does."
Danny sputtered, "W-well yeah! But I mean what if we were wrong? Like, you know, we formed this idea of what this er… 'creature' is but we were wrong about it? And it turns out that he's really not that bad and just wants to go home to see his family and friends and play video games and hang out at the Nasty Burger and—" Danny cut himself off. Apparently, pretty girls also made him ramble alongside being clumsy. Tucker would get a kick out of seeing him now, "Erm, hypothetically of course!" he rubbed at the back of his neck awkward.
Jane seemed to miss Danny's slip of the tongue, as she sighed and turned to look at him, "A belief isn't just something you can just turn on and off – it's personal and biased. And Thor… well, he has a lot of reasons to be biased," Giving her full attention to him, she peered up at Danny's face, "You look familiar. Have we met?"
Feeling his ears turn pink, he hastily replied, "Oh, um… no. I don't believe so. Not like this anyway."
Jane frowned, before turning back to the screens.
"So…" Danny drawled out, peering over her shoulder, "What are you up to exactly?"
"I'm reviewing the surveillance tapes of the Draugur's escape – to see if we can find any technical faults in the system that helped him or if it was all on him."
Danny cringed, stepping back, edging toward the exit, "Really? Why would you want to do that?"
"Tony and Bruce thought it would be a good idea – makes me useful. It's also so we can learn its weaknesses before it gets the chance to call for backup," running her hands through her hair, Jane stared at the screen intently. Glancing back to the quietly retreating Danny, she paused the video and asked, "What's wrong?"
Danny froze, "Uh, nothing!" He squeaked out unconvincingly. He couldn't stop his eyes from flicking between her and the frozen screens. Jane had paused on a close-up of Danny's ghostly counterpart's face. Catching his glance she gave him a quizzical stare, before turning her neck to study the screen, twisting it back so fast the halfa worried that she might have given herself whiplash.
Her big brown eyes pierced him, faintly whispering, "Oh, my."