Work Text:
Valerie knew she was generally a stubborn person, but it took longer than it honestly should have for her to admit defeat. If she wanted to get her suit and weapons to stop malfunctioning, she’d need to find someone to help her.
She considered going to Mr. Masters, since he was the one who gave her the original one after all, but this new suit was much more advanced than his had been, and besides, Mr. Masters was currently out of town in some undisclosed location for a business trip, so unless she was willing to wait however long it took for him to return, he wasn’t an option.
As a former engineer for Axion Labs’s security, her father was also a reasonable choice, but Val knew that if her dad found out her suit wasn’t working right, he’d flip. And, she reluctantly noted, there was a non-zero chance he’d further sabotage it to prevent her from being able to ghost hunt.
Really, the only other choice then was the Fentons. Though she only really knew them personally through Danny, the Drs. Fenton were renowned in the ectoscience and ghost hunting fields as pioneers of the industry, so Valerie had a healthy level of respect for them. Besides, she also knew that they let their daughter Jazz ghost hunt with them, so surely unlike her dad, the Fentons wouldn’t be upset to find out that the Red Huntress was actually a high schooler, right?
Valerie decided to head to the Fentons’ home as soon as possible, not wanting to leave her suit bugging out when she’d prefer to get back on the field as soon as possible. She coasted through school the next day, just barely paying enough attention to retain information, before making a beeline to Fenton Works. When she got there, the person who answered the door wasn’t the Fenton parents like she’d hoped it would be.
“Hi Val,” he replied, looking at her curiously. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for your parents.” She cast a glance at the room behind him but couldn’t see anything.
“Sorry, they’re out right now.” Danny gave her a sympathetic smile. “But if you want, you can come in while you wait.” He moved to the side as he held the door open for her. It was kind of cute, his chivalrous geek thing.
Valerie stepped into the Fenton house, which was strangely more understated than she was expecting. The only time she’d ever been here before was when they’d locked everything down during the Ghost King’s invasion. Now without the defense system activated, it almost looked like a normal family home, the illusion only broken by various ectoweapons strewn around and ghost hunting jumpsuits hanging in the coat closet.
“What do you need my parents for anyway?” Danny asked as he led her to the living room, before dropping onto the couch. It barely shifted under the weight of him, making Valerie worry slightly about how light he was.
“Uh, one of my Fentonworks ectoguns is malfunctioning. I was going to ask if they could have a look over.” It was a half truth, technically. She was here to have the Fentons look over her ectoweapons, though she’d fibbed about what kind they were.
Danny’s brow furrowed. “You have a Fentonworks ectoweapon? Why would you need-” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Nevermind. Anyway, if you need someone to look over your stuff, I’m pretty handy in that department.”
She didn’t know what her face was doing, but she did know it made Danny laugh. “Don’t look so shocked,” he snickered. “My parents have had me and Jazz help with the lab and ghost hunting equipment since we were old enough to hold a Fenton Foamer without falling over.”
Valerie shook her head frantically before he even finished his sentence. “I’d rather just wait for your parents.”
Danny frowned at that, hurt flashing across his face before vanishing again as the corners of his mouth turned up in a lighthearted smirk. “Come on, Val. Like half the malfunctioning weapons people give my parents get fixed by me anyway.” He held out his hand expectantly.
Her blood felt like it was turning to ice. She’d known coming here would mean telling Jack and Maddie Fenton about her ghost hunting escapades, but both of them were more acquainted with the “Red Huntress” than with “Valerie Gray”. She didn’t doubt they’d see her as a worthy ally regardless of her age. Danny though? He was her friend, had at one point been almost something more. She didn’t know how he’d take the news, if he’d respond with indignant anger and Phantom fanaticism, like most of their classmates would.
Danny’s frown deepened at her hesitation, and his eyes flitted over her with wary concern, no doubt taking in her deer-in-headlights expression. Damn it. Though Danny wasn’t as academically gifted as the rest of his family, he was still a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for. Valerie didn’t doubt that he’d figure her out in minutes if she let too much slip.
Unfortunately for her, he seemed to read something more from her expression because his face suddenly went slack with something akin to realization before turning unreadable. “You said your tech was messing up?”
Valerie grimaced uncomfortably even as she nodded. She knew that’s what she’d said but she couldn’t help but take any statement questioning her suit’s integrity personally. It was weird and kind of irrational, but with every day that passed, the suit felt less like a costume or a weapon and more like an extension of herself.
Danny seemed to hesitate for a few moments before noticeably steeling himself. “If you want to get help with fixing your, uh… not Fenton Works weapons, I’d suggest not going to my parents to be honest.”
If Valerie was going insane, she’d think he was making a subtle remark about her secret identity. But she wasn’t insane, so surely there was a normal explanation for what he was talking about that she just didn’t understand.
“What do you mean?” She asked, trying to exude confused innocence.
Danny looked away, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “They might like the Red Huntress as much as anyone, but there’s no way your new suit doesn’t have a significant ectosignature.” What. “There’s not really a guarantee they won’t completely dismantle it, if not accuse you of being outright overshadowed or a ghost or something.”
He was probably making good points. Valerie wouldn’t know. Her brain was mostly static right now, the only sound she could comprehend being her heart pounding in her ears, a steady rhythm of he knows he knows he knows he-
“You know?”
Danny smiled at her wryly, his amused smirk twisting his face into one that was strangely familiar.
“Valerie,” he said, clearly trying to hold back a laugh, “the first day you became the Red Huntress, you literally almost totalled me and Sam at the park.”
She’d forgotten about that. Cringing, Valerie remembered how she’d insulted both of them on their… date? She’d never actually figured out if they were together at that time or not, or if they were just friends that kissed sometimes. She hadn’t really cared at the time. She cared a lot now, more than she’d expected considering she’d gone on maybe half a date with Danny before breaking it off.
“I called you both loser geeks,” she recalled with a dawning horror.
Danny laughed out loud then. “Yeah, it kind of wasn’t hard to figure out which classmate hated both me and ghosts.”
Valerie wanted to protest that she’d never hated him, not wanting to lump her past-slash-sort-of-current crush in with the things that ruined her life but she knew she couldn’t really defend against the statement. She’d been a dick to Danny for months, even after getting kicked from the A-Listers. It was honestly telling of how kind he was that they were even friends.
“Sorry,” she said, which made Danny blink with a sort of shocked gratitude. Jesus, did no one apologize to him ever?
“It’s fine,” Danny waved her off. “I can’t act like I haven’t hurt you too.” Valerie was about to argue that being kind of bitchy when she flaked on their baby project wasn’t remotely equivalent, but he continued before she could speak. “Anyway, what’s wrong with your suit?”
Right. The thing she came here for. With the revelation that Danny knew, she’d almost forgotten.
“I don’t know,” Valerie groaned in frustration. “It’s insanely reactive, which would be kind of cool if it wasn’t terrifying. And everytime something wrong happens during a fight, it starts flaking. Like, last week there was a fight between Phantom and that ghost rock chick right? I was trying to aim at her to cut it short, because I was kind of stressed about the math test the next day and wanted to get back home to study last minute. But my suit shot at Phantom instead!”
“Is that what that was?” Danny murmured, somewhat incomprehensibly. “I knew it had something to do with the math test, but I kind of just assumed you were relieving stress.”
“Danny,” Valerie sent him a bewildered glance. “Were you… stalking me as the Red Huntress?” It would honestly be kind of creepy if it wasn’t Danny, but mostly she felt it was a bit sweet, like he was worried about her.
He flushed and frantically waved his hands. “No, no! It was just one of the ones my parents got a ghost alert for because it was close to my house. I watched it from my window while they were packing up the GAV.”
She didn’t remember where exactly the fight had taken place, but she didn’t doubt him if he said it was by his house. Most ghosts were usually trying to get in or out of the Fenton Works ghost portal, after all.
“Anyway,” she continued. “It kind of feels like the more I notice the glitches, the more they start appearing. I literally almost dropped out of the sky yesterday because my hoverboard vanished from right under my feet.” It had been something she was worried would happen ever since she noticed the malfunctioning, and it was terrifying to experience. Loath as she was to admit it, the only reason she survived was because Phantom had halted in the middle of fighting off another ghost to save her. It grated at her immensely to owe that ghostly dickhead a sort of life debt.
“I saw that,” Danny replied. “Er, on the news.” He looked down, his expression vaguely haunted. “It was terrifying watching you fall like that. Even after you were safe, I couldn’t stop wondering if your suit would have even been enough to save you.”
It was a thought that Valerie too had run through her head several times since that happened.
“Yeah,” she sighed out. “So you see why I need to get it fixed.”
Danny pursed his lips as if considering something. “Can I see it?”
“What?”
“Your suit. I think I’d be better at diagnosing it if I saw it.”
Valerie felt hope flutter in her ribcage. “You think you can help?”
“I may not be an engineering prodigy like my dad, but I know my way around ectoweaponry,” Danny shrugged modestly. “Sam, Tuck and I take my parents’ old prototypes and modify them for fun sometimes.”
That… was really impressive. And shocking. Mostly shocking, considering most people, Valerie included, had assumed Danny Fenton was too scared of ghosts to want to do anything remotely related to his parents’ career.
Valerie took a deep breath and changed into her suit. Like she’d mentioned to Danny, the suit was incredibly attuned to her whims in a way the original hadn’t been. She no longer needed to activate a mechanism in her shoes, merely thought about putting on the suit and within seconds, whatever nanotechnology it was made of crawled over her form seamlessly. It was simultaneously disconcerting and comforting in a way Valerie didn’t know how to parse.
Danny watched the transformation with a strangely grave look. “Can you summon some of your weapons?”
Valerie complied, and the weapons appeared from her suit like magic. She was always awed by the amazing technology she wore, even if she didn’t understand how it worked. Danny didn’t seem to agree though, and his frown grew deeper for some reason Valerie couldn’t figure out.
“Where did you get this suit?” he asked slowly, as if trying to gauge something from her.
“A ghost lent it to me when he realized I was fighting Phantom. My sponsor looked it over after he found out and made sure nothing malicious remained in it,” she said honestly. She hated knowing that she owed her new suit to an ectoplasmic lowlife, but Mr. Masters had been thorough in his checking before giving her the all clear.
“Does it come off?”
Valerie blinked at the question. “I don’t know.”
Truthfully, she’d never tried, so she wouldn’t know but her gut feeling was that it didn’t. She’d never thought of that before, and the revelation sat uncomfortably in her stomach.
Danny stared off into space, seemingly digesting this before he turned back to her. “Can you follow me for a second?” Valerie nodded her agreement. Danny’s strange behavior was beginning to worry her, and she’d started to suspect something might be more wrong with her suit than she had realized.
He led her into the kitchen and then through the entrance to his parents’ lab. When they got to the lower floor, he wasted no time in rummaging through the assortment of items that lay on the work tables. He made a small hum of satisfaction when he found what he was searching for, a weird little instrument that looked like a sort of geiger counter, and held it up to Valerie’s suit.
“What is that?” she asked curiously. It wasn’t one of the Fenton Works devices that was publicly available.
“It’s a ectoradiation detector,” Danny explained. “Ectoradiation is emitted by ghostly items, and the level of output can be used to determine the power level of a ghost. My parents also use it to find natural portals.”
“That’s really cool. Uh, why are you using it on me?”
Danny sighed and put the detector down on the table. “Because your suit emits ectoradiation like a ghost would.”
Valerie suddenly felt very cold. “It- what? But my sponsor said-”
“Vlad only ever tends to offer information on what he considers a need-to-know basis,” Danny interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “But he didn’t lie to you when he said that it wouldn’t be harmful. The readings I’m getting are stable, which means the suit’s ectoplasm is already integrated with your body and its energy levels are self-sustained.”
Valerie stared wordlessly down at the mechanical suit she was still wearing as terror started to fill every crevice of her. Danny seemingly didn’t notice because he kept talking.
“It’s probably why your suit’s been acting strange recently,” he continued. “It’s bonded to you, presumably on a molecular level, so it’s responding to you like an extension of your body. Every time you had an issue, it was due to an outside stressor or you worrying that something was going to mess up, right? It’s like when you think too hard about everything that can go wrong during a performance, and suddenly you start messing u- Valerie? Are you alright?”
God, she should have worried more when that ghost strapped this thing to her, but she’d been so distraught after Phantom had destroyed her first one that she hadn’t thought to question her good luck. Obviously that had been a terrible idea, because now the ghostly filth was inside her, and she couldn’t get it out or be normal ever again. What was she supposed to think now? What would her dad think when he realized?
“You can get rid of it, right?” she asked, or rather begged. “Your parents work with ectoplasm all the time, can they-” She cut herself off, seeing the pitying look in his eyes. Fuck.
She felt lightheaded and realized her breath was quickening rapidly, keeping her from retaining oxygen.
“Oh god,” Danny rushed forward and caught her as she swayed. “Val!” His voice sounded panicked, Valerie realized distantly.
Danny grabbed her by the shoulders, keeping her stabilized while she struggled to breathe. “Valerie, listen to me. Okay, are you listening?”
She couldn’t really respond, but Danny continued. “Take a deep breath in with me for four seconds, then we’ll hold for seven seconds, and breathe out for eight.”
He inhaled through his nose exaggeratedly, and Valerie tried her best to copy him. They held their breath together before slowly releasing it. Danny led her through the practice two more times before she felt her lungs expand a normal amount again.
“I’m good,” she finally said raggedly. “Thank you.”
“Valerie.”
She looked up and saw Danny staring at her with a serious and steady expression. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said. “I should have broken the news better. I knew you hated ghosts, but- I don’t know, sometimes I forget that outside of my family, things like this are really abnormal.”
Valerie rubbed her face in exhaustion. “It’s fine, Danny. It’s not your fault I’m a freak now.”
Danny huffed out a sudden laugh, but before she could glare at him in hurt anger, he started flapping his hands in panic. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to laugh, it’s just- hold on a second.”
He pulled away from her and walked back to the table where he’d dropped off the ectoradiation detector. He grabbed the small device and came back to where she was standing.
“Here.” he gave it to her and turned it on, showing her the recorded reading which read “4.63”. “That’s your reading. Now, let’s do this again.” He guided the device in her hands up and pointed it towards himself. “What does it say?”
Valerie looked down at the reading. “It says-” She stopped and stared uncomprehendingly before looking back up at Danny in confusion. “It says ‘7.81’. Danny?”
He grinned at her impishly. “See, the thing about living right above an ectobiology lab is that you get exposed to a lot of ectoradiation. And the thing about being a teenage boy is you tend to ignore lab safety protocols. Put that together and you end up with a lot of ectocontamination.”
“You’re like me? ‘Ectocontaminated’?”
Danny shrugged. “Technically, ‘ectocontaminated’ isn’t the right word for it. Most people with ectoradiation exposure get over the effects within a few months, but I had a minor accident with the ghost portal at the beginning of freshman year and it messed with my bodily functions. It confuses the hell out of my parents and their weapons, but now I can’t stop putting off a stable ectosignature.”
Valerie stared at him with open shock. Everyone at school had known Danny Fenton had an accident in the freshman fall semester, but no one had known the details, only that he’d had to spend a significant amount of time in a hospital. If the ghosts coming through the portal had been the ones to cause his accident, it was no wonder he feared them as much as he did. Valerie felt her resentment towards them grow as she tried not to think about how much pain they must have caused Danny.
She laid a hand over his and squeezed it in sympathy. “I’m sorry you have to deal with that,” she said. He squeezed back.
“It's not so bad,” he said with a small smile, like he was making a private joke to himself. “I got some neat party tricks out of the experience.”
Valerie raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but said nothing. It was a bit unfair that whatever the ghost had done to her had given her the ability to defend herself and others, whereas all it seemed to have given Danny was post-traumatic stress and further complications to his life, but he didn’t seem upset about it.
“You’re weird,” she told him affectionately.
“And a loser geek?”
“Yeah, that too.”
“Rude. I just helped you with your suit problem, didn’t I?”
“Did you? I’m pretty sure the only thing you did was tell me to get better stress management.”
Danny laughs. “Well it’s good advice. Besides, it’s not like my parents could have helped much with that.”
“Alright, fine,” Valerie pretends to sigh aggrieved. “Thank you for your help I guess.”
She’s rewarded by the characteristic soft and kind smile that she’s come to know and love. “Anytime, Val.”