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This fight has been going on for far, far too long.
Valerie raises her ecto-gun, closing one eye as she takes aim. Her shot misses her target by a good foot or so, and she swears under her breath.
"Woah!" Phantom yelps, stumbling back from his place in the air. The ghost boy does a little flip, his bright eyes wide and wild. The shade of green they're currently glowing is violently toxic. "Will you stop that?" he asks, voice unsteady.
He sounds absolutely exhausted. She wonders how his exhaustion actually works, and how he might feel it, considering he's a ghost. She also wonder if it might just be an act, a ploy for pity perhaps, and considers the possibility that he might not feel exhaustion at all.
Valerie doesn't say anything in reply. Her brow furrows under her helmet, nose scrunching. Her mission today was supposed to be very, very simple, and somehow she already managed to fuck it up by missing her first shot. She is better than this, she knows she is! Perhaps it is just because of how important she knows this mission is—her hands feel sweaty beneath her gloves, and there is a knot at the bottom of her stomach.
Let's end this now, ghost boy, she thinks, as she raises her ecto-gun to take fire again. She lets loose, ectoplasm beam flying through the air, right in the direction of Phantom. If she fails today, she could always try again later—but then she would lose her element of surprise, which would make things so much more difficult. She wants this done and over with, finally able to rest with Phantom unable to hurt anyone else.
The new, small device clipped to her hip—courtesy of Mr. Masters—feels almost warm through the fabric of her thick suit. She wonders what Phantom would think if he knew she had it, or what it did. Would he be frightened? No, no… Valerie doesn't think the ghost boy could ever possibly feel anything like fear. She pats her side, as if reassuring herself that the device is still there. It's just what she needs, she knows it is. She just has to get close…
"Stop—!" Phantom rasps out, dodging quickly to the side, away from the beam "—I promise—" he ducks as Valerie fires yet again, "—I'm not trying to hurt anyone—" he lets out a cry as Valerie's final shot slams into his side. He buckles, sinking down several feet.
Today is the day, she reminds herself.
"Stop!" Phantom says again, raising a trembling hand to his side. He sounds… nervous.
Valerie cocks her head. This is part of the plan, she reminds herself.
Valerie hops up on her hoverboard, and Phantom doesn't have enough wits about him to move before she makes it to his side. He startles at her sudden appearance and goes to hit her—and Valerie can't help but feel like he's holding back, somehow. She's seen him hit hulking, towering ghosts and send them flying, and this strike does little more than cause her to hunch down a bit on top of her hoverboard.
"What are you doing?" he asks, a tightness to his voice. His eyes are shifty, like he's unsure if he should run or not.
She doesn't reply, only raising her ecto-gun to fire again, only now, he's holding onto the weapon tightly in both of his hands. She tries to wrench it from him, but only succeeds in causing both of them to stumble awkwardly backwards through the air. Phantom goes intangible for the slightest moment—but can't manage to hold it up for long.
He tips forward, like he's about to fall from the air, but it's too late.
Valerie claws for the little device hooked to her hip, and yanks it out in one swift move. A tiny, compact taser, is unlatched from her side. She shoves it forward, right into Phantom's side.
Sparks fly from the two prongs attached to the end of the taser, and then Phantom is being shocked. It's like lightning, if lightning was neon blue and sputtering. Phantom's mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
For a beat, his hair… flickers? Almost like TV static, shuffling between black and white and gray, too quickly for her to focus on any of the colors. Then, he's falling before Valerie can catch him.
His entire body just… sags, dropping like rock. He plummets, hitting the ground in a blink. His body digs into the Earth, and Valerie can't help the sick feeling that rises to her throat at the sight. It's oddly grotesque, seeing Phantom lying there so limply.
For a moment, she can almost believe that he's a real, feeling human boy—not a ghost.
Then she shakes herself, and she soars her hoverboard over to where she landed, hopping off of it gracefully. Phantom has pulled himself up to sit, and looks to be trying his best to fly back up into the air—to no avail. Instead, he tries to stand—but his entire body is shaking so hard he fails.
"What… what was that—? he rasps out.
Valerie walks up to him carefully, resting all of her weight on one leg. She holds the little device up, waving it in the air. "New toy," she says, "From my little sponser. He calls it the Plasmius Maximus."
Phantom's eyes shoot up and meet hers. His pupils are blown out.
"And," she says, trying to ignore the way his look sends shivers down her spine. "It took away your powers… at least for the next few hours." She shouldn't feel bad for him—she shouldn't! That isn't real fear in his eyes. That isn't real pain. He's a ghost. It's all fake!
Isn't it?
Phantom stands. Or, he tries to stand, and his knees buckle and he falls right back down to where he was before. When he looks up at her, his eyes flicker between green and teal, as if they cannot decide which one they want to be.
Valerie cocks her head to one side, leaning down to snag his wrist. Now, all she has to do is take him to Mr. Masters, and the mayor can handle the rest. Finally, finally she has the ghost boy in his grasp with no way that he can escape.
Perhaps Valerie underestimated just how well the ghost boy would function without his powers, because he yanks viciously out of her grip. She grabs for him again, but he actually manages to topple her this time, yanking her down to join him on the floor. What in the world—?
They wrestle there, for a moment.
Valerie goes to reach for her gun, but Phantom flings it away from her, and it lands in the grass several feet away. She reels back a fist to try and punch him, but he catches it, ducking his head. He tries to crawl away, but she drags him back over, yanking the back of his stupid spandex suit.
"Stop—" Valerie hisses out through gritted teeth, "—trying—" she dodges a stray punch, "—to—" she shoves her knee into Phantom's side, "—get—away!"
Phantom coughs, but he's still fighting and wasn't this supposed to be easy?
The next thing she knows, she has the taser back out. She shoves it into a spot between Phantom's ribs—her mind is wandering, as she does, thinking about whether or not Phantom actually has ribs. Do ghosts have bones? How would that work? It's almost dissociative, the way her hands are moving like she isn't actually the one moving them.
She turns, and then she has him pinned to the ground, holding him down firmly. The taser is still going, and his mouth is opened to scream again—but this time he's actually screaming.
He's looking up at her with those bright, bright green eyes and for half a beat, they ae no longer green. They are a bright, twinkling blue. Then, Valerie blinks, and they're green again. His hair is like static again, blurring and buzzing and blinking so quickly that it strains her eyes to look at. Then, a light erupts from his waist, and she has to shield her eyes for a moment as he goes through some sort of… transformation.
"Valerie," Phantom says, and she falters so badly that she drops the taser, because—because that isn't Phantom.
The ghost boy—the ghost boy?—is staring up at her with glimmering blue eyes and black hair.
"… Danny?" she asks, the unbidden word rising to her lips. Because that's who it is, isn't it? Danny.
Danny, Danny, Danny, her boyfriend. And suddenly she feels so utterly stupid for not seeing it before because obviously—obviously!—it was Danny. Danny and Phantom, with the same curve to their cheek. Danny and Phantom, with the same arch to their nose. Danny and Phantom, with the same softness to their hair—the hair Valerie now had gripped between two of her gloved fingers. She releases it quickly, as if it were on fire.
"Hi Val," Phantom—Danny—Phantom—? says. His eyes are bloodshot, and there are tears beginning to pool in the corners of them. His words are thick and raspy, like he is barely able to get them out. And, oh god, his voice is so similar, isn't it? They have the same pitch, the same tone—sure, when Phantom speaks, there is always this sort of ethereal static that rings in her ears—but how had she never noticed that they had the exact same voice.
Then, her brain short circuits because… Danny just called her Val.
Valerie herself may be coming to some sort of Earth-shattering revelation that Danny and Phantom are the same person, but Danny…
Danny just called her Val.
"You knew?" she asks, and all she can do is reach up and tear the mask off of her face. She feels suddenly very vulnerable. Phantom is evil, her mind says, except that isn't quite right. Danny isn't evil. Danny certainly isn't evil, not with his kind eyes and goofy smile and ability to make her laugh.
She isn't laughing now, though, and Danny isn't smiling.
Somehow his eyes are still kind.
"Oh," Danny says, as if he did not realize he had given away this information. There is a dizzying expression on his face. He looks dazed, unable to fully focus. All she can think about if he knew all the time. He did, didn't he?
He knew and what? He still treated her with love. He still cared about her. For half a second, she wants to wonder if all of it was a trick—some sick, twisted ploy by a ghost to toy with her heart—but she discards that idea almost immediately. Danny wouldn't do that. Danny would never do that. Never, ever, not in a million entire years, would Danny do anything as stupid as play with her heart.
He's still looking at her. His eyes are unfocused. He looks one moment away from tears. He
She wonders if it was the taser. She wonders if she did that to him. She wonders, she wonders, she wonders…
"I'm sorry," she's saying, and then she's moving to get off of him. "I'm so, so sorry," she says again, but Danny is holding her in place. His hands are at her hips, fingers trembling, yet still strong.
"Don't go," he says, voice strained.
"No," she replies, "I should, I should…"
But he's still staring up at her with those eyes.
"Please don't go," he says, and again, his voice is so soft and delicate that it makes her want to cry. "I don't want you to go." And his words are trembling even more when he says, "Please don't hate me. Please, please—" he's rambling now, like he just can't stop. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—" he says over, and over, and over.
"Shh," Valerie finds herself saying, and then she's leaning down and pressing lips against his cheek. It's warm and flushed—far too hot. Danny turns his head, and his eyes are still wet. "Shh," she says again, as gently as she can, because there is a sudden pit at the botton of her stomach that only seems to grow with every beat that passes. It's gnawing away at her, climbing up her throat, filling her mouth, threatening to make her cry too.
But she can't cry. She can't. She can't be the one who gets to cry, not after what she just did to Danny. Danny, still trembling and pinned beneath her and looking so, so broken to pieces.
It feels very sudden, and very strange, considering they are both here in the middle of a goddamn park, sprawled across the ground. Her helmet is off, for god's sake, and anyone walking by would be able to immediately learn the identity of the Red Huntress.
In that moment, though, she can't really bring herself to care.
Danny is reaching toward her with such soft eyes, and the next thing she knows, she's pressing kiss after kiss to his flushed cheeks—then his forehead, his nose, his mouth. His mouth—over and over again, she kisses his mouth, just light, feathery kisses, but kisses all the same. His skin is almost salty, from the tears she can see have started leaking from his eyes. He looks up at her, that dizzying expression only growing, somehow, even more dizzying.
"I'm sorry," she gasps out, at last, when she finally pulls away for a very brief, gasping intake of air. "You shouldn't be sorry," she says, "I'm sorry."
"I shouldn't be kissing you," she says, almost deliriously, "I shouldn't, I—"
But all Danny does, with his shaking, trembling hands is reach up and yank her back down to kiss her again. His lips are soft against her own.
"I love you," he murmurs against them.
Valerie can't help but murmur back, "I love you too," even though feels with a deep seated certainty that she absolutely does not deserve him.
But then, he's kissing her again, and she's kissing him back and she can't bring herself all too much to care.