Chapter Text
Danny carefully shook two of the tiny orange tablets out of their bottle and tossed them back, grimacing slightly at their faint metallic aftertaste. Replacing the pill bottle back in his bedside drawer, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, stepping out into the vibrant morning sunlight. Well, afternoon sunlight. It was summer break, sue him.
He plodded downstairs, on course to grab himself a bowl of Krave, when he was halted in his tracks by the sound of feet hammering up the lab stairs. He stepped back in preparation as his parents hurried out into the hall, geared up as always in ridiculous lab attire from their goggled heads to their steel-toed boots.
“Oh! Danny, perfect. We just got word that there’s been some mutant trouble downtown. Might be a good study opportunity,” his mom explained in a rush. Danny refrained from rolling his eyes. Of course it was something about mutants. “Do you think you could tidy the lab before we get back?”
Danny groaned. “I was gonna hang out with Sam and Tucker today,” he objected. “School’s starting soon.”
“Then you better get cleaning, Danno,” his dad said with a wink and, just like that, his parents were out the door.
Danny sighed and returned to his cereal mission. He knew mutants were a big deal and all, but sometimes it seemed like they were all his parents thought about. Their entire lab was dedicated to trying to crack the code of the x-gene, and whenever they weren’t down there, they were running after random mutant or MRD sightings in the hopes of acquiring more study material. Legally, of course. His parents were crazy, but they weren’t kidnapping crazy. Yet. Danny laughed to himself as he doused the chocolatey pile in his bowl with milk.
Halfway through his breakfast, his phone chimed. He dug it out of his pajama pocket.
___________________________________
• —
blackisacolor
we still cominf over today?
blackisacolor
*coming
arm-neilstrong
Uhhh well my parents want me to clean the lab but I’ll try to get it done quick
Tuck2fine
All I’m hearing is you let us tour the lab…
arm-neilstrong
They would kill me if I let you down there
Tuck2fine
We wouldn’t touch anything!!! scouts honor bro I justt wanna see the tech
We would be on our best behavior right sam
blackisacolor
don’t drag me into this, I don’t want to know what sick things they’re up to down there unless you let me take it to the press.
arm-neilstrong
Come on Sam they’re not like evil mad scientists
blackisacolor
…
arm-neilstrong
Okay they basically are
But not the evil part okat
They’re just trying to help with the mutant crisis
blackisacolor
maybe it wouldn’t be a crisis if everyone stopped treating it like one…
Tuck2fine
yo danny I’ll make sure sam doesnt start any political arguments during the hang out if u let me see the lab
arm-neilstrong
Dude do you know how much radioactive shit they keep down there?? I literslly have to take supplements every morning just to do my chores so I don’t get like mutant cancer or something. My parents are down there so much they wear hazmat suits
Tuck2fine
u could be deadpool
blackisacolor
and that all sounds incredibly safe and responsible Danny but what time should we come over.
arm-neilstrong
I’ll finish the lab by 1:30 probably
Tuck2fine
We’ll be there at 1
arm-neilstrong
Seriously?
Tuck2fine
dude we’re not going to melt from a quick look around
10 minutes
arm-neilstrong
Fineeee
Tuck2fine
Sam?
blackisacolor
whatever. can’t promise I won’t report them if they’ve got people strapped to dissection tables.
arm-neilstrong
You guys suck
◯
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Danny pocketed his phone, staring down into the final, goopy dregs of his breakfast before standing and sentencing it to the sink drain. With a final, prolonged sigh, he moved to the basement door and began his descent into the lab.
Danny had been fascinated by the lab since he was a child. Or rather, the idea of the lab and everything that entailed for a kid who, like most kids, was raised by popular television to imagine tubes of bubbling, glowing, or multicoloured substances contained within elaborate metal contraptions. He didn’t actually get his first look at the Fenton lab until he was 9 and could reasonably fit into one of his parents’ HAZMAT suits (barely).
It wasn’t exactly what he imagined, but it didn’t diminish his fascination either. The lab was constantly full of experiments and gadgets at different levels of completion, usually filling the space with random blinking lights and odd noises. He would constantly ask to come see what his parents were working on despite how much he hated the baggy suit.
He wore it anyway, because as much as his peers (particularly Tucker) claimed that they would love to have superpowers, Danny did not count himself among them. Spontaneous gene mutations—mutation in the broader sense of the word, that was; mutants couldn’t be created, but every once in a while, overexposure to some sort of experimental something-or-other did make a Bruce Banner—almost always came with side effects he was not interested in and the world had plenty of superhumans already. Luckily, the pills (a glorified multivitamin that cleared him of the minimal risk associated with his parent's volatile, mutation-based experiments) were really all he needed, given he still wasn’t allowed to handle half of the things his parents did; though, they did give his parents an excuse to give him more chores.
Speaking of, Danny supposed it was time to get to work.
The lab looked how it usually did: sort of a total disaster zone that Danny was occasionally surprised passed its programmed inspections. Despite that, there was order to the chaos that only his parents fully understood and, despite Sam’s suspicions, exactly zero people chained up amongst the sprawl. It was just the way his parents tended to ping pong between projects that made it look haphazard.
Danny usually allowed himself a few minutes to snoop before he got to work. He didn’t touch any of the experiments (he wasn’t stupid) but it was fun trying to figure out which projects were which based on various machine innards, what notes were lying out, and his parents’ previous rambling. He thought what was currently taking up most of the primary work table was the Fentons’ latest attempt at a compact machine that could identify the x-gene at range. Its bulkier, human-sized first iteration loomed over the table, wired into a closed laptop.
Danny had heard a lot about that one—while it allegedly worked, his parents had yet to find a test subject that wasn’t a clump in a petri dish. The Mutant Response Division had been interested, of course, but the Fentons had been declining to work with them for years, mostly because it would limit their ability to invent whatever they wished. Instead, they’d moved on to creating a version that did not require a willing participant to be shoved inside. The blueprint that was currently half-covered by the smaller device’s external casing declared it “Fenton Finder - iteration 4.0.”
He was about to turn away and retrieve the broom when the contraption’s wired cavity sparked. For a moment, he began to move closer for a better look before catching himself and stepping back. He watched it for a second longer as the partially wired panel began to flash its LEDs before noticing that one cable wound its way off the table entirely straight into a slightly crowded power strip. His parents probably forgot to turn it off that morning when they ran off on their mission.
He crept around the table, carefully stepping over the cable and grabbing one of the insulated gloves from a nearby rolling cart as he did. Kneeling down next to the grouping of outlets, glove pulled on for good measure, he hunted for the switch to disable power to the whole strip. He nudged one of the thicker cords aside in hopes of locating his elusive target but something in it hummed and sparked. A small billow of smoke wound its way from one of the outlets and Danny’s heart began to thud. He reached down and tried to yank it free from the power strip, but only succeeded in releasing an even stronger burning smell.
Danny stood, determined to unplug the strip from the wall entirely, when his leg caught on the cable snaking behind him. His arms flailed, trying to keep from falling back and pulling the malfunctioning invention right onto him, but all he managed to snag was the metal frame of the Fenton Finder 1.0. Like someone might watch brick descending toward their head, Danny stared as a burst of sparks traveled up the thicker cord straight into the larger contraption. His mind screamed but his body couldn’t respond in time, still flailing, still falling. His bare hand lit up with a sensation like he’d touched the inside of a freezer.
And then the rest of him screamed too.