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hannahmanderr · 1 year

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DannyMay Day 24 - NASA

Words: 5,655

Summary: Danny and Vlad's dynamic is tense at best. Doesn't mean Vlad isn't going to stop trying to win Danny's trust (Vlad and Danny bonding, truce AU)

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“Ancients, Vlad, when I agreed to come on this trip, I did not agree to it being somewhere so hot, it might as well be Satan’s armpit.”

Vlad shot me a dirty look. “It’s Florida, Daniel, and I would greatly appreciate it if you can manage to avoid comparing it to the devil or any of his body parts.”

“Florida, huh?” I put my finger on my chin as I pretended to think about it, then shrugged. “Then we really are in Satan’s armpit.”

“Honestly, Daniel, we’ve been here for all of ten minutes. Can you not exercise any more restraint?”

Just because I knew it would get on his nerves, I gave him my best innocent-16-year-old smile. “For you, Vladdie? I’ll try.”

He rolled his eyes and muttered a curse under his breath. I don’t know if he forgot I could hear him perfectly well (thanks ghost powers!) or if he simply forgot (thanks old man memory!). Either way, I was satisfied. Sweaty, feeling crabby after a five hour flight (that I hadn’t been allowed to make myself because it’s not how “civilized” people travel, apparently), but satisfied. I’d successfully won this battle.

“How much longer, anyway?” I asked. Vlad hadn’t wanted to wait for our bags; he said he’d have someone bring them straight to the hotel. Something about having business to handle first, which, in half-ghost teenager terms, translated to boring. “You told me I wouldn’t regret coming with you.”

“And I fully intend to make good on that promise. You will simply have to be patient,” he said. He kept his look focused straight in front of him, where his driver would supposedly be pulling up, but after a moment, he gave me a side glance. “I would’ve thought you would have an idea of what I promised you. Were you not paying attention to our destination?”

I shrugged again. “Between trying to sneak a thermos past security, using your credit card to buy myself snacks, and staring at the wonderful exclusive offers offered by SkyMall for two hours? Not really.”

Now he fully turned toward me, eyes wide. “My cre- when did you steal my credit card?” he sputtered.

I lost it. Look, it’s not often I can render Vlad “Must Always Have a Perfect Public Image” Masters into a hot mess, I gotta take advantage of the hits when I can get them in! Plus, just the idea that I, a ratty looking, snarky teenager could cause a world-class billionaire to lose his composure was hilarious.

“Ease up, V-man,” I said in between giggles. “I didn’t steal it. It hasn’t left your wallet this whole time.” I waited for him to relax before casually adding, “I added it to my Apple Pay months ago!”

The glare he shot me was downright vicious and tinged with red sparks. “I don’t have to do this, you know,” he said all low and dangerous. His poor attempt to scare me into behaving nearly sent me into a fit of laughter again, but I, being the good little boy I am, decided to work on exercising that restraint he kept egging me about. “There’s nothing stopping me from simply throwing you in one of my ecto-suppressant boxes for the weekend.”

“Lock up your own nephew?” I gasped with fake horror. “How could you do such a thing?”

“I could and I would, and you know that perfectly well.”

I rolled my eyes, but I was still grinning. Our truce may be somewhat strained by our seemingly natural ability to grate on each other’s nerves, but I knew he wouldn’t break it that easily. The threat was hollow, just like my sass. Most of my sass, anyway.

What can I say? It helps me cope.

“We’ll blame my immaturity on the heat. Seriously though, how the heck are you not melting in that thing?” I said, nodding towards his expensive suit. “I get that you like, bathe in molten lava or whatever, but this is ridiculous.”

“I think you’re exaggerating, Daniel. The pilot said it’s 84 right now with a breeze. Not nearly ‘melting’ temperatures.” He frowned and scanned me over. “Are you feeling alright?”

“‘Course I am,” I scoffed. I would never let on that the heat was actually making me feel really sick to my stomach.

You know how in the middle of summer when it’s like 95 or 100 degrees out and you just kind of feel sweaty and sick and lethargic and too hot to do anything? Well, ever since my ice core finished maturing, back when Undergrowth first attacked, I’ve started to hit that point at 75 degrees or so. I’ve had to learn how to manage myself around it (frequent trips to the Far Frozen during the summer help!), but I guess I didn’t process the fact that Florida would definitely be warmer than Amity Park. My core was feeling overworked trying to keep itself and my body cool.

I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t buying it. “You know,” he began as a limousine glided to a stop in front of us, “there is no shame in needing certain types of care for an elemental core.” He opened the back door and gestured for me to climb in.

The inside of the limo was about as posh as I expected. Plush seats, minifridge, the whole deal. I sprawled across one of the bench seats and redirected one of the vents blowing sweet sweet AC right towards my face.

“Don’t you have a whole thing against appearing weak?” I asked. The good mood I’d had from successfully pulling a fast one on him had begun to evaporate. I might be good at back-talking him into defeat, but he was just as good, if not better at picking me apart and reading me like a book. I hated when he was able to analyze me like he just had, especially when I was trying to do my best to keep it from him.

Vlad hummed and casually took a sparkling water from the fridge. After taking a sip, he said, “You would be right. Weakness is one thing, however. Natural needs are something else entirely.”

I almost started to retort, but I thought better about it at the last minute, only because I noticed the partition between us and the driver was partially open. I knew Vlad kept some ghosts on his payroll, but I didn’t know if they usually worked in his house or drove for him, especially so far away from home. And from what little I’d been able to glance at this driver, he looked awfully human to me. I wasn’t too keen on spilling my secret to a total stranger.

He caught me staring at the partition. “There’s no need to censor yourself in here, Daniel,” he told me. “Charles is a ghost of the utmost secrecy. Whatever you wish to say to me, it is safe to say it in front of him.” I must’ve hesitated too long, because he continued after a couple moments to say, “If it helps you feel better, though…” He reached over and hit a switch, and the partition rolled up.

I felt a tension in my shoulders release. I knew he (probably) wasn’t lying about the driver being a ghost and being good at secrets or whatever, but my secret identity was way too important to me to risk. It was one thing if all the ghosts knew, but I wasn’t about to risk accidentally sharing something with a random human.

I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. “I was just gonna say there’s not exactly anything ‘natural’ about what we are,” I muttered. Couldn’t he turn up the AC any more?

“You know what I mean,” he said. As if reading my mind, he turned a dial, and the air speed increased. My core drank in the cold air greedily.

“The needs of an elemental core are no different than basic human needs to maintain a certain level of body warmth. Or adequate levels of hydration. It is a body part like any other, and it must be cared for properly,” he told me. “It isn’t a weakness. It’s a fact of life. Or afterlife, as it were.”

My brow furrowed. I took a moment to breathe in more of the cold air before asking, “So… how do you do it?”

“What, wear a suit in the heat? You’d be surprised how many businessmen can weather such a task, little badger.”

“Okay, first off,” I said, sitting up, “you are not allowed to pun. That’s my thing, and sorry-not-sorry, but you can’t pull it off. Second, you have a hot core, right?”

“Electric, technically speaking.” He shrugged. “It is a subset of hot cores, though. A core like mine is more specialized.”

“Electric, alright. But anyway, if your core is hot, how do you keep it warm and stuff in the winter, or when it’s cold?”

Vlad took another sip of his water as he considered the question. “There are quite a few ways an elemental core can adapt to its surroundings, if it finds itself in a hostile environment. Many I’ve had to learn myself, but I’ve also watched other hot core owners and learned from them.” He tilted his head as he studied me. “Haven’t you been visiting those… mongrels? The ice clan?”

It took me a minute to realize who he was talking about. “You mean the yetis? In the Far Frozen?” I laughed a little. “Don’t let them hear you call them that. If I remember right, the first and last time you met them, they froze you in a block of ice so thick it took you four days to completely thaw.”

Vlad scowled. “Yes, well, if you’re uncomfortable in this heat, imagine how uncomfortable I was trying to get warm again.”

“Hmm.” I nodded my head back and forth. “Point taken. But to answer your question, of course I’ve been visiting them. Frostbite’s been training me since I first got my ice powers, and they usually help give me check ups when I visit.”

“And in your training, has this Frostbite taught you how to balance your core temperature to the environment?”

“Umm, I don’t know?” I said. It’s not that I don’t pay attention to Frostbite’s lessons, it’s that I just kind of do things. I don’t really think about what they’re called or anything. “I don’t think so?”

He flashed me a grin. “Well, it’s good to know you’re involving yourself with such thorough, competent instructors.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Hey!” I said, leaning forward in my seat. “Frostbite is a great teacher! If it wasn’t for him, I’d have frozen to death and Amity Park would still be an overgrown garden. He’s taught me a lot! Like even half-ghost stuff!”

“I suppose it makes sense,” Vlad continued, as if I hadn’t said anything. “Those yetis are a reclusive clan. They rarely venture outside their home. It wouldn’t occur to them to teach you how to adapt to a different environment if they aren’t used to doing it themselves.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know I needed to ask them to teach me?”

“You wouldn’t,” he replied calmly. “How would you?”

I let my head fall back into the seat with a groan. He was definitely waiting for me to say something, and I knew exactly what he was waiting to hear. “Let me guess. You expect me to ask you to teach me.”

That snooty jerk tried (and failed) to hide his smirk by sipping at his water. “You did tell me once that you learn best through practical applications - ‘doing things on the fly’ is how you phrased it, I believe.” He raised an eyebrow. “This would be the perfect opportunity for some hands-on learning.”

Ugh. Just because we’d agreed to maybe try not to be at each other’s throats all the time didn’t mean I wanted the guy teaching me. That would open up a whole can of worms. The make-Danny-my-half-ghost-son-slash-apprentice kind of can that I specifically said was not allowed to be open if we were gonna try this truce.

Still though, as much as I hated to admit it, he probably had a point. I probably needed to learn these sorts of things sooner or later, and he would be the ideal person to teach me. Don’t get me wrong, I love Frostbite and he knows a lot, but there are just some things he can’t understand about me, and my human half makes trying to understand ghost stuff hard sometimes. Vlad’s the only other guy like me. He’s the only one who can really understand.

“Alright, alright,” I finally said. “You can play Professor Plasmius for the weekend, if that’s what you really want.” I pointed sharply at him and added, “But! We’re not making this a regular thing, capiche?”

Of course, he just kept his stupid, smug smirk. “If you say so.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and began tapping the keyboard. “In the meantime, I’ll order an ice bath for you to be ready when we arrive at the hotel. We’ll be outside a fair bit more today; you’ll need it to recover.”

He leaned down and grabbed a water bottle out of the mini-fridge and tossed it to me. “And stay hydrated. Your core may be a cold core, but more specifically, it’s an ice core. That puts you at a doubled risk for dehydration, you know.”

It took me a long swig from the water bottle to process what he’d said. “Wait, what do you mean risk for dehydration?”

“You and I still have human bodies, little badger. As I mentioned before, those bodies have needs that must be met.”

“But I thought the ghost side basically took care of those sorts of things,” I interrupted. “Like I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine totally creaming Tuck in a breath holding contest.”

Vlad folded his fingers together. Thankfully, he didn’t look too irritated by my interruption. “Some needs can be met by the natural effects of our ghost halves. Not all. Hydration is one that your ghost body cannot contribute to supporting.”

I hummed. “Makes sense, I guess. But wouldn’t that mean I’m just at a normal risk of dehydration then?”

“Not so. Your core generates cold and ice naturally to sustain itself, but it cannot create ice out of thin air. It draws on ambient water around it to create that ice. For your little yeti friends, that water has to come from the environment around them, since a ghost does not retain water well. Why do you think they tend to stay close to their realm? Or why ice cores themselves are a rarity?”

“I dunno, I just figured they didn’t really have a reason to leave.” I tapped the side of my water bottle absently. “So if they get their water from the snow and stuff, what about me? I mean I know Amity Park is basically on the lake, but it’s not that close.”

The smile on his face reeked of that classic Vlad smugness. “Think about it, my boy. A ghost half that needs water, plus a human half that can retain water…”

“So my core basically eats my human half’s water?”

“Well, I might not put it in those exact words, but yes, essentially,” he said. “Because both your human body and your core are draining on your water, it means you require far more fluids than any average person.”

I threw my head back again. “Greeeaaat,” I drawled. “Hooray for more freaky hybrid metabolism crap. I’m already sucking down ectoplasm all the time, please don’t tell me I’m gonna have to start carrying around those gallon jugs of water like the football players.”

Vlad studied me for a long moment. I could practically see the gears turning in his head. “I might be able to help work out a supplement to add to a regular water bottle to increase its hydrating abilities. Though perhaps I could find a way to incorporate it into the ectoplasm supplements you’re already taking…”

“Awesome, between the glowing green sludge and the Gatorade on crack, I’ll be the king of supplements,” I said with the driest glare I could muster. “That’ll definitely keep losers like Weston off my back about all the weird stuff I already do.”

“Oh, relax, Daniel.” He sniffed and turned to look out the window. “It’s about keeping you functioning and healthy, not your social status. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t suffered from dehydration before.”

I shrugged. “Probably the same reason Mom and Dad haven’t caught me going ghost yet. I’ve got the power of crazy dumb luck on my side.”

“More like an oblivious buffoon for a father,” Vlad muttered under his breath.

I rolled my eyes but didn’t press the comment. Instead, I chose to look out the window myself, not that it told me much. We were making our way through the city (whatever city it was. It wasn’t Orlando or Miami was all I knew), but everything pretty much looked the same as it did back home. Though as someone born and raised in Amity Park, Michigan, seeing real palm trees was pretty cool.

After we’d sat there in silence for a few minutes, a thought occurred to me. “How do you know all this stuff anyway?” I asked as we began to roll through another intersection.

Vlad had turned his attention back to his phone after we’d stopped talking, but he looked up when he heard me. “Know all what?”

“All this… biology stuff, or whatever,” I said, gesturing wildly with my hand as I searched for the right word. “All this stuff about cores, and - and how they interact with our bodies and stuff.”

“Ha! You think a scientist such as myself would be content remaining ignorant about everything there is to know about who we are - what we are?”

Sometimes I forgot he was a science guru like my parents. Heck, he’d helped build their proto-portal. And he’d done all that stuff when he went through the cloning phase (I love Danielle, but that’s still the most messed-up thing he’s done).

“Fair enough,” I admitted, “but I don’t understand why know all the stuff about ice cores, especially since it’s the opposite of your core. Unless it was part of the whole creepy obsessed with me thing…”

To my surprise, he actually blushed a little. “I, ah, wanted to make sure I understood the workings of a core like yours for… such a time as this.”

I fixed him with a look. “Dude. You might as well just admit it was to figure out how to clone me.”

“That was only part of the reason!” he insisted. Admittedly, it was kind of hilarious seeing him so flustered yet again. “And at least one of us knows something about it! Those frozen furballs have no idea what it’s like to be one of us! They can’t teach you everything!”

“Oh, so that’s what we’re going back to, huh?” I said with a hint of disbelief. I should’ve seen it coming; of course a fruitloop like him wouldn’t be content letting that conversation just sit. No, he always had to bring it back around to why I should just become his little mini-Plasmius!

This is why we don’t go places together.

Sparks of red flickered on the edges of his eyes. Crap, he was actually mad. “For goodness’ sake, Daniel, for once, can you keep your stubborn pride from blinding you?” he shouted. “Believe it or not, I’m doing this for your sake!”

“Yeah, so I can be the version of me you want me to be, for you!” I shot back. I could feel my own eyes beginning to burn green, but I was getting too riled up to care. I should’ve cared, especially if we were really hoping to make this truce work, but he and I were just too good at getting under each other’s skin. “If this was really for me, there wouldn’t be all these strings attached.”

“And what strings are those exactly? If I recall, you’re the one who attached a condition to me teaching you just now!”

“I so did no-” I stopped short as I remembered that he wasn’t exactly wrong. He hadn’t explicitly given any conditions to his offer to teach me stuff. “No, that doesn’t count! That was because I know you have all sorts of plans up in your head! Can you really blame me for being like that when you’ve manipulated every little thing for as long as I’ve known you?”

He scowled, but his eyes didn’t get any redder. “What do you want me to do? Swear my honesty before a judge? I try to make an honest effort to reach out to you, and you immediately reject it! So tell me what you want me to do, because this may surprise you, but reading minds is not one of my powers!”

“I -” My mind went blank. As angry as I was, as much as I didn’t want to cede anything to him, it was a legitimate question. What could he do to earn my trust? That was the real question he was asking.

The problem was I didn’t know. Like I’d just finished telling him, he had been lying, cheating, and manipulating his way around me since the day we met - I didn’t know a Vlad who didn’t do that stuff. Experience had taught me to never trust anything coming from that man.

So what could he do to change that?

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, deflating back into my seat. One little question had killed the anger inside of me, and now I was stuck trying to figure out what to tell him. “I… I don’t know.”

I could see his own anger evaporate slowly as he watched me carefully. “Then I suppose we’re at an impasse,” he said quietly. He folded his arms and fixed his gaze firmly out the window.

We sat there like that, in a tense silence for what felt uncomfortably long. I had no idea what he was thinking about, but I was also too preoccupied with my own thoughts.

Could he be telling the truth? About wanting to earn my trust? Wanting to do things for me without some ulterior motive? The idea was just too foreign to me. And the question still stood, if I decided to believe him: what could he do to get me to trust him and do things for me?

I hated to admit it to anyone, even myself, but as impossible as it seemed for him to be anything other than a lying rat, deep down, I so badly wanted to believe in a good Vlad. Memories of being locked in an ecto-suppressing box as my dad’s ex-best friend revealed himself as the only other being like me hit me like a brick wall. It had been a horrible sequence of realizations as it dawned on me that this man, who’d just given me a glimmer of hope at figuring out this crazy half-ghost stuff, was the same man who’d come dangerously close to killing me just the night before. And it just grew worse as he talked and told me his plans to kill Dad…

But even back then, in those moments, I remember just wishing with everything I could muster that it was just a bad dream. I didn’t want to believe the only other guy like me was some sort of psychopath. That to him, I was just some means to an end, to give him the perfect life he wanted.

I let my head thunk against the window. Ugh, there was a good reason I didn’t dwell on these things long. Or tried not to, anyway. Vlad stuff was always complex, hairy, and emotionally and mentally exhausting. It was so much easier when I could just punch my way out of a situation with him.

There was no punching my way out here, though. So what did I want?

“I want to matter,” I whispered absentmindedly.

Except I forgot that Vlad also had excellent ghost hearing. He frowned at me and said, “If you’re going to speak to me, you’d better speak up.”

I jolted when I realized he’d heard me talk. “I’m - it’s, uh…” I stuttered. I automatically raced to come up with a plausible lie about what I’d said, but I stopped suddenly.

He said he was trying to be honest with me. Maybe I needed to do the same.

“I just… want to actually matter, to - to you, that is,” I admitted with some effort as I twisted my fingers into my T-shirt. “Not as like a son or anything, but - I don’t know, maybe just a person. I’m… tired, of being just another little pawn in your schemes and everything, especially when you’re spouting off all this stuff about how it’s for my own good or whatever.

“Like do you see what I’m saying? You talk about wanting to teach me or train me and how good it’ll be for me, but it’s never been just for me, it’s always had some sort of real benefit for you, and at my expense, or my family’s.” I knew I was starting to ramble, but once I choked the first few words out, the rest followed like a flood. “For once, I just - I want it to be where you actually see me as my own person, and if you’re gonna care for me, I want you to actually care for me, not just figure out what I want you to do or say to get me to like you.”

I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn’t meet them. I never liked doing the whole feelings-vomit thing. That was Jazz’s thing. Not to mention how doing it in front of my freaking arch-nemesis of all people increased the awkward factor by a thousand. So yeah, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of eye contact.

He stared at me for a long while. The whole time, I kept my eyes fixed on the outside blurring by. I’d said my piece, I kept trying to tell myself. The ball was in his court now. I couldn’t do anything about that.

Could I?

Finally, after what seemed like forever, he turned his attention back to his phone, tapping away at the screen as if the entire argument had never happened. Whatever. I was too tired to try and deal with it. If he was so set on keeping up with his stupid, cruel manipulation, he could do that. I wouldn’t go along with it.

I just closed my eyes and tried to soak in the AC. Hopefully he at least made good on his promise to get me that ice bath. That sounded absolutely wonderful.

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Vlad glanced up from the text thread he was furiously typing away in. Daniel sat across from him, fast asleep against the window. A little bit of drool even dripped onto his leg.

The billionaire sighed and rolled his eyes at the display. He couldn’t be too annoyed, he supposed. They’d had to wake up early to catch their flight, and he suspected that being cooped up in the plane and now in this limo was not doing the boy any favors, especially coupled with the overtime his core had to be clocking in.

He had admittedly forgotten that Florida’s heat would probably overwhelm Daniel. He himself was so used to his own hot, electric core (and adapting it to a colder Midwestern climate) that it had been a detail he’d neglected. It wasn’t something he was used to. Normally, he was so careful to account for everything.

It only made Daniel’s words echo in his head. I want you to actually care for me, not just figure out what I want you to do or say to get me to like you, he’d said.

Those words had completely caught him off guard, and he couldn’t deny their impact. They’d sent his mind catapulting into a completely different direction, hence the furious texting. The sparks of an idea were kindling, something to help Daniel see that his intentions were honest this time around.

He hoped, at least. The voice in the back of his head telling him he was doing it just to make himself feel better, not the boy, was growing increasingly louder.

No. He shook his head. No sense dwelling on that. Especially when his phone chimed and he saw the text he’d been waiting for.

With a grin, he rapped a knuckle on the partition. Immediately, it began to roll down, and Charles asked, “What can I do for you, Mr. Masters?”

“There’s been a change of plans. We have a new destination now.”

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“Daniel…”

I groaned and tried my best to ignore whatever was shaking my shoulder. If my ghost sense wasn’t going off and no one was screaming my name, it wasn’t important enough to interrupt my nap.

“Daniel, wake up.”

I twisted in my seat, trying to get away from the hand. “Lee’ me ‘lone,” I muttered into my arm. “‘M tired.”

“I think this is something worth waking up for.”

Ugh. Vlad. For a moment there, I’d forgotten where I was and who I was with. It’d been a nice moment.

Slowly, I peeled one eye open. “I swear, if you woke me up just for some dumb business thing, I’ll throw you into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep with Pariah Dark.”

The jerk had the audacity to chuckle. Do real people even chuckle? “I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised. I do have some business to attend to here, but that is not the main reason for this visit.”

At this point, it wasn’t worth it to try to go to sleep. Might as well entertain him. I stretched and made sure to yawn as widely as I could, just to tick him off a little. Like I said, I gotta get my hits in when I can with him.

“Alright, Vladdie,” I said. “Where are we that’s so important?”

In response, he just nodded towards the window. The urge to roll my eyes was overwhelming, but I resisted anyway, instead choosing to look out to where he was gesturing.

At first, nothing seemed much different than before - fewer buildings, but not much different otherwise - but then I caught sight of a sign, and my jaw dropped.

“Umm, Vlad?” I asked weakly. I was so shocked, I didn’t even bother to hide the waver in my voice. “Did that just say what I think it said?”

Of course, he just smiled his smug smile and nodded, but I was too blown away to care. “I told you I would make good on my promise to make this trip worth your while.”

Wait. No, no way. I shook my head and nearly phased my head out the window trying to catch a glimpse of another sign. As we passed another and it echoed the same thing, my heart began to race and my core began to vibrate.

“B-but how?” I asked, barely above a whisper. “This is…”

Vlad shrugged nonchalantly. “You’d be surprised what a name drop here, an extra ‘convenience fee’ there can do. It helps that I truly do have business to take care of here.”

“Vlad, this is Cape Canaveral.”

“Yes, that it is,” he said, nodding.

“As in home to the Kennedy Space Center. To freaking NASA.”

“Yes, I am aware that this is, as you put it, ‘freaking NASA’.”

I couldn’t believe it. Sure, I’d been here last summer to get that gem for the Reality Gauntlet, but I’d been so caught up with that whole disaster that I hadn’t really had the chance to appreciate it. Now, though…

“Was this…?” I asked, hoping the question still came through in the unspoken words. I didn’t trust myself to speak much more.

He shrugged again. “This was admittedly more of a spontaneous choice, but a fruitful one, nonetheless. Why not make sure your time is enjoyable as well?”

I finally peeled my face away from the window long enough to squint at him. “But why? Like… why take me here of all places? Especially so last minute?”

Vlad faltered a bit; he lowered his arms, and his shoulders tensed. “It… I was just trying to - argh, I thought I would try and do what you asked me, that is. Or, ah, show you I do care…”

I blinked slowly as I processed his words. “How… did you know, though? To take me to NASA?”

“Well… I didn’t,” he admitted. “I suppose I simply hoped that my suspicions were right. After seeing how often you wear that ratty sweatshirt of yours and all the model rockets in your room, the conclusion for your love of space was easy enough to draw.”

My turn to blush. “I can’t help it,” I muttered. “It’s just so cool! And now I’m actually here, in Cape Canaveral!”

Then, the true meaning of his words hit me. The reason he’d known to take me to NASA was because he’d paid attention to me - not spied on me, or had a ghost stake me out, or anything like that. To my absolute bewilderment, I realized this was his way of telling me he was sorry, that he truly did see me and care for me.

The realization was so shocking that I barely noticed when the limo rolled to a stop. Clearing his throat, Vlad opened the door and climbed out, then extended a hand to me. “Well, shall we?”

I practically threw myself out of the car phasing through its side to get out faster.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay2023 #dannymay 2023 #vlad masters #nasa #space #danny phantom fanfic #hannah writes #might rewrite this one down the line lol

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