One Foot In The Grave

Danny frowned, sorting through the scraps and parts strewn about him on the tarp that covered the floor of his crappy studio. “I don’t know Red,” he finally said, running a gloved hand over his face. “I could get it flying again, but not tonight.”

Red Huntress crossed her arms, a movement he was familiar with. She really wanted to punch something, but that wouldn’t solve their current problem and, all things aside, she was working on ‘appropriately directed aggression’. It’s what got them working together tolerating each other a bit more often. It helped that Red also had come down from her previous “All ghosts and ecto-adjacent beings were scum and needed to be wiped from every plane of existence” mindset too. Heck, they were practically pals at this point.

At least, she and Phantom were practically pals. Danny Fenton, engineering student, fellow Amity Park resident, and son of the genius inventors, wasn’t actually supposed to know much about Red Huntress other than that she was one of the other ghost hunters//vigilantes in town.

“How long will it take Fenton?” Danny hid a wince. Her modulated voice was pretty intimidating, though he knew his own when he was transformed was usually considered unsettling in its own way. It’d taken Jazz a few weeks to get used to the weird echo.

“Well, I can probably get the parts delivered in the next day or two, but I’ve got a few other deadlines coming up and those need to be handled too … maybe five days?” He glanced up at her.

Her helmet hid her face from view and he could see his own awkward and hesitant expression reflected back to him. He wondered what her own expression looked like. Her shoulders tightened a moment, then relaxed again.

“Fine Fenton. Five days. I’ll be back to pick it up then.” She pointed a finger at him. “But if I catch wind that your little buddy’s been messing with my shit? I’m gonna throw you into the lake myself and he can fish your dumbass out. Are we clear?”

He nodded, hoping he looked properly cowed. “Yup. As crystal. The good stuff. Clear I mean. You got it.”

She watched him a moment more, then turned and left though the window, just as she’d come.

A beat.

Two.

And then he let out a long sigh and leaned back against the wall. The studio was drafty at the best of times and Red Huntress slamming the little window open hadn’t helped matters. The wind had scattered his notes and blueprints all over the place, and then she’d dumped her board on his floor with demands to “Fix this.”

She intimidated him when he was in human form honestly and burying any hint of ectoplasm while she was around so her tech wouldn’t ping off of him definitely wasn’t helping his mental state. He wasn’t lying though. He had a ton of shit already on his plate and fixing up her ghost hunting tech so that she could more easily hunt him and his kind …

Another sigh and he started to gather up the parts and tools, tucking them into a canvas bag for now. At least she wasn’t asking for him to juice up her weaponry. It was the little things. Zipping up the bag, he reached over for his phone and opened up the chat.
Danebula: hey val. rain check on study session tonight (ノ_<。)

Val-in-time: It’s fine Danny. You good?

Danebula: yeah just got hit with some new work. gonna die lol

Val-in-time: Ha. Ha. Not funny. But if you’ve got work, you’ve got work. We can meet up tomorrow?

Danebula: OK!!(￣▽￣)δ⌒☆