Chapter Text
[???, ?? ???, ????]
A blaring alarm pierces through his unconsciousness
He is strapped to an examination table and by the looks of it if he moves too much his guts might just spread everywhere around him. He’s learned not to move too much, that way everything’ll hurt less. A monster doesn’t deserve any different, dumbass.
The alarm still hasn’t stopped by the time he’s done looking around the empty lab, Danny wishes they could get it over with. That way he could go back to his momentary nonexistence and his head could just stop flaring up in pain.
He closes his eyes and feels the pain recede a little with the absence of light. It brings him the barest amount of comfort one can afford in a situation like this.
As the alarm continues to blare, his mind wonders; he wonders about his family, his friends, and everything in between. The little what ifs he knows he will never get to know now. Not when they learn what’s become of Danny monster monsterMonsterMonsterMONSTER. His tears dried long ago but he still feels the same sorrow he’s felt since they put him behind the sterile walls of a white white lab.
A faint click is heard in the distance, but he only feels the cold metal ease away from his arms and legs a few seconds later. His eyes open and he cautiously looks around in search of the scientist that usually comes in after his restraints are removed not the muzzle, never the muzzle None are in sight and after a minute, two, three, no one comes in.
He stands up carefully minding the carelessly made stitches. The door was left slightly ajar by the last agent that entered the lab area looking for a lunch buddy and whatnot. They probably figured he couldn’t get out of that table even if he tried, jokes on them for not thinking otherwise.
He steps out of the room, dragging steps echoing in the empty halls.
The alarm continues to blare. Two men in white round a corner, he sees them before they do and he bolts as far as his legs can carry him.
Take a left
Right
Up
Left
Left again
He’s not quite sure for how long he runs but the white walls of the monochrome halls start to blur and after a while his mind is put on autopilot, its only directive being to run. The blaring of an alarm continues far far away but the only thing he cares about now is finally going home.
Home? Does he even have that anymore? No one knows he died but he’s been here long enough that time started to blur together. Minutes merging into hours and days and nights of screams and painPainPainPAIN PLEASE NO MORE NO PLEASE NO
Who’s to say the men in black knock offs haven’t told everyone about Danny Fenton, the kid who failed to die so badly he became a monster instead.
That word bounces inside his head.
He keeps running.
His lower torso burns and he wonders how much longer until his stitches pop and break and, well, then they’ll get to see a real gruesome
sight from the monster. A real horror, guts and intestines spilling out, blood and viscera and muscles all out in the open.
How the mighty have fallen.
He takes a right.
Maybe he should’ve told someone, Jazz would be really nagging but she always means well, Sam could’ve helped catch the ghosts and Tuck would complain about it but he still would come along with him and help him compile information. Maybe they’re all mourning him right now. The him from back then not the him now. No one mourns the wicked.
Right, again.
He doesn’t stop despite the ache of his bruises and the pain emanating from his chest. He feels the scars from that accident flare up, his limbs feel heavy and he’s not quite sure how much longer he will be able to keep running, to keep moving.
If he stops now he doesn’t know how long it will take for him to give out. Maybe he's already started to.
Left and up the flight of stairs.
Will he even leave a corpse? or will he just become a pile of goo on the ground, leaving nothing but the memory of what he had become.
A door opens to the left of him.
had the floor ever been this close to his face?
He closes his eyes, waiting for the pain in his chest to reach its climax or for the pain of the fall to arrive, he’s not picky.
He never actually hits the floor. But the pain is still unbearable.
[Sunday, August 27th 2025, Paris - Dupain-Cheng House]
Consciousness came all too soon for Marinette. She looked at her alarm clock that hadn’t gone off since she started the summer holidays.
13:30
Well she can go back to sleep, not like anyone needs her.
She started to fade into another bout of unrestful slumber when a disturbance came along.
Poke. Marinette.
Poke, hey, Marinette!
She turned away from whatever was bothering her sleep.
Poke.”Marinette wake up”.
Hm? Is it talking to me? “Five more minutes,” she mumbles.
Poke, Poke POKE.
The last poke to her cheek was more like a smack and that has her jumping up and looking around.
Oh it’s just Tikki.
She lies back down and goes back to the now useless task of trying to go back to sleep.
“Come on Marinette, don’t be like that” from behind her closed eyelids she can almost see how the kwamii is puffing her cheeks into a pout. She should probably get up, huh? But why bother? Hawkmoth is gone and no one really needs her.
She hears a sigh from behind her. “You can’t stay in bed forever you know… Oh well, I guess I’ll never get to know who the mysterious stranger your parents let in is” That has her sitting up, catching her attention.
Her parents have had a lot of people over mostly friends and family but they have never failed to let her know, especially if it's someone new, knowing how bad her anxiety can get when she meets a stranger.
She is tempted to lay back down and sleep for a few more hours, but curiosity wins over and she finally gets out of bed, choosing to wear something loose and comfortable.
She waves hello to the other Kwamiis and promises to snatch something for them to eat from the kitchen. She starts going down her ladder when she hears her dad’s voice from the kitchen.
“ - We mean it, she has started retreating from us, even.” There is a pause, like he’s trying to catch his breath.
“Maybe it would be better if sh-” her father choked on his words as if he had been crying. She wants to go down there and comfort him but the way they were talking about her gave her a bad feeling.
She tried to go back to her room as if she hadn’t caught her parents talking with a stranger about her. But the creak on the stairs betrays her and lets the others know where she is.
“Oh Marinette, come there’s someone you need to see” Her mom wastes no time in ushering her to a kitchen stool right in front of the Mysterious man.
He was tall, freakishly tall, taller than her father but without all his bulk. He had hair as black as the night sky and clear blue eyes. The man couldn’t be older than thirty but those eyes held so much more than that, familiar, in a way. (a deep part of her told her that she’s seen them reflected back at her before)
Something was trying to make its way into the forefront of her mind and it had all to do with the nameless man in front of her looking incredibly at ease in a house not his own and looked at her with the same kind of familiarity that an old friend would have, loving but at arms length (almost as if he were scared).
Something was ver-
A cough from her mare jerked her out of her thoughts and oh Fuck! she has probably been staring at the guy without even saying anything! What if that foils any chances of causing a good first impression and then her parents are so disappointed they convinientlyleaveheroutsidethepastisseriefore-
‘Deep breaths Marinette’ she tells herself and takes a calming breath.
No sooner had she found her voice a huff of air followed by a deeper slightly accented voice interrupted her. “You probably don’t remember me much do you?” She looked at him inquisitively and he gave her a tiny smirk. “Well I wouldn’t be surprised after all my favourite little space explorer was always oh so forgetful” Wait, where had she- something inside her head clicked, like the last piece of a puzzle everything came together. And she tackled the man out of his chair yelling “Uncle Danny!”
--
Danny held his breath when he called her that, afraid his little niece wouldn’t recognize him and after a moment he thought that held true, but suddenly with a yell of “uncle” he got tackled by a teenager and the next thing he knew was on the floor of his surrogate brother’s home with an arm full of not so little anymore niece.
They were both cackling on the ground not knowing why it was so funny but still relishing in the feeling of comfort they still brought to each other after so many years.
Fuck it had really been ten years! Had the circumstances allowed it, he would have traveled to Paris more often, it would have allowed him to witness his very own niece grow up into the person she is today. He knows there is no point in berating himself now, the past is in the past and he doesn’t have to dwell on it anymore.
Mari’s chuckles died down along with his and her face took the same frown it always got when she was little and she found something she didn’t understand. She stood up and It was like watching the past come to life right before his eyes, she would always take on that face right before asking a complicated question like:
”Why would you disappear like that all of a sudden? you didn’t even call” Bingo, why do you have to always jinx it F- Nightingale. Her eyes didn’t leave his face and they held a determined glint that told him that she wouldn’t give it up. ‘guess I’ll have to bust the old Fenton moves huh?’ He flinched at the thought and wished the memories didn’t hurt as much as they did even after almost twenty years. He didn’t want to lie to his niece but he couldn’t exactly tell her the truth.
In the end he decided to use a mix of both, and made it vague enough that it could’ve meant anything.
“I’m sorry Marinette work got in the way and then my life got all sorta messed up, I couldn’t involve you in all of that, you were barely seven. I’m- I’m really sorry”
Did his voice crack at the end of that? His voice definitely cracked. Dammit.
“Then, Why are you here now?” she was not giving up on questioning him, That was obvious. “Your parents called me, They’ve told me you’ve had a rough time lately, Sunshine, and that maybe it’d be best for you to come with me to Goth-” “So that’s it, you just want me out of your hair?!” She swung her head towards her parents “I’m such an inconvenience to you both you just want to get rid of me?”
“That’s not it bǎo bèi we -”
“-NO! you don’t get to give me excuses after you decide to ship me off like some- some package!” Sabine and Tom tried to argue but Marinette didn’t seem to be quite done yet “I can just imagine how you came up with it ‘Hey our daughter’s got something wrong with her do you want her ‘ ‘Ah yes sure I’ll take her!’ You know what, fine! If you want me gone so much I’ll go!” By the time she ended her tirade her cheeks were scarlet red and her eyes started to fill with tears.
Marinette turned around and ran before any one of them could even argue. No one had the power to go after her.
The three of them stood there in a silence that was painfully loud for what felt like an hour but was actually more like a minute or so.
Danny took a deep breath and looked at his brother. Not by blood and not by law but his brother all the same. He was crying thick silent streams of tears Sabine was not so far from doing the same besides him.
“A-a-a am I a bad father?” he asks, choking on sob “ I- I want to protect her so badly Danny, but are we? Is this not just driving her away, throwing her away with someone she barely remembers?” He says not unkindly.
The mournful gaze he throws towards Danny makes him want to run away too.
“Tom, I- “ The words of reassurance die before they’re able to come out of his throat
“I’ll go find her, she can’t have gone too far”
He goes and doesn’t wait for an answer, It looks like he’s still the coward he’s always been.