Chapter Text
“Hm…” Vlad poked around in the main control panel for the fenton’s new ghost portal.
“What?” Danny peeked over his shoulder trying to pick out what his godfather was looking at.
“Nothing… that's the problem. Everything is in place. I triple checked it and it should work.”
They both glanced at the dead hole in the wall as if it would just spring to life. However they were having no such luck.
“Mom and Dad haven't stopped working on this in months . We have to get it working soon.” Danny hated when his parents got like that, it was like everything dropped away from their attention except for whatever they were working on. It was lonely.
“Don’t worry little badger. We will. If we could do it once we can do it again.” He started tracing the circuits again, looking for dead ends. Vlad knew how Maddie and Jack could be but there wasn’t much he could do when they were like that. He just did his best to get them through whatever their newest obsession was.
“I'm gonna go look inside again.” Danny declared after a few moments.
“Alright, just put on your hazmat suit. You don't want to end up like me, do you?”
“A science teacher? I think I'd rather die.” Danny replied dramatically as he zipped up his suit.
He was very lucky that Vlad didn't have anything good to throw at him. Because physics was the only teaching tool he needed in that case.
He focused on the circuits in front of him, puzzling out what was wrong. This he was good at, it just came naturally to him. That was why he usually ended up double checking Maddie and Jack’s work. Jack came up with the idea, Maddie built the prototype, and Vlad made sure the design made sense from an engineering standpoint before they came up with a finished model.
They made a good team.
Most of the time.
This was one of those rare occasions where they rushed through the mockup stage without consulting him, and now he was having to poke around in a finished product.
“I think I found the problem. But I'll only tell you if you give me extra credit on tomorrow’s test.” Danny said in a singsong voice.
Vlad rolled his eyes. “You know I can't do that Daniel, playing favorites is not allowed. If you wanted to write a three page paper on… say electric currents and how they work to power machines like the portal, I would give you that.”
“Ew… no. I'll just fix it myself.”
Suddenly Vlad heard an audible click followed by a kind of whirring he could never forget.
It was working, it was actually working! He turned around with a grin, ready to congratulate his godson but the praise died on his lips as it felt like someone injected ice water into his veins.
Danny was standing in the middle of the portal. Not, outside it but in it.
The teen seemed to be mesmerized by the lights starting to glow around him. Then all at once the portal flashed on and all that could be heard was his screams.