Chapter Text
Danny stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom, contemplating the blankness as his head rested in Sam’s lap, her fingers absentmindedly combing through his unruly hair. He let out a heavy sigh and folded his hands across his chest, resisting the urge to fall asleep.
“You’re sighing again,” Sam hummed musically without looking up from her phone as she continued to play with his hair. Danny shifted his head to look at her.
“Was I? Sorry,” he mumbled, going back to staring up at the ceiling.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, setting the phone aside. Danny hesitated.
“Him. Me,” he answered, his concern for his older self swimming into view. Sam let out a sigh of her own, her fingers pausing.
“Do you miss him?” she asked, her voice soft. Danny closed his eyes, his brows tightening as he considered the question.
“It’s not so much that… I guess I’m just worried about him,” he answered finally, “when Clockwork explained it, I just felt like it wasn’t what Dan wanted. I know us—him. He can’t have been happy with this path. I worry he’ll go back to being angry.”
His core ached dully in his chest as he spoke. Maybe he did miss his brother a little. He’d thought the ache had been because of Jazz’s departure to college earlier that year, but it had persisted even when she called him once a week or came home to visit. When she mentioned Dan during their last conversation, the dull ache had pulsed harder and he’d understood it finally. He was worried about him.
He sighed again, turning his head to look out his window instead.
“I think I need to go see Clockwork. Just… to check in,” he said softly. Sam let out a soft exhale.
“I’ll call Tucker,” she said, picking her phone back up. Danny shifted his head to look at her again, grinning.
“Still can’t believe you prefer his driving to mine,” he said. Sam gave him a sarcastic look as she held her phone to her ear.
“You crashed the speeder last time, remember? He may drive a car like a maniac, but at least he can land that damn thing,” she shot back. Danny pouted.
“At least I have a license,” he grumbled. Sam’s thin eyebrows rose dangerously close to her hairline under her fringe, making his blood run a little cold—just the way he liked it.
“Watch it, pal.”
“Sorry,” he said quickly, stuffing the smile on his face before she got genuinely angry.
Within the hour, Tucker was knocking his door down. Danny groaned and got up, giving Sam an annoyed look as he phased straight through the floor. He could hear her giggling just as she disappeared from view. God, how he loved to make her laugh.
Emerging from the stairs, Danny opened the front door to let Tucker in. Tucker grinned and straightened his beanie.
“You ordered a chauffeur?” he teased, jabbing Danny in the ribs as he stepped into the house. Danny flinched and resisted the urge to smack the back of Tucker’s head when he walked past.
“You’re lucky I’m nice again,” he said instead, rubbing his side. Tucker smirked.
“You were never nice.”
“Bitch, I’m so nice!” Danny yelled back, his eye twitching. Tucker held up a finger.
“Ah, ah, ah—put those teeth away, buster,” he said, looking terribly smug. Danny took a moment to feel his agitation before he relaxed the snarl on his face with a deep breath.
“God, I hate when you do that,” he grumbled. Tucker shrugged.
“I’ll stop poking the bear when there isn’t a bear to poke anymore. You wanted me to help you with your anger issues, remember? What better way to help you than to irritate you?”
“I have to imagine there are several better ways, surely,” Danny said back, smoothing his frazzled nerves down.
They had made a deal a while ago. Despite everything they'd gone through together, Danny had started to slip back into his cold ways at school after Ember’s concert. It was a hard habit to break, and it only got worse without his brother or the concert to soak up all his attention and energy. So, he’d asked his friends to check him whenever he started to act “less than human”.
Sam was gentle with it and usually tried to distract him when he got into a mood. Tucker on the other hand, brought out the worst in him on purpose. Something about trying to teach him patience. It drove him insane, but he understood what Tucker was doing.
He knew he was improving too with their help. He could tell because Valerie of all people was talking to him again. Valerie, who had broken up with him for being distant. Valerie, who had told him straight to his face that she hated the person he was becoming after Pariah.
It made him nervous to try and have any kind of relationship with her again, seeing as she usually spent her weekends looking to turn him into ectoplasmic puddles on the concrete, but seeing as she didn’t know who he was or that he knew she was Red Huntress, he didn’t want to push her away. Still, it was nice talking to her again. He had missed their friendship.
He might some day tell her the truth too. Maybe.
Sam came out of his room and Danny immediately stopped arguing with Tucker, turning to watch her carefully as she descended the stairs. She yawned and tucked her phone in her back pocket, giving Tucker a quick peck on the cheek in greeting before returning Danny’s unblinking stare.
“We ready?” she said, her violet lips pulling back into a smile that never failed to make his core shiver.
“Mhm,” both boys said in unison.
As much as Danny didn’t want to admit it, Tucker was spectacular at handling the speeder. Still too fast though. Danny guided him to Clockwork’s realm and he made the journey in under an hour when it should have taken much longer. If he wasn’t used to the speeds he achieved in flight, he might have been sick. Sam looked a little green, but insisted she was just grateful they got there in one piece. Danny tried not to let his feelings be hurt by that. He was just happy to see Clockwork was back where he was supposed to be.
“Hey,” Sam said, taking Danny’s hand as they stepped out of the speeder and onto Clockwork’s island, “you alright? You look nervous.”
Danny sighed and rubbed his neck. He was nervous. He could bother Clockwork all he wanted about Dan, but there was really no way of knowing if he’d get what he wanted. Clockwork might not even tell him how Dan was feeling if he didn’t want to. He hated how dependent he suddenly was on the Master of Time’s whims. While Clockwork was benevolent, he was difficult to communicate with at times. Sometimes he didn’t feel like he was talking to the same ghost.
“I’m okay. I just hope Dan’s okay,” he said, deflecting. Sam seemed to accept this answer and squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“C’mon, love birds! I wanna see my future boy!” Tucker called as he walked towards the front door of Clockwork’s tower. Danny could feel the muscle in his neck twitching, but a few deep breaths kept his annoyance in check.
“You know he’s doing that on purpose,” Sam reminded him quietly as they followed. Danny tried to smile.
“Fully aware, thank you. Doesn’t make it any less fuckin’ irritating. I’m actually going to kill him one of these days,” he said back, relaxing a little when she tucked his hair behind his ear for him.
“I know. But he is your best friend.”
“I’ll get a new one.”
Sam laughed at this, which helped him relax more.
Tucker and Sam both kept close to his side once inside the tower, anxiety written on their faces as they observed the thousands upon thousands of clocks and great turning cogs inside. The soft sound of ticking second hands could be heard throughout the building, accompanied by the low hum of whirring machinery. Danny hardly noticed it.
A teenage Clockwork sat comfortably in front of his great, swirling mirrors. They were all dark—no frightening future or past mistakes reflected on their watery surfaces—but they still made Danny uneasy as he approached the ghost. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as the feeling of hundred of pairs of eyes fell on his skin.
Clockwork stood from his chair and grinned a wide, toothy smile, opening his thin arms as Danny and his friends approached.
“My dear Phantom, I wondered when I’d be seeing you again,” he said, his voice maturing as his head tilted into a middle-aged man. Danny blinked away the disorienting change with practiced ease and smiled at his friend.
“Do you ever wonder about when, Clockwork?” he said loudly, folding his arms across his chest. Clockwork’s face wrinkled as he grinned wider.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, my dear mortal friends? Surely you haven’t come to chat with an old man,” he chuckled, his back bending like a tree as he leant on his staff. Danny felt his nerves crawl across his skin again as he wrung his hands.
“Well….” Words failed him. He couldn’t say why, but his throat closed as he tried to speak. A hot flash of bitterness skittered through his core and he struggled to shake it away. What was this feeling?
Clockwork noticed his hesitation and watched him curiously, something deep and knowing in his dark red eyes. Danny tried again to speak, but an odd ball of emotions choked him again. Was he upset? Jesus, not again.
This happened every time he came into the Ghost Zone now. He had no idea why, but he felt his senses become clogged with foreign feelings and emotions all the time now. He would have chalked it up to Pariah's influence if it affected him all the time, but not only had he suppressed Pariah's voice for the most part, for some reason the feeling seemed specific to the Realms.
Right now? He was somewhere between wanting to curl up in a ball and cry or committing arson. Arson was a strange urge for him, but not the first time he’d felt that way during one of these spells.
Seeing him choke, Sam stepped forward and decided to speak for him, much to his relief.
“We’re here about Dan. We wanted to check in on him,” she said, putting a comforting hand on Danny’s shoulder. Clockwork kept his eyes trained on Danny as a smirk appeared on his lips.
“Consider him checked in on,” he answered without answering. Sam’s face twitched with annoyance at this. She much preferred people to be straightforward, Danny knew, and Clockwork was anything but. He swallowed the aggrieved pyromaniac overwhelming him and managed to speak again.
“I want to see him.”
Clockwork’s eyebrows raised and his face softened into something almost cherubic as he shrank. His toddler form gave Danny the creeps.
“See him? Hmm,” Clockwork tapped his chin as he considered this. Danny couldn’t help but hold his breath.
“I suppose… yes, I think that would be alright.”
Danny exhaled with relief, his shoulders relaxing the tension he carried as Sam put a hand on his arm and Tucker bounced in place. Clockwork chuckled at the trio and produced a familiar medallion from his robes.
“I don’t need to remind you the potential for destruction you have when you meddle with other timelines,” he said sharply when Danny reached for it, causing him to stop short. Danny swallowed hard and nodded. He wasn't about to make that mistake again. With that, Clockwork handed over the medallion, his smile unreadable.
“What about them?” Danny asked as he donned the medallion, glancing back at Sam and Tucker. Clockwork studied the both of them as they looked up at him pleadingly, Tucker even clasping his hands under his chin and smiling as big as he could manage. Clockwork sighed heavily.
“Do be careful,” he said, producing two more medallions. Tucker and Sam both stepped forward eagerly and took them before the ghost could change his mind. Danny smiled, holding his own medallion close to his heart.
“Thank you, Clockwork. Truly,” he said softly. Clockwork smiled before waving a thin hand in front of one of his great mirrors. The surface rippled and came to life, showing an unfamiliar room on the other side. Danny took a deep breath and gripped both of his friend’s hands before pulling the three of them through the vortexing surface.
It took a long moment before Danny felt his feet on hard ground again. He shook his hair out of his face and glanced around the room he now found himself alone in. It was a bedroom, but not one he’d ever seen before. Nerves itched at his fingers as he realized neither Sam nor Tucker were there with him yet. He frowned and considered taking the medallion off to return to Clockwork when the door opened and a face he hadn’t seen in years appeared.
He knew Clockwork had sent Dan back in time to before his death, but it somehow slipped his mind that that meant he’d be younger than Danny again.
The shock on Dan’s fourteen-year-old face brought him back to the moment however. He grinned, unable to resist the temptation to tease.
“Hiya, champ.”