Author's Note: Hopefully this is the first of many Danny Phantom fics to come (Well, from me, at least). Feedback is appreciated. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, nor any of its characters. I also don't own Samus Aran.

Complex

There are moments in life where a guy having a female best friend has its advantages.

Danny Fenton and Tucker Foley, for instance, usually knew where that invisible line of acceptable inter-gender conversation lay- the one that said, "Go ahead and say that, it's hilarious!" on one side and "You did NOT just say that," on the other.

Sure, they overshot the line occasionally - or in Tucker's case, willingly ignored it and all the danger signs leading up to it and then plowed, bullheaded, straight across. But they understood a little more than other guys might what fate would befall them if complete ignorance of the line was to occur.

It was, for instance, NEVER a good idea to suggest that any woman's mood could be attributed to 'that time of the month'. They understood this unwritten rule as law - the diatribe their best friend Sam had launched into about their lack of sensitivity to the struggles of countless women over the centuries to gain the equality of woman's rights and civil liberties - blah blah blah - Something about sexism and all men being chauvinistic pigs.

Which seemed pretty rich coming from someone preaching equality. But maybe she'd only said that because Tucker had said mentioned the whole 'time of the month' thing first and she was trying to make some kind of point. That had never been made 100% clear as neither one of them had been brave enough to question her about it.

Anyways, that diatribe had been enough to ensure that neither one of them made the mistake of suggesting it again.

Out loud.

Especially not while Sam was within earshot.

The two of them also knew never to suggest a woman was weaker than a man or to suggest that men could perform all non-domestic tasks better or more efficiently, though those weren't things they needed to remind themselves of at all.

Take Danny's family; his dad, for one, was great at needlepoint. That was domestic. The subject matter was a little single-minded, but hey, what'er you gonna do?

Aside from that, having a genius sister and a scientist for a mother with a black belt in karate, guaranteed that that kind of sexist thinking was viewed not only as way outdated, but completely bogus. It simply would not fly in the Fenton household.

Though, that wasn't to say Danny and Tucker still didn't slip up at times and say something without realizing the connotations. Or, okay, so, sometimes even when they knew what they were saying was wrong they still said it. At fifteen years old they were still well within the bounds of that age range where flippant disregard for the intricacies of other's perspectives was expected of them.

But, you know, as used to life with a girl always in on the conversation as Danny and Tucker were, there were moments too when having a female in the set of best friends you tell everything to did have its drawbacks… For one, it always seemed to put Sam in a sour mood whenever they talked about girls.

Other girls.

The kind you dated, not the kind you lost watermelon eating contests to in the 5th grade or who could lob a snowball so hard and so accurately as to give new meaning to the term 'snow blindness'.

But despite knowing it got a little on her nerves how 'mindless and shallow' the two of them could get when it came to discussing the opposite sex, they were both so comfortable around Sam that they talked about it anyway. And sometimes Sam's blunt, belittling commentary was even helpful.
In that 'picking up the pieces' kind of way.

In their more ignorant youth - okay, so it was only a year ago - they had even thought that they couldn't talk videogames around Sam, believing that she wouldn't be able to understand a word of that particular vernacular. It was laughable to think about now, as they, the three of them, sat around their respective computers, communicating via wireless headsets as they played Doomed 4 over the internet from their homes.

But still…

No matter how at ease Danny and Tucker felt they could be around Sam there were still those times when having a girl around were... uncomfortable. There were just some things that needed to be kept between guys.

While he might not have minded so much discussing a few of his personal preferences on girls when he, Danny, was talking to Tucker alone; it got a little weird with Sam around. This was a discomfort which appeared to belong to him alone, as Tucker could seemingly talk about anything in front of anyone (with the one exception being his mom) without batting an eye. In a lot of ways, he was completely unscrupulous.

Whereas Tucker could be flirting with a girl within seconds of coming to the conclusion that she was sorta-kinda pretty. Unsuccessfully. But he still tried. Danny was much more likely to keep his opinions to himself, no matter how good looking or how high in the ranks of social acceptance the girl was slotted.

The very idea of talking to a cute girl made him apprehensive, to say the least. His insides would begin squirming uncomfortably like two people attempting to jump on an over-filled waterbed and his tongue would feel as though it was turning to a semi-gelatinous state, quickly losing the motor skills to form coherent, non-rambling sentences.

Luckily, this wasn't an issue he was forced to discuss very often with his two best friends. Sure, they'd tease him or occasionally press him to act on the long time crush he suffered for one of their classmates, Paulina Sanchez, but they left it well enough alone after that.

Or at least they always had before.

On this particular night things were very determinately not working out for him that way…

It had started out as a perfectly ordinary afternoon with friends. Danny was seated alone at the computer in his parent's laboratory basement, a neon green two-way headphone plugged into his ear leaving his hands free to input the key strokes needed for the gaming marathon he and his two best friends were currently engaged in. They'd been at it for several hours now, but with their goal so close to being within their grasp, there was no way they were giving in. Not now.

"Danny, get the key," came Sam's voice over the headset, "You've got the highest jump stats."

"Go on, man, we've got your back!" called Tucker, through his end of communications.

It was true that when they'd made their new Doomed avatars Tuck and Sam had once again gone for more heavily armored, battle ready characters, while Danny had opted for the lighter armored, more agile and quicker combatant.

So it was that with the horde of NPC giant bees attacking from all sides that Tucker took aim and began shooting. Of course, they'd tried this tactic before, but shooting the hive instead of the bees coming out of it. As it turned out, it was much better dealing with a steady horde than dealing with an angry, buzzing, stinger-of-death wielding swarm.

They'd also previously tried their current attack with Tucker as the key retriever, but even with his very basic level of armor protection, it still weighed him down enough to make reaching the key hidden high above in the branches of the Killer Bee's Tree a practical impossibility without a jump bonus.

"Okay," said Danny, his avatar breaking into a run and gaining speed as he headed directly towards Sam's much larger, much bulkier character. "Ally-oop!"

Sam's character, firing off purple energy pulses from the barrel of an imposing black hand gun with one hand, never ceased in firing or even turned to look at him as she stretched out her free, dinner plate sized right hand.

Jumping just as he reached her, Danny landed into her outstretch hand in a crouch and without another moment's hesitation Sam forced her arm upwards, Danny balanced in her opened palm. Combining the force of her throwing him upwards with his own superior jump agility Danny shot off her hand like a cork up through the branches of the tree, landing on just the branch where he needed to be.

From where he was bent low in the tree, straight ahead towards the thinner end of one of the outstretched branches and hidden behind a bundle of leaves was the third of the seven silver keys to the apocalypse.

Danny steadily made his way towards it, moving slowly so as not to fall.

Just then one of the massive attack bees appeared through the lower branches, almost startling him straight into a 20 foot drop. His arms pin wheeled as the bee shot past him. The bee turned to dive-bomb him, stinger at the ready, but a the last minute a purple energy blast erupted from below him, sending the insect careering, tumbling over itself 10 feet away before it righted its balance. However, before it could move in for a second attack, another purple blast collided with it head-on and the creature burst into pixelated nothingness.

Danny looked down through the branches of the tree to see Tucker and Sam battling hard.

Though Sam wasn't looking at him and she remained focused on the task of vaporizing every flying thing in sight - another identical weapon had appeared in her once free hand - he knew it was she who had saved him.

He smiled determinately, his focus once again turning to the key at the end of the branch as he bent down low to more or less crawl out onto the limb after it. The fight continued on below him, blue and purple energy blasts sounding off and lighting up the dark forest in a blaze of glory until at last… his hand closed around the precariously perched key, his legs wrapped around the tree branch, practically hugging it to keep from falling.

His yell broke the unending sound of weapons fire, "I got it!"

He thrust his hand up in the air holding the key aloft. The blue light from a miss-aimed shot reflected off of the key's polished surface as it raised steadily into the sky in front of him. Having thrust his arm so forcefully up into the air, his balance waivered and Danny slipped sideways.

"Hn!" He let out a muffled cry before reaffirming his grip on the tree, so that when he had gained purchase again he was hanging upside down with both his legs and arms wrapped tightly around the branch.

Below, the bees which had been steadily appearing one at a time from inside their hive stopped spawning.

"I got the key-!" Danny had begun to say again, before the last of the remaining bees spun out of control towards him. Pressing his forehead to the bark, Danny tried to flatten himself as much as he could against the branch supporting his weight. But there was really no need. Before the insect was able to collide with him a blue energy beam collided with it, evaporating it into a shower of nothing.

"Alright, man! Now that's the way you do it" called Tuck, turning to Sam and giving her much larger avatar a high five—the force of which knocked him to the ground.

"Sam!" Danny called, chuckling to himself as he looked down at her, his hair standing on end from the game's realistic gravity simulation. "Think we could rent you out at the class picnic next week? You're a regular bug zapper!"

"Aww," said Sam, her face fizzling into view on the faceplate of her avatar, "and this coming from the guy stuck hanging from a tree."

"Aha… Yeah" Danny faltered. "Speaking of - y'think you could help me down?"

"Hmm." Sam folded her arms around her avatar's broad armored chest, pretending to mull it over.

"Well, he does have the third silver key," said Tucker, grinning and back on his feet once more.

"True," responded Sam, nodding before going to stand under where Danny was and holding out her arms.

"Cute," said Danny, deadpan, "very cute."

He shifted his weight, holding onto the tree with his left arm as he leaned back, looking over his right shoulder and dropping the key down to Tucker with a casual, "Heads up!"

He then gripped onto the tree again, but made the mistake of trying to dangle before his character had completely shifted their grip so that they were holding onto the tree branch from only one side instead of with one hand on either side.

His grip slipped, "W-woah!"

And he landed into the waiting arms of Sam's character—arms thicker than the tree branch he'd just fallen from.

"Thanks." He smiled at her with an offhand shrug, trying to mask whatever embarrassment he felt at his butterfingers before Tucker cut in his two cents.

"Very smooth."

Turning to glare at him, Danny was lowered back onto his feet.

"I dunno," said Tucker, one hand going to his chin in thought. "Maybe you'd better throw him back up there."

"Why?" asked Sam, clearly unimpressed with Tucker, and not at all expecting his answer to be a good one. After all these years of the three of them being together both she and Danny knew that if they didn't ask Tucker would just complete his thought anyways without invitation.

"Well, it had to have improved his looks. You've tried and you've tried, and now?" Tucker folded his arms and nodded, pleased with himself, "You've finally succeeded in turning Danny into a tree-hugger!"

'There it was,' Danny thought, both he and Sam with matching looks of detachment. 'The tree hugger joke.'

"Tucker that is just—" But Sam didn't appear to have the words for what that was as she put her oversized hand to her head and shook it.

"Ah ha," Danny very obviously fake laughed. "Har-de-har-har."

"Aw, common, lighten up. We've got the third silver key!" Tucker held the key dramatically up over his head.

"Ah," Danny interjected, raising a finger, "I would advise against that." Both he and Tucker grinned before Tucker put the key safely back into his items menu.

"Oh, Danny, speakin' of good looks, have you seen the lineup for the new Smash Bros game?"

A feeling, one that Danny couldn't exactly explain, began to make itself ever so slightly known.
"Uh, no. I don't have a Wii U." He said simply, and while this was true, it wasn't precisely his only reason for not looking up the new playable characters.

Tucker, was much more tech savvy than he was and was always much more inclined to follow the newest released game information. He hadn't seen the new characters because, as per the norm, he was receiving the information that the roster had been released for the first time, here and now, through Tucker.

"Dude, you have got to check out Samus' new zero suit."

"They changed it?" He blinked in surprise.

"Mmhm. And, brother, is she lookin' fine."

The silence Sam had kept until this point was broken by a pronounced sigh.

And though Danny experienced that strange feeling again but with slightly more force, he ignored it.

"Hold on, let me look it up." He said, minimizing his Doomed game and opening up an internet browser.

Sam, it seemed, had done the same seconds before Danny had. "Why am I not surprised?"

"What?" Said Tucker.

"Come on. Samus is a pretty cool character—if the MEN of the gaming industry could just leave her design alone! She kicks alien butt! She shouldn't have to be some pinup sexualized for the soul purpose of keeping the interest of pubescent little boys and perverted adult men living in their parents' basements."

Uncertain of whether or not Sam was including them under the umbrella term of 'pubescent little boys' Danny and Tucker replied together, "Hey!"

"You shouldn't have to hypersexualize someone who's already AMAZING to keep some shallow losers interested in playing her games. You can't even see her body the majority of the time you're playing! But it's a male dominated industry, so of COURSE… Although, I have to admit, those heels are rockin'. They could totally work as some techno-goth rave wear."

By now Danny had run the image search and was looking at the pictures of the new design.

"I… I don't see what you're so upset about, Sam." He said simply.

"You tell 'er, Danny. We need these kinds of changes!" Tucker whined.

"No, I mean, I don't get it. She doesn't look that much different from before." So what? Tucker was all excited about this because they got her a new pair of shoes? Did he… Did he have a shoe thing? He decided he'd really rather not know.

"She went shopping for a new pair of Sam-approved shoes. It's not much of a redesign."

There was silence for a moment before Tucker spoke in a disbelieving tone,

"You're joking."

The feeling from before, began to eerily creepy up on him further. "No…" Danny responded.

Another pause.

"Danny, look at the comparison pictures—the side-by-sides of what she looked like before they tampered with her design (Not that they aren't always tampering with her design, she added under her breath) and what she looks like now." Said Sam patiently.

Clearly, there must be some other big change if Sam seemed to think he'd notice it right away just by seeing some side-by-side shots.

He scrolled down the mass of images until he found several different pictures of Samus and he brought them up, comparing them.

"Okay… so she gained some more dark blue lines in some places… lost them in other places. And they gave her some crazy, glowy bling…" What was it he was missing here?

"Her bust, Danny," Sam stated, deadpan. "They made her boobs bigger. I mean, seriously," she said laughing, "not that she needed it."

Danny looked back to the pictures, blinking, comparing one to the other.

"Why have you gotta be so down on 'er! So she went through a growth spurt! The best kinda growth spurt." Said Tucker. "Is this some sort of inferiority complex? Because Danny and I are completely capable of appreciating these changes! Why can't you? You already said you liked the shoes. Those super high, glowin' heels of tech glory." His voice had begun to grow a bit sappy at this, causing Danny to internally cringe. Hello, selective memory.

Sam sputtered with indignation, "Inferiority complex! Whoa-ho! Back up! Just WHAT have I got to feel inferior about? This has NOTHING to do with me, okay? Tucker? This is about a male dominated industry trying to sexualize something that has NOTHING to do with sex—and who can fight in high heels, anyway?! Do you have any idea how hard it is to even walk in heels? It's unrealistic and—"

Danny, who hadn't been paying any attention to their conversation interrupted.

"Are you sure? I… I'm not seein' it."

"WHAT?!" Tucker sputtered, "Dude, how could you NOT. Are you a red-blooded male or aren't you!

"Most of the time." Danny said distractedly; his blood was, after all, green when he was in his ghost form.

"Uh, Danny, you don't have to say that for my sake. Seriously, you're not helping anything. The changes are there, obvious as an ectoplasmic ray to the face." Sam said candidly.

"I'm not saying that for your benefit, I really just don't get what the big deal is."

There was a short pause in which that feeling in the back of his mind surged up, like a warning. He cut the silence immediately, before anyone else got the chance to.

"Whatever, it's not a big deal, alright? Let's just… drop it. I-I've never really had a thing for her anyways." His voice broke slightly, as he tried to keep his voice as casual as possible.

But still, there was yet more silence. Okay, not the reaction he'd been expecting.
And without a doubt not good.

"WHAT?" Sam and Tucker responded simultaneously.

"Danny, what is WRONG with you, man?" Tucker exclaimed. "What about her DOESN'T scream to you 'sex appeal'?! She kicks butt AND she's super-hot! She is the ultimate in video game babes!"

"Are you for real?" Sam started in shock. "If you're being serious you've got to be one of the only gamer guys EVER to think that way."

Danny frowned. "You seem really pleased about that."

This was unsettling. Particularly Tucker's choice of adjectives—And he wasn't sure why; it wasn't as though this was the first time he'd heard Tucker describe someone that way and he was sure it wouldn't be the last.

"Pleased? I'm downright ecstatic!" Sam continued, breaking his train of thought, "That makes you the outlier, the black sheep, the exception to the rule! The ONE guy out there moving against the current of the commercially packaged world that considers a certain type of woman to be the only attractive kind worthy of being represented as a kickass, action game female protagonist!"

"Um…"

"IMBRACE your individuality, Danny!"

Tucker's voice cut in unexpectedly, "I feel like I don't even KNOW you anymore!

Danny knew what that feeling was now.

Awkward. He felt very, very… awkward.

Somehow, even though all he had done was to say the truth as plainly as he could, he had managed to isolate himself completely from his two best friends on completely opposite sides of the spectrum.

Tucker was completely appalled, whereas Sam was thrilled beyond all reason. And he didn't even know WHY. What was it that all that stuff she'd said even MEANT? He just wasn't attracted to the character, what was the big deal?

"Guys, GUYS!" he shouted, "Would you calm down?! It is not the end of the world." He tried feebly to laugh it off.

"Tuck, it is ONE character that I'm just not into! She just doesn't do it for me, okay? I mean, yeah, she's cool an' all but—" He cut off searching for the words he wanted to use. "Just because you think she's hot doesn't mean I have to!"

"And Sam," he said, "I'm sorry, but this is not a speech on what role feminism should play in the 'male-dominated' video gaming industry." At least he hoped that was what all that complicated stuff she'd been going on about meant. He'd used air quotes hoping beyond all hope that his friends would realize how completely unimportant this discussion was and that they'd just… just let it go.

"Let it go." Subtle.

Sam and Tucker had both gone silent. A good sign.

"Hey Danny…" Sam finally said. Her inflection didn't mark her as being mad. Another good sign.

"Just tell me one thing." Okay, not a good sign. He felt his insides constrict, squirming in dreaded anticipation of what it was she might want to know about this particular topic.

"Look at a picture of her - Any picture of Samus."

"Sam…" He began.

"I know you're not into her, but just look at a picture of her and tell me what you DO see," Sam finished.

There was a pause while Danny considered that. This really… was not any of her - or Tucker's- business. But if it would get them off his back without any further unwanted drama…

He sighed, turning his eyes towards the images on his screen again.

"I see… a woman in a blue jumpsuit." He deadpanned.

"Danny—"

"Oh, come on, man." Tucker interrupted.

"Alright! Alright! Geeze, what's with the third degree? I thought I'd have to wait until after the Guys In White captured me before I'd be subjected to an intimate interrogation!"

He looked at the pictures more critically this time.

"I dunno - She seems pretty serious. Competent. Like she knows what she's doing."

"What does that have anything to do with -" Tucker started to say before Sam shushed him.

"Come on, can't you just let this die?" For whatever reason, looking at these pictures was exhausting him and making him feel progressively more ill at ease. Maybe the late hour of their Doomed marathon was finally getting to him. He glanced toward the clock on the wall above him. The bright digital display's green numbers glared harshly back at his tired eyes, in strict contrast with the happily waving, but equally neon green, ghost tail poking out from the bottom of the steadily ticking wall ornament. It was almost 3am.

"I don't know what you expect me to say. She just looks like a woman who likes the color blue. Okay? Now, I'm tired and I'm going to bed."

"You know," said Tucker, one eyebrow raising and his eyes shining with mischief, "For someone who claims he's really not into her, you're acting like someone who's REALLY into her and just doesn't want anyone to know."

"Tucker!"

"I'm just sayin'!"

Danny groaned, rubbing his face in his hands. He had quickly gone from feeling uneasy to nauseous in the last two seconds flat.

With his elbows propped up on the desk in front of him and his head resting in his hands, for the first time he thought about it. Why was he starting to feel sick? He lifted his head, dropping his left arm onto the tabletop as he looked at the pictures of the light blue jumpsuited Samus up on the brightly glowing screen before him. And then it hit him like a solid wall crumbling down on top of him. He couldn't help but make a face.

"You guys," he said, his tone grave. "I think… she might—Yeah, she kinda, reminds me of my mom."

"Your -" It was the only word Sam had been able to get out before, a grin split her face and she bit down on the knuckle of her right fist.

"Eyyyuh!" Came Tucker's replay at last.

"- Tuck?"

"Way t' ruin things, Danny! I don't wanna look at Samus Aran and think of your mom!"

There was a pause in which Tucker must have chanced a glance at one of the images of the woman in question before bursting out with another dramatic sound of utmost disgust.

"That is it, man - I gotta go."

He couldn't help it. Despite himself, a grin worked its way onto Danny's face as the feed from Tucker's webcam cut off and his friend disappeared from view.

"You have such a way with words," Sam, it seemed was able to speak again, her own grin brimming with both amusement and self-satisfaction at Tucker's expense. On seeing her expression he laughed.

"It really is late though, better grab some shuteye," Sam went on, still grinning.

"Yeah, okay."

"See ya at school."

"Yeah, bye." Maybe it was just him, but he thought that in that moment as Sam was waving her farewells that he saw in her face something bordering on… approval? He wasn't sure what there was to approve of. He could be wrong. He wasn't even sure if he'd really seen it, she'd vanished from sight so quickly. But it made him feel as though he'd done something right.

But that didn't make any sense either.

Sometimes having a best friend who was a girl could be… confusing.

It was later that morning when Jack Fenton, eager to work on his softer hobby that day, came to shake the mouse of the computer intent on printing out the needlepoint pattern on ghosts he'd found the day before. The little screensaver of a ghost gliding and waving as it bounced off the sides of the computer screen vanished as the screen came brightly to life.

"Hold the phone. What's this?"

Jack noticed an internet image search still opened on the screen. How many times had he told those kids to shut down whatever programs they were using when they were done on the computer?! It was a good thing he'd had a good night's sleep, filled with dreams of catching that busybody, interfering ghost kid over and over with his best buddy, Vlad.

And there was pie…

Vlad had made pie…

BLUEBERRY!

Oh, what a good dream that had been… Old Vlady.

….

….

What had he been thinking about?

Oh well, it must not have been important.

He took a look at the computer screen, again taking note of the opened internet image search, this time squinting and looking closer. Letting the cursor hover over one of the images, the image enlarged. What's this?

He stared, his eyes growing large.

"Oh, hot mama! That is the HOTTEST blue jumpsuit I've ever seen!" He jumped up from his seat, the chair spinning wildly from the force of his departure, as he bolted up the stairs as fast as his stubby legs could take him.

"MADDIE!" He yelled. "Maddie, baby, wait'll you see THIS!" She had, after all, been considering updating her wardrobe.