“Wasn’t you,” Cho said, shivering but conscious.
“This one was.” Danny brushed a thumb over the scuff on Cho’s cheekbone from when he’d first thrown him into the wall. “I wanted to hurt you. I would have caused all of this without Ludgate if you hadn’t knocked some sense into me.”
“But I did…and you listened.” Smiling, Cho reached for Danny’s face in turn. “It’s okay—”
“It isnotokay,” Danny bit out louder than he intended. Even as fresh tears slid down his cheeks, he held Cho’s hand to his face. “It’s never okay anymore. Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Danny…hey.” Cho tugged him closer—closer—until Dannywasin his lap, snuggled into the open duster. “Shh…”
Sniffling as he buried his head in Cho’s chest, Danny hugged him, but not too tightly, since he knew the man’s ribs were sore. “I didn’t mean any of it. Sometimes I say these things and I can’tstop myself, but that’s not an excuse. I should be stronger than this. I have to be stronger than this…”
“Calm down, Sparky. You think you’re the only person who’s ever experienced that? Youarestronger. Youarebetter. You’re not like me.”
The words startled Danny, tore at him, because Cho didn’t know. He had no idea about the darkness inside of Danny. “You’re...” he tried to say…something, but when the right words wouldn’t come, he pulled back to look at Cho—at his bruised and bloody face, at his kind eyes that he let so few people see. “You arenothinglike your father,” Danny said, and he’d say it a million times more if it always smoothed the lines from Cho’s face and made his armor and masks drop away. “Am I?”
“What?” The lines returned with a vengeance as Cho frowned and some of his usually hard exterior cracked into something else. “No, Danny. Never.”
Cho kissed him, and for a moment, despite the tears on Danny’s face and the grief in his throat, there was nothing he wanted more than Cho’s lips.
But Cho hissed and pulled back. His lip was sore and bleeding. Because of Danny.
Feeling low and nauseous about it all, Danny still couldn’t help but snuggle in against Cho’s warmth—strangely warm, for an Ice Elemental. The dark night around them was filled with sounds from the city, but in their alley it was comfortingly still and quiet.
“I’m sorry, I can move, I just… I should get up. You need medical attention.”
“I’ll be fine.” Cho held Danny closer along the small of his back. “Might throw up on you if you squeeze too tightly though.”
Choking on distressed laughter, Danny scooted out of Cho’s lap. The other man’s lazy smile was tired, dazed. “You have a concussion. I should get you to Lynn—”
“No,” Cho shook his head, “too dangerous if Ludgate tracks us. We need to wait. Besides, I have my own doctor if I need one.”
“You do?”
“Nurse. But he’ll do in a pinch. It just looks bad, Sparky. Nothing some rest and ibuprofen won’t cure.”
He was being too dismissive, laying on the bravado to ease Danny’s concerns, when he looked almost as bad as Camouflage had that night when Danny lost it. “I’m sorry. I’m so—”
“Danny,” Cho said seriously, “you never have to be sorry for defending yourself.”
“But I wasn’t—”
“You thought you were. You were wrong. Didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt. Fine. But why should you have? If it had been Vaughn or Rivers, you would have stopped and listened to them.”
Danny honestly didn’t know if that was true—in the moment, in his anger. He thought he would. Hewould, wouldn’t he?
“Here.” Narrowing his eyes at Danny sitting in front of him in his underwear on the concrete, Cho pulled his long, sleeveless duster from his shoulders. He settled it snug around Danny to cover him as much as it allowed. “Sorry for the lack of sleeves, but you need this more than I do right now. And mmm…” He regarded Danny with that familiar glance down his body. “Kept thinking of things to drape you in, Sparky, and here I stumbled upon the sexiest one by accident.”
Danny snorted and wiped at his eyes, a complete mess on the ground of an alley in his enemy’s signature costume piece. He hugged it around himself. The duster smelled like Cho.
“I’m just an old thief with a bad track record. You had every reason to believe what you did. Means you’re learning. You shouldn’t be so trusting of scoundrels,” Cho grinned.
“Not even of you?” Danny grinned back.
“Especially not of me.”
Danny wasn’t so sure anymore. When Cho’s expression softened, he didn’t look like an enemy. Danny wanted to kiss him again, would have if not for the split lip. He wanted to hold him, keep him safe, keep him with him for…forever. But he couldn’t say that. It was too dangerous. This was all too dangerous and stupid and…and Danny didn’t care, he just wanted to keep feeling what Cho made him feel.
He kissed Cho’s cheek where it wasn’t bruised or scratched. “I will never hurt you again.”
