“Maybe.”
“Danny, that isn’t how this works. You can’t keep hiding from us by running around the city.”
The pang in Danny’s chest grew tighter and he felt the urge to throw everything off his desk, including the bags of food, and scream at Stella to stop psychoanalyzing him like one of her cases. But he shouldn’t need to do that. He was better than that.
Taking a breath, he stood from his chair to avoid the temptation. “It’s not patrol. I have plans tomorrow night, okay? I can’t cancel them. I’ll join you guys next week, I promise. I haven’t been good company lately anyway. I need a break.”
“From me?” Stella tilted her head with a crook to her mouth that betrayed how hurt she was by his words.
“Fromme,” Danny said honestly. “From a lot of things. I can’t exactly take a break from being Zeus, so I need something to distract me for a while.”
“And what something is that?”
“Justsomething. Look, can we eat?” He moved in front of the desk to join her and started pawing at a burger wrapper. “I’m close to passing out, and I need to get back to finishing this work before Dad comes in with the surveillance footage we’re waiting on. I appreciate the food. I love you for the food. And I wouldlove nothing more than to enjoy lunch with you. Tell me about your life lately. I’d much rather hear about that than talk about being a little fried lately.”
Stella watched him unwrap the burger and take a large, healthy bite. “If you’re sure that’s all it is?”
“Of course,” Danny said around his chewing. “I’ve had a tough few weeks since Vanessa left. It’s nothing.” Maybe if he called it ‘nothing’ enough times, it finally would be.
Stella gave him a gauging, unconvinced look, because she knew Danny hadn’t ever been serious about Vanessa and wasn’t all that sorry to see her go. Eventually, she took pity on the pleading in his eyes and tore into the wrapper of her own burger. “Well…”
It was forty-five minutes of almost normal bliss. Listening to Stella, eating lunch, laughing together, Danny could pretend for a while that he was happy. He could almost believe hewashappy, if it weren’t for the ache that lingered, that rose up strong as ever as soon as Stella hugged him and headed out of the precinct.
Aiming the rolled up wad of paper from his last burger at his farthest wastebasket by the corkboard, he missed what should have been a flawless hook shot. His eyes drifted from the paper to the corkboard…and finally to Rick’s desk.
The office was only large enough to fit the two desks, the corkboard between them against the back wall, and a few extra chairs. Rick hadn’t had any family, so no one was around to claim his belongings other than Danny. Any case work had been cleared away, but the personal items remained untouched.
Danny knew he should take it all home—the fish bowl by the window that had never had any fish but that Rick had joked about putting electric eels in for years, the deck of playing cards for slow days, the green lamp he’d gotten at a garage sale that looked like something out of a film noir flick, the photographof Danny and Rick sharing a drink after Captain Shan finally approved the creation of the Elemental Task Force.
Between all of that and the dust that had accumulated over the months, it was no wonder the other officers called this place The Tomb. It was a tomb, for Rick and Danny both.
Rick had been Lightning leaning too. Maybe that’s why they got along so well. Maybe if Rick had been the one to Awaken instead of Danny, both of them would be alive right now.
Lightning jumping to the wad of paper to throw it away properly, Danny was back at his desk in under a second. He really shouldn’t do that—waste his powers on mundane tasks. Using his lightning jump drained him. He’d only ever been able to use it a handful of times in a row during a fight before he fatigued, something he’d found out the hard way.
ß
Danny could admit almost two months after he’d Awakened and donned the alter ego of Zeus that he enjoyed having a nemesis. Especially since his dedicated supervillain, unlike Thanatos who continued to elude him, had strict principles he followed and a certain flare for dramatics that Danny enjoyed far more than he’d ever say out loud to the leader of the Titans.
If a heist led to Danny defeating Cho, he would inexplicably manage to get away before being taken into custody, though a few times he’d stick around, let himself be truly and fully caught only to break out of custody later. And if Cho won, he was careful with just how much of Danny he iced with his powers, trading banter and taunts more than actual blows.
Honestly, it was like an occasional vacation day in his otherwise hectic life as a detective by day and superhero bynight. Too often he had real threats to deal with: Thanatos and others like him who wanted to destroy the city, kidnap or murder someone, or cause the type of trouble that could get a lot of people hurt. Even the other Titans weren’t as easygoing as Cho. They followed their leader’s rules, but they weren’t as nice to Danny with mere glancing blows.
But Prometheus… Danny always looked forward to facing him, staring him down with a grin, drawing the fights out, meeting every pun Cho threw at him with one of his own—when he could; the man was notorious for winning that game—and just simply having fun. They had an understanding, a rhythm, a powerful respect for each other that made being at odds seem more like a game than a threat.
“What happens when he decides to take advantage of you going easy on him all the time?” his father once asked when Cho made a daring escape.
Danny had dismissed the concerns. He couldn’t imagine Cho ever having reason to do that. He’d turn a situation to his advantage whenever he could, but there was no future Danny could imagine where losing the unspoken truce between them would ever be beneficial to Cho. He enjoyed the chase more than any of the things he stole.
So no, Danny didn’t expect an ambush or betrayal to be the downfall of their common dance. He saw opportunity. He saw all the good in Cho that proved he could be so much more than a crook.
“That the best you got, Sparky? Figured you’d be quicker on your toes,” Cho said, icing the ground in front of Danny, but that was an old trick by now and Danny knew to dash around it and keep his feet on solid ground before he dove into another lightning jump. “Helios and Gaia are already long gone with the haul while you’re wasting time with me.”
They were in the warehouse district where the Titans had interfered with an entirely different heist Danny had been trying to stop. One of the local mafia groups had stolen an armored car. Just as they’d turned onto what appeared to be an abandoned street with Danny ready to jump in and save the day, Prometheus and his team had appeared to intercept. By the time Danny beat down all of the mafia goons, Helios and Gaia were driving off with the truck, while Cho hung back to keep Danny from following.
There was no one around save a few unconscious men almost a full block away now since Danny and Cho had moved to an empty parking lot during the fight. It was late, dark, a handful of street lights illuminating the area in this part of town. They had the whole parking lot and several city blocks to themselves. It was everything Danny would have asked for after a busy work week.
Coming out of his lightning jump behind Cho, he was forced to dart left when the Titan sensed his presence and turned around with a spray of cold.
