Zootopia belongs to Disney. Elements borrowed from Spider-Man belongs to Sony.

He didn't even remember his head hitting the pillow. He had been so tired. Not physically at least, which was strange. He'd never fallen asleep so quickly.

The events from yesterday were the end of his last chance. There was nothing left. He'd never find another home, no one else to take care of him. No path, no purpose, no nothing. So he figured that his rest was his body's attempt to rejuvenate from the sheer weight of loss he had endured.

Oh well.

Oh well.

Oh well, whatever. What else was new? That was just the world he lived in. He'd survive. He always had. Perhaps he could leave Zootopia, go-

Suddenly, the door to his cell opened. Danny looked up, squinting his nocturnal eyes to see who it was. It was... everyone.

All the officers who had been present at his arrest were standing there. The bunny who had interrogated him was standing there with the fox. And the guards who had escorted him here the night before were present, attending the door.

"What? Are you ganging up on me, or something?" he asked the group of officers, not bothering to hide his irritation.

The buffalo spoke first.

"Detective Wilde" - he gestured downward toward the bunny - "has something she wants to say to you."

"Oh?" he responded sardonically. "Cute widdle bunny like you come here to ask the mean, ol' putty tat why he hurt a'dose mammals?" He wore the most patronizing face he could, smiling at her mockingly. She only stood there, unmoving. Her ears were drooping, and her paws were clasped together tightly. Her nose twitched slowly. And her eyes bore into his, a sadness shimmering in them. Almost as if they were pleading with him.

"I'm sorry," she said, not quietly. Danny flinched. He had expected anything but that.

"W...what?"

"I'm sorry," she said more softly, her voice beginning to strain with emotion. "What happened to your dad... was because of what I did... that press conference." There was a bitterness in her face that furrowed her eyebrows.

Danny had completely frozen. He had never seen the press conference. He never heard what she said firstpaw, but he had heard from his dad and from others. What he had imagined was so opposite what he saw now that he might as well have thought that this was some imposter. But it wasn't. It was the same rabbit he'd seen seven years ago at that peace rally - same eyes, same voice, same height. The only difference was her slightly less lanky build.

"What you..."

"I hurt so many mammals," she said, taking a few small steps forward. Her paws wrenched together. Tears began to fall down her cheeks. "And you suffered because of it. You were just a little kid..." she put her paw over her mouth, her eyes wide, pointed at the floor. She sobbed once harshly. "You were just a kid..." she repeated in a whisper. "It was my fault, all of it... please, please forgive me." She ended with her paws wiping her eyes as she wept. The fox laid a paw on her shoulder. His eyebrows furrowed.

Danny's breath trembled. What is this? He was rendered speechless.

Before he could say anything - he doubted he could have - the tiny officer, shrunk into herself, turned, and slowly shuffled out. Her sobs continued down the hall.

The buffalo turned back to the wide-eyed panther, still as a statue. He didn't react to his next words, but he definitely heard them: "What you think about prey, Arcturus... none of it is true. She's not like the prey that did what they did to you and your father." Most of the other officers nodded.

With that, the guard closed the door of the cell and locked it. "Back to work, everyone." Everyone complied, still looking at the panther as they left.

Ok, that was weird, Danny thought as he lay back down. Never, in the history of his whole life, had anyone said anything like that to him. Never. Refusing to cast blame on him and taking it for herself? Who was she trying to fool? He smirked to himself, trying to casually brush it off. But it lingered in his mind and wouldn't go away. He spent the night arguing with himself like so:

She's trying to trick you.

Trick you into doing what?

I don't know, shut up!

That's what you wanted to hear, right? That was all you needed.

It's not real! It can't be!

Why not?

...

Judy hadn't cheered up at all since her confession. Nick tried to comfort her, giving her all his bad jokes. She laughed, sure, but it was a hollow laugh. Lifeless, as if she were an emotionless doppleganger trying its best to live out Judy's life. She got her work done just fine, but it was obvious the little super-strong panther cub still haunted her conscience.

Eventually, Nick had to speak up. He waited until they were on the way home. He had volunteered to drive, in order to have his wife's full attention. There was no delicate way to start; he had to talk to her straight.

"Carrots, you have got to stop punishing yourself."

"Hm?" she said, snapping out of her stupor.

"What happened that day was years ago, Carrots. You have to learn to forgive yourself."

Judy didn't answer immediately. She stewed for a moment before answering.

"It wasn't just the press conference, Nick. Everything that happened, I was the face of the whole thing, the whole... disaster. I hurt so many predators, but it wasn't for a while that I saw how much damage was done."

"And you fixed it. We fixed it. Have you already forgotten that we caught the real mammal behind everything? Now she's behind bars."

"I should be behind bars, too," she muttered.

The cruiser pulled to the side of the road and skidded to a stop. A truck blew its horn as it whizzed by, but he ignored it altogether.

"What did you say?" he hissed in a severe whisper, his teeth clenched. His ears had pinned themselves to his skull.

She looked at him with wide eyes, frozen in shock at Nick's outburst.

"Judy!" he yelled, causing her to flinch. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is! You deserve a medal! Who fought with all of her heart to make the world a better place? You! Who caught both of the culprits? You! Who changed my life? You! Heck, who changed the city? One mistake did not change that!"

"But it gave a group of prey a reason to..." she breathed in and out with short, tremulous breaths... "to beat a little boy's father to death! If-If I hadn't... If I hadn't said anything -" she put her face in her paws, muffling her voice - "he wouldn't have faced that." She didn't continue, thinking of how many other animals had faced similar circumstances. She'd known about them, seen the news reports of orphanages refusing certain predator children, hospitals becoming more selective in their treatments of predators... but it wasn't until she met Danny Arcturus that the reality had sunk in: she set the true predators on them. And, oh, how that had set such guilt on her.

"Oh, so it was you who killed his dad? Is that it? You take responsibility for what you didn't do? See, Judy, that's what I'm talking about. You. Did. Not. Kill. Anyone. You saved the city. But you can't save everyone."

Judy suddenly lifted her face, looking forward. The tears had stopped flowing. Guilt had suddenly, somehow, turned into resolve. It was all in her expression. "But I can save Danny," she said evenly.

Nick knew where this was going. "Judy, I know what you're thinking. Stop thinking it."

"He needs someone to be there for him. That someone is me."

"Why?"

"Because what better animal than the one who hurt him?"

"Judy-"

"Just drive."

"No, I-"

"Drive," she said sternly, looking at him. She did not blink. Her mind was made up; there was no changing it. He yielded begrudgingly. Yep, this was going to be super fun, wasn't it?

At the same time Judy made her resolution, Nick resolved to keep Judy safe, whatever it took, although he felt pretty alone in that regard. Everyone seemed to be on board with this whole thing. The only mammals who seemed to be against it was, well, pretty much the high upper class in the city, according to the Assistant Mayor, who had given the chief a call earlier that day.

But the chief had deferred to Judy, for some reason. Why, he didn't know. When Judy had explained her feelings to Bogo, he had offered barely any resistance. Granted, he may have felt that she needed to get it off her chest for the sake of her performance, but he had let the panther out of the bag, pun intended. Once Judy set her mind on something, she was a missile; Nick had experienced that firstpaw within the first two days of knowing her, and it was one of the things he loved most about her.

If she had just set her heart on fixing someone not quite so... buff... and angry... he'd be all for it! Even if she could put a rhino on the matt, she was still a small bunny.

He just didn't want her to get hurt. The first sign of any intention to hurt his wife, he was going to get her far away from him, even if he had to drag her away... at the cost of his arms. And his legs. And his torso. And his body. Ok, he'd try to get her to see reason, then he'd die trying to drag her away as a last resort. Oh, he hoped things wouldn't go south to begin with. After all, if anyone could capture the heart of a bitter, disgruntled, vengeful, super-strong, eleven-year-old panther, it was her.