Zootopia belongs to Disney. Elements borrowed from Spider-Man belong to Sony.
A snap drew his attention. He knew that sound; he heard it every night. It was the sound of the door leading into the holding area locking for the night. It was an automatic lock; no one would get in or out. It was the perfect time for him. He grabbed two of the bars and pulled. It took quite a bit of effort, but they moved apart enough for him to squeeze through.
He wondered why he even came back here, really. He knew the police couldn't hold him. And it was clear they knew it, too. He should just run off and leave them scratching their heads. But he came back every night despite the ease of his escape. He never wandered far, maybe only a mile or two. He needed to be back within the hour. The holding area was checked every few hours, twice in the morning, and twice in the afternoon/evening. He had learned - or relearned - a hard lesson when he had forgotten to toss the junk he'd nabbed on the way back and stuffed it into an innocuous trash can hoping no one would notice.
He came near Gaia lane, which was the farthest he usually went. This was a snootier part of town, where mammals stayed in their little bubble and pretended there weren't any problems with the rest of the city. A shopping plaza stood down the road and was a popular area for the wealthy [put insult here]s hung out.
He hoped he would be back before someone realized he was gone. Wait. Again, why would he feel that way? He could do whatever he wanted to do. And what he wanted to do... yep, there was his next target.
"Ok, there's Lorian Biggles, Patricia Furr, Harry Trotwilder... nothing so far."
Nick checked off the names and rubbed his eyes. Trying to find one mammal in such a massive city was hard enough even with social networking and traffic cams. Even harder when the clock was ticking and the mammal had virtually fallen off of the planet. Judy was putting all of her focus into this search. The rich were generally slow to forgive a robber, even if that robber was an eleven-year-old homeless kid.
He had tried to get Judy to take a different case after he found out about his apparent escapades, but her refusal was so adamant and resolved that he didn't even try further. She was in charge now. And Nick, well, she just dragged him along by the tie. By law, he should have already been placed in a juvenile detention center. But the DA was unwilling to put someone like him in such a stressful environment - not for his sake but for those who would be in his presence. What would the city say, Nick should wonder, when they found out they couldn't contain him?
At that second the phone rang.
"Aw finally! Something to break my boredom!" Nick said as he picked up his phone. "Detective Wilde."
Judy was still researching. She didn't see her husband's face go from tired to alarmed within a second.
"Ok, we'll be right there. Thank you, sir." He ended the call. "Carrots?" She looked up. "We gotta go."
"Why?"
"I'll tell you on the way. Come on!"
30 minutes ago
A dimly-lit, third-story window facing the back alley caught his attention. And the best part: it was open.
He would just sneak in, take something valuable, and leave. It was that simple; he'd done it many times.
He smiled and began to climb the wall toward the window. He peeked inside to see a small kitchen with a cute little dining table off to the side. The apartment seemed to be fitted for an adult mammal about his size - around three feet. It smelled like air freshener, the real kind. It was kind of nice. The lights were off, but his night vision helped him see just fine.
He was glad his jailbird outfit was indigo. Dark blue melded well with the shadows. He just had to stay quiet and stick to them.
He pulled himself up over the sill and softly lowered his feet to the tiled floor. He kept his ears open for any sound. He searched the kitchen for a purse or something, or a wallet. Nothing in there. Hm. That was usually where he found such items. He'd have to look elsewhere. Crawling up onto the ceiling, he went into a room with a couch and a recliner. The living room. He stuck to the darkness and to the wall, listening for any movement.
That was when he saw a figure on the other side of the room, slinking through the apartment. Danny's breath hitched. He was caught.
He closed his eyes and cringed, waiting for the scream, but none came. As still as he could be, he opened one eye.
He was startled to see that the figure wore an outfit as black as his usual bodysuit, their face covered by a mask with a hole big enough for his eyes. Just like his. This was a burglar.
Oh, boy.
He decided he'd picked the wrong house. He didn't want to waste his time with a "competitor," if they could be called that. They were there to steal for survival's sake, at least that was his assumption. He just wanted the thrill. Ooh, he should go get a new mask when he got the chance. He needed one.
He settled himself to wait it out, resisting the urge to go "psst." Oh, how hilarious would his reaction be? The burglar knocked something off of a coffee table. It broke against the floor.
"What was that?" he heard from another room. "Hello?"
Uh-oh.
The thief stiffened. He had blown his cover. He looked around rapidly, seeming to think about what to do next. There was the sound of someone getting out of bed. The burglar rapidly snuck to the corner of the hallway. In his paw, Danny saw a blade. He was going to jump whoever came through there!
Danny's muscles tightened. Stealing from these mammals was one thing. He wasn't one to talk. But blatantly hurting them?
He began debating with himself, whether he should do something or not. There was no time to go over the pros and cons; someone was about to come around the corner. Ugh! He should not have come in here!
He watched as a small mammal came in with a bat. Oh, good. The mammal, an otter, searched for the light. His paw shook as he felt along the wall. His eyes squinted in an effort to see the visitor.
Danny had to bite his tongue to keep from alerting the otter as the burglar snuck up behind him and knocked the bat from his paw. He swung his knife, and the otter cried in pain and surprise as the knife cut into him. He stumbled and hit the wall.
A smaller cry reached his ears. He saw a female otter and a little girl enter the room. The mother pushed her daughter back into the hallway out of Danny's line of sight. She was holding out a wad of...
"Here! Take it! Just please, leave us alone..." she sobbed. The father otter groaned in pain. Danny could dimly see darkness oozing from his arm.
Just take it and go, Danny thought. Just go. Don't hurt them.
The burglar snatched the cash from her paw. She gasped and retracted her paws, taking a step back. The burglar stood there and held the knife out to her. He stepped toward her slowly. Once he was within reach, he caressed the knife under her throat.
"No, no, no, don't... please..." the father pleaded quietly but desperately. The mother winced as she realized what the burglar wanted. Danny stared in disgust as the burglar began trying to slowly cut through the top of the helpless otter.
Who would do that!
The would-be molester's knife suddenly left his paw and he stumbled backward by some force acting on his arm. He jerked, but something was holding him back.
The mother seemed confused until she saw the faintly shimmering line extending from the burglar's forearm into the darkness near the living room window.
The burglar turned around to see what was holding him back.
The mother otter stood petrified, waving her daughter back.
Danny didn't know what to do. He regretted ever coming here but decided to follow through. No one should have to face someone like that. He pulled the burglar hard toward himself. The mammal crashed through the window. At the same time, Danny, still in the cover of darkness, swung through the now-open window. He caught the burglar by the throat, who choked out a gag as Danny halted himself on the wall. He jumped down to the ground and let go of the burglar, who took off running, not bothering to look back. The web trailed behind him like a cheerleader's streamer. He sprinted hysterically, his arms flailing, to the other side of the street. Whether anyone saw him or not, he didn't know. He was too busy trying to figure out where the sirens were coming from.
All alarms went off in his head.
He moved in the opposite direction of the front of the apartment, trying to find a way around. But the precinct was in the opposite direction. If he could just...
He had to make it across this one street. Just this one street and he'd be home free. The street was not as busy as it had been ten minutes ago. He'd blended in pretty nicely on the way here; mammals didn't pay attention to anything. Now there wasn't much of anything to provide cover.
He moved fast, trying to find a place to cross without being detected. His mind zipped from idea to idea, scrapping each one in succession. The police were beginning to surround the building. Then...
Ugh! This was getting redundant! He began to climb the wall to the roof. He had to learn to let go of his fear of heights if he was going to keep doing this.
Getting to the top, he moved to the opposite side. The skyscraper directly across the way towered above him.
He shot a web straight across the street onto the building. It was always at this exact moment that he froze. Thinking about it had always been easy. But doing it - that was a different story altogether. He had never followed through with it, even when he was desperate.
Do it, he thought, trying to break his muscles from their catatonia. Do it!
He shoved all thoughts away and willed it. He pulled on the web, launching himself off the rooftop and across the street. Somehow, he didn't scream.
He realized he was about to go through a window. He shot another web up high, pulling hard and changing his course. He flew high up and hugged the wall tightly.
Oh geez.
His situation hadn't changed much. At least he was across the street. But now he was even higher up than before. Remembering he needed to be back before the routine cell check every night, he shimmied around the building until the police were out of his line of sight. Then he crawled to the ground. Oh, he was thankful to have such sticky paws. Er, paws that stuck to walls.
The trek back to the precinct was stressful, to say the least. He didn't know what time it was; the check could already have been performed, especially if they knew he was out of his cell.
He crawled quietly but rapidly up to the open window he'd left from and peeked through. No one was there. He squeezed in, slid down, got back in his cell, and anxiously bent the bars back to where they were before.
He fell back and hit the floor with a sigh. He'd made it. He chuckled in victory. Oh, that was a close one. He'd have to stay put for a while to make sure no one suspected anything. As he was still thinking about this, the door unlocked, and within a few seconds, Nick, Judy, that buffalo, a hippo officer, and a couple others appeared, including a horse in a fancy brown suit.
None of them looked very happy.
Yep, they'd seen him.
Danny had been in plenty of trouble in his life. In more ways than one. He sometimes got on Dr. Andrews' nerves, Kenten usually got on him about not being so gluttonous with food supplies (What? Growing cub's gotta eat!), and he was recently arrested for repeat counts of mugging and burglary. But this was the first time he had ever felt real guilt. Not because of the "horney" mammal sitting in front of him but because of the "earey" one standing behind him.
Another mammal had arrived right after the three of them had entered the chief's office, who introduced himself as Assistant Mayor Tobias. A thoroughbred with crimson fur, he talked with a buttery English accent, and he wore a simple, trim black suit and tie. He didn't look like an official at City Hall, someone obsessed with votes and getting more power. But he exuded an aura of humility and attentiveness.
Danny was seated in a chair far too large for him. He felt very, very small indeed.
The buffalo, by the name of Bogo, sat across from him, giving a lecture about the fact that he was supposed to remain in his cell, yadda yadda yadda. He appeared relatively composed but austere and weary. He was not happy.
"The amount of trouble that you have left for us to handle is enough to put you in a federal pen. You do understand that means you legally should be sent to prison, correct?" He sat back, finished with his own tirade.
The young boy nodded glumly, thankful that he couldn't see the glare of the bunny standing behind him. He had seen her walking in. Her arms were crossed, her eyes narrowed. She was pissed.
Judy walked around to face him and spoke up. "Danny, we've been trying to help you as long as you've been here. We've kept the press off of you, kept you from any kind of real jail time... and you go for a trip around town without our knowledge! I mean," she huffed, "have you been leaving your cell every night? Danny, if the public finds out you've been doing this, I don't know what will happen to you. You've made a lot of mammals mad. Very mad," she emphasized sharply. "And guess who's one of them?" She didn't answer, but Danny understood perfectly. Her foot tapped extremely fast. He glanced up at her. Her eyes were drilling into him. Her nose was twitching nearly as fast as the tapping of her foot. But anger wasn't the only emotion he sensed. She looked subtly wounded. Danny cringed, looking down again.
"Danny, have you been stealing from mammals again? How many times do we have to tell you that's wrong?" Oh yeah, she had told him that at least once every time she visited.
He bristled at her rebuke. Anger replaced his shame so quickly he was surprised it was there to begin with. "Yeah, I heard you the first time. But remind me how you got the city to think predators are-"
Bam! Danny wilted and shut up immediately. The chief had rammed his fist onto his desk loud enough to briefly echo. It reminded him of someone he hated and feared.
Judy looked as if she had just been railed by the harshest possible insult, like she had been slapped across the face by him. A weary look followed it. "Danny, please," she laid her paw on her face, "how many times do I have to say 'I'm sorry'?"
I'll let you know, he wanted to retort but kept his mouth shut. He found his gaze lowering.
Assistant Mayor Tobias broke the silence that began to get awkward. He decided to test an observation. "If I may, Mr. Arcturus, may I ask you to step outside for a moment?" Danny sat for a moment, trying to hold on to some semblance of defiance.
"Danny, go. Now," Judy commanded. He complied immediately.
All three watched him leave the room, and the chief suspected what the AM was about to suggest. "You know, officer," he said in his fine English accent, "it seems to me that Mr. Arcturus listens to you, despite his temper, if I may be so bold."
"I'm... not sure what you mean," answered Judy hesitantly.
"I think that what just happened proves that fact. Heh! I ask him to leave, he doesn't listen. You tell him to leave, he listens immediately."
She had not noticed that. Though she cared immensely for Danny, working with him had been an emotional ride from day one. But he had responded the most to her when she thought about it; she just hadn't paid it much mind.
"So, what's your suggestion, sir?" asked the chief.
"I suggest that Mr. Arcturus be placed into the care of Detective Wilde."
Huh, no alarm bells went off at that. She would think that Bogo would be completely against the idea. If she adopted him, she would be responsible for him, and so litigation would hit her first if the city successfully leveraged City Hall to allow charges to be pressed. But whatever happened, at least she and Nick could keep an eye on him, and the ZPD would be safe from the public eye until Kenten was found. She felt compelled to say yes.
"Hold on, what gave you that ridiculous idea?" asked the chief.
Ok, so he was against the idea.
"Actually, I think I'll do it," she cut in more quickly than she'd meant to. Bogo turned to her, surprised.
"Wilde, I've put a lot of thought into it; we're already breaking every rule in the book by delaying the legal process, but putting him in the individual care of one of my officers is not something I'm willing to do. The reason we're here is that he bent the bars of his cell. That terrifies me. I've seen a lot of hulking mammals in there, Wilde. None of them could do that, much less a cub his size. I think placing him in anyone's care is dangerous."
"But it's also the only option we have, sir. And Assistant Mayor Tobias is right - he does listen to me. And if something does happen, it'll happen to me first, then we'll know he's too dangerous to contain."
"If something does happen to you, the only option we'd have would be to put him down."
Judy hesitated for a moment. That was true. She was laying everything on the line. But what could they do if they couldn't contain him? This was their best shot. So she stood tall. "Then we'll deal with it if it comes to that."
The chief looked at her, knowing she was being inclusive of herself to lean away from that possibility. He wanted to find a way out, to do something, anything else. But nothing came. He sighed. "All right, Wilde. Sir," he turned to Tobias, "would you inform the mayor that we're placing Mr. Daniel Rigel Arcturus into Nicholas and Judith Wilde's care?"
"I will inform him, sir. Please, email me their names so that I may put in a request to an adoption agency on Officer Wilde's behalf."
Chief Bogo stood up and shook Tobias' hoof. "Thank you, sir."
The assistant mayor gave them a polite nod before leaving. "Pleasure."
Judy left the office to go back to their desk and tell Ni... oh yeah, Nick...
"Absolutely not!" he shouted for all in the precinct to hear.
"Ooh, could you say that a bit louder, babe? I don't think they heard you in Antarctica."
After verifying Danny was back in the cell for the night, Judy began walking toward the female locker room. Nick followed her closely, talking over her shoulders. "Judy, I understand you want to help him. I really, really do. But having this same kid in our house? Where we sleep?!"
Clawhauser, just leaving the desk for the night, watched as Nick continued to argue with the bunny who just kept walking toward the locker room, apparently ignoring every word he said. Nick followed her right in... to the female locker room. "Oof," whispered Clawhauser. He counted to three before he heard the screech. Trunkaby... The door opened, and the fox soared out of the bathroom head first. He hit the floor and skidded to a stop right next to the cheetah. He stood up grumbling and shaking his head irritably. "Is... everything ok, Nick?"
"Oh yeah, I'm fine, we're all fine!" he ranted. "My wife's gone crazy with mommy instincts and has just agreed to adopt the most powerful mammal in the world, who also happens to hate bunnies. So it's all good, Ben, just go back to your desk job!"
"IIII'm actually leaving..." he said delicately.
"Oh good, us too! Maybe we can have a little housewarming party for our new little sociopath!"
Clawhauser was cringing. "Nick." He pointed to something behind him.
Nick turned around. Oh of course. Of course she was standing there. Of course. He didn't bother trying to gloss over that remark; he just kept at it. He continued trying to convince her not to take Danny in until they reached the car.
"There's a reason he's behind those bars, Judy." She whirled on him.
"And I'm about to head to a bar right now to drown you out if you don't shut up!"
Nick froze. He had never heard her talk like that. Well, it was more of a growl.
Seeing his reaction, she calmed down. "Nick, this is the only shot he has, and it's the only shot the ZPD has. If he doesn't go to jail, the ZPD will be sued into the bronze age and will lose credibility. This is the only way we can try to reach him without... turning to... other means."
He hesitated. Other means. That was ominous. "But why you, Judy?"
Please don't say, "Because it's all my fault."
"Because I care about him."
Oh boy, not much better, but it's better than self-pity.
Nick turned and placed his paws on his hips. Geez, he had all but lost control of his wife. He couldn't help but feel a bit... flaccid, for lack of a better term. Not that he wanted to control her per se, but everything involving this kid was sending off alarm after alarm. And having him in their house was terrifying, like inviting a convicted murderer over for dinner. He was going to have a heart attack. He was worried that Judy was taking her motherly instincts too far.
Oh yeah, he had picked up on those loooong before she brought it up. The way she would ogle little baby mammals as they went by at the park, and then turn around and ask the parents to let her hold them. Or all the pregnancy tests in the trash, hidden under paper towels, which she would take for weeks after mating, among other such dead givaways. And she thought he was clueless. Uh, hello, I used to be a con artists; I know when someone's trying to hide something! All it takes is time and a watchful eye. If only she'd brought up adoption before she met this kid. Then he wouldn't be forced on the outside by her like this.
He turned back around. "Fine. But don't expect me to be all in about it. You've dragged me along this whole way, and you haven't talked to me at all about it. This is your little job. Keep me out of it. I'm just here to make sure you don't do something stupid." Judy shrunk back a bit at the harshness of his words. He didn't bend. Wasn't like she was going to listen.
He had to restrain himself from stomping as he went around to the passenger side of the cruiser. Judy stood with her eyes closed for a second like she was absorbing what Nick had said.
They got in and drove off, not saying a word to each other. Judy kept opening her mouth and closing it, constantly on the verge of saying something. But she was afraid that she might provoke him further. What he had said kept replaying itself: You've dragged me along... you haven't talked to me at all about it." Those words stung. Had she really been that stubborn? Well, she had shut him down every time he tried to reason with her. She figured she would talk to him later, apologize for being like that, but she was not about to drop this. Danny needed her, and she was going to go all the way.