Ch.10: Forever's Come and Gone
Thunk.
An agitated, haggard sigh left Danny's throat as his forehead met his desk. The stereo on the little table behind him suddenly came back to life, blaring whatever playlist was on today. The boy's arms dangled uselessly at his sides, and Danny stayed limp and lifeless for a few minutes, letting his anger simmer down. As soon as the teen could think clearly, he got up, sighing again as he rubbed his temples irritably.
Why had he thought talking to Sam and Tucker was a good idea? Well, in hindsight, he really hadn't thought it was a good idea, but he had been bored and had been missing his friends for some time. Also, after what had gone down with his parents just a few days before, Danny had been craving any form of positive interaction he could find. Unfortunately, in a life such as his, it didn't come very often. Danny had been left to search for some on his own, but as fate would have it, positive interaction wasn't an option for the day. Nope. Sorry. Try again later.
Uh, why did those two have to make everything so damn complicated? Couldn't they give him even a little leeway? Seriously? Did Danny as a person mean so little to them that they could easily ignore him without remorse?
The teen bit back a growl at that thought, suppressing the hurt he felt at the thought. Danny pulled himself closer to his desk, determined to take his mind off his fiery emotions and not-so-kind thoughts before it had him doing something he would later regret. Danny searched around the Dark-Net for awhile, but everyone seemed was inactive at the moment. This fact only fueled the teen's aggravation, and within a few short minutes, Danny had turned to more extreme means to curb his anger. His excessive ideas led him to hacking the Pentagon, where he began to work furiously at digging up something entertaining. One thing lead to another, and soon enough, Danny was in control of the government's newest RC tank. At the moment, it was being tested out in the middle of a desert, where no civilians would be harmed, should something go wrong in the new installments.
Unfortunately for the soldiers currently stationed at the base, they did not plan out their defense in case the tank starting firing back at them.
This is exactly what Danny did. With relative ease, the boy infiltrated the tank's operating system, taking it into his possession. Live video-feed popped up on his screen, and almost in a bored manner, Danny began turning the tank around, willing it to begin traveling back in the direction of the base. The one controlling it at the base did everything in their power to regain control of the tank, but Danny's systems were far superior to the one of the government worker was using. They fought off the would-be hacker with ease, allowing Danny to freely begin his rampage throughout the base.
What few missiles were installed in the tank were not supposed to be armed, but it was relatively easy for Danny to fix that. He fired them off quickly as he approached the government base, efficiently blowing away some of the walls. Though the firing caused the boy to run out of ammo quickly, it was no bother to Danny, who just crawled over the rubble. The teen slowly ravaged the building, uncaring to the horrors he saw on his screen.
Despite the fact that his actions were supposed to be helping his mood, Danny just found more ways to be pissed at his friends. Driving the tank left him with too much thinking room, and Danny used it to the fullest extent, bashing Sam and Tucker as much as he possibly could with as many swears as he could think of. The destruction the tank caused grew with Danny's anger, and if he wasn't so caught up in his own problems, the teen might've realized that he was causing a serious amount of damage to the people on the other side, physically and mentally.
The boy was abruptly pulled away from his desk, and Danny yelped as he nearly sprawled onto the ground, pin-wheeling his arms to keep steady. The chair rolled into the kitchenette, and there, Danny caught himself completely. He turned back to his desk, where Batman was glaring at him as the tank rolled to a stop on the screen. Infuriated, the Dark Knight pointed at the screen accusingly and questioned, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"Hm." Danny mumbled, huffing as he rolled his eyes. He began rolling back, but Batman stood in the teen's way from reaching his desk. Danny replied, "I know bats are blind, but I didn't know you were too." The teen shot the Dark Knight a sarcastic look. "What does it look like I'm doing, Bats? Come on, as much as I wish you were, you're not stupid."
Batman turned to the hologram with the unfortunate feed on it, and clenching his jaw furiously, the Dark Knight left the program, bringing the screen back to the Dark-Net's idea of a home page. Pissed but also confused, Batman asked, "What do you get out of destroying government property, huh Danny? I could understand selling the property, but outright demolishing it? How do you benefit?"
"Well… I'm amused." Danny replied, though he had looked anything but amused when Batman had shown up. In fact, he still seemed less than entertained. However, Batman didn't mention this as Danny suddenly smiled in his dark way. "Besides, I should be getting paid to do this sort of thing. By hacking the government, they're going to do everything in their power to make sure another incident doesn't happen. I'm helping it improve its systems from all the terrorists and cyber-bullies!" Danny swung his chair back and forth absently, looking more relaxed than before as he grinned up at the Dark Knight. "It still won't keep me out, though…"
"That's because there aren't many computer geniuses who can keep you out." Batman snapped.
Danny batted his eyes cutely. "You're right. If there were, I wouldn't be able to hack their systems so easily."
In a split second, the Dark Knight had his hand raised to backhand the teen. Danny's swinging abruptly stopped as he stared at the raised hand, waiting apprehensively to see if Batman would actually go through with the unspoken threat. The teen's eyes met the Dark Knight's, and the demand was obvious in the younger's eyes: "Go ahead and smack me. Lash out. Hit me. Do your absolute worst, if you can."
There was a tense moment where all things stood still. For a moment, Danny really believed Batman was going to take the bait and beat on him. However, the Dark Knight's outstretched hand closed into a fist and slowly lowered to his side. Danny watched it silently, but Batman acted as if it had not happened. The Caped Crusader threateningly said, "If I catch you doing something like this one more time, there's going to be hell to pay."
"'If' is the keyword here." Danny responded challengingly, his eyebrow quirking in a way that asked, 'Are you going to be here to stop me next time? And if you are, what could you possibly do to me?'
The Dark Knight had no idea how to answer the second silent question, and he dreaded the idea of having to come up with something. It upset him, how much Danny had reverted to his old ways since he had talked to his parents a few days ago. Batman had no idea what went down- Danny refused to talk about it –but it must've been bigger than the Dark Knight had originally thought. After all, small things didn't send people death-spiraling into their old, bad habits in a few days. Small things didn't need to be hidden by sass and snark, which was more than likely sorrow in disguise.
"Leave the government alone." Batman ordered, trying to keep his exasperation with the boy to a minimum. He didn't want to repeat the mistake he had performed just minutes before.
However, Danny wasn't at all helping as he rolled his eyes and replied, "Hm. Why should I? The government is made up of a bunch of crooks anyway, and isn't what we do together taking down crooks? The way I see it, I'm doing the U.S. a favor."
"Destroying their property is not catching the felons." Batman responded.
"But it is hindering their efforts. Just admit it already. I'm doing something good without your involvement."
"Leave the damned government alone, Danny!" The Dark Knight snapped, causing the boy's expression to drop. The teen pouted like the brat he was being as Batman took a deep breath to calm himself. It helped very little as Batman informed, "Look, I didn't come here to yell at you. I just wanted to see if you could give me some coordinates on a couple of people."
"Yeah, yeah. I figured you wanted as much." Danny huffed, shooing Batman away from his desk. He pulled out a slip of paper and a pen for the moment he had the information his supervisor wanted. "Who am I looking up this time?"
In the background, the stereo softly began singing, "Spoiled, selfish, little child… Went to play out in the wild…"
"Can you find where Black Thorn and Drone are hiding?" Batman explained, waiting patiently for Danny to begin delving into his work, as he usually did.
Except this time, he didn't. Danny's eyes erupted into fury at the two names, and he hmphed in a pissed manner. Flippantly, the boy asked, "What do you need to know about those two shitheads?"
"I found you shaking like a leaf, underneath your family tree…"
Batman raised an eyebrow at the mean tone Danny used as he spoke of the two, wondering what the boy had against either crook. Up until now, the boy had only been casual when he referred to them and almost seemed protective at times. Now, though, Danny had taken a complete one-eighty. Curiously, Batman asked, "Why do you care?"
"I don't know. Because I'm curious?" Danny sarcastically replied, glaring at the older male out of the corner of his eye. "Why do you need a reason if it's just business, huh?"
The two glared at each other, their strong wills clashing.
"You could never live out in the open, regretting every word you've spoken…"
Surprisingly, it was the Dark Knight who caved first. He replied to Danny, "Because they've been such nuisances in the past, I've been monitoring the two very closely over the past couple of months. It seems that Black Thorn and Drone are up to no good again, as they've been in contact with each other quite a bit lately. I want to stop the two of them before they have a chance to break any more laws."
Danny shrugged at the Dark Knight before writing quickly across the scrap of paper in front of him. Seconds later, he handed it to the bewildered Batman, saying, "Here you go."
"You… Already know where they're stationed?" Batman asked, his voice betraying the slight distrust he held. If it bothered Danny, though, he didn't show it.
"Yup. Those little bastards have been grating my nerves lately. I was planning on getting them back relatively soon." Danny explained, his eyes lighting up angrily again as he thought about the two's offenses. His fists clenched without realizing it.
The Dark Knight didn't miss the quiet gesture, and he wondered if he should bother to ask the teen what the two had done. However, a second later, Batman told himself not to bother. Danny would never talk to him, not that way. Thus, the Caped Crusader mumbled a thanks before leaving through the window. Left behind, Danny turned back to his holograms, mumbling, "They deserve it…"
It took a few minutes, but eventually, Danny realized what he had done. His anger evaporated within seconds, and he stood up abruptly, knocking his chair away from. He covered his face as he screamed, "What did I just do?!"
"When you break, it's too late for you to fall apart. And the blame that you claim is all your own fault…"
Frightened and panicked, Danny quickly dialed up his two friends' numbers on his hologram. All the sounds in his apartment abruptly fell silent, leaving Danny hyper-aware of the ringing, the ringing that was buzzing much too slowly for him to feel safe. Impatiently, the teen bounced in his spot, waiting anxiously for his two friends to pick up. Under his breath, Danny mumbled, "Come on, guys… Please be home, please be home, please be home…"
Shortly, both Sam and Tucker finally picked up the calls, looking quite irritated with their friend. They opened their mouths to fire off some sort of lame greeting, but Danny's panic game them pause. Neither teen had ever seen the boy so flustered and terrified in their life. Dropping whatever vendetta they had previously, Sam and Tucker asked, "Danny, is everything ok? Is everything alright? Did something happen?"
"Guys, I-I did something bad." Danny replied, his voice hardly a whisper. Sam and Tucker had to strain to hear him. "I did something really, really bad."
The two that the boy had called looked between themselves, bracing themselves for a multitude of things. They had a feeling they knew where this conversation was going, but Sam and Tucker tried their best to give Danny the benefit of the doubt. Tucker held his hands up in surrender and soothingly said, "I'm sure whatever happened can be worked out. Come on, Danny. Tell Uncle Tucker what happened."
"No time, no time." Danny sighed, looking at his clock anxiously as he scratched at his bare arm, as if it itched. His panicked eyes found his friends again as he said, "You guys have to leave your bases. You have to do it now. Don't pack anything up that you don't need immediately; you can get all of that stuff later. Meet me at my safe-house as soon as you can, ok? Don't waste a single second, you hear?"
"Danny, what is going-" Sam started, but she was immediately cut off by Danny, who yelled, "As soon as you can! What don't you understand about that?! GO!"
The teen hung up on his friends.
"You've been crying out for forever, but forever's come and gone. You keep begging for forgiveness, but you don't think you've done wrong."
Danny looked wildly around at his desk, trying to spot things that had to be taken at that moment. His hands moved aside papers and unfinished machinery in a flurry, looking for something hidden amongst the masses. In moments, Danny had tracked down a random flash-drive, which he set off to the side for a moment. He searched for anything else that might be of importance, but nothing nearly as paramount came up in his search. Hoping and praying to God that everything else could be left behind without serious consequences, Danny turned to his laptop and punched in the code that told his computers to wipe every file, document, and search history on the drive. Permanently.
The boy worried not that all of his work was being erased. Everything was backed up on his flash-drive, so none of his advances would be truly gone. What Danny did worry about, though, was getting the hell out of his apartment before the Dark Knight came back, wondering why Drone and Black Thorn's apartments had been empty and left in a hurry.
As Danny threw on some old civvies he had not bothered to wear in a long time, the teen wondered why- oh why? –had he had given Batman the coordinates to his friends' homes and bases! Sure, he had been mega-pissed at the two of them, but that was no excuse to give them up like that! Sam and Tucker were his family, for crying out loud, and while they hadn't been on the best of terms lately, that was no reason to give them up like that! Oh, why had Danny treated them the same way he would any other common criminal? What was wrong with him?
The drive wipe finished just as Danny snatched up his flash-drive, stuffing it deep into his jean's pocket. The teen took one more minute to look around his small apartment, searching for anything that might be just as important as his flash-drive. Once again, he came up with nothing and prayed that the Dark Knight would forget all about the storage unit in the basement.
"You've been crying out for forever, but forever's come and gone. My bleeding hands and shaking head…"
As he passed it, Danny angrily knocked the stereo over. It collided with the floor with a loud CRASH. The teen stormed past it, all of his earlier panic suddenly dissipating as quickly as it had swept through him. Danny stalked into the hallway, slamming his apartment door shut behind him and rattling the frame. Without any hesitation, Danny marched towards the elevator, angry tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
It was all Batman's fault. It was the Dark Knight that had decided to show up when Danny was pissed off, and it was him that had decided to ask for Sam's and Tucker's coordinates. Hell, it was Batman's fault that the trio was having problems to begin with! The Caped Crusader had been tearing Danny's life apart left and right, screwing with the only people the teen would ever dare to call family! Sam and Tucker were never going to see it that way, though. Danny knew they were going to rip him a new one, and the boy had Batman to blame for everything.
(Why did he always have to blame someone else? Why couldn't he just own his mistakes and stop running in emotional circles like a headless chicken?)
Without any hesitation and going as quickly as he could, Danny left the apartment complex and began walking down the sidewalk. The boy caught a bus just down the street, and with some money he pick-pocketed from a rude man, he paid his way to the other side of town. Danny got off the bus some blocks from his safe-house and hurried to it as swiftly as he could. When he saw the site, Danny found himself looking around, searching for the familiar flash of a black cape. As far as he could see, though, the Dark Knight was nowhere to be seen, and the teen finished the remainder of his journey, jogging the rest of the way.
The safe-house Danny spoke of was an abandoned garage that had once been a rundown towing company. The small complex was surrounded by a chain-link fence, and there was a steady crinch-crunch from the gravel under Danny's feet as he walked up the path. The teen wandered up to the doorway of the office just off of the garage, crouching down and wiping the gravel away. He was actually surprised when he found his key still hidden close to the spot that he had left it, despite the weather over the years. Getting up, Danny started unlocking the door.
As it would turn out, the door was already unlocked, and the dark-haired boy ended up locking himself out. After a few swear-filled seconds, Danny finally unlocked the door again and had to slam his weight against the door for it to open. As Danny stepped inside of his secondary domain, he swore some more, rolling his aching shoulder as he slammed the door back into place.
The office was bare and dusty, which Danny would would have to work on, but for now, he hadn't gone all this way to see the decoration of one small space. Walking through another doorway, the teen entered the garage hanging off of the office. Inside, amongst his dusty, old equipment Danny knew he was going to have to replace, stood Sam and Tucker, looking weathered and worried. Their anxious expressions washed away Danny's infuriated thoughts in a hurried flood, leaving him feeling guilty all over again. Gulping down the lump in his throat, the black-haired teen wandered to where the two were standing. They straightened as he approached, and Sam immediately asked, "Alright Danny, we're here, just like you told us. What happened that was so bad that you couldn't tell us by normal means?"
It was obvious in their faces that both Sam and Tucker were waiting for the inevitable, but still shining in their eyes was hope. Hope that Danny hadn't done what he was inkling at. Hope that he hadn't gone and screwed up again. Hope that they weren't the lesser of the two options he could've gone with.
Danny's shoulders slumped as he choked out, "I told Batman where your bases were."
BAM.
Sam's fist shook as it remained connected with the edge of her friend's desk. Her head had suddenly bowed, and though her bangs hid her eyes, they did not obscure the pissed expression on her face. Behind the girl, Tucker growled furiously as rolled his eyes while roughly rubbing his temples, as if he had expected as much from his friend. Anger radiated from both of their shaking forms, and Danny couldn't help the ashamed look that overcame his expression. He opened his mouth to tell them he was sorry- that it would never, ever happen again; he promised this time –but Sam snapped, "Save it."
Danny's mouth shut with an audible click. For once, the teen didn't have it in him to rebel. He simply waited for his friends to chew him out.
The angry pair glanced at each other, and Danny watched helplessly as they seemed to come to a silent agreement. Sam's eyes found her dark-haired friend's blue orbs again. "We're done, Danny."
The teen boy heard the words, but they didn't click in his mind. Danny's eyes widened in confusion and terror as he stammered, "W-What?"
"We're done." Tucker repeated, remorseless and unseeing to the horror that he and Sam had filled him with. "We've had enough of this back-and-forth bullshit you've been pulling, and now you've gone and given away our homes! You've been fucking up everything, and since it seems that you're magically immune to every wakeup call Sam and I give you, there's no point in us sticking around. You've obviously made your choice on who is more important in your life."
The black-haired boy scrambled to find some words to assure them that that period was over, that he really wouldn't do such a thing again. He really, truly meant it this time, but it seemed like neither Sam nor Tucker were in the mood to hear it. And it was obvious they were never going to be in the mood, with how eerily calm the two of them were speaking. They had already come up with this decision a long time ago, it seemed, and they had been waiting for Danny to pull another stunt.
But Danny couldn't let them go! They were all he had! He didn't know what he'd do if they left! Unfortunately, it seemed that he was going to have to get used to being alone.
Both teens began to stalk towards the exit while Danny watched helplessly, still gaping like a fish out of water as he tried to call after them. Over her shoulder, Sam called, "Don't contact us again, Danny, not even for business. You've proven to be untrusting in that area too." The two began stalking through the doorway, and before he disappeared from view, Tucker stated firmly, "Goodbye, Danny."
The echo of the closing door sounded final, and as Danny quickly came to realize, it was. Sam and Tucker, the two people he loved with his entire being, had just left him. They'd grown tired of his mistakes, and they'd dropped him, rather quickly too. They were gone, and suddenly, Danny felt like he was four-years-old again, standing anxiously in the lobby of an orphanage as his parents said goodbye and left.
And yet, Danny could not bring himself to be angry at either of the teens. He had done some fucked up shit, and this was the consequence.
Eerily quiet, the teen sat on the ground, leaning against his desk as he pulled his knees to his chest. One sad, lonely tear (just like Danny!) ran down the boy's face as he sat, wondering what on earth he was going to do now that his friends were gone. In Danny's typical way, sadness quickly turned into anger, which was directed at Batman for being the one to get him into the mess in the first place. And to think, the boy had actually enjoyed the Dark Knight's presence, had looked forward to seeing him the same way that he had once looked forward to his parents coming home.
Fists clenching and angry tears running down his face, Danny vowed, "I'm never looking up to anyone ever again."
On the other side of the city, Batman looked around the teen's apartment worriedly, wondering what had happened to the boy that usually resided in the space. He looked all around the small apartment, but there was nothing to be had. Not even the computers were on, and the Dark Knight had a feeling that turning them on would be a waste of time. He wondered what had happened, where Danny had gone to, why he had left. The answers came sooner than expected and in a way the Dark Knight had not seen coming.
Danny's apartment key was lying on the desks. The boy never left his room without it. There were a lot of things this could mean, but Batman knew, out of all the options, the reason Danny had left so abruptly.
The boy was letting go of him. He wasn't coming back. He was gone, and the Dark Knight couldn't believe it…
Except that, yes, he could.
A Year Later…
The couple chuckled and chatted idly as they began getting ready for bed, drawing back the covers and laying them to rest at the foot of the bed. The husband and wife smiled lovingly at each other in the dim lighting of the lamps, both dressed in nothing but their unimpressive night clothes. The two began crawling into their sides of the bed, slipping under the sheets and getting comfortable, perfectly oblivious to the danger that lurked just beyond their mansion home.
He shouldn't be doing this, Danny knew. This thought always ran through his head whenever he was on a job; he shouldn't be taking part in such tragedies. However, a job was a job, and the teen had long since stopped feeling guilty. If he were being serious, Danny might even recognize that these sorts of things were a little…fun. They shouldn't be, of course, but, well… Pleasure was pleasure.
For a few more minutes, the couple laid still under their silk sheets, lying on their sides so they could face their spouse. Despite the soothing atmosphere, though, the two allowed their conversation to come to a close, the woman chuckling as her husband's last note was a tease. The two turned over, reaching out to turn out the lights.
In the next second, Danny had the man's head lined up in his cross-hair of his scope, and the teen prepared himself to shift it towards the woman. His finger tensed on the trigger, and Danny's breathing eased out before stopping in anticipation.
As the lights turned out in the couple's bedroom, the quiet night shattered at the booming clap of a gunshot as it rumbled, POW! … POW!
Song credit goes to: When You Break by Bear's Den.