CHAPTER 58

The next morning, Robby awoke to the sound of a car horn in the distance. He paid no attention to it for a while, but when it persisted and even started beeping in the rhythm of the intro to AC/DC's Highway to Hell, Robby realised who it was and he shot out of bed. What was his dad doing here?! They didn't have training today.

As Robby got out of bed and quickly changed into some clothes, the events of the night before came rushing back to him and a scowl immediately came across his face. He wasn't sure how he felt about what had happened. On one hand, they had done exactly what they had set out to do. Make Miguel think twice next time before going after them or any of their friends. But at the same time, in the pit of Robby's stomach, something felt… wrong. He didn't feel like he was protecting his friends. Now that the dust had settled and he could reflect on everything, he just felt like a prick who had gone looking for a fight. Not that he hated Miguel any less. In fact, if anything, after Miguel had nearly choked him out again last night he hated him even more. But more than his hatred for Miguel was just… exhaustion. He was tired. So tired of this fucking war. And with what they had done to each other the night before, he knew that the war wasn't ending any time soon. They still hated one another with a passion, so would be forced to keep fighting. Keep fighting until one of them couldn't get back up.

Robby eventually made it out the door and sure enough, Johnny's familiar Eagle-Fang minivan was there waiting for him. Robby got into the passenger seat and glanced sideways at his father, who had a faraway look on his face.

"Morning." Robby mumbled to him as he put his seatbelt on, but Johnny didn't respond. He didn't say a word. He didn't even look at Robby. He merely stared out the window in front of him, wearing sunglasses so Robby couldn't even see his eyes. "Ooookay." Robby remarked. "What are you doing here? I thought we didn't have training today."

Once again, not a word in response from his father. Not even an annoyed grunt or grumble. He was dead silent, something very much unlike Johnny, and he slowly reversed out of Robby's driveway and took to the road. Immediately, Robby realised that they weren't heading towards the Eagle-Fang dojo. They were heading in the exact opposite direction, so Robby had absolutely no idea where they were going. He tried to ask. Twice. Thrice. But no answer. About 10 minutes into the drive, Robby realised something…

"You know what happened last night, don't you?" Robby stated. Not really asking, but instead making a statement. Of course Johnny had already found out what had happened. He was neighbours with Miguel after all!

Then came the first sign of Johnny even acknowledging his son's presence in the car. He slowly nodded his head, not even turning to Robby, continuing to just stare out into the distance. Strangely, his face didn't display any semblance of anger or any sort of emotion. And that's why Robby didn't rush to defend himself or anything. He didn't know what Miguel had told him, or what his father was thinking in his head right now, so he thought it better to remain silent. The two men didn't say a word to each other for another 10 minutes, when Johnny finally brought the car to a halt. As Robby looked out the window, he realised where he was and he looked at his father, confused.

"Dad, what are we doing here?" Robby asked.

But once again, Johnny didn't answer him, and merely got out of the car. More perplexed than ever, Robby quickly emerged from the vehicle and followed him as he walked over to their destination.

"Dad, you realise that they're going to be closed, right? You can't get in." Robby stated. That didn't seem to deter Johnny. Johnny instead shoved Robby in the opposite direction to the front door, and the teenager found himself being pulled through a random fire door that Robby didn't even know was there. A maze of narrow halls and corridors and Robby eventually found himself in a very familiar location. Somewhere he hadn't been since September 1st of last year, but he knew very well indeed. But it was very different from the last time he had been here. There was no shouting, no roars of bloodlust. No thudding punches hitting their targets. No gasping and gawking students. No sickening crack as he hit the railing. No, it was pitch black and eerily silent as Johnny and Robby walked through West Valley High for the first time in 10 months.

Robby glanced sideways at his father but once again, he was hit by a wall of silence and unreadable expressions, until they eventually made it to that staircase. Yes, the exact same one. As they ascended it, Robby's hand slowly slid up the bannister and as he did, he swore he felt a small dent. A dent from the sheer impact of the fall. Not large, barely an inch, but still a pretty telling sign of how hard Miguel had fallen. Robby was then however once again left confused as Johnny didn't take him up to the top of the staircase, to the balcony where he had kicked him from. Not even close. They only went up two flights of stairs, so they were one storey up. Once they had made it, Johnny suddenly stopped and turned towards his son.

"Jump."

That was the first word in nearly 30 minutes of time spent together that Johnny had spoken to his son. It was a clear instruction, but Robby was extremely confused.

"Um… what?" Robby asked.

"Jump. Jump to the bottom." Johnny demanded quietly. Robby's eyes widened and he looked at his father apprehensively.

"W-what? Dad, I'm not going to jump." Robby stammered, glancing downwards. He counted 18 stairs; that meant they were about 12-18 feet off the ground.

"Dad… seriously? That's like way too fa…"

Robby didn't get a change to finish his sentence as all of a sudden, he felt him being grabbed by Johnny and flung off the staircase. Robby flew, literally hovered in the air for a moment before he came crashing down. He had been pushed so far that he thankfully didn't land on a stair or bannister itself, but instead landed on the ground below. Robby thankfully didn't land on his head or neck, and instead landed flat on his ass, but the impact was still so powerful that he gasped in pain.

"AH FUCK!" Robby shouted as his body cried out in agony from the fall. The land had been on tile so it wasn't exactly pleasant. After taking a few moments to let the pain subside, Robby shot to his feet and stormed over to Johnny, scowling daggers at him. "What the HELL was that?!"

Johnny didn't respond. He once again didn't have a shred of emotion on his face as he stood eye to eye with his son. His only reply was with one word.

"Again." Johnny stated, in a low, powerful voice. Robby didn't have time to react before for the second time in mere seconds, Robby was sent hurtling towards the ground. This happened four more times before finally on the fifth time, as Robby slowly got to his feet, having accepted the situation, Johnny walked down the stairs to meet him. Robby was limping slightly, walking very gingerly, as he came over to his father again.

"Look, dad, I get what you're trying to do." Robby stated. Johnny nodded.

"Good, because we're not done." Johnny remarked, before grabbing him and dragging him back over to the bottom of the stairs, up a couple of steps before quickly stopped, right on the spot on the bannister that Miguel had dented 10 months earlier with his landing. "You see this?"

Johnny pointed at said dent, and Robby nodded. It was pretty damn hard to miss.

"Make one like it." Johnny instructed, pointing at a spot a few feet further down on the bannister. Robby looked at him, shocked.

"W-what? You want me to jump from where he did?" Robby stammered. Johnny glared at him.

"What? No! Don't be an idiot. Use your hands, dumbass. Punch it. Karate-chop it. You've broken wooden boards before. This bannister is wood. Make a dent the same size as the other one and we can leave now."

Listening to Johnny's instructions, Robby slowly closed his hand into a fist. He could do this. Just one hard hit, as powerful as he could, and he'd be able to break it. He lifted the hand and brought it down…

CRACK!

But it wasn't the bannister that broke. It was Robby's hand that almost did, an overwhelming pain ripping up and down his arm as he made contact, and he let out an audible cry of pain. All he saw was red for a moment, before regaining full vision and staring at the bannister, praying that he had made the mark. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't. The bannister hadn't even dented a millimetre, and as Robby looked at Johnny, he realised that his father had been dead serious about keeping him here until he had. So for the next 20 minutes, Robby rained down a barrage of strikes on the innocent railing, not doing a drop of damage to it, as each one of his strikes got weaker and weaker as his hands became more and more bloodied. He felt like he was about to break his knuckles on the railing and so he eventually stopped hitting it, panting and gasping in exhaustion and pain. Johnny decided to call the drill there, stopping Robby. Johnny had been sitting on the steps as Robby had done the unsuccessful drill, and as soon as he had called time, Robby practically collapsed there beside him.

"Look, I get it. I get it, dad." Robby snapped, breathing heavily as he massaged his knuckles, trying to ebb away some of the excruciating pain. "It was a pretty hard fall."

"Watch this." was all Johnny replied, shoving a mobile phone into Robby's hands.

Robby looked down at it and immediately recognised Miguel as the person in the frame. It was a collection of videos, spanning various points from September to November. It started with a clip of Miguel coming home from a hospital in a wheelchair. Robby hadn't seen Miguel at this point as he had been in juvie of course, but it was hard to watch, despite it being someone Robby wasn't exactly a fan of. Seeing the defeat, the despair in Miguel's eyes as he needed his mom's help pushing him in the chair wasn't easy for Robby to watch. The next video was a much happier one. Miguel was still in the wheelchair, but he was seemingly able to tap his foot again. It was miniscule compared to what he had been able to do before, but it clearly meant the world to Miguel. The third video was Miguel on some kind of harness, standing upright for the first time, looking like bambi as he shakily tried to stay upright. As Robby watched these home videos that Johnny had taken, he realised what the whole point of this morning was. He realised the damage he had caused so many people after the school fight. It was one thing to look at Miguel as someone who hated him. It was a whole other thing to watch it from the perspective and lens of a loved one. Guilt that Robby had never felt before filled his entire body from head to toe. He was frozen, other than his trembling hands, as he clutched the phone and watched the videos play again and again and again. Johnny couldn't tell if he was imagining it, but he could've sworn that a tear had fallen from his son's cheek as he watched the video of Miguel in the wheelchair. After a while, Johnny took the phone and the pair sat in silence for an interminably long time.

"Look, I'm not going to ignore what you had to go through, Robby." Johnny eventually spoke, breaking the silence. "I know that you went through hell both in juvie, before juvie and afterwards too. But whenever you begin to hate Miguel for it, I want you to remember that he's been through his own shit too. It wasn't just the fall. It was everything that happened to him because of it too. You know, he had to relearn how to walk. Can you imagine that? Being told you could never walk again. Being told that for the rest of your life, you're going to have to rely on others to do things that anyone else would be able to do. Being able to eat. Being able to drive. Being able to move around. Being able to stand up. He was told he'd never be capable enough to be independent, live alone, ever. He had to fight tooth and nail to even be able to stand upright. It took him a month to be able to even stand. Took him another month to be able to walk. Took him another one to be able to fight even the weakest of opponents. Then he had to relearn everything he had learned in fighting to get himself back to a high level."

"Dad, I get your point. Honestly, I do. But what do you want me to do? Go sit around a campfire with him and sing some country songs? Because I'm sorry but that's never going to happen. Too much has happened between us already for us to ever truly settle our issues."

Johnny nodded.

"Look, far be it for me to tell anyone to bury a rivalry." Johnny remarked. "I know better than anyone how consuming they can be. I held onto one for 36 years. But in case you don't remember, when I let my rivalry with Larusso escalate, it wasn't us that got hurt. It was you, Miguel, Sam, Nichols… innocent kids caught in the crossfire, paying the price for my and Larusso's fuck-ups. If you continue to let your feud with Miguel escalate, who's to say another innocent person won't get hurt? Nobody deserves to go through what you and Miguel went through after the fight. You don't have to like him. You don't even have to forgive him. But don't let someone else suffer for your and his mistakes. De-escalate things before they hit a boiling point like they did last summer. Or at least try…"