One of the perks of having a top flight speed of over 115 miles per hour is being able to beat your inferior clone, who has a top flight speed of about 104 miles per hour. Another perk is that, when she sends you word she's hanging out on the California coast, you can get there in half a day to visit her if you fly without breaks.
Having lied that he's gone to visit Aunt Alicia for a few days—because, bless the woman, she wouldn't give a fuck about lying to save his ass if he needed it—Danny touches down invisibly on the Santa Monica pier, teeming with tourists, and looks around for Danielle.
She's not hard to spot, perched exactly where she told him she'd be: right at the peak of the ferris wheel, intangible but not invisible, making her hard to spot but not impossible. Grinning, he floats up to meet her, releasing his invisibility in the same moment he goes intangible.
"What's up, little cuz?" Danny says, and she starts; she'd been looking off into space when he approached. When she meets his eyes, she grins.
"Nothin' much."
She looks older than when he last saw her. Still younger than him, but Dani's grown into herself a bit. She doesn't look quite like a bobblehead anymore.
They get food from the stands on the pier before wandering around, going on some of the rides—ticketless, because they're delinquents—and watching the odd performer, playing music or singing or juggling for tips. The people hanging around trickle down as the sun sets, until it's them and the slow night crowd, beach quiet, pier almost completely shut down.
"I'm trying to visit every state," Dani tells him eagerly when he asks, pulling a map from her sweatshirt pocket. She shows it to him, and he can see that almost every state has a black X over it. The exceptions are a few midwestern states, Hawaii, and Alaska. "After that, I might go out of the country."
Danny watches her, the way she lights up, and a bittersweet something fills him, because she's happy. She is, and he can see that, but she's also his clone and he can see exactly which parts of himself made her. She's happy, excited about the things she's doing, the places she's seen and will see. He can't deny that.
But she's not fulfilled. There's a hunger in her eyes, licking at the edges of her words, a desperation that leaks into her excitement, and it's one he knows intimately. Before he'd become Phantom, he'd been searching for it: something that would make him feel like he was making a difference. Doing something worthwhile. Living deliberately.
For him, the role of Phantom had sated that hunger. But Danielle doesn't have the same opportunity he did, and now she's just… wandering, looking for it.
"What do you do, when you go to a new place?" he asks, trying to keep the melancholy from his tone.
Dani thinks for a moment. "The general touristy stuff, I guess. I go to monuments and museums and amusement parks, and I eat at the well-known restaurants." She looks down at her feet, a fleeting, bitter smile crossing her lips. "I've tried to talk to locals a few times, but I've never been very good at that."
It hits him again, out of left field, how young she really is. Physically, she's maybe fifteen by now, but she was still only born three years ago. Language was built into her, so to speak, but were social skills?
A lot of the time, Danny wishes so desperately he could teach her. She's more than a cousin, really. She's like a little sister (and it's a gut-punch to realize that this must be how Jazz feels, when she looks at him with that unbearable sincerity in her eyes).
"I get that," Danny says, because he kind of does—when's he ever made a friend while out on vacation? That's not the same though, he knows. She does, too, and Dani chuckles a little as she looks away.
"How's Valerie doing?" Dani asks, and Danny jumps at the chance to change topics.
"Oh, good. Her whole obsession with ghost hunting has chilled out a little. Still going after me, though."
"Still?"
"I doubt she'll ever stop." Danny grins. He says it good-naturedly, because that's just who Valerie is to him now, and he doesn't resent her for it. But Dani looks a little disappointed.
"Are you going to tell her?" she asks quietly. She doesn't look at him.
Danny stays silent, for a moment. The salty air seems to condense between them, heavying, thickening like fog.
"No," he says eventually. "I'm not."
As the years have worn on, he's thought a lot about it. Telling versus not telling, be it Valerie or his parents or anyone else. After the first year, his friends had quieted down about trying to convince him to say something, so mostly it's been an internal debate. Should he, shouldn't he? Is it worth it to say? Is it worth it not to?
Dani breaks through his thoughts. "Why?" she exclaims suddenly, meeting his eyes. Suddenly she burns, bright and raging like Vlad does, on the rare moments Danny looks him in the eye, and Danny can see Vlad's influence in her. Not the malice, but the passion, the drive, and again Danny remembers how young she is. To her, there are so fewer shades of gray.
Dani raises a fist, not to punch him, but to emphasize whatever is about to come out of her mouth. He holds up a hand, stopping her.
"Let's not, okay?" he says softly, looking away, and she deflates.
"…Okay, Danny."
After a tense moment, Danny says, "So, have you picked up any hobbies while on your world tour?" Dani blinks for a moment before she visibly decides to dismiss the issue. Then, she shyly grins.
"I taught myself how to longboard, if you wanna see?" Her smile is blinding. The uncertainty is still there in the grit of her teeth, but this fleeting joy is something. Is perfect.
"Yeah. 'Course I do."