2021

Danny has an unexpected encounter before a work party.

Enjoy.

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Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and I'm homebound, a piano riff sounded in the headphones of Danny Fenton as he lugged several hefty bags of groceries home. City living was nice: everything he could ever ask for was within walking distance. Granted, rent costs a little too much, the air quality was unfit for human consumption, and this particular city had one of the higher rates of crime in the States, but that didn't deter Danny from enjoying his walk to his and Sam's place. Chicago wasn't as bad as everyone said it would be.

With his favorite playlist blaring through his earphones and his dinner ingredients in hand, Danny walked with a little extra pep in his step. He was excited for this evening because he was hosting a work party at the apartment. Sam offered to clean the place if it meant he would do all the snack shopping—there was no way Danny would argue with not having to vacuum.

You know I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you, tonight, the music continued and added more flare to Danny's afternoon. A little farther in the distance, maybe two blocks down, Danny could see his and Sam's apartment. They were proud of where they were now in comparison to before. Though they, and a few others, helped save the world a few times, the hero business died off as the ghostly visits became infrequent, which meant they all had to get real jobs. Danny and Sam decided to go off to college and get married after graduation.

Rapidly pulled from his thoughts, Danny was grabbed and shoved into an alleyway behind a smelly dumpster. His music cut out as his earbuds were ripped out of his ears. "Hey, man what the hell?!" Danny shouted while on the ground. His many bags of groceries luckily stayed intact without a single piece of food falling out.

"I seen you walking 'round all fancy-like," said the large tall man, gruffly, "an' now I seen you here with all this food—I know you got money."

"Dude, I'm heavily in debt between student loans and other things. You honestly think I have money just sitting around?" Danny asked rhetorically as he stood up and began to gather his grocery bags, muttering to himself about how stupid people were, namely the guy who grabbed him. But, Danny was soon pinned up against the brick wall beside the dumpster.

The mugger positioned his arm across Danny's neck, trying to impair his ability to move. Sure, Danny could have easily avoided the situation and taught the man a serious lesson, but he hadn't had any action for a while, so why not have some fun, he thought.

"Yer gonna give me ya money, rich boy," the mugger spat in Danny's face; his breath smelled strongly of onions.

Feigning fear, Danny dramatically shook in his boots and tried his best to shed a tear. "Oh, oh my mister mugger-man," he then dropped the act, and retorted, "make me."

Suddenly, the mugger whipped out a knife and jabbed it deep into the stomach of the ex-hero. The man's face broke out into a smile as Danny slightly grimaced in pain. "That'll teach ya, bitch," he laughed.

"Oh, shut it, will you?" Danny replied as he brushed off the feeling and punched the mugger in the face, hearing a loud crack that could've only been his nose. As the man doubled over in pain, Danny grabbed his bags and started on his way back to his place. He knew the man wouldn't try him again, but it wasn't like Danny couldn't hold his own.

Checking his watch, Danny cursed to himself: people would be arriving soon and he had yet to get home with any of the food. Picking up his pace, he jogged awkwardly with several bags of food in hand and a stab wound through the stomach. Bursting through the door a few movies later, he let out a sigh, glad to have made it before anyone else.

"Hey, you're late. You might want to start setting out the snacks before everyone gets here," Sam said as she came over to help carry in the bags.

"Yeah, well, something came up." Danny smiled and kissed the top of her forehead lovingly. Waltzing with Sam into the kitchen, they began to prepare for the upcoming guests, but it was when Danny reached for a large bowl in a high cupboard that Sam shouted at him. "What the hell happened?!"

"What?" Danny asked, completely confused as he continued to grab his bowl.

"While you were out, you said something came up. What happened? You got—" she gestured in a circle around her abdomen.

Danny looked down and raised his eyebrows in surprise, "oh, right: I was stabbed." A nice deep red circle was growing on the front of his shirt.

"Gee, thanks for letting me know, Daniel James."

"Sorry, I forgot all about it the moment I walked in and saw you," he sweet-talked his wife as he set his bowl down and began to fill it with a full bag of crackers.

"I love you, but you can be such a pain—please take care of it before anyone arrives."

Brushing her off with a wave of his hand, Danny continued placing miscellaneous snack foods in seemingly random orders around the counter and the kitchen table—offerings for the guests.

Soon, a knock sounded on the door, and Danny rushed to change his very messy-looking shirt before answering it. "Hey, Mark, how's it shaking, man?" He greeted.

"Danny, thanks for inviting us over. I saw Jules and Harry walking up, too," Mark, Danny's coworker, said with a smile.

Danny invited the man and his husband in, and Sam made sure to make the two feel at home. It wasn't long before several more groups of people arrived and the apartment was jam-packed full of Danny's work cronies. As the evening continued, Danny tried his best to be a good host, but he had a slight pain in his stomach, and a bad feeling in his gut, which, believe it or not, were two different sensations.

It wasn't until he stood at his makeshift juice bar, waiting to grab a drink, that someone pointed it out to him. "Hey, did you spill something on your shirt?" Mark asked inquiringly.

Looking down, Danny's face burned beat red. "Shit, I totally forgot about that," he mumbled to himself loudly, "I, uh, yeah I must've spilled my drink on it."

"But you're just now grabbing a drink." With an eyebrow quirked Mark gave him a confused look.

"Psh, yeah because I spilled the first one, obviously."

"Whatever you say, man."

Breathing out a sigh, Danny proceeded to grab his much-needed drink before fixing his problem. Worming his way through the crowd, the abdominal pain becoming ever more present as he tried to find Sam. "Sam!" He slightly shouted as he found her talking with Mark's husband.

"What do you—oh my gosh," she said as she noticed the front of his shirt. "Derek, please excuse us for a moment," she said without taking her eyes off Danny. Sam was about to pull Danny into the bathroom to address the situation, but the door to their apartment suddenly busted open. Standing in the doorway was an angry man with a badly bruised face that smelled strongly of onions.

"Where's de little shit dat did dis?!" The man shouted as best he could with his broken nose, as he stood looking around the room with a scowl, "I seen you walk up dem stairs to dis place, I know yer here!"

Sam looked at Danny with a sideways glare. "You owe me an explanation after all of this," She whispered to him.

Nodding, Danny silently agreed that he would tell Sam everything once he dealt with the mugger for the last time. "Hi, uh, mister mugger-man, sir." Danny waved his hand and wormed his way through the small crowd of people in his flat. "I'm right here."

"You!" The man shot out from his position by the door and tried to attack Danny, but the bloody nose and fat lip must have skewed his depth perception, for he completely missed Danny by a foot.

"Do you want me or the wall? Because if you're wanting me, it doesn't look like it," Danny quipped. The attacking man had regained his footing and lunged at the young adult, but his fist only met air as Danny easily avoided the hits. With honed practice, he moved the fight into the hallway of his apartment building so that no one in his and Sam's flat could get hurt.

"Come on, I gave you a free nose job, what more could you want?" Danny continued to dodge attacks and make jokes but was left with silence from the other party. "Not much for small talk, eh? Makes sense, given the nose job."

The mugger grumbled to himself and pulled out the same knife from earlier and tried to jab Danny again. But, by now, Danny was tired of being on defense and wanted to go on the offense instead. With a few simple movements, he held the blade in hand and had the man pinned against a wall. "How's this for irony?" He lightly laughed before regaining his serious composure. "Now, you better leave this place and leave everyone alone or next time I'll give you more than just a nose job."

"Yous a piece of shit ya know dat?" The man spit in Danny's face before pulling out a second blade that he had hidden away in his coat. The mugger stabbed Danny once again and the new knife wound sat in his chest only a few inches away from

where the first gash sat.

Instinctively and almost simultaneously, however, Danny socked the man in the face as soon as he was stabbed again. Although, he didn't hold back as much as he should have and the man was passed out on the ground with a definite concussion.

Turning around to go back to the once-party in his apartment, Danny was met with several of the partygoers standing around watching. With wide eyes, he let out a strained chuckle, "It's, uh, it's funny, the whole thing," his awkward smile fell off his face the more he looked around, "so funny," he said, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence.

Soon, Sam pushed her way through the small crowd to quietly scold her husband. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love you but you're an idiot. And, come on, a white shirt, really? I'm never getting the blood off of this," she huffed as she guided Danny back inside the apartment where a few of the guests still stood.

"Oh, hey! You're okay. That's good to know," Mark said happily as soon as he saw the two cross the threshold. "You're pretty unassuming on the outside, but boy do you pack a punch. That'll do us some good if we have an unpleasant customer."

"Mark," Sam started, "you all work for a graphic design company, I doubt people are trying to steal your money like that guy."

"Oh Sam, you have no idea," Danny said vaguely, not wanting to go too far into the details.

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