REAPER

Time to just sit and do nothing doesn’t feel right just now, but that’s exactly what’s going on tonight. It kind of feels like they should be spending every moment they have doing something, if not working on the grand Tartarus shit, then at least digging deeper into their own memories, trying to find out what the connection with Mordred is, or come up with just what their situation with Flame Thrower was in the before, but even they need a break sometimes. The issue is just that it doesn’t feel like a break should be allowed, given how dire everything is, but there are a lot of things they’re learning to deal with lately, and apparently that’s one of them.

For all the time they’ve been spending with Cas, glad to take every moment with him that they can, they know that they do need time on their own, so they don’t mind that he’s busy doing something with Kaz tonight, and they don’t really feel the need to try to see if anyone else is free for once. It’s a funny change that’s come alongside everything they’ve been doing to try to be honest and open with Cas; they’re not so afraid of just being with themself now, either. They hadn’t even fully comprehended what they were doing, filling the void with distractions, doing anything to keep themself from thinking about the gaping hole of their past, but now that they don’t feel that urge, it’s clear as fucking day.

So they’re just lying on top of the covers in bed, scrolling mindlessly on their phone, thinking about maybe taking a shower and heading to bed early, so that they can get up early tomorrow and actually start doing some research following the Mordred thread. That’s all they’re doing when the door opens and Reaper, no, Danny comes in. They’re still having a time adjusting to this new humanity their roommate has, and in honesty they haven’t been around enough to really see things for themself, so caught up in everything else. They hadn’t really been close or anything with Reaper, after all. Besides being infinitely amused by the irony of the two people without memories being put in the same room, they didn’t really do much with Reaper, besides tell him to go the fuck to sleep sometimes, or tell him to leave the room when they wanted to jack off. Which is to say, they don’t really know what to do with Danny, either.

“Oh, yeah. Cas is busy, and I thought I could use a break from all the serious shit. Was gonna maybe take a shower, head to bed early,” Lazarus says, propping themself up on their elbows to look at him better. “If you need the room to yourself, though, I can go post up in one of the bougie ass sitting rooms for a while easy. Catalyst busy tonight, too?”

...

Danny isn’t quite sure what to think of Lazarus, half of the time. Reaper –– liked him, well enough, Danny supposed. At least, that’s what Danny could gather from the parts of him that were Reaper. Lazarus was good. Not good or well established enough that Reaper put them on a pedestal, not close enough that Reaper carefully filed them away with special labels and an excess of careful detail. Danny imagines that Lazarus was a comfort, in their own way, to Reaper. A consistent factor of their life, if nothing else. Someone who it was safe to sleep beside, someone who told them when they clearly needed to rest. Danny feels a twinge of insecuriy, when he considers how often Lazarus must have had to boss him around for his own good, how often the villain in front of him must have had to put him to bed, because Reaper hadn’t been able to make decisions like that on his own. 

It grates on Danny, the concept of how helpless he had been, just weeks ago, now. How helpless Gabe still was, trapped in a web of programming and mental manipulation, trapped in a web that Danny had to help him untangle. He doesn’t even understand how or why he had broken out of the Reaper mind state, but he knows he had been in the Collective for over a year when it statred. He tries to stay positive, tries to believe that it won’t take that long for Gabe to break out of his programming. But the hope feels hollow, at odd moments. Fear creeps in to his existence and makes him question every opomistic outlook he had previously filed away inside his own mind.

Lazarus, at the least, doesn’t make him feel like a completely alien being. Lazarus doesn’t make him feel like a robot.

He finds himself nodding his head, slow but certian head. “No, yeah. Catalyst is busy.” He shrugs his shoulder, and feels the old pang of missing her. He loves her, he thinks, and feels frantic about it. Of course he would wake up in a strange new world and feel this strongly about someone, of course he would find the person who might be his soulmate completely by accident. “I’m trying not to be too clingy, anyway. Co-dependency, it’s probably not ideal for me, given everything.” 

The words ring true. Danny knows he has to be his own person, before he can really be anything else. He can’t give himself completely to Cat, if he doesn’t know who he is first.  

It feels like he’s reading her mind, somehow, as he slips his hand into her hair and tangles his fingers there, drawing a sharp, pleased little noise out of her against his mouth. And then his other hand finds her hip and she can’t help but shiver, at the feeling of it, not so much because his metal fingertips are cold to the touch but more because it’s Danny, and he’s touching her, and her skin feels a little bit like it’s on fire all over. She feels the loss of contact acutely, when he immediately pulls his hand away, and the feeling is slightly repaired when she feels the pressure of his hand find somewhere to settle nearby, on her back, over the fabric of her sweatshirt, nice, and good, but not as good as it was.

     “No,” she answers, kissing the corner of his mouth again, and then realizing what he actually asks, amends the answer: “I mean, yeah. Yeah, it was cold. But it’s okay, it was nice. You can— you don’t have to apologize.”

She lets out a soft, nervous laugh as she rests her forehead against his, too, and her chest feels a little bit like it might explode, with some overwhelming mix of fondness and affection and desire and happiness and longing. Danny, his gorgeous, curly hair already messy from her pillows, his soft pajamas, the look on his face, not quite overwhelmed but so full of feeling as he looks up at her.

     “You can touch me, Danny,” she says. “I want you to.” 

She sits up just enough to pull her sweatshirt off, to toss it off to the side, and for a moment she wonders if its a little too shameless of a move, if she should be embarrassed that this is the first time Danny has ever kissed her and she’s wearing nothing but a crop top and her underwear, if she looks desperate right now. But she looks down at Danny, and she can’t manage to feel any of that. Shame, or embarrassment, or worry about seeming too eager. She’s not worried about him judging her. She’s not worried about him pulling away and realizing that this was a mistake, or anything like it. None of it’s there, the fear or the anxiety. Because she trusts him completely, somehow, and she knows he feels the same. 

There’s a moment where he’s shuddering, overwhelmed, uncertain about himself. Where half his body is alien to him, and unsuited to something as gentle as holding Catalyst, unsuited to touching her. These cold, robotic parts of him, that feel as if they just appearned when they never expected them. He remembers, in the before time, that he was whole. He wasn’t missing parts. He hadn’t been gutted and refurbished. He’s seen the scans, now. He knows that parts of him are so much more machine than man. But he has to believe that these parts belong to him, somehow, The mechanics have been imbued with parts of his own soul, and they are not working against him. Reaper has not locked him completly out of existence, is starting to bow down to him and let him take the lead more often than not. 

His hand, against her body. Metal against skin. He’s so sure it’s wrong, bad, for that fleeting moment. 

But Catalyst doesn’t make it seem wrong. He has to rewrite her reaction in his head, because she says it’s okay. She says it isn’t bad. Nice.

He can touch her. Any part of him can touch her. Metal against flesh. She doesn’t mind it, and she doesn’t want Danny to give her an apology. He swallows past the strange emotion that floods him at that, half at a loss for what he’s supposed to do with informatoon like that. Should he touch her again? Is he okay with it, as much as she is? Does he worry about her hating the arm because he hates it himself? Because it’s part of a man who he feels stole decades of his life? Does he know what to do, either way? Probably not. Danny was a little clueless, he thinks. He floundered even before he became Reaper. When his life was his own, he was never really sure what to do anyway. 

But Cat makes it all feel easy. She moves and strips off her sweatshirt, and it’s almost hypnotic. He wants her, even if he feels clueless. Even if it feels strange. He looks at her with renewed awe, amazement in his eyes. His metal fingertips trail up her back, down her arm. He pulls in a shaken breath, and breathes out again. “You want me to.” He says, more sure, as he leans down, presses reverent kisses against her neck, her collarbone. 

Danny likes to trace his fingers along the wall of the manor as he walks around it. He likes to feel the warmth of the place against his skin. There’s an echo of Reaper, perking up in him, that wants to make him memorise every inch of the place. Sometimes he finds himself looking for escape routes, points of danger, places where he can jump into acting if a threat comes by. That’s the code, he thinks, trying to run by in the back of his mind. He doesn’t really want it there, but he hasn’t been able to get rid of it. Reaper is like a perminant roommate now, who throws fits when Danny isn’t careful. 

Danny is learning not to hate him. Part of him understands that Reaper, for the most part, is just trying to protect people. That was what Reaper had chosen to do, whenever he had the option for himself. It was one of his primary objectives. Protect the Collective. Danny couldn’t blame him for that one, even if he was still struggling to really understand this place, to really feel like he blonged there. 

He’s running his fingers along the wall on the way to his room. On his way to Lazarus’s room, really. Danny will never really feel like it’s his. It had been Reapers, as much as it could be. But Reaper was a man who few thoughts and few feelings, and few belongings. It was really just a place for him to shut down for the night. His fingers rest on the doorframe, the heavy wood, as he opens the door to the space. He’s softened it up for himself, added new things, but he still feels at odds with it. 

He only hesitates for a second, when he sees Lazarus inside. Inside and awake, and not with Cas for once. He shouldn’t hesitate at all, because it’s his room. He can do what he wants. And right now, he wants to sit on his bed and touch the soft blanket Catalyst found for him. And he wants to talk to Lazarus, too, finally. To finally get to know them, to finally understand who they are beyond the fragments he can pull from the part of him that was still Reaper. 

“Uh, hey.” He greets, just a little bit softly. “Quiet night, yeah?” 

He can tell that Danny is interested in the whole idea that his father was in the Collective before him, seems to have a hint of wonder in his eyes over it, and he can’t blame him, knowing that he likely remembers little about his own family, besides now having his brother around in some small ways, even if he’s not entirely his own person yet again, either. It’s that wonder that keeps him from delving into the less than pleasant reality of what the situation with his father has always been, the way he had left the Collective, what he did to his family once he did, what he’s doing now. There’s no need to get into that trauma during their first real conversation. He has a feeling, oddly enough, that it’ll come up much sooner with Danny, anyway, considering the nature of the beginning of this friendship. And his desire to take that offer says as much. 

“I do, although I know many would argue that’s not the case, Daydreamer amongst them. But I’d be more than happy to give you my side of whatever horrifying stories I’m sure he’s told you,” he says, keeping his voice light, despite his feelings on the boy. “More importantly, though, I am a better listener than I seem.”

It’s a nice thought, having someone to talk to who isn’t Alex or Jase or Zenith, someone who doesn’t have as intricate a history as all of them do, and the sort of outlook that comes with it. Perhaps it’s just as important for him to hear another side to things as it is for Danny. Still, he takes him by surprise when he says he’d like to hear him play sometime. It’s not something he’s shared with another person outside of his family for a very long time, likely since his own days living at the manor, when he would spend every night playing violin, finishing an entire bottle of wine himself. Even then, the audiences were rarely willing, more likely other villains who happened to stumble on his private concertos, or those who liked to complain about the noise, as if it was as bad as anything the younger crowd managed on any given night. He likes the idea of sharing it now, though. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had an audience, but I think that would be lovely. I may have a guitar in one of these closets, perhaps we can see if you remember how to play, too,” he suggests, with a small smile. 

Danny grows more serious, though, turning back to another reason he sought him out today. It’s clear how this has been weighing on his mind, and he can’t blame him, having seen Gabe in action, having been shot by Gabe, and now feeling the pull of his commands against Dulce’s power near constantly. But it doesn’t seem like a question in his mind, so he hopes he can ease some of Danny’s worries on the matter for now. “Of course, it’s alright,” he nods, seriously. “I’m aware it’s not ideal, keeping him under my orders, but it feels safest until you and Dr. Green can find a way to break through his programming. In honestly, I’d feel more concerned for his safety, and everyone else’s if he wasn’t. I can at least guarantee he won’t hurt anyone, and that he’s at peace, if he’s near by, under my command.”

Dulce pauses, tilting his head, before providing a little more honesty. “I’d love to let go of those orders as soon as possible, though, for my own selfishness––I’m not as young as I used to be, using my powers 24/7 is a touch tiring––but until then, I’m happy to have both of you here. I’ll be even happier to have both of you around after he’s found his free will.”

.

It’s nice to know how open Dulce can be, how willing he is to sit here and talk to Danny, how willing he is to give Danny every single side of the story. He would like that, knowing more about everyone around him, knowing how Dulce really felt about things that had happened in the past. Somehow he wondered if a budding friendship with Dulce could make his other friends warm up to the man more than they usually were. He believes it when Dulce says that he’s a good listener, that he’s willing to do his part in all of this. The way he talks about Daydreamer is proof enough of that, because Danny knows those two don’t like each other. It’s an understatement, really. The fucking hate each other, down to the bone. And the problem is that Danny can kind of understand why Daydreamer does -- he’s prone to feeling bad for guys that are so scared of having their control taken away from them. 

But Daydreamer also almost blew up a city. So. Dulce’s side of the story is pretty clear as well. “I can believe that.” He says, finally, after the moment of thought. He can see them doing it, sitting and talking again, finding the time to iron out the stray details of their lives. Maybe he should be wary of it, the connection. But he doesn’t have the space to be wary, he thinks. He doesn’t have enough people in his life to be picky, to make decisions based on what other people might think. And it will probably be good for him to make decisions on his own, to look around and see what he really thinks, what he really wants. He doesn’t think that anybody could begrudge him for that.

He bites his lip for a second, and then lets a smile through, comfortable on his face now as he’s coming more and more into himself. “Gosh, I don’t think a jam session was really what Cat had in mind when she paired us up.” But his voice is soft, and strangely hopeful, because it feels like a safe enough way to explore his past, to delve into the might-have-beens and see if any of it rings true. “But I think it will. Be lovely, I mean. All of it.” 

Dulce shifts with him into the more serious tone he takes the conversation into, the weight on his chest that comes hand in hand with thoughts of Gabe. His wayward brother, still so damaged by what had been done to him in the past, still under the control of code and protocols and whatever else Dr. Judgement had done to shore up his faulty systems. Danny wishes it could be easy to get his brother back, he wishes that he could crack through Gabe’s defences in an instant and have him back, have him with life behind his eyes and love, open and clear, on his face. He really was worried that he was overstepping here, by sticking Dulce with a man who could snap and try to kill him if his control ever lessened. But Dulce doesn’t seem to see it the same way -- or sees it exactly the right way, knows exactly how dangerous that Gabe can be. He was the one who had been shot by him, after all, who had suffered at his hands. 

He nods  his head at Dulce’s assessment of it, the fact that it was safer to have Gabe where someone could keep an eye on him, where someone strong like Dulce could reach out and take control. “Thank you,” He breathes, and there isn’t an atom in his body that doesn’t mean it. “You’re right. This is the safest place for him, until we can figure out how to make it safer for everyone. Him included.” 

He looks ecstatic, looks so happy—the happiest she thinks she’s seen him, in all the weeks they’ve been getting to know one another. Happier than he’d looked trying on clothes he picked out himself for the first time. Or going for milkshakes, late one night, when he’d found himself awake and couldn’t sleep. And she gets it. She feels… torn open, somehow, in the best way, like every wall in her heart has come down, like everything she’d ever done to protect herself can fall away, because it’s Danny. He wouldn’t hurt her, he couldn’t, not when he can look at her like that.

     “Oh, a demand?” she repeats, light and a little teasing. She lets her hand fall down to his chest, for a moment, fiddling with the collar of his t-shirt before coming to rest on his shoulder as she looks back up at him. “Well, I really, really want to kiss you, so I guess that means I have to now.”

And she does, does kiss him again, a little more force to it this time, a little more want bleeding through. She wants to be close to him, closer than she can manage with the two of them sitting up on her bed, so she shifts her weight, as she kisses him, pushing him back onto the bed, bracing herself with her arms on either side of him, searching as she does for any resistance, any tension, any sign that she’s moving too fast for him, pushing too far. Any maybe someday she’ll stop worrying that anything she initiates will be too much for him—but for now, she focuses on what he’s said, that he wants to kiss her, and that he knows she’ll never ask him to do anything he doesn’t want to.

     “Tell me if you want me to stop,” she says, a little breathless as she breaks away from the kiss for just a second, and when he doesn’t protest, she turns her attention back to kissing him, back to focusing on the feeling of it and not the voice in her head telling her to slow down, to be careful, not just with him but with herself, too. And it feels good, kissing Danny. For someone who hasn’t done it in… she has no idea how long, but probably as long as it’s been for her, if not longer, he’s pretty good at it, with his soft lips and his warm skin. The perfect mix of enthusiastic and responsive, slowing down when she slows down, pressing close when she presses close. She wants for him to touch her, wants to feel his hands against her bare skin, and she wonders what it would feel like, his hands on her face, or running down her sides, one soft and warm, the other cold and firm and metal. She wonders a dozen different things, her imagination running wild now that she’s stopped making herself decidedly not think about thinks like what it might be like to kiss Danny. 

But for right now, she’ll settle for whatever he wants to do, for following his lead wherever he takes her, and enjoying every second of it. There’s time, she thinks. All the time in the world, really. No need to push things when they’re only just getting started. 

Catalyst seems as happy as Danny feels, and it sets his heart on fire. There’s a joy in her voice, mixed in with the teasing, the kind of tone that Danny wants to hear for the rest of his life. He’s so sure of all of this, so sure of himself and his own desires here.  It’s Catalyst. She’s what he wants. And with every passing moment he’s more confident in that instinct, because it feels so right. Her eyes meeting his, the sound of her voice, her hand on his chest.

“I think those are the rules, yeah.” He says, and he even sounds like he's smiling. He can hear the half-alien happiness, the swell of confidence. Because she wants him too. He didn’t mess it all up, by kissing her, by asking for what he wanted. He knows it wouldn’t have ruined them if she didn’t want it, but it means everything that it does. He hardly has the words out before Catalyst is kissing him again, her lips pressing back against his own, the gentle push and pull of it.

She puts more into this kiss, she seems more sure, and there’s more force behind it. It makes something wriggle in his stomach, a happy and contented feeling growing in his chest. Because kissing might be the nicest thing in the world, the best thing you could ever spend your time doing. He lets her push up against him, lets her settle them back on the bed, her weight shifting more on top of him. He thinks, offhandedly, that if this was someone else he might feel a little bit trapped. But there’s no pressure here, and even before Catalyst says the words herself, he knows that she would back off the second that he asked, the second he showed the slightest bit of uncertainty. It makes it easier to fall into it, to let her kiss him, to let her touch him.

He shakes his head, when she pulls back just that little bit to tell him. “I don’t want you to stop.” He says, because it's the truth. Danny is more than enthusiastic when they start again. He wonders if he should feel insecure about how long it’s been since he kissed someone like this, but he doesn’t seem to be fucking it up. He follows her lead, for the most part, happy and dedicated to making her feel as good as he does right now. He reaches up to tangle his fingers in her hair, to pull her just a little bit closer. His metal hand finds her hip and touches a stray slip of bare skin on her side. And he pulls it away just as fast, settles it on her back, where her skin is covered by the cloth of her shirt. He knows it's usually cold, especially compared to how warm Catalyst usually feels when he touches her, and he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable. “Sorry,” He says, a little breathless, when he takes a second to break away from the kiss. 

She’s relieved to hear it, to hear him say it, to know that she hasn’t pushed too far, hasn’t wanted too much, hasn’t wanted anything he doesn’t want too. She can feel herself relax, at just the words, at the look on his face, so genuine and sincere, so hopeful, so certain. And it doesn’t matter how tired she is, how her bones still ache from the strain of holding up a collapsing skyscraper by sheer force of will alone, because it’s Danny, and he gets to make whatever choices he wants to, now, and he’s choosing this, choosing her. 

     “Oh,” she exhales, when he says it, voice soft and open and full of something that feels almost giddy. And before she can say anything else, before she can do anything about it, he’s leaning forward and he’s kidding her. 

He kisses her like it’s a question, like he’s waiting for the answer. Barely even a kiss, really, but he’s there, he’s staying there: like he’s asking her permission, and like he’s giving her permission. She doesn’t think anyone has ever kissed her as softly as this. And all she’s ever wanted is for Danny to be able to express what he wants, to decide what he wants, to make his own decisions, for himself, on his own terms, and now that he’s decided that this is what he wants, she can’t imagine a world where she would want anything other than to give it to him.

So she leans in, bringing a hand up to his face as she does, as she kisses him back, still slow, but certain where he was hesitant, an answer to his question. And his lips are surprisingly soft, his touch surprisingly gentle. That he’d been able to keep that softness even when someone had tried so hard to strip it out of him and replace with with something cold and clinical feels a little bit like a miracle, like a testament to his strength. She brushes her thumb across his cheek, and there’s so much she wants to do, all of a sudden—to tangle her hands in his pretty, curls hair; to run them down along his broad, strong shoulders; to pull him close and kiss him like her life depends on it a little bit.

She won’t do any of it without asking first, though, not when even this feels like a leap for both of them. And not when this, just this, already makes her heart race in her chest. She feels like she could kiss him like this for hours, lazy and slow. After a moment, though, she shifts away, presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth and leans her forehead against his.

     “You can kiss me whenever you want, Danny,” she says, and finds she can’t quite stop smiling as she says it. She wants to kiss him again. No, she wants him to kiss her again, now that he knows she wants to.

There’s a split second where it feels like the fate of the entire world is hanging in the balance, where the waves could crash and pull him under and drown him. Those thoughts are too intense, maybe, for a kiss. And he would have laughed at anyone who said something like that when he was younger, when he didn’t understand the way this could really feel. But Catalyst is something of world-ending importance, and his stomach twists with anticipation, with the hesitance he feels as his lips ghost against hers. But Danny shouldn’t really have been worried, shouldn’t have been scared, shouldn’t have doubted it. Because he’s seen the look in her eyes, seen the familiar hint of wanting in her. He’s seen how much Catalyst cares about him, has always cared about him.

And she leans in to the kiss, she brings a hand up to his face. It feels... he can’t say its like electricity, but it does give him goosebumps, it does feel like magic. The feeling of her lips against his, the gentle push and pull of the kiss. She’s so steady, and so sure, and it washes away every hint of hesitation he might have been feeling, every small scrap of doubt that he had allowed to linger in his chest. He lets himself fall into it, lets himself put every ounce of feeling he’s ever had for her into this kiss. It’s achingly gentle, so intimate it could make him shiver. He wants to kiss her forever, he thinks. He never wants to pull away, he never wants her to stop touching him. 

He lets out a soft sound, when she pulls away. A tiny huff. But he’s also enjoying the feeling of her forehead, pressed against his. He loves the feeling of closeness, skin on skin, breathing in the same air. This is how close he always wants to be. This is the safest he’s felt since he woke up here in this house. This is the most human he’s felt too, the most in control of his own life. 

“That’s a dangerous offer, Cat.” He says, and he’s breaking out into a smile as well, to mirror the one that Catalyst is giving him. He doesn’t think that he could stop smiling if he tried. His face might be stuck like this forever, dopey and happy and more than half in love with her.

She thinks that sitting up might give her a second of space to clear her head, but it doesn’t work. And what’s worse is the realization that her heart is racing, just a little bit. That while she thought that, by stopping looking in his big puppy dog eyes, she might break the spell for long enough to get her head on straight, all it has done is made her all the more aware of the feeling of the space between them, and how badly she wants to close it. The overwhelming affection she feels, at the sound of his voice, so soft and so full of genuine feeling. How she’s been feeling this for as long as he’s been Danny, no matter how much she’s tried to ignore it. 

She can feel the weight of him moving beside her, and she looks back over at him, and the expression on his face betrays him, just a little bit, the flash of disappointment, or self consciousness, or something, that flickers across it as she moves away. 

And then he sits up to follow her, closing the distance she’s just made part of the way again, and it feels intentional, doesn’t feel thoughtless, and that sets her at ease a little bit. Makes her worry less about whether or not she’s pushing against boundaries he’s still figuring out. So she doesn’t pull away this time, when she finds the two of them back in each other’s personal space. Instead she just looks at him, looks at his eyes, wide and earnest, something impossible in them, something soft and warm and so, so human, so entirely him. She listens to what he’s saying, and she thinks maybe they’re both feeling the same thing, and it feels a little less stupid to feel it all of a sudden. 

        “And?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper in the space between them. 

.

“And –” He starts, and then breaks off again, with a small sigh. Danny has to take a second to gather himself, to pull himself together, because this might be one of the most important things he’s tried to do since he came back into himself. Catalyst is one of the most important things that’s ever happened to him. And maybe he’s braver now, because he found Gabe, because now something new and big is weighing on him, and Catalyst feels easy. She’s the rock he can lean on, the rock he has been leaning on for months now. She’s steady, and beautiful, and so warm. It feels like laying in a sunbeam, like nothing bad could ever happen when he’s basking in her presence.

He gathers himself, as best he can, and looks into her eyes. He searches for the same feeling, and he thinks he can see it. He’s still worried about saying the wrong thing, about freaking her out and pushing for something that he shouldn’t. But she looks bright, and intense, and like she’s searching for something in him as well. Danny thinks she’s beautiful, Danny thinks she’ll punch him if he makes a wrong move, and he thinks he wouldn’t mind that either. Her voice had been whisper quiet, and Catalyst probably won’t hate him for it. 

“And I want to kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time.” He says, and it sounds honest. He sounds braver than he really feels, but he’s emboldened just by the honesty, by claiming the feeling for himself and owning it. He’s Danny, and she’s Catalyst, and he wants to kiss her. He would want to kiss her even if he had never been Reaper, and he wants to kiss her even more badly because of all of that. Because she knew he was a human long before other people did, because she never even for a second too advantage of his vulnerabilities. He can trust her with every part of himself, and she’s opened up to him in ways that he could never imagine being worthy of. 

Of all the things that might’ve happened today, he hadn’t been expecting this sort of conversation in the least, but he finds himself very glad that Danny sought him out to speak to him, even more glad that this is how the conversation is turning out. It feels oddly comfortable in its honesty and vulnerability, in a way that Dulce can’t say he ever feels with people he doesn’t know well. There’s something to be said about meeting someone for the first time mid-mission and having to save his life, and put your trust in him, all the same, perhaps. And it takes away some of the mystery with Danny, too, of course, which he’s pleased to see reveals someone utterly and wholly human, just a normal sort of man, despite everything somehow. 

“As you should be! I can only imagine how jarring that must have been, on top of all the other comic book concerns suddenly forced to the forefront. In truth, I was raised in the business, my father was in the Collective before me, although his powers also keep most of the worry over stray bullets away, so perhaps it does make sense that I’m a little less inclined to take getting shot lightly, too,” he explains, waving his hand vaguely, keeping things light, despite the mention of his father. It only feels fair to offer up a bit of his own person history, since it feels as if he knows a great deal of personal information about Danny just by virtue of the malfunctions that led him to making his presence known. “If you need a saner ear to listen to the new, ridiculous worries, well, you do know where I live now.”

It’s a little bit funny just how easy the entirety of the conversation is. It’s not that he’s not good at talking to other people––he’s an expert at this point in his life of turning on the charm when he needs to and making the connections he wants––but there’s a vast difference between most of his interactions and this sort of thing. This feels like making a new friend, which he hasn’t really done in ages, now that he considers it more wholly, but he does think that that’s what’s happening here, what Danny is offering, what he can give him in return. Clearly, he’s doing a better job handling this conversation than he does conversations with half the rest of the Collective, after all. 

Dulce nods with a small smile. “Fair enough. I’m grateful it seemed to do just that this time around, then,” he says, pleased to see that Danny genuinely doesn’t seem to mind that he had to make that choice to take control for a moment, and do it to everyone around to get them all out of there relatively unharmed. Speaking of which, he looks at his wrist, and Dulce can’t help but unconsciously move his other hand to rub over the spot that bullet hit. He’s not actually sure which of the shots was worse, in the end. Positively terrible with pain, and his own blood as he is, he’d been too close to fainting by the time they made it to the meeting point, and he was able to have both his hand and his palm healed. But the job was thankfully done well. “Ah, yes, entirely healed, I won’t be joining you in the robot-limb club anytime soon hopefully. Although, psychologically speaking, I think my wrists are going to feel a little fragile for a good while. But I can play violin just fine still, so I’ll manage.”

...

Strangely it makes a certain kind of sense, that Dulce is a legacy. It seems like it would be a lot to be raised with the Collective at the forefront of your life. But from talking to people, it isn’t that uncommon. With three generations of Shadows, and so many others who have been touched by the Collective throughout their lives. Dulce keeps it light, keeps the moment flowing from sentence to sentence. Danny is kind of fascinated by it, by the idea of his life there within the walls of the Manor, about what his family might have been like. Danny has a thing about families now, that he’s desperate to remember all the details of his own, that he’s aching to find the lost pieces of his life and put them back together. He knows that he could build a new family in the Collective, like Catalyst has, but he wants his old one too. He wants his brother, and he wants his mother, and those thoughts will never leave him alone, he’ll never be able to escape the yearning that settles deep in his chest when he thinks about it. 

“Hey, I’ll take it if you’ve got it.” He says, and hes glad for the offer, even if he’s uncertain as to if Dulce means it as a joke or not. He has people he can talk to, but it would be nice to add someone else to the roster, swap someone new in to make sure he wasn’t overwhelming everyone with his endless trail of traumas and hurts, with all of the complex facets of his existence that he’s still trying to work his way through. “At the very least you’d offer a chance for me to get every side of the story. I think Daydreamer is great, but no one can say the kid isn’t biassed about every single thing he’s ever seen.”

He smiles then, at the mention of the violin. He’s genuinely glad that Dulce won’t have to quit it, even just for a little while. Something like that can be so impactful. It can change your whole life. Just listening to music, lately, has made him feel alive. “I’d like to hear you play sometime, if you’re ever up for an audience.” Because that feels like an okay thing to offer, a mild suggestion that doesn’t have to actually be followed up on if Dulce doesn’t want to. “I think I used to play guitar, maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to. I think Gabe used to want to start a rock band.” 

And that brings him back to the elephant in the room, the thought he can never escape. His brow furrows a little bit, his heart gets a little more serious. He looks at Dulce with searching eyes. 

“That’s another reason why I came. I wanted to  know, well. To make sure. That it was okay if I kept coming over.” He looks at Dulce, and though the reason is a blatantly obvious one, he elaborates. “To see Gabe, to try and get through to him and -- I mean, if he’s a handful, just let me know, too? Cause I can figure something out with Dr. Green somehow, we can find somewhere safer for him to stay. I don’t want him to accidentally hurt anyone again, but I can’t guarantee that he won’t and…” He trails off, feeling helpless again, once he’s started to think about it. “And if you think he’s dangerous, or if you don’t want him or me here anymore, I can figure something out.”

He does it again, reaches out with his careful fingers and brushes them against her skin, pushing her hair away from her face, her skin going warm and cold at the same time where his meets it, and she can’t tell if he’s doing it on purpose or not, but she thinks it might drive her a little bit crazy. She feels a little bit like she might die if he touches her again. She feels a little bit like she might die if he doesn’t.

It’s like saying it, admitting to it even a little bit, even to Banshee, who didn’t know Danny and for whom it couldn’t possible matter, has unlocked some door she was keeping shut, some last remaining wall holding back the impossible admission: that she has a crush. Her, of all people, who hasn’t had a crush since she was seventeen, who swore off loving anyone as anything other than a friend because the last time she’d let her love someone it had ruined her life. She kind of thought she’d never feel like this again, and she had been genuinely okay with that. With her life, that she loved; her friends, that she loved. She didn’t need anything more than that, not really.

But here he is. Laying in bed next to her, looking at her with the biggest, softest eyes. Telling her he couldn’t have stood it, if she’d gotten hurt. She has butterflies. And it’s probably totally inappropriate of her to be thinking about all of this while Danny is dealing with the fact that his brother is a brainwashed cyborg assassin who they’ve just rescued from a rogue super villain who wants to destroy the world or something, not to mention everything he was already dealing with before that. 

And all she can think about is what it would feel like, if she leaned forward, closed the increasingly small distance between them, and kissed him. 

It’s stupid. And Daydreamer’s gonna have a fucking field day with this one, she just knows it. And… she can’t kiss Danny, because Danny only recently regained any semblance of control over his own body, his own life, and he’s relying on her to help him, and she doesn’t want to put him in a position where he feels like he can’t tell her no…

      “Well then, good thing it worked, huh?” she replies, when she realizes that it’s been a second or two too long, since she should have responded to what he said. She lets out a laugh to match his, smiles, and then sits up, giving herself some distance, a tiny bit of space to clear her head before she does something dumb. “I think it was mostly dumb luck, honestly. But don’t tell Dulce I said that, or I’ll never heard the end of it.” 

He’s a little too exhausted to be overly self consious, to wonder if there’s a line here that he shouldn’t be crossing. The exhaustion is the same thing that makes him feel oddly relaxed about everything, that makes it easy to access the hope that everything is going to be okay. He’ll have things to worry about tomorrow, after he’s had a good nights sleep and has to think about all of the details. But right now, he just feels warm and safe, he feels like nothing can touch him. So he doesn’t wonder if he shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be reaching out to Catalyst over and over again.

The air between them feels weighty, though, for a long moment. Charged with something... he can’t say it’s a new feeling, but this is the most intense that he’s felt in so long. Like there’s a low thrum of electricity in his stomach, like there’s a squirming creature living in his chest. He can recognise the feeling now better than he had at the start. It was a rare one for him to feel, even before everything that happened. Danny didn’t like people very often, he had never been someone who had a thousand dates, who felt like he needed someone else to be whole. From what he can remember, he was still figuring stuff out, the complicated feelings that came with the idea of a romantic relationship, the extreme rarity of even wanting one. 

But his feelings for Catalyst were obvious, and pretty undeniable. He wants to be here with her, for as long as he can be. He wants to kiss her. He wants... a thousand different things.

It takes a long time, it feels like, for Catalyst to open her mouth again and talk to him. Something feels a little off with it, just for a moment. She’s laughing, and she’s smiling, but she moves away just a little bit, sitting up in her bed. And suddenly he does start to feel a little self consious. He shifts himself. 

“No, your secret is safe with me.” He promises, earnestly enough. “But I think you’re selling yourself short. I think ––” 

He’s not particularly good at this sort of thing, the offering of honesty, the accepting and offering back of vulnerability, but something about Danny makes it feel a bit simpler than it might with others who he hardly knows. Perhaps it has something to do with their part of the mission, the trust that he had put in him, even before he had had to take control to fight Judgement’s will, the trust he still seemed to offer after. Even if it was a situation that no one could fully understand, likely not even Danny himself, he does understand control better than most people do, understands the importance of letting others have it, and that seems to be at the heart of the struggle that Danny is currently grappling with in relation to that other side of him. 

Still, understanding isn’t the same as knowing how to talk to someone, especially when said person has a good many reasons to be angry about the choices made on his behalf. But Danny doesn’t seem to have any of that anger. There’s something exceptionally soft about him, which is ironic, considering who he is when he’s Reaper, but he thinks makes sense. Even if not all of them are programmed killing machines, in a way that’s a difference they all share to an extent. There’s certainly a difference in him between Dulce et Decorum and Tiberius, even if most people who don’t know him well have no reason to realize it.

The laugh is unexpected, but welcome, makes his own smile grow a little, as he feels a little more comfortable in this moment with Danny, accepting that this is who he is, thinking perhaps they might get along well.

“I appreciate your discretion. I have certain appearances to keep up,” Dulce says with a grand sigh, as if it’s a big issue of his. As if his entire persona isn’t perfected by now, after over twenty years in the Collective. “It’s only fair, though, to be a bit of a baby if someone shoots you, isn’t it? I for one think we normalize getting shot a hair too much in our field. Yes, we have healers to deal with it, but it’s not exactly a pleasant experience.” It’s only partially a joke, really, because it’s the truth. The injuries that others come back with regularly are horrifying in his mind, it makes him glad he’s only had a few run-ins such as the Tower situation. At least Danny clearly feels the same, he has a feeling Reaper can’t feel pain in that way, thanks to programming.

“Still, I apologize for…taking so much control while dealing with that pain. I do, indeed, become something of a demanding arsehole when I’m frustrated. And getting shot twice is fairly frustrating, not that it’s an excuse.”

...

Something in Danny flutters a little bit, at the sight of Dulce’s smile. Its a little twist in his stomach, in his chest. But its a very different flutter than the one he gets when Catalyst smiles at him. Distinctly different. Like a different creature has crawled inside him and started moving stuff around. Its a kind of happiness he supposes, because he made someone smile. And the way that Daydreamer talked about Dulce, that was practically an impossibility. He knew from experience that Daydreamer probably wasn’t the utmost authority on the topic, with the way he seemed like an angry kitten whenever someone so much as brought Dulce into the conversation. But it had still made an impact on the way Danny thought about people, in the early days when he was still coming into his own. 

It was nice to know that Dulce could smile. That he would smile at Danny. He’d earned it somehow, through his laughter and the way that he was approaching this conversation himself. Somehow, he felt like he wasn’t messing up. He felt like he was doing a good job. And that made him proud of himself, in a strange way. Because he was doing it, he had taken the leap to talk to someone and make his voice heard, to say some of the things that needed to be said without fear and without too much hesitation. 

Its nice to know, too, that Dulce can joke around. 

Really, people have been selling him short. Danny feels like he should go back to the manor and start defending Dulce’s honor to everyone, start convincing everyone to give the man another look and see that they were probably very, very wrong about him. 

Danny smiles wider at the sigh that escapes Dulce’s mouth, the slightly preformative nature of it. “Damn, you’ve got a point.” He nods his head, a little sagely. “I was kinda freaked out about that sorta stuff when I first woke up, you know? One second you’re worrying about where you’re gonna get the money for college, and the next you wake up and have to start worrying about stray bullets and dudes who can move metal with their minds.” He shakes his head a little, but his tone is light. Genuinely light. “Don’t think that knowing someone can just heal me really makes up for how whack it all is.”

It’s still something to get used to, the very clear distinction between Reaper and Danny. Since he moved away from the manor years ago, he hasn’t been around much to get a full picture of Reaper. He knew enough, of course, it would have been impossible not to, considering he’s one of his handlers technically, and even when you don’t live in the manor, news of a half-man, half-android, or whatever still manages to get that far. But in his trips back to the manor, he had seen Reaper enough to have an understanding; the way he takes commands as if Dulce’s used his powers to force it, the lack of emotion and understanding of more emotion-based conversations. The lack of humanity. 

Catalyst had told him that there was a likelihood of exactly what happened when they had had their very brief conversation before the mission, that that very humanity might slip through at a very inconvenient moment and render Reaper Danny suddenly, less able to deal with a dangerous situation Reaper was programmed to deal with expertly. Being offered a warning and seeing it in action is different, though. And witnessing it happen in the midst of an already dangerous mission is also very different than seeing the change in his home, where they can have a normal conversation.

It’s one of several reasons he’s glad that Danny sought him out to talk now. Not only does he want to make sure he’s alright after such a jarring experience, that he understands why Dulce did take control, that he wouldn’t do something like that unless it was absolutely necessary, but also because someone in a position like that certainly needs aid adjusting, and he thinks varied perspectives can only help.

Dulce nods in thanks for the understanding as he takes a seat, watching him despite himself. Clear enough that he’s grappling with how to say what he wants to, but he can be patient when needed, and Danny deserves that benefit. Still, it’s another surprise when he thanks him for what he did in the Tower, and admits to his very real fears, fears that were very close to becoming a reality. It’s a deeply personal admission, and it feels rather important that he would share it with him. It’s the sort of thing that makes Dulce want to offer the same back.

“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. You did fight Specter, managed to make him recognize some of his own humanity for a moment there. That seems like a good partner to me,” he says, tilting his head as he regards him. “But thank you; I was simply doing the job I was assigned. I’m glad that I was able to keep any of that from happening, though. It seems you have many people who would do a great deal to keep those fears from becoming reality, and I’ll gladly do it again, if it comes to it.” A pause, before a slight smile slips over his lips, a wry thing.

“I hope it doesn’t, of course, for both of our sake’s. I’d rather not get shot again, I’m absolutely shite with pain, as you saw.”

...

He’s a little surprised by himself, here. Because he thinks he should feel more insecure than he does. Around some of the Collective members he feels a little caught out, because they’ve known him for so long, so much longer than he ever knew them. Except it wasn’t really him –– not all of him, at the very least ––, it was Reaper that they were comfortable with. It still seemed like a surprise, when it was him that talked to them instead, with the softer set to his shoulders and the different cadence to his words. He wondered sometimes if they might view him as something of an intruder here, a strange thing that has replaced the comforting and consistent presence of Reaper. 

Reaper was more uselful, he imagined. Reaper took care of the Manor, kept guard over all of them. Reaper made sure that no one got hurt, as best he could. You could depend on him in a mission, once upon a time. But now they all had to worry that he would break at a moments notice, that someone else would burst through. Someone who was more scared to fight, who didn’t know how to exercise full control over himself. 

But for some reason, he wasn’t ashamed that all of those things really had happened. It wasn’t shameful, to be reclaiming parts of himself, to be stepping more into his body. Even if it meant that he wasn’t as good in a fight. And Dulce, somehow, makes him feel even better about it. Dulce nods his head, and seems to accept the thanks in stride with everything else. And then he does something that Danny hadn’t been expecting. He makes it sound like Danny being there was a good thing, he makes it sound like he didn’ty fuck everything up completely by breaking through the programming and making himself known. Even if it meant that he wasn’t as strong. Even if it meant that Dr. Judgement wanted to... what, kidnap him and re-brainwash him to add to his hoard of intense rogue villians. 

He manages to smile, because being a good partner to someone sounds nice. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time,” He says, a little wry. 

He runs his finger along her arm absently, raising a trail of goosebumps along her skin in his wake, and she has to force herself to focus, to pay attention to what he’s saying and not to the sensation of his touch. Because this is important. This is kind of as important as it gets, she thinks. As he recounts waking up, in the middle of a battle in the Tower, and finding his brother, the one he had been so worried about, the second or third time he’d found his way back to himself, both hopeful and horrified about what might have become of him, glad he was alive and terrified he wouldn’t be able to be saved. 

He sounds more hopeful than anything else, right now. His voice soft, as he talks about seeing though Specter to what had to still be beneath. She remembers what Cas said, when he first told her about seeing Specter: like Reaper, but with nothing going on behind the eyes. Maybe seeing Danny had been enough to spark something, to override something, to start the process, the same way her mention of Specter had been one of the reasons for Danny’s first breakthrough, back on their mission. 

      “That’s great, Danny,” she says, matching the hope in his tone. “We can… we can keep him safe. And try to help. We can talk to Dr. Green, if you want, see if she has any ideas of how we can help him be Gabe again. And see him whenever you want. I’ll bet just talking to you will help bring him back to himself.”

It sounds like Dulce had done exactly what she hoped he’d be able to do, from what Danny says. And she doesn’t want to sit here and pat Dulce et Decorum on the back for being a halfway decent person. But she’s glad he did it, glad he kept Danny safe, and that he was able to bring Specter back, to give them a chance to fix things. She doesn’t mention him, focusing instead of the first part of what Danny says, and now it’s her turn to let her fingers trail carefully down the bare skin of his arm, gentle and cautious.

     “I’m glad you’re okay. I never would have forgiven myself, if you got hurt in there. If I made the wrong call, and something happened…” 

Part of Danny thinks that he should be more scared, right now. Or more angry, at the state that he had found Gabe in. His brother, who must have gone through so much pain, his brother who had to face that pain alone. From what he can remember of the life that they lived before whatever program made them into something new, they had been joined at the hip. Twins who did everything together. Their mom had been overprotective, always kept such a close eye on them. But he can remember, distantly, the time she lost Gabe at the mall, when he wandered off into the crowd and the way she had been so paniced that she could barely function. They found him after only a few minutes, but it had been scary. They never did well when they were apart. 

But he can’t be scared, or angry. Because he chose hope instead. Gabriel was there, in Dulce’s house. He might not have been himself, but Danny knows that he saw life behind those eyes. He knows that he saw a spark of his real brother behind all of the programming and the conditioning. Whatever they had done to subdue his personality couldn’t have been perminant, because Danny had broken through it. He was coming more and more into himself every day. He was remembering more of his past. The things he liked and the things he hated, The family he had left behind when he became Reaper. And he was getting more and more comfortable feeling things too. 

Catalyst was a big help with that. With feeling things. She made him feel like he was on fire, sometimes. But it was a gentle burning, almost a comfort. 

She matches his tone. Hopeful. And there she is, promising to help him. She’s taken them all under her wing, somehow. She’s decided that Danny and his fucked up family drama is her problem too, like she has any responsiblity over them. But god, he’s glad. He’s glad that she’s here with him, he’s glad that she keeps helping him over and over again. Catalyst will help him. And Dr. Green will help him. He has a support system here, he has people who care about him. 

He nods his head in agreement to her words, he internalises all of it and lets it lull him even further into the mild comfort of the room. “Yeah,” He says, his voice rough. “We’ll get him through this. I’m gonna go see him tomorrow, I think. See if I can get through to him, even just a little bit.

He’s learning to tune out the constant noise in his home, to ignore all of it unless someone says his name, or is a little too loud in a way that could suggest they have a larger problem on their hands. In fact, it’s made him more consistent with his violin than he has been since the years he would play every night while polishing off a bottle of wine like it wasn’t an issue in the least. Nothing is better to drown out constant chatter, and periodic disturbances than Chopin. 

Dulce has only just finished restringing his oldest, well-loved violin carefully in his self-proclaimed music room––really just a room to house the piano he hardly touches when Claudius or his mother aren’t here, and his all too extensive record collection, along with his collection of violins––and is plucking a few notes to check the tuning, when there’s a light rapping on the open door. It’s too quiet to be Overload, who, unsurprisingly and gladly, is the one who wants to talk to him the most, but it’s still a surprise to see Reaper, no, Danny, clearly Danny, standing there instead of Doppelgänger, perhaps, or even Specter, looking for orders. 

Admittedly, he’s aware that he should have made a point to check on him after their part of the Tower business, but things have been a bit hectic, considering the number of houseguests he suddenly has, half of which were unexpected, and recovering from the ordeal, while dealing with several personal concerns. It’s been a long time, too, since he’s kept someone under his command for an extended period of time, and even if he let go of his control of Grey and Judgement when it became clear that none of the others were in a state to run back into the Tower to try to recover them, too, there was still the issue of not technically being Specter’s designated handler, which meant he needed to keep a constant, light hold over him, just to keep him from falling into old orders from Judgement that might endanger anyone else in his home. 

So it slipped his exhausted mind, in the chaos of it all, but at least he’s sought him out for that now, even if he’s expecting he might not be entirely thrilled with how Dulce had to handle things in the end. Still, Dulce offers him a small smile, and sets his violin across his lap. 

“Ah, Danny. Of course, we can. Do you want to sit?” he asks, gesturing to the armchair next to his, the little sitting area near the piano, meant for guests to enjoy the music, only he’s never really had guests to do that. “I apologize for not coming to check on you after the Tower. But I’m glad you’re here now.”

.

Dulce is a sight to behold, even with the clear hints of strain around his eyes. It would make sense, if he was tired, when he had opened up his home to so many people over the last few days, and when he had been hurt in such a simply grusome way. A bullet through the wrist. The memory fo it made Danny shudder on his behalf, shudder the way most violence did. He had always been far too gentle for his own good, he imagined. Dulce looks strangely gentle here too, which feels strange to say when he’s clealry one of the strongest people that Danny will ever meet. 

He glances around the room, as he steps inside it. Dulce likes music, that much becomes clear. And it’s nice to actually know something about him, aside from the statistics and the facts Reaper had filed away about Dulce et Decorum. This was different than all of that. The violins made him feel more real, more approachable as a person, someone with interests and an entire life here, in his comfortable home. 

It makes Danny want to know more about him, someday. In the same way he wants to know more about most of the Collective. So he can get a grasp on their realness, demistify them in his own mind. He supposes this is kind of a chance, for that. So he enters the room more fully, knowing he’s welcome. He takes a seat in the comfortable armchar near the piano, and refocuses his gaze on the man of the hour. 

“Please, don’t apologise for that.” He says, and he finds that he means it. The last thing he wants from Dulce is an apology, when he hasn’t really done anything wrong. There was another world, another version of Danny that probably would have been furious with him, for even the idea of taking control for a minute. But he’s not angry. And if he’s honest, he wouldn’t have the encounter go any other way. If he had to pick between joining the ranks of Dr. Judgement drones or having an uncomfortable moment with Dulce et Decorum, he would pick Dulce any day. “You’ve been busy, cleary. A lot going on here. I get that.” 

He makes the face, his eyes wide, his little frown, exactly the expression she meant, and she lets out a laugh, covering her face with her hands and leaning her head against his shoulder as she does. It’s nice to know that there was always a bit of Danny, in the Reaper she’d known before Danny slipped through, that the less-robotic facial expressions were something shared between them, some piece of Danny she’d known much longer than she’d known his name, or what kind of clothes he liked to wear.

     “See! How could I say no to that face?” 

There’s a moment of quiet, when he laughter fades, and she watches as his expression turns serious again—not sad, she thinks, as he mentions his brother. Which she hopes means that I found Gabe doesn’t mean I had to fight my brother and it was awful and I’ll never forgive you for putting me in that situation. She brings her fingers up to the little bruise on his face again, as she takes in that information, tries to figure out what to do with it. Of course Judgement would have brought Specter with him, to something like this, if he was acting as a bodyguard the way Cas had implied. 

     “You did?” she asks, prompting him to go on, because she can tell there’s more of a story than what he’s saying. And he and Dulce had made it out of the tower and left the meet up point to usher their “hostages” back to safety long before she’d dragged herself out through Jet’s portal. 

      “Was it… is he okay? Are you okay?”

It feels so nice to know that he can make her laugh, even after the hellish day the both of them have had. As far as Danny can tell, Catalyst just got done holding an entire building up above her head. And that was on top of everything else, the whole mission she had planned and taken responsibility for. How did she get such strong shoulders, he wonders? What made her the force of nature that she was today? Maybe it was a strength she was born with, an unshakable force and an aspect of her personality that could never be taken away. Maybe it was something she had to learn, the long and hard way. Maybe a little mix of both. He’s so proud of her, but he isn’t certain how to say that, really. Isn’t sure how  to bring it up without it feeling weird. He’ll tell her, someday, when he finds the words for it.

She touches his face again, her hand delicate, looking at him with the eyes she always has when she’s thinking about something. He’s grateful for the touch. It’s a grounding thing, another reminder that no one could live inside his body but him, that he was the only one here who could make the decisions. He was the living and breathing soul inside the body, and Reaper was... he didn’t know, yet. Reaper was allowed to be something, as long as no one was taking advantage of the inherent vulnerabilities that came hand in hand with him. 

“Yeah,” He says, voice soft, but a little rough around the edges. He can still remember it, clear as day. It hasn’t slipped away from him. “Reaper and him were fighting. This brutal push and pull.” He says, trailing a finger over the bare skin of her arm. “Perfectly matched. A perfect pair. But I woke up in the middle. And it was –– him.” 

It was Gabe. His baby brother. Baby by... he didn’t know how long, how many minutes. But his mom said he was older, and he believed her. But then again, Gabe looked like he had a few years on Danny by this point. Looked exhausted 

He looks up at her again, doe eyed. “I think I saw a crack. Just a little. The tiniest moment where he was more Gabe than robot. Something just behind the eyes.” And he nods his head, then. “Hes... I don’t know if hes okay. But Dulce helped me drag him somewhere safe.”

Danny hasn’t learned yet, how to really talk to people who aren’t Catalyst. She’s the one he goes to when he’s him. Her, or Doctor Green. A limited number of people. Sometimes Daydreamer is among the ranks, and Danny does enjoy that. The boy is sweet, and maybe a little overly helpful. But He would like to expand the repertoire of people he can go to when he needs to talk. 

Maybe this will help him learn how. Because he has something to say to Dulce et Decorum, before he goes to check in on Gabe -- Spectre, again. He probably should have talked to the other man more, when their part of the mission was over. But they both had other things to be worried about. Danny had his brother. Dulce had the bullet wound that had been shot right through his wrist, the bloody and painful mess of it. Danny feels guilty, distantly, that Gabe did that to him. Hurt him. And he feels achingly grateful as well that Dulce decided to save him anyway, decided to save both of them.

He was a good man.

Danny is sure that Catalyst and Daydreamer would be likely to disagree, on that point. He had learned, even as Reaper, that they did not trust Dulce. But he was never the kind of person to base his real opinion on what other people thought -- it was nice to remember that, as a fact about himself. He liked to make his own decisions. And neither of them could argue and say that Dulce hadn’t helped him on that mission beyond belief. He had done so much for Danny, and Danny didn’t know how to thank him.

But he felt that he needed to try.

So he approaches Dulce, in the home that he has offered to so many stray souls since they cleared out the tower. And he hesitates at the door, looking at Dulce from across the room, before his knuckles rap out a soft pattern on the doorframe. “Um, hey.” He offers, a distinct difference from how Reaper would have greeted what was ostensibly a superior officer, a Handler. “Can we talk?”

Danny lays down in the space she’s made for him beside her, and she finds herself shifting just a little bit closer as he does. She finds her thoughts racing ahead of her for a moment, moving past the conversation they’re having and into other things she wants to say, wants to do: stay with me, she thinks, looking over at him. Don’t go. And she imagines drifting back off to sleep, pressed against his side, leaning into the warmth of him, imagines waking up, her fingers tangled in the soft fabric of his pajama shirt. She thinks, distantly, of what she’d said to Banshee, hours ago: hey, careful, one of those murder clones might be my boyfriend. Thinks about how sure she’d felt, saying it, a warm little spark of hope she’d been trying not to let turn into a forest fire in her heart. 

     “Yeah, I’m okay,” she says, letting out a small sigh. “Tired, but that’s the worst of it. Nothing a few more hours of sleep won’t fix.” And she really does feel better, though she knows she’s going to be feeling the over-exertion for the next few days, the bone-deep weariness of having extended her powers far beyond what she’s used to. But it’s nice to know that she’s capable of it, when it comes down to it. Though she really hopes she never has to keep a collapsing skyscraper standing ever again, honestly. 

She pushes herself back up on her elbow for a second, rolls over onto her side so she can get a look at him. He doesn’t look too bad, though there’s a colorful bruise blooming across his cheek from what looks like a pretty hard hit. Maybe it’s how tired she is right now, or maybe it’s the relief of seeing him in one piece, but she doesn’t think before she reaches out to run her fingers across it gently, barely brushing the skin.

     “I promised Reaper we’d both make it out of there okay,” she says, her voice quiet. And she smiles, a small smile, letting her hand fall back down again. “I’m glad it wasn’t a lie. You make the saddest little face, when you’re disappointed, I can’t stand it.” 

He wonders what he did, in what part of his life, to deserve someone being so soft with him. To be welcome here, in a warm space where no danger could touch him. To be allowed to lay himself down in the free space beside Catalyst, on her bed, and feel like he really belonged there. It helped some of the tension bleed away from his shoulders, it helped him settle down into the warmth of his existence, there, beside her, knowing that she would do everything in her power to help him.

Knowing that he would do the same for her. That even though he didn’t want to fight, really, to be a warrior –– he would do it for her, if she asked. He would be her warrior, and fight any battle that she asked of him. He was strong enough, after all. It was one of the things his body was good for. 

He doesn’t know if he could ever really claim violence for himself. He thinks that aprt would always belong to Reaper. But Reaper would do anything for Catalyst, as well. They have reached a consensus on that point. That is the place where their ideals meet and merge, where they become one person in the truest sense. 

Her smile is so soft, so small. Her voice quiet. It makes him want to hold his breath, and linger in this moment for as long as possible. Live here in the quiet. But he allows himself a small smile as well, in return. Because as hard as today has been, there are good parts blooming. There are things that he can feel excited about. 

“I can see that.” He agrees. A small nod of his head, looking up at her with the big eyes and the earnest expression that could probably get him whatever he wanted when he was a kid. “Initialising Kicked Puppy Protocol, beep boop.”

     Catalyst’s room, the Manor, a few hours after getting back from Guardian Tower, @reapxers​

Her first instinct, once it was all over, had been to check up on everybody. To talk to everyone—to V, to Dark Wing, to Daydreamer, to Mimic, to anyone and everyone, to make sure it had all gone okay, to see who was hurt, who needed help, to hear what had happened. But she had almost immediately realized that would be impossible for a number of reasons, not least of which was that she could barely stand up straight she was so fucking tired. You need some rest, Jet had insisted, already portalling her back to her bedroom as he said it, and she’d barely had the energy to strip out of her wet, filthy costume and pull on a sweatshirt before she collapsed into bed. 

She’s not sure how long she slept for, when a knock at the door wakes her up. She feels better, mildly, though still tired, so it must have been at least a few hours. And as she comes back to consciousness she finds the frantic racing in her chest returning, the need to rush out and check on everybody, but she puts a hand to her chest, closes her eyes, and wills her heart to slow down, to calm down, for at least a few more minutes, because panicking at this point isn’t going to change anything.

     “Come in,” she calls, a moment later, when she remembers the knock that had woken her up in the first place. Whoever they are, she hopes they won’t care that she’s still in bed, but she imagines she isn’t the only one in the Manor too aching and exhausted to convince themself to move after everything that had happened. 

The door opens slowly, light from the hallway seeping into her room along with it, and she reaches over to the lamp at her bedside, pulls the cord to turn it on and flips the switch that turns on all of the string lights in her room so that she isn’t sitting in complete darkness. And as her eyes adjust to the light, she can finally make out the figure stepping inside.

     “Danny,” she says, pushing herself up onto her elbows, relieved at the sight of him. And she can tell it’s him, and not Reaper, from the way he’s holding himself, from the expression on his face, and she distantly wonders when that happened, whether or not he’d had to contend with the whole tower thing, or if he’d woken up back at the Manor afterwards and come looking for her then. 

     “C’mere,” she says, scooting over to make space for him to sit down on the bed. “You’re okay? Is everything okay?” 

It doesn’t feel like things really slow down, after the tower mission is done. So much going on, and he ahd found himself waking up right in the middle of it, in the middle of the action. It was jarring, but it was getting easier every day to cope with the transition between him and Reaper, they way they could snap back from one to the other at a moments notice, when the right thing was there to pull one of them to the forefront and steal control from the hands of the other. He hadn’t been expecting to look at his brothers face, when he woke up though. Gabe, so blank. Beareded and strong and so clearly damaged. He’d been hurt, and controlled, and no one was helping him. 

But Dulce had let them bring him home. Dulce was keeping him safe, until they could figure out what to do about the programming he had been subjected to for so long. If Danny could start being a real person again, so could Gabe. He was confident in that. He had seen a crack, after all, just the smallest one. 

But he has to go back to the manor eventually, and rest. And the only person he wants to see when he’s there is Catalyst. He wants to check on her, to make sure she got through everything okay. The idea of her being hurt plagues him, but he’s sure that the others would have mentioned it if she was. Still, he needs to see her with his own eyes. He changes into softer clothes, pajamas, before he sees her, because he doesn’t want to feel like a warrior anymore. 

“Cat,” He says, a little raw. He’s so relieved to see her, so much he can barely hold it in. Because she’s here, she’s safe, shes getting some well deserved rest. He feels his shoulders slumping, some of the tension in him bleeding away, because he’s welcome here with her. She’s the safest thing in the world, this is the safest place that he could possibly be. He shifts, and sits down on the edge of her bed, just long enough to take off the slippers that Daydreamer had gifted him when he found out about the ‘Danny Wants Nice Things’ movement.