Chapter Text
He’d sworn he had Vlad on the ropes until he’d put a fist through Plasmius’s chest. In an instant his fury had bellyflopped to horror as he felt the icy ectoplasm lap, burn, vibrate over his submerged arm, and then the duplicate had smiled and dissipated, and Vlad’s goading drone of a monologue had started up behind him. Before he could even turn to face him, Danny had been seared with a pink blast, bearing down on his atlas and wrenching him forward, driving him into the Wisconsin dirt. As he pushed himself vertical again, he felt two more duplicates closing in from either side, and in desperation had wrapped himself in a shield. Three streams of plasma bore down on him an instant later, and slowly he felt his shield giving, his stomach turning as he continued exerting himself beyond what was healthy. Then, it had shattered, and in a blinding flash of pain he had retreated, streaking away intangibly through the forest, his eyes clenched shut and filled with afterimages.
He didn’t think. He didn’t look. He just flew, and listened. Listened for Vlad, who may have laid an extra ambush as a precaution. Listened to the wind whipping in his ears. When he was finally convinced that Vlad had given up pursuit, he didn’t slow, but allowed his mind to descend into a torpor. Everything hurt, running the gamut from stinging to throbbing. His blood crusted dry over his skin as the wind licked away its moisture.
It was a long while before he gave any thought to the direction he was flying. He pried his eyes open with some hesitance, blinked and strained to focus for several minutes, but he felt bone tired, and the pinpricks of light in the night landscape streaked by too quickly to be deciphered. Finally, he just let his eyelids sink closed again, his muddled thoughts giving up and dipping back down into his unconscious.
The next thing he remembered was a feeling like a ripple rousing him. Houses and apartments flashed by below him, smearing into something familiar, sparking a little warmth in his numb body. He flew faster, funneled by some force, like he was slipping down a gravity well. The looming silhouette of the Ops Center solidified, and Danny finally slowed his descent, falling through layers of metal and brick until he drifted down into his room. He dropped himself into his bed, accidentally fell through it, and came to rest on the floor underneath, hemmed in by forgotten dirty laundry on one side and first aid supplies on the other. He didn’t get up. He was too tired to care. Swapping forms, he clawed a shabby hoodie from the pile of laundry, dragged it under his head, and promptly fell asleep on it. Everything else could wait til morning.