Page 97 of Lovesick Titan

“When Dunkirk attacked you, that was the night I was going to tell you the truth. That’s why I’d avoided you for so long. I didn’t know how to say it without hurting you. I just knew I had to be honest, had to explain. But instead of coming clean, I lost myself in you again and…and then I ran when you opened up and told me you loved me.” He choked on the words, tears edging closer to the surface.

It was all so fresh for them still, yet so much had happened since that night.

Mal lay in a storage closet in the basement of the OCPD, wrapped in the arms ofZeus, talking love and life, maybe even a future, while he brushed away the tears leaking from Danny’s eyes. Nothing about this had to make sense, it just had to work for them.

“I forgive you, Danny. Do you forgive me? For all the rest?”

“Of course,” Danny said. “I’m not…better, maybe I’ll never be better, but when I was honest with you, that’s when I was happiest.”

“That’s just it. Wasn’t me. It was you. Being who you are and not pretending you’re okay when you’re not.”

“I know. The pills…” Danny cringed at bringing them up again, “…Lynn gave them to me to help, and they did, I believed they did, but Ludgate kept messing with me, and youhatedme, and I got so low…I thought about it. About ending it all.”

Mal would be lying if he said he’d never thought about it himself when he was young. It hadn’t stuck for him. Didn’t haunt him. Only maybe it did, in other ways, given the life he’d led, but it wasn’t the same as the pain he saw in Danny’s eyes. There was no competition over who’d had it tougher, just different pain handled differently, and sometimes it wasn’t enough without help.

“After I threw the pills away, Lynn told me the truth,” Danny continued. “Meds can’t help me. Someone else like me, sure, but not me, not with my healing. I have to crawl my way out of this slower, until something snaps into place and my body finally gets it. And maybe that’ll never happen. Maybe it’ll always be a struggle. But Ludgate is not taking my life from me. He’s not taking my happiness or my control or my hope. That’s mine, and Iamgoing to get better.

“So…if you can handle knowing I might have bad days…” Danny’s voice dropped lower, hesitant.

“We all have bad days.”

“Not like mine.”

There was a deep sadness in the way he said that, not as if he was giving up, just accepting of how much farther he still had to go, that he might always need to fight.

Mal stroked his cheek. “I think we can both admit we’ve seen each other at our best and worst. I’d still like nothing more thanthis.” Squeezing Danny closer, he tangled their legs together tight. “If that’s enough for you too?”

The clouds parted from Danny’s expression, and he smiled like he could outshine any sadness that ever touched him. It wasn’t as easy as that, Mal knew, but Danny’s light was extraordinary and kept on twinkling even when it got buried.

They went for each other at the same time, lips meeting, bodies flush in how they held on. It was all so new for Mal, having something like this. He kissed Danny’s nose when they pulled apart, and Danny giggled, tapping his fingers down Mal’s chest.

“Lynn said you figured it out, that you knew Ludgate wasn’t me. How?”

“The way he acted should have been enough, but no one jumps to the conclusion they’re looking at an imposter. Had this feeling though, wouldn’t go away, like I get on a job sometimes that’s about to go sour. Then it was the little things. No lightning. The way he ran from the room we’d blocked off from reflections. Getting inside the cold field without any sign of frost. But what made it click was when he tried to pull that black eyes con. That isn’t you.

“He said something strange though, I nearly forgot. You probably didn’t hear him.”

“What was it?” Danny asked.

“He said…‘It’s your fault he’ll never know what we’ve made of each other’. He was talking about how he blamed you for his powers.”

“The night I killed Thanatos. The explosion at the power plant had something to do with it. The aftershocks hit the circus he was visiting. Trauma’s how I got my powers, so it makes sense. But he said ‘he’llnever know’? Did he mean Thanatos? Do you think he knew him? We could never figure out Thanatos’s identity. There wasn’t much of his face left after I…” Danny cringed but pushed his cloying guilt aside. “He wasn’t in the system when we checked his DNA. Whoever he was, he didn’t have a record and wasn’t logged as an Elemental anywhere.”

The gears in Mal’s head started to turn. “Do you still have his DNA on file?”

“Sure. In our records down here.”

“And you have Ludgate’s?”

Danny nodded, easily guessing where Mal was going with this. “You think there’s more relation than just wrong place, wrong time. Ludgate used to be Cassius DougalJunior, remember?”

“So who was CassiusSenior? Nice work, Detective.” Mal tugged Danny closer. “Might solve this one yet, motive and everything. But why trick us into thinking he was Light when he’s Metal?”

“We’re missing something important. It’s terrifying enough what he can do, but with The Invisible Man suit…” Danny shuddered.

“It was strange,” Mal said, “how my mind tricked itself into thinking the suit was skin when he touched me. All those little mirrors. Only thing he couldn’t hide was the belt.”

“Belt?”

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