When Reverse Flash arrived at Danton's house, Danton was on the sofa eating pizza.
The television was running coverage of the Stagg lawsuit. The coffee table was clean — no dishes, no cutlery, nothing that suggested Elizabeth had been there recently. Just two pizza boxes and a man eating with the relaxed posture of someone who had been expecting company.
When the yellow figure materialized in the living room, Danton looked up, registered him, and held out his slice in a mild gesture of greeting.
"I'm in the middle of something. Can you give me a minute?"
Reverse Flash's fist closed.
The red lightning crossed the room. A gust of displaced air nearly took the pizza box with it. In the same instant, the hand closed around Danton's throat and drove him backward into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster, lifting him until his feet left the floor.
"You think hiding Elizabeth makes you safe?" The voice had shed its synthetic flatness. There was something real underneath it now — cold fury, or the nearest thing to fury that it could produce. "You have no concept of what I can do, Mr. Black. No concept of how fast I move. She can run to the other side of the world and it changes nothing. Santorini is an hour from where I'm standing. I can bring her back with a finger missing before you finish that pizza."
"You made a mistake provoking me. I'm going to make you understand exactly what that costs."
Danton's face had gone slightly purple. He wasn't struggling. He reached up with two fingers and tapped, almost politely, on the wrist holding him.
Reverse Flash released him and dropped him.
He hit the floor, got back up, and rubbed his throat.
"I'd appreciate it if you were a little more careful with that," he said, mildly hoarse. "Or I'd better not bother letting you leave."
The yellow figure raised one hand, fingers oriented like a blade.
"Last words?"
"Not even close." Danton looked at him steadily. "None of my clones are dying today. And I'd strongly recommend you don't go looking for Elizabeth."
Something shifted in Reverse Flash's posture.
"I mean it," Danton said. "Stay away from her."
The hand moved toward his stomach.
"If you put that hand in me again," Danton said, "your face and a detailed description of your abilities will be on every social media platform in this city within thirty seconds."
The hand stopped.
"I know you can kill any clone I put in front of you," Danton continued. "I also know you've gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure no one knows you exist. You've killed people for less information than I currently have. Which tells me that staying hidden is extremely important to you — important enough that you're willing to do whatever it takes to protect it." He let that land. "So. Think about the math."
The yellow figure was very still.
"My original body is somewhere in this city that you can't locate right now, and I won't be moving it through open space. Elizabeth is somewhere you won't find — I bought Santorini tickets, yes, but I'm not stupid enough to actually put her on the plane." Danton eased himself onto the sofa arm, still watching the figure. "You can't kill me. I can't hurt you. And if you touch anyone connected to me — her, my family, anyone — whatever I have goes out automatically. You don't even need to be present for it to happen."
Silence.
"A friend told me once," Danton said, "that there are only two ways to make someone unreasonable cooperate with you. Give them enough benefit, or cause them enough trouble. And most of the time, trouble works better — because they don't learn from incentives, but they do learn from consequences."
"I'd like to meet this friend of yours."
"He doesn't like psychopathic killers. So probably not."
Another silence, briefer.
"We don't have common interests," Danton said. "But we don't have any real conflict either — not until tonight. You want anonymity. I want to get through this lawsuit and take care of my wife. Neither of those things requires the other person to be dead." He looked at the figure directly. "If you touch my family, I burn you down on my way out. If you leave us alone, you stay invisible." He paused. "That's a deal. Do we have one?"
Reverse Flash considered this for a long moment.
Then something moved through the blurred face that might, in another context, have been respect.
He laughed — short, cold, genuine in some narrow technical sense.
The crimson lightning took him out of the room.
Danton sat on the sofa for approximately thirty seconds, not moving, while the cold sweat soaked through his shirt. Then he picked up his phone with hands that were only slightly unsteady and made a call.
It was answered on the first ring.
"Danton." Elizabeth's voice was very controlled, which meant she was frightened. "Can I come home now?"
"Yes." He exhaled slowly. "You can come home. It's done."
He ended the call and sat back.
There was a new document on his phone. No sender information. No signature.
Congratulations on surviving, Mr. Black. We'll work together again — if the opportunity arises.