Superboy / Kon-El (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ya_assemble2015-05-12 10:19 pm
matchmadeinhell) wrote in ya_assemble2015-05-12 10:19 pm
"You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."
They had to try their best to do this thing incognito. After all, the plan was get in, get the shard, get out, and while several of them were total unknowns in this world, three of them ran the risk of being recognized by some of the resident superheroes and supervillains since they were from a similar dimension and had equivalents here.
Nightwing, not so much since he usually wore a mask, but Cassie and Kon didn't wear masks as part of their costumes, and Kon especially wore a very familiar face. He was younger than Kal but still approaching adulthood now and that meant his cloney resemblance to the current de facto ruler of the world was pretty uncanny now.
That was why Kon was in disguise. He was wearing his usual jeans, black long-sleeved shirt, black boots, and black gloves. But he had a dumpy, shapeless, brown jacket over top of it all, a blue baseball cap, and a pair of dorky, large-framed glasses. Fortunately, spring was only just starting in this world and hadn't quite chased away the chill of winter so they could all bundle up with clothes that made them look innocuous.
The magical door had appeared in an alley, against a nondescript wall. As soon as they were all through and had closed it behind then, Kon peered around a corner to see if he could recognize where they were by the city's night-time skyline.
"Looks like Gotham." A pause. "It's hardly recognizable, though. I've never seen Gotham this clean."
He squinted instinctually, trying to peer around some more with his X-ray vision and found it working in full when he usually struggled with it back in the Guardians' universe. He held up his hand and poured on the teke, creating a field around it.
"My powers seem to be stronger here for some reason. The ones that are limited in the Guardians' universe are back, like my teke. You guys feeling the same? Most of us are superheroes or equivalents in our worlds. Being in a superhero universe might be amping up our powers or something. Maybe making the belief stronger."
It all ran on narratives, right? Stories? This was a story superheroes were supposed to be in.
Nightwing, not so much since he usually wore a mask, but Cassie and Kon didn't wear masks as part of their costumes, and Kon especially wore a very familiar face. He was younger than Kal but still approaching adulthood now and that meant his cloney resemblance to the current de facto ruler of the world was pretty uncanny now.
That was why Kon was in disguise. He was wearing his usual jeans, black long-sleeved shirt, black boots, and black gloves. But he had a dumpy, shapeless, brown jacket over top of it all, a blue baseball cap, and a pair of dorky, large-framed glasses. Fortunately, spring was only just starting in this world and hadn't quite chased away the chill of winter so they could all bundle up with clothes that made them look innocuous.
The magical door had appeared in an alley, against a nondescript wall. As soon as they were all through and had closed it behind then, Kon peered around a corner to see if he could recognize where they were by the city's night-time skyline.
"Looks like Gotham." A pause. "It's hardly recognizable, though. I've never seen Gotham this clean."
He squinted instinctually, trying to peer around some more with his X-ray vision and found it working in full when he usually struggled with it back in the Guardians' universe. He held up his hand and poured on the teke, creating a field around it.
"My powers seem to be stronger here for some reason. The ones that are limited in the Guardians' universe are back, like my teke. You guys feeling the same? Most of us are superheroes or equivalents in our worlds. Being in a superhero universe might be amping up our powers or something. Maybe making the belief stronger."
It all ran on narratives, right? Stories? This was a story superheroes were supposed to be in.
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Dick coughed, clearing his throat. "My name's Dick Grayson. This is Danny Fenton." He wasn't really clear on how many people knew Dick Grayson was dead in this world. Giving his name might make things difficult. More difficult. Then again, he wasn't real clear on a lot of things in this world. "I'll be certain to pass it on, but until then, we really do need to talk to Jaime, Mrs. Reyes. Just for a few moments." He looked her seriously in the face. "Your son will know who I am, ma'am. He'd know that, given everything, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important."
There was going to be a reckoning when they got back to the Bat Base. Because Dick hated being sent into things blind.
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He nodded toward Nightwing.
"You know how he was about the Titans. They were his friends. It's up to him - if he says no, then they are going to leave." Because he would make them. "But...I think something is going on here that he might want to know about. Let me go ask him if he wants to talk to them or not."
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Bianca bristled, then calmed down slightly at her husband's words.
"Fine. But the second he wants you to leave, you are going to leave. Or this time, I'll be the one tossing you through a window."
She meant it.
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"He says you can come in." Alberto emphasized, "For now."
When they came into the house, they were met by even more glares and stares. Jaime's friends Brenda and Paco, who also lived in the house, were staring coldly from where they sat on the couch. Brenda's arms were crossed in front of her, and Paco looked like his arms would've been crossed too if he hadn't been busy playing with the three-year-old that sat next to him.
Paco leaned down to the girl's level and pointed at Nightwing and Danny.
"See those people, Alina? We don't like those people. If they come near you, you should throw up on them."
The girl giggled.
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Bianca sat next to Jaime at the island and Alberto pulled out a chair at the dining room table and turn it around to sit on it, leaning on his cane.
The sound of a scribbling pencil cut through the tense silence. Jaime looked like he was possibly doing homework. Without looking up from it, he gestured with the pencil at some chairs in the dining room near his father.
"Sit. And talk fast." He glanced up at Nightwing and pointed at him with the pencil, narrowing his eyes. "And also explain how you're alive. You're supposed to be dead."
He paused as if listening to something.
"Never mind, Scarab says you have magic and alternate dimension-ey particles on you. So I guess you're an alternate version and you're...some guy, I don't know who you are. Great, Batman's giving my secret ID out to total strangers. Pendejo."
He shook his head, looking disgusted.
"What do you want? I have calculus homework."
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Dick sat down, keeping his physical stance open and settled as much as possible. The Scarab would be keeping track of things like heartbeat and such, after all. "Danny's not even from our world. So it doesn't really matter what he knows or not in this case. Just to give you a little more peace of mind."
He looked to Bianca and Alberto before looking back to Jaime. "Right. So, the short version is that this is one of those massive dimension-hopping pieces of stupidity that happen from time to time. Danny and I were both pulled out of our worlds into another one, where there's an ancient evil from beyond reality trying to horn his way in and take over. So, the Powers that Be in that world started bringing in heroes from other worlds to help fight it. Bits of that world, though, are falling off into other, surrounding worlds and we sometimes have to hop over to find them."
Leaning forward, Dick took a breath. "A group of us was sent in here. Myself and Danny, two more heroes from other worlds, and two more from my own world: Kon and Cassie." Names that would make sense to Jaime, he hoped. "I'll admit, we were trying not to get involved because if we can't get the shard back to the world it belongs to, it could cause the unraveling of reality itself. But the other side got here first and told Batman about the group that would be coming to retrieve it. And he didn't trust what he knew of us to just ask."
Which, honestly, is the part that annoyed Dick the most. "To be fair to your mother, I'm pretty certain the only person around here doesn't want to punch Batman is Alfred, and that's only because he's too much of a professional to do so." Dick wanted to. He just wouldn't. "So. We're working on a plan to deal with things. Well, really, about three or four different plans, depending on how things pan out." He glanced to Bianca, then grimaced. "And yes, part of one of those plans is talking to others here that might be able to come out of retirement long enough to help. As well as going to free the Titans.
"However, even if you don't want to fight--and, honestly, I'm not sure I could blame you--we could still use the Scarab's help. One of the plans at the moment involves a piece of K that we brought from another world. It won't work against him as it is, but there might be ways to change the composition so that it will do something. And the Scarab's a better scanner than we have access to at the moment."
Just from the scar on Jaime's face, asking him to fight might be a long shot. But even the Scarab's help with the Kryptonite would be more than they could manage on their own.
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Most of his family would then smack him for making that decision and then immediately arm themselves and help him go after whoever had threatened them, but admitting that wasn't really going to help their case right now.
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They could likely tell he was listening because for all he was being stern and annoyed and curt, his expressions hid nothing. They grew more and more troubled as he listened, his brow furrowing. He looked like he didn't even know what to ask about first - and was that a surprise with how much they were telling him? Batman holding something important hostage to get these other dimension people to help, the Titans being alive, plans to take Superman out, k-rock that they might be able to work with - it was a lot to take in.
The expression only softened a little when Danny spoke up. The offer - and Danny saying he had a family he worried about too - clearly hit a note. But then one part of what he said registered and Jaime looked up, mouth dropping open in surprise.
"Are you telling me he didn't even tell you? Batman sent you here - you people from another dimension that don't know everything that happened - and didn't tell you what he and Superman did?"
He and Superman. The both of them. He threw his pencil down and leaned back in his chair slightly, clapping his hands together and pushing them through his hair.
"¡No puedo creerlo! Wow. Wow. Ay ay."
He dropped his hands and leaned forward again, speaking much more animatedly now.
"Okay, okay, so, before we get into this, before we talk about this anymore, before this whole crazy world-saving drama train even leaves the station, I am going to make a deal with you," Jaime said, his expression equal parts furious and amused. "I'm going to tell you what Superman - and Batman - did, what they did to me, what they did to the people I care about, and if you can look me in the eye after - right in the eye -" He pointed to the eye on the scared side of his face "- and say 'Jaime, you should help us,' then I'll actually consider doing it. Okay? I think that's fair."
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The Titans were there, too, in plainclothes. Starfire, Beast Boy, Wonder Girl, Superboy, Kid Flash. Even Tim Drake was there in his civvies, massive sunglasses obscuring his eyes. Peacemaker was helping Jaime's father at the grill. Guy Gardner was there in Hawaiian shirt with a beer. (Damper had used his powers so no one noticed Jaime Reyes had a bunch of superheroes in the back yard.)
And there were a group of people tattooed and in wife beaters and do rags, that looked like they'd led a very different kind of life than Jaime had, who nevertheless, were clearly welcomed by Jaime's family. Alina, the little girl with Paco, was much younger in the picture, held in the lap of a particularly beautiful young woman with bleached blonde hair - her mother, Bonita. There was also a woman, impeccably dressed, that was talking to Brenda.
"That woman in the suit was Amparo, Brenda's aunt. A crimelord - a former crimelord - named La Dama. When Brenda's mother got sick, she found out she might have to take care of her niece someday, and she started to go clean, and after I got involved with her, she pretty much went all the way legit. Even helped me with my fight against the Reach, protected my family. I watched her pretty carefully. She still did a few illegal things here and there but mostly to keep the cartels out of El Paso in a way I never could. Used her resources and her people to make them very...unwelcome."
In ways that Jaime never could've done, but were nevertheless in the only language people like them understood.
"She took to trading in magical antiquities - which meant she had access to things that could hurt Superman. When Superman started to take over, that was how she decided to help. Due to her ties to the criminal underworld, she could get her hands on things that no hero could've gotten. I helped hook her up with some heroes - Batman, Jason Blood, Zatanna. She'd give them artifacts to look into, see if they could weaponize, leads to where certain magical things might be hidden. She said that was her way of helping out - and her way of finding redemption. Maybe she'd done wrong for a long time but she could use what she'd done with that life to help stop him, to make the world better."
She'd cared more about being a positive influence on the world than Superman, in the end.
"She was a person. Maybe she deserved jail - it was something I struggled with all the time, deciding whether or not to take her in or leave her free to protect more people by making sure there was no power vacuum for the cartels to take her place. Either way, though, she was a person and if she was ever going to die, she deserved a trial first."
That made it clear already where this was going.
"One of her men got caught by Superman's people running something for her and sold her out. He was well paid and loyal, someone that'd done time for working for her in the past without rolling on her. We're pretty sure he was tortured and killed by Superman's people. We never saw him again and he never had a trial, never went to jail after. I was never able to track him by DNA when she asked. So, after finding out what she was doing, passing magical things to his enemies, one day, Superman and his people came for her."
He nodded again at the picture.
"Those other people in the picture, the Posse, they were a street gang. No drug running or anything, mostly protection, border crossing, that kind of thing. They weren't so bad. They helped protect my family too and defended El Paso against the Reach. When La Dama was attacked, they defended her. She'd offered protection to some magical people that didn't want to be messed with by the outside world, helped some of their friends when they'd gotten into trouble, and they wanted to return the favor."
Jaime's gaze went down to the counter, to his hands, as if he was imagining something.
The blood on them, he was imagining Piñata's blood on his hands while he'd try to put pressure on the wounds killing her.
"They were people, but all Superman saw were gang members and crimelords. Bad people. Nowadays, he doesn't care what he and his people do to 'Bad people.' Hell, he kills good people. He kills his own friends. What would the lives of some gangbangers and a crime lord matter to him? So when they wouldn't back down, it turned into a blood bath. I tried to stop it, tried to make it de-escalate but they just started - they just started cutting through them. My friends. The League just -"
He cut off. His mother was watching him with concern and sadness in her eyes, like she wished she could go back in time and rip the pain out of his life with her bare hands, and put a hand on his shoulder. Where Paco and Brenda sat on the couch, Brenda sat with her hands clenched on the cushions, and Paco wrapped an arm around her. Jaime's father sat next to Nightwing, hands clenched tightly on his cane. Alina was the only one oblivious to the situation, happily playing with her Barbies on the couch as Jaime talked about the death of her parents.
"So I had to fight Superman. I had to fight the League. My girlfriend Traci - Traci 13 - she's got magic powers. She teleported in to help me, but we didn't stand a chance."
He shook his head, expression furious.
"Do you know how many times I helped Batman? He helped me against the Reach but I helped him too. Tracking alien weapons smuggling operations, helping him with some alien conspiracies, things like that. I even saved his life once. He was always - everyone goes on about how cold he is but I thought he was a good person, under all that. He sort of acted mentor-ey, you know? And I was on my own with this. I never got to meet Ted Kord, so it was people like him, and Peacemaker, and Guy Gardner, the Titans sometimes helping me out, that made it so I learned how to do this superhero thing right."
He drew in a deep breath.
"So when I called him for help, to get them all out of there, I thought he would come, like all the times I came when he called me. I mean, they could've even been useful in the fight against Superman. Low-level magic users, but still magic users, and La Dama had all those connections to the magical underworld."
He was shaking slightly now.
"He said Zatanna was out, hunting down some magical people, that he couldn't get her on the comms, that he had no one that could do a quick teleport. He said he couldn't afford the risk to his people, not for a group of criminals." He practically vibrated with anger. "All those times I risked my neck for him and the one time I'm desperate, that I beg for help to protect my people, he just said no."
The anger faded slightly. Only slightly.
"And part of me gets it. After what happened to Green Arrow, Black Canary...his people. But these were my people, my allies, my friends."
A pause. "My girlfriend."
He finally looked up Dick and Danny.
"Sinestro threw us at each other and I couldn't retract my arm blades in time. She'd already lost an arm to Superman's heatvision. And Superman...hurt me. We were laying there on the ground together, looking into each other's eyes as we were dying. She kept saying it wasn't my fault, over and over. The others were all dead by then anyway, so I got us away, through the Bleed, to one of the DEO facilities that'd helped me out before. They didn't like Superman, felt like he was a threat to the world, so they patched us up. Luckily, we survived. Barely. I coded three times on the operating table and the Scarab had to revive me."
He shook his head.
"I wasn't going to let it stop me, in the beginning. I wanted to make Superman face justice. With Superman being like that, with Batman turning his back on people that needed help, I thought to myself 'I'm going to be different.' Because the world needs heroes that aren't like that. I told myself I'd never throw people's lives away like Superman, and that I'd never turn my back on people who needed me like Batman."
He pointed to the front door.
"But then he showed up at my front door. Superman. Somehow he found me. He told me that he could let it go, what I'd done - what I'd done, like I was the one that did something wrong - that he could tell I'd just made a mistake, protecting the wrong people out of loyalty, and how it really was best that I consider not superheroing anymore since I clearly had trouble making the right choices."
He swallowed thickly and his voice went thick with rage.
"And he said I had a beautiful family and how I had to be careful that nothing happened to them. Then my sister threw a mug at his head and my dad got in his face - my dad got in Superman's face - and told him to get the hell out of his house. It was my mom that chased him off, though. Superman's secret ID is public and has been a while - she threatened to find his parents' phone number and talk to his mother about what he was doing. That got him out the house real quick."
He looked each of them with love and fondness - and misery - and then back to Dick and Danny.
"And that's when I knew I had to retire, because I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk him hurting them." His voice cracked. "He came to my house, to my home, and threatened my family. He killed my friends. He nearly killed me and my girlfriend. And while I was getting sliced to ribbons by his monsters like Sinestro -" He gestured to the scare on his face "- and my friends were dying around me, while my girlfriend was dying in my arms, while I was trying to do what we are supposed to do as superheroes, Batman was busy being the general of his little war instead of protecting people."
Jaime turned away, as if to stand up, but instead of standing up, he disappeared behind the counter, as if lowering himself down onto something. His mother moved to help him but stopped herself when it was clear he'd managed it on his own. There was the subtle sound of metal and plastic moving slightly - and then a sound Dick probably recognized due to his time with Barbara Gordon: The click of a wheel lock on a wheelchair being released.
Then there was the sound of wheelchair wheels rolling across the floor. Jaime wheeled around the corner of the kitchen island in his wheelchair. His legs were gone, amputated just above the knee.
"And then they both had the nerve - the nerve - to show up at my home after." Jaime pointed to his face and stared them down. "After all of that, after one of them tore apart my entire world and heatvisioned my legs off, and after the other turned his back on me and on people who needed help, you want my help. After Superman threatened my family, you want my help. So. Just like I said." He laid down his challenge again. "Look at me in the eye and tell me that I should help you."
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"Nobody should go through what you have. And I'm not going to tell you that you should help us. It's entirely your decision, and we didn't come here to order you around to begin with."
But they did need Jaime to help. Maybe not absolutely, they still had a shot at this without him, but they still needed all the help the could get.
"But there's something else you need to know before you make it." Between the comics and his own encounters with those who tried to rule the world, Danny could almost forsee the future of what would happen if Superman won, and it wasn't a pretty picture.
"From what we can tell, Superman's been getting worse. Between Wonder Woman egging him on, and everything else, he's been getting less and less stable. What do you think is going to happen if he wins?"
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Finally, though, he does look up at Jaime, looking the young man straight in the eye. "I can't tell you that you should help us. Hell, you're a smart guy. You know the odds that we're going up against, what the chances are. If you can't run the odds yourself, the Scarab probably can. You come and fight with us and I can't make any guarantees that you'll get out of it. But, I can't make any guarantees that we'll get out of it, either."
Maybe Danny. Probably Kon and Cassie. Possibly Peter and Haruto. Dick...well, Dick's human and the greater strength and durability that comes with being a Guardian only goes so far when everybody you're going to be going up against has super powers. "Then again, the lack of guarantee has never really stopped most of us before, either."
He brushed his hands over his thighs and stood, offering Jaime his hand. "I can't order you to help us and I wouldn't even if I could. Like Danny said, it's your choice. If we get through this, there's a healer back in the other world we've been pulled to that we'll bring back with us and have him look at you, see if there's anything he can do."
He paused a moment, then looked around at them all. "What I will offer is the protection of our base for you and your family for as long as this takes. Not contingent on you fighting or even helping with the science." It was the least of what he was owed, after all. "For what it's worth, though..." He tilted his head toward the picture. "I do know what it's like."
It may have been a year ago, but the Wall was still up around Blüdhaven. There wasn't much he could do there, these days. But it still weighed on him.
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The entire world was becoming a police state.
But the risks...the risks were something he just couldn't live with.
He didn't take Dick's hand. He turned his head away, closing his eyes, making his decision clear.
"I'm not risking my family."
Except the door had been opened, by Dick and Danny pointing out that it was the right thing to do, by promising that his family could be protected while he did it. The door had been opened by them actually showing empathy for his situation instead of turning their backs on him and then expecting help anyway.
Batman had never even said he was sorry.
The door had been opened by pointing out that a future where Superman ruled everything was a future that would be horrible for everyone - his family included.
The door had been opened and he just needed a little nudge to be pushed through. As chance would have it, something nudged.
Alina, curious over the arguing, curious over the picture that had been thrown to Nightwing, put her Barbie down on the couch, and walked over. She picked up the picture from where it'd been left on the table.
"Mami," she said in a low and mournful voice. "Papi."
Jaime opened his eyes and turned to look at her. She walked over, waving the picture at him, then climbed into his lap, as she so often did. She pointed at them again, as if showing them off to Jaime.
"Mami. Papi."
Jaime's face contorted into one of grief and misery and he covered his eyes with his hand. For a moment, all he could do was sit there in silence, hand over his eyes, tears trickling down his cheeks, as Alina looked at the picture thoughtfully.
Then he managed to calm himself down and wiped at his face.
"Yes, that's your mami and papi," he said shakily, pressing a kiss to her temple. "And they loved you very, very much. Just like Mama Bianca and Papa 'Berto, and Paco and Brenda, and me and Milagro. They loved you so very much."
Enough to beg for him to make sure she'd be taken care of as they died. They hadn't wanted her to get spirited off by social services, just to fall through the cracks. So he had promised. He had promised to make sure she'd be taken care of but how could he do that if he let the world go to hell? How could he protect his family if he stood back and let evil happen? That was how evil won, when good people saw it and did nothing.
That's all it took: an opportunity to do something being handed to him and one quiet moment of being reminded of who and what needed to be saved.
"Do you guys even have a plan?" he asked. "And is it a super-good plan or is it one of those plans that depends on a ridiculous number of things happening at exactly the right time?"
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He was glad, in the end, that he didn't have to do so. Though it broke his heart to watch it and he allowed it to show on his face. Because he wasn't Batman and it wouldn't do any of them any good to hide it.
Finally, though, the question that Dick had been waiting for. Because he knew it was coming. "We're working on several plans that all but the last ditch depend on a lot of things going right. Some of it on how many, if any, we can lure over from his side. Some that depend on what we can get out of the science team. And, yeah, some that will depend on a ridiculous number of things happening correctly." Well, it wasn't like he was trying to lie to the kid.
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Even if Danny hadn't been shown the images, he could guess how gruesome that was going to be. God's wrath, at least according to the Old Testament, wasn't exactly what anyone would call focused. The likely death tolls of the biblical flood alone were enough to prove that much.
"That's going to be as bad as it sounds. Probably worse, really."
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He shook his head, and sat there, elbow on the arm of his wheelchair, rubbing his chin, gaze cast down to the floor. Alina pressed a little kiss to his cheek, thoughtlessly in the way children did in how they showed love to their family, and got off his lap, walking over to Paco and Brenda to show them the picture, too, and play with her Barbie again.
Bianca Reyes walked over, standing behind Jaime, a hand resting on the back of his chair and looked down at him. She looked like she wanted to say something, wanted to beg him to turn his back on this, tell him that he owed nothing to anyone, but she knew that wasn't her right to say, not while he was thinking it over for himself. So she stood there and watched, and Alberto sat there and watched his son, his grip on his cane tight. Paco and Brenda sat and watched, waiting for Jaime to make up his mind. Where Milagro sat on the floor at the foot of couch, she stared at her brother and looked like she was possibly holding her breath.
For all Bianca and Alberto clearly were the masters of this household, when it came to matters like these, matters of life and death and the protection of the innocent, Jaime was the center of the little solar system of their family. They were the satellites that spiraled around him waiting to see where the pull of gravity he exerted would take them next. The Reyes household was its own little universe, with its own physics, and the fundamental force behind those physics was very clearly and very obviously love.
"So, you want me to help you after Batman wouldn't help me, after everything I've lost, after all the people I've seen die. You barely have a plan and it depends on a ridiculous number of things happening at exactly the right time and your backup plan involves calling down the literal wrath of God, when the Spectre's basically entirely uncontrollable. Which is a stupid plan. That's an idiotic plan. I'd be a moron to want to help you."
He looked up at his mother, looked at his father, looked at Milagro where she sat on the floor, at Paco and Brenda. Then he looked at Alina, playing with her Barbie and babbling happily, not fully understanding what she had lost, too young to understand what else she might lose in the world that Superman would make.
"Good thing, then, that I'm a superhero," he said, and his voice was still filled with bitterness and something like self-mockery but it was starting to slough away. The rough edges were smoothing out and the darkness could no longer keep its hold, like it was trying to cling to some slick surface, too smooth and bright to smother entirely. Even as he sat there, he sat up a little taller and his eyes, though sharp and still filled with something that burned with intensity, looked a little less haunted.
"Baby, you don't have to do this," Bianca said to him. "Just because they're asking for help -"
"I don't have to," Jaime said, gazing up at her. "I want to. I haven't stopped wanting to. Every day I watch them doing worse and worse things on the TV and can't do anything to stop it. But this is our chance. Batman never would manage it alone, even if I helped, but -" He gestured to Nightwing, to the newcomer who clearly had his priorities straight.
Compassion. Empathy. Understanding that the hard choices were the last ones that anyone should consider making.
"This. This is different. This is luck or fate or God or something helping set things right and we might actually have a chance." He shook his head, his expression growing firmer. "I'm not leaving the Titans wherever they are if they're still alive and they can be saved. I'm not letting these people die trying to fix our world's problems. I'm not letting those murderers get away with killing good people like Guy and Black Canary and Green Arrow and the Posse - or even not-so-good people like La Dama - or hurting me and Traci, or causing Paco's family to die because they don't care about collateral damage..."
He finished, "And I'm sure as hell not sitting by while Milagro and Alina grow up in a world where Superman and his people get away with all that, and turn everything into a nightmare where they control everyone." A pause, then he corrected, realizing his mother might get on him for cursing, "Sure as heck. I am sure as heck not sitting by while that happens. That's what I've always fought against, people trying to control people, like the Reach. That's why I fought the Spectre, because he wanted to take away those prisoners' chances of redemption. That world, where people control people, is not a world I want to live in, either. That's not a world I can live in."
His mother looked like she was going to weep and his expression matched hers.
"You understand that, right? If I don't do this now, Superman and his people will cross a line someday in the future, something I can't just turn away from, only I won't have people to fight side by side with then." Especially given that he couldn't trust that Batman and his people had his back. "I will fight them alone, and I will die. Alone. That's what's going to happen."
For a moment, he and his mother just stared at each other, while Bianca tried to figure out what she was going to say, tried to find the words. Then, perhaps emboldened by what she saw in her son's eyes, she jutted out her jaw and gently caressed her son's cheek.
"No, mi hijo, that's not what's going to happen," she said firmly. For a moment, it seemed as if she was unable to accept that truth, that future that would probably come to be. For a moment, she seemed to be saying that it wouldn't happen because she was in denial. But then she made it clear that wasn't the case, by saying, "because when you go to help these people -" She nodded at Nightwing and Danny "- fight Superman and his monsters, you're going to kick. Their. Asses."
She reached down to hug her son and as she did, she turned to the rest of her family, her voice now steel. "It's time to get our emergency bags, we're leaving."
Alberto stood up and walked over to his son and wife, holding her, pressing a hand against his shoulder, just for a moment. Then he turned to Paco and Brenda and the kids. "You heard her. We planned for this, everyone. Emergency bags now. Milagro, go pack your toys that you don't have packed in your emergency bag. Brenda, you get Alina's things. Paco, call Ernesto and tell him we have a family emergency- "
"We can say my mother is sick," suggested Bianca, as she jumped into action with the rest of her family. "I'll call her, tell her not to worry if we don't talk to her for a while so she doesn't call the shop or the hospital asking about us. She said we could use her as an excuse, if we ever needed to. She knew we might, that Jaime might change his mind."
Alberto nodded. "Tell him Bianca's mother is very sick and might be close to passing and that the family's traveling to Mexico City to be with her, that he's in charge of the shop until we're back."
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In the end, though, his shoulders slumped in relief as Jamie made his decision and his family started moving. "Take your time to get what you need. Z's got another team in a pocket universe at the moment and promised to contact us when she's out to get people back to base. And they're going to need some time to set up rooms for you guys there. Which I'll go warn them about now."
Because Alfred would prefer the warning, even though he would handle things fine if they just showed up. But Dick tried not to do things like that.
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Sometimes attacks came from out of the blue. It was an occupational hazard. And Danny might not have been able to fight Superman toe-to-toe for an extended period, but he wasn't exactly a slouch power-wise. If someone did attack, he could definitely hold them off long enough for the Reyes to get away.
"And if I am staying, I might as well be doing something. Need any help getting prepped?"
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His room looked like many a boy's room did at that age - messy and lived in. The only thing clear of clutter was the hardwood floor, and only because it had to be for Jaime to maneuver around in his wheelchair. However, where some teenage boys might have had sports and comics posters, Jaime had nerd stuff. Lots of nerd stuff. A telescope at the window, posters with views from the Hubble telescope on the walls, a poster of the periodic table.
Then there were the robots. Just small little things, mechanical contraptions littered all over, some of them still half built. One of them seemed to be some kinda of Rube Goldberg-esque contraption whose primary function seemed to be closing the door from his bed. Another, attached to a remote controlled car, seemed to exist to open his window from his desk. Most of them looked fairly functional, if simple, meant to help someone with limited mobility and the kind of things that were possibly ordered as kits from hobbyist sites. He wasn't really some genius engineer, just a bored kid that was good at fixing cars, that'd found a lot of time on his hands and a needed to have something to focus on.
There were a lot of them. For all his room was full of fun things, it also gave the impression of being a place where he hid and found anything he could to fill the emptiness in his life with, to focus all his attention on.
"There's a blue duffel bag under my bed, can you get it out for me?" he asked Danny, wheeling over to his desk to grab some notebooks and stuff them in another bag.
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"Hubble Deep Field, Helix Nebula, Crab Nebula, Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, Sombrero Galaxy, Magellanic Cloud..." Danny pointed out each in turn, with the practiced eye of someone who'd been an amateur astronomer since before he could even spell either word.
"Had these exact same posters all over my walls of my room when I was your age. And currently all over the walls of the lab in my basement."
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But the cynicism wasn't quite as cynical as it could've been.
"Space kind of gets cooler and simultaneously loses its appeal when you've been up to it," he said. "Though to be fair, the one time I was up there, it was to help the Justice League take down a creepy alien death satellite. Annnd I wound up falling between dimensions for a few seconds and a whole year passed back home."
No Brother Eye in this universe, but there had still been hostile aliens using Reach technology.
"I've always thought about, like, maybe seeing how far I could go with the scarab, because I'm pretty sure he can make portals or something but I was always afraid to go too far from home, in case something bad happened and I couldn't come back."
Lots of hostile aliens out there. Like the Reach.
"Still, I hoped I'd get to maybe poke around the solar system a little bit, you know?. I wanted to do a lot of things." He went quiet for a moment. "But I couldn't risk being seen in the suit."
He'd had to deny a part of himself all this time. The scarab had to deny a part of itself, the part that had become something more than a weapon. There had been so much good they could have done, so much that Jaime could've explored and taken joy in. After figuring the suit out, after the scarab had become his friend and he'd no longer been terrified by the strange creature inside his body, being in the suit and having the powers had made him happy. Helping people had made him happy.
"I think that's what I hated the most," he admitted, and whether it was that Danny felt approachable or that finally talking about all this made it easier to keep talking about it - or both - he kept talking. "The scarab and I, we're -"
It was hard to put into words and he didn't know if it'd sound creepy when he did.
"We're both separate people. But when we're the Blue Beetle, we're both someone different together. When we're in the suit - when he is the suit - we're something else that isn't just Jaime and isn't just Khaji Da." He was his friend now, always in his ear, but when they were the Blue Beetle, they flowed in and out of each other and were something different. Better. "I don't care that much about my legs. The chair's a pain in the butt but the suit can make me legs if I want to fight, even if it hurts. But all this time, thanks to them, we haven't been able to...to be."
He paused his careful gathering of notebooks and notes - and what looked like a journal - and just looked at the surface of his desk, his expression almost haunted.
"They took who we are away."
He sounded a little shaken over that, as if he hadn't realized how deep and terrible a wound it was until now, until realizing what he'd lost by taking it back again.
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"When I was about 15, I got pulled into an alternate universe. Depowered, forced into gladiatorial games for the amusement of a dictatorship, not able to do anything about it...there was a lot more to it than that, but I really don't want to go into too much detail. Let's just say Panem blows and leave it at that. And when I got back home, I couldn't do anything to help the people who were still stuck there."
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"When I was about 15, I got pulled into an alternate universe. Depowered, forced into gladiatorial games for the amusement of a dictatorship, not able to do anything about it...there was a lot more to it than that, but I really don't want to go into too much detail. Let's just say Panem blows and leave it at that."
It had been a mess, and he still had nightmares about it occasionally.
"Took me about two years of therapy to get past it. If you get a chance once this is all over, I'd actually suggest it. I know, we're superheroes, we should be able to deal with anything on our own and not dump our personal problems affect anyone else, but...sometimes we need to."