"You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."

[matchmadeinhell]

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.

Comments

[goddamnwingman]

As far as Dick was concerned, there wasn't really an 'if' in that. Superman would win because there wasn't anybody else who was strong enough to stop him. As angry as he was with Bruce, he understood the desperation.

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.

[beetlebutt]

Jaime just stared at Nightwing's hand, mulling it all over. He knew they both had a point. He knew that the world Superman would create would be a horrible one for his family to live in. As it was, he had to wheel alongside Paco to and from work at the shop because he'd been messed with multiple times by Stormtroopers and the presence of a teenager in a wheelchair made them far more hesitant, due to their inability to justify it. 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?"

[goddamnwingman]

The hand had mostly just been because Dick had been ready to step away, give Jaime time to think about things.

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.

[daddyphantom]

"And the last ditch plan is last ditch for a reason," Danny admitted, "I'm not gonna lie, if we have to use it? It's skipping right past a nuclear option and straight to bringing the metaphysical incarnation of the wrath of God right down on Superman's head. And probably everyone working for him too."

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."

[beetlebutt]

"The Spectre." He knew what they were talking about. He'd run into the Spectre before and it had been one of the most terrifying moments of his life. 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."

[goddamnwingman]

The only time Dick's expression changed from serious was when Jamie corrected his cussing. And that was to fight down a smile because it was kind of funny. But it only showed in the corners of his lips quirking upwards before he pushed it down to actually listen.

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.

[daddyphantom]

"I should probably stick around until she gets here, just in case any of Superman's people try anything. If that's alright? It's not exactly likely, but better to be safe than sorry."

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?"

[beetlebutt]

Jaime signaled for Danny to follow him as the others all bustled around, wheeling his way towards his room. 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.

[daddyphantom]

"Sure," Danny said, ducking down and pulling it out, before letting his eyes scan over the posters.

"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."

[beetlebutt]

"Ah, so we're onto to the awkward hero bonding portion of the hour now, huh?" 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.

[daddyphantom]

"Trust me, I get it." Danny sat down on the edge of the bed.

"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."

[daddyphantom]

"Trust me, I get it." Danny sat down on the edge of the bed.

"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."