i am gonna regret the day that i was born

The pain that came with the catharsis in talking about Jules, is still one that threatens to swallow him whole. Even a century later it stills pains him just as badly as it did all those years ago, if not more somehow now, now that he’s lived long enough to see the effects of Jules’s decision play out generation after generation. Jules’s decision, and the impact it had on both of their lives, had always been the main source of his pain. It wasn’t losing Jules to death, that he managed to come to terms with, and had hoped that wherever the rest of himself was out there, he managed to find Jules there too. 

After taking another step forward his eyes land on an old stone bench, nestled amongst the trees, and its another remnant of a life long gone. Taking a seat on it, he spots his own phantom version of Jules again, staring back at him from a tree across the way. There wasn’t a lot of evidence left of the true life the two of them lived together, outside of this small grove of trees, but he figures they could have done worse than leave this behind- something beautiful rather than painful. 

“He was…” he draws out as he looks over to the phantom, almost wanting to ask him how he’d want to be described. “I lot like you, frankly. His father was a general, and had enough sway and political power to make sure his children who were born with powers didn’t have to go to the state-run schools like everyone else. But that didn’t make their lives any better, just a different kind of hell.” 

“His father was the first one to bring forth the idea of utilizing the oldest of us to fight in the next war- and that was the early makings of The Guardian Program. I along with a couple dozen others were drafted into our own specialized unit, when it became clear we were to go to war with the Spanish. He wasn’t drafted,” he adds, glancing from Jase back to Jules where he was still standing a few yards away, the phantom’s features slipping into a weak smile, encouraging him to go on, “he volunteered, I think partially to prove his worth to his father, but also for the chance to get away from him and the rest of his family. Even if getting away meant going to war.” 

He huffs a weak laugh at the first memory he has of Jules, all green and clearly not knowing what in the hell he’d signed himself up for when he walked into the den of neglected beasts that was the Superhuman Unit. “I hated him at first, thought he was just some spoiled brat of the general, who was there to play soldier. But that changed after a while, he was different than I thought he was, he looked after us in a way he didn’t have to. He wasn’t a fighter, even though he was a hell of a good one, but he made sure that we were actually treated like human beings for once- made sure we got the supplies and rations we needed, but made a point of not letting the others know he was doing it. That was when he and I became friends, and eventually more.” 

He could honestly sit there all afternoon, and go over everything from the first time when he saved Jules out in the battlefield, taking a musket ball through his calf in the process, and when Jules saved him when he came down with yellow fever and had nearly died himself. He doesn’t though, figuring there could always be time for those stories later should Jase want them. 

“He tried to do what you managed to do in the end- to leave, and make a life of his own here. And for a good while we did just that,” he’s mad at his younger self for how naïve he was back then, to think they would actually get away with it, and how often he tried to downplay Jules’s own fears, until they eventually became a reality. The phantom’s smile wanes then before what he says next, and shifts back into the all too familiar weight of grief he’d grown so used to seeing Jules wear in their later years. “He had a sibling, much like yours, that through threatening my life managed to get him back into the fold. The rest would become history, and eventually what came before would fall victim to that history as well, to better fit the narrative of the Courtney name. And as for me… well, every story needs its monster.” 

He watches as Mathias seems to get lost in his own thoughts, his own memories, as he summons the memory of the man he’d loved, of their story together. And none of it is entirely what Jase was expecting, but none of it feels unexpected, either. In fact, it feels strangely familiar, the mix that comes from understanding, instinctively, what it must have felt like to want to badly to run away that you joined a war in order to do it, and from hearing the facts he’d heard told in other stories all of this time. Of the early days of the Guardian Program, how closely tied the Courtneys had always been to what would eventually become the Guardians as they were today. A legacy that was theirs by birthright, his dad had always told him and Clint: they were born to be Guardians, to be heroes. 

And it makes his chest ache, a little, to hear Mathias talk about him. With all of the love, and longing, the deep sadness that comes with it, threaded through even the best of the memories Mathias seems to have. 

     “He went back?” Jase says, surprised, and confused. Because while everything else, every other minor difference between Mathias’ story and the stories he’s heard makes sense—details seen different ways from different sides, the fact that Mathias spent so much more time with him than anyone in the family would have, especially after he left, that some of the facts might have been twisted over the course of being told dozens of times, passed down from Courtney to Courtney—this one he can’t reconcile. In the stories Jase had always heard, he’d died. Killed by Mathias, which wasn’t something he still believed, once he met Shadow, once he heard the first pieces of this story from Mathias himself. 

But now he can tell he’s missing more pieces than he thought he was, about all of this. That there are too many gaps, spaces that don’t add up, between the story Mathias knows from experience and the one that had been passed down the Courtney line. 

It’s kind of a weird thing to feel connected to someone that they only just met, to be honest. They haven’t done a very good job at making friends over the past five years, even if they’re glad to say they do have a nice, small group of people they can count on. After all, they only just started the emotional vulnerability thing recently, and it’s an adjustment to say the least, but it’s clear that it’s a good thing all around, even if it fucking hurts sometimes. Because, yeah, this conversation was royally fucked, and the fact that they’re all but certain that Clint hurt them in some way or another when they were together before they died is even more fucked, nearly as fucked as everything Jase has gone through maybe, it’s good that they had it. They’re glad that Jase chose to reach out to them, to give them that honesty, and they feel good about being honest with him in turn. 

And it feels good to end it with a little laugh, even if it’s strained, considering how heavy things are. It’s something, though, especially knowing this is only really the beginning in figuring out what their own part in this shit is.

“Maybe you’re right, I never really considered there might be levels to it. Guess that means I need to try it on a layperson as a control first, then,” they say, with a huff of a laugh. It’s a joke, yeah, but they can’t help but wonder if it might be true to some extent. With how wild their powers are anyway, and how they were immediately drafted into being a cult messiah by said priest once they woke up, they wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there were weird caveats about how hard different resurrections would be. It makes them think about the offer they gave to Captain Covert, if something strange would happen resurrected a glorified Moses or not. Still, they think they could manage Jase’s burn scars, no matter how bad they might be under his clothes, but that’s a consideration for another time.

For now, they’re kind of weirdly grateful for him stopping by and giving them more of a warning, inadvertently triggering that feeling in their gut that makes them all the more certain they need to figure out what their past with Clint was, and fast, before anything else can happen. The handshake feels like it seals some kind of bond there, horrifying as a bond it is, to have to come together because someone’s tried to control then both, hurt them both, but in a weird way, they’re glad to know whatever they find out, they won’t be dealing with it on their own, even if Jase doesn’t join them in revenge. They nod, giving his hand a squeeze, before letting go, the temptation to offer a little healing now too deep to hold on for too long.

“I’ll, uh, let you know when I figure things out…I appreciate you coming to talk to me, not everyone would do something like that,” Lazarus nods, shifting a little. “I’ve gotta go see a ghost about a secret identity, though, so I’ll see you around, yeah?”

They’re not necessarily surprised by the warning that comes along with Jase giving his approval to kill his brother if it comes down to it, but it’s still something that catches their attention in a different way. To hear that he already gave the same warning to Night Hunter about whatever plan she came up with to give Clint back even an ounce of what he did to her––which they have to assume doesn’t necessarily involved the bodily harm that Lazarus has on their mind––says something important. There’s a real fear there, a fear that comes from experience, knowing what Clint does to the people you care about if you’re caught making a choice he doesn’t think you should be making. 

And they get it, they do, but they also know the people they care about deeply enough that Clint would be inclined to go after if they tried and failed at some kind of revenge, and they know that those people wouldn’t ask them to not do something they needed just because it might bring danger down on them, too. They don’t have any desire to put anyone they care about in danger because of their own choices, but they can also practically hear Cas’s voice in their head if they said any of that. Hell, he’d be ready to help them go after Clint if he knew that he had hurt them somehow, he wouldn’t want them to stop searching for closure just because of the risk. And they’re pretty sure that the other people they care for like that would think the same way; Kaz, Dark Wing, even newer friends like Fortune or Grizzly. Maybe it’s selfish, and dumb, but they’ve never really pretended to be anything but just that.

“I understand. I’ll keep that in mind…And I’ll let you know, too, if I find enough reason to go after him myself. Just in case you end up wanting in, too,” Lazarus says carefully, hoping they’re not overstepping a boundary by saying something like that to him when they literally only just met. But it feels like that’s fair to offer, fair to acknowledge that it’s clear he hasn’t made the choice both they and Hunter are ready to jump at, considering how much they’ve shared with each other over the past ten minutes. If anyone has the right for some kind of revenge, it’s clearly Jase, even if they understand why he hasn’t tried for anything of the sort since he got away from his family.

So it’s equally not much of a surprise when he hesitates to take them up on the offer of healing some of his burn scars. They get that, too, even if their own scars are strange, and a lot of the worst ones are more metaphorical at this point, the cracks in their skin just accepted by now. Hunter had seemed a little hesitant, too, when they offered the same, even if she did ultimately let them do it. That kind of shit runs deeper than the skin, after all, and there’s no way to say if getting rid of any of it would help or make it worse somehow. They’ve tried to imagine themself without all of the black cracks, too, and it just doesn’t feel real.

“Would take less work than it did to resurrect a dead priest, though, I bet,” they hum, only slightly joking, even if it is the truth, feeling the need to get a little lightness in considering how heavy all this shit is. “Alright, though, I’ll hold you to that then. I’ve always liked a bit of poetic justice anyway.” And they hold their hand out for him to shake, an acknowledgement of something shared, maybe, as much as a promise.

.

He’s glad Lazarus doesn’t state it outright, the idea that Jase might help with whatever they end up planning to do, if they ever get the full story of what Clint did to them and decide they want revenge. Not as directly as Night Hunter had, at least. It means he doesn’t have to turn them down, and feel like a fucking coward in the process. He knows Lazarus deserves revenge. He thinks he probably does, too, has enough distance from everything to believe that, though maybe not enough to seek it out. Or maybe it’s just that he knows he couldn’t kill Clint if he tried—his powers had never had much of an effect on his brother. Lazarus probably stands a better chance at that than he ever would have—and, he thinks to himself, they probably stand a better change at killing him than Night Hunter does of persuading the adoring public that Clint is a monster. 

Either way, it doesn’t matter right now. He’s warned Lazarus, done what he came here to do, made sure they were fully aware of what they were getting themself into, or maybe what they were already in, whether they liked it or not. What Lazarus decides to do from here is their business, not Jase’s, and something about passing off that responsibility to someone else feels like it takes a weight off his chest.

He’s never pretended to be a good person. 

And with that weight off his chest, he managed to choke out a laugh at Lazarus’ next comment, their attempt to lighten the mood a little bit. And he picks his hoodie back up as he does, pulling it back on, tugging the sleeves down to his wrists again, back where they belong.

      “I’d imagine that would depend on how dead the priest is,” he replies. “I don’t know much about religious doctrine, but I’d assume that give the proximity to historical resurrection, a priest is probably the easiest kind of dead person to bring back.” 

It’s not much of a joke, but it’s all he’s got in the tank right now, given the circumstances. And it gets the job done, shifts the conversation away from Clint, away from revenge, away from everything clouding the air between them, and moves things along into conversation that doesn’t make him feel like his throat is closing up in panic quite so much. And when Lazarus offers him their hand, he takes it, shaking it and nodding.

If there’s one thing that Arya will always be weak for, it’s the sound of Jase’s laughter. The first time he heard it it almost knocked him off his feet. He thought it was beautiful. It used to make his stomach wiggle, it used to make him feel bubbly and volatile and like he would do anything to rip it out of Jase over and over again. It’s a familiar sound now, and one he cherishes. It doesn’t quite light him on fire anymore, but it still has an affect, he’ll still never have enough of that sound. He’s glad that Jase laughs, now, because it has to be a good sign, it has to mean something for the both of them. It means he isn’t going to fade away, that he isn’t going to abandon Arya here on his own. 

He wouldn’t be able to survive if Jase left him on his own. Jase was his rock now. His best friend. It was strange, and he was sure that some of the other members of the Collective wouldn’t understand it. But Jase was good, and true, and loyal to him. Jase had been steadfast, even when being steadfast had clearly been terrifying. Jase allowed him to keep a hold on him, let Arya be his friend when he couldn’t be anything else. And Arya is so grateful for that, he could cry about it, he could kiss every inch of Jase’s face. He’d kill to keep a friend as good as this. So Jase isn’t allowed to ditch him, isn’t allowed to die in some stupid way, ice cold and frozen by his own power, by his own heart. 

He holds Jase tighter for a moment, holds his shivering body. He won’t stop holding the man until Nightingale is free to look at him, until it feels safe to move. Arya himself is half dizzy, from the absent effort of keeping the last portal open. He’ll crash when he can finally close it, but for now he’s fighting for every inch, and fighting for Jase too. 

“I don’t think anything would be dumb, if it means you’d be safer.” He says, a little fierce. “We’ll go get one. And then we’ll make Dr Green fix it up for you. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll make Mind Master bully their weapons chick into doing it for you.” 

“I’ll do anything for you, you know that?” His voice tinged softer. “Anything in the world. Even shop for dumb wetsuits to make sure you don’t freeze to death.” He nuzzles his head against Jases, even as he talks, glad for the contact. “And if Nightingale isn’t done with everyone else in two minutes, I’m gonna drag them over here by the scruff of their neck.” 

He can feel Arya’s arms around him, radiating warmth against his cold, damp skin, even through the blanket he’s wrapped around him. Can focus on it, the heat of him, the steady presence, can feel himself starting to warm up as they sit there. And maybe Arya’s right, maybe it doesn’t matter if his costume is dumb, if it means he might not accidentally kill himself with his own stupid powers. It’s a lesson he keeps having to learn, has a hard time internalizing: that he’s allowed to not hurt himself, allowed to seek out ways to stop it from happening. Nightingale would be rolling their eyes, if they could see him like this, he thinks. But safety hadn’t been a priority when his mom was designing a perfect costume for him to make a matched set with Clint, and it hadn’t occurred to him to make it a priority when he designed the new one, over a decade ago, either. 

      “I know,” he says, and he hopes Arya can hear that he means it, he’s sure Arya knows that he means it. He feels a little achey, with how much he means it, how much it means to him. How much he’s learned to lean on Arya, to rely on him, and how that was only ever possible because Arya kept showing him, again and again, that he wasn’t going anywhere. "Thank you, Arya.” 

And then Arya goes on, keeps talking, and it’s enough to jolt Jase slightly out of the hypothermia-induced stupor he’s currently fighting off, to hear Nightingale mentioned. The implication, from Arya, that Nightingale is here. Here, and well enough to be healing people, helping out. And something in him can’t help but relax, knowing that; as reluctant as he’d been to let Nightingale help him the first time the two of them met, when they were still on opposite sides and Jase still thought there was a world in which he could be, or wanted to be, a hero, Nightingale has been the most steadfast presence in his life for even longer than he’s known Arya. 

And it’s been too long, since he last saw them. Long enough that he almost managed to stop worrying, until he’d talked to the Shadow Man a few weeks ago and found out that he was now at the mercy of the Guardians. And maybe he should have guessed, that if he was being kept in the Tower, that they’d be able to get him out during all of this, but it hadn’t really occurred to him, given everything else going on. 

       “Nightingale is here?” he says, picking his head up from Arya’s for a second to look around. He’s not sure how he missed that—but then again, he’d gotten here, immediately thrown up, and had hardly lifted his head since. Not to mention he’s a little preoccupied with trying not to die in the world’s stupidest possible way. “Is he okay?”

He nestles back into Jase’s personal space once he sees that his presence is not just welcomed, but wanted as well. He could easily fall asleep in that moment, he thinks briefly, before Jase speaks, enjoying the fact that after months of not being able to sleep next to one another, now they can as much as they like again. But he knows he needs to focus his attention on Jase’s words instead, especially as it seems that whatever he wants to ask has been weighing on him for some time now. 

Once his question is posed, he finds its one of the numerous questions he’d been agonizing over in his head these last few months, when he was trying to figure out if there was anything he could have done to prevent this whole mess from starting in the first place. 

“I threw my name out after Shadow said no,” he starts quietly with a sigh, resting his head against Jase’s again as he does, “but Morrigan and Doppelganger both felt like I was too controversial of a choice. That picking me would only widen the discontent that was already brewing between the older villains outside the manor, and the younger ones who still lived in it.” 

Out of all of the villains in the Collective, he was among the few with prior experience running a group, what with his years at the head of the Teen Terrors. And even though hearing that he wouldn’t be welcomed by the Collective as a whole was a tough pill to swallow, he understood it to a certain degree. He could easily get the votes of the Catalysts of the Collective, but choosing him would automatically piss off the Dulces of the group.

“I knew deep down you’d say no, when I asked before,” he adds, “which is why I didn’t press the topic any further- and my own confidence both in myself and the group, was beginning to falter anyway.” 

His heart sinks a little, as Ian answers, and he brings a hand up to cup the back of his head as he talks, fingers absently playing with his hair as he listens. He can hear the weight in Ian’s voice, that says it’s a question that doesn’t have an easy answer, and the words he follow it up on explain why, such that he barely needs to go on before Jase understands it entirely, pressing a kiss to the top of Ian’s head as he goes on. 

It’s easy to forget sometimes, that he’s been in the Collective for so much longer than Ian has. Maybe it’s because he spent those five years feeling a bit like he was floating, ungrounded, forcing himself through the lower tiers of the group while keeping his head down, always afraid someone would decide that because he was a Courtney, he had no place there, that if he gave anyone any reason to question his presence, the whole house of cards would fall apart and he’d be thrown back to the wolves. Maybe it’s because he spent most of those five years dissociating. Maybe it’s because nothing at the Collective had felt like it really mattered all that much, until Ian was there, even if it took them time to get used to one another again when he finally was. 

Maybe it’s just the feeling that Ian’s always deserved this more than him. 

But either way, it seems like a stupid reason. Not from Ian, but from Doppelganger and the others. Jase had enough sway with enough of the other tier fives—with Dulce, Nightingale, a few others who weren’t around as often. He could have campaigned. Talked to people, gotten more on their side, made the choice seem less divisive than it might need to be. But then again... would he have? Or would Ian have asked him to, knowing the position he risked putting himself in by doing it? 

      “I’m sorry, Ian,” he says, quietly. Not for saying no, and he knows Ian knows that much. Not for anything he did, or didn’t do. But he wishes it didn’t have to be this way. That he’d never had to lose the confidence he’d had when they were younger, the confidence he’d carried through so many of the years Jase had known him. That he’d never had to be faced with problems that had no good answers, and had to answer to them anyway. 

But there’s little use regretting what can’t be changed, little use dwelling on what got them here, right now. And so he wraps his other arm around Ian, holding him close, and lets out a quiet sigh.

For a second, they can’t do anything but nod vaguely, trying to slow down their breathing, keep that panic from making them shut down entirely. It’s even harder to face it head on, though, especially with so much still utterly unknown. There’s a difference between knowing the details, and knowing with a strange certainty that their mind has memories of that possessiveness it’s not letting them access, that they have no idea how they can get those details about what the fuck they had with Clint.  And seeing Jase take his hoodie off, eyes immediately drawn to the numerous scars on his arms, burn scars, makes it feel all the more real.

“Fuck,” they breathe, looking at his arms in shock, wide-eyed, thoughts racing just as fast as their heart at this point. It’s fucked up beyond belief, that he did that to his own brother, over and over again, did it to people Jase cared about to some extent, too, and has never actually suffered any of the consequences from it. It goes so far beyond Clint just being an insufferable asshole that they feel shocked that they didn’t know before just how bad it was, just how evil he is. It makes them wonder, too what he might’ve done to them when they were together before.

They feel sick to their stomach thinking of what Jase has had to go through, the scars physical and mental that shit like that leaves behind, thinking that there’s a very real possibility they share even a minuscule part of that, in their own way. The warning is clear as day, and they wish they could be satisfied with having no memory of it, and staying away, but they know themself.

“I wish I could say I can just let it lie, but I’ve realized lately as much as I tried to deny it, knowing my past is important, even if it comes along with pain. I get it now, though, I’ll keep the fuck away from him. For now. Once I find out what he did to me, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to keep from giving him back whatever pain he caused me, I hope you can understand that,” they say seriously, frowning back at Jase. If he asked them not to, they think they would be willing to reconsider that instinct, despite only just meeting him, but there’s something in the pit of their stomach that tells them that whatever situation they were in with Clint isn’t one they’re going to be able to move away from without some kind of resolution. Hell, even if Clint hadn’t done anything with his possessiveness over Lazarus, no, Jovi in the before, they’d still be tempted to go after Clint just seeing what he did to Jase, but they know it wouldn’t be their place then. It’s different when it’s a deeply shared pain.

There’s something else that they can offer Jase, too, though, in return for sharing something so deeply personal that they hate they might have in common, and the very real warning behind it all. They still feel in top shape from all the zombies’ life force, after all, they might as well ride that high while they can, offer what little bit of comfort they might be able to provide here in a situation they weren’t expecting to be in today. 

“If you ever want to get rid of any of those scars…well, you’ve got another option of a different kind of healing now…I already did a little work on Hunter’s from the same source, so I know it’s possible…”

.

     “Look, I’ll be the last person to try to stop you if you decide you want to kill my brother,” he says. He’s not sure if that’s what they’re thinking they’d do—though, given their powers, it seems like, and it’s an option that feels somehow more feasible than Night Hunter wanting to expose Clint and his dad for who they really are. Clint might die a hero, if Lazarus went after him, but at least he’d be dead. At least he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone anymore. And Jase would be the last person to mourn him. “But I’ll tell you what I told Night Hunter already: if you try, and it doesn’t work, you won’t be the person he comes after when he wants his revenge. Do what you need to, just... know what and who you’re putting in the line of fire when you do it. That’s all.” 

He doesn’t mean it as a discouragement, he really doesn’t. And maybe what he means it as is an excuse, for why he’s spent almost twenty years running away instead of doing something about it. For why he’s never taken the fight back to Clint. But Jase has never been one to consider himself brave, anyway. Virtues like that were for heroes, and so he’s always figured they were kind of useless to him.

Charitable and self-sacrificing had never been on that list either, and so he’s surprised, by the offer Lazarus makes. He knows enough, from Daydreamer, and from Catalyst’s plan, about Lazarus’ powers to know that they aren’t the same as Nightingale’s. That they have to give something up, some of their own life force, in order to heal others. And even if they’ve pulled all of the life force from the zombies that had been rounded up during the attack on the Tower, it still feels like an unbelievably generous offer. 

He wouldn’t even know where to start, if he could get rid of the scars. Sometimes he feels like so much of him is scar tissue that if you took it away, he’d just be a skeleton underneath of it. Sometimes he feels like all he is is a man made of scars, and the memories that come with them. 

     “I don’t know... I think it would take a lot of work, to make a meaningful dent in these,” he answers. His arms aren’t the worst of it, unfortunately, even if they’re the most easily visible. Some days, he hardly notices that they’re there; others, he keeps himself so covered that he can pretend they aren’t. And it’s hard to say whether it would make a difference or not, whether being free of some of the scars would actually lift any of the burden of feelings associated with them, or whether it would just be a cosmetic difference. 

He doesn’t know. There’s no way to know, unless he tries it. But he’s never been one for trying things unless he knows they’re going to work. 

Jase shifts, moving to face the ceiling rather than him, and he takes the move as a message to give Jase a moment to himself. He tucks the hand that’d been in Jase’s hair under his own side, while the other moves to rest his head against. He waits then, patiently, for Jase to give him his next message whether it be he just needed to be left alone for a while longer or to return the contact.

He’d be fine either way, there had been a night or two before, years ago,  where they did share a bed but made no physical contact. Where his presence was wanted, but not necessarily his touch. And so, he learned fairly early on not to take it personally, that sometimes even the smallest touch was just too much, and it had nothing to do with him.

When Jase turns back towards him, he first reads what his body was telling him, before extending his hand back out, his fingertips just lightly ghost his arm- his question, and once he gets his response he lets the rest of his hand drop.

“You can ask me anything,” he replies, meaning every word of it. He had shared things with Jase that he’d never told another soul. Jase knew every detail (be it good or ugly) about him, so he didn’t find himself all that nervous over the question, despite its vague nature.

.

He leans back into Ian’s touch, when he rolls back over, trying to show him that he’s not asking for space, that he wants him close, wants to know he’s there. 

      “That night, when you came over to ask me about the vote,” he starts, thinking back to it. It feels like a lifetime ago, now, even though it was only a little less than a year. And he hadn’t let himself process, in all that time, how much it had hurt, that their last night together before Ian disappeared had felt like some kind of promise of normal, though he hardly blames Ian for that. No, the blame for that lies on White’s shoulders alone. “You told me the group was thinking of asking Shadow or Black to be the person to step up, and I told you couldn’t commit to a maybe from someone I thought would say no.” 

It had been a horrifyingly easy decision to make, in retrospect, even though he knew Ian would be disappointed about it. He hadn’t meant it to be a permanent no. He just didn’t want to get involved when there was still a chance things might not work out, or a chance they mind wind up with a worse replacement taking over for White. He didn’t want... well, what had happened to Ian and the others, pretty much, to happen to him. And unlike plenty of the others who seem to only just be realizing that they can’t trust White as far as they can throw her, he’s always known that her good will was utterly conditional. 

But he’d thought he’d have a chance to change his mind, somewhere along the way. When Ian and Doppelgänger and the others had gotten further along in their plan. He’d wanted to say as much, to explain why he had to say no when he did, but Ian had dropped the conversation as quickly as he’d brought it up. Clearly disappointed, but clearly trying his best not to make Jase feel bad about that. And everything else Jase wishes he’d had a chance to say, all of it has been sitting with him ever since, with nowhere to put it. 

     “Why not you?” he asks, after a moment, finally asking the question he’s been wondering for so long. “Why not put your own name forward? At least half the Manor would have rallied behind you. I would have, in a heartbeat.”

He simply rolls his eyes at Jase’s comment, or rather, comments at his expense. And he’s glad that now the kid can actually see him doing it, instead of having to figure out another more visibly apparent way to show his annoyance.

“Yeah, yeah, you coming or not?” He asks, a fond smile seeping through his grumpy exterior.

Motioning towards one of the doors leading to the back patio, he leads him out, enjoying the smell of the fresh spring air as soon as it hits him. The back gardens have changed since he last walked through them, some things have been removed and altered completely- others have simply grown and flourished with age. The gazebo has changed, and there are a few statues missing, which he assumes fell victim to some young villain or several over the years.

“Your… relative and I planted them, the crabapples,” he answers once the trees are in view, their vibrant blooms standing out brightly against the green surrounding them. He doesn’t call Julian Jase’s uncle, not liking the idea of participating in that rumor himself. Jase had assumed the connection based on what he likely heard from his own family, but Mathias had never gone out of his way to correct him over the years.

As they move closer, he sees Julian for a moment, as a small breeze picks up a gust of flower petals, and swirls them into the air. He’s standing under one of the trees, smiling at him in that soft way he always had before he vanishes again. He wants to tell Jase the truth about what happened all those years ago, he knows it won’t change the narrative the world has already assumed and accepted as fact, but he can’t help but think it’ll do Jase some good to know how it all began.

“We started living here together before this place was anything but Clarissa’s uncle’s old house. We’d just gotten home from the Spanish American war, and had nowhere else to go- well, he did, but he didn’t want to go back to his family. That’s when the idea of this place started to form, with all of us here needing a refuge. Technically, a Courtney should be among the names, of the Founders, but you can imagine how that would have gone over.”

He fears for a moment that he’s oversharing, but he can’t be bothered enough to care any further quite frankly. It’d been some time since he was able to talk about that side of his history, not since Clarissa and the others were around who knew more intimately how things had unfolded.

When they finally reach the small grove of trees he comes to a stop, to admire at least for a little bit the blooming spring beauty of the trees he planted over a century before.

It’s strange, to hear pieces of his great-great-great—however many “great”s it takes to get him back to the early 1900s, he always forgets—uncle, from Mathias’ point of view. The family story was pretty set in stone, the way he’d heard it from various other Courtneys as a kid: that The Shadow Man had kidnapped and seduced a beloved member of the Courtney family to villainy, a family disgrace that the Courtneys would never forgive Mathias, his family, or the Collective for. It had been a warning story, when he’d first heard it: how easy it could be, to fall onto the wrong side of things, if you weren’t careful, how you could never trust anything a villain said, all of it lies designed to try to pull you away from the side of the good guys. 

He remembers when Nightingale had looked at him and, voice gruff and utterly charmless, said you shouldn’t have to suffer like this, and it’s the fucking story of his however-many-greats-uncle that had stopped Jase from trusting him instantly, caving to the first adult who had ever shown him anything approaching kindness. It wouldn’t have made all that much difference, if he’d joined the Collective sooner than he did, the damage already done, but it did take him almost a year to stop feeling like every time he met up with Nightingale, he was going to be kidnapped by a super villain. 

Mathias’ story obviously has a different tenor to it, and it’s even more apparent when Jase can hear his voice explaining it, rather than Shadow’s, can hear the fondness, and the longing, and the heartbreak of loss all lingering in Mathias’ tone as he looks off towards the trees. And it’s hard to imagine any Courtney doing something like planting trees. They’ve always been a family that tended to destroy, rather than create—at least, when it came to anything other than legacies. 

     “Yeah, I don’t think anyone would take that well on either side of the equation,” he replies, looking up at the sky through the flowering branches of the crabapples. And it’s weird, too, to feel a connection to relative he’s never met, to stand here and know that this place that he’d found as a refuge of his own had been made to be one for someone else, another man running away from the Courtney family and looking for some other way of living. He wonders, if generations down the line, another Courtney will stand here, too, thinking about him, his reputation, his legacy, his own broken link in the chain of Courtney heroes. 

Holding Jase Courtney has always felt like the easiest thing in the world. The first time Arya had been allowed to wrap his arms around the other man was akin to a religious experience, to be allowed so close to someone so cold, someone who fought tooth and nail against being loved, like the slightest bit of vulnerability would kill him. And once upon a time, maybe it would have. But Arya had always known he would rather die himself than hurt Jase, and would always try his best to make sure the man was okay. He wasn’t always good at it, they didn’t always blend together well. But they cared about each other. They were something vital, something so important it hurt, something he could never bring himself to let go of. Arya wanted to be his best friend forever, wanted to make sure Jase would never let him go.

So now, it’s easy to pull Jase close, to hold his cold body and try and get the warmth back into him. Jase moves into him as well, like it’s second nature. He leans against Arya like he’s something sturdy, something to hold on to, and buries his face against Arya’s shoulder. Arya squeezes him a little tighter, shudders out a breath, chest full of that old unnamable emotion.

Jase tells him what the most important thing to do was, and Arya is stupidly grateful for that. Because he doesn’t know how to deal with this, doesn’t know exactly what Jase needs. “I can do that,” He says, still a little breathless with it all. He holds Jase closer, rests his cheek against the top of Jase’s head for a moment. “I’m good at that, right? Remember, I used to annoy you all the time, bothering you and making you stay up with me. I’m gonna do that for the rest of your life, you know. No matter what else happens. I’m gonna portal into your apartment when I can’t sleep and make you play battleship with me.” 

He really would, he thinks. Even when it made him feel like a burden. Because he couldn’t bare the idea of Jase not being there for him, couldn’t stand the idea that they wouldn’t accept each other no  matter what the time of night was. He’s looking around, even as he talks, even as he rubs warmth back into Jase’s arms. Looking to try and spot Nightingale, to flag them down and see if they could help Jase through this. He doesn’t spot the man, so he shifts, puts a hand on Jase’s face so he can look into Jase’s eyes. “I’m gonna be the worst, J. But you’re gonna deal with it, cause we’re best friends, right?” 

And he takes Jase’s hands, breathes warm air onto them, because that’s the best that he can do. Hold them, and try to warm him up, and make sure that Jase keeps looking into his eyes. 

He manages to laugh, despite everything, at Jet’s words, and there isn’t a shadow of a doubt in his mind that every word of it is true, that Jet would portal into his apartment and make him play battleship, or something else stupid, and a little bit wonderful. He’s really not sure what he did, in life, to deserve Jet’s friendship, his love, his attention. He thinks he’s spend the whole time half a step away from fucking it all up, thinks that if Jet were anyone else in the world, any less forgiving, he would have given up on Jase a long time ago. Jet had been the first person to refuse to go, when Jase’s worst instincts kicked in and tried to push him away. 

He’s pretty sure this isn’t the first time Jet’s saved his life. He’s pretty sure, in some way, Jet may never stop saving his life. He’s pretty sure that, for as long as he has a life, he’ll owe the majority of it to Jet. And it’s okay, he thinks, because if he’s going to spend his life indebted to someone, he’s glad it’s Jet. Because as much as he knows Jet is always afraid of people leaving him, he doesn’t know what he would do, if Jet ran away again.

     “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replies, voice slow but a little less slurred now, as Jet slowly works the heat back into his body. 

He’s still shivering pretty fiercely, and the pull of exhaustion is still tugging at him. But he keeps his eyes open, does his best to keep focused. Tries to think of something to talk about, so that Jet doesn’t have to take the entire burden of keeping him awake. And he should get out of the rest of his wet costume, at some point. They should really get out of here. But right now, he doesn’t think he could walk more than ten steps if he tried, and Jet’s got to be exhausted from keeping up multiple portals at once. So instead of suggesting it, he just leans closer, rests his head against Jet’s. 

He really shouldn’t be surprised just how quickly they fall into this easy back and forth with each other, even after the hellish night the both of them have had. Everything that happened back at the Tower suddenly felt like weeks ago, instead of only a couple short hours, as he relaxes further into the mattress, his hand drifting up to twirl lightly in Jase’s red locks. 

“Hot Shot?” He repeats with a chuckle, which soon evolves into a full laugh that shakes his shoulders as he recalls the image of the villain in question. “I’m pretty sure I had one of those rubber action figures of him back when I was like seven. You know, the kind you could bend the arms and legs whichever way, so you could fight with them. Oh, what was that catchphrase of his….” he trails off for a moment as he raddles his brain, fully immersing himself in this little trip down memory lane. His mouth curves into a wide grin when he finally remembers it, and chuckles once more against Jase before trying his best Hot Shot impression, “Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?” 

The camp of the 80s villain and hero scene was one he often felt nostalgia for, although he wondered just what it was really like for all of them behind the pomp. Did they have to deal with the same shit as the villains did now? Did Hot Shot, or Hydromancer, ever have to hide out because the Collective leader at the time wasn’t all they were cracked up to be? Or did they ever find themself waist deep in some kind of mindboggling war, that threatened to end everything they had once held so dearly? 

His mood soon sobers at the thought, and Jase’s seems to as well at the same time, although he soon realizes for a different but related purpose. Reptilian… he could understand why Jase was as conflicted as he was, as he retells his experience with their former friend that night. Jase wasn’t asking him directly just what was the story with Reptilian, and how loyal he was to Hourglass and Judgement, but he could see the question in his gaze as he tried to come to grips with the seeming betrayal. “I’m glad you did, and Jet was there to help too,” he says quietly after a moment before leaning in to give him another kiss before going on. 

“When White sold his identity, it put his wife and daughters at risk,”  he adds, brows knitting together as he tires to best string together what he knew of Reptilian’s circumstances. “They were put into hiding separately though. As far as I know, he hasn’t seen them since we all got pulled from our homes. But I don’t know if that’s because he’s too afraid to further risk their safety by seeing them, or because he doesn’t know where they are. He never talked all that much to anyone when we were all hiding out together.” 

.

Reptilian’s family, he thinks, the second Ian says it, and it makes perfect sense. That he’d do what it took to protect them, that his stakes were different than some of the others, because of them. He forgets, sometimes, that the rest of them aren’t all like him—that things like secret identities exist for a reason other than bullshit marketing, that not everyone’s identity is as obvious and public as Jase’s is. That some of them still have families, who they care about and don’t want to see hurt. That some of them have lives, people who care about them beyond the walls of the Manor. Whether Reptilian’s family being at risk meant he was playing it safe by sticking with Judgement, or meant he really was pissed off enough at White to want to go along with it, Jase can hardly blame him for that.

He can hardly blame any of them, honestly. 

     “Fuck,” he says, quietly, rolling over onto his back and looking up at the ceiling through the dark. He almost wishes he’d had a chance to talk to Reptilian, but in the midst of everything else there hadn’t been time. And he’s not sure it would have mattered: Dulce’s been more than generous, housing Ian and Overload—and, apparently, suddenly a murder cyborg and Doppelgänger too. He wouldn’t have been able to keep Reptilian’s family safe on top of everything else. 

And in all of this, he’s never once felt guilty for saying no, when Ian had asked him if he’d commit to the vote of no confidence against White. He still doesn’t. Him being pulled out of the Manor and into Judgement’s scheme wouldn’t have changed anything for anyone, not for the better, and he still thinks that even if White hadn’t found out what was happening, however she had, that it wouldn’t have worked without a strong enough leader ready to step up and replace her, he still feels a small swell of regret. It wouldn’t have done anything other than put him in danger, but he’s struck again with the same thought he had, when Ian had asked: that if the name they’d put forward then to replace White had been Ian’s, things might not have gone this way. 

They can fill in some of the blanks, even without him fully explaining things at first. They’ve been in the Collective for going on a few years now, it would’ve been impossible not to notice how Clint is, and everyone’s opinions of him, even if they hadn’t fucked him a few times, enough to see how much of a shithead he is firsthand on a personal level. Their mind gladly supplies how he likes to call them Doe, lord that over their head, the unknown past, how much more fucked it is than they originally even thought, now that they’re pretty certain they knew him before, knew him well. 

It’s clear that Jase is trying to figure out how to approach whatever conversation it is he needs to have with them about Clint, and they’re glad to wait for him to work it out, considering how big this feels. It feels like it’s going to give them something about that past, that even if he hadn’t known them when they were apparently with Clint before they died, he might inevitably give them a clearer picture of things, just by virtue of whatever it is he needs to tell them. And they understand even better as he goes on, explaining just how possessive he can get. 

Hearing it twists something in their stomach, makes them feel a little sick, even without the details, and they think that maybe, maybe they experienced that, too, even if it maybe wasn’t in the same way Clint terrorized his own brother, and the people he chose to spend time with. A familiar feeling starts to rise in their chest, the panic that they’ve done a very good job of fighting past for the last few weeks, when they’re coming too close to something really damn personal, something not good, their paranoid flaring up again in a way it hasn’t since what they promised Cas. 

It takes a second for them to realize they’ve been silent for too long, and they get up from their bed suddenly, go over to the window, and shove it open, as if the air might help the suffocating feeling attached to something unknown. “Fuck, sorry…I was, uh, I was gonna say I can’t imagine, but I kind of think I can, actually. It wasn’t just the people you cared about he hurt, right? He fuckin’ hurt you, too,” they shake their head, not really expecting an answer, knowing it can’t be easy to talk about. And it feels pointless not to mention it, not to tell him why thinking about that got to them suddenly, so they turn back to look at Jase.

“He hasn’t done anything like that to me yet, or… Do you know…well, something weird happened in the Tower, when I had to heal him. A memory hit me. I think I knew him before I came back…I think maybe we were together. And I think he was pretty fuckin’ possessive then, too. But I don’t remember any of it.” 

.

cw: burn scars

Lazarus is silent for a long moment, and then they’re moving, walking away, opening the window, and he can imagine what they’re feeling, the suffocating panic of it; he’s felt it far too many times himself. And as sorry as he is to drop this all in their lap, the reaction’s enough for him to tell that his hunch was right, that they need to hear this, that Jase needs to be here. That what Jase saw at the Tower was only scratching the surface of what’s going on between Lazarus and Clint, what’s gone on between them. 

And what they say next all but confirms it: not reading between the lines and acknowledging the all too obvious truth that he’d been hurt, but the next part, the memory of theirs. And Jase finds himself inhaling sharply at the implications there: that Clint and Lazarus had been together before Lazarus had died and come back to life, and then Clint had found them again afterwards, tried to recruit them to the Guardians while they had no memory of him, was still trying to use everything he had over them now... 

     “Fucking christ,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Yeah, that... that sounds like him.” And the fact that Lazarus doesn’t remember any of it feels dangerous, but it also sounds like it might be a little bit of a mercy. Not that it makes them any less wrapped up in this bullshit, but Jase thinks that if he could forget everything Clint ever did to him, he’d probably take that offer up in a heartbeat. Knowledge is power and all of that shit, sure, and Lazarus needs to know as much as they can to protect themself from Clint moving forward, but... god, he thinks, how nice it would be to be able to forget. To not have it weighing him down all the time. To not feel the panic rise in his chest every time somebody gets too close, or the temperature around him gets a little too warm. 

He shrugs his hoodie off, after a second, tossing it onto the empty bed that must belong to Lazarus’ roommate, so he’s left in just his t-shirt, his arms bare for Lazarus to see them. He doesn’t say anything, but he thinks it probably speaks for itself, the crosshatched burn scars scattered across both arms. His mom had designed a costume that covered his hands to hide the scars Jase’s powers gave him; the fact that it covered his arms too had been a convenient side effect for Clint. And they’re nowhere near as grotesque as the hand-shaped scar that Ian bears, but the sheer number of them tells its own story, especially when his arms aren’t the worst of it. 

It’s an actual relief, when they hit the other side of a portal. Because Jet can close it, quick, and lessen some of the strain he’s been feeling. The downside is it’s harder, now, to keep the one near Catalyst open. Distance, that’s an issue. But he can conceptualise right where he left it, can see the distant glow on the far end of the meeting point that means it’s right there, exactly where it’s supposed to be. He’s startled out of this line of thought when he feels Jase slipping from his grip, watches as the man falls to his knees. 

And then Jase is throwing up, of course. That makes so much sense. Jet really should have expected that, given the state he had been in when he found him. Of course the portal would be too much, on top of everything else that was going on, on top of the hell his body was going through. 

“Yeah, there it is.” He says, completely absentmindedly, filling the absence of sound, filling the space. It’s a newer instinct for him, but he thinks if he was in Jase’s positiion right now, he would find the sound of someone’s voice comforting. “And here I was, thinking I had lost my touch. No one has thrown up post-travel in like a year.” 

Jet feels like he’s out of his depth, suddenly. Jet feels like he doesn’t quite know what to do. he watches, frozen for a second, while Jase settles back against the wall. He wants to fall to his knees in front of Jase and hold him, wants to nurse him back to health. Jase is stripping himself out of his wet clothes, and Jet finally kicks himself into motion. “I’ll get you a blanket.” He says, nodding his own head. Something dry and warm for Jase to wrap himself in, so he can start to warm up for real, so he can shake off the ice inside of his core and overcome this. 

He moves quickly, gathers more than one blanket to wrap Jase in. And when he gets back, his heart aches even more. He wraps one around his shoulders, before shifting down to sit against the wall next to him, wrapping an arm around him and rubbing warmth back into his skin.

cw: mention of child abuse 

Jet is at his side, and then he’s gone, and then he’s back again, and he’s either moving too quickly or Jase is continuing to lose seconds every time his eyes drift shut. But he manages to pull himself out of his sleeves and get his costume half-off by the time Jet is back with blankets, by the time Jet is wrapping one around his shoulders. And he’s doing everything he should do, doing everything right, Jase knows, but it’s a lot of water, a lot of ice, and he can’t feel his hands, really, or his feet, or his legs. 

He leans in close, pressing himself towards the warmth of Jet’s body heat, turning his face to bury it in Jet’s shoulder. He feels so tired; he’d like to lean on Jet and go to sleep, close his eyes and let himself slip away for a while. But he knows that’s the hypothermia talking, that if he lets himself he might not wake up again. And the memory washes over him unbidden—the first time he’d given himself hypothermia, with his powers, in an Olympic sized swimming pool his dad had taken him to test just how far his powers could extend, how much he could freeze while treading water in the middle. His dad’s disapproving face, when he hauled himself back up over the edge and onto dry ground, ice crystals coating his skin. 

     “Jet,” he says, trying to force his eyes open. And Jet is there, right there, that worried little look on his face. And Jase’s chest aches, with it, with knowing just how far Jet had pushed himself just to make sure Jase was safe, to make sure he didn’t get himself killed playing hero. “Keep me awake. You gotta keep me awake.”

They let out a little laugh at the explanation for his name, but don’t really feel the need to push it any more, since they’re kind of curious about why he’s here in the first place, and they know it’s not to make small talk about his poor choice in name. It’s weird to be given his name so freely, but then it’s probably the worst kept secret of anyone’s name in the manor, which seems a weirdly typical thing for tier fives, but maybe that’s just because they all seem to have famous families. “Okay, Jase it is,” they nod, moving to sit down on their bed, figuring this was probably gonna be a conversation that they should be sitting for. 

Not a surprise that he agrees with them, considering the very little they know about the family history, both near and distant past, it sounds like they’re a fucked up family, definitely the sort you’d want to escape from and never look back at if possible, before they found a way to destroy you entirely. 

“Oh, you noticed that, huh? Yeah, well, he’s a fuckin’ dick, too isn’t he? He interrupted a weird moment I was having with zombie Mordred and got his ass almost killed because of it; I think even as a zombie they were pretty thrilled by the chance to kill another Courtney again, no offense. So I had to heal him, which…” they trail off, because they realize they’re sitting here talking to Clint’s brother, and if someone might know something about them having dated Clint before they died, it might be family. The chance feels slim with Jase, though, considering it’s pretty damn clear he wants nothing to do with his family anymore, rightfully so, but when they have so few threads to follow, it would be stupid not to grab one standing right in front of them. 

But that’s a pretty damn big thing to jump into, and they still don’t really know what he’s here to talk to them about besides seeing them with Clint, unless it’s something he saw when they were coming out of the Tower with him, so it feels right to give a little context first maybe. For both of their sake’s.

“You, uh, don’t really keep up with any of them anymore, right? Well, when I left the…commune I was playing messiah with, he found me, tried to get me to join the Guardians, which clearly I didn’t, but I might’ve made another mistake to get him to shut the hell up, if you catch my drift,” they admit shifting a little, not the most comfortable thing to say to someone’s brother. “Might’ve made that mistake a few times over the years, to be honest. He gets a little… possessive, which I’m sure you know.”

.

Lazarus pretty quickly admits to the nature of their relationship to Clint, and while it’s hardly a surprise, Jase really wishes he had a lot less of a reason to know anything about his brother’s sex life. But it explains what he saw—the possessive look, the way he’d treated them in the brief interaction Jase saw while everyone was making their way out of the tower. He has a hunch there’s more to it than just that, but he’s never been able to guess at why Clint picks the people he does, what else he gets out of his obsessive, possessive way of wanting people to be his. 

     “Possessive is putting it mildly,” he says, thinking about the handprint-shaped scar on Ian’s back, thinking about the dozen or so matching ones he’s borne for more than half of his life. For a split second, he thinks about rolling up his sleeve and showing Lazarus just what he means, but that seems like a step to far for literally the first time he’s ever talked to them, even if the reason he came here in the first place was to make sure they knew just how serious getting involved with Clint could be for them.

He leans back against the wall across from them, instead, crossing his arms across his chest as he tries to figure out how best to approach this conversation. It sounds like Lazarus already has a decent idea of how much of a dick Clint can be, but he’s not sure whether or not they understand the ways in which that can cross the line from being annoying or inconvenient into being downright dangerous. 

     “I really try my best not to know what he’s doing. I ran away almost twenty years ago and I can count the number of times I’ve seen him since then on my hands. I, uh... unfortunately know a little too well how possessive he can be. He made a lot of trouble for me, back when we were in the Youth Brigade together, and I started making friends who weren’t him. Hurt some people I cared about pretty badly.”

He truly has to give himself a moment to marvel at the situation he’s suddenly found himself in, as Jase throws back a quip of his own. Despite the limitations confronting them, they always managed to communicate with each other fairly well, but being able to simply say what’s on him mind, rather than worry about how to physically express his words, or utilize Shadow, was truly something he’d never thought they have. And he was content with that, considering there were no other options, but the simplicity of just talking for once was fucking refreshing. 

 He’s grateful to both hear and see the kid seems to have gotten out on the other side of the whole Tower affair largely unscathed- and if anything, he seems better than he was before. Which makes sense, he knows, considering just who all was brought back after it was all said and done, but he’s grateful that for once things seemed to go Jase’s way, rather than Robert’s or Clint’s. 

“Well, seeing as how I can’t leave my body without it going full mindless killer again, and haven’t driven a car since Roosevelt was in office, I don’t have all that much of a choice when it comes to being ferried around by Alex like I’m the stepchild he’s begrudgingly taken in,” he huffs a laugh. Honestly though, it’s probably for the best that he is staying at Alex’s, rather than back at the manor, he thinks distantly as he briefly looks around the hallway they were in. The place didn’t feel like the home to him that it used to, not after so much else had happened in his life and “after life”, but it was still nice to see the old girl again though. 

“He’s off having his chat with White about the whole Tower business, so I figured I’d look around to see what sort of pointless renovations have been made to this place since the last time I had a chance to walk around it. Did you know that they turned my bedroom into a damn museum of some kind? It’s the most ridiculous waste of a good room I’d ever seen.” The idea had to have been Tartarus’s, he thinks, because wasting a room that could be used to house additional superhumans, for self glorification, seemed like exactly something he’d do just to piss him off. 

He lets out a frustrated sigh, before letting the anger recede entirely. This was the first time he and Jase actually had the opportunity to actually talk to one another, and wasting it on bitching probably wasn’t the best use of their time. 

“I was going to head to the gardens next,” he offers, his scowl melting away. The gardens were a favorite of his and Julian’s back when he did call this place home, especially during this time of year when life was beginning to return to them in its full glory. “There are a handful of crabapples back there, that somehow no one has managed to kill since I planted them. You’re free to come along, if you aren’t busy.”  

He knows that this is probably weirder for Mathias than it is for him—having his body back suddenly, actually getting to roam freely and in person around the place that had been his home a century ago, and had surely changed far too much for comfort since then. The Manor has always felt distinctly old-fashioned to Jase, but he knows, distantly, that even Medusa had found it changed almost beyond recognition in many ways, and she’d first called it home almost thirty years after Mathias had left it.

But even knowing that, he can’t help but find it a little funny, the annoyance and frustration. Not because he doesn’t sympathize at all, but because hearing all of that in Mathias’ actual voice, instead of just seeing it reflected in the posture of his giant shadow-figure, really drives home the way in which Mathias is... kind of just a grandpa, an old man who thinks things were better back in his day. Bitching about everything changing since his time. 

Weirdly enough, he reminds Jase of his great aunt, who had still been around when Jase was a kid, old as shit and with no patience for anything—including Jase’s dad, who she’d always seemed to find ridiculous. She’d been a bitch, but Jase had always liked sticking by her side at family events and listening to her running commentary of how much she hated everything. 

     “I didn’t take you for a gardener,” he says, surprised to hear Mathias talking about the trees he planted. He knows the crabapples, knows exactly what he’s talking about—he’d spent enough of his own time around the gardens back when he lived at the Manor, always desperate to find somewhere quiet he could be on his own in the too-crowded home, not used to being around other people all the time. He never would have guessed that the same gruff old man who had randomly decided to be fond of him had been the one who planted them all those years ago.

He’s already moving in that direction, though, glad for the distraction, for something to do. To get out of the Manor which still feels like somewhere he doesn’t quite belong anymore, especially now that he’s spending what little time he once would have spent there at Dulce’s instead.

He feels easily the happiest he’s been in quite some time, just seeing how happy Jase seems. These last few months have been difficult for both of them, for varying different reasons, including the separation they’d faced from one another, but in the span of one night it seems as though the problems that had been plaguing them both were now far behind them. Which he knows isn’t quiet the truth, considering just where they were. They weren’t back home in his bed in the manor, which had likely been given away to someone else since his departure, nor were they back at Jase’s place. They were at Dulce’s, and he was still in hiding, albeit this hideout was far better than any of the several he’d been in before. 

Tilting his head, he plants a kiss on the inside of Jase’s wrist, where his hand still rested at his cheek. There were decisions he was going to have to think about soon, when it came to what would be his next best course of action, because obviously he couldn’t hide away in Dulce’s forever. For now though, he just wanted to live in this quiet little moment a bit longer, and give the both of them the pleasant peace they’d been needing for some time. 

“I’m good,” he says with a grin, pointedly repeating Jase’s own answer. “I fought with one of my dad’s old archenemies from the 80′s, so that was kind of a mindfuck,” he chuckles quietly. “She had like these razor sharp fingernails that were venomous- Queen Cobra, that was her name.” The damn heroine nearly gave him a set of chemical burns to match his dad’s, but luckily Nightingale managed to fix those for him too, along with the cottonmouth he was suffering through. 

Leaning forward, he brushes his lips against Jase’s again, finding it’d already been too long since the last time he’d done so. “How about you?” He mumbles quietly against his lips, “did you at least risk hypothermia because of someone cool? …No pun intended.” 

.

It feels so easy, to listen to him talk about his fight against Queen Cobra as if today hadn’t been the weirdest fucking day of their lives, as if they hadn’t been fighting the zombies of former heroes and villains, trying from opposite sides of a battle Jase still isn’t fully certain he understands to rescue and protect the Guardians of all people. It feels easy, to kiss him again when he leans close, easy to answer him, when he asks. 

     “Fucking Hot Shot,” he says, leaning his head against Ian’s. “I’m so mad about it, Ian, I could scream. Of all the stupid villains to get stuck against, I almost go down taking on the one with the cartoon mustache and mad scientist goggles.”

He lets out a laugh, because he can, because it feels easier to laugh now than it had in months, and he’s missed it, missed these little moments of feeling at ease, of getting to exist somewhere other than the space between feeling hollow and feeling panicked. But even as he says it, it’s not entirely true. Hot Shot hadn’t been the problem: the Youth Brigade had helped, sure, but none of the zombies they’d gone up against had felt like a real threat, and none of them had been the reason he almost gave himself hypothermia trying to freeze a parking garage filled with water. 

He fucking hates this, he thinks, as he sludges through the water. It makes him want to throw up a little bit, and he can’t help but think how lucky Jase is that Jet loves him so much. Unconditionally. It was such a con, but he also wouldn’t trade this endless devotion for the world. He was lucky, that Jase was here. That they hadn’t ruined their love by fucking up a romantic relationship – they had proven that the two of them would endure through everything, that they had earned a place in each other’s lives. 

Jase had never abandoned him. And Jet would never be able to do it either. Would never be able to turn his back. So he powers through his own discomfort, finds Reptilian in the mess of the room. It takes all the strength that he has to grab Reptilian by his costume and hoist him up a little bit. It takes even more of his strength to open up another portal, in conjunction with all of the others scattered throughout the building. Two to the roof. One all the way out to the meeting point. And now this one, to a secluded street several blocks away from the tower. He manages to drag Reptilian through, leave him slumped against a wall. And then he takes a moment to double over and fight back the urge to vomit, something which has never really happened to him in a long long time. 

It’s been years since he overexerted himself. 

But he doesn’t hesitate for long, because Jase is back in the water, probably freezing his balls off. 

So he steps back through and lets the portal close behind them, momentarily. Goes back over to his friend. He reaches Jase, huffing out a breath, and reaching up to run delicate fingers over his face. He’s freezing cold, that much is clear. “Let me get you out of here, okay? You gonna be okay to portal?” 

And he’s forcing a new one open beside them, even as he says it. Out to the meeting point, quiet as it is. 

cw: vomit

He can tell, as he watches Jet make his way to Reptilian, open a portal, drag him through, that Jet’s pushing himself too hard. Overexerting himself to make up for what Jase hadn’t been able to do. And he’d probably feel bad about it, except that he’s so busy fucking shivering that he can barely think straight enough to feel anything besides cold. Cold, and tired, and the real telltale sign of hypothermia is setting in, the way he wants to go to sleep, can feel himself getting dangerously drowsy. He blinks, and Jet is dragging Reptilian through a portal. He blinks, and Jet is walking back towards him through the waist-deep water, and he doesn’t know where the time in between those two things meant. He blinks again and Jet is nearly at his side, and then touching his face, his hands warm.

Jase makes himself nod. It’s going to be distinctly unpleasant, getting pulled through a portal when he already feels like shit and doesn’t have the energy to steel himself against the motion sickness, but better throw his guts up on the other side than keep freezing to death.

     “Y—yeah,” he says, his voice coming out slow, a little slurred, through the violent shivering. And he can see the meeting point through the portal, as Jet opens it, so he grips at Jet’s arm with shaking hands and lets Jet pull him through.

A flood of water spills out behind them, on the other side of the portal, in the moment before Jet closes it behind them. And without the water holding up his weight, he ends up on his knees somehow, Jet’s arm slipping from his weak grip as he stumbles to the ground, the distinctive nausea of teleporting setting in almost before he’s fully aware that they’ve made it out the other side. 

He isn’t able to hang around the meet-up point for long, before he’s whisked away to Dulce’s. After helping Dark Wing carry one of the undead villains back to the abandoned apartment building, he barely had enough time just to take stock of who else had made it back, before he’s ferried off to his next location. Ordinarily he would have been the one calling the shots, and staying until the very last person exited that Tower and everyone was taken care of. But that job isn’t his anymore, he was no longer the den mother he once was, even though the worrying never went away. 

Catalyst had fucking done it though- that was all that mattered. She’d went above and beyond any expectations he ever had for her, managing to pull in villains to their cause that even he would have struggled in obtaining. The manor would be fine in her hands, and had been clearly, ever since his own role changed so abruptly all those months ago. 

When he gets to Dulce’s, he tries to settle his still frayed nerves and spiraling worry about those he hadn’t seen at the meet-up point, by stripping off the clothes he’d worn that night, and showering off the hours worth of blood and sweat that were caked to him. After that, he’s left to the agonizing waiting game, as he watches the burner phone he’d been using all this time, jumping at every text he receives about who had come back and the state they were in. The two names he’d been holding his breath the most for, don’t come until late into the night, the pair likely one of the last remaining villains out of the Tower before the attack had come to its violent end. 

He manages to finally fall asleep some time after he’s finally learned that Jet and Jase had gotten out safely. Even though he more than anything wanted to race back to the apartment building to greet them, he knows everyone involved was safer with him staying put- and so he does. And after months of being separated from everyone else, its oddly easy to drift asleep, knowing at the very least they all were safe now to some extent. 

He’s not sure how much time passes between when he first drifts asleep to when he stirs awake, but finds himself not caring in the slightest considering whose voice soon accompanies the shift in the mattress. 

“Hm, damn…” he mumbles groggily, as his hand finds Jase’s where he’d rested it on his shoulder, giving it a small squeeze before rolling over, “I was really hoping you were that bodyguard of Judgement’s that Dulce brought back.” 

Once his eyes meets Jase’s, he can’t help but grin through his sleep derived haze, before leaning in to press a kiss against his lips. There’s so much he could say to him in that moment, even laying there he feels the rush of emotions threaten to burst out of him, at the idea that he was fucking free now, and they were free to do this- and just be them for longer than a few hours or a night. 

But that can wait til later, he thinks, as he snuggles up against him, being careful not to hit one of the several bruises he’d earned that night from the half dozen fights he wound up entangled in. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks, his eyes slipping closed as he rubs his hand slowly across Jase’s back. 

It isn’t until he hears Ian’s voice, heavy with sleep but so wonderfully, distinctively his, down to the stupid joke, that he realizes just how much he’s been waiting for it, how much he wants to hear it. Despite the need for sleep, despite that he can see, in the dim light, that Ian’s even more beat up than he is. He leans into the kiss, once Ian initiates it, then wraps an arm around him carefully, trying to be cautious of any of the spaces where he might be bruised or banged up from the fight.

     “I’m... good,” he answers, letting out a breath of a laugh as he says it, as he realizes that it’s true. He’s tired, he’s a little sore, but he feels better than he has in... in months. In almost a year. Not just physically, but everything. “I mean, I probably almost died of hypothermia, but Daydreamer found Nightingale somewhere in the Tower, somehow.”

He brings his free hand up, freshly healed, still scarred and rough but without the frostbitten look he’s gotten so used to, without Nightingale around to help heal them. Without the soreness and ache he grew up with, the pain he was almost twenty before he realized he didn’t have to live with, that he’d gotten so used to all over again since Nightingale had been captured. Wiggles his fingers for Ian to see, for a moment, before dropping his hand to Ian’s face, running his fingers carefully along his jaw.

     “And you’re here. So, you know, everything’s coming up Jase right now.” 

It’s a strange feeling. And, of course, they’re still in the middle of it. Judgement and Hourglass’s plans seem far from over, and he knows there are plenty from among their number who are hurting far worse than he is tonight because of it. But he feels a little bit like the fog that he’d been in for months is starting to clear.