#luntica

Leo leaned back against their door and sighed. They and Sherlock had been turned back into their current forms thanks to John Constantine coming to save the day. Sherlock was resting now, while John talked to Bruce and Alfred in the parlor and the Outlaws talked amongst themselves in the library. They were sure everyone would get a debriefing after all of this.

“I’m glad everyone took this well, at least,” Leo mumbled as they wandered over and sat, staring out of the window. “I’ll have to thank John again before he disappears.”

Clenching a shaking fist, they sighed again. Sherlock didn’t deserve to go through that. He was, is, amazing. No matter what he looks like. But Leo could sympathize, or at least understand, how much it sucked to be stuck in a body that doesn’t fit. Dysphoria sucked. Leo was so thankful that their muscle mass and tone had come back and their chest nearly completely flattened.

They had been able to feel the stiffness and pain starting to creep back in, tightening their ribcage, freezing up their joints, and settling heavily in their abdomen. They hadn’t wanted anyone to see them either. Not like that. But the instant they had seen Sherlock and the panic set in, Leo knew what they had to do. They needed help. Sherlock’s safety was worth way more than their stubborn pride.

Now it was over, Sherlock was safe and asleep, and the speedster could finally let themself feel. All of the anger and frustration that had hit the moment they knew what that spell had done. They yelled in frustration, pulling at their hair. All of those old wounds had reopened, rubbed raw from being shoved back into something that should have been behind the both of them.

“I need to go for a run,” They decided, standing up and heading for the batcave. As they opened the door, Alfred was waiting on the other side.

“Ah, Master Leo. You seem…tense. Do you need anything?”

“I just need to get some air.”

“Very well. May I suggest checking in with everyone? You two had us all worried.”

“Of course.”

“Master Leo?”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad to see you’re unharmed.”

“Thanks Alfred. I’ll be back for dinner.”

“I should hope so.”

With mutual smiles, the two parted ways. The ever vigilant butler to check in on the sleeping mage and the speedster to sneak out of the house. Easier said than done when Bruce had forbidden powers in the house after the last incident. Slowly, a snail’s pace for a speedster, they crept through the halls. If they could just get to Bruce’s study, it’d only be a matter of moments before Leo could be outside Gotham and on their way…somewhere. Central? Keystone? San Francisco? Or maybe just a lap or ten around the planet? It was an old coping mechanism, and probably not the healthiest thing, but they NEEDED this. Needed the reminder that they weren’t bedridden, weren’t helpless. It was in the past and they and Sherlock were both all right. Safe as a couple of vigilantes could be.

Just a little bit more and…

“Hey.”

Leo froze. They had been so close. Resigned, the speedster turned around.

“Hey, Jay.”

He quirked an eyebrow, an unanswered question hanging in the air between them.

“I was just…”

“Trying to sneak out.” He finished for them.

“Uh…yeah.”

“I’m down with that. I just want an explanation first. A real one. You explained what was going on with Sherlock, but all I’ve gotten out of you or anyone else is just ‘chronic illness’ this and ‘autoimmune issue’ that. What the hell happened to you?”

“God, I hate that you had to see me like that.” Leo leaned up against a wall as Roy and Kori rounded a corner. “I…I have Lupus. Or something close enough to it that it might as well be. It would get so bad that I couldn’t walk, couldn’t eat, could barely breathe. It might be because of the regeneration from the Speed Force or who knows, but right now it’s…dormant, for lack of a better word.”

The Outlaws listened as Leo opened up about it. The years of pain, the useless doctors, trying to work a part-time, dead-end job despite it all. Spite, sarcasm, dissociation, gallows humor, and Sherlock the only reasons they made it anywhere.

“I’ve been fighting to have this life since I was given it. Like hell I was going to let my own body take it away from me.” They ran a hand tiredly over their face. “And then I was here and it was gone. I could move. I could breathe. God, I could EAT. But to have that thrown back at me like ‘Hey, remember. You’re still broken. It’ll never really be gone.’ The only thing that kept me from curling up was Sherlock. He needed me more than I hated my body. And he’s done so much for me over the years.” They sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “But yeah. Before you guys knew me, I really was that feeble and pathetic. And I accepted that. There was only so much I could do.” A final shrug and they fell silent.

“That wasn’t pathetic.”

“Huh?”

Jason rested and hand on their head and ruffled their hair. “You had to fight your own body to survive. And managed to have a life outside of that. Hell, half of us aren’t that strong.”

Roy shook his head. “Man, the shit you and Sherlock have been through. Why can’t any of us catch a break?”

Donny piloted the ultralight by feel, guess, and the gods, which he apparently believed didn’t exist. As the insane former assassin cut the engine and turned the lights out to glide the aircraft over the compound, Daken narrowed his eyes into the darkness to pick a landing spot. He wasn’t jumping with a parachute this time.

“Are you sure about this, Marcus?” Donny had worked with him on five jobs and still only knew one alias. Daken clapped him on the shoulder companionably. 

“Of course not. But it’s got to be done.” He saluted his colleague and, turning, rolled forward out of the plane to kick off from the side as swimmer would. Freefall was exhilerating, and Daken reveled for a few short seconds before impact, rolling to minimize the damage. A few broken bones, bruise. Nothing that wasn’t healed by the time he stood up and watched the aircraft restart and climb. No lights still; Donny was fucking insane.

Daken paused as his shins finished knitting their bones back together, and listened. Besides the disquieting sound of ligaments and bone shards clicking back into place, nothing. No alarm.

>>Good. They won’t know what hit them.<<

He wore a version of his old Avengers uniform, back when Norman had been in charge and he’d been a proper villain. It seemed fitting. He intended to leave no one alive here, and there was no room for mercy.

>>They hurt Mew. They will track him down to the ends of the earth. Best be done with it before they find him and before they find anyone else.<<

He started, methodically, with the perimeter guards. He liked knowing his routes out were safe and no one was sneaking up on him. He preferred to do the sneaking. He kept a vise grip on the throat of the last one to prevent speech, forcing him over to the door to scan his palm print. The reader sensed pulse, and dead men didn’t have one. As the door clicked open, he slit the man’s throat with a claw and stepped inside. Floor by floor he swept it, leaving corpses in his wake.

The building was mostly underground, and from time to time someone would try to fight back. No one got any warning, which was odd. He would have expected someone to pull an alarm. But it seemed to mostly be scientists. He assumed the guns were lower down.

He wasn’t wrong.

>>Knew someone would be coming. Wolverine shows up and rescues mutants, someone’s always coming back to finish it off. Surprised he didn’t himself.<<

This was the holding area. Rows of cells, clear walls and harsh lights. Some cells were apparently occupied, most had been cut open. Adamantium claws did damage to mere mortal-made materials. He counted five occupied cells, all towards the back, and twenty heavily armed guards.

He could smell their fear through the door.

>>They think it’s going to be the entire team. They think the X-Men are coming for them. Oh dear. They should have been so lucky.<<

The door was locked, but Daken’s dark bone claws were more than a match for the glass of the observation room. Spring-loaded glass punch. He jumped through into the room at their flank, and cut down four before they brought their weapons to bear.

Just because he healed almost immediately did not mean he felt no pain. His healing factor, not being stressed constantly for the last seven years since his last death, had regained full potential. He was faster, stronger, and for all his recent good deeds, meaner. 

When it was done, he dug a persistent bullet out of his gut with fingers that shook with... well, perhaps it was adrenaline. It was more likely joy. 

Everyone was dead, and they had all deserved it.

Another bullet pushed its way out of his thigh and healed over as he reached the cells. Each contained a child, and Daken wished he’d left a few scientists alive so he could kill them again, and slower. They were newer here; none of the cells smelled like they had held frightened children for longer than a few hours. 

>>Perhaps more are coming back.<<

He cut the locks on the cells out of the hard plastic casings, which was easier for him than cutting the entire wall like Logan has done, and let the children out. They followed quietly when told, and he led them out past the dead bodies in wordless daze. He hadn’t expected children. If he had, he’d probably have been slightly neater about things. He toed some intestines out of the way and made a wry face; mental scarring was probably in the future for all of them.

>>Oops.<<

He stopped at an office he’d marked on his mental map, where the dead scientist with the biggest office had left her computer running when she’d been impaled. He’d been working on his hacking skills, but as he deleted files and erased cloud data and overwrote storage and arranged for servers to overheat and explode in distant cities, he felt a little bit better.

Then he led the kids outside, and loaded them into the most civilian-looking vehicle he could find. Some of them should have had a booster seat, and he knew he was going to have to punch someone else repeatedly before the night was over to work off the extra rage.

“Stay here,” he ordered gruffly, and went back to the building. There was a self-destruct protocol, but it had to be triggered from inside. He could run fast enough, and heal if he didn’t, but the kids had to be gotten out before he could go back in and do it.

After he got the kids to the School, he’d meet up with Laura. The data was gone, but there were other facilities they would need to deal with once Mew knew he was safe.

Daken headed back in to press the metaphorical big red button.

..........................................................................................

Stereotypically, heroes walk away from explosions without looking back.

Daken drove a minivan full of absolutely silent mutant toddlers away from it at a sedate and legal speed that wouldn’t draw any attention whatsoever.