Happy Boostlethon, idiosyn!
Title: Trapped on the Merry-go-round
Author: Muccamukk
Recipient: Idiosyn
Rating: M
Prompt: "Find a way to add Ted to DCnU."
Ted had always loved flying with Booster, the contact of bodies pressed together, the wind in his face, the trust he needed to have in someone to let them carry him while travelling at a hundred and forty miles an hour while almost skimming the surface of jagged rocks. They dipped and twisted, following the contour of an overhang. They picked up altitude with every turn, steadily climbing the mountain side, hopefully under the radar until the last minute. An outcrop came up in their path and Booster pulled a hard left to swerve around it. Ted felt his hold on the sleek material of Booster's costume slipping, but the iron grip around his side never wavered. It didn't matter how pissed at him Booster was right now, Ted could trust him in this.
"Almost there," Booster said into his ear. "Ready?"
"You bet." He looked ahead, but wind made his eyes water so badly he had to turn back to the blur of grey passing beneath them. Even over the rush of wind in his eyes, he could hear the distant explosions created by Guy and Red gleefully following the command to do as much damage as they could.
The view twisted again, and when it stopped spinning, they had come to hover next to another blocky outcropping, almost at the peak. Of course, their target still had guards on it, two silent black figures standing right in the open on either side of the only section of the lab not protected by rock. That was cocky of Jarvis, but Ted figured he was probably feeling pretty confident right now, and justifiably so.
"Remember the plan." Twenty yards from the target, Booster dropped him and dove for the the robots, firing hard. At first they didn't even move, programmed to ignore anything that didn't actually threaten them. Then, when Booster dropped two tonnes of mountainside on the nearest, they snapped into action. Their heads swinging in eerie unison, they lifted off and flew straight at Booster. His shield flared in a blaze of light that would have blinded Ted if he hadn't known it was coming, then Booster wasn't there. The robots circled, searching, then started to settle back to their posts. Another chunk of granite collided with them, hitting one with enough force to careen it into the other. They spun, located Booster above them, and sped off.
Ted kept to the crouch he'd landed in, scrambling across the mountainside. The rock under his fingers trembled, transmitting another of Guy's explosions. Ted held on a little harder, hoping the rest of the team didn't bring the whole Island down. He didn't so much as glance at the precipice below him; he knew from the flight up it had to be a thousand-foot drop to the next ledge. He only had a few seconds if he wanted to pull this off, no time at all for choking.
The access panel came off surprisingly easily, exposing bundles of cables leading from the lab buried deep in the mountain to the compact communications array at the top of the outcrop. Working fast to keep from disrupting the signals long enough to trigger anything, he spliced his own equipment into the circuitry. The trick would be to intercept communication without anyone knowing he was doing it. It wouldn't work for long, but it wouldn't have to.
A wire sparked, burning a finger already scraped raw from rock climbing. "You know," he muttered, "Rocket Red would be a lot more useful right now."
"Like I was going to let you out of my sight," Booster said behind him. Ted didn't turn around. He knew that tone; it was Banter in the Face of Apparent Defeat, and he'd heard it far too much over the years. He took his last half second to fuse in a final component, then put his hands behind his back so the robot didn't wrench his shoulders out when it restrained him. One metal hand extended to circle both his wrists, while the other arm wrapped around his chest, immobilising his body by pulling him against it. When it turned him so they could both face the down slope, Ted saw that Booster was likewise restrained.
Okay, Skeets, it's over to you, Ted thought. I hope you're as good as Booster thinks you are. Aloud he said, "That didn't take very long."
"Next time I'll splice circuits and you can hold off the indestructible robots. See how you do."
"Hey, which one of us blew them up last time?"
"Team effort," Booster said dismissively. "You couldn't have done it without my force field."
Without Booster's force field, Ted would have lit off the Promethium and blown them all to hell. He changed the subject. "Notice how these guys haven't said 'the prisoners will be silent!' yet?"
"I guess we're not annoying enough. Maybe we should try harder."
"Or that they won't do anything without direct orders." He studied the machine holding Booster, its black carapace barely scuffed for all his firepower and hurled boulders. It stood absolutely motionless, as it probably could until its power supply ran out. "They must have some autonomy though, or they wouldn't be able to run the complicated operations they do, or at least not nine of them at the same time."
"I wonder if your uncle's read Asimov," Booster said speculatively. "If not, we could try trying to logic it to death." Ted raised an eyebrow. "Hey, if it's good enough for James T. Kirk, it's good enough for Booster Gold."
"I think they're trying to bore us to death right now." He tried leaning back against the robot holding him, but that only increased the pressure on his wrists. "Hey, do you hear that?"
"What?"
Ted jerked his head towards the peak. "It's gotten all quiet over there."
"It has." Booster frowned. "I hope-"
Both robots took off without warning, flying straight up like they had in Chicago. Ted thought his wrists would snap from the pressure, and tried to twist sideways a bit to ease them. That pressed his full weight against the band of metal across his chest, but he'd be able to use his hands again.
Below them, a fresh pair of guards had taken up duty over the communications array, while a third examined Ted's alterations. They'd probably have it all put back the way it had been in five minutes. He hoped that would be long enough for the security droid to do its thing. Their captors executed a perfect right angle turn when they came parallel with shoulder of the mountain, then another directly above the main entrance on the far side, dumping Ted upside down, more or less suspended by his wrists. He grunted in pain and hoped Booster thought his streaming eyes were caused by the wind.
The double doors that Jarvis had so cleverly hidden in the scree now stood exposed, but undamaged. Blotches of scorched granite, melted to glass in some places, increased in density as they got closer, and a team of robots was clearing rubble from around the entrance. Of Guy and Rocket Red, Ted could see no sign. He glanced at Booster who shook his head.
One half of the double doors swung open as they approached, leading to a tunnel behind. Jarvis had expanded it all to the scale of an industrial loading bay, and the corridor dwarfed the human-sized robots and their prisoners. Ted pictured thousands of the robots swarming out of the passageway like bees, ready to strike anywhere in the world, and shuddered. They passed through another set of doors, then into a corridor small enough that they had to fly in single file. Most of the walls here were carved out of living rock and unfinished save for the floors. Ted didn't remember this area. Either it hadn't been on the megalomaniacal tour of doom last time, or Jarvis had added the extension in the last six years or so. The pressure of flying sideways was really making his ribs ache, but at least it had eased up on his arms.
They came to a halt inside a round room about half the size of Ted's warehouse lab. Banks of screens hugged the side, all active and displaying robot's eye views of the world. Many showed Pago Island from various angles, a rotation of security footage, but the majority of the screens displayed images of world capitols from the inside, scared people on their knees or pinned the same way Ted and Booster were. A location tag ran along the top left of each screen, reading things like "London: No. 10 Downing Street" and "Jerusalem: General Stern's Residence." Ted's eyes flicked over the images until he found one labelled "Washington: White House," and his gut clenched at what he saw. Ted had never been much for rah rah patriotism, but this was the President.
Jarvis Kord stood in the centre of it all like a conductor. He hadn't changed since Ted had last seen him, still an unassuming stocky little man with buzzcut white hair and a lab coat. Someone who, until the moment that he'd snapped and shown his hand, had always seemed to Ted like the epitome of an absent-minded professor puttering away on his pet projects. Even now, he was mumbling to himself and vaguely waving his hands at the screens. Only as the robots brought them closer, Ted realised that he must actually be sub-vocalising commands to one squad or another. More robots emerged from alcoves around the edges of the room, moving in to stand between Jarvis and the prisoners. Only when they were in place did the robots holding Ted and Booster set down, and not until a few minutes after that did Jarvis acknowledge that they were there. He turned and stepped around his bodyguards so he could walk right up to Ted.
"Hiya, Unk." Ted pasted an extremely happy and equally fake smile. "Howzit going?"
Ignoring this, Jarvis circled Ted, examining him minutely. He reached up to run a hand along Ted's face, not with the old, false affection but clinically testing his skin. Dropping his hand, he finally demanded, "Who the hell are you?"
That had not been what Ted was expecting. "Theodore Stephen Kord." When that didn't get so much as a blink, he added. "My father's Thomas Matthew Kord, your brother."
Jarvis' head jerked side to side in small almost mechanical motions. "No. You're not." His hand came up again, wrapped around something sharp and gleaming.
Ted saw the blow coming but couldn't do anything to move out of the way. He tried not to cry out as the blade sliced across his cheek and came away bloody, but a hiss of pain still escaped. Jarvis probably hadn't even heard it under the ruckus Booster was causing. Ted couldn't help but feel warmed that Booster would still threaten violence and misquote the Geneva Convention for him.
"Silence, prisoner!" Jarvis snapped, but Booster only quieted when he stepped away and passed the bloody penknife to one of his robots. "Android: Compare this to existing samples, and check for copy degradation in the DNA that might indicate cloning."
"You won't find any," Ted told him. He hoped. He didn't remember being cloned anyway, but this was the JLI, and he'd learned not to dismiss such possibilities out of hand. "I'm the real Ted Kord."
"Impossible. I killed my nephew six years ago."
"You what?" Booster demanded. "No you didn't."
"Of course I did. I just exhumed the body to make sure."
"He actually did have one of his robots bash my skull in," Ted confirmed, hoping to cut off this line of conversation before Jarvis decided to produce his desiccated corpse as proof. He didn't feel even a little bit curious about what that would be like. "But I got better."
"Shit, Kord, was anything you told me true?"
Ted wanted to tell him that everything he'd said while they were in bed together had been absolutely true, but he did not want to have that conversation in front of his uncle. "The important things were."
"Important to who?"
"Silence," Jarvis ordered, but almost absently this time, his attention focused behind Ted and Booster. He walked out of Ted's field of vision to return carrying a handful of components from Ted's attempts to hijack the communications array. "It seems I over-estimated you," he told Ted. "When I heard 'Ted Kord' had returned from the dead, I was so intriegued that I sent some of my super-androids to collect him along with that renewed source of Promethium. Then, when I learned that my supposed nephew was involved with a team of metahumans, well, I was almost..." he paused to luxuriate in the deliberation over which word would convey the appropriate level of contempt, "concerned."
"Does he practice in front of the mirror?" Booster whispered.
"I've always thought he must."
Jarvis, however, wasn't about to let them interrupt his flow. "I've come full circle, in a way. All those years ago, it was you and your fool friend's interference that caused me to rethink my plans for conquest. I realised the wisdom of building and improving my army of super-androids until I felt I was ready to strike. Now, my concern caused me to move my schedule forward by a few months, not before I was ready, but it pushed me past my caution." His lips twitched up in what Ted supposed he meant to be a self-deprecating smile. "And then I saw this pathetic attempt to override my link to my faithful army." He turned the largest device over in his hands, barely bothering to examine it, then dropped it and ground it under his heel. "I'm sad to say your DNA proves you are who you say you are. I was hoping you were an impostor, and I wasn't related to someone who would produce such a sad effort."
"Well that makes two of us, Uncle." Really, Ted didn't want to be related to most of his family. It didn't take much to understand why he didn't have much of a life outside the league half the time.
"And as for your precious team," Jarvis continued, turning to Booster. "Five minutes against my super-androids, and they were beaten: two dead, the rest fleeing with their tails between their legs, and their glorious leader captured."
Ted snuck a sideways glance at Booster, who was staring straight ahead, face a mask. This is the plan, Ted wanted to tell him, The boys are just being dramatic. Sure, "Two dead" hadn't been in the plan. They were just supposed to make it look good and then let the robots drive them back, but when had "retreat" ever been in Guy Gardner's vocabulary? It had two syllables and everything. It didn't help that Ted and Booster hadn't seen what had happened, that they couldn't risk checking in lest Jarvis also detect the tiny stream of data leaking from inside his lab. He had to think his island was impermeable, and therefore Booster had to go on not knowing if his team had survived. Ted had lived with the JLI coming out of impossible situations for years, but Booster was still new to the idea of looking after people, and didn't seem to know Scott Free in this universe. Ted missed Scott. If he got out of this, he was going to track him down.
"That hurts, doesn't it? Maybe, you're not quite the self-serving opportunist the press thinks you are. You care that your team trusted their leader to get them out alive, don't you?" Jarvis always had been one for twisting the knife, and he'd gotten better at it. Ted found his lip curling back in a snarl. "I was going to just execute you once I determined your plan, but I think I'll keep you around just long enough." He gestured to the screens. "Just long enough to watch the world fall before me. Android: get me the UN."
"Hey," Ted tried to shift a little closer to Booster, but couldn't move. "Are you..." He didn't really know what to ask. "Hang in there, okay." Booster nodded, eyes still fixed on the far monitors where images of the front entrance showed no sign of life at all.
Briggs' face popped up on the largest screen. "Andre Briggs, UN Intelligence," he said shortly, then went on to prove that he'd never use one word when three long ones would do. "The United Nations has received your demand for unconditional international surrender pending the universal launch of weapons of mass destruction, however, as the general assembly is still in an emergency session, I would like to request a twelve-hour extension on your deadline."
"Unacceptable!" Jarvis snapped. "Do you want me to make an example of someone? Senegal, perhaps?"
"Mr. Kord, I assure you-"
"Emperor Kord!"
Seemingly unruffled, Briggs backtracked and corrected to, "Emperor Kord, I assure you..."
As Briggs and Jarvis engaged in three rounds of wannabe evil dictator versus international bureaucracy, Ted whispered to Booster, "He's good. You should hire him."
"You only say that because he's not aiming that double speak at you."
Eventually, however, Jarvis' patience came to an end. "Enough! My deadline stands. Any nation that does not surrender to me by midnight universal time shall suffer the consequences! Android: end communication." Briggs' image disappeared, replaced by two robots attempting to interrogate the French President.
"You know he's stalling, right?" Booster commented.
"Of course I know he's..." Jarvis frowned, turning to Booster. "I know that, of course, but why do you think so?"
Show time, Ted thought. Make it good, Buddy. I don't want to have to fall back on Plan B. Especially since, in this case, Plan B involved him dying. Actually, he wasn't entirely sure that wasn't also in the books for Plan A. They needed to get inside the base to stall Jarvis and feed information to Skeets, but he didn't remember hearing how they were supposed to get out of the base.
"Oh come on," Booster was saying. "You have to know that the international community is never going to negotiate with terrorists. The UN's just assigned a stooge like Briggs to cover for them, make it look like theyíre getting along when really everyone's busy deactivating nukes."
Jarvis' face flushed with anger. "Lies. I'm watching everything. If they went near the missile sites I'd know. Then they would taste my retribution."
Booster shrugged, apparently unperturbed. "I don't know about the North Koreans, but everyone else has protocol for this. When I left, they were planning to just cut off all of the automated launch mechanisms. How did that work again, Ted?"
Ted had no idea - and he doubted Booster had the faintest notion either since he was making the lot of it up - but it was an easy bit of conjecture. "They stick a loop in the system so it reads normal and responsive when really you're just talking to a modified chess program in Kansas City. It's pretty basic technology."
Jarvis glared at him, then at Booster for good measure, before spinning to face the screens. "Android: Launch Russian missile against Tbilisi, Georgia."
Please, please, please, please, Ted prayed, though he wasn't sure to whom. Maybe the little gold security droid in the sky. Maybe even to Booster's plan.
"There, see," Jarvis proclaimed. "My commands are effective."
"Are they really?" Booster was trying to keep up the I Win, You Lose, Nyah Nyah front, but Ted could hear the strain in his voice. "Check the satellite."
Twin images appeared: one tagged "Russia: Missile Silo 37" showed no activity of any kind, and a wider view of a grey, snow-covered city was likewise free of mushroom clouds.
"Thank you," Ted whispered.
"But the hostages!" Jarvis protested, his voice raising in pitch volume with every word. "I have the world's leaders at my feet. I have the lives of their children in my grip. My super-androids control the hearts of the great nations of the Earth."
"I can't say for sure, but last I heard, they were considered expendable for the sake of world security." Booster was coasting on a level of smugness that made Ted want to hit him, so he wasn't surprised when Jarvis backhanded him across the face. From the way Booster took the punch, he'd been expecting it too.
"And you? You're expendable as well?" Jarvis demanded.
Booster shrugged again. "Pretty much."
"I've had enough of your lies." To the robot holding Booster, he ordered, "Android-" An explosion rocked the complex, followed by another three in quick succession. "What is this? Show me what's going on."
The monitors all changed to images of the mountainside surrounding the front door. A figure in red and blue was tearing the doors off its hinges, iconic cape billowing behind him. A dark-haired Green Lantern drilled into the rock around the other door, while a cyborg fended off a relentless hoard of robots with well-placed laser blasts. Off to the side, an Amazon princess was slicing the heads off of robots left and right, with a man in a swirling dark cape guarding her back. Tentacles of something dark and, to Ted's eyes, very much like a kraken crept up from the sea. Ted couldn't see the Flash, but then one usually couldn't.
"That would be the Justice League." Ted hadn't thought Booster could sound any more self satisfied, but somehow he managed it. "I called up my buddy Hal Jordan just before we dropped in, gave him all the details and said we'd soften up the place for him so his boys could take it apart."
Jarvis had gone from flushed to red to nearly purple with rage. He whirled from screen to screen, watching as all his plans crumbled. "No. No. I won't let this happen. You won't defeat me!" He strode to the control hub in the centre of the room, flipped off his controls and and punched an actual physical big red button. "I will not fall alone. Even if the world rebuilds from the blood and ashes of their capitols, they will never forget the name of Jarvis Kord. Androids, come, my obedient ones: self destruct. Blow this world apart."
Ted pictured the command for destruction, processed into a data package, shooting up the cables to the transmitter on the peak, then flying out across the Atlantic, either directly or relayed though hijacked satellites. It touched every one of the sleek black robots, and every one responded by immolating itself and everything around it. He sent another quick prayer to the golden robot in the sky, and focused on more immediate concerns.
Even before the impending overload in the robot holding him became audible, Ted could feel it in his fingertips. This time it wouldn't even leave a body, which would undoubtedly solve some existential paradox somewhere in space time. "Any last words?" He asked Booster. The script had been running along neatly so far, but Ted remembered this part getting a little vague.
"Yeah, actually." Booster said, and ducked out of the robot's hold on him. "Super powers are awesome." He had to duck and twist to the side as the thing swiped at him, but the power overload slowed its reactions. He didn't have any trouble getting out of its reach, nor in throwing his forcefield around Ted and the robot holding him, and towed them after him as he flew for the door. "Skeets, how's it going there, buddy?" Ted couldn't hear the reply, but from Booster's expression, the answer had been to the effect of, "Pretty darn good, Sir."
"What about my uncle?" Ted had to yell to be heard over the wind and scream of feedback.
"No time. Sorry."
As Jarvis' screams echoed behind them, Ted tried to find sorry in his heart. He couldn't do it. The only regret he felt was that he couldn't wrap an International Criminal Court conviction in a bow and drop it on Murray's desk. Jarvis' madness would again cost him his life, and he'd never see real justice for Dan Garrett or the other lives he'd destroyed. "Never mind," he shouted back, and hoped Booster understood.
Behind the amber glow of the shield, the rough-hewn walls flashed past, first the twisting narrow passageway, then the industrial corridor to the main entrance. "Better evacuate," Booster yelled as they blew though the shattered doors. "Mountain go boom now."
Hal Jordan swooped in to scoop up Wonder Woman, while Cyborg levitated Batman, and the rest followed, Aquaman shooting up in a rainbow of salt spray, spreading his fiery wings triumphantly. Half a mile from the island, the robot whirred softly and lost its hold on Ted. He shoved it off as best he could, letting Booster grab hold of his leg while the robot fell away. It exploded before it hit the water.
Booster flipped Ted in the air to hold him in a bridal carry, and turned back towards the island. Nothing happened at first, but then the entire surface seemed to shiver, and slowly, almost ponderously, Pago Island's single granite peak folded in on itself. They heard the deafening roar a second later. If Ted had been asked to describe what the end of the world sounded like, that would be it.
"This is kind of where we started out, isn't it?" Booster mused as they floated above the Atlantic, watching the dust and building-sized boulders settle. He still cradled Ted in his arms, any other attempted position proving too much for his aching ribs.
"You mean with the running and the explosions?" Ted asked. "Yeah, I guess it is."
"Listen, Ted, I-" Booster started only to be overridden by Hal complaining that nothing was happening, so why couldn't they just go home? Also, if he missed his football game, Booster was going to regret it in a way that didn't sound entirely anatomically plausible.
Batman requested to be carried by someone else. When Hal told him to shut it or get dropped, he replied in a beautifully crisp English accent, "Have some respect, you blighter; I'm goddamn Batman."
"How come she got to be Batman, anyway?" Superman asked in one female voice, then added in another, "Yeah, we wanted to be Batman."
Booster rested his forehead against Ted's for a moment, then said, "Okay, you can stop projecting now, Red. This is seriously starting to creep me out."
"Da," Cyborg said, and the Justice League flickered and vanished, only to be replaced by Booster's own team. Hovering against the blue skies of the mid Atlantic, they looked battered, grubby, and absolutely glorious.
"Someday," Booster promised, "Someday, they're going to run when they see us coming."
"Very much too bad," Rocket Red was complaining. "Major Iron better in little flag shorts."
Ted shook his head regretfully and told Booster, "I wouldn't count on it."
Slaving their still nameless ship to Booster's suit never had made it to the top of Ted's priority list, so Rocket Red had to go diving to bring it up for them. Guy finally had dropped Godiva and gone home, and Booster ended up balancing her, Ted and the General until the ship surfaced.
"So how'd you get away from that last robot?" Ted asked as they clambered into the dripping interior. He added some kind of airlock to the list.
Booster looked indignant. "Today I... we have saved the world by entering the very lair of a mad scientist, lying our assess off while we used his own data - and the amazing powers of my 25th-century code-breaking friend here," he lightly fist bumped Skeets' ventral stabiliser, "to take over his global communication network, thereby seizing control of all of his remote robots and..." he frowned. "Er, Skeets, what did you do with the army of indestructible evil robots?"
"I ordered them to fly into the stratosphere and then allowed them to self destruct," Skeets replied. Maybe he had evolved some kind of emotion, because Ted would swear he sounded almost smug. If he hadn't just been instrumental to saving all their butts, Ted would have voted to leave him under water longer. "Not bad for a 'modified chess program in Kansas City,' if I may say so, sir."
"Not bad at all," Booster agreed. "Thereby seizing control of all of his remote robots and destroying them, and then talking him into blowing himself up, and you want to know how I took down one lousy robot?"
"Sure," Ted said, looming over Red until he gave up the pilot's seat. "And I was there when we thought that up, and I did better than half the programming. The bit about how we were supposed to get away after we'd made all the robots explode was the one part of the plan that you left kind of fuzzy."
"I wanted to leave room for improvisation," Booster said, blithely pretending he hadn't been flying by the seat of his pants most of the time. He had come forward and was leaning over Ted's shoulder again. "Anyway, I used a combination of super strength and a miniaturised forcefield to gradually separate my wrists. I guess they were programmed not to inadvertently dismember people, it loosened its grip a millimetre at a time. After about ten minutes, I had enough wiggle room to slip out, and here we all are."
"You left out the bit where me and Red died heroically for the cause." That was Bea, and Ted didn't have turn around to know she had a jubilant, devil-may-care grin plastered across her face.
"Da. Was good. Big explosion. Much drama."
"Much grey hair for team leader," Booster countered, but not reproachingly. He seemed to be learning the JLI axiom of any plan you walk away from is a good one.
In that spirit, Ted did not ask what Booster would have done had Jarvis not left such an idiotic gap in his programming. Instead, he remembered something Booster had started to say about being back where they started. "Look, Booster," he said in a voice low enough to fall under the team's chatter. "I want-"
The comm beeped, and Briggs' voice filled the ship, demanding to know what their status was, and when they'd be back in New York to debrief, and how the Justice League was tied up in all of this. He didn't seem to believe Booster when he claimed that the only thing he'd Hal to to do was not get visibly involved.
"I am thinking we not have more Victorious Dark Side Night today," Red commented, and Vixen muttered something under her breath that Ted was glad he didn't catch.
As Booster alternately fielded and dodged questions, Ted let himself become immersed in flying the ship. In a crisis of this level, Booster would probably spend the next three days telling the same story to different people over and over again. If Ted turned out to be luckier than he had been thus far, he wouldn't get sucked too deeply in. In any case, he couldn't see either of them finding a chance for private conversations any time soon. All promised explanations would have to wait. He could only hope that Booster didn't take the intervening time to work a good mad up.
Ted kept up the abducted by aliens story, now with the new and exciting Evil Uncle Expansion Pack, in the face of Briggs and his interminable questions. Claiming exhaustion got him sprung around midnight, and even earned him a ride in a shiny UN car. He hadn't been lying about the tired part at least, and he drifted in and out of sleep as the black sedan wound its way back to Queens. Mostly, he tried not to think too much about the looks Booster kept giving him as he dug himself deeper. He still hadn't had a chance to explain, and his chances of getting one seemed to be dropping by the minute.
"I'll deal with it in the morning," he decided as he trudged down the hotel corridor, knowing that he was talking to himself and really not caring. He almost dropped the card key trying to get it right way around in the lock. "Tonight I just want to... Oh, fuck, Rip Hunter."
The time master was sitting next to Rani in the middle of the floor, apparently drawing an orange pony on hotel stationary. "You left your balcony door unlatched," he said, as though that explained everything.
"No I didn't." Hunter just shrugged. Breaking and entering, it seemed, was beneath his concern. Ted kicked off his shoes and sank onto the edge of the bed, slumping forward to brace his forearms on his thighs. "Fine. Do whatever you want. You do anyway."
Hunter abandoned his colouring and pried himself off the floor; he moved with, Ted was pleased to note, the same level of stiff exhaustion that he and the rest of the team did. Hooking the room's single chair with his foot, he pulled it over to sit in front of Ted. "We actually just came by to thank you for all your work, and to say goodbye."
"Goodbye?" Ted asked, sitting up a little more alertly. "So that's it, you just show up, pluck me out of space-time, spend a week screwing up my life and then abandon me to the mess?"
"I did not 'screw up your life.'"
"Oh yeah? Then why does my best friend hate me?"
"Christ." Hunter pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes. "If ever two people deserved each other." Looking up, he said, "Michael does not hate you. He's had his feathers ruffled; he'll get over it. You of all people know what he's like."
Ted had to concede that that might be true. Booster could hold a grudge like no other non-supervillain Ted had ever met, but faced with repeated proof of good faith, such as saving the world, he'd eventually let go. Usually. "I just don't see why..."
"Look, would it help if you knew that if you hadn't joined the team when you did, Michael would have died stopping an ICBM headed for New York? Or that five entire cities and seven heads of state died before the Justice League found your uncle and took him down?"
"Um..." Ted turned that one over in his head, trying to picture what would have happened if the attacks had taken the world completely unawares. "Yeah. I guess it would."
Hunter got up and Ted's shoulder. "I put you in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time to make all the difference in the world. I can't say that a few lies and some minor emotional fallout are breaking my heart."
With Hunter standing, Ted had to lean back to look him in the eye. "So that whole spiel about Booster needing to know me to achieve his true destiny was total BS?"
"About sixty-six percent BS," Hunter admitted. "I went with what you'd believe and took the least amount of time to explain."
Not feeling like getting lied to again tonight, Ted didn't ask about the other thirty-four percent. "You really are kind of a bastard, aren't you?"
Unexpectedly, Hunter laughed. "You have no idea how true that is."
"Whatever," Ted grumbled and flopped backwards onto the bed.
"Uncle Ted?"
"Yes, Rani?" He propped himself up on one elbow and peered over the edge of the bed at her. She was holding out a piece of paper with a rough crayon drawing of a blue butterfly sitting on a big yellow flower. "Did you make that for me?"
"Uh huh. It's a picture of you."
"I..." Ted stared at the drawing and thought about being in the right place at the right time. "You're a smart kid, you know that?"
"Yup." Rani grinned up at him. He thought about her curled up on the floor, begging for help that could never come now, and decided it was good to see her smile.
"You gonna be okay, sweetie?" he asked, pausing to ruffle her hair as he took the picture. It made her look even more like Raggedy Anne than usual; Hunter really needed to get her to a proper stylist.
She looked at Hunter, standing by the window and watching her with that soft, kind of sad expression, then back at the butterfly drawing. "Yeah," she said. "I think so." Standing on her toes, she reached up and kissed Ted on the cheek. "Bye, Uncle Ted."
"Goodbye, Rani. Good luck. Hunter, thanks for saving my life; I hope I never see you again." He closed his eyes, then threw an arm over them because he didn't have the energy to get up and turn the lights off.
The door to the deck creaked as it slid open. "Ready?" Hunter asked, then in quite a different tone, "Hello, Michael. Here to see Ted?"
"Rip Hunter." Booster didn't sound a lot happier to be saying that name then Ted usually was. "So you are involved in this!" The door closed before Ted could hear Rip's reply. He pushed himself half way to sitting, but couldn't see more than shadows though the translucent white curtain covering the door.
The door slid open again before he could get up, and Booster stood on the threshold. His costume reflected the lights from inside, casting him in even greater contrast to the winter night behind him. Big, wet snowflakes clung to his hair and shoulders, and Ted watched in fascination as one drifted past his googles to land just on the corner of his mouth. Then Booster stepped into the room, and the slam of the door behind him broke the moment.
"I guess I'm the only one who uses the actual door," Ted commented, even though he could still feel his heart in his throat. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood to take whatever came like a man. "I thought Briggs and company would have you until next Wednesday at least." Okay, like a bug. He couldn't quite bring himself to ask what he really wanted to know: what Booster was doing here, why, if not at the UN, he wasn't back home sleeping.
"Briggs wanted me coherent for the press conference tomorrow." Booster didn't stop advancing until he was just inches from Ted, so close Ted had to tilt his head back a little to look him in the eye.
"Booster, I-" Ted started to say, but Booster shook his head.
"Save it," he ordered. "I get to go first." Ted shut his mouth. "I've been thinking about this a lot. I mean, fuck, I can't seem to get it to stop running in circles around the inside of my skull. Who you are, what's true, what you made up, how much of it was a lie." He shoved his hand back through his hair, and the melting snowflakes held it slicked back, the way he'd used to wear it. "And, as Rip was just kind enough to remind me, it's not like I have any firm moral ground to stand on when it comes to being completely honest about my past. There's like four people in this time who even know my real name, plus Skeets, and maybe Batman, because he seems to know everything. Plus it's not like half the other heroes don't lie as a way of life. I just..." he cut off his own ramble, and took a breath. His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that Ted could see his arm muscles quivering even thought the suit. "Look," Booster said, starting again. "What I really want to know is last night: were you just fucking me over as part of your con?"
Ted found he needed to fall back half a step to catch his balance. He's been bracing for that, but it still would have been easier if Booster had just up and socked him one. Worse still was the look on Boosters face, under the crude bravado, he looked like a man who'd lost so many times that he was starting to expect nothing else. "Oh, Michael, no." The words left his lips before he even knew what he was saying, Booster's given name used automatically to soften a hard blow. "I've lied about a lot of things in this week, but that was never one of them. I slept with you because I wanted to. I've wanted to for years."
Booster studied his expression, eyes narrowed with intensity, and Ted found himself holding his breath and hoping that Booster would be able to see right through to his soul. After a moment he nodded to himself and held out his hand. "Let's try this again: Booster Gold, Justice League International."
No hesitation this time either. Ted took his hand and held on as hard as he could. "Ted Kord. In this exact timeline, I was murdered by my mad scientist uncle. In another version of this timeline, I escaped my uncle and became the Blue Beetle and a founding member of the JLI."
"Really?" Curiosity overtook the intensity of the moment. "Wow. What happened to your armour?"
Ted sighed. Here we go again. "I never had powers. Other then the Power of Science of course, and above average good looks and charm. Plus I could dress like a bug while keeping a straight face."
"And you know another version of me?"
This was so easy. Booster would ask a question and all he had to do was tell the truth, and another weight lifted off of him. He didn't even feel tired anymore. "Yes, for years and years. You were the best friend I ever had."
Booster let go of his hand, folding his arms. "But other than this damned itchy feeling like somehow I should know you, I don't remember any of this other timeline?"
"I guess not. I think only Rani, Rip Hunter and I do."
"And you and other me, we were...?"
"I thought you were straight."
"Oh. Huh."
"It was a different time."
"Right." Booster paused, clearly hunting for another relevant question. Finally, he burst out, "Why the hell didn't you just say all this in the first place?"
Ted couldn't help it; he laughed in Booster's face. When he eventually stopped, he gasped, "You have no idea how many times I've asked myself that in the last week. For what it's worth, I'm really sorry, and Rip Hunter says it saved the world." Or Booster's life anyway, which felt pretty close to the world to Ted right now.
"Okay then," Booster said dubiously. "Accepting apology, blaming Rip, and moving on." He didn't seem to have anywhere to move on to though, and just stood there in front of Ted, arms still folded, shifting his weighted uneasily from foot to foot.
Waiting didn't seem to get the conversation anywhere, so Ted eventually manned up enough to ask, "So we okay?"
Booster nodded. "Sure. I guess at some point we'll have to figure out what you want to tell the team, though I've got to agree that lying to Briggs is always a good life choice."
"All right."
"Good," Booster said. He didn't move. Ted didn't either.
After another minute, Ted gave up. Obviously they were going to be stuck in awkward land for the next couple of weeks, which is what came of having wild monkey sex with your team leader, let alone with your best friend who doesn't remember you. They important thing was that Booster forgave him; everything else was just details. "Well, then I guess I should say goodni-"
If nothing else, that seemed to nudge Booster into motion. "Fuck that." Then he grabbed Ted's shoulders, pulled him forward and kissed him square on the mouth.
Startled, Ted froze. He could feel Booster's lips on his, soft and a little dry from flying in the wind, and his hands digging into his upper arms. He hadn't expected to do this again, and it took his brain a moment to get with the programme. But when the press of his mouth against Ted's got no response, Booster's grip softened, and he let out a small growl ofr disappointment. Ted realised that this could be his absolute final chance, and he'd had far more than any man deserved. He relaxed into the touch, parting his lips in a contented sigh. The blue and gold costume didn't really have any traction to it, nor any real feeling of the person under the sleek fibres, but Ted ran his hands down Booster's sides to rest on his hips, hoping he got the idea.
He seemed like he did, and and smiled against Ted's mouth as he deepened the kiss. He took his time with it, cradling Ted's face in his gloved hands to hold his head absolutely still as his lips and tongue explored him. Ted let his eyes drift shut, immersing himself in the sensation of skin against skin, the slight tug of Booster's stubble as he kissed the corner of Ted's mouth. He couldn't help letting out a little gasp as Booster pulled away. When he opened his eyes again, Booster was looking at him seriously from behind his goggles. "Keep your eyes open," he said. "I want you to watch what I do to you."
His voice had a kind of growling edge to it that made Ted just say, "Yes," no questions asked.
"Good boy," Booster said, and his grin dared Ted to make something out of it.
Ted wasn't about to. He tried to press forward to kiss Booster again, but he couldn't move against the hands holding his head steady. Fucking strength-enhancing suit. Booster didn't move or let him move until he relaxed back into place. Then Booster started where he'd been, kissing the corner of his mouth and then the edge of his jaw next. When Ted tried to tilt his head back to expose his neck, he found he still couldn't move. "Oh, come on," he moaned.
"What's the magic word?" The commanding growl again, the one that turned Ted on too much to argue, and he said, "Please," instead of "Fuck off," which was what he'd intended.
The hands left his face and started massaging Ted's chest. He arced into the touch, and Booster sucked lightly at his throat. When Ted groaned, he could feel his larynx vibrating against Booster's lips. He barely noticed Booster tugging on his shirt until it was already untucked and pushed half way up his chest. His fingers scrabbled at Booster's costume but he couldn't find the seam on the new design. Instead he raised his arms and let Booster peel him out his shirt and undershirt. Their kiss only broke for the moment it took for the fabric to pass in front of his face.
Booster's gloves had some kind of gripping material built into the palms and fingers, and it caught a little as they swept back over Ted's chest. When he gasped into Booster's mouth as they snagged in his chest hair, he couldn't tell if it was in pain or something else. When Booster grabbed his ass and pulled their hips together, squeezing just a little too hard, he decided it was both pain and everything else.
He broke away from the kiss to bury his face against Booster's neck and whimpered as Booster gripped the point where his skull met his spine and pulled him closer. The other hand dragged down Ted's back, perspiration only cutting the friction a little.
"I've gotcha," Booster whispered, breath hot in his ear, and Ted clutched desperately at his back. His hands still couldn't find any purchase.
His belt quickly joined his shirts on the floor, and Booster eased him back down onto the bed, stripping pants, underwear and socks in one smooth movement. Rising up, Booster let his body slide the whole length of Ted's, cool fibreweave-circuitry rubbing against his flushed skin. He thought he'd come from just that, without Booster laying a hand on him, or if not then certainly when Booster pinned his hands above his head and grinned down at him, saying, "So, I hear you have a thing for tall blond superheroes."
"If I didn't before, I sure as hell do now."
Booster looked even more pleased with himself and kissed him teasingly, just letting his lips brush Ted's before he pulled away out of reach. His hips likewise just barely brushed against Ted's erection as he tried to arc and strain into more contact. Ted closed his eyes and tried to remember how to count to two hundred in Arabic, but couldn't think though the haze of lust and the sound of his own pounding heart. "Hey," Booster reminded him sharply. "I want you to look at me, remember?"
Ted opened his eyes and looked. He looked at all six foot four inches of perfectly-toned superhero hovering over him, only his lower face and hair exposed while Ted wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing. He looked at his best friend in the world, confident and happy, and miraculously totally into him. "Please, Booster," he begged, "You're killing me here."
"Oh, well," Booster said, "And I promised to protect you, too." He pressed Ted's wrists together, gently so as not to put too much pressure on the fresh bruises, and kissed him sensuously. It only took wrapping his gloved fingers around Ted's cock and squeezing lightly to finish him. Ted swore against Booster's mouth, and pushed up with his whole body. Booster's kisses became fierce as their bodies pressed together for a long breathless moment, until Ted sank limply into the covers.
"Fuck," he said again, without feeling, as Booster proceeded to make a show of licking his glove clean. "This is like a whole armada of kinks I've never previously admitted to."
"Mm-hmm," Booster mumbled, busy fellating two of his own fingers.
"How uh..." His eyes ran down the length of Booster's body to focus on his groin. "How are you doing?" He couldn't tell through the suit's protective layering.
The fingers left Boosters mouth with an absolutely obscene popping noise. "Oh, you know, could probably use a hand." He licked his thumb deliberately. "Or something else."
Ted, who just been thinking that he'd feel perfectly content if he never moved again, felt a flicker of interest. "You'll have to get out of that suit first. I couldn't figure it out earlier."
Booster rose to his knees and reached behind him to trigger some kind of fastening, not incidentally showing off a gorgeous expanse of flexing pecs and abdominals. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius."
"Come back down here, and I'll show you genius," Ted promised, and reached up to help Booster wiggle out of his top. It took additional shimmying, some yarding and a good deal more energy then Ted wanted to spend to peel Booster out of the rest of his costume. Finally he lay on his back, naked, long legs indolently spread so Ted could kneel between them.
Someday, he wanted to take his time with this, to suck and lick and caress until Booster was the one begging for his life. He wanted to hear every whimper and moan and profanity his mouth and his hands could wring out of him. However, Booster was already so hard that all Ted had to do was enclose his cock in his lips and bob down as far as he could go then up again, slowly, sucking hard. Booster choked back a sob, and his hips bucked, but Ted held him steady. He spread his hands across the the top of Booster's thighs and moved with him until the cock between his lips felt soft and tender. He swallowed this time, and let Booster pet his hair as he rested his head on Booster's stomach.
"You're the best," Booster murmured sleepily.
"You got it, buddy," Ted told him. He didn't want to move, but he knew he probably smelled like a cyborg yeti that had been dredged out of the East River. Reluctantly he slid off the bed. "Why don't you try get in the bed before you pass out. I'll be back in a minute."
When Ted came back, now grime-free and smelling of generic hotel soap, Booster lay curled on his side under the covers, dead to the world. He didn't stir as the bed dipped under Ted's weight, and only made an indistinct grunt when Ted draped an arm over his waist and slid up next to him.
As he drifted off, Ted thought about how much he loved the man beside him, what he would risk for him. The answer was everything, of course, it had been since the early days. He knew this would be another wild ride, as the Justice League International always was, and maybe someday he'd have to give everything up again. That would be another day. For now, Blue and Gold were together again, and whatever the universe threw at them, together was how they'd handle it.
Fin.
Reviews warm the heart. Flames warm the hearth. Constructive criticism welcome.
* Part One * Part Two * Part Three *
Author: Muccamukk
Recipient: Idiosyn
Rating: M
Prompt: "Find a way to add Ted to DCnU."
Ted had always loved flying with Booster, the contact of bodies pressed together, the wind in his face, the trust he needed to have in someone to let them carry him while travelling at a hundred and forty miles an hour while almost skimming the surface of jagged rocks. They dipped and twisted, following the contour of an overhang. They picked up altitude with every turn, steadily climbing the mountain side, hopefully under the radar until the last minute. An outcrop came up in their path and Booster pulled a hard left to swerve around it. Ted felt his hold on the sleek material of Booster's costume slipping, but the iron grip around his side never wavered. It didn't matter how pissed at him Booster was right now, Ted could trust him in this.
"Almost there," Booster said into his ear. "Ready?"
"You bet." He looked ahead, but wind made his eyes water so badly he had to turn back to the blur of grey passing beneath them. Even over the rush of wind in his eyes, he could hear the distant explosions created by Guy and Red gleefully following the command to do as much damage as they could.
The view twisted again, and when it stopped spinning, they had come to hover next to another blocky outcropping, almost at the peak. Of course, their target still had guards on it, two silent black figures standing right in the open on either side of the only section of the lab not protected by rock. That was cocky of Jarvis, but Ted figured he was probably feeling pretty confident right now, and justifiably so.
"Remember the plan." Twenty yards from the target, Booster dropped him and dove for the the robots, firing hard. At first they didn't even move, programmed to ignore anything that didn't actually threaten them. Then, when Booster dropped two tonnes of mountainside on the nearest, they snapped into action. Their heads swinging in eerie unison, they lifted off and flew straight at Booster. His shield flared in a blaze of light that would have blinded Ted if he hadn't known it was coming, then Booster wasn't there. The robots circled, searching, then started to settle back to their posts. Another chunk of granite collided with them, hitting one with enough force to careen it into the other. They spun, located Booster above them, and sped off.
Ted kept to the crouch he'd landed in, scrambling across the mountainside. The rock under his fingers trembled, transmitting another of Guy's explosions. Ted held on a little harder, hoping the rest of the team didn't bring the whole Island down. He didn't so much as glance at the precipice below him; he knew from the flight up it had to be a thousand-foot drop to the next ledge. He only had a few seconds if he wanted to pull this off, no time at all for choking.
The access panel came off surprisingly easily, exposing bundles of cables leading from the lab buried deep in the mountain to the compact communications array at the top of the outcrop. Working fast to keep from disrupting the signals long enough to trigger anything, he spliced his own equipment into the circuitry. The trick would be to intercept communication without anyone knowing he was doing it. It wouldn't work for long, but it wouldn't have to.
A wire sparked, burning a finger already scraped raw from rock climbing. "You know," he muttered, "Rocket Red would be a lot more useful right now."
"Like I was going to let you out of my sight," Booster said behind him. Ted didn't turn around. He knew that tone; it was Banter in the Face of Apparent Defeat, and he'd heard it far too much over the years. He took his last half second to fuse in a final component, then put his hands behind his back so the robot didn't wrench his shoulders out when it restrained him. One metal hand extended to circle both his wrists, while the other arm wrapped around his chest, immobilising his body by pulling him against it. When it turned him so they could both face the down slope, Ted saw that Booster was likewise restrained.
Okay, Skeets, it's over to you, Ted thought. I hope you're as good as Booster thinks you are. Aloud he said, "That didn't take very long."
"Next time I'll splice circuits and you can hold off the indestructible robots. See how you do."
"Hey, which one of us blew them up last time?"
"Team effort," Booster said dismissively. "You couldn't have done it without my force field."
Without Booster's force field, Ted would have lit off the Promethium and blown them all to hell. He changed the subject. "Notice how these guys haven't said 'the prisoners will be silent!' yet?"
"I guess we're not annoying enough. Maybe we should try harder."
"Or that they won't do anything without direct orders." He studied the machine holding Booster, its black carapace barely scuffed for all his firepower and hurled boulders. It stood absolutely motionless, as it probably could until its power supply ran out. "They must have some autonomy though, or they wouldn't be able to run the complicated operations they do, or at least not nine of them at the same time."
"I wonder if your uncle's read Asimov," Booster said speculatively. "If not, we could try trying to logic it to death." Ted raised an eyebrow. "Hey, if it's good enough for James T. Kirk, it's good enough for Booster Gold."
"I think they're trying to bore us to death right now." He tried leaning back against the robot holding him, but that only increased the pressure on his wrists. "Hey, do you hear that?"
"What?"
Ted jerked his head towards the peak. "It's gotten all quiet over there."
"It has." Booster frowned. "I hope-"
Both robots took off without warning, flying straight up like they had in Chicago. Ted thought his wrists would snap from the pressure, and tried to twist sideways a bit to ease them. That pressed his full weight against the band of metal across his chest, but he'd be able to use his hands again.
Below them, a fresh pair of guards had taken up duty over the communications array, while a third examined Ted's alterations. They'd probably have it all put back the way it had been in five minutes. He hoped that would be long enough for the security droid to do its thing. Their captors executed a perfect right angle turn when they came parallel with shoulder of the mountain, then another directly above the main entrance on the far side, dumping Ted upside down, more or less suspended by his wrists. He grunted in pain and hoped Booster thought his streaming eyes were caused by the wind.
The double doors that Jarvis had so cleverly hidden in the scree now stood exposed, but undamaged. Blotches of scorched granite, melted to glass in some places, increased in density as they got closer, and a team of robots was clearing rubble from around the entrance. Of Guy and Rocket Red, Ted could see no sign. He glanced at Booster who shook his head.
One half of the double doors swung open as they approached, leading to a tunnel behind. Jarvis had expanded it all to the scale of an industrial loading bay, and the corridor dwarfed the human-sized robots and their prisoners. Ted pictured thousands of the robots swarming out of the passageway like bees, ready to strike anywhere in the world, and shuddered. They passed through another set of doors, then into a corridor small enough that they had to fly in single file. Most of the walls here were carved out of living rock and unfinished save for the floors. Ted didn't remember this area. Either it hadn't been on the megalomaniacal tour of doom last time, or Jarvis had added the extension in the last six years or so. The pressure of flying sideways was really making his ribs ache, but at least it had eased up on his arms.
They came to a halt inside a round room about half the size of Ted's warehouse lab. Banks of screens hugged the side, all active and displaying robot's eye views of the world. Many showed Pago Island from various angles, a rotation of security footage, but the majority of the screens displayed images of world capitols from the inside, scared people on their knees or pinned the same way Ted and Booster were. A location tag ran along the top left of each screen, reading things like "London: No. 10 Downing Street" and "Jerusalem: General Stern's Residence." Ted's eyes flicked over the images until he found one labelled "Washington: White House," and his gut clenched at what he saw. Ted had never been much for rah rah patriotism, but this was the President.
Jarvis Kord stood in the centre of it all like a conductor. He hadn't changed since Ted had last seen him, still an unassuming stocky little man with buzzcut white hair and a lab coat. Someone who, until the moment that he'd snapped and shown his hand, had always seemed to Ted like the epitome of an absent-minded professor puttering away on his pet projects. Even now, he was mumbling to himself and vaguely waving his hands at the screens. Only as the robots brought them closer, Ted realised that he must actually be sub-vocalising commands to one squad or another. More robots emerged from alcoves around the edges of the room, moving in to stand between Jarvis and the prisoners. Only when they were in place did the robots holding Ted and Booster set down, and not until a few minutes after that did Jarvis acknowledge that they were there. He turned and stepped around his bodyguards so he could walk right up to Ted.
"Hiya, Unk." Ted pasted an extremely happy and equally fake smile. "Howzit going?"
Ignoring this, Jarvis circled Ted, examining him minutely. He reached up to run a hand along Ted's face, not with the old, false affection but clinically testing his skin. Dropping his hand, he finally demanded, "Who the hell are you?"
That had not been what Ted was expecting. "Theodore Stephen Kord." When that didn't get so much as a blink, he added. "My father's Thomas Matthew Kord, your brother."
Jarvis' head jerked side to side in small almost mechanical motions. "No. You're not." His hand came up again, wrapped around something sharp and gleaming.
Ted saw the blow coming but couldn't do anything to move out of the way. He tried not to cry out as the blade sliced across his cheek and came away bloody, but a hiss of pain still escaped. Jarvis probably hadn't even heard it under the ruckus Booster was causing. Ted couldn't help but feel warmed that Booster would still threaten violence and misquote the Geneva Convention for him.
"Silence, prisoner!" Jarvis snapped, but Booster only quieted when he stepped away and passed the bloody penknife to one of his robots. "Android: Compare this to existing samples, and check for copy degradation in the DNA that might indicate cloning."
"You won't find any," Ted told him. He hoped. He didn't remember being cloned anyway, but this was the JLI, and he'd learned not to dismiss such possibilities out of hand. "I'm the real Ted Kord."
"Impossible. I killed my nephew six years ago."
"You what?" Booster demanded. "No you didn't."
"Of course I did. I just exhumed the body to make sure."
"He actually did have one of his robots bash my skull in," Ted confirmed, hoping to cut off this line of conversation before Jarvis decided to produce his desiccated corpse as proof. He didn't feel even a little bit curious about what that would be like. "But I got better."
"Shit, Kord, was anything you told me true?"
Ted wanted to tell him that everything he'd said while they were in bed together had been absolutely true, but he did not want to have that conversation in front of his uncle. "The important things were."
"Important to who?"
"Silence," Jarvis ordered, but almost absently this time, his attention focused behind Ted and Booster. He walked out of Ted's field of vision to return carrying a handful of components from Ted's attempts to hijack the communications array. "It seems I over-estimated you," he told Ted. "When I heard 'Ted Kord' had returned from the dead, I was so intriegued that I sent some of my super-androids to collect him along with that renewed source of Promethium. Then, when I learned that my supposed nephew was involved with a team of metahumans, well, I was almost..." he paused to luxuriate in the deliberation over which word would convey the appropriate level of contempt, "concerned."
"Does he practice in front of the mirror?" Booster whispered.
"I've always thought he must."
Jarvis, however, wasn't about to let them interrupt his flow. "I've come full circle, in a way. All those years ago, it was you and your fool friend's interference that caused me to rethink my plans for conquest. I realised the wisdom of building and improving my army of super-androids until I felt I was ready to strike. Now, my concern caused me to move my schedule forward by a few months, not before I was ready, but it pushed me past my caution." His lips twitched up in what Ted supposed he meant to be a self-deprecating smile. "And then I saw this pathetic attempt to override my link to my faithful army." He turned the largest device over in his hands, barely bothering to examine it, then dropped it and ground it under his heel. "I'm sad to say your DNA proves you are who you say you are. I was hoping you were an impostor, and I wasn't related to someone who would produce such a sad effort."
"Well that makes two of us, Uncle." Really, Ted didn't want to be related to most of his family. It didn't take much to understand why he didn't have much of a life outside the league half the time.
"And as for your precious team," Jarvis continued, turning to Booster. "Five minutes against my super-androids, and they were beaten: two dead, the rest fleeing with their tails between their legs, and their glorious leader captured."
Ted snuck a sideways glance at Booster, who was staring straight ahead, face a mask. This is the plan, Ted wanted to tell him, The boys are just being dramatic. Sure, "Two dead" hadn't been in the plan. They were just supposed to make it look good and then let the robots drive them back, but when had "retreat" ever been in Guy Gardner's vocabulary? It had two syllables and everything. It didn't help that Ted and Booster hadn't seen what had happened, that they couldn't risk checking in lest Jarvis also detect the tiny stream of data leaking from inside his lab. He had to think his island was impermeable, and therefore Booster had to go on not knowing if his team had survived. Ted had lived with the JLI coming out of impossible situations for years, but Booster was still new to the idea of looking after people, and didn't seem to know Scott Free in this universe. Ted missed Scott. If he got out of this, he was going to track him down.
"That hurts, doesn't it? Maybe, you're not quite the self-serving opportunist the press thinks you are. You care that your team trusted their leader to get them out alive, don't you?" Jarvis always had been one for twisting the knife, and he'd gotten better at it. Ted found his lip curling back in a snarl. "I was going to just execute you once I determined your plan, but I think I'll keep you around just long enough." He gestured to the screens. "Just long enough to watch the world fall before me. Android: get me the UN."
"Hey," Ted tried to shift a little closer to Booster, but couldn't move. "Are you..." He didn't really know what to ask. "Hang in there, okay." Booster nodded, eyes still fixed on the far monitors where images of the front entrance showed no sign of life at all.
Briggs' face popped up on the largest screen. "Andre Briggs, UN Intelligence," he said shortly, then went on to prove that he'd never use one word when three long ones would do. "The United Nations has received your demand for unconditional international surrender pending the universal launch of weapons of mass destruction, however, as the general assembly is still in an emergency session, I would like to request a twelve-hour extension on your deadline."
"Unacceptable!" Jarvis snapped. "Do you want me to make an example of someone? Senegal, perhaps?"
"Mr. Kord, I assure you-"
"Emperor Kord!"
Seemingly unruffled, Briggs backtracked and corrected to, "Emperor Kord, I assure you..."
As Briggs and Jarvis engaged in three rounds of wannabe evil dictator versus international bureaucracy, Ted whispered to Booster, "He's good. You should hire him."
"You only say that because he's not aiming that double speak at you."
Eventually, however, Jarvis' patience came to an end. "Enough! My deadline stands. Any nation that does not surrender to me by midnight universal time shall suffer the consequences! Android: end communication." Briggs' image disappeared, replaced by two robots attempting to interrogate the French President.
"You know he's stalling, right?" Booster commented.
"Of course I know he's..." Jarvis frowned, turning to Booster. "I know that, of course, but why do you think so?"
Show time, Ted thought. Make it good, Buddy. I don't want to have to fall back on Plan B. Especially since, in this case, Plan B involved him dying. Actually, he wasn't entirely sure that wasn't also in the books for Plan A. They needed to get inside the base to stall Jarvis and feed information to Skeets, but he didn't remember hearing how they were supposed to get out of the base.
"Oh come on," Booster was saying. "You have to know that the international community is never going to negotiate with terrorists. The UN's just assigned a stooge like Briggs to cover for them, make it look like theyíre getting along when really everyone's busy deactivating nukes."
Jarvis' face flushed with anger. "Lies. I'm watching everything. If they went near the missile sites I'd know. Then they would taste my retribution."
Booster shrugged, apparently unperturbed. "I don't know about the North Koreans, but everyone else has protocol for this. When I left, they were planning to just cut off all of the automated launch mechanisms. How did that work again, Ted?"
Ted had no idea - and he doubted Booster had the faintest notion either since he was making the lot of it up - but it was an easy bit of conjecture. "They stick a loop in the system so it reads normal and responsive when really you're just talking to a modified chess program in Kansas City. It's pretty basic technology."
Jarvis glared at him, then at Booster for good measure, before spinning to face the screens. "Android: Launch Russian missile against Tbilisi, Georgia."
Please, please, please, please, Ted prayed, though he wasn't sure to whom. Maybe the little gold security droid in the sky. Maybe even to Booster's plan.
"There, see," Jarvis proclaimed. "My commands are effective."
"Are they really?" Booster was trying to keep up the I Win, You Lose, Nyah Nyah front, but Ted could hear the strain in his voice. "Check the satellite."
Twin images appeared: one tagged "Russia: Missile Silo 37" showed no activity of any kind, and a wider view of a grey, snow-covered city was likewise free of mushroom clouds.
"Thank you," Ted whispered.
"But the hostages!" Jarvis protested, his voice raising in pitch volume with every word. "I have the world's leaders at my feet. I have the lives of their children in my grip. My super-androids control the hearts of the great nations of the Earth."
"I can't say for sure, but last I heard, they were considered expendable for the sake of world security." Booster was coasting on a level of smugness that made Ted want to hit him, so he wasn't surprised when Jarvis backhanded him across the face. From the way Booster took the punch, he'd been expecting it too.
"And you? You're expendable as well?" Jarvis demanded.
Booster shrugged again. "Pretty much."
"I've had enough of your lies." To the robot holding Booster, he ordered, "Android-" An explosion rocked the complex, followed by another three in quick succession. "What is this? Show me what's going on."
The monitors all changed to images of the mountainside surrounding the front door. A figure in red and blue was tearing the doors off its hinges, iconic cape billowing behind him. A dark-haired Green Lantern drilled into the rock around the other door, while a cyborg fended off a relentless hoard of robots with well-placed laser blasts. Off to the side, an Amazon princess was slicing the heads off of robots left and right, with a man in a swirling dark cape guarding her back. Tentacles of something dark and, to Ted's eyes, very much like a kraken crept up from the sea. Ted couldn't see the Flash, but then one usually couldn't.
"That would be the Justice League." Ted hadn't thought Booster could sound any more self satisfied, but somehow he managed it. "I called up my buddy Hal Jordan just before we dropped in, gave him all the details and said we'd soften up the place for him so his boys could take it apart."
Jarvis had gone from flushed to red to nearly purple with rage. He whirled from screen to screen, watching as all his plans crumbled. "No. No. I won't let this happen. You won't defeat me!" He strode to the control hub in the centre of the room, flipped off his controls and and punched an actual physical big red button. "I will not fall alone. Even if the world rebuilds from the blood and ashes of their capitols, they will never forget the name of Jarvis Kord. Androids, come, my obedient ones: self destruct. Blow this world apart."
Ted pictured the command for destruction, processed into a data package, shooting up the cables to the transmitter on the peak, then flying out across the Atlantic, either directly or relayed though hijacked satellites. It touched every one of the sleek black robots, and every one responded by immolating itself and everything around it. He sent another quick prayer to the golden robot in the sky, and focused on more immediate concerns.
Even before the impending overload in the robot holding him became audible, Ted could feel it in his fingertips. This time it wouldn't even leave a body, which would undoubtedly solve some existential paradox somewhere in space time. "Any last words?" He asked Booster. The script had been running along neatly so far, but Ted remembered this part getting a little vague.
"Yeah, actually." Booster said, and ducked out of the robot's hold on him. "Super powers are awesome." He had to duck and twist to the side as the thing swiped at him, but the power overload slowed its reactions. He didn't have any trouble getting out of its reach, nor in throwing his forcefield around Ted and the robot holding him, and towed them after him as he flew for the door. "Skeets, how's it going there, buddy?" Ted couldn't hear the reply, but from Booster's expression, the answer had been to the effect of, "Pretty darn good, Sir."
"What about my uncle?" Ted had to yell to be heard over the wind and scream of feedback.
"No time. Sorry."
As Jarvis' screams echoed behind them, Ted tried to find sorry in his heart. He couldn't do it. The only regret he felt was that he couldn't wrap an International Criminal Court conviction in a bow and drop it on Murray's desk. Jarvis' madness would again cost him his life, and he'd never see real justice for Dan Garrett or the other lives he'd destroyed. "Never mind," he shouted back, and hoped Booster understood.
Behind the amber glow of the shield, the rough-hewn walls flashed past, first the twisting narrow passageway, then the industrial corridor to the main entrance. "Better evacuate," Booster yelled as they blew though the shattered doors. "Mountain go boom now."
Hal Jordan swooped in to scoop up Wonder Woman, while Cyborg levitated Batman, and the rest followed, Aquaman shooting up in a rainbow of salt spray, spreading his fiery wings triumphantly. Half a mile from the island, the robot whirred softly and lost its hold on Ted. He shoved it off as best he could, letting Booster grab hold of his leg while the robot fell away. It exploded before it hit the water.
Booster flipped Ted in the air to hold him in a bridal carry, and turned back towards the island. Nothing happened at first, but then the entire surface seemed to shiver, and slowly, almost ponderously, Pago Island's single granite peak folded in on itself. They heard the deafening roar a second later. If Ted had been asked to describe what the end of the world sounded like, that would be it.
"This is kind of where we started out, isn't it?" Booster mused as they floated above the Atlantic, watching the dust and building-sized boulders settle. He still cradled Ted in his arms, any other attempted position proving too much for his aching ribs.
"You mean with the running and the explosions?" Ted asked. "Yeah, I guess it is."
"Listen, Ted, I-" Booster started only to be overridden by Hal complaining that nothing was happening, so why couldn't they just go home? Also, if he missed his football game, Booster was going to regret it in a way that didn't sound entirely anatomically plausible.
Batman requested to be carried by someone else. When Hal told him to shut it or get dropped, he replied in a beautifully crisp English accent, "Have some respect, you blighter; I'm goddamn Batman."
"How come she got to be Batman, anyway?" Superman asked in one female voice, then added in another, "Yeah, we wanted to be Batman."
Booster rested his forehead against Ted's for a moment, then said, "Okay, you can stop projecting now, Red. This is seriously starting to creep me out."
"Da," Cyborg said, and the Justice League flickered and vanished, only to be replaced by Booster's own team. Hovering against the blue skies of the mid Atlantic, they looked battered, grubby, and absolutely glorious.
"Someday," Booster promised, "Someday, they're going to run when they see us coming."
"Very much too bad," Rocket Red was complaining. "Major Iron better in little flag shorts."
Ted shook his head regretfully and told Booster, "I wouldn't count on it."
Slaving their still nameless ship to Booster's suit never had made it to the top of Ted's priority list, so Rocket Red had to go diving to bring it up for them. Guy finally had dropped Godiva and gone home, and Booster ended up balancing her, Ted and the General until the ship surfaced.
"So how'd you get away from that last robot?" Ted asked as they clambered into the dripping interior. He added some kind of airlock to the list.
Booster looked indignant. "Today I... we have saved the world by entering the very lair of a mad scientist, lying our assess off while we used his own data - and the amazing powers of my 25th-century code-breaking friend here," he lightly fist bumped Skeets' ventral stabiliser, "to take over his global communication network, thereby seizing control of all of his remote robots and..." he frowned. "Er, Skeets, what did you do with the army of indestructible evil robots?"
"I ordered them to fly into the stratosphere and then allowed them to self destruct," Skeets replied. Maybe he had evolved some kind of emotion, because Ted would swear he sounded almost smug. If he hadn't just been instrumental to saving all their butts, Ted would have voted to leave him under water longer. "Not bad for a 'modified chess program in Kansas City,' if I may say so, sir."
"Not bad at all," Booster agreed. "Thereby seizing control of all of his remote robots and destroying them, and then talking him into blowing himself up, and you want to know how I took down one lousy robot?"
"Sure," Ted said, looming over Red until he gave up the pilot's seat. "And I was there when we thought that up, and I did better than half the programming. The bit about how we were supposed to get away after we'd made all the robots explode was the one part of the plan that you left kind of fuzzy."
"I wanted to leave room for improvisation," Booster said, blithely pretending he hadn't been flying by the seat of his pants most of the time. He had come forward and was leaning over Ted's shoulder again. "Anyway, I used a combination of super strength and a miniaturised forcefield to gradually separate my wrists. I guess they were programmed not to inadvertently dismember people, it loosened its grip a millimetre at a time. After about ten minutes, I had enough wiggle room to slip out, and here we all are."
"You left out the bit where me and Red died heroically for the cause." That was Bea, and Ted didn't have turn around to know she had a jubilant, devil-may-care grin plastered across her face.
"Da. Was good. Big explosion. Much drama."
"Much grey hair for team leader," Booster countered, but not reproachingly. He seemed to be learning the JLI axiom of any plan you walk away from is a good one.
In that spirit, Ted did not ask what Booster would have done had Jarvis not left such an idiotic gap in his programming. Instead, he remembered something Booster had started to say about being back where they started. "Look, Booster," he said in a voice low enough to fall under the team's chatter. "I want-"
The comm beeped, and Briggs' voice filled the ship, demanding to know what their status was, and when they'd be back in New York to debrief, and how the Justice League was tied up in all of this. He didn't seem to believe Booster when he claimed that the only thing he'd Hal to to do was not get visibly involved.
"I am thinking we not have more Victorious Dark Side Night today," Red commented, and Vixen muttered something under her breath that Ted was glad he didn't catch.
As Booster alternately fielded and dodged questions, Ted let himself become immersed in flying the ship. In a crisis of this level, Booster would probably spend the next three days telling the same story to different people over and over again. If Ted turned out to be luckier than he had been thus far, he wouldn't get sucked too deeply in. In any case, he couldn't see either of them finding a chance for private conversations any time soon. All promised explanations would have to wait. He could only hope that Booster didn't take the intervening time to work a good mad up.
Ted kept up the abducted by aliens story, now with the new and exciting Evil Uncle Expansion Pack, in the face of Briggs and his interminable questions. Claiming exhaustion got him sprung around midnight, and even earned him a ride in a shiny UN car. He hadn't been lying about the tired part at least, and he drifted in and out of sleep as the black sedan wound its way back to Queens. Mostly, he tried not to think too much about the looks Booster kept giving him as he dug himself deeper. He still hadn't had a chance to explain, and his chances of getting one seemed to be dropping by the minute.
"I'll deal with it in the morning," he decided as he trudged down the hotel corridor, knowing that he was talking to himself and really not caring. He almost dropped the card key trying to get it right way around in the lock. "Tonight I just want to... Oh, fuck, Rip Hunter."
The time master was sitting next to Rani in the middle of the floor, apparently drawing an orange pony on hotel stationary. "You left your balcony door unlatched," he said, as though that explained everything.
"No I didn't." Hunter just shrugged. Breaking and entering, it seemed, was beneath his concern. Ted kicked off his shoes and sank onto the edge of the bed, slumping forward to brace his forearms on his thighs. "Fine. Do whatever you want. You do anyway."
Hunter abandoned his colouring and pried himself off the floor; he moved with, Ted was pleased to note, the same level of stiff exhaustion that he and the rest of the team did. Hooking the room's single chair with his foot, he pulled it over to sit in front of Ted. "We actually just came by to thank you for all your work, and to say goodbye."
"Goodbye?" Ted asked, sitting up a little more alertly. "So that's it, you just show up, pluck me out of space-time, spend a week screwing up my life and then abandon me to the mess?"
"I did not 'screw up your life.'"
"Oh yeah? Then why does my best friend hate me?"
"Christ." Hunter pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes. "If ever two people deserved each other." Looking up, he said, "Michael does not hate you. He's had his feathers ruffled; he'll get over it. You of all people know what he's like."
Ted had to concede that that might be true. Booster could hold a grudge like no other non-supervillain Ted had ever met, but faced with repeated proof of good faith, such as saving the world, he'd eventually let go. Usually. "I just don't see why..."
"Look, would it help if you knew that if you hadn't joined the team when you did, Michael would have died stopping an ICBM headed for New York? Or that five entire cities and seven heads of state died before the Justice League found your uncle and took him down?"
"Um..." Ted turned that one over in his head, trying to picture what would have happened if the attacks had taken the world completely unawares. "Yeah. I guess it would."
Hunter got up and Ted's shoulder. "I put you in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time to make all the difference in the world. I can't say that a few lies and some minor emotional fallout are breaking my heart."
With Hunter standing, Ted had to lean back to look him in the eye. "So that whole spiel about Booster needing to know me to achieve his true destiny was total BS?"
"About sixty-six percent BS," Hunter admitted. "I went with what you'd believe and took the least amount of time to explain."
Not feeling like getting lied to again tonight, Ted didn't ask about the other thirty-four percent. "You really are kind of a bastard, aren't you?"
Unexpectedly, Hunter laughed. "You have no idea how true that is."
"Whatever," Ted grumbled and flopped backwards onto the bed.
"Uncle Ted?"
"Yes, Rani?" He propped himself up on one elbow and peered over the edge of the bed at her. She was holding out a piece of paper with a rough crayon drawing of a blue butterfly sitting on a big yellow flower. "Did you make that for me?"
"Uh huh. It's a picture of you."
"I..." Ted stared at the drawing and thought about being in the right place at the right time. "You're a smart kid, you know that?"
"Yup." Rani grinned up at him. He thought about her curled up on the floor, begging for help that could never come now, and decided it was good to see her smile.
"You gonna be okay, sweetie?" he asked, pausing to ruffle her hair as he took the picture. It made her look even more like Raggedy Anne than usual; Hunter really needed to get her to a proper stylist.
She looked at Hunter, standing by the window and watching her with that soft, kind of sad expression, then back at the butterfly drawing. "Yeah," she said. "I think so." Standing on her toes, she reached up and kissed Ted on the cheek. "Bye, Uncle Ted."
"Goodbye, Rani. Good luck. Hunter, thanks for saving my life; I hope I never see you again." He closed his eyes, then threw an arm over them because he didn't have the energy to get up and turn the lights off.
The door to the deck creaked as it slid open. "Ready?" Hunter asked, then in quite a different tone, "Hello, Michael. Here to see Ted?"
"Rip Hunter." Booster didn't sound a lot happier to be saying that name then Ted usually was. "So you are involved in this!" The door closed before Ted could hear Rip's reply. He pushed himself half way to sitting, but couldn't see more than shadows though the translucent white curtain covering the door.
The door slid open again before he could get up, and Booster stood on the threshold. His costume reflected the lights from inside, casting him in even greater contrast to the winter night behind him. Big, wet snowflakes clung to his hair and shoulders, and Ted watched in fascination as one drifted past his googles to land just on the corner of his mouth. Then Booster stepped into the room, and the slam of the door behind him broke the moment.
"I guess I'm the only one who uses the actual door," Ted commented, even though he could still feel his heart in his throat. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood to take whatever came like a man. "I thought Briggs and company would have you until next Wednesday at least." Okay, like a bug. He couldn't quite bring himself to ask what he really wanted to know: what Booster was doing here, why, if not at the UN, he wasn't back home sleeping.
"Briggs wanted me coherent for the press conference tomorrow." Booster didn't stop advancing until he was just inches from Ted, so close Ted had to tilt his head back a little to look him in the eye.
"Booster, I-" Ted started to say, but Booster shook his head.
"Save it," he ordered. "I get to go first." Ted shut his mouth. "I've been thinking about this a lot. I mean, fuck, I can't seem to get it to stop running in circles around the inside of my skull. Who you are, what's true, what you made up, how much of it was a lie." He shoved his hand back through his hair, and the melting snowflakes held it slicked back, the way he'd used to wear it. "And, as Rip was just kind enough to remind me, it's not like I have any firm moral ground to stand on when it comes to being completely honest about my past. There's like four people in this time who even know my real name, plus Skeets, and maybe Batman, because he seems to know everything. Plus it's not like half the other heroes don't lie as a way of life. I just..." he cut off his own ramble, and took a breath. His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that Ted could see his arm muscles quivering even thought the suit. "Look," Booster said, starting again. "What I really want to know is last night: were you just fucking me over as part of your con?"
Ted found he needed to fall back half a step to catch his balance. He's been bracing for that, but it still would have been easier if Booster had just up and socked him one. Worse still was the look on Boosters face, under the crude bravado, he looked like a man who'd lost so many times that he was starting to expect nothing else. "Oh, Michael, no." The words left his lips before he even knew what he was saying, Booster's given name used automatically to soften a hard blow. "I've lied about a lot of things in this week, but that was never one of them. I slept with you because I wanted to. I've wanted to for years."
Booster studied his expression, eyes narrowed with intensity, and Ted found himself holding his breath and hoping that Booster would be able to see right through to his soul. After a moment he nodded to himself and held out his hand. "Let's try this again: Booster Gold, Justice League International."
No hesitation this time either. Ted took his hand and held on as hard as he could. "Ted Kord. In this exact timeline, I was murdered by my mad scientist uncle. In another version of this timeline, I escaped my uncle and became the Blue Beetle and a founding member of the JLI."
"Really?" Curiosity overtook the intensity of the moment. "Wow. What happened to your armour?"
Ted sighed. Here we go again. "I never had powers. Other then the Power of Science of course, and above average good looks and charm. Plus I could dress like a bug while keeping a straight face."
"And you know another version of me?"
This was so easy. Booster would ask a question and all he had to do was tell the truth, and another weight lifted off of him. He didn't even feel tired anymore. "Yes, for years and years. You were the best friend I ever had."
Booster let go of his hand, folding his arms. "But other than this damned itchy feeling like somehow I should know you, I don't remember any of this other timeline?"
"I guess not. I think only Rani, Rip Hunter and I do."
"And you and other me, we were...?"
"I thought you were straight."
"Oh. Huh."
"It was a different time."
"Right." Booster paused, clearly hunting for another relevant question. Finally, he burst out, "Why the hell didn't you just say all this in the first place?"
Ted couldn't help it; he laughed in Booster's face. When he eventually stopped, he gasped, "You have no idea how many times I've asked myself that in the last week. For what it's worth, I'm really sorry, and Rip Hunter says it saved the world." Or Booster's life anyway, which felt pretty close to the world to Ted right now.
"Okay then," Booster said dubiously. "Accepting apology, blaming Rip, and moving on." He didn't seem to have anywhere to move on to though, and just stood there in front of Ted, arms still folded, shifting his weighted uneasily from foot to foot.
Waiting didn't seem to get the conversation anywhere, so Ted eventually manned up enough to ask, "So we okay?"
Booster nodded. "Sure. I guess at some point we'll have to figure out what you want to tell the team, though I've got to agree that lying to Briggs is always a good life choice."
"All right."
"Good," Booster said. He didn't move. Ted didn't either.
After another minute, Ted gave up. Obviously they were going to be stuck in awkward land for the next couple of weeks, which is what came of having wild monkey sex with your team leader, let alone with your best friend who doesn't remember you. They important thing was that Booster forgave him; everything else was just details. "Well, then I guess I should say goodni-"
If nothing else, that seemed to nudge Booster into motion. "Fuck that." Then he grabbed Ted's shoulders, pulled him forward and kissed him square on the mouth.
Startled, Ted froze. He could feel Booster's lips on his, soft and a little dry from flying in the wind, and his hands digging into his upper arms. He hadn't expected to do this again, and it took his brain a moment to get with the programme. But when the press of his mouth against Ted's got no response, Booster's grip softened, and he let out a small growl ofr disappointment. Ted realised that this could be his absolute final chance, and he'd had far more than any man deserved. He relaxed into the touch, parting his lips in a contented sigh. The blue and gold costume didn't really have any traction to it, nor any real feeling of the person under the sleek fibres, but Ted ran his hands down Booster's sides to rest on his hips, hoping he got the idea.
He seemed like he did, and and smiled against Ted's mouth as he deepened the kiss. He took his time with it, cradling Ted's face in his gloved hands to hold his head absolutely still as his lips and tongue explored him. Ted let his eyes drift shut, immersing himself in the sensation of skin against skin, the slight tug of Booster's stubble as he kissed the corner of Ted's mouth. He couldn't help letting out a little gasp as Booster pulled away. When he opened his eyes again, Booster was looking at him seriously from behind his goggles. "Keep your eyes open," he said. "I want you to watch what I do to you."
His voice had a kind of growling edge to it that made Ted just say, "Yes," no questions asked.
"Good boy," Booster said, and his grin dared Ted to make something out of it.
Ted wasn't about to. He tried to press forward to kiss Booster again, but he couldn't move against the hands holding his head steady. Fucking strength-enhancing suit. Booster didn't move or let him move until he relaxed back into place. Then Booster started where he'd been, kissing the corner of his mouth and then the edge of his jaw next. When Ted tried to tilt his head back to expose his neck, he found he still couldn't move. "Oh, come on," he moaned.
"What's the magic word?" The commanding growl again, the one that turned Ted on too much to argue, and he said, "Please," instead of "Fuck off," which was what he'd intended.
The hands left his face and started massaging Ted's chest. He arced into the touch, and Booster sucked lightly at his throat. When Ted groaned, he could feel his larynx vibrating against Booster's lips. He barely noticed Booster tugging on his shirt until it was already untucked and pushed half way up his chest. His fingers scrabbled at Booster's costume but he couldn't find the seam on the new design. Instead he raised his arms and let Booster peel him out his shirt and undershirt. Their kiss only broke for the moment it took for the fabric to pass in front of his face.
Booster's gloves had some kind of gripping material built into the palms and fingers, and it caught a little as they swept back over Ted's chest. When he gasped into Booster's mouth as they snagged in his chest hair, he couldn't tell if it was in pain or something else. When Booster grabbed his ass and pulled their hips together, squeezing just a little too hard, he decided it was both pain and everything else.
He broke away from the kiss to bury his face against Booster's neck and whimpered as Booster gripped the point where his skull met his spine and pulled him closer. The other hand dragged down Ted's back, perspiration only cutting the friction a little.
"I've gotcha," Booster whispered, breath hot in his ear, and Ted clutched desperately at his back. His hands still couldn't find any purchase.
His belt quickly joined his shirts on the floor, and Booster eased him back down onto the bed, stripping pants, underwear and socks in one smooth movement. Rising up, Booster let his body slide the whole length of Ted's, cool fibreweave-circuitry rubbing against his flushed skin. He thought he'd come from just that, without Booster laying a hand on him, or if not then certainly when Booster pinned his hands above his head and grinned down at him, saying, "So, I hear you have a thing for tall blond superheroes."
"If I didn't before, I sure as hell do now."
Booster looked even more pleased with himself and kissed him teasingly, just letting his lips brush Ted's before he pulled away out of reach. His hips likewise just barely brushed against Ted's erection as he tried to arc and strain into more contact. Ted closed his eyes and tried to remember how to count to two hundred in Arabic, but couldn't think though the haze of lust and the sound of his own pounding heart. "Hey," Booster reminded him sharply. "I want you to look at me, remember?"
Ted opened his eyes and looked. He looked at all six foot four inches of perfectly-toned superhero hovering over him, only his lower face and hair exposed while Ted wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing. He looked at his best friend in the world, confident and happy, and miraculously totally into him. "Please, Booster," he begged, "You're killing me here."
"Oh, well," Booster said, "And I promised to protect you, too." He pressed Ted's wrists together, gently so as not to put too much pressure on the fresh bruises, and kissed him sensuously. It only took wrapping his gloved fingers around Ted's cock and squeezing lightly to finish him. Ted swore against Booster's mouth, and pushed up with his whole body. Booster's kisses became fierce as their bodies pressed together for a long breathless moment, until Ted sank limply into the covers.
"Fuck," he said again, without feeling, as Booster proceeded to make a show of licking his glove clean. "This is like a whole armada of kinks I've never previously admitted to."
"Mm-hmm," Booster mumbled, busy fellating two of his own fingers.
"How uh..." His eyes ran down the length of Booster's body to focus on his groin. "How are you doing?" He couldn't tell through the suit's protective layering.
The fingers left Boosters mouth with an absolutely obscene popping noise. "Oh, you know, could probably use a hand." He licked his thumb deliberately. "Or something else."
Ted, who just been thinking that he'd feel perfectly content if he never moved again, felt a flicker of interest. "You'll have to get out of that suit first. I couldn't figure it out earlier."
Booster rose to his knees and reached behind him to trigger some kind of fastening, not incidentally showing off a gorgeous expanse of flexing pecs and abdominals. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius."
"Come back down here, and I'll show you genius," Ted promised, and reached up to help Booster wiggle out of his top. It took additional shimmying, some yarding and a good deal more energy then Ted wanted to spend to peel Booster out of the rest of his costume. Finally he lay on his back, naked, long legs indolently spread so Ted could kneel between them.
Someday, he wanted to take his time with this, to suck and lick and caress until Booster was the one begging for his life. He wanted to hear every whimper and moan and profanity his mouth and his hands could wring out of him. However, Booster was already so hard that all Ted had to do was enclose his cock in his lips and bob down as far as he could go then up again, slowly, sucking hard. Booster choked back a sob, and his hips bucked, but Ted held him steady. He spread his hands across the the top of Booster's thighs and moved with him until the cock between his lips felt soft and tender. He swallowed this time, and let Booster pet his hair as he rested his head on Booster's stomach.
"You're the best," Booster murmured sleepily.
"You got it, buddy," Ted told him. He didn't want to move, but he knew he probably smelled like a cyborg yeti that had been dredged out of the East River. Reluctantly he slid off the bed. "Why don't you try get in the bed before you pass out. I'll be back in a minute."
When Ted came back, now grime-free and smelling of generic hotel soap, Booster lay curled on his side under the covers, dead to the world. He didn't stir as the bed dipped under Ted's weight, and only made an indistinct grunt when Ted draped an arm over his waist and slid up next to him.
As he drifted off, Ted thought about how much he loved the man beside him, what he would risk for him. The answer was everything, of course, it had been since the early days. He knew this would be another wild ride, as the Justice League International always was, and maybe someday he'd have to give everything up again. That would be another day. For now, Blue and Gold were together again, and whatever the universe threw at them, together was how they'd handle it.
Fin.
Reviews warm the heart. Flames warm the hearth. Constructive criticism welcome.
* Part One * Part Two * Part Three *