Fic: The Astounding Adventures of Shatterstar and Rictor, Issue #1
Title: The Astounding Adventures of Shatterstar and Rictor, Issue #1
Rating: R
Fandom; Pairing: X-Factor; Rictor/Shatterstar (some Jamie/Terry and Darwin→Monet)
Word Count: 5,981
Disclaimer: Full disclaimer in my profile. I don't own the story or characters. They belong to Marvel Comics.
Warnings: 1940s, so there’s smoking, casual racism and sexism (minimal, I promise), World War II references, cyborg zombie Nazis, gangsters, guns, swords, violence, references to Shatterstar’s painful past, institutionalization, and 1940s style homophobia.
Much gratitude goes to Joasakura for inspiring and beta’ing this story, she did an amazing job and should be lauded with much praise. And thanks go to my parents, born 1942 and 1945, for letting me pillage their childhood memories for my gay fanfic.
---
“Morning,” Julio said to his office mate.
After a pause, the redhead turned around and said “Good Morning, Mr. Richter!” with a lot of cheer and enthusiasm, but no smile. Then he turned back to his type writer and continued to clack away at today’s copy.
Benjamin Russell was a swell guy, really, though he’d fought in the Pacific and come back, well, a little touched. That was why he grew his hair out longer than most dames wore theirs. It was his oddness, Julio knew, that put them together. No one else wanted to work with the Spic in the office.
“Got an assignment for you, Richter,” Madrox stopped by, holding out the mimeograph in front of him. It had an indecipherable note handwritten on it signed with an “M.”
“Mmm, still smells like chemicals,” Julio said.
“You sound like a hash smoker,” Madrox told him and then shut them back in their closet of an office.
“Holy Mother of God,” Julio whispered in Spanish. “Nazis? Brought to life through an unholy combination of black magic and mechanical science?”
“Do we have to fight them?” Russell asked. Julio turned because he sounded mildly excited. Russell pushed up his thick glasses and turned back to his typewriter.
“No, they’re probably not even real,” Julio explained. “We’ve just got to investigate and report on it. I’m going to take the sensationalistic paranoid whacko angle.”
“Well then,” Russell said. “It’ll be a piece of pie.”
“Cake, Ben, it’s ‘a piece of cake.’”
“Ah, yes,” Russell said. “A piece of cake.”
“This is making me hungry, grab your stuff and I’ll buy us lunch.”
Behind him, Ben even smiled.
Since working together, Benjamin Russell and Julio Richter often frequented the diner that Julio had once had to himself as a pair. What was once a single hardboiled reporter sitting at the furthest booth from the door with a meal that usually couldn’t be found on the menu, was now two men with their hats pulled low. At least Julio was in the habit of taking his jacket off sometimes.
“Did you have a place like this wherever you came from?” Julio asked.
“No,” Ben offered.
Julio licked some chili sauce off his fingers and went for his green handkerchief.
“Well, anyway, about these simulacrum Nazis-who’d perpetuate this sorta hoax at a time like this?”
Benjamin just shrugged his broad shoulders under his coat and continued to stare down his big glass of water.
Julio pulled out his pack of Chesterfields. He always thought better when he had a smoke.
“Don’t,” Ben said. He always protested Julio’s smoking, but never quite as forcefully as now when he put his big hand over Julio’s and stopped him from pulling out a cigarette.
“Oh come on, Russell, even the waitress is smoking,” he complained. Down the aisle, Mindy glared at him and pulled her pink lipstick stained lucky strike from her lips and ground it out on the toe of her high-heeled shoe. He smiled and waved at her sneer.
“I don’t care about the waitress,” Ben said.
Julio sighed. “Fine, okay, yeah, cause you’re eating right here. Just this time.”
The corner of Benjamin’s mouth twitched in what was probably a prelude to a smile.
“I think it’s a bid to get attention,” Ben said, suddenly.
Julio stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Whose attention?” he asked. He watched Russell take a casual bite of his sandwich instead of answering. A couple strands of his long red hair were hanging down and something about the light hitting only one side of Ben’s face made Julio’s brain spark.
“Shatterstar,” Julio said. His pulsed picked up.
“That’s it!” he grinned. He couldn’t let Russell know about his obsession, but zombie Hitler in this bupkis of a city was just the kind of thing to bring Shatterstar out into the open. And if Shatterstar was going to be there with swords flashing, then, by Mary’s virginity, Julio Richter would be there too.
“Oh please,” Russell said, carefully wiping his mouth and fingers with a napkin. “You don’t really buy those superhero stories do you, Richter?”
“Ha!” Julio faked. “Of course not, but someone obviously does and they're faking a bunch of goose-stepping undead robots to get a superhero’s attention. It’s just the kind of story Extraordinary Express is looking for. Xavier will give me a raise.”
“And Madrox will laugh you out of the office,” Ben offered.
“You say that as if he doesn’t already do that,” Julio replied. “Put our little five dollar extravagance on my tab, Mindy, I’ve got a story to find.”
The thing was that both Mr. Richter and Mr. Madrox believed in heroes. Around the city, Shatterstar was mostly an urban legend-a bright flash of light in the shadows-but he’d interviewed every single person who would cop to a sighting and had put together the image of a handsome red haired man in all white, a real white knight with a pair of magical swords in his hands, and a black star around his eye, like a mask. Madrox wanted to prove that the person who kept dumping evidence in the mail slot for the police department’s secretary and who seemed, from the eye-witness’s evidence he brought in, to be able to be in multiple places all at once. Madrox called him the Multiple Man to Julio.
“I knew you’d understand,” James had said, at their first clandestine little meeting about heroes. “Because you read all those comics.”
“As if pulp mystery novels are any better,” Julio had said, defensive of his hobby.
“Ben sure seems to think so,” James offered. He added, “Or at least, he thinks they’re more realistic.” when Richter gave a hurt look without even realizing it.
Then they’d both laughed at the very idea of pulps being realistic and all was forgiven because Madrox didn’t think that heroes like Shatterstar were just for crackpot stories and comic books. Someday, maybe, they’d even be exactly the kind of material for Extraordinary Express.
Xavier had started Extraordinary Express out in the East, where its main office still ran, but he gave this little corner of the Southwest a chance. Honestly, Julio was grateful for the man, because he would give any poor soul a chance at a real job. Julio knew he wasn’t what most people thought of as a reporter-he hadn’t even learned to write in English until after he’d lost his virginity. But here he was.
And so here too was Benjamin Russell, who’d just wandered into town one day with freckles and sunburn, long red hair and a limp courtesy of the Empire of the Rising Sun. He had no credentials, but he was a perfect typist, so he was hired on the spot. Julio had to admit it was pretty serendipitous. He knew Japanese, English, and some weird language that Julio just assumed was Navajo and he only heard Russell throw a phrase or two around when they first met and occasionally under his breath. Julio taught him enough Spanish to be able to read his steno notes, which were a person form of short hand he made up in his first language. Ben, to his credit, tried to teach Julio some Japanese, but it never stuck. Probably because he never really tried; he really wanted to learn whatever mystery language Russell spoke like it was his natural tongue. That’s what he was really curious about and it was so hard to motivate himself if he wasn’t curious.
Russell was a serious guy, the kind who mentally fit in with Madrox, who loved to cover murders and kidnappings, and physically fit in with hulking Guido Carosella, who actually did a lot of human interest pieces for the press. Julio liked Guido, liked him a lot, and not just because of course the Italian guy and the Mexican kid at the office would like one another-in fact, Julio was no fan of pasta and Strong Guy Carosella couldn’t handle spicy foods. No, Guido was just a fun guy.
There were a lot of interesting people around Extraordinary Express. Terry Cassidy spoke like she’d just got off the boat and Monet St. Croix might be a French girl born in America, but in the southwestern sun she was even darker than Julio. People commented on things like that, Terry’s voice and M’s skin, but they’d be stupid to think either of the ladies gave a nickel what anybody else thought. Julio wished he could be so lucky.
“Do you think I’ll miss The Shadow?” Ben asked out of the blue.
“Probably,” Julio told him. “You’ll live.”
“Hmm, hopefully it’s a story I’ve heard already.”
That was the thing, Russell and Madrox both loved their pulp and their radio dramas. Madrox just let it color his reporting-black and white and red all over, as they say. But even if he liked that dark stuff, Ben loved comic books.
And Julio loved comic books as well, which gave him tons to talk about with Russell over their regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the diner. He still hadn’t admitted, though, that it had been the comics that taught him English. As much as he told Russell and as close as they’d grown in just a few years, there was a lot he just didn’t admit to anyone. Not Xavier, not Madrox, not “Strong Guy”, and definitely not Benjamin Russell.
They crossed the tracks in the middle of town and headed on foot into the warehouse district.
“Looks like the place,” Julio whispered. It was broad daylight, there shouldn’t be anything sinister going on just yet. Perfect investigation weather.
“I’ll take the East side,” Ben said, heading off before Richter could even suggest they should work together.
Used to this sort of thing from Ben already, Julio just shrugged and walked on. He picked the rusty lock on the side door leading into the curved tin military-style structure. The chain holding the door fell off in his hands.
“That was easy,” he said to himself in Spanish. Then there was blinding pain.
And then there was nothing.
---
Julio came back slowly. It was dim wherever he was and what little light could be seen streaming in was clouded with floating dust. He coughed.
“Tonight on the Mojo Show!” a voice boomed from nowhere and, immediately, Julio was awake and aware.
“We have an intrepid reporter trying to uncover the truth to rumors of the Axis undead. Crossing town he breaks into the warehouse at the center of these supernatural rumors. However, there our villainous European invaders overpower him and he wakes bound in the dingy warehouse of evil.”
The voice that narrated his plight was as slippery as a snake oil salesman, but it was telling the truth, if perhaps a gaudy exaggeration of the truth. So, at least he knew where he was now: the warehouse of evil. Julio huffed out a sigh. This was ridiculous, but still…
“Help!” he shouted. He was tied to an I-beam. All he could smell was dust. He scraped his bound wrists against the metal of the support beam. He could feel it wearing down the simple rope binding, fraying it little by little. The only light in the area seemed to glow eerily from the mysterious green seepage of huge metal barrels. Julio shivered.
Someone… something? Was moving in the dark, he could hear it. No, multiple somethings.
“Help! Please, someone help!” Forget pride, Julio Richter was not going to be eaten by shadows while he couldn’t even throw a punch.
His ankles were tied, his chest was tied, his shoulders tied, it was kind of overdoing it on the rope bindings. Julio didn’t appreciate it at all, it was making breathing and shouting a bit difficult. He coughed into the dust.
“Who could possibly rescue him now, except, perhaps…”
There was some kind of musical cue, but nothing happened. Julio smirked, imagining that the announcer, clearly the manipulator here, was probably a little irked at that.
Then something shuffled out of the darkness. Julio froze. It smelled like motor oil and rotten meat, but as it passed through the shafts of weak light he saw a pressed uniform in drab brown with a flash of brass and red.
In his head, Julio repeated every prayer he’d ever been taught.
“Mother Mary help me,” he pleaded aloud. Other shadows were moving in the dark, but this one was the leader. Why? Well that was as obvious as the monster’s poor taste in facial hair.
The Hitler monster lunged.
“No!” Julio shouted. The ropes around his wrists pulled tight, but from his squirming they’d frayed and, finally, snapped. It hurt to pull even one arm free of the ropes, but it was worth it to feel his fist collide with the rotten cheek of zombie Hitler. The skin sloughed away and showed the silver glitter of some futuristic technology. Julio was exultant and disgusted at the same time.
“If I cut you free, can you do that again?” a deep, rather amused voice asked.
“I’d be happy to punch some Nazis if you’d cut me free, sir,” Julio shouted.
The ropes fell away like water and Julio turned to see his hero.
Even in the darkness, Shatterstar was bright. His white costume made the dark starburst around his shining eye even more striking. Julio felt a little breathless for a moment; then Shatterstar smiled at him-at him-and stepped forward gracefully to slice through a rotting Goebbels, sending a shower of sparks across the floor of the warehouse.
Julio grinned to himself and, suddenly fierce, he turned on the nearest Frankensteinian fascist and punched it. Strong Guy told him he had a mean left hook for “such a little guy” and obviously these goose stepping golems of flesh and metal were made of seriously weak stuff, because the head popped right off of zombie Eichmann.
“You have a warrior’s spirit in you,” Shatterstar commented. His voice was smooth and deep. He wasn’t even the slightest bit out of breath. Julio, on the other hand, was breathing hard and sweating buckets down his back, soaking his undershirt and dress shirt. His hat was lost in the fray and, because Shatterstar was here beside him, glorious, he was suddenly aware of how much he needed a shave and a haircut last week.
The zombie robot Nazis lay, strewn in pieces across the warehouse floor.
“Our heroes have prevailed!” the voice announced.
“Mojo,” Shatterstar hissed. “Show yourself, you fiend!”
Maniacal laughter rattled through the dusty rafters. It was so much darker in the warehouse than it had been before, Julio presumed it was getting late. Still, his eye caught movement in the darkness around them.
“Shatterstar!” he had time to shout and then the explosion went off.
He was conscious the entire time, felt his eyes burn at the brightness and felt his body falling back. He opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see a thing, either from the darkness or from the explosion. Someone or something smelling of rotten flesh and iron hoisted him up like a bag of flour, carried him a short distance-only a few footfall-and then tossed him into something rounded and metal. Liquid dripped over him, flowing freely. He tried to close his mouth to it, but it got in his nose and went over his eyes. When he opened his mouth to breathe it flowed into his mouth. It was hot on his tongue, but it tasted like dirt and had the consistency of a bad head cold. The liquid overwhelmed him, making his whole body shake. He could hear a struggle in the distance and heard Shatterstar’s voice cry out and then fall silent. There was nothing he could do.
Julio Richter was a grown man. He covered the scenes of accidental shooting deaths, gruesome car accidents, and the occasional murder scene. He’d watched footage from the Pacific and out in Europe. He knew about the gas ovens in Germany and about Japanese soldiers putting their bayonets into children for practice. Still, he hadn’t cried since he’d seen his father murdered before him. Even as he struggled against the liquid drawing him down, hearing Shatterstar shout like that, wordless and furious, and then be silenced made him cry.
But he was just a reporter, not a hero, what could he do?
---
Julio woke up on the warehouse floor. His clothing was all sopping wet, but his skin was somehow dry. It was dark, but he could make out every inch of his own body because it was glowing a soft, luna moth green. He had a whole collection of handkerchiefs dyed this color, he thought, because it was his favorite. He hadn’t been able to afford monogramming, especially the way he went through those things, so he’d bought just the right dye and done it in his kitchen sink.
“I’m alive,” he said, awed. “I feel… good.”
That was an understatement, certainly. He felt this humming in his bones. He felt safe and powerful. It was as if the Earth was reaching out to him. Julio felt like a hero.
He stood up suddenly, not even light headed, and stretched out his glowing hands. He focused on the feeling in his bones, let it flow up through his feet, into his chest, and then out through the bones of his arms until it gathered in his hands. There was an intense green light in his open palms.
Then he let it go.
The warehouse shook so hard that the metal beams holding it up started to screech and complain. Then they bent and broke. Julio hunched to the floor, holding his arms over his head. But the rubble didn’t even touch him. The warehouse was sheets of useless bent metal and broken glass all around him, but he was untouched.
For a moment, Julio stood silent and awed.
“Shit!” he shouted. “I’m going to be late for work!”
He ran all the way back to the safety of his apartment, ducking into shadows and behind buildings as much as he could, and scrubbed the green out of his skin, hoping that didn’t take away his newfound power.
---
“You need a raise, Richter?” Madrox asked when he came in the door of Extraordinary Express an hour late.
“Are you offering me one?” Julio asked, skeptical of Madrox’s sincerity.
“No, just wondering why you can’t seem to afford to replace your broken alarm clock,” Madrox snapped. “You owe me a draft in an hour. Take it to Carosella when you finish it.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Julio rushed off to his closet of an office and his desk. He wanted to ask Ben where he’d disappeared to and if he’d seen all the crazy things that Julio had yesterday. Russell always missed the interesting stuff. He was a good typist, but he was a shitty investigative reporter. And, despite a superficial resemblance, he didn’t even believe in superheroes like Shatterstar.
Richter opened his office door and the lights were still off inside. Ben’s desk was just as he’d left it yesterday.
“That’s different,” Julio said aloud. Russell was never late. Not once in his whole time here at the paper. Julio was a bit shiftless, but Benjamin was more reliable than the post office.
It was quiet and serious without Ben at his back, Julio realized, which was so strange considering how quiet and serious the man was. He made an atrocious number of errors as he was typing up his draft and had to redo it three times, but it was easy without the distracting conversations and speculations that he and Ben regularly engaged in while they worked.
Glumly, Julio took his draft to Strong Guy.
“What’s eating you?” the big guy asked.
“Did Russell call in sick today?” Julio asked, trying not to sound so concerned.
“Aw Hell, the other half of the dynamic duo is missing?” Guido asked. “Naw, he didn’t call in at all. Maybe you should run by his place, see if he’s there.”
Julio paused.
“Yeah, that’d be a great idea if I knew where he lived.”
Guido pulled off his glasses and gave Julio a look of confusion and then profound disappointment.
“That man’s been following you around for three years, Julio, covering for you in the office and on the field. Everybody knows he does your typing for you and you fetch his coffee and he makes you not smoke when you eat-And you don’t even know where he lives?!”
Julio shrank back. Getting chewed out always reminded him of the tongue lashings he got as a child from his step-mother, but Carosella could have eaten Julio’s step-mother for a light snack he was so big.
“I’ll go ask Terry if he’s got an address on record.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Guido told him gruffly. Julio turned and tried not to look like he was fleeing.
“Geez, if we wasn’t friends, Julio, I don’t know what you’d do,” Carosella commented to himself.
---
Julio’s quest next took him to the desk of Theresa Cassidy. Terry was a gorgeous Irish lady who had transferred into Nathan Summers’s Western office of Extraordinary Express from the main offices out in New York. She’d been here for years, but her brogue was as thick and sibilant as ever. Her thick red hair grew long and she kept it immaculately styled.
She had an on and off thing with Madrox that no one outright spoke of and there was a rumor that she was a lounge singer out in Reno. She certainly looked like she could be. Just looking at her, Julio couldn’t help imagining her in a green evening gown spilt up the side with gold chains draped about her graceful throat.
Theresa was the Veronica Lake of the office, even with all the tragedy after her breakdown after her father’s death. Julio understood that and, on some level, he could have loved Theresa. He’d certainly known her for many years and he liked her.
“Do you know where Ben lives, Terry?” he asked. She looked up from her typewriter and was just about to answer him when Monet swept through the door.
“Does she look like a secretary to you, Mr. Richter?” She said “Mister” with an exaggerated French accent.
“You know there has been a war, Mr. Richter, and during that war all of our precious men went away from us and fought and bled to destroy those filthy fascists in Europe who murdered my family. And during that time women did everything that men had done. I built bombs, Mr. Richter, and I will not have you treat me like some useless little secretary!”
If Terry was the Veronica Lake, then Monet St. Croix was the Vivien Leigh, a born actress of Shakespearean extravagance. She was a perfect Scarlet O’Hara. It was hard for Julio to tell her that he didn’t give a damn, but he resisted, because Monet would tear the delicate little hat from her head, with it’s black netting and feathers, and hit him. She did not hit like a girl, either. Julio had, to his misfortune, learned that the hard way.
“He just forgot where Darwin’s office is, M, you can step down,” Terry told her. “Our feminine nature is not being challenged.”
She turned to Julio and pointed to the right down the hall.
“Remember? Poor Darwin is stuck in the office down at the end of the hall. It’s even more of a closet than your office. He keeps all the records, though, he should be able to tell you.”
She gave him a wink as he turned to go. Julio made a mental note to himself to try to remember that, even though he probably wouldn’t. Somehow it wasn’t his fault, really, he just couldn’t think of how yet.
Darwin was an unfortunate looking man, gaunt and rather jaundiced looking. He was terribly fond of Monet, for all her dangerous fire and theatrics. He smiled to see Julio and knew what he was looking for before Julio even asked.
“I heard all the commotion,” he explained. “Mr. Russell lives in the basement of the tenement building on Maple Street.”
That was on the other side of the tracks, not exactly a beautiful, safe place to live, even for a bachelor veteran like Ben. Julio was a little worried as he headed over there. What if something had happened to Russell on his way to work? What if something had happened out there at the warehouse and Shatterstar hadn’t been able to save Ben the way he’d saved Julio?
He worried the whole way to Maple street, with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets and his hat pulled down low.
The tenement building’s doors were open and a plump Indian woman held the door for him. It was damp and musty smelling in the building and that smell intensified as Julio went down the basement stairs. He found the room number that Darwin had given him and started hollering and pounding on the door.
Much to his dismay, no one answered. Julio rattled the doorknob and gave the door a helpful shove with his shoulder. Something in his bones warmed and shivered and the door popped open with a shake.
It was a rat hole. Ben lived in an absolute rat hole. In fact, Julio was certain he’d seen rats that lived more comfortably. It was small, with just a tiny, barred window that peered up at the sidewalk. There was a speed punching bag hanging from the ceiling, something Ben had clearly installed himself. There was a metal bed frame, rusted, with a bare? mattress on it. Nearby was a slightly dented metal locker, open, with neatly folded clothing in it atop it and along the seam of the floor and the wall were stacks of penny novels, pulp, and soggy comic books. An obviously homemade radio sat by the bare bed with its tubes exposed.
Julio sat on the creaking, sagging bed and felt like crying again. Where was his friend?
He stepped out and crossed the tracks again, wandering until he found a wooden telephone booth. He dropped in a coin and waited for the operator.
“I need to call a car,” he said.
It took a moment and then he was connected to a gruff man who sounded like he’d poured scotch down his throat and then swallowed a lit match. Julio didn’t care. He waited for the car to come and then hopped in.
“Drive me out to the valley,” he said.
“You all right, man?” the driver asked. He was young, still pimply in the face.
“No, I’m not,” Julio admitted. “Just take me out to the valley.”
“Whatever you say, Joe.”
---
The valley was actually a small canyon. It gave Julio space to think. He always liked it here. He hadn’t realized it before but, in retrospect, it had always seemed as if he could feel the Earth here. Now it was even stronger. It was as if there was a pulse in the surface of the planet and it was beating so strong it overwhelmed the beat of his heart. He closed his eyes and focused on that feeling. It flooded his bones with heat and power. He almost felt himself getting erect, he was so overwhelmed with ecstasy. It was nearly a religious experience.
When he opened his eyes his hands were glowing a bright verdant green. He stretched them out and pointed his hand like a gun. The cliff face he aimed for with his fingers shivered, crumbled, and collapsed into the trickle of water below.
Julio smiled to himself. He aimed his other hand like a blade and cracked a vein in the cliff face. Excitedly, he jumped to his feet and started really messing around.
It exhausted him, , but it was the best he had ever felt physically. He felt as if his feet were rooted in the ground, as if he was one with the soil and the stone and it was guiding him to his best use of it-of himself.
Whatever that green goo had been, it had made him feel like a whole, new man.
Finally, triumphantly raising his arms, he made the whole valley quake with fury.
“I can find Benjamin,” Julio told himself, breathlessly. “I can save him from that Mojo person. I can be a hero.”
He ran all the way to the warehouse district and it felt like he was a giant, like the earth shook under his every footfall. By the time he reached the warehouse district he was covered in dirt and sweat, totally out of breath, and he’d never felt more alive in his life.
He walked the rows of metal buildings until it was dimly twilight, but with little success. After all, he was a reporter, not a detective.
“A new hero appears,” he heard that voice announce. “Has he arrived in time to save the illustrious Shatterstar?”
Julio felt the living warmth drain from his bones. Mojo had grabbed Shatterstar.
“Tell me where he is!” Julio shouted, furious. “Or I’ll bring down every warehouse here on your head!”
He whipped out his green handkerchief and tied it around most of his face so that, if Mojo could see him, he might not recognize him. Then he stripped off his dirty shirt and his worn out dress shoes and his socks. It was getting cold, especially for him to be dressed in only his undershirt, slacks, and belt.
But he would stand it for Shatterstar’s sake. If he rescued Shatterstar then he’d have twice the manpower to rescue Ben.
“Like to see him doubt superheroes after this,” Julio muttered to himself.
“He’d never find the location in time,” Mojo announced from nowhere. “Of course.”
Julio swore harshly in Spanish.
Then he had an idea, fueled by years of reading comic books. He calmed himself with deep breathes and instead of pulling the power of the Earth into his bones, he simply felt it. Suddenly he was aware of the foundations of warehouses that plunged into the earth, the poured slabs of concrete and every crack in them. His awareness opened up and his body shivered and hummed with the quiet vibrations of the planet.
When he opened his eyes he knew just where to go and he took off running, barefoot, over the tar and gravel paths. There wasn’t time to think about how shoddily the new sewer system had been put in place or the unexpected amounts of human bones and bodies buried around time. He had to rescue Shatterstar!
“How could you?” Mojo shouted, affronted.
Julio shook down the massive warehouse doors, shook them right out of their hinges.
“I’m an intrepid hero, aren’t I?” Julio shouted to the narrator-villain he couldn’t see. He was furious with Mojo for endangering the two people he cared the most for in the world.
That feeling did not even give Julio pause. Shatterstar was his hero and Ben was his best friend, of course he cared more for them than anyone else.
Shatterstar lay on the floor just where Julio had felt him to be, hogtied, gagged, and blindfolded.
Smartly, the first thing Julio undid was the blindfold. Once Shatterstar saw that he wasn’t one of Mojo’s supernatural goons, Julio made work of the ropes that bound Shatterstar’s wrists and ankles together. It was complicated work and tight knots that wore the skin off his fingers with rough fibers, but once the work was done it was as if the day was already saved.
Shatterstar rose to his feet gracefully and pulled the cloth gag from his mouth.
“Thank you, Mr. Richter,” he said.
Julio’s heart almost stopped beating. Not because Shatterstar was thanking him, but because Shatterstar knew who he was. Some disguise this handkerchief turned out to be.
“I can get us out of here,” Shatterstar said. “If you provide an appropriate distraction to Mojo.”
Julio quickly agreed, the idea already forming in his head to bring the warehouse down around his shoulders. It would be extremely satisfying, but then he remembered that Shatterstar might be the only man alive who knew where Ben might be.
“Wait, Shatterstar,” Julio interrupted. “My friend Benjamin Russell is missing. He came with me to the other warehouse and I need to-”
“Your friend is perfectly safe,” Shatterstar told him.
“No, you don’t understand!” Julio insisted. “I went to his apartment and he wasn’t there and I’m afraid your nemesis might have done something to him.”
“He had,” Shatterstar admitted. Julio’s stomach clenched.
“But I was able to spare your friend Benjamin from Mojo’s clutches by offering myself in his stead.”
Suddenly, he could breathe again.
“Now, what sort of distraction did you have in mind?” Shatterstar asked. He slid his two double bladed swords against one another making a beautiful metallic sound, almost like a sigh.
“Just stay close to me,” Julio told him.
Shatterstar slid right up behind him, his chest touching Julio’s back. Julio tensed up and took a deep breath, trying not to be uncomfortable about it. It had never been quite so clear that Shatterstar towered over him and, this close, Julio could feel the heat of his body through his tight costume and what little proper clothing Julio was wearing himself.
The feeling came even easier this time and Julio raised his arms. Then Shatterstar wrapped his arms unexpectedly about Julio’s chest and crossed his two swords together. The warehouse came tumbling down around them and there was a brilliant flash of light.
Julio swore he could hear Mojo’s tortured cry of defeat, but only dimly.
Somehow they were in Julio’s apartment, right by his tired, evergreen couch. The room smelled comfortingly of cigarette smoke. It was so suddenly, oddly familiar that Julio felt as if the past two days may have been a spectacular and surreal fever dream, no reality at all.
Shatterstar was still holding him around the waist, though, and that was no dream. The hero turned Julio about in his arms. Swords were set to the wayside. A hand carded through Julio’s brown hair. He felt sick and afraid. Shatterstar pulled away the green handkerchief and exposed Julio’s face.
He didn’t know what was happening, or maybe he did and he wanted to pretend as if he didn’t.
Shatterstar, incorruptible, impossible hero, was dipping him back and kissing him on the mouth in the middle of his living room, as no man should ever kiss another man.
Julio panicked and shoved Shatterstar away from him.
Shatterstar looked terribly hurt.
“Julio?”
He panicked harder, hyperventilating. The room began to shake.
“Julio, everything is fine,” Shatterstar told him. “You’re safe. I’m safe.”
He reached up to his short red hair and pulled it off. Julio felt like he was going to throw up. Benjamin’s long hair, that same shade of red, fell down past his shoulders. Without his glasses, it looked feminine and beautiful, the dark starburst around Shatterstar’s eye looked exotic and alien, but his body was hard and large and male.
“It’s me,” Shatterstar… Ben said. “It’s always been me and I love-”
“Do not say it!” Julio shouted in Spanish. “Do not say that to me!”
Shatterstar or Benjamin Russell, whoever or whatever he was, took a step back.
“Julio?” he asked, looking hurt. “Are you angry with me? I thought…”
“Yes!” he shouted, impulsively. “I want you to leave!”
There was no argument about that, the redhead simply turned and walked away, taking a coat and hat from Julio’s closet on his way out the door. His swords were left resting against the leg of Julio’s old sofa.
---
A/N: I tried to post the whole thing and Livejournal was all "Your fic is too big!" and I was all "Damnation." So, today there's issue 1, tomorrow issue 2, and then the epilogue.
Rating: R
Fandom; Pairing: X-Factor; Rictor/Shatterstar (some Jamie/Terry and Darwin→Monet)
Word Count: 5,981
Disclaimer: Full disclaimer in my profile. I don't own the story or characters. They belong to Marvel Comics.
Warnings: 1940s, so there’s smoking, casual racism and sexism (minimal, I promise), World War II references, cyborg zombie Nazis, gangsters, guns, swords, violence, references to Shatterstar’s painful past, institutionalization, and 1940s style homophobia.
Much gratitude goes to Joasakura for inspiring and beta’ing this story, she did an amazing job and should be lauded with much praise. And thanks go to my parents, born 1942 and 1945, for letting me pillage their childhood memories for my gay fanfic.
---
“Morning,” Julio said to his office mate.
After a pause, the redhead turned around and said “Good Morning, Mr. Richter!” with a lot of cheer and enthusiasm, but no smile. Then he turned back to his type writer and continued to clack away at today’s copy.
Benjamin Russell was a swell guy, really, though he’d fought in the Pacific and come back, well, a little touched. That was why he grew his hair out longer than most dames wore theirs. It was his oddness, Julio knew, that put them together. No one else wanted to work with the Spic in the office.
“Got an assignment for you, Richter,” Madrox stopped by, holding out the mimeograph in front of him. It had an indecipherable note handwritten on it signed with an “M.”
“Mmm, still smells like chemicals,” Julio said.
“You sound like a hash smoker,” Madrox told him and then shut them back in their closet of an office.
“Holy Mother of God,” Julio whispered in Spanish. “Nazis? Brought to life through an unholy combination of black magic and mechanical science?”
“Do we have to fight them?” Russell asked. Julio turned because he sounded mildly excited. Russell pushed up his thick glasses and turned back to his typewriter.
“No, they’re probably not even real,” Julio explained. “We’ve just got to investigate and report on it. I’m going to take the sensationalistic paranoid whacko angle.”
“Well then,” Russell said. “It’ll be a piece of pie.”
“Cake, Ben, it’s ‘a piece of cake.’”
“Ah, yes,” Russell said. “A piece of cake.”
“This is making me hungry, grab your stuff and I’ll buy us lunch.”
Behind him, Ben even smiled.
Since working together, Benjamin Russell and Julio Richter often frequented the diner that Julio had once had to himself as a pair. What was once a single hardboiled reporter sitting at the furthest booth from the door with a meal that usually couldn’t be found on the menu, was now two men with their hats pulled low. At least Julio was in the habit of taking his jacket off sometimes.
“Did you have a place like this wherever you came from?” Julio asked.
“No,” Ben offered.
Julio licked some chili sauce off his fingers and went for his green handkerchief.
“Well, anyway, about these simulacrum Nazis-who’d perpetuate this sorta hoax at a time like this?”
Benjamin just shrugged his broad shoulders under his coat and continued to stare down his big glass of water.
Julio pulled out his pack of Chesterfields. He always thought better when he had a smoke.
“Don’t,” Ben said. He always protested Julio’s smoking, but never quite as forcefully as now when he put his big hand over Julio’s and stopped him from pulling out a cigarette.
“Oh come on, Russell, even the waitress is smoking,” he complained. Down the aisle, Mindy glared at him and pulled her pink lipstick stained lucky strike from her lips and ground it out on the toe of her high-heeled shoe. He smiled and waved at her sneer.
“I don’t care about the waitress,” Ben said.
Julio sighed. “Fine, okay, yeah, cause you’re eating right here. Just this time.”
The corner of Benjamin’s mouth twitched in what was probably a prelude to a smile.
“I think it’s a bid to get attention,” Ben said, suddenly.
Julio stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Whose attention?” he asked. He watched Russell take a casual bite of his sandwich instead of answering. A couple strands of his long red hair were hanging down and something about the light hitting only one side of Ben’s face made Julio’s brain spark.
“Shatterstar,” Julio said. His pulsed picked up.
“That’s it!” he grinned. He couldn’t let Russell know about his obsession, but zombie Hitler in this bupkis of a city was just the kind of thing to bring Shatterstar out into the open. And if Shatterstar was going to be there with swords flashing, then, by Mary’s virginity, Julio Richter would be there too.
“Oh please,” Russell said, carefully wiping his mouth and fingers with a napkin. “You don’t really buy those superhero stories do you, Richter?”
“Ha!” Julio faked. “Of course not, but someone obviously does and they're faking a bunch of goose-stepping undead robots to get a superhero’s attention. It’s just the kind of story Extraordinary Express is looking for. Xavier will give me a raise.”
“And Madrox will laugh you out of the office,” Ben offered.
“You say that as if he doesn’t already do that,” Julio replied. “Put our little five dollar extravagance on my tab, Mindy, I’ve got a story to find.”
The thing was that both Mr. Richter and Mr. Madrox believed in heroes. Around the city, Shatterstar was mostly an urban legend-a bright flash of light in the shadows-but he’d interviewed every single person who would cop to a sighting and had put together the image of a handsome red haired man in all white, a real white knight with a pair of magical swords in his hands, and a black star around his eye, like a mask. Madrox wanted to prove that the person who kept dumping evidence in the mail slot for the police department’s secretary and who seemed, from the eye-witness’s evidence he brought in, to be able to be in multiple places all at once. Madrox called him the Multiple Man to Julio.
“I knew you’d understand,” James had said, at their first clandestine little meeting about heroes. “Because you read all those comics.”
“As if pulp mystery novels are any better,” Julio had said, defensive of his hobby.
“Ben sure seems to think so,” James offered. He added, “Or at least, he thinks they’re more realistic.” when Richter gave a hurt look without even realizing it.
Then they’d both laughed at the very idea of pulps being realistic and all was forgiven because Madrox didn’t think that heroes like Shatterstar were just for crackpot stories and comic books. Someday, maybe, they’d even be exactly the kind of material for Extraordinary Express.
Xavier had started Extraordinary Express out in the East, where its main office still ran, but he gave this little corner of the Southwest a chance. Honestly, Julio was grateful for the man, because he would give any poor soul a chance at a real job. Julio knew he wasn’t what most people thought of as a reporter-he hadn’t even learned to write in English until after he’d lost his virginity. But here he was.
And so here too was Benjamin Russell, who’d just wandered into town one day with freckles and sunburn, long red hair and a limp courtesy of the Empire of the Rising Sun. He had no credentials, but he was a perfect typist, so he was hired on the spot. Julio had to admit it was pretty serendipitous. He knew Japanese, English, and some weird language that Julio just assumed was Navajo and he only heard Russell throw a phrase or two around when they first met and occasionally under his breath. Julio taught him enough Spanish to be able to read his steno notes, which were a person form of short hand he made up in his first language. Ben, to his credit, tried to teach Julio some Japanese, but it never stuck. Probably because he never really tried; he really wanted to learn whatever mystery language Russell spoke like it was his natural tongue. That’s what he was really curious about and it was so hard to motivate himself if he wasn’t curious.
Russell was a serious guy, the kind who mentally fit in with Madrox, who loved to cover murders and kidnappings, and physically fit in with hulking Guido Carosella, who actually did a lot of human interest pieces for the press. Julio liked Guido, liked him a lot, and not just because of course the Italian guy and the Mexican kid at the office would like one another-in fact, Julio was no fan of pasta and Strong Guy Carosella couldn’t handle spicy foods. No, Guido was just a fun guy.
There were a lot of interesting people around Extraordinary Express. Terry Cassidy spoke like she’d just got off the boat and Monet St. Croix might be a French girl born in America, but in the southwestern sun she was even darker than Julio. People commented on things like that, Terry’s voice and M’s skin, but they’d be stupid to think either of the ladies gave a nickel what anybody else thought. Julio wished he could be so lucky.
“Do you think I’ll miss The Shadow?” Ben asked out of the blue.
“Probably,” Julio told him. “You’ll live.”
“Hmm, hopefully it’s a story I’ve heard already.”
That was the thing, Russell and Madrox both loved their pulp and their radio dramas. Madrox just let it color his reporting-black and white and red all over, as they say. But even if he liked that dark stuff, Ben loved comic books.
And Julio loved comic books as well, which gave him tons to talk about with Russell over their regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the diner. He still hadn’t admitted, though, that it had been the comics that taught him English. As much as he told Russell and as close as they’d grown in just a few years, there was a lot he just didn’t admit to anyone. Not Xavier, not Madrox, not “Strong Guy”, and definitely not Benjamin Russell.
They crossed the tracks in the middle of town and headed on foot into the warehouse district.
“Looks like the place,” Julio whispered. It was broad daylight, there shouldn’t be anything sinister going on just yet. Perfect investigation weather.
“I’ll take the East side,” Ben said, heading off before Richter could even suggest they should work together.
Used to this sort of thing from Ben already, Julio just shrugged and walked on. He picked the rusty lock on the side door leading into the curved tin military-style structure. The chain holding the door fell off in his hands.
“That was easy,” he said to himself in Spanish. Then there was blinding pain.
And then there was nothing.
---
Julio came back slowly. It was dim wherever he was and what little light could be seen streaming in was clouded with floating dust. He coughed.
“Tonight on the Mojo Show!” a voice boomed from nowhere and, immediately, Julio was awake and aware.
“We have an intrepid reporter trying to uncover the truth to rumors of the Axis undead. Crossing town he breaks into the warehouse at the center of these supernatural rumors. However, there our villainous European invaders overpower him and he wakes bound in the dingy warehouse of evil.”
The voice that narrated his plight was as slippery as a snake oil salesman, but it was telling the truth, if perhaps a gaudy exaggeration of the truth. So, at least he knew where he was now: the warehouse of evil. Julio huffed out a sigh. This was ridiculous, but still…
“Help!” he shouted. He was tied to an I-beam. All he could smell was dust. He scraped his bound wrists against the metal of the support beam. He could feel it wearing down the simple rope binding, fraying it little by little. The only light in the area seemed to glow eerily from the mysterious green seepage of huge metal barrels. Julio shivered.
Someone… something? Was moving in the dark, he could hear it. No, multiple somethings.
“Help! Please, someone help!” Forget pride, Julio Richter was not going to be eaten by shadows while he couldn’t even throw a punch.
His ankles were tied, his chest was tied, his shoulders tied, it was kind of overdoing it on the rope bindings. Julio didn’t appreciate it at all, it was making breathing and shouting a bit difficult. He coughed into the dust.
“Who could possibly rescue him now, except, perhaps…”
There was some kind of musical cue, but nothing happened. Julio smirked, imagining that the announcer, clearly the manipulator here, was probably a little irked at that.
Then something shuffled out of the darkness. Julio froze. It smelled like motor oil and rotten meat, but as it passed through the shafts of weak light he saw a pressed uniform in drab brown with a flash of brass and red.
In his head, Julio repeated every prayer he’d ever been taught.
“Mother Mary help me,” he pleaded aloud. Other shadows were moving in the dark, but this one was the leader. Why? Well that was as obvious as the monster’s poor taste in facial hair.
The Hitler monster lunged.
“No!” Julio shouted. The ropes around his wrists pulled tight, but from his squirming they’d frayed and, finally, snapped. It hurt to pull even one arm free of the ropes, but it was worth it to feel his fist collide with the rotten cheek of zombie Hitler. The skin sloughed away and showed the silver glitter of some futuristic technology. Julio was exultant and disgusted at the same time.
“If I cut you free, can you do that again?” a deep, rather amused voice asked.
“I’d be happy to punch some Nazis if you’d cut me free, sir,” Julio shouted.
The ropes fell away like water and Julio turned to see his hero.
Even in the darkness, Shatterstar was bright. His white costume made the dark starburst around his shining eye even more striking. Julio felt a little breathless for a moment; then Shatterstar smiled at him-at him-and stepped forward gracefully to slice through a rotting Goebbels, sending a shower of sparks across the floor of the warehouse.
Julio grinned to himself and, suddenly fierce, he turned on the nearest Frankensteinian fascist and punched it. Strong Guy told him he had a mean left hook for “such a little guy” and obviously these goose stepping golems of flesh and metal were made of seriously weak stuff, because the head popped right off of zombie Eichmann.
“You have a warrior’s spirit in you,” Shatterstar commented. His voice was smooth and deep. He wasn’t even the slightest bit out of breath. Julio, on the other hand, was breathing hard and sweating buckets down his back, soaking his undershirt and dress shirt. His hat was lost in the fray and, because Shatterstar was here beside him, glorious, he was suddenly aware of how much he needed a shave and a haircut last week.
The zombie robot Nazis lay, strewn in pieces across the warehouse floor.
“Our heroes have prevailed!” the voice announced.
“Mojo,” Shatterstar hissed. “Show yourself, you fiend!”
Maniacal laughter rattled through the dusty rafters. It was so much darker in the warehouse than it had been before, Julio presumed it was getting late. Still, his eye caught movement in the darkness around them.
“Shatterstar!” he had time to shout and then the explosion went off.
He was conscious the entire time, felt his eyes burn at the brightness and felt his body falling back. He opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see a thing, either from the darkness or from the explosion. Someone or something smelling of rotten flesh and iron hoisted him up like a bag of flour, carried him a short distance-only a few footfall-and then tossed him into something rounded and metal. Liquid dripped over him, flowing freely. He tried to close his mouth to it, but it got in his nose and went over his eyes. When he opened his mouth to breathe it flowed into his mouth. It was hot on his tongue, but it tasted like dirt and had the consistency of a bad head cold. The liquid overwhelmed him, making his whole body shake. He could hear a struggle in the distance and heard Shatterstar’s voice cry out and then fall silent. There was nothing he could do.
Julio Richter was a grown man. He covered the scenes of accidental shooting deaths, gruesome car accidents, and the occasional murder scene. He’d watched footage from the Pacific and out in Europe. He knew about the gas ovens in Germany and about Japanese soldiers putting their bayonets into children for practice. Still, he hadn’t cried since he’d seen his father murdered before him. Even as he struggled against the liquid drawing him down, hearing Shatterstar shout like that, wordless and furious, and then be silenced made him cry.
But he was just a reporter, not a hero, what could he do?
---
Julio woke up on the warehouse floor. His clothing was all sopping wet, but his skin was somehow dry. It was dark, but he could make out every inch of his own body because it was glowing a soft, luna moth green. He had a whole collection of handkerchiefs dyed this color, he thought, because it was his favorite. He hadn’t been able to afford monogramming, especially the way he went through those things, so he’d bought just the right dye and done it in his kitchen sink.
“I’m alive,” he said, awed. “I feel… good.”
That was an understatement, certainly. He felt this humming in his bones. He felt safe and powerful. It was as if the Earth was reaching out to him. Julio felt like a hero.
He stood up suddenly, not even light headed, and stretched out his glowing hands. He focused on the feeling in his bones, let it flow up through his feet, into his chest, and then out through the bones of his arms until it gathered in his hands. There was an intense green light in his open palms.
Then he let it go.
The warehouse shook so hard that the metal beams holding it up started to screech and complain. Then they bent and broke. Julio hunched to the floor, holding his arms over his head. But the rubble didn’t even touch him. The warehouse was sheets of useless bent metal and broken glass all around him, but he was untouched.
For a moment, Julio stood silent and awed.
“Shit!” he shouted. “I’m going to be late for work!”
He ran all the way back to the safety of his apartment, ducking into shadows and behind buildings as much as he could, and scrubbed the green out of his skin, hoping that didn’t take away his newfound power.
---
“You need a raise, Richter?” Madrox asked when he came in the door of Extraordinary Express an hour late.
“Are you offering me one?” Julio asked, skeptical of Madrox’s sincerity.
“No, just wondering why you can’t seem to afford to replace your broken alarm clock,” Madrox snapped. “You owe me a draft in an hour. Take it to Carosella when you finish it.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Julio rushed off to his closet of an office and his desk. He wanted to ask Ben where he’d disappeared to and if he’d seen all the crazy things that Julio had yesterday. Russell always missed the interesting stuff. He was a good typist, but he was a shitty investigative reporter. And, despite a superficial resemblance, he didn’t even believe in superheroes like Shatterstar.
Richter opened his office door and the lights were still off inside. Ben’s desk was just as he’d left it yesterday.
“That’s different,” Julio said aloud. Russell was never late. Not once in his whole time here at the paper. Julio was a bit shiftless, but Benjamin was more reliable than the post office.
It was quiet and serious without Ben at his back, Julio realized, which was so strange considering how quiet and serious the man was. He made an atrocious number of errors as he was typing up his draft and had to redo it three times, but it was easy without the distracting conversations and speculations that he and Ben regularly engaged in while they worked.
Glumly, Julio took his draft to Strong Guy.
“What’s eating you?” the big guy asked.
“Did Russell call in sick today?” Julio asked, trying not to sound so concerned.
“Aw Hell, the other half of the dynamic duo is missing?” Guido asked. “Naw, he didn’t call in at all. Maybe you should run by his place, see if he’s there.”
Julio paused.
“Yeah, that’d be a great idea if I knew where he lived.”
Guido pulled off his glasses and gave Julio a look of confusion and then profound disappointment.
“That man’s been following you around for three years, Julio, covering for you in the office and on the field. Everybody knows he does your typing for you and you fetch his coffee and he makes you not smoke when you eat-And you don’t even know where he lives?!”
Julio shrank back. Getting chewed out always reminded him of the tongue lashings he got as a child from his step-mother, but Carosella could have eaten Julio’s step-mother for a light snack he was so big.
“I’ll go ask Terry if he’s got an address on record.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Guido told him gruffly. Julio turned and tried not to look like he was fleeing.
“Geez, if we wasn’t friends, Julio, I don’t know what you’d do,” Carosella commented to himself.
---
Julio’s quest next took him to the desk of Theresa Cassidy. Terry was a gorgeous Irish lady who had transferred into Nathan Summers’s Western office of Extraordinary Express from the main offices out in New York. She’d been here for years, but her brogue was as thick and sibilant as ever. Her thick red hair grew long and she kept it immaculately styled.
She had an on and off thing with Madrox that no one outright spoke of and there was a rumor that she was a lounge singer out in Reno. She certainly looked like she could be. Just looking at her, Julio couldn’t help imagining her in a green evening gown spilt up the side with gold chains draped about her graceful throat.
Theresa was the Veronica Lake of the office, even with all the tragedy after her breakdown after her father’s death. Julio understood that and, on some level, he could have loved Theresa. He’d certainly known her for many years and he liked her.
“Do you know where Ben lives, Terry?” he asked. She looked up from her typewriter and was just about to answer him when Monet swept through the door.
“Does she look like a secretary to you, Mr. Richter?” She said “Mister” with an exaggerated French accent.
“You know there has been a war, Mr. Richter, and during that war all of our precious men went away from us and fought and bled to destroy those filthy fascists in Europe who murdered my family. And during that time women did everything that men had done. I built bombs, Mr. Richter, and I will not have you treat me like some useless little secretary!”
If Terry was the Veronica Lake, then Monet St. Croix was the Vivien Leigh, a born actress of Shakespearean extravagance. She was a perfect Scarlet O’Hara. It was hard for Julio to tell her that he didn’t give a damn, but he resisted, because Monet would tear the delicate little hat from her head, with it’s black netting and feathers, and hit him. She did not hit like a girl, either. Julio had, to his misfortune, learned that the hard way.
“He just forgot where Darwin’s office is, M, you can step down,” Terry told her. “Our feminine nature is not being challenged.”
She turned to Julio and pointed to the right down the hall.
“Remember? Poor Darwin is stuck in the office down at the end of the hall. It’s even more of a closet than your office. He keeps all the records, though, he should be able to tell you.”
She gave him a wink as he turned to go. Julio made a mental note to himself to try to remember that, even though he probably wouldn’t. Somehow it wasn’t his fault, really, he just couldn’t think of how yet.
Darwin was an unfortunate looking man, gaunt and rather jaundiced looking. He was terribly fond of Monet, for all her dangerous fire and theatrics. He smiled to see Julio and knew what he was looking for before Julio even asked.
“I heard all the commotion,” he explained. “Mr. Russell lives in the basement of the tenement building on Maple Street.”
That was on the other side of the tracks, not exactly a beautiful, safe place to live, even for a bachelor veteran like Ben. Julio was a little worried as he headed over there. What if something had happened to Russell on his way to work? What if something had happened out there at the warehouse and Shatterstar hadn’t been able to save Ben the way he’d saved Julio?
He worried the whole way to Maple street, with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets and his hat pulled down low.
The tenement building’s doors were open and a plump Indian woman held the door for him. It was damp and musty smelling in the building and that smell intensified as Julio went down the basement stairs. He found the room number that Darwin had given him and started hollering and pounding on the door.
Much to his dismay, no one answered. Julio rattled the doorknob and gave the door a helpful shove with his shoulder. Something in his bones warmed and shivered and the door popped open with a shake.
It was a rat hole. Ben lived in an absolute rat hole. In fact, Julio was certain he’d seen rats that lived more comfortably. It was small, with just a tiny, barred window that peered up at the sidewalk. There was a speed punching bag hanging from the ceiling, something Ben had clearly installed himself. There was a metal bed frame, rusted, with a bare? mattress on it. Nearby was a slightly dented metal locker, open, with neatly folded clothing in it atop it and along the seam of the floor and the wall were stacks of penny novels, pulp, and soggy comic books. An obviously homemade radio sat by the bare bed with its tubes exposed.
Julio sat on the creaking, sagging bed and felt like crying again. Where was his friend?
He stepped out and crossed the tracks again, wandering until he found a wooden telephone booth. He dropped in a coin and waited for the operator.
“I need to call a car,” he said.
It took a moment and then he was connected to a gruff man who sounded like he’d poured scotch down his throat and then swallowed a lit match. Julio didn’t care. He waited for the car to come and then hopped in.
“Drive me out to the valley,” he said.
“You all right, man?” the driver asked. He was young, still pimply in the face.
“No, I’m not,” Julio admitted. “Just take me out to the valley.”
“Whatever you say, Joe.”
---
The valley was actually a small canyon. It gave Julio space to think. He always liked it here. He hadn’t realized it before but, in retrospect, it had always seemed as if he could feel the Earth here. Now it was even stronger. It was as if there was a pulse in the surface of the planet and it was beating so strong it overwhelmed the beat of his heart. He closed his eyes and focused on that feeling. It flooded his bones with heat and power. He almost felt himself getting erect, he was so overwhelmed with ecstasy. It was nearly a religious experience.
When he opened his eyes his hands were glowing a bright verdant green. He stretched them out and pointed his hand like a gun. The cliff face he aimed for with his fingers shivered, crumbled, and collapsed into the trickle of water below.
Julio smiled to himself. He aimed his other hand like a blade and cracked a vein in the cliff face. Excitedly, he jumped to his feet and started really messing around.
It exhausted him, , but it was the best he had ever felt physically. He felt as if his feet were rooted in the ground, as if he was one with the soil and the stone and it was guiding him to his best use of it-of himself.
Whatever that green goo had been, it had made him feel like a whole, new man.
Finally, triumphantly raising his arms, he made the whole valley quake with fury.
“I can find Benjamin,” Julio told himself, breathlessly. “I can save him from that Mojo person. I can be a hero.”
He ran all the way to the warehouse district and it felt like he was a giant, like the earth shook under his every footfall. By the time he reached the warehouse district he was covered in dirt and sweat, totally out of breath, and he’d never felt more alive in his life.
He walked the rows of metal buildings until it was dimly twilight, but with little success. After all, he was a reporter, not a detective.
“A new hero appears,” he heard that voice announce. “Has he arrived in time to save the illustrious Shatterstar?”
Julio felt the living warmth drain from his bones. Mojo had grabbed Shatterstar.
“Tell me where he is!” Julio shouted, furious. “Or I’ll bring down every warehouse here on your head!”
He whipped out his green handkerchief and tied it around most of his face so that, if Mojo could see him, he might not recognize him. Then he stripped off his dirty shirt and his worn out dress shoes and his socks. It was getting cold, especially for him to be dressed in only his undershirt, slacks, and belt.
But he would stand it for Shatterstar’s sake. If he rescued Shatterstar then he’d have twice the manpower to rescue Ben.
“Like to see him doubt superheroes after this,” Julio muttered to himself.
“He’d never find the location in time,” Mojo announced from nowhere. “Of course.”
Julio swore harshly in Spanish.
Then he had an idea, fueled by years of reading comic books. He calmed himself with deep breathes and instead of pulling the power of the Earth into his bones, he simply felt it. Suddenly he was aware of the foundations of warehouses that plunged into the earth, the poured slabs of concrete and every crack in them. His awareness opened up and his body shivered and hummed with the quiet vibrations of the planet.
When he opened his eyes he knew just where to go and he took off running, barefoot, over the tar and gravel paths. There wasn’t time to think about how shoddily the new sewer system had been put in place or the unexpected amounts of human bones and bodies buried around time. He had to rescue Shatterstar!
“How could you?” Mojo shouted, affronted.
Julio shook down the massive warehouse doors, shook them right out of their hinges.
“I’m an intrepid hero, aren’t I?” Julio shouted to the narrator-villain he couldn’t see. He was furious with Mojo for endangering the two people he cared the most for in the world.
That feeling did not even give Julio pause. Shatterstar was his hero and Ben was his best friend, of course he cared more for them than anyone else.
Shatterstar lay on the floor just where Julio had felt him to be, hogtied, gagged, and blindfolded.
Smartly, the first thing Julio undid was the blindfold. Once Shatterstar saw that he wasn’t one of Mojo’s supernatural goons, Julio made work of the ropes that bound Shatterstar’s wrists and ankles together. It was complicated work and tight knots that wore the skin off his fingers with rough fibers, but once the work was done it was as if the day was already saved.
Shatterstar rose to his feet gracefully and pulled the cloth gag from his mouth.
“Thank you, Mr. Richter,” he said.
Julio’s heart almost stopped beating. Not because Shatterstar was thanking him, but because Shatterstar knew who he was. Some disguise this handkerchief turned out to be.
“I can get us out of here,” Shatterstar said. “If you provide an appropriate distraction to Mojo.”
Julio quickly agreed, the idea already forming in his head to bring the warehouse down around his shoulders. It would be extremely satisfying, but then he remembered that Shatterstar might be the only man alive who knew where Ben might be.
“Wait, Shatterstar,” Julio interrupted. “My friend Benjamin Russell is missing. He came with me to the other warehouse and I need to-”
“Your friend is perfectly safe,” Shatterstar told him.
“No, you don’t understand!” Julio insisted. “I went to his apartment and he wasn’t there and I’m afraid your nemesis might have done something to him.”
“He had,” Shatterstar admitted. Julio’s stomach clenched.
“But I was able to spare your friend Benjamin from Mojo’s clutches by offering myself in his stead.”
Suddenly, he could breathe again.
“Now, what sort of distraction did you have in mind?” Shatterstar asked. He slid his two double bladed swords against one another making a beautiful metallic sound, almost like a sigh.
“Just stay close to me,” Julio told him.
Shatterstar slid right up behind him, his chest touching Julio’s back. Julio tensed up and took a deep breath, trying not to be uncomfortable about it. It had never been quite so clear that Shatterstar towered over him and, this close, Julio could feel the heat of his body through his tight costume and what little proper clothing Julio was wearing himself.
The feeling came even easier this time and Julio raised his arms. Then Shatterstar wrapped his arms unexpectedly about Julio’s chest and crossed his two swords together. The warehouse came tumbling down around them and there was a brilliant flash of light.
Julio swore he could hear Mojo’s tortured cry of defeat, but only dimly.
Somehow they were in Julio’s apartment, right by his tired, evergreen couch. The room smelled comfortingly of cigarette smoke. It was so suddenly, oddly familiar that Julio felt as if the past two days may have been a spectacular and surreal fever dream, no reality at all.
Shatterstar was still holding him around the waist, though, and that was no dream. The hero turned Julio about in his arms. Swords were set to the wayside. A hand carded through Julio’s brown hair. He felt sick and afraid. Shatterstar pulled away the green handkerchief and exposed Julio’s face.
He didn’t know what was happening, or maybe he did and he wanted to pretend as if he didn’t.
Shatterstar, incorruptible, impossible hero, was dipping him back and kissing him on the mouth in the middle of his living room, as no man should ever kiss another man.
Julio panicked and shoved Shatterstar away from him.
Shatterstar looked terribly hurt.
“Julio?”
He panicked harder, hyperventilating. The room began to shake.
“Julio, everything is fine,” Shatterstar told him. “You’re safe. I’m safe.”
He reached up to his short red hair and pulled it off. Julio felt like he was going to throw up. Benjamin’s long hair, that same shade of red, fell down past his shoulders. Without his glasses, it looked feminine and beautiful, the dark starburst around Shatterstar’s eye looked exotic and alien, but his body was hard and large and male.
“It’s me,” Shatterstar… Ben said. “It’s always been me and I love-”
“Do not say it!” Julio shouted in Spanish. “Do not say that to me!”
Shatterstar or Benjamin Russell, whoever or whatever he was, took a step back.
“Julio?” he asked, looking hurt. “Are you angry with me? I thought…”
“Yes!” he shouted, impulsively. “I want you to leave!”
There was no argument about that, the redhead simply turned and walked away, taking a coat and hat from Julio’s closet on his way out the door. His swords were left resting against the leg of Julio’s old sofa.
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A/N: I tried to post the whole thing and Livejournal was all "Your fic is too big!" and I was all "Damnation." So, today there's issue 1, tomorrow issue 2, and then the epilogue.