Glee!fic, AtOG: Grey part 1
Grey part 1, AtOGverse, superhero!AU - because you all bloody well deserve it, thank you *so* much ^^
Disclaimer: Glee! is someone else's problem. I have a shaky sort of ownership over the Ghost and Phalanx but it's dubious at best and this is the internet so yeah, I'm claiming *nothing* ;P
Rating: Fic as a whole, NC-17 for smut, language, violence and subject matter. This part, R.
Warnings and spoilers: Glee spoilers only tangentially, we're *crazy* AU from season one. Spoilers for All the Other Ghosts, obv. And oh my god warnings, okay: exactly what went for AtOG goes here. We are dealing with actual superheroes in actual capes and yes there is a certain degree of suspension of disbelief going on here, but where I think things deserve being treated with honesty I do try to do that. So, the warnings are broad and serious: if you read about it in a newspaper, it could easily turn up here. Violence, drugs and alcohol, sexual assault, homophobia, bigotry, abusive relationships, more or less anything you might want a superhero to help you with if it came up. Also, this fic is brought to you by the theme of miscommunication and the space between people failing to understand each other: so, yeah, expect some angst . . . And as always, character says =/= writer says and if someone decides to get snotty about the physics of superpowers when people are actually wearing capes oh my god, I will not be amused. So your warning *there* is that if you get snotty, I'll be unamused at you, boys in fricking *capes* guys ;P
Summary: Everyone's got to learn.
Note: Thank you all *so much*, everyone who donated and spread the word and was generally just *awesome* about everything - thank you so so much <3 So, yeah, fic! Because I took my little holiday from thinking about superheroes all the time and used it to . . . think about superheroes all the time. Look, anyone familiar with the stuff I churn out is probably aware that as adorbs as I find the getting-together stories, it's the staying-together stories that *really* interest me. This will in some ways really not be *like* AtOG. In AtOG the world just got a *lot* bigger, so now it's got to be coped with, not just the sudden change but the every day. Ominous. On the other hand I obsessively write ten thousand happy endings, so, we'll see ;)
To anyone who doesn't know, I posted this because of the amazing efforts of wider fandom, thank you all so, so much. You can continue donating to this or any other charity in the name of boys in capes should you wish to, and thank you again and *so much* to everyone who already has; saving the world, one person at a time: you guys are super <3
Six people sit around a table polished to black lacquer, suits and ties and the steady breaths of confident men. And the confident woman, as at ease in her chair as a big cat in the jungle, hands loosely clasped over her files, calmly watching her audience from over the top of her reading glasses.
One man says, "Every extra day is an extra wasted day. These chances come and go, we don't have this shot forever, Agent Sylvester."
"I appreciate that." she says. "But the point still stands. He's not ready. He's as weak-stomached as an irritable bowel convention. You push him at this now, he'll break like a depressed dieter in a Cheesecake Factory."
"But you are leading him towards this."
She closes her eyes for a second, tilts her clasped hands a restrained sort of shrug. "Baby steps. I'm monitoring his progress. You understand the problem, gentlemen. He's got no reason to trust us and plenty of reason not to, and the only reason we have any access to him at all is his forbearance and you know it. You push him too hard, you will literally never see him again. And we all know that that's not the outcome we're aiming for here."
"How do you rate your likelihood of success?"
She settles her gaze on the man. "Are you suggesting that anyone else would have a better likelihood of success?"
"We're not without bargaining power ourselves here. If you can - hurry him, a little -"
She takes her glasses off, drops them on her files. "What do you think I'm doing? Left on his own all the spook does is wring his hands through New York handing out tissues and giving disappointed looks to criminals, no-one who's been in the game as long as he has should still be this naïve. You have the authority to disregard my expertise and you know it, but I'm still telling you that if you push that kid, he will spring back. And gentlemen, he might not be much good to you as a reluctant ally, but he's no good to you at all as a hardened enemy."
Silence, for a moment.
"If that's all the progress to be reported . . . reconvene next month, Agent Sylvester?"
She picks her glasses up, closes her files, stands. "Gentlemen."
Neat echoing footsteps until the neat echoing room is empty; nothing left but the dust caught in the beam of light gleaming off the table, white on black.
*
"C'mon out, Slimer." Incendiary murmurs, rubbing her hands together as she walks around a climbing wall, eyes flickering across the shadows between obstacles, looking for paler grey. "This won't hurt a bit."
"If you're going to give me the 'it'll hurt a lot' line -"
She spins to his voice and three marbles explode in front of her, where the edge of a cloak whisks into the floor. She steps quickly back and behind her shoulder he murmurs, "I have heard it before a number of times, actually."
She turns whipping a blade from her belt - he spins with her like they're dancing, cloak blooming wide as a ball gown and catching her shoulder to whirl her disorientated - and blinks, at the gentle little slap of paper on her forehead. She snatches it off in two fingers and glares at the yellow post-it reading, Boo.
She snorts her breath out, snaps the blade down into the ground so it thunks there half its length into the floor, and crumples the note in her hand as she stalks out.
"Did you get got?" Cheer Girl says, as she stamps past.
"Break his face for me."
"Agent Sylvester said we weren't supposed to kill each other."
"Agent Sylvester says a lot of things." Incendiary mutters, banging the button for the door release.
And at Cheer Girl's shoulder he says, "Excuse me."
She whirls already punching but he springs himself up on her shoulder - she's more than strong enough to bear his weight - twisting overhead on one hand and snagging his cloak around her face. She gives a little startled shriek and he hauls her back a step to keep her off-balance, skipping around her tangled in his cloak, then ghosts it through her and gently taps the post-it home on her forehead. "Sorry."
"Oh," she says, disappointed, and unpeels the note, pouts, and heads off after Incendiary.
"Tag team, Casper!" a voice calls, and another yells, "Ghostbusters!"
He ghosts straight down, and just hears the start of iBorg's yelp as he and Sam - still without a superhero moniker, since the team collectively vetoed his most recent suggestion of the Streaker - collide. He climbs back to the surface again as iBorg's picking himself up, metal hand squeaking as it rubs his metal helm, and the Ghost runs to leap up the climbing wall at the side of them, to drop down onto his shoulders as he stutters his thrusters on to fly again.
"Wuh-woah, hey, no passengers!"
He rolls like a fighter jet and the Ghost runs on him as he turns, so for a fraction of a second they're face to face and he can -
Tap the post-it home. "Sorry," he says, ghosting right through him as iBorg mutters, "Ah, crap.", dropping back to the floor.
No sign of Sam, who is a problem, as fast as he is the Ghost can't even touch him. He backs into the shadows - all pillars and climbing walls and camouflage netting hanging from the ceiling, this high, wide training room - and he thinks.
Sam is picking his way alongside a climbing wall, going nervously slow, singing under his breath, "If there's somethin' strange - in your neighbourhood -" when the lights go out. He stands there in the dimmest shadow for a while - the emergency lighting hums, very low, a little blue and more giving depth to the shadows than supplying any true sort of light - and then mumbles, "This is not good."
He stands very still. The silence rings in the dark. He swallows.
He says, voice coming a little dry, "This is cheating, Casper."
Someone says into his ear, "I can't see any better than you can, you know."
He screams, and runs with a smack right into the wall. He staggers back groaning, hands to his nose, and the Ghost says, "I'm sorry," and taps the post-it on quite gently, and pats his arm before ghosting away.
Puckzilla. He finds him standing beside a pillar, hands in hard fists at his sides, so tight they're almost shaking. Puckzilla and Cheer Girl are the only ones he's ever actually haunted, and Cheer Girl - maybe it is the best name for her after all - seems remarkably unperturbed by the incident, doesn't mind it in the least. But Puckerman -
Puckzilla is one of the only people he's ever haunted twice. And now he stands there in the dark, breathing hard and tight, not moving.
The Ghost stays far enough away not to scare him, and whispers, "I'm sorry."
Puckzilla's frill flits and falls and shakes upright again. His tail snaps. He grits out, "Just get it over with, spook."
He touches his arm. He's trembling. He says again, very quietly, and he does mean it, "I'm sorry, Noah."
Puckzilla even lowers his head so he can reach.
Psyche and Phalanx left. He wasn't lying about seeing no better than anyone else does in the dark; he pads through the shadows, quiet as a cat, listening for their feet.
He knows someone's close, and he knows it's not Phalanx. He would know if it were Phalanx, he knows his breath better than his own. He stands, hands loose and ready at his sides, alert but not tense, waiting.
She knows where he is. He doesn't know how far her psychic powers extend - does his best not to think about that - but he knows that she knows exactly where he is. So all he has to do is wait, and -
Glance her strike off his wrist, catch the second strike and duck-whirl to let her stagger on, overbalanced; she spins with him - oh she's good - she kicks and he swings his body just out of range, lets himself fall backwards and ghosts right through the floor. He's stronger than her but they're equally fast and he can't see how she's going to attack. This is going to be interesting.
He rolls back up to the ground, spinning in a defensive crouch, cloak sweeping the floor. He can see the darker blot of darkness where she stands in front of him, where she tilts her hip and says, "The dark's no advantage against me."
He just watches, and waits. There's no need to say anything.
(He doesn't know how far her powers extend. He feels sick whenever he thinks about it; there might never be any need to say anything . . .)
She shifts in the dark. "Are you going to sit there all night?"
He's in no hurry. He hears stumbling footsteps further in the room - Phalanx - but he's got walls and pillars and netting to get through in the dark to get to them. They have the time.
She shifts again, getting impatient. "Here Agent Sylvester thought you were worth something, are you going to do anything or -"
He smashes the flash-bang and jerks his hood over his face in the same second and she shrieks, but he's not underestimating her; he rolls through the ground as her telekinetic slam of shock runs through the air, cartwheels up again just in front of her, plunges right through her just leaving the post-it behind, tapping cleanly onto her forehead. She swears. He hurries on in the dark.
Phalanx.
He can hear his breathing, getting closer. He smiles, without meaning to, because he should train him harder in it but there's something endearing about his inability to hide whatever he's feeling, and right now he's nervous. The Ghost steps out behind him, watches the shadow of him hesitate in his walk, watches his hands flex at his sides.
"So, you left me 'til last." Phalanx says.
He just watches his back in the dark. Phalanx - turns, hesitantly, clearly expecting him to run at him at any second. "I could actually be dangerous to you," he says, and he sounds teasing. "I know all your moves."
His smile broadens, in the dark. "I know all of yours."
"Stand-off. Tricky."
"Mm."
Phalanx squeezes his hands, shuffles his weight. "Are . . . you coming at me or not?"
Now it's just a grin. "Maybe I want you to show me one of your 'moves'."
Phalanx - laughs, and in the dark shields gleam, and the Ghost skids to the side, cloak flaring as the projectile sweeps past where he was. Phalanx is already running on him but it's fine, of course it's fine, he knows Phalanx; catches his punch and his weight and flips him over his shoulder into a throw he's already taught him how to roll out of. Phalanx comes up staggering, laughing breathlessly now, throws two more punches he dodges, blocks, ghosts to let the shield flit right through his body -
"No fair -"
"You brought powers into it -"
- spins him like they're dancing, ducks his next punch, comes up and pats the post-it home with two fingertips. "Aw," Phalanx says, peeling it off, and all the lighting comes up again so suddenly that they blink, startled, suddenly smaller as the room's revealed huge around them.
"Abysmal." Agent Sylvester's voice announces over the speakers. "Outside! All of you! Now!"
The room adjacent to the training room contains benches full of sulky supers, and Agent Sylvester skipping through footage on an interactive board in front of them. Phalanx walks through easily and sits along a bench from Puckzilla, eyes on the board, all curious and still a little flushed with fun, and the Ghost . . .
The Ghost hangs back by the door, too visible in this bright room full of people with reasons not to like him.
"If he was a supervillain every last one of you would be dead." Agent Sylvester barks, stabbing a finger at the footage of Incendiary going down first. "I need to find new words to describe how profoundly worthless you collectively are."
"Does collectively include him?" Pysche says without looking at him, and he keeps his arms folded under the cloak, keeps his head low in the hood, keeps his back to the wall, at the back of the room. Incendiary turns to him and snaps, "Why'd you do me first?"
He's beginning to fade a little out of sight. He says to the floor, "Because you were the most likely to break the rules and blow me up the longer it went on." His voice sounds too weak in the light. "Think of it as a compliment."
"So long as you know I'm dangerous, Casper. Dangerous for a reason." she adds in a mutter, folding her arms and turning away from him again.
Phalanx is looking at him, he can tell without looking back. He presses his arms in closer, and doesn't make himself more solid. He doesn't feel . . .
He doesn't feel safe.
"Killing the lights was cheating." Psyche says.
Agent Sylvester shrugs. "You think people can't do worse to you than cut the lights out in the real world? Spook, at any point in the game, were you invisible?"
He keeps his head down, and shakes it.
"Then he stuck to the rules. I'll admit I'm somewhat surprised all of you did, I expected at least one casualty." She stares at the footage of Cheer Girl being yanked off-balance and calmly dealt with, and her breath comes out through her teeth. "Most of you have done this in the real world. The only reason you're all alive today is because the fight you picked was with him and he poops glitter and hope and doesn't actually want to hurt anybody, boo-hoo, every last one of you got your asses kicked before he even started sweating -"
"'cause he's just the king of awesome," Incendiary says, and the Ghost has faded so he's barely there, even his breath feels fainter. "'cause we never had to peel him off the mob's floor before they used him as a human doping agent -"
"Tell them, Casper," Agent Sylvester grinds out, "how to get good."
Almost invisible, almost intangible, almost nothing at all, if someone opened the door the breeze might blow him out right now. He whispers, "By knowing that if you screw up then you get beaten to death alone in the dark."
And he vanishes, through the wall and away, away, away.
*
He knew it was coming but he didn't feel like he could do anything about it until he was already gone, like too much of the wrong attention just snuffed him right out. "Don't do that." Phalanx says, lowering his eyebrows at Agent Sylvester as she turns like it doesn't even matter to the board, and replays the Ghost piggy-backing and grounding iBorg. "Make him - put him on the spot like that. Don't do that."
"Everyone's got to learn," she says, and plays the night-vision green glow of Sam running himself into the wall, and gives a slow, snarling out-breath. Sam shuffles on his seat.
"He's not a performing seal, don't make him -"
"I mean, lizard, if this is the best you can bring then why are you even still wasting our oxygen?"
Puckzilla folds his arms, shoulders bristling. "Anyone else, I will stomp their head into the floor." he says. "Not facin' off against him three times. You wanted us to learn, I learned, okay."
Phalanx mutters, "I'm gonna go find him."
"You. Fright wig." He's standing but he stops as she points at him. "You get one-on-one training and you still can't last a full minute? Do you actually try at all or do you just let him carry you all the time?"
His face is hot and his fisted hands hurt and he hates so much of this. "He got good because he was on his own for five years, so yeah, he's good at looking after himself but he's really bad at getting used like a - like a training simulator who doesn't have feelings, and I'm going after him."
As he bangs the door open he hears Psyche mutter, "Sidekicks."
It doesn't slam even half satisfyingly enough.
He can find his way through the complex by now, probably better than the Ghost can, since when they hear people coming up the corridor around a corner towards them, Phalanx often blinks and he's gone; he must only walk the normal routes three times out of five. He heads straight to the bedroom they've been allocated. They have two, actually, but they only ever use the one, with an extra lock the Ghost fitted, its walls, floors and ceilings obsessively combed for cameras and bugs. His paranoia breaks Phalanx's heart, but - as he pointed out the first night they slept there, barely slept at all, face to face and masks still on, whispering on that bed in the dark - it's not what they might see through a hidden camera that's the problem. It's that the camera might exist that's the problem. Anything they want to know they could already know, all they can do is be as vigilant as they can to work out what they already know, to know if they can be trusted or not.
The problem is that finding out that they can't be trusted means that it's already far, far too late.
Cheer Girl's bedroom door has a poster of a cat stuck on it, Puckzilla's a scrawled sign that reads Get It Here. Their bedroom door has a single strand of hair glued between the door and the frame on the inside, and the bolt the Ghost fitted, as thick as Phalanx's finger.
He knocks at the door, says, "Are you in there?"
Silence.
". . . can I come in?"
Silence.
And then -
He steps back, as the grey-gloved hand extends through the door. It would be creepy if he wasn't who he was, if his lover wasn't who he was. He puts his hand in his, feels the strange not-quite-tangibility of his palm and fingers before his own body's ghosted to match, and at the tug he walks through, to the Ghost with his hood down and even with the mask on he can see the shadows under his eyes. He looks tired and strained and guilty, and Phalanx brushes his hair back. "Hey," he whispers, settling his arms into a hug around his hips. "Hey, it's okay. Everything's okay."
The Ghost lowers his head, and stares at the corner of the room. Then he ducks his head further to rest his cheek on Phalanx's chest, back hunched, hands curling on his chest armour. "Sorry," he whispers. His voice still sounds too much like a ghost.
"Hey." He tucks his head down to kiss the top of his, murmurs there, "Come lay down. We're both tired."
If it only had windows it could be a hotel bedroom for how plain it is, they've brought nothing to make it 'home', nothing personal, they can't risk it. On top of the covers the Ghost curls up, huddling himself small to Phalanx's side, and Phalanx runs a hand down his back, soothingly down, down, down, and settles his cheek in his hair. "You can't help being amazing," he points out, and the Ghost's breath shivers in, shakes loose.
He says, a little too deep, "They hate me."
"No. Angel, no, you know -"
"You know they do. They think I'm - they hate me." He hides his face to Phalanx's chest. "It doesn't matter." he says there, his voice too steady. "I know it doesn't. They don't have to like me to do this. I'm just being -"
"They don't even know you, how could they -"
"- weak."
"No. No, what - when does that word ever have anything to do with you -"
"I just," he says, and stops. Phalanx strokes his back, feels his body breathing, warm and solid in his arms. "They saved my life." he says, struggling. "They saw me - like that. And then she won't shut up about - we could learn from each other, but I can't - talk to anyone, all I can see is them thinking about all the things she's said -"
"Just forget her, she's -" His teeth bite on the things he could say. "Not a nice person. Just forget her and -"
"I can leave when they're okay on their own." the Ghost whispers to his chest, like it's something he wishes all the time, a prayer he knows all the words to. "As soon as they don't need me I never have to come back, I can . . ."
Phalanx strokes his back, silent, and swallows, and leans his head down to kiss him through his hair.
The Ghost hates this. Hates the attention, hates the risk, hates never knowing how to interact with anybody, hates knowing they hate him, hates - he even hates the lighting, walking around in the brightness, he hates not being in New York, hates talking to them even because what can he ever (secret identity) say -
Phalanx rubs his back quite hard with both hands for a moment, trying to shake him out of it, and in his head he counts allies.
Cheer Girl seems to like him, with little enough reason to - most people who've been haunted never want to see him again. But she seems perfectly happy being around the Ghost, sits next to him and doesn't mind his occasionally visible flinch, talks to him and doesn't mind his stunted, nervy replies; followed him once holding the end of his cloak up as they walked like a bride's veil and said, "Isn't this hard to shower in?" and the Ghost looked back, looked, for a fraction of a second, like he might laugh.
And Puckzilla of all people genuinely doesn't have a problem with him. Calls him 'spook' and keeps his distance, there's a certain level of cagey respect there on either side, but he doesn't supply snide comments and doesn't cast those little acidic glances at him when he's in the room like some of them do. His nonchalance, his lack of attention, is the thing that draws the Ghost in; forced into proximity with the group, if he can't hide himself by Phalanx then it's Puckzilla he'll stand next to every time, because Puckzilla won't pay attention to him and that's all he wants.
Sometimes Phalanx wonders, if nothing else will help, if haunting the entire group might actually make them understand him.
Sam seems okay with him, Sam seems okay with everyone, but there's a wary, almost protective vibe from him around the Ghost, maybe because he knows his own implication in what could have been his death last year. The Ghost doesn't blame him and when he makes stupid impressions the Ghost stares at him incomprehending-amused and they get along pretty well. At least he rarely starts fading out of sight around him.
iBorg respects him, but isn't interested in him. The Ghost doesn't do small talk and jokes, doesn't want to hang out, gives him a black look when he calls women 'hos' or jokes about how fat his ex-sidekick was. Sometimes Phalanx thinks the entire reason the Ghost took up superheroing was just because he hates bullying, whatever scale it works on.
Don't even think about Incendiary. Psyche -
Psyche hates him, and they both know that. She enjoyed 'most competent super' status around here until the Ghost got dragged into this, she's been acting as leader of Agent Sylvester's crazy little band of superheroes, and now Agent Sylvester acts like the Ghost invented the job and Psyche holds her head regal and ice in her eyes, and the Ghost dims, fades, vanishes. He's too unsure of himself to meet someone so sure of themselves head on. Somehow Incendiary's anger is easier to deal with, the coolness of Psyche's contempt just wipes him out like ink in the rain. He doesn't fight back, doesn't say a word. Doesn't look at her, if he can help it.
Phalanx doesn't like her very much. Sidekicks.
It's painfully like being back in high school, he thinks, and sighs into his hair. They have bitchy 'cheerleaders', Puckzilla has 'resident badass' written all over him, Sam was clearly the star of his football team if definitely not his classes, iBorg will never not be a geek -
And the Ghost? He hated high school. He was bullied and isolated and - worse. Phalanx's latter high school years were pretty cool, once he'd got somewhere new and got the persona he needed to get by down right. The Ghost spent his high school years wishing he could disappear. Be careful what you wish for; nowadays, that actually is an option . . .
Phalanx runs a hand down the line of his spine, strong sharp bones under his gloved palm. "You know they don't all hate you." he says, quietly. "You know that. If they knew you they would love you, if you just -"
Relax. But he doesn't know how to say that to him. He knows he's paranoid for a reason. And he knows . . . he knows it's cruel to say it to him, cruel to tell the Ghost who hates himself for overreacting, hates himself for the way he panics, hates himself for what a past he had no control over did to him, it's just cruel to tell him he needs to 'relax' like that's something he can just decide to do. It's not like he wants to be this. Phalanx has seen him easy and happy with Mike and Tina, casual and snarking with Rachel, affectionate and mild in his acceptance of love from Finn, he knows what he can be like, but - but those relationships took years, years of testing the trust of, years of the Ghost overreacting and painfully learning not to, years and years before he could perform the simplest task of just letting them like him.
And they see this group of people who mostly already tried to kill him at least once already once a week, for a few hours, during which Agent Sylvester seems determined to make them hate him even more and the Ghost feels so far from his own territory, so far from his own safety, that he can barely keep himself visible.
Phalanx says, very quietly, brushing his hair back from his forehead, "If they knew you like I knew you then they would love you." and kisses him there, against his hairline, while the Ghost lays and breathes, and lets him.
He learned to trust Phalanx. He can learn to trust again. He's the bravest, strongest, smartest person Phalanx knows; of course he can learn it again, given time. And until then - well. Until then, he has a shield.
He slides his ankle over the Ghost's, lets his head fall looser to the pillow. He can feel the Ghost's breaths lengthening, calmer now. He strokes his back, and thinks about sleep, sleep, they never get enough sleep, he yawns into his hair and the Ghost gives a settled, happy wriggle closer to him, sleep . . .
Three banging knocks on their door. "Movie night!" Cheer Girl calls through. "In the rec room! Agent Sylvester says it's a compulsory bonding activity!"
She enunciates every syllable exactly, reciting something with no real understanding of it, before her footsteps thump off again. The Ghost says into Phalanx's chest, "No."
". . . it might be fun."
"I'm tired. You go. If you want to go then go."
"She said 'compulsory'."
The Ghost mutters, "No-one would even know I wasn't there."
Another banging low on the door and iBorg calls, "You got two minutes or we vote on movie without you!"
"Ghost . . ."
If they just knew him as he really is, if they just hung out with him and saw how amazing he is, how funny and clever and caring, if they just knew him . . .
He doesn't want to, he really doesn't want to, Phalanx knows it. He wants to be invisible. He wants to be hidden. Behind a locked door is the only safe place for him here. Phalanx - Phalanx does want to go, wants them to hang out with him and see him laugh, wants them to know him but also - well, Phalanx doesn't want to be invisible. He likes hanging out with people. He likes hanging out with superheroes. Because he's one of them, he's found his place, he fits and he fits in and a movie night would be fun and -
"Fine," the Ghost whispers, very quietly, and sits up. He runs a hand through his hair then pulls his hood up, and looks at the meet of floor and wall. Phalanx sits up, scuffs his own hair out a bit, says cautiously, "Really?"
The Ghost shrugs, and doesn't look at him.
The rec room has three sofas set around a TV, a pool table and a darts board, and they're supposed to bond into a functioning team in there. They're on their third darts board since Puckzilla keeps putting darts right through it and the wall behind it, and everyone says that Artie playing pool in the suit is just cheating because he can calculate the angles with a computer's accuracy. 'Bonding' isn't unproblematic, for them. Incendiary and Psyche can barely be civil, and the Ghost - doesn't know how to join in, doesn't know what to do, hangs back uncertain and twitchy and tries to avoid eye contact, head down and body tense. Now he follows Phalanx in, he has to since Phalanx won't let go of his hand, though Phalanx does offer him the corner of the sofa to hide in so that he's the one sitting between him and Sam, who scoops a fistful of popcorn out of the bowl and passes it along. "Vote," Sam says. "We're down to Up or The Fast and the Furious."
"Up." Phalanx says, and looks at the Ghost, who shrugs a little and looks away, which doesn't really confirm anything, but Phalanx knows him. "Two for Up."
"God damn it," Santana says - she's still in the Incendiary catsuit but she's wearing a hoodie over it and she's lost the mask - tossing a cushion in their direction. Next to her Brittany, with an oversized sweater pulled on over the Cheer Girl costume, claps her hands. "This is what happens when you invite kids to movie night."
Brittany says, "I am Dug and Dug is me."
Quinn walks in - she's changed completely, and it's always strange to see her switch from Psyche, dressed so neatly and soldierly, to Quinn Fabray in cute little sundresses and cardigans, the current one striped like a pastel rainbow. "What are we voting on?" she says.
"Not The Notebook so you don't care." Santana says, propping her elbow off the sofa's arm and her cheek off her hand, as Brittany hugs her other arm and tips her cheek onto her shoulder.
Artie wheels in with another bowl of popcorn on his lap. "Am I too late?"
"Too late to save us from Disney." Puck mutters from the other sofa.
Quinn scowls then votes for Up, making Artie's vote completely pointless (Sam likes Up; he likes imitating Kevin). Artie rolls his eyes and says, "Someone else is gonna have to get the DVD, slot's too low." and eats some popcorn. Sam gets up to do it. It's still a little weird, seeing Artie in the chair. It's not what you expect. You don't think that you take a superhero's suit off and there's a guy in a wheelchair in it; but then, you probably don't expect to find a gay physical therapy student underneath it either, so.
Kurt loves Up, he knows that. The problem, of course, is that montage at the beginning, which ordinarily Kurt sobs through like his heart is breaking. Brittany makes sad little whining noises at it, and Puck works his jaw a little, and the Ghost huddles down in his cloak, swallowing hard. Phalanx rubs his arm in commiseration and Santana's voice makes him start it's so sharp with triumph - "Is he crying? The Ghost of New York cries at Disney?"
He's hunched down very low in the hood, body cringing into Phalanx's, as Artie looks over to check and Quinn flits them a smirking little glance. Phalanx puts an arm around his shoulders and says, "It's really sad, shut up."
She snorts, delighting in the Ghost putting his face against Phalanx's shoulder, semi-see-through already. "Ignore her." Phalanx mutters to his head, and squeezes his shoulder hard. Santana's still smiling about the most poisonous smile he's ever seen, and he glares back, and rubs his arm.
"Are the criminals of that city aware that he blubs through children's movies? Does he always do this or is it just a bad time of the month for him?"
Phalanx says through his teeth, "Just ignore her. Just ignore her."
"Guys, shut up, I'm watching this." Sam says, and eats some more popcorn.
"The guy who did idiotic impressions through an entire Bond movie does not get to tell other people to shut up."
Brittany shushes Santana this time, and with an eye roll she does go quiet. Phalanx rubs the Ghost's arm, murmurs, "It's okay." and he doesn't say anything, though he does, over the next few minutes, fade back into solidity again.
Phalanx is probably the only person to realise that he falls asleep fifteen minutes in, loose with exhaustion against his side. He starts up when Sam throws his head back and does his 'Kevin', lifts his head coming awake tensed as if expecting the worst -
Phalanx ducks his head into his hood to kiss him on the cheek and grin at his confusion, before he settles back against his side, one hand sliding down to fit over Phalanx's. He knits their fingers, squeezes, feels the squeeze back. Everything's okay.
Brittany applauds at the end, and the Ghost's head tips on Phalanx's shoulder, he squeezes his hand happily. Phalanx grins, and squeezes back, and that was fun. Santana doused Sam in popcorn when the impressions didn't let up and Phalanx, laughing, threw up some shields so he didn't become a victim of un-friendly fire, and towards the end when Santana teased Quinn about her too-bright eyes she snapped that Puck was crying too which led to his hard sniffing and snorting and denials, while the Ghost watched them a little hidden behind Phalanx's shoulder, apparently happy resting on armour Phalanx would have thought was uncomfortable, smiling, just a little.
"The children got their choice." Santana says, climbing out from underneath Brittany's arm to attack the stack of DVDs next to the TV. "Now it's the adults' turn."
Sam says, "Is . . . she talking about porn?" and Artie lifts his head, and both Phalanx and the Ghost go still. But Santana lifts a DVD case in each hand beaming darkly, and says, "Kill the lights. Let's take this evening up a notch."
Their voting options are now Saw III and The Ring. The Ghost hasn't relaxed at Phalanx's side, even as Artie does a little arm-pumping dance in the chair and chants, "Ring, Ring, Ring -" and Phalanx scrunches an eye up looking between them. He knows the Ghost. This is . . .
"I'll just go to bed." the Ghost whispers to him, and stands up. Santana looks across at him, props the DVDs off her hips.
"Don't tell me you're scared of scary movies, Slimer, look, it's your life story!"
She waves The Ring at him and he looks back impassively. "Are you even gonna say anything?" she says, eyes narrowing, mouth tighter now. "You just stand there like an idiot, you have plenty to say when we're fighting -"
He looks at the coffee table. "I'm going to bed. I'm tired. I'm sorry."
"Like this is a late night for you?"
"Let him go." Quinn says, not even looking at him. "This is a team building exercise."
Phalanx can see Puck on the next sofa through the Ghost now, as he fades. "No, you don't have to -" he says, reaching up for him, and the Ghost leans down, whispers, "It's okay. You stay up. Have fun."
"You don't -" he says, as there's the ghostly press of a barely-there kiss to his cheek, and he's gone. "Why do you have to talk to him like that?" The Ghost won't have left the room yet but he can't stop the explosion. "How the hell is he ever supposed to feel like a part of the team when you talk to him like he's -"
"Like he's what, Agent Sylvester's favourite baby kitten?" Santana puts on a poutingly sad face. "He wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for us, you'd've been finding bits of him in the Hudson if we hadn't been around -"
"Why is that a reason to - bully him -"
She - barks the laughter out, sharp and shocked, has to sit on the edge of the coffee table pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, DVD case hanging. "Bully - bully -" she wheezes through it, and Quinn's looking amused behind her.
"He doesn't even want to be here," she says. "He made that quite clear."
He says, sharply, "I don't think you made him feel very welcome."
She shrugs. "I said he didn't want to be here. I didn't actually say that we wanted him here."
"Why doesn't anybody want anybody to be anywhere?" Brittany says.
"Leave the spook alone." Puck says, through a mouthful of popcorn. "He had a rough year."
"Okay, so," Santana says, "when exactly did you turn into the Ghost's little bitch, is there maybe something you ought to share with his boyfriend?"
He should yell at them, he should call them names, he should do something when all they use the Ghost for is fuel for their own arguments - but he hates scenes, hates this, gets to his feet and walks for the door.
Sam says, "Dude, you're not gonna - ?"
"Enjoy your movie." he says, jaw too tight, opening the door.
"You see what you did?" Sam says, and Quinn says dismissively, "We don't need the sidekick anyway."
The door slams. Twice in a day is a bad day.
He stamps his way back through the complex - no windows, and strip-lighting hums the beginnings of a headache in his brain, and god this team is more trouble than they're worth and if they could risk just avoiding them -
He bangs on their door again. "It's me," he calls through. "Are you going to let me in?"
There's a long pause before the Ghost's voice says, soft through the door, "You should stay with them."
"I really shouldn't, actually, I am going to say something - regrettable in there."
His voice sounds closer now, just behind the door. "You don't have to do this. You can be friends with them. I don't mind."
"I - it's not -" He pulls his hands back through his hair. "Please just let me in. I'm tired, I want to snuggle and sleep, how often do we get to bed before eleven . . . ?"
There's silence, and then the Ghost says very quietly, "You really can -"
He bangs his hands off the door. "Let me in or I'm kicking it in! I don't want them, I want to be with you -"
"Well there's no need for that tone of voice." the Ghost mutters, and a gloved hand presents itself through the door. "Since you insist."
As soon as he sees the bed Phalanx really feels how tired he is, especially seeing the Ghost standing there hugging his elbows to himself under his cloak, hood down, pale and tired and too anxious in the eyes. He touches his cheek, puts his arms around his shoulders and pulls him into the hug. "They're just acting like kids." he says, rubbing his back hard. "Just ignore them. Just ignore them."
The Ghost's arms settle around his sides, pull at him, and he tucks his face into Phalanx's neck, cheek to his shoulder. ". . . sorry," he whispers, voice a little faint. "- I'm sorry. I'm -"
"It's not your fault, you didn't do anything, it's not -"
"I'm sorry," he whispers, and his body feels shivery and strange in Phalanx's arms, like he's having to try to stay solid for him, and Phalanx holds him hard, digging his fingers in, and closes his eyes over his shoulder and thinks, This shouldn't be happening, this shouldn't . . .
They can keep not talking about it, they can keep avoiding the subject, they can keep trying but they both know, even if they can't face the words, that the Ghost is getting worse, not better. He's never found it easy to face how much he has to exist in this world, how much he can exist, and when he had Phalanx and he knew his city and he knew who was on his side he was good, he was happy, he was the most real thing Phalanx touched, he was so much better but here . . .
The worst part is that Kurt would just snark on past those people out there, ignore them utterly but for the perfect cutting comment, like the time Blaine brought Kurt a cup of coffee at work because they'd barely had time to see each other outside of costume all week and after he kissed him goodbye, when he was walking out, some other guy sneered, "So how'd you get him, Hummel, bribery or blackmail?"
And Kurt said without even looking up from his work, "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't hear you over how much more talented than you I am, was that worth repeating?"
And Phalanx doesn't know - who's really who, whether it's Kurt or the Ghost who's the maskless one, the real one, which response is the true one? Because Kurt Hummel might be the most exquisitely bitchy angel Blaine's ever met but the Ghost just flutters out like a candle flame faced with that pack of disdainful supers and he doesn't understand -
"They don't mean it," he says, raising a hand to rest on the back of his neck. "They don't even know you to really mean any of it, Ghost . . ."
"I know. I know -" He swallows, and doesn't lift his head. "I know it's not me. It's not about me, it can't - they look at me and they don't even see me. All they see is my reputation, and they hate me for it. They hate me when I live up to it and they despise me when I don't . . ."
"They don't -"
"They look right through me." He keeps his head down, breathing hard. "Whether I'm visible or not."
Phalanx holds him, listening to their breaths, their unmatched rhythms. They don't understand, he thinks. They read his shyness as aloofness, his anxiety as arrogance. And he could tell them, he could tell them, No, that's not him, not the real him, the real him -
. . . they can't know the real him, they can't know his name or his face, and wouldn't Blaine resent it too if he was one of them, all of them but Artie ex-criminals because it was here or jail, most of them taken down by the Ghost himself, now getting berated about how much better than them he is while he can't even bring himself to look them in the eyes . . . ?
"Come to bed," he whispers, and kisses the side of his forehead. "Come on, angel. Just come sleep. We'll both feel better in the morning."
They bring an overnight bag every time, they leave nothing here, not even evidence of what brand of toothpaste they use. They leave their masks on - Kurt's skin will just have to suffer the indignity of the glue all night before he gets back to New York to exfoliate - and lose the utility belts, gloves and boots, Phalanx's armour, the Ghost's cloak.
And then they can lay in bed, under the glow of the light built into the headboard, Phalanx tracing the shape of the Ghost's face with his fingertips. Kurt's pretty nose, Kurt's lovely cheek. The Ghost's mask.
He murmurs, very low, "Everything will be okay."
The Ghost watches him with Kurt's eyes, green-blue like the luminous twilight, and worried. He accepts a kiss, eyes closing, and manages a small-twitched smile for him, before Phalanx reaches up for the light.
In the dark he curls closer, and their breaths settle in the black. And god, he is tired, his whole body leaden with it, crazy life they live and they might have to leave this place at five in the morning to get back to New York in time for work but this is still one of the better chances they have of a decent night's sleep . . .
"Phalanx," the Ghost whispers, in the dark.
His eyelids flutter, don't want to come up. "What?"
Silence, for a second, then fingers touch, flinchingly, his chest. "I love you."
He hikes his arms through his, bodily heaves him closer so the Ghost gives a little squeak in the dark. "Love you too," he mumbles into his neck, because he does, because he's almost asleep already, because he's too tired to think but he's here and there's a bed and they're safe when they're in the dark . . .
The Ghost's fingers stroke through his hair, soothing as a lullaby, until he falls asleep; and after that, he doesn't know.
*
Nowhere near dawn, not in January, and in the hangar Phalanx leans against his shoulder, morning-drowsy, possibly asleep on his feet. He keeps an arm around his side and lets their bag hang to the ground from his other hand, and oh, he knows how he feels . . .
Agent Call-Me-Trent-I-Am-Such-A-Huge-Fan is beaming his way up to them with a thermos in each hand. "Good morning! Did you sleep well?"
It's five AM and they got woken at three by the rest of the team bickering their way back to their bedrooms after their movies. The Ghost is about capable of blinking to confirm that he can actually hear him, but can't manage any sound until Trent puts a thermos into his hand and takes the bag off him, at which point he blinks a few more times and mumbles, "I can carry -"
Phalanx comes up with a little in-snort as Trent puts the other thermos into his hand and says, "Good morning sir!" and turns for the helicopter swinging the bag in his hand. Every time. How can he be this happy every time. It is five AM and the Ghost feels like his brain is plastered to the very bottom of his skull.
He snaps the thermos open, tries not to let his eyes roll back at the scent of coffee, scalds his mouth and doesn't care. "Come on," he says, tugging Phalanx's waist, aiming him for the helicopter. "Home."
Phalanx says into his shoulder, "Can you die of being too tired."
"No."
"I am dying of being too tired."
"No you're not. This way."
The helicopter's got benches in its back to carry three times their number, as the Ghost helps Phalanx clip himself in and then lifts a hand to yawn so hard, and doesn't even unclip his own belt, just tugs it right through his body and lets it settle on him solid again. Phalanx huddles insistently in at his side, nuzzles his cheek back to comfortable on his shoulder, and the Ghost reaches out to catch and re-tilt his thermos the right way up, before it pours boiling coffee onto his thigh.
The helicopter begins to hum into life, and Trent calls back, "Same place as last time?"
"Mm? Yes. Please."
"Did you have a good evening?"
The roof panels are opening above them, deep dark sky and they're going home. He yawns again, and his jaw aches, and he lets his head tip onto Phalanx's. "We've had worse," he says, because if you can't say something nice then you can at least say something true.
"It must be great to mix with all those other supers!" Trent calls back, over the whirring of the blades as they leave the ground and oh fuck the best part of coming here is leaving here . . .
He would say something. He would. But Phalanx's hair smells so comfortingly of Blaine, and even as the helicopter turns and tilts their weight, his eyes droop closed again.
He wakes when they pass a plane, too loud too close, and he squints his eyes open, head coming up. Phalanx snuffles into his shoulder, and the Ghost lifts an awkward hand, pets the back of his neck, rubs his eyes and sits up properly. Craning to see out of the window behind his shoulder, New York is approaching below, under a fine veil of thin frail snowflakes, illuminated warm with the city's lights and lights and lights and lights and lights before the January dawn.
For a second he closes his eyes, home and safe, safe, safe. Then he drinks some more coffee, closer to mouth temperature now, and nudges Phalanx's knee with his until he lifts his head. "Drink your coffee."
He blinks, eyes all straining-sleepy still, at his thermos. The Ghost opens it for him, helps his hand to aim and lift it. Phalanx swallows some coffee, and says like he's actually thought about it this time, "Can you die from being too tired?"
"We won't." He settles his hand on the back of his neck, lets his thumb run the edge of his hair. "You'll be okay. Very brave soldier."
He is so very sweet when he's still half-asleep, though he begins to wake once he's ingested most of the coffee, until he's actually capable of noticing that Trent is there to call a good morning to him. Because Agent Please-Call-Me-Trent-If-It's-Not-Too-Much-Trouble-Could-I-Please-Please-Have-Your-Autograph isn't one of the Ghost's groupies (Phalanx tells him that they call themselves 'fanghosts', which is not a word.), he's one of Phalanx's. He's not the Ghost's problem. He doesn't act like the Ghost should be something, be his something, he's just very courteous to him because he comes attached to Phalanx and Trent might yet spontaneously sprout superpowers just to be of the slightest aid to Phalanx.
It is ridiculous how fucking nice it is to have someone around who doesn't expect anything from him at all . . .
They circle and land on a flat-roofed building by the docks, where Phalanx unclips his seatbelt and the Ghost just lets his fall through his body. He still feels tired to the bone but in less of a demanding, wholly-brain-fogging way, now, just the aching awareness of it as he stands, and Phalanx takes his empty thermos from him to hand to Trent. "Thank you, for that. Could not survive without that."
"Knives and guns we manage." the Ghost says dryly. "Mornings without coffee terrify us."
Phalanx hops down first, offers a hand up for him to step to the rooftop in the snow, and Trent hands down their bag. "Same time next week?" he says, and Phalanx grins, says, "That would be amazing, thank you!" and the Ghost tugs his hood straight, smiles at him, and Phalanx is still holding his hand.
And he's in New York, with the sky still pitch black and letting the faintest sort of snow fall, bare freckles of snow, and he's holding the hand of the man he loves who loves him too, and he's safe.
He says, soft with meaning, "Thank you." Trent brings him home every week. Maybe there is more than one reason that he likes Trent.
By the time they get back to Kurt's apartment Rachel is up, apparently hears them landing on the floor after ghosting in through the window, barging the door open while clipping her hair up. "I'm heading out already, just wanted to check no-one died last night!"
"Thank you for your concern." He unpeels his mask with a grimace - he hates leaving it on that long - and he's rubbing at the tacky skin around his eyes when she catches him off-guard with a hug, then grabs Phalanx too.
"I'm always so glad when you come back safe," she coos. "Safe and with the best tip offs for me about anything -"
"No."
"What the hell is the point of you being my roommate if you don't give me any news?" she snarls at him, and Phalanx, who has never got used to their turn-on-the-head-of-a-pin fights, says, "I, uh, shower." and flees.
"Secret identity, Rachel! The only people in New York who know about that team is us and I don't know if you noticed the tightrope we're walking of keeping our identities secret right n-"
"Finn won't tell me anything, you won't tell me anything, you know what? It's like you don't want me to get that Pulitzer!"
"The world won't end if you hit twenty-five without everyone bowing down to your great genius!"
"Okay, fine, be small-minded and provincial, I have my eye on the bigger picture, on getting us to a world where the government admits that we need supers -"
He says to the ceiling, "Rachel I need to get ready for work."
"- and all you can think about is the next night, you can help more people if you would just let me -"
"I could help you if you'd just let me empty and incinerate your wardrobe, are you wearing that for some kind of bet?"
"Wh- this is on trend!"
"For ninety year olds, maybe!"
She gives a frustrated snarl and snaps, "I'm going to work!"
"Have a lovely day!"
Marching to the door she calls over her shoulder, "I don't always think I was wrong about hating superheroes, you know!"
"I'll see you later, Rachel!"
She grabs up her purse, grabs the door handle. "I am trying to do something with my life here."
He begins fading out of sight if she's going to insist on opening the door while he's standing there in costume. "Then do it with your life," he snaps back. "Don't use mine."
She wrenches the door open, only gives him time to call, invisible, "Have a nice day, Rachel!" before it slams. He grits his teeth and does not scream and god why does she think he didn't tell her for all those years - ?
By the time he's out of costume and into a robe in his room, Blaine's back, bow tie dangling and hair ungelled but otherwise dressed. "Shower's free. How's, ah, Rachel?"
"I wouldn't mind if she couldn't literally get us killed with this."
Blaine quirks his mouth, guides Kurt's head down with a hand on his neck to kiss his temple. "Go get ready for work, I'll put more coffee on."
"Mmf. My hero."
Cleanse, exfoliate, tone, moisturise. Chug coffee. Dress. Chug more coffee. Grimace at the news, shut it off again. Finish the coffee, fix Blaine's bow tie. Lock the door behind themselves.
He parts from Blaine at the bus stop with a coffee-flavoured kiss, and heads on to the subway. Bodies pour into the centre of the city and he walks with them, walks with their rhythms and their city-quickness, because the boy from Ohio never felt at peace in all those fields, where the horizon stretched for miles and miles and he felt like a chained peacock, like everyone stared and he had nowhere to hide. But here in the cacophony of colour that is New York on a workday morning, here he's home. Here he's safe. Here he has the correct camouflage. Here he walks with the right rhythm and takes his shades off as he walks into the building and feels right, bone-right, waiting for the elevator and picking through, in his mind, the day ahead. He's tired but coffee keeps him just above the fog of it. As long as he doesn't look down it can't consume him. Another cup of coffee (always another cup of coffee, 'another cup of coffee' as rich in its symbolic possibilities for accomplishment as 'tomorrow') and he'll have his head clear . . .
Robbie says, "What is that cravat made out of?"
He pours a cup of coffee, says, "Kevlar."
"Of course. Why did I ask. What a foolish, unnecessary question. What are cravats ever made of."
Kurt raises his eyebrows at him over the rim of his mug. "How's that jacket you were working on coming along?"
Robbie rolls his eyes across the ceiling and away from him, and slinks off to his desk. And Kurt Hummel, most senior of the junior designers and officially herding this chaotic flock of cats towards polishing the fall collection, rolls his eyes and heads back to his desk, to inhale his coffee and work.
At lunchtime he eats a sandwich at his desk and calls Blaine, and his dad, and while he's distracted a junior designer hoping to slink some monstrosity past his divided attention makes his eyebrows vanish into his hair at the thing on paper he presents on Kurt's desk. Kurt fumbles in his pencil pot, says, "Well maybe Easter, Dad, it depends on how busy we are -" and slashes a red line across the entire design because absolutely nothing less can fully express his revulsion.
Subway home after work. Blaine's already back from his placement, loose and tired over his iPad on Kurt's bed; when Kurt drops his bag Blaine catches his arm and pulls him down beside him, and Kurt mumbles into his oh god Blaine-scented shoulder, "Let me - clothes get crumpled if . . ."
Blaine makes a little groaning noise and clamps a leg and arm over him, pinning him onto the mattress. Kurt is far too tired to protest.
The alarm on his phone wakes them at eight thirty. By that point they're starving so it's food first, while Finn and Blaine discuss the football and Kurt makes Blaine's current favourite dish of eggy noodles with sesame and spring onion, soothed by an apartment full of known, loved voices. Rachel is also much more bearable when it's not first thing in the morning, when she finally emerges from her room so she and Finn can go out, saying goodbye while Kurt and Blaine have their feet tangled under the breakfast bar, chopsticks in hand.
Coffee, shower, change . . .
Phalanx lifts the Ghost's hood for him, shakes it right over his hair, brushing it out. He nods his satisfaction and the Ghost's mouth just is smiling, there's never any decision involved in it when looking at him. Phalanx grins back and takes his hand to squeeze it, turning for the window - there's New York out there, their city, to keep safe one life at a time. The Ghost touches his back, below the armour to feel the hard warm muscle of him, sturdy and strong through the glove.
He says, because this may be every night of their lives, this may be known and 'normal' to them, this may be the most time they spend together, but every single night could still be the night that one of them doesn't come back, "I love you."
And Phalanx glances back, turns to catch his face under the hood, kisses him.
How did he manage all those years without that kiss to warm him to his toe-tips?
Phalanx says quietly, "I love you too." and presses his hand again, and turns for the window, so they can be ghosted through, invisible, onto their path of shields.
New York is cold and dark and it feels like the whole city is holding its breath for them, before the Ghost's arm wraps Phalanx's waist, and holding him safe, they move into the slide.
The city sighs out around them, cold wind past their faces, the Ghost's cloak lifting and snapping like a sail. Out there in the dark, there are people who need help. And they have a lot of love to share around . . .
Part 2
Disclaimer: Glee! is someone else's problem. I have a shaky sort of ownership over the Ghost and Phalanx but it's dubious at best and this is the internet so yeah, I'm claiming *nothing* ;P
Rating: Fic as a whole, NC-17 for smut, language, violence and subject matter. This part, R.
Warnings and spoilers: Glee spoilers only tangentially, we're *crazy* AU from season one. Spoilers for All the Other Ghosts, obv. And oh my god warnings, okay: exactly what went for AtOG goes here. We are dealing with actual superheroes in actual capes and yes there is a certain degree of suspension of disbelief going on here, but where I think things deserve being treated with honesty I do try to do that. So, the warnings are broad and serious: if you read about it in a newspaper, it could easily turn up here. Violence, drugs and alcohol, sexual assault, homophobia, bigotry, abusive relationships, more or less anything you might want a superhero to help you with if it came up. Also, this fic is brought to you by the theme of miscommunication and the space between people failing to understand each other: so, yeah, expect some angst . . . And as always, character says =/= writer says and if someone decides to get snotty about the physics of superpowers when people are actually wearing capes oh my god, I will not be amused. So your warning *there* is that if you get snotty, I'll be unamused at you, boys in fricking *capes* guys ;P
Summary: Everyone's got to learn.
Note: Thank you all *so much*, everyone who donated and spread the word and was generally just *awesome* about everything - thank you so so much <3 So, yeah, fic! Because I took my little holiday from thinking about superheroes all the time and used it to . . . think about superheroes all the time. Look, anyone familiar with the stuff I churn out is probably aware that as adorbs as I find the getting-together stories, it's the staying-together stories that *really* interest me. This will in some ways really not be *like* AtOG. In AtOG the world just got a *lot* bigger, so now it's got to be coped with, not just the sudden change but the every day. Ominous. On the other hand I obsessively write ten thousand happy endings, so, we'll see ;)
To anyone who doesn't know, I posted this because of the amazing efforts of wider fandom, thank you all so, so much. You can continue donating to this or any other charity in the name of boys in capes should you wish to, and thank you again and *so much* to everyone who already has; saving the world, one person at a time: you guys are super <3
Six people sit around a table polished to black lacquer, suits and ties and the steady breaths of confident men. And the confident woman, as at ease in her chair as a big cat in the jungle, hands loosely clasped over her files, calmly watching her audience from over the top of her reading glasses.
One man says, "Every extra day is an extra wasted day. These chances come and go, we don't have this shot forever, Agent Sylvester."
"I appreciate that." she says. "But the point still stands. He's not ready. He's as weak-stomached as an irritable bowel convention. You push him at this now, he'll break like a depressed dieter in a Cheesecake Factory."
"But you are leading him towards this."
She closes her eyes for a second, tilts her clasped hands a restrained sort of shrug. "Baby steps. I'm monitoring his progress. You understand the problem, gentlemen. He's got no reason to trust us and plenty of reason not to, and the only reason we have any access to him at all is his forbearance and you know it. You push him too hard, you will literally never see him again. And we all know that that's not the outcome we're aiming for here."
"How do you rate your likelihood of success?"
She settles her gaze on the man. "Are you suggesting that anyone else would have a better likelihood of success?"
"We're not without bargaining power ourselves here. If you can - hurry him, a little -"
She takes her glasses off, drops them on her files. "What do you think I'm doing? Left on his own all the spook does is wring his hands through New York handing out tissues and giving disappointed looks to criminals, no-one who's been in the game as long as he has should still be this naïve. You have the authority to disregard my expertise and you know it, but I'm still telling you that if you push that kid, he will spring back. And gentlemen, he might not be much good to you as a reluctant ally, but he's no good to you at all as a hardened enemy."
Silence, for a moment.
"If that's all the progress to be reported . . . reconvene next month, Agent Sylvester?"
She picks her glasses up, closes her files, stands. "Gentlemen."
Neat echoing footsteps until the neat echoing room is empty; nothing left but the dust caught in the beam of light gleaming off the table, white on black.
*
"C'mon out, Slimer." Incendiary murmurs, rubbing her hands together as she walks around a climbing wall, eyes flickering across the shadows between obstacles, looking for paler grey. "This won't hurt a bit."
"If you're going to give me the 'it'll hurt a lot' line -"
She spins to his voice and three marbles explode in front of her, where the edge of a cloak whisks into the floor. She steps quickly back and behind her shoulder he murmurs, "I have heard it before a number of times, actually."
She turns whipping a blade from her belt - he spins with her like they're dancing, cloak blooming wide as a ball gown and catching her shoulder to whirl her disorientated - and blinks, at the gentle little slap of paper on her forehead. She snatches it off in two fingers and glares at the yellow post-it reading, Boo.
She snorts her breath out, snaps the blade down into the ground so it thunks there half its length into the floor, and crumples the note in her hand as she stalks out.
"Did you get got?" Cheer Girl says, as she stamps past.
"Break his face for me."
"Agent Sylvester said we weren't supposed to kill each other."
"Agent Sylvester says a lot of things." Incendiary mutters, banging the button for the door release.
And at Cheer Girl's shoulder he says, "Excuse me."
She whirls already punching but he springs himself up on her shoulder - she's more than strong enough to bear his weight - twisting overhead on one hand and snagging his cloak around her face. She gives a little startled shriek and he hauls her back a step to keep her off-balance, skipping around her tangled in his cloak, then ghosts it through her and gently taps the post-it home on her forehead. "Sorry."
"Oh," she says, disappointed, and unpeels the note, pouts, and heads off after Incendiary.
"Tag team, Casper!" a voice calls, and another yells, "Ghostbusters!"
He ghosts straight down, and just hears the start of iBorg's yelp as he and Sam - still without a superhero moniker, since the team collectively vetoed his most recent suggestion of the Streaker - collide. He climbs back to the surface again as iBorg's picking himself up, metal hand squeaking as it rubs his metal helm, and the Ghost runs to leap up the climbing wall at the side of them, to drop down onto his shoulders as he stutters his thrusters on to fly again.
"Wuh-woah, hey, no passengers!"
He rolls like a fighter jet and the Ghost runs on him as he turns, so for a fraction of a second they're face to face and he can -
Tap the post-it home. "Sorry," he says, ghosting right through him as iBorg mutters, "Ah, crap.", dropping back to the floor.
No sign of Sam, who is a problem, as fast as he is the Ghost can't even touch him. He backs into the shadows - all pillars and climbing walls and camouflage netting hanging from the ceiling, this high, wide training room - and he thinks.
Sam is picking his way alongside a climbing wall, going nervously slow, singing under his breath, "If there's somethin' strange - in your neighbourhood -" when the lights go out. He stands there in the dimmest shadow for a while - the emergency lighting hums, very low, a little blue and more giving depth to the shadows than supplying any true sort of light - and then mumbles, "This is not good."
He stands very still. The silence rings in the dark. He swallows.
He says, voice coming a little dry, "This is cheating, Casper."
Someone says into his ear, "I can't see any better than you can, you know."
He screams, and runs with a smack right into the wall. He staggers back groaning, hands to his nose, and the Ghost says, "I'm sorry," and taps the post-it on quite gently, and pats his arm before ghosting away.
Puckzilla. He finds him standing beside a pillar, hands in hard fists at his sides, so tight they're almost shaking. Puckzilla and Cheer Girl are the only ones he's ever actually haunted, and Cheer Girl - maybe it is the best name for her after all - seems remarkably unperturbed by the incident, doesn't mind it in the least. But Puckerman -
Puckzilla is one of the only people he's ever haunted twice. And now he stands there in the dark, breathing hard and tight, not moving.
The Ghost stays far enough away not to scare him, and whispers, "I'm sorry."
Puckzilla's frill flits and falls and shakes upright again. His tail snaps. He grits out, "Just get it over with, spook."
He touches his arm. He's trembling. He says again, very quietly, and he does mean it, "I'm sorry, Noah."
Puckzilla even lowers his head so he can reach.
Psyche and Phalanx left. He wasn't lying about seeing no better than anyone else does in the dark; he pads through the shadows, quiet as a cat, listening for their feet.
He knows someone's close, and he knows it's not Phalanx. He would know if it were Phalanx, he knows his breath better than his own. He stands, hands loose and ready at his sides, alert but not tense, waiting.
She knows where he is. He doesn't know how far her psychic powers extend - does his best not to think about that - but he knows that she knows exactly where he is. So all he has to do is wait, and -
Glance her strike off his wrist, catch the second strike and duck-whirl to let her stagger on, overbalanced; she spins with him - oh she's good - she kicks and he swings his body just out of range, lets himself fall backwards and ghosts right through the floor. He's stronger than her but they're equally fast and he can't see how she's going to attack. This is going to be interesting.
He rolls back up to the ground, spinning in a defensive crouch, cloak sweeping the floor. He can see the darker blot of darkness where she stands in front of him, where she tilts her hip and says, "The dark's no advantage against me."
He just watches, and waits. There's no need to say anything.
(He doesn't know how far her powers extend. He feels sick whenever he thinks about it; there might never be any need to say anything . . .)
She shifts in the dark. "Are you going to sit there all night?"
He's in no hurry. He hears stumbling footsteps further in the room - Phalanx - but he's got walls and pillars and netting to get through in the dark to get to them. They have the time.
She shifts again, getting impatient. "Here Agent Sylvester thought you were worth something, are you going to do anything or -"
He smashes the flash-bang and jerks his hood over his face in the same second and she shrieks, but he's not underestimating her; he rolls through the ground as her telekinetic slam of shock runs through the air, cartwheels up again just in front of her, plunges right through her just leaving the post-it behind, tapping cleanly onto her forehead. She swears. He hurries on in the dark.
Phalanx.
He can hear his breathing, getting closer. He smiles, without meaning to, because he should train him harder in it but there's something endearing about his inability to hide whatever he's feeling, and right now he's nervous. The Ghost steps out behind him, watches the shadow of him hesitate in his walk, watches his hands flex at his sides.
"So, you left me 'til last." Phalanx says.
He just watches his back in the dark. Phalanx - turns, hesitantly, clearly expecting him to run at him at any second. "I could actually be dangerous to you," he says, and he sounds teasing. "I know all your moves."
His smile broadens, in the dark. "I know all of yours."
"Stand-off. Tricky."
"Mm."
Phalanx squeezes his hands, shuffles his weight. "Are . . . you coming at me or not?"
Now it's just a grin. "Maybe I want you to show me one of your 'moves'."
Phalanx - laughs, and in the dark shields gleam, and the Ghost skids to the side, cloak flaring as the projectile sweeps past where he was. Phalanx is already running on him but it's fine, of course it's fine, he knows Phalanx; catches his punch and his weight and flips him over his shoulder into a throw he's already taught him how to roll out of. Phalanx comes up staggering, laughing breathlessly now, throws two more punches he dodges, blocks, ghosts to let the shield flit right through his body -
"No fair -"
"You brought powers into it -"
- spins him like they're dancing, ducks his next punch, comes up and pats the post-it home with two fingertips. "Aw," Phalanx says, peeling it off, and all the lighting comes up again so suddenly that they blink, startled, suddenly smaller as the room's revealed huge around them.
"Abysmal." Agent Sylvester's voice announces over the speakers. "Outside! All of you! Now!"
The room adjacent to the training room contains benches full of sulky supers, and Agent Sylvester skipping through footage on an interactive board in front of them. Phalanx walks through easily and sits along a bench from Puckzilla, eyes on the board, all curious and still a little flushed with fun, and the Ghost . . .
The Ghost hangs back by the door, too visible in this bright room full of people with reasons not to like him.
"If he was a supervillain every last one of you would be dead." Agent Sylvester barks, stabbing a finger at the footage of Incendiary going down first. "I need to find new words to describe how profoundly worthless you collectively are."
"Does collectively include him?" Pysche says without looking at him, and he keeps his arms folded under the cloak, keeps his head low in the hood, keeps his back to the wall, at the back of the room. Incendiary turns to him and snaps, "Why'd you do me first?"
He's beginning to fade a little out of sight. He says to the floor, "Because you were the most likely to break the rules and blow me up the longer it went on." His voice sounds too weak in the light. "Think of it as a compliment."
"So long as you know I'm dangerous, Casper. Dangerous for a reason." she adds in a mutter, folding her arms and turning away from him again.
Phalanx is looking at him, he can tell without looking back. He presses his arms in closer, and doesn't make himself more solid. He doesn't feel . . .
He doesn't feel safe.
"Killing the lights was cheating." Psyche says.
Agent Sylvester shrugs. "You think people can't do worse to you than cut the lights out in the real world? Spook, at any point in the game, were you invisible?"
He keeps his head down, and shakes it.
"Then he stuck to the rules. I'll admit I'm somewhat surprised all of you did, I expected at least one casualty." She stares at the footage of Cheer Girl being yanked off-balance and calmly dealt with, and her breath comes out through her teeth. "Most of you have done this in the real world. The only reason you're all alive today is because the fight you picked was with him and he poops glitter and hope and doesn't actually want to hurt anybody, boo-hoo, every last one of you got your asses kicked before he even started sweating -"
"'cause he's just the king of awesome," Incendiary says, and the Ghost has faded so he's barely there, even his breath feels fainter. "'cause we never had to peel him off the mob's floor before they used him as a human doping agent -"
"Tell them, Casper," Agent Sylvester grinds out, "how to get good."
Almost invisible, almost intangible, almost nothing at all, if someone opened the door the breeze might blow him out right now. He whispers, "By knowing that if you screw up then you get beaten to death alone in the dark."
And he vanishes, through the wall and away, away, away.
*
He knew it was coming but he didn't feel like he could do anything about it until he was already gone, like too much of the wrong attention just snuffed him right out. "Don't do that." Phalanx says, lowering his eyebrows at Agent Sylvester as she turns like it doesn't even matter to the board, and replays the Ghost piggy-backing and grounding iBorg. "Make him - put him on the spot like that. Don't do that."
"Everyone's got to learn," she says, and plays the night-vision green glow of Sam running himself into the wall, and gives a slow, snarling out-breath. Sam shuffles on his seat.
"He's not a performing seal, don't make him -"
"I mean, lizard, if this is the best you can bring then why are you even still wasting our oxygen?"
Puckzilla folds his arms, shoulders bristling. "Anyone else, I will stomp their head into the floor." he says. "Not facin' off against him three times. You wanted us to learn, I learned, okay."
Phalanx mutters, "I'm gonna go find him."
"You. Fright wig." He's standing but he stops as she points at him. "You get one-on-one training and you still can't last a full minute? Do you actually try at all or do you just let him carry you all the time?"
His face is hot and his fisted hands hurt and he hates so much of this. "He got good because he was on his own for five years, so yeah, he's good at looking after himself but he's really bad at getting used like a - like a training simulator who doesn't have feelings, and I'm going after him."
As he bangs the door open he hears Psyche mutter, "Sidekicks."
It doesn't slam even half satisfyingly enough.
He can find his way through the complex by now, probably better than the Ghost can, since when they hear people coming up the corridor around a corner towards them, Phalanx often blinks and he's gone; he must only walk the normal routes three times out of five. He heads straight to the bedroom they've been allocated. They have two, actually, but they only ever use the one, with an extra lock the Ghost fitted, its walls, floors and ceilings obsessively combed for cameras and bugs. His paranoia breaks Phalanx's heart, but - as he pointed out the first night they slept there, barely slept at all, face to face and masks still on, whispering on that bed in the dark - it's not what they might see through a hidden camera that's the problem. It's that the camera might exist that's the problem. Anything they want to know they could already know, all they can do is be as vigilant as they can to work out what they already know, to know if they can be trusted or not.
The problem is that finding out that they can't be trusted means that it's already far, far too late.
Cheer Girl's bedroom door has a poster of a cat stuck on it, Puckzilla's a scrawled sign that reads Get It Here. Their bedroom door has a single strand of hair glued between the door and the frame on the inside, and the bolt the Ghost fitted, as thick as Phalanx's finger.
He knocks at the door, says, "Are you in there?"
Silence.
". . . can I come in?"
Silence.
And then -
He steps back, as the grey-gloved hand extends through the door. It would be creepy if he wasn't who he was, if his lover wasn't who he was. He puts his hand in his, feels the strange not-quite-tangibility of his palm and fingers before his own body's ghosted to match, and at the tug he walks through, to the Ghost with his hood down and even with the mask on he can see the shadows under his eyes. He looks tired and strained and guilty, and Phalanx brushes his hair back. "Hey," he whispers, settling his arms into a hug around his hips. "Hey, it's okay. Everything's okay."
The Ghost lowers his head, and stares at the corner of the room. Then he ducks his head further to rest his cheek on Phalanx's chest, back hunched, hands curling on his chest armour. "Sorry," he whispers. His voice still sounds too much like a ghost.
"Hey." He tucks his head down to kiss the top of his, murmurs there, "Come lay down. We're both tired."
If it only had windows it could be a hotel bedroom for how plain it is, they've brought nothing to make it 'home', nothing personal, they can't risk it. On top of the covers the Ghost curls up, huddling himself small to Phalanx's side, and Phalanx runs a hand down his back, soothingly down, down, down, and settles his cheek in his hair. "You can't help being amazing," he points out, and the Ghost's breath shivers in, shakes loose.
He says, a little too deep, "They hate me."
"No. Angel, no, you know -"
"You know they do. They think I'm - they hate me." He hides his face to Phalanx's chest. "It doesn't matter." he says there, his voice too steady. "I know it doesn't. They don't have to like me to do this. I'm just being -"
"They don't even know you, how could they -"
"- weak."
"No. No, what - when does that word ever have anything to do with you -"
"I just," he says, and stops. Phalanx strokes his back, feels his body breathing, warm and solid in his arms. "They saved my life." he says, struggling. "They saw me - like that. And then she won't shut up about - we could learn from each other, but I can't - talk to anyone, all I can see is them thinking about all the things she's said -"
"Just forget her, she's -" His teeth bite on the things he could say. "Not a nice person. Just forget her and -"
"I can leave when they're okay on their own." the Ghost whispers to his chest, like it's something he wishes all the time, a prayer he knows all the words to. "As soon as they don't need me I never have to come back, I can . . ."
Phalanx strokes his back, silent, and swallows, and leans his head down to kiss him through his hair.
The Ghost hates this. Hates the attention, hates the risk, hates never knowing how to interact with anybody, hates knowing they hate him, hates - he even hates the lighting, walking around in the brightness, he hates not being in New York, hates talking to them even because what can he ever (secret identity) say -
Phalanx rubs his back quite hard with both hands for a moment, trying to shake him out of it, and in his head he counts allies.
Cheer Girl seems to like him, with little enough reason to - most people who've been haunted never want to see him again. But she seems perfectly happy being around the Ghost, sits next to him and doesn't mind his occasionally visible flinch, talks to him and doesn't mind his stunted, nervy replies; followed him once holding the end of his cloak up as they walked like a bride's veil and said, "Isn't this hard to shower in?" and the Ghost looked back, looked, for a fraction of a second, like he might laugh.
And Puckzilla of all people genuinely doesn't have a problem with him. Calls him 'spook' and keeps his distance, there's a certain level of cagey respect there on either side, but he doesn't supply snide comments and doesn't cast those little acidic glances at him when he's in the room like some of them do. His nonchalance, his lack of attention, is the thing that draws the Ghost in; forced into proximity with the group, if he can't hide himself by Phalanx then it's Puckzilla he'll stand next to every time, because Puckzilla won't pay attention to him and that's all he wants.
Sometimes Phalanx wonders, if nothing else will help, if haunting the entire group might actually make them understand him.
Sam seems okay with him, Sam seems okay with everyone, but there's a wary, almost protective vibe from him around the Ghost, maybe because he knows his own implication in what could have been his death last year. The Ghost doesn't blame him and when he makes stupid impressions the Ghost stares at him incomprehending-amused and they get along pretty well. At least he rarely starts fading out of sight around him.
iBorg respects him, but isn't interested in him. The Ghost doesn't do small talk and jokes, doesn't want to hang out, gives him a black look when he calls women 'hos' or jokes about how fat his ex-sidekick was. Sometimes Phalanx thinks the entire reason the Ghost took up superheroing was just because he hates bullying, whatever scale it works on.
Don't even think about Incendiary. Psyche -
Psyche hates him, and they both know that. She enjoyed 'most competent super' status around here until the Ghost got dragged into this, she's been acting as leader of Agent Sylvester's crazy little band of superheroes, and now Agent Sylvester acts like the Ghost invented the job and Psyche holds her head regal and ice in her eyes, and the Ghost dims, fades, vanishes. He's too unsure of himself to meet someone so sure of themselves head on. Somehow Incendiary's anger is easier to deal with, the coolness of Psyche's contempt just wipes him out like ink in the rain. He doesn't fight back, doesn't say a word. Doesn't look at her, if he can help it.
Phalanx doesn't like her very much. Sidekicks.
It's painfully like being back in high school, he thinks, and sighs into his hair. They have bitchy 'cheerleaders', Puckzilla has 'resident badass' written all over him, Sam was clearly the star of his football team if definitely not his classes, iBorg will never not be a geek -
And the Ghost? He hated high school. He was bullied and isolated and - worse. Phalanx's latter high school years were pretty cool, once he'd got somewhere new and got the persona he needed to get by down right. The Ghost spent his high school years wishing he could disappear. Be careful what you wish for; nowadays, that actually is an option . . .
Phalanx runs a hand down the line of his spine, strong sharp bones under his gloved palm. "You know they don't all hate you." he says, quietly. "You know that. If they knew you they would love you, if you just -"
Relax. But he doesn't know how to say that to him. He knows he's paranoid for a reason. And he knows . . . he knows it's cruel to say it to him, cruel to tell the Ghost who hates himself for overreacting, hates himself for the way he panics, hates himself for what a past he had no control over did to him, it's just cruel to tell him he needs to 'relax' like that's something he can just decide to do. It's not like he wants to be this. Phalanx has seen him easy and happy with Mike and Tina, casual and snarking with Rachel, affectionate and mild in his acceptance of love from Finn, he knows what he can be like, but - but those relationships took years, years of testing the trust of, years of the Ghost overreacting and painfully learning not to, years and years before he could perform the simplest task of just letting them like him.
And they see this group of people who mostly already tried to kill him at least once already once a week, for a few hours, during which Agent Sylvester seems determined to make them hate him even more and the Ghost feels so far from his own territory, so far from his own safety, that he can barely keep himself visible.
Phalanx says, very quietly, brushing his hair back from his forehead, "If they knew you like I knew you then they would love you." and kisses him there, against his hairline, while the Ghost lays and breathes, and lets him.
He learned to trust Phalanx. He can learn to trust again. He's the bravest, strongest, smartest person Phalanx knows; of course he can learn it again, given time. And until then - well. Until then, he has a shield.
He slides his ankle over the Ghost's, lets his head fall looser to the pillow. He can feel the Ghost's breaths lengthening, calmer now. He strokes his back, and thinks about sleep, sleep, they never get enough sleep, he yawns into his hair and the Ghost gives a settled, happy wriggle closer to him, sleep . . .
Three banging knocks on their door. "Movie night!" Cheer Girl calls through. "In the rec room! Agent Sylvester says it's a compulsory bonding activity!"
She enunciates every syllable exactly, reciting something with no real understanding of it, before her footsteps thump off again. The Ghost says into Phalanx's chest, "No."
". . . it might be fun."
"I'm tired. You go. If you want to go then go."
"She said 'compulsory'."
The Ghost mutters, "No-one would even know I wasn't there."
Another banging low on the door and iBorg calls, "You got two minutes or we vote on movie without you!"
"Ghost . . ."
If they just knew him as he really is, if they just hung out with him and saw how amazing he is, how funny and clever and caring, if they just knew him . . .
He doesn't want to, he really doesn't want to, Phalanx knows it. He wants to be invisible. He wants to be hidden. Behind a locked door is the only safe place for him here. Phalanx - Phalanx does want to go, wants them to hang out with him and see him laugh, wants them to know him but also - well, Phalanx doesn't want to be invisible. He likes hanging out with people. He likes hanging out with superheroes. Because he's one of them, he's found his place, he fits and he fits in and a movie night would be fun and -
"Fine," the Ghost whispers, very quietly, and sits up. He runs a hand through his hair then pulls his hood up, and looks at the meet of floor and wall. Phalanx sits up, scuffs his own hair out a bit, says cautiously, "Really?"
The Ghost shrugs, and doesn't look at him.
The rec room has three sofas set around a TV, a pool table and a darts board, and they're supposed to bond into a functioning team in there. They're on their third darts board since Puckzilla keeps putting darts right through it and the wall behind it, and everyone says that Artie playing pool in the suit is just cheating because he can calculate the angles with a computer's accuracy. 'Bonding' isn't unproblematic, for them. Incendiary and Psyche can barely be civil, and the Ghost - doesn't know how to join in, doesn't know what to do, hangs back uncertain and twitchy and tries to avoid eye contact, head down and body tense. Now he follows Phalanx in, he has to since Phalanx won't let go of his hand, though Phalanx does offer him the corner of the sofa to hide in so that he's the one sitting between him and Sam, who scoops a fistful of popcorn out of the bowl and passes it along. "Vote," Sam says. "We're down to Up or The Fast and the Furious."
"Up." Phalanx says, and looks at the Ghost, who shrugs a little and looks away, which doesn't really confirm anything, but Phalanx knows him. "Two for Up."
"God damn it," Santana says - she's still in the Incendiary catsuit but she's wearing a hoodie over it and she's lost the mask - tossing a cushion in their direction. Next to her Brittany, with an oversized sweater pulled on over the Cheer Girl costume, claps her hands. "This is what happens when you invite kids to movie night."
Brittany says, "I am Dug and Dug is me."
Quinn walks in - she's changed completely, and it's always strange to see her switch from Psyche, dressed so neatly and soldierly, to Quinn Fabray in cute little sundresses and cardigans, the current one striped like a pastel rainbow. "What are we voting on?" she says.
"Not The Notebook so you don't care." Santana says, propping her elbow off the sofa's arm and her cheek off her hand, as Brittany hugs her other arm and tips her cheek onto her shoulder.
Artie wheels in with another bowl of popcorn on his lap. "Am I too late?"
"Too late to save us from Disney." Puck mutters from the other sofa.
Quinn scowls then votes for Up, making Artie's vote completely pointless (Sam likes Up; he likes imitating Kevin). Artie rolls his eyes and says, "Someone else is gonna have to get the DVD, slot's too low." and eats some popcorn. Sam gets up to do it. It's still a little weird, seeing Artie in the chair. It's not what you expect. You don't think that you take a superhero's suit off and there's a guy in a wheelchair in it; but then, you probably don't expect to find a gay physical therapy student underneath it either, so.
Kurt loves Up, he knows that. The problem, of course, is that montage at the beginning, which ordinarily Kurt sobs through like his heart is breaking. Brittany makes sad little whining noises at it, and Puck works his jaw a little, and the Ghost huddles down in his cloak, swallowing hard. Phalanx rubs his arm in commiseration and Santana's voice makes him start it's so sharp with triumph - "Is he crying? The Ghost of New York cries at Disney?"
He's hunched down very low in the hood, body cringing into Phalanx's, as Artie looks over to check and Quinn flits them a smirking little glance. Phalanx puts an arm around his shoulders and says, "It's really sad, shut up."
She snorts, delighting in the Ghost putting his face against Phalanx's shoulder, semi-see-through already. "Ignore her." Phalanx mutters to his head, and squeezes his shoulder hard. Santana's still smiling about the most poisonous smile he's ever seen, and he glares back, and rubs his arm.
"Are the criminals of that city aware that he blubs through children's movies? Does he always do this or is it just a bad time of the month for him?"
Phalanx says through his teeth, "Just ignore her. Just ignore her."
"Guys, shut up, I'm watching this." Sam says, and eats some more popcorn.
"The guy who did idiotic impressions through an entire Bond movie does not get to tell other people to shut up."
Brittany shushes Santana this time, and with an eye roll she does go quiet. Phalanx rubs the Ghost's arm, murmurs, "It's okay." and he doesn't say anything, though he does, over the next few minutes, fade back into solidity again.
Phalanx is probably the only person to realise that he falls asleep fifteen minutes in, loose with exhaustion against his side. He starts up when Sam throws his head back and does his 'Kevin', lifts his head coming awake tensed as if expecting the worst -
Phalanx ducks his head into his hood to kiss him on the cheek and grin at his confusion, before he settles back against his side, one hand sliding down to fit over Phalanx's. He knits their fingers, squeezes, feels the squeeze back. Everything's okay.
Brittany applauds at the end, and the Ghost's head tips on Phalanx's shoulder, he squeezes his hand happily. Phalanx grins, and squeezes back, and that was fun. Santana doused Sam in popcorn when the impressions didn't let up and Phalanx, laughing, threw up some shields so he didn't become a victim of un-friendly fire, and towards the end when Santana teased Quinn about her too-bright eyes she snapped that Puck was crying too which led to his hard sniffing and snorting and denials, while the Ghost watched them a little hidden behind Phalanx's shoulder, apparently happy resting on armour Phalanx would have thought was uncomfortable, smiling, just a little.
"The children got their choice." Santana says, climbing out from underneath Brittany's arm to attack the stack of DVDs next to the TV. "Now it's the adults' turn."
Sam says, "Is . . . she talking about porn?" and Artie lifts his head, and both Phalanx and the Ghost go still. But Santana lifts a DVD case in each hand beaming darkly, and says, "Kill the lights. Let's take this evening up a notch."
Their voting options are now Saw III and The Ring. The Ghost hasn't relaxed at Phalanx's side, even as Artie does a little arm-pumping dance in the chair and chants, "Ring, Ring, Ring -" and Phalanx scrunches an eye up looking between them. He knows the Ghost. This is . . .
"I'll just go to bed." the Ghost whispers to him, and stands up. Santana looks across at him, props the DVDs off her hips.
"Don't tell me you're scared of scary movies, Slimer, look, it's your life story!"
She waves The Ring at him and he looks back impassively. "Are you even gonna say anything?" she says, eyes narrowing, mouth tighter now. "You just stand there like an idiot, you have plenty to say when we're fighting -"
He looks at the coffee table. "I'm going to bed. I'm tired. I'm sorry."
"Like this is a late night for you?"
"Let him go." Quinn says, not even looking at him. "This is a team building exercise."
Phalanx can see Puck on the next sofa through the Ghost now, as he fades. "No, you don't have to -" he says, reaching up for him, and the Ghost leans down, whispers, "It's okay. You stay up. Have fun."
"You don't -" he says, as there's the ghostly press of a barely-there kiss to his cheek, and he's gone. "Why do you have to talk to him like that?" The Ghost won't have left the room yet but he can't stop the explosion. "How the hell is he ever supposed to feel like a part of the team when you talk to him like he's -"
"Like he's what, Agent Sylvester's favourite baby kitten?" Santana puts on a poutingly sad face. "He wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for us, you'd've been finding bits of him in the Hudson if we hadn't been around -"
"Why is that a reason to - bully him -"
She - barks the laughter out, sharp and shocked, has to sit on the edge of the coffee table pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, DVD case hanging. "Bully - bully -" she wheezes through it, and Quinn's looking amused behind her.
"He doesn't even want to be here," she says. "He made that quite clear."
He says, sharply, "I don't think you made him feel very welcome."
She shrugs. "I said he didn't want to be here. I didn't actually say that we wanted him here."
"Why doesn't anybody want anybody to be anywhere?" Brittany says.
"Leave the spook alone." Puck says, through a mouthful of popcorn. "He had a rough year."
"Okay, so," Santana says, "when exactly did you turn into the Ghost's little bitch, is there maybe something you ought to share with his boyfriend?"
He should yell at them, he should call them names, he should do something when all they use the Ghost for is fuel for their own arguments - but he hates scenes, hates this, gets to his feet and walks for the door.
Sam says, "Dude, you're not gonna - ?"
"Enjoy your movie." he says, jaw too tight, opening the door.
"You see what you did?" Sam says, and Quinn says dismissively, "We don't need the sidekick anyway."
The door slams. Twice in a day is a bad day.
He stamps his way back through the complex - no windows, and strip-lighting hums the beginnings of a headache in his brain, and god this team is more trouble than they're worth and if they could risk just avoiding them -
He bangs on their door again. "It's me," he calls through. "Are you going to let me in?"
There's a long pause before the Ghost's voice says, soft through the door, "You should stay with them."
"I really shouldn't, actually, I am going to say something - regrettable in there."
His voice sounds closer now, just behind the door. "You don't have to do this. You can be friends with them. I don't mind."
"I - it's not -" He pulls his hands back through his hair. "Please just let me in. I'm tired, I want to snuggle and sleep, how often do we get to bed before eleven . . . ?"
There's silence, and then the Ghost says very quietly, "You really can -"
He bangs his hands off the door. "Let me in or I'm kicking it in! I don't want them, I want to be with you -"
"Well there's no need for that tone of voice." the Ghost mutters, and a gloved hand presents itself through the door. "Since you insist."
As soon as he sees the bed Phalanx really feels how tired he is, especially seeing the Ghost standing there hugging his elbows to himself under his cloak, hood down, pale and tired and too anxious in the eyes. He touches his cheek, puts his arms around his shoulders and pulls him into the hug. "They're just acting like kids." he says, rubbing his back hard. "Just ignore them. Just ignore them."
The Ghost's arms settle around his sides, pull at him, and he tucks his face into Phalanx's neck, cheek to his shoulder. ". . . sorry," he whispers, voice a little faint. "- I'm sorry. I'm -"
"It's not your fault, you didn't do anything, it's not -"
"I'm sorry," he whispers, and his body feels shivery and strange in Phalanx's arms, like he's having to try to stay solid for him, and Phalanx holds him hard, digging his fingers in, and closes his eyes over his shoulder and thinks, This shouldn't be happening, this shouldn't . . .
They can keep not talking about it, they can keep avoiding the subject, they can keep trying but they both know, even if they can't face the words, that the Ghost is getting worse, not better. He's never found it easy to face how much he has to exist in this world, how much he can exist, and when he had Phalanx and he knew his city and he knew who was on his side he was good, he was happy, he was the most real thing Phalanx touched, he was so much better but here . . .
The worst part is that Kurt would just snark on past those people out there, ignore them utterly but for the perfect cutting comment, like the time Blaine brought Kurt a cup of coffee at work because they'd barely had time to see each other outside of costume all week and after he kissed him goodbye, when he was walking out, some other guy sneered, "So how'd you get him, Hummel, bribery or blackmail?"
And Kurt said without even looking up from his work, "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't hear you over how much more talented than you I am, was that worth repeating?"
And Phalanx doesn't know - who's really who, whether it's Kurt or the Ghost who's the maskless one, the real one, which response is the true one? Because Kurt Hummel might be the most exquisitely bitchy angel Blaine's ever met but the Ghost just flutters out like a candle flame faced with that pack of disdainful supers and he doesn't understand -
"They don't mean it," he says, raising a hand to rest on the back of his neck. "They don't even know you to really mean any of it, Ghost . . ."
"I know. I know -" He swallows, and doesn't lift his head. "I know it's not me. It's not about me, it can't - they look at me and they don't even see me. All they see is my reputation, and they hate me for it. They hate me when I live up to it and they despise me when I don't . . ."
"They don't -"
"They look right through me." He keeps his head down, breathing hard. "Whether I'm visible or not."
Phalanx holds him, listening to their breaths, their unmatched rhythms. They don't understand, he thinks. They read his shyness as aloofness, his anxiety as arrogance. And he could tell them, he could tell them, No, that's not him, not the real him, the real him -
. . . they can't know the real him, they can't know his name or his face, and wouldn't Blaine resent it too if he was one of them, all of them but Artie ex-criminals because it was here or jail, most of them taken down by the Ghost himself, now getting berated about how much better than them he is while he can't even bring himself to look them in the eyes . . . ?
"Come to bed," he whispers, and kisses the side of his forehead. "Come on, angel. Just come sleep. We'll both feel better in the morning."
They bring an overnight bag every time, they leave nothing here, not even evidence of what brand of toothpaste they use. They leave their masks on - Kurt's skin will just have to suffer the indignity of the glue all night before he gets back to New York to exfoliate - and lose the utility belts, gloves and boots, Phalanx's armour, the Ghost's cloak.
And then they can lay in bed, under the glow of the light built into the headboard, Phalanx tracing the shape of the Ghost's face with his fingertips. Kurt's pretty nose, Kurt's lovely cheek. The Ghost's mask.
He murmurs, very low, "Everything will be okay."
The Ghost watches him with Kurt's eyes, green-blue like the luminous twilight, and worried. He accepts a kiss, eyes closing, and manages a small-twitched smile for him, before Phalanx reaches up for the light.
In the dark he curls closer, and their breaths settle in the black. And god, he is tired, his whole body leaden with it, crazy life they live and they might have to leave this place at five in the morning to get back to New York in time for work but this is still one of the better chances they have of a decent night's sleep . . .
"Phalanx," the Ghost whispers, in the dark.
His eyelids flutter, don't want to come up. "What?"
Silence, for a second, then fingers touch, flinchingly, his chest. "I love you."
He hikes his arms through his, bodily heaves him closer so the Ghost gives a little squeak in the dark. "Love you too," he mumbles into his neck, because he does, because he's almost asleep already, because he's too tired to think but he's here and there's a bed and they're safe when they're in the dark . . .
The Ghost's fingers stroke through his hair, soothing as a lullaby, until he falls asleep; and after that, he doesn't know.
*
Nowhere near dawn, not in January, and in the hangar Phalanx leans against his shoulder, morning-drowsy, possibly asleep on his feet. He keeps an arm around his side and lets their bag hang to the ground from his other hand, and oh, he knows how he feels . . .
Agent Call-Me-Trent-I-Am-Such-A-Huge-Fan is beaming his way up to them with a thermos in each hand. "Good morning! Did you sleep well?"
It's five AM and they got woken at three by the rest of the team bickering their way back to their bedrooms after their movies. The Ghost is about capable of blinking to confirm that he can actually hear him, but can't manage any sound until Trent puts a thermos into his hand and takes the bag off him, at which point he blinks a few more times and mumbles, "I can carry -"
Phalanx comes up with a little in-snort as Trent puts the other thermos into his hand and says, "Good morning sir!" and turns for the helicopter swinging the bag in his hand. Every time. How can he be this happy every time. It is five AM and the Ghost feels like his brain is plastered to the very bottom of his skull.
He snaps the thermos open, tries not to let his eyes roll back at the scent of coffee, scalds his mouth and doesn't care. "Come on," he says, tugging Phalanx's waist, aiming him for the helicopter. "Home."
Phalanx says into his shoulder, "Can you die of being too tired."
"No."
"I am dying of being too tired."
"No you're not. This way."
The helicopter's got benches in its back to carry three times their number, as the Ghost helps Phalanx clip himself in and then lifts a hand to yawn so hard, and doesn't even unclip his own belt, just tugs it right through his body and lets it settle on him solid again. Phalanx huddles insistently in at his side, nuzzles his cheek back to comfortable on his shoulder, and the Ghost reaches out to catch and re-tilt his thermos the right way up, before it pours boiling coffee onto his thigh.
The helicopter begins to hum into life, and Trent calls back, "Same place as last time?"
"Mm? Yes. Please."
"Did you have a good evening?"
The roof panels are opening above them, deep dark sky and they're going home. He yawns again, and his jaw aches, and he lets his head tip onto Phalanx's. "We've had worse," he says, because if you can't say something nice then you can at least say something true.
"It must be great to mix with all those other supers!" Trent calls back, over the whirring of the blades as they leave the ground and oh fuck the best part of coming here is leaving here . . .
He would say something. He would. But Phalanx's hair smells so comfortingly of Blaine, and even as the helicopter turns and tilts their weight, his eyes droop closed again.
He wakes when they pass a plane, too loud too close, and he squints his eyes open, head coming up. Phalanx snuffles into his shoulder, and the Ghost lifts an awkward hand, pets the back of his neck, rubs his eyes and sits up properly. Craning to see out of the window behind his shoulder, New York is approaching below, under a fine veil of thin frail snowflakes, illuminated warm with the city's lights and lights and lights and lights and lights before the January dawn.
For a second he closes his eyes, home and safe, safe, safe. Then he drinks some more coffee, closer to mouth temperature now, and nudges Phalanx's knee with his until he lifts his head. "Drink your coffee."
He blinks, eyes all straining-sleepy still, at his thermos. The Ghost opens it for him, helps his hand to aim and lift it. Phalanx swallows some coffee, and says like he's actually thought about it this time, "Can you die from being too tired?"
"We won't." He settles his hand on the back of his neck, lets his thumb run the edge of his hair. "You'll be okay. Very brave soldier."
He is so very sweet when he's still half-asleep, though he begins to wake once he's ingested most of the coffee, until he's actually capable of noticing that Trent is there to call a good morning to him. Because Agent Please-Call-Me-Trent-If-It's-Not-Too-Much-Trouble-Could-I-Please-Please-Have-Your-Autograph isn't one of the Ghost's groupies (Phalanx tells him that they call themselves 'fanghosts', which is not a word.), he's one of Phalanx's. He's not the Ghost's problem. He doesn't act like the Ghost should be something, be his something, he's just very courteous to him because he comes attached to Phalanx and Trent might yet spontaneously sprout superpowers just to be of the slightest aid to Phalanx.
It is ridiculous how fucking nice it is to have someone around who doesn't expect anything from him at all . . .
They circle and land on a flat-roofed building by the docks, where Phalanx unclips his seatbelt and the Ghost just lets his fall through his body. He still feels tired to the bone but in less of a demanding, wholly-brain-fogging way, now, just the aching awareness of it as he stands, and Phalanx takes his empty thermos from him to hand to Trent. "Thank you, for that. Could not survive without that."
"Knives and guns we manage." the Ghost says dryly. "Mornings without coffee terrify us."
Phalanx hops down first, offers a hand up for him to step to the rooftop in the snow, and Trent hands down their bag. "Same time next week?" he says, and Phalanx grins, says, "That would be amazing, thank you!" and the Ghost tugs his hood straight, smiles at him, and Phalanx is still holding his hand.
And he's in New York, with the sky still pitch black and letting the faintest sort of snow fall, bare freckles of snow, and he's holding the hand of the man he loves who loves him too, and he's safe.
He says, soft with meaning, "Thank you." Trent brings him home every week. Maybe there is more than one reason that he likes Trent.
By the time they get back to Kurt's apartment Rachel is up, apparently hears them landing on the floor after ghosting in through the window, barging the door open while clipping her hair up. "I'm heading out already, just wanted to check no-one died last night!"
"Thank you for your concern." He unpeels his mask with a grimace - he hates leaving it on that long - and he's rubbing at the tacky skin around his eyes when she catches him off-guard with a hug, then grabs Phalanx too.
"I'm always so glad when you come back safe," she coos. "Safe and with the best tip offs for me about anything -"
"No."
"What the hell is the point of you being my roommate if you don't give me any news?" she snarls at him, and Phalanx, who has never got used to their turn-on-the-head-of-a-pin fights, says, "I, uh, shower." and flees.
"Secret identity, Rachel! The only people in New York who know about that team is us and I don't know if you noticed the tightrope we're walking of keeping our identities secret right n-"
"Finn won't tell me anything, you won't tell me anything, you know what? It's like you don't want me to get that Pulitzer!"
"The world won't end if you hit twenty-five without everyone bowing down to your great genius!"
"Okay, fine, be small-minded and provincial, I have my eye on the bigger picture, on getting us to a world where the government admits that we need supers -"
He says to the ceiling, "Rachel I need to get ready for work."
"- and all you can think about is the next night, you can help more people if you would just let me -"
"I could help you if you'd just let me empty and incinerate your wardrobe, are you wearing that for some kind of bet?"
"Wh- this is on trend!"
"For ninety year olds, maybe!"
She gives a frustrated snarl and snaps, "I'm going to work!"
"Have a lovely day!"
Marching to the door she calls over her shoulder, "I don't always think I was wrong about hating superheroes, you know!"
"I'll see you later, Rachel!"
She grabs up her purse, grabs the door handle. "I am trying to do something with my life here."
He begins fading out of sight if she's going to insist on opening the door while he's standing there in costume. "Then do it with your life," he snaps back. "Don't use mine."
She wrenches the door open, only gives him time to call, invisible, "Have a nice day, Rachel!" before it slams. He grits his teeth and does not scream and god why does she think he didn't tell her for all those years - ?
By the time he's out of costume and into a robe in his room, Blaine's back, bow tie dangling and hair ungelled but otherwise dressed. "Shower's free. How's, ah, Rachel?"
"I wouldn't mind if she couldn't literally get us killed with this."
Blaine quirks his mouth, guides Kurt's head down with a hand on his neck to kiss his temple. "Go get ready for work, I'll put more coffee on."
"Mmf. My hero."
Cleanse, exfoliate, tone, moisturise. Chug coffee. Dress. Chug more coffee. Grimace at the news, shut it off again. Finish the coffee, fix Blaine's bow tie. Lock the door behind themselves.
He parts from Blaine at the bus stop with a coffee-flavoured kiss, and heads on to the subway. Bodies pour into the centre of the city and he walks with them, walks with their rhythms and their city-quickness, because the boy from Ohio never felt at peace in all those fields, where the horizon stretched for miles and miles and he felt like a chained peacock, like everyone stared and he had nowhere to hide. But here in the cacophony of colour that is New York on a workday morning, here he's home. Here he's safe. Here he has the correct camouflage. Here he walks with the right rhythm and takes his shades off as he walks into the building and feels right, bone-right, waiting for the elevator and picking through, in his mind, the day ahead. He's tired but coffee keeps him just above the fog of it. As long as he doesn't look down it can't consume him. Another cup of coffee (always another cup of coffee, 'another cup of coffee' as rich in its symbolic possibilities for accomplishment as 'tomorrow') and he'll have his head clear . . .
Robbie says, "What is that cravat made out of?"
He pours a cup of coffee, says, "Kevlar."
"Of course. Why did I ask. What a foolish, unnecessary question. What are cravats ever made of."
Kurt raises his eyebrows at him over the rim of his mug. "How's that jacket you were working on coming along?"
Robbie rolls his eyes across the ceiling and away from him, and slinks off to his desk. And Kurt Hummel, most senior of the junior designers and officially herding this chaotic flock of cats towards polishing the fall collection, rolls his eyes and heads back to his desk, to inhale his coffee and work.
At lunchtime he eats a sandwich at his desk and calls Blaine, and his dad, and while he's distracted a junior designer hoping to slink some monstrosity past his divided attention makes his eyebrows vanish into his hair at the thing on paper he presents on Kurt's desk. Kurt fumbles in his pencil pot, says, "Well maybe Easter, Dad, it depends on how busy we are -" and slashes a red line across the entire design because absolutely nothing less can fully express his revulsion.
Subway home after work. Blaine's already back from his placement, loose and tired over his iPad on Kurt's bed; when Kurt drops his bag Blaine catches his arm and pulls him down beside him, and Kurt mumbles into his oh god Blaine-scented shoulder, "Let me - clothes get crumpled if . . ."
Blaine makes a little groaning noise and clamps a leg and arm over him, pinning him onto the mattress. Kurt is far too tired to protest.
The alarm on his phone wakes them at eight thirty. By that point they're starving so it's food first, while Finn and Blaine discuss the football and Kurt makes Blaine's current favourite dish of eggy noodles with sesame and spring onion, soothed by an apartment full of known, loved voices. Rachel is also much more bearable when it's not first thing in the morning, when she finally emerges from her room so she and Finn can go out, saying goodbye while Kurt and Blaine have their feet tangled under the breakfast bar, chopsticks in hand.
Coffee, shower, change . . .
Phalanx lifts the Ghost's hood for him, shakes it right over his hair, brushing it out. He nods his satisfaction and the Ghost's mouth just is smiling, there's never any decision involved in it when looking at him. Phalanx grins back and takes his hand to squeeze it, turning for the window - there's New York out there, their city, to keep safe one life at a time. The Ghost touches his back, below the armour to feel the hard warm muscle of him, sturdy and strong through the glove.
He says, because this may be every night of their lives, this may be known and 'normal' to them, this may be the most time they spend together, but every single night could still be the night that one of them doesn't come back, "I love you."
And Phalanx glances back, turns to catch his face under the hood, kisses him.
How did he manage all those years without that kiss to warm him to his toe-tips?
Phalanx says quietly, "I love you too." and presses his hand again, and turns for the window, so they can be ghosted through, invisible, onto their path of shields.
New York is cold and dark and it feels like the whole city is holding its breath for them, before the Ghost's arm wraps Phalanx's waist, and holding him safe, they move into the slide.
The city sighs out around them, cold wind past their faces, the Ghost's cloak lifting and snapping like a sail. Out there in the dark, there are people who need help. And they have a lot of love to share around . . .
Part 2