George Harkness spent his thirtieth birthday in a Belle Reve prison cell, counting how many people had, throughout his life, told him he wouldn't live to see that day. Friends, girlfriends, teachers. His parents. It was strange how they all seemed to know that that was the age he'd be dead by. 'If you don't get your act together, you'll be lucky to see thirty'. It was a countdown that seemed to have followed him his whole life, with no real reason as to why that was the golden number.
"Well, look at me now, Mum." He said, staring at the opposite wall and playing 'What's That Stain?', the only pastime available to him. He was debating between dried shit and very old blood.
He'd been in lock up for a few weeks now, ever since Midway City. Spending the day dirty, hungry and alone seemed fitting. Boomer knew that this was going to be what the rest of his life was like. Voice lost from screaming at security cameras, dignity lost from being left in a room with a steadily overflowing bucket of your own excrement. He wondered how long the rest of his life would be. As far as the word was concerned, he was on borrowed time.
Suddenly, an alarm rang out. He knew what it meant. As a group of guards assembled outside his cell, ready to subdue and extract him for another one of Waller's missions, Boomerang smiled at the irony of dying today.
"Well, least I proved the bastards wrong." He thought, smiling and getting ready to empty the bucket on the first guard in the door.
On his thirty-second birthday, Boomer was nursing several fractured ribs and a severely damaged coccyx. Two weeks previous he had had his ass handed to him during a mission and he was still laid up. He spent the day as he had spent the last fortnight, lying perfectly still, pissing through a tube and flinching whenever he breathed. At least he could guarantee that Waller wouldn't be sending him out. As he considered whether or not this was the worst birthday he'd ever had, a trapped nerve in his leg began to spasm, inadvertently causing his catheter to tug. Knowing that screaming would only make the pain in his back worse, he continued to silently stare at the ceiling, clenching his jaw near it's breaking point and pondering whether or not, if Waller did decide she wanted them, he'd be better off being dragged out to most likely die than to continue on like this.
He heard the hatch on his door open. There was whispering and Boomer wondered if some of the guards were going to take advantage of his current condition to give him an admittedly earned beating. Despite the better judgment he'd developed in his time at Belle Reve, Boomerang had given in to some pent up aggression just before their last field trip and he knew payback was on the cards. A new guard had laughed as he was being removed from his cell.
"Why do they even bring him out?" New Guy had said from the hallway as his partner, Walsh, had Boomerang facing the wall, waiting for the cuffs. "They got real, honest to God monsters with real damn super powers and then they got this putz. Fuckin' boomerangs? The hell good is that gonna do?"
Boomer had kept his eyes on the wall as New Guy continued. His first few years of beatings, starvation and extended solitary confinement had eventually taught him to keep his mouth shut sometimes. Belle Reve guards were the best at leaving you on the brink of death while making sure you were still usable.
"He doesn't even know how to be cannon fodder. Idiot keeps making it out alive. How many members of that damn Squad have come and gone since The Wall set it up? But this ugly bastard keeps making it back." New Guy took a step inside the cell once Walsh pulled the now restrained Boomerang away from the wall. "Can't fly, no lasers for eyes, can't even take one for the team and just die already. You really are useless, ain't ya', Kangaroo Jack?"
Boomer felt that the head-butt that sent New Guy's blood and teeth spraying across the cell room floor showed the rookie how useless he was.
If Waller hadn't insisted that he be brought out for the mission run down, Boomerang was sure that Walsh and the others would've punished him then and there. Now, as he lay incapacitated on his slab of a bed, he listened to the door opening and knew he had an unwanted birthday present coming his way.
Eyes fixed on the ceiling and thinking how they could possibly, given his current state, injure him without it ending in a body bag, Boomer was beyond surprised when a far more dangerous and altogether more welcome face appeared above him.
"Alright dahlin'?" He breathed, trying not to wince.
Katana raised a hand to indicate that he needn't speak.
"You do not heal as quickly as you once did."
Boomer smiled at this.
"Don't worry, I'll be fighin' fit for ya soon enough." Every word sent pain shooting through him but it was worth it. The visit was worth it.
"There is a guard outside who wishes to pull out your teeth while you're incapacitated. He himself is missing several. You did that, yes?"
Boomer raised his eyebrows and smiled, knowing that she would read it as a shameless admission of guilt.
"I have told him that, should any harm come to you as you recover, I will cut out his tongue."
"Cheers, love." Boomerang knew she didn't do it out of concern. She didn't care what happened to Belle Reve inmates, provided they were given a shot at defending themselves. She abhorred the torture tactics utilized by the guards and, whenever possible, used whatever sway she had to ensure that Squad members weren't subjected to them. It didn't always work. The threats worked better than the bargaining. Either way, it was a matter of principles. In that, she actually had them. He'd never tell her but Boomer respected the hell out of her for it.
Katana tipped her head slightly, signaling he was welcome for the threat against New Guy. After a moment's silence she stepped out of view and Boomerang waited to hear the door close behind her. Instead, he heard the far more unexpected sound of a can opening.
Mouth filling with saliva, Boomer suddenly felt the hard plastic of a straw being slid between his lips. Katana stepped back into view, hands just below his vision but clearing holding what he knew to be a cold can of beer.
He knew, as he sucked and swallowed, that he should savour the moment. It had been 142 days since he'd last managed to sneak a tall boy during a mission and the cool bubbles felt like heaven on his tongue. But he had never been one to pace himself. In no time Katana was pulling the straw from his lips, insisting there was nothing left.
"Bloody hell." He sighed, almost embarrassed by how satisfied he had been by the drink.
"I will see you when you are healed." Katana moved half an inch before stopping for a moment and slowly, cautiously placing a hand on his forearm. "Tanjoubi omedetou."
Then she disappeared from his view once again, this time with the sound of the door closing behind her.
Boomerang didn't speak Japanese. However, he knew that for the first time since he was a kid, someone gave a shit that it was his birthday.