NOTES
Warning for mildly descriptive violence.
Proofread but unbeta'd, god knows how many times I forgot I was supposed to be writing in present tense and didn't catch it either. I'm not entirely happy with the second half, but I think it's as good as it's gonna get.
Dreaming of a World Where all is Good...
It doesn't take Sam long to realize that inside the bright red armor, behind the toothy mask, is his son.
The one wearing the red armor sounds like his son, even through the helmet, and through the noise of the world exploding around his wrecked car. The one wearing the red armor runs like his son did, before he wrecked his knee; Sam watched him run for all of five seconds and it gave him flashbacks to happier days of watching Jason run across the football field.
The one wearing the red armor got out of his giant robot to run to the one burning, overturned truck with Sam Scott trapped inside, pull him out, and make sure he was safe.
It doesn't take Sam long to realize it, but it takes him a while to process it.
It's not really denial, more like shock. The knowledge buries itself deep, so when he hangs the newspaper article on the fridge, he thinks it's because it was such a huge, life-changing event, not because it should go up next to all the pictures of his son, who has gone from star football player to weekly detention to… whatever the hell he is now is called. He really thinks that, for a while.
When his son suddenly has four new friends, he thinks the most logical explanation is that he's just hit it off with the other unpopular kids in detention. That's what Jason is, now, unpopular. Or at least, not popular. Not the golden boy. So, because it makes sense, he really thinks that, for a while.
When he has to replace the bathroom sink, he has a gut feeling there's a connection, but he can't figure out how Point A leads to Point B at all in that case, so it's easy to pretend there isn't.
When his son weirdly starts refusing to dress himself without something red, well, he thinks maybe Jason just found his favorite color pretty late.
It makes more sense than the other explanation. The other explanation just can't be real, and so, on autopilot, he reacts like it isn't.
Sam goes to work. Fish are caught, fish are unloaded from the boat, Sam goes too long without seeing his son, it used to be easier to deal with because, hey, gotta make a living, but even if he hasn't processed it yet, he knows, and he wishes he could just… be there. Maybe it's better, he can imagine his wife noticing him being perpetually spaced out, and this doesn't need to get any more complicated. It's already too complicated.
One day when he isn't on the boat, they argue, and it's ridiculous. Sam can't believe Jason is considering starting at Angel Grove Community College after he graduates. It makes sense, but his reaction is reflexive. It's been awhile, but a part of him is still used to the idea that Jason will go to a good school, not waste his time starting low. Except, the good schools are the ones they can't afford without Jason getting a football scholarship.
So they argue, and Sam throws the accident in his face. He knows Jason hasn't had so much as a limp since the Encounter, he knows Jason probably couldn't go back to football anyway because the social consequences, strangely, aren't as easily fixed as the physical consequences. He knows exactly why Jason wouldn't have the time for it, either.
Still, he hasn't processed it yet, so he behaves like he doesn't know, and they argue. Sam doesn't tell Jason he's sorry, nor does he tell Jason he's so proud of him for reasons he's still incapable of believing.
They're still fuming at each other the next day, when the man with no skin comes.
Sam is glued to the news when the man with no skin attacks, and later, to Youtube. There were already plenty of cell-phone videos of the big gold blob of a monster, there are just as many of the man with no skin in short order. Bev is near-frantic calling Jason over and over, too distracted to notice that Sam knows Jason isn't going to pick up.
It figures Jason isn't home when it starts again, he's volunteering at the tent city set up for the people displaced by the gold monster.
Of course he is.
Somewhere during all of it, Sam wonders why the news keeps calling it 'the threat' and everything else they use as if it makes them seem professional while they cover the most fantastical, ridiculous events in human history. It's a man with no skin, just exposed muscle everywhere, held together by steel (alien steel?) bones on the outside, with a thing on the top of his masked head that could not possibly be an exposed brain, but it throbs in every clear shot and the pattern of lines really is unmistakable...
He watches every video that has even a frame of his son, fighting in his red armor, still hidden under the red, toothy helmet. He can see the engraved sword Jason holds magnificently in both hands, even in the grainiest of footage, clashing against this… this ridiculous metal pole the man with no skin has, topped with what might be a lightning bolt.
He sees the other colors knocked around and knows he should be worried for them, because they're human beings, and, moreover, human beings who are important to his son, but he can't. He only has so much focus, and it all has to go towards Red. Red gets it the worst because the man with no skin realizes he's the leader. It gives time for the others to get back on their feet and get to a stalemate, get the man with no skin to figure his chances are less than 100%, so he leaves until he's ready for more.
Jason is the leader, Sam thinks, over and over. He's proud of his son, and it's something to latch onto that dampens the pain of what he's seeing, but it isn't much.
There's a decent stretch of footage from the news that has a lot of hits on Youtube on account of how clear it is, but that's not why Sam is replaying it over and over. As Sam replays the clip of Red - his son - getting the shit kicked out of him six ways to Sunday by the man with no skin, it finally becomes real.
It becomes real because it's not a bully at school. Even if it was, Jason could handle himself, bum leg or otherwise. It's not a mugging or a home invasion. He hasn't ever imagined he would rather see his son worked over by muggers, but it would be better than this.
This is a horror in the shape of a man who finally knocks that sword out of Jason's hands.
This is a horror in the shape of a man, hitting his son so hard he leaves his feet, lifting his son by the neck while desperate hands try to pull the muscle and steel grip off.
This is a horror in the shape of a man, throwing his son through solid objects, through a wall, through people.
This is a horror in the shape of a man, brutalizing his son into a rag doll until he can't stand. Light comes from the lightning rod… pole… thing the man with no skin fights with and it must really hurt because Sam can see the agony his son is in through the armor… He tells himself he's imagining that, he couldn't possibly see something like that through the red armor, he can't possibly know, but he does know. Watching his armor-clad son trying to crawl away, he knows.
This isn't just a fight. A fight is what happens when Jason defends a friend from a bully. This is combat. War.
It becomes real because as far as Sam knows, Jason has never even entertained the notion of enlisting. Sam has never had to worry about his son shipping off to the other side of the world and having his head cut off on camera, or being strung up in pieces by madmen, or stepping on an IED and just being gone because he was unlucky.
Except, Sam does have to worry about it now. It's hidden behind the armor, behind the impossible creatures and the giant robots, but it's there, a conclusion as inescapable as the sight he keeps subjecting himself to on the computer screen: his son and those new friends of his, they're seemingly normal, carefree American teenagers as far from armed conflict as one could be… and they're child soldiers.
He tries to make it not fit in his mind, but Jason's eighteenth birthday feels like it's gotten ten years further away. Sam knows Jason and his friends are almost legally adults, but that almost is too loud in his mind. He can't escape it.
His son is a child soldier.
He tries to imagine how his son was made to bear this burden. He can't even conceive of an idea.
His son is a child soldier who fights literal monsters, and Sam wishes he knew why.
When Jason comes home and makes a beeline for his room, Sam immediately starts heading up the stairs.
He stops halfway up and goes back down. He spends minutes that feel like hours going halfway up and down again, and again, and again…
Finally, he goes up and knocks on the door.
"I'm just gonna go to sleep early, Dad," Jason says through the door. It's not really a surprise that he knows which parent it is, "I'm really tired."
Sam doesn't think it's a lie, but, there's certainly a lot omitted. Jason's voice through the door isn't like it was through the helmet, either. It's wrong. Sam has heard his son subtly or not so subtly hint that he wants to be alone a thousand times, and he never sounds so lifeless.
He doesn't speak again, he just opens the door. He's quiet enough that Jason, sitting at the window and pondering the outside world, doesn't notice until Sam flicks on the light.
Sam watches his son jump, watches him try to hide the wadded-up shirt he'd been pressing to one side of his face. He sees Jason in slow motion, nearly jumping out of the chair as his reflexes tell him to hide the bruises, the cuts, the angry welts, the marks around his throat, only to deflate as his brain catches up and he realizes there's no hiding it. "Jason, oh god…"
Sam is in the bathroom and back with the first-aid kit in the time it takes for Jason to realize he isn't going to like this conversation. It makes him look worse, which only puts Sam in more of a rush to get to him, to take care of his son. The bottle of alcohol he has in one hand seems very inadequate.
"Dad, c'mon," Jason sounds like talking hurts. He's too stubborn to realize he can't make his father go away, despite how serious this obviously is.
"Just stay still," Sam starts swabbing at one of the nastier looking cuts on Jason's face, while Jason is anything but still, either from annoyance or feeling the sting from the alcohol. This close, Sam can see the other side of his face, where he was holding the shirt. He can see blood. He doesn't know why he says what he says next, because he knows the answer. Maybe it's a last-ditch effort to make it not-real. "What happened?"
"I just fell," Jason says. It's such a bad lie, and Jason's voice gives away that he knows it. The fatigue robs him of the ability to think of more believable bullshit, even trying to pass it off as getting caught near the day's chaos without actively participating.
"You fell," Sam repeats, flatly, as he imagines Jason saying that to someone at school before they call Child Services on his ass. He tapes a bandage over the cut he's cleaned out before he says anything else. "Down how many stairs, exactly?"
"Dad, c'mon!" Jason is angry when he says it this time, grabbing Sam's wrist and tossing his hand away with ease.
"Jason," but Sam doesn't know what to say. He realizes, abruptly, that Jason is still angry from before, or angry again because he's tired, stressed, in pain with no one to talk to and their last argument is a convenient thing to just be mad about.
"I have homework to finish," Jason scoffs. "Wouldn't want to miss my shot at community college."
Sam doesn't point out that Jason said he was going to bed, it seems pointless. He just wants to ease his son's pain. He hates himself for caring so much about one screw-up that he'd forgotten to love his son. It was a huge screw-up; it still shouldn't have taken a man with no skin to remind him. "Jason, please…"
"What do you want from me," Jason stands so he doesn't have to look at Sam. He grabs the top of his shirt and pulls but stops, as if he realizes taking it off would make things worse. "No, you know what, I know what you want," Jason's voice raises, but he doesn't have the strength to yell. "I screwed up! I can't make it not've happened! I'm living with it, why can't-"
It's when Sam realizes that Jason isn't just talking about football that he raises his own voice to cut his son off. "Jason, I know."
Maybe it's something in Sam's voice or maybe there's no real reason, but Jason understands exactly what his father is talking about. There's zero confusion. He tries to think, tries to find words that will fix this, but he's stuck glancing back at his father. He speaks in pained and uneven gasps, a forced calm over a swell of panic. "You know about…"
"I know about," Sam watches his son tense up so hard it's a wonder he doesn't get a cramp somewhere. "What you do… you and your friends." Jason finally turns, slowly, to look at Sam again as he speaks. "I saw you, on the news. I saw how you got hurt."
Too scared and too exhausted to be surprised, Jason backs up and tries to sit on his bed, hardly noticing when he misses and drops straight to the floor.
Sam is at his son's side in an instant, pulling him up to get Jason on the bed like he'd intended, but Jason won't let go when they're both on their feet. Sam feels like he's trapped in a vice more than being hugged, but it's the least of his worries.
Jason's grip only tightens as he starts sobbing. He's been holding in a lot, and letting it out isn't painless. "I failed them, Dad, I let them down…"
"No," Sam tries to tell him.
"I couldn't stop him!" Jason keeps going, keeps holding on for dear life, "He almost killed them!"
"He almost killed you," Sam can't help the words, because Jason's friends aren't his son, and all he can see is his son, beaten and broken while the man with no skin laughs. Still, the way Jason says 'he almost killed them' and not 'he almost killed us' isn't lost on him. He pushes Jason back so he can see his son's face, tears and bruises and cuts be damned. "You're not a failure, do you hear me? You are not a failure!"
"Dad," Jason whimpers, tries to get more out and can't.
"You… what you do… it's," It's so unbelievable, Sam isn't sure what it is. Sam does the grabbing this time, but he feels Jason wince and forces himself not to hold his son as hard as he can. He still wants answers. He still wants to know why his son was made to do this and why all of this is happening, but none of it matters right this second. Knowing those answers won't change the fact that his son needs him. "I'm so proud of you…"
They sit down on Jason's bed before they fall down and, for all of the questions nagging Sam, Jason has one that's too much to hold in. "H-how… when did you…"
"Since you pulled me out of the truck," Sam tells him, bluntly. "I knew," he thinks about burying it so deep he fooled himself for a while, but that's done with. "I knew."
"Oh," Jason says, and pauses to think. "Guess I screwed that up, too… we're not supposed to tell anyone."
Desperate, Sam says, "Technically, you didn't."
It gets a good laugh out of Jason, a laugh that ends in him putting a hand to his side and making a face. If he realizes his tears have left lines down his cheeks, he doesn't care. "Yeah, maybe Zordon won't mind…"
Zordon, Sam repeats to himself. Really? 'Zordon?' He files it away for later; like the other details, it's not important right now. "Does it really matter?"
"Rita, the… the last one, with the gold," Jason can still barely look at him, but now it's for a different reason. He's afraid. It's as if Jason thinks just looking at someone he knows isn't safe. "She showed up in Trini's house. In her bedroom, while she was sleeping. She could've killed her just like that."
"But you stopped it… her," Sam tells him, needing Jason to know that someone knows what he did, at the same time thinking, why isn't it over, why is this my son's responsibility.
"There's so much evil beyond the world, Dad, I never imagined it," Jason says, his words deliberate. "Rita said there'd be more. Others would come, others who are even worse…"
Sam tries. He tries, but all that comes out is, "You can handle it," and he regrets it immediately because it's insane and his son shouldn't have to handle anything of the sort, he should be telling Jason he's grounded until he's forty, but Jason saves people from literal monsters while wearing what is, as far as he can tell, magic armor, there's a really sick feeling that Sam doesn't have a say.
"Lord Zedd is worse," Jason holds back more tears. His hands shake, the fight replaying in his head. "But he doesn't know who we are, at least not yet…"
The weight of his son's burdens become clear to Sam, he's watching Jason being crushed under them before his eyes. He doesn't have words to make that better, because what is he supposed to say, 'don't worry about us?'
He just holds Jason close, holds his son's head to his chest. He looks at his hand, damp with his son's blood. "This is wrong… it's insane… you shouldn't have to do this…"
"Someone has to," his son tells him.
"It doesn't have to be you," Sam tells him. He knows in the back of his mind that he's going against every word he's ever said to Jason about responsibility, that they haven't raised Jason to think 'why bother, when someone else can do it.' He knows wishing a reprieve for Jason is wishing it on someone else, quite possibly someone else's teenage son, but he's only human, he can't help it. Jason is his son.
Besides, monsters and magical armor... doesn't he deserve a little leeway to be a hypocrite?
"It does," Jason barely whispers. "It does. It has to be me, it's… it doesn't matter why."
Sam wants to pry, learn more so he can tell Jason he's wrong. A sinking pit in his gut tells him it isn't going to work, either because Jason wouldn't be convinced or because Jason is right. He doesn't know which is worse.
He's so desperate for a way out, for something, anything… he knows what he says is just as ridiculous as everything else but it's all he's got. "The next time he… it shows up, can't you just… I don't know, call the government? Call the military?"
Jason laughs as he pulls away. Sam doesn't want to let him go but his son pulls away. "C'mon, Dad," he's genuinely laughing, at least. "You saw how it went for us, imagine if he actually went after normal people? He already," the short moment of laughter ends. "He already killed so many…"
Knowing the armor at least does something makes Sam feel better, at least a little. It hadn't crossed his mind before, but 'normal' people don't walk away with bruises and scrapes after being thrown through solid concrete and being severely beaten with a blunt object.
He's out of words, so he goes back to cleaning Jason's wounds. He doesn't know what he could say to make Jason feel better about people dying around him. There are so many bruises he can't do anything about so he focuses on the cuts, on the open wound oozing blood from one side of Jason's face. Under Jason's red shirt, most of his left side is covered in dark bruises that overlap into one.
Sam holds back tears, because his son needs him right now. He doesn't know what any of this means, he doesn't know how any of this works, but he knows he can give his son a father to lean on.
Sam nudges Jason's door open to check on him late the next morning, worried he'll have left to be beaten to an inch of his life again without anyone noticing. Jason is curled up into a ball on his bed, sleeping peacefully… Sam hopes it's peaceful, at least. He thinks it is; he doesn't look needlessly tense, he's breathing softly and his face is calm. He's curled up in a red Tigers hoodie that's too big for him.
He doesn't remember ever seeing Jason like this, though. Dead-tired after a game, sure, but never so… drained.
He makes a mental note to tell Jason his friends are welcome in their house. Maybe he'll feel a little better, knowing they have a place to go if they need to discuss… things, or if they just want to hang out and pretend everything is normal and sane for a while. Even if not for the colors, they're still a lot better than the meatheads Jason wouldn't rat out, despite being Saturday detention weirdos. Funny, that.
It's not the only thing on Sam's mind. He's going to have to think up something to tell Bev about why Jason is covered in bruises and gauze, preferably before Jason wakes up, because it's a chance to ease his son's burdens, stop him from having to worry about one more problem.
He thinks on it, while he looks over the newspaper article pinned to the fridge. It's not there because it was such a huge, life-changing event.
It's there because it belongs there, next to all the pictures of his son.
NOTES
"...so we were told, we need a hero."
There was a version of this in my head that would've gone on longer so Lord Zedd could have actual dialog where he'd drop a line about the purple man and the machines being worse than even he is, but it just didn't materialize on paper, so to speak. Alas.
Fun fact, I started writing this a day after finishing a short fic in a completely different fandom with an OC named Jason, and it left what I can only describe as a really weird taste in my mouth constantly distracting me while I worked on this. Human brains are weird.