A/N: I was rereading 90s JLI mostly for references and inspiration with regards to Bea's amazing relationship with Booster and for hilarious images of what everyone was wearing at the time, when I came across that period of time just after Doomsday and everyone's more than a little beat up physically and spiritually, and seeing how defeated and angsty Booster was over not being able to be a superhero without his suit just struck a cord with me. Then it struck a Kord with me, so I wrote this silly bit of nothing.
Disclaimer: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics.
Showing You Care
"So the thought never even crossed your mind before?"
Things were dark to the point of being positively grim in the laboratory. Of course, Ted told himself that it was simply how someone should expect a laboratory to look when deep underground in a fortress-like compound. It helped him think, helped him keep in touch with the side of him that was Ted Kord, Inventor, and away from the young adventurer and hero that Blue Beetle had flatly become over the years.
That's how his life always was, though — from a childhood between opposing parenting styles to a Jewish kid in a WASPy upper-class high school to a corporate laughing stock with a secret identity self-sabotaging all the things seemingly handed to him — pulled in two directions and never finding his footing for balance.
Brows furrowed in thought, Ted glanced over his shoulder in the dark and looked at the vague outline of his friend and fellow Justice Leaguer.
Had the conversation taken place a few weeks ago, Beatriz would have no doubt lit up her spot in the lab herself, eccentric green flames licking at every piece of equipment around her.
She hadn't had that sort of control of her supernatural abilities for a while, though. And, despite his promises to her, Ted hadn't done all that much to help her out.
In Ted's defense, there was a long list of needs he had from his friends that needed addressing.
Less in his defense, Ted could feel the cold, calming relief of being at least a little bit responsible for some of his friends not being in the field for a little longer. Not getting hurt. Not getting dead.
If Superman could die, who among them was safe anymore?
"The thought of what?" he asked, in spite of himself. This was not really a conversation he was wanting to have. Not with Bea. Not with anybody. "Branching outside of the League?"
He was snappier then he meant to come across, frazzled by the thought.
When that raw nerve was exposed, he liked to direct himself to thoughts of Captain Traitor, but the unfortunate part of having these conversations with Bea was that she had a finger on the pulse of League gossip. And it didn't take a super-spy to remember it wasn't that long ago since Ted was brawling with Booster on the floor of the Bug over his departure from the League.
They were good after that. Again. Maybe.
It would have been petty for Ted to hold a grudge still, months after everything was already rectified and the League whole. After they had stood side by side against Doomsday together and were torn apart only to be back at it again.
Almost.
"Not leave the League," Bea soothed, walking around the lab, toward the walls and feeling around. "Where's the light switch?"
"It's not a switch, it's…" Ted stopped working on the monitor he was repairing and looked around his control panel. With a press of a button, the lights in his lab came on with a flourish. "Ta-da."
Bea turned and looked at him expectantly, but her attitude seemed to shift in an instant upon making contact. "Jesus, Beetle."
"What?" he asked her, immediately looking down to his sweater for the ketchup stain from lunch. He'd hoped he got most of it off.
"When's the last time you shaved?" she asked him.
"I'm thinking of growing a beard," he answered without a moment's thought. He reached for the wadded up napkin laying next to the Big Belly Burger trash from his lunch. When he began rubbing at the ketchup stain, Bea, who had somehow closed the distance between them without Ted even realizing it, grabbed his wrist and wrenched it away.
"You are not, you're just not taking care of yourself," she said firmly. "I bet you wore that shirt yesterday, too."
"You have no proof, Fire," Ted sniffed down his nose at her.
Her eyes sharpened and she tightened her grip on his wrist. "Believe it or not," she continued, "I'm not pointing any of this out to make you feel bad or to make you question your spot on the League."
"Oh, well, since those are the only options I can think of, you're doing a pretty bad job at whatever this is, then," Ted snapped at her.
"I'm worried about Booster," she finally announced.
Now that hit Ted like a twenty-pound weight thrown directly at his slightly increasing gut. He looked at her, giving up his meager resistance on her hold, and allowed his emotions to eek through with a strangled, "What? What's wrong?"
"And you," Bea finished lamely. As if Ted could share in any concerns for himself in the light of something being seriously wrong with Booster.
"Then why are we worrying about hypotheticals here? Spill it," Ted demanded.
"Fine, jackass," Bea hissed back, shoving his wrist and everything attached to it back into Ted's chest. "Ever since Doomsday shredded Booster's suit and rendered him powerless, he's been stomping around the League with almost as much self-loathing and assholery as you have down here in the basement."
"It's a laboratory," Ted whined back. And it was a laboratory — it was part of the incentives package from Max to get him to sign back up, and it was also the one place he could think and tinker and be left alone to wallow in the fact that he woke up from a coma into a whole new, whole worse world. A world without Superman, without hope, without faith that superheroes like them could fill the tremendous hole that a Superman had left behind.
And, despite himself, Ted woke up with a lot of those same feelings as the public at large.
And since Ted hadn't so much as checked the fitting of his Blue Beetle costume since he woke up from a coma, it did place him much closer to that civilian perspective than anyone else in the League had been for a while.
"And while I sure as hell can agree that we've been through enough in all of this to deserve some bad attitudes to a point," Bea continued, "I think the reason the two of you are quite so obnoxious is because of the separation anxiety."
Ted squinted at her, not following. "Separation anxiety… from the League?" he asked, genuinely baffled.
Beatriz put the heels of her palms against her eye sockets and looked like she was about to scream. "Idiotas!" She hissed between her teeth. "From each other, Beetle. From each other."
He looked longways at her, assessing her for some signs of her own mental breakdown or distress from mind control or brainwashing, and then turned back to his monitor. "Are you really so bored up in the embassy right now that you're trying to dig into trouble?"
"I'm going to torch you and this whole stupid lab," Bea warned.
Before he could help himself, Ted snorted and put on his soldering goggles to get back to work. "Yeah? With what powers?"
He knew he had to be out of practice because he saw the punch coming from a mile away and still didn't have the time or wherewithal to block or get out of the way before Bea sent him careening into the control panel next to him.
Blinking a few times, Ted looked at the shaking figure of his friend, noted that steam was quite literally perspiring from her exposed shoulders and neck, then took a moment to reassess whether or not his jaw was attached to his skull. It was.
"Okay," he responded, "Ow."
"Do you have any idea how hard the two of you make it to talk to you about anything that matters?" Bea demanded from him. "My god, I have no idea how you two have been together this long. The second the door closes and it's just the two of you in a room, does it just immediately fall into unending fart jokes and nothing gets done?"
Realizing Bea had no intention of offering him help up, Ted pushed off from the control panel and rubbed his no doubt reddening cheek. "Bea, you've known Booster and me for years by now." He paused, mostly for dramatic effect but also to glance and make sure that she wasn't close enough for a second shot before he could duck away. "Of course that's what happens the moment Booster and I are alone in a room."
"I'm trying to help you!" Bea snarled, throwing up her arms.
"You sure have a funny way of showing it!" Ted yelled back. "And, besides, help what? I'm on the bench until I complete physical therapy. Booster's benched until he has a solution for his wrecked suit."
"A solution you're supposed to be working on," Bea reminded him. The fact that her own benching was also reliant on Ted goes unspoken, but there was a prickling feeling in Ted's neck that it was there, under all the layers being hidden by concern for Booster and Ted. "Have you even looked at his suit?"
Ted squinted at her. "Yeah. It's shredded."
"And your solution to that is…"
"Working on it," Ted said so automatically it was as if Booster was in the lab having the conversation again. At least Bea hit him. Booster last time didn't even bother to turn the lights on.
Just a where's my super suit and gone the second he wasn't getting the answer he wanted. Like a child.
"You know what I think, Beetle?" Bea began, slowly, calculated.
"Nope," Ted answered, running his hands through his equipment for the exact pliers he needed for the monitor.
"I think you're keeping Booster on the bench as long as you can by not doing a damn thing," Bea said lowly. "And I think you know that the second Booster figures out that it's what you're doing, he'll blow the top off the whole damn embassy."
Sick of playing the games, of obfuscating, Ted looked up at her, glowering. "So?"
"That's not going to fix anything," she warned him. "The only way you two can stop this and save your relationship is if you talk to each other about it. Not manipulate things behind the scenes to get what you want."
"So my friends aren't getting killed out there for people who don't believe in them for just a little longer!" Ted growled. "I think Booster'll live. And our relationship—"
The word caught in Ted's throat. Every emotion was so high, so heartfelt before it that he hadn't even felt it coming until it was there. And then it was ringing in his ears. He choked a bit, as if it was a Big Belly fry that went down the wrong way, didn't settle well with him.
If Bea noticed, she was too busy with his other charges. "That isn't your call, Beetle. God damn it, I felt this was what was going on but I just. I didn't know for sure until I got down here. And look at you, falling apart, you know it's not going to fix any of this. You know you're not supposed to make these decisions on your own!"
Ted grabbed onto the corner of his work table and felt like he needed to catch his breath still. "Wait, wait, hold up!" he called out, using a free hand to try to stress the request. It didn't do a whole lot of good.
"You've had to have noticed it if I've noticed that Booster is so wrapped up in getting back out there that he has no sense of personhood outside of his suit," Bea continued to rant, her hands firing off and twisting in the air with nearly the same speed as her mouth. "And by god, if he tells Skeets to scan his suit for options one more time, I think the little robot's going to fry him!"
Unable to take it any longer, Ted looked to Bea wildly and smacked the table to get her attention. "Now hold on! You're firing off some pretty hefty accusations here!" he roared at her, accurately worked up for the circumstances.
She stopped and gave him a look over. "What? You think the little robot's got enough money to sue for libel?"
"Not about Skeets! About Booster and me!" Ted squeaked, though he liked to reflect on it being a manlier squeak than most.
It was Bea's turn to squint back at Ted. "What? You don't think Booster has too much of himself wrapped up in being a superhero?"
"I think you've got too much of Booster and I wrapped up with each other," he growled out. He scoffed. "Relationship. We're friends."
Even though Ted was nowhere close to her, Bea staggered back like he had finally punched her back. "What?"
Ted was regaining his composure and able to stand on his own two legs again without leaning on the table. He crossed his arms and looked at Bea confidently, even as the fluttering in his stomach and chest felt like it was going to leave him swaying the moment he no longer had to make a point.
Many emotions seemed to run through Bea before she glanced around and then back at Ted. Quietly, almost worriedly, she asked, "Does Booster know?"
"Yes!" Ted yelled, though a pang of Wait does he? ran through him with a worrying bout of second-guessing everything he thought he knew about himself and his closest friend.
Bea seemed genuinely shook as she stood quietly for a moment, contemplating. She then shook her head in disbelief and glanced at Ted. "Well, it doesn't matter how close you two really are—"
"It matters!" Ted squeaked again. That time felt significantly less manly.
"Booster needs to hear from someone who loves him that he's got more than a suit and superhero gig to him," Bea said more confidently. "He needs to hear it and he needs to see that someone cares so damn much about him that they're willing to try to stop him from doing something stupid. Like what you're doing, Beetle. Though, and let's be clear here, the way you're doing it is tremendously stupid itself."
"How are you so good at making everything an accusation?" Ted sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
There was a more tired look at Beatriz's expectant glare when Ted glanced back at her. She took a deep breath and turned to walk out. "Talk to Booster," she ordered him on her way out. "And while you're at it, get some sunlight. And a razor. And a shirt."
Ted was pretty sure no one had mothered him with contempt and pity in equal amounts since his own mother had died.
He had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
That wasn't entirely true. Reclusive as he might have become in the days after waking from a Doomsday-induced coma, Ted still understood the basics of the Justice League's base and its layout. He technically understood that the upper levels were filled with space and amenities for his colleagues.
And he also understood that it was the most likely place he could find Booster.
Beyond those fairly basic facts, though, Ted had little to no idea what he was doing. And he could sense his creeping insecurities clawing their way back up to the forefront of his mind.
Therefore, in a far more literal sense, he had no idea what he was doing.
Which made it strangely inconvenient when he made it into the gym and found Booster on a treadmill, his golden robotic companion floating alongside with a countdown timer occupying where Skeets' frontal display normally was.
Booster was so in the moment, so occupied by his running, that he didn't seem to notice Ted in the doorway at all. He was gazing straight ahead, cheeks dimpled as his highly controlled breathing rushed air in and out of his mouth.
This must be a fairly intense workout routine, or at least one Booster had been at for a while because Ted knew it took pushing Booster quite a bit for him to get the sheen of sweat that covers his skin. Skin that was highly visible considering Booster was in training shorts and gym shoes without anything else but a headband.
If it were a normal occasion, Ted would already have a couple of dozen jokes at the ready for the headband alone. It was doing nothing to keep back the waterfalls of sweat at that point and seemed mostly to be an aesthetic choice to make up for Booster's serious lack of recent haircuts.
He had a mane that would make Fabio jealous, that's for sure.
Ted considered that, all of it, as he watched awkwardly from afar, only to feel an unnatural heat build-up from within his unseasonal turtleneck. Relationship. God, he could have killed Bea for doing that to him. For making him think in such ways he never would have.
He didn't want to think of his best friend in these ways.
A little too late, Ted realized he also shouldn't creepily watch his best friend work out more-than-half-naked in the training room either. But that was something, at least, he could confront head-on.
Clearing his throat and making a big production out of stepping into the gym, Ted hoped that it was more than enough to make up for his shadowy leering. Though, if it was, it still wasn't enough to get Booster to slow down on the treadmill.
Booster did glance to Skeets' timer and then looked over to Ted, though. So he knew Ted was in there. That had to count for something.
"Hey, Boost," Ted tried instead. He said it so casually, so naturally, that it took a full moment for him to wonder if it was too much or not. To have a nickname for your friend's nickname. Was that too familiar? So what if it was?
He was about to have a panic attack and he couldn't even explain to himself why.
"Did you get something up with the suit?" Booster asked immediately, his eyes darting toward Ted.
And, oh, did that not burn Ted up immediately. For a multitude of reasons. The rudeness, though, was taking front and center, though.
"No, I told you I'd let you know as soon as there was any progress," Ted countered, sounding nearly as wounded as he felt.
The moment Skeets' timer hit zero-zero-zero-zero, Booster pushed something on the treadmill that seemed to lower the speed. His high-intensity run began to decrease to a jog. He gripped to the side handles as adjusted with the machine.
"What're you doing out of the lab?" Booster asked just as snappishly as his first question. He was so focused on Ted's face that Skeets flew off to the side of the gym without even informing either of them.
That time, Ted could not resist the way his eyes rolled for the back of his head. He crossed his arms defensively. "I'm allowed to leave the lab any time I want," he hissed back.
"Oh, are you?" Booster countered, slowing to a walk. "Guess that explains the fast-food wrappers I keep finding down there."
Ted's head snapped toward Booster, his blood rushing to his face and making him feel immediately hot across his cheeks and forehead. "What the hell's wrong with you? Why are you trying to gut me?"
"Why are you trying to avoid doing anything actually helpful around here lately?" Booster snapped back, jumping off the treadmill before it was finished up with his cooling-off period. He didn't even glance in Skeets' direction as the tiny robot flew in from the side with a towel at the ready.
"Doing anything actually helpful–" Ted repeated, sputtering over the words. "Are you shitting me right now? I've been rewiring this entire facility top to bottom and replacing all the standard equipment with updated models. And that's with doctor's orders to take it easy with my fatigue." Then, because he was on a tear and couldn't stop himself, he looked Booster up and down. "What've you done with all your time?"
Booster's mouth snapped shut and his eyes darkened as he looked at Ted.
It didn't take an expert in Booster Gold readings to know he was beyond pissed.
"I'm doing my best until you get in gear and fix my shit," Booster snarled back. "Which, by the way, if you can't then you need to tell me so I can find someone who can. And I needed to know yesterday."
"Someone else more qualified to patch it up in this century?" Ted mocked. "Good luck, pal! I've helped you with it more than anyone else, and I'm telling you it's positively trashed! It's not going to protect you out there."
Angrily, Booster threw up his arms. "I don't need protection! I just need to be able to be a hero again!"
"If you need the suit to be a hero, Booster, then you weren't really a hero to begin with!" Ted erupted at last.
Immediately, the silence became deafening as they stared at each other in shock.
Ted felt like he swallowed an entire lemon in a single go, his whole mouth dried up and his face recoiling back in shock from his own viciousness. He wasn't even sure where the words came from, they were so callous and cruel. So biting.
Booster was broodingly quiet for a moment, not looking Ted in the face as if the image of him alone was painful. Instead, he looked to the floor or the equipment. He yanked the towel off of Skeets and began roughly rubbing it over his face and neck.
"Jesus christ," Ted gasped at himself before dragging both of his hands down his face. "I have no idea why I just… Booster, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
"Sounds like you did," Booster spat back venomously before balling up the sweat-soaked towel and throwing it right for Ted's head. "Good talk, Beetle. I'll stop pestering you about my suit. I'm sending it to STAR."
"Okay, stop!" Ted growled, yanking the towel off his face and throwing it to the side. "Booster, hold on! Let me apologize!"
When Booster shoulder checked Ted on the way out of the gym, he hit with enough force to push Ted into the wall and took the breath out of him. Apparently Booster had been making a point of hitting the gym for more than just cardio in the past weeks since he lost his suit.
The smart thing to do, based on all of Ted's long history with Booster, was to back off and let the other hero burn through his temper, work up a good mad without Ted anywhere in the vicinity.
But Ted was apparently a glutton for punishment that day.
He grabbed Booster's wrist and held it with a vice grip, wrenching Booster back and to turn him around to face him again.
"Don't touch me!" Booster growled, his mouth turning up in a snarl.
"I said to hold on!" Ted yelled back. "I'm sorry, I'm a dumbass! I don't know what I was trying to say there, but it wasn't what came out, okay? Let me just…" He stopped himself and shook his head. He didn't know what he was trying to accomplish with any of it. He'd made such a good mess from the start.
"Just, what, Ted? Continue to prove that you think I'm some idiot blowhard just like every other person thinks?" Booster demanded. He pulled his hand out from Ted's grip at last and rubbed his wrist. "I don't need to hear it. I've heard enough of it, thanks!"
"I know you're not like that, you big idiot, that's why I'm scared!" Ted exploded, throwing his own arms into the air. "You're such a hero – you're so dedicated to it – that you're going to go flinging yourself out into danger the very second I have a prototype that isn't even tested yet! You're going to try to save someone, try to prove yourself, and while you're doing it, I'll have fucked something up and it'll fail you and you're going to die, Booster! You hear me? You'll get yourself killed!"
Booster stared at him, the anger not dropping even an iota. "Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence!"
Ted let out a frustrated croaking noise from deep within his throat and rubbed at his face. "Goddamn it! Why can't I say any of this right?"
While Ted was working through his moment, though, Booster was taking a step back, his brows knitted together in thought. Then, crestfallen, he shook his head at Ted.
"You haven't been working on the suit on purpose," he surmised.
Closing his eyes, Ted released a deep sigh. "I was trying to come up here to, uh, to talk to you about that. Talk to you about a lot of things relating to that. Because I was talking to Bea and she was worried about you, and me. And it was a lot of stuff that I think we have been sitting on and not dealing with since I woke up."
Booster stared at him. "Sitting on and not dealing with… like my suit maybe?" his anger was flaring again.
Looking Booster in the eyes, Ted felt his chest clenching tightly. It was painful to see that anger directed his way – sure if he pranked Booster or poked his buttons on purpose that was one thing. But it was anguish and hurt under that anger that was all radiating directly from Booster to Ted. And he deserved it.
"You've got every right to be angry with me," Ted admitted. "But, goddammit, Booster, hear me out here. I almost died, okay? Some monster out of nowhere came through and busted my head in without a second thought. And I wake up, weeks later, to learn that the same monster that almost finished me off killed Superman. And the first thing my best friends want me to do when I get back to the land of the living is to help them put themselves back on the battlefield? To get themselves killed?"
For a moment, Ted couldn't tell if his words got to Booster or not. He was glaring at the ground before he snapped back up and pointed at Ted's chest. "You almost died because I wasn't able to do anything to help," Booster growled. "I was there and I watched you hang onto life by a thread, and I couldn't even get into the fight, couldn't save the leader of our team, because all I am at the end of the day is a bunch of fancy gadgets I didn't even make myself. And now you want me to sit on the sidelines and do nothing again?"
"I want you to stay alive, you jackass!" Ted yelled, smacking Booster's hand down. "I don't care if you never want to talk to me again afterward! If I kept you alive then I can be happy!"
"Superman died!" Booster burst out like it was an argument or a point or anything really.
"I don't care who else dies! I won't let you be one of them!" Ted cried out.
Booster's eyes widened slightly, taken aback. He looked Ted up and down as if expecting to see the outline of a Starro underneath his turtleneck. Then he squinted in confusion.
Ted, for his part, felt like his heart was going to race directly out of his chest and had to put a hand on it to uselessly attempt to calm it down. He scowled at himself. Still going smooth as desert sand, the two of them.
"Look, I don't know if what's wrong with us right now can be fixed by screaming matches in the League gym or not, but I feel like we're distinctly lacking progress," Ted noted out loud. He forced himself, with some struggle, to meet Booster's gaze. "Can we try to talk at normal volumes?"
"You're the one who keeps screaming and cutting like a knife," Booster only partially joked. "But, sure, we can try the adult thing."
"Ugh, the thing I'm worst at," Ted sighed, pinching at the bridge of his eyes. He looked apologetically to Booster. "Booster, I know you're a hero, and worst yet you're a despicably good hero when it comes down to it. Which is why I knew that you weren't kidding when I was in a hospital bed still and you were already talking about fixing up and updating your equipment. I've been a hero for years, and that's easily the closest to death I have ever been, and here's my perfectly heroic best friend ready to get back off the bench."
"I'm a quarterback, I do terrible at sitting on the bench," Booster huffed, a genuine smirk sneaking into his expression.
Ted shook his head testily. "And, as always, I must remind you that I played chess in high school and that metaphor is so beyond me it's sad."
"It's really sad," Booster agreed. He paused and looked off, a hand coming up and cover his mouth in thought. "I really did ask you to fix it while you were in your hospital bed, didn't I? Wow, yeah. That was real bad of me."
"It normally wouldn't be a big deal, but," Ted stopped for a moment and took stock of what he was saying. Thinking before talking. He needed to have been doing that from the start. Even with his heart abnormally racing around Booster for seemingly no reason. "Look, I don't think it's like what Bea was saying, but you are easily the most important person to me. I can't fathom anything bad happening to you, and that's what I feel like is going to happen if I screw up your suit. Which I feel like I will because that's just superheroic to a T, isn't it?"
"You wouldn't screw up my suit, that's why you're the only person I really trust with it," Booster replied flippantly, even flicking his wrist as he did so. He hesitated, though, and looked back at Ted seriously. "What do you mean what Bea was saying, though?"
"Oh," Ted replied, heat rushing back in his face. "It's really dumb. Stupid. Honestly, really nothing. But she was saying that you and I were acting, well, like kids having tantrums because we weren't spending any time together and it was giving us, uh, separation anxiety."
Booster looked at Ted curiously before snorting. "Like chihuahuas left in an apartment too long?"
Laughing, Ted ducked his head down. "Y-yeah. She was, uh, worried about our…" he trailed off, throat tightening at even the notion of repeating it. Does Booster know?
Tilting his head, Booster looked at Ted curiously. "Our what?"
Ted wished he could just go ahead and swallow his entire foot, get it over with. He seemed to like it in his mouth so much lately anyway.
"Our, uh," Ted, despite himself, caught Booster's bright blue eyes with his own again. His entire face was threatening to combust. "Our relationship."
"Relationship?" Booster repeated. The significance seemed lost on him for a moment. His head tilted to the other side in thought and then he looked away in thought. Slowly, though, a hint of red began to grow from Booster's cheeks, his ears, and even down to his shoulders. He let out a strained laugh. "I mean, we're not in-in a relationship that way, I thought."
Blanching, Ted nearly hit the wall behind him again backing up. "What do you mean thought!?" he squeaked out.
"I don't know! I thought we weren't? You're here telling me my death will be worse than Superman's!" Booster yelled back in response, his own body going stiff as a board as he backed up, too.
"I'm allowed to feel that way without it being that way!" Ted countered. He then reached to his head and yanked on his turtleneck. "Stupid, fucking, heated, useless–"
"What way?" Booster pressed, quiet and thoughtful.
"Oh, god, can we go back to fighting?" Ted begged.
"We may, depending on how this goes!" Booster said. His eyes flickered with something meaningful and unknowable at Ted. "Ted, have we been in a relationship this whole time?"
"If you have to ask, the answer's probably no," Ted said, chin down as he glared angrily at his turtleneck. Like it was the cause of everything terrible that had happened that day so far.
"Probably?"
Groaning, Ted scrubbed at his face instead of his turtleneck. He was about to have survived Doomsday only to give in to the elements and melt into a puddle right there in the League's own property. "I never thought we were. But, when I look at all the things I count as having in a relationship? Like all the time, and the close vicinity, and the – you know, all the stuff – when I look at it scientifically, it would appear to most people that we, uh. I can just see where it came from."
Booster looked unmoved. "What all stuff?"
"Don't make me–" Ted sighed and rotated one of his hands in a weak gesture. "Booster, the feelings stuff. I care about you, like a lot. To an insane and scary degree. To the point that I do crazy, Mad Scientist Kord things that make no sense to anybody but me. Like sabotaging your chances of going back out there in the field because I'm so goddamn terrified that I'll lose you."
Squinting at him, Booster folded his arms across his broad chest. "You're, what, hurtful because you love me?"
"I mean, statistically looking at my history, it's just about the only way I know how to love people," Ted attempted to joke. Badly. "Or I'm just really scared of this side of me and didn't acknowledge it until about three minutes ago. That, too."
"This is, by far, the weirdest conversation we've had," Booster noted, almost transfixed.
"I mean, I'm sure we have had to have weirder at some point," Ted muttered only to go stiff as Booster came in closer. "W-what are you doing?"
Ted wasn't sure what to expect, but it was not the huge, sweaty embrace of his best friend who he had spent a few weeks sabotaging. Yet, as he was pulled tightly into Booster, he couldn't help himself from pulling back, from wrapping his arms around Booster and breathing him in.
Somehow he had forgotten how good it felt to just touch someone else, to hug someone and mean it in a way that was so intimate and close. He felt lighter against Booster.
"I love you, too, Ted, you big idiot," Booster huffed against the top of Ted's head, his breath tickling the hairs over Ted's ear. "I'm sorry I'm bad at saying it, too. But I absolutely can't lose you again, either. And-and I need my suit. I can't protect you without it."
Blinking against Booster's chest, Ted can feel that Booster's heart is as panicked and erratic as his own.
"Maybe we both should get therapy first," Ted mused.
"Maybe," Booster agreed, finally letting Ted go so that they could look at each other. "We should probably, uh, process this thing first, though. Like. We just found out we've been kind of married for the past five years."
Ted went rigid. "You think it's only been five?"
Booster burst into laughter, which Ted couldn't keep himself from joining in on. They leaned against each other, slapping arms around each other's necks for balance as their foreheads rested together. They were ridiculous and sophomoric, and almost everything the others had said about them – especially that part.
But a weight Ted didn't know he had been carrying was finally gone, and for the first time in a long time, he realized that perhaps even more than wanting Booster safe, he'd wanted him happy for a long time. At the very least since Ted had woken up from his brush with death.
And, if they were basically in a relationship anyway, he supposed that it was only right that they work on making each other happy anyway.