Heroes
Notes: Adnai an Angel of Pleasure in mythology. It's not a take off of 'Aidan' on purpose but I suppose it was probably some subconscious thing I did. We're just going to call him Blair until I can look up something else because otherwise it's weird.
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Chapter Five
Stop the World From Making Sense
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Richie and Wally walked in the general direction of the various training facilities then turned into a room Richie didn't recall ever being in before. Inside was a man who seemed about Wally's age, wearing jeans and a tank top. He was sitting cross-legged on a table and looked like he was asleep. Except for that whole sitting up thing.
Wally walked over and waved a hand in his face. The man didn't so much as flinch.
"Blair, I know you can hear me. The time for quiet reflection is over."
"I have fangs and I'm not afraid to use them."
"I thought you were a vegetarian." Wally didn't look at all intimidated.
"I still have a taste for human flesh. You should ask 'Wing what all those 'love bites' are really from." The man hadn't yet opened his eyes but his tongue darted out and licked his lips almost invitingly.
And if Richie hadn't suddenly been just slightly terrified he probably would have been blushing. …He may have been blushing anyway.
"…Sometimes you frighten me Blair. Seriously." Wally shook his head then walked over to the computer terminal at the front of the small room. Other than the table and terminal there were four chairs, all seated in front of terminal. The wall it was built into was glass and Richie could see one of the training areas though it.
Lantern, Virgil, and a man Richie assumed was Nightwing stood inside, apparently talking about something. Two large silvery white humanoid robots stood still and at attention a few paces away, but none of the men were paying them much mind. Wally flicked a few switches and two panels opened in the terminal, a kind of panel emerging from each.
"So John wants you two, since you know 'Wing and Static best, to observe how this goes. See how the robots react to each individually and give John lots of positive feedback. Or…you know. Something like that." Wally rolled his eyes heavenward. "This whole training thing has never really been my deal. Being in the Titans with 'Wing kind of killed it. He's a goddamn slave driver. I wouldn't be shocked if he had a whip."
Blair snorted in what could only be called an inappropriate manner.
Richie nodded, trying desperately to not get anything beyond PG-13 rated imaged in his head. It wasn't working. "I think I get it."
"Oh good. Ready Blair?"
Blair sighed and opened his eyes. He smiled at Richie toothily (He wasn't kidding about having fangs) then hopped down and walked over to Wally. He leaned against the redhead who just blinked at him mildly before pushing him towards one of the chairs.
"Stop trying to molest me. There are children present."
"That's the only thing stopping you?" He smirked wryly then sat down. "For the record I'm still morally against this."
Wally rolled his eyes then motioned for Richie to sit. "Blair is against violence of all kinds. Unless it's needed. Or he's really bored. Or drunk. Or in a bad mood."
"Once. You get in one bar fight and you're branded for life." He put a hand on the panel in front of him and one of the drones jerked as if it'd been shocked. Lantern turned slightly then nodded. He said something to Static and Nightwing then left the room.
A few moments later he walked into the room they were in and pulled it closed behind him. He took the last chair, which happened to be between Wally and Richie, and then arched an eyebrow towards his…whatever Wally was to him.
Not that Richie didn't have a fairly good idea at this point but he didn't know what John called Wally. Boyfriend just seemed so…not Green Lantern or Flash.
Wally smiled faintly before leaning forward and inclining his head towards Richie. "You aren't gong to have a problem watching Virgil get trounced will you?"
Richie smirked. "What makes you think that's going to happen? He'll probably just fry it and be done in a few seconds."
"These things are built so that nothing short of an electric pulse strong enough to power Vegas should take it out."
It was funny but Richie couldn't call that overkill. Not logically anyway. Virgil's power was unpredictable at the best of times; there were times when he couldn't light a light bulb but other times he could power the Watchtower without breaking a sweat.
Richie wasn't sure how to explain it exactly, except the possibility of further mutation, either due to time or the second bang. The thought had been lingering in the back of his mind for sometime now but he'd never really sat down and thought about it long enough to figure something out.
And now still wasn't the best time for that.
Sometimes Richie had a hard time keeping it all in order and maintaining control of his thoughts. They liked to go bouncing off the wall sometimes, totally without his say so and it'd be annoying except…well, sometimes he needed it, the chaos.
Without it he wondered if he wasn't every bit as cold and factual as a machine. Better to be out of control and human then in control and not better than a computer following commands and unable to go off on the occasional tangent.
So he told himself anyway. Sometimes he wasn't too sure.
He leaned forward in his seat to watch Virgil eyeing the machine with interest. Richie was willing to admit he still had lingering Robot issues, which oddly enough didn't extend to Backpack, but sometimes he wasn't sure if it was more the mental…violation of having someone (something) just decide they had full reign over your most intimate thoughts or the fact that Brainiac hadn't been…unfamiliar. He'd reminded Richie of himself.
Not all the time of course, but when he was presented with an intense challenge or something that was begging to brought to life. In those moments there was only the task at hand, thoughts and awareness of the world around him became…nothing.
He lost himself.
It happened more and more lately and sometimes he couldn't help but be afraid of what he may have been becoming. After all, Brainiac had wanted him for a reason and hadn't had any intention of killing him, from what Richie had seen anyway, and it didn't make sense unless the machine had found…perhaps, an equal in him? Something worth saving after completely destroying a world, something he had never seen before with all of the people he had wiped out.
Richie really didn't want to think of himself as similar or equal to Brainiac but he wasn't sure what he could do about it. His mind was suspiciously blank when it came to these sort of problems. Maybe because he didn't do emotion well.
He felt like if he kept letting it slip away he'd become a heartless computer in a living shell and barely even that. Richie found he was able to go without those things that were supposed to make you…go. He wanted to blame that on further mutation as well but wasn't sure if the really could.
His brain would just…click on one morning and go. Information would filter in and out at impressive speeds, inventions and modifications and formulas and blueprints would dance on the back of his eyelids every time he shut his eyes, and his own thoughts would clog his head until he was practically choking on them and wanted to rip open his skull and just…pull them out.
And wasn't that healthy?
Kind of like now. He didn't think he'd actually slept for a week, not that he'd tell anyone about any of that, but the point still stood. He knew that, fundamentally, humans needed to sleep otherwise the body and the mind wouldn't function properly, but he had to admit he'd never really had that problem.
Besides, who really needed sleep anyway?
He would have laughed if he didn't think that would draw unwanted attention. He wasn't even fooling himself at this point. He didn't know what to do about it though so all he could do was accept and let things just…go.
Really there wasn't anything he could do except hope he didn't crash until the weekend. When the period of scary alertness was over a period of…nothing followed. He thought nothing, did nothing, said nothing and was essentially nothing.
He had actually gone so far as to sleep through an entire week back in December without really realizing it. Other than the occasional trip to the bathroom he hadn't done anything to mark the passage of time and so…he'd just slept. He hadn't had the energy to do anything else.
Hadn't even eaten. He remembered being vaguely hungry, in the strange foggy kind of way he used to recall his dreams. (Richie didn't dream anymore. Not the way he'd used to anyway.) But every time he'd tried to grasp the thought it'd faded away with 'the kitchen is so far away'. Not that it was overly hard to go for days without eating around his house, but self-imposed starvation was a new one. Thankfully it'd been holiday break and Virgil had been visiting relatives so it hadn't been a big deal and had gone completely unnoticed.
He was easily overlooked.
Feeling things…seemed to be becoming more and more beyond him as time went on. He wasn't sure which period he preferred really; when he was alert there was…more, but he often felt like it wasn't him who was doing those things and when he was nothing there were only dim fuzzy feelings, but he never doubted that it was him feeling the.
This was part of the reason he'd insisted Virgil help Jacob; when he'd first looked at the older teen he'd felt a strange sort of spark, that he knew without a doubt he had felt because the only time he felt something similar was when…
He smiled wryly.
When he was close to Virgil. That was a feeling that nothing seemed able to damper or imitate.
He couldn't really begin to explain it, but something about Jacob made him…something. He didn't think this was just lust or a crush, because he didn't think he wanted to involved with Jacob like that but…it was feeling and when things like that were rushing through your fingers like so much water he couldn't possibly be blamed for wanting to explore it more. It was weird how he enjoyed every stomach twisting, blushing causing, and heart clenching moment just because it was something.
It meant he wasn't a machine. He wasn't losing himself. Not yet anyway. And maybe that was it. Jacob was like him, slowly shutting down himself to emotions and things like that and Richie wanted to help him as much as he wanted to help himself.
Though he wanted to help him in other ways as well.
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He put his head on the desk, trying to force back the headache starting to form behind his eyes. They were becoming more and more frequent these days. Like his brain was filled to the brim but still wanted to take more stuff in and was pressing up against the walls of his skull in an attempt to do it. He knew his brain was doing nothing of the sort, unless he'd hit his head and it was swelling but he was almost positive that was the sort of thing he'd notice.
And, since he hadn't suffered any nosebleeds, dizzy spells, or unexplained blackouts, he was almost positive that his brain wasn't swelling. He just…had some kind of headache. Genius overload, for lack of a better term. He remembered something similar right before he realized he was a human supercomputer, mild headaches out of nowhere that faded as soon as they came.
Maybe he was mutating again. Wouldn't that be nice? He knew some of the people who'd been caught in the second bang (few and far between though they seemed to be) had turned into things more powerful than the original bang-babies. He didn't understand why it had taken this long for it start to effect him but he supposed it was possible if it was…latent, maybe? The mutating properties of the gas may have lain dormant, waiting for the right time to strike his DNA and send it through another change.
It'd done something similar the first time around, why not again? Though, to be fair, it hadn't exactly been latent. He'd just been exposed to a small amount and it wasn't like it'd just hit him all at once…it'd been a gradual change, punctuated by headaches and bursts of almost crazy invention ideas to help Virgil out.
He couldn't have begun to do half of the things he'd done for Static before he became Gear if his mind wasn't already in the process of changing. It'd just been without his knowledge at first. Still, he'd taken in a lot all at once…it just wasn't showing immediate effects. Maybe the way it'd been set off the second time changed how it affected people.
That would also explain why people like Jacob were showing up now, instead of then. This did cause a slight problem though. Richie had always been a little concerned about possible water contamination but when nothing had happened he'd just dismissed it but now…well.
Plus there were Hotstreak and Ebon who'd turned into a two-headed freak of nature. Honestly, fire and shadows melding together? Weird, since fire chased shadows away.
Then again there had been more to Ebon than just casual shadows of course. Like his shadow discs…that wasn't your typical shadow based ability, or else every time you walked into a shadow you'd risk being sucked to another place. Not that it mattered. Neither had been seen since the explosion and he sincerely hoped it would remain that.
There was the creak of a door and the shuffling of feet. Must have been Jacob. He cracked open an eye and watched the blond walk past him, nothing but a white towel around his hips. He looked around for a moment, eyes locking on Richie briefly, then over to the bed.
He shrugged, as if reaching a decision. Richie watched in confusion for a moment then flushed when he finally realized what was going on. Facts and numbers took him nano-seconds; people and their actions and motivations however always seemed to be just beyond his comprehension.
Maybe that was the price he paid. To be this smart, to hold this much, you had to be untouchable. Something more than human; as cold and unfeeling as a computer was and as oblivious to human behavior as one as well.
Jacob was going to change in front of him, obviously thinking him asleep or…something like that. Where was Virgil when you needed him! Wait…downstairs. Of course. He was never around when his ability to barge in on awkward moments would actually be appreciated.
Damn him. Sure, bust in when he's trying to come out to his father, but heaven forbid he be saved from turning into a voyeur. Then again, maybe that was it. To hear his mother tell it heaven didn't care much for people like him.
Religion had been a grand source of confusion to him long before all of this. He'd never really gotten it but the fact his parents were Catholic and thought a guy in a dress had a direct link to God may have had something to do with it.
It was just a theory anyway.
Knowing everything and having most of his reality firmly rooted in science and numbers hadn't really rocked his world too much. After all, imaginary numbers existed and there were things even the greatest of scientist couldn't come to explain, so who was to say supernatural things couldn't exist? But that was kind of depressing in that if his parents were right all the good he did was going to be canceled out by something he couldn't control and wasn't really very happy about.
Because, really, what purpose did gay people serve? It was stupid. In a purely technical sense they didn't add to the betterment of the species, as far as reproduction went, and the sex did seem just a touch on the unnatural side. Were they defective? A misbalance in hormones perhaps? It was another one of those things he couldn't wrap his brain around.
'But that doesn't stop you from watching the guy you just met naked does it? Pervert' Richie smiled ruefully at the voice in his head. Ah, the fine line between genius and insanity. He liked to think he walked it very well.
And he wasn't watching in a perverse sort of way, thank you very much, he was watching in an analytical research sort of way. He could count most of Jacob's ribs and noted that some of them looked…out of place. Was that possible? He had a long, thin path of scar tissue, raised and discolored, that went from around his navel to…to…underneath his towel.
His mouth went dry.
But that doesn't stop you from watching the guy you just met naked does it? Pervert''Oh yeah. Purely scientific.'
Jacob turned, so his back was to him and all of the gears in his head (no pun intended) ground to a very spectacular halt. His headache got worse.
Long thin scars criss-crossed Jacob's back; they dark and stark against the paleness of his skin. They danced across his bones, which shifted under his skin in a way that almost made Richie want to throw up. They must have cut deep into him originally to last as long as they had, because they were obviously old. They didn't have the right coloration of fresh marks.
How did he know? Well.
Black cotton obscured his view, finally, followed by the sweatshirt.
Jacob stood still for a minute, head bowed, then sat down on Virgil's bed heavily. His fingers tugged at the hole beginning to wear through the knee of the jeans almost absently while his eyes looked straight ahead, blank of all emotion.
He couldn't take it anymore. He sat up, faking a loud yawn and cracking his back. (That part was real. Lying on a desk was never smart.) He heard Jacob's quiet exhalation of breath and turned to address him. The other blond blinked then reached up to scrub at his eyes, which were red.
"You okay?"
'About as okay as you are brain-boy. It's always the smart ones who ask the stupidest questions.'
He smiled almost sheepishly. "Don't mind me. It's just been a long time since I felt clean. Wow. That sounded really depressing. I should…not talk anymore."
Richie smiled wryly. "I won't tell anyone. We should head downstairs, V is watching out for the pizza and he's been known to eat an entire pie on his own."
"Oh. Okay."
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That had weirded Richie out more than a little bit and he felt confident in blaming Virgil for the entire occurrence because why the hell couldn't he have left the clothes in the bathroom like a normal person. Still he wondered about the marks on Jacob's back. Wondered if they'd come from his father.
Richie's father was a bastard and tended to drift between annoying and useless, depending on the day and what group he was griping about, but he'd never lay a hand on Richie. There was a fine line between telling him he was a future-less fuckup and actually hitting him.
Richie knew he was sick because he wondered if being hit would mean he felt something, because the words had ceased to mean anything a long time ago.
Jacob hadn't spoken much after that. He'd answered Mr. Hawkins questions quickly and had given just the important facts regarding his mother when Richie had been trying to find out what had happened to her. He hadn't found anything about her in the obituaries, which was promising.
Then again he hadn't really found much of anything. Maybe because Rachel Nash didn't seem to exist at all. Jacob had been as bewildered as he was.
Richie's thoughts couldn't get much further than that because a bright white purple light made him blink then squint and turn away from the mock-battle he'd pretty much zoned out on. He knew Virgil's energy pulse when he saw it and could only assume he'd gotten annoyed with the machine and was trying to short it out.
If what Lantern said was true it wasn't happening. Even at his most powerful powering Las Vegas was just slightly beyond him. And by slightly Richie meant 'far far'.
Virgil was standing there, glaring at the machine as if it had offended him personally. An aura of pale purple electricity was crackling. The robot took a shaky step towards him before going completely still. For a moment nothing moved. (Richie noted that Nightwing had already disabled his robot and was just sitting off to the side and watching.)
Then the machine collapsed, completely…dead. Virgil's energy field, rather than fading, grew in intensity until Richie literally had to look away to shield his eyes. The lights flickered, dimmed, and then went out completely, plunging them into total blackness, save the glow emanating from his best friend.
Richie thought frantically, trying to figure out what was going on. And, the moment the question flitted through his head, he had his answer. Virgil couldn't overload it so he'd absorbed the energy inside of it and without energy it couldn't run. Now he was starting to absorb the Watch Tower's energy. He must not have been able to stop.
It was all very simple and logical in Richie's head and that soothed his worry. Simple.
Except for the getting Virgil to stop part.
"Lantern!"
There was a soft green glow coming from near where Richie thought the door was. "Yeah kid?"
Richie started to speak while his eyes slid, unconsciously, back to Virgil. He found himself forgetting what he'd been about to say in a rare moment of complete bewilderment.
Virgil had been completely…engulfed by bright purple, which jumped and twisted around him, and all that Richie could see what…well, his skeleton. It was like…the light was coming from inside and everything except the bones had been blotted out by the energy.
Richie mind took that opportunity to supply him with a simple statement.
'Wow'.
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Ha! I finally got it out. This chapter kicked my ass and I quite literally put everything else on hold until I got it out. And…now that it's out and I can return to the rest of my stories.
Thanks to everyone who re-reviewed and…well, I'll work on the summery.