September 19, 2014
She wasn't drunk, just drunk enough. The beat of some techno remix pounded in her ears, and she felt the vibrations resonate through her bones, staggering back to the bar in her obscenely high heels. Annabelle Lee Obispo had always been a party girl, but she had never been a bad girl. She wasn't wanted in fifteen countries and two territories. Maybe that was why she had gone out clubbing in a town she didn't even know the name of and let a man as unfamiliar as the town run his hands down her sides. The smart thing to do would have been to bring Artemis or M'gann, but Lee didn't want to be smart. She wanted to fuck and forget, because after the week she had, she was sick of being good. She ordered a vodka cranberry. The third, no fifth, of the night.
"Alright, time to go home," she heard the voice behind her, and she froze. If she didn't know better, she would've said that it was Roy. Except, Roy wouldn't have been there, even if she wanted him to be. He was globetrotting with Cheshire on his obsessive search for the original Roy Harper. When she turned around, the first thing she saw was the shock of cropped red hair and blue eyes as bright as a clear afternoon sky. He could have been Roy, just a different version of him. A little bit broader, slightly taller, and his voice was just a little bit deeper. All things that would come with age for the man who called himself Red Arrow.
Lee scoffed into her drink, "Just what I needed, another Harper." She sipped on the pink cocktail, tipping her chin up just slightly – defiantly.
Jim had seen her as soon as she walked into the club, and so had a couple dozen other guys. It was the first time he had ever seen her like this. The first time they met, he had been a tool for Cadmus, and she had been one of the four who liberated him and his brothers. Since then, they had been acquainted but never close. Nonetheless, he felt a sense of responsibility towards her. Maybe to repay her for what she had done for him or because she was his brother's girlfriend. He kept his eye on her throughout the night. She had come to turn heads in a slinky chrome colored cocktail dress that rode up her toned, olive thighs with every step, and that was exactly what she did. She may not have been counting her drinks, but Jim had. He also saw when the guy standing next to her spiked her drink.
"You, get out of here," Jim turned to Lee's latest dance partner.
"C'mon, man, we're just having a good time," the man protested, looking to Lee for her affirmation. He wasn't really her type. He may have been a student at the closest university, maybe involved in Greek life by the look of him. She swirled the contents of her plastic cup and watched whatever it was in there fizz around the lime.
"Don't start with me," the former Guardian warned. "Go on, get out of here. I don't want to see you back here again." Drawn to his full height, Jim towered over most men, and if that didn't scare them off, the sheer width of his chest usually did. The kid looked at Lee again, but she didn't offer him any sympathy. Humiliated and outraged, the other guy skulked away.
"Thought you retired from the hero gig," she commented, sounding far more sober than she looked. She had seen herself in the mirror not too long ago. She knew exactly what she looked like. Her ruddy brown waves were drooping from her high ponytail, her eyeliner was smearing in the corners of her eyes, and she was sure that a combination of sweat and oil was what made her forehead glisten in the light. She'd describe herself as an easy target.
"I like to think of myself as more of a Good Samaritan." He eyed her drink questioningly, "What're you doing here, Lee?" She swirled the black stirrer around the cup, watching the way ice and lime chased each other in the current.
"I was having a good time." He wasn't sure that he believed her. She seemed to sober in his presence, and he realized that she wasn't nearly as drunk as she had been acting. She was too smart for that. Five vodka cranberries spread out over four hours. She was far better than she wanted to be, but as dull as her senses were, they didn't let her let loose the way she wanted to. He could see her disappointment written on her face. She didn't really want to be there. Leaving Ollie and Dinah's place was a mistake. She just felt like she had to get out. They would let her crash on their couch for as long as she needed to get on her feet, but she didn't really want to go back to living with her guardian and his girlfriend.
"Let's go," Jim said, stepping away from the bar. His posture indicated that they would leave the bar. It was the most time she had spent with the other Roy Harper clone, and she could already tell that he was different than the one she still loved. Still, she wasn't sure if it was the best idea to leave a club with a man with the exact same genetic make up as her ex. The fresh wound ached again, and she thought that maybe she should have another drink. "I'll walk you back to the zeta tube. It's not far from here."
And where would she go from there? She still couldn't bring herself to go back to the apartment. The last time she was there had been the first time she saw her boyfriend in months. He had spent the last two years completely off the grid, but she knew how these things went. She even offered to help him on his search, but he insisted that he couldn't uproot her life for it. Little did she know that he had been spending the past two years conducting his search with his new lover.
"No, I'm good," she declined. "I'll just get another drink and have Rocky pick me up."
"Or we could go back to my place and split a pizza," Jim suggested meaningfully. He couldn't keep watching her have a miserable time. It didn't feel right to see her with all the other wandering souls that came to that place. She didn't have to stay, and if she needed a friend, he'd be one.
She considered his offer. It was late, and the only pizza places open were the ones who usually catered to the drunken night crowds. It probably wouldn't be great pizza, but she was four drinks into the night and had an appetite. "Alright," the woman slid off the barstool, "but you're paying."
Jim's apartment wasn't particularly impressive. It had a functioning kitchen, a moderately sized living room, a bathroom, and one bedroom. He furnished it with a few donations from Leaguers, some second hand stores, and a few bargain shops. It was something of transitional housing. When the genomorphs rebuilt their city above ground, they were given the opportunity to start over. They were generously offered homes and a little bit of money to start out in the world, and most of them accepted the gift. Jim opted for something that felt a little bit more natural. If he was going to start over, then he was going to start from scratch.
The first thing that Lee did was take off the strappy heels that had been pinching her ankles for the last hour. Barefoot and hardly dressed for the occasion, she reached up and let her hair down. Running a hand through the waves, she loosened the stiff tresses. "Are you sure it's okay to leave work early?" she asked.
He hadn't finished his shift, but the other guys knew that he wasn't a slacker. They took what they saw at face value and told Jim that he could help his friend out if he wanted. He'd just make up for it with an extra shift later. "It's fine," he assured her, unlacing his boots and setting them aside by the door. "I'm gonna order. You can take the shower first if you want. That place gets pretty gross if you stay long."
Relief sank into her features. It was her least favorite thing about going out. Clubbing grime was different than mission grime. Sweat from a mission was the result of exertion that could only be accomplished at peak human condition. Mud caked on skin and blood seeping from wounds didn't matter when lives were on the line. The filth from clubbing felt different. In ways, it was euphoric to escape the life they chose. Somehow, heroism could be strictly regimented and shockingly unpredictable at the same time. When she was a teenager, partying had been a way to experience some semblance of a normal life. If she lost herself to a good enough beat and a strong enough combination of drinks, she could pretend that her biggest concerns were college and practicing safe sex. As an adult, she had a love-hate relationship with clubbing and bar hopping. The escapism hadn't changed, but her ability to ignore the emptiness in her soul had diminished. The lights weren't captivating, the people weren't alluring, and she knew that the answer to emptiness wouldn't be found in a room full of strangers.
"Thanks. Mind if I grab a towel?" She had fully planned on doing the walk of shame in the morning, and her tiny purse only carried the absolute necessities for a night out alone. The idea of taking a shower to wash the filth and shame of reckless encounters hadn't even crossed her mind when she left Ollie's.
"Go ahead," Jim called from the bedroom at the end of the hall. "There's a closet full of them behind the door." He was looking through his dresser for something that she could wear. Modesty had never been an issue for her, but most people would choose comfort if it was offered. Even super heroes. As a clone, Jim didn't have much of a childhood or a history that allowed him to have smaller clothes. All he could find in his closet were a pair of worn out sweatpants and a Gotham U crewneck that would absolutely dwarf her.
When he emerged from the bedroom, there was already steam spilling out from under the bathroom door, and he could hear the water running from the shower. He knocked on the door twice and set the sweats on the floor in front of it, "There's clothes for you by the door." Even if she didn't hear him, she would see them when she opened the door.
Jim went back to the kitchen and checked his takeout and delivery drawer for a decent late night pizza place. He didn't know her well enough to know what she liked to eat, and he hadn't been programmed with his genetic template's memories, so he had no way of knowing without asking her. Cheese, he ultimately decided, would be the safest bet. He ordered a large and a liter of cola with it, and when he got off the phone, he heard the water stop on the other side of the wall.
Despite the fact that Jim's shower didn't have the best water pressure, Lee felt a little bit better as she ran the towel over her glistening skin. She didn't think much of the scars on her back and arms anymore, but when she looked in the mirror this time, she wondered if Jade's body was covered with as many marks as she left on her opponents'. Lee wasn't above fighting dirty, and she knew that she had gotten a few good shots in the last time they met. At least she could take some satisfaction in that.
The clothes he left at the door could have fit Conner better, and the sweatshirt alone covered more of her than that dress. She picked the garment off the floor and carried the folded sweatpants in her other hand. He heard the old, crooked door creak when she stepped out, "All done?"
When he turned around to face her, he thought that he could've been looking at a completely different woman. The arms of the gray sweatshirt pooled around her elbows, half-pushed and half-rolled up out of her way. The hem fell a little bit lower on her thighs, but not by much. Her wet hair curled more compared to the loose red-brown waves he usually saw her wear, and her brown eyes regarded him far more attentively.
"Thanks for the clothes. Pants were a bit too big," she set them side table along with her crumpled dress and made herself comfortable in the corner on a beat up cushion.
"Do you mind if I hop in the shower really quick? Hate the way I feel when I get back."
He didn't have to justify it. She understood and nodded. Jim turned down the narrow hall, and Lee looked around his apartment a little bit more. She was curious about this other clone. Not that she ever thought about them as clones. Jim and Roy were always distinct people to her, and they were distinct from the boy who they were based on. If only Roy could ever see that.
Jim took longer showers than Roy, she noticed. The pizza guy arrived, and Lee opened the door for him, trading a five-dollar tip for the box and pop. When Jim got out of the shower, Lee was already curled up on the couch with a paper towel and slice of pizza.
"This is good," she said and washed down her bite with soda.
"Best place in town," he confirmed, swooping in for a slice.
"Genomorphs make pizza now?" Her brow arched questioningly.
Jim shrugged, "We learned to adapt. Besides, the other guys are fast learners." Telepathy definitely helped the process. It definitely would've helped him at this moment. He heard about what happened with her and Roy from Conner who had heard from M'gann. He didn't know exactly what happened, but the gist of it seemed to be that Jim's brother couldn't get over being a clone. It wasn't exactly a gentle realization, and Jim wrestled with the crisis of his own artificial creation himself. The hyperawareness of his own existence never really went away, and he doubted it ever would. He doubted himself, too, sometimes, maybe more than the average person would. He had to embrace it if he didn't want to crumble under the weight of his truth.
He wished Roy understood that.
"I'm sorry," Jim hadn't meant to say that. Lee didn't expect to hear it.
"I'm the one invading your house and you're sorry?" she sounded somewhere between incredulous and amused, but there was a sadness in her eyes that gave her away. She knew what he meant. It was all she had heard in the past two weeks. Rocky, Z, Dick, Art, Kaldur, Wally, M'gann, Ollie, Dinah… the only one who she hadn't heard it from was Conner.
He thrust his hand into his hair. "Shoot, sorry. You're probably sick of hearing that."
"Apologizing for an apology," she smiled again, tightly. "I've gotten those, too. I can't tell what the worst part of this is, you know. Is it that he couldn't deal with this identity crisis while he was with me? Or that he found someone else who's apparently worth the effort? Or is it that she's a wanted criminal or my best friend's sister? Jesus, maybe it's that everyone keeps asking me if I'm okay."
She was working herself up just talking about it, and she half expected him to get worked up just listening to her. If he was Roy, he would. He'd snap and talk down to her but it'd only be because he was just as bad with his own emotions. He'd say it was because he was programmed to be that way, and he'd be angrier because of it. Jim just looked sympathetic. There wasn't a shred of pity cast at her, just a terrible sense of understanding.
"It wasn't you," he said it steadily, slowly. It wasn't the first time she heard that one, either.
"Then why is he with someone else right now?" she demanded. Her heart ached as badly as any blow to the chest she ever received.
"Listen, Lee, he's confused. I'm not saying this to defend him. I don't agree with how he's handling it, but I understand it because I've been there. He's not doing any better without you there for him, and it doesn't matter who he's with. He has to come to terms with what we are, whether he's alone or not."
She nodded blandly, bridging her hands and resting her forehead on them like a table. Everything felt exhausting lately. Squeezing into her dress took more out of her than she wanted to admit. It was getting late, even for night owls like them. "He said loving me was part of the program," she finally said, and it took everything she had left not to break when she repeated it. "Got any genomorph wisdom for me on that one?"
He didn't. His situation hadn't been as complicated. He wasn't a teenager navigating love and coming of age and all the things that came with that. Well, they weren't teenagers anymore. He was just Jim, Guardian, some guy without much to his name. "I don't need to tell you he's a person."
She pursed her lips. Yeah, she knew that. She knew him, even though he insisted that she knew Roy Harper. Everything always went back to that. It was always in relation to the real Roy Harper, because he saw himself as an imposter, a copy. Yet, she was sitting next to another clone with the exact same genetic make up as Red Arrow's. "Does it have anything to do with biology? Genetics? Part of the program?"
He looked at her, confused. She could have meant a lot of things with that question.
"Are you attracted to me?" she asked quickly, unable to come up with a better way to phrase it.
Jim cleared his throat. It would have felt like a trap if anyone else asked under any other circumstances. She just needed to know if what she had with Roy was real. Was it real or was it the memories he was programmed with? Was the attraction he felt to her physical? Was she really just part of the track that was Roy Harper's life?
"You're a beautiful girl, but no, not in the way you mean." She nodded as if what he said made sense.
"If it was you, would you have left?"
"Maybe," he admitted honestly. It wouldn't do her any good to lie. "There's no saying how he's really doing, Lee."
That was the third time he said her name, and she didn't want to hear it in his voice. "Annabelle," she corrected, lifting her eyes to his. "Call me Annabelle."
He nodded once, "Annabelle. Honestly, I don't know him that well. I just know what he could be going through right now, and it's something he has to work through on his own. But I don't think what he's doing is fair to you. I'm sorry that you have to go through this. It's not your burden to bear."
"Thank you," she said and meant it. He proposed to her when they were eighteen, and he swore up and down that he was better because of her. He swore that he, Roy William Harper, Red Arrow, loved her Annabelle Lee Obispo, Gold Bug. There was nobody else he wanted by his side as he figured this out… apparently, that meant until something with fewer expectations came along. So, here she was at twenty-two, wiping pizza grease off her hands in his brother's living room.
"Anytime. I'm always here if you want to talk."
She appreciated that.
A/N... Reposted because I love Jim Harper. This story is a shortened/accelerated version of a full story that I'm working on. I'm trying to practice writing shorter chapters, action scenes, and a range of emotions and scenarios. This story will follow one plot, but each chapter might not be chronologically. Please review, and thanks for reading!
