Though Vert's father had been lost in the Multiverse for nearly ten years, there was plenty Vert remembered about the man, factoids and stories and characteristics and quirks that he ran through his mind late at night, a rehearsal of love for his dad, a reminder that he'd existed on this Earth and wasn't a figment of his imagination. Vert had told himself these stories for years, terrified of forgetting a single detail, as if knowing as much about Jack as he had the day he left could conjure him into coming back. Vert knew everything about his father—or as much as he'd known about his father when he was 12 and Jack disappeared—by heart.
So it was no surprise to Vert when, upon returning back to Earth for the first time in a decade, the first thing Jack wanted to do was go to one of the two bars in downtown Handler Corners for a drink.
Upon reflection, they opted for a bar that was on the outskirts of town; a favorite amongst truckers and transients, situated right off the freeway, across from a gas station and little else. Jack had barely been on Earth for 24 hours and Handler Corners was a small town; news of his reappearance would be akin to a celebrity sighting. Better to put that off for now, they decided, and focus on a night out together. Jack had never been one for pomp nor circumstance, and he certainly wouldn't let either disrupt his first night home with his son.
"Look at how great this is," Jack said. They were seated at the bar, side by side, father and son. The sun was setting out on the salt flats, and the gentle, potential-filled hum of a Friday night vibrated in the air. Seated around the bar were various men and women, some drinking together, some drinking alone. It didn't have the same cheer or neighborly jovialty as one of the bars downtown; there was more of a loneliness to it, the sense that these people were drinking not because they wanted to but because they had to. It wasn't the ideal spot for a father/son reunion, but he was with his dad, and nothing, not even a dreary ambiance, could keep the grin off Vert's face.
"I'm back here in my favorite town with my favorite son." Jack clapped a hand on his son's back, and Vert chuckled.
"It's pretty great, Dad."
Jack flagged the bartender down. "Two whiskeys, please. Top shelf. My son and I are celebrating."
The bartender nodded, and Jack smiled at Vert, shaking his head.
"I just can't believe it. Back on Earth, after all these years, and all because my son rescued me and ended the war," he said. Jack rubbed his son's shoulder. "Look at you, Vert. God, I'm so proud of you."
Vert couldn't stop smiling. "Thanks, Dad."
Jack leaned back in his chair. "Man, I missed places like this," he said, looking around at the worn wood and faded leather booths. He'd only visited this particular bar a handful of times—it was the kind of place you went to drink by yourself, rather than met friends at—but that didn't make the classic tableau any less comforting and familiar. His eyes followed the bartender, pouring a separate set of drinks, and then he turned back to Vert. "So what's new with you, son? Any girls?"
Vert was caught off guard, and he looked at his father closely, as if to make sure he'd heard him correctly. "What?"
"You know, anyone special in your life?" Jack said. He grinned and elbowed his son's side. "What about that waitress we saw at the diner earlier today?"
"You mean Grace?" Vert and Grace had been in school together all their lives in a class of just 15 kids. Jack had attended choir concerts, the obligatory elementary school pageants, assemblies… Sure, he'd sat in the back with all the other dads and passed around what Vert had only recently come to understand was a flask of whiskey, but still. While Vert and Grace hadn't been particularly close, she was one of just 14 other children in Vert's young life. Had Jack seriously forgotten about her?
"Yeah, sure, Grace," Jack said. "Or how about that Agura girl on your crew? She's cute."
"Dad! We're just friends," Vert said.
"Ooh, sorry." His father winked at him. "Hit a sore spot there?"
"No, I just…" Vert furrowed his brow and tried to find a way to express what he was feeling. "That's what you want to talk about?"
"Well, what else? Just trying to have a normal night out with my son," Jack said, playfully cuffing Vert's shoulder. Mercifully, the bartender appeared and set two whiskey glasses in front of them.
"Thank you sir," Jack said. "If you don't mind, we'll probably start a tab with you. My son and I have a lot of catching up to do."
The bartender nodded. Jack reached into his jacket pocket, then paused. He slowly withdrew his empty hand with a sheepish look at Vert.
"Uh, sorry son. Forgot I need to get my banking in order now that I'm back on—in town," he said. "Would you mind buying your old dad a drink?"
"Oh, yeah, sure," Vert said, fumbling with his wallet. He put a card on the table and the bartender took it, then moved down to help another customer. Jack slid the glasses toward them, then paused.
"Shit, you're old enough to drink, right?"
Vert furrowed his brow. "Do you not remember how old I am?"
"No, no, of course I do," Jack said, passing him one of the glasses. "April 5, right?"
"Right," Vert said slowly. His father tapped his glass in a cheers, and then tipped it back for a long sip. After setting the glass down, his father turned back toward him.
"Okay, so no girls, got it," Jack said. "Well, I'm sure that will resolve itself soon enough. What else? Seems like you've collected a great gang of friends here."
"Yeah," Vert said, staring at his glass. "Yeah, I've been pretty lucky."
"Yeah. Uh, what do you guys like to do for fun?"
Vert raised an eyebrow. "You mean, when we're not saving the Multiverse?"
Jack nodded.
"Well, um… I mean, there's not a ton of free time, but when we're not on missions we'll play video games, or, uh… checkers," Vert said. He wanted one of his teammates' cars to run him over, after how lame that sounded.
"Checkers," Jack repeated thoughtfully, as if the BF5 was decoding the Rosetta Stone. "That's great, Vert, that's great," he said.
Vert just nodded and took a drink of whiskey, feeling the burn in his throat across his whole body. This was the conversation he'd waited years to have with his dad?
Jack mirrored him and took another sip as well, setting the glass down with a satisfied Ah.
"Man, I tell you, when I was trapped in the Multiverse, all I wanted in the world was a drink of whiskey," he said, fingering the glass.
Vert's throat burned a little hotter. "Really, Dad?" he said. He had to consciously keep his fists from clenching. "All you wanted in the world?"
Jack twitched, and a wave of guilt crashed over his face.
"Aw, hell, Vert, that's not what I meant," he said. Vert could barely look at his father.
"You wanted to come back here, have a drink, and ask me about girls, or my friends, like ten years haven't gone by?" He threw his arm out, gesturing at the bar around them. "That's all you wanted in the world?"
"Look, I'm sorry, son, I feel like I barely know how to talk to you anymore," Jack said. "So much has changed, I mean hell, you're old enough to drink now!"
"Dad, how old am I?"
Jack chuckled quietly and turned his gaze down to his glass. "Vert, come on."
Vert felt sick, the whiskey turning his heart and stomach sour. "Dad, do you not…" He stared at his father with his heart balanced on the precipice of betrayal, but Jack wouldn't look at him.
His father pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Vert, it's been a long time, and your mother always handled that stuff."
"Stuff like my age?" Vert stared at his father, open-mouthed. "Do you seriously not know how old I am?"
Jack stared back at him with an apologetic sorrow in his eyes. Under the counter, Vert clenched his fists.
"I'm fucking 22! Do you not even remember that?"
A few heads turned their way, and Vert and Jack exchanged a pained glance, then hunched in towards each other. There was a hard line on Jack's face.
"Look, Vert, time is different in the Multiverse, and I was gone for a long time—"
"That doesn't mean you get to forget the year I was born, Dad. I'm your only kid!"
"You think I don't know that?" Jack snapped, and Vert recoiled. There was a stiff, tense silence between them, until Jack sighed.
"Twenty-two," he repeated, shaking his head. He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture that Vert painfully recognized in himself. "Jesus. You were practically a kid when I left."
Vert folded his arms. "Yeah, well, I had to grow up pretty fast."
"Vert, I'm sorry," Jack said. "I told you I tried to come back—"
"Did you even think about us?" Vert asked. He knew it was cruel; if he, hell, if anyone was in his father's position, they would have tried to come back too, but he was too hurt to give his father credit for that right now.
"Of course I thought about you," Jack said. Vert narrowed his eyes in a way that implicitly said I don't believe you, and Jack sighed.
"But I was trapped by an alien robot in a foreign multiverse, Vert! Cut your old man a little slack here," he said. "I told you I tried to escape but he always found me, always!" Jack's voice was a harsh whisper, quiet enough not to earn any more attention but acute enough for Vert to know that he believed every word.
Jack clenched his fists on the bar, staring straight ahead.
"Look, this isn't the talk I wanted to have tonight, Vert, but just because you have kids doesn't mean they become the center of your life. You're still your own person," he said. "Yes, I missed you and your mother, but I also went through hell. And I tried every day to get back to you. You can choose to believe me or you can choose not to, but that's the damn truth."
He sighed heavily, reached for his glass and drained it, and then set it back down.
"You'll understand when you're a parent someday," Jack said quietly, his eyes on the worn wood of the bar.
Vert scoffed. "You think I'd want to be a dad after what you modeled for me?"
Jack's jaw dropped open, and he looked up at Vert with naked hurt in his eyes. Vert clenched his fists even though tears were stinging, and said nothing. They stared at each other, pain looking at pain, the air hot between them, until his father shook his head, pushed his empty glass away and stood up. Vert heard the door to the bar slam closed a moment later, and he sighed, dropping his head into his hands.
Jack had picked him up, which had seemed like a good idea at the time—father and son, out for a drive in the desert, just like old times. Plus, with Jack's tolerance being virtually zero after a very long, very sober decade in the Multiverse, it would give him a reason to shift back into things slowly. Now, it just meant Vert was stranded in the middle of nowhere, without a ride and, once again, without a father.
"Need another drink, son?" the bartender asked as he walked by. Vert shook his head, the familial term a stinging reminder of the person he'd just chased away. He stared down at the bar with blood rushing hot in his veins and tried to take a few deep breaths. When his head was clear, Vert sighed, straightened up, and called Agura.
Stanford or Sherman would have been a more logical choice—Agura hated driving his dad's old project cars when she needed something with a passenger's seat, on account of them being "one pothole away from falling apart"—but he wasn't in the mood to deal with Stanford's pretentious interrogation about how the conversation had gone, and he knew that Sherman would kindly pressure him into talking about it. Agura would do that too, of course, but at least she'd wait until he'd had a proper drink and leave the guilt trip out of it.
He spoke the moment the line went live. "Hey, can you come pick me up?"
He heard one of Spinner's video games overlaid with music in the background. "Already? We didn't expect you to be back for hours—"
Vert had preemptively asked Agura to run the next morning's training session, under the assumption that he and his father would actually enjoy their night. Her question made that request—and subsequently, him—feel stupid and naive.
"Yup, already. Can you come or not?"
"Of course, Vert." Her voice softened. "I'm on my way."
He hung up, downed the rest of his whiskey, paid the tab and waited outside. Agura pulled up fifteen minutes later.
She rolled down the passenger's side window. "Wanna talk about it?"
"No, I do not," Vert said as he entered the car.
"Mm. You wanna drive?"
"I shouldn't." It wasn't the liquor; Vert wanted to slam the gas pedal to the floor and do doughnuts in the desert, but he knew he'd lose his pickup privileges forever if he did that with Agura in the car. Instead he crossed his arms and pressed his feet as hard as he could against the passenger's seat floor.
"Okay," she said. "Windows down?"
"Can you stop asking me questions?"
Agura arched an eyebrow at him, the one that said you have one chance to take that back before I kick you out of this car, and Vert sighed, shifting back and forth in his seat.
"Fine. Down. Sorry."
Agura turned the radio up—loud, angry rock and roll was playing, which was a good fit for both of them in that moment—rolled the windows down, and drove them home. He had to admit the rush of cool air felt good; it helped him think and drowned out the noise in his head. He felt the tiniest bit better by the time they got back to the Hub—of course he did, that's why she'd put the windows down in the first place, because she knew that he would—and feeling more than a twinge of guilt, he turned toward her as she parked the car in the garage.
"Thank you," he said. "For the ride."
"You're welcome," she said, without looking at him. Agura turned the car off but didn't move to get out of it. "Do you wanna talk about it now?"
"Agura, it's been 15 minutes—"
"Well, you're obviously upset, Vert, it was worth asking," she said, sounding a little upset herself. Vert let out something between a sigh and a groan and dragged his hands over his face, but didn't get out of the car. Just when Agura was starting to think she couldn't take the silence anymore, he spoke.
"He forgot my birthday, Agura," Vert said. "God, I know that makes me sound like a child, but he forgot my fucking birthday!"
Her face softened. "Oh, shit, Vert. I'm sorry."
"He was a shit father and now he won't even apologize for it! He barely knows how to talk about what happened," Vert said, gesturing wildly with his hands. "He was asking me about fucking girls."
"Fucking girls?" Agura tried and failed to hide a smirk. "Sounds like a fun father-son chat."
"You know what I mean." Vert scowled. "And you're not helping, just in case you thought you were."
"Okay, sorry, that was not the right thing to pull out of the conversation." She held her hands up. "My bad."
"I mean, it's the first time we've had a real conversation in years, literally years, and he doesn't know how old I am or how to talk to me," Vert said. "It was like talking to a stranger."
"I mean, it has been a long time since he's been around humans, Vert," Agura said. "And time passes differently in the Multiverse than it does on Earth, right? He wouldn't have had a way of keeping track."
Vert folded his arms. "You know, I called you instead of Sherman because I didn't want a guilt trip," he said.
"I'm not trying to guilt trip you, Vert, come on," she said. "I'm just asking you to look at things from a different perspective. You told yourself the story that he abandoned you for years. It can't be easy to correct that, but he really did try to come home. Give him a chance."
Vert sighed and drummed his fingers on the armrest without looking at her.
"I hate it when you're right," he finally said.
"You must feel hateful a lot, then," Agura said. When she saw the look on his face, she added, "Sorry. Still not joking yet. I realize that now."
Vert didn't respond, just stared straight ahead with his arms crossed, deep in thought.
After a moment of silence, Agura pursed her lips. "Can I give you some unsolicited advice, Vert?"
"Well, when you put it like that," he said without looking at her.
Agura sighed. "Look, I've told you a little about my parents, and if there's one thing I've learned from dealing with them, it's that there's no such thing as a normal or perfect family. That's a myth. There's only the people you're related to, the ways that you're all broken, and the love you try to find in between the cracks," she said. She gave him one last, imploring look, but Vert still wouldn't meet her eyes. "That's all I'll say."
Staring out the windshield, arms crossed tight against his chest, Vert nodded.
"Okay." Agura pulled the keys out of ignition and handed them to him. "Here." Vert finally looked up at her.
"Go do your thing," Agura said. "I think you left a footprint on the passenger's side floorboards." She winked at him, and he almost managed to smile.
"Thanks, Agura," Vert said. They both stepped out of the car and switched sides.
"Don't hit any animals," she said.
"I'll try," Vert said, starting the car.
"Not even snakes, Vert!"
"No promises!"
He roared out of the garage, and Agura shook her head, watching him go.
Vert drove and drove and drove, flooring it, turning hard, stomping all his emotions into the gas pedal and putting as much torque and momentum as he could into the car without breaking it. It was probably for the best that he wasn't in the Saber at that moment; anything with more power and he probably would have crashed.
He pulled back into the garage some time later, and promptly lost whatever good mood he'd been able to claw back out in the desert when he saw Jack Wheeler's Plymouth Roadrunner parked there. He slowed to a stop, got out of the car and crossed his arms.
"Dad," Vert said.
Jack looked shamefaced. "Son. About earlier…"
Vert raised his eyebrows. Jack's gaze shifted to the car he'd just stepped out of.
"Oh man, is that my old Charger? It looks even better than I remember," he said, moving in to inspect the car. "You do all this by yourself?"
"Jesus Christ, Dad." Vert said. "That's all you have to say to me?"
"Look, Vert, I'm sorry!" Jack turned back toward him and splayed his palms. "When I left, you were playing with Hot Wheels cars! I come back and you've got yourself a team, a secret underground base… a whole life without me. I don't know how to catch up about all that."
"You start by asking me about it," Vert said. "Not by telling me how much you missed whiskey and teasing me about girls."
"Look, Vert, I realize that wasn't the right direction to take, but I missed out on all those conversations with you. I missed a crucial part of your life! The years when you need your father, when I can teach you things, help you out… I missed all those," Jack said. "I don't know how to act around you! Am I your father, your friend… I don't know what I'm supposed to be to you."
Jack hung his head. "You don't… you don't need me anymore," he said. "I mean, look at you, Vert. Look at everything you've done."
"Yeah, well, I needed you for years, and you. Weren't. Here," Vert said, punctuating each of the last three words. "You don't get to show up and bug me about my personal life like everything is fine."
"I know," Jack said. "I just wanted a normal night out with my son."
"A normal father and son night?" Vert raised his eyebrows. "We're not a normal family, Dad! You were lost in the Multiverse for 10 years! I fight aliens every day! What did you expect? 'Oh, hey Dad, how was the last decade roaming around the Multiverse?' 'Oh, pretty good son, nice to be back, let's order some nachos!'" Vert mocked him.
"I know, I know," Jack said, running a hand through his hair. "It was stupid of me—"
"It was, it was the worst! I missed you Dad, I needed you. And the first thing you ask me when you come back is if I have a fucking girlfriend!"
"Vert, I said I was sorry—"
"Sorry's not good enough!" Vert shouted. His fists were clenched. "Sorry doesn't make up for all the nights I waited up for you to come home. Sorry doesn't stop Sheriff Johnson from shipping me up to the Yukon to live with AJ's family for two years. Sorry doesn't bring Mom back."
Vert dropped his head; tears were stinging his eyes.
"Sorry doesn't make up for ten years of thinking my own dad left me," he said.
Jack sighed. He reached out and put his hand on Vert's shoulder, sorrow etched in every line of his face.
"Vert. I never wanted to leave you or your mother," he said softly. "You have to know that."
Vert knocked his hand away. "Yeah, but you did," he said, every word like a knife. 'Whatever you wanted stopped mattering the moment you drove through that second StormShock."
There was a long, painful silence after that, during which Vert and Jack could barely look at each other. Each wished for a lightning strike, a Stormshock, the skitter of a desert snake or miraculous fall of a wrench, anything to break the gut-wrenching silence between them; but the desert didn't oblige. Only years of hurt rang out around them, their relationship hanging in the balance between. After a long, long pause, Jack cleared his throat.
"Look, I'm, uh… I'm sorry I drove off earlier," he said, and the weight of that sentence stretched over ten years. "You get home okay?"
"Agura picked me up."
"Hm."
"Jesus Christ, Dad."
"I didn't say anything!"
"You said it with your face." Vert scowled, and Jack started laughing. Vert waited for his dad to stop, but Jack didn't, just kept laughing harder and harder until he was almost doubled over.
"What?" Vert asked icily.
"Son," Jack chuckled and put his hand on Vert's shoulder, looking at his son with laughter in his eyes. "This is the most normal conversation we've had all night."
Vert snorted, ready to knock his father's hand away, but then couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he said.
Jack chuckled, then sat down on one of the workbenches and sighed.
"Look, I'm sorry, Vert. That's what I wanted this night to be about, a normal night out with my son. I owe you an apology for the last few years, and I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I thought I could skip over all that sappy stuff and jump straight to talking about booze and girls, but I was wrong," Jack said. "I know I wasn't here for you in the past, but I want to be here for you now, so whatever that takes, however you need to get there, I'll do it."
He stood up and held his arms out. "I fucked up, son. I'm sorry."
Vert stared at his father, remembering all the times he'd hated him for leaving, all the times he'd cried himself to sleep, all the times he'd watched his mother watching the door. But alongside that, he remembered the stories about his dad he'd stayed up late telling himself, the way he'd idolized the man, the 12 years that Jack had been in the audience for every single one of his obligatory, mind-numbing school events, flask of whiskey be damned. And finally, against all of this, he remembered what Agura had told him about finding the love between all the cracks. He looked at his father, remembering and thinking and feeling all of this, and finally came to one realization above them all: that he wouldn't have traded standing here together for anything.
Vert wiped his eyes, stepped forward, and hugged his father.
"I missed you, Dad," he said.
Jack held his son and squeezed him tighter. "I missed you too, son. And I love you."
"Love you too."
When they finally separated, Jack pulled Vert close one more time and ruffled his hair.
"So," he said, with a gleam in his eye. "Tell me about you and Agura!"
"Dad. Seriously. Stop."
"Oh my God, you're turning red."
"Am not!"
The Battle Force 5 gathered in the rec room, where Spinner had hacked into the Hub's security cameras and was broadcasting a live feed of Vert and Jack's conversation on the TV.
"Spinner, you're awful," Agura said, peering over his shoulder. "Turn the volume up."
"Yeah, I can't hear Vert crying!" Stanford called from the couch.
"Oh my God, this is so cute," AJ said. 'I haven't seen Vert's face this red since he got frostbite this one time we—"
"Nobody cares, AJ!" Someone shushed him.
"I think I'm going to like having Jack around," Spinner snickered, zooming in on the tape.
Agura just smiled at the footage of father and son, making up for lost time. "I think Vert is too."
