Everything was blurry and muted: the people moving around him were hazy, colourful blobs dashing here and there; the sounds were dulled and distant, as if he was hearing everything through water. The only thing he completely felt the impact of was his injury. His shoulder blade felt like it had been seared in a fire, torn open and salt shoved into it.
Of course, it wasn't HIM that was injured, but rather the Scarab. It had been ITS antenna that had been savagely cut and torn off. The armor was in agony, and that meant Jaime was suffering the brunt of it
He hadn't even realized he'd been howling until he was short of breath and even more lightheaded. His throat burned; his body was so hot that the air - cold by comparison - was cutting his throat. He couldn't even swallow because of the pain.
"God fucking damn it!" Someone roared. Or they could have shouted something else, Jaime was not listening.
Suddenly, hands were on him, presumably, the hands of whoever had just bellowed keeping him steady and stopping him from rolling around. He recoiled at their touch. His shoulder, his shoulder! Why, in the name of Heaven and Hell, were they touching his fucking shoulder?!
"G̛̱͇̹̮̮͔̻̪ͬA̸̡̼̘͍͔͖͙͋̑̏ͥ̇̆̀̚A̸̡̼̘͍͔͖͋̑̏ͥ̇̆̀̚A̸̡̼̘͍͔͖͙͋̑̏ͥ̇̆̀̚A̸̡̼̘͍͔͖͙͋̑̏ͥ̇̆̀̚Ų͎͖̠͓ͯ̈́͊͟Ŗ̭͉ͪ̍̉̃̂̔̓̚G̛̱͇̹̮̮͔̻̪ͬH̸͉̘̼̣̱̻̣̍̀̃ͩ̓ͧ̅ͤ͠ !" The sound that came out of him was inhuman; he must have torn his throat screaming, because he couldn't recognize his own voice. All he felt was the pain.
"Keep him steady!" Tigress called over her shoulder at Connor.
Even with his super strength, Connor seemed to have difficulty holding him down. The armor was spazzing out, and its strength was quite formidable, and the agonizing pain seemed to make it even stronger.
But even heroes had their limits, and while the armor had done nothing but enhance Jaime, he was just a teenager. Soon, even with the armor going haywire and keeping him awake, he succumbed to the welcoming void of oblivion; where, surely, the pain would not reach him.
The smell of antiseptic was what woke him. The beeping of the heart monitor to his right must've become background noise during his sleep, for he only took note of it after his mind was awake. The mattress underneath him was too firm, and the sheets too scratchy to be his; and instead of the Texas heat that greeted him in the morning, it was the cool air of a hospital room. His arm felt like a frozen block of ice where the IV was plugged.
He forced open his eyes, and took in the room rapidly, his heart already beating frantically in his chest. His hand automatically moved to his ear where a comm unit usually was, until he realized that he was in the Watchtower infirmary. Lowering his hand, he noticed his back was to a wall, and to his left, on the far side of the room, was a floor-to-ceiling window. It was blacked out for privacy, he imagined. He could see the door, a blaring red light over it indicating it was locked to unauthorized people. And not too far on his right was Connor sleeping in a chair.
"You're awake," Connor said, just before he opened his eyes and looked up. Standing up and stretching, he said, "You've been out for a whole day-"
A whole day?! What had happened? Where were the others? How many were injured, or worse? A whole day meant he'd been seriously knocked out (because he hadn't picked up the bombs), which also meant Jaime had to go back to his house within a few hours, at most, for school the next day-
"We were worried about you," finished Connor.
"I'm... I'm fine," he rasped. Even he could tell his heart skipped a beat when he said those words. Although he hadn't been staring at him, Jaime saw the micro expressions on Connor's face; he wanted to say something, but he hesitated. His hand was toying with the bandage around his IV.
In the end, Connor asked him, "What happened with the armor?"
Jaime's mind reeled as he was taken back through his memory - finely kept logs of every minute of every hour of every day, almost fine-combed in his need to double check everything - and he relived those moments. It had been exactly one minute and twenty-seven seconds of manic, desperate confusion, and pain; yet it had felt like hours when he'd been screaming his lungs out. He was surprised he could talk right now.
Connor was looking at him with a mixture of expectancy and confusion.
Oh. Right, he'd been talking to Jaime (to him). "It's plugged into my spine," he said, like that explained everything, while he flezed his hand, hoping to get some feeling back, some warmth into the arm with the IV. After a moment of silence, he felt the need to add, "It's like an extension of me; something breaks..." he let the sentence hang.
Connor grunted, though his face looked sympathetic. The broken antennae had felt like nothing short of having an appendage torn off; wrenching tendons and veins along with it.
This time, it was Jaime who asked a question. "What happened after-"
"-After you passed out? Artemis-" Connor cut him off, but Jaime spoke over him.
"No. After I fucking missed the explosives! Connor, what happened because I wasn't paying attention?" he snapped, his voice gaining a hard edge. He had to know; yet he dreaded every micro-second that would lead up to Connor's answer. What if they were the only uninjured ones? What if Deathstroke had somehow maimed or hurt everyone else on the team because Jaime had been incompetent?
Connor looked at him. He was worried, and Jaime could tell he was figuring out the best way to say it wasn't your fault (except that it was). "It was a home-brew, Jaime. Even detectors made especially for that wouldn't have picked them up..."
Jaime harrumphed, unconvinced. "What happened," he asked in a deadpan voice, fiddling with his IV tube.
Connor sighed, and sat on the edge of Jaime's bed - exactly five inches and six-eighths from his leg - and seemed to be mulling over things. "Artemis and Nightwing rallied the other squads to our position and helped take out Deathstroke's goons."
"And he escaped," Jaime surmised.
"With the prototype," Connor added. "But we're questioning the other ones." A lengthy pause, then, "Listen, Jaime... it wasn't your fault, man. I didn't smell them, didn't see them, didn't hear the detonator go off, or even Deathstroke approaching. If anything, it was my fault too, you know?"
Jaime did know. And even if he felt inclined to share that belief, he couldn't blame Connor. It was Jaime's own complacency and failure to react appropriately that had caused them this loss. He'd already sworn to himself that he wouldn't be a liability like this. Connor might have super-senses, but what he didn't have was a supercomputer able to run every background check known to man and alien while you walked the length of a room.
Whatever Connor said, the simple fact that it boiled down to was this: Jaime had failed.
"What's the chemical composition of the explosive?" he asked, looking around for water. His hand had clasped around the tube plugged into his arm. It was an IV made to keep him hydrated. He imagined they wouldn't know how long his coma could have lasted. "Get a nurse to take this out."
"Uh," was the first thing that Connor said. "Sure." He clicked on a button on a remote attached to the bed. "As for the explosives, I don't know what they were. You'd have to wait for the lab results. Why?"
"If I know what it is, I'll be able to catch it next time and avoid this fucking mess," he muttered, looking at the still-darkened window.
Connor sighed, but before he could say anything, a male nurse walked in with a doctor. He had brought along a pitcher of ice water and a plastic cup.
the doctor tried to exchange pleasantries with Jaime, but he didn't feel like much of a talker after his conversation with Connor. Jaime replied exactly five times with monosyllabic replies, while he watched the nurse begin the process of removing the IV
Jaime could tell he was being a poor patient; his entire arm was stiff as a board. His muscles were flexed to the point his veins were popping out, but he couldn't help it, not knowing the nurse and all. Finally, the thin plastic tube was taken out of his arm, and the doctor spoke while Jaime applied pressure to the hole.
"You've given your friends quite a scare," she said, with a crooked smile.
"Happens in our line of work, ma'am," Jaime replied, looking longingly at the water. A few more minutes of pressing on his wound.
Well, he could quicken the process a bit; his head buzzed lightly as he felt the small relief of pain around the crook of his elbow as the armor got to work fixing his vein and skin. For such a minor wound, it would almost already be fully healed.
He poured himself a glass of water, and after briefly confirming it was safe to drink, took a long swig of it.
"Yes, well, try to refrain from breaking parts that aren't your body," she joked, looking at his medical file. "We didn't even know what to do except prescribe painkillers; to be completely honest. It seemed your... power had induced a coma, but your heartrate was still elevated due to the pain." She went on to explain that even comatose, moving him was very difficult as he kept thrashing around unless very specific people were handling him.
Probably bioscans to confirm who was touching me while unconscious, he thought. It was a useful defense mechanism, as it would actually deter any dedicated kidnapper and buy some time.
"Anyway, we'd like to run a few tests to make sure everything is in working order, and then we'll-"
"Everything is in working order," he told her, downing his second cup of water.
As he moved to stand, Connor held him in place with a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, man, just let the doctor run her tests, you've done this before."
"Yeah," he said. "And the Scarab, you know the alien A.I. grafted into my spine that is all-powerful and more knowledgeable than all of us combined, is telling me everything is in working order." He was getting irritated. He wanted to get out; there were too many people talking to him, making noises and there might be more behind that darkened glass (there wasn't, he quickly learned, but still).
He shrugged off Connor's hand, and got off the bed.
"Uh, still," the doctor said, flustered at being shrugged off. "We'd like to double-check, who knows, we might find something."
"Listen, if you could find anything that would have passed undetected until now, I wouldn't be trying to leave." He looked around until he found a spare set of clothes in a bag by the chair Connor had been sleeping in.
Luckily, he was still wearing his underwear. Jaime changed right then and there.
"I have to get back home, I have school tomorrow," he told them, and briskly walked out of the room.
The hallway was empty, as his previous scan had told him, and he could see multiple rooms like his - the empty ones had lighted windows, and the occupied ones were darkened, except for a few. His steps echoed on the cold metal floor, and the only other accompanying sounds were the air filtration systems as he walked.
He picked up sonic vibrations against the glass of his room as he left. Connor was worried about him.
Artemis was waiting for him behind the door of the Medbay. She was still wearing her uniform, except for the mask. She was pissed; a deep-set frown on her face, and Jaime knew her core temperature was elevated by the sheer anger. Her arms were crossed and she leaned against the wall; able to see both doors easily; and ready to push off in case she had to move.
"I fucking told you," she bit out, "to watch your fucking back."
He was surprised. Whenever they had talked before - after he let Wally cease to exist - the exchange was always difficult; her being curt, and blunt, while he was awkward and stammering. She hadn't really talked to him long enough to get mad. But what surprised him more than her emoting with him, was that she hadn't gotten angry at him sooner.
"I, uh," he began, his palms beginning to sweat. For some reason, he could never stand up to her; damn it! Even Connor was stepping on eggshells around him, why couldn't she? "Didn't detect the explosives. I was heading to the lab to find out what they're made of so it won't happen again."
"I told you... You're sluggish, Reyes. Walk into an engineering firm, knowing there's gonna be explosives and you don't scan for chemicals around you?"
"I... no," he said. He knew he fucked up, and it wouldn't happen again; at least someone else could see that. It's not like she was cajoling him, like Connor had tried to do. "Just a general scan. Won't happen again."
Speaking of which, he scanned to see if Connor was coming. Not yet, it seemed.
"What the fuck?" she demanded, pushing off the wall. "Whenever you fuck up, it's your teammates' lives you put at risk." She got in his face. "You can't afford to forget that. Least of all of us."
He looked down, ashamed. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't relive that fateful event. He'd been too slow, too unprepared, and Wally - Artemis' boyfriend, and a retired hero - had literally ceased to be. He'd singlehandedly destroyed her civilian life. "I-I won't... Never again," he replied, his voice still husky from his screaming a day ago.
"I'll hold you to that, Reyes," she said in a low voice, before stepping back and marching away to who knew where. Jaime didn't try to figure it out.
He headed for the labs. As he walked, he took out his cellphone from his pocket and texted his parents. As expected, he had multiple messages - and even a few missed calls - from his family. He mass-texted them.
|Jaime: I'm fine, just had a late night. I'm losing my voice so please don't call, I'll be home in 25mins.
Nightwing was in the lab, and as the door slid open, Jaime said, "Hey, yes I'm fine, no I don't wanna talk about it, and I need to know what was the composition of the explosives for future reference."
"Uh, okay..." Nightwing replied, pulling up a hologram of the formula so Jaime could scan it. "Listen-" he started, but Jaime cut him off as politely as he could in his irritated state.
"I appreciate it, boss, but if one more person tells me it wasn't my fault, I think I will literally explode."
"Noted, but that's not what I was gonna say," Nightwing replied with a slightly amused smirk that was wiped off as he continued speaking. "Why don't you take it easy for a few days, have The Posse handle El Paso while you rest up a bit?"
"I'll think about it," Jaime replied, not at all thinking about it; too focused on the formula in front of him. "I should have been able to detect this already... what the f-"
"Language," Nightwing chided gently, smirking again.
"-formula could go undetected by my scans?" he finished lamely. So what if he swore? And damn wasn't a swear, but fuck was? "Anyway. It won't happen again, I'll be ready next time," he said, with such certainty that Nightwing couldn't help but believe him.
"Glad to hear it, but really, I'm wondering why Deathstroke took your broken antenna," he mumbled distractedly.
"What?!" Jaime said. He hadn't known that, no one had told him! Fucking Connor, this was useful information! "What do you mean? Deathstroke didn't just come for the tank? He wasn't just trying to immobilize me to reach the tank?"
"Arguably Superboy and Impulse could pose a similar, if not bigger threat," he replied, shaking his head. "Besides, when Artemis and I fought him, he didn't seem too bothered by the tank until he collected your broken off antenna. Why he wanted it though, we're not sure yet."
Jaime had a bad feeling; his mind immediately conjuring up images of being stuck in his body once more, unable to control his actions. His thoughts, again, nothing more than quiet complaints stuck inside a killing machine.
He must've zoned out, because when he came to, someone was touching Jaime's shoulder - that is, someone was touching his shoulder. Nightwing was; his hand was on his shoulder.
"... I don't think any tech we have could control you and the scarab unless they use telepathy," he was just finishing a sentence Jaime hadn't heard. "And, well, we all know how to break out, or break a friend out of it. I wouldn't worry," he said.
Except Jaime could tell Nightwing was bothered. Jaime's head buzzed almost painfully as he tried not to hold his breath. Breathe in, breathe out. That's in; two in, three out, he told himself.
"I suppose so," was his reply. "I have to get home, Ma and Pa are waiting. See you soon," he told Nightwing as he left the lab.
Both of his parents and his sister were home by the time he arrived; it was late afternoon, almost evening, and his shadow was long as he walked from a nearby park to his house. They were all sitting in the living room, with Milgaro lying down on the floor doing homework.
"Ah, mijo," she said, standing up to give him a hug.
He awkwardly hugged her back as he made sure everything was alright; the stove was left on, but the temperature was relatively low, and the rest of the house was empty. "Hey Ma," he said in his raspy voice.
"Ooh! Jaime sounds like that guy in that Batman movie!" Milagro said. "His voice is all weird."
"Losing my voice," he said, heading to the kitchen for some water.
"You were asleep this late?" his mother called out to him from the living room. "What happened?"
"Nothing much-" he drank at least two glasses before taking one with him to the living room; keeping his eyes on the windows- "Did some homework, played video games..."
"I told your mother not to worry," his father said, flicking the channel.
"Me? Uh hun! You were pacing the length of the living room until he texted us, I thought you'd wear down the floorboards!"
His father chuckled good-heartedly while he suddenly became engrossed in what was playing on the television - an infomercial about a ridiculously durable non-stick pan.
They soon moved to the dining room in the kitchen. Jaime grabbed his now usual seat by the wall, the window and the living room both visible from this spot. Supper was laid out before them, his mother's chili, and on reflex he found himself scanning it for alien substances. He caught himself, and mentally scolded his lack of trust in his own mother before eating a spoonful slowly.
He hadn't been hungry lately, but after his impromptu coma, and his stress levels being what they were, he knew he had to have something in his stomach.
Dinner was a mostly silent affair, aside from a few questions like if he had fun or the like, which was fine by him. He found that the television in the living room provided enough unwelcome noise.
He went to his room soon after - having done the dishes himself, for fear they'd cut themselves on the knives in the water - and stayed there until the next day. The first thing he'd done after checking that the window was still locked, was to root through everything, as he usually did whenever he came back home.
He looked through his desk, double-checking his homework along the way - part of him wondering if, sometimes, he was really the one writing or if the scarab took over for some technical writing and he never noticed - and when he put every paper back in its place, he moved onto his dresser. His clothes were exactly as he'd left them, folded in the special fashion of his - anybody rooting through his stuff would disturb the folds and he would know - and they were still in the same order he'd left them. He then changed the order in which his shirts and pants were piled into his dresser drawers.
Checking under his mattress - it was already on the floor as Jaime had gotten rid of the bedframe because it made him feel unsafe - to make sure it wasn't bugged or anything, he felt a little relief wash over him.
His room was clean now.
The meals for this school week were already packed, his clothes laid out and picked out, and his homework was done. He couldn't go on patrol right now - his parents were awake, and felt strangely tired.
Jaime eyed the bottle of sleeping pills on his desk warily. He wasn't sure why he kept them if he never used them - but he knew you could tell a lot from one person's trash, and he wasn't sure if he wanted anyone else to know about this.
Maybe he should put off patrolling El Paso for a few days; analyze the formula Nightwing had given him, and find any variations of it - and come to think of it, what the hell he'd been sprayed with that had left him on his knees.
Taking out his phone, he sent a quick text.
|Jaime: Any idea what DT sprayed me with?
|N: Knowing him... prolly sum kind of pepper spray he modded. Y, u feel ok?
|Jaime: Okay thanks.
Well, if the armor could fly into space, he supposed he could come up with a protection for something so stupid. But in the back of his mind, he worried; what if it had been a specially-made weapon? What if Deathstroke knew of a weakness in the armor, that even Jaime didn't? However unlikely that was, he kept the possibility in mind.
But right now, he had a formula to analyze. It was wonderful, sometimes, what he could do with the armor; he was his own lab - well, at least a simulation of it - and he ran simulations of different combinations of different products until he'd gone through any sensible reactant. He didn't bother with chemical ingredients that wouldn't affect the ones already in the formula - he was paranoid, not hyperfixated.
All the while he wore his helmet to see the varying results and commit them to the armor's memory. It also made scanning for any passersby to his room much easier since he could practically see through the wall, and be ready to power down the armor if need be. Still, no one came, not until it was Milagro's bedtime and she came to give Jaime a goodnight hug.
He stayed sitting on his bed, his back to the wall so he could see his locked window and closed door. He was done everything, and was now only stewing over what had happened this past weekend. How everything had gone to shit because of him.
If he'd fucking caught the explosives, or had picked up Deathstroke's heat signature or something, then they might have stopped him from taking the suit. And his antennae. Why did Deathstroke want it? As far as Jaime was aware, the man was proud but not the kind to take trophies - and even if he'd been, Jaime doubted it had been a trophy-worthy fight.
His head ached as thoughts buzzed around in it.
The door to his room creaked open and, startled, he stood to meet whoever was there. Artemis stepped inside. They had a guest, but his parents hadn't warned him about her being at the door. And at this time of night?
She must've broken in - picked the lock, probably. But then why not enter through his window?
"Uh, hey," he whispered, or tried to, as his mouth started burning. He coughed.
"You know," she said coldly, taking a step forward and the door shut with a bang behind her. He winced. That would definitely wake his family, but before he could tell her to be careful, she continued. "Connor was right."
Right about what? he wondered, but his face only started hurting more. It felt like he'd been sprayed again, but Artemis hadn't lifted a finger.
"It wasn't your fault," she said, and he suddenly became aware of the fact she was wearing Deathstroke's armor. She grabbed his antenna - so it had grown back already? Wait, when had he suited up? - and she snapped it off like a twig.
He screamed, but it felt like someone had shoved hot sand in his mouth; his throat burning, only a weak rasp coming out.
"You're just sluggish," she continued, breaking off his other antennae. "Can't even watch your own back." She snapped off another piece of his armor; his body exploding in pain, like lava spewing out of a mountainside as she continued to tear off pieces of his armor. He was paralyzed by pain and fear.
"Unprepared." Snap! "Afraid." Snap! "It wasn't your fault, really." Snap! Snap! "Even Wally's death..." She cracked open his helmet and he felt like his skin was being torn apart, shattering bone and yanking them through his flesh. "Even though you murdered him!" Her nails dug into the last piece of his armor, the chest piece, and he felt her draw blood from the skin underneath. "I don't blame you," she whispered. "I'm just punishing you..." And she snapped the piece apart, flaying his skin as she tore it off.
She wasn't done though, because she forced her fingers into his skin, digging between his ribs for purchase and he felt it - felt her fingers rattling against his bones with every hitch of his breath. Then, she grabbed onto them; her nails breaking into the bones.
"You're not good enough, Jaime," she said, and she started pulling. She kept pulling despite the fact that he was already emptied of blood and that she should not have been able to hurt him anymore. But it hurt. He agonized, as he felt them, one by one, his ribs snapping off from his sternum. And then she broke his ribcage open like he was nothing more than poultry.
She reached a cold, steady hand into his innards. "No, you're not good enough..." she continued, and he looked at her face, and it was the face from his nightmares.
Her skin was flushed, yet sickly pale, cold - and ugly - frost-bitten tear tracks marringher cheeks. Her lips were blue, almost indigo. But what really terrified him were her eyes. They weren't angry, or outraged, as they should have been; there wasn't even a cold rage and pain to them. They were devoid of anything human. Uncharacteristically dark, yet he saw to the bottom of them, and he felt what she felt; the loss, and pain he'd caused. "You weren't good enough," she said, and he felt her fingers clasp around his heart, squeezing tightly enough to stop it from beating. "And you still aren't, but..."
She leaned in to whisper against his ear, and he felt ice crystals form over his skin. Her breath was cold and wet, and he felt disgusting. "But we can use you," Deathstroke's voice whispered, as she ripped out his heart, pulling everything that was Jaime Reyes out with it.
He fell forward and screamed.
Opening his eyes, he found himself kneeling on his floor panting and shaking. Sweat and tears dripped from his face - his hair matted to his skull. Shakily, he scrambled back until his back hit the wall. Unsettled, he shifted until he sat in the corner - the door next to him, he reached the handle and locked it despite his mother's various warnings of fire safety.
He wept.
Jaime didn't sleep for several days. His migraine gradually becomingworse until he couldn't concentrate long enough to take coherent notes, the intense buzzing making his eyes water at times. It was like someone had shoved a hornets' nest and crying cicadas between his temples.
Following his schedule to the tiniest detail made the time pass by infinitesimally quicker. He'd already prepared his meals since last Friday, but he double-checked them for any toxins or pills or substances that hadn't been there before. He walked to each class, staying close to the wall to protect himself from any surprise attacks. He sat in the back of each classroom, making sure he was able to see and hear everything - and he couldn't possibly fall asleep there when even the scratching of a pencil on paper of the person next to him was like nails upon a chalkboard.
Fuck, why couldn't everyone just be fucking quiet?
He took his frustrations out on any two-bit crook that crossed his path, which admittedly weren't all that many, considering he could barely fly straight without the aid of the Scarab now. Still, every time he threw one of those losers in a dumpster - despite the heart-stoppingly loud clang of the lid - he felt better about himself for a moment. At least Blue Beetle was out helping people, even if only a little bit.
And in every instant of free time he had, he ran tests with chemicals (he had to make sure he knew everything there was to know about Deathstroke's explosives), double-checked the findings of the team relating to the thefts, and thought; thought about his incompetence, thought about what could have been avoided if he hadn't fallen prey to Deathstroke, thought about what he needed to do so it wouldn't happen again.
Because it wouldn't happen again. He was going to make damn sure of that. He'd die before he'd be the weak link ever again.