Chapter 4
"And this is where you'll be staying. It's one of the rooms for possible new recruits, but you can use it."
Don nodded. "Thanks, Alpha. And… I'm sorry about Don." Alpha tensed, then turned on his heel and stalked away. Don shook his head, and walked over to the bed, sitting down. He'd turned back from Dove a while ago, as there was no danger, despite Alpha telling him to stay Dove, incase there was an accident or something.
And that brought Don to something else. None of these people seemed healed. It was like they weren't able to 'get over' Don's death. And if that wasn't a weird thing to think about; your own death in past tense. But maybe they were from races that were more emotional; that had a harder time healing. And honestly, the fact that they were here said something. Honestly, you had to be kinda out there if you were running around the galaxy doing nothing but obsessing over saving your dead brother. If any of them were normal that would be a shock.
Don sighed, hanging his head. He had a lot of work to do. For one thing, there was getting back to his own reality; the transmitter would have blinked out when they reality jumped, and everyone must think he was dead. After all, the Helinmores would have left in search of another sacrifice after Don was stolen from them, and they wouldn't exactly go tell the heroes that Don hadn't been killed. And Don had been abducted onto their mothership, so the heroes wouldn't be able to investigate and realize Don wasn't dead.
And then there was the other thing. Don didn't want to leave. Not yet. He had promised long ago that he would protect Hank; that he would try to make sure nothing would hurt him, physically or emotionally. It was a hard promise to keep. But he'd done pretty well over the years. Of course, Hank had been hurt. They were superheroes, more over they were human; it was unavoidable. But Don had still protected him. And just because these weren't exactly his Hank it didn't mean they weren't his brother. It didn't mean he didn't care about them.
He had to help them. These were his brother, lost, lonely, broken, and vigilanting across reality. He couldn't let them go unhealed. Unloved. He'd made a promise. And he intended to keep it.
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"Hey Retriever. Thanks for saving my life out there."
"Don! I… it's nothing…"
Don stepped forward and hugged the teleporter. "It's not nothing; I would be dead if it wasn't for you. So, what race are you?"
"I… I am Raun - Taun."
"When we met… you said something about Raun - Tauns being breakable."
"He wasn't strong. He was little. But he was good at teleporting. He could go almost anywhere, because he seemed to know where things were, so he didn't appear in them. There were some little ones; they were trapped in their bus. And some boulders were falling. The young ones couldn't teleport yet, so Don went in there. He didn't have time to teleport the last one, so he pushed her out of the way. The rock hit him. He broke. He broke and I wasn't there. He broke." Retriever had tears streaming down his cheeks. "He broke." He sounded so vulnerable.
Don stepped forward, and enveloped the broken Raun - Taun in his arms. Hank sobbed into the closest thing he had to his own brother. "I see you so often. I'm the one that rescues you. You look at me like I'm some kind of hero. But I'm not. Don't you understand? I'm not!"
"Shh." Don whispered. "Yes you are. You've always been a hero. You've always been my hero."
Authors note: I am not done with Retriever yet, just so you know. More of him will be talked about.