WASSUP! So very few reviews this time around. Hrm. I guess we'll give you guys what you really want. Sushi. No...JJJJJJJJJJJJJJAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOO OOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! Yay, all I ever wanted. Shut up, Aeri. I can smell your sarcasm I don't care, the fucking Guardians are following me. Funny story. Aeri took the ACTs a few weeks back. A ton of questions were relating to the names of the Guardians in this story. I got an extremely high score on it though.
We don't own. The title is from Scoff by Nirvana.
Chapter 5: I'm Not Worth It (In My Eyes)
They called it The Nest. It wasn't an actual nest, just a old tenet building bought by the strange group the moment they had saved up enough money for it. They renovated the hell out of it, and slowly began the process of moving in. They each had a room, with several flats to spare, some of which were converted to match their own means. One flat became a lab; another an oracle's technological dream. The Nest was the homes of both the Guardians, and their secret identities. The rest of New York wasn't privy to that fact, naturally, as the building looked ordinary.
But as Katherine Lumen had learned the hard way, one should never judge a book by its cover. The young woman, known to her friends as Rin, a nickname courtesy of her Japanese roommate, sat in the flat-turned electronic room, staring at the feeds from various camera located all over the city. Sighing, she tapped her earpiece, speaking in a quiet voice. "If I find out that you're sleeping with her, Fal, I'm going to murder you in a slow, and very painful way."
"You realize he turned off his comm, right?" Blackhawk asked, his voice crackling through the speaker. "Anyways, I'm done with Soho. Rendezvous back in the Nest?"
"No, we're obviously going to meet up on Oa," Boltman quipped, the sarcasm dripping from his words. "I'm outta Queens, and looking forward to kicking back with my Galvantula."
"Nothing better than a night of kicking ass, and playing Pokemon," Wham agreed quietly.
"I don't see why I'm still with you nerds," a gravelly voice stated. "I take it that you guys got beat up on the playground."
"Every day of my life," Rin chuckled, shaking her head at the strange group's banter. They were a group of unlikely heroes to say the least. "So Star, are you putting the old man back in our care?"
"Old man?" the gravelly voice snorted. "I'm only two years older than you, 'kid'."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Rin smirked. "Is your Alzheimer's acting up again 'old man'?"
"Please do not antagonize him, Rin," Starfire hummed. "Jason is-"
"Half insane?" Blackhawk offered. Wham laughed quietly, and replied.
"Only half?"
"Ha. Ha," Jason's mock laugh filled the link for a moment, before Rin spoke.
"What's wrong, Jaybird? Is our persiflage bothersome to you?"
"Oooh, did you learn that word today, Kathy?" Jason mocked. "Looks like Cammy's lessons have paid off. What else did he teach you?"
"Burn!"Blackhawk cackled, as he landed on the roof of the Nest. Moments later, he was joined by the other Guardians, minus Falcon and Starfire. Wham was pinching the bridge of his nose, while Boltman was muffling his laughter. The Red Hood was shaking his head at them as Rin sputtered in their ears, unable to come up with a response.
"Firstly, no," Wham stated after a moment, once the laughter had died. "Secondly, I'm tutoring her in biology."
"So that's what they're calling it nowadays," Boltman chuckled, placing a hand on Wham's shoulder.
"Bolt, Hood: imma pop a cap in both yo asses," Rin warned.
"If you were going to do that, you'd of shot Jacobs for being from 'Bahston'," Bolt reminded her as the strange group headed for the stairwell entrance on the roof. Within seconds, they were standing in front of Rin, who was fixing them all with death glares. Pulling off his helmet, Jason grinned winningly at her, only to earn a quick:
"Where's Star?"
"Gotham," Jason answered, peeling off both his gloves and his red domino mask. The others pulled off their masks as well, exchanging silent looks.
Ever since Falcon had found him and Scarlet, Jason had more or less been dragged into the group of heroes. Initially, the team couldn't stand him, even after Raven had placed some sort of structure in his shattered mind. Slowly, as he revealed this past to them, taking care to leave out most of the details, they began to open up to him, giving him what he could only assume were aliases, and treating him like a normal human being. Was it friendship what they had? In truth, Jason had never truly had friends. All those he did have, left him in the end. Kyle. Donna. Sasha. Bruce. Once upon a time, Jason had even viewed Falcon, Vincent, as a friend, in the lifetime they had once shared so long ago. Before he was the Red Hood; before Vince was the Falcon. Before the shit that caused them to meet, not as partners, but as enemies.
Were the Guardians his 'friends'? Was he a member of their rag-tag team? Did he even want to be? These were all questions Jason didn't know the answers to. All he did know, was that he wasn't the same man who had captured Batman and Robin, threatening to reveal their identities to the world. He wasn't the same man, the killer he used to be. And that, that was because of the kindness the group had shown him in the past month.
"Yo, you alright Jay?" Wham—Cameron—asked, replacing the industrial bar through his ear.
"I'm…fine?" Jason grimaced as his supposed-to-be nonchalant statement became a question. Boltman, a tall, lanky brunette who seemed to always have a 5 0'clock shadow, smirked at him.
"I told you not to eat anything Kory cooked. Bet she gave you food poisoning."
"Steve, I think Jay always looks like that," Blackhawk grinned, his turquoise eyes sparkling.
"Clever," Jason remarked drily, shaking off his thoughts as he studied the various computer screens. "Arms shipments?"
"Direct from Japan, courtesy of the Kitsu-Gumi," Rin elaborated with a nod. "Two shipments in the next few days. One here, and one-"
"In Gotham," Blackhawk finished, eyes wide.
"James, I don't know what they taught you in Boston, but in Brooklyn, if you interrupt us, we beat your ass."
"Well, seeing that you broke your thumb last time you punched someone; I think I'm safe."
"Tucked your thumb?" Cameron inquired quietly, eyes twinkling in amusement. Rin spat a curse at him, before speaking slowly.
"I figured that would be a good job for you and Falcon while you're in Gotham. Lord knows what else you two will be doing."
"Right," Jason nodded, frowning. He and Vince had decided to 'inform' the Bat-Clan of new information on the cult, in person. Batgirl, or Stephanie as he heard her name was, showing up in New York changed the game slightly, but the plan was still the same. "Transportation?"
"Train. Your ticket will read Jensen Martella, thanks to Steven's quick thinking." Rin paused, green eyes meeting Jason's blue. "You leave tomorrow."
Stephanie sighed as she looked out the window of the train. Falcon's orders didn't fill her in on what was going on. Heck, she was more confused now than before she had gone. The winged ninja had told her to head back to Gotham, and that they'd be in touch. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Steph?" a familiar voice questioned. She turned towards the aisle suddenly, a smile appearing on her face.
"Vince! It's good to see you." The shaggy-haired man grinned sheepishly at her, before asking quietly:
"Do you mind if my cuz and I join you?"
"Not at all," she replied, gesturing for him to sit next to her. Vince smiled and waved over another man, who glowered as he made his way towards them. The sight of the other man made Steph freeze, recognition flaring through her. "It can't be…Jason?"
Vince sat down next to her, while Jason sat across from them. The brunette nodded at his raven-haired companion, before leaning to whisper in the blonde's ear, "Was it really that much of a surprise, Bat-Babe?"
"How the hell-" The rest of her sentence died in her throat as Vince lifted a hand to cover the lower half of his face. Blue eyes widened as it dawned on her, "Falcon?"
"The one and only," he winked, dropping his hand.
"How'd you know it was me?"
"Dick sent me your file," Vince chuckled. Stephanie scowled, silently planning on shoving an escrima stick up the new Batman's ass.
"He's dead. That-"
"Dick?" Jason offered, a hint of a smirk on his lips. "Love the fact that his name's an insult."
"It's conveni-wait a second." The two men watched her, waiting for the blonde to continue. "Was all this planned?"
"Sending me and Jay to Gotham with you? Yes." Vince nodded.
"How about the coffee?"
"No. I wasn't planning on finding you until the night. Meeting you for coffee was pretty entertaining, though." Steph punched him in the side, smirking as he hissed in pain.
"Does your team know?"
"Know what?"
"About my identity; his identity."
"Nope." Steph stared at him in disbelief, prompting Jason to explain Vince's words.
"They're kept on a strict need-to-know basis, in regards to everything. We don't even know each other's real names-"
"Except for Katherine and James."
"All they know about me is my first name, my 'other' name, and the fact that Vince and I have a…past."
"They don't know anything in regards to the Clan, so your secret's safe."
"Great. Fantastic. Then what the hell is the Cult of Pain?"
"That-" Here the two men exchanged pointed looks, "Is a long story."
"I hate cyanide," Cameron stated, pushing his chair back from the microscope in front of him. He and his teammates were in the lab, going over samples from the various cult members they had fought. "Its positively revolting."
"Then, when committing suicide," Steven (a.k.a. the electricity-powered hero known as the Boltman) began, his vibrant green eyes appearing huge due to the magnifying goggles covering them. "Don't use cyanide."
"Or don't commit suicide," James replied, clumsily pulling apart one of the guns a cult member had used against the Red Hood. "That works too."
"Take the mag out, Jacobs," Steven ordered, not bothering to even look over at the other boy. "If I get shot because of you, I'm going to put a couple hundred watts into your head."
"Don't you have a 'no-killing' rule?"
"Do I look like I have a 'no-killing' rule?"
"Nah…you look kinda like Dexter though."
"Peter Parker," Rin offered, dusting a few weapons for prints.
"I was going to go with Harry Potter," Cameron chuckled, wheeling his chair back towards the microscope. He switched out the samples, and looked it over, silently noting the similarities.
"Is today a 'Pick-On-Bolt' kind of day?" Steven groaned, before picking up a screwdriver. "Because if so then I'm pegging this through someone's head."
"By someone, do you mean James?" Katherine asked, smirking. "Because I support all violence towards people from Boston."
"Yet you kissed me, darling," James commented, a smirk of his own appearing on his face.
"Just to earn fifty bucks from my boss," she replied. Cameron and Steven exchanged looks of varying levels of annoyance and disgust.
"New Englanders," Cam stated, purposely thickening his Californian accent to showcase the point. Steven made a quiet sound that sounded remarkably like a giggle, before saying.
"Ten bucks says Jason's grounded for bringing his guns on the train."
"Nah, Vince tossed them in a dumpster on the way."
"I'm siding with Bolt on this one, Cam," Rin nodded.
"Jason wouldn't have brought them." James grinned at them, "He has spares in every city in the world."
"Anyone up for the bet?" Steve inquired, smiling darkly at his teammates, only to earn equally dark grins in reply.
"Oh…it's on."
AN: So we're good right? I'm kinda in a hurry to get this posted so I can work on the other chapters. Hawkie: you da man.
Peace out from both of your angels.