Jaime's heart thundered against his chest. Not from exertion, Artemis and he hadn't been running or fighting; they'd been walking at a lax pace. His heart was not beating from adrenaline in the classic sense. There was no immediate danger. That was the keyword.
Immediate.
If Slade were to know he was being followed, then there'd be danger. Very much immediate and future. The thought that this decision might come back to bite his family in the ass was winding Jaime tighter than the steel cable of an anchor. He just hoped he wouldn't snap under the pressure.
As if sensing his troubled mind, Artemis squeezed his hand. Their fingers were still entwined; and she pulled him this way and that, taking the brunt of the mental load of balancing distance from their target, and looking like a young couple out on the town.
Jaime was slightly unnerved by her ability to look like she was genuinely enjoying herself while tracking down the world's best mercenary. She'd stop here and there, chatting with a clerk or a passerby as they advanced too slowly for Jaime's taste.
Artemis showed him some knickknack from a stall, but his eyes were focused on Slade's retreating form down the street. She exchanged words with the clerk, who perked up at the sight of customer who wasn't brain dead. Slade was almost out of sight. Jaime's hand tightened instinctively, and after maybe a minute Artemis was only now putting down the bauble she'd been holding.
"He always like this?" said the clerk, a woman between Jaime and Artemis in age.
"Oh, no. He caught me in bed with his brother," Artemis replied deadpan, catching Jaime's attention as she dragged him away to follow their target.
"What?!" Jaime and the clerk asked at the same time.
She picked up the pace, the two almost running down the street, noting the corner Slade took. Two streets down, on the left. Jaime slowed to a brisk walk, Artemis following suit and slowing down further as they neared the corner.
Jaime prayed to God that Slade wasn't standing just around the corner, waiting for them. Knowing his luck, that's exactly what would happen.
Artemis peeked around the red brick building. Her shoulders dropped a fraction, and Jaime panicked. Rushing around her, Jaime turned the corner.
"He's gone!" Jaime swore. Gone… and worse, the scarab wasn't pinging anything. No heat signatures. No cloaked vehicles. No digital trace. It was like Slade had never existed.
Jaime clenched his jaw, muscles flexing painfully as he sent out a request to the scarab; look everywhere, he pleaded and felt the fire in his nerves as the world twisted in the telltale fisheye distortion of the scarab's full sight for a second.
A second was all he managed. Without suiting up, the scarab had less of an interface to connect with to upgrade Jaime's senses.
The street was empty. Not 'empty' as in Slade being gone, no, it was oddly devoid of life. Not a single person waiting for a bus that was late, a car burning a red light, or even a cab waiting for a customer. No stalls. Just a strip of cement with shops.
It looked like a movie set after hours.
"He must've known someone was trailing him," Artemis mumbled, joining him. Her shoulders were tense, and Jaime could read wariness in her coiled muscles.
Alert.
Like they stepped into a trap.
Jaime's blood ran cold. The hair on the back of neck rose with a shiver as his eyes scanned the street over and over, looking for a hint, a clue; anything. As if some spell had been broken by Artemis' words, people rounded the corner behind them, and the street started filling up as normal. People exited the shops, and a bus came from down the hill.
"You're vibrating," Artemis whispered to him.
Jaime's eyes snapped into focus. "Of course I'm fucking vibrating!" he growled at her. "We lost him! He was right there!"
Artemis tugged at his hand to make him face her. Reluctantly, he turned. "Hey, it was lucky we even bumped into him. Nothing happened, and as far as Slade goes, that's for the best." Her words were kind, but her tone was tight. Jaime could tell she hated losing her prey just as much as Jaime, if not more.
"That's easy for you to say," Jaime replied darkly. "You're not the one being hunted."
She stepped closer. "You're not alone in this, Jaime, you-"
"You're right," Jaime cut her off. "We don't even know if he clocked us. My family could be in danger, because-" He stopped himself.
"Do not blame yourself for this," she chided him. "Aside from maybe Nightwing, I'm the best tracker on this team and he escaped me, too. We'll find him and put a stop to this." She inched closer, caressed his cheek with her free hand.
Jaime forced himself not to recoil. He couldn't look at Artemis, let alone reply properly. Instead, he just hummed a sound between a grunt of acknowledgment or a groan.
Mollified, or at least appearing to be, Artemis started walking, gently tugging him along. "Come on, let's get you home. 'S that sound good?"
"Sure," he sighed, still not looking at her.
Jaime spent most of their walk with a dark cloud over him. Angry, scared thoughts echoing in his head, as the city soundscape was replaced by a piercing headache; not the usual vague buzzing, alert at every possibility, but rather a laser-focused ringing that pointed one way. Artemis. He hated himself for thinking this, but if she'd been tailing Slade properly instead of slowly meandering throughout the damn market, they would've caught him escaping around the corner.
If he'd been allowed to suit up, he could've used his sensors to track him.
Instead, what was supposed to be a fun afternoon with the girl he liked turned out to be a nightmare.
Artemis had tried to start conversation with him once or twice, but Jaime pointedly ignored her attempts to lighten the mood; his mind elsewhere, focused on his family's safety.
"We should hurry," he said at length, sounding more tired than he had in weeks. Picking up the pace, he slipped his fingers from Artemis'.
She slowed to a stop, Jaime didn't.
"Jaime," she called out to him, firmly but not unkindly.
Jaime slowed to a stop, hands shaking, she caught up to him. "I know you're worried about your family," she started, putting a hand on his chest. "I am too." Her voice was so soft, so gentle. It sounded like a confession, like she shouldn't be worried for them.
He looked away. "It's not just that," he mumbled.
"Tell me," she asked.
Mulling it over, he led her over to a bench and sat down like a man who lost everything. He felt like it, like he was losing himself. Jaime was not an angry, vengeful person. He didn't have hurtful thoughts. He chose not to, chose to follow in his parents' footsteps. The Reyes were kind people, no matter how hard of a decision it was to be nice in the face of pain and anger.
So why did he feel like yelling at Artemis? He felt like making sure she knew he blamed her for losing Slade. More than the anger and fear, Jaime was confused and uneasy about even having those thoughts and emotions. They needed to come out.
Finally, he sighed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "Earlier," he began, voice deliberately soft. "When we… when you, uh…" He paused, trying to gather himself not to verbally bite her head off.
He felt her gentle hand on his back. She left a hot trail of desire and annoyance as she trailed circles that were supposed to calm him. His heartbeat picked up the speed.
"Jaime," she said, cutting through his thoughts with her tone more than his name. "I'm… I'm sorry, I should've said something sooner."
His head shot up to look at her. His mouth opened, then closed right away. He wanted to speak but wasn't sure what to say. She was bathed in golden light, and her eyes were open in a way he hadn't been privy to, not since their date.
Artemis was being vulnerable with him.
"Are you… a mind reader?" he asked at length, puzzled.
She offered a small, sad smile. "No, but it's been on my mind since it happened." Her eyes and her fingers trailed to his shoulder, where she picked at a loose thread. "I was actually hoping you would bring it up."
That puzzled him further. "I didn't even think you noticed," he admitted, feeling ashamed. Of course she would be able to read him like that, to know he was angry at her, and that the anger was tormenting him.
Gentle, lithe fingers softly reached for his chin, nudging him to look at her. Their noses almost brushed against each other, and Jaime felt her breath on him. His sight was filled with her steely greys, her long eyelashes, eyes usually filled with fury, were now open and gentle. Brittle, almost.
"How could I not notice?" she whispered, and Jaime's eyes fluttered shut for a moment. "The sparks, the… heat."
What? Heat? His eyes fluttered opened slowly, confused, searching hers for a hint. Her beautiful eyes were crinkled with her grin - not a smirk, and not those soft small smiles reserved for the quiet moments together. She looked almost… giddy.
Artemis was glowing, the pink hue on her cheeks deepening in the golden setting sun's light. "Jaime, that kiss… It meant something to me, more than just a cover."
Jaime's breath hitched. Her fingers moved from his chin down to his neck, holding onto him with her thumb gently rubbing over his suddenly thundering pulse, every motion shooting up his beats per minute. Blood rushed through his veins, and Jaime lost sight and sound of the world.
Rather, his world focused on her, everything else faded to a mere afterthought.
"Tell me," she asked in a whisper, voice not quite pleading, almost ordering, as if she knew what his reply would be already. "Tell me you feel the same, Jaime."
The anger that was burning was replaced by another emotion, another fire that blazed much more hotly; wildfire in comparison to a sun flare.
Jaime's mouth parted, but no words came out. His eyes were fixed to hers, and thoughts of his family faded for a moment. He knew this wasn't the time. That thinking about Artemis like this, wanting this, was selfish. But… Just for now, he thought, pleading to himself, to the world. Just for now, let me have this.
His fingers twitched, halting once hesitantly as his hand made its way to cradle her cheek. Just a flicker of tension. He didn't know if this would fix anything—or just make it worse.
But she was already pulling him in—already anchoring him back to her.
He leaned forward and kissed her.
They were nearly back to his place when Artemis slowed to a stop, just a block away. Jaime took a few more steps before turning to look at her, bone-deep fatigue dragging at his limbs. Can't we just get home?
"What's up?" he asked, trying not to sound like he was biting, though he felt it at the back of his throat.
Artemis didn't answer right away. She looked uncertain—actually uncertain—and that alone made Jaime's stomach clench.
"I'm not sure how to bring it up," she said eventually, voice low. A rare hesitance laced her words. She stepped closer. "I know it's not the right time, but… I'm done hesitating."
"What'd you mean?" he asked, fully turning to face her now, puzzled and cautious. "Hesitating about what?"
She swallowed. "I haven't felt like this since…" Her face fell, and Jaime didn't need her to finish. Of course she was talking about Wally.
His heart twisted, guilt blooming like frostbite. If I'd just caught the signal in time, if I'd just seen it—
Wally would still be here. Artemis would be happy. Retired. Safe.
Not tangled up in this.
He blinked, shoving the ache down, burying it in the frozen parts of his mind. He could grieve later. Or never.
"You want to talk about this… now?" His voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it. Not angry—just raw. "I know my house is safe thanks to everything I've been doing. But I need to be there. I need to see them."
"And we will," she said gently. For a second, he almost believed her. "But we can't keep pretending this thing between us doesn't matter."
Jaime didn't answer right away. She was watching him, hope flickering in her eyes; guarded, yet vulnerable. He sighed and shook his head. He wasn't pretending, hadn't been, unlike her. He'd been thinking about kissing her since their date, weeks ago, like some romance novel protagonist. But now wasn't the time for this.
For any of this, not for him at least. It wouldn't be for a long time.
"Artemis," he started, eyes softening as he caught the minute shift in her own eyes. It wasn't much, she'd gone from looking into his eyes to the space between, not quite meeting them anymore.
She heard everything he could ever say with her name on his breath.
"You deserve someone who'll stay," he said, instead of everything that blossomed in his mind. She deserved someone who would let her leave first, who would demand she go first.
She'd grieved enough.
"And I'm not here most of my waking hours," he continued, voice barely above a whisper. I can't do that to you, he thought, I can't hurt you, asking you to stay while I disappear constantly.
Like Wally had disappeared.
She stepped into his space, fury burning in her eyes, yet somehow, her beautiful greys looked gentler than ever. "Don't you fucking do that to me," she whispered, voice quavering. "You will not erase what we have because you're afraid, do you understand me?"
Jaime looked at her like she was his fire; keeping the darkness at bay but burning him in the process. He nodded, not in agreement nor in surrender. He didn't know what else to do.
"Yes ma'am," he whispered wistfully.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, shoulders not quite bumping into each other's, but never straying far.
Jaime spent the whole night monitoring his family, his house, and the entire block—at least, as much as his thoughts would let him. Artemis lingered in his mind like a radio he couldn't shut off. Shaking his head, he did another camera sweep, sitting at his desk.
He'd 'borrowed' some surveillance equipment from the Team and had placed cameras all over in a systematic way to cover the block, and all entryways into his house. Of course, each camera was linked to the scarab, so he'd be aware the second one of them caught motion.
They caught motion all the damn time, though, whether it was from branches swaying in the wind, or a stray cat. But Jaime would rather filter through all the footage, numbing his mind with repetitive 5-second clips of the same branch swaying every time a breeze blew by than miss an intruder.
He was so sure there would be an intruder.
Artemis had offered to stake out the neighborhood in an unmarked car for the night - after his mother had pulled her inside for a supper fit for a small legion - dessert, coffee, a digestive - and finally letting her leave, albeit with more leftovers than she could carry by herself.
And still, neither Artemis nor Jaime had come to a conclusion to the question she'd asked him earlier; what were they?
He'd pointedly ignored the glances she'd throw him when his mother was not looking, not reacting to her foot reaching out for his own under the table, all the while his heart hammering, threatening to burst out his rib cage as he expected Deathstroke at any moment. He couldn't move; couldn't risk shifting into softness when he was waiting for blood.
He hadn't expected the small, gentle… easy, kiss Artemis planted on the corner of his mouth as she entered her car to "leave" for the night. He hadn't kissed her back. He didn't know if that made him cruel, or cautious.
His hand had reflexively touched the spot she'd kissed, as if his fingers needed to make sure Artemis' lips had truly been there.
Jaime shook his head once more, escaping his reverie of the evening. He had more pressing matters to attend to. How could Slade have vanished like he did, without so much as a trace?
Why would he have done that if he didn't know he was being tailed? No one needed to vanish for no reason. That thought kept Jaime up all night. There must have been a reason for Slade's disappearance.
The likeliest explanation was that Slade had spotted them. If Slade had spotted them, it would be a cinch for him to find out Jaime's identity; he had no illusion that Slade would either come to question him, or he'd find out Jamie was Blue Beetle.
Either way, his family was in the line of fire. That's all that mattered. He had to—
The scarab highlighted an anomaly. Sitting up straighter, Jaime pulled up the footage on his HUD. As high quality as the Team's equipment was, there were limits to the cameras' specs, but blurry as it was, Jaime could make out a shape moving through the shadows. Too big to be an animal.
"That's our backyard," he whispered, and stood up. His armour covered him like a second skin, and his eyes glowed as he engaged various sensors to scan in the direction the shape was last seen in.
A creak snapped through the silence near the front of his house - anybody else would assume it was the house settling in the night's cool temperature. He rushed into the hallway, turning this way and that, eyes darting every which way to catch something, anything.
Another blip on his CCTV.
"Fuck's sake," he growled to himself. "Need like six more pairs of eyes to look at all this shit."
"You good? I didn't pick up on anything," Artemis' voice rang over his comm.
"Peachy." He replied, praying to both god and the scarab that Artemis wouldn't find out what he was about to do. "Just a lot of nocturnal animals triggering the motion sensors."
Artemis grunted, clearly only acknowledging he'd replied more than his actually words. She'd already gone back to surveillance, he could tell. He was thankful for her devotion.
Letting out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding, Jaime let the scarab connect more deeply; feeling the tell-tale burn on his skin as every cell became another optic nerve for his brain to use as a sensor.
Finally, he could see. And it burned.
Days of quiet nothingness.
Jaime couldn't believe it, but that's what followed his not-encounter with Slade. Anybody else would assume Slade had only vanished coincidentally when he was being tailed.
Jaime wasn't anybody though, and patiently waited for the other shoe to drop. He'd planted trackers on his entire family - inside their bags, their shoes, their coats - in places they wouldn't find them by accident. He doubled the security around his house with the help of Nightwing.
Artemis had gone ahead and given the Team a head's up on his situation. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, especially since it wasn't like Jaime had gone out of his way looking for Slade. Slade had found him. Now, he could feel his friends' eyes on him.
Not only was he at risk thanks to Slade, but now he was a risk for going after him.
What the hell was he supposed to do? Act like nothing happened and leave the world's deadliest mercenary to drink his basic iced coffee in peace?
In his city, of all places?
After being hunted?
Hell no.
He was patrolling, carefully, cloaked by the night's ebon sky. Scanning for the Apokoliptian tech Slade was known for using, as well as any kind of teleporter technology, uncommon types of radiation, or even abnormal power consumption. Progress was slow.
His skin itched, as if begging for the sweet burn of the 360-vision once more. Jaime wanted nothing more than to succumb to temptation and make himself a giant scanner, but he knew better.
Flying and scanning like that would end with him in a crater on the pavement. Not to mention that Artemis would surely find out; a crashing Blue Beetle winding up on the web, if not a local news source. He could imagine the conversation already.
'Why were you out as Blue Beetle when I expressly forbade you to do that?' she would ask.
'I have to make sure my family is safe,' he'd reply.
'Why'd you crash?'
And he wouldn't have an answer that would satisfy her. That's when she'd beat him over the head for 'trusting the scarab' because she would definitely figure out what he was doing.
Jaime sighed, hovering in place like stillness alone could stop his thoughts from eating him alive. "Not tonight," he muttered to himself, rubbing his temples. "Not unless I wanna get grounded… Literally and figuratively."
He kept patrolling, using every type of scanner at his disposal and letting the scarab compile the data. It remained quiet. No buzzing in his skull - busy as it was threading bytes of data together as he worked - instead, Jaime felt a humming at the base of his skull, behind his jaw almost, like an engine idling against his bones.
He'd look at the full composite when he was home; the scarab would ping if there was anything egregious requiring Jaime's attention.
Still, the itch would not leave his skin.
Jaime slept, from exhaustion more than feeling safe enough to do so. He'd spent the better part of his last few nights scanning the city for any hints of Slade or his operations, and combing CCTV footage to ensure his home was safe.
As he slept, the scarab worked. Jaime didn't dream that night. He didn't know how long he'd been out for. All he knew was that the sun was higher than he was accustomed to as he woke, and that Milagro was again trying to sneak into his room.
"I hear you," he called, as he stood up from his bed, checking the window almost mindlessly.
The door burst open. "What'd you mean!? I was being extra quiet! I didn't even step on the creaky floorboard this time!"
Jaime smiled as he tossed a balled-up sock at her head. "I got Ma's magic pinky, I know when you're being mischievous, Mila."
"No fair! MA!" she cried as she stomped down the stairs. "WHY'D YOU GIVE YOUR MAGIC TO JAIME!?"
Jaime smiled in the quiet morning, appreciating—for once—the small, predictable chaos of his family.
The scarab pinged behind his eyes.
Right, he thought mournfully as he slid on the mask of the soldier he was. Enough of that, let's get to business.
Heading into the washroom for a normal teenager's 15-minute shower, Jaime locked the door and turned on the water. Scutes covered his head as he suited up just enough to view the data the scarab had compiled for him.
At first, he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. It took the scarab a few zooms, and several different angles before Jaime recognized a trace of something familiar.
It shouldn't have felt familiar. But every other time he'd used the scarab's 360-vision, the overlapping sensors caught the same thing; a peculiarity. An odd energy signature stood out, because it was blotted out - a dark spot in an otherwise colourful map of the world.
"That… darkness," he mumbled to himself and the scarab. "It looks familiar, I saw something like that at the edge of my vision a few days ago."
The scarab helpfully pulled up the footage for him, as well as the other occasions he'd used this feature. Jaime could feel his skin tingle, and the taste of metal on his tongue as he remembered the fire in his nerves.
Frames popped up on his HUD—360-degree renderings, like stitched CCTV. Cold, clinical. But each one had the same blemish.
Thankfully, as archived footage, it didn't seem to affect Jaime. In each of those instances, he could find a speck of darkness - even the 1-second clip from trailing Slade.
"Is this a result of the sensors fucking up?" he asked the scarab.
But that wasn't. When adjusting the footage, rotating so North was at the top of each frame, Jaime could see that the dark trails were always in the same general direction.
Something was emitting that kind of energy signature.
"What the hell is that?" he whispered.
The scarab didn't have an answer for him. Insufficient Data.
He finished his shower, and left, dropping Milagro off at school on his way to the city. He had an investigation to conduct. Whatever was generating this "dark energy" or whatever it was, Jaime was certain it was linked to Slade.
Maybe he had a meta that could teleport working for him. In any case, Jaime needed answers.
His phone pinged.
Artemis: how you holdin up?
He replied instantly.
BB: Good. Tired, but it is what it is.
There was a brief pause, just a beat longer than Artemis would usually take to reply. Jaime swallowed the lump that started forming in his throat.
His phone rang. Huffing, Jaime brought it to his ear.
"Morning," he said in a voice that was entirely too chipper for him.
"Don't do anything stupid," she replied tersely.
Despite her harsh tone, Jaime found himself smiling. This, with her, was easy. "That a new greeting I haven't heard of?"
"… Morning," she mumbled, then, sharper, "I mean it, Jaime."
"What makes you think I would do anything stupid?" he asked in mock hurt that belied actual hurt.
Silence was her reply to that question.
"Artemis," he sighed.
"Do not treat me like I'm stupid Jaime Reyes-" Jaime instantly got the chills at his full name- "Or I swear I will reveal your secret to your mom, and you will never suit up with the team again."
"Okay! Okay!" he replied, instantly bowing to her. "I'm sorry, I just… I saw something yesterday. I was going to gather intel-"
"You fucking what?" Her voice was thick.
Jaime blinked. "Artemis, you have to understand. My family is at risk as long as Slade is out there."
"I'm on my way," she growled, her breath hitching as Jaime assumed she broke into a run.
"Just wait, please!" He paused, listening to her slow down on the phone; he must've sounded desperate, usually she'd have been in the zeta tube already. "I'm only going to do some scans, at a distance. I'm not looking to engage. Hell, I'm not even looking for more than a bit more information."
"Jaime you cannot suit up," she replied, biting out each word. "Especially not alone. Nightwing and I forbid it."
Neither you nor Nightwing are here to stop me, though, he thought bitterly. The Team hadn't been there to help either, and while Artemis had been, she'd also been hindering his progress.
He wished she understood, like always she said she did. "Don't you trust me?" His voice was especially vulnerable. He wanted to shout, 'I'm a hero too! I'm part of this Team! I'm not a hindrance! Let me help!'
"Jaime, I trust you with my heart," she told him. "But I cannot lose you. The Team can't lose you. Your family," she whispered the last part. "They, especially, can't lose you."
"Nobody's losing me," he replied sourly. "Nobody else on the team has the sensors to analyze what I found. Hell, I don't even know if it's linked to anything. Best case scenario, it's something the local S.T.A.R. Labs facilities is cooking up."
"We don't live in a world of best-case scenarios, Jaime."
He sighed. "I know, but you're not giving me much to argue with here, Tigresa."
Artemis remained silent on the line for a moment. "It is so unfair of you to be able to pout on the phone like this," she said at length, sounding both fond of him and exasperated. "Plus, the Spanish…. I'm a lucky girl, Jaime Reyes."
His heart started racing as she purred his name.
"Don't make me regret this," she told him, voice softer than her usual vulnerable tone. "And please for the love of God, be careful. Ping me if you find anything, and no overclocking the scarab."
He let out a soft laugh, empty and hollow. It didn't reach his eyes. "I'm just gonna do a sweep. Conventional sensors only. Calm down."
"You better not be lying to me."
"Artemis," he said her name like it meant something to him. "I promise you'll be the first to hear if I see anything."
She grunted and signed off. Jaime was left in the silence of the alley.
"Okay," he breathed, more to himself than to her. "Let's do this.
He ducked into an alley and armoured up. A heartbeat later, he was above the city—high enough to see its edges stretching into the horizon. That ought to be enough.
"I'm not going to move," he told the scarab. "So, keep me airborne, 'kay?"
He felt the scarab hum against his spine.
"Okay," he breathed out. "Let's do this."
Fire.
Lightning.
Sight.
The sky was both up and down; he could see his chest and his back, and he was going to be sick. His sight swam, the world skipping like a broken record around him; afterimages fading painfully slowly, clouding his visions.
His ears rang, trying to compensate for what his brain was seeing. The world tilted, and the scarab compensated, powering up one of Jaime's thrusters to level him out.
"W-Woah! Careful, careful, careful, careful," he repeated last word like a mantra, breathless as he fought the wave of nausea at the sudden movement. "Slowly next time," he grunted, muscles tensing as the fire burned at his nervous system.
The scarab was working overtime analyzing his surroundings. Slowly - thankfully - Jaime felt himself turn to face Southwest. The scarab dropped the 360-vision from the back of his body; focusing everything into that direction. And Jaime saw it.
A trail of blacked out, smoke-like energy emanating from a point in the distance; the trails leading into the city, stopping near where Slade had last been seen.
That was enough confirmation for Jaime.
Jaime approached the decrepit warehouse; one of few buildings that remained standing in the sandy ruins of an abandoned factory compound. Even from his distance, Jaime could tell this building should not be outputting any kind of energy, let alone a mysterious unknown one.
Every few hundred meters, he stopped to recalibrate with the scarab—burning himself out more and more with each scan; nausea slamming into him like freight train each and every time. The last time he tried to use the 360-vision, he almost fell out of the sky.
He wasn't ready for this. He knew it. Maybe it would be a good idea to ping Artemis, just in case. He didn't pull out his phone. He couldn't afford to wait for someone; someone stronger like Connor or Cassie;or someone more trusted like Kaldur or Nightwing. They weren't here, and the trail would go cold.
He was all there was.
After a few moments, the nausea abated, and Jaime descended towards the warehouse. Landing quietly on the roof, he started scanning the interior for any sort of activity. At first, his scans revealed nothing - no heat signatures, no radio waves, nothing. Until he spotted a well-hidden switch hooked up to a powerline going down below, past the reach of his sensors.
He entered through a broken window, and carefully flew to the switch. It was hidden behind a false panel. A short burst of concentrated electricity caused it to unlock with a hiss, and Jaime had access to the switch.
Calling it a 'switch' felt generous. It was more like a failsafe scanner; biometric, retinal, voice-locked. League-tier tech.
This was getting more complicated than he'd expected. Accessing files the Team had on hand of Deathstroke, Jaime was able to generate a holographic copy of his good eye, as well as a voice filter.
"Deathstroke," he spoke into the microphone as the laser scanned his imitation eyeball.
He wasn't even sure if the scarab could mimic Slade's eye properly. Hell, he wasn't sure if Slade was actually linked to this place; if it was a base or a trap he was brazenly walking into.
If Nightwing was here, he thought, he'd know what to do. Jaime had no idea what he was doing, playing this by ear like it was a routine recon mission, a weekend patrol. He'd only been a hero for a few months when they'd recruited him. He didn't even have 2 years under his belt.
Still think you could've taken on Slade's goons? came Tigress' steel-cold voice, a sharp reminder that he wasn't ready a few weeks ago. Wasn't ready today.
Might never be.
But he was here, and he was trying. It would have to suffice.
The device took a moment to compute, and for a moment Jaime was afraid it would deny him access - or worse, announce Deathstroke was already inside and set off an alarm of some kind.
If this was the wrong call, if Jaime had fucked up - again - this might result in more than just an appendage forcefully amputated in a fight.
The scanner chimed. A long second passed. Then—
Grind.
The wall opened for him anyway.
It shifted with a sickening rumble, brick scraping against brick. Dust exploded into the air, thick and stale. Jaime coughed up a lung trying to look inside before the dust settled.
The hallway was dark, abyssal. Jaime could barely tell that it headed downward. He stepped forward, heartbeat hammering against his skull, a migraine swarming between his brain and his skull.
Still, no back-up.
Just Jaime Reyes; hoping he was enough. Knowing, deep down, he was not.
Despite the scarab's full suite of night vision and spectrometry sensors, Jaime could barely make out the walls. His steps were slow, small; hesitant. What kind of darkness was this?
"This is some advanced darkness right here," he whispered to himself, fingers brushing against the wall as he shuffled down the gentle slope of the hallway. The penumbra surrounding him was suffocating. It must've been engineered, Jaime noted, as he recalled how the light at the opening seemed to have been devoured by the floors and walls. Like everything was covered in vantablack. It didn't reflect light. It didn't absorb it either. It just... deleted it. Like the world stopped rendering past a certain distance.
There were no heat signatures, no electronics, no magnetic field, no energy signatures for the scarab to latch onto to try and parse the path ahead. If M'gann were here he could at least know he wasn't lost. Maybe if he had someone else with him, he'd have been comfortable enough to turn on a light, but he felt like he'd be making himself a target for what - or whoever - lurked below.
Jaime felt so alone. Not just physically, but something deeper. Primal; animalistic. Even the scarab had gone quiet. Like the whole world had shrunk to the sound of his own breath. He heard his blood pumping through his veins, somehow highlighting the suffocating emptiness in which he found himself lost.
He kept walking, it was all he could do, but part of him felt as though he wasn't moving at all. The only indication was the drop in temperature; the cool humidity draping over him like an ebon shawl as he kept descending.
His legs felt leaden, dragging against the cool, smooth surface of the floor - like sanded concrete. Like a morgue slab. Jaime's breath became tighter, his chest constricting as if the walls were pressing in on him; as if the scarab itself was squeezing him tight, afraid to be left behind in the darkness.
I should turn back, he thought, as his shuffling pace slowed to a crawl. Jaime felt his shoulders tense, as if gravity weighted on him more and more, the deeper he went. I should leave and call Artemis, call the Team.
But he didn't.
He couldn't.
Just like he couldn't turn back. Jaime's brain swarmed with irrational thoughts of unseen creatures nipping at his heels if he turned around, wrapping their disgusting, darkness shrivelled appendages around him in a clammy embrace as they dragged him down in the depths.
He had to keep going.
The tunnel veered to the left slightly. Jaime could tell as the wall to his right slowly got closer the more he descended. For how dark it was, he might as well have had his eyes closed.
Wait, he thought. Were his eyes closed? Or were they open and it simply was so dark now that he could not even make out his hand an inch from his face. Panicking, Jaime turned on his heat vision and looked down.
He saw nothing.
"Wuh-" he started, stumbling backwards despite himself. His eyes must've been closed, that would be the only logical explanation why he wouldn't be able to detect his own heat signature - he was alive, after all.
Jaime steadied himself against the wall, his fingers pushing against it for some sort of tactile feedback to ground himself. He forced his eyes open, as much as he could, but still no heat signature came off him. He was looking straight down, he should have seen something - the reds and oranges of his warm, living body as it emanated heat - but all he saw was the fog on his breath, clouding his vision.
As if it couldn't get any worse, he thought, running a hand down his face. Now he had to deal with the cold too, as well as the dark? This place sucked.
Taking a deep, stuttering breath to try and calm his nerves, Jaime felt no less terrified, no less alone. No less insufficient.
Why had he even come here? He should've never flown to this cursed place. Let Conner punch through the walls and let light flood in; let Nightwing and the bats meld into the shadows like it was their home. Jaime was not built for this; he wasn't built for the clammy murk of the underworld; its cold so entirely alien from the vacuum of space. The void had terrified Jaime, but this... closeness, it threatened to rip him apart, turning him inside-out as it compressed him into a dense essence of what Jaime Reyes was.
A failure.
His foot caught on nothing, and he stumbled, landing hard on his hands; his face colliding with the floor, sending sparks of light through his eyes.
"Argh!" he screamed, both from the pain and the shock.
Plic.
Plic. Plic.
Jaime's fingers shakily came to palpate his bare face, poking himself in the eye. Swearing, his trembling fingers gingerly prodded his nose, coming away wet, leaving a throbbing pain in his face. God, he'd eaten shit and busted his nose; now his whole face was wet as traitorous tears rolled down his cheeks as he panted for breath.
"God damn it!" he grunted in terrified exasperation, slamming his fist down on the ground. He'd lost sight of the wall, feeling well and truly lost now, as he dimly realized the floor had leveled out. There was no slope, no wall, no light by which Jaime could orient himself. All that filled his blurry vision was his foggy breath and dripping blood on an onyx background in every direction.
"Where am I..." he lamented, voice cracking as more tears escaped him. He was freezing now, shivering no matter how tight he hugged himself. He didn't remember sitting down. Or curling up. Had he moved at all? Had he fallen?
He couldn't tell where his body ended, and the dark began.
He couldn't even feel his body; the pain from his nose throbbed and ebbed away in dreamlike impermanence, his skin numb to the cold like a doll's. Hollow inside. Jaime knew it was cold, because he knew that earlier he'd been freezing, and he could see the fog of every breath he took. But he couldn't feel it.
Couldn't feel himself.
Is this what Wally felt like, he asked himself, curling up as tight as his bones would allow, when he disappeared? Jaime felt like a frayed rope, coming apart and now useless in its only purpose. He sniffed loudly, but the darkness swallowed the sound greedily.
Jaime felt so goddamn alone.
"Jaime…?" The voice was soft. Feminine. Not M'gann's, not Artemis'. But it was gentle, and familiar, and he wasn't alone anymore. "You're doing so well. You came all this way… all alone."
A hand touched his shoulder. He didn't remember anyone entering. "It's okay," she cooed to him. "You can rest now. You've done enough. I'm here..."
Jaime leaned into the touch, shaking hands struggling to reach for her wrist, to keep her there; to anchor him. "P-Please!" he cried out, hot tears spilling from his eyes. "Help me..."
He sobbed.
The woman walked around him, her hand never leaving his shoulder. Her other hand snaked its way around his waist, anchored around his ribcage.
"Hush now, Jaime," she whispered in his ear, her cold breath on his neck sending shivers up his spine. "It'll all be okay. I'm here... I'm right he-"
She ripped her hands off of him - or, as Jaime realized a second too late by her scream - she was ripped away by something in the darkness.
"NO!" he cried out, voice raw from panic. He turned in the direction of her scream, but it faded so suddenly Jaime wasn't sure she had even uttered a sound. Jaime cried as he shuffled backwards, instincts screaming at him to not turn his back to whatever had stolen her from him - leaving him adrift in an ocean of black.
He wasn't alone.
Probably never had been. Jaime's breath hitched pathetically, and unable to bear it any longer, he activated shoulder mounted torches.
He could see himself, the floor beneath his feet, and maybe an inch or two past the extend of his arm. His lights flickered weakly, as if the darkness bore down on them physically.
A wretched moist sound crackled just outside his light.
He turned and ran. Sprinting away from it, away from the thing that had killed that poor woman. The thing that would kill him.
Deeper into the fathoms he went.
The darkness pulsed around him. It clung to him, pursued him, and despite how insane it looked, Jaime batted away at it; as if it was reaching for his lights; as if he could do something about that. Something wet and alive slithered past his neck, nipping at his ears.
He yelped and something entered him.
Fog rushed into his lungs. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. A low frequency throbbed inside his skull—the scarab was screaming, but from a distance. And then—
The pain hit. White-hot, deep, invasive. Perverse. Like his spine was being unzipped. Something was inside him. Inside the scarab.
Jaime could feel it screaming out in agony as burning tendrils violated it and him from within; ripping them apart, tearing them to shreds. Like a robber ransacking a house for single piece of jewelry, their minds were being ravaged, and damn whatever nerves were damaged in this creature's violent extraction.
Out of the corner of his peripheral, Jaime saw the darkness move. A sultry shape sauntered closer, a single clawed finger tilting his chin to look at her.
A woman shrouded in twilight, cloaked in fear and wearing the shape of someone who shouldn't be here. Smiling like she had always been with him.
"Found you."