#...relationships were built over time. & Thad too will get the opportunity to build bonds for himself. not instanteous but worth the effort

[isfjmel-phleg]

(I tried to put this in the tags but it wouldn't let me. Thank you for this latest chapter! I look forward to the completed story whenever you're able to get to it. And I'm sorry that writing this has to take you to such a difficult place, and I understand completely if you choose not to proceed with the next part, but please know that this story has meant a lot to me, and I'm very grateful that you are writing it.)

49: The Party

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

instead of the first few paragraphs of this chapter going before the readmore button, I'm going to put a longer author's note. I hope you'll forgive the break from habit.

So, Strange Redemption matters to me a lot. I'm sorry about the often months-long breaks between chapters and grateful that many of you who've been here since updates were weekly have kept coming back. <333

In regards to future plans, I've noticed that it's easier to write Strange Redemption when I'm at low points personally. Easier to tap into Thad's headspace that way. Concern about that plus a healthier headspace plus the increased workload of my final year of college was what caused me to slow way down on writing and posting the story. Now that I have some breathing room in my life again, I've made the decision that I'm definitely going to finish at least the first half of my planned two halves of Strange Redemption. We're so close to the end of Thad's solo run!! We're almost there with him! I can hang in there until the end of this next story arc, which will conclude most of the story pretty well, in my opinion.

The second half of Strange Redemption I had all planned out to explore more original characters (some of you will know what I'm talking about—my darling clones Three through Ten). I honestly don't know if I'll write that half soon or at all, so I guess we'll find that out together! I have some great ideas for the hypothetical second half, if I do say so myself, but I'm restraining myself firmly from making ANY promises about it.

Thanks again! Back to the story!

Thad went to bed yesterday with vague fear lashing around in his head like wrestling metahumans, and he wakes up with the bones of that fear nestled in a lump in the back of his brain. He feels a plan forming. He lets it rest, that little lump of inspiration born of fear. Thaddeus knows how this goes.

He makes plans, because he’s a clone, because he was made to make plans. He ruins things because he was made to ruin things. He recognizes his own pattern.

In about a day, it’ll come to him. The Plan. The new Perfect Plan to dissect with CRAYDL.

Only this time, Thaddeus isn’t sure what the plan will be for. 

It’s something about what he realized yesterday: that he should be afraid, and he isn’t. Something about that thing he found out on the computer at the library weeks ago: that being struck by lightning can change your personality. Something about how terrifying it was to forget his new name when he was talking to the maid, and to realize how flimsy, how fake it sounded in his mouth, Sophos Thaddeus Anacletus Free. It felt like nothing. Less than nothing, less than calling himself Bart.

Something… about that. Thad stares at himself brushing his teeth in the mirror and lets the lump of soon-to-be-Plan grow, shift. The imaginary form of the Plan feels more real than his body.

Thad puts on a green plaid shirt with hands that don’t feel anything. It’s reassuringly familiar, this sense of removal. It’s a relief not to feel like a person for a while. He can sense victory in the distance, and with victory so close, secondary things like his physical body don’t actually matter.

Joseph comments on Thad’s preoccupation at breakfast. He points at Thad and raises his eyebrows—a question without content, just what’s with you?

And if Thad was with CRAYDL, he would have smiled wickedly and said Wait and see… and CRAYDL would have said aww, Boss! And Thad would have laughed and ignored it and CRAYDL would have cajoled until Thad divulged Yes, I'm thinking up a new plan. I’m not telling you yet… I’m still working on it… I think it’ll be good, though… really good…

He comes back to the present moment and shrugs. “Just something.”

Joseph looks at him, waiting. Takes another bite of pancake.

It would be so easy to tell him. Just like CRAYDL. But—

But Joseph isn’t CRAYDL, and why does Thad feel so safe, anyway? A lightning strike can change your personality. The lump of fear twists, and Thad swallows and shrugs again.

“Clone… stuff, I think,” he lies. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The instant compassion on Joseph’s face is too much. Thad drops his fork and buries his face in his hands, suddenly overwhelmed.

He hates using “clone issues” as an excuse, he decides. It brings too much to the surface—things he’d rather stay down in the depths of him. His face is hot behind his hands, long lashes just like Bart’s brushing the palms of his Thawne hands.

Yeah, no. He’s not doing that again unless he has to.

Mortified for no good reason, he picks up the fork in his fist and starts eating again, avoiding looking straight at Joseph.

They finish breakfast in silence. Thad wishes Joseph would ask him again. Then he remembers he absolutely should not feel this safe around Joseph. Then he wishes it again, childish, selfish. He wants to be understood.

But they have ground rules, and one of Thad’s ground rules for Joseph was not to make Thad talk about being a clone. So Joseph doesn’t ask Thad anything else, although Thad sees his sea-green eyes tracking Thad anxiously.

Thad gulps down the rest of his breakfast and dumps his dishes in the sink with numb hands.

Thad spends the afternoon in his Plum room, drawing, unhurriedly putting his thoughts together into the beginning of a plan, and spacing out. He’s not sure how much he’s dissociating, but he thinks it’s a lot. The sun moves on the floor when he’s not looking and he finds himself stiff and sore from laying in the same position and has to move, wincing, to wake up his muscles and ease the pressed points of his bones.

In the evening, the guests arrive in ones and twos to Joseph’s party. Some fly, some are carried, others drive up the driveway. Changeling—or Beast Boy, Thad doesn’t know how the timeline has progressed this time—arrives as a cheetah. Thad watches from his tower window, scoping out the situation. His brain kicks into gear again, and he’s grateful for it. He needs not to be spacing out and losing time quite so much right now.

A little later, Joseph comes to get him. Thad pushes the scraps of plans even further back into his mind and smiles and nods and follows him downstairs.

Before they enter the study, Joseph stops Thad walking with a gesture. Thad stops and waits, looking at Joseph’s fuzzy green velvet vest instead of his face.

But Joseph’s hands don’t move in speech. The man clasps his hands against his chest, a strangely nervous gesture. Surprised, Thad looks at Joseph’s face. He looks worried.

Thad flinches. Worried—Joseph is worried about introducing Thad to his friends? Oh. Thad breaks eye contact, looks at the wall for a moment, then forces his eyes back to Joseph’s hands with all his strength.

Joseph signs, “Are you nervous?”

Thad shakes his head.

Joseph tilts his head at him, but Thad is already committed to the lie.

“OK,” Joseph signs. Then he puts his hands to his heart and smiles at Thad, crinkling up his eyes. “They’ll love you.”

Thad doubts it, but whatever. He finds himself smiling back at Joseph, charmed and amused by the hyperbole.

Quietly, so as not to be heard inside the room, Thad asks, “You introduce a lot of supervillains to your friends?”

“Lots and lots,” Joseph signs, grinning.

Thad rolls his eyes, making Joseph huff out a soft amused breath. “Whatever. Fine, let’s go.”

Thad slows time as he steps around the corner of the propped-open door to the study. It looks like the people here are comfortable, for the most part. Wonder Woman is standing at the window with her husband and the Gotham vigilante Nightwing. Nightwing is nothing to worry about for a speedster who knows what he’s doing, but Wonder Woman is a bigger threat. Danny Chase is cross-legged in an armchair, talking to Starfire, who’s sitting in midair in front of him. Neither of them is a threat, although Danny Chase’s intellect might be annoying to deal with. Cyborg is currently wrestling playfully with Changeling. Changeling is below Thad’s notice, no threat at all; Cyborg’s sonic capacities are to be steered clear from, even for Inertia. Raven—

Raven. Thad’s attention narrows immediately as he spots her, leaning comfortably on the back of an armchair. She’s already looking in his direction.

He pulls time to as near a halt as he can.

What will Raven think of him? What will she say? She reads minds, she’ll know about the Plan, she’ll know he’s lying to Joseph. The only possible hope here is that Thaddeus himself doesn’t fully know what he’s planning. Despite the immediate idea of pretending the Plan is something entirely innocent, an immediate image of Joseph bleeding out jumps to the front of Thad’s mind. No—no! He has to get a hold of himself. He’s not planning anything like that. Never. He’d never hurt Joseph Wilson. No more than he’d hurt Max, or Helen.

Maybe Thad is more nervous to meet Joseph’s friends than he thought.

Well, Thad wasn’t Inertia for nothing. He’s smart. He can do this. All he has to do is survive the introductions.

He lets time speed up again and steps into the room. Raven says nothing, just raises her hand and waves at him and Joseph.

Nightwing notices them enter a moment after Raven waves. He calls, “Joey!”

Everyone pauses their activities and looks over. Thad freezes, but none of them are looking at him in this instant. Every face in the room beams to see Joseph Wilson. They love him, Thad realizes with a shock.

They really love their “Joey”.

The old jealous void in Thad’s chest roars to life. He wishes he was like Joseph. He wishes he could step into a room and have everyone love him immediately.

Joseph’s hand comes down on Thad’s shoulder. It’s warm and settling. The void clutches at the sensation of physical touch, then settles down again. Thad feels it thrumming in him, a current of safety and surety tied to Joseph that the speed force put into him like pouring electricity into a wire.

Joseph lifts his hand. Thad clings to the memory of the touch.

“This is my kid, Thad,” Joseph signs.

Thad looks quickly out at the room to see their reactions.

Joseph’s friends nod and smile. A few of them—Starfire, Nightwing, Changeling—say “Hello” in cheerful tones of voice. Danny Chase raises an eyebrow. Raven smiles.

Thad doesn’t know what to say in this situation. The urge to chirp “Hi!” like Bart would occurs to him and he squashes that impulse with extreme prejudice. Instead, he adds some more identifying information.

“I used to be Inertia,” he says.

“Yeah, we heard,” Danny Chase says, bluntly but not unkindly.

Thad shrugs at him. “Redundant information never hurts.”

“It does if it’s boring.”

“Oh, stop, Danny,” Starfire laughs. “Just because you’re bored doesn’t mean the rest of us are.”

Danny snaps back, and conversation starts again all over the study. That’s it, then? That was the introduction?

Joseph gestures Thad to go further into the room. Thad takes a few steps forward and stops, unsure where to go. Raven, watching him, makes a come here gesture.

Thad obeys, because not going will just make this worse. At least Raven is alone, and at least he’s familiar with her, more familiar than with the other people here, anyway. “Better the devil you know”, as they say in this century.

Joseph’s quiet, bright presence behind him soothes Thad’s worst fears. It’s like having CRAYDL looming there. Support. Someone here who likes him. Trusts him.

“I’m sorry you’re afraid of me,” Raven says softly.

Thad grits his teeth. He hates interacting with a mind reader. He can’t argue with that.

“I’m fine.”

“I know,” Raven says. “Don’t worry about me, Thaddeus. I’m not going to say anything about you.”

Really? What about the Plan?

“Really?”

“Nothing at all. I promise,” Raven says. She unfurls herself from the back of the armchair and holds out a long, black-nailed hand.

Thaddeus shakes her hand firmly before she can take it back.

Then he smiles. Maybe this party will be survivable, after all.