#god thinking about boostle again

[daigah]

Love these two losers...

[ihavenoideamanokay]

okay I've given up I'm gonna rant about the blue beetle movie because OH MY GOD

I wanna watch it again but I don't wanna go back to the theater I just wanna buy it already so I can watch it over and over and over

IT WAS SO GOOD

spoilers ofc so be prepared (also this is gonna be really long)

my one complaint. is khaji having a feminine robot voice. because I'm used to young justice where they were just a slightly more murderous sounding jaime which I think is perfect. idk it just feels too much like a marvel movie with the female robot suit. IT WAS BETTER THAN A MARVEL MOVIE THOUGH HAHAHAHA-

(for the record I usually say they/them for khaji bc they are a bug robot thing I don't think they understand or care about human gender but I'm stuck between that and that one venom post where they say venom uses he/him sometimes to match eddie's gender BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE KHAJI WOULD DO THAT 💀💀)

anyway I loved the movie soooooooo much and I love boostle being gay (and wasn't prepared for ted having a wife) so I was worried that ted had a daughter but she was AWESOME I LOVE HER SO MUCH

I especially love how nice she was???? her only surviving family member is a complete jerk and it never rubbed off on her, no matter how done with it she was and all that

I have a family member who, like vIcKy, is just mean to everyone for no reason (okay victoria kinda had a reason I'll get to all that later) and if I'm around her for too long I start wanting to match her energy. like yell back. I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON? LOOK WHO'S TALKING! that kinda stuff. but JENNY DOESN'T DO THAT I mean she still stands her ground and all that BUT she never sinks to victoria's level and that's amazing.

anyway on victoria's reasoning yeah I get it, it totally sucks that you helped create the company and it never got passed down to you, and I'm not trying to invalidate that in any way, I'm just saying, think about it from a different perspective. she could've been a psycho from the beginning. creating weapons will probably make you feel horrible and depressed because you're killing people! I just think we don't know if she cracked because of that and that's when she started seeing people as expendable, or if she was born like that, or if she became like that because of the sexism! I was just thinking about it and I feel like there's a possibility that their grandpa thought she was being a little too aggressive or something and that's why he gave the company to ted. of course, I'm not saying that's what happened, just that that's an interesting thought I had.

NEXT this is dumb but I'm too bi for that movie I saw the main couple and went IVHVAJBKSBEJV THEY'RE BOTH SO PRETTY WHAT 😭😭😭 (well it was more like I went yeah the guy who plays jaime (I'm sorry idk any actors) is pretty and then jenny came on and I just. oh no. then they flirted and I was like NO WHAT-

okay I love the family relationships in this movie because they're all so different. I mean you have jenny and her mom who she didn't really know (because she died), then her dad being distant, then her and her aunt constantly hating each other but being too scared to do anything about it. of course they didn't wanna kill each other because ✨lawsuits✨ but they wanted to get rid of each other because victoria was doing horrible things and jenny was getting in her way. then you have jaime's family which is a disaster in the best way possible. I love how we didn't see them that much but could still tell exactly what was going on there. you get that they're all super close (you even get that there's no privacy💀) and they're all like best friends. I feel like his mom should've gotten a bit more characterization, but whatever. I mean her husband died?? and we barely see her???? idk. I just like how drastically different it is from the kords like I think it's cool.

I realized after the movie that. his grandma never saw him transform the first time. and she probably saw the hole in the roof and, knowing her, did not care. then when he comes back they saw khaji attached to him and she was probably filled in, but. we never saw her reaction. I think it was a good decision not to show it, because she'd probably react in some way that mentioned her fighting people in the past and all that.

okay this is another cursed thought but what happened to jenny's motorcycle at the end? she drove it over but then jaime flew her away. did she leave it there and just make him pick her up later to get it? did he go back and fly it to her?? motorcycles are heavy man I don't think that would be fun. did he drive it to her???? did he just leave it there??????? did he fly her everywhere after that??????????? people will guess your secret identity man. also did milagro steal it because that is totally a milagro thing to do-

OH YEAH let's talk about how they all hated jenny when jaime transformed because as funny as that was. guys. she literally told him not to open it. (honestly I feel like it's an insult to khaji's intelligence that they thought they couldn't get out of a fast food box but that's just me.) and I totally get that they hated her because she was a kord and victoria was being horrible but like THEY JUSTIFIED IT AS "YOU DID THIS TO HIM" AND I FEEL LIKE OUT OF EVERY COMPLAINT THEY HAVE WITH HER THAT'S THE WORST ONE TO USE. SHE KINDA GOT JAIME AND MILAGRO FIRED AS WELL although that's also because milagro was breaking rules and jaime's just too good of a person to not yell at victoria. WAIT WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT SHE SAID "PROTECT IT WITH YOUR LIFE" KNOWING FULL WELL HE COULD ACTUALLY DIE THAT'S A GOOD COMPLAINT but like we can excuse that bc we love her here

okay so yes the scene where he talked to his dead dad was fine and all like I like it but. PLEASE. THE CGI WAS SO BAD IN THAT ONE PART. like the rest of the movie was fine BUT SERIOUSLY COME ON GUYS but in other news I love that scene because anything that has khaji just. vibing. is the best. and then having jaime accept them and stuff.

I just realized this movie could totally be a queer metaphor because of the whole acceptance theme?? I mean it's not like THE QUEER METAPHOR MOVIE EVER it's more like hey self acceptance. I mean you have to come out to yourself before you come out to others so idk that's just random

anything that has khaji da and jaime being best friends is automatically amazing. so my favorite arc in young justice is the reach arc (because I'm a sucker for possession and it was just totally well done) and my absolute favorite part of the arc + favorite blue beetle moment + possibly favorite part of the whole show??? is when khaji says the "then you haven't learned anything from our time together" line (that jaime says like an episode or so before I think) and every time I rewatch that I'm just like 😭😭😭😭😭 because they're besties your honor (or in love idk that ship isn't my first choice but I don't have a problem with it) and it's so so so good

I was so worried the movie was gonna be bad because I've only seen one recent dc movie (okay it was half of one) and I'm going to be honest I was not engaged at all I was kinda bored (I don't wanna say what movie it was because it's a very very hot take) and I was like oh no what if this movie does it too. nope. I also was really really hoping that they'd actually be like yeah the scarab's name is khaji da AND THEY DID I WAS SO HAPPY

oh my god I was looking at the cast and they listed victoria's assistant scientist guy as dr. sanchez. NOW I'M NOT THE SMARTEST BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THAT'S NOT HIS NAME- WASN'T THAT A WHOLE PLOT POINT 😭😭😭

that's all I have to say for now, there will probably be more later

[renaroo]

That Time Ted Kord and Barbara Gordon Invented Sexting in the DCU

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #25]

There’s a lot of things I would like to end the decade on, and I���ve got a Cassandra Cain post I want to get up, but I am called to talk about one of the most important, most obscure parts of the DC Universe that happened 20 years ago. Also I’m shameless and encouraged by @secretlystephaniebrown​ and @shobogan​ so here we go.

DC, and most comics really, have this bad habit of minimizing or erasing past relationships of characters in order to “simplify” romantic narratives with an endgame pair. 

In some ways, I suppose I get it. There is a certain joy I can take from the notions of pure love and meant to be, and with these two characters in particular -- Ted Kord (Blue Beetle II) and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl I/Oracle) -- I have very passionate feelings toward other pairings with them.

But my god. What is lost in the world and in your perspective on both of these characters if you do not know their history together. No, seriously! It’s great!

Ted and Babs are both well established nerds in the DCU even before the 90s. On every team Ted’s a part of he is one-half prankster and one-half tech support, to his continued chagrin. And Babs’ technical skills and eidetic memory are among her most famous traits, even when she was the Batgirl of the Bronze Age. 

By the 90s both of them had also been through a lot -- Ted had gained and lost a dozen teams it felt like by that point, Barbara had survived her attack by the Joker but had only begun to establish herself more widely in the superhero community as Oracle, and the Birds of Prey were literally just starting out. 

Babs had Dinah, but was still not revealing her identity to Dinah, she needed a friend. And, online in a techie forum, she made one:

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #2] 

This friendship blossoms for a while as purely digital space across quite a few issues -- a lot of good issues of the early Chuck Dixon run which is an under-read treat these days, I feel. It still has its... Dixon on it, but the characters are great and this relationship is just one example of them.

Ted helps Babs out quite a bit and finally, they’re ready to meet in person.

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #15]

They’re honestly adorable, and pretty much instantly know each other’s identities. For one, Babs knows all the identities on the Justice League roster. For two, Ted can put together pretty quickly what tech-related superhero would have access to that kind of information.

For three, they went to a meet up in color coordination with their hero identities. Which of course is protocol in comics but still.

Point stands.

Ted stays in the picture for a long time after this, he’s a good friend and confidante to Babs and they’re genuinely interested in each other’s company. Platonically or romantically? It doesn’t seem to really matter until it’s finally the end of a long and tough arc, and Ted is forced back into wearing his Beetle suit again.

And they have a serious conversation about their relationship that ends like most interactions with Ted do: a good laugh.

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #25]

Ted and Babs actually relied on each other a lot as friends after that. Ted was Beetle on and off again, but Babs could tell that something was up and was firm in pushing Ted to go to a doctor to get himself looked at. 

If she hadn’t, Ted could’ve gone without treatment for a severe heart condition that had already cost him 3 heart attacks without him realizing it. 

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #40]

And, the first person he tells, is Babs.

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #41]

Unfortunately, about this time is where comics get. Weird and difficult because as writers move books or even just as storylines naturally shift for bigger parts of the stories, things get dropped unless it’s picked up elsewhere. 

A few comics like Formerly Known as the Justice League (2003-2004) would call back to their relationship and it would be in the pseudoromantic and fun banter that had had for the 90s and early 2000s, but it never picked up as a focus again. 

[Formerly Known as. Justice League (2003-2004) #5]

By 2006, Ted was dead, murdered by Max Lord after he got on the right trail for what was happening with Checkmate and the OMAC Project that Bruce had on the back burner. And he was alone, after almost all of the superhero community ignored or downplayed the importance of what he was finding (except for Booster). 

Unfortunately, that included Barbara.

She’s not outright dismissive and she’s not cruel or condescending to him in the ways other heroes are at the final hour, but her attention is elsewhere. They grew apart from where they were, Ted’s reputation was at an all time low to other heroes while Babs’ and the Birds of Prey were at their height. 

So she gave him the final clues that would lead to the discovery of OMAC. And would send Ted to his death. 

[Countdown to Infinite Crisis (2005) #1]

One thing I do appreciate, though, is that unlike a lot of comic character deaths, Ted’s did actually have impact, and it had it for years. Especially for those closest to him.

I could (and probably should) do an entire history lesson on Booster Gold and the impact their relationship has had over the years, but we’ll stick with Babs here, because Babs was allowed to grieve and honor her friend, too.

Something that wouldn’t happen in the future with other characters important to Babs’ life.

Ted was special, though, and Birds of Prey knew that and had an issue that spent a lot of very good time honoring that and his history with Babs and the rest of the team.

Which is where we get our confirmation that Babs and Ted were Cyber-Doing it before it was ever popular in one of my favorite exchanges of all time

[Birds of Prey (1999-2006) #96]

Now, am I going to wax poetically about the tragedy of Babs and Ted’s forgotten fling to force the diehards into multishipping admittance with my undeniable canon fact?

Yes.

I mean no! Not really -- I’m a diehard Boostle shipper who doesn’t budge for much and my shipping opinions for Babs are pretty firm as well. 

What I’m attempting to get at here is that they have a good history, that their characters and understanding their relationships with others, make them more interesting and complex characters with fun and joy to be explored in multiple angles, even when you have your penned, perfect ending for them.

And I think erasing that in favor of perpetuating this idea that people come out of the womb with this set romantic path that any deterrence there from has to be either meaningless or actively horrible is at best less fun you can be having in these expansive universes, and at worst actively hurtful to people’s world views and expectations. 

But also. 

Babs and Ted were actively sexting in 1999 and that is an important - neigh, historically significant -- event in the wider DCU so. 

Booster Gold has to have a storyline someday where he has to save this moment from never happening. And I will co-write it with you, Dan Jurgens, please. 

[boosstergold]

i’m thinking about “I tried to tear time apart for you” again and god, boostle aside, booster cares SO much about Ted, so much

[renaroo]

Showing You Care

Disclaimer: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: References to the 90s, Death of Superman, Comas Pairings: Boostle Rating: T Synopsis: Ted Kord is not taking care of himself in the aftermath of his confrontation with Doomsday, but he is trying to care for someone else. He’s just very bad at how he goes about it.

A/N: I was rereading 90s JLI mostly for references and inspiration with regards to Bea’s amazing relationship with Booster and for hilarious images of what everyone was wearing at the time, when I came across that period of time just after Doomsday and everyone’s more than a little beat up physically and spiritually, and seeing how defeated and angsty Booster was over not being able to be a superhero without his suit just struck a cord with me. Then it struck a Kord with me, so I wrote this silly bit of nothing. 

“So the thought never even crossed your mind before?”

Things were dark to the point of being positively grim in the laboratory. Of course, Ted told himself that it was simply how someone should expect a laboratory to look when deep underground in a fortress-like compound. It helped him think, helped him keep in touch with the side of him that was Ted Kord, Inventor, and away from the young adventurer and hero that Blue Beetle had flatly become over the years. 

That’s how his life always was, though — from a childhood between opposing parenting styles to a Jewish kid in a WASPy upper-class high school to a corporate laughing stock with a secret identity self-sabotaging all the things seemingly handed to him — pulled in two directions and never finding his footing for balance.

Brows furrowed in thought, Ted glanced over his shoulder in the dark and looked at the vague outline of his friend and fellow Justice Leaguer. 

Had the conversation taken place a few weeks ago, Beatriz would have no doubt lit up her spot in the lab herself, eccentric green flames licking at every piece of equipment around her. 

She hadn’t had that sort of control of her supernatural abilities for a while, though. And, despite his promises to her, Ted hadn’t done all that much to help her out. 

In Ted’s defense, there was a long list of needs he had from his friends that needed addressing.

Less in his defense, Ted could feel the cold, calming relief of being at least a little bit responsible for some of his friends not being in the field for a little longer. Not getting hurt. Not getting dead. 

If Superman could die, who among them was safe anymore?

“The thought of what?” he asked, in spite of himself. This was not really a conversation he was wanting to have. Not with Bea. Not with anybody. “Branching outside of the League?” 

He was snappier then he meant to come across, frazzled by the thought. 

When that raw nerve was exposed, he liked to direct himself to thoughts of Captain Traitor, but the unfortunate part of having these conversations with Bea was that she had a finger on the pulse of League gossip. And it didn’t take a super-spy to remember it wasn’t that long ago since Ted was brawling with Booster on the floor of the Bug over his departure from the League.

They were good after that. Again. Maybe. 

It would have been petty for Ted to hold a grudge still, months after everything was already rectified and the League whole. After they had stood side by side against Doomsday together and were torn apart only to be back at it again.

Almost.

“Not leave the League,” Bea soothed, walking around the lab, toward the walls and feeling around. “Where’s the light switch?”

“It’s not a switch, it’s…” Ted stopped working on the monitor he was repairing and looked around his control panel. With a press of a button, the lights in his lab came on with a flourish. “Ta-da.”

Bea turned and looked at him expectantly, but her attitude seemed to shift in an instant upon making contact. “Jesus, Beetle.”

“What?” he asked her, immediately looking down to his sweater for the ketchup stain from lunch. He’d hoped he got most of it off. 

“When’s the last time you shaved?” she asked him.

“I’m thinking of growing a beard,” he answered without a moment’s thought. He reached for the wadded up napkin laying next to the Big Belly Burger trash from his lunch. When he began rubbing at the ketchup stain, Bea, who had somehow closed the distance between them without Ted even realizing it, grabbed his wrist and wrenched it away.

“You are not, you’re just not taking care of yourself,” she said firmly. “I bet you wore that shirt yesterday, too.”

“You have no proof, Fire,” Ted sniffed down his nose at her. 

Her eyes sharpened and she tightened her grip on his wrist. “Believe it or not,” she continued, “I’m not pointing any of this out to make you feel bad or to make you question your spot on the League.”

“Oh, well, since those are the only options I can think of, you’re doing a pretty bad job at whatever this is, then,” Ted snapped at her. 

“I’m worried about Booster,” she finally announced.

Now that hit Ted like a twenty-pound weight thrown directly at his slightly increasing gut. He looked at her, giving up his meager resistance on her hold, and allowed his emotions to eek through with a strangled, “What? What’s wrong?”

“And you,” Bea finished lamely. As if Ted could share in any concerns for himself in the light of something being seriously wrong with Booster.

“Then why are we worrying about hypotheticals here? Spill it,” Ted demanded. 

“Fine, jackass,” Bea hissed back, shoving his wrist and everything attached to it back into Ted’s chest. “Ever since Doomsday shredded Booster’s suit and rendered him powerless, he’s been stomping around the League with almost as much self-loathing and assholery as you have down here in the basement.”

“It’s a laboratory,” Ted whined back. And it was a laboratory — it was part of the incentives package from Max to get him to sign back up, and it was also the one place he could think and tinker and be left alone to wallow in the fact that he woke up from a coma into a whole new, whole worse world. A world without Superman, without hope, without faith that superheroes like them could fill the tremendous hole that a Superman had left behind. 

And, despite himself, Ted woke up with a lot of those same feelings as the public at large. 

And since Ted hadn’t so much as checked the fitting of his Blue Beetle costume since he woke up from a coma, it did place him much closer to that civilian perspective than anyone else in the League had been for a while. 

“And while I sure as hell can agree that we’ve been through enough in all of this to deserve some bad attitudes to a point,” Bea continued, “I think the reason the two of you are quite so obnoxious is because of the separation anxiety.”

Ted squinted at her, not following. “Separation anxiety… from the League?” he asked, genuinely baffled.

Beatriz put the heels of her palms against her eye sockets and looked like she was about to scream. “Idiotas!” She hissed between her teeth. “From each other, Beetle. From each other.”

He looked longways at her, assessing her for some signs of her own mental breakdown or distress from mind control or brainwashing, and then turned back to his monitor. “Are you really so bored up in the embassy right now that you’re trying to dig into trouble?”

“I’m going to torch you and this whole stupid lab,” Bea warned.

Before he could help himself, Ted snorted and put on his soldering goggles to get back to work. “Yeah? With what powers?”

He knew he had to be out of practice because he saw the punch coming from a mile away and still didn’t have the time or wherewithal to block or get out of the way before Bea sent him careening into the control panel next to him. 

Blinking a few times, Ted looked at the shaking figure of his friend, noted that steam was quite literally perspiring from her exposed shoulders and neck, then took a moment to reassess whether or not his jaw was attached to his skull. It was. 

“Okay,” he responded, “Ow.”

“Do you have any idea how hard the two of you make it to talk to you about anything that matters?” Bea demanded from him. “My god, I have no idea how you two have been together this long. The second the door closes and it’s just the two of you in a room, does it just immediately fall into unending fart jokes and nothing gets done?”

Realizing Bea had no intention of offering him help up, Ted pushed off from the control panel and rubbed his no doubt reddening cheek. “Bea, you’ve known Booster and me for years by now.” He paused, mostly for dramatic effect but also to glance and make sure that she wasn’t close enough for a second shot before he could duck away. “Of course that’s what happens the moment Booster and I are alone in a room.”

“I’m trying to help you!” Bea snarled, throwing up her arms. 

“You sure have a funny way of showing it!” Ted yelled back. “And, besides, help what? I’m on the bench until I complete physical therapy. Booster’s benched until he has a solution for his wrecked suit.”

“A solution you’re supposed to be working on,” Bea reminded him. The fact that her own benching was also reliant on Ted goes unspoken, but there was a prickling feeling in Ted’s neck that it was there, under all the layers being hidden by concern for Booster and Ted. “Have you even looked at his suit?”

Ted squinted at her. “Yeah. It’s shredded.”

“And your solution to that is…”

“Working on it,” Ted said so automatically it was as if Booster was in the lab having the conversation again. At least Bea hit him. Booster last time didn’t even bother to turn the lights on.

Just a where’s my super suit and gone the second he wasn’t getting the answer he wanted. Like a child.

“You know what I think, Beetle?” Bea began, slowly, calculated.

“Nope,” Ted answered, running his hands through his equipment for the exact pliers he needed for the monitor. 

“I think you’re keeping Booster on the bench as long as you can by not doing a damn thing,” Bea said lowly. “And I think you know that the second Booster figures out that it’s what you’re doing, he’ll blow the top off the whole damn embassy.”

Sick of playing the games, of obfuscating, Ted looked up at her, glowering. “So?”

“That’s not going to fix anything,” she warned him. “The only way you two can stop this and save your relationship is if you talk to each other about it. Not manipulate things behind the scenes to get what you want.”

“So my friends aren’t getting killed out there for people who don’t believe in them for just a little longer!” Ted growled. “I think Booster’ll live. And our relationship—“ 

The word caught in Ted’s throat. Every emotion was so high, so heartfelt before it that he hadn’t even felt it coming until it was there. And then it was ringing in his ears. He choked a bit, as if it was a Big Belly fry that went down the wrong way, didn’t settle well with him.

If Bea noticed, she was too busy with his other charges. “That isn’t your call, Beetle. God damn it, I felt this was what was going on but I just. I didn’t know for sure until I got down here. And look at you, falling apart, you know it’s not going to fix any of this. You know you’re not supposed to make these decisions on your own!”

Ted grabbed onto the corner of his work table and felt like he needed to catch his breath still. “Wait, wait, hold up!” he called out, using a free hand to try to stress the request. It didn’t do a whole lot of good.

“You’ve had to have noticed it if I’ve noticed that Booster is so wrapped up in getting back out there that he has no sense of personhood outside of his suit,” Bea continued to rant, her hands firing off and twisting in the air with nearly the same speed as her mouth. “And by god, if he tells Skeets to scan his suit for options one more time, I think the little robot’s going to fry him!”

Unable to take it any longer, Ted looked to Bea wildly and smacked the table to get her attention. “Now hold on! You’re firing off some pretty hefty accusations here!” he roared at her, accurately worked up for the circumstances.

She stopped and gave him a look over. “What? You think the little robot’s got enough money to sue for libel?”

“Not about Skeets! About Booster and me!” Ted squeaked, though he liked to reflect on it being a manlier squeak than most.

It was Bea’s turn to squint back at Ted. “What? You don’t think Booster has too much of himself wrapped up in being a superhero?” 

“I think you’ve got too much of Booster and I wrapped up with each other,” he growled out. He scoffed. “Relationship. We’re friends.”

Even though Ted was nowhere close to her, Bea staggered back like he had finally punched her back. “What?”

Ted was regaining his composure and able to stand on his own two legs again without leaning on the table. He crossed his arms and looked at Bea confidently, even as the fluttering in his stomach and chest felt like it was going to leave him swaying the moment he no longer had to make a point.

Many emotions seemed to run through Bea before she glanced around and then back at Ted. Quietly, almost worriedly, she asked, “Does Booster know?”

“Yes!” Ted yelled, though a pang of Wait does he? ran through him with a worrying bout of second-guessing everything he thought he knew about himself and his closest friend. 

Bea seemed genuinely shook as she stood quietly for a moment, contemplating. She then shook her head in disbelief and glanced at Ted. “Well, it doesn’t matter how close you two really are—“

“It matters!” Ted squeaked again. That time felt significantly less manly. 

“Booster needs to hear from someone who loves him that he’s got more than a suit and superhero gig to him,” Bea said more confidently. “He needs to hear it and he needs to see that someone cares so damn much about him that they’re willing to try to stop him from doing something stupid. Like what you’re doing, Beetle. Though, and let’s be clear here, the way you’re doing it is tremendously stupid itself.”

“How are you so good at making everything an accusation?” Ted sighed, rubbing at his eyes. 

There was a more tired look at Beatriz’s expectant glare when Ted glanced back at her. She took a deep breath and turned to walk out. “Talk to Booster,” she ordered him on her way out. “And while you’re at it, get some sunlight. And a razor. And a shirt.”

Ted was pretty sure no one had mothered him with contempt and pity in equal amounts since his own mother had died. 

***

He had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

That wasn’t entirely true. Reclusive as he might have become in the days after waking from a Doomsday-induced coma, Ted still understood the basics of the Justice League’s base and its layout. He technically understood that the upper levels were filled with space and amenities for his colleagues. 

And he also understood that it was the most likely place he could find Booster.

Beyond those fairly basic facts, though, Ted had little to no idea what he was doing. And he could sense his creeping insecurities clawing their way back up to the forefront of his mind. 

Therefore, in a far more literal sense, he had no idea what he was doing.

Which made it strangely inconvenient when he made it into the gym and found Booster on a treadmill, his golden robotic companion floating alongside with a countdown timer occupying where Skeets’ frontal display normally was. 

Booster was so in the moment, so occupied by his running, that he didn’t seem to notice Ted in the doorway at all. He was gazing straight ahead, cheeks dimpled as his highly controlled breathing rushed air in and out of his mouth. 

This must be a fairly intense workout routine, or at least one Booster had been at for a while because Ted knew it took pushing Booster quite a bit for him to get the sheen of sweat that covers his skin. Skin that was highly visible considering Booster was in training shorts and gym shoes without anything else but a headband.

If it were a normal occasion, Ted would already have a couple of dozen jokes at the ready for the headband alone. It was doing nothing to keep back the waterfalls of sweat at that point and seemed mostly to be an aesthetic choice to make up for Booster’s serious lack of recent haircuts.

He had a mane that would make Fabio jealous, that’s for sure. 

Ted considered that, all of it, as he watched awkwardly from afar, only to feel an unnatural heat build-up from within his unseasonal turtleneck. Relationship. God, he could have killed Bea for doing that to him. For making him think in such ways he never would have.

He didn’t want to think of his best friend in these ways.

A little too late, Ted realized he also shouldn’t creepily watch his best friend work out more-than-half-naked in the training room either. But that was something, at least, he could confront head-on. 

Clearing his throat and making a big production out of stepping into the gym, Ted hoped that it was more than enough to make up for his shadowy leering. Though, if it was, it still wasn’t enough to get Booster to slow down on the treadmill.

Booster did glance to Skeets’ timer and then looked over to Ted, though. So he knew Ted was in there. That had to count for something.

“Hey, Boost,” Ted tried instead. He said it so casually, so naturally, that it took a full moment for him to wonder if it was too much or not. To have a nickname for your friend’s nickname. Was that too familiar? So what if it was? 

He was about to have a panic attack and he couldn’t even explain to himself why.

“Did you get something up with the suit?” Booster asked immediately, his eyes darting toward Ted.

And, oh, did that not burn Ted up immediately. For a multitude of reasons. The rudeness, though, was taking front and center, though. 

“No, I told you I’d let you know as soon as there was any progress,” Ted countered, sounding nearly as wounded as he felt. 

The moment Skeets’ timer hit zero-zero-zero-zero, Booster pushed something on the treadmill that seemed to lower the speed. His high-intensity run began to decrease to a jog. He gripped to the side handles as adjusted with the machine. 

“What’re you doing out of the lab?” Booster asked just as snappishly as his first question. He was so focused on Ted’s face that Skeets flew off to the side of the gym without even informing either of them.

That time, Ted could not resist the way his eyes rolled for the back of his head. He crossed his arms defensively. “I’m allowed to leave the lab any time I want,” he hissed back.

“Oh, are you?” Booster countered, slowing to a walk. “Guess that explains the fast-food wrappers I keep finding down there.”

Ted’s head snapped toward Booster, his blood rushing to his face and making him feel immediately hot across his cheeks and forehead. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Why are you trying to gut me?”

“Why are you trying to avoid doing anything actually helpful around here lately?” Booster snapped back, jumping off the treadmill before it was finished up with his cooling-off period. He didn’t even glance in Skeets’ direction as the tiny robot flew in from the side with a towel at the ready. 

“Doing anything actually helpful--” Ted repeated, sputtering over the words. “Are you shitting me right now? I’ve been rewiring this entire facility top to bottom and replacing all the standard equipment with updated models. And that’s with doctor’s orders to take it easy with my fatigue.” Then, because he was on a tear and couldn’t stop himself, he looked Booster up and down. “What’ve you done with all your time?”

Booster’s mouth snapped shut and his eyes darkened as he looked at Ted. 

It didn’t take an expert in Booster Gold readings to know he was beyond pissed. 

“I’m doing my best until you get in gear and fix my shit,” Booster snarled back. “Which, by the way, if you can’t then you need to tell me so I can find someone who can. And I needed to know yesterday.”

“Someone else more qualified to patch it up in this century?” Ted mocked. “Good luck, pal! I’ve helped you with it more than anyone else, and I’m telling you it’s positively trashed! It’s not going to protect you out there.”

Angrily, Booster threw up his arms. “I don’t need protection! I just need to be able to be a hero again!”

“If you need the suit to be a hero, Booster, then you weren’t really a hero to begin with!” Ted erupted at last.

Immediately, the silence became deafening as they stared at each other in shock. 

Ted felt like he swallowed an entire lemon in a single go, his whole mouth dried up and his face recoiling back in shock from his own viciousness. He wasn’t even sure where the words came from, they were so callous and cruel. So biting. 

Booster was broodingly quiet for a moment, not looking Ted in the face as if the image of him alone was painful. Instead, he looked to the floor or the equipment. He yanked the towel off of Skeets and began roughly rubbing it over his face and neck. 

“Jesus christ,” Ted gasped at himself before dragging both of his hands down his face. “I have no idea why I just… Booster, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Sounds like you did,” Booster spat back venomously before balling up the sweat-soaked towel and throwing it right for Ted’s head. “Good talk, Beetle. I’ll stop pestering you about my suit. I’m sending it to STAR.”

“Okay, stop!” Ted growled, yanking the towel off his face and throwing it to the side. “Booster, hold on! Let me apologize!”

When Booster shoulder checked Ted on the way out of the gym, he hit with enough force to push Ted into the wall and took the breath out of him. Apparently Booster had been making a point of hitting the gym for more than just cardio in the past weeks since he lost his suit.

The smart thing to do, based on all of Ted’s long history with Booster, was to back off and let the other hero burn through his temper, work up a good mad without Ted anywhere in the vicinity.

But Ted was apparently a glutton for punishment that day. 

He grabbed Booster’s wrist and held it with a vice grip, wrenching Booster back and to turn him around to face him again. 

“Don’t touch me!” Booster growled, his mouth turning up in a snarl. 

“I said to hold on!” Ted yelled back. “I’m sorry, I’m a dumbass! I don’t know what I was trying to say there, but it wasn’t what came out, okay? Let me just…” He stopped himself and shook his head. He didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish with any of it. He’d made such a good mess from the start. 

“Just, what, Ted? Continue to prove that you think I’m some idiot blowhard just like every other person thinks?” Booster demanded. He pulled his hand out from Ted’s grip at last and rubbed his wrist. “I don’t need to hear it. I’ve heard enough of it, thanks!”

“I know you’re not like that, you big idiot, that’s why I’m scared!” Ted exploded, throwing his own arms into the air. “You’re such a hero -- you’re so dedicated to it -- that you’re going to go flinging yourself out into danger the very second I have a prototype that isn’t even tested yet! You’re going to try to save someone, try to prove yourself, and while you’re doing it, I’ll have fucked something up and it’ll fail you and you’re going to die, Booster! You hear me? You’ll get yourself killed!”

Booster stared at him, the anger not dropping even an iota. “Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence!”

Ted let out a frustrated croaking noise from deep within his throat and rubbed at his face. “Goddamn it! Why can’t I say any of this right?”

While Ted was working through his moment, though, Booster was taking a step back, his brows knitted together in thought. Then, crestfallen, he shook his head at Ted. 

“You haven’t been working on the suit on purpose,” he surmised.

Closing his eyes, Ted released a deep sigh. “I was trying to come up here to, uh, to talk to you about that. Talk to you about a lot of things relating to that. Because I was talking to Bea and she was worried about you, and me. And it was a lot of stuff that I think we have been sitting on and not dealing with since I woke up.”

Booster stared at him. “Sitting on and not dealing with… like my suit maybe?” his anger was flaring again.

Looking Booster in the eyes, Ted felt his chest clenching tightly. It was painful to see that anger directed his way -- sure if he pranked Booster or poked his buttons on purpose that was one thing. But it was anguish and hurt under that anger that was all radiating directly from Booster to Ted. And he deserved it. 

“You’ve got every right to be angry with me,” Ted admitted. “But, goddammit, Booster, hear me out here. I almost died, okay? Some monster out of nowhere came through and busted my head in without a second thought. And I wake up, weeks later, to learn that the same monster that almost finished me off killed Superman. And the first thing my best friends want me to do when I get back to the land of the living is to help them put themselves back on the battlefield? To get themselves killed?”

For a moment, Ted couldn’t tell if his words got to Booster or not. He was glaring at the ground before he snapped back up and pointed at Ted’s chest. “You almost died because I wasn’t able to do anything to help,” Booster growled. “I was there and I watched you hang onto life by a thread, and I couldn’t even get into the fight, couldn’t save the leader of our team, because all I am at the end of the day is a bunch of fancy gadgets I didn’t even make myself. And now you want me to sit on the sidelines and do nothing again?”

“I want you to stay alive, you jackass!” Ted yelled, smacking Booster’s hand down. “I don’t care if you never want to talk to me again afterward! If I kept you alive then I can be happy!”

“Superman died!” Booster burst out like it was an argument or a point or anything really.

“I don’t care who else dies! I won’t let you be one of them!” Ted cried out. 

Booster’s eyes widened slightly, taken aback. He looked Ted up and down as if expecting to see the outline of a Starro underneath his turtleneck. Then he squinted in confusion. 

Ted, for his part, felt like his heart was going to race directly out of his chest and had to put a hand on it to uselessly attempt to calm it down. He scowled at himself. Still going smooth as desert sand, the two of them. 

“Look, I don’t know if what’s wrong with us right now can be fixed by screaming matches in the League gym or not, but I feel like we’re distinctly lacking progress,” Ted noted out loud. He forced himself, with some struggle, to meet Booster’s gaze. “Can we try to talk at normal volumes?”

“You’re the one who keeps screaming and cutting like a knife,” Booster only partially joked. “But, sure, we can try the adult thing.”

“Ugh, the thing I’m worst at,” Ted sighed, pinching at the bridge of his eyes. He looked apologetically to Booster. “Booster, I know you’re a hero, and worst yet you’re a despicably good hero when it comes down to it. Which is why I knew that you weren’t kidding when I was in a hospital bed still and you were already talking about fixing up and updating your equipment. I’ve been a hero for years, and that’s easily the closest to death I have ever been, and here’s my perfectly heroic best friend ready to get back off the bench.”

“I’m a quarterback, I do terrible at sitting on the bench,” Booster huffed, a genuine smirk sneaking into his expression.

Ted shook his head testily. “And, as always, I must remind you that I played chess in high school and that metaphor is so beyond me it’s sad.”

“It’s really sad,” Booster agreed. He paused and looked off, a hand coming up and cover his mouth in thought. “I really did ask you to fix it while you were in your hospital bed, didn’t I? Wow, yeah. That was real bad of me.”

“It normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but,” Ted stopped for a moment and took stock of what he was saying. Thinking before talking. He needed to have been doing that from the start. Even with his heart abnormally racing around Booster for seemingly no reason. “Look, I don’t think it’s like what Bea was saying, but you are easily the most important person to me. I can’t fathom anything bad happening to you, and that’s what I feel like is going to happen if I screw up your suit. Which I feel like I will because that’s just superheroic to a T, isn’t it?”

“You wouldn’t screw up my suit, that’s why you’re the only person I really trust with it,” Booster replied flippantly, even flicking his wrist as he did so. He hesitated, though, and looked back at Ted seriously. “What do you mean what Bea was saying, though?”

“Oh,” Ted replied, heat rushing back in his face. “It’s really dumb. Stupid. Honestly, really nothing. But she was saying that you and I were acting, well, like kids having tantrums because we weren’t spending any time together and it was giving us, uh, separation anxiety.”

Booster looked at Ted curiously before snorting. “Like chihuahuas left in an apartment too long?”

Laughing, Ted ducked his head down. “Y-yeah. She was, uh, worried about our…” he trailed off, throat tightening at even the notion of repeating it. Does Booster know?

Tilting his head, Booster looked at Ted curiously. “Our what?”

Ted wished he could just go ahead and swallow his entire foot, get it over with. He seemed to like it in his mouth so much lately anyway. 

“Our, uh,” Ted, despite himself, caught Booster’s bright blue eyes with his own again. His entire face was threatening to combust. “Our relationship.”

“Relationship?” Booster repeated. The significance seemed lost on him for a moment. His head tilted to the other side in thought and then he looked away in thought. Slowly, though, a hint of red began to grow from Booster’s cheeks, his ears, and even down to his shoulders. He let out a strained laugh. “I mean, we’re not in-in a relationship that way, I thought.”

Blanching, Ted nearly hit the wall behind him again backing up. “What do you mean thought!?” he squeaked out.

“I don’t know! I thought we weren’t? You’re here telling me my death will be worse than Superman’s!” Booster yelled back in response, his own body going stiff as a board as he backed up, too.

“I’m allowed to feel that way without it being that way!” Ted countered. He then reached to his head and yanked on his turtleneck. “Stupid, fucking, heated, useless--”

“What way?” Booster pressed, quiet and thoughtful.

“Oh, god, can we go back to fighting?” Ted begged. 

“We may, depending on how this goes!” Booster said. His eyes flickered with something meaningful and unknowable at Ted. “Ted, have we been in a relationship this whole time?”

“If you have to ask, the answer’s probably no,” Ted said, chin down as he glared angrily at his turtleneck. Like it was the cause of everything terrible that had happened that day so far. 

“Probably?” 

Groaning, Ted scrubbed at his face instead of his turtleneck. He was about to have survived Doomsday only to give in to the elements and melt into a puddle right there in the League’s own property. “I never thought we were. But, when I look at all the things I count as having in a relationship? Like all the time, and the close vicinity, and the -- you know, all the stuff -- when I look at it scientifically, it would appear to most people that we, uh. I can just see where it came from.”

Booster looked unmoved. “What all stuff?”

“Don’t make me--” Ted sighed and rotated one of his hands in a weak gesture. “Booster, the feelings stuff. I care about you, like a lot. To an insane and scary degree. To the point that I do crazy, Mad Scientist Kord things that make no sense to anybody but me. Like sabotaging your chances of going back out there in the field because I’m so goddamn terrified that I’ll lose you.”

Squinting at him, Booster folded his arms across his broad chest. “You’re, what, hurtful because you love me?”

“I mean, statistically looking at my history, it’s just about the only way I know how to love people,” Ted attempted to joke. Badly. “Or I’m just really scared of this side of me and didn’t acknowledge it until about three minutes ago. That, too.”

“This is, by far, the weirdest conversation we’ve had,” Booster noted, almost transfixed. 

“I mean, I’m sure we have had to have weirder at some point,” Ted muttered only to go stiff as Booster came in closer. “W-what are you doing?”

Ted wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was not the huge, sweaty embrace of his best friend who he had spent a few weeks sabotaging. Yet, as he was pulled tightly into Booster, he couldn’t help himself from pulling back, from wrapping his arms around Booster and breathing him in. 

Somehow he had forgotten how good it felt to just touch someone else, to hug someone and mean it in a way that was so intimate and close. He felt lighter against Booster. 

“I love you, too, Ted, you big idiot,” Booster huffed against the top of Ted’s head, his breath tickling the hairs over Ted’s ear. “I’m sorry I’m bad at saying it, too. But I absolutely can’t lose you again, either. And-and I need my suit. I can’t protect you without it.”

Blinking against Booster’s chest, Ted can feel that Booster’s heart is as panicked and erratic as his own. 

“Maybe we both should get therapy first,” Ted mused.

“Maybe,” Booster agreed, finally letting Ted go so that they could look at each other. “We should probably, uh, process this thing first, though. Like. We just found out we’ve been kind of married for the past five years.”

Ted went rigid. “You think it’s only been five?” 

Booster burst into laughter, which Ted couldn’t keep himself from joining in on. They leaned against each other, slapping arms around each other’s necks for balance as their foreheads rested together. They were ridiculous and sophomoric, and almost everything the others had said about them -- especially that part. 

But a weight Ted didn’t know he had been carrying was finally gone, and for the first time in a long time, he realized that perhaps even more than wanting Booster safe, he’d wanted him happy for a long time. At the very least since Ted had woken up from his brush with death. 

And, if they were basically in a relationship anyway, he supposed that it was only right that they work on making each other happy anyway. 

[renaroo]

Some Times (Time and Time Again) (8/8)

Disclaimer: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: Canon shaken not stirred, Heavy canon references to Booster Gold (2009-2011) and Blue Beetle (2016-2018) Pairings: Boostle Rating: T Synopsis: Booster Gold and the rest of the Time Masters are still straightening up things in the wake of the most recent universal Rebirth. But Rip Hunter is still missing in the aftermath, leaving Booster in charge with Skeets, Michelle, and Rani. But there’s a distraction for Booster, one he can’t keep himself from ignoring.

Ted Kord, miraculously, is still alive. And that makes everything more complicated than Michael could have ever imagined.

A/N: We’re finally here! After such a long wait, we’ve finally come to the end of this fic. It’s been a wild ride, fueled at the end here by quarantine and anxiety, but I really have loved writing this story. I adore these characters, miss the Time Family in the comics, and hope I did them justice in this story. I hope it is something enjoyable for all of you, too.

As we wrap up this long journey, I absolutely must thank all of you for coming along with me. And, of course, a wonderful and appreciative thank you to @babybatbrat, @spiralcass, @shibascarf, @mcbangle, gaymage, Schw0099, GeorginaNadia, @secretlystephaniebrown, and arouraleona for your lovely comments and supportive words <3 I appreciate them so very much!

Michael Jon Carter

Booster Gold is not new to being a superhero.

He’s been there and seen that. His current “job” interview was him watching the rebirth of the multiverse after a giant mind-controlling worm tore everything to hell. He fought with the bravest and greatest men and women he ever met against the monster that killed Superman. He actually got to confess his feelings and act with them for the friend that he couldn’t stop from dying years beforehand. 

And he is still unprepared for the twists and turns before him now. 

From underneath a metal I-beam, Michael Jon Carter stares in silence at the shimmering black metal of Black Beetle. He heard Rani’s accusation, but what is more deafening is what comes after.

Black Beetle stands in silence rather than correct her. 

Ted, on his back still behind Rani, looks around multiple times before squinting at Black Beetle. “What’s a Boppy?” he asks cluelessly.

“Nothing,” Black Beetle insists, scooping forward and grabbing Rani’s wrist before retching her away from his line of fire. “Not anymore.”

A wild spark of protectiveness takes possession of Booster as he realizes what’s about to happen. Even with the pounding in his chest and ears ever-growing -- god, Rani can’t be right, she can’t -- he knows he has to save Ted first and foremost. He pushes and shoves at the heavy metal laying across him when it rather unexpectedly gives way.

Blinking in surprise, Booster glances over and sees Michelle across the other side of the lab near the transporter platform. She’s weary, but her hand is reaching forward outstretched toward the I-beam, using her suit’s magnetism.

“Mike, go!” she coughs out. 

His family, his loved ones, are all in pain around him, and Booster can’t figure out a way to heal all of it outside of the most direct way first.

Clenching his fist, Booster flings himself forward with the force of his flight ring. He tackles into Black Beetle’s waist and takes him into the nearest wall before he can fire at Ted. 

Then, before either himself or the time-traveling menace can catch their breath again, they are enclosed in a thick bubble produced by the forcefield belt.

“Boost!” “Mikey!” “Michael!” muffled yells cry from outside.

For the moment, Booster ignores them, pushing up to his feet one foot at a time. He can feel a trickle of blood down from his nose yet again, but he ignores it, focusing instead as Black Beetle stands back up. 

“You think you can keep me trapped in here, Gold?” he snarls.

“I don’t know, it worked for Guy Gardner before,” Booster only half jests. He stands tall, meeting Black Beetle eye to eye. “And like it or not, he has a lantern ring. Is that blaster stronger than the most powerful tool in the universe?”

Black Beetle snarls and begins to readjust his suit’s weaponry. “Then I’ll take that belt off of you and free us both.”

“Maybe,” Booster admits, “but you should at least answer some questions for me first.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Black Beetle growls. 

“Yeah? So sure about that?” Booster taunts, stabbing a finger at Black Beetle’s armored chest. “Is Rani right? Is whoever is inside that black tin can Rip Hunter?” He squinted at the little exposed face he could see and felt a sickening lurch in his stomach. “Are you my missing friend?”

“You and Rip Hunter were never friends,” Black Beetle says coldly.

“We were friends to me,” Booster says gently. He searches Beetle’s face and feels his chest clench. “Rip. C’mon, Rip. It’s you. Please, just. Take the helmet down. I haven’t seen you in months. Years, it feels like.”

For a moment, there is no response from Black Beetle at all. He stands, stoically, nose to nose with Booster before tipping his head down. All at once, his armor responds, cryptically unfolding and reforming away from his head regressing back into the torso of the suit. 

Booster sets his jaw, his heart still aching at the reveal no matter how much Booster attempted to prepare himself. 

Rip Hunter’s face is unmistakable, from his firm brow to the stern lines of his jaw. His hair is returned to the dirty blonde, no longer dyed or shaded as Rip has taken to. But, what is not the same, is the haunting glow that now envelops his eyes. It permeates out around him, rotating in a colorful display of the rainbow lights Booster has become so familiar with from the timestream. 

“What’s happening?” Booster demands immediately. “You wouldn’t do all of this without a reason, you wouldn’t… None of this would be happening unless Rip Hunter had a good reason. No matter how crazy he is. You are. Whatever. What I’m trying to say is...” Booster looks down to his hands which seem to be shrugging back at him in confusion before he throws them up in defeat. “What the actual fuck!?”

Scowling at him in a way that only Rip Hunter can, Black Beetle glares back into Booster’s face. “I am doing what Rip Hunter always must do -- correct the timestream, preserve events, make the tough choices.”

“Were you always Black Beetle?” Booster asks. “Either you need an Oscar or Rip -- my Rip -- didn’t know anything about this when you first showed up.”

“A Rip Hunter is always Black Beetle,” he answers cryptically.

“You really are Rip, because only Rip can make me that infuriated in a sentence,” Booster groans, rubbing a hand across his face only to flinch at the pain from his nose. “Why are you trying to kill Ted? Time has changed -- you yourself used to talk about it being fluid! Everything’s stable! Ted doesn’t have to die to save the universe!”

“He has to die for Rip Hunter to exist, that is obvious!” Black Beetle snarls, the chronal energy beginning to shine through even his mouth. “Each moment takes me closer to being rewritten, closer to impermanence! And without me there will be no protection for time itself! The universe will never survive!” 

“Wow, you egotistical jackass, I’m right here!” Booster shouts back, gesturing to himself wildly. “You trained me! And I wasn’t going to sit back and let you disappear before I knew you were going to have this chronal temper tantrum, and I’m definitely not going to do it now! Give me some credit.”

“You will be too content to see me come to existence,” Rip declares, beginning to fold in on himself, his body convulsing in a seizure that was all too familiar to Booster after his own bout of chronal leprosy. “I will never come to be.”

“What a terrible thing to think of your family,” Booster jokes gently, moving to catch Rip’s now bulking shoulders. He falls to his knees on the floor with him.

“You don’t even know how much family we are,” Rip chokes out. “You may never know.”

Booster’s chest clenches at that and he presses his forehead to Rip’s. “I think, buddy, I’ve got a clue,” he remarks gently. “You’re sick and you’re not thinking straight, Rip. And if you think you’re not coming into existence in this universe, you’re so wrong it’s laughable. Really! When you’re old enough, I’m going to give you such shit for it. The great Rip Hunter, bested by Booster Gold.”

“Bested by Michael Carter,” Rip says weakly back, his skin beginning to crack and shed chronal light more and more. The crevices of his suit shine brightly with it. “Will you promise? To make sure?”

“Of course, Rip,” Booster says, leaning back and away far enough to look fully into Rip’s face. “I’m good on my word to my family. Always.”

He waits, watching as Rip and Black Beetle in one disappear before his very eyes, pieces of chronal energy breaking up bit by bit and folding in on itself, disappearing from visible existence as if it were never there. Michael clutches his fists and tightly squeezes his eyes together as his chin drops to his chest. A surge of emotions he hasn’t let himself feel for Rip rush through him at once. 

After a long breath, he lowers his field and releases a long sigh. 

“Chalk that one down,” he says miserably, barely glancing over his shoulder at the three standing in shocked silence behind him. 

“Chalk what down, Boost?” Ted bothers to utter as Michelle and Rani hug and let tears run down their faces. 

“Well,” Booster sighs, pushing up to his feet, “I promised whenever he’s reborn and old enough, I’m going to give him shit for being wrong for once. That is a father-son promise that absolutely I am going to keep.”

He’s wobbly in his knees as he steps over to Ted and the others, but he tries his best not to show it. He’s already feeling weak in a lot of other ways and he doesn’t feel like letting any of them show. 

Ted is banged up and holding onto his right shoulder rather tenderly. But his face is more concerned than pained. 

“Are you okay?” Ted asks.

“Of course not,” Michael answers back. “You?”

“I’m, honestly, really confused,” Ted says, scratching at the back of his head. “But I’m also, just, really glad. Glad’s a weird way to be right now, isn’t it? I mean I’m relieved. Nope, not any better. I’m, uh. I’m…”

For just a moment, Booster raises a finger to hush Ted and tilts his body enough to look Michelle and Rani’s ways. 

“Girls? Are you guys going to be okay?” he asks tiredly.

“Yeah,” Shel answers, wiping at her eyes with the hand not gripped by Rani. “I-I’ll be okay.”

Rani nods, sniffling. “Boppy’ll be back. So I’m okay.”

Nodding, Booster takes a breath and then immediately slings his arms around Ted’s shoulders and pulls him into a full-body hug. “This is the weirdest, wildest, dumbest reunion of all time, but I don’t want you to ever doubt that…” he looks ahead, searching for his words. He blinks in distraction. “Don’t… want you to…” 

Holding Ted and arm's length, Booster stares ahead at Skeets and, more specifically, at the chalkboard just behind Skeet’s floating form.

Where before Ted Kord is KEY was written by itself, there is now a giant checkmark

“That… That dramatic son of a bitch!” Michael cries out, forgetting his weariness to stomp over to the board and examine. “He’s-- He does exist in this universe and has been writing on the board! The whole time! He could have-- why did he want--”

“Michael,” Michelle clears her throat before stiffly nodding her head toward Ted. “Maybe he… needed to make sure… things happened.”

Ted, for his part, looks utterly lost. 

“Come here,” Booster groans, reaching over to grab Ted’s wrist and yanking him close before planting a kiss to his cheek. 

“God, you could just ask me to take a few steps forward,” Ted chuckles into Booster’s skin.

He then grabs Michelle and Rani and pulls them all close.  “My family is all here,” he says confidently. “Even if one’s hiding out in the timestream like a jackass right now.”

“Language, Michael, really,” Michelle says with no heat to her words at all.

“And I’m always going to do what’s right for all of you,” he promises. 

They hug him back, every bit of his body held close by the people he loves most in the world at that moment in time. 

Then another I-beam falls ten feet ahead of them causing them all to jump and yell in surprise. 

“Okay,” Booster says, slow and drawn out. “What’s best for our family next step is probably fixing this place up before doing any other time shenanigans because I think I’ve put that off for about as long as the old Lab’s going to take it.”

“Well, not to brag,” Ted says before reaching up and pulling his goggles down over his eyes, “but I’m actually kind of a genius with labs.”

Booster feels his face melt into an affectionate smile, looking over Ted so fondly. “I know.”

“Ew, is this what love looks like,” Rani says, sticking out her tongue.

“Come here you,” Booster laughs, grabbing her sides and pulling her into a bear hug so that he can nuzzle her neck while she struggles and shrilly giggles. He flinches and lets go to check on his nose.

“You deserve that, brother-o’-mine,” Shel baps him on the head.

Ted, though, is on his knees and holding out his hands to study the bandage over Booster’s nose instead. He smirks and shakes his head. “You do know that promise goes both ways, right?” he asks, gently putting his hands over Booster’s. “I’ll do anything that’s best for you, too.”

“I know,” Booster says.

He knows there’s a lot of work still left to do, and that this new universe has a lot of things left to fix, but he feels in his soul more than he ever has before that on the track they’re on, there’s no place he’d rather be in that moment. For once, he can’t wait to see what the future might bring.

[renaroo]

Some Time (Time and Time Again) (5/8)

Disclaimer: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: Canon shaken not stirred, Heavy canon references to Booster Gold (2009-2011) and Blue Beetle (2016-2018) Pairings: Boostle Rating: T Synopsis: Booster Gold and the rest of the Time Masters are still straightening up things in the wake of the most recent universal Rebirth. But Rip Hunter is still missing in the aftermath, leaving Booster in charge with Skeets, Michelle, and Rani. But there’s a distraction for Booster, one he can’t keep himself from ignoring.

Ted Kord, miraculously, is still alive. And that makes everything more complicated than Michael could have ever imagined.

A/N: I love writing character dialogue so I let this one get away from me but, hopefully, you all will be understanding lol

And of course a wonderful thanks to @spiralcass, @secretlystephaniebrown, @babybatbrat, @mcbangle, @shibascarf, and @tardigradetheking for your lovely feedback and support!

Ted Kord

Ted is concerned about Booster’s condition long before he lands chin first into the concrete.

All the teams and all the fights that they had been through together over the years had shown Ted that Booster is as capable of taking a beating as any other hero. But there was intimate brutality to the fight between Ted’s mysterious attacker and Booster Gold that left far more questions than there are currently answers.

Of course, Booster’s fall is a helpful kick into high gear for switching between fight mode to oh shit mode.

Even though Ted is closer, he reaches the unconscious Booster’s side at nearly the same time as Michelle.

As if that isn’t weird enough on its own.

Without hesitation, Ted begins checking vitals and timing Booster’s pulse. The swelling and bruising are already looking nasty beneath the splattering of blood from Booster’s cuts and nose.

“Oh my god, can we move him?” Michelle asks, clear panic in her voice.

“Yeah, carefully,” Ted answers, using a momentarily free hand to point toward the steel locker by his desk. “I stocked a stretcher in the first aid cabinet. If we’re getting him out of here without messing with his neck then that’s going to be our biggest help.”

“I’m on it!” she yells, propelling from the floor and straight to the cabinet. She is back in the blink of an eye. “Tell me what to do.”

“Okay, when I say so, let’s lift him up just enough to slide the stretcher over and —“ he catches himself in the moment and then looks at Michelle curiously, “We have somewhere to take him, right? I’d say a hospital but—“

“No, we’ve got somewhere that Black Beetle shouldn’t be able to follow us,” she immediately replies. “Um. Hopefully. It’s the first time I’ve been in charge of moving places and cloaking us without…” Michelle shakes her head violently and then looks back at Ted with fiery confidence in her eyes. “We’ve got somewhere. If Skeets can help out with the transport.”

“Of course, Michelle!” the robotic voice drones.

Ted glances up and sees Skeets. The robot has an appendage out from his compact body and is using it to rather securely hold the wrist of the little girl from before. The girl has her free handheld tightly over her eyes, two clear streams of ongoing tears crossing her cheek as she breathes unevenly.

There is still so much that Ted can’t even comprehend enough to ask proper questions about, but he focuses and compartmentalizes as best he can be given the circumstances. Later. There has to be a later.

And beer. God, is he going to make Booster hold up his end of the deal so far as the beer is concerned.

Securing Booster’s neck and then securely taking hold of his shoulders, Ted takes a deep breath and looks to Michelle. “Okay, if you can get his legs, lift on three.”

Quickly, Michelle gets hold of her brother at his knees. “Ready!”

“One, two, three,” Ted presses, lifting Booster’s limp body up and using his foot to slide the stretcher closer to position before they lower him again. Booster is a lot heavier than the last time Ted can remember having to carry him — and it’s all hard muscle. Which is definitely something considering that Booster was never one to lack tone, to begin with.

The jarring of Booster’s body elicits a low, throaty groan from him, but it is only momentary. He is still completely out when Ted reaches up and brushes back blonde hair to feel and better see Booster’s forehead and face.

The adrenaline is wearing thin and the horrors and near-misses of everything are starting to catch up with Ted. His chest feels tight and on fire.

“I am going to transport all of us to Time Lab, but it will require some calculation considering the relative size of our party compared to… the limited surface area available at the moment,” Skeets announces.

“Just do it, Skeets!” Michelle begs.

Ted takes another moment to look her over and can’t help the commentary he has been holding back.

“Hey, so, fancy seeing you here,” he says. Michelle looks to Ted’s face, curious where this is leading. “Haven’t seen you since your funeral. You look good.”

“Thanks. Haven’t seen you since yours,” Michelle counters quickly.

Blinking with surprise, Ted turns his head slightly but any verbal response is cut off by the winding up and BOOM of their transportation, followed by the bodily jerk of material displacement and replacement.

They go from Ted’s utterly destroyed personal lab… To something that looks to be in a fairly similar state.

“You have a laboratory?” he asks, taken aback. “What does Booster need with a laboratory? The closest I’ve seen him to 'experimenting' is whatever he put together from the fridge’s leftovers.”

“This laboratory and compound are originally the property and creation of Doctor Rip Hunter,” Skeets’ voice offers as the robot flies past them.

And that is a name which Ted has not heard from in a while. It’s enough to make him take pause just before helping Michelle lift Booster’s stretcher. He’s still trying to put in place the variables he knows together but the time travelers just keep throwing new ones at him.

Figures.

Realizing he has no concept of where he’s going, Ted gives Michelle a look. “Uh, where’s a good place to—“

“Michael’s bedroom is down the hall, but the living room’s closer if you think a couch could work,” Michelle answers.

“Yeah, closer the better,” Ted agrees before allowing Michelle to lead the way.

He continues thinking — medical supplies to list out for them, monitoring his swears for the literal child present, concerns about the safety of this lab both from its broken nature and the transporting assassin after him, so on and so forth. But some things are drawing together.

“So… Michael lives with Rip Hunter… in a laboratory where he can… transport places and fight with guys infringing on my copyright,” Ted puts together as they reach the couch.

“Among other things,” Michelle says almost cryptically.

They slide Booster onto the couch and the failed attempt at conversation gets shelved. There’s pressing matters — all that other stuff on Ted’s mind.

Ted immediately checks on Booster’s neck. He didn’t like the way Booster’s head hit the ground, let alone the other times he crashed headfirst into the Bug. Or any walls. Or the Bug again. And the bruising was already purpling. Maybe there is a stake when being fashion-forward because Ted can’t imagine that the popped up collar would have let Booster’s neck jerk in that fashion.

The thought crosses his mind so naturally that he almost doesn’t question it, just smirks to himself in amusement. But then Ted does think about it.

When did Booster ever have a popped collar? Why is he thinking about that? How bizarre…

“I’m going to need some supplies—“ Ted begins to say.

“I’ll get them,” Michelle answers, getting to her feet.

“Do you need me to tell you what we need?” Ted asks as she leaves the room.

“I’ve got a good handle on what we’re going to need, Ted,” she replies before disappearing out into the rest of the lab.

Ted’s at a loss for words by the time Michelle gets back and they get to work taking care of the immediate stuff. A neck brace, ankle bandaged and up, a few scrapes closed up, a few scrapes stitched up. Cutting off the tethers of Booster’s ruined suit, the works.

It’s no Doomsday fight — which, Ted reminds himself, they weren’t there for, were they? — but this Black Beetle really did a number in a short amount of time.

It almost makes Ted question how badly he would be looking if Booster hadn’t shown up at the right time and place. He’s not sure he would like the answer, especially after Michelle’s commentary about funerals.

“That’s the most immediate stuff,” Ted says, spooling leftover suture. “But, uh, if I still know Booster—“

“You do,” Michelle says almost fondly.

“Right,” Ted answers awkwardly before coughing into his fist and looking back at her. “Well, he’s going to have a lot of complaints if his nose is crooked when he wakes up.”

Michelle throws her head back and laughs. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

Ted waves to Booster’s face. “You want the honors?”

“Please,” Michelle continues laughing, shaking her head. “I am but a lowly twin sister. I mess that up and it will never be forgiven. I’ll hear about it forever.”

“What, and I won’t?” Ted asks, already changing out his dirty gloves for a new set.

“He’s going to be so happy to see you when he wakes up that I think you could probably get away with a lot more than a crooked nose,” Michelle says warmly.

Slowly, Ted frowns as he examines his gloves. So many variables. More every minute. But they’re beginning to get distracting.

Almost as distracting as the fact that he hasn’t talked to his best friend in years, and the first day they’re back in each other’s orbit, everything goes to hell in a handbasket and Ted almost has to watch Booster die.

Some things just can’t be ignored any further.

“Listen, I’m playing along with this because, even if I’ve not been in a suit myself for a while, I’m familiar with how this hero game goes,” Ted says lowly. “Prioritize then summarize. I’m not even expecting to walk away today knowing half the stuff I probably need to. But I think… I think I need to know something that’s going on. Because I almost watched my best friend die today, and that only happened because I was almost killed.”

Michelle stares at him for a moment, looking genuinely sympathetic. “I’ll be honest, Ted,” she says, finding a seat on the coffee table just behind him, “I’m not sure what I can say and what I can’t. Booster and I were trying to figure that out already before… Well, before all of this happened and left us ungrounded.”

Ted furrowed his brow. “So, what? Just trying to figure out if It’s worth telling me the sister I went to a funeral for was actually alive? That there was a reason I haven’t heard a peep in years? That he has a kid — and, by the by, Jesus Booster has a kid?”

“Hey! It’s all a lot more complicated than just not telling you things,” Michelle argues.

“You told me you went to my funeral,” Ted points out. “I’d like that implication ironed out. Please and thanks.”

Michelle blinks in surprise, putting a hand to her chest. “Oh. Did I say that? That is… almost exactly the thing that Mikey would have preferred to put on the back burner.”

“Oh, great,” Ted sarcastically spits back. “That’s good to know.”

“No! I mean. Oh, shoot, I’m…” Michelle takes a breath and pinches her nose. “Dammit, Carter temper!” She then looks at Ted apologetically. “What I’m trying to say is, first off, I’m sorry if I’ve been. Um. Short with you. It’s just that… Michael’s literally the last person I have left who’s family. Hell, who’s known I’ve been alive for the past few years. With Rip gone and Rani still so young… All I’ve got is Michael. And he’s being…”

“Booster,” Ted offers.

“Exactly,” she yells, throwing her hands up. “Idiot! He’s got all this shit he’s in charge of and all these people counting on him and he goes up against Black Beetle with his force field projected onto someone else.”

Ted flinches at that. “Me.”

“Well, yeah,” Michelle groans, rubbing her face. “Big dummy. Big idiot. God. I hate how stupid he is sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Ted utters, glancing back at Booster. “Well. He saved me with it this time. And most of the other times it involved pranks I initiated. And I guess he’s the dumbest when it comes to having a big heart about stuff. Maybe. Actually some of the things with making money, we were also pretty dumb about. But in general, it’s the big-hearted stuff.”

He trails off in thought, realizing his grin is one he hasn’t worn in quite a while. His ears heat up, no doubt turning an awful shade of red, and Ted ducks his head slightly as if it would help.

When he feels the weight of Michelle’s gaze, Ted can’t help but look her way. He sees a bit of hesitation in her face and she tucks strands of blonde hair behind her ears carefully.

“This is going to sound like I’m putting off answering any of your questions,” she admits slowly. “I promise I’ll answer what I can, but to get a proper frame of where to start, I need to ask you something that seems probably obvious to you. Something I bet Michael’s never going to get the nerve to ask.”

“Oh, okay,” Ted answers, feeling a catch in the rhythm of his heart yet again. He’s not certain he’s ready for this.

And he certainly isn’t prepared when he hears her ask, “Can you tell me exactly what it was that you and Michael had a falling out about?”

Ted blinks, frankly surprised. For some ungodly reason, he has been stressing about a much more intimate question.

This seems both easier and harder.

“It’s kind of a misnomer to call it a falling out exactly,” Ted admits, a little more reluctant than he expected of himself. “We didn’t fall out, we had just this period of, well, not clicking. Which is weird. Because it’s us.”

Michelle nods in a way that might seem like she understands what us can entail. But Ted feels, coldly down to his core, that even if she’s Booster’s twin sister there’s certainly no way she can understand this feeling he means. There’s not anyone Ted thinks can fully comprehend what he’s talking about with him and Booster.

For a long time, he liked to think that Booster understood.

But years of silence has made Ted begin to think it could very well just be on his side after all.

No one gets it.

“It started out with just little things, not meshing,” Ted continues. “And I was… well, I started getting more irritable. Everyone says so, I didn’t think so at the time. Maybe I did. I was having a hard time and Booster is usually so good at getting what I’m feeling and he just wasn’t. And after a while, I moved cities. Lost my company to corporate espionage. Went into cardiac arrest.” Ted can’t help the flare-up of anger he feels as he adds, “Booster never checked in. I didn’t bother reaching back out.”

In response, Michelle looks positively horrified. “When did this all happen?” she asks quickly.

Ted raises a brow in her direction. “I don’t know. Two years ago? Little more?”

She bites onto one of her fingers and turns her head, holding something back with all her might. Then she gazes back at Ted, apologetically. “I… I think there’s been a misunderstanding in all of this,” she admits. “Because Mikey… God he would never miss being there for you again.”

Squinting, Ted can’t tell how much he’s being played anymore. “Again?” he presses.

“Dammit!” Michelle grabs her hair and pulls. In her frustration, Ted thinks she couldn’t look any more like her twin if she tried. “I hate keeping track of this time travel shenanigans! I hate it! I don’t have a knack for it like Michael.”

“Calm down,” Ted tries to say evenly and politely. “I’m sure there is something else going on. Hell, I know there has to be because… look where we are… look who we are. That’s what I’d like to get to the business of, honestly, because this is making my head spin and I’m worried more and more each second you’re letting me fill in my own blanks.”

Michelle inhales sharply and closes her eyes. After a few moments of furrowed brows and mixed expressions, she nods her head and looks at Ted. “Look, honestly, I want Michael to be the final word on what is shared and what’s not. But you’re almost being assassinated by time travelers, and you met Rani, and you know I’m alive, and Michael — allegedly — spills his guts any time he’s around a fifth and you, so… Here we go.”

Easing back into a more comfortable position, Ted tilts his head and looks at Michelle expectantly. “Here we go,” he agrees.

“Well, we work… kind of like Time Cops,” Michelle announces in wind up.

Which is already enough to make Ted take pause.

“I’m sorry, did you say Time Cops?” Ted asks critically. “What does that even mean?”

“Well, the time stream has important moments that can’t be changed… but sometimes they get fuzzy, or moments leading up to them get weakened, and people who can manipulate the time stream can abuse those moments to alter history as we know it,” Michelle explains. “Rip Hunter, who discovered the time stream and invented time travel as we know and understand it now, has Mikey go-to moments in time where he’s needed and repair them. Sometimes they make sense and sometimes they don’t, but each moment is important and Mikey — sometimes with my help — goes in, makes sure things happen like they’re supposed to, and comes back. Hopefully with being seen, heard, or felt as little as possible. But sometimes it means punching people. I haven’t figured out which kind of intervention he prefers yet, really. It depends on the day.”

Ted blinks a few times, looks to his unconscious friend, then back to Michelle.

“We’re talking about Booster, right?”

For a brief moment, a flash of protective fury crosses Michelle’s face. She tempers it quickly, though and smirks to herself. “Yeah… well, people rise to the expectations you give them sometimes, you know?” She looks fondly toward her brother. “Rip gave him that chance. Gave it to me, too. Saved me from my death and, through a loophole, made it less of a second chance and more of an opportunity to be someone I was always meant to be.”

Searching Michelle’s forlorn expression, Ted takes a breath and nods slowly. “Yeah,” he agrees softly. “Honestly, yeah. You guys always were great — naturals at this whole hero thing. From the start. Even being thrown off the same way I would if you put me back at the Revolutionary War, I guess. But… I knew Booster was capable of being greater than any of us,” Ted clarifies. “It’s just… last time I saw him, he wasn’t exactly taking those steps.” He frowns and looks off, a bit red in the ears again. “Maybe it was because of me. Maybe he couldn’t take them while we were being goofballs.”

“No, that’s not it at all,” Michelle says, approaching Ted and gently placing her hands on his shoulders. “Ted, he only did any of this from the beginning because of you. Because… Because the time stream is shifted and some of the things we’ll tell you for the next while aren’t going to make any sense with what you know is true, but… our time now is different than the one Michael and I still remember. There was a huge event, a huge change that we couldn’t do anything about, and some of it is still not figured out. But one of the biggest changes is that these few years of you two being apart… for us, it wasn’t some falling out or misunderstanding left on the back burner.”

And, suddenly, it all begins to click into place.

He turns and looks at Michelle with widened, horrified eyes.

“You’re saying I’m supposed to be dead now?” he asks her critically. “That that’s the reason I’ve not seen him?”

“No! Yes! I mean, hold on,” Michelle shakes her head. “Yes, that’s where the confusion is, but… no. No, we don’t think you’re supposed to be dead. You were and now you’re not, and maybe this is how things are meant to be but before they weren’t.”

“This is not comforting at all,” Ted heaves, feeling like he can’t get any air all of the sudden. His heart is racing. “Wait, that assassin… is he trying to kill me because I’m supposed to be dead? Was it the heart attack!? Oh, god, I faced down a lot of alien invasions over the years and if it was a heart attack that got me, I swear to god—“ He pauses and breathes. “Actually, no, okay, that’s pretty funny, Big Guy, a few points there.”

Ted thinks he’s being fairly humorous, all things considered, but when he looks to Michelle for at least a complementary laugh, all he gets is a stare that makes the rounds somewhere between sympathetic and embarrassed. Which is not the reaction he was looking for in either case.

“It’s weird knowing you’re supposed to be dead, but, trust me, it’s not as weird as you feel right now,” Michelle attempts to comfort him.

“Alright,” Ted responds, throat feeling a little dry. “I’ll have to take your words for it.” He then frowns and rubs at his chin in thought. “Okay, but that still leaves the question of this Black Beetle character. What’s his deal? Why does he want me dead? Is it because of the time stream shenanigans you mentioned?”

Michelle frowns and runs a hand through her hair. “Black Beetle is a weird one to explain. He’s… Michael’s been dealing with him for quite a while now, but there’s not a whole lot we know about him. He claims he’s from the twenty-seventh century and he claims there’s something particular about the Blue Beetle legacy he hates. But I never made sense of it.” She shrugs. “Honestly, I can’t fill you in on most of that stuff. It was mostly before I was back on the scene. That’s all Mikey and,” her mouth twitches a bit, uncomfortable and sad, “and Rip.”

“Rip Hunter,” Ted clarifies. “If he’s basically your and Booster’s boss, and this is his lab, where’s he hiding at?”

The very mention of Rip has left Michelle paled, but by the end of Ted’s question, she looks positively heartsick.

It’s almost enough to make Ted regret bringing it up.

“We don’t know,” Michelle admits quietly. “Most of our time for the past year has been split between patching up messes in the time stream and looking for him. But, honestly, with all his secrets, we don’t even know where to start looking for him. It’s like the new universe opened up and swallowed him whole. He’s just gone.”

“So, what, he never existed?” Ted asks. The concept of someone being swallowed up by time and space is enough to make any lesser man stare at a spot on the wall for a few hours in existential horror, but Ted has the pressing concerns of catching up with his best friend’s not-dead sister and dealing with time-traveling assassins to helpfully distract him.

“Well, Michael doesn’t think so,” Michelle says, sounding rather unsure of herself. “At least not yet. He says we would have a harder time remembering him by now if that’s the case. But… Rip’s been a part of our lives for a long time now. He’s… he’s family. It’s hard to think of anything keeping him away like this without any signs.” She pauses. Her finger daintily taps on her bottom lip. “Hm. But he… or someone, at least, gave us a clue of some kind. It’s what got Rani on her little adventure to find you, Ted.”

“Okay, I guess that sounds promising for Rip,” Ted says, though it honestly doesn’t sound like anything to his ears if he’s being honest with himself. “But what about this Rani girl?” Ted asks.

Michelle’s entire demeanor softens. “Rani is… Well, at this point, she’s an anomaly. Michael saved her from a planet which was destroyed and, well, she wasn’t supposed to be. There weren’t any survivors, according to records. She’s one of us, now.”

Ted stares at Michelle in partial horror. “What? Is that… how… Wow.” He scratches his head before continuing, “So Booster’s basically a dad now.”

“Well,” Michelle pauses and then nods reluctantly. “Actually, yes. In a way it kind of. Fell onto him. But he lives up to it beautifully.”

There’s a gasp that Ted can’t retain, despite himself. “He pulled a Batman.”

“Yes,” Michelle agrees.

“S’dop dalkin’ aboud me.”

The words catch Ted so off guard, he nearly jumps to his feet from the floor. For her part, Michelle does jump to her feet.

Booster’s eyes are still closed and he looks positively miserable even then, but there’s an unmistakable control of his breath and a blush of red in his face. He shifts, slightly and painfully, as if beginning to adjust himself before realizing it’s a very poor idea.

After he settles again, Booster’s lids lift up just slightly and he lets out a sigh.

“Seriouthly,” he slurs through a heavily blocked nose, “I’m right here.”

“Mikey! You’re okay!” Michelle yells out with relief.

“D’at’s a sd’re’dch,” Booster continues with a low moan. “I d’ink I go’d hi’d by a d’ruck.”

“Close,” Ted joked, settling back into a haunched position close to the couch. “You kind of hit the Bug. A few times.”

Immediately, Booster’s eyes flicker open and he locks in on Ted’s direction like a honing rocket. His expression is difficult to make out, a flurry of different emotions flooding across all at once. “Ted,” he manages to say carefully enough it’s clear even with his nose in the way.

“Hey,” Ted says back, mouth feeling strangely dry. He tries to think of something more serious to say but all he can manage is, “Sorry I couldn’t reset your nose while you were asleep. I was too busy taking selfies with you while I still had the better face.”

“You always had… d’e be’dder face,” Booster manages with a crinkle of a smile on his swollen lips.

Ted smirks and shakes his head just slightly. “Liar.” He feels the uncomfortable warmth rise up to his face and ears yet again and turns his head slightly to avoid Booster’s gaze just for a moment. But not too long. “Guess it’s kind of cheating to claim best looks after you take a few assassination attempt hits for me just beforehand. Very unsportsmanlike.”

“Very,” Booster says breathily. Annoyance flashes through his eyes for a moment. “Wha’d abou’d my nose?”

“That’s my cue to let you take the brunt of this one, Blue Beetle!” Michelle declares, walking up to the side of her brother and leaning over to affectionately pat his cheek. “Have fun, bro.”

Booster takes his eyes off of Ted for the first time since they opened and and regards Michelle carefully. “Rani?”

“Scared. Fine, safe. Scared,” Michelle recites easily. “I’m going to go check on her and Skeets.”

“D’anks,” Booster mutters as Michelle passes.

It leaves them alone in the room together, and Ted realizes he has wasted a lot of potential questions and conversation starters already and isn’t sure where to go next.

Which helps when Booster chimes in with, “Are you hur’d?”

Baffled, Ted looks at him. “Heard? I don’t know can you hear me?”

“No, I mean…” Booster huffs a short laugh. “Asshole.”

“Of course I’m not hurt, you protected me instead of yourself, nitwit,” Ted says. His hand moves without him thinking, like it’s possessed, and takes hold of Booster’s normally soft and perfect hair. It’s not perfect after a beating, but still soft. He teases it a bit, shaking Booster’s head just enough to make a point without testing his no doubt sore neck. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“‘Course I did,” Booster says easily enough. “Didn’d feel like… losing you…”

“I didn’t want to lose you again either,” Ted says pointedly. “Imagine how I feel now.”

Booster’s eyes sharpened, a little more lucid and serious. “You never lose me.”

“What? You got all the timelines down to a science, Time Cop?” Ted asks. When he sees the brief flash of shock, he realizes that Booster wasn’t awake for nearly as much of Ted and Michelle’s conversation as he thought. “Your sister shared. Just a bit. Still super confusing, though.”

“Dammit ‘Chel,” Booster groans. “Now go’dda kill you.”

“Nope,” Ted says, leaning over, “not letting that happen either. Not even for your nemesis with the very lame copyright infringement.”

“So lame,” Booster agrees, breath a little stilted. He begins to move his head closer but flinches back as his neck strains. “Dangerous, d’ough.”

“I get that,” Ted says. His mouth seems to be the only thing capable of movement. He’s not sure why, but his heart is irregular again, but not in the way that makes him concerned. It’s something, well, a lot more juvenile.

His mouth is still dry so he tries to lick his lips before continuing.

“Listen, Booster,” he says slowly, “I’m going to fix your nose.”

“Oh, good,” Booster says lightly.

“But it’s going to hurt like a you know what and… I kind of want to take care of something else before we get on to that part. Something that’s been bothering me for years. Before this weird… whatever cosmic misunderstanding there’s been between us,” Ted explains, doing his best to balance thorough detail and utter vagueness in a way that would make the Question proud.

Booster looks at him warily. “Okay?”

They stare at each other in silence. Booster is expectant and slightly nervous. Ted is certain he would have lost his lunch by now if he hadn’t given the grease bucket stuff to Rani earlier.

As soon as the awkwardness of hesitation is more than the nervousness of action, Ted launches forward and kisses the corner of Booster’s mouth.

He can feel the touch of their lips, the slight five o’clock shadow forming the outline of Booster’s mouth. He tries to mind Booster’s bruises and aches, but the rush of adrenaline presses Ted’s lips hard into the other man’s skin. It could, after all, be the very last time he even has the opportunity to do this.

When he pulls back with the thrust of a man breaking through water to the air again, Ted feels like he could pass out. He looks, horrified at himself, toward Booster and sees a surprised expression, too.

Booster blinks multiple times before, against Ted’s grunts of disagreement, shifting to push up on his elbows and lift his torso off the couch.

None of this, especially the lack of words, is helping Ted wonder if he can throw up the day before’s lunch in today’s stead.

“Wow,” Booster finally says. “I wan’d my nose fixed.”

Ted feels like he can crawl into a hole and die. “Okay.”

“Bu’d,” Booster huffs, looking at Ted deeply, “firs’d, you go’dda no’d miss.”

For a moment, the comment doesn’t register. Either because Ted is emotionally comatose in the aftermath of his big leap of faith, or because the dulled words Booster has to use with his blocked nose are distracting. Either way, it does finally come together and make sense.

“Oh!” Ted answers. “Yeah. Whoops. Total accident, let’s redo that. I’m sure you understand. Going back and fixing time stuff.”

He leans forward and, this time doesn’t miss.

[renaroo]

Some Times (Time and Time Again) (6/8)

Disclaimer: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: Canon shaken not stirred, Heavy canon references to Booster Gold (2009-2011) and Blue Beetle (2016-2018) Pairings: Boostle Rating: T Synopsis: Booster Gold and the rest of the Time Masters are still straightening up things in the wake of the most recent universal Rebirth. But Rip Hunter is still missing in the aftermath, leaving Booster in charge with Skeets, Michelle, and Rani. But there’s a distraction for Booster, one he can’t keep himself from ignoring.

Ted Kord, miraculously, is still alive. And that makes everything more complicated than Michael could have ever imagined.

A/N: My gosh we are so close to completing this thing! Just two chapters left, hard as it is to believe!

And of course a wonderful thanks to @shibascarf, @babybatbrat, @bibliofilariidae, @mcbangle, @secretlystephaniebrown, arouraleona, and boopinbabbit for your lovely feedback and support!

Michelle Carter

“God, I’m such an idiot sometimes!” Michelle hisses to herself, feet stomping down the corridor toward Rani’s room.

Her conversation with Ted Kord is still rattling around in her skull and she can’t tell what half of her she’d like to strangle more — the overly sharing side unable to keep a coherent secret or the crude and cryptic mistress of time she feels no right to even claiming.

Coming to a stop mid-stride, Michelle closes her eyes and lets her shoulders droop. She tilts her head back with a sigh. “No wonder Rip and Mikey trust me with next to nothing other than babysitting duty,” she groans. “Throw one little moment of emotional conflict and I utterly lose those salutatorian's brains.”

Opening her eyes, she looks toward Rani’s still distant room and feels a wave of conflict and shame that hasn’t pestered her in a while. But this is the feeling she should be used to by now — it’s just like their father used to always say when he bothered to be around.

“Been playing second best to nothing since the womb, huh, Michelle?” she mutters under her breath. “Could place second in a game of solitaire.”

She takes a moment to suck in a deep breath, steeling herself for a smiling face and positive disposition when a single voice knocks the wind out of her lungs yet again.

“What’s solitaire?” Rani’s tiny voice questions.

Michelle blinks in surprise just before Rani’s mousy haired head pops out from her room’s doorway.

Despite herself, despite everything, Michelle manages a softer and more genuine smile than the one she has been building up to and shakes her head slightly. “A really boring card game,” she answers easily. “Should have known better than to think you would be asleep.”

Skeets, the ever unhelpful bot, hovers out from Rani’s room and bops in the air. “It would have been an unlikely scenario even in the most forgiving of circumstances, Michelle! Which, unfortunately for us, the last twenty-four hours or so have not been.”

“Try the last twenty-nine years for some of us, Skeets,” Michelle jokes, closing the distance of the hallway and scooping Rani into her arms with a simple bow.

“That is much too small to be your correct chronal age, Michelle—“

“Skeets, shush,” Michelle snaps as she enters the bedroom. “Or I’ll give you to Batman to dissect. Again.”

“Three experiences too many, I will heed the warning,” Skeets banters back.

As they enter Rani’s room, Michelle slows her approach to Rani’s bed and adjusts her hold on the younger child. Her thoughts are nearly as heavy as Rani is getting as she lives and ages with them. It’s not going to be long before picking her up isn’t an option for Michelle or Michael.

“Are you going to make me go to bed?” Rani asks critically.

“Eventually,” Michelle admits, turning to sit on the edge of the bed while still keeping her grip on Rani. The girl sits easily in her lap and leans away, giving enough space for them to look into each other’s eyes. “We need to have a talk about everything that’s happened first.”

Rani’s cheeks grow slightly pale and she squirms uncomfortably. “Oh,” she says. “I think I’d rather sleep.”

“Well, that’s tough, kiddo, probably should have put yourself to bed before I got over here then,” Michelle jokes, poking at Rani’s stomach playfully.

In response, Rani turns and twists, but the enthusiasm is slow and dull compared to Rani’s usual behavior.

It’s one of many signs Michelle, Michael, and Rip have learned to pay careful attention to with Rani. She is a sensitive little girl, and her traumas are numerous. When she’s not bopping around she’s almost assuredly in some state of regressive isolation or pure shock.

Watching the man she loves as a father get beaten to a pulp by an evil man they have encountered before is, at the very least, a trigger. Michelle can be certain of at least that much.

“Rani, listen to me,” Michelle says, firmly but without any heat to it. It’s enough to draw Rani’s wide eyes to her. “We love you, and we want the best for you. You know that, right?”

After a moment of clear confusion, Rani manages a small nod.

“Good, because we do,” Michelle reinforces. “And we know you love Rip and want to find him. We do too! But you are a very little girl and this is a very dangerous multiverse we live in. You absolutely cannot, under no circumstances, leave Time Lab without either Mikey, myself, or Rip.”

“I had Skeets,” Rani says quickly.

On instinct, Michelle turns her head to acknowledge Skeets’ floating presence. She immediately turns her eyes back on Rani but it’s a moment too late as Skeets already feels acknowledged.

“Young Rani does have quite an argument on that account,” Skeets says supportively.

“Yes, Skeets, you did a great job,” Michelle says with a roll of her eyes that threatens to continue right out of her sockets. “What were you even doing allowing any of this, Skeets? Aren’t you programmed with safety protocols and whatnot?”

“Yes I am, Michelle, however, there are no proper babysitting protocols. And while I advised against rash action, it was best to make do with the situation at hand,” Skeets returns promptly. “Might I point out, this is not far off from my calculations when dealing with your brother.”

There isn’t much she can give to deny that fairly abundant fact so Michelle releases a groan instead. “Why can’t anything just be simple?”

Rani squirms and meets Michelle’s gaze. “Please don’t be mad at Skeets, Michelle,” Rani pleads. “It’s my fault. I just wanted to find Boppy, and he did leave me a message.”

Michelle feels her chest tighten and she squeezes her grip on Rani sadly. “We all want Rip back, Rani, believe me.”

“In further defense of both Rani and myself,” Skeets spoke up, hovering closer to eye level with Michelle, “following clear instructions left by Rip Hunter is often an important and practical step for all of us here in the Time Lab. And those newly chalked directions were fairly direct considering the usual clues.”

Blinking, Michelle thinks it over.

“That’s… actually pretty true, Skeets,” Michelle remarks thoughtfully. “And it did lead to saving Ted… and getting a bunch of us almost killed, but definitely the saving Ted part.” She presses her lips together, still deep in contemplation. “But even then there wasn’t any sign of Rip, even when Michael was almost certainly in trouble. And that’s not like Rip at all. I can’t even count on my hands and toes how many times, when Mike’s taken too much, Rip has shown up and tipped the scales for him. It’s almost his signature at a certain point.”

Following the conversation, Rani draws her own brows together in concern. “Michelle, you don’t think Boppy wrote the message? But who did? I’m the only one who’s ever written on the board before… and Boppy made me switch to making my unicorns and butterflies on paper so I don’t do that anymore.”

Sighing, Michelle shifts Rani’s weight to her other knee. “I’ll be honest, honey, I’m not sure yet what exactly I think about anything.”

Rani’s bottom lip puckers out as she studies Michelle carefully. “If we don’t know what’s going on, how do we know I did the wrong thing?” she asks pointedly.

“No, no, missy, you’re not philosophizing out of this one,” Michelle stops her quickly. “This isn’t a matter of right or wrong at the moment, it’s a matter of keeping you and everyone else safe so that we can all be together again as a big, happy family. And if you’re flying around to random times and places without us, we can’t do that. Because I know for me and Mike, losing you is the absolute worst thing imaginable these days, and I’m not going to let it happen. Okay, girlie?”

While she ducks her head down to avoid Michelle’s gaze, a coy smile finds its way to Rani’s face. She knows when Michelle says these things that she’s speaking from the bottom of her heart. She has to know by now.

And if she does, considering the emotional mess Rani was when she first came into their lives, maybe that means they’re doing something right after all.

When Rani breaks the silence again, it’s with a deceptively simple question. “Is Ted Kord now in our family? Like Boppy?”

Thinking about it, Michelle takes a breath and then leans back. “I honestly don’t know what’s in store with those two, Rani, love,” she admits. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere any time soon. Either because Michael and he need to sort things out or because of the whole… assassination stuff. That makes it kind of difficult to picture this arrangement ending too fast.”

Before Rani can respond, there is a loud shout followed by laughter.

“Welp, that’s the nose, and no sounds of murder,” Michelle jokes. Rani looks at her questioningly so she rubs her shoulders. “What I mean is, things are definitely looking like we can be expecting to see more of the former Blue Beetle.”

“Okay,” Rani nods. “And if he’s family, then Boppy will be okay with him staying here, like me, so that’s good.”

Michelle has a hard time arguing with Rani’s peculiar logic on that accord.

That is until Michelle looks over and notices the little girl is still furrowed in thought, her eyes darting back and forth as if she’s reading something on her room’s wall. Then, looking at Michelle cautiously, Rani asks, “If he’s not family… how is Black Beetle able to always get in and out of Time Lab? Or write on the board, if it’s him?”

If Rani hadn’t always been so innocent and young, Michelle thinks the questions would have been laced with more accusations. It’s already enough to make Michelle’s heart seize.

They are, after all, very good questions.

Playing up to the role of an adult, Michelle looks toward Skeets instead. “Skeets… how is all of this stuff possible from Black Beetle?” she asks, more worry in her voice than she intends to let on.

For once, Skeets’ response is not immediate and overly explanatory. The droid hovers, a strangely ominous look to his screen in the wrong lighting.

“Apologies, Michelle,” Skeets says in a flat and altogether unapologetic tone. “Information about my scans and records for Rip Hunter and Black Beetle are blocked as of update two-two-seven-dash-eleven-dot-thirteen. Courtesy of Rip Hunter.”

“What?” Michelle asks, aghast.

“Why would Boppy do that?” Rani asks again, only now her pointed questions are accented by the shake of Time Lab’s very infrastructure itself.

The little girl in her lap screams and throws herself into a fit before Michelle can even blink. She can’t draw a single coherent thought before leaping to her feet, Rani in tow, and looking at Skeets.

“I am receiving an intruder alert!” Skeets says loudly, a red exclamation popping up on his screen.

“You useless, toaster!” Michelle sputters in frustration. “Tell me where this is coming from!”

“I believe it does not require much deductive reasoning,” Skeets answers, following Michelle through the door and out into the corridor, “to assume that the laboratory is the most likely option!”

She would die before admitting it out loud, but Michelle knows that Skeets is right. She turns on her heels and takes off to follow the continuing noises of clattering and shaking.

Their home is under attack, their family, everything they still have of their old world and time — and Michelle cannot be nearly as upset with that as she is with the haunting premises that Rani and Skeets have given her.

Black Beetle or not, the real attack is on the understanding Michelle has had of their everything in the last few congruent years. And as much as she wants Rip Hunter safely back with them, she needs a serious word with him about that alone.

[renaroo]

Some Times (Time and Time Again) (2/8)

Disclaimer: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: Canon shaken not stirred, Heavy canon references to Booster Gold (2009-2011) and Blue Beetle (2016-2018) Pairings: Boostle Rating: T Synopsis: Booster Gold and the rest of the Time Masters are still straightening up things in the wake of the most recent universal Rebirth. But Rip Hunter is still missing in the aftermath, leaving Booster in charge with Skeets, Michelle, and Rani. But there’s a distraction for Booster, one he can’t keep himself from ignoring.

Ted Kord, miraculously, is still alive. And that makes everything more complicated than Michael could have ever imagined.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, everyone! I don’t have much of an excuse other than end of the year/start of the year shenanigans. But I’m back and hoping to write a lot more consistently now!

Special thanks to sinkburrito, SheWhoDancesUnderTheMoon, Erie, @secretlystephaniebrown, @fred-astairs-dark-impulses, @shibascarf, @kaldurrr, @bibliofilariidae, @spacedolphinsanddandelions, @spiralcass, and @noartificialfruitjuice

Time Masters

Time Lab is, still, a complete and utter disaster.

Sparks fly from gadgetry that even Michelle’s 25th century mind cannot comprehend, there’s a random wormhole that she thinks is still appearing in the cupboard, and for reasons beyond comprehension, her room and Michael’s room switched at some point after the Flashpoint tipped over into the current reality they were a part of.

She stands at the center of the catastrophe that is their home, worrying her lip as she looks around and tries to think straight — tries to think What Would Rip Do? without any clear answer in sight.

There is a certain level of chaos that, as a time traveler herself, and as a sometime-quasi-assistant to her brother, she is more than familiar with. It felt like (was?) only yesterday that she helped punch a Confederate soldier riding a sabre tooth tiger. And that was… well, it wasn’t fine but it was manageable by her estimates.

This seemed far less so. This…

Well, it’s a disaster. And no matter whether Rip would do this rather than that or anything else her frazzled mind can conceive, the fact of the matter is that Michelle Carter is not Rip Hunter.

And so far as she can tell in this strange, new, all-but-rebirthed reality that the space time continuum has chosen, no one else is either.

Such a revelation, such a concept, scares her more than an entire army of racist soldiers riding extinct mammals.

Worrying her lip some more, Michelle wonders what else she’s missing, what else she can do just as a familiar energy courses through the room just behind her. She spins around and races toward her twin.

“Mikey! Oh, thank god,” she breathes in a flood of relief before wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “I am so sorry I had to send Skeets after you. I know you were going to see how things were with… with Ted, but—“

“They’re good,” Michael says quickly, lightly and awkwardly patting her back. “Also, someone needs a shower.”

She backs off enough to look in his face and glare. “Are you kidding right now? All the stuff I’ve been doing to pick up debris and get our rooms organized and repair the power—“

“Yeah, you’ve done great,” he mocks, walking forward and carefully lifting up a hanging wire in order to pass it.

“Don’t mess with me right now, Michael, I’m tense,” she continues to warn, walking in step behind him.

“I’m not entirely kidding,” he throws her a bone, heading toward the corridor on the other side of the main lab and instinctively heading toward Rani’s room. “How bad is it?”

Michelle takes a reflexive breath, her heart aching with a dull but familiar pain as they neared their ward’s bedroom. She hates this — hates being all but useless when it comes to Rani and her emotional needs. She understands why in these horrible moments it has to be Michael there for Rani, but she can hardly stand it all the same.

Even Rip, grouchy as he is (was?), can get a smile from Rani just by mentioning his name.

And it helps Michelle to continue feeling like chopped liver.

“She hasn’t been able to go to sleep,” Michelle answers at last. She instinctively worries at her lip again as they draw closer to the door. “She’s… She’s been asking for Rip.”

Hand flat against the door, Michael stops. He looks back at her, a certain creese growing between his brows.

There is a moment that can only pass between twins as they lock eyes. A sort of doubling of the emotions they both feel — sorrow, regret, confusion, apprehension. It strikes like lightning, right through Michelle’s core. But it’s shared. They both know the feeling that they’re sharing and in the moment, it’s a little lighter of a burden to share.

For a moment, they’re less alone with their thoughts.

Once the moment’s passed, Michael turns back to the door and pushes their way on through.

Rani’s room is the first one that both Michelle and Michael prioritized and, as a result, it’s the least disastrous of the Time Lab. The walls are still honey yellow with explosions of rainbows, hearts, and butterflies all over. It’s the perfect nine-year-old’s room. Complete holographic solar system borrowed from the thirty-second century and all.

Despite being surrounded by the room’s aesthetic warmth and the comforts of her own century’s technology and gadgetry, Rani is tensely wrapped up in her duck covered pajamas once they enter the room.

She’s biting her nails again and that causes a pang through Michelle.

It all changes, though, once Rani looks over and sees her favorite person in the galaxy and worlds. Rani lights up, leaping to her feet and jumping from the bed to Michael’s waiting arms.

“Mikey! You’re back!” she cries out with the sort of jubilation people usually reserve for concerts or ballgames.

“Of course I am,” he says with the boisterous confidence he’s able to project so easily. He wraps his arms around Rani and securely walks her back to the bed. “And you are still up, young lady! It’s past your curfew.”

Michelle lingers, watching securely by the door. She tells herself it’s because she’s waiting on her brother to continue more serious conversations. In her heart she knows it’s at least partially to somehow learn his secrets in dealing with Rani. Or maybe to just answer the question of how Michael Jon Carter received the parental genes she’s lacking.

“I’m waiting,” Rani argues, squeezing Michael so tightly that she’s scratching the back of his neck. She’s afraid to let go. And that causes another pang.

“You know, I learned a secret,” Michael informs her, laying her back into bed and curling himself around her enough that her back is secure against the mattress without forcing her to let go of his neck just yet. “A secret about how to wait for things in your sleep.”

“I just want to wait,” she yawns. “I don’t need sleep yet.”

“Sure you don’t, kiddo, I know that,” he chuckles, leaning back slowly enough that Rani begins to slip her grip of him. “I know you  don’t need it, and you know you don’t need it.” He then covers the side of his face with the back of his hand before stage whispering loud enough for Michelle to hear. “It’s Michelle who hasn’t learned it yet.”

That elicits a giggle from Rani, but all Michelle has to offer is a frustrated sigh and the roll of her eyes.

“Bad guy yet again,” Michelle mutters to herself.

“Mikey,” Rani mumbles, words beginning to roll from her mouth between deep breaths and yawns. “I want to wait up.”

“Wait up for what, sweetheart?” Michael asks, as if he doesn’t already know.

“For… for another explosion,” she answers, her sleep deprived eyes opening wide once again. “Oh, Mikey. There’s going to be another one.”

“No, no there’s…”

Protectively stiffening up, Michelle scowls and clears her throat.

Michael glances back at her, looking like a kicked dog. But he’s not going to successfully guilt her this time.

They have already agreed. They can’t continue to make promises like that to Rani. Not with the way their lives work. Not with how much it has shaken Rani up to go through the near destruction of another home.

If their word is going to mean anything, they have to stop giving out promises they can’t guarantee.

Giving up, Michael sighs and looks back at Rani. “Listen, Rani. I’m sorry… I’m sorry that things got so scary for you. If I could, I would have stopped it from happening at all.”

Michelle breathes deeply and closes her eyes. She knows Michael’s telling the truth — he tried, god did he and Rip try. It was an impossible task, to stitch the worlds and time and space itself together while everything they had ever known melted and regrew before their eyes. A thankless, impossible mission.

It gave them a world that was almost the same, and yet too different to feel comfortable in. The air tasted more bitter. The Sundollar had reinstated its ban on Booster Gold. And stuff that seemed so incidental — like the location of someone’s bedroom — changed in a way to make everything feel different than home.

And Rip…

They still hadn’t seen any sign of Rip, or found any trace of his existence.

Brave, new, terrible world.

“I want to wait for Boppy,” Rani continues, grinding her teeth together. “I miss him.”

“Rip could be away for a while, kiddo, you know the drill,” Michael says quickly and naturally. “Saving the world, big important missions. All that stuff.”

“But Boppy says you always do the flashy stuff. He likes doing the smart stuff,” Rani argues, her brows knitting together. “He’s never gone this long.”

“We’re just doing what we can, Rani, and I’m sure he misses you even more than you miss him,” he promises. “But one thing’s for sure, he wants to see a well rested, not tired Rani. Not a grumpy little mess.”

And with that, Michael reaches forward and tickles Rani beneath her arms, causing her to squirm and giggle. “I’m not grumpy!”

“Oh, yes you are, you’re a way grumpy,” he argues, finally stopping and smirking down at her. “It kind of makes you look like Rip.”

Rani giggles and rejects the notion, but as she settles down, she’s more tired and slow. Her eyes already heavy and hardly opened. “But if Boppy doesn’t come home soon… won’t you go out and make him come home again, Mikey? Please? I just don’t want bad things to happen to him. Please.”

Michael sat back a bit and took a breath. Michelle hoped, beyond hope, it was to steel himself for delivering slight disappointment.

By now, she really should have known better.

“Okay, Rani, I promise,” he says before leaning forward and kissing her forehead.

“Thank you, Mikey,” she yawns and turns to her side.

Michelle shakes her head, even as Michael stands up and begins to come her way.

“Michael!” she hisses at him.

He shushes her and then closes the door behind them. “Careful, I can’t sweet talk her a second time tonight.”

Michelle juts out her jaw and glares at him as they go down the hall. “I can’t believe you would — we agreed not to make promises —“

“I said we wouldn’t make promises we can’t keep,” Michael shrugs, heading for the kitchen.

“And you can keep that, huh?” Michelle demands, following close after. “You’re just gonna pull Rip Hunter out of thin air? Hm?”

“Not out of thin air,” Michael says, pausing in front of the chalkboard, giving it a once over before continuing his march forward. “Maybe out of thin chronal space. Maybe. Not sure. I’ll double check with Skeets to see if it’s possible. Where’d he go off to, anyway?”

“You know how to deal with chronal space all by yourself now?” Michelle asks critically, folding her arms.

“Yeah,” Michael says, opening the nearly bare fridge.

“Since when?” Michelle continues to press.

Michael doesn’t even look her way as he grabs a bottle of beer. “Rip taught me.”

She watches him carefully for a moment, beginning to go numb toward those pangs of guilt and empathy that had become so prevalent when she was around either Michael or Rani anymore.

“Do you want one?” Michael asks, grabbing at a second beer before closing the door.

“Yeah,” she says, though he’s already knowingly handing it to her. She looks at the heavy exhaustion over her brother’s face as he collapses into one of the remaining chairs. “You okay? How’d it go with Ted?”

“Great. Horrible. I think I threw up on the way back,” he sighs, letting his head hang back and his eyes close. “I maybe cried a little? You’re officially never allowed to tell anyone though.”

“Noted,” she says, twisting off the cap of her beer and scooting onto the countertop. “But he’s… Everything’s good here? In this world, I mean?” She bites her lip. “I’m asking about Ted. I’m. Trying to wrap my mind around it.”

“Same,” Michael sighs, flipping off the cap of his beer and taking a long drink. He drops the bottle down and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “I mean. I waited. I read every archive available. I broke into the Justice League and hacked the files to just… just see in case and…”

“Michael,” Michelle admonishes in a tone that is way too mom.

“I had to know. Just to be sure,” he argues, sitting straighter so he can stare into her face. “It’s him. The real him. He’s… he’s two and a half years older than he… than he once was. Hung up the suit. Training Jaime himself. And…”

Michelle looks worriedly at her brother.

Michael bites his lip. “I think maybe I — me? this me? Myself? — did something stupid, though. Like. He was surprised to see me.”

“Surprised to see you? Because you teleported in or because you are on no-speaking terms?” she asks.

“Yes,” he answers unhelpfully.

“Mikey,” she sighs, exasperated. “We… we really should wait a bit longer. Get this place fixed up, get our bearings. And really… investigate this place. It’s not… It’s not the way things used to be. And we could still get caught off guard with these things.”

“I already agreed to go out,” he blurts out. When Michelle looks at him, he eases back some. “Just for drinks. Not… I just. We agreed to see each other again. Soon. And. And I have to, Michelle. I…. Damn, I’m just happy to see him.”

Dropping her head, Michelle stares at her lap. She can’t help Rani. Michael won’t listen. Rip is gone. The entire lab is a disaster. And Michelle is slowly, but surely, losing her sanity.

“I don’t want you to ever be hurt like that, Mikey,” she says lowly, scratching at a thread on her jeans. “So… so lonely and… miserable… and mourning. I don’t know if I can pull you through that again.” For not the first time that day, warm tears well up in her eyes as she stares helplessly at her knees. “And I don’t think… I don’t think the change — the universe’s rebirth or whatever it is that you said it was… I don’t think Rip made it. He’s not here to help us anymore, Michael, and I’m so scared.”

Silence falls between the twins, but the flow of emotions and tension doesn’t move on. It festers as they drink their beers in silence.

So much silence, in fact, that they can hear the tell-tale signs of a teleportation.

They glance back at each other.

“Was that to or from?” Michael asks her wearily.

“There’s a different sound for each?” Michelle asks, astonished.

“Check Rani’s room,” he orders, leaping to his feet and racing toward the lab.

“What? Michael! I mean — dammit!” she curses before leaping to her own feet and racing through the back of the lab.

She’s running toward the corridors when a splotch of white not he chalkboard catches her off guard.

Despite herself and her buckets of nerves, she slides to a stop and stares in awe of the writing on the bottom corner of the chalkboard. “Who… Mikey? Did you—“

“It’s was a from teleport, Sis! Someone left from here that— Didn’t you check Rani’s room? Michelle! Dammit!” Michael roars, sounding more Booster Gold than Michael Carter as he flies past her and toward Rani’s room.

Michelle looks after him, heart racing. Michael lets out a yell, screaming Rani’s name as he comes racing back.

“She’s gone! She’s teleported out, but why!? Michelle! Are you listening!?”

“I know where she went,” Michelle says, pointing at the chalkboard as her brother points beside her.

“What the hell? Is that… is that Rip’s writing? No… Who…” Michael says, glancing around.

But Michelle is still staring at the words on the chalkboard.

Ted Kord is KEY.