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WHO: Jaime/Blue Beetle (

khajidont); Hal/Green Lantern (

aviate); Wally/Kid Flash (

runningstart)
WHERE: The skies and ground of Heropa
WHEN: IMMEDIATELY (okay Tuesday night)
WHAT: Friends being friends and then FIGHTING and then ANGRY YELLING!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HAL
WARNINGS: maybe (probably) some cursing (hal & jaime internally)

"Okay dude, I understand you're like Ghandi or something, but talking to the guy robbing the liquor store about his life choices?"

He's running. And he's overjoyed. He'd only been in a cell for a few days but by virtue of being a speedster (or maybe not, he's never asked), he's a little claustrophobic. By the time Monday morning rolled around he had been ready to take Traci up on that offer of a breakout, and completely seriously.

There was also the fact that the girl in the cell across from him was a murdering psychopath doctor. There was that.

Robin had spoiled him in his own particular way when he got back to the cave and Gar pretended not to have missed him, even though he did and wouldn't go very far without checking back in on Wally like he wouldn't notice or something. (He didn't. Robin pointed it out and laughed at them both.) Bart had latched on and clung to him, even when he got up and went to his bedroom and ended up dragging him down the hallway, which had been funny until Bart did it again when Wally had to pee really bad.

But it was nice. Knowing he'd been missed.

Speaking of missed, he'd really missed knocking together the skulls of jerks who wave guns at people. He'd also missed running, and he'd missed picking on Jaime in that way that Jaime knows is because Wally sort of kinda respects him probably or whatever. Also, he's secretly hoping Khaji Da does something to embarrass Jaime so Jaime screams at him for ten minutes again because KF has honestly never laughed so hard in his life, and he's easily amused.

Kid Flash shakes his head. "You were like this close to handing him a pamphlet for a staffing agency and signing him up for the Big Brothers and Sisters program."

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"Okay, A: I don't even know if Big Brothers and Sisters exists here," Jaime retorts, as if that had been a tenable option for the robber in the first place (which maybe it would be! They did good work, right? He's heard good things), as if all he had needed was a good talking to. If he was his mother, maybe that is all that would have been needed. "And B: we don't know what his deal was! It could have been something we could've talked him out of."

A beat.

"I mean, it wasn't, but it could've been."

He's glad Wally's back to normal too. It had freaked him out, seeing half of his friends going absolutely crazy in front of him, and it had freaked him out even more to see Wally behind bars. No matter what the guy said, Jaime thinks that Wally might be even less suited to the prison life than Jaime, and that's saying a lot. He had been bored out of his skull. Wally probably would have died of boredom if he had been kept in there any longer than he had been.

But hey, all's well that ends well, and now they get to patrol. Nothing bad about that.

Hal doesn't patrol. Patrolling was for those who focused mainly on fighting petty crime and the sort of things he dealt with generally came to him or he was assigned the job. The reason he was out and about was because he'd dropped by to check on Wally and he hadn't been there. Between the Rogues and the arrest, he was starting to figure that he would need to actually watch out for him instead of leaving him to his own devices like he originally said he would.

His ring informs him that Wally's up ahead, but it also flashes in warning about the Reach. He's recently warned Jaime that if he went anywhere near Kid Flash there would be no second chances.

One moment Jaime and Wally are joking and laughing, the next Jaime is gone and there's a trail in the dirt where Hal's pushed him in and dragged him away at high speeds.

"What. Did. I Say?!"

Jaime likes to think of himself as being very brave. He's handled a lot over the past year, and while he won't say that he didn't bat an eye, he will say that he had mostly taken things in stride. He's handled collapsing tunnels and bombs and attacks and power nulling collars, and that's not even touching on what he had seen back home. He's made of pretty sturdy stuff, even if he has to go home and cry about it sometimes. Point is, he's pretty secure in the idea that he can keep his cool no matter what anyone throws at him. As it turns out, having a Green Lantern punch him and immediately drag him away (ouch, and ouch again) is one way of making him lose his composure, because it's terrifying.

There's no denying that he had eloquently responded to the attack by screaming. Having Hal yell in his face directly afterwards does very little to help matters, and for a second he just stares at Hal, slack-jawed, and holds his hands up in front of his face as if that could possibly protect him from a Green Lantern's wrath.

"Wh-what?"

Inside his head, the Scarab screams about danger, and just this once, Jaime agrees. His heels scrabble against the dirt beneath them, but it does very little to help him scrabble away.

"What the heck are you talking about?"

Oh god, oh god, what if Hal got struck by crazy lightning? He really, really doesn't want to fight a crazy Green Lantern.

KF's pretty good at catching things that happen fast. Not like Barry, and not like Bart, but he can still avoid obstacles at hundreds of MPH so his ability to see, perceive and react is pretty impressive.

Even then, what happens is fast. It leaves him blinking at empty space for a second before whirling to watch his Uncle Hal looking like he's going to kill one of his closest friends. "Whoa- Whoa whoa whoa! Holy-" Wally's next to them before the breeze even gets there, wedging his hands between them and trying (ineffectually) to push Hal off of Jaime. "GL! Are you nuts?! You're gonna hurt him!"

Lightning, gotta be the lightning, but didn't Hal say something about not being weak to the color yellow anymore? This is gonna be difficult- maybe he should call one of the Supers-

He constructs a wall between him and Wally and gently but forcibly pushes him to one side. Hal is a composed fighter. He didn't bleed willpower like Guy, he kept it simple and effective, nothing wasted. Even now when he's visibly lost it, he's still got a tight control over his ring. His constructs are sharp, his aura placid.

"Kid Flash, whatever he has told you is a lie. He is a dangerous criminal and I was a damn fool for agreeing to not finish it off before. And tell your Reach boss that the second of the new laws authorises lethal force against all enemies of the Corps so you should have thought twice before doing the one thing I warned you not to do."

Hal wants to confirm Wally's safety first before moving in. There's no way he's going to let him get caught up in this.

Edited 2015-02-12 06:22 (UTC)

For some reason, having Hal on him is scarier than Guy. An overwhelming amount of power, he can take. Having someone have his eyes on him like this, calculated, deadly, that's scary. Despite the Scarab's insistence to whip the big guns out, he just presses his forearms together and forms a shield to try to wedge a protective difference between him and Hal.

Of course, as soon as he hears Hal's words, his eyes widen and as the chilly realization settles in his gut, as he figures out what the real problem is here, he goes calm and still, sheer disbelief written across his face. "That's what this is about? You still think I'm a monster." He croaks out, and a laugh bubbles out of him, a high-pitched, mirthless sound.

"What'd you warn me not to do? Exist? I never hurt anyone." He sucks in a shaky breath and tucks his elbows in. "You're planning on killing me now?"

It's not the wisest retort in the world, but it's not a resort as much as it sounds like a genuine question, albeit one coloured by doubt. If it's a fight Hal wants, it's a fight he's going to get, but not until he's sure of what the guy wants.

Mostly because it may very well be a fight he's unable to win.

"What?! No!" It's coming together in pieces. The Reach, the Corps, that one guy that Khaji Da apparently wouldn't stop screaming about and kept Jaime from sleeping, Hal being weirdly overprotective-

KF smacks his hands against the construct, like that would do any good, and tries to zip around it to grab onto Hal and hopefully pull him back and away. "GL, stop! You don't know what you're doing, I know about all the Reach stuff and he's cool, he's fine-"

Hal wouldn't seriously kill a kid, would he? He wouldn't, not if he knew anything about Jaime past the armor. And not if he knew anything about Khaji Da past the Reach, too. Hal is definitely a career man when it comes to the Corps but he's- He still has his head on right. He's still Justice League. He's a hero, heroes don't kill kids-!

He growls in frustration that Wally won't get out of his way.

"Kid Flash, you are still grounded and if you don't back off right now I'll hold you down myself."

Hearing that Wally knows about Jaime is even more worrying because it means this wasn't an isolated incident, he's been worming his way into Wally's side and that ups his paranoia about another speedster death even higher. It was like the world was transpiring ways to kill them.

"I can't believe you stole Ted's name and using it like this. You have just proven yourself to be a danger to others."

He raises an arm and a thin lance forms in his hand.

"Stole Ted's name?"

Wally had heard Jaime lose his temper before, true enough, but that had been underneath different circumstances. This time, when he loses his temper, it happens because of a long, slow, steady build up until it finally boils out of him. In a single movement, the suit morphs from beneath him into a jetpack and he lets loose, slipping out of Hal's grasp and kicking off the ground to hover a couple metres in the air, staring down at him with his hands curled into fists at his sides.

"You think I stole Ted's name?" He says, voice quiet in the way it only gets when he's about to raise his voice.

"Let me tell you something, Green Lantern, I wanted nothing to do with this until your people decided they needed me! Booster's the one who gave me the name, and you know what? I've done my job. I've done a good job. I help people. You know who beat the Reach? Me!" He yells, jabbing his thumb into his chest. "I did!"

"There's only one danger here, and he's the guy threatening to kill someone who hasn't even thrown a punch."

"Oh my god, stop. Both of you stop!" He's so out of the loop, because it's pretty clear they're from the same universe and for some reason have a lot of beef, and something about Ted Kord being involved peripherally and who knows what else, but if they take to the air KF's got no chance of stopping it. He'll have to call Karen and hope she picks up in time to stop one of them from putting a new crater in the ground.

"Nobody's a danger because nobody's gonna fight! You!" Wally whirls on Jaime. "You're supposed to be Ghandi! You do help people and you don't need to prove anything to anybody, so cool it! And you!" He turns to Hal and points at him. "You're space police! You keep the peace! Ask anybody here if they know Jaime and they'll tell you he probably gives a heartfelt eulogy when he has to cut into a steak! I know you're just looking out for people because that's what you do, you're GL, but please relax here and trust my judgment! Please?"

The sudden jetpack surprises Hal long enough for Jaime to slip out of his grasp, but he doesn't miss a beat in dropping his construct and gearing up to take off into the air when Wally's words give him pause. He does mostly trust Wally's judgement, but he's not sure how much influence Jaime has over him.

"Then explain to me what he's doing here?! Our ground rules were don't break the law and I warned him last week to stay away from you."

He doesn't pay Jaime's words much attention. Listing credentials that they can't check is pointless and while Booster could have done it, he also wasn't the most professional hero and Ted's death had to have hit him the hardest. Who knows what a grieving man could do?

Jaime sucks in a deep, shuddering breath and closes his eyes. "Okay. Okay, okay, you're right, you're right," he says, but it's clear that he's not talking to Hal, but to Wally, who's finally managed to get their attention. And Jaime means that, truly. Losing his temper and flying off the handle and wanting nothing more than to punch someone's lights out? That's not how he does things. As loath as he is to admit that Hal's right about anything, if that's how he operated, then he didn't deserve to have the powers that they did.

He lands back onto the ground and - despite the Scarab's loud, heated protestations - lets the suit sink back into his skin. It's a gamble, considering that Hal seems perfectly prepared to kill him, but it's a risk he'll run. Slowly, he raises his arms on either side of his head, fingers spread; don't shoot. The way he's staring Hal down ensures that it's perhaps the most petulant version of surrender there's ever been, but he hopes the gesture's enough.

"We're friends," he says, voice hard. "You never told me that he's your nephew, and even if you did, I don't ditch my friends just because someone tells me to. You want a fight, you've got it. But don't expect me to fight back."

He keeps his hands up.

"Ohhhh my god," KF says, tipping his head back and rubbing his hands over his face. "I am- oh my god." These two. Theeeeese two. Kid usually isn't a pacifist but Hal and Jaime (or Khaji, whatever) are just sucking all the aggression out of the air and leaving Kid Flash to play peacekeeper. But he can do that, so long as nobody is getting punched or- or killed.

"No fighting. We're not fighting here, everything is cool. Dude, Jaime, could you gimme a sec with GL? I'll be one second." KF has to reach up to sling an arm around GL's shoulders and steers him-

Steers-

Tries to steer him a few feet away (seriously Hal that is some impressive foot-planting) so they can have a whispered conversation that is probably not nearly as quiet as Wally thinks it is. "Dude. He's my bro. He's saved my life, he's saved other people's lives- you gotta trust me. Bart says our version of Jaime back home is a hero too. I think it's a universal constant. He's not gonna hurt anybody, least of all me. He's probably my best friend here, after Rob."

Hal very reluctantly lets Wally pull him away upon seeing Jaime back down. It at least displays a willingness to make it look like he's not going to pull something even if he's guessing he doesn't need to be suited up to do anything.

He stares at Wally incredulously and has a kneejerk defensive reaction on Kyle's behalf. So what if Kyle wouldn't be around in Wally's world until years later. That's his best friend spot Jaime has claimed. Flash and Green Lantern were generational, they had to keep it up until they had a new GL for Bart to befriend.

Hal also keeps his voice down and a lot more carefully than Wally. "I trust you, but I don't trust his intentions." He'd asked his ring for more details and nothing he heard sounded good. "I want to believe you, you think I like thinking this kid is going to try take over the world? I was there when he first came onto the scene, he didn't stick around because John and I were getting too close, but he did good work."

Hal had absolutely been willing to genuinely give him a chance until one of his innocuous comments got taken the wrong way which lead to continued belligerence and Hal wondering if it was worth the risk.

"We were just on patrol together dude, nothing was going on. I've been here months with this guy; trust me, he's harmless. Well, to good people. Sometimes even to bad people. Look-"

Kid leans a little closer and gives Hal a searching look, eyes squinted. "Is there something else happening here? I mean, when you said you'd be my guardian you said- and I quote, no bedtime, no curfews, only giving you a heads up when I'm in trouble. You've been on me like white on rice since we printed out those forms. Is everything okay with you, do you wanna talk about anything?"

Hal takes a step back, this time his outraged voice carries. "I'm not being that responsible!" Because that's exactly what people needed to know, the protector of the universe refusing to take responsibility.

"Besides you didn't give me a heads up. I had to see your prison selfie with your 'awesome' tattoo plastered over the network."

"One, you're absolutely being responsible! You're putting me on a tighter leash than the Flash ever has. Two, I just woke up in prison and so I decided to deal with it via selfie! I mean, I couldn't text anybody separately or anything and when I asked for my phone call they said already used it. That was the only way I could get the word out! And the tat and stuff was to soften the blow!" KF steps back and scrubs his hands through his hair, frustrated. "For being the one who has to teach me to loosen up and be cool, you're being really uptight and uncool."

"Phones still exist! You ask for your phonecall and look up the number to my place!"

Are they doing this now? Yes they are. Forget about Jaime and the Reach, this is what needs to be dealt with now. This would be a good time to butt in and ask how things stood between them, Jaime. The other option is watch while they argued loudly and not actually come to an agreement.

"This is completely different to sneaking out to meet a girl. All I have to do then is remind you to take a damn condom and make sure she says yes!"

It seemed to be going okay at first. Wally vouched for him - and in a great way, so thanks for that one, buddy - and Hal argued, which was about expected. What he hadn't been expecting was the argument about Hal's apparent guardianship over Wally, and how Hal felt that it wasn't his responsibility to be responsible, which were, frankly, alarming words out of the mouth of someone who had been yelling about being licensed to kill not so long ago.

As he watched, Jaime lowered his hands and stuffed them into his pockets, aggression bleeding off of him not because of some inherent pacifistic streak (which he did have, thank you), but because this scene was getting too personal for Jaime to poke his head in there and say: hey, so you were about to punch me, are you going to get on that? This is like the Teen Titans all over again. People argue about stuff he doesn't understand, and he stands in the back and waits for them to finish, only this time, they're probably not going to finish and nobody would react very well to him quietly leaving the room like he usually does.

So he just waves awkwardly, clears his throat and says, "So, um, obviously you guys have some stuff you need to talk about. But."

I still need to know whether or not I should be frightened for my life.

Jaime ends up pointing at himself a little questioningly. "Are we done?"

If he's going to get punched in the face, he'd like a little advance warning.

Kid's practically seething by the time Jaime pipes up and he glares at him for a second like it's his fault. It's not. He's just becoming increasingly pissed off with all the adults here and kind of wants to break some stuff. Now he knows how Conner feels all the time.

"Yeah." KF zips back over to Jaime's side and throws an arm over his shoulders, lifting his chin at Hal in defiance. Probably not the best move, but nobody ever accused Kid Flash of having good ideas. "For the record? My friend. Right here. And you are totally more than welcome to not look out for me if that's a problem for you."

Hal straightens up, jaw clenched and his military background comes in clear from his posture. He's not in parade rest because they'd be considered civilians and they're children, but he holds himself with authority. This really isn't the place for this, but the way they are means that if this isn't addressed now, it's never going to be and with the interruption Hal has no intention of picking it back up. This matter is going to have to fester.

"Fine, I'll back off." For now. He's at least acknowledging that going at it now would be a bad decision and so far this is a misunderstanding. Whether or not this was part of the Reach's plan was yet to be discovered and if it was it was a really smart plan. Alienating the one person who could be a threat by picking fights with him and then acting innocent to everyone else.

"I'll see you around, neighbour."

And then he flies off. Those two would have a lot to discuss and he didn't need to be here for that. It should be enough that they've re-established their boundaries.

"Ohhh boy," Jaime mutters as he watches Hal go, wincing at the venom with which Hal said neighbour and quietly dreading having to go back home. Khaji's been on overdrive with the alarms this whole time, and he knows that living beside Hal, it's only going to get worse. This time, he can't even blame Khaji for being alarmed; why wouldn't he be scared of a very serious potential threat? He pinches at the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut for a second. "This is going to be fun."

What he should do, he thinks, is try to talk to Hal and get this tiny ball of anger and dread from out of the pit of his stomach, but the mere idea of it seems nothing short of intolerable. It's faded now, mitigated by Wally's own argument with Hal, but he knows the anger's bubbling underneath the surface, ready to come back at full blast. He hates being treated like a weapon, like a loose cannon just waiting to go off in the direction of his friends.

But then there's Wally standing beside him, arm slung over his shoulder, which is a nice reminder of the fact that the people who have the most reasons to think of him as a danger also happen to be his closest friends.

"Thanks for that, dude," he says, and though his voice is quiet, it's no less genuine for it.

"Sure," KF mutters, watching the sky as Hal's green light trail fade away, his shoulders slowly relaxing as it disappears into the night. Wally has never been afraid of Green Lanters, not once; he hangs with the most powerful people on Earth on a semi-regular basis and not once as he ever been scared of any of them. Never had a reason to. But seeing him go after Jaime like that...

"Dude." KF keeps his eyes on the sky, like he's worried Hal will come back. "You wanna stay at Mt. Justice 2.0 for a couple days? Okay I'm gonna shorten that. Just until Hal chills out." Or forever. Preferably forever, but unlikely. "You can have my room, I'll bunk with Rob."

"Yeah. That sounds good. I don't mind just crashing on the couch, but I -- I probably shouldn't go back to my place for a little while."

A part of him wants to point out that he may well be making things worse for both himself and Wally in the long run, knowing that Hal takes such an issue with him and Wally hanging out, but he still stays at his place immediately after. But in the end, that's where he wants to say, so even if it's selfish, he's going to take the offer and run. He's got plenty of places he could stay at. After everything, Shinji would be willing to let him crash at his place for a few nights, and so would Traci, or Laurie, or Kaidan, or even Booster, but he doesn't want to. He wants to be somewhere where he's comfortable enough to hunker down and sulk in peace, because that's honestly all he wants to do right now.

He scrubs his hands through his hair, making a low, frustrated noise deep in the back of his throat, and if the tension in him had bled away in front of Hal, it had been a temporary thing; it's all coming back now, carried in his jaw and his shoulders, in his curled hands and his furrowed brow.

"Ugh, I'm just... I think I'm gonna go flying for a bit."

Wally will just break it to Jaime later that there's no couch, so he's stuck using Wally's room too bad. Probably when he gets to the cave, when he stops looking like he wants to crawl out of his skin.

"Sure, dude." KF gets it. He runs cross country to clear his head. He definitely gets it. "I'll let the others know you're gonna spend the night. We can lock GL's code out if it makes you feel better?"

Edited 2015-02-23 06:56 (UTC)

"Nah, it's fine. If he really wants to get in, he'll get in one way or another. At least if he's still got a code, he's not just gonna bust everything up."

That's the thing about having a Green Lantern set on watching him, isn't it? With anyone else, Jaime would be able to fly up and away from anyone who wanted to hurt him, but Hal is, in all probability, stronger and faster and more agile than he is. If he decides that he wants to bust into Mt. Justice, he'll get in there one way or another.

But Jaime doesn't think he'll come now, which means that Jaime has the freedom to take to the air and fly as hard and fast as he can until he burns off some of this excess energy bubbling in the bottom of his gut. He lets the suit rise up from underneath his skin again and lets his wings come out with a snapping sound before pushing off the ground and into a hover.

"Dude," KF calls up to him, because he's upset but seeing Jaime this upset just makes his stomach twist in a way it usually doesn't. Jaime never gets upset, not like this.

But what the hell can KF say? Sometimes talking is pointless, and this feels like one of those times. Not to mention he clearly doesn't know as much about Jaime as he thought he did. "...Call me if you need me." He backs up a few steps to give Jaime room to take off.

He should talk to Hal. Which means he absolutely won't.

"I will. Thanks, man. I'll see you later."

Much later, Jaime thinks, because he probably won't be crashing into Mt. Justice until late - after something like this, he needs his alone time. Wally's plenty used to him flying away, wings leisurely flapping off into the distance, but now, Jaime needs to fly fast and far.

It doesn't take long for him to disappear.

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LAUGHS THANKS FOR THE HINT MICHELE I WAS WAITING FOR A GO AHEAD

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