Archive of Our Own

Ted's phone is ringing.

The sound cuts through the hazy late-night atmosphere in his office, setting off an alarm in the back of his mind. It takes a moment to process in his tired brain, still awash with thoughts of budget forecasting and Excel formulas, but finally it clicks into place. His phone. His stomach clenches.

He keeps it silenced when he's at work because he knows how badly it disrupts his workflow when he's interrupted by unnecessary calls; anything important during work hours comes through his assistant, not his personal cell phone. But he knows one person who can bypass a do-not-disturb setting as easily as opening an unlocked door, and she wouldn’t be calling him at one in the morning unless there was something very, very wrong. He rummages around in his pocket and flips open the chiming phone, not bothering to look at the name on the tiny screen before he presses it to his ear.

“Barbara?” he asks, already half-breathless.

An Oracle call after midnight. Barbara has been by far the biggest proponent of Ted’s on-and-off retirement; she’d been the one to badger him into going to the doctor about his heart in the first place, and she’s maintained her stance by not calling on the Blue Beetle for fieldwork, or even particularly stressful admin, since his diagnosis. When he’d agreed to Max’s idiotic Superbuddies ploy, she’d given him a good reaming-out for playing dice with his health. He hadn’t really known what to say in his defence. God knows he spent most of his time on the team overexplaining his heart condition to everyone who would listen, so why had he joined up in the first place? He couldn’t even blame it on Max manipulating him; there’d been no tell-tale nosebleed in sight. All Max had used to convince him were the promise of benefits (which had, in the end, never materialised) and, with the air of someone dangling a treat in front of a dog, Booster.

So it must have been some kind of fatal mental flaw that Ted had ever joined up, which is why he’s glad the team has since folded. It means he doesn’t have to justify that decision anymore, to himself or to anyone else – though it does also mean he’s back to the dull grindstone of corporate life. He doesn’t have a lot of time outside of work to hang out with people these days. Whether or not that's by design is something he hasn't been in the mood to examine. Better to claim a full schedule than confront the way he doesn’t know how to hang out with his friends anymore.

His online chats with Barbara and a vaguely monthly brunch with Bea aside, Ted has a sick feeling in his gut that his social life is irreversibly entwined with hero work. He doesn’t even really know how to make friends; the League, like school and college, had come neatly packaged with unavoidable and extended periods of time spent with his teammates. Living in the Embassy had been… good, in that it gave him easy access to social interaction, but maybe it had stunted him in some way. Almost his entire adult life has been spent hanging around other heroes, other people who understand the unique burden of the job, of maintaining a secret identity, necessarily shutting off an entire part of your life from most of the world. And now he’s trying to leave that behind, the danger and the excitement, and it leaves him feeling… adrift. He can’t connect with other people his age, people who have had normal life trajectories, and all of the friends he already has are still heroes; without the necessary time spent together in life-or-death situations or sitting around an embassy or office waiting for disaster to strike, he feels awkward trying to pretend to be normal around them. How do you go from living and working together for years, saving the world and facing off against cosmic threats, to grabbing a beer after work? What are you supposed to talk about, if the subject of ‘the good old days’ makes his skin crawl with shame?

Ted knows he's a coward for not trying harder. Even today, he’d blown off Ralph’s birthday for no real reason other than not wanting to be in a room with all those capes, making small talk and trying to ignore the strange, pitying looks when he inevitably has to explain why he’s stepped down. It’s a rotten thing to do, he knows; he’d meant to call, to wish Ralph a happy birthday and make gestures at catching up sometime, but the time had fallen away from him, and now here he is: sitting at his computer in an empty office building, pretending that this is what he wants to be doing with his life.

And now a phone call from Oracle breaking into his desperate pretence of normality. Already he feels the rush of adrenaline, the traitorous chemicals making him think he’s ten years younger and ready to leap out of the Bug at Barbara’s or the League’s behest. It’s not a good feeling, however familiar it is.

"Where are you?" Barbara asks, even though she probably already knows. Her voice is taut and Ted can hear her typing in the background.

"In my office," he replies, trying to ignore the panic crawling up his throat. "Barbara, what–"

"Sue Dibny is dead."

The words don't even register at first. They're just noises, empty of meaning. Interference in the phone line, surely, to create this combination of syllables. Because it can’t have been intentional. Barbara must be wrong somehow, even though she’s never wrong, even though she’s Oracle, the one person in the hero community who knows everything.

Sue Dibny is dead.

There’s a distant drumbeat sound that Ted belatedly recognises as his heart pounding, though it feels like his pulse is frozen. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here in silence. He leans forward, resting his elbows on the desk in front of him; not to hold himself up, just to give a sense of pressure, of firm sensation against some part of his body.

“Sue?” he says, but it doesn’t feel like he makes the active decision to say it. It’s more like a reflex, an automatic reaction to stimulus, than an actual question.

“Yes,” Barbara replies. “Murdered in her house. We don’t have any leads yet, but everyone’s on the case, everyone’s investigating – I just didn’t want you to find out from Bruce, or some League mass communication.”

“Uh-huh,” Ted says. He nods, even though Barbara probably can’t see it – though with the security cameras in the building, that’s not necessarily a sure thing. “I – Sue?”

There’s a shaky exhale through the phone. “I’m so sorry, Ted.” She must have relayed this information to dozens of people already, in the effort of coordinating investigations and searches. Has she cried already? How close was she to Sue? Ted realises he has no idea. He wants to offer something – comfort, practical help – but he feels his pulse thrumming dangerously loud, and he knows he’s not the detective that Batman is, not the expert on security technology that Scott is, nowhere near the repository of information that Barbara herself is. This is a courtesy call, not a plea for the Blue Beetle to lend his services.

A courtesy call to let him know his friend is dead.

“Oh, god.” It comes out in a whisper. “She – I – what happened?" He leans back in his chair, covering his eyes with a hand. Not Sue.

Barbara sighs. “We don’t know much yet, Ted,” she says gently. “Someone must have broken in while Sue was home alone. Ralph was out on patrol–”

He interrupts her with an involuntary gasp. Ralph. “Is he–”

“The League are with him, he’s safe,” Barbara says. “Ted, I can’t stay. I’m sorry. I need to – I’m organising people, trying to find evidence…” She sounds so tired. Again, Ted is struck with the urge to offer help – but he’s tired too, and he’d only get in the way. Better for him to wait for the League to delegate; that’s what his reserve status is for, anyway. “I just thought you should know. I know she was your friend.”

The past tense is like a needle in his brain. “Thank you,” Ted says, for lack of any other words. “Can you – sorry, I just – how did it happen?” Why does he want to know? To more easily picture her body, broken or bloody or peaceful as sleep? Will it make more sense, if he knows how she died? He doesn’t kid himself that he’ll be able to solve anything, not from here, so it’s purely selfish. Maybe he just needs something to focus on, some enemy to rally himself against. He isn’t even angry yet. Isn’t even tangibly sad. It’s like Barbara is telling this to some other Ted, sitting in some other office.

“Ted,” Barbara says, almost reproachful. He can picture her, pushing her glasses up to massage the bridge of her nose, fixing him with that steady, no-bullshit gaze.

“Please?” he says. “I just – I want to know, Barbara.”

She sighs. Her voice, when she speaks again, is smooth and businesslike. “She was found with third-degree burns over most of her body,” she says, like she’s reading from a file. “That’s what we’re pinning as the cause of death at this point. No signs of forced entry into the house, no valuables taken.”

Ted feels his stomach turn over. Burned alive. He can think of any number of villains who work with heat or fire or light or radiation, any number who can teleport, slip past locks and security systems unseen. Maybe the real shock here is that it’s taken so long for something like this to happen.

Death is an ever-present spectre in the hero community. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in spandex who hasn’t lost a friend or teammate. Ted knows how shocking it had been when Superman had died – though, for him, it had been more like walking in late after a conversation had already started, given that he’d been in a coma when the Man of Steel had been pronounced dead. There was Hal Jordan, finding some semblance of redemption through his sacrifice. The two Crimson Foxes had been more acquaintance than friend, but still such pillars of the League’s European branch. And, obviously, fresh in his mind and most heartbreakingly for Ted, there's Tora, first lost to the Overmaster, then, more recently, that maybe-mirage of her that had nearly followed them out of purgatory. Hell, his entire career as the Blue Beetle had started with death, clutching at Dan Garrett’s broken form and promising to carry on his legacy.

(Of course, Ted could muse bitterly about how a lot of the more famous ones seem to come home eventually. No matter how sobering the realisation had been that even Superman could die, he still came back.)

All this to say that Ted’s lost people. Ted’s seen people die, seen friends die, seen gods and titans struck down. But they were all heroes. They all put on the cape and went out there, placing themselves in harm’s way for the sake of a better world. That’s the contract they all sign: that one day, they might not come back home.

It’s different for Sue, though, because she’s always been a civilian. She doesn’t have powers, doesn’t have a suit and codename; she’d been an essential part of the League, of course, but always safely at the Embassy. It feels – unspeakably cruel. Let the villains come after the heroes, let them hurt and torture and kill the ones who choose this career. Not the wife. Not the family.

“Are you okay, Ted?” Barbara asks. He realises he hasn’t said anything, hand pressed to his mouth like he might throw up. “I have to go, I’m sorry. I’ll keep you updated when I can.”

“Yeah,” Ted says. “No. Yeah. Of course. I’m sorry. Are – are you okay?”

“I’m working,” Barbara replies, which Ted takes to mean no, but it’s fine. “We don’t know – we’re not sure of a motive yet, or even a particular suspect, so – everyone’s really on edge. Keeping an eye on their families. In case…” 

Ted pushes his chair out from the desk and stands up, pacing aimlessly. “Right.” A headache is starting to form behind his eyes.

“Go home, Ted. You shouldn’t be alone right now,” Barbara says, cutting to the heart of what she’s been trying to say. Never mind that home – can he call his Gotham apartment home? – is just as empty as his office. “Call your family. Please. Just – stay safe. I know you can take care of yourself, but–”

“So could Sue,” Ted agrees quietly.

Distant voices buzz on Barbara’s end of the line. Heroes trying to get in touch with Oracle, no doubt; more important than soothing Ted’s nerves. “I’ll message you, okay?” she reassures him. “Take care, Beeb.”

“You too, Rolly,” he replies, but she’s already hung up.

The room already feels colder and darker than it had five minutes ago. Ted takes the phone away from his ear and looks down at it, staring unseeing at the screen. It’s past one in the morning. When did it happen? Hours ago, probably; despite being Ralph and Sue’s friend, Ted can understand not being first on the list to call. If Barbara hadn’t told him personally, he probably would have found out once he got home and looked at his seldom-used League communicator.

Sue. He tries to let the thought penetrate his mind: Sue’s dead. Sue Dibny, cornerstone of their League; Sue Dibny, better half to one of the best men Ted’s ever known; Sue Dibny, kind and funny and whip-smart and brave and talented and hardworking and dead. He’d talked to her just the other week, when she’d been dealing out invitations to Ralph’s yearly mystery party. Ted had given a noncommittal answer, hemming and hawing about his work schedule, and she’d been jokingly stern, warning him that she’d corner him for a game night one of these days. When had he last seen her in person? Some dinner party last month, a half-hearted Superbuddies reunion with the Dibnys, Bea, and himself. And now–

And now he’s never going to see her again. 

The idea that, from one moment to the next, a life can be snuffed out like the click of a lighter makes his head spin. Sue was a good person and now she’s dead. Sue was his friend, and now she’s dead. He’ll never say goodbye to her properly, never hear her laugh again. The last thing he said to her will always have been, “Sorry, I’ve got to get to this meeting – see you around.” How miserable is that?

A horrible melancholy ache starts in his chest. Out of habit, he grabs his left arm with his right hand and checks for numbness – but it’s not a cardiac event, just the emotion finally hitting. His breath quickens; the room suddenly feels so small, lit only by a lamp and his computer screen, and everything is so horribly real – so terrifying – because what if–?

He barely even thinks about the number he dials as he’s doing it, just clicking through his contacts on autopilot. Is it fear that makes his hand shake as he lifts the phone to his ear? That enormous fear that any of them could be next – that tomorrow he might be in Ralph’s position, a jagged hole cut through his life? Fear that the phone might ring and ring and never be answered, because the worst has already happened, hours ago, and he’s been existing in the world for this long not even knowing what’s been missing? Fear that it’s too late – that he’s the one who’s fucked it up, not a faceless killer, just Ted Kord and his own selfish cruelty cutting out every good thing–

“H’lo?” Booster’s voice is thick with sleep. He sounds like he used to when they had early morning missions in the JLI and he’d come downstairs for breakfast, pouring himself a bowl of cereal with clumsy hands. It’s such a sudden, vivid memory that Ted has to shut his eyes against the force of it.

“Booster,” he says, voice strained. It’s all he can think to say. He hasn’t talked to Booster in months, doesn’t know how to say hello, how to say our friend is dead. 

Something of it must come across in his tone, because there’s a soft sound: the movement of fabric. Booster sitting up in bed. “Ted?” he says, instantly awake. “What – it’s, like, midnight, what’s wrong?”

Ted takes a breath, finds his mind empty of words. How had Barbara told him? How are you supposed to break this news to someone who used to be your best friend? “Booster,” he repeats. “I – sorry. I don’t know how to – Sue’s dead. Sue’s dead.”

“Sue’s dead?” Booster echoes. “Sue Dibny? Ted, what – where are you? What–”

“Oracle told me,” Ted says. He realises he’s come to a stop facing the drawn blinds and absently opens them. The lights of Gotham are diffused through the perennial fog, creating an almost pre-dawn glow, despite the hour. “She was at home. Someone – someone broke in and killed her. They don’t know who did it yet.”

Booster makes a broken sound on the other end of the line, almost a whimper. “God,” he says quietly. “I didn’t – fuck. Fuck.” There’s an indistinct noise that Ted can’t identify. Booster’s voice now comes from further away. “Shit. Bea texted me but I didn’t – didn’t see it, I was asleep…”

“Sorry,” Ted says. “I know it’s late. I just – I thought – I wanted to tell you.” I wanted to talk to you.

“No, no,” Booster says, the phone close to his mouth again. “Don’t apologise. It’s fine. I mean – thank – thank you. Shit.” He lets out a huge sigh, making the tinny phone speakers crackle. “Oh, god. Sue.”

Neither of them say anything for a long moment.

“I don’t think anyone thought…” Ted starts, trailing off. “I mean, she’s just a civilian. You know? Like…”

“Like she was off-limits,” Booster says, finishing the thought. “I know. If – if – if we want to put ourselves in danger, make these enemies, get hurt and die, that’s one thing. But – god, she didn’t do anything. She didn’t deserve this.”

It’s a terrifyingly effective tactic, going after the families. It’s not like it’s been completely off the table up until now; partners and parents and children are regular kidnapping victims, hostages and leverage. But this just feels… so pointless . There’s no apparent motive here aside from destroying Ralph’s entire world, no moustache-twirling villain explaining his scheme. That’s part of why everyone is searching for a culprit, outside of simple revenge: maybe they can make the narrative make sense. Lend some context to this senseless violence, fit it into the framework they’re used to. It can’t just mean nothing.

And maybe it’s like breaking a seal, too. Barbara had sounded genuinely worried when she’d told Ted to call his family. Any other heroes with a public identity and known civilian contacts must be sick with fear right now; once villains see it’s been done once, there’s going to be copycats.

“Have you heard from Ralph?” Booster asks. He’s talking quietly, like a kid at a sleepover trying not to wake their parents. As far as Ted knows, Booster has been living alone since the divorce. He closes his eyes and lets himself imagine Booster lying next to him, having this conversation together in the dark.

“No,” Ted replies. “The League are taking care of him, Oracle said. I don’t know who. Maybe Wally. And everyone else is investigating, trying to find – anything, I guess.”

“God,” Booster says. “Poor Ralph. Poor Sue.” He sounds so heartbreakingly miserable and tired and vulnerable and young and old like this. Ted knows, better than most, that a lot of Booster’s bravado is a facade to keep people from looking too closely, which only makes it hit harder when he drops it and lets people see the aching hurt underneath.

Ted puts a hand on the cold glass of the windowpane and looks out at the city. “Yeah,” he says, and then his throat closes up too much to continue. He doesn’t cry – he’s never been a particularly easy crier, never felt like he was having the right kind of reaction to most kinds of grief – but he feels hollow, scooped-out. On the other end of the line, Booster breathes in-out steadily.

He hadn’t realised until now how grounded that breathing has been keeping him. How much calmer he is for the sound of Booster’s voice, Booster’s breath. Booster alive on the other end of the phone.

Booster inhales, holds it for a second. Ted waits for him to speak. “...Are you okay?” Booster asks eventually.

“Yeah,” Ted says automatically. He shuts his eyes and forces himself to revise. He doesn’t want to lie right now, not even the little lies, the spot fixes and distractions. Not now, in the middle of the night. The middle of the worst night. “Uh, I – well, I mean – no. I’m not.” He breathes out sharply, an unvoiced, humourless chuckle. “It’s just – and – on top of all of this, there’s all – everyone’s apparently out of their minds with anxiety that it’ll be them next. Their… family or spouse or kids. It’s just – I don’t know.”

“I know,” Booster says. The silence that follows is heavy. “Are you… worried about your dad?”

In the next split second, Ted sees the choices in front of him. He could agree, even though it would be a lie, and Booster would know that; he could tell Booster that he’s afraid of his father dying, that it’s his father whose broken body he sees when he imagines villains going after his family. He could play along. He could throw another handful of dirt over his shoulder and keep trying to bury the nameless thing between them that they’ve been talking around for years. He could cut the dive here, resurface into the familiar shallow waters of avoidance. He could pretend his father was the person he first wanted to call when he heard.

But it’s not really a choice, is it? Not when everything has been thrown into such harsh relief. It’s like a light has come on directly overhead, chasing away the shadows where Ted has been storing his denials, and all that’s left is the obvious truth of the situation.

“No,” Ted says. A strange kind of bravery keeps his voice steady. “He’s not the one I’m worried about.”

Booster says “Oh,” so quietly Ted almost doesn’t hear it, and then, barely louder, “Ted–”

“I know it’s been a long time, I just–” Ted cuts him off, chasing the courage. “I just wanted to talk to you.” And there it is, more honesty than he’s shown Booster in longer than he’d care to admit.

Isn't that awful, that this is what gets them talking? Ted's defences have been, up until now, so impenetrable that even nearly twenty years of friendship couldn’t peel them back. He’d like to believe it was him maturing, leaving behind the co-dependent obsession that always characterised his friendship with Booster, but he’d overcorrected and replaced it with reflexive cruelty. His pettiness and inability to admit when he’s wrong manifesting in the meanest ways.

He wants to apologise. He wants to say he's been an idiot, that Booster has always been smarter, more mature than anyone gives him credit for, even – especially – Ted. He wants to tell Booster how small he feels knowing that the last time he talked to Sue was to make up flimsy excuses for why he couldn't spend time with his friends. He should apologise – god knows Booster deserves it, deserves a far better friend than Ted has been for a long time – but the distance, the phone, make the words feel thin in his mouth.

“Ted,” Booster starts to say again, making Ted's heart jump, then: "Shit. Hold on." There’s a soft click, like he’s put the phone down on a table, and he continues talking from further away. “Where’s the damn…”

Ted waits patiently. He tries to picture Booster in his bedroom, miles away, searching for whatever it is he’s lost, then feels strangely invasive and instead focuses on the potted plant next to the window. The distant sounds of movement are like white noise for his raw nerves. After a moment, there’s a quiet “A-ha!” from Booster, as well as a low, persistent beeping that Ted recognises as a Justice League communicator.

“Sorry,” Booster says, picking up the phone again. “It was – under some stuff, so I didn’t hear it at first.” He clicks a few buttons, stopping the beeping, and reads the message. “Shit. I – yeah. There it is.” He blows out an unsteady breath from pursed lips. “I know you – you told me, but it’s… I don’t know.”

The wording on the official communique is probably far more professional and cohesive than Ted’s pathetically choked-up sentences. He wonders what exactly it says, how much detail it goes into, but he’s almost afraid to ask. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s – official, I guess. Makes it real.”

Booster murmurs agreement, then seems to deliberate on something. “Where… are you?” he asks at length.

Ted looks around himself, like he’s forgotten. “Uh, my office. In Gotham.” At work, late into the night, because an empty office somehow feels better than an empty apartment, even when both are his fault.

“It’s just – they’re telling people to – stay together, you know,” Booster says, haltingly. “Because they don’t know who did it, or, or what their motives are or anything.” He lets the implication hang in the air.

Hearing Booster so hesitant and indirect catapults Ted back in time, back to when Booster was fresh to both the League and the twentieth century. Under the confidence, behind the closed doors of the Embassy, he’d been surprisingly shy – surprising until you really thought about his situation. He’d been barely twenty, a man out of his own time, with no family, no close friends, and only a vague familiarity with a world nearly five hundred years out of date. The prankster in Ted had wanted to mess with him, mislead him in harmlessly funny ways and take advantage of his naivete, but the part of Ted that had also felt immensely lonely and disconnected from his peers growing up had won out. Over the years, of course, Booster had adapted handily to the modern day, outgrowing that timidity and matching – and often overtaking – Ted’s own energy. So it’s weird for him to sound so… uncertain.

Then again, Ted realises with a sick twist of guilt, maybe it’s not that weird, given that he’s talking to someone who recently spent the better part of a year loudly denying that he ever trusted, respected, or even liked Booster.

“Right,” Ted says. He scrubs a hand over his face, trying to find that courage from only a few moments ago. It seems to have fled at the reminder of what a bad friend he’s been to Booster; what right does he have, saying and asking these things? Maybe Booster should hang up and call a real friend, call Bea, Scott, even Guy –

“Can I come over?” Booster asks, cutting into Ted’s self-flagellation. It’s sad and a little resigned, like he doesn’t expect Ted to say yes. Maybe he doesn’t. Ted clenches his free hand into a fist and hits himself in the thigh. What the fuck is wrong with him? Why did he let this happen? When Ted doesn’t immediately answer, Booster continues, frantic: “I just – I don’t think – I won’t be able to get back to sleep, I mean, and – there’s nothing I can do, right now. For – for Sue. I mean. And–”

“Please,” Ted says. “Booster. Yes. I – I’d like that.” He looks around the office, the corporate abstract art on the walls, the diplomas and certificates, the computer screen still spilling blue light onto his empty desk chair. “I – I really – I want you to.” So much more crowds behind his teeth, but even that much is terrifying to say over the phone, and it’s selfish but he wants to see his best friend more than he wants to say everything he should say to him. “Where… where are you?”

“My apartment,” Booster says, then clarifies: “Metropolis.” Ted flushes at the acknowledgement that he has no idea where exactly Booster is living these days. As the hero flies, it's about twenty minutes from Gotham. “I’ll be there soon.”

“It’s the big building with my name on it,” Ted says with a weak smile. “Can’t miss it.”

“Right,” Booster says. “I – yeah. I’ll be there soon, okay? I have to – I’m hanging up, because it’ll just sound like shit while I’m flying. But if – if–”

“I know,” Ted says. “I’ll be okay. See you soon?”

“Yeah,” Booster says, sounding like he might cry. “Yeah.” And then he hangs up, the line going dead in Ted’s ear, and Ted has to press his fist hard against his forehead so he doesn’t scream. After a moment, he lets out a frustrated yell anyway.

What the fuck is he doing?

In twenty minutes, Booster is going to be at his window all tall and tan and shining gold, and there won’t be the barrier of a cell phone between them anymore, and either Ted is going to fall back on his recent tactics of pushing him away – horrible, cruel under any circumstances but unforgivable especially now – or he’s going to have to do the terrifying thing and cross the bridge.

The bridge is something that has served him well over the years, in many different spheres of his life: when Ted becomes aware of something, some knowledge or feeling that he can’t assimilate into his life without upsetting the precarious equilibrium he’s maintained for nearly four decades, instead of falling to pieces or doing the hard work of reconfiguring his worldview, he’ll simply push it into the future. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. And with enough careful denial and avoidance, most of those bridges have been safely put off for many, many years. His heart problems had been one such bridge that Barbara had all but bodily carried him across – in retrospect, a few of the nervous breakdowns and panic attacks he’d had throughout his career had probably been mild cardiac events that he'd pointedly ignored as soon as his chest had stopped seizing and he could breathe again.

And here’s another bridge heading towards him like – mixing metaphors here a little – an oncoming train, making his lungs constrict for an entirely different reason.

He’s not stupid, is the thing. Neither of them are. Ted has never been blind to how it looks – had looked – the two of them, spending so much time together, physically hanging off each other. Living out of each other’s pockets. Ted saving Booster’s life in the most literal sense when he’d died fighting the Overmaster – another death haunting Ted’s life, the one that makes his hands clammy because if he’d been wrong, if he hadn’t been smart enough, this one would have been his fault, just like Dan. How easily they talked each other into things, stupid ideas and investments, and how that translated just as well to synergy in the field. Always the two of them. Blue and Gold.

If it had just been that, though, just the assumptions coming from outside, then the two of them would have – and often did, in the old days – laughed along, played it up. But then there was everything that nobody else saw. The nights neither of them could sleep, staying up late in a quiet Embassy and trading tales of gambling addictions and unfulfilled legacies. The burning jealousy that Booster never fully admitted to whenever Ted had gone drinking with Ronnie and Booster was trapped in that suit that kept him alive. The lingering glances like missed phone calls, both of them aware on some level but neither willing to broach the topic.

The fact that when Barbara had told him to call his family, Ted could only think of one person who made sense.

His anxious pacing has taken him back to the window, which he cracks open an inch, letting some fresh air into the suddenly stifling room. The air is cold and carries the sounds of distant traffic; sirens call eerily down through the streets below.

He can’t do this.

Jesus Christ, he can’t do this. He’s already frayed raw from Sue, and now he thinks he can handle the breaking of a tension over ten years in the making? Everything implied in his and Booster’s conversation, everything poised to tip as soon as he sees him face to face – it’s too much. His breath starts to quicken; the cold night air makes his throat hurt.

That horrible frantic phone call is the first time Ted has talked to Booster in months, since the team, and even before then they’d been stuck in an uneasy stalemate. It’s not like they’d been fighting, per se, not like there’d been an enormous blow-up argument like they used to have… A sick kind of nausea starts to curl in Ted’s gut as he wonders where it did start. What went wrong? When did he start to think of his best friend as an annoyance, an obstacle to his happiness, rather than someone he’d die for?

Maybe it had been during those awkward years after their League dissolved (though, of course, the new one sprung up almost overnight, and Ted had regarded their lack of an invitation with mixed relief and resentment), when they’d been slightly adrift without the team they’d been part of, in some way or another, for almost ten years. Nate’s offshoot had been dismantled under pressure from the government, and they’d parted ways fairly anticlimactically. Ted and Booster had at least still had the company they’d reclaimed from Booster’s old manager, and for a while they’d done that, making video games and contracting their services to the DEO and other organisations, but then… what? Ted frowns, trying to see the sequence of events. Booster’s interest in the company had waned, and he’d started dating Lorraine, hired a personal assistant and moved his sights to the short-lived Planet Krypton restaurant, grown anxious and irritable with aimlessness…

But it would be unfair to lay the blame entirely on Booster. Ted knows he’d been distracted, too, thinking about his future, about a life without the Blue Beetle. He’d started talking to Barbara around that time, a little desperate for non-hero friends (and the irony of striking up a friendship with Oracle while trying to escape the caped community is not lost on Ted), and maybe he hadn’t been… the most understanding of Booster’s restlessness. WayneTech had bought out Blue & Gold with very little protest from either Booster or Ted, and without that shared obligation, suddenly Ted was seeing Booster more often on TV and billboards than face-to-face, and he has to admit to himself that he didn’t put in much of an effort to change that. Booster’s assistant, or secretary, or whatever she was meant to be had kept him in the public's good graces – back to the solo act he'd been in the 80s, with all the merchandising and brand deals that entailed. With Lorraine in the equation, as well, Ted had reasoned to himself that in pretty much every respect Booster was doing fine without him, and that if he wanted to talk, well – Booster never let awkwardness stop him from reaching out.

Of course, inactivity chafes at Ted just as much as it does Booster, and with his apprehension about his future as a hero, he’d instead channelled that into the only other vocation of his that had ever been seen as halfway worthwhile: he’d restarted the family business. For a while it had seemed good, and Booster finally ending things with Lorraine meant that they were tentatively hanging out again – and then Ted had taken his official sabbatical from hero work, and for some ungodly selfish reason Booster had taken it as a personal attack, and they’d been back to not talking, back to Ted working longer and longer hours at the office, drowning himself in work and ignoring the ache of missing Booster by channelling it into his friendship with Barbara instead. That had been familiar, at least, being pissed at Booster for acting like an idiot, giving some form and definition to their separation, something for Ted to be mad at. And there had been ups and downs during that period, where sometimes it seemed like they could pretend nothing had happened, when they went out drinking and watched movies and ignored the elephant in the room. But mostly it was the distance and the silence, growing longer and harder to break, and then Ted stopped calling, and finally Booster stopped calling.

At the time, Ted had reasoned that maybe taking a break would be… good for him. Good for both of them. Honestly, with some distance, the enormity of his and Booster’s friendship (and he always emphasises that word in his head, their friendship, never their relationship) scared him a little; they’d been teased for being co-dependent, part of a matching set, but the jokes wouldn’t have started if they weren’t genuinely kind of obsessed with each other. And the connotations behind that, the idea of being part of that intense platonic partnership for the rest of his life – or, worse, some part of that dynamic changing – frightened Ted enough that he found the freedom a relief. Added to the way Booster seemed to take any ideation of Ted hanging up the costume for good as a personal insult, it seemed… healthier, maybe, to let things play out, to let them drift. To ignore the way Ted missed him achingly, to convince himself that he’d outgrown the person he used to be.

So why had he been so terrified just now? If he hasn’t talked to Booster in months – spent the year before that treating him like shit – where had that all-consuming need to make sure that he was okay come from? Not that Ted thinks himself uncaring enough to not think of Booster’s safety with a potential serial killer on the loose; he’s an asshole, sure, but not a monster. But this was more than simple concern for a teammate’s life: this was being told that his family could be in danger and every single thought in his brain coming back to one person. Proof that trying to excise Booster neatly from his mind and life and heart was futile from the start. And that sends an entirely new flood of panic through his body.

For a single, stupid moment, he considers calling Booster back to tell him not to come. Lie and say he’s fine, say he changed his mind and is going to see his dad after all, tell Booster to go back to bed, insult him, deride him, do anything to keep both Booster and the bridge distant on the horizon. He gets as far as flipping open his phone – never mind that Booster is probably already in flight and won’t hear the ringtone over the windrush – and then he sees the notification that he hadn’t seen when he’d called Booster in a fugue, and it halts his momentum enough for him to come (slightly) back to his senses.

Hey, Ted. Call me when you get this?

Bea had sent the text an hour and a half ago, unnoticed in his working haze. It’s probably the same one that Booster slept through. Ted scrolls up through their past texts and winces at their sparseness, the amount of times he’s put off replying until it would just be awkward to respond to something she said two days ago. With Bea, it’s not the same avoidance that he feels with Booster, more a sense of – pity, or something, that he imagines she feels towards him. Which is unfair, he knows, projecting his own issues onto one of his oldest friends, someone he loves like a sister (or, at least, how he assumes that’s supposed to feel), especially when she’s doing the heavy lifting of reaching out to him while he deliberately drowns himself in work.

He breathes out, steeling himself, and calls her. It rings for just long enough that a pang of anxiety spikes in his gut, but – thank god – she answers before it goes to voicemail.

“Ted?” she says. She sounds leagues more awake than Booster had been; he hadn’t woken her, at least. “Oh, god. Have you… has someone told you?”

“Hey, Bea,” he replies. “Uh, I – yeah. Uh. Oracle called. I – I can’t believe it. I don’t think I want to believe it.”

Bea sighs gustily; a creak in the background brings to mind the image of her collapsing into a chair. “I know. Sue. Of all people…”

"How – how are you holding up?" Ted asks. He's never been good at this, the comfort, the right words to say in a tragedy. His reflex in any uncomfortable situation is to make a joke out of it, try and get people laughing, and when he can't do that he feels even more useless than he usually does.

"How do you think?" Bea says wryly. "I'm… well, you know me, Beetle. I hate sitting on my hands with stuff like this, so Bats tapped me for an insider opinion on the – uh, did Oracle tell you about – how she…?"

"Uh, yeah," Ted says. He blinks away the image of a blackened corpse. "That – makes sense. Did you… find anything out?"

"Mm-mm." Now that he's listening, he can hear her typing quietly. "Nothing that others didn't already know. Likely temperature, length of exposure, things like that." She goes quiet for a long moment, and Ted wonders if she's picturing Sue’s body. "And now I’m doing some digging. Seeing if there was anything going on with the Dearbon family fortune, anything that might give us a lead.”

Even though Ted knows, intellectually, that Bea used to be a spy for the Brazilian government, back before she was even Green Flame, it still catches him off guard. It’s probably intentional, on her part: keep up the image she has now to keep people ignorant of the really dangerous skills she has. If all people expect her to do is look pretty and burst into flame, then she has them at a disadvantage. “Anything yet?” he asks.

Her annoyed sigh is answer enough. “It just doesn’t make sense . There’s no – no motive here. The m.o. doesn’t match anyone, especially not one of Ralph’s enemies. Nobody’s stepped forward to claim it – which you think they would, right? You attack the wife of one of the first heroes to reveal their identity – a woman who’s well-known in her own right – then you must be doing it for attention, or to make a statement. But that’s not what’s happening!” As she talks, her voice raises in volume and intensity, until she’s nearly yelling in frustration, then she lets out an angry sob. “Sorry. I just – I don’t know what else I can do . I need to – it’s so fucking unfair. This shouldn’t have happened.”

“I know,” Ted says. “It’s – it’s not fair, you’re right. But you are doing something. You’re – you’re helping Ralph. You’re helping solve this, and when we find out who did it, you’re going to help bring them to justice.” But that’s not all, is it? He knows the desperate anger in her voice, this fervent need to be doing something to fix this. It’s like an echo of how furious she’d been back when… when Tora died. And even then, knowing immediately who killed her, how it all happened, Bea hadn’t been satisfied with that. She’s carried that for years, and god only knows what their stint in that projection of hell had done to her progress.

What was it that fake Tora had said? You always did care too much. For as much as Bea likes to front, keep people at arm’s length, it’s true: when she finds people she cares about, she puts her entire heart into it.

Bea swallows thickly. “Yeah,” she says. “You’re right. I know. It’s just…”

“Yeah,” Ted agrees. He diplomatically ignores the quiet sniff from the other end of the phone, tracing lines in the mist on the window, and waits for Bea to be ready to pick up the conversation again.

“So – are you doing okay, Ted?” Bea asks when the quiver is gone from her voice. “I’m just in Opal City. I can drive over to Gotham, if you want.”

“No, no,” he says, shaking his head, though the idea of seeing Bea, being enveloped in one of her bruising, perfumed hugs, makes him ache. “You’re – you’re busy. You’re helping. I’m fine. I, uh – Booster’s on his way, actually.” The admission feels like it’s dripping with obvious subtext, and the way Bea goes quiet makes it clear that she hears it too.

“I was going to ask if you’d heard from him,” she says carefully. “I’m – glad he’s okay. I tried to get in touch with him, but he didn’t reply, and I didn’t really think much of it, given… you know, how he’s been lately.” She taps on something – a table, the arm of her chair – with her nails, a quiet staccato beat. “God. Until you said that I don’t think I really realised I was that worried about him.”

How Booster’s been lately? Ted swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. “What – what do you mean?” he asks. A good friend wouldn’t need to ask. Another damning indictment of how he’s been acting for too long.

Bea makes a confused sound. “That I was – distracted, I guess?” she says, defensive. “It’s been a hell of a night, Beetle.”

“No, no,” Ted says. “I meant when you said – how he’s been lately.”

“Oh.” The fire goes out of her voice. “You know. Booster hasn’t been very… Booster, recently. He keeps cancelling on me when we make plans, and half the time when I call he misses it because he’s asleep. Like, in the middle of the day.” She sighs, half-exasperated, half-concerned. “You haven’t noticed it?”

No. He hasn’t. Because first he treated Booster like shit, and then ignored him for months, and now the terrible grim reality of the world they live in has upended every stupid reason he ever invented to do that. “I haven’t really…” he starts, then clears his throat as it starts to close with shame. “We haven’t really talked much. Since… since the team broke up, I guess.”

Even at the farewell party Max had (under duress) thrown, Ted had mostly talked to Ralph, Sue, and Bea, begging off early with the excuse of a full slate of meetings the following day. He hadn’t deliberately not spoken to Booster; they’d chatted, but the atmosphere had been distinctly awkward, coloured by Ted’s stubborn maturity act and the anger he’d still felt at Booster’s behaviour, or how he perceived it. And that had been the last time he’d seen Booster in person. 

Looking back, hadn’t he been unusually subdued even then? Sure, it was a farewell, but not out of any kind of major schism; Max’s allocated funds and belief in the project had simply dried up, and the last thing he wrote off as a Superbuddies tax expense had been the gallons of booze supplied by Guy’s bar next door. Mary had cried, but she’s Mary, and after a pep talk from Sue and a diet Soder Cola she’d been back to her usual bubbly self. But Booster, normally the life of any party, had stood off to the side, nursing a single beer the entire evening and only really engaging in conversation when Bea had dragged him into an argument between her and Ralph about – some movie or another; Ted hadn’t really been listening. When Ted had left, shrugging on his coat, he'd waved goodbye to Booster from across the room, and Booster had waved back with a smile that very obviously didn't reach his eyes.

"Really,” Bea says flatly. “So what were you fighting about this time?”

“We aren’t – we weren’t fighting,” Ted says, then dials back the defensiveness. “I don’t know. Just – the way he was acting when the team got back together, and my heart condition, and… I don’t know. I think maybe I was expecting him to be the one to call. And the longer he didn’t, the more reasons I came up with to not do it either, and – and then–” And then suddenly no more excuses.

“Ted, can I just say?” Bea says. “I love you, but I’m so sick of your shit. Both of you.”

Ted half-smiles. God, he’s missed Bea. “I know,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I’m also sick of my shit. I know I’ve been – not a great friend recently.” For a moment he almost starts with the same excuses he’s been regurgitating for the past year, but then he bites them back. “I’m sorry.”

Bea makes a surprised little hum. “Thanks, Beetle,” she says, then sighs. “I know it’s, like, your whole thing , not talking about it. But it’s just… so infuriating watching you two do this to yourselves.”

His face goes cold with instinctive fear at being perceived so thoroughly. He tells himself that Bea is a friend, that she’s known him for years and has never pushed him about this, outside of the jokes that everyone makes. “Y-yeah,” he says, his voice cracking embarrassingly. He can’t quite bring himself to say anything more substantial, but it’s still a step up from his usual strategy of feigned ignorance whenever anyone tries to have a sincere conversation with him about things he doesn’t want to think about.

“Sorry. I’ll drop it.” She does, for a moment, and the line is full of anticipatory silence. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet and vulnerable, both qualities a rarity from Bea. “Just – don’t let yourself miss out on something because you’re scared.”

Ted thinks about matching pairs and best friends and things left unsaid until it’s too late. Outside, rain has started falling in earnest, a gloomy drizzle like a curtain of gauze over the city. “I know,” he says, and tries to put everything he means into those two words. “I’m… I’m trying. This all kind of – put some things in perspective, I guess.”

“Glad you’re figuring it out,” Bea says.

They sit in companionable silence for a while, Ted watching the rain, Bea tapping at her keyboard. The nascent panic attack of fifteen minutes ago is only a dim memory by now, soothed by the simple act of calling a friend. Ted feels like grabbing his past self by the lapels and shaking him around. Why did it take this stupid, senseless tragedy for him to realise how much he’d been closing himself off? All these late nights in the office, avoiding his friends, clinging desperately to a facade of maturity so he wouldn’t have to confront his feelings, his mistakes. 

If he hadn’t been working late tonight – and it’s not like he had to , not like someone held a gun to his head and forced him to stay in the office long past sunset, only his aversion to his empty apartment and a need to be doing something – maybe he could have been there. Sue might have asked him to come over early to help set up for the party. She might have greeted him at the door with a hug and a kiss on each cheek, a habit she never shook from the time the JLE had been stationed in Paris. She might have explained the mystery to him, laughing when he’d gasp at all the appropriate times. She would have glowed with love and joy, always filled with a beautiful warmth when talking about her husband. And Ted would have been happy, because despite all evidence he stupidly shows to the contrary, he loves his friends, and he loves Sue’s parties, and he wishes more than anything he’d been there.

He has to clamp down hard on the line of thought before it goes any further than that. If he had been there – so what? Would he have been able to stop it? He might never know, and – knowing himself as thoroughly and shamefully as he does – if he lets the idea that he could have take root, it’ll choke him for the rest of his life.

Still. He doesn’t want to miss out on anything – the horrible things, and the wonderful things, and all the mundane things in between – for something as meaningless as working overtime. Not anymore.

“Thanks, Bea,” Ted says abruptly, almost before he’s made the decision to speak. “For putting up with me, I guess. All these years.”

She snorts. “I could say the same thing,” she says. “We’ve been through it all, Beetle, I don’t think there’s much you could do to shake me now.”

Ted feels a rush of earnest affection. “I’m – not good at saying it,” he stutters. “But you know I love you, right?” He wants to say it to her, out loud; he knows they’re friends, knows they’d die for each other, but saying it feels – important, somehow.

“Ted,” Bea says warmly. “Of course I know. You really can be an idiot sometimes.”

“No arguments here,” he replies. He realises suddenly that his eyes are strained from watching the rain unblinking – or, more accurately, watching for an approaching flash of gold to emerge from it. He turns away, facing the opposite wall, and swallows around a lump in his throat. “I – I should go. I think, uh. I should go.”

Bea clearly catches his meaning. “Good luck,” she says. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he says. “I – thank you. You know. For – getting it.”

“I know,” Bea says. “I know. Love you too.”

He manages to make it a record-breaking forty seconds after hanging up the phone before the panic starts to creep up on him again. He leans against his desk, palms planted flat on the mahogany. All he can think of is every single way this could go wrong. He tries to make a plan, tries to map out the conversation, but he realises that he doesn’t know how Booster is going to react. To anything. When they were on the League together, he could have – and, to the chagrin of their colleagues, often did – predicted Booster’s exact responses to things, finishing his sentences and taking the words right out of his mouth, just like Booster did to him in turn. They knew each other better than anyone. The fact that he’s coming up empty on what Booster is going to say is yet another nail through his heart, another piece of proof that Ted took what they had for granted.

Maybe… maybe he’ll fly through the window and see Ted and remember all the horrible things Ted has ever done to him, and Booster will just shake his head in pity and leave him there, shoot off to find one of their other friends, someone who actually treats him well and knows when he’s depressed.

No. He wouldn’t do that. Ted brings a trembling hand to his head and runs anxious fingers through his hair. He can at least convince himself that Booster is too kind to do that, to turn his back on Ted. Even though he’d be justified in doing it.

Then – maybe he’ll come over, let Ted apologise, stand there while Ted gives flimsy excuses for acting so cruel, and he won’t forgive him.

Maybe he won’t even show up. Maybe he came to his senses after hanging up, realised that Ted doesn’t deserve his company.

Maybe something already happened to him on the way here.

Ted realises he’s catastrophising, making up scenarios to feed his anxiety, but the knowledge doesn’t stop him from doing it. How long until Booster gets here? How long before Ted has to make good on the promises he’s been making himself?

Not long at all, it seems. The soft sliding sound of the window opening behind him doesn’t quite make him jump, but his heart does skip a beat and his mouth goes dry. He turns around with – what? Anticipation? Anxiety? Relief? Some inscrutable mixture of all three and more besides, hope and regret and guilt and that huge terrifying thing he doesn’t want to put a name to. All of it, fighting to the top of his lungs as he turns, ready for a bright firebrand of gold to light up his lonely office.

“Ted?” Booster has one leg over the windowsill, dripping water onto the carpet. For a moment Ted doesn’t know what to say, and then the visuals of the situation catch up with him.

“Boos–” he starts, trying to ignore the way the nickname makes his face warm, then can’t help but break into a tired, incredulous smile. It’s like for just a single perfect second, nothing happened; here’s Booster visiting him in the middle of the night, and everything is normal, and everything is fine, because Booster is here. “Did you really fly all the way here in your pyjamas?”

Because instead of the futuristic blue and gold Ted had been expecting to see him in, insulated from the cold and shielded from the rain, Booster stands there in a Gotham University t-shirt, pale blue cotton pyjama pants, and white socks, soaked to the bone, breathing hard and trembling. His bangs are plastered to his forehead, the blonde hair shaded darker than normal, and his face is pale, not the healthy tan Ted remembers him wearing. The only piece of his costume he has on is his flight ring, a single glint of gold on his right hand. He looks – so cold. Standing there in Ted’s office with wet socks.

It’s the socks Ted focuses on, for some reason. Booster flew to his office with no suit, no forcefield, no kind of protection, through the rain and fog and dark, faster than must have been comfortable, wearing cold, wet socks, just for him. Just for Ted. Even after all this time.

Instinct makes him try to joke at first, the years-old rhythm of their friendship still lodged in his brain. “You really haven’t changed a bit, have you?” Ted says, but what he means is you still care, and the blatant reality of it makes the guilt rise to the top of his throat. The smile falls away as Booster keeps looking at him, eyebrows drawn together. Ted wants to cry. He wants to run away. He wants Booster to keep looking at him forever. “You–” he tries, but his voice breaks, and Booster just keeps looking at him. “I mean, you – I’m – I’m sorry.”

Booster blinks, but he doesn’t move otherwise, doesn’t say anything; he just keeps standing there, shivering in front of the open window. He looks so – so hopelessly devoted, like there was never any chance he wouldn’t be here, that he wouldn’t have flown miles through any weather to be here. It’s almost terrifying. It’s a responsibility Ted feels desperately unequipped for, holding this kind of loyalty in his hands, when he’s proven over and over that he doesn’t deserve it.

“I’m so sorry,” Ted says. His eyes prick with tears, pent up from everything he’s been through tonight, the misery and fear and all of it, the guilt of the past few years. “I don’t know why I – why I ever – I mean, shit, you’re my best friend, and I – I was so–” He has to cover his face as he starts to cry in earnest. He doesn’t know the last time he cried, let alone in front of another person.

As soon as the tears start rolling down Ted’s cheeks, it’s as if a switch is flipped in Booster, and he suddenly starts forward. His hands are held out awkwardly like he wants to hold Ted but isn’t sure if he’s allowed to. The hesitation is another stab to Ted’s miserable gut. His best friend is scared to touch him. This is his fault. This is what he’s done.

“Hey,” Booster says, his voice so much softer unencumbered by the phone line’s distortion. “Hey, it’s – it’s okay. Ted.” He lets out a quiet breath. “Teddy. You’re okay.”

It’s not okay. Ted wants Booster to leave. He wants Booster to keep lying and saying it’s okay. He wants Booster to laugh. He wants Booster–

That tiny shred of courage surfaces again, and Ted surges forward to wrap his arms around Booster, burying his face in his sodden shirt. The physical contact seems to surprise Booster, and he stiffens; for a long, horrible moment Ted thinks he’s going to push him away, but then Booster breathes out in a shaky chuckle and returns the embrace. He presses his hands to Ted’s back, stroking up and down with gentle pressure, and rests his chin on top of Ted’s head. Booster’s tall – taller than Ted by half a foot – and his skin is cold but he runs hot underneath the chill, and the steady, careful weight of his arms is comforting enough that Ted doesn’t even begrudge the way his suit is getting wet, held as tight as he is.

Maybe Ted needs to be brave more often, if this is what it gets him – his arms full of his best friend, Booster’s heart beating rabbit-fast in his chest, right where Ted has his face pressed. Everything else seems to fall away: the rain, the dark, the horrible night, the months of silence, because Booster’s alive, and right here, and in his arms.

He pulls away, wiping his eyes, after a shiver runs through Booster’s body so violently that it shakes Ted as well. “Booster,” he says, more reproachfully than he’d like. “You’re freezing. Why didn’t you wear your suit? Or the belt, at least?” The twenty-fifth century microweave is insulated and remarkably weatherproof, and Booster’s forcefield belt is more than equipped to ward off a little rain, but really anything would have been better than a t-shirt. Ted shrugs off his suit jacket – it’s damp all down the front from where he’d been pressed against Booster, but it’s still an extra layer – and, with a little effort, drapes it over Booster’s broad shoulders.

Booster looks embarrassed. He clutches at the edges of the jacket to pull it tighter around himself. “I, uh – s-sorry,” he starts, and he sounds so miserable that Ted has to clench his jaw to keep from wrapping him up in another hug. “I know it w-was stupid. Um, after I hung up the phone, I was l-looking for my suit. And I – I don’t know, I haven’t really b-been… wearing it a lot, recently. So I couldn’t find it, and I st-started worrying that – I don’t know. Stupid. So I j-just left. I wasn’t really thinking about – you know, Gotham weather.” He looks down and laughs quietly. “Um. Thanks,” he adds, shrugging to indicate the jacket.

“Of course,” Ted says softly. Booster hasn’t been wearing his suit? Booster, whose identity as a person is so tangled up with his identity as a hero that he’d all but begged Ted to build him an entirely new suit after it had been shredded by Doomsday? Who, even when the armour had repeatedly failed, had kept risking his neck, kept going out into the fray wearing a glorified prototype, because the idea of doing nothing at all was worse than dying? That Booster, that brave, fearless Booster who needs to be needed, is now sleeping his days away and burying his League communicator in the messy corners of his bedroom.

If Ted thought he’d felt guilty before, that was nothing compared to now. Looking up at Booster, his pale face, the dark circles under his eyes – he can’t help but feel responsible. He’s supposed to be Booster’s best friend. What kind of best friend – hell, what kind of friend, never mind the superlatives, doesn’t notice something like this happening?

No. No more guilt without action, Ted decides. Here’s Booster, cold and wet in his office, and here’s his chance to do something about it.

“We should go back to my apartment,” he says. “You can – borrow some clothes. If you want.” He takes a breath, bulldozing past any thoughts that try to percolate about Booster wearing his clothes, and what that might look like or mean in another context, and focuses on Booster’s face. “Alright?”

Booster's forehead creases like he's confused – about Ted's sincerity, his motives? – but he doesn’t reject the idea out of hand. “That – that sounds good, yeah. Do you want me to – uh.” He makes an awkward motion with his arms, holding them out with his palms facing up, then has to grab at the jacket as it starts to slide off his shoulders. It takes a moment for Ted to interpret the gesture, then realises: Booster is offering to fly them there. Offering to carry him. Fly through the wind and rain – again! – for the sake of getting home a little faster.

Selfishly, Ted nods. Yes, they could take the lift down to the underground carpark and Ted could drive them there, but – he doesn’t want to. He wants Booster to pick him up like Lois Lane and carry him up above the clouds, weightless and free. He hasn’t flown the Bug in months; he misses being in the air.

And yes, he wants Booster to carry him there, because if that’s all he gets – if his courage fails him and they duck under the approaching conversation again, or if (and here his chest tightens slightly at the possibility) Booster doesn’t want the same thing Ted thinks he might want, if Booster is justifiably tired of waiting for Ted to stop treating him like garbage – he at least wants that memory. Something to make the world seem less awful.

“Is that ok?” Ted asks. “I know you’re cold, but – it’ll be faster that way.”

“S’okay,” Booster replies, then sniffs. “Do you want your jacket back? I don’t want to drop it.” He tugs at it with both hands, stretching it gently across his shoulders. “And I don’t think it would, uh. Fit me.”

He’s right. Booster is wider in the shoulders than Ted, and though he’d be able to put the jacket on – button it, too, across his narrow waist – any kind of movement would probably risk tearing something. But he’s still shivering. So Ted steps forward, feeling slightly insane, and reaches up to tie the jacket sleeves under Booster’s chin. Not tightly – just enough to keep it secured on his shoulders. When he lets go, the sleeves fall unevenly over his chest like a hoodie’s drawstrings.

Booster looks down at himself with a faint smile. “You know I used to have a cape?” he says. “Back when I first started.”

“Really?” Ted asks. Casting his mind back to the late eighties, he thinks he can remember a billboard or two featuring a twenty-foot Booster with a billowing gold cape. “You didn’t have it when you joined the League, though. Did you?”

“Ah, no,” Booster says, embarrassed. “No. It was never – it was mostly for promotional stuff, I didn’t really wear it when I was actually fighting.” He looks to the side, one hand coming up to fidget with the tied sleeves. “Um. Superman actually – took it. He told me I ‘couldn’t handle it’. To be fair, I had just been grabbed by the cape and slammed into a wall by, like – Mammoth, or someone. So.”

Ted feels a surge of protectiveness for that younger Booster, having that symbol of classic heroism taken away by someone he’d used to admire so much. Superman always had seemed – well, not overly mean to Booster, but noticeably less friendly than he is to every other person in the world. “Well,” Ted says. “What does he know? I think capes suit you.” 

He can’t quite bring himself to meet the disbelieving smile Booster gives him in return. Instead, he clears his throat and steps away. “So – uh, just give me a second,” he says, turning to his desk. He shuts down the computer, heedless of whatever he’d been working on – the bad news had completely nullified any capacity to think about work – then flicks off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. When he turns back, Booster is lit faintly from behind by the open window, the Gotham sky.

They look at each other for a moment, then Booster looks over his shoulder at the window he’d climbed through a few minutes ago. “How do you want to…” he starts, gesturing at themselves, then the window.

“Oh,” Ted says. He steps towards Booster, then reconsiders, looking at the window. “Might be – a little awkward.” The window isn’t tiny, but it’s also not huge, and not really the ideal way for two grown men to simultaneously exit a room. Ted internally curses himself for not going with the classic floor-to-ceiling windows most CEOs have in their top-floor offices. “How about – uh, you go out first and I’ll – jump.”

“Jump?” Booster repeats.

Ted waves a hand dismissively. “It’s fine,” he says. “I’ve jumped from higher. And you’ll catch me.”

Booster looks like he wants to say something, then swallows and nods instead, climbing back through the window and floating out into the air, weightless. The rain has eased to just a light shower by now, leaving almost imperceptibly darker spots on the fabric of Ted’s jacket – Booster’s cape. Ted casts a final look around the office – nothing else here for him to do except leave. He tucks his phone into his pocket and walks the few steps to the window, bracing his hands on the sill and looking down at the city streets twenty storeys below, then in front of him, to his best friend’s face.

He swings one leg over the windowsill so he’s straddling it, halfway out into the night air; a gust of wind hits suddenly and Booster reaches forward to steady him. Ted smiles. “I’m fine, Boos,” he says. “Just – a little lower. And face that way.” He points parallel to the building’s wall, and Booster obediently follows, hovering below the window, arms outstretched. Ted looks down at him, then swings his other leg over the windowsill and pushes himself out into the air; it’s only a fall of a scant few feet before Booster catches him, his arms a firm support under Ted’s back and knees. He readjusts slightly, making sure his hands have a secure grip, and Ted waits for him to finish before he loops his arms around Booster’s neck.

They’ve flown like this a million times. There really isn’t any way to be carried by a flying teammate that isn’t at least slightly awkward, something Ted knows from years of experience. A fireman’s carry is probably the least emasculating method, but it also leaves you feeling like a sack of potatoes; being held around the chest isn’t very secure and tends to strain the flyer’s grip; piggyback gives you a good vantage point, plus it’s fun when you’re being chased by an angry Martian, but it also leaves the passenger vulnerable to high-speed winds. Ted remembers, only half-ironically, sketching up a handlebar attachment for the back of his costume for the purpose of quick rescues.

But this is the best way to be carried: it’s comfortable and secure, it distributes the passenger’s weight evenly, and the multiple points of contact make it stable. And – okay, putting aside the practical reasons, it’s just nice. It’s nice. Even with the way Booster’s clothes are still cold and wet.

There’s an awkward silence. “Um,” Booster says. “Where to?” He looks down at Ted, pulling his head back so their faces aren’t uncomfortably close together.

“Oh.” Ted looks over his shoulder, trying to get his bearings. He usually exits the building from the other side, not to mention at ground level. “Couple miles that way.” He keeps one arm hooked around Booster’s neck and uses the other to point a thumb behind himself, in the direction of his apartment building. At least this way they won’t have to deal with traffic – not that there’s usually many people on the road this late at night.

Booster nods. When Ted’s arms are secure around him again he momentarily takes the hand at Ted’s back away so he can reach up and close the window; Ted’s heart jumps slightly, though whether it’s from the loss of contact or the increased risk of falling he’s not entirely sure. Either way, when Booster’s arm returns, curling around his torso so his broad hand rests on Ted’s ribcage, Ted lets out an involuntary breath. Booster half-smiles, and then they’re off, moving through the air like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

He’d forgotten how smoothly Booster flies. Long ago, Booster had cajoled Ted into trying it out, but despite his talent for acrobatics and general comfort in the air, Ted hadn’t been able to convince the flight ring to do much more than hover. Something about the impreciseness of it had made him unspeakably terrified – the ring works off telepathy, and even though he knows he’s smart, knows his brain is resilient and capable, something about his mind interfacing with the far-future technology was too daunting to properly commit to. No, Ted would much rather leave the flying to Booster and stay secure in his Bug, whose workings he knows inside and out.

But he’d never distrusted the ring when Booster was wearing it. Even after Booster had confessed to Ted that he didn’t really know how most of his gear worked. They’d been in the hangar, Booster watching while Ted worked on the Bug, and Ted had been bragging about the Bug’s various capabilities; it was still early enough in their friendship that Booster would pretend to be politely interested when Ted talked about solar conversion rates and titanium-steel alloys. He’d felt a little bad after spending ten straight minutes infodumping on the poor guy and asked about Booster’s equipment – the forcefield belt was immediately interesting, since he was always looking for ways to upgrade the Bug’s deflector shields – but Booster had flushed and explained, awkwardly, that he didn't really know much about it.

Ted had been incredulous at first, but Booster’s obvious embarrassment tempered the oncoming teasing, and he’d instead offered to look at it. And then – he’d sort of become Booster’s mechanic. He’d taken apart everything that could be taken apart and put it back together over and over, learning the microcircuitry, marvelling at the hyper-advanced materials and construction, reverse engineering manuals for everything so he could troubleshoot and improve and repair it when it broke. He’d learned how to work with Booster’s suit, how to clean the unfamiliar material, how to sew it back together when it tore without rendering the complex power-enhancing circuitry useless. He’d refined the energy supply, made the wrist blasters more efficient, borrowed ideas from the forcefield belt. The ring had stayed largely inscrutable, which he chalked up to it being from even further in the future than Booster, meaning it only rankled a little bit that he couldn’t understand it fully. Of everyone on the planet, Ted probably knew Booster’s hero equipment the best. Even now, the blueprints he’d made are stored somewhere in his esoteric filing system. Keeping that knowledge safe, just in case he ever needs to patch Booster up again.

He lets himself lean his head into Booster’s shoulder. Why did he ever think he could cut himself off from Booster? Why had he wanted to? The reasons had seemed rational at the time – they were co-dependent, he didn’t want to be pigeonholed into that role as part of the class clown duo, he needed to have a life outside of hero work, he’d simply grown up – but they all seem incomparably stupid now. Any life that he wants – needs – outside of hero work, he also needs – wants – Booster to be part of it.

As a friend? Yes. Obviously, he wants Booster to be his friend, his best friend, again. 

…As something more?

That’s still a subject that makes Ted feel lightheaded, maybe for more than one reason, but he forces the thought to stay in his mind, pins it there like a butterfly. Ignores the instinct to deny, to push those thoughts aside (a synchronised, disgusted rejection, “We’re not–!”), and tries to let it just – be. Booster. Him and Booster. The incredible, terrifying things contained in that and.

Is it selfish for him to want more, though, when he’s spent so long pushing that option away? Maybe. Whatever Booster has felt for him in the past – and Ted is pretty sure he’s not crazy, pretty sure he didn’t imagine the way Booster sometimes looked at him, the way he acted – he might have given up on waiting. He might be tired of Ted’s stupid neuroticism, tired of the denials…

And yet – he showed up. In the rain. In the cold. In his wet socks. Ted has to believe that means something.

Booster has his gaze fixed on the city below them, so Ted takes the opportunity to study his face in profile. It’s… objectively a handsome face. There’s a reason Booster is in so many ads promoting colognes and toothpastes. Ted has always thought – known that Booster is handsome, on an intellectual level; his strong jaw, his blue eyes, his soft hair. The facts of the situation have never been a problem, because they’re just that: facts. Grass is green, the Bug is blue, Booster Gold is beautiful. It’s where the facts blur into Ted’s personal feelings that things get dangerous and he starts putting things in mental boxes.

But they’re here now. Ted’s priorities have been overturned and the bridge is fast approaching and he’s realising that he doesn’t want to avoid this anymore. It’s still scary – terrifying, in fact, and he’s jumped out of planes and fought aliens and had open heart surgery, so it’s telling that this is making his stomach turn over – but it also feels inevitable, somehow. And he doesn’t want to spend his life being scared of something that might be… good. Might be really good, if he’s lucky, if he doesn’t screw it up.

So yes, Booster is handsome. And yes, Ted wants Booster in his life. Now he just needs to be brave and say that.

They don’t talk on the way. Not for the sake of windrush; Booster is flying much slower than he must have been on the way to Gotham, and their faces are close enough together that Ted could murmur and Booster would be able to hear it. It just feels like a spell would be broken if either of them spoke. Like they’re in another world, apart from every bad thing that has ever happened down on the ground, and as long as they keep silent, they can stay here in this liminal space.

But reality encroaches; Ted tugs on Booster’s arm and points down at an oncoming building, and Booster nods, starting his gentle descent. They’ve been flying through fog and a gentle rain; Ted feels it collecting in his hair. He’s still not as soaked as Booster, but maybe a change of clothes is in order for both of them.

“Third from the top,” Ted says as they approach. “Uh. Just put me down on the fire escape and I’ll – figure it out.” Logically, he should just go in via the ground floor, get the doorman to let him in and use his key to open the front door of his apartment like a normal person, but the idea of talking to another human being right now – someone intruding on their private moment, someone who has no idea that Sue Dibny died tonight and she was Ted’s friend – seems wrong. Booster dutifully lands on the fire escape, making the metal rattle softly, and stoops down slightly so Ted can climb down from his arms. “Thanks,” Ted says, quietly. He feels off-balance, like he’s been at sea for days, even though they were only in the air for a few minutes.

The ease with which he picks his own lock makes his neck itch. Most of it he can chalk up to his own above-average skills, and true, the world at large doesn’t know that this is the residence of the (former?) Blue Beetle, but even so… maybe he should talk to Scott about improving his home security. Maybe he should talk to Scott, full stop. For all of Ted’s self-imposed misery about retiring and wanting a normal life, he’s also been avoiding the one friend who might be able to understand.

After a moment, the latch pops open and Ted slides the window up. It’s dark inside, so he climbs in carefully and makes his way across the living room by memory, only kicking the coffee table on his way. When he flicks on the light switch next to the front door, toeing off his shoes as he does, it reveals a room which is somehow both empty and cluttered. It’s big – far too much space for someone who lives alone and has brought maybe two people home since he signed the lease eighteen months ago. Well. Three people, now. 

The main area of the apartment is his open-plan living/dining space, containing his television, the aforementioned toe-stubbing coffee table, a side table by the door where he now puts his keys and phone, the couch he eats his takeout on, a dining table that he only eats at when he can’t balance his dinner on his lap, a kitchen strewn with dirty dishes and abandoned cups of coffee, and miscellaneous detritus covering every available flat surface. There’s also a frankly embarrassing amount of laundry hanging around the place: jackets he shrugged off after getting home, socks forgotten on the floor, even a pair of jeans that he’d decided against wearing at the last second before heading out for the day. Ted can feel his face redden as Booster climbs inside, looking around the room.

“Sorry about the mess,” he says, nudging a sock behind the TV cabinet with his foot. Thankfully, though, Booster isn’t looking at the floor – his gaze is locked on the sparse few photos Ted has on the walls.

One is of Ted, maybe twelve years old, receiving some school award, his mother standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder. The young Ted’s round, freckled face is split in a wide grin – the same lopsided, goofy smile he has as an adult – and his mother is stifling a similarly undignified smirk. Ted doesn’t really remember what the award was for, or how old he was exactly, only that he must have been younger than thirteen, because that’s when his mother had a stroke and lay in that hospital bed for three long weeks before leaving him forever. His father isn’t in the picture, but that’s not really remarkable; the number of his son’s school events that Thomas Kord had shown up to can be counted on one hand.

Next is Ted at his university graduation. Murray is standing next to him, one arm thrown around Ted’s shoulders as the two of them beam at the camera. He’d been so young, having turned twenty only a few months before the photo had been taken. It’s not the official graduation photo – he’d hated how he’d looked in that – no, this one had been taken by Dan on his spiffy little Kodak, and even though it’s overexposed and amateurish, he still loves it. As long as he doesn’t think about Dan, or how long it’s been since he’s spoken to Murray, or how hopeful he looks in the photo and whether the Ted standing there with his whole life ahead of him would be impressed with anything he’s achieved since the picture was taken… Well. It’s a nice photo.

The biggest one, though, the picture that Booster is staring at, is the one that Ted puts up and takes off the wall every few months. It’s up at the moment, maybe through some kind of sublimated guilt, and every morning when he leaves for work it catches his eye and makes him feel a pang of nostalgia. The picture is a blown-up version of one of the hundreds of promotional team shots that Max had the JLI pose for back in the day: J’onn, Nate, and Dmitri loom in the back, though Dmitri has his armour’s faceplate open, revealing his gleeful gap-toothed smile; in the middle row, Bea throws an arm over Tora’s shoulders while Kara and Wally stand on either side of Ralph’s torso, whose neck spirals around and out of frame; it loops behind the back row, his head coming to rest next to a grinning Booster, crouching in the front next to Ted, wearing a similar expression, and Guy, smirking; slightly off to the side, Max has his arms folded behind his back, looking at the camera with an avuncular smile. They all look so young and enthusiastic. This must have been around the formation of the JLE – any kind of addition or expansion to the team had heralded a flurry of photographers and makeup artists, all choreographed by Max – and though Ted remembers always being exhausted at the end of those promotional shoots, the smiles are all real.

Sometimes he likes to pretend that the reasons for taking it down and sliding it under his bed for weeks at a time are practical, like: how would he explain it to a guest? Ignoring for the sake of argument the fact that he almost never has anyone over, he’s never presented himself as the kind of cape fan who would have a photo of the Justice League on his wall – much less the Justice League International , which, especially in recent years, is looked on as something of a disappointing cousin to the ‘real’ League, the one with Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman at the helm. Even after all this time, that still makes Ted fume, because they were the League for the better part of a decade, and whether they or the world care to remember, the big three were all involved at one point or another. The JLI fought Despero and Doomsday, Eclipso and the Extremists, the… the Overmaster; they saved the world. They did everything the current League does and they had fun doing it. That’s a big part of why he has the picture up in the first place: pride in what they did, what they achieved, despite the world telling them they were a pale, comedic imitation of what came before and after them.

It’s also a big part of why he takes it down so often. Sometimes he looks at those smiling faces and hates them for being so hopeful, so naive about the things that were going to happen to them; he wants to grab the Blue Beetle in the photo and tell him that this job is going to cost him his health and the lives of too many friends. It’s not embarrassment at who he used to be – even though that’s the way he’d tried to explain it to Booster when they’d fought last year, Booster trying desperately to understand why Ted was suddenly treating him like shit. It’s closer to jealousy. The fact that there used to be a Ted Kord who was the Blue Beetle and loved it, despite the burden of legacy, despite the way he was always outclassed by teammates and villains alike, despite the world only ever seeing him as half of a two-bit comedy duo – that’s what makes Ted’s stomach churn with shame. Because where is he now? Avoiding his friends. Working the same job he hated twenty years ago, only this time with the pretence that he’s grown up enough to want it now. Looking back on those memories of the happiest years of his life with the knowledge that he’s never going to have that again.

So it gets overwhelming, sometimes, looking at the photo and knowing that even as he smiled he was taking it for granted, and he has to put it out of sight. Until the drudgery of corporate life makes him long for a flash of colour on the walls, and he takes it out again and wonders why he ever put it away.

“What?” Booster says, belatedly pulling his gaze away from the photo and looking at Ted. God, he looks exhausted. Ted doesn’t repeat himself immediately, knowing Booster’s brain will process what he’s said after a moment. “Oh. No, it’s fine.” He looks around the apartment, turning to take it all in. “Nice place.”

“Thanks,” Ted says automatically. Like it’s small talk with a co-worker. Like this isn’t his best friend. He opens his mouth – to say what? Apologise again? Say those terrifying words? But Booster sniffs and reaches up to rub at his tired eyes, and the urge to tell him is overtaken by the need to take care of him instead. “I have a shower,” he says, stupidly, then shakes his head and tries again: “Do you want to take a shower? To warm up?”

Booster looks at him, again with that confused wrinkle between his eyebrows, like he thinks this might all just be an extended joke he’s not understanding yet. “Um. Sure.”

“The water pressure’s better than at the Embassy, I can promise you that,” Ted says, trying for a smile. Booster faintly echoes it back at him, so he chalks it up as a success. “I’ll, uh. Grab you some clothes.”

“Okay,” Booster says. “Thank you.”

Ted turns abruptly and walks out of the room at what he hopes is a casual speed. God, he’s stressed. Seeing Booster in his apartment is weird in a way he didn’t expect, mostly because it’s not weird at all. The idea of Booster here – sitting on his couch, eating in his kitchen… wearing his clothes? – is so easy to imagine that it’s like he’s been here all along. Like it’s where he’s meant to be.

He ducks into his bedroom and flicks on the light, then winces at the mess. There’s clothes all over the floor, books stacked messily on the nightstand; the bed is covered in laundry he’d promised himself he’d fold before going to sleep. He should… tidy up, definitely. While Booster is showering. He doesn’t want to have this conversation with his apartment in this state. The implication behind cleaning his bedroom hovers around his head for a long moment until he physically swats it away.

Reaching into his dresser, Ted rummages around in the top drawer for a moment before pulling out something he hopes is clean. It’s one of his old Midwestern University sweaters, navy blue and slightly oversized. Holding it at arm’s length, he can see a bleach stain on one of the sleeves, and the cuffs are a little threadbare from where he’s fidgeted and pulled at the seams during some study session or stint in his workshop, but it’ll fit Booster, and it’ll be warm. A quick sniff test reveals nothing except for the vague aura of motor oil that clings to any of his clothes he’s ever worn while working, but there’s not much he can do about that. He pairs it with some sweatpants which are also – thankfully – clean. On his way back out to the living room, he grabs a towel from the linen closet in the hallway; it’s mostly full of things that aren’t actually linen – stacks of old scientific journals, empty cardboard boxes, miscellaneous components he’s been meaning to take down to the storage space where the Bug is currently gathering dust – but on top of the clutter are a few spare towels, as well as sheets and blankets.

When Ted comes back out, his arms full, Booster is looking at the photo of the League again. He startles at the sound of Ted’s footsteps and turns around almost guiltily. “Uh, thanks,” he says, reaching out to take the towel and clothes.

“Just down the hall,” Ted replies, nodding his head towards the bathroom.

“Thanks,” Booster repeats. He reaches up to touch the sleeves of Ted’s jacket, still tied over his shoulders. “What do you want me to do with, uh…”

Ted waves a hand. “Just put it all in the hamper. I’ll wash it tomorrow.”

Booster looks at him for a moment, then finally nods and turns to walk down the hall.

The second he’s out of sight, Ted drops his head into his hands and almost collapses onto the couch. It’s so – it’s so much , in a way he hadn’t expected. There’s been times in the past he hasn’t seen Booster for days, weeks, months at a time – fights and arguments, when Booster was dating Lorraine, that last year in particular before Max resurrected their League – but he doesn’t think he’s ever had so many competing feelings churning in his stomach during one of their reunions before. The grief and shock over Sue, the sheer exhaustion of a long day, the relief that Booster is okay, the guilt that Booster isn’t okay, the dazed feeling that he’s crossed the point of no return, the ache of – of the thing between them finally exposed and within his reach. It’s overwhelming. Part of him wants to just wait for Booster to finish his shower, make up the couch with a spare blanket, then crawl into his own bed and sleep until morning, but Ted knows himself too well to fall for that. It’s because of all of these converging feelings that he’s even able to think about any of it. All of his layers peeled back, the realisation of how much time he’s wasted, the late night bleeding into the early morning – the moment the cowardly part of him recovers its equilibrium, the opportunity will pass by.

He’s sure there’s been moments before now. Other potential turning points. After their first big fight when Booster had left the League, when they’d been in the Bug and Ted had finally, finally let some of his stubborn anger bleed away, because despite everything Booster had done, he was still his best friend – there was a moment there, when Booster offered to get on his knees and beg (as a joke, a joke , a last-ditch attempt to fracture Ted’s walls), and Ted had felt an unfamiliar (but maybe not unwelcome, maybe scary, maybe exciting) kind of twinge in his stomach. But he’d steamrolled past it with the ease of someone well-versed in denial, and Booster hadn’t brought it up again. Or when Ted had been on his knees clutching at Booster’s recently deceased body, heart pounding in his ribcage so frantically that he’d half expected it to give out, so awash with mad relief he hadn’t even cared about the audience watching them. That time, of course, everything had been overshadowed – by the fact that they’d saved the world, but more so by losing Tora; then the League splintering, and Booster in that suit for a year, and neither of them had mentioned the desperate grasping of Ted’s hands, the way he’d pressed his forehead to Booster’s and made rambling promises about how everything was going to be okay.

Compared to those chokepoints, this feels so much smaller, so much quieter. There’s no fading adrenaline of an argument or a battle, no otherworldly threat forcing them together or apart; just the horrible reality of death, the grim reminder that they don’t have forever to waste on avoidance. But the emotions are just as big, just as life-or-death here, in Ted’s apartment, in the middle of the night.

The sound of the shower starting shakes Ted from his thoughts. He looks around the room again, cringing at the mess, then gets up and starts picking up the scattered dirty laundry. He needs something to do with his hands so he doesn’t think himself into a heart attack.

It’s a successful distraction, and soon enough he’s cleared the living room of clothes; ordinarily he’d put them in the hamper in the bathroom, but given the circumstances he finds a spare laundry basket in his room and crams it all in there, then tucks it into a corner. Better than having it on the floor. Next he makes an attempt at the kitchen. He can’t wash any of the dirty dishes without diverting the hot water from Booster’s shower, so he just stacks everything in the sink and wipes down the counter. He casts an uneasy glance at the fridge, very aware that there’s probably some expired food in there, but he’s not quite game to go through all of his various leftovers right now.

How long is Booster going to be in the shower for? Ted remembers mornings in the Embassy, everyone waiting impatiently for Booster to finish his thirty-step morning routine so they could get to work, or evenings when Ted would lie in bed, reading a magazine and half-listening to Booster’s voice from across the hall crooning Sinatra for close to an hour. He probably won’t spend that long in Ted’s shower – even ignoring the strangeness of the situation, Ted doesn’t have any of Booster’s fancy skincare products, just a 2-in-1 shampoo and the generic brand shower gel. Soon enough he’ll be done, and maybe – maybe he’ll just want to go to bed, maybe he’s had enough of Ted for one sitting and he just wants the company of sleeping a room apart from another human being. Ted’s been trying to gather his nerves this whole time, but maybe Booster won’t even want to hear it.

“Stop it,” Ted mutters to himself, ignoring the cold dread in his stomach and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until he sees stars. “One problem at a time.” When he pulls his hands away, he sees one of his damp cuffs has come unbuttoned, and all at once he notices how uncomfortable he is in his work clothes, wet and rumpled from being carried here.

If nothing else, at least he can solve this problem. He pads back to his bedroom and searches through the pile of laundry he’s pretty sure is clean, eventually pulling out a t-shirt with a red and yellow JLI logo on the front. For any of Max’s flaws as the League’s manager, he’d done well with the merchandise; despite how old the shirt is, it’s still soft and mostly hole-free, and Ted wears it regularly as pyjamas. His dress shirt and tie are thrown onto the overstuffed laundry basket as he pulls the t-shirt on, sighing at the comfort of the worn cotton. Ordinarily he’d sleep in boxers, but instead he opts for a pair of long pyjama pants, a light flush on his cheeks. The rest of the laundry he shoves into his dresser, too antsy to fold it.

As Ted walks back out to the kitchen with a vague sort of purpose, he realises the shower isn’t running anymore. He swallows, his mouth dry. What is he doing? Coffee. It’s two in the morning. He shouldn’t be drinking coffee. Booster won’t want coffee unless it has a disgusting amount of vanilla syrup in it, which Ted doesn’t have in his kitchen. Decaf. He’s trying to switch to decaf at the advice of his cardiologist, and it’s making him realise he doesn’t actually like the taste of coffee that much, and without the caffeine kick it’s mostly habit that keeps him buying K-cups.

He’s in the middle of getting a mug down from the cabinet above the sink when he hears movement behind him. For some reason his heart is pounding as he turns around, clutching the mug to his chest, to see Booster coming around the corner. He’s tied the drawstring of Ted’s sweatpants tight so they don’t fall down his narrow hips, and he’s pulling the front of the hoodie out and away from his chest so he can read the logo with a faint smile.

“Uh,” Ted says, and Booster looks up at him.

Paradoxically, his heart rate slows, the tension in his shoulders unwinding itself. He should be so much more nervous with Booster right in front of him, approaching the bridge – but instead, meeting his eyes, Ted can feel the buzzing in his mind settle, the anxiety he hadn’t consciously registered fading back into the regular background noise.

It would be really weird to say that he’s glad Booster is okay, that Ted was apparently freaking out at being separated from him for ten minutes, so instead he flashes Booster an uncertain smile and waves the mug at him. It's blue, with the words WORLD'S SECOND BEST BOSS printed on the front. “Coffee?” he offers.

Booster frowns slightly. He still looks tired, but less out of it than he had been before the shower. “It’s, uh…” He looks around, raising his hand in an aborted motion that Ted recognises as the way he would normally tap the side of his visor to bring up a display, like someone else might check their watch. “It’s late, I don’t think I…”

“No, no,” Ted says. “I was going to – I’m on decaf now, anyway. For, um. My heart. But I have – I have tea?” He has to squint one eye as he visualises his pantry. “Yeah, I have tea. If you want tea.”

“Tea sounds good,” Booster says, the frown melting into a confused smile. “Thank you.”

Ted has to turn away to fill the electric kettle, tilting it awkwardly around the stacked dishes, and almost jumps out of his skin because Booster just walks straight into the kitchen, brushing up against Ted's back as he crosses to where the Keurig sits on the counter. Like it's normal. Like he's been here before, slept here before, gone through the morning routine of making Ted's coffee before. The only thing that betrays the novelty of the situation is the way Booster opens and closes every cupboard he can reach, looking slightly lost until Ted catches his eye and points to the one over the sink. Booster gives him an embarrassed little smile and reaches over Ted's head to grab a mug.

It's some kind of heavy-handed symbolism that he lands on one of the multitude of JLI mugs that Ted still has, even though most of them have chips in the rim. The way Booster's eyes flick between the mug and Ted's shirt, then back out to the team photo, just barely visible from here, makes Ted's cheeks flush for some reason. He feels like he's been caught in an embarrassing lie. Everything he'd said about their years on the League, their reputation, how immature he – the both of them – had acted, contrasting with his obvious nostalgia. Ted shrugs helplessly and hides his burning face in the pantry, using the excuse of finding the teabags to avoid looking at Booster's almost disbelieving face.

They stand there in silence, brewing each other's drinks, and for a moment Ted lets himself get lost in it. Imagines it's morning and they've just woken up, pulled each other out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen with tired limbs. Imagines coming up behind Booster and winding his arms around his chest, leaning into his broad back and smiling when Booster covers his forearm with a warm hand. It's a more visceral fantasy than he's ever really allowed himself to indulge in. He waits for the ensuing rush of shame, that internalised self-directed disgust, but instead he just aches.

"Here," Booster says, putting first the milk carton and then the mug full of steaming coffee on the counter next to Ted. Looking over his shoulder at Booster's uncertain smile, Ted feels – hopeful, maybe.

"Thanks," he replies earnestly, giving Booster a gentle smile. Leaving Booster's tea to steep a little longer, he picks up the mug in both hands, letting it warm him, inhaling the familiar aroma. He closes his eyes and takes a long first sip, and – he only realises after swallowing that he'd been tensing his face in preparation for a bitterness which never comes. It tastes… it tastes good. The surprise must show on his face, because Booster breathes out a soft chuckle through his nose. Ted opens his eyes and turns around fully to look at him.

"You like sugar in your coffee," Booster shrugs.

Ted can’t think of anything to say. Booster knowing how he likes his coffee – not how he takes it, but how he likes it, because Ted has always tried to muscle through his coffee with no sugar, reasoning that if he's going to be drinking eight cups a day, he should probably make some concession to his health – targets the same part of his heart as Booster flying to his office with wet socks, as Booster still wanting to see him after everything. "Thank you," Ted repeats quietly.

Booster looks like he wants to say something more, but then a change abruptly comes over his face, his expression closing itself off. Like he doesn’t know how to respond to Ted’s earnestness. He’s skittish, which Ted really can’t blame him for, no matter how much it stings to see his best friend so doubtful of his intentions. So Ted just… has to be clear. He has to be sure that Booster understands how sincere he is, how much he regrets everything, how he wants things to be different from now on. He’ll pull himself through the hard conversation, bare his soul and make Booster tea, look into his eyes and make sure Booster knows that he means it.

He finishes Booster’s tea – milk and two sugars, even the same brand of Earl Grey they always had in the Embassy’s kitchen – and hands it to him, enjoying the small smile of gratitude he gets in response. Through some kind of silent agreement they make their way to the living room and settle in on the couch. There’s enough space between them for another person to sit, a far cry from the way they used to sit shoulder-to-shoulder when watching Booster’s old black-and-white movies or Ted’s essential viewing for modern pop culture. It would be so easy to reach across that gap, slide his fingers over Booster’s where they clutch at his mug, feel his warmth and the rabbity pulse in his wrists. After years of repressing those urges, Ted feels dizzy with how badly he wants to touch Booster. The memory of their hug from before, more desperate and obvious than anything he’s let himself do in years, aches in his chest. It’s like some door has been opened. He’s finally letting those thoughts connect instead of choking them at the source, and with how long they’ve been trapped in his subconscious with no outlet, it’s no wonder he’s consumed by it.

They’re sitting in silence, Booster blowing gently on his steaming tea and Ted trying to figure out how to move forward, when Ted’s phone chimes from the table by the door. The two of them look up in unison, and Ted has to assume that Booster is experiencing the same stomach-dropping fear that he is. What more bad news is rolling in? Who else is dead? He leans forward and puts his coffee on the table with numb hands before getting to his feet and crossing to the door, heart pounding in his ears. The possibilities spin in his brain like a roulette wheel – Bea, Ralph, Barbara, Guy, Scott, Barda, Nate, Kara, Dmitri, Max… who else is gone from Ted’s life without so much as a goodbye? He has to fight to keep his vision focused as he opens his phone, reads the message.

RollingThunder: Still no concrete evidence, either at the scene or anywhere else. Finishing up active investigation for the night. List of suspects sent out to League communicators – everyone’s planning on heading out in groups after the funeral tomorrow (time and location to come in the morning, keep an eye out). Autopsy’s set for tomorrow as well. Ralph is staying with Wally and Linda. How are you holding up, Beeb?

Ted lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “It’s – it’s Oracle,” he says, almost a sigh of relief. “Just an update. Nobody’s – it’s fine.” He sits back down, his legs weak, and leans over to show Booster the email on the screen. He watches the tension in Booster’s shoulders slowly drop as he reads, tight anxiety replaced by grief.

“Jesus,” Booster says. He leans forward over his tea, screwing his eyes shut. “Oh, god. I thought – I, I don’t know.”

“I know,” Ted replies, looking down at his phone, turning it over in his hands. He opens the email again and reads through it, reminds himself that if anything else happens, Barbara will keep him informed.

Bumblebeeb: Thanks for the update. Really appreciate everything you’re doing, Rolly. Booster and I wi

He stops typing mid-word and looks over at Booster. It’s still automatic, treating himself and Booster as a unit, even with the time and distance, even with Ted’s semi-retirement, Booster’s apparent withdrawal. Is it fair for him to volunteer Booster without even asking? Will Booster want to go to the funeral, stand there in the crowd in his garish costume and then go out to try and exact revenge for their friend? A year ago, Ted’s answer would have been unequivocally yes, but seeing Booster now, so tired, so uncharacteristically depressed…

“Do you – the funeral,” he stutters. “Are you… do you want to go?”

Booster looks at him, almost offended. “Of course I want to,” he murmurs. “Why would I – it’s Sue, obviously I’ll be there.”

Ted could scream at himself. Master of social graces, making it seem like he thinks Booster is so unutterably shallow that he’d skip his friend’s funeral. “I mean–” He swallows a frustrated noise and softens his voice. “Just, I mean – afterwards. Everyone’s going out to hunt down the suspects, and you… you were saying that you haven’t, uh. Been wearing your suit much lately. I – I don’t know if you – you thought you were up for that, or…” He’s babbling, the stress from before he’d read Barbara’s email still buzzing in his brain, directionless. “I didn’t – obviously we’re going to the funeral. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Booster looks down at his tea again. “I, uh.” He’s silent for a long moment. “I’ll do it for Sue,” he says. “I haven’t – just, I’ve been off my game or something. But I’ll do it for Sue.”

“Me too,” Ted says quietly. He shouldn’t. It’s stupid to put his health at risk like this, especially when emotions are so heightened, especially when he’s that much more likely to be reckless. But he needs to do something, needs some way to assuage the guilt of the past few months, the guilt of his entire life. And he’d much rather go out into the field next to Booster than stay at home and worry himself into the grave about Booster out there by himself.

“Aren’t you…” Booster starts, frowning. “Your – your heart. I thought you were retired.”

A meaner Ted would prod and poke him, ask him why he suddenly believes in the existence of Ted’s heart condition when he’d spent their entire tenure on the Superbuddies scoffing at it. “I am,” he says. “I should be. But – it’s Sue.” He shrugs helplessly. “Doing nothing would kill me too.”

Booster keeps frowning. “Don’t – don’t say that,” he mutters.

Ted looks at him, the furrow in his brow. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean… I, I just – I have to do something.” That’s always been his path forward with guilt – figure out how he can pay the toll, how he can make it right in his own head. He failed Sue by being a bad friend, so now he has to fix it by helping to solve her murder.

“You’re smart,” Booster says. “Help Oracle. Help with – with the autopsy, with the crime scene. You don’t have to be chasing down villains to be helping Sue.”

The worst thing is that he’s right. In a high-pressure situation, if something happened to Ted – if he had another heart attack – it wouldn’t help anyone, much less Sue. He knows that; Barbara has told him enough times that she’s more useful as Oracle than she ever was as Batgirl, that there’s more to hero work than the glamour of physical fights and rooftop chases. It feels strange for Booster to be the one pointing it out, though. Not that Booster thinks he’s only worth as much as his jumps and flips – it’s just a departure from their circumstances years ago, when Booster had wheedled and persuaded him into putting the costume back on, getting back into the action after he’d spent long months recovering from his coma. Back then, Booster had seemed desperate for Ted to go back to the job that nearly killed him – that did kill Superman – and between Booster and the familiarity of the League, Ted had conceded. Here, though, Booster seems – concerned. Protective.

“Okay,” Ted says. “You’re right.” The way Booster’s eyes widen slightly at the admission makes Ted’s chest feel strange. "I just… you're right. I'll figure something out."

That anxiety still nags at him, though, the idea of Booster out there by himself – not by himself, obviously, he'd be on a team, with other heroes just as experienced as he is – but without Ted. He's only had Booster back (whatever that entails) for less than two hours and already Ted feels that old selfishness, the feeling that it should be him and Booster against the world.

But it’s all about trust. He wants Booster to trust him again, after Ted treated him like dirt, right? So Ted needs to trust that Booster is smart and capable enough to stay safe without Ted there next to him.

"You should call Bea, though," Ted says. "See if she and Guy and, I don't know, Mary, want to – get together. After the funeral." If he can’t be there, he at least wants Booster to be with friends. With the team. It feels so transparent, how anxious he is for Booster’s safety. Belatedly, he realises what he’d said earlier: we’re going to the funeral. So desperate to stay by Booster’s side.

“Yeah,” Booster says, looking down. “That, uh. Sounds good.” If he hears the overtones in Ted’s words, the implications that Ted feels like are written all over his face, he doesn’t point it out.

In the silence, Ted finishes typing his reply to Barbara, explaining that he and Booster will both be at the funeral and asking if there’s anything he can help with off the field. She says she’ll keep him in the loop and tells him to stay safe.

RollingThunder: You and Booster both. I’m glad you’re with him right now.

Ted looks over at Booster, his familiar profile, the curl of his blonde hair at his neck.

Bumblebeeb: Me too.

He tells Barbara to get some sleep and gets a promise conditional on him doing the same, then tosses the phone onto the coffee table with a sigh. Booster flinches at the noise.

“You okay?” Ted asks. What a loaded question.

Booster sips his tea before answering. “I just, like… I go a few minutes and – it’s not that I forget , I just – it stops being right at the front of my mind for a second, and then it’s – I remember, and it’s like it happens all over again.” He presses his lips together in a thin, trembling line. “And it’s like… it’s worse, because I – I feel bad for, I guess, for thinking about other things, even though I know that’s stupid. I can’t – can’t do anything about it right now.”

Ted nods. He knows that feeling, knows it intimately from the months immediately following Dan’s death. He’d spent that time mired in grief, throwing himself into his punishing physical training routine as penance, because he needed to constantly be aware of the cost of his continued life. If he wasn’t constantly mourning Dan, either through thought or action, then it felt like he was disrespecting his sacrifice. Over time, though it was stirred up here and there by Fisher’s investigations into Pago Island or Dan’s brief resurrection, it had eventually ebbed, Ted finding some kind of forgiveness for himself. But he knows it’s the way his mind works. He feels guilty if he doesn’t constantly feel guilty.

Is that how Booster felt when his sister died?

It had taken years into their friendship before Booster had really opened up about Michelle. He’d mentioned her early on, obviously, as part and parcel of his childhood, growing up in a future Gotham, the mistakes he’d made. But the actual circumstances around her death… that had taken longer. Ted hadn’t pried; the entire League had been at the funeral, after helping out with the alien invasion situation, but he and Booster had only known each other for a few months at that point, and he hadn’t wanted to push the guy so soon after a tragedy.

So he’d let Booster keep that part of himself secret, even as he shared the shame of disappointing his family, his mother’s sickness, his father’s gambling. It was only after the League had reformed, when Booster had left the Conglomerate and come home again, that he’d finally told Ted the full story. About his twin sister, with him from the moment he was born until the moment he destroyed his life; how she’d come with him to the past and for a moment everything was good again – better, now, because they were so much closer than they’d been while growing up. They knew each other better than anyone, shared the experience of being displaced in time, and Booster had thought that maybe he’d finally made up for everything he’d done by giving her everything they’d never had as kids.

And then he’d gotten her killed.

That’s how Booster always saw it: that it had been his fault for putting her in danger, for not being faster, stronger, for not taking care of her. Another way Booster Gold failed the people he loves. Another thing he has to atone for. A college professor isn’t the same as a twin sister, but Dan had been important enough to Ted that he was the only person Ted could think of to turn for help when he’d needed it, and the end result had been the same. One person alive, and one person dead, and the living one left thinking their positions would have been better switched.

Ted looks sidelong at Booster, the bags under his eyes, his hunched shoulders, and again that miserable shame strikes him. He knows that Booster is more vulnerable to the effects of solitude than most; that year trapped in the armour that kept his heart pumping had been one of the worst of Booster’s life, the chronic pain and isolation exacerbated by how often Ted had carelessly blown him off to hang out with Ronnie. Ted should have known that without the structure of a team, without consistent work and time with his friends, Booster would follow that same pattern. And now this undeserved guilt hanging off his shoulders as well…

“Have I ever told you about the, uh,” Ted starts, looking down at his empty hands. “The first time I met Sue?”

Booster looks at him, surprised. “No?” he says uncertainly. “I didn’t know you knew each other from before the League.”

“I guess ‘met’ is maybe stretching it,” Ted says. “We didn’t talk or anything. And it was ages ago, before she was with Ralph. She probably wouldn’t have remembered.” He snorts lightly and leans forward to pick up his coffee again, taking a sip. “I’m making it sound like a whole story, it’s really not that interesting.”

Some of the exhaustion lifts from Booster’s frame and he leans back into the couch. “Tell me anyway,” he says, and Ted can’t help but smile.

“I would have been… fourteen?” He looks up at the ceiling, trying to think back. “Before I was at college, because I was still living at home, but after my mom died. There was a while where my dad was trying really hard to, I guess, groom me to take over the company?” For all the good that had done. Ted had set his jaw and stubbornly refused to take in any of those lessons on business management, and as soon as he was able he’d escaped to university. Either way, his dad had saddled him with the responsibility of Kord Industries with little regard for whether any of his instructions had stuck – probably hoping they hadn’t, in fact, so Ted might have to beg for his help and approval. “Uh, and part of that was networking, which was basically just him dragging me along to all of these stupid social events and introducing me to boring rich people.”

He mostly remembers how uncomfortable he’d been in the pressed suit his dad had made him wear. The material was stiff and uncomfortable and made his neck and wrists itch, but fidgeting with the cuffs or rolling his shoulders too much would just earn him a discreet smack to the back of his head. So he stood, feeling like he was about to vibrate out of his skin with discomfort, hands politely folded in front of him, and made a show of dutifully listening and nodding as his father shook hands with and talked to an endless parade of high society types.

“I was basically completely zoned out, because I was a teenager,” he continues. “I wanted to be at home reading comics or working on whatever robotics project I was attempting at the time. So I was just kind of staring across the room, daydreaming, and then I realised I was actually looking at someone.” He smiles down at his coffee. “I didn’t recognise her – she would have been… about seventeen, I guess. She was clearly there because of her parents as well, and she looked about as bored as I felt.”

She’d been beautiful, Ted remembers; under other circumstances it could have been a meet-cute. But he was young and awkward and still terrified of talking to girls, and older girls were an entirely other kind of mythical creature, and in any case his dad had him gripped firmly by the shoulder. Even if he’d wanted to go talk to her, he wouldn’t have been able to.

“So I kind of – noticed I was staring. And I smiled, like, to say sorry?” He unconsciously makes the same apologetic face, smiling without teeth and ducking his head slightly. “And she rolled her eyes, and I’m like, shit! I made a pretty girl mad at me!” Booster giggles softly at that, making something warm burst in Ted’s chest. “But then she looked around, trying to see if anyone was watching, and she just – pulled the ugliest face you’ve ever seen.”

The snort that erupts from Booster is the best sound Ted has ever heard in his life. He wants to make Booster laugh like that forever.

“We’re – we’re talking tongue sticking out, eyes crossed, pulling on her ears – it was beautiful,” Ted says. “And I almost started laughing, but I knew my dad would get mad if I did, so I had to keep quiet. He was still talking to whichever investors he’d been talking to for the past hour, and I checked to see if he’s paying any attention to me – and when nobody was looking, I made a face back at her.”

“Did your dad catch you?” Booster asks.

“Surprisingly, no,” Ted says. “We kept it going for a good few minutes, but then the crowd moved and I couldn’t see her anymore. I kept an eye out for her for the rest of the night, but she must have been busy talking to people, and my dad started forcing me to actually participate in conversations, so I didn’t get to find her to say goodbye before we left.” He shrugs. “I didn’t realise it was Sue until a few years later, when she and Ralph were in the papers. By the time they joined the League I thought it would have been kind of weird to bring up, and she didn’t seem to recognise me, so it was just – just a nice memory, I guess.”

He regrets never asking Sue about it. In all likelihood it hadn’t made an impact on her; she’d probably gone home after that gala and continued on with her life with no memory of the round-faced boy who rolled his eyes back in his head as she stifled laughter behind an elegant hand. But Ted had remembered, and he’d always loved her a little for it. That she was the kind of person who could make a connection like that.

There’s a potent ache in his ribcage now, but some of that helpless guilt feels like it’s ebbed. Right. There’s a reason people come together to share memories of the deceased, why talking about a loss can make it hurt less. Once again Ted feels immensely stupid; he’d been trying to find some way of repaying an imaginary debt to Sue through action, through revenge, but maybe what he needs to do is just… remember her. Remember her laugh, the love she had for her husband, her determination to make the world a better place.

“It is,” Booster agrees. “A nice memory, I mean.” Their eyes meet, and Ted is indescribably relieved at the small but genuine smile on Booster’s face. “I guess my first impression of Sue would have been…” He trails off, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth in thought. “When I first came here, I was trying to find out as much about the heroes of this time as I could. So I could – learn from them, y’know. And Ralph kept on coming up as one of the first capes to go public with his identity, which was – really cool, obviously, but I was almost – sort of, jealous? Like, back then I was kind of… desperate to stand out. If you’d believe that.” He rolls his eyes and gives Ted a self-effacing smirk. “But obviously there’s not much overlap in, like, our looks, or our powers, and Ralph never really did the merchandising thing like I did. Like I do.” There’s a tiny beat of silence. “So I was honestly more interested in Sue after a while. How it must have been for her, being married to a superhero, and – you know, she had the business savvy from her upbringing, which I was still trying to figure out. I think I tried to get Trixie to set up a meeting with her at one point, but it never panned out. And then a couple of years later I was working with her anyway.”

This is good. This is what they need to be doing, rather than sitting miserably in the guilt and only thinking of Sue as a tragedy. Ted can see Booster’s hands untense, not gripping the mug like his life depends on it anymore.

“And that’s the thing about this job, right? You see these people in the papers and they’re like – saving the world and doing these incredible things, and then the next thing you know you’re on a team with them and – y’know, having coffee with them. And they’re real people suddenly.” Booster ducks his head in embarrassment. “That was my favourite part about – when Max put the team together again. That it was our friends.”

Their friends. Our friends. For all of Max’s faults, his manipulations and moneygrubbing, that had been at the heart of the team. He could say all he wanted about wanting a team of superheroes at his beck and call, or that he was in it for the money and power, but Ted knows Max. Even if he wouldn’t admit it, he missed the JLI; he missed the people themselves more than he missed the concept of a League, the vague idea of a team of colourful heroes. The League as it stands now is powerful, sure, more heavy hitters on the roster than in the days of the New York Embassy, but Ted has always felt that there’s never been a League more like a family than theirs was.

Ted’s face burns with shame. He wants to agree with Booster, but it would be – so painfully hypocritical to say that now, after everything he’d said while they’d actually been on the team; instead he sits silently, watching helplessly as the smile fades from Booster’s face.

Goddamnit. Say something , Ted tells himself. Apologise. Do anything to make him smile like that again. Tell him you’re sorry, that you missed him; name every mistake you’ve ever made and tell him that you don’t want to make them again. Tell him that you – tell him that you–

“This is weird,” Booster says quietly, looking down into his tea. “Right?”

Ted laughs thinly, his train of thought derailed. He hadn’t expected Booster to point it out – the unfamiliar familiarity of it all, the two of them talking and reminiscing and skating over the rift between them. “Um,” he says, swallowing. “Yeah. Sorry.” His lips press together in a line as he tries to stop himself from looking at Booster. “It’s – it’s weird, you’re right. I just don’t know…” He trails off, no end to the sentence materialising in his mind. “Sorry.”

In his peripheral vision, he sees the corner of Booster’s mouth twitch. “It’s fine,” Booster says, and part of Ted wants so badly to take the out he’s being offered. He could nudge Booster’s knee with his own, turn on the TV to some old movie and wait until exhaustion washes over them both, and in the morning they could forget the way Ted had pressed his face into Booster’s chest. They could go to Sue’s funeral and try to find some kind of even keel afterwards, mutually and silently agreeing to ignore the root of the problem until it reaches another head. It would be so easy.

But easy isn’t always good. And good isn’t always easy. Ted looks down into his coffee and thinks about wet socks and sugar and family.

“Booster,” he says, and Booster looks over at him with an expression Ted can’t read because he’s still looking down at his mug. He swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“You already apologised,” Booster says softly, and Ted is confused for a moment before he remembers his tearful apology, back in his office. He flushes.

“That was – uh,” Ted says, “not a – I want to do it properly.” Booster takes a breath – probably to deflect again, say it’s okay, and Ted continues, needing to get this out before he gives in to his cowardly side. “Don’t – please don’t.” He holds a hand up. “I’ve… I’ve been treating you so badly lately. On the team, and – and before that, even, I was – god, Booster, I’ve been – such a bad friend.” Guilt rises in his throat like bile and he screws his eyes shut so he can’t see Booster’s face out of the corner of his vision. “I – I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d hung up on me when I called.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Booster says, and Ted knows it’s true, that Booster is too much of a good person to ever do that. “I’d never – you’re my best friend, Ted.” His voice is unsteady; Ted fights the shame and opens his eyes so he can look at the person he’s desperately trying to apologise to. Booster stares despondently into his tea like it holds the answers to this conversation.

“Am I?” Ted asks, then revises when Booster looks at him like he’s been hit. “I mean – I don’t deserve to be. I… we’ve barely talked recently, and when we have, I’ve just – I’ve just been a huge asshole to you.”

Every other word that came out of his mouth when the Superbuddies were together had been some jab or another at Booster’s expense. Like Ted had needed to justify why he hadn’t called, why he’d been so determined to avoid Booster – avoid all of his friends – by pretending he didn’t care at all. Redirecting the guilt into jokes, like he’s always done, but so much nastier than when the jokes had been about himself.

He swallows. “So I just – I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that.” It feels like such a painfully inadequate apology, made worse by the way Booster sits silently next to him. Two feet feels like a hundred miles.

“You… everyone always made those jokes before,” Booster says after a moment. “Calling me stupid and shallow and everything. But it just felt – I don’t know. Felt like you meant it this time.” He shrugs, and even with his broad shoulders he looks small. “Like, I know I am stupid compared to you, but I – I don’t know.”

Hot shame floods Ted’s face. “You’re not stupid, Booster,” he says vehemently. “You aren’t. Do you…” He trails off, biting the inside of his cheek. “Is that… is that how you think I see you? That I think you’re stupid?”

Booster doesn’t answer at first, just listlessly swishes the last of the tea around in his mug, and that’s enough to make Ted feel sick. “You weren’t exactly shy about saying it.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Ted says. He knows he’s said it to Booster before: late nights at the Embassy, when Booster had confessed to Ted that sometimes he felt like he wasn’t worth anything without his future technology, or when Ted was working on a way to get Booster out of his life support armour and Booster had just kept apologising for getting himself so badly hurt. He’d told Booster then that he wasn’t stupid, that he’s smart and brave and a hero and worth more than his equipment – but what good are words when you repeatedly show someone you clearly don’t believe what you’re saying?

He puts his half-drunk coffee on the table and turns in his seat to face Booster, who looks away and clutches his mug tighter; Ted tucks his legs up on the couch and reaches out to touch Booster’s shoulder. The contact makes Booster flinch minutely, but Ted leaves his hand there, a gentle weight.

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Booster,” he repeats. “Or shallow. I never have.” He rubs his thumb against the soft fabric of Booster’s – his – sweater. “I was… when Max put the team together, I mean, I was – kind of–” The words get lodged in his throat, all vying for a chance to finally spill out after he’s spent most of his life shoving sincerity into a corner. “These past few years, I’ve been trying to – figure out what my life is supposed to look like if I’m not the Blue Beetle. And I don’t know – I don’t know how to be anyone except Ted Kord the Blue Beetle or Ted Kord the industrialist, and running the company is – I hate it. I don’t want it.”

It’s the first time he’s really said it out loud. Kord Industries had been, at its inception, a sort of dual challenge and punishment left by his father: take this burden bearing your name, son, and maybe if you do well enough I’ll be satisfied. And Ted, desperate to be worth anything, had stepped up to the plate and found himself miserable. He’d enjoyed working for his father when he’d been able to while away his hours in the lab, using his actual skills and passions, but that aptitude hadn’t transferred to management. And then – well, everything that had happened in Chicago. Juggling the company, his social life, and his work as the Blue Beetle had proved beyond his capabilities, and everything had collapsed around his ears: Melody had long since grown sick of his excuses and fled to more handsome pastures; his own idiocy had cost Murray his job and then he’d been too ashamed to get in touch with him again; his father had appeared to take the company back, pulling the rug from under Ted despite his success in a role he’d been obviously ill-suited for from the start. So Ted had left, burning that bridge and never looking back – except for the way his subconscious mind seems obsessed with recreating the company, telling himself that maybe this time he’ll do it right, this time he’ll show his dad that he isn’t a disappointment.

Even though he hates this job. Even though he’d rather hand the reins over to someone like Kimiyo and move his office down to R&D, spend his days wiring and soldering and experimenting, finish the day with eyes bloodshot from staring at prototypes rather than spreadsheets. Even though he doesn’t care what his father thinks, even though he hasn’t spoken to him in years, didn’t even consciously think to worry about him tonight until Booster had mentioned him. Just another legacy he’s trying too hard to fulfil, despite it ruining him.

“And with my heart, I – I can’t – can’t keep being the Blue Beetle.” He has to look away, down to his shirt, worrying at the hem with the hand not resting on Booster’s shoulder. “I could die. So I – when Max came around, I – I don’t know why I said yes. I think it was just… the idea of going back to all that, when we were in the League and it was good, and – and fun, that’s what I wanted. Because I – I knew who I was back then. Or the person that I was, I liked him more, at least.”

Max’s nostalgia play had been very well calculated. There’s a reason he’d managed to make himself so indispensable to the League: he knows how to talk to people, how to influence and cajole, even before the gene bomb had made those skills a lot more literal. For all of Ted’s bluster about thinking it was a horrible idea, he’d still shown up, because Max had given him a ticket back to the best years of his life.

“So I said yes, even though it could have killed me, and I showed up and – and there you were. And you were… just like you used to be, and it made me kind of – jealous, I think.” Booster looks at him sideways, one eyebrow raised, and Ted lets out an embarrassed snort. “You’ve always seemed so sure of who you’re supposed to be – who you want to be. Like – obviously Booster Gold is a hero. You look like a hero, you act like a hero – you’re good at it. And here’s me, just some jerk dressed as a big bug trying to recapture his glory days.”

Booster half-smiles at that, which sends a flood of relief through Ted so powerful that he’s glad he’s sitting down. If Booster had hated him – rejected his apology entirely – he’d be well within his rights, obviously, but Ted’s so, so glad he’s still here. Still listening.

“Even though I hadn’t – you know, we hadn’t talked for ages, you were exactly the same. And you were talking to me like we were – still the same,” Ted says. “Like nothing had happened. It made me – made me feel so stupid, because I – I felt – like – I’d just been spinning my wheels, trying so hard to be a proper adult and making myself miserable over it, and you were so happy without even trying, so I… took it out on you.” So childish. So stupid. Trying to prove himself to people he’s long past needing to impress. “So… I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair to treat you like that.”

His heart is pounding like he’s run a marathon. This much honesty in one sitting is foreign to him; he’s used to coping with his issues by deflecting via humour or feigning ignorance, putting up a facade of the jokey idiot who isn’t tortured by guilt day in and day out. It’s like lancing a wound, though: as much as he’s sweating at the effort of saying it all, the feeling of being unburdened is surprisingly nice.

Looking down at his tea, still with that small smile lifting one side of his mouth, Booster takes a breath – and then lets it out in a quiet laugh. “Who are you and what have you done with Ted Kord?” he asks. Finally he lifts his gaze to meet Ted’s eyes and Ted could almost cry with relief at the warmth there. “Back in the day it was like pulling teeth to get you to back down from a fight.”

He’s not wrong, and Ted feels a little prickle of embarrassment at how fond Booster sounds of what is, frankly, one of Ted’s less endearing qualities. He’s not good at letting go of grudges and even worse at admitting when he’s wrong, which he’s all too aware had been the cause of more than one of his and Booster’s more dramatic fights. The Club JLI fiasco, for example, had been Ted’s mistake through and through, but it had taken Booster repeatedly jabbing him with an olive branch to get Ted to thaw even a little.

“I missed you,” Ted says, almost involuntarily. Booster’s eyes widen; looking at him now, his eyes are so much bluer than they’ve ever been. “I – I think – when the team got together, I didn’t expect to – to miss you that much.” Especially since Ted could have reached out at any point, could have closed the distance with a phone call, and all that was really separating them was his pride and shame. “And I didn’t really know how to – how to be honest about that. So that was… part of it, too. Trying to pretend that I hadn’t missed you.” His hand is still on Booster’s shoulder, still tracing gentle circles with his thumb. Ted feels like stopping now would be more of an acknowledgement, more of an indictment, than just leaving it there, and besides – he kicks away the denial – he likes it. He likes the contact, likes being close to Booster.

“I missed you too,” Booster says quietly, and god, if things were perfect, this is when Ted would lean in and they wouldn’t have to talk anymore – but he can’t. He can see how fragile Booster still is. If he’s going to do this – and he wants to, he really wants to – he has to make sure Booster knows exactly what Ted is asking for, has to make sure Booster wants it as well. He doesn’t want there to be any more mutual silences, any more assumptions.

“I should have called,” Ted says with a sigh. “Before – you know. All of this.” Before tragedy forced his hand, before he’d let the distance between them grow up like weeds.

“It’s fine,” Booster says, shrugging with the shoulder that doesn’t have Ted’s hand resting on it. A wry smile plays at the corner of his mouth, but he can’t seem to commit to it. “Don’t worry about it.”

But it’s not fine, is it? Another way Ted’s stubbornness hurts: he’s always felt subconsciously assured that whatever fights they get in, no matter the vitriol they hurl at each other, Booster will always be forgiving enough to reach out first. In the past, sure, it’s been true enough, Booster being the one to badger and tease Ted out of a bad mood, reach across the span of an argument and get them both back on track. Now, though, whether it’s because of the unfamiliar lack of team structure, Ted’s cruelty being even more unwarranted than usual, or Booster just deciding he’s not willing to hold out a hand again, they’ve fallen into this uneasy stalemate.

“I just – I don’t know how it got this bad,” Ted says. “I had to hear from Bea that you got divorced.” He remembers Bea saying it over a chicken wrap at Ted’s least-detested health food place. She’d mentioned it like she assumed Ted already knew – which he should have, really, if he’d been talking to Booster at all. Ten years ago he would have been the first to know, the first to tease him or comfort him as the situation demanded, but when Bea had offhandedly thrown the information across the table, Ted hadn’t known how Booster would have felt about it. Ted hadn’t even known how he himself felt about it.

Back when Booster had first explained the situation with Gladys, Ted had been unreasonably upset at the idea of Booster making a sham of the institution of marriage for the sake of an old woman’s fortune, even though the situation could just as easily be seen as Gladys heartlessly using him for his body. Looking back now, Ted can admit to himself that at the centre of that disgust had been a petulant thought that Ted was rich, too, that Booster should have come to him first rather than tying himself to a sixty-five-year-old woman with whom he had nothing in common.

When Bea brought it up, though, Ted had stabbed carelessly at his salad and boxed away his attempts at guessing Booster’s current emotional state, and Bea had changed the subject to the photographer she’d met at a recent gig and his seventeen different kinds of body piercings, and eventually the thought of Booster miserable or Booster celebrating or Booster quietly lonely had ebbed back into the general white noise of Ted’s brain.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Booster says, looking away, obviously embarrassed. Not heartbroken, which makes Ted feel selfishly relieved. “Like, I – it’s fine. I’m fine. Not like it was a – y’know, a real marriage, anyway.” He snorts, one of his eyebrows quirking up. “You know she left me for a younger man?” Ted can’t help but giggle at that, and when Booster puts on a mock-offended expression before breaking into a tired grin himself, again that satisfaction curls in Ted’s chest: he can still make Booster smile. But the smile ebbs, and Booster drops his gaze to his lap. “I… I don’t know. It was – nice having someone around, I guess? Just, like, living with someone, talking to them. Obviously the money was good, too, but I’m – y’know, getting by.”

Ted, who has spent most of his life bouncing between extremes of wealth, sees the tension in Booster’s shoulders. He’s known for years that Booster grew up poor. Ages ago, back in the JLI, Booster had shared his past in increments as the two of them grew closer – his life in the future, his family, his football career, the allure of gambling and the resulting downfall – but even without that knowledge, a lot of things about Booster’s early days in the twentieth century made sense through the lens of recently-escaped poverty. The giddy overindulgence when he’d first arrived, going almost overnight from a minimum wage job to millions in his name – Booster has described it before as feeling unreal, all that money, like a repeat of his first taste of fortune. Numbers so far beyond what he grew up with that they may as well have been imaginary. He’d bought mansions and sports cars and expensive gourmet dinners, encouraged by the heady consumerism of the late 80s and his already-rich management team; Ted remembers journalists praising and lambasting Booster in turn for being the first superhero to actively engage in the kind of marketing and sponsorships that he did, lending his name and his face to countless products.

When he’d lost his fortune and that comfortable life, though, Booster had bounced back fairly quickly, adapting to life at the Embassy and the reasonable salary afforded to them by Max and the UN. Ted had almost expected him to flounder without his safety net of billions, back when he’d shared the general public's perception of Booster as a celebrity with more money than sense, but he'd been proven wrong – and proven wrong again when Booster had opened up about his past, his family.

But now no League stipend. And, now that Ted thinks about it, trying to recall magazines and TV spots and billboards, not many advertising gigs either. Booster’s clearly surviving – he’s smart, he knows how to live frugally – but it’s weighing on him. Another thing that he wouldn’t need to worry about if Ted had actually been bothering to keep in touch with him; Ted’s always been more willing to lend money to friends than his accountants would like, and he has years of experience manoeuvring around Booster’s particular knots of pride and self-reliance.

“I’m sorry,” Ted says, even though it doesn’t seem like exactly the right sentiment. “Even if you didn’t… didn’t love her. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

With another hot rush of shame, he remembers talking to Booster in the wake of the Manhunter debacle, telling him that the League was there for Booster. That he always had a place with them. How had he offered better overtures of friendship and support then, when they’d only been friends for less than a year, than anything Ted has mustered since their era of the League faded into embarrassed obscurity?

“Like I said,” Booster says, quieter. “It’s fine.”

“I mean it,” Ted says. “I should have been – been around more. You’re – Booster, you’re the most important person in my life.” His mouth feels dry. “I’ve been doing a really shitty job of showing it lately, but it’s true. I – I need you to know that.”

Booster looks to the side, avoiding Ted’s desperate gaze. “I know,” he murmurs, but he sounds unconvinced, like he’s just saying it to humour Ted, and Ted is filled with the almost overwhelming need to look Booster in the eyes until he understands how much Ted means this. More than he’s ever meant anything in his life.

He puts his coffee on the table then reaches out slowly to take Booster’s empty mug. His hands clench around the ceramic at first, but Ted tugs gently and after a moment Booster loosens his grip. Ted feels the lingering warmth of Booster’s skin as he places it next to his own mug, the soft clink as he pushes them together strangely loud in the silent room. Booster’s hands, now without anything to hold onto, tangle in the hem of his sweater, and Ted fights the desire to hold them, interlace their fingers.

Instead, he turns to face Booster fully, resting a hand on his shoulder again. “Can you look at me?” he asks softly. “Please?”

The line of Booster’s spine is tense. Ted thinks he knows why. They’ve spent too long talking around this, finding excuses and pushing things into the future, boxing up feelings. It’s so much easier to believe that something will never happen, to kill your hopes before they have a chance to take root, than to keep yourself open and vulnerable and easy to hurt. Where Ted’s denial was always that his feelings even existed, he has an idea that Booster – from a future where this kind of thing isn’t shameful, isn’t evil – instead strangled his expectations that Ted would ever reciprocate. That Ted would ever have the nerve to broach the subject, overcome his ingrained shame.

Maybe he was right. Maybe they would have stuck to this orbit forever, treading the same pattern until one of them died, always too afraid to take a step over the line they both silently drew in the sand. But then the world turned upside down, and now the line is gone, washed away by the tide – or maybe they’d both just imagined the line existing at all.

Ted swallows. “Booster,” he says. Just his name. And Booster finally turns to face him, pulling his long legs up on the couch between them with a sigh, his knees pressing against Ted’s. Ted brings his other hand up so has a hold of both of Booster’s shoulders – not tightly, not digging his fingers in – just holding him there, steadily, and then Ted pulls gently until Booster is leaning forward slightly and he can press their foreheads together. Booster still won’t look at Ted’s face, but from here Ted can hear the way his breathing catches, shaky on the inhale and harsh on the exhale, like he might start crying.

The mood is completely different, but with their faces so close like this Ted can’t help but think again of that terrifying instant, years ago, between Booster dying and his life support kicking in. He’d held him more desperately then, fingers winding through his hair and clinging tight to his warm armour, dizzy with relief at the hum of electricity and the pulse he could feel at Booster’s clammy temples. Now, he just searches Booster’s face carefully, tracing its lines with his eyes. Looks for a sign.

“Can’t we talk about it?” Ted whispers. When Booster closes his eyes and says nothing, Ted sighs. “I, I just – we’re both adults, can’t we just – say what we want by now? Please.” God. His heart feels like it’s going to burst through his ribcage. “Booster.”

Booster swallows. “Sure,” he says, matching Ted’s murmur, but then he shuts his mouth, lips pressed into a bloodless line.

Okay. The onus is still on Ted to reach across the gap. He’s done it physically – holding Booster like he’s been wanting to all night, maybe all his life – but now it’s the hard part. The words.

Ted has said the words to Booster before, countless times in their long friendship. Why is it so hard now?

Because… he’s been scared. Scared of what it might mean now, after years of living on that knife-edge, dying for each other; scared that if he says it out loud, everyone will know . That’s the hard thing to shake: the lingering fear instilled by growing up in the seventies, the eighties, all those suspicious stares, the faint looks of disgust. Not that they were directed at Ted himself, because he’s been so careful to – to cover up any light that might draw attention to himself. Never even let the thoughts finish forming in his head, because someone might see him and somehow know. He’d play along if someone made the joke; jokes were fine, jokes were recognising the absurdity of the accusation. How laughable, the idea that Ted and Booster could be like that. That Ted could be like that.

Even now, he realises, he can’t quite name it. Still that shame. Still that guilt.

Over what? Being…

(“We’re not–!”)

Being – attracted to men. Attracted to Booster.

Not just physically – though there is that, obviously. Ted can’t deny the way his eyes have always tended to linger on Booster’s face, his body, especially with how comfortable Booster has always been in his own skin. It had been torture living at the Embassy, sometimes, Booster coming out of the shower with his towel low on his hips and leaning casually against the wall to talk to Ted in the hallway; their stupid Kooey Kooey Kooey venture had been a disaster not only because of the money (and the argument, and the fight, and Booster leaving), but also because of how much time Booster had spent lounging on the sand in obscenely small swim shorts.

Even before Booster (which is a genuine way Ted divides up the eras of his life – before his mother died, before Dan died, before he met Booster), back in college, he’d had… not experience, exactly, but thoughts, wild flights of fancy that he’d never worked up the guts to act on. University had been a wonderful escape from the structured world his dad had tried to box him into, and if Ted had been just a fraction less neurotic then maybe he would have tried it out, found a discreet peer to fool around with and come out the other side more secure in that part of himself. But a combination of starting college young – only sixteen, younger than anyone else in his classes – and the disapproving voice of his father always in the back of his mind had stymied that opportunity. And now he’s nearly forty and he’s never been with a guy, and even without putting those feelings through rigorous testing, the way he’d treat any scientific hypothesis, the fact that he’s painfully and irrevocably and permanently in love with Booster isn’t even a question in his mind. It’s just – part of him.

Ted closes his eyes, dizzy. In love with Booster . There’s the words he’s been avoiding, even in his own mind. He loves Booster. He’s in love with Booster. He waits for the panic to swell, for his heart to seize and give out on him, but – again, just like seeing Booster in the kitchen – he suddenly feels more clear-headed than he has all night. It’s not scary at all.

It’s just like the window, he realises.

Leaving his office, he hadn’t even thought to be scared about the idea of jumping out of the top floor of a twenty-storey building. Any normal person would at least be apprehensive, maybe have second thoughts – but Ted hadn’t been worried at all. Why not? Sure, he’d made a career of dangerous acrobatics and stunts at high altitudes, but he hasn’t done so much as a backflip in months. He doesn’t quite trust his body as much as he used to, out of practice and – frankly – older than he used to be. No, the surety, the complete conviction that he’d be fine – that came from Booster.

Because how could it be a risk if Booster was there to catch him? How can this be a risk if Booster is right here?

“Booster,” Ted starts, opening his eyes, and Booster reflexively does the same at the sound of his name. This close, Ted can see the lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, a faint scar on his cheekbone from some fight or another, his blonde stubble. He’s just as achingly handsome as he was when Ted first met him. “Booster, I…” He trails off. Maybe he should have planned this out, figured out the exact right words to say, but even if he had a script he’s not sure he’d be able to remember it with the way Booster is looking at him. Ted clears his throat. All he can say is the truth. “You’re my best friend,” he says. “You’re my best friend and my favourite person and – and the most important person in the world to me. When Oracle told me to call my family, I didn’t – didn’t even think of my dad. Didn’t think of anyone else.” He takes a breath. “Just you.”

Who else would he have called? His dad is the only biological family he has left, and they haven’t spoken in person since Ted walked away from the ruins of the Kord Industries building in Chicago almost twenty years ago. Just cold, detached emails about patent ownership and a single (late) call for Ted’s thirtieth birthday. To Ted’s mind, the man is just someone with whom he shares DNA and a surname. Dan had been more of a father than Thomas Kord ever was.

No, when Ted had been charged with finding the person who means the most to him out of anyone – the person whose loss would destroy him, the Sue to his Ralph – there’d been no competition. The JLI are his family, but Booster… he’s Booster. Who would Ted be if he didn’t know Booster? Would he have any idea what it means to know someone better than you know yourself, any idea of how all-encompassing love can be that you don’t even realise it’s there until it’s filled you to bursting? Ted isn’t sure he’d be the same person if he’d never met Booster. If he’d even be alive today.

“And I’m sorry. For… acting like that’s not true.” Booster looks to the side, away from Ted’s imploring gaze, and god, Ted would apologise forever if he thought it might make things better. “It was stupid, and I – I was scared of how much – of what I felt. What I’ve felt for – for a long time, Booster. I didn’t want to think about what it meant, or what it would say about… about me, or what people would think of me. And I didn’t want to ruin – this. Us. I didn’t want to risk our friendship, because it’s… you’re the best thing I’ve ever had in my life, Booster.”

All those moments in the past. Those knife-edge instants where Ted knows that if he’d leaned in, if he’d put his hand on Booster’s, they would have tipped right off the cliff, but the uncertainty of it kept him hesitant. Because… what if Booster didn’t feel the same way? What if he’d been misreading everything and all the signs were in his head? Or, even if Booster did feel something like Ted did, surely he’d get bored of Ted, his body, his neuroses. And, always behind that, the terror of people knowing. Of people finding out, discovering that Ted Kord is some kind of – that he’s like that. Too many variables in the situation, too much unpredictability. So Ted had stayed silent, ignoring his inconvenient feelings, because he had to be satisfied being Booster’s best friend; at least then he could have Booster in his life, have at least some kind of intimacy. He didn’t want to lose Booster as a friend, despite all of his actions in the past year apparently being aimed squarely at doing just that.

So how much worse can it get? If they haven’t spoken in months and Ted spent however long before that doing his utmost to pretend that he didn’t care about Booster more than anyone else in the world, and Booster still showed up to his office soaking wet; if he’s still sitting on Ted’s couch and still letting Ted hold his shoulders and say these things to him – surely he can’t ruin it much more than he already has.

He takes a shaky breath and tries to smile. “But I’m tired of… of being scared. And all of this – I, I mean, tonight – it’s made me realise that – we don’t have forever. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or next month, and it’s – stupid to keep putting it off. I don’t want to waste any more time being scared or trying to pretend like it’s not there.” He shuts his eyes, tensing his hands on Booster’s shoulders slightly, holding him tighter. “And I don’t want one of us to die with this thing between us.”

The idea of dying… Ted can’t lie and say he hasn’t thought about how it’ll happen for him. Years ago he’d thought maybe he’d die in the line of duty, struck down in some crisis or another, giving his life for the sake of the world. Like Dan. Not that he was reckless with his life, not that he wanted to die – just that if he was going to, he’d like to go out making a difference. Saving the world – even just one life, if it came down to it. More recently, thoughts of death come in the decidedly more mundane flavour of heart failure. Taken out by overexertion or stress rather than a flashy supervillain.

He can’t quite imagine Booster dying. It doesn’t compute in his head, the idea that he might outlive Booster, that one day Ted might exist in a world with no Booster Gold. It’s almost darkly comforting. When he’d built that life support armour, he’d been driven not only by faith in his own engineering abilities, but also the irrational belief that Booster couldn’t, wouldn’t die. Ted would die himself rather than let that happen.

Booster looks at him again, meets Ted’s gaze with those tired blue eyes, and there’s so much there that Ted can read – the hesitancy, the disbelief that Ted is saying and meaning these things; grief, exhaustion, and fear; under it all, still that devotion, that loyalty that Ted has never deserved. As he watches, something else flickers to life: something like hope. Something like he’s finally starting to believe in the reality of what Ted has been saying all this time.

He opens his mouth to speak but the words seem to catch; Ted holds his breath, keeps perfectly still to hear whatever Booster is going to say. Even if it’s a rejection, even if Booster tells him it’s too late.

“When did you…” Booster starts. When did he realise? When did he decide to stop acting like a jackass? When did he come to the insane conclusion that there’s any chance Booster might feel the same way? Ted is willing to answer any of Booster’s questions, drag the secrets and denials out of his chest and show them off in the light, if it’ll smooth the worried line on Booster’s forehead. Booster looks down and the corner of his mouth lifts just a fraction, like he’s embarrassed. “When did you get so brave?”

At first it sounds like a bizarre non-sequitur, as if Booster is trying to skirt around the subject with humour, then Ted worries for a moment that he’s being made fun of. But then the familiar phrasing hits home, takes him years and years into the past – back to the Embassy, just after the Invasion, when he and Booster had taken that ridiculous vampire repo job. They’d parroted it to each other in the filthy sewer, trying to buoy each other’s spirits with mindless banter. Even back then, Ted thinks he may have been in love with Booster, though he hadn’t realised it; he remembers thinking then that there was almost no place he’d rather be than wherever Booster was, even if that was chasing after monsters in a dank cistern. He knows the call and response – this is where he’s meant to call Booster a coward, finish the punchline that Booster is extending – but he wants the ending to be different this time.

“Since I met you,” Ted says instead, feeling his face burn with how painfully sincere he’s being. It clearly catches Booster by surprise as well, with how his eyes widen and dart up to meet Ted’s. “You make me want to be brave, Booster. And you – you make me happy, and stupid, and you make me do crazy things. You, uh. You make me – the best version of myself.”

Ted moves one hand from Booster’s shoulder to his face, touching his fingertips to the soft skin behind Booster’s ear. The contact makes Booster jump, reflexively flinching away from Ted’s hand, but Ted just waits, hoping his nervous tremble isn’t too obvious, and after a second Booster leans his cheek into Ted’s hand, and just that is so much that Ted feels like he could cry. He can’t ask the question with words, and so he tries to ask by tilting his head, nudging Booster’s chin up, searching his eyes – so close, so blue.

“It’s always been you, Booster,” he murmurs.

At first it’s just a feather-light brush of lips, almost ticklish – and here’s the pounding heart, the thumping pulse, at last – and then Ted shuts his eyes, takes a breath that smells like Booster, closes the minute distance, and he’s kissing Booster. His lips are dry and chapped, and Ted is sure his own are even worse, but Booster makes a soft helpless sound through his nose and Ted feels fingers brushing lightly over the back of his hand where it cradles Booster’s face, and god, okay, this is – everything. It’s everything. Booster slides his hand over Ted’s, the warm weight of it so comforting in the midst of this crazy unfamiliar sensation, and Ted’s other hand grips tighter at Booster’s shoulder, fingers digging softly into the fabric of his sweater.

It’s chaste and clumsy and they’re both clearly out of practice, but Ted can’t think of a single thing he’s ever done that felt half as good as this. Not just the kiss – it’s the fact that Booster isn’t pushing him away. That Booster is kissing back, as insane as that is; that this perfect supermodel athlete from the future is kissing regular Ted Kord, ordinary and average as he is. And surrounding it all, making the strangeness of it all so beautifully familiar, is the fact that it’s Booster. His best friend. The person he trusts more than anyone, the person who can always make him laugh, who knows him and, despite that, somehow loves him enough to be here, with him, right now. Ted is fairly sure he could go without breathing for the rest of his life as long as he could keep kissing Booster.

When Booster pulls back, Ted leans forward at first, chasing his mouth, but then he hears the hitch of breath and a shaky sniffle and he opens his eyes to see tears gathering in Booster’s eyes. He looks so miserable that Ted momentarily questions whether he’s read the entire situation wrong.

“Hey,” Ted whispers, reaching up to brush Booster’s bangs off his forehead. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry.” The gentle touch seems to make something crumble in Booster, and he leans forward to tuck his face into Ted’s neck as the tears start to spill down his cheeks. He wraps his arms around Ted, clutching at the back of his shirt; Ted flails for a moment, but then he rests one hand on Booster’s back and the other in the soft hair at Booster’s neck, making gentle soothing motions with both.

He lets Booster cry for a minute, drawing abstract patterns on his back as hot tears soak into the collar of Ted’s t-shirt. The hand tangled in Booster’s hair, still slightly damp from the shower, brushes through it in easy repetitive movements. Ted stays quiet. It’s a nice reversal from their earlier hug in Ted’s office.

“It’s okay,” he repeats as the tremble in Booster’s shoulders stills. “Did I… was it that bad?”

Ted can feel Booster shake his head and let out a quiet, shaky laugh. “No,” he whispers into Ted’s neck. His breath makes Ted shiver. “It was – good. 'M sorry.”

“Okay,” Ted says. “Good to know.”

Booster laughs brokenly again. “Sorry, Teddy,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m okay. It’s just – it’s a lot.” He sniffs and presses his face harder into Ted. “I never – I didn’t think – sorry.”

God, how had he made it this far in his life without ever holding Booster like this? Ted rests his cheek on top of Booster’s head, matching the rhythm of his breathing to his hand tracing circles on Booster’s warm, broad back. “Didn’t think what?” he asks gently. When Booster doesn’t answer, Ted waits.

“Sorry,” Booster says again, finally. Ted squeezes him and shakes his head, hoping Booster understands the gesture; judging from the smile Ted feels against his neck, it translates well enough. Booster pulls back slightly so he can talk more clearly, though he still has his forehead resting on Ted’s shoulder. “Hah. Okay. I just mean, it’s been a – a weird night. And I, uh… I just. I didn’t think – this would – you know.” He clears his throat, holds Ted a little tighter. When he speaks again, his voice is small and uncertain. “I just, uh. Are you – are you sure?”

Is Ted sure? Sure that he needs Booster in his life, that he’s been an idiot for thinking he could keep these feelings at bay with distance and cruelty? Sure that Booster is the first person he thinks of when he thinks of family? Sure that he’d take a bullet for Booster, that he wants nothing more than to make Booster laugh every day for the rest of their lives? He’s always been an anxious person, second-guessing every decision he’s ever made, tangling himself in regrets and burdens he can’t shoulder, but Ted has never been more sure of anything in his life than he is of Booster.

“I’m sure,” Ted says. “Everything I said, Booster, I meant it.” He pauses to take a breath. “You know I – I love you.” He says it into Booster’s hair, just a murmur, and the reaction is immediate: Booster’s hands clench in the fabric of Ted’s shirt and he lets out a shaky exhale, warm breath gusting across Ted’s throat. Ted angles his face to press a kiss to the top of Booster’s head. It’s such an intimate gesture – the kind that would sometimes buzz at the edge of his thoughts when he stood too close to Booster, or when one of them would lean in to whisper conspiratorially to the other – that it makes him lightheaded. “Is that – is that okay?” He’s not sure if he means the kiss or the words, but this entire situation is so far from normal that he needs to make sure Booster is on the exact same page.

Booster makes a broken-sounding affirmative hum in response, and Ted can feel warm tears on his neck again. “Yeah,” Booster manages to say, voice scratchy. “Yeah. S’okay.” He sniffs and clears his throat, but still doesn’t raise his head, keeps his face pressed into Ted’s shoulder. “I, um – me – me too. If – if you couldn’t tell.” A shiver runs down Ted’s spine when Booster kisses the nearest part of his collarbone he can reach. “I love you, like, a – a crazy amount, Teddy.”

Even though he’d been pretty sure, the confirmation still makes something strange and wonderful turn over in Ted’s stomach. Somehow, for some impossible reason, he gets to have this. His best friend, warm and alive and in his arms, and the terrifying thing between them finally brought out into the light to reveal that it’s not terrifying at all. It never has been. They’ve always been in this together, one way or another. 

He tries, and mostly succeeds, to ignore the stab of regret, the years more they could have had if he’d taken the chance earlier, not wasted so much time caught in his own head; he doesn’t want to give any more thought to what could have been. Maybe they could have had longer – maybe they could have figured it out back when they were in the League together, taken advantage of the convenience of the Embassy and how uncomplicated everything had been; maybe after Booster left the Conglomerate and they’d reunited, with the clarity afforded by their first major fight; maybe after the Overmaster, when Ted had felt that overwhelming relief when Booster had opened his eyes and come back to him. It’s all maybes, though. Maybe they were too young, too immature back then to really understand what they meant to each other. Maybe the outside forces of society and their careers would have made it too dangerous. Maybe this is the only time it could have happened. In the middle of tragedy and avoidance and too much sadness, maybe this is the one good, simple thing they get to have.

Ted runs a hand through Booster’s hair. Now that he’s allowed to, it’s like all he wants to do is touch Booster. “C’mere,” he murmurs, nudging Booster gently until he lifts his head. His eyes are red and still brimming with tears, so Ted takes his face in both of his hands and swipes at Booster’s cheeks with clumsy thumbs, brushing away the wetness until Booster gives him a weak smile. It’s almost too much, being this close to him, being able to look at him with this much undisguised affection, and Ted has to pull him close and kiss him again, on his lips, then his cheeks, then once on his forehead. Trying to convey through each kiss everything he’s said, how much he means it all.

When he pulls away, Booster looks at him like he might start crying again, but at least this time there’s obvious happiness mixed in with the heavy exhaustion. He shifts uncomfortably on the couch; somewhere in all the movement, Ted has found himself leaning up against the arm of the couch, knees pulled up between himself and Booster, and Booster has his legs folded under him as he stretches awkwardly forward to stay in Ted’s arms. With a bit of reconfiguring, they move so that Ted is sitting up against the back of the couch, Booster tucked into his side with his back to the armrest and his long legs across Ted’s lap. Booster folds himself into Ted with a sigh, resting his head on Ted’s shoulder. For someone as tall and built as Booster is, it’s shockingly endearing how much he clearly likes to be held. Ted feels like his heart is trying to climb up his throat.

“Is this alright?” Booster whispers, anxiously knotting his fingers together in his lap. He’s worrying at his nailbeds, which, Ted notices, are already red and raw in places.

One of Ted’s arms is around Booster’s shoulders, holding him firmly in place; with his free hand he gently teases Booster’s fingers apart, stopping the agitated motion. The way Booster looks at his hand, mouth slightly parted and eyebrows drawn together in disbelief as he takes it and laces their fingers together, makes Ted’s throat close up. Still so doubtful, so unsure of how much he’s allowed to have.

“Yeah, buddy,” Ted says. “It’s – it’s good.” He squeezes Booster’s shoulder gently, like an affirmation. “I, uh–” Come on, Kord. Where’s your nerve? “I like it. You. Like this.”

The answering flush that spreads across Booster’s face is like a hit of dopamine, though there’s still tension in his frame. He looks down at himself, Ted’s hand tangled in both of his, and sighs. At Ted’s questioning look, he shrugs. “Just, like – I’m sorry.” His voice is a little hoarse from crying.

The fact that Booster feels the need to apologise for, what – having an emotional reaction in a time of stress? It’s crazy. Ted wouldn’t have blamed Booster if he’d yelled at him, cursed him out for acting so hot and cold; a few tears are maybe the best reaction Ted could have hoped for, given the circumstances. “No, Boos, it’s – it’s fine,” he says. “I guess it was kind of, uh… a lot to spring on you.” He grimaces and looks away from Booster’s face, embarrassed. “My timing is definitely… I know it’s not great. But I just kept thinking, what if I never got the chance to – to say something?” He curls his fingers around Booster’s hand, feeling his soft skin, his pulse so warm and alive. Imagine if he’d waited too long and one of them had been left alone, the question unasked and unanswered.

Booster hums in response. “I think I got so used to the idea that it would never, or, or could never happen, that it was maybe, um. A little overwhelming,” he says. “After fifteen years I’d managed to convince myself that it was just – impossible.” A tired smile tugs at his mouth as he closes his eyes. “Still not completely sure this isn’t a dream.” He lifts his head from Ted’s shoulder to look him in the eyes, the smile fading. “But that’s not – not what I meant.”

Ted opens his mouth to say something, but his brain is stuck on the words fifteen years. He’d known that it had been a long time, that somewhere along the line Booster must have come to the realisation that Ted himself had been postponing, but the number terrifies him. Fifteen years ago… Booster hadn’t yet died, Ted hadn’t been put into a coma by Doomsday. Fifteen years ago they hadn’t even had their first big fight about Club JLI and the League’s money; they hadn’t been separated for months while Booster led the Conglomerate and Ted privately fumed and missed him so much it burned. Fifteen years ago they’d been young and stupid and already best friends.

Not just that Booster had had those feelings for that long – looking back, Ted can accept that his feelings for Booster were probably there for much longer than he’d known or accepted – but that Booster had been aware . That he’d known what he felt, been able to see the shape of things right from the start; that he’d known that with society the way it was – Ted the way he was – that he couldn’t say anything, and still persisted. Through every stupid thing Ted did or said to him, all the trials life threw at them, the myriad ways they hurt each other – through it all, Booster knew what he felt. Again Ted is struck with the feeling that he isn’t equipped to handle this responsibility. So many years of Booster’s heart unknowingly held in his hands. How can he deserve this?

He’s saved from having to word any of these thoughts by Booster continuing. “I just, uh. I know I was kind of… laying it on pretty thick when – when the team got back together.” As he talks, he fidgets with Ted’s hand, moving his fingers back and forth gently; Ted isn’t sure whether Booster is aware he’s doing it, so he keeps his hand as still as possible to make sure he continues. “I was being – worse than usual. I, um. I realise that. But we – we hadn’t been talking, and I – I guess I was scared that we’d changed too much? That… we wouldn’t be friends anymore.” He chews anxiously on his lip. Ted can’t find the words to reassure him. “And it was – with the team, it was, like… so close to being familiar, with – with you, and Max, and Bea, and Nate and… Ralph and Sue.” His voice falters and he has to press his mouth into a flat line.

“Booster,” Ted says miserably. He can’t even refute Booster’s fears; he had changed, or tried to, and he had done his best to pretend he didn’t miss Booster’s friendship. “I don’t…”

“You were saying that I… I was acting like I hadn’t changed, and that we hadn’t changed, but it was more like – I didn’t want it to be true.” Booster pulls his knees up, making himself small, and Ted squeezes him with the arm around his shoulders, a silent reassurance. “I was thinking that – if I could pretend things were just like they were back in the League, then – then we’d be friends again. Because everything was different, like – you had your company, and we didn’t – we had some of the same people but there were – people missing. So I was trying to, I guess, to make it more like it used to be.” He smiles wryly. “But you weren’t – weren’t responding like you used to, and it scared me, so I kept… trying, kept acting like an idiot.”

It had seemed sort of… tinged with desperation, Ted thinks, looking back on how Booster had been acting. He’d never been stupid, no matter what people thought of him, and that had been part of what irritated Ted so much: that Booster was living down to expectations. Every mean thing that other heroes ever whispered about them, that they were irresponsible, reckless, selfish, that they were only in it for the money and glory, that they weren’t worthy of being on the League – Booster was finally proving them right, and taking Ted with him by proxy. But it hadn’t seemed genuine. It wasn’t like Booster was dropping a facade of heroism to reveal the gloryhound beneath; the exact opposite, in fact, because Ted knew – knows – better than anyone how much Booster cares about people, about being a hero. About laying down his life and making a difference and sacrificing everything for the sake of the world.

At the time, though, Ted had been too eager to latch on to the fact that Booster was being insufferable. Where he once would have participated in Booster’s jokes, balanced him out, acted the fool to his straight man or the straight man to his fool, he instead distanced himself. Allied himself with everyone who ever derided them.

And Booster is the one apologising.

Booster turns earnest red-rimmed eyes on him. “That’s why – I know it’s not an excuse, but it’s why I was so… so shitty about your heart.”

That does make Ted’s stomach twist. It hadn’t felt great, the way everyone seemed to treat his actual, literal heart condition that could kill him – had done its best, with the three prior heart attacks his doctor had told him about – as something he’d been making up in his head. Babs had talked him back from the worst of his catastrophising, convinced him that he wasn’t about to keel over immediately, but there was still the surgery, the vertical scar down the middle of his chest, the mechanical valve keeping his heart pumping, the blood thinners he takes every day. It’s still so real and present in his life, something he thinks about whenever he exerts himself, whenever anxiety makes his breath seize.

“I’m sorry, Teddy,” Booster says. “It was – fuck, I’m so sorry. It was just – this, this whole huge thing that happened to you, and it was when we weren’t talking, and I just – it didn’t seem real to me at first. Like, you – you couldn’t die from something like heart disease.” His hands clench tighter around Ted’s, drawing anxious circles around his knuckles. “Because you’re – you’re a hero , you know. Heroes aren’t supposed to – to die like that. And the thought of – of, of you getting sick, or dying, in a way that I couldn’t – couldn’t save you from, it, um.” Booster swallows thickly. “I didn’t know how to – talk about it with you, and it was easier to just – joke about it. Pretend it wasn’t real. I’m sorry.” He sounds so miserable, like he’s expecting Ted to berate him for it – which, sure, Ted would be justified in being upset, even angry, but what would the point be? They both acted like idiots, both hurt each other – and they’re here now. There’s too much grief tonight. They don’t need any more.

“I’m not mad, Booster,” Ted murmurs. “It was – we both said stupid shit.” He sighs, flexes his fingers, and slots them between Booster’s so their hands are interlocked. “We’ve fought worse and come out okay.” He pauses, trying to work up the nerve to do what he wants to do next, and then thinks of every brave thing he’s done tonight and pulls Booster’s hand to his mouth, planting a light kiss on his knuckles. “I don’t want to – to waste any more time fighting about stuff we already feel bad for.”

The shy smile on Booster’s face makes it entirely worth it, no matter how stupidly corny Ted feels. It’s just – it’s like there’s a million things he’s allowed to do now, a million ways he can touch Booster that he’s never let himself seriously consider before. A million ways he can kiss him now. All the years of restraint he wants to make up for.

Years. His mind still hangs on what Booster said a minute ago. He doesn’t want to pry, doesn’t want to risk straining Booster’s patience with his neuroses, but he has to know.

“Booster,” Ted says slowly. “You, um… before, you said – fifteen years. After fifteen years you’d convinced yourself this wouldn’t happen.” He feels Booster breathe in sharply. “I didn’t – I didn’t know. I had no idea.” Well. He had some idea, some inkling that there was an unspoken tension to their friendship, but – but not that Booster has been in love with him since he was twenty-three. He’d thought it was as nebulous and unidentifiable as his own feelings were, or maybe that, for Booster, it was something he was able to leave behind as soon as he found someone better, more attractive, more suited for him than Ted. Not something he’s known about and held tenderly for this long.

Booster doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Ted worries that he’s pushing too far, asking too much, but then there’s an embarrassed little chuckle against his neck. “More or less,” Booster says. “Maybe – probably more.” He goes quiet again, fidgeting with Ted’s hand. “When you – that first time you invited me to Scott and Barda’s with you. I was, like – I was still kind of crazy lonely, back then, and you were – it was just nice.”

Ted’s mouth is dry. The first time he’d invited Booster to Scott and Barda’s house to watch football had been early in ‘88. They’d known each other not even a year, been actual friends for even less, and Booster has apparently been conscious of his feelings since a day that Ted remembers mostly due to the inconvenient appearance of Manga Khan in the middle of the game. “Are you…” He swallows. “I didn’t realise it was – really, Booster?” He can’t help sounding incredulous, and he has to pull back so he can look Booster in the face, see the flush across his cheeks.

“That was when I – I first really thought about it,” Booster says, avoiding Ted’s gaze. “Like, I already thought you were – y’know, attractive, obviously. But it was like – I thought, okay, I want to be friends with this guy forever.” He closes his eyes and laughs softly. “And then I realised that I, I wanted – more than that. But I knew I couldn’t – like, Dirk had given out to me ages ago about – about being seen with men and all that. So I knew what it was like, I knew I couldn’t say anything. And I kind of thought it was just, like… a crush. Like it’d pass after a few months.” When he finally looks up at Ted, a tired, helpless smirk on his face, Ted almost forgets to breathe. “But it never did.”

There’s so much new, incomprehensible information being fed to him that Ted feels dizzy. Booster has known since sitting on the Frees’ couch and sharing a bowl of burnt popcorn that he loved Ted, and never in the fifteen-odd years since has he not been aware of it. On top of that, Ted is struggling to process the admission buried in there, that Booster had already thought him attractive. Obviously . Not obvious to Ted , who, even now, feels like there must be some catch to the situation, to the tall, handsome supermodel sitting almost in his lap. Next to Booster, he’s always been painfully aware of his height, his weight, his goofy grin. Even when he’d let himself think that maybe there was something there, something between them, he’d never let himself think about the physical side of things. Choking back those traitorous thoughts, reassuring himself that of course Booster didn’t think of him that way – how could he, when Ted looks like this and Booster looks like that ? So the idea that Booster thinks he’s attractive, and has thought so apparently the entire time they’ve known each other… it’s taking a while to really penetrate Ted’s self-esteem.

“And you, uh. Jeez, Booster.” Ted has to tilt his head back and look at the ceiling. “This whole time.” He feels Booster shrug against his chest. “I didn’t… or, I – I guess I knew there was – something. Like, everyone always – made the jokes, and, uh.” His own voice echoes back to him from years in the past, Booster complaining that people would talk, and Ted replying – As if they don’t already. “But I guess I spent so long just – trying not to think about it. Any time it got too close I got scared and pretended it wasn’t there.” Even now, after the bridge has been crossed, something about it all still feels so unreal. Like if he looks directly at it for too long it’ll disappear. “But you – you never…” Never what? Never said anything? Never gave up hope that one day Ted might pull his head out of his ass? Never came to his senses and realised he could do better? “Even when I was… didn’t you ever get tired of waiting?”

The silence from Booster makes him nervous, but he can’t quite tear his gaze away from the off-white ceiling. “No,” Booster says finally. Selfish relief swoops in Ted’s stomach. “Even when you were – you were acting like a jerk, or we weren’t talking, it was still… always there.” He pauses. “I don’t think I… know how to not be in love with you, Teddy.”

“I’m sorry,” Ted says when he’s caught his breath. He feels like someone has grabbed him by the throat. “For making you wait so long.”

Booster shakes his head. “It’s not your fault,” he says, then lifts his head so he can look Ted in the eyes. “I would have been okay just – just being your friend forever, Teddy. I never expected anything more.” He half-smiles, handsome even through the clear exhaustion written across his features. “I – I wanted, or hoped, I guess. But it’s not like – it’s not like I said anything. You were the one who was brave enough to do that.”

Ted has to acknowledge that it's kind of crazy that he was the one to broach the topic. Him, the tightly-wound mess of anxiety and repression, actually managing to put himself in such a vulnerable position with no guarantee of his feelings being returned, or even accepted. But it still doesn't feel… brave, exactly, because it's Booster. It's always been Booster next to him, in his thoughts, showing him over and over the meaning of loyalty and love.

"Still," Ted says. "I – I took so long." He rubs a thumb over Booster's knuckles, the embossed surface of his flight ring. "I wouldn’t have blamed you if you'd moved on. Found someone else who – who gave you the time of day."

“I never wanted anyone else,” Booster says, painfully earnest in a way that makes Ted’s heart twist with guilt. 

“Me either," Ted murmurs. He feels so stupid. Until Booster smiles at him, and he remembers: they're here now. There's enough to feel bad about without bringing the past into it. Still, something tugs at his thoughts. "There was Lorraine, though,” he says, recalling the turbulent and overtly public relationship Booster had thrown himself into a few years ago. He’s only met Lorraine – Firehawk – a few times, mostly during all-hands hero business and during the start of her and Booster's very sudden relationship. The last time he'd seen her was arm-in-arm with Booster at Sundollar, early in Ted and Booster’s strange not-really-talking phase. They’d certainly seemed very affectionate at the time, and in years prior maybe Ted would have teased Booster about his relationship, asked Lorraine if she had a sister, but instead they’d all gritted their teeth through small talk until Booster’s frappuccino was ready and he could leave. “I thought you… liked her.” The tabloids had definitely thought so.

An embarrassed flush creeps up Booster’s neck. “That was, uh.” He clears his throat. “Me and Lorraine, we… the whole thing was maybe – not entirely real.”

Ted frowns, confused. “Like… like you and Gladys?” he asks. “Or was it just a publicity stunt?” They’d certainly gotten a lot of publicity out of it, at any rate, what with the way they were constantly breaking up and getting back together for the better part of a year. Superheroes, as much as they’d like the general public to think otherwise, are almost all enormous gossips, and a tempestuous romance is exactly the kind of thing that feeds a rumour mill; not to mention the fact that Booster was still very much a celebrity hero and tended to be in magazines more than most. Ted recalls, with a hot flush of embarrassment, throwing an entire magazine in the trash after seeing a photo of Booster and Firehawk on the cover, looking cosy after their fourth separation that month. More jealousy redirected into annoyance, he realises.

Booster laughs thinly. “Not – not like Gladys, no,” he says. “And not exactly… a publicity stunt, either. It was – looking back on it, it was way stupider than that.” A suspicion tugs at the back of Ted’s mind, but he just waits for Booster to continue. “Okay. Okay, you’re going to think it’s – really shallow and petty but – um, you remember when we… we were on Nate’s team?”

“With Ronnie?” Ted replies, unable to stop the smirk that pulls at his mouth.

The way Booster goes silent just confirms his suspicions. After a moment Booster sighs, hiding his face behind his hand. “Was it that obvious?” he mutters.

“What, that you didn’t like him?” Ted says. “Or that you dated his ex to get back at him?”

Nate's team had been a strange, manic end to their era of the League. They'd been the most disorganised splinter, without the steadfast guidance of J'onn or the implicit authority of Diana, and the already drastic departure from routine was made so much worse by Booster's situation. He was alive – thank god, thank the miracle technology that Ted had poured all of his energy into – but the armour was always intended to be a stopgap fix. Without the infrastructure of the League, Ted had been working with much less funding and equipment than he'd preferred, which had kept Booster in the suit for much, much longer than anyone wanted, and since it was never meant to be a long-term solution, the armour had problems. It malfunctioned, it glitched – it hurt Booster, though he did his best to hide it from everyone. And where was Ted through all of this? Spending time with their new teammate, Firestorm – Ronnie. Ronnie was fun and impulsive and hot-headed, and Ted was stressed, and it was nice to go out for a beer and feel normal for an evening, and…

Even at the time, he'd felt guilty. Felt like he was betraying Booster. Some part of his mind registered the over-friendly touches on the shoulder, the smugness in Ronnie's tone whenever Ted took his side over Booster's in an argument, but just like the thing with Booster, he'd shoved it into some dark corner and never really acknowledged it. Just like how Booster hadn't acknowledged the way he got nasty and jealous, the way he lashed out at Ted. If it hadn't been for Booster's life being at the centre of the tension, Ted can imagine it would have erupted into another cataclysmic fight between the two of them, fuelled by their shared reluctance to be honest about the exact reasons Booster was so jealous, or why Ted never reacted one way or the other to Ronnie's flirtations.

But for once, Ted's reason had won out over his pettiness, and they'd made it through without fracturing their friendship too badly. In the end, Ronnie had gone off to rehab, and Ted had actually kept in touch with him for a while afterwards, until his general withdrawal caused most of his relationships to turn one-sided or crumble completely. He feels a little sting of regret now.

"I know you knew I didn't like him," Booster mutters. "I wasn't exactly trying to hide it at the time." He sighs. "That whole year was – I know I was being – a huge asshole, Teddy, I know. I'm sorry. It was just, like – the – the armour, and everything was changing so much, and then here comes this guy." Even now, there's a sneer in his tone. "And he was, like… a model, and – and fun, and not stuck in a fucking Iron Man suit. And you kept blowing me off to hang out with him instead, like – like you were sick of me."

Ted's stomach lurches. They'd never… never really resolved all of those feelings, both of them sensing that digging too deeply into both of their motivations would send their precarious house of cards collapsing around their ears. After Booster was out of the suit and Ronnie was gone, the situation had seemingly sorted itself, and they'd been eager to leave the jealousy and its source behind them when the team dissolved too. "Boos, no," he says, brushing hair out of Booster's downturned eyes. "Don't apologise for that. It was – it was a really shitty time for everyone. You were in pain most days and the whole situation with your suit was… I was trying, really, but it was hard trying to work with what I had…" He shakes his head. "I mean – I wasn't sick of you. I was – stressed, and it was hard seeing you in pain and – and knowing that I was the one who made the suit that was hurting you, even if it was keeping you alive. Just… if we're apologising for how we acted back then, then I'm sorry too."

Booster leans into his touch like a cat, pressing his head against Ted's hand where it rests on his hair. It seems to be a mostly unconscious reaction, betraying his need for contact, for physical affection. "S'okay, Teddy," he says. "Like – like you said. We've both been stupid. And we got through all of that and made it here."

He's right. Despite everything, here they are. Ted runs his fingers down through Booster's hair to his jaw; with the slightest amount of pressure, Booster tilts his head up eagerly to receive the kiss that Ted presses to his lips. Still so thrilling, every time, that he gets to do that now. That Booster will kiss him if he asks.

When they separate, Booster tucks his face into Ted's neck again with an embarrassed chuckle. "I really thought you would have noticed," Booster mumbles.

"The Lorraine thing?" Ted asks. At the time, he'd been too occupied with annoyance at Booster for being so flaky when their company was struggling to bother picking apart any possible ulterior motives behind Booster dating a beautiful woman.

"How much I like you," Booster says. His eyes flutter closed, eyelashes a faint tickle against Ted's neck. "Like, all that time, you never pointed out the way I – I call you Teddy."

Ted blinks. Of all the hints and signs Booster gave that his feelings for Ted ran deeper than friendship, he hadn't counted his nickname as one of them. There'd been the jealousy, the physical tension, the knowledge that they'd lay their lives down for each other, all the charged moments… but Booster calling him Teddy never fell into that category in his mind. It's as natural as the way he says Ted or Beetle or buddy.

Thinking on it, though… who else calls him Teddy? Ted racks his brain and comes up dry. Nobody else says Teddy – save maybe for Guy with an overtly mocking tone – and certainly nobody else uses the nickname with the frequency that Booster does. But so what? His best friend has a nickname for him, a diminutive of his already shortened name – that's nothing necessarily out of the platonic. Hell, Ted lets a 'Boos' slip every now and then, that affectionate single syllable. Why should Booster calling him Teddy mean anything?

"I thought I was being so obvious," Booster continues, interrupting Ted's confused thoughts. "But you – you never picked up on it, or if you did then you never said anything."

"What do you mean?" Ted asks. "You've always called me that." He casts his mind back in his long friendship with Booster, trying to pinpoint a start to the nickname.

Booster smiles, eyes still closed. "Do you remember that party the League had? After the Invasion?"

"Sure," Ted replies. Karen had thrown their fridge through a wall.

"You were, um." Booster pauses for a moment. "You were flirting with Diana, and you told her to call you Teddy."

A little embarrassingly, Ted finds he can’t remember the exact incident Booster is talking about. He’d had a couple of beers in him that afternoon, heady with the excitement of a real party, and then the Khunds had overshadowed a lot of the actual celebration – and it was fifteen years ago, besides. But he’ll readily (if shamefully) admit that it’s certainly something he would have done back then, even if there was exactly zero chance that Wonder Woman would have ever actually reciprocated. He was probably just lucky she didn’t hit him upside the head for it.

But clearly Booster – who, at that point, had already accepted his feelings for Ted – had tucked that little interaction away, the image of Ted trying to be suave, romantic. Ted flushes with years-late self-consciousness.

Booster’s voice is quieter now, tiredness softening his words. “Didn’t start saying it right away, ‘cause I thought it would be… desperate. Or, like, you’d realise what I was doing and – and be upset, or mad, or…” He trails off, then shakes his head slightly. “After the stuff with the League’s money, when we made up, I was – I was so happy we were talking again, and I started… letting myself say it. And the whole time I thought you’d – like maybe you knew what I meant but you were just too nice to say anything.”

Ted snorts. “When have I ever been too nice to say something?” he asks, and Booster giggles into his shirt. “I – I really didn’t notice. Or I guess it just… it just felt natural. Like it wasn’t even something to notice.”

Now that he’s aware of it, his mind is combing back through years and years of interactions, hours of Booster’s voice saying Teddy in varying degrees of exasperation or glee or naked affection, the kind that sometimes made Ted’s stomach twist. Spoken at a whisper into his ear like a secret. Pleading, when Ted had been working on Booster’s suit, or choked out in gales of laughter, once or twice through tears. And every time it had meant – well, not nothing to Ted; it was a nickname unofficially reserved for his best friend, but it had just been… a part of his and Booster’s friendship. Of course Booster calls him Teddy, because that’s…. just what Booster calls him sometimes. He hadn’t even realised there was anything more to it.

“I like it,” Booster murmurs. “It was like this little secret I had. This thing I got to call you that nobody else did.”

An immense rush of affection swirls in Ted’s chest. For Booster, carrying around these feelings for so long with zero expectation that Ted would ever reciprocate, or even be okay with Booster having feelings like that. Booster loving him through years of arguments and disasters and injuries and death, cataclysms shaking the world apart and the lengths they had to go to putting it back together, through Ted’s pettiness and withdrawal and repression, through all the different ways they found themselves working together or not working together, talking and not talking, fighting or best friends or hovering on the edge of the chasm, through all of it Booster holding steadfast to loving Ted, even when Ted is sure he didn’t deserve it. Booster, curled in his arms like he was made to fit there, falling asleep on Ted’s chest, in Ted’s clothes, in Ted’s apartment. Booster coming back to him every single time.

“I love you,” Ted says around the lump in his throat, the words still so wonderfully new in this context; Booster lets out a breathy noise, somewhere between chuckle and whimper. “And – and thank you. For waiting for me to realise that.”

Booster’s breathing is slow and even. It takes him a moment to reply. “You’re worth waiting for, Teddy,” he says finally, the words mumbled into Ted’s collarbone, vibrating into his chest.

Ted tilts his head gently so his cheek rests on Booster’s soft golden hair. Despite everything – the horrible circumstances that led them here, the wasted years of fighting and ignoring and pretending that they could avoid this, all the things they’ve weathered through their lives – he feels like maybe there’s a future he can see himself living in. It’s not like he has his entire life planned out, but there’s a level of certainty that he wants Booster to be there with him, wherever he ends up.

Time feels immaterial for a long while, Booster's steady breathing and the quiet patter of the rain the only sound in the silence. It's like a little pocket carved out for them, shielded from everything happening outside, the death and grief and fear. Ted finds his thoughts wandering to tomorrow – the funeral, the hunt for Sue's killer – and the sadness inside him starts to harden into resolution. He won't let himself pull away this time. He'll go to the funeral, put everything he can into helping Barbara, use every ounce of intelligence he has to piece this tragedy together. He'll be there for Ralph, for all of their friends. He'll push through the awkward conversations and let himself be seen and known, because if nothing else then tonight has shown him that the rewards of being vulnerable far outweigh the risks. He'll step down from his position at the company, go back to blueprints and labs, shake off the phantom burden left by his father so many years ago. Maybe he'll even leave Gotham and its ever-present gloom; the Kord family home in Highland Park is doing very little other than accumulating dust, and it's – it's got plenty of room for two.

He blinks. Cool your jets, Kord, he tells himself. One night of overdue conversation and tender touches and he's ready to ask Booster to move in with him? No sense in scaring Booster away, given how anxious he is, how hard it had been to make him believe Ted's words in the first place. But at the same time… Ted doesn’t want to waste any more time. If he's got a limited amount of time on this earth – and, given that he's only mortal, unlike some of their acquaintances, he does – he wants to spend as much of it doing what makes him happy as possible. And what he wants is Booster next to him in the morning. A workshop where he can experiment and build and Booster can come in and watch him with his chin in his hands. A kitchen where they wash dishes together, flick each other with warm water, make coffee in the mornings. A front step where he kisses Booster goodbye as he flies off to save the world.

Imagine if he'd never said anything. If he'd had to push these feelings down forever, always choking back the what-if every time he saw Booster, every time they fought and made up. If, one day, one of them had to exist in a world without the other, and the words went forever unspoken. It's unthinkable. Ted looks down at Booster, so peaceful in sleep, and feels such an immense flood of emotion that he has to close his eyes.

Unfortunately, though he’d love to stay here admiring Booster's sleeping form for the foreseeable future, Ted has to acknowledge the way his knees are starting to ache where they’re tucked up beside him on the couch. He can’t imagine sleeping like this is good for Booster’s back, either, despite how much Ted likes the way Booster fits in his arms, how warm he is.

“Booster,” Ted murmurs, gently shaking Booster’s shoulder. “Boos, you shouldn’t sleep like this.” Booster grumbles something quietly, not moving. “C’mon. You’re gonna be aching like crazy in the morning.”

“Nnn.” Booster’s groan is muffled as he shakes his head and presses his face harder into Ted’s shirt, but he does eventually lift his head and blink blearily at the room. "Mmm. Okay. Okay." His eyes flick down to Ted's chest. "Sorry."

Ted smiles. "S'okay." He untucks his legs and stretches them with a soft groan as Booster turns so he isn't splayed across Ted's lap anymore. "It's been… it's been a long night. I just don't want you falling asleep bad and hurting your neck or something."

"Right," Booster says, wiping his face. "Thank you." He looks up as Ted gets to his feet, drawing a breath to say something, then drops his gaze to his lap again. "I'll, uh – I'll just – I'll be fine out here. On the couch."

A little sting of rejection lodges in Ted's gut. Stupid of him to assume that Booster would be comfortable enough, even after everything they’ve said tonight, to come to bed with him. Not that Ted expects anything, not like that, not now, but – he'd thought it might be nice to hold Booster. To have a warm body next to him through the night. But – that’s Booster's choice. He's waited for Ted all these years, so Ted is willing to be as patient as Booster needs.

He shakes off the small frown and nods at Booster, who stretches out on the couch. He's a little too tall for it, so he curls up on his side, knees tucked up and arm under his head. "I'll get you a blanket," Ted says, and Booster murmurs thanks without meeting his eyes.

Ted makes it all the way to the linen closet, from which he can see the doorway of his bedroom, the light from the hallway falling at an angle across his huge, empty bed, and then he thinks, this is stupid, and turns around again without even stopping. What was the point of any of this if he’s not even going to ask? He'd just assumed that Booster doesn’t want to sleep with him – but what has he learned from tonight if not that to get what he wants, he actually needs to express that?

Booster looks at him in mild confusion when he returns so quickly and empty-handed, and Ted swallows down the doubt and nerves (he's done so many brave things tonight, just one more, just one more) and smiles softly at him. "Do you want to sleep in my bed?" he asks, then clarifies: "With me. Just – just sleep, I mean." He takes a step towards the couch, holding a hand out. "I just – you're not going to be comfortable there, and I – I want you to sleep well, and if you don't want to then – then I can sleep on the couch, but I, I want you to. I want to." His stomach twists, but not from fear – it's the exhilaration of asking, of saying so clearly what he wants. Being honest about how he feels. Saying that he wants something – wants Booster.

There's a tense moment where Booster doesn't say anything, and then his mouth lifts in a tiny, shy smile. "I didn't want to ask," he says, "because I thought it would – you'd think it was – weird, or something." He takes Ted's offered hand and pulls himself to his feet, long legs unfolding. "Um. Yes. Please."

Ted tugs gently on his hand and pulls Booster in for a hug, arms wrapped around his solid, warm middle. "Okay," he says, thrilling at the easy way Booster returns the embrace. "Okay." They stand there for a minute, and then Ted reluctantly pulls away. He switches off the light by the front door, plunging the apartment into darkness, broken only by the dim Gotham glow from the window. Together they step quietly through the living room, down the hall, Ted leading Booster by the hand, that wonderful point of contact keeping them safe in the dark.

In his bedroom, they stand awkwardly until Booster moves to the bed, looking back at Ted for approval as he pulls the blankets back and crawls across the sheets to the far side. He settles in under the covers, his wide eyes shining in the dim room. The image of him there, hair fanned out on Ted's dark blue pillowcase, makes something curl in Ted's chest, and he has to look down as he gets into bed as well so he doesn't get lost in the fantasy of Booster being there in the morning – every morning. Not a fantasy, he reminds himself. Booster will be there in the morning.

"This alright?" Ted asks when he's lying on his side facing Booster. There's a foot of space between them, and when he reaches a hand out his heart skips a beat at how quickly Booster does the same, lacing their fingers together. Booster nods, pressing his lips together hard, and Ted notices the tears gathering in his eyes. "Hey," he says softly, moving his free hand up to touch Booster's face. "What's wrong?"

Booster sniffs. "Just – tomorrow. The funeral." He swallows hard. "And everything, it's all so – the world just feels so bad right now. Everyone’s so scared and – and how do you know this isn't going to go wrong as well? Us." His voice breaks, words spilling quiet onto the sheets between them. "It's so scary."

Ted thinks for a moment, thumb absently brushing tears from Booster's cheek. "It is scary," he says slowly. "I'm… I've spent most of my life being scared of one thing or another. Failing, or – or losing people. Getting hurt. Making the wrong decision." A lifetime of fears, of worries; some rational, others completely overblown. "But I figure… we go one day at a time. So tomorrow we'll – we'll go to the funeral. We'll find your suit and you'll go out and you'll find out who did this. And we'll do our jobs and help out and – and the world sucks, but we'll make it better. That's what heroes do." He brings Booster's hand to his mouth and kisses his flight ring. "And after that, we'll just… meet whatever comes. And it's – god, of course it's scary. But at least for me, I'm never as scared when – when you're here."

When he'd been twenty-four and stupid and naïve and new to the League, the first time he'd ever worked with Booster, he'd felt so brave then. Every time they stood together against villains and threats, or against Max or J'onn's ire, Ted had always felt bolstered by the knowledge that Booster was in it with him. At thirty, when Booster had died and Ted's heart felt like it had been plucked from his chest, the moment Booster had opened his eyes and said his name, for that brief instant he'd felt invincible. Not even death could keep them apart. Not tragedy or injury or any of their idiotic fights, not permanently. Because Ted is always better when he's with Booster. He's happier and he's braver and he's so much stupider but he's better than any other version of Ted Kord out there. And it feels selfish to say, but he's hopeful that Booster feels the same way – that Booster is at his best with Ted next to him too.

"Okay," Booster says, trying for a smile. "Okay." He looks down at their joined hands, squeezes gently. "I love you." He says it quietly, still sounding almost disbelieving that he's allowed to say that and mean it like he does now.

"I love you too," Ted says. "I do." He feels the exhaustion swirling in his brain, all the adrenaline of the night wearing off, but he manages to mount the nerves for one final act of bravery. He shuffles along the mattress, closer to Booster, and gives him a soft kiss, then threads his arms under Booster's so he's holding him.

A surprised little exhale escapes Booster, a gentle puff of air against Ted's hair, but he relaxes into the embrace. He's so warm.

Outside it's raining, and it's dark, and there are so many horrible things happening all the time, and tomorrow they're going to go to their friend's funeral and weep and mourn and put steadfast hands on Ralph's drooping shoulders; and there's going to be more tragedies in the future, more injuries and deaths, more friends lost to the teeth of this awful career they've found themselves in; and maybe Booster is right, maybe this won't last, maybe old arguments or outside circumstances or any of those future tragedies will tear them apart. 

Or maybe they get to have this. Maybe the world isn't as dark as they think it is. Because right now Booster is here, in Ted's bed, his heartbeat steady and real where Ted has his head pressed against his chest, and that has to count for something.