Chapter Text
For a city that could be totally and accurately described as a “rust bucket” a couple of years ago, it was a truly pleasant day in New Urbem.
Simon couldn’t exactly say he was fond of visiting this place. Most of his knowledge about it came from Hypershock, and, by proxy, Hypershock’s general disposition. So he wasn’t really excited at the idea of getting to visit it.
At least if he was getting to explore it with Jack, that would have been entertaining. Jack had this habit of being endearing even when he actively despised something. Simon hadn’t quite figured that out.
Maybe it was the way the corner of Jack’s mouth tightened as he tried to hide his annoyance.
Maybe it was the way Jack was so adamant with everything he said, like it became true just for that fact that he was the one who had said it.
Maybe it was because Simon knew anything that even minorly disgusted him would lead to hours of them debating the subject. Or at least an hour of Jack lamenting his life while Simon sat there and let him complain.
Those traits should have bothered Simon. They would from anyone else. But Jack somehow managed to make them endearing.
That was why Gazerbeam was now listening to the mayor of New Urbem at the hover train opening ceremonies.
“Mayors often brag about their cities,” he chuckled in front of the crowd of flashing cameras, “and I’m no exception. And I’m willing to admit that New Urbem is not the only city–”
“Are you sure that this is a good place for us to have a stakeout?” Winston buzzed in his new helmet. “We’re kind of exposed right now.”
Simon winced, lamenting that this Galbaki designer didn’t have the mechanical skill to make a helmet with volume control. “People regularly see stranger things in this city than someone in a motorcycle outfit riding said motorcycle.”
“But are we sure that there’s going to be a crime to stop here?” Evelyn chimed in as the mayor prattled on.
Simon instinctively tried to turn the knob on the side of his helmet, but it adamantly stayed in place. So for now, he’d have to deal with the Deavors unintentionally yelling in his ear. “Public events involving important public figures and new technology are very simple targets for most petty supervillains. So, yes, it’s fairly possible we’ll see something of interest.”
And even if there wasn’t any crime for Gazerbeam to stop…Simon wasn’t going to squander the chance to see what Jack was up to.
Even though this helmet didn’t have any sort of zoom-in abilities like his usual one, Simon was more than easily able to find Jack hidden in the crowd of other government officials behind the mayor.
It was funny, in a way. After years of Jack teasing Simon for his desk job for the NSA, he had ended up with his own desk job for the government. Though, he would argue this was better since it involved travelling around the country quite a bit more than the NSA’s law firm had ever allowed Simon before he quit at the end of the first wave of relocations. Even now Simon’s job wasn’t much more than shuffling papers between court appearances.
If Jack’s painfully forced smile was an indicator, shuffling papers might sound tempting to him.
The thought made Simon grin with a little bit of self-satisfaction as the mayor finished his speech.
“–on budget and ahead of schedule to launch our magnificent new hovertrain. It can get you where you need to go at ridiculous speed!” One of the mayor’s assistants handed him an atrociously large pair of scissor, which he dramatically aimed at the ceremonial ribbon behind him. “The future is open for business!”
The mayor cut the ribbon, cuing a fanfare from the small band that had been set up opposite the officials. Applause echoed through the station and all the way to the sidewalk where Gazerbeam was watching the ceremony.
“Are you seeing anything strange on your end?” Winston asked again, nearly making Gazerbeam jump off the motorcycle. “Your suit cam is aimed at the speedometer.”
Simon was about to take that helmet and launch it at the next bus that drove behind him.
“Sorry…” He shuffled a little higher in his seat so Winston and Evelyn could also watch the train doors start to close.
Evelyn’s voice joined in, particularly impatient for something to start happening. “It’s still sitting there?”
His fingers wrung the seam of his gloves, tracing one of the laser-red lines that Galbaki had added to the Gazerbeam suit design.
This had been a detour just because Simon wanted to check in on Jack after the brief phone call they’d had that morning from their respective hotel rooms. Which had been interrupted by Winston coming over to check in, and Jack needing to head over to the train for its final inspection before that evening. So, it was entirely possible that nothing would actually happen with the train.
The nuclear-powered train slowly began to pull itself out of the station, followed by another round of applause.
Only for the vehicle to start shuddering in the air.
Simon nearly snapped his hand off at the wrist when the hover train collapsed onto the tracks.
“The train stopped,” Simon narrated as he once again leaned forward in his seat.
Only for the hover train to shudder again and force itself back up.
And immediately launched itself out of the station in the opposite direction.
“It’s going the wrong direction…?” Not really a sinister plan if this was by a supervillain, but– “How much track is built in that direction?”
“Northbound? About 25 miles,” Evelyn immediately responded.
Her words were nearly drowned out as Gazerbeam’s gloved hand gripped the handle of the motorcycle and cranked it into gear.
The few civilians on the sidewalk shrieked in surprise as Gazerbeam tore past them and dove into the streets, the blue lights on the bike reflecting off the paintjobs of the few cars who swerved out of his way.
Simon ducked between two startled black Cadillacs as an overpass blotted him out in shadows. The vague shape of the hovertrain flew past overhead, rattling its tracks as it disappeared around a corner.
Gazerbeam felt his face harden into worry as the speedometer reported he was already going over 100 miles per hour. “How fast can this train go?”
He really should have prodded Jack for more details about this machine before they left.
“It’s estimated to have a max speed of 300 miles per hour.” Evelyn’s voice mixed with the blaring of police sirens as they careened onto the main thoroughfare.
Gazerbeam twisted the bike halfway onto its side to miss one of the police cars by less than a foot. The red and blue lights mixed with the red lines and dark blues of his suit. “And how fast can this bike go?”
“Normally? About 150-200,” Winston explained.
But Simon caught that. “What does ‘normally’ imply?”
“Well, when the time is right,” Winston sounded like he was smirking with glee, “give that handle another crank.”
Simon didn’t have the chance to ask what that meant before two cop cars cut off the intersection ahead of them.
The sirens from the cars behind Gazerbeam were still seconds away from catching up when one of those cars announced something over their loudspeaker: “Unauthorized personnel, stand down, this is an official police pursuit!”
“Winston, did you hear that?” Simon muttered to the camera embedded in his suit. The policemen ahead had already pulled out their guns as a warning, but Gazerbeam was still barrelled towards them.
“I’ll notify the chief of police and get these guys to stand down,” Winston assured him. Apparently forgetting that wouldn’t happen in the next two seconds, when Gazerbeam badly needed to think of a way to get around these guys.
That’s when his eyes caught sight of a pile of rubbish waiting to get picked up by the side of the road.
And in the pile was a collection of disposable wooden platforms that looked oddly like a ramp.
The pile of trash reflected in Simon’s red visor as he eased the bike for a head-on collision with it. “Have either of you ever seen The Great Escape?”
“No?” Evelyn shot back. He could feel her eyes burning through the camera on his body, trying to figure out if he was indeed crazy enough to try this.
“It’s a decent movie. I think. I slept through most of it.” The soles of his boots dug into the footholds as Gazerbeam’s visor narrowed on the ramp he was forcing to exist. “Let’s see if this works…”
Simon’s grip tightened on the handlebars as the front tire on the black and blue motorcycle made contact with the “ramp.”
He cranked the handle again, just to give it another small burst of power.
But whatever modifications had gone into that bike meant it was more than just a small burst.
Red light exploded from the back of the motorcycle, like a rocket blasting off into space. The fiery tail threw the bike against the ramp, propelling it off solid ground, and launching the motorcycle into the air more than three times higher than the flashing lights of the police cars.
Ah. That’s what he meant by ‘normally.’
That’s nice.
The wheels collided with the middle of the intersection, depositing Gazerbema right in front of an on-coming tanker truck.
He cranked the handle twice again, practically throwing himself into on-coming traffic as he somehow managed to swerve and duck around panicking drivers caught between watching the runaway train and the superhero interrupting rush hour.
“I take it that this still isn’t over 300?” Simon checked, ducking around a Chrysler that had panicked and screeched to a stop in front of him.
The motorcycle’s back wheel missed their bumped by inches, nearly as much space as the handlebars were given as Simon dove through the cars packed together on either side of the white line he was driving on.
“Oh, it’s well over 300. But it can only go for short bursts at a time,” Winston explained, having gotten back from his phone call to the police chief.
Simon’s eyes followed the train as it once again slammed itself around a curve, eerie green lights beginning to spill from its engine as it began to fly down a straightaway.
It actually eased Simon’s worry a little bit to see what was clearly Jack’s green radiation leaking from the train. That had to mean he was actively trying to stop it from inside the engine room.
But with the amount of speed it was picking up from the straightaway, there was no way Gazerbeam was going to be able to catch it if he chased it head-on.
Which meant the only option was to cut it off before it could disappear into the mountain tunnels.
…Actually…
Simon veered off the main street, bouncing off the curb of the sidewalk and into an alleyway.
“Wait, where are you going?” Evelyn exclaimed, no doubt trying to crane her neck to see the train as it vanished from her monitors. “You’re going to lose it!”
The bike’s back tire skidded, forcing Gazerbeam to kick off the brick wall to shove himself back on track. “Trains tend to only follow one path, Evelyn. And I won’t be able to keep up if I copy it.”
His ankle twinged in annoyance, but he barely noticed it as the alley abruptly cut off with a wall, a sedan parked in front of it like a sentry.
Gazerbeam bucked the motorcycle into a wheelie, feeling his heart beating inside of his chest like a warning as he cranked the handle again.
The bike launched itself into the air once again, red light pouring out behind it in a thick band that might have partially torched the hood of the car.
But Simon was able to land the bike on top of the wall.
Or rather, the roof of a long line of rowhouses that led right outward the highway he’d been looking for.
“I hope that doesn’t mess up my numbers on your cost/benefits analysis,” Simon apologized as the tiled roof tried to bounce his teeth out of his head.
For some reason, Winston and Evelyn both thought that was really funny.
Simon didn’t have time to question it before he had to steer the bike onto the next set of rowhouses, tires skidding and whining against the concrete and tile.
The train was still deep in downtown as Simon flew into the air once more. The wind tore at his new uniform as the sunset started to creep over the horizon, like it was a countdown to the hover train’s inevitable crash.
The motorcycle landed on the edge of the raised highway, trying to throw Simon into the asphalt.
He once again used his foot to push off from the wall, trying to rev the engine back into gear as the motorcycle limply joined the mess of cars barrelling down the throughway.
But this was rush hour.
And that meant the highway leading out from the city was completely clogged just a few seconds away from the nose of Simon’s bike.
The eyes behind Gazerbeam’s visor narrowed their gaze. A beam of red erupted from his helmet in a perfect line, slicing a hole into the concrete barriers keeping the two sides of traffic apart.
Bits of red-heated stone and gravel exploded into the air as Gazerbeam pivoted from the right side of the road and careened into the left, scaring another motorcyclist enough that he had to pull over and watch Gazerbeam fly into on-coming traffic for the second time that day.
A semi-truck smashed its horn trying to warn him to get out of the way.
Simon yanked the bike onto its back wheel, revving the engine twice again.
The motorcycle blasted into the air, casting the image of a red, blue, and black hero onto the windshield over the gaping truck driver.
The tires crashed onto the roof of the semi-truck’s trailer, leaving two bold, black skid marks in their wake.
Directly ahead of Gazerbeam was one of the tunnels that led through the mountains and out of New Urbem.
And a half a mile to the right, was the matching tunnel for the hover train.
Simon’s detour had given him half a minute, at most, to make it through the vehicle tunnel, find his way to the train’s final station, and somehow get it to stop.
Or half a minute to get over the mountain, get onto the train, and shut it off manually.
With two decisions to make, and 0,2 seconds before Gazerbeam was falling off the back of the truck, Simon pulled the bike onto its back wheel one more time.
He revved the engine twice, prayed that he wasn’t about to become a grease stain on the grass, and launched the bike towards the lip of the mountain over the tunnel.
Air was shoved into the back of Simon’s throat as the motorcycle made contact with the mountainside. Hunks of grass and dirt battered Simon’s boots as he fought with the slope of the mountain to avoid stalling out and falling into the traffic below.
The train was barring down on the mountainside, green light building up in its back engine like a bomb about to blow.
The bike finally decided to do its job and jolted forward, forcing Simon’s face a hairsbreadth from the controls as he wrestled it into a new path up the grassy terrain.
Gazerbeam arched the top of the mountain just as the train crashed through the tunnel.
Gravity did most of the work to add speed to the bike, but the train was pushing well over 350 now. The glistening, half-built train station up ahead was practically two steps away from it at this speed. None of the meager scaffolding still in place would be enough to stop this train-sized bullet from throwing itself off the tracks and into the dusty basin below.
The ground rumbled under the bike’s wheels as Simon watched the mouth of the tunnel get closer and closer.
Simon leaned all of his bodyweight forward.
Green light was starting to pool over the tracks.
The bike revved twice, sparking the beam of red light to appear behind the bike.
The train plowed out of the tunnel.
Gazerbeam yanked the motorcycle into the sky above it.
The world slowed as the motorcycle hovered in the air above the tracks, but the train still looked like it was going 100 miles per hour.
The sunset over New Urbem was practically a sliver against the ocean. It cast a crimson spotlight on the humanoid figure atop the motorcycle, silhouetting him in a haunting halo of red as the train tried to escape him, slipping away from his grasp.
Gazerbeam’s tires crashed onto the roof of the last train car.
Time snapped back to normal as he instinctively drove his foot into the metal, trying to stop himself from skidding off the train completely.
His lasers had to join the fight, melting the protective outer layer of metal from the roof as they slowed Gazerbeam down just enough that he fell between the two train cars.
Simon crashed into the door of the second train car.
Pain flooded his shoulder as it smashed into the metal, pulling a few pinpricks of water into his eyes that were immediately vaporized into steam.
That ankle was screaming in protest as he forced himself off of the bike.
I’m getting too old for this…
Simon kept his gaze adamantly against the door of the first train car, ignoring the obvious swelling starting to push against his boot.
Another beam of red slashed through the lock on the engine room door.
It bounced open as the train continued to charge for the unfinished station.
Gazerbeam leapt over the small crevice between the cars, managing to loop his hand through the repeatedly opening and slamming sliding door before shoving himself through.
The lone occupant of the engine room stared straight ahead as Gazerbeam entered. They might as well have not known they had been interrupted.
Gazerbeam somehow found it in himself to charge across the floor, the train practically trying to run away from him as he reached out to the conductor.
His gloves wrapped around the man’s shoulder, tearing the conductor away from the flashing controls panel.
Simon could feel the back of his eyes heating up as the man’s half-dazed expression lolled towards his own. “What do you think you’re–?”
“What…?” The conductor blinked, instinctively reaching up to rub his eyes like he had blinked in hours. “What happened…?”
That’s when Simon realized the screen wasn’t flashing so much as it was strobing.
The main computer monitor on the console, the one that you used to access the steering and navigation controls, wasn’t actually displaying the digital layout and readings Jack had explained to him just a few hours ago.
It wasn’t displaying anything.
In place of the controls the conductors and engineers would use to command the hover-train, this console was a swirling, sickening loop of white and black squares
and white and black and circle and black
and white and squa
re and̸̫̭͕͡ ̷̬̠̎ͅc̸̡͇̀̒irclḙ̴̟̰̊ ̴͕̦̑̀͐a̶͖̞̪̐̿n̶̼̅͂d̴̪̪̫̋̈ ̵̼͔̀b̸͚̩̽
ļ̸͠ã̷̛̲̅c̶̛̯k̴̦̰̹̽̕ ̴̺̿̍̊w̸̹̔h̴͕͊i̷̯͗̽͜t̶̠̒͌e̵̠̯͑͘ ̸͚̈́̋̆ͅc̸̲̘͖̍i̷͖͎̇̇ṟ̴̛̗̤̅
c̸͇̐l̵͎̮̐͘e̵̪̣̅̓.̷̡͎͌.̶̨͎͌̕.̸̢̤͋ͅ
“Woah, Gazerbeam?!” The conductor exclaimed, finally realizing who was holding his shoulder. “What are you doing here?!”
It was just enough of a distraction for Simon to shake himself from the strange, trace-like feeling that the computer monitor seemed to induce.
His laser vision slashed through the computer console, shattering the screen. The wiring underneath it sparked and fizzled, blowing out the dizzying pattern of black and white shapes until all the was left was a half-charred black console.
“Oh, you know,” Simon slurred, shaking himself back into his own head just long enough to notice the bright red button clearly labelled ‘emergency break.’ “Just saving the day again.”
Simon’s gloved hand smashed into the button.
The train shuddered for a moment as the breaks locked down the engine room, forcing the train to land prematurely.
Simon grabbed the main engineer with his bad arm and the back of the console with the other, bracing both of them for the train to smack into the metal tracks.
And the train did.
It sank once, metal-on-metal screeching in pain as someone manually ordered the train to stop before it made a deadly mistake.
But after just a moment where Simon thought he might have stopped it, the train flew back into the air.
Trees and mountains whipped past the windows of the engine room, a blur of green warning them about their imminent destruction.
Why weren’t they stopping?
What was that trace-inducing screen?
And where was Jack?
His radiation was obvious from far enough away that it meant he had to be using his powers somewhere.
Why else would Simon clearly be able to see radiation emitting from the nuclear-powered train–?
“Are there two engine rooms here?” Simon asked the startled train conductor.
“Uh, y-yeah, there’s one at the other end,” he explained as Gazerbeam released him.
Something sick and slimy settled into the pick of Simon’s stomach as his feet started to run for the door. “Don’t leave this room until the train has stopped!”
Gazerbeam leaped to the other train car, the wind buffeting his face as he climbed over the motorcycle and sliced the lock on the second car open.
The passengers inside yelped with surprise as Gazerbeam burst into their car, some of them practically throwing themselves out of his way as he ran through the middle aisle.
His laser vision cut through the door at the other side of their car, once again throwing itself open as the train kept hobbling toward the station at its deadly pace.
Simon charged through enough train cars that he was almost certain this train ran into infinity.
Until he slammed open the door to the penultimate car, and saw a bright, green, radioactive glow emitting from the back engine.
That sick feeling boiled up through Simon’s throat as his laser vision broke through the last door, practically melting it in half before he jumped onto the platform and forced himself inside.
The back engine room was filled with enough radiation to vaporize any living organism who entered it.
It was enough to completely fry the camera in his suit.
If it wasn’t for his visor, Simon would have been blinded after a few moments of trying to force his way through the green flames.
But in the middle of it all was something vaguely shaped like a human.
They were sitting with their back straight against the secondary engineer’s chair, hands pressing into the control console while radiation gushed out of their hands.
Simon had to squint behind his helmet to make out the figure being consumed by green fire.
Well, consumed wasn’t really the right word.
This person was commanding radiation like another limb, wordlessly ordering it to infect the train’s engines and propel everyone on board towards their collision with doom.
Because Gamma Jack was being controlled by another hypnotic navigation computer.
Simon’s laser vision slashed through the computer, shutting down its trace-inducing power just as he got to the engineer’s chair.
The trance broke just as Simon managed to wrap his arms around Jack’s shoulders, preventing his limp body from slumping onto the floor.
Jack gasped back into reality, his eyes wild as they slowly faded from twin, green infernos to slightly smoldering green coals in his irises.
“...Beamer?” His limp body immediately stiffened from sand into semi-hardened concrete. The radiation in the room was still dissipating as Simon’s shoulders sagged in relief, but Jack was already preoccupied with snapping his head back and forth to try and figure out what had happened. “The train is still going??”
“Apparently that’s what happens when a radiation-powered superhero supercharges a nuclear-powered train engine,” Simon pointed out, once again searching for the emergency brake he saw in the other train car.
If you tried hard enough, you’d be able to vaguely see the outline of the train station bearing down, half a mile, a quarter of a mile, a few hundred yards away–
Jack pulled himself away to once again command the nuclear engine, trying to pull its radiation into himself as an attempt to slow down the train.
When the green light had faded to the same intensity as an uncovered lightbulb, that was when Simon finally spotted the emergency brake on the opposite side of the console from the previous one.
He pulled himself around the engineer’s chair as the station finally overtook them, and cracked the button as he slammed his fist into it.
The train crash-landed on the tracks, throwing an ocean of sparks into the air as it skidded through the station.
Simon braced himself against the containment walls of the engine while Jack adamantly stayed in place, trying to drain the engine completely in case the inertia of the collision sent the train over the edge of the tracks anyway and the engine decided to blow up.
But the metal shrieking of the train cars was quieting, and the ocean of sparks was settling into a trickle.
With one final jolt, the train ground to a halt, throwing both heroes onto the floor of the back engine.
The hover train had stopped with its nose just a few yards away from the edge of the unfinished tracks.
Gazerbeam picked himself up as Jack shoved himself into a sitting position against the chair with a groan.
“Well, that was–” Jack hissed as he went to inspect his hair and brushed his fingers against a gash on his forehead, “...fun.”
Simon chuckled to himself and closed the distance between them to help Jack onto his feet. “Either those computer screens have some kind of mind-control element to them, or you really hate trains.”
“...”
“…Heh.”
Jack snorted and rolled his eyes, taking a perpetually unused handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe to press into the cut. “You’re not funny, Beamer.”
“Maybe I would be if you didn’t have a head injury,” Simon protested, sparing another glance at the computer console.
“Then it’s a good thing Gazerbeam was here to save this poor, helpless citizen in need of rescuing,” Jack chided, immediately drawing Simon’s attention back to him. “But next time, save me before I get my head ripped open.”
Okay, Simon had a good joke this time. “Well, if you need a lawyer, I suggest you should contact Simon Paladino.”
“I didn’t realize criminal lawyers also dealt with personal injury lawsuits,” Jack teased him back, elbowing Simon’s (thankfully) uninjured shoulder.
“Mm, he can be persuaded to change careers if you need it badly enough,” Simon promised as he pointed to a trickle of blood Jack had missed.
“Yeah, you’re waaaaaay too sappy lately,” Jack warned him as he decided to just hand the handkerchief to Simon to let him clean up his face.
Gazerbeam checked to make sure there wasn’t any glass in his gloves before cupping his hand under Jack’s jaw and gently taking the cloth to wipe away the blood tracing from the corner of his radiation-filled eyes, down his smirking cheek, and dangerously close to the corner of his lips.
Maybe Simon lingered on that fact a little too long, because Jack decided, “…I’d kiss you, but I’m kind of hot to the touch without gloves right now.”
“That doesn't particularly intimidate me,” Simon pointed out, nodding towards the melted computer monitor in the console. “But we’re currently standing next to three walls of windows.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to interrupt the moment, but there’s already a swarm of EMT’s outside,” Jack informed him, glancing past Simon’s shoulder towards the firetrucks and ambulances that had managed to assemble. “It’s a good thing there are actually people here who need them, and not body bags…”
“...It’s not your fault,” Simon said before Jack could think anything differently.
“Of course it’s not my fault,” Jack practically spat towards the computer. “It’s whoever accidentally hypnotized me into supercharging this thing! I only know it’s an accident because if they had wanted to destroy this thing, they could have used me to blow it up right in the station.”
“You’d be an excellent supervillain. Think of all the nuclear-powered freshly-inaugurated New Urbem hover trains you could crash.” Simon decided he was somewhat okay with the amount of blood now lingering in the cut, and offered to let Jack hold the handkerchief to his own head.
“I’m sure there’s a high demand for train-crashing supervillains. You need them in every high-budget action movie, after all,” Jack joked, though his eyes were still glowing green as he looked at the demolished console.
They would have to completely replace it after Gazerbeam’s lasers had cut through it, and, unfortunately, that meant there wasn’t any real evidence to gleam from it about who might have hacked the train.
And, really, if you wanted to crash the train, why not hack the controls and send it off the rails? That would have been much more efficient than hypnotizing people into doing your dirty work for you.
It left a strange taste in Simon’s mouth as Jack pointed out, “Do we think they wanted to crash this train to kill people or make a statement?
“...I have no idea,” Simon admitted. “But I’ll ask the Deavors if they're aware of any supervillain active in New Urbem that might have targeted this event.
Jack scoffed, but had to admit, “That’s probably our safest bet for now.”
The melted door to the train car creaked open, causing both supers to jump as EMT’s started shouting reassurances form the other side.
Simon hauled Jack’s arm over his shoulder, signalling Jack to weakly fall against his side, pitifully hobbling along next to Gazerbeam as the EMT’s entered.
“We have people in here!”
“Are you okay, Chief Inspector?”
“Gazerbeam?!”
Gazerbeam’s voice was characteristically monotone and steady as the rescue crew came forward to help Jack out of the car. “He cut his head when the train stopped, but I can’t find any other obvious problems. But I would still check him for any kind of cranial injuries just to be safe.”
“Yes, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Jack insisted as two EMT’s escorted him onto the platform outside.
The third EMT was still staring at Gazerbeam like a kid who’d met Santa Claus for the first time. Which Simon expertly handled by politely waving at the man and hoping he would regain his sensibilities.
Jack seemed to sense the interaction, because just before he was taken away, he cast one more smug little smirk at Gazerbeam. “Thank goodness my hero swooped in just in time to save the day. Thank you, Gazerbeam~!”
Simon had to choke back a cough. Which just made him cough anyway. “Uh. You’re welcome, citizen. Gazerbeam is always here to help in a time of need.”
********
Thankfully, Jack answered the knock at his hotel door quickly. Otherwise, he might have found Simon passed out on the hall floor instead of patiently waiting for him on the other side.
“Hey, look who’s here. The Man of the Hour,” Jack announced, leaning against the doorframe.
Simon nodded once, barely acknowledging the statement, and stiltedly asked, “Can I come in?”
Jack’s cheerful smirk faltered for a moment, sensing something was wrong, before he pulled the hotel door all the way open. “Sure, Si.”
The taller man slumped into the room, exhaustion warring with his usual ramrod posture in a way that made his back straight, knees wobbly, and neck about as useful as a dead electric wire.
The sofa was both too far away and too close for Simon to aim for it, so he ended up half-sitting and half-falling on top of the cushions.
The TV was blaring one of Gazerbeam’s interviews from a few hours ago.
Simon wasn’t entirely sure which one, they were all asking him the same questions:
“Can you tell us about the runaway train?”
“How did you catch up to them?”
“What were you doing in New Urbem?”
“Was anyone hurt during the course of your rescue?”
“We see you’re wearing a new suit, care to comment?”
“Do you have any information about what caused this incident?”
“Those were some wild moves on that motorcycle, care to share some details about them?”
The entire time the sirens from the emergency vehicles were flashing in his face.
People kept grabbing his shoulder and tossing him between different news stations.
Helicopters were shining spotlights at the train to assess the damage.
Flashbulbs kept exploding on the other side of his visor.
Winston and Evelyn kept trying to talk to him through that helmet.
The helmet was too loud.
Everything was too loud.
Jack’s hand touched his arm. “Hey, you okay?”
Simon groaned and yanked his arm away, burying his fingers in the back of his eyes as his chest curled towards his knees.
Too many people.
Too bright.
Too loud.
Somewhere else on the sofa, Jack backed away a little bit. Not enough to seem like he was leaving, but enough that Simon felt like he had space to himself.
“...Do you need Gamma Jack to save you in a time of need?”
Simon nodded into his hands. Watching the red sparkles in his eyes from pressing on them so hard.
That wasn’t healthy.
People kept telling him that.
But it was something familiar.
It was something that felt right to do whenever everything else was too much.
The cushions on the other side of the couch eased as Jack pushed himself onto his feet. The sound of his socks shuffling on the floor faded into the bedroom.
He sorted through a suitcase for a moment before zipping it up again.
Simon was vaguely aware that Jack opened the bedroom door and was now back in the living room, where he turned off the blinding table lamp, before scooping up the remote control from the coffee table.
The TV volume miraculously turned down, easing itself into a bearable, hardly audible volume.
The needles pushing themselves into Simon’s ears pulled away, replaced by the rustling of pajamas on sofa cushions as Jack resumed his seat on the other side of the couch.
They just sat there for a while.
Neither of them kept track of how long, but it was enough for Jack to watch half a dozen of the same Gazerbeam interview on three different channels.
When Jack was starting on a seventh rewatch of that interview, Simon slowly allowed himself to pull his hands away from his face.
The world slowly translated back into visual sense, wiping away the red sparkles that bounced through Simon’s eyes.
Jack was lounging just a few feet away, his feet up on the coffee table, his arms draped over the back of the sofa. As if he could claim the entire couch for himself if he took up more of it than anyone else.
His own eyes had settled down, having turned back to the semi-natural teal now that the radiation had been dismissed back to…wherever it stayed when he wasn’t using it.
Apparently Gazerbeam had said something accidentally funny on the TV, because Jack’s grin was as smug and illuminating as ever while watching him.
Something about that grin made Simon scoot a bit closer and collapse against Jack’s shoulder.
Jack flinched in surprise, but that was quickly replaced with relieved amusement as Simon cuddled around his shoulders. “Hi.”
Simon murmured in response, eyes half open as he tried to catch up to the interview on TV. “Did I say something funny?”
“Yeah. You said, ‘Did I say something funny?’ after one of your freezing episodes before I got to ask how you’re doing,” Jack half-heartedly scolded him.
But he was already rearranging the two of them so he was propped up against the corner of the sofa and Simon had plenty of room to somewhat lie on top of him.
Jack took his legs off the coffee table and wrapped his arms around Simon’s shoulderblades, making sure both of them were thoroughly tangled together as the interview kept playing.
“Do you feel better?” Jack mumbled towards the ear that wasn’t pressed into his collarbone.
Simon shrugged, trying to feel at ease, and Jack’s proximity was helping, but a little bit of that freezing episode was still lingering.
Jack hummed in response, leaning his head against the back corner of the couch. “I like the new suit. Even though it looks like you’re bleeding everywhere.”
The new Gazerbeam suit that the Deavors had ordered for Simon was certainly…a departure from what he had been used to.
Gazerbeam was known for navy blues and blacks mixed with smokier or grey blues. And this suit was similar to that trademark. It was still mostly a navy blue jumpsuit with the same dark gloves and boots. It still had the same light blue “V” at the neck, and the matching underwear-style, uh, what would that be? An add-on? No, that made it seem like he was actually wearing underwear outside his outfit. A segment? That looked pretty much the same.
The real differences were the few patches of slightly lighter navy blue that had been sewn on places like the shoulders and the belt. Those were a nice addition.
But what Simon was somewhat conflicted about was the pattern of red lines that had been etched across the suit. Like someone had drawn the concept art with a red pen and then incorporated that into the actual outfit.
The idea had been to add some of the red of Gazerbeam’s visor into the rest of the outfit, which Simon could understand. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure if he liked it or not.
At least Jack said he did.
Because that meant Simon could truthfully say, without hurting anyone’s feelings:
“I don’t like the helmet,” Simon mumbled, curling his fists at just the reminder of how unforgivably loud everything had been. “The comms blared everything… They didn’t add the noise-cancelling…”
Maybe when they first met, Jack would have chuckled at that sort of thing bothering a man so clearly unshakable as Simon Paladino.
Someone who carried himself with a quiet authority that commanded a sort of respect that made him both entirely self-assured and entirely unconfident about himself at the same time. He was fully aware of his place in the world, as one of the many unknown faces in a crowd that you would never notice, and Simon was okay with that. It put a distance between him and the rest of the world, which could be entirely too loud and too bright and too socially demanding on its worst days.
But sometimes, that distance wasn’t just a preference.
Sometimes it was a need that made it impossible for him to feel capable of facing the world like anyone else.
Like any normal citizen.
That was a phrase Simon knew Jack hated more than “supremacist,” “megalomaniacal,” or even “picky.” “Normal citizen” was the curse Jack liked to spit whenever the NSA had reminded him about his new role in society after the ban.
A blindly obedient, stubbornly helpless, “normal citizen.”
Jackson Hart wasn’t able to be normal after he discovered he could cup radiation in his hands. He wasn’t going to pretend for the sake of making some government officials sleep at night.
But Simon Paladino had been struggling with this whole “normal citizen” thing even before laser started to shoot from his eyes.
At least with a superpower, there was something to identify. There was a concrete answer for what this was.
You can shoot lasers from your eyes? Well, you’re a super!
You go into shutdown when your senses get overstimulated? …We don’t know what that is!
Simon called them “freezing episodes,” when he had to pause the world for a moment to try and let his mind settle back into place. Jack, Bob, and Lucius all adopted it as well when they also couldn’t figure out what it was.
But it seemed like quieting everything down and dimming the lights was usually a good way to help Simon get through those periods when he couldn’t be present in the real world.
And Jack was a safe person when he was like that.
Ironic, really. The loudest, brightest, most affectionate person in their group was the best candidate when Simon couldn’t stand any of those.
“Maybe they’ll let you use your old helmet.” Jack’s fingers ran through Simon’s hair, smoothing the now messy waves back into place. “It’s not like they did much to change the design of this new one. They’ll probably let you get away with it.”
“Maybe,” Simon agreed, sighing into Jack’s shoulder as his hands seemed to soothe the tension that had been building in Simon’s skull. It gave Simon enough motivation to cheekily ask, “Did you see they gave me a new motorcycle?”
“I did,” Jack retorted, almost accusingly towards the Deavors.
A smirk tugged on Simon’s mouth as Jack’s eyes narrowed on the picture of the sleek, black bike. He glared at every blowing blue stripe like the bike was personally offending him, almost making Jack look like he was pouting.
“I’ve used a motorcycle for crime-fighting before,” Simon reminded him. If anything, just to watch the way Jack’s pouting lips sharpened into defiant annoyance. “And I still own it for civilian life.”
“Because a Harley-Davidson is a civilian motorcycle that you just happened to use for superhero work,” Jack pointed out, letting his hand rest against Simon’s chest.
Apparently Simon’s motorcycles were not making him worthy of any more head scratches.
Which Simon felt strangely offended by. “And this one is different?”
Jack slowly blinked at him. “Si. They strapped a rocket to the back of a motorcycle and gave it to you.”
“Yes.”
“With no consequences?”
“Why would there be consequences? I’m an excellent driver,” Simon joked.
He had an up-close eye roll from Jack as he reminded Simon, “You already almost killed me twice on your normal motorcycle. Now I’m going to be worrying that you’ll crash into a wall because you tried to launch yourself over a skyscraper.”
“I wouldn’t do anything as tall as a skyscraper,” Simon assured him. Though, that did make him start to consider just what could he jump over?
A car? Yes.
A truck? Yes.
A building? Yes.
Part of a mountain? Yes.
What was next?
“Don’y you dare,” Jack scolded him, hugging Simon’s chest even tighter so he could pull his boyfriend up to proper scolding levels with his eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t you dare.”
“What if I took you with me?” Simon offered. That made some green flashed in Jack’s eyes. “I could almost kill you a third time.”
Jack almost spat back another cautionary retort, but caught himself. Instead, he decided to just remind Simon, “You know, the last two times I agreed to a ride on that bike, I left burn marks in your jacket.”
“I lived. And so did you. And so did the jacket. I just own two jackets with your handprints permanently burned into the leather, which is an even trade for almost throwing you off a motorbike,” Simon told Jack. But since this was clearly agitating him, he offered, “If you’d like I could ask the Deavors to use the rocket for something else.”
“Oh?” Jack had to stop himself from laughing, but he was having trouble resisting as he asked, “Like what? Turn it into a jetpack? That would be safe…”
“I doubt it would be safe, but that way you can’t say I’m doing anything you wouldn’t,” Simon pointed out, twirling a finger to mimic Jack’s flying skills.
“Wow, using me as your standard of safety?” Jack guffawed, shaking his head in mocking disbelief. “I didn’t realize your standards had gotten so low.”
“Wouldn’t they be high?” Simon chuckled. And it made Jack smile, but clearly Simon needed to explain. “Because you fly. Which is high. So my standards would be high.”
“...You are such a dork,” Jack laughed, looking at Simon with such unabashed admiration.
Which made Simon smile hard enough that it hurt when Jack had to run his hands to move the blonde swoop of bangs out of his eyes.
Because Simon wanted to smile even more, but that wasn’t physically possible.
Jack was still laughing to himself as he looked into Simon’s crystalline, blue eyes. The only person who could do that without Simon worrying that we would hurt him. “I love you.”
Both of them felt their hearts sputter for a moment.
Or maybe that was just Simon’s as he pulled himself into an upright position, startling Jack as he very sternly asked, “What did you say?”
“I said ‘I love you,’” Jack repeated, mirroring Simon’s action and sitting up on the couch.
Simon had to divert his eyes from Jack’s before he actually did shoot them with his lasers. That only made his words seem so much more startled and gleeful as he agreed, “You did!”
“Haven’t I said that before?” Jack checked.
There was a fair amount of certainty in his voice, but Simon knew the truth.
“When we were in the hospital together, you said, ‘It’s possible I’m in love with you too,’ that’s not the same,” Simon told him, eyes drifting back to Jack so he could gently scoop up the blonde’s hands.
“What? Not the same as…” Jack teased the finale, like that would stop the red starting to slip onto his face, “‘I love you’?”
That same pink color was starting to make Simon’s cheeks feel warm as he pulled Jack flush to his chest. The younger man let out a startled, “Woah!” that was immediately cut off by Simon kissing him in the light of the TV in front of them.
Simon felt Jack’s eyelashes flutter closed against his cheek just before Jack’s hand grabbed the shoulder he had smacked in today’s harrowing adventure. It was just bruised, nothing serious, but the touch made him groan.
Jack didn’t realize that was from pain instead of pleasure, so he pressed himself deeper into Simon’s chest, until there was so little space neither of them had a choice but to tangle their arms together on the couch.
Simon found himself pressing Jack’s spine into the back of the sofa midway through refamiliarizing himself with every knick and groove of that mischievous grin. One hand was gripping the sofa’s frame while the other was desperately clutching Jack’s face like letting go would mean he vaporized into a happy daydream. His fingers traced the bottom edge of the white bandage on his temple, along the sharp corner of his jaw, gently caressing his cheek while Jack’s nails bit through Simon’s button-up shirt to find purchase in his skin.
Until one of Jack’s hands slowly made its way up the ridges of his spine, across his neck, and to the small collection of scars under Simon’s left eye.
Jack could look at those scars, the proof of their time on the island together, and trace his fingers along them like they had been carved by a sculptor.
Not like they were lacerated through Simon’s face by a rock as he was falling from the Omnidroid towards the cave that was supposed to be his final resting place.
Jack treated them with the same sort of reverence that he had treated the pus-filled, infected gashes on Simon's leg and in his stomach, never any disgust or disdain for what he had to do. If there ever was an unpleasant moment, it was never towards Simon, it was towards the people who had done this to him.
The touch was becoming familiar, but it still made Simon hesitate, having someone treat such obvious evidence of his greatest mistake with such sincere…love.
Simon’s hand resting against Jack’s wrist climbed all the way to where it was touching his face. His words were thick and labored, but filled with the sincerity that Jack had only ever recognized from him. “I’ve loved you for so long.”
“I know.” Jack’s smirk was still there. But it was filled with a small touch of sadness at the fact that he was now making up for lost time.
On the other hand, making up for lost time can be a wonderful thing to be sad about.
Simon let Jack pull him closer, the warmth from the radiation in his chest mingling with the steady beating of Simon’s heart. The TV continued to talk, but they were too distracted by keeping themselves as close to each other as physically possible before they could feel themselves even tempted by the idea of pulling away.
But, when they finally had to take a break for air, it was met with that sort of warm, fuzzy, comfortableness that lingered in the air between them regardless of the city or the living room, or the sofa that happened to be occupying the space around them.
It was the two of them.
‘The two of them.’
What a wonderful thing to be.
“We need to figure out what happened on the train today.”
It was such an abrupt change in tone that Jack needed a moment to process what he’d said. “Excuse me? You want to talk about that now?”
That seemed to go in through one ear and out the other as Simon watched his suit cam footage of when he had entered the first engine room. “Do you remember anything before you looked at the screen?”
Jack conceded that apparently cuddling on top of Simon’s chest was going to include talks about supervillains that night. “I couldn’t even tell you what the screen looked like, everything cut off after I double-checked that the engine wasn't about to explode.”
“Hm.” Simon’s thumb stroked the few exposed bumps of Jack’s spine from where his shirt had been pushed up to his stomach. Jack's skin was surprisingly soft to the touch for someone who frequented the gym so often, and the touch was making Jack a bit warmer than he realized. Which, in turn, just encouraged Simon to keep caressing his back. “Do you remember anything that happened while you were hypnotized?”
“I wouldn’t say, ‘hypnotized.’ When you’re hypnotized, I think you have to be a willing participant or it won’t work. This was more like mind-control,” Jack grumbled as Gazerbeam blew up the computer console. For a moment, it seemed like the pattern of black and white squares and circles would jog his memory, but he shook his head and settled the bandaged half of his head against Simon’s chest. “But I don’t remember anything distinct. There’s this vague feeling that someone was giving me instructions (probably to crash the train), but I think that’s obviously what was happening.”
“And the Deavors didn’t know any mind control supervillains in New Urbem,” Simon added, remembering the clear confusion on Winston’s face when Gazerbeam had asked about that after he’d escaped the swarm of interviews hunting him down. “So, a new villain, perhaps?”
“It could be. Or it could be something that the Deavors set up,” Jack reminded him.
“How would they have known I wanted to go to the opening ceremony?” Simon pointed out.
Unless they knew about him and Jack, so they anticipated Gazerbeam would want to see him.
…No, that was probably a stretch.
“I have no idea. But they are the only people who knew a superhero would be in New Urbem today,” Jack insisted, even if that was shaky evidence at best.
Most supervillains would probably prefer to not launch their terrorist plans if there was a superhero in town. That tended not to work out in the supervillain’s favor.
And Jack seemed to realize that, because he sighed and quickly followed up with, “Maybe when I look at that cost/benefits analysis a little more closely I’ll find something to give us more evidence for or against the Deavors.”
“I’ll see if they left any clues in the suit they gave me when I go back to my hotel room,” Simon pitched in, already mentally trying to dissect the box his suit had come in.
There hadn’t been anything remarkable about it other than the name “Galbaki” scrawled across the silver box, but maybe there was something more.
“We should probably tell the others about this too,” Jack added, but the seriousness in his tone was somewhat juxtaposed by the fact that his eyes were starting to get heavy while he was snuggling into Simon’s chest. “Just in case they feel like joining in on this adventure they got us into.”
“That’s only fair,” Simon agreed, converting from gently massaging Jack’s back to using his short nails to gently carve circles into his skin.
Every muscle in Jack’s body reflexively relaxed.
“Mm-hmm…” Jack barely managed to crack his eyes open to inform Simon, “But we’ll talk about this tomorrow, okay?”
“It technically is tomorrow,” Simon pointed out, nodding towards the clock on the wall that clearly indicated midnight had passed a long time ago.
“Shut up,” Jack muttered against his shirt, practically nuzzling his cheek against the muscles underneath. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Right there?” Simon chided him. “No. You snore.”
“I do not snore,” Jack adamantly argued. With all the practiced debating ability of a puppy that hadn’t slept in days. “Rude… I’ll just go to bed in my own room.”
Simon shook his head, wrapping both of his arms around Jack to give him a comforting squeeze before he would have to try and get him to bed.
At least they had gotten a little bit of their New Urbem vacation.
Hopefully, whenever this supervillain was out of the way, they could get back to what they had wanted to do.
And after the Deavor’s plan had been accomplished.
And after superheroes had been re-legalized.
There was already so much to do, and the two of lthem had only gotten a chance to be regular people for two months.
Then again…how normal were they, really?
“Also, Si, why does your ankle look as swollen as a watermelon?”