Chapter Text
Slowly, then all at once
The dark clouds depart
And the damage is done
- Sleeping at Last, Sorrow
Sol System, Earth, SSV Normandy SR-2
The final moments of the Reaper War
It’s an information processing problem.
“All fleets!”
He just needs more time.
Joker tunes out the chaos behind him in the CIC, the tension in the cockpit around him. This far into the battle for Earth, there’s a lot of chaos. Crewmen running back and forth tracking Reaper movements, looking for targets. Adams shouting through the comm about heat generation. Traynor trying her level best to coordinate with the rest of the fleet. The recovered ground team crowding around his console, silent, watching. Waiting.
Tunes out isn’t exactly right. It’s more that he lets it wash over him, lets the noise and energy swirl together with the information on the lit panels in front of him, the feedback in the haptic nodes of his chair, a hurricane of input with him right at the center. Where he should be. Where he wants to be. He thrives in chaos, wears it like the hardsuit Alenko’s wearing in the co-pilot’s seat next to him.
Maybe better. Alenko’s hardsuit isn’t looking so great.
“The Crucible is armed.”
His hands fly over the haptic panels, searching for a solution. He can do this. Joker‘s the best pilot in the Alliance, full stop. This isn’t bravado. It’s fact. Highest scores on the entrance aptitude test of anyone in his class by an order of magnitude. First recruit to actually solve the Jakarta simulation—before he was officially a cadet, to boot. Stole a damned prototype stealth ship out from under his superiors’ noses, twice, and oh yeah took the first-ever killshot on a Reaper in the middle of a literal warzone without getting hit once.
Okay, sure, maybe there’s a little bit of bravado. But he’s earned it. Flying a frigate like the Normandy isn’t something everyone can do. Hell, it’s not something anyone can do. Just him.
He’s earned it.
With every broken bone, every sideways glance, every “fuck you just watch me do it,” he’s earned it. Because he’s clever. He’s perceptive.
He’s fast.
“Disengage and head to the rendezvous point.”
Someone grips his shoulder roughly, and he shakes them off. Don’t they know he’s in his element? Finding solutions to problems no one else can? There's always a way. They just need to stop bothering him and give him a moment. He can figure this out. Flying isn’t about strength or toughness or whatever it is the marines onboard are always hoo-rah!-ing about. It’s about speed—speed of thought. And Joker is, by a mile, the fastest thinker on the ship.
The thing about flying a ship like the Normandy is that you’ve gotta be thinking about a million little things at any given moment. You have to be able to take information, process it, and act on it in a split second. And that information changes all the time, so you have to constantly be processing. Because if you don’t? People die. Like they did on the SR-1.
Like he did on the SR-1.
What’s more, this is Joker’s responsibility now. It has to be him. He knows what his job is, and he’s not going to fuck it up again. He can do this. He just needs more time.
“I repeat: disengage and get the hell out of here!”
He’s not leaving without Shepard.
How could he?