Chapter Text
Scott can’t remember who codenamed him Guardian, but it seems to have stuck. According to Gordon it was that or “Mother Hen” so probably he’s dodged a bullet there. He’s standing on top of some nameless office building in downtown Taipei with John, one hand around his younger brother’s ankle. Scott’s not sure why the height of the building has anything to do with it, but then, he’s not the family psychic.
No one’s ever quite figured out the floating either, but if John’s not in the present, then he’s probably at least three or four feet off the ground. He can’t seem to help it. His relationship with gravity occasionally gets a little bit tenuous. It’s something of a side-effect.
John’s communicator beeps in his wrist, but there’s no way John hears it; his eyes are blank and distant, indicating some impossible absence. He’s staring off into some hypothetical future, some emergency that’s going to surface, something he and the rest of his brothers need to be ready for. Scott adjusts his grip on John’s boot and the call reroutes to his own comm. “Halo’s incommunicado right now. What’s up Titan?”
Virgil tends to eschew codenames. He and Gordon are working a potential hydro dam failure out in Oregon, reported to IR and confirmed by John. “Hey, Scott. It’s, uh, it’s maybe nothing—probably, it’s nothing—but I’ve lost contact with Gordon. He’s been in the water system out here for about ten minutes with no check-in. He was working on reinforcing concrete fissures, but I haven’t heard anything since he started trying to regulate the pressure . I was gonna get John to see if he could get a bead on him, but if he’s busy—“
There’s a sudden shift of John’s weight against Scott’s hand. “Hold the line, Virg. He’s just about back, I’ll ask him.” And in a blink they’re back on the ground, just outside the building’s front doors. It’s not the twenty-eight storeys of height that it was, but John drops like a rock.
Even from only four or five feet, even if he’s expecting to fall, John still staggers when his feet hit the ground and Scott catches his arm until he’s been steadied. “Back?” he questions, as John shakes his head a few times to clear it, rubs at his eyes. “Anything to report?”
“It’s too early,” John answers, and his voice is curt, a little on edge. Scott knows better than to take it personally, knows that John’s just tired. “There’ll be something. Maybe in a week or so, something early in the day. It’ll be bad. I can’t tell what, except it’ll be…westward. West of the city. And it’ll be really bad. Something—hot? Bright. I don’t know. Maybe a fire.”
Scott nods. “We’ll make sure Gordon’s available, I guess. Uh, speaking of, Virgil called, about Gordon. He hasn’t been able to make contact with him, wanted to see if you could check in.” He adjusts his tone, still with a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, and gently, “Only if you’re up to it, John.”
John straightens, his spine stiffening slightly. “If Gordon’s in trouble, then I kind of have to be, don’t I?”
Scott sighs, but doesn’t say anything, just nods again and brings his comm up . “We’re on our way, Titan. Any word from Aquarian yet?”
“I’m supposed to be Cuttlefish, since you wouldn’t let me have Squidboy, but never mind.” It’s Gordon, not Virgil who answers, so that sorts that out. “I’m fine! Virg was just getting antsy because he’s trying to hold a damn hydro dam together, couldn’t give a guy a break to get some real work done—“
There’s an audible splash and a yell of protest and then Virgil’s back on the line, clearing his throat. “Yeah, ignore him. I think we’ve got the dam patched up, but there’s something you should take a look at anyway. Gordon found a…well, we don’t know what it is. Some sort of device, was at the base of the power plant. None of the engineers here seem to know what it is. We were hoping John could figure out where it came from, what it does. You wanna meet us here, or back at base?”
Scott doesn’t say so, but he wants to get John back home, away from the stress and bustle of a heavily populated area. Scott is, frequently, jealous of Alan, because Alan can fly at near super-sonic speeds and whowouldn’t want that? He occasionally wishes he could take a hit the way Virgil can, absorbing and redirecting energy of all types. Gordon—well. Scott can’t imagine anyone wanting what Gordon has, because the thought of being able to become completely aqueous makes Scott queasy, but Gordon’s never seemed to have a problem with it. Thrives on it, in fact. He doesn’t envy Gordon, but he understands him, at least.
Scott’s never envied John. With the way everybody relies on him and his eerie pseudo-prescience—sometimes Scott can’t understand how he copes. John’s the only member of the family who can’t turn his abilities off.
So the pre-dawn emptiness of the Taiwanese city isn’t empty, for John. It’s full of whispers and threads of potential, probabilities rippling and unfolding over and under and through each other, all these lives resonating together. And somewhere in the not too distant future, John can feel panic, terror, the looming possibility of pain and chaos and death.
In spite of this, it’s Scott he’s looking at, with a wan, knowing smile, acutely aware of his brother’s concern. There’s no way in the world he couldn’t be. “I’m fine, Scott. You worry too much.” John flicks his comm on and takes over. “We’ll be there soon, Virgil.”
Well. Of course he wouldn’t need to say it, in the company of the family psychic. “You say so, Johnny,” he agrees, and puts a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. In a blink they’re standing atop the Oregon hydro dam, and Gordon and Virgil are waving from the causeway down below the structure. “Let’s go see what we’re dealing with.”