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It’s while he’s in the middle of cleaning charred tissue out of a deep gouge in Shatterstar’s back that Ric decides something has to give.
For the past two weeks they’ve both been pretending they never took that job that put them in the offshoot universe where they ran into the other Shatterstar. Just Shatterstar, by himself. Years older, hard-eyed, and alone. He’d still had his long hair, and Kate and America had barely recognized him. Even Rictor had to do a double-take. There was a kind of cruelty in the set of his mouth that made him unfamiliar despite the countless nights Ric had spent memorizing the exact curve of those lips, the straight line of the handsome nose and brow.
After that, ‘Star - their ‘Star, Ric’s ‘Star - had gotten more and more unpredictable in battle, throwing himself in the way of laser fire and attacking head first when there were at least a handful of strategies less likely to get him killed. A half dozen situations that didn’t need to get violent had ended in chaos and fighting, thanks to ‘Star drawing first. When a Shi’ar mercenary grazed Rictor with a passing shot last week, Shatterstar flew into a rage and hacked her practically in two before Kate and America pulled him away.
Now he’s hunched over with his back to Ric, bleeding sluggishly from the place where he took a superheated energy blast to the ribs, and avoiding anything but brief, surly eye contact with anybody. His collapsed lung already healed; all that’s left is surface damage, as far as Ric can tell.
But it isn’t the wound he’s concerned about.
“Are we gonna talk about it?” Ric asks gruffly, not because he wants to - talking about it is the absolute last thing he wants - but because he can’t deal with ‘Star going around getting himself shot up constantly. Kate and America are starting to lose patience with his whole berserker rage thing, too. They're supposed to be taking non-lethal action. They're supposed to be a team, who can rely on each other not to fly off the handle with no warning.
“There is nothing to talk about.”
It’d be easier to deal with, Ric thinks, if he’d just been dead in that offshoot reality. Almost anything would’ve been easier than the blank look of nonrecognition in the other Shatterstar’s eyes as he looked Ric up and down, absent of all the things they’d meant to each other, everything that knowing each other had changed.
He sighs, and scoots around so he’s facing ‘Star, palms resting on the other man’s knees.
“You’ve been reckless, man. Well, more reckless than usual, anyway. You can’t keep doing crap like this.”
“Julio, I am fine.”
The words come out strained. Ric recognizes the look in ‘Star’s eyes immediately - he’s worn it often enough himself. Like a wild animal caught in a trap, so desperate to avoid talking that he’d rather chew off his own leg than have this dragged out in the open where he’ll have to face it.
Or, worse, show it to somebody else.
Ric gives Shatterstar’s knee a gentle squeeze and smiles bitterly. “I hate to say this, ‘Star, but you’re starting to sound like me.”
The door on the other side of the tiny medlab hisses open, and America’s head of wild curls appears. She takes in the unfolding scene, tension strung like piano wire between them, their tightly-wound body language. Raises her eyebrows pointedly, and says, “Okay, never mind. You two figure it out. I’m gonna come back later.” Then the door makes its hydraulic hiss again and she’s gone.
It’s like something in the atmosphere of the room has been punctured. The pressure lets off a little, inexplicably. Ric has to resist the nervous urge to laugh. There’s no privacy on a ship with less square footage than a shoebox apartment in the Bronx, and never has been, but sometimes that’s good. Maybe they would have run in circles around this thing, too careful and afraid of its destructive potential to square up about it, if it weren’t for the reminder that it’s not just the two of them alone in space with their own problems.
Shatterstar’s stopped hunching his shoulders, like he felt the mood break, too. He’s still looking away with his mouth set in a hard line, but after a long moment he mutters,
“Is that really what I would have become if I hadn’t met you?”
It’s a tough question.Hard to answer, and maybe harder to think about honestly. Ric remembers how ‘Star was when they were first introduced: savage violence barely contained, his arena warrior’s code the only thing he believed in and almost as vicious as ‘Star himself. But he doesn’t know if he’s the one who brought about the change, or if something was already changing, deep inside his friend.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, because there’s no point in lying, and besides, ‘Star deserves better. “A lotta other stuff happened to him. Anything could have made him turn out like that.”
They never talked about where that universe’s Rictor might have been. Both of them know the answer: that without Shatterstar, there’s only one place he could be.
‘Star nods, his face still sober. “And any of those things could happen to me. If they did, would it warp me in the same way?” He looks so torn by the prospect that it makes Ric’s chest ache. “I need to know who I am, Julio. What I am. What I’m capable of being. Seeing what I am without you - it unsettled me.”
“Hey.” One hand reaches up to grip ‘Star’s shoulder. “I know what you are, sí? I know you. You’d never end up like that.”
“But I did. You saw it.”
“No, ‘Star. What I saw was another guy who lived a completely different life. He’s not you, you’re not him, that's it.”
It’s what Ric wants to believe. That the isolation and coldness they’d seen in the other Shatterstar was something that happened to him, not something he chose for himself, in the absence of Rictor’s warming influence. But it’s hard to know, isn’t it? ‘Star sure doesn’t look convinced.
“I’m afraid,” he says quietly, “that that’s what I really am.” He looks up finally, his pale eyes intense. “Have I been lying to myself?”
Ric tries not to hesitate when he answers. “No way. The fact that you’re so freaked out about this - that says it all, right? You care about people, about a lot more than just fighting. You’ve got a life of your own, ‘Star, and you’re the one who chose it. That’s who you are.”
For a few long, heavy seconds, Shatterstar doesn’t say anything. He looks like he wants to be convinced, but can’t let go of the doubts gnawing at him. Then he says, “I sometimes feel like I’m only borrowing a life I learned about from you.”
‘Star is hard to deal with when he’s introspective. Ric wishes he’d spent more time going over this conversation in his head, that he had some kind of argument ready, but he’s drawing a blank. The only thing he can come up with is but I love you, and that’s not going to quiet anybody’s existential fears. He knows what kind of person Shatterstar is, that he’s not the kind of man who’d turn himself into nothing but a weapon, living only for the moments of flowing blood and snapping bone and shutting himself off in between.
But he also knows that the potential was there, not as long ago as he’d like for it to feel, and he knows better than anybody that it’s hard to fight where you come from. To believe that you can ever really change.
“Listen to me,” he says slowly, taking Shatterstar’s face in both his hands. It’s the same familiar, square jaw with its faint hint of stubble, and Rictor wants to kiss him furiously and shout, how could you ever think you could be anything but good? Instead he shakes his head and says, “I don’t know what you’d be like if we never met. Maybe you’d be happy slicing people up 24/7, or maybe you’d find something else to ground you - ”
“Julio - “ ‘Star interrupts, making a disapproving noise.
“No, listen. Maybe you’d have turned out just like you are, all on your own. I don’t know what could’ve happened, but I know what did. You came here and you learned about dumb shit like Beverly Hills 90210 marathons and you got a terrible sense of humor and one time you decided to give all your money to that fundraiser for school supplies for kids, and I’ve seen you break up fights because you thought it was wrong, not because it looked like fun. You can be an asshole and you can be thoughtful, and you like to help people, and sometimes I've even seen you be gentle. And none of that’s got anything to do with me. It’s all you, man.”
“You believe that,” Shatterstar says carefully, once Ric’s finished and is scrubbing a hand through his hair like he’s embarrassed to have said all of that. Reassuring people isn’t his strong point. ‘Star’s eyes are still equally intense, but now he looks hopeful. “That those are things I would have chosen anyway.”
A wry smile tugs at Rictor’s mouth. “Well, yeah. I didn’t teach you how to be a person, ‘Star. You’d have turned out pretty different if you were using me for an example.”
“I like the kind of person you are.”
Well, that makes one of us, Ric thinks. What he says is: “And you’re sort of in a category of your own, corazón. I like you that way, too.”
“...I will try not to worry about it,” promises Shatterstar, a little reluctantly. He lays a hand over Ric’s. “What happens in other universes stays in other universes?”
“Sí.” Ric laughs and shakes his head. “Algo así.”
When ‘Star kisses him, it still feels a little wounded, like he’s seeking refuge from things words can’t quite fight off. But Ric is happy to be that refuge, happy to back up his words with a warm hand wrapped around the back of ‘Star’s neck and an open, honest mouth. He knows neither of them will ever manage to forget the look in that other Shatterstar’s eyes, or the sick, clammy feeling it hollowed out in their chests, probably. But they can bury their fears in each other, in the fact that here, in this life, they’re together.
For now, that’s enough.