Work Text:
Seattle, 2042
When Behrad first meets the Legends, he’s high as a kite and running for his life.
What happened was this: he’s spent three years at business school learning absolutely nothing, because he doesn’t go to class, because nobody goes to class, because nobody cares . Instead, he goes to parties in the evening, gets high with all of his friends, but not drunk, and then sleeps from four in the morning ‘til noon, and lies about it to his parents-- just like everyone else he’s met here. Here, nobody cares who he is-- and more importantly, who his sister is. They only care if he’s going to pass the joint to them or not.
Tonight, though, is a little different. There’s a girl he’s never seen before, all long and dark and clad in tight leather clothes, but that’s not what’s different about tonight. He’s already a little fuzzy from the high when she practically crawls into his lap and plucks the joint out of his hands.
“Hi.” He introduces himself dumbly, as she passes his joint off to someone else on the couch. “Nice to meet you. I’m Behrad.”
“Hi Behrad,” she smirks, then leans forward, and tilts her head to the side to whisper into his ear, “I’m Kuasa.”
---
It had seemed like such a good idea at the time: fetching the family heirloom to show it off to this gorgeous woman-- whose name he’s already forgotten. He’d been rambling about anything and everything, and she asked about his family, and then he started talking about that weird old necklace that’s been in the Tarazi family for generations, which had sat proudly on his parents’ mantle until a few weeks ago, when he’d stolen it on a dare while his parents were visiting family overseas, and hadn’t had the chance to go put it back yet. What he didn’t know then was that he’d regret it, now, big time .
“I want to see it,” the woman had said earlier, one elegant hand splayed against Behrad’s chest. And he just grinned stupidly and told her, “Okay. Wait here. I’ll go get it,” and promptly left her at the party to run back to his dorm to get it.
By the time he’d gotten back outside, necklace clasped messily around his neck, and stupid grin still plastered on his face, he was so high that for a moment, he didn’t question why there was a puddle of water at the end of the driveway when it hadn’t rained in two weeks, and very nearly didn’t question it when the puddle shimmered in the moonlight as it rose up in the air and turned into the very beautiful woman from earlier.
Yeah, it had seemed like a really good idea, when she was in his lap and he was all warm and surrounded by the haze of smoke and the chatter of the other partygoers.
Now, a little more lucid from the cold night air, he sees the menacing look in her eyes and the way she’s stalking towards him, and he has enough sense to run .
He keeps running through the dimly lit streets, until four figures block his path-- a woman in white leather, hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, two men in armor-like costume, and a burly, unfriendly-looking bald man with a strange gun.
“Behrad Tarazi?” The woman asks.
“Hey,” He comes to a stop, catching his breath. “You guys might wanna run. There’s this uh-- there’s a crazy lady chasing me and she used to be a puddle-- wait, how do you know my name?”
“A puddle?” One of them asks. Behrad shakes himself off, then looks over his shoulder-- no crazy lady in sight.
“This super hot chick-- she was all over me at this party, and then she came out of a puddle, and she wants my necklace.” Behrad presses a finger to the bulky pendant, and suddenly there’s a rush of energy that flows through his body. The haze of his earlier activities falls away and he feels more alert than ever, and he realizes with a glance downward that his feet are no longer touching the ground. “Wh-- oh my god, what ?!”
“Whoa, there!” Two armored hands find his upper arms to steady him from behind, and he turns to see one of the costumed men, steadying him in midair. “You okay, buddy?”
He’s flying. Flying . Behrad’s mouth drops open, but no words come out. The man steadying him only grins brightly through his tinted visor.
“Ray!” The woman in white yells. “Quit making friends and get him back to the ship!”
“Ship?!” Behrad yelps, before he’s being whisked away through the air. “What ship?”
---
“Okay, hold on, I need a sec to process.” Behrad holds one hand up. He’s currently standing inside of a spaceship , and he’d believe this was all a weird dream if he hadn’t already pinched himself several times. “First of all, this ship? Sick . But more importantly: why does this lady want this necklace, and how did it make me fly ?”
“We don’t know,” says the ship’s captain-- Sara, the woman in white, “But we do know that she’s not supposed to be here, and that she’s willing to kill you for it. Before she came to you, she stopped by your parents’ house. They’re lucky they weren’t home.”
Behrad must look spooked, because she offers a reassuring hand on his shoulder and looks him in the eye. “We’re not going to let anything happen.”
“Right.” The youngest-looking guy-- Jax , Ray had introduced him as-- says, leaning over the console in the center of the room. “So, why don’t we start with anything you know about that rock around your neck.”
“What is he doing here?” A nervous-looking man in a suit emerges from a doorway behind where Sara is now pacing back and forth.
“Water woman was trying to kill him, so we’re, um, protecting him.” Ray explains. Suit-guy’s eyes bug out, and he walks stiffly over to stand between Behrad and the console.
“No, no, this is technology you are not allowed to see. Civilians are not allowed to know about time travel!” Over the guy’s shoulder, Behrad can see Sara sigh and bury her face in her hands, while Jax rolls his eyes.
“Whoa… you guys are
time travelers
?” Behrad gapes. “That’s
awesome
.”
“Nice one, Gary.”
Gary winces. “Okay, that’s on me. B-but still, our job is to prevent the anachronism, which means capturing the assassin, not the target.” He gestures at Behrad.
“You guys are
time traveling superheroes
?!”
“Yeah!” Ray grins. “We’ve actually saved the world twice, so far. Not that we’re counting.”
“For once, Gary’s right.” Sara turns to Behrad. “We need your help to catch her, and to figure out why she wants that necklace so badly.”
“Me?” Behrad points both thumbs towards himself. “You guys are literal superheroes. How am I supposed to help?”
“You’re bait.” A gruff voice sounds from across the room. Behrad peeks around Sara and sees the bald guy lying on the ground, holding a beer bottle.
“ But , you’ll be perfectly safe.” Ray promises, and that shouldn’t make him feel better, but it kind of does. The guy’s got the kind of infectious positive energy that Behrad can appreciate.
“Okay, I’ll help you.” He agrees, probably more easily than he should. “But when this is over, you take me back to my parents’ house and I put this thing back, and we forget this all happened.”
“What, really?” Jax looks surprised. “Just like that? You don’t want to use our future tech for personal gain, or look up what happens in your future?”
“Nah.” Behrad admits easily. “Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Alright, then.” Sara rubs her hands together. “Here’s the plan.”
---
They put him in a deserted warehouse to wait for the water woman to show up. The rest of the team, according to Ray, who’s keeping him company, is currently wrangling another teammate-- Nate, Ray’s best bro on the ship, and the other guy from the street last night-- into his quarters, because he drank some weird psychedelic tea.
“Sounds like my kind of guy.” Behrad laughs. “Actually, you all seem pretty cool. Just sucks that I only met you guys because some lady is trying to kill me.”
“Yeah, Nate’s the best. And you’re not so bad, yourself. Most people would jump at the chance to change something in their past, or look at the future stock market to get rich, or something, but you? Didn’t even consider it for a second.”
“I guess I don’t have anything I want to fix that badly. I like my life-- I mean, it’s not perfect , but it’s not bad, either. And besides, I’ve seen enough TV to know that messing with time doesn’t end well.”
“Huh, television’s still around in 2042? Cool.” Ray laughs. “Speaking of messing with time, you should really hear about some of the adventures we’ve had. There was this one time--”
Before Ray can continue with his story, they hear the sound of gurgling water and turn towards the doorway to where the water woman has materialized.
“Sara, the water woman just showed up, and she looks preeeetty grumpy. Like, ‘kill anyone who gets in her way’ grumpy.” Ray reports. The woman stalks towards them slowly, and the rest of Ray’s team isn’t here yet. “Uhh, Sara, I need backup. Sara? Where are you guys?”
Behrad shifts so that Ray is between him and the woman. Sure, it’s a little cowardly, but Behrad has literally never fought anyone before in his life , and he figures that Ray knows what he’s doing. Ray raises his arm and there’s a high pitched whining sound before a blast of light bursts out from his gauntlet. It hits the woman, and she explodes in a splash of water.
“Whoa.” Behrad gasps. “That was awesome .”
“Huh. That was easier than I thought it’d be.” Ray says, and then water floats up into the shape of the woman, behind Ray and right in front of Behrad.
The woman takes Ray down to his knees in just a few painful-sounding hits and crouches to rip his helmet off as Behrad scrambles backwards. One of her hands turns into water and Behrad watches in horror as she brings it to Ray’s face and begins to drown him.
“Whoa, whoa, lady. Hold on, hold on a sec.” He fishes the necklace out from underneath his shirt. “This is what you’re after, right?”
The woman smirks, then retracts her hand and drops Ray, standing back up again.
“So you do have it.” She says, stalking forward again as Ray gasps for air on the ground behind her. “But are you capable of using it?”
“Kind of?” Behrad backs away slowly. “I mean, I don’t really know how it works, but--”
“I can give you anything you want. Money. Fame. Power. You said it yourself, you have no idea how to control its power. I can help you. I can free you from this burden.”
“No thanks.” He laughs nervously, still backing away. “I’m good. I’ve seen what money and fame do to people. Trust me. Not interested.”
She narrows her eyes, then moves to strike, and Behrad presses a hand to the necklace again, just like he did before, and swings the other arm out in front of him, and a gust of wind blows with it, scattering the tendrils of water the woman has conjured.
“C’mon, man, we gotta go.” Behrad turns away and grabs Ray’s arm, helping him stand back up. They barely make it out the back door before the woman emerges in a splash in front of them, again. “Uhh, Ray? Weren’t your friends supposed to be coming to rescue us?”
“You had your chance. I was willing to let you live. But now, I have to kill you.”
“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that!” Jax yells, coming up from behind Behrad and Ray. He’s accompanied by the big bald guy, gun in hand, and a beautiful woman who Behrad hadn’t met on the ship earlier, wearing a bulky statement necklace.
“You think you can stop me?”
The woman wearing the necklace steps forward in front of Behrad, and when the water woman summons more streams of water and thrusts them in their direction, a shimmering blue light appears between them, dispelling the water harmlessly. Then, the ghostly form of an elephant surrounds her, and with a trumpeting noise, she sends the water woman flying.
“Stay down. I could do this all day.” She says.
“I could kill you.” The water woman smirks, pulling something from her pocket. “But I’d just be killing myself.” And then there’s a surge of golden light, and she’s gone.
---
They take Behrad back to his parents’ house, as promised. He’s already taken the necklace off, ready to put it back in its place before his parents even notice that it’s gone.
“Thanks for saving me back there.” Behrad says to the bald guy, Mick.
“Whatever.” Mick replies, pocketing some of his Maman’s nice silverware.
“Dude, not cool! Put that back!” He swats at Mick’s hand and receives a menacing growl in response. He raises his hands in surrender, looking away. Maybe she won’t notice it’s gone.
“Wait!” It’s Amaya, the woman with the big necklace, opening the front door and jogging in towards them. “It’s not safe for you here. There’s no reason to suggest that sorceress won’t return for you. Even if you leave that here, she might go after your parents, instead.”
“They’d be in danger.” Behrad realizes.
“Right. That amulet? It’s not an amulet. It’s a totem, like mine.” She gestures towards her own necklace. “We’re bound together, somehow. In a way that I have yet to understand.” Behrad raises an eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes. “Not like that . Come with us.”
“Come with you?”
“Totems-- they guide us, in strange ways. What if yours guided you to us?”
“What would you rather do,” Mick grumbles, pocketing more of his Maman’s things. “Sit around getting high at college parties, or do something really stupid, like time travel?”
“I mean, you guys are superheroes. I’m just-- this isn’t even mine , I stole it from my parents on a dare .”
“So what? I steal stuff all the time.” Mick claps one huge, heavy hand on Behrad’s shoulder. “You’ll fit right in.”
“Well?” Amaya offers her hand. “What do you say?”
If he puts the totem back, his parents will be in danger. If he keeps it, but stays here, she’ll come after him again. But if he joins the Legends, travels through time with them, and maybe even helps them stop the water woman… Well, if he’s gonna have to leave either way, he might as well go on an adventure while he’s at it.
“Okay, yeah. I’m in.”