Archive of Our Own

“heh. well, it can’t be worse than the prison slop,” jay says, picking at the ‘dinner’ cole made.

a sharp kick connects with his shin. jay opens his mouth in outrage, intending to cry out, but he catches the look nya sends him. the other ninja stare at him in various expressions of puzzlement.

“when did you have prison food?” cole finally asks, looking torn between feeling worried for his friend and indignant at the comparison.

jay mentally reviews his words, blanching.

oh.

“i mean, cole’s cooking is bad enough to make criminals reconsider their life choices,” he backpedals. the earth ninja mock (mock?) glares at him, but the rest of the ninja laugh and go back to sliding their meal around their plates.

jay breathes again, sitting back. heh. crisis averted. good work, jay.

he misses the way that lloyd’s eyes linger on him.

or:

a spider drops down in front of him. he doesn’t quite remember what happens next, but suddenly he’s five feet away from the offending creature and screaming like his life depends on it.

nya winces. she seems calm as she backs away, but jay can feel her shaking hands as they take his between them.

“it’s okay,” she says. “it’s a non-venomous one, see?”

“pfft. are you guys seriously afraid of a little spider?” kai scoffs. he bats the arachnid away. jay shudders.

“it startled me, okay?” he puts on a brave face. “spiders are creepy, kai!”

“whatever you say, jay.”

oh, and there was that one time with the fusion dragon.

it’s early morning, and jay sneaks out of his shared bedroom. nya waits on the deck. she’s drawing the water out of the air, twisting it into shapes before letting it fall away.

“you ready?” he asks.

she nods. “let’s do this.”

they take a step back. jay draws on the lightning coursing through his veins. the airjitzu bubble forms; he shoots up into the air.

he keeps his eyes open. he flies as high as he can. he watches her and she watches him, and when they lock eyes, the time is right.

he stops.

he lets go.

he falls.

he falls, and she catches him. the ground races up, but he only has eyes for her. there’s a roaring in his ears. streams of water dance in his vision. something like a spark passes between them.

then a dragon rears its head, and all his fears are washed away in a flood of love and peace and security.

“dangit.”

jay looks where nya points. “oh, come on!” he cries.

nya urges them into a dive. the dragon evaporates above the deck, and they drop and tuck and roll to a stop right at their teammates’ feet.

“what. was. that.”

jay gets up and brushes himself off.

“jay and i were curious to see if our elemental dragons could combine like the ultra dragon,” nya says. “and it looks like we were right!”

“what were you thinking, stopping your airjitzu like that when you’re that high?” kai demands. “you just learned how to do that! you could have gotten yourself killed!”

jay flinches. he grabs onto nya’s hand, who’s suddenly stiff as a board.

“don’t talk to me like that!” she says. “i know what i’m doing, kai. i don’t need you trying to mother-hen me!”

she glares at him before storming away. jay mutters some excuse before hurrying after her. kai gives him angry glowers the rest of the week, but the matter seems to fade from memory as the others begin their own experiments with their dragons.

but jay knows he messed up this time.

lloyd says: “ugh, i wish the paparazzi would stop publicizing us.”

jay snaps: “for the love of all that is good and pure in this world, stop wishing!”

in hindsight, he probably overreacted.

lloyd blinks. “what?”

jay shares a look with nya. zane, darn that nindroid, catches it.

“jay, is something upsetting to you?”

“there’s nothing!” jay says.

“nothing’s wrong with anything!” nya echoes.

cole rolls his eyes. “ya-huh. you two have been acting jumpy ever since we got back from stixx. i’m fed up with pretending i know nothing about it.”

“nothing about what?” jay asks. he fixes a grin on his face. it feels more like a grimace. “i have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“no, i want to know too.” kai leans forward in his seat.” “there’s something weird going on between the two of you.”

jay looks to nya again. then he makes his decision.

“do you guys remember how we were supposed to go to stixx, but then the paps caught us?”

kai frowns. “yeah. nya suddenly knew airjitzu and then you made out on live television.” jay winces at his dry stare.

“well, that’s not actually how it went.”

and so the story spills out. jay starts at the beginning- how clouse had been after a magical teapot that contained a djinn, how said djinn escaped and started tearing the world apart, how he would trick you into wishing yourself away.

nya added her own commentary, butting in to fill the gaps in jay’s knowledge and sometimes taking over when she felt his memories weren’t correct.

“hold on- so we sent you down to face a super deadly spider alone?”

jay rubs the back of his neck. “well to be fair, i was being a kinda jerk.”

nya snorts. “you deliberately withheld information from us just so you could try and ‘win’ my affections.”

“okay, so a really big jerk.”

cole nods, probably remembering the spider incident from a few weeks prior.

“so did nadakhan actually kill your birth dad, or did he just send the mailman to you at that very second?”

they talk late into the night. zane can’t believe that he was the second one to be captured, and lloyd threatens to break the table when nya tells him of his mother’s treatment. kai has to take a break when jay gets to the part with the tiger widow venom, and when he comes back, his face is still red from crying. nya sits with him, and the two retreat to her bedroom afterwards.

when the tale is done, jay actually feels relieved. everything is out now. there’s no secrets anymore, no need for late night meetings, no fear of the others thinking he’s gone crazy and retiring him from the team.

there’s nothing to fear, he realizes. he doesn’t have to worry about any slip-ups now, no matter if they’re big or small.

and honestly? that feels amazing.