Wu decided centuries ago that he’d follow his brother through hell and high water—and it must be some kind of cruel irony that both times he could have, he refused to.
‘Not cruel irony,’ he corrects, a sharp blade sundering his memories. ‘Just cowardice.’
He remembers, as though it happened recently, a familiar tremble beginning in the deepest part of his body, terror rattling around the inside of his lungs, and a crystallized breath lodged in his throat. Dark clouds rumbled and gathered in the sky and Wu watched, eyes burning like fire, as his brother teetered at the edge of the world. He should just know better at this point, should keep his father’s teachings about love and goodness tucked closer to his heart. But he hasn’t.
Every time, this happens. The world will present him with a challenge designed to break his family a little more. Every time, he hides behind someone else, and they ultimately pay the price for it.
He called it pride when he gathered his ninja together and sent them scrambling around Ninjago to collect the weapons he hid. He called it pride when they struggled through every lesson, hauled themselves through every trial into peak physical condition, overcame the fear in their hearts in order to summon the purest form of their elemental powers. He is proud of them. But he regrets. He regrets so much because he was content to hide behind them while they walked out on the shattered remains of his family and inevitably cut themselves open trying to help him piece it back together.
Nya, who’s strong and powerful and learned the hard way just what his brother was capable of from the very beginning.
Kai, who’d quickly come to learn and loathe Garmadon for it.
Lloyd…
Wu takes a deep breath, letting the reminder of agony flow through him as he always had. His eyes subconsciously find his nephew’s blond head of hair as the ninja fuss over him and usher him into the monastery. Their voices come in low, concerned tones before fading altogether. Alive, alive, Lloyd’s alive—that’s Wu’s chosen set of words as he keeps his attention on the door for far too long.
He has the most regrets about Lloyd. It’s hard not to when he’s so bright, so vibrant, and the only good thing to ever come out of their family.
Everyone else had their innocence snuffed so early on in life but Lloyd still holds onto a golden vein of goodness and an endless reservoir of love for a world that has so much wrong with it. In return, that world had taken more from him than any child ever deserved. It hurt him.
‘No more,’ Wu thinks, watching as a shadow slips away from the destruction caused by the Oni and out the monastery doors. Wu has stood by for so long, watched the people he loves get hurt for so long, and he won’t abide by it anymore. He takes chase as quickly as his weary bones allow, hops over rubble and through the doors, skirting around the highest step.
“Garmadon.” The name escapes his mouth before he can pull it back. A bolt of shock spirals through him, dizzying and violent.
His brother freezes halfway down the stairs. Soft waves of hair fall to his shoulders. When he turns, the sunrise soaks his skin in a warm, golden glow. His eyes, faded from witnessing centuries of war and strife, widen in a way that’s eerily similar to his son. Wu feels as though, for a moment, he’s catching his young nephew stealing Zane’s white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from the kitchen again. There’s no trace of the callous oni that wreaked havoc on Ninjago. His brother, a version of his brother that looks smaller than Wu’s ever seen him, stands barefoot on the mountainside, weathering the cold as it rolls across the steps.
“Wu,” Garmadon rasps, voice made harsh from so much growling.
A deep, startled sensation balloons in Wu’s chest as he continues to stare, mouth agape as he desperately searches for the words. He looks at his brother instead and finds, with a pang in his heart, that he has so little to protect him from the elements. A t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and an all-too-familiar jacket tied around his waist. Wu would recognize the outfit anywhere just as he’d recognize the robes his nephew tore through Stix in trying to take down Morro.
Garmadon must notice the way his eyes rove him because he immediately unties the jacket and thrusts it toward him.
“Give this back to Lloyd for me,” he says.
Wu can find nothing to say. A numb buzzing starts in his fingers as he unwraps them from his staff and reaches out toward the bundle of green fabric, its golden highlights shimmering in the sun. The soft material slides against his skin as he touches it. His gaze slips from the jacket to his brother’s face where a wet sheen glistens in his eyes and the smile pulling at his lips is too forced to be anything other than pained.
He should let Garmadon go.
Through the sudden swell of warring emotions rising up within him, he knows in the center of it all, the most reasonable thing he can do is let his brother cut himself out of their family. With him gone, everyone Wu loves can begin to heal.
Misako can breathe easy. She’ll no doubt cope with her loneliness by fleeing to far corners and burying herself in mountains of research but maybe this time she’ll be comfortable putting down roots.
Lloyd will continue to fight his way out of his nightmares, hesitate at the sight of anything that once belonged to his father, but he’ll have his siblings to ground him, coax him out of dark places, keep him steady in the late nights where he can do nothing but curl up against them and cry again.
Wu will keep on the same way he always has. He’ll meditate, train, teach. He’ll let time solve his problems.
Where Garmadon goes? What he does? That’ll be none of Wu’s business.
But selfishly, his heart wages a battle. He wants his brother in his life. He wants Misako to smile at the thought of Garmadon again, he wants Lloyd to feel comfortable going to him for anything.
And, Wu thinks to himself. 'No more, means no more.’
He said he wouldn’t tolerate this again. Twice he let his brother go, watched as it caused suffering in his family. If now was ever a time to quit breaking promises, to follow through on what he told himself when he was a child, then it would be now.
Letting gentleness fuel his actions, Wu shoves the jacket back into Garmadon’s hold.
“Give it back to him yourself,” Wu replies.
Garmadon stumbles down a step, gripping at the jacket as if terrified of dropping a most precious treasure. He shoots Wu a glance, turning a shade of pale at the thought of having to face Lloyd again. He gapes, unable to grasp at words that just won’t come.
“Come home,” Wu continues. “Be apart of our family again.”
‘We’ll find a way to make it work. We always have. Our broken family deserves better. It deserves to have you in it.’
Wu doesn’t say it. He thinks about it, wants it with every ounce of his being, so much that it weighs his body down, smushes his heart against his ribcage, tears through him like lightning and fireworks and all manner of things that burn like the sun. If the world will give him his brother the one time he bothers to chase after him, he won’t ask for anything else ever again. He won’t ask for his students to pipe down past curfew or to stop stealing his expensive teas for their personal therapy. He’ll even encourage it if the world will just grant him this one thing.
“I can’t,” Garmadon finally whispers. His head falls, locks of hair shielding him from view. His grip tightens around the jacket as he pulls it closer to his chest. “I can’t ever-” an abrupt, strangled sob tears out of him, a sound so splintered and torn, filled to the brink with remorse. Garmadon shudders, body wracked with sorrow as he begins to heave. In some shredded, tortured part of his soul, he finds it in himself to look up. “How could I ever possibly make things right?”
Wu doesn’t like to say he acts without thinking. He knows between him and his brother, he’s the more cautious one. But this instance, when he sees his brother in such a vulnerable state, so far from his usual strong and stoic self, he doesn’t think once. He doesn’t even realize he’s moved to hug his brother until he hears his staff clattering against the ground after he drops it.
He doesn’t have an answer for his brother. Even he wouldn’t know how to begin reparations after so much damage. But it has to start somewhere and, most importantly, it has to start with Garmadon. He has to try. If he doesn’t want to, then Wu knows he’ll take up the role Garmadon’s left vacant. It’ll be easy for him, easy to have the woman and child he’s wanted for himself for so long. But he knows where his heart is set, knows that he values his brother more than he values anything he ever could have wanted in his youth. He’s selfish to favor this part of his family but he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t.
“Try. For us, please. Try.”
Garmadon doesn’t reply.
Slowly, he shifts, one arm moving away from the jacket in his hands to embrace his brother in return.