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“So, um, you’re probably wondering why I asked to have a team meeting right now.” Behrad paces around the parlour, wringing his hands together. Everyone is staring at him expectantly, which only makes him more anxious. Maybe he shouldn’t have called everyone here to do it like this, maybe he should have started small and told everyone one-by-one, or just told Gary and waited for the story to spread, because that guy cannot keep a secret to save his life.
“Yeah, not really the best timing.” Sara says, arms crossed. “Y’know, because Neron is in DC, hell-bent on causing mass hysteria, and all we’ve got is lab full of magical creatures and no plan of action?”
“I’m just happy to be here,” Gary grins wildly.
“When can we leave?” Mick grumbles. Nate smacks him on the shoulder, then turns back to Behrad and motions for him to go on, giving him a thumbs up and an encouraging smile. But behind the smile, he looks a little confused, and a little concerned– Behrad hasn’t told Nate any of this, either, because even though they’ve started… whatever exactly this is, they haven’t had time to put words to it yet, he still thinks that this is something that the whole team should hear from him, together. So that’s why he’s here now, trying to find the right words.
“Sara’s right, we don’t have time to sit around, so this had better be important.” Ava says.
“Right, okay,” Behrad sighs, stopping his pacing and turning to face them. He takes a deep breath, and tells them, “I left the dragon egg at my parents’ house in DC.”
Ava gasps in horror, Gary’s jaw drops comically low, and Mona raises a hand to cover her own open mouth. Mick looks confused, but still bored, and Nate furrows his eyebrows, but he looks more concerned than anything.
“You what?” Sara’s in full captain-mode now, plastering on the frown she uses when Mick steals something a little too valuable, or when Charlie has a little too much fun causing a ruckus on a mission. Behrad winces.
“I, um, left the dragon egg–”
“I heard you the first time, B, do you have any idea–”
“I know, I know! You think that this could probably screw up the timeline. But I’m from the future, remember? Your future, anyway, it’s more like you guys are from the past, from my point of view. And, uh, I didn’t want to say anything sooner because I was afraid that we might screw something up if you all knew, but… I’m pretty sure this is actually the way it’s supposed to happen.”
“What are you talking about?” Ava frowns, folding her arms across her chest with all the severity of the government official that she is. The combination of that alongside Sara’s captain-voice is pretty scary, but he’s already said too much to back out now.
“I mean that this ?” He waves off behind him, vaguely in the direction of the lab. “All this, all of the magical creatures, I learned about this stuff in high school. Well, not all of it; I didn’t know that you guys were involved, or that I would be here for it. I don’t remember a lot of details, but I’ve known all along that people found out that magical creatures are real in 2019. I just didn’t know how to tell you guys that without… I don’t know, screwing up history.”
“You’re telling me that you knew about magical creatures this whole time and didn’t say anything?”
“No, it’s good that you didn’t say anything.” Sara says, placing a reassuring hand on Ava’s shoulder. “What good would it have done? You're right, we’d have only gotten in our own heads about it. And besides, I’m guessing that since you haven’t said anything until now, things are playing out as they should?”
“Yeah, I think so.” He says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wasn’t really big on studying back then, and honestly I’ve been too afraid to look at Gideon’s records to double check. But that dragon egg is special. It’s the key to all of this. At least, it is for my family.”
“What’s so special about Wicksty’s egg?” Nate asks.
“Actually, uh, his name isn’t Wicksty. Sorry. I should have told you that before you got too excited. His name is Mithra. Or it will be, at least, when it hatches for my sister.” He says, and he hopes his voice stays steady. He’s been dreading this moment since he set foot on the ship, the moment that everyone finds out about Zari. The most he can hope for is that they won’t ask for more details. “That’s why I had to leave it at my parents’ house. I don’t remember the historical events, but I know that story backwards and forwards, because it changed everything for my family, right before I was born. It used to be my favorite bedtime story when I was little, the one about when my sister found a dragon egg in the living room.”
“You grew up with magical creatures?” Mona gasps, “That’s amazing!”
“Yeah, it was something,” Behrad shrugs. He’s not sure he’d go so far as to say that he grew up with them; even if everyone knew they were real, they weren’t common enough to change very much. But the dragon was a pretty important fixture in his early childhood, whether Mithra was actually around or not. “I recognized it when we got the real egg from the Adventurer’s Guild, which is when I realized that I had to be the one to leave it there. But I should have said something sooner. I don’t know, maybe if I had paid more attention in class and remembered more of how things were supposed to happen, we could have stopped Neron from possessing Ray, or taking Charlie, or–”
“Hey. You were scared. That’s understandable. Besides, we haven’t exactly done a great job listening to people or understanding them over the last few months.” Sara admits, stepping forward. “Thank you for telling us now. You did the right thing– and for all we know, Neron possessing Ray and taking Charlie might be just as crucial to the timeline as your sister getting that egg. And if that’s true, then us getting them back has to be crucial too, we have to believe that. But for now, let’s try to keep any more spoilers about our future to a minimum. Too much knowledge about what’s going to happen can be a liability.”
“Okay, so now we know that the dragon egg was supposed to be left with Behrad’s sister.” Ava puts a hand up, probably running all the new information through her head. “How can we be sure everything else happens the way it should?”
“Good point. B, you should go down there and observe.”
“Me?” Behrad asks Sara. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, what if–”
“You’re the only person who knows what’s supposed to happen, so make sure that your sister finds that dragon egg and that nothing goes wrong. I trust you.”
“I’m coming with you.” Nate offers, standing up and moving to stand next to him. Without looking, Nate takes Behrad’s left hand in his right, interlacing their fingers and giving it a gentle squeeze. “We’ve got this.”
“Good. You two go, we’ll deal with the guys in the lab.” Sara orders, turning towards Mona, who’s already beginning to list out what she’ll need to keep the creatures fed.
“C’mon,” Nate leads Behrad out of the parlour and towards the fabricator room. “It’ll all turn out okay.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I just…” Behrad sighs, walking with him, hand still in his. “I’ve been trying to figure out when and how to tell you guys for months now. Magical creatures might be new to you guys, but for me? They might not have been on every corner, but it’s been common knowledge that they're real for my entire life. So when John showed up at the beach with a severed dragon head, I kind of freaked out.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t notice.” Nate says. “I should have been there for you.”
“No, that’s not on you. Trust me, I put a lot of effort into making sure you guys didn’t notice. I didn’t want you guys to worry, and then I got scared that we’d screw something up and we’d mess up the timeline. Honestly, I’m just glad you guys aren’t more upset that I kept quiet. I just– I keep thinking that if I knew more, we might have stopped Neron sooner.”
“Are you kidding?” Nate brings them both to a stop and lets go of his hand to lay both hands on Behrad’s shoulders. “B, you can’t put any of that on yourself. Using future knowledge to alter the course of history is the biggest taboo in time travel, you know that. We’ll stop Neron and get Ray and Charlie back.”
“Yeah, I know.” Behrad sighs. “I just wish I remembered more from history class. I mean, how could I forget about stuff like PalmerX and the Eyes app?”
“Dude, I’m pretty sure that the only people who ever actually paid attention in high school history class were the nerds who went on to become historians.”
“Yeah, total nerds.” Behrad laughs, feeling lighter than he has in a long while, now that the team finally knows. If he’s completely honest, that particular unit in history class had always been a sore spot– he’d shrink as far into his seat as he could without drawing more attention and pretend he didn’t notice the eyes of all his classmates on him as the teacher droned on about the day the whole world found out that magic was real. And then, when the bell rang, he would get out of the classroom as quickly as possible without fully running, before anyone could pull him aside to ask about Dragon Girl or Mithra. Which means that pretty much all he’s completely certain of is the video that starts his sister’s career. “But I happen to know one who isn’t so bad.”
“Oh yeah? Do I know him?”
“Nah. He’s way cooler than you.”
“Ouch. Careful, I might get jealous.” Nate warns him, cupping his cheek and drawing him closer. “Does he know you have a boyfriend?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he does.” Behrad leans in for a kiss, relaxing into Nate’s arms. Boyfriend . That sounds pretty good. They’ll get back to business in a bit, but in this moment, Behrad thinks that Nate might be right– it’ll all turn out okay.
---
2019’s Zari is tiny . Even in his earliest memories of her, she always seemed… bigger isn’t the right word, but her presence has always filled up the room, even before her fame really took off. He’s seen pictures, of course, but it’s not the same as time traveling to see his older sister as a small child running around in the sandbox. He’s even seen the video of this exact moment, at this playground, the one that makes the entire world fall in love with Zari Tarazi.
“Which one is your sister?” Nate asks, peering over at the group of kids by the swings.
“Dude, stop staring,” Behrad swats at Nate’s arm. “You’re a grown man on his tippy-toes trying to watch a bunch of little kids. You look like a predator.”
“Oh, god, right. Sorry. Do you see her?”
“Yeah, she’s the one with bangs, in the green jacket.” Behrad points her out, watching the crowd of kids part right as he says it. Great timing. And then, without the other kids in the way, he sees Mithra crawl out from behind Zari, circling her legs twice like a cat before doing a happy little hop. “The, uh, the one with the dragon.”
“Wow.”
“Yep. That’s Mithra. And my sister. Looks like she’s always known how to make an entrance.”
“What’s her name?” Nate asks, and Behrad bites his lip. It’s ridiculous, he knows, but he’s gotten this far without any of the team knowing anything about his sister, and part of him thinks that once they learn even a little bit about her, it’ll be a slippery slope back to him being Dragon Girl’s brother again. Which is silly, because these are his friends , the best friends he’s ever had. He’s spent almost two years on this team, finally out of her shadow, and that should be enough for him to believe that knowing about Zari won’t change that. He should have more faith in his friend–, but then again, maybe it was never his friends that were the problem.
“Zari.” He says, instead of saying any of that.
“You don’t really talk about her.” Nate says, and it’s not a question or an accusation, just a statement. “That’s fine, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“We’re not that close.” Behrad shrugs, like it’s no big deal, like he hasn’t avoided mentioning his celebrity sister for as long as he possibly could. “It was never that important.”
“I just want to know you. Every part of you that you’re willing to share.” Nate slips his hand into Behrad’s again and squeezes it gently. He says it so earnestly, like it’s nothing, no big deal, like that kind of openness isn’t absolutely terrifying for Behrad. But it’s also one of Behrad’s favorite things about Nate, how ridiculously devoted he is to the people he loves, how that’s possibly the thing that defines Nate Heywood the most.
“I thought about taking the egg with me.” Behrad finds himself confessing, instead of telling Nate anything about Zari. Nate cocks his head, confused. “When I was at the house with Charlie. I thought about taking the egg back with me to the ship instead of leaving it for her. I don’t– I mean, obviously I couldn’t go through with it, but I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. I guess I was wondering what it would be like if my sister never found it.”
“Do you wish that she hadn’t?” Nate asks. Behrad shakes his head.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Behrad answers. He’s thought about it a lot, ever since he realized the egg was Mithra’s. If she’d never found the dragon egg, Zari wouldn’t be the Dragon Girl. She might not ever have gone viral. She might not have become a celebrity and might never have started her business and might have been a completely different person, and what would that mean for him and his family? Or maybe she still would have found a way into the spotlight, even without a dragon. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference at all. Maybe that’s just who Zari is. “I mean, just look at her, Nate. Look how happy she is. I couldn’t take that away from her.”
“I can’t believe we had sex in front of that egg.” Nate says, abruptly, so straight-faced and so out of left field that Behrad chokes on nothing, not sure if he’s laughing or if he’s horrified. As he tries to recollect himself, Nate nudges him gently in the side. “I’m serious, B, do you think he heard us? What were we thinking?”
“In my defense, I was kind of worried that us being stranded back there with the egg could somehow spiral into me getting wiped out of existence, if we didn’t freeze to death first, so I wasn’t really thinking about that. It was more of a ‘well, if we’re going to die anyway,’ sort of deal.” Behrad admits. “But I don’t regret it. And besides, it was your idea. You have no room to talk.”
“Hey, I can’t help it! You were taking care of the egg and you were singing to it and you just looked so…”
“So what? Maternal?” Behrad jokes, remembering the feeling of the golden egg against his chest, tucked inside of his flannel shirt. That entire ice age ordeal was kind of a blur– between the mission-date Sara had just set them up on, and Neron taking Ray, and them finding Mithra’s egg, and having just kissed Nate for the first time in medbay, and then the ship getting caught in an avalanche, he’d had to hide his existential freakout by throwing himself into taking care of ‘Wicksty’ with Nate. He’d been afraid that even if they did manage to make it out of there, Mithra might die from the cold before he even hatched. So if that meant he had to stuff the thing down his shirt and keep it warm with his body heat, he’d been willing to do that, no matter how ridiculous it looked.
“I was going to say ‘sexy’.” Nate shrugs, and Behrad wrinkles his nose. “Oh, look, he’s dancing!”
Behrad looks back towards the playground, and it’s finally happening: Mithra is spinning around, jumping into the air and flying, just slightly, as the kids cheer him on and tiny, nine-year-old Zari laughs delightedly. Mithra sneezes, just like he does in the video that he’s seen a million times over, and he can’t help but smile too. He never thought that he’d witness this in person, and despite his reservations about what it does for Zari’s lifestyle, it really is a magical moment, in every sense of the word.
And then, just as quickly, it all goes bad– an adult, one of the teachers, approaches the kids to see what the fuss is about, then yells at the sight of the baby dragon. At her warning, nearly all of the kids start running away, screaming, all except for Zari, who lingers with Mithra in the sandbox, confused. The woman pulls out her phone, and Behrad realizes what’s happening just a moment too late to react when a portal opens and two bureau agents come out and stuff baby Mithra into a bag.
Behrad tries to rush over and stop them, but Nate grabs him and holds him back. Neron’s bureau agents leave just as quickly as they came, the portal sealing shut behind them, and the teacher stalks off too, taking Zari’s hand and dragging her back to the school building, even as she keeps looking back over her shoulder at where Mithra had just been.
He wants to run over to his sister and tell her it’s going to be okay, to do anything that might make her a little less miserable than she looks right now, but he can’t. Nate wraps an arm around his shoulders and Behrad leans helplessly into his side.
“So what happens next?” Nate asks.
“I don’t know.” It’s true– this was never part of the story. He has no idea what to do now.
---
“How are we supposed to fight fear itself? People afraid of metas, magical creatures afraid of other people , and– monsters hated by everyone.” Sara sighs. They may have gotten Charlie back, but they still have no real plan for how to stop Neron, and John and Nora still haven’t come back from searching for Ray’s soul down in hell. “What are we supposed to do about that?”
“Not everyone.” Behrad corrects her, before he can stop himself, then waits, unsure if he should keep going. She motions for him to go on, so he stands and walks over to the viewscreen. “Gideon, can you pull up ‘Dancing Dragon Sneeze’? It should have been posted online earlier today.”
The video plays– tiny Zari, grinning madly, and Mithra doing his little dance, sneezing after he spins around. Behrad glances around the room and sees that even now, though they’re all feeling pretty defeated, everyone softens, a little bit happier at the sight of the video that launched his sister’s celebrity empire.
“Yeah, this innocent moment where kids aren’t afraid? It’s resonating with people. They don’t see a monster, they see something amazing. That baby dragon? He changed my sister’s life.”
“You sound like my dad’s pitch for…” Nate trails off, then blurts, “HeyWorld!”
Behrad keeps quiet as Nate tells the rest of the team about Hank’s secret project. He had no idea that this is why HeyWorld was made, and didn’t really make the name connection until now, but it’s starting to come back to him, all the times that his family visited the park when he was a little kid to visit Mithra, because his parents weren’t too keen on a dragon living in their house. He’s starting to remember more about what’s supposed to happen– HeyWorld opens with a big show, and after that initial first few weeks of excitement, people get back to their lives, but with their newfound knowledge of magical creatures. And Mithra is supposed to be there for it, but he’s been taken by the bureau. So they might have already screwed up.
“How long until we can get it up and running?”
“Uhh, if Mikey T and the boys work weekends… quick math in my head…” Nate pauses, calculating a guess. “Two, maybe three… years.”
“Damn it.” Sara sighs.
Behrad stares at the floor, pretending not to notice that everyone’s glances wander in his direction every now and then, when they think he isn’t looking.
“Okay, you know what? Screw caution, a few spoilers can’t possibly mess things up any more than we already have.” Sara caves, finally. “Behrad, you know how the story ends. How do we get from here to there?”
“I don’t know, guys. They never taught us that part in class. HeyWorld was always sort of a mystery. It just popped up overnight, like– well, like magic.” Behrad shrugs. Then, he realizes. “Like Brigid’s diary! If we put it in Nate’s hands, he could just dream it up for us.”
“B, you’re a genius, the–” Sara starts, then she groans. “Ugh, it’s in the Time Bureau.”
“Okay, so we break in.” Ava says. “But it’s not going to be easy. Even if it isn’t demon central, the vault it’s being held in is practically impenetrable–”
“Oh, it’s penetrable,” Mick corrects her, strolling in and handing the magic book to Nate. He must have stolen it back ages ago, then snuck out to grab it as soon as Nate started talking about HeyWorld, already a few steps ahead of everyone. “Give it back when you’re done. Buck and Garima’s sexual odyssey is far from over.”
“Alright, team.” Sara declares, now that they have something to work with. “Nate, you have a theme park to dream up. Gary, help Mona ‘pretty woman’ our creatures into something a little more kid-friendly, and the rest of us, it’s time to come up with a marketing plan for the happiest place on the planet.”
---
Behrad dips out from the marketing team pretty quickly, because even if he’s technically enrolled in business school, that’s really not his thing. So instead, he heads over to the library, where Nate is working on HeyWorld. He helps Nate dig through his old drawings from when he was a kid, the ones that Hank saved and kept in those boxes in the secret basement office in his house in DC. And then, afterwards, he takes to just pacing around and pretending to read the titles of Nate’s extensive book collection to avoid hovering and watching from over Nate’s shoulder as he draws.
“Hey,” Nate eventually puts his pencil down and gets up, walking around his desk to stand in front of Behrad, stopping the anxious circle he’s been making around the library. “What’s that face for?”
“Face? What face?” Behrad asks, and Nate gives him a knowing look.
“C’mon, B, let me in. You’ve spent long enough keeping this stuff inside. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Okay, fine, I’m just a little worried. I don’t remember much about what’s supposed to happen at HeyWorld, but I know that Mithra is supposed to be there. How is he supposed to be at HeyWorld if my sister doesn’t bring him there herself? Are we supposed to break him out of the bureau? What if something happened to him? What if Neron–”
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Nate insists, taking Behrad’s hands. “We screw up all the time, but we always make it work, right? What makes this time any different?”
“If I may, Dr. Heywood,” Gideon chirps from the speakers above. “HeyWorld’s opening is a crucial point in the timeline. The acceptance of magical creatures directly influences a worldwide resurgence in efforts to foster a more tolerant outlook and makes the world a better place.”
“Oh.” Nate’s reassuring smile disappears, replaced by furrowed brows and a grimace. He wipes a hand down his face and leans back to sit on the edge of the desk, suddenly looking as anxious as Behrad feels. “That’s– wow . You sure know how to sugar-coat bad news, Gideon.”
“You’re probably right, though, we always figure it out,” Behrad says, hoping that if he says it out loud he’ll believe it. He resumes his pacing, even more freaked out than before, and Nate doesn’t stop him this time. What happens if they screw this up? They would literally be making the world a more miserable place. What if something happened to Zari, or his parents? His mom is out there right now, pregnant with him, and if something happened to her? He might not even be born . “This is fine.”
“Yeah, suddenly I’m feeling a little less confident.”
“But if it isn’t fine, what then?” Behrad asks, starting to spiral. “What if this turns me into a totally different person? What if I never join the team? Who knows where I’d be, who I’d be, or–”
“You’d be you.” Sara says, from the doorway. He hadn’t noticed her come in, too busy rambling and spiraling into what-ifs and worst-case-scenarios. “Because while we’re at HeyWorld, you’ll be here in the temporal zone, and you’ll be safe.”
“No, Sara, I can’t sit this one out–”
“Look, I’m not going to lose another Legend. We’re gonna get through this just fine, because we always do, but no matter what, you’re not going to be down there where any changes in the timeline could get to you. I am not letting that happen.” Sara insists, cutting off his protests. “And who said we’re not putting you to work? We need to make sure that what happens at HeyWorld is seen globally, and you’re my tech guy.”
“Right, the– my sister went viral from that video, and I’m pretty sure that HeyWorld was livestreamed to the entire world, but I’ve never seen the footage myself. I can probably use the Eyes app as a backdoor into the phones that downloaded it.” He says, rushing over to his tablet to get to work, perched on the edge of the desk. He hears Sara leave, and Nate comes back to sit down with him.
“Hey,” Nate nudges Behrad’s leg with one hand, resting his chin on the other. “You okay?”
“Mmhmm,” Behrad answers, tapping away at the screen. “I will be, when this is over. You?”
“Yeah, me too,” Nate says. “The stakes are just, uh, a little higher than I thought.”
“If it helps, I went to HeyWorld a couple of times as a kid? I don’t remember it well, but I can describe what I do remember.”
And they work like that for a while, Behrad pausing his hacking job every now and then to describe some of the attractions and structures that he recalls in the fuzzy haze of childhood memories. The colors of the tents, the rides he was too small to go on, the food at the stands– that he distinctly remembers being fully halal, and that makes a lot more sense now that he knows he had a part in making it. Nate latches onto his every word, jotting down notes onto a spare legal pad and scribbling little sketches and asking more questions that Behrad wishes he had a clearer answer for.
He can’t imagine what his life might have been like any other way, in any other timeline, where maybe he never joined the legends or maybe HeyWorld never happened. Sure, Behrad will be safe in the temporal zone when they put their plan into action, free from whatever temporal repercussions they might cause, and that should make him feel better, but it doesn’t, not really. His family is still out there, and the next time he goes back home, he wants to come back to the same people he left behind.
---
After a while, after Sara ropes them into shooting a knockoff Flash-Supergirl-Green-Arrow commercial and Mona and Charlie enlist Behrad’s help for a while with teaching the magical creatures to sing and play guitar, he goes with Nate to finally spring HeyWorld into existence at the construction site in Maryland.
“I can’t believe it all comes down to this. After years of anxiety of whether or not I could live up to my dad’s expectations, I’m about to bring his crazy dream to life…” Nate trails off, staring at the open space. His grip on Brigid’s diary is tight, holding it shut, like he’s not quite ready to open it and start drawing. “Knowing what it would cost me if anything goes wrong.”
“I talked to Mona, earlier, when she asked me to help with the food and with teaching Frederic– the ogre– some vocal exercises.” Behrad starts, stepping just a little closer, laying one hand over Nate’s on the diary, and the other on the slope between his neck and shoulder. “She reminded me that we can’t keep thinking about what-ifs. We have to believe things are going to be okay, like– manifesting it. Besides, I’m not sure I could leave you if I tried. I’ll be fine. We both will.”
It turns out that Mona is really good at pep talks, even when there’s not much time for a heart-to-heart between quick crash-courses on music theory. Just like before, when she’d urged him to take a leap of faith with pursuing a relationship with Nate, she’d reminded him to trust that life will lead to good things, even when things seem bad, and that they’re not alone; they have each other. Her unflinching support for the magical creatures, her endless compassion and faith in their ability to make a difference, her willingness to deal with the chaos even when nobody on this ship has a single clue what they're doing– being around someone like Mona makes it pretty hard to keep dwelling on the negatives.
And even though he’s still terrified that things will go wrong, she’s right: if there’s anyone who can make this work, it’s the Legends. It’s people like Mona– and like Nate, too– who lead with love and follow their hearts, that might be able to change the world like this, that will be able to change the world, and he has to have faith in that.
Nate responds by kissing him deeply. Maybe they should stop with all the pep-talks and speeches and just do this instead. And then Nate pulls away to set Brigid’s diary down and open it, pen in hand. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Behrad steps aside so he can get to work, and watches the skyline shimmer as the silhouettes of the HeyWorld from his memories appear out of thin air, structures rising from the ground up and the rollercoasters winding up and around until it’s just like what he remembers, distantly, except he’s a lot taller now, and there are no visitors yet.
“Wow.”
“Is it anything like what you remember?”
“It’s perfect.” He turns back, and Nate’s head is still down, drawing furiously, adding more and more. “Hey, just– pause for a sec and come look.”
Behrad takes Nate by the hand and guides him over to marvel at his work, the thing he dreamed up on a whim as a kid, the thing Hank had worked so hard on in a misguided, but heartfelt attempt to connect with him– and he gets that, what it feels like to have family who you love so much but things just don’t click quite right, and things feel awkward and disjointed and finding a way around that feels impossible. But maybe they’ve stumbled across something here, even though it’s too late for Hank to see it.
“Your dad would be proud of you, you know that? I know he was proud of you until the end.”
“I know, I just– one sec,” Nate says, and then he rushes back over to Brigid’s diary to add something else. Distantly, Behrad sees something shimmer, by the entrance gates, but he can’t see exactly what it is. When he turns back around, Nate just shrugs. “Just a little something for him. He always was the kind of corny old-fashioned guy who would have loved a bronze statue of himself.”
---
Sara drags him back to the Waverider before the guests start arriving, and Behrad doesn’t protest this time, even though he does feel kind of useless being stuck on the ship while everyone else does the heavy lifting down on the ground. He’s spent the last hour or so double and triple and quadruple-checking that the stream is working okay, testing it out from the monitor in the lab, the viewscreen in the parlor, the TV in the library, any free device he can get his hands on. It’s fine, as far as he can tell, but he still can’t help but feel nervous that something’s going to blow up in his face, so he just hovers, peeking back at the lines of code he whipped up and making sure that every bracket has its match and flipping through the different camera feeds.
But everything looks good– he sees HeyWorld all set up now, through the digital lens, with all the park guests enjoying the sights and the rides and the concessions. And then, one of the video feeds catches his eye, because that’s his very-pregnant maman, there, with nine-year-old Zari, buying a snack at one of the stalls.
“Uh, B,” Nate says, through comms. “Your mom and sister are here.”
“Yeah, I see them. It’s good, they’re supposed to be there. Zari needs to be at our show. The stream’s up and running and ready to go whenever you guys are, so just let me know in case I need to adjust the color balance or something so that people can see.” He tells him, watching his maman and Zari head towards one of the ring-toss stands as the camera pans around, following Nate as he makes his way around the crowd, directing people towards the various attractions. “You look great, by the way.”
“Oh, thanks for noticing. I showered.” Nate jokes, and it’s reassuring, that as nervous as he is, as nervous they both are, that they at least have each other, and that they can flirt and talk and keep each other company, even while Behrad is stuck in the temporal zone. “How’s the clickety-clackety-hackety coming along?”
“Once Ava hits record, this will stream out to, you know, three million people or so. No pressure.” Behrad sighs. “But, uh, things are going smoothly, as far as I can tell. Everything looks like how I remember it from the photos and stories and the couple times I visited. You’re doing great. I wish I could be down there with you.”
“Me too. But I’m not willing to risk that. It makes me feel a lot better that you’re safe up there. You’re like– like a guardian angel, watching us from above. My very handsome guardian angel.”
“I’m not really doing much. The stream is pretty self-sufficient.” Behrad watches his screen, Nate keeps pointing the crowd to the big tent and Ava follows them with her camera and the others get ready backstage. He sees his maman’s floral-print hijab peeking through the crowd, and knows that Zari’s in there too, too small for the camer asto catch. It’s funny, almost, the idea that there are cameras everywhere, but Zari hasn’t become the Dragon Girl yet, so they’re not pointed in her direction. But they will be soon, if all goes well. He never thought he’d be here, that he’d be a part of making sure his sister lives the kind of lifestyle that he’s never had much of a taste for, but now that he is, he has to see it through. “Hey, Nate?”
“What’s up?”
“I…” Behrad starts, and then shakes his head, even though Nate can’t see. “I’ll see you when you guys get back. Come home safe.”
“Yeah,” Nate says. “I, uh, I’ve gotta run and change into my suit, but, Behrad, I– I’ll see you soon.”
Behrad watches Nate slip through the crowd and into the arena tent, and he goes back to watching the different feeds, swapping his comms channel to the one for the folks backstage.
“Charlie, Mona, are you guys good to go? Did Freddie’s vocal warmups go alright? The guitar’s all tuned up?”
“Of course, B-easy, who do you think we are?” Charlie laughs. “These fellas know their stuff up, down, left, right, and backwards, isn’t that right guys?”
A series of whoops and roars tells him that the magical creatures are in agreement.
“And no sign of Mithra?” Behrad asks, scanning through the feeds, as if the dragon is going to somehow fly in at the last second. He knows that the dragon was the main event, and that nobody saw it coming, so it’s not totally out of the question, but they also said that Mithra was massive, and after seeing him on the playground, he thinks the old photos might have been doctored by Zari’s PR team for dramatic effect. Maybe the dragon will find his way here on his own– he’s always been clever, but Behrad’s not sure if ‘clever’ is enough to escape Neron’s hold on the bureau.
“No dice.” Charlie confirms. “But hey, if we need a dragon, you let me know, I can probably fake it ‘til I make it.”
“Yeah, thanks. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Oh, we’ve gotta run, it’s almost time! We’ve got this, Behrad, you just sit back and watch.” Mona promises. “They’re gonna blow everyone’s socks off.”
“Break a leg.” He tells them, and then checks to confirm that the stream has begun– broadcasting worldwide exactly as it’s supposed to– and maximizes the video footage from inside the tent so he can watch as the lights go down and the colored spotlights begin to spin and the audience begins to cheer as Gary starts the show.
It goes poorly, at first, because it always does, and Behrad can’t help but sink down in his seat, a little mortified. And then Mithra actually shows up– somehow fully grown, and flies around the arena before setting down with a menacing roar as Tabitha the former-fairy godmother arrives. The audience begins to flee, but watching, Behrad begins to feel more secure, somehow– Mithra’s here , like he’s supposed to, and yeah, somehow he’s the huge menacing dragon from the photographs and the framed magazine photo in the living room and the stories, which means that they actually didn’t screw everything up, for once, and things are actually going really well.
“Guys, calm down,” Behrad tells them all over comms. “This is great.”
“ Great ? There’s a bloody dragon !” John yells.
“Everyone’s terrified– Neron’s going to open his portal right here, we just gave him all the fear he needs.” Nora grumbles, dragging a passed-out Gary off to the side.
“No, this is what’s supposed to happen. Mithra’s here, just like he’s supposed to be. It’s all a part of history.” He tells them, watching as Ava helps the audience evacuate and Sara rushes to fight Tabitha. He winces as Tabitha sends Nate crashing into the stands with a blast of light from her staff and sends Mithra out to follow the fleeing civilians, knocking John over in the process. “You guys have got this– stick to the plan, just… with a bit more improv?”
He switches over to the live feed from the cameras outside, where Mithra circles above the crowd, breathing fire at the terrified civilians, and then lands right in front of the park’s exit. Ava yells for everyone to head back into the tent, and Mithra lumbers behind them menacingly as they rush back to cower in their seats, their fear spilling out in waves of red that flow towards Tabitha’s staff. Mithra growls as he re-enters the tent, and stalks towards Sara like she’s his prey.
Behrad flips through the cameras, trying to get a better view of what’s happening, because they didn’t account for a giant dragon when they set things up. Mithra’s giant body fills up the viewfinder, and he’d knocked over a bunch of the other filming equipment when he flew circles around the inside of the tent. And just as Behrad switches to one that shows Sara on the ground, staring up at the dragon looming above her, a tiny voice rings through the speakers.
“Stop!” Nine-year-old Zari yells. Her little sneakers are all that Behrad can see from the video, but he doesn’t need to see more to know what this moment is. Mithra roars, but Zari stays put. Behrad knows exactly what this looks like– it’s been immortalized on countless magazine covers and recreated in several of his sister’s editorial fashion shoots. He pulls up the remote controls for the camera and rotates the viewfinder, panning away from Sara and zooming out as far as he can, until Mithra’s giant head and Zari are both in frame.
“Burn the child! Do it, now!” Tabitha orders.
“Kid, you’ve got to run,” Sara warns her, but Zari doesn’t run. Instead, she stands her ground, like they always said she did, and smiles.
“Mithra, dance!”
Mithra jumps, spinning around, and Behrad watches Zari and Sara both duck to avoid being hit by his tail. Tabitha doesn’t dodge in time, and gets sent flying across the room, staff knocked out of her hand. And then, as Tabitha rushes over to grab ahold of her fallen staff, Mithra swoops in and eats her, releasing the spell she must have cast that aged him up. He turns back into his harmless, baby-dragon self and runs out of the tent with a burp, and Zari speeds off to follow him out, which is pretty much the end of the story as Behrad knows it. Whatever else happened at HeyWorld, it had nothing to do with Zari, which means he didn’t spend his whole childhood hearing about it.
“She did it,” Behrad lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It’s not over, because Neron only just arrived, but they managed to make sure that Zari still makes her debut the way she was supposed to. And he knows that this team always manages to save the day, that they’ll beat Neron and they’re all going to be okay. Sure, Neron’s already opening his portal to hell right now, but Behrad has a good feeling about this.
That good feeling doesn’t last very long, though, because John strolls right up to Neron and lets himself be choked to death. And then Neron’s triumphant smirk disappears, replaced by confusion, and Nate walks up to him, but it’s not Nate, it’s John, and the dead body on the floor shimmers, releasing the illusion, and Behrad realizes that Nate’s the one who Neron just killed.
“No, no, no, no. ” Behrad steps away from his screen, where the camera shows his boyfriend, completely still, dead on the ground. ”Gideon, take me to Heyworld.”
“I must advise against that course of action. There is still a risk of changing the timeline.”
“Please, Gideon, my sister is fine, my past will be fine, I just– I have to go there.” He begs. “I don’t– nobody was supposed to die here, they never said anything– I would have known. Just please . Take me there.”
“As you wish.”
Did Nate know, before he left, that he was going to die? When did he and John come up with this terrible plan? Was it moments ago, after Mithra arrived? While Behrad was busy setting up the stream, stuck on the ship, alone? Maybe it was before they’d even used the diary to make HeyWorld a reality. Did anyone else know? No– none of the others could have known, because they would have stopped them.
If Behrad hadn’t been stuck onboard, he could have done something. Anything . But he wasn’t there. He’s been safely cooped up on the Waverider while the others did everything they could, risking their own lives to make sure that Behrad’s life remained as it was. Behrad’s life isn’t worth this – not even the entire timeline is worth this.
---
It all ends up fine, of course, because it always does. But it’s not until after Behrad arrives too late, after Nate’s body has already begun to go cold, that they manage to bring him back– by way of an oddly-timed musical number initiated by the ghost of Hank Heywood, and the literal power of love. Which was weird, even for them, but he’s definitely not going to question it.
He's relieved enough that he can't stop himself from kissing Nate in front of the entire crowd– possibly even in front of his maman and sister, though they don't actually know who he is– ignoring the whoops and cheers from all of the strangers and the rest of the team in favor of pressing as close to Nate's warm, breathing body, feeling Nate's pulse thrum against where his hands are pressed along Nate's neck.
He has to let him go, eventually, watching as Nate and Ray finally have their ecstatic reunion after literally having gone to hell and back for each other, and he feels someone tap him on the shoulder.
"See?" Mona grins up at him, lacing her arm through his as they all start to finally head back towards the Waverider. "What did I tell you? Love is always the answer."
"I didn't think it would be that literal," He laughs. "I'm just– wow , you have no idea how relieved I am right now. Like, some sort of crazy anxious fog has been looming over me since Aruba last year and now I'm finally free. I feel like a totally different person."
"That's what happens when you keep secrets from your friends." Charlie says, strolling up next to him on his other side.
"And when you focus on worst-case scenarios." Mona adds.
"Yeah, lesson learned. No more bad vibes from me from here on out." He vows. “Chill B is back.”
"Just a smooth ride on the ol' B-train, eh?" Charlie pushes him lightly, winking. Mona giggles.
"Wouldn't you like to know." He rolls his eyes, elbowing them in the ribs.
"Been there, done that." Charlie cackles, then peels away from him to drag Mona over to their fellow magical creatures. "Oi, you lot! Fantastic work! I'm absolutely chuffed to bits! Who’s up for a pint?"
Through the crowd, he catches a glimpse of his maman and Zari playing with baby Mithra, surrounded by a mesmerized audience, and Behrad has to stop himself from staring. It looks like Zari really always has been that magnetic, even from the beginning. Who knows what might have happened if he'd intervened and if she'd never found that egg? Maybe she was always meant to carve a place in the world's hearts for Zari Tarazi, with or without anyone’s help. She's never needed help, not even to stand up to a giant, fire-breathing dragon.
"Hey," Nate says, having worked his way backwards to find him. He slips his hand into Behrad's, interlacing their fingers. "I'm sorry. I should have told you about the whole–"
"It's okay," Behrad interrupts him, because he’d really rather not revisit that part of the day. "I get why you didn't say anything. And you're here now."
"Yeah, I am." Nate laughs, despite everything. "I didn't– it doesn't matter. I'm here. I came back."
"You sure did." Behrad squeezes his hand. "And I don't know about you, but I could use a long vacation."
"I can get behind that. What're you thinking, someplace tropical? Or we could go backpacking through Europe, or–"
"Anything." Behrad says, "Anywhere you'd like. As long as I'm with you."