Chapter Text
“Before you say no –”
“Hell no,” Ben hisses at you. “I’m not babysitting it.”
“Before you say no,” you repeat earnestly, legs dangling freely as your forearms stick to Ben’s windowsill, “just consider how this would benefit you. The public loves Fei’s birds. Animals are badass.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll throw a fucking two-inch fish at the enemy and Dad will promote me right back to Number One. Thanks.”
“His name is Ben, Jr., and I’ll have you know that he killed at least two other fish while he was with his previous owner.”
You hold the plastic bag containing the blood-red betta fish out towards Ben, who curls his lip in distaste. Still, you notice how his eyes linger on the slow, wave-like motion of Ben, Jr.’s fins before sending another glare at you.
“I have more important things to do than take care of a fish,” he says condescendingly.
You tilt your head.
“Like what?”
“Like fighting crime, dumbass!”
(Ben does not peel you away from his window for your feigned naivety, which is an improvement from last year.)
“Please, the Sparrows have nothing to do these days except walk around and look cool. My niece is staying over for two weeks, and she literally likes to sleep with the fishes.” You cut a thumb across your throat for emphasis. “Just look after him for two weeks, Ben. For me?”
He scoffs. “What makes you think I’d do anything for you?”
“Because I’d do anything for you.”
Ben’s mouth snaps shut. He makes a face as if he’d just chewed up a whole lemon, and you stare openly at his scrunched nose, Ben, Jr. dangling from your hand.
A gust of wind blows past the building. You shiver, knees scraping against the rough brick wall.
“Bullshit,” Ben finally manages.
“It’s not bullshit.”
“It is.”
“Why?”
He leans over his bed towards you, splaying his hands over the comforter. “Because if you’d really do anything for me,” he murmurs, voice a low, bitter drawl, “you’d join the Sparrows. Not unload your pet on me like a deadbeat parent.”
Your smile slackens just slightly. As it does, Ben rolls his eyes and pushes off the mattress.
“That’s not fair,” you mutter, breaking eye contact. “You know why I don’t do that anymore.”
“Your past is an explanation, not an excuse.”
Guilt-tripping me for being a child soldier is kind of a shit take, Number Two, you want to say, but you don’t.
Ben, Jr. flits back and forth in his little bag, appearing to sense your agitation. You take a deep breath in through your nose and fix the original Ben with an irritated look.
“Look, I came here to ask for a favor, not to have this conversation for the millionth time.” Setting Ben, Jr. on the windowsill, you reach back to unzip your backpack. So much for your good mood. “I guess I’ll just give him to Jenny instead.”
Ben narrows his eyes at you.
Right before you can store the fish away and start your slow descent, a tentacle reaches out and takes the bag from you.
You frown. Ben clicks his tongue and places the fish on his desk with more delicacy than you know he would ever admit, avoiding your quizzical look all the while.
“You owe me. Don’t go crying to me if Fei’s crows get to it,” he grouses.
“Keep your door closed,” you reply tersely. “You already do that, don’t you?”
He doesn’t answer. “Do I have to buy the stupid tank, too?”
“Everything he needs is in my car.”
With that, you heft yourself up and over the windowsill, hopping over the bed and landing solidly in his room. Ben stiffens when you nudge his shoulder with the back of your hand and head to the door.
“Where are you going?” he demands.
You look over your shoulder at him, still a bit miffed but ready to get a move-on.
“To get Ben, Jr.’s stuff. Come on and help me?”
Despite his grumbling and complaining, Ben trails after you down the hallway towards the stairs.
—
At first, he tells Grace to take care of the fish, but that order is quickly retracted when the robot malfunctions and starts dumping a shit ton of food into the tank. After that, it seems that taking care of “Ben, Jr.” is solely his responsibility. Fuck.
He takes great pains to ensure that nobody else knows about his situation, but this lasts for exactly two days. At least Sloane, the most tolerable Sparrow next to Chris, is the first to know.
“What’s with the fish?” she asks upon slipping into his room to borrow his blue Copic marker, staring at the five-gallon filtered monstrosity you had called an adequate temporary tank.
“Stupid present from a fan.”
His sister tilts her head. She approaches the tank, squatting down to trace the glass, and Ben resists the sudden urge to tell her to back off.
“Must be a pretty big fan. Look, it even has our colors.” She’s right. Though it’s mostly red, there are blue details at the bases and fringes of its fins, something that Ben had noticed the moment you shoved it into his life. “Did you name it?”
“Of course not. I don’t even want it.”
The quiet, piercing way in which Sloane regards him is unsettling. He meets her gaze head-on as she stands back up.
“Well, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it. I’ve always wanted a pet,” she says.
“No,” he replies without even thinking.
“Oh.”
There’s another excruciating moment of silence where she looks at him, and his short temper flares. He hates it when she acts like she knows something he doesn’t, like a mother waiting for her child to understand the bigger picture.
There is no bigger picture. He knows this – his ranking’s higher than hers for a reason, after all.
“What, Sloane?” he snaps.
She smiles, and his anger quickly turns to dread.
“I saw you carrying the tank up with [Y/n].” Oh, for fuck’s sake. He crosses his arms as she continues, her tone airy and wistful. “You should be nicer to your friends, Ben. We don’t have very many of them.”
“It’s not a gift,” Ben tells her sourly. “I’m stuck with it for two weeks while their fish-killing niece is staying over.”
“Well, it’s nice of you to look after it. You usually don’t do things for other people.”
He bristles. She says it like he’s getting soft.
“We’re exchanging favors. I’m not doing this to be nice.”
“Oh.”
No matter what he says to try to convince her, Sloane doesn’t seem to take him seriously. Nobody in this goddamn academy does.
“Just – take the marker and leave,” he ends up saying – to set a boundary, not to admit that she’s right in any way, because she has the wrong idea about all of this. “And close the door.”
Sloane nods. Casting one last glance at the tank, she takes her leave without another word, closing the door after her with a soft click.
Ben is alone once more. He glowers at your fish as it hovers near the surface of the water.
“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
Ben, Jr. just flutters his fins.
—
At the end of the first week, you drop your niece off for a sleepover and then stop by the academy to check on the fish.
“Wow, he looks good,” you exclaim, admiring Ben, Jr.’s vibrant, healthy colors.
“Why do you sound surprised?” Ben retorts.
You raise an eyebrow at him. “I mean, you were pretty reluctant to take him in.”
“I wouldn’t kill your fish on purpose.”
“Have your siblings met him yet?”
He sends you a look of poorly masked bemusement. “Sloane saw him.”
(You know that Ben doesn’t really bother with personal matters when it comes to his siblings. Some of the Sparrows (read: Jayme and Alphonso) would probably try something stupid for shits and giggles, anyway, and you would rather not let that happen.)
(But still, you entertain the idea of the others learning that Ben can, in fact, take care of something other than himself.)
“Oh, okay. You know, she’s always seemed like the type to get a pet. A little, fluffy white dog, or something like that.”
Ben shrugs disinterestedly.
Grabbing the bottle of fish food, you sprinkle a little bit into the tank.
“You said he killed at least two other fish.”
Looking back at him, you sigh. “Yeah, his previous owner dropped other male bettas into the bowl and made them fight,” you answer, watching Ben, Jr. slurp up the flakes with a frown. “Asshole got bored after a while, though, and I managed to buy this little guy. Good thing, right?”
“What kind of loser watches fish fights?”
“Losers who like how easy it is to cause them,” you say. “Male bettas are really territorial, so it’s on the owner to keep them in the right environment. Otherwise, they’ll end up hurting other fish and getting hurt themselves.” You roll your neck to the side, feeling the vertebrae crack. “Mind if I sit on your bed?”
“What do you think?”
“No?”
“Don’t put your shoes on the sheets. They were just cleaned.”
“Sure thing,” you respond, taking your shoes off and making yourself at home near the foot of his bed. “So, how was your week? Kick any ass?”
“Flew to Philly and fucked up some kidnappers. It didn’t even take ten minutes.”
“Whoa. Cool. I looked at spreadsheets and confronted Janelle about eating my lunch in the break room.”
Ben raises an eyebrow at you, blatantly unimpressed. “Doesn’t having such a boring-ass life bother you?” he asks.
You consider, drawing your legs up to cross them. Does it bother you? A nine-to-five office job, mediocre workplace drama, a normal sister with a normal daughter that visit your normal apartment twice a year. Bills. Overpriced tea. Decently ironed shirts in different colors. An old cat that follows you to the bathroom when you wake up in the middle of the night, skin sticky with sweat and head pounding with dreams of blood on your teeth and your old teammate with his skull cracked open like an egg.
“Civilian life isn’t boring,” you conclude. “Especially if you can scale buildings.”
“Whatever you say,” Ben drawls, sitting down in his desk chair, elbows on the armrests and legs spread as if he’s on a throne.
“Come on. Every superpowered kid thinks about what they’d do if they were normal.”
You don’t miss the way his jaw clenches.
“We’re not children anymore,” he informs you. “My power is a gift. I’ll always be a Sparrow. It’s who we’re meant to be.”
Wetting your lips, you scratch the back of your neck. Every time the two of you are together, the conversation inevitably circles back to the academy. It’s his life. It’s all he’s ever known and all he has, all the bells and whistles attached. Sometimes, you wonder if you would’ve had the same sentiments if your team was – better. Stronger.
In a fucked-up kind of way, you’re glad that it wasn’t.
Three sharp knocks interrupt your train of thought.
“What?” Ben sounds a little more annoyed than usual.
The doorknob turns, and you’re met with Fei’s carefully neutral expression, a single finger still raised from pushing the door open. A crow is perched on her shoulder.
“I’d appreciate not speaking through the door. It’s time for dinner,” she reports, inclining her head towards you. “You’re welcome to join if you want.”
You glance at Ben. He meets your gaze, then rolls his eyes.
“I don’t care if you stay or not.”
Geez, what a bastard. You kick at his ankle. “I wasn’t looking for your permission,” you chastise. You turn back to Fei. “I’d love to join your dinner meeting, as long as I get to sit next to Benjamin over here.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The corner of Fei’s mouth twitches. “All right, then,” she says, turning. “Hurry up and get Chris. I’m not going to wait until my food gets cold.”
As she leaves, you stand up along with Ben. “Her crow didn’t even look at Ben, Jr.,” you note.
“Her crows don’t do anything she doesn’t want them to do,” Ben says, putting a hand on your back and pushing you out of his room. “Now hurry up.”
—
You answer after two rings. Or three. Or five? He can’t count for shit right now.
“H … Hello?”
“[Y/n],” Ben mumbles, relieved. He fumbles with the phone, managing to pin it between his shoulder and ear before it slips and clatters to the floor. “Shit. I dropped you … pfft …”
He hears you snort quietly. “Ben, are you drunk dialing me at two in the morning?”
“Nooo. It’s three in the morning, dumbass. Three-oh-two.” Something in his throat catches, and he hiccups loudly, then giggles. “Thanks for pickin’ up. I hate leaving messages.”
“Well, I just woke up, so I guess you’re lucky, huh?”
“Why’re you whispering?”
“Because my niece is sleeping –”
“I lost your fish.”
“… What?”
“I lost your fish,” Ben repeats, and unexpectedly, sorrow wells up inside of him. His eyes sting, and he hangs his head, chin dipping down against his chest. “I can’t find him.”
“Did you look inside his little cave?”
“No, ’cause he left me. He left because he hates me soooo much.”
“He doesn’t hate you, Ben.”
“Yes, he does,” Ben insists. “’Cause I hate him. All he does is swim around and hide, and I hafta fuckin’ feed him and clean his stupid tank. And he can’t even be with other fish because he fights and kills them, and he flares at me when I put my face too close. I hate Ben. So now he’s … he’s gone.”
There. He finishes his explanation in one breath, then listens expectantly for your reply so he can argue some more. When you take too long to answer, Ben almost cries.
“Why’d you take such good care of him, then?” you eventually ask.
“Because you like him,” Ben slurs. What kind of question was that? Stupid.
“You could’ve just told me if he was too much. There are other people who can take care of him.”
“I’m good enough to take care of your fish. You asked me first. Don’t ask anybody else.”
“I didn’t ask anybody else, Ben. I knew you’d do a good job.”
“But I lost him.”
“Again, did you check his cave?”
“No.”
“Check his cave, dingdong.”
He pointedly looks away from the tank. “No. He needs to stay lost. He’s better that way.”
“Ben –” You sound exasperated, but then you laugh. It bumbles through the haze in his brain and he smushes his ear against the receiver to hear it better. “Fine. Do you know why I like Ben, Jr.?”
“Hell if I know,” Ben mutters.
“Because he reminds me of you,” you reply. “He deserves to be treated well. Thanks for doing that for me, Ben.”
This is frustrating. You’re frustrating. “I don’t get you,” he complains, eyes closing. “He’s just a fish.”
“That’s all he needs to be for me to like him. Look, check the cave or not, but he’s probably still there. Enjoy your hangover tomorrow.”
“You’re so fuckin’ mean,” he grumbles into the receiver.
You laugh again.
“Pot calling the kettle black. Go to sleep.”
“You go to sleep.”
You hang up. Ben drops the phone and stumbles to his feet, then stumbles toward the tank and squints into the dark maw of the small cave in the corner.
Sure enough, he spots Ben, Jr. snoozing inside.
“Go to sleep,” he also tells him.
Less miserable now, Ben is somehow able to remove his socks and unbutton his shirt before flopping limply onto his bed and drifting off himself.
—
At the end of the second week, you crawl through his window and announce that you have a confession to make.
Ben’s smile drips with arrogance. “Sorry, but I don’t date, sweetheart,” he says.
“I’ll make sure to cry in my bedroom later,” you reply wryly. “Not that kind of confession. It’s about Ben, Jr.”
“What about him?”
“Well …”
You linger on the word, and Ben crosses his arms impatiently, shooting a glance at the fish that had taken over his room for the past fourteen days. Ben, Jr. looks perfectly fine to him. He had fed him, kept the tank clean, even gotten a stupid moss ball after Sloane mentioned them in passing. For all intents and purposes, he’d spoiled the shit out of your fish. Surely him just being alive was good enough for you.
“‘Well’ what?”
“He wasn’t for you to just babysit,” you say, hands raised like he’ll unleash his tentacles on you. “He’s a gift. For you. I figured a trial run would’ve been better than just dropping him off, no takebacks. And my niece really does kill fish, so two birds with one stone, I guess.” You pat the top of the tank with an almost shy grin. “If you still don’t want him, I can take him today.”
He’s a gift.
Ben blinks. He clears his throat.
“It’d be a pain in the ass to move the tank out,” he mutters. When he sees your eyes light up, he glares up at the ceiling.
You hum lowly. Rubbing your chin, you start to walk towards him.
“So do you want the fish or do you want me to –”
“I want the damn fish,” he snaps. His cheeks flush as you get closer, and he drags his hand down his face in an attempt to scrub the heat away.
Snickering, you stop. “Okay, then. That’s all I wanted to know.”
He grunts.
His brow furrows as you spin on your heel and wave at Ben, Jr. before making your way to the window. You push the window up, and a balmy summer draft blows in.
“What are you doing?”
You put your foot on the sill and stick your head out. “Leaving?”
When Ben seizes your arm, your skin is already rough, but he maintains his grip despite the discomfort. “It’s almost six-thirty.”
“Yeah, your family dinner meeting. Don’t be late.”
“Stay for it.”
“Oh?” Your lips curl upwards. “You want me to stay for dinner again?”
Scowling, Ben lets go. Whatever sensation that’s prickling his chest seems to expand twofold when you duck back into his room.
“No. Forget it.”
“Nope. I’d never turn down a free meal,” you state. “Might as well beat Fei to it, huh?”
You leave the window open, leading him to the door. He doesn’t realize that he’s caught your wrist again until you’re dragging him down the stairs, babbling on about how Ben, Jr. might be okay with other fish if he gets a bigger tank.
Ben doesn’t care. Not at all.