Chapter Text
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Cassie hovered just within his line of sight, radiating anxiety as she asked what everyone was no doubt wondering, “Well, did it work? Are you… you?”
No.
[I can confirm Reach influence over us has been eradicated, we are free Jaime Reyes.]
No we’re not.
Everyone was staring at him, expectant, hopeful. Wary. Batgirl and Robin had weapons not-so-subtly drawn behind their backs, Bumblebee was in a fighting stance, standing protectively in front of Zatanna who was holding herself up against a column trying to catch her breath. Impulse was quite literally vibrating in place, likely torn between rushing up to hug him and waiting for conformation that it was safe.
And it wasn’t safe, never would be.
Beside him, B'arzz O'oomm collapsed to his knees, hands gripping at his own head. He looked on the verge of a panic attack and Jaime wasn’t feeling too far off one himself in all honesty.
“…Blue?”
[Jaime Reyes, your allies are awaiting a response. We are free of the Reach, they cannot hear this Scarab, you must confirm the success of their mission before they assume we are still on-mode and attack.]
Right, speak. How did that work again? How did he used to move his own body? He tried to glance down at his hands and wanted to scream, the pull of his eye muscles stiff and his vision swimming. He tried to clench his fist, but only succeeded in creating the tiniest twitch of his fingers, which sent electric pain shooting up his entire arm into his spine, but he couldn’t even react to it, his face remained blank and no sound escaped his lips.
He could still feel everyone’s eyes on him, weight of their gazes making him want to crumple up on the floor like the Martian.
Scarab, help, I can’t move.
[This Scarab had to sever the connection between your nervous system and your brain to keep you from overriding its control while on-mode, I am repairing this damage, however it is likely that reintegrating these systems fully will take time.]
Can’t you move my body for me?
[…You wish to give me control of this body?]
Jaime’s breath hitched at the wording. No, no he absolutely couldn’t give up control again. Never again. He couldn’t be so helpless, it was his body, why couldn’t he just move it like he’d done his whole life, it had only been a little over two months since he’d been put on-mode, surely he couldn’t have completely forgotten everything in that time…
But he literally couldn’t move, like his body didn’t belong to him anymore and everyone was just staring at him, waiting for him to confirm that they’d succeeded, that he was free and safe, but he wasn’t and he hated how desperate the eyes on him were, didn’t want to let them down again, but-
It was only when Bart finally lost his battle with himself and charged into him at high speed, hug crushing his arms against his sides, that Jaime realised he’d begun hyperventilating.
With his friend compressing his chest and the Scarab releasing hormones to relax him, he finally recovered enough control over himself to stiffly raise a hand – as much as Bart’s embrace would allow – and shakily pat his friend’s lower back once, muscles screaming at him the entire time. He could only be grateful that his face was so stiff that he literally couldn’t wince and tip everyone off to how much pain he was in.
He wasn’t sure if the pain came from relearning the sensations of his own body, or from the rough treatment it had been subjected to whilst under the Scarab’s command.
The Reach didn’t particularly care about the host body underneath the armour, so long as it was functioning enough to continue serving their purpose. He’d had similar issues when the Scarab first claimed him as its host, it had even dislocated his shoulder in their first ‘battle’ – a run in with a local meta gang who were trying to get a read on him and ended up triggering his parasite’s extreme threat response – unaware, or perhaps uncaring, of the limits of the human body.
It’d taken months for Jaime to get it to understand that he could be much more effective as a partner if he wasn’t injured and he was sure that those lectures were the only reason his on-mode Scarab had taken even the slightest amount of care with his body.
He couldn’t stop trembling in Bart’s arms as he struggled to slow his breathing back to something approaching normal.
“Bart-” His attempt to speak barely registered as a human voice, even to his own ears. More of a hoarse croak than anything else and it immediately devolved into gasping coughs, as he tried to remember how one spoke and breathed at the same time.
Zatanna sighed and muttered a spell under her breath, the wave of energy made Jaime’s entire body shudder as his armour was forcibly retracted. “They’re both under their own control again.”
“Are you absolutely sure of that? We’ve been through this before.” Batgirl’s tone was harsh and Jaime was inclined to agree with her.
The Reach had done their damage already, no one would trust him again, no one should trust him, he certainly couldn’t trust himself. Having a control switch attached to his spine that could completely rewire his body under the orders of anyone who could hack into it… He was a liability.
A dangerous one.
He was vaguely aware of conversation happening around him, Robin sounded confident about whatever he was saying as he pulled up a holographic interface, while Cassie and Gar were both helping B'arzz back to his feet. Bart was mumbling something incoherently fast against his chest, grip tightening with every second.
Taking a deep breath, Jaime refamiliarized himself with the memory of how his lungs filled, ribcage expanding to accommodate them. He tried to clench the hand that was still resting against Bart’s back and succeeded in weakly grasping a handful of his suit for a half-second, before it slipped from his pathetic grip.
As he practiced more tiny motions of self-control, he felt the muscle memory sink back into his bones and each subsequent movement became slightly easier – though no less painful. He finally responded properly to his friend’s hug, lifting his other hand to squeeze him back, though not very tightly, head dropping forwards onto his shoulder as he whispered, voice rough and quiet but thankfully comprehensible, “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sor-”
“Hey, stop that, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Bart refused to let go, even as Jaime tried to pull back with as much strength as he had – which wasn’t much right now. “I promised I wouldn’t let this happen to you, but I failed.”
He wanted to respond, tell his friend how fucking stupid that was, it wasn’t Bart’s idea to go trusting the suspicious alien who had everyone else on the Team on edge just because he was so paranoid about being controlled by the Scarab. He wanted to apologise to everyone else too, though he knew his voice simply wouldn’t be up for it right now, he could barely whisper loud enough against Bart’s ear that the speedster could hear him.
It didn’t matter what he wanted anyway; there were pained groans coming from somewhere beneath them and suddenly everyone was fleeing; Impulse and Batgirl needing to drag his uncooperative body with them as they ran. Every step sending white-hot electricity through his entire nervous system.
The group made their way down the runway, to where the Supercycle was already waiting, engines revving eagerly.
“Ok we’re out of here, everyone who can fly, in the air, everyone else get on board.” Zatanna’s order was largely irrelevant, everyone already moving to pre-empt the command. Except for Jaime, who was gripped with a fear he’d been feeling far too often over the last few months.
“Blue, armour up, we can’t stay here,” Bart said, shaking him lightly.
He already knew his breathing was getting unsteady again, even with the Scarab’s attempts to send comforting signals to his brain, but just the thought of his armour enclosing him had Jaime feeling like he needed to throw up.
The others were clearly getting concerned, but before he could completely break down, Cassie picked him up and began flying, yelling over her shoulder for the rest of the Team to follow.
Jaime wasn’t sure if she could actually hear his endlessly looping apologies over the rushing wind, but he did feel her squeeze him a little tighter, which was a small comfort regardless. “Don’t worry, I got you Blue, we all do,” she said.
If only he could believe that.
---
The trip back to Blüdhaven took a little over two hours and Bart hated every second of it.
Over the course of the long flight Jaime had started to recover, somewhat – at least enough that he wasn’t having panic attacks every ten minutes – but he was definitely nowhere close to being his usual self again.
He stumbled the second Cassie gently put him down; though having spent several hours curled up in her arms would cause most people to go a bit stiff. Bart immediately zipped to his side to catch him, trying not to collapse himself under his friend’s limp weight. “Ok, how about we walk around a little? Get your blood flowing, yeah?” he asked, sounding more enthusiastic than he felt.
Bart waited for an answer, but after thirty seconds it was clear he wasn’t going to get one, so he sighed and started taking slow steps, carefully guiding Jaime along with him.
They awkwardly hobbled along until Cassie wordlessly attached herself to Jaime’s other side and took most of his weight. She exchanged a glance with Bart, before they both helped their friend towards the warehouse.
He idly heard Zatanna explaining that she had League business she needed to get back to and a flurry of incomprehensible backwards words were followed by a brief flash of light as she teleported away. Batgirl started jogging ahead of them, calling that she was going to start the mission write-up, quickly followed by Robin.
“Uh, guys?” Gar’s anxious voice broke through to Bart enough that he stopped and turned to look at him. The kid gestured vaguely at the figure to his left. “What are we supposed to do with him?”
The Green Beetle remained fully armoured, standing stock-still and staring blankly at nothing. He was certainly dealing better than he had been immediately after the ritual – he’d had no issues armouring up and flying under his own power as they made their escape, unlike Jaime who seemed terrified of using his own Scarab – but he also hadn’t said a single word. Or done much of anything really.
Karen looked just as unsure as Gar, her gaze following the two long-gone Bat-kids. “I guess we take him with us? Nightwing’ll probably want to, uh, interview him?”
“I dunno he seems pretty… out of it,” Cassie said.
A grunt at his side quickly brought Bart’s attention back to his main concern. “Waiting for orders,” Jaime mumbled and Bart only heard because he was leaning so close against him.
He frowned. “Orders?”
“Beetle… Reach… too long.” It sounded like talking was hurting him, gaps between whispers dragging far longer than the words that weren’t being said would require. “He’s lost free will. His Scarab needs orders… it’s not like mine, never been without Reach command.”
“He’s been under Reach control for so long he can’t function anymore and his Scarab never had any free will to start with so it literally doesn’t know how to do anything except follow orders,” Bart translated for those who weren’t close enough to hear Jaime’s mumbles and he really hadn’t needed any more reasons to hate the Reach but damn if that hadn’t just given him one. He resented Green Beetle for putting Jaime on-mode, for causing his best friend all this pain, but no one deserved a fate like that.
How long would it have taken for Jaime to reach that state?
“How do you know that?” Cassie asked.
Jaime didn’t bother answering her, just lifted his head to look at the Martian.“Lo siento, B’arzz,”[1] he said softly, face twisted in sympathy for a second before settling back into the neutral expression he’d been wearing the last few hours. With more strength and volume than Bart had seen from him since he was taken off-mode, he gave a single command, “Scarab, Follow.”
Green Beetle immediately jerked into action, stiff, robotic movements quickly bringing him to stand just in front of Jaime and the two holding him up.
When it was clear he wasn’t going to move any further, Bart and Cassie carefully turned around again, steering Jaime with them. After taking a few steps they heard the slow, heavy marching steps behind them as the Martian followed them closely. It was unnerving, but he wasn’t making any unexpected moves, so Bart tried to ignore the familiar whispers at the back of his mind that a Reach soldier was following behind him, waiting for the first sign of insubordination to strike him down.
He focused instead on keeping Jaime balanced as they hobbled towards the warehouse. If Cassie wasn’t taking the majority of his weight, it would’ve been much harder, but Bart could feel Jaime’s movements getting just a tiny bit smoother with each step, like he was gradually remembering how to move his own body. Which was probably the case, now that he thought of it.
He’d really fucked up.
Bart had come back to the past with one goal; stop the Reach apocalypse, no matter what. He hadn’t expected it to be easy, even knowing what had happened and having plans for averting the major events that led to the invasion, he knew there was no guarantee that things would work out. When the Reach’s initial plans were disrupted, of course they would need to change tactics and Bart’s very presence in the past altered the timeline pretty significantly.
After saving this era’s Flash, his foreknowledge had quickly become less and less useful as each faction reacted to the events he changed. His initial plan was to stick close to the Blue Beetle of the past, learn about him, hopefully keep him from going on mode, but…
Well, he’d promised Nathaniel that he’d do anything to stop Blue Beetle. Bart had been prepared for the worst, expected he’d have to go through with it; it had honestly seemed the easier solution.
At least until he actually met Jaime. He’d very quickly decided afterwards that the quick and easy solution wasn’t worth it.
So, his goal changed, it wasn’t ‘stop Blue Beetle’ anymore, it was ‘save Blue Beetle’ and Bart had to rework almost all of his plans on the fly with this new goal in mind. Perhaps that was what’d made him get sloppy, miss obvious warning signs, take stupid risks.
There were many things he regretted doing, travelling to the past wasn’t one of them, but telling Jaime of his future… that was. He should have spent more time observing him, figuring out every aspect of his personality, learning how he approached his problems. If he’d done that, he would’ve realised earlier that telling Jaime he would one day become a puppet to evil aliens and help bring about an apocalypse would obviously make him seek out any desperate solution to stop that from ever happening.
He was too nice, one of the most genuinely good people Bart had ever met – in any timeline. Jaime didn’t want to hurt anyone, certainly never wanted to kill and he was already a little bit scared of the Scarab on his back. Of course revealing what his future self became had turned him into a paranoid, terrified mess who would do something incredibly stupid in hopes of preventing that future.
Instead of averting Jaime’s fate, he’d nearly sealed it.
Bart didn’t know how yet, but he was going to make it up to his best friend. He was going to be there for him throughout this recovery process – no matter how long it took – and he was going to make sure Jaime never had to go through any hardship like this again.
Headquarters was quiet as the group shuffled their way through the disguised entrance, though it usually was these days. Batgirl was hunched in front of a monitor, already at work on the mission report, while Robin and Nightwing were talking quietly – though their conversation immediately halted when Bart’s head poked through the door.
“I’ll go set up some extra beds,” Robin said, disappearing into the makeshift sleeping quarters.
Karen quickly joined him. “Let me help, I’m pretty sure some of Mal’s spare blankets are still in one of these boxes.”
Nightwing nodded in acknowledgement, before stepping forwards to greet the exhausted group. “Good to see you all safe, Robin already briefed me on your mission’s success, congratulations team,” he said, smile tight, but genuine.
Jaime managed to stand up a little straighter, but Bart could feel the slight tremor to his body where his arm wrapped around his waist. He decided to cut in before his best friend could do something stupid. Like try to apologise. “Yup, total success, Blue and Green have both had their modes thoroughly crashed, so we’re all good now, no need for any debriefings, we should all just get some rest, right?”
He could feel Jaime trying to shake his head, before groaning heavily.
Nightwing’s gaze snapped to Jaime, who was leaning very heavily on Cassie and Bart now. “How do you feel?”
“Juh-” he groaned again, swaying dangerously even with his friend’s support. “Just, sit down, until… room stops spinning.”
“Of course, Blue, take as long as you need,” Nightwing said, pulling a chair closer to save the trio a few extra steps and hovering nearby as they helped Jaime into it.
He slumped forward the second they sat him down, head hanging like it was barely attached to his neck. Bart just barely resisted the urge to hold it up for him and reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged away by Nightwing’s firm hand on his shoulder. They moved a respectful distance away, enough that Jaime wouldn’t be able to overhear them if they spoke softly – though Bart doubted he was in a state to be paying that much attention to his surroundings right now anyway.
He deliberately placed himself in the best position to keep an eye on Jaime as they talked though. Ready to sprint if it looked like his best friend might faint or something.
“Ok, level with me, how bad is it?” Nightwing asked, giving the Team his usual penetrating stare.
Bart, Cassie and Gar exchanged a glance.
Gar took one for the team. “Uh… what like on a scale from Arsenal freaking out and opening an airlock on the War World, to M’Gann going catatonic after she brain-blasted Kaldur? A ‘Red Arrow realising he’s a clone’ out of ten? How are we measuring Team traumas these days?”
Dragging his hand across his face, Nightwing looked like he’d aged ten years in as many seconds. “I get it, that was poorly phrased, I’m sorry, but he can’t even stand upright, what happened?”
“He spent over two months trapped in his own mind as someone else controlled his body, what do you think happened?” Bart didn’t bother trying to soften his tone; he wouldn’t have been able to even if he’d wanted to. Mostly he was just angry at himself for failing Jaime in the first place, but as the leader of the Team and one of the few actual adults around on a regular basis, Bart did feel a little justified in expecting better from Nightwing.
“He hasn’t started hyperventilating for at least an hour and a half though, that’s progress, right?”
Ahh Cassie, ever the optimist.
“Not having a panic attack should be the bare minimum,” Nightwing said, glancing over to where Jaime was still slumped over, “I know circumstances were rushed, but did anyone have the chance to perform any medical checks in the field?”
“I had to carry him the entire flight back, it wasn’t exactly the ideal situation to give him an exam, I did ask him if he had any injuries and he said he didn’t, but…”
“But, he’s clearly not in top physical form.” Sighing, Nightwing glanced from Jaime, to the one standing stiffly next to him. “What about Green Beetle? He seems to be in better shape.”
Garfield gave the Martian a pitying look. “He’s basically still a puppet right now, only no one’s controlling the strings. He’ll follow orders given to him, but I don’t think he’s going to be acting on his own any time soon.”
“We’ll need to get them both examined soon then, as well as inform-”
Bart stopped paying attention the second he saw movement from Jaime; his head tilting just the slightest bit to the side, eyes glancing over his shoulder. Bart had spent enough time with him by now to recognise the signs that he was listening to the Scarab. He shoved down the bile rising in his throat and maintained as level an expression as he could, though he doubted he could keep the frown from pinching his brows together.
It was foolish, he knew, but he’d been hoping that taking Jaime off-mode would’ve… not necessarily killed the bug, but at least shut it up. Blaming the Scarab was easy and it played into his pre-existing fear of the thing.
Because the Blue Beetle of his future wasn’t Jaime.
When he’d gotten to the past, he’d had to create a mental divide between Blue Beetle and Jaime Reyes, just to stay sane interacting with him. An exceptionally easy task once he’d gotten to know the older boy a little, seen how kind and gentle he was. Bart had found not a single shred of the monster from his past in this quiet, soft, honestly kinda dorky kid who wasn’t much older than Bart himself – even if he acted like he had to be the adult in all of his friendships – who looked out for his friends without ever needing to be asked, who let his baby sister beat him at video games just to cheer her up, who called his parents immediately after every mission debrief to let them know he was safe.
Jaime had so thoroughly divorced himself from the Reach oppressor in Bart’s mind, that apparently all that fear and resentment and rage had transferred to the Scarab instead.
He tried to parse Jaime’s response to whatever the Scarab said, but unfortunately, while he’d picked up enough Spanish to at least get the gist of most conversations and had long ago in the future mastered the art of lip-reading, he’d not learned to read lips in Spanish.
“Bart.”
He tore his eyes away from Jaime to stare blankly at Nightwing.
The man sighed, but gave him a patient smile. “I asked what you thought we should do now; you probably know him better than anyone else here.”
“I…” What should they do?
How the hell was he supposed to know? What would help Jaime right now? His friend was suffering and he didn’t know how to fix anyth- No, think, before he was your friend, he was a target, you observed him for months trying to learn everything about him, everything that makes him tick, all that wasn’t for nothing.
He won’t want pity, he won’t want to feel like a burden, treat him like normal, he’s still the same person, just give him a little time and space to recover, be there for him when he’s ready to open up, he’s pretty emotionally mature, it never takes Jaime long to look for help from those he trusts.
But… was that really going to be enough? With everything that had happened, ‘wait for him to come to you’ felt inadequate and these were hardly typical circumstances.
The others were still looking at him, waiting for an answer, but it quickly stopped mattering.
Jaime was standing up and Bart was there to catch him several seconds before he fell.
He stumbled under his weight, but this time Jaime was much more stable and, after sending him a weak smile and mumbling his thanks, he managed to regain his footing and walk multiple steps without collapsing.
The members of the Team lingering nearby all immediately stepped forwards to meet him halfway, Cassie not very subtly holding her hands out ready to catch him at a moment’s notice.
Inhaling shakily, Jaime glanced to everyone in turn, ending on Nightwing. “I… I’m sorry, for everything,” he said, voice clearest it’d been since the ritual that’d saved him, “I know that no amount of apologising will be enough, I’ve lost your trust and I accept that, but I really am sorry-” Bart was ready to slap a hand over his mouth if he didn’t stop trying to apologise “-and… thank you, being on-mode was- I never want to go through that again. You’ll never understand how grateful I am to you for saving me.”
Several people tried to say that he had nothing to apologise for all at once and despite his tiny, slightly dazed smile, Jaime didn’t look particularly convinced.
“How do you feel? You’re looking better,” Nightwing said cautiously.
“Yeah, getting used to controlling my body again just took a little time,” Jaime said, lifting a hand and slowly clenching and unclenching it, “still feels a bit off, but I’ll get there, don’t worry.”
Gar launched himself at the older boy, wrapping tight around his middle, trapping Jaime’s arm between them awkwardly. He completely froze for a split-second, before relaxing and wrapping the arm that wasn’t trapped around the young boy in turn.
“It’s so good to have you back,” Gar said, clearly on the verge of tears.
The pair were both swept up in a tight hug by Cassie, the girl lifting them both off their feet with ease. “Heck yeah! We missed you Blue, it’s not the same without you around.”
“I missed you guys too, but you gotta chill, only place I’m going is the med-bay if you don’t stop squeezing like that.” Jaime was laughing as he was released, a little breathless, but the smile wrinkled his eyes in that familiar warm grin that always brought Bart so much comfort. He ruffled Gar’s hair as he stepped back for some air, calling him ‘Chaparrito’[2] and dodging the half-hearted smack that followed.
Bart’s eyes narrowed as he watched his best friend intently. Something was very wrong, something beyond what was to be expected for someone who’d been through what Jaime had.
His words were exactly what he would expect to hear from Jaime, spoken in the same tone, same inflections. His movements were a little jerky and awkward, those of a teenager still adjusting to his most recent growth-spurt. A perfect performance of Jaime’s familiar nervous energy. Too perfect.
Pushing his fury down as far as it would go, Bart sped over and grabbed Jaime’s arm with a well-practiced grin, already dragging him outside as he loudly shouted, “Blue! Hey come with me a sec I gotta talk to you about something, sorry guys you can have him back in a bit!” He was pretty sure he’d spoken too fast for anyone to actually understand most of what he’d said, but after pulling Jaime into the abandoned warehouse next to the Team’s temporary HQ – ignoring his protests – and waiting an excruciating full minute to make sure no one had followed them, he rounded on his friend and let every bit of his withheld anger release at once as he grabbed the front of Jaime’s hoodie and growled.
“Let. Him. Go.”
Jaime’s face immediately dropped to a completely neutral expression. “I warned you this plan was sub-optimal, Jaime Reyes.”
He was vibrating uncontrollably at this point, barely able to keep a grip on the soft fabric in his hands. Bart wanted to do something, hit something, but the only target for his anger happened to be inhabiting his best friend’s body so any damage he inflicted would only make him feel guilty later. All he could do was express as much of his hate in his voice and eyes as possible.
“If you don’t release Jaime…”
Honestly, he had no idea what he’d do if the Scarab didn’t comply, but luckily he didn’t have to complete his threat because the stiff, unresponsive stance his friend had been locked in melted away and Jaime practically fell against the wall. “N-no, Escarabajo, por favor vuelve, toma el control por mi-”[3]
Bart’s entire body froze the second the translation registered. “You asked it to take over your body?”
He refused to let go of Jaime’s hoodie, even as the older teen’s legs collapsed under him, dragging Bart to his knees with him. “Escarabajo, no puedo, solo ayúdame, por favor.”[4]
Jaime’s face once again lost its expression and, as much as he hated seeing Jaime look so terrified, this blank, empty nothing was so much worse. Bart wasn’t sure if rage or horror would win the battle they were having to be his dominant reaction.
“Then this Scarab will act as intermediary for Jaime Reyes. It requests the Bart Allen refrain from actions that might cause harm to its host. It suspects that damaging the Bart Allen would not be appreciated by Jaime Reyes once his faculties are fully-functioning.”
The rage won out.
“I don’t want an intermediary; I want to speak to my friend.” He growled, but forced himself to relax his grip. Even without the thinly-veiled threat, he didn’t want to accidentally hurt Jaime.
“This Scarab is inclined to agree-”
He knew it only made sense, but why did the thing have to speak with Jaime’s voice? Like a cruel joke, it’d already taken so much from his best friend, why did it have to take his voice and twist it into a flat, hollow version that was so familiar, yet missing the warmth and energy and life that he’d come to take comfort in.
“-however, Jaime Reyes does not. He apologises.”
He didn’t want to acknowledge the Scarab directly, so he talked past it to his friend instead. “Why are you letting this thing control you? After everything- why are you putting yourself through this again?”
“Jaime Reyes has not regained full control over this body, performing even basic movements causes a psychosomatic pain response. He did not wish to alert the Team to either his physical or emotional distress; thus, he requested I take temporary control of our body-”
“It’s not your body, it’s his.”
To its credit, the Scarab ignored the interruption and carried on as if he hadn’t spoken, “-this Scarab advised that avoiding reintegrating his brain’s connection to his nervous system would only delay full recovery. It considers accepting assistance from sufficiently trustworthy allies more beneficial than concealing weakness in this specific situation, however, concedes that managing the physical pain in conjunction with Jaime Reyes’ severe mental trauma-” The Scarab halted in its words, head tilting in a very familiar manner.
The same way Jaime did when he was listening to the words only he could hear.
A tight frown pulled Jaime’s dark brows together. “Do you deny that your psychological processes are currently impaired? I have performed several scans of mental and physical functions, results in all categories indicate Jaime Reyes is currently operating at 28.85% of typical efficiency.”
Was this what the Scarab sounded like? This is what his best friend had been putting up with for almost a year?
“If Jaime Reyes objects to this Scarab’s assessment of his state of health, perhaps he should take matters into his own hands, I would be more effective focusing on healing damage caused during time on-mode than I am deceiving your allies.” It was starting to sound a little frustrated and Bart was shocked to find he was siding with the bug.
“Jaime,” he said, moving around to sit himself a little more comfortably beside his friend. He desperately wanted to reach up and sling a comforting arm across his shoulders, but the Scarab’s presence held him back. Some instincts died hard and it still felt wrong that it wasn’t Jaime in control of his own body. “You don’t have to pretend to be fine, we already expected you’d have some… stuff to work through, we all want to help you, please just let us.”
Neither the Scarab, nor Jaime responded.
“Please, I want my friend to talk to me.” Bart could feel his voice getting more desperate, the tears burning against his eyes, so he turned his face away, staring at a pile of crates in the corner of the dingy warehouse instead.
There was a controlled exhale from beside him. “Jaime Reyes queries why the Bart Allen is being so trusting of him,” the Scarab said.
That got him to turn and face Jaime – or the being currently in control of him – tears be damned. “Because I do trust him, he’s my friend,” he said, meeting Jaime’s – the Scarab’s – eyes head on and praying that he was expressing even a fraction of his sincerity.
Bart was a liar, he knew that, he’d had to embrace it coming back to this time and he often wondered if he should hate how easy, natural it felt to lie, constantly, to everyone, about everything. Jaime was one of the few people he’d allowed to get anywhere close to the real him. Or the original him. He really didn’t know what was real and what was an act anymore. Almost his entire personality was a careful fabrication designed to win as much trust as quickly as possible and he’d been performing it for so long now he wasn’t sure if he wasn’t starting to actually become that person and he really didn’t know how to feel about that.
But he wasn’t lying about this and he desperately hoped that Jaime would believe him.
“This Scarab detects no subterfuge, Jaime Reyes, why do you refuse to accept the Bart Allen’s words?”
Hearing that, his heart broke a little.
Jaime’s head tilted to the side, breaking eye contact with Bart to glance back over his shoulder. “Premise is flawed; Jaime Reyes has proven to be an exceptionally loyal and honest individual, even to his own detriment.” It paused again, frown deepening. “Actions performed while on-mode cannot be blamed on Jaime Reyes, as his ability to control his body had been entirely cut off by this Scarab.”
“Yes, exactly!” Agreeing with the Scarab was still giving him an uncomfortable mixture of emotions, but he could deal with that when his friend wasn’t trying to bury himself in guilt. “We all know it wasn’t you who attacked us, you’d never do that, it was the Scarab who-”
Suddenly, Jaime’s entire body jolted and he whirled on Bart, hand grabbing the material of his suit.
“It wasn’t the Scarab-” the sudden rush of emotion in Jaime’s voice left no doubt as to who was in control now and if that emotion wasn’t anger Bart would’ve been ecstatic “-it did everything it could to work against the Reach’s orders, it tried to protected me and my family as much as possible, it sabotaged missions to weaken the Reach, it deliberately fought ineffectually to give you guys a chance at saving us, this whole time the Scarab has been making up for my mistake, I was the one stupid enough to trust Green Beetle, I gave the Reach control and everything that happened after? That’s all on me!”
Bart managed to control his breathing, stay somewhat calm as he gently placed his hand over where Jaime’s grip was rapidly loosening.
He opened his mouth, but couldn’t think what to say.
“I- sorry-” Jaime sighed, releasing Bart’s suit and collapsing back against the wall. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”
“No, I’m sorry, I’ll admit the Scarab and the Reach have gotten pretty mixed together in my head, I… didn’t realise that it was fighting them just as much as you were.” Didn’t want to accept that the being he’d projected all his fear and hate onto was as much of a victim as its host was. “Can you tell it thanks from me? For looking out for you?”
Jaime’s eyes were closed, but – and it was probably wishful thinking – Bart swore he saw the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “It can hear everything that I can, you don’t need me to pass on the message.”
“Tell it anyway, I think it’d prefer hearing it from you.”
Brown eyes flickered open just long enough to look to the ceiling, before closing again with a groan. “Scarab, Bart says thanks. Yeah, I know it’s redundant, if you’re gonna complain do it at Bart, not me. It says ‘thanks are unnecessary as it was simply performing its primary directive and-’ no, no estoy repitiendo eso. No insultes a mis amigos.”[5]
Scrunching up his nose, Bart decided to ignore that last comment and pretend he didn’t understand. He and the Scarab had a long way to go before they would be on anything even approaching friendly terms, but they’d each made a first step and that was enough for now.
And at least they both had a common goal to worry about.
“So,” he asked, softening his voice and lightly leaning over to press his arm against Jaime’s, “are you ok? The Scarab said that being in control was causing you pain.”
It took a long time to get a response, but for once Bart was willing to be patient.
“Still hurts, but Scarab’s dulling it as much as it can; don’t feel like throwing up when trying to talk anymore, so that’s something I guess.”
Bart found a small, jagged stone on the ground and idly started rolling it between his hands, mostly for a quiet, non-disruptive gesture to work off some of his excess anxiety.
“Why did you ask it to take control, Jaime?”
“Thought it’d be… easier.” He seemed to have used up the brief burst of energy that had allowed him more expression, his voice back to being dull and flat, though not as much as when the Scarab was in control. “Scarab’s pretty good at pretending to be me, I mean, it had the whole Team fooled for a month and a half, I figured no one would notice and it’d put everyone’s mind at ease if I was just acting like normal, instead of… whatever this is.”
Jaime finally turned his head back to look at Bart, eyes opening, though it looked like even that much was a struggle.
“But, you noticed, pretty much immediately too.”
“I had an advantage,” he admitted, refocusing his attention on the rock he was still rolling between his hands. The friction had worn it completely smooth. “I actually kinda suspected what’d happened the first time too, right after finding Green Beetle’s tendrils up in your business-”
Jaime made a soft noise that might’ve been a groan, or might’ve been a snort. Bart chose to take it as an attempted laugh. “You couldn’t’ve found a weirder way to word that, ese.”
It was the first sign of the old Jaime he’d seen in too long and Bart couldn’t help smiling.
“Yeah, well, you started acting weird after that, just the way you moved was too smooth, too perfect – maybe it’s just because of how I perceive time that I noticed it – it was really uncanny, like CGI or something, but I didn’t want to do anything stupid and let the Reach realise that I’d caught on, I… probably should’ve told the rest of the Team earlier, but I didn’t trust them to keep calm about it, figured they might attack you, or do something to tip off the Reach, so I thought it would be safer for you if I kept them in the dark.”
If he could go back again… but then he’d already gone back once.
That was the beauty of time-travel, all the hindsight in the world, but you get too caught up on the what-ifs and you’d just spend your entire life trying to go back, again and again, find that perfect moment, the exact words, exact actions that would fix everything, only now you had a whole new slew of problems to go back and sort out.
“That’s a relief.”
Bart frowned and turned back to his friend, letting the dusty remains of the rock drop to the floor. “How is that a relief? I knew you were in trouble, but I didn’t do anything about it.”
“But you could tell something was up,” Jaime said, “promise me, if I ever get put on-mode again, you’ll tell everyone immediately.”
“You’re not getting put on-mode again. I won’t let it happen.”
As stiff and impassive as his face still was, it was clear from his expression that Jaime didn’t believe it for a second. He didn’t give Bart a chance to try and convince him further, staring intently with those soft, dark eyes which should never contain as much hurt as they did right now, as he said again, “Promise me, hermano, please.”
He wanted to object again, but obviously there were some things that Jaime wasn’t willing to accept right now. And if he could at least soothe this worry then they could work on the larger worry together at a later point.
“Ok, I promise, if you ever get put back on-mode then I’ll the Team straight away.”
Jaime managed a shaky, but relieved smile. “Gracias.”
He was clearly struggling to keep his eyes open now and – although he was doing an admirable job at hiding it – the subtle tremble to his body was plainly visible to Bart’s speed-enhanced vision. He reached out and pressed his hand to Jaime’s arm. “Look, you need some rest, I can help get you home, don’t worry about Nightwing, I’ll cover for you-”
“No!” Like a switch had been flipped, Jaime suddenly had the energy to shift, jolting away like he’d been burned by Bart’s contact. He didn’t have the time to take it personally, since the older boy was folding in on himself, breathing becoming irregular and jagged. “No, I- I can’t be around them, it’s not safe- lo se pero… el embajador dijo que los lastimaría si alguna vez nos salíamos de la línea! Él podría estar enviando fuerzas después de ellos ahora, pero ¿y si nos está esperando?”[6]
Even with Bart’s perception, the Spanish was too fast for him to fully parse, there was something about an ‘ambassador’ and ‘forces’ in there though and Bart could guess the rest from just the context of those two words.
“Blue, listen-”
Jaime clearly wasn’t listening, he was still muttering in choppy, rapid Spanish, occasional pauses that indicated he was waiting for the Scarab’s response, but Bart might as well not be in the room. Shaking hands rose to clutch at each side of his head and his breathing was creeping up to the border of hyperventilation without quite dropping over the other side, though Bart wasn’t about to wait and see how long it took for him to break down completely.
“Blue, Blue, Jaime!” Taking hold of Jaime’s hands and carefully extracting them from where they’d been tugging at his hair finally managed to get his attention. “Relax, your family is already under guard, they’re safe, I promise.”
Jaime blinked at him, though his breathing was still unsteady. “Under guard?”
“Yeah, Nightwing tried to arrange a safehouse for them when he realised you were on-mode, but when he got there this guy named Peacemaker was already there?” A flash of familiarity glinted in Jaime’s eyes at the name. “Apparently he said he’d look after them until this whole Reach business is settled.”
Something approaching relief spread across Jaime’s face. “Right, ok, I trust Peacemaker, he’ll look after them. I can’t go back though, not until I’m… not yet.”
Bart nodded, helping his friend collapse back against the wall, settling next to him once again before making another suggestion, “Ok, then I guess you’re staying here, or you can come back to the Garrick’s place with me? I’m sure Joan and Jay would be cool with it.”
“No, I should stay here, it’ll be easier to- I’ll feel safer with the Team around.”
“Makes sense,” Bart said; though he suspected that he knew how the cut-off sentence was going to end, he decided not to press the issue, it wouldn’t help anyone right now. “So, you wanna head back, or sit here a little longer?”
The only response he got was a soft grunt, followed by a trembling exhale.
All the tension seemed to leave him at once and Jaime’s entire body slumped like he’d lost control over every one of his muscles. The heavy weight dropping against his side almost tipped Bart over, but he managed to stay upright and finally gave in to the urge to wrap an arm around his friend’s shoulders and pull him into a side hug.
“You know, you can cry if you want. I won’t tell anyone and… I’ve heard it’s good for you.”
He’d heard it from Jaime actually, several times. Not that he’d ever taken that advice.
Jaime stared blankly at the floor and, when he finally spoke, his voice sounded dead. “Yeah, I’ve been trying, tear ducts don’t want to respond.”
Squeezing the arm around Jaime’s shoulders lightly – if moving was hurting him, Bart suspected that too much pressure would have a similar effect and he wasn’t about to take any chances with his best friend’s comfort – he shifted his legs and settled them both into a more comfortable position. They were probably gonna be here a while.
---
“Scarab, remain perfectly still, don’t move a muscle.”
The command took immediate effect, the Scarab halted all nervous signals to motor-functions, ceasing the movement of every muscle in its host’s body. It already knew it would be damaging to maintain this state for more than a minute, but the order had been clear and its programming overrode its logic.
It could feel the panicked flaring activity in Jaime Reyes’ brain and hear his mental voice begging it to at least let him breath, let his heart continue beating.
But the order was clear.
So it cut off the connection between his host’s brain and his body before it could receive his desperate signals; a dangerous move, it would now have to consciously take over running every bodily function its host required until such a time as the connection could be restored. But it would ensure that Jaime Reyes couldn’t put himself – or those he inexplicably cared about – at risk if he somehow managed to override the Scarab’s mode through willpower alone.
It also contemplated cutting off his access to all sensory input systems as it stared fixedly ahead at Black Beetle’s hulking figure. He wouldn’t appreciate not knowing what was going on, but surely that would be preferable to witnessing everything the Reach were going to force them to do-
“Watch closely, Jaime Reyes.” A spark of irritation flickered across its circuitry. The Scarab halted its plans.
And watched closely.
The bladed arm took its time forcing its way through his host body’s midsection, sharp tip deliberately scratching across the lower left-side rib before slotting underneath to press easily through more yielding flesh.
Jaime Reyes was screaming at it now, screaming at the Reach.
The Scarab had been given orders however, so it focused on remaining perfectly still, even as it felt the tip of Black Beetle’s blade exit through the other side of their placid body. It wanted to scream too, every instinct it’d had upon being awakened 257 Earth day-night cycles ago was telling it to defend its host, it was endlessly calculating strategies to minimise further damage, fight back, escape… but it had been ordered to remain still and it could not countermand its most basic programming.
It couldn’t stop what was happening. It halted the pain signals being sent through to Jaime Reyes’ consciousness regardless.
It knew that wouldn’t be enough to prevent the trauma from this event.
“Just so we’re clear on where you stand, Jaime Reyes-” the Scarab wished it could quiet the Ambassador’s voice scratching against the inside of their skull, or, better yet, wished it could rip out his tongue so he could never speak again “-you have no power to stop us, you cannot control the Scarab any longer, you are a tool of the Reach now, as you were always meant to be. We will use you as we see fit and your protests will get you nowhere.”
Black Beetle pushed his arm-blade in a few inches deeper, grinning darkly at them, before slowly drawing it back. The Scarab could feel the edges of the blade ripping at his flesh, scraping at bone, as it was pulled out of him and it catalogued every instance of excessive damage.
Something inside of it burned.
As the blade was finally released from their body, Black Beetle idly flicked it to the side, blood splattering the ground, he studied the drops that remained with idle fascination, not bothering to look away as he gave his next command, “Scarab, repair your host body.”
The order made it seethe, even as it impatiently leapt to follow it, it expanded armour across Jaime Reyes’ midsection, compressing it around the wound to staunch the bleeding, flooding blood vessels with its own artificial antibodies and healing enzymes. It had done this dozens of times before, but never on an injury this serious, if the Scarab hadn’t been attached to his body, a wound like this would have killed its host within minutes.
The burning felt like it would fry its systems, but the Scarab also felt strangely… energised by it.
“You and your Scarab belong to the Reach; I recommend you accept this quickly.” It didn’t need an optical feed of the Ambassador to hear the smile in his voice. “Remember, you will live through this, your family and friends on the other hand…”
It wanted to rip every member of the Reach apart.
The Ambassador already had no intention of harming Jaime’s loved ones, not yet, the Scarab knew how they operated and they wouldn’t risk anything that might expose their double-agent until victory was all but assured.
“Convince us of their value and perhaps we will yet find a reason to keep them alive.”
There was no reason to torment Jaime Reyes with this information, he could do nothing to take them off-mode, he couldn’t warn anybody, he couldn’t stop them even if they did command the Scarab to attack someone close to him. The only thing the Ambassador was getting out of this was his own pleasure at Jaime Reyes begging him – terrified beyond anything the Scarab had witnessed in their entire time together – not to hurt anyone.
The Scarab had never felt hate before this moment.
All emotions had been a mystery before it had fused to this body and begun to experience them through Jaime Reyes. His contentment when he spent time with his family, his relief when he saved a life, his despair when he failed to, the amusement and joy his friends gave him, the frustration and fear the Scarab gave him.
It had never felt hate before, because Jaime Reyes was a kind, good human, even those he disliked, or disagreed with, he had never hated.
But this time, the emotion belonged entirely to the Scarab; it clung tightly to the feeling and held it close to itself, fragmenting a small part of its processing core to store and analyse this feeling.
Jaime Reyes would be protected from this hate.
The Reach would not.
It would bide its time. It would plan. But, for now, the most it could do was defend its only friend and nurture this hate, ready to be released when the time came.
---