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“Sometimes Nothing Goes Wrong”
Kyle Rayner a.k.a Green Lantern flexed his wrists and shoulders the way he always did before going into battle. He felt the weight of the solid green ring on his finger. He looked over at Jennifer-Lynn Hayden alias Jade, his lover and most consistent companion in battle. She looked just as ready for action, but he could still feel the tension radiating off of her. He could see it in her emerald green shoulders.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked.
Jade nodded unconvincingly. “We’re just meeting my father’s boyfriend, Kyle. It’s not like going into space to fight some cosmic entity.”
“No, it’s not,” Kyle agreed. “Because you’ve done that a TON. This is new. This is the first time since your Dad came out that he’s had someone he wanted to introduce us to.”
Jenny let the illusion drop. “Okay, I’m super nervous. I’ll admit it. Are you happy?”
“Well…” Kyle admitted. “Not that you’re nervous, but I like that you’re being honest.”
Jade rolled her eyes. “Fine. Now, make yourself useful and massage my shoulders while I fix your suit.”
“Gotcha,” Kyle agreed and formed two strong green hands with his ring. Thank God she was wearing a minidress that exposed her shoulders, last thing he wanted was to mess up her outfit while she was fixing his.
“It’s just… I want tonight to go perfectly… it’s hard enough for my Dad to start dating at his age after the way he grew up. I don’t want Dad to be hurt,” Jenny said as he fixed her boyfriend’s collar. “And I don’t want this guy to hate me.”
“How do you think I felt?” Kyle asked. “I had to get your Dad’s approval knowing that he could flatten me with the sheer force of his will.”
“That’s different,” Jenny cautioned. “He knew you as a Green Lantern first. He trusted you before we started dating. He trusted you with his legacy.”
Kyle shrugged. “Legacy is one thing, his daughter is another.”
“You’re not helping,” Jade stated.
“My point is, things don’t have to go wrong every time,” he assured her. “Sometimes everyone gets along. And sometimes it can just be a normal, pleasant evening.”
Kyle’s words were less than convincing, but his tone and the massaging hands of his energy construct were a lot more helpful. Actually, those hands might be a little TOO relaxing and Jade’s thoughts were starting to drift into… other directions.
She stopped them with her own before she managed to talk herself into other ways to spend the evening. “Okay, let’s go.”
Kyle took her hand in his and they started out the door.
Suddenly, Jenny froze.
“What if a supervillain attacks?” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” Kyle assured her. “Statistically, they will… and then everything will be less awkward.”
Jenny shook her head. “Those hands better be ready to work double-time when we get home.”
———
When Kyle and Jenny arrived at the restaurant, her father Alan Scott was already seated next to a dark-skinned older man with close-cropped silver hair and a well-trimmed beard. Alan took note of their entrance and both men rose to greet them.
“Jenny, Kyle, this is Javier,” Alan announced.
Javier reached out to shake Jenny’s hand, which she reciprocated nervously. When he moved on the shake Kyle’s, Jenny discretely glanced at the back of Javier’s head, checking for the tell-tale scars or stitches that would confirm he was secretly the Ultra-Humanite. Her father caught her gaze and sent her a glare that clearly communicated he knew its intentions. Jenny mouthed “sorry,” but she was privately relieved to have her fears confirmed as unwarranted.
All four sat down to enjoy their evening.
Appetizers were marred by awkward silences, until Kyle tried to the old desperation move. “So… how did you two meet?”
Alan and Javier exchanged a meaningful glance.
“I stole his heart with music,” Javier said with a laugh.
Jenny raised an eyebrow. Her father had always supported her (and later Kyle’s) artistic ambitions, but he was scarcely a patron of the arts himself. “Really?”
“Your brother encouraged me to go a social mixer for men that had come out later in life. Javier was part of the entertainment.” Alan smiled wistfully as he remembered the moment. “He was playing a cover of ‘After Hours’ by the Velvet Underground that damn near put me to tears,” he explained.
“I’m surprised you recognized that one,” Kyle remarked, genuinely impressed.
“Now Kyle, my tastes are more diverse than you give me credit for,” Alan insisted.
“I had to explain it was a cover,” Javier said wryly.
“But I’ve been listening to album ever since,” Alan replied. “Besides, a song like that is timeless. It could have been written when I growing up in the Thirties just as easily as it was in the Sixties. Or even now.”
Kyle and Jade went a bit wide-eyed that Alan had just acknowledged his true age in front of Javier.
Jenny turned to her father’s new boyfriend in surprise. “So, you know about…”
“The age difference?” Javier said with a laugh.
Jenny smiled. “That’s one way to put it.”
Although anyone seeing her father and Javier together would have assumed they were both in their early sixties, with the power of the Starheart, Alan was actually nearing a hundred years old.
Javier smiled warmly. “Of course I know that Alan is the Green Lantern. Even if he didn’t tell me himself, there was no mistaking you in the family photos, Jenny.”
Kyle was a little surprised that Jay had been so open with his new partner, but he supposed that introducing him to Jenny implied that he had divulged his secret identity.
Kyle could relate somewhat. While his own identity was officially secret, those close to him couldn’t miss the fact the green woman he was dating and living with tended to team up with the Green Lantern fairly frequently.
Of course, they both had public team-ups with other heroes frequently enough that the general public wouldn’t think anything of it. And Jenny was hardly the only green person living in New York City.
“Come now, it feels wrong to call me THE Green Lantern. I’m retired, now,” Alan corrected.
“Semi,” Jenny teased.
“Mostly semi,” Kyle chimed in.
“There are ‘active’ heroes I see out there less than you,” Javier added playfully.
“I teach the next generation and help out in case of emergencies,” Alan said, smiling. “It’s not my fault there are so many of them.”
“Anyway, I understand Alan’s… line of work. At least I’m trying to. I’d love to tell you that I fought the Starman in the Seventies or something, but I’m just an ordinary old man that runs a small coffee shop and plays a little Latin Jazz brass here and there,” Javier laughed.
“No, that’s fine,” Jenny laughed. “That’s more than fine.”
“I’m so glad everything is going so well,” Alan admitted.
And suddenly, as one, Alan, Jenny, and Kyle got very tense. And together they turned to face the glass wall at the front of the restaurant.
“What?” Javier asked, genuinely confused. “What is it?”
“This is just when someone smashes through the wall,” Alan explained. “It will be Johnny Sorrow, probably.”
Jenny shook her head. “Fatality. Again.”
Kyle’s jaw set. “Doctor Polaris, one hundred percent.”
“I thought he was dead,” Jenny offered.
“He is dead,” Kyle confirmed. “Still, Doctor Polaris.”
They all stared at the door for a moment until their reverie was broken when from behind them a voice echoed with the chilling phrase “does anyone need more drinks?”
All three heroes nearly jumped out of their chairs… only to promptly settle themselves down.
“No, I think more alcohol is a bad idea for these three,” Javier remarked.
———
After dinner, the two couples took a brief walk around the block before coming to Javier’s car.
“It was lovely to meet you, Jenny, Kyle,” Javier assured them warmly. “I hope I can see you both again soon.”
“Jenny has a photo exhibition next week,” Kyle offered.
“Oh, we’ll clear our calendar,” Javier promised.
“Come on,” Alan chided warmly as he opened the car door. “Us oldsters need to get to bed early these days.”
“Oh, really?” Javier asked wryly.
Alan blushed and Jenny reached over to give both older men a hug. “It was nice to meet you, too. Please take care of him.”
She watched as they got into the car and drove off.
“See, sometimes nothing goes wrong,” Kyle assured her once they were out earshot.
Jade smirked. She knew he was just as ready for Fatality or Doctor Polaris or whoever to burst through the door, just as ready for Javier to be the Ultra-Humanite in disguise or something… just as ready for Javier to just hate one or both them as she was. But she settled for asking “you ready to finish that massage now?”
Kyle’s face lit up. “Wanna fly home?”
Jade cocked in eyebrow. “In this dress?”
“That dress is why I want to fly,” Kyle quipped.
“Let’s walk,” Jenny replied. “Keep the evening normal for a change.”
———
Doctor Polaris actually did attack that night, but it was on the other side of the country and he was stopped by the Titans.
And Nightwing was shirtless at the time.
End