Work Text:
Henry Allen Venture, whoever that was, often lay awake in his bedroom, looking out over the blue lights Pop installed in the compound after he learned a lamp post was a cheap replacement to a security guard.
It was so weird! The home he thought would be freedom had crash landed on the state he was once so happy to leave. And now, here he was. His fingers twitched in his sleep every night, sometimes the pain in his body so great that he knew if he laid there, every numbed sensation might overwhelm him until he was that sniveling, crying wreck Pop said he was.
He thought he heard a knock at the door, so he got up. No one was on the other side. Outside the window, the snowy mountains far away, bathed in pre-dawn moonlight. Like a painting that white guy with the crazy afro would do. Bob Ross, right? He looked at all the happy little trees. The mountains he used to stare at all night looked different. He took a little step forward and realized what it was. He was looking at them from so much higher up.
Something overcame him and he remembered that Batman movie that came out a couple years ago, with Robert Pattinson and that super hot chick. What was her name? Zendeechee?
Before he knew it, he was out on the road in his hoverbike. He wished he could have a real motorcycle, like Batman, but after he woke back up in Colorado, Dr. O must’ve told Pop about all his other Hanks, because all their stuff went missing out of his room one day after Pop had been drinking, and he didn’t have the mask enough to pretend anymore. He didn’t have the costume, he just had who he was. He always hated seeing that retard in the mirror, flapping broken anxious wrists like some cripple. He wished he was a bird and he could fly away on those little wings.
He had the cortisol drip of insomnia exhaustion speeding his bike up to the 35 MPH it would go, fast enough without his helmet, the freezing cold air like little knives through his growing hair. He was trying for something long again, not like Brock’s this time, but more like something he dreamed about one time, looking in the mirror in the bathroom of a made-up bar, his nose bloody from a fight. He was thinking in the dream about the other guy, imagined a broken body a lot like what Brock used to leave in the garage after some guy tried to arch Pop. When he forgot to clean all of them up…
The best thing about driving his hovercycle is that he never got bored of it. It was like running shoes for his brain, he could ride and just go and go and go. Sometimes he was The Bat, on the outskirts of Gotham, with bad guys on every corner. Sometimes he was Guyovitch, with a bitch on the back seat and champagne and a hot tub waiting in a ski resort up the mountain. Sometimes he was Enrique Matassa, driving home drunk from the bar, covered in lipstick and hickeys. Sometimes he was the Detective, a lollipop like a cigarette perched between his lips.
And, his least favorite, he was just Hank today. He came to a shoulder in the road and pulled over. He was starting the feel heavy with sleep. But if he fell asleep out here, all his fingers would turn black and his nose would fall off and then he wouldn’t be Hank, he’d be some disfigured creepazoid and no one would want to go out with him then.
He sighed.
The sun was rising.
He looked down over the valley that contained the Venture compound. He felt like every Hank. Not that they were inside of him, like he often felt, but that he was everyone he had ever been, all at once, for just a minute. Like all the colors inside of him were a rainbow. Wait, that’s kind of gay. More like a monochrome blueness of every shade that had ever existed, with bits of red… and orange… and yellow… and green… and purple…
The memory of the old compound started to overlay on top of the new one as Hank looked at the new vision, like 3D glasses of every time Brock ever drove him up here when he was bothering him when he couldn’t sleep. Napping in the passenger seat of the Charger on the drive back.
There was no napping now, no cigarette smoke, no cassette playing. There was just him.
He touched his face, expecting to feel the plastic of a mask. He did a little wiggle at the feeling of his finger on his face. Then, he flinched, suddenly afraid of the ghost of a rolled up magazine. But then he realized no one was around, not even a squirrel. So, he did another wiggle.
He turned on the CD in his hoverbike. It picked back up partway through Free Bird. Classic Skynyrd. And as the guitar really started going, he started to wiggle, to dance, be free in all his body parts, all the mind parts within those parts. He closed his eyes and danced alone, the weight that he would have to go back to the room Pop was so generously letting him call his soon, more like a heavy backpack of stuff he had put down at his feet rather than a ball and chain trapping him down.
He always thought he would find the way out within himself, like if he was someone else, then maybe he could be better enough to not get hit when he danced. But he was a man now, right? And when was the last time Pop hit him anyway?
Dancing into a frenzy, Hank opened his eyes for a moment to see the compound spinning from his effort. He stopped to take a breath and sat on his bike. He felt better. He usually felt like a whirlwind inside, but he felt pretty calm just then. The popping and cracking of his spine was like rice Krispies but sent pockets of fluid spreading warmth and healing through his body. Maybe he even grew an inch! Like, his spine had decompressed, and he was a little taller now.
He looked in the mirror. He looked about the same. Maybe he could get measured somewhere. His stomach grumbled. He was getting pretty hungry. He got on his bike and started puttering back down the hill, taking his time now. All the little Hanks inside him danced like kelp at the bottom of the ocean, anchored to his spirit.
Maybe he’d make some eggs for breakfast. He could look it up on YouTube. He’d never made eggs before. Maybe the new Hank, the all encompassing Hank, the Hank of all Hanks, the Hank to end all and be all Hanks, wants to cook some eggs. Maybe he doesn’t care what anyone has to say about it. Maybe he’ll do a dance when does.