Post by Wachter on Jan 24, 2019 22:24:37 GMT
Cassie Cain Hates Spider-Man #2
Responsibility
Jackrabbit No More Part 2
You know that feeling when you're standing outside your home after curfew and you know, you just know, your mother is awake inside waiting for you to open that door to accept your punishment? That's what I feel right now. I'm hurt. Bad. My flesh feels on fire. I can't remember much about what happened except that it happened. And somehow, I survived.
I survived being a superhero.
Can I survive what's on the other side of that door?
Dunno.
Moms are scarier than monsters.
"Mr. Parker…"
The low voice greeted Ben as he entered his home. Came from a tall man in trench coat facing the fireplace, looking at the pictures on the mantle. The back of his head was smooth. Well, wrinkled with age and the other slightly excess flesh that bald heads actually have. Mostly smooth though. There was a tiny band that bisecting it. A little black string.
"I prefer Reilly."
The air chilled. Not visibly. Not like the stranger was some sort of frost-based villain. He had that sort of presence. Ben felt his blood run cold as the man turned to face the boy, his only defense the barricade created by the sofa separating the two. The man had only one eye. Or at least, one visible eye. The band was for an eyepatch that covered a puckering old scar. That one eye did the work of thousands though. It weighed Ben. It judged him.
Definitely wasn't his mom but he felt like he was only getting off slightly easier. The tall man actually held a picture frame. Some holiday that Ben had no recollection of given that he was the baby in it. Two couples, the men in it sharing enough of a resemblance to obviously be related, and a boy seven or eight years old. There was a tension in the fingers holding the frame. The tension of a man who couldn't let loss or personal feelings define him yet nevertheless felt it. Felt it as he remembered the hundreds that died because of his orders, of the millions more that could have died had he not given those orders. Not enough to break the glass though. Not enough to crush the frame.
"Do I look like a man who gives a damn about what you prefer?"
Ben shrugged, shouldering his school bag, and headed for the stairs.
"Where the hell are you going?"
"Did you come to tell me someone else died or there's some funeral I missed?"
"You remember me."
Ben didn't. How the hell could he? He'd been a baby, a toddler, the last time he probably saw the man in person. But he remembered descriptions. He remembered who the stranger represented.
"Ah, you didn't. And I don't see my guardian anywhere sooooo, I'm going to my room."
That's exactly what he did, heart pounding in his chest. The hydra. The hydra that left his skin blistering and boiling. It'd been too big for him to just be perceived as some friendly neighborhood joke of a vigilante. There'd been those agents. It was all over the news after he crawled out of that bunker, mostly healed, and hurried home just in case his mother would be worried enough to murder him for not letting her know he was okay. Of course, they would find him.
Of course.
At the foot of the stairs, Nick Fury the Director of SHIELD went, "What the…"
---
Voices hovered above Ben's head. So did smells. He smelled food, finished and unfinished. Spices. The stench of the sink. Damn. It was his night to do dishes. Forgot that. He'd do them later. After, y'know, he stopped bleeding to death and preferably after he could see again. The latter was kinda optional in his opinion. The dying was a bit more worrisome than becoming some bad Nick Fury cosplay.
His back rested on something flat. Solid guess that it was the kitchen table given everything else around him. What he could see was too bright. Stupid light so they could see each other when they had meals together. What kind of family did that? They should just take their meals in their respective rooms like every other true American home. Wouldn't need a light hanging over the table if they were like that.
"How can he lose that much blood?"
"I'm calling Fury."
"No! We're not getting SHIELD involved. He'd never forgive us."
"Then a hospital."
"May, he wouldn't forgive us for that either."
"He's my son. He can spend the rest of his life hating me as long as he's alive to do it."
"… I got this. I can do this."
Oh god, listen to mom. Call a hospital. You're not in school to be that kind of doctor and I really, really, reaaaaally enjoy living.…
---
Now Ben wasn't that tall. Not even remotely for his age. This didn't particularly matter when one was as strong as he was. The golden lightning bolt from his Flash poster crinkled while he kept Fury dangling feet off the ground, slammed against the wall. Not enough force to crack it – his mom really would murder him for that – but enough that the Director wasn't going anywhere until the boy let him. It'd been a long day. Practically felt like his face had melted off. Now his secret identity was compromised by the one person he hoped never to discover it.
He tried doing the little things. He tried flying under the radar as Jackrabbit. Woo, he could jump. He was fast! He could lift cars – new models, not the heavy real metal older makes – but he stopped petty crimes and helped out little old ladies. Rare that he could do much more even with the city going to hell since Green Arrow abandoned her. That was okay. Just help one person. Then help another. And maybe all those people you helped would help others when they were given the chance.
A giant monster showing up in the middle of Star City… Well, he couldn't let that stand when he had the power to stop it. No matter the cost. No matter that he'd have been dead if not for the Flash of Coast City healing him. It was his duty to do what he could to help.
"My father passed on a few lessons, not to me you understand, obviously, still, he passed them on and I learned them. A lot of it was about the importance of responsibility. But there was one about never starting a fight you're not prepared to finish or pull out a weapon you're not willing to use."
The barrel of Fury's gun prodded the kid's side. The look in his eye said he really wanted to use it but knew damn well he wouldn't. Not unless Ben escalated things beyond the humiliation of being manhandled.
"Where's my mother?" Ben growled in his most threatening voice which sadly, really wasn't that threatening. Tightening his grip did the trick though.
"Right now? Filling out some paperwork and cursing about tanning your hide the next time she sees you."
There was truth to those words. Enough honesty for Ben to believe SHIELD had not harmed her. And it sounded like his mom. He let Fury down to the ground, not gently, just down. Then he moved to sit on his bed, defeat making his shoulders sink slightly.
"You're a clever kid. Keeping me off balanced. Making me follow you," Fury adjusted his shirt, "only to ambush me. Your father would be proud." He noticed the tension suddenly return to the boy. "Fine. Your granddad would be."
"Are you here to black bag me?"
"Son, the Director of SHIELD does not personally black bag anyone. At least, not these days. Far too much paperwork on my desk for me to even have the time to."
It was a lame joke yet it somehow managed to crack the ice. Ben laughed. He laughed and he hurt while he laughed. Not a single crack of a smile appeared on Fury's face. His eye did however lose the murderous twinkle to it.
"Then why are you here?"
"I came with an offer…"
---
"Agent Walker, he's in here."
Praise the sun, Ben thought. He also thought he said it aloud given the slight stab of the needle more roughly than it should have been through his flesh. He wasn't going to die on his kitchen table. His mom wouldn't have to buy a new one because she was so saddened by his memory of bleeding out atop of it. No. Just buy a new one cause of all the stains.
"I said not to call – "
"SHIELD. I didn't call them," there was a certain amount of venom in his mom's words as she yelled at his operator. "I called the people who are supposed to be keeping an eye on my boy."
"I really don't know how this slipped past us, Mrs. Parker. Agent 13 will be looking into his attacker the moment she finishes cleaning his trail." A woman's voice grew louder as it came closer. "Hmm, good job cleaning his wounds but lets just…"
There was the sound of a bag opening followed by the whir of electronics. He felt a buzz over his skin. It traveled up and down his body multiple times, making his hairs stand on end.
"Huh."
"What?" His mother's voice was back to frantic worry. "Is he going to be okay?"
"Should be once I finish helping patch him up and he gets some blood. That eye looks bad but his enhanced healing should handle it in time. The weird thing is… none of his vitals were hit. This isn't even a death by a thousand cuts type situation. His attacker knew exactly what they were doing. Knew exactly how to injure him without killing him. Honestly? Ben did more damage making his way home. It looks worse than it actually is."
Ouch. Some part of Ben's mind already knew that. Hearing it said? That hurt. What was he supposed to do in that situation? Lay in the middle of the street until Agent 13 arrived to yell at him?
---
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"I won't become some child soldier." Ben stated firmly.
Fury sat on Ben's desk chair, the dual monitors reflecting the back of his head behind him. The Director calmly explained the situation. Gave the pitch for his offer with carefully phrased words that avoided Ben's daddy issues. Still had the whole responsibility. Still had the for the greater good and it was his duty to train his powers.
Everything Flash and Shadowcat had warned him about. The only difference between Ben and some random enhanced kid found on the street – at least in his eyes – was he was being given the choice. That felt wrong. Immoral. Most importantly, it showed how messed up the whole system was that he had the option to refuse. The corruption was right there, across his room, staring him in the face.
Wait… he didn't think this through. Fury never said what would happen if he refused. Was this not a choice to begin with? Don't let his hatred of SHIELD or second-hand talk from people he didn't know dictate his actions. Ask the right questions. Say the correct things. Then judge Fury.
"I won't join your Initiative, but I won't stop helping people either. Today showed that Star City needs her vigilantes, needs Jackrabbit."
"Boy…" began Fury, "My agents think you're some kind of biological weapon after seeing those pokers in your wrists. The DEO thinks the same. Only I know the truth and I owe it to your family, to your father, to make sure you're safe. I already failed to do that." He shook his head in disbelief. "This is not a question we ask. Not a question I ask. So say yes. I'll see you fast tracked through the academy and back here in no time."
Thought so. He wasn't meant to refuse. "I won't leave my home, my city. I won't let SHIELD claim another member of this family."
Fury glared at him with his one good eye.
Guilt was a powerful motivator.
"Your move."
---
Ben's one good eye finally saw through the light. A pretty redhead stood over him, the IV hooked to his arm stretching up to a bag of blood next to her. She wore the nondescript uniform that wasn't actually a uniform. Just a nice black suit, no tie, some red splotches. Probably should apologize for that. The good old reliable DEO. One of the two handlers that were supposed to keep him out of trouble according to the deal worked out between the respective Directors of SHIELD and the DEO. Every so often, they threw him a bone and let him put on his big boy superpants to team up with Agent 13.
They made sure he was responsible, that he kept his grades up at the school they paid for him to go to, that he did what he could to master his abilities and better himself. But it was all on him outside of the school – that'd been his mother's only condition. Ben would be given special treatment but not treated as special. If he wanted to go at it alone (Watchtower friends excluded) then he had to put in the leg work. Fine by him.
After those first few weeks of reassuring his mom that he was safe and he wouldn't do anything dangerous – that she'd find out – the system worked. It denied him a social life true. But being a hero, no matter how small most of the time, took its toll. Fury sought to teach him that lesson for not playing his game.
Ben wouldn't let him win.
"Thanks, Trish," the boy tried and failed to sit up.
The DEO Agent shook her head. "Peter did most of the work before I even got here. You should thank him instead."
He turned to look at the other side of the table. His cousin blushed a deep scarlet beneath his glasses. Always had a thing for redheads. Wouldn't think he could have saved Ben now that he'd gone all lanky, awkward science geek around the secret agent but Ben knew he could always be relied on. Pete had practically raised him while his mom worked to provide for two growing boys who were smarter than anyone had the right to be. She did the best she could alone.
"Thanks, bro…" he glanced down at the bandages and stitches covering his body. "Doctor Parker has a nice ring to it."
"Heh," a lame chuckle from his elder. "I don't want to be that kind of doctor. I'm just happy I was able to piece you back together."
A weak, hysterical laugh escaped Ben too. The pain was good. Meant he was alive.
"Benjamin Carson Parker!"
---
The picture in the mildew smelling attic showed two hairy men – one tall, the other short – a handsome middle-aged soldier, a man with a marvelous mustache and bowler hat, an African woman and one last man in dark aviator clothes. He held Ben's attention more than anyone else in the ancient photo. He knew him. The boy was named for him. Partially at least.
According to the very little Ben had figured out on his own, he was the man's heir in some fashion. A spider. Explained his wallcrawling, strength, and agility. Kinda answered the whole deal with his poisonous stingers.
How was he not a mutant? He wanted to know more about who he was, where his powers came from, but nobody knew. Nobody that could be trusted at least.
A shaggy brown-haired head poked into the attic, soon followed by the thin body of a young man who spent far too much time inside in a lab.
"Thought I might find you here."
Ben sat there, holding the picture, hovering over a box full of more and other relics from days past. He was silent, his default state of being without the mask. It didn't become uncomfortable. His cousin stooped his way closer, saying nothing as well. He understood Ben. Before anyone, before his mother found out because Fury told her, Peter knew the truth. It was a secret they shared.
"Did I do the right thing?"
"You mean did you do the right thing extorting possibly the most dangerous man in the world who could easily make Aunt May, you, and me vanish without a trace?"
"Yeah… that."
"No idea," he watched his cousin's shoulders sag, "but if what you were told is true, if the government really is training enhanced kids like you to be child soldiers then I think ole Snapper and this guy would approve of your refusal."
Peter pulled out a photo of the aviator and a man who very likely was clad in red, white and blue. Couldn't quite tell in black and white.
"When Captain America throws his mighty shield…"
A smile crossed Ben's lips, his eyes on the goggles that had been hidden beneath the pictures.
"All those who choose to oppose his shield must yield."
---
Not many people talk about what it's like to truly have night vision. It's not some green filter. More like Ben ate a whole lot of carrots and liver to the point night wasn't that much different than day. The only difference was the lack of light… That made absolute zero sense. Everything about it was a hundred percent true but it sounded so dumb. You can't explain true night vision.
It's just metaphors and comparisons.
The face reflected in the goggles of his great grandfather was unusually pale. No surprise there. That was science.
It had taken less time than he expected for his mother to go to sleep. Even less time spent chewing him out. More worried and thankful that he was alive. He was grateful for it, grateful for her. They didn't really talk about what he did as Jackrabbit. Not even after Fury worked out the deal and why she agreed to it. He had a feeling it had something to do with his dad and being a Parker. Maybe she thought if Ben kept helping people, kept following in Snapper's and his footsteps, he'd eventually forgive the man for abandoning his wife to raise their son and his young nephew.
Not happening.
She couldn't talk him out of it. Whether it was in his blood through her or some wise words from Pete – that, he admitted inside his head, were his father's words – Ben would not stop. He stood up to Nick Fury. He would not be used. Yes, he wanted to help people. Yes, he wanted to be a hero.
It was fun even when it was boring. Made him feel alive, like he was making a difference. Small things, big things, didn't matter… as long as Ben was doing something then he wasn't… he wasn't…
He refused to finish that thought. Tonight had been different. Something personal about it. That girl had waited for him. She wanted to test him. Not kill him, clearly, until he almost did the work for her, but she had a plan.
Jackrabbit didn't have a nemesis. He didn't have rivals. There was nobody in particular that he could remember pissing off.
He grabbed the goggles and a faded-with-age black balaclava from the box. Crawling to the far side of the attic, silently, he pried open the escape route from his early days as Jackrabbit and took a leap into the night.
---
Silently, May removed the final screw, slipping it into her pocket with the rest and dropping the screwdriver on the bed. She pried open the fixture for the ceiling fan and pulled it down. There was just enough room for her to slip her slender hand between the wires, to reach the phone hidden there. It was a tighter squeeze withdrawing it. She sat down on the edge of the mattress, already plugging in the charger just in case.
The moments waiting for it to finish turning on were some of the longest in her life.
There was only one number to call. Never anyone on the other end. Not even a recording to leave a message. There was only a beep. After that single noise, so loud in her ears, May said what needed to be said.
"They've found him."
She hung up.
Third time in just over a year she'd dialed that number. More than she had in the decade since being given it in case of emergency. Her heart always hoped for a reply. She always hoped, she had faith. It never came yet she still had to try. Some people might call it the definition of insanity.
It was love.
It was knowledge.
Knowledge that gave her the awareness that in the kitchen, her nephew – a young man she raised as her son – would be whispering in a quiet voice with the DEO Agent. The same knowledge that if she went to check on her son, he would not be in his bed. It broke her heart. Tore her apart as a mother. And in a few minutes – after hiding the phone again – she would walk downstairs and exclaim in not entirely fake hysterics that Ben was gone.
Like father, like son.
Responsibility.
Someone had to do what needed to be done.
She just wished she had more power to stop it.
---
Commandeering the Arrow Bunker came with more perks than just the wristlines and an improved costume. He rigged some of the archers' trackers to serve his purposes. One such purpose did not lead him back to the park where Agent 13 was probably searching for his mysterious assailant. It took him across the city to a skyscraper with a single neon Q near the top.
Slipping on the mask and strapping the goggles over his eyes, Ben pulled up the hood of his red jacket before stepping out of the alley and into the street lights. The tracker he had slipped on her at some point during their fight said the girl was inside the building. Or at least, this was the building where the tracker was. She might have discovered it already and ditched it here.
Ben hurt so much that he couldn't exactly find a part of him that wasn't in pain. This was the epitome of stupidity on his part. This was the time he should call the DEO for backup. Or at least Felicity. She'd been blowing up his phone all night. He didn't want them involved. Like he felt earlier, this was personal in a way that he wasn't quite sure of just yet.
Before he knew it, Ben was running. Then he was jumping. And finally, finally, he started climbing up the wall using nothing other than his amazingly clingy hands and feet. It'd be a long climb.
Probably a shorter fall.
Every gesture, every reach forward to pull himself higher and higher up the former Queen Consolidated building, threatened to reopen his wounds.
God, he was being an idiot.
Ask for help.
Go on, do it. If you don't trust the DEO or SHIELD or even Felicity then call up Wally and he'd be here in a flash.
No.
Through many windows, he saw a whole lot of nothing not even janitors or security. He saw nothing that is until a scarlet glow attracted his attention in the darkness. A lone figure holding a bow took aim at him. No time to think, no time to react. Ben threw himself to the side.
The glass shattered with incredible force, shards flying everywhere.
The arrow shot past him, streaking into the night as if lightning from God.
Responsibility
Jackrabbit No More Part 2
You know that feeling when you're standing outside your home after curfew and you know, you just know, your mother is awake inside waiting for you to open that door to accept your punishment? That's what I feel right now. I'm hurt. Bad. My flesh feels on fire. I can't remember much about what happened except that it happened. And somehow, I survived.
I survived being a superhero.
Can I survive what's on the other side of that door?
Dunno.
Moms are scarier than monsters.
"Mr. Parker…"
The low voice greeted Ben as he entered his home. Came from a tall man in trench coat facing the fireplace, looking at the pictures on the mantle. The back of his head was smooth. Well, wrinkled with age and the other slightly excess flesh that bald heads actually have. Mostly smooth though. There was a tiny band that bisecting it. A little black string.
"I prefer Reilly."
The air chilled. Not visibly. Not like the stranger was some sort of frost-based villain. He had that sort of presence. Ben felt his blood run cold as the man turned to face the boy, his only defense the barricade created by the sofa separating the two. The man had only one eye. Or at least, one visible eye. The band was for an eyepatch that covered a puckering old scar. That one eye did the work of thousands though. It weighed Ben. It judged him.
Definitely wasn't his mom but he felt like he was only getting off slightly easier. The tall man actually held a picture frame. Some holiday that Ben had no recollection of given that he was the baby in it. Two couples, the men in it sharing enough of a resemblance to obviously be related, and a boy seven or eight years old. There was a tension in the fingers holding the frame. The tension of a man who couldn't let loss or personal feelings define him yet nevertheless felt it. Felt it as he remembered the hundreds that died because of his orders, of the millions more that could have died had he not given those orders. Not enough to break the glass though. Not enough to crush the frame.
"Do I look like a man who gives a damn about what you prefer?"
Ben shrugged, shouldering his school bag, and headed for the stairs.
"Where the hell are you going?"
"Did you come to tell me someone else died or there's some funeral I missed?"
"You remember me."
Ben didn't. How the hell could he? He'd been a baby, a toddler, the last time he probably saw the man in person. But he remembered descriptions. He remembered who the stranger represented.
"Ah, you didn't. And I don't see my guardian anywhere sooooo, I'm going to my room."
That's exactly what he did, heart pounding in his chest. The hydra. The hydra that left his skin blistering and boiling. It'd been too big for him to just be perceived as some friendly neighborhood joke of a vigilante. There'd been those agents. It was all over the news after he crawled out of that bunker, mostly healed, and hurried home just in case his mother would be worried enough to murder him for not letting her know he was okay. Of course, they would find him.
Of course.
At the foot of the stairs, Nick Fury the Director of SHIELD went, "What the…"
---
Voices hovered above Ben's head. So did smells. He smelled food, finished and unfinished. Spices. The stench of the sink. Damn. It was his night to do dishes. Forgot that. He'd do them later. After, y'know, he stopped bleeding to death and preferably after he could see again. The latter was kinda optional in his opinion. The dying was a bit more worrisome than becoming some bad Nick Fury cosplay.
His back rested on something flat. Solid guess that it was the kitchen table given everything else around him. What he could see was too bright. Stupid light so they could see each other when they had meals together. What kind of family did that? They should just take their meals in their respective rooms like every other true American home. Wouldn't need a light hanging over the table if they were like that.
"How can he lose that much blood?"
"I'm calling Fury."
"No! We're not getting SHIELD involved. He'd never forgive us."
"Then a hospital."
"May, he wouldn't forgive us for that either."
"He's my son. He can spend the rest of his life hating me as long as he's alive to do it."
"… I got this. I can do this."
Oh god, listen to mom. Call a hospital. You're not in school to be that kind of doctor and I really, really, reaaaaally enjoy living.…
---
Now Ben wasn't that tall. Not even remotely for his age. This didn't particularly matter when one was as strong as he was. The golden lightning bolt from his Flash poster crinkled while he kept Fury dangling feet off the ground, slammed against the wall. Not enough force to crack it – his mom really would murder him for that – but enough that the Director wasn't going anywhere until the boy let him. It'd been a long day. Practically felt like his face had melted off. Now his secret identity was compromised by the one person he hoped never to discover it.
He tried doing the little things. He tried flying under the radar as Jackrabbit. Woo, he could jump. He was fast! He could lift cars – new models, not the heavy real metal older makes – but he stopped petty crimes and helped out little old ladies. Rare that he could do much more even with the city going to hell since Green Arrow abandoned her. That was okay. Just help one person. Then help another. And maybe all those people you helped would help others when they were given the chance.
A giant monster showing up in the middle of Star City… Well, he couldn't let that stand when he had the power to stop it. No matter the cost. No matter that he'd have been dead if not for the Flash of Coast City healing him. It was his duty to do what he could to help.
"My father passed on a few lessons, not to me you understand, obviously, still, he passed them on and I learned them. A lot of it was about the importance of responsibility. But there was one about never starting a fight you're not prepared to finish or pull out a weapon you're not willing to use."
The barrel of Fury's gun prodded the kid's side. The look in his eye said he really wanted to use it but knew damn well he wouldn't. Not unless Ben escalated things beyond the humiliation of being manhandled.
"Where's my mother?" Ben growled in his most threatening voice which sadly, really wasn't that threatening. Tightening his grip did the trick though.
"Right now? Filling out some paperwork and cursing about tanning your hide the next time she sees you."
There was truth to those words. Enough honesty for Ben to believe SHIELD had not harmed her. And it sounded like his mom. He let Fury down to the ground, not gently, just down. Then he moved to sit on his bed, defeat making his shoulders sink slightly.
"You're a clever kid. Keeping me off balanced. Making me follow you," Fury adjusted his shirt, "only to ambush me. Your father would be proud." He noticed the tension suddenly return to the boy. "Fine. Your granddad would be."
"Are you here to black bag me?"
"Son, the Director of SHIELD does not personally black bag anyone. At least, not these days. Far too much paperwork on my desk for me to even have the time to."
It was a lame joke yet it somehow managed to crack the ice. Ben laughed. He laughed and he hurt while he laughed. Not a single crack of a smile appeared on Fury's face. His eye did however lose the murderous twinkle to it.
"Then why are you here?"
"I came with an offer…"
---
"Agent Walker, he's in here."
Praise the sun, Ben thought. He also thought he said it aloud given the slight stab of the needle more roughly than it should have been through his flesh. He wasn't going to die on his kitchen table. His mom wouldn't have to buy a new one because she was so saddened by his memory of bleeding out atop of it. No. Just buy a new one cause of all the stains.
"I said not to call – "
"SHIELD. I didn't call them," there was a certain amount of venom in his mom's words as she yelled at his operator. "I called the people who are supposed to be keeping an eye on my boy."
"I really don't know how this slipped past us, Mrs. Parker. Agent 13 will be looking into his attacker the moment she finishes cleaning his trail." A woman's voice grew louder as it came closer. "Hmm, good job cleaning his wounds but lets just…"
There was the sound of a bag opening followed by the whir of electronics. He felt a buzz over his skin. It traveled up and down his body multiple times, making his hairs stand on end.
"Huh."
"What?" His mother's voice was back to frantic worry. "Is he going to be okay?"
"Should be once I finish helping patch him up and he gets some blood. That eye looks bad but his enhanced healing should handle it in time. The weird thing is… none of his vitals were hit. This isn't even a death by a thousand cuts type situation. His attacker knew exactly what they were doing. Knew exactly how to injure him without killing him. Honestly? Ben did more damage making his way home. It looks worse than it actually is."
Ouch. Some part of Ben's mind already knew that. Hearing it said? That hurt. What was he supposed to do in that situation? Lay in the middle of the street until Agent 13 arrived to yell at him?
---
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"I won't become some child soldier." Ben stated firmly.
Fury sat on Ben's desk chair, the dual monitors reflecting the back of his head behind him. The Director calmly explained the situation. Gave the pitch for his offer with carefully phrased words that avoided Ben's daddy issues. Still had the whole responsibility. Still had the for the greater good and it was his duty to train his powers.
Everything Flash and Shadowcat had warned him about. The only difference between Ben and some random enhanced kid found on the street – at least in his eyes – was he was being given the choice. That felt wrong. Immoral. Most importantly, it showed how messed up the whole system was that he had the option to refuse. The corruption was right there, across his room, staring him in the face.
Wait… he didn't think this through. Fury never said what would happen if he refused. Was this not a choice to begin with? Don't let his hatred of SHIELD or second-hand talk from people he didn't know dictate his actions. Ask the right questions. Say the correct things. Then judge Fury.
"I won't join your Initiative, but I won't stop helping people either. Today showed that Star City needs her vigilantes, needs Jackrabbit."
"Boy…" began Fury, "My agents think you're some kind of biological weapon after seeing those pokers in your wrists. The DEO thinks the same. Only I know the truth and I owe it to your family, to your father, to make sure you're safe. I already failed to do that." He shook his head in disbelief. "This is not a question we ask. Not a question I ask. So say yes. I'll see you fast tracked through the academy and back here in no time."
Thought so. He wasn't meant to refuse. "I won't leave my home, my city. I won't let SHIELD claim another member of this family."
Fury glared at him with his one good eye.
Guilt was a powerful motivator.
"Your move."
---
Ben's one good eye finally saw through the light. A pretty redhead stood over him, the IV hooked to his arm stretching up to a bag of blood next to her. She wore the nondescript uniform that wasn't actually a uniform. Just a nice black suit, no tie, some red splotches. Probably should apologize for that. The good old reliable DEO. One of the two handlers that were supposed to keep him out of trouble according to the deal worked out between the respective Directors of SHIELD and the DEO. Every so often, they threw him a bone and let him put on his big boy superpants to team up with Agent 13.
They made sure he was responsible, that he kept his grades up at the school they paid for him to go to, that he did what he could to master his abilities and better himself. But it was all on him outside of the school – that'd been his mother's only condition. Ben would be given special treatment but not treated as special. If he wanted to go at it alone (Watchtower friends excluded) then he had to put in the leg work. Fine by him.
After those first few weeks of reassuring his mom that he was safe and he wouldn't do anything dangerous – that she'd find out – the system worked. It denied him a social life true. But being a hero, no matter how small most of the time, took its toll. Fury sought to teach him that lesson for not playing his game.
Ben wouldn't let him win.
"Thanks, Trish," the boy tried and failed to sit up.
The DEO Agent shook her head. "Peter did most of the work before I even got here. You should thank him instead."
He turned to look at the other side of the table. His cousin blushed a deep scarlet beneath his glasses. Always had a thing for redheads. Wouldn't think he could have saved Ben now that he'd gone all lanky, awkward science geek around the secret agent but Ben knew he could always be relied on. Pete had practically raised him while his mom worked to provide for two growing boys who were smarter than anyone had the right to be. She did the best she could alone.
"Thanks, bro…" he glanced down at the bandages and stitches covering his body. "Doctor Parker has a nice ring to it."
"Heh," a lame chuckle from his elder. "I don't want to be that kind of doctor. I'm just happy I was able to piece you back together."
A weak, hysterical laugh escaped Ben too. The pain was good. Meant he was alive.
"Benjamin Carson Parker!"
---
The picture in the mildew smelling attic showed two hairy men – one tall, the other short – a handsome middle-aged soldier, a man with a marvelous mustache and bowler hat, an African woman and one last man in dark aviator clothes. He held Ben's attention more than anyone else in the ancient photo. He knew him. The boy was named for him. Partially at least.
According to the very little Ben had figured out on his own, he was the man's heir in some fashion. A spider. Explained his wallcrawling, strength, and agility. Kinda answered the whole deal with his poisonous stingers.
How was he not a mutant? He wanted to know more about who he was, where his powers came from, but nobody knew. Nobody that could be trusted at least.
A shaggy brown-haired head poked into the attic, soon followed by the thin body of a young man who spent far too much time inside in a lab.
"Thought I might find you here."
Ben sat there, holding the picture, hovering over a box full of more and other relics from days past. He was silent, his default state of being without the mask. It didn't become uncomfortable. His cousin stooped his way closer, saying nothing as well. He understood Ben. Before anyone, before his mother found out because Fury told her, Peter knew the truth. It was a secret they shared.
"Did I do the right thing?"
"You mean did you do the right thing extorting possibly the most dangerous man in the world who could easily make Aunt May, you, and me vanish without a trace?"
"Yeah… that."
"No idea," he watched his cousin's shoulders sag, "but if what you were told is true, if the government really is training enhanced kids like you to be child soldiers then I think ole Snapper and this guy would approve of your refusal."
Peter pulled out a photo of the aviator and a man who very likely was clad in red, white and blue. Couldn't quite tell in black and white.
"When Captain America throws his mighty shield…"
A smile crossed Ben's lips, his eyes on the goggles that had been hidden beneath the pictures.
"All those who choose to oppose his shield must yield."
---
Not many people talk about what it's like to truly have night vision. It's not some green filter. More like Ben ate a whole lot of carrots and liver to the point night wasn't that much different than day. The only difference was the lack of light… That made absolute zero sense. Everything about it was a hundred percent true but it sounded so dumb. You can't explain true night vision.
It's just metaphors and comparisons.
The face reflected in the goggles of his great grandfather was unusually pale. No surprise there. That was science.
It had taken less time than he expected for his mother to go to sleep. Even less time spent chewing him out. More worried and thankful that he was alive. He was grateful for it, grateful for her. They didn't really talk about what he did as Jackrabbit. Not even after Fury worked out the deal and why she agreed to it. He had a feeling it had something to do with his dad and being a Parker. Maybe she thought if Ben kept helping people, kept following in Snapper's and his footsteps, he'd eventually forgive the man for abandoning his wife to raise their son and his young nephew.
Not happening.
She couldn't talk him out of it. Whether it was in his blood through her or some wise words from Pete – that, he admitted inside his head, were his father's words – Ben would not stop. He stood up to Nick Fury. He would not be used. Yes, he wanted to help people. Yes, he wanted to be a hero.
It was fun even when it was boring. Made him feel alive, like he was making a difference. Small things, big things, didn't matter… as long as Ben was doing something then he wasn't… he wasn't…
He refused to finish that thought. Tonight had been different. Something personal about it. That girl had waited for him. She wanted to test him. Not kill him, clearly, until he almost did the work for her, but she had a plan.
Jackrabbit didn't have a nemesis. He didn't have rivals. There was nobody in particular that he could remember pissing off.
He grabbed the goggles and a faded-with-age black balaclava from the box. Crawling to the far side of the attic, silently, he pried open the escape route from his early days as Jackrabbit and took a leap into the night.
---
Silently, May removed the final screw, slipping it into her pocket with the rest and dropping the screwdriver on the bed. She pried open the fixture for the ceiling fan and pulled it down. There was just enough room for her to slip her slender hand between the wires, to reach the phone hidden there. It was a tighter squeeze withdrawing it. She sat down on the edge of the mattress, already plugging in the charger just in case.
The moments waiting for it to finish turning on were some of the longest in her life.
There was only one number to call. Never anyone on the other end. Not even a recording to leave a message. There was only a beep. After that single noise, so loud in her ears, May said what needed to be said.
"They've found him."
She hung up.
Third time in just over a year she'd dialed that number. More than she had in the decade since being given it in case of emergency. Her heart always hoped for a reply. She always hoped, she had faith. It never came yet she still had to try. Some people might call it the definition of insanity.
It was love.
It was knowledge.
Knowledge that gave her the awareness that in the kitchen, her nephew – a young man she raised as her son – would be whispering in a quiet voice with the DEO Agent. The same knowledge that if she went to check on her son, he would not be in his bed. It broke her heart. Tore her apart as a mother. And in a few minutes – after hiding the phone again – she would walk downstairs and exclaim in not entirely fake hysterics that Ben was gone.
Like father, like son.
Responsibility.
Someone had to do what needed to be done.
She just wished she had more power to stop it.
---
Commandeering the Arrow Bunker came with more perks than just the wristlines and an improved costume. He rigged some of the archers' trackers to serve his purposes. One such purpose did not lead him back to the park where Agent 13 was probably searching for his mysterious assailant. It took him across the city to a skyscraper with a single neon Q near the top.
Slipping on the mask and strapping the goggles over his eyes, Ben pulled up the hood of his red jacket before stepping out of the alley and into the street lights. The tracker he had slipped on her at some point during their fight said the girl was inside the building. Or at least, this was the building where the tracker was. She might have discovered it already and ditched it here.
Ben hurt so much that he couldn't exactly find a part of him that wasn't in pain. This was the epitome of stupidity on his part. This was the time he should call the DEO for backup. Or at least Felicity. She'd been blowing up his phone all night. He didn't want them involved. Like he felt earlier, this was personal in a way that he wasn't quite sure of just yet.
Before he knew it, Ben was running. Then he was jumping. And finally, finally, he started climbing up the wall using nothing other than his amazingly clingy hands and feet. It'd be a long climb.
Probably a shorter fall.
Every gesture, every reach forward to pull himself higher and higher up the former Queen Consolidated building, threatened to reopen his wounds.
God, he was being an idiot.
Ask for help.
Go on, do it. If you don't trust the DEO or SHIELD or even Felicity then call up Wally and he'd be here in a flash.
No.
Through many windows, he saw a whole lot of nothing not even janitors or security. He saw nothing that is until a scarlet glow attracted his attention in the darkness. A lone figure holding a bow took aim at him. No time to think, no time to react. Ben threw himself to the side.
The glass shattered with incredible force, shards flying everywhere.
The arrow shot past him, streaking into the night as if lightning from God.