Jason Winter (_poprocks) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-03-17 22:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | jason winter, michael winter, p: mena |
Who: Jason & Michael Winter
What: Happy family reunion is awkward happy?
When: Friday 16th March, early evening
Where: The gymnasium, second floor
Rating: PG-13, some swearing?
Jason blew out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck, sneakers squeaking a little on the floor as he bounced the basketball from hand to hand, enjoying the rhythmic beating of it as it hit the floor - thud thud thud. Transferring bases, as far as he understood it, was meant to be a little stressful and weird and that? That was the truth. He liked that it was above ground here, and there was a basketball court he could play on.
Throwing the basketball towards the net, it bounced off the backboard and he moved to grab it to try again, taking himself back to the line.
He didn’t understand why they’d moved him. He’d been fine in Inferno. Sure, it had been underground and everything was old, but he had friends there. People who understood him and worked with him. His handler had been there, the guy who had sort of stepped up and been the older brother he’d needed, someone who’d helped him understand that he didn’t have to be a danger to everyone if he just worked at it.
And now he had to start all over again?
He felt angry about it. It was unfair. What had he done to deserve being pulled away from his friends? Why did they see fit to shove him in a new place?
Ugh.
This time, the ball went in - nothing but net - and he wasn’t even able to feel pleased about it. Instead he just grabbed the next ball and shot again. Nothing but net.
The third one ricocheted off the hoop and bounced towards the door, rolling towards it until it came to a stop. Jason had expected that the door would just swing shut behind him when he walked in but it hadn’t, it was propped open and he watched as the ball rolled out of the gymnasium and into the hallway.
He made a mental note - knowing all too well that he’d forget - to go and collect it later. He hadn’t seen anyone when he was on his way down here, and he hadn’t gone onto the network to introduce himself yet. He hadn’t seen the point until he’d had a chance to work out his own frustrations.
Raising the next ball, he focused on the hoop, intending on throwing to sink another basket when movement at the door caught his attention.
***
He probably should have been paying more attention.
Instead, Mike was absorbed in his cellphone, typing up an email to his boss, making it as professional as he possibly could. He wanted Vasily’s request to be considered seriously, and soon, so that maybe the guy could get at least the minimum of what he was asking for. But with his attention so focused, Mike paid no attention to the ball bouncing and rolling out of the gymnasium right into his path. It caught under his feet just as he stepped down, sending him stumbling forward, swaying to the side, and in trying to catch his balance, Mike tumbled right into the adjacent wall with all the force his bulky frame was capable of.
At the very least he managed to avoid falling.
As soon as he caught his balance, he looked around frantically, hoping that nobody had been around to witness the whole thing. Nobody was in the hallway – but that didn’t mean the guy (or guys) watching the security footage wasn’t in for a good laugh. He quickly straightened up, smoothed out his shirt, and cleared his throat; the whole thing was cartoonish in the extreme, but one had to appreciate the trivial things – at least he hadn’t gone face-first into the floor.
Mike pocketed his cellphone and picked the basketball off the floor. He wasn’t angry (it was too trivial a thing to be mad about), or even embarrassed, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give whoever was on the other side of the door a good fright in good humour. Even if Mike was notorious for his good temper; it might be good for a little laugh to pretend, for a heartbeat, that the opposite was true.
He walked into the gymnasium, bouncing the basketball as he walked. There was a tall guy standing near the net with a new ball – and there was something about his stature that was strangely familiar, even just from the back. “Hey pal – ,” Mike called, “I don’t know if you were raised in a barn, but it’s considered polite to pick up after yourself to avoid causing someone to break their neck.”
***
Jason hadn’t been expecting someone else to enter the gym, so the sound of footsteps and a voice that tugged on a familiar string somewhere in his mind did make him jump a little. It was a good thing his abilities were more or less under his control now. Before, someone making him jump would have been enough to cause a small charge to have escaped his control. Nowadays he was much better at not just blowing stuff up that he didn’t want to.
“I was gonna get it,” he drawled in response, remembering that he was new here so snarking at a stranger wasn’t going to make him any friends. “Figured everyone’d be busy anyway.” He bounced the ball he was holding and then turned his head, body following a second later, to look at the person who had come to join him and quite literally felt time slow down around him.
Mike.
The pit fell out of his stomach. He might have grown a bit, matured some in looks from the kid he’d been the last time he’d seen his brother, but Mike looked pretty much exactly the same.
He felt a familiar tingling in his fingers and glanced down to see the ball beginning to glow. Jason had to take a deep breath and definitely not look at Mike as he drew the charge back into himself. No need to blow anything up. It was just his older brother, that he hadn’t seen in like, ten years. No big, or anything.
***
Mike stopped dribbling the ball abruptly – so abruptly that it still bounced a few times in front of him, comically filling the void of silence that swelled around them as they stared, recognizing, not believing, breathless. The only thing that drew the handler back to reality was watching the ball begin to glow bizarrely; it was like a jolt ran down his spine, jarring him back to the moment, solidifying that this wasn’t some dizzy daydream. He’d only ever seen something like that with Jason Winter, right before his brother was taken into custody for his protection, and the protection of those around him.
Only this time, Jason could stop it. The charge in the basketball was absorbed, and all that was left was just a normal ball – and even if he hadn’t been able to draw it back, the excitement that slowly spread across Mike’s face wouldn’t have dissipated for a second.
“Holy shit!” He knocked the still-bouncing ball out of his way and quickly closed the gap between himself and his younger brother. “Holy shit! Jay?” Laughter erupted, and without thinking twice once he’d closed the space, Mike put his arms around Jason and pulled him into what was, admittedly, a very tight hug.
Maybe it was a little too much too soon – but it had been years, and Mike had desperately missed the one family member of his who he had always managed to get along with. Seeing him, well, it was a relief, and something which made him genuinely happy.
When he finally let him out of the hug, Mike held Jason at arms-length to look him over. The kid had grown up.
“Sorry, it’s just – holy shit!”
***
Jason was significantly less enthusiastic in his reception of his brother's sudden appearance and burst of affection. He just stood there, completely and unnaturally still as Mike approached, familiar delighted laugh and familiar - yet somehow he seemed not as tall as Jason remembered - feeling of arms coming around him, hugging him tightly that the air was pushed out of his lungs.
It was definitely too much, too soon, because he had been operating under the assumption that his entire family hated him. He'd only seen his mom and dad through the window of the hospital room he'd been put in and for the most part after he woke up following the explosion, he had been in some kind of drug-induced sleep because he couldn't control his powers, not until they put a limiter in him and turned off his powers for his own safety and the safety of everyone around him.
The ball dropped to the floor as Jason just sort of stood there while he was wrapped in a literal bear hug and he wondered if Mike had seen his deer-in-the-headlights expression before he had approached. Probably not. Mike, like Jason, tended to act first. Run with the impulse.
Jason might have grown up, but Mike... Mike still looked like Mike. Shorter hair, a little older but shorter than Jason remembered, not so much towering over him anymore as much as they were almost looking at each other eye-to-eye. He was just a tiny bit shorter. The part of him that would forever be a little brother grimaced in dismay at the realisation that he was still shorter.
He could feel Mike's arms still holding onto his upper arms and he sort of awkwardly stood there until he felt it was appropriate to remove himself - gently - from Mike's hold.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Jason swallowed and ducked his head, clearing his throat. He took a deep breath and then looked at his brother again, trying not to be suspicious but kind of not being able to help it.
"What- what're you even doing here, Mike?" he asked, the question blurted out, followed by a rapid stream of words, "You- you're here?! Are you- you're not- I mean you're not like-" like me the words hung in the air unspoken for all of a few seconds because Jason was speaking now and it was like a freight train, "But you're here? Why? How long? What're you even doing here? Are you okay?"
He wanted to ask about their parents, their other siblings. But... but if Mike was here for the same reason Jason was then he might not know how they were. If Mike wasn't here for the same reason Jason was then he had no idea what to believe because why would Mike want to be here?
He huffed out a laugh, adding with a slightly cheeky upturn of his lips, "You're not as tall as I remember."
---
Seeing the discomfort and startled expression on Jason’s face was disheartening. It had been so long since they’d seen each other – Mike had hoped that when – or rather if – they had ever reunited, the reception might be a little bit warmer than that. It didn’t occur to him that Jason would have assumed complete isolation and abandonment from their family (which really should have been his gut instinct all along since it was more or less true as far as their parents were concerned) or that maybe he wouldn’t be as glad to see him as Mike was.
And for a brief second, he feared that maybe, just maybe, Jason was angry.
What’re you even doing here, Mike?
Fair question.
Mike pursed his lips when Jason, very understandably, wondered aloud if the Super gene had been more prevalent in their family than previously assumed. With an apologetic expression on his face, Mike shook his head. “No, that’s not why I’m here.”
When Jason inquired as to whether or not he was alright, Mike couldn’t help but be touched by the kid’s concern. Only – Jason wasn’t a kid anymore. He was standing tall. Whatever about him that might have been gangly before had filled out. He looked weathered, but there was still a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that Mike recognized all too well. And despite the joy he felt at seeing Jason again, one other thought continued to punch Mike repeatedly in the gut: he’d missed so much.
Mike clapped his brother on the back and then reached down for the basketball. “While I was still at school, I worked for a professor to help design and create some new designs on the inhibitors to help keep a Supers powers in check,” he admitted. “When I was done school, they gave me a full-time job. Then, not too long ago… I got promoted.”
A decision Mike was still scratching his head over.
He snorted at Jason’s dig at his height. “Yeah, well—you’re not as short and scrawny as I remember!” He tossed the basketball to him, assuming that Jason would have quick enough reflexes to catch. He always was the athlete, after all.
---
Jason rubbed the back of his head, fingers touching the small scar where they’d inserted one of those inhibitors right into his brain as Mike talked. He thought about the other one that had been inserted somewhere else - he was pretty sure it was in his neck but he couldn’t be certain - and wondered if those ones that he had were developed by his brother. That was some kind of weird, ironic twist of fate if so.
“Promoted to what?” he asked, “Handler?” Because that was the obvious leap from some kind of tech job to handler. A strange sense of pride jumped up a little in Jason’s stomach at that thought. He remembered all through his teenage years that Cody had always ragged on Mike in particular for not applying himself, for not trying hard enough and for coasting by on natural talent.
Take that, he thought, though he wondered what Cody thought of him being in here. That momentary triumph on behalf of Mike and his achievements disappeared but before Jason could huff too much about it, there was a ball flying towards him and he reached out on instinct to catch it, locking his hands around it.
He cleared his throat and dribbled it a few times before he chuckled and threw it back. “That’s kinda what happens over a ten year period,” he pointed out, not considering that Mike might have been upset or bothered that he’d missed so much of his younger brother’s life. “Kids stop being kids.”
He chewed on the inside of his lower lip and transferred his weight from foot to foot, waiting for Mike to throw the ball back before thinking about how his previous handler had told him he needed to use his words, needed to express himself because not everyone was a mind reader. So he added, “It’s good to see you, I just- Wasn’t expecting to see any of you guys ever again, y’know? I mean, after I- Well, y’know. It’s good to see you. Even if you’re starting to look older.” Cue an impish grin.
---
“Yeah. I’m a junior handler now, if you can believe it. Someone thought it was a clever idea to put me in charge of people rather than just machines.” It still often felt like a terrible idea or a joke to him; but here he was, all the same.
Mike caught the ball and couldn’t fight the frown that etched into his features. “Sometimes faster than that,” he replied. Had it really been ten years? Jason had gone that long without any family. While the Winter family had never been an especially close unit, he and Jason had, and even still – there was something to be said about a constantly open door. The ever-familiar presence of busy-body parents and over-achieving siblings was comforting, even to people like Mike, who had never really fit in with them. All of that, all the trappings of home and family were things that had been stripped away from Jason. Because of something the couldn’t help. Because of something that made him no less their family than he’d been before.
He was holding onto the ball a little tighter, his knuckles whitening, as a rush of uncharacteristic white-hot rage ran through his body.
I just—wasn’t expecting to see any of you guys ever again, y’know?
And with that, the rage dissipated, replaced by something else. Empathy. Guilt. Only Jason’s familiar grin, one that he’d seen many times when they were younger (that hadn’t changed with age at all), caused some of those pangs to dissolve; he returned the grin in kind, dribbled the ball back to Jason, and then stepped closer to clap his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “The word you’re looking for is distinguished,” he chuckled.
With that, Mike nodded towards the door. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat. I want to catch up. You’ve probably got tons of stories to tell me. We’ve got lots of time,” he wanted to make sure that was clear, “But no time like the present to dive in.”
---
Jason snorted, “Distinguished?” he asked, “Is that the description that helps you sleep at night?”
He nudged Mike as he came to a halt beside him and nodded his head. Food sounded good- he could still eat for a small family, even more so now that his powers had manifested and required the use of his own energy to activate them.
“Dunno if you wanna hear my stories today,” he pointed out with a small smile, picking up the ball that Mike had been dribbling and dunking it in the container that held the others he’d been playing with. There was another ball at his feet that he also put away. No point not tidying up himself, after all. “But I can definitely eat. I heard that the food here’s pretty neat.”