Who: Scott Free, Big Barda What: Scott returns to Apokolips for something that he forgot... Where: Apokolips, the Furies' Barracks When: Circa 2000 Rating: PG-13 for mild nudity and adult themes (It's Apokolips!) Note: Started in e-mails, to be finished in comments
Scott hadn't really thought this through.
No, that was a lie. He'd thought about this for a very long time-- ever since he'd escaped and realized that he'd left something very important behind on Apokolips. After Thaddues' death; there had been other things to worry about-- people like Shilo and Oberon and Ted who depended on him to help them keep things together. But that didn't mean he hadn't thought about it... about her, probably more often than he necessarily needed to. He had the whole thing planned out-- how he'd come back to Apokolips one day and take her away with him to Earth-- Paradise, really-- where they could just be, without Furies or Granny or Desaad or firepits or orphanages. And most importantly, without Darkseid. They could just be; and she would finally see him for who he really was- not just the weakest runt, or the worst soldier, or the most defiant slave. He'd go to her, as the hero always did in the great romances he'd been learning so much about during his time on Earth, and say just the right thing (he'd been thinking about this for months now and he thought maybe "come with me" was a pretty good start, but it did still need some work), and offer his hand and then she'd come with him and they'd all live happily ever after.
So when the day suddenly came where Scott felt he needed to leave (the parademon attacks had started to become alarmingly more frequent; and Oberon wasn't much of a fan), he said his goodbyes, put on his Mister Miracle costume complete with all his favorite gadgets and hopped a Boom Tube right back over to Apokolips. He was fairly certain he'd be able to get back to Earth again, once his task was completed. After all, the last time he'd escaped he'd been half starved and without any tools aside from Mother Box. This time; this time he was going back on his own terms, and with all of his tricks and tools of the trade.
Mother Box pinged cheerlessly and Scott's face, under his mask, was grim. "I know. We won't stay long." He agreed, then set off towards Darkseid's palace and the barracks of his elite soldiers, The Female Furies.
Which had gotten him to the part where he hadn't really thought this through all the way. Sure, he made it past the guards and into the barracks undetected; and he'd even managed to find the Female Furies, fresh from battle and heading into the private bath reserved for said elite alone but curiously enough, Barda wasn't with them. At least; Scott hoped not because he drew the line at peeking into a shower full of Furies-- his being caught was a highly unpleasant thought; but more than that, the idea of accidentally seeing Stompa or Mad Harriet without their armor made him want to wretch in his mask. There was no torture that Desaad could devise that could compare to that.
So he waited (and tried to be inconspicuous in his garish yellow, red and green costume). After a time, the other Furies left the bathing house and went to do whatever it was that Furies did when they weren't slaughtering or training or sleeping and Scott's mouth twitched in a bit of a pout. This was not going according to his plan. But he was nothing if not adaptable-- and patient. He just had to wait longer, surely Barda would pass by at some point.
And she did. In fact, he almost missed her-- which was a hard thing to do given not only her size and stature but the brilliant red cape that hung from her shoulders, a declaration of her rank. Scott hunkered down behind a steel column and watched her go into the bath house and made a bit of a face. Sardonically, Mother Box pinged at him.
"No I'm not going to let that stop me." Scott snapped back, "I've already come too far. And this is probably the only time she's going to be alone..." and hopefully less likely to kill him seeing how she would be unarmed. Maybe. Or did Furies shower with their weapons? He supposed he was about to find out.
Swooping up on his aero-discs, Scott squeezed himself through one of the high windows, then glanced around to find Barda. He didn't see her, exactly, but he did see layers of armor on the ground... and he might have swallowed a little thickly. Again, Mother Box pinged her concern but Scott hushed her and waved off the warning. He wasn't peeping! He was here to talk! That's all.
A six foot wall separated the main shower area from the front door entrance, and Scott landed there, pressing one foot against the door to keep it closed from the inside, and his back against the wall that was as tall as he was. Sneaking up onto his tip toes, he glanced out of the corner of his eye over the wall, not daring to look straight at her because.. well you know. She wasn't dressed.
"Barda. Psst. Barda." He said, trying to gain her attention though it was difficult to be heard over the rush of the water. "Barda! Hey! PSST. BARDA."
~~~
The war was not going well. That wasn't exactly true, as her own battalion was sweeping through the ranks of New Genesian soldiers with a fury that earned their name. But it was slow, arduous war fought over planets that had been on the fringes of the cosmos for far too long before now. The battleground planets were fizzling out and dying in the aftermath of Apokolips's wrath and they were the heralds of the end. Die for Darkseid. The mantra was a constant thing these days, chasing through the muddled thoughts between blows. For the Anti-life.
Barda was tired.
So much as she was allowed to feel tired, that was. After her debriefing with Granny (cheerless and cold a ever), she was finally allowed to return to the barracks. By the time she'd arrived, the rest of her battalion was finished and had probably headed off to their own quarters for rest or their own recreation. She alone remained in the still steaming rooms and, nonplussed, stripped out of her layered armor with little fanfare. The blood and grime had been caked in places, a testament to their last battles, and she would need to spend more than a few hours cleaning it before she slept. Her armor was draped neatly over her chair and the mega-rod remained even closer, bundled on a towel without reach as she stepped into the communal room and beneath the hot spray of water.
If she hadn't been so tired, maybe she would have realized she wasn't alone sooner. Maybe it wouldn't have taken the unsubtle "pssst" noises to draw her attention out of her own weariness and towards the sounds behind her. Or maybe she was growing careless (which often translated to dead here on Apokolips) in her new rank. As it was, she was flipping streaming black hair from her eyes and whirling towards the sound of her name being called over the water, hand reaching for her hip before she recognized the lack of Meg Rod hanging from her lack of belt. And her stance widened all that much more. Naked? Not a big deal. She'd fought in worse condition. But despite her misgivings, she couldn't deny that the voice was familiar. And suspicious in that familiarity. It had been years since anyone had come to her with in the awkward moments, skulking about. So many that she'd almost forgotten.
From this position, she could see only the tip of his nose and a head of thick, black hair. And that was almost enough to make her still, eyes narrowing at the idea of someone's joke. There were few people who would dare to interrupt any of the Furies while they bathed (and none who had a reason to do so would) and well, death wasn't a pretty option when it was presented by the pack of them.
But he certainly had her attention now, and he was going to have a very tall, very wet, and very naked Fury striding towards him shortly - for better or worse. It was probably going to be for worse.
~~~
"Psssssst. Barda! PST. BARDA." He wasn't sure how much louder he could get without alerting the entire barrack to his position; but if Barda couldn't hear him over the roar of the water, surely no one outside could. Growing a little frustrated with his plan's lack of working (or attention drawing), Scott pulled an impatient face, then lifted onto his toes again, pressing his back flat against the short wall and leaning over it to try to see if she'd noticed him yet.
She had.
His eyes widened-- for more than one reason. The main point, however, was that she was walking over and didn't look entirely pleased to see him.
Okay. So. This had been a bad plan.
"Okay okay, you're right, that was a bad idea." He acknowledged, tearing his eyes off of her because.... well in any case; Scott kicked the aero-discs out of his boots and hovered a few inches off the ground, turning to face her albeit with the short wall still separating them and held his hands up to prove he was completely unarmed-- which was mostly true. Obnoxiously, Mother Box sounded off a short series of pings that would have had Scott muttering something about her minding her own business and how he didn't see her coming up with any better plans-- if it hadn't been for the Fury rapidly approaching.
Once she was close enough that the short wall could act as a partition and screen for her nudity, Scott leaned on it, his aero-discs holding him aloft so that he was almost her height and could meet her face to face over the wall. Strangely enough, and mostly unbeknownst to him, he was all smiles now, despite the imminent murder that was probably going to befall him for this particular stunt.
"Hi Barda."
~~~
The first order of business was to determine the nature of the threat. And the second was to act upon it. Her weaponry and armor was too far away to reach without putting her back to the new potential foe and besides, she was still - and perhaps arrogant - enough to hold off any number of potential threats without it. Provided they were something she had been prepared to face.
In all truth, Scott Free had never been something she was prepared to face.
He might have been unarmed but that didn't make him any less dangerous for Apokolips. He was an errant, disobedient stray. An aberration that should have been destroyed long ago, or so she'd been told time and time again in the time since his disappearance. She should have been concerned he was going to launch an offensive but the moment she recognized his face - and his voice - Barda knew that he wouldn't. She could barely believe that she was seeing him at all, to say nothing of the fact that he was now peering over her shower wall to talk to her. "You." There was not as much surprise in her voice as she was feeling, though that was, in part, due to her decades of training more than actual stoicism. Sometimes these things were innate and others were learned over trial and error.
"So you're not dead." She was inordinately pleased by this development, even if it did not show on her face. Nothing really showed as she closed the distance between them in short order, unabashed at her state of undress or the obvious distress it was causing him for a moment. But even then, she was not amused at his attempts to contact her in this particular situation or the impropriety of it all, even here and now. She was a Fury. She was, in many ways, a bringer of death. "I can remedy that."
She was never one to give idle threats. But she was not dragging him from his Aero Discs and throttling him. Yet.
~~~
It was nice to know that he could still surprise her. Really, she didn't get enough surprises-- or at least not happy ones-- in his opinion; and while his reappearance probably wasn't an altogether happy surprise since you know, he was a hunted outcast who was supposed to be dead and would probably create a whole lot more work for her once anyone else discovered that he was back on Apokolips.... at least he wasn't an attacker.
A creeper maybe; or at least he sure felt like one-- but thankfully Barda was staying on the other side of the wall, and with the help of his Aero Discs, Scott could look over it and not see much further than the top of her shoulders. Which was good-- not that Barda minded, but Scott didn't need the ... uh... distraction.
He grinned at her over the partition, leaning his head on his gloved fist and his elbow on the top of the wall, looking downright smug... and filled out. The half-starved, hollow curve of his cheeks had fleshed outs, his scrawny arms and shoulders (and the rest of him really) had been replaced by muscle, and he into the bright costume he wore quite well. Thus was the power of regular meals. Aside from all that though, his grin seemed to say that he was still the same troublesome Scott Free.
"You shouldn't believe anyone who tells you that I'm dead, Barda, ever." He said idly, "They lie."
Scott, for once, wasn't all that interested in Granny or Darkseid though. He'd rather talk to Barda. She was what he'd come back to Apokolips for anyway. But, maybe because she wasn't dressed or maybe because he couldn't seem to remember what he'd planned to tell her, he couldn't quite bring himself to look at her for longer than a few seconds-- and he was having a hard time wiping that grin off of his face too.
"I heard about your raid today." Okay, so... he'd been eavesdropping a bit. What else was he supposed to do? "I guess congratulations are in order. Everyone is saying you could conquer New Genesis by yourself in less than a day." Scott had.. mixed feelings about the whole New Genesis thing; given some recent revelations they'd been so kind to bestow on him. But that didn't mean he wanted to see anyone hurt, or the planet wiped out, or his High Father Izaya killed by Darkseid's armies.
~~~
"I see that now."
There were such things as happy surprises? Funny, no one had mentioned that to her. His appearance was more shocking than happy and she couldn't quite process it. Scott Free had been rumored to be dead after his last stunt. She'd accepted that as she had accepted the fact that no one escaped Apokolips. Darkseid was all things. His death was easier to believe than the other rumors, the ones that spoke of his escape. Those were spoken even more quietly and with far more fear. She had ignored them. Until now. Barda was not ignoring the grinning face staring back at her. It took her only a moment to place that grin in the face that was both like and so unlike the boy she'd chased down so many times in their younger days. This one was older - but still short - and far more self-possessed.
He was also probably crazy, she reminded herself before she spent too long considering the confidence in those blue eyes.
"Everyone hasn't seen the battlegrounds, then." She was practically a force of nature when she put her mind to something. But even she saw the desolation left behind in the wake of her Furies and their fervor. It had been a hard war and one begun over a treaty that was broken.
"You shouldn't be here then." Here being Apokolips. He had worked so hard to escape it all, after all. And he'd actually succeeded? That was... Barda didn't know what she thought of that but she knew as well as he did how not safe it was for him to be roaming around unsupervised on this planet. "Unless you're asking to die." Was a little more pointed, especially considering their current circumstances. She had yet to cover herself - partly because he had nothing to be ashamed of and party because she hadn't thought Scott Free would attack her.
~~~
"I'm not staying long." He insisted when she said he should be there; and it was true. Scott hadn't been particularly eager to return to Apokolips, or to run the risk of being caught and kept there for another... how many years? Or the "punishment" that would be exacted on him in the interim. But he'd escaped from Apokolips once; he could do it again. Especially if he didn't have people chasing him, which was what he was hoping for. Besides-- he wasn't just that problematic Scott Free anymore... now he was Mister Miracle. And Mister Miracle could escape from anything. He wouldn't fail Thaddues memory in that regard; and he wouldn't fail himself by admitting defeat to Darkseid. "I just came to try to get something I left behind." He answered as honestly as possible, and smiled at her.
"You should come with me. To this little planet. It's blue, Barda. Just this tiny little blue rock, forever circling its star. It's covered in water. Some times it's hot, sometimes it's cold-- and the people? The people there are..." Scott shook his head in amazement, "The people are something else. They're... they're so resilient-- the things they've overcome, as a species and as individuals." Not finding words to quite explain his awe of these people, Scott shook his head again with a light chuckle to himself, "You just have to see it."
~~~
"And how will you leave?" One didn't just escape Apokolips on a whim. Someone had to have helped him. She knew he was crafty. She knew he was smart. But even he surely couldn't have broken away from his world on his own. Could he have?
This man always confused her. Made her consider untruths and more often than not had gotten her into trouble with him when they had been younger. Until she learned better. Until she took her rightful place in the system. Die. Die. Die for Darkseid. She was a soldier and it was her only lot in life. It was what she was meant for, too. Barda accepted that without an issue because she was good at it. More than anything else, her place gave her security and purpose.
Except when he stared at her with those bright blue eyes and there was something in them she had never quite been able to put a name to. It was so foreign. He was so foreign. Her eyes widened at his offer, almost made speechless for a moment as she processed exactly what he was saying to her. Eyebrows came together and she stared at him for a longer moment, perhaps wondering if this was another of his little games. "You are speaking treason, Scott Free." Was quiet but firm. "This is more than your little stunts when we were kids. What you're saying... are you trying to get yourself killed?"
She rather thought he was at this point. It was the only explanation that might make sense for his behavior.
"I won't be able to protect you this time." Was more warning than threat, even if it was spoken in that gruff tone of voice, Barda standing with her shoulders back and hands planted on her hips, still slick and hair dripping from the shower he had interrupted.
~~~
"Sorry, Barda-- trade secret." He said with a wry, altogether far too smug kind of smile. One day, he'd tell her. He'd show her how he left Apokolips- and how he could (conceivably at least) come and go as he pleased now. But not today... not yet. As much as he wanted to trust her-- did trust her-- he couldn't tell her that his only means of escape from Apokolips was the Mother Box he wore on his right arm. She would be bound by her honor to take Mother Box from him and surrender her over to Darkseid-- which Scott could not allow for more reasons than one, not the least of which being the fact that Mother Box was bound to his very soul.
There was no trick or guile on his face at his offer. He did, genuinely, want her to join him and to see this tiny blue speck of a planet. But she wouldn't leave Apokolips. There was some part of him that had always known it-- and yet her rejection of his offer hit him harder than any punch any of the Furies could muster. Maybe it was because he'd blown it up in his mind, maybe because he'd wanted it so much... he had forgotten what Apokolips did to people who wanted more. And this was his reminder.
"No, I'm not trying to get myself killed." He admitted quietly, albeit with far less enthusiasm than he'd had only moments before. "I just came to..." He shrugged, suddenly unsure of himself and not quite able to meet her eyes anymore, "...ask. I don't want to cause you any more trouble." And that was the truth. If he couldn't get her to come with him, to leave all of this behind, then at the very least he wanted things to go smoothly for her here.
For all the time that he had lived on Apokolips, there had only ever been one person capable of breaking Scott Free's heart.. not Granny, or Desaad or Darkseid himself. Barda alone had that kind of power over him-- and some days, like today, Scott could really kick himself for it.