(no subject)

[bossymarmalade]

Kate’s arms are brown and warm, as if she’s absorbed every last morsel of the Cachement summer heat before the snow settled in, but Ramsey nonetheless wiggles out of her grasp as soon as the sun rises. He murmurs vaguely something about ‘bathroom,’ and she releases him without fully awakening.

Ramsey does not lie to his mother. He goes to the bathroom down the hall first, and stares at himself in the mirror. He has to stand on tip-toes, but he can see the single bruise bloomed under the skin of his neck. Ramsey stares at it for a long time, memorizing the exact placement of the bruise, remembering the way Damian brought his elbow out and across to hit him so quickly. So effectively.

His little sneakers were brand new when they came here. Kate had helped him pick them out the day she took him to work in Los Angeles. She had sat him down in the chair at the shoe store, and knelt before him. Vaguely, Ramsey had thought of Cinderella and the Prince—glass slippers and magical destinies, and he had chosen the ones Kate liked most, because they were dark red like her costume, with bright blue accents, like the glow of her Manhunter staff.

His shoes had been brand new when they came here. Now they were covered in dust and mud and sap and blood and all the things that oozed around here, oozed from every orifice of every single thing, monster or not. Deep cracks had risen in the sides, and Ramsey hadn’t told anyone about the cold that seeped in when he had run through the snow.

He tugs the shoes on now, ties the laces like Peter showed him, rolls his heel into place like Momma Julie does, and heads outside the bungalow.

It’s hot and wet outside, humid with the melted snow, but Ramsey doesn’t pay much attention to that. He makes his way to the far end of camp, where once his Pa and siblings had worked on an archery range. Roy’s handmade targets still stand there, the paint slightly faded and the grass around them higher than before, but standing nonetheless. Ramsey finds a smaller wooden bow discarded nearby and tries his hand at pulling the string back. Without his powers, Ramsey’s arms are weak, and the string barely moves.

He discards the bow back into the tall grass and makes his way to the target. It’s one of the shorter ones, but it still towers over him. He stares up at it for a long time. Walt’s voice drifts into his mind, holding his hand as he took the boy from the school, saying things like “potential” and “family.”

Ramsey has a lot of family. But only some of them are blood. And he knows Walt is blood.

He looks down at the scar on his arm, then the one on his thumb, and remembers his promise to Cass. She’s his sister now, and for some reason he knows she’ll understand. He doesn’t quite understand yet, but she does.

His hand pulls back, in imitation of Damian’s the night before, and he thinks about the third power he had developed. It had shown up exactly one time, it hadn’t stayed long, and it wasn’t much. But now, two years later, without his strength or his durability, Ramsey wonders.

He draws his elbow back, remembers the look on Walt’s face, cold and distant, and imitates it. He jumps up, swinging his elbow and the target’s stick-neck. He overestimates the balance he needs, though, and after he strikes it, he tumbles to the ground, emitting a soft oomph as he rolls onto his back to look up at the fissured sky.

The target’s head rolls to the ground, and Ramsey’s lower arm glows a violently bright blue, like the staff that once sent him to the hospital, the staff his mother holds so proudly. He puffs out a hot breath, and smiles.