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thejusticelounge2014-07-19 07:15 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2014-07-19 07:15 pm
on absent mothers
Tak gathers cookies for himself and sits in a corner with them, crumbling through until the chips or candy or nuts have come free of the pastry. He eats those, with the crumbs clinging to them.
Mari pokes her head around the corner, searching for… “Hey, you!” she says, tilting her head at Tak. “You still want to patrol with me?” Mari notices his cookie-eating technique in hindsight and considers it a great waste of good cookie. Tak jumps right up, his somber expression brightening when he sees Mar’i. “Yes!” he all but shouts. “Yes I do! Are we going now?”
Mari grabs a handful of crumbs off his plate and eats them herself. “Up to you. We can wait until later or we can get a headstart?”
Tak twitches back and forth, like he can’t make up his mind yet. Finally he gestures to the plate of crumbs and sits down again. “We might as well finish them,” Tak says, picking up a walnut and putting it in his mouth. “Mar’i, is your mother alive still?”
Mari blinks at Tak, then opens her mouth as if to answer. Instead, she sits down, stealing one of the most…alien-looking cookies. It wiggles in her hand. “No. She’s still alive here, but she’s also not really my mother…” Mar’i takes a large bite, as if to hush herself, then immediately undoes it by asking around the bite: “Why? You find her old pin-ups?”
Jason trudges into the cafeteria, shoulders slumped, collar of his jacket pulled up high to hide the fact that he hasn’t shaved or slept in days, though he’s quite clearly hung over. He ignores the other people in the room for the moment as he makes a beeline for the coffee machine.
Tak blinks. “Pin-ups?” he repeats, then realizes. “Oh! Your mother is very sexy, yes. I saw her pin-ups on the internet. But that’s not what I mean. I wanted to know…” Tak dithers, pushing a cracked M&M around the table with his fingertip. “What you felt. When she died.” He looks faintly apologetic and continues, “I would’ve asked Damian man-to-man if he’d been here, I know he would’ve been all right with talking about this sort of thing. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Mari mentally logs away the fact that her mom’s tits are on the internet (which Mar’i finds more cool than anything, but then again she’s never been one for parental embarrassment or body shame, either) and shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I just…I don’t get asked about her a lot. People either assume she was alive, or if they know, that I don’t want to talk about it.” Mar’i thinks about this for a moment. “I think I’m finally ready to talk about it, though. When she died…I felt…well, I mean, she and my dad divorced when I was a teenager and she left the planet after that. She was always inviting me to visit, but I didn’t do it often. I think I was…trying to punish her for leaving? So when she died, I was heartbroken. But…I was also really, really mad. Mad that she had left again. Except this time she couldn’t pretend she wanted me around.” Mar’i chews another bite of cookie for a moment. “It took me a long time to realize how much that was me working out my own issues, not her.”
Tak stares at Mar’i, enraptured by this information. “She left the planet,” he says wonderingly. “That must … that’s much /much/ worse than just her not living with you or near you, isn’t it? Leaving the entire planet. I’d be mad and heartbroken too.” He lifts his finger off the candy piece, realizing he’s melted through some of the shell, and licks the yellow from his fingertip. “I can’t see how that’s only your issues and not about her leaving you.”
Jason glances around the room, spotting Tak in one corner and going still. After a moment of hesitation, he approaches, feeling as though he should say something, though he has no idea what. “Hey kid,” is the best he comes up with, offering both Tak and Mar’i a little nod in greeting, feeling as though he’s interrupting something.
Mari shrugs lightly. “My parents had a bad relationship. They got together as teenagers, kept breaking up and getting back together. They had a wedding that got interrupted by a demonic friend who put an evil seed inside my mother that she harvested later on. Then it was hookup after hookup after bad breakup after fight until they decided they wanted to get married. Sometimes loving someone, even as much as Tamaraneans love others, doesn’t mean you work. After they got divorced, my mom realized the entire planet was soured by how long it’d taken them to realize they weren’t good for each other. And it was worse because she was gonna love him forever. Sometimes running is better than suffering. She tried to get me to stay with her. I was the one who refused.” Mar’i glances up at Jason and nods back.
Tak stands up and takes Jason’s elbow, pulling him to one of the seats. “I’m glad you’re here too,” he says, and looks from Jason to Mar’i. “I wanted to talk to Damian but don’t feel bad about that, Mar’i, I like you very much too and if I can’t talk to Damian I’m relieved I got to talk to you. And you—” he looks at Jason, “you were …” He lets that trail off and takes a breath, sitting up very very straight in his chair. “My mother is dead. My father killed her,” Tak says to them both.
Mari’s head nearly snaps around. “Wait,” she says, almost sounding dulled for a moment, before her voice comes back into focus. “Wait, what?”
Jason blinks and does his best not to spill his coffee as he’s pulled into the seat. His eyes go wide as Tak continues, and suddenly he feels strangely sick. “Are you… are you sure?” He saw the arrow strike days ago when it happened, but… Ollie had said—the guards should’ve gotten there in time to do something.
Tak points at Jason. “He was there when my father shot her,” he explains, “but she didn’t die right away. He put the arrow where she had shot him and Damian’s father, see?” Tak nods at the appropriateness of this action. “It was symbolic.” He puts his thumb on the softened candy piece and squishes it down against the table. “She died later. My father told me. He hasn’t told anybody else, but I assume that whoever monitors the Blackgate prison activity reports and knows that Shado was there will find out eventually.” Tak looks up at them again, sucking chocolate off his thumb. “They’d have to know it was her, though. Since she changed her identity, she’d only had a prisoner number.”
Mari is just sort of staring at Tak. She knows how Tak was conceived, how Ollie felt about her, but she didn’t know he’d…and with Jason there? And why? Mar’i’s brow furrows and she reaches out to take Tak’s free hand into her own.
”I suppose I still don’t know how to feel,” Tak says, with a puzzled cock of his head.
Jason resists the urge to swear, instead scrubbing his free hand over his face. “We were trying to transfer her, move her somewhere more secure,” he says, almost automatically. “They must’ve known what we were planning. I… I’m sorry, Tak.” He’s not sure if that’s what he wants to hear, but it’s all he can think of to say. A little hesitantly, he reaches out to put a gentle hand on Tak’s shoulder.
Tak seems grateful for their comfort, giving them both a wobbly smile. “I’m not blaming you, so you know,” he assures Jason. “My mother is — was — an assassin. Ever since I was little she made sure that I knew she could die at any time, and she’d die to protect me. Maybe that’s why I feel so confused right now?” It’s a question rather than a statement, and he looks at them hopefully for confirmation or correction. “Because I’ve been prepared my whole life for her dying?”
Mari’s figured out what all this is, what it means, what’s happened, why Jason was invited and no one else. It makes perfect sense to Mar’i, and so she pulls Tak closer to her, enveloping him in less of a mutual hug, but rather more of a maternal hold.
Kyle keeps holding her close, keeps her pressed tightly against him since she’s more than willing to do so; and there’s not awkward social constructs built around this image. He momentarily is distracted by the storefront again; this time Jason’s joined them from - somewhere? Kyle hadn’t even noticed the guy arriving - and both Mar’i and Jason seem to be consoling the Queen kid. “The Great Magic Arrow Battle, huh,” he murmurs, then returns to the people he’s with, and motions to the cookies. “Roy made cookies. Did you make the cookies, Harper? No - no no you wouldn’t make alien cookies - although Mar’i must be introducing you to some alien cuisine by now…” Then he laughs, because he’s twelve and he’s in the presence of a fellow twelve-year old.
Jason lets his grip drop from Tak’s shoulder to grab his hand instead. Slowly, he nods. “That makes sense. It’s okay to be confused about it, you can feel however you wanna feel about it, kiddo.”
But Roy is staring at the unfolding scene and misses Kyle’s joke, because there’s something in the way that Mar’i is holding the boy that makes Roy’s hackles lift again. “Something’s up,” he states, and looks over at Kyle and Zee, apologetically, as he stands and makes his way over to where Mar’i, Tak, and Jason are.
Tak snuggles against Mar’i instinctively, gripping Jason’s hand. “I’m glad my father told me before anybody else,” he admits. “So I can be the one to tell people. Since I’m the only person who really knew her.” He snuffles, and says quickly, “I’m not crying, but she /was/ my mother, and you only get one, you know. Even if they’re assassins.”
Mari is doing her damnedest to keep her gaze on Tak, because if it goes elsewhere Mar’i knows she’ll say something—do something—that might not end well. It’s not even that Mar’i is so concerned about the ending, of course, but there’s a boy whose lost his mother who doesn’t need that right now. She squeezes Tak tighter instead, resting her face atop his styled thick locks. “It’s okay,” she repeats, “you do whatever you want. I’ll knock out anyone who says otherwise.”
"It’s okay to cry, Tak, cause you’re right. You only get one mom, doesn’t matter who or what they are," he says gently as he squeezes Tak’s hand. "And she loved you a helluva lot. The whole ride there, she was talking about you and asking about you."
Roy is a giant walking frown by the time he gets over to the table, and asks, on the heels of Jason’s statement: “Who was asking about him?”
The combination of this, Mar’i holding him fiercely to her and Jason assuring him that his mother had been asking about him to the end, finally gets to be too much. Tak hitches, one small one and then one big one, and then he’s sobbing in raspy whoops against Mar’i’s shoulder, clutching Jason’s hand against his rapidly wetting face.
Roy blinks, the frown disappearing as his lashes flutter. “Ah, shit." Then, the frown returns and he rubs a hand against the back of his head, looking at Mar’i and then, glancing back for Kyle who is… Giggling in a corner with Zee. He looks at Jason, his voice gruff. "What happened?"
Jason shifts closer, his coffee long abandoned as his other hand goes to Tak’s back, moving gently up and down. He glances up at Roy, expression hesitant as his eyes flick back to Tak. “Can I tell him?” he asks, remembering the teen’s declaration of wanting to be the one to tell people, though… through the tears it may be hard to get the words out.
Tak nods, still with his head barrelled hard against Mar’i. “He’s my brother, he should know,” he mumbles.
Jason squeezes Tak’s hand again even as he turns to look up at Roy. “Shado died. Ollie and I were trying to transfer her to Blackgate prison, but… she had people waiting for us, and Ollie shot her.”
Roy looks back when Kyle slaps his hand against the table—catching just the edge of what the Lantern is saying— his stomach flip flopping, and looks back at Mar’i and Jason, growing impatient. “What the fuck is going—” And he blinks when Jason speaks. “You and Ollie were.. Wait, what?”
Tak watches Roy from one tearful hazel eye, curious even through his grief about how his (oh so cool) older brother is going to take this news.
Roy moves over to Tak, settling a hand against the kid’s shoulder, looking down at him. “Jesus, kid.. I’m..” He pulls his hand back, scratching at the round of his skull. “I’m really fucking sorry to hear that.” He looks from Tak, to Mar’i, before settling on Jason, and the seafoam green of his eyes hardens a bit. “Can I talk to you for a second, Jason?”
"Hey," Mar’i says, leaning down to where Tak is tucked against her. "Hey, do you want to come and stay with me? My place isn’t a penthouse or anything, but you could come with me on patrols, and Poppy’s pretty cute. Roy and Lian are around all the time, too?" She figures the cool appeal of his brother and his niece might help.
Jason freezes, staring at Roy for a moment. He gives Tak’s hand one last squeeze before letting go and getting to his feet. “Sure.” This can’t be going anywhere good.
Tak brightens slightly, although he shows no interest in moving away from his cosy place nestled against a cat-warm six-foot-tall Mar’i. “That would be great,” he says, thickly through the tears and snot. He wipes his nose on his sleeve before grabbing a napkin from the table and using that. He doesn’t have the delicacy of manners yet to demur, to ask if Mar’i’s sure about this, and instead declares, “That’ll be much nicer than staying in my father’s place. I’m by myself so often, with only Kiki. I want to meet Poppy and go on patrols with you instead.”
Roy walks over, away from the table, and behind one of the cafeteria’s half walls, where the food trays are brought by the Leaguers—kinda like Ikea, Roy thinks, idly, before turning to look at Jason. “Details on the whole thing, from top to bottom, Jason. I need them.” There is no pleasure here, the archer is quite suddenly all business, his gaze sharpening like there is a mark to be struck.
Mari definitely has a broken heart from that statement. “Well, we’ll have to make sure Ollie’s cool with it,” she says, because legally she has to say it, although she’s half-determined to kidnap the kid if need be. “But even if he says no, you can still come stay with me during the day. No reason to stay at home with the dog all day, even if Kiki is very cute.”
Jason follows after Roy, hands shoved into his pockets. “Right.” He pauses, trying to think back to what Ollie had said when he had first asked him about Shado. “A couple weeks back Ollie asked me to help move Shado to Blackgate because I didn’t have any personal connections to her and I kinda know my way around prisons. I got the paperwork to get her in. We were just supposed to get her in and get out, but as soon as we got her to her cell, two of her guys ambushed us. She said most of the guards had already been paid off, didn’t say if it was her that did it or someone else. I… I was trying to hold off her lackeys when Ollie shot her, think she was goading him or something, it all happened too fucking fast, but she was on the ground with an arrow sticking out of her.” Hesitating, he glances over at Tak, then his gaze drops to the floor. “Ollie said she was gonna make it… guess they couldn’t get to her fast enough.”
Roy grits his teeth at the very beginning of the story, and they only clench harder and harder, until Roy can feel the beginnings of a headache fast approaching. “She had an arrow stickin’ outta her and you all both left?”
Jason runs a hand through his hair as he fights back a wince. “There wasn’t time to think, her guys were coming after us…” He trails off, because he’s been thinking the exact same thing since it happened. “Should’ve gone back.”
Tak goes back to the candy, selecting a chocolate chip to pop into his mouth. “Kiki’s a fun dog, but it’ll be better staying with you,” he agrees. “Can you teach me to cook some things? I want to know how to cook. So I can be useful in the house.”
Mari nods enthusiastically. “Hell yeah, I’ll teach you to cook! I’ll teach you how to bargain with little old 아줌마 for good vegetables, too.” She winks. “That’s my special skill, don’t let the flying or firework-hands fool you.”
Tak snort-laughs a little at this. “Thank you for telling me about your mother,” he says, without even waiting a moment to change the tone of their conversation. “It helped. I’m still confused, but it helped to know that even for you, it’s not … it doesn’t always make sense.”
Mari nods. “Yeah, working it all out’s most of the battle. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.” She claps her hands together behind his back. “So, we should discuss the ground rules for living with Poppy. One, she’s probably going to fall in love with you, but she’ll betray you for Roy. Every time. It will never stop hurting. Two, don’t leave plates of food unattended unless you want a lizard alien in them. Three, she likes to roll around in deodorant, so make sure to hide yours under the guest sink.”
Roy exhales, and nods, and turns back to look at Mar’i and Tak. “..alright. Thanks, kid.” He pulls out his phone, a clear indicator of the conversation being over, and texts Ollie.
Tak listens, fascinated, and kicks in amusement at the Tales of Poppy. “Is she very fond of Roy?” Tak asks, his tone making it clear that anybody being very fond of Roy makes total sense. “Roy and leftovers and deodorant.” Tak sounds less certain about leftovers and deodorant.
Jason cocks an eyebrow at being called ‘kid’, but says nothing. Maybe it’s an Arrow thing. “Just for the record, Ollie thought she was gonna be fine,” he says, and then he turns away, heading back over to Mar’i and Tak. Roy doesn’t respond to what Jason says, and is instead, on his phone with his father, exhaling roughly as he glances back at Mar’i and Tak.
Mari sighs sadly. “She thinks he hung the moon. It’s pretty distressing.”
Tak reluctantly figures he’s too old to stay snuggled up in Mar’i’s lap this long, so with one more hug he disentangles himself and goes back to his own chair. “What can I feed her?” he asks. “Will she eat Korean food? Does she only eat leftovers? Are there any alien foods she’s fond of that I should bring her as a special treat so she’ll like me better?”
Roy moves over to Mar’i and Tak, shoving his phone in his pocket, his gaze moving over to where Kyle and Jason are now, eyeing the duo warily for a moment. Then, he figures out the kid is talking about Poppy and says, immediately: “Don’t feed her after midnight.”
Mari tilts her head. “Well,” she begins, taking a deep breath as if this list might take a while. “Her favorite stuff is seafood-like. There’s actually an intergalactic octopus-like being in the Aquarium she’s been trying to get at, but that’s off-limits. But you can bring her dried anchovies. Or really, anything. She’s not picky.”
Tak tucks this away in his brain. “I can make sushi for her,” he decides. “Mother made me learn how to make sushi before she let me learn how to use katana.” He looks down for a moment, then up at Roy, at Mar’i. “Don’t feel like you shouldn’t talk about her, if you want to. I don’t mind.”
Roy sits down, behind Mar’i, opening his legs to settle her between his thighs, leaning his head against her shoulder. “..wish I could talk, but can I ask, instead?” He reaches out and takes a piece of the crumbled cookie the kid hadn’t finished.
Tak nods, interest piqued. “Yes, ask what you’d like.”
Roy pops another piece of cookie into his mouth. “What was her favorite color? Do you know?”
Tak shrugs. “Black, I suppose. I don’t remember her ever saying she liked one in particular.”
Roy nudges Mar’i’s thighs with his own, tightening his knees as he keeps eating Tak’s decimated cookies. “Black’s a good color, don’t you think so, babe?” He arches his eyebrows, and looks down at his phone, reading the messages from Ollie—his brown furrows, once, before relaxing—before stating, slyly: “..but Mar’i also comes from a long line of bats, you know.”
Mari nods, wrapped up comfortably in the frame of Roy’s body. “I promise there are no Bats at my place,” she says immediately, elbowing Roy lightly in the ribs. “Tak’s coming to stay with me for a bit,” Mar’i explains, realizing her previous comment makes no sense to Roy otherwise.
Roy grins and holds his phone out, so Mar’i can see the message from Ollie. “Yeah, Ollie told me.” He takes the ribbing with a light ‘oof’ and looks over at Tak. “You got any snacks I should pick up, or food allergies?”
Tak shakes his head. “Get me one of everything,” he demands. “I especially like Twinkies.”
Roy grins. “I’ll go to Costco, then,” he states, easily, as he moves his non-ringed hand—the other is tucked behind her back, out of sight— over Mar’i’s hair, teasing the ends of a curl through his fingers. “Between you and Mar’i, I don’t wanna know who would end up winning a fight over the last Twinkie—oh, hey,” he turns to look at Mar’i, craning his head. “They’re carrying the dried seaweed snack packs again, I picked up two cases yesterday.”
Mari pumps her fist energetically. “Oh hell yes, I’ve been craving them on patrol. Much better than trying to carry around wasabi peas and chocolate.” She scrunches up her nose at the memory.
Tak perks up at the mention of all these foodstuffs. “You eat well here,” he observes, pleased. “I like it. Mother liked to cook Cajun food, but other than that she could be so uninterested in food.”
Mari thinks about this. “Cajun, huh? That’s pretty interesting. Did she visit New Orleans once or something?”
Tak shrugs again. “She used to say she was making everything a la Prudhomme, whatever /that/ is. I prefer raw food to blackened.” Tak wrinkles his nose up and makes a little face, sticking out his tongue.
Mari cocks her head. “A la Prudhomme,” she repeats, having no context for what that means. “So wait, do you like sushi? Because that’s usually pretty raw? HEY,” Mar’i says, before Tak can even answer. “Have you ever had kimbap? It’s not exactly like sushi, but it’s got similar ingredients! And most things are cooked inside it! Like Spam! And eggs!” Mar’i is clearly hungry.
Tak bounces. “I LOVE sushi!” he announces loudly. “And I don’t know what Spam is but I want it!”
Mari rubs her hands together. “Eggsssscellent, a new convert,” she whispers to herself. Tak nods. “I’ll try anything,” he boasts. “I eat phoenix claws and haggis.”
Roy laughs at what Tak says, and grins at the two of them, and nods, scooping his leg up, standing up from behind Mar’i. “Alright, I’ll pick allathat up, bring it over to your place, alright?” He kisses Mar’i’s temple, before moving to press his hand against Tak’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about your mom, Tak. Just know that you’re.. not alone, yeah?”
Tak smiles, and it’s the openmouthed kind of grin that both Roy and Mar’i recognize, the stamp of Ollie’s blood all over it. “That’s the part of this that I’m not confused about at all,” he tells them. “I know I have my family.”
Roy feels his pulse quicken, his heart twist the way it always does when he’s reminded, and he reaches out to ruffle the kid’s hair, kissing Mar’i again before he makes his way over to Kyle, moving to stand besides the Lantern as he goes through the files. Kyle glances up at Roy, looks behind him at Mar’i and Tak, then back at the console. “Ay nene, ‘sup?”
Roy takes a seat, and scrunches up his face, glancing back at Mar’i and Tak, before looking to Kyle. “..his mom’s dead,” his expression darkens. “Ollie did it, I’m trying to—” He shakes his head. “I gotta go down, get stateside, figure out some stuff.. but I wanna finish talkin’ about what were were talkin’ about, before.. Later.” He grins at how what he says would make absolutely little sense to anyone but Kyle.
Mari definitely cannot make eye contact with Tak any longer because otherwise she’s going to try and just keep him and she is definitely not allowed to keep other people’s children-that-look-like-adults. So she settles for consuming cookies en masse.
Tak settles down and eats a couple of cookies properly, and then dozes off mid-sentence while telling Mar’i all about how utterly cool the reality show genre of television is.
Mari pokes her head around the corner, searching for… “Hey, you!” she says, tilting her head at Tak. “You still want to patrol with me?” Mari notices his cookie-eating technique in hindsight and considers it a great waste of good cookie. Tak jumps right up, his somber expression brightening when he sees Mar’i. “Yes!” he all but shouts. “Yes I do! Are we going now?”
Mari grabs a handful of crumbs off his plate and eats them herself. “Up to you. We can wait until later or we can get a headstart?”
Tak twitches back and forth, like he can’t make up his mind yet. Finally he gestures to the plate of crumbs and sits down again. “We might as well finish them,” Tak says, picking up a walnut and putting it in his mouth. “Mar’i, is your mother alive still?”
Mari blinks at Tak, then opens her mouth as if to answer. Instead, she sits down, stealing one of the most…alien-looking cookies. It wiggles in her hand. “No. She’s still alive here, but she’s also not really my mother…” Mar’i takes a large bite, as if to hush herself, then immediately undoes it by asking around the bite: “Why? You find her old pin-ups?”
Jason trudges into the cafeteria, shoulders slumped, collar of his jacket pulled up high to hide the fact that he hasn’t shaved or slept in days, though he’s quite clearly hung over. He ignores the other people in the room for the moment as he makes a beeline for the coffee machine.
Tak blinks. “Pin-ups?” he repeats, then realizes. “Oh! Your mother is very sexy, yes. I saw her pin-ups on the internet. But that’s not what I mean. I wanted to know…” Tak dithers, pushing a cracked M&M around the table with his fingertip. “What you felt. When she died.” He looks faintly apologetic and continues, “I would’ve asked Damian man-to-man if he’d been here, I know he would’ve been all right with talking about this sort of thing. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Mari mentally logs away the fact that her mom’s tits are on the internet (which Mar’i finds more cool than anything, but then again she’s never been one for parental embarrassment or body shame, either) and shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I just…I don’t get asked about her a lot. People either assume she was alive, or if they know, that I don’t want to talk about it.” Mar’i thinks about this for a moment. “I think I’m finally ready to talk about it, though. When she died…I felt…well, I mean, she and my dad divorced when I was a teenager and she left the planet after that. She was always inviting me to visit, but I didn’t do it often. I think I was…trying to punish her for leaving? So when she died, I was heartbroken. But…I was also really, really mad. Mad that she had left again. Except this time she couldn’t pretend she wanted me around.” Mar’i chews another bite of cookie for a moment. “It took me a long time to realize how much that was me working out my own issues, not her.”
Tak stares at Mar’i, enraptured by this information. “She left the planet,” he says wonderingly. “That must … that’s much /much/ worse than just her not living with you or near you, isn’t it? Leaving the entire planet. I’d be mad and heartbroken too.” He lifts his finger off the candy piece, realizing he’s melted through some of the shell, and licks the yellow from his fingertip. “I can’t see how that’s only your issues and not about her leaving you.”
Jason glances around the room, spotting Tak in one corner and going still. After a moment of hesitation, he approaches, feeling as though he should say something, though he has no idea what. “Hey kid,” is the best he comes up with, offering both Tak and Mar’i a little nod in greeting, feeling as though he’s interrupting something.
Mari shrugs lightly. “My parents had a bad relationship. They got together as teenagers, kept breaking up and getting back together. They had a wedding that got interrupted by a demonic friend who put an evil seed inside my mother that she harvested later on. Then it was hookup after hookup after bad breakup after fight until they decided they wanted to get married. Sometimes loving someone, even as much as Tamaraneans love others, doesn’t mean you work. After they got divorced, my mom realized the entire planet was soured by how long it’d taken them to realize they weren’t good for each other. And it was worse because she was gonna love him forever. Sometimes running is better than suffering. She tried to get me to stay with her. I was the one who refused.” Mar’i glances up at Jason and nods back.
Tak stands up and takes Jason’s elbow, pulling him to one of the seats. “I’m glad you’re here too,” he says, and looks from Jason to Mar’i. “I wanted to talk to Damian but don’t feel bad about that, Mar’i, I like you very much too and if I can’t talk to Damian I’m relieved I got to talk to you. And you—” he looks at Jason, “you were …” He lets that trail off and takes a breath, sitting up very very straight in his chair. “My mother is dead. My father killed her,” Tak says to them both.
Mari’s head nearly snaps around. “Wait,” she says, almost sounding dulled for a moment, before her voice comes back into focus. “Wait, what?”
Jason blinks and does his best not to spill his coffee as he’s pulled into the seat. His eyes go wide as Tak continues, and suddenly he feels strangely sick. “Are you… are you sure?” He saw the arrow strike days ago when it happened, but… Ollie had said—the guards should’ve gotten there in time to do something.
Tak points at Jason. “He was there when my father shot her,” he explains, “but she didn’t die right away. He put the arrow where she had shot him and Damian’s father, see?” Tak nods at the appropriateness of this action. “It was symbolic.” He puts his thumb on the softened candy piece and squishes it down against the table. “She died later. My father told me. He hasn’t told anybody else, but I assume that whoever monitors the Blackgate prison activity reports and knows that Shado was there will find out eventually.” Tak looks up at them again, sucking chocolate off his thumb. “They’d have to know it was her, though. Since she changed her identity, she’d only had a prisoner number.”
Mari is just sort of staring at Tak. She knows how Tak was conceived, how Ollie felt about her, but she didn’t know he’d…and with Jason there? And why? Mar’i’s brow furrows and she reaches out to take Tak’s free hand into her own.
”I suppose I still don’t know how to feel,” Tak says, with a puzzled cock of his head.
Jason resists the urge to swear, instead scrubbing his free hand over his face. “We were trying to transfer her, move her somewhere more secure,” he says, almost automatically. “They must’ve known what we were planning. I… I’m sorry, Tak.” He’s not sure if that’s what he wants to hear, but it’s all he can think of to say. A little hesitantly, he reaches out to put a gentle hand on Tak’s shoulder.
Tak seems grateful for their comfort, giving them both a wobbly smile. “I’m not blaming you, so you know,” he assures Jason. “My mother is — was — an assassin. Ever since I was little she made sure that I knew she could die at any time, and she’d die to protect me. Maybe that’s why I feel so confused right now?” It’s a question rather than a statement, and he looks at them hopefully for confirmation or correction. “Because I’ve been prepared my whole life for her dying?”
Mari’s figured out what all this is, what it means, what’s happened, why Jason was invited and no one else. It makes perfect sense to Mar’i, and so she pulls Tak closer to her, enveloping him in less of a mutual hug, but rather more of a maternal hold.
Kyle keeps holding her close, keeps her pressed tightly against him since she’s more than willing to do so; and there’s not awkward social constructs built around this image. He momentarily is distracted by the storefront again; this time Jason’s joined them from - somewhere? Kyle hadn’t even noticed the guy arriving - and both Mar’i and Jason seem to be consoling the Queen kid. “The Great Magic Arrow Battle, huh,” he murmurs, then returns to the people he’s with, and motions to the cookies. “Roy made cookies. Did you make the cookies, Harper? No - no no you wouldn’t make alien cookies - although Mar’i must be introducing you to some alien cuisine by now…” Then he laughs, because he’s twelve and he’s in the presence of a fellow twelve-year old.
Jason lets his grip drop from Tak’s shoulder to grab his hand instead. Slowly, he nods. “That makes sense. It’s okay to be confused about it, you can feel however you wanna feel about it, kiddo.”
But Roy is staring at the unfolding scene and misses Kyle’s joke, because there’s something in the way that Mar’i is holding the boy that makes Roy’s hackles lift again. “Something’s up,” he states, and looks over at Kyle and Zee, apologetically, as he stands and makes his way over to where Mar’i, Tak, and Jason are.
Tak snuggles against Mar’i instinctively, gripping Jason’s hand. “I’m glad my father told me before anybody else,” he admits. “So I can be the one to tell people. Since I’m the only person who really knew her.” He snuffles, and says quickly, “I’m not crying, but she /was/ my mother, and you only get one, you know. Even if they’re assassins.”
Mari is doing her damnedest to keep her gaze on Tak, because if it goes elsewhere Mar’i knows she’ll say something—do something—that might not end well. It’s not even that Mar’i is so concerned about the ending, of course, but there’s a boy whose lost his mother who doesn’t need that right now. She squeezes Tak tighter instead, resting her face atop his styled thick locks. “It’s okay,” she repeats, “you do whatever you want. I’ll knock out anyone who says otherwise.”
"It’s okay to cry, Tak, cause you’re right. You only get one mom, doesn’t matter who or what they are," he says gently as he squeezes Tak’s hand. "And she loved you a helluva lot. The whole ride there, she was talking about you and asking about you."
Roy is a giant walking frown by the time he gets over to the table, and asks, on the heels of Jason’s statement: “Who was asking about him?”
The combination of this, Mar’i holding him fiercely to her and Jason assuring him that his mother had been asking about him to the end, finally gets to be too much. Tak hitches, one small one and then one big one, and then he’s sobbing in raspy whoops against Mar’i’s shoulder, clutching Jason’s hand against his rapidly wetting face.
Roy blinks, the frown disappearing as his lashes flutter. “Ah, shit." Then, the frown returns and he rubs a hand against the back of his head, looking at Mar’i and then, glancing back for Kyle who is… Giggling in a corner with Zee. He looks at Jason, his voice gruff. "What happened?"
Jason shifts closer, his coffee long abandoned as his other hand goes to Tak’s back, moving gently up and down. He glances up at Roy, expression hesitant as his eyes flick back to Tak. “Can I tell him?” he asks, remembering the teen’s declaration of wanting to be the one to tell people, though… through the tears it may be hard to get the words out.
Tak nods, still with his head barrelled hard against Mar’i. “He’s my brother, he should know,” he mumbles.
Jason squeezes Tak’s hand again even as he turns to look up at Roy. “Shado died. Ollie and I were trying to transfer her to Blackgate prison, but… she had people waiting for us, and Ollie shot her.”
Roy looks back when Kyle slaps his hand against the table—catching just the edge of what the Lantern is saying— his stomach flip flopping, and looks back at Mar’i and Jason, growing impatient. “What the fuck is going—” And he blinks when Jason speaks. “You and Ollie were.. Wait, what?”
Tak watches Roy from one tearful hazel eye, curious even through his grief about how his (oh so cool) older brother is going to take this news.
Roy moves over to Tak, settling a hand against the kid’s shoulder, looking down at him. “Jesus, kid.. I’m..” He pulls his hand back, scratching at the round of his skull. “I’m really fucking sorry to hear that.” He looks from Tak, to Mar’i, before settling on Jason, and the seafoam green of his eyes hardens a bit. “Can I talk to you for a second, Jason?”
"Hey," Mar’i says, leaning down to where Tak is tucked against her. "Hey, do you want to come and stay with me? My place isn’t a penthouse or anything, but you could come with me on patrols, and Poppy’s pretty cute. Roy and Lian are around all the time, too?" She figures the cool appeal of his brother and his niece might help.
Jason freezes, staring at Roy for a moment. He gives Tak’s hand one last squeeze before letting go and getting to his feet. “Sure.” This can’t be going anywhere good.
Tak brightens slightly, although he shows no interest in moving away from his cosy place nestled against a cat-warm six-foot-tall Mar’i. “That would be great,” he says, thickly through the tears and snot. He wipes his nose on his sleeve before grabbing a napkin from the table and using that. He doesn’t have the delicacy of manners yet to demur, to ask if Mar’i’s sure about this, and instead declares, “That’ll be much nicer than staying in my father’s place. I’m by myself so often, with only Kiki. I want to meet Poppy and go on patrols with you instead.”
Roy walks over, away from the table, and behind one of the cafeteria’s half walls, where the food trays are brought by the Leaguers—kinda like Ikea, Roy thinks, idly, before turning to look at Jason. “Details on the whole thing, from top to bottom, Jason. I need them.” There is no pleasure here, the archer is quite suddenly all business, his gaze sharpening like there is a mark to be struck.
Mari definitely has a broken heart from that statement. “Well, we’ll have to make sure Ollie’s cool with it,” she says, because legally she has to say it, although she’s half-determined to kidnap the kid if need be. “But even if he says no, you can still come stay with me during the day. No reason to stay at home with the dog all day, even if Kiki is very cute.”
Jason follows after Roy, hands shoved into his pockets. “Right.” He pauses, trying to think back to what Ollie had said when he had first asked him about Shado. “A couple weeks back Ollie asked me to help move Shado to Blackgate because I didn’t have any personal connections to her and I kinda know my way around prisons. I got the paperwork to get her in. We were just supposed to get her in and get out, but as soon as we got her to her cell, two of her guys ambushed us. She said most of the guards had already been paid off, didn’t say if it was her that did it or someone else. I… I was trying to hold off her lackeys when Ollie shot her, think she was goading him or something, it all happened too fucking fast, but she was on the ground with an arrow sticking out of her.” Hesitating, he glances over at Tak, then his gaze drops to the floor. “Ollie said she was gonna make it… guess they couldn’t get to her fast enough.”
Roy grits his teeth at the very beginning of the story, and they only clench harder and harder, until Roy can feel the beginnings of a headache fast approaching. “She had an arrow stickin’ outta her and you all both left?”
Jason runs a hand through his hair as he fights back a wince. “There wasn’t time to think, her guys were coming after us…” He trails off, because he’s been thinking the exact same thing since it happened. “Should’ve gone back.”
Tak goes back to the candy, selecting a chocolate chip to pop into his mouth. “Kiki’s a fun dog, but it’ll be better staying with you,” he agrees. “Can you teach me to cook some things? I want to know how to cook. So I can be useful in the house.”
Mari nods enthusiastically. “Hell yeah, I’ll teach you to cook! I’ll teach you how to bargain with little old 아줌마 for good vegetables, too.” She winks. “That’s my special skill, don’t let the flying or firework-hands fool you.”
Tak snort-laughs a little at this. “Thank you for telling me about your mother,” he says, without even waiting a moment to change the tone of their conversation. “It helped. I’m still confused, but it helped to know that even for you, it’s not … it doesn’t always make sense.”
Mari nods. “Yeah, working it all out’s most of the battle. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.” She claps her hands together behind his back. “So, we should discuss the ground rules for living with Poppy. One, she’s probably going to fall in love with you, but she’ll betray you for Roy. Every time. It will never stop hurting. Two, don’t leave plates of food unattended unless you want a lizard alien in them. Three, she likes to roll around in deodorant, so make sure to hide yours under the guest sink.”
Roy exhales, and nods, and turns back to look at Mar’i and Tak. “..alright. Thanks, kid.” He pulls out his phone, a clear indicator of the conversation being over, and texts Ollie.
Tak listens, fascinated, and kicks in amusement at the Tales of Poppy. “Is she very fond of Roy?” Tak asks, his tone making it clear that anybody being very fond of Roy makes total sense. “Roy and leftovers and deodorant.” Tak sounds less certain about leftovers and deodorant.
Jason cocks an eyebrow at being called ‘kid’, but says nothing. Maybe it’s an Arrow thing. “Just for the record, Ollie thought she was gonna be fine,” he says, and then he turns away, heading back over to Mar’i and Tak. Roy doesn’t respond to what Jason says, and is instead, on his phone with his father, exhaling roughly as he glances back at Mar’i and Tak.
Mari sighs sadly. “She thinks he hung the moon. It’s pretty distressing.”
Tak reluctantly figures he’s too old to stay snuggled up in Mar’i’s lap this long, so with one more hug he disentangles himself and goes back to his own chair. “What can I feed her?” he asks. “Will she eat Korean food? Does she only eat leftovers? Are there any alien foods she’s fond of that I should bring her as a special treat so she’ll like me better?”
Roy moves over to Mar’i and Tak, shoving his phone in his pocket, his gaze moving over to where Kyle and Jason are now, eyeing the duo warily for a moment. Then, he figures out the kid is talking about Poppy and says, immediately: “Don’t feed her after midnight.”
Mari tilts her head. “Well,” she begins, taking a deep breath as if this list might take a while. “Her favorite stuff is seafood-like. There’s actually an intergalactic octopus-like being in the Aquarium she’s been trying to get at, but that’s off-limits. But you can bring her dried anchovies. Or really, anything. She’s not picky.”
Tak tucks this away in his brain. “I can make sushi for her,” he decides. “Mother made me learn how to make sushi before she let me learn how to use katana.” He looks down for a moment, then up at Roy, at Mar’i. “Don’t feel like you shouldn’t talk about her, if you want to. I don’t mind.”
Roy sits down, behind Mar’i, opening his legs to settle her between his thighs, leaning his head against her shoulder. “..wish I could talk, but can I ask, instead?” He reaches out and takes a piece of the crumbled cookie the kid hadn’t finished.
Tak nods, interest piqued. “Yes, ask what you’d like.”
Roy pops another piece of cookie into his mouth. “What was her favorite color? Do you know?”
Tak shrugs. “Black, I suppose. I don’t remember her ever saying she liked one in particular.”
Roy nudges Mar’i’s thighs with his own, tightening his knees as he keeps eating Tak’s decimated cookies. “Black’s a good color, don’t you think so, babe?” He arches his eyebrows, and looks down at his phone, reading the messages from Ollie—his brown furrows, once, before relaxing—before stating, slyly: “..but Mar’i also comes from a long line of bats, you know.”
Mari nods, wrapped up comfortably in the frame of Roy’s body. “I promise there are no Bats at my place,” she says immediately, elbowing Roy lightly in the ribs. “Tak’s coming to stay with me for a bit,” Mar’i explains, realizing her previous comment makes no sense to Roy otherwise.
Roy grins and holds his phone out, so Mar’i can see the message from Ollie. “Yeah, Ollie told me.” He takes the ribbing with a light ‘oof’ and looks over at Tak. “You got any snacks I should pick up, or food allergies?”
Tak shakes his head. “Get me one of everything,” he demands. “I especially like Twinkies.”
Roy grins. “I’ll go to Costco, then,” he states, easily, as he moves his non-ringed hand—the other is tucked behind her back, out of sight— over Mar’i’s hair, teasing the ends of a curl through his fingers. “Between you and Mar’i, I don’t wanna know who would end up winning a fight over the last Twinkie—oh, hey,” he turns to look at Mar’i, craning his head. “They’re carrying the dried seaweed snack packs again, I picked up two cases yesterday.”
Mari pumps her fist energetically. “Oh hell yes, I’ve been craving them on patrol. Much better than trying to carry around wasabi peas and chocolate.” She scrunches up her nose at the memory.
Tak perks up at the mention of all these foodstuffs. “You eat well here,” he observes, pleased. “I like it. Mother liked to cook Cajun food, but other than that she could be so uninterested in food.”
Mari thinks about this. “Cajun, huh? That’s pretty interesting. Did she visit New Orleans once or something?”
Tak shrugs again. “She used to say she was making everything a la Prudhomme, whatever /that/ is. I prefer raw food to blackened.” Tak wrinkles his nose up and makes a little face, sticking out his tongue.
Mari cocks her head. “A la Prudhomme,” she repeats, having no context for what that means. “So wait, do you like sushi? Because that’s usually pretty raw? HEY,” Mar’i says, before Tak can even answer. “Have you ever had kimbap? It’s not exactly like sushi, but it’s got similar ingredients! And most things are cooked inside it! Like Spam! And eggs!” Mar’i is clearly hungry.
Tak bounces. “I LOVE sushi!” he announces loudly. “And I don’t know what Spam is but I want it!”
Mari rubs her hands together. “Eggsssscellent, a new convert,” she whispers to herself. Tak nods. “I’ll try anything,” he boasts. “I eat phoenix claws and haggis.”
Roy laughs at what Tak says, and grins at the two of them, and nods, scooping his leg up, standing up from behind Mar’i. “Alright, I’ll pick allathat up, bring it over to your place, alright?” He kisses Mar’i’s temple, before moving to press his hand against Tak’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about your mom, Tak. Just know that you’re.. not alone, yeah?”
Tak smiles, and it’s the openmouthed kind of grin that both Roy and Mar’i recognize, the stamp of Ollie’s blood all over it. “That’s the part of this that I’m not confused about at all,” he tells them. “I know I have my family.”
Roy feels his pulse quicken, his heart twist the way it always does when he’s reminded, and he reaches out to ruffle the kid’s hair, kissing Mar’i again before he makes his way over to Kyle, moving to stand besides the Lantern as he goes through the files. Kyle glances up at Roy, looks behind him at Mar’i and Tak, then back at the console. “Ay nene, ‘sup?”
Roy takes a seat, and scrunches up his face, glancing back at Mar’i and Tak, before looking to Kyle. “..his mom’s dead,” his expression darkens. “Ollie did it, I’m trying to—” He shakes his head. “I gotta go down, get stateside, figure out some stuff.. but I wanna finish talkin’ about what were were talkin’ about, before.. Later.” He grins at how what he says would make absolutely little sense to anyone but Kyle.
Mari definitely cannot make eye contact with Tak any longer because otherwise she’s going to try and just keep him and she is definitely not allowed to keep other people’s children-that-look-like-adults. So she settles for consuming cookies en masse.
Tak settles down and eats a couple of cookies properly, and then dozes off mid-sentence while telling Mar’i all about how utterly cool the reality show genre of television is.