Snapshots and Afterimages - part 4
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* November 18 [Robin PoV]"Awesome, thanks man. You know I'll pay you back," Wally promised. "You too," he said to Ferris.
"No rush, Wally," I dismissed. 'I mean, it's not exactly an allowance, but Bruce does give me some money so I'm rather asterous on funds. Pretty sure Ferris doesn't really care either; not about the money, at any rate…' I didn't bother to say it, though, since he already knew.
"Time is fine. I wish you have good luck during the date," Ferris told him, still lounging in her bed for the first time in days.
Given the equipment required, and how private she usually was about her room, she'd been in another room while she was on life support, and had only moved back into her usual one once she could – for short periods only – stand and walk unaided again.
"Righty-o, then. Gotta go make some preparations!" Wally left the room and raced off. We stayed quiet for a bit.
Ferris took off the new metal-mind ring Wally had made under her directions – elohenum, an atium-electrum alloy – and put it on the desk.
"Robin, you want to talk us together?" she asked.
"Yeah." Except it was sort of invasive and personal, so I wanted to hedge around a bit. "I mean, it isn't urgent, and I'll stop any time you want…" I was sort of expecting her to interrupt, but she just let me trail off. "…I want to talk about how you're doing. How you're really doing."
She gave me a long, slow look, lips pursed, and I tried not to fidget as I waited.
"Mmm…"
'She usually hums like that to buy time for what she wants to say,' I knew. 'Is she going to run with it, dodge it, turn it around…?'
She still didn't say anything.
"Look," I finally caved, because this was pretty personal. "I know… the one time I broke my arm and was laid up for a while was murder on my nerves. You've got it so much worse. You used to be able to jump across the rooftops, and now you need a wheelchair because you can't walk between rooms. Mostly, you look pretty turbed and traught, but… Batman taught me to read people, and you sort of seem…."
'Aw great, she's just staring at me. She's not smiling, so this isn't fun for her, but she's not frowning or pulling in her bottom lip. I would be looking for that eye twitch except she doesn't have any zinc-minds to use, and she says she can read neck muscles but I don't know how.'
"Ask me a question, and I will tell you my answer. I am grateful for you caring," she said calmly. I thought it wasn't a warning sign.
Probably.
'Of course, it does mean I'm going to… Well, she's giving me permission to poke and prod, sort of, so I think it's supposed to be okay?'
"How much pain are you in?" I asked first to start us off. She closed her eyes and sighed as she thought it over.
"I ache. Hurt places… changing… lava lamp? You know, yes? Wax, water, light- um, light bulb and warmth?"
"Is wax what they put in those things?" I wondered. 'Wait, she's pointing… I wonder how long she's had that.' "Should I plug it in?"
"No thank you," she said mechanically. "But… Mm, my body is glass and water of lamp. Pain is wax lava. Pain moves in my body."
"You hurt, but you don't hurt everywhere at the same time," I translated.
"Yes."
"Okay. How sick are you of the wheelchair? I noticed you'll stand up for just a second, a lot, but don't go anywhere," I elaborated.
"Wheel chair is not good, is bad, but is not very bad," she decided. "Bed is more bad. I want to be remembering I can walk and I will run."
"Wheelchair's better than bed rest, I totally get that. How about not using your powers. Are you turbed? Do you still really want to?"
"I…" She trailed off. "Some, yes. Storing gold-mind not good for to heal, but to start think to heal. Connection and warmth I want."
"Yeah." 'Okay, I know she uses brass-warmth as a security blanket, but just to check…' "I noticed you put an extra blanket on your bed, and you carry another blanket around on your lap a lot. You feeling cold? It is starting to feel like winter, especially after the big blizzard."
"No." She frowned slightly at me. "I know really you are asking it. My brass-mind warmth is my… mind comfort," she said slowly. "Blankets. Fire cooking in house. Sleeping beside my family. Body- physical body is not cold. Cognitive body is cold." She arched an eyebrow.
"Right. I'll just be more direct with what I'm asking," I half-apologized. "Okay. So. I notice you've been a bit snappish lately. Clipped in more ways than just because you don't have your translation effect. You try not to direct it at us, and a really big 'thank you' for that, but I've seen drumming your fingers on stuff with a scowl. I've seen you almost tearing at the pages you're writing on or toss a book somewhere in a huff.
"You just sort of phase out unless one of us addresses you or you want something. You used to smile a lot, even when they weren't always nice smiles, and now you just pinch your lips. Yeah like that," I added when her face did exactly that. "It's not even a frown or a scowl, it's just tense. You've skipped out on a few Team activities – like when Wally, Kaldur, and Zatanna were doing another round of spell experiments – and I've been noticing when you're faking your reactions a lot more than I used to." I paused, searching for how to say this next bit.
"Mm?" Ferris hummed curiously, putting on a faint, fond smile. Her face looked perfectly fine, but I knew from her hands it was a fake.
"Look, none of that is wrong, or bad," I began with, "but it has a lot of us worried now. Worried enough that I'm the person who's approaching you instead of the others. Whether or- no, wait," I mumbled, shaking my head. 'I don't want to accuse her of helping me by accident that time, it'd probably hurt her feelings.' "Okay. Talking to you that time I put on the Helmet of Fate helped me a lot. Can I help you that way now?"
She didn't say anything, and I just let the silence stretch out between us.
Finally, something in her voice rumbled at the back of her throat. It wasn't a hum like her usual tic, more like a purr or a growl.
'You know, that sort of reminds me of how Catwoman sounded the one time… Batman… really stepped in it….'
Intellectually, I knew that she wouldn't really hurt me, or at least that she didn't want to. And right now, she physically couldn't.
Emotionally, I just held very still and tried to square my shoulders, staring down a capricious predator. We locked eyes.
'We won't fix any problems if we don't know they exist,' I faux-sent to her. 'That's why the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You've told me that.'
'You're not okay. And you shouldn't be. It's completely normal to be Not Okay after all of this. Wait, I should actually say this.'
"It's totally normal to be Not Okay about all of this." I couldn't tell what, but something about her facial muscles changed. "Your body is injured, and it's totally normal for your heart and mind to also be injured. You are not supposed to be okay. But it's such a big thing, with so many parts, that no one knows what bits you're Not Okay about for sure. You're strong, Renka. But no one is that strong. Can I help?"
I waited.
Slowly, slowly, she looked away, turning to stare down at her own hands on the bed sheet.
Her mouth was tense, and the tendons in her neck were taught. She breathed a little bit, and I wondered if I had reached her.
"…I- Robin, I've never been... weak before." The words were a wheeze, rather than a whisper, and she hunched over with the exhalation.
I shuddered, ever so slightly. Something in her voice reminded me of gasping after a punch had winded me, or of the time when a woman-
'Oof. It cost her something to say that. Man, it really, really cost her something to say that,' I realized with guilty start.
I only hoped my help could repay the cost.
"Well," I said gently, and then I stalled out.
'Think… Come on, Boy Wonder, think! Okay, how to handle these types of rhetoric? Break it down, and isolate what she means….'
"One, I'm pretty sure we all start off weak. You know, kids and helpless little babies who depend on others through our childhood?" She turned back sharply to glare at me, mouth flat and eyes narrowed. I did my best to continue without getting all chalant about it. "So, you're not just talking about that. It's not just comparative strength either, because you're the first person to admit that there are plenty of people more powerful than you. Anyone invulnerable, or people who're flying… You don't mean strong or weak compared to anyone else.
"Strong like resilient? I think you're incredibly tough just to survive everything that's been thrown at you. You're surviving this too, even if it'll take a little longer, but you know you will walk and run and fight again. …But, that's only in the future," I added on impulse.
'Bingo.'
I only caught it because I was looking, but she had definitely, specifically reacted to that.
"You're not weak now, Renka. You beat up two New Gods fresh off your hospital bed. Your mind isn't weak either, or don't you remember making the aster that entire time against the Ice Fortresses? Your magic? You've been cleared to start using Feruchemy, and whatever it is about your aura is supposed to be stronger than ever. Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual," I ticked off on my fingers.
"You're not weak, Ferris, you're wounded. Injured, not invalid," I repeated to her.
"Yes, Robin," she breathed softly, cutting me off. "That is exactly the problem: this is the first I have ever been injured-not-invalid."
She looked back down to her hands on the sheet while I tried to process that.
"Well, just the times I know about," I began, but she shook her head once, sharply.
"It is not similar- not the same as this. Mister Twister, and Atomic Skull, and India, and Red Volcano… little time, not long time."
"Temporary," I suggested softly. Instead of mechanically thanking me, she just gave an uncertain little nod. I waited.
"I... have lived after many horrible things. I have survived. I have never had to recover," she told me slowly, staring still at her own hands. I noticed that her left hand's fingers were twitching and shaking, just slightly. I wasn't quite sure I got it, but tried to stay nonchalant.
"Never?" I prompted softly. There was a moment where she sucked at her own lower lip. If she'd bit it, or if she'd turned to me with her eyes earnest and wide, I'd have thought she was faking. Instead she turned just enough to look at my knees, but not my face.
"Before I killed Marosh, in my childhood, I was never very injured. Once or twice sick, but I threw up, I coughed, I sweat, I became well. After I ran, I could be tired in running after a fight, and wounded, but I was never injured. Hurt, not harm," she clarified. "Even close after I became the Sliver of Entropy, I was scared, and I did not use Feruchemy, but I was healthy. I had knowledge, and I had acts to do."
"At now I have to do nothing. I can only practice, but I will heal to practice to become good I was before. Time," she groused venomously. "Worth cost of killing Klarion, but I would pay upfront before, not after. I wish. I have… I have never before now needing to you take care of," she explained finally, and I thought I got it. "Before care is nice. Gift. Unnecessary, but nice. Now I know I am not a burden, but I… I…."
'You know, I thought it was scary to see her weak with the tubes, or dying on the table. That was whelming, and now I'm a bit overwhelmed.'
I couldn't really think of what to say; I sort of knew that telling her she wasn't a burden would not be what she needed to hear. But I didn't...
She'd survived a lot, but before she'd survived it with the confidence of surviving more, was how it sounded, and I couldn't fix that.
'She helped some, yeah, but it's not like she fixed me all at once, either, back then,' I realized. 'Maybe I shouldn't try to.'
"I won't tell you that it's all going to be okay, but don't lock us out. Please. Saying that you're frustrated or in a foul mood is better than letting it simmer," I said. "If you're having trouble and need help, just say the word. If you're having trouble, but you don't want help because it'll undercut your confidence, say that, too. We'll sit back, laugh, and eat popcorn as you struggle." 'She chuckled! A real one! Asterous!'
"I will, Robin," she agreed with a faint smile. She still didn't quite look at me, but… "As well, I was did- doing a little reading about the Green Lantern lights. Do you have time to read to me?"
'Test,' I assessed immediately. 'She's testing whether I'll bend over immediately or actually do the stuff I mentioned I had to do.'
'I think. How lose-derful,' I complained, 'I can't give her a solid yes or she'll think I'm bending, but I don't want to flat out refuse….'
"Sorry, but I'm sort of swamped studying for a test tomorrow. I'll have more time once the weekend starts, and I can check if any of the others feel free." 'M'gann? Are you in range?' "M'gann is out somewhere, but I think Kaldur is in the building and I saw Zatanna earlier."
"Thank you. Note book, please," she added when I stood to go. I eyed her collection of notebooks, wondering- "Green marker."
I grabbed the black & white composition notebook she'd shaded with a green marker – there was a pile of them, each with different colors shaded onto the white blotches of the cover – and passed it to her hands along with a pencil.
"Talk to you tomorrow. Wish me luck – history class has been kicking my ass."
"Good luck," she giggled softly, and began a new page of careful writing.
And she still pressed too hard at it with her pen – she still flattened her mouth to a tight, grim line as she wrote, I saw as well – but her hands were steadier, and the creases around her eyes were a little less deep than they had been before. I'd be content with that instead of protent.
For now.
