makinglies | Til the siren come calling

At Albert's request, Chang goes with the others to the underground levels. If Albert fails, he'll at least have done some damage and Chang can take care of the rest. That's the idea, anyway.

Bag of ammunition aside for now, Albert stands in the hall that leads up to the main entrance. He can hear the glass break, the brief grunt of Junior winding up, and then the huge crash and shake of the floor as he goes down a split second later. Jet's accelerator. Good, if he used it already it will take him some time to reset.

It's easier to think instead of feel. Plan ahead instead of dwell on quiet nights on the couch in Jet's old apartment, sneaking into a closed theater in Berlin just so Jet could listen to Albert play the piano, that first day Jet woke up with a new face and Albert memorized it just as quickly and completely as the old.

He pulls back his thumb, feeling the click of his ammunition into the chambers, and stands ready.

Jet's indiscriminate in what he runs into, walls, interns of the foundation, he's blind and deaf to everything around him, everything that isn't that voice urging him to go. There was a sense of urgency to the voice, like if he didn't go now, fly through here as fast as he could, break whatever his body was capable of breaking, then he'd fail.

The blond bashed into a corner as the hall he was in turned and slowed him down enough to make him notice the figure ahead of him. An analysis cropped up in his vision, overshadowing the flashing warning lights telling him he was damaged at the corners of his vision.

This was another traitor, another person who needed to be put down for what he'd done. But this was the other heavy-hitter, flying at him might not be enough and he didn't have another weapon and his accelerator wouldn't be active again for a few more minutes. He'd have to use his boosters.

He stood facing the older cyborg, clothes ripped in several places due to the wind speed of his flight and the unkind concrete of the walls. There were a few cuts under the tears and one on his cheek but they were shallow; even the arm he'd used to bust through the glass--arguably the worst of it--wasn't so bad off, he could still use it and that was good enough. He willed the warning lights away to clear his sight, but to Albert, they would already look empty, lifeless.

He started to take a step towards his target, mind filling with thoughts of his feet rockets in the older man's face or maybe melting that arm of his, but he stopped. There was something bothering him, something more emotional. That whisper gave him the answer: this was one of the worst ones, one of the traitors who'd hurt him the most, who'd left him to rot.

He would pay.

"Jet!"

He looks terrible, all tears and damage from his breakneck assault on the compound. Maybe from something else too, he can't tell. He's too distracted by those eyes. Lifeless and void of anything that made Jet the man he remembers.

"Jet, how could you let yourself be used to attack us?"

He doesn't know why he's talking. By all rights he should take the first shot, act quickly and decisively in the face of the enemy. But Jet isn't the enemy. Jet's never been the enemy. Petulant, brazen, making the wrong decisions certainly, up to his neck in things he can't control, but never an enemy.

"This isn't you."

He remembers a conversation a long time ago. Decades, in the early days of their escape. "To empathize with the enemy? To feel his pain? It's very risky. He might take your life while you're trying to save his."

His voice drops lower, though he knows Jet can still hear him. "Tell me what they've done to you. Why are you doing this?"

"But I cannot let that stop me from caring."

He shouldn't be hesitating, letting the other man talk, listening to him... But he still stood several paces away, a glint if anger coloring his previously blank expression.

"I haven't let anything happen except letting myself trust the wrong people. His voice...I have to fix my mistake, He reminded me of that." And if the zero zero cyborgs were out if the way, there wouldn't be anything to stop humanity from starting over either. Two birds, one stone.

But the accusation that this wasn't him played at the back of his head, bothering him, confliction running through him. He pushed it away, that comforting whisper growing louder to overshadow it. He had a job to do. He stepped closer.

"He's the only one who won't betray me. His voice is all I can trust anymore." Now! Now! His jets ignited and shot him towards his target, aiming to ram his shoulder into the other man's chest and shove him back. If he could connect, he could turn them and slam the shorter man into the wall.

"We haven't betrayed you!" Shoot, shoot!! Albert's brain screams at him as Jet steps forward. Despite it, he does't even move out of the way when those engines spark and he's shoved back, grunting in pain as he impacts with the wall, the force of Jet's assault practically denting his chest plate. Reeling, it takes him a moment to clear his head, a pained expression crossing his eyes as he opens them again and meets Jet's gaze directly. He searches, looking for anything, any spark of the man he hadn't been able to truly forget in all these long years.

"Jet, you're the one who left. We never wanted that. We never wanted this. You were always welcome to return." He should fire, he should press his hand to Jet's chest and shred him, protect himself, protect the others. Doctor Gilmore, Francoise, Ivan, Chang...

Instead he brings his hands up, pressing them to the sides of Jet's face, still searching in those bright blue eyes. His voice comes out in a low whisper, pained and shaking for the unmitigated pressure with which the other cyborg is still pushing Albert into the steel-paneled wall. "I've missed you, Sparrow. Please don't do this."

The hands on his face--gentle and not violent--combined with that heart-achingly familiar nickname made the pressure lighten a bit as something flashed in his eyes. Hesitation and uncertainty warred with that whisper telling him not to listen.

Someone had betrayed him...but if not him, Albert, then who? Was he wrong? Was he trying to kill the wrong person? Just looking at those silver eyes hurt, though, maybe...

His eyes closed and his jaw clenched his head moving a small bit under Albert's touch as though trying to clear it then reapplied the pressure to Albert's chest. He should attack, he had the other cyborg exactly where he wanted him...but he couldn't move to strike, only give a half-hearted glare, that ubcertainty still playing at the edges of his voice when he spoke.

"Shut up...you're just trying to confuse me. You're the ones against me, you're the ones trying to blame Dubai on me!" Wait were they? That didn't seen right...but someone was, he'd forgotten but that was definitely why he was mad. Why couldn't he think straight.

"I have to follow His voice..." He brought his other hand up to the German's shoulder. Any second now he'd do it, he'd bring his leg up and drive the jet flame into Albert's stomach.

"No, you tried to stop them at Dubai. Francoise said as much." He grits his teeth, the pressure Jet's putting on him considerable and painful, making drawing breath laborious. He'd only heard what happened second hand, having been with Pyunma in the markets of Istanbul at the time.

He can hear the doubt in Jet's tone, the vehemence he uses to try and hide it, and Albert redoubles his efforts to get through to the blond, even pinned to the wall as he is. He presses his forehead against Jet's, taking a difficult breath. "Jet, His Voice is manipulating you. Don't let it make you do more you'll regret."

There was something about His voice...something screaming for his attention but he couldn't think of it just as he couldn't think of why this felt wrong or of why hearing Albert struggle for air made him wince.

Jet had to kill him, there was no other option.

...but he didn't want to hurt Albert. He couldn't remember why.

He removed his arm, both hands now clenching tightly in the red uniform. He paused, unknowingly taking a moment to just let their foreheads touch. He shifted his weight, thinking to throw The older man into the other wall, maybe knock him out that way. Frustration and confusion flooded him when he found he couldn't make that next movement. Why? He'd known Geronimo had been his friend, that was no different for the German, so then what was stopping him here?

"Albert..."

"Please," he's all hush and pain, not knowing if this will work, if he'll have the chance to defend his family if it doesn't, but he has to try. He has to try because if he doesn't then he's still nothing but a cyborg weapon from a bygone age.

He has to try because he can't live with the hole Jet left in his life anymore.

Calm. He's calm. He doesn't know how he can be with the American baring down on him, making it hard to breathe, easily able to end it in an instant if he brings one leg up. Knowing all that, he's still calm, his hands on Jet's face are still gentle, and he doesn't know what comes over him but one instant he's trying to figure out what to do and the next his lips are brushing those in front of him and a large part of his mind is screaming that this isn't what he should be doing, that it'll get him killed, that he's just gotten his whole team killed.

But a small part is content for the first time in decades.

He froze as lips brushed his own and a wave of painful familiarity rushed through him. It was a slow spreading warmth when he hadn't even realized he was cold and it seemed to overtake and banish that whisper. His voice grew quieter and quieter in his head until it faded into nothing but a low thrum of a completely different note in the back of his mind.

This was why, this was what he'd been forgetting, what had made it impossible for him to just end the cyborg in front of him. He simply couldn't. He couldn't hurt Albert, no matter what Void filled his head with or even with God or whatever whispering in his ear, he'd rather die.

His grip lessened and shifted to cling at the German's broader shoulders as he cautiously returned the kiss. Now that his mind had cleared, it railed at him for all the damage he'd caused, tormented him with the thought of the people he'd hurt, how he'd been all set to kill Albert for something that wasn't even his fault. Void had betrayed him, the vary government he'd stuck to for so long because he'd been too scared to face the family he'd left.

He'd attacked the only people who mattered, he'd let himself be used against them. He'd betrayed them.

He pulled away from the kiss, away from Albert's touch that suddenly felt scorching, eyes averted as he pushed himself to the very wall he'd been thinking to throw Albert into.

"I'm sorry..."

"It's alright," he chokes on the words, emotion running too strong and thick to speak without some weight. 27 years apart, all those times he should have called and didn't. Could have prevented this, could have kept Jet from being used or hurt. Should have acted when he'd been playing the petulant child this time, the animal of wounded pride.

He doesn't let Jet pull away, instead his hands sinking to Jet's shoulders, his arms as the blond tries. Metal fingers circle paneled wrists and he tugs Jet close again instead, this time pulling Jet to his shoulder, wrapping his arms around the man. He doesn't need to see the look in Jet's eyes to know it's there, that confused pain of being controlled, of what he could have done. He knows how he would feel.

"You're safe now. You're home."

Just like that? It was hard to believe he was suddenly forgiven for everything, not just the last several minutes, but the last twenty-seven years as well, how stupid he'd been. He'd had years to realize and acknowledge how stupid he'd been and years more to bury any hope of reconciliation. He'd wrecked the foundation, attacked Geronimo and Albert, thrown Joe into a goddamn nuclear explosion and kept silent while his government pulled the very same bull he'd fought against for so long. How would he ever be able to explain that one without butchering it?

But With Albert's arms around him, making him feel for the first time in forever that he truly was safely with people who genuinely cared, he wanted more than anything to believe it was possible.

He didn't try to pull away again and instead brought his arms up to encircle Albert, his hands clutching at him like the German might disappear as the blond woke up from a very bad dream. These arms had always made him feel safe and cared for, all those nights wrapped in them whether it was on a couch or in a bed, ran through his mind and made him cling even more. How could he have walked away from this?

He choked on another apology, overpowering emotions forcing it to be whispered into Albert's shoulder where Jet was burying his face lest it all reach his eyes and bring the stinging in his them past the simple watering they were already doing. But he could apologize a million times like he wanted to and it would never be enough.

"...I-I'm sorry I've been an idiot. I never--" Never meant to hurt them, never should have left, never should have let this go on as long as it had, there were too many to choose from. "...are you okay?"

"I'll be alright," his breath still rattles a little even as he says it, Jet having smashed him so hard into the metal plated wall of the corridor that he must have dented something on the older cyborg's body. That's not for Jet to worry about now, as far as Albert's concerned. He knows Gilmore will be cautious, if not downright paranoid to have Jet suddenly back so soon after mounting an assault. Chang and Junior may have misgivings as well, as well they should since Jet had been the last to see GB before he disappeared and given what Jet had done to Geronimo when he'd arrived. Francoise and Ivan though, Albert has no doubt they'll welcome Jet back readily. They shared a special bond, the four of them, and between Francoise's unshakable faith and Ivan's ability to sort their motivations even when they can't figure it out Jet still has friends to welcome him home.

The others will come around.

That on top of Joe's fate, which Albert suspects Jet likely blames himself for, and whatever method they'd used to coerce Jet into riding along with the United States' poor plans, the blond has enough to worry about.

Albert pushes his hand lightly through Jet's hair with a small smile, an assurance that everything will be alright, and opens the brainwave to the others. "Everything's under control. Target neutralized."

Silence, then Francoise.

"Is he..?"

"He's fine. He's come to his senses."

There's a soft sigh of relief, giving way to choked words. "Thank goodness."

Deaf to the transmission taking place, Jet took the momentary silence to compose himself a bit better. As much as he may want to, he couldn't just stay in this hall, wrapped in Albert's hold, there were things that needed doing and damages he had to answer for.

A hand came up to cup Albert's cheek as Jet lingered there a moment longer, but then he was pulling away a bit, still close, but no longer leaning on the German like he was the only thing holding the blond up.

"You should go see Gilmore so he can fix whatever got damaged." Whatever he'd damaged. "I need to go check on Geronimo." It was entirely possible the giant of a man would still think Jet was attacking once he woke up, but he'd just have to hope he'd be believed before he got smashed into the ground.

But even he knew it was a little more than just wanting to check on the larger cyborg, it was that he was afraid. Even with Albert's assurances, Jet still wasn't convinced the others wouldn't just kick him out as soon as they could. They had ever reason to do so and only one reason he could think of not to and it was a shaky reason.

Again Albert prevents Jet from pulling away, grasping the blond's hand in his tightly. "You need to see him too, your arm is shredded. We'll check on Geronimo and then we'll go down to the control room together."

Tone even and matter of fact, Albert's stance brokers no arguments. "There will be questions, I'm sure, and the Professor has gotten somewhat... wary in his old age, but you have my support. Francoise's too."

Jet looked at him a moment, still uncertain, but nodded and returned the tight hold Albert had on his hand. They went to retrieve and rouse their fallen friend who, as suspected, didn't immediately react well to Jet being right there. The blond apologized, but he didn't blame Geronimo for still being a bit wary for the time being.

The three of them went down to the control room only to face Doctor Gilmore with a gun turned on Jet the moment he walked in, suspicion obvious in his movements and his voice. He demanded to know what had happened and why Jet had attacked, leaving the blond to explain what the government had been doing since January and what he knew of His voice and what Void had done in throwing the zero zero cyborgs under the bus for the Dubai incident. It was only then that Gilmore lowered the weapon and agreed to fix them up, though it was obvious he still didn't trust Jet.

The whole thing hurt. Having to explain about a plot he should have spoken out against if not stopped, having to admit he'd been betrayed by the very people he'd wrongly put his faith in and more than that, seeing the anger and mistrust and hurt in the doctor's eyes and knowing it had every right to be there.

He was largely silent while Gilmore fixed damaged synth skin and stitched together torn organic skin, only responding when he had to and when Francoise insisted on giving him the tightest hug he'd ever received from the petite blonde. After years of wanting nothing more than to find a way back in with his family, now that he had that in, he felt more like a stranger that didn't belong than anything else.

To his credit, Albert does his best to be a buffer between Jet and the others. His patience holds unknowable depths when facing Gilmore's gun waving and Chang and Geronimo's unease. He remains calm and politic, suggesting Francoise run a scan on Jet's brain to mollify their suspicious surrogate father. He knows it's all with reason. They're all hurting but Gilmore takes these things particularly hard and after the losses they've already suffered, he's utterly terrified of letting Jet back in and finding he's still just as gone. Sometimes, it's too difficult to care without proof.

Finally, after all the haranguing and examinations, Albert and Jet are left in the relative quiet of the medical lab, Jet with a long cable snaking from the back of his neck to a nearby console that Francoise has remote access to from he chair and Albert with half of his chest plate removed to be hammered back out. Jet's attack had put a prodigious dent in the metal, enough to hamper his lungs expanding fully, so it had been handed off to Geronimo to be fixed. He sits with Jet, applying the last of repairs to the blond's arm, his own internal workings temporarily visible until his plate is returned.

The silence stretches between them for miles, Albert's hands working methodically to smooth a synthskin patch over the last remaining tear on Jet's arm.

Usually, silence would bug him beyond belief, but feeling Albert next to him and working on his arm, it felt oddly comfortable and strained at the same time. Part of him was waiting for something, some kind if dismissal or something similar from the older man now that he knew the full story, but it hadn't come yet. Maybe it would come once he broke the silence. Maybe that would be better.

He glanced over, letting his eyes run along the once familiar form. Concern sparked through him as he took in exactly how much had been updated and modified. "What happened? You updated your cybernetics...were you hurt?"

"No, not really." He finishes with Jet's arm and puts away the supplies carefully, trying not to jostle his mechanics. It feels strange, having them open to the air like this. It makes him feel hollow and uncomfortable. He sits back down next to Jet, gaze squarely on his hands as he answers.

"I came in for routine maintenance some time ago, just after Gilmore had set up the whole foundation. He and Chang had made their peace over the licencing and Chang's donations allowed the Professor to build this." He motions to the lab at large, all the latest technology gracing the walls and counters. "Technology's advanced a lot since we were initially remodeled."

He chuckles at that. It's been over half a century since then, after all. "Everyone knew I was coming, it's not as if it was a secret, but what I didn't know is they knew my old part grafts were still causing me a lot of pain. I didn't think much of it anymore back then, I'd been dealing with it for so long, but they had a sort of intervention anyway. They convinced me to upgrade."

He lets out a quiet little sigh. "Most of the parts themselves are still the same, but the plating is more organically shaped and lighter so I don't look like such an automaton under my clothing anymore, and everything was removed and reintegrated with new techniques so there's not any pain anymore, not unless I'm fighting for an extended period of time."

It had been quite the decision at the time, but he'd ended up glad that he did it. He even sounds a little cheerful as he leans back, folding his arms loosely. "It may be synthetic, but I even have a heartbeat again."

Somehow it's easier to talk about his cybernetics than it is to address the elephant on the room. How Jet could have gone along with all that, why he hadn't at least called, or tried to subvert them or... anything. He struggles to understand it on his own quietly, mind working silently to sort it out, but he knows he's likely going to have to ask. It's not a conversation he wants to have; he's a little afraid of the answers.

Jet listened, almost smiling at the thought of an intervention; he could see it pretty clearly in his mind, likely Francoise was the leading force behind what had finally convinced the German. "Ah...good. I'm glad." Glad it wasn't something life threatening and glad Albert wasn't in pain anymore. Jet had known about that, but he'd always figured Albert would be stubborn for eternity and just deal with it. He was happy to know he was wrong.

But, ultimately, he couldn't think of what to say. Everything that came to mind seemed too intimate considering he didn't know where they stood. They'd kissed and had said some things to each other, but that was before the blond had torn a bigger gap between them.

And now, faced with that thick silence all over again, he wished he could run, but he was still hooked up to the brain scanner. He hadn't felt this flighty since he actually had run, but he was scared and anxiety ripped at his stomach and it wasn't a feeling he was used to, he didn't know what to do with it.

What if he'd changed while he wasn't looking? What if he'd changed so much that he wasn't what the person they considered family anymore? He couldn't even blame them if that were the case. He'd been so afraid of trying to come back only to find the door closed to him that he'd done that to himself.

He was pretty damn sure his younger self would slam the door in his face, if given the chance.

Maybe all he had left was the government he'd already thrown everything away for, even with their plans for him. Slowly, as the silence stretched on, that was the seed he planted and watered in his mind. But there was still one thing he could do, one thing that might be able to make up for all of it.

"Once they're done scanning me, I think I should go. Maybe I can fix some of this if I can get back and find out what their doing. Maybe even sneak into Samuel Capital and pull the whole thing down a peg." He looked at his hands, now mostly repaired with exception to the things that would just take time, and listened to the faint beating sound he could hear of the other man's new heart.

"Good to know things haven't changed with you," he hadn't meant to sound so harsh but there it is, a little bite behind the irritated words. "You're still a complete idiot."

He's angry. He doesn't want to be angry and he thought he'd had it under control but hearing Jet immediately wanting to leave just after he- they had gotten him back? It turns his tone to ice. That's always how it was with Albert; his ire rarely rises in flames but instead freezes over, seeming to drop the room temperature by degrees.

"You're not going back there. We'll figure it out, but we'll do it the way we're supposed to. As a team." I'm not letting you run off again.

"And what if I'm not part of that team anymore, Albert!?" He hadn't meant to say anything about what was swirling in his head, but it had slipped out and stopping there wasn't enough of an explanation. "Gilmore made it pretty clear how he felt and G and Chang don't seem too keen on keeping me around! And...you can't tell me you're just fine with everything I've done. I've got my reasons...but none of them seem to really matter right now."

Blue eyes shifted to find silver, a glare that lacked the fire in his tone fixed on the older man. "How're we supposed to do anything as a team when I'm more like some add-on than an ally? If I'm supposed to be any help, it'd be to try and sneak back...behind enemy lines." Because that's what his government had become, whether he liked it or not. "Can you honestly tell me you'd trust me to watch your back after everything I've told you? Cause I'm pretty sure they wouldn't." He gestured to the door as though the members in question were just behind it.

He wanted to be wrong, he wanted to believe there was a way to find his place again but he just couldn't see it right now.

"You're the one that left, Jet, not us," as Jet's voice raises in volume, Albert's lowers, his eyes near slits as his frigid gaze never leaves Jet's face. "You fucked up. Royally. That doesn't mean you should run off with your tail between your legs just because it's going to take some work to make things right again. If you've changed enough to quit, then you're not the Jet Link I still put my faith in."

He lets it sink in for a moment, giving the impression of cold fury barely contained as he folds his arms over the gap in his chest, mechanical heart pumping just a little faster. "If they don't trust you, earn it back. Unless a cushy desk job has made you a coward."

Leaning forward so his face is right in Jet's, Albert seems to loom even at his two inch deficit. "Man up."

"I'm not giving up!" It's said with fire, not in anger, but in defiance, more like how his younger self would have said it, but he looked away after a moment. He wasn't giving up, but Albert wasn't completely wrong, either. He was scared of failing at regaining his family's trust, so instead of face that fear, he was looking for an alternate; some way he could help and maybe gain a few points in his favor without anyone relying on him directly.

He could do things that threatened his life without even thinking about it, but faced with this he suddenly found that determination hard to find. Maybe he was just a coward.

"You're right, I did leave, that's on me...and I am scared. But I'm not giving up either. I want to fix things." He just didn't know how or where to start. "I haven't been on a team in thirty years and I didn't exactly do a good job of it the first time around." What if he didn't know how to be a part of one anymore?

He leaned forward a bit, elbows resting on his knees as a small, humorless, smirk played across his lips. "And it wasn't a desk job."

"Good," he tries not to let the wave of relief that washes over him invade his response but it manages to lap at the corners of the word. After everything, he'd been afraid Jet really would just leave again, that he'd grown so far apart or that his values had changed enough that he'd changed fundementally. Albert leans back again, out of Jet's space, more to prevent himself from gathering the blond in his arms than anything.

"You were fine before, at least until that last bit." Spectacularly flying overseas in a massive hissy fit kind of overshadows his performance the rest of the time. Albert drops his arms, posture less tight as he talks. "You need to tell everyone that you intend to make things right and then demonstrate it, not go running off to try and get yourself killed in an effort to avoid it. Jet, you know us. The whole His Voice thing and you coming in here guns blazing definitely put us on edge, but it's not as if we decided good riddance the moment you left. Far from it. Francoise tried to call you for months, Great finagled his schedule to visit America for work as often as he could and make sure you were alright and give the team updates."

He leaves out anything personal. He leaves out how he'd been so angry that Jet could throw away everything they had together over some petty power struggle. He leaves out that he'd deleted Jet's information from his cell phone in a fit of bitterness only to add it back a week later from memory. He leaves out how he avoided Great Britain's check ins because it hurt too much to think about things happening in Jet's life that he couldn't share first hand. That he was fine, or even happier, without Albert. He leaves out how worried the entire sordid mess makes him, that the government Albert knows Jet trusted at least as much as he once trusted them betrayed him, used him, and tried to discard him. That maybe if either of them had just picked up the damn phone and tried to sort this out a decade or two sooner, this wouldn't be happening. He wouldn't be sick with worry and fear that what they had isn't still there.

He leaves it out because now isn't the time, and he leaves it out because there are some things about which Albert is a coward too. He'd already struggled with losing Jet once, managed to coast along back on his feet. He's not sure he can do it again with Jet right there again telling him for certain things have changed and he's been outgrown. But there's one thing that remains true regardless of where they stand with each other romantically. No matter what.

"You're part of this family we've built, Jet. Even now."

Edited 2013-12-07 17:49 (UTC)

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