Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Yeah, that’s almost it. Closer, please!”

Out of the corner of his eye Ted can see how Booster’s arm winds around Vapor’s waist, Booster glancing imperceptibly down to make sure it’ll be obvious enough in the photo before he grins brightly at the camera.

Ted takes another step back to make sure he’ll not be included in the group shot in the crowded nightclub. The dance music is pumping, bodies on the floor bumping into him where he stands. "...Strike it up and you'll find the rhythm's on time, line after line going straight to your mind..."

Booster tilts his head and whispers something into Vapor’s ear with a grin, and she throws her head back and giggles sharply as the camera flashes.

Ted smiles too, always impressed with how quick-thinking Booster can be, how well he handles people. A group photo like that gets published, everyone’s eyes will be drawn to the two people in the center, intimately, familiarly cracking each other up, looking for all the world like two people in bright, burning love.

Booster and Vapor's relationship even got its own fan base at this point, people trading newspaper clippings like baseball cards, arranging betting pools about when they'll marry. When it was announced Booster was gonna leave the Conglomerate, it was like national mourning had been declared. Ted supposes a photo like that is Booster throwing the fans a bone, firing up more conjecture, more wedding day bets.

To think that a year ago, Ted would have been stewing in jealous misery to see a scene like this. All his insecurities and uncertainties ready to melt down into a full-on emotional crisis, angrily lashing out at Booster and still incapable of explaining why he was feeling like that. He's come a long way, hasn't he? Instead of bitchy jealousy he instead feels a warm, fuzzy appreciation seeing Booster acting that way with Vapor. Because he knows it’s all done for him. For the two of them.

He snorts at himself. Gosh, who knew talking things through, reassuring each other and mapping out each other's comfort zones regarding this arrangement would make all of this easier, huh?

“That’s good, that’s good,” the young photographer tells them, not lowering his camera. “I think we’ve got it, just one more for luck! I want the biggest smiles in the universe!”

“Shit, my cheeks are starting to ache,” Reverb mutters through clenched teeth, grinning insistently, if a little unconvincingly, at the camera.

“That’s just because you’re out of practice when it comes to smiling,” Echo teases. Her smile is effortless, like it requires absolutely no energy to maintain. Probably what comes from years of doing high-energy concerts.

“I mean, I don’t know about all this smiling business,” Maxi-Man murmurs, his hands resting on Reverb and Cynthia's shoulders. “Shouldn’t we be sad because we’re losing the boss?”

The camera flashes, and the photographer thanks them all, stepping back.

“No, no, this is a celebration,” Booster grins, dropping down into his seat and reaching for another shot on their overloaded table. “This night is so you can all go ‘Fuck yeah, we’re finally rid of Booster Gold! Pop the champagne!'”

“That’s not fair,” Claire tells Booster soberly. She looks so unlike how Ted is used to seeing her. No business suit, no tastefully understated makeup -- in their places are a black vinyl dress and electric blue eye shadow. All of it looks expensive though -- even in a nightclub, you can tell she's used to the best.

“Hey, you should be happier than all of them,” Booster grins, tilting his head at her. “I’m not your problem anymore. What a way to get back at your ex, huh?”

She scoffs, but regards him in an earnest, sympathetic way, and Ted recognizes the look in her eyes. 

Whatever makes this easier for you, Booster.

Ted steps forward to find his seat again at their table, when the photographer, already disassembling his camera, tugs at the sleeve of his striped button-down. “Whoa, you’re with them? Are you somebody?”

Ted smiles politely. “No. Nobody.”

“Sure, sure.” The man nods, but doesn’t take his eyes off Ted. “It’s just that your face seems kinda familiar, you know.”

It doesn’t unnerve Ted at all. He knows when people say that, they’re thinking of the Kord kid, the technology hopeful who walked away from a top company position and into comfortable obscurity, not anything hero-related. And this guy looks too young to have covered his financial fiasco half a decade ago, anyway. He shakes his head. “No, man. I’m just crew.”

It’s barely a lie. He’s been Booster’s tech guy ever since they met in the League. Doing maintenance as well as he can. Patching the suit. Even got the force field working reliably again.

"...Hyping the place is what we're all about, moving your waist to be bass is no doubt..."

The photographer shrugs and steps away towards the back room without another word, and Ted sits down at the Conglomerate table, which has become uncommonly silent in the noisy nightclub. He glances at Booster, wondering if he’s said something heavy about quitting the team, the guilt that's eating him up these days, but people aren’t looking at Booster. They’re all staring at Reverb with an eerie intensity, and Reverb is gurning his face, almost like he's in pain, his gaze directed down at the various bowls of snacks on the table.

Ted opens his mouth to ask what the hell is going on, when Reverb hums triumphantly, looking up with bright eyes, and raises his hand to pull something out of his mouth. He holds it up triumphantly between his thumb and forefinger. It’s a knotted cherry stem.

“Twenty-eight seconds!” Vapor announces, looking up from her wristwatch, and next thing the table explodes into jubilant, chaotic noise. Maxi-Man pats Reverb on the back with his broad, powerful hand, several people shout and laugh, and Booster makes a sharp whine, hiding his face in his hands.

“Pay up, Gold!” Vapor grins, patting Booster on the arm.

Booster groans, lowering his hands, but there’s still a smile on his face. “How do I know you can be trusted with the timer, anyway?” he asks Vapor. “Maybe you’re in cahoots.”

“What, you want me to do it again?” Reverb bristles next to Ted, but there’s joyful pride in his face. “I’ll do it, you know. I’ve got this shit down to a science.”

“Science is right, they must've grown you in a lab or something,” Booster giggles, wiping his forehead theatrically. “Like, I knew a guy in uni who could do it in under a minute, but less than thirty seconds? What the fuck, Reverb.”

“It was your bet!” Vapor laughs at Booster. “Quit stalling.”

“Fine, fine.” Booster raises his hands wardingly. “I lost, I lost. Next round’s on me.”

There’s a chorus of cheers around the table.

Booster's gaze finds Ted, and there’s an almost imperceptive little spark of warmth in his blue eyes when they look at each other, as always. “I’ll pay for yours too, you know.”

Ted shrugs, smiling. “Didn’t even know there was a bet on.”

“No fair you don’t get to enjoy the consequences of my stupidity too.” Booster continues looking at him with mischievous eyes, his voice soft, as soft as it can be and still be audible over the rhythmic music, "...Motownphilly's back again, doin' a little East Coast swing..."

Ted nods with a grin and allows himself another quick glance down Booster's body, appreciating how unconscionably hot he looks tonight in his tight acid-wash jeans and green mesh top, accentuating his broad chest, his full biceps; His body so eye-catching and unabashedly on display Ted's already looking forward to the next moment they can be alone together.

He handles that a little better too, these days, or maybe it's just the alcohol tonight. Being aware of that warm, pleasant anticipation inside himself, starting to realize it's not written on his face. People have no way of knowing exactly what's going on inside his head when he watches Booster be beautiful and confident and magnetic like tonight.

Still, if he looks too long or gets carried away daydreaming, his body, if not his face, might show some discernible signs. Better distract himself. He helps himself to some chili nuts.

Booster downs his shot, and the way he smacks the glass down on the table seems to show the start of some slight incoordination. Ted studies him over the brim of his own glass. Booster’s not drunk yet, but his grin is getting tinged with that unfocused contentment, his cheeks flushed with the warmth that comes with the drinks he's had so far tonight.

Of course. It’s his night. If Booster wants to let loose, have some mindless fun and try to drown some of the guilt and worries of leaving the Conglomerate with alcohol, he should do that. Ted makes a note that he’ll go a little bit easier himself, stay alert and ready to drag or carry Booster back to his apartment once the night is over. Watch out for him, care for him. There's a warm content joy that comes with that thought, as well.

Echo, who's been having an animated conversation with Reverb, turns to him. "I'm sure Ted can do better, though. Right?"

Ted blinks and smiles, trying to swallow down the chili nuts he's been chewing. "Sorry, what?"

"We're talking about party tricks." She taps her glass with her fingers. "'Verb's got cherry stems, I'm pretty good at flicking bottle caps. What do you bring to the table?"

"Uh, nothing I can pull of without a chemistry lab or a well-stocked kitchen cupboard on hand," Ted giggles, then frowns and addresses her in mock concern. "Never encourage science nerds, Echo. Before you know it you're thirty minutes into a lecture about non-Newtonian fluids or electrostatic."

"No, I don't think you're like that," she laughs. "Besides, you're up for some pretty impressive physical feats as well, I know that."

Ted leans his chin in his hand, a little flattered. "Oh?"

"Sure, you're a gymnast, you used to compete in the big leagues."

"You make it sound like I won the Olympics," Ted scoffs with a smile.

"Pretty sure you could have if you wanted to."

Ted pauses, regarding her. "I haven't competed since my teens, though. How do you know about any of this?"

Echo shrugs, playing with her red hair, but her smile shows a hint of pride. "My best friend through High School used to train, too. Had a shrine to her athlete heroes in her locker. There was a picture of you, like, on the --" She pauses, gesturing with her hands forward almost like an air stewardess indicating the emergency exits. "The, the two things. You know."

"Parallel bars?"

"Yeah!" She gently tilts her half-empty glass, rolling it around its bottom edge. "I guess your photo just stuck in my mind because I knew you as the rich kid inventor. She was heartbroken when you quit the sport, you know. Took down your picture and everything."

Ted nods with a soft snort, his gaze falling to the glass in her hands. Rich kid inventor, promising gymnast who dropped out to focus on his education and later his career. A career that went belly-up pretty damn fast, too. That's what the majority of people out there think of him.

"I wish I could tell her about you now," Echo abruptly adds with a smile, like she could tell what he was thinking. "She'd be so starstruck. Like, you're out there using that skill set every day, you know?"

He looks up, meeting her gaze. Seeing the subtle concern in her eyes that she may have said something she shouldn't have. "Sure," he smiles. It's lucky his mom was so adamant at him being active in a sport, any sport. He suffered through so many meetups and lessons (baseball, swimming, fencing, tennis, the list was unending) until little pre-teen Theodore Stephen Kord found something he wanted to do, wanted to be good at.

Without gymnastics he'd just be the short stocky hero with the flashgun. 

Echo abruptly sits up, scanning the faces at the table. "Oh, wait, I love this song! Who wanna dance?"

The rhythm is pulsing through the club, bodies moving and dancing and jumping on the floor behind Ted. "...It's such a -- good vibration! It's such a -- sweet sensation..."

Booster is already perked up in his seat. "I'll dance!" 

"Perfect!" Echo smiles her natural, winning smile, shuffling to her feet, when she leans over to Vapor. "You don’t mind if I steal him, do you?” Ted has no way of knowing if the question is meant as a joke or not. No way of knowing what the other people on the team see, when Vapor and Booster are together. What they know.

“I don’t mind,” Vapor laughs. Then she adds, her white teeth in a wide grin: "I almost said, 'Just don't wear him out', but -- Please. Please wear him out! I've been dying to see what a low-energy Booster looks like!"

There are giggles and laughter around the table, no one laughing harder than Booster.

Ted feels a little wave of secret joy again, thinking how he knows. He knows what it feels like when Booster is warm and content and sleepy, curling around him and trying to ignore the alarm clock that's telling them to get up and part for their respective teams. No more. Now they'll get up and head to the same places, the same missions. Now they can be together not only in the evenings and nights and days off, but in regular day-to-day life. Every day.

Yeah, I should slow down on the drinking, Ted muses, content. It's embarrassing how quickly he gets distracted tonight.

Booster and Echo make their way to the dance floor, quickly finding a rhythm, Booster dancing with his usual easy abandon, his enjoyment of moving shining out of every pore. They’re soon joined by Reverb, who spends no time at all finding a random lady in a busy-patterned yellow dress to dance with.

“I’m so glad you could come.” Cynthia leans forward and enunciates it in Ted’s ear. “You’re like, Booster’s best friend in the whole world, we figured you should be here.”

“’We’?” Ted studies her, not letting his smile fade. He came because Booster asked him in such an endearingly insisting way, refusing to hear Ted’s objections that he had no real reason to be at the Conglomerate’s party. So this wasn't entirely Booster's idea?

“You know, the whole team,” Cynthia smiles shyly. “We wanted Booster’s farewell party to be, like, a positive thing.” She glances at the dance floor, where Booster and the rest dance to the beating music, Booster’s every move full of energy, full of joy. Cynthia turns back to him. “And I guess you also know how for a long time Booster’s been, like... kinda apart from the rest of the team?”

Ted nods subtly, though he wants to say that that was before. He can see how much more comfortable Booster has become with them these last few months. How comfortable they are with him.

“We talked a lot about it, the rest of us, and I guess we were kinda worried Booster would feel he was, um --” She pulls back a lock of dark hair. “Alone at his own party.”

“But you are his friends!” Ted objects cheerfully, gesturing at them. “Like, trust me. I see the energy and bantering on this team, it’s -- it’s great!”

“Yeah, I know,” Cynthia giggles. “We just -- we wanted this to be as happy as it can be, you know?” There’s a glint of melancholy in her eyes. “Losing Booster feels so -- It's completely different to how Praxis left.”

Ted makes a face. “I bet."

She looks at him for a moment, when her face melts into an even brighter smile. “And it's easier knowing you’ll take good care of him in the League.”

Ted nods, wondering dimly if that ‘you’ is meant to be singular or plural. “Sure we will,” he tells her, his voice a little strained. It hasn't slipped his mind how everything came to a head back when Booster quit the League -- not just between the two of them, but how Booster viewed his position on the team, too. How frustrated he was, how isolated he felt. And Ted's going to make sure that doesn't happen ever again. That he doesn't lose him like that again.

Out on the floor the music’s changed again, a slower ballad: "...Some guys have all the luck, some guys have all the pain..." Reverb’s the first to return, dropping into his seat and beginning the process of figuring out which half-full glass was his. There’s a slight wobble to his head, his thick dark hair clinging to his skin.

“You know what?” Reverb leans over the table, upsetting a few empty glasses, and locks eyes with Ted. “I think I’m gonna miss that son of a bitch.”

Ted blinks, uncertain how to answer. He hasn't had many conversations with Reverb, so he offers a measured smile. “Yeah?”

"...All of my friends have a ring on their finger, they have someone..."

“Howzit -- How’s it like when they change teams?” Reverb asks with a frown, then continues without waiting for a reply. “Like, he’ll visit, I guess. Nothin’ stopping him. Did he -- Did he visit you guys when he left for the Congro-- the Conglel--” He tilts back, laughing softly at the ceiling. “This team?”

“Well, he -- he left the League on pretty different terms,” Ted replies hesitantly. “But when everybody made up, sure, he’s been visiting a lot." Careful not to let slip exactly which member he’s been mostly visiting. He gestures at the club. “I’m glad he gets to leave the Conglomerate like this, this is a nice send-off you guys organized.”

“Well, sure, it makes sense,” Maxi-Man softly interjects in his deep, pleasant voice. “He’s got a place in the Justice League waiting for him. He’d be a world-record jerk not to say yes.”

“Exactly!” Reverb says and whaps his hand against Maxi-Man’s broad shoulder in solidarity, though Maxi-Man doesn't so much as flinch. “Like if they offered me a spot, I’d leave everyone in the dust faster than you can say...” Reverb's voice trails off, and he thinks for a moment. Then his attention seems to be drawn to a half-full beer bottle in his immediate vicinity on the table. He ponders it for a moment, then raises his head again. “ ’Cept you, Maxi. I’d take you with me, tell'em to get you a spot on the team too. You’re good people. Dependable.”

Maxi-Man beams even more brightly than he usually does.

“Maybe, uh, Echo too.” Reverb frowns in deep thought. “Helps to have someone good with people like that. And I could get Vapor, and, and Cynthia too.” He nods resolutely at them. “And Claire to handle the finer points.”

Ted looks at him, fighting hard to keep himself from giggling.

“Yeah,” Reverb mutters into his beer. “But everybody else’s on their own!”

Delighted, abrupt laughter tumbles out of Ted, more forceful because he was fighting it. “Man, you guys are great!” he gasps in between bouts of laughter, wiping his eyes.

A nearby voice makes a low huff in surprise. “Whoa, is that --?”

Booster better fucking visit these guys. Ted'll make sure of it.

“I don’t believe it. Ted-o-rama!”

That one fires up neurons than haven’t been active in years, and a tingle of recognition shoots down Ted’s spine as he turns towards the voice. “Oh my God,” he murmurs.

It’s not that Murray looks much older. He actually looks just like he always did, at least the face. It's everything that frames it that makes him look so oddly unfamiliar. His once wild long black hair cut short in an absurdly sensible and grown-up fashion, gelled down. His eclectic wardrobe changed for a slim, expensive-looking suit. But the mischief in his eyes, that’s exactly the same.

“Oh my God,” Ted mutters again.

“No, no, let me help you,” Murray grins, holding up a finger. “Hint one: The guy who introduced you to Pink Floyd. Hint two: The guy who made us some absolutely stellar fish sticks from the box when that snowstorm had us stuck at College over Christmas -- or, sorry, Hanukkah. Hint three: The guy whose chemistry notes you stole in cold blood --”

“For the last time!” Ted giggles, barely able to contain himself. “I did not steal your notes, they got lost in my... very small electrical fire when I was trying to build that perpetual motion machine." He indicates the table in front of Murray as a reminder. "You saw my desk, man!”

“Uh huh, oh sure.” Murray regards him suspiciously. “So why did you get top marks on that covalent bonds exam while I barely scraped by?”

“Oh, I don’t know." Ted grasps his own chin in mock wonder. "Maybe it’s because I’m a better chemist than you?”

Murray exclaims wordlessly and turns to his own tablemate, a dark-haired skinny man, looking on with polite attention. “Can you believe this guy?” He gestures in theatrical frustration. “Which one of us has called up the other like four times these last few years to ask a question about molecular science or perhaps, oh! Chemistry?”

Ted guffaws, though there’s a sting of guilt in him. Every time the League has him stumped on analyzing some strange newly invented material or alien matter, he’s gripped the opportunity to get back in touch with Murray, and Murray’s impressive machinery at S.T.A.R Labs. A repeating script of 'Man, we haven’t spoken in ages' and 'We’re gonna keep in touch after this'. And then inevitably real life gets in the way and suddenly it’s been another year.

“Still doesn’t mean I stole your notes!” Ted grins. “Those are gone along with my second year blueprints and the first issue of Star Reach.” He twists on his chair to fully face Murray. “God, how've you been, Murmeister? How’s the wife and kid?”

“Actually it’s little kids, plural, now.” Murray beams with a pride that makes Ted smile, then starts searching for his wallet.

“Oh shit, the Takamoto clan keeps expanding,” Ted muses as Murray opens his wallet and shows off the multiple pictures in it -- two little girls, raven-haired like their father, with cute upturned noses from their mother.  “Seriously, congrats! How old are they now?”

“Michiko’s just about to turn three, and Yuki’s getting to be --” Murray makes a face, sucking air between his teeth as he thinks. “Eight...? Eight months, yeah.”
 
Ted glances up at him. Murray Takamoto, son of immigrant parents who were pressured into giving him a solid American first name for the purpose of “cultural integration”. Well, here he is, grown up on apple pie and baseball, and free to give his kids whichever names he'd like. Michiko and Yuki. There’s something heartening about that.

“Man, she’s high and low this kid, I’m telling you.” Murray smiles warmly down at the photo of his youngest. “We kinda expected we’d get another quiet and calm one like Michiko, but Yuki’s our beautiful little agent of chaos from the moment she wakes up.”

“Funny, that’s how I always thought of you when we were roomies,” Ted tells him, and is immediately wrestled under Murray’s arm and given a noogie. He’s glad he cut his hair not too long ago, remembering how much this would tug at his curls. He twists out of Murray’s grasp and laughs. “I’m guessing your racquetball scores are suffering now, when you’re busy running after the kids.”

“Well, that's the thing.” Something tenses in Murray's face as he puts his wallet away into a back pocket. “I've, uh, been meaning to te--”

“Hey, who’re we meeting?” Booster grasps Ted’s shoulders from behind and stands above him, beaming at Murray. Ted glances up and sees the fine sheen of sweat in Booster’s face now he’s done dancing. It almost makes his face glow.

“Oh, this is Murray Takamoto,” Ted begins, feeling Booster's thumb trailing small circles behind his shoulder. “Remember, he’s head of the molecular --”

“You’re Murray?” There’s an excited glint in Booster’s eyes. “Dude, Ted’s told me so much about you and the stuff you two’d get up to. It’s like meeting a legend!” He leans over, his chest bumping against the top of Ted’s head, and reaches out to take Murray’s hand.

Murray accepts, wide-eyed, not taking his eyes off Booster's face. It almost makes Ted laugh.

“I’m Booster Gold.”

“You’re Booster Gold,” Murray echoes flatly, not even blinking as they shake hands. Then he jolts and seems to pull himself together. “Ah, sorry. Yeah, man. Nice to meet you.” He glances around him, seemingly noticing the skinny, quiet man he’s sharing the table with. “And, oh, this is Frederic Larabee, my coworker.”

Both Ted and Booster shake hands with Frederic, politely repeating their names in turn, and Booster nods at them, then leans over the Conglomerate table as Vapor tells him something, drowned out by music.

“So why’re you even in New York, Murray?” Ted asks now the conversation has come to a bit of a halt.

“There’s, uh, a convention. A look at innovations in spectroscopy, where the field is headed, that kind of thing,” Murray explains quietly, glancing over at the Conglomerate table as Booster drops back into his seat and continues chatting with his soon-to-be former teammates.

“Ooh, I read something about that,” Ted tells him, relishing the rare opportunity to talk shop. “They're reintegrating prism-based methods for neutron diffraction, right? So what do they use for other spatial frequencies? Spark discharge?”

Murray waves an impatient hand. “Ugh, the whole thing is a paid ad for LexCorp anyway, I'm suspecting a lot of it's purely theoretical at this point. More importantly --” He leans towards Ted, lowering his voice. “Since when are you buddies with Booster fucking Gold?”

Ted smirks, a little taken back by Murray’s awe of his friend. Has Booster really become that famous? Sure, the Conglomerate’s promotional department is a lot more powerful than whatever interviews Max can arrange for the League. A lot more scheduled outings, promotional events, product endorsements and talk show banter.

Sure, the League is an institution at this point (if more of a mental one), but for a year now the Conglomerate has been the hot new thing, the source of gossip and headlines and tie-in products. A part of the zeitgeist, the conversation, including its brave, charismatic, soon-to-be-ex leader, Booster Gold.

“We just became friends.” Ted shrugs as naturally as he can. “He’s just like any guy, you know. Got a great sense of humor.”

Murray shakes his head empathically. “No, no. Tell me exactly how the engineering nerd Theodore Kord even ends up in the same social circle as a superhero.”

Ted squirms slightly at hearing his full first name. “Well, you know,” he murmurs. “We just met through work.”

“Work?” Murray blinks, sitting up. “Yeah, speaking of, where do you collect a paycheck these days, anyway? Are you back at K.I., have you made up with dear old dad?”

Just the implication makes something knot up tight in Ted’s stomach. “No, I --” Ted clears his throat. “I still freelance, like before.” That’s what he’s told Murray every time he’s called him up to borrow equipment or get his opinion on weird tech, anyway.

“You freelance for Booster Gold?” Murray glances over at the subject of their hushed conversation, Booster cheerfully talking to Claire, not noticing. “What, he’s hard up for failed perpetual motion machines that blow up in a blaze of fire?”

“Low blow,” Ted smirks, giving Murray’s shoulder an affectionate shove. “Look, I don’t work for him directly, you dolt. But, uh, sometimes the teams call me up, you know. For tech help. Or one of my inventions.”

Murray regards him for a moment. “Is that why you’ve stuck to freelancing? I remember a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed student who said freelancing was for suckers.”

“Keeps me busy,” Ted mutters, avoiding his gaze.

“All the same, aren’t you tired living hand to mouth, Ted?” Murray frowns at him, taking a sip of his drink. “It bothers me, you know, thinking of you like that. No dependable income, no long-term contracts, no workplace camaraderie, no -- You don't even have dental!”

Ted stops himself from making a face. Almost five years in the Justice League, by far his most stable employment to date, but he can’t say it. 

This is why it’s so hard nurturing friendships outside the business, he’s all out of practice lying. Not that he was ever very good at it.

“Look, I get it if you don’t want to come crawling back to your dad and the old family business,” Murray continues in a low voice, studying him. “But I happen to know the energy department at S.T.A.R is getting restructured after Lauritzen retired. I'm not saying it's a done deal, but I put in a good word and show them some of your old patents and you might be able to slip right into a cushy job.”

Ted draws breath, his body restless. “No, I -- I tried that kind of workplace before, remember? Didn’t work out at all.”

Murray clicks his tongue. “I’m talking about a real job, Ted!”

“For fuck’s sake, Murray!” Ted snaps back, all his tipsy cheerfulness from before gone in an instant. 

“Not like that,” Murray deflates a little and shakes his head. “Okay, my bad, that didn’t come out right. I mean --”

Booster leans over the table, tapping Ted’s arm with a gentle hand. “Hey, I still owe you a drink, you know.” He smiles warmly, doesn’t glance towards Murray at all. “Or we were thinking maybe we’d check out another bar. What do you think?”

Ted looks at him for a moment, confused, then chuckles weakly. There’s no doubt Booster’s been keeping an eye on him and Murray, dying of curiosity, and always ready to step in at the merest implication of a fight. Always looking out for his friends wherever he is. Ted exhales. “Ah, okay. Could you get me another, uh, Manhattan?” He holds Booster’s gaze and smiles. I’m fine, Boos. No need to swoop in and rescue me.

Booster seems to untense a little and grins back before he gets up from his seat. “One Manhattan, coming right up.” Then he steps into the crowd of people on the floor and almost disappears except for the strobe lights catching his blonde hair now and then, easily a head taller than the people crowding around him.

“Figures superheroes are the generous sort,” Murray muses, a touch of awe in his voice, then turns to Ted again. “Sorry, okay? I'm not saying you haven't put in hard work. I’m just thinking, if your only experience working at a tech company comes from good old Papa Kord always trying to fit round pegs into square holes --”

“I’m not looking for work right now, Murray,” Ted tells him in a low voice, his eyes still following the mop of blonde hair at the other side of the room, like a beacon in the flashing lights of the club. “Thanks for the offer, but I keep my head above the water.”

“Okay, I’ll drop it,” Murray shrugs and stretches in his seat. “How’s the gymnastics thing working out for you, then? Won any ribbons lately?”

“You make it sound like I'm prize heifer,” Ted snorts, unwinding a little more. “You know I stopped competing even before you and I met.”

“The question is, can we still win drinks and bets like we used to?” There’s a conspiratorial glint in Murray’s eyes, and he turns his head to address an imaginary victim. “Hey mister, bet you twenty my...” He smirks good-naturedly at Ted. “Solid friend here can’t cross his ankles behind his head.”

Right. That was a party trick once, too.

“Your drink, sir,” Booster beams at him and carefully places the glass in front of Ted, before he finds his place at the other side of the table.

Ted nods at him in thanks, then turns back to Murray, the solid remark stinging a little more these days, knowing he’s heavier than he ever was in college. “I try to maintain it, you know, even if I don’t compete. Though I guess it’s been a while since I did that maneuver.”

“Really?” Murray continues, something mischievous in his eyes. “I suppose that means you’ve got someone else to suck your dick these days?”

Ted chokes on his drink. “Murray!” he hisses, turning a bright red. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Booster turning, fist pressed against his mouth, trying not to burst out laughing.

“Hey, show me a man who’d refrain if he was able to do it!” Murray gestures at the room, then folds his arms on the table. “But seriously man, how’s the love life?”

Ted sputters, embarrassment still churning inside him, but also because he hasn’t really prepared a lie for this. It's been years since anyone grilled him about Ted Kord's romantic life.

He can say he’s single, with the risk that Murray once again knows someone who’d “be the perfect match”, double date ready to go. They’ve been through that one before, and it was truly miserable.

Or he can say he’s seeing someone -- an easier lie, all things considered, completely true except for some pronoun changes. But Murray will grill him on details, want to meet her, another double date. 

Fuck. Ted realizes how sheltered he’s been living, co-habitating only with other heroes, not stepping outside that environment for years. Hardly ever needing to publicly inhabit his own identity, that of an unremarkable tech has-been.

“Dating,” he murmurs at last, forcing himself not to glance towards Booster. “Just... for a little while. We’ll see how it goes.”

"Yeah, I knew it!” Murray jumps subtly in his seat, triumphant. “I’m telling you, you just have that look in your eye, man. So you’re on the no-strings-attached stage or what? Just mindless carnal pleasure?”

“Something like that,” Ted mutters into his glass as he takes another sip. He can tell from the heat in his face he’s blushing again. "Nothing interesting."

Murray leans theatrically over the table like a shipwrecked man. “No, no, no, Ted!" he whines softly. "I’m married with kids, I need to live vicariously through you. Give me some details.”

"It’s just... It's in the early stages, Murray,” Ted murmurs, trying not to show his discomfort.

"So it's good? So good you don't wanna jinx it?" Murray's eyes are practically shining with excitement. When Ted doesn't answer he winds an arm around Ted, confidentially. “Okay, okay, here’s the deal:” Murray holds up a hand. “I’ll do some expert guesses, and you tell me if I’m right or not.”

“Murray --” Ted groans, rolling his eyes.

“Let me have three guesses, at least. Just three.”

Ted opens up his mouth to speak but his friend raises his palm towards him to silence him with a mischievous grin.

Murray holds up a finger. “Okay, one: She’s a redhead. Bet my ass on it -- You’re such a sucker for redheads.” He gestures at Ted’s auburn hair. “Got some neanderthal drive to keep the gene alive.”

“No! No redhead,” Ted snorts in disbelief. “And who are you calling a neanderthal?”

“Ah!” Murray bounces in his seat, thrilled at Ted playing along. “Blonde, then?”

Ted sighs and rest his eyes on the crowd of people dancing. “...Sure.”

“You’re so predictable,” Murray teases, scrunching his nose as he grins.

“How am I predictable if you got it wrong on your first try?!”

“Okay, two --” Murray holds up a second finger. “She’s... some kind of scientific wunderkind. In some area you haven’t explored yet. She blinded you with science, as the ancient saying goes, and you couldn’t resist.”

“No!” Ted chuckles. “Not really, no.” As fun as he has tinkering with Booster's technology from the future, Booster's (admittedly limited) knowledge of it never truly factored into Ted's fascination with him, not even in the early days. "Definitely not a scientist."

“Hmm." Murray raises his eyebrows, obviously intrigued. "So what does this enchanting little lady do?”

Ted’s about to remark how bad Murray’s being at this guessing game, but he doesn’t want to provoke an entirely new round of Murray trying to guess the career of Ted’s secret lover. Ted's never been good at lying on the spot, and what can he even admit to? A superhero? That would whet Murray’s interests more than ever. Athlete? Same thing there. Model? That one already sounds like a lie.

“Look, It doesn’t matter what she does, this isn’t --” Ted pauses, holding his breath as he tries to think what to say. “We’re not a thing at this point, we’re not public, we're just... Enjoying ourselves.”

“Ohh, so that's how it is!” Murray replies knowingly, winking at him. “Not the kind of girl you take home to mother?”

Ted sighs at length. “That’s your third guess?”

“Not at all, how lewd do you think I am?” Murray sits up straight with such a badly assumed look of dignity it makes Ted crack up. “No, my third guess is -- third guess, I want --”

“Last one, make it a good one,” Ted mutters.

“Okay, three --” Murray wraps a hand around his fore-, middle- and ring finger, grinning at Ted. “She’s... Absolutely mind-blowing in bed. Like, phenomenal. Does things to a guy’s body that makes him forget his own name.”

Ted looks at him wide-eyed, reddening, then frowns down at the glass in his hands as he exhales through pursed lips. He squirms. Then he nods, very very slightly.

Murray pumps his fist with a loud whoop. “Yeah, man!” He curves an arm around Ted's shoulders and pulls him in. “That’s my boy right there!”

“Look, you’re -- you're happily married, Murray,” Ted smirks, face burning like a reflector heat lamp. “This stuff shouldn’t matter to you.”

“Can’t I be happy for my buddy?” Murray grins. “I mean, I’ve been waiting for you to bounce back from Mel for years!”

Something tightens in Ted's gut. “What? You really think -- How do you know I didn't do that years ago?” He hears the sharpness in his own voice.

“Ted-o-rama, I’m just teasing.” Murray sits back in his chair and smiles, though there's a nervous energy in his shoulders.

Ted wipes his face. “Shit, that’s what you’re guessing game was about, right? Redhead scientist -- You thought I’d just gone and found myself a copy of Melody!” He sets down the glass in his hand with a thunk, and something deep inside his body aches. He feels hurt. “That’s what you meant about me being predictable.”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Murray mutters in a thin voice, looking at him.

"I can't believe you've known me for almost a decade, and you still think --"

“I haven't seen you in a year, Ted!" Murray interjects, his voice urgent but soft at the edges. "And it's not like you ever let me ask about all the shit that went down back there!"

Ted clicks his tongue, scanning the room. That one hurt, too. Because even though in his mind he regards Murray as a good friend, they must both know how Ted's done a sorry job of maintaining that relationship. Always so quick to forget that other people's lives exist and aren't just frozen in time when he's busy being the Blue Beetle.

When Ted speaks, he makes his voice a little softer: “I just... assumed you could tell I was... okay.” 

Murray sits in silence and looks at him. The music is even louder than before. "...Rock to the beat, pump it, stomp it, jam, trip on this..."

Ted hesitates, then meets Murray’s gaze again. “Look, there’s -- I saw there was a back room, maybe it’s a little quieter. You really want to talk about this?”

“Yeah, I do,” Murray tells him with a frown.

Ted leans over the table to tell Booster where they’re going. Booster nods, glancing inquisitively at Murray, who moves to get up on his feet. When Ted turns and sees Murray stumble slightly he first assumes it must be because of the alcohol, but then he sees the cane. Murray leans heavily on it as they make their way across the floor, and he moves in a slightly staccato, mindful way that gives the impression of something hurting. Ted frowns and slows, withholding comment until they find the dim back room -- empty except for a table with a few chairs, and a pinball machine.

The door closes behind them, mercifully muffling the loud music. Ted moves towards the table, but Murray is already heading for the pinball machine.

“Got a quarter on you?” Murray asks quietly, looking the machine up and down before gently placing the cane up against the side and leaning heavily against the edge with both hands.

“Sure,” Ted tells him, rooting around in his pants pocket for the change he got for his first drink tonight. “You still got it in you?” He gestures at the display on the back glass, an airbrushed scene that seems to borrow heavily from Creature from the Black Lagoon.

“Like riding a bicycle.” Murray smiles, putting in the coin. The machine plays a little fanfare.

“I don’t think there was a machine in Chicago that didn’t have M-U-R in the first place spot,” Ted recalls, deciding not to comment on the bicycle comment and Murray's apparent inability to ride one right now. “Though you were always neck to neck with your arch rival. I can’t remember the name.”

“K-Z-E,” Murray snorts with derision, releasing the first silver ball. “Every time I turned my back, K-Z-E would snatch up first place and I had to spend another weekend getting my name back on the top of the board.”

“Yeah, thank you, I remember,” Ted groans, watching him play. “I was the one who had to go on endless snack runs for you, not to mention guard the machine with my life when you needed to take a leak.” 

“Best manservant I ever had,” Murray grins, not taking his eye off the ball as it bounces off the back flipper and hits a kicker, zooming to the back of the board. “You could go find us a fastfood joint, bring back half their menu, if you wanna reminisce.”

Ted snorts affectionately. “Yeah, how many days you plan on spending on this one, then?”

Murray titters. "Eh, it's a basic one. Three days, max." He's leaning even more heavily on the machine now, but with both his index fingers resting on the flipper buttons. There’s a stiffness to his posture. “Oh, come on!” Murray exclaims as the ball almost comes to a rest against a switch. He shifts his position, but his right leg seems to subtly give out, and he stumbles against the front of the machine with a soft groan before righting himself again, never taking his eyes off the ball.

“I'll get you a chair,” Ted tells him softly, moving towards the table.

“Or you can get me a chair when I ask for one." Murray glances at him, then back to the game. "I'm not standing around in quiet misery waiting for a kindly soul to take pity, you know." 

"Ah, sorry." Ted hesitates, looking on as Murray gets the ball rolling again, sending it straight into the ramp at the back with a well-placed flipper hit. “So, Murmeister, uh --” he begins. “Are you alright?”

“I’m alright,” Murray sends him a flash of a smile before looking down at the game again.

"Like... I guess if-- If you don't mind me asking," Ted murmurs, rubbing his palms together. "What's, uh, with the cane?"

At that, Murray whips his head back and laughs, loud and familiar, a laugh that used to echo through dorm corridors and in arcade halls. The ball drains and is lost, but he doesn't seem to mind. "Ted, oh my God!" he howls. "That was like ten whole minutes!"

"Well, I don't know!" Ted protests. "I didn't know how to --"

"What, were you thinking, like --" Murray tilts his head and closes an eye in an approximation of someone in deep thought. "'Hmm, did he always have that and I didn't notice?'"

"No, I just --" Ted titters, gesturing at him. "I thought you were gonna bring it up."

"Well, I was, but then I remembered that time I had my tooth knocked out during summer break and when I came back you spent four whole days before you dared ask me what had happened." There's that mischievous delight in his eyes. "And I thought, oh, can we beat that?"

"Well, that was different!" Ted laughs. "That time I assumed you'd just lost a fight so thoroughly you were deeply embarrassed about it, and I was being a good friend not bringing it up. How could I know you'd convinced yourself you could do skateboard tricks with absolutely no experience?"

Murray raises a hand to lightly touch his fake canine, a perfect copy amidst his other teeth. "Just figured I'd ease into my eventual full set of dentures, you know. Only thirty-one to go."

"So, um --" Ted smiles, looking on as Murray pulls the plunger and releases another ball. "Is that what happened this time? You borrowed your brother's skateboard again?"

Murray chuckles, focused on his game. "No, not a skateboard. Just a project at work. My hip's pretty fucked up."

Ted winces in sympathy, waiting for Murray to continue.

“It was -- Kinda stupid. I was stupid,” Murray mutters, and the ball rolls right down the center, between his frenetically moving flippers and is gone. “Fuck,” Murray mutters under his breath, already reaching for the plunger to release the next ball. “I was -- Did you hear about that LF9-X engine S.T.A.R was working on? With the hydrogen drive?”

“A little bit,” Ted replies, recollecting a few mentions in the tech magazines. Another prototype that never went anywhere, not uncommon in this business.

“Well, that drive was my baby." Murray smiles to himself. "The combustion system was just -- man, I was so caught up in that thing I couldn’t sleep, I was so excited.”

Ted nods, well aware of that kind of obsession. When you get your breakthrough, when you finally crack the code and wind up with an idea in your head that's so perfect and well-formed it’s like a higher being gifted it to you. When you can't stop thinking about it for a second, turning it over in your head, admiring the ingenuity of it every chance you've got. “You never told me that was one of yours.” When did he read that article? A year, a year and a half ago?

“I wanted it to be ready. I just knew this thing was gonna be huge,” Murray grins to himself, bouncing the ball off a flipper. “And it got to the stage we were gonna do a manned test drive, a car rig. I mean, we’d been running that baby in the workshop for days, everything was working just like it should. Not a hitch.”

LF9-X. There was something more about it. Ted freezes, recalling a small, picture-less notice in the newspapers. “It blew up.”

“Sure did,” Murray grins, a little less warmly, eyes still on the ball. “With me in the front seat.”

“You?" Ted asks incredulously. "Why were you driving? Even if you were in charge of the project, you’re not supposed to do the-- Surely S.T.A.R Labs got --”

“More expendable people?”

“A rigid testing system,” Ted specifies, a little unnerved by Murray's carefree attitude telling him all this. “I mean, test drivers, they’ve got extensive training for that kind of thing, they have carefully fitted protective gear, they have all kinds of --”

“I know,” Murray murmurs as he drains another ball. “I know. I was just so excited. Just kinda... Stupid with excitement. I wanted to be the one to do it.”

Ted swallows, continuing on in a low voice: “So what happened, exactly? Did you crash?”

“No, it -- I mean, I was in hospital during the investigation and all, but --” Murray glances down at his stiff leg. “They figure there was this.. slightly crooked panel, caused insufficient airflow. Maybe I knocked it a bit getting in, who knows? The guy who was meant to drive was shorter than me, everything was built around him. Anyway, components overheated, and, well --” He fans out his fingers. “Boom.”

“God. Murray.” Ted pulls his fingers through his hair. He had no idea about any of this. When was the last time they spoke? Around New Years, last year? “I mean, at least you’re still here. You didn’t end up --”

“Splattered on the wall? Yeah, I'm pretty happy about that too,” Murray smirks, then springs another ball into play. “But the hip’s, like, beyond all hope. Right now it's got more screws and splints than a hardware store. But I keep the guys in airport security on their toes, you know? I set off more alarms than Cyborg at this point, which I'm pretty sure means I'm better than him."

Ted smirks. "You can take his place as a Teen Titan."

"Sure!" Murray flattens down his hair. "I can pass for a... Rough seventeen?" He ponders for a moment. "Very rough. Anyway, I'm all scheduled for one of those state-of-the-art titanium joints, once they've removed a bit more shrapnel." He purses his lips and sighs. "Yep. A few more surgeries and we're good to go."

“I’m sorry,” Ted tells him softly.

"No, the titanium thing is kinda neat actually. Medical science is really getting places, you know?" Murray's eyes light up as he follows the ball with his eyes. "I didn't know about half the stuff they're doing with, like, prosthetics and orthotics these days. Makes me kinda want to work on some of that stuff myself."

Ted exhales softly through his nose. "I mean, I'm sorry about everything, going through that. But you... You seem to be handling it."

Murray sighs. “I've been doing my best, just... adjusting, you know. Been going through this a while now. What kinda grinds my gears though, is that S.T.A.R shut down the entire project because of that little mishap." Something strained slips into his voice. “Just... The whole concept, dead in the tracks. Even though with sufficient airflow and a few kinks worked out, I mean --” Murray screws up his face and flinches upright, letting the ball roll into center gutter. He turns to Ted. “That drive was my best idea yet, Ted! Like, world-changing level! And they dropped it because I made one stupid mistake.”

“Companies get cold feet like that,” Ted tells him quietly. “Those kinds of projects are all a matter of timing, you know that. You just wait until S.T.A.R Labs start to lag behind in the innovation game, and they’ll renew the project with twice the funding.”

“I wonder.” Murray makes a face, watching as the timer starts counting down on the pinball machine from inactivity. Then he sighs and reaches for his cane. “I need to sit down.”

“I bet Jen’s thankful you made it, though,” Ted suggests as they make their way to the table.

Murray falls bodily into the chair with a grunt. “You know, she had our newborn to take care of while I was in and out of hospital. Now she's always chasing after them when all I can manage is a slow hobble. I don't envy her that.” He massages his neck, thinking for a moment. “But still she's -- She looks at me every morning like... She can't believe her luck." He looks down at his hands, a soft smile on his face. "She's so wonderful." 

Ted smiles too, regarding him. Happy for him, for a marriage that seems like it would be able to handle just about anything, good or bad. “I know people who can get you the best doctors here in New York, you know,” he murmurs.

“No, it’s alright, S.T.A.R’s done alright by me. In that regard, anyway,” Murray smirks. “Paying for it all, too. Like I said, I just got a variety pack of metal bits to dig out and I’m ready for phase two.” He holds up a hand like an announcement. “The Bionic Man, Takamoto edition!”

“Cute.” Ted chuckles. “Maybe you’ll get a real taste for it, start switching out all your bones with titanium.”

“Sure!” Murray joins in, that old mischievous glint in his eye. “Next time I’ll see you I’ll be like--” He angles his head up, looking down at Ted with a haughty expression. “Nice bones, Theodore. Grow them yourself?”

They both erupt into giggles. Ted joins in, in the same haughty tone; “Oh quaint, you’ve got one of those retro hips, do you?”

“Factory original, I haven’t seen one of those in ages,” Murray adds, before cracking up even louder.

In the end they lie limp over the table, heaving for breath in between laughter.

Murray is the first to sit up and wipe his eyes. "You know, I -- I was just having the most boring night of my life with Frederic back there. The guy has like, no sense of humor. Thought I was going to expire on the table when I heard that oh so familiar laughter. Like a bassoon played by a drunk.”

“Well, glad I could be someone’s savior tonight,” Ted titters.

“Didn’t mean to pull you away from your superhero gang.” Murray leans his chin against his hand and looks at the closed door. “Man, they’re all so tall.”

“Not all of them,” Ted smiles, looking down at his hands. Then he glances at the same door. “Hey, we kinda wandered in here without refreshments. Can I get you anything?”

“Oh, you absolutely can." There's a happy sheen in Murray's eyes. "I'll have the regular.”

Ted makes a noise. "When I saw you tonight I thought you'd become all... sophisticated." He gestures at the expensive suit, the tasteful deep gray turtleneck. "And you're still on rum?"

"Around tech-world hotshots I drink sophisticated," Murray winks. "Around you I drink Hurricanes." He giggles in delight at Ted's expression. "And hey, don't come at me talking about fashion sense. When did you start dressing like a normal person?" He makes a face at Ted's understated blue-striped shirt, his dark navy slacks. "What happened to all your, like, flat caps and knickerbockers and crazy patterns? You're in public and you don't look like a colorblind newsboy from the thirties? I don't get it."

"You're the one who would apologize to random passerbys for my fashion sense," Ted smirks. "Don't act all misty-eyed about it now."

"No, I mean really. Your closet burn down or something?"

Ted shrugs. "Figured my personality was loud enough on its own."

"I'll say."

Some of his fashion staples had been a little harder to donate than others, and not just because the lady at Goodwill had wrinkled her nose as she methodically went through the mountain of clothes. Things like... that burgundy newsie cap, the high-waisted pinstripe pants, the green and yellow chequered sports coat, there are days Ted misses them like crazy. But they were something the old Ted Kord would wear, an insistent message to the world that he was a free thinker, an original, something apart from his grim-faced father and the endless parade of dark, sensible suits at the company. The new Ted Kord needed to be a lot less visible, and with that came a new, understated wardrobe.

Or maybe it had all just been your typical eccentrics from the idle rich. Ted makes a face as he pushes the door open into the pulsing night club.

Out there he’s grateful to spot Booster and the rest still at their table, talking, laughing, shouting. That’s good, isn’t it? Booster’s night, Booster’s farewell party. He can let loose without Ted hovering around as a pity invite. As he stands in line at the bar Booster spots him, giving him a questioning smile across the room. Ted smiles back and nods towards the back room, and holds up a palm to show he's not joining them just yet. Booster grins, giving a thumbs up to show he understands, then his attention is forced back to the table, Vapor leaning in close to say something in his ear.

Ted returns to Murray with their drinks. “Frat boy party drink for you, actual grown-up drink for me," he announces as he sets the glasses on the table. "Okay, where were we?”

There's tension in Murray’s face as he watches Ted find his seat. “I mean, originally we... snuck back here to talk about -- the whole thing in Chicago, didn’t we?” he mutters. 

Ted makes a soft grunt of acknowledgement and takes a sip, stalling for time.

“I mean I feel like, after you left Chicago we’ve sort of just been like...” Murray flutters his fingers in the air. “I don’t know, just grown-up friends.”

“I thought we were.” Ted looks at him blankly.

“No, but like --” Murray sighs, leaning forward in his seat. “We talk on the phone and once or twice you’ve visited me at work, and we send you our family Christmas card --” Murray abruptly looks up at him with the hint of a frown in his face. “You’re cool with that, right? We’re not... stepping on your Jewish sensibilities doing that?”

Ted looks at him, then sputters into giggles. “No, it’s fine. I like the cards.”

Murray laughs too. “Me and Jen have a debate about it every year, you know. I can finally tell her we haven’t made an annual family tradition of offending my old roommate.”

Ted, who was in the midst of sipping his drink again, snorts into it and giggles even more, wiping his chin.

“Yeah, but my point is, we--” Murray swallows, frowning down at his glass. “We both act like we’re still college roomies whenever we talk, but we're just... Keeping in touch at a minimum. Barely. Like, we’ve been so distant it’s taken me four years to find an opportunity to be like, ‘hey--’” He holds Ted’s gaze with a frown. “Everything that happened was kinda fucked up, how are you holding up? Really?”

“I mean it -- It wasn't exactly the highlight of my life,” Ted concedes quietly, rubbing his eye. “I... Struggled for a bit, with everything. But things worked out. I’m good.”

“You got, like, every personal disaster happening at once, and next thing I knew you’d moved to New York.”

“I told you I was going.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t know if you were starting anew, or just switching cities so you could quietly off yourself where no one knew you,” Murray tells him in a quiet, strained voice. “And I didn't know how to... have this conversation. Like every time I've tried to ask, you've changed the subject, and I've been more than happy to go along because... Because maybe I'm the worst person to have this conversation with."

Ted pauses, looking at him in wonder. "You're my friend, Mur. You're like the one person from the old days I keep in touch with." However rarely. There's an uncomfortable tightness in his body, it's almost embarrassing to admit it; How thoroughly Ted's abandoned his past, his family -- Well, to be fair, his family abandoned him first.

"So we're really not gonna change subject this time?"

Ted chuckles, a little weakly. "I hate to think you've spent years wondering if I'm secretly falling apart on some kind of... path to self destruction." 

Murray snorts softly. "I mean, that's why I'm so happy to just hear you're dating again and... Being a person again. Having your brains screwed out on a regular basis, I figure someone like that's doing good, you know?"

"Murray--" Ted sputters, coloring again. "Now who's changing the subject?"

"No, I'm just saying!" Murray grins. "I love to hear something like that. Because after every aspect of your life going kaboom -- your career, your engagement, your media presence, your--"

A tight little ache in the back of Ted’s mind. “Yeah, but the media forgets after a while," he interjects, picking the least painful subject. "Like, I bumped into a journalist tonight who didn’t know me from Adam, and that shows I did the right thing coming here, right? It was easier to move to a different city instead of being Chicago’s Eternal No-Good Son, Ted Kord.”

"Comfortable obscurity, I get it." Murray nods in sympathy. "Though I'm guessing you'd have to move a whole lot farther to not be seen as the son of the illustrious Thomas Kord."

Ted clears his throat, avoiding Murray's gaze. "Not so much these last few years. With enough time people might forget that, too."

Murray looks at him for a long while, waiting for Ted to continue. Ted feels the weight of it, that expectation, but he's not to sure how to carry on this conversation either, so they sit in silence.

“And then, uh," Murray continues at last, pushing on in a different direction. "Mel. Mel breaking off the engagement and--”

“Excuse me,” Ted cuts him off with a sharp voice. “I broke off the engagement. She cheated on me.”

“I know, man,” Murray tells him softly. “She was a real bitch.”

“Not at first,” Ted mutters, wiping his face, feeling that old guilt come to him too. The same old cycle of thoughts, like a record played over and over; Him sneaking off every night to be a hero, what could he expect? The last year they were together he lied to her every single day -- about what he was doing, where he had been, where the bruises and sprains came from. Compared to that, her infidelity was only one lie compared to his hundreds, thousands of lies. He could hardly claim to have the moral upper hand in that mess.

“You were so obsessed with each other at college, you know?” Murray snorts into his glass. “I couldn’t step outside for a minute without coming back to your tie on the doorknob and all kinds of R-rated noises from within. I was practically homeless those last eight months before we graduated.”

“Hey, you had your fair share of lady friends over too, you know,” Ted counters, squirming a little at the memories. “I wound up spending a lot of nights on Benny’s couch next door.”

“Now that you mention it, I always thought that couch had a particular Kordish scent to it,” Murray grins. “Like store-bought chocolate cookies and self pity.”

“Shut up,” Ted giggles and waves him off, annoyed because he doesn’t have a good comeback.

“I’m just saying,” Murray shrugs. “I always figured you’d be the one married off, with yet another kid appearing every few years.”

“I used to think so too,” Ted concedes, so quiet it's almost inaudible. Then he looks up, setting his jaw. “But that was just -- I’m younger than you, remember? We graduated together, but I started at sixteen. You think I had it all figured out by then?” He draws his lips back in a smile. “Like where’d you be if you had to live the way you envisioned at sixteen?”

“Well, it’d be me in the Playboy mansion for a start,” Murray smirks, staring into the cool dimness of the room. “Or I’d be out there in tights punching supervillains.”

“No, Murmeister. Think big. Go for both,” Ted urges, a little spark of delight in him.

"And my greatest arch enemy --" Murray announces, picking up his cane and waving it grandly into the room. "Any given set of stairs!"

Ted hesitates, not knowing if it's okay to giggle at something like that, but Murray looks at him, at his discomfort, and laughs loudly for both of them, offering a disbelieving "Oh, lighten up!"

“My point is --" Ted giggles. "My point is, your goals change as you grow up. Or mine did, anyway.”

Murray studies him. “So you don’t want that life at all? That's what you're telling me?”

Ted squirms. “No. Not really. Or not so much anymore. I don’t know, it’s-- it’s not a priority, is what I’m saying.” 

There was a time he imagined he could have the best of both worlds. Be a hero and have a loving family at home. Someone who’d greet him with kisses when he returned in the evenings, hell, maybe even help him out of his costume, hang his equipment by the door. “How was work, darling?” “Good, we beat Darkseid today.”

He makes a face. Some real Leave it to Beaver energy in that fantasy.

No, but -- married life as a hero, that’s just a selfish indulgence. That’s actively pulling someone into danger, whether you tell them your secret or not. He knows a few people who’ve gone for it -- Scott and Barda, both in the business, with every obstacle that creates for them. Ralph and Sue, though he wonders how much Ralph must worry about his non-super wife, about the people who might try to hurt him through her. He can't imagine carrying that fear around every day.

Ted knows being a hero means sacrifice. Sacrifice for other people, however long you’re alive and able to keep on sacrificing yourself, scooping yourself out bit by bit. Marriage, family -- those are sacrifices you have to make before they’re even an option. Maybe deep down, his relationship with Booster is the best solution there is -- Affection and love and loyalty, but without the risk of escalation, in a way. No one's getting surprise pregnant in their arrangement anytime soon, no wedding bells are gonna toll for the two of them.

“Okay, okay, so you’re over Melody, then.” Murray looks at him, and Ted studies him back, not sure of the conviction in his voice. “But still all of that, media punching bag, abruptly single -- and then losing your job at K.O.R.D Industries, your dad cutting you off --”

“I never liked that job anyway, you know that.” That tight ache growing tighter. “And you really think I’d want to live the rest of my life living off daddy’s money like some kind of upstuck valley girl? I didn’t want to be one of those middle-aged losers who’d depended on other people’s money all their lives.”

Murray pauses before he adds quietly, “Sure, I can see that. But your dad, he --” Talking slowly, obviously picking his words with care. “The way he ended that stuff. That was pretty damn brutal.”

“That --” There’s a quiver to Ted’s voice he doesn’t appreciate at all, so he clears his throat and takes a sip of his drink. Shocked at how much it still hurts, just acknowledging it. “That was his decision. I can’t change people's minds for them.”

Murray regards him in silence.

The money wasn’t ever important, though it was certainly a bit of a wake-up call not having any safety net from one day to the next. But it was never about the money. What hurt was finally being told what he'd suspected since early childhood. What he'd worked so hard to disprove all his life, finally thrown in his face, made public for all to know. 

That he was never good enough. That no matter how many patents he made, how many medals he won, how good his grades were, none of that could ever hope to make up for his flaws and shortcomings. No feat, no matter how impressive, could outweigh what an embarrassment he had always been to his father.

A lifetime of pushing himself, bettering himself, trying to be what he was supposed to be. And inevitably it led to this, it was always going to lead to this. Publicly disowned. Cut loose like some kind of useless ballast. And a final sacrifice to his dad, almost a final apology -- moving away and disappearing as best he could. His public persona, at least.

“I even --” Ted offers a weak smile, trying to keep his tone casual and carefree, but there's still that hint of wavering to it. “I even considered changing my last name, you know, when I moved. Stop dishonoring the honorable Kord family, if that was so fucking important to him.”

There’s a hesitant smirk on Murray’s face. “And what wild surname would you pick if you could choose? No, let me guess." He holds up a palm. "Something from some goofy old sci-fi novel, like the ones you were always pushing on me." He closes an eye in thought. "Like... Olivaw or... Glimmung or something.”

Ted smiles, a little touched Murray would remember something like that. “No, nothing crazy," he snorts softly, looking down at his hands. "Just my mother’s maiden name.” 

He often wonders how she would have reacted to the whole thing, had she been alive back then. Would she have talked her husband down? Would she have defended Ted, or been his secret ally even after he moved away? Or would she, too, have been glad to be rid of him, free of the burden that was a son like him?

Maybe it's better not knowing.

“And what name's that?” 

“Śpiewak.” 

Murray makes a face. “Thee-odore Shpee-wak,” he recites, stumbling over the consonants. “I can see why you decided against it.”

“Hey.”  Ted gives him a look. He can suffer all kinds of teasing about his own name, but not hers. People don't get to make fun of her. 

“Sorry. Bad joke,” Murray murmurs, sitting back. “Didn’t mean any disrespect, Ted.”

Ted exhales and waves him off. “In the end, I figured it’d be too much of a hassle changing my name, especially with my old patents. Didn’t want them to default back to the company or something.” He was so hard up for cash in the beginning when he struck off on his own. His only income pre-League came from selling or renting off his old inventions and concepts.

“Sure,” Murray concedes, nodding subtly. “Though they’re still using plenty of your ideas, aren’t they? Like that energy extraction system with the oxidation, the magnesium. That was one of yours.”

Ted takes a sip and smirks. “I was, uh, fourteen when I came up with that one, too young to hold any patents. I let my dad submit it, so that one belongs to him, legally.”

“It was still your idea.”

“Just the basic concept, they’ve developed it and refined it a lot since then.” Ted regards the blinking lights of the pinball machine for a moment, avoiding Murray’s gaze.

“Fuck you,” Murray tells him at last, affectionately. “You’ve got so many world-changing ideas in that brain you’re happy just giving them away, aren’t you? You let them fly off and turn to start working on the next one.” Murray taps his own temple with a finger. “Me, I've no idea how many good-to-great ideas I might have in here, but you better believe I’ll be there to soak in the glory for every single one of them.”

“I don’t know,” Ted mutters, downing the rest of his drink. “The acclaim and glory doesn’t really appeal to me anymore.”

Most days he’s in disguise, and his best ideas are used to help the League. It wouldn’t do to publish information about those inventions so criminals can figure out their weak points, look them up in some registry and learn how to disrupt them. A good invention these days is one whose inner workings are impossible to figure out, no matter how much people might study them in action.

“Sure, but then you were regularly on the front pages from the age of twelve to twenty-something," Murray argues with a grimace. "You got drowned in praise even before your balls had dropped." He gestures with his hands in the air. “’Ted Kord, kid genius!’ Gonna change the world with his inventions, gonna win the goddamned Olympics, gonna grow up and inherit the Kord tech kingdom, on the fast track to becoming one of the most influential engineers-slash-physicists-slash-gymnasts-slash-insufferable-poindexters in the world!”

Ted loudly blows a raspberry, rolling his eyes.

Murray laughs. "I was sick of you before I even met you, you know that? Lucky for you I could look past all the glitz that day we met, see what a hilarious little weirdo you really were."

Ted squints an eye, studying his old friend with a glow of decade-old affection inside him. Then he sighs. “K.O.R.D Industries wanted a mascot, that's all I ever was. They could have gone with someone a lot cuter than me.”

“No, you would have just been a mascot if you had no idea what you were doing, if it was all promotional pictures.” Murray points a finger at him. “But you were that good. You are that good! Which is why it kills me to see you wasting your talents working out of your apartment or whatever it is you do, doing freelance gigs for people and getting none of the credit!”

“What do you know about it? What do you know about anything?” Ted snaps back, only dimly aware of how quickly the mood has turned. “I -- I do work for heroes, you know. The Justice League, and -- and others. I’ve helped save lives, I’ve helped save the world!"

Murray snorts derisively. "Some heroes, then, if they don't even give you credit for it!"

"I don't want credit! Some of us do what we do for the sense of purpose, you know. The satisfaction of knowing you've helped people! Do you think I’d exchange that for empty praise and stupid awards and my face on the front page of tech magazines?”

Murray opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Ted inhales deeply through his nose, trying to calm himself before he reveals too much about his professional life. 

“Okay,” Murray tells him quietly at last. “Okay, I get you. I think." He sighs. "I don't know, maybe it’s me whose goals and worldview hasn’t changed since my teens, even when my body's telling me some of it's starting to get a bit unrealistic.” He regards his hip and massages it quietly for a moment, before looking up at Ted. “I guess all the shit you went through, it really did change you, didn't it? Be weird if it didn't, I suppose.”

Ted glances towards the closed door to the nightclub. “You have no idea.”

It’s late. Or actually it’s early. Outside Club Fixa stands an odd assortment of meta-humans and heroes in their civilian clothes, in various stages of inebriation, saying their goodbyes. Ted raises an unsteady arm to support himself against the wall, looking on as Echo hugs Booster tight.

“Remember the concert in November," she tells him sternly, wrinkling her nose as she gives him an extra squeeze. "You just tell security who you are and you’ll go straight backstage, okay? I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Of course, Terri,” Booster beams at her. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

When she lets go, everyone's gazes seems to fall on Reverb, as he's the one standing next to her, and there’s an awkward pause as he and Booster regard each other. The moment is interrupted by Maxi-Man, who pulls Booster into such a forceful hug Ted can hear the air being forced out of Booster’s lungs with a wheeze. Booster just laughs.

“You tell them the what-for, boss,” Maxi-Man tells him, voice strained with emotion. “If them Leaguers don’t treat you right I’ll make them answer for it. And come visit us once in a while.”

“Maxi! Of course I will!" Booster raises his head, addressing the entire group: "Guys, I’m not moving to Singapore or anything, okay?” he giggles. “I’m still in New York, same as you. I’ll visit, and you can come to the Embassy, too. Hell, I’m sure Claire can work out some promotional appearances for both teams.”

Ted glances over the group, squinting a little to focus his gaze. Claire’s not there, she must have gone early. Same with Cynthia.

“The League and the Conglomerate hand in hand,” Echo smirks. “The rivalry days are truly through, huh?”

“There wasn’t ever any rivalry,” Booster tells her, which is answered by mocking jeers from his former teammates, and a distinct “Yeah, right!” from someone. Ted looks on, amused.

“It’ll be weird without you, Gold,” Vapor tells him with a grin.

“Carrie.” Booster's voice is soft, looking at her with his blue, earnest eyes. He presses his lips together, obviously searching for what to say. “I... I’m just so --”

“Don’t you dare,” Vapor tells him, stepping towards him and up on her tippy toes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You just call me when you need to be seen somewhere. We’ll give them something to look at.”

Booster nods, averting his gaze. There’s a pause, Booster stepping back and taking them all in. “I-- I’m --” He stutters, trying to keep his voice calm. “I’m sorry. Guys. You know I’m sorry for just, um, leaving. I know, it’s not fair after, um -- I shouldn’t--”

“Oye pendejo! Fucks' sake, Gold!” Reverb tells him sharply, hands in his pockets. “What kind of pissbaby goes to pieces about getting into the Justice League? Don’t embarrass yourself.”

Booster’s momentarily stunned into silence, and in another moment it’s Reverb who’s pulled him into a hug.

“Happy for you,” Reverb mutters, something wavering a little in his voice. He clears his throat, and angles his head to say something into Booster's ear, too low for Ted to hear, but Booster swallows and nods resolutely. 

"Sure. Yeah," Booster mutters back, voice breaking slightly.

When they separate there's an unmistakable shine to Reverb's eyes, who pushes his hands back into his pockets and turns, heading down the street. "Eh, see you around, then."

With mutters and awkward parting words people starts making their way home, the Conglomerates back to their HQ, and Ted and Booster together the other way, towards Booster’s apartment.

Then Booster abruptly turns and shouts as he walks backwards: “Again, I’m not dying, I’m not disappearing! I’ll be a few blocks away, for Christ's sake!”

There’s an assortment of giggles and laughter in reply, and then Ted and Booster turn the corner, and immediately Booster’s shoulders slump, his cheerful energy drained away.

Ted frowns at him as they walk, a little unsteady on their feet, and it feels obvious how much easier it is to focus on Booster's troubled thoughts instead of his own, pricking in the back of his mind. “Look, s’not --” he slurs quietly. “You’ve no reason t’be guilty, you know.”

“I just -- What if something happens?” Booster murmurs, not looking at him. “Their next mission, without me. What if one of them gets hurt?”

“Then they’d prob’ly get hurt even with you there.” Ted hesitates, thinking. “Or you’d get hurt for ‘em, like with your -- your hand. Somebody’s always gonna get hurt and it doesn’t help wondering what if they didn’t.”

Booster is quiet for a moment. “I just can't go through something like Scott again.”

“Scott’s fine,” Ted tells him helpfully, reaching out a hand to trail along the wall to help his balance.

“Okay, so I don’t want to go through something like that for real,” Booster tells him softly, not glancing up at him.

“They’re all okay with this, with -- with your exit,” Ted argues, waving his other hand towards where they left. “They told you so. They’re big boys and girls, they can handle themselves. You're not responsible for them.”

Booster snorts softly.

“And it --” Ted stumbles against an unexpected trash can poking out of an alleyway. It feels a little bit like he’s falling in slow motion, but before he meets the ground Booster has wound an arm around him, pulling him back up. “It was a way -- Thanks. A way better goodbye than, than what we got when you left the League.”

Booster steadies him for a moment before maneuvering him gently around the overturned trashcan. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

“No. No, I meant other way ‘round,” Ted sighs, annoyed with his mouth not delivering the arguments that seem so eloquent in his head. "You had a better goodbye this time. Like, Kodak moment goodbye, hugs and kisses.”

There’s a chuckle from Booster as they pause on the street corner. “That’s what feels so weird. I don’t --” He clears his throat, not looking at Ted. “I never get to say goodbye. I guess that’s why I’m no good at them. Or -- I'm always the one who leaves, so it's up to me." There's a strained quality to his voice, a slight wavering. "I'm the one who have to decide whether there's a goodbye at all, and then when I try to say goodbye I mess it up, and when I don't say goodbye I really mess up, and I'm so bad at them, no matter what I do I always -- I, I --"

Ted leans forward and cups Booster's face in his hands, able to tell when Booster's mind is racing out of control, stuck in a groove again. Able to tell even when he's falling-down drunk, that's how well they know each other. Booster laughs thinly and tries pushing his hands away, embarrassed, but Ted does it again, feeling a lot more nonchalant about what people might see. Drunk guys walking home early in the morning, there are a lot less rules about that. He could do the same to Murray, though Murray left in a taxi two hours ago.

This time Booster doesn't try shrugging him off. This time he stops and looks at Ted with his big sad blue eyes.

"Nobody messed up anything tonight," Ted enunciates slowly, holding Booster's gaze as well as he can. "You had a nice goodbye and you'll see them again."

"You're right," Booster murmurs, nodding in his hands. "You're right. It was nice. I don't know why I'm --" He makes a face. "It's always just, like -- It sort of makes me remember all the other goodbyes." 

Ted opens his mouth, about to say something about returning to the League, but he suddenly realizes it's not just the League Booster's talking about. That one was easy, that one could be fixed and made up for, but all of Booster's other regrets, his guilt, his memories, it's like they're stabbing into Ted's own chest too, even though he only knows the broad strokes. What few details Booster has told him.

Booster left an entire life behind, centuries in the future. Booster without his parents, his sister, his childhood knicknacks. He doesn't have a single picture of the people he cared about, doesn't have a family heirloom or keepsake, he is the keepsake. He's the only proof in this age that those people existed (will exist) at all. Just Booster, alone, unmoored from his past life, his roots.

He can’t even visit a place for nostalgia’s sake, because there are other streets, other buildings there now.

Of course Ted ran too, a handful of years ago. Left it all behind, but he's got the things that matter to him. He's got his mother's necklace in a box on his desk. He's got his first gymnastics trophy in storage, he's got his college friend a phone call away. If he feels homesick he can fly back to Highland Park or downtown Chicago or wherever he's ever lived and walk down streets that look largely the same as he remember them.

Booster can't do that. Booster has himself, and a suit, and a security robot somewhere, that's all he has left. He can't call anyone from his past and invite them out for a coffee. He isn’t ever going to randomly run into any of his buddies from school. 

Booster titters softly, squeezing Ted's hand. “Just hit the pause button on your brain there, huh?”

Ted looks at him with all the affection in him, bursting out of him like a waterfall. “I’ll tell you goodbye.”

Booster frowns in gentle confusion. “What?”

Ted pulls him closer, face to face. “If we ever have to. If we’re forced to ever say goodbye and, and leave each other for some reason. I’ll give you -- the best. The best goodbye, Boos. It won't be up to you, you won't mess anything up. A perfect goodbye. Because you deserve nice goodbyes.”

“Ted,” Booster chuckles, squeezing Ted’s arm back, standing close. “You’re so drunk.”

“And hellos!” Ted continues abruptly. “You deserve nice hellos too. Did I -- Did I give you good hello, when we first met? Shit, no, I didn’t. I was so fucking rude, and sus--suspicious. An asshole. I’m sorry.”

“You apologized for that years ago. And it turned into a very nice hello after a little while,” Booster tells him quietly, with a warm smile. Then he glances quickly to either side and, satisfied they’re alone, presses a soft kiss to Ted’s forehead. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s get back to the apartment, okay? Just a few more blocks and we’ll sleep.”

Ted allows himself to be led by Booster’s gentle grip on his arm, heading down the street.

“Did you have fun with your old roomie? Murray?”

“Yeah,” Ted smirks, stumbling unevenly after Booster, though several things Murray told him pinches his mind, angry at being ignored. “We haven’t -- We’re always saying we’ll keep in touch more and then we don’t. But this time --!” He announces, a little too loud. “This time we’re really doing it. Like, actual really. I’m gonna -- I’ve got a few concepts I told him I want him to look at. I wanna -- I wanna borrow his brain on some stuff, we can work together on it. He was always better at the chemistry part.”

Booster looks back at him with a smile. “That sounds great.”

“Yeah. And you know... He made me think, I --” Ted glances at Booster, frowning. “What if I went public?”

Booster doesn’t look at him, pulling him gently along. “What, with a patent?”

“No, my -- my name. I mean, identity.”

Booster stops abruptly, then turns on his heels to study Ted’s face with an amused expression. “You want to reveal your secret identity,” he says, flatly.

“I mean, why not?” Ted tries to hold his ground, show his sudden conviction, but his head seems to sway a little on his shoulders. “I’m just --” A whine creeps into his voice. “What am I keeping secret exactly? Who am I protecting?”

“Yourself,” Booster tells him patiently.

“I mean, it made sense when I was somebody,” Ted argues, flinging out a hand. “Not anymore. I’m nobody. Ted Kord is nobody!”

There's warm affection in Booster's smile. “You’re somebody.” 

“Not when I'm -- like this," Ted mutters, gesturing at his civilian clothes. "People can tell I'm nobody, they don't know that when I'm not like this, I'm --” Ted raises an unsteady hand to make his point. “I am really somebody. Because Ted Stephen Nobody puts on his cowl and pow! He’s Blue--”

“Shh,” Booster urges, amusement in his eyes.

“And I’m so bad at lying!” Ted complains even louder at the empty street. “I’m the worst at lying. Not you. You’re fucking world champion at lying, and coming up with things on the fly, but you --” Ted grabs hold of Booster’s shoulders and looks at him. “You don’t have to lie. It's so unfair. You don’t lie, because -- Because you’re Booster Gold!”

“Ted --” Booster tells him, trying to gently extract himself out of his grasp.

“You’re Booster Gold everywhere you go. When you go to the, the corner store and buy toilet paper, you’re still Booster Gold.”

“A few more blocks, Junebug,” Booster tells him gently, placing a hand on his back, guiding him forward.

Ted turns his head to look at him. “Like, oh! We should switch.”

“What should we switch?”

“Identities.” Ted nods resolutely with a smirk. “You be Ted Kord and Bl--”

“Shh.”

“And I’ll be Booster Gold and, and only Booster Gold and that’ll be it!” Ted claps his hand together. “Fuck, it’ll be easy! A walk in the park compared to this!”

“Sure,” Booster giggles. “I’ll just get a perm and take charge of all the technical stuff, and you --”

“I’ll model!” Ted announces, fanning his hands. “I’ll just be, you know, hot and sexy and perfect and all--”

“Curb,” Booster informs him, too late for Ted to decipher and lift his feet, and next thing he knows Booster is pulling him back to a standing position. “Ted. You know, I, um, I overheard." Booster grins, straightening the lapels of Ted's shirt with loving attention. "You and Murray’s little guessing game.” There's a beautiful flush in his face, a new flush, not from the drinks. “I didn't know I was, um --” He licks his lips, glancing up at Ted’s eyes. “Phenomenal in bed...?”

Ted smiles lovingly at him, blinking slowly. “Hot and sexy and perfect,” he repeats quietly, almost to himself.

Yes, definitely a wonderful fresh kind of flush, even more obvious now, and a self-conscious but delighted tinge to Booster's smile. It's just about the most wonderful thing Ted has seen in his entire life. He angles his head and leans forward to kiss that perfect handsome wonderful face, the face he gets to kiss almost daily, and possibly even more often going forward, but Booster stops him by gently gripping his chin and coaxing him to turn, facing the direction they’re heading.

“A few more blocks. And when you’re sober again.”

Ted nods cheerfully, following the tug on his arm. “It'll be great, you know. The best.”

“What? Switching identities?"

"No, no," Ted laughs, stumbling along. “I mean, having you back again. Back in the League. With me. It’ll be --” Ted lets his eyes rest on that beautiful back head, the blond hair getting longer and somehow softer every day. “It’ll be better. Than it was. Everything will be better.”

Booster glances back at him, his eyes soft. “Yeah. We'll make sure it's all better. Come on, almost there.”