prodigaljaybird | (no subject)

Jason hasn't slept a night through since he was fourteen years old. It's nothing new, half his nightmares so familiar they happen almost by rote, though there's a few that still manage to terrify. He goes to bed in tired expectation, feels his body sleep and his brain light up. The fighter in him smiles and welcomes the chance to meet each falling crowbar with something better than child-sized fists, meet them with guns and blades and bombs, and in his dream Jason doesn't start screaming until the shadows grow long and bat-shaped.

He falls asleep in silence.

Jason wakes to his own gasping breaths in bed and the earth shifting beneath him.

"What the f - " he starts, but the world only shakes harder, something in the movement focused, personal. It's shaking his bed harder than anything, and Jason reaches out against the attack, seizes the gauntlet beneath his pillow and wishes it was a gun.

"You'll fucking wish - " he bellows, but as soon as the words leave him he feels himself forced violently back, propelled from his sheets and right into the air. His heart races - his bed's so close to the wall, he's gonna hit and there's no time to twist, nothing to grab, nothing to stop him and it's too fucking late to -

Jason's body flies through the bamboo with a mighty crack and is caught by the ground, coming to rest a dozen yards away with great rivets of earth in his wake.

There's a million things he should be doing. Lying there stunned feels like the best start.

[ooc: open to all in game, posted privately for preplay~ Jason just blew out the side of his hut, still in the boxers and tank top he went to bed in. His power is the sonic scream.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I was dreaming," says Jason, stubbornly denying the wince that wants to pinch his features when he sits up. "I woke up and the bed was shaking, just the bed, and when I shouted something hit me so hard I flew through - " Oh fuck. "The hut. Bucky's gonna kill me."

Or worse, look at him with that flatfaced expression he gets sometimes, mouth a blank line but eyes hard, the one he wears when he thinks Jason should be behaving better than he is. "Shit," Jason breathes, repeating it with fervor when he feels his body begin to shake, faster than any human could wrench it. "Sh-shit."

"Easy, Jason," I say, gently helping him sit up, a hand on each shoulder.

"We can figure this out. I'm here, no one else is going to get the drop on you. Walls can be rebuilt." Bucky's concern would lie with Jason, not the state of the hut.

"Are you hurt?"

He's not, not beyond bruises and scrapes and aches that will heal, but he isn't right, beginning to vibrate right in the circle of Steve's hands. "Something's wrong with me." It sounds bigger than he meant it, too loud, and Jason's heart only beats faster. "Let go," Jason gasps, "you're gonna get hurt!"

The word punches out of him like a fist, forcing their bodies apart with all the force of a tiny bomb.

I don't see it coming, but I don't think Jason does either, until it's too late. The impact slams into me and sends me flying back, but I twist my body and land with the balls of my feet and one hand digging into the ground to slow my landing.

I've seen similar powers before. Jason shouldn't have them, though. At least it explains what happened to the wall.

"Jason! Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Jason hisses at the ground, afraid to do so much as cough out the itch in his lungs lest he blow the next hole right through Steve. It seems impossible that anything could damage the other man, but Jason's not ready to risk it.

He rolls up onto his knees, closes his eyes and whispers, as loudly as he dares, "Why's this happening? Why's it coming out of me?"