prodigaljaybird | (no subject)

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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.]

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Billy's been walking for a while now. He isn't sure why he woke up early, but ever since getting out of bed, a strange feeling has been crawling over his skin. It feels like pins and needles but not quite, like something is trying to catch is attention from a million different directions at once.

Walking seems to dull the sensation a little, and eventually Billy hopes to tire himself out enough to sleep a few more hours.

He's moving along, hands in his sweatshirt pockets when a scream nearly pierces his ears, followed by a crash. Billy stumbles back a few feet in surprise, trips over something and lands on his ass in the dirt, breathing heavily as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on.

And the buzzing feeling still won't go away.

Somewhere in the distance, Effy Stonem listens, eyes wide and unseeing. The world isn't often a safe place, but this place has been, a patch of forest by Jason's hut, where the wind blows through reeds with a soft kiss and nightfall drapes everyone with its heavy blanket. Today, it all threatens to fall apart, the earth moving beneath her feet, the grass hissing in angry whispers, and it's only the resolve of a girl who can't lose anything more that helps her tear through the shadows just in time to watch Jason fly through the sky with a yell that seems to resonate right through her chest, leaving her unable to breathe. Or maybe it's the sight of him on the ground, maybe it's the impact, maybe, a million maybes and none of them can even start to describe the sights and sounds that immediately pass through her memory.

(Tony. Tony.)

She screams, and the world seems to light on fire, bright around her eyes as she runs— only for a second, and then everything's bathed in the faint light of a rising sun once more— dodging cracks in the earth before she skids to a stop by his side, kneeling. No words, for how hard it still is to catch her breath at all, just a hand on his shoulder, willing him to look her way.

Jason breathes through the ringing in his ears and sits up slowly, eyes narrowed against his own swimming vision as he searches for his attacker. It's startling to have to look over great walls of dirt - whatever it was hit him hard - but when he does Jason finds no sign of the enemy, just Billy lying similarly nearby.

"Are you okay?" he calls, too dazed to be angry. "Do you see them?"

There are hands on him, and Jason moves before his eyes will open, cursing the sluggishness that came with the shock of impact. His fingers close around a wrist too slight to feel dangerous - Lux, he thinks, always her, always first - and blinks into the sun haloing a dark head of hair.

"Effy," he exhales, struggling up to scan the area. "Get - " Fuck, where are they? Is his attacker invisible? Who the fuck can even do that here? His back aches, shoulders scraped raw and aching but forgotten when the ground seems to quiver beneath his feet. "Get behind me."

The problem with this whole speedster thing was how the world around her was moving so slow and she was moving so fast. Cissie was trying to adjust, she really was but it was so hard. How Bart or any of the other speedsters had managed this constantly, she had no idea.

She had stopped for a moment to get a quick snack when she heard a scream. She had eaten what felt like three breakfasts already but she was starving again. Bart had told her this was all part of the package but it just felt weird to be constantly stuffing her face. She jammed half a banana in her mouth and started running in the direction of the sound.

A second or two later, she saw Jason and stopped dead, barely managing to avoid the tracks of dirt in the process. "Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?"

He's awake. He breathes, and the sound of it is wet, far from smooth in the way that Effy's always known Jason to be, every last action of his taken with the kind of purpose that Effy's never known. It's different, to act for a cause, or to act for its own sake, but maybe Effy can feel a flicker of the desire to when her hand closes more tightly around his shoulder, her head shaking, hair falling out of place. "No," she protests, afraid suddenly. Being behind someone is no different than being left, abandoned— at least, such has always been true in Effy's life. She can't.

It can't happen again.

"No," she insists, eyes grazing over the red of his shoulder and quickly staring, fearfully, over her shoulder. She'd rather stay. "No, Jason, you're hurt."

"It's nothing," he says and laughs, his nerves scraped too raw to hold it in, the hilarity that anything could hurt him after all he's been through. So someone shoved him down, so fucking what? It won't happen again.

"Coward," he barks, moving until she's behind him no matter what she says. She won't be the first stubborn girl beneath his wing. "C'mon," he says, and his face lights up with fury and triumph when the ground beneath him again begins to shake. "Come on!" He aims his shout at the shifting dirt and doesn't yelp when he flies straight up this time, teeth clenched tight and eyes narrowed until the force desists, letting him fall back to the earth. More in control this time, Jason rolls.

Jason rolls onto his feet before his body's strictly ready for it, but there are voices, a person close by, and his hand is halfway to a fist before he realizes it's Cissie.

"Something's here," he says, rolling shoulders scraped raw. "Threw me right out of my hut." He could've hit somebody, could've been staying with Lux, and it makes him angry, makes him - "Stop it!" Jason shouts at the ground shifting suddenly beneath his feet.

It's instinct that has Effy grabbing at the dirt, the tiniest of voices in her chest bursting into the air with a shriek that still dies in her throat as her fingers dig into the earth. Something catches hold, and she's anchored, watching helplessly as Jason flies into the sky— away, she believes that he could fly away if he wanted, and it stupidly catches around her heart like a vice, seems to stop it right in her chest. Tightly shutting her eyes, Effy curls into the ground, shaking her head, willing the world to stop turning underneath her feet. She can't keep up. Her arms feel heavy, leaden.

Dizzy and light-headed, she chances a glance down at her hands, where they curve protectively around her knees, only to find that they've turned to stone.

"Oh," she breathes. "It's a dream."

"Jason!"

It's little more than an exhale, but the urgency is clear regardless of volume. Picking his way through the splintered remains of the wall, Bucky darts forward, gun in hand; he makes for an interesting picture, still dressed in well-worn pajama bottoms, his feet bare, his hair tousled from uneasy sleep, but there hadn't been much time to spare. He'd been anticipating an attack with so rude an awakening, but it's increasingly clear as the dust begins to settle that there's no one in the area except for him and Jason -- or at least no one he can see.

He ducks down at the kid's side, stance protective from an assailant that may or not have lingered.

"What the *$(% just happened?"

"I'm fine," Billy calls back. He's still on the ground, staring up at the sky as he tries to figure out what the hell's going on and how to explain that he was just startled.

His ears are ringing slightly, but he manages to get up easily, brushing dirt off his jeans. "Do I see what?"

I'm running almost before I'm conscious of it. I don't sleep well, always, and tonight I'm grateful. I'm not sure what I heard, exactly, but I know that it sounded violent and I know exactly where it came from.

I stop, barefooted, shieldless, wearing only the cotton pajama trousers I went to bed in. Not ideal for a combat situation, but all I find is... Jason, lying on the ground at the end of a long rut he apparently drew with his whole body. What should be one wall of the hut is ore of a gaping, broken hole.

There's no one else here. I know that instinctively, and after I scan the treeline, listen closely, I'm positive. Unless we were suddenly gifted with a cadre of ninjas, we're alone.

"Jason," I say, dropping down to one knee, hand going carefully to his shoulder but not moving him, "can you hear me, son?"

"Whoever hit me." Jason gets a knee under him, and then another, and then he's standing, still finding no one but Billy in the clearing. Tentatively, he sucks a breath into his lungs and finds it doesn't hurt, rolls his shoulders and feels them sing with pain. All the damage is to his back where he went through the wall.

"Whatever hit me," Jason amends, fingertips skimming his chest. "It put me right through the wall. Should have a bruise the size of battering ram." He looks at Billy. "You didn't see anything?"

Billy shakes his head, stares at the gaping hole where there used to be a wall, and all he can think of is how pissed off Bucky's going to be.

"I just -- I heard someone scream and then you came flying out."

Letting the momentum carry him back to his feet, Jason runs, zigzagging just in case, but already his thoughts suggest he needn't bother. A force powerful enough to punch him right off the ground should leave a mark, bruises, even broken ribs, yet all the pain he feels is in his back and shoulders.

It only happens when he shouts...

"Effy," he says, his focus bent on speaking softly, and drops to his knees at her side. Her hands are gray, stone. He reaches for one, finding it unyielding. "It's me," he whispers, it's him throwing his own body around each time he's frightened, and now she's protecting herself in the most instinctive way possible. "Can you control it?"

"Hit me," Jason exhales, stubbornness keeping his eyes open until his vision swims to a halt. "Couldn't see it." He sits up with a swallowed groan, expecting to feel his ribs ache in protest, but all the pain is at his back. Small fucking favors.

He looks to Bucky, feeling sure that if Bucky had seen whoever it was they'd already be bleeding out, and doesn't feel as reassured as he might. If Bucky hasn't brought the attacker down while inside his own home, what chance does Jason have? "Nobody's snuck up on me that bad in...ever." It should be frightening, but Jason's more caught up in the shame. He's better than this, he wants Bucky to believe it as much as he needs it himself, he's better than this.

Jason opens his mouth, but all that escapes is a gasp when the earth begins to shake, tossing Bucky violently across his vision. "B-Bucky," Jason gasps. It never once occurs to him that he might be the one shaking.

"Yeah," Jason gasps and feels some of the startled tension leach from his body. No one's going to try anything with Steve looming over him, and Jason allows himself a moment to assess the damage - scraped shoulders, bruised back, splinters likely in places he'd rather not consider - and a curious lack of pain in his chest. Whatever forced him through the wall ought to have left a crater where his lungs are, but there's nothing. It doesn't make any sense. His ears hurt.

"Something hit me, did you see it?"

"I didn't scream," Jason mutters, but even as he says it he wonders. It had all happened so quickly, the wall shattering at his back drawing most of his focus, but there'd been a sound like a giant fist punching the air.

He puts both hands over his ears, squeezing until the ringing fades. "I feel weird. Weirder than a guy who just dug the Grand Canyon with his back." He groans, and the earth beneath his feet quivers as if shocked. "Fuck."

"No," I tell him, looking up for any sign of Bucky. Nothing moves.

"There's no sign of anyone else here. Did you see anything, hear anything before it happened?"

"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 returned. Again. It's as much of a curse as it is a blessing, Effy's gaze quickly glancing over him for signs of injuries, for any sign of the darkness that comes right after a light is extinguished— the kind that she saw in Tony those years ago, eyes waking up dull, scared, and confused. It doesn't come, fortunately. Even if this is a dream, Effy doesn't think that she'd be able to handle it well, seeing Jason like that. She's hardly able to forget with Tony, most days. Blankly, she stares down at her hands, at the gray that creeps up her skin, cold.

"What do you mean," she breathes, brows pinching together, "what do you mean, control it? It's a dream. It's not real. This whole island... we can't stay here. Because it's not how things are supposed to be."

"What the hell," Billy gasps, stumbling back again. He stays on his feet this time, opening and closing his hands, confused and unsure where to go or what to say. The disorientation coursing through him is familiar, something he can't name or find a reason for, but can recognize without trouble. "What's going on?"

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.

Jason stares at the ground, feels the same fear that'd been coursing through him when he woke to his bed shaking. "Stop," he says, soft, experimental, and it doesn't, in fact it shakes harder in the patch where Jason's voice is aimed.

"Is it me?" Jason wonders aloud, gathering his breath. "I said stop!" The word flies from him as invisibly as any other, yet Jason could swear he sees it, a thick funnel of air that lifts him off his feet. He has the sense to flip this time, landing breathless and safe a few yards away. "It is me."

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