Willful Thinking (Invincible/DC | Green Lantern OC-Insert) - Chapter 20 (Patreon)

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Oscar Ward

It’s funny just how quickly the wider universe lost its lustre after Talescria. Billions of people winding up dead will do that to you, I guess. I couldn’t have asked for better people to be around, though. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but having people who understand and aren’t judging me for it… or at least as harshly as I’m judging myself has been a massive help.

Video games are a nice distraction as well. And now, with Earth finally hanging outside the windows again, I’m determined to keep it that way. I chased Zoe into space, thinking I’d be back before anyone had time to wonder where I went, and somehow that turned into Gelderia, a war, killing a Viltrumite, getting my own tech jacket, Talescria, more dead Viltrumites, and everything with Techia…

So! Home. That gets me smiling soon enough as I stare through the window. Earth’s still pretty far away, with the Moon sitting off to our side and the station parked comfortably between the two while I figure out our next move. Probably best not to bring the whole thing any closer without warning. Cecil’s blood pressure has suffered enough because of me.

The control panel flashes.

“...Hm?”

I straighten in my seat.

Two markers appear ahead of the dot representing us, both coming from Earth and moving fast. I watch them for a few seconds before pushing myself to my feet. …I guess it’s too late for Cecil’s blood pressure. After cutting the engines, I leave the lounge and raise my voice as I head down the corridor. Zoe and Allen are playing Gelderia’s equivalent of Mario Kart in the station’s game room, which is something we have.

“Guys, we’ve got contact.” I poke my head into the room. “Probably Invincible or The Immortal. Wanna come?”

“Sure…” Zoe doesn’t look away from the game.

Allen pauses it and gets up. “Invincible? Let’s go. I’ve missed the little guy!”

“Little?”

“Have you seen my physique? Everyone’s little compared to me!”

She rolls her eyes.

We reach the nearest airlock and step inside. The inner door seals behind us. All the air drains out of the chamber. My helmet snaps into place as the outer doors open to absolutely nothing. I push off. Allen flies out beside me, followed closely by Zoe. We put a little distance between ourselves and the station before stopping in the dead of space, Earth hanging almost perfectly ahead of us. The two contacts are still a fair distance away, but closing quickly enough that we should be able to see them soon.

Zoe folds her arms and speaks through her helmet. “So we just wait?”

“Pretty much.” I glance back as Nolan comes flying out of the open airlock on his own, dressed in his Omni-Man costume.

“Felt us stop?” I ask.

“Yes,” Nolan says in my head as he comes to a halt beside Allen. “Why?”

I point. “Visitors.”

His eyes narrow. My HUD keeps feeding me the distance until, finally, I can make out two little specks against the planet. One pulls ahead of the other enough that my ring registers them.

Identity confirmed: Mark Grayson.

“Oh, shit.” My grin comes back immediately.

Allen leans forward. “Mark?”

“Yep.”

Nolan drifts forward. Then, suddenly, Mark halts in front of us, staring up at the giant space station before he finds us beneath it.

“D-Dad?”

Nolan’s shoulders tense up. “...Mark.”

Mark shoots forward and wraps both arms around him. Nolan’s arms just hang there before he returns the hug, one hand settling against the back of Mark’s head. The Immortal catches up, stopping a short distance away, fists raised. Seeing them hugging it out, he drops them, but the look on his face doesn’t thaw it in the least… at least, not until he sees me.

“Oscar…” He gives Nolan a few frosty glances, then floats towards me with a smile. “You finally return. It’s good to see you after so long. The Guardians have missed you.”

“That’s Ozzy?! I mean, the symbol’s the same, but since when did you have this?” Mark finally pulls away from his dad.

I spread my arms, lifting my helmet to give him a smug grin. “Grew out my hair, too. What d’you think?”

“DUDE!” He hits me like a fucking missile. I manage to push back against him before we go too far. “You’re alive!”

I laugh, hugging him back. “Didn’t I send you guys a message?”

“Yeah, but that was months ago.” Mark squeezes harder. I pat him hard on the back before he finally lets go, grabbing me by the shoulders and looking me over.  “...Wait. Are you stronger than I remember?”

“New suit. Courtesy of Gelderia, you know the messenger I sent?”

He nods.

“Well, since we,” I gesture to Zoe, “helped save their planet, we got cool super-suits, a space station, and a bunch of tech to help Earth out.”

“Cool…” Mark cranes his neck up to the ship again. Then, his eyes drift past me to Zoe. She raises a hand. Mark looks at her, then at me. “We? …Who the heck is that?”

I smile and move aside. “Invincible, former kidnapped human, Zoe Thompson. Zoe Thompson, Invincible.”

“Whoa, whoa. You’re giving out my entire government name?” She puts her hands on her hips. “Not cool, dude.”

“You’re a girl?” Mark says slowly.

“Mhm. And?”

“Nothing! Just stating a fact.”

Zoe snorts, extending a hand. “Well, nice to meet you, Mark Something.” He freezes up. “Yeah, Allen let your first name slip. Take it up with him.”

“Seriously, man?”

Allen raises his hands. “W-We don’t really do secret identities in space. I’m sorry!”

I shake my head and start back towards the station. “Come on. You guys might as well see what we brought back.”

Mark and The Immortal follow us through the airlock. I give them the abridged tour as we walk. Living quarters, workshops, labs, medical facilities, weapons, docking bays, and the permanently linked teleporter back to Gelderia. Mark has a question about basically everything. On the other hand, The Immortal mostly listens, occasionally stopping to inspect stuff.

Nolan… doesn’t say much. Which would be fine if the Immortal wasn’t also not saying much. Instead, he keeps looking at his dad. Nolan occasionally looks back somewhat guiltily, making the wide-as-shit corridor feel a lot smaller than it actually is. Mark catches my eye. I look at Immortal and he looks at Nolan. He gives me the tiniest nod, and I return it quickly.

“So!” I clap Immortal on the shoulder and slow down just enough that the others start pulling ahead of us. “How’s Earth been?”

Immortal looks away from Nolan to smile at me. “Busy.”

Ahead of us, Mark has naturally ended up beside Nolan. Neither says anything for a few seconds, but Mark eventually starts talking quietly enough that I can’t make out what he’s saying. I keep The Immortal occupied while we walk, getting the broad strokes of what I’ve missed over the last several months. Apparently Angstrom’s already blown up which is… not ideal. I’d planned to be back before then so I could maybe heal him and bring him on as an ally.

I take everyone through the main workshop next. The Immortal finally starts asking me questions about Gelderia and what exactly happened after I disappeared. I give him the condensed version, helpfully leaving out the bit where billions of people get blown up. Then, the tiny GDA earpiece I put in this morning comes back to life.

“...Kid?”

My shoulders creep upwards. I knew this was coming because I woke up this morning and deliberately put it in my ear expecting this very moment. I could’ve left it in subspace and enjoyed another hour or two of peace before voluntarily presenting myself for execution. But no, I decided to be responsible.

“Hi, Cecil.” Everyone looks at me.

I hear Cecil take a breath. “Do you have any idea how relieved I am to hear your voice?”

“Aww.”

“Do you have any idea how badly I want to strangle you?”

“Ah.” My smile disappears with swiftness. Zoe raises an eyebrow. I hold up a finger. “Before you start—”

“You vanished for six months, chasing an unidentified spacecraft out of the solar system without telling anyone where you were going.”

“In my defence—”

“You didn’t know where you were going, which is exactly why you shouldn’t have gone!”

Mark looks at me questioningly. I shake my head and point at my ear, mouthing ‘Cecil.’ And then he has the audacity to smile.

“...Prick,” I mutter.

Mark gasps. “Cecil! Ozzy just swore at you.”

“You’ve been back in the solar system for less than thirty minutes without notice,” Cecil continues, “and you’ve parked an unidentified alien installation between Earth and the Moon.”

“It’s identified. It’s my space station. The Gelderians gave it to me—us—after I helped save their planet.” Zoe perks up. I point towards the front of the station and mime steering something. “Park it,” I mouth.

“Where?”

I shrug. “Somewhere it won’t disturb anyone.”

Cecil goes very quiet in my ear.

“Sorry. Not you.” I wince.

“I gathered that.”

“I was talking to Zoe Thompson, the kidnapped girl? She’s a Viltrumite-tier superhero now. Some good news for you!”

“...GDA headquarters. Now.”

The line dies. I sigh and turn around, walking backwards while pointing at Zoe. “You’re in charge. Find somewhere sensible to park this thing.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get yelled at.”

Mark laughs.

“You deal with your dad and The Immortal by yourself.”

The two older men share a glance.

Allen claps his hands. “I think it’s about time I went back to Talescria. Guys, it’s been fun, but things are heating up several galaxies away.”

“We can head out together, then,” I say.

The trip to the airlock is a lot quieter than the one coming in. Allen waves to everyone before stepping inside with me, and I catch Mark looking between his dad and The Immortal again as the doors close. Good luck, buddy. The outer doors open, and Allen and I fly out together, putting a decent amount of distance between ourselves and the station before stopping.

Allen turns towards me. “Ozzy.”

“Yeah? Wha—oof!” He slams a hug into my body. I barely get my own arms around him before he squeezes a little painfully. 

“You were a massive help, you know.” Allen loosens his grip enough that my ribs stop threatening to become one with my lungs. “Gelderia, the mole, the Viltrumites. All of it. The Coalition is better off because you came. You’ve earned it. If we need you, the Coalition will call.”

I hug him back properly before we separate. “...Thanks, man.”

His body twists around before he shoots off. I watch him rapidly shrink against the black until my ring loses sight of him altogether. Hopefully the Coalition won’t need Earth anymore after this. I’d say the odds are in their favour, even if Allen and Space Racer are their only hard hitters. Maybe they commission a stripped-down version of Gelderia’s tech jackets or something.

Whatever happens, though… I’m done. Ring, GDA headquarters.

Destination confirmed.

Travelling…

Green light snaps around me as I shoot towards Earth in a flash of green light.

【—〄—】

Current Charge: 89%

“...So, yeah.”

Cecil doesn’t say anything at first after my long-winded spiel filling him in on everything. He’s still leaning back in his chair with his arms folded, but there’s none of the irritation from earlier left on his face.

“Kid, I’m going to ask you something, and I don’t want you taking it the wrong way. Do you want to talk to someone? We’ve got people on staff. Specialists. They deal with this kind of thing discreetly and with total confidentiality. Nothing you say to them will make its way to me, I promise.”

I snort. “What, they’ve got the know-how to get over accidentally getting billions of people killed?”

“...I was thinking more along the lines of everything else you just told me. You fought in a war, and PTSD’s a bitch.”

I smile and shake my head. “I’m good, Cecil. Just being back is helping, but… you know, thanks.”

He stares at me for a few seconds. I keep smiling.

“So! What’s all this stuff I’m hearing about a portal guy?”

“Mark tell you?” Cecil asks.

“The Immortal, actually.”

“Well, there’s been no sign of him since the gizmo he got the Mauler Family to construct for him blew up. Probably took him out. He’s not getting far without medical attention. Assuming he survived at all.”

…Oh, he survived for sure. But maybe he blew himself to kingdom come for real this time. Butterfly effect and all that.

“Well, feel free to call on me if anything turns up.”

“Why? Getting second thoughts about heading home?”

“No way. I’d miss you too much.”

He grunts and looks down at the tablet on his desk. “The Gelderians hook you up with anything besides the new suit and the space station you decided to park on my doorstep?”

“Oh this?” I smack a hand against my armour. “It’s got blasters and whatnot… but like I told you, it makes me as strong as a Viltrumite.”

“Two more Viltrumite-tier combatants is a positive, but there are only two of you.”

I smile. “Not necessarily. My ring scanned the tech. I’ll be straight with you: I’m not gonna break Gelderia’s trust by reverse-engineering their tech jackets. But I don’t mind isolating the strength-multiplying bit and making superhuman exoskeletons and whatnot. Well, I say I’ll do it, but I really mean my ring… and maybe Rudy, too.”

“It’d certainly go a long way to staving off the Viltrumite threat,” Cecil says with a smile. “Make the Guardians more versatile, too.”

…And now I’m imagining Kate or Rae in one of these. Holy crap that’s terrifying.

“Is everything else they gave you on the space station?” he asks, bringing me out of my daydream.

“Yeah, but I can transfer the data stuff through my suit.” I lift my ringed hand, opening my subspace. “For now…”

His Majesty saw fit to include his own care package for Earth on the ship itself, though not all of it fits inside this room or is even physical in the first place. But knowing Cecil, there’s only one thing that excites him.

I lean back while he turns a cylindrical cannon over in his arms. “This is a fraction of the weapons, too. What do you think? Should complement the Coalition stuff pretty nicely.”

“It will. The Coalition shipments gave us a head start on some stuff. This fills in the gaps. I’m hoping that once we’ve combed through Gelderia’s stuff, my scientists can compare how they solved the same problems and work to make something entirely our own.”

He circles the table to peer at all kinds of weapons. Space-swords, various bombs and drones, too. I haven’t ever seen Cecil so excited before. Or really seen excitement on his face, so it’s a little disturbing.

“...Hey, Cecil?”

“Yeah?”

“D.A. Sinclair still around?”

Slowly, Cecil looks up from the desk-turned-armour. “Why?”

“Oh, it’s not a big deal.” I smile.

【—〄—】

One of the Viltrumite corpses lies face-up on the operating table underneath D.A. Sinclair’s eager eye. He doesn’t have much of a face anymore. It’s the man we fought on Gelderia, only his head is basically smashed flat. The other three lie on operating tables in similarly mutilated conditions. Definitely dead, but no more decomposed than they were the instant they died. The woman Zoe punched a hole straight through isn’t exactly picturesque either.

Sinclair circles the table with his eyes wide, seemingly unsure where to start. “Do you understand what you’ve brought me? Specimens, damaged as they are, possessed of strength, speed, and durability orders of magnitude beyond anything I have ever worked with!”

He grabs a scalpel and brings it down on one of the Viltrumite men only for it to bend out of shape. Sinclair tosses it aside and starts digging through the equipment at his workstation. Cecil’s standing beside me with his hands in his pockets while we watch the nutcase work. 

“You know, before you left, you had a lot to say about me keeping this guy around.”

Said guy comes back with something considerably more industrial-looking and presses it against the corpse’s skin. His smile gets wider as the instrument buzzes to life, shearing against the skin-tight spandex-like uniform before it finally cuts through.

I sigh. “Look, sometimes doing the bad thing to stave off something worse is the right thing to do. And trust me, I’ve seen what worse looks like. I don’t like any of this. I still don’t like him.”

Cecil gives me a long look. Sinclair has moved on from trying to cut. Instead, he’s now trying to puncture with some kind of powered drill, hunched and muttering to himself as he adjusts the pressure till the drill bit snaps.

“Fascinating.”

…Okay. I’ve seen enough.

“Cecil, can I take the rest of the day off? The months away aside, I think I’ve been an excellent employee today.”

“Sure. I’ll spend today getting to know this Zoe Thompson.” He glances at Sinclair before looking back at me.

“She can help you with the tech transfer stuff, too,” I say.

“The offer still stands, by the way.”

“I know.”

Cecil pats my shoulder. “I’m serious, kid.”

“So am I.” I smile and start towards the door. “I’m actually going to talk to someone right now. Bye, Cecil!”

My ring drops me out of FTL high above Baltimore. I cross the city pretty fast and race towards the westward forest where I know her treehouse is at. I… why am I so nervous? I stormed an entire moonbase. This should not be the thing that throws my heart out whack, damn it. I slow down a little bit, because what the fuck do I even say when I get there?

Hey, Eve! Sorry I disappeared for half a year. Got you anything from space? …Sorry, no. Missed you though!

I descend towards the treehouse tentatively. Maybe she’s pissed. She has every right to be pissed. It sucks that she doesn’t have a door I can knock on and hide behind to gather myself. So, I float in the window-less, wall-less treehouse before I can change my mind. Eve is facing away from me, working on her laptop at the circular table with her headphones in. Explains why she can’t see me. Unfortunately, a stupid idea occurs to me, puppeteering my body into carrying it out.

Floating over to her without a sound, I cover her eyes with my hands. “Guess who—OH SHIT!”

Eve grabs my hands and rockets straight through her own roof, carrying us into the sky. Pink energy wraps around my body, squeezing tight.

“Eve! Eve, it’s me!”

Her glowing hand stops about two inches from my face as she twists around.

“...Hi.”

“...Ozzy?”

“Surpri—”

“You fucking idiot!” She punches me. Not particularly hard, thankfully, before she grabs me by the shoulders. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! You snuck up behind me and covered my eyes instead of saying… I don’t know hello? Or calling!”

“...I realise the flaws in the plan now.”

“Shut up!”

I do. Mostly because the look on her face has changed. She looks like she’s about to cry—or start yelling again. Her grip on me tightens as her green eyes run over my face, then my hair and the armour covering everything below my neck. She looks away, jaw tight. I don’t really know what to do with my hands, so I settle for leaving them at my sides. At least until she throws her arms around me.

I hug her back immediately, relaxing a little.

“I was worried about you.” She pulls back just enough to let me know she’s glaring again.

I smile. “...Come on. I’ve been back for like an hour. You can’t already be sick of me.”

Eve’s mouth twitches. She finally seems to notice what she’s holding onto and looks down at my armour. Her eyebrows rise. “Okay. What the hell are you wearing?”

“You like it? I got it from Gelderia.”

“You were there for six months?”

“More like three. I went to the Coalition afterwards. It’s been a long six months.”

She reaches up and grabs one of my curls. “...Your hair grew.”

“I might keep it. Good or bad?”

“I’m still deciding.” Eve lets go of my hair, but neither of us makes any move to put distance between us. “...Are you busy?”

“Like, now?”

“No, six months from now.”

“Okay, sarcasm. That’s promising.” She rolls her eyes. I clear my throat. “No, I’m pretty free. Cecil already gave me the day off. Why?”

She grins at something on my face. Is there something on my face? I’m pretty sure I’m doing a good job keeping my thoughts under wraps.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?”

I stare at her. “A… date? Like—”

“A real date, yeah. Why not?”

“Obviously, yeah.”

She kisses me, and my brain completely blanks until she pulls away. Pink light flares around her body again as she slips out of my arms and away. Eve turns around in midair, flying backwards with a grin.

“Fall in love a little faster, will you? I can’t be up here all day.”

…Since when was she this assertive?

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