Happy Boostlethon, axolotl_lan!
Title: ‘Twas the Groundhog Day Before Christmas, Part 1
Author: poisonivory
Recipient: axolotl_lan
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None. Well, besides sheer length.
Summary: Ted may be a Bill Murray fan, but that doesn’t mean he wants to have his own Groundhog Day. When every day is Christmas Eve Day, what’s a beleaguered (and Jewish) superhero to do?
Notes: Um. I kind of got carried away with this? I apologize for the fact that the prompt is only nominally involved, but hopefully the fact that it’s over 28,000 words will make up for that. It’s set in Super Buddies-verse, where all the various Crises from 2004 on never occurred, with slight fudgings here and there to fix continuity errors (Guy should have his green ring back, GiffDeMatts), but there are an awful lot of cameos, so if you find a villain or someone where he or she shouldn’t be, uh…it’s an AU, okay? Finally, enormous amounts of thanks to queenitsy and mizzmarvel for betaing.
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
Ted groaned and pulled the covers tighter around him, but the bitter chill of the December morning cut through them, and Beyoncé’s voice was insistent, and he did have a company to run. With a sigh, he threw the covers back and sat up. He didn’t bother to open his eyes, though, which was probably why he stubbed his toe on the bed leg on the way to the bathroom.
“Yowtch! Mother of pearl,” he hissed, opening his eyes and hopping the rest of the way into the bathroom. “Stupid bed. You’re not even real pine! Your mother was balsa!”
He cut off his own invective with a toothbrush and wandered more carefully back into the bedroom, listening as the song wound down and the weather report came on.
“December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through,” the station’s weather jockey chirruped. “High of 34, low 28, with snow moving in overnight - we may just have ourselves a white Christmas, if we’re lucky. Now over to Steve with the traffic…”
Ted returned to the bathroom to spit and turn the shower on. The water was ice cold, and refused to heat up even when Ted let it run for five minutes. A quick call to the super did nothing to improve his day.
“Boiler’s broken,” Jimmy explained, sounding tired. “Should take a couple of hours to get fixed.”
“But I need to shower now,” Ted said, testing the water with a finger and frowning.
He could sense Jimmy shrugging on the other end of the line. “Hey, my father-in-law swears by cold showers. Says they loosen up the lungs.”
“And do you take cold showers?” Ted asked.
Jimmy snorted. “Good one, Mr. Kord. I’ll let you know when the boiler’s back up.”
“Wait, no - !” Ted protested, but the line was already dead.
Ted’s lungs didn’t feel any looser after the world’s fastest, coldest shower, but it certainly woke him up. Still, after the call to Jimmy he was running late. He dressed, popped a button on his favorite shirt by moving too fast, put on a new shirt, grabbed his briefcase, and flew out the door.
By the time he got to work - late - he figured the stubbed toe should have tipped him off to the kind of day he’d be having. The café downstairs was out of his favorite kind of Danish, the doorman had pulled his car out with a mysterious scratch on it, and the traffic was insane. He burst into the office, coffee and newspaper in one hand, Danish, coat, and briefcase in the other, only to be pounced on by his assistant, causing him to dribble coffee onto his tie.
“Thanks for that, Connie.”
Connie, who was a very good assistant, was already dabbing at the spilled coffee with a napkin. “Sorry, Ted, but it’s been a Morning.”
He handed her his coat and briefcase as they headed for his office. “That sounded like it had a capital M on it.”
“It did,” Connie replied. “The lab has called up 23 times since 7:30, asking for you - they say the prototypes keep exploding. The Tokyo office seems to be having a meltdown, although I wasn’t clear whether that was literal or figurative. Plus the Board is up in arms because our stock is down and I had to squeeze a meeting for them into your afternoon schedule.” Ted shot her a betrayed look. “Sorry! They were very insistent.”
“It’s fine.” Ted shucked off his jacket and reached for his lab coat. “They’ve probably gone home in the Tokyo office, but see if you can get Kimiyo on the line, find out what’s happening there, and keep me posted. I’ll be downstairs.” He paused. “Those prototypes are a million dollars each?”
“A million point two,” Connie corrected him.
“Great.” Ted took the clipboard she handed him with the relevant specs. “Capital M indeed.”
The Morning continued until well into the afternoon. Ted couldn’t figure out why the prototypes for his latest invention (a sort of Skeets-lite for people with chronic health conditions, a flying AI capable of monitoring vital statistics, calling emergency hotlines, and administering basic first aid) kept blowing up, but the sting of the burns on his hands and the side of his face was there to remind him that painful explosions were not part of administering first aid. It wasn’t until 2:30 that he managed to catch ten minutes in his office to breathe, look at the business section in the paper, and shovel down a sandwich Connie had ordered for him.
His phone rang while his mouth was still full of grilled chicken and avocado. “Hewwo?”
“Have time to take a call, Ted?” Connie asked. “It’s Booster.”
“I’m a little busy, Con,” Ted pointed out.
“He’s called three times.” Connie managed to sound both apologetic and accusatory - she, like all of the women in Ted’s office, had a soft spot for Booster.
Ted rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, put him through.”
“Beetle buddy! How’s tricks?”
Ted practically spat out his sandwich. “Booster! Ix-nay on the Eetle-bay, if you don’t mind?”
Booster snorted. “Oh, please, like Connie doesn’t already know. I’m sorry, but ‘Egads! He must have been attacked with a naked ray!’ is not a good explanation for Blue Beetle’s costume being in your desk drawer.”
“Hey, I was thinking on the fly,” Ted grumbled. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“Well, I was going to see if you wanted to have a couple of drinks tonight, since it is Christmas Eve, and you are my best friend, and my family won’t even be born for five hundred years, but if that’s inconveniencing you, fine, I’ll see what G’nort’s up to.”
“Sorry.” Ted rubbed his temples. “Sorry, it’s been a long day. Yes, I would like to get drinks tonight. Like, a hundred of them.”
“Well, okay, but you’re buying.”
“If I’m not bankrupt by sunset,” Ted said. “Listen, I gotta get back to work.”
“Okay. Try not to let your head explode before drinks.”
“I make no promises. Later.”
“See ya!”
The day didn’t improve. Ted came out of his meeting with the Board with no very strong conviction that he had reassured them; they were probably looking for a way to replace him already. Usually the knowledge that his name was on the company and that no one else could make the kind of scientific breakthroughs he made reassured him, but not after that disastrous morning in the lab. Anyone could stand there looking confused while inventions blew up in their face, and it wasn’t like he’d never lost control of a company with his name on it before.
The rest of the afternoon was a slew of meetings, all of which were simultaneously crucially important and mind-numbingly boring. Then it was back to his office for endless, pointless paperwork. It didn’t help that half of his staff was gone, already started on their Christmas breaks. Ted certainly didn’t begrudge them a holiday with their families, but it was frustrating constantly coming up against questions only Russ or Tina or Joe could answer, only to have Connie remind him that Russ or Tina or Joe was already gone - especially since it only served to remind Ted that he didn’t really have a family to spend the holiday with himself.
It was after eight by the time Ted waved goodbye to Connie as they got into their cars and headed off in different directions. Back in his apartment, Ted stared into his mostly-empty fridge for a few minutes before reheating some leftover Chinese takeout - the healthy, steamed, boring kind, to add insult to injury. He ate it, changed his shirt, checked to see if the boiler had been fixed (no), and headed out to meet Booster.
“Well, look at it this way,” Booster said once Ted had finished enumerating his woes to him. “Now that you have all the trials and tribulations of being a grownup, you don’t have to keep acting like a jerk to convince yourself you’re mature.”
Ted glared up at Booster over the top of his beer. It was the dead of winter, and Booster, as usual, looked like he’d spent the day at the beach - tanned, relaxed, smile toothpaste-commercial-bright in the darkness of the bar. “Thanks, Booster. That helps.”
“Okay, how about this? Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Booster pointed out. “You did take tomorrow off, right?”
“Well, yeeees,” Ted hedged. “But now I’m thinking I might go into the office anyway. Just a half day!” he added in response to Booster’s disapproving look. “Come on, there’s already not enough time in the day, and now I’m gonna throw a whole one away?”
“But it’s Christmas,” Booster said.
“So? I’m Jewish and you’re an atheist. And it’s not like I expect Santa to come.”
“You’re only half-Jewish,” Booster argued. “Besides, what about the Christmas party? You know how long it took Mary to talk Max into throwing one.”
“That’s not until the afternoon.” Booster’s disapproving expression didn’t change. “Fine. Fine! I won’t go into the office tomorrow. Probably.” Ted took another sip of his beer. “I don’t know why it matters so much to you anyway.”
He was surprised to see Booster look a little hurt. “You’re my best friend,” Booster said. “I don’t want you to be miserable.”
Ted frowned. “I’m not miserable.”
“Okay,” Booster said, in a tone that made it was clear he was humoring Ted. “I gotta hit the head. Be right back.” He stood up, putting a hand against the small of Ted’s back as he did - for balance, for reassurance that he would return, Ted wasn’t sure. But the place where Booster’s hand had rested still felt warm as Ted watched Booster thread his way through the crowd.
“Arrrgh,” Ted said abruptly, leaning forward to thump his head against the bar. “None of that.”
“Not enjoying the beer, hon?”
Ted looked up into a pair of bright green snake heads. Blinking, he looked up further, and found the bartender’s face somewhere above the serpentine tattoos curling around her impressive cleavage.
“It’s fine, but after today I could use something a little stronger,” Ted said. “Like, say, if you had a giant novelty mallet back there you could use to hit me over the head, that might do the trick.”
The bartender laughed, and Ted caught the gleam of a stud through her tongue. “We’re fresh out of mallets tonight, but I can fix you a Double-Beryl Shotgun, on the house. Guaranteed to make all your troubles seem very far away.”
Ted raised an eyebrow. “Double-Beryl Shotgun?”
She pointed to the nametag Ted had somehow missed in all the snakes and cleavage. “Beryl.” Two shot glasses and an unlabeled bottle appeared on the bar. “Double.”
Ted picked one of the shot glasses up. “And the shotgun? If I drink it, does your daddy show up with one?”
She grinned. “If you drink it, someone’s probably gonna get banged.”
Ted choked on the shot.
Booster returned as Ted was mopping the mysterious - and strong - drink from his chin with a cocktail napkin. Beryl winked at him and went to take orders on the other side of the bar.
“You okay there, Teddy?” Booster asked.
Ted shook his head, which was already starting to hum a bit. “Yeah. Here, have a shot.” He slid the other shot glass over to Booster, who grinned and downed it.
“Wowzer.” Booster put the empty glass back on the bar. “What the hell is that?”
“I have no idea. Let’s get another set.”
Three shared Shotguns later, Ted found himself back in his apartment, tossing his keys in the general vicinity of the bowl where he usually kept them and stumbling towards the bedroom. Vaguely he thought he should probably have a glass of water, but it was all he could do to strip down to his underwear and crawl between the covers of his unmade bed.
It seemed to take a long time for his body heat to warm up the bed, and as he waited and shivered he wondered how much warmer it would be if Beryl and her snakes were in there with him. He imagined her hands moving over him, and then somehow it was Booster’s hands he was imagining, and Booster’s eyes the way they’d looked when he and Ted had parted ways, bright above cheeks flushed from the drinks and the cold. Ted was too drunk to stop the train of thought there like he usually did, but it didn’t matter, because as imaginary Booster’s lips met his, the Shotguns caught up with him and Ted fell asleep.
* * *
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
Ted groaned and pulled the covers tighter around him, but the bitter chill of the December morning cut through them, and Beyoncé’s voice was insistent, and he did have a company to run. With a sigh, he threw the covers back and sat up. He didn’t bother to open his eyes, though, which was probably why he stubbed his toe on the bed leg on the way to the bathroom.
“Dammit! Again?” He hopped in place for a minute. “I need that toe!”
By the time he had his toothbrush in his mouth, the pain had subsided, and he noted with pleasure that he had no hangover to speak of. Well done, Beryl, he thought, and walked back into the bedroom.
“…oh oh oh,” Beyoncé concluded, and Ted snorted. Sure, the song was catchy, but playing it two days in a row at the same time was probably overkill. The familiar chimes of the weather report followed it.
“December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through.”
Ted frowned. No, it was December 25th. They must have stuck yesterday’s tape in by accident over at the station - probably one too many glasses of eggnog making the rounds. He glanced out the window for the snow the weatherman had promised yesterday, but the ground was still bare. That was fine with him. He was too old to be charmed by snow, and he didn’t need another traffic jam like yesterday’s.
Less fine with him was the fact that there was still no hot water. He called Jimmy again.
“Jimmy, this is getting ridiculous. Don’t you have that boiler fixed yet?”
“You gotta give me time, Mr. Kord!” Jimmy protested. “I’ve only been working on it half an hour!”
“What? What were you doing all of yesterday?” Ted asked.
“The boiler was working fine yesterday,” Jimmy replied.
Ted frowned. “I have a distinct memory of taking a very cold shower yesterday, Jimmy.”
“Hey, my father-in-law swears by cold showers. Says they loosen up the lungs.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all about your father-in-law,” Ted grumbled. “Listen, just fix it quickly, okay?”
Cold showers weren’t any more charming two mornings in a row. Five minutes later, damp-haired and shivering, Ted reached into his closet, pulling out his favorite shirt before remembering he’d popped the button yesterday.
He started to put it back, then froze. None of the buttons were missing - the shirt looked as perfect as it ever did when it came back from the laundry service. But Ted was sure it had been this shirt. Maybe another blue one? But no, a quick check showed no shirts with missing buttons.
Ted felt the hair rising on the back of his neck. Something was definitely weird today. Then he shook his head, exasperated with himself. He was probably just feeling out of sorts because it was Christmas morning and he was going into work. Only for a half day - he’d promised Booster he’d be at Max’s Christmas party that afternoon, and he would. But there was too much going on at the office to take the whole day off.
He finished dressing, grabbed his briefcase, and headed out. “Did you get that scratch buffed out yet, George?” he asked as the doorman hopped out of his car.
George looked baffled. “What scratch, Mr. Kord?”
Ted furrowed his brow. “George, we had a whole conversation about this yesterday.”
George shook his head. “Not me. I’m off Wednesdays.”
“Yesterday was Thursday.”
“No, sir, today’s Thursday. Christmas Eve Day.”
Ted stared at him. “Are you sure?”
George smiled indulgently. “I think I’d remember if today was Christmas, Mr. Kord.”
“Uh, yes, of course you would.”
“Have a good day, Mr. Kord.”
“You…you too.”
Ted drove off, completely out of sorts. Was he dreaming? Had he dreamed yesterday? He’d had dreams before where he got up and went to work; maybe this was just a more extreme version of that. At any rate, he wasn’t entirely surprised when he turned the corner and found himself in yesterday’s massive traffic jam. Unless it was today’s traffic jam, or yesterday hadn’t happened, or…
Gah. Music. Music would distract him. He turned the radio on.
“…-gle ladies, all the single ladies, all the…”
He turned the radio off.
“Apricot Danish!” the barista in the café on the ground floor of his office building said when he walked in - just like she’d said yesterday. “Let me just check…”
“You’re out,” Ted said.
“We’re…out. How did you know?”
Ted shook his head. “You know, I honestly couldn’t tell you.”
“Cherry okay?” she asked, just like she’d asked yesterday.
“Fine,” Ted said, and paid for it along with his regular coffee and newspaper. He juggled them all into his arms, nodded at the security guard, and hopped into the elevator.
On the top floor, Connie pounced on him. This time he wasn’t mid-sip, and managed not to spill anything. “Good morning, Ted.”
“Morning, Connie. Let me guess: the prototypes keep blowing up, there’s trouble in Tokyo, and the Board wants to yell at me?”
Connie stared at him. “Yes. How’d you know?”
Ted handed her his coat. “It’s been a Morning.”
“That sounded like it had a capital M.”
He sighed. “It did. I’ll head down to the lab first thing.” He paused. “Hey, Con? What day is it?”
She gave him a look. “Thursday, December 24th. What? Forget to do some Christmas shopping?”
Ted tried to force his face into a normal expression, but it was hard when he was pretty sure his head was about to explode, or melt, or something. “I wish.”
Progress in the lab wasn’t much better than it had been the day before, especially since none of the lab scientists seemed to remember yesterday. Considering that they were the top of the field - Ted had handpicked them all himself - and considering that there were also no digital or paper records of anything they had done yesterday, Ted was more inclined to trust their memories than his own. After all, most superheroes had at least one psychotic break over the course of their careers. If his was coming when he was semi-retired and involved Beyoncé, well, he’d never been typical, even for a superhero.
Early afternoon found him in his office, poking dubiously at a sandwich that was identical to one he’d already eaten. The phone rang.
“Yeah.”
“Have time to take a call, Ted?” Connie asked. “It’s Booster.”
“Third time he’s called?” Ted asked.
“Okay, you’re spooky today,” Connie said. “Can I put him through?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Beetle buddy! How’s tricks?”
Ted sighed. “Annnd you’re compromising my secret identity again.”
Booster snorted. “Oh, please, like Connie doesn’t already know. I’m sorry, but ‘Egads! He must have been attacked with a naked ray!’ is not a good explanation for Blue Beetle’s costume being in your desk drawer.”
“Stop that,” Ted said sharply.
“Stop…what?” Booster asked, sounding bewildered.
“Stop saying everything you said yesterday!”
“What?”
“You’re calling to see if I want to go out for drinks,” Ted told him.
“Uh…yeah. Good guess.”
“I’m not guessing! I…look, can we make it dinner?” Ted asked. “I really need to talk to you.”
“Sure. Everything okay?”
“I…I think so? I’m just…” Ted sank back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “I’m having a really weird day.”
“O…kay,” Booster said. “I’ll see you later, then. Try not to let your head explode before dinner.”
“I make no promises,” Ted said, then cringed. “Bye.”
“See ya!”
Booster was as good as his word. At six o’ clock he was knocking on the door of Ted’s office, where Ted was hiding after a series of meetings that were not only disastrous and boring, but identical to yesterday’s disastrous and boring meetings.
“Hey, Teddy,” Booster said, pushing his yellow sunglasses up on his head and smiling. “Head still un-exploded?”
Ted stared at Booster. Seeing Booster smiling at him was a comfort; seeing Booster wearing the same sweater he’d had on the day before wasn’t.
Still, this was Booster. Ted could tell him anything, even something that sounded crazy. “I’m not sure.”
“You need burritos,” Booster decided. “Or…fajitas. Something low cholesterol and spicy.”
“So you believe me?” Ted asked, tapping his chest to indicate general heart condition-y things. He stood up, leaving the papers he’d been going over on his desk. He could look at them tomorrow - if there was a tomorrow.
“Let’s just say I’m indulging you,” Booster replied as Ted shrugged into his coat. “If I don’t you’ll be all ‘Blah blah heart condition blah blah I’m mature.’”
“Once again, your impressions are dead-on,” Ted said, rolling his eyes.
Booster spent a couple minutes flirting shamelessly with Connie, who was luckily too smart to do more than giggle and wave him along; then they were on the street, and soon after ensconced in a booth in Ted’s favorite Mexican restaurant.
“Wow, we haven’t been here in forever,” Ted said, nodding thanks at the busboy as he put a basket of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa down on the table. “I can’t believe you remember it.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t busy these past couple of years wearing ties and ignoring my friends,” Booster said lightly, digging a chip into the salsa.
Ouch. “Booster…”
“So why was your day so weird?” Booster asked, popping the chip into his mouth.
Ted made a face. “I don’t know. It’s like the worst case of déjà vu in recorded history or something. I keep thinking I’ve already done today.”
“Like when you think it’s Friday but it’s really only Thursday?” Booster asked.
“No…well, yes, technically, but more than that. Like, I knew what you were going to say when you called.”
Booster licked salsa off his finger. “Okay, so what am I going to say now?”
“I don’t know, we didn’t have dinner together the first time I did today. We went to the bar.”
“So it’s not the same day,” Booster said.
“No, it is, it just…” Ted blew out his cheeks in frustration. “I don’t know. Maybe I just dreamed I went to work yesterday, and now I’m all…” He waved his hands to signify craziness.
“I think you’re working too hard,” Booster said. “I mean, look at you! You’re staying at the office until after five the day before Christmas. That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, we can’t all marry rich,” Ted said archly, taking a chip.
“Sure,” Booster said, pouting. “Mock a recent divorcé as he nurses his broken heart.”
“Oh, please,” Ted scoffed. “That was the most sham marriage the world has ever seen. Didn’t you tell me Gladys is already remarried? I never thought I’d meet someone with as short an attention span as yours.”
“Sorry, did you say something?” Booster asked.
“Oh, you’re hilarious.”
After dinner, they headed over to the bar they’d gone to the night before. Or hadn’t gone to. Maybe.
“You’re coming to the Christmas party tomorrow, right?” Booster asked. “You know how long it took Mary to talk Max into throwing one.”
“If I have a tomorrow,” Ted said.
“Oh, stop it.” Booster gave Ted a friendly whack in the arm. “You’re just having a weird day. You’ll feel fine tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I gotta hit the head. Be right back.” Booster stood up, and, just like the yesterday that maybe hadn’t happened, rested his hand on the small of Ted’s back for a minute. Like yesterday, his hand was warm, and left Ted acutely aware of the spot even after he walked away.
Ted stifled a groan. Great. Now both of the weirdnesses in his life - the déjà vu, and the tingly inappropriate feelings for his best friend - were converging. That was what he needed.
“Not enjoying the beer, hon?”
There were Beryl and her snakes, right on cue. “It’s fine,” Ted said. “Thanks.”
“Looks like you’re just about done there,” Beryl said. “Get you another? Or I can fix you up with a Double-Beryl Shotgun, on the house.”
Ted paused. Okay, here was a test. He pointed at her. “Beryl?”
She nodded, and plunked two shot glasses and a familiar bottle on the bar. “Double.”
Ted braced himself. “And the shotgun? If I drink it, does it…does it blow my head off?”
She grinned. “If you drink it, someone’s probably gonna get banged.”
Ted stood up so fast he sent the barstool clattering across the floor, and would have gone with it if he hadn’t grabbed the bar. Beryl stared at him as he fumbled for his wallet and threw way more than enough to cover his and Booster’s drinks and tip on the bar.
“Sorry. I gotta go,” he stammered, shoving his arm into his coat and getting the other side all tangled up in his haste. “Sorry.”
Booster reappeared and Ted grabbed his arm with one hand, Booster’s coat with the other. “We have to leave.”
“What? I haven’t even finished my drink yet!” Booster protested, but he let Ted drag him out of the bar, away from Beryl’s bewildered gaze.
“Grife, it’s freezing out here,” Booster said as they walked out the door and into a blustery wind. “Mind explaining why you just pulled my arm out of its socket? I’ve already lost that one once, you know.”
Ted twisted around in an attempt to straighten out his coat and get it on all the way. “I think the bartender was hitting on me.”
“So why’d you leave?” Booster asked, shrugging into his own coat and untangling Ted’s. “We’re going back in there. If you don’t want her, she can hit on me.”
“She was hitting on me exactly the same way she did yesterday,” Ted said. “Or…if there was a yesterday, or…look, I knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it!”
“Was it sexy?” Booster asked.
“Booster!” Ted threw his arms up in exasperation. “This is serious!” Booster gave him a look. “Okay, yes, it was sexy. But still! This is really freaking me out.”
Booster spent another minute contemplating him. Ted huddled deeper into his coat, and hoped the pink in his cheeks would be attributed to the night air.
“Okay,” Booster said finally. “Dr. Booster prescribes a good night sleep, followed by a Christmas where you actually relax.” Ted started to protest, but Booster held up a hand. “You’re obviously stressed. And if you’re still having weird ESP-y déjà vu tomorrow, hey, it’s not like we don’t know psychics and magicians and stuff. Maybe you got zapped in the lab and got a little clairvoyance, I don’t know. J’onn or someone can check you out.”
Ted took a cleansing breath, then raised an eyebrow. “Psychics and magicians and stuff, huh?”
Booster grinned. “I keep telling the League they should market themselves as that, but no one ever listens to me.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
Booster left Ted in the lobby of Ted’s building with an admonishment to get some sleep. As he rode the elevator to his floor, Ted thought idly that it was nice to have Booster around on a regular basis again. No one else blended bullying concern and a cheerful lack of patience with Ted’s neuroses in quite the same way.
Obediently, Ted undressed, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. He lay there staring at the darkened ceiling for a few minutes before getting up and going to his closet. His favorite shirt was still hanging where he’d left it, all its buttons in place.
Ted went into the kitchen, returned with the scissors, and took a breath. Then, calmly, methodically, he cut the shirt into strips.
He returned the scissors to the kitchen and left the shredded shirt on top of his dresser, where he’d be sure to see it the next morning. Then, turning out the light, he climbed back into bed and, quicker than he would have expected, fell asleep.
* * *
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
Ted sat bolt upright.
No.
It could just be a coincidence, right? The song was popular. They probably played it a lot.
Please, let the song just be that popular.
He waited, covers clutched in a death grip, until the song ended and the weather report came on.
“December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through…”
“No,” Ted said, tripping and pulling all the bedclothes with him in his haste to get out of bed. “No no no no no no…”
He came to a halt in front of the dresser, a puddle of sheets around his ankles. There was no shirt there, cut up or otherwise. With great trepidation he turned towards the closet. It took him a minute to work up the courage to turn the knob, but he reminded himself that he was a superhero, and, drawing a deep breath, yanked the closet door open.
There was his favorite shirt. No buttons missing, not cut into pieces, just…there.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Ted screamed.
The shirt didn’t move.
“Okay, you are so not my favorite anymore,” Ted told it, and slammed the door.
Crossing the room, he turned off the radio and picked up his phone, misdialing twice in his hurry. While the phone rang three, four, five times, he checked the water in the shower. Sure enough, it was cold.
“…’Lo?” Booster finally mumbled on the other end of the line.
“Booster, what day is it?” Ted asked.
He could practically hear the gears turning sleepily in Booster’s head. “…Thursday?”
“No!” Ted shouted.
“No?”
“Yesterday was Thursday,” Ted said. “And the day before. It’s time for Friday, dammit!”
There was a shuffling on the other end; Ted imagined Booster sitting up, the sheets falling down around his waist, his bare torso golden in the morning light…no! Not the time for that kind of thought! “Are you just really impatient for Christmas, Ted?”
“No! It’s not…I’m…aggggh.”
“Agggh?”
“Put on pants,” Ted ordered. “I’m coming over.”
Once in the car (which did, of course, have a scratch on it that George had never seen before), he skirted the now-familiar traffic jam and took the alternate route to Booster’s place, while leaving a message for Connie saying he’d probably be a little late. She wouldn’t like it, what with the situation at the office, but hell, it wasn’t like anything he did made much different, if every day was the same.
Booster’s apartment was pretty nice, considering he was no longer married to a multi-millionaire; Gladys, who seemed fond of him the way rich old women like her were usually fond of their lapdogs, had given him a generous settlement. The sunglasses and toothpaste ads Booster did over in Japan helped, too. Booster met Ted at the door wearing old frayed jeans and not much else.
“You’re not dressed?”
“You told me to put on pants. I did. You want more than that, don’t call at 7 a.m.” Booster paused and looked Ted over. Ted could imagine what he saw: shirt buttoned crookedly, hair uncombed, and, Ted was pretty sure, a frazzled gleam in his eyes. “Hey. What’s the matter?”
Ted walked past him, sat down on the couch, stood up again, and paced. “Okay. Okay.” He stopped in front of Booster, then started pacing again. “Okay.”
“You said that already.”
“Ok…all right.” Ted stopped, breathed. “You remember that movie Groundhog Day?”
“The one where Bill Murray keeps reliving the same day over and over?”
“Yes.” Ted made himself meet Booster’s eyes. “I think that’s happening to me.”
“Oh.” Booster frowned. “Wait, what?”
The energy suddenly drained out of him, Ted sank back down onto the couch and told Booster about the strangeness of the past two and a half days. When he finished, he was relieved to see that Booster wasn’t looking at him like he about to lunge for the phone to dial the Help, My Best Friend Has Lost His Mind hotline.
“So this has happened twice before?” Booster asked.
“No, the first two times I went to work,” Ted said. “I can change stuff, it’s only the stuff I don’t change that repeats. Like, I can tell you exactly what they’re doing at my office right now, and if we go to the bar tonight I can tell you what the bartender will say.” He rubbed his eyes wearily. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Booster raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Ted? Remember that time I died but kept walking around, and then you brought me back to life? Or the time I sent us all to Hell? Or our friend, the alien dog? This is hardly the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to either of us.”
Ted made a face. “G’nort is not my friend.” He nudged Booster’s knee with his own. “Thanks.”
Booster nudged him back. “Hey. It’s what I’m here for.” He turned one side of his mouth up in a rueful smile, revealing a dimple. Ted looked away. “So what do we do?”
“What do you mean, what do we do?”
“How do we un-Groundhog you? You know, for a scientist, you’re not very methodical.”
Ted paused. “Huh. I guess I hadn’t thought of that. I was too busy freaking out.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“Hush, you.” Ted tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder if it’s a time travel thing? You didn’t leave your time machine running, did you?” he asked accusatorily.
Booster slapped his forehead. “Whoops! I’m always doing that and destroying the cosmos. No, Ted, I didn’t leave the time sphere ‘running,’ and even if I did, I doubt it would react by making you repeat a day years after I last touched it.”
“Okay, okay, I was just asking.” Ted went back to tapping his chin. “How about that guy you used to hang out with, the time travel guy?”
“Who, Rip?” Booster asked. Ted nodded. “I haven’t seen him in years. I mean, weird time stuff happens all the time around him, so I guess he could be doing this, but I wouldn’t even know how to contact him to ask him. Besides, why would it be affecting you?”
Ted spread his hands. “I don’t know! I’m trying to think of timey-wimey people here.”
Booster snorted. “I’m not sure I like the idea of being a ‘timey-wimey person.’ Okay, uh, how about Chronos? Didn’t you fight him back in the day?”
Ted clenched his fist. “Chronos! That jerk! I knew he’d be after revenge!”
“Revenge?”
“I interrupted him eating a sandwich once. He seemed really miffed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well…” Ted shrugged. “That and I made my secretary stop giving him stolen Kord tech. But he really seemed more upset about the sandwich.”
Booster stood up and held out a hand. “Well, let’s get him, then! The JLA computer ought to tell us where he is.”
Ted let Booster haul him to his feet. “We’re not allowed to use the JLA computer.”
“Psh, extenuating circumstances.” Booster glanced down at his hand, still clasping Ted’s, and let go hastily. “Let me suit up, and we can go.”
Despite threatening to do so on a regular basis, the League had never actually removed Ted and Booster’s genetic signatures from the approved list for the transporter tubes, so beaming up to the Watchtower wasn’t a problem. They did have to argue a bit with J’onn, though.
“Look, you can read my mind,” Ted said when J’onn used his power of Martian skeptical looks on Ted’s story. “I’m not making this up!”
“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Booster said.
J’onn had a way of making everything he said sound like a long-suffering sigh, without actually sighing. “Yes, Booster?”
“You should read his mind!” Booster said. “And then you can see if anyone’s, like, messing with it and giving him the crazy!”
Ted shot Booster a betrayed look. “You said you didn’t think I was crazy!”
“Not on your own,” Booster assured him. “But how do we know Doctor Destiny or someone hasn’t mind-whammied you?”
Ted made a face. He had a point. “Fine,” he said, turning back to J’onn. “Check for mind whammies. Oh, and actually, while you’re in there, can you see what I did with my spare set of keys?”
J’onn raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry. Please check for mind whammies,” Ted said. Then, in a whisper, “And my keys.”
J’onn reached out both hands in a gesture that was also like a long-suffering sigh without actually being one, and placed his fingers on Ted’s temples. Ted felt the familiar sensation of one of J’onn’s mind-probes: cool, calming, a little somnambulistic. He remembered having a fever as a child and his mother wiping his forehead with a cool, damp compress.
J’onn released him and Ted stumbled, still a bit woozy. Booster caught him.
“I can sense no interference in your mind,” J’onn said. “Nor any mental illness aside from your typical state.” That was J’onn’s idea of a joke.
“And am I lying?” Ted asked.
“Regretfully, no,” J’onn admitted. “Which means that there is something rather out of the ordinary going on here.”
“That’s why we wanted to see where Chronos was these days,” Booster said, still a warm, solid presence at Ted’s back. “We thought maybe he was doing some kind of time-shenanigans.”
“Time-nanigans,” Ted clarified.
J’onn considered them for a moment, then indicated the computer. “Go ahead,” he said. “Please don’t set our homepage to that Rick Astley video again. And…let me know if I can assist in any way.”
Ted bit back a smile. J’onn was still JLI, deep down. “Will do, J’onny Boy.”
“Oh, and you gave your other spare keys to Booster.”
Booster lit up. “Oh, yeah, you totally did! I forgot.”
Ted sighed.
The JLA computer showed that David Clinton, alias Chronos, was currently incarcerated at Stryker’s Island Prison in Metropolis. Ted frowned at the screen.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve definitely heard of supervillains committing crimes from behind bars before, but it’s usually, like, Lex Luthor or the Ultra-Humanite or someone. Chronos doesn’t strike me as quite bright enough for that.”
“Well, what about the other time guys?” Booster asked, leaning over the back of the computer chair. “You know, like Clock King and Calendar Man and them.”
“Clock King pretty much just memorizes bus schedules,” Ted pointed out, though he went ahead and ran a search on Clock King. “I don’t think he can stick me in a time loop.”
“Oh, and Chronos is an awe-inspiring beacon of temporal power?” Booster asked.
“Hey, he’s got that freeze gun,” Ted pointed out. “It could have…stuck, or something.” Clock King’s profile popped up on the screen. “Okay, here we go. William Tockman, alias Clock King, is currently…huh. In the Suicide Squad, on reserve.”
“So he’s at Belle Reve?” Booster asked.
“Yeah, and good luck getting the Wall to let us in to talk to him,” Ted said. He paused. “Although she did put me in a coma that one time, so maybe she feels like she owes me.”
Booster snorted. “Oh, I’m sorry. You were serious.”
“Well, it can’t hurt to try.” Ted’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Let’s check out a few other people while we’re up here, and then…”
“Away down south in Dixie?” Booster asked.
“You got it.”
It would have been quicker to beam down to Louisiana directly, but Ted didn’t want to be stuck down south without the Bug and at the mercy of the transporters, which still made Booster a bit queasy. They returned to Gotham and then flew the Bug to Belle Reve, while Ted called a very distressed Connie and explained that he’d be taking the rest of the day off. She sounded a bit like she wanted to strangle him, but the way Ted figured it, if it was still December 24th tomorrow, she wouldn’t remember him ducking out of work, and if it wasn’t, it would be Christmas, and she’d be too busy enjoying the holiday to care. He hoped.
As Ted had expected, Amanda Waller was not enthused about letting them into Belle Reve to talk to one of her Squad members, especially when Ted explained why they were there.
“You’re repeating today over and over again, and you think Clock King might be causing it?” she asked, arms crossed.
“Or he might know what is,” Ted hedged. “I mean, isn’t he an expert on time?”
“Timing,” Waller clarified. “It’s different. And he’s got better things to do than talk to some deranged Bill Murray fanboy. So do I, as a matter of fact.”
“I am not a deranged Bill Murray fanboy!” Ted protested.
“I don’t know,” Booster said. “You have seen all of his movies. Even Garfield.”
“You’re not helping, Booster,” Ted hissed. He turned back to Waller. “Look. This is far from the weirdest thing that’s ever happened in our line of business. I doubt it’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you this week. And the Martian Manhunter checked me out to make sure I’m not lying or crazy. You can call him and check.” He held out his communicator. “I just want to talk to Clock King.”
Waller looked at him for a minute, her gaze unreadable. “Fine,” she said finally. “You get five minutes. And I’ll be expecting a favor in return.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Maybe some electronics that aren’t on the market yet.”
Huh. So Amanda Waller knew his secret identity. That wasn’t actually much of a surprise. “I’ll see what I can do.”
When the guards brought Tockman in, Ted was hit with a sudden wave of guilt. They’d fought once or twice, but Clock King had been a member of Justice League Antarctica back in the day. He’d been Ted’s ally more often than he’d been Ted’s enemy - hell, the Antarctica branch had guarded Max when he’d been shot! And now Ted was accusing him of…well, he wasn’t even sure.
Tockman gave Ted and Booster puzzled frowns. “Beetle. Booster. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Ted paused, and looked over at Booster, who apparently saw the confusion in Ted’s eyes, because he took the lead. “What do you know about time loops, Clock King?”
“What do you mean, time loops?” Tockman asked. “Time is linear.”
“Well, actually, it - ” Booster began. Everyone stared at him. “Never mind.”
“He means making the same period of time happen over and over again,” Ted said. “Making one person constantly relive a moment, or an hour, or a day. Could you do that?”
“Could I do that?” Tockman said. “I wish. It would make my life a lot easier. Could someone with the right power or technology do that? I don’t see why not. He can fly, after all.” He pointed at Booster.
“Do you know who might have that kind of power?” Ted asked.
Tockman shrugged. “Sounds more like Chronos’s kind of thing. He used to be able to freeze someone temporarily. Maybe he’s advanced.” He leaned forward. “Are these questions hypothetical, or are we going to be having this conversation again in 60 minutes?”
“Never mind about that,” Ted said. “So you don’t know anything about actually fiddling with time?”
Tockman spread his hands. “Time runs my life, not the other way around. Speaking of which, unless I’m very much mistaken, we are out of it. Or will be, in 23 seconds.”
Booster touched his visor and got the slightly cross-eyed expression he wore when he read information off of it. “He’s right. Uh, to a creepily accurate degree. Let’s go before the Wall throws us out.”
Ted stood. “Well, thanks for the information,” he said. “We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions.”
Clock King smiled sardonically. “Drop by any time.”
Ted winced. “And just when I thought we’d make it out without any time puns.”
“Not a chance. And, uh…say hi to Max.”
There was the guilt again. “Yeah. Will do.”
Outside of the prison, Ted reached under his goggles to rub his eyes tiredly. “Well, that was a big fat nothing.”
“At least we know it wasn’t him?” Booster suggested. “So we’ll go see Chronos next, or someone else on the list.”
“You know, you don’t have to do all this with me,” Ted said. “I mean, I appreciate it, but you already came to Louisiana and the freaking moon with me. I’m pretty sure you weren’t planning on spending the day touring prisons.”
Booster shrugged. “Eh, my schedule was pretty free. And you need me. This pretty face?” He pointed to his chin. “It unlocks doors like you wouldn’t believe.”
Ted snorted. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure the Wall let us in because she’s got your Tiger Beat spread up in her office.”
Booster preened. “She’s got Gold Fever, baby.” At Ted’s disbelieving laugh he grinned. “Anyway, yeah, I was pretty much free. I mean, it’s a family time of year, and my family won’t even be born for five centuries. You’re - ” He cut himself off. “Let’s go back to the Bug.”
“I’m…?” Ted prompted, trotting after him. “I’m what?”
Booster looked embarrassed, which was incongruous; the man usually had no shame to speak of. “You’re the closest I’ve got.”
Had Ted felt guilty talking to Clock King? He hadn’t known what guilt was. He couldn’t even look at Booster - Booster, who he’d barely seen for years and then verbally abused for months. Booster, who’d just called him family.
He walked next to Booster for half a block, focusing very carefully on the cracks in the sidewalk under their feet. “You’re the closest I’ve got too,” he admitted.
When he managed to look up, Booster was smiling at him. Ted felt a burst of warmth uncurling in his stomach - and something else, too, something almost like nervousness but not quite.
“Well,” Booster said. “Good to know.”
* * *
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
“GAH,” Ted said, and yanked the pillow over his head.
He hadn’t really expected anything different. They’d eaten lunch in Louisiana, since Ted wasn’t one to pass up authentic Creole cooking when the opportunity presented itself; then they’d flown the Bug up to Metropolis to talk to Chronos. The Stryker’s Island warden had been much more willing to let two superheroes talk to Chronos than Amanda Waller had been, but there wasn’t much to learn.
According to the warden, Chronos was a model prisoner. Every so often one of the guards heard him complaining about the Atom, but in a prison full of metas and supervillains it was rare that someone wasn’t complaining about a superhero. Chronos had never mentioned Ted. (Actually, none of the prisoners had ever mentioned Ted, which was a little insulting.)
For his own part, Chronos had seemed more interested in talking about his niece, who had once been Ted’s receptionist, than anything crime-related. Apparently she was married now and had just had a daughter - Chronos had approximately three hundred identical pictures of the kid to show off. He seemed to bear Ted no ill will for their earlier altercations; the routine of prison was very soothing to him, he explained.
Well, that was great, but it sure didn’t help Ted any.
By the time they got back to Gotham it was too late for Ted to go into the office. They’d grabbed a quick dinner; then, after a now-familiar admonishment to attend Max’s Christmas party in the event of the next day actually being Christmas, Booster headed for home. Feeling strangely melancholy, Ted had done likewise, and zoned out in front of the TV until he’d fallen asleep.
Not that he’d woken up in front of the TV, of course.
The song ended and the weather came on, confirming what Ted already knew. “December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through. High of 34, low 28, with snow moving in overnight…”
Ted mentally reviewed his plan. He hadn’t been able to write down any of the information he’d gotten off of the JLA computer - well, he could have written it down, but it wouldn’t have done much good when the day reset itself - but he had, if he did say so himself, an exceptional memory, and he knew all the people they’d looked up, and where each of them was. Just because Clock King and Chronos hadn’t been responsible for his situation didn’t mean one of the other time guys wasn’t.
He climbed out of bed, headed for the bathroom, and stubbed his toe again. Well, he usually had an exceptional memory.
As he shivered through his ice-cold shower, he tried to warm himself up by planning his day out loud. “Okay, first I’ll go get Booster, and then we’ll...wait.” Booster wouldn’t remember anything that had happened the day before. Ted would have to explain it to him all over again, tell him what had happened with J’onn, and with Clock King, and Chronos. Was it worth it?
On the one hand, it would be nice to have some company while he was flying all over the country looking for villains, and it would definitely be nice to have a time traveler equipped with very powerful blasters, since not all of those villains were in prison.
On the other hand, he’d feel bad dragging Booster around on this stupid quest day after day, even if it was only one day to Booster.
On the other other hand, reaching out to Booster in times of superheroish wackiness was instinct. He hadn’t thought about calling Booster yesterday-that-was-still-today. He’d just done it.
And that was reason enough not to call him now. He’d just about broken the Booster habit before Max had re-formed the team. Six months back with Booster, and he was falling into the same old codependent patterns.
It was possible to be best friends with Booster in a normal, non-obsessive-and-clingy, non-secret-erotic-longings, able-to-have-other-relationships-that-could-actually-go-somewhere kind of way. Ted was sure of it. Calling Booster every time he felt a little discombobulated was not the way to go about finding that balance.
“There. Problem solved,” Ted told himself, and stepped out of the shower.
Well, maybe the Booster problem was solved, but the Groundhog Day problem certainly wasn’t. Ted’s first stop (after calling Connie and telling her he was taking the day off, which got him - well, exactly the same reaction it had gotten him yesterday) was Haven, the mad scientist commune, to see T. O. Morrow. Ted chatted fairly frequently with Will Magnus, since it was such a pleasure to talk to someone who could actually understand everything he had to say about engineering and robotics, and Will had a lot of praise for Morrow, but he’d also spoken at length about Morrow’s outstanding genius. If anyone could build a machine to trap someone in a time loop, Morrow could.
But - “I’m not even allowed to use computers,” Morrow said, spreading his hands. “I can’t send an email, let alone fiddle with time.”
Ted couldn’t help wincing sympathetically, and Morrow chuckled. It wasn’t a nice sound.
“Blue Beetle, huh?” Morrow asked. “You know the Bug is legendary in here? Very impressive piece of work.”
“Uh…thanks,” Ted said. He didn’t like the look in Morrow’s eyes, but he did enjoy getting complimented on the Bug.
“You’ve worked with some future tech, haven’t you?” Morrow asked. “Alien tech, too. Not that anyone understands what you did.” He smiled. “You’ll be in here soon enough. Everyone with your kind of mind winds up here eventually.”
Ted left as quickly as possible.
John Starr, alias Time Commander, was out of jail and working - Booster had groaned when he saw this - as a delivery man for a small business that made handcrafted sundials. Starr had always seemed relatively harmless, if misguided, and so Ted was not expecting to be punched the face when Starr opened the door.
He reacted instinctively, ducking under Starr’s next blow and driving his elbow up into Starr’s solar plexus. As Starr gasped for breath, Ted seized his upper arm, wedged his leg behind Starr’s, and pulled. Starr hit the ground, Ted twisted his arms behind him, and boom, Starr was subdued, less than 10 seconds after the initial punch. Not bad.
It wasn’t until he’d spat out a mouthful of blood that Ted realized Starr was shouting, “I didn’t do anything! Leave me alone! I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Ted tightened his grip. “Yeah? Then why’d you punch me?”
“Every time I see one of you superheroes you’re always putting me in jail,” Starr said. “I don’t want to go back to jail!”
“You go to jail because you commit crimes!” Ted told him. He poked his tongue around in his mouth, trying to find the source of the bleeding. It looked like he’d just cut the inside of his lip on his teeth, which would heal quickly enough.
“I was trying to make the world a better place!” Starr insisted. “You people have no vision.”
“Where’s the hourglass, Starr?” Ted asked. Most of the League’s notes on Starr had been from Buddy Baker, who’d fought him back in the JLE. Apparently Starr had an hourglass that could reverse an individual’s timeline - make them younger, or bring them back to life. Or, Ted figured, set them back a day, repeatedly.
Starr jerked his head towards the kitchenette. “On the table. It’s broken, though. Been broken for years.”
Ted looked over at the table. Sure enough, there was the hourglass. It was the kind with pillars on either side of it, and a bunch of envelopes were tucked between the glass and one of the pillars.
Well. If he was using it to hold his unread mail, he probably hadn’t been using it to break laws or screw with Ted’s personal timeline. Ted eased back a little.
“I’m going to let you up, Starr,” he said. “I just came to talk. But I’ll take you down again if you swing at me.”
“I won’t,” Starr promised. Ted released him and stood up. He kept his body language deliberately casual, but he was ready to move if Starr went for him.
But Starr just stood gingerly and rotated his neck and shoulders a bit. “You’re lucky you didn’t dislocate my shoulder,” he said. Ted just rolled his eyes. He hadn’t even come close. “Okay. What do you want?”
“The hourglass is broken, huh?” Ted asked. “Can I see it?”
Starr shrugged. “Be my guest.”
Ted walked into the kitchenette, keeping an eye on Starr as he did, and pulled the mail out of its resting place. He picked up the hourglass, and with some trepidation, turned it over. Nothing happened.
“It’s been broken for years, you said?”
“Yeah, ever since that idiot Metamorpho slugged me…” Ted frowned and Starr shrugged. “Hey, I don’t have to like him. Anyway, I put it back together, but it doesn’t do anything anymore.”
“You’re sure it doesn’t do anything?” Ted asked, flipping it over again. “It reversed specific timelines, right? Made people younger and stuff?”
“Yes,” Starr said, standing up a little straighter. Ted recognized that pride; he stood that way when explaining his own inventions. Then he remembered Morrow, and pushed the thought away. “It takes people back to before bad things happen. Before aging causes the body to break down and eventually die, because there’s no reason to die if we can just…reverse it.”
Ted stared at him. “You know you’re insane, right?”
“Wouldn’t you like to be ten years younger?” Starr asked him. “To not have to worry about your back, or your knees, or cholesterol, or whatever it is you have to worry about?”
The cholesterol was a lucky guess, but for a split second Ted let himself imagine it - going back to before he’d had any heart attacks, before he had a cardiologist on speed dial, when cheating on his diet just meant a few extra sit-ups the next day. Then he pushed past it. “And how long would it take to completely overpopulate the world that way? People are supposed to die, Starr. Time is supposed to go on.” He examined the hourglass. “This couldn’t have gotten stuck, could it?” he asked. “Reversing one timeline over and over again, making somebody relive the same moment?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Starr said. “It reverses aging, not time in general. If it got stuck it would just keep de-aging the same person or thing.”
Well, there went that lead. “And you’re sure it’s not just sitting here, leaking tachyon particles or something?” Ted asked.
“If it was, I’d be an embryo twenty times over by now,” Starr said.
Ted put the hourglass back on the table. “Do you know of anything that could stick someone in a temporal loop like I was talking about?”
Starr shook his head. “It’d have to be a hell of a lot more powerful than my hourglass to keep resetting the entire world. You’re talking time manipulation on a cosmic level.”
Ted gulped. The last cosmic-level foe he’d faced had been the Overmaster. Tora had died.
Booster had died.
Ted clenched his fists, his hands suddenly clammy inside their gloves. Not this time. If some big cosmic whatsit was after him, fine - but he would die before he let anything touch Booster.
He kind of hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though.
* * *
Part 2
Author: poisonivory
Recipient: axolotl_lan
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None. Well, besides sheer length.
Summary: Ted may be a Bill Murray fan, but that doesn’t mean he wants to have his own Groundhog Day. When every day is Christmas Eve Day, what’s a beleaguered (and Jewish) superhero to do?
Notes: Um. I kind of got carried away with this? I apologize for the fact that the prompt is only nominally involved, but hopefully the fact that it’s over 28,000 words will make up for that. It’s set in Super Buddies-verse, where all the various Crises from 2004 on never occurred, with slight fudgings here and there to fix continuity errors (Guy should have his green ring back, GiffDeMatts), but there are an awful lot of cameos, so if you find a villain or someone where he or she shouldn’t be, uh…it’s an AU, okay? Finally, enormous amounts of thanks to queenitsy and mizzmarvel for betaing.
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
Ted groaned and pulled the covers tighter around him, but the bitter chill of the December morning cut through them, and Beyoncé’s voice was insistent, and he did have a company to run. With a sigh, he threw the covers back and sat up. He didn’t bother to open his eyes, though, which was probably why he stubbed his toe on the bed leg on the way to the bathroom.
“Yowtch! Mother of pearl,” he hissed, opening his eyes and hopping the rest of the way into the bathroom. “Stupid bed. You’re not even real pine! Your mother was balsa!”
He cut off his own invective with a toothbrush and wandered more carefully back into the bedroom, listening as the song wound down and the weather report came on.
“December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through,” the station’s weather jockey chirruped. “High of 34, low 28, with snow moving in overnight - we may just have ourselves a white Christmas, if we’re lucky. Now over to Steve with the traffic…”
Ted returned to the bathroom to spit and turn the shower on. The water was ice cold, and refused to heat up even when Ted let it run for five minutes. A quick call to the super did nothing to improve his day.
“Boiler’s broken,” Jimmy explained, sounding tired. “Should take a couple of hours to get fixed.”
“But I need to shower now,” Ted said, testing the water with a finger and frowning.
He could sense Jimmy shrugging on the other end of the line. “Hey, my father-in-law swears by cold showers. Says they loosen up the lungs.”
“And do you take cold showers?” Ted asked.
Jimmy snorted. “Good one, Mr. Kord. I’ll let you know when the boiler’s back up.”
“Wait, no - !” Ted protested, but the line was already dead.
Ted’s lungs didn’t feel any looser after the world’s fastest, coldest shower, but it certainly woke him up. Still, after the call to Jimmy he was running late. He dressed, popped a button on his favorite shirt by moving too fast, put on a new shirt, grabbed his briefcase, and flew out the door.
By the time he got to work - late - he figured the stubbed toe should have tipped him off to the kind of day he’d be having. The café downstairs was out of his favorite kind of Danish, the doorman had pulled his car out with a mysterious scratch on it, and the traffic was insane. He burst into the office, coffee and newspaper in one hand, Danish, coat, and briefcase in the other, only to be pounced on by his assistant, causing him to dribble coffee onto his tie.
“Thanks for that, Connie.”
Connie, who was a very good assistant, was already dabbing at the spilled coffee with a napkin. “Sorry, Ted, but it’s been a Morning.”
He handed her his coat and briefcase as they headed for his office. “That sounded like it had a capital M on it.”
“It did,” Connie replied. “The lab has called up 23 times since 7:30, asking for you - they say the prototypes keep exploding. The Tokyo office seems to be having a meltdown, although I wasn’t clear whether that was literal or figurative. Plus the Board is up in arms because our stock is down and I had to squeeze a meeting for them into your afternoon schedule.” Ted shot her a betrayed look. “Sorry! They were very insistent.”
“It’s fine.” Ted shucked off his jacket and reached for his lab coat. “They’ve probably gone home in the Tokyo office, but see if you can get Kimiyo on the line, find out what’s happening there, and keep me posted. I’ll be downstairs.” He paused. “Those prototypes are a million dollars each?”
“A million point two,” Connie corrected him.
“Great.” Ted took the clipboard she handed him with the relevant specs. “Capital M indeed.”
The Morning continued until well into the afternoon. Ted couldn’t figure out why the prototypes for his latest invention (a sort of Skeets-lite for people with chronic health conditions, a flying AI capable of monitoring vital statistics, calling emergency hotlines, and administering basic first aid) kept blowing up, but the sting of the burns on his hands and the side of his face was there to remind him that painful explosions were not part of administering first aid. It wasn’t until 2:30 that he managed to catch ten minutes in his office to breathe, look at the business section in the paper, and shovel down a sandwich Connie had ordered for him.
His phone rang while his mouth was still full of grilled chicken and avocado. “Hewwo?”
“Have time to take a call, Ted?” Connie asked. “It’s Booster.”
“I’m a little busy, Con,” Ted pointed out.
“He’s called three times.” Connie managed to sound both apologetic and accusatory - she, like all of the women in Ted’s office, had a soft spot for Booster.
Ted rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, put him through.”
“Beetle buddy! How’s tricks?”
Ted practically spat out his sandwich. “Booster! Ix-nay on the Eetle-bay, if you don’t mind?”
Booster snorted. “Oh, please, like Connie doesn’t already know. I’m sorry, but ‘Egads! He must have been attacked with a naked ray!’ is not a good explanation for Blue Beetle’s costume being in your desk drawer.”
“Hey, I was thinking on the fly,” Ted grumbled. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“Well, I was going to see if you wanted to have a couple of drinks tonight, since it is Christmas Eve, and you are my best friend, and my family won’t even be born for five hundred years, but if that’s inconveniencing you, fine, I’ll see what G’nort’s up to.”
“Sorry.” Ted rubbed his temples. “Sorry, it’s been a long day. Yes, I would like to get drinks tonight. Like, a hundred of them.”
“Well, okay, but you’re buying.”
“If I’m not bankrupt by sunset,” Ted said. “Listen, I gotta get back to work.”
“Okay. Try not to let your head explode before drinks.”
“I make no promises. Later.”
“See ya!”
The day didn’t improve. Ted came out of his meeting with the Board with no very strong conviction that he had reassured them; they were probably looking for a way to replace him already. Usually the knowledge that his name was on the company and that no one else could make the kind of scientific breakthroughs he made reassured him, but not after that disastrous morning in the lab. Anyone could stand there looking confused while inventions blew up in their face, and it wasn’t like he’d never lost control of a company with his name on it before.
The rest of the afternoon was a slew of meetings, all of which were simultaneously crucially important and mind-numbingly boring. Then it was back to his office for endless, pointless paperwork. It didn’t help that half of his staff was gone, already started on their Christmas breaks. Ted certainly didn’t begrudge them a holiday with their families, but it was frustrating constantly coming up against questions only Russ or Tina or Joe could answer, only to have Connie remind him that Russ or Tina or Joe was already gone - especially since it only served to remind Ted that he didn’t really have a family to spend the holiday with himself.
It was after eight by the time Ted waved goodbye to Connie as they got into their cars and headed off in different directions. Back in his apartment, Ted stared into his mostly-empty fridge for a few minutes before reheating some leftover Chinese takeout - the healthy, steamed, boring kind, to add insult to injury. He ate it, changed his shirt, checked to see if the boiler had been fixed (no), and headed out to meet Booster.
“Well, look at it this way,” Booster said once Ted had finished enumerating his woes to him. “Now that you have all the trials and tribulations of being a grownup, you don’t have to keep acting like a jerk to convince yourself you’re mature.”
Ted glared up at Booster over the top of his beer. It was the dead of winter, and Booster, as usual, looked like he’d spent the day at the beach - tanned, relaxed, smile toothpaste-commercial-bright in the darkness of the bar. “Thanks, Booster. That helps.”
“Okay, how about this? Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Booster pointed out. “You did take tomorrow off, right?”
“Well, yeeees,” Ted hedged. “But now I’m thinking I might go into the office anyway. Just a half day!” he added in response to Booster’s disapproving look. “Come on, there’s already not enough time in the day, and now I’m gonna throw a whole one away?”
“But it’s Christmas,” Booster said.
“So? I’m Jewish and you’re an atheist. And it’s not like I expect Santa to come.”
“You’re only half-Jewish,” Booster argued. “Besides, what about the Christmas party? You know how long it took Mary to talk Max into throwing one.”
“That’s not until the afternoon.” Booster’s disapproving expression didn’t change. “Fine. Fine! I won’t go into the office tomorrow. Probably.” Ted took another sip of his beer. “I don’t know why it matters so much to you anyway.”
He was surprised to see Booster look a little hurt. “You’re my best friend,” Booster said. “I don’t want you to be miserable.”
Ted frowned. “I’m not miserable.”
“Okay,” Booster said, in a tone that made it was clear he was humoring Ted. “I gotta hit the head. Be right back.” He stood up, putting a hand against the small of Ted’s back as he did - for balance, for reassurance that he would return, Ted wasn’t sure. But the place where Booster’s hand had rested still felt warm as Ted watched Booster thread his way through the crowd.
“Arrrgh,” Ted said abruptly, leaning forward to thump his head against the bar. “None of that.”
“Not enjoying the beer, hon?”
Ted looked up into a pair of bright green snake heads. Blinking, he looked up further, and found the bartender’s face somewhere above the serpentine tattoos curling around her impressive cleavage.
“It’s fine, but after today I could use something a little stronger,” Ted said. “Like, say, if you had a giant novelty mallet back there you could use to hit me over the head, that might do the trick.”
The bartender laughed, and Ted caught the gleam of a stud through her tongue. “We’re fresh out of mallets tonight, but I can fix you a Double-Beryl Shotgun, on the house. Guaranteed to make all your troubles seem very far away.”
Ted raised an eyebrow. “Double-Beryl Shotgun?”
She pointed to the nametag Ted had somehow missed in all the snakes and cleavage. “Beryl.” Two shot glasses and an unlabeled bottle appeared on the bar. “Double.”
Ted picked one of the shot glasses up. “And the shotgun? If I drink it, does your daddy show up with one?”
She grinned. “If you drink it, someone’s probably gonna get banged.”
Ted choked on the shot.
Booster returned as Ted was mopping the mysterious - and strong - drink from his chin with a cocktail napkin. Beryl winked at him and went to take orders on the other side of the bar.
“You okay there, Teddy?” Booster asked.
Ted shook his head, which was already starting to hum a bit. “Yeah. Here, have a shot.” He slid the other shot glass over to Booster, who grinned and downed it.
“Wowzer.” Booster put the empty glass back on the bar. “What the hell is that?”
“I have no idea. Let’s get another set.”
Three shared Shotguns later, Ted found himself back in his apartment, tossing his keys in the general vicinity of the bowl where he usually kept them and stumbling towards the bedroom. Vaguely he thought he should probably have a glass of water, but it was all he could do to strip down to his underwear and crawl between the covers of his unmade bed.
It seemed to take a long time for his body heat to warm up the bed, and as he waited and shivered he wondered how much warmer it would be if Beryl and her snakes were in there with him. He imagined her hands moving over him, and then somehow it was Booster’s hands he was imagining, and Booster’s eyes the way they’d looked when he and Ted had parted ways, bright above cheeks flushed from the drinks and the cold. Ted was too drunk to stop the train of thought there like he usually did, but it didn’t matter, because as imaginary Booster’s lips met his, the Shotguns caught up with him and Ted fell asleep.
* * *
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
Ted groaned and pulled the covers tighter around him, but the bitter chill of the December morning cut through them, and Beyoncé’s voice was insistent, and he did have a company to run. With a sigh, he threw the covers back and sat up. He didn’t bother to open his eyes, though, which was probably why he stubbed his toe on the bed leg on the way to the bathroom.
“Dammit! Again?” He hopped in place for a minute. “I need that toe!”
By the time he had his toothbrush in his mouth, the pain had subsided, and he noted with pleasure that he had no hangover to speak of. Well done, Beryl, he thought, and walked back into the bedroom.
“…oh oh oh,” Beyoncé concluded, and Ted snorted. Sure, the song was catchy, but playing it two days in a row at the same time was probably overkill. The familiar chimes of the weather report followed it.
“December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through.”
Ted frowned. No, it was December 25th. They must have stuck yesterday’s tape in by accident over at the station - probably one too many glasses of eggnog making the rounds. He glanced out the window for the snow the weatherman had promised yesterday, but the ground was still bare. That was fine with him. He was too old to be charmed by snow, and he didn’t need another traffic jam like yesterday’s.
Less fine with him was the fact that there was still no hot water. He called Jimmy again.
“Jimmy, this is getting ridiculous. Don’t you have that boiler fixed yet?”
“You gotta give me time, Mr. Kord!” Jimmy protested. “I’ve only been working on it half an hour!”
“What? What were you doing all of yesterday?” Ted asked.
“The boiler was working fine yesterday,” Jimmy replied.
Ted frowned. “I have a distinct memory of taking a very cold shower yesterday, Jimmy.”
“Hey, my father-in-law swears by cold showers. Says they loosen up the lungs.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all about your father-in-law,” Ted grumbled. “Listen, just fix it quickly, okay?”
Cold showers weren’t any more charming two mornings in a row. Five minutes later, damp-haired and shivering, Ted reached into his closet, pulling out his favorite shirt before remembering he’d popped the button yesterday.
He started to put it back, then froze. None of the buttons were missing - the shirt looked as perfect as it ever did when it came back from the laundry service. But Ted was sure it had been this shirt. Maybe another blue one? But no, a quick check showed no shirts with missing buttons.
Ted felt the hair rising on the back of his neck. Something was definitely weird today. Then he shook his head, exasperated with himself. He was probably just feeling out of sorts because it was Christmas morning and he was going into work. Only for a half day - he’d promised Booster he’d be at Max’s Christmas party that afternoon, and he would. But there was too much going on at the office to take the whole day off.
He finished dressing, grabbed his briefcase, and headed out. “Did you get that scratch buffed out yet, George?” he asked as the doorman hopped out of his car.
George looked baffled. “What scratch, Mr. Kord?”
Ted furrowed his brow. “George, we had a whole conversation about this yesterday.”
George shook his head. “Not me. I’m off Wednesdays.”
“Yesterday was Thursday.”
“No, sir, today’s Thursday. Christmas Eve Day.”
Ted stared at him. “Are you sure?”
George smiled indulgently. “I think I’d remember if today was Christmas, Mr. Kord.”
“Uh, yes, of course you would.”
“Have a good day, Mr. Kord.”
“You…you too.”
Ted drove off, completely out of sorts. Was he dreaming? Had he dreamed yesterday? He’d had dreams before where he got up and went to work; maybe this was just a more extreme version of that. At any rate, he wasn’t entirely surprised when he turned the corner and found himself in yesterday’s massive traffic jam. Unless it was today’s traffic jam, or yesterday hadn’t happened, or…
Gah. Music. Music would distract him. He turned the radio on.
“…-gle ladies, all the single ladies, all the…”
He turned the radio off.
“Apricot Danish!” the barista in the café on the ground floor of his office building said when he walked in - just like she’d said yesterday. “Let me just check…”
“You’re out,” Ted said.
“We’re…out. How did you know?”
Ted shook his head. “You know, I honestly couldn’t tell you.”
“Cherry okay?” she asked, just like she’d asked yesterday.
“Fine,” Ted said, and paid for it along with his regular coffee and newspaper. He juggled them all into his arms, nodded at the security guard, and hopped into the elevator.
On the top floor, Connie pounced on him. This time he wasn’t mid-sip, and managed not to spill anything. “Good morning, Ted.”
“Morning, Connie. Let me guess: the prototypes keep blowing up, there’s trouble in Tokyo, and the Board wants to yell at me?”
Connie stared at him. “Yes. How’d you know?”
Ted handed her his coat. “It’s been a Morning.”
“That sounded like it had a capital M.”
He sighed. “It did. I’ll head down to the lab first thing.” He paused. “Hey, Con? What day is it?”
She gave him a look. “Thursday, December 24th. What? Forget to do some Christmas shopping?”
Ted tried to force his face into a normal expression, but it was hard when he was pretty sure his head was about to explode, or melt, or something. “I wish.”
Progress in the lab wasn’t much better than it had been the day before, especially since none of the lab scientists seemed to remember yesterday. Considering that they were the top of the field - Ted had handpicked them all himself - and considering that there were also no digital or paper records of anything they had done yesterday, Ted was more inclined to trust their memories than his own. After all, most superheroes had at least one psychotic break over the course of their careers. If his was coming when he was semi-retired and involved Beyoncé, well, he’d never been typical, even for a superhero.
Early afternoon found him in his office, poking dubiously at a sandwich that was identical to one he’d already eaten. The phone rang.
“Yeah.”
“Have time to take a call, Ted?” Connie asked. “It’s Booster.”
“Third time he’s called?” Ted asked.
“Okay, you’re spooky today,” Connie said. “Can I put him through?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Beetle buddy! How’s tricks?”
Ted sighed. “Annnd you’re compromising my secret identity again.”
Booster snorted. “Oh, please, like Connie doesn’t already know. I’m sorry, but ‘Egads! He must have been attacked with a naked ray!’ is not a good explanation for Blue Beetle’s costume being in your desk drawer.”
“Stop that,” Ted said sharply.
“Stop…what?” Booster asked, sounding bewildered.
“Stop saying everything you said yesterday!”
“What?”
“You’re calling to see if I want to go out for drinks,” Ted told him.
“Uh…yeah. Good guess.”
“I’m not guessing! I…look, can we make it dinner?” Ted asked. “I really need to talk to you.”
“Sure. Everything okay?”
“I…I think so? I’m just…” Ted sank back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “I’m having a really weird day.”
“O…kay,” Booster said. “I’ll see you later, then. Try not to let your head explode before dinner.”
“I make no promises,” Ted said, then cringed. “Bye.”
“See ya!”
Booster was as good as his word. At six o’ clock he was knocking on the door of Ted’s office, where Ted was hiding after a series of meetings that were not only disastrous and boring, but identical to yesterday’s disastrous and boring meetings.
“Hey, Teddy,” Booster said, pushing his yellow sunglasses up on his head and smiling. “Head still un-exploded?”
Ted stared at Booster. Seeing Booster smiling at him was a comfort; seeing Booster wearing the same sweater he’d had on the day before wasn’t.
Still, this was Booster. Ted could tell him anything, even something that sounded crazy. “I’m not sure.”
“You need burritos,” Booster decided. “Or…fajitas. Something low cholesterol and spicy.”
“So you believe me?” Ted asked, tapping his chest to indicate general heart condition-y things. He stood up, leaving the papers he’d been going over on his desk. He could look at them tomorrow - if there was a tomorrow.
“Let’s just say I’m indulging you,” Booster replied as Ted shrugged into his coat. “If I don’t you’ll be all ‘Blah blah heart condition blah blah I’m mature.’”
“Once again, your impressions are dead-on,” Ted said, rolling his eyes.
Booster spent a couple minutes flirting shamelessly with Connie, who was luckily too smart to do more than giggle and wave him along; then they were on the street, and soon after ensconced in a booth in Ted’s favorite Mexican restaurant.
“Wow, we haven’t been here in forever,” Ted said, nodding thanks at the busboy as he put a basket of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa down on the table. “I can’t believe you remember it.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t busy these past couple of years wearing ties and ignoring my friends,” Booster said lightly, digging a chip into the salsa.
Ouch. “Booster…”
“So why was your day so weird?” Booster asked, popping the chip into his mouth.
Ted made a face. “I don’t know. It’s like the worst case of déjà vu in recorded history or something. I keep thinking I’ve already done today.”
“Like when you think it’s Friday but it’s really only Thursday?” Booster asked.
“No…well, yes, technically, but more than that. Like, I knew what you were going to say when you called.”
Booster licked salsa off his finger. “Okay, so what am I going to say now?”
“I don’t know, we didn’t have dinner together the first time I did today. We went to the bar.”
“So it’s not the same day,” Booster said.
“No, it is, it just…” Ted blew out his cheeks in frustration. “I don’t know. Maybe I just dreamed I went to work yesterday, and now I’m all…” He waved his hands to signify craziness.
“I think you’re working too hard,” Booster said. “I mean, look at you! You’re staying at the office until after five the day before Christmas. That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, we can’t all marry rich,” Ted said archly, taking a chip.
“Sure,” Booster said, pouting. “Mock a recent divorcé as he nurses his broken heart.”
“Oh, please,” Ted scoffed. “That was the most sham marriage the world has ever seen. Didn’t you tell me Gladys is already remarried? I never thought I’d meet someone with as short an attention span as yours.”
“Sorry, did you say something?” Booster asked.
“Oh, you’re hilarious.”
After dinner, they headed over to the bar they’d gone to the night before. Or hadn’t gone to. Maybe.
“You’re coming to the Christmas party tomorrow, right?” Booster asked. “You know how long it took Mary to talk Max into throwing one.”
“If I have a tomorrow,” Ted said.
“Oh, stop it.” Booster gave Ted a friendly whack in the arm. “You’re just having a weird day. You’ll feel fine tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I gotta hit the head. Be right back.” Booster stood up, and, just like the yesterday that maybe hadn’t happened, rested his hand on the small of Ted’s back for a minute. Like yesterday, his hand was warm, and left Ted acutely aware of the spot even after he walked away.
Ted stifled a groan. Great. Now both of the weirdnesses in his life - the déjà vu, and the tingly inappropriate feelings for his best friend - were converging. That was what he needed.
“Not enjoying the beer, hon?”
There were Beryl and her snakes, right on cue. “It’s fine,” Ted said. “Thanks.”
“Looks like you’re just about done there,” Beryl said. “Get you another? Or I can fix you up with a Double-Beryl Shotgun, on the house.”
Ted paused. Okay, here was a test. He pointed at her. “Beryl?”
She nodded, and plunked two shot glasses and a familiar bottle on the bar. “Double.”
Ted braced himself. “And the shotgun? If I drink it, does it…does it blow my head off?”
She grinned. “If you drink it, someone’s probably gonna get banged.”
Ted stood up so fast he sent the barstool clattering across the floor, and would have gone with it if he hadn’t grabbed the bar. Beryl stared at him as he fumbled for his wallet and threw way more than enough to cover his and Booster’s drinks and tip on the bar.
“Sorry. I gotta go,” he stammered, shoving his arm into his coat and getting the other side all tangled up in his haste. “Sorry.”
Booster reappeared and Ted grabbed his arm with one hand, Booster’s coat with the other. “We have to leave.”
“What? I haven’t even finished my drink yet!” Booster protested, but he let Ted drag him out of the bar, away from Beryl’s bewildered gaze.
“Grife, it’s freezing out here,” Booster said as they walked out the door and into a blustery wind. “Mind explaining why you just pulled my arm out of its socket? I’ve already lost that one once, you know.”
Ted twisted around in an attempt to straighten out his coat and get it on all the way. “I think the bartender was hitting on me.”
“So why’d you leave?” Booster asked, shrugging into his own coat and untangling Ted’s. “We’re going back in there. If you don’t want her, she can hit on me.”
“She was hitting on me exactly the same way she did yesterday,” Ted said. “Or…if there was a yesterday, or…look, I knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it!”
“Was it sexy?” Booster asked.
“Booster!” Ted threw his arms up in exasperation. “This is serious!” Booster gave him a look. “Okay, yes, it was sexy. But still! This is really freaking me out.”
Booster spent another minute contemplating him. Ted huddled deeper into his coat, and hoped the pink in his cheeks would be attributed to the night air.
“Okay,” Booster said finally. “Dr. Booster prescribes a good night sleep, followed by a Christmas where you actually relax.” Ted started to protest, but Booster held up a hand. “You’re obviously stressed. And if you’re still having weird ESP-y déjà vu tomorrow, hey, it’s not like we don’t know psychics and magicians and stuff. Maybe you got zapped in the lab and got a little clairvoyance, I don’t know. J’onn or someone can check you out.”
Ted took a cleansing breath, then raised an eyebrow. “Psychics and magicians and stuff, huh?”
Booster grinned. “I keep telling the League they should market themselves as that, but no one ever listens to me.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
Booster left Ted in the lobby of Ted’s building with an admonishment to get some sleep. As he rode the elevator to his floor, Ted thought idly that it was nice to have Booster around on a regular basis again. No one else blended bullying concern and a cheerful lack of patience with Ted’s neuroses in quite the same way.
Obediently, Ted undressed, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. He lay there staring at the darkened ceiling for a few minutes before getting up and going to his closet. His favorite shirt was still hanging where he’d left it, all its buttons in place.
Ted went into the kitchen, returned with the scissors, and took a breath. Then, calmly, methodically, he cut the shirt into strips.
He returned the scissors to the kitchen and left the shredded shirt on top of his dresser, where he’d be sure to see it the next morning. Then, turning out the light, he climbed back into bed and, quicker than he would have expected, fell asleep.
* * *
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
Ted sat bolt upright.
No.
It could just be a coincidence, right? The song was popular. They probably played it a lot.
Please, let the song just be that popular.
He waited, covers clutched in a death grip, until the song ended and the weather report came on.
“December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through…”
“No,” Ted said, tripping and pulling all the bedclothes with him in his haste to get out of bed. “No no no no no no…”
He came to a halt in front of the dresser, a puddle of sheets around his ankles. There was no shirt there, cut up or otherwise. With great trepidation he turned towards the closet. It took him a minute to work up the courage to turn the knob, but he reminded himself that he was a superhero, and, drawing a deep breath, yanked the closet door open.
There was his favorite shirt. No buttons missing, not cut into pieces, just…there.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Ted screamed.
The shirt didn’t move.
“Okay, you are so not my favorite anymore,” Ted told it, and slammed the door.
Crossing the room, he turned off the radio and picked up his phone, misdialing twice in his hurry. While the phone rang three, four, five times, he checked the water in the shower. Sure enough, it was cold.
“…’Lo?” Booster finally mumbled on the other end of the line.
“Booster, what day is it?” Ted asked.
He could practically hear the gears turning sleepily in Booster’s head. “…Thursday?”
“No!” Ted shouted.
“No?”
“Yesterday was Thursday,” Ted said. “And the day before. It’s time for Friday, dammit!”
There was a shuffling on the other end; Ted imagined Booster sitting up, the sheets falling down around his waist, his bare torso golden in the morning light…no! Not the time for that kind of thought! “Are you just really impatient for Christmas, Ted?”
“No! It’s not…I’m…aggggh.”
“Agggh?”
“Put on pants,” Ted ordered. “I’m coming over.”
Once in the car (which did, of course, have a scratch on it that George had never seen before), he skirted the now-familiar traffic jam and took the alternate route to Booster’s place, while leaving a message for Connie saying he’d probably be a little late. She wouldn’t like it, what with the situation at the office, but hell, it wasn’t like anything he did made much different, if every day was the same.
Booster’s apartment was pretty nice, considering he was no longer married to a multi-millionaire; Gladys, who seemed fond of him the way rich old women like her were usually fond of their lapdogs, had given him a generous settlement. The sunglasses and toothpaste ads Booster did over in Japan helped, too. Booster met Ted at the door wearing old frayed jeans and not much else.
“You’re not dressed?”
“You told me to put on pants. I did. You want more than that, don’t call at 7 a.m.” Booster paused and looked Ted over. Ted could imagine what he saw: shirt buttoned crookedly, hair uncombed, and, Ted was pretty sure, a frazzled gleam in his eyes. “Hey. What’s the matter?”
Ted walked past him, sat down on the couch, stood up again, and paced. “Okay. Okay.” He stopped in front of Booster, then started pacing again. “Okay.”
“You said that already.”
“Ok…all right.” Ted stopped, breathed. “You remember that movie Groundhog Day?”
“The one where Bill Murray keeps reliving the same day over and over?”
“Yes.” Ted made himself meet Booster’s eyes. “I think that’s happening to me.”
“Oh.” Booster frowned. “Wait, what?”
The energy suddenly drained out of him, Ted sank back down onto the couch and told Booster about the strangeness of the past two and a half days. When he finished, he was relieved to see that Booster wasn’t looking at him like he about to lunge for the phone to dial the Help, My Best Friend Has Lost His Mind hotline.
“So this has happened twice before?” Booster asked.
“No, the first two times I went to work,” Ted said. “I can change stuff, it’s only the stuff I don’t change that repeats. Like, I can tell you exactly what they’re doing at my office right now, and if we go to the bar tonight I can tell you what the bartender will say.” He rubbed his eyes wearily. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Booster raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Ted? Remember that time I died but kept walking around, and then you brought me back to life? Or the time I sent us all to Hell? Or our friend, the alien dog? This is hardly the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to either of us.”
Ted made a face. “G’nort is not my friend.” He nudged Booster’s knee with his own. “Thanks.”
Booster nudged him back. “Hey. It’s what I’m here for.” He turned one side of his mouth up in a rueful smile, revealing a dimple. Ted looked away. “So what do we do?”
“What do you mean, what do we do?”
“How do we un-Groundhog you? You know, for a scientist, you’re not very methodical.”
Ted paused. “Huh. I guess I hadn’t thought of that. I was too busy freaking out.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“Hush, you.” Ted tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder if it’s a time travel thing? You didn’t leave your time machine running, did you?” he asked accusatorily.
Booster slapped his forehead. “Whoops! I’m always doing that and destroying the cosmos. No, Ted, I didn’t leave the time sphere ‘running,’ and even if I did, I doubt it would react by making you repeat a day years after I last touched it.”
“Okay, okay, I was just asking.” Ted went back to tapping his chin. “How about that guy you used to hang out with, the time travel guy?”
“Who, Rip?” Booster asked. Ted nodded. “I haven’t seen him in years. I mean, weird time stuff happens all the time around him, so I guess he could be doing this, but I wouldn’t even know how to contact him to ask him. Besides, why would it be affecting you?”
Ted spread his hands. “I don’t know! I’m trying to think of timey-wimey people here.”
Booster snorted. “I’m not sure I like the idea of being a ‘timey-wimey person.’ Okay, uh, how about Chronos? Didn’t you fight him back in the day?”
Ted clenched his fist. “Chronos! That jerk! I knew he’d be after revenge!”
“Revenge?”
“I interrupted him eating a sandwich once. He seemed really miffed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well…” Ted shrugged. “That and I made my secretary stop giving him stolen Kord tech. But he really seemed more upset about the sandwich.”
Booster stood up and held out a hand. “Well, let’s get him, then! The JLA computer ought to tell us where he is.”
Ted let Booster haul him to his feet. “We’re not allowed to use the JLA computer.”
“Psh, extenuating circumstances.” Booster glanced down at his hand, still clasping Ted’s, and let go hastily. “Let me suit up, and we can go.”
Despite threatening to do so on a regular basis, the League had never actually removed Ted and Booster’s genetic signatures from the approved list for the transporter tubes, so beaming up to the Watchtower wasn’t a problem. They did have to argue a bit with J’onn, though.
“Look, you can read my mind,” Ted said when J’onn used his power of Martian skeptical looks on Ted’s story. “I’m not making this up!”
“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Booster said.
J’onn had a way of making everything he said sound like a long-suffering sigh, without actually sighing. “Yes, Booster?”
“You should read his mind!” Booster said. “And then you can see if anyone’s, like, messing with it and giving him the crazy!”
Ted shot Booster a betrayed look. “You said you didn’t think I was crazy!”
“Not on your own,” Booster assured him. “But how do we know Doctor Destiny or someone hasn’t mind-whammied you?”
Ted made a face. He had a point. “Fine,” he said, turning back to J’onn. “Check for mind whammies. Oh, and actually, while you’re in there, can you see what I did with my spare set of keys?”
J’onn raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry. Please check for mind whammies,” Ted said. Then, in a whisper, “And my keys.”
J’onn reached out both hands in a gesture that was also like a long-suffering sigh without actually being one, and placed his fingers on Ted’s temples. Ted felt the familiar sensation of one of J’onn’s mind-probes: cool, calming, a little somnambulistic. He remembered having a fever as a child and his mother wiping his forehead with a cool, damp compress.
J’onn released him and Ted stumbled, still a bit woozy. Booster caught him.
“I can sense no interference in your mind,” J’onn said. “Nor any mental illness aside from your typical state.” That was J’onn’s idea of a joke.
“And am I lying?” Ted asked.
“Regretfully, no,” J’onn admitted. “Which means that there is something rather out of the ordinary going on here.”
“That’s why we wanted to see where Chronos was these days,” Booster said, still a warm, solid presence at Ted’s back. “We thought maybe he was doing some kind of time-shenanigans.”
“Time-nanigans,” Ted clarified.
J’onn considered them for a moment, then indicated the computer. “Go ahead,” he said. “Please don’t set our homepage to that Rick Astley video again. And…let me know if I can assist in any way.”
Ted bit back a smile. J’onn was still JLI, deep down. “Will do, J’onny Boy.”
“Oh, and you gave your other spare keys to Booster.”
Booster lit up. “Oh, yeah, you totally did! I forgot.”
Ted sighed.
The JLA computer showed that David Clinton, alias Chronos, was currently incarcerated at Stryker’s Island Prison in Metropolis. Ted frowned at the screen.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve definitely heard of supervillains committing crimes from behind bars before, but it’s usually, like, Lex Luthor or the Ultra-Humanite or someone. Chronos doesn’t strike me as quite bright enough for that.”
“Well, what about the other time guys?” Booster asked, leaning over the back of the computer chair. “You know, like Clock King and Calendar Man and them.”
“Clock King pretty much just memorizes bus schedules,” Ted pointed out, though he went ahead and ran a search on Clock King. “I don’t think he can stick me in a time loop.”
“Oh, and Chronos is an awe-inspiring beacon of temporal power?” Booster asked.
“Hey, he’s got that freeze gun,” Ted pointed out. “It could have…stuck, or something.” Clock King’s profile popped up on the screen. “Okay, here we go. William Tockman, alias Clock King, is currently…huh. In the Suicide Squad, on reserve.”
“So he’s at Belle Reve?” Booster asked.
“Yeah, and good luck getting the Wall to let us in to talk to him,” Ted said. He paused. “Although she did put me in a coma that one time, so maybe she feels like she owes me.”
Booster snorted. “Oh, I’m sorry. You were serious.”
“Well, it can’t hurt to try.” Ted’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Let’s check out a few other people while we’re up here, and then…”
“Away down south in Dixie?” Booster asked.
“You got it.”
It would have been quicker to beam down to Louisiana directly, but Ted didn’t want to be stuck down south without the Bug and at the mercy of the transporters, which still made Booster a bit queasy. They returned to Gotham and then flew the Bug to Belle Reve, while Ted called a very distressed Connie and explained that he’d be taking the rest of the day off. She sounded a bit like she wanted to strangle him, but the way Ted figured it, if it was still December 24th tomorrow, she wouldn’t remember him ducking out of work, and if it wasn’t, it would be Christmas, and she’d be too busy enjoying the holiday to care. He hoped.
As Ted had expected, Amanda Waller was not enthused about letting them into Belle Reve to talk to one of her Squad members, especially when Ted explained why they were there.
“You’re repeating today over and over again, and you think Clock King might be causing it?” she asked, arms crossed.
“Or he might know what is,” Ted hedged. “I mean, isn’t he an expert on time?”
“Timing,” Waller clarified. “It’s different. And he’s got better things to do than talk to some deranged Bill Murray fanboy. So do I, as a matter of fact.”
“I am not a deranged Bill Murray fanboy!” Ted protested.
“I don’t know,” Booster said. “You have seen all of his movies. Even Garfield.”
“You’re not helping, Booster,” Ted hissed. He turned back to Waller. “Look. This is far from the weirdest thing that’s ever happened in our line of business. I doubt it’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you this week. And the Martian Manhunter checked me out to make sure I’m not lying or crazy. You can call him and check.” He held out his communicator. “I just want to talk to Clock King.”
Waller looked at him for a minute, her gaze unreadable. “Fine,” she said finally. “You get five minutes. And I’ll be expecting a favor in return.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Maybe some electronics that aren’t on the market yet.”
Huh. So Amanda Waller knew his secret identity. That wasn’t actually much of a surprise. “I’ll see what I can do.”
When the guards brought Tockman in, Ted was hit with a sudden wave of guilt. They’d fought once or twice, but Clock King had been a member of Justice League Antarctica back in the day. He’d been Ted’s ally more often than he’d been Ted’s enemy - hell, the Antarctica branch had guarded Max when he’d been shot! And now Ted was accusing him of…well, he wasn’t even sure.
Tockman gave Ted and Booster puzzled frowns. “Beetle. Booster. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Ted paused, and looked over at Booster, who apparently saw the confusion in Ted’s eyes, because he took the lead. “What do you know about time loops, Clock King?”
“What do you mean, time loops?” Tockman asked. “Time is linear.”
“Well, actually, it - ” Booster began. Everyone stared at him. “Never mind.”
“He means making the same period of time happen over and over again,” Ted said. “Making one person constantly relive a moment, or an hour, or a day. Could you do that?”
“Could I do that?” Tockman said. “I wish. It would make my life a lot easier. Could someone with the right power or technology do that? I don’t see why not. He can fly, after all.” He pointed at Booster.
“Do you know who might have that kind of power?” Ted asked.
Tockman shrugged. “Sounds more like Chronos’s kind of thing. He used to be able to freeze someone temporarily. Maybe he’s advanced.” He leaned forward. “Are these questions hypothetical, or are we going to be having this conversation again in 60 minutes?”
“Never mind about that,” Ted said. “So you don’t know anything about actually fiddling with time?”
Tockman spread his hands. “Time runs my life, not the other way around. Speaking of which, unless I’m very much mistaken, we are out of it. Or will be, in 23 seconds.”
Booster touched his visor and got the slightly cross-eyed expression he wore when he read information off of it. “He’s right. Uh, to a creepily accurate degree. Let’s go before the Wall throws us out.”
Ted stood. “Well, thanks for the information,” he said. “We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions.”
Clock King smiled sardonically. “Drop by any time.”
Ted winced. “And just when I thought we’d make it out without any time puns.”
“Not a chance. And, uh…say hi to Max.”
There was the guilt again. “Yeah. Will do.”
Outside of the prison, Ted reached under his goggles to rub his eyes tiredly. “Well, that was a big fat nothing.”
“At least we know it wasn’t him?” Booster suggested. “So we’ll go see Chronos next, or someone else on the list.”
“You know, you don’t have to do all this with me,” Ted said. “I mean, I appreciate it, but you already came to Louisiana and the freaking moon with me. I’m pretty sure you weren’t planning on spending the day touring prisons.”
Booster shrugged. “Eh, my schedule was pretty free. And you need me. This pretty face?” He pointed to his chin. “It unlocks doors like you wouldn’t believe.”
Ted snorted. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure the Wall let us in because she’s got your Tiger Beat spread up in her office.”
Booster preened. “She’s got Gold Fever, baby.” At Ted’s disbelieving laugh he grinned. “Anyway, yeah, I was pretty much free. I mean, it’s a family time of year, and my family won’t even be born for five centuries. You’re - ” He cut himself off. “Let’s go back to the Bug.”
“I’m…?” Ted prompted, trotting after him. “I’m what?”
Booster looked embarrassed, which was incongruous; the man usually had no shame to speak of. “You’re the closest I’ve got.”
Had Ted felt guilty talking to Clock King? He hadn’t known what guilt was. He couldn’t even look at Booster - Booster, who he’d barely seen for years and then verbally abused for months. Booster, who’d just called him family.
He walked next to Booster for half a block, focusing very carefully on the cracks in the sidewalk under their feet. “You’re the closest I’ve got too,” he admitted.
When he managed to look up, Booster was smiling at him. Ted felt a burst of warmth uncurling in his stomach - and something else, too, something almost like nervousness but not quite.
“Well,” Booster said. “Good to know.”
* * *
“…you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”
“GAH,” Ted said, and yanked the pillow over his head.
He hadn’t really expected anything different. They’d eaten lunch in Louisiana, since Ted wasn’t one to pass up authentic Creole cooking when the opportunity presented itself; then they’d flown the Bug up to Metropolis to talk to Chronos. The Stryker’s Island warden had been much more willing to let two superheroes talk to Chronos than Amanda Waller had been, but there wasn’t much to learn.
According to the warden, Chronos was a model prisoner. Every so often one of the guards heard him complaining about the Atom, but in a prison full of metas and supervillains it was rare that someone wasn’t complaining about a superhero. Chronos had never mentioned Ted. (Actually, none of the prisoners had ever mentioned Ted, which was a little insulting.)
For his own part, Chronos had seemed more interested in talking about his niece, who had once been Ted’s receptionist, than anything crime-related. Apparently she was married now and had just had a daughter - Chronos had approximately three hundred identical pictures of the kid to show off. He seemed to bear Ted no ill will for their earlier altercations; the routine of prison was very soothing to him, he explained.
Well, that was great, but it sure didn’t help Ted any.
By the time they got back to Gotham it was too late for Ted to go into the office. They’d grabbed a quick dinner; then, after a now-familiar admonishment to attend Max’s Christmas party in the event of the next day actually being Christmas, Booster headed for home. Feeling strangely melancholy, Ted had done likewise, and zoned out in front of the TV until he’d fallen asleep.
Not that he’d woken up in front of the TV, of course.
The song ended and the weather came on, confirming what Ted already knew. “December 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and it’s looking clear and cold all the way through. High of 34, low 28, with snow moving in overnight…”
Ted mentally reviewed his plan. He hadn’t been able to write down any of the information he’d gotten off of the JLA computer - well, he could have written it down, but it wouldn’t have done much good when the day reset itself - but he had, if he did say so himself, an exceptional memory, and he knew all the people they’d looked up, and where each of them was. Just because Clock King and Chronos hadn’t been responsible for his situation didn’t mean one of the other time guys wasn’t.
He climbed out of bed, headed for the bathroom, and stubbed his toe again. Well, he usually had an exceptional memory.
As he shivered through his ice-cold shower, he tried to warm himself up by planning his day out loud. “Okay, first I’ll go get Booster, and then we’ll...wait.” Booster wouldn’t remember anything that had happened the day before. Ted would have to explain it to him all over again, tell him what had happened with J’onn, and with Clock King, and Chronos. Was it worth it?
On the one hand, it would be nice to have some company while he was flying all over the country looking for villains, and it would definitely be nice to have a time traveler equipped with very powerful blasters, since not all of those villains were in prison.
On the other hand, he’d feel bad dragging Booster around on this stupid quest day after day, even if it was only one day to Booster.
On the other other hand, reaching out to Booster in times of superheroish wackiness was instinct. He hadn’t thought about calling Booster yesterday-that-was-still-today. He’d just done it.
And that was reason enough not to call him now. He’d just about broken the Booster habit before Max had re-formed the team. Six months back with Booster, and he was falling into the same old codependent patterns.
It was possible to be best friends with Booster in a normal, non-obsessive-and-clingy, non-secret-erotic-longings, able-to-have-other-relationships-that-could-actually-go-somewhere kind of way. Ted was sure of it. Calling Booster every time he felt a little discombobulated was not the way to go about finding that balance.
“There. Problem solved,” Ted told himself, and stepped out of the shower.
Well, maybe the Booster problem was solved, but the Groundhog Day problem certainly wasn’t. Ted’s first stop (after calling Connie and telling her he was taking the day off, which got him - well, exactly the same reaction it had gotten him yesterday) was Haven, the mad scientist commune, to see T. O. Morrow. Ted chatted fairly frequently with Will Magnus, since it was such a pleasure to talk to someone who could actually understand everything he had to say about engineering and robotics, and Will had a lot of praise for Morrow, but he’d also spoken at length about Morrow’s outstanding genius. If anyone could build a machine to trap someone in a time loop, Morrow could.
But - “I’m not even allowed to use computers,” Morrow said, spreading his hands. “I can’t send an email, let alone fiddle with time.”
Ted couldn’t help wincing sympathetically, and Morrow chuckled. It wasn’t a nice sound.
“Blue Beetle, huh?” Morrow asked. “You know the Bug is legendary in here? Very impressive piece of work.”
“Uh…thanks,” Ted said. He didn’t like the look in Morrow’s eyes, but he did enjoy getting complimented on the Bug.
“You’ve worked with some future tech, haven’t you?” Morrow asked. “Alien tech, too. Not that anyone understands what you did.” He smiled. “You’ll be in here soon enough. Everyone with your kind of mind winds up here eventually.”
Ted left as quickly as possible.
John Starr, alias Time Commander, was out of jail and working - Booster had groaned when he saw this - as a delivery man for a small business that made handcrafted sundials. Starr had always seemed relatively harmless, if misguided, and so Ted was not expecting to be punched the face when Starr opened the door.
He reacted instinctively, ducking under Starr’s next blow and driving his elbow up into Starr’s solar plexus. As Starr gasped for breath, Ted seized his upper arm, wedged his leg behind Starr’s, and pulled. Starr hit the ground, Ted twisted his arms behind him, and boom, Starr was subdued, less than 10 seconds after the initial punch. Not bad.
It wasn’t until he’d spat out a mouthful of blood that Ted realized Starr was shouting, “I didn’t do anything! Leave me alone! I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Ted tightened his grip. “Yeah? Then why’d you punch me?”
“Every time I see one of you superheroes you’re always putting me in jail,” Starr said. “I don’t want to go back to jail!”
“You go to jail because you commit crimes!” Ted told him. He poked his tongue around in his mouth, trying to find the source of the bleeding. It looked like he’d just cut the inside of his lip on his teeth, which would heal quickly enough.
“I was trying to make the world a better place!” Starr insisted. “You people have no vision.”
“Where’s the hourglass, Starr?” Ted asked. Most of the League’s notes on Starr had been from Buddy Baker, who’d fought him back in the JLE. Apparently Starr had an hourglass that could reverse an individual’s timeline - make them younger, or bring them back to life. Or, Ted figured, set them back a day, repeatedly.
Starr jerked his head towards the kitchenette. “On the table. It’s broken, though. Been broken for years.”
Ted looked over at the table. Sure enough, there was the hourglass. It was the kind with pillars on either side of it, and a bunch of envelopes were tucked between the glass and one of the pillars.
Well. If he was using it to hold his unread mail, he probably hadn’t been using it to break laws or screw with Ted’s personal timeline. Ted eased back a little.
“I’m going to let you up, Starr,” he said. “I just came to talk. But I’ll take you down again if you swing at me.”
“I won’t,” Starr promised. Ted released him and stood up. He kept his body language deliberately casual, but he was ready to move if Starr went for him.
But Starr just stood gingerly and rotated his neck and shoulders a bit. “You’re lucky you didn’t dislocate my shoulder,” he said. Ted just rolled his eyes. He hadn’t even come close. “Okay. What do you want?”
“The hourglass is broken, huh?” Ted asked. “Can I see it?”
Starr shrugged. “Be my guest.”
Ted walked into the kitchenette, keeping an eye on Starr as he did, and pulled the mail out of its resting place. He picked up the hourglass, and with some trepidation, turned it over. Nothing happened.
“It’s been broken for years, you said?”
“Yeah, ever since that idiot Metamorpho slugged me…” Ted frowned and Starr shrugged. “Hey, I don’t have to like him. Anyway, I put it back together, but it doesn’t do anything anymore.”
“You’re sure it doesn’t do anything?” Ted asked, flipping it over again. “It reversed specific timelines, right? Made people younger and stuff?”
“Yes,” Starr said, standing up a little straighter. Ted recognized that pride; he stood that way when explaining his own inventions. Then he remembered Morrow, and pushed the thought away. “It takes people back to before bad things happen. Before aging causes the body to break down and eventually die, because there’s no reason to die if we can just…reverse it.”
Ted stared at him. “You know you’re insane, right?”
“Wouldn’t you like to be ten years younger?” Starr asked him. “To not have to worry about your back, or your knees, or cholesterol, or whatever it is you have to worry about?”
The cholesterol was a lucky guess, but for a split second Ted let himself imagine it - going back to before he’d had any heart attacks, before he had a cardiologist on speed dial, when cheating on his diet just meant a few extra sit-ups the next day. Then he pushed past it. “And how long would it take to completely overpopulate the world that way? People are supposed to die, Starr. Time is supposed to go on.” He examined the hourglass. “This couldn’t have gotten stuck, could it?” he asked. “Reversing one timeline over and over again, making somebody relive the same moment?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Starr said. “It reverses aging, not time in general. If it got stuck it would just keep de-aging the same person or thing.”
Well, there went that lead. “And you’re sure it’s not just sitting here, leaking tachyon particles or something?” Ted asked.
“If it was, I’d be an embryo twenty times over by now,” Starr said.
Ted put the hourglass back on the table. “Do you know of anything that could stick someone in a temporal loop like I was talking about?”
Starr shook his head. “It’d have to be a hell of a lot more powerful than my hourglass to keep resetting the entire world. You’re talking time manipulation on a cosmic level.”
Ted gulped. The last cosmic-level foe he’d faced had been the Overmaster. Tora had died.
Booster had died.
Ted clenched his fists, his hands suddenly clammy inside their gloves. Not this time. If some big cosmic whatsit was after him, fine - but he would die before he let anything touch Booster.
He kind of hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though.
* * *
Part 2