Chapter Text
Beth was a five-minutes early woman. That’s just how she was. She couldn’t help it—her parents had embedded a zero-tolerance policy for tardiness to pre-school. Then, the goggles hit the nail on the coffin. Dr. Mid-Nite knew the best traffic routes, weather delays, and was behind the scheduling of most events. Hell, she could hack into the world’s clocks if she wanted to.
So, the fact she was late to the emergency meeting at the JSA round table added to her growing malaise.
She narrowly missed crashing into a group of fashion-forward middle-schoolers standing in front of the museum lobby. The newly minted Justice Society of America museum boasted six tours per day, guided by the retired Mr. Swift, eager to put his antique business on the shelf until it fancied him again. Beth's vote had not been in favour of turning their headquarters into a public showroom to generate revenue (Hello? Safety concerns, anybody?) but she believed in the democratic process and understood that the representative broke college students and new grads cast the ballots to skew the results. Not every friend of hers had doting rich parents willing to avoid opening lines of credit to cover med school costs—correction—no friend of hers had such parents.
“Sorry!” Beth thrusted her arm out and away from her pressed outfit at the horror of coffee careening over its lip, the lid not properly secured onto the Starbucks paper cup. Tweens scattered away as fast as their strappy sandals could take them.
One grumbled, half-stepping on her foot. “Watch where you’re going, lady!”
Another flipped their auburn hair. “Yeah. Dr. Mid-Nite would never.”
The girls giggled at that, opening their pamphlets to point out Hourman’s glossy hood on the cover. Beth rolled her eyes, making a note to self to later rethinking gunning for a residency in paediatrics. After two back-to-back courses, a paper due on Type B diabetes, and now this emergency JSA meeting, she didn’t have much gas left in the tank.
She hopped into the closest free elevator and jammed the button for the doors to close before a tour could join her. Leaning against the wall, she sighed, inspecting the coffee damage. In truth, the fact she went unrecognized was an advantage she would rather cling to. Giant posters with Dr. Mid-Nite’s face dropped down from the high ceilings. As strategically placed the mask of her costume was, these posters may contribute to identity reveals sooner than later.
“Hold the door!” The elevator ride halted abruptly on the eighth floor. Beth looked up to find straining palms pushing against the force of the metal doors. She cleared her throat, about to inform whoever was about to squeeze in that this elevator was designated for employees only when Rick, her best friend, weaseled his way in.
She tilted her head, bemused as she watched him tug his briefcase through the crack he created. “What’s going on?”
“A kid just outed me.” Out of breath and out of time, he urged her to press the button for their private boardroom floor. “Go. Go. Go!”
Beth didn’t need to be told twice. Her stomach swooped as the elevator dropped down several floors. “A museum kid recognized that you're...you know who?”
Rick nodded, a hand against his stomach, eyes closed with a tight grimace.
“Why didn’t you deny it?”
“I don't know? I panicked? And I didn’t know my damn face would be on the cover for the tour!”
Beth glanced down at a forgotten pamphlet on the ground. She picked it up, inspecting it front and back. She had to admit, those soul-peircing hazel eyes of his were remarkably attractive even around the dark charcoal. She’d swooned once or twice over them, long ago. It couldn’t be too surprising that one of the more attentive teens might make the connection. And he was wearing yellow.
“I knew this was going to happen,” she said. A groan escaped her lips. “I told Court this museum is not the place for us to be coming in and out at all odd hours! At the very least we should’ve moved our boardroom to a different location.”
She stewed in her thoughts and chewed on her lip, shooting Rick a sidelong glance. The coffee in her hand sounded so amazing when she dragged her tired feet into the shop after handing in that essay, but Rick looked like he needed it much more than she did, sagging against the elevator wall. “How was work?”
“Fine,” he said, enough vagueness to imply he wasn’t being truthful.
Thrusting the Starbucks at him, she offered him a sip. “It’s a macchiato.”
“Disgusting. That’s not even your order.”
Beth shrugged as the doors opened to the hall. The keypad prompted a swipe from their pass, the floor only accessible to JSA Members. “I’ll give it to Cameron, then. He can turn it into an iced drink.”
Rick snatched it out of her hand and gave it a good gulp before returning it her way. Beth hid a smile behind her hand. That’s what I thought.
“I’ve never seen you late for a JSA meeting since that time you got super drunk. What happened?”
“You swore you’d never bring that up again.”
He laughed, wedging his briefcase between his knees to cross his arms. “I did not swear to that.”
Beth sighed. “It’s Dad,” she said. “I said I’d give him the car for the night so I had to drive back to Blue Valley after my class. Then I took the bus, handed in my paper on campus, got stuck in line at Starbucks and they gave me the wrong order. Didn’t realize the mistake until I sipped it on my way over.”
“I could’ve given you a lift.” Rick worked at Bannerman Research. The youngest on his team, he was recently promoted to lead one of their projects in groundbreaking macromolecular chemistry. He had his own office and his own desk, a fancy lab. The only time Beth ever laid claim to a spare desk was when she TA’d a biology class and scored the sub-level room shared with the anthropology graduate student association dubbed the “dungeon.”
A position at a cutting-edge research facility at one of the country’s most reputable companies, and a parking spot that belonged to him? Heaven on earth. Beth was more than a little jealous. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that his instant success wormed into her perfectionist brain on bad days to make her miserable. Two months into the first year of med school and so far from her own goals, waiting for Rick at the bus stop in front of Bannerman to carpool would sediment the horrible sense of turning into a seven-year-old: Cranky, always hungry, and mad at their homework; Needed to be picked up after school.
Hard pass. No, thank you.
“Next time,” she lied. “The issue really isn’t the car. I’m delusional thinking I can live in two cities at once.” Not for the first time, she envied time-saving powers like Jennie’s flight or Courtney’s easy-peasy Cosmic Staff travel.
They walked down the steps towards the double-breasted meeting doors. Yolanda and Courtney’s voices could be heard from around the corner, bickering over the ordering of priorities.
“You want to move out?” Rick’s brows climbed up to his hairline. “You said you’d be at home until you were married.”
She barked out a dry laugh. “I read too many romance novels. I thought I’d be married before I finished my undergrad.”
“So why haven’t you?”
Both her cheeks flooded with heat at his directness. Et tu, brute? “Got married?”
“…Move out.”
“Oh.” She relaxed, unsure why the thought of Rick giving her non-existent dating life the sixty-degree lit a fire beneath her feet. She’d been single. Not just any kind of single—Med school rules my life and I live with my parents single. A truly woeful affair. “Duh. Free rent.”
“Free rent?” Skeptical, he reached over, craving more coffee. He wiped his mouth with his arm after the sip, his work sleeves rolled up nicely. “You have money.”
“We’re well-to-do, yes, but there is a difference between being able to pay for med school without swimming in debt and affording a car and big city rent on top of mortgage payments while I live on a stipend. I feel bad about mooching off Mom and Dad all the time. They want to retire and at this rate, I’ll be digging into their pension.”
“I understand.” He didn’t, being an orphan and all, but it was nice that he tried.
They turned left into the coat room. DR. MID-NITE emboldened in glossy gold script marked her costume’s resting place beside HOURMAN and STARWOMAN. She wrinkled her nose at the mustard cowl waiting for her, not sure if she was in the mood for the full get-up. Courtney called an emergency meeting, but it couldn’t have been too dire, or else their phones would’ve blown up like an Amber Alert.
Rick wasn’t bothering with his cape and hood either, reaching into his briefcase for the beaded chain of his hourglass. He carried it around everywhere like a minister with a bible. Even to work. Beth kept her backup goggles at headquarters, opting for a more discreet operating system of the AI to run on her phone. Too many thefts happened on campus for her comfort to leave it in a school bag.
“I’m looking to move out too,” he said, fixing the hourglass around his neck. “My landlord never answers my calls, it’s driving me crazy. If you send me your budget, I can find apartment listings close to campus and I’ll send them over.”
She gulped. A budget. It was one thing daydreaming about having her own space—Decorating interiors had always been a fun Pinterest pastime—and another to fully commit to moving cities. How would her parents react? Would they protest that they need her to stay to keep the family unit intact as their only child? Similarly, she’d feel put out if they pushed her to go.
“I appreciate that.”
“Of course,” he said. “No problem.”
“We got an anonymous tip last night,” Courtney announced to the team, splaying her hands on the round oak table. The white stars on her skin-tight blue spandex sleeves danced up and down the length of her arms. Blonde curls pinned to the top of her head in a messy ponytail flounced about, accentuating her point when she banged a fist against the table, meaning business.
“An anonymous tip?”
“We have a tip line?”
“Yes. Cindy set it up six months ago, remember?”
Being Stargirl—sorry, Starwoman—was Courtney’s full-time job. Someone needed to patrol the cities to make sure danger wasn’t afoot, as she so deftly put it. Someone with the charisma and gumption to lead their team through thick and thin. Whether that be grueling midterm exams or early hours under the yellow light of Nebraska University’s labs. Yolanda chased a law degree to work in non-profits advocating for women’s rights, and Cameron sold his art at galleries and European auctions. Artemis, also a key player, had current commitments to her games which took precedent as the NFL’s first female tail blazer. Cindy spent her days mysteriously as an entrepreneur, jet-setting across the globe. With Cindy not in town right now, they watched Courtney try to explain the system she left for them.
Jade, Obsidian and Sandy operated on their circuit too, but those three were keeping the fort down in New York. Jade and Obsidian’s supervillainous mom turned up after abandoning them with questionable intentions, so they’ve had their hands full with the complicated family affair. Mike and Jakeem, their youngest team members, were technically also available, but placed on the official reserves until they graduated college. Pat’s orders. Beth and the OGs didn’t put world-saving on pause during their degrees, but also, they weren’t quite so easily distracted as that pair.
Beth felt for Courtney. Always chasing for the thrill of a murder mystery or foiling a Big Bad. The last few months had been blessedly quiet so she’d thrown herself into the management of their museum. It was no wonder that talks of their exhibits occupied all of her time. What else was there for a professional superheroine to do with so much downtime?
“Court, I’ve got case files to read that I really need to get back to if I want to impress my boss,” Yolanda complained, rubbing at her temples. Her raven hair flowed down her back, freed from the twin braids she always styled it in. “Is this so-called ‘anonymous tip’ sound?”
“Not sure,” Courtney said. “But it claimed an ISA resurgence in their neighborhood so I think we need to find out. Frankly, you should all be happy to hear of a development. It’s been so boring.”
Beth leaned forward, in a mood to challenge. “We should be happy that new villains are here? That the organization we bled, sweat, cried and had friends die for to fight against possibly returned?”
Rick was looking at her lukewarm Starbucks like he needed the rest of it to get through this meeting. She nudged it over.
“Not happy.” Courtney corrected herself. “Intrigued and concerned.”
“Beth, you know that’s not what she meant,” Yolanda said. “However, I feel a migraine coming on so can we get to the point of what we need to do, and does it need to happen tonight?”
Cameron shook his head to defend his on-again off-again girlfriend. “We’re all adults. If you couldn’t make it then you didn’t have to come.” He waved a hand at the other empty seats. “They didn’t.”
“I’m very glad you’re all here,” Courtney said, genuinely meaning it. “You’re my OGs, and you always show up when I need you, so I’ll respect your time. I talked to Pat and he says we should take the anonymous tip seriously just in case and monitor the situation.”
“You mean, like, spy?” Yolanda clarified.
Courtney’s sentient staff chirped in agreement as though to say, Yes. That’s exactly what Starwoman meant.
“We’re talking the kind of surveillance your dad did, Rick,” she continued. “Keeping tabs in the area by moving nearby and recording suspicious activity. Cindy’s system provided an IP address of the anonymous tip so that’s where we should start looking.”
“Then that doesn’t make it anonymous,” Beth pointed out, confused. She turned to Rick for back up, but he sat stiff next to her. She softened at their silent shared look and tipped her head discreetly over to him. Cameron noticed it right away and shrunk in his seat.
It must’ve been the mention of the first Hourman. Of Rick’s parents. Long gone, they were, and still, the talk of their brutal death hurt him like a fresh wound. He placed the coffee cup down, eyes glued to the table.
“You know what else my parents’ spying on the ISA did?” he said. “It got them killed.”
Cameron stared up at the ceiling, smart enough not to make eye contact with his father’s victims.
“We’ll be prepared this time.” In costume, Starwoman said these words to them, not their impulsive friend Courtney. The picture of optimism and no-going-backs and a leadership track record of success after success that warranted confidence. The public trusted in the JSA. The JSA trusted in Starwoman—and each other. “We don’t know that it is the ISA, so let’s not jump to conclusions until we know for sure. Since you’re all busy, I’ll dig into it some more and send you an update on the safest way to get this done.”
Cameron cleared his throat. “I don’t think I’m the best member for this job, Court.”
“Wouldn’t you be the best?” Yolanda sat back in her chair, giving it a lazy spin. “Sign up on the pretense that you want revenge for your dad. Double agent.”
An uneasy grimace passed over Cameron’s face. “Nobody would fall for that with the museum making our histories public.”
“Let’s not volunteer for other people,” Courtney replied hastily in agreement. She sat down in her chair and crossed her arms. “We can keep that idea on the back burner though once we have confirmed that the ISA is what we’re really dealing with.”
Beth rose her hand. “I can research the database to brush up on our knowledge of inactive members.”
There were no more points to be made about it after that.
Rick finished the last dregs of Beth’s coffee and sighed. “Can we talk now about what the hell I should do about what happened at the museum?”
Beth’s house keys nearly fell out of her grasp from exhaustion when she walked into the foyer. Flavorful lemon chicken and cooking rice greeted her at the door, strong enough to make her salivate. The JSA meeting was a mess. For a group that voted in a museum, all hell broke loose when Rick admitted that a teen put two and two together about his identity.
At the end of the day, they concluded that they wouldn’t make it a big deal. How could they? He never revealed his name, and the moment was fleeting—just a single spark of recognition ignited behind young blue eyes.
Beth shared the story with her parents over dinner. They had already eaten, punctual with mealtimes, but humored her by piling leftovers on their plates and scraping their forks around as they listened to her day.
Maybe it was weird to be this close to her parents. Since the early days of signing up to be the protege of a Golden Age hero, she’d involved her parents into the fray. Hootie and Nite-Lite became Mom and Dad’s code names respectively—It was helpful when battling homework, college applications, and the emotional meltdowns of teenaged sleep-deprivation. These mantles were now retired, but it didn’t stop their insistent investment—Especially from her dad.
Their cloying strategies grated on her nerves. Beth barely had time to squeeze in the responsibilities of her JSA mantle —forget informing her parents on the most recent drama. They were sidekicks. Great sidekicks. But like their actual careers, maybe it was time to gear up for a race towards the proverbial finish line.
After one more mouthful of rice, Beth dabbed at her lips with the seasonal cloth napkin, swallowing down her meal and apprehension all at once. “Mom,” she started, voice edging on a tone of hesitancy, “At what age did you move out of Grandpa’s house?”
Her mother turned to her father, as though he would have the answer. He couldn’t have—her parents met at the Omaha Young Black Professionals Association, both ambitious and daring to break glass ceilings in their burgeoning careers. Already independent. Already successful. Two examples of Nebraska’s Black excellence. A part of her immediately regretted asking the question. Their generation emerged from an almost defunct era of improvement and self-starting capacity.
“I believe it was after my Master’s,” her mother said, tapping her chin. “You know how I feel about college dorms.”
“I do.” Yes. Even though she had heard all about the horrors of communal bathrooms and shared living spaces with other students, eighteen-year-old Beth dreamed of living in a dorm room for her freshman year. The proximity to her classes, the community with new friends, midnight dashes to the dining hall and all-nighters at the lounge sounded like great fun no matter what tale Mom would spin about gastro haunting dorm rooms one by one like Egyptian plagues. All the heeding and warnings in the world could not deter her until she stepped foot and visited the dorms at Civic City to witness them with her own eyes.
Tiny cramped spaces with crappy twin beds shoved into even tinier corners. Sparse light, nothing natural, and noises from students across the hall heard from even cancelling headphones due to paper-thin walls. Even if she had lugged a humidifier into the building, little it would do to combat dust control. Luckily, her program didn’t require residency on campus. Mom folded her hands behind her back after they marched out of there, a single arched brow as if to say I told you so. Dad printed out the bus schedule that ran from Blue Valley and Civic City the moment they returned home, posting it to their fridge with their 2010 Hawaii vacation magnet bought at the Honolulu airport gift shop.
Dad, who had moved on from pretending to eat a second supper to tackle the laundry by matching his socks, sensed the true question behind her conversation. “You want to move out, hon? But you love this house.”
“I’m exhausted.” She met her mother’s eyes. “I don’t want to move, not exactly.”
Of course she loved this house. She grew up here. Fought tooth and nail against her parents’ looming separation here. She won against Eclipso here. That meant everything to her. “But I feel like a zombie commuting back and forth like this.” At this rate, her body might collapse and she’d need the doctor.
Her mother, also a doctor, hadn’t nearly prepared her enough for the tilt-a-whirl sensation of imposter syndrome. Dr. McNider, her mentor in academics and superheroing, had given her tips and tricks to develop meaningful study habits in an increasingly complicated web of adulthood. College existed in a vacuum. She went to school and battled monsters between classes—Somehow, that worked. Grad school was a little trickier, but this? This? Not sustainable. Something had to change.
“That’s just how med school is.”
“It’s not healthy,” Beth stressed. “I’m losing patience with myself. With others. I need some stability in my life if I’m going to weather this new chapter long-term—It’s either I move out or I quit JSA.”
She worried at her bottom lip. Voicing aloud that she may have to part with the JSA unearthed the root of her inflexible schedule fear. If she couldn’t find a way to get out of the constant commuting that ate at her time, she’d need to do like Mike and Jakeem and put herself on reserve. It hurt her—Being Dr. Mid-Nite, while not her lifeblood like Courtney’s Starwoman, lead her self-discovery in her personal life. It dawned the genesis of her identification in medicine. What gave her autonomy outside of her mother’s footsteps in thoracics. Okay. Maybe it was her lifeblood in an impactful my ability to heal others is what gets me up in the morning kind of way.
“Oh dear.” Realization dawned on her mother, studying the anxiety storming across her daughter’s face. “We’re smothering her. You hear that, James? We’ve done it again.”
Dad mismatched a pair of blue socks, crushed. “I didn’t know you felt this way, sweetheart.”
Beth groaned. Naturally, they’d think this were the case. Telling her father that she was tired and struggling was never easy, he always took her hardships like a personal blow. “It’s not any of your fault. I’m twenty-six. I’m a superhero. I need to be realistic about my limitations.”
“Alright,” her mother said. “If you’re sure.”
She wasn’t when this conversation started, but now she had put it out there. Like Pandora’s box, she couldn’t take it back. Leaving would be difficult, but it was also inevitable. Heartbreaking, too, it appeared by the sadnesss on her father’s face.
“Dad. It doesn’t have to be right away.”
“Don’t worry about us,” he said, handing out a matched pair of socks. Ankle socks, fuzzy and old with pink hearts. They must’ve got lost in the laundry chute. “Your mother and I should’ve been prepared.”