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“Why does Brenda get to drive?” is Paco's question the instant Jaime gets in the back-seat of Brenda's convertible.
“Why are you complaining when you get shotgun?” Jaime asks. “Superheroes should get shotgun. Sidekicks should get the backseat.”
Paco laughs and looks at Brenda. “Can you believe Jaime thinks that we're his sidekicks? I'm like, the PR-manager-slash-brains-slash-muscle – ”
“ You're the brains?” Brenda asks.
“Oh, but you don't argue with muscle?” Paco asks, and flexes.
Jaime sighs. He's not really annoyed, though. It's nice to get out with Brenda and Paco, even with Brenda's driving.
Paco turns around in the seat so he's looking at Jaime (despite the fact that if they crash now, the airbag totally isn't going to work as well). “Though about sidekicks. Is Peacemaker like, your sidekick?”
Jaime cringes.
He knows Dad was a little weary around Peacemaker, due to him having been a mercenary. And the fact that he came across as kind of unhinged and dangerous. And the fact that he thought that Jaime was also dangerous because of the scarab. And Brenda did tell Jaime that Peacemaker reached for his gun when he saw Jaime fire up the armor.
And Jaime knows he'd sound super arrogant if he said he wasn't that worried about being shot in the back because the scarab's pretty good at picking up danger and did detect the spike in Peacemaker's heartrate and alerted him of 'potential danger'. And the armor's bulletproof.
“I think he's sort of a mentor. Or he's supposed to be a mentor. He's like – a less powerful, side-kicky mentor.”
“Definitely tell him that to his face,” Paco says.
“We're missing the most important thing,” Brenda says, “Which is that Jaime's finally going to get some fighting experience that isn't just what an alien bug tells him to do.”
The scarab chatters in Jaime's head. Jaime can tell it's offended. My fighting experience is far more valuable than any that could be gained within a human lifetime. Or something like that, sometimes it's a bit hard to put the scarab's words in human language.
“The scarab doesn't always tell me what to do,” Jaime says. “A lot of the time, I have to tell the scarab what not to do.”
Jaime gets no words, but the feeling of an eye-roll from Scarab.
Brenda pulls into a parking lot at faster than recommended and the car skids to a stop. She and Paco have already hopped out by time Jaime's undone his seatbelt.
There's no one there except for Peacemaker, leaning against his motorcycle. The place looks pretty abandoned. A run-down gas station between towns. Jaime guesses that's why they picked it out.
“Didn't tell me you were bringing more kids,” Peacemaker says.
“Technically, we're older than Jaime now,” Brenda says. “On account of the year he spent in space.”
… Jaime guesses that's true. It's hard not to remember when he and Brenda used to be in the same math class, but now she's in pre-calc and he's stuck in algebra II, still hating logarithms. The scarab being able to calculate any logarithm he gives it in whatever base possible doesn't really make him understand them better, it would just make it easier to cheat on tests. Which he doesn't want to do, and wouldn't work anyway, because he has to show his work.
“Brenda volunteered to help me spar,” Jaime says. “Since it'd probably be more fun that way.”
Peacemaker looks between Brenda and Jaime carefully.
Jaime always got the idea Peacemaker had no clue what to make of Jaime's friends. They were normal teenagers. Well, he thinks of himself as a normal teenager, too, but Peacemaker obviously treated him more like a potential equal – or threat. And he had the whole 'blue' thing going on with his brain from when he accidentally absorbed the scarab's directory, and Jaime's still getting used to seeing through the scarab's 'eyes'. But he doesn't really have anything in common with or anything to teach to Paco and Brenda.
“It'll be a more even fight that way,” Brenda says. “Which will be less demoralizing for Jaime. It's how you pair people off sparring in the dojo.”
Peacemaker raises an eyebrow. He still mostly seems baffled.
“The fighting abilities go like this,” Brenda continues, holding off fingers and ticking them down: “Jaime with his armor. You. Me. Jaime without his armor. Paco.”
“Hey!” Paco says. “Why'd you put me dead last?”
“Because Jaime's been in more fights than you – ”
“Yeah, but look at him,” Paco says, and gestures at Jaime.
“Gee, thanks,” Jaime says dryly.
“No offense,” Paco continues, “But you're like, scrawny. I outweigh you twice over.”
“Yeah, well Hulk Hogan outweighs Bruce Lee, doesn't mean he'd beat him in a fight,” Jaime says. He's not actually really offended, but it is kind of fun to prod Paco.
Paco crosses his arms. “Yeah, sure. You're Bruce Lee.”
“Kids...” Peacemaker says while rubbing the bridge of his nose.
… Jaime's probably not getting these superhero lessons off to the best start. Maybe it was a mistake to invite his friends.
“Okay,” Peacemaker says. He looks between Brenda and Jaime again. “I can use this actually. This is good.”
Jaime waits.
Peacemaker addresses Brenda now: “So, I need to assess Jaime's technique without the scarab. I'll be watching. You just have to pin him on the ground.” he looks at Jaime. “You have to avoid getting pinned. But you can't use your scarab.” Then, he kind of gestures dismissively and says “So... do that.”
Paco hops on the trunk of Brenda's car and gets out his phone. “I'll be filming,” he says.
“Oh, great,” Jaime says.
Brenda looks at Jaime and asks, “... So, should I just... go?”
Jaime nods.
Brenda gets in a fighting stance. Jaime realizes he hasn't really seen her in one before. Whenever she was messing around, she normally kind of threw someone out of the blue. Usually Paco, when he got on her nerves. But it didn't happen a ton.
It's... a lot different than someone trying to kill him.
The scarab is somewhat on alert. It knows that they aren't fighting, not really. And it reads Brenda as a lot less threatening than someone with a gun. But it still is like... hey, notice this. Human biomechanics suggest movement in this direction –
“Stop trying to help me cheat,” Jaime says to the scarab.
Brenda smiles.
She steps towards him. The stepping isn't like. Regular walking. She moves one leg forward and then the other, but without crossing them over. It's kind of like a weird skip-thing, Jaime thinks, but the scarab informs him it's how hand-to-hand combatants on Earth usually fight.
Jaime backs up when Brenda moves towards him. Even without the scarab trying to backseat spar for him, he knows if Brenda wants to pin him, she has to actually touch him.
… If he just runs, he knows he's faster than she is, but also that would definitely read as really cowardly. And not fit the spirit of the sparring match at all.
Brenda keeps stepping towards Jaime and Jaime steps back and Paco yawns really loudly, probably for show –
Brenda charges Jaime.
He's embarrassed to admit the scarab realized it before he did. There was some alarm, some hey watch out, as she changed her stance and moved, and Jaime spins to the side. She grabs Jaime's arm as she goes past him and drags herself towards him –
Normally here, he'd just find himself flat on his ass, not really having gotten how, but the scarab gives him a nice play-by-play of the mechanics which resulted on him landing flat on his ass.
She grabbed his bicep as she ran past him. That wasn't 'advantageous' according to the scarab, she was really just pulling herself closer after having to readjust. He started trying to get away, which wasn't great, because then she just re-grabbed the arm she'd already grabbed, by his wrist this time, stepped forward and braced her other arm across his chest, and swept his left leg out from under him. They both fell to the ground, but she immediately rolled over and put him in an arm bar.
The scarab gives Jaime another spike of alarm as Brenda presses on what the scarab informs him is his triceps tendon – even though Jaime knows Brenda won't hurt him.
“Chill out,” Jaime says to the scarab as Brenda releases him and he rubs his arm.
“Hey,” Brenda says, “I'm supposed to be helping. If I was being 'chill' that wouldn't help much.”
Jaime shakes his head. “I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to the scarab. I think I embarrassed it.”
Brenda nods slightly. “Right,” she says. “I always forget you do that.”
“Well, I try not to do it around people so I don't look crazy,” Jaime says.
“Can the scarab hear us?” Brenda asks.
Jaime nods. “If it's paying attention, yeah. A lot of the time it doesn't care a ton about whatever people are talking about, though. Right now it does.”
“Hi, Jaime's scarab,” Brenda says a bit awkwardly. She waves, too.
The scarab makes a comment about why is it Jaime's scarab and Jaime is not scarab's host? Which Jaime doesn't share with Brenda, of course. It's just still kind of weird to think about, even with him getting along better with the scarab now.
“Um, the scarab. Acknowledged that you said hi,” Jaime says. Also awkwardly.
“Enough talking,” Peacemaker says. “Go again. This time try things that aren't just running.”
“Hey, I didn't even turn and run!”
“You were backing away,” Peacemaker says. “Which is what you should do, if you aren't learning. But now you are, so try and fight.”
Right.
Jaime can do that.
He faces off against Brenda again.
The problem is, he doesn't really know how to fight without the scarab. He knows about like, making a fist and all that, but he doesn't know how to throw people, the only thing he could do is hit someone. And he really doesn't want to hit Brenda. Not in some weird 'she's a girl' thing. Just because he doesn't want to hit his friends, especially not his friends who have been hospitalized due to their horrible abusive fathers.
Brenda moves towards him.
She doesn't try to punch him, he notices that. She's reaching for his wrist, he pulls his wrist back. She takes another step towards him, he steps back and tries to hold his hands out kind of like hers were, kind of as-defensively-as-he-can without having his shield.
C'mon, stop psyching yourself out.
Brenda reaches for him again, grabs his wrist, and as she's pulling him into her, Jaime tries to just body-check her. She stumbles back a little, but grabs him as she's falling and throws him again.
Ow.
“Okay, this isn't working,” Peacemaker says as Jaime gets up.
“Hey, I'm not used to fighting without the scarab,” Jaime says. “Give me some time.”
Peacemaker shakes his head. “ That's not what's not working. You guys are afraid to hit each other.”
“You don't hit people in traditional aikido,” Brenda says.
Peacemaker looks kind of confused, but then switches his gaze to Jaime.
“I don't like hitting anyone when I don't have to,” Jaime says. “I know it's just sparring. But it's still kind of hard.”
Paco finally hops down off the car and says, “Yeah, Jaime's not really one of those get-into-fights-after-school kids. That's Brenda.”
He says it in a joking manner, but Brenda still goes beet-red.
“Ugh, this is gonna be harder than I thought,” Peacemaker says. “Okay, first step: getting you to hit someone outside of a life-or-death situation.” he walks up to Jaime and holds both his hands up, palm outwards, around Jaime's chest-height. “ Please tell me you know how to throw a punch, at least.”
In theory Jaime does. Dad made sure he knew how to not break his thumbs earlier, though since this was back when Jaime was a kid it was all self-defense oriented. What to do if someone tries to kidnap you. Which was not punching them and was poking them in the eyes, screaming, making a fuss, and grabbing something to try to hold on to. None of which was really super handy as a superhero.
Jaime holds his hands up in fists.
“Squeeze your pinkie finger tighter,” Peacemaker says.
Jaime does so.
“Okay, now punch my palm,” Peacemaker says.
Jaime does.
“Awful. Do it again.”
“Hey, you can at least tell me what was awful!”
The scarab , of course, is giving Jaime feedback. He was telegraphing his blow because his elbow flipped out and he was distributing the force unwisely because he hit with his entire fist.
Peacemaker does a punch in slow motion in the air and then says, “Start with your palm facing up. It will minimize your telegraphing.”
It's weird.
Jaime notices Brenda kind of mimicking him as he does the same thing, following Peacemaker's advice. Then, Jaime has to practice punching at Peacemaker's hands again.
After Peacemaker is somewhat satisfied with Jaime's technique (and Brenda's, since he started commenting on hers when he saw that she was joining in) and Paco has become completely bored and started just playing phone games in the convertible, Peacemaker tells Jaime to just hit him in the chest as hard as he can.
Jaime is not thrilled about the idea.
“Don't worry,” Peacemaker says. “You're not going to hurt me.”
The scarab immediately starts trying to tell Jaime how to make it damaging, punch here , where there is less muscle and more nerves, wait until his heart is at an exact certain point in the rhythm cycle and you can stop it –
and Jaime ignores those suggestions obviously. He punches Peacemaker as hard as he can in the chest. The man exhales with the blow, but Jaime can tell he didn't really hurt him.
Which is better than the alternative, despite the scarab's complaining. Jaime thinks it's mostly offended by Peacemaker's assessment that he wouldn't get hurt.
“You know,” Jaime says to the scarab. “This is going to be boring for you, and I'm not supposed to use you anyway. How about going into power-saving mode or scanning the surroundings until we're needed?”
Peacemaker gives Jaime a kind of inquisitive look.
“He's talking to the scarab,” Brenda explains.
“Yeah. I knew that,” Peacemaker says. In a way that doesn't really indicate he knew that. “Anyway. Now you can spar.”
They try.
Unfortunately, the punching lessons really didn't seem to help anything, because they just set up more situations Brenda can take him down in. When he punches, he gets in her reach, and she can grab his arm by the wrist and elbow. And he knows that he's not being as fast as he 'should' be.
There's one instance where he does get the drop on Brenda. She stumbles slightly and he throws a punch at her face and rather than doing any of the aikido stuff she's supposed to, she just. Freezes. And he feels his fist connect with her face and she stumbles back.
“Holy shit, Brenda, I'm sorry!” Jaime says.
Brenda rubs her face. She sticks her tongue out at him, even though the scarab can tell her heart is beating way faster than it was before. “Don't apologize for actually don't what you're supposed to,” she says. “About time you succeeded at something.”
Jaime can't tell how to respond, because the way she's acting is way different to the way the scarab thinks she's feeling.
She looks at Peacemaker and says, “You take it from here.”
Peacemaker nods. Brenda walks off to her car and Peacemaker puts his hand on Jaime's shoulder.
“Maybe doing this with your friends was a mistake,” Peacemaker says. Jaime thinks he's trying to sound... gentle? Which is super weird on him.
“Yeah, okay,” Jaime says. Even though he doesn't want it to be a mistake. He wants to spend time with Paco and Brenda and for them to actually be helping – he can tell they want to help. Especially with Paco's... 'Beetle-Cave' thing he set up.
The try to spar some.
Jaime does get hit some while sparring Peacemaker, but honestly, being punched by someone who's pulling their punches and being thrown on the ground don't feel that different. It's always mildly painful but not really, just kind of unpleasant.
By time they're done, Peacemaker has given Jaime a long list of things to work on, including stuff to practice at home. Which will be super fun to explain to Mom and Dad. Hey, you know how you don't think you have to worry – that much – about me doing superhero stuff because the armor does the fighting for me? Well, actually –
“So you got homework?” Paco asks, as Jaime explains the situation and they're driving home. “That's rough. But hey, at least it will come in handy more than regular homework.”
“You know, you could have been doing homework while we were waiting for Jaime, like I did after we stopped sparring,” Brenda says.
Paco snorts. “On a Saturday?”
“You'd rather do it on a Sunday?”
“All homework should be done in the five-minute passing period before class, it is law,” Paco says.
Brenda makes a noise of disapproval.
Jaime wonders if things got awkward between him and Brenda.
He hopes not.
It'd be nice for them to keep sparring when he gets less bad at it.
But either way, he's still pretty awkward and silent on the drive back to El Paso, just because of that.
Brenda pulls over to the side of the road after she drops off Paco, and it's just her and Jaime in the car. Jaime moves into the passenger's seat.
“You know, I'm not an idiot,” Brenda says.
“I don't think you're an idiot.”
Brenda holds up a hand and cuts him off. “Look, I'm not a kicked puppy. I've been hit before.” She laughs, but it's more awkward than anything else. “Obviously.”
Jaime really doesn't know how to respond to that.
People didn't really talk about it when Brenda's dad was still alive.
Like, they knew, or they suspected, but they didn't know what to do, and Jaime kind of felt like a coward in retrospect. Like, things never got as bad as they did when he disappeared, when Brenda got pulled in by the police for questioning, but something was still going on and they were kind of just hoping it was normal. Or like, not normal normal, but not... abuse. Jaime had looked it up one time, but evidently there's no law against hitting kids to punish them at home if it 'doesn't cause injury' and he didn't want to make things worse so when Brenda made it clear she'd rather not talk about it he didn't press it.
“Did I hurt you in sparring?” Jaime asks.
Brenda laughs again.
Jaime has no clue how to respond to that.
Brenda shifts in the seat. She's tenser, her shoulders are higher, and she's not looking at him. She's looking at the side of the road. “Do you know why I took aikido, Jaime?”
“Uh, self-defense?”
“Yeah, obviously. But why not karate or mixed martial arts?”
Jaime shrugs, because he doesn't know. Honestly, when Brenda just started talking about getting into martial arts, they all kind of sounded the same to him, except when Paco said she should got into wrestling so she could make big bucks as a pro-wrestler.
Even though they're stopped, Brenda grabs the steering wheel with both hands. Her arms are kind of locked, straight out, and she's tense.
… Jaime really wish he knew what to do.
“I really didn't want to hit someone,” Brenda says. “It's – it's hard.”
“... I know it's hard,” Jaime says. He's trying to be supportive.
Brenda shakes her head. She still won't look him in the eye. “I was afraid of hurting someone,” she says. “Like you just get so ... angry.”
“You're not an angry person,” Jaime says, just because he knows she sometimes gets offended when Paco calls her angry.
Brenda finally stares at him. There's a sheen of tears over her brown eyes.
Dang.
“I am !” Brenda says. “Or I was! I don't know. Why do you think you guys never got invited over to my house after sixth grade?”
“I figured your dad got tired of us coming around,” Jaime says.
Brenda shakes her head. “No, okay, I mean that too, but – ” She inhales quickly. “We couldn't have any guests over. The living room had all these holes in the drywall. Dad could punch it when he got mad. I had this space in my room – I didn't do it in the rest of the house – but – ”
Brenda covers her face with her hands. Jaime thinks she's ashamed.
He tentatively touches her shoulder. Brenda looks at him between her her fingers.
“It was just drywall,” Jaime says. “It wasn't like, a person. It's not the end of the world if you punched the drywall.”
Brenda rubs her face. “You don't get it, Jaime. It's like – it's like all you can see is red and you know none of the decisions you're making are actually helping, but you can't stop yourself.”
The closest Jaime would be able to come to empathizing would probably be when the scarab wants to do it's own thing. Which would really not help in this situation.
He never realized how much things were different just because Mom and Dad were reasonably emotionally stable.
“It's okay,” Jaime says.
“I know it's okay now,” Brenda says. “It's just been like – it's been over a year.”
Jaime waits. He thinks it'd be better to wait now than to have a foot-in-mouth moment.
“When are things gonna be normal?” Brenda asks. “Like, I want to be able to spar and have fun or at least see a fist coming at my face without just waiting for it to connect.”
Jaime swallows.
“Have you talked to Amparo about this?” Jaime asks. It seems kind of weird to suggest talking to a crime lord, but to Brenda, Amparo's not a crime lord. She's her guardian.
Brenda shrugs. “She had me see some shrink. I don't think she knows what to do. She's not really the most touchy-feely person.”
“Yeah, that's an understatement,” Jaime says.
Brenda rolls her eyes. “Oh, lay off, Jaime.”
… Brenda should probably know.
He always gets to this time where it's like. Brenda should probably know about Amparo. She's never going to forgive Jaime for keeping it secret. But the instant she pieces together that Amparo is actually El Paso's resident crime boss, La Dama, what would she think happened to her dad? He doesn't know if she'd be mad or sad or relieved that someone finally did something –
And Amparo threatened him, but really, he doesn't think she'd go through with revealing his secret identity if he told Brenda that she was La Dama. She knows it would just look worse on her, and her niece's friend being a superhero would just put Brenda in danger.
So he's kind of just using that as an excuse.
“... Sorry,” Jaime says.
Brenda shrugs. “It's fine. Just don't be weird about it. You and Paco used to always get so weird about it.”
Jaime knows that they did.
“I want to keep sparring with you and Peacemaker,” Brenda says. “I don't think it's really a good idea to just... let myself freak out, or whatever.”
“... That's probably a good idea,” Jaime says tentatively, even though he doesn't know if he agrees.
“And besides,” Brenda continues, “It'd be way less embarrassing than seeing you continuously get your ass kicked by Peacemaker. You were kind of pathetic.”
Jaime smiles, because at least her being fake-mean to him means she's hopefully feeling kind of normal. “I think getting my ass kicked a ton by you would be more pathetic.”
“That's machismo talking, Jaime, ignore it.”
“It's not machismo! If Peacemaker was an ex-superhero-slash-mercenary-girl and you were a guy, it'd still be more pathetic to get my ass kicked by you!”
Brenda snorts. “Classic machismo denier,” she says. But she doesn't sound like she means it.
And she starts the car again, and drives Jaime home.