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Zoffy felt something slam into his leg. “You can’t go,” blurted Ace. “You can’t leave!”
Zoffy knelt and pressed his little brother’s shoulders, cupping the child’s head . “There are worlds that need help, Ace. They need me.”
“I need you,” Ace insisted. “How can I be an ultra warrior if you don’t teach me?”
Zoffy exhaled. “Because you know in your heart that I need to go. Hundreds of people are in danger in Andromeda and they need my help. And you know that you can be a great Ultra Warrior without me.”
”But…”
Please don’t rely on me.” Zoffy dipped his head. “If you put your faith in a single person, they’ll always let you down someday. Rely on the ideals instead–hold fast to those–and you won’t be disappointed.”
--Before.
Zoffy wished, with everything he had, that he were anywhere else.
He had never been to this part of the city as a cadet; he’d poured himself into his studies at the age Ace was at now, and when his classmates (and later his squad) had gone out for the night, he’d never joined. Always more work to do. Perhaps not healthy, but it had kept him from other vices.
Of course, Ace was not bound to those choices now. He was growing, fast, now nearer man than the boy he had been–and it seemed now Ace intended to distance himself as much as possible from being that boy.
By any means.
“Please find my son.” The memory of Ken’s quiet words ached in Zoffy’s mind.”You don’t have to force him to come back, just…make sure he’s safe.”
The phantom tug of the memory of Taro, tugging one hand that he could barely reach. “He isn’t gone, is he? He wouldn’t leave forever, right? Not my brother?”
Zoffy knelt and gently petted Taro’s crest, as he’d done so many times for a younger and more innocent Ace. “Don’t worry,” he soothed. “Ace has always been independent, he probably went to clear his head.” Though, glancing up, the lines of worry etched into Marie’s face told him this was much more serious than the other times. This fight had been worse than the others. “I’ll find him,” he promised, squeezing the boy’s shoulder before straightening. He glanced between Marie and Ken. “Do you have any idea where he’d usually go?”
Ken’s response sent a pulse of fear through him. “Taro,” he murmured, “it’s time for bed.”
“But I’m not tired,” insisted Taro, “I need to stay up till Ace comes back! I promised!”
“He knows you love him, and he also knows that you’ve already stayed up past your bedtime,” Ken said firmly. “Come on now, let’s get ready for sleep.”
“But—!” Taro’s further foundation for objection, however, would never be known to Zoffy, as Ken scooped the boy bodily from the floor and, with a face set like flint, carried him from the room.
Marie only offered the retreating Ken a grateful glance before returning her attention to Zoffy. “He’s come back smelling of alcohol recently, so we think he’s either been at friend’s houses for parties, or some of the far-east bars near the academy that ‘forget’ to card students.”
Zoffy nodded, filing away the information. “Have you tried following him yourself?”
Marie folded her hands. “Ace needs to know that his father and I don’t control his life. We want him to be able to choose freely…which is why we don’t want him to trap himself with the choices he’s making now.” Her carefully level voice pricked with frost at the edges; the only external indication of how scared she was for Ace.
Zoffy offered what he hoped was an encouraging nod. “I’ll look out for him,” he promised.
A warm smile through the cold fear. “I know .”
Zoffy braced himself once more, and stepped inside, allowing himself to be submerged in light and noise. It was a battlefield, and Zoffy navigated it as fluidly as any other, until he found who he’d been looking for. He wasn’t hard to find–a single body sitting still and quiet in a corner booth.
“Ace.”
The younger ultra didn’t look up at the address. Zoffy took his time, letting Ace watch him take in their surroundings. As if Zoffy only just now noticed the music with bass that rattled his teeth, the stench of smoke and alcohol and sweat, the noise of laughter and talk and other sounds from a back area. He let Ace watch him take it all in, then asked: “Is this where you want to be?”
“Leave if you don’t like it,” Ace snapped. He grimaced, as if he’d hurt his own ears with his sharpness, but he didn’t offer any other explanation. He took another drink instead.
Zoffy waited a moment, then sat down across from the younger ultra. “Father’s worried about you,” he said softly.
Ace glowered into his rapidly emptying glass. “Don’t call him that. He’s not your dad, or mine. He just wants an excuse to boss people around.”
Zoffy couldn’t find it in his heart even to be hurt by the insult to Ken. “You think he just likes being in charge?”
Ace shrugged and threw back the rest of the drink. It must not have been very good; he didn’t seem to enjoy it. After several moments of waiting with no indication of an answer, Zoffy leaned back to flag down a waitress—of interesting uniform, but uniform it certainly was—and quietly ordered two waters.
Ace did look up at that. “I don’ want any.”
“You’ll drink it.” Zoffy leaned forward again as the waitress weaved away between tables and bodies. “The more you hydrate now, the less of a hangover you’ll have tomorrow.”
Ace frowned. “That right?” He studied Zoffy a moment. Zoffy wasn’t sure how much the boy would usually drink at a place like this, but Ace’s vision was still fairly clear, his speech still distinct.
“Really,” Zoffy confirmed. He felt a mingled flash of anger—if Ace often hid in places like this, someone should have told him something even Zoffy knew—and gratitude that Ace at least seemed open to the information. He was willing to talk. He was able to listen. Zoffy could work with that.
“Why are you here, Zoffy?” Ace didn’t quite set down the empty cup (Zoffy didn’t have enough experience to identify what Ace was drinking, but he’d guess it was cheap, likely kept specifically for young drinkers who wouldn’t know the difference). Instead the younger Ultra kept the glass hovering between his hands and the countertop. “Did fa—Did Ken send you to bring me back?”
Zoffy shook his head. “He and Mother asked me to check that you were safe. No more.” Zoffy made a show of only now observing what he’d noticed the moment he’d set eyes on Ace. “Where are your friends?”
That seemed to strike a nerve. He shifted in his seat, avoiding Zoffy’s eyes. “Sometimes they show up. Sometimes they don’t.”
Not very good friends then, Zoffy bit back. There would be time for that later. For now, little steps.
The waitress returned with the two waters, and the older ultra thanked her quietly. “No more for him,” he added quietly, slipping her a payment chip. She studied him for a piercing moment that Zoffy couldn’t parse, then nodded, leaving them alone again. “Now,” Zoffy continued, “do you want to tell me what’s actually bothering you? Drinking by yourself isn’t something one does for fun.”
Ace hesitated. Zoffy took a calculated sip of his water, and he felt a pulse of relief as Ace semi-consciously copied the action. “I don’t want to be in that house right now,” he eventually managed.
“There’s better places to spend an evening than this.” Safer places. Safer people.
The youth shrugged. “Usually we only start here. We go off and ride around—Jino has a cruiser—and have some fun.”
Zoffy, while not particularly experienced on that front, had spent enough time in the military to know what ‘ride around and have some fun ’ translated to for a boy that age. Ace would have acted more ashamed if he’d done anything truly and permanently harmful; the worst he’d likely done at this juncture was write a rude word on a wall, perhaps fool around with drinks and maybe people. Marie was a good enough medic to have seen the tells if Ace had been experimenting with substances much stronger than what he’d been drinking now.
Zoffy let him think a moment longer, then pressed. “Why don’t you want to be home right now, Ace?”
Ace‘s mouth tightened. “They’re more worried about Taro than me.”
“I don’t believe that and neither do you,” Zoffy said flatly. “Try again.”
Ace blinked at the sharpness in his tone, then seemed to gather his nerve. “I’m ready to join the Garrison, but dad w— Ken won’t let me,” he corrected, as if remembering he was still mad at his adoptive father. “He says I’m too young, even though I’m as old as you were when you started.”
Zoffy couldn’t quite suppress a wince. Automatically he glanced at the other tables, then pulled one glove down to his wrist. “There’s a reason you’re not supposed to enlist that young,” he said quietly, angling his gloveless forearm so only Ace could see the scarring that came from pushing one’s spacium glands too far, too young. “The age requirement was temporarily lowered during the Ultimate Wars against Alien Empera, because so many of our people died that we almost ran out of bodies. I was very, very lucky to only escape with this much.”
“It’s not just that,” Ace insisted, eyes pleading for Zoffy to understand. “He says I haven’t focused enough on my training, when all I’ve done is his stupid training my whole life! He just wants to tell me what to do. And since he’s in charge of everything else, he thinks he’s always gotta treat me like a little kid.” He dropped his gaze. “He…probably treats me like a kid ‘cause he feels bad my birth-dad died, but..”
A flash of understanding. Survivor’s guilt. That was something Zoffy understood. He made a show of turning his water cup, then took a preparatory sip. “Ace…what’s the most scared you’ve ever seen your father?”
Ace seemed so surprised by the seeming change in topic that he forgot to protest that Ken wasn’t his real father. “What does that have to do with—“
“Your concerns matter to me and I promise I will speak to Ultra Father about them with all the weight they deserve. Answer the question.”
Ace hesitated. “When Taro was born and things went wrong with Mother,” he said quietly.
Zoffy…hadn’t expected that. He’d known there’d been complications with Taro—he’d been offworld on assignment at the time, and Ken had sent some worried messages—but he hadn’t known the extent of those complications. He’d known they hadn’t had more biological children, but…Zoffy made a mental note to read back through the old messages and see what he’d missed. “Do you know the most scared I’ve ever seen him?” Ace’s brow furrowed, but he gave no answer. Zoffy continued: “the most scared I’ve seen Ken wasn’t when he had to fight Empera. It wasn’t even when Belial went rogue.” He leaned forward a fraction. “It was when he found a baby, half-drowned in what was left of your birth-family’s home.”
Ace blinked. “He…never told me he was scared.”
“Ken was terrified,” Zoffy affirmed. “He’d just lost several friends, he’d almost lost Belial in the battle the day before—they were still close back then. And in the moments where he tried to resuscitate you, before he took you in, before he even knew your name…he was deathly, desperately scared that he couldn’t save you.” He paused, hoping the words and their weight would sink in. “But you didn’t die. You fought your way back and you lived, and even back then we were all impressed by your fighting spirit.”
Ace’s expression tightened. “So that’s why he took me in? Because he thought I’d be a good fighter?”
Zoffy almost snorted. “Quite the opposite. He saw your spirit and your joy, and he was so in awe of you that he was terrified he wasn’t good enough to take care of you.”
Ace stared at him blankly. “He…what?”
“You should have seen him the first time you cried at something he did.” Zoffy smiled at the memory. “He sneezed while you were napping and it startled you awake; Ken was so sure that made him a bad father and a bad person. It took Ultra Mother and Belial half an hour to convince him he wasn’t a failure.”
“Mother…” Ace blinked. “But what does that have to do with…”
“Father knows you’re growing up, and he respects that enough not to stop you from doing things like this—though I know I wouldn’t, you’re smarter than this.” He saw Ace’s flinch and knew the shot had told, so he softened his voice as he continued: “but all he wants now is what he wanted all those centuries ago. For you to be safe and healthy; for you to thrive. And this isn’t a place for thriving.”
Ace studied his almost-empty water. “Why… didn’t he tell me this?”
Because he’s Ken and he’s atrocious at expressing his feelings about something this nuanced, Zoffy thought. “With how you felt when I came in, would you really have let your father sit down and talk to you for as long as I’ve been? I doubt you’d have heard him out–and I don’t know if he’d have thought it was important.”
Ace set down the empty glass. “I don’t want to be home right now.” He glanced around him. “But….I don’t want to be here either.”
It was something. Zoffy stood and laid a gentle hand on Ace’s shoulder. “Come to my place. Sleep this off, we’ll talk more in the morning.”
Ace nodded dumbly. “Will you…tell Mom where I am?”
“If you don’t want me to, I’ll just tell her you’re safe and that I’m with you. She deserves that much.”
He shook his head. “No, she…should know. It’s fine. I just don’t want to see her and Dad yet.” His gaze tracked over the floor. “I’ll just say something stupid.”
Zoffy gave an understanding murmur. He drafted a telepathic message, then showed it to Ace. Ace seemed to go through the motions of reading it, nodding blankly at the end. “Sure.”
Zoffy sent the message, then let Ace stand, and the two made their way out into the clear, open air of night. Lavender skies stretched overhead, the crystal spires fading from cyan to a drowsy indigo.
“Hey, you!” He hadn’t expected to be called after. Zoffy turned to see the waitress he’d flagged down. Odd. He paused to let her catch up. “Here.” She offered him a slip of paper. A receipt, with something tucked underneath. “Look, I get this isn’t your scene,” she said, voice quiet enough that Ace wouldn’t overhear. “You’d stick out as garrison even without the star-marks. But ah, your friend’s been rough the last few times we’ve seen him, and…well, the other girls and I feel better knowing he’s got someone looking out for him, you know?”
Zoffy…hadn’t expected that. A piece of him felt a pang of guilt; he’d assumed…well, he hadn’t known what he’d assumed. But he hadn’t exactly expected the staff to have moral objections about the clients their workplace catered to. He took the receipt, and felt the weight of his payment chip tucked underneath it. “You don’t have to do that,” he said slowly, pushing the chip back toward her.
“Please.” She shook her head. “It’s not much, but Spark knows there’s not much we can do without losing our jobs.”
Zoffy considered that. Then he offered the chip again, this time palm up and open. “Then keep it as a thank-you for keeping my brother in mind.”
The server arched a brow at him, but accepted it. “Well, not gonna say no to that, big spender. Can I convince you to come back without the kid next time?”
Zoffy offered the most professional, bland smile he could summon. “Have a pleasant evening, miss.”
She didn’t seem particularly concerned—there was a pull at her mouth that might have been laughter, like she’d asked as a joke. “Ahh, didn’t think so. Shame, s’nice talking to a fella who looks at my face when I talk. Well, safe trip wherever you’re going.” She turned and strode back to her work.
Frowning, Zoffy turned over her words in his head. Something about how she’d talked about herself and the other servers…it made him wonder how badly he’d misjudged them for where they worked, and a part of him wanted to return simply to understand them better. He disliked the notion that he’d misjudged or dismissed a group out of hand.
But he also knew he’d be seen there, and rumors about the Garrison’s right hand patronizing a skeevy bar which catered to underaged clientele he did not need.
“She liked you,” Ace observed.
“She was concerned for your wellbeing,” Zoffy corrected, resuming his path towards his place. “Well-placed, as you are currently inebriated.”
“You use bigger words when you’re deflecting,” Ace countered, though he laughed a little as he said it. “Inebriated,” he added, as if Zoffy hadn’t caught what bigger word he was referencing.
He ignored it. “Let’s get you some rest, Ace.”
“‘Kay.” Obediently Ace let Zoffy lift him over one shoulder, helping him fly, and soon enough fell into a doze. Zoffy carried him the rest of the way.
It felt surreal, tucking Ace into bed. Too many memories of babysitting him, reading with him, teaching him, being with him, overlapped before his eyes. Ace didn’t stir, too deeply asleep to react to Zoffy’s movement as he set water and headache tablets within easy reach, then curled up beside the sleeping mat with one hand over Ace’s. He’d wake if Ace needed him.
“I’m sorry I was gone so long, Ace,” he whispered. “I don’t know if my being here would have changed anything. And maybe it’s not enough, but I’m here now. As much as you let me be, I’m here.”
He settled himself and let his breathing slow. Absently he sent in a telepathic ping that he might be late the following day, depending on Ace’s needs. Ultra Father pinged back a wordless affirmative, but the speed of it assured Zoffy of his relief and gratitude.
As sleep began to creep over his senses, he felt Ace’s hand flex, ever so slightly, under his. Zoffy squeezed it gently back.
This will pass, Ace. You’ll be a hero yet.