Chapter Text
Justice League International is . . . not one of the best leagues out there, hell, compared to its sister leagues it's miles behind. They barely survive their first mission and even their members can barely stand their other members for 5 minutes before a fight breaks out.
But despite their flaws, they still have the makings to be one of the greatest heroes out there (or at least that's what Batman said.)
With that being said, they still have a lot to learn before they can reach that level yet, so batman decides to have a mixer with Justice Society of America every once a month, in hopes to try for the younger heroes to get along with the older heroes or at the very least the older heroes to past their wisdom to the young heroes.
Despite their first mixer going horribly, HORRIBLY wrong, they still manage to get along well enough for another mixer to be held, which brought them to this exact situation.
Jaime (or Blue beetle in this case) was just having a conversation with some older members of JSA, nothing too out of the ordinary until the topic of villains came up.
“And that's how I put Amos in blackgate” Wildcat finally finished his long story
“Yeah, but at a cost, we have to put you in rehab thanks to him” Hawkman chimed in
“Really?” Now Jaime is curious “what for?”
“Two words, gambling, addiction”
It used to surprise Jaime how heroes in particular are so nonchalant when this type of stuff happens, like there be alien invasion that will end the world or something and they act like it's just another Tuesday. Now being a hero himself and having to deal with logic defining bullshit any other day, he completely understands and kinda impressed at how they survived this long without their guts inside out or losing their sanity along the way.
“Hey Hawkman, what's your villains like?” Jaime asked, trying to get off topic about Wildcat addictions
“Oh man where to start, there's Blackfire, Darkwing, Adolf Hitler”
“Wait wha-?”
“Oh, how can I forget about that old ghost?”
“Wait, did you just sai-? Wait, ghost?” well that something new
“Yep, I fought some ghosts during my career once or twice”
Jaime was trying to remember the old tales that his grandpa used to tell him, to see what remember what ghosts he was talking about but only one seem to pop up to mind
“Do you mean the gentleman ghost?”
“Yeah him, heard of him?”
“I mean, yeah I heard mention of him at some point” Remembering Batman's mention of him during his long lectures on how to deal with certain types of villains
“Yep that dead head used to be so hard to catch too, makes me kinda miss him bit”
“Yeah and that ghost almost caused yer life Carter” Wildcat suddenly pop in to the conversation, Jaime almost completely forget that Wildcat is here
“Oh my God Theo not this shit again” Hawkman looks about tired as if he heard this before thousands times by now
“Listen hawk, one can be never too careful, especially with that ghost ” Wildcat added that last part darkly
“First of all, we made a deal to never talk about it. Second of all, it happened a long time ago and I haven't seen him seen”
“Uhmmm” a new voice just interpreted them
“I'm sorry but is this something I'm not getting or . . .” Jaime asked sheepishly
“. . No, it's just old friends getting caught up in the past. Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna refill my punch” and just like that, Hawkman walks off
“Uhm Mr. Wildcat . . Are you alright?” Jaime then put his hand on his shoulder
Wildcat quickly batted his hand off
“I'm fine kid, just . . . Fine.” Wildcat quickly walk off, probably off to his old pals
Well, that was awkward. Jaime stood there dumbfounded for good 10 seconds before brushing it off and joining his friends on the festivities
The mixer went off without hit, everyone was genuinely having a good time, even guy and gold were getting along each other without getting on each other's nerve, that's how you know it's a good mixer
As much as he tries to enjoy the mixer, his mind wanders back to that interaction between Hawkman & Wildcat. As far as he knew, he never seen them acted that before and to be honest it kinda sacred him
So many questions pop up since that interaction were, ‘what was that all about?’, ‘What deal did they make to never talk about it again?’, and probably the most important of all, ‘what does James have to do with this’
Jaime was so deep in his thought that he didn't realize that someone called him out
“Hey blu-”
“AHHHHH-” Jaime was about to go his fight mode before turning around and seeing who it was
“Oh Fire, thank God don't scare me like that”
“I just want to tell you if your sticking around longer to help clean up the party”
“Wait, the party is over?”
“Yes it ended an hour ago” oh God, has he been so deep in thought that he didn't realize the mixer ended until now?
“You've been acting weird all mixer, is your suit turning evil again?”
“No, no no it's about . . . Can you keep this on the down low?”
“Deeps on what is it about”
“Well, it's about Hawkman and Wildcat”
“Go on . . .” Now Fire is interested
“Well we started talking about villains and Gentleman Ghost was brought up and they started acting weird and just . . . So bizarre” Jaime spit out the basic gist of it
“Huh, now that you mention it I saw Hawkman avoiding Wildcat all afternoon” Fire mentions, she thought nothing of it at first, thinking it was just some old men squabble. But now after Beetle bring up that little fact, maybe it was not that shallow as she thought it would be
“Weird, right?” Beetle pulls her away from her thoughts. “I bet whatever it was, that ghost has something to do with it”
Fire couldn't agree more