Hi friends! I'm alive! And so is Jasper, though he's having a Very rough time lol
CW: ex-villain whumpee, hero whumpers, hero carewhumper ish, electrocution, (power-related) seizure, broken bones, panic attack, PTSD flashback, restraints, gags
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Jasper cursed quietly when he burned his finger with the soldering iron again, shaking out his hand. He hadn’t stopped shaking for a week, and he was getting awfully sick of it. He sighed heavily as he leaned back in his chair for a moment, letting his eyes relax and stretching out the sore muscles in his back. The machines and equipment of the lab hummed around him in a comforting, ever-present buzz that his powers naturally attuned to.
He knew he had an episode coming on. He had tried so hard to keep it at bay, but working with the heroes had made it hard. Keeping up with chores and lab work, having little to no time to rest or eat, and having few chances to use his powers was like a perfect storm. He was exhausted, which made it harder to control the electricity in his veins, and having little proper output for it made it build up more and more. It itched under his skin, making him increasingly restless and jittery, desperately hanging onto his control. The shocks from the collar didn't help either; the current was too high, specially made for him, and it fried his neurons’ resistance, which regulated the electricity.
Essentially, his fuse was about to blow. And it wouldn’t be pretty.
Miguel was aware that it was something that could happen. Jasper told him about them when he realized how difficult it would be to keep them at bay here, with all his responsibilities and how rarely he would get to exercise his powers. But he was still terrified of the punishment if he hurt someone or broke something.
Jasper missed throwing pottery on his Aunt Lydia’s pottery wheel. Creating pottery was her main passion, and she taught him the techniques, the quiet patience and perseverance of creating something beautiful out of a lump of clay. He would set his mind to forming a plate or a bowl, give his hands and brain constant stimulation, and forget all the anxieties that weighed him down, even as a small child. The last time he'd thrown was the month before his father handed him off to Cross.
Since he could remember, anytime he’d visit her, she’d have him doing something creative. She was adamant that it was essential for any child’s education to round out sciences and maths with arts and history. Lydia was an artist, and she took it upon herself to teach him what his father ‘couldn’t appreciate.’ Whether it was pottery or sculpting or painting or cooking, she always had something stimulating for his hands and overactive mind, a lesson to go along with it.
His aunt’s brazen teasing and trash-talking of his father had set him on edge occasionally as a child, but when he looked back on it now, it always made him smile. She was so brave, so staunch in her protection of him, her efforts to give him the best possible childhood. Whenever he left her house for his own, his father doubled down on his efforts to stamp out anything she tried to instill in him, like compassion, but he liked to think he held on to some of it.
Jasper liked to think his Aunt Lydia would be proud of where he was now, what he was trying to do with the heroes. He was sure she thought he was dead now. And he was too afraid to reach out to her; to put her on Cross or his father's or even the heroes’ radar as someone important to him.
He sighed, focusing himself back in the present, gazing around the lab. He'd made himself sad again.
Jasper made eye contact with Emery for a moment, across the lab, and quickly looked away. Her gaze made his skin crawl for a few moments before she refocused on sharpening her twin katanas. The blonde with bright blue bangs and shiny lip gloss was in charge of babysitting him today, as he worked on an EMP gun for an upcoming mission. She was perched cross-legged on one of the other work tables. She blew another bubble with her gum, and her massive baby blue wings rustled.
Without looking up, she said, “What’s going on in that big brain of yours, Tinker?”
He gulped. “Nothing, I, uh, was just brainstorming ideas for gear for you guys,” he fibbed.
“Yeah? Like what?” she asked, giving him a knowing smirk.
His chest squeezes with anxiety.
Damnit. He should know he couldn’t get anything past her by now.
“Uh, like long-distance comms, and… cool attachments for your swords?” he tried lamely. Of course, the moment he tried to remember the hundreds of ideas he’d played around with since he was a kid, they all left his mind.
“Ooh, that sounds fun. I love making my swords more deadly,” she smirked. “What sort of attachments?”
“I, uh. Well, I dunno… I-I guess, I was more just thinking about my powers. Th-they’ve been acting up on me a little…” he confessed quietly, like a scolded little kid.
She sighed. “Jasper, I can’t believe you’d lie to me. We can’t work with someone we can’t trust.” Her voice was disappointed, but her smile was downright vicious.
Jasper clenched his teeth to hold back the surge of anger and fear at those words. She was so going to hold this over his head. “I-I’m sorry, Emery; I just didn’t want to worry you. It’s—” he cut himself off. Excuses wouldn’t help. It was his fault he was an idiot who thought it was a good idea to lie. “I’m sorry.”
Her face lit up again. “That’s okay! I’m sure I can think of some way for you to make it up to me,” she smirked.
He nodded, quietly. The things she came up with to ‘make it up to her’ were always painful or demeaning. But he knew he deserved it. He was the villain in this tower, and he always would be.
Just then, Chase burst in, talking animatedly to Miguel, who was right behind him. Jasper flinched. He forced his focus back on the circuit board he was meant to be soldering.
The two were chattering about fantasy football, something apparently played by many of the heroes in the tower.
“No way, man! I'm not trading you Keziah! It's not my fault you were dumb and gave up Kaufman,” Chase declared in his booming voice.
“Come on, Chase, you already have Walter, you're set for the next couple of games,” Miguel bargained.
Jasper couldn't help but watch the pair out of the corner of his eye. He sort of wished he could join in with the game, the bantering. Be part of the team in more than just the work. But Chase made him terribly nervous, and besides, he didn’t have time to watch football or figure out how to play with all his chores.
Jasper suddenly realized the pair was making their way towards him, and he startled, trying to look busy.
“Hey, Tinkerbell! How're my night vision goggles going?” he asked, though it was less of a request and more of a demand. It was always a demand with Chase.
“Oh, um. Th-they're coming. I had to take a break to make the EMP cannon for the next mission, but— but they're pretty simple. I should have them for you a few days after the mission?” he said with a preemptive wince.
Chase’s mouth curled in an annoyed sneer before he rolled his eyes.
“Whatever. Just get them to me by the next.”
Jasper nodded quickly. “Of course, yes sir,” he rushed.
Chase let out an amused scoff.
“He sure did learn fast, huh, Miguel?” the man said, mocking, as he was suddenly pinching Jasper's cheek.
Suddenly and all at once, Jasper lost his grip on reality, memories flashing before his eyes and Cross’s mocking voice laughing in his ear, just like Chase. He froze, eyes going hazy, breath coming faster and faster until he was gasping.
Chase and Miguel exchanged looks, utterly confused, and Miguel laid a soft hand on his shoulder. He was unprepared for the way Jasper jolted away from him like he'd been burned, and even more unprepared for the shock of electricity that shot up his arm.
“Agh! What the fuck, Jasper?!” he burst, but Jasper wasn't there.
Electricity was beginning to arc off his body, shocking nearby objects—and people—in bigger and bigger bolts.
“Jasper, snap the fuck out of it!” Miguel yelled, shoving Jasper and biting back the yelp that threatened to escape again.
Jasper's electricity was definitely getting stronger, and Miguel knew from personal experience just how bad it could get. His first thought was that the villain finally snapped and was attacking them, but there was no real attack. He was just sitting there, hyperventilating, sobbing, staring off into space with unseeing eyes as he twitched and whimpered.
“Chase, grab him. I know what's happening; I'll be right back,” Miguel ordered, bolting down the hall to the weapons room.
Chase followed orders, hauling the kid out of his seat and restraining him even as the electricity flowed freely into his body, hurting more and more.
Jasper was absolutely hysterical, tears streaming down his face and nonsensical apologies and pleas streaming from his mouth. All he could see, all he could focus on, were images of Cross and blood and fear and pain.
Emery had been watching silently from across the room, intrigued, with her sword at the ready. When the villain barely reacted as Chase squeezed him hard, still clearly panicking and now audibly begging and protesting pathetically, she got up and strode over, putting her whole body into backhanding him.
Jasper gasped back to reality, mostly, the sharp pain bringing his focus to Emery in front of him, and, worst of all, Chase grunting and groaning at the pain of his out of control powers. His thoughts were pure panic now, split between the flashback and a desperate attempt to rein in his powers. He convulsed against Chase’s chest, unable to control the way his whole body jerked and spasmed with the electricity running rampant through his body.
Suddenly, he was shoved down, his chest and face smushed into the cold lab work table. It was enough to jolt him fully out of the flashback, but as his awareness returned to him, he realized he was still in a nightmare.
Computers and machines around the lab were blowing fuses and sparking and acting on their own accord. Chase, behind him, was grunting and groaning, cursing up a storm, through the pain of the sparks and lightning arcing off Jasper’s body as he tightly held the villain in place.
The hero started wrestling his arms behind his back. Jasper wasn’t purposefully fighting him, but his spasming muscles were determined to do what they wanted.
Jasper finally registered Miguel approaching them. His eyes widened with horror when he realized what Miguel had in his hands.
“O-oh, G-God, no! N-no, ple-ease Mig-guel, please n-no,” he begged as a new terror tore through him.
He barely heard Miguel over the pounding of his own heart.
“It’s okay, Jasper. This is for your own good, I promise. It’s okay, we’ll fix it.”
This won’t fix anything, he thought as his vision blurred with tears and the power-suppressing restraints closed around his wrists.
Agony. Instant, pure, fiery agony tore through him, and he screamed, loud and violent. The out-of-control, wildly powerful electricity was suddenly locked up inside him, frying him from the inside out. His heart felt like it was about to beat right out of his chest, blood rushing in his ears, and his head throbbed like it was about to explode. It felt like death, ten times worse than the shock collar or any torture Cross could come up with.
He thrashed and bucked like a wild animal, yanking on the cuffs mindlessly. Any logic that might’ve told him he was only hurting himself further was being completely overwritten by the instinctual terror that told him he was dying.
Jasper was still screaming and sobbing at the top of his lungs, unable to stop, despite being out of breath and wrecking his throat. Chase pulled him against his chest again, an unyielding arm wrapped around his shoulders, and his big hand clamped down over Jasper’s mouth. It was suddenly even harder to breathe, and his panic, somehow, got even worse. He kicked and bucked and struggled like his life depended on it because it felt like it did.
The one, singular, coherent thought running through his head was, I’m going to die.
His own powers were going to fry him until he was a burnt-out husk.
At a particularly horrible wave of pain, Jasper involuntarily bit down on one of Chase’s fingers, jaw muscles locking up. The man yelled out in pain and had to use his exceptional strength to pry the villain’s jaw open as he let out another guttural scream. Chase grunted in annoyance, and then Jasper’s stomach was suddenly rolling at the oil invading his taste buds and nostrils as Chase shoved a rag in his mouth. It muffled his screams and sobs in a haunting sort of way, but it did nothing to stop them.
His body continued to flail, and he barely even registered the lance of pain through his leg from catching his ankle between two of the nearby work tables and twisting it violently.
“Jesus Christ, Miguel, do something about his fucking legs!” Chase snapped, yanking the villain none-too-gently away from the tables and eliciting a sickening pop. Jasper screamed all the louder for it.
“Chase! Be careful!” Miguel said as he rushed to grab Jasper’s ankles, pulling a broken whine from the villain.
“Fuck off, Miguel, he just electrocuted me! He’s lucky I’m not punching his face in.”
“He didn’t do it on purpose!” Miguel shot back.
The two continued to bicker, completely ignoring the sobbing, screaming kid between them. Jasper couldn't really focus well enough to understand them anyway. Miguel wrangled his legs and used his own belt to lash Jasper's legs together.
Jasper squeezed his eyes shut as he was lifted between the two men, barely making out Miguel saying something about getting him out of the lab. His yells and spasms were steadily becoming weaker, but that didn’t mean the pain had subsided at all. The only way an episode had stopped in the past was by completely and totally wringing any super-powered electrical energy from his body. With how his powers were now locked inside him, pinging back and forth along his nerves like a game of pinball with no end, he wasn’t sure the pain would ever stop. More tears spilled over at the thought.
He eventually vaguely registered being dropped on something cushioned, and all hands left his body. Jasper jerked and twitched and writhed in his restraints, as muffled, weak sobs and cries escaped the gag. He was trying desperately to focus on his surroundings, to get even a vague idea of what was happening, but the electricity and pain had frazzled his brain.
Another pair of hands pulled him up by his shoulders, only to let him lean against something soft, warm. It rose and fell subtly, regularly, and Jasper melted the best he could when he finally registered it as Miguel's chest. Miguel ran his hand through his sweaty hair, rubbing his chest soothingly.
Jasper tried to focus on the comfort, but he just couldn't stop crying, now only able to moan and whimper weakly as his entire being continued to burn from the inside out. He had no clue how long they stayed like that. It felt like forever. Jasper had resigned himself to forever with this pain. That's all he could do.
Suddenly, a new hand patted his leg, and he could just barely drag his eyes open, wrestle with his consciousness to focus on the person leaning over the couch with a mocking little pout on their face.
It's Emery. She must've followed them out of the lab.
“Poor thing,” she cooed. “Why don't you guys just knock him out? Put the poor guy out of his misery.”
God, yes, please anything, make it stop, Jasper thought.
Miguel’s soothing ministrations stilled.
“I hadn't thought of that,” Chase said in a dumbfounded voice.
“Yeah, too bad. If we'd thought of it earlier, he wouldn't have had to go through all this pain,” Emery said. Jasper swore he could hear a veiled, vicious glee in her voice.
“Alright, yeah,” Miguel said aloud before leaning closer to Jasper and speaking softly into his ear. Jasper struggled to focus on his words, but he latched onto his comforting voice. “It's alright, Jasper, we'll make the pain go away. Just try to relax, man.”
“Chase?” Miguel finally said expectantly.
Jasper dragged his eyes open again at that—they kept drifting shut, and it was a harder fight to open them each time. He barely made out the blurry, haloed silhouette of Chase, those big hands that made him so nervous, balling into fists. He whimpered, not quite able to piece together what was happening with the haze of pain and exhaustion, but some part of him knew it would hurt. His chest still heaved with sobs as he looked up at the hero, at least twice his size. Jasper only saw Chase’s fist twitch before his head snapped to the side. Stars burst across his vision, a blinding, white-hot pain rippling through his skull before finally, blessed, painless darkness.
Hope you enjoyed this Super whumpy chapter. Apologies for disappearing for like two years 😅. I got hella stuck and then started roleplaying with a friend and lost the hyperfixation on this story lol. One important note, I’m switching to past tense for this moving forward simply because I’ve been roleplaying in the past tense these last two years and its sorta the only tense my brain works in now lol.
Big thanks to @itsenderp for helping me get unstuck and betaing! Thank y’all so much for your patience, and have a lovely day :)
Also, since it's been a while, taglist might have extra people, or I might have missed someone, sorry! lmk if you want to be added or removed!
@whumpsday @sergeant-seraph @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @crystalrose141 @aloafofbreadwithanxiety
@paingoes @elizaisnotokay @quaggasus @defire @tonystark604
@writereleaserepeat @whump-queen @clickerflight @gliittergelpens @kawaii-cakes
@whump-in-a-million @scoundrelwithboba @idkwhattodowiththisaltiamsorry @vampiresprite @jay--o
@theorangestofjuices @hellodecisionparalysis @a-formless-whumper @thebestieyoureinlovewith @whump-till-ya-jump
@jo-castle @distracted-obsessions @doctorsawyer @whump-a-la @fuckclimatechange
@paperprinxe @smoked-salmon-official @heretical-angel @melpomenelamusa @yet-how-they-creep
@thataquaticwhumper @whatwhump
