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lb_leeSummary: In 1994, during the AIDS epidemic Booster Gold’s superhero career goes down in the flames of scandal, and he loses everything. It's as he's plummeting to rock bottom that he meets an aging trophy widow who’s been there before. Part one of the Houseboy Booster/Gladys fic.
Series: Marriage of Convenience, part 1 (Justice League International/Superbuddies fanfiction)
Word Count: 7000
Notes: This one has enough of a story behind it that I'm putting it in the comments! Houseboy kink dynamics, trophy widows, '90s homophobia, and the fine art of selling out behind the cut!
Booster Gold has just been asked to leave, and he obeys, even though they’re likely not friends anymore, so obedience is no longer a requirement. He doesn’t want to make a scene. He doesn’t want to stay.
Booster knows his career’s out the window the moment the paper comes out tomorrow, but there’s a charity ball tonight, full of people looking to schmooze and spend, and if he can just get something tonight…
He reaches the charity ball late, but fashionably so, and when he arrives, his hair has been combed, his dirty clothes have been changed, cologne covers up the sweat, and his smile is pasted on.
He feels terrible, but he looks good, and that’s when he meets Gladys Thatcher.
* * *
Gladys is a tiny woman, delicate and frail even by twentieth century standards. Her cane hangs over the back of her chair. Booster’s learned the hard way that he must never ask a woman’s age in this time, so he has trouble guessing; in his, she’d be maybe in her early hundreds. Her smile is as big, bright, and artificial as Booster’s is, and when she looks at him over her wineglass, he suspects that she knows it.
He only knows Gladys Thatcher from the scuttlebutt he picks up at these parties. Her husband was an oil magnate who supposedly died of shame during the OPEC crisis, so Booster never met him. Gladys inherited the house, the staff, and a pile of money, which she’s been living off ever since. She still goes to charity balls like this to donate to posterity, but that’s the only time he ever sees her, and even then, not often. She’s not a businesswoman, not looking to hire anyone.
In other words, there’s no reason for someone like her to have any interest in someone like him, but something about the way she looks at him over her wineglass gets his attention. She beckons, and he approaches.
“I know you,” she says in a demure, quavering voice. “You’re that golden boy.”
No, he’s not, not since a quarter to five this evening, but even though she’s not in the newspaper business, he feels like she knows already and doesn’t mind. They talk a little, and the longer they do, the more Booster suspects her silly old woman act is just that. It’s just too perfect, too much like the dotty old women in the movies he watched to bootstrap himself into cultural competence—the quivering voice and hands, the silly smile, the triviality of each conversational subject. He can’t help but feel she’s having him on.
He has nothing left to lose, so he says, “You’ve got a great shtick. Do people buy it?”
Before his eyes, he watches her remove the mask of silliness, showing him a shrewd expression and a wink, like a magician letting him in on the trick. “All the time,” she says in a smoky, steady voice. Then she pops the mask back on, pats his knee, and confides in her dotty voice, “you know, young man, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve seen you on the television in those shiny tights, and it takes all my self-control not to stare. You truly have a magnificent ass.”
Booster laughs with sincere pleasure and surprise. Giving her his roguish self-promoter’s grin, he jumps up and improvises a quick pitch for Booster Gold’s escort service and private lap-dancing lessons, and as an extra flourish, he hands her his card, which makes her laugh in turn. Booster would too, except that would ruin his “you want this used car” face, and he wants to prove he’s a professional too.
As he sits down again, he says that his reputation may go up and down, his career may have its lows, but at least he’ll always have his ass and shiny tights.
Gladys pats his arm and says she certainly hopes so; you have to have some certainty in this life, don’t you know.
* * *
So, against all his better judgment, Booster spends his last night with a reputation sitting in a corner, chewing the fat with Gladys Thatcher, and he can’t even bring himself to mind.
The news is out the next morning. Booster doesn’t read it; he sees his name on the Life section, tosses the whole thing, and sits down with his last meal (a mug of coffee and some Booster Os), waiting for the phone to ring.
Max is the first to call him. “Is it true?”
Booster sighs. “Yeah.”
He has to hold the receiver away from his ear as Max bawls him out about personal and professional business. They’re a UN team, for Chrissakes! Can he not keep it in his pants even for the sake of peace, prosperity, and the post-Cold War American way? Crimson Fox did! Bea did!
“The dictator of Bialya knew about this before I did, Gold! He’s already having a field day about ‘the decadence of American capitalist swine!’” Max shouts. “You two jackasses sprung this on me! Those vultures caught me with my pants down and I didn’t even have a statement prepared!”
There are times where a reputation for idiocy serves Booster well; it means he can say, “So… am I fired?” with a straight face.
Max is furious, but he is also a relentless bottom-line man. It’s why Booster is—was?—able to work with him. With a huff, he says, “I guess that depends. Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No.”
“Small mercies. Okay, I can work with this. We can still do damage control. This’ll blow over; there’s always some costumed celebrity making an ass of themselves. We can put you quietly on leave, deny everything. Claim it’s a shapeshifting robot clone from the mirror universe—”
“Clones.”
“Eh?”
“You’d need two of them for it to work,” Booster says. “Right?”
Silence on the line.
“Max?” And for a terrifying moment, Booster thinks maybe he’s not even afraid of the right thing, that maybe some wing-nut with a gun has acted shockingly quickly and—
But then Max says dryly, “Ah. I see he didn’t warn you either. Well, that’s a comfort, I guess…”
“Max.”
“Ted didn’t come in today and he’s not answering any of his phones. Frankly, knowing him, I doubt I’ll ever see him again. Since I can’t pursue him for breach of contract without exposing his civilian identity and fighting a platoon of Kord Industries lawyers, I plan to keep my mouth shut and write him off as a loss.”
Booster can’t really be surprised. “You’re going to throw him under the bus.”
Max doesn’t pull punches. “Yes, I am. Now, do I have to throw you under it too?”
Booster thinks about it. It’s insane. He knew what he was getting into with this business. He knows that the smart thing to do is exactly what Max recommends: deny everything, weather the scandal, keep his head down, quietly return to work. He’ll take a hit briefly, but he’ll survive it.
All he has to do is throw Ted under the bus.
“I’m sorry, Max,” Booster said. “I can’t go along with that. You’re just going to have to fire me.”
He expects Max to punch him through the phone line, but instead, all the anger drains out of his voice. “Will you fight us over this?”
“No.” Fight for the right to stay on a team that’ll never look at him the same way again? Booster would rather hang. “I’ll go quiet.”
“Thank you.” And Max does sound grateful. For someone who would sell his own grandmother, he even sounds sorry. “After I hang up this phone, I am going to go out there and give a press statement expressing our institutional shock and disapproval and cutting all ties. That’s the best I can do. There’s an AIDS epidemic, and we are beholden to the United Nations to provide a certain image. You of all people understand that.”
Yes, he does. “Drink for me, Max.”
“Oh, I will. The next eternity of three-martini lunches will be in your honor, Gold. Good luck.”
They hang up. Booster calls Ted. He doesn’t answer.
The phone starts ringing off the hook after that, and it’s all bad news.
Things move quickly. The Justice League drops Booster quietly without fanfare or reprisal, but Booster’s independent contacts treat him far less gently. There are accusations of breach of contract—a number of them have morality clauses obligating a certain level of proper conduct—lawsuits, and a whole lot of lost commissions. Everything goes into free-fall. The money flows like water… with Booster the sieve. Everything he’s built over the past eight years starts to evaporate, and the worst part is, it all feels so inevitable. He’s already screwed up his life in the future, why not the past as well?
None of his (ex-)teammates call him.
Somewhere in all the maelstrom, Booster picks up the phone, expecting yet more bad news, only to instead hear a shrewd, smoky old voice asking, “how are you holding up?”
Gladys’s mask isn’t on, so Booster doesn’t bother with his. “I’ll tell you when I know.”
* * *
Booster stops feeling anything for a while.
When he surfaces, he realizes that he hasn’t shaved or left the penthouse in a week. He considers doing something about it. Then he goes back to watching Maury, eating raw spinach out of the bag, and not feeling anything again.
* * *
Booster wakes up at seven in the morning to his penthouse intercom ringing.
That’s unusual. The only people with access to that intercom is the building staff, who are diligent, unflappable, and unbribable. (Indeed, it’s why he started living here as a public superhero.) For a moment, Booster blearily wonders if they’re kicking him out… but no, for once he did something smart and paid the rent in advance. When the lease ends, he’ll be in trouble, but until then…
He almost rolls over to go back to sleep, but it occurs to him that it’d be just perfect if, in the midst of all this, the plumbing explodes or some other quotidian maintenance disaster comes up. It might actually be something unrelated and important. So finally he drags himself to the intercom and pushes the button.
“Yeah?” He doesn’t bother hiding his grogginess.
It’s Sean, the doorman. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Carter, but there’s a woman here who insists you want to see her, a Gladys Thatcher?”
Booster pauses. “You know what, yeah, send her up.”
He goes to find himself some clean pants.
A few minutes later, Gladys arrives, dressed in pearls and a cocktail dress and leaning on her cane. She looks a lot better at seven in the morning than he does, and Booster should feel bad about that, but really, he only feels bad that he doesn’t.
She breezes in like she owns the place. “Michael Jon Carter, you are a very difficult man to get a hold of. You could’ve at least had the decency to tell me you’d unplugged your phone. It would’ve spared me and your doorman a lot of bother.”
Poor Sean. Booster makes a note to leave an apology by way of a tip from his dwindling supply of cash. “Good morning, Gladys. Looked me up in the phone book, did you?”
She gives him an insulted look. “My Orville, rest his soul, used to play cards with Maxwell Lord III and Claire Montgomery’s father.” The Max that Booster knows is the fourth; Claire Montgomery was who hired Booster for the Conglomerate. “Our families still exchange Christmas cards, and I assumed you did as well, so I went and bullied your information out of him.” She reaches up, takes his chin in her petal-soft, swollen-knuckled hand, and turns his face one way and then the other, as though checking his bone structure. She tsks with distaste. “Look at you. Disgraceful. What have you eaten lately?”
“Um…” truth be told, he can’t remember.
Whatever her inspection, he passes… barely. She lets him up. “Come on. Get dressed.”
He finds himself automatically moving to do so, then catches himself. “What for?”
She gives him a steely look. “I’m getting you something to eat, and then we’re going to discuss employment. You’re better than this.”
Gladys is so small that a stiff breeze could knock her over, and her voice is quiet and polite. Booster still obeys her faster than he obeyed Batman half the time.
Gladys refuses to leave the complex with Booster until he showers, combs his hair, and shaves. (“I won’t be seen with that.”) Somewhere from the back of his closet, Booster unearths a suit that’s clean, unwrinkled, and acceptable to her, and she redoes the knot (stiffly, painfully) in a half-Windsor. With the dignity of a visiting duchess, she rides down the elevator and sweeps out the door with him on her arm, much to the astonishment of Sean, the doorman. (Booster presses the tip into his hand with a muttered apology.)
Gladys can easily afford a chauffeur (it’s a Bentley, for Christ’s sake), but she drives them herself, much to Booster’s surprise. She takes him to some black-tie place for pumpkin soup, croissants, and ice water with slices of lemon, and she makes sure he eats every bite. She herself has a salad with chopped walnuts and cranberries, along with a couple multivitamins and her arthritis medication.
“I’ll be blunt,” she says as he eats. “I’ve had to let go of my staff recent, and I find myself in need of a nice man in tight pants to handle tasks around the house. Cleaning, shopping mostly. Cooking would be a nice bonus. Hours and wages negotiable, but at least 20 hours a week.”
Booster never thought he’d be back on janitorial staff, but he suspects no more offers will be forthcoming for a while. It’s not like he has dignity left to lose. But…
“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Booster says, wiping his mouth on a napkin, “but why me? Surely there are tons of cleaners or butlers you could hire who’re better qualified.”
She gives him her best dotty old lady look. “They aren’t as pretty, dear.”
Booster hasn’t put on his golden boy mask in a while, but it’s not as hard as he expects. “Well, I hate to disappoint a fan…”
They shake hands, agree on a trial run, and after dropping by his place to find more appropriate clothes to work in, Gladys takes him home.
The house is big but tastefully so, beautiful… but oddly empty. There are four bedrooms (three empty), three and a half bathrooms, one hot tub, and three chandeliers—manageable, Booster thinks. Things are tidy enough, Gladys clearly picks up after herself, but it’s obvious that nobody has been around in a while. Counters are crumby, the three chandeliers are dusty, and the lawn is in desperate need of mowing. After showing him around, Gladys asks if he can start with the master bathroom, so he does.
It’s a big bathroom, with a tub for a whole family of Roman emperors, plus an enormous shower with two massaging showerheads that Booster, in better times, would’ve absolutely wanted to have an orgy in. Now all he sees is dust, encrusted bits of toothpaste, and grout slime. He pulls the cleaning supplies out of the closet and gets to work.
After that museum job, Booster never thought he’d want to scrub a toilet again, but to his surprise, doing so makes him feel better. The repetition is soothing, the scrubbing is physical enough to get his blood moving, and for once, something he’s doing shows immediate positive results. He scrubs the sink, the counters, the tub, the shower, the tile walls, the floor, even takes an old toothbrush to the caulk, and when he straightens up and sees a sparkling bathroom, it feels like an actual accomplishment.
He goes to find Gladys and finds her in the library, reading something old and leather-bound.
“I, uh.” He feels oddly like a little boy bringing in a school project. “I did the bathroom. Sorry it took me so long. Would you like to see?”
“I would love to,” she says, and reaches out an expectant hand. He helps her up.
He feels like a fool, showing this dignified old woman a bathroom he just cleaned, but she comes in and runs her fingers over the surfaces, looking with a keen eye.
“Perfect,” she says, and she says it as though she expected nothing less but is pleased nonetheless.
Booster catches himself smiling and realizes that for the first time since everything went wrong, he feels like a human being. Not a superhero, just a human being. He’s not sure what he thinks about that.
“What would you like me to do next?” He asks.
She sets him on a round of all the other bathrooms. By the time he finishes those, it’s been hours and his shoulders, back, and neck are aching pleasantly. When he’s finished, he goes looking for Gladys again. She’s in the garden this time, attempting something with begonias. She’s still in her pearls
“Here, dear, would you water them?” She indicates a large watering can. “I’m afraid I have trouble holding it for long.”
Booster suspects that she is playing him, but the watering can is heavy. Booster obediently waters the begonias, which look worse for the wear; Gladys apparently isn’t much of a gardener. Unbidden, he hears a familiar warm, wisecracking voice in his head: “more like woebegonias…” He shakes it off.
When the watering can is empty, he finds Gladys plucking off snails and tossing them in a compost heap, which is in even worse shape than the begonias. She clearly has no idea what to do with it.
Booster knows, but that’s because everyone composts when he’s from. (How else do you feed the garden during shortage time?) “Do you want me to… I can turn that for you, if you want.”
She blinks at him, and for a moment, he catches her off-guard. She clearly has no idea that compost needs turning. “Oh! Yes, of course. You do that.”
He makes her some iced tea with lemon, then goes to the garden shed and finds a pitchfork. Turning the compost is heavy enough labor that it feels like a workout, or an evening patrol, and it uses different muscles from toilet scrubbing so helps work out some of the soreness. By the end, he’s sweaty, but he also feels like he’s surfaced from a long stint under cold, murky water.
He also notices that Gladys has stayed, sitting under the sun umbrella with her tea and watching him the whole time.
He doubts she’ll know otherwise, so he says, “done,” and turns, wiping the sweat and dirt off his forehead.
And she says, “Thank you, Michael. You’ve been so helpful.”
“And pretty?” he asks, bracing the pitchfork over his shoulders as an excuse to flex.
“That too,” she agrees cheerfully. “The sweatpants don’t do you justice, though.”
“I’ll get the gold hot-pants next time.”
She flashes him a dazzling smile, and Booster finds himself smiling back. After spending so much time in Hell, it’s nice to be somewhere else, have someone else to think of.
After he mows the lawn (another laborious task; there’s a ride mower in the shed but he dares not try it, and the old-fashioned push mower is fairly idiot-proof but also heavy) and dumps the clippings into the compost, he’s surprised to discover it’s evening. He’s sweaty and sore and tired.
He feels… good.
And Gladys has been watching him the whole time.
“Well done, Michael,” she says. “I think this calls for some cookies. Can you bake some?”
Booster winces. “I could try? Never done it before.”
“Really?” She sounds honestly surprised. “Not ever?”
Booster shrugs. “They don’t make cookies in my time.” Butter and sugar are too expensive. “Besides, these abs don’t maintain themselves.”
A statement like that would get a shocked response from some people; he’s learned that in this time, people somehow expect looks like his to come purely from the grace of heaven. But Gladys, the much younger widow of a much older man, only nods knowingly.
“Truth be told, I can’t remember the last time I had cookies either. It was the same with Orville.” She gives Booster a mischievous look. “But I have some frozen dough in the fridge. I won’t tell if you don’t.”
It turns out that the oven has been neglected long enough that it may not be safe to use, and here, Booster is useless. The basics of cleaning and compost-turning are eternal, but he knows nothing of twentieth-century oven maintenance, only that he has no desire to try with a giant steel monster that might catch fire or pump lethal gas all through the house. Gladys agrees, so they give up on baking and eat the cookie dough straight out of the bowl while they wait for the delivery food to arrive. After all that workout, it’s good to get some easy calories in. He can’t remember the last time he felt properly hungry, the last time food tasted good.
It’s then that Booster discovers the real reason Gladys hired him.
“You’ll get through this,” she tells him, delicately nibbling some dough. “Don’t take the gossip to heart. It’s not really about you.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it is,” Booster said, twirling a spoon through his fingers.
“Only as a symbol. Here you are, a successful, handsome young man saving the world—or trying, which is even worse. People envy and resent trying. It reminds them that they themselves aren’t. They need to prove to themselves that doing nothing is the proper course of action, so they leap at the chance to prove that you or I are inferior, full of secret peccadilloes and failings. That way, they needn’t do anything differently.”
“Gladys, your imagination is cynical.”
She gives him a snooty look over her bowl. “Michael, that is no imagination, and I’m insulted that you would think otherwise. Do you think you’re the only one who’s lived through scandal? I’m surprised no one told you about the time I was caught with a handsome young man, a pair of handcuffs, and a Wonder Woman costume—”
Booster almost chips a tooth on the spoon. “No! You didn’t!”
“I did. I’m a kinky old woman, Michael, and old women are not supposed to be kinky. After our husbands die, we are expected to molder away in respectable celibacy. Anyway, someone on my staff found out, attempted to blackmail me, and when I refused to play their tawdry little game, they went to the papers. Dreadful, tacky business—but it wasn’t truly about me, do you see? People need to feel superior about their own sexual failings and shame, so they tell themselves, ‘at least I’m not a disgusting old bat like that Gladys Thatcher woman.’ Why else would anyone care?”
Booster mulls that over. “I had no idea.” Then again, he had no reason to pay attention to Gladys Thatcher until now. At least now he knows why she fired her staff. “You don’t seem ashamed.”
She raises her eyebrows at him. “Should I be?”
“No, no. But aren’t you worried I’ll do the same thing?”
“No,” she says promptly. “I’ve spoken to Little Max—”
“Little Max!”
“Don’t interrupt, Michael; it’s rude. —and anyway, I’ve heard many rumors about you degrading yourself, but never someone else.”
Booster isn’t sure what to think of that, so goes for the easy joke. “So you weren’t joking about my ass.”
She pats his knee and offers him more cookie dough. “Don’t worry, I will be a complete lady towards you.”
“Don’t be; I’d be disappointed.”
Booster’s no fool. People have made him offers before, and at times, he’s felt threatened or repelled by them. But though he’s not attracted to her, Gladys doesn’t bother him. Her attention is playful and honest, flattering even, and her dignified refusal to let others shame her (or him) is refreshing.
He feels like he doesn’t need to sell her anything. It’s nice.
* * *
It’s a bit of a social stretch to go from superhero to trophy widow boytoy, but Booster finds it comfortable enough. Every day, he goes to Gladys’s house, cooks her meals and works on scrubbing the house into shape, one room at a time. He works in crop top and gold-starred hot pants and cracks jokes about her having a houseboy kink, while she shakes her finger at him and says with her best little old lady dignity that of course she has a houseboy kink, can’t he tell? Now scrub harder!
It’s a job most people would find demeaning. But Booster has no dignity; he’s known that for years. Besides, Gladys always thanks him for his hard work, remarking on it in ways that shows she notices and appreciates it. She never calls him anything but Michael, and she never asks him about his costume, or what he did as a superhero. She treats him like he’s… ordinary. Handsome and good for helping her take care of her house, but ordinary.
And even though he’s technically her hireling, it doesn’t feel that way. Once he’s finished the initial scrub-up, he has less to do, but Gladys never shoos him out. They get the oven cleaned so he can (sometimes) bake cookies for her, (more often) make egg white and spinach scrambles for her. They watch Dallas reruns together, fail at gardening together. She feels less like his boss, and more like his friend.
Gladys, he realizes, is lonely. Her husband, siblings, and many of her friends have died. She has no children, and her in-laws seem to look down on her as a gold-digging hussy. Her staff blackmailed her, and the ensuing scandal blackballed her from the high society circles she relied on. She needs some help around the house, sure, but what she needs most is nonjudgmental company.
They don’t discuss the extra fifties she leaves in his jacket pockets, or that Booster’s been selling his furniture. The entertainment center is gone, the cable shut off, and he’s started pawning his superhero memorabilia. His insulated bubble is shrinking, but it hasn’t popped just yet.
Then his lease ends. It is not renewed. His penthouse has to go.
He tells Gladys. It’s the first time they’ve mentioned that Booster is anything but an ordinary man going through a rough patch, but she doesn’t seem surprised. Instead, she pats his head without looking away from Golden Girls and says, “do you have anywhere you’d like to be?”
Booster says it without thinking: “Here.”
Her hand on his hair stills, then withdraws. “I haven’t had anyone living here since the Wonder Woman debacle; a matter of trust, you see.”
Booster winces. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—it just popped out—”
She folds her hands in her lap. “But you could, if you wanted.”
“Here?” He waves his hand around the lush house. “Here, here?”
She nods. “This old box is too big for me, but the mortgage is paid and I dare not move. I broke this hip a few years back, and between it, the arthritis, all of my things… no. No, Michael, I cannot move. But it’s not good for someone my age to live in this big house all alone, and I trust you. If you like, I’ll pay you room and board and a stipend.” A worry seems to come to her, and she looks concerned. “Of course, don’t take this as a bait and switch. I would only be paying you for what you’re doing now. You are obligated to do nothing more, and I enjoy your company, however you choose to gift me with it.”
Booster pauses. She’s giving him an out. But he doesn’t need one. Even when she ogles his ass and watches him scrub floors, she somehow manages to do it in a classy, unthreatening way. She enjoys him with respect, he feels like, which is an unusual sensation for someone like him. Besides, everyone has known Booster Gold is a sell-out whore for years, so he feels he can say, “I like being your houseboy, and I like how you treat me.” This feels too vulnerable for both of them, so he adds, “Would you rather me in costume when I scrub the floors?”
She goes, “oh you, of course I would,” and they laugh, which helps break the tension, but after a moment of quiet chuckling, she asks, in a quiet, vulnerable voice, “Will you stay? You don’t have to wear the costume. I was joking.”
He kisses her cheek, and it means yes.
* * *
And so Booster becomes a live-in houseboy. It’s remarkably easy. He packs up his remaining stuff when the lease ends, Gladys hires movers, they put him in a guest room on the second floor, and that’s that. Unpacking takes long enough that they don’t really have time to discuss it afterward, only say a hasty goodnight and collapse into their respective beds.
That first morning Booster wakes up in his new home, he expects to feel bad over the loss of the penthouse… but when he opens his eyes and sees the sun coming in through his window, he realizes he feels relieved. It’s finally over. All his contracts, all the places he spends his time and all the things he spends it on, they’re all gone. The only remaining signs of his old life are in three boxes hidden in the back of his closet, out of sight and out of mind.
He feels… relieved.
Things don’t really change. He helps her with the high shelves, the stairs, cleans and cooks. They garden badly and watch Columbo. Never once does Gladys bring up the incident that led him here, and never once do they watch the superhero news.
When a commercial for Rooster Os (“they’re cock-a-doodlicious!”) comes on TV, Booster goes, “I see they changed the name back. And kept the terrible old slogan…”
“That’s right! They were Booster Os, weren’t they?”
Booster does his best commercial face. “‘They’re Boosteriffic!’ I can’t believe my slogan was better. I don’t care how good their ‘brand loyalty’ supposedly is, they need to fire their ad man.”
“I never got around to trying them.”
“Oh, don’t, they’re terrible. I ate them, because they’re high-fiber, low-sugar, and I got a life-time free supply until my breach of contract, but they aren’t worth paying for.”
Gladys taps her chin. “You know, come to think of it, Booster Os are how I first heard about you!”
“Oh no…” Booster groans. “It was the billboard, wasn’t it?” The one downtown—gone now, of course.
“It was a very impressive billboard.”
“It was a terrible billboard. My smile looks tortured and they made me look nuke-orange. My later ones were better.”
That one was Booster’s first billboard, and it got vandalized within a week. It’s nice of Gladys not to mention that, even though she surely saw the graffiti: “BOOSTER GOLD IS A CORPORATE WHORE.” At the time, Booster laughed, claiming it was proof he was moving up in the world.
“I thought you looked very fetching,” Gladys says gallantly.
“That’s nice of you to say. Well, what goes up must come down.” Booster salutes the TV with his drink. “Rest in peace, Booster Os billboard.”
It’s the first time they’ve discussed anything even close to his being a superhero, even if it’s only one of his dumber celebrity endorsements, but it helps break the ice. After that, they discuss the subject a little more, but only in a detached way and only when Booster brings it up first, watching the old cartoons on TV.
“Superman or Batman, Gladys?”
“Oh, Batman, Michael, always Batman. Superman is too polite, too good a boy. Batman, you just want to bend over your knee and spank!”
“My ass is better.”
“How would you know? He could hide anything under that cape.”
“Trust me, he got bitten by a Joker shark early in his career.”
“Truly?”
“Oh, very true. Trust me, mine is much better. You can put the teeth marks there yourself and know that you’re the first!”
He starts telling her silly little stories about his time with the Justice League and the Conglomerate: the time he saved Reagan, the Uberbot, when J’onn went to jail. It’s impossible not to mention Ted when reminiscing about the glory days, but he tries to keep it short and move on quickly. His best buddy becomes nothing but a regular cameo.
One day, she asks, “The Blue Beetle… was he a friend of yours?”
She must know. She’s seen the news, she knows the Lords. She’s just been polite enough to never ask, until now.
He sighs and says, “Yes. Yes he was.”
“I’ll get the wine,” she says, pats his knee, and goes to fetch it.
So Booster wastes a lot of very good wine in very short time, and he tells her stories about Ted—Kooey Kooey Kooey, that stupid mousetrap, the time they stole J’onn’s cookies. Silly stories, entertaining stories. Stories to make people laugh.
He’s crying before the hour’s out.
Gladys pats him, gives him a monogrammed handkerchief, and says, “Oh Michael.” She fetches him a glass of milk and leftover cookies and wraps him in a hideous old quilt that smells like dust and rose water. Booster doesn’t protest when she puts his head in her lap and pets his hair.
“You loved him, didn’t you?”
Booster cringes. Somehow, it sounds a lot worse voiced than it was sitting quietly around in his head. “I still like women,” he emphasizes. “I don’t have AIDS, and I’m not out to recruit the twentieth-century youth.”
“I said none of that,” she chastises and pinches his ear lightly, “and my brother died of AIDS, so keep a civil tongue in your head.”
That cuts through his self-pity for a moment. “Really? I… I didn’t know that.”
“We were close. It’s one of the many reasons my in-laws don’t care for me.”
“Was he…?”
“Gay? Yes, he was, and I loved him very much. You’ve seen him in the photos on the wall; he’s the one with the hideous mustache and the Hawaiian shirts.”
Booster mulls that over. He’s already the old woman’s houseboy; she’s seen him covered in flour and Alfredo sauce, plucking slugs off her tomato plants, unclogging her toilet. He doesn’t have to sell Gladys anything, and there’s no morality clause in their informal contract. So he says, “Yeah. Bug-loving pain in the ass, with his gizmos and his zany schemes and his stupid weight problem… it was fine, as long as we didn’t talk about it.”
The memories break over him like a wave: blowjobs in the Bug, heavy petting in dark alleys. Fast, furtive, and forbidden, Ted’s grin a crescent moon in the dark. It was good, so good, as long as they didn’t talk about it. They were so close, they didn’t need to… or at least, that what Booster liked to think, back then.
He needs more wine. When he gropes for his glass, Gladys places the bottle into his hand.
“Might spill this on the blanket,” he warns her.
“I’ve got four more in the cedar chest, and I always hated this old thing. It was my mother-in-law’s, and she was a vile woman. Drink up.”
He does. “We’d been sneaking around for years. Never talked about it—morality clause, you know, it’s fine as long as you don’t talk about it. Everyone does it: you go through doomsday, you survive it, you carpe some diem. Big Barda, you know, Mr. Miracle’s wife? She drags him off every time they win, but she can get away with it.” It comes out bitter.
“Ah yes. Because they’re married.”
“Exactly. Well, that’s what happened. Not doomsday, no big deal, just a house fire, but we got them out, we survived, and—” He can’t bear to finish.
“Carpe diem,” Gladys says for him.
The memory is still tucked away in the back of his head. He doesn’t take it out if he can help it. Better to let it stay in the gentler embrace of nostalgia, the way their goggles kept bonking into each other, Ted’s infectious grin and laugh, the feeling of his thighs around Booster’s waist as Booster pressed him against the grimy brick wall. It was nice, perfect, until the flashbulb went off.
“Yeah. Carpe diem.” Another gulp of wine. “Some pap-rat caught us, back in an alley. Our masks were still on, but that was no help for me; my identity’s been public for years. That was the night you met me at the charity ball.” He finishes off the bottle of wine and lets it drop to the carpet. “So there. Now you know.”
“Oh, Michael.” Gladys pets him a while. Then she says, “At least he wasn’t in a Wonder Woman costume.”
Booster laughs until he cries.
* * *
The next morning, Booster wakes up wrapped in Gladys’s ugly quilt on her couch, a little hungover but feeling better than he has in a long time. He smells something cooking in the kitchen.
He gets up, stretches, and wrinkles his nose at his rumpled clothes. Then he stumps to the kitchen to find Gladys dressed to the nines, popping into the microwave the leftover blueberry banana low-flour pancakes he made yesterday. When she smiles at him, her eyes vanish into a forest of wrinkles.
“Michael, you’re up! There’s a glass of Gatorade and an aspirin on the table for you.”
“You’re a queen and a goddess and I don’t deserve you,” he declares, and partakes.
“I’m making you breakfast. Do you feel up to pancakes?”
Booster sends the inquiry to his stomach, which gives a halfhearted gurgle and a queasy jerk. Then he sees the clock. “Maybe in a while, but not right now, thanks.”
He goes back into the living room, sits back on the couch and turns on the TV to watch the morning news, and he doesn’t change the channel when it’s about the Justice League.
* * *
While the aspirin and Gatorade battle Booster’s hangover, he reads the paper and the magazines Gladys collects. Him and Beetle are still in the backs of some of the trashier ones. It hurts, but not as much as he thought it would. The world moves on, and the gossip rags move faster.
When he’s finished and his stomach feels obedient, he goes back to find Gladys. She has long since finished her share of the pancakes and grapefruit, sitting reading an old mystery novel. When he comes in, she looks up.
“Pancakes in the fridge, Michael. I wasn’t sure how you’d be feeling so left your portion.”
He nods, gets them, and nukes his share. As he eats, she puts her book down and starts cleaning up. The dishwasher ran over the night, and normally Booster empties it before breakfast, but he hasn’t yet, so she starts stacking plates.
“I’ll take care of it,” Booster calls. “It’s what you’re paying me for, remember?”
But she waves him off and goes to put them away herself. He can’t help but notice the lines of pain around her mouth as she lifts the plates with her knobby hands, and she needs both so has to leave her cane. Taking them to the counter takes enough effort that she has to lean against the counter and take a breather, and then Booster is there to do the job for her.
“Come on,” he chides, opening the cabinet and putting them in easily, “don’t be a martyr.”
She sighs, rubbing her hip. “Let me tell you, Michael, your villains were the Gray Man and the Rainbow Raider. Mine is gravity.”
And it’s ridiculous, embarrassing even, but that’s what makes the light bulb appear over Booster’s head, and then he could smack himself for not realizing it sooner. He sees her reaching for the next rack of dishes—she must really feel sorry for him—and he holds up a hand.
“Don’t touch that yet,” he orders and races up to his room, leaving her blinking after him.
Booster’s superhero crap remains in a few boxes shoved in a closet, and it takes a while for him to find the box-cutter and locate what he wants. The suit’s in one box, his goggles and blasters in another, and finally, after ransacking his luggage, he finds the flight ring in a sock with the rest of his jewelry. He dashes back down to the kitchen, where Gladys is still resting, looking perplexed.
With a flourish and a bow that turns into a kneel, Booster shows her the flight ring. “Milady,” he says, and slips it onto her finger.
She laughs, “Michael, is that a propos—oh!” She’s started to float.
“Easy, easy, don’t think too hard about it,” he soothes, catching her wrists before she drifts too far. She’s so small, it’s easy to anchor her. “Treat it like an extension of your body. Envision your body rising or sinking, and…”
“Oh my! Michael…” Her eyes are huge and round. “Michael, my hip isn’t bothering me!”
“It’s an anti-gravity ring. Consider your nemesis conquered.” He kisses her cheek.
“Oh!” She gives a little tug so he’ll free her wrists, then tremulously rises and sinks a little. She tilts a little to the left, then to the right, back and forth, testing out each axis. He has never seen such an open look of wonder on her face.
“I’m an idiot,” Booster says. “I can’t believe I didn’t offer it before.”
She’s now carefully moving her body, one limb at a time. “Michael, I can’t accept this!”
“I won’t need it, not for a while. Go ahead. You’re the last person I’m worried about taking over the world.”
“Greater fool, you!” Her position steadies. Once she’s sure of herself, she carefully twirls and spins, her hair and skirts swirling around her in slow motion from the lack of gravity. Without pain, her movements are smooth, graceful, and effortless. She laughs with delight.
Booster watches her dance in the air, and he smiles.
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Date: 2025-10-21 01:27 am (UTC)We don't reread my work much, though, because frankly it's not worth remembering. Dignity Left to Lose was by far the most interesting, and it was originally intended to be a series, except of course I never finished it, because this was back in 2009, before I got married even, and I didn't have the chops. Now I do, so in honor of me and Mac's upcoming sixteen-year anniversary, I decided to rewrite and finally finish the damn thing. I plan to have all three installments done by our anniversary, and creek willing and the god don't rise, I'll be able to print and bind a little copy for him next month.
Happy early birthday/anniversary, gorgeous! I'm so glad that unlike the idiot geek in this fanfic, I got to marry my man with the pretty hair and the tight pants!
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Date: 2025-10-21 02:42 am (UTC)