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Five FBI agents with aimed guns, and James Jesse. If he’d heard them sooner, if his flute were closer to hand--too late for that now. Five agents and the Trickster against himself and Mick. Not terrible odds, but the chances of getting away without seriously hurting one or more of the agents...Piper’s fingers clenched around his sonic amplifier, but he didn’t trigger it. He wouldn’t make Mick an accessory to murder.
“James Jesse,” Mick acknowledged the blond man, voice even and calmer than Piper expected. He could hear Heat Wave’s heart, pounding a rhythm quick with anticipation and adrenaline. By contrast, James was a dirge, cold and steady. The sound of a man holding all the cards.
Piper swallowed bile and demanded, “How did you--”
James didn’t even bother to grin. “Put a tracer on your boot, Music Man,” he replied lightly. “I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
A tracer. Piper gritted his teeth. He’d been such an idiot, not to have known James’s last leap for him was more than a futile grasp. Accustomed to being able to hear any kind of bug, it had never occurred to Piper that James would have something utterly silent. Of course the Trickster would.
“Gonna arrest us then, ‘Trickster’?” The sneering quotes were audible in Mick’s voice. James Jesse the FBI agent was nothing like their old friend, and apparently felt the need to prove it by bringing them in.
But then a ghostly trace of the old smile showed, like a melody transposed to a minor key, familiar and disturbing at once. “Actually, hot shot...I have a proposition for the both of you.”
Mick shifted his weight forward. Two of the FBI agents shifted their aim marginally in response; Piper could hear their heartbeats surge. James might be cool as a winter night, but his agents were on a hair trigger.
He couldn’t let Mick do this. As far as he knew, there weren’t even any warrants open for the long-reformed Rogue. There might be some trouble for aiding and abetting a fugitive, but even that would be minimal if Piper explained that Mick had been trying to talk him into giving himself up.
Only one way to lower the tension in the small room, though.
There was blood on his tongue. He couldn’t remember when he’d bitten it. “Don’t shoot,” he said quietly, to everyone. “I surrender.” He bent to lay the amplifier carefully on the floor, forcing his hand to unclench from the sonic weapon, and sent a brief, quelling look in Mick’s direction. It was a moment longer before Mick reluctantly lowered his flame gun.
“Figured you’d be sensible about this eventually, Piper,” James said, a hint of near-intolerable smugness behind the flat words.
Sharp, bitter responses crowded Piper’s throat, but he swallowed them all back again and shut his eyes, trying not to think of Iron Heights. He should have known going to James was asking for trouble. If he’d gone to the Flash instead...even with all the evidence, Wally had wanted so much to believe Piper was innocent. But Piper hadn’t wanted to force that decision on the hero, to break the law or betray a friend.
Stupid to think James was a better choice.
He waited for the rough shoves and the handcuffs, but when he opened his eyes, the FBI agents had lowered their guns. James was signaling them back, against their clear reluctance. “So here’s the deal, Piper,” he said, inappropriately cheerful as ever. “I don’t arrest you, and you two come back to Chicago with me and join this little team I’m setting up.”
Piper shook his head, uncertain he’d heard that right. “You were the one who said you couldn’t help a killer,” he reminded James, words as painful on his tongue as in his ears.
The Trickster had always worn his emotions as visibly as his colors, a shield to defend his actual thoughts, but Piper didn’t think he’d ever seen open embarrassment there before. James crouched, plucked the sonic amplifier from the floor, and offered it back on an open palm. “I can’t help a killer, Piper,” he agreed softly. “You’ve never killed anyone. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
Staring at the weapon, Piper didn’t move. It could only be another trick, he just couldn’t see how it would benefit James. Surely there was enough evidence of Piper resisting arrest.
Mick cleared his throat, an uneasy noise loud as a gunshot to Piper. “What are you trying to talk us into this time, Jesse?” he grumbled.
“Oh, that!” The old smile flickered back, cramped around the edges but still recognizably the Trickster’s expression. “Just an idea I had. Who better to take down the Rogues than the Rogues who’ve gone legit?” His grin and circling gesture included Piper.
The older man’s face brightened. “Always up for a good scrap,” he said, then looked uncertainly at Piper.
James heaved a sigh. “Obviously we’ve got to clear this up first--out,” he ordered the FBI agents firmly. “You too, Mick. Piper can tell you all about it on the way to Chicago.”
Peter Hernandez and Sandra Kilgour glared with particular ferocity as they left Mick’s home, but no one protested audibly. Piper took a shaky breath, trying to work out what James had in mind, which was always a lost cause.
“Go on, take your tuning fork thing,” James said, waving it closer. Piper tentatively grasped it, and James grinned at him. “That’s better. Don’t worry, no need to call your rat friends.”
Piper tucked the weapon away and frowned at James. “What are you playing at? I know there’s no proof--”
“Ah, but you’re wrong,” he interrupted, still with that grin. Piper could almost believe there was a touch of relief behind the smile. “There is proof, and I think you’ll be happy to join my team once you hear this.”
Piper shook his head. “An FBI team, James? This is hardly the time to joke. I’m a fugitive--the whole country thinks I’m a damned murderer who would kill his own parents.” It was a mistake to close his eyes; the whole horror flared before him in full color, perfect in every detail but for the sound of their screams. The only proof he had that he was innocent: the screams should have been louder.
Try explaining that to a jury, he thought bitterly. It wasn’t even enough to convince himself.
The Trickster held open hands up, the grin fading at last. “You didn’t do it, Piper,” he said, with rare gravity. “Wally West’s been working to get your proof, and he found it. McCulloch murdered your parents. The memory isn’t yours.”
The words hit like a truck, driving the breath from him for a long moment as he fumbled for a chair to collapse into. He didn’t care if James saw the tears. They hadn’t been the world’s best parents, but they were his, and they’d given him music, and he would always see them dying, always hear--
But he hadn’t done it, and there was proof, proof enough to convince James Jesse. “James, if this is one of your tricks,” he threatened, voice rough.
“No tricks,” James promised, still oddly solemn. “Never about this, Piper.”
James would lie to anyone about almost anything, but his heartbeat and his face matched with rare truth. It had been Mirror Master who murdered the Rathaways, Mirror Master who’d provided the nightmares that would never cease to haunt him. Piper felt his hands clench. “So you’re going to take down the Rogues, James?”
The Trickster’s grin made a subdued reappearance. “That’s the plan.”
“I want in.”