LotR Superhero AU

[icarus_chained]

Written for a prompt on comment_fic of: "Lord of the Rings, Any, Justice League fusion: The Fellowship of Superheroes". I think this is probably closer to a generic superhero AU than a Justice League fusion, although I did borrow from the White Martian invasion in the DCAU for the 'Dark Maiar Invasion' (War of the Ring) here. Which makes Gandalf the Martian Manhunter, which actually somewhat fits, I think? Anyway. Have fun.

Title: Timely Interventions
Rating: PG
Fandom: Lord of the Rings (bookverse)
Characters/Pairings: Pippin, Merry, Beregond, mention of the Fellowship, Faramir and Éowyn. Merry & Pippin & Beregond, background Gimli & Legolas, Aragorn/Arwen, Faramir/Éowyn
Summary: The Fellowship of Superheroes guard the city against all who threaten it. Sometimes, though, the superheroes need a little help from heroes of their own. An exasperated Beregond catches a battered Pippin and Merry attempting to sneak home before anyone realises they're hurt
Wordcount: 2175
Warnings/Notes: Superhero AU, Canonical Character Death in backstory (Boromir), Grief/Blame, Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love
Disclaimer: Not mine

Timely Interventions

"Ow. Ow. Maybe we should have gone to the hospital, Pip. Or at least let Arwen take a better look at us."

Pippin grimaced, propping Merry against the wall of the stairwell for a second so he could straighten his spine out a bit. Merry leaned heavily into the corner, keeping the weight off his sprained ankle. They did look a sight, Pippin admitted silently. Cut and bruised and battered all over, that's what they were. But still. It could have been worse.

"Arwen's going to be pulling that plastic shrapnel out of Legolas for another hour yet before she can put him back together," he pointed out, rubbing the back of his neck and wincing when he found a scrape under his hairline. "I don't think we need to bother her or a hospital, not when it's mostly bumps and bruises."

"And a sprained ankle, and probably a concussion in your case," Merry shot back, but wryly. "If Faramir or Éowyn catch sight of us, they're going to run us right back out and to the clinic at the very least. You know they are."

"Yes," Pippin said patiently. "Which is why we're taking the stairs, sprained ankle and all, and why we should probably get back to sneaking into the apartment already? If you're up to it, that is. If you're too tired, cousin, I'll quite understand. You are getting old, after all ..."

Merry punched him in the shoulder. Gently. More or less. Pippin still had to muffle some very ungentlemanly language when it knocked against a bruise. Ow. Maybe they really should have let Arwen look at them. But, well, too late now.

"Help me up the stairs, you idiot," Merry muttered, hopping forward to lean on him once again. "If only you had Sam's ability. A little bit of super-strength and you could have carried me up these stairs. Or Gimli's. We could have floated up the elevator shaft on a tea tray."

"Hah!" Pippin teased back, settling his cousin's arm more firmly around his shoulder. "I suppose we could have. And you'd trust me not to drop you, would you?"

Merry paused for a second at that. He drew them to stop, careful of their rather precarious balance, and leaned in to rest his forehead lightly against Pippin's. Pippin, for his part, shifted his weight instinctively to allow it, leaning on the railing and wrapping his arm more firmly around his cousin's waist, the better to hold him up.

"Yes," Merry said quietly, his eyes closed and his breath warm on Pippin's neck. "I trust you not to drop me, Pip. I trust you not to let me fall."

... Oh. Okay. Pippin had an answer to that. Of course he did. He'd remember it any second now.

He didn't have Sam's ability. He couldn't change his own body to gain the strength necessary to carry a friend in need. He didn't have Gimli's, either, to weave shields of metal or fly on magnetic fields, or Legolas', to see someone falling before it happened and traverse half a battlefield to catch them in time. And he most certainly wasn't Gandalf, who could move anything up to a building if he put his mind to it. All Pippin had in his favour was a little probability manipulation, basically some weaponised luck, and so far all that had got him was ... was being in the right place at the right time to find his friends still alive. Faramir. Merry. All he had was a knack for tilting the odds just a little in their favour. Just enough. They'd still almost died, the both of them. He'd still almost been too late. His luck wasn't a lot to be depending on.

It hadn't saved Boromir, had it? All the luck in the world hadn't ...

"Pippin," Merry said, soft against his ear. Knowing what he was thinking, the way Merry always did, and without Frodo's telepathy to excuse it. "We can't save everyone, Pip. Me even less than you. I'm entropy incarnate, remember? All I can do is weaken things. Some help I am at keeping people alive."

Pippin hugged him. Properly, not just to hold them both up. He wrapped both arms around his cousin and held on tight.

"Ask Éowyn how good you are at saving people," he whispered fiercely. "If you hadn't weakened the Witch King when you did, she might not have been able to kill him. She might have followed her uncle, and where would that have left us and Faramir, hmm?"

"Where indeed?" asked a new voice behind them, and Pippin squeaked, eyes flaring open in alarm and almost dropping Merry in his panic. Almost. Not quite. He half-turned, Merry hopping painfully beside him, and stared stupidly down at Beregond, who was standing silently in the doorway of the floor beneath them, watching them with a very odd sort of expression.

"... What? Who? Don't do that, Ber," Pippin stammered, bringing his free hand up to his chest to try and calm his pounding heart. "No sneaking up on people. Sneaking is for us Shire folk. No big city people allowed."

Beregond smiled faintly at that, a little twitch of amusement. "Really?" he murmured. "Shall I tell Aragorn that or shall you? I believe our mayor still considers sneaking a primary part of his skillset, if only to get him out of the office without anyone realising that he's running off to play superhero. Which, by the way, drives his bodyguards to distraction. You may tell him that from me, and welcome for it."

Pippin grinned at him. "Aren't you glad you got yourself transferred to Faramir's detail before Aragorn went into office, then?" he said. "I'm told that Commissioner Stewart doesn't sneak off to fight villains nearly so often anymore. It must be much less stressful for you."

Beregond gave him a look. Both of them, actually. Merry was very much included in it.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you," the man said softly, and more seriously than either of them had expected. "You'd think being assigned to a man with no superhero identity would mean not having to watch someone you care about sneak out to fight every other week. You'd think it would mean finding your friends injured on the stairs a lot less often."

Pippin glanced at Merry, and grimaced guiltily. Damn it. Beregond was almost as bad as Gandalf for catching them at the wrong moments.

"Er," Merry tried, smiling winningly. "It isn't as bad as it looks? Definitely not as bad as I'm sure the news report made it look. The Wainriders aren't recruiting the same kind of talent anymore. Legolas took the brunt of it, and that only because they were smart enough to use plastic ammunition that Gimli couldn't stop. Me and Pip barely got hit at all."

"Right," Pippin agreed, nodding earnestly. "Me and him, we're just a little bruised, that's all. And, ah, a little sprained in places. It's nothing to worry about, really. We were only sneaking in because ... Well. Faramir and Éowyn tend to get a little weird about it when we get hurt? We didn't want to bother them."

Beregond stared at them for a second, and then reached up to rub both palms across his face and cradle his head. They blinked at him, mildly alarmed. His voice, when it emerged from between his fingers, was muffled and exasperated and more than a little tired.

"You don't think they might be a bit 'weird about it', as you put it, because they're your friends, and they love you, and they don't want to see you hurt?" he asked. He pulled his hands down, the better to look them fiercely and earnestly in the eye. "You were just reminding Merry of what Éowyn owes him, Pippin. Do you think Faramir's forgotten what he owes you, either? You protected them, helped them when they needed it. Do you really think they'd balk at helping you in turn?"

Pippin flushed. He glanced helplessly at Merry, who honestly didn't look much better. They didn't know what to say to that, anymore than Pippin knew how to answer Merry's faith, or Merry Pippin's. But they had to, didn't they? They did have to answer.

"We weren't the only ones protecting people," Merry said softly. He nudged Pip forward, down the stairs at an uneven hobble, until they could stand in front of Beregond properly. "I might have weakened the Witch King, but I'd still be dead if Éowyn hadn't shot him. She killed him, not me. And I'd never have been there at all if she hadn't let me come with her, if she hadn't trusted me to fight."

Pippin nodded, looking up at the man who'd helped him through several of the worst moments in his life, who'd fought beside him through the Dark Maiar invasion and everything it had brought behind it. Merry and Pippin might wear the costumes, along with the rest of the Fellowship, but they were far from the only heroes in this city.

"I wasn't the only one who helped save Faramir," he pointed out carefully. "How far would I have gotten if it wasn't for you? And Faramir helped Frodo and Sam first. He looked out for us, long before he knew who we were. He didn't have to. Not after ... not after Boromir."

Beregond slumped at that, a warm, pained expression on his face. "Do you think he blames you for that?" he asked, reaching out to rest his hand on Pippin's upper arm. He'd probably meant to aim for the shoulder but, well, Merry. "Any of you? Boromir knew what he was doing when he put on that costume. Faramir knew it, even if their father didn't. He chose to fight with you, and he chose to die for you, and if you could have stopped it you would have. You were captured. They were strong enough to take you where you stood. There was nothing you could have done. Do you think any of us doubt that?"

Pippin didn't answer. His throat seized up, a knot of something hard and heavy in the middle of it, and he felt Merry wordlessly lean against him, felt Merry's head come to rest wearily against his own. He blinked rapidly, and struggled to clear his throat.

"We," he managed. "We don't like losing. We don't like ... letting people down. You know?"

"I know," Beregond agreed instantly. He knelt down, the better to look up at the pair of them, a very old and tired sort of expression on his face. "Perhaps you might consider, though, that the rest of us don't like failing you either. That we might not like the idea of you, say, sneaking up the back stairs with a sprained ankle and a concussion because you don't want to worry us. We can manage basic first aid, you know. You might consider that we would all worry a lot less if we thought we might have the chance to help you when you needed it."

Pippin squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't have to look at Merry. He knew what his cousin was feeling, what they were both feeling. It didn't need to be said aloud, and they didn't need to look at each other to know how to answer it.

"... Maybe you could help us up the stairs, then?" Merry asked, in a small voice that maybe had a smile in it. "I love my cousin dearly, but you've got a bit of height and strength on him, I think. Enough to help a hobbled superhero to his apartment?"

Beregond shook his head in exasperation. "I think I can manage that," he answered wryly. "My apartment, though, I think. Bergil's out with friends tonight. I should be able to patch you up and keep an eye on you in case that concussion comes back, hmm?"

Now Pippin looked at Merry. He and his cousin shared a very eloquent look indeed.

"I told you," he said, as he eased Merry's arm off his shoulder and helped him into Beregond's arms. "He's worse than Gandalf. Can't get away with anything around him. I told you that."

"Yes, you did," Merry agreed. He was looking at Beregond, though. He was looking at the man willing to carry them both when they needed it. "Though I'm beginning to think, cousin of mine ... that that mightn't be such a bad thing. Don't you think?"

Beregond looked down at Pippin, and Pippin looked up at Beregond. For the smallest second, standing there in the stairwell, battered and bruised and very much alive, Pippin thought that all three of them were smiling the same smile. Exhausted, and exasperated, and happy to be in present company, no matter how difficult it might sometimes be.

"You know what, cousin?" Pippin agreed, sighing happily as he followed them up the stairs. "Just for once, I think you might be right."

Not a bad thing, friendship. Never a bad thing at all.


A/N: Beregond is my favourite. That may be obvious. Heh. A quick run through of the powers, if anyone's curious?

Frodo: telepathy. I split the Ring's powers between him and Bilbo in this verse, and gave Bilbo the invisibility since he used it more, and Frodo the telepathy since the Ring's primary function in LotR was to start a mental war of wills between him and Sauron on the road to Mordor
Sam: limited superstrength and invulnerability stemming from an ability to alter himself. Sam is a rock, basically, or can be if he wants to be. Sam can carry anyone.
Merry: entropy. Mostly coming from the battle with the Witch King with Éowyn, stabbing it to weaken it in time to help her. Merry exacerbates weaknesses in enemies
Pippin: probability alteration. Throughout the books, Pippin's luck (good and bad) tends to steer him to where he's needed. If he and Merry hadn't gotten captured, they wouldn't have landed everyone in the mess with Saruman and Rohan. If he hadn't grabbed the palantir, Gandalf wouldn't have brought him to Gondor to save Faramir. So.
Legolas: low-level precognition combined with enhanced agility and bodily control. Comes with being whatever the elf equivalent is in this universe. Basically Green Arrow with a touch of Flash and Nightwing.
Gimli: electromagnetic manipulation, leaning on magnetic. A little bit stereotyped, maybe, but Gimli is a fairly traditional dwarf at first, and I just think him as Middle Earth's Magneto would be cool.
Gandalf: full flying brick suite, Martian Manhunter style, minus the intangibility and with maybe less of a talent for telepathy than his fellow Maiar
Aragorn: is basically Middle Earth's Batman, tactics expert and leader (there not being a Superman equivalent, at least not at the current time - one of the old elf leaders might count?)
Arwen: healing like her dad, though she's also a surgeon on top of it
Boromir: I was thinking doppleganger production. An army unto himself. Doesn't help him if you manage to wound the original copy badly enough, as everyone found out to their horror
Faramir, Éowyn, Beregond: badass normals who fight alongside superheroes