Lost and Found

[unrecovered]

[Wash is in a lounge, having propped his omnicom on a piece of furniture so that the video shows him and the gun resting on his lap. That is definitely not his gun. Those quick on the uptake might also notice blood on his arm, like he's just been in a fight or something.]

Public service announcement: there's someone on the habitat deck in a skull mask running around and pointing guns at people's heads. He's kind of a dick, and evidently he can turn into a black cloud at will, like some kind of crossover between Ghostface and Imhotep.

[Has anyone seen either of those movies? No? Okay, moving on. He tilts the gun so it's more easily visible on camera, and yep, that is definitely one of Reaper's guns, and it is definitely not with Reaper.]

I didn't really appreciate him pointing this one at me, so I...called dibs on it. He can't have it back.

[It doesn't matter if you can't read expressions through armor; the self-satisfied smirk in Wash's tone is practically visible all on its own.]

He might still be up there, lying on the floor near the Egyptian temple. Unconscious. I may have stunned the hell out of him.

[Look at all zero of the regrets he has. Look at them.]

Also, I've decided our next movie night is going to be Scream, because when I call this guy a half-assed Ghostface ripoff, I really want you all to know what I'm talking about.

Comments

[walkingballpit]

Yes! Because 1, the guy did get clocked, and 2, Medbay is probably the most equipped to handle someone that turns into a freaking cloud. Nobody's told me about the superhuman prison yet.

[ See, Robbie does think about these things. ]

I think I'm not worried about getting shot. So yeah.

[unrecovered]

[Guess who's been listening.]

[Guess who's pissed.]

And how are you planning on containing him? A stiff breeze?

[walkingballpit]

[ Let their pissing combine. ]

I don't know, but I'm going to try! I'm not going to wave around my new metal dick like everything's now solved.

[unrecovered]

[By your powers combined, I am Captain- wait let's not go there]

I didn't put up a public warning so people could go in there and get killed! He's playing by different rules. If you don't have anything that can contain him, then stand down.

[walkingballpit]

[ Dude, any conglomerate hero that features parts of Wash and Robbie is doomed. ]

I have plenty to distract him while someone handles containment. It's called "teamwork."

I'm not going to get killed, Windex, but I think it's sweet that you're worried about lil ole me.

[unrecovered]

[Captain Zero Self Esteem.]

Says the person running in there alone right now.

You have no idea how many times people have said that to me right before they got murdered. [He lived through two genocides. The answer is "a lot."] Stand down, Speedball.

[walkingballpit]

[ Captain Lithium. ]

No.

But I'll wait for backup.

[ The Omnicom feed is showing him at one of the entrances to the Habitat Deck. ]

And please, stop acting like I'm going to die. You're throwing me off my game. Besides, I'm starting to think I can't.

[unrecovered]

So you're not a complete moron! Good to know!

[He's relieved that Robbie's not going facefirst into horror movie hell alone, and may have forgotten in the moment that not everyone speaks Red Team. Welp.]

You realize that's about the worst thing you can say, with the exception of 'I'll be right back.'

[walkingballpit]

I'm only a complete moron on very special occasions. I've been thinking about doing it for Christmas this year.

[ There's a growing smile on his face as he cups his hand to his ear. ]

Hold on, I think I hear something in the cellar. I'm going to check it out in the dark alone with a toy flashlight loaded with old no-name batteries. I'll be right back.

[ Cojones made of rubber. He's not scared; you're scared ]

[relativityspeaking]

[Mom's here. And everyone's grounded.]

Freelancer, last I checked, I'm the only one with the authority to tell anyone to stand down, so: stand the sprock down.

[She's not done.]

And before you pat yourself on the back, Speedball, Freelancer's right about your power set. If you spot Reaper, only engage as a distraction if he's attacking someone. Otherwise, wait for backup to arrive before jumping in.

Also, enough with the mouth. Next time you have concerns over a teammate's actions, you report it to me or our Deputy Leader, Matter-Eater Lad -- you don't publicly reprimand a team-mate over the comms and bicker with them like a child.

There are Legionnaires on the team that are barely of age that don't carry on like this. You're both teammates and you're both sprocking adults, so act like it.

[walkingballpit]

Hey! You're the chick who was stuck in the thing!

[ Getting yelled at or not, he's pleased to see that she's no longer decorating Brainaic's lab. ]

And - understood. I wasn't going to start a fight that didn't need starting.

[ He has learned that lesson, thank you. ]

I was hoping Freelancer was right, and I'd find him out cold. I'm ... sorry... [ Definitely chokes on the word. ] about the rest. I've never been on a team where every move had to be rubber stamped. I can work with being a tattletale.

[ Should he ask for permission to fart? ]

[relativityspeaking]

Not every superteam gets an active duty roster up into the 30s and 40s, nor is every superteam officially sanctioned by the government. [She smirks just slightly.] Which means I have to make sure my rubber stamp's just as close on hand as my omnicom is.

[Because there's always paperwork. (Or it would be called that if people used paper anymore). Endless, endless paperwork.]

Our command structure is limited to having an elected Legion Leader and Deputy Leader, but a command structure does exist, and there are at least a few rules and protocols.

Even if there wasn't, infighting doesn't do us any good, regardless of whether or not it's coming from a place of concern. [Which seems to be the case for both of them, with Robbie concerned over Reaper possibly attacking someone else, and Wash concerned for Robbie.] Just keep it in mind for next time and you're good.

[Permission to fart freely. At ease, soldier.]

[unrecovered]

[Wash is...almost relieved, honestly. It's like listening to Carolina, back when being number one on the leaderboard meant something and he trusted her judgment implicitly. He may have failed on all fronts here, but dammit, at least there's a structure to be failed. At least there's a CO with some authority. Even if he's a fuckup, at least he knows exactly where he stands.]

[And right now, he's standing at attention. Some habits die hard.]

Yes, ma'am.

[Screened to Kid Q]

[She might notice that he's not in the lounge anymore. She might notice that he's at the entrance to the habitat deck. He's been there for a bit.]

Brainiac recommended I report to your office for debriefing.

[relativityspeaking]

You can go ahead and do that after you work with the others to bring in Reaper.

[Mistakes and missteps and shortsightedness happens. She knows it'll do him good to take a few steps back and try again.]

[googledox]

A forcefield that can contain an antimatter explosion will certainly do.

[Brainy's flying at a brisk clip through the halls.]

Which is why you should've notified security or one of the more experienced Legionnaires about this attack immediately, rather than leaving the scene to have a diverting little chuckle over petty theft.

[Is he mad that Wash defended himself and left Reaper tased on the ground? No. Reaper had it coming. Is he mad that Wash just left him there, and didn't notify someone until he'd walked away instead of right after Reaper's body hit the ground? Yes.]

I don't know what the operational standards were in your world, Washington [he says his name the way a mother would say their child's full name when they're angry] but on Legion World, when there's a security breach, you are to -- I know this may perhaps sound unbelievable -- contact security.

We have children on board, and I don't mean our younger teammates who are considered children in their own time, but adults in the 31st century -- I mean literal children, like Timber Wolf's son. As well as several thousand completely powerless staffers.

[unrecovered]

[That stops Wash cold.]

[He doesn't get to win very often. More often than not, he loses from the get-go, or at the last minute, or it turns out everything he's done has been useless or actively made things worse. Even when he does win, it doesn't matter. He takes his victories where he can get them.]

[He'd honestly thought this was one of them. He'd won, as much as he could without making sure Reaper stayed down permanently. He'd put up a warning. He'd thought-]

[Except he hadn't, had he. He'd been working off his defaults - of working on his own; of being one of the few truly competent people around; of finishing things and making a joke about it to deal with the fact that he'd had another brush with death, because that's how he does things.]

[Except it's not how things are here. He didn't consider that, and because of that, he's once again actively made things worse, except this time he might have put civilians- innocents- kids- in the line of fire.]

[Getting attacked isn't his fault. Handling it poorly, by the standards of the world he's on and the team he's joined - the standards he should damn well be operating on by now - is.]

Understood.

[Screened to Brainy]

For what it's worth, operational standards in the war I got pulled from include neutralizing the threat.

[He can't help the sharpness. It's how he functions, and it's absolutely what he would have done had it been an option, especially since he won't win a prolonged fight with a guy who can turn into mist and he knows it. But-]

But this isn't my world, and that's not an excuse.

[And it doesn't fix anything.]

How can I help.

locked to Wash

[googledox]

This isn't war. The Legion is a law enforcement body and officers of the peace only kill as a last resort to protect themselves and others. We are functionally a part of the UP justice system, not its military.

And the nature of so many Legionnaires and even Science Police officers possessing meta-powers means the measure of something being considered a "last resort" is significantly different than it is in other universes.

With my powers, containment of a threat of this nature is laughably easy.

[But Brainy's harsh expression still softens. It's not really Wash's fault he's here in an alien universe, having to follow alien rules. It's Brainy's.]

As it appears that several of us are already responding to the threat, what you can do to help is report to Kid Quantum's office to give a thorough account of the incident so she can determine a proper response.

[A pause.]

And also attempt to start internalizing the idea that you're not working alone. Not just for the sake of your teammates and the staff, but for your own sake.

Many of you come from warzones and other hostile environs where you're used to needing to take extreme actions to defend yourselves and others, and many of you are used to operating alone. But you have a team over over 40 sentients ready to come to your aid at any given time. Remembering you actually have backup and reflexively calling for it during or immediately after conflicts may save your life in the future.

Permafilter

[unrecovered]

[He knows this- he should know all of this- but it's just not clicking, and he's not-]

It's not that I'm not used to having a team. It's that-

[He doesn't know why he's talking. Guilt, maybe. Maybe he needs someone - just one person - to understand where he's coming from. It won't excuse his mistakes, but for once, maybe he just wants empathy.]

Back home, Grif is on my team, and almost everyone else is about at his level. If I'm not the only competent person in the room, then I'm one of maybe three. I'm not used to having backup that I didn't have to train, that won't complain or argue or get killed.

It's not that I don't trust anyone back home- I need them. It's that-

[It's that every shitty thing that has happened to his team back home was because of Freelancer. It's that they've put their lives on the line for him time and again to clean up the mess that he made, or that the program that he was a very active part of made. It's that everything - all the horrible shit they've been through - comes back to Freelancer.]

[And they've all been damned lucky to survive it all. He knows that.]

[Here, there's no Project Freelancer. Here, Freelancer is just him. Here, backup is competent, and far more likely to succeed handily instead of by the skin of their teeth - but if he asks them to help him, and they die anyway, it's his fault. It still all comes back to Freelancer.]

[It's a hell of a lot easier to blame something when you haven't taken its name as your own.]

...I'm not good at asking for help.

I'll work on it.

[googledox]

[It's an easier thing for Brainy to understand than some might think.]

When I joined the team I was forcibly conscripted during a brief time the UP worlds had the imbecilic notion that there should be a draft. It was the only way anyone could've persuaded me to join a team at the time.

I suspect that the Coluan government was hoping I might be killed during duty -- a way to be rid of an ongoing nuisance with some finality.

[That...gives a tiny peek into Brainy's childhood.]

Trust isn't easy. Neither is asking for help. Especially for those accustomed to self-reliance being absolute necessity.

[It's meant to be an acknowledgement that yes, it's hard. And it's reasonable for it to be hard.]

Before I met the Legion, there were very few sentients I could reasonably rely on. After I joined, there were over twenty, and that number grew as the team grew larger.

[A pause.]

My point is that if you're not adept at asking for help, this isn't the worst place to learn how. And you certainly wouldn't be the first Legionnaire that needed to learn it.

[unrecovered]

[There's a deep well of Tragic Backstory in there that he's not touching - this isn't the time or place, and he's pretty sure Brainy wouldn't appreciate it.]

[But Brainy has a point - it's hard to step into a different role. It was hard to become a leader for the Reds and Blues, and it's just as hard to go back to being a member of a competent team, even more so give the Legion's differences from Project Freelancer. It might even be a good thing if he lets it, provided he doesn't fuck up irreparably in the process.]

Okay.

...thanks.

[For not putting him through the wringer any more than necessary. He's capable of doing that on his own, though it's always a surprise when people don't take the opportunity to rub his mistakes in his face.]

slides in here all cool like

[mylawn]

If you want to find him, you're going to need me.

[googledox]

I'll assume that means you're acquainted with Wash's attacker. Where should we look first and what are his capabilities?

[mylawn]

We go back. Secure this line.

locked to Soldier: 76

[googledox]

Rendezvous with us there.

The line is secure. Now tell me his capabilities.

[mylawn]

Covert ops agent, genetically augmented for combat. Enhanced strength/speed/stamina/etc. Can't speak to the nature of it, but he can de-materialize and re-form at will. Goes undetected when he's not solid. Don't think shooting at him does much, either.