[video, after murderworld]

[headinjuries]

[ Today on your omnicom: a slightly baffled looking Sam, sitting cross-legged on one of the common area couches with a soda and half a bowl of popcorn. ]

'K, so.

Remember how Chief went back home for like two minutes, but got back here months later?

I guess it works both ways, because I was definitely back for a while but I'm like 95% this is the same splatterball game I was watching right before I went.

[ He stops to eat a handful of the popcorn, and - ]

- wow, yeah, this stuff didn't even have time to get cold.

So, you know. In case anybody was wondering.


(ooc: it'ssss a canon update. Sam's about current now, up to right before Champions starts - which means that if you're avoiding Civil War II spoilers, give me a holler and I'll make sure not to tag you with any!)

Comments

[headinjuries]

They're...

[ Welp. The only mention of football he's found is in historical articles, which bodes poorly. ]

...totally around. Somewhere. I'm still trying to find the right channel because there's way too many.

[walkingballpit]

A billion channels, and nothing's ever on.

[ He is willfully going along with this because, no, he hasn't found any sign of "modern" sports either. ]

So the next time you go home, you should bring us all Skittles and Dr. Pepper.

[headinjuries]

If I knew I was coming back, I would've brought real burgers or something.

[walkingballpit]

Oh my gosh, why didn't you bring us all dead cow? I don't know if I'll ever get over it, now.

[headinjuries]

I didn't know I was coming back and I was in space!

[walkingballpit]

Oh, no, no, no, no. We're nipping this in the bud right now. You do not get to use "I was in space!" as an excuse for anything, because I'm not letting Buckethead use it as an excuse for anything.

It's like prison. You don't see anyone using "I was in prison!" as an excuse for anything, do you? No. And space is a lot prettier.

New Warriors don't get excuses. Go join the Avengers for that.

[headinjuries]

Technically, I did.

[ A beat. ]

But then I quit anyway.

[walkingballpit]

Good. I can count the Avengers who aren't idiots on one hand.

[ He holds up a hand curled over to make a zero. ]

[headinjuries]

I want to give Ms. Marvel not-an-idiot credit? She's more just like...teacher's pet.

[ A beat. ]

But yeah, aside from that, you've got a point.

[walkingballpit]

Whatever happened to teenagers not being allowed in the Avengers anyway? That used to be a thing, and they actually had their point proven so I don't know who decided to let her or you in - no offense - but it underlines the whole hypocrite thing for me.

I'd rather them be honest about it.

Also - I've done the whole teaching gig, and the teacher's pets are idiots too. They're probably the worst.

[headinjuries]

Cap let me in.

[ GOOD JOB, CAP ]

[walkingballpit]

[ Robbie's bitter, but he's not entirely heartless. It wasn't all that long ago that he'd have knocked out his own teeth to be made an Avenger by Captain America himself.

He won't shit on that for Sam. He can't scrape together that much enthusiasm, but there's an attempt. ]

Oh? Cool, cool. I think he was there when Justice and Firestar made the cut, too. I don't know about Nova and Rage.

[ It's probably Cap's way of absorbing the New Warriors into the Avengers quietly. If Speedball and Justice say no, he'll just start picking everyone off with private invitations until they're alone again. ]

[headinjuries]

Well, it kinda doesn't matter now anyway. Not like I'm going back.

[walkingballpit]

Enh, everyone always goes back. The Avengers are like Clive Davis. Sure, he's a dick, but he's a dick that makes you a star.

There's no hard feelings. Not against you, anyway. You're not the one who has to constantly build metaphoric symbols of your epeen all over Manhattan. That's all the Avengers are.

[headinjuries]

Being a star isn't the point. Doing something worth doing is.

[walkingballpit]

[ Robbie can't bring himself to give the snappy retorts that he comes up with. "Tell that to Wonder Man." "Remember that out next time Stark throws another gala."

He doesn't have the right to agree. He always wanted to be a famous superhero. He even took the first name that the newspaper graced him with, and then there was the stupid show... ]

You think I don't know that, now?

[headinjuries]

Uh, no? I'm just saying, I'm not going back.

Getting in fights with other heroes is stupid and it's not gonna find my dad.

[iamresponding]

Good. [He's been snooping. Naturally. Just like he saw Vance talking about that 'tarnished brand' nonsense. His blood is practically boiling.] I'm not going to tell you where you should go or what team you should be with or who to trust. You're smart enough to figure all that out for yourself and I don't have any right to.

But my opinion is you should still have the superhero training wheels on, kiddo. The mentoring part sounds right, but tossing you on the front lines of the big leagues, when you're still learning? The reason it happens here is we can't help it. Multiversal apocalypse, what can you do?

But our world has thousands of other heroes that could be handling the whole "it all comes down to you and if you fail the world will die" type superheroics. That shouldn't have to be your job.

You're doing an amazing job at taking all this on and I'm glad I'm getting the chance to teach you, but it shouldn't have to be this way, where so much is on your shoulders. That they'd choose willingly is --

[He's fifteen. Yes, Robbie had started young, too, but that was the whole point of the New Warriors. They'd worked their way up. They'd practiced. They took on small fries until they learned how to take on the big problems like the Sphinx. And nobody expected them to be the ones that had to save the world, it just sort of happened that way sometimes.]

[And look what happened to Robbie in the end, starting that young. After Nitro did what he did, the world had tried to tear him apart -- and almost succeeded. During a time he should've only been worrying about college credits and getting the attention of girls, he'd had to worry about not getting beaten to death in prison.]

It's rotten is what it is.

[Training him was right, but setting him up in that position? When the Avengers were supposed to the safety net? Terrible.]

[headinjuries]

The big leagues are too busy fighting each other to worry about the important stuff now anyway. Screw that.

[iamresponding]

They tend to do that. [A pause.] They didn't used to. But I'm starting to think we'll never see those days again. Or a time when people start learning from their mistakes and failures.

[He wants to reassure him, though.]

The good thing, at least, is we can be whatever kinda heroes we wanna be. So we'll just keep doing that.

[He smiles.]

You know, during the infighting with the registration act, I blew 'em all off, too. It's a fine Nova tradition.

[headinjuries]

Yeah. The Captain - uh, not Cap, this guy who used to be on some team I'd never heard of, he just called himself The Captain - he said it was up to me what was important.

Fighting other heroes wasn't it.

[iamresponding]

Cap. It was Cap for me, too.

You know how he is. He did the thing. The sincerity thing. And the voice. That voice.

[Given everything that went down and how he just...feels about the whole thing, he doesn't like how the Avengers seem to have tried to poach even more New Warriors. Bit by bit they peeled them away, one by one. Them going for Sam is...alarming. He should still have the superhero training wheels on, not be tossed head first into the big leagues.]

The words "You're not a New Warrior anymore" may have been said. I took him up on it anyway, because what am I going to do, say no when Earth's facing threats they'd need my level of firepower for? I'd be neck deep in it during those times anyway.

[He'd been a little excited by it, but...a lot of time has passed and a lot of things have happened, and all he got for his trouble was another brainwashing, thanks to the Thorned Crown.]

[It took some time -- and being around his friends again -- to make him resent those words even more. 'You're not a New Warrior anymore.' He regretted not contesting that. He'd just been so bowled over by finally getting the call, his chance to be in the big leagues.]

[...Until it eventually occurred to him that maybe he was the pro and they were the rookies -- at least as far as the cosmic stuff went anymore. For the Annihilation War they hadn't even been willing to get their butts off the bench.]

[Rich outright calls it out because he's a lot less diplomatic about this business anymore.]

They sure did a good job over the years of whittling us down, didn't they? And they never really stopped making it clear exactly what they thought of us.

[They only felt they were Avengers material if they'd risen "above" being New Warriors.]

[To hell with that.]

[walkingballpit]

He tried the voice on me. It kind of ticked me off.

[ When Tony Stark had called the New Warriors a tarnished brand. Robbie doesn't offer the specifics. Vance has already explained what happened - has already said they turned down the offer of the Avengers and that Stamford was the proof that none of them "knew better."

Robbie knew what that meant. Even Vance still faults them for it, but maybe he doesn't realize it. ]

The closest I ever came was teaching at the school. I don't know if that made me - I still don't think they'd say I was ever an Avenger.

[ He feels... tight, emotionally and physically. And not much else, to be honest. Numb is better than upset. ]

I know exactly what they think about me. Doesn't everyone?

Maybe the rest of you are better off being whittled. Throw a coup from the inside.

[iamresponding]

That's not how it works. They don't get it and they never will. [A pause.] It's all about priorities. If I'd have gotten that beacon off during the war earlier, before it was pretty much already too late anyway, if instead of Stark and Reed sitting on it, it'd gotten in your hands or Vance's or Angel's...

Well. Somebody would've been trying to steal another Quinjet and hoping it could fly in the vacuum of space.

[Even if Robbie had been too damaged, hurting too much to reach out and help his friend, he was smart enough to have gotten a message off to Vance or the others without being found when he didn't want to be found.]

[And Rich believes he would have done at least something, when the message had basically been 'I who am about to die give you the very last thing I can: a warning."]

Because they didn't ignore it because of all the nonsense going on. They ignored it 'cause it was from me. And because they thought the same things they'd always thought of me. So what could a warning from me be worth?

[Big mouth. Grandstander. Attention hog. Only worried about fame and glory. And nothing underneath. They'd never seen what his friends had seen, the heart beating under it all. Not until his powers caused all their scans to spike and get their attention.]

We're our best selves together. Even when we hit the bumps in the road. You can't be that with people that don't try to see the good in you. [And that's always been the problem.] None of you were surprised -- not a single one of you -- when you found out what I'd become.

[People like Stark had been shocked. Shocked. At the kind of man, at the kind of hero, he'd finally matured into. His friends? Were mostly surprised over the change in powers and costume.]

[walkingballpit]

No, I'd've called Angel and Hisako because the X-Men are up to their teeth in Shi'Ar tech, and I would've gotten an actual freaking spaceship for the cavalry.

[ It's an instant response. Robbie has given serious thought to all of the things he would've done differently, if only he'd known the future. He's spent more than a few minutes wondering why Rina never told him how things were going to go.

Truth be told, he's not sure what Rich is talking about. He's never been told about any beacon. News eventually trickled to him that Rich was supposedly dead in a war, and Robbie held onto that supposedly until it was laughable. Then, yes, he dreamed up ways that they should have been able to save that friend too.

We're our best selves together. What can he say to that? Rich is right. They were the best and worst together. ]

Yeah, but I always knew you were worth ten of them... what's this about Richards and Stark and a beacon?

[ He practically spits out both names - Robbie hates them both equally for being so smart and so fundamentally stupid, and he doesn't like the implication that they were somehow lax in helping another Avenger.