thelegion | [video, after murderworld]

Cap let me in.

[ GOOD JOB, CAP ]

[ 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. ]

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

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.

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

[ 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?

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.

When we get back, I'm going to help you find him.

[ Robbie's not sure why they haven't already. Looking for missing Warriors' relatives has been a Thing since the beginning. They owe Sam that much. ]

I just hope I remember when I do go back.

Thanks.

[ Maybe the third time will be the charm. ]

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.]

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

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.

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.

[It's a tough thing to deal with. That disillusionment. Being failed by other heroes you looked up to. Watching people you'd once respected and proudly fought side by side with scrabbling in the dirt with each other.]

[He'd told Robbie, on the day he left Earth, that the world had gone crazy and he wanted off. It's not a good feeling. It can make the world feel like it's just...broken.]

When I left, that's when I got into it with the Phalanx -- and Galactus. All those people wouldn't have had somebody if I'd gotten caught up in all that nonsense on Earth.

[He wants Sam to understand the weight of this. It may seem like a simple choice, right or wrong, participating in something idiotic or walking away. But it's not that simple, and it means something that Sam did the "simple" thing when it sounded like so many others were incapable of it.]

[Choices like this carry the weight of worlds, of all the people a hero could be saving and helping and protecting if they aren't caught up in ridiculousness and pride.]

The Legion's been teaching you a lot and I've been trying to teach you, too. How to use the powers, the tactics, all of that -- but this? This kinda stuff is what really makes someone a hero. The choices. And whether the ones you're making are gonna do something good for the universe -- for people that need help or protection -- or not.

I know it probably seems like a simple thing -- they're doing something stupid, you walked away. Boom. Done. But this is the kinda stuff that really makes me glad it was you that put on that bucket after me. There's so much good I don't even have to teach you.

You didn't lose sight of what's important and you're trying to be the kind of hero the whole lot of them should be right now.

I'm proud of you, kid.

Edited 2016-11-04 08:16 (UTC)

[ Once upon a time, Sam resented Rich - or the memory of him - because he was sick of getting compared to him.

(It didn't last long once he met him, because Rich was kind of hard not to like once you knew him in real life, but that was neither here nor there.)

Hearing this, straight from the horse's mouth - that makes up for every time he ever had to put up with the comparisons from anybody else. ]

You gonna punch some sense into everybody when you get back?

No, but I'm kinda thinking of maybe talking some sense into them.

[A pause.]

They're why I stay away, y'know. Yeah, people up in space need someone, and yeah, there are villains that need to be stopped before Earth is even a gleam in their eye, but that's not the only reason I spend so much time away.

I do it because I'm sick of how everything's become. Because it's easier, I guess, just to avoid it and go places where it's simple.

[It's a lot easier when you know exactly who the bad guys are. They're the creepy Lovecraft tentacle people, or the mind-controlling robots, or the giant homicidal space bugs.]

But I miss my family. And I hate how I'm never there for my friends when they need me. And Namorita is back and she's going to want to be closer to Namor and her kingdom and I want to be close to her.

And there's you. That's the world you live in and even if there's a lot of things I can teach you up there in space, you've got your family to go home to, and people on Earth you want to protect. If people like Banner are dying, if heroes are hurting each other, they might accidentally hurt you -- either by you getting in the crossfire or being left alone to fight something because they're too busy fighting each other.

[He'll never be able to forgive himself if that happens, if he comes back from some alien galaxy to find yet another person he cares about is gone, that Sam died because of stupid drama, or died alone trying to protect people when he should've had people fighting at his side.]

I haven't been able to just to...fly around on my own here. I forgot what it felt like to be connected to things again. To people. If I do make it out of here, if I don't have to go back to what I was, maybe it's time to go back to Earth.

[Maybe it's time to spend a little more time on Earth in between all the space stuff. Maybe that's what all this nonsense needs. Someone stepping up and reminding them what it's supposed to be about. Someone they can't ignore.]

[ Now, he thinks, may not be the most tactful time to mention how he nearly got flattened fighting off Mole Man when nobody else was answering their comms. ]

If you can't talk some sense into them, everyone's even stupider than I thought possible.

[ I BELIEVE IN YOUUUUUU ]

If I can't talk sense into them, it's a lost cause, and it might be time for some of us to move to space Canada here in the Legion's universe.

[He pinches the bridge of his nose.]

I don't mean that entirely seriously, but if this doesn't all stop, it doesn't bode well for the next time everyone has to work together against an outside threat.

I think that's what terrifies me the most. "A house divided cannot stand." If the Annihilation Wave had reached Earth, even with the warning I sent -- that Reed Richards did nothing with -- that would've been it. They'd have put up a good fight, but in the end...

Imagine if the Chronoblivion stuff was happening back home.

[ Or better yet, don't. ]

(no subject)

iamresponding - 2016-11-05 05:24 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

headinjuries - 2016-11-07 03:16 (UTC) - Expand

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.]

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.

Edited 2016-11-03 20:06 (UTC)

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.]

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.

Well, this was all before I had a chance to talk to anyone about -- you know. Before everyone saw me after...everything.

[So they hadn't gotten a glimpse of the imposing and responsible hero he'd become.]

I didn't get a chance to contact Earth until we were deep into it. Xandar was hit on day 7. We were close to the Crunch. I was deep in enemy territory for months, trying to bring everyone together and drive them back.

So it wasn't 'til the end that I could even get close enough to send a message home. After we'd...basically lost. The United Front was broken, Galactus was being used as a weapon, we were about to go in for our last run. For the eleventh hour miracle.

The Wave was three months away from Earth, so I figured -- I figured if that was it, I needed to get a warning home, and I finally had the breathing room to do it. I sent a probe with a message explaining what was happening, when the Wave would hit Earth, and all the tactical data I had to Reed Richards.

I don't -- I don't know what he did with it. When I got home after, Stark said Reed hadn't said anything and went on about how they were busy. Like all that -- like that even --

He said Shi'ar sources had given some information, too, but they chalked it up to a Kree border skirmish. Billions dead, galactic civilization had given up the ghost and they just --

[He shrugs.]

We were in orbit. Right near home. I know the probe made it. So I don't...

[He still doesn't understand.]

I just thought at the very least everyone would get ready. To defend the planet. Even if they didn't come up to help. I was hoping I could rely on that, at least.

Oh.

[ He understood the vague implication. If it was before something, well, there's only one approximate time frame that they could mean. Somewhere between the last time Robbie saw him and Smyrna, Delaware. Everything before Smyrna, Robbie knew most of.

Had to be between. He knew that Rich had been back on Earth at least once in between.

Nothing good happened in between. ]

They would've gotten it together in time. There were - I don't even know how many teams. 50 plus two or three. And the X-Men, I guess.

[ What else was there to offer but a quiet reassurance that everything would've been okay? This was all based on maybes that never came to be. ]

I know they've got no problem throwing the Thunderbolts against aliens. Maybe they thought you were mixed up in the Skrull stuff. That was about then, wasn't it?

[ He realized how Stockholm he must sound right now. ]

I'm not defending them. I'm - they would've taken it seriously in time.

[ Its about defending Rich's credibility. ]

They're still assholes.