thelegion | [video, after murderworld]

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[video, after murderworld]

[ 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!)

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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. ]

Sam, seeing as we're not currently sitting around a campfire, now's not really the time for scary stories.

[The thought nearly makes him shudder.]

Okay, I'll save it for the camping trip.

Jason's still planning that camping trip, right?

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[video, after murderworld]

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