[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

[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.

[iamresponding]

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.

[walkingballpit]

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.