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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Maybe they could've. But...it seemed like nobody was thinking about a middle ground. It was all or nothing.

[ And also stupid. ]

Yeah. It's always all or nothing. Nothing and then all and then nothing. Fat lot of good it does anyone.

Yeah, it's not really a bad idea, honestly -- if there's middle ground. Hell, the whole superhero community's acted on the occasional warning vision or magical prediction voodoo or whatever before.

If someone could've...if someone could've predicted that Annihilus was going to invade from the Negative Zone, we could've tossed whole armies and a ton of superheroes at him right at the Crunch.

[Before a single world fell. Before the Corps shrank down to a Corps of one.]

For the other stuff, we could just have heroes set up around potential crimes to ambush the criminals when the crimes actually start counting as being actually in progress. If someone gets pinched on attempted murder, the victim is saved, the perpetrator still does some time, and they're still doing it for something they actually did instead of what they might have done. The attempt alone is a crime.

[He rolls his eyes, not that anyone can see it.]

But that's actually reasonable and they're them. It's always about egos, not finding something that works.

[Maybe if they hadn't been such uncooperative idiots they could've found middle ground on Registration, too, decided to build the Avengers Academy right off the bat, to train the younger heroes more formally sooner.]

I just wish someone would step up the way somebody always used to, to set everyone straight. Cap used to do it all the damn time and now that he gets involved in the infighting, too, now who is there? Spidey gets all wrapped up in it, too.

[Who could step forward and take on that kind of authority? Who had enough moral standing and attachments to other heroes in the community that people would respect what they had to say? Who could provide them all with a voice of reason? And be a hard enough hitter that they couldn't just swat them away, that could hold their own if any idiots picked a fight -- oh.]

[Huh.]

[They always tried to drag him in, too. "Pick a side." Like there were even supposed to be sides at all. But he didn't need to pick any sides and he didn't want to.]

Guess I got another thing to add to my "What I'm Gonna Do When I Get Home" to-do list. If it's all still going on, at least.

I don't know how anything gets done in the Negative Zone.

[ It's not like someone who willingly called himself Annihilus was likely to need to be happy in order to plan a war, though, and he probably doesn't deserve any of Robbie's sympathy.

The Negative Zone was soul-suckingly bleak. That wasn't the point, however, so Robbie elected to hide his further confusion about whether or not the real solution would be to use the precog even sooner and realize that keeping anyone in the Zone was the bad idea. Maybe the way to prevent Rich's war was evacuating the Negative Zone before anyone got too damaged. It doesn't matter. It's history. ]

And I don't know if I like the idea of letting them attempt the crime. Sometimes, things go wrong. One punch, and someone falls and hits their head on the curb and dies. It's too risky. Everyone would still be culpable - they'd all be accessories to murder. Captain Marvel, the precog, everyone. The blood'd be on their hands.

[ That was how superhero responsibility worked. If you knew something might go wrong, and you did it anyway, it was your fault when it went wrong. Robbie still struggled with remembering that in a chaotic situation, but, in the calm of his quarters, here's no problem. ]

Wanting to lock up the bad guys... that's about ego. I know, I've got a big one too.

[ Thinking that he could make a positive difference - it was the same ego that got him in trouble in the first place. ]

They'll drag you down with them, if you try to muscle your way into the argument.

We don't just protect people, Robbie, we've got to protect their rights, too. I don't just rescue people in space, I make sure there's justice. Until someone tries to commit a crime it ain't one. And even the people that have committed crimes deserve their rights protected and a fair trial.

Besides, in those dicey cases, there's a way to stop someone after the punch starts and before someone gets hit. We do have speedsters on our side. We just have to be smart about things. That's one of the things I learned in the war. Fight smart, not hard.

We've got plenty of geniuses to supply the smart.

[They just need to be pointed the right direction because they're terrible at figuring it out on their own.]

And they can't drag me down if I refuse to be petty. Even if they attack me for getting in the way, so what? I've gone toe to toe with people like Thanos, who everyone has to work together against to even put a dent in. If they're fighting with each other, they're not gonna work together enough to hurt me, and I won't give them the excuse.

[He can't be dragged down if he refuses to join in the pettiness.]

Somebody needs to start playing referee again and if Stark and Carol need to be put in separate corners, stargating them to two separate planets for a little while to cool down ain't exactly out of the question.

Besides, I don't think it will come to that. I don't think, if I stand there and remind people of how we're supposed to be, that people like Spidey, and people like Ben and Johnny and Sue, will just blow me off.

I'm not ready to give up on them. [The people they're supposed to be... it's worth the risk to try to make them realize they need to be those people again.] And I'm tired of feeling like home ain't home anymore.

[ ... Robbie can't find a single thing that he completely agreed with - or disagreed with. For the first half of the monologue, he's scrabbling at opinions that invert on contact.

Yes, they should protect people's rights. Of course. Obvious. Except they're talking generically about all people, heroes, and criminals. Where were Gorilla Girl's rights? Robbie hadn't cared about hers. And no one had minded about his either.

Yes, fight smarter, but Rich is dead. He didn't learn the lesson so well.

If only they could all stop being petty, but Robbie's one of the pettiest ones. He can't let go of what Tony Stark did, and Rich is being petty as well. Showing off about Thanos.

Then, Rich gets... very Rich about the whole thing. Stubborn and maybe stupid, and Robbie thinks it's what he should be saying. The optimistic, hopeful spiel, where everyone's secretly good and a rousing speech about Americana will bring them all back to their senses. ]

You got too good for Earth at some point. Maybe if you could stick around this time, they'd listen to you. Me - I'll be happy if they haven't reopened 42 for this. Most of them already showed me how they feel about rights, but I don't hold it against anybody but Stark and Richards.

I'm not, Robbie. Not when you think about some of the places I got it from. Part of it's just me, but part of it's what everyone taught me through the years.

"With great power comes great responsibility" wasn't exactly something I thought about on my own before I heard it from Spidey. And I remember always seeing how Cap used to be and wanting to be that way. And seeing Thor always try to fight with honor and protect the small. And seeing the Fantastic Four always being willing to lend a hand to other heroes that needed it.

And then there was the team, and everything you all taught me, too. I took it all up there with me. Even the times I'm on my own, it's all there.

[It had all made an impression on him, especially when he used to have such an ego. Other heroes were the example, and when he was pushed, when he had to finally grow up, he tried to turn himself into something similar. Something as good as all the people he knew were good.]

I think, if I do make it out of this, maybe it's time to go back. There'll always be places I'm needed off Earth, and things I have to do in space to keep Earth safe, but I don't need to be up there all the time.

I'm tired of being away from the people I care about and I'm tired of everything going to hell and only finding out after the fact, when I could've helped.

Yeah, you are. Because you're saying stuff like that. Nobody else says that. I don't think even Spidey says that anymore.

[ Where would Spider-Man fall, on the precognition, crime, and punishment? Where had he been the last time? Robbie can't remember. Probably ... huh. Probably Cap's team. ]

Most people spend about three seconds considering justice, and two seconds are debating metaphors. Do you say you wanna throw away the key or just throw the switch?

[ There's a heavy sigh, and Robbie sounds apologetic when he starts up again. He doesn't want to bust Rich's bubble of importance, but he's also not going to let him cart around baggage with a giant"Should've helped my friends" sticker. ]

There's nothing you could've done. You would've been locked up or dead.

[ Rich was dead already. There wasn't much difference in the end, was there? ]

I'm glad you weren't there.

[ The feed cuts off. ]

[On the other end, Rich looks at his comm and the "connection ended" message, and draws in a deep breath.]

[Maybe Robbie's right that it was better in the end that he wasn't there at Stamford. He probably would've died or wound up going through what Robbie had gone through, too. And then, not long after, the Annihilation Wave would've reached Earth, and after a spirited and admirable fight, it would've been curtains for everyone.]

[But what matters is he can be there now. Now, when he's older, and smarter, and stronger, and kinder, and wiser. Now, if he's there during a moment like that, he can do something. He mutters:]

No more freakin' metaphors.

[No more superheroes saying words that dance around the truth of how awful they're acting. It's going to just be action and it's going to be the right action.]

[He puts his comm away and his resolve to go back is even stronger than before. After Chronoblivion is defeated and the multiverse is safe, he's going home alive, even if he has to find a way to get the Time Trapper in some kind of cosmic headlock to force him to do it.]

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[video, after murderworld]

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