Imagine There's No Heaven

[iamresponding]

Who| Rich Rider and YOU
What| Laying face down in the grass in Central Park like a goon
Where| Central Park in the Habitat area of the ship
When| Same day he woke up, natch
Warnings/Notes| Nothing really.

Rich hated being told to slow down. There was a part of him that was screaming at him to be on the move. After all, there had to be 8X8 planetary distress calls to answer; this universe was supposedly as much of a mess as his was.

But the medicos here refused to budge on the "you need rest and time to adjust, especially since you need to adjust to the prosthetic arm" thing so here he was resting and trying to adjust. Kind of. If tooling around the whole ship without stopping was the same as resting and adjusting. Because he couldn't seem to stand still.

Admittedly, even just walking was hard. The Nova Force was still there -- he could feel it -- but it was definitely diminished somehow and that meant his invulnerability and superstrength were gone. Without that pinpoint precision and body awareness it gave him at full capacity, his extremities were a little numb and he was clumsy as anything, just like he was the last time he'd lost the Nova Force.

So after a whole day of pacing around the ship from place to place -- and constantly tripping over his own feet as he did it -- he walked through Central Park (Central Park! Made just for him, reconstructed out of old historical records!) and tripped one last time over his own feet, practically falling on his face in the middle of Strawberry Fields, not far from the "Imagine" John Lennon memorial.

Then he just...stopped. Finally. Because he was alive and he felt grass on his face. How long had it been since he actually felt grass? So he kicked off his boots and socks, too, digging his toes into it.

He'd almost forgotten what grass felt like, but it was itchy and smelled green and earthy and non-sterile in the way everything in space didn't. And as itchy as it was, it was...nice.

Apparently, the Human Rocket could slow down for at least a little while. How 'bout that?

Since he was focusing a bit more on the grass and the light artificial breeze, and his own breathing (he was alive, he was breathing) he wasn't focusing on how it looked to be a grown man face down in the middle of a field.

Truth be told, it looked pretty ridiculous.

Comments

[iamresponding]

"Nope."

This was him enjoying a turf sandwich, really. A delicious, delicious "I am on solid ground and alive" turf sandwich.

"Just kinda enjoying the moment."

Enjoying a moment. Enjoying that there were moments. Rich turned over onto his back and stretched out in the grass, looking up at the false sky, lit up by its false sunlight. He dug his toes into the grass even more and breathed in deep.

"Before all this, I'd barely spent any time planetside in ages." A pause. "And the times I was planetside I didn't exactly get a chance to lounge around."

The first time he'd gone back home, that whole thing had been a mess. The world had been so crazy with all that registration nonsense and the Thunderbolts gunning for him and Robbie in that creepy suit. (He still felt guilty leaving him behind like that but he had to have contacted the other New Warriors like Vance by now so they could make sure he was okay, right?) He'd just been too...shell-shocked to deal with it all. Not that he really thought he had PTSD or anything like that but in that moment, the war had been too fresh to deal with conflict like that on the home front.

The other times he'd been home he'd been busy with the Skrull invasion, then with the Xandarian supercomputer in his head, the Worldmind, losing it and recruiting more Novas behind his back, then with the Many-Angled ones...

He hadn't had any time to slow down and actually enjoy it.

He still wasn't sure how he felt about the medicos forcing him, too. On the one hand, the grass felt great. On the other hand, every second he was laying there he felt almost...guilty. Surely, there had to be people out there that needed his help. Was it fair of him to just be laying around like this, like a lump? But maybe it didn't count as him turning his back on them if he was being forced to slow down for a few days.

"Also, I was dead."

He dropped that like it was perfectly normal for people to randomly come back to life.

[stillshinigami]

Duo would argue it was more than fair to be laying there and enjoying life and the little intricacies of it all. It was so easy for people embroiled in constant warfare and battles to forget what you're really fighting for. He just smiles slightly, more amused than anything at the guy's enthusiasm for the soft ground letting the guy say his peace. Yeah, he could relate. Sort of.

"I've only been to Earth once. It's quite the place but I'm a colony boy at heart." That and there wasn't much opportunity to go to Earth unless you were taking part in the post colony drop clean up and restoration programs.

Then the man makes a comment that makes Duo pause, observe, and chuckle softly, mirthless but understanding. "That'll do it."

It endears the guy enough to Duo that he decides to take a seat about a yard away from him.

"How do you get 'un-dead' anyway? Hell, probably got somethin' to do with messing with space and time and the multiverse." Which is something he rarely thinks about, and really doesn't want to.

"You think we're gonna wake up some time and think it was all a dream in the end?"

[iamresponding]

Now that was cool. This guy being born on a colony. He'd been to plenty of space colonies, but Earth wasn't quite there yet and the idea that there were places out there where Earth had advanced that far was exciting. That was one reason he was actually a little excited about the universe they were currently in.

Apparently, there was a colony on Mars. How great was that?

"I have no idea how I'm alive. I died by using this...this really powerful reality-altering artifact called a cosmic cube. Combined it with the Nova Force, the energy I carry inside me, and I became a dimensional door to get my friends out of this hell dimension. Then I just...dissipated."

And he was pretty sure he'd been gone gone. Dead.

Probably.

"I don't think this is a dream. I just think the universe is a funny place now and again. Maybe something or someone powerful collected all that dissipated energy up. Scooped me together and made me whole again. I dunno." He kept digging his toes into the grass, wiggling them. "I've been a little too busy just enjoying being here again to spend much time figuring out the whys and wherefores. Not sure that's a gift horse whose mouth I really want a glimpse inside of, y'know?"

[stillshinigami]

He listens, looking up to the sky, briefly whistful gaze in his eyes before glancing back to Rich' to listen to his story. Hm.

"Never died, but got pretty close once or twice." Mostly just cutting it close to defeat, where as another left him with a lingering twinge of regret. Part of him would have rather died on principal, a martyr for the cause if need be, in the end he survived as usual. There was also some bitterness there, but there was no need to throw salt in the wound.

"Maybe. Seems like it takes an awful lot of power just to bring us here from all these worlds. And damn, you're coming from another world with super powers. This all goes way over my head." He pauses and chuckles, then lays back in the grass to enjoy himself.

"It's nice not to have t' think about all the shit back home for a while. Even if it feels like some of it followed me along here." But he doesn't have to play the soldier anymore. Not for a while.

It's the colonies he would be fighting for now after all, it would be the Legion.

[iamresponding]

"They said they think we'll go back to the moment we left, so that's a relief, I guess." A pause. "Provided that doesn't mean I go back to being dead."

Rich thought about it for a little while.

"Seems like there's a good fight to be fought here. If the Legion's telling us the truth about everything, anyway. But it'll be easy enough to snoop around and make sure, especially since we have access to the newslinks and they're letting us have freedom of movement."

Rich was a little suspicious that maybe they were involved in bringing them here, but he did feel their story had a strong chance of being the truth. And if that was the case, he was more than willing to fight to put things right and make it so it the Legion had the time and freedom to work out how to get everyone home.

[stillshinigami]

"Heh. Wouldn't hurt to mention that to someone with this level of technology. They could probably ensure you go back alive and kicking." You would hope so, but some part of Duo didn't understand how time could move forward here, but not where he came from.

"How do they know time won't pass back home? Or rather, that they'll miscalculate our returns and send us to the past or future?" Good question, difficult to answer by anyone without a degree in science fiction. His lips tighten briefly at that thought. He might be a touch cynical about the reliability of the technology of these people, advanced as they are, could they really work miracles?

"Tch, I wouldn't be surprised if they're not being completely forward with their intentions. That said you might wanna give them some time to relax their security a bit before you snoop at all." Because regardless of how much freedom they have, their best kept secrets will still be behind iron clad defenses.

"Don't play your hand early if you don't have to."

[iamresponding]

"I've, uh, handled planning my fair share of espionage missions, kid," said Rich, his tone amused. "I'll be careful."

He hadn't gone on most of them himself, but he'd planned them. The only one he'd been on was the sneak attack on Annihilus himself, where they'd short-range teleported until they could get in close.

He'd done well enough on that one, though it'd helped that Galactus has created one hell of a diversion.

"This ain't my first time at the rodeo."

He'd learned a lot during the war and he'd learned it fast.

[stillshinigami]

"Hmf. I've seen plenty of cowboys being run through by the horn of the bull they were riding because they didn't know their enemy well enough. Being careful doesn't always cut it." Alright, maybe he's just a little skeptical, but he'd rather see Rich's actions speak for themselves. Likewise he's apt to do the same for himself when the time is right.

He smirks, sitting up and looking down to the guy laying in the grass. "Callin' me a kid, you're not even that old yourself. Might wanna' reserve that line til you got a little more grey in the hair. Unless you'd like the title of 'old man'."

[iamresponding]

"I feel like one so you might as well." 'Old man' felt about right. "Look, after the life I've led, people my own age seem like kids sometimes."

God knows some people on Earth lived a pampered life compared to him. There were people in their late twenties taking pictures of their Starbucks and worrying about their instagram and they might as well have been an alien species for all their frame of reference was different.

"I was a general," he said by way of explanation. "In a war where billions of sentients died."

It was said with an even tone. He wasn't trying to use it as a bludgeon or anything, just make it clear what frame of reference he was coming from.

"Sorry, it's just habit. You feel damn near ancient after living through something like that."

That was also why he was pretty capable when it came to planning various ops.