legionworld | Nuke It From Orbit, It's the Only Way To Be Sure

Entry tags:

Nuke It From Orbit, It's the Only Way To Be Sure

Who| Closed to Nick and Judy
What| Panicked running around in the vents
Where| The vents
When| After the diplomacy/disaster plots.
Warnings/Notes| N/A

Nick Wilde really wasn't the kind of person that could be called a coward. After all, he was a police officer. He'd helped uncover an evil conspiracy. He'd done some pretty courageous and daring things.

He'd done a lot of those things partly in a blind panic, but he'd still done them!

Most importantly of all, when it had really counted, he'd worked through his fear and come though when someone else (namely Judy) was relying on him. Like when she tried to get him to leave her behind and get the evidence of Bellwether's conspiracy to Chief Bogo. He hadn't considered leaving her behind for even a second.

When someone else needed him, whether it was his partner or -- now that he was a cop -- a member of the public, he knew how to tamper down on the wild terror and the self-interest and do the right thing.

Waking up by himself, on the other hand, in a hospital bed, surrounded by terrifying aliens, was not really an ideal situation for him to be his most heroic. Nor was waking up with the world's worst case of vertigo. The bright lights of the hospital room made his eyes water and looking at them felt like he was staring straight into the sun. And ugh, the smell! He had a sensitive nose but it usually wasn't this sensitive. He could smell everything. He could smell people, for instance, but they were all wrong. Some of them were in need of a good washing and others...they didn't even smell like people at all. And the acrid smell of disinfectant was threatening to choke him.

"Sir, I need you to get back in bed."

"And I need you to stop screaming, creepy Moon Person," Nick begged, in a voice so quiet he didn't realize it was a whisper.

"Sir, please--"

"You really don't have to yell."

"I'm not yelling, sir, you need to get back in bed, I promise we can explain --"

There were things in his ears -- was that what was causing the creepy alien's voice to be so loud? Like hearing aids when he didn't need any? Nick ripped them out but all that did was turn the strange rubber-faced nurse's words to nonsense. Nonsense in stereo.

Now the terrifying alien can scream total gibberish at you instead of screaming words you can understand. That's an improvement.

Nope nope nope nope, he wasn't doing this. He wasn't staying here with a rubber faced alien screaming in his ears in nonsense talk. He wasn't sure where he was going but Not Here seemed best.

Cut to an hour later. So far, in his little sojourn through the vents, he'd stymied multiple attempts at capture, including one where he lured two of the rubber faced people into a section of the vents and locked them in. After kicking one of the lights in the section he was in to break it so it stopped stinging his eyes, he was resting, curled up with his tail pressed against his body for warmth. The hospital patient scrubs he was wearing were awfully thin and the air in these vents was chilly.

He needed the rest. He was already exhausted. He was only a small, eighty-pound fox, and poison gas hit someone his size a whole lot harder than someone with more mass. Not that he knew it, but he really needed to be back in his hospital bed.

That was why tiny backup had been called in, to find him and get him to go back to Medbay.

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It had been after the htwo staff members had been trapped that they'd called Judy in. She already had a fairly solid suspicion of who they were dealing with when they'd mentioned a fox who'd spent the entire time outsmarting each and every one of them. Asking if he'd been carrying a badge when he'd arrived had only been her making sure.

She loved Nick, really, but sometimes the fox could be a serious pain in her furry backside, she thought as she climbed through the airducts. She tried to keep quiet, but between large feet hitting thin metal wasn't exactly conducive to silence. Between that and Nick's own vastly improved hearing, he'd probably hear her coming before she even came close.

Indeed he did. He heard her coming from quite some distance away and sat up in the duct he was resting in, his back stiff with alarm, his ears perking up to listen.

His hearing wasn't the only thing that had been improved, though, and his nose twitched as he sniffed the air. His sense of smell had already been excellent but now it was nearly supernatural.

Rabbit. He smelled bunny -- no, Judy. Not just any bunny, he smelled Judy.

Oh, thank God.

He didn't have to deal with the Moon Men alone.

She was moving towards him all on her own, so he simply scooted to face the direction she was coming from, laying back down on his side again. That meant when she turned the corner, she was greeted to the sight of a very miserable-looking Nick curled up in a half-lit duct. His floof of a tail was curled up against him for warmth.

Despite how miserable he looked, his voice had its usual dry cadence when he spoke to her.

"It's about time you found me. I can't see, so if I'm going to wander around and become a blind swordsman dispensing justice through the alien countryside, I definitely need...a vassal, I guess? A sidekick? I'm not sure what the right word would be, but I need a smallish person to lean on during the times I'm pretending I'm helpless. That's usually how it works."

The words were calm and relaxed but that meant absolutely nothing. He was terrified, cold, still not-well, and cranky, and he couldn't even trust his own senses.

Judy, by this point, could read Nick well enough to tell between when he was just being generally sarcastic, and when he was putting up a front. This was, very obviously, the latter. But, if he was going to snark at her, she'd snark right back, He'd probably be more appreciative of that than her trying to mother him.

"While I'm extremely flattered by the suggestion," She wasn't, but she'd let the comment slide given how bad a condition the fox was in, "what you need is to come out of here with me and get back into bed. You look terrible, Nick."

"See, the thing is, Carrots, I don't know if you've noticed? But we're apparently in outer space. Like--" He gestured vaguely with a paw. "Space. Outer space. As in, the vast universal void the world floats in. That space. I saw it through a window and as much as my vision's off, it's hard to see outer space as something other than what it is. Also there are creepy Moon people with horrifying, vague clay faces just...prowling around -- and talking really, really way-too-loud."

He pawed at one of his ears like a small child with an ear infection.

"So, on account of the world going crazy and the fact I just -- I - I really want off, I think we should just stay here," he gestured at her and then at the space he was in with a paw that was violently trembling. "Away from everyone and everything. Until we figure out how to get home. That's what I think we should do."

Terrified. Utterly terrified. The fact his senses were going crazy was what made it so horribly disorienting.

"I've noticed Nick. I've been awake for a few days now."

It was getting to him badly enough that it was showing. That was worrying. Extremely so, really. She moved closer to him, and lightly grasped his shaking paw.

"Nick, it's going to be fine. The people here? They're good people. They just want to make sure you're okay. I know you're terrified, I know you think you can't trust anything right now. But you do know that you can trust me, right?"

Edited 2016-04-19 04:57 (UTC)

Nick looked up at her -- up, for once, because of the way he was curled up at the bottom of the duct like a terrified kit.

Maybe he couldn't trust anything else, but she was right -- he could trust her. He did trust her, pretty much above anything or anyone else.

"Do I know that?" he said slowly. "Yes I do."

He squeezed her paw with his, then let go and pushed himself up to a sit with shaking arms. He was trembling all over now.

"Provided that you're actually you and - and not some kind of pod person or brain parasite that's going to eat my brain the first time I look away." He scooted closer and lowered his head against her shoulder. He tried to stop shaking and failed miserably. "But here, easy access. I feel like it's sporting to let you get in at least one attempt."

That was totally why he was leaning his head against her. Commitment to a lame joke. Totally.

Okay, no, he was terrified and disoriented and cold and miserable and he wanted a hug, he really did, so he just went for it, holding onto her like a drowning mammal that'd been tossed a life preserver.

So, that was a yes. On the trusting her thing. That was what the clinging meant.

Edited 2016-04-20 02:39 (UTC)

Judy snorted, muttered a mildly amused "dumb fox," and hugged back. He needed this, and she was more than happy to provide. Besides, Nick actually initiating a hug happened one time in a million, there was no way she wasn't going to take advantage of that.

All good things eventually came to an end, though, and this hug was no different. Nick was still sick and freezing, and definitely needed to get someplace warmer.

"As nice as this is, Nick, we should probably get going."

Edited 2016-04-20 04:39 (UTC)

'As nice as this is.' Dawww. The list of people that thought an unprovoked hug from him was "nice" was a very, very short one.

As in Judy was probably the only one on it.

"Okay, Carrots, this is where the Batoichi blind swordsman act comes in. There is something seriously wrong with my senses, and I can -- I can smell the way I came from because my sense of smell is stronger than usual, but I can barely see. It's like everything's sharper but it's overwhelming." He was getting way too much sensory input. "Like with my night vision? Low light is like daylight instead of the usual black and white. And that means normal light is leaving me half-blind. I think I'm finally starting to adjust, but I might need to lean on you a bit."

Hence the sidekick/vassal thing.

Edited 2016-04-20 05:30 (UTC)

"Lean on me as much as you need, then." Judy could handle that, even without her ridiculous strength increase. But mentioning that little piece of information could wait until after all this was dealt with.

"You'd do the same for me." Had, actually, after her leg had been cut open in the museum. She was more than happy to return the favor.

They made their way out of the vents, into a hallway and Nick immediately winced in the brighter light of the hall, his eyes watering so much that it looked like he was crying. He had to squeeze them shut and cover his eyes with a paw.

With his other paw, he leaned heavily on Judy's shoulder, wobbling as they walked towards Medbay. He really did feel faint. Not that he knew it, but he'd been unconscious for two days, and during that time, his body hadn't taken in any nutrients beyond what could fit in an IV bag.

"So. We were living in a police procedural. Now we're in outer space. What's up with the sudden genre change?"

If he suddenly sounded more grounded, more amused at their weird predicament, and less terrified...it was because he was. Judy was here and that made the weirdness infinitely more bearable.

"I can see a lateral move into thriller or film noir but science fiction's a little out of left field."

"There's a lot to go through, so bear with me here. To begin with? We're not just in space. We're in another universe."

Which neatly explained why he'd only seen weird, fleshy people. Animals like them hadn't evolved beyond their most primitive states here.

"No one's sure how or why it happened, but a few months ago? People from other universes started showing up out of the blue. And they all somehow ended up with superpowers if they didn't have them before." she explained as she helped him keep walking, one foot after another.

"Which is probably why your senses are going crazy right now. I ended up with super-strength, and super-jumping." she admitted. "I guess you have super-senses."

"Superpowers. We're in another dimension and we have superpowers."

Okay, that sounded nuts but who was he to deny any of it was true? He'd just spent an hour dodging creepy aliens in ventilation shafts and he could smell things that he was pretty sure were happening on different floors altogether.

Like the former hustler he was, he quickly adjusted. New conditions, new con. That was how it worked.

"You got superstrength? Seriously? And I got super-photosensitivity, wow. Wow." He was barely even toddling along down the hallway without tripping over his own feet. He probably would've walked into a wall if he hadn't been holding onto Judy. "I guess I'll just squint criminals into submission."

Of course he got the short end of the stick when the superpowers got handed out. Story of his life.

"Maybe my tearing up in direct sunlight will make them think I'm crying because I'm sad, and overwhelmed with sympathy, they'll surrender themselves so I have less of a bad day."

"Things will work out." Judy insisted, just as much to reassure herself as she was trying to reassure him. This thing debilitating him to the point where they couldn't be partners wasn't something she wanted to think about. Nobody had her back like Nick did.

"Being sick can't be helping you focus. And the doctors here have to have something that will help. I can't imagine why they wouldn't. There's nothing to worry about."

And she was going to keep telling herself that until she had definitive proof otherwise.

Nick drew in a deep breath and let it out.

"How is it you always manage 'glass half full' when there isn't even a glass?"

She never gave up with the optimism. Ever. Even when he was face first on the ground waiting for the sweet release of death to take him -- like he'd been many times when she'd helped him study for his police academy exam.

(It wasn't that he wasn't smart, he was actually pretty quick on the uptake but there were so many minor regulations he'd had to memorized that he just did not care about that he'd had trouble paying attention long enough to memorize them. Like many clever people, he was a very quick learner but also got bored very easily.)

They finally reached the Medbay again and a nurse pointed Judy in the direction of his room.

"Someone in this partnership has to," Judy quipped back.

"Besides, I've never really seen the point in giving up when there's no good reason." And she had a much higher threshold for that than most people.

The pair eventually hobbled their way into the hospital room.

"Here we are, one hospital room, and one bed, that you should probably getting into right now."

Edited 2016-04-25 03:17 (UTC)

Nick climbed up into the bed, stuck his feet under the blankets and flopped back against his pillow, almost too exhausted to sit up. He wasn't sleepy, per se, but physically, he was a little too weak to be moving around much. Even if his brain was wide awake, his body needed to rest.

That was when the nurse came in, a woman with no nose, giant insectoid eyes, and purple skin. She had telepathic earplugs in her hands and moved to put them back in his ears.

"Aaah, what is wrong with her face? She's touching me, why is she trying to touch me, what are those earplug things?"

Nick immediately scooted away from her, and in doing so, accidentally slipped off the bed again and landed on the floor near Judy, on his back.

Graceful.

The nurse babbled something in that language he couldn't understand.

"Judy, can you understand what she's saying somehow?" Obviously, she had to have some way of communicating with them if she knew what was going on. "Because if you can, can you tell the no-muzzle lady speaking in terrifying alien gibberish to please place the whatever-they-ares on the bed and not try to touch my ears, thanks? Nothing personal, but until I'm used to this place and everything in it, and know for sure that no one is a horrible alien monster that's going to unhinge their jaw and swallow me whole if I let them get too close, there's going to be a very strong no-touching policy in place."

He didn't like when strangers touched him anyway, even under entirely normal circumstances, and that was when they were normal not-terrifying mammals.

Edited 2016-04-25 05:29 (UTC)

Judy sighed, more than a little annoyed. Mostly at the nurse, rather than Nick. His reaction, while a little too far over-the-top, was actually perfectly justified. Any animal would be a little freaked out by someone shoving something in their ears with no warning, and Judy knew Nick had more reasons than most to react that way.

"Ma'am, I'll take them," she said, holding out her paw. There was more babbling from the nurse, apparently some sort of disagreement.

"I know it's your job, but Nick's not going to let you do it, and I can't really blame him."

Yet another string of annoyed gibberish issued from the nurse's mouth. Judy crossed her arms, giving her a no-nonsense glare.

"Ma'am, you tried to shove them into his ears without even giving me a chance to explain what they were. You really should've known better."

Reluctantly, the nurse handed over the plugs, and, after Judy thanked her, gave an annoyed huff a marched out the door.

"That was a lot harder than it needed to be." Judy muttered, turning back to Nick.

"I disagree. Personally, I think it was exactly as hard as it needed to be," Nick said from the floor, sitting up, but he was smiling now, instead of scared, with that warm glow he always had about him when Judy was being, well...Judy on his behalf.

Even when it was an annoying pain in the tail, she looked out for him.

Nick weakly got to his feet and climbed into the bed again, then he pointed to the ear plugs, more willing to accept them now that he'd be accepting them from Judy's hands.

"So what are those? I thought they were the things causing my hearing to be too loud, like hearing aids when I didn't need any, but I also stopped understanding everyone when I yanked them out of my ears the first time." He didn't watch a whole lot of sci fi but he watched enough to know some basic ideas. "Universal translators?"

Edited 2016-04-26 02:24 (UTC)

"Basically." Judy agreed, "They're called telepathic earplugs. They don't just translate what everyone says, but everything we read, too."

She walked back over to his bedside, still holding onto the plugs.

"It might be a bit easier if I put them in. If that's alright?" she asked, before firing a small smirk at him.

"I swear I won't unhinge my jaw and swallow you whole."

Edited 2016-04-26 02:57 (UTC)

He stared at her flatly for a moment.

Then he sighed, smiled, and leaned over so she could reach his ears better.

She could put the dumb things in his dumb ears. (She was the only one he trusted to jam strange technology places, honestly).

"If you're really a brain parasite, this is free shot number two. That's all you get, though."

"Are you sure you'd have anything to worry about if I was?" She teased lightly, gently working the plugs into his ears.

It's almost immediately followed by a quick hug.

"I'm really glad you're here. I was worried I'd have to deal with all this without you."

"Har har."

But he hugged her back, gratefully. He was glad of the same thing, that he didn't have to deal with it alone -- and he was glad she didn't have to deal with it alone, either.

"I'm a bad penny," he said, "You'll never be rid of me."

The truth was they belonged together. Like peanut butter and jelly, cookies and milk, two peas in a pod, and various other paired food items.

When they separated, he held a hand to his ear.

"My hearing problem seems to be not as bad as before. I wonder what that's about."

Edited 2016-04-27 02:55 (UTC)

"That would be because we adjusted your telepathic earplugs to limit how much sound you're getting," said a small purple man with two arms, walking into the room. "Your power scans came back and we saw that you had enhanced senses. That will help so that you're not being overwhelmed by auditory information. We also had these made for you."

He reached into a pocket and held up a pair of sunglasses, walking over and holding them out to Nick.

Cautiously, Nick reached out and snagged them with a paw, then scooted backwards slightly, but this time he didn't try to scoot so hard that he fell off the bed. He slowly put the sunglasses on his face.

"How about that? I no longer want to spend every moment curled up in misery. Definitely an improvement."

Edited 2016-04-27 02:57 (UTC)

"They'll adjust automatically to the amount of ambient light wherever you are, but if you want to adjust them to filter more or less there are manual controls on the left side of the frames. They're also linked up to telepathic earplugs -- there are manual controls for those on the right side of the frames that will let you adjust how much sound is getting in. You can also hit a button that will cause the temples to connect at the back of your head so you can make sure they don't fall off during physical activity."

Nick let out a sigh of relief as he looked around the room.

"You are officially my new best friend," he said to the alien. Then, as an aside, he said to Judy, "Sorry, Carrots."

He turned back to the alien. "Hey there, new best friend, what's your name?"

"Dr. Gym'll." The good doctor turned to Judy. "Did you manage to at least explain the basic situation to him? Because if so, I'd like to talk about his power scans."

"Only as far as being in another universe and having powers," Judy admitted.

"I haven't had a chance to explain the Legion, yet."

"Why don't we explain the power first so he even knows what he's working with before he has to make any decisions?" said Dr. Gym'll. "Most of the people that've somehow found themselves in our universe have somehow acquired superpowers through alteration by forces or entities. Obviously, enhanced senses are one of them."

"But Doc, will I still be able to play piano?" Nick joked. He needed to joke. All of this was just too weird and he needed to do something to cut through the weirdness and uncertainty.

Dr. Gym'll just rolled his eyes because that was one joke that had withstood the test of time and he'd heard it more times than he could count.

"Our scans also registered that you have an ability that will likely allow you to project visual and auditory illusions."

Nick took a moment to mull that over.

"Sooo, you're saying that I have the ability to trick people's senses into seeing and hearing what I want. I'm a magical fox. A magical trickster fox."

Nick drew in a deep breath, like he was going to say something, and then in a fit of pique, he flopped onto the bed, turned his back on Judy and Dr. Gym'll, and pulled the blanket over his head.

He didn't really have a way of articulating why this bothered him so much, so he didn't even try.

"Nick..." Judy whispered sympathetically.

There was a time when the rabbit wouldn't have even grasped there was a problem with that. That Judy carried fox repellent and thought calling someone articulate wasn't condescending. She'd grown quite a bit since then.

"I guess that's fairly solid evidence someone is doing this," she spoke with a resigned tone, "and that they're a speciesist jerk."

There was no way something like that was random, and Judy swore that if she ever found them? She was going to kick them right in the face.

Edited 2016-04-30 00:03 (UTC)

Being the type to be sensitive enough to understand when his patients were upset and also the type to know he didn't have the best bedside manner to deal with it, Dr. Gym'll opted to do the smart thing and leave them both alone.

"I think I'll give you some time to yourselves. We can discuss the specifics later and Shvaughn can come by and explain the Legion in more detail."

Nick lay under the sheet and didn't look up as the doctor left. He mostly just focused on breathing evenly and trying to stuff down the anger.

Stuffing down anger was a skill that was pretty well-practiced for him. He'd done it countless times all throughout his life. The difference was that this time, he didn't have to. Judy understood. Maybe once upon a time she hadn't, maybe back then she'd been part of the problem, but now, now she understood. She cared.

Her words were pretty comforting, because hey, at least one person was on his side, so after one last deep breath, he pulled the sheets down so his head wasn't covered and sat there, his paws fidgeting on the sheets where they rested.

He still couldn't really look her in the eye, but he found that he could at least talk.

"I want a refund. On the powers."

Nick might have learned to stuff his anger down, but Judy had always worn her heart on her sleeve. Her frustration at the situation was a little more visibly pronounced than his currently was.

"I want to kick whoever gave them to you," she admitted, "And I can kick a lot harder now."

Which, considering how hard she could kick before, was saying something.

"Just let it out. I'm listening," she said, wanting to give him a chance to vent instead of bottling his anger up.

Edited 2016-05-01 23:35 (UTC)

It was the same as when she went all soft on him that night on the skytram. When he told her about That Day, when she put her little paw on his arm and kept trying to tell him it was okay, that he didn't have to pretend to be fine.

Just like then, he wasn't really equipped to actually talk about it. With, you know, sincerity. But that she was willing to listen was something he appreciated more than he could put into words.

"There's nothing to talk about. We're in another world, I have superpowers now, whatever gave them to me has a twisted sense of humor, they are what they are. And it sucks. Moving on." He waved a paw vaguely in the air. He tried to sound flippant, like it didn't matter, but his ears betrayed him, as usual. They were still flattened against his head. Still, that he'd managed to admit that it sucked was better than nothing. Thanks to Judy being so understanding, he'd managed that at least, and that was better than pretending it didn't bother him at all.

"What's the Legion?"

Subject change. Maybe he'd talk more about the stupid powers later. But for right now, subject change.

Edited 2016-05-02 11:51 (UTC)

Judy gave him a look that very clearly said she knew was he was up to, but decided to drop it. She couldn't make him talk if he didn't want to.

"They're the people that rescued us. It's a government-backed team of superheroes that protect the galaxy."

"Or they were, anyways," she admitted. "There's still a few around, but most of the team disappeared a little over a year ago. From the same place we arrived in. Which, yes, is all sort of suspicious."

There wasn't much about that fact that wasn't, really. Still, Judy hadn't seen anything yet that indicated the Legion weren't on the up and up.

"I've been keeping an eye out, though, and it seems like they really don't know much more than we do. They said they'd try to get us home, but they need help. They can't do that and protect the galaxy at the same time, and they've asked us, everyone who's shown up? To join the team."

There was something of a glint in her eyes, something that said Judy had already made a decision, and Nick was probably going to get dragged into yet another insane adventure against his better judgement.

"You don't have to join if you don't want to...but I may have been considering helping them."

Nick just stared at her and the sunglasses were tinted but not so much that she couldn't see the very pronounced blink that happened as he looked at her.

"I'm sorry, you want to what?"

Nick gestured back and forth between the two of them, sitting up.

"Did I miss something when I fell through the portal or whatever it was that brought us here?" He patted himself down, as if checking that everything was the same. "Superpowers or not, I don't feel like I've undergone a magical transformation from police officer into superhero."

Nick saw that his police uniform -- now cleaned -- was in a plastic bag on a floating bedside table and he fished around in there.

"Look, see?" He held up his badge. "It still says 'officer.' And also, conveniently, 'police.' In case we ever happen to forget that we are indeed police officers, something that you seem to be having trouble with at the moment." He flailed slightly. "This isn't the Twilight Zone, Carrots. Pawd Serling isn't going to pop out of a corner and tell us we've suddenly made a strange and uncanny transformation into comic book characters. We're officers of the law, not -- not the Clawvengers."

"I know." And she did. She'd been waffling on the decision for days, but there'd been reasons she had picked the Legion over the Science Police.

"This wasn't some sudden decision, Nick. I did actually put thought into it," Judy defended.

"I even asked Officer Erin if she'd put in wold with the Science Police for me, originally, but...they don't need help. Not the same way the Legion does." And above all else, the entire reason she'd become a police officer in the first place was to help people. That wasn't something that had changed.

"And there are kids here. Barely teenagers. 14 might be the age of adulthood here, but I couldn't just leave them to deal with this on their own." She had brothers and sisters that age who would in no way be prepared to handle something this crazy. "It just wouldn't feel right."

"They have police? Police always need help. If they said they don't need help they're lying. Or they just never do any paperwork. In which case, they need to get their act together and could probably use two new officers to help them do it."

He reached his paws under the sunglasses and rubbed at his eyelids. He could feel that head ache from earlier coming back again.

Ugh ugh ugh. Ugh.

"...They consider fourteen old enough to fight against what I'm assuming are supercriminals or whatever it is superheroes fight?" He stopped rubbing at his eyelids, broke off into a sigh, and stared at at Judy, shaking his head slightly. "Fourteen? Seriously?"

Anyone that thought Nick Wilde didn't care about people either didn't know him, or had only known him back before he met Judy, when he genuinely didn't care about most people. (He was the last person that would've argued that he was secretly selfless and squishy inside back then. It was in there but it had been buried pretty deep).

Now, though, now he cared. Now he couldn't even pretend he didn't care -- or if he did pretend he didn't care he at least couldn't keep up the act for very long.

"How can the age of adulthood be fourteen? How many teenagers are they throwing into this and why is that number more than none?"

"Not as much as the Legion does. They didn't lose 90% of their members in one instant."

It wasn't that they didn't need help, it was that the Legion needed much, much more than they did.

"Apparently some species of aliens mature faster than others, and they decided making the age limit fourteen was a good middle-of-the-road answer instead of separating it by species. It's not a smart idea, but I think we've run into our fair share of badly thought out laws."

The right to refuse service, for one thing. Good reasons could be given for it, but for the most part many used it to justify discrimination.

"The Legionnaires don't see anything wrong with it because most of them started when they were fourteen." It was an entirely different culture they were dealing with here.

"And there aren't as many teenagers here as there could be. 5 is still too many, but there's other adults here. Including two other cops."

"There are five? Five teenagers?"

Nick knew Judy wouldn't be able to sit back and not help them even if it was just just one. Sooo that meant there was no way he was convincing her to drop this superhero thing and be a police officer instead.

And, if he was honest with himself, there was no way he could turn his back on it in good conscience, either. People needed help. The people helping the people needed help. "Serve and protect," blah blah blah. Apparently, it was also possibly the only way the people helping them could have the time to find them a way home, too. And if it was all a scam, some kind of hustle, then it was best he and Judy -- and these two other cops, maybe? -- worked together to expose it from the inside.

Nick sat there for a moment, making his 'GDI Judy' face. She knew the one. He made it about as often as she made her 'Sweet cheese and crackers, Nick' face.

Then he threw his paws up in the air.

"Fine! I guess we're superheroes now." He crossed his arms and slumped back into the bed again. "If we're playing at being Clawvengers, then obviously I'm Iron Mammal. Because I'm laconic." A pause. "And also devastatingly good-looking, with a roguish-yet-classy charm."

Obviously.

"And technically I'm independently wealthy, and most of said wealth was acquired from ill-gotten and immoral gains until I decided to turn away from a life of loose women and self-centered acquisition of money at the expense of others, to a life of heroism and justice."

Another pause.

Nick tapped at his chest and peeked under his hospital scrubs at it.

"I didn't have my heart replaced with some kind of energy generator while I was out, did I? You know, since we're superheroes now? That seems like a superhero kind of thing that could've happened."

He really was only half-joking, it seemed entirely within the realm of possibility. ~~Especially since Disney owns Marvel.~~

"Uh-huh. If you're Iron Mammal, what does that make me? The Incredible Hare?" she asked, trying to head off a patented Nick Wilde sarcastic comment before it started.

She didn't mind them, really. They were part of who he was, and she wouldn't change him for anything, but he did have a tendency to go overboard sometimes.

"And I think you would've noticed if your heart had been replaced by now."

"Steve Pawgers, obviously," he said, reaching a hand out, leaning over, and affectionately flicking one of her floppy ears. He settled back in the bed after. "On account of the earnest do-goodery. Plus, right alongside the Ranger Scout mentality, he was good at finding ways to out-clever people instead of overpower them, especially back when he was tiny and incapable of lifting anything heavier than a leaf."

Nick still thought the CG had been amazing on that part. He really had looked like a skinny wimp.

Edited 2016-05-04 10:37 (UTC)

Judy blinked in surprise. A comparison to the Captain had not been what she expected coming from him.

"That's actually kind of flattering. Who knew you had it in you?" she said, rubbing where he'd flicked, and smiling a bit.

"It was an observation. Basic pattern recognition. Don't worry, I'm not getting all soft on you."

Lies.

It was meant to be flattery, but he wasn't about to admit that.

"So we're superheroes now. That's a thing. Does that mean we have to come up with stupid hero names and all that?"

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