legionworld | not going anywhere for a while?

Entry tags:

not going anywhere for a while?

Who| Sam and anyone
What| New kid getting acclimated.
Where| Out and around, mostly mess hall and observation deck.
When| After the diplomacy/disaster missions end.
Warnings/Notes| Probably not, will update if needed.

Waking up in unfamiliar places and trying to piece a fuzzy sequence of events back together was getting to be a more and more familiar routine since Sam had gotten into the superhero gig.

The doctors here were helpful, at least, so what happened after the fight sounded straightforward enough even if he had no idea how it actually worked; he'd somehow wound up in another dimension (uh, okay) on a planet with some bad juju in the environment (occupational hazard), and they said it looked like he'd managed to smack his head on something and knock himself out (wow, he'd said, must be a day that ends in -y).

Swallowing the story they gave him about the Legion and the way to get home hadn't been hard, with how much weirdness he'd already had to get used to in his life. Deciding whether to sign on hadn't been hard either, because that was the right, heroic thing to do, duh. Convincing them that he was fine to get up and wander around, on the other hand?

That had taken a bit of pleading, some lying about how good he felt (or didn't), and a promise that he wouldn't try to figure out the flight ring until his broken arm was done healing and they took the splint off.

Which was apparently only going to be in a day or two. Modern medicine was awesome.

So it slowed him down a little, having to getting around the ship only by foot, which was kind of a bummer, but the mess hall wasn't too hard to find, and that led to a good twenty minutes of contemplating the candy bars of the future because which one was closest to just finding a freaking Snickers bar, seriously?

(And once the decision was finally made, he took two, because come on, passing out for a few days absolutely gave you an appetite and anyone who thought otherwise had clearly never tried it.)

Second stop was the observation deck, and for a good few hours, he could be found there, sprawled out on his back on the platform, staring straight up at the stars, and eating some weird alien facsimile of a Snickers, a pensive look on his face. Maybe he was considering the differences in the view here versus the moon in his own dimension (because the stars were almost right, but a few of them seemed off). Maybe he was considering the responsibilities of joining the Legion, or how far he was from home despite Earth being right there below, or -

"Huh. Whatever a fweiuff nut is, it definitely tastes more like cashews than peanuts."

Nailed it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"See you in a few," said Rich, and he turned to go, grinning a wide grin only when he was turned away so that Sam couldn't see. He left quickly, before Sam thought to ask for his name.

When he was far enough from the Obs Deck to not be heard, he let out the laughter he'd been holding in.

A little while later, after Sam had plenty of time to get to the Sim Room, Rich walked in, wearing his superhero uniform, his helmet on his head. In place of the robotic arm was one made of Nova Force energy, shaped into a somewhat crude appendage, and now that he was using his powers, his eyes were glowing a soft blue.

"So...let's get started."

Not yet having gotten the uniform issue sorted out here, Sam didn't have to take the time to change, and he'd been down there for a good few minutes waiting. Leaning against the wall, one hand jammed in his pocket, the bad arm just kind of hanging, and halfway considering giving the guy a call to make sure he was still on the way, except that he had no idea who he'd be trying to call. Whoops. But then he heard the door slide open, and he looked up.

"Yeah, let's -"

And then he actually got a good look at Rich, jaw dropping. "Wait - you -" He closed his mouth for a moment, then opened it again.

"Seriously?"

Rich just let out a loud belly laugh at Sam's reaction.

"I was being honest about everything I said about how you're doing just fine compared to, uh, the other guy. I feel like I'm uniquely qualified to be a good judge of that."

The look on the kid's face was priceless. Priceless.

"But I maybe kinda fudged the truth just a bit about not being the spandex type. And about my powers being from a superscience accident." He held up his hand and held his index finger and thumb very close together. "Teeny bit."

It was, at least, a different kind of stupid than Sam usually wound up feeling about the whole Nova gig. It was kind of like having no clue who the hell Skaarn was when he helped him, except that had actually been really bad news and could've gotten a lot of people hurt if he hadn't gone back to fix things, and this time, not knowing who he was talking to didn't really hurt anything except...well, his ego.

His ego took a lot of beatings on a regular basis anyway.

Hey, maybe you should say something before you look even more stupid, stupid.

"It's. Nice to finally meet you, Dick."

Rich just chuckled harder.

"Aw, come oooon, how could I resist?" he said. "Think about it this way, it could've been worse. I could've started all this by nicknaming you Mini-Me. Think about how miserable that would've been, me using ancient, unfunny movie references."

He put his hand on his hip.

"Although speaking of names, we're gonna have to figure that out. If we're both Nova and on the same mission, it'll be hard for people to talk to us without mixing everything up."

"If you led with that I'd have to punch you, even if I'd probably just break my hand doing it."

And really, that was only halfway a joke about the current state of his arm, because the Nova uniform did Rich's build a lot of favors. Sam was pretty sure hitting all that muscle would be like punching a brick wall. A brick wall that would absolutely deserve it, but it still wouldn't accomplish anything.

Although that did give him a few awful premonitions about the way sorting out their names could go, and he immediately scrunched up his face in disgust. "Okay, however we sort that out, I'm not doing any of that Kid This or Whatever Lad stuff a lot of them do here. Not my style."

"For you, how about you go wiiiith...Nova?" Rich said with a warm smile. "How does that one sound?"

It sounded to him like the kid had already earned it if he was going after Chitauri invasions, if he was trying to make it mean something while he carried it.

And hey, if Gamora and Rocket had come down on Sam's side, Rich trusted their judgment. (Even if it was a pretty crazy thing to do given they were Gamora and Rocket.)

Edited 2016-04-28 05:14 (UTC)

It was, admittedly, exactly what Sam would prefer to stick with.

But. "Where's that leave you? I mean...you were kinda here first."

Rich shrugged.

"I'll just go by Nova Prime. I'm used to answering to it, anyway. After all, before I died, I was in the middle of rebuilding the Corps. All of my people were Novas." He paused. "Now, if my brother or any of the Probationers show up, you're gonna have to fight them in a cage match or something to figure out who gets the name, since they were Novas first. But for now, from the sound of things, I think you've earned it."

He shook his head.

"I mean running up into space to face down an armada when you don't even even know what you're doing, just so someone does it, well...that takes guts."

A pause.

"And a lot of arrogance and stupidity," he laughed. "But to be honest, that's exactly what makes you worthy of the name."

Edited 2016-04-28 05:57 (UTC)

"I'm getting better!" Sam shot back.

A beat.

"...about knowing what I'm doing."

He definitely hadn't improved much on the running headfirst into trouble part.

"And you're going to get even better still," said Rich. "One great thing about having an older hero show you the ropes? You can learn from their mistakes instead of making so many of your own."

He chuckled again.

"And trust me, I've got plen-ty to draw from."

He beamed at Sam now.

"You know, the truth is, I don't know how I'm even alive right now. I was dead -- I mean, I really, genuinely kicked it. I turned into a dimensional door and dissipated into energy getting Starlord and Drax out of the nightmare that was the Cancerverse. Whatever brought us here put me back together again, but I dunno if it's gonna last. When all this is over, for all I know, I'll just...go back to the way I was."

He hoped he didn't. He hoped that it would last.

"But I'm glad for the extra time if it means I met you, kid. It does my heart glad seeing someone carry on with the name -- and with rocketing around wherever people might need someone. And maybe you won't always know what you're doing, but lemme let you in on a little secret..."

He lowered his voice and said it behind his hand.

"At least one-third of the time I don't know what I'm doing, either. I just wing it. Shhh, don't tell nobody."

"I'm glad you're here. Because I...kind of resented you, at first," Sam admitted, good hand scratching at the back of his head a little awkwardly. "Or at least I resented hearing about you. And that's not really fair."

Not fair to Rich, he mostly meant, but it probably wasn't all that fair to himself, either.

He wasn't sure whether the idea that Rich didn't know what he was doing was comforting or horrifying, but if he could get himself down to only a third of the time, he'd probably be doing pretty okay, he figured.

"Won't tell anybody. Cross my heart and hope to die."

"The Novas were a Corps once, Sam. Maybe I saved the galaxy now and again, but anybody that put me on a pedestal over you forgot that there was always supposed to be more than one. And it was always supposed to be that no individual Nova was treated as more special than the others. There were leaders, commanding officers, and ranks, sure, but no Centurion was supposed to be treated as more special."

Rich stepped forward and put a hand on Sam's shoulder.

"Sounds to me like it nearly came outta nowhere, right? This life. Other than what your dad told you. With Rocket and Gamora showing up like that, I bet it was a surprise to find yourself with this power, to fall head first into it. Just like it was for me when Rhomann Dey hit me with a bolt out of the blue. But that's how Novas are supposed to be. Average people from an average life that don't expect to have power -- people that are loyal, trustworthy, and plainspoken. The Corps always recruited the people that best represented the typical qualities of their species. Because average people brought no arrogance or pride with them, no self-importance or elitism. They understood the responsibility. They appreciated the trust. They embraced the duty. They were the honest bedrock of the Corps."

The solemnity of his words was undercut by the way he smiled, "I dunno about you, but I did have a little trouble with the arrogance part until I got my priorities sorted out. Still, you said you care about protecting people, and that's what it's all about. And you're able admit to that you've made mistakes. And you want your actions to have meaning. And you sure as heck speak your mind. So, it's not fair if anyone compared you to me like I was something better. Because once upon a time, I was a seventeen-year-old kid who pulled solid Cs in class and who had to muddle through the hero thing, too. I think you're cut from the right cloth -- you're just a rookie is all. Like I was. Like every Nova that ever lived was. But we can work on that."

Edited 2016-04-28 07:32 (UTC)

"Yeah. I always figured there was no way it could be real, because...I mean, my dad was a drunk who could barely keep a job cleaning toilets, even with me covering for him. I figured all the Nova stuff was him trying to cope with being a loser, but I guess...it was more like the other way around."

He'd been hard on his father, he knew. He'd always rationalized the things he did do for him as being for the rest of the family - making sure his father wasn't fired was to keep a roof over their heads, not saying anything to ruin the illusion for his sister had been because hearing all those stupid stories made her happy. It wasn't about his father.

But maybe it was, and maybe he just really had wanted to understand what the hell his mother saw in him.

And when he finally got the chance...

"I never really figured that maybe we were just all screw-ups." He grinned, but after a moment, something in that seemed to sink in a little deeper, and he frowned.

"Uh. Speaking of class. Do you think whenever they figure this out, time's still passing, or we'll just go right back to when we left from? Because assuming I actually have a school left by the time we get the Hulk out of there, I barely managed to convince them not to expel me for all the time I keep missing."

"They already figured it out -- somehow -- that no time's passing back home. We're all in the clear for going back to what we left, when we left it."

Rich paused and pulled his helmet off, collapsing it into cloth to tuck into his belt. He raised his eyebrows.

"Well, you are, at least. I kinda think maybe it's been a while. For me. Uh. Since I kicked it. From the sound of things. The last thing I remember is...you know. But that's just because it was the last thing I remember. It's possible whatever brought me here didn't gather me up and put me back together until the present -- your present."

Rich scratched the back of his head.

"You, uh, you wouldn't happen to know how long it's been since I disappeared into the Cancerverse with Starlord, would you? Did Rocket or Gamora mention maybe? Did Starlord and Drax make it out of the Cancerverse okay?"

Okay, now it was his turn to be curious rather than troll-ey, but Sam was the first person from back home back home. Gwen was only from a similar universe.

"Did anyone tell my parents about what happened? They always freaked over the idea of something happening to me up there and never finding out. And did someone manage to get my brother Robert and Namorita and my Novas back to Earth and their home planets? Oh oh and was Worldmind okay after I was gone?"

Wait wait, now he was bumrushing the kid.

"Okay, actually, uuuh, I kinda have a whole list of possible questions that you may not know the answers to, but to say I am behind on current events would be pretty much the world's biggest understatement."

"Oh, good. I mean, not the part where I'm going back to getting beat up, but nobody else is there to do anything about it, so..."

But that was a weird thought, when he considered what it meant for Rich. Going back to being dead? Going back to being alive when he died? Going back to being alive some undetermined time after he died?

Time definitely undetermined because he...really wasn't sure how long ago that was.

"I don't...remember anybody saying how long it was. I think the last time I heard someone mention Starlord, it wasn't all past tense, though? So I assume that means they got out -" All these questions, geez. He started ticking them off on his fingers as he tried to keep up. "I don't know if anybody's told your parents yet, and I'm not sure about the other Novas getting back, but - is Worldmind the...whatever's smart in our helmets? Because it doesn't talk to me, at least not with words, but it understands me talking to it just fine and it shows me stuff it thinks I need to see, so I guess that's at least some kind of okay..."

He shrugged helplessly. "I'm really not kidding when I say I've totally been winging it. There's still a bunch of stuff I'm trying to figure out. Also, the short version of current events is that everyone keeps fighting over reasons that are usually pretty stupid, but if you want the long version, that at least I can do. Kind of."

He'd been out of commission or out of the loop on a lot of things, but at least he had a better idea about what was going on at home than he did about the rest of it.

"Hey, computer, call up program Rider232."

They were suddenly floating in space, standing on a small asteroid. Other smaller asteroids floated in a field around them. Unlike the moon in this universe, the moon in the simulation was whole and huge, closer to the asteroid than the Earth was. He figured they might as well get more comfortable than just standing in a big white room.

He sat down on the edge of the asteroid and looked down at Earth.

"Good. Sounds like Peter at least made it." Hopefully that meant Drax had too. "And Worldmind is chatty and has a personality interface. You'd know if she was in your head, trust me. What you're talking about sounds more like your suit's User Support System. It's a default computer interface standard to all Centurions that they can fall back on to have some help managing their powers and their suit's functions."

Congrats, Sam, you now have someone who actually knows stuff about your powers.

"And I know about the fighting. Some of it anyway. I stopped in on Earth a few times." Rich shook his head. "It was stupid. Don't get me wrong, I thought the idea of some kind of accountability was understandable, especially after what happened to that poor town -- those kids -- but that everyone couldn't work together to force the government to come to some kind of compromise so people could keep their IDs, and their families, safe but have some kind of training and accountability..."

He shook his head.

"The secret ID part was the dumb one. Everyone would up getting the New Warriors' secret IDs anyway and all it meant was a bunch of innocent people, who weren't at Stamford, getting chased by lynch mobs. What everyone needed was the training, something the New Warriors even asked the Avengers for, once upon a time."

He rolled his eyes.

"Bet they never mentioned that part to anyone. How they turned us away and said they were too busy for it. And then they went and fought about the whole thing, causing collateral damage and risking lives. Meanwhile a war was going on in space -- where thousands of species managed to work together to fight a common enemy."

Rich rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb.

"Sorry. I'm angry old man ranting right now. Whole thing still pisses me off. Especially since I sent a message to Earth to help with the Annihilation War and they got it. They just blew it off to keep fighting each other. It was like...I went away for the war and I never really got to go home again. Last time, it was a little better -- Justice and Speedball, they were teaching at that Avengers Academy, and that sounded like a good idea to me. But it never really was the same."

Oh.

That went back further than the cases of everyone fighting over stupid stuff that he'd had in mind, really, which was a pretty sad thought the more he turned it over in his head. Shouldn't everyone have gotten this out of their system by now?

He took a seat next to Rich, and then flopped onto his back. "They just found new stuff to get mad at each other about. The Phoenix Force came back to Earth - I was off-planet, so I saw it first and went back to warn them, right? And then the next thing I remember is waking up when it already landed, possessed someone, and went all Dark Phoenix to try and get its slaughter on, so I don't even know how everyone got from 'powerful bad mojo incoming' to 'let's smack each other up over whose plan we're following to deal with it,' but the Avengers and the X-Men were at each others' throats and they didn't get it together until the very end."

His turn to sound bitter - not as bitter as Rich, but he definitely hadn't gotten chased halfway across the galaxy and crash-landed into a coma just so everyone could waste the prep time he'd been trying to give them. And the X-kids had been pretty cool when he'd spent Halloween with them; if they could cooperate in the quest for Bottle Caps and Skittles, shouldn't their supposedly wiser adult counterparts be able to cooperate to save the world?

"At least the thing that was happening when I left, it's not like anyone could help it - there was some crazy stuff going down on Genosha, and I guess they were trying to stop it but the magic backfired, I was never clear on how that stuff works - and everyone who was there got kind of...inverted. Like, the good guys all started acting bad, and the bad guys started acting good, so now the X-Men are going all-out war on humanity, and the bad Avengers called everyone in for a meeting before we figured it out, because it was really just an excuse to hit everyone with Pym particles and put them where they couldn't do anything, but Spider-Man and I jumped out the window so I think we're the only ones who got out. And I have no idea what the plan is after that, but -"

He had to stop for a breath somewhere in there, and then he realized that he was probably talking way too fast.

"...yeah, so, uh. I guess the short version of that is 'most of what you missed is people still being stupid.'"

Rich drew in a deep breath, and then sighed. As the sigh left his body, he flopped backward, laying on the asteroid with Sam, his legs dangling over the edge. He powered down the fake gravimetric arm and held his flesh and blood hand over his face.

"I swear to God, if I do get to stay alive, and if I get home and everyone's fighting over something, I'm putting them in separate corners. And by that, I mean other planets. And they won't be allowed to leave until they agree to get along."

He pulled the hand away from his face and tucked it behind his head.

"I don't know if you know 'em but is there any chance you've seen Justice or Speedball around? Firestar? Any of those guys? If you haven't heard anything, that's probably as good as them being okay because it means they're staying out of trouble."

Edited 2016-05-04 02:52 (UTC)

That sounded like a better topic than the general stupidity of everyone fighting, and Sam's tone brightened a little. "Yeah! Well, I don't know Firestar. But Justice and Speedball are doing good. They...kinda just dropped by because they thought maybe I was you, but they got the New Warriors going again. Mom said no way could I be an Avenger, but she liked them a lot better."

Maybe she'd have been more amenable to him joining the Avengers if one of them had cleaned her kitchen like Vance, but that was a mystery they'd never see solved.

"Well there's some good news! How about that? Starting the New Warriors again. Wow." That really was a great thing to hear. "It's good that Robbie's doing better. He was a lot better last time I saw him, but he was in a real bad way for a while there."

He smiled.

"But if he was recruiting New Warriors again and fussing over getting the team going, that's definitely him going back to his old self a bit more." He briefly laughed. "And of course they were gunning for you. Every time the team fell apart and reformed, he'd be at my door, annoying me into rejoining."

He sounded fond, though.

"I'm a little biased, but, uh, as someone who's been both a New Warrior and an Avenger -- even if the latter was only for a short time and kind of on the DL -- being a New Warrior is so much better. You're around people closer to your age, and everyone was learning -- but also teaching each other. If that makes any sense." A pause. "And we were a family. Still are. Even now."

There was a difference. A huge difference. They'd had their knock-down drag out spats with each other, but when it came down to it, they never would've fought each other like the Avengers had.

Still did.

"They're always my second stop. When I get home. My parents and then I meet up with them. So if you do decide to do the superteam thing, maybe I'm biased, but they'd be good at helping you. And I know the team got a bad rep after Stamford but that was...that was a lot of different things. We saved the world from cosmic-level, reality-manipulators at our best. Justice knows his stuff and Robbie's learned a lot since then -- enough to...well. Teach people not to make his mistakes."

Edited 2016-05-04 03:22 (UTC)

"I signed as a reserve member. So I'm not around for a lot of stuff, but we did stop the High Evolutionary from killing a bunch of people, because I guess he thought it would stop the Celestials from killing even more people? But they weren't even coming, he totally got duped. I guess I shouldn't expect too much from a guy named Herbert."

(Okay, at least he had the good taste to avoid using it, because who wouldn't want to go by something cooler like "the High Evolutionary," in his shoes?)

"They're...easier to be around. I mean, the Avengers are cool, but it's kind of hard not to think, oh man, I'm talking to Thor, what if there's something stuck in my teeth or I say something totally stupid?"

"Yeah, that never changes. I'm 29...uh, I think. Kind of. Probably."

He wasn't sure if the time spent as dead/dissipated counted or not, or how much time he was like that or if he was even alive as energy like that (kind of) or dead-dead.

"And every time I talk to Cap, the only thing that comes into my head is 'duuuuuh.' And other things that aren't words. It never, ever changes. I was the head general in a galactic space war and I still feel like a moron every time I open my mouth around some of the Avengers. Except for Thor, he was always a pretty chill guy with the Warriors." A pause. "And except for Stark. No problems talking to him. But it's easier to talk to someone when you're yelling at 'em."

Rich was not particularly fond of Stark.

"But hey, if they asked you to be an Avenger as young as you are, that's pretty damn impressive." Sam said his mom had nixed it and Rich assumed that meant he'd been asked. "Took until I was in my late twenties 'til Cap felt like I had the chops. I had to become space General Patton, lead a war like in Starship Troopers, and fight the Borg first."

"Well, that sounds a lot more impressive than crashing into things, because that was pretty much it. Crashed into Earth to tell people the Phoenix Force was coming...crashed into the Dark Phoenix to get it back down to Earth for everyone else to keep up the smackdown. I mean, I'm not gonna argue if Thor thought that was cool, but..."

It didn't really have the same ring to it as winning a space war, that was for sure.

"Oh yeah, you just took on the Dark Phoenix to try to save the planet, no big." Rich rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "What are you, fourteen? Fifteen?"

Rich was still just a dork loser in high school at that age, getting shoved on his ass on the basketball court.

Edited 2016-05-04 04:48 (UTC)

not going anywhere for a while?

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