Jaime Reyes | Blue Beetle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beetlebutt) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ya_assemble2015-02-22 12:58 am
beetlebutt) wrote in ya_assemble2015-02-22 12:58 am
Entry tags:
[AI] His Evil Twin's Good Twin's Evil Brother...
Jaime's family had become surprisingly okay with him having an almost-was-a-future-evil-overlord in the house, but that was probably because they had one for a son, too. That was what the scarab had been made for, after all, and they were all about giving people chances. That was why Jaime himself was about giving people chances. That was how they'd raised him, seeing the good in people.
And they believed what Jaime said, they knew people like Luthor and Osborn were snakes, the types that could fool even some of the smartest, most well-meaning people. It was better, they decided, to welcome him. Jaime cared about him and that was enough.
So the political chithcat about how Luthor was evil and Osborn was a madman was kept to a minimum when he was over and they tried to their best to be welcoming. Genuinely welcoming. Even Paco and Brenda joined in, because maybe they wouldn't have trusted him on their own, but they trusted Jaime's trust.
So Nate had become a welcome a figure in Jaime's very crowded house. It really was an arrangement borne of necessity for them to even have a friendship. It wasn't like he could hang out at Avengers Tower and it wasn't like Nate was welcome at Defenders Tower.
Towers were lame hangout places anyway, right?
(Except for Titans Tower. Titans Tower was okay, it had a really nice foosball table.)
"He's the evil twin, I'm calling it," said Paco from where he sat on the couch with Brenda.
"But which one? There are like," Jaime counted on his fingers, "three evil twins so far." The scarab chirped in his head. "Oh, good point. Evil triplets, though. It might be evil triplets."
The scarab chirped again.
"...Okay, okay, I'll give you credit. Scarab wants me to let you know that he predicted it and not me. Why do you even care? You hate this show." He shook his head. "Except Javier mentioned being a fan of the JSA growing up so what if it's two sets of triplets from A-side and one from B-side? Or, like, one set of triplets from A-side, and two twins from B-side who maybe don't have another twin. So two of the triplets are evil, but only one or two of the twins or triplets are evil from the other side."
"My brain is melting. How are your brains not melting?" asked Brenda.
Telenovelas had gotten really weird after the Cataclysm. And that was why one of Jaime's favorite things to do with Nate (and sometimes Paco and Brenda who joined in) was trying to make sense of them. And laughing at them when they inevitably didn't make any sense at all.
"Nate," Bianca called from the kitchen, "did you want to stay for dinner?"
And they believed what Jaime said, they knew people like Luthor and Osborn were snakes, the types that could fool even some of the smartest, most well-meaning people. It was better, they decided, to welcome him. Jaime cared about him and that was enough.
So the political chithcat about how Luthor was evil and Osborn was a madman was kept to a minimum when he was over and they tried to their best to be welcoming. Genuinely welcoming. Even Paco and Brenda joined in, because maybe they wouldn't have trusted him on their own, but they trusted Jaime's trust.
So Nate had become a welcome a figure in Jaime's very crowded house. It really was an arrangement borne of necessity for them to even have a friendship. It wasn't like he could hang out at Avengers Tower and it wasn't like Nate was welcome at Defenders Tower.
Towers were lame hangout places anyway, right?
(Except for Titans Tower. Titans Tower was okay, it had a really nice foosball table.)
"He's the evil twin, I'm calling it," said Paco from where he sat on the couch with Brenda.
"But which one? There are like," Jaime counted on his fingers, "three evil twins so far." The scarab chirped in his head. "Oh, good point. Evil triplets, though. It might be evil triplets."
The scarab chirped again.
"...Okay, okay, I'll give you credit. Scarab wants me to let you know that he predicted it and not me. Why do you even care? You hate this show." He shook his head. "Except Javier mentioned being a fan of the JSA growing up so what if it's two sets of triplets from A-side and one from B-side? Or, like, one set of triplets from A-side, and two twins from B-side who maybe don't have another twin. So two of the triplets are evil, but only one or two of the twins or triplets are evil from the other side."
"My brain is melting. How are your brains not melting?" asked Brenda.
Telenovelas had gotten really weird after the Cataclysm. And that was why one of Jaime's favorite things to do with Nate (and sometimes Paco and Brenda who joined in) was trying to make sense of them. And laughing at them when they inevitably didn't make any sense at all.
"Nate," Bianca called from the kitchen, "did you want to stay for dinner?"
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He had a feeling that someone was probably about to insist that he stay, so to head off any discussion from the get go, Nate focused everyone's attention back to the tv.
"What if Javier is a clone?" He asked, throwing a whole new dimension of weirdness into the headaches. He hadn't watched a telenovela prior to the cataclysm, but there was something about trying to unravel absurdly complicated transdimensional plots that he found... fun. Probably the part where he and Jaime would toss out utterly nonsensical theories with the seriousness of two Ph. D. candidates arguing physics.
"He could've been made on A-side and programmed with knowledge from B-side in order to replace one of the twins or triplets from B-side, which is why he said he was a fan of the JSA." A-side was his side, thank you very much. "And was sent over to B-side by the evil twins from A-side to try to take out their counterparts from the B-side but may not have compensated for the good twins from both sides teaming up to stop them!"
...its a perfectly logical and solid theory, okay.
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"They did say Dr. Gutierrez had a degree in genetics, right? And he had that hitman with the multiple personalities after him, so that might mean he's someone important, even though the hitman's nine-year-old girl personality couldn't remember why they'd had been hired to kill him - or if the order was to kill him at all. And someone has to be funding Don Hildago's organized crime syndicate while he gets it back in order after Detective Pasqual ruined his cocoa smuggling cartel."
Jaime snapped his fingers.
"So what if he's got shady ties to some kinda of underground genetics lab where he's getting the money from? I mean, think about it: the black market organ trade alone would be making the big bucks, and in return he gets Don Hildago's protection and connections in the technologies industries, right? Which he needs because he wouldn't be able to have a front for the operation that's above board and the authorities wouldn't protect it when it's illegal. Especially since Pasqual's death made it so his partner, Kiki the talking gorilla, start nosing around his business."
He went on, "But we also know that Sofia's long lost son Matias spoke to Javier and he didn't just know general knowledge from A-side." His side was A-side. A-side forever. Nate's was B-side, and that was that. But by now they were used to calling them the reverse sides all the time when talking to each other. "He remembered the tragic accident when Matias fell down the well, the one that left Matias blind. So what if he is a clone but managed to escape and make a life for himself for a while before he was programmed by Gutierrez? I mean, it happens, right? Wasn't that Superboy's origin story? And it's implied he used to travel a lot when he was a young man since Carlos Leonne remembers getting into a knife fight with him in New Orleans - and Javier has the scar to prove it. So he had a life, fathered Matias with Sofia, remembers the accident, then Dr. Gutierrez captured him, programmed him with knowledge from A-side, which is why he acts like one of the twins or triplets from A-side, but in more private moments - like when he was with Matias - he says things that make it clear he's from B-side and that he remembers their family life. Those are the times he drops the facade."
Yes, he was sure he had it.
"He's faking that the programming took. That's why he's cozying up to Don Hildago's right hand woman, Ximena, in secret. He wants to try to insinuate himself into Don Hildago's operation to find a way of taking Dr. Gutierrez down, so that he can escape his influence and doesn't have to keep up the ruse anymore. So he can go back to Sofia and Matias, his family."
"Okay now I'm putting money on the gorilla detective actually being one of his DNA donors, because this is starting to sound more and more like they're ripping off El País de las Mujeres," said Paco.
"Right down to the cocoa smuggling operation getting taken out," agreed Brenda. "Come on, cocoa smuggling operations in two telenovelas? Both with the same producer?"
"Paco, that's ridiculous," said Jaime, despite every single he'd said up until that point barely making sense.
The Scarab chirped. "Scarab also said to say that's ridiculous."
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"Everybody knows that Kiki got the ability to talk from coming into contact with an ancient Mayan artifact whose mystical powers gave him his heightened intelligence. Though how it managed to give him a British accent is something I still haven't figured out." Though he did have to admit that hearing someone speak Spanish with a British accent was definitely something to behold. "Still, if he had gotten his powers from genetic engineering, then you might have a point.
"Besides, if Javier were part gorilla, he'd display some traits from that. If anything, Juventud's the one who had his DNA messed around with. He should've died three episodes ago, but there he is! How many people do you know who could survive a car falling off a cliff?"
...wait.
"...who don't have super-powers."
...wait.
"And isn't one of the Bats."
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"Ha!" Paco called out, as Javier was revealed as a clone - with Kiki as the genetic donor! "What did I say? What did I say?"
But then it took another dramatic turn!
"Waaaait," said Jaime, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. "So. The entire show. All of it. Took place in Kiki's head? And she's really just a normal gorilla at the zoo? Not even like a Grodd type of gorilla?" He laughed. "Oh, they so ripped off St. Otherwhere's ending on that one. I'm amazed it didn't all take place in a snowglobe."
The Scarab chirped.
"What do you mean 'I called it.' You did not call it. You called nothing. You are the caller of absolutely nothing." A pause. "Oh, I wasn't listening. Right. We're attached at the brain and yet somehow I didn't hear you." He laughed at the brazen lie. "You liar. Don't be a sore loser." Another pause. "Well then go ahead and sulk, Mr. Sulky."
"Really, I was right all along," insisted Brenda. "Because I said it was all just stupid and didn't matter. And that is what that ending says, too."
Jaime leaned sideways on the couch so he could prod at Nate's side with his feet, forlornly.
"Nate, all our of hard work. For the last year. The charts, Nate. The charts and the spreadsheets. Our research as to what the ending would be." That they didn't actually do since they usually just talked endlessly about it. He went on dramatically, like someone whose life had been turned upside down, whose dreams had been torn asunder. "Amounted to nothing. So many wasted hours. What are we going to do? They're going to take away what's left of our grant and we'll be out on the street with nothing to show for it."
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He held his head in his hands, as if the world truly was crumbling around them. "We'll be laughing stocks of the Telenovela community! No one will hire us anywhere! Our careers are ruined!"
Looking up at the ceiling, palms facing up as if to say Why? Why God have you forsaken the two thoroughly awesome young men and ruined their careers in an industry that neither one of them would ever be a part of despite how overly dramatic they were both being right now. "Is this how it happens? Is this where it all goes wrong?
"is this... our supervillain origin story?" DUN Dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!
...okay, yeah, he probably shouldn't joke about that. And he knew that had this been the Young Avengers, or even the Old Avengers, there would probably be a rather dramatic reaction. But if he couldn't make these kinds of jokes with his best friend, then who could joke about with this?
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"You know what this means, don't you? Now we have to build a device to steal the endings of other telenovelas - no, the endings of all TV shows. No, of all movies, too. We have to steal the endings of everything. If we can't have comfortably predictable endings no one can."
The Scarab chirped.
"What do you mean you can already do that?"
A pause.
"...Seriously?"
Another pause.
He laughed. "Stop messing with me! You have weapons with 'theological implications,' a term which you've never once explained. It wouldn't be that out there for you to have some kind of, I don't know, meta gun that eats the ends of movies."
The Scarab had gotten a lot more chatty since Jaime'd gotten back from the Crisis, a natural progression as it evolved into more and more of an individual with free will. It seemed to consider itself one of the gang now so it tried to make jokes right along with the rest of them. Sometimes it even tried to talk conversationally with others, asking Jaime to pass its messages along.
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Only a time traveler could actually say something like that so casually.
"I bet we'd make a fortune."
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"You two," said Paco, laughing. "One of you could be the next Eclipso. That's how evil that is. Wrath of God evil."
"Can we be minions?" asked Brenda. "We're already kind of minions. Except we're smarter than most minions but that means we won't just be there for the good guys to knock unconscious. We could actually help you."
"If we're minions, though, we want 401k and dental," said Paco.
Milagro, who was laying on her back on the floor reading a book while Princesa happily painted her toenails, shook her head, pointing at Jaime and Nate with her foot.
"You two are so weird," she said. "No wonder you're boyfriends."
At that, Jaime tossed a pillow at her but only half-heartedly. It only made her laugh.
"Dinner!" Bianca called from the kitchen.
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"They would make good minions." Though, truthfully, they were Jaime's minions, but he was getting used to them.
Said minions were all getting ready to eat dinner, however, so Nate considered that his cue to leave. "I should be getting out of here, though."
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He had gotten very very careful with his secret ID over the last year or so. Especially since he and the military police had a much worse relationship than he did with the local police and neighborhood watch militias. If they figured out his secret ID, he had a feeling they'd make his life a bureaucratic hell, Defender or not.
It had gotten...rough. The situation in Mexico - in Juarez - was ridiculously bad, even with him constantly working to clean it up as Blue Beetle. That meant things like stricter curfews and more thorough border checks and a host of problems. Those problems made it much harder to get around discreetly to hide that he was Blue Beetle.
Nowadays unless it was a dire emergency, he usually walked right outside of town before changing to his suit and he had any friends coming and going do the same if they were flying in and out.
He checked his wallet to make sure he had his pass. The Defenders had hooked him up with a local one but his dad worked as a trainer with with the local militia and he helped him by puttering around doing a little paper work so nobody was suspicious that he had one.
"Lemme grab something, though."
He darted off to the kitchen and grabbed the paper bag - already prepared - of fajitas all wrapped up in foil.
"Mom already had it ready and no, taking it is not optional. You are getting fed, so says the will of the Almighty Mom."
There is no escaping his mother's cooking, Nate. NO ESCAPE.
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Still, he wasn't going to be rude about it. So after letting out a breath, he did take the bag from Jaime.
"Thank you Mrs. Reyes!" He shouted towards the kitchen. Though, at some point, there will be a discussion about this later.
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Jaime grabbed one of the flashlights and led Nate outside. With the energy shortages, some nights were blackout nights where there were no streetlights lit up and this was one of them. That meant the night sky was filled with stars.
It was pleasant enough, although it tended to become a less pleasant walk as you got out towards the shantytowns, what with the crying and yelling - the sounds that filled the night air when that many impoverished people were crowded in one place.
They weren't there yet, though, so Jaime enjoyed the walk, his eyes drawn upward.
"Dude, you should see what the stars look like outside the city now. On blackout days there's, like, no light pollution. At all. You can go right outside the city and it's like being right in the middle of the desert."
Silver linings, right? He was always looking for those silver linings. That was just what he did.
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"Sounds nice. Definitely better than the city, which is so full of.... every kind of pollution, that you can hardly see anything." Save for more of the mega city itself.
"It must be peaceful at the edge of town... easy to forget that there's practically warzone just across the border."
Every silver lining needs a cloud, right?
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It was always on his mind, especially with the never-ending torrent of desperate people trying to escape, some of them even dying during the long trek across the desert and the dangerous river crossings. People had always died while crossing but with so many more crossing now there were far more deaths.
And that wasn't even getting into the increase in vigilante killings and overuse of force by the Border Patrol.
"Every day it's something new," he said. "Today was a lazy day because if I didn't have one now and again I'd go crazy, but most days I start the morning working with the joint US-Mexican task force 'til mid-afternoon doing whatever I can."
Busting weapons smugglers and ruing drug runs, bringing in high profile targets for arrest, all of that business.
"And theeeen it's practice with the Young Allies, Defenders practice, superhero homework, and answering calls in between and superheroing 'til about 10 o'clock at night. Then I come home and crash. Rinse, repeat."
He drew in a deep breath and let it out.
"Sometimes it feels like nothing is changing, you know? But then I think about what would happen if I didn't do it and I know it'd get even worse."
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"I wake up every morning not even knowing what part of the world I'll end up being sent to, and that's in addition to briefings, assisting on research projects, emergency deployments, data analysis, and standing in the background while Osborn mugs for the camera." Which, while Nate liked Osborn, he really co do with the dozens of press conferences. "Though, I think the worst part is all the people we're not allowed to help."
Give how much information that his suit had access to, and how much of it was fed into his head, he was keenly aware of what was going on all over the world, and how little he could do about any of it.
"Treaties and politics," he explained, since its more a matter of things above their pay grade than anything else. "Sometimes I--"
Closing his mouth, he shook his head, not bothering to voice that particular thought. "Never mind.
"It just feels like we're chipping away at a mountain," he offers instead.
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"Sometimes you what?" he asked. "You wish you could just ignore all the treaties and the politics and do whatever had to be done?" He didn't sound accusative, though, as he guessed at it. Far from it, his voice was filled with compassion and understanding.
"'Cause if that was what you were going to say, I feel the same way sometimes. My dad said it's pretty natural, when I talked to him about it. Wanting to just...clean up the world." A pause. "He said there were times he got frustrated like that, too, when he was in the army, when there were sometimes people he wanted to help but had orders not to. Like civilians in Q-rac and stuff."
A pause. "We can't just do that but it's natural to want to."
Nate wasn't the only person that sometimes wanted to run out there and just...fix it all, consequences be damned, and if he felt that way, Jaime didn't want him to think he was alone in feeling it.
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"I know that," he finally answered. "But that's not it. Not entirely..."
The silence that followed was a lot heavier this time. Even though they weren't that far from his house, soap operas and telenovellas and amazingly stupid theories felt miles away.
"Its that... they think we're a bunch of evil, y'know?" He didn't specify they and we; he didn't think he needed to. "A bunch of sociopaths masquerading as heroes." Which, he had to admit, that the for some team members, the sociopath part was plausible
but myth not entirely confirmed. "Sometimes I wonder..."Maybe it all would be easier if we were. No rules, no regulations... no regrets," he added, his voice quieter. "No remorse." All things that he had to put up with.
"Kang would've beaten this world into submission by now."
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"Free will's a hell of a thing. Someone controls the world like that, sure, there won't be any crime, right? But they'd have to control everything. Everyone. Constant control. Constant fear. And then every good person that wants the world to be better but thinks that much control is bad would be fighting against it, wanting a better way. A way that's more...more of a compromise. Between freedom and security. There's that balance that should be struck and just like people are fighting the chaos, they'd fight it if it went too far in the other direction, too."
He added, "People like me. Kang would kill them - he'd have to. And a lack of remorse would mean not caring about what good was lost."
Kang would. Not Nate. They weren't the same person, not in Jaime's eyes. But if Kang were to control it all, people like Jaime would rise against him and would have to die in this new world.
"I think...I think it's all out of control right now. But I also think there's a spectrum, with the chaos on one side, and the kind of security that means a total lack of freedom on the other, and like it is in a lot things, the best place to have it all strike is somewhere in the middle."
He paused. "A different middle than it was before, though. In both worlds. It wasn't good enough then."
Not in his eyes.
"That's what I've been pushing with the Defenders. I have all these ideas, you know? To change it all, but not - not for too much control. Like ways of training metas and stuff so another Stamford doesn't happen. Different from the way it was, but not all over-controlled like it was with the SRA, either. Different things that are the best of both worlds, I guess."
He tried to find a way to coelesce all those thoughts into something meaningful.
"If chaos is one end of the spectrum and a good ol' fashioned conquering's on the other end, then I think we should all move sideways," he said, giving Nate one of the little grins he always did when he was being a defiant little shit that made up his own rules.
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"Lateral thinking." It was a good answer. Sometimes the best answer to a problem was to create one of your own. "I like it." Of course, something like that was easier said than done.
"But getting everyone else on board is going to be an issue. Everyone wants to roll things back to the 'good old days', which probably weren't nearly as good as people want to remember them as." At least, that's certainly been his experience with time travel; the past was never as romantic as we thought it was.
"What would you change, though?" Tell him about those ideas of yours, Jaime. Nate was actually interested in hearing them.
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He pointed out, "So doing nothing? Bad move. But the way it was handled on your side before this was flawed. Secret IDs need to be secret for a reason. Superheroes face much higher risks to their loved ones than cops or other people in public service because they face more dangerous enemies. There is always risk of abuse, even with the most secure database possible. I know people whose secret IDs got compromised. Robin lost his dad. My family almost got blown up by the Reach. Black Beetle almost brain-damaged by baby sister."
He went on, "And the training was flawed. I looked through some of the records - forcible recruitment, teaching teenagers to snipe with sniper rifles. This stuff is all tucked away where people don't see but it's not secret. You just have to dig deep enough into the public records released after the Initiative collapsed. There were kids - young teenagers - that didn't even want to be superheroes being forcibly recruited to the Initiative - even being forced to kill. That's messed up. Having powers doesn't automatically override someone's right to not be drafted into public service."
That was the biggest problem - the draft.
"So how do you have the training without having it abused?" he asked. "What you do is you have a training program run by superheroes, with a government charter, who do have certain metrics they have to fulfill to the government to make sure the quality of the training they're giving is okay - just like schools have curriculums and stuff - but people training isn't automatic recruitment to any superteams or government forces or superhuman armies. Nobody has to register their real name. It's like the Initiative but your secret ID doesn't get compromised. You pick a codename and get your domino mask when you set foot in the door."
He gestured with his hands as he talked making it clear he was very enthusiastic about the ideas he was proposing.
"There are multiple training tracks. For the people that have powers they need to learn to control but they have no interest in superheroing, they can get trained in just controlling their powers and defending themselves without hurting themselves or others when they get attacked. Now this is for everyone, metas, Homo Magi, mutants - no distinguishing between them anymore which helps the public stop doing it, too, and makes sure there's no schools all over or one on one mentoring that's slapdash - it's all uniform."
Having mutants at Xavier's school, and some training under older mentors, and some training under teen teams, that meant it was all over the place.
"At the end of training, they hand in their mask and just go home. Every person that graduates from superhero boot camp gets some kind of encrypted chip that's keyed into their biometrics to prove they trained. In case they want to come back for one of the other tracks later. But it doesn't hold DNA and stuff. More something that, say, activates with a fingerprint. They can prove the chip is theirs and what level of training with it but they keep the chip. No central database that can be hacked or abused. Like their own little certificate."
He went on, "Then there's the superhero track. After the bootcamp basics, the ones that want to be superheroes move onto formal training like the Initiative had but with focus on becoming a superhero instead of just powers control. Once they complete that, they mentor one-on-one under an experienced superhero with a similar power or skillset. After that, they participate in an approved guidance team like the Young Allies or the Teen Titans, or whatever other teams form, where they start to get more autonomy but still have older, more experienced heroes to keep training and guide them who act as mentors to the team. After that, they're free to solo it or form their own independent teams but every member needs their chips that they got at each stage of the training - you lose yours, tough luck. You gotta go back and train again at whatever stage yours left you at. The teams have to register and show they all have their chips but they keep it to code name and no secret IDs get revealed."
He finished. "Training is all voluntary because you'd have to register people to make it mandatory and that's a bad idea, but superheroes that operate without training, if they wind up in a situation where they're culpable for someone's death, the penalties should be steeper. Sort of like how accidentally hitting someone with your car gets you punished if you just weren't careful, but the penalty's even steeper if you were DUI since that's such an actively negligent choice. Not being trained adds majorly to whatever penalties you face and they're set like a lot of other crimes have them set. So people know there are situations where superheroing without having earned your chips will net you ten to twenty, whereas if you have them, it's seen that you were responsible enough to at least put in your dues so it was more human error than gross negligence. If you trained and passed it meant you at least took some measures to protect the public. Usually someone who puts in the work and still messes up, that's more tragedy than negligence. The person shouldn't face quite as severe consequences if they tried to prepare themselves."
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out.
"It's not perfect but it's better than nothing and also better than what the SRA did. Most heroes would jump at training if they didn't have to give up their secret ID and the ones that don't would be afraid of the crazy-harsh legal penalties if they mess up without having trained. And those crazy harsh legal penalties would get the more negligent heroes off the streets for a long time."
He turned to Nate and spread out his hands. That was his idea, Nate.
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"...huh."
Probably not the most elegant or eloquent of responses, but that was a rather surprisingly well thought out idea. It made him think about that for a while, and that was the only sound he could make that indicated that he was turning that idea over in his head and examining it from a number of different angles.
"...Hm."
This might take a minute.
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He went on, "But any attempts at forcing registration are not going to work. And that's partly for good reason. There is no way to have a central secret ID database that doesn't get abused. There will always be a supervillain out there smart enough to hack it. And too many people in the superhero community have been burned with their secret IDs being compromised. They've Had family killed, injured, tortured, brainwashed, you name it. But that way the secret IDs stay safe, the training's right there, there's steeper consequences to not doing it if you mess up and get someone killed. And it's way better than doing nothing and waiting for the next Stamford to happen."
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"I don't think forced registration would work, but... the idea was introduced as a way to force accountability. As long as they have a secret identity, then no matter how badly they screw up, they can just take the mask off and slip back into their regular life unnoticed." Which was a pretty major flaw as far as he was concerned.
"What then? Are you assuming that a bunch of ridiculously powerful people are going to turn themselves in? Do we count on their other costumed associates to rat them out? Or does that part stay under the purview of HAMMER and the Avengers?" Since, really, was already part of their remit. "Not to mention that they'll have to unmask if they end up getting arrested and facing trial."
There really was a lot to consider there.
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He went on, "It wasn't a lack of culpability that caused Stamford. Speedball still went to jail and was held culpable. The system worked to prosecute him. It was carelessness. It was arrogance. My dad was in the army - he says that they beat that kind of arrogance out of you in boot camp. That's why most soldiers aren't going Rambo all the time and risking themselves and others. They get trained in threat assessment, cooperation, levels of force..."
He ticked off each with his hand using his flashlight.
He said, "And I think if heroes do mess up like that, yeah, other heroes should turn them in. They get considered a criminal, wanted for negligence. Someone messed up like the New Warriors I would bring someone like that in. I'd pity them, I'd feel like it was the villain that was truly evil in that situation, but someone is a dumbass and charges a supervillain with explosion powers near a school? You can bet I'd bring them in. Like with any wanted criminal. And yeah, they would have to get unmasked but at least they're getting unmasked after they potentially did something wrong. Not before. And if it's part of the legal process their families go into witness protection."
Stark had been an exception and not even because Jaime felt he was innocent. The only reason he'd helped Stark hide was because of the secret IDs in his head. He didn't think he was a hopeless human being at heart but once he'd gotten them deleted that was when his help and protection had come to an end.
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"You have weapons with 'theological implications', if you were to use one and Stamford II were to happen, y-- okay, well, you'd probably turn yourself in, but if it were up to the other Defenders, how many of them do you think would hand you over to HAMMER?" Because, if Nate was being honest, he'd be conflicted as hell over having to take Jaime into custody. "And be honest about it, because damn near every member of your team thinks they have the right to tell any agent of HAMMER to piss off, just because they don't like the fact that Osborn's in charge." Or Lex Luthor, either, really.
"And even if we go smaller scale, not even Stamford level stuff, like--
"When I first formed the Young Avengers, one of our first missions was a hostage rescue. But we screwed up, got captured, and nearly got everyone killed. One of the hostages had to save us.
"In the end, everybody got rescued, thankfully; and the girl who saved us joined the team a day later. You can write it off by saying 'all's well that ends well,' but... as part of HAMMER, I don't have that luxury anymore. If you were there, you'd probably have given us a stern talking to, or something like that. But if something goes wrong now? I still have to answer to someone for my mistakes, even if things manage to work themselves out in the end."
He didn't ask the question, but it sort of hung in the air. Who do the Defenders answer to?
"I find it kind of comforting, personally," he added, shrugging a bit as if to say 'not sure why.' Though perhaps it was the fact that it forced him to constantly evaluate his behavior, and kept him on the straight and narrow.
"Training is good; I could've used it then, and I'm glad I have it now, but oversight and accountability out in the field is also something you can't overlook. Without it, people tend to get lazy and careless and sloppy, no matter how well trained they are. And even if they don't do the big thing like Stamford, they can still do a lot of little things that add up.
"...maybe assign them a HAMMER liaison to report to regularly, who reviews and evaluates their performance in the field?"
...it was a not unreasonable compromise, if nothing else.
cw: mention of suicide
He nudged Nate's shoulder with his hand, not aggressively, but as a "you're forgetting something" nudge.
"And it may feel good to have someone hold you accountable by knowing who you are, but no offense, you don't have family in this time period. You don't know what it looks like to see your mom in a total panic over your baby sister dying after she was blasted by a supervillain. Try imagining that good feeling weighed against the constant existential horror of knowing there's a little part of you that someone else can kill without ever laying a hand on you. And you wouldn't die. You'd have to live with a part of your soul gone. If you could live with it. If my family was gone, if something got them all at once..."
He let that hang, his meaning clear.
Not that it'd be easy. He'd probably have to get Ted's help removing the scarab, but then he'd take a swan dive off the nearest cliff.
"If I had to give up that last little tiny bit of protection for them, I'd stop instead. I'd give it up. And, not to toot my own horn or anything but the world would be straight up fucked without me right now. There's a reason the Defenders are trying to get me all trained up so I need less handholding."
There weren't enough heroes for someone as powerful as he was at a base level to give up the superhero thing right now.
"But having a government liaison is a good idea. Long as it wasn't one of your psycho team-mates - and don't even argue with me there. I been in the field with you guys before and I know Ms Marvel is Moonstone. Can't prove it but she makes the Scarab do the gravity warning beeps and we know where the other Ms Marvel is. And even if she wasn't, she's nuts."
He acknowledged, "But hey, if it was someone like, I don't know, you..."
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Because if Jaime were ever to commit suicide, Nate would kill him for it. He's a time traveler, he can do that.
Its a thought he chews on for a moment, but spits it out of his mind in favor of moving on, letting out a scoff at the idea of Nate being a liaison for the Defenders.
"Yeah, I'm sure that would go over well. We're friends, but the rest of the Defenders think I'm as psycho as the rest of my teammates." Which, being honest, they may or may not be right about that, but that was beside the point. "And speaking of my teammates..."
Nate paused there, and put his hand on Jaime's shoulder to stop him as well. This was kind of important, and something that had been nagging at him for quite a while.
"Let's just say, 'hypothetically speaking' that Ms. Marvel used to be Moonstone." Nate was 99% certain that Jaime could hear the air quotes in his voice when he spoke, but even so, "So what? What does that even matter at this point?
"Two and half years ago, two worlds got smashed into one, and everything went to hell. Osborn could've gone back to being the Green Goblin, Ms. Marvel could've went back to being Moonstone and they could've caused all sorts of havoc if they wanted to. There was no one here to stop them. You Superman, Cap, the Justice League, the other former Avengers; all of you were drifting through the time stream like pieces of flotsam.
"But they didn't. Instead, faced with an impossibly huge mess, they jumped in and did everything they could to save lives and restore some sense of normalcy and order; find me a better definition of the word 'hero' than that. And they're still at it, they've been working their asses off as much as we have and its like--" He started gesturing wildly, because there was so much frustration that was bubbling over to the surface that he couldn't even words. Every attempt at speaking just came out as frustrated grunts and choked off sounds and even wilder gestures, before he finally let out a frustrated scream. "--Y'know?!"
...except Jaime probably didn't know. Because Nate hadn't explained anything. Not with words, anyhow. But with all of that out, he let out a long breath, and tried again. With words this time.
"Osborn's a former villain, I'm a future villain, the rest are-- who the hell knows; but in the here and now, we're all busting our asses to help this world move forward and instead of getting any kind of encouragement or support from the Defenders, it's like-- you're the only one who hasn't been a morally self-righteous dick at us. The rest of the show up and get offended that we don't bow down to their heroness and now we have to be heroes in spite of them rather than with them and there is so much more that could be accomplished if they weren't such judgmental pricks and think that they know better than us or the government or anyone else who isn't part of their little clique and--" And something else that could only be expressed through frustrated gestures. "You'd think they'd want as much help as they can get but noooooo; Captain America didn't anoint us with his tears so we don't count." He couldn't help the sneer that followed that statement, it was just that frustrating to him. "I mean half of them were so busy having a giant slap-fight over who had the right to be more morally self-righteous that they let the world get invaded and nearly conquered by aliens and they want us to kiss their rings? Like 'no, fuck you' and you honestly think people like that don't need adult supervision?"
He let out another frustrated breath, starting to run out of steam at this point.
"It kind of makes me want to become Kang, just so I can kick them all in the balls and take an unholy amount of pleasure in it."
He took another breath after that, and it seemed like he was done.
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But no, his reaction was as far away from any of those as possible.
Instead of judgment or trying to pick a fight with him over it, Jaime reached out his arms and hugged Nate firmly, flashlight still clutched in one hand.
A lot of frustration had clearly built up in there and even some hurt at feeling like his former friends thought he was already psycho.
"First of all, you're not a psycho," Jaime said in his ear and he didn't let go right away. "And you're right about one part. Okay, so even if they're former villains or whatever, the few times both teams even work together, the Defenders don't have to like them but as long as you're team ain't killing people or doing crazy stuff they should just tolerate them and cooperate 'til it's over."
He pulled back to look Nate in the eyes, the hand with the flashlight resting on one shoulder, his other holding Nate's shoulder firmly.
"But put this in perspective - a few of us are pretty sure we know who some of the Avengers are and if we're right? These people aren't just people who've killed people or done some villainy, some of them are people that've targeted heroes and people they love personally. Imagine if Osborn recruited Black Beetle as his own Blue Beetle and he stayed in line and all that. Even if he did, am I supposed to be all 'Hey, good job heroing so far, I totally forgive you for trying to brain damage my baby sister?'"
He shook his head. "You're right about so many things with this. The Defenders have no right to act that much morally superior when so many of them have messed up. And with you, even the Jonas thing wasn't your fault - you just picked up the armor after he was already gone. You keep getting treated like you're already evil when you've done so much and tried so hard to make sure you won't ever be."
He went on, "But you also have to remember they're human. I mean, people always hope heroes will be more than human, more than petty and all that, willing to shelve personal feelings for the greater good. But it's not easy getting hurt or threatened by someone or losing loved ones to them and forgiving them or trusting them even if they've done a lot of good. And a lot of your teammates aren't that secretive about who they are because they kind of have a thing about taunting the Defenders a little because they can be petty about it, even if they don't openly admit it. Or there's things like those of us with scanners can pick up on a lot about them. Now, should the Defenders shut up sometimes and cooperate as long as your team's not doing anything wrong? Yes."
He'd done it. If they started to get too violent or whatever he'd called them on it or stopped them from doing it, but he'd done it. And of all people, he had a bit of a right to have expectations of others that they should be more controlled and such when he walked the walk and hadn't made many huge mistakes.
"But some of them have also earned the right to never truly trust them or forgive them, either, even if they should work past it sometimes if innocent people need it."
And the most important part...
"And nobody should treat you like you're evil for things you haven't done and now don't ever have to do. It's fair for some of them to be mad at your team for certain things or distrust them because they're pretty sure they know some of them have caused some damage but this whole thing of treating you like you've already gone bad or have something you need to redeem yourself for is messed up."
He told him what he'd told some of the Young Avengers.
"If anything, it's good you're fighting side by side with them because if any of them start to relapse into kicking any puppies or eating any babies, you'll be there to stop them. Like, if Osborn did start to relapse into any scheming or goblin-ey cackling - or if it turns out he's been scheming all along - I know I'd want someone as smart as you and who's as good a person as you there to deal with it."
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So it came as more than a little surprise when Jaime hugged him.
He honestly didn't know how to react at first, and kind of stood there dumbly for a bit. It was weird, not so much that he was being hugged by a guy, but that he was being hugged at all. It took him a moment before he did return the hug, if a little awkwardly, before Jaime pulled away.
It was comforting... and rather disarming to be hugged like that. Enough so that he could really listen to what Jaime had to say on the matter.
"You have a point." He had several, actually. "None of us have track records that are spotless, or even close to it. But even if they don't want to respect us, respect the law." Which they were agents of. So even if he couldn't get politeness and butt-pats, he'd settle for obedience.
"And of Osborn does go off the rails, I'm the least of his worries. Have you ever met Vice President Waller? She is not a woman you want to cross."
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"I have heard things about her, yes. Batman says she's an absolute terror but at least the kind of terror that'd go after Luthor or Osborn if they got up to supervillainy again. Especially if they were abusing the trust of the public to do it."
The only problem was the way some of these people thought meant even types like Waller were occasionally okay with mistreating metas 'for the sake of the greater good,' but Batman said she'd learned a few things over the years. Apparently, they had a weird respect for each other. She wasn't the best person in that kind of position but definitely wasn't the worst.
"Look, I know the Defenders are - it's...it's a work in progress. But they're pulling together better than they were before." He went on, "And the Avengers had a whole year and a half on the rest of us. You can't tell me you all gelled perfectly from the very start. Now that things are settling, some of us are trying to get some of the others to simmer down on personal feelings."
Even if Luthor and Osborn couldn't be trusted, being reactive wasn't the way to go about things, anyway.
"It won't keep being the way it is." He drew in a deep breath. "And I'm pretty close to moving up to the big boy superheroing. So, when I'm a full Defender, I am going to have...things to say. That means I'll be sitting in on the meetings, I'll have a right to speak at the table, and I get a vote on the things that have votes."
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"Why don't you have a seat at the table already?" He asked, genuinely curious. It wasn't as if Jaime wasn't working his ass off, or only facing softball threats while the Defenders handled anything bigger than a breadbox. It didn't seem right to him that they were fine with letting Jaime fight their battles, but wasn't allowed an equal say in the situation.
Not that Nate was equal to Osborn, but he was equal to every last one of the Avengers.
"If anything, you're more powerful and more mature than several of the Defenders. What reason do they have keeping you out of the big decisions?"
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"Dr. Light" was pretty much used as shorthand among many of the younger heroes from Jaime's side of things. There were villains and then there were villains and dropping his name was a good way to register you were talking about the extra sadistic, extra evil ones. Jaime hadn't been a hero then but after Light'd taken on most of the Titans and their allies all at once, he'd been etched in the collective consciousness of most of the younger heroes on Jaime's side as a massive (creepy) threat, and the lingo filtered around.
Some situations were dangerous but sometimes they knew they were going against the kinds of villains that killed heroes and left their mutilated bodies somewhere as a message.
"If they let me sit in and treat me like an adult then they can't really tell me I can't go out and face down that stuff anymore." A pause. "And they know I wouldn't hesitate to do it."
He raised his eyebrows.
"They still freak out whenever I'm on something that was more dangerous than they thought. Like they sent me on a thing where we were fighting some supervillains and they didn't know Major Force was involved? And they pretty much flipped as soon as they knew he was and tried to work me off the field. I didn't let them but they wanted me to bail and leave the others that were with me to handle it." A pause. "I don't know if you've heard of him, but word is he killed one of the Green Lanterns' girlfriends and stuffed her body parts in his refrigerator for him to find."
That kind of bad.
"So I think it's one of those things where it's less they don't respect some of us younger people and more they don't want us having to deal with the traumatic stuff yet until they're 100% sure we won't get sent home in several small boxes. Like one time I overheard Booster arguing with Green Lantern about it, that I could handle it. And Green Lantern agreed but was all 'why expose him to that if we don't have to?'" He snorted. "Basically they're a little gun-shy because I'm still younger and they like me too much, I guess." He held a hand to his chest and sighed dramatically. "It's my curse. Being that likable."