"There's ones that'd take me in. They'd be doing it with like shame beams set to maximum and hang dog looks but if I blew up 600 people? They'd do it. Superman would. He'd probably try talking me into surrendering first so I turned around from that kind of mistake and tried to do the right thing from then on afterward, but he'd drag me in if he had to."
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..."
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..."