"See, uh -" Man this was awkward, especially explaining it to a kid. Once again, he considered evading stuff, but with her apparently distrust of adults, he didn't like that idea.
He wanted the people here to trust him - or at least trust that they knew what he was, whether they liked him or hated him for it. He didn't want to hide it, even if it made him ashamed, because he deserved to feel ashamed.
"There was this big crisis, right? These two cosmic level baddies teamed up and started messing with time and space and it meant that my world and this other world full of superheroes got pulled into this massive crisis. So us and these other worlds' superheroes, we teamed up to fight the bad guys together in this weird place where time and space were all twisting up. Our memories are all fuzzy because time was so bendy but I'm pretty sure I was tangling with one of the main baddies when he knocked me clean out of the fight."
He drew in a deep breath.
"And the thing of it was, we won. Sort of. We stopped the bad guys, but we didn't win entirely, so both our world and the other world of superheroes merged into one in this huge catastrophe, where the population of the world doubled overnight - but at least both survived. All the heroes sort of fell back at different times because of the time-bendy stuff. A lot of them didn't even show up again in normal time and space for a whole year and a half because reality was so weird. Anyway, I got knocked out of the fight so hard I was one of the first to come back, a year and a half before everyone else. So, one second I'm fighting the bad guys and we're winning and next thing I know, I'm reeling because it feels like I got hit in the face with a truck and falling back to Earth, to the new combined world."
He briefly ground his teeth together.
"And I was one of the first to come back. You know, chronologically. So I was alone, with none of the other heroes to watch my back, and - and I was all beat up, lying in a crater. I was too hurt to fight anybody - and the government came for me before anyone else could help me. And they - they took me away and did a lot of stuff to mess me up and make me into a weapon. I couldn't leave, because they put this weird nanochain thingy in me that'd shock me from the inside if I disobeyed them. So, uh, so I was kinda stuck doing a lot of stuff they wanted me to do. Bad stuff."
Murderous, terrible, terroristic stuff, in the name of Uncle Sam. Mercifully, a lot of his targets had been criminals, military targets, and terrorists, but his handlers weren't exactly careful in helping him avoid collateral.
"Then I was brought here. So I don't know if I'm a superhero anymore. I don't know if I can be anymore, even though I'm gonna go back to helping people again now that I'm free. You don't just - you don't do that kinda stuff and get to pretend you're still one of the good guys, no harm done."
no subject
He wanted the people here to trust him - or at least trust that they knew what he was, whether they liked him or hated him for it. He didn't want to hide it, even if it made him ashamed, because he deserved to feel ashamed.
"There was this big crisis, right? These two cosmic level baddies teamed up and started messing with time and space and it meant that my world and this other world full of superheroes got pulled into this massive crisis. So us and these other worlds' superheroes, we teamed up to fight the bad guys together in this weird place where time and space were all twisting up. Our memories are all fuzzy because time was so bendy but I'm pretty sure I was tangling with one of the main baddies when he knocked me clean out of the fight."
He drew in a deep breath.
"And the thing of it was, we won. Sort of. We stopped the bad guys, but we didn't win entirely, so both our world and the other world of superheroes merged into one in this huge catastrophe, where the population of the world doubled overnight - but at least both survived. All the heroes sort of fell back at different times because of the time-bendy stuff. A lot of them didn't even show up again in normal time and space for a whole year and a half because reality was so weird. Anyway, I got knocked out of the fight so hard I was one of the first to come back, a year and a half before everyone else. So, one second I'm fighting the bad guys and we're winning and next thing I know, I'm reeling because it feels like I got hit in the face with a truck and falling back to Earth, to the new combined world."
He briefly ground his teeth together.
"And I was one of the first to come back. You know, chronologically. So I was alone, with none of the other heroes to watch my back, and - and I was all beat up, lying in a crater. I was too hurt to fight anybody - and the government came for me before anyone else could help me. And they - they took me away and did a lot of stuff to mess me up and make me into a weapon. I couldn't leave, because they put this weird nanochain thingy in me that'd shock me from the inside if I disobeyed them. So, uh, so I was kinda stuck doing a lot of stuff they wanted me to do. Bad stuff."
Murderous, terrible, terroristic stuff, in the name of Uncle Sam. Mercifully, a lot of his targets had been criminals, military targets, and terrorists, but his handlers weren't exactly careful in helping him avoid collateral.
"Then I was brought here. So I don't know if I'm a superhero anymore. I don't know if I can be anymore, even though I'm gonna go back to helping people again now that I'm free. You don't just - you don't do that kinda stuff and get to pretend you're still one of the good guys, no harm done."