Blue Beetle / Ted Kord (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
better_ted_than_dead) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ya_assemble2015-07-28 12:13 pm
better_ted_than_dead) wrote in ya_assemble2015-07-28 12:13 pm
Entry tags:
Census and Sensibility
"Status, Unknown. Status, Unknown. Status, 'Believed deceased but who the hell can really tell, these days?' .. No, that won't fit in the field."
Blue Beetle leans back from the console, sliding his fingers under the mask to rub at his eyes. He glances at his coffee mug - empty now - and then looks back to the screen with a sigh.
"We'll stick with 'Presumed dead' and lose the sarcasm, I suppose."
The metahuman census project had been started as an informal, low-priority effort to figure out which heroes and villains were active and which were still missing, in an attempt to determine what resources were available for the good guys, and what threats they might run into. Unfortunately, a complete rearrangement of space and time is a difficult thing to sift through - Ted himself had shown back up in Europe, and according to most of the other people he'd talked to, he was supposed to have been dead.
Circumstances, then, did not bode well for the completion of the project, but it was something that kept drawing Ted back in, due to some sense of .. sympathy? Nostalgia? Foolish hope, beyond reason?
Well, that, and seeing how the other half lived before the big shake-up.
"Wait, they actually had a guy who was a living cartoon character?"
Blue Beetle leans back from the console, sliding his fingers under the mask to rub at his eyes. He glances at his coffee mug - empty now - and then looks back to the screen with a sigh.
"We'll stick with 'Presumed dead' and lose the sarcasm, I suppose."
The metahuman census project had been started as an informal, low-priority effort to figure out which heroes and villains were active and which were still missing, in an attempt to determine what resources were available for the good guys, and what threats they might run into. Unfortunately, a complete rearrangement of space and time is a difficult thing to sift through - Ted himself had shown back up in Europe, and according to most of the other people he'd talked to, he was supposed to have been dead.
Circumstances, then, did not bode well for the completion of the project, but it was something that kept drawing Ted back in, due to some sense of .. sympathy? Nostalgia? Foolish hope, beyond reason?
Well, that, and seeing how the other half lived before the big shake-up.
"Wait, they actually had a guy who was a living cartoon character?"
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It wasn't something most people realized, but if a member of the superhero or supervillain communities had ever passed through New York, Spider-Man had probably run into them. If he didn't, he knew someone who did.
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"The stealthy neighborhood Spider-Man. You ought not sneak up on me like that, I have .. or had, rather .. a heart condition."
Beetle turns in the swivel chair to face the wall-crawler.
"Slapstick sounds like an interesting guy. I'd love to see him go a few rounds with the Joker - I bet we could sell tickets like hotcakes."
Ain't no party like a bug-dude party? (Is it cool if Jaime pops in?)
Ten hours. Ten hours of straight calls. And all fiddly fiddly stuff that they really really needed him for because of the suit, so it wasn't like they could just toss someone else out there. All of them were at risk of marathons like this anymore and those with particularly specific, useful power sets were even more so. The speedsters were in almost constant demand since there were so few of them, and Superman, for instance, had already pulled quite a few 24-hour days, but where they had the energy to spare with Kryptonian fortitude and hyper-fast metabolisms, Jaime did not.
And then there was still practice. Lessons. Wonder Woman had just spent an hour kicking his butt trying to teach him. He wasn't sure he'd actually learned anything, other than how to do a better job of tucking and rolling into falls when he was thrown on his head.
Which was why he'd come to the use the Big Boy computers. Superhero homework. And the fact that they still didn't know who was around and who wasn't made it all that much more difficult because he had to learn about as many heroes and villains as he could. Power sets, MOs, alliances, all of it - and without knowing which of that intel was most recent.
The only saving grace was with him having dropped out of high school, at least he didn't have normal homework, even if what he did have was his parents' eternal ire and concern.
So it'd been a long day and was likely going to be an even longer night, but the second Jaime saw that both Ted and Spidey were there, he perked up, beaming. Spidey had become a sort of mentor-ish person in the time he and Jaime had known each other, and Jaime really enjoyed hanging around him because he was just so good at not being grim.
And the fact that Ted was alive was pretty much never going to lose its novelty.
Ever.
So he ran over to a rolling chair, jumped on it, and - still miraculously balancing his stack of books, notebooks, and life-sustaining Red Bull - he rolled along until he scooted to a stop right next to Ted.
Then he put the stack down on the counter, leaned on his hand, and said with his usual barely-restrained fanboyish glee: "Hi, Mr. Kord."
Y[]U ARE SUCH A NERD, teased the Scarab.
Can't stop, won't stop, don't wanna stop.
He was just going to. Keep nerding. Over the fact that Mr. Kord was sitting there. Where he could talk to him. While simultaneously breathing.
Re: Ain't no party like a bug-dude party? (Is it cool if Jaime pops in?)
Spidey had been awake for as long as Jaime had, but honestly was much better at covering it up. He was used to it, after all. He'd been pulling this sort of schedule for around a decade, and didn't require as much sleep as a normal person to begin with.
None of this meant that he didn't have to occasionally have to let out a yawn. Like right now, for instance.
"Sorry about that. What's new with you Jaime?"
Re: Ain't no party like a bug-dude party? (Absolutely!)
"Jaime! Now we have a regular conclave of bug-types. Now we can plot and plan about how best to take down grass-type villains and be super-effective while doing it. ... I think I need a little more coffee, anybody else want some?"
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And it was because of Ted's friends, not wanting to see another Blue Beetle go down, that he and his family had even survived it. Other than Guy and Booster, they hadn't really known Jaime and had been happy to lend a hand to the next Blue Beetle, and even Guy and Booster had paid special attention to him because of who he was following after. They liked Jaime just because they liked him but it was still partly out of loyalty for Ted that they kept an extra eye on him, thinking "Hey, we like the kid and Ted would like the kid, he would want us to make sure he's okay."
"No thanks," Jaime said, grinning at Ted's Pokemon joke, gesturing to the Red Bull. "If I drink anymore caffeine than this I'll probably wind up vibrating through walls like the speedsters. And while I can't knock the idea of a new superpower, the cardiac arrest at the end probably wouldn't be fun."
He popped a can, briefly chugged, and then started spreading out his Red Bull, and books, and notebooks.
"And what's new with me? Let's see, I just got off a ten hour shift - during which I got snotted on by a giant monster, spent an hour getting my butt kicked in practice with Wonder Woman - and the nicest thing she could think of to say at the end was that I was learning to fall really well, and now I have to memorize the profiles and histories of twenty-five different villains for superhero homework. By tomorrow. Or Black Canary is probably going to frown at me in class."
Yet he was still here, doing all of it it.
"So, you know, just another glamorous day in the life of a superhero."
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"...you realize you can tell people you need sleep, right? The whole 12-hour-plus day thing is stupidly unhealthy. I know, just a bit hypocritical coming from me of all people, but I do occasionally take a day off. Or someone sits on me until I agree to take a day off. Net effect is the same though. Point is, you're not going to be much help to anybody if you collapse from exhaustion."
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He leans back in the chair a little, smiling.
"Plenty of sleep, plenty of fluids, and at least one real meal per day. Rules to live by."
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In the past, for instance, he hadn't said 'no' when Booster, Batman, and the other heroes asked him 'hey, new kid, will you help us take down this evil satellite even though you're terrified and have no idea what you're doing?' He also hadn't said 'no' when Booster dragged him along on a rousing little jaunt through the world to chase after Max Lord.
He'd chosen to help and he'd chosen to stay, and that was what he always chose, sometimes at his own expense.
Actually, it was usually at his own expense. Helping the heroes in space meant he'd gone missing for a year, which had pretty much devastated his family and sent his life spiraling into chaos when he returned, and helping Booster and the others meant he'd gotten tortured and shot in the head. Maybe he'd survived it a bit better than his older, more experienced, and less armored counterpart, but it was true that, in general, he put himself out there just a little too much at the expense of himself. And it led to things like interdimensional displacement. And brain bleeds. And healing comas that made Booster freak out because he'd thought he'd lost another Blue Beetle.
"You try saying no to Superman when he's doing that thing where he puts his hand on your shoulder and looks you in the eye with those baby blues, and is all -" He dipped into his Superman impression, a mix of firmness and that 'aw shucks' earnestness that was so typical of him - "'I know it's been a long day, but if you have it in you, we could really use your help keeping Dr. Sivana's robots from crushing an orphanage and a convent full of nuns.'"
He added, "I'm not even joking about that one, it was a convent attached to an orphanage. The nuns took care of the orphans."
The problem was, a lot of different heroes were doing that without realizing the others were also doing it. A minute of his time here, a lesson there, an extra mission there. J'onn, fortunately, kept an eye on the time he spent in the field so even with the long days, they never got Superman levels of long, but nobody really paid attention to who was dragging him where and asking him to do what when he was at the Tower.
And they were all good people, they really were, so that made it harder. Some of then wanted to train him so he didn't die fighting supervillains. Others wanted to teach him because they thought he had potential and wanted to nurture it. Others wanted him to go on extra, low-key patrols with them so they could teach him things hands-on and because they felt like he was reliable.
They just...really needed to pay more attention to the fact they were all trying to do it the same time. Or Jaime needed to get better at telling them when they were doing it. Which prooobably wasn't happening anytime soon. Because he was brave enough to fight evil aliens by himself - with no pants - but not brave enough to keep himself from totally wussing out when trying to assert himself around Wonder Woman.
"Anyway, it's not that bad," he lied. "And it's just a short-term thing. Everyone's all pushing because they want to get me ready to move up from the Peewee League to, like, Varsity Superheroing. Once I'm a Defender, they'll all probably back off a bit." A pause. "Probably."
He hoped.
"A lot of it seems to be more because of your side of things, by the way, and I don't get it," he added quickly to Spider-Man. "I mean, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, and all the rest, some of them are being a little pushy with the fight training, but otherwise they seem fine with me choosing who I wanna learn from and the pace I wanna go at it. That's how the adults on our side -" he gestured to himself and Ted "- always are about the sidekicks. Except for, you know, Batman. He's so big on the discipline that Peacemaker thought it was too much; he used to always joke that Batman drugs Robin's water. And Peacemaker's idea of discipline was, 'learn to fight and learn how to control your alien bugsuit or I might have to kill you someday.'"
Other than Batman, though, the heroes on his and Ted's side of things tended to let the sidekicks have a little freedom to grow into their own heroes. He liked that system. He liked choosing to hang with Ted and Spidey - he picked up some stuff as he went but it was way more laid back. And sometimes he even stole some of Tony's very precious time to learn techie things, but the man seriously owed him after Jaime'd hidden him in his home until he got the superhero database out of his head, outsmarted Obsorn, and took his life back.
"Cap's the one that's all pushing the hardcore lessons and practice and drills. He's sort of being paranoid, I guess? Like he thinks I'm too young for this even though I've already dealt with some heavy stuff and even though I'll be eighteen soon. What's up with that?"
He wasn't really the type to go snooping around about people's personal histories, even if their personal history was part of history-history. But it was starting to grind his gears a little and it definitely seemed like there were some...issues there. And with the other former Avengers seemingly catering to Cap's concerns, it affected him.
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Peter knew the story pretty well. He'd been a massive Cap fanboy most of his life, devouring every piece of information he could get his hands on when he was a kid.
"Bucky was Steve's sidekick during the war." Peter sat down on the edge of a table.
"He was sort of a unofficial mascot at the camp where Steve went for training. Steve was still using a secret identity at the time, Bucky found it out, and then basically blackmailed Steve into letting him become his partner. The army gave him massive amount of training, justified it by saying he'd be a rallying symbol for America's youth, and sent him overseas to work with Cap."
"And it worked. By all accounts they were a great team. Then, near the end of the war Cap and Bucky sacrificed themselves trying to stop an experimental drone plane. Steve ended up frozen in the Arctic, and Bucky died."
Which would be a serviceable explanation for why Cap was acting the way he was. Sidekick deaths hit everyone hard. But Peter, obviously, wasn't done.
"Only he didn't. What did happen was arguably worse than that. Bucky ended up rescued by the Soviets, who brainwashed him into becoming their assassin, the Winter Soldier. They'd send him out after targets, then, once he'd killed them, cryogenically freeze him. This kept happening for decades, even after the fall of communism, until a few years back. The Soldier and Steve got into a fight after a rogue general had him attack Philly, and Bucky ended up regaining his memories.
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"Scratch any super-hero, and there's a better than even chance of finding a tragic incident and an overwhelming sense of guilt just beneath the surface. A sense of responsibility is crucial, of course, but you can't let it turn into a messiah complex."
He pushes aside a doodle pad on which the cryptic word 'KraKooeyKooeyKoa?' is written and recovers his smartphone.
"I think what we may need to do is make everyone's schedule a little more visible. That way, Canary, and Cap, and everyone can see just how many hours everyone is putting in. Steve's a reasonable guy, " he concludes, "and probably knows the dangers of battle fatigue better than any of us."
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Another pause. "Or we could have Batman call his mom to tell her to tell him to go to sleep. Bet that'd work."
Devious, but effective. Superman was a very private person, so only a few other heroes knew what his secret identity was, but he was at least open enough about having a family for Jaime to know his mom had probably made him his cape. And that meant she had leverage. Mom leverage.
Jaime gave Spider-Man a very sober look, as he reflected on everything he'd said about Cap. It took his brain a moment to really digest it.
"That's terrible," he admitted, "Everything that happened to Cap's sidekick. But there's still a difference between preparing someone and being overprotective. It's not like I don't understand how serious this all is. I've already had my first free complimentary torture and extremely-close-calls (plural) and everything."
And he'd dealt with it pretty admirably, hence being able to be so flippant about it. Jaime would forever hate Max Lord for it, and if the man ever called him 'hombre' again he was putting his ass through a wall (again) but at the end of the day he'd still been angrier over what Max was doing - and had done - to other people than over what he'd done to him.
Like, for instance, what he'd done to the mentor that-could-have been and all the good people that'd cared about him when he died. Or what he'd done to Booster, who hid the hurt with those stupid grins but had looked like his heart was being ripped out a second time when he showed up just a second too late to save Jaime from being shot.
"Half of them just sort of toss me into things without really putting much thought to it, like, boom, random fight training with someone I probably won't train with again for two weeks. That's not so bad, even though nothing ever really sticks, but -"
Most of the ones that were like that were the Leaguers and people from his world who were often...lackadaisical about training their sidekicks, hence why teams like the Titans had even existed. Only a few heroes really drilled discipline and extreme skill into their young charges.
"With the other half it's all...rigid. You know, mostly the Avenger people, with them it's all maneuvers and danger room scenarios and having to write little tactical analysis essays on everything I did wrong, except my idea of 'wrong' always seems to be different from everyone trying to teach me." He leaned on his free hand. "I don't want to be some by-the-numbers superhero that was taught everything a certain way in classes and simulations or whatever. That's not even to say I don't think it's good to read books or study up or run scenarios or anything. Sometimes." He gestured to Ted with his pencil, grinning slightly. "Heck, I still have some of your strategy books that Guy gave me and I've read them like twenty times - and, speaking of that, I should prooobably give them back. But I need them more than you do, you've already got all that stuff in your big brain."
He opened up his notebook to get to work.
"It helps knowing all the villains and their weaknesses and everything but I feel like it's all being laid out in this way where I'm expected to be this one specific thing, like 'Jaime Reyes, member of the Justice Avenging League,' and hero-wise I want to be something else. The two people I ever learned the most from don't do things all rigid. There was Peacemaker, who taught me a bunch of skills ahead of time but mostly taught me to think on my toes and be creative about using them in the thick of things..."
He looked up at Ted gratefully, "And I learned from you. From your notes. I learned more practical stuff from your notes than I've learned during months of all this training stuff. I would've never taken down the Reach if I was all 'initiating Blue Beetle tactical maneuver twelve-zeta-zeta-alpha exactly the way I practiced one hundred times.' I had a plan and I had sub-plans but then I also winged it like crazy when most of those plans failed exactly like I thought they might."
He chewed the inside of his cheek.
"It's like I don't get a choice in what kind of superhero I want to be and I don't want to just be a Defender," he said and then he finally put all of that talking into just a few simple words. "I want to be a Blue Beetle."
Because as far as he could tell, both Ted and Dan Garrett's styles of superheroing ran along the lines of being daring and knowing all the rules but only so you knew exactly when to break them.
(Don't you just wanna pinch his lil' cheek, Ted?)
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"Seriously, though, Jaime, I can't take credit for that all by myself. I come from a technical background, so I look at things technically. Diagrams, charts, statistics and probabilities. Batman does the same - though I can just imagine him grimly re-sorting an Excel spreadsheet. I think what distinguishes the patented Blue Beetle brand of superheroics from the generic store Bat-brand is mainly attitude."
"And on that score, I lean more towards the big red 'S'. I believe that most people are fundamentally good, and will do good if given the opportunity. Yes, there are bad guys, but the good guys will win in the end, because somewhere, some cosmic entity has its thumb on the scale."
There's a shrug, and a little smile.
"Optimism, plus preparation for when that optimism is off the mark. It's worked for me most of the time."
With the one obvious fatal exception, but that seems to have worked out too, hasn't it?
"But c'mon, you're going to make me blush if you keep that talk up. I'm proud to have been an influence on you, make no mistake, but if my head swells any more I'm going to have trouble fitting in my mask."
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"I get away with it, sure, for a variety of reasons. But playing the long game has never been one of my strong points."
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All the other sidekick/legacy types got to start with admiring their mentors/the heroes that came before them pretty much from the start. He had some lost time to make up for.
He turned to Spidey.
"But see, that's my point. Every hero's got their own style, you know? They do what works for them. I've seen you work. You improvise, but you're so smart about it that you come up with plans and change them constantly as you go. I can do that to a degree but for the really bad enemies, I usually have to go in with something, even if my plans have to change. You're smart enough to figure things out on the fly."
He went on, "Ain't nothing to feel guilty for. That's just being adaptable and the superhero version of an opportunist. And that's why everyone having their own style is a good thing. You get all the planners and the improvisers and the tough people that can just punch their way through things out of sheer tenacity all working together, and then the bad guys don't stand a chance."
That was what was bugging him.
"That's what's getting to me. They're teaching me in a way that makes it tough to figure out my own way and I think I'll be better hero and have more to offer if I come up with my own style."
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"It's true, all the training in the world is no substitute for actual experience. Too many variables to reduce things to a one-size-fits-all course on superheroics. Though I will not confirm nor deny the existence of a series of 'So You Want to Be a Superhero?' videos starring Booster."