MASK OR MENACE IC INBOX

[runningstart]

WALLY WEST
"You've reached the personal voice mail of the Wall-man. The honor is yours! Leave your deets, I'll holla back atcha."
[ BEEP. ]

KID FLASH
"This is the contact for Kid Flash. If it's an emergency, call Robin; he'll know where I am. Otherwise, leave your info and I'll get you back ASAP."
[ BEEP. ]


[ voice | text | email | action ]

( Please specify in tag subject line if the contact is for Wally West or Kid Flash! )

Comments

[lyingheart]

I wouldn't be so sure of that... but what do I know.

[ Not said sarcastically - she honestly knows she lacks a deep context for this world, this military, and this country. But to her, the worry is not the branch they're in. There are people higher up who have been pushing and leaving them with messes like the paintball game simulating death well past mere "simulation" levels. ]

How much faith do you have in Captain Holiday's intentions? Lieutenant Ananke? Any of our available contacts in the branch overseeing us, for that matter?

[runningstart]

Yeah none. No faith there. If keeping us on tight leashes is their idea of helping us out, I don't wanna see what their idea of retention and punishment is.

[lyingheart]

... Wally... you have no idea what a tight leash is, if you think this is anything like a choke collar.

[ Not admonishing. Sounding a little tired, however. ]

Being asked to exercise caution when you're a guest in another land, unwilling or not, is a given. Are you aware enough of this world's politics to navigate without finding yourself in trouble? What should those consequences be? What have you done for this country, other than be part of what makes it stand out as a threat against Russia, and any other nation that finds the idea of unknown variables with incredible powers and revival abilities being in the hands of just one country unsettling?

[runningstart]

[he has absolutely no idea what a tight leash is]

Except that it is unsettling. I'm like, one hundred percent on board with the idea of not having one country with all the resources.

-and besides that, we're not resources! First of all, we should get to make up our own minds. I don't care if someone can make asteroids the size of Jupiter appear in the sky; the second you start treating a person like a commodity, that's when they get the idea in their head that they're better off without you, one way or another. If they keep acting like we're all things to be controlled, then it's just going to get worse and worse.

I am all for organized heroes, okay? We have that back home. Superheroes that publish all the stuff they do so everyone can see it, who are policed and work alongside governments, but this thing where they're using us like this- I don't like it. I really don't like it, and it's gonna blow up in someone's face. Probably someone who doesn't deserve it.

[lyingheart]

Like ours? Like theirs? It already has, once. That's where Registration comes from, and no one ever really settled the dispute over what was responsible for the acts leading up to the killings on Death Island in 2008. Heroes were blamed, and so was the government, except the government is a bit large to drive underground.

[ She shakes her head. No... there are restrictions, but they're being asked still, not told. Not instructed. Not actively punished for failing to follow orders. ]

Why isn't everyone Registered?

[ Why isn't everyone forced to Register? She keeps her gaze on Wally level. ]

[runningstart]

Probably because they know if they made it mandatory, they'd definitely have people trying to level cities. Nobody likes being watched.

[lyingheart]

We're all watched anyway. Why aren't we forced to Register? They have the means of nullifying our "special" abilities.

[runningstart]

[Wally's brow furrows and he holds up a hand.] Hold on. Are you trying to say we're not that bad off because they could be running a prison?

[lyingheart]

[ That earns him a flat look. ]

What I'm saying is you're so caught up in comparing this world to your own that you consistently fail to evaluate our situation as what it is here, not in comparison. Working toward a better system is a nice thought. Start by understanding why this one works the way it does. You're used to so much freedom that anything saying you can't do exactly as you're used to is a big deal. Calm down and start using your brain to look at this logically, not emotionally.

[ Wally did you seriously have to jump to a prison comparison? Man, talking with Americans can be so frustrating sometimes. Saying a situation isn't as bad as is perceived doesn't dismiss it being less than ideal, but leaping to any extreme for being told to evaluate the situation logically...

Come on. Be more adult. (Cultural divides and expectations are difficult sometimes.) He's so intelligent half the time, she keeps forgetting his expectations and experiences are so vastly different from her own. ]

[runningstart]

[Wally tilts his chair back, glaring obstinately and scraping his teeth over his bottom lip.] ...sorry, can't do that. There's plenty of people who wanna look at the tattoos and the secrecy and everything logically, and personally I'm betting that's what got the military into this mess. I think how people feel about what's happening to them on an individual level is more important.

[lyingheart]

[ She actually doesn't think logic has so much to do with it, purely speaking, but more, ah, motivation. The logic in keeping a system around is to perpetuate and benefit from it... in theory. ]

Good. Then you handle that part, and work with people who'll handle the other part, because without both, we're looking at a bleaker picture because we'd all be spending too much time directly fighting what's happening when we are the minority in a world that doesn't need us.

[runningstart]

[Talk about bleak pictures. The minority in a world that doesn't need them? Jesus. That she's from some brutal world where people are almost dead -and some of them directly because of her- has never been more obvious than right now.

Wally pushes his chair back and stands up, gut feeling tight and unhappy, like he ate something sour. He's sure she means well but that really, really doesn't sit right with him.]

I've got people who can handle that.

But this place is a lot closer to what my world is like than it is to yours, isn't it? And I might not have been in the superhero game a long time back home, but my mentor's been in it for years and he was mentored by a guy who was in it for decades. They know what they're doing, and they've been teaching me. I know what I'm doing too.

[lyingheart]

[ Antagonists are bad for digestion, Wally. As it is, Annie watches him, keeping her own council. For her, the politics are still too obvious and too dangerous. This idea of a world that accepts people with difficult to believe abilities, that welcomes them to handle the things that are so far out of the norm that they need help for the handling, it's new.

Annie has been looking to change herself. She's been succeeding, in the ways that matter, that probably don't show so well, because they're on the inside, in her head.

But she isn't a hero. She doesn't think of herself as a hero, and certainly not a superhero.

So against that, she has nothing to say. ]

Good. That's one subject I wouldn't have any knowledge of, not from this world - though I've researched the subject - and not from home.

[ It's all she has to say. Making things better, not worse, is what she can strive to do... without forcing it to a level of superheroics. ]

Be careful. That's all I really mean.

[runningstart]

I'll be fine. [Wally grabs his jacket from the back of the chair. He starts to slip it on before remembering it's hot outside, and that's why he took it off in the first place.

His thoughts are buzzing around in his head. Not needed. He's needed. And he doesn't have to be needed, he doesn't; he makes his own places, his own opportunities. Barry didn't want a sidekick, and so what? Wally made himself Barry's sidekick anyway.

His fingers move restlessly around his coat as he heads to the door, but something stops him, pulls him up short and he turns on his heel, jabs a finger in Annie's direction, and the words are falling out of his mouth before he can stop them. If he were honest with himself, he doesn't want to stop them anyway.] You should be careful. You're the one who told everyone that you've killed a bunch of people. You think we're all unwanted here? I don't agree, but if you really think that's true, then you're definitely worse off than I am.

[lyingheart]

[ Annie doesn't say anything in return. Wally's not saying anything new. He's also... not responding to what it is Annie feels makes them unnecessary. The military will use them, if it can, but this world doesn't need them to solve the problems of its own creation. Maybe being an outsider who has sat within another culture before gives her that perspective, but the idea of something needing to come in from beyond to change what happens... she's seen it be disastrous. Be meant to be disastrous.

The biggest changes have to come from within.

And she's always been in danger. Known to people at large, or to just those from home. She lifts a hand, waving him off with her fingers. ]

Goodbye, Wally.

[runningstart]

[Wally scoffs, turns and storms off. ...slams his jacket sleeve in the door and has to sheepishly reopen the door to pull it out.

And three days later, he'll just pretend this fight never even happened.]

not here

[lyingheart]

but I laughed really hard at this mental image, thank you