selfhelp | [Voice/Action]

[Today is a good day for serious business, apparently. There's a certain something he's been putting off for a while, and after one-too-many dreams interrupting his sleep, he's had enough: this morning when Billy wakes up, the first thing he does is jot out a note in the journal-]

[Private to Ben Grimm]

Hey, would it be okay if I swung by to ask you a few things?

[He'll work through his morning routine until he gets a response, after which he'll go for a visit and get a hell of a lot more than he bargained for.

After that, his mood for the day is drastically altered; he'll skip out on school, trying to sort out his feelings on the matter. Tommy's still AWOL, and he's trying not to worry Teddy, but what he's just been told has really got him thinking- about people, and heroes, and the unfairness of mankind in general. And eventually he'll just go ahead and return to his journal for it. He's kind of in over his head here.]

[Open to All]

I know Luceti's full of heroes- seems kind of a standard trait for most of us, for whatever reason. Back on my world, super-humans aren't that uncommon, and in general they're revered for everything they do for the world. Some of them were born that way, and some of them are from other planets, and some were altered to get their powers, and some have a lot of talent or skill instead of powers. But they're all considered to be super heroes. There's bad guys, too- just as diverse and unique as the heroes they fight. People fear them and celebrate their defeat.

There's another group, though... humans who got their powers because of evolution. It's much more natural, in a lot of ways. Some are heroes, some are villains. Some are just trying to get by without becoming one or the other. But regular humans fear them, and hate them for it, even if they save the world just as much as the heroes they love. They're called criminals or monsters, no matter how innocent they might be.

[He hesitates- it's probably obvious to some, what he's talking about, and he's not sure if he should lock it from the mutant population, or apologize, or something, but it relates to them even if it's not by name. Hiding it wouldn't be right.

In the end he just leaves it be.]

...Sorry for the ramble. But it's not fair, and... I just can't understand why. Why hate one and love the other, when they're basically the same?

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Eventually, yeah. I mean, to the extent that we sort of matter to them, for better or worse. When the SRA went live and SHIELD came calling, Cap and his team rescued us.

[That forces Pepper to pause, and she glances away as she goes over what details she knows about the SRA and that time.]

Did--did your world's Iron Man go after you too?

[Billy hesitates at that, his gaze abruptly dropping to the table.]

Is that really the kind of question you want to be asking?

[He knows how unpleasant she finds the whole situation, and how unfair it is to drag Tony's name through the mud. But belatedly he realizes that avoiding the answer can be just as bad as saying yes, so after a moment he continues. It's his own fault for bringing it up in the first place.]

Not... that time. He led an ambush at a chemical plant, which is when I got caught. But it's mostly SHIELD who takes care of that part. He's just the frontrunner.

[And he'd just beaten Cap into a bloody pulp, or so he'd been told. Thank god he'd been unconscious for that part.]

Of course it isn't. [But now that the shock of it is long past, and Pepper's certain her Tony is seen differently, there's something in her that needs to know.

Or maybe something that had already guessed. Billy gives her an answer a moment later, and she shakes her head slowly.]

You know, there are times I want to meet him, almost. That Tony Stark. Just to try and understand why.

[To figure out the events so Pepper could try and prevent them, even if she knows it's so much larger than her. After all, there's a version of her there too, and that hadn't made a difference.

Maybe that's why she says what she does a moment later.] I'm sorry.

...It's okay.

[His response is almost automatic, half-practiced; apologies from people without blame just make him uncomfortable, especially since no one he does blame have bothered to apologize.]

I mean, it's not like he's... evil, or anything. He just- the way it happened was wrong. It was too fast, too... severe. They wanted us all to decide how we'd lead the rest of our entire lives in a matter of days. And if you didn't sign up, you get tossed in a super-prison for life. I'm sixteen, how the hell am I supposed to know what I want to do for the next thirty years?

[He'd always dreamed of being a super hero, ever since he was a kid. But that didn't mean he was ready to sign himself over to the government in order to stay as one.]

I don't blame you for wanting to meet him. But he's just... he's really good at making people believe what he's doing is right.

[No it isn't. Because even if Pepper really is blameless, it's hard not to want to apologize for everything Billy's gone through anyway. He's just a kid, as he himself says so perfectly moments later, regardless of his abilities or the role he plays.

He's still just a kid, and someone should apologize for what's happened.]

Most people don't know that even at my age. [She smiles weakly as she shakes her head. And it only gets worse in a way, when Billy describes the Tony he knows. That man is not her Tony, the person she's in love with, but Pepper can still hear his voice saying words from years ago, when she had been ready to walk away from him out of fear he'd be killing himself.]

That might turn out to be a universal trait. For as off-putting as his attitude can be sometimes, Tony's surprisingly charismatic too.

Yeah, that really doesn't surprise me. It might also be experience? I mean, my world's Tony Stark has been Iron Man for a long time. Like 20-something years long. No matter how confident or charismatic you are, this kind of life can change someone over time. I've barely been doing this for a year and I feel like a totally different person than the day I started.

[For better or for worse. Though, despite all the awful things he's witnessed or experienced since meeting Nate, he likes to think it's mostly for better.

He also doesn't want to make her worry more, so after a moment's consideration, he adds-]

But our Tony also isn't dating you, so I think yours has a big advantage there.

Right. I’d heard that. [Twenty years instead of two, and can’t predict how the burden Tony’s taken on will change him, because although there has been definite good, Pepper’s all too aware of the dangers he’s faced too. If she’s truly honest with herself, there’s no way to know if Tony will even live that long—how many times has he almost died already?

But she’s not being honest then. Pepper is very deliberately not thinking about what Tony might be like in twenty years, dead or disillusioned or somehow worse.]

You think so? [Pepper’s been told things like that before, that she’s good for Tony--too good for him, by certain people. Still, it’s hard not to wonder just what happened in that other world that kept the relationship she has from occurring there.]

You know, I think we’ve gotten pretty severely off-topic.

I'm... surprisingly okay with that?

[Honestly, the lightheartedness of- most of that, even if it's not all- has cheered him up somewhat. Talking about Tony and the SRA got him pondering other pleasantries, but at least he wasn't worrying about the fate of his mother. He knows the end result of the war, or at least his fate in all of it. This is different.

This is also a depressing topic, though, as much as the original, so he tries something different. His lips curve into a teasing smile.]

Or are you just trying to steer things away from your love life?

Are you? [Well, far be it from Pepper to undo the good, however unintentional the method is. Billy does look more relaxed, and that had been her goal.] Good.

[And better, since Billy seems ready to veer to a new topic. Pepper's glad for it, and she easily matches Billy's smile as she counters his question.]

Are you sure you want to hear about my love life? Which is apparently more important than I realized, considering the fate of superheroes everywhere apparently hinges on my continued relationship with Tony Stark.

Well, obviously it's in my best interests to make sure you guys are, you know, happy and healthy. So I've gotta keep an eye on things.

[That and he's just a little nosy, that's all. He's never seen Tony with a long-term girlfriend, and as weird as it is, he's digging what it apparently does to the man. And Pepper's happy, which is equally important.]

There's not much new on that front, I'm afraid. Not while Tony's still nine. [But at least he's back, and that's something. Better than him being with the Malnosso.]

We were good before that, though. Things were going well.

Well, no bad news is good news, I guess.

I guess. [Even if it’s hard to see when the person she loves is, for all intents and purposes, still gone.] And the effects will wear off. I can be patient until then—and possibly gather material to tease Tony about later. He’s a pretty cute kid.

He's kinda quirky, isn't he? Got a lot on the brain, that one.

[It's kind of endearing, in that "what are you even talking about, kid" way.]

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