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Library, Thursday

Evan wasn't anything even remotely resembling productive today during his library shift, no. He'd shown up, and had given a glance to the books that were in need of re-shelving, and had sighed and made a reach for a few. He could take the whole cart with him, but he was caught somewhere between listless and antsy in the worst way, and making a few laps around the library today really couldn't hurt until he managed to figure out which he was going to settle on.

By the time he got back to the desk from shelving those ones, the cart was a little more empty than he remembered leaving it. Another wander into the stacks revealed the reason why- a few of the more uplifting titles had gone ahead and shelved themselves, so that he wouldn't have to.

At least that got a bit of a smile out of him. There was a reason he liked books so much, see?

[Open!]

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You might know exactly what you need, after all.

He's settled on 'listless,' at some point through the day, and is mostly writing off productivity entirely in favor of halfheartedly flipping through a book about positive thinking.

If he's in today!

I want to follow Evan's lead and accomplish nothing at all today. Hngh, effort.

Victor had found something that made him sheepish under his bed the night before, and now he was in the library to make things right.

"Hey," he said. "So, uh, I ~~handwavily~~ told you guys I lost one of those poetry books I took out during black and white week? Turns out it got kind of eaten by the junk under my bed." He held up the paperback by way of proof. "I figured I should at least hand it back."

"Huh, look at that. It'll be happier here among more of its kind than being eaten by under-the-bed junk, I'm sure." Evan gave the book a little tilt of his head, and then offered Victor a tiny, trying to be sincere sort of smile as he reached for it. "But now what are you going to play oatmeal bongos to?"

It was a nice, safe, pleasant topic. Evan could totally go for one of those, today.

"Y'know, I've fallen way behind on my bongo practice," Victor said, returning the smile as he passed the book over the counter. He actually was in a pleasant kind of mood, so it was easy. "Which is another reason Ginsberg will be happier here, right?"

"Just one of many, I'm sure." Evan looked quietly at the book, turning it over in his hands.

A question of the soul.
And the injured
losing their injury
in their innocence.

He shrugged, and then set it face-up on the book cart.

"Not the sort of thing you usually read, I guess? Not going by where you found it, I mean."

"Not at all," Victor said, vaguely apologetic. "I mean, I like it fine, but mostly I read comic books and techie stuff. Guess there are reasons I work in the repair shop and you work here. You read poetry for real?"

"I'll read anything," Evan replied, glancing at the book cart. "Poetry, novels, history books. I'm not really big on comic books, but I do pick up computer magazines and stuff like that sometimes, too. I... guess I just like to know how things work."

"History's fun," Victor nodded. "Funny. Guess it's about 'how things work' just as much as technology is, isn't it? All the patterns and backstories behind every little thing."

Evan's answering nod was tiny, but it was there.

"I think I was looking for answers, and I didn't even know it at the time. Have you ever done that? Spent time looking into something that was... it was huge, and you didn't know why until it jumped up and bit you in the face?"

Christ, even his dog had a name that was borderline-Apocalypse. Evan wrinkled his nose a little, and then tried to shake it off.

"Yeah," Victor said, as if the ground was shifting underneath his feet. "I mean, it didn't start out that way, and I don't want to get into my entire life story, but -- I've definitely asked questions and then wished I hadn't when I found out the answers."

It went along with having Ultron for a dad.

He looked Evan over more closely. "Same thing for you?"

Evan gave a tiny nod, looking down at the top of his desk as if he was quietly begging it to go back in time to make him un-ask that question. Because desks could totally do that, sure.

"Living in ignorance wasn't as bad as I thought it was." Go figure. "And then answers come along, like it or not, and... just... nothing makes sense any more. Not all knowledge is worth what it costs to find out."

Yup. Those library fines could be brutal.

"I don't know about that, man," Victor said gingerly. "Maybe you're right about some stuff. But if you keep not knowing, you can't do anything to change things. It's more comfortable in the short term, but in the long term ..."

He sighed, studied the desk himself as he decided not to speak in generalities anymore. It was going to make his head hurt, and he had a feeling it wasn't like he'd shock Evan.

"I was supposed to be a supervillain," he said. "That's the reason I even exist. If I hadn't found that out, I'd still be on the path to killing a whole bunch of people I respect. So I can't be too into ignorance."

Evan bit the inside of his cheek at that. Nope, he wasn't shocked, but then, maybe it was just that he was too tired to be surprised by much, right now.

"I... Didn't know that." Obviously. He looked up from the desk, giving Victor a thoughtful sort of once-over, and then gave a ragged little exhale. "I'm glad you're not, then. I mean... Not being a villain. That you're trying to... not to... I mean... that's great."

Usually he was better at words.

"I'm a clone," he said, abruptly. "Of Apocalypse." Because that would totally shock anyone who knew what Apocalypse looked like, right? "A-an experiment, to see if I would b-become a supervillain or if being raised right would make me a good person. Nature versus nurture. I used to read books about that. And Egyptian history and legend and gods and about evolution and genetics a-and about all sorts of... of that sort of thing."

Evan looked like he might cry soon; Victor wondered if he'd seemed the same way to his team when he first heard the whole story. (Probably not. He remembered being a lot angrier, and then absorbed by the miracle that he was a superhero.) The clone explanation answered something he'd wondered about for months, and he accepted it with a small nod.

"It's not the first thing I tell people," he began sympathetically. "Me being an android, fine, people can deal with that, but the supervillain, made-by-Ultron thing ... I think about four people here know. I'm not ashamed, it just -- leads to a bunch of conversations I don't really want to have with some pendejo who's never going to have the first clue what it feels like anyhow."

He gnawed a bit more on a thumbnail.

"How long have you known?" he asked. "'Cause if it's new ... it does get easier. At least for me it did. Nurture's --- important."

"It's been... a week," Evan mumbled, looking back down at the top of his desk. "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants grabbed me, and... told me the truth."

That was a nice way to put it.

"How do you deal with it? With... I mean... my whole life was a lie. My home, my f-family..."

He needed to stop, and swallow a lump in his throat. He was really trying not to cry, especially not while he was working, and to poor Victor who had really just wanted to drop off a book, but some things... How did you mourn parents that had never been real in the first place?

"I was mad," Victor admitted. "Still am sometimes. My mom was pretty much a saint, but the idea she started talking to a robot in a trash heap and decided to make a kid with him, and then lied to me about it -- I'm glad to be here, but I have no idea what the hell she was thinking."

Marianella Mancha had paid a heavy price for being dumb, and that made it hard for Victor to be too angry. But.

"But the big difference is that I didn't know I had powers until then," he continued. "And leaving school, trying to convince my team I wasn't going to kill them in their sleep, being a hero like I'd always wanted all of a sudden -- I had a lot more new stuff on my mind than just fake memories. Mostly I tried not to think about it." He grimaced. "Maybe something about my programming made it easier too, I don't know. Anyhow, after a while, I realized I was the same me I'd always been. Even if I was wrong about -- a lot of other things."

Edited 2013-03-07 21:01 (UTC)

Evan nodded silently along. There were definite parallels between Victor's story and his own. He had no idea what the hell his Uncle Cluster had been thinking, either. But then, it didn't sound like Victor's mom had murdered someone before deciding to make him, either.

"Do you suppose... I'm the same person I always was, too? I don't know. I just..." The desk was still fascinating. Very fascinating. "I almost killed them. Sabretooth, Mystique. They hurt me so much, they killed my Uncle... I stopped thinking and just..."

He waved his hands a little. That was like words too, right?

"Sorry about your uncle," Victor winced. "Kind of think anybody might lash out after that."

Apparently android nails were the tastiest substance on the planet, from the way he kept gnawing on his. "I don't know," he finally said. "For me, I feel like if I'm not doing the best I can to be, y'know, a good person, Ultron kind of wins even if I don't go out and kill a bunch of Avengers. But I don't know if that's the way you think, or...."

With half a shaky smile, he added, "I'm not looking at you any different, if that helps."

"It does," Evan murmured. "They call me Kid Apocalypse at my other school, and a monster and a killer and a villain just waiting for an opportunity to... I don't know... destroy all humans or something. That's why I came here, to get away from that. And now I know they're right, and I don't want to let them be. But..."

He tilted his head at Victor.

"Most people just think I look like Professor Starsmore. But you're from a world like mine. You know who Apocalypse is. And you never treated me weirdly. That means a lot."

"Thanks, but ... Evan, everybody on my team has parents who were pretty awful people," Victor explained. "Not as bad as our -- whatever you want to call them -- but murderers and general scumbags. If I knew that and still ran around judging people for who I thought they might be related to, I'd be a, an idiot and b, the biggest hypocrite on the planet. Also, you're the least destroy-all-humans blue person I have ever met. Did the people at your old school even talk to you?"

"Idie and Broo and Angel do," Evan replied, chewing his lip. "They're all really nice. Angel is probably the only one I'd call a friend, though."

Evan was going to not think too hard on the fact that Angel had lied to his face once to make him feel better. It was... way easier, that way.

"It's Quire that's the worst. He's... he's a telepath. He knows what I'm like, and he's still the loudest about everything. I think he just likes being cruel for the sake of proving that he can. He was right all along about what I am, though."

"Maybe he could tell somehow," Victor offered. "Like ... mental DNA. Doesn't mean he's not a jerk."

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