fandomhigh | Library, Thursday

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Library, Thursday

Evan was still feeling pretty reserved after the whole maze thing. It was one thing to be kidnapped in a world that kind of accepted the heroes-and-villains thing as a mainstay. But Fandom was supposed to be his safe place. Even when Umbridge took the island over, things hadn't been too bad for him, but being trapped without his powers in a maze that was actively trying to kill him - that had killed people he knew and cared about - that was enough to leave him reeling.

So he was doing more quiet reading at the desk today. Even the books seemed to sense his mood and were more or less behaving themselves, today. Except for the occasional opportunity they'd grabbed to act out the ending of the last of the Space Battles prequel novelizations, which had kind of scarred Evan for life last week.

"You guys are jerks, you know that?"

Heroes were supposed to stay heroes, weren't they? Not...

... Well.

He was going to just ignore the books and get back to reading.

[Open!]

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"I watched the first two movies," Evan replied, drumming his fingers against the top of his desk, "but I like reading more, so I thought I'd try the book instead. They give more insight about what's going in inside the heads of the characters, you know?"

Which might have been a mistake, in this particular case.

Victor nodded. "Right, but it's a lot harder to zone out if one of the characters is being an idiot."

"Or just... really, really horrible," Evan agreed, frowning down at the top of his desk. "I know it's just fiction. It shouldn't bug me so much. But I thought he was a hero, you know? One of the good guys."

And then he turned around and became Apoc-- er-- ~~meta for~~ Darth Vader, instead.

"Wait, you didn't know how the story ended?" Victor asked, frowning right back. "I thought everybody knew what happened next."

Which almost certainly was his way of avoiding dealing with Evan's larger point.

"It's kind of funny how much pop culture you miss out on when you grow up on a small farm in the middle of nowhere in a virtual reality designed to keep you from getting any ideas," Evan replied, wrinkling his nose. "I thought Space Battles was new for the longest time."

"Good point. It's not like he needed you to pass as a cool kid," Victor nodded.

Not that he thought it was one of Ultron's foremost concerns either, but apparently his idea of a 'normal childhood' to build into Victor's memories had included Space Battles. Or ... something.

"Okay, so you're reading the story for the first time, and -- yeah." He wrinkled his nose. "I can see where it'd suck if you didn't now it was coming. You don't expect people to just go dark like that. There have to be signs, right?"

"You would think," Evan agreed with a little nod. "I mean, he wasn't bad until he was horrible, and then he was really horrible. It was... I don't know. It kind of scared me."

"I don't think that's how it happens," Victor said, hearing the unstated worry. (And possibly projecting a little.) "The way you grow up, the person you are ... that all matters, right? You don't just change."

"No, I guess you don't," Evan murmured. "But maybe there are things that are big enough that could change a person. Or... at least show them that their upper limit isn't anywhere near where they used to think it really was."

"Maybe." Victor sounded resigned to the possibility, at least. "But you see people find an upper limit way higher than they knew it was, too, right?"

Evan nodded a tiny bit.

"I guess... I don't know. I know he's not even real. He's just made-up for some movies that aren't even close to being realistic anyhow, right?"

But maybe that was a sticking point, too. Evan still wasn't sure what was and wasn't real, these days.

"The whole thing's a big fairy tale," Victor nodded. "Like Cinderella or Paul Bunyan or something."

A fraction of a pause, then: "But if it gets to you, it gets to you."

"That's what people tell stories for, right? To get to you?"

Evan was fidgeting a little, now, his eyes back on the top of his desk.

"I guess this one just gets to me a little more than some others might. I wanted to think he could be the hero and then I was wrong, and that's not something I want to get into the habit of being wrong about."

"That makes two of us," Victor said, brushing hair out of his eyes. "You don't want to start following somebody around who's going to stab you in the back. Even in a story."

"Even in a story," Evan echoed quietly. "And I should know better by now. People are... are liars. I can't just go assuming the best of everyone just because they seem like good people at first glance."

That had been a horrible lesson to learn.

"Did something happen." Victor asked, then thought to clarify because of course something had happened. "Recently. You sound really down."

There was a moment's silence, before Evan hitched his shoulders up a little in a shrug.

"I've just been thinking," he admitted. "The... the maze thing probably started it. Sholeh got pretty badly hurt in there, and I think it was someone she really trusted that did it. A-and I tried not to think about it too much, but I can't help but think about all of the people back at the Jean Grey School who must have known something about me but decided to keep it a secret anyway, and it's just... tiring, not being able to do anything about things like that. Not being able to see it coming, when it should be so obvious that someone out there is doing something to hurt people."

"Oh." Victor hesitated, there, because he couldn't argue with any of that. "Yeah. I got killed in the dungeons. Still really bothered by that and ... other things."

Mostly what Gert's ghost had said.

"Maybe people just suck."

He didn't honest;y think that, but arguing this kind of thing, being a cheerleader for something he wasn't sure he believed in, was going to make him tired. Easier to let himself fully feel his pessimism for a moment.

"Maybe they do," Evan replied, sounding all too tired, himself. "I'm starting to wonder if it's not a matter of heroes and villains so much as it's a matter of victims, and the people that want to hurt them."

Where did heroes figure in the world, when even the heroes had lied to him?

Victor's jaw clenched. "I still believe in heroes," he said. "I get it, it's cheesy, but -- I'm not going to be a victim. That's giving up."

The world needed heroes, from what he could tell. Even if they messed up a lot.

"All I ever wanted to be is a hero," Evan admitted softly. "And I've never been that. I'm pretty good at being a victim though, apparently."

That bothered him, too.

"I don't want to be, anymore. I need to be... not that. And not the person who hurts people. I just need to find a way to keep believing in heroes when all of mine have done nothing but lie to me."

Except for Deadpool. Deadpool hadn't lied to him.

Victor raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to hear what I actually think, or do you want to feel sorry for yourself?" he asked. "'Cause if this is a pity party, guest list 1, I'm not going to get in your way. God knows everybody needs one of those once in a while."

Evan sat quietly for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek. And then, after taking a deep breath, he shrugged his shoulders.

"I've been feeling sorry for myself a lot lately. If you have something to bring to the table that's... helpful? I'd like to hear it. I have nothing. I mean... I've been trying, but I really don't have any sort of starting point."

So far, the most useful coping strategy he'd gotten since he'd been kidnapped came from Wade, in the form of porno magazines that he hadn't actually used. Because weird.

"I haven't been through what you've been through," Victor cautioned. "So I might be talking out my ass. But you sound to me like you're waiting for somebody else to tell you how to be a hero. Or like you think only the people at Jean Grey school count, when we live on this insane amazing school where like half the people fight bad guys one way or another. (And, not that I know every second of your life, but most of us aren't liars, either.)

"I mean, Gert Yorkes -- take away her dinosaur and all she can do is be sarcastic until you cry, and I'm pretty sure she thinks of herself as a hero. So to hear you be like this, when from what you've said you can beat me into a bunch of bloody circuits any time you feel like it ... do you get why it's a little tough to take?"

That was an incredibly long speech, by Victor's standards; he had to pause there to catch his breath.

"The point is," he said more gently, "you can be a hero. Just do it."

Evan listened to what Victor was saying, quietly, letting him get what he wanted to say off of his chest. And then he pulled in a deep breath of his own.

"Being able to beat someone into a pulp isn't the same as being strong, though." Or being good. And neither was being a hero, was it? "It's... maybe it's knowing when not to, but I've been kind of bad at that, too."

Evan's temper, when he lost it, was very literally explosive.

"I want to just do it. I want to go out there and save the world, if I can. And maybe the people at the Jean Grey School aren't the definition of heroism, but... I don't know. I'm maybe two years old here in the real world at best and I'm kind of lacking for good examples. I was ready to take everything Magneto said to heart, and Loki, and Deadpool and people keep telling me I'm choosing wrong but at least they were all honest to me."

He was kind of hurting for role models that people thought of as acceptable, here.

"So, you say you believe in heroes, and I'm stuck all the way back at trying to figure out what a hero even is."

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