Outing (IC)

[Electra]

Erin sat back in her chair and regarded Mark with some surprise. He was probably the last person she'd ever have thought to hear talking that way. He was third generation hero after all, and always the most gung-ho of anyone about following hero protocols and being around for photo ops and the other trappings of organized hero work. She would've thought he'd go straight for a spot on the main League, and he had a good chance of getting it, too. "What are you thinking about doing?" she asked.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled flier, one of the brochures Erin had seen in Dr. Marquez' office. "UNISON, the big UN super-agency, they hire people with superpowers who want to do more than just hero work with them. I...I haven't actually sent them anything yet, but I know they look for people with powers like mine, that let them go into villages and things and feed people." He smiled thinly. "I'm not...I'm not really going to be a good student, and I don't think college is going to be in the cards. Not one that would actually help me. But something like this, that would be really nice."

[Electra]

Erin nodded. "I think you'd do really well there," she told him sincerely. "You have a good heart, and you want to help people. Those people really need help badly." She grinned a little. "They could use a little luck, I imagine. And I know what you mean, if Claremont is preparing us and teaching us everything we need to know to be heroes, why do we need college if heroes is what we're going to be? It just seems like wasting time and effort. Have you applied yet?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Not yet," said Mark, looking down at the brochure. "I haven't, uh, talked about it with my mom yet. I don't know what she wants. Sometimes she wants me to stay close at hand, in the city or even living at home, other times she says I should be off adventuring in the world. She's worried about me, and I'm worried about her. I think she'll be happy, but I guess I'm afraid of her freaking out or something. But...but I really think this would be something good to do. I want to have a life besides the one in costume. A life that helps other people just the same."

[Electra]

"I'm sure she'll be happy for you," Erin encouraged. "Even if you're far away working, it's not like you can't pop home once a week, or if there's an emergency. It's sort of the best of both worlds. I know she'll be proud of you for wanting to help people. Anyway, you've got some time still, senior year is just starting. Maybe you can drop hints or something." She wasn't at all confident of Mark's ability to be subtle, but it was maybe worth a shot.

[Avenger Assembled]

"What about you?" Mark asked Erin, trying to deflect attention away from his own doubts about his family's long and complicated history. Erin's life was easier to think about than his own, at least. "I mean as strong and fast as you are, you could do almost anything. The League would hire you on in a minute, and places like UNISON take strong people too. Your powers are good anywhere."

[Electra]

"My powers are useful, but my backgrounds' kind of a problem," Erin told him, treating that like the monumental understatement it was. "Any group that went to hire me on would get to see my sealed records, and I doubt they'd want to take that on when they could easily get someone else to fetch and carry or hit things really hard." She crumpled her empty coffee cup and tossed it into the trash can. "I'm hoping I can really manage to impress the League this year, so maybe they'll take me on anyway. Otherwise, I dunno. Maybe I'll start my own moving company out of my truck. Wouldn't need a partner to carry stuff or anything, y'know?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"One Woman and a Truck, huh? Sounds catchy." Mark grinned, and teased a little, "Hey, maybe you can get Trevor to build you a truck that expands in the back, so you can take it from panel truck to pickup and back again. He seems, uh, pretty handy." He hmmed, not wanting to embarrass Erin when she was being so nice to him. She was a little shy about her relationship with Trevor, for all that they were freaking adorable together. "I guess he's probably going to college."

[Electra]

"Yeah, I guess he will," Erin said thoughtfully. It wasn't something she'd really considered before now, though she probably should have. "He's really smart, and he's got that secret identity to take care of. It would probably look weird if he didn't go to some fancy college in New England." She scratched her head uncomfortably and got up to pour another cup of coffee. Depending on where she managed to find work, that could put quite a bit of distance between them. It wasn't a happy thought. "He's already done some work on my truck," she told Mark, "made it faster and all that. But I don't think I want to make it a panel truck, that would kind of spoil the look. Has your mom gone back to writing again?" she asked, picking the best lever she knew to switch conversational tracks.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Yeah, I mean, we've got to pay the bills. We got a lawyer, uh, Lady Liberty, actually," he added in a murmur, "so we can access my dad's savings, but we don't know how long it's going to be there. He made a lot of money, but we can't just blow through it. She was just about to run through her script backlog, and she couldn't just let it go, even if her editor was very sympathetic." He chuckled faintly. "Comic book editors aren't very heroic. I guess it's the nature of the job."

[Electra]

"Guess not," Erin agreed, walking around the room to stretch her legs. "But writing, even if it's because she has to, is probably going to be good for her. Doing creative work can really help people recover from bad things that happen. And people really like her work, too. I picked up a couple issues of Andy, they were funny." She wound up back at the coffee carafe. "You want more of this stuff?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"The more the better," agreed Mark. He did his usual ritual of dumping in sugar and creamer, and together they both sipped the coffee silently until suddenly a voice came over Mark's beacon. It was a man, singing "You Are My Sunshine," in a low, gentle voice. Mark's hand turned white on the cup, and he nearly dropped the coffee before setting it aside. "That's not my grandma," he whispered to Erin, his face white and voice strained. "That's my dad..."

[Electra]

Erin stiffened, looking towards the room where Mark's grandma was sleeping. Rick Lucas was a very dangerous man, she knew. but if he was just paying a visit to his sick mother, it might not be wise to antagonize him. Still, it went very much against the grain to let him go unsupervised, when god knew what he might decide to get up to. She wasn't at all sure he was entirely sane anymore, or what his state of mind was. "What do you want to do?" she asked Mark in a murmur.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark scrubbed his eyes and took a deep breath, listening to the gentle singing of that so familiar, now lost voice. "He used to sing that to me when I was going to bed," he murmured quietly, childhood memories thick in his throat. "Every night when I was little, or couldn't sleep. I guess he learned it from Grandma Stephy." As if making a decision, he got to his feet and headed for the corridor. "I'm going to go talk to him," he finally said.

[Electra]

Erin followed him, without waiting for an invitation. She could totally understand why Mark wanted the chance to see and speak with his dad again, but she wasn't going to let him do it alone. Mark didn't have any kind of judgement when it came to his dad, and if things started to go south, someone had to be there to intervene long before Mark realized anything was wrong. And she wasn't afraid of Rick Lucas. He'd already proven that he had nothing to give or take away from her.

[Avenger Assembled]

When Mark opened the door, Rick Lucas was sitting at his sleeping mother's bedside. He looked up at the teens as they entered, and Mark let out a soft, painful gasp. Rick Lucas had remade himself while he was gone, the old man in his mid-sixties now a youthful-looking, vigorous young man in his twenties. He looked like Mark might look in another few years, or like Rick himself had looked many years earlier. Back when the League was formed. Back before he knew Mom, Mark thought painfully. He and his father locked eyes as age blended back onto Rick's face, until by the time Mark spoke a clear doppleganger of his father was still standing there.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered, his hands clenched painfully into fists at his side.

"Exactly what it looks like," said Rick, leaning back to study his son, still in the 50s leather jacket and jeans he'd started out wearing. "Your grandmother is sick, so I'm paying her visit."

"You didn't visit her before," Mark shot back accusingly, "Or me. Or Mom!" Stephy Lucas stirred at that, but didn't wake up.

"Mark, you know I can't do that," said Rick, trying to sound in control of the situation and failing. "Even being here now, is so hard, I...I'd have come if you or your mother were in danger, just like this."

[Electra]

"Maybe you should explain it to him," Erin suggested. Her heart twisted for Mark, who wore all his emotions so clearly on his face, but she kept her own impassive. "What exactly are the rules for you now? We know you aren't dead, and we know you can bend reality in really weird ways, but not much else. Maybe it would help if you tell him exactly what's going on." She folded her arms and stayed back by the door, watchful.

[Avenger Assembled]

Rick hemmed and hawed at that for a moment, before the hard, painful look from his son got him talking. "I'm no longer from this place, from this world. Maybe I never was, really, but it didn't matter until I changed things. The world is very...protective of itself, when it comes to magic. Coming here alone, for family, is all I can do, and even that's so...so difficult. The world resists attempts to change it, especially from someone who's already done it once."

"Well...give it all up," said Mark suddenly, giving his father almost a pleading look. "I know you were just trying to save me, Dad. I don't blame you for what happened; I never could. Those things that happened were just mistakes, or accidents. That's not the real you."

"Isn't it, son?" Rick's eyes hardened, or rather, seemed to turn inward. "Maybe I didn't mean to do all those things, but I still wanted them. Wanted to shut that pompous bastard Ray Gardener up forever, wanted to kill those monsters who abandoned your friend..."

"What, Trevor's parents?"

"Parents who abandon their children don't deserve to live," said Rick fiercely. He calmed himself, looking away, then said, "And...and maybe I didn't mean it, not for it to happen the way it did, but how could I look them in the eye afterwards? Forty years in the business, twenty-five years with the Centurion, and one terrible day wipes it all away."

[Electra]

Erin listened to Rick's diatribe in growing disbelief, but checked herself before saying something that might be too inflammatory for the volatile reality warper. She couldn't be silent at the end of it, though. "You won't come back," she asked very carefully, "because you're too embarrassed of what your friends will think about you losing control? Mr. Lucas, if everyone at Claremont felt that way, we wouldn't have any students left." Honestly, she couldn't believe he'd put his ego above his wife and kid. Well, she could believe it, but she really preferred not to. Saying that right out, though, would probably be unwise.

[Avenger Assembled]

"That's not quite it, is it, Dad?" asked Mark, looking at his father with new eyes. "You don't want to come back because you left in the first place. All my life, you told me to face my problems like a man, but you ran away, without any word, and now you can't come back without everyone knowing what you did, and that you couldn't deal with it, because everything you taught me was..."

"No. Not all of it." The grief was written large on RIck's old man's face. "Just the parts about me. Just the parts where I thought I was good enough to be your father." He looked up suddenly, the darkening shadows in the room seeming to thicken. "Oh. They're coming for me soon. Listen to me, both of you," he said desperately, rising to his feet as he stretched across the bed. "There's something coming, something I'm forbidden to stop. But you can, both of you, and your friends. It's the Terminus, they're planning to-"

A gravely whisper spoke from the darkness, one Mark and Erin both recognized as the genie who'd adventured alongside Jimmy Lucas for so many years. The real genetic father of Rick Lucas. "It's time to go, son."

Rick's face almost crumpled as he said aloud, "You're. Not. My. Faaaaather..." He started to disappear at the last words, and, too late, Mark reached desperately across the bed for his father's hand, just brushing it as his father vanished into a cloud of darkness over the echo of his last despairing word. Mark stared at the place where his father had been and covered his face.

He breathed a single, pained syllable. "Ohh..."

[Electra]

Erin went over to Mark, standing behind him and putting her hand on his shoulder. She had no words to comfort him the way someone smarter or more socially clever might, but she could be there, even if it was all she could do. Glancing over, she saw that Mark's grandmother was still resting peacefully, having slept through the whole interlude. That was probably for the best, it would just be too painful to have to try and explain.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark wept softly, covering his face in his hands, managing to stay upright through sheer force of will. "It's not fair," he murmured to himself, his voice thick with pain, "It's...it's not supposed to be like this, uhhh..." The words broke up into soft, undramatic sobs when he couldn't talk anymore. When it was done, he pulled himself away from Erin and took some soft, pained breaths.

And then came the singing, in a thready old woman's voice, from the bed. "You make me happyyy, when skies are grey..." Stephy Lucas blinked at both of them. "Markie? Honey, you're crying." She reached up a frail old hand to touch her grandson's face, Mark reaching down to take hers. "I'm all right," she said reedily. "It was just the angina."

"I know, Gramma, I know," whispered Mark, "but I love you, so I was worried. That's what family does."

"Oh, my poor grandbaby..." Stephy patted him lightly on the back of the head. "It's after midnight, Markie. Why don't you go home and sleep, and I'll call you and your mamma in the morning? Who's your friend?" she asked curiously.

"This is my friend Erin," said Mark, hugging the frail old woman gently, then looking at Erin. "She's a superhero too, and she came to help. You get some more sleep, Gramma." He smiled at her as he pulled away.

[Electra]

Erin took a couple of steps back towards the door when Mark's grandma woke up, not wanting to intrude, but he was right about the old lady being sharp. "Um, hi Mrs. Lucas," Erin said with an awkward little wave. "It's nice to meet you, I'm glad you're feeling better. Mark has been telling me about all the cool stuff you did with the League back in the fifties and stuff. It's really neat." She wanted to finish backing out of the room and escape, but that would hardly have been heroic, especially with Mark feeling so bad already. Friendship was tough sometimes.

[Avenger Assembled]

"It's nice to meet you too," said the white-haired old lady. "We'll talk more later," she assured Erin. "When I've had my rest and my pills. Good night," she added, before letting her eyes drift shut. Within seconds she was asleep again, and Mark reached down to gently dab a little bit of drool from her face before he and Erin walked out. Only once he was in the corridor did his steps get shaky, Mark heading wordlessly towards the elevator, his tear-streaked face visible now in the light.

[Electra]

Erin followed him to the elevator, shoving her beacon back into her jacket pocket for safekeeping. "She's probably right," Erin offered. "You could use some rest, it's been a hard night. I could give you a ride back to campus, or over to your mom's house, if you'd rather. Hospitals are a lousy place to try and get any sleep." She had no idea what to say about any of the rest of it. "Your grandma sounded pretty good."