maskormenacelogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: EVERYONE
WHERE: a park by the beach, Heropa
WHEN: All day Saturday the 31st
WHAT: A big imPort charity fair!
WARNINGS: Everyone's traumatic past and all that entails. No really. Everyone's. Please use your own discretion.

There's an imPort charity fair going on down at a park by the beach in fair Heropa, today! You've probably seen it advertised for a couple of weeks, now. In the newspaper, on the network, flyers on street posts-- so on and so forth. All proceeds go towards the safety net fund for unsettled imPorts! Their aim as stated is to ensure all imPorts who come here-- especially children-- don't feel pressured in to registering just because they're worried they won't be able to get a job or have anywhere to live otherwise. They've been around for a while. Perhaps you've received help from them already, or heard of them in passing.

Perhaps you're just lured by the promise of food and drink.

Or perhaps you'd like to try to try your hand at some of the amateur game stalls set up?

Maybe you were just walking past and came to see what all the commotion was about.

Or maybe you're genuinely interested in the charity and wished to put a donation straight in the box, or wanted to suss out the man in charge. (Mandrake's around, talking to potential donors.)

Maybe you've come because you're interested in the advertisement of the charity's free resume building help and networking services for imPorts.

Or perhaps, like any seasoned imPort, you just don't trust large gatherings of imPorts in one place to not go wrong, and you're here on guard in case the worst should happen.

Whatever the case, the weather is fine and the fair seems to be bustling. Plenty of imPort-sympathetic locals are here as well, mingling and generally having a good time. What are you doing in the crowd?

[You may officially begin your memory sharing shenanigans! As per the OOC post, characters don't have to participate in this log to participate in the plot, but the purpose of the log is to help facilitate as much memory sharing in one place as possible to avoid flooding. Side-effects should wear off on imPorts by Sunday night!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ He hadn't even realized Barnaby was in the armor, he was so distracted by everything else going on. Watching Barnaby walk in it is calming; he's making mental notes as a distracting, noting the way the actuators move and suchlike. By the time time they sit, he's calmed somewhat, even if he's still feeling rather numb.

He's silent for a moment at that question. Normally, he'd be vague and brush them off, but ... Barnaby saw that memory. He'll understand the full significance of Hiro's reply. ]

No. They both died when I was three.

I'm sorry.

[Barnaby closes his eyes for a moment. That's what he'd been afraid to hear. And, after experiencing that memory, he knows he doesn't have to ask whether Hiro has any other siblings. His sheer elation at the prospect of going to the same school as Tadashi suggests there really wasn't anyone else, outside of perhaps some other legal guardians.]

Losing family hurts. People who don't understand tell you that they're not really gone as long as you remember them. To some extent that's true, but memories don't fix the hole they left behind.

[ He lets out his breath in a long huff. Boy, that sounds familiar. ]

Everyone keeps saying "Tadashi is here." And he is, I guess, as long as I'm living up to what he would want me to do. But I'd rather have my brother back.

It's natural to feel that way. [Inevitably, you'll have to accept reality in order to live for the future, but that doesn't mean you stop missing them.]

He seems like he was a good man, someone who didn't feel right unless he was helping others. [A man with a big, dumb heart who acted a little too recklessly, putting people before himself and not stopping to think how much it might hurt those closest to him.

That sounds an awful lot like someone he knows, now that he thinks about it.]

Good, definitely. Wish he'd been a little more selfish just this once, though. It's just me and Aunt Cass now.

[ So at least he's got some kind of guardian, but that still is an awful bitty family. ]

[Barnaby personally wouldn't call staying out of the blaze selfish. Kotetsu throws himself into all kinds of dangerous situations, sure, but at least he's a professional hero with over a decade's worth of experience under his belt. In Tadashi's case, he was a robotics engineering student with a little brother to look after. He shouldn't have left Hiro behind like that.

Of course, he's not going to actually say all that, so instead he gives a small nod and asks:]

Does she treat you well?

[ Hiro would agree with all of that, okay. He's just not sure how to express himself about the incident, even eight months later. ]

Yeah, I love Aunt Cass. She keeps saying she's terrible at it, and maybe she is, but she tries.

She must not be as terrible as she thinks. [Hiro's a good kid, and while part of it may be innate, part of it was likely influenced by the environment he grew up in too.] I know it doesn't make things hurt any less, but I'm glad you have someone waiting for you back home.

She's not terrible. She's just ... I dunno. Tadashi kind of raised me, I think.

But I'm glad she's there too.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize. [A small frown tugs at Barnaby's features. Hiro's still got awhile left to go before he reaches adulthood. Although he can't say he knows the boy well at all, the absence of a reliable parental figure, the grief and hurt from that kind of loss, plus his immense capabilities could send him plunging into the deep end. Barnaby knows, because that's what nearly happened to him.

After a moment's hesitation, he quietly adds:]

Also, I apologize if I lost my composure a little bit back there. The truth is, I lost my family during a fire too.

[ Funny you should say that. The other option for a terrible memory was going to be Hiro attempting murder, so ... Hiro looks up at Barnaby kind of sharply. Eyes going wide. ]

You did? Who? Wait, so when you saw mine ...

[To be fair, it's kind of hard to stop yourself from attempting murder if the person responsible isn't sorry for what they did. Barnaby's been down that road a couple of times by now, although he wasn't fully himself during one of those instances -- but partly because it's a weakness of his that people can exploit if they know how to manipulate him.]

My parents. They were the only living relatives I had left. [It's true that Hiro's memory made him a little weak-kneed for more reasons than just the shock. As a hero, he's had to learn to deal with fire during rescue situations, but even now the sight of things burning occasionally fills his chest with a ball of panic and anxiety that makes it hard to take a deep breath -- or worse, makes him relieve the entire ordeal all over again.]

I knew right away that the memory I saw didn't belong to me, so please don't worry. [Not that whether it's his or not really matters, but he doesn't want Hiro to feel guilty about it.]

[ Too late, he was already guilty. And this is even worse. In some ways, Tadashi was Hiro's parent so it's not like he has to stretch real far to imagine what it feels like to lose your only family to a fire like that. ]

Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. I'd be terrified. I can't ... I can't even get close to a campfire without remembering too much.

That's understandable, especially since it sounds like it happened pretty recently. I went through the exact same thing. In order to become a hero, though, I learned to set it aside long enough to do my job when necessary. So, really, I'm fine.

[He doesn't want to lie to Hiro and pretend that the hurt and fear associated with flames ever completely went away, but he does want to underscore that it's not an entirely fair comparison for him to make. After all, Barnaby has had two decades to learn to live with what happened to him.]

April of last year.

[ He swipes at his face with the heel of his hand, taking in a deep breath. ]

I guess ... I guess you have to. You can't just freeze up in front of a burning building.

[He doesn't know how many months ago that was, exactly, since timelines don't always mesh up here. But it sounds too recent for someone so young to deal with a new world on top of everything else. It's only been eight months since Barnaby himself lost Aunt Samantha, and...everything else he'd known, when he thinks about it. If not for Kotetsu, he likely would have locked his suit away, not bothering with registration, hero work, or anything else involving other people.

The fact Hiro is out and about, with a respectable job doing something he loves, speaks well of his future here, to say nothing of his potential to live life to the fullest.

But enough getting lost in his own thoughts. Barnaby offers Hiro a small smile and lightly wraps his gloved knuckles against the armor covering his leg.] Having a fire-resistant suit helps. And if I'm caught without my suit, I still have my powers and my partner.

[ It's been just about eight months, coincidentally enough. And he's younger, so eight months feels like it's been longer for him. But still, even with the progress he's made in that time, it's terribly easy for someone as young as him to go back off the rails. The difference between Hiro the superhero and Hiro the supervillain is one bad day. ]

Fire resistant, huh ...I can't do the powers, but I could make the suit.

[Barnaby takes pause at that, regarding Hiro with raised eyebrows.] You mean...like a powersuit?

[His tone is mild enough. He doesn't want to sound accusatory, after all. But...he's not sure if he likes where this is going.]

Not your design exactly. But something. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

What would you use it for?

To fight. Or at least to be able to. I was a superhero back home too.. And maybe it's not what my brother envisioned, but we still found ways to help the world.

[That's...what he was afraid of, although not necessarily because of Hiro's age.]

When you say you were a superhero...what do you mean, exactly? [Heroes from other worlds usually have a different way of doing things, Barnaby has found.]

It ... well, it started with us getting the guy who killed my brother put in jail. He would have deserved it for that, but he also was using a portal and my microbots to try and take out most of a city block. After him, more stuff started coming out of the woodwork, so we just continued. Baymax stopped a runaway streetcar, then Yama tried taking over the city with an army of battle bots...

[That would almost sound too crazy to be true, if not for the fact that those sorts of problems crop up where Barnaby's from too.]

So, in other words, you took matters into your hands when it came to finding your brother's killer, and never quite stopped. That means you did this for...how many months?

Since October, and it was Janary when I left. So, four months?