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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

[ 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?

That's not very long. I understand why you'd want to step up to the plate if no one else is really equipped to deal with things like portals and battle bots, but is there a reason why you want to be able to fight here too?

... Tadashi died because nobody else was there to help. I don't want that to happen to anyone else.

[Barnaby suppresses a sigh at that answer. He can see where Hiro is coming from, even if Barnaby has different reasons for resuming his own work. Still, it feels irresponsible for someone with his background to simply go along with it.

Loosely clasping his fingers between his knees, he pauses a moment, considering what to say...]

You know, I was about your age when I decided to do what I'm doing now. But, Hiro...I spent many years training my mind and body before I even touched this suit. Speaking from personal experience, this isn't the kind of life someone should just throw themselves into unless absolutely necessary. We've got a pool of highly experienced fighters and heroes who are capable of reaching a scene within minutes, provided someone contacts them.

[ He doesn't bristle, at least, so Barnaby's approach is sound enough. Normally Hiro chafes pretty hard at authority figures telling him what to do. But Barnaby is clearly experienced in both losing family members to fire and this whole superhero business, so he's willing to listen at least, even if he's still not inclined to obey. ]

I know that. But it's not enough. You know as well as I do that minutes make a difference.

That's true. [It's useless to argue that point, so he won't even bother. Instead, he's going to get straight to the heart of the matter.] If you decide to get involved, though, you'll have to accept responsibility for whatever happens afterward. Can you pull yourself out if a piece of debris pins you to the ground? Can you perform first aid and CPR? You may add amazing features to any suit or robot you build in order to compensate for these things, but what if you encounter someone with the ability to disable them, or they become damaged during a particularly vicious fight? A hero needs to be prepared for any situation -- that means recognizing your limits, learning to either push through or work around them, and also knowing when you're not emotionally or physically up for the task at hand.

[These are words he lives by, and he admittedly doesn't have a lot patience for people who only make excuses when things go wrong. Mistakes are inevitable, of course, but if he'd simply accepted things like his poor social skills, slender frame, and five-minute time limit as a teenager, his hero application would have wound up in the trash.]

[ He bows his head at that, but his expression is stubborn. He didn't get this far by backing down every time the job got hard. ]

I know. I've thought about it. I'll do all those things if I have to. Invent what I can and learn the rest.