Tonnage

Putting On The Ritz.

>>

Batman looks up at the nudge he gets from Canary as the last of the young heroes and their meta leave. The look on her face still has some mirth in it. But behind that is an echo of concern that haunts her expression, gaining strength as they can hear the laughter of Nightwing's posse while they go down the corridor.

“Yes?”

“Is he really okay? I mean, tearing arms off of people? I didn't think you approved. Is he stable?”

Batman nods as he stands, raising his voice so the room can hear. For the most part, the League is staffed by good people. Anybody that had the power to hurt Tom he knew well enough to, at worst, head things off before they got out of hand. But there are a few. Just a few of the more aggressive members could do with the warning, and having the rumors circulating wouldn't hurt. Might save Tom some irritation in the long run.

“Yes. I can show you the videos. He came into a few situations that were not looked for. Weren't desired, but found him and forced his hand. In every instance in which it was possible to do so, he warned his opponents. Claimed he was not trained, but that he would not cooperate. Told them what he would do if they tried to hurt anyone. And then, when the inevitable happened, he followed through. He is very stable and seems to take attacks on himself fairly well, you just saw Spoilers' little joke play out. But he has a hard line at attacking or hurting people around him. Every time people ignore that warning and continue the attack it gets shut down immediately. With extreme prejudice.”

He sighs. “I don't like it. But it's hard to argue with his counterpoint, and he put that point in an interview that half the nation saw.”

Canary looks at him curiously. “What counterpoint?”

Batman's expression goes to something like sadness for a moment, and then he brings up the audio file of Tom's first interview with Vicki Vale to play over the cafeteria speakers. The contemplative silence after that lasts a good fifteen seconds as the various heroes consider the young man's words.

From the far side of the room, a taller blonde man in a green getup with an odd hat stands and speaks loud enough to be heard over the mumbling, yet calm enough that every ear in the room is straining to hear.

“One of those people he saved is dear to me, leave the kid alone. He has enough problems, and I'm not opposed to repeating my opinion at velocities that will result in a six-and-a-half millimeter enema.”

Superman shakes his head, a smile flickering across his face at what he is hoping is just a colorful turn of phrase from Green Arrow. “There are a few of us that can say the same. If you can help him, please do so. But if not, he's best left alone while he gets his feet.” He makes his way toward the door, where Batman, Diana, and the space cop Jon Stewart follow. After a moment and glance at each other in which Black Canary looked curiously at the archer, the two make their way to the door as well.

>>

Booster is still sitting at the table. Going through files, trying to find anything even remotely like this, and nursing some wounded pride at being treated... Not poorly. But as an outsider more or less throughout this process.

It's fair. But it hurts, he's stuck here now. He's a hero and he does good, they all acknowledge that. But he has very few friends since that bastard killed... Killed Ted.

He keeps going through files. If he can find something useful, maybe that would help. Whatever it takes to stay on the right side of the legends of yesteryear he grew up reading about.

Whatever it takes to make his heroes like him.

Even a little.

>>

When they get back to the fabrication room they can see that the hour they spent eating and wandering the massive station on an improvised and spur-of-the-moment tour has allowed two of the machines to finish. Cyborg removes those pieces, resets the machine for the next task, and spins up the device again.

Then he sits down with hand tools and a few that seem to be built into the machine half of him to clean up and begin assembly of the helm portions that are done.

Cyborg's take on the helm has the head portion twenty-five percent larger to support the two screens he had, plus an additional two that use fish-eye lenses and some basic programming to watch for and identify problems from the side and rear, then reassemble the image into something easy to identify if needed.

The porthole remains, though it is also a bit larger. But the material used in it is no longer glass. Tom doesn't have any clue what it is, but whoever named it probably gave themselves tongue cancer trying to pronounce it all the time. Also, it has an auto-dimming feature in it which means he won't need to keep slotting in the darkened glass for welding work.

When he gets to the point that it's time to finish the electronics that will be housed in the helm, Cyborg begins the process of scrounging what he needs from the myriad of shelves all over the place. Tom's eyes keep getting wider and wider as the Bat-Family starts helping, culminating in the first message.

>>

(Robin: Has joined the chat.)

Robin: Red Robin?

R.Robin: Yes?

Robin: We are fine-tuning the electronics for Tom's height, weight, oxygen use, voice patterns, and the Bat set of maps for Gotham complete with things like our emergency beacons and such. Would you be willing to assist remotely?

R.Robin: Are we going to hook him up with the encryption keys as well?

Jay-Bird: Not a good idea. Let Oracle continue to handle his encryption and com needs, we don't want any hardware with our keys that isn't kept in a secure location.

Oracle: The irony in that statement is lethal at forty paces, Jay.

Jay-Bird: You wouldn't even believe how secure my shit is, Oracle. We're good.

Robin: Oracle, I'd have asked for your help as well but I believed you to still be at work.

Oracle: Last break. Just make sure the coms are good and get me the keys. I'll help Red Robin fine-tune things remotely once he's back on the planet.

Tom: Is there anything I can do to help? Feeling a little useless here.

>>

Nightwing chuckles. “You're the client, Tom. All you need to be here to do is put it on for the final fit and finish.” At Tom's look, he smiles. “Tom, all of us have had years to get good with this. Give yourself the time to learn, and until then just keep your eyes and mind open to take in as much as you can. At some point, it'll be you doing this kind of thing for somebody else.”

“You think so?”

Spoiler and Orphan nod, though Spoiler voices their feelings on the matter.

“Yeah. Might be for emergency training instead of hero work. But you'll do it and you're already picking up the skills to make a go of it.” She gestures to the cutting torch on his old suit as she speaks. “Honestly? For beginner gear made in a scrapyard in like a week or two? This is actually really good. One of the best amateur setups we've ever seen.”

Tom shrugs and then is distracted by the door to the room opening. His first thought is:

What the hell is it with the fishnets?

His second is to close his eyes. Why are heroes running around wearing less than his mom used to at the pool?!

Nightwing sees the look on Tom's face and motions Zatanna over with a smirk.

“Hi, Z! Long time no see. Missed you!”

She smiles, rolling her eyes fondly as she steps up to give Nightwing a brief hug. “I am a public figure, you know. I don't exactly hide.” She turns to Tom. “And this is Gotham's newest trouble-making meta, is it?”

Spoiler and Orphan grin at that and Tom reaches a hand out with a grimace. “It's not like I try to cause trouble. It's just bad things are always happening, and once you can do something...”

“You need to. I know, Tom. It's a common theme around here.” Her nose crinkles up mischievously. “Among heroes.”

His head swivels over to her and she smiles beatifically at him. Tom sighs. “I'm not a hero. I've explained this so many times.”

She does her level best to shake hands with the behemoth, her dainty hand simply lost in the meat of his paw. “Tom, I saw the broadcast. Having seen your hero status taken to a higher authority, I'll not be denying that child her hero.” Her smile fades just a little. “But as entertaining as this is, poking fun at the new kid isn't why I am here. Hold still for a moment, please.”

She turns to face him squarely and raises a hand to point at him while the other goes to her brow, seemingly to aid in concentration.

“Laever ot em eht ecruos fo rewop, morf ecnehw ti emac dna rof tahw esoprup!”

She seems to be basking in a glow for a moment, and when her eyes open again, her expression is worried. “This is extra-planer and without defined emotion or motive. More concerning, while there were forces at work to make it happen that were manipulating traditionally magical energies, I can find no evidence there was structured magic used.”

Cyborg is the first to respond, beating Nightwing by mere seconds. They both have a history with magic users and so know the questions to ask. And perhaps tellingly, how to ask them.

“So, maybe we pretend like I didn't go to magical summer camp as a kid and you give us the translation? He gonna be okay?”

She shakes her head as if to clear it. “I don't think any of this will affect him directly. It's just where it came from. He has some magical energy in him, but all life does. His concentration is not exceptional in any way.” Then she points her finger at him again.

“Laever ot em eht nam that ylremrof dleh siht rewop. Ta sih tsegnorts tnemom. Sih tseduorp tnemeveihca.”

Between the magic user and Tom, something that looks not unlike a hologram plays out. An illusion at half-scale, with clear and vibrant colors. It shows a man who is obviously the predecessor to Tom. He's huge, and much more experienced than their local meta.

He's tearing through a group of colorfully clad individuals who are doing everything they can to stop him, and they are getting flung around while he laughs. Arrows and other thrown objects hit, but he ignores them in his charge to stand in front of a man who looks like a green Solomon Grundy. Rippling muscles that stand out from the body. The roar as the obviously insanely powerful behemoth charges. He hits. He begins pounding his huge fists into the man while he's laughed at. Then from nowhere, a red beam of energy spears the side of the fat man's head. Not penetrating. But rattling his brain enough to make him loopy for a second.

They can only assume that things went downhill from there because this ends his most proud moment. But even through the illusion, they can see the ground shuddering with every blow. Bending the Earth on which they stand.

While they have no way to determine this green man's actual strength, it's obvious that he is in the upper tiers. Where people like Supes tend to step up to deal with it rather than risk lives.

Aside from their own, anyway.

Tom is looking at the spot where the illusion was, his mouth open wide.

“Well, in the dream he did say he'd taken hits from the strongest people he knew. I just... I didn't think there would be anything like that.”

Without missing a beat, Zatanna points to him one last time for the day.

“Laever ot em eht maerd that thguorb htiw ti hcus htgnerts!”

For the first time, Tom gets to hear and remember the full dream as it plays out in the room. A small black sphere appears between them and behaves like a speaker that begins to repeat a memory half-forgotten in slumber. Again, haltingly. Again, with gut-wrenching fear and sorrow as overtones. Finally, once again giving the herculean effort to set that aside and offer the best advice that he can despite freely admitting how far he had fallen.

A last attempt at some kind of redemption. Though the people in the room listening have no idea what he's done, or how likely he is to receive it.

Tom has tears rolling down his face by the end.

>>

Clark is staring at the screen with Bruce and Diana when this comes about, as Stewart has had to head out for his turn at monitor duty.

“Thoughts?”

Diana answers quickly. “What was that green thing?”

Batman replies slowly. “Unknown. But we'll see if we can get Zatanna and Fate to look into it. Whatever it was, if it made it here I can only see problems.” He glances at Clark questioningly.

Clark shakes his head, his expression somber. “No way to know based on what we've seen here. Like I told you, Tom could probably take my punches pretty indefinitely as well. It's as if there was some kind of evolutionary leap that decided that this kid needed the physique of a walrus and durability somewhere between Plastic Man and myself. The knee-jerk response is to say I could take that thing. But I thought that about Doomsday too, and frankly they look like they have a lot in common.”

Diana doesn't look away from the screen. “Just to play devil's advocate, but the man in this memory isn't Tom and has already claimed he had gone bad. Is there any chance the green man was the good guy?”

The two look at her, considering.

“I still don't want it here, whatever it is. If for no other reason than it looks like whoever it is they have a vendetta against somebody that looks a lot like Tom. We're looking into this, and whatever that thing is, it can stay there where it isn't mine or Tom's problem.”

Clark then gives voice to the tickling dread that had been bothering them all since the dream sequence was played for them to hear.

“What if this Fred Dukes wasn't the only one whose power got sent here?”

The sigh he hears makes him smirk in spite of it all. “Damnit, Clark. Why did you have to say it out loud?”

>>

He begins the process of putting on the new suit. The cutting torch has been replaced with a full 'supers' emergency metalworking kit. This includes both cutting and welding capability, as well as arc-welding via the new massively powerful battery pack they built into it. The kind of thing that will run Cyborg for days, only powering his helm and toys. The tanks are now built into the armored chassis of the pack. They can be replaced if needed, but it takes a full disassembly of the unit. This allowed for the tanks to contain close to the same amount as before, through the use of non-standard tank shapes. Possible due to the fact that the tanks themselves are so heavily armored that they can easily withstand the high pressures they will be subjected to without the standard cylindrical shape. His odd little half-gloves are fairly similar, though the materials and craftsmanship are far beyond what he's used to.

Cyborg thought the placement of the fire extinguisher nozzle was inspired, so he ran armored tubes and nozzles down both arms for double the fun. He has a high-powered spotlight in addition to normal lights similar to what he had before, only this squared-off and armored monster is mounted over his left shoulder on the pack with full articulation in a ball joint and a motorized movement that when enabled follows his eyes, though the beam will get stopped by his head. Two massively powerful cables hold on the entire helm in addition to all the normal straps. These slip under his arms, meaning that the only way to get the helm off in combat now is to tear his arms off or break the cables somehow. Finally, he has two grapple guns. One is similar to the tool the bats use. The other is mounted on his pack, right side. It is the same thing, simply scaled up. It has a thicker line, basically a cable, that will hold twelve tons without fail and to a reach of just over a hundred and fifty feet.

The hook will hold the full weight easily. The large circular electric magnet they added to the tip will only hold eight tons but is a lot more forgiving on placement as long as the item has iron in it.

The cloth they chose for the rest of it is a thicker material that has two layers of thinner fire and impact-resistant cloth and an inner layer of a fire-resistant, self-sealing, liquid rubber type of substance that should make minor repairs automatically in the field. However, it will need to be replaced after enough damage.

The entire thing is dark gray save the helm, pack, and knuckle guards. Those are of a material that looks like tool steel but is significantly tougher and harder. Corrosion resistant. And because it's Cyborg, cobalt blue stands out here and there on the helm and pack.

He installs the 'stretcher' module and picks up a second one that includes a huge assortment of survival goodies that can be deployed if the harsh environment must be endured for a time. Everything from a second battery to run a camp for up to a week, to first aid supplies and sustenance for ten for a week even if one of them is Tom. Emergency tents, blankets, long-range radio sets, water filtration systems... the works.

Though, it has to be said that the food is the equivalent of a generic brand energy bar with a built-in set of vitamin supplements and a vacuum seal. Complete with the 'irradiated' stamp that says these will be good for decades. You could live on them, they are healthy and balanced though maybe carbohydrate-heavy. Intended to help if there are cold conditions or if forced into a lot of activity. But you would be very excited to see that rescue chopper after a while.

From inside the helm, he has a better view out the porthole, but that is nothing compared to the view the new surveillance system has. Though getting used to using it will be a nightmare. Finally, there are the additional sensors and electronics. Which are apparently everything the Bats use and a smattering of additional toys that Cyborg finds handy. Just bigger, and clunkier. Since it doesn't bother him, is tougher structurally, and it causes the price to fall to a tenth of what Bruce pays for the same capability.

Tom is grinning behind the helm now. Taking all the new toys in. The softly glowing screens in the darkness. The hole to the real world from his personal walking fortress. The tongue switches for transmitting vs using voice commands to run the more complex systems and the armored housing on his left forearm that holds a series of buttons and a few toggles. In case the more high-tech bits fail, so he still has a way to shut things down or turn them on.

Waterproofing everywhere on the helm and pack, with a system that will seal to his ridiculous epidermis via suction, allowing travel to depths of at least three hundred feet before there is real worry of a breach.

Though Cyborg does say that until he gets checked out in scuba and learns to use the advanced equipment, he shouldn't risk more than fifty to eighty feet in depth.

The inflatable life raft that can also operate as a flotation device to bring someone to the surface is a nice touch as well, considering it folds up into something the size of a brick and comes with attachment clamps so he can control the ascent with his grapple lines.

Between the bats, Cyborg, and his own experiences they have made something remarkable. Verified as they are finally getting ready to leave and Starfire walks in the room wearing her normal super suit.

Tom stops. Stares. And is grateful it isn't easy to see that he is doing that while 'Kori' pads her way towards him half-naked with a broad smile as she takes in the new additions and the color scheme.

“Tom! I like your new armored unit very much, it looks quite impressive!” She pulls something out of a small handbag she carries. “Nightwing asked me if I could find some kind of battle manual for people your size, as there are warriors on my homeworld that are similar to you in some respects. I was able to locate only four that seemed as though they could be of use to you, most were quite full of rules and regulations for the Tamaranian military that would mean little to you here on Earth. I had them translated and put into this electronic device for your use. I hope it helps.”

Then she turns to Nightwing and Cyborg. “I would like to go now, please. This station is nice, but I have now been here for far too long and have friends that need visiting!”

Dick looks around, sees that they are pretty much done, and smiles.

“Yup. I think it's that time. I wonder what BB and Raven are up to?”

>>

Author's Note:

Every time I read or watched an interaction between Booster Gold and any of the heavy hitters in the league, particularly in his early days, this is exactly the impression I got. Somebody who knows they are an outsider. Someone that everybody else feels there is a strike or two against already due to poor choices. And somebody who despite their outgoing personality is fairly lonely in a lot of ways. He's a more complicated character with a more ridiculously convoluted backstory than most realize but at the end of the day? He's a fanboy who got to meet his heroes and is now stuck in a cycle of trying to prove himself to them daily.

I don't envy the man his foibles or situation as I see them. That life would be beyond exhausting and soul-crushing after a while. It speaks well of his character that he sticks with it and perseveres.

I suppose things may have changed in the thirty years since I read comics regularly, but for Booster? This is the way we're going. Maybe I can wrangle him a redemption arc or two while I am at it. No promises.

And no, there won't be any more 'answers from Marvel' for a while. But I figured Zatanna could get that much fairly easily. Now the eggheads need to start sorting things. It'll take a while.

Take care!