Chapter 5
Robbie fought the urge to fidget as he walked into Avengers Mansion. He had a new button-down shirt, and he kept wanting to play with the buttons on the cuffs.
Plus, he wasn’t wearing a hoodie. People could see his face. So far, he hadn’t had anyone scream at him or spit on him, but he figured it was only a matter of time.
He hoped it wasn’t when Vance was around. Vance would try to defend Robbie. He wouldn't think Robbie deserved it.
Robbie fiddled with the cuffs again.
“Relax,” said Vance. He put a hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “You were invited to come.”
“Yeah, by you.” It had been Vance who’d recommended Robbie for this. He seemed to have confidence in Robbie, but there was no reason why anyone else would.
And it was possible Vance was getting Robbie this job out of pity.
They walked into the office. Robbie hadn’t been sure who to expect.
There were three people in the office; Tigra, Hank Pym, and Tony Stark.
“Hello,” said Tony Stark. “Glad you could make it.” He shook Robbie’s hand.
Robbie shook his hand and gave a nod.
“So, Avengers Academy. What we’re saying is confidential to this room?”
Everyone nodded.
Tony continued. “I’m going to be honest. We were on the fence about this when Justice first suggested it. Steve was bigger on this than I was. Guess which of the two of us was in the Boy Scouts.” He grinned briefly. “But we’ve been reviewing the records of the young people who were recruited by the Initiative. Some of them…if we don’t get them fairly intensive help, it’s bad for them, and bad for national security. Some of them are deeply psychologically troubled, and some of them…well, with superhuman abilities, someone who doesn’t mean any harm can do a lot of harm.” His glanced up at Robbie.
It was a brief glance, but Robbie noticed.
“So,” said Tony, “we are going to need good people to train them on control of their powers. And on top of that, we’re going to need people who know the kinds of mistakes that you can make with powers, and how to learn from them an avoid them. People who know how to, if need be, face the mistakes they’ve made, take the consequences, and come back.” He tapped a button on his desk, and a screen descended. “The kids we’re staring with, they’re…honestly they’re the ‘most likely to become a super-villain’ list. We get this wrong, and we could end up facing them for the rest of our lives. But here and now, we have an opportunity to do better. We can teach them to be better, before they do a lot of harm. And that’s what I want from all of you.”
—
“Do you have a moment?” Tony put a hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “I’d like to talk to you one-on-one.”
Robbie nodded. “Sure.” He looked at a worried Vance, then nodded. “That seems fine.”
Vance looked at Robbie for a moment, then nodded and stepped out.
“I’m glad you came today,” said Tony. “It’s good to talk to you in person, after…everything that happened.”
“It was Vance’s idea.”
“He has a lot of faith in you.”
“He does.” Maybe too much.
Tony began pacing. “I need to know how you’re doing. Honestly. I need to know if you can handle this before I decide if you get to be around some emotionally troubled kids. So I’m going to need you to tell the truth.”
Robbie nodded again.
“The Penance armor. It was lined with spikes? You used that to activate your powers?”
“Yeah.” Robbie took a deep breath. “I mean that was a big part of it.”
Tony looked at him.
“I…everything was hard. I couldn’t handle it. And at the same time, after Stamford, I knew I deserved to be punished for what I’d done. The armor, it was both.”
“Do you still wear it?”
“No,” said Robbie. “I stopped that.”
“Have you being seeing someone? A professional?”
Robbie nodded.
“That's good." Tony looked down. "This job, it's going to require going over all of the ways heroics can go wrong. It's going to require looking at how people get hurt, how people get killed, and how it could have been handled better."
"Stamford," Robbie said.
"It's only going to be one of many incidents discussed, but it will come up. I need to know you can handle it when it does." Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not expecting you to not have…issues after what happened. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust anyone who went through all that you’ve been through and didn’t admit to still having some problems. But I need people who can do what's needed to handle their own issues. People who will see when they’re having trouble, and get help before it gets out of control. Can you do that?”
Robbie didn't know. He had half a mind to give up, to say he couldn't handle it, to apologize for wasting Tony Stark's time, and then run off.
"I can do that," he said.
"Good. Let me know what you need to make that happen. Hank Pym's managing, so there's no need to be shy about asking for scheduling aroud mental health needs." Tony looked up. "There's one more thing I want to say." He looked Robbie in the eye. "I'm sorry. I don't know the exact decision-making process involved, because I've had something of a mental reset, but I made decisions about what happened to you. I was trying for something more balanced, but you ended up in a terrible situation. Osborn took things farther than anyone expected, but we should have kept a closer eye on how he was treating you."
Robbie swallowed hard. "It wasn't...I mean I deserved...you sent Doc Samson. Without him, everything would have been much worse."
"Glad to hear it. I still wish I could have done better.”
Robbie bit his lip to try to hold back tears. "Thank you. I need to...use the restroom."
"Of course." Tony looked mildly surprised. "Jarvis can help you find one."
—
From crying in a padded cell, to crying in the bathroom of Avengers Mansion, Robbie thought. I'm really coming up in the world.
He started to laugh.
It turned out laughing and crying at the same time left him really snotty.
He turned on the water, and started trying to rinse the snot off his face. Ugh, he never used to be this much of a crybaby.
There was a knock on the bathroom door. "Robbie? Are you okay in there?"
It was Vance. He'd come to check in on Robbie.
"I'm fine," said Robbie, but he couldn't keep his voice steady. He sighed and opened the bathroom door.
Vance stepped in.
"This isn't really a room for two-person activities,” said Robbie.
Vance leaned in low. "What did he say to you?" His voice was angry.
"He didn't say anything," said Robbie. "He...apologized. He said that he should have kept a closer eye on how I was treated.”
"Oh." Vance looked surprised. “Good. Is that why you were crying?”
Robbie nodded and bit back another wave of tears. "Why do people keep doing that? Apologizing?"
"Because they screwed up. We screwed up.” Vance ran his hand through his hair. “The whole country went nuts after Stamford, and everyone took it out on you. We shouldn’t have let things get that far.”
This time, Robbie couldn’t hold back the tears.
Vance put his arms around Robbie, and held him until he stopped crying.
Robbie sniffed and lifted his head. "I think I got snot all down your cape."
Vance smiled. "You're doing my laundry. Also, wash your sheets, because that couch is starting to stink."
Robbie laughed.
Vance looked at Robbie.
"What? Do I still have snot on me?"
"No, it's just...it's good to hear you laugh again, Toothpick." Vance patted Robbie on the back. "Come on, let's go home."
—
Robbie was going through Vance's cupboards, looking for clean sheets, when he found it.
The Penance armor.
It was behind a stack of towels. It was dark, rusty-looking, spiked, and dirty.
And strong. It looked strong.
It didn't look like the armor of someone who'd cried snot all over his friend in the Avengers bathroom. It didn't look like it belonged to broken Robbie Baldwin.
It looked like the armor of someone who'd faced down Doctor Doom in order to capture Nitro and give him a taste of the pain he'd inflicted on so many people. Penance, who’d been strong enough to make Nitro pay.
Robbie had assumed that Vance threw the armor away.
Why hadn't he thrown it away?
Because he knows it's mine.
It was Robbie's suit, which he’d designed for himself, right down to the last spike.
Robbie looked at the armor. It was too big to hide while Robbie was sleeping on Vance's couch. Everything Robbie owned, aside from Niels, fit into one backpack and one nylon duffle bag. The armor wouldn’t fit, even if Robbie left all of his clothes on the floor, the way Vance kept telling him to stop doing.
—
That night, when Vance was asleep, Robbie went back to the linen cupboard.
The armor didn't fit in the bag. There was no way it could fit. But the helmet, wrapped in Robbie’s spare shirts, fit nicely into the bottom of the duffle bag.
—
"I keep crying."
"If you've been emotionally numb, the early stages of medication can lead to expressing a lot of pain. It should become more balanced over time."
"I don't like it," Robbie said. "People keep saying nice things to me, and then I cry."
"Can you give me an example?"
"Tony Stark. He apologized. He said he shouldn’t have left me in that situation.”
"And you didn't like hearing that."
"No," said Robbie. "I mean I chose it. I walked into it with eyes open. I was a civilian volunteer. I could have quit."
"You were drugged until you couldn't remember anything about your life, and then brainwashed into fighting for Osborn."
"Okay, maybe not that bit. But still." Robbie pulled his feet up onto the chair.
"Still what?"
"I mean I...I deserved it. After what I did, how I failed everyone, I deserved to have that happen to me. I deserved to feel like that."
"Would you say the same thing about someone else?"
"I don't know," Robbie shrugged. "Maybe." He'd caught Nitro, and put him in the suit, and that had felt like justice.
"Your friend Elvin...if he'd been at Stamford, if he'd been the one to survive, what would you have wanted for him?”
Robbie shook his head. ”Elvin didn't sign up for the show. He knew better."
"Debril? Nova? They signed up for the show. Would you have done that to them?"
"They weren't at Stamford!"
“Microbe, if he had survived?”
Robbie shook his head. "Microbe, Zach, he was just this big awkward mutant kid who didn't know what he was getting into. We shouldn't have let him get into that situation."
"Night Thrasher, then? Dwayne Taylor was the team leader. The reality show format was his idea. Whatever responsibility you have for Stamford, Dwayne Taylor had even more. Would you have strapped him into the Penance suit? Would you have stood by and let it happen if he decided to do that to himself."
God, Dwayne. Robbie tried to picture him in the Penance suit, taking off the helmet, his face bleeding from the spikes.
The thought make Robbie sick to his stomach.
"Namorita Prentiss taunted Nitro, right before he set the explosion off. If she'd survived somehow, do you think she would have deserved to be treated the way you were? If she was strapped into a spiked suit, in as much pain as you were, being used by people like Osborn, drugged and manipulated, would you think that was fair?"
Nita.
Robbie started sobbing hard, painful, wracking sobs.
Dr. Reed slid him the tissue box.
Robbie though he was going to cry himself sick. He kept thinking about Nita, if she'd survived, if she'd tried to do something like the Penance suit.
"Nita..." he said, when he could speak again. "With Nita, it wouldn't have gotten that far." He grabbed a tissue and blew his nose.
"What do you mean?"
"Her cousin's Namor. He wouldn't have let them do that to her. He wouldn't have let her to do that to herself. He loved her so much." He started crying again.
"And it doesn't feel like anyone loved you that much?"
Robbie shook his head. "My parents, they...disowned me." He took a couple of steadying breaths. "Namorita, if she was alive...she wouldn't have let me do the whole Penance thing." She didn't care as much about the legal system as Vance did. She wouldn't have taken off after finding out, the way Richie did. She would have taken him away somewhere, calling Namor in if necessary, to make sure no one was hurting him. Not even himself.
She would have ripped the Penance armor off with her bare hands.
She would have protected him. Even after Stamford, Nita would have protected him.
But she’d died.
"You have a right to hurt," said Dr. Reed.
Robbie shook his head. "I thought that was what you were trying to talk me out of."
"I'm not talking about torturing yourself. I'm talking about letting yourself feel how much you already hurt. You lost friends. You were sent to a prison that's been known to drive people to suicide. You were shot. You had loved ones abandon you. And you've had to endure the entire country telling you, over and over again, that it was all your fault and you deserved everything you got and worse. Anyone would be suffering after all of that."
"But...the people who died at Stamford…”
"Life isn't simple," Dr. Reed said. "It doesn't divide into innocent victims versus people who deserved to suffer. You made a mistake that lead to people dying and you've been left to suffer unnecessarily because other people mistreated you. The one doesn't cancel out the other."
"The people who lost loved ones at Stamford, how would they feel about that? Me feeling bad for myself? Me getting a therapist, pills to make things easier, a new job?"
"A number of different ways I imagine. Some would hate you. Some would resent you being able to get help while they were still in pain. Some would want to see you suffer more. Some would want to see you suffer for the rest of your life. Some would want you dead."
Robbie nodded. "Exactly."
"Others, I expect, wouldn't want you to suffer. Compassion can be a surprising thing. It connects people in unexpected ways. I expect that some of them would feel for you, due to the shared loss, the survivor's guilt, and the shared trauma. Some of them would be glad that you were getting help."
"Glad?" Robbie hadn't thought about that.
"Thousands of people lost loved ones at Stamford. The won't all feel the same way about your part in it. The question is, knowing that you can't give them all what they want, what are you going to do?"
—
Robbie typed into the chat box: If you could get your hands on Speedball, do anything you want to him, what would you do?
The answers came fast.
Kill him.
Throw him in jail.
Bash his head in.
Take a knife and slowly work him over, slicing him apart piece by piece.
Come on, he belongs in jail, but he's not a murderer.
I'd make him talk to the families of victims. Make him look them in the eye, and listen to their pain. Make sure he knew exactly what he'd did.
Treat him like just another criminal. And then I'd make it so he was never mentioned again. He did it for attention, right? Don't give it to him. Ever. For the rest of his life.
You know what I'd do? Robbie typed. I'd build a special suit, with spikes on the inside. Six hundred and fourteen spikes, one for everyone he'd killed. I'd make sixty extra-long spikes, one for each of the children. Then I'd make him wear it every day. I'd make him walk around like that, every single day, so every time he moved he'd feel the pain of the people he'd hurt. So he would never forget, and never stop hurting.
Right on!
Dude, WTF?
You have some serious anger issues, man.
I hate those kind of revenge fantasies. They're so gross.
I can't believe you guys are defending him! Speedball! He killed six hundred people! He killed sixty children!
HE DIDN'T KILL ANYONE!
Nitro's the murderer! Why is everyone so obsessed with Speedball?
He screwed up, but come on, he's an idiot, not a murderer.
The only reason everyone keeps talking about Speedball is because the government fucked up so bad in arresting Nitro. They couldn't get him, so they made Speedball the scapegoat.
Please, he got off easy.
If he really felt that bad, he'd have killed himself.
Don't talk like that. My brother killed himself. He thought we were better off without him, but I miss him so much. It hurts every single day.
How many people did your brother kill, though?
SPEEDBALL DIDN'T KILL ANYONE!
He killed those two people who tried to help him.
That was an accident! His powers malfunctioned. He wasn't even conscious!
You're all a bunch of bleeding-heart pussies. I'm with you, Bouncy_Cat, we should really make that motherfucker suffer. Keep him hurting for years on end.
There's something seriously wrong with you two.
I actually hope he's okay.
Robbie closed the chat window. He took several steadying breaths.
Niels came over and nuzzled Robbie.
Robbie scratched Niels under the chin. "You know what they say, kitty. Never read the comments."
I actually hope he's okay.
He'd expected people to hate him. He'd expected people to balk on principle, to show how good they were by refusing to torture anyone, even him.
He hadn't expected a stranger to want him to be okay.