Family Portrait (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

March 10

"No sir," said Mark respectfully, sitting in his empty dorm room. Now that Mike was spending so much time over with the Albrights, it had been an easy enough matter to move his stuff back into their own room. He was doing a video conference with Daedalus now, talking to the Greek hero in his office in Athens. "He didn't say anything after that. He just took my mother and...left." He was sitting on his bed, unconsciously hugging the pillow on his lap, as he looked into the camera. "I was hoping you might have some...some idea where he might have gone." Most Claremont students thought that the current Daedalus was the son of the 1960s inventor Daniel Daedalus. But Mark Lucas was not most Claremont kids.

"No, Mark, I'm afraid I don't." Daedalus looked fatigued, perhaps as a result of that mind parasite that had been such a problem while the Young Freedom kids had been away on Anti-Earth. "I stood by Richard Lucas during two different Terminus invasions. We were both there the day your namesake died in battle against the lord of the Terminus. I know your mother less well, but I know all she did in those terrible days too. If they have fled...then they're not the people I once knew But your father was a man who kept his own council, always, even when he was the most open of men in other times. As long as I've known him, I can't give you answers for his actions."

With a heavy heart, Mark finished the phone call and sat alone in his room. Surrounded by superheroic memorabilia, he suddenly felt alone. What did all these monuments mean, all these pictures and stories, when they hadn't been able to keep his family together? Or with him at all? It was...it was really sad. Unable to cry, unable to give up but unable to find a solution, Mark sat alone in his room, staring at the wall. All the power the school had found in him, and he couldn't even cheer himself up.

[Electra]

As luck would have it, right at that moment, there was a knock on Mark's door! Erin stood outside, knapsack slung over her arm still full of books from the day's classes. Since she rarely had time to return to her room during the school day, and she never bothered with what was technically her locker in the academic building, her bag was packed full, but the way she handled it, it might as well have been full of packing peanuts. "Hey Mark, you around?" she asked through the door.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Yeah," said Mark, appearing at the door to let Erin in after a few moments. His room was more disorganized than Erin remembered; Mark wasn't focused enough to be a real neat freak, but he'd always cleaned his room and kept it looking pretty much like the model rooms in pictures in the school catalogue. Now, though, there were pop cans on the desk and unopened boxes, all of the memorabilia Mark had gone back to his house to get left tucked into boxes along the bare walls once adorned with pictures of Young Freedom and the old League. "How's it going?" he asked her, a little tiredly.

[Electra]

"Going all right," Erin told him, effortlessly eliding past the difficulties of the last few days, and the logistical problems they'd brought back with them from Anti-Earth. That wasn't what she was worried about right now. "I, um, I noticed you weren't at lunch today," she told him, looking around the room as unobtrusively as possible. Truthfully, Mark hadn't been the same person she knew for weeks now, and missing meals was just the tip of the iceberg. But she was no Alex, and she didn't have much to offer in the way of wisdom. "I figured maybe you got busy, so I brought you a couple things." She reached into her bag and got out an apple and a couple of cereal bars she'd scavenged from the cafeteria, plus a bottle of orange juice she'd actually splurged to buy from the vending machines. "How's the unpacking and stuff going?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Thank you," said Mark, taking a seat on his bed and offering Erin the one by his desk. "It's going okay," he said automatically, shooting a guilty look at some of the boxes. "Mr. Summers and...some of my family's friends came by and helped me move some things here, things I'd moved back to my house after...back when all the stuff started. You know." He sounded much more subdued than Mark usually did, but not on the peak of despair she might have expected, either. He sighed a little. "I just...I do't know if I should have brought all this old stuff back. I couldn't just leave it there, all alone, for however long..."

[Electra]

Erin took the offered chair, setting her bag on the floor and looking around. "It's a lot of stuff for one room," she mentioned neutrally, trying to get a count of how many boxes there actually were. She wasn't really the best judge of these things, since all her worldly possessions could fit comfortably into her suitcase, but it did seem pretty crowded. "Maybe you could put some of it into storage downstairs, or, hmm, maybe like a temporary loan to the hero museum? They'd probably be pretty jazzed to have so much League memorabilia, even just for a little while."

[Avenger Assembled]

"No, I..." Mark put his hand on the nearest box, then shook his head. "That makes sense," he admitted, "I mean, I can't just keep all this stuff in my room forever. It doesn't make me feel the way it used to, anyway. But if I give it up, it'll be like...like I don't know, like I'm giving up on them ever coming back, or at least I'm thinking they won't be back any time soon. But maybe putting it in storage at the school would be nice. They'd both talked about coming to visit campus more often, back before...back before everything happened."

[Electra]

"It wouldn't be giving it up if it's just a loan," Erin pointed out. "And it would be kind of cool for people to get to see all of it, people who remember the old Freedom League or who want to know more. There's probably a lot of stuff that's never been like cataloged, or whatever they do with historical stuff. And it might be, you know, sort of good PR," she added diffidently. "You and your family have done lots of good things for Freedom City. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to remind people of some of it."

[Avenger Assembled]

"They kept it out of the papers, you know," said Mark, saying something he was sure Erin was already aware of. "Both my dad, and my mom. I'm sure some people remember what happened last spring, but most of them have their own reasons not to say anything. Even now, if it became known that another Terminus invasion might be coming, that the famous Rick Lucas hurt so many people, even if it got better in the end, they think it might make superheroes look bad. Might make other heroes look bad." Mark shook his head. "I don't know what I want. I don't want my dad's name in the dirt, but I don't want him covered up, either...and I wish they'd just say something about my mom, not treat her like what happened to her was just...was just an appendage."

[Electra]

"What do you want them to say?" Erin asked, genuine, if careful, curiosity in her voice. "About your mom, I mean. It's sort of... I mean, I know it's weird, the way it all went down with your dad, but in a way it's sort of like more mundane family stuff that just happens sometimes. And that sucks, but I think most people just let things like that stay within peoples' families and their secret identities. I mean, you don't hear a lot about who gets divorced and who has trouble at home when you're talking about superheroes." At least, she didn't, Erin amended silently. She wasn't honestly sure what Mark was privy to.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I don't know," Mark admitted. "Most of the League, they...they talk about my dad brainwashing her or using his powers on her, but that's just...that's just awful. I know what he did, but that was a mistake, and he'd never do that to my mom." He put his hands on his knees and added, "But that means my mom left because she wanted to, and even if she had reasons, or thought she did...that hurts," he said painfully. "It hurts a lot. Even if it's out of the papers, so many people know it already. I always thought it was a good thing that my family had so much history, even if some people didn't like us very much, that we were just...just relics of the old days. But now I don't know. I don't know how true any of it was."

[Electra]

Erin shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She was definitely not the person to be in this conversation with Mark right now. She knew all of this was really important to him, that the reputation of his family was a vital thing, but how to address that wasn't really even on her radar. "Well, sometimes people change," she offered lamely. "Just because someone isn't the same person now, and you can never have the relationship with them that you used to have, that doesn't have to change your memories of them. They did something really bad when they left you behind. But I know you love stories where people who used to be villains turn around and become heroes, right? If a few really good acts can turn around a whole bunch of bad, a whole lifetime of good acts has to mean something against one bad thing."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I guess you're right," said Mark, and though he did sound a little doubtful yet he also sounded more confident than when Erin had come in. "And...and maybe, doing enough good things again can make bad things go away too!" He took a deep breath. "That could happen, right? And I know, I know, it's selfish to worry so much about my family when there are so many more important things happening. And people who have it much worse than I do." He gave no sign he meant Erin with that, which was probably for the best. "Just a few more months, and I'll be out of here. We all will."

[Electra]

"Yeah, just a few months," Erin murmured, trying to conceal her own unease at the fact. She knew the Freedom League wasn't known for its rapidity in processing applications, and it wasn't though they had a lot of turnover. But graduation was coming up a lot faster than she was really comfortable with, faster than even the most lucrative of babysitting jobs could line her savings account. She wondered for a moment if Mark would need a housesitter while he was in Africa, then dismissed the thought and changed the subject.

"The thing is, you can't really wipe out bad stuff, it's always there once it happens. You can try and fix it, or put it behind you, or live with it," she told Mark. "But it's not like things can go back to the way they used to be, even if you really want them to. Life isn't like that. Doesn't mean what happens from here can't be good, though."

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark knew Erin had special reasons to know exactly how long bad things could stay with you, and how bad they really could be, even if she'd never told him much about the details. "You're right. I just wish..." He trailed off. "No, I guess I don't, not really. I can't change the past, or go back to an idealized version of it that maybe never really existed. I think about him, you know? Not Hex, the other other Mark. The one in the world my dad made. Maybe he had an easy life in a lot of ways, but he never had friends like you, or Trevor, or Alex, or people who could stand by him for real...an imaginary world is no place to live. Even if it's a softer one than the real one."

[Electra]

Erin stared at him. "Mark, you lived in a bedroom that didn't have any door. We literally had to break down the wall to get you out of there, and the only other thing in your house was your crying alcoholic mother. The only person that world was ideal for was your dad. I know what I said about not letting the way people change poison your memories, but that doesn't mean you can get foggy about the fact that he was using you and your mom as props in his world-building exercise. That wasn't a good world. Not even a little."

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark had been talking about the idealized world his father had planned to build, but Erin's words brought the reality of that dream back to him. "I remember what it was like," said Mark sharply, putting his hand unconsciously over his chest. "I told you, didn't I? I thought I'd died and gone to Hell, because of the bad things I'd done. Just because I understand what he was trying to do doesn't mean I didn't hate it too. I stood with you, didn't I, even when I thought fixing reality might k-kill me again? I just...I know he didn't mean to hurt my mom and me like that." He squeezed his eyes shut and added, "My dad is not a bad man. He was crazy with power, he didn't know what he was doing. He'd at least have made something better if he did. It was just...just a dream that was really a nightmare. But a real one."

[Electra]

Erin pursed her lips, trying to remember her own therapy sessions and parse through the words to try and figure out the meaning behind it. That was even harder, she decided, to do for other people than for herself. Even for someone like Mark, who tended to wear his heart on his sleeve. "I think most people know he isn't an evil guy, or one with bad intentions," she said carefully, trying to haul the conversation back on track. "I mean, it's not like the League hasn't come clean about people who were heroes and became villains in the past. Protecting your dad can't be all about protecting their reputation. But being crazy with power is no less dangerous. Sometimes crazy is more dangerous than evil. I mean, look at Singularity. She's not really evil, and bad things happened that made her what she is, but that doesn't mean anyone can ignore the fact that she's incredibly dangerous and volatile." Erin shifted uncomfortably again, not sure she wanted to be getting so close to her own issues.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark didn't like the comparison between his father and Singularity, but he could see where Erin was going with it. "We can't blame people for what they do when they're not in their right minds...even if we do still have to stop them from doing it." That left open the question of what you did with people who were, by all accounts in their right minds but did bad things anyway, at least what you did when they were family. But there was nothing Mark could do about that, not without taking his mind to places he just didn't want to go. "That makes sense. I'm sorry I've been so depressing lately. You must...actually, come to think of it, you've been pretty good lately!" said Mark, giving Erin a look. "I mean, serious when you had to be, but you look happy most of the time."

[Electra]

"Everybody's entitled," Erin told him with a half smile. "To being depressed sometimes, and to being happy. It's not healthy to expect to just get over it when something bad happens." She shrugged. "Your parents took off, they're maybe having mental problems as well. If that didn't make you mad and sad and scared, I'd think there was something wrong with you. But at the same time, I guess everything has a course to run, and maybe it's just easier for me to feel happy than it used to be. Hope so, anyway."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I'm really glad about that," said Mark sincerely. "I used to worry about you a lot," he admitted, "but I worry about you a lot less. You've come a long way...and I guess I have too." He smiled thinly. "It seems like just yesterday we were squaring off to fight with those jerks in the stadium. Remember when those robots kept exploding? Or those two girls in the cafe, when you and Chris, uh, had that thing." He grinned. "That was pretty funny, at least in retrospect. It's hard to believe those are the people we used to really worry about."

[Electra]

Erin's smile in return was rueful. "Be nice if we could go back to worrying about problems like that, wouldn't it? Better than all this world-saving mortal danger interdimensional evil crap. We keep going the way we are, I'm going to even stop worrying about Mr. Archer and my homework. We'll, besides the part where we're graduating anyway." She crossed one leg over the other, ankle to knee, feeling a little more comfortable. "I've been thinking, do we want the team to still keep going when we're gone? A lot of us are gonna be leaving."

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark fell silent for a long time, showing much less enthusiasm about school projects and teams than the usually ebullient Edge did. "I don't think it's up to us," said Mark finally, "I think we should make the legacy available, maybe encourage people to join the way they did for the Next-Gen when Bolt and the others left, but we should let the new kids make their own choices, and their own legacies. We can't live in the past. Though it would be really cool if there's a Young Freedom here next year. Maybe Corbin and Eve will carry it on, and we can help them recruit some of the new kids before we go. We're pretty big stuff around here."

[Electra]

Erin shrugged. "Well yeah, once we graduate it's not really ours anymore, but we did start it." She bounced her knee a couple of times, looking around at the blank walls. "I've been talking to some of the newer kids, ones who are coming up, going to be upperclassmen next year. I was thinking maybe some of them would want to go on patrols with some of us, learn more about the city, see what it's like with someone there who can step in if things go wrong. And at the same time, we can see if there's anybody who's got potential to maybe be part of the team."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Yeah," said Mark, obviously warming to the idea. "We could do trials, maybe test the underclassmen out with drills...and even comb some of the freshmen, so there are junior Young Freedom kids coming up year after year! We can't count on one person wanting to follow our dreams, but if lots of people do, we can keep our dream alive!" He grinned, then said, "Hmm, I wonder if we can get Alex to sell us that house now that she'll be moving out of town with Mike..."