Cleaning Out the Closet

Zora

Zora

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"I don't know about that anymore, but thank you. It's nice to know that somebody thinks so," she sighed feeling silly now for the sudden outburst and looking at Frederick embarrassed yet grateful that he didn't think she was screwed up.

"It was just the shock of finding out something dark about someone you thought you knew," she admitted, extremely disappointed in Jude, and Broen too, because he had to have known. How could he not? She had even come to sort of understand Jude's cruel outburst, thanks in part to her aunt as she tried to put his reaction in perspective for her. But to find out his father was seemingly no better than a mafia don, made her just sigh inwardly.
 
Romi

Romi

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"Sometimes I feel like you can't trust who people pretend to be," he said. "You can only judge people by their actions."

She seemed significantly more surprised than he'd expected, but maybe he'd misjudged? He'd never considered that she might have been close to Angelo, but watching her reaction... maybe she had been?

Maybe he should have looked into that a bit more than he had.

"I suppose that was another reason I quit heroing. Less... secrecy. The people at your board meeting are all wearing their real faces, using their real names. That was one of the reasons I always worked solo, and never on a team: I couldn't imagine trusting someone to have my back whose identity I didn't even know."
 
Zora

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She was beginning to see exactly that. At a board meeting, she knew who she was dealing with most times. There was not the same level of secrecy. You could have people investigated, find out more about them. In fact, her grandfather had a habit of doing that, and now, she was beginning to understand why.

"You mean that you didn't know who the other heroes were?" she asked, clearly surprised at that. She figured - obviously wrongly - that those who were heroing would have some idea regarding each other's true identities.
 
Romi

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"Some were more open," he said. "But plenty kept their secrets. They didn't want to risk their identities getting out. Didn't want anyone tracing them back. I suppose it was more understandable there, where there was a risk of some villain taking advantage, but for the most part that was a line no one wanted to cross. Once someone goes after someone's family, it's fair game for everyone, isn't it?"

He hadn't quite been fully public, but when he'd retired there'd been no point in trying to hide any longer.

"Before things went bad, I was working on legislation to end that. To make heroes identify themselves. To stop them from just being a... a legion of rogue vigilantes. Heroing was lawless, but it shouldn't have been."
 
Zora

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"Did your world not have a policing system that could handle those people?" Zora asked visibly puzzled by it all. Did Halcyon not have a police force, and if it did, how could they not accept the help from heroes to catch and deal with villains.
 
Romi

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"We did," Frederick explained. "The police handled humans. The superheroes handled metahumans. They worked together, at times, but if a man who can break the city in half doesn't want to give your name, what can you do?"

He was thinking of the Alexandrian. Not all knowing, but certainly unknowable, a mystery with no answer.

Even right then he had no idea what he'd been.

"The bronze age heros cobbled together a sort of... work in progress. Vigilantes worked. As long as they didn't break the rules laid out, they could keep existing. But eventually the agreement would break down."
 
Zora

Zora

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Zora opened her mouth to ask another question, and then closed it right away. She was beginning to realise that Halcyon, despite its similarities, was quite different from where she was from. And things had just worked differently there. Superheros, villains, metahumans... it all seemed rather surreal in a very odd way, especially since, ironically, they were on an island full of the supernatural.

"Do you ever miss it?" Zora asked as she looked at Frederick curiously, trying to imagine him as a superhero, and having a hard time seeing him dressed up in a mask or cape, or whatever superheros wore.
 
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Romi

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"Halcyon? Yes," he said, before realizing she probably meant something else instead. "Being a hero? Sometimes. There was something exciting about it. About being able to make such a clear and concrete change in the world. To help people who otherwise wouldn't have been helped. But I think mostly I missed what could have been. My father trained me to be a hero. It was... it was a big part of my childhood. A big part of my life. When I retired, I did feel like I'd lost something for a long, long while. A part of me wishes things had gone differently, but... I'm not sure I'd have been alright with the risk."
 
Zora

Zora

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"Do you mean your relationship with your son by chance?" Zora prodded gently, wondering what the "could have been" remark referred to. "Or was there something else that you wished could have been different?" she asked carefully, knowing the question was somewhat blunt and hoping she had not offended Frederick.

Zora knew full well that the relationship between Broen and his father had been far from normal. However, and because she was a parent herself, she couldn't help but think that losing his son, even if they had been estranged, had to, on some level, upset him. She also couldn't help but wonder if there were regrets? Or like herself lately, wishes that things had simply gone differently.
 
Romi

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Freddie smiled, but it wasn't a real smile. It was a pained, awkward smile. Unfortunate. Unhappy.

"I was going to say it, and then I thought it might... hurt too badly. To talk about it. But yes. I wanted him to take over the family business. To be the next Gallant. To train like I trained. I tried to do a better job than my dad did--start later, for one--but I screwed up. By the time I tried to get him to start training, he didn't want to. Refused. Started acting up."

He shook his head.

"I should have started younger. That was what my dad did."
 
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