Mask Or Menace - IC Contact Post

[helpdesk_hero]

This is David Alleyne, I'm not available at the moment.
Please leave your name, contact information, and what this is regarding after the beep.

Comments

[mysterioisthetruth]

See? You shouldn't have to even be asking me that any more.

[And he's not answering the actual question.]

[helpdesk_hero]

Uh-huh. And when I touch your suit I'll be able to read all the things you did to stop the OTO. Or to help in Jeopardy. Won't I?

[And there's the problem, Beck. All bark. No bite.]

[mysterioisthetruth]

You really still don't trust me at my word? After all I went through there...

[He at least does a good acting job of sounding hurt again. But he doesn't want David using his power and seeing that he is indeed lying about being in Jeopardy.]

[helpdesk_hero]

What have you done to earn that trust?

[mysterioisthetruth]

Haven't I always done everything you've asked of me?

[helpdesk_hero]

You really haven't. You twist my words to suit your ends.

[mysterioisthetruth]

But what have I done that was really so very wrong here?

[helpdesk_hero]

Ask Peter. Ask Marco. Ask anyone you've used your damn tech as a weapon against.

[mysterioisthetruth]

Marco has broken into my home and spied on me constantly. He's the one you should be calling bad.

As for Peter, I contacted him the instant we got out of the crisis in Jeopardy and we've met up and have made arrangements. He's more understanding than you are.

[helpdesk_hero]

[David isn't getting into this again.]

I'm sure you have. And I'll spend quite a bit of time worrying about him. Because you seem hellbent on destroying him. He's more forgiving. Spider-Man is like that. But me? I'm a mutant. We were hunted to nearly extinction. We aren't very 'turn the other cheek'.

[mysterioisthetruth]

Who's talking about Spider-Man. I'm talking about Peter.

[Yes, he's seeing them as two different entities. Not literally, but he is separating them in his mind. He's convinced Peter should abandon the Spider-Man concept, thinking he doesn't really want that responsibility and that he just wants to be a normal kid. Destroying Spider-Man is a goal, but not Peter - even though they really are completely linked so one affects the other. Or more specifically, he wants to destroy Spider-Man's image as a hero. Force Peter to stop. It makes sense in his own head...]

[helpdesk_hero]

Peter is Spider-Man. Spider-Man is Peter. They are as entwined as myself and Prodigy. As you and, apparently, the masks you insist you cannot function without. It's just depressing.

[mysterioisthetruth]

But he doesn't need to be Spider-Man. He's just a kid. Everybody needs to stop telling him he has this big responsibility to be the hero. Let the kid be a kid.

[So essentially he's encouraging lack of responsibility under the nicer guise of saying he should be himself and do what he wants without thought for others... Like Beck does.]

[helpdesk_hero]

No, it's not his big responsibility to be a hero, Quentin. But his choices are his own. And that's where you're different from him. How you know you're not a true hero. A hero fights, no matter the cost to themself. Do I wish that wasn't the path he was on? Yes. But I think he could no more accept standing by than I could. Than I can.

[mysterioisthetruth]

So you think you have to help people, no matter what the personal cost?

That sounds... harmful.

[helpdesk_hero]

That's what makes the difference between heroes and those that play at it, Beck. We are self-sacrificing.

[mysterioisthetruth]

And what does that get you in the end? Glory after you're dead?

[helpdesk_hero]

Lives saved.

[That's what matters. More than anything.

[mysterioisthetruth]

But once you're gone who saves everybody else?

[helpdesk_hero]

The next person? The government? A hero? A bystander. It doesn't matter. The lives I save now are the important thing.

[mysterioisthetruth]

That sounds very much like only living for the now and not planning for the future. Is that really the best way to live?

[helpdesk_hero]

You plan for the future, but you plan for the world continuing. For people you love. For the people who come next. You plan to keep the world moving!

[mysterioisthetruth]

And what if there isn't anyone you love?

[helpdesk_hero]

Do you love the world, Quentin? All the Earth has? Do you love movies and plays and the taste of fresh fruit in the morning with your breakfast? Isn't that worth protecting? If not for yourself, if not for people you love, than for people who you don't hate?

[mysterioisthetruth]

[He frowns thoughtfully.]

And what if I don't want to make an actual dying sacrifice and lose all of that for myself? What if I want to give to the community by continuing to work on my tech for their benefit instead of going down in a blaze of glory - to let everybody else pick up the pieces.

You're implying the only way to be heroic is to self sacrifice for the now instead of helping more people over decades. While that might make a good show and a great story, I don't believe that's the way it needs to be for myself.