2014.07.23 - Green Teen Time

New York City can be a pretty overwhelming place, especially to someone that's never been there before. To someone that's still new to the whole idea of a functioning city, it's even moreso. So when CJ Barton found Central Park, he was relieved. The little oasis of nature in the middle of the concrete jungle was a place he could go to relax and think. And that's what he's done today. In his Mustang gear, he was laying on the grass and watching the clouds as he tried to think about what he was going to do. Jen didn't want him staying around forever and Clint hadn't offered. He was startled out of his thoughts by someone screaming for help and sprang into action. It was a simple heroic thing. Just a pair of would-be muggers that went down with light konks upside the head. The big green guy turned to make sure the woman was alright and was shocked to find people gathered around him with those phone things. And a lot of them were asking questions and for things like autographs.

"Hulkling! Hulkling! Can you sign my phone!"

"Is it true you're dating your teammate Axiom?

"Shut up! He's totally dating Wiccan!"

"You're both wrong! Axiom and Wiccan are OTP!"

"Are you always green? Is the Hulk your father?"

"Take a picture with me!"

All of it has CJ looking pretty uncomfortable and the green-skinned archer takes a half step back. "Who the heck is Hulkling?" he mutters, going mostly ignored by the crowd of eager fans.

Theodore Altman is not an unkind young man. What CJ is going through is something that he himself has had to endure for a long time, ever since his team saved the city from a nuclear device.

Granted, he had been on hiatus during that time, his mother having had the bright idea to send him to summer camp, but the collective fame of the team had made sure that he got his share of googly-eyed adoration. It was times like these, when he was out in public in his secret identity, that he enjoyed the pure pleasure of not being recognized.

Of course, the problem is that someone as kind-hearted as Teddy can't stand idly by when another hero is saddled with a case of mistaken identity... and of unwanted fans. Teddy sees everything, sitting as he is at the base of a tree. CJ had acted quicker, and now he was paying the price.

So Teddy ducked behind a convenient set of bushes and eventually emerged in his Hulkling glory.

"I'm sorry, but I think you've got the wrong person." Hulkling says with a boyish grin. "And please excuse me, but I've come to claim my colleague for a very important mission. We have to be off right away, isn't that right?" he says, giving CJ a meaningful look.

When Hulkling reveals himself, there's a hush over the crowd. CJ stares, not quite sure who he's seeing. Part of him is wondering if he's meeting some family member he has in this world but not where he comes from. The fans immediately turn and focus their chatter and attention at the real Hulking. One or two give poor CJ the stink eye like he was pretending to be Teddy on purpose. There's a collective sigh of disappointment from the crowd at Hulking's words, some asking him not to leave so soon.

CJ meanwhile gets that meaningful look and jumps. "Yeah, definitely. We gotta go. Important green dude business," he says. "Oh please don't be an evil jerk like Malefactor," he mumbles over his breath, quickly moving over towards Hulkling.

"I'm sorry," Hulkling says to the pleading fans, "but emergencies can't be delayed. We have to fly out of here immediately." In saying so, he morphs his wings into existence and he holds out an arm to CJ. Indeed, he was offering to basically Superman him out of there.

The sudden appearance of wings gets CJ pulling a double-take. "Woah," he remarks. It takes him a moment to notice the offered arm but once he does, he grabs on. "Yeah, sorry!" he adds awkwardly for the fans.

"ALright. Up up--- wait, no, that's trademarked." Teddy gives him a grin and puts an arm around his waist in order to grab a good hold of him. The wings flap vigorously after the fans clear an area at the green teen's behest, and soon they are soaring past the trees and up over the city.

"Sorry about that... I thought this'd be the best way to pull you out of there. But now with my arm around your waist, I'm afraid the fanfiction is just going to pour on Yamblr."

CJ looks completely lost at the almost-catchphrase. No Superman where he's from. The sudden strong arm around his waist gets an 'erk!' out of the big green guy but he doesn't push away. He's just surprised. As they take off, he grabs onto one of Teddy's arms. "Damn...don't worry about it. Thanks for the save from whatever that was down there," he says. The goatee-sporting hulk then gives Teddy a blank look. "Two of those words made no sense."

Sky blue eyes look at CJ, one eyebrow raised, "Where exactly are you from again? And what's your name? Sorry that I didn't ask, but I thought it'd be more convincing to pretend we were teammates if I didn't ask."

"Uh," awkward pause! CJ rubs the back of his neck a little. "I'll explain that part when we land. And you can call me Mustang. Or just CJ, not like I can do this weird secret ID thing."

Ah, so he wasn't a shapeshifter. Teddy swoops him down towards a particularly tall high-rise... one without rooftop access. But a rooftop. "I think we can talk here without risk of being overheard!"

When he's got his feet back on something solid, CJ lets out a breath of relief. He's not worried about falling or being dropped so much as how much trouble he'd be in for damaging whatever he lands on. Shaking it off, he turns back to Teddy and smiles.

"Yeah, here looks okay. Man...these buildings are something," he says, looking around at the city. Eventually he looks back to Teddy. "Okay, this is gonna sound stupid and crazy but I promise it's true. See...I'm from another universe...but I'm from another planet too. And apparently it's the future if Da-...if Hawkeye is right."

Hulkling crosses his arms and smiles at CJ. "And what's so crazy about that? You can't even begin to imagine the sort of things we've seen. I take it things are a little different from your original universe?"

"Huh?" CJ's pretty confused by Hulkling's reaction. He wasn't expecting the other green guy to take it so casually. "Uh...what isn't crazy about it?" he asks. "And yeah, real different. I mean there's so much here I never even -imagined- would exist. Like those phone things everyone has. And you are that Hulkling guy they were talking about, aren't ya? Are you related to the Hulk?"

"...whoa. Wait... you're from before smart phones? So... the seventies? Sixties? fifties?" Hulkling asks, very interested now. "And nah... I'm not related. The resemblance is purely accidental. The name was meant more of an homage. But in one way or the other, the Legacy thing is always hovering around."

"Uh...2020 actually..." CJ trails off. "Which is what...six years ahead of now?" he asks, still trying to make sure. He finds something sturdy and sits down, nodding as Hulkling explains. "Okay. Had me wondering if we were cousins or something there for a minute."

"Oh, the other way around, got it." Hulkling grins and tilts his head. "Cousins? Wait, -you- are related to the Hulk, then?"

CJ nods, smiling. "He's kind of my uncle," he replies. "The handsome green face didn't give it away?"

Hulkling looks at CJ and hahs, "Well, the green is about what you have in common-- I wouldn't call the Hulk 'handsome'. Imposing? Yes, but not that. You, on the other hand have the handsome thing down. So you're related to the Hulk-- that's awesome! Some people in my team have relationships along those lines." Of course, trying to explain Billy's suspected family tree would just be a headache.

"Imposing is a good word. All our parents back home used him as the boogeyman. Always telling us that if we were bad, the Hulk would come and take us away into the desert," CJ grins, laughing. "Then I find out he's real and I'm related to him," he adds with a shrug. He flashes a little flirty Barton smile when called handsome. "Thanks. Lookin' pretty good yourself," he says. "You have a team? One of actually people our age?"

Hulkling returns the smile, and leans back against a cooling unit. "Oh, yeah. We deal with all sorts of threats-- from Dark Lords to crazies trying to blow up the city. The team's sort of gotten famous as of late due to stopping a bomb from destroying the city. The president gave away medals and all of that... which is why you had so many googly-eyed girls pawing at you when they thought you were me. There are... websites on the internet where fans spend their time writing what-if stories about us and...uh... imagine who and who make up a couple." He rubs the back of his neck. "That's what they call 'fanfiction', which I guess was one of the words you didn't understand. If you're interested in getting to know the team, I can always set up a meet and greet."

"Dark Lords? That's a magic thing, right? Magic's so not my bag, man. That's all Baldur...uh...Bravado. Sure I have this silver runed arrowed that's supposed to mess up magic stuff but..." CJ babbles a little and points at his quiver with a big green thumb. "President...that's the government here, right? Some guy everyone elects?" he asks, genuinely curious. Of course the 'oh so lost' expression comes up again when websites and the internet are mentioned. "Uh...can I get one to explain the internet itself to me? Or just computers in general? Hell, having constant electricity is a new thing to me..."

"... your universe -is- very different. Alright." The nerd-at-heart of the team sits right next to Cj. "Okay... first things first," he says, putting an arm around his shoulders. "... did you have a Charles Babbage in your universe?"

CJ relaxes a little not minding the contact at all. He takes it as a sign of flirting, really. Of course there's an evil little voice in the back of his head that reminds him how flirting with the last cute blond he met went. "I have no idea who that is."

Oh boy. Okay. "Alright... the long and the short of it is that a computer is a machine, powered by electricity, that is meant to peform calculations at speeds greater than human minds are capable. These calculations are parts of instructions called 'programs' and they are meant to be executed for a specific purpose. As time has gone on, the versatility of these programs as well as the sophistication of these computers has increased. In the fifties, you had computers that were the size of huge rooms capable of performing basic mathematical operations and some sophisticated calculations... but it took hours. Now?" One arm around CJ, he takes out his phone with the other and holds it up to CJ's face, unlocking the screen so he can see. "Computer can now create visual representations of their programs. That's what you're seeing here--- we no longer need to input instructions in programming languages, but rather programmers have made it so that we have these graphical interfaces that have those instructions pre-programmed for us, so that the general public can use them. For example, take a look." He smiles, "Hi, Starkphone. Play 'Superhero' playlist."

A beep, and then a second later music starts coming out from the phone.

"I'm being -very- generalized here... but with these devices you can write novels, make art, record music and images and videos, call people and even see their faces as you call them... access all of the important knowledge of human learning from all over the world. Every encyclopedia, the classic books of literature... all that and more is available to you at the touch of this little device. Computers come in all sizes, from phones to ones that you use in your office, or others that you carry with you. The internet? Well... it is a global system of interconnected computers, just like this one. All of them with unique information, shared across an entire planet. Whatever your interests, you can search the internet and find people who share them-- you can talk to people in forums and chat rooms about things that interest you... or get news from all over the world in the blinking of an eye. See news as they happen, read articles, check out library books in electronic formats. Its... well, it's amazing, really."

CJ settles in as Teddy begins, lightly and idly drumming his fingers against his perch. He nods along even if most of it's going over his head. Science has never been CJ's strong suit outside of what he's needed to make trick arrows with his father. As the phone comes out, CJ looks over and wonders what Teddy is going to do. Everything he's seen those phones do so far has amazed him. "This is all a lot more complicated than what worked back on Battleworld..." he trails off, remembering the few funtioning computers they had and how much less sophisticsted they were. And how they were only really ever used for school stuff. The few that showed up in the few movies they had seemed like fiction. Now they look like fossils.

The music makes CJ jump and stare. "You just talked and it..." he trails off. His eyes widen as Teddy goes on his his jaw drops. "Holy...woah..." he murmurs.

"That's nothing! Take a look--- Hi, Starkphone! Open library."

And there, the e-reader app opens and it shows Teddy's digital bookcase. He taps one of the books and "THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO" appears on the screen. He 'flips' a few pages to show CJ how it works, and then he shows him Youtube-- the music video of a certain popular movie. "And this is a music video that's on the internet. So... think of computers in this world as a gateway to knowledge as well as tools to produce just about anything you can dream of, if you apply yourself and find the way."

CJ's jaw is pretty much down on street level at this point. The book appearance has him thinking about the old, worn paper copy he had to do a report on in school. By the time Teddy's finished showing him the wonders of technology, CJ is looking a little overwhelmed again. He whistles and runs a hand through his hair. "This is all...way more than our parents told us Earth was like..."

"Well, you'll have time to get accustomed." Teddy stands up and stretches a little. "...I'd love to give you more of a tour, but I promised I'd pick something up on the way home so I have to get going." He holds out his arm, and his wings sprout again. "Let me give you a ride down. And maybe you can tell me how I can get in touch with you so you can meet the rest of the team?"

"Yeah..." CJ frowns at that little tidbit, eyes flicking away and downwards. Time to get accustomed means time stuck in this strange world without his friends. He nods, taking the offered arm again. "Sure. I don't really have a phone or anything but I do go to Central Park a lot. I like to hang out there," he says, listing a few landmarks he frequents. "You could find me or leave a note or something..."

The flight down is uneventful once Hulkling grabs CJ. After they set down, he says "Alright. Let's meet at Central Park in three days' time, 'round 2pm? That should give me some time to arrange a meetup. Be careful until then, alright?" Hulkling says, giving him a smile and a wave, and kicking off the ground once more.