Fic: A Matter of Perspective
Fandom: DC Comics
Title: A Matter of Perspective
Characters: Booster Gold, Batman (mention)
Rating: G
Prompt: #20, Learned Helplessness
Word Count: 610
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
A/N: Because Booster trying to kill Batman is meta and hurty, given Booster's city of origin, and I don't think the guy who wrote it (Rucka, right?) even knows. And the giant Batman statue? Totally canon.
---
Booster looked up at the larger than life statue of Batman looming above the park bench he was sitting on and wondered if he should do anything special for his birthday. Of course, he was just as twenty-seven as he'd been the day before, but, technically, he'd been born forty years ago. He considered turning himself into the police but decided he'd worked too hard at getting here to just give up like that.
It had taken him ages to find Rip Hunter, and he wasn't even the same Rip Hunter Booster had been friends with, but he helped anyway, which was pretty nice of him. When he asked when he wanted to go, Booster had to fight to tell him 2482 and not one of the years when he was in the league and Ted was still alive, just like Tora and Sue and Skeets and Dmitri and everybody else, but Rip--the Rip he knew, not this new Rip--had warned him about what happened when somebody was at the same time as themselves with a bit more detail than Booster would've liked to have heard, so he didn't. It wasn't something he'd wish on anybody.
It had taken some work to readjust to the twenty-fifth century after so many years--was it really only seven? It felt like so much longer--in the twenty-first. But it wasn't as much work as he'd thought it'd be. Before he left, he'd emptied out what was left of Ted's funds. He had felt absolutely terrible about it, but he had reminded himself that Ted wouldn't be needing the money anyway, since he was--Never mind. And besides, it wasn't like there had been much money there to take, anyway. But it made for a nice stack of twenties that was both worthless and priceless in this century.
He'd traded the money for useful legal tender slowly, a little here, a little there. Anywhere else in the world, there would've been questions, there would've been calls, and the police would have caught him, but this was Gotham. People didn't ask questions in Gotham. He'd bought himself some clothes and an apartment and currently had something vaguely resembling a normal life, but the money was going to run out sometime, and he wasn't sure what he'd do then.
Maybe he'd turn himself in and be done with it.
Booster opened his eyes and was surprised to find a dark-haired, middle-aged man looking down at him with a confused expression on his face.
"Hey, are you--? Nah, couldn't be; you're too young," he said. Booster shot a skeptical look at him.
"Who?" he asked with suspicion. Talking to strangers wasn't generally considered to be wise, but by the looks of it, this guy had enough money to convince himself that bad things wouldn't happen to him. It was stupid, but Booster humored him anyway.
"Booster Carter. He played football about, hmmm… twenty years ago. Damn." The man sat down on the bench next to Booster without asking his permission. "I knew it'd been a while, but I could've sworn it wasn't more than fifteen years...."
"Hmn," Booster offered non-committingly.
"A real shame how he went all bad, though. The man was damned good at the game. I heard he stole a time machine from the Space Museum in Metropolis afterwards, too. Isn't that something? Kind of typical, though, isn't it? Just when you think Gotham's capable of turning out somebody who actually ends up good, it has to go and prove you horribly wrong, huh?"
Booster looked up at the statue of Batman again and sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean."
Title: A Matter of Perspective
Characters: Booster Gold, Batman (mention)
Rating: G
Prompt: #20, Learned Helplessness
Word Count: 610
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
A/N: Because Booster trying to kill Batman is meta and hurty, given Booster's city of origin, and I don't think the guy who wrote it (Rucka, right?) even knows. And the giant Batman statue? Totally canon.
---
Booster looked up at the larger than life statue of Batman looming above the park bench he was sitting on and wondered if he should do anything special for his birthday. Of course, he was just as twenty-seven as he'd been the day before, but, technically, he'd been born forty years ago. He considered turning himself into the police but decided he'd worked too hard at getting here to just give up like that.
It had taken him ages to find Rip Hunter, and he wasn't even the same Rip Hunter Booster had been friends with, but he helped anyway, which was pretty nice of him. When he asked when he wanted to go, Booster had to fight to tell him 2482 and not one of the years when he was in the league and Ted was still alive, just like Tora and Sue and Skeets and Dmitri and everybody else, but Rip--the Rip he knew, not this new Rip--had warned him about what happened when somebody was at the same time as themselves with a bit more detail than Booster would've liked to have heard, so he didn't. It wasn't something he'd wish on anybody.
It had taken some work to readjust to the twenty-fifth century after so many years--was it really only seven? It felt like so much longer--in the twenty-first. But it wasn't as much work as he'd thought it'd be. Before he left, he'd emptied out what was left of Ted's funds. He had felt absolutely terrible about it, but he had reminded himself that Ted wouldn't be needing the money anyway, since he was--Never mind. And besides, it wasn't like there had been much money there to take, anyway. But it made for a nice stack of twenties that was both worthless and priceless in this century.
He'd traded the money for useful legal tender slowly, a little here, a little there. Anywhere else in the world, there would've been questions, there would've been calls, and the police would have caught him, but this was Gotham. People didn't ask questions in Gotham. He'd bought himself some clothes and an apartment and currently had something vaguely resembling a normal life, but the money was going to run out sometime, and he wasn't sure what he'd do then.
Maybe he'd turn himself in and be done with it.
Booster opened his eyes and was surprised to find a dark-haired, middle-aged man looking down at him with a confused expression on his face.
"Hey, are you--? Nah, couldn't be; you're too young," he said. Booster shot a skeptical look at him.
"Who?" he asked with suspicion. Talking to strangers wasn't generally considered to be wise, but by the looks of it, this guy had enough money to convince himself that bad things wouldn't happen to him. It was stupid, but Booster humored him anyway.
"Booster Carter. He played football about, hmmm… twenty years ago. Damn." The man sat down on the bench next to Booster without asking his permission. "I knew it'd been a while, but I could've sworn it wasn't more than fifteen years...."
"Hmn," Booster offered non-committingly.
"A real shame how he went all bad, though. The man was damned good at the game. I heard he stole a time machine from the Space Museum in Metropolis afterwards, too. Isn't that something? Kind of typical, though, isn't it? Just when you think Gotham's capable of turning out somebody who actually ends up good, it has to go and prove you horribly wrong, huh?"
Booster looked up at the statue of Batman again and sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean."