The Burden of Those Who Volunteer
As he watched the 5th vial of blood top off, Gar was happy when Dr. Nelson pulled the needle from his arm, "Is that all you need Dr. Acula?" Gar asked in a playful tone.
Before Dr. Nelson could reply, J'onn says "Did you take too much blood Kent? He has already forgotten your name. Quickly, run some tests to ensure he is ok."
Kent laughed for a moment, "He used the acronym for Dracula to describe me taking his blood my friend, he is in no medical need. Maybe a psychologist for his foul taste in jokes though."
"Ahh, I see he refers to Dracula, the progenitor of the vampire race. But your intent is not to ingest the blood, so I fail to see the connection. I will ask Black Canary if she has time to speak with the young man as she is a licensed Psychologist and counselor." J'onn said in a serious tone.
Gar slapped his forehead, slowly shook it, "I have sooo many dad jokes that are going to confuse this poor guy!"
Gar caught Kent's eye and smiled, "This will be great, and just to share the fun, I will tell him to come to you for clarification every time."
Kent's lips turned to a half-smile, and he told J'onn, "When you speak to Black Canary tell her we have a budding Supervillain here."
"Now get out of here, your jokes may have people thinking my bedside manner has gotten better. Don't want them accusing me of treating you better than them. I will notify you when I have your results."
As Gar jumped from the medical bed he was sitting on he said, "You may as well send a copy to Devilbat before telling me, I'm sure he will know before me regardless."
Kent just chuckled again as he walked away. "Smart Boy." He mumbled to himself.
"If you want to show me to my room J'onn, we can continue our talk there."
After another 10-minute walk, J'onn motioned to a door, "This one will be yours." Entering the door J'onn pointed to, Gar saw a small sitting room with a chair, a couch, and a television on the wall. Walking to one of the two doors, Gar opened it to see a small bathroom with a shower. The second door led to a bedroom, as he figured it would.
"This will be your room as long as you are with us, you may decorate it to suit your taste." J'onn explained.
Gesturing to the chair Gar tells J'onn, "Make yourself comfortable and we can get started with the question-and-answer portion of this conversation."
"I will try to not ask redundant questions that you have already answered today. But before I ask any, how about you ask any questions you may have of me." J'onn volunteered.
Gar decided to ask a basic question to start things off, "Where are we?"
J'onn replied, "This is referred to as the Watchtower satellite, it houses heroes that have joined the Justice League to help keep peace when requested and prevent disasters when possible. With our technology, we can use Zeta tubes to travel to set points on the planet nearly instantaneously. That would be the short answer."
"However, it serves more purposes than that. It is also a connection to the rest of the Galaxy, and it serves as a first response center to any threat to the planet. I am also in talks with Mars leadership to see if we can form a joint watch system for dangers from outside this solar system." J'onn ended his answer there.
"What about the Justice League? What is the purpose of it, in your eyes?" Gar asked.
"A few years ago, a megalomaniac named Darkseid attacked Earth in his search for what he called the Anti-Life Equation, no single hero could stand before his might. Seeing this, several heroes including myself banded together to fight and ultimately defeat him."
"Fearful of his return, it was decided we would stay in touch. After a few more encounters with other powerful beings that required the efforts of multiple heroes, we decided to form the Justice League. It was also thought that we would help assure the population we meant no harm to the people of this planet. That portion has had mixed results." Finished J'onn.
"I imagine the time spent among like-minded people helps with the burden of being a hero. Information sharing and training partners would be another major perk." Gar pressed.
J'onn raises his eyebrow, "I am curious, why did you call it a burden?"
Taking a moment to get his thoughts in order Gar said, "In my experience when you volunteer for something you do it with good intentions. But some people then take you for granted and any failure on your part is solely your fault. For example, if you see a robbery and intervene and a bystander pulls out his phone to record the incident but gets injured as you apprehend the criminal then it becomes your fault for not ensuring his safety. But he chose to stay in the area of danger and should be responsible himself, but it isn't seen that way sometimes. Especially when there is an agenda being pushed."
"This goes for more than just heroes though, police, Firefighters, soldiers, and even EMS are voluntary roles people take on. They are often put in unfair situations and have to make terrible choices, but all most people see is the uniform and the result of the choice made. Not the person behind the uniform and the desperation in their action. An EMT spends an extra 30 seconds trying to save a child and because of that decision, the child's mother bleeds out from an unseen wound. After action review says you wasted that time, and you could have saved them both if you approached the mother first."
"Not everyone volunteers for the best of reasons and not everyone can avoid the greed that power and position bring, and that is often held as a reason to see all in their position in a negative light."
Stopping for a moment, Gar decided to share a personal demon from his previous life. "Before I was here in this world or this body, I was a soldier. Just a grunt, not a decision-maker. I was deployed to an area and our mission was 'Hearts and Minds', basically trying to win over civilian support by doing outreach projects like water facility openings and such. As we gathered our vehicles to leave, we often gave out candy or school supplies to the children in the area. It was a normal thing that all the kids knew we did so they kind of mobbed us just before we left an area."
"It was kind of a game in many ways, we were deployed away from our families and kids, so we were very tolerant of any child."
The slight smile on Gar's lips as he remembered the playful kids left his face and his eyes went cold.
"A car came out of a side road and rammed into the crowd then exploded. It made no sense, there were only a couple of soldiers handing stuff out. Why go through the children to get to them?"
"We immediately reacted and set up our parameter intercepting two more vehicles trying to ram into the convoy. Their resulting explosion injured more people but not any more soldiers."
"Now here comes the hard part J'onn. Parents and siblings and even Grandparents rush to the area to see if their child, little brother, sister, or grandchild is ok. And we had to stop them from entering the area, I couldn't answer any of their questions because I didn't know the language well enough and what could I tell them if I could talk to them? I couldn't let them through because what if there were more bombers going after our response team and the local EMS? But all they saw in their grief and desperation was a foreign soldier standing in their way, stopping them from learning the fate of their loved ones."
"At that time my own adrenalin and training stopped me from feeling anything and just kept me performing my task, but later when I had the quiet time, I asked what would I do in their position. They weren't in the wrong, but neither was I and that was my burden to bear."
At the end of the story, Gar just shook his head sadly and continued.
"An animated movie I saw years ago that ironically dealt with a multiverse had a line that really struck home for me. It was, 'The worst thing about the hero gig, is that you can't save everybody."
"That really struck me because even knowing that, people still try to save others. Putting themselves in harm's way to save just one more. Knowing that they will be criticized for not saving everyone in the end. So yes, I do believe being a hero comes with a burden that only others carrying the same burden can understand."
"Not like I'm telling you anything you don't know yourself J'onn. With your telepathy, you have to hear the stuff people aren't brave enough to say out loud. Most don't say it to spare someone's feelings, others say it in their minds to make themselves feel better thinking no one else knows, but you have to hear it all if you aren't careful. Luckily, I haven't been in a large population yet to get overwhelmed with thoughts not my own. I am not looking forward to that part of these gifts."
As Gar finished, he felt Morph pushing himself along my face as he made soft soothing noises as if comforting me. "Thanks, Morph, I got it under control now buddy."
A shout-out to all those who voluntarily put themselves in harm's way to help those who can't help themselves.