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"No, I'm telling you, Wonder Woman totally kicks Superman's ass. Hands down."
Tendo is shaking his head, apparently distraught by Raleigh's poor, misguided judgment.
"And how would she do that? With her glowy little length of rope? Nah, dude, Superman definitely wins that fight. He has laser eyes."
Raleigh scoffs, voice laced with derision, "She'd deflect it right back at him with those awesome bracers. His own weapon would be used against him. Wonder Woman would win."
Tendo turns to the rest of the group, looking for help. Chuck's been watching them all go back and forth for the last hour, arguing over who would win in what fight. This is the seventh hypothetical that's been posited, but the spectacle has yet to become boring.
"Mako?"
"Sorry, Tendo. We all agreed Batman would defeat Superman, and Wonder Woman definitely beats Batman. Stands to reason she would beat Superman, too."
Chuck figures that's the end of this particular debate, but then they all turn to stare at him expectantly. Shit.
"What?"
"Well, who do you think would win? Clark or Diana?" Tendo looks confident that he'll have Chuck's support on this, but he's sadly mistaken.
Of course, that doesn't mean Raleigh has his support either- mainly because he no longer has any idea what's going on.
"I thought you were talking about Wonder Woman and Superman, who the hell are Clark and Diana?"
The way the entire table goes silent might have been funny, if it didn't feel like every single one of them was judging him. Over not knowing something about comic books.
"What?"
Mako lets out a quiet chuckle, and that sets the rest of them off into hysterics.
Except Raleigh, but Chuck is too angry to even notice as he shoves violently away from the table. The look on his face must be quite a sight, what with the way everyone around just clears a path for him, but he can't be bothered with trying not to be an asshole right now.
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He doesn’t know exactly what he’d said to make himself look so stupid, just that it did. And really, why would anyone expect him to know anything about some damn fictional superheroes? He’s been a little busy trying to save the real world, thank you very much; there hasn’t been a lot of room in his life for any sort of fiction, in between training to pilot a bloody huge robot, alright? Nobody’s got any right to be making fun of him for something so inconsequential.
Raleigh catches us with him about halfway between the mess hall and his quarters, and Chuck is not in any sort of state to be dealing with this.
“Diana and Clark are their regular-person alter ego names.”
The words bring Chuck to a halt. He’d been ready for a variety of jabs from the other pilot, from simple amusement to outright disdain, but apparently hadn’t prepared for sincere helpfulness. Silly of him, in hindsight, but their interactions up to this point haven’t exactly been…friendly.
“And why would everyone just expect me to know that?” He’s got his arms crossed tightly across his chest, determined to not throw any punches. At least not yet; he’s been getting very well-acquainted with one particular punching bag, recently. It seems to be helping, given the way people have actually begun inviting interaction with him.
“I guess they just assumed that everybody knows stuff about Wonder Woman and Superman, especially with those movies they made before the war started.”
“At which point I was nine, in case you all forgot.”
From the way Raleigh’s face scrunches in on itself, he thinks maybe they have. Well. At least that means nobody’s been factoring in his age when judging his actions, he supposes.
“Wait, so you’re…”
“Twenty-one. Didn’t exactly have time to read your precious comics before- saving the world, and all that.”
“Not even during downtime?”
“Not a lot of downtime for a child trying to keep up with everyone around me!” And maybe he should learn to shut up, dammit, none of this is any of Raleigh’s business; they’re not friends, are barely friendly acquaintances. So what if they saved the world together, all that means is that they have the ability to put aside their differences in the face of certain oblivion. No reason to get personal with each other, especially not about how trying to be the best had consumed his life entirely, to the point where he barely knows how to be a real person now that there’s nothing to fight.
Chuck growls a curse and stomps off before Raleigh even has time to process his words, nevermind respond to them.
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Chuck comes back from his run the next morning to find a stack of Wonder Woman comics on his bunk, and a note.
‘Plenty of time now, you should educate yourself,’ signed with nothing but an obnoxious smiley face.
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A week later, Chuck returns the comics to Raleigh’s room, along with a stack of Captain Marvel issues, the movie they made for her in 2016, and a note of his own.
‘Alright, there was maybe a LITTLE downtime between being awesome and blowing kaiju to bits. And you should educate YOURSELF, Carol would definitely kick Diana’s ass.’