Angie nodded. “One of the things I’ve always admired about the military is that they’re willing to overlook a lot if you’re good. Generally, people would rather the person they’re fighting with to be competent.” Didn’t make her trust the Military Industrial Complex any more, but she recognized that it was in a lot of ways a safer place for some of her students. The military tended to protect their own against outside attacks, wherever they might be coming from.
She couldn’t help that she wanted all of her kids to go into nice safe jobs. But there really weren’t any jobs that guaranteed protection from the nastiness of the world. And if the military made them better at protecting themselves, she would support it. Also James Rhodes was cool. But mostly the other stuff.
“They do.” She smiled at him, happy that he understood. “They deserve a lot more than we can give them, most of the time. But we try.”
She wanted them to have heroes, to see that people didn’t have to be mutants to be heroes. She didn’t want to shut them away from humanity and convince them that all humans hated them. She wasn’t Erik or Mystique. She wanted them to understand that other people were in their corner, that their lives didn’t have to be mutant lives, that they could be like anyone else, if they wanted to. She wanted so many things for them, often contradictory, usually very different from what they wanted.
“We have a couple from military families. A few more who’re interested because they want to blow shit up. They’re young, what can I say? One or two who could probably be officers if they decided to go that way, they have that command thing.” She opened the door and waved him in. “They’ll probably all wanna talk to you though. Even if they’re more likely to want to be an Avenger than a flyboy.”
“I can’t promise them anything about being an Avenger,” Rhodey said, grinning, “but I’m ready to answer any and all questions to the best that I can.”
And, if Rhodey was being honest, that was the part he liked best. He liked curious minds, he liked intelligence and kids who wanted to puzzle things out for themselves. He liked seeing those traits in the adults who worked for him as well, and he would tolerate any well-thought out question from his airmen, so long as it was at an appropriate time or appropriate to the task at hand. It didn’t matter who the asker was, and Rhodey had found that having those conversations challenged him and pulled even more respect from those under him. As did having the open door policy.
As she opened the door, he straightened his tie, and he adopted a interested, positive expression for the kids.
They expressed some disappointment that he hadn’t brought his suit in with him – Rhodey hadn’t wanted to ruin the school’s... everything – but it turned to cheers when their teacher said they could go out to see the suit at the end of the session. Rhodey presented some of the history of aerial fighting and the Air Force, including a section on the Tuskegee Airmen, and then went into a short segment of what a modern member of the Air Force could be expected to do, and what opportunities were available. Rhodey could see three interested, two boys and a girl, and he invited anyone who wanted to learn more to call him or email him – and then gave out his personal email and phone number.
After that was questions, and there were a lot of deep ones. Questions about mutants in the military, and violence against mutants, and about his experiences as an Avenger (especially the battles he had been in), and what he thought about registration.
At that one, the whole room went silent.
“I believe that we – and by that, I mean adult superheroes who respond to threats – should have a way to be found in an emergency. I believe that that should be voluntary and not permanent, so that in the case someones wants or needs to not be called on in case of that emergency, they aren’t, and they aren’t dragged through the public sphere for not being there. I believe that the same precautions that are taken to protect the information of our spies should also be taken to protect those who volunteer that information, and that there should be legal protections for anyone who registers and volunteers to risk their life in such a way, even if it gets messy. On the other hand, there should also be a way to prosecute those who use their abilities to endanger others, and we need to update our penal codes to reflect that, but our penal codes have needed updating for decades – this is nothing new.”
“Please remember that what I have laid out is a voluntary system meant for adults who choose it. It is not meant to be publicly available, it is not meant to be mandatory, it is not meant to apply to minors, and it is never, never meant to apply as a blanket over an entire group of people, any people. And it absolutely shouldn’t be implemented until we can make sure that such an idea is not used to harm those it was meant to protect.”
The teacher clapped her hands after a few seconds, and then spoke up.
“That’s it for questions. Now, who wants to go outside and see Colonel Rhodes’ suit?”
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