Rich almost smiles at "Squich." Almost. But the rest makes him shake his head vehemently.
"That was never your fault. You were hurting and mixed up and people took advantage of that instead of getting you help. What happened at Stamford was never your fault, either. It was always Nitro." It was Nitro who had made the choice to hurt innocent people, just like Rich has a choice to let harm happen now. "But this one's on me. I get to choose whether I let them use me to hurt people. I've seen the world they want to make."
His voice starts quavering and he looks ahead. For a moment, he sees something else besides the stars and the stellar gasses swirling in the system around the black hole. There's a tension to his jaw that suggests he's barely able to keep himself from screaming.
"I'm not putting anyone else through that. I can't do it. And the only other way to prevent it is if I go back to the Cancerverse." His voice suddenly goes high and brittle. "I'm not going back. I'd rather be dead. That's all I wanted when I was there, I wanted to be dead. For good. I wanted to finally rest."
He blinks and manages to find his way back to the present again, away from the purple and crimson skies and biting ground, away from the times his body had been broken over and over.
"It's not about what I deserve. It's about risk. My life isn't worth the risk."
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"That was never your fault. You were hurting and mixed up and people took advantage of that instead of getting you help. What happened at Stamford was never your fault, either. It was always Nitro." It was Nitro who had made the choice to hurt innocent people, just like Rich has a choice to let harm happen now. "But this one's on me. I get to choose whether I let them use me to hurt people. I've seen the world they want to make."
His voice starts quavering and he looks ahead. For a moment, he sees something else besides the stars and the stellar gasses swirling in the system around the black hole. There's a tension to his jaw that suggests he's barely able to keep himself from screaming.
"I'm not putting anyone else through that. I can't do it. And the only other way to prevent it is if I go back to the Cancerverse." His voice suddenly goes high and brittle. "I'm not going back. I'd rather be dead. That's all I wanted when I was there, I wanted to be dead. For good. I wanted to finally rest."
He blinks and manages to find his way back to the present again, away from the purple and crimson skies and biting ground, away from the times his body had been broken over and over.
"It's not about what I deserve. It's about risk. My life isn't worth the risk."