Fandom: DC Comics
Title: I Put Most of My Skill Points in Blather (And I Put the Rest in Knowledge (Booster Gold))
Characters: Yours Truly, Booster Gold
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,018
Spoilers: Various events in 52, and one very small, convoluted, not actually spoilery reference to something in Booster Gold #3.
Warnings: Self-insertion?
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
A/N: Done for dcdailylife. 100% fun, insubstantial, 1st-person blathering. Seems I'm rather good at that. I kind of had to fudge my own time line a bit to make it work, but, honestly, give it a year or two, and this will fit absolutely perfectly into canon. Huzzah for the sliding time line!

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I moved to Metropolis about mid-August of last year. Great timing, huh? Move to Metropolis right when Superman decides he's going to take a year off. Not that I hold that against him, of course. The guy definitely earned his vacation, that's for sure. And, y'know, it's not like I moved to Metropolis to see Superman, anyway. I'm going to college.

OK, I'm going to community college. I never claimed to be ambitious. It was my sister's idea, and I didn't really have any better plans.

Besides, Superman not being around suited me just fine, really, since, well....

OK, I'll admit it: I'm a big fan of Booster Gold. I realize that's not really a popular thing to be these days, but, well, I can't help it. I just plain like the guy. He first surfaced right around when I started becoming aware that there was a world outside my little bubble of Suburbiaville (not actually named Suburbiaville, for the record) and he made quite the impression on my young, entering-puberty brain. Don't look at me like that; I am, unfortunately, only human, and, well, you can't deny that he's extremely good-looking.

So, like, I said, I'm a big fan. Huge fan. I even have a Conglomerate jacket. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the universe who even remembers there was a Conglomerate once, but I still wear the jacket all the time. (It's a nice jacket!) People are always asking me what the "C" stands for. It's.... Well, it's kind of depressing, really. But I always try to explain it. It's earned me some interesting looks. I guess I'm just a sucker for punishment.

Right, my move to Metropolis. There's a story there, as I'm sure you’ve deduced. (I don't seem to be very good at this first-person narration thing. Can we chalk it up to stream of consciousness and extreme distractibility?) Well, not so much my move to Metropolis as something that happened soon thereafter. Less than a week after I moved, even. So it kind of counts, right? Of course it does.

So, it's August 20th, and I've been in town for about 6 days and nothing exciting has happened yet. Until my sister and I are walking home from dinner. I'm still new in town, of course, so I'm looking around all over the place when I happen to observe what I can only describe as a gigantic Lovecraftian beastie a few streets down. Naturally, I observe this out loud. My sister looks over at it briefly and notes that it's a new one, and then promptly continues on her merry way. She's only been in Metropolis for about 2 years at this point. Jeezum Pete, am I right? Me, I linger for a while just staring at the stupid thing, trying to think of a good adjective that starts with an m to go with "magenta monstrosity." (Because, seriously, who expects a horror from beyond the deep to be a few shades shy of hot pink? It looked like it belonged in some sort of Barbie Playset of Innsmouth or something, I swear. The question is, of course, whether or not the idea of Barbie with the Innsmouth Look is hilarious or terrifying, or some sort of mystifying gestalt of both.)

So, I'm looking at this thing and trying to figure out if it's more apt to describe it as the result of an unholy threesome between a slug, an octopus, and a sea anemone or as the unholy threesome itself already in progress, when something, or, more aptly, someone, crashes right into the street in front of me. I jump what was probably a solid foot into the air and, more than likely, scream like a little schoolgirl. But you can't prove anything.

If you'll forgive the Dungeons & Dragons reference, this is the part where I prove that I rolled spectacularly low on my Wisdom score. I approach. As if that wasn't evidence enough, I ask if he's OK. Absolutely genius, that one.

By this point, of course, Booster Gold (he being my unexpected visitor, naturally) is back on his feet and gets most of the way through an "I'm fine" before he stops and stares at me like I've grown an additional head or two, and, for a minute, I'm worried I have. But then he flashes this gorgeous smile at me (Would you believe he's even prettier in person?) and says, "Nice jacket." Amazingly, I manage to stutter out a thanks before he's gone again, even though by now I'm blushing so hard, I could probably put Red Tornado to shame in the redness department. I don't really remember much about the rest of the trip home, other than the general feeling of euphoria and the sneaking suspicion that I spent the entire trip blathering endlessly at my sister.

To say that I was somewhat displeased to hear that Booster had died within the hour would be a charming exercise in understatement, to say the least. I wanted to hate Supernova, you know. I really, really did. It should've been easy, really, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, in a display of non-pettiness somewhat unusual for me.

And then he disappeared shortly after New Year's. Though, could you blame the guy after what happened then? Nobody should ever have to deal with that kind of thing on their own. But I will admit that I kept a better eye on Steel after that. Hey, Superman disappears, and then the next two guys who try to work in Metropolis die and disappear, respectively, you get a little worried, y'know? It's not like I'm the only person who thought there was a suspicious trend there or anything. But Steel never disappeared, and, after a while, Superman came back, and even Booster himself resurfaced not too long ago. No Supernova yet, though.

Y'know, I actually read an article online that theorized that Booster Gold and Supernova were one and the same. It was an interesting theory, but come on. Supernova was Booster Gold?

Who would believe that?