[TFLN] Millennial Man Sending Texts

[wristspinnerets]

[[ The original thread is here. Feel free to respond to openers that interest you! This post will double as an overflow post if needed. ]]

A] I'm not really sure actually. Until I fell in love with a boy (which was like a month ago?) I thought my attraction to men was purely physical.

B] There's a skateboard on the patio and all the chips are gone. The note on the fridge says 'don't buy cheese'. Stop letting him go outside.

C] Some man just said he would jack off to MJ's hair color. Please have my bail ready because I'm going to find him.

D] Remind me to tell you what I found stuck to me this morning...

E] Text him. Assumed CR and misfires good!

Comments

tfln overflow

[spideyguy]

[[ ooc: continued from here ]]

[ Hey, if it ain't broke. The other option was more creative nicknames, but lets be honest, that would probably devolve really quickly. He hadn't questioned the fact that he was Peter Three - seemed shockingly on point, actually. ]

not even
like
you know
someone else you might have been close with?

[ There's a reason Peter Two isn't name-dropping a girl who starts with a 'G', and there's a reason Peter Three isn't name-dropping a guy who maybe kinda starts with an 'H'. It took Peter a little while to figure that one out himself, but...well, yeah. ]

let me try that again
take 2
i guess i should say:

CONGRATS!

[ Yes that was sent with a text effect, big and blaring, and yeah, those are balloons. He's a menace. ]

[wristspinnerets]

[There's an initial wince at the animated text, purely because of the unexpected flashy, but he laughs over it.]

Thank you. It's nice to, you know, understand more about myself and not feel like a freak.

[A pause. Peter-Two debates whether or not to share it, but decides to go for it and sends,] Especially when I was in high school, people called me "freak" a lot. It was mostly over being a smart loner, but I wouldn't have liked giving them another reason to say that about me.

[Another, longer pause.] My best friend... the one I told Ned about when he asked? Was basically my only friend when I was growing up. If I ever... thought about him differently, I basically shoved it down out of the way. It might ruin... how he saw me. And I didn't want to lose Harry... even if, in the end, I did anyway.

[It feels heavy, discussing this, but there's also a sense of a burden lessened in the sharing. Peter-Two hopes it wasn't a mistake.]

[spideyguy]

[ That's definitely something Peter can understand, the constant harassment of anything or anyone viewed as 'other' at Midtown High. He'd been something of a loner himself, squirreled away in the photography dark room and running off to learn tricks on his skateboard when he should have been running the mile for gym. ]

let me guess, you had a Flash too?
eugene
what a gentleman

[ He actually wasn't so bad by the end of Senior year, but damn if he hadn't taken the long way to self-growth. ]

i had a Harry too

[ The admission comes shortly after Peter's message, because frankly he'd been wondering the same thing since overhearing Peter Two and Ned's conversation - if he had a Norman, he must have a Harry too, then. And that story definitely seemed to end differently than the one Peter had lived, even if they were both lost in the end. ]

i get that. not wanting to disturb the peace, i mean. i don't know about yours, but mine went away for school around 8th grade. sometimes i think something might have happened if he'd stayed, but with him away it wasn't worth muddying the water.

[ Peter definitely chews on the inside of his lip for a moment before hitting send, but answering earnestness with earnestness feels like the right thing to do.

[wristspinnerets]

Flash, and a couple of his cronies, absolutely loved making my life hell. It was always stuff that was too little to seem like a problem, but it added up. I'm sure you know what it's like.

[When it comes to the messages about Harry, about Peter-Three and his feelings about his Harry, Peter-Two has to take a moment. It's all so familiar, something Peter-Two might have said -- might have felt -- had he been brave enough to admit it. And it hurts all over again, beside the memory of Harry's death.]

['I never should have hurt you, or said those things...']

Dr. Osborn put Harry in private school around that same time. He stayed in the city, at least, but we saw each other less and less. By senior year, though, Harry flunked out of those fancy private schools and had to attend Midtown High. I wondered if he did it on purpose, but... I never asked. There's a lot of stuff we never said to each other. And... I regret it.

[spideyguy]

oh, i definitely know what you mean. he had a lot going on and he took it out on everyone around him.
i made myself a target, more often than not, just to get him to stop with the others.

[ Peter had been wondering if his universe was the most different, not having an MJ or other heroes - but maybe his world and Peter Two's weren't so different after all. ]

that sounds like a harry move. mine definitely would have if he could
yeah, me too

[ Quickly, Peter realizes what he's implied, and knows he has to walk it back, even if it does end up being awkward. Sigh. Story of his life. ]

he's not uh
he's alive
but he's not harry anymore

i wrote him a letter, but i never sent it
i know it sounds like therapy bullshit but it did help, actually

[wristspinnerets]

[Huh. Peter never really wondered if Flash had a reason for being such an asshole. Constantly trying to avoid the guy, and avoid being the target of his disdain and harrassment, was enough thinking about Flash for Peter back in those days. MJ dated Flash for a while in senior year -- maybe Peter can ask what she thinks about at least checking up on the guy.]

Harry was loyal... and I tried my best to be. I think the first time we really fought was before he knew I was Spider-man. He was angry about me working "with" Spider-man to sell pictues to The Bugle, when he thought Spider-man killed his dad. He didn't know about Norman being the Goblin, and all of that.

I got slapped a couple times.
Kinda felt like I deserved it, keeping secrets from him.

[Peter-Two chews on his lower lip for a moment, eyes fixed on those words: he's alive but he's not harry anymore.]

Was it schizophrenia? My Harry showed signs of it.

(It's not bullshit if it helped.)

[spideyguy]

[ Peter hadn't either, to be fair, until Flash had approached him after his Uncle's death. He'd offered himself as a punching bag, their usual hierarchy reversed, and it had been enough to throw him off balance. Perhaps it's not the same for Peter Two - but hey, who knows, maybe it would be. ]

yeah, i get that. harry hated me when he figured it out.
he asked for spiderman's blood and i had to refuse. he thought i was condemning him to death.

[ Hell, maybe he was, but surely that was better than the fraught existence he'd ended up with? ]

so Norman was always the goblin for you?

no
well, i mean maybe
could be part of it
no the osborns have this like weird gene
it's called retroviral hypodysplasia
it triggers a genetic disease
norman died of it, and harry

[ There's a pause in the texts for a good twenty seconds. ]

i didnt know how bad it was
how scared he was
he wanted my blood to synthesize a cure
i was worried it would make things worse
he ended up flooding his system with venom saved from the spider project

i just mean
maybe you should try it, too
if it helped one of us, chances are it could help another

[wristspinnerets]

[In reply to the Goblin question, Peter-Two sends:]

Norman was the Green Goblin because of the experimental performance enhancers he took... they're what split his mind in addition to making him so physically strong and durable. Harry found all of Norman's equipment years later and took the same drugs.
The press called him The New Goblin, after people witnessed a few of our fights.

[The messages about the Osborns' genetic disease makes Peter-Two frown thoughtfully. As far as he knows, neither Norman nor Harry in his universe had such a condition. But he can definitely see why it would terrify Harry.]

You made the choice you thought was best at the time. If you had known how bad the disease was, and how scared Harry was, I'm sure you would have made a different choice.

[Regarding the letter writing, after a moment of thought, he sends back,] Maybe I will try it. Maybe getting all the words out will make it feel... less heavy.

[spideyguy]

performance enhancers?
like they were making steroids?
why?

[ Trying to combat a disease, Peter can understand - but just for the hell of it? He finds that bewildering, if he's being totally honest. ]

that's the thing
i'm not sure i would have
our blood could have just as easily had the same effect
or worse, actually cracked the code on what they were working on
after connors, i just don't know

yeah man
carrying it around just makes it worse, you know?

[wristspinnerets]

From what I was able to find out, the military wanted technological advances to make super-soldiers. Toomes Tech, Quest Aerospace, and Oscorp were all competing for the funding. There was talk of Quest buying out Oscorp for a while, before the Green Goblin -- Norman -- showed up and killed the board of directors.

[So it wasn't quite 'for the hell of it', but... money and keeping control of one's company is a little less noble than trying to cure a disease, and Peter knows that.]

Well... maybe not the substance of the decision, if our blood would be that dangerous. But the delivery of the decision could have been better, right? I've thought about how things might have been different if I told Harry that I was Spider-man earlier.

[spideyguy]

oh jeez
did that ever work, in your world?
we had captain america like, movies
i don't think he was a real person?

[ If he was...maybe he just hadn't been found in the ice yet. RIP. ]

maybe. i can't rightly say harry would have believed me
about it being dangerous, i mean
you know how he gets. so focused on one thing, he cant see the trees for the forest sometimes.
besides, the only reason the spider didnt kill us was because of the dna
which feels like cheating

[wristspinnerets]

I've never heard of the guy. And since the last attempt at a super soldier got us Green Goblin and New Goblin, I don't have much faith in my world having a real Captain America...

[Maybe he did exist in Peter Two's world, just as something very secret.]

So wait, he was a real person in Peter One's world but he was fictional in yours? So for you... seeing that round shield on the Statue of Liberty.... was that like... if they stuck sticking Mickey Mouse ears on her?

[He frowns thoughtfully reading that message regarding Harry. He slips into present tense for Harry when he responds, and doesn't even notice. (The heart wants what it wants...)]

No, you're right. Harry can be pretty all or nothing.
But uh what do you mean "because of the DNA"? There were, like, three or four spider types synthesized into a new species...? And then I got bitten, and that was it...?

[spideyguy]

i mean as far as i know
he might have been based off a real captain during wwii?
all i know is ben liked the movies, they were like old, black and white films
where 'captain america' rolled up on hitler with a tommy gun

so to answer your question
actually kinda yeah xD

[ It wouldn't be accurate to ever say Peter really forgets...but he has a habit of the same. Referencing Harry like he hasn't been locked up for years; like he's just a phone call away again. ]

what do you mean what do i mean
wait
what??
there were like a bajillion spiders they were all over me
and they were cross-bred with human dna
the human dna was my father's, which is why the bite did what it did and not something worse ??
did your dad not work for oscorp ??

[wristspinnerets]

Well, that's different.

1) the genetic engineering experiment was at Columbia University, no connections to Oscorp that I know of
2) my dad was in the Army for a while, my mom was a freelance translator, and I don't think either of them worked for Oscorp
3) ...picture attached

[It might be somewhat obvious that the attached meme is in response to the "spiders cross-bred with human dna".]

[spideyguy]

woah seriously?
dad never served, on account of his asthma. Ben did, though. used the Montgomery Bill they gave him to put dad through college.

[ Ben had believed very seriously in higher education, even if he'd never had the chance to go himself.

But Peter digresses, there's a lot to unpack here. ]

the spiders!!
oscorp was breeding them as part of a gene therapy study
they wanted to transplant abilities from one species to another. self-healing specifically, like a zebra fish, a chameleon. or a spider.

norman was going to sell the research to the highest bidder as a biological weapon; he'd taken foreign military contracts. my dad found out and destroyed as much of the work as he could but like
im pretty sure they were assassinated

[ ...okay, he's never actually said it out loud before but that's kind of insane. Huh. ]

anyway uh
they managed to cross-breed the spiders successfully and the dna was, you guessed it, parker original
i don't have any samples of my father's to compare it to, but im pretty sure that's why the bite did what it did, because i was already genetically compatible.

[ img attachment ]

[wristspinnerets]

This has certainly taught me not to assume that things are the same in our worlds. People, kind of. Broad strokes of events, yeah. But wow the details are different.

[He wants to say that he's sorry about Mom and Dad -- Mom-Three and Dad-Three? -- getting killed in that world. Losing them in his world was bad enough, without the idea that they might have been murdered. But is it weird to say? He was very young when his parents passed, was this Peter?]

I guess it's very lucky in your case that it was YOU and not some other person who got bitten.

[Brief pause, and then Peter-Two decides to go for it. Maybe it's weird and awkward but if anyone is going to give him grace for that, it's his alternate self, right?]

I'm very sorry that you lost your parents too. I don't know what I'd even feel if I suspected that my parents had been murdered over Dad's work.

[spideyguy]

yeah that's fair
i guess there were things i was kind of assuming
like your web holes

[ Can he still call them shooters if they're literal holes in his wrists? Peter still has a million and one questions but he's trying so hard not to pry, do you see him not prying? ]

extremely.
that's what happened to harry. injected himself with the leftover venom.
not ideal.

and i'm sorry you did, too. hurts either way.
doesn't really matter in the end, you know? how or why it happened. nothing i can do to bring them back
but i can be proud, i guess, of the choices they made. standing up for what they believed in.
guess dad and Ben had that in common.

[wristspinnerets]

"web holes" sounds so weird but hell if I can think of a better word. They're not exactly spinnerets.

[Stop. It's not about you. Refocus...]

It was your Harry's own choice to inject that venom. Like it was my Harry's choice to take the Goblin performance enhancers. Even if they were ill-informed choices, it wasn't OUR fault. So I hope you're not blaming yourself.

[A pause, and then Peter-Two sends a new message to follow up on the other thread of the conversation.]

Yeah... we've had good people to look for as examples. Aunt May too. And for what it's worth, Peter. I think you live up to Dad and Uncle Ben. You've given a lot to keep people safe, and you're still trying to do the best you can. You really are amazing.

[spideyguy]

have you ever taken an x-ray to find out?
maybe they are
maybe you have a gland in there

[ Oh my God Peter, everything you say sounds wrong, always. But he is just genuinely excited, which probably only makes it weirder. ]

if i'd paid more attention and been the friend that i promised i would be, maybe he wouldnt have been so desperate
backed into a corner. he came to spiderman for help and i should have just explained it to him
i dont know. i replay it in my head, you know?
if i can't blame him, or myself, then its just a pointless tragedy.
and there are only so many of those a person can be in the center of before you start to wonder if the problem is you, ykwim?

[ Peter's reply comes several minutes later, mostly because he blacks out whenever someone compliments him. ]

aw shucks man
you're not so bad yourself
you seem to have this whole thing figured out and you just seem
very confident
i hope i can find that one day