maskormenacelogs | while i'm fine with washing dishes

WHO: Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man and YOU
WHERE: Around and about Heropa; Residence #11
WHEN: After the shuttle disaster, before the Summer Games
WHAT: Wandering about town, and a few loose ends to clear up before the move to De Chima
WARNINGS: Secret identity shenanigans

[ OPEN (SPIDER-MAN); Heropa at night ]

"You know, if I were a small-time crook -- which, contrary to the assertions of one cigar-chomping newsman in another universe, I most certainly am not -- I would've considered a career change or a move around the time the first new imPorts started showing up," Spider-Man said, wrapping his web line one final time around the top of the lamppost.

Dangling beneath his perch, one of the two thwarted muggers shrugged as best as he could from within the cocoon. "Gotta admit, he has a point," he said to the other.

"Vinny, shut up!"

"Hey, all I'm saying is, if you'd given the Etsy shop a few more months -- "

"And like I told you, Etsy's all wholesalers from China now, there's no chance --"

"Boys! I hate to interrupt, but I'm on a schedule here," Spidey cut in. He hopped down to the ground and pulled out his communicator. "Now, let me just take a photo for a quick text to Heropa's finest -- no, don't pull a duck face, Vinny, you're embarrassing yourself -- and you can hash out your business plans while you wait for them to show up. Sorry to web and run, but I have a bus to catch."

Spider-Man doesn't have the best mental associations with flying gliders, but he's considering trying his hand at building one anyway. Damn Heropa and its lack of skyscrapers.

[ OPEN (PETER PARKER); a drug store ]

So there's a man standing in the aisle of the drug store. Nothing unusual about that. Except that he's in the cosmetics section, and appears to be comparing different shades of concealer against the skin on his wrist.

Well hey, it's the 21st century (more or less). Poor guy, though, he looks a little confused.

[ RESIDENCE #11 ]

Stupid, Peter thinks to himself, real stupid. First he got himself knocked around during the fight with Starscream -- that was understandable, considering said opponent was a building-sized giant robot. But getting banged up during a routine patrol is just embarrassing.

He needs to stop trying to rescue cats out of trees, no matter how bored he is. It never ends well.

He also needs to cover up his giant face bruise before Flash or Scathach see it, let alone Valeria. But first he needs to get back through his window without dinging his ankle or making too much noise --

Too late. Crouched on the floor, he winces, both from the jolt of pain travelling up his leg, and from the realization that he was loud enough to wake the dead.

[ FLASH THOMPSON; on the boardwalk ]

Valeria is off with Miranda for the afternoon, leaving Peter and Flash free to relax and just hang out for the first time in… well, from his perspective, for the first time in close to four years. The sun beats down on their heads, the salt makes the air vaguely sticky, the hot dogs are terrible, and none of the tourists are wearing enough deodorant.

Peter's having a blast.

"D'you feel a little bit like we're playing hooky?" he asks, chewing up the remainder of his rocket pop.

[ MATT MURDOCK; at his office ]

Peter doesn't bother to call ahead, just shows up around lunchtime and takes a seat on a bench across the street from Matt's workplace, well within radar distance, a generously sized paper bag tucked next to him. All the cubano sandwiches and key lime pie two vigilantes can eat, with bottled water as a concession to Matt's regular health-consciousness kicks.

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Peter's beginning to regret bringing up this subject. He's out of practice with having "normal" friends (civilians, he wants to call them, but even the Flash in his head is complaining about that, never mind what the one rolling along next to him would say). He's lost the knack for holding himself back, and suppressing the guilt that bubbles up every time he lies until he can hardly feel it. He's got friends here who only know Peter Parker, of course, but no one he truly owes the information the way he does his best friend.

Having Flash around has been great. Having Flash around has been awful. He's running out of excuses not to come clean, to tell him the secret that's been hanging between them for fifteen years -- except for the best, worst one, which is that Peter couldn't bear to lose him. Not even for however long they have before one of them is sent home, the slate wiped clean.

He opens his mouth, mentally rehearsing the words: "Flash, you've already seen behind the curtains..." What comes out is, "Hey, I think that girl at the shooting gallery's checking you out."

At least that one's not a lie.

Flash wishes sometimes the moment he'd tried to tell Peter hadn't been ruined. It would be better to be able to talk about it with someone he trusts, even if Pete's got some funny ideas about superheroes and Spider-Man sometimes. It's isolating, living with this thing in his head and the big secret of its existence. He can't confide in a three year old girl. He probably can't confide to Peter, come to that, not really. Not in detail. But it would be nice to just have someone who could have his back...

But he doesn't say any of that. And he doesn't notice that Peter may have been trying to say something else. He just...takes it at face value. Pete's Pete. He's got an ordinary life. All of this is just theoretical for him.

"Awww, poor Parker," he says, mock bragging. "The chair is a ladies magnet. But don't worry, there's a girl out there for you somewhere."

"Some of us are more into women, Flash," says Peter, with all the condescension he can muster. "Remind me to tell you about Carol sometime."

Which only goes to show how strange things have gotten between him and Flash, that even when he can't bring himself to come clean he also can't stop dropping hints that his friend is never going to be able to parse. Even if he realized "Carol" was Carol Danvers, Ms.-- no, Captain Marvel, the psychic blindspot would keep him from asking the right questions.

It is nice to banter, though -- and to be able to think of Carol fondly and off-hand, without the bittersweet tang of their separation. Now that he thinks about it he's not sure when that happened.

Meanwhile, in the present, the girl at the booth's not looking any less interested. Or maybe she's just people-watching out of boredom, but either way. "You should go talk to her."

But Flash can't tell him that he's-- well, whatever he and Valkyrie were, he's still got to admit it was something. It feels a little wrong to think about chasing another woman, even if it's just to keep Pete from looking at him strangely. Even if he's sort of looked out for that woman, the day of the train crash. Power Girl. Hoo boy.

"Who the hell's Carol?"

He sounds surprised, mostly because he'd thought he was pretty on top of Peter's life. At least, while he and Betty were together, and Betty knows just about everything. But Pete's way behind the times.

"That's not Carlie's real name or anything, is it?" Because then, shit, he didn't know that at all. But then, by all accounts, most people don't know his name is really Eugene.

Edited 2014-09-28 01:04 (UTC)

"Carlie?" It takes a second for him to place the name. Not that he's forgotten her, not anywhere near. But after so long as an imPort he's had to compartmentalize his life or go a little crazy. (Crazier, remembering his little breakdown on the phone with Matt.)

Anyway, coming from when he comes, Carlie's been filed under missed opportunity, not ex-girlfriend.

"No, not Carlie Cooper. Carol Danvers. Also known as Captain Marvel."

If Peter says that name with particular relish, if he sounds smug, it's because -- well, he is smug. And faintly incredulous that Carol had been interested in a guy like him, but that's par for the course with Peter and his relationships.

It's almost a high school moment all over again. Flash gives him a look, the one that he wore so frequently trying to figure out if the joke was on him or not, back in school. Captain Marvel, really? What the hell would Captain Marvel want with a dork like Peter Parker? Because, god love him, he really is a giant dork.

(He can't tell Peter that he kinda knows who Carol is for real, although he's never talked to her. He can't tell him that he's actually for real taking a Norse goddess or all their bizarre complications owing to the fact that she's now soul bonded with a girl who is not all that interested in letting them have a sex life.)

Finally, he snorts, with the sort of ah, you got me kind of grin, like he almost fell for it for a moment.

"Yeah, ok, you and Captain Marvel. Good luck with that, Pete. Let me know when the wedding's going to be."

Ah. Not entirely over it, then. Peter tries to return the smile in kind, but gives it up as a bad job after only a moment.

"She got ported out," he explains, shoving hands into pockets and studiously avoiding Flash's gaze. "If she comes back, I doubt she'll remember. But hey, it saves on awkward break-up conversations, right?"

Flash thinks about all the messages he left on Betty's phone, all the times he tried to at least coax her out to let him apologize and say goodbye, before he left New York. And the terrible, aching emptiness of sitting in that restaurant waiting for someone who would never show or never answer, ever again.

"No. Because even an awkward one is better than nothing at all."

while i'm fine with washing dishes

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