maskormenacelogs | while i'm fine with washing dishes

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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.

Threaded | Flat

Peter's not the only person at the drugstore. At the moment, Connors is waiting for a prescription to be filled. As such, he's wandering the aisles of the drugstore, looking at hair products he'll never need and tacky college memorabilia he'll never want. It's something to do and (unwisely) he forgot to bring a book.

As he walks over to the next aisle, however, he spots Peter Parker...looking at the make-up? Okay...whatever floated his boat. He had known Peter for a while, and he knew that he had some eccentricities--but then again, didn't everybody? Connors couldn't judge. After all, he was here to pick up whatever the Heropa equivalent of Xanax was, so he certainly couldn't talk.

Mostly to be polite, Connors clears his throat before walking over to Peter, waving at the man with a smile on his face. "Well, I wasn't expecting to run into you here."

[ Given all that's happened in the past few weeks, Lil Crawley is feeling a little better. Circumstances in the aftermath of bad things haven't been as awful as they could be, and after half a month of moping around Matt's place, she's finally started to function with some semblance of normalcy. Getting dressed and going out to run ordinary errands would have seemed like a labor before, but she's apparently managing it well enough now -- even if "getting dressed" meant tugging on shorts and one of Matt's shirts, and "going out" means picking up a few things at the drug store.

That's when she spots the man in the cosmetics aisle, looking confused. She eyes him a moment, recognition hovering at the periphery of her mind. They'd spoken before, maybe. Or he was someone from back home -- an American, maybe. She had never paid enough attention to the line-up of American superheroes, certainly not enough to immediately recognize them out of costume.

Finally, she approaches, commenting a bit pointedly: ]

Y'look like y'need an intervention.

[When woken by the sound of Peter falling through the window, Valeria, tiny bundle of science that she is, takes the logical step and makes the walls between her and where she estimates the noise came from invisible. She knows she lives with two vigilantes who refuse to use the door like normal people, so it's not like she's worried.

After she confirms it's Peter, the walls blink back into visibility, and hinges creak as she comes out of her room, rubbing her eyes with one hand and dragging a teddy bear with the other.]

Oh, just super, Peter. What did you do to yourself?

Edited (perfectionism) 2014-07-27 19:24 (UTC)

Molly's just popped in to the drug store after work to pick up a new shade of lipstick (and some crisps for dinner), and she can't help but stop and stare when she sees Peter in the cosmetics aisle. A grin tugs at her lips as she approaches, white lab coat draped over her arm.

"Need some help?"

Matt's only surprised that Peter doesn't just show up in his office. It's the sort of thing he'd expect to have happen; come in, find Spider-Man in his seat, feet up on the desk, with a ready quip at hand. Or sitting on the wall snacking on a donut. Something like that. It's remarkably not obnoxious for him to just set up shop slightly away from his office instead, and wait for Matt to notice him and wrap something up.

He drops into the empty space on the bench.

"Since when do you bring me lunch?"

Obviously some of that is for Matt. Peter's not seventeen anymore, to put away entire pizzas on a regular basis. That's enough food for two people, for sure.

It's been awhile for Flash, too. Before he left for Philly, and even then that'd been less of a friendly conversation than he would have liked. The memory of it still stings a little bit; it's hard, even from the people you love most, to be told bluntly the sort of damage you've caused them. And then later, when he'd tried to find some place to lay low, and Peter had sold them out...

But that's then and this is now. This is Peter as he should be, and Flash has buried the hatchet. It's nice to just get to hang out with his friend. It's nice to get to hang out with his friend and not have to be a pseudo-parent for at least a few hours.

"Dodging our adult responsibilities? Absolutely, man." These creamsicles aren't going to eat themselves, after all. "Do you feel bad about it?"

There is little that is more irritating than listening to Peter banter. That isn't to say that he dislikes Peter—or that he goes without his moments of banter himself—but he's largely restrained in his snide remarks, keeping them in unless the time calls for it. But this banter is largely lost on Kaine. He barely knows what Etsy is, but his best guess is that it's something pointless and ... therefore, very much up Peter's alley.

It figures.

Kaine adjusts his costume when Peter looks like he's done from his previous stealth mode, which gets a yelp from Vinny. It also reveals that he's been perched on the wall the entire time, but the suit makes it hard to spot him ... for many reasons (not to mention he's both soundless and invisible). "Going somewhere alone, Spider-Man?" After all, he's leaving soon himself; it seems fitting that he should at least tell Peter he's going somewhere, and this seems like the time to do it. It's also the best way to do it.

Of course, he had to be an audience to Peter's stupid antics, so maybe it wasn't. Oh well, it's too late now.

Threaded | Flat

drug store!

drug store.

residence

drug store!

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Spider-Man