video.

[unmasking]

—Uh, hey!

[Peter waves at the camera. He looks like he has it on the wrong level, and then he fixes it to not be looking mostly at his mid-eyes until he looks better, much better, without a camera giving everyone a near immediate relationship with his nose and mouth and probably pores. Look, he can accomplish things.]

—Sorry about that. And whatever you might've seen instead for a moment. I'm looking for a lab, and I'd say "hypothetically, say a guy is looking for a lab of all his own," but really, I need a lab to conduct some experiments. I promise I'm not planning to blow up any showers or the kitchen or anything like that, I—I generally avoid fires. Generally. [Except that one time in chemistry, but he's much more graceful now.] It's just that I'm used to having a lab of all my own, and I've checked the map a few times, and ... well—I don't wanna assume, you know, that I've got access to that.

[It's only now that he realizes that he should've gone for upgraded webshooters, but he didn't really want to ditch what Tony Stark gave him. They're from Tony Stark! They were a birthday present from Tony Stark.]

And this also came up with a buddy ... a pal ... you know, a new guy here, who's new like me, that maybe we should come up with a way to track the disturbances in the—[Force. Don't be a nerd, Parker.]—in the way things are here. Has anyone tried that yet?

Oh, and I'm Peter Parker. Yeah, I'm a nerd. You guessed it. But what can I say? I managed a lab in my own room back home, I can't go without here. Especially here.

Comments

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

The changes in the timestream, you mean?

[voice]

[unmasking]

I didn't mean that, but that's a really terrible plan, too.

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

We have time machines - shifting the timestream is sort of the point. But you're right - it can be dangerous, too.

[voice]

[unmasking]

My understanding of it was that it was more than dangerous, but maybe I'm just thinking of the worst case scenario. I'm not sure why the Initiative's best plan involves "let's let a bunch of guys die, we'll hit rewind later."

[Despite the "humorous" way of phrasing that, he doesn't sound pleased in the least.]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Because the other plan was 'everyone dies, game over'. Which only makes the alternative better by comparison.

I was a time traveler before I came here, so I know that it's both possible to shift timelines and sometimes very dangerous to do so.

[unmasking]

Something tells me these guys aren't the best at planning.

[There's a beat.]

You're giving them pointers, right?

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Doing my best to. Not a precog, though, which makes this a little trickier.

[unmasking]

Yeah, I didn't think that'd be necessary. Typical tricks of, you know, don't mess up something without realizing the rippling butterfly effects would do the trick.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Unfortunately the ripples aren't as predictable as fiction likes to make us believe - helps to have someone who can see all the possibilities, and which ones are likeliest.

But you're right, there are some basic precautions either way.

[unmasking]

Aren't precogs a little overwhelmed? But ... maybe. Too bad we can't build a machine that can do just that.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

They can be - seeing the timestream itself is... well, it's a lot for a mind to handle.

[unmasking]

Yeah, I think we'd need multiple ones.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

I'm not sure we even have one.

[unmasking]

Given the ability and how it could be used here, they might wanna keep it to themselves.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Probably - though from what I've seen of other pre-cogs, they're probably getting all of the information whether they want it or not.

[unmasking]

Do any of them use power dampeners to get a good night's sleep? Or do they not risk it?

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Never asked - I've known one or two psis that have done it, but only with neurological damage that affects subconscious control.