exsilium | four ♙ video

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[ the video's not all that well focused or held, mostly getting her shoulder and part of her face except for the moments she readjusts it back to focusing on her face temporarily. the light is dim, wherever she is, and between the blood drying on her and the way her voice keeps hitching as she stumbles over words, the unsteadiness of her hands holding the tablet, and the way her head tips back against the wall she's leaning against every so often as if she can't quite hold it up - she's not in great shape. ]

You know, someone should get to work on this machine's timing. Adjust it a little bit. Make it stop being a fucking piece of shit. Or taking people who don't want to be taken. Or - I don't know, what else is it up to lately? How long's it been.

[ breaking off. she's forgotten what she needed to say, is looking off at nothing in particular for a long moment. abruptly - ]

What's that story about the lady and the tiger? With the princess whose lover has to pick one of two doors as punishment, and one has a tiger and the other has a woman he'll have to marry. And she makes a gesture to tell him which one to pick, but the story doesn't tell you which one the door had behind it.

I guess a little closure's too much to ask for.

[ blood loss: good for clarity. ]

I could use a doctor.

[ ooc: charlie cutter & tempest get providing aid rights, but if you would rather action it up she'll be wandering around the area for part of the day and can be run into most anywhere just checking everything out. ]

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[ it takes her a little while - between the recent pain and the three years she's spent at home, conversations here are much more fuzzy, harder to remember. but she does after a long moment, and when she does her face softens.

he's so young. it shouldn't be him. she doesn't care for herself, she chose this.

but he's so young. ]

I hope you do, for your sake.

For both our sakes. [He wants that to be clear.] I was okay with where things went. And then they went a different way, and that's okay, too. But I'd like to see other people alive. It's a thing.

[ she weighs that a little while, trying to determine what to say. she doesn't want sympathy, really. she made her choice, and she knew the consequences. ]

I don't really want - [ to be alive. but that sounds so much worse than she thought it would, once she starts saying it. ] There's no other option, for me. Not back home, at least. But thanks.

[He shakes his head and just ... looks awkward.]

Home—maybe not. I'm gonna buy that there's some rule of the universe that says that we can't go home. [It seems like there'd be too many consequences, anyway; Peter can be truthful all he wants, but that's what he believes. He doesn't really know how to walk back into someone's life. And as much as they would happily believe this, he just can't scientifically come up with a reason for why it would even be possible without carefully affecting the time stream.]

But outside of here? You've got people here, right? Tony, at least. He doesn't just let anyone kick around in his shop. That means you're someone important. A very good friend.

[ that catches her by surprise, and she actually hesitates. it's clear from the look on her face that she hadn't really - considered any of that. the friends she'd made here, the life she'd half built. maybe it wasn't ideal, but it wasn't terrible.

it had been hard to think of that through the daze of everything, through the sudden cutting disappointment of the lack of an ending. ]

I don't think I'm - important to him. We've just known each other a long time. [ that's it, right? she doesn't think she's - important makes it sound much bigger than it is. they're just - friends, colleagues, fuck buddies, whatever it is. ] But I suppose being here's not all that terrible.

[The weird thing about what she says is that it brings something to the forefront of Peter's mind, and he's forced to assess a lot of his own words. "I don't have any friends." How many times has he flippantly said that? How many times have those words fallen out of his mouth without him thinking twice?

And now that he's here, he's had to think of everything he's stepped away from. He's saving a world and saving that world will save his world; it's just one step after another step. It's as simple as that. But it's different now. He's not saving people and crawling in a window at four AM fully aware that Aunt May can hear him. He's not grabbing dinner and telling Gwen to explain where he's been. He's not trying to dodge Johnny and Bobby while he goes out to do hero business.

He's actually alone here. The real question is what life is he trying to save without those people. (At least, what life of his.) It's not that he's trying to throw it away—Peter would never think of that—but it's a little funny while encouraging someone to live.]

[He takes a while before he finally pushes the button to transmit a message back to her.]

Is that what he'd say? I bet you'd know better if you asked.

[Peter thinks that it'd be better to do that. If only he'd not been so caught up in being convinced he didn't have friends, maybe he'd have realized—then again, everything just fell together. And a little late, but it was good even with that factor added in. Not too late.

That's what matters.]

But yeah, here isn't so bad. Could be way worse. We could be in a frozen wasteland in the middle of a war with no friends. Right?

[ That's - she thinks that's what he'd say. Not that she's an expert on Tony, not that she even lets herself look at his mind almost at all. She's not allowed to do that, those are the lines she draws for herself. Unless he asks, his mind stays off limits.

But she weighs her answer carefully, the thought clear on her face. For her it's been three years since she last saw him, but the time somehow hasn't dimmed him. She knows he's important to her, in some way. Him and Donny, the only two real anchors here she has right now. (Charlie, too. Still Charlie, even if that's been poisoned.) ]

I think that's what he'd say too, yeah. It's not - Tony and I don't do important.

[ It's one of the reasons she'd been drawn to him. They were equally unlikely to pry, most of the time, unless it personally effected them. That last comment of Peter's pulls a startled noise from her, on the verge of laughter. ]

I'm not sure if that's cynicism or optimism, right there.

[Those words strike him as funny. She's a former vigilante, isn't she? He pants out a disbelieving laugh, because that's the last thing he'd believe. He gets the being alone part, he gets the being without friends part, and he gets being an idiot about it.

But claiming that you don't do important?

He doesn't buy it for a second.]

Be patient for a second, because this is going to probably get sentimental. [But it's important. And he spits it out half the time without giving the important meat of it, so he has a feeling some people just flat-out don't get it.]

Before he died, my uncle told me that there's a lesson in life you have to learn. It's what got me into the whole being a superhero thing. "With great power comes great responsibility." You made a choice. [He's very firm in what he's saying at this point.] And even if you switched gears, even if what you did was dying, and I don't know what cause you died for, but it definitely wasn't because you don't do important.

[There's a beat.]

I can't speak for this Tony. Mine really liked that. The responsibility bit. He thought it was great. But I've got a feeling this one does, too.

So ... talk to him. I guess. That's my point.

[ Former vigilante, sure, but it's been a long time now since that. And maybe she does important, but she does important the way she's no longer willing to acknowledge because that's over. That fight is done and finished and it was never worth enough, in the end.

Strange the clarity you get at the very end of things.

And anything here that's become important - she's not entirely sure she's willing to acknowledge it. It would require a little too much openness. Too much vulnerability.

But that doesn't mean she's not quiet for a long moment, her voice very gentle when she replies. ]

Sometimes you fight because it's the only thing you know how to do, Peter.

[ Sometimes you die because it's the only answer you have left. ]

But maybe I will. [ She very likely won't, but. He's very young and very earnest. ] How old were you? When you started?

[Peter doesn't like "maybes" but he isn't about to point it out. If he got through a little, that's all that matters. And he hopes he got through.]

I was fifteen. [There's a beat, because he knows she's doing the math, he knows she's putting it together.] I'm sixteen and a half now. [So he didn't last long. But heroes die. That's what happens.]

[ Maybe's are all she knows how to give, sorry Peter.

And yeah, she put that math together, and it twisted in her face into something hard and angry, viciousness held back only by sadness. ]

I'm sorry. [ She doesn't know what else to say. ]

Kinda used to it by now.

[Which is worse. It's way worse, but at least he is looking for a way out. Hoping for a way out.]

But thanks.

That makes me so much less concerned for you.

[ heavy on the sarcasm ]

Yeah, sure. Let me know if you think I can help.

We could throw a memorial service for ourselves.

[Beat.]

Ooor not. You know.

Memorial services are actually really boring. Definitely not worth it.

There is a memorial area though. [ she'd built the first one with Gwen and a few others, not sure what she was looking for but knowing she had quite a lot to mourn.

it was the first thing she made again here when they returned to earth. ] Maybe I'll leave flowers.

It could be like that one scene in Love Actually. Music playing and a party and all of that. Not depressing at all, because, hey, we're there!

... I doubt my actual service was fun at all, so.

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