—closed.

[webshoots]

characters: peter parker, eleven
location: the village
date/time: early-mid bury a friend event
content: peter parker feels guilty but hey: when does he not
warnings: TBA

[ peter feels bad.

this isn't exactly new.

as far as these things go, it's an emotion he's well-acquainted with, something he's managed to boil down to shame mixed with regret. logically, he knows he couldn't have known that the conversation was going to take that turn; logically, he also knows he couldn't have anticipated her response, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have chosen his words more carefully, been a little more cautious.

—especially, especially given the circumstances.

he'd waited a little while — officially thirty minutes, but it'd felt like longer, and there are only so many ways to distract oneself in beacon and peter isn't good enough with the ocarina to pick a spirit to talk (quote unquote) at — before deciding that he was going to check on her. he didn't know if she'd be willing to see him, or if—

(ugh, ifs. don't think about those—.)

even here, even though the need for spider-man is really very thin (not ideal, because peter gets antsy), he still wears his suit underneath his clothes. now that it's getting colder, it's not just a sartorial statement — if anyone catches sight of it (who? how? questions for the age) he's wearing long-johns — and functionally speaking, it does help. what that does mean, though, is that he is a bit chilly when he crawls out of the window to his room in the invincible, lantern webbed up in a pseudo-rucksack he carries on his back; he crawls up the outside wall and perches on the roof, just for a moment.

(the village, she'd said.)

when he gets there, it takes him a few minutes to locate castle miners. there's a thought, as he rests on a wall by a window, that he doesn't have any way of knowing which room is hers, and he could just be tapping on steve's window (who is steve, anyway?) or nancy, and that'd—

well, that'd just be really very awkward and not entirely easy to explain. ]

Comments

[webshoots]

[ oh, boy, he didn't really think this far ahead when he said there were rules — of course, there are rules, rules that peter very much holds himself to and tries to live by, all to varying success, and whilst they're rules (in a sense) that he'd like (again, in a sense) to pass on, he's much more of an advice guy. there's a reason he's never done the whole sidekick thing, even with miles.

his face scrunches up beneath the mask, a mix of thought and sheepishness, and he tilts his head to look up at the sky. ]

—Honestly, it's mostly the name thing. [ he admits, after a moment. ] And the mask thing. [ he pauses again and holds his hands up. ] The rules are kinda something you've got to figure out for yourself. What this [ he waves a hand at his face, ] means to me isn't what it'd mean to you. [ a breath. ] Hey, I guess that's a rule: stay true to yourself, right? Bird-Girl.

[ there's another pause, one where he opens his mouth to speak and seems to change his mind partway between thinking the words and the words coming out of his mouth. ] You wanna know what I'm afraid of? Besides Raid. [ she probably doesn't, peter concedes; still, he doesn't wait for an answer before continuing: ] Needles. [ beat. ] I don't know what you went through, [ a sharp glance at eleven ], and I don't want to know. It's not my place. But I've had some rough experiences with scientists as well. [ there had been a moment when he'd begun to speak where he thought he might have been able to say that he'd been cloned a couple of times; that people close to him had been cloned, but instead he shifts a little uncomfortably. ] So I get it, but the important thing is picking yourself up afterwards, and if you can't? Ask for help. Never be afraid to ask for help.

[savingthrows]

[ When he mentions needles, Eleven goes a little more still immediately. Her face is still turned towards the tablet, but she's watching Spider-Man out of the corner of her eyes.

The stiffness doesn't quite fade, even a moment after the words have stopped hanging heavy in the air. ]

We help each other...here. No one... can carry everything, alone.

[ Peter might recognize her tone. She parrots people and their life lessons to her. She's definitely parroted him like that, whether when repeating life lessons or words he's taught her. ]

But also. Become familiar... with pain. Become strong.

[ Eleven nods.

That is a lesson she's picked up too, said in the same tone of voice. Which means someone told her this - and she's taken it to heart. ]

[webshoots]

[ peter winces when he catches eleven stiffening. how is he so good at putting his foot in his mouth? he's about to apologise before she speaks, and he waits to make sure she's finished before replying. he doesn't want to interrupt, and then whatever he'd been about to say gets cut short by her second remark. ]

What? [ he doesn't think it's a conclusion she'd have come to by herself, so he's got to wonder where she's picked it up from someone else. peter's not sure that he disagrees with the intrinsic sentiment — acknowledging that something hurts and how it hurts is a step in picking yourself up, but familiarity implies frequency and— ]

Being familiar with pain doesn't make you strong. Knowing how to respond to it does. [ he thinks he's become better at that over the years, thinks that he's a little more qualified to comment. once upon a time, mentioning george washington bridge and gwen stacy in the same sentence was enough to give him pause; or the acme warehouse where ben's killer had been cornered and caught. it's not that he no longer feels the weight of those deaths and the guilt, but they don't define him in the same way they once had.

sure, he is who he is because of them; and he won't ever be who he was before he'd lost them, but that pain isn't his everything, not anymore. (he has so many other things to feel guilty over now. why pick just two!) it's practically a cliché at this point: hey, it's spider-man, quick, make fun of his guilt and self-blame problem, that'll stop him in his tracks. (does it come printed in the villain's 101? so you want to cause mayhem in new york, here are faces you need to watch out for — and their weaknesses! $9.99, non-refundable. what would old hornhead's be? "catholic. don't date him, you'll die"?) ]

If you let it consume you, that's when you have problems. I don't want to call it being weak, because it does hurt and not everyone's given the tools to know how to deal with their pain. Not everyone's given the opportunity to process it and heal and move on. [ a beat. ] What is weak is being given all of that and still choosing to let your pain define you. Strength is—

[ strength is aunt may, who'd lost ben and remained in their house for years, who'd carried on. who looked back on her time with her husband with fondness and love, not sorrow. it was mj, who'd held his secret for years without telling anyone; who'd carried her own pain and fears behind a mask without sharing them for so long; who'd chosen not to leave when a sad, angry boy yelled the most hurtful words he could think of at her. ]

—It's being better than your fears and the hurt. Acknowledging that it's a part of you and that's okay. To quote the early nineties: everybody hurts sometimes. You don't need to be familiar with pain in general, just yours. But that also doesn't mean you've got to think about it 24/7, because that's a slippery-slope into letting it be all of who you are.

[ a pause and he exhales; it manages to be a laugh, albeit short-lived and he waves a hand at his face. ] Ask me how I know.