EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
THE NIGHT WE MET

characters: everyone.
location: the path from downtown beacon to the harbor; all over town.
date/time: february 16-21.
content: the forest spirits send off their friends to join the aurora. memory opals drop from the eerie green lights above.
warnings: n/a.

i had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.

For most of the day on February 16, all of the town's forest spirits can be found along the stretch of road between downtown and the harbor, clearly setting up for, uh, something. They're piling snow onto the pathway, creating a miles long sled trail that starts outside the Landmark Inn and ends at the very end of the harbor's dock. Not only that, but the forest spirits are also not super willing to explain what they're up to! They're busy, you lantern-havers.

By the time evening rolls around, the spirits have set up wooden railings alongside the snowy path, as well as a warming tent, hot chocolate booth, and announcer stand outside of the Landmark. Oh, and a starting banner for the race! It's dogsled time!

Throughout the event, Beacon's downtown and harbor areas will be completely overrun with forest spirits, all there to bear witness to this holiday celebration—this holiday is for them, though, not you weirdos with your naked faces. Point is, none of the spirits will be hostile at this time! They're more interested in interacting with each other than with Beacon's residents, though if pressed, a kind spirit might be willing to explain what's going on:

The aurora arrives in Beacon for about a week each year, and the forest spirits believe it to be "friends in the sky". The lights are old friends of theirs, it seems! And each night while the aurora shines above the town, the forest spirits send off a handful of friends to join the aurora! The spirits ready to join the aurora build sleds of their own and assemble mighty sled teams, sometimes comprised of dog spirits and sometimes... other stuff. Then, when the aurora is at its peak in the wee hours of the night, the sled teams will ride off one by one, racing down the snow-covered path all the way down to the harbor, where they'll finally rocket off the dock and out over the lake, picking up more and more speed as each team gallops wildly over the water before arcing up into the sky. Once the spirits are barely a speck, they'll hit the aurora and burst into a shower of light. Beautiful stuff!

See, since the aurora is made of light, forest spirits launched into it are killed on impact! Isn't that wonderful! The forest spirits seem to think so! What is death to a dead thing!

All of this information can be learned through handwaved/played-led interactions with the forest spirits during the event. They'll all be focused on saying goodbye to their friends and cheering them on as they stream through the sky, but they're happy to welcome lantern-havers to join in the celebrations. The hot chocolate is free and only tastes a little bit like mud, so. Enjoy!

•••
For the entire duration of the event, the aurora will dance in beautiful silence overhead, lighting up the whole town with its eerie green glow. Every so often, handfuls of opals will rain down like meteorites from the lights above, and these opals each contain the memory of someone currently in Beacon! They can be found all over town, landing on paths and atop buildings and maybe even rocketing straight through your ceiling to crash into your living room. Perhaps a forest spirit decided to hide some shiny rocks in your cereal box or under your pillow... Better hope the Postmaster General doesn't find your opals before you do, though. That spirits sure does love their rocks. Point is, who knows where the opals might turn up?

On that note, if you signed up for a random event, we'll be RNGing characters to receive these random events throughout the event! The event may happen in response to a toplevel on this event log, or we might turn up in your IC inbox... 👀 These events will be entirely random, meaning we could dole out any number of them at any time, so it'll be a fun surprise for all of us.

If you missed signups and would still like to toss your name in the ring, go right ahead! Signups will remain open throughout the event, though we can't promise everyone who signs up will get something.

And finally... Each day, we'll post a list of the forest spirits joining the aurora! What, did you want to know in advance? The forest spirits have never been a particularly organized bunch, so they're winging this—which means more surprises for you. :)

Enjoy the races and the lights and the opals, residents of Beacon, and remember: WHAT IS DEATH TO A DEAD THING!

QUICKNAV
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peter parker

[webshoots]

—quentin

[webshoots]

I'm going to take my hands away now, alright? The big reveal, [ peter says, half a grin pulling at the corners of his lips. it's a view he's seen countless times before and it never quite manages to stop being breathtaking. it only makes sense that he'd share it with her. there's a breath of a pause and peter glances down. it's so funny to think that he'd been scared of heights once upon a time.

he hums. it's a contemplative, teasing noise, then— ] No, I don't think you're ready.

[ I'm ready! I'm totally ready! the woman — mj says. he can feel her eyelashes fluttering against his gloves, and he shifts his pinky fingers slightly to allow a sliver of light to pass through. ]

You say you're ready, but you're not... [ the teasing tone remains. he thinks mj must have an inkling — the air is different up here: it's colder, windier, and the noise of the city below is distant enough that it's hard to believe they're in manhattan without seeing it.

(speaking of—) ] But after I went to trouble of getting us up here, [ he continues, slyly, before whipping his hands away from her face and dropping them to her shoulders to make sure she doesn't fall. ] —We're going to have to work together to get down. [ he finishes with a laugh. he thinks his words have got lost with the sharp inhale of breath mj takes as she takes in the view.

oh my god, peter! she exclaims, and he can't help but feel a little smug. it's just spider-man things, you know? he doesn't say that—

peter, this view— she says, it's— thank you for this, she finishes, cupping his face in her hand and pulling his cheek towards her lips.

(yep, there's that smug feeling again—.) the corners of his lips pull even further upwards into a grin and he tries to stay quiet, tries not to say anything, tries to just enjoy the moment, but then mj pulls away from him and leans forward. she inhales again, sharply, and there's a pause before she exhales loudly and audibly—

man!

and he laughs, again. ] There are brief and fleeting moments where my life is totally awesome, yes. [ he acknowledges, hands sliding from her shoulders down her back and resting on her hips.

she extends a hand and runs it through her hair, brushing her fringe up and away from her face and there's a fleeting thought that maybe he should have brought a hair tie.

"seriously, tiger! this is the greatest view of the city ever! it's all spread out down there, you know? so tiny and perfect, it looks like an entire world of possibility just waiting for us."

it's not the grandest moment — as far as these things go, it's quite a small moment: how many buildings and rooftops has peter taken mj to before? he's lost count, but each time it's like they find something new to love about their life together and the city.

he wishes he could take her out for expensive dinners, to fancy shows and to extravagant events, but he can't. what he can do is this, and he thinks that as long as they have these moments, their life is as perfect as he needs it to be. ]

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[This time he's ready, and Quentin picks the opal up with almost steady hands.

And is not disappointed. He's in a dream of some kind and it's not his own. He's never been that happy about heights, but there's something about the whole scene. When it plays out and loops around to start over and it makes Quentin's heart ache.

At least he's pretty sure who this is about and he heads to the Invincible to knock on Peter's door.]

Hey? You in there?

[webshoots]

[ by now, quentin’s voice is familiar and peter doesn’t need to look through the peep hole in the door or even to open it to know who it is. ordinarily, he thinks that he’d be happier to hear quentin asking if he’s in there, but this time, he’s not sure that he is — he knows what the opals do and whilst he’s aware it could be worse, it’s not a reality he’s thrilled by.

(he supposes quentin could be visiting for any reason, and if he’s not— well, it’s better than the graves, at least. better than visions of their own deaths.

hopefully. )

gwen’s still staying on his couch and truthfully, he’s never been more grateful for the company: sure, jason knows more than anyone here about him, but he doesn’t know him in the way that gwen knows him simply by virtue of shared experiences and a shared history.

he answers the door with a rolled up blanket in one hand, a potentially convenient distraction from any conversations he doesn’t want to have. ]

—Hey, Quentin. [ a beat and a twitch of his lips. ] My hermiting’s a work in progress but yeah, I’m in here.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

You're-- wait, what?

[Because it's only when Peter actually opens the door, and maybe Quentin really hadn't expected him to, but there he is. And he's holding a blanket?

That's-- what is that?

And then it hits him-- what can he, Quentin, say right now? I think I touched a rock and dreamed of you? There's really no good way to phrase that, that isn't going to sound vaguely weird and kind of stalker-ish.

So.

Quentin clears his throat and just--]

Did you see the lights outside?

[webshoots]

Hermit-ing. To hermit. A habit favoured a hermit, sometimes known as an eremite... [ peter answers, waving his free hand distractedly, a touch awkwardly. quentin clears his throat and asks if peter's seen the lights, and peter thinks — no, hopes more than thinks — that maybe that's why quentin's here after all.

just to talk about the lights.

he can do that.

his body posture relaxes and he looks, reflexively, over his shoulder towards the window of his room. ] Yeah. [ a breath of a pause; a look back at quentin. ] I've never seen anything like it, not in person.

—eliot, cw: ...death

[webshoots]

[ his head's spinning and he wants, no, needs to be at home in bed. the quickest way home — arguably — is by spider-maning across the city, which is what he does.

it's not as quick as he'd thought — he almost loses his balance half a dozen times, whilst wall-crawling is, it turns out, a lot easier when your head isn't pounding and you're not seeing doubles of everything. (oh, sure, petey. shoot a webline at that lamppost over there, you know, the one that's suddenly sprouted a second lamp. no, no, it's not like manhattan doesn't have enough light pollution, what are you talking about?)

normally he'd go in through the roof, but he doesn't trust himself to make it up there. instead, then, he crawls past window after window (thank god for open windows). he swings his legs and propels himself inside and sits, abruptly, on the window ledge.

his stomach drops.

the morning's newspaper is strewn across the floor. his bedside lamp pushed over, the glass of the bulb shattered into shards. a bag — gwen's, the one he got her for christmas, and sitting atop of that—

a pumpkin. the goblin's.

he feels sick and panicked all at once, and he follows his spider-sense. he doesn't stop to think that that's not normally how it works, he just wants — needs — to know that gwendy's safe.

he ends up at the george washington bridge. wryly, peter thinks that of course he ends up here: george washington was norman's favourite president and he's always been more than a little kooky. he's reluctant enough to part with dollar bills for the same reason. ]

Spider-Man! Or should I say... Mister Parker? [ norman osborn, the green goblin, yells from atop the bridge. peter doesn't respond, doesn't react other than to try and make a snap decision as to the best way of getting up there without risking gwen's life. norman — the goblin — continues: ] I have your woman up here, my friend— you should know what that means?

[ peter swallows. he does and he doesn't: norman's crazy, but the longer peter can keep him talking, the easier it'll be to distract him, to rescue gwen— ]

You tell me, Goblin, [ he answers, crawling a little higher up the wall. ]

It's quite simple, web-spinner, [ norman answers; peter thinks the best route up is to go across. sure, crawling or swinging across the cables leaves him open to the goblin's attacks, but if he's attacking him, then he's not doing anything to gwen. ] Your presence in the world has been a source of constant agony to me. I wish you to leave it permanently, [ the goblin continues, and peter wishes he'd just shut up. ] —Or else Gwen Stacy dies!

[ peter shoots a webline across the bridge. ] That cuts it, pumpkin boy. Up to now, I've been real friendly considering your problems and all— [ he thinks of harry, briefly, (sorry, pal.) ], but when you start threatening my girl— the kid gloves are off!

[ as norman glides down to meet him, all peter can really think is that his cold's making him feel that dizzy and off-centre that it's all he can do to stay upright, let alone land a punch on the goblin. he thinks, too, that he's not as stupid as to think that he can defeat the goblin when he's suffering like this, either.

the best thing to do would be to grab gwen and leave. get her to safety, and then he can deal with the goblin later. it's not like he's going anywhere—.

the goblin slams into him with his glider, whilst peter shoots a webline at him, pulls him backwards, prays he's got enough strength for this to count—.

the goblin falls and peter's not sure it's enough. sure, it's enough for a few minutes, maybe, but if he's going to get gwen, he needs to act now—. ]

You cursed interloper! [ the goblin yells, and peter's not sure where he came from or how he came back from that so quickly. ] You'll never take that girl anywhere, she's doomed! [ it's punctuated by the now-familiar whirring of the goblin's glider; a thwack, sickening in sound and it's like everything happens in slow motion—

gwen, falling.

gwen—.

he has to catch, he has to, before she hits the water—

he shoots a web, doesn't take the time, doesn't have the time to think about the maths behind it. he does it, he breaks gwen's fall — she hangs there, suspended whilst relief floods peter.

he did it, he did it, he saved her! ]

Spider-Powers, I love you! [ he exclaims, pulling gwen back up towards him. ] Not only am I the most dashing hero on two legs, I'm easily the most versatile. [ it doesn't quite register, not for a moment, the fact that gwen doesn't move, doesn't react. he thinks she's unconscious, she must be, but even so, something in peter's chest tightens and his stomach drops. ] Who else could save a falling girl from certain dea— [ he half-continues, jubilant tone dropping the more he speaks until the words catch in his throat. cautiously, carefully— (terrified)— ] Gwen? [ a breath. ] Hey, kid, what's wrong, I saved you. [ he saved her, he saved her, he did! he must have! after ben, after the captain, there was no way he could—

(oh god.) ] Don't you understand? I saved you, [ he repeats. he thinks he's going to throw up. she can't be—

he can't even think the word.

(romantic idiot! norman's voice calls from somewhere behind him, but peter barely hears him. she was dead before your webbing reached her!

(no. no. the goblin's going to pay and then gwen will—.) ]

[endlessflask]

What the fuck -

[ Eliot drops the opal that had been in his hand.

He watches it bounce a bit, the light from the aurora playing a guide for his eyes as it glints off the smooth surface. He looks around, to see if anyone else saw that, a guy dressed in a ridiculous costume fighting another guy in a ridiculous costume and people dying (and you know it's fucked up if Eliot thinks it's fucked up) - but he seems to have been the only one. His gaze goes back to the little stone.

Eliot's not sure how he knows, but he knows it must be the culprit. He also feels, somehow, like it shouldn't be out in the open like this. It's too intimate a scene. Maybe it's not even real but it doesn't just belong to the public. And, shit, maybe it doesn't belong to anyone at all, but someone around here has to know what to do with it.

So he takes the pocket square out of his vest pocket and carefully picks up the opal with it, then he wraps it up and sticks it into the pocket of his trousers. Next, he walks a bit until he sees a guy that he decides to approach. ]

Hey - This is going to sound really fucking weird, but. Do you know anyone around here by the name of - [ What was it? Spider Guy? Bug Man? ] - Uh. Mister Parker?

THIS IS SO EMBARRASSINGLY LATE i am so sorry

[webshoots]

[ peter recognises eliot's voice, of course he does — they'd never interacted much before he'd — died? disappeared — but it'd been enough times to for the familiarity and recognition to be there. he knows, too, that eliot had come back — at least in a sense — but that he didn't remember his time here.

it's not difficult for peter to wrap his head around a potential answer of why he can't, so that in and of itself isn't the issue.

the issue is the mister parker. the last time peter had been called that, he'd been held by operatives that wanted teresa. before that, it'd been when he was a teacher. normally, people just went for the PARKER—! and that was fine. these days, "mister parker" tends to be the start of nothing good.

quentin's already approached him about finding a stone — a memory, from one of the happiest times in his life just before one of the worst. peter can hazard a guess as to what might have precipitated the question then, but he's not sure he wants to be right about it. ]

Uh— Honestly? Not so weird. [ a breath of a pause and the corners of his lips quirk up into a quick smile ], —And you've found him. But most people just call me 'Peter'. I like to reserve 'mister' for all those awkward conversations that are initiated by a 'we need to talk'. Or the other conversations that are held entirely by phone and consist of me trying to remember the security password I put into place a decade ago...

—Eliot, right?

shhhh

[endlessflask]

Oh, well, that's lucky.

[ Really, what are the chances that he'd find the guy he was looking for right off the bat? And it definitely takes a weight off Eliot's shoulders. He doesn't want to be walking around this stone more than he has to be. ]

Yeah. Eliot, that's me. Look - I feel bad that I had to see … Whatever it is I saw. I'm sorry.

[ Because what do you say, honestly? Having witnessed something that heavy? Eliot can't even really make jokes about the spider get-up.

He takes the carefully wrapped opal from his pocket. ]

Here -

[webshoots]

[ "whatever it is I saw", eliot says, and peter cringes: his eyebrows pull together and his nose scrunches up, and he looks away from eliot, just for a moment. his first thought isn't that eliot saw something relating to gwen, or even to ben. his first thought isn't that eliot saw one of the worst moments in his life — although when he does realise it, the irony of what eliot saw versus what quentin saw won't escape him.

what peter assumes, then, is that eliot saw something relating to spider-man — maybe doc ock, maybe mysterio, maybe stilt-man (oh, man, that'd almost be hilarious, and peter's not sure he could entirely come up with a valid explanation for someone like stilt-man existing, because he's still not sure why stilt-man isn't embarrassed by his own existence.

—ooh, maybe it was paste-pot pete—.) ]

—Uh, thanks. [ he says as he takes the opal, a mixture of bemusement and trepidation entering his tone. he eyes it for one second, then two, then—

peter opens his mouth, exhales and says— ] Hey, look, whatever it is you saw, I can explain.

—kol, cw: death, body swapping

[webshoots]

What's going on? What is this?

[ the words are out of his mouth before they've really had time to register. before where he is and who he is really has time to register.

easy, octavius, is the reply, and peter feels sick. he's not sure if he feels sick because this is horrifying, or if he feels sick because he's in the body of an octogenarian linked up to— god, whatever the hell this is.

we're doing what you asked, doc. hooking up your life support to these old arms of yours. getting you mobile.

it's the trapster, peter—otto—peter? recognises him. he'd hired him to help him escape prison, and he's — well, he has, but the thought that occurs to otto (no, not otto, peter!) is that he should be doing this, not the trapster, he's not good enough. ]

—Your calculations are off. Carry the eight. [ "ah, good catch." ] Imbecile! [ the words are out of his mouth before he's had time to think about them, and something of peter winces and cringes. that's not him, that's otto. god, he even sounds like him, what is he—?

a switch is flipped and otto screams. peter screams, he's not sure if he's ever known pain like it, which is ridiculous, of course he has, and then there's white, blinding, and—

sun. trees. houses, and that's it! he's home. it's forest hills, but he's never seen it quite like this. it's like there's a street party, and he's dressed like he's seventeen again: slacks, and a shirt, vest jacket and those glasses.

he sees tim first, tim harrison, riding his little bike down the street, the way he used to—

hey pete! wonderin' when you'd show up. you're going to love it here! it's the best, he says, and peter feels dizzy, nauseous, like he's in the middle of a very unfunny joke that everyone else except him gets.

there's a second voice then, russian, and peter doesn't even need to turn to look to know who it is: it's aleksei. the rhino, and— ]

They're dead. [ it's weird, he thinks he should feel sick. sad. horrified. something, but he doesn't. he doesn't know what he feels. ] Is this Heaven? Does that mean I'm—

[ he starts to ask, and sable says "no". he doesn't notice that his clothing's changed — he's older, no glasses, but still an ugly shirt and a questionable cardigan, and the next voice he hears does send a chill down his spine but it's—

peter doesn't hate it and he's not sure why. it's captain stacy. it's gwen. there's a flash of happiness, just for a second, and she kisses him on his cheek. you never faltered from the right path, stacy says, and gwen says that everything worked out in the end.

had it? ] Gwendy, I— I failed you. I let you both down.

[ but then someone else speaks up and peter doesn't recognise the voice, not at first. it ends with son and he turns to face them and he realises, quickly and suddenly, and with a feeling in his chest that he's not sure he'd be able to put into words, that it's his dad. it's his mom. he's dressed, now, in his uniform for horizon labs, and he barely has time to acknowledge the fact that his father just told him he's proud, because—.

he's spider-man now, and there's yet another voice. peter hopes, privately, that it's the last because he's not sure how many more ghosts of the people he's lost he can face. this one, though, this one's different. it's the voice he'd heard as a child telling him to go to bed, to stop messing around, to go outside and play with the kids down the street.

it's the voice that had told him to be kinder to others. the voice of the man that had helped peter become a man his aunt could be proud of.

peter thinks he might cry. ] —Uncle Ben! [ the man before might have been his father, but this is his dad.

oh, peter. I hate to say this, but you have to go. you can't stay here, ben tells him. peter doesn't understand. the words feel like a crushing weight on his shoulders and his head and his heart and his chest. ]

What? [ he mumbles, uncomprehending. ] I don't get to—after all I've—. [ a pause. oh, he gets it. he wants to run his hand through his hair, he wants to run away and cry.

instead he speaks again, voice quieter and softer, defeated. ] It's that mistake, isn't it? When I let you down... [ a breath of a pause, more a moment to take a breath and try not to let the tears spill down his cheeks. ] But I've tried, Uncle Ben, I've tried so hard—.

[ he thinks he must sound like a child, like a lost little boy pleading with his parents, but really, isn't that what he is? he'd tried so hard to make up for his mistakes but it had never been enough. he'd always known it would never be enough—.

that's not it at all, my boy, ben says, and peter looks up at him, vision blurry from a mix of unshed tears and his hair curling and falling down into his eyes. you've more than earned your rest and any other time, I'd give you my blessing.

ben lifts peter's head, and peter feels like it was only yesterday that ben had died. he doesn't need to study ben's face to know where the laughter lines begin and end, doesn't need to look at his left hand to know that the cold metal pressing against his cheek is ben's wedding band.

that first year, the first time that peter had gone to visit ben's grave, he'd been late. he'd been late and he'd been afraid he wouldn't know what to say, but that had been ridiculous.

ben continues and peter stays silent.

but you can't leave a man like otto octavius running around as spider-man. or peter parker.

you've built an amazing life, don't you dare let him destroy it.

ben's right, because of course he is.

peter hears a noise, and he's not sure if it's his own thoughts or if it's something or someone else entirely. get up! you need to get up and fight one more time! is what it says. c'mon, peter, get up!

as he comes to, he feels dizzy and nauseous and he thinks there's probably a joke or two here, but for the life of him (oh, there it is, that was almost funny), he can't quite form the words. instead— ]

There's not a moment to waste! [ it's his words but otto's voice again, not his. not peter's. ] We have work to do. [ everything hurts and peter can barely think straight. he doesn't know if that's because he's in otto's rapidly failing body or because he's in otto's body and the horror, the sheer horror of otto being in his is that awful that he's having a physical reaction to the thought, but—.

oh, who's he kidding, it's all of it.

he needs to fix this. he needs his body back before this one dies.

(he's going to die. it didn't work.)

peter remembers his life and he knows otto's seeing it too: wheatcakes for breakfasts, annual trips to watch the mets. getting bitten and being told that his uncle had been murdered.

STOP! otto yells, but the voice is peter's. I don't want this!) peter would laugh if he could, but it's taking every last bit of his-strength-in-otto's-body to talk.

(is this how he really looks from this angle? god, no wonder new york thought spider-man was a public menace, the mask is terrifying.) ]

You wanted to be Spider-Man. Well, guess what, it's more than the powers. [ "I'll kill you!" otto says, and peter knows he won't because he's wearing the mask now. he's spider-man. he has peter's memories. peter wouldn't kill and he knows, now, that otto won't either.

otto asks if peter would do it all again: the pain and the loss. he asks if peter would still save otto, knowing everything. and peter says yes, it's who I— ] —who we are.

[ ("yes.") ]

[unpredict]

[ perhaps it's poetic he'd picked up an opal smattered in various shades of deep red and a warm grey-black by the edge of the town, where he'd thought he'd seen a thick spider crawl its way up the bark of a tree and disappear into its higher branches. kol wipes his face with gentle hands then a harder touch, knowing that the wetness he finds doesn't quite belong to him. it's peter's.

the intense storm of emotions that had whipped up inside of him and almost knocked him over lingers. that's the curse of being a vampire; he feels everything much more intensely and at a heightened level than anyone else. it lingers in a way he wishes it wouldn't, like the intoxicating and acidic taste of blood. some of peter's memories reminds kol of how magic had made him feel—like he could take on the world and be the world itself. those memories of uncle ben, aunt may, and gwen inspire him to not hide this opal and what he'd seen from peter.

kol does hesitate in finding peter's little abode. when he walks, he watches his footfalls, eying how strong and wide his strides are as he wonders if they're his own. when he looks at that opal in his hand, he thinks of that man who had inspired warmth in his chest and how he would think so poorly of kol for all the cold blood he'd shed over his years.

uncle ben. otto octavius. gwen stacey. aunt may? peter parker. spider-man. kol ensures to remember those names in a bid to separate himself from peter's memories. those emotions aren't his. what happened to peter did not happen to him. he did not do anything similar to that.

after years of manipulating the memories of innocent people, he knows exactly what had been handed to him. after centuries of denying responsibility for half of his own torture, he knows that he's trying desperately to turn a blind eye to what peter's memories have innocently reprimanded him for.

he can't help but tap out a childish rhythm against peter's door. ] Spider-Man.

[ just in case peter doesn't feel like answering, that should be enough: the uncertain tone of voice, the flippancy in how he singsongs it. who the fuck is spider-man, really? ]

[webshoots]

[ peter had remarked to quentin that he'd taken to being a hermit and it's only half a joke — he hasn't in the sense that he spends all of his time indoors. he's never been much of a homebody in that fairly traditional sense, but he is disinclined to spend too much time outside where he could just stumble across an opal.

he'd seen one of jason's and that, really, had almost been enough. he imagines his luck — the good old parker luck — is enough that he'll end up seeing another, entirely inadvertently at some point, but he hopes not. he hopes he can avoid it, hopes he gets to miss out on the deeply invasive happenstance of experiencing a memory important to someone else.

which means, then, he intermittently holes up in his room in the invincible. it's not that there's anything particularly interesting or exciting in his room — aside from having a (probably not so) temporary roommate in the form of gwen stacy, he uses it more as a workshop-slash-lab of sorts: somewhere to try and figure out answers to questions he's more or less failed to answer up to this point.

(it's a distraction, in other words.)

at the rhythmic tapping on the door, he pauses. he thinks, just for a second, that it might be gwen, and then a voice — a man's voice — utters the name spider-man and peter freezes.

he freezes because he's not sure if he wants to pretend he's not here, or if he wants to dive to the door, swing it open and—

panic, basically. he panics.

so he does that second one: he scrambles to the door, remarkably gracefully for someone who hasn't quite decided how they're actually going to answer the door. how they're going to greet whoever's stood outside it who knows that name and knows that spider-man lives here. or can be found here—

(oh, maybe that's it, maybe they're just—

no, that's stupid. that's stupid hoping.)

he swings open the door and there's — kol? peter pauses, staring at kol slightly blankly. they've spoken a couple of times, in passing more than anything, and peter knows of him simply by virtue of them both having been here for a while.

spider-man, he'd said, and if peter was a cursing man, he'd swear. kol must have one of his— ]

—You just missed him. [ is what peter opts to say. ]

[unpredict]

Did I? [ kol says it with a smile, only playing along for a moment. ] I didn't hear a second pair of footsteps.

[ it's not public knowledge that kol is anything close to being a vampire, but he does have the edward cullen stalking down pat. hopefully it's common knowledge throughout beacon that kol is useful and nothing terrifying at all—capable of moving heavy things like they're simply feathers, moving at super speed, and an array of other things he labels under "i'm a witch (but not really)".

it doesn't matter. there's an easy reason for why he'd hear another pair of footsteps beyond the door and peter's embarrassing commotion on the other side. it's obvious to kol that this is something he doesn't want people linking to him. that's one thing he can understand about what he saw and felt.

looking at peter with an expectant raise of his brows, he opens his palm and shows him the opal. there's really no point in going through what's bound to be a circular and pathetic conversation. peter's attempt at a lie gets him 5/10. ]

I didn't realise you had a spider fetish. Not that I'm judging. I have my own questionable fetishes.

[ see? don't say "who's spider-man" or he's going to really go into detail here. ]

—eleven

[webshoots]

[ peter feels sick.

he feels sick even before he approaches the podium. normally, the spandex — red and blue, hand-sewed — is enough to make him feel confident, more confident than peter parker has any right to feel. ordinarily, the mask is enough to give him a sense of bravado disproportionate to peter parker, the man. peter parker, the high school chemistry teacher.

tony had made it sound like a good idea. the only good idea. rational and one that makes sense in a way that peter feels foolish for not recognising before. he thinks of all the times that people had been hurt because of him, thinks of ben and then thinks of gwen. thinks that maybe gwen would be stood off to one side instead of mary jane if he'd shared with her who he was rather than hide it.

he thinks, too, that maybe she wouldn't, but maybe she'd be sat at home, watching this on tv with mixed emotions. mixed because they'd planned on getting married — they were going to graduate college and buy a home. they'd spoken about the white picket fence and the children in the loose, vague way that only young adults could.

they'd imagined they'd have the rest of their lives ahead of them.

peter had thought that it'd mean they'd have years. decades. he hadn't imagined that gwen would have him for the rest of her life, whilst peter would have her for only a moment. he'd known, loosely speaking, that being spider-man was a risk. that it endangered the people he cared about. ben first, then george, then gwen. he'll carry ben's death with him for the rest of his life in a way that he doesn't think he'll ever be able to put into words, but gwen's death is something else entirely.

he was supposed to be better than that. he was supposed to know better and do better. spider-man was anonymous, a masked man to stop that from happening. gwen should never have died, he should have been able to stop it. norman should never have—.

so, he thinks, maybe he was wrong. tony was right: the only way to really protect the people he cares about — the only way to protect may and to protect mj; the only way to protect queens and manhattan and new york and the world is to admit the truth. ]

My name is Peter Parker, [ he says, pulling the cloth mask from his face. his hair, mussed from where the mask has been pressing down on it, curls messily about his forehead and his eyebrows. he's approaching his late-twenties, if his appearance is anything to go by.

there's a breath of a pause as a series of flashes capture him in film. capture him digitally. capture him on video. his gut twists, and he thinks he's going to throw up. his mouth is dry and his head's spinning ], and I've been Spider-Man since I was 15.

[ he doesn't know how long he's in the bathroom.

tony tells him it's been twenty minutes.

peter thinks it's been longer. he thinks he's made a mistake. he thinks he's spent twenty minutes vomiting food he ate five years ago. he thinks, too, that it's been longer than twenty minutes, and he hopes it's been long enough that the reporters have dispersed. that everyone who's interested has had their fill in looking up who peter benjamin parker is on the internet.

the results are unexciting, he imagines: orphaned as a very small child; uncle killed at 15; freelance photographer for the daily bugle; permanent member of staff for the daily bugle; principle photographer of spider-man—

which, given the reveal, makes sense.

peter feels sick and he feels, simultaneously, like there's nothing left in his stomach to vomit.

he sits in front of a hospital bed and he feels, more than anything, guilt.

he'd felt guilty for ben. for gwen. for everything that he might have made a difference for but none of it compares to this. he'd thought may being diagnosed with poisoning from his blood had been one of the worst moments of his life, but it's nothing compared to this. his head swims and he's not sure that he can focus on anything other than the knowledge that this is his fault.

it was his choice to side with tony. he'd known, all along, that revealing his identity would open up everyone he cared for to being hurt. he'd asked, but he thinks that almost makes it worse. he'd asked, despite knowing what he could lose. despite knowing what mj could lose. what may could lose.

he'd been selfish when he should have known better.

may is in a coma and peter doesn't know what he'll do if she doesn't make it. if mj is his world, may is his universe. he wouldn't be who he is without her: she's strong and kind and incredible in all the ways that peter aspires to be, and peter imagines that if he loses her, he'll fall apart.

peter feels sick, and he thinks again of how he'd approached the podium before telling the world that peter parker was spider-man. he replays it in his mind, twisting the white cloth of the hospital bedsheets between his fingers. he thinks of what he could have done different, and all he can think is that may and mj deserve more. they deserve better. ]

—bruce

[webshoots]

[ there's knocking and it takes a moment for it to register as at his front door rather than an upstairs neighbour or his next door neighbour, the one that seems to think it's fun to bang on the wall between their bedrooms at 2am. he thinks — is he expecting anyone? he's not, and michele's away, so—.

it's mj.

red hair, green eyes, freckles. dimples when she smiles, which she's doing now and peter feels his heart twist or stop or skip a beat or— something, and for a second or two, he's speechless.

it's mj. at his door, with a — bottle of wine? okay, that's weird.

"I know, I know, this is freaking you out, isn't it?" she asks and peter's not really sure if that's the term for it. he thinks, more than anything, he's confused. completely lacking in comprehension. they've barely spoken, barely seen each other, and peter's imagined this a thousand times, him and mj stood together in his apartment, and—.

no, that's not quite right. he's imagined them stood together in their apartment, the one they used to have together. the one they'd described as not perfect but it was home, their home until it wasn't. ]

MJ, what are you doing— [ he starts to ask, and his tongue feels thick and heavy, and it's as if he's talking on autopilot. is that a thing? it feels like it should be a thing.

she doesn't wait for him to finish. she apologises for coming over uninvited, but she holds up the wine and says she brought him this. he starts to say, reflexively, that he doesn't drink and she laughs. she knows what he's about to say and waves it off with an "except at weddings, I've heard", punctuated by a "but you never know when you're going to have guests."

she asks, then, where his roommate is and for a moment, he'd managed to forget he had a roommate. michele's in philly, he answers. a "crazy lawyer thing" which he's certain she went to just because of the crazy thing.

he doesn't pause though, not before he barrels into a question of his own: ] Seriously, MJ, what's this about? I mean, since you've been back, you've been...

[ she sits down on the couch, bottle of wine placed on the coffee table in front of her. there's a breath of a pause and then she answers: cold, aloof, distant, take your pick. but you've been going through a pretty rough time lately. so I thought it was time we did this.

"this."

peter knows what she means and he wishes she didn't. peter knows what she means and he asks anyway, hoping that maybe she means another this. this like "hey, we've both been idiots, mostly me, peter parker, because being an idiot's my brand, and I'm sorry for the way that things ended, for the way that things were, but I miss you and I love you, can we try and make this work? again?".

"this?" he asks, and she says talk.

he hates talking.

no, that's a lie: he loves talking. it fills in the gaps and uncomfortable silences.

but he hates talking about this. he hates being reminded of what he had and what he'd lost because he couldn't be the person mary jane deserved. needed. because he'd missed their wedding because—

because he couldn't not be spider-man for a day. because he'd get home from work and she'd get home from work and they'd both be tired and stressed and instead of taking the time to make sure mj was okay, he'd crawl out of a window to make sure that new york was okay.

they'd had romantic dinners out and breakfasts in bed and peter had taken her out across the city to rooftops and skyscrapers and they'd curled up in front of the tv with bad movies and microwave popcorn but it didn't make things okay. ]

MJ, can I ask you something? [ "sure." ] Do you have any regrets? [ "of course I do, I have lots of them. I could have—." ] About never getting married?

[ "...oh, that. I don't know if I'd say regrets, but sometimes I wonder what it'd have been like, how it'd have been—" ]

Different. Yeah, me too.

[ they talk about the night before — he mentions how scared he'd been, how all he could think of was gwen stacy (no, wait, that came out wrong—). how all he could think of was how gwen stacy had died because of him and he'd been so scared the same would happen to mj. he tells her about the bachelor party flash and harry had thrown for him. he tells her about the speech flash had given him and how surprised he'd been by how passionate flash was about love.

mj tells him about the party her friends had thrown for her, about how it'd ended with a conversation: "from now on, no more extravagant parties, flirting with ridiculously hot men, or girls' nights out in exotic locations. but hey, at least you won't ever have to worry about any lonely nights. you'll always have someone waiting for you at home."

it makes him feel a little bit sick.

he says that and asks her how she put up with it for as long as she did. she doesn't answer, and he looks up and across to the kitchen. two cups of tea, one in each hand and a look on her face. it's not the look she'd worn then: it's knowing, acknowledging, and she says— one lump or two? and peter doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry.

or both.

because then they talk about the wedding day and peter wishes, again, that the ground would open up and swallow him whole. he slides off the couch and picks up the two now-empty cups of tea, and holds them up. ]

We're going to need more tea, [ he says, because it's a distraction and he doesn't want to have this conversation any more. he asks her if they can just go back to being cold and distant and aloof — and he means her with him, because he doesn't think he could ever be cold or distant to her.

he'd wanted to talk to her before — may's wedding had seemed like the opportunity but he'd been too chicken, just like he'd been too chicken to kiss her for the first time under mistletoe that first christmas. too chicken seemed about right, and then he'd had one, or two, or five glasses too many of champagne and maybe this conversation would be different if they'd spoken properly then.

she says no, they need to have this conversation so he goes back to talking about their wedding. the wedding that never was and never would be. he tells her about trying to find her, after he'd come to. he tells her how he could barely see straight and his head had been pounding and all he'd wanted was to find her and hold her and apologise and he hadn't been able to find her.

so he'd gone home, finally. and she'd told him that she couldn't do this, that she couldn't be spider-man's wife. she wanted to be peter's and if he was going to be spider-man, they couldn't marry. she wanted kids, she said, and she couldn't bring kids into a life like theirs.

they talk, then, about may getting shot. about how peter had thought, honestly, that his entire world was ending. he'd made a stupid decision and it had resulted in the one thing that he'd worked so hard to avoid. resulted in his greatest fear. ]

I sat there, [ he admits, ], on Bleecker Street. Thinking, waiting. For something - anything - to come to me, to happen, and it didn't. I walked and walked, trying to resolve myself that this was it, there was no going back. It was May's time and there was nothing I could do about it. You were right, MJ, [ he admits, voice low, gaze focussed on the half-drunk cup of tea that by now must be long cold. ] —Loving me is a death sentence.

[pearlstrings]

[Bruce can't watch it through in it's entirety. Not the first time. The moment the opal finds his hand it begins to unspool and Bruce's brows come together in confusion, his head turns towards the sound of the knocking. But it isn't happening in real time, it's like being an extra in a stage play that he can neither interrupt or change. And Bruce- whose desire for privacy is matched only by his curiosity, doesn't set it down and stop it. He wants to bear witness.

A want that's abruptly shut off you'll always have someone waiting for you at home.

He doesn't make the decision to think about Selina. He just does. Bruce inhales and drops the opal, closes his hand around empty air. It isn't something he can explain to the world at large because it won't be understood. People die in Gotham every day. People are murdered and their murder is never solved and it isn't right or fair but people move on. It's painfully, horribly ordinary. What was it that made him the exception?

Whoever Bruce Wayne might have been, he died that night in the alley. He was buried with his parents, with his past, and with his future.

Selina didn't want to change that. Getting involved had never been her intention, it's the reason she'd turned away that night, the reason she chose not to come forward, the reason she refused to come closer by an decision except her own. And despite all of that, Bruce found himself wanting to imagine a future again- a future with her in it. Where she wouldn't be the person waiting at home for him. And he wouldn't be that either, but maybe it would be alright. Maybe they could do things their own way, like they have up till now.

The opal goes home with him and Bruce is reluctant to handle it again despite the way he gravitates towards it. When he finally sees it through to the end it's a night where he can be alone- where he can hear Peter say loving me is a death sentence and remember the way Selina's eyes had become glassy as she bled out on his floor. The confession from Valeska that she'd been shot only because he loved her. It comes with the memory of her turning her head so that he wouldn't see her cry when the doctors said she would never walk again. The sound of her screaming when she was stopped from ending her own life, because a life without her freedom wasn't a life worth living. Was a death sentence.

When he finally contacts Peter Parker it's one week later and over the tablet. The opal sits in front of him and he has no more answers than he had to start with.]

I have something of yours.

[webshoots]

[ when the message comes through, peter thinks that it could mean anything.

—no, correction, he wants it to be anything. something simple, something like 'hey, you dropped your watch and I found it by the invincible', or similar.

what he imagines is the likelier answer is that he found one of those stones. one of the opals that had let him experience something of jason's past; one of the stones that had let quentin experience something of his. he's not sure, yet, quite what the common thread is, beyond that it's always something important.

or seems to be. ]

My signed glove from the Mets vs Yankees game of '98?

[ is the message he sends in reply. it's pointedly irreverent, pointedly dismissive, because if it is an opal, he's not convinced he wants to have the conversation that might follow. ]

[pearlstrings]

No.

[He suspects that Peter knows what it is, because how could he not? People all over Beacon have been finding these small stones and living through the memories inside. And it wouldn't be the first time that their conversations have tipped towards the personally significant, that he deflected the blow with a humor.

He's said many times before that there's importance in sharing- knowledge, theory, thought. It had not escaped Bruce's notice that Peter is less forthcoming when he's the one with something to surrender; but there's no begrudging him that. Secrets keep people safe, and then one day, they become a way of life. Bruce wasn't born this way, after all. He's eight years in the making.

Where then, to leave it? They have few positive memories of the church, and going to Peter's home would invite discussion that he suspects he's trying to avoid. He puts on his coat and makes his way towards Town Hall. Then he begins to climb.]

Roof of Town Hall. A jar in the northwest corner. Ten minutes.

—duster

[webshoots]

[ it's the four of them — peter and gwen; mj and harry. they're adults in college, with all the burgeoning confidence and knowledge that being young entails. harry — a thin man, with a distinctive widow's peak that ages him — holds the door open for the other three: first gwen, then peter, then finally mj.

it's a coffee shop, officially speaking, with mahogany walls and brown, worn flooring, and a sign that says in large, stylised letters that it's called the coffee bean. it's cold outside, snowing, and gwen's breath emerges in hot, puffy clouds as she exclaims—

"oh my god, you guys, this is totally a beatnik bar." peter laughs as he helps her out of her coat, whilst mj — the redhead being helped from her coat mutters a question that sounds like "what's a beatnik?"

the four slide into a booth: peter next to gwen, harry next to mj; and peter remarks— ] I dunno, Gwen-do-leen, [ he enunciates each syllable carefully and pointedly, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. ] I kinda like it.

[ he does like it: it's one of his favourite spots, found by harry. it's quaint and it's cozy, and peter's always happy to watch the world go by. the waitresses know him by name and he them, and it manages to feel something like home in the corner of the city. something a little less busy.

you would, you goon, gwen replies, fondly, her attention sliding away from peter and to the frosted up window.

all the while, mary jane makes a noise, disgusted and insulted all at the same time, a tiny, steaming mug held partway to her mouth.

they put dirt in my coffee, she complains, whilst harry interrupts her caffeine-related disappointment to inform her—

espresso, mj, espresso. 30 millilitres of 90-degrees-centigrade water forced through 10 grams of finely ground coffee at 130 psi to produce this: god's own beverage of hyper-caffeinated goodness.

gwen spoons one of the largest spoonfuls of sugar peter thinks he's ever seen into her cup and announces that they — peter and harry — are the dorkiest dorks that ever dorked.

peter's fingers wrap around his mug and he glances at her out of the corners of his eyes and points out: ] And yet you two continue to date us.

[ harry laughs and raises his mug to clink against peter's (well-played, mr. parker, he says.) mary jane rolls her eyes and gwen tilts her head to stare up at the ceiling, the action punctuated by a deep sigh and a question of why they're even here. there are better, more fashionable, more modern coffee shops to spend time at, she says.

peter snakes an arm around her shoulders and pulls her towards him. he doesn't need to look over to the bar to know the sorts of people that will be there: old and young, fat and thin, poor and a little less poor. a mix of some of the most interesting people to speak to in all of new york. ]

There's character here. In the tables, in the walls. Maybe Kerouac hung out here, or O. Henry, [ he tells her, a broad grin lighting up his face and he points up at the ceiling. ] Tin. It's got history. This place is the old New York, the type of thing they get rid of these days.

[ he thinks it's the sort of place the four of them could stay forever. ]

[mindofathief]

[...And the memory ends.

There’s so many people in that one cafe. It’s supposed to be a small place, but Peter doesn’t recognize all those people. This is what his world used to be. Not the unfeeling and childish shrine to pride that was New Pork City. People live there, much like a village but you were never alone. It was the club, where Duster didn’t know all of the patrons, but he felt like he was appreciated and had a place.

There were names he didn’t recognize. History that Tazmily threw away. Leder was right; everything was far bigger than they could ever imagine.

It’s a selfish thought, but Duster wants to hold his memory with him forever.

He’s sitting alone, near the edge of the forest, holding the opal in one hand and a small, egg-shaped object in his other hand. He’s always kept his on him, and even if he could never pierce its secrets, he could try to mess around with it.]

—maes

[webshoots]

( tba. )

—jason todd, cw: burial/burying alive, claustrophobia

[webshoots]

[ peter feels sick. tired. exhausted. he feels like he's losing his mind and that there's something out there waiting for him. logically, he knows he's anxious. grieving. that his nerves are frayed and the same few thoughts keep repeating in his mind:

yesterday, ned leeds.
today, joe face.
tomorrow—
aunt may?
mary jane?

(he's out of his mind.)

it's joe face.
(joe face is dead—)
but it's joe—
—no, it's kraven.

peter (no, the spider, not peter) is shot at with one dart, then a second, and the drugs take their time to work. he thinks he should have been able to dodge the second one, but his spider-sense hadn't—

oh.

he'd been scared. he's always scared, in a sense: scared of who's going to get hurt this time and how he can stop it. he was sloppy and so he'd got shot, and his head's pounding and he can't quite work out if it's this cold he's coming down with or if it's kraven's jungle drums.

(poison.)

his muscles feel stiff and he can barely crawl, let alone anything else. kraven's trapped him in a web and peter thinks he should appreciate the irony, but his head throbs with every movement and every breath. it's going to take him all night to break free, but he knows what kraven will do.

he'll take him to some lair and he'll try to prove himself the hunter. superior, or however kraven imagined himself.

he approaches: he wears his trophies — skins and furs, incongruously there's a — what is that, a rifle? why does kraven have a rifle?

honor — will be restored! kraven proclaims and peter feels something akin to panic in the pit of his stomach. ]

C'mon, Kravey! Rifles aren't your style! [ peter looks into kraven's face, into his eyes, and he thinks there's something there— ] You've always wanted to pound me into a hamburger — with your bare hands! You're a macho man!

[ peter thinks again of ned leeds. he thinks of joe face. he thinks of aunt may and he thinks of mj.

it's warm and it's white and it's peaceful.
it's quiet and he likes it.
he thinks that he wants to be left alone in the warm and white, in the peace and the quiet.

but then he thinks of mary jane.

she's not here. not her face, not her eyes, not her hair, not her smile.

I am the spider, he thinks.
ned's dead.
ben's dead.
gwen's dead.
I'm dead, he thinks.

no!

I'm the spider! he thinks.
pauses.
mary jane—?

(I'm weak, he thinks. a coward.
I can die.
I am peter parker.)

he takes a breath and he feels trapped. there is no more white and no more warmth and no more quiet.
there's wood and there's dirt and he realises he's in a coffin.

he digs and he crawls and he thinks that he, the man, is not dead.

he thinks of mary jane.
(he thinks that he, the man, must get back to her.
so he digs and he crawls.)
he thinks of how he, the man and not the spider, loves mary jane.

he thinks he's reached the end and he panics. hot tears spill down his face and he thinks he's choking. he's not dead but he might die here, amongst the dirt and the maggots and he thinks of mary jane and he screams.

he's trapped here, under the earth and he's terrified, not that he might die, but that he might lose her. he loves her and he thinks that there is no spider, there's only peter parker, and he loves mary jane, and his fingers, his nails, his hands push through the dirt and the grass and though he can't feel it on his skin yet, he thinks, finally, that he can breathe.

(I love you, mary jane—.) ]

PETER FINDS AN OPAL

[inthenightmods]

...Sort of! More like the opal is whipped at him by the barkeep spirits at the Invincible, but the end result is the same.

Inside the memory, Peter will find himself fixing up some kind of small spaceship, a shuttle only meant to carry handfuls of people over short distances. He's passing tools to his wife, who's working the real magic underneath the shuttle. She's wearing coveralls and is splattered with grease, her long hair tied back into a haphazard bun, and this is Peter's favorite look of hers. She's the only reason he's in the shop at all, truly—she'd have no trouble fetching her own tools.

She and Peter spend the memory chatting about inconsequential things—have you heard from the kids? what do you think of the new engineer? tell Mal I said hello next time you see him, oh, and I heard the Alliance presence has increased around Persephone, so be careful—

It's a nice way to spend an afternoon. As the memory begins to fade, Peter looks up from watching his wife work to take stock of the little craft they've put together. She's old and they've had to replace more than a few parts, but she's a tough little thing, built with love. On her side, ALBATROSS FLEET is written out in stylized lettering, though Peter won't actually be able to read the words, somehow... He's just memorized what they say.

His wife slides out from under the shuttle and looks up at him with a smile. "Ben?" she says, and the memory ends.