Log: Ben & May WHO: May Parker & Ben Reilly WHERE: The Valentine's Dance WHEN: Backdated to Feb. 14 RATING: PG STATUS: Completed via gdoc.
In his life, showing up at a Valentine’s Day party when Ben last remembered fall in NYC wasn’t the weirdest thing in his life. Granted, the bar for ‘weirdest thing in his life’ was set very high. Very, very, very high. Just the last thirty minutes before he had gotten to this particular universe was a pretty high standard. After all, how do you beat ‘trying to heal gargoyle friend that protected you while Stark insists on knowing when you can all leave to defeat a ‘god’ despite Tony’s back being broken and only his armor keeping him upright’ on a normal day? Ok, no, that wasn’t even a high bar as that whole deaged Tony with the Spider-Man robot created by Kang causing temporal…. whatever… beat that. Made even weirder that only him and Tony remembered it after everything. Fun times.
And maybe he should have stayed away. He was still new here and his nerves were still on high alert considering he was tossed right back into San Francisco when that was really the last place he wanted to be. He was pretty sure the Bay Area hated him on a molecular level after everything. But… but... free food. There were many things he could resist. Free food was not one of them. Especially when, while that ‘welcome to the madness’ check was nice, he knew it couldn’t last long in the scheme of things. Especially with a spider metabolism. And that’s assuming that the government person was good on their word…
So, maybe he was underdressed for the occasion. He’d worked with worse. He still moved through the crowd with confidence built on the fact that he knew he’d get a warning if something bad or dangerous would happen and a familiarity with having to blend into the background and work with the scene. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. His eyes were on the prize. The buffet. Grabbing a plate. Piling it maybe a little too high for your average person. But it was all good.
May noticed the newcomer and smiled. The party was for Station residents only so she knew he must have arrived recently. She headed over and waved. “Hello,” she said warmly. “I’m May Parker. You must be new. Welcome! What a way to celebrate your arrival, hm?”
The innocent ‘who me’ look that automatically started to slip into place on Ben’s face stalled with that introduction. He was stuck staring. He knew what he heard. Multiverse hopping didn’t mess with hearing, did it? But even though there was that, well, multiverse thing, the words just weren’t quite computing. Other than a very distant memory nudging him in a very familiar voice to stop gawking. It was rude after all.
“I’ll have to send notes back because if every universe threw a party for little ol’ me when all the multiverse travel deals start up, I might get out more. Although I would’ve stuck more with the red decor than mixing it up with pink.” His mouth was running on autopilot as his mind kept circling around that introduction. His ramble winding down, he gave a little shake of his head. “Um, yeah, new here and… did you just say your name is May Parker?”
She laughed. “So you are used to the multiverse? My nephew and his friends have some experience with it too.” However, she gave him a curious look when he shook his head and asked about her name. “Yep, May Parker. I’d usually offer to cook you something to welcome you, but looks like you are covered for tonight. Maybe another day.” She winked playfully. “What’s your name, honey?”
A whole lot more questions got answered without her even knowing it. A pang went through Ben at the mention of a nephew. Pete, obviously. Friends could cover so many other superheroes. He wondered if her Pete was one of the many helping out during the grand Spider Multiverse adventure.
“I’ve taken a trip or two. Does your nephew have experience from back in his universe or just-” He waved a hand. “-ending up here?” The easier question considering the swirl of emotions going on inside him. Maybe this was some sort of mind trick, but if it was dangerous, he’d know? Right? He closed his eyes a moment, shutting out the visual to help listen better to that hindbrain buzz and… nothing… Ok, so… He laughed softly, still not quite believing this was really going on.
“No offense to the caterer, but that offer is world’s better than anything they got here. Are you an official welcoming committee or am I just lucky?” He paused a second, his look searching, a combination of wary and hopeful. “Ben Reilly.”
“Peter - that’s my nephew - has experience at home,” May explained. “Not the best experience, but an experience.” She looked a little sad when she mentioned that time in Peter’s life, but quickly covered it up. “Oh, yeah? Two good names. Ben was my husband’s name. Reilly is my maiden name.” She tilted her head, wondering why he seemed…was uncertain the word? Curious? Maybe it was just the effects of being stuck in a new pocket universe. “And, no Welcome Committee, but now you have me wondering if we should create one!”
“Well, most experiences don’t greet you with housing, tech, and a very generous check, so anything else can’t really compete,” Ben said softly. Multiverse trips usually weren’t so… calm… At least in Pete’s line of work. It’d just be a question of which villain he had to go after. His smile turned fond as the wariness eased out of his shoulders. Acknowledgement, but definitely not a ‘hey you’ sort of recognition. An odd relief. “Two very good names. I thought it had a nice ring to it.” For a second, that impulse to tell her everything tried to take over. But oh boy, if he started, he wasn’t sure where he’d actually stop and that was a lot of information to dump on a May Parker only a few minutes after meeting her. Right? “Would it just be a Welcome Committee of one? Because that might be a lot of meals cooked depending on how many you have coming in at a time.”
“This is my first trip through dimensions,” May said with a laugh. “So I’ll take your word for it.” She glanced around the room, wondering if any other newbies had popped up. She looked back at him and his kind smile. It was almost like he knew her. “I could rope a few more people into it. Pepper, Wanda, Kara…” The more she talked about it, the more excited she grew. Maybe something to bring up to Angie. “Are you a superhero too then?” She thought he might be, with all the talk of multi-dimensional travel. “We have quite a few here. Several from my universe.”
Ben used the opportunity of her glancing around to just watch her. To take in this version of his- Peter’s aunt. Much younger than any memories, of an age that was only in photographs and home movies. But even those mostly contained a woman’s hair whose blond hair had given way to gray. It was… nice… to see her like this…
He was so lost in what had come to be a rare nostalgia moment that her question caught him off guard. “Pfft, what? No. No way. Why would I be a superhero? You can’t just ask someone that. That’s… that’s not a thing you just go and do…” His brow furrowed. “Right? That’s just a big no no. Usually. But then usually places don’t have so many handouts to the new guy either so… Is that the policy here?”
May raised her eyebrows at his rambles. “Well, not just everyone hops dimensions and we have a lot of heroes here so…” She shrugged. “Many people at The Station have abilities. It wasn’t a far jump.” And judging him from his reaction, she might not be far off. Still, she didn’t push, just smiled. “My kid is a superhero,” she added, with no shortness of pride in her voice. “You’ll meet Peter. He always likes talking to the newcomers.”
Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just the famous singer who just got swept up in some physics student’s basement interdimensional experiment.” He held up a hand. “And don’t ask me to prove that until you really want to clear the room.” The openness was odd, but… also nice… It reminded him of the ease him and Peter once had. Of the possibilities during that short time when Peter admitted that Aunt May had known their secret for a while. A secret Peter had kept himself for months. He sighed wistfully before nodding. “I’m sure I will. So…” He shot a knowing glance to May. “... we have Spider-Man. Who else from your world is here?”
So he knew Peter in his world. May still wouldn’t push. Instead, she said, “Oh, plenty of the Avengers. My boyfriend, Bruce Banner, my friends Tony & Pepper Stark, my kid’s best friend, Ned Leeds, Wanda Maximoff, Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Matt Murdock, Natasha Romanoff, Yelena Belova…” She paused, thinking about who else from her world was present. “Oh! Thor. Loki. Stephen Strange. Carol Danvers, Daisy Johnson, Lila Barton, Scott Lang and his daughter, Cassie.” She stopped again. “Forgive me if I forgot anyone!” She threw her head back and laughed. “Way too many. We’re lucky compared to some with no connections to home.” She shook her head. “I probably overwhelmed you, rattling off a bunch of names like that.”
It was amazing how Ben’s mind could multitask sometimes. Because he nodded along, most of the names pulling up a codename checklist that gave him a good scope of the superhero landscape. Iron Man, of course, Rescue, Scarlet Witch, Cap and friend, Magoo, Captain Marvel, Ant Man. Pretty standard. At the same time, his brain kept poking at ‘my boyfriend Bruce Banner’ and ‘Peter’s best friend Ned Leeds’ like a kernel stuck in his teeth. The gears grinding over that must’ve been obvious considering the laugh and her comment.
He shook his head. “Oh, no no, that’s nothing. It’s good you have so many and pfft, I think the current Avengers line-up is longer than that. It’s more…” His mind flip flopped between the two and then settled on… “Ned? Ned’s here? And he’s Peter’s best friend? Is that a here thing or back home too?”
“Oh, they grew up together,” May replied, a fond smile on her face. “Ned is like my other kid. You know him in your world too then?” She wondered if Ben was from a world like Tony 2 where things were different, even with the same people. “The multiverse is still hard to wrap my head around, honey. No matter how many times I meet people who know us, but in a different way!” She chuckled. “There was a Penny once. She had spider powers like Peter.”
Ben shook his head as he puffed out a breath. Yes, it was the multiverse. He’d seen plenty of others who had gotten powers instead of Peter. Yeah, there were masks, but it was obvious when it deviated. They had at least ten in their universe and he was certain he might be forgetting a few. Granted, five were due to some Parker DNA, but that was beside the point.
“That’s weird. But then that’s the multiverse I guess. I ran into him a bit. A reporter at the Daily Bugle.” The simplest story because… oh… that was a whole can of worms there… “I’ve always been used to the theory. Einstein-Rosen bridges. Parallel universes. Many worlds. All that. But then…” He waved a hand. “... bff Ned instead of Harry and you’re dating the Hulk.” He blew out a breath. “The whole brain wrapping thing. Have others come through? Like Penny?”
“Harry?” She questioned. “I don’t know if we know any Harry at home.” She laughed. “This really is a lot to wrap my head around, even after being here well over a year.” She shook her head then. “People like Peter? No, just Penny.”
“A year?” Ben’s eyebrows raised in surprise before he blew out a low whistle. “Wow… that’s a long time… Has it been that long for a lot of others too?” It was a shock, but… it didn’t sound like such a bad thing. San Francisco wouldn’t have been his first choice, but there were worse options. “I’m not sure if it’s something that’s meant to be fully used to or understood. It is infinite possibilities. Once you have your mind wrapped around one aspect, other unexpected scenarios pop up.” He laughed. “I could just flip the tables on that whole overwhelming name listing and see what sticks and what doesn’t for whatever reason. Maybe the universe skipped over that aspect. Maybe they just haven’t popped up or took a detour. But that might be too much brain wrapping for a party.”
May chuckled again. He amused her and she had a good feeling about him. “There have been plenty of us here for that long,” she answered. “Some people leave, but people pop up all the time.” She sighed, thinking about how not everyone had a happy ending at home so their little pocket dimension was a godsend for some, including her. She wouldn’t drag Ben down with that though. “No one knows how or why people leave,” she added. “That is the only bad thing about this place, the instability.”
Ben tilted his head curiously, watching her a moment before he let out a sigh of his own. “That’s life though, isn’t it? You never quite know where you’ll end up for sure. Who will come through your life and how long they’ll stay there.” He smiled softly. “We make due with what we get. But at least this place helps to counter that a bit, right? No worrying about finding a roof over our heads. Easy connection with a phone and laptop. And $5000?” He blew out another whistle. “Budget that right and that’s a good cushion to rest on while finding your feet. Plus-” He gestured around. “-no worrying about parties. Ok, ok, maybe some people want to worry about how to set them up, but that’s not my forte, so I’m more than happy not to worry about them. Do they do this often? Because if they do, you need to give me the downlow on what to grab here and what to avoid.”
“The government threw one other party that I know of,” May replied. “But the residents often throw get-togethers on the roof of the building. Always some holiday or someone’s birthday, you see.” She winked. “I’ll show you the ropes, don’t worry.” She glanced over to where Bruce was waiting for her. “I should get back to Bruce, but it was really nice talking to you, Ben.”