Ben Reilly (teamclone) wrote in the100, @ 2015-04-24 19:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, ben reilly / spider-man (94), peter parker / spider-man (616) |
WHO: Peter Parker and Ben Reilly
WHEN: BACKDATED like whoa to April 4, 2015
WHERE: Living room of Casa Parker-Reilly and supernaturals
WHAT: Peter and Ben catch up in a way that all the Spider-Verse shenanigans didn't let them and skirt around not so happy topics.
STATUS: COMPLETE.
Ben fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt, widening a small hole near the cuff slowly but surely as he sat on the couch in the living area. Which he should really not be doing. They were nice enough to give him the clothes so he wouldn’t have to just walk around in his tattered Spider-Man suit all the time, so he shouldn’t go ruining the clothes faster than they’d already wear out. Even if it might make a really good thumb hole at that location…
He took a deep breath as he pulled his hand away and forced his hands flat onto the couch. He couldn’t help it. Yes, the rooms were nice enough and it was great they were provided for them, but underground was really the last place he wanted to be. Sure, another universe, go with the flow, take each thing as it came, but being able to just let go and swing through the air helped letting those nerves go a lot easier.
Especially when Peter was asking for serious talks. He still wasn’t sure which Peter this was. Peter knew Gwen, and he was pretty sure it was this specific Gwen and not just Gwen in general, so that narrowed down the Peter to being one who had been on that Captain Universe Peter’s world. Maybe. Anyways, Peter was asking for a serious talk. Requests for serious talks were never good. Ok, some where good, but usually the insistence at putting the jokes aside wasn’t as intense with the good ones.
So, he was stuck here. Waiting. Trying very hard not to fidget.
It wasn’t a crazy far trip from the mess hall to the living quarters, and Peter probably took it faster than he usually would. A whole week without anyone he knew to talk to, and now the world had decided that not only did he get MJ Watson, but he got a bonus Ben Reilly. It was great! It was…
Once again a curse and a gift. MJ was here, but MJ didn’t want Spider-Man’s grief in her life. Ben was here, but if this was the Ben that had just given his life to help stop the Inheritors, then -- well, this was the Ben that had just given his life to help stop the Inheritors. It was never easy. Never a straight line. Peter drew in a last breath and let it out before opening the door to the apartment that was in part his, and now it was just as much Ben’s.
“Now, I dunno what the takeaway was from dealing with Morlun’s band of Twilight vampire rejects, but you do know that you didn’t have to follow me here, right?” Peter flung himself down on the sofa next to Ben. It was like looking in the mirror, really, save for the fact that Ben was boasting more of a clean-shaven look. “Hey, Ben,” was added shortly after.
Well that solidified that answer. Definitely part of the mass of spiders event. Which narrowed it down and didn’t at the same time. “Wait, you weren’t the one yelling out ‘pizza at my place afterwards’? Figures I’d follow the wrong spider. I bet the pizza world is beautiful with all the sunshine and toppings too.” Which was back to joking. After the whole request to be serious, but he couldn’t help it. Especially with a scruffy version of his brother sitting beside him. The bantering and joking just flowed normally in situations like this, let alone how it ratcheted up as soon as nerves were thrown in. He knew it drove MJ crazy sometimes, even if she found it endearing as well.
“Hey, Pete,” he shot back with a grin. Then his eyes narrowed slightly. “So, the question thing? Are you going first or can I just jump in there? Or are we going with who can raise their hand fastest?”
“I bet any pizza in any world’s a sight to behold, but no dice. I think New York stopped existing a looooong, long time ago in this place, anyway. No pizza, no bagels, no lox -- not that I ever really went in for that, but it was nice to know I had the option.” Peter slumped back against the back cushion of the sofa. He arched one brow over at Ben, then offered a small smile. It might have even been a little apologetic. There was alway so much to be sorry for when Ben Reilly was involved.
Peter nodded toward Ben, in lieu of a go-ahead. “Jump on in.” Mostly because it meant a few more seconds of avoiding any hard topics. Hopefully.
“Another thing to invent here along with the guacamole. Y’know, if we can find all the ingredients.” Puffing out a sigh, Ben slouched deeper into the sofa. He ran a hand over his face, taking a second to think over his words before taking the first go offer. “Oh, man, I never thought I’d be asking this again, but…” He gave Peter his own apologetic look. Considering how the whole clone thing always went, it wasn’t a question he really liked asking, but then that was also before there was a big pow wow on another universe with a ton of other Spider-Men. “...which Peter are you?”
“Makes two of us,” Peter quietly echoed, although for entirely different reasons. His eyes lingered on the coffee table for a moment before he forced himself to meet Ben’s gaze again. “From 616. Y’know, the one who socked that other guy in the face over who gets to lead the team. Not my best moment.” There was a beat. “But also not my worst. I like to think that was owed to ‘im. Long story. We go back, Superior and me.”
A half turn was made against the sofa, Peter trying to get comfortable. The furniture wasn’t exactly broken in. “And you’re the Ben who teamed up with Kaine and Jessica Drew, right? Man, I’m only just now realizing we never got to talk about… well, anything that wasn’t strictly, y’know, business.”
Ben pressed his lips together before he shook his head slightly. “I… think I missed that part. The punching of the other guy in the face, but if it was that ‘Superior Army’ Spider-Man with the… well… long story considering I think I heard something about time travel, yeah, sounds like he had it coming. Did you get rid of whatever crawled up his butt while you were at it?” He waved a hand dismissively, shifting as well to face Peter more.
“But 616, I get that. That makes you from Kaine’s world.” He chuckled. “The Chosen One. Which, yeah, Chosen One shows up and everyone kinda goes into action mode. Not that the Spidey in the red coat was big on talking anyways.” His face fell a moment, focusing his attention on the back of the sofa and picking at the fabric. Of course that Spidey wasn’t going to warm up to the talking thing either considering what the Inheritors did to him… He took a deep breath, pushing that train of thought away as he nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s me. The three of us ran off to deal with their cloning facility.” He looked back up at Pete, offering a small apologetic smile. “Sorry ‘bout that. Just running off like that, but we had a fix on the signal and…” He shrugged. “Go, go, go.”
“Oh?” Peter’s expression drooped, visibly. “Oh. Yeah,” he admitted, recovering his smile enough to counter the sag. “Yeah, Kaine’s world.” And that only stabbed his heart all over, but Peter pressed on without letting himself linger on the thought of loss.
“You grow up an only child, and suddenly the world starts flinging brothers at you. And cousins. And uncles. And whatever else we ended up with in that rag-tag group,” he barrelled on, throwing up a shrug. “And, I mean, spoiler alert, but we, uh… we won. So. Hey, welcome to the other side, champ.” There was a playful swat at Ben’s arm. Peter really wished he felt half as happy as he sounded. “Last thing you remember’s running off, then?”
Ok, that change in expression? Not good. Not surprising though. As much as Ben kept joking through it all, it had been a war and there were far too many people he saw who didn’t make it. And he was only in the main fray for a short time, not like Peter… An eyebrow raised at the uncles comment, but he brushed it off, putting on a grin and happy air. “Hey, we won. That’s great! Really.” He reached out to give Pete’s shoulder a fistbump. “Way to go Chosen Spider. I’d give you a gold star if there were any in this place.”
He shook his head as he puffed out a long breath. “Nah. Last thing I remember is threatening creepy mccreepy kinda vampire and getting ready to blow his facilities sky high. Or, well, his communication arrays, but potato potahto.” A pause. “Gwen said the facilities were destroyed and if we won…” A small smile. “I’m guessing the plan worked.”
Damnit. Damn it. There was lying, but maybe there was a still a shot at playing it off. Ben didn’t need to know what happened to him. Would it change anything back home? Probably not. And, sure, it sounded like Ben knew he’d set off on a one-way mission, but that didn’t mean he needed to be told that. It was that urge to deflect -- protect. They’d all had enough bad news, and it felt wrong to let more seep in.
“Gwen was off on her own mission,” Peter waved off, literally using a hand to guide the topic to the side. “All you gotta know is the Inheritors won’t be coming after anyone again, and everyone got home a-okay. I just wanted to check in with you before I started yapping about anything else. ‘Cause it would be so awkward if I started talking about that one time with the squirrel -- I mean, point is that my Ben probably lived a different life than you did.”
That eyebrow raised again, because obviously everyone didn’t get home a-okay. But they didn’t need to focus on that part. Not with the great runway director impression Pete had going. “Oh, a mission of her own? Did you finally let her out to play or did she pull a sneaky spider sneak-off?” he teased before puffing out a dramatic sigh of relief. “That’s good, with the Inheritors and all. Because, man, with just the whirlwind of everything and ‘we need to get out of here now’, completely forgot ‘bout my Kaine, so, knowing he’s safe is good and…”
He ran a hand up through his hair, ruffling it up into blond spikes. “Yeah, I got the whole the different lives of Ben thing from all the exclamations and question exclamations, but again, not really much time for actual talking, right? And then there’s MJ…” He blinked out of his train of thought and tilted his head curiously. “Wait, ok, whose MJ is she? I know she’s not the one from my world.”
That felt less like a dodged bullet, more like getting grazed in the side. Still, Ben wasn’t chasing, and Peter wasn’t going to remind him to. He offered up another shrug. “We got around to understanding that not getting killed on each other was a good key to working together. Didn’t really have a choice about it, with the whole being hunted thing. There was a lot of that going around, though.”
Again, there came a wave off of the subject. Peter kept moving, not daring to let the surface tension break. Any talk of being surrounded by ghosts wasn’t going to help anyone. “Oh, yeah. MJ’s from my world. Guess my world’s usually the most popular, go figure. Kinda wish there was an option to not involve my friends, though. A little ticky box I could uncheck.”
Ben nodded slowly, piecing the bits of information together. Kaine’s reaction to seeing him and then his general attitude. Peter’s too. And now MJ who hadn’t seen him for years. Or well, not him him, but their Ben Reilly anyways. The picture was still hazy, but, well, this didn’t seem like a ‘it’s been so long’ in the sense of ‘you run off and never write’ sort of deal.
“The most popular and yet you get designation 616. What’s up with that? And, oh, if you find that ticky box, give a holler, ok? I wouldn’t mind unchecking that every now and then.” Even if they did help out whenever they did get involved. And some of his friends couldn’t not be involved. Johnny staying out of trouble just wasn’t something that happened. And then Peter and Carlie were too used to the lifestyle to ignore trouble whenever it came while they were around. He shrugged as he nudged Pete’s shoulder again. “Hey, at least it’s MJ, right? If anyone had to get dragged along, she’s a solid choice. It could’ve been much worse.” He made a face. “Which I didn’t just say aloud. Please ignore that I just said that aloud. Nothing to hear here, powers that be.”
“We just gotta be different, I guess. Or maybe it’s… Deadpool’s fault. Hard to say. I assume all things that don’t make sense came from him or are because of him. Usually not a wrong assumption.” It was still coasting atop the peaks of waves, but Peter felt he was doing so without getting thrown around at much now. They were displaced enough from the death count, at least, that a few more turns in the conversation would definitely put it back into safe territory.
Or… maybe that MJ bomb would drop instead. Peter’s mouth wriggled into a frizzled little line. “Yeah, uh. I guess there’s that. Uh. We’re on something of a break in the friendship. Sorta. It’s a little hard to avoid each other when you’re both stuck in an underground bunker and everything that lives up on the surface has… two… heads…” By the end, even Peter couldn’t help but admit how lousy it sounded. But MJ didn’t want to be involved. She asked to be left out of his life, and the short chat they’d already had aside, he wasn’t actively trying to break his promise. “But, hey! Look at you. That is one fetching black eye.”
Ok, Deadpool, yeah, that guy was weird and crazy which was saying something coming from a spider who is known for stand-up comedy while fighting. Ben could follow that easily. And while it wasn’t what he expected, he was following the next part past break, but then he hit a wall with the friendship part. He just stared at Pete as if he was the one with two heads, his mind circling around that string of words and trying to make sense of it. Break in the friendship. Break in the friendship. Nope, that still wasn’t parsing.
He pushed himself up so he could turn and face Peter fully face on. “Yeah, yeah, black eye, got jostled around a bit, so there was a concussion in the mix too, which might of affected my hearing, sooooo…” He narrowed his eyes. “One more time. You and MJ are… what?”
Peter turned to look over his shoulder, as if that would explain the sudden disbelief that Ben seemed to have picked up. There was nothing there. “We’re… friends? Friends who haven’t really spoken in a while? For good reasons?” Peter attempted, his brows drawn down low and scrunched, perplexion seizing hold of them.
“No, but really… are you okay? I figured we were operating on the I’m-good-unless-I’m-passed-out logic, and you were sitting upright, so I just went straight to it.”
Friends… that was… huh… Ben blinked a few times, still turning that over in his head. Friends… Yeah, still sounded weird. But… He nodded, waving a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. They fixed me up in medical, wouldn’t let me leave for a day or two.” He rolled his eyes playfully. “Y’know, normal people and stuff like dislocated arms and busted ribs and concussions. They never believe the whole ‘I’ve had worse, don’t worry about me’ spiel. But…” He made a show of circling the shoulder that had been popped back into place. “See? Good as new until the next fight.”
A shrug as his brow slowly furrowed, his thoughts circling back to… “Friends? Really? So… did you two… y’know, date?”
“Ah, yeah. The ol’ ‘No, really, I had six arms once, but I got better’ talk. People never give us spiders enough credit. Wolverine probably only has a few up on our ability to spring back.” There was a lingering look at Ben’s shoulder, but it did look to be in the right place. Peter let it slide. Regardless of all else, Ben was living and breathing, so there was that much to be grateful for.
Peter swung his arms up to his chest, locking them one underneath the other as he tried to focus on the question. He heaved out a deep sigh. “Dated? Sure, for years. Why, did the me from your -- oh. You’re the Spidey from there, so… wait. What happened to me? Him? ...him-me?”
“Huh…” Ben puffed out as he let gravity pull him around to slouch deep into the sofa again. Still weird, but not as weird. Which he knew was ridiculous of him. It was multiple words after all. There was a them that was still running around with those six arms. Plus a female clone. And a Gwen that got bitten by the spider instead. Not just a Gwen, but a Flash and a Betty too. So, strangeness all around. And yet…
It took him a moment for the questions to catch up to him and then he started in alarm and held his hands up. “Oh, no, no, it’s not like that. You’re fine. He’s fine. Totally fine and living it up in Portland. Thankfully he did not have the ticky box marked on his friend card for this adventure and they told me that there’s no way the Inheritors would be going after him, I mean, back when they were still going after people, y’know?” He took a deep breath and then pressed his lips together to stop the word vomit for a second to compose his train of thoughts.
“Alright, so, I’m assuming you deal with all the crazy mad science experiments too, yeah? Well, the usual story, right? Lab thinks it’s doing good, lab actually is creating lots of trouble that needs cleaning up. Call in Thing 1 and Thing 2, we figure out how to fix the man turned monster of the week, but then something went wrong inside the fix-it room. Pete moved faster, ran in, and…” He made an exploding motion with his hands. “Poof, no more powers and I got an upgrade from my hoodie.” He pressed his lips together again, making a slight face. “Uh… I probably should’ve gone with the TL;DR version.”
Portland. There was something really familiar about that, but, at the same time, it hadn’t ever been more than a throwaway mention to MJ. It was that sort of far-off location if one day the chaos of NYC got to be too much, and if there was a family to think of. Of course, they never got to that point. But it sounded like another Peter Parker had, and that…
That felt like lead weights dragging down on Peter’s heart, which hadn’t even recovered fully from a certain mourning over lost brothers. He shook himself, though, trying to free up his thoughts. “He never got his powers back,” Peter slowly replied, upon realizing where things had gone different. “No, I remember something like that happening, but I got back in the fray. Portland, huh? Hey, good for him. Sounds like someone didn’t miss the wedding.”
Ben shook his head. “Never came back. It’s been years now and nothing. He even gets a little jumpy if I take him too high up now.” Another shake of his head, but this time it was a combination of disbelief and amusement. Man, parallel universes. You’d think something so ‘small’ would be a constant and then…
“You missed the wedding? There was a wedding? I mean, yeah, Pete and MJ, they were married for awhile before I came back. Not always the smoothest course, but… they had each other and…” He held his hand up to pause the conversation as he shifted to pull up his shirts to get at the utility belt he still had on. Pressing his thumb against just the right spot on one compartment, he waited a second before the compartment popped open. Pulling his wallet out, he flipped it open so he could pull out a small stack of papers from behind his ID. He shuffled through them before a big grin spread across his face. “Ah ha! I thought I remembered to print it out.”
He held the picture out to Peter, the happy family smiling up from the glossy surface. A little baby in a Spider-Man onesie was strapped to a familiar man’s chest who was dressed all in gray in the best attempt at looking like a very short skyscraper. Next to them were two red-heads, a three-year-old girl who was nearly wiggling out of her mother’s arms in her attempts to do her best Captain Marvel impression and her mother who looked a mix of exasperated and amused in her Spider-Woman costume. “There you go. That’s the Pete from my world.”
Peter’s expression softened. He took the picture, silently looking down at the four faces captured on the paper within his hands. It was simultaneously the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, and the worst. That face was his, but it wasn’t his life. Because he had his powers, and Spider-Man had taken up all the space that would’ve been devoted to a relationship with MJ, and she didn’t want to have him in her life…
“That -- wow. Two kids, huh? No playing around with getting a matching set, there.” Even as he said it, the words felt forced. Something about the picture was just making him want to push it away. It wasn’t going to happen. Not for him. He held the picture out to Ben, and averted his eyes, not that they caught accidental glimpse of the family again. He told himself to not ask what the kids’ names were. He told himself to just be happy that some Peter Parker out there had what looked a lot like a happy ending.
“Couldn’t imagine life without powers. I mean --” A small smile. “Nice to know they got an Uncle Ben. The kids. That’s… yeah. That’s pretty great, that there.”
“With how they are, wouldn’t be surprised if more’ll be on the way, especially with…” The words were out before Ben tore his eyes away from the picture long enough to give a good look at Pete. Oh. Hrm. Maybe not the best course of action, but… well, yeah, that Uncle Ben thing. Had to show off the niece and nephew. Carefully putting the photo away, he blew out a long breath.
“Tell you the truth, I don’t think he can either and he’s living it,” he said softly. “Yeah, being away, it’s easier to forget for a bit, especially when you don’t have the spider sense beating against the back of your head whenever there’s danger.” A soft, fond chuckle. “But man, whenever you get him back in the city.” He shook his head. “I practically have to web his feet to the floor to stop him from helping out.”
The momentary lapse was rattled right off. His life was his life. There wasn’t any use in wandering down the paths of what-if and if-only. Two kids and a house on the west coast? It sounded nice, but Peter reminded himself that at least he was still chugging. The man a foot over to his left wouldn’t have that shot at life. Everything was always relative like that. There was always a better, but there was also always a worse.
A snort was given at the last of what Ben was saying. “No -- that completely sounds familiar. If I had a dollar for every time my Ben hadda tell me to go home to MJ already… I mean, could probably get a few pizzas with that. I need to stop that. I keep saying pizza, and then I remember that there’s no pizza. I’d tell you to hold me, but I know that tough-guy shtick. How many broken ribs would I end up re-crunching?”
“Only a few?” Ben couldn’t help teasing back. “Although webbing you to the floor wouldn’t be nearly as easy or effective.” There were questions. So many questions. Because he and Kaine recognized the blonde look and suit, right? So his Ben had to have done it, right? But why’d he take over and just how serious were the things with MJ at that point if that Ben was telling Peter to go home to MJ? Or was that why it all fizzled in the end? He could go on and on and on for hours likely, but considering the few facts he had, he doubted that the story had a happy ending.
So instead… “Y’know what will take our mind off that food item we are so going to invent later and doesn’t involve rib crunching - which one: they are fine and wouldn’t be crunched by the likes of you, even in your izza-pay despair and two: I, uh, lost track of that part of the conversation with the doctor on how many, but y’know, something pops and it’s painful, what do numbers matter…” He waved his hand as if that’d untangle the mess of words he’d just spewed out. “Anyways, you said you’ve been here awhile, yeah? So, I’m thinking, tour time! You can show me the all the places you think are cool…” He smirked. “... and I’ll know all the boring spots to avoid.”