Ben Reilly (![]() ![]() @ 2013-12-24 01:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, ben reilly / spider-man (616), peter parker / spider-man (616) |
Who: Ben Reilly and Peter Parker
When: Late Thursday night, December 19/20?
Where: Peter's lab at Horizon
What: Late night science-ing on a less than cheerful topic.
Rating: PG at most
There was one really awesome part -- in a stockpile of awesome parts -- about working for Max Modell. Well, maybe any Max Modell, though having only called two in the multiverse “boss” limited the scope of proof on that one. The really awesome part: if you happened to be Spider-Man, you never had to explain why your badge was checked in during the wee hours when all sane employees had wandered home to sleep. Max didn’t ask. Max didn’t mind. Maybe it was in being an eccentric himself that he happily let any of his engineers hold whatever nonsensical schedules that kept their progress going. For Peter, it just meant it was that much easier to smuggle a guest in. He swiveled around on his chair, leaning over to glimpse Ben from his microscope. “Hey, I’m having regrets about not ordering that pizza before they closed for the night. You hungry? I think my stomach’s about to start eating itself.” He prodded said stomach with a forlorn finger. It gurgled in response. “Gotta be another place open this late that’ll deliver.” His lips tilted up in amusement even as Ben kept his focus on the samples in front of him. Just for a second more. How easily all these skills came back still amazed him. Just second nature really, whether he was stealing lab time at whatever university job he’d managed to snag, taking a short stint hiding out at Trainer’s, or having to work on the fly for spider-business with whatever was at hand. Double edged with emotion too considering how he came to be, but the company and setting kept the situation easily in the positive territory. He laughed as he slouched back in his chair and pushed back from the samples. “What kind of question is that? Y’gonna ask if the sky is blue next?” He rubbed a hand over his own stomach as he looked around again in amazement. At least some good had come out of that unfortunate brush with their universe’s future. “You set on pizza? ‘Cause I think I saw a Chinese place on the way over. Or does this place have a cafeteria hidden somewhere that we can raid?” “Pizza or Chinese? Ben, it’s like asking me to pick a favorite kid.” There was a pause, then Peter added, “Which, weirdly enough, could happen here, right? Man, this world and all the Tesseract shenanigans.” Another pause. “Not a complaint,” he added with a finger struck upward to punctuate the furthered remark, even as he slid forward a bit on his chair to get the phone out of his back pocket. “Okay, Chinese food… lessee what we got for a late night dumpling run. Got any special requests before I call an order in? And, nope, the entire menu isn’t an option. Just getting that out of the way now.” Ben held his hands up. “Understood and understood. Just keep those shenanigans over by you, I’m still getting used to the one.” A soft chuckle. “Also, not a complaint, but yeah, one’s a good number right now as I go on digging this jinx deeper and deeper.” Tilting back farther in his chair, he puffed out a sigh. “All I ask is for something that doesn’t look like what a zombie’d pick up at a butcher’s for Christmas decorations. Easy enough, right? You know my tastes. Just double your order.” One brow was lifted in Ben’s direction at the self-jinxing, but Peter’s mouth settled into a faint smirk as he dialed in a few numbers. “Famous last words, Reilly,” he replied before turning his attention to placing an order for a few fried items. It wasn’t like there was a point in trying to aim for something healthy when having Chinese food in the middle of the night, right? “Yep, two of each, thanks,” marked the end of that conversation, and Peter flipped the phone onto the open desk space beside him. He eyed for a second, then turned to Ben again. “Wrong number. Anyway, back to what I was saying earlier -- your blood’s looking okay over here. I’m not seeing any zany stuff going on past the usual zany stuff that our blood normally does. I think I can probably sign off on the medical evaluation this go around. Want a looksee?” “So, we’re going to get a really weird pizza order then.” Ben wobbled his head in consideration and then walked his chair back a few steps before pushing off to slide up alongside Peter. He nudged Peter aside as he straightened up to take a peek. “Imagine, there might actually be a world out there where I’m not overly familiar with the make-up of my own blood.” This go around… Another mixed bag of emotions and familiar situation. He had plenty of Peter’s memories and his own from five years of trying to make sense of Warren’s work. Not that it’d done them much good considering how easily they were tricked, but hey, plus side, lab sessions that’d end in fist fights were likely going to be very rare from now on. He puffed out a sigh as he flopped back into his chair. “Awww, does that mean I can go out for little league in the spring, nurse?” A hand went up to muss through his hair and cradle his head. “This’d be easier if we actually had some crazy Kaine samples. Or actually had some clear-cut trigger.” Peter had scooted without protest. Stooped over Ben as he peered into the microscope, he could only frown for that brief second that his brother was distracted. This wasn’t really a fun night in the lab, even if the two of them could easy play along with it. Trying to put a stopper and keep a stopper in degeneration was tricky at best, and trickier without something to test trial cures out on. By the time Ben slumped back, Peter was already out of morose meditation and back into raised-brow curiosity. “You can sign up for little league, but I gotta say, for your age… might not be fair to the other kids.” There was a friendly nudge in the shin with his foot. “Hey, wild idea right now, but with that spook with Kaine and degenerating back home… think Aracely might remember what triggered it for him? She’s our best bet right now. ‘Cause, yeah, would sure help to have a sample to go on. Dose a blood sample with the trigger, try out a cure, put a cap in this whole thing for good.” Ben offered up a smile in return for the nudge. Just keep it light and about Kaine and the topic of conversation wasn’t all that bad. He shrugged. “It’s possible, but man, there didn’t look to be much information coming out of the freak-out when she came through. Kaine says he can feel it coming on.” That deserved a big eye roll and a raspberry. “I say he’s working himself up ‘cause if he’s been feeling it really coming on, we’d be noticing it a bit more.” He leaned his head back to look up at the ceiling as he crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s the best shot we have though. The only triggers we’ve seen are the half-baked clones and they weren’t meant to be stable. They just kinda… burned themselves out…” He shook himself out of those thoughts and gave Pete a nudge himself. “Do you know any mutants that could set that off again? Even when it’s been all healed up?” “Well, we do habitually worry ourselves into fits over things,” Peter pointed out, lower lip jutted out as he mulled over several times he knew he’d been guilty of that. “And he’s as broody as they come,” he added before perching down on the stool by his laptop. There were numbers and charts -- all data collected so far. It didn’t mean a whole lot without anything to test on, of course, but it was still a forward direction, still progress. “Mutants? I… not really, Ben. I’m not exactly in good with the X-Men, either.” Peter puffed out a sigh; a hand was run back through his short-cropped hair. “Just have to somehow break the genetic structure enough, but we might be prodding at that for a bit. Hit the wrong chain and we’d be making up a cure for something that won’t help if… if we need a cure.” Ben’s head shot up with an over-dramatic wide-eye look of surprise. “No way, we do? I missed that along with the nerd and guilt memo, didn’t I? It’s amazing what gets stuck inside magazines and tossed.” He shrugged as he waved a hand in Pete’s direction. “Hey, you got more years under your belt, I didn’t know if you’d gotten some more run ins or not and the X-men was more likely for an answer than the Assassin’s Guild.” He narrowed his eyes. “Unless you’ve been keeping other super surprising future things from me. Last people he was interacting with before the Aracely scare were those two groups, so…” Another shrug coupled with a restless shift in his seat. “But probably better than trying to try and engineer the cure we do know and unleashing the bad parts of that on this world.” Peter reached over to clap Ben on the shoulder. “Sorry to break it to you, son,” he faux-solemnly replied, head dipping and eyes cast downward. “Best you know it now. You can’t help what you inherited.” Literally, even, but so long as they were kidding, there wasn’t any use in starting in on any apologies for all those Parker tics. But Peter let his hand slip off, idly tapping the space bar and delete key in turns on the laptop while he thought a bit longer on how they were supposed to figure this whole cure predicament out. “I guess it would be too much hoping someone’ll get one of those brain updates that gives up a solid answer, huh?” “At least I improved on the looks.” Truth be told, even if Ben struggled with it off and on, they’d lucked out with who they’d been cooked up from. There were a lot worse options out there. Even with all the weird quirks and complexes. And speaking of quirks… Ben reached out to tap an actual letter key on Pete’s laptop. “We’re starting to run short on upgrade candidates. And that’s assuming that something happens that gives a solid answer. No offense, but Aracely probably can’t give us much on the scientific if she gets more info on that end. But then she might surprise us. Kaine’s done some pretty amazing stuff even though he keeps insisting he got the brains bred out of him.” His lips pursed together as he absently tapped at the key. “If our luck stays true, the first hand source might show up here soon enough…” Peter double-backspaced before resuming the tippity-tapping rhythm he had going. “Oh, sure. You and that chiseled jaw, Ben. Don’t know how I even let myself be seen around you.” But he was only half-heartedly quipping back. This looming threat that his brothers’ genetic code would fall apart didn’t exactly make for a fun chat. He gave the backspace key one last tap, then straightened up in the chair. “We’ll ask her again. Can’t hurt to. I’m not gonna go wishing for a Jackal to get dumped in our path. No thanks to that,” Peter added, before shoving himself up to standing. The Chinese delivery guy would have a hard time getting to his lab with all those locked and secured doors in the way; best to meet him out front. “Seconded and I’ll even toss a thirded in for Kaine.” Ben rolled his eyes and puffed out a sigh. “And I’m sure we can get a fourthed, fifthed, sixthed, one hundredth on the matter too. A few of them might not even be us considering that Spider Island thing.” He pushed his chair around in a slow circle. “Also not gonna wish for any replacements Osborn might find in this universe popping up. It’d be nice if that corner of mad science genetics just stayed roped off.” He shrugged the topic off before popping up to his feet. Moving around to clean up the lab, he raised an eyebrow. “Food senses tingling?” “It’s for the best if we don’t wish anything, I think. With our luck…” Peter trailed off, swiveling around on his feet to look at the lab. He waved for Ben follow. “C’mon, no need to clean up. We’ll bring the food back here -- the break room’s not far.” Then, he feigned a wince, hand lifting to his temple. “Sense… dumplings… going… cold...! Pick up the pace, Benjy Boy, we’re not getting any younger.” |