tushanshu | video; anonymous location

Entry tags:

video; anonymous location

[Kaine was sitting at one of the numerous cafes in the Earth sector, wearing his Scarlet Spider costume and feeling like an idiot in doing so. Unfortunately, he couldn't make this as Kaine, not when he couldn't remember the kid's real name to save his life.

At least this time he knew how to work the damn console.]

If you know who I am, check in. I might have something that belongs to you.

[Could that have been less cryptic? Probably. Hopefully it works.]

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[What the...? Did she know he was there? ...Of course she did. This wasn't Peter, he didn't cancel her spider-sense. But even if that was the case, how did she know where he was? She seemed to, at any rate, the way she was staring right at him. Peter could never do that.

Kaine leaps from one end of the roof to the other. He had to test this.]

[May's spider-sense was far more sensitive than Peter's ever was, and as he moves, she's still tracking him, even if she can't see him. After a moment, she quickly shoots a tiny burst of webbing at where it says he should be next. Even if she can navigate and spot blind, it doesn't actually mean she wants to.]

Okay, I know you're there, but how are you doing that?

[Okay, she definitely knows where he is. That's... kind of impressive, actually. Kaine barely manages to dodge the webbing as he thinks the suit back into visibility.]

Magic. [Pulls an envelope out of his costume and tosses it her way.] I'm afraid to know what I look like where you're from.

I never took you for a wizard.

[She bolts for the envelope, rather than letting it fall to the ground.]

Really scarred, long gray hair and beard, and a coat that really didn't help you not look like a hobo. [It's said lightly, and in a good natured way, because why is he saying something like that?]

What's brought that on? Did you find a gray hair or something?

[Resists the urge to groan.] That was a rhetorical question.

[But at least he knows. It seemed that Other Him (to steal a term from Parker) had aged the way he always thought he would... whenever he would dare to think he'd live to be that old at all. Speaking of... how was he not dead? If he was still scarred, it meant his degeneration was never cured. There's no way he would have lived that long.]

Open the damn envelope or I'll take it back.

[If there's anything she's learned, it's that with Kaine, actions usually speak louder than words.]

What's this?

[That and what he's not actually saying outright, so she shrugs off his comments as she opens the envelope.]

[Decides not to waste words when she's clearly opening the damn thing; it's a picture of her family that he found at one of the auctions.]

[The photo puts her at a momentary loss of words when she pulls it out. Her, Benjy, Mom and Dad. All smiling for the camera. The first family photo with Benjy in it. Having it was a sudden reminder of how much she missed all of them.]

This- I- did you find it in one of those auctions?

[He just nods, barely managing to fight back a retort about stupid questions. Much like when he had discovered Ben's Scarlet Spider costume among the items up for auction, he had bought it in a fervor, then, only after the fact, had he realized what he had done and that it was now his job to get it back to her.]

[She looks at it for a couple seconds more before carefully slipping it into the envelope, and unslings her backpack. The envelope goes in, and a similar one comes out, which she walks over with and offers to Kaine.]

I think we had the same idea.

[Kaine arches an eyebrow at the envelope, as he had very few belongings back home, and even less that he actually cared about. Short of the Scarlet Spider costume (which he would never admit he actually considered important), he honestly could not think of anything that would have been brought here. The eyebrow arched more when she mentioned having the same idea. So it was a picture, but of what? One of his mugshots, perhaps? A surveillance photo? May was the only one on the turtle, that he knew of, who knew who he truly was (and even then she seemed a little hazy on the details), so she would recognize the old him immediately. But if that were the case, why give it to him? If she was looking to protect his criminal history, why not just burn it?

And then he pulled out the actual picture. He had forgotten they even took this. It was Christmas night, after the Santa's had all been arrested and their statements had been taken. Courtney, the front desk girl, had gone up looking for Annabelle, and before they broke up their impromptu roof party for the night, Annabelle had asked her to take a picture of all of them. She had given them all copies after the fact, but Kaine couldn't remember the last time he actually looked at it. He... he was actually smiling in this picture. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he smiled.]

...Thanks.

You're welcome.

[Really, she had wondered who the people in the photo besides Kaine were; whoever they were, he looked happy with them. Which was kind of strange, actually, in a heartwarming sort of way. Even Kaine deserved to be actually happy, whatever he thought of himself. Instead of taking pleasure from people being annoyed or being made miserable or otherwise suffering.

The fact that one of them was a teenaged girl who had to be around her age, maybe a bit younger, was a surprise, though. She didn't look like any of the others in the photo, but looked awfully friendly with Kaine, if the fact that she was trying (and failing massively!) to give him rabbit ears in it was anything to go by. And the fact that he wasn't reacting particularly negatively, it had to be the same from him! So who was she to him? There was definitely no way Kaine had a kid or something, much less someone near her age, he wasn't old enough for that. ...Right?]

Who are they? I mean, besides friends of yours.

[Under normal circumstances, Kaine's response would have been "none of your business..." but she had gone out of her way to return it to him. He crosses the space between them and hands her the photo back.]

That's Donald Meland and his husband, Wally Layton. My girlfriend, Annabelle Adams, and the annoying girl trying to do something behind my back is Aracely, my... for all intents and purposes, my kid.

[The idea of Kaine having a romantic life manages to short circuit her brain more than the idea of Kaine with a kid.]

...Really?

[She's still trying to process 'girlfriend'. Kaine, are you sure?]

No. They're all random strangers I gathered to take a photo with on the off chance I ever got stranded on a giant turtle with a niece I never knew just to prove to her I somehow have friends.

[He tried really hard to make that not happen, so he's sure.]

[Wow did he just say what she thinks he said? She's pretty sure he did. There's no way you can't claim you're not family now, Kai- wait, if he thinks of her that way here and hasn't even known her for very long, does that mean the Kaine from her universe think of her that way too? Let's not get ahead of yourself, Mayday!]

Right, right, I wasn't questioning the fact that you might have friends! I mean, even the you I know at home has some. [Kind of. Probably. He has a government backed task force of reforming supervillains? Uh. Normie Osborn can count, right?]

You just didn't strike me as the sort of who'd end up adopting? I'm guessing adoption anyways.

[If only she knew.]

...She was in danger. If I didn't do something, she would have been deported, and that would put her in even more danger.

So you took her in?

That's awfully sweet of you, Kaine.

[And there she's toeing the line. She can save calling him 'Uncle Kaine' at some other point. Not going to do it when they're discussing something that's got to be near and dear to him!]

She deserved a second chance. That's all...

Everyone does.

[Yep, she totally means that that includes you too, Kaine.]

Not everyone.

[Taps Aracely on the picture.] But she does.

Everyone who's willing to give it a try deserves a second chance, and you can't tell who'll actually try or not. [Everyone deserves the chance to redeem themselves, and she's intent on giving people the opportunity to at least have it there.]

What's she like?

Sometimes their try isn't good enough.

[And that's all he's going to say on the matter.]

Aracely's... a pain in the ass. She never stops talking... She'd give Parker and Reilly a run for their money. She's a bit like you in the fact she's annoyingly optimistic. ["But unlike you she seems completely okay with how I do things as the Scarlet Spider."]

She's obsessed with Bar-B-Que. [Which is why he eats and brings home the Keeliai equivalent so much.] And anything else she happens to see on TV.

[Except it sounds like he'd try to be good enough for her.]

'Annoyingly optimistic', huh? Thanks. [She's going to accept that as a compliment.]

She definitely sounds interesting.

[And she can't be that annoying, despite whatever Kaine says, right? She can't see him putting up with crazy teenager shenanigans for too long, after all.]

Aracely's one of a kind. [And he really misses her, though he's been trying to ignore that feeling.]

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