AUDIO; from a cafe; post-bottle

[nerdylilspidey]

 [Peter's not quite in the right place, mentally, to put up a video post. And he definitely isn't sure he should put it up from his own suite. So he's found his way to the nearest cafe, with an oversized hoodie pulled up over his head, and is starting up only an audio feed.]

Never a boring moment around here, is there? One minute we're normal-ish, celebrating Valentine's Day, and the next we're battling evil miasma inside a magic bottle.

Does anyone ever wonder what happened to the idea of rest and relaxation?


[FILTERED to the Spider-family]

...Sorry. About what happened back there. You-- You guys know that that-- That wasn't me. You know that, right...?

Oh, God... [There's a sigh, and then a beat of silence before he continues.] Anyway, just- I'm sorry.

Comments

[spideyfanone]

Well, so am I.

[Because between his accent and pizza-based rants that isn't clear enough.]

And we just had the regular kind of supervillain-and-hero action most times, but, like, other universes have this kinda thing. The witch-king's anti-tech field, the weird tentacle-y evil energy that was snatching people from pretend-Egypt, the god-control thing... I mean, define miasma.

[nerdylilspidey]

[There's a long beat before he answers. And this comment is completely genuine--]

Your New York is clearly way weirder than mine.

[spideyfanone]

I get that a lot. ...Though usually because we beat pollution when my grandparents were around. Apparently being able to swim in the Sound without getting more mutated isn't normal. Why, did you not have super combat going on all the time?

[nerdylilspidey]

You guys... beat pollution. That-- I wish my New York had done that.

We- Well, we totally had super combat. But that was like, y'know, the extent of it. And the Ultimates were- They're the ones who handled it.

[spideyfanone]

Oh, yeah, I had to hit other dimensions for the really crazy stuff. We had Avengers and a few solo operators.

[He says, totally casual, definitely didn't follow them obsessively.]

[nerdylilspidey]

... I wanna ask what dimensions you went to, but I don't really think it'll do me a lot of good.

Solo operators?

[spideyfanone]

Well, anyone who wasn't an Avenger, or the Fantastic Four, I guess. Or if they were only sometimes Avengers. We had... well, lots of small timers. New York was pretty much Hollywood for super heroes, and lots of them never went anywhere. Outside the Avengers the big names were Shadowcat, Enchantress, Daredevil, and Spider-man.

[nerdylilspidey]

Oh... Right.

They don't all ring bells, but most of them definitely do. [Enchantress is a new one to him, for sure. He'd nearly forgotten that Kitty had gone by Shadowcat while in the X-Men.]

[spideyfanone]

Definitely the best ones. Avengers were kinda... corporatized? I dunno. If someone was going to get lamed into showing up at a school to do photo shoots and promote rejecting peer pressure, you could count on it being an Avenger. Plus only Spider-man got to be Secretary of Homeland Technology. And have a jetpack.

[The Spider-booster was way better than a stupid Iron Man suit. He bore the scars of many a flame war on that subject.]

[nerdylilspidey]

Oh... Whoa.

[And he's not just "whoa"-ing at "Corporate Avengers/Ultimates." It's the idea of Spider-Man sitting that high up the chain of society. Plus a jetpack?? Talk about your lucky breaks. This guy's Spidey couldn't possibly be a Parker.]

That's totally not how anything works where I'm from.

[spideyfanone]

It was a pretty good system. And also I was totally not an obsessive twelve-year-old fanboy who could tell you absolutely everything about it.

[Great save.]

[nerdylilspidey]

[Really great save.]

Of course not. Who in their right mind would be?

[spideyfanone]

When your other option is some form of social interaction with other twelve year olds?

[nerdylilspidey]

Oh. Twelve year olds are</> the worst of the lot.

[spideyfanone]

Sixth grade is just a terrible idea for everyone, I'm pretty sure, but when you're just the right size to stuff in a locker...

[nerdylilspidey]

I know exactly what you mean.

[spideyfanone]

Kinda glad I didn't get as far as high school. If bad movies edited for TV are to be believed, that would have been even worse.

[nerdylilspidey]

Oddly, that's the one thing that isn't over-exaggerated. Though I could just be unlucky.

[spideyfanone]

Huh. Yeah, well, not that sorry about getting extra-dimensionally kidnapped in middle school, then.

[nerdylilspidey]

--Wait, what? Kidnapped?

[spideyfanone]

A guy in one universe was keeping his earth from breaking with a machine that ran on mutant-batteries. They ran out of their own. Yoink.

[Which did, strictly speaking, let him avoid dying the same day as the rest of the humans in his dimension, so...]

[nerdylilspidey]

Yikes. That's-- That's crazy.

[spideyfanone]

I got sprung from the battery tube after a couple years. And we even fixed the problem. We just ported everyone from that earth to an uninhabited one.

[nerdylilspidey]

A couple of years?? And you're still- You're okay??

[spideyfanone]

...No. But, y'know, fake it til you make it.

[If only that were the worst thing that happened to him.]