( catch-all ) sailin' away on the crest of a wave

[sorser]

WHO: Stephen and various
WHAT: A catch-all for misc. things!
WHERE: In and around Castle Thorne, maybe the Horizon
WHEN: Throughout the month
WARNINGS: Will add as they come up!

(( closed starters and assorted things below! feel free to PM me if you wanted something specific with Stephen, or if you wanted to plot! ))

Comments

[piqure]

Right, yeah, ok that's fair — [ undo it, he says and peter is more and more aware that he doesn't quite remember where everything goes, hasn't quite gotten the hang of tracing back the mental steps taken to get this far into some unending fibonacci spirals (it's like doing the inverse of what was done, sin and cos and subtraction maybe) but then doctor strange is reaching out and helping anyway and it makes it easier.

still, when they finally stand in a much more tame version of the grand foyer than what its owner arrived into, things feel close enough but not quite right and peter offers stephen what he hopes to be an apologetic half-shrug, a muttered thanks. are skylights supposed to face that direction?

but now, now there's no books to dodge (only questions) and peter's pulse is back in his ears as the first one sharply puts things into perspective, wide eyed apprehension. he sought this out, he tries to remind himself. because, for all the nerves and anxieties and desire to avoid this for as long as possible, it was the right thing to do. and sometimes, the right things to do weren't the easy ones. a fact of intimate familiarity. ] Well there was one time — [ something about multiverse-breaking spells comes to mind, and trains and grand canyons. he rushes to brush past that, an emphatic shake of his head. ] — never mind. What was the last thing going on before you came here? I think — I think you might be before me. [ this is why he came here, right? to check that? to be on the same page? he isn't sure now, if he's here because

to make sure? still, while stephen might not have called him by his name he distinctly knows him, and it shouldn't cause such conflict in peter but it does. hell of a thing, isn't it? to be remembered?

it kind of hurts though, that it's the past, an assumption made. ] So - so we can all be on the same page, you know?

[sorser]

[When the foyer looks a little more like a foyer, Stephen can drop his hand and redirect his focus — namely, straight at Peter. Making a mess of things aside, there is nothing inherently worrying about what the kid’s saying, or at least nothing that he hasn’t had to wrap his mind around before. He’d not be the first who isn’t from when he remembers, though it seems like the opposite might be true this time around.

Still, Stephen crosses his arms. He’s observant enough; is that a thinly-veiled, quiet anxiety he senses?]

Why? Because there was one time I thought it was prudent to throw you into the Mirror Dimension, and I don’t remember it?

[Obviously. But a reason to maybe, just maybe, feel a smidgen of growing concern? Probably.]

I was in the Sanctum the last I recall. Checking up on— [Seals. He shakes his head, waves the idea away with a hand.] Doesn’t matter, because that wouldn't mean anything to you. If we’re talking headlining events, then how about this: I remember you being a hot topic on the news not that long ago.

[It’s hardly accusatory, even if it isn’t the gentlest frame of reference. But it’s what he can offer, relative to what means something to Peter.]

(spongebob voice) a few moments later

[piqure]

(( tying this back to tmd. our own little timeline juggle. ))

But? [ okay, that's fair. ] But —

— okay, [ he waves his hands out, a habit of conversation finally fumbling out in more animated manner, ] — so the spill-over happened, and that meant that everyone who knew Spiderman was actually coming into our universe. [ he isn't sure if he's checking stephen's expression to see if he's getting the surface level explanation right enough to make sense, or if he's checking in on how disappointed he might be. ] So it brought some - people - over. That also brought other spidermen over! Which - that was kind of cool, because I wasn’t alone and —

[ he shakes his head, a near wince. focus, peter. ] And that doesn’t matter. [ it does, just not now. just not to this. deep breath, instead, lungs filled to the point of straining. ] Okay so — well to fix it, in the end, you had to redo the spell. The right way. I asked you to, and it worked, and it sealed the — um — multiverse problems. [ it almost feels laughably oversimplified, to say it in this terms. so simple - a spell recast, without all the pieces recounted in between. so simple, as if he didn't lose everything, in the end. ] So...so everyone forgot Peter Parker.

[ the recollection deflates, having run its natural course and settling in on loud disquiet, punctuated by his silence and a shrug. there's a carpet nearby that suddenly looks a little too interesting. ] It’s better than the alternative.

[ it feels difficult to look back up at dr strange, but peter does anyway. tries again for some half-assed attempt at brushing over the scars that are left unsaid. ] There’s a bunch of other stuff that happened in between all of that too, obviously — [ obviously because nothing is simple. ] — but I don’t know if that matters a lot in this...in telling you the main stuff.

[ hands are shoved awkwardly back into his pockets, rocking on his heel in that continuous outpoured inability to keep still. ] So I guess when you recognized me - well, that’s how I knew you came before me. Because you wouldn’t have known who I was if you came in after me.

[ a beat, before adding dejectedly: ] And the Mirror Dimension thing, too.

[sorser]

[For all of Peter’s propensity to show his growing anxieties on the outside, Stephen keeps his tethered down within; but it exists. For all intents and purposes, they broke the multiverse — no, who’s he kidding? He did, the caster of the spell itself, letting people (read: troublemakers. He knows the implication.) and various versions of Peter Parker slip through the cracks. The consequences will come for that, whether or not they managed to slap a band-aid on the problem for now.

(The bill always comes due, a man once considered a friend told him. The words crawl along the edges of his mind like an ever-present shadow.)

Why? Why would he have made that executive decision, knowing the risk? The question lances through him like a shard of ice, self-deprecating, but it’s transient. It dries up, dies, and fades away, because looking at the young man before him, he knows the answer.

Peter Parker, Spider-Man. A young kid having taken up the mantle of superhero, taking down street level crime and aliens from the far reaches of the universe seeking to destroy half of all life alike. Burdened with so much, guaranteed to lose more. Trying to balance two lives, when it’s impossible to straddle the line — Stephen cannot imagine trying to do the same.

Even without having made the decision yet, he knows. He knows that he took the risk because Peter deserved it, and that life needed to cut him a break, because they would come so very few and far in-between.]

Peter.

[He starts, lowly. Imagining the weight of having everyone who remembered you now lost, their connection severed through non-recollection. How that must feel to a young man who just admitted to a semblance of loneliness.

Stephen realizes, maybe a little too belatedly, that despite all that’s been said, he didn’t do him a favor.]

I’m sorry.

[Frowning, he sincerely, truly, means it.]

late w sbux !!

[piqure]

[ peter isn't sure what he expects, when this truth spills over, this messy sort of honesty. maybe he expects stephen strange to be disappointed by future peter parker, or to admonish him for the poor decision of meddling with a spell he knew so little about, even if its something that's yet to come. there is no part in peter though, that's ever blamed stephen for any of it — he asked, and he pushed, and the sorcerer helped and then peter decided to go with his own decisions and stephen had tried, several times, to tell him the right thing by the multiverse standards and it was peter parker, the unmasked spider-man, that chose differently.

peter, stephen says, and his name sounds heavy in the air and his shoulders tense.

but what stephen says instead surprises him, a little. maybe it was also because he hadn't really told anyone else about the burden of un-remembrance, tip-toed away from emotions to something that could resemble pragmatism (if you squint). It made sense to tell stephen. it was almost a relief to tell him, now that the words had finally left him.

but still, he seems mildly flustered. ] Hey, that's — um - [ he shrugs. no biggie, haha, right. ] — that's okay. I mean. It was the right thing to do.

[ but, before long, one more thing seems to force itself to the surface, eyes on the upside-down skylight, until he can't hold the words in any longer. ] I — I wanted to say this afterwards, though, and I don't know if I'll have the same chance in the future, so — so I'm sorry. And thank you.