calling_logs | When you've been fighting for it all your life

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When you've been fighting for it all your life

WHO: Peter Parker & OTA
WHAT: Peter is out on patrol when he encounters - you!
WHERE: City of Adventure
WHEN: Afternoon
WARNINGS: None, maybe some fighting.
STATUS: In-Progress

Peter has quickly taken up a patrol circuit in the City of Adventure. It wasn't that difficult, getting into the swing of it; if he could help more people, why wouldn't he? It was no New York, of course, but Peter figured, if he'd been giving an interdimensional-time-travelling-phone, there was probably a reason. Maybe if he took to the streets, he'd be able to track down some answers.

He's just finished webbing up would-be carjackers, barely a bruise to show for the effort. The crime was mild compared to what he was used to, though there did seem to be some conveniently wherever he was looking for it. Guess human nature didn't change that much no matter where you were.

Peter swung back into the street, having to adjust the angle of his webshots to actually hit the buildings and not fall to the concrete. The buildings here aren't as high, he can't aim for something that isn't there. It might seem effortless, but there was a lot of calculation that went into his every twist and turn. He's lucky he found that sort of thing fun.

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He might notice... well, a little shadow. Clark's not a threat of any kind, so setting off his spider-sense is really a question of sensitivity, but he's watching. Learning, honestly. This guy had a neat costume (red! he liked red. and blue! those were his two favorite colors) and he seemed to have the whole thing down pat. Stopping robbers, saving people... it's like he knows what he's doing all the time.

Clark doesn't want to ge tin the way, so, flying carefully, he follows a decent distance off to keep watching.

His spider sense is always on alert, though the only time it really blares like a klaxon is when someone is actively trying to hurt him. So it takes a few rounds of catch-that-criminal before Peter notices he's being tailed.

Again, he's not sensing danger, so he figures he'll ask, swinging around a corner and stopping on the side of a building, waiting for his mystery stalker to follow.

His mystery stalker turns out to be a teenage kid in a hoodie and jeans, floating a little ways behind him, who hasn't noticed that Peter's stopped. He peeks out and looks back and forth, trying to find him, before finally focusing in and looking right at him.

...the flail is not at all complimentary to him.

Alright, Peter can't help but smile at the guy, who's flying, and looking somewhat like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Peter also can relate to the flailing. It's a daily struggle.

"Looking for someone?" Peter crosses his arms, left attached the building by his feet.

...yeah, Clark's been watching him for a bit, but that's still pretty cool. And super impressive. Gravity still exists, after all. At least, for other people.

"Not... really?" Which wasn't the best opening line but- "I mean, I was just kind of watching you do your... thing. The saving people thing. Cause you're really good at it."

"Thank you. I try really hard." Yeah, gravity mattered back when the world made sense, when he wasn't a half-human half-spider hybrid. "Who are you?"

"I'm Spiderman."

That shouldn't sound as cool as it does, but it sounds totally cool.

"Um... Clark. My name's Clark. No, uh, -man name or anything."

Though it'd be pretty cool if he did have a name like that. What would it be, though? Alienman? Noooo. Ultraman? That just sounds like a cartoon. He'll have to think about it.

"Really? Even with the whole," Peter made a vague gesture up and down Clark's person. Clark's flying person. " - super-powered thing? You just go around calling yourself Clark?" Peter's going to go out on a limb and bet that's the guy's real name. Ho boy. First rule of superheroing - secret identity.

"So is there a particular reason you were watching me fight crime?"

The face he gives back is Pure Teenager because that's exactly what he is, alien or not. It says, in no uncertain terms, that that is a really silly idea.

"I don't normally go around using my... stuff much. But here, no one cares, so it seemed like I could... I dunno. Enjoy it a little."

Like-

"And, uh, well, I was watching because, I, uh... I tried to help someone once. And it didn't go so well. So I thought maybe I could pick up some tricks."

Oh Peter remembers that phase. Hell, he's barely out of it himself.

"Well, yeah. Doesn't seem like anyone cal follow you home so...yeah, I guess it is safer." Interesting point. Peter's not embarrassed he didn't think of it before. Nope.

"It takes a while to get the hang of it, really." Peter considers Clark for a long second. "You could tag along. If you wanted. Just stay high enough that I don't run into you, I mean."

"You haven't run into me yet," he points out, because he does have a bit of pride, albeit weird pride. "And you don't have to worry about me getting hurt or anything. I can take care of myself, at least."

"I meant that as an invitation to get a little closer," Peter assures, not meaning it as a slight. Peter wasn't really an advocate for the vigilante lifestyle, but he also knew that if you were prone to it, you'd end up doing it anyway. Might as well help where he could. "Good. These are just minor leagues criminals, though, they're not that much of a threat."

At the correction, Clark floats in a little closer, frowning a little as Peter continues to talk about 'minor league criminals'.

"They're still criminals, though. They can still hurt people." He glances back towards the last place that Peter'd done his thing.

"They only need one shot to ruin someone's life."

"A threat to you. They're not much of a threat to us." Of course it was important to get them off the streets, but to super-powered individuals it didn't take much to take them down. Clark's words do hit something, though, in Peter's chest, and he frowns beneath his mask. One shot. Yeah. "Believe me, I know."

"You bulletproof too?"

Well, he's not quite bulletproof yet. It hurt. But it wasn't as if most people could largely shrug off a shotgun blast to the face, no. All the same...

"Sounds like you messed up too sometime, huh?"

There's nothing smug or teasing about the question, because to be honest, he takes the whole thing ridiculously seriously. Instead, there's... empathy. An offer to talk, almost, though nothing quite that overt. But the empathy is there.

And here is one young woman, clearly in bad shape. She's way too thin to be healthy and the colour of her skin says more about malnutrition than her ethnic origins.

And she's...duct taping an unconscious man's wrists together. He looks like he's just survived trying to escape a burning building, with scorch marks and burns all over him.

Nothing nearby is on fire.

Speaking of nearby, there's a very shaken-looking woman sitting on the ground. She has her head down and seems to be trying to recover from something.

Peter heard the cries from a few blocks away, but what he finds when he gets there is completely different from what he expected. He drops into a crouch a few paces behind the young lady, frowning, though you couldn't tell behind the expressionless mask. Sometimes he's grateful for the bluff.

"Some kind of trouble here?"

That much is obvious, but there's one woman on the ground and one standing, so he's addressing the one who looks like they're more likely to answer him.

"All taken care of," Azula says, ripping the duct tape off and patting it down with a flourish. "Are you with the local soldiery? Because this one needs taken in," she says, nudging the man with her foot.

"Looks like he needs a doctor," Peter raises an eyebrow beneath his mask, slowly straightening out of his crouch. "Kind of. More of a freelancer."

"What'd he do?"

"Not much," she says with a grin. "Why don't we let him see a doctor after cramming him in the freight compartment of one of those carriages?" she asks, nudging him with her foot again.

"N-no...just...just get the police," the quiet woman murmurs.

"Police...what's that? Can you get them?" she asks, looking up at the masked weirdo.

"...carriages?" She seemed oddly happy about it, and Peter was smart enough to put two and two together and think that perhaps she wasn't all she appeared to be.

"Yeah, I can." Where did she even get the duct tape? "What's your name, miss?"

"Imperial Princess Azula," she says proudly. "And if I'm to live here now, then I'll protect these people the same as my own," she says, and drops the tape on the ground by the man.

Which might draw one's eye to the fact that there's more duct tape on the ground, that looks like it's been wrapped around a person and then cut...or rather, burned through.

Ah, another person with a teleporter, not a local. That made a lot more sense, now that he thought about it. She also - didn't look like she came from around here. "Nice to meet you, Princess. I'm Spiderman."

Well, it's only polite to give a name in return.

"Mind telling me just - what exactly happened?"

Azula's outfit is much more native to the area, the clothes she'd arrived in were in the trash somewhere.

"Spiderman?" she repeats, then shrugs it off. It's obviously a stage name of some kind, right?

"He had her all tied up and was trying to load her into that," she says, gesturing at a nearby car. "I'm not local, I don't know what kind of carriage that thing is, or how this sticky stuff works. But I know when I see someone being kidnapped. I let him set her down, and then I sent him flying. One short scuffle later and now he's the one tied up and I dare say he deserves it."

There was a certain way the people around here carried themselves, as opposed to people with a CALL device. Peter was trying to learn how to distinguish the two, albeit slowly.

"I'd dare to agree with you." Carriage? Definitely not from around here, they had flying cars. "You uh, kind of made him a little crispier than usual, unless these burns were something else?"

She tilts her head to one side and raises her opposite hand in a gesture of casual dismissal of the idea, shrugging her shoulders as if she has no idea.

Except...there's a small fireball in the palm of that raised hand.

"I'm not in good enough health to fight fair. What was I supposed to do, let him get away with it?"

"No, no," Peter raised his hands, showing that he wasn't about to challenge her. It was a little tough, sometimes, with the mask, for people to get your meaning, so he made his body more expressive.

Still, that fireball was kind of really frickin' cool. Peter leaned forward, staring at it. "Hey, whatever you need to do. How are you doing that?"

"I'm a firebender," she answered easily. She put the fire out, but then belatedly noticed he was staring. She lit her hand again. "Relax your eyes, don't stare at the flame, you'll burn your eyes."

"What's a firebender? I mean, obviously you can control fire but like - how?" Peter thought he was okay, with the mask diffusing the direct light from the fire, but he stuck to observing it cautiously regardless.

"How?" She stared at him. "Be...cause... I'm a firebender. I've never had to explain it before, ah... I'm... My people learned to control fire from the Dragons. You're either born with it or not born with it, and those of us that are are firebenders."

"You have dragons?" Okay, maybe he's getting a little distracted, but dragons. The world is a lot weirder than Peter thought it could be, and isn't that interesting. "Dude! That's so cool!"

"Well...the dragons are all dead now," she said sadly, hanging her head as though she felt partially guilty for that fact.

"Oh." Of course dragons were extinct. Damn. Peter scuffed the ground sheepishly with his booted foot. "I'm sorry to hear that. That...really sucks."

"Let's not lose track of what we're doing," Azula said, turning back to the bound criminal. "I...am not sure what to do next," she laughed awkwardly.

"Normally I'd web 'em and leave 'em." Peter made a vague gesture to his hand. "But since he's injured, we should probably drop him off at the hospital."

"We should probably help this lady there as well," Azula said, gesturing at the shaken woman. "Do you know how to control one of those carriages?" she asked, gesturing to the car. "It belongs to him, I presume, unless it's stolen."

"Yeah that's - er, that's a car," Peter informed with only a modicum of bewilderment. He should be used to people from different worlds by now, in his profession. "I usually travel by web express though."

As it would so happen, Adventure had also become one of Harry's main haunts as the Goblin. He hadn't planned it that way, but after an animal spirit possessed him and sent him on a predatory rampage, he'd gained quite a reputation. A reputation that made it easier to muscle weapons and artifacts away from the civilians; he was just looking for anything and everything that could give him an edge. He didn't go out of his way to hurt people, but it didn't make him any less despised there.

Harry had just returned from an expedition into the wilds - to see if he could find a way into the Temple of the Nameless - when he saw a familiar flash of red and blue swinging through the scant civilization. It stopped him dead in his tracks.

No... It couldn't be!

But there was no mistaking it. That was Spider-Man, or rather... Peter Parker. Harry watched the figure sail off into the distance as he warred with himself. Could he really do this? Fight his best friend? He'd had all the time in the world to train and hone his skills in the SFC before he went home and confronted Peter. It was a perfect excuse to busy himself while he tried to gather the courage to attack him, except now here he was and there were no more excuses. As always, his father's voice harshly interrupted that train of thought, turning his confusion and doubt into anger. Never letting him slow down long enough to properly think about what he was doing.

"Am I ready?" he asked seemingly no one, acknowledging answers only he could hear.

Hope your Spidey sense is in good shape, Peter. Out of the blue, there's a very angry Goblin catching up behind him and aiming to clothesline him off his web.

Peter has to admit, out of everything he would have possibly guessed to come across in the SFC - Harry Osborn wasn't one of them.

He's sneakier than he appeared, combined with the fact that Peter was focusing on a) not falling out of the sky and b) listening for more crime and well - the Goblin hit him, knocking him straight down into a parked car. That set the alarm blaring, as if Peter wasn't disoriented enough and - oops, he'd left a human-shaped dent in the roof of the car.

"You - Goblin!" Peter scrambled up to his feet, shooting another web to get back in the air. Best to keep moving; harder to hit that way. Perhaps if they'd stopped long enough, they'd notice that the other was wearing different equipment from what they were used to but - well, they weren't exactly going to stop, were they? "No."

Peter could scarcely believe his eyes, honestly. Harry had gotten a phone too, all the way in Ravencroft? Why? To perpetuate this fight between them? To make Peter clench his fist and fight back the lump in his throat when he heard the whir of that glider? It was kind of scary how appealing the idea of fighting the Goblin was; he'd lost all he had to lose. This time it really was just Harry and Peter (for Peter, anyway).

"I'm not doing this with you again!" Peter called, swinging in an arc around Harry, still undecided as to whether he was going for fight or flight. "Consider that your warning."

Harry didn't even bat an eyelash when Peter called him out. He had to have known this was coming, that Harry would eventually put the pieces together and avenge his father. Albeit, all the wrong pieces, but they were the only ones Harry's jumbled mind could grasp.

Of course they weren't going to stop. Harry pursued without hesitation, even as Peter tried to warn him off. He was so focused, he didn't even notice the inconsistency - 'again', as if they had fought before. The only coherent thought that crossed his mind was that Peter wasn't even trying to deny murdering his father, and that only served to encourage his aggression.

"Save it!" he barked through his mask. "You're not weaseling out of this!"

The shrill song of unsheathed metal punctured the air as curved blades shot out from Harry's right arm, specifically designed to cut through Spider-Man's webbing. Time to see how effective they were. With the intention of heading Peter off, Harry swung the glider upwards and swept around, arm poised to try and sever the thread Peter currently hung from.

Peter was moving, fast, trying his best to put distance between them. The blades definitely worked, although the webbing sort of stuck to them - Harry would have to find a way to get that off. That sent Peter plummeting, off-kilter from the severed web, but he quickly shot two more, sling-shotting himself back up into the air.

"I swear to God, Harry, you don't want to do this with me." Peter shot two more lines of webbing - one against a building, to catch himself, and the other towards Harry. "If there's even any of you left in there."

And if there wasn't, Peter would be making the Goblin pay for it. But he just...had to believe his friend was still in there. That he hadn't really lost Gwen and Harry in one fell swoop.

The blades didn't cut as clean as Harry had hoped and that held him off from immediately pursuing Peter again. He lagged behind a bit, distracted by the string of web stuck to his blades, waving his arm in annoyance. He tried to peel the web off and it only ended up sticking to his other hand, leaving him even more irritated. It might have been comical if Harry weren't on a murderous rampage.

"Like hell I don't! You took everything from me!" Harry was practically roaring at him now, bristling with uncontrolled anger.

But it was thanks to Harry being distracted that Peter's web hit its mark, latching onto his chest and nearly lurching him off the front of the glider. He cried out in frustration, immediately lashing out an arm to try and sever that web as well - ideally before Peter could do anything about it.

"I didn't take anything from you! I was trying to save your life!" Both paths led to the same place. Giving Harry his blood might have done the same that the serum had - but look at that, Harry had taken the serum anyway. And, as always, it was Peter's fault. "You're not thinking straight, man - !"

Peter yanked on the web, pulling them back up, intent on getting them to a rooftop. To talk or exchange blows, Peter didn't know which. Harry's blade stopped that, however, severing their connection again. At least he'd gotten him away from the damn glider, for now.

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When you've been fighting for it all your life

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