(open) new york, i love you but you're bringing me down

[saved]

Who: Peter Parker (and open)
Where: Directly in front of the mansion or the Library
When: February 22nd, afternoon
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Peter Parker arrives and gets a bunch of eggs to the face. Then he makes a mess in the library with books because what is coordination when you have not slept?

note: I totally love both prose or action spam so feel free to send me your preference!


Option A: Arrival in front of mansion

Here's a thing Peter Parker has just discovered: eggs are painful when they slip into giant cuts on your face.

Also, it is really hard to see through the waves of egg on his face. The carton sticks to his hand. All the eggs have fallen out of the carton and landed on his face and around the ground underneath him. Yep. This is great.

Captain Stacy is dead. Dr. Connors is behind bars. Peter Parker gets to walk away from it all and go home like he didn't get into a huge battle with a giant lizard on top of a skyscraper, like he didn't get Gwen's dad killed in the process. All Peter wanted to do was get his Aunt May the eggs she kept asking for before heading back to her with more blood and scrapes and no answers. He bought the eggs and climbed a wall, and then all of a sudden, he's landed smack dab on his back with the entire egg carton shoved into his own face.

"This day... cannot get any worse."

He rubs at his face which also hurts and then sits up abruptly. The world spins because of it. He has a bullet wound in his leg. His face and chest are covered in scratches and bruises. The spandex is still on under his clothes. Peter blinks as his vision finally clears, and he abruptly realizes he is... not in New York City. It's too green for the area of New York City he had been in, and even if it was Central Park, he can't hear the cars. Where are all the cars? ...and why is there a... mansion? Kinda? Does he have a concussion? It's hard to focus.

It's with an abruptness he realizes he is not in New York City at all, but in... some place else with eggs on his bloody face.

He lets out a sudden huff of air, almost too exhausted to be as shocked as he could be.

"...just kidding."

This day just got so much worse.

Option B: Library

Once he has cleaned himself up but failed to like sleep so he's a little wired by lack of it after such a long battle, Peter Parker has decided the best place to go for information is always the library except he can't quite find what he needs here. His hair sticks up every which way. He has piled the books up so high that he has to narrowly dodge to avoid running into someone coming the other way.

Remarkably, only one book falls from the very top, and he manages to grab hold of it before it hits the floor... but then the rest of the books piled in his other arm topple over and land all around him.

He's not at his best spider-ness since arriving, still out of sorts. He presses his hand to his face. "...please tell me nobody saw that."

Comments

[saved]

It is sometimes distracting to Peter too to have a hundred or so thoughts running through his head at once. One would think he would have less bottled up energy after the night he has had, there is simply something to say about adrenaline.

"You've met people who knew alternate versions of you. How different were those versions or did you not want to ask in case- you didn't like the answers?" Peter bites down on his lip thoughtfully, thinking he might not help himself. He might need to know the answers to other versions of him and what they are like.

Sometimes there is something to be said about curiosity. It killed the cat. Killed the spider too.

He lifts himself up when Steve gestures for him to sit up, and he winces a bit. "Hey, that's awesome. So you and your teammates, you're like superheroes?" It is not how Peter views himself. Vigilante? Yeah. Guy with spider powers who tries to help? Definitely. He's got a long way toward being any kind of super. He scratches the back of his neck with a tiny smile then as he realizes a virtual stranger is offering to give him some first aid. "Uh, thanks, also. It's mostly my leg, but like I said, it'll all heal in a few days."

[assembles]

"Well, I definitely asked." Steve doesn't have the sort of self control to not want to sate his curiosity on that point. Natasha had tried to tell him that it didn't make a difference, but he'd gotten some information out of her all the same. Not to mention Billy, who's a lot more free with it. "We have the same background, come from the same place, and have a lot of the same experiences. He's older than I am, he's been through more -- and different -- things." Which naturally means their personalities are different too.

Despite the kid's protests, which could just as easily have come out of Steve's mouth in a different situation, Steve heads over to the sink and washes his hands before pulling some latex gloves on. He then grabs a roll of bandages and returns to the table.

"Well, that's what we've been called. I guess it's kind of a blanket term at this point." Steve shrugs, doing what he can to make light of it even though there's nothing normal about it at all.

At that point he fixes the kid with a disarming smile. "You're gonna have to take your pants off for this part, sorry." They're covered in blood, anyway; Steve can get him a new pair from one of the closets once they're done.

[saved]

Peter smiles with a tiny nod since he is glad he is not the only one. He would not be able to keep himself from asking when it comes to something like that. "Is it weird to think about? I mean, you call him him because he's different but he is also you... at the same time. It's weird," he says, but the smile on his face widens a bit even as he looks possibly far more confused than before even.

He looks over at him as Steve heads to the sink, and Peter shifts awkwardly on top of the table. There is webbing on the wound too, which he used to kind of keep... all the blood in. Peter bites down on his lip.

"...is it what you think of yourself as?" It's asked when he sees the way Steve kind of just shrugs about it, and then Peter shifts with a little laugh, glancing down at his leg now.

"Uh, right." He reaches down to slide the pants off, and then he lifts up his leg where there is webbing over the wound and a lot of red... blood. "I- It's what I used to stop the blood. Webbing. Long... story."

He can take that off to put an actual sterile bandage on it though. Totally.

[assembles]

"It helps that he isn't actually here." But it is a good question. How do you refer to another version of yourself? It's taken some time to get used to that, but it's also not a topic that comes up too often anymore. Natasha and Billy are both used to him now, and Steve can only hope they've reached a point where they're not constantly drawing comparisons.

The kid's next question is much more difficult to answer. Does Steve think of himself as a superhero? It's a role he's had to fill, but he still trips over the term most of the time. As he walks over with the bandages and some disinfecting wipes, he offers a reply. "I guess? I'm part of a team of other people like us, we're called the Avengers. So if anything, I consider myself an Avenger."

When Steve gets a look at the kid's wound, he frowns in confusion before the nervous explanation comes. Webbing, huh? Steve can only assume that has something to do with his skill set. At this rate Natasha might have some stiff competition from this kid.

With careful movements, Steve peels the webbing away and then sets it aside, exposing the wound. The bleeding has already been slowed, but Steve starts to wrap some bandages around the kid's thigh above the wound site just in case.

"What's your name, anyway?" Steve asks, eyes flicking to the boy's face. If he's going to get his blood all over his hands, he should probably at least know that much.

[saved]

Peter raises his eyebrows before he releases the breath he'd been holding and then nods. It would help to not have that other version here. It leads to the question of how Peter would react in that situation, but given he has only just arrived, he figures he's better off not trying to figure that out just yet.

He smiles lightly at Steve's answer before he nods even if that is beyond what he knows. There's no team of people where he is from, but it really would have been nice with the lizard running around. Granted, maybe they would have tried to kill him, and it was Peter's fault Dr. Connors was in that spot to begin with. "Avengers is a pretty cool team name, and I bet it's nice to have other people to y'know- to fight with instead of it just having to weigh all on your own shoulders," he says softly.

Peter glances down at the wound and then back up at Steve because Oh right, exchanging names is a thing. An important thing. People do that.

"Uh. Peter. Peter Parker. Probably should have started with that, huh?" He smiles lopsidedly, tilting his head to the side before he looks back at Steve. You?"

[assembles]

"Definitely," Steve agrees even as he reaches forward with a disinfectant swab to clean out the kid's wound. It's bound to sting, but Steve gets the feeling that this is hardly his first scrape, which means that he should be braced for that. "That support is pretty critical." Steve hadn't been on his own during the war, either. He'd had the Howling Commandos backing him up every step of the way. They hadn't been super-powered, but that hadn't made a difference to those guys.

A pang hits him, the same kind that comes any time that he thinks too hard about the past, but he pushes through it like a battering ram.

Peter Parker. It's got a good ring to it. It's the kind of name that Steve could imagine belonging to someone in his neighborhood, which makes sense seeing how both of them are from New York. "Steve Rogers," he responds as he presses a thick piece of gauze over Peter's wound and then tapes it into place.

With that, he steps back and looks Peter over, figuring that this is probably the best he can do for now. Still, it's better than leaving that gash completely untended. "So," he says, turning to go remove the gloves and wash his hands again, "what part of New York are you from?" It seems like an easy place to start. They can get into abilities and powers and all that later.

[saved]

Peter is very braced for it. Sometimes he thinks the whole cleaning of the wound hurts more than the actual receiving of the wound. Must be the adrenaline, but he has his jaw locked and he swallows back any outward reaction to it. "Yeah, must be. Can't really... imagine it."

He shakes his head after a second, and it's not to say he doesn't have support. His Aunt supports him despite not knowing the truth about what he is, and Gwen does too. It's just- It's not the same as having people who can jump up, fight by your side.

Steve Rogers. That's a strong name if he has ever heard one. He leans forward a bit on his table, lifting his gaze up from the wound, smiling even if a bit awkwardly. "Thanks."

It's grateful. He can do all that himself but it was nice to not have to after the day he had. "Queens. The city's got its problems, but- Can't imagine living anywhere else."

Peter is a New Yorker through and through.

[assembles]

Steve may not know much about Peter yet, but he knows enough. He's from New York, he's got special abilities like him and the other Avengers, and he's well-mannered. He hadn't protested Steve's attempts to help him, and he's even grateful for it, as unnecessary as he might have seen it.

With a return of the smile, Steve puts all of the supplies away and then motions that Peter can get up off of the table if he wants.

"I'm from Brooklyn." Any possible rivalries aside, when it comes down to it they're from the same place and that's enough to create an immediate kinship between them.

"Well, you're free to go explore if you want, get settled in and all that... but I'd like to hear how you ended up fighting giant lizard men someday." Not to mention that webbing he'd seen. There's definitely a story there, but Steve doesn't know if he should force Peter to tell it now when he's still so new to Wonderland.

[saved]

Peter shifts where he's sitting before he looks over at Steve with a tiny smile when he mentions where he's from. He's helped Peter already so Peter has good thoughts about Steve and who he must be even if he doesn't really call himself a superhero.

That's a big word. Peter can't call himself that either.

"Thanks. I should- I'll check around," he says with a nod as he shoves himself up to his feet and then he turns to meet his gaze then with a tiny smile and then a nod. "I'll tell you."

He's in Wonderland. What good is a secret identity here? Once he finds out, it's no hallucination but it's real.

This is real. "Thank you again for all your help. If you ever need anything, I don't know." Peter shrugs, understanding there's not much he has to offer, but whatever he does have, he offers it up readily.

[assembles]

It looks like Peter is ready to go get a lay of the land. Steve still doesn't think it's a great idea for him to be putting weight on that leg, but he bites his tongue because he knows how he'd feel if their positions were reversed. Peter told him it will heal, and he has to take his word for it.

He can always check in on him in a few days.

"Yeah, sure. And this place has a lot to it, so if you have any questions you can give me a call." Steve pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows it to Peter. "You should have one too." He may not have noticed in the confusion of his arrival.

Steve can't say for sure, but maybe Peter will even get to be part of the team one day. He's young, but so is Billy. He'll have to hear his story and see what he's capable of first, but the thought settles into the back of his mind.

[saved]

Peter blinks at the sight of the phone in Steve's hand, and he smiles before he nods, searching through his pockets before he finds the phone which he pulls out to show to Steve.

"Thanks. I definitely will," he says with a lopsided but grateful smile, and he slides his hand back behind his hair as he gets to his feet.

He's so new to all of this (to Wonderland, to being a superhero, to the thought others could have powers and help out too), but he'd love it. He would love to be on a team instead of feeling that weight of responsibility on his shoulders (and solely his shoulders all the time).

"I'll contact you, and thank you again for everything."

It's said with a sort of awkward wave before he walks backwards and then out of the room and... down the hallway.