epidemiology | HE FELT HIS WHOLE LIFE WAS A DREAM...

Entry tags:

HE FELT HIS WHOLE LIFE WAS A DREAM...

CHARACTERS: Spider Duo
DATE: Shortly after their first bandit bounty!
WARNINGS: Idts
SUMMARY: Sheriff Holladay has a mission for them and since it's nice to work with cops instead of getting yelled at by them, the spider people are happy to acquiesce.

( this was his reality. he was chasing down a runaway stagecoach full of vital supplies for the town. he was braced on a metal horse, one that may or may not have been hotwired to run nearly twice as fast as normal. he had a spider suit instead of spurs and a low tipped hat, and at his back was an alternate universe version of the girlfriend he'd loved and lost, because of the very mask he couldn't quite escape from.

luckily, the bandits and the stagecoach and the need of Perdition's Rest outweighs his need to overthink and possibly ruin the fragile peace between them. Peter never does well when he has too much time to think. fighting and stopping those that needed stopping was thoughtless instinct, now.

they're gaining on the coach at a wicked speed, fast enough the mask is a mercy to protect from the wind in his face. ) Any bright ideas? ( he calls to Gwen, grip tight on the reins and focus on the stagecoach even tighter. their goal was to retrieve the supplies, not the bandits — but between two spiders, maybe they could manage both. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ define bright, she feels like calling back. her arms had since shifted in grip from around his waist to pressing the pads of her fingers into his shoulders. gwen has a moment of wondering when, exactly, peter got so broad-shouldered. which is dumb as hell because she's known peter, this peter, for several weeks now. is, in fact, roommates with him ( and how's that for a nightmare? ) yet it's when she shouldn't be distracted by stupid things like her friend suddenly having an admirable pair of shoulders that, yes, she's trying to figure out when he got said shoulders.

not now, stacy.

she squints ahead of them to the runaway stage coach. her life is so fucking weird, this is actually normal. maybe not the shoulder debate, but chasing after a stolen stage coach in western: the universe? absolutely. her hood has been whipped off her head, but the mask remains in place, affording her the same protection from the wind and dust as peter's does. she measures the distance, the speed. ]

I've got one! [ she calls back loudly enough to be heard over the rush. ] You're probably not going to be a fan, though! Think you can get me closer?

( when his concept of a bright idea was a horse that could run at the speeds of a sportscar, maybe it was safe to say that bright ideas could be pretty relative. one could argue that even with super senses, this was not the best of ideas. to them, though, it was the only option. dangerous or not, they had to do what they could. dangerous or not.

when it comes to Gwen doing something dangerous, well... she's right. he's probably not gonna like it. he knows that, realistically, she can take more hits than most and still keep going. but that doesn't keep him from worrying about the hit she won't be able to take.

(because he's been there, and seen it, when it happens. because he's the one that gave it to her.)

but he ignores that demented little voice that never wants to go away, nodding instead. ) Hold on! ( she wants closer, she'll get closer, but that means they've got to go a little faster, too. )

[ a little rush of gratitude floods her chest when he urges their ride faster. experience tells peter parker tends to take a negative view of her doing anything vaguely dangerous. she'd been sidelined before ( or rather she had been told to keep out of the way, and once he was out of view gwen did what she wanted anyway because fuck that. ) small as this is, it speaks of trust — which in their line of work is no small thing.

she probably doesn't deserve any peter's trust. but she'd be lying if she says it isn't one of the best feelings she has had lately.

as the bandits realize they're not going to lose the crazy kids in masks any time soon, they opt for the tried and definitely not true tactic of shooting at them. elbow on peter's shoulder, gwen shoots one's gun down. the next line attaches to the side of the carriage. gwen leaps off the horse, her shoes clinging to the wall. with spider-cling at max, she hops on the roof easily — ]

How rude! That is no way to greet a lady!

[ — to have them attempt to shoot her through said roof. spider-sense keeps going off, but haphazardly. it's more of an annoyance than an help. like, yes, she knows this is dangerous, the gunshots let her know, thanks for nothing, spider-sense. ]

( it might not be fair to say he was completely at ease with her doing something dangerous. far from the contrary, actually. the night Gwen had died, she'd insisted he let her make her own choices — he'd needed her to stop Electro, and yet if he had refused her help, managed to keep her from following, would she still be alive?

maybe. and this Gwen isn't the same one he lost. the same one he k—

yeah, that's not a good thought right now, either. he tries to focus on driving up faster, thighs holding him to the horse that was literally flying through air and sand. he can sort of guess Gwen's plan before she executes it, but that doesn't make it easier to watch her get fired at. the second he sees an inkling of a gun, out the window of the buggy or even through it, a steady shot of web slings them away. that'll help her odds, but not close enough. )

The driver! ( the man was aiming a gun backwards in one hand and trying to careen the spider stuck to the roof off all at once. and Peter felt incredibly unhelpful in aiding the way he wanted to, relegated to cavalry. )

Huh — ? Yah!

[ the bullets whizz past her. gwen vanishes off the side with a yell. spider-cling carries her quickly across the bottom of the carriage to pop up in front of the driver, still craning his neck to look behind him.

always polite, gwen taps him on the shoulder. ]

Morning!

[ her fist smashes into his face. he slumps unconscious in the seat. gwen webs a seatbelt for him, then grabs the reins. she fills her lungs with air, recalls all the varied trivia movies have blessed her with, and shouts, ]

Dakota!

[ the "horses" keep galloping.

gwen fumes. ]

I can't believe a movie lied to me.

( Peter is pretty sure his heart stops when buckshots go flying straight at the girl he's been desperate to keep safe despite the reality she's not the same Gwen he failed so astronomically. it's only spider-senses that keep him from startling off his horse, even as she slithers away with the same speed and ease as he might have. he has to close his eyes and grit his teeth and try to remind himself it's different this time, it's different this time...

maybe it is, but the terror at seeing something happen to her feels just about the same.

he kicks his horse forward, and he's got just barely enough speed to catch up. the problem with his power enhancements is that the boost can only be limited. he's running out of steam and he's not going to spend the rest of this adventure from a mile away on a horse sedately strolling. when he gets close enough, he sets his own steed to autopilot and with that, wings to the side of the carriage, peeping through a window to see if there was any more trouble to deal with in the back. )

That can't be right. Hollywood would never portray anything but the utmost truth. ( a fist flies through the broken window, cutting off any other attempts at humor. Spider-Man grips the arm to immobilize the bandit for a moment, calling over to his companion, ) You got it up there?

Then I hate to break it to you, but a movie got something wrong.

[ partly; these horses are a pain to try to get to stop. gwen tries a combination of other words; she tries pulling on the reins; she tries yelling, "hey, look, oil!…carrots." the mechanical steeds keep running. gwen growls. ]

I'm gonna try something else, [ she yells back. she leans around the side to get a better look of whatever peter's up to. the eyes of her mask widen. ]

You good?

( he'd argue more about that, if a bandit hadn't gotten an arm through the broken window of the carriage door and gotten it wrapped around his throat. being choked really did make it hard to argue about honest portrayals in movies.

it doesn't look great, when Gwen peers down to check on him. he still offers her a thumbs up, with a croaked i'm good before the thumbs up turns into a fist and flies into the nose behind him. the chokehold falls away and the spider dives through the window after him, to immobilize any of the men remaining.

the shipment seems safe enough, which means he's free to crawl out again and check on Gwen and the horses. ) I just want you to know, I could make a joke abut women and driving right now, and I'm taking the highroad. ( which is good, because for the record, Peter doesn't know how to drive at all. )

[ danger, will robinson.

gwen faces him slowly. ] You sure you want to tug on that thread, Spider-Boy? [ she knows where you're from B|

but he's got a point insofar as gwen refuses to be shows up by a quartet of robot horses no matter how cool they are or how much she may want one. the gloves are coming off.

gwen pulls back on the reins, a little harder than she would with a real animal for fear of hurting them. but these ones are made of steel or titanium or some composition that peter can probably name and give her atomic weight for so she figures they can take the extra tug.

a buzzing fills her head like an electric shock. gwen's eyes snap forward. ]

Oh, crap.

[ the earthquakes don't bother her. with her spider-forecast and spider-balance, there's not one capable of doing much more than making her feel like she's riding a small wave.

the sinkholes they tend to open around here, though. especially when said sinkholes have swallowed the road. ]

Oh, crap!

( the thing about the pair of spiders as they both had the same frustrating senses, the ones that never turned off and were definitely as much a gift as they were a curse. in the carriage, he couldn't see what was wrong, yet the warning klaxon going off between his eyes told him something was all the same.

slithering out of the window was enough to help him spot what, exactly, was amiss, and okay yeah, that wasn't good...)

I've got an idea, but I don't think you're going to like it. ( unfortunately, she was about as powerless to that fact as he had been, and before she could even give him the go ahead, he zipped past her into the bound horses, clinging to the side of one with sheer tenacity as he ripped open an compartment and started fussing with wires held inside. hotwiring a horse in the middle of the ground caving in, seemed like a normal tuesday, really! ) You're going to have to release the other two! ( they'd just slow them down once he got the lead horse moving ... well, way too fast was a good term for it. )

[ no, she won't. especially as she thinks she knows what idea that is. there's no helping it, though. ]

Seems like the day for them!

Here, hold these for me, [ she tells the knocked out, webbed up bandit. gwen drops the reins on his lap. hopping down, she clings to the carriage with her hands and aims her foot at the trace holding the leftmost horse. the wood splinters in half. another kick separates the horse from the carriage, though it remains linked to the others by short lines. gwen repeats the action with the one on the right. ]

Just the lines left! You got 'em?

[ gwen fights to keep the note of alarm out of her voice. ]

( hotwiring a metal horse isn't exactly easy in the most ideal of circumstances, when he has all his tools and time and perfect lighting and oh yeah, ground that isn't threatening to concave as he works. clinging to the bottom of the horse and pulling the hatch open wouldn't have even been possible without enhanced strength.

setting to bypassing some systems to provide more power to the engine with gloved hands is tricky, too. tricky, but he has to do it, it's that or this is their last rodeo, and he's not going to let that happen.

he barely hears Gwen's voice lilt over all the nonsense, hooves thundering and wood splintering and ground failing underneath them. his heart thundering in his chest sure isn't helping, either. ) Hold on tight, ( is his way of saying yes, and when the final wires catch, the jolt forward is immediate. immediate enough he nearly falls off his own steed, but the speed kicks up and rockets them forward, even as the ground started to fall underneath them. )

[ it's happening. it's finally happening.

peter parker is going to kill her.

it was going to happen at some point. only she didn't think it would be so soon. at least stiles will inherit all their shit and the entire bed to help him cope with their passing.

all jokes aside, she trusts peter. if he thinks he'll get them across, then he'll get them across. gwen's job is simple: holds onto the seat, make sure the former a driver stays in his seat ( a glnace says yes, he's still safely strapped and also awake for the two seconds before he faints ) and hopes the doors of the carriage hold. ]

( hey, he's killed her before. what's a second, that's like a 2-for-1 special! too soon?

he can't quite get eyesight on Gwen as the horse rockets — literally rockets, there's some jet propulsion in these things — over sand and rock and gravel. the sound of the earth resettling itself, it makes spider-man more nauseous than his first time jumping off a building. his eyes don't do him any favors, yet he can somehow sense the tense line not that far away.

thrown over a bandit almost like a seatbelt. of all the things to notice, parker.

it feels like a couple lifetimes before the noise of concaving earth fades. once they seem clear, once his spidey senses stop firing off like a security alarm, he kicks at the jury-rigged wiring to loosen it. from 90 to 60 to 40 to a slow crawl to nothing.

when the carriage, and the horse, finally stop, he gives up on holding onto the damn thing and just lets go, falling into sand and rolling only far enough that he won't get stepped on to just celebrate in the fact he's not dead. just in case Gwen is worried, and he can hear her coming, he promises with vague confidence, ) I'm okay.

( just give him a minute. )

[ gwen is all too tempted to slump down too, maybe see if she can get her riotous heartbeat back under control. her fingers slide over the band of the large device on her left wrist: a watch, except an exceedingly complicated looking one. she guesses the tests can be postponed a little longer.

first, she has business to attend to.

hopping from the seat, she strides to where peter's laid out like he's considering staying there. she shakes her head. ]

You are such an idiot, [ gwen declares without any heat.

in the next second, she's gone to her knees and has wrapped her arms around him tight. ]

( he laughs at that, even if his heart is trying to clamor up his throat andj just ditch him for good this time, because this is too much, even for Spider-Man. it's never too much, though, is it? he has these powers for a reason, and it doesn't matter how many times his life is on the line, if has them he has to use them to protect those that need it. and yes, that does indeed include Gwen.

that reprimand is uncannily familiar, if he closed his eyes it could be a different girl saying it, same blonde hair but with more sweater vests and argyle knee socks. it hurts to think and he forces himself not to close his eyes because while Gwen is so close she's not the same, and it'd almost be a disservice to both of them to pretend otherwise.

he tucks an arm around her and then another, and nobody hugs like someone with spider-enhanced genes, that's a fact. ) An idiot, but okay. So, still coming out even.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

HE FELT HIS WHOLE LIFE WAS A DREAM...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject