Time to Leave - Peter

[st_hotflashes]

Venice was beautiful. She was glad they had managed to get to it as it near the recommended time the Inn's "travel agents" had told them to take before heading back 'home'.

She was standing in the middle of one of the squares that overlooked a large, old, beautiful church. She was waiting for Peter to bring back some gelato before they headed to the train. It felt... Bittersweet. This other world felt almost like home. The space and the diversity really helped Liz to relax. Spending time with Peter here, too, helped make things feel... Right.

She adjusted her pack on her shoulder as she waited.

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"I know I can," Peter says, smiling lightly. And he knows Liz would like it, too. But there's something different about going out and saving people who need to be saved, or stopping people who need to be stopped. And that kinda stuff generally doesn't happen at the inn. It just happens when the Other Worlds opens.

"What else are you going to miss?" he asks. "Other than the anonymity, I mean."

[st_hotflashes]

Liz knew there was a difference. It was one of the reasons why she was building ths obstacle course.

"Soft serve ice cream." She smiled. That was easy. "And... I liked seeing into your world." She had CDs with current bands and some teen magazines. Bo also said she had her 'covered' for pop culture references - whatever that meant.

"...what about you?"

[st_arkintern]

"Movies in theaters," he says. "Thrift store shopping. Museums. The internet. People-watching." It was hard to explain the latter, but there was something just intensely relaxing about it.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz could see why the internet would be a missable. She didn't feel the same affinity for it as Peter did, not having it around really.

"If you want, I can start a store back home and make you haggle with me." She looked playfully to him.

[st_arkintern]

"I'm done with haggling," he assures her. "At least for now. Ask me in another two months."

Peter's just relieved he has a pile of books to peruse through. Not only because he needed something new to read, but also because it doesn't mean he has to wait until Ms. Rasputin isn't working to visit the library.

He should probably buck up already.

"We should probably try and figure out how to make soft-serve before we head home and lose internet access," Peter says, pulling out his phone. Most of the other things they're not going to be able to bring back. But soft-serve might actually be do-able.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz watched him fondly. She felt like Peter looked so relaxed looking things up on his phone and she liked watching him. "Back home, what do you look up the most on the internet?" She was going to guess science stuff, but who knew.

[st_arkintern]

"I was always on the irlSuperheroes Subreddit," Peter answers. "It's basically like a message board for superheroes fans. And people who don't like superheroes, but those comments usually get downvoted until the community thinks the criticism's valid. It's a lot less toxic than SuperheroChan."

He looks up briefly at Liz. "Neither one exists here. Reddit does, but not irlSuperheroes Subreddit."

Peter presses SEND and shoots a link in a text message to Liz's phone.

"I think it's do-able at the inn, we just need to make sure we write everything down."

[st_hotflashes]

Liz's phone chimes and she opened it. She pressed the link and started to look through it. "I can write it down." She took the sketchbook again and started to write the instructions down.

"Did people discuss you a lot on that... Sub-reddit?"

[st_arkintern]

"I mean, yeah, sometimes," Peter says, embarrassed. "Not as much as the other superheroes, though." He wasn't exactly a big name yet. But it sounded like he would be if he ended up in space, fighting Thanos.

"They basically talk about anyone they think is a superhero. Or super powered. Or anyone or anything they suspect is super powered. They talk about aliens, too. Conspiracy theories are pretty popular."

[st_hotflashes]

"Wait... So people could talk about, like, they think some principal has powers and discuss the 'proof' they have? Thanks sounds dangerous." She wondered if there was a Roswell one.

She paused. "Could you... Show me the, um, website? Reddit, I mean."

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, I mean, I guess. Mostly people just speculate over celebrities or politicians." That was way more interesting to them than thinking some 15-year old boy from Queens was Spider-Man.

Peter pulls up the link on his phone so Liz doesn't have to navigate away from the recipe on her own. "Here."

[st_hotflashes]

Liz has learned in her practice with the phone that the magnified glass was usually for searching. She thought for a moment and typed in UFO and clicked on the first thing that popped up. The first link in the forum maybe shouldn't have been a surprise. At least some things were the same here.

[st_arkintern]

"See anything interesting?" Peter asks, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder. He hates it when people do that to him. It makes him feel uncomfortable.

[st_hotflashes]

She read a little bit through the post. "No. I mean, maybe?" She shook her head as if to say 'I don't really know, I'm an idiot' and handed the phone over with it still up on the screen. "I'm sorry. I just - I'm not sure what I was doing." Or why she felt so weird about it now and guilty too.

[st_arkintern]

Peter looks down at his phone just long enough to skim the post then back over at Liz.

"Were you hoping to find out something about your friends?"

[st_hotflashes]

"No, not really... I'm not sure. Like, maybe I was wondering if the Roswell crash was even a thing or... If people talked about it still or.. something." She frowned. She felt uncomfortable and didn't know why.

[st_arkintern]

Peter looks at Liz, brows furrowed, then presses his lips together.

"Why?" Peter pushes back a few stray strands of hair from Liz's face. Every now and then, Liz seems so unsure of herself, and he doesn't always know what to do in those times. Peter wishes he could just radiate it's okay at her so she knew it was all right and that he wasn't judging her.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz wasn't actually sure she knew. She paused and thought. "Maybe it's just... Weird for me to think aliens and the Roswell crash could be a thing without it being... The one that I know, if that makes sense?" She paused again. "Like... If they had the Avengers, but Iron Man or Thor weren't part of the team or... Something."

[st_arkintern]

"It makes sense to me," Peter says. "There's lots of different realities out there that we already know about. What's to say that there's a Roswell crash that doesn't involve your friends or a Peter Parker that isn't Spider-Man?"

[st_hotflashes]

She supposed if she watched more science fiction she might have an easier time with the concept. "How would you feel if there was a Spider-Man who wasn't Peter Parker?" Somehow that seemed different than the other way around.

[st_arkintern]

Peter thinks about that for a second.

"I don't know," Peter admits. "I mean, it'd probably be a little uncomfortable, like seeing yourself recast in a play or something."

Peter can at least confess that much.

"But the Peter there wouldn't ever know that he was ever Spider-Man in another reality, so... I don't think it'd bother him. There's a lot of things that would be easier if I weren't Spider-Man, but I don't think I'd ever not want to be Spider-Man, either."

[st_hotflashes]

She nodded. She wouldn't want him to be anything other than who he was either.

"I think... I think a part of me feels a little guilty that, um. That I wasn't really upset that people I knew weren't here... I mean, I was more upset I couldn't tell them to be careful than I was that I couldn't see them." And that made her feel like a bad person.

[st_arkintern]

Peter slips an arm around Liz. "Why does that make you feel guilty, though?" he asks. "I mean... it's pretty selfless, right? If you're given a choice to either see someone or warn them, choosing to warn them instead."

Peter's not entirely sure he understands it. Or why Liz's upset. But he wants to.

[st_hotflashes]

She pressed her lips together. "No, I mean... Like even if I miss Maria... I don't miss home. I don't miss Roswell or all the alien stuff, not really." She looked away from him and out at the door. "Being with you... Even if sometimes things are hard or whatever, they're... It's different. Back home I was always unhappy or crying and trying to pretend I was strong because everyone else needed me to keep it together because they were losing it. And I realize that even if I go back, what I had with Max was so unhealthy. I don't want to go back and just ... Fall into that again. If I have to go back home... I'm probably going to leave Roswell as soon as I can."

[st_arkintern]

Peter feels his chest ache.

There's nothing he wants more right now than for Liz to be able to go back with him. He doesn't like Max at all. He can't stand to think of her going back to Roswell and being stuck around him. It's not jealousy, either; he came to the same conclusion Liz did. Maybe even a little earlier than she had:

What she had with Max wasn't healthy.

But as much as Peter wants this to be a possibility he can consider, he can't. Even if by some miracle Liz wound up in present-day Queens instead of Roswell, he still wouldn't remember her, because future-him didn't react to Quill, and Peter's sure that if he remembered, he would.

And there's some small part of him that knows that if he doesn't remember, Liz probably won't either, and all the things she realized about Max she'd forget the instant she went home.

"I don't want you to fall back into that, either," he says. "If you do go back, I think it'd be a good idea for you to leave."

He takes a breath. "But... I hope you don't go back."