[for Tony] Look good! Look bad! Look fffffttz.

[daretodo]

Once in a while, I wonder what it would be like to be a normal person. What, I think to myself, would I do with my time if I didn't have friends who dragged me up to space stations or never got bit by a radioactive spider (only to lose all those abilities courtesy of a magical island) or didn't have a teenage girl wandering around with my face and the best head of hair in the extended clone family this side of Kaine? Mary Jane provides me with some sense of normalcy, sure, but even she's gotta be just a little wacky to put up with a nutcase like me and my circus of a life.

'Cause, see, when I look at all the crazy things I've done -- really stop to consider them -- it occurs to me that the most unbelievable thing I could ever hope to do is something so mundanely normal your Average Joe wouldn't even think about it twice. That's how far from the norm things are for regular ol' Peter Parker, even on a so-called blank slate. Still, with the pressing concern of Tony's palladium poisoning dealt with, Jessica and I in some sort of awkward holding pattern, and things with Mary Jane better than ever, it felt like the right sort of time to try my hand at one of the Island's more traditional activities. That I thought Tony could probably use a non-bar related distraction given everything that went down at the end of last month just happened to be a fortunate -- or not so fortunate, rather -- coincidence.

With beachside picnics, sunbathing, and strippers dismissed right off the bat, I suggested fishing as a possible alternative for our usual pastime. He, in turn, suggested we try at the dock instead of in a pond. So here we are on a sunny Friday afternoon, not tinkering around in a workshop, but instead sitting at the edge of a dock, our respective homemade fishing gear in hand, and waiting for the first of what'll surely be many bites, because it's fishing, and there's no way we can possibly fail, right?

We last maybe five minutes.

"...this was a terrible idea."

Comments

[notawastedlife]

Tony bounced off the rock face, and twisted to peer and see how close he'd gotten to the ground. Well, not very, that was okay, that had worked out all right.

"Fine," he said, "I'm- I almost had that, another second, no problem."

[daretodo]

"You're an awful liar," I say, though I actually believe him on the first part. I mean, he's conscious, and there's a distinct lack of blood smearing the rock face; he'll probably be a little bruised from that bump, but he'll live. It's the latter I'm having difficulty buying.

"Seriously, in what universe did you almost have that?"

[notawastedlife]

"...this one?" Tony said, still dangling, glancing at the cliff-face as he gently bumped into it as he tried to establish the best way to reattach himself to it. Whatever climbers called that. "I almost had a handhold, that qualifies as almost having it. Universes where I did have it are not very far separated."

[daretodo]

"...wow, you actually believe that," I reply, stifling a laugh. "Want me to abseil down, so you can get back up here before the webbing dissolves?"

[notawastedlife]

"I'm right next to the wall, I think I can get back on the wall," Tony said, managing to get his foot against the rock-face. "Or, no, that'd pull me up, harness, pulley, got it. Do that. I'll walk up, you walk down."

[daretodo]

"Pulleys: the bread and butter of engineers across the universes," I say, taking one last look down before I take a significantly quicker approach than walking. Pushing myself off the rock face, I jump down a good ten feet. "At least some aspects of physics still work like they're supposed to, huh?"

[notawastedlife]

"They have the same effect, let's say that. I'm not writing gravity off as 'not weird' in this particular situation just yet," Tony said, kicking off to get yanked upwards. "But the presence of basic mechanics is reassuring. And the non-basic mechanics, it's just the weird exceptions that get me."

[daretodo]

"Tell me about it," I say with a grunt, pushing myself off to take another ten foot drop. It just isn't the same with the harness; nothing beats a free fall, and I'm not just saying that because the webbing is presently cutting off circulation to a very important part of my anatomy. Maybe I should cool it with the jumping.

"This place is weird."