I'm nearly human look at me

[unobtainableredemption]

Characters: Kaine and OPEN
Date: Sometime after the bottle event
Location: Various
Situation: Various
Warnings/Rating: PG-13 to be safe (for Kaine's mouth)


Option 1 - Fire Sector
[Kaine’s standing in front of a storefront, looking through the window at the mantle displayed on the other side and debating whether or not he wants to buy one. Not for the fashion, mind you, but for something he could temporarily wear to cover his face and conceal the giant shiner surrounding his left eye. It’s a cliché, but you should really see the other guy.]


Option 2 - Water Sector
[He had intended to go right home, but now that his face was concealed by the hood of his newly bought mantle, Kaine finds himself walking right past the door to his suite, eventually winding up in a park in the water sector. It's clear by the path of destruction as he enters that one of the baby turtles had been through recently--the rubble had not yet been pushed to the side. He found himself smiling despite himself. When were they going to learn that they couldn't destroy everything?

Kaine sits on one of the benches and pulls the hood low as to cover his black eye, and just stares out at the mess. He could head home some other time.]


Option 3 - Metal Sector (Wearing this costume, though he still has short hair)
[He had forgotten how heavy the outfit was. It was the complete opposite of his Scarlet Spider costume—bulky with ridges and angles that have angles. Then there was the cape. What was he thinking when he added a cape to this thing? There was no reason for it whatsoever. Not like the raised “veins” of the costume, which had once pressed upon the scars of his degeneration to slow its progress, but now just serve to remind him of where the scars used to be. It was perfect.

He couldn't be the Scarlet Spider anymore. Not after what had happened in the bottle. It only served to remind him just how different he was from the others, and just how far he had fallen from what he could have been. And then he found this, his old outfit that once kept him alive, the outfit he wore during the year he spent terrorizing both Reilly and Parker, as well as anyone they might have cared about… and if that wasn't divine intervention, he didn't know what was.

Kaine leaps to the next building, never losing a stride in his step. He’s trying to get used to the suit’s bulk by doing something he’d done hundreds of times in it before... but if he bothered to stop and think about it, he’d realize just how suspicious he looks dressed like that leaping across rooftops at a sprint.]

OOC: If you want to roll with something other than those, feel free to either PM me, reach out to me at redconfession, or just start a thread, your choice.

Comments

[unobtainableredemption]

He did. Once. [Spoilers: It was this one.]

...I wasn't sure if that was him or not, seeing as that place took great joy in twisting what we care about.

[It's weird, acknowledging out loud that he cares.]

[daughteroftheoriginal]

I was guessing that, since you said my dad'd recognize it.

[Which meant he was wearing that when, what, he was tormenting her dad and Uncle Ben? Not something she's going to touch on. Not right now.]

With the long grey hair and the coat working with Darkdevil? That was him.

[unobtainableredemption]

[Darkdevil? Really? Could the guy's name be any less creative?

...said the Scarlet Spider.

Former Scarlet Spider.

Okay, this was slightly easier with Peter, seeing as the kid is more inquisitive than Aracely (barely) and that wasn't the first time he had seen someone lose control to a symbiote. What he had witnessed with May, however, was something else entirely.]

...I see New York hasn't changed much. [Sorry May, you're going to have to start this one off.]

[daughteroftheoriginal]

[The symbiote thing wasn't May's first time either, and not even the first time she'd seen one Peter Parker being taken over by one.]

With how many of us are around? [She doesn't really know which 'us' she's referring to more. Parkers? Spiders? Superheroes? It's hard to say.] Not really.

And, the other May... [It's been months now, just being here, and she still hasn't figured out what to call her. After all, they don't know which is the clone, just which one Norman Osborn kept. Then again, someplace like here, it doesn't really matter, does it? Even if she was the original, here she's a clone too.] I don't really know how it started either. I just have what my dad and the Kaine there had to go off of. She just showed up out of nowhere and attacked me at school.

And from there it... well. Everything really does seem to keep coming back to Norman Osborn and that bridge, doesn't it? I wish I didn't see why my dad hates him so much.

[unobtainableredemption]

Sounds like history repeating itself. [Only he wasn't referring to himself attacking Peter, for once.]

What you need to know about Norman Osborn is he's a psychopath that deserves everything that's coming to him.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

Yeah, I guess you could say that. [She still feels guilty about the fact that everything that happened with the Other May put so much into context with Kaine when she first met him here.] And believe me, I completely get it now.

That.. he wasn't even the first one to make me realize that not everyone could be helped by giving them second chances. [Can she even explain the Faces to him? Does she want to?]

[unobtainableredemption]

...I didn't mean me.

You'd have loved your Uncle Ben, kid. He thought the same way. Always seeing the good in people long after common sense should have told him to stop.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

I wasn't meaning you, don't worry.

Between you and my dad, I think I've heard everything about how he was a good person, but not really what he was like.

[As she says it, something slowly begins sliding into place. ...Could it?]

...Kaine, I don't think I've ever heard why you tormented him or my dad.

[unobtainableredemption]

Ben... spent most of his life running from himself, or so I thought. He was running from his past, yeah, but not because he was scared. He realized he couldn't be the man he thought he was, and so he went off wherever he could to find out. Of course, between his inability to pass a background check due to aliases and me, he never stayed anywhere for too long... but he got used to that. He just moved on to the next town to see what he could learn.

[...How to phrase this...] You ever figure out which of your great-aunt's siblings was Ben's parent?

[daughteroftheoriginal]

[Going about in roundabout questions around this without actually getting to the point and then running off before anything can happen is practically Parker way of life when it comes to secrets and other things, but May's had enough of that lately.]

How many clones were there?

[Because since her dad has spider-powers, Kaine has spider-powers, and she's wearing a take on her uncle Ben's spider-themed costume...

There's really only so far you can beat around the bush.]

[unobtainableredemption]

[Normally Kaine would have no problems spelling out that Ben was a clone, but out of some sort of misguided loyalty to people he has technically never met, he let her figure it out on her own.]

...I couldn't even tell you. I lost track when Reilly, Parker, and I fought about a hundred of them. [So many he couldn't even tell you if that was hyperbole or not.] If we're talking still living, that'd be just me. [A feat Kaine never would have expected in his wildest dreams.] Unless my father managed to salvage some of Parker's DNA from that explosion. [He knows the Jackal isn't dead. He knows better than that.] Then there's a possibility there's more.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

[Typical Parker luck means there probably is. She actually is paying attention this time, at least, to notice that Kaine worked his way around that question with a technicality. Funny how knowing some things before hand actually helps. She hadn't expected there to be that many, though. Because really?

There's a bit of a pause before she replies.]

So you and my uncle Ben were the main ones...?

[unobtainableredemption]

Ben was a perfect clone of your father. I came first, but I soon developed clone degeneration and the Jackal tried to dispose of me. The others all quickly died of degeneration soon after they were created.

[He shouldn't be alive. He knows this well... and yet here he is, and everyone else was dead. It defied all logic.]

I still have no idea how I'm the last one standing... considering I've died four times.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

[That all really explained a lot, actually, because while Kaine looked plenty like her dad, he wasn't the spitting image. And why her uncle Ben had a Spider-Man costume of his very own, at least to some extent.

Talk about a superpowered soap opera!

And then Kaine dropped that bombshell.]

What!?

[Four times?!]

[unobtainableredemption]

More likely three. I thought I died to come here, but now I'm not so sure. [He sighs and leans against the wall.]

My father, for reasons I still can't figure out considering he wanted me dead, apparently brought me back the first time, and our mutual friend has apparently kept me from staying dead ever since.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

Wow, that's.

That has to be hard, Kaine.

[And his general antipathy where her dad is concerned- at least the Kaine from her world- makes a whole lot more sense.]

[unobtainableredemption]

He just shrugs. It's his life.

Getting back on topic...]

Ben and your father didn't get along at first either. Your old man thought Ben came back to take his life. Ben just wanted to say goodbye to your great-aunt. But they learned to trust each other with their lives.

Your clone... she even have a name? Have you given her time to figure out who she is? What makes her different from you? ...Other than being half Venom, apparently.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

We... we don't actually know which of us is the original. [She looks down at the ground. It's something that's been gnawing at her since the discovery of the Other May, and has only had time to dig in here, even while she's done her best to try and ignore it.]

I ended up here a couple days after the real version of that showdown happened. Not exactly enough time for anything except my dad's paranoia to start setting in.

[unobtainableredemption]

Then this is exactly like Ben and your father. [Where to start...] I'm going to assume you know who Gwen Stacy is. Your father's college girlfriend. [Okay, she was way more than that, even to him, but seeing how freaked out May got at the thought of Carlie Cooper, he wasn't going to go into too much detail.] Osborn threw her off a bridge and killed her. Parker and Stacy had a college professor, a man named Miles Warren, who, uh... [was mad he couldn't bone her because she was dead and blamed Peter.] let's just say he was crazy and didn't take her death well. Osborn secretly financed him, and he started working on cloning Gwen, as well as Peter. I'm not sure when he figured out who he was, but he wanted revenge on your father for [being able to fuck] failing to protect Gwen from Osborn. In an ironic twist, I doubt he knew he was being funded by the guy who killed her.

Like I said, I was the first. He starting teaching me how to be your father, but when I started showing the first signs of degeneration, he... Not important. What matters is he had to go back to the drawing board. He created Reilly. Unlike me, Reilly was perfect. In time, Warren taught him to be Parker. He came to believe he was Parker. This led to his grand plan: pitting Reilly and Parker against each other on the baseball diamond at Shea Stadium. I have mentioned Warren is crazy, right? They fought at first, but eventually they teamed up to defeat my father and save some Bugle reporter... I think he's dead now anyway. Whatever. Point is Parker believed Reilly died under some rubble.

Only he didn't. Reilly, believing he was the clone, took off and started forging his own identity. Fast forward 5 years. Your great aunt was dying--only it wasn't her, don't ask that's another long, complicated story I only know pieces of--and Reilly had to see her one last time before she died. Warren and Osborn fucked with them a bit, and for a year your father thought he was the clone, and Reilly the original. I... might have helped with that.

According to Warren's files, Reilly was the original. Thinking your father was the clone, I... never mind, it's not important. What matters is until Reilly died I thought he was the original.

Eventually, Reilly and Parker seemed to stop questioning which one was the original, and focused instead on the lives they had created on their own merits. [And then Ben died.]

[daughteroftheoriginal]

[She didn't even know Kaine could talk that much at once. This is a whole lot to take in at once.]

I don't how much the other May would find that a comfort considering she's pretty sure I stole everything she should've had.

Saying that she should come home with us and be part of our family seemed like a great idea at the time, but now I'm not so sure anymore. [Months to linger on it hasn't exactly done wonders for the old Parker skills of self doubt.]

[unobtainableredemption]

You think Reilly didn't think that way at first? You didn't see him when he first left New York. [Because that boy was a hot mess for a long time.]

Look, I'm not the best person to ask since I never fully thought I was Parker in the first place [I just get glimpses of his memory from time to time.], but... [Oh god why was he trying to give advice?

Kaine sighs.] It takes time. Figuring out that you're not who you think you are. Having to go against your instincts and doing what you have to do to [survive. Nope, this is getting too close to him for comfort]--to figure out who you really are. But just be warned... you might not like what she becomes. Some people are just beyond redemption.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

[Did she think this was a lot to take in earlier? It's even more now. And that's not even counting the fact that she's pretty sure this is a really open heart-to-heart talk with Kaine for Kaine, too.]

Maybe some people are, [Norman Osborn counts, and so do the Faces.] but I can't just not give her a chance. Not when she's never had the opportunity to even have a life, much less a normal one.

It wouldn't be right.

[unobtainableredemption]

I never said don't give her a chance. I'm just saying that even though she's you, she might not be the parts of you you like.

[daughteroftheoriginal]

Yeah, I think I figured that out already...

[She sits on the edge of the bed, folding her hands together, elbows on knees.]

It's something I'll have to deal with. Actually show her.

[A task that looks even harder now that she's been here for so long.]

[unobtainableredemption]

It's not that simple.