DNA is what they say

[incywincyhero]

WHO: vivi_sorrow and incywincyhero
WHERE: Avengers mansion labs
WHEN: The weekend, before Hank’s return
WARNINGS: Pseudoscience! Angst!
SUMMARY: Spidey helps Vivi resolve a standing question.
FORMAT: Quicklog to start, then whatever!

Comments

[vivi_sorrow]

There was a knock at the laboratory door. Vivi had come as soon as he got the message that the results were back. He hadn't enjoye dhaving the sample taken from him, but it was necessary to help him answer a question he'd had for some time.

"Spider-Man? Are you in?"

normal tagging schedule resumes! thanks for yr patience

[incywincyhero]

Spidey looked up from his make-work at Vivi's knock, shoulders straightening and posture suddenly professional -- as far as that was possible for a man wearing skintight, gaudy sportswear, anyway. He put down his tools and walked over to the next bench, waving the young mage to join him as he plopped down on a stool. Neat stacks of printouts were spread over the workspace.

"Hey, thanks for coming," he said. "This shouldn't take more than a few minutes, but I figured you might want a chance to look over all the test results yourself."

Yay!

[vivi_sorrow]

Vivi climbed up onto a chair and carefully made a space to rest his arm. He looked at the huge stack of papers and hoped they wouldn't have to wade through all of that for his answer.

"That's okay. You'll need to explain a lot of it to me; I'm still learning science. So how did my tests go?"

haha, that was such a lie

[incywincyhero]

"Not a problem," Spidey said, spreading his hands. "Really, I can just start with the big picture, and break it down for you if you have any questions."

He tapped the topmost report with a finger, but his head was turned toward Vivi as he said, "So normally these things go good news, bad news, but I'm happy to say there's no bad news here at all. You're aging at the exact same rate as a human boy your physical age, which I'd put at maybe nine, ten years of age.

"Meaning you're not only going to live more than another year, but with a little luck and healthy choices, you could have a very, very long life ahead of you."

The warmth in his voice made it obvious he was smiling. "Congratulations, Vivi. You're a real boy!"

[vivi_sorrow]

Vivi was... well, dumbstruck. To know - for a fact - that he had more life than he'd ever expected to have, after having come to terms with the knowledge that he had so little life and time...

He stared dumbfounded for a long time as the sheer enormity of this new information, this new reality started to seep into him, and it was a while before he could speak.

"Truly? I'll live like a normal human being? I won't stop moving this year?"

[incywincyhero]

"No!" If that was half a laugh, it was only because Spidey had no better response to that horrific euphemism, used so matter of factly. "No, Vivi, you're going to live, because you're a natural organism like the rest of us."

He coughed and fiddled with the nearest stack of papers. "It's a shame Dr. McCoy couldn't be here to see this, you know. He helped a lot with figuring out which tests would be most accurate, and showed me how to use the time dilation fields for your samples. It would've taken a lot longer without him -- you'd have been on tenterhooks for months."

[vivi_sorrow]

He relaxed; at least he knew he wasn't going to stop moving here. He even had the papers to prove it. "I'm going to keep going... I could learn so much more..."

He looked worried at the mention of Dr. McCoy. "Is he going to come back?"

[incywincyhero]

Spidey sighed, turning and leaning against the desk. "I'd like to hope so, as much as it'd be easier for him to go straight back home ... but he's not gone for good, anyway. I'll see him when I get back to our home universe, it's just that it's -- different there."

Sorry to keep you waiting - life gets in the way.

[vivi_sorrow]

Vivi straightened his posture and turned to face Spider-Man.

"You're not looking forward to going back home either, are you?"

I'm hardly one to complain!

[incywincyhero]

Peter blinked under the mask, taken aback by the straightforward insight from someone he barely knew. Part of him wanted to deny it reflexively, claim it as a given that being home would be better the way everyone else did -- but it felt wrong to mislead Vivi that way, even if he wasn't quite the little boy he looked.

"No," he said finally, "I'm not. I know that's not what I'm supposed to say, but I like it here, actually. Sure, it's a little hectic, but no worse than at home, and I ... I've met a lot of people I'd never get to know in my home universe. Maybe if I were back home I wouldn't know to regret not meeting them, either, and maybe once I get home I won't remember having met them -- it doesn't make me less glad."

He tilted his head. "I'm betting you can relate."

[vivi_sorrow]

Vivi nodded, meeting Spiderman's gaze and not breaking it.

"I can understand. It's very different here compared to Gaia. There's so much to learn and here I have time to study so much more than I ever could back home, especially now that I know I have more time. And, if I write it all down, I can bring it with me should I get Ported back, especially since this is very technologically advanced compared to Gaia."

"But... I do miss my friends. It'd be nice if I could show them here and spend some more time with them; more than I'd ever get when I'm at home," he said, a touch of sadness in his voice. "Much as I want to go home sometimes, I'll have so little time when it happens..."

"What's waiting for you back home?"

[incywincyhero]

"I hate to bust your bubble, but you won't get to take anything back home, not if what everyone who's made the round trip back here is telling the truth," Spidey said, not without a wince for busting Vivi's bubble. "No memories, no writing -- you end up back in the same body at the moment you left. Which is why it's all the more important to make the best of things here, I guess."

"What do I have back home?" He shrugged, carefully careless. "Well, my life's there at a dead end, but I have my family and friends." He rakes a hand back over his mask. "Here, too. It'd be a real pickle if I had any choice."

[vivi_sorrow]

Vivi looked down at his bag. It was rough and frequently patched, but he'd had it ever since he'd left Grandfather's house to see I Want To Be Your Canary. "What if you have a bag that came with you? Surely the contents would go with it too, right?"

"Do you wish the Porter would bring them over sometimes? Even for a little while?" he asked, looking a little sad. "The only person from home I've seen here so far is Kuja, and that wasn't very nice. Even if I did get to play a good trick on him."

[incywincyhero]

"Well, who doesn't, really?" Spidey said, shrugging a little. "But you know, I don't really want to push my luck -- I've got so many friends from home here already, when lots of other folks the Porter dragged in are here all alone. Anyway, just because it hasn't been so bad for me doesn't make it easy being stuck in this not-always-so-far-City, you know? Pretty sure most of my family back home wouldn't be able to land on their feet quite so easy."

For one thing, most of the people he's really missing aren't superheroes, and wouldn't have that whole support network to draw on.

[vivi_sorrow]

"At least they're not back there wondering where you've gone, and you can step back into the life you left behind really easily," Vivi replied. "And it's always good to make new friends and learn new things. It actually makes a nice change from all the travelling around I was doing back on Gaia."

[incywincyhero]

“Yeah?” Spidey leaned in slightly, curious to know more about the … well, the young man. Person. Close enough. “From the things you’ve mentioned, it sounds like your Gaia’s pretty different from here, or back home. Am I close to the mark there, or way off base?”