001 | video

[suitedforcoffee]

[Ianto doesn't look good. That's not to say he isn't handsome as always, but he looks strung out, as if recovering from a hangover -- or grieving. His lips are set in a line as he addresses the network, and his tone is weary and dry.]This wasn't what I was expecting, but then I suppose it never really is. I should probably be alarmed at how

Comments

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[incywincyhero]

[You've met aliens, Ianto, but have you ever seen a man in glorious technicolor spandex clinging to the side of a wall like some oversized arthropod? ... Well, possibly. But here's another.]

"The rift," you say? Interesting -- and fairly specific -- choice of words.

But hey, my mother always taught me to be nice to strangers, and I'm being rude. Welcome to the madhouse -- and to this side of the pond, from the sound of things. Gotten your brochures and your dog tags yet?

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[suitedforcoffee]

[Ianto raises an eyebrow at the guy in the Spiderman costume, and wonders if it's Halloween here. Or a costume party. Because that makes much more sense than this actually being Spiderman, even despite the situation...and the wall-clinging.]

Very specific, and interesting more often than not.

I received my welcome package, yes. I'm still not sure what I think of it, to be honest.

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[incywincyhero]

Sounds almost like you knew about this place -- or something like it -- before arriving here. Or maybe just a place that's similar enough to this one that you connected the dots, rightly or wrongly.

[At Ianto's next words he rolls up into a cross-legged position, elbow propped on knee. He would look almost normal if the horizon were rotated ninety degrees.]

Well, hey, they don't call me your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man for nothing, even if this isn't quite the same neighborhood as it used to be. Ask away!

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[suitedforcoffee]

Where I come from, there was a temporal rift, a tear in the fabric of time and space running through the city I lived in. Our end of it was fixed, but the other end of the tear was constantly moving, anywhere in time, anywhere in the universe. Possibly even in multiple universes, it's hard to say. My job revolved around dealing with whatever came through it. Only...then I went through it, trying to close it, and now here I am.

[a pause]

Do you...dress up like Spiderman regularly? [Yeah, he might think you're a bit of a nutter.]

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[incywincyhero]

Huh. That's a new one -- most of us just get grabbed from one moment to the next.

[He shrugs.] It's pretty much my job.

[Okay, so he's trolling a little. Who could resist?]

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[suitedforcoffee]

Taking this superhero thing a bit seriously, aren't you?

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[incywincyhero]

S'funny, I thought you recognized me there for a second. But now I'm thinking not.

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[suitedforcoffee]

...Let me guess, you're really Spiderman? [Well, if James Bond is actually here...]

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[incywincyhero]

Not hardly. I just woke up one morning and realized that my life's ambition was to stick suction cups on my butt.

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[suitedforcoffee]

See, the problem with saying things like that is that my life is strange enough, I might actually believe you.

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[incywincyhero]

Well. I guess they could be fancy alternate universe suction cups with extra suck, and you'd never know the difference, wouldn't you. But my butt is free of hardware store accoutrements, guaranteed.

... Not that I can exactly offer proof, you understand.

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[suitedforcoffee]

No, I can see how that would be problematic, and I would thank you not to.

So. Assuming I believe you're really Spiderman, I feel I have to ask you how you're finding the whole crime fighting bit around here.

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[incywincyhero]

Oh, you know, it's actually pretty relaxing. We only have a City-wide crisis once or twice a month, only a handful of supervillains, and not that many people actually try to rob banks.

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[suitedforcoffee]

Huh. I'm used to the twice-monthly crises, though generally, ours were potentially more world-ending than not. City-wide sounds more than manageable. Maybe this will be more tolerable than I thought.

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[incywincyhero]

[He 'pffts,' waving a hand dismissively.] Oh, yeah, the worldwide thing is once or twice a season at most, it's completely manageable.

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[suitedforcoffee]

And there are more people to deal with it, too. This place is practically a vacation.

I could...open my own coffee shop and actually have time to manage it. [He says this with some small amount of awe, like it was a previously impossible thing. Because it was.]