strangetrip | [GP] training day

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[GP] training day

There was a trope that in prison there wasn't much to do except work out or read. As colorful as Madonna Inn might be, it was still a prison. And look, somebody had put together a library.

Put fifty some people, many of them military, adventurers, vigilantes, or superheroes of one stripe or another, in a prison with none of the urgent missions or near-death experiences they were used to, the fitness center was going to be a popular place. Maybe almost as popular as the bar.

... Probably not quite that popular.

There were free weights and weight machines, treadmills and ellipticals, yoga mats and exercise balls. A room set aside for classes, if someone decided to lead. A large square had been taped over an area of the floor off to one side as a make-shift sparring space. Sports equipment had been brought back from Bonesville for those who preferred more organized games. And those who had been stuck here longest remembered there hadn't always been a salmon ladder.

In other words, something for just about everybody. And you could usually find someone in there if you were looking for a spotter, workout buddy, sparring partner, friendly competition too.

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Peter listens, taking in every last word of Maya's story. And a part of him is worried. Maybe he did the wrong thing, trusting Mr. Stark blindly. But if he had asked more questions, would Mr. Stark have answered him honestly?

Peter looks down at his hands, fanned out on his thighs. He hadn't been acutely aware of how strange hands looked until that very moment, and he wonders why he's just realizing it now. He's fifteen, and that's more than enough time to really look at things, to really see them.

And when he starts talking again, he's clearly just thinking aloud.

"My YouTube videos had been up for almost six months before Mr. Stark came to our apartment," he says, staring down at his hands. "I mean, maybe it's possible that he didn't see them until then. I mean, I was just a kid in a hoodie. He didn't even get my superhero name right."

Spiderling, Peter thinks to himself, and he takes a breath that comes out more as a sigh than anything else.

"I don't know," Peter says again, and he's sure he sounds like he's whining, and it's stupid of him to keep saying I don't know, because the I don't knows don't change anything. "I mean, the teams were pretty evenly matched --" And Peter starts doing his mental tabulations. " -- when you included me," he realizes.

Peter turns his attention away from his hands and back over to Maya.

"After you found out Fisk lied to you, what did you do?" he blurts out.

Maya had issues with the Stark from her timeline, but they were the same issues the rest of her team had. But the more Peter talked, the more she wanted to educate the Stark from his timeline – with her fists. Putting this kid, and he was a kid, into that kind of fight against those trained opponents just to give Stark's side of things a fighting chance, without giving him the information he needed to make a decision for himself. What the actual fuck, Stark.

Then he asked about Fisk, and her anger shifted to something closer to sadness. "I tracked him down and shot him. I thought I killed him. It didn't help. I still felt as empty and as angry as I had before. So I went to find myself, and a way to fill the hole inside. Started finding ways to give back, do good, make things better for people." She offered a small smile. Sharing stories, listening to other's stories was a big part of it for her.

Somehow, listening to Maya talk about her own experience makes Peter feel a little better. But just a little. Because even if everything he's worried about being true with Iron Man is true, it's still not as bad as a family friend killing your father, lying to you about it, then you killing him and not feeling better after all of that.

"Do you -- do you feel better now?" he asks. He hopes that she does, that she found some way to fill that space inside of her. Because he hasn't known her for very long, but she seems really nice, and he hates to think that that emptiness is still boring itself inside of her.

"Yeah." Almost all of the time. "I've done a lot of soul searching. Besides, back home, we've all been too busy to focus on the small stuff." Her father and his death had made Maya who and what she was. The handprint she wore was a symbol of how it would always be a part of her.

"But being killed and brought back, finding out Skrull had invaded without anyone noticing or knowing what they had planned, people from the past, hiding from SHIELD – you know, the little things – it all put life in perspective."

Peter has no idea what Skrull or SHIELD are, and while he could easily ask more about them, he's already hyperfocused on just one thing Maya has said:

"You died and came back to life?"

Maya laughed, letting the sound spring forth rather than try to hold it back. But it only lasted a moment before she grew more serious. "The Hand has all kinds of tricks. I went up against them on my own. They brought me back to life, threw me in a deep hole, and brainwashed me.

"It was Spidey pulled me out of the hole, while the rest of the team fought of the Hand. I joined up not too long after." They'd had fought together once before, but that was the start of things becoming official, or as close to official as they got.

Peter can't help but swell a little with pride at that story. Sure, that Spidey wasn't him, but it probably felt a little like when your brother won an award or something. Peter wasn't entirely sure how that felt like, either (he had no siblings or cousins who could fill that role), but he was sure that that was how it felt.

"I'm glad you're alive, though," Peter says, because he is. "But who's the Hand, exactly? I mean, his name doesn't really give me any idea of what kind of powers he has."

Unless they had slapping powers or something. Peter somehow doubted that was the case, given he could resurrect people from the dead and brainwash them.

"The Hand isn't a person. It's a group. An order of ninja assassins, including practitioners of dark magic, deeply integrated in organized crime. Trust me, you don't want to get involved with them if you can help it." Or you could be Maya, donning a completely different costumed persona to investigate them singlehandedly. To be fair, she'd thought she'd be able to call for backup more easily than reality turned out. She hadn't planned on the fight over registration turning everything upside down.

"Ninja assassins," Peter echoes, thinking how utterly cool magic assassins that are also practitioners of dark magic, deeply integrated in organized crime would be, if it were a movie and not actually Maya's reality. It was definitely the kind of movie he and Ned would watch. Probably even in theaters. But only during the matinee or at one of the theaters that gave student discounts.

"I'll be sure to watch out for them," Peter says, filing this information for later on. "Thanks for letting me know."

A beat, and then he asks: "Do you think that we'll meet in my timeline? That sometime we'll like--" Peter pauses there. "--be friends and stuff?"

Maya wasn't sure the Spider-Man in her world counted as a friend. Teammate, sure. If he wasn't actually a Skrull. She'd liked him okay, although they weren't as close as her and Clint or Logan. For all his chatter, he'd kept most of them at arm's length, from what she'd seen.

"Maybe. All this timeline craziness is, I don't know, not my area of expertise." It wasn't something she could learn simply by watching, and what she had picked up from Strange had mostly left her with more questions, and no time for answers. "But we're both here now. Maybe that's the better place to start a friendship."

Peter likes to think that someday, if he does ever get to go back, he'll meet all the other-versions of all the people who already know the other-him. Though it'd be really weird for him to try and act like he didn't know them. But considering all the weird things that happened to them, maybe they'd believe him. Just like he believed everyone here who told him they met another Peter Parker.

"So," Peter starts uncertainly. "Does that -- does that make us friends now?"

Friendships took time, or intense experiences the inn seemed to lack. Not that Maya was complaining about that. Yet. She could see how people got bored in time. And if she was honest with herself, which she tried to be, Maya wasn't always good at letting people close enough to be friends.

"It's a start." Direct. Honest. Not implying a closeness they hadn't built yet, nor suggesting it was impossible. It was the best answer Maya had for him now.

That answer doesn't seem to dampen Peter's enthusiasm in the least.

"Great!" he exclaims. "I should, uh--" Peter glances behind him. "--hit the showers." He's kind of gross right now, and he's pretty sure he smells and if he does, he really doesn't want to keep inflicting that on Maya. He had kinda a workout earlier.

He stands up, then wipes his hands on his shorts. "Think we can hang out again sometime?"

The inn is a lot bigger than Strange's sanctum, but it's not New York City. Or Queens. Or Hell's Kitchen. "We're stuck here with fifty other people and no way out. We'll see each other again. Talk to you later, Peter."

"See you later, Maya!" Peter says with a wave as he walks away. "And good luck with your training!"

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[GP] training day

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