st_arkintern: (Ow.)
Peter Parker ([personal profile] st_arkintern) wrote in [community profile] strangetrip2018-02-22 05:44 pm
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[For River Song] In Need of Tudoring

Peter Parker adjusts the strap of his backpack over his left shoulder as he stands outside the doors of the business center. It's weird for him to be all worked up about this. It was just a history lesson. Probably something like -- like the War of the Roses, right? And if his teacher here were anything like his teacher back at Midtown, he really didn't have anything to worry about.

Peter takes a breath, then pushes the door open. There's already someone there, though from here he can only see the back of her head.

"Ms. -- Ms. Song?" Peter asks tentatively, closing the door behind him. "I didn't really know what we'd be studying, so I just kinda brought a few history books I found in the library and a notebook."

Peter tugs the notebook out of his bag and holds it up, as if to demonstrate his preparedness.
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-26 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
You couldn't even always count on your history teacher to be good people. River certainly wasn't, or hadn't been.

"Bad thing happen regardless of what good men do or don't do every day, you can't take responsibility for all the bad things, just because you might be able to stop them."

She considered how to tell the story she thought he might need to hear, but struggled since it wasn't a story she told.

"I was taken from my parents when I was very young, because some people wanted the perfect weapon against one particular man. He was like you, special, wanting to right the wrongs in the universe. But he learned eventually that you can't save everyone, not even from themselves. And that isn't your fault even if it feels like it is."
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-26 06:12 pm (UTC)(link)
"I was. I killed him. Twice technically. But he is remarkably difficult to kill so I married him." And she missed him more than she thought possible after their time on Darillium.

"He's lived longer than most of us can dream of living, my murderous history not withstanding, and it took many years, and many battles for him to figure it out. And even then, sometimes there's someone who he just can't let die, for whatever reason." Because he might understand that he couldn't save everyone, but he still wanted to, deep down.
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-26 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
"I suppose I'm used to it now." She admitted, and yes she knows its a weird story. "Most of my life, I've spent without him. Even as his wife, I didn't travel with him, not always, and not for long periods of time. He'd pop in and out of my life, and sometimes I'd pop in and out of his."

For some of it she'd been in prison for killing him, which was even odder than how they'd met.

"I miss him, but until just before I came here I wasn't used to having him there every day. Not even most days. I have his picture and I have my memories." Her hand flattened on the diary and when she smiled it went all the way to her eyes so he would know she wasn't lying.

"Most of the time it's enough. And on those rare occasions when it isn't, I usually do something outrageous to take my mind off the missing."
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-26 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Probably nothing I should encourage you to do if you're missing home." That got a laugh, but it was clear she understood. "I studied archeology so sometimes I go on expeditions, I was headed to the biggest library in the universe when I ended up here."
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-26 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"Not obviously but maybe just so common I assumed. And it's normal to worry about the people at home," his Aunt May sounded like a survivor, to lose her husband, and take in Peter after he'd lost his parents. Someone who carried on.

"Your Aunt May sounds like a strong woman. She probably misses you like you miss her, but you're not all alone and she isn't either. Your friend Ned probably doesn't let that happen. Or Mr. Stark." If time even moved at home the same way it did here. She isn't so sure about that.
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-26 11:36 pm (UTC)(link)
"Remind me some day to tell you about the age difference between my husband and I." It was easily in the triple digits. But really once you turned 200, who cared any more. Or maybe in his case once he turned 21 or something.

"But I understand that too," she hadn't really gotten close enough to anyone here to miss them except maybe Kitty. And it was startling to realize that she probably would miss her friend.

But then the only real friends she'd had in her life had been her parents.

"It's hard. Wanting to go home, but also trying to make a home."
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-27 09:35 pm (UTC)(link)
He really was SUPER old. She considered that for a moment, thinking about what he'd said about choices, and good guys and bad guys and missing home.

"How about we look at how civilizations rise and how do they change, or fall as the case may be? We can start with various early agrarian and hunter gatherer societies and work forward in time until we think we can define what it means to be civilized."

She has all sorts of things to say about what civilized might mean, and it would force Peter to think about how middle class white America viewed other cultures.
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-27 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Does that sound like fun?" It didn't to her, but then if that was what he wanted she could oblige.

"There's not too much by way of texts but I can come up with some reading from what we do have... though most of it will probably have to be lectures of projects. And I suppose if you insist on a test..." She shuddered in mock horror.
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[personal profile] st_everybodylives 2018-02-28 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
"You're welcome, but you really don't need to thank me. Good teachers are the ones who are there to listen." At least that was always what she'd thought. Of course they rarely did which was why she'd spent so much time in detention.

"And people are always confiding in me, it's the hair, it looks like it can hold all sorts of secrets."