first experiment; 9:53 PM

[originallutece]

For our more vampiric population, I come to you with a solution for your dietary problems.

I've invented artificial blood. A substance you can consume without harming others, but that will sustain you much as food and water. I owe a debt to Elena for helping me test them.

Unfortunately, it cannot yet be used in a medical sense-- for blood transplants, which are, by the by, a very important part of medical knowledge, which makes up the second part of this announcement.

If you do not know your blood type, come see me, and I can at least determine it. Blood types are a vital bit of information in a place where one routinely gets cut to bits. Transfusing blood-- that is, the act of giving one's blood to another-- can save a life in many cases. However, if the wrong sorts of blood interact, the result can be deadly.

Many of you do not know your blood type. This will, inevitably, come back to bite you.

So. I suggest you come by my lab within the next few days and find out, before you nearly die of an injury, manage to make it back to town, and then die of your original blood sensing the invader and killing off the cells that came to theoretically heal you. What a horrible, ironic death that would be.

Comments

[originallutece]

There's nothing else I could possibly be.

[What an odd question. It's personal in a way that she isn't usually asked, but she doesn't mind it. Really, it's the way he moves that throws her off; there's something inherently animalistic about it, something that speaks more of a spider than a person.]

It's . . .

[How to explain this? She's never had to before.]

I don't do it to make a difference. I'm not a savior. Don't misunderstand. But . . . I suppose in a way, it's a variation on your own reasoning. With great intelligence comes a duty to invent and discover, because there's no one else who can.

[webshoots]

Right, [ he says, when she says 'there's nothing else I could possibly be', but he waits for her to finish before adding anything else. ] Because it's a part of who you are. I was a kid when this happened to me and now, doing what I do—. [ or did, before he ended up here, he supposes — there's not a whole lot of opportunity to spider-man here, in truth, and it's left him antsy.

it's one of the reasons he was so thrown by being asleep for two weeks: being protected when he could have made a difference played at his sense of guilt, and the awareness that it was all because of a poor choice to eat some food. he's tried not to think too much about what it means as far as his sense of self goes, because he's not sure he'll like the answer.

being peter parker without being spider-man is like losing a part of himself, one that he'd admittedly lost in a very literal sense earlier in the year (thanks, isotope genome accelerator), but—. ] I can't imagine not doing it. [ he's stopped, on occasion. he's not been spider-man for periods of time, but he's always ended up getting pulled back into it because someone or something needs him; and in some way, he needs to be doing it.

it'd been the stumbling block in his and mj's relationship for so long, and just as they were finally — finally! — working through it, he'd found himself here.

(parker luck, eh.) ] And sure, making a difference might not be your reasoning, but you have made a difference, haven't you? To someone. That's what discovery does.

[originallutece]

I suppose.

[But she's no hero, and she never wants to be mistaken for one. She's seen too many idiots rich off their own false stories to want to go down that road. But yes. She's made a difference. Whether or not it was a good difference is down to the specifics.]

Speaking of which . . . so long as you're here and unwilling to donate your blood, you can help in other ways. How strong are you?

[She still has quite a few questions, mind. But she can put him to work while she asks them.]

And is it just you, back in your world, or are there others who wander around in masks?

[webshoots]

What? [ ugh, what is she going to try and get him to do? there's a moment where he looks around, trying to work out just where that's leading and if he wants to be involved. at home, as soon as it approached the 'clean up' side of things, he'd duck out, suddenly needed elsewhere and—

well, if this leads to anything he doesn't want to be involved in, he can always do the same here. ] One-hundred sixty-seven pounds, proportionate strength of a spider, so say we're talking the grip of a jumping spider, we're talking one-hundred seventy times that. You do the math, Do— Madam Lutece. You're the scientist.

[ grumble grumble. ]

There are others. Good guys, bad guys, a few guys in between. Why?

[originallutece]

I'm curious, and I'm doing my best not to demand answers you'll refuse to give.

[More importantly: that's a very precise answer from him. A scientific answer. Did someone else do that for him, or did he do it himself? Hm. She heads to the back, tugging at the tarp, revealing an enormous device half-built.]

I need you to lift up that long iron bracer, please, and hold it while I screw it in place. Who's another "good guy"?

[God, you can just hear the quotes around the words.]