voyagers | [party post] come sail away with me

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[party post] come sail away with me

You've come through a door, and you are on a boat. Specifically, you're on a cruise ship in the middle of some giant body of water. You've come through the door behind you which is attached to nothing and may now be locked. It's relatively empty as giant as it appears to be. The only other passengers that are here appear to also have come through the door for the most part and it is not nearly enough to fill up this entire cruise ship.

Also, who knows who the hell is driving this thing since all of the employees appear to be either ghosts or holograms...

Is this your first time here or your hundredth time here? Do you want a drink or a dip in the pool? Is it day or night? Do you stumble on your room or some other situation either fun or painful within its many rooms, shops, and facilities? Do you run into someone you know or a complete stranger?

The possibilities are unlimited!

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Peter smiles at her at what she says, and they've just met, but he doesn't really have any doubts that she can get there. "That is a seriously awesome life dream," he says, adjusting his glasses a bit but he means that very genuinely. "And molecular biology is so cool. I mean, examining the cells themselves like the building blocks right there, and the interactions between DNA and protein biosynthesis and all of everything that it has to do with. It's a great path to pursue, and I mean all the things you can do with that knowledge and teaching others it so they can make advancements in the field is--"

Peter clears his throat a bit, realizing after a second that he's rambling, his science ramble thing.

He's a science geek too though, and while he is more into the technological side, he helped finish that formula that... created a giant man-lizard, but still. The point is he loves science as much as he hastily said it to Gwen to explain why he'd been sneaking into Oscorp, he really, really does.

He's rambling, but Liz is just — enchanted. Not in the boyfriend stealing kind of way, but where has this fellow science-inclined mind been all her life? She was always that lone person in science labs and classes who was a little more into the subject material than the rest of the class, who had a tendency to reference experiments and biologists who even the teachers were sometimes unfamiliar with. To hear someone talk as passionately about something she just loves is — it's nice.

It's human. And in this moment, Liz feels more human than she has since before she was shot.

(Maybe being on this boat isn't so bad.)

"It's amazing. And important. Incredibly important. More important than people realize. I kind of want to make them realize. You know?"

Peter smiles sideways at her at what she says before he nods in agreement, because he sees the importance of it. He loves science, understands it even if it isn't anything that he can do for a job full time because of his other gig as Spider-man. It's why he works as a photographer despite being as passionate about science as he is. Being Spider-man doesn't really give him room to have a fulltime job so it's really, really cool for him too to be able to talk about it again.

"Yeah, making people realize how important it is is really important too, and if you're passionate about it and passionate about teaching people, educating them on it? You're half way there," he says as his smile widens. She is half way to being able to get people to realize how important and amazing it is.

Being on the run from the FBI wouldn't have left her with many opportunities to pursue her scientific goals, either. In some ways, Liz is grateful to Tess for showing up when she did, for being present when the hybrids' true purpose on Earth was revealed. Rebirth and destiny — who was she to get in the way of that when she had a destiny of her own? One that didn't involve Max Evans or aliens.

"I think you're the first person I've met — and I'm talking ever — who thinks that's as important as I do. Usually people just brush it all off as a geek fantasy."

"Really? That must suck though. I mean, just wait until you get to Harvard or any big city, there's places of science, and they really, really get it. Not just geek fantasy, they live it too," Peter says with a soft smile as he leans back against the seat some, looking over at her. "My dad-- He was a scientist too so I guess I got it from him or something."

There is definitely a passion to science that people don't get, and he will never understand how others can't really process how important it is. This is how they make advancements, discoveries that could change the world for the better. As long as it's all done ethically, when he finished that formula, no one bothered doing safe tests on it before Dr. Connors injected it into himself. If they would, they would have known.

"It's Roswell," she says with a shrug. Her tone lacks the bitterness that might be present in other's, because she knows her town and she doesn't fault it for it's failings. "Geek fantasy's are sort of a defining aspect. At least, Hollywood seems to think so."

As does reality, but people don't know what Liz Parker knows. And they never will.

"What kind of a scientist?"

Peter smirks softly at what she says, how she shrugs without any bitterness, but just a fact of the place she comes from. "Yeah, that's... kind of the way that it seems," he says, and New York City is in so many movies and TV and Hollywood that it's ridiculous.

He can't imagine living somewhere that just has this one slant to it shown over and over again.

"Biologist specifically with genetics. He was... uh, working on cross species genetics actually to try to take benefits that animals have and find a way to-- to transfer some of those over to people. Like how lizards can grow back their own limbs when they lose them, that-- that kind of thing." It just got really complicated.

Liz wants to badly to say that it's possible, but may not be possible yet with the tools of the human trade. Humanity isn't quite there, but the Antarians were able to do it. They were able to sample Human DNA and hybridize it with their own, creating Human-Antarian Hybrids in Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess. And those abilities that the Antarians possessed transferred to the human forms they took. It's not just human talent in them, it's the alien royal family they were once a part of, too.

Instead she smiles, clearly fascinated for what she feels are not entirely disingenuous reasons. She liked science before she got caught up with aliens.

"Being able to regrow a limb would mean the world to the military, nevermind all those kids who are born without them. How far did he get in his research, if it's okay to ask?"

She senses that the 'was' means something happened. People don't use past tense unless things are in the past. Were. Liz isn't tactless enough to ask that question.

"It's okay," Peter says after a moment. It has been years for him since all of that happened, and he finally put to rest that search for his father that lead to nothing (lead to more destruction). His father is the man that raised him, that died against his hands, Uncle Ben. Much as he wishes he could have known Richard Parker, he is so grateful to have been raised by his uncle and his aunt. "Uh, really, really far. Farther than anyone realized before... I found his work that he'd hidden away. It was ready to be tested on animals like that... that ready, and so... I did the thing and gave his work to the man he'd been working with before. Who couldn't wait, I guess. He'd lost his arm, and it was really... personal for him. Anyway, the side effects were too terrible even if the regrowing the limbs thing happened too."

There was no way to control which parts of the animal was transferred over in the cross-species thing at least not that they had found. Dr. Connors is still in jail as far as Peter knows.

And he knows he regrets it too, all of it like Peter does. He regrets not leaving well enough alone and all the destruction that that lead to.

"Side effects?"

Liz doesn't know it yet, but there's side effects to Max dissolving that bullet in her abdomen, piecing her torn flesh back together, and pulling her consciousness back from the brink. One day she'll get too worked up and accidentally set something ablaze and then she'll know. But for now, she's blissfully unaware of her own hidden potential that she's just starting to unlock.

Peter scratches the back of his neck as he winces slightly, because he knows the answer is going to be hard to believe. It's just-- it is what happened, and it's been a long time now since it did.

"Turned into a... giant lizard man. Not just that, it's not like he was himself as a giant lizard. It messed with his head too, made him more aggressive and violent. Kept the smarts though and the ability to talk. He was trying to turn everyone else into giant lizard men too. It was... this big thing."

"That's..." Liz tucks an errant strand of hair behind an ear. "That's new, but not impossible, I guess? I mean, I was just pulled out of time and space onto some ship going nowhere. Giant lizards actually sounds kind of normal in comparison."

Nevermind aliens.

Peter smirks softly. "Yeah, after being pulled out of time and space on to a ship going nowhere, there's not a whole lot that can be surprising anymore," he says, ducking his head slightly. "But uh, yeah. He was able to be cured eventually just not after causing some serious damage."

Killing someone. There's usually death.

"Oh."

Liz is quick enough on the uptake to guess what kind of serious damage that was. In all her time submerged in the world of aliens and government secrets, nobody's ever died. That alien hunter, sure, but that was more... That was something she had a hard time feeling bad about. And her own death was sort of off the table, given her resurrection.

"I'm sorry that happened."

Peter sees the understanding cross her face, and he looks down. It was a long time ago, but death has happened a lot around him. It's happened both around him and because of him. That was one of those times where it was both. Those are things that never really leave him. No matter how long it has been.

He still remembers his Uncle Ben's blood against his palms. He still remembers the promise that Captain Stacy made him make, his last words (Peter would break that promise... which just reminds him of a breaking sound, the sound of a back snapping).

"Uh, yeah," he says after a moment, sliding a hand behind his neck as he releases a slow and shaky breath. "Me too. One of those things where you can't know when you do it everything... it's going to lead to."

Peter had no idea that Captain Stacy would die because he gave the complete formula to Dr. Connors, but it was his fault and he lives with that.

"Science comes with that sort of risk."

Not just science, though. Life itself came with those sort of risks, the inability to know what was going to happen next. You could be laughing with your best friend behind the counter of your family's diner one moment, and laying in a pool of your own blood the next.

You broke a bottle when you fell. Spilled ketchup on yourself. Don't say anything, please.

She'd swear it was ketchup on her uniform until the day she died.

"Life comes with those sort of risks. There's no way anyone could've known that was going to happen."

Peter looks over at her when she speaks, and he slides a hand behind his neck, sensing there's another level to her understanding at what she says.

"It does. Sounds like you have some experience," he says quietly, ducking his head again as he shakes it a bit. "No. There's no way we could have known, but I can't say that I thought about the possible consequences very much before I... made that decision for my own selfish reasons. My dad kept it hidden for a reason so that's on me. I wouldn't want to be the type of person that can make a choice like that and not feel the weight of those... consequences, y'know?"

Never mind he was seventeen at the time. He was a giant idiot, and it's not something Peter would do anymore now that he is older, now that there have been more deaths and more destruction as consequences of his choices.

Unbidden, images of the White Room enter her head. Those things the FBI did to Max, how they tortured him in the name of science—

It takes all of her willpower not to wince, to just smile and shrug innocently like she hasn't glimpsed some of the horrors science has to offer. She does nothing to betray the fact that she feels guilty for still loving this subject in spite of the risks, in spite of the horrors.

"Yeah. Consequences. There always seems to be consequences to everything. Even the things you didn't think came with consequences."

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[party post] come sail away with me

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