[Tormenting Marc via text became a pastime Peter fell into by mistake. At least that's how he'd make sense of it, this non-Avengers, non-team, non-extended contacts Spider-Man. And sure, m they're all doomed to some brand of despair, but if there was a contest out of the three Spider-Men that met in Younger Peter's version of the world, this Peter would win. It's not really a flex, either, it's just a fact. Younger Peter had a little team, older Peter was making it work with his MJ. This Peter didn't have an MJ, he'd had a Gwen, and that was enough to tell Peter no more.
But the point is, the contact with Marc hadn't been intentional because Peter's friendly enough on the surface he just is, again, always got a little bit of an icy edge if anything comes too close for too long. Texts and calls to tease the guy in the white suit he'd crashed into one day? That's textbook mistake stuff; this Spider-Man doesn't have Captain America or Tony Stark on speed dial.
Instead, somehow, he has Moon Knight.
Which is weird and probably best not thought on too long or hard because it just might betray something more.
And so, of course, it's just better to continue in the spirit of every other time they've talked. Except it's weird without the masks. Or the phones. Because, honestly, the phone is just another mask.]
You saying instead of punching passports they punch heads on arrival here? Sheesh, next time I'll take the Greyhound.
[He did take the Greyhound; Peter's not flying anywhere unless someone's paying for it, and science conventions only pay speakers, not listeners.]
Makes New York downright friendly... [That part's mostly muttered, like he's not entirely sure he's wanting to commit to the bit, though largely it's just distraction: quipping is hard when you're disorientated and effectively trying to laugh off being beamed in a strange town and picked up by the Moon Man.
Which is... odd. Odd timing, odd location. Just... odd. It makes Peter's brow furrow, trying to remember if he effectively left Moon Knight an out of office message (nope) or if he invited him along (also nope) or--]
But hey, if you were gonna follow me over state lines you should've just said, we could've made a road trip out of it. I mean, you got a license, right?
[When you've spend several years in a proto-reality dystopian sex prison city with several other kidnapped participants from various worlds and times, pesky things like the traversing the multiverse don't really seem all that out of reach as they once might have.
Granted, the people of Tyria has long accepted the concept of fractal realities, planes between worlds and outer dimensions. On even smaller scales, Asura gates and Waypoints allow magical transportation across vast swathes of land as easily and quickly as stepping through a door and onto the other side.
For Hakkyuu, both in Duplicity and after being ejected from it, the multiverse has more of a impression of something inconvenient rather than impossible. And when you spent several years in in a proto-reality dystopian sex prison city getting close to one version of multiple universes most reputable (type of reputation: questionable) sorcerers, it only really seems like a matter of time before someone takes a jaunt to another world.
What Stephen has is direct experience and dense libraries of grand ancient knowledge; what Hakkyuu has is local magitech encounters which he doesn't understand the ins-and-outs of and a magical artefact Stephen made while they were both in Duplicity with no instruction manual. It's basically the same thing, right?
Maybe that's why, when Hakkyuu goes on his inter-dimensional gallivant, that he does do pretty well, all things considered. The right world, the right country, the right city, the right time. Perfect, right? Well, sure, except it's the wrong version. Woopies!
There are other things Hakkyuu didn't account for, like how powerful an energy signal from a Stephen Strange's magical trinket might be when casually opening a hole between worlds or whose proverbial alarms might be getting tripped as he too casually hops right on in and onto the sidewalk, but who is he to sweat the small stuff.
On the plus, maps exist all over the damn place and he's got an address in his mind on Bleecker Street. So far so good. Nothing like a stroll through New York City. Super casual, no big deal.
Except on the approach to the Sanctum Sanctorum, something does seem... off. Not so off that it makes Hakkyuu slow his stride or reach for weapons or start churning up magic, but off like trying to make a magic eye puzzle work that isn't cooperating. Something he isn't expecting and doesn't know how to place. Something off and uncanny.
And when it comes to off and uncanny, Hakkyuu does what he typically does, which is stare it down and point at it.]
... What the fuck are you doing here?
[Which might land like Hakkyuu had just wandered into Marc's livingroom to level that question at him, given this is Marc's world, not Hakkyuu's.]
( marc is no stranger to WEIRD. arguably, life in duplicity had been the most normal his life has — had — been in a long time. there had been no khonshu, no midnight mission, no gods and no death. sure, it wasn't quite what marc would call a good time, but it'd been simple. the closest (saddest) thing to the sort of normality marc had always wanted, and yet—.
but home's home, regardless of anything else.
he hasn't always lived in the city, that's been a relatively new affair born of necessity — grant manor no longer quite inhabitable, and even if it had been, it's much too large, much too empty for one man. each room and every beat of silence would serve only as a reminder of everyone marc had lost — not to death, not this time, but by being him. by being unable to be the man any of them had wanted him to be, had needed to be. had believed, for a time, that he could be.
the midnight mission is a much smaller affair, but no less ostentatious in its own way. the outside fits in, neatly, with the aesthetics of manhattan, a mixture of red brick and glass, the latter — the main windows — featuring a white crescent moon, just in case anyone was ever under illusions as to just who lived inside.
stephen's sanctum sanctorum is— different to the midnight mission, and marc's never had anyone mistake one for the latter. he's never had anyone come to him expecting stephen. he has, annoyingly, had people come to him thinking he's much more supernaturally, much more magically inclined than he is (not at all), but that's where the similarities begin and they end.
the inside of the mission is green with well-looked after plants (no flowers—), decorated and furnished in deep, dark hues and accented with gold. the main room, less a living room than it is a reception, partly due to necessity and partly because marc has found himself caught in an odd desire not to make the mission feel too much like a home.
there are, this said, plush, comfortable chairs, again in green, as well an assortment of books. a sarcophagus, a statue, and in front of that—
it's the very man hakkyuu's questioning, his eyes wide and startled, bemusement stark and very evident. eyebrows raised in a question even as his hair curls, as ever, across his forehead and, after a beat, completely disregarding hakkyuu's question, marc manages— )
Welcome to the Midnight Mission, my name's Mr. Knight. How can I help? ( it's wry, dry and almost amused, accompanied by a broad gesture with both hands as if in emphasis at 'the midnight mission'.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Almost a literal year later, but who's counting, right? :')
[Tormenting Marc via text became a pastime Peter fell into by mistake. At least that's how he'd make sense of it, this non-Avengers, non-team, non-extended contacts Spider-Man. And sure, m they're all doomed to some brand of despair, but if there was a contest out of the three Spider-Men that met in Younger Peter's version of the world, this Peter would win. It's not really a flex, either, it's just a fact. Younger Peter had a little team, older Peter was making it work with his MJ. This Peter didn't have an MJ, he'd had a Gwen, and that was enough to tell Peter no more.
But the point is, the contact with Marc hadn't been intentional because Peter's friendly enough on the surface he just is, again, always got a little bit of an icy edge if anything comes too close for too long. Texts and calls to tease the guy in the white suit he'd crashed into one day? That's textbook mistake stuff; this Spider-Man doesn't have Captain America or Tony Stark on speed dial.
Instead, somehow, he has Moon Knight.
Which is weird and probably best not thought on too long or hard because it just might betray something more.
And so, of course, it's just better to continue in the spirit of every other time they've talked. Except it's weird without the masks. Or the phones. Because, honestly, the phone is just another mask.]
You saying instead of punching passports they punch heads on arrival here? Sheesh, next time I'll take the Greyhound.
[He did take the Greyhound; Peter's not flying anywhere unless someone's paying for it, and science conventions only pay speakers, not listeners.]
Makes New York downright friendly... [That part's mostly muttered, like he's not entirely sure he's wanting to commit to the bit, though largely it's just distraction: quipping is hard when you're disorientated and effectively trying to laugh off being beamed in a strange town and picked up by the Moon Man.
Which is... odd. Odd timing, odd location. Just... odd. It makes Peter's brow furrow, trying to remember if he effectively left Moon Knight an out of office message (nope) or if he invited him along (also nope) or--]
But hey, if you were gonna follow me over state lines you should've just said, we could've made a road trip out of it. I mean, you got a license, right?
And jackass number 2
Granted, the people of Tyria has long accepted the concept of fractal realities, planes between worlds and outer dimensions. On even smaller scales, Asura gates and Waypoints allow magical transportation across vast swathes of land as easily and quickly as stepping through a door and onto the other side.
For Hakkyuu, both in Duplicity and after being ejected from it, the multiverse has more of a impression of something inconvenient rather than impossible. And when you spent several years in in a proto-reality dystopian sex prison city getting close to one version of multiple universes most reputable (type of reputation: questionable) sorcerers, it only really seems like a matter of time before someone takes a jaunt to another world.
What Stephen has is direct experience and dense libraries of grand ancient knowledge; what Hakkyuu has is local magitech encounters which he doesn't understand the ins-and-outs of and a magical artefact Stephen made while they were both in Duplicity with no instruction manual. It's basically the same thing, right?
Maybe that's why, when Hakkyuu goes on his inter-dimensional gallivant, that he does do pretty well, all things considered. The right world, the right country, the right city, the right time. Perfect, right? Well, sure, except it's the wrong version. Woopies!
There are other things Hakkyuu didn't account for, like how powerful an energy signal from a Stephen Strange's magical trinket might be when casually opening a hole between worlds or whose proverbial alarms might be getting tripped as he too casually hops right on in and onto the sidewalk, but who is he to sweat the small stuff.
On the plus, maps exist all over the damn place and he's got an address in his mind on Bleecker Street. So far so good. Nothing like a stroll through New York City. Super casual, no big deal.
Except on the approach to the Sanctum Sanctorum, something does seem... off. Not so off that it makes Hakkyuu slow his stride or reach for weapons or start churning up magic, but off like trying to make a magic eye puzzle work that isn't cooperating. Something he isn't expecting and doesn't know how to place. Something off and uncanny.
And when it comes to off and uncanny, Hakkyuu does what he typically does, which is stare it down and point at it.]
... What the fuck are you doing here?
[Which might land like Hakkyuu had just wandered into Marc's livingroom to level that question at him, given this is Marc's world, not Hakkyuu's.]
SORRY THIS HAS TAKEN A MONTH
but home's home, regardless of anything else.
he hasn't always lived in the city, that's been a relatively new affair born of necessity — grant manor no longer quite inhabitable, and even if it had been, it's much too large, much too empty for one man. each room and every beat of silence would serve only as a reminder of everyone marc had lost — not to death, not this time, but by being him. by being unable to be the man any of them had wanted him to be, had needed to be. had believed, for a time, that he could be.
the midnight mission is a much smaller affair, but no less ostentatious in its own way. the outside fits in, neatly, with the aesthetics of manhattan, a mixture of red brick and glass, the latter — the main windows — featuring a white crescent moon, just in case anyone was ever under illusions as to just who lived inside.
stephen's sanctum sanctorum is— different to the midnight mission, and marc's never had anyone mistake one for the latter. he's never had anyone come to him expecting stephen. he has, annoyingly, had people come to him thinking he's much more supernaturally, much more magically inclined than he is (not at all), but that's where the similarities begin and they end.
the inside of the mission is green with well-looked after plants (no flowers—), decorated and furnished in deep, dark hues and accented with gold. the main room, less a living room than it is a reception, partly due to necessity and partly because marc has found himself caught in an odd desire not to make the mission feel too much like a home.
there are, this said, plush, comfortable chairs, again in green, as well an assortment of books. a sarcophagus, a statue, and in front of that—
it's the very man hakkyuu's questioning, his eyes wide and startled, bemusement stark and very evident. eyebrows raised in a question even as his hair curls, as ever, across his forehead and, after a beat, completely disregarding hakkyuu's question, marc manages— )
Welcome to the Midnight Mission, my name's Mr. Knight. How can I help? ( it's wry, dry and almost amused, accompanied by a broad gesture with both hands as if in emphasis at 'the midnight mission'.