Parker Residence

Felicia Hardy has a ring of purple bruises around her neck. They look nasty but those go away.  The memories Carnage put in her head?  She has that dream every time she goes to sleep.  She trashed a Renoir in her apartment when she freaked out during the nightmare the first day.

She's been trying not to sleep.  She makes arrangements for the shield.  Should be taking a break after a big job, but she's doing break-ins that are too small for her in between the parties.  Anything to keep busy.

Days of this and she's exhausted.  Needs a safe place to crash.  Without anything priceless to break, and with someone to shake her awake if she gets trapped in the nightmare again.

So she lets herself into the Parker residence. It's not breaking and entering if you know which window he leaves unlocked.  Might even have a key somewhere if he never changed the lock.   Not that it would make a difference if he did.

Spider was there that night.  He'll understand.  There's no sign of him, or anyone home when Felicia lets herself in.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:52, Fri 04 Mar 2022.

He landed in the alley to the satisfying crunch of a human femur, as the punk in the red-and-black mask took the brunt of his fall. Moon Knight ignored the scream, even as the punk's friends all whipped around to see why their companion was suddenly bellowing in pain. They all wore the same mask. It wasn't even the first time Moon Knight had seen it that week. It was everywhere.

Carnage.

"M-moon Knight," said one of the masked thugs. That stammer was like gold to Moon Knight: precious and not really all that rare. Behind his own mask, Moon Knight grinned. The mask grinned with him. It did that now.

"There's six of us and one of him," said the largest one. He had a gun pointed at Moon Knight, but his eyes said he lacked the will to use it.

"Five," Moon Knight said. He ground his heel against the fallen punk's leg, eliciting another scream, to remind the gang that one of their number had already fallen. They cringed, and it was beautiful. Then a white tendril whipped out of Moon Knight's side and slammed another punk into the brick alley wall hard enough that there was another crunch of bones. "Four."

Two more of the punks ran. He'd have to track them down, but that would be as easy as anything else he'd done so far.

"Two," he amended.

"He eats faces!" shouted the smaller of the two. He had pulled a knife, but was he was holding it so limply that he was more likely to drop it than use it. He did neither, though. Instead he ran, just leaving the one punk with the gun.

"I don't eat faces," Moon Knight said, edging closer to the last punk. At some point during his abandonment by his comrades, he'd lost the rest of his own nerve, and he froze now. Moon Knight got nose to nose with him, and hissed in a cold rasp, "I keep them."

There was a small thud as the gun hit concrete. The punk had dropped it, more by terror than by intent. He dropped to his knees.

"Please don't kill me," he whispered.

"Take off that mask," Moon Knight demanded.

"Huh?"

"The mask," Moon Knight demanded. "The Carnage mask. Take it off."

"I'm not—"

"Take it off!"

"I'm not wearing a mask!" the punk screamed. He covered his face with his arms. "Don't eat my face!"

Moon Knight grabbed his arms and pulled them away from his face.

There was no mask.

Again.

"Damn it," Moon Knight muttered. "Run away now."

"Wh-what?"

"I said run away!"

The punk ran. The one with the broken leg just lay there and whimpered. He wasn't wearing a mask, either.

"Third fucking time this week." Moon Knight grumbled. He turned and went up the wall. "Shit."

Eddie Brock was a failure, a predator, a loser, and a monster at least in his opinion. But as he accepted a bowl of soup and a slice of bread in a soup kitchen he was a teacher. As he sat as most did alone he tore the bread into pieces and held it in his palm as it vanished into the darkness of his sleeves, "This is a step up from the lowest being a villain took Venom and me. Remember how little it seems to be at first how gaunt some of my fellow humans are getting this maybe once a week. Humanity at its most bent and near broken. We have to protect them give them room to recover away from those that would prey on them."

He walks out after he has finished, "The old lady wasn't there again, it has been a week...," echoed from his jacket's hood. "I asked she had an ambulance outside her house... we'll go check on her the kids loved her candy." With that, a web tendril fires and Shepard Venom swings towards the hospital.

Flushing Cemetery

April Parker had seen her father three times this week, but he hadn't seen her. At least, he hadn't recognized her. Mary-Jane Watson-Pa-- Watson had many more admirers in her short life than Peter Parker or even Spider-Man, and if a handful of them should have visited the family plot to pay their respects over the course of a week... that would no more trigger his Spider-Sense than his own flesh and blood.

April hadn't been there for him. Eventually, he'd exhausted his own grief-- for the moment-- and left April mercifully alone with hers.

She reaches within herself and pulls out a wreath of flowers to lay across Ben and May's grave, and then sits on Mary-Jane's, tracing the engraving on her cenotaph with her fingertips. Born the year Mayday was born. Died... the same year we died. It doesn't make sense.

She hadn't brought a wreath for her mother. She'd refused to believe she needed one.

It just doesn't make sense.

She leaps into the air and webslings herself to the one place on Earth she's most afraid of.

Home.

Parker Residence

The door to her childhood home opens without a sound, and April reforms a couple of dainty little tentacles into her right hand; she doesn't close it behind her, because it always drove Peter and Mary-Jane crazy... and April would give anything for another disappointed lecture. Just one more. She doesn't turn on the lights.

She drifts like a ghost through the brownstone, her hand hovering over her father's personal effects... the detritus of a life that was only almost familiar to her. She opens the refrigerator and peruses Peter Parker's sparse selection of condiments and dearth of actual food. Dad... She closes it behind her and drifts her way up the stairs to the bedroom she'd shared with her sister... for a few months... before she'd ruined everything.

It had been Mary-Jane's office while she was alive, and now an unintentional shrine to her varied careers and interests. Mary-Jane's face, impossibly young, smiles down at April from a framed magazine cover.

April stares back up at it in awe.

And then she drifts out of her bedroom again and... looks in on... Dad won't be home for hours.

She peeks at the bed, and then sits gently on the corner of it. When she speaks, her voice has genuine mirth-- but there's a brittle edge to it as well.

"Hey, Goldilocks, wake up. I think someone's been sleeping in my mother's bed."

Parker Residence

The champagne in the fridge should've been the first hint.

Felicia is sleeping wearing one of Peter's t-shirts, clutching a plush cat.  She's not slept soundly.  The dreams are a little different here.  The Spider being murdered, mostly instead of her father.  It's not really easier.

She jolts awake at the voice, sweating and breathing heavily.  Claws puncture the pillow and retract back into normal fingernails.  There's fresh scratches on the wall too.

"Not the first time that's happened." is the first thing she says.

Followed by "I dunno if you noticed, but there's only one person who lives here, and it's definitely not your mom."  She blinks at April.  She notices the resemblance to Peter immediately, if she didn't already pick up on it the other night.

"He never told me he had a kid."

Parker Residence

April stops. Blinks. "I- I don't think he did. It's not his fault. They kept our crib, you know? After Mayday came home, they kept it, in her room. After I came home... they kept it. They moved it downstairs, so I could have a bed, but they kept it."

Carefully, gently, she takes one of the pillows; she holds it up to her face and sniffs deeply. "I can't smell her anywhere in this house. Even in her shrine." She offers the pillow back to Felicia. "She's... been gone a long time."

"Mom told me about you and Dad. Some." She gestures vaguely, at a loss for words.

"Yeah you're too old to be Red's kid.  So it's some dimensional rift thing?  Explains Cap America Barbie too.  Every day is something like that with him."


She tosses the pillow aside.  She doesn't need it.

She sounds wistful as she continues "I miss that excitement sometimes.  So this is not actually what it looks like.  The Spider and I broke up before Red.  Fundamental incompatibilities.

In my dreams, it feels like Kassady's still there.  I needed a safe place where someone would wake me if I get stuck in the nightmare again.  So I'm here as a friend."

There's a slight pause and then "I guess friend with benefits might be on the table.  For him." just in case the kid misinterpreted that.

"You're not who I expected but thanks.
What time is it?"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:48, Sun 06 Mar 2022.

Parker Residence

"It's... uh, it was almost midnight when I left the cemetery. And I think... I was looking for the same thing you were, when I came here-- minus the booty call, obviously-- but you found it and I... there's nothing for me here. I'm sorry I woke you up." April looks down at her hands. "Guessing you wouldn't consider me real 'safe' right now, but I'm probably not going to try to eat your brain in the next couple hours. You want me to stick around awhile... just, uh, until Dad gets home?"

"I think he needs a friend right now, too. And I think having me around is the last thing he needs... and I think that's kinda mutual. But maybe I can be here while you get some sleep, and gone by the time you wake up, and I can try to figure my life out somewhere else in the morning."

Parker Residence

Felicia blinks and rubs her eyes.  Whatever interactions April has had with Felicia in her world, the chances she's seen her without makeup before now are nonexistent.  "That means I just slept for 10 hours.  That's pretty good even if I need to catch up."

She looks at April.  "Carnage was a monster.  You're just a teenager with alien goo."  Felicia is pretty sure hating all symbiotes is racist.  Even if she's been having very visceral dreams about blood turning into Carnage's tendrils and then crawling down her throat.  Besides, she liked it on the Spider.  And Eddie's not that bad any more.  Pretty weird but well... who does she know that isn't.

"It's... fine.. Mostly fine.  "I am glad your goo isn't red, at least.  You did good that night.  If you're his kid you're safer than most people I know.  You want me to order something to eat?  He doesn't have anything.

I can see how he might not want to see his non-existent daughter if he's all mopey about your mom.  If it was what I think happened, it wasn't his fault."

She stands up and stretches.  The shirt is long enough on her to be decent.  Barely.

"You grew up in this house.  I think he should ditch it and live in Avengers tower without pizza stains on the sheets.  Spider outclasses half of them and still he wants to spend half his time as boring old Peter Parker.  I'll never understand that." 
This message was last edited by the player at 14:48, Mon 07 Mar 2022.

Parker Residence



"But good luck telling him that, right?" April sighs heavily. "I'm not a kid anymore. Or I'm a kid again... but I've had decades to try to figure it out. I've never... really been Dad's daughter. Mayday was his little girl, and I was just a monster cooked up in a lab to hurt him. The fact... the fact that I'm not that to your Spider-Man is a blessing in disguise."

She thinks for a moment. "He wasn't wrong, you know. Mom and Mayday always believed in me, but they didn't live long enough to see me prove them right. Or maybe they did, maybe they're alive right now, maybe they're laying flowers on an empty grave wishing I was there. I don't know. It's complicated."

"I could eat," she belatedly replies. She's now holding a roll of bills, held together with a rubber band. "I can chip in. I thought I was rich when I lifted this, but everything's so much more expensive than I thought."



April actually smiles at this. "My dad had to be Peter Parker full-time, and he hated it. He denied it, but he kept his old police scanner-- that one!" she points at, indeed, the shiny new police scanner on Parker's dresser, "-- and every time one of his old punching bags made an appearance, he'd just... twitch, like it was all he could do not to jump right out the window." She even... laughs. A little.

"I wonder if you're onto something, though. His leg wouldn't really have stopped him, if he still wanted to keep fighting. Couple of times someone came after Mom or Benji, Dad was almost as good as he ever was. Hell, he was still almost as good as Mayday, and she... she..."

"A lot of the old guard Avengers, the survivors, and the old X-People before Professor Lee... they always said Dad had been the best of them. And... in my time, that's what everyone said about Mayday, too. She was the best."

"Dad's problem, whether he's Spider-Man or just Peter Parker, is half the time he doesn't know what he wants, and the other half of the time, he doesn't believe he deserves it. That's why Mom was so good for him... she was the only person strong enough to stop him from punishing himself."
This message was last edited by the player at 07:22, Tue 08 Mar 2022.

"It's covered". Felicia pushes away the money.  She grabs and pulls on her black leggings that were lying on the bathroom floor.  They aren't part of her Cat suit but they'd work for it in a pinch.  She doesn't bother changing out of Pete's shirt.

"I'm getting Thai.  You want the same thing he'd get, just double portion for the Klyntar?"  Symbiotes always seem hungry.

She washes her face and starts putting on eye makeup while thumbing the order into her phone.  She makes a face regarding the cleanliness of the bathroom.  "So you're as bad with money as your dad, and much older than you look.  I'd ask about your skincare routine but I think I already know." 

"He doesn't need all the baggage, he's new at this parent stuff.  Definitely don't lead with the 'you had three kids but I'm talking about them in the past tense' thing.  Let him get to know April."  She finishes with the mirror and turns back towards April.

"Almost all the heroes that went to space didn't come back.  If he wants to blame himself I'm glad he's still here to do that."

"Sure, that sounds great." April picks up a picture frame off of Peter's nightstand. "You know..." she begins, then pauses, "... I'm not actually a host like Eddie. Or like Dad and Cape Guy or everyone else that night. I'm actually part klyntar, like, thirty-two percent; I still have some of Eddie's nightmares."

"I don't think Osborn even had a plan. He just knew these things freak Dad out."



"What happened up there?"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:21, Thu 10 Mar 2022.

"Yeah, don't lead with that one either."  No surprise old man Parker was freaked out about her.  Girl needs to learn to filter the information.



Felicia shrugs.  "Sorceress Supreme can tell you.  Think it's where she got the job.  I try to keep it to kicking mobsters and guys dressed like animals, or at least tech I mostly understand.  I come across artifacts of great mystical power, I sell them to Strange.  At least before he bit it.  Whatever it was killed him plus three of the Four, Cap, Mar-vell, Vision, Hulk, Pym, Van Dyne, and Logan."

A slight pause.

"I thought the Wolverines were immortal.  I guess if Jubilation is head of the X-men in the future you know better too.  After that people started disappearing everywhere.  If Spider wasn't the best before, he is now.

The future you lived in, where he's only Peter Parker?  I don't think this world survives that one.  Much as I want to know what it holds for me.  The Black Cougar?"

Snap list: https://docs.google.com/docume...iuO0QJenM73kYG-yS6qk
Spider-woman is on the list so that should be figured out at some point.  our PC Spider-woman is established as Jessica Drew (though her identity is private and probably only known to a few of the PCs but I don't know if she's established as this timeline's Jessica Drew or if that list should be tweaked.  Julia Carpenter would be an easy swap.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:54, Thu 10 Mar 2022.

"I guess we had our own version of 'gone to space', while I was still enjoying a womb with a view in Osborn's Swiss chateau. Loki tried to get all his old enemies to kill each other, hands forever stained with blood!--" she rolls her eyes as she slips into the worst Bela Lugosi impression humankind has ever witnessed, "-- and the Hulk and Loki got banished to Limbo, Cap gave his shield to Shannon and turned into a constellation, and the Five lost Reed and Franklin."

"All the old-timers hung up their tights after that. Professor Lee--" April puts up a good fight, but breaks into giggles here, "Jubilation, really? You're kidding, you gotta be messing with me." She takes a deep breath. "Professor Lee took over the X-People, Shannon and Mayday took over the Avengers."

She frowns, and then ages before Felicia's eyes. "In the end... it was just me and Cassie, Zayne and Torus. And Carnage."



"Nah, you hung that up before me and Mayday were even born, started working the other side of the street. Private investigator, security consultant. 'It's just like burglary', you said, except the mark's the one that pays you. You helped me and Mayday take some bad men off the street, Cat." Her face takes on a hard cast and the picture frame she was looking at shatters in her hands; she lays it back down on Peter's desk. "After she died, you begged me to turn myself in. You and Felicity both. And then you begged the Avengers and SHIELD to take me alive, listen to my side of the story."

She coughs, and her eyes stop watering. "I'm sorry, Cat. You made a very good life for yourself, and you helped a lot of people. And you always made it look so easy. Much as you want to deny it... you're more 'one of us' than I ever was."

Felicia listens intently, raising a few eyebrows for most of it.



At this she goes completely still.  The only thing she says is "Felicity?"

Eddie sat on the roof of the hospital his feet dangling off the side. To his side sat a bucket of chicken and a family-sized empty soda bottle, "We made her comfortable it was the best we could do. For a few moments, you guys were her hero." He pauses and he chews a chicken leg, "We can't save everyone as Venom said but it was good to try." He looks over at the bucket and finds it is empty, "Break time is over it seems."

Eddie stands and his clothes turn to a multi-colored liquid and change into his Sheppard persona, "Honestly I'm also surprised we haven't run into the others by now as well even if we stick to the slums." And then they swing off into the night.

"Oh... uh... right. Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry." She falls silent for several seconds, processing her thoughts.  "Felicity Thompson, in case... y'know... you thought this was a lifetime low." She stifles a laugh, more or less, and grows younger as she recounts her years in high school, "I was curious why Coach was always harping on her to work on her rebounds." She stifles this laugh... less. "God, I'm so sorry. Felicity was the Scarlet Spider for a little while, blackmailed Mayday into letting her wear Uncle Ben's costume and be her little sidekick. Made all of her own gear, did her own patrols when Mayday wasn't available."

"She was so good at it, though. Even better after she hung up the tights and started working for you. She saw all the pieces, she saw how they all fit. She must have gotten that from you."

She laughs openly this time.

"Speaking of always trying to get into our tights, Gene was always a little shit-- sorry-- but I think he might have been the only person on Earth who liked me better. Diana told me once, when we were dating, that Gene would 'grow into himself' once he got away from that whole high school/varsity culture." She sobers up again, drifting back through middle age. "I would have liked to have seen that."

"I couldn't possibly be describing your future, Felicia." She waves a delicate, frail-looking hand around the room. "Any more than this could possibly be my past. I hadn't realized that yet, I didn't want to admit it... but this world will never become the one that Mayday and I grew up in."

"Thank you, dearie. Life's too short to worry about histories that never happened and destinies that never will."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:00, Fri 11 Mar 2022.

What April just said is apparently hilarious.  Felicia lights up and speaks, explaining slowly.

"Sweetie,
You are telling me
That my daughter
Is a Spider.
And everyone thinks
That
Flash
is her father?"

She takes a moment to burst into laughter here.

"I only dated that guy to make the Spider jealous."  A little more laughter.  Flash was pretty athletic for a regular person, but a military guy was not a good match.  She couldn't tell him what she really did, and she tried to talk about sports with him but he had the nerve to tell her that gymnastics wasn't a real sport.

"I mean, Gene is probably his.  I wouldn't have let one of you date your half-brother.  Not if I liked you.  Or him.
And obviously your mom is not that gullible.  Not unless the Scarlet Spider's identity is ironclad.  Spider wouldn't while they were together.  So there's a missing piece.  Happened before, your parents on a break, something like that.

My money is on door number three.
Ben Reilly.
She even wears her father's costume.  This is brilliant.
I wonder if Flash ever figured it out.  Does he fucking hate me?"

The food arrives, and Felicia pays the delivery person with a hundred dollar bill.  If this seems like way too much to April, it's because it is.  She notices the door ajar.  Looks all over the room.  She points to it and mouths to April totally silently "Was that you?"

OOC: Felicity's father being Ben Reilly isn't MC2 canon but this makes the most sense to Felicia as she is now, and I think a smart MC2 writer would have at least hinted at it... It's been a while since I read the Spider-Girl series but notably Felicity's last name is Hardy while Gene's is Thompson.  I don't remember which of them is older, and the wiki doesn't help there.  I think they're both +/- one year from Mayday's age.

April laughs along with Felicia, since none of this even matters. "You know, some people said that a three-year marriage showed a lack of commitment in your part. As God as is my witness, I'll never let them say it again."



"Oh, Coach Thompson definitely hated you, but my dad and your kids didn't have anything to do with it. And... you know, Felicity never really had any powers that me or Mayday knew of. Uncle Ben's son... that's a story. Was that really the real M--" April seems to realize she should be a little cagey, "-- Daredevil in Yankee Stadium with us? I thought it was my cousin Reilly until he started talking."



April shakes her head 'no' a moment before she becomes Mayhem, and Mayhem drops into a low and liquid crouch a moment before she becomes invisible. The takeout containers arrange themselves on the coffee table like they were caught mid-meal... and a few moments after that, the upstairs toilet flushes.

The clock ticks agonizingly slowly... and then April reappears. "Oh, yeah. Sorry."

She closes the door firmly, locks it, and offers Felicia an embarrassed shrug.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:43, Fri 11 Mar 2022.

Felicia visibly relaxes when April admits to leaving the door unlocked.  Her hands relax and dangerous-looking claws disappear back into her fingertips.  There's no lecture.  Felicia is not her parent, after all.  "It's a miracle no one bombed this place when he took that mask off." is all she says.

Then she heads over to the food.  There's an extra container that she sets to the side, and she pops one claw back out to scratch a stick-figure spider into the center of, then a cat into the top-left corner as if it's a return address.

"No powers.  That sounds like Bad Luck."  It's not convincing Felicia.  Makes sense to her that their powers might interact to cancel out, or leave Felicia's dominant.

"There's only one Devil of Hell's Kitchen.  Unless the ninja steps in, but you'd definitely notice her."  Felicia doesn't know if Electra is still around, but she's kind of terrified of her.   "Easier to avoid the neighborhood.  Not worth it."  Felicia will get over it, but she's a little mad that Daredevil saved a seemingly dead Urich over a definitely alive Cat who was trying to help him.  A few minutes later he preached to her about how every life matters when saving Killgrave.  Some more than others, obviously.
She picks up her chopsticks and takes a few bites of her noodles.  "Do you happen to have any pictures of them?"  Her kids.


OOC: 616 Felicia has her claws as implants at least in Jed MacKay's run and I love the idea.  They are still functionally gear that can be shut down/malfunction.  In this scene I would assume that they're the only cat suit power she has access to right now.  Other than that, her gear should be the same as what she uses in the PS4 game (which has a much more practical costume than the main universe)

Felicia probably doesn't know Daredevil's secret identity or any of the other PCs that aren't public even though she's possibly dealt with Matt Murdock in the past.  (Spidey and Eddie have theirs as public and those are the most likely ones she'd know.)
This message was last edited by the player at 21:54, Fri 11 Mar 2022.

Sheppard looked down as the cops loaded folks into their cars and the paramedics worked on a few of the more unfortunate ones, "Good job everyone. Purple you did great on keeping the kids calm. What?" He pauses and chuckles, "We'll have to okay it with their parents first. Got to remember the rest of us aren't clowns though kiddo." He nods, "Indeed Venom little brown was very effective with his takedowns of the guy with the gun. The proper amount of fear and force. I did notice you rack the gun to scare him after you ate the bullets Venom. That is the first fellow I've seen pee himself by sound alone."

He chuckles as they swing away, "And Brown managed to snatch the pee-pants pocket so they get to pick Chicken or Pizza for dinner!"

Parker Residence



"Uh... maybe?" April concentrates for a moment, and a long-obsolete smartphone extrudes from the palm of her hand. She frowns at the cracks in the screen, but it eventually powers up and April starts thumbing through the photos. "Oh, here's one of me and Gene." She hands the phone over to Felicia.

"I don't think it works anymore... in this timeline, I mean. I'm going to have to get a new one before, well, before I have anyone I need to call. Do you think you could hold onto it for me, until I get back?"

Parker Residence

Felicia thought she was going to have to snap a photo of the screen with her phone, but April is just... giving it to her?  Unlocked?  No one trusts the Black Cat that much.  And they shouldn't.  I mean April should be aware that Felicia just stole American Dream's shield.  Although April obviously doesn't have any accounts or anything to protect in this dimension.

She looks at the photo, trying to see herself in the teenager's face.  She never thought she'd be much of a mother.  Now she's wondering.  At least one of her kids in that timeline took after her, sort of.

"You sure you even want this brick back?  This things's what, first-gen?"  It's so heavy.

"I can get you a working one, with your files on it.  Until then, I have business.  You see your dad, tell him I'll be back in a day or so.  Or just let him figure it out."
The only question in Felicia's mind is whether she's going to be able to pull everything off that phone herself, (probably, it's not like it's alien tech or anything.) or if she'll need to show it to the Tinkerer.

Felicia hasn't exactly tried to hide her presence in the apartment, in addition to her distinctive hair in the bed, she's left scratches on the bedroom walls, a makeup bag, the food, and likely more.

She heads back into the bedroom and changes into her own clothes.  Then the Cat leaves, via the same window she used to come in.

Slums

Felicia lands on a rooftop right next to Venom.  "Hey Eddie.  Pretty weird out there still.  I heard some guys saying somebody tried to eat their faces a couple hours ago.  I'm not sure if he was serious or on something.  That's not you, right?  Or your... herd?"  What even is the word for a group of Klyntar, she wonders.

Attackers don't typically sit overlooking the paramedics while they work.  And Eddie's a hero now right?  More hero than Felicia is.  "I'm actually glad I ran into you.  I think I know someone who could use your help."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:31, Tue 15 Mar 2022.