nomoneystillproblems | call me maybe

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

you can't put me in bigger trouble than i've already been in

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

Yes? Preferably? I'd like for all of us to go about our business

FROM: rogers.s@cdc.org

Sorry but I can't do that.

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

now you're being difficult

FROM: rogers.s@cdc.org

Yup.

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

okay

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

how about you read my file and do the math

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

because I had this conversation with the other you already and I'm sick to death of it

[There's a long pause after that. Too long for just reading over the file once, at least. Steve's answer comes far later. Peter might have even moved on by the time he sends his next message.]

FROM: rogers.s@cdc.org

He let you down. I'm sorry.

[He's spent that stretch face down in his pillow, unmoving. But much like Steve, the time it takes to drum up a reply is elongated. He's gone and grabbed himself a snack, some water. Fidgeting and reading those six words over and over and over until he starts to feel too damn pathetic, even by his own standards.]

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

You told me I was an embarrassment right before it and should quit.

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

just leave me alone.

FROM: rogers.s@cdc.org

I can't do that.

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

stop

FROM: rogers.s@cdc.org

Listen to me. Just this once. He was wrong about you. I'm not going to leave you alone in this mess because it wouldn't be right.

FROM: rogers.s@cdc.org

You don't have to forgive me and I won't track you down. But if you need help I'll be here.

[Both of them had said that, now. Two editions of Steve Rogers, cut from similar cloths, but not the same. It should speak to the nature of the man, whatever thread keeps all the versions in all the crappy rehashes in each universe connected, drawing from the same well to make the same man with a pinch of something extra each time.

But he's never going to hear it for real. From the man who was there. Because as much as Peter wants to take those words and hold them close he can't help but wonder: if these copies were in his shoes, going through what that Cap had been through that day, that week, that month. That whole timeline. If they were in the same situation...

Wouldn't they decide one dumb, reckless kid wasn't enough to turn back for? Wouldn't they decide that six lunatics, busted loose from a prison and with the death of only one person on their mind, was a problem for the back burner?

It's not just Steve. It's all of them. But Steve let him go on the bridge, and never came back. Even after telling him how oh-so-sorry he was, you've got hero mettle after all.

Fucking jokes.]

FROM: parker.peter@cdc.org

if i say yes to this will you stop texting me right now

FROM: rogers.s@cdc.org

Don't answer. I just wanted you to know you're nothing anyone else says you are. Especially him.

[And he won't answer.

He has none. He has to tear out of bed, thankfully mostly better, and go out. Walk. Alone. He's too ashamed to linger where he made that stupid face when he laid eyes on the message, and even more shamed that thinking about it again in the dark pushes out wet trails over his cheeks.

Times like this he wishes he could hide under the ragged afgan on their living room sofa while his Aunt flips the channels. That used to be the easiest out from all this Spider-Man garbage.

Gonna have to find a new one here, he guesses.]

call me maybe

furiously buttdials captain america

ragedial?

butthurtdial...

aweojyeweiigijk;

this has been an informative set of subject lines

I have indeed learned much about the art of butthurtdial.

shall we meet next week and discuss the tits that will not calm?

Verily. You should teach me of these secrets.

i will show you many wonders sweet child

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