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[nepotis]

Display Name: natalis.pueri
Profile Photo: this clip art balloon
Notes: anon post, cw possible references to alcohol use in comments

if it was your birthday
and you could ask whoever or whatever brought us here
this Confluence or whatever the fuck
if you could ask them for one birthday wish
what would you ask for?

Comments

text » @callidus

[forasecond]

This isn't a very good thought experiment.

[nepotis]

[ one pretentious Latin username deserves another, he guesses. ]

alright, @callidus, if you're so wise, do tell me what's wrong with this thought experiment.

[forasecond]

[Is it even a surprise? He's met Five~]

Well, for starters, there's no real structure. It's wide open, no limits, no dilemmas.

But mostly? If wishes were fishes and all that. Wishes aren't getting you anywhere. You want something? Find a way to get it yourself.

[nepotis]

you're the one who structured it as a thought experiment in the first place. I'm not trying to recreate the trolley problem, I'm just surveying what the local displaced populace would do, if they had the chance to ask for anything they wanted. the lack of limits is a feature, not a bug.

[forasecond]

But why? What do a bunch of useless wishes mean to you? What are you getting out of it?

[Doing things purely for entertainment's sake? Yeah. He missed that train about 40-plus years back. RIP.]

[nepotis]

maybe it's helping me come to a decision on what I would ask for myself, if the opportunity ever comes to me.

[ Not that it will, but when your life has a very real time limit, you often find yourself daydreaming for a cure-all. ]

besides. the people I would normally celebrate my birthday with aren't here, [ (except for Peter, but that's it's own bag of worms) ] so why not seek out company on social media? that's what it's for, isn't it?

1/2

[forasecond]

Good luck with that.

I guess. Never really bothered celebrating, myself. And I missed the boat on the whole social media thing.

[They weren't allowed as kids, technically. Unless Grace snuck them pieces of cake, or they snuck out of the house themselves for donuts at Griddy's, October 1st passed the same as any other day.]

2/2

[forasecond]

[It comes two minutes later. Delayed, but better late than never? He has a suspicion about who this is, but he isn't completely sure. Could be coincidence, and he supposes he'll never know, but it doesn't matter anyway.]

Felix natalis.

>>private, un: h.osborn

[nepotis]

[ The suspicious pause between replies pretty much solidifies for Harry that his cover is blown. So when he responds, it's under his own account rather than the anonymous one he had set up. ]

gratias.

you really never bothered celebrating your birthday? I'd think you of all people could pull off more birthday parties than most.

private

[forasecond]

We had an incredibly strict father and the events of my life after age 13 didn’t lend to much partying.

If he ever shows up here, Klaus is the partying Hargreeves.

permaprivate

[nepotis]

do you have a lot of siblings?

I'm an only child, so I had to do all the partying for the family.

[forasecond]

There were 7 of us total, growing up. All adopted. It just gets more complicated from there.

Well, somebody’s got to, I guess.

[Hopefully he won’t take it to Klaus level extremes, but he isn’t here to mother anyone, either.]

[nepotis]

wow. it sounds like you and I had about as far opposite childhoods as one can get. I had no siblings a father who wanted nothing to do with me, and you had six siblings and parents who wanted kids so much they adopted seven of them.

[forasecond]

Not as much as you think. Reginald Hargreeves was a cold man of science, not a father. We weren't really... a family, in the traditional sense. We were opportunities to him, a chance for a legacy.

The powers I showed you that night, at the liquor store? That's not new from this place, I've always been able to do it. I... still don't know how he knew. But he did, he knew that we would have powers, and he trained us into something of a superhero team. But were never really children, just child soldiers.

[nepotis]

well, fuck.

[ What are you supposed to say to something like that? And, if Five's going to share this much about himself, Harry might as well reciprocate. ]

I guess in that case, our fathers were more alike than different. my father was the CEO of my world's leading bioengineering firm who cared more about running his company than raising a son. his company created people with powers, but I wasn't ever one of them.

[forasecond]

Fathers. What can you do?

[Harry is probably... a lot more tangled in the emotions of it than Five. He's distanced himself from that time in his life, enough time passes and it gives a person perspective. Not that he agrees with any of it, but he doesn't feel the same hurt his siblings do when talking about Reginald. He imagines it's much the same for Harry, and his own father.]

He created those people with those powers on purpose? Or was it a side-effect of something gone wrong?

[nepotis]

drink to their memory? ;)

[ Harry's feelings regarding his father are complicated to say the least, made even more complicated by the fact that there is an alternate universe's version of his father here, who by all accounts was a better father than Harry's in every way. He's been trying to avoid thinking about it as much as possible. ]

He was purposefully researching genetically modified animals, for use in medicine or government contracts. But as far as I know, none of the "heroes" or "villains" that came from Oscorp's work were intentional on my father's part.

[forasecond]

A solid choice.

Maybe you're better off not being touched by any of it, in the end, especially if it was accidental. Who knows what kind of catastrophe you could have ended up with, then.

Five doesn't know how right he is...

[nepotis]

I don't know. I was seconds away from getting my hand on an experimental serum that would have cured my terminal disease, so you'll have to forgive me if I say "agree to disagree."

[forasecond]

Terminal. Well, to be frank, that fucking sucks. I'll give you the disagree on that one.

[nepotis]

yup. the last thing my father ever gave me.

[ So maybe Five will understand why one more birthday is an important thing to Harry. ]

[forasecond]

[It does put some things into perspective, there. Not that he'll be apologizing for being an asshole. That's just part of the deal of... you know... dealing with him. Pick your friends better, probably, Harry.]

Well, fuck.

So it's genetic?

Have you thought about asking around? I know the Guild and the Society shit is stupid, but they do have resources to shit the rest of the world doesn't. Plus, the other displaced like us, who knows what kind of skill and powerset you might find there, too.

Wrong kind of science for me, but maybe there's something out there, you're in a completely different part of the multiverse now.

[He isn't usually one for optimism. But you know what? This is a goddamn case for it if there ever was one.]

[nepotis]

I'm working on it. I'd rather not rely too heavily on guild resources. I don't feel like being anyone's "Hero."

[ And he isn't ready to think of himself as a "Villain," either. ]

[forasecond]

Fair enough. I'm no hero either.

[The difference is, Five doesn't care if people see his actions or motivations and label them villainous. What he does, he does for his family, period, end-stop.]

[nepotis]

problem now is figuring out how to support myself without the resources of the guilds backing me up. I don't exactly have many marketable skills.