"It's a matter of public record, but I guess we established you wouldn't have access to it." He's all too used to awkward conversations so he brushes it off. "So what do I call you?"

Well, that's a response. Better than nothing. "So what /is/ it like?" A simple question, but one that can be answered to whatever degree she feels willing to engage with. It's a jumping off point for her to express herself.

"Hard not to be humbled when you get to hang around your heroes right?" There's a smile that passes across his face, a ghost of something wistful and sad. It's blown away by the question. "Uhhh. About as well as any of my exes, I spose." Though they'd been together long before he deployed.

"I just do my part." He avoids labels. They defined him so much in his boyhood days. But those are things you earn for yourself, not claim. "Living in Queens again, working the symbiote beat. Containment and rehab."

She's a little too cavalier with the admission, but Flash isn't exactly one to throw stones in glass houses. Spidey would see the good in everyone. "So what's the gameplan, then? Live a wild and carefree life, saving people when you feel like it?" She does seem a little rock and roll with it.

"Let's go with the second one." Flash grew in to his gooberdom. Grew in to himself. He's filling out the linen suit nicely, not a wall of meat like he was when he was younger. Just top heavy in the way chair users can be.

Flash's version of 'thoughtful pacing' when he's chairbound is to pop a wheelie and spin in a tight circle. Thr motion helps him think. "You think? I think one of the most underrated joys of life is complaining about stupid stuff. Like when someone gets my pizza order wrong."

Well, that's the most alarming thing Flash has heard this week. "Okay. Probably best to avoid high fives, just to be safe." Even gentle contact that sting a host, much less an unfilteted symbiont. "On a scale of one to ten, how head chompy are we talking?"

Okay, neither of them are hip. Noted. "It sounds like you could use an ear. I can't say I'm much good at it, but it's not like I can go anywhere fast." Flash pats his trusty chair, right on the rim of the left wheel.

"Got it. Apologies if it's spooked around me, I work with a chemical that's kinda toxic to symbiotes now. Brock came up with the name Anto-Venom." He's relatively unflapped by time stuff at this point. Relatively.

"Oh, we're well past that. Been theere, done that, died and turned in to a symbiont dragon."

"Accessibility as in 'prosthetics for my legs that got blown off?'"

Unc? He has a hunch she's not using zoomer slang, so he has a lot of catching up to do. "I can't say I'm very familiar with her, or you." Better to address it head-on.

Fair, honestly.

Love and war aren't all that far apart.

Baseball on the radio while the sun is still high in the sky. Nice way to enjoy lunch.

Thaaat sounds like...'cap?' That's what the kids say now, right? Cap?

"Most people have them, mine just got blown off with the rest of my legs below the knee." Flash shakes his head, a rueful look crossing his worn visage. Definitely a new face in his life. "I get by, though."

Not words you ever really wanna hear. He's wincing.

Never understood how Spidey could narrow his lenses like that. Flash cheated with his goop-face.

"I'm pretty sure I'd remember a spider like you, though my memory's a little spotty after the whole 'being dead and then being a dragon' thing." It's possible there's some venomverse spinoff they've met in, but the writer hasn't encountered one. "Does yours have shins?"

Been there, done that.

There's gotta be a wheelchair basketball league in Queens, right?

Well excuse him for being comfortable with his own self, laugh lines and all.

Hm. That's not helping.

...It's hard to figure out how old someone is when they're in costume?

Ah. A nocturnal type; Flash assumed she was feeling old age in the way he does.

One of those mornings, huh.

Flash drinks his coffee black. A habit he picked up young while om deployment. The bitterness wakes you up faster than the caffeine, so you're on point right away for a patrol. Something he carried forward. As Venom, in Philadelphia, in space, even as Anti-Venom.

Plus, it's getting hot in New York. Time to break out the linen. Maybe pay a visit to the F.E.A.S.T. center.

Not all that long ago, Flash would bristle at the help, especially from Peter. He's already looking up at him, in more ways than one. To feel that gap between them take a place behind his shoulderblades and push him forward? It's hard.

It's sweet, the way Peter tries to bring Flash up to his level. He's always had a big heart. But there's a reason Flash was put most on the wetworks squads in the Avengers, the deniable assets. Flash knows all too well about how badly people need Peter Parker in their lives.

𝐊𝐀𝐑𝐀 𝐙𝐎𝐑-𝐋 …. 　˗ˏˋ ＰＯＷＥＲ ＧＩＲＬ ˎˊ˗　 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚒𝚛𝚕 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝙴𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚑-2 • 𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚂𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚢 #DCRP #MVRP #BSKYRP

The 'W' word is always so complex when it relates to Flash and Venom. It takes a lot of work to not flinch. But that's neither here nor there. What causes his brow to knit is... ...He just remembers that he wasn't the only one who aspired to be like Spder-man, when they were the We.

⠀ ᅠ⠀ ⠀ ᅠ ⠀ ᅠ⠀ ⠀ ──── 𑣲 ──── ⠀ ᅠʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇᴅ ᴠᴇꜱᴛɪɢᴇ ⠀ ᅠ ⠀ #LAZ #MVRP #FCRP ⠀ ᅠ⠀ ᅠ⠀ ⠀ ᅠ⠀ ᅠ⠀ ⠀

The Mets finally won one, huh.

Like most people on the wagon, he's replaced his need for alcohol with a slightly less destructive need for coffee.

He hears the subtle difference in pronunciation, confirming at least one major difference with this Peter. "Sure. Good homecooking's a luxury for a troop." His fingers tighten slightly against the rims of his wheels. Meeting your hero again for the first time is always tricky, it turns out.

"Don't worry about it. You seem like the one who's been going through it. Those circles under your eyes are so bad I thought you were back to your goth phase." A joke. He's always had one ready whenever it came to Peter. Often at his expense. The guilt gnaws at him. The least he can do is listen.

That's certainly the Parker tact at work, bringing up Flash's ex like that. A thin, tight smile that doesn't carry to his eyes. "That makes one of us, buddy." Recognition passing through his eyes. If he's strong enough to spider-hug and knows Flash can take it, there's at least SOME familiarity.

[The real tragedy is that Armie Hammer would be a GREAT Flash fc if he wasn't, yknow. Like that.]

Quick mental calculations, threat assessments. Not his Peter then, because they'd worked together recently on the Torment beat. May not even BE Spidey. Best not to make assumptions and hang either of them out to dry. "Oh, y'know. I'm trying to get a posting that doesn't send me all over the globe."

He's a jock at heart AND ex-military. He's up right away.

"In the flesh. Figuratively and literally." No more goop-body!

...Yeah, that's about the type of casual conversation he expected Spidey to be having this morning.

Sooooo this Venom doesn't seem to be doing particularly Great, huh.

White's not really his color. But he'll make do. He always does.