Z O M B I E ♔ AU

[tinkertank]

“Every Day, the world is Ending for Someone.”


☦ ☦ ☦ Pick A Muse
☦ ☦ ☦ Pick A Situation:

1. Fleeing or Hiding: You're surrounded, and things look grim. Now might be the time for deep, meaningful metaphors and that confession you've always wanted to make.
2. All-Out Ranbo: You have your gun, your sword, your golf club, and your iPod. Time to go take on the undead hoards.
3. Daily Survival: Whether you're set up in an abandoned hospital, an old school, or a derelict apartment building, it's just life as usual: eating tuna from the can and trying to communicate via radio while firing mini-marshmallows out the window at zombies.
4. C-c-changes: One of you got bitten. Well, this is awkward...
5. Cast Curaga!!!: Okay, but seriously, I think if we cross Nyquil and Green Tea, we'll have the cure! Time to work out the biggest medical miracle in history.
6. Choose Your Own Adventure: Or anything else you can think of!

☦ ☦ ☦ Leave a Prompt or A Post
☦ ☦ ☦ Good Luck!

Comments

[peterparker]

"Oh God, okay, uh..."

Peter had both hands over MJ's arm, where she'd been bitten, trying to stop the blood flow first of all. Or was he supposed to bleed it out, actually, if the infection was intravenous-? He wasn't sure, and Band-Aid Brand commercials and Animal Planet's 'Rattlesnake Republic' had differing views on the matter. Since those two sources made up just about the extent of his medical knowledge (that one episode of 'General Hospital' with Aunt May aside... he didn't think cryogenic freeze tanks were a viable option here), Peter opted for the one that seemed a little saner, a little closer to what he wanted to do here.

Hang on.

Holding onto that arm, pale, sweating, trying not to panic. But how could he not panic? This was his girlfriend. This was MJ. And in about an hour? This was going to be a zombie.

Staring up at her, breathing a little uneven, but eyes set, determined, almost outright gleaming with pure effort to keep it together, to have a ready solution, to help, to fix it... he took a deep breath, and nodded. Speaking as much for her sake as for his own:

"Yeah. Okay. Okay, this is nothing. This is no big deal. You're gonna be fine. We'll get this cleaned up, and uh- uh." All right, Parker. Think. "...OSCORP." Decided suddenly, slipping out of his nervous energy just long enough to get something useful lodged into his brain. "OSCORP's bio labs. They've been testing cures for months, and we just- we just gotta get you there, and I'm sure there'll be something, and it'll. It'll work."

Because it had to.

He wasn't losing someone else. Not her. Not today.

[nextdoors]

It's no big deal-- oh Peter. You big dumb idiot. She wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry or do both really, because he might not be facing it but Mary Jane considered herself a realist. She's not blind or stupid. Maybe she didn't get the medical side of it or how the virus mutates and what it does on the cellular level to people but she'd seen it enough to know.

It's not like she got bit by a dog. People die from this. No, that's an understatement. People turn into monsters. People stop being people, she's not going to be his girlfriend in an hour or so, she was going to come after him too. Kill him or turn him and it's Peter. She hates the idea of doing that to Peter, loathes it, it makes her skin crawl more than the idea that she's going to die rather soon. Maybe because it doesn't seem real, can't be real, that's not her arm she's staring at, it has to be someone else. And she's pretty sure he won't kill her even after she turns.

Not after what happened to Gwen. And just because he's Peter.

Turned out that MJ settled on crying first, unable to stop the tears once they start. Peter had one arm pretty tight, it hurt like hell by the way and she wasn't sure if that was all in her head or if being bit by a zombie really does hurt but she's bleeding so it had to be pretty deep, right? But anyway, MJ wiped at her eyes with her free arm, and god help her-- she can't look at him.

She just can't. Stop it, Peter, stop making it worse than it already is. If she looked at him, sees how freaked out he was and how he was holding it together for her, yeah. She'd definitely start sobbing if that happens.

"I am not going to be fine. If OSCORP had a cure... why haven't they shared it yet? Huh? You need to get away from me before I--"

Before I kill you.

[peterparker]

And then she was crying. Peter didn't know how to deal with crying girls. That broke his heart. Even Aunt May, in her late fifties, crying about being overworked, or missing Uncle Ben, or out of concern for why Peter's face was all banged up- or, the most recently, over what had happened to the neighbors across the street and what they'd turned into- all made Peter's insides scrunch up and twist into a coil that felt like there was no release beyond doing something. Doing something drastic, and doing it immediately... even if, usually, all he could do was give a hug. When there was no bad guy to chase, no one to blame (not even himself, on those rare occasions), then that's all that was left to him.

Hugging didn't seem like an exceptionally useful medical avenue right now. At best, it would do nothing. At worst, it would jostle that arm a little more, make them both panic deeper.

He swallowed, and jutted out a lip, jaw tight as he shook his head no. No. And he meant it.

"No, nope, nu-uh, no, not gonna happen. No way I'm leaving you. Got that?" Looking up with a flitting gaze into her eyes, his own strong even though it was filtered through by tears, Peter took a shaky breath and insisted, "I won't leave you, and there's no way- there's no way I'm losing you. No."

OSCORP might have something. Why not? They had every other genetic modifier in the universe, and Peter at least understood enough about those to raid for the right thing...

"They wouldn't share it if they couldn't produce a lot yet. But they'll have something. Some kinda test, or research, or beta strain... you gotta trust me, MJ. You gotta stick with me. Okay? We're gonna go to OSCORP and we're gonna get you fixed."

Because it was all he could do. Because it was the only option, and the only hope he could think of.

"I am not leaving you here."

[nextdoors]

She could probably go for a hug right about now, to be able to bury her face in Peter's shoulder and cry there. Cry because he sounded so determined and sure of himself and because nobody ever, ever looked her in the eye and told her that they weren't leaving and that he wasn't going to lose her. That it was just not an option.

Sometimes Peter told her that she kept him going, kept him strong and was like a place of peace for him and she would roll her eyes or kiss him or more often, do both. Cheesiness deserved a kiss. But what she didn't say as often was that Peter meant just as much if not more to her. Peter didn't ask her to be anything she wasn't, never just wanted her because she was pretty and thin because Mary Jane put on a mask just like he did, it just wasn't as obvious.

His determination gave her strength. Gave her enough to be able to nod, just a little, enough to agree to his plan. Even if she didn't think it was going to work and that he was chasing after nothing, but he had to give her something in return before she got to her feet.

"Promise me though. Promise that if you can't do anything... don't let me hurt you, Peter. Please."