Sometimes, I feel like going down I'm so disconnected

[osreborn]

WHO: Norman Osborn and you!
WHERE: NoHoPE
WHEN: Visiting hours (let's say between 1 and 4) on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Specify the time and date in your comment.
WARNINGS: Hmm.
SUMMARY: Isn't it obvious?
FORMAT: Whatever is your pleasure.


It wasn't even a week since he'd been incarcerated in his hospital. Norman was far more stable than he had been when he was arrested thanks to the medications he was inundated with -- pills he tried not to swallow, injections that he couldn't avoid. He was calmer thanks to sedation, but the other affects would take longer to kick in fully. His body rebelled, trying to fight them.

He scratched at his neck, chewed his nails, slept poorly. One of the worst things about being here was the inability to have private conversations; Norman was missing them already.

The other things he might miss weren't things he would ever consciously admit to himself.

Comments

[osreborn]

Norman was laying on his bed, though not asleep. His sleep patterns fluctuated, sometimes causing him frustrating nights of insomnia and sometimes allowing him peaceful stretches of eight, nine hours.

He didn't care much for sleep, either way.

He heard the knock against the glass, but didn't turn his head immediately. In fact, he closed his eyes, smirk growing on his face.

"Who's there?"

[incywincyhero]

Norman in a playful mood rarely boded well. Then again, nothing good ever came of speaking to, fighting with, or even being in the same time zone as Norman Osborn. If someone were to ask, Spider-Man wouldn't be able to give a single sound reason why he was here tonight, and at least a dozen why he shouldn't be. And yet he'd come anyway, no more able to stay away than an iron filing could escape a magnet. Maybe he needed the paltry reassurance of seeing Norman brought low, however long that would last.

Maybe it was only when one of them hit rock bottom that they could have a civil conversation.

"It's Jiminy Cricket," Spidey said. "I heard you had a job opening for a conscience."

[osreborn]

At that, Norman opened his eyes, turning his head to appraise his late-night visitor. He'd pinpointed Spider-Man by voice, even though he'd already had his suspicious: really, after Catwoman, who else would come in after hours?

"Spider-Man." He smiled. "I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me."

[incywincyhero]

"Gosh, I'll have to visit more often," Spider-Man said, dry as dust. "I wouldn't want you to think I didn't care."

[osreborn]

Norman smirked at him, looking away for a moment such as to disregard the man. "Oh, I know better. We have a special relationship, you and I. We understand each other."

His fingers tapped his knee, idly. "Or at least: I understand you."

[incywincyhero]

Under his mask, Peter rolled his eyes at Norman's theatrics. You're not fooling anyone, Gobby.

"I understand that you're a narcissistic psychopath who thinks he's a misunderstood visionary. I understand you well enough to help put you behind glass, where you belong."

[osreborn]

"Psychopath is a very strong word," Norman said, but he didn't argue the point. He turned to Spider-Man then, eyes focusing on him as if trying to stare through the mask.

"Do you really believe that? That this is where I belong?" He tilted his head.

[incywincyhero]

"Well," Spidey said, drawing out the word until it snapped back, "I was more thinking of a deep underground bunker in solitary confinement with your food given to you through a slot in the wall." He shot another strand of webbing to the ceiling and brought the two lines together in a loose netting, flipping himself upright to sit cross-legged in his new hammock. "But hey! I can be flexible."

[osreborn]

"Cute," Norman said, voice deadpan now. He frowned, leaning forward, pressing one hand to the cold glass. "The amenities are rather nice, for this sort of thing. Of course, I did design them myself."

His knuckles rapped the glass, displaying its thickness.

"Enjoy your vacation."

[incywincyhero]

Spidey leaned closer to the glass, almost conspiratorily. "Oh, believe me, I'm planning on it. I'm thinking of catching up on my soaps. Can you believe Sonny and Brenda just got engaged?"

[osreborn]

"I'm afraid I don't follow that one. I haven't put in the television yet." With a wry smirk, Norman gestured to his cell. "But I felt you, of anyone, deserved the benefit of an advance notice; I won't be in here forever. And I look forward to the reunion."

[incywincyhero]

Spider-Man snorted, leaning back against the webbing. "Please, do you honestly think I'm still that naive? I know this isn't how you're going to go down for good, Norms. If nothing else, the game resets the moment one of us gets exPorted. And I don't know how long you'll stay in jail after the whole Asgard thing, but I do know this -- it's getting harder and harder for you to hide."

[osreborn]

"Oh, not you. In fact, it's always refreshing to see someone using their head around here. Some people seem to think there's some inane concept of 'winning' or 'losing' here, when really -- one has to play with the hand they're dealt. Life goes one way, the strategy changes."

He smiled, almost benignly.

[incywincyhero]

Spider-Man looked at him from behind steepled fingers. "You know, it's really creepy when you randomly decide to compliment me," he said, after a barely discernible pause.

[osreborn]

Norman shrugged, a pleasant smile on his face. "After spending a year and a half dealing with an iron-plated imbecile, a little familiarity becomes refreshing."

[incywincyhero]

"Tony just doesn't understand you the way I do," Spider-Man said, feeling the obscure desire to defend his former mentor. Sure, they weren't on the greatest terms at the moment and might not ever be again, but at least he wasn't a murderous supervillain. Well, not murderous, anyway.

"He doesn't have that ... history with you," he added, tilting his head.

If he noticed that he was echoing Norman's words of a few minutes before, he gave no sign.

[osreborn]

"He certainly thinks he does. But at least you and I know better." Norman's smile was firmly and unarguably smug, something he really did reserve mostly for Spider-Man. One of the only people who he didn't mind being more candid with.

"My road to recovery is already to a splendid start."

[incywincyhero]

"I'm actually a little disappointed not to see your latest oeuvre in finger-painting stuck on the wall yet," Spidey said, cupping chin in hand. He mispronounced "oeuvre" terribly, but it was probably deliberate. Probably.

[osreborn]

"I was planning on writing a book, actually. I don't care for painting. Too melodramatic and a psychologist's playground." Norman raised his eyebrow, gesturing with his very vocal hand.

"I'll see if I can't send you an advance copy once it's finished."

[incywincyhero]

"I'm looking forward to it already," Spidey said, miming as though he were flipping through an unseen book. "My Life by Norman Osborn. Chapter One: My Childhood. I grew up as an innocent boy who whiled away the idyllic hours pulling the wings off of flies and stealing candy from babies...'"

[osreborn]

"Not a biography," Norman said, shaking his head. "Far too trite. And why give the media what it wants?"

He moved back toward the back of his cell, leaning against the wall once more. His eyes didn't leave Spider-Man, bright and focused even in the dim light.

"Or you what you want. But that's what this is -- you wanted to see the truth for yourself, didn't you? Were you worried you would come here to find a jack-in-the-box in my cell instead of me?"

[incywincyhero]

The jibe hits home, but Spider-Man gives no sign. Instead, he flicks the imaginary book away and leans back, using his webbing like a real hammock. "Bit of a crowded market there, Ozzy -- I mean, you already have Helter Skelter and Mein Kampf. Not much else you can add, is there?"

[osreborn]

"There's always something to add in the realm of literature, Spider-Man. Be it biography, history, fiction, romance; every story is only as different as the person telling it. There won't be a book quite like this out there."

He smiled, slightly patronizing. "Would you like a dedication?"