sometimes we call them miracles

❝ have my hearts ; my life is yours. ❞

indie multimuse blog featuring various muses from Doctor Who, including Eleventh & Twelfth Doctors, Clara Oswald, Missy, Martha Jones, & Rory Williams.  penned by oswin.

She’d heard, many times from the Doctor, that teleporting without a safety belt should be impossible for humans.  

Now, she was beginning to wonder why she ever listened to him.  Oh he could be brilliant when he wanted to be - and yes, he was highly intelligent, but he also had a knack for jinxing absolutely everything he talked about.  Never mind that no one had seen him for a while (she’d heard from UNIT about his regeneration cycle, and had witnessed it first-hand with the Master) - assuming that he had regenerated - but the last words he told her was a warning.  About using Project Indigo.

She landed in a park, somewhere.  All she could see was apartment buildings.  It certainly didn’t bring her any comfort, especially not knowing what was happening on the other side.  The cracks in the skin of the world was worrying enough.  Then they just had to be invaded by aliens.  Again.  Mickey and Martha had agreed to teleport somewhere else, thanks to equipment given by UNIT, and this is where she ended up.

Martha stood up, dusting the dirt and grass off her pants.  It was the same date, same city, same everything - but there was something about the air.  Like she was forgetting something, but nothing she could remember.  As if there was a gap in her memory.  She knitted her brows together.

She checked her phone, frowning.  Everything she tried to do was a failure.  She tried calling her family, but came up with nothing.  Even the TARDIS wouldn’t respond.  Though she had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t answer anyway.  

The trolley problem? … Right, right. The whole debate on whether or not you kill five people by inaction or you take action and kill one. That problem always bothered Peter, especially after Ben died. He was familiar with it, he was a living example of the problem and he hated having to decide. On one hand, in a real life setting, he’d be able to save all six people, but he assumed in this scenario that was impossible… A part of him thought this lecturer, The Doctor, had asked that question on purpose. To get a rise out of Peter, but that couldn’t be… Could it? Peter shrugged and raised his hand, he might as well answer. 

“There’s no real answer to the trolley problem. It all boils down to personal morality. The trolley problem is, nowadays, meant to start discussion on what to do in that scenario.” He paused, mostly to give the Doctor time to answer back, but continued. “Got a question for you, Doc. What if you could stop it? Like, what if you had some great power and you could stop the trolley? Saving everyone. Considerin’ there’s people who can lift a bus over their heads and who knows what else, wouldn’t it make sense to factor them in this problem?”

Was he fishing for some way to talk about Captain America or himself, as Spider-Man? Yeah, kinda! Really, he just wanted to prove a point.

Peter Parker.  One of the only students the Doctor has bothered to learn the name of - and remember said name.  He’s smart, yes, but there’s something more to him than that.  An innate curiosity for a world gone mad.  Reminds him a bit of Clara.  He also smelt unlike the humans that surrounded him.  The Doctor has never cared enough to learn exactly why, but he cared - just enough - to humour him for a bit.

He leans back on the chalkboard, crossing his arms and tilting his head back just a touch. “What if I could stop the trolley?”

Of course, he’d try to find a way.  If there was one thing he wanted above all else, it was to find a way.  Save everyone, don’t let anyone else die under his care, and especially run away before the saved victims could offer him small talk.  The alternative was - wasn’t exactly something he’d like to think of.

“Well, I’m not exactly a superhuman, Mr Parker - just highly intelligent.” And an alien, he fails to mention. “But if we must factor in those heroes with great power, then you’d best factor in the villains too.  Spiderman could save the trolley and the people trapped on the tracks.  But what if the villain had planned for that?  What would he do if he were laid right in the villain’s hands?”

The classroom is silent, save the for distinct sound of chalk against blackboard.  It’s not the first time this has happened, and it certainly won’t be the last.  Every student (and faculty that has sneaked into his lecture) that waits with baited breath as their professor - his name a mystery, even to the staff - leans forward in their seats, squinting at the strange symbols he writes on the chalkboard.  

The Doctor, as he prefers to be called (and adamantly refuses to hand out his real name), stands on the lecturer’s platform and finishes the symbol with one last flick of his wrist.  The white chalk is set down softly, yet its impact echoes across the room.  He looks behind him, his usually intense eyebrows raised in an expression of wonder.  As if he’s inviting the rest of the lecture hall to be as curious as he is.

“Humans,” he begins, and though he says it like he’s not human the audience doesn’t care, “are idiots.”

A universal groan sweeps through the classroom.

“There’s all sorts of idiots out there.  People who willingly live in London, people that walk the Earth thinking that they’re not as important as the person walking beside them, people who think sacrificing something for the greater good is somehow morally better - Question!”

He grins like a madman, striding across the platform as if he owns the place.  Not just the lecture hall, not just the university, but the whole damn world.