Summary:Kate decides to find out about Helena's boyfriend, and gets more than she expected. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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There's a few things that make for a bad mix with Kate Bishop. The first is being curious, the second is being bored. When she's both? That usually gets her into trouble. Which is precisely why she'd dug out the phone number of one Peter Parker, as well as his address, after seeing that he'd been repeatedly posting on Helena Wayne's twitter. Kate stands outside the brownstone tipping her head back to squint up at the building thoughtfully with her hand on one hip, and her phone in the other.
"Pretty simple for a boy from Queens," she mumbles looking back to her phone. "How the heck did he even meet Helena?" Of course they did seem to have a lot of mutual friends. Interesting that. Rather than continue to talk to herself like a loon in the middle of the street she steps closer to brazenly start peeking in windows. Starting with the lowest as she bends down pretending to tie her shoe.
The windows are lit, and there is something going on in there. Peter is seen, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. At least he's not down to his boxer-briefs like his foray into the spaceship. Although he looked pretty healthy, then. Okay, he was ripped. Leave us not gild the lily.
He seems to looking at a box on the table that used to be a pool table. Now, the surface is backlit, and a few devices are resting on it. The white box was featureless, a perfect cube.
Then he said something she couldn't hear through the glass and the box seemed to jump, unfolding to land on four legs, a lens opening and looking around.
So…not toys.
Mayday, meanwhile, is lounging on the couch in the living room. A battered laptop sits on her chest, and she's busy watching cute animal videos on youtube. Today's patrols had been…. a bit rough. She was never really the scientist, so it's better not to disturb Pete while he's busy.
That… was not anything Kate expected to see. Abruptly she stands up staring at the brick facade of the building instead as she tries to peice together what she just saw. She crouches again a second later not caring how it may look to passerbys at this point. Just a regular girl being weird. Nothing to see here. After a second glance is given into the lab that Peter was working in she rises again, slower and more assured than before. This was not just a regular ultra-ripped nerd. This definitely required further investigation.
The steps up are taken and she leeans against the railing. Trying to look non-chalant as before she bends one leg up behind her to grab her ankle as if she were just working out a cramp in her leg while leeeaning forward… just a bit… enough to peek into the window of the first story at the livingroom.
Peter headed over to the laptop. He began running a diagnostic, found everything coming back green, then tested the systems. Okay…movement is good. Visible spectrum coming in fine. UV scanning…three signatures. Good…
Then he paused. Three? That would be normal, if Aunt May was here. But she wasn't. She was at the hospital, resting comfortably before her scheduled surgery tomorrow morning.
Mayday Peterson…Peter Parker…and who else?
He frowned, then had the IR scan run as he waited for the results…
The hairs on the back of May's neck stand on end, and she stiffens a little reflexively. She's being watched, and not by someone with entirely good intentions. Definitely feels different than random passerby or family. The teen yawns, stretching her arms upward as she tries to casually glance towards the window. TOtally not suspicious at all…
Outside the window was one Kate bishop, dressed in running gear with her head to the side. She swaps sides, stretching out the other leg and turns her head the other way now. Just a deep stretch not being a peeping tom. Apparently satisfied she rocks her weight back to her heels with a little bounce and stretches her arms overhead. Yep. Just warming up. Just a neighbor or someone from the neighborhood. Yep. Nothing weird here at alllll.
Beneath her breath Kate lets out a quiet, "Subtle, Bishop, reeeal subtle."
Her hand drops back to her side fishing her phone out of her pocket again. This time her thumb actually runs over the screen tapping out a quick message to the number she'd dug up as belonging to Mr. Peter Parker himself.
'Hey, Captain Underoos, look outside.'
The text appears on his phone and he blinks. He suddenly heads up the stairs, two at a time, then comes out through the hall door into the living room. He spots Mayday looking outside and puts two and two together, of course. He waves to Mayday and says, "I think I know this one."
He opens the door and looks out at the girl in the runner's clothing. He tilts his head, puzzled. She looked familiar, somehow. But he couldn't place the face. She didn't match the unmasked faces he did see…wait. Yeah. The one with the spooky accuracy.
"Uhm…hi. Won't you come in?"
May nods, springing to her feet with entirely too much ease, and following Pete to the door. "Hey. You know Peter?" She's dressed casually as well, with athletic shorts and a Captain Marvel tank top. She narrows her eyes a little, reaching out with her Spider-Sense, trying to get some sense of Hawkeye's intentions. …At least so she can know if they're hostile.
Kate Bishop lifts her hand to waggle her phone at Peter by way of greeting when he opens the door. "Hey. Looking much more clothed this time," she offers with a bit of an amused grin. She *had* seen him one other time, hanging out with Kori, but that had been awhile ago as well. She'd been distracted at the time so hadn't really interacted properly. It was about school stuff so she zoned out.
"Peter? Yeah. He's dating my friend Helena, and we met a time or two before."
There's no hostile intentions from Hawkeye, nope. Just… curiosity. Intent, and stubborn curiosity. She flashes a grin at the pair, looking between them. "Your sister?" She asks of Pete with a tip of her head toward Mayday to fish for an introduction. That doesn't stop her from stepping inside as he'd offered though.
Peter blinks. "Sister? No, she's…"
He turned to look at Mayday to confirm the differences, but…
…hmm.
There used to be a type of visual puzzle called a "magic eye" that was a bunch of dots, but printed in such a way that if you just slightly unfocused your eyes, a 3-dimensionl picture would appear.
Looking at Mayday like that now…yeah. She could be his sister. Unsettlingly so.
Then he looks back to Kate, and says quickly, "No, she's someone who's staying here until she gets back on her feet. There is a funny likeness, isn't there, though?" he asked, smiling slightly.
"Ah." Yeah, Friend of Pete's girlfriend makes sense. May does her best to not get /too/ pale at the suggestion. "Not his sister. I can't really go home right now for… a number of reasons." She shoots Pete a glancee, a little nervously. Shitshitshit. What if he getse mad she hadn't been entirely truthful? She hadn't /lied/, but… She had undersold quite a few things. "I'm guessing you're here for the shovel speech?"
"What, really?" There's obvious surprise at this when Kate's assumption is returned as a negative. Her sharp blue eyes flit from one, to the other, and back again several times before she finally lets out a simple, "Huh." An indifferent shrug is given at that though. It wasn't important was it? "Yeah, I get that. Sometimes 'home' is difficult," she has to agree with a knowing nod as if she really did understand that sometimes there were complications to such matters. Though her thoughts were more along the lines of 'problematic parents' than anything else.
"That was kind of the plan, but then I remembered where I'd met Peter before. Now I'm just confused a bit," she has to admit with a lopsided grin of her own. "But I think what I saw in the basement does explain how he was so helpful to get out of a tight spot awhile back."
Peter blinks. "Uhm, yeah…I remember that little…close encounter of the fourth kind." He looked to Mayday. "Sorry. First kind is 'seeing a UFO.; Second kind is 'seeing a UFO land on the ground.' Third kind is 'seeing an actual alien.' Fourth kind is 'alien abduction.'"
Thus endeth the lesson, hopefully.
"Nah, Home was nice. It's just… other stuff." May gives a one-shouldered shrug. She seems to know who Pete is, but she doesn't quite want to quite out him… Oh. Well that's that taken care of. "Oh. Well, In that case… Home is another universe. …So yeah. Awkwardness. Glad you're back, though."
"Then we kicked their kidnapper butts back to their planet. Or… The ones that survived anyway," Kate has to admit a little guiltily. She wasn't really one to aim to kill but her arrows *were* super effective against them. It wasn't her fault she didn't know alien anatomy. When May explains the universe situation she nods slooowly….
But takes it in stride.
"That's cool. Guy I'm dating is from the future and turns out I'm friends with his mom who is just barely older than me. So I getcha. Hope this place isn't too weird for you, but if it is, I know a guy who can help. Given it's weird to him too." Flashing a grin she tips her head back to Peter. "But… ah… Hm. So how did you met Helena anyway, Pete?"
Peter is, strangely enough, able to take this in stride. For now. Maybe later the enormity of it all will assault him at 3 AM like they tend to do. Peter DOES tend to have some spectacular nightmares. Rarely, but they happen.
"How do I say this without sounding like a complete jerk?" He sighs. "For some strange reason, she told me she had a crush on me when we were younger. A crush. On me. Anyway, we officially met at the regional science fair, and we went out to eat afterwards, me and Aunt May and Helena. She's very smart. We must have talked for an hour about our aspirations, what we'd like to do. Aunt May would probably understand about ten percent of it, but she would always listen." He shrugs. "And after that…we began seeing each other. I was, frankly, amazed a young woman with that much potential would waste her time on me…"
May can't help but grin a bit at Pete's story. "You're not a jerk. You've got self esteem issues. Kinda comes as part of doing what we do, unless you're Tony Stark." She gives Pete a gentle punch in the arm. "…Maybe we should invite you in off the porch, though."
"Are you serious?" Kate just looks surprised at Pete a long moment. Her hand lifts pointing a finger out toward May when she fills in some of the thoughts she was having. "You're not bad looking at all, you're apparently a genius which is right up her alley, and I know for a fact that-" Her hand snaps down to make a grab for the front of Pete's shirt intending to give it a tug up to show off his stomach. "Dem abs. You're not exactly a lazy science nerd that's let himself go. I mean seriously, how many situps do you do a day?"
"Uhm…I've always been a thin guy," Peter says quickly. "I…recently decided to get in shape."
Decided, forced by recombinant DNA, potayto, potahto. He does step back a little, out of range of Miss Grabby Hands. "It's…just us tonight right now. Aunt May is in the hospital. She's being prepped for hip-replacement surgery. We're hoping this new design is easy to recover with and is of a much higher quality." He sounds warily hopeful about it.
"I'm sure it'll be amazing. You built it, and pretty much everything you make is awesome." Pete gets a shoulder squeeze. "Do you need more of Aunt May's cookies? Or a hug?" …This is how you comfort people, right? Yes. Probably is. "But yeah. He's the smart one, I'm the athletic one.
Kate Bishop lifts an eyebrow when he darts out of range of her fingers. Quick moves. It wasn't so very important though. Instead, she chuckles, and drops her hand back down to her side. "I guess if you put it that way." When he mentions his aunt her look sobers a bit. "Oh, I hope it goes well for her and she recovers quick— Wait, YOU designed her hip replacement?" This was starting to confuse her to no end.
"The smart one. The athletic one… You make it sound like you are related somehow," she points out with a little shake of her head. "Or teammates or something." An eyebrow arches higher.
Pete blushes slightly. "Uhm…I'm a scientist. My focus is in neuroscience. I work as a lab tech for Kane Industries. My aunt's current hip-replacement equipment was…wasn't great. I submitted a proposal with a new desing that would last twice as long as the best one out there, at a fraction of the cost. Miss Kane pushing through the funding and the testing. Aunt may's going to receive the first one Kane makes. That was…sort of the agreement. Kinda selfish, hunh?"
"More like teammates. I mean, If you two met how I think you met, you know why." Pete gets another shoulder punch. "No, not selfish. She needs it, and all it really does is put her at the front of the testing list. You're fiiiiiiine."
"That's not selfish. That's looking out for family. I would have done the same in your place once upon a time." Kate's gaze softens a bit as she regards Pete again. Maybe this guy wasn't so bad after all. Not that he seemed bad in the first place, but she'd gotten her hackles up wondering if he was going after Helena for her wealth. Not that Helena would let such a thing happen for long if that were the case.
May's remark earns another slightly confused look back toward her, then to Pete, then back again. Opening her mouth she falters, takes a breath, and tries again. "Uh, I met him because I was kidnapped when I fell asleep. We were all taken in our sleep." Lifting a hand she gestures at Pete, "He was wearing Captain America boxers."
Peter suddenly blushes FURIOUSLY as he remembers that part. Did he tell Mayday about the bover-NO OF COURSE NOT. You don't talk about your UNDERWEAR to a GUEST. Geez Louise.
"I was…trying to figure out the systems before someone decided to start punching and the feedback blew out the panel. Nearly fried my face off."
And that would be why he wasn't on the roster, except as an Auxiliary. Because he didn't believe anyone would follow him. Kori was the better candidate for that.
"Anyway, we got deposited on the beach not too far away. Trying to get home which was miles away, wearing my underwear…not a fun time." He hadn't even had his webshooters. He'd had to bum a ride from a sympathetic Uber driver, promising to pay when he arrived at home. What a night THAT had been. Ignored, nearly blown up by someone "helping,' left in the lurch, and in his boxer-briefs.
May nods along with Kate. "Told ya. He's just a big softie most of the time." She does grin a bit, but tries to keep it down for Pete's sake. "And it's not as bad as you think. I mean…" She gestures towards her own chest, where the Captain Marvel logo is prominently displayed. "I just had to get all new underwear since coming here, so… All basic black."
Kate Bishop smirks a bit with amusement at the recollection. "Did you? Man, sorry. I was so tired after that I kind of stumble off to do my own thing. Which was get coffee and grab a bus home," she admits with a long sigh. Sure she could have ubered but that would have been more info than she wanted to pass along to the credit card owner. ie, daddykins. She lifts a hand to run back through her hair awkward now. "Well I guess I should get going. I just was wanting to check up on you for… well, reasons." Shrugging she flashes them both a grin. "It was nice meeting you, May. Good seeing you again Pete. I hope your aunt's surgery goes well."
Pete nods. "Well…thank you. If you see Helena before I do, would you ask her to call me? I wanted to touch base with her, she wanted to know about how Aunt May's surgery went as well."
"Call me Mayday. All my friends do. And it's goot o meet you as well." May gives a wave of her own, and what's supposed to be a welcoming grin. "You'll have to introduce me to her sometime too, Pete."
Kate Bishop gives a quick salute of a wave at that. "Sure thing, though you could just text her. She IS your girlfriend, right?" Eyebrows raise before she gives Pete a wink. "Sure thing, Mayday. Later." And out she goes.