Summary:Peter and Thea slowly recover from the ordeal and find comfort in their friendship. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It's been several hours since Thea (The real thing!) had emerged into the city she knew as home, covered in gross goo, naked, and pissed. The worst part? She was all but useless against the thing that had caused everything that she had been through.
The wound from the spike in her head has healed over, and after a debrief, she had insisted on going home. A long, hot shower, with all her favorite soaps and scents, followed by lotion and her hair twisted up in a bun. Warm leggings and an oversized men's shirt, feet bare, and finally feeling clean, she will emerge into her living room. She knows she's not alone.
While Thea emerges fresh as a daisy and looking twice as nice, Peter isn't doing so well. He is sleeping fitfully on the couch in Thea's place. When they had re-connected on the roof after the big firework, Peter/Spider-Man had just walked over to her and hugged her fiercely, holding on as if never wanting to let go again. He had almost lost her to that THING. His sister in all but blood. It had been a few long seconds before he could be persuased to let go.
The suit had come apart as he had said, but she had been in a place to divest herself of it and the studd under it (but Peter had taken a few choice samples for study), of course. Since then he had gone everywhere she had gone. Even to her home, where he slept, fitfully, on the couch.
Once, when she had been getting out of the shower, she had heard him moan piteously…but only once.
He was still asleep…it appeared that even he was not immune to exhaustion.
Thea will pause just inside the living room, head canting to the side. There's just this faint little warm smile, as she looks at the young man she considers her brother in a way her own by blood will never be. She will refrain from the urge to run a hand over his hair, or cover him with the throw blanket on the nearby chair.
She will turn instead, and start to heat up some water for tea. She needs some sugar, and then real food once she's steadied. She will glance towards the couch, wondering what Peter would want to eat.
Peter seems to be a junk food junkie - hot dogs, pizza, burgers, and the like. The White Castle in Brooklyn still posts the Spider-Man Special. But he has spoken of home cooking - from beef stew to homemade apple pie.
His Spider-Sense might be getting more sensitive, or it could be something else. In his dream, he is smiling to Thea with relief. She smiles at him, too, only her lips part to revealing tiny serrated gear-wheels instead of teeth…
Peter shudders awwake, looking around with a frenzied look, before the dream falls to tatters and he slumps back on the ouch, unwilling to close his eyes again.
"I didn't want to wake you. You're exhausted." Thea looks at him as she gets mugs down from the cabinet. "You want some tea with me?" There's a smile - regular white teeth, Peter! She's not some… thing. "I need to get something to eat. I don't have much worth making, but I'm going to order out. Anything in particular you're craving?"
Peter sits up, thinking. "Chinese. Chicken egg rolls, Mongolian Beef, beef chow mein, potstickers. Anything you like, Thea." He smiles. A tired smile, but an honest one. "I'm just so glad you're alive."
She will smile at him, putting tea into her favored reusable strainer. She will then move to a slim drawer, and pull out a Chinese menu. She takes it over to the couch to sit next to him and unfold it to see all the options. "I'm pretty glad too, though I didn't know I was in danger of not being."
She's silent a moment, arm touching his, as she looks over the menu. "Waking up in that tube thing it had me in was terrifying. I've never been that scared."
Peter looked at Thea. "…I'm sorry. I couldn't tell the difference between that…THING masquerading as you and you. I can't imagine what it was like for you." He grasps her hand gently. "And all those other people…"
She looks at him, blinking. "I wouldn't expect you to be able to. From what I've seen and been told, it looked exactly like me, moved like me, spoke like me. I'm not exactly a woman of quirks, Peter. I'm not an open book to anyone, not even you."
Peter sighed. He knew there were thing about her he'd never know. He remembered an old song about a woman who had her "secret garden" where she hid things from everyone. He was sure Thea had her own secret garden, but it was a place he felt no need to seek out.
"…Maybe I didn't expect it to work so well. I'm already working on upgrading the suit to handle an x-ray emitter."
"And X-ray emitter? Shouldn't you be worried about the effect the x-ray radiation would have?" She cocks an eyebrow up at him. "What do you want to eat? I am going to get chicken and broccoli, and hot and sour soup, and tons of crab rangoon. "
Peter looks to her, then smiled ruefully. "Mongolian beef on beef chow mein. An order of potstickers, four chicken egg rolls. How are you fixed for soy sauce?"
"This is me. I have bottles of soy, duck, hot mustard.. I mean.. really. What sort of New York City girl would I be, if I didn't have plenty of condiments for my take out whimsies?" She will elbow him lightly, before she will reach for her phone. "Anything else you want?"
Peter looked towards the window. "…yes. Tell me there was no way we could have saved those other people that were trapped where you were."
She will glance from the menu to him, a hand on his arm. "There was no way to do it, without risking all of us, and unleashing more of…that thing, on this world. Not to mention of they'd been… trapped there any length of time, they would have had poor chances of recovery."
Peter nods. "…Damn." He looks to her. "You ever hear the starfish story?"
"Yes. And it matters to this one. That you were there. That you scooped me up to safety, that you covered me…that when it was over, and it was safe, you came and found me and held me for a moment. Peter.. I was in so much pain, and full of so much rage, but there wasn't anything useful I could do with it. I was lost. You found me."
Peter smiles to her, and his entire face seems to release some unknowable tension. He takes a deep breath and says softly, "Thanks. You'd…better call it in before we get any more ravenous…" He smiles slightly at that.