strangetrip | [GP] Evening - Blinding you with science (and fireworks)

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[GP] Evening - Blinding you with science (and fireworks)

It had taken a good three weeks for Sora and Peter to gather enough materials and also enough nerve to put on the fireworks that Peter had felt were missing from New Year's. They'd filched, over time, a pile of steel wool pads and an embarrassing number of whisks. Why they needed those things, Sora didn't exactly know.

Once everything was gathered up, Sora and Peter met outside, a safe (probably!) distance from the Inn. Peter showed Sora how to stretch out a pad of steel wool and jam it inside a whisk, then he attached long ropes of webbing to the ends of the whisks and fastened them to the ground. While he did that, he cheerfully explained how the webbing worked and how he was sure it would stick to the ground right and everything would be fine. There was a lot of math and other things Sora did not understand at all, but he was absolutely confident that Peter was right.

Once everything was fastened properly, Peter gave the nod.

Sora called out the Keyblade, stood in the middle of the webby circle of stuffed whisks, and cast Aeroga. Swirling winds came out of nowhere to lift up the whisks and spin them in the air, held in control only by the webbing ropes. Next came Thunder - bolts of lightning to ignite the wool in the whisks as they spun. (Peter had been sure that Fire wouldn't work, it had to be Thunder. And he was so right!)

Then the boys settled, more or less, to watch their homemade fireworks spinning and throwing sparks.

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With each example, Liz's look of concern grew. She knew Peter looked completely fine now but all that stuff had to hurt. "Does it. I mean, do you feel pain?" She paused, the look of concern lingering. "That's, that's a lot of pressure." While she wasn't into comic books she did know about Superman and a few others from Alex.

"Yeah, I mean... setting aside the whole mutant spider thing, I'm still human."

Or at least he's pretty sure he is, anyway.

"I don't know. I guess it's a lot of pressure, but if I got the ability to do something good for people who can't do it themselves, I'm going to do it." He pauses to dampen his lips. "I'm sure that it was probably really dangerous for you to help out your alien friends--" if the real-life feds functioned like the feds in any number of movies involving aliens "--but you still did it, right? It's the same thing."

At that explanation Liz smiled. He was right, she realized. When you felt like you had to do the right thing, you did it. She did and she didn't have powers or anything so someone with powers would probably feel the urge to do it even more. It also became clear Peter was more than just a nice guy - he was a good guy. He did the right thing even if it was hard.

She nodded, looking at him as he stood there masked. She wondered what expression was on his face. Maybe that was the point. Then Liz realized she was kind of staring with a small smile without talking for a moment or two.

"You're right. Though I'm, well I have no idea what it's like to be a superhero except to know it's probably really hard." She paused slightly. "I guess, um, I guess that means you have powers? What, can you do?" She felt a surge of guilt and added quickly. "I mean only if your comfortable showing me or telling me or whatever. If not I understand."

"Well," Peter says, thinking about it. "There's the stuff with the webshooters. The webfluid I invented, and I did the first-generation webshooters, too, but Mr. Stark improved on them a lot when he made me this suit. They're built-in now."

Still, how does he explain everything else?

"I mean, I got my powers from a radioactive spider," he says. "So... most of my powers are spider-related. Like strength and agility and speed and durability. And I can climb up walls." That basically encompasses all the spider-like abilities. Or at least the stuff that is quantifiably spider-like.

"I kinda have a sixth sense, too. I call it my Spidey-Sense," he says. "It's like that feeling you get sometimes when something feels off, but you don't really know how, except super amplified. And I kinda heal up faster than normal people do, so that can be pretty helpful when you're being dragged by a van, but can't really go home with a bunch of bruises."

"Wow... I didn't even know a radioactive spider could do that sort of thing" She supposed he was lucky he didn't turn into a spider.

"My friends. The um, aliens. They can heal really quickly too. Actually one." She paused, her hand moving to her belly. "... I basically found out their secret because I was shot and he saved my life."

"I don't know what exactly radioactive spiders do normally," Peter admits. "I really don't even know whether or not it was an outlier, and shouldn't have been counted."

Honestly, everything with that school trip was weird. But before Peter can once again dwell on that any longer, Liz tells him she was shot -- and he can't help but let his gaze race quickly to her stomach, then back up to her face.

"You were shot? Why?"

"Oh, um. Nothing exciting, really. There was an argument between these two guys where I worked and, I was just in the wrong place when the gun went out. It was... so out of the blue. Like, one minute I was taking orders for fries and burgers and the next I'm almost dying." She shook her head and gave a bit of a shrug. "It, uh, definitely changed a lot of things that day."

"So they healed you, and you're okay now, right?" He surveys Liz worriedly, as if she had just recently been injured, even though logically, he knows she's okay.

"Those guys... did the cops get them? The guys who shot you."

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just like new, I promise." She smiled to reassure him, though it faltered a bit. "Um. Yeah. I think so. It took a while since they were guys from out of town and the sheriff was more focused on what happened to me than who did it." Liz realized she didn't even harbour any ill will to the man either. Sure, it had been a really scary moment of her life, but then her life became so much more than it had been.

"I guess that's why you wear a mask, huh? Cause I'm sure everyone wants to know who you are and stuff and if they did it would be, hard."

"I'm glad you're okay," Peter says, because he really is. Part of why he had all these superhero fantasies growing up (even setting aside the time that the Iron Man saved his life) was because he wanted to be able to protect good people who had bad things happen to them. People like Liz.

"Yeah, something like that. I mean, can you imagine what school would be like if everyone knew I was a superhero? My best friend Ned--" the one he mentioned being the more computer-savvy of the two of them "--is the only one at school who actually knows. There's definitely been times in the last year where someone else knowing would have made my life so much easier, though."

Liz could understand that completely. "For a while I had to keep it secret from my friend Alex. He'd been my best friend for like, ever, and he knew something was up because we always had to lie to him or change the subject. It was really hard. We thought we were keeping him safe, but, um. Turns out it put him in more trouble, not knowing, so I finally told him." She laughed softly as she exhaled, shaking her head as she thought about the moment. "It just took the two of us getting stuck in jail for me to finally tell him. He didn't even believe me right away."

Peter lets out a sudden near-silent laugh of surprise at that particular realization. He looks at her, wide-eyed and smiling.

"You were stuck in jail?" He shakes his head, pressing his lips together. "The aliens I can buy, but--"

Peter smiles again, and he's uncertain of precisely when he got comfortable enough around Liz to joke around with her like this.

"You got to tell me how you and your friend wound up in jail," he insists.

She laughed softly when Peter said he didn't buy it and nodded. "It's true. It's true." Thinking about it now it definitely had been the silliest thing, but it led to Alex finding out which had made things a lot better for everyone.

"It's so embarrassing." She put her hand to her eyes for a second as if preparing herself. "Okay, so... There was this party? And um. I wouldn't have normally gone to it, you know? It's not really my thing especially since it was at an abandoned warehouse which is totally illegal. But. I dunno. I guess I was trying to impress someone or whatever and so I was there and then the police arrived and some guy shoved this thing of alcohol in my hands so I was like, um. You know, standing there with my friend and we were both holding onto these bottles that weren't ours and so we. Well we ended up getting arrested." She scrunched her nose as she finished and then smiled.

"Wow," Peter says. Arresting teenagers for possession of alcohol seemed a little extreme, but Peter, like Liz, wasn't much of a party-goer, and he didn't drink, anyway, even when he had an easy opportunity to do so, if he wanted.

"Did -- did your parents have to come and bail you out or something?"

"Actually. um, well, My friend, Alex? He said something about our rights and a lawyer and it seemed to make the sheriff rethink everything. But... the truth is I don't think he arrested us because we were at the party. At the time, the sheriff suspected that we were friends with an alien, but he didn't have any proof. I think he was trying to, you know, scare us into talking. So he ended up letting us go and thankfully our parents never knew." She gave out a little laugh. "Because my parents would have killed me."

"Yeah," Peter says, laughing weakly. "I get that, too." Aunt May was definitely a lot more lenient than most parents, but she probably wouldn't tolerate her nephew getting thrown in jail.

"Why did the sheriff suspect the whole alien thing? Did he, did he see something?"

"Well, I did get shot and then, um. live. There were a lot of questions and I guess his father used to be obsessed with aliens and was ridiculed for it." She shook her head a bit. "He.. he made it really hard for a while and then really came through when we needed it the most. Now it's like. I'd trust him with my life."

"Wait, so he's a good guy now?" Peter is slowly putting the chronology of things together in her head.

Liz meets aliens, doesn't know they're aliens. Alien saves her life. Sheriff witnesses this. Party. Liz and friend get arrested. Wait, when did the friend find out about the aliens again? It was after the party, right?

A smile crept on her face. "It sounds really complicated huh?" She knew it was because her life was complicated. "I don't think he was ever really a bad guy, you know? Just, scared and confused. I mean, things like aliens can be pretty scary." She had been scared at first, too, and Maria had literally gone running out of the Crashdown screaming.

"Things got really complicated really fast. Or at least it felt that way, you know? Being here.. it's the first time in a long time I've been able to just stop and breathe."

"Yeah, but it sounds like both of us have had pretty complicated lives." Though probably recently complicated, from the sounds of it.

"It's the same for me," Peter says. "Ever since I've gotten my powers, I haven't really had much time for rest. And now that I do, I don't really know what to do with myself."

She nodded in agreement. "But you and Sora made these fireworks and that's pretty amazing."

Liz looked at the sparkling night sky for a minute, a smile forming from it. It was hard not to like fireworks. She looked back at Peter. "Do you, um, miss using your powers?" She said it then realized maybe he always did use it and it was a dumb question but it was out there now.

It's hard for Peter to stop staring at Liz, so he forces his gaze up to the fireworks. He didn't want to be creepy.

"Yeah," Peter says. "I mean, I still have them. And sometimes I use them for stuff like this," he gestures to the webfluid-powered fireworks show, "or for making a hammock from the chandelier in my room to the wall. But... I don't ever get to use them for their real purpose. Not while I'm here."

Finally, he allows his gaze to wander back to Liz. "On one hand, I'm glad that it's peaceful here. But at the same time, if I had to be transported to some other place, I'd rather it be somewhere where I could really help people."

His thoughts trail off to Emma, and everything she told him back on New Years. None of that sounded pleasant, but... if he could, he'd want to help all the people back there.

She would miss him, Liz realized suddenly and almost said it out loud as a knee-jerk reaction, but her rational mind kicked in quickly and realized that would be selfish. Just like wanting to be with Max was selfish. Peter could save people, and he should. Not dating Max would save the world, so she shouldn't.

"You can make a hammock?" Liz decided to focus on something else. Besides, she couldn't quite picture it. "What does it look like? Or, um... feel like?" She never really studied how spiderwebs felt except for getting that sudden ick sensation and dancing around until you were certain it was no longer on you. Those couldn't really keep you up like a hammock though. "Can I... can I see it?" Asked quietly in an almost conspiratorial way.

"Y-you want me to show you?" Peter echoes, his voice cracking a little. "Yeah, sure. I mean, if you feel comfortable going up to my room."

Peter suddenly waves his hands frantically in front of him.

"And if you don't, we can make one in the lobby. It really shouldn't be hard to make one anywhere else. I mean, I can do one right in the corner from one wall to another."

Her eyes widened a bit when it looked like he was panicking a little, then she shook her head. "No, no. I wouldn't want - I mean, You shouldn't have to like, expose yourself just for me. If you feel more comfortable in your room then that's okay." She trusted him, after all. "Or, um. It's totally okay if you don't feel comfortable at all and you can just say no. I promise I won't be angry if you do." She followed that with a small, reassuring smile that was muddied with some awkwardness.

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