Missing (OTA)

[st_hotflashes]

Liz stood in the middle of the lobby with a quiet, panicked look on her face. She turned around a second time, surveying the scene around her, but the second pass didn't help any. She ran a hand through her hair and then headed for one of the couches. She pulled back the cushions, digging her hand into the crevice of the gaudy plush decor and when her hand emerged empty, she felt her chest tighten.

Liz's journal was missing.

She thought she had brought it back to the room yesterday after studying in the cafe, but this morning when she went to review her notes from the day before, she had discovered that the familiar book she had so many things in was gone. She had checked the library, the restaurant, the cafe, even the kitchen itself. It had to be somewhere, right?

(ooc: Find her pretty much anywhere. Also! Feel free, if your character would so choose, to find the journal and read all or some of it because I am a cruel mistress.)

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"I'll put something together," Peter says. "I really don't think most people would read it. Yeah, maybe the first page to figure out whose journal it is, but once they figure it out, I don't think most people would read any further."

Peter gives Liz a hug. "You gonna be okay?"

[st_hotflashes]

"Yeah, it's just. You know. There's just stuff about people in there and I started writing letters to Maria in there and they're really embarrassing." She pressed her lips together. "Like, really embarrassing." Like, she might show him if he ever asked, but she wouldn't show him on her own.

[st_arkintern]

"Like, more embarrassing than the time I read it?"

[st_hotflashes]

Liz bit her bottom lip and nodded once to him. It was a lot more embarrassing than that.

[st_arkintern]

Peter swallows. "There's nothing you have to worry about," he says, trying to sound confident, "because no one's gonna read it. Either we'll find it, or someone will bring it back unread."

Or mostly unread, since they'd probably need the first page to figure out that it was Liz's.

[st_hotflashes]

She hoped Peter was right, even though it didn't stop her feeling weird without it.

"The only other time this happened, I thought the FBI found it. Turned out Michael stole it to read what I said about them. He returned it when I guess he realized I was a friend."

[st_arkintern]

"I don't think anyone would do that," Peter says. At least he hopes not. "I just can't understand why anyone would invade someone's privacy like that. Even Michael."

Yeah, Peter knows Michael had a hard life. And maybe he had reason to suspect that Liz wasn't an ally. There were still other ways to figure that out that didn't involve sifting through someone else's personal journal.

[st_hotflashes]

"Michael's sort of the kind of guy to get the job done no matter what the cost." Sometimes it was helpful although more often than not it was nerve wracking and put people, or at the very least himself, in danger.

"Would you, um. help me take another look in the cafe?"

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, sure."

Peter reaches for Liz's hand and gives it a little squeeze. "You should get something to drink while we're there. Take a breather while I look around."

Liz seems pretty stressed out about this.

[st_hotflashes]

She nodded, letting Peter take the lead into the cafe. For a moment she realized this didn't exactly feel 'superhero' like, especially not compared to being out in the desert with Quill.

She got herself, and Peter for when he would join her, two cokes and sat down, trying to mentally retrace her steps. She closed her eyes and tried to actually picture what had happened. If only Peter had her power and could control it, maybe he could see what happened.

[st_arkintern]

Peter checks everywhere. Beneath tables and below chairs. In the little crease where the the seat of the booth chair meets the back of it. In cabinets and display cases and behind them. His search is so through that when Peter finally stops and joins Liz, even Peter is positive it's not here.

Peter wipes his head with the back of his arm as he sits down, then takes the coke into hand. "I don't think it's here," he says.

[st_hotflashes]

She slumped forward, arms extended on the table top in front of her as she lowers her forehead to her arms and groaned softly. She stayed like that for a moment or two before she lifted herself back upright.

"Maybe... maybe it.. went back home, or something."

[st_arkintern]

"Maybe," Peter says as he opens his coke. "When's the last time you wrote in it?"

Seemed like that might be as good of a clue as any.

[st_hotflashes]

"It was Friday. I wrote down stuff about meeting Brad and talking to him about the inn and stuff." She wasn't sure if that was helpful and she didn't think the other boy took it either. Hopefully not, anyways.

[st_arkintern]

Peter mentally stores this information away for now.

"Do you remember where you wrote it?"

[st_hotflashes]

"Outside by the pool... writing outside helps me think. And then I came in to finish actual school work and I must have thought I packed it in my bag, but I didn't." She didn't think she dropped it or anything. For sure she'd notice the drop of a book, right?

[st_arkintern]

"I checked the pool," Peter says, scratching the back of his head. "I can probably check again -- just in case." Probably better for him to double-check anyway.

Peter takes a sip of his soda, thinking.

"Maybe we should check the lost and found again, too. Someone might have dropped it off in the last few hours."

[st_hotflashes]

She gave a nod, sort of like when someone nods, but their mind is elsewhere. Then her eyes trail back to him. "Do you think it's stupid of me to write all this stuff down?"

[st_arkintern]

"No," Peter says, shaking his head. "I don't think it's stupid at all. Everybody needs an outlet. You write in your journal... I talk to Karen."

He takes another swig of his soda and takes the opportunity to think some more. He's doing that a lot right now. Thinking about Liz. Thinking about where her journal might be. Just... thinking.

"Did someone say it was stupid?" he asks, looking over at her. Liz get insecure sometimes and it's hard for him to tell if something prompted it.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz shook her head. "No, nothing like that. It's just, I write some things down that, you know, could either get people in trouble - like that you're Spider-Man." Not that they really had to worry about that here. "or, um. About other things we do, which is more embarrassing." Although maybe equally as dangerous if her dad ever read it and Peter was around.

Peter was right, though, having an outlet was something Liz needed. Getting words on paper helped her to process and sometimes she could move on from a particular problem or thought once it was in black and white.

"...what sort of things do you talk to Karen about?" And she wondered how good Karen was at responding. Listening, she knew, but Karen was AI which mean she had her own opinion, right?

[st_arkintern]

While it wouldn't be problematic here if someone found out he was Spider-Man, it could be problematic elsewhere. As embarrassing as it might be to discover that someone had learned the details of his love life, it didn't put him or anyone else he cared about in danger. Well, unless Flash found it. Then there might be years of bullying in his future, and it'd probably be a lot worse than Penis Parker.

"You wrote about your friends back home, right?" he asks. "It's not really any different." It's true. "I don't think you're irresponsible, either. You know how important it is to keep that safe. So whatever happened, it was definitely an accident."

That much Peter's sure of. But when Liz asks about Karen, it's difficult for him not to feel a little embarrassed.

"I mean," he says with a pause because it's hard for him to admit it. "A lot. Basically everything. I tell her about my day. Sometimes I talk to her about back home or the movies I'm watching because she can't watch them unless I'm wearing the mask."

Perhaps more embarrassingly, sometimes he watches them with the mask so he and Karen can talk about them.

[st_hotflashes]

"You're a really good friend to her." Which was sort of weird to think about, but Liz thought so anyways. Even you couldn't hug or be hugged by Karen, she was her own sort of person.

"When you first told me about her... I was really worried she wouldn't like me for some reason." She felt a slight flush form on her cheeks mostly because she was basically saying she didn't think a computer would like her, but to Peter, Karen was important.

[st_arkintern]

"Alec would argue with me over it --" And in fact, had "-- but AI are people, too."

That's why Peter couldn't consider the possibility of letting her die -- or be deleted -- or whatever happened to AI when they ceased to be.

"I wasn't worried at all," he says. "I talked to Karen about you all the time. She knew exactly how I felt about you."

[st_hotflashes]

She smiled at that, small, but warm. She thought it said a lot about Peter that he cared so much for someone that other people wouldn't consider a person. All good things.

"Maybe Alec has a hard time thinking that because to him, Karen is just a voice."

[st_arkintern]

"I tried to get him to talk to her like a normal person," he says. "He just wouldn't. He acted like she was a robot."

And maybe to some people she was just that -- personality given life through lines upon lines of code, but...

"I'm glad that she's here," he says, because he is. She might not be May or Ned or Mr. Stark, but she was his friend. Just a friend he could only talk to when he was wearing the mask.

He finishes off his drink. "After this, I'll go check out the pool and then make the flier. You wanna check lost and found? I can find you once I'm done."