strangetrip | Hopscotch (OTA)

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Hopscotch (OTA)

It was Saturday and Annie was still at the inn. There was still a lot to figure out about the inn and everything that was going on. The Peter Parker here had a girlfriend and it wasn't her mom. Annie didn't like to think about it.

She found chalk at the boutique. Chalk helped her think and helped her keep busy.

The parking lot was covered in flowers, trees, and chalk rainbows. There was something that might have looked like Spider-Man and next to him a woman next to him with red hair.

The pictures were abandoned for a game of hopscotch. She threw a rock on number 6 and started to hop.

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Annie nodded and threw her rock to number 1. She stopped there.

"Um," She said, looking to Corbie. "I have some powers... so I don't know how fair this is. If you want, I can go get my bracelet and put it on."

By now between their initial meeting and Peter's message through the journal system Corbie had her suspicions about that, but she hadn't really known until right this moment. She smiled. "Thanks for the honesty, but nah, you don't have to. What kind of powers?"

Annie started to hop through the court.

"I'm strong and fast and can crawl up walls like my dad," She said proudly. "And I have spidey-sense."

Strong and fast Corbie could make sense of, but her brow furrowed as she thought about that last one. "What's... spidey-sense?"

"I can sense when bad things are about to happen," she said as she picked up her rock. "It feels kind of like a rush."

She stepped away from the chalk court. It was Corbie's turn.

Corbie did what she'd seen Annie do, dropping the rock on the 1 space and going up on one leg.

It had been a long time since she'd hopped on one leg for any reason, so that first jump over a square was a little shaky. As she recentered she said, "Huh. So it's like that feeling people get when they're nervous about something going wrong, except it's true?" For Corbie it was usually knowing before someone doing a stupid thing that the stupid thing was stupid.

She got it around Jackson not infrequently.

Right now, though, she just tried to keep her left leg up and kept hopping.

"Yeah," she confirmed with a nod. "I usually see it too. I don't think that's how it works for my dad, but we didn't talk a lot about our powera back home because it was dangerous."

Annie watched Corbie with a toothy smile.

"You're doing really good!" She said.

"My teacher can sometimes see things in his dreams, though he never really figured out why." Hop, hop, hop. She made it to the end of the grid and tried to puzzle out how to simultaneously turn and stay up on one leg. "Sometimes it's the past, sometimes the present. I could never do that."

Corbie jumped in a circle and flailed a little when she landed, her leg dropping down some but not enough that her foot touched the ground. She drew her foot back up after a moment.

Annie clapped encouragingly as Corbie was successful. She's doing a really good job for her first time!

"I don't think I can see the past," She said. "But I've never really been able to do it a whole lot because I had to always wear the bracelet. It's for helping people. I can stop the bad things."

"Why'd you have to wear it?" Corbie thought she was probably in the clear. She hopped back more or less all right. And then when she had to lean down to pick up the stone, she lost her balance and her other foot came down. "Oh son of a--goat." She quickly amended. And then she started to giggle.

Annie bursts into a giggle. Her dad would do the same thing. He would be about to swear and mom would glare at him and something silly would come out. Annie's smile is from ear to ear.

"You almost made it!" She said happily. "The bending down is the hardest part."

She looked proud of Corbie.

"I had to wear it because they take people like me," She explained. "People with power. The police come and you disappear forever."

"Almost," Corbie agreed, picking up the rock and hopping the last bit anyway.

She hesitated for a moment before she answered, "And they had a way to see it, even if you didn't use it, huh?"

"There's someone who can smell it. His name is Kraven," She said, hesitating at his name. "And they do scans of the city. My dad has to wear one too so he isn't taken either."

To distract herself, Annie throws her rock. It almost lands outside of the square, but she exhaled when it didn't. She started to hop.

"I had to hide when I was younger," Corbie said, watching Annie take her turn. "Well, probably I didn't, but Gran was convinced that if anybody found out we had magic, there were still people out there who'd hurt us like when she was a girl."

"Were they afraid of magic?" She asked, hopping. "Mom says people are afraid of things and it makes them do bad things sometimes."

She finished her turn triumphantly.

Corbie shook her head. "Nah. They were people who thought that their powers meant that they could do whatever they wanted to other people."

She frowned at the grid. "Do I need to try the same one again since I messed up?"

Annie nodded, but she looked as if she were sorry.

"It's sort of the rules." She said. "But every time you try, you'll get better!"

She smiled. People who thought that their powers meant they could do whatever they wanted. Annie's smile weakened.

"We have someone like those people back home," She said. "His name is Regent. He sort of runs everything now."

Corbie took this in stride, though, dropping the rock and starting to hop. This time was easier, now that she had a better idea of what it was supposed to feel like in her own body. "You mentioned him before," she said.

Annie watched Corbie jump. She was quiet. Something was bubbling inside her.

"He has my dad." She blurted it out.

She gasped and covered her mouth. She was surprised she said that.

Corbie stopped where she was, keeping completely still since she wasn't good enough at this to turn around. But she didn't need to see in order to picture the look on Annie's face. She looked over her shoulder. "D'you wanna talk about it? Or would you rather keep playing?" She thought about it. "Or both, both's also fine."

Annie was uncertain.

"... you won't tell my dad here, right?" She asked, hopeful.

Corbie shook her head, putting her foot down and turning around. "I won't."

Annie frowned and breathed in and out.

"There was a boy with powers from my school." She began. "They were going to take him away so Spider-Man had to stop him. But then.. then they took him. And the man at the secret base. I heard him tell my mom he might be dead."

She kicked idly at the ground.

Corbie moved closer to the girl, getting down on her knees to be closer to eye level with her. She raised a hand to cup Annie's cheek. "I'm sorry," she said softly, "That's so scary, not knowing."

Annie nodded and tried not to look too sad. She wanted to be strong and brave.

"I don't want him to know," She said quietly, looking away.

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