ArchivedLogs:Theremins, Crab Arms and Battle Plans

Theremins, Crab Arms and Battle Plans
Dramatis Personae Kisha, Peter, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-03-04 Just another day at Xavier's.
Location <XS> Rec Room - FL2
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. Two days until end of term and the school is deep into the final class of the day. A good thing for those normally enrolled; less noteworthy for those who are still waiting for spring trimester to begin. Shelby is one of these and boy, have the rumors been swirling! It took hardly any time for word to spread that the girl had been brought back from the city and stuck in medlab for a few days. Theories range from gang violence to sewer monster attack to some wiseass commenting that she just finally drove someone to snap and attack her. Not everyone disagrees with this hypothesis. Shelby's doing a decent job of ignoring it all, though. She's not bothering to keep her head down--else she probably wouldn't be in the rec room--but she has tucked herself off to the side in one of the windowseats. Her right arm is sheathed in a black satin opera glove, super fancy in comparison to her faded pink Juicy Couture track suit, and strapped to her chest with a sling. The observant might notice that her palm is facing out rather than in. In her lap is a sketchbook, in her left hand a pencil, and she is struggling with trying to simply write her name. The effort has left her face drawn in scowl lines. Having been at Xaviers for a little over a week now Kisha has already begun to refine her 'intel gathering' strategies. After all digging in the trash for broken electronics is much more productive when you know someone is throwing out stuff! Of course this sort of rumour mongering tends to bring up a few oddities, like the rumour Kisha heard yesterday about Shelbys hand having been replaced with a miniature person called Clive. And thus Kisha has headed down to the Rec Room hefting a small box and her ubiquitous tablet computer. Cautiously she follows the edge of the room round, her black t-shirt and black pants combo not especially ideal for sneaking in a lit room, until she's just edging round to where the windowseats are. Then she ever so subtly coughs. Shelby was happy to pretend to ignore Kisha while she was over /there/ but as the other girl works closer, the ginger's eyes cut to the side to track her. Closely. The scowl deepens slightly but she waits until the cough signals a desire for interview before speaking up. "You wanna look at it, I'm charging ten bucks a pop. You wanna touch it, you gotta pay twenty," she says in response. "S'worth the price of admission, believe me." The same could not be said for her attempts at writing legibly with her left hand. It looks like someone has let a kindergarten student loose on the pages of the notebook; Shelby's name, and her attempts at doodles, are shaky and sprawling. Kisha tilts her head. "Uhm... Actually I heard you got hurt and..." she glances at the scrawl, then at the box she's holding. "I made you a get well soon present. It's... nothing much, just something I threw together while I was waiting for some clay to dry. Long story, probably best not to...." Kisha stops mid-sentence then brandishes the box. "I'm afraid I wasted my spare change on convincing people to put me into the loop for wild rumours. Turns out candy buys shit intel." Up go Shelby's eyebrows while she looks from Kisha to the box. "You...made me a present?" The other girl will have to pardon her for sounding skeptical. But she's at least willing to set aside pencil and notebook to reach for the aforementioned box with her good hand, placing it where the notebook had been resting in her lap. Instead of opening it immediately, she glances up at Kisha again--searching her expression for something that goes unnamed--before cracking a faint smile. "I think presents get you a free peek. If you wanna. You should stock up on smokes, s'kinda like prison in here, people go apeshit for contraband." Gift passed on Kisha pauses long enough to subject the gloved hand with an analytical eye. "Well... I think I'm good, although I am curious about what actually happened. If it's not too forward of me to ask? Rumours range from 'eaten by a Velociraptor' to the 'tiny little man for a hand'. Both of which seem to be blatantly false." She sounds a little disappointed at the lack of dinosaurs. "To the more plausible theory that one of the murder drones attacked and you got hurt escaping." Shelby's smile twists wryly. "That was a couple of visits to the city back, the murder drones, and I totally got away. /This/ time it was just some crazy ass mutant. He went all creepy at me, I told him to get lost and he tackled me, then did this." She taps the sling keeping her right arm immobilized before dropping that hand to the box. Presents! Oh boy, oh boy! Of course, once she has the box open, she isn't quite certain of what it is she's looking at, so a curious glance goes winging Kishawards. "You made this? Like, by yourself? Damn." "It was easy. The original design was invented in the Nineteen Twenties," Kisha explains without a trace of modesty. "But this one is based off a Moog design. In a way it helped me work on my plastic moulding techniques. So it's not an entirely selfless gift." She ponders. "It's a theremin, you play it without touching it.... You've seen the murder drones? Fascinating! I've been studying them for... uhm... I just basically like cool tech stuff, even if it's intended to kill me. Maybe even especially then..." "...play it without touching it?" It takes a moment for that concept to percolate through Shelby's wee little brain, but when things begin to click, she lights up like a Christmas tree. "I can play it without my fucking hand? Oh my god. Keesh--Kisha, this is fucking /amazing/." The light then dims into confusion. "How come? I mean...this shit looks complicated, you just...heard about my hand and wanted to share?" Good deeds of that sort do not commute, leaving her with rumpled brow--and a greedy hand left curled over the box in case Kisha decides to take it back. "I was kinda running for my life when they showed up," she adds, "but yeah, I saw 'em. They were after that Spider person." Kisha shrugs. "It's an... interesting sort of sound," she warns. "As for why... I make things because I like making things. Besides.. you kinda reminded me of my brother from back before he was..." There is a slight cringe before she adds "Lets just say that these days I wouldn't compare him to anyone I wanted to remain on speaking terms with." Shelby studies the other girl through the cringe. With it comes a return of her smile, faint and crooked, but definitely there. "You mean he was and is kind've a dick? Yeah. I get that a lot," she shares, "but hell, if it means I get awesome presents...this is /sweet/. Thanks, Kisha. I was..." She cuts herself off there with a shake of her head and returns to inspecting the instrument. "I like making music. This is great." "Oh no. He might have been a dick before, but he's graduated to a sort of mega-douche," Kisha notes sullenly. "But anyway... enough about him! I'm glad you like it... Or at least the thought of it, because like I said it does sound really odd. You might struggle to land a gig in a cool club unless you'd been thinking of starting an electropop band?" "Hell, music is music. I didn't think I'd ever be able to play anything again. How's it work?" Shelby is at a disadvantage in clearing the gadget from the box, partly due to being afraid of dropping it. She struggles with it though to swing it onto the windowseat beside her legs. "It looks, uh. Kinda weird." Kisha points at the cable. "You plug it in, adjust these bits like so, then you move around within about so far." She holds her hands to demonstrate the radius it detects. "You know you could have got one of those harmonicas with a harness if you really wanted to play. Although then the girls dorm would be a tin cup away from a prison... So maybe don't try that just yet." The demonstration is observed closely, Shelby's grin growing by leaps and bounds as she watches. "Seriously, all I gotta do is wave my hand around? That's friggin' /cool/." Check it out, she's so tickled she forgot to swear! 'These bits' are fiddled with, without being plugged in, but she's already glanced around to spot the nearest outlet. "I used to have one of those," she says absently, of the harmonica harness, "and knee cymbals. They're totally not worth it. This is so /neat/...you make shit like this all the time?" Kisha drums her fingers against the wall. "I guess you could say that," she admits. "Sometimes with varying degrees of success. I generally avoid setting myself on fire anymore. Once is enough for anyone. I was trying to keep it a big secret, but I don't suppose there is much point now I've told a few people, but making stuff is basically my power. Hobby first though, it's what first got me away from bad influences... Well except the ones which are purely my own!" "Really? That's pretty sweet. I mean, like /way/ more useful than lots of the shit you see in here. Hell, you got me beat." Shelby tilts her head to flash a grin up at the other girl. Her good hand is used to gesture Kisha towards the rest of the windowseat, inviting her to settle in. "Were you a tweaker or something before it started?" Kisha pauses, then accepts the offer and settles down. "Lets just say if you ever hypothetically locked your keys in your car I could probably get them back for you. Maybe even start the car.. Not that I ever would because that would be illegal." She returns a smile of her own. "It's not entirely as cool a power as it sounds. Most of the really awesome stuff is just too expensive to make myself. Like a cannon needs thousands of dollars worth of metal and the list of things the teachers consider off limits is practically as long as I am tall." "Seriously?" Shelby is delight. Also, speculative in the way she side-eyes Kisha once she's settled. "I knew a couple've jackers, way back when. I was dealing, myself," she admits without shame, "not that I'd ever do something like that /now/. Illegal." Her grin deepens. "That would kinda suck though, yeah. Maybe after you've been here a little, they'll lay off with some of the rules? Once they're sure you're not gonna go nuclear on the place or whatever. The Prof said they got good insurance, anyway." "Oh nuclear is way off the cards. Unless they happen to get /really/ lax over on ebay," Kisha proclaims cheerfully. "I'm not like a professional or anything. But I practically grew up around my Dads autoshop and my brother... Like I said, kind of a dick. I'm pretty sure some of the rules will never ease up, which sucks because I have these neat books which show how you make a Sherman tank... And nothing would make the people building combat drones shit bricks like a tank crashing through the wall." Shelby and Kisha are sitting in one of the windowseats, with a gadget between them and a box on the floor. Shel's arm is hidden inside of a black satin opera glove--palm facing outwards--and strapped to her chest via a blue sling thingy. Her free hand is engaged in fiddling with dials on the gadget, which seems to be an endless source of fascination to the girl--until Kisha one-ups it with talk of /tanks/. "Holy /fuck," she breathes, "you can build a /tank/ if you wanted? Oh man...oh /man/...y'know what we should do? Like, what we totally gotta do is find out where the rich folks around here send their junkers and go raid that lot." Kisha giggles. "You don't even want to know how expensive they are," she warns. "To get a normal one in such poor condition it's only worth being used for parts would set you back maybe a hundred thousand dollars. For one in driving condition we're talking twice that. There is also the potential that I'd fuck up building it, because the bigger something is the more awkward it is to keep the design in my head... The book would help, but it might just be a massive waste of cash." Peter is currently beating the /crap/ out of someone in a game of Mario Cart. It's one of the later releases for the Nintendo Wii; they're playing as Bowser, and he's playing as Drybones, driving a little motorcycle and crapping out green shells like /nobody's/ beeswax. The game's just about finishing up -- the teenager Peter was playing against mumbles begrudgingly before Peter hops up to his feet; apparently, loser's gotta put the console stuff away, which leaves the bundle of energy free to plunge into the other room... where--oh hey, there's Shelby and Kisha and wait why is Shelby's arm all wrapped up like a *present*? "Oh, hey Shelby, hey Kisha," Peter says, just /peering/ at Shelby's arm. "Oh man, did you injure your arm? Mine's just healing up." "So adapt it, right? Look, I'm seventeen, I know how to drive and they let us have a car if we get a license. We find an old junker and modify the plans. Maybe not to be a /tank/," and Shelby sounds disappointed but it can't be helped, "but we could still have the sweetest ride. Then on weekends we can go /wherever/ we wanted to without having to take the train, or wait for Ryan to show up with a ride. Right?" This teenage dream is interrupted by Peter's arrival though, leaving the girl to flick a narrow look at him while her good hand curls protectively over her arm. "Hey Peter...someone did it for me, you didn't hear?" "Ahhh but where to find bullet proof glass on a budget?" Kisha says with mock dismay. "I kind of like the idea of building a Bond car. That would be pretty sweet... I'll have to finish my UAV project first though. Can't let myself get distracted too much, that's how stuff gets explodey." She springs to her feet and waves, in greeting and farewell. "Speaking of which I really should get back to my room before anything overheats and sets the fire alarms off. Peter you didn't hear the dinosaur rumour did you? Because it's total BS... Anyway cya both laters!" "Bye, Kisha," Peter says, although his gaze is a little distant, now -- his eyes centered on Shelby's arm. He moves toward her -- although his steps are cautious. "Someone did it for you?" he asks, and his eyes flick up to Shelby's. "Like, /here/?" There's an edge of incredulity in his voice -- and worry. "It -- some sort of accident or something...?" He gnaws at his bottom lip, his other hand moving to scratch at the back of his head. "See ya, Kisha," Shelby adds to the leavetaking, raising her good hand in a farethewell. When it lowers, it curls over the gadget brought by the other girl. She shakes her head at Peter. "In the city. Some crazy homeless dude got pissed off and tackled me," she briefly touches her forehead, where there's a small cut healing, and a fading bruise under the freckles, "and then he mutanted on my arm. Twisted it up like one've those fancy bushes they make look like animals? You wanna see it?" "He--what?--What?--/WHAT/?" Peter stares at her. Incredulous meter RISING up into the high 40s. And it only goes up to ten! "He mutated -- your arm -- like -- oh man, oh /man/ that is way worse than what happened to me. And I -- wanna see it? I -- I guess? I mean --" He steps closer, now, peering at her arm so intensely that she might suspect he's trying to *bore* through the silk wrapping. "...can they, like -- fix it?" Shelby's only immediate reply is a faint smile, the wryness in it perhaps a little too cutting for someone of her age. Her jaw is set; it takes a moment before she can relax it enough to reply. "I don't think so. It's not like just a break. He twisted the bones around each other," she says as she dips her head forward and reaches back with her left hand to pull the velcro sling-strap free. "What happened to you? I didn't know you got hurt." "I just got quilled by some guy in Central Park and then I uh --" Peter flushes with color as she removes the velcro strap, proceeding to *sway*, weight shifting from one foot to the other. " -- uh did some stupid acrobatic stuff and busted it *wide* open. But the stitches came out like, a couple of days ago, and it's okay now." He rolls his left shoulder and swings his arm about in a wide arc, as if to demonstrate. His eyebrows then crumple: "Well if /they/ can't fix it then maybe the dude who /did/ it could. Do you remember what he looks like? I totally bet somebody could find him." "Quilled? What, like the day Jax got the ticket? Jesus, you were there?" Shelby looks up at him in order to blink-blink at this tidbit of information, the bridge of her nose rumpled. "Man...I thought /I/ was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's crazy, dude." Does this mean she is perhaps a little smug that /her/ injury is more severe? Maybe a little, carefully hidden under the cautious way she's extricating her gloved arm from the sling. One has to take their pleasure where they can, right? "I don't think crazy guys really go for being told what to do but yeah, I remember the guy. Hey, you got ten bucks?" "Huh? Oh -- oh, yeah, it was -- oh man they gave him a _ticket_," Peter insists, despite the fact that Shelby has /just/ pointed this out. The scar, it still stings! "Yeah, he was there, it would have been way worse but he just threw up his shield and BRZZT, quills bounced off and I frog-jumped with Spencer outta there." Peter gives a shifty-eyed look, then. "I think somebody even caught me on camera doing the frog jump thing -- but you couldn't see my face, so..." He's still looking at Shelby's arm as she unstraps that thing -- cheeks flushed with color, looking somewhere between a mixture of /excited/ and /horrified/. "What did he -- like, look like? I can keep an eye out for him, maybe, or, uh -- oh, ten dollars? I don't know, I --" Peter, being guileless as he is, proceeds to pop out his wallet and search it. "I think I have a five dollar b -- wait, why?" he asks, it only /now/ occurring to him to wonder why she wants to know if he has ten dollars. "You saved Spence?" Shelby, who had been in the middle of putting her hand out in expectation of that five dollar bill, now hesitates. Moral quandary! She frowns. Morals hurt. Then, with a sigh, she just goes back to CAREFULLY peeling the glove up her arm. Apparently that hurts too because she winces here and there as the satin rolls up to reveal the first warped flesh. "Okay fine, you can look at it for free but don't /tell/ anyone," she warns him. "The guy was pretty easy to spot. Red coat with a hood on it, half his face was fucked up. I put one of my dragons on his face too, and...wait." A weighty silence falls, while she stares at him. Dots are slowly being connected. And then, warily, "Did you say frog-jumped?" There is a lot to compute here, so Peter struggles to engulf it all, bit by bit. When Shelby grimaces with pain, Peter's eyes bolt open: "Oh man does it hurt? Oh, jeez, don't worry about it then, I mean you should totally not..." He's only /now/ parsing the words 'you can look at it for free'. He *gapes* at her, wallet still in hand. "Wait, you're /charging/--?!" And then, when she mentions 'frog-jumped'. Peter's eyes go wider. His face goes /redder/. And he snaps to attention, wallet clenched in his fist. "Ohjeez," he says. "YouknowIjustrealizedIhaveclass." There are no more classes for today. Classes are /over/. "Only when I move it." The answer is, at best, extremely distracted. Mostly because Shelby is now /staring/ at Peter with Supreme Suspicion. Oh yes she is. His reaction to the question just confirms what she'd been thinking. "You son of a /bitch/!" she cries, without concern for who might be listening in the other room, "you're the fucking /Spider/!" Peter *instantly* reacts. His hand jerks up -- it was shoved deep in his pocket -- now wearing his trademark red-and-blue SPIDER glove. And then, there is a light THWP, and -- unless Shelby is *very* fast -- a rather gross *SPLT* as a grayish-white goop proceeds to swat her mouth, sealing it shut beneath the web-like extension of Peter's web-shooter. In an instant, Peter's eyebrows shoot up. "OhGod," he says, and both his hands are in the air. "OhGod, I'm sorry, just, just don't freak out, I can TOTALLY get that off of you, it's just -- OhGod PLEASE be quiet about this," and his head is darting left and right as he throws his school-bag to the ground, rummaging for the spray-can full of vinegar he loaded up. Shelby is not /that/ fast. She barely has time to draw a fresh breath before that distinctive sound and then there is GOOP covering her MOUTH. As tends to happen when ladies are not /warned/, she does indeed freak out. Just...not loudly. Her poor ruined arm flops to her side as she jumps to her feet, the box there on the ground kicked out of the way. Her good hand is in the process of clawing at the gunk sealing her mouth shut while her eyes bug out and blaze murder at him. And behind that barrier? There is a whole lot of raised voice, just /waiting/ to come out. Peter pulls the vinegar canister out -- it's a small, compact spray-bottle he's filled for this /precise/ purpose! And he's moving toward her, bottle in hand... right until he sees those eyes -- and the manner in which she is staring at him. Suddenly, he darts the hand holding the bottle back. "Okay so I am pretty sure the instant I take that off you are going to be screaming like nobody's business so," as she claws at that gunk, she finds it stretches -- but firmly /refuses/ to yield its grip on her skin, sealed up good and tight, "so first you gotta just CALM down, okay? And I swear to God I'll make this up to you but PLEASE, this is really important, and /why/ am I so terrible at secret identities?!" This last bit is proclaimed to the ceiling, hands curled into little, furious fists. It's probably a good thing for Peter that Shelby is short a hand. For a minute there, she looks as if she's tempted to go after him anyway, sealed mouth and mangled arm be damned. But she's made the connection between the bottle he's holding and the way he pulls it back and away. If that is the way to being able to speak again, so be it. Her eyes have narrowed to slits but she nods to him. Once. Curtly. Peter huffs, exhausted but relieved -- and springs forward, bringing the bottle up to her mouth. SQUIRT, SQUIRT -- the effect is near instantaneous. The 'webbing' begins to evaporate, bubbling and losing its impossibly-tight grip; it has a sour, obnoxious taste, but rapidly disperses into nothing more than a harmless, stinky gas. She'd be able to pull the majority of it right off a few seconds after he spritzes it. "Okay," Peter says, hopping back -- *out* of her immediate reach. His cheeks /blisteringly/ red. "Um. So, first, I am /so/ sorry about nearly getting you killed. Way back. That night." And pull she does! Shelby bends over at the waist and proceeds to tug, and spit, and hack, and generally act as disgusted as she feels. Some of the dissolving bits are flung where she last saw Peter, but she has /horrible/ aim with her left hand so that's all right. Once that's done, she straightens up and pulls her right arm up against her chest, clutching it there. And glaring. Always glaring. Really, the glaring never /stopped/. It's a good thing he talks fast! "Right," she snarks at him, "you're just sorry you got /caught/." "Oh my /GOD/!" Peter exclaims, and then he looks around -- there are still one or two students milling about, and at least one of them is looking at him and Shelby with more than a little suspicion. So, Peter ratchets it back down: "Oh my God!" he repeats, but now it's a husky whisper. "How many times do I have to apologize I mean I wasn't /trying/ to put anyone in danger, they were /chasing/ me and I /totally/ saved your life even though I put it in danger in the first place and I think that should /totally/ make us even!" Then, a sharp intake of breath: "I'm sorry. I was just starting out. But I've gotten /way/ better at this." Sly look to the left. Shelby didn't know he was capable of whispers. That he is makes her frown and glance off towards the gawping students. "What the fuck you looking at? Go stare at someone else, Jesus fucking Christ!" she barks--and they scatter, though whether that's due to barking or Crab Hand is difficult to say. Having successfully dispersed the lookielooks, she rounds on Peter again. Lucky him. "What, so you're like a baby superhero?" The frowning has not let up but some amusement sneaks in now. "So that was you in the cafe? Your secret weakness is boobs?" The fact that the students actually disperse under Shelby's barking seems to bring Peter some relief. He's quick to turn right back to her, though. At the mention of his secret weakness, he looks like he's about to spontaneously combust: "I--I, look, that was /cheating/!" Peter says, pointing an accusing finger at her. "And you /know/ it! And -- and I gave them the files," he adds, his voice dropping lower, despite the lack of anyone else around. "And now they're going. To raid that place. And, and I don't think they're going to let me come." He looks at Shelby, as if she might be capable of rectifying this /gross/ injustice: "But if I don't go I am pretty sure people might die. I am /awesome/ at making sure people don't die. It is, like, the only thing I have gotten right so far." So far, the score is Peter: 6, Death: 0. "I grew 'em myself, totally /not/ cheating," Shelby huffs. But rage, indignation, amusement and even confusion all fade in light of where he says the files went. /That/ information makes her gape. Then--letting her arm fall painfully at her side again--she reaches out to try to pull Peter over to the windowseat so they can have A Little Chat. "Tell me. /Everything/. I don't want Jax or Hive or anyone dying, and if you think you can keep 'em alive then we'll figure it out." Peter yelps as he's pulled over, arms flailing -- blinking -- and then glancing from left to right. When she mentions them by name -- he gets quiet. And when he speaks next, his voice seems... a little frightened. "I don't want them to die, either," he tells her, and this sounds like an embarrassed confession. "Like, they are -- they're NICE. Well, no," Peter adds, almost as an aside: "Not Hive, I think he's -- he's actually a total jerk. But he's not a jerk to /me/," he quickly amends. "But --" Right. She wanted to know /details/. He sucks in a breath, and just *launches* into it: "The place I broke into -- it's Oscorp. They're a weapon defense contractor who has dealings with the scary people in the terror-labs. The files that told them where the terror-lab is were *delivery* manifests from Oscorp, for the very same murder-drones they sent after me. That means there are going to be murder-drones /there/," Peter adds. "By the looks of it, lots of them. And -- and -- and I can /dodge/ them!" he tells her, his voice sounding almost desperate. "I can dodge them and with these web things I can catch them and *throw* them and bash them and gunk them up like I gunked up your mouth but they won't let me go because I'm too young and /everyone/ thinks I'm too young but I'm like flying between buildings and jumping into FIRES and I can /DO/ this," he says, and at this point he's gripping Shelby's arm and shaking her, as if he is trying to convince /her/ instead of Jackson and Hive. "Hive's got his reasons," Shelby says in defense of the guy, her frown appearing and then vanishing just as quickly. Because there are /details/, and 99% of it she's never heard and there are words in there that she doesn't get but it all sounds /bad/. So she listens intently, trying to make sense of it, until Peter starts shaking her. Then she yelps too and tests his reflexes by slapping at him with the back of her good hand. "Knock it off, asshole! Jesus. Take a breath and count to ten, okay?" With this advice parceled out, she follows it too and sucks in a breath through her nose, releasing it slowly. She pulls her bad arm back onto her lap and absently massages the crooked fingers while she thinks. And thinks. And thinks some more. Thinking is taxing, so much worse than simply reacting. It doesn't look as if it sits well with her, having to be the thinky one here. "Okay," she finally says, "you know where it is, this place they're breaking into?" Peter's head darts back a moment before her hand is moving in to /deliver/ the slap -- it still connects, though. He doesn't seem to have been actively trying to dodge it -- just brace himself for contact. At her suggestion, he does precisely that -- although his lips aren't moving and he's just staring at her lap. Silently, mentally counting. Her comment about the place interrupts that mental count. His head lifts up, one eyebrow sinking, the other raising: "Well, yeah," he says. "It's still on my phone, I mean." Oh, yes. *Shelby's* phone. The one that has seen Places We Shall Not Mention. Shelby continues to rub at her fingers, which look a little swollen--small wonder though, given the way her forearm is twisted. The map of /that/ circulatory system must be a nightmare. She nods absently when he answers--even better when he does so in brief and to the point fashion. "Okay. I mean, that kinda sucks, 'cause it's super tempting, but...okay. You gotta try to imagine something for me, and you /owe/ me this, right? You said you'd make shit up to me and I figure you owe me not just for almost getting me killed but for /lying/ too," she says, fixing him with a look the warns against argument. "They've been doing this awhile, right? Jax and them. So, like. You think that in the meantime, in between these raids, these labs're just sitting with their thumbs up their asses about who's going after them? And you know the twins came out've there, and they're all living in the same building. All the guys who do this, and who got out." Shelby pulls in a breath. "What do you think the chances are that the bad guys /don't/ know who's doing this? And what do you think they're gonna do to their /families/ when they figure out it happened again?" Peter sucks in a breath at this. And holds it. And starts gnawing at his own bottom lip, nibbling and chomping, unable to look at Shelby directly. He settles for staring back into the rec room, focusing his gaze on a nearby book-case. "Something terrible," he answers, his voice subdued. "I think -- I think they /know/ who Jackson and them are. There was a letter, and it had all their names. But I think -- Jackson's too public. His name is in all the papers, right? If something happened to him, it'd look bad. There'd be an /investigation/, and the last thing they want is an investigation. But," Peter adds, and now his gaze is drifting down to the floor, away from the book shelves. "...at some point, the cost of suffering an investigation is gonna outgrow the cost of letting them /keep/ doing this. Mr. Jackson talked once about making it too expensive for them to keep taking people. But eventually they might decide it's too expensive to let him or his friends /live/." "Right." Shelby can't, doesn't, argue with that. /She/ however is watching Peter closely. "But the kids, Shane and B and Spencer, they all go out and do what kids do. Parks and clubs and going back and forth to school. /Accidents/ happen, right? And if they wanna send him a message and don't think they can go after him, who're they gonna go after?" She waits a moment to let that sink in. Then, leaning a little closer and dropping her voice, she says, "You're like, super fast, and super strong, dude. I /know/. You /did/ keep me from dying that night. I think if you wanna be a superhero and make sure people don't die, you gotta look after the folks who're /seriously/ at risk here. Not the dudes who've been doing this for awhile but the /kids/." Peter blinks at Shelby, owlish and wide-eyed. This thought, apparently, hadn't even occurred to him. He lets it swim around in his head for a while -- eyebrows crunching together like a pair of gears, /grinding/ over it. And then... "You... you're probably right." Peter flexes his fingers into fists. "But I still want to go. I can help them. I can --" Peter cuts himself off, then: "But you're right. If they don't want me to go, I won't go. And I'll make sure nothing happens to anybody /here/," he says. "I can do that. Although I think Shane and Sebastian are pretty scary together I mean holy /crap/ have you seen them fi..." DISTRACTED, Peter. He refocuses, sucks in a breath, and nods his head -- then gives her a stern, 'I-Am-Going-To-Do-My-Job' look: "I can do that. Um." He looks at her, unsure of the etiquette here, blushing furiously: "Is it okay if I... hug you? I am not sure if it is okay to hug girls." He is 100 percent serious. This is a thing, for Peter. He doles out hugs like candy. But she is a GIRL, which means he is not sure if that means NO HUGS ALLOWED. "They're pretty scary, yeah, but that doesn't mean shit if they get hit with a bus." Shelby is appropriately solemn as she says this; it is clearly a thought that has occurred to her before. But then, she had plenty of time to think, in that stupid medlab. "I'd feel, like, a thousand times better if I knew someone else was looking out for them, y'know? B is..." Thank /god/ Peter then breaks in with talk of hugs, so she doesn't have to finish that sentence. It earns him a blink and then a lopsided grin that signals DANGER. "I don't /normally/ do hugs, it's kind've this thing I have, but...sure." Shelby turns at the waist, good arm spread and bad arm sort of...flopping--ow--as she waits for the hugging. And as soon as he leans in to reciprocate? She says, "You owe me twenty bucks, by the way." "We will fight crime together," Peter informs her. "Spider and the Shark-Brothers." And Horus, aka RAZOR-BEAK. This, Peter vows. Okay, so Horus just likes to /watch/, but that's cool, Peter's open-minded. The hug is quick and prompt and Peter is taking *GREAT* pains not to touch her freaky crab-arm because oh man crab-arm is creepy. "Not touching," Peter says, nose wrinkled as he hugs. And then, he *springs* back with a kick of his feet -- leap-frogging out of reach. "Doesn't count." Backpack slung up to his back -- before he adds: "Email me a description of that dude. Not gonna, like, go all /crazy/ after him but maybe I can find out if anyone's seen him or knows about him. And Hive can, like, punch his brain until he fixes you." Peter is growing accustom to the thought of using Hive to fix things. He's yet to check with Hive to make sure this is okay -- but he gets the vibe that Hive likes punching brains. At least the ones that are imminently /punchable/. And balloon-animal man sounds like he's got a punchable brain. Once he's leaped back, Shelby reaches for the discarded opera glove before any other curiosity-seekers enter the room. No freebies! After that one, anyway. "Totally counts, /you/ hugged /me/ and I'm attached to my arm," she reasons as she oh so carefully fits the fingers of the glove over her fingers, then rolls the satin down into place. The sling is gone for next. "And don't you fucking tell Hive...if you can help it, I mean. Jesus. That's like the /last/ thing they need right now, okay? It's not like I'm /dead/. Brain-punching after. Just keep an eye on the twins and Spence, huh? I can't do /everything/ myself when I'm down a hand." Peter wrinkles his nose at her words. Both the explanation of how he still owes her twenty /and/ the bit about not mentioning this to Hive. "...yah, y'okay," he agrees, reluctantly -- to *both* bits. "I won't, but -- but, well, we should totally get your arm fixed because --" BECAUSE HOW ELSE ARE YOU AND SEBASTIAN GOING TO PROPERLY *HUG* " -- because we should." But this, it seems, satisfies Peter. For now. "I'll, uh, see you around!" he says, and then he's darting off down the hall.