ArchivedLogs:Discretion

Discretion
Dramatis Personae Anole, Peter
In Absentia	2013-04-06 '
Location <NYC> Lower East Side
Historically characterized by crime and immigrant families crammed into cramped tenement buildings, the Lower East Side is often identified with its working-class roots. Today, it plays host to many of New York's mutant poor, although even here they are still often forced into hiding. Warm weather -- warm/er/, at least -- has brought many people out-of-doors, and the parks around the city are crowded with basketball-players, children on the playgrounds, frisbee throwing, people sitting to take their meals outside. This, though, is not a park. It's not much of anything, a weedy overgrown trash-strewn space neighboring the fenced-off ground of a construction site with large NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to the boards. This lot has no such warnings, though the broken glass and used needles and caches of empty beer cans aren't exactly /encouraging/ a lot of Hanging Out. Except there is one figure, armed with a /box/ of trash bags, creeping his way into the rusting mostly-unhinged fence. Creepcreep. He's good at creeping, made for it, really; small of stature, blandly dressed in fraying jeans and ratty sneakers and a baggy grey sweatshirt. Kind of grey sweatshirt? It's perhaps shifted a few shades since he arrived, greenish-brownish in muddled mix of the weed- and trash- and dead-grass strewn area around him. The boy /himself/ is very green. Or at least he was. He's a little more muddly, now, too. Toeing at an old whisky bottle and then conscientiously taking out /two/ trash bags from his stash. Recyclables here. Trash here. One thing Peter has quickly learned: People in New York do not tend not to look up. This discovery has granted him quite a bit of leighway when it comes to practicing his 'patrol' -- currently, just an attempt to find the best route from Queens to East Village. That brings him dipping on through the Lower East Side, which means -- for a brief moment -- there's a kid in a red hoodie, ski-mask, and goggles /jumping/ from building to building, occasionally swinging -- briefly flickering in and out of sight high over the streets. But running from rooftop to rooftop takes a lot out of him, which means eventually he's going to stop for a breather. He does so just above the empty lot that the green kid is now trudging about in -- unslinging a water bottle from his tightly bound backpack and drinking it. Pausing, a moment, as he scans the horizon for trash-cans. Seeing one in immediate sight. Well, something /close/. Somewhere over the working boy's head, there is a scrambling, scuttling sound... and a voice, suddenly over his head: "Hey, um, you mind if I..." Peter is clinging to the wall behind Anole, about 10 yards up -- upside down -- one (gloved, but cut so his fingers are exposed) hand clutching the wall -- knees pushed up against it -- holding the plastic bottle with the other hand, waving it at the plastic trashbags Anole has. The boy's reflection shines back at him in those yellow lensed goggles. Anole does look up, at least, at that scrambling sound, green eyes flicking upwards wide and startled. He backsteps hurriedly with a squeak when Peter /speaks/, dropping his bag, dropping down to all fours to crab-walk backwards when Peter speaks, and -- vanishes? No. Only almost-vanishes, freezing into stillness as his skin and clothes shift more, mottling to match the junk around him. It's not much of a hiding place as soon as he moves, lifting his head (still kind of mottled-coloured) to peer up at Peter. "You're on the wall." The mask-clad teenager /freezes/ when Anole crab-walks backwards; the bottle, which he had been twirling between his fingertips, immediately halts -- and he just /stares/ at him, watching as he -- first, simply vanishes -- and second, reappears, albeit with a brand new skin-tone. And then, in response to Anole, he peers right back down, head leaning forward: "You're changing color." "I asked you first!" Nevermind that there was actually no question involved. Anole is changing colour yet again, odd mingled tones draining to leave him just very /green/. Grey sweatshirt. Bits of brown glass clinging to his palm as he lifts his hand with a wrinkle of nose. He shifts up into a crouch, dusting off his palms against each other. "You're on the wall." Peter watches with a silent 'ooh-aah', though you wouldn't know it to look at that mask; his head just inclines upwards and proceeds to /rotate/, like a bird catching sight of a peculiar creature for the first time: "You're turning green," he continues, as if this is now officially a game of State What We Are Seeing. But then, immediately after: "Yeah I'm on the wall, sometimes I cling to 'em." And then suddenly: He isn't. He kicks off the wall, hitting the ground in a roll, keeping some distance from Anole -- matching the boy's crouch. "I'm not turning green," Anole answers, curling one arm around his knee when he has finished dusting off his palms. His fingers rest lightly braced against the ground, posture generally looking like he might take off at any moment. Stiff and a little tense. "I mean I'm always green. Except --" Frown. "Except when I'm not. Why are you wearing -- /what/ are you /wearing/?" Peter's own posture has that sense to it -- coiled muscle just /looking/ for an excuse to fly off -- but there's something else to it, too. Like he might just fly /at/ Anole, instead. Not because he's threatening, but because he's /interesting/. Peter rocks, just a little, back on the balls of his feet. "S'my costume. You should get one," he says: "I mean, 'cuz turning different colors is against the /law/ even though that is a stupid law also can you do anything /else/ I mean not that turning different colors isn't /awesome/ enough but I'm just curious." Anole fidgets, twitching slightly in response to Peter's rocking. "I do a lot of things," he says, a little uncomfortably. "I'm cleaning the trash here. I like to read. I'm good at basketball." Maybe not the answers Peter was looking for. "Are /you/ turning different colours? Why do you need a costume?" "Oh naw I mean I don't turn different colors I just don't anyone to know who I /am/, 'cuz you know if they did know I might get in /trouble/," Peter explains. "I mean, at first it was just -- you know, the superhero thing? Superheroes wear costumes so I should wear one. I guess that was kinda dumb. But now, it's like -- if I just ran around climbing walls and jumping rooftops without my mask, somebody might recognize me and figure out where I live and come and /arrest/ me or something." All of this is related at once, with a breezy sort of calmness. The rocking has, at least, stopped. Peter's straightening out of his crouch, starting to look around the lot through those yellow goggles. "Why are you cleaning the trash here?" And then there's a THWP, and a silver gray cord has snatched some -- bottle -- far off in some corner. He yanks it to him. SNAG. And proceeds to move, oh-so-casually, toward Anole's trashbag. Apparently, Peter's going to /help/, now. "Are you a superhero?" Anole doesn't sound impressed, but he doesn't sound skeptical, either. Kind of cautiously curious. "What do you do?" The THWP startles him all over again, tumble-falling backwards to land on the ground and promptly fade-vanish once more. "Ohgosh ohjeez what was that is that /you/? -- the other one's for recyclables." Even in startle! he is pretty conscientious about this. "I'm trying to be, I mean -- oh, sorry," Peter apologizes -- either for surprising Anole, reaching for the wrong bag, or both! -- and deposits the bottle in the /correct/ bag, along with the empty waterbottle he brought. "I mean, it's not like in the comics, it's really /complicated/ there are so many things you gotta keep track of, like if people are hurt you can't just grab them and /move/ them, and it's not like you're punching Lex Luthor, usually you're just trying to make sure nobody gets hurt," and then: "Mostly I'm just starting with -- like, fires for now? I can get in and out of places really quick. Those're my web-guns," he finishes, holding up one of his wrist-watches for Anole to see. "They shoot -- uh, glue. I swing. Um. And glue things." Suddenly, Peter sounds embarassed. Maybe because of a prior conversation with a certain Officer Sutton; maybe just because, well. He suddenly realizes he's kind of explaining this all to a complete /stranger/. "You glue things. And stick to walls are you, like, glue-boy? /Gumby/?" Anole is shifting back to green, and if his posture is still tense and his eyes still wide there is at least a note of laughter in his voice. "Were you sticking to walls with the glue? Are you not even a --" His nose wrinkles, "mutant," is offered more quietly. Peter is now picking up /more/ trash. Some of it with his hands, other with his webshooter -- THWP THWP THWP -- all of it done in a casual, offhanded way. Apparently, he has decided, officially, that he is now helping Anole. "No, like -- the wall-clinging just happened /recently/, s'got nothing to do with the glue -- and yeah I'm /pretty/ sure I'm a mutant," Peter adds, pausing a moment to look at Anole -- adding, perhaps a bit more quietly: "Though, I dunno. I could probably pass as /not/-mutant. I mean, if I wanted to." He does not correct the 'Gumby' name. Eventually, Anole gets back to his feet. Dusts his hands off again, and this time starts once more returning to his cleaning. "Oh. Like that kind of mutant." He sounds a little disappointed. He focuses on shoving trash into the bags. "Your goggles look kind of buggy." He doesn't say it like a criticism, followed by, "-- I know a girl who's /really/ buggy but her eyes are cooler." His hand lifts, near his head, miming a VERY LARGE set of eyes. Possibly more than two of them. "Yeah," Peter says, and there's almost a touch of -- reluctance? -- to his tone. "I mean, I know two who... I, yeah I guess it's way harder." Pluck, pluck, THWP, pluck. "I guess I wanted buggy eyes cuz -- like a Spider I guess? That's what I was going for, like I crawl and shoot 'webs' and stuff." He lifts his head a moment to watch Anole make 'bug-eyes' with his hands, and there /might/ just be the sound of a half-choked snicker under there, before: "What's your name? I'm --" HESITATION. "--um, most folks just call me 'Spider'." "You need more eyes for that," Anole says, quite seriously. "Spiders have a lot. Do you make webs? I mean do you /live/ in a web, can you cocoon people?" He sounds so hopeful, for a moment. "-- You know two who what? Most people call me Anole." "Yeah but I mean multiple eyes they wouldn't even /work/," Peter says, although now he seems to actually be considering it, imagining his mask with /multiple/ goggles, maybe different sizes, and -- "I don't live in a web /but/, I /do/ have a coccoon setting on the glue-guns. I haven't -- tested it enough, but -- Anole. Like -- aren't they -- chameleons?" He plucks up another piece of trash -- a hyperdermic needle. /Very/ careful with that. He drops it inside of a plastic bottle he's found. "There's -- I have two friends --" The word 'friends' sounds unsure; like he doesn't know if that's the right word, right now. "...they're blue. I mean, literally. Lots of people -- they get a lot of crap." Then, very hesitantly, pausing to peer at Anole -- almost /protectively/: "...do you?" "They'd probably work if you were born with them. Like your brain would probably know how to work them. Or, I guess, if you grew them naturally. They'd definitely not work if you just /implanted/ them that's weird." Anole shrugs a shoulder; he's less ginger with his picking-up-things, just scooping glass and food-wrappers and cans and needles alike to drop them into their respective bags. "They're like chameleons, sure. They're sort of lizardy. I'm sort of lizardy." His lips press together, brows furrowing. "I get -- I mean, yeah. Kind of a lot." This is a little more subdued. "A lot-a lot. Blue's a nice colour. I bet they're pretty." "They kinda are," Peter agrees, "I mean, I think they look /wicked/ cool. They got spikes for hair, and all these /teeth/, it's kind of scary but kind of awesome too? But yeah everybody always gets -- they, ugh," and Peter shrugs his shoulder, kind of giving up on this whole train of thought. "...um, I don't mean to, like -- pry or anything but you seem pretty cool too, and, um, I thought I'd mention just in case," Peter adds, crouching to scoop up a few more things -- always so /careful/, fingers delicately plucking at objects. "There's, um -- I can't say /too/ much because I promised to be really discreet? But there's a place, like a /safe/ place I know of, where you can learn and stuff and people are nicer there even if you /are/ blue or green and /I/ think it's totes awesome." Anole's hand lifts, skimming over the top of his head, brushing his hood back slightly when Peter mentions Spikes For Hair. "That doesn't sound so scary," he says with a small smile. But then the smile fades, and he looks at Peter uncertainly. "-- A place?" He stops in his trash-collecting, fingers scrunching at the garbage bag. "I mean, there's places. I know places. But I don't -- wait, learn?" A frown, now. "Learn what?" "Well it's mostly the teeth," Peter mentions absently, not catching that brief brush on Anole's hood -- as quick as Peter can be on the uptake, he is also sometimes /remarkably/ oblivious. "Plus I dunno I am kindof a skittish dude? So -- oh, you know, like school stuff -- like, it's /school/, you know? And, um," Peter's voice drops /almost/ to a whisper -- creeping up a bit closer to Anole, now. This part, apparently, is VERY IMPORTANT to keep secret: "...they also can help you, y'know, learn to control and understand... your thingies. But you can't tell anybody because it is a secret, like /nobody/ is supposed to know about that." And then, even /softer/: "Someone's opening another school like it, all public, right? Called 'The Osborn Institute'. But don't go there I am pretty sure it is gonna be, like, run by the government as an evil Hogwarts." "A school for --" Anole's eyes widen, and then he /frowns/, not really entirely /sure/ of this idea. "But who would -- but why -- but don't people -- but." He has forgotten, for now, about the cleaning, green fingers just clenching and unclenching at the black plastic bag. "-- So, um, like, you go to Hogwarts and that's /Durmstrang/?" "Yeah, basically, though they haven't opened yet and I hope they /never/ do," Peter says, "because the people running it, I think they're all sorts of terrible, and it's hard to explain, but... but yeah I guess the guy who runs the one I go to is kind of a Dumbledore. I mean -- he's, y'know," and it's just a /whisper/, now, so tiny he has to almost lean into Anole's ear just to be heard: "It's totes run by, um, people like /us/. Some of 'em are even -- y'know, /obvious/. But nobody knows. I don't know how they keep it a secret I mean how do you keep something like that a /secret/ but they manage, and they don't care if you don't have a lot of money, like my folks aren't /poor/ or anything but they could /never/ afford a ritzy private school but somehow I ended up going to one." "I could, um, maybe show it to you sometime. If you want. It's a little far, but -- not /too/ far. I'd have to check with them to make sure it's okay. But it should be." Then, Peter's back to picking stuff up! "Um --" Anole doesn't stop frowning. Not through Peter's talking or Peter's whispering and not after Peter returns to cleaningup. "I mean, I, maybe sometime I -- I'd probably have to check with my --" He doesn't actually finish this sentence. He just bites down on his lip, and looks /very/ thoughtful as he quietly returns to diligent trashgathering.