Peter's text to Ivan comes in the morning. The *very* early morning. Like, before classes early. It reads the following:
IVAN pls com 2gymneedhelp bring boxundermybed
This early, hardly anyone's up; the school's got a strange, serene calmness to it that it doesn't have during the day. No whirlwind of activity--no laughter, no children teleporting, no teachers giving stern looks. Upon entering the gym, one might even think the place was abandoned.
Except... uh, there *is* someone else here in the gym. Someone... high. Impossibly high, in fact--Peter is currently dangling from the *rafters*, clutching... what looks to be a slender length of white-ish gray rope. So thin you'd be excused for not seeing it at all--it's currently attached to the rafter above him.
He's dressed in his favorite black hoodie (SECOND favorite; the red hoodie is currently hidden), sneakers, blue-jeans, and a 'Don't Blame Me, _I_ Voted For Kodos!' t-shirt. He is also currently wearing what appear to be... red and blue gloves.
"Ivan!" Peter squeaks from above. "I ran out of--of--of GLUE!" he squeaks, then: "Did you bring the box!? THIS STUFF ONLY LASTS FOR LIKE AN HOUR AND IT'S ALREADY BEEN FORTY FIVE MINUTES!"
The string makes a very suspicious *creaking* sound.
If Ivan looks carefully, he may notice that the room is *swarmed* in... is that... silly string? It looks like silly string. Greyish white streamers dangling from various surfaces--fifty or sixty in all. Except a few of them look like they're... melting. And evaporating. Silently.
When Ivan enters the gym, he is perhaps not the very image of a hero. He does have the box, clutched to his chest, but his eyes are still half closed and a white t-shirt that's clearly not only inside out, but backwards as well. Below his jeans, his usual converse sneakers are untied. It's a miracle he even make it to the gym without sleepily tripping over himself. He's a deep sleeper, and the sleep seems to have trouble letting go of him.
When he does enter the gym and his gaze makes his way up veeery slowly past some decaying... 'glue' to see his new roommate up hanging from virtually nothing, surprise catches up with him very, very sluggishly, widening his eyes considerably. His jaw drops, but nothing comes out. Does /not/ compute.
"IVAN," Peter says, and his voice is loud, and stern, and it is *very* clear that Peter is both wide awake and intent on getting Ivan as close as possible to a similar state. "Ivan, I need you to--open the box. There are metal canisters in there. I need you to--*throw* one to me," Peter explains, and the rope above him makes another creak, and sags half an inch. Peter looks like he is trying *very* hard not to panic. "And I need you to do it really, really quick," he adds, feet wiggling, releasing the string with one hand to try and catch.
Ivan seems responsive! He gives his head a quick shake and sucks in a big breath, then knits his brows together in a desperate effort to focus. He's still got NO IDEA what's going on and it shows as he lowers the box to the floor and opens it up to awkwardly handle the canisters. He nearly drops one but manages to right himself with two of them to walk to what he judges to be the optimal distance between him and Peter. Who is-- somehow hanging from the rafters. What the hell. It's not until he's arched back one of the canisters and thrown it with his best impression of a baseball player that his face suddenly changes drastically. And it's not because he realised that he's way too skinny to be throwing things very accurately that way. Oh no.
WAIT. WAIT WAIT /WAIT/. The second canister still in Ivan's hand and seemingly too distracted to even see whether the first one managed to reach its destination, he swings around and stares. At every little thread of 'glue' he can find. Then, back around at Peter. This time, however, there is a big smile on his face and he is /wide awake/.
Peter *almost* catches it--his free hand snapping out to snag it. The string he's clinging to makes a distinct grumble, and Peter pulls back in terror, his fingertips just barely brushing across the metal surface. It tumbles, hitting the floor with a loud, resounding *CLACK*.
"AUGH ohGod," Peter cries, and the rope makes another creak, and another--sagging deeper. Almost half a foot. "Okay," Peter says, sucking in a breath. "I think--I think I can survive the fall but I'm probably going to break my ankle or leg so please please PLEASE try again...!"
Ivan's smile remains, and after making sure Peter's not quite tumbling to the ground after the first canister yet, he positions himself once more to throw in a-- way that may cause some people to spout the overused 'you throw like a girl' statement in a different scenario. But hey, throwing from below the waist in a slow arc upwards gives the catcher more time to do said catching, so that's how Ivan pitches the next canister, eyes following it through the air as though his hopeful look will help it land where it needs to.
The softball lob gives Peter the time he needs to eye it--and, more importantly, *catch* it--even if he ends up stretching far deeper than he did for the previous one. When he feels his fingers curl around that canister, he visibly exhales in relief--there's a series of clicks, a brief *HSST*, and suddenly the empty canister is 'popping' out of his left glove, tumbling to the ground beneath him with a dull, metallic *clink*... then, he's reloading--*CLICK* *snpt* *whrrrrrr...!*
THWP--he snaps his wrist down, middle and ring finger dropping down to the contact point on the base of his palm--and a long strand of gray *streaks* out, splatting against a rafter some distance away. And then--with surprisingly little to no fear--Peter *releases* the current strand and *swings*--dipping lower. He twists as he does so, and fires again--*THWP*--at a rafter even further away--and then he's swinging in the *opposite* direction, sinking even lower...
One more time, and he's so low Ivan could jump out and grab his ankle. That's when Peter releases--landing with a *THWUMP*, crouched and panting and snapping his hand out for the canister he missed earlier--replacing the other wrist-cartridge with that one, too. "Oh thank God," Peter mumbles to Ivan. "I was *never* going to be able to explain how I broke my ankles on, like, my second day."
Ivan's eyes follow Peter's every move on his way across and down, his shoulders dipping and jaw still gracelessly hanging open. When the other cartidge is replaced, Ivan's head is angled like a curious puppy watching its owner getting a treat out of a bag. The gravity of the situation seems to have been lost on Ivan completely, judging by - when he recovers from a look of pure astonishment - possibly the happiest face he's ever pulled.
"... You make webs...?" His voice is quiet, even in the echoing emptiness of the gym. Until, a second later, his arms go up for no other reason than pure excitement. "YOU MAKE /WEBS/!"
Peter blinks, clearly at a loss at how to deal with Ivan's sudden flare of excitement. He looks down at his wrists--the gloves are a fibrous red-and-blue material, thin but *strong*, with a contact pad at the base of each palm and an odd looking metal 'slot' at the wrists. He looks down to them--then up to Ivan--and, rather shyly: "Uh... well, *technically*, it's an industrial strength bio-adhesive paste, but... I mean, from the notes I was reading on it, it *is* pretty strikingly similar to spider web, and... uh..."
THWP--Peter fires the webshooter from his left hand, snagging a bottle of water that's on the stands some distance away--he was setting them up previously, and several of them are scattered about the room. The webbing *SPLATS* on the bottle, and he pulls--snapping it toward him from a good 30 yards away--catching it in the glove with a *THWCK*.
"Yes," Peter says, suddenly sounding quite firm on this point--grinning like a cheshire cat. "I make WEBS." And then, that grin immediately disappears, a look of wide-eyed horror flashing across his face: "OhGod you can't tell anyone I have this I mean I *totally* stole the tech from someone but the people I stole it from are *TOTALLY* evil I swear..."
Speaking of webs and spider-related things, it seems he's come alone. That is to say, no other people, but nothing's crawled out of his hair yet either. Sleepiness is not conducive to convincing minions, it seems.
"Will they come after you?" Starts Ivan again, quietly but still unabashedly excited. Though the expression of his face slowly mixes with intrigue, as well. From the looks of it, he has other things on his mind than telling people. His arms come down hesitantly, and even then it could be argued that the only reason they DO is because he tries to reach for the webbing still attached to the bottle in Peter's hand to investigate it more closely. Must touch.
The webbing is--surprisingly!--*non*-sticky to the touch. It feels strong, and stretchy--like a nylon cord, but more *elastic*. Cool, and smooth, and absolutely *refusing* to budge with its hold on that bottle. Peter hands the bottle over to him without even thinking. "Oh, no, I was--I was in costume when I took it," Peter explains. "Like, a mask and *everything*. It was even on the news a while back--and the FBI are investigating it! But I--" Peter's eyes widen, realizing he just basically told Ivan *way* more than he was planning to.
"I, uh, anyway they were experimenting with these glue guns," he goes off, trying to quickly change the subject back to the science. "To disable people with? Like, they'd fire out big glops of this adhesive stuff. I snagged the gun and a bunch of the paste while I was there, and... when I messed with it, I realized, if you set the nozzle to its lowest, tightest setting--rather than getting a big glob of paste, you'd get... well, *insta-rope*. Like webbing. So, I had somebody build me these," he says, holding up the gloves--grinning sheepishly.
Ivan's not even looking. Well, he's /looking/, he's just not looking at the gloves but directly at Peter. And he has been ever since the mention of the news. Something, somewhere in the boy's mind clicked. He's latched onto the bottle, his new prized possession, and some of the webbing in his other hand as if it's the most beautiful thing in the world.
You know that look that people have when they're just about to say 'I love you' for the first time to someone? Yeah. That's pretty much what Ivan's face does. Only a few seconds into the stare, he just says, beaming, "Best. Roommate. /Ever/."
"I... what? Wait--what? What?" Peter looks like a doe caught in the head-lights. But he's putting two and two together himself--the sudden way Ivan just *stares* at him after he mentions the news thing. Peter's eyes get even /wider/: "Oh, ohGod. *OhGod*. I--" He furiously looks about, as if searching for anyone in earshot. It's like, 5 am in the morning, no one is even /up/, but he's still paranoid.
"You *cannot* tell anyone." Peter says, almost squeaking. "I mean--okay like FOUR people know now, I think that includes you, so I am not doing so well at the secret identity thing but I am REALLY new at this superhero stuff and I am pretty sure that keeping a secret identity is CRAZY important."
Ivan straightens up almost imemdately and, after fumbling to put the bottle down into the floor along with what's attached to it, pushes his shoulders back to stand at attention. The, he lifts a hand to his face and 'zips' it shut with an invisible zipper. Just for good measure, it is then also locked tight with an invisible key, which is then thrown away in a random direction. DOUBLE LOCK DOWN. It is unclear whether Ivan stays quiet afterwards because he's-- Ivan, or because he genuinely believes he can't open his mouth anymore, now. But he does look damn excited with his secret, and not a speck of intention to misuse his newfound information shows on his face, so far as it can.
Peter's shoulders slump in relief. "Okay," he says, "thanks. Um. Man, I was a little freaked when I found out about your power." Again, with the sheepish grin: "I thought maybe Mr. Jack--JAX," he corrects himself. "I really thought Jax was playing a trick on me or something. The Spider rooming with somebody who controls bugs... just, uh, a weird coincidence, I guess." Peter looks to the bottle, then back up to Ivan--suddenly brightening. "Oh!" he says, clapping his hands together. The webshooters, to their designer's credit, do *not* go off. "I'm gonna be--like, experimenting with these things--trying to build my own set, and stuff. I have *tons* of refill cartridges, though--if you want, I can try making you a set! They probably won't be as super-keen as these," he adds, holding up his gloves, "cuz the guy who made them is, like, really good with prosthetics and stuff. But..."
Peter then adds, glancing over his head--up at the rafters, and the strings dangling from them. "...but, uh, if I do, then I think I should tell you that you should *definitely* not try to do the swingy thing. Because I think I can only pull it off BECAUSE of my powers. I've got, uh, really good reflexes. And stuff."
Ivan's speechlessness doubles. It takes him visible effort to break out of having silenced himself doubly and then also being a bit baffled, but he does, eventually. "/Da/." He answers at first, nodding, before a sharp intake of air and a light shade of red flashing across his cheeks. "-- Yes. Is what I meant. I will not try the swingy thing." The latter is repeated as though rehearsed, but he seems truthful enough. Probably. He is pretty collected, when not faced with HUMAN SPIDERS.
"Good, because oh man if I got somebody hurt with these things I would, like, I don't know, it'd be *terrible*," Peter starts, and then--"Oh but you *totally* can't just run around using them--I--I did this in the gym, really early, because I figured that by the time anyone came here the string would just evaporate by then," he explains, blushing. "And--even if it didn't, and someone saw it, they'd go 'oh someone has a weird mutant power!' and the evidence would be gone before they could investigate."
Then: "Ohman but if I *did* build you a set you could help me practice and I've been wondering about WEB-FIGHTS because that sounds like the coolest thing *EVER* even though these things DO NOT come off your clothes, but I'm working on a solvent to expedite the process because it is REALLY CRAPPY when you accidentally glue your hands together, I found that out REAL quick..." Peter's showing no signs of stopping--managing to make up for Ivan's relative silence with *twice* the chatter.
"--oh and I wanted to ask you... have you ever tried making your spiders *weave* something with their webbing? Like--like--*fabric*?" Peter asks.
As if to make up for Peter's chattiness, Ivan vigorously shakes his head this time instead of answering. But then realises he has to speak up anyway. "Not-- really. I have made lines and shapes and letters - sometimes correct - but not fabric. But I can try." This last sentence is added in with /passion/, his hands clasping together as well as if in anticipation. "Many spiders together work faster than one person. Or two persons."
"Yeah, and--I dunno, I was just *thinking*, I mean, I don't want to ask you to do anything you don't want to do but it might be *so* cool, because spider-webbing is *crazy* strong and I was thinking that if you did do it we could do some experiments maybe, because it turns out superhero stuff is really dangerous and there's a chance people might shoot at you..." Take a breath, Peter. He pauses, and does so: "Annnnd... um, we should probably get out of here," he finishes, glancing over his shoulder. Except the webbing he used to get down, the rest of it has evaporated, leaving nothing but a faint chemical odor in its wake.
"I have class soon... um, thank you for saving me from broken legs," Peter says. "I *totally* owe you for that. And sorry about waking you up!" He snags the box of cartridges, then--and with a few quick *THWPS*, he begins snagging up the water bottles--one after the other, just *SPLATTING* them and yanking them. Each one is snagged in rapid-fire strokes, deposited on top of the box--the speed with which he works is a little baffling. He's not... even trying. And he's hitting them all, dead center, every single time.
Ivan follows Peter's glance to see the whole placvng having been cleared of webs. His attention is only drawn back to the only other person present because of the subsequent bottle thwp'ing. If Ivan'd had doubts about Peter's ability to handle his stolen equipment before, all of those would have been swept away now. He just stands there for a moment, still a bit starstruck, then timidly clears his throat and nods. Yes. He'll need some time to process all of this and that will have to happen not-here. As such and without even so much as a good bye, he starts in a slow beeline toward the door to make his way back to his dorm room, suspiciously content-looking with still untied shoes and inside-out shirt. /Yay/.
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