Built by enterprising students of yesteryear, this treehouse has weathered generations of Xaviers' students coming up here to study -- or escape from studying. A cozy retreat, its wood planks are sturdy and well-sanded, fit snug together to keep out draft. Snacks occasionally find their way up here, and the roof keeps the rain off well enough to pass a night -- so long as the teachers don't catch any students at it. For anyone agile enough to make the jump, a lucky leap juuust might carry them from here to the school rooftop, so long as they're careful of the drop...
A cozy retreat is just the thing for someone who needn't study for this term's exams and therefore has too much time on their plate, with too little to do to fill it. Until the next trimester begins, she's at odds with the school's current schedule--everyone she knows and bothers to hang out with is /busy/. It sucks. It sucks a lot. But on the bright side, it's left her with ample time to practice.
There's a music class being held in the dedicated music room, which has left the aspiring musician to find another nook to play in. The Treehouse makes the perfect spot. It's protected from the chilly, damp weather outside, there's plenty of room, decent acoustics and best of all...who's going to interrupt her all the way up here?
So there she is, seated cross-legged in the center of the floor, a sheaf of sheet paper spilled beside her and her guitar in her lap. She's doing warm-ups at the moment to loosen her fingers, running up and down the strings in chord after chord. Each successive pass is faster and less deliberate.
The tree house has quite a few advantages--it's remote, high, and very *easy* to tell when someone is about to pop their head in. The tree's got a way of shaking and creaking when students climb their way up--and one enterprising student even added a mirror just above the entrance hole, angled so anyone can *see* someone coming up the tree.
So, when Shelby hears a *CLOP* on top of the rooftop--no warning, no creaking, no flash of color in the mirror--it might startle her. Maybe not *too* much--this is Xavier's, after all. Some students can just... teleport! But then come other sounds--a seies of creaking branches, rustling, a muttered curse ('ohcrapmyglasses')... and then, the loud, obnoxious *CRACK* of timber--as a branch snaps, and someone yelps.
Followed by a deep, low *THUD*.
The guitar notes end with a slurred jangle. Shelby did /not/ yelp when that noise interrupted, but the instrument does it for her, handily. She does, however, squint up at the roof with great suspicion, as if expecting it to come down on her head at any minute. When it doesn't--although it would be too late if it /had/--she sets the guitar aside and turns to crawl to the tree house's entrance. Her head pokes out and turns at an odd angle, trying to see up.
"Yo! Anyone dead out here?"
Peter Parker is currently splayed out on the ground, Buddy Holly glasses cocked to the side. A very large, very thick tree branch--with one of its ends snapped, exposing bright, fresh, yellow wood--is laid across his chest. He is currently dressed in red sneakers, blue-jeans, a black hoodie, and a red T-Shirt that says 'TEACH THE CONTROVERSY' with a picture of the devil burying fossils.
He blinks up owlishly, reaching to adjust his glasses as he grimaces. "Yeah, I'm fine, just forgot my own we... wei..." Blink, blink, blink. *Staring* at Shelby. "...what are *you* doing here?!" he asks, and it /almost/ sounds like an accusation.
Oh, ha, down! Gravity works. Shelby's head swivels, her hair handing down in two bunches to either side of her face as she peers at the boy on the ground. After a moment of study, she snorts. Expressively. "If I didn't know better, dude, I'd think you were following me."
She pauses.
"You're not, are you? You better not be." After another brief moment spent thinking, Shelby adds, "Are you hurt?"
"I--I'm NOT following you!" Peter exclaims, red-faced and flustered, apparently quite indignant at the mere suggestion. "I thought you were following--" He stops, thinking, remembering that she can move pictures with her mind. And she's a teenager. Which means... it actually makes some sense that she'd be here.
"I'm, I'm fine," Peter says, and he shoves the branch off his chest--it looks heavy, but he manages to push it off with just one hand. "Just, a little bruised, is all." He tugs off his glasses--making sure they're not broken, chipped, or cracked. They don't seem to be, so he wipes them off on his t-shirt.
"Why would I be following you?" Shelby inquires, tone all sorts of scornful. "I don't even know you, dude. /You're/ the one who ran away when we met." Not that she isn't glad for his relative wholeness. There's /some/ relief to see that he's moving and not, like, paralyzed or something. That would suck--she'd have to answer questions or whatever if he was.
Tired of hands and knees, Shelby eases herself to her stomach and folds her arms to support her shoulders. It's a more casual posture from which to gaze down at him. Ginger eyebrows tip up at the easy branch removal.
"Mel didn't say you went here. You Superman or something?"
"I--I just moved in, uh, last night," Peter explains, and now he's got that sneaky, eye-darting look that indicates there's a bit more to it than that. "Mel--oh, that lady from the coffee shop? She was nice. I--" He snaps his mouth shut as he processes the Superman comment. Then, with a bit of force: "N-no! Of course not! I mean, I don't--why would you think I'm Superman? I'm not--Oh, is it the glasses?"
"Seriously? Sweet!" Shelby actually brightens up at that, though perhaps not for the reasons he might expect. She explains, "That means I'm not the new kid anymore." His vehement denial, now that she's in a better mood, brings a small and crooked smile. One of her hands slips over the edge and points at the bough of wood he shifted so easily.
"You moved that without blinking, dude. Superman."
"Yeah, uh, I guess I'm the new kid then," Peter adds, and his cheeks heat up just a smudge. "I moved in with--with Ivan--the kid with spiders? He's got a *lot* of bugs..." His eyes follow the bough she's pointing at--and suddenly he's blushing, furious and red. "I--oh! Oh, that... um, ow...? I totally... hurt my arm doing that," Peter says, rubbing at his shoulder in a pathetic attempt to make it look like he just seriously strained something. But after a few moments of this, he gives up, arms slumping to his sides.
"...yeah, okay, fine, I'm strong," Peter admits. He sounds like he's *ashamed* of it.
"Sure, I know Ivan," Shelby says, as if she and the boy were long acquaintances, rather than someone she's known for less than a week. Peter's little mime of pain earns a deeper but still crooked smile and she rests her chin on folded hands to observe the show until he gives up on it. "Nothing wrong with that. Fuck, I kinda wish I were super strong. It'd come in handy sometimes, y'know? Maybe not when you're falling out of trees, but..."
Peter seems a bit surprised at her response--like it's never even occurred to him that it wasn't a little *freakish*. "I can, um. I mean, it's not exactly super-strength--more like... muscle density? I don't get hurt easy," he adds, glancing at the little dent in the earth he left when he hit--then looking back up to Shelby. "But I've never gotten hurt *really* bad, so I don't know how much it would... help. I was trying to jump up to the roof," he says, nodding past her--to the mansion roof. "--not from the tree-house, though, 'cuz I figured that would be too easy."
"Super strong and super heavy? Yeah, I'll pass." She /would/, being a girl and all. But Shelby seems amused, at least. She does flick a brief glance at the roof in question before shaking her head and looking down at him again. "You oughta hook up with Shane. Dude knows all the best ways in and out of the school. He's showing me but I'm kinda crap with climbing, y'know? I guess there's this place up on the roof where you can go to smoke." She pauses. "You smoke?"
"Shane? Oh, right, the kid with the t--HE'S here too?!" Peter looks legitimately shocked. It makes sense, though--Mr. Jackson was the one who had brought Peter here. He had mentioned his kids being here too, hadn't he? He just hadn't... imagined it, yet. Those two blue kids. With the *teeth*, and the *claws*, and the other night he is pretty sure Shane was ready to help a cop commit a felony with him, and...
"I... smoke? Oh, no," Peter says, and he blushes *hard* again, like Shelby just suggested something /terribly/ lewd. "I--I don't smoke," he says. "I'm--pretty boring, actually. And I'm not *that* heavy, I mean, just a /bit/ more than usual, but..."
Suddenly, he jumps. Catching a sturdy branch besides Shelby, hefting himself on top of it--managing to bring himself eye-level with her. "Does everyone here have... uh, powers?" Peter asks. "I didn't ask during initiation, because my uncle and aunt were with me, and they, uh, they don't... know."
"Oh man, dude, I didn't ask if you were a /virgin/. Cigarettes, not sex toys." Shelby is not good for those who blush easily. She's laughing--until he makes that leap. Since it was completely unexpected, she yelps--far less melodically than her guitar had--and scrambles backwards, deeper into the treehouse. When she peeps out again, it's with a dark look, as if she considers that jump from ground to tree some sort of revenge on her for having made sex jokes. Not cool, dude.
"...warn a girl, next time, huh? And nah. I mean, most kids are. But there're a couple of normal ones. I think their folks work here or something, or their folks are like us."
"Ohjeez, I'm sorry," Peter says, holding up his palms--balancing himself on that tree branch without a hand-hold. He's *overwhelmingly* apologetic, like he just kicked Shelby. "I'm still getting used to this--like, just *using* my powers in front of people." His hands dart back down to catch the tree branch beneath him and stabilize himself. "It's, um, really, *really* weird. I would never, ever do this in view of someone," Peter says, silently adding 'unless I was the SPIDER!'.
Peter's brain seems to have only now processed just what she said. About the virgin thing. OhGod, he looks like he's about to have a *meltdown*. His cheeks are *burning* up. "I--I know that!" he yelps, before adding: "This is, like, so *weird*. My roommate can control bugs." If Shelby is observant, she may notice Peter hasn't yet asked her about *her* power.
Shelby settles down, albeit reluctantly. Even she can't fault the quality of Peter's apology. After a last nose-wrinkle at him, she refocuses on the conversation. "I guess that makes sense. I didn't ever really stay in the closet with my shit though, so..." Slowly but surely, timed to the growing color in Peter's cheeks, she grows amused again. And oh yes, she has noticed that lapse. Which means she must rectify it--because she's too busy poking fun at him to see that suspicion is warranted. "Not everyone's got the cool or creepy powers though. I mean, mine's pretty boring. Right now, anyway. Maybe I'll be able to do more with it down the road, but..."
"Oh, you mean--" Peter you're not supposed to know what her power is. "--like, changing the color of your eyes or something?" Peter asks. "I've heard of mutations like that. It's *still* really interesting, although I guess it's not, uh, terribly useful. But I don't think something has to be useful to be cool," Peter adds, and then realizes, perhaps subtly, that he's being prompted: "What is your power, anyway?" He comforts himself with knowing that he doesn't know the full *extent* of her power; he's just seen her move some tattoos, once. He doesn't actually know what it is. So... it's not a *complete* lie when he asks!
That'saboy. Shelby rewards him for doing as she'd meant for him to do by...ruining his t-shirt. And grinning while she does it. With a nod, she indicates that he should look down, where the devil is now digging up fossils very busily indeed--there's a pile of them building up near Peter's shoulder. "I make pictures move. So I'm kinda like...an animator. That's what Rasa called it. The world's my cartoon."
Whoa, whoa, *whoa*. Peter thought she could only do this to *tattoos*. He figured she just had the power to... change her skin pigmentation? Animate it, maybe? But now, seeing that his shirt has become animated... Peter freaks, jumping *up*, hitting a branch over him with a loud *CRACK*, and proceeding to tumble back down--catching the branch he was perched on at the last moment. He dangles for a few seconds before clamboring his way back up, grumbling...
"--didn't you say something about... *warning* people?" he asks, although he doesn't sound angry--just surprised and a little grouchy. "You can move... pictures. That's *insane*. It doesn't even make sense--I mean, /how/? Why?" Once Peter's back up on his perch, he's grabbing his shirt and pulling it--stretching it out so he can watch the Devil shovel a bit more closely. "Do they... /stay/ changed? When you're done animating them?"
Shelby joins him in freaking out--he's so bloody jumpy, there's no way she can control her own nervous tendencies when he goes bouncing around. "Hey!" she yelps, as if she were the injured party. Eyebrows are knit together and /her/ expression is annoyed enough for the both of them. Nevermind it was Peter who just had another accident. "Jesus, dude...you jump around too much..." She pauses after that, /something/ flickers in her eyes--but he succeeds in distracting her from pursuing that thought. "What, I'm supposed to know why my genes are fucked up the way they are? Okay, sure," she says with a roll of her eyes. The Devil has long since stopped digging but the pile o' bones remain, a new facet of the t-shirt's design. "They stay that way unless I put 'em back, sure."
Jump around too mu... SPIDER SECRET IDENTITY SENSE TINGLING. "I had a lot of caffeine earlier," Peter quickly explains, rubbing his fingers through his curly, wild shock of nerd-hair. When she starts talking about her genes being fucked up, Peter is--again--absurdly apologetic. "Oh--oh, I'm sorry! It's just... you know, scientifically, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Like, are you telekinetically moving the dyes around in my shirt? You said *pictures*, though--like, can you do this to a photograph? A polaroid? Because those don't use dyes, they use, it's more like *cells*--you'd be changing the entire composition of..." he trails off, realizing he's nerding the hell out. Again, he blushes. "Um, sorry. I find this stuff, uh, fascinating."
Oh sure, caffeine. Shelby might give him a bit of a look but rather than pursuing that line of questioning, she surprisingly veers back towards the geek stuff. Not that she'll confess to finding it interesting too but she does listen. Shaking her head, sure, but she's /listening/. "I /wish/ I were telekinetic," she says, wistfully, "but it's pretty much any picture, anywhere, on anything. Even on TV, although that's kinda hard since it's like...I dunno. I can't just grab it and move it around the way I want since it's always changing already. I get headaches more with that sort've thing. But photos are easy."
"Wait, you can--to a *television* image?!" Peter asks, sounding completely flabbergasted. "To an LCD, or one of the old 'vacuum tube' types? Because you're not even talking about changing the chemical composition of something, then--you're talking about--I mean, that would be *way* complicated!" Then, Peter's brain is racing over the possibilities: "You could be the ultimate spy! Change the contents of the photo negatives! Make yourself disappear off of security cameras! Maybe even..." He trails off a moment, scrambling closer to her on the tree branch--closer to where it gets thick, better able to support his weight. "Well I don't know, but that doesn't sound like a boring power *at all*. I mean, I guess you can't, like, beat up bad guys with it, but you could do all other sort of weird, cool things."
"I didn't say it was /boring/, just it's not like...I dunno. It can be pretty fun." Shelby's face is lit by a sudden grin. "I keep threatening my friends that if they fuck with me, I'll draw a dick and slap it on their face, so...yeah, it's not boring. But I can't exactly jump over cars either, y'know?" She doesn't blink as she says this, the grin doesn't change. Maybe it means nothing! Maybe it means she's onto him! Maybe she's /testing/...oh god, girls are sneaky. Or maybe that's just Shelby. "Or beat up bad guys. Not that I'd want to. It fucking hurts, getting punched," she says with authority.
Peter seems mortified at the idea of having the picture of a dick slapped on his face. "Please do not *ever* do that," he tells her, with the same sort of tone you'd expect from someone telling a person to *never* put a tiny dog in a microwave. The mention of the car thing--Peter's toes clench, but he does *not* take the bait--even if it's conscious or otherwise. "I've never been punched. Or shot at," Peter adds, "but I've been wondering..." Um. Hm. An idea seems to swell up in Peter's head. "...have you ever played... paint-ball?"
"Oh man, we gotta get you out more," Shelby remarks. As if being punched or shot out is something to aspire to! Wierdo. "Is that where everyone pretends they're like soldiers and you shoot each other with beads? I watched a game once. Didn't play it though, down South they've got this thing about girls'n'anything that looks like a sport. You comin' in or what? I think it's gonna rain." She jerks her head at the sky then shuffles back, deeper into the tree house, to allow him entrance.
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