The hallways, at this point, were all horribly familiar. It was really just salt in the wound that she had to have the nurse babysitting, pretending to lead the way, while they navigated the halls that Claire had run up and down a half dozen times. Insult to injury and all that. Still, she kept her mouth shut tight until they reached the sun room, and there she shot a precautionary, forced smile to the nurse that didn't even look like it was in the ballpark of genuine.
But, by all appearances, she accepted it, because she quickly went to make herself comfortable observing. Meanwhile, Claire moved over to where the bulletin board was posted, digging through the notes for any sign of someone she knew. Empty-handed, she took a step back, reaching into the pocket of her sweatpants and pulling out the note Pete had left up on the board for her earlier.
Guilt washed over her and she crinkled it in her hand after she reread it. Maybe ignoring it and hoping it would just go away wasn't the most mature of options. Maybe Pete deserved a little better than that, considering the world hadn't spontaneously set itself on fire in the course of the day he'd had to presumably know what she could do.
It took hearing him back-talking the nurse while he sat down to realize Peter had walked in. Turning to look behind her, she pursed her lips as anxiety took over her while she stared down the back of his head. This was stupid. She couldn't just sit around and whine about what he might be thinking instead of trying to work on figuring out what he actually was. Avoiding the issue, as she'd decided earlier that day, wasn't going to get her anywhere.
She abandoned the bulletin board and headed over to the couch where he was sitting, turning to slowly walk around it and stopped dead in front of him, remaining on her feet. If she sat down, there was a good chance she'd lose her nerve, so she forced herself to keep standing there, awkwardly in front of him, wringing her hands and trying to force the words out of her mouth. Words. Come on, any words, just --
"She missed me." Or … lies. Lies worked too. "Last night, I mean. The cuts you saw were from two nights ago, the --" A surreptitious look around at the observing nurses, then she moved to quickly occupy the seat beside him. "She just caught my shirt when she tried to gut me."
At his olympics remark, she visibly cringed. He was mad. At least a little mad, that much was obvious, and well, she probably deserved mad. It certainly harkened back to her earlier conversation with her uncle, reminding her that Lying Is Bad and all that, especially considering how betrayed she'd felt by Bella doing it. But, it was instinct. It was the only way she had left to protect herself in this place.
When he called her out on her lie, she opened her mouth to argue at first -- no, I'm normal. I am. She might as well have been a wooden puppet masquerading as a real boy. So, she just snapped her jaw shut and let him talk. It made a lot of sense -- she'd noticed that it seemed like almost everyone had something special about them here. Even Bella had some dark secret she was hiding that was supposedly going to get her killed.
She didn't feel the need to mention that Peter had talked about his openness with his abilities. It didn't need to be said, because it wasn't an argument she was going to have with anyone but her uncle. Things were different for him. He hadn't been some eternal victim whose abilities had brought him nothing but pain and his family nothing but complications. Peter was a hero. He could tell people about what he could do knowing that they might need his help. When Claire told people what she could do, it just painted a target on her forehead.
And she was fully determined to tell Pete as much -- to retort that he didn't understand what not normal was. The agility, the strength, the -- whatever else went with that. It wasn't the same. She'd preach that until she ran out of breath, or at least, she'd meant to. Until he finally came to the end of his rant and she felt her blood run cold in a numbing, shocked way. Without bothering to ask her rational, conscious mind if it was okay, she felt her eyes begin to sting, the telltale sign that they were watering, but it wasn't nearly to the point where she'd actually cry. Just the stunned, touched kind of surprise.
That exasperation and hurt in his voice sounded so familiar. Everything about it was familiar because it was exactly how she acted about all of it. It was like staring in a mirror -- a significantly less creepy mirror than the one that had released a monster that looked like her and set it after her and Bella. Okay, bad choice of simile. She shifted in her seat, lower lip jutting out some.
"You think I want to lie to you?" The list of people that Claire was actually comfortable around was short enough to begin with, but having to alienate one of them due to instinct and necessity … "It's not like I was excited to have this conversation. I didn't wake up this morning and think to myself boy, I can't wait to go try and explain why I'm not in ribbons." Okay, the bite in her tone? Totally unintentional, but there came a point where she couldn't help but get defensive, which probably explained why her arms were getting crossed over her chest like she had to put some barrier between them. This was that point. She tried to soften the blow with some compassionate honesty of her own.
"It's not because of you, Pete. I just -- Lying's the only way I can protect myself." It sounded silly. Or, at least, he probably thought it did. What kind of indestructible girl needed to protect herself? "Landel isn't the first person who's kidnapped me because of what I can do. There's a long line of people who've tried and would keep trying, because when people find out, it doesn't end well. For anyone." Not for Jackie, especially. That one still happened to haunt her. Not even for West -- he'd had powers too. He'd been nice and pushed his way in just like Peter was trying and she'd just pushed him right back away after he got electrocuted thanks to her.
"My dad used to work for people like Landel," she said finally, lips tightening as she tried to bite back the sadness at the thought while still stealing herself to keep up that honest confession. "So, sorry if I have kind of a hard time wanting to open up about what I can do, but this isn't exactly a normal day for me." A pause. She reached one hand up, uncrossing her arms so she could rub her forehead, the stress finally coming through in a watery tone.
"Who am I kidding? I don't even remember what a normal day is like."
The defensiveness dropped out of her tone and expression when he all but admitted that he'd lost people. It wasn't fair, treating Peter like he didn't know what it was like, when everything about his reaction was exactly how Claire felt. He obviously knew -- whether it was the exact same or not, he understand running and hiding and having to put on the face of someone you really weren't every morning just so people wouldn't think you were a freak.
"If you understand, if you've gone through all of it too, then why don't you get why I would have to lie to you? Landel, my dad -- they're not the only ones who'd hurt us. People like us would hurt us." She shook her head, not sure how she could make him understand that without opening up about something she wasn't even close to wanting to talk about. 'Not ready' didn't begin to cover that.
So, instead, she took a deep breath. They were obviously on the same page, maybe she could just try and push past it and ignore that he was so obviously hurt and betrayed and … feeling exactly like she had when Bella had kept secrets. And here she was blaming him. Talk about coming full circle. She shut her eyes to take down the exasperation levels and then slowly cracked one open, her entire reeking of a shy kind of apprehension.
"… You can really lift up a car?" She bit down on her lower lip for a minute, chewing it over, resisting the urge to gush. What was it with Peters and the maximum level of heroics? Was she just a magnet for them as much as she was a magnet for psychopaths? "Pete, that's not freaky, that's incredible. You can help people -- save them. Like you helped me." Her expression shifted from enthused to disappointed -- in herself. "I just wind up getting people hurt and turning into a victim."
Okay, so she'd been trying to keep the wonder to a minimum all things considered -- Peter probably didn't need the additional groupies since he probably had at least a million grateful damsels at home who'd showered him with praise of his abilities, but when he tried to wax on about the cons, she couldn't help letting her expression melt into a thoroughly endeared smile, the kind that glowed on her warm skin and reached all the way to her eyes. The kind she hadn't managed in Landel's since she got there -- period. And longer still before that.
Not only was he like her -- he knew what it was like, could spit out all the same rationale she had for what she had to do and that alone was enough to prove he'd been through something similar and knew what it was like -- but he was … well, Peter. Also known as the master of putting a smile on her face when it had no place there. She couldn't help but smile at the fact that he, just like she did, was trying to focus on the negatives of his abilities when all she could see was a bonafide hero.
It didn't matter that he was talking about crunching some guys hand (for one because if the guy was throwing a punch at Peter, he probably deserved it, and for two, because that in and of itself was pretty cool), what mattered was that he they could talk about this stuff.
It appeared she wasn't the only one with that suspended sense of wonder though. When he began to describe his invincible friend -- seriously? how many teenagers was this a casual thing for? -- her smile slowly faded into a look of shellshocked surprise. Imagining someone like her actually being able to do that stuff? To really be known for being some kind of hero? It was … Well, it was reinvigorating. She'd spent so much time in Landel's reevaluating whether or not she was even fit for that kind of thing or if she was just a kid trying to play in the major leagues and way out of line, that realizing it was a real possibility and that she wasn't just endangering herself and everyone who'd care about her enough to go after her …
The whole thing was, embarrassingly enough, kind of inspiring. Still.
"Pete, I'm not a hero. I can't break anyone's fist or destroy a door. I can barely hit the broadside of a barn with a baseball bat. I'm just a cheerleader, which, last I checked, is not even the same zipcode as 'famous hero.'" But, she'd saved that man in the train. And she'd very nearly saved Steven Canfield -- even if she couldn't save him from himself. Whoever had been infected by that virus the Company wanted to treat with her blood. Edward. And it had felt good. It felt right, even if it didn't involve strapping on spandex.
Her expression seemed to mirror this consideration, because her gaze grew distant and she stared a little over his shoulder while she contemplated it, nose screwed up in a wrinkled indicator of deep thought.
"Heroes don't just save people from the bad guys, they fight them. They stop the bad guys before they can hurt anyone. And they definitely don't get turned into victims themselves." It was more telling than she meant it to be, but she couldn't help it. She was feeling epic.
Okay, so maybe he had a point. Maybe. After all, Batman didn't have any powers to help him fight and he did just fine. Then again, Batman had about a billion dollars in his checking account and Claire's was comfortable hovering somewhere in the double digits. Even if her dad did decide he was going to let her try defending herself for once -- which, of course, he wouldn't -- and even if she did find someone to teach her how to fight better instead of relying on a taser -- which, of course, wasn't going to happen -- it wasn't going to involve some heroic musical montage and get her out there cleaning up the mess Elle had made in a way that suited her levels of impatience.
More than that, it wouldn't do her any good here and now, in Landel's where she actually had dire need for those talents. A back tuck wasn't going to take out a psychotic nurse. Maybe she should have thought twice about cheerleading and joined some kind of judo club instead. Her smile returned, this time a little more wry than before, and she reached up to high five him compliantly.
"Now if only Landel kept Mr. Miyagi on the payroll to give complimentary karate lessons. Does super-moodlifter fall under your list of abilities too, or is this just an added bonus?" She drops her hand away from his and then shifts to get more comfortable on the couch. This? This she could handle. It was mind-boggling how casually he was talking about them. Even talking about her abilities with her uncle wasn't this easy, as their earlier discussion had proven. There was head-butting and teeth-grinding and tongue-biting involved. But now, for the first time in a long time, she remembered what relief felt like.
Her wry smile shifted to a kind of teasingly grim look, nose crinkling and brow scrunching as she shook her head at him, a chuckle threatening.
"So, eight times? Really? Sounds like you need someone watching your back a little better. I mean, I thought I was off to a bad start, and I'm at …" She paused to think, mentally tallying. Did homecoming count? More of an attack than a kidnapping, but … "Five. Ish." Of course, that was leaving out that one of them was in her own home, and another was during her first stupid attempt at 'fighting the bad guys.' Between homecoming, Ted Sprague, the Company, Sylar's little home invasion and her failed capture of Steven Canfield, her record of kidnappings in the past year was … well. Less than impressive.
"Anyway, you don't owe me anything. I may be able to heal, but with what Landel did to me … it probably would have gotten messy if you hadn't hauled me out of there. Sounds like an even exchange to me." Speaking of which … she bit down on her lower lip, giving his injured arm a look. The way he'd torn it out of the sling last night was messy, and she had a feeling their little excursion hadn't done much for the healing process. "How's it feel?" Her eyes drifted pryingly back away from his shoulder, up to meet his gaze.
There was no helping the laugh that came tumbling past her lips at the mention of hiding behind his washing machine -- seriously? Who did that? The answer was obviously Pete, but the mental image was still a suitably hilarious one, and she couldn't help shaking her head as she tried to dismiss the thought.
"Maybe we would've gotten off a little easier if we'd tried that tactic last night," she pointed out. Though, all things considered, it was hard to regret what had happened. They got Peter his flashlight, his arm wasn't any worse off, and she was scratch-free. Not to mention this little bonding session that had ensued. Having someone she could commiserate with -- a kindred spirit, if you will -- well, that was something to be extra grateful for. Definitely worth getting julienned by the nurse.
"But, don't worry, it didn't hurt. It's --" She shrugged. Hello, topic she'd hoped not to breach. "Pretty tough to actually hurt me. You're off the hook for the unnecessary roughness." That seemed like a good way to dismiss it without getting into the messy explanation that she couldn't actually get hurt. Or … feel hurt. Whatever. Wasn't it all the same?
Just when he'd had her feeling more human, too. She clung to that. Surely there were side effects of being able to lift cars, right? Like accidentally crushing people's fists in his hand. It was like the same thing. Almost. She was a little too distracted by contemplating this new concern to even consider that maybe since he knew about her ability, she could offer up the option of her blood to take care of that sling problem of his. But, his envy was blowing over her self-involved head.
For the most part, Claire had a horrible complex about how frustrated the constant delicate china treatment made her. After all, she was indestructible, there was no reason to play the 'you need to be protected' card -- especially now that she couldn't even feel the pain that used to come with the injuries first thing. Briefly, she wondered if Pete's friend could feel it still or not, if he really was as reckless as Pete described, but mostly she just focused on how weird it was that she didn't mind Pete saying he didn't want her throwing herself into danger just because she'd walk away from it.
In fact, it was kinda touching. Chalk one up to the hero complex. Then again, the way he'd taken the time to explain it, making sure to note that she didn't deserve to be hurt anymore than the rest of them, it made her feel a little more normal. Like it was okay for her to be treated a little more normal and not put herself on her freaky martyr pedestal all the time. She hesitated for a moment, then just nodded understandingly and ducked her head,
"Okay, okay. Don't worry, Dad, I promise I"ll stay out of the Elephant Graveyard." There was a wry teasing in her tone, but not enough to indicate any insincerity -- despite the fact that trouble usually did a pretty good job of sniffing her out anyway, so the reassurance didn't necessarily mean much. It seemed to be what he wanted to hear, though. With how hurt he'd looked earlier, she figured it was easy enough to concede and give him what he wanted to hear now to try and make up for it. She knew how that lack of trust hurt and, while she couldn't necessarily just take a wrecking ball to all of her carefully constructed trust issues, she could at least try and make up for them in other ways.
"Anyway, if rude and undignified while performing spur-of-the-moment rescues are your worst qualities, I think I can manage to forgive you this once. Cut yourself some slack, I don't think either of us were expecting to get jumped by Edward Scissorhands' long-lost sister. You reacted, and you made a judgment call. Like I said," she offered him a more sympathetic smile. No more teasing, just genuine gratitude. "I owe you one." After a pause, she continued, immediately dragging the wryness back into her tone.
"And, if you wanna choose to redeem that by having me exercise a little more caution, so be it." A shrug followed. "It can get pretty old when you know what your guts look like about as well as you know the back of your hand, anyway."
The hallways, at this point, were all horribly familiar. It was really just salt in the wound that she had to have the nurse babysitting, pretending to lead the way, while they navigated the halls that Claire had run up and down a half dozen times. Insult to injury and all that. Still, she kept her mouth shut tight until they reached the sun room, and there she shot a precautionary, forced smile to the nurse that didn't even look like it was in the ballpark of genuine.
But, by all appearances, she accepted it, because she quickly went to make herself comfortable observing. Meanwhile, Claire moved over to where the bulletin board was posted, digging through the notes for any sign of someone she knew. Empty-handed, she took a step back, reaching into the pocket of her sweatpants and pulling out the note Pete had left up on the board for her earlier.
Guilt washed over her and she crinkled it in her hand after she reread it. Maybe ignoring it and hoping it would just go away wasn't the most mature of options. Maybe Pete deserved a little better than that, considering the world hadn't spontaneously set itself on fire in the course of the day he'd had to presumably know what she could do.
It took hearing him back-talking the nurse while he sat down to realize Peter had walked in. Turning to look behind her, she pursed her lips as anxiety took over her while she stared down the back of his head. This was stupid. She couldn't just sit around and whine about what he might be thinking instead of trying to work on figuring out what he actually was. Avoiding the issue, as she'd decided earlier that day, wasn't going to get her anywhere.
She abandoned the bulletin board and headed over to the couch where he was sitting, turning to slowly walk around it and stopped dead in front of him, remaining on her feet. If she sat down, there was a good chance she'd lose her nerve, so she forced herself to keep standing there, awkwardly in front of him, wringing her hands and trying to force the words out of her mouth. Words. Come on, any words, just --
"She missed me." Or … lies. Lies worked too. "Last night, I mean. The cuts you saw were from two nights ago, the --" A surreptitious look around at the observing nurses, then she moved to quickly occupy the seat beside him. "She just caught my shirt when she tried to gut me."
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When he called her out on her lie, she opened her mouth to argue at first -- no, I'm normal. I am. She might as well have been a wooden puppet masquerading as a real boy. So, she just snapped her jaw shut and let him talk. It made a lot of sense -- she'd noticed that it seemed like almost everyone had something special about them here. Even Bella had some dark secret she was hiding that was supposedly going to get her killed.
She didn't feel the need to mention that Peter had talked about his openness with his abilities. It didn't need to be said, because it wasn't an argument she was going to have with anyone but her uncle. Things were different for him. He hadn't been some eternal victim whose abilities had brought him nothing but pain and his family nothing but complications. Peter was a hero. He could tell people about what he could do knowing that they might need his help. When Claire told people what she could do, it just painted a target on her forehead.
And she was fully determined to tell Pete as much -- to retort that he didn't understand what not normal was. The agility, the strength, the -- whatever else went with that. It wasn't the same. She'd preach that until she ran out of breath, or at least, she'd meant to. Until he finally came to the end of his rant and she felt her blood run cold in a numbing, shocked way. Without bothering to ask her rational, conscious mind if it was okay, she felt her eyes begin to sting, the telltale sign that they were watering, but it wasn't nearly to the point where she'd actually cry. Just the stunned, touched kind of surprise.
That exasperation and hurt in his voice sounded so familiar. Everything about it was familiar because it was exactly how she acted about all of it. It was like staring in a mirror -- a significantly less creepy mirror than the one that had released a monster that looked like her and set it after her and Bella. Okay, bad choice of simile. She shifted in her seat, lower lip jutting out some.
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"It's not because of you, Pete. I just -- Lying's the only way I can protect myself." It sounded silly. Or, at least, he probably thought it did. What kind of indestructible girl needed to protect herself? "Landel isn't the first person who's kidnapped me because of what I can do. There's a long line of people who've tried and would keep trying, because when people find out, it doesn't end well. For anyone." Not for Jackie, especially. That one still happened to haunt her. Not even for West -- he'd had powers too. He'd been nice and pushed his way in just like Peter was trying and she'd just pushed him right back away after he got electrocuted thanks to her.
"My dad used to work for people like Landel," she said finally, lips tightening as she tried to bite back the sadness at the thought while still stealing herself to keep up that honest confession. "So, sorry if I have kind of a hard time wanting to open up about what I can do, but this isn't exactly a normal day for me." A pause. She reached one hand up, uncrossing her arms so she could rub her forehead, the stress finally coming through in a watery tone.
"Who am I kidding? I don't even remember what a normal day is like."
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"If you understand, if you've gone through all of it too, then why don't you get why I would have to lie to you? Landel, my dad -- they're not the only ones who'd hurt us. People like us would hurt us." She shook her head, not sure how she could make him understand that without opening up about something she wasn't even close to wanting to talk about. 'Not ready' didn't begin to cover that.
So, instead, she took a deep breath. They were obviously on the same page, maybe she could just try and push past it and ignore that he was so obviously hurt and betrayed and … feeling exactly like she had when Bella had kept secrets. And here she was blaming him. Talk about coming full circle. She shut her eyes to take down the exasperation levels and then slowly cracked one open, her entire reeking of a shy kind of apprehension.
"… You can really lift up a car?" She bit down on her lower lip for a minute, chewing it over, resisting the urge to gush. What was it with Peters and the maximum level of heroics? Was she just a magnet for them as much as she was a magnet for psychopaths? "Pete, that's not freaky, that's incredible. You can help people -- save them. Like you helped me." Her expression shifted from enthused to disappointed -- in herself. "I just wind up getting people hurt and turning into a victim."
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Not only was he like her -- he knew what it was like, could spit out all the same rationale she had for what she had to do and that alone was enough to prove he'd been through something similar and knew what it was like -- but he was … well, Peter. Also known as the master of putting a smile on her face when it had no place there. She couldn't help but smile at the fact that he, just like she did, was trying to focus on the negatives of his abilities when all she could see was a bonafide hero.
It didn't matter that he was talking about crunching some guys hand (for one because if the guy was throwing a punch at Peter, he probably deserved it, and for two, because that in and of itself was pretty cool), what mattered was that he they could talk about this stuff.
It appeared she wasn't the only one with that suspended sense of wonder though. When he began to describe his invincible friend -- seriously? how many teenagers was this a casual thing for? -- her smile slowly faded into a look of shellshocked surprise. Imagining someone like her actually being able to do that stuff? To really be known for being some kind of hero? It was … Well, it was reinvigorating. She'd spent so much time in Landel's reevaluating whether or not she was even fit for that kind of thing or if she was just a kid trying to play in the major leagues and way out of line, that realizing it was a real possibility and that she wasn't just endangering herself and everyone who'd care about her enough to go after her …
The whole thing was, embarrassingly enough, kind of inspiring. Still.
"Pete, I'm not a hero. I can't break anyone's fist or destroy a door. I can barely hit the broadside of a barn with a baseball bat. I'm just a cheerleader, which, last I checked, is not even the same zipcode as 'famous hero.'" But, she'd saved that man in the train. And she'd very nearly saved Steven Canfield -- even if she couldn't save him from himself. Whoever had been infected by that virus the Company wanted to treat with her blood. Edward. And it had felt good. It felt right, even if it didn't involve strapping on spandex.
Her expression seemed to mirror this consideration, because her gaze grew distant and she stared a little over his shoulder while she contemplated it, nose screwed up in a wrinkled indicator of deep thought.
"Heroes don't just save people from the bad guys, they fight them. They stop the bad guys before they can hurt anyone. And they definitely don't get turned into victims themselves." It was more telling than she meant it to be, but she couldn't help it. She was feeling epic.
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More than that, it wouldn't do her any good here and now, in Landel's where she actually had dire need for those talents. A back tuck wasn't going to take out a psychotic nurse. Maybe she should have thought twice about cheerleading and joined some kind of judo club instead. Her smile returned, this time a little more wry than before, and she reached up to high five him compliantly.
"Now if only Landel kept Mr. Miyagi on the payroll to give complimentary karate lessons. Does super-moodlifter fall under your list of abilities too, or is this just an added bonus?" She drops her hand away from his and then shifts to get more comfortable on the couch. This? This she could handle. It was mind-boggling how casually he was talking about them. Even talking about her abilities with her uncle wasn't this easy, as their earlier discussion had proven. There was head-butting and teeth-grinding and tongue-biting involved. But now, for the first time in a long time, she remembered what relief felt like.
Her wry smile shifted to a kind of teasingly grim look, nose crinkling and brow scrunching as she shook her head at him, a chuckle threatening.
"So, eight times? Really? Sounds like you need someone watching your back a little better. I mean, I thought I was off to a bad start, and I'm at …" She paused to think, mentally tallying. Did homecoming count? More of an attack than a kidnapping, but … "Five. Ish." Of course, that was leaving out that one of them was in her own home, and another was during her first stupid attempt at 'fighting the bad guys.' Between homecoming, Ted Sprague, the Company, Sylar's little home invasion and her failed capture of Steven Canfield, her record of kidnappings in the past year was … well. Less than impressive.
"Anyway, you don't owe me anything. I may be able to heal, but with what Landel did to me … it probably would have gotten messy if you hadn't hauled me out of there. Sounds like an even exchange to me." Speaking of which … she bit down on her lower lip, giving his injured arm a look. The way he'd torn it out of the sling last night was messy, and she had a feeling their little excursion hadn't done much for the healing process. "How's it feel?" Her eyes drifted pryingly back away from his shoulder, up to meet his gaze.
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"Maybe we would've gotten off a little easier if we'd tried that tactic last night," she pointed out. Though, all things considered, it was hard to regret what had happened. They got Peter his flashlight, his arm wasn't any worse off, and she was scratch-free. Not to mention this little bonding session that had ensued. Having someone she could commiserate with -- a kindred spirit, if you will -- well, that was something to be extra grateful for. Definitely worth getting julienned by the nurse.
"But, don't worry, it didn't hurt. It's --" She shrugged. Hello, topic she'd hoped not to breach. "Pretty tough to actually hurt me. You're off the hook for the unnecessary roughness." That seemed like a good way to dismiss it without getting into the messy explanation that she couldn't actually get hurt. Or … feel hurt. Whatever. Wasn't it all the same?
Just when he'd had her feeling more human, too. She clung to that. Surely there were side effects of being able to lift cars, right? Like accidentally crushing people's fists in his hand. It was like the same thing. Almost. She was a little too distracted by contemplating this new concern to even consider that maybe since he knew about her ability, she could offer up the option of her blood to take care of that sling problem of his. But, his envy was blowing over her self-involved head.
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In fact, it was kinda touching. Chalk one up to the hero complex. Then again, the way he'd taken the time to explain it, making sure to note that she didn't deserve to be hurt anymore than the rest of them, it made her feel a little more normal. Like it was okay for her to be treated a little more normal and not put herself on her freaky martyr pedestal all the time. She hesitated for a moment, then just nodded understandingly and ducked her head,
"Okay, okay. Don't worry, Dad, I promise I"ll stay out of the Elephant Graveyard." There was a wry teasing in her tone, but not enough to indicate any insincerity -- despite the fact that trouble usually did a pretty good job of sniffing her out anyway, so the reassurance didn't necessarily mean much. It seemed to be what he wanted to hear, though. With how hurt he'd looked earlier, she figured it was easy enough to concede and give him what he wanted to hear now to try and make up for it. She knew how that lack of trust hurt and, while she couldn't necessarily just take a wrecking ball to all of her carefully constructed trust issues, she could at least try and make up for them in other ways.
"Anyway, if rude and undignified while performing spur-of-the-moment rescues are your worst qualities, I think I can manage to forgive you this once. Cut yourself some slack, I don't think either of us were expecting to get jumped by Edward Scissorhands' long-lost sister. You reacted, and you made a judgment call. Like I said," she offered him a more sympathetic smile. No more teasing, just genuine gratitude. "I owe you one." After a pause, she continued, immediately dragging the wryness back into her tone.
"And, if you wanna choose to redeem that by having me exercise a little more caution, so be it." A shrug followed. "It can get pretty old when you know what your guts look like about as well as you know the back of your hand, anyway."
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