Day 44: Sun Room (4th Shift)

[mizuhomaiden]

As soon as she had the chance, Sheena ninja'd herself out of the cafeteria and away from the conversation she'd been semi-forced to have. She probably could have just clammed up and told the boys to go away, but she'd kind of owed at least Endrance some kind of explanation. It wasn't everyday the embodiment of darkness pops up and delivers a

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[its_the_mileage]

[One failtastic surrogate dad, comin' right up!]

The only arts and crafts Indy was particularly interested in had been made by other people a minimum of about five centuries ago, so he passed up the opportunity for artistic development and headed to the Sun Room instead.

It turned out to be a good call--sure enough, there was Peter Parker, and sure enough, he looked about as dejected as Indy would've expected. This time, though, he was alone. Indy took this as his cue and headed over, without stopping to give a lot of thought to the fact that he had no idea what, exactly, he was going to say. Did he even have anything to say that wouldn't make the guy feel bad? Indy'd started to notice a trend in their interactions: he showed up, things got worse.

Some desire (however misplaced) to help--and, admittedly, curiosity about what the hell it was that Peter did--got the better of him, and he pulled an armchair over and took a seat. "Hello," he said.

There was a slightly awkward silence, and then, "Some costume."

[its_the_mileage]

[SURPRISE!]

"No, thanks," Indy replied readily, grateful to have something to say that wasn't immediately likely to prompt wailing and gnashing of teeth. "I wouldn't want to cover my face. Makes it harder to spit at Nazis." Though not, apparently, to breathe or deliver one-liners. How did he even see in that thing

[its_the_mileage]

[Ow! Hey, kid, put that lampshade down!]

"Hey, you've got your priorities, I've got mine." Indy's just happened to be better and make him look like less of an idiot.

Peter plainly still looked uneasy, and Indy followed his gaze to the bulletin board. He was right; that had also helped cement the connection between Peter Parker and...this Spider Man character in Indy's mind, though Indy didn't feel the need to comment on it.

He folded his arms and addressed the important part of Peter's statement first: "The hat's sacred. I can forgive you this time, but watch the sticky fingers in the future." The ratio of "joking" to "deadly serious" in his tone started to skew heavily toward the latter, which surprised even him. Well, he liked that hat

[its_the_mileage]

Indy accepted the part about the hat theft as a worthy apology. It was a hell of a lot harder to accept what came afterwards

[its_the_mileage]

Superhero masks and elastic polymers. Ye gods. "How old are you again?" Indy couldn't help asking. He tried to get his facial expression under control. "Don't you go to school or..." Play baseball? Learn Latin? "...or whatever it is boys do these days," he finished limply. Indy had no idea; most of what he knew about regular childhoods was secondhand. But he was fairly sure it didn't involve pretending to be a spider and stringing up criminals

[its_the_mileage]

"I've got time," Indy assured him. Nothing but, in fact, especially during the day. But the way Peter was looking around made it obvious that he was nervous about someone overhearing them, so Indy added, "It doesn't have to be now, though. Unless you speak any other languages." Ancient Greek was probably out of the question, but they had to be teaching them something in school.

Getting bitten by a spider--what a motivation to become a crime-fighter who strung up bad guys. Who did that kind of thing? Sure, Indy'd had an unfortunate run-in of his own with some nasty wildlife when he was a couple years younger than Peter, but it hadn't led him to become a vigilante who made a habit of hissing at people or choking the life out of them or biting them over and over again with--

Jesus, how the hell had he gotten onto that? Indy swallowed and waited for Peter's answer.

[its_the_mileage]

Indy kept his mouth shut for a minute after this monologue and let it sink in

[its_the_mileage]

"Anybody with powers? How many of them are there