Coming Back Home (Closed to Peter)

[st_x5_494]

His talk with Kitty and some more time alone caused Alec to return to the Inn. He smelled, but he was used to that, however he did miss showers. Despite the ability to live off the land for at least a month, there were some comforts that Alec missed. Plus he figured he needed to find out how badly he left things with Peter.

He was ready to be told to move out - however he could manage that, anyways.

Alec pushed through the door noticed the note on Peter's bed immediately. The kid wanted to talk - shocker. He dropped his pack and went to hit the shower.

Comments

[st_arkintern]

Peter thinks about this for a moment and continues staring down at the carpet.

"I know I'm not invincible," he says finally. "I used to get beaten up at school. The only difference is that now I get beaten up by people with alien tech instead of high school kids."

Years of bullying proved helpful when he came home with a bruise on his face after a night of patrolling. May just assumed it was just the kids from school rather than some handbag-stealing thug fighting her vigilante costumed nephew. He had convinced her not to go to the principal because it'd just make the bullying worse. To his surprise, she believed him even though he was usually a bad liar.

[st_x5_494]

He took that in, paused in silence, then found himself asking in return a question he hadn't thought about before. "Do you look forward to it? If all crime stopped tomorrow, would that upset you?"

What would he do if there was nothing to fight? Alec didn't know the answer. He expected to die before finding this out.

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, I look forward to helping people," Peter says. "But if I didn't need to do it because everything in the world was okay..."

Peter takes a breath.

"I'd be okay with it."

He really would. Peter just wasn't naive enough to think that something like that might actually happen someday.

[st_x5_494]

Alec gave a small nod. That was good enough for him.

"Look... I'm not saying you can't think it's cool to be an Avenger or fight with Stark." Alec actually avoided an eyeroll, but he almost popped a blood vessel preventing it. He really hated this guy he had never met. "Just maybe consider how it sounds to other people. Consider why you don't tell your Aunt May everything or, I'm assuming, Liz. "

He paused.

"Then again, we're two different people from different worlds. If Max came here from the future to tell me I had to battle five breeding cult freaks while a pregnant girl gave birth and I was shot in the arm, I don't think I'd be bouncing off the walls with excitement."

[st_arkintern]

"I don't tell them because I don't want them to worry," Peter insists, and he knows he's coming dangerously close to insisting that he can handle it and that's probably just going to tick Alec off, so he's just going to let it slide. He's not sure that Alec has anyone in his life who he doesn't want worrying about him.

Peter's pretty sure that Alec thinks that no one does.

"I think it's different," Peter says, though he's not going to argue. "If you got to fight alongside the person you admired most to do something that'd have a real impact... wouldn't you be excited?"

Peter's not sure that Alec even has anyone he admires. Or if he does, he doubts it's anyone Alec admires as much as he does Mr. Stark.

"I grew up watching the Avengers on TV saving people. Saving me. Being able to call myself one of them, it's like getting elected President."

[st_x5_494]

Alec was pretty sure his President hated his job. Ever since the Pulse, politicians got a lot of slack for everything. Then again, the government was corrupt, so maybe they didn't care.

"If you think they'll worry, then shouldn't you at least know to worry a little bit? You can handle things and still worry about the outcome. If you're going to fail If it's the last time you'll see whoever. blah blah blah. The worry keeps you on your goal to win."

[st_arkintern]

"I do worry," Peter insists, sulking. He's looking less sad now, and more like his normal self. "When you win, bad things can still happen."

It's almost as if Peter is determined to prove Alec wrong.

[st_x5_494]

"Of course. Sometimes you have to ruin someone's life to stop them from doing bad things." Or kill them, like Max had with his twin, Ben. Or like Alec had to with some of the lesser evolved transgenics. "Sometimes the best solutions the shittiest one."

[st_arkintern]

Peter thinks about Eddie and other-Liz and other-Liz's mom.

"I wish you could come back with me and see what everything is like," he says. Not just because he really believes that Alec would have a better time understanding if he could see the same things he did, but also because Peter was pretty convinced that his reality was better than Alec's.

And he just wanted to introduce him to everybody.

Alec's the only person than Liz that he's really wanted to take back home with him. Peter wonders if other people say this to one another or if it's just him and Liz.

[st_x5_494]

"I don't think I'd fit in." Alec looked at him, being honest and not just self-deprecating. Still, he had a feeling that might upset Peter, so he added more in jest, "Plus your Aunt would probably kill me."

[st_arkintern]

"You fit in here," Peter points out.

[st_x5_494]

"Only a little, and people still want to kill me." Like that Raccoon, he's pretty sure. How he ever had to worry about a raccoon, he'd never know.

[st_arkintern]

"Why do you say only a little?" Peter looks at him expectantly, awaiting an answer.

[st_x5_494]

He paused to think about how he wanted to answer that. "Because I'm always pissing people off and generally getting stern faces at my direction."

[st_arkintern]

"You don't think people don't do that where I live?"

Some things were universal. That was one of them.

[st_x5_494]

He sighed. "What would I even do in your world?" Bike messenger was not exactly his dream job back home. He used it for the sector pass.

[st_arkintern]

Peter thinks about that, then asks: "What would you want to do if you could do anything?"

He quickly adds: "Drinking and sleeping with women doesn't count."

[st_x5_494]

He didn't know. Alec never had the answer to this question. He should prepare one for Peter some time.

"I don't know... be rich?"

[st_arkintern]

Peter wants to facepalm. Why hadn't he thought to put that in his list of exclusions?

"You have to do something to be rich," he says. "Or be born that way, but that isn't an option here."

[st_x5_494]

He did a palms-up. "I don't know. I just sort of, I don't know - survive - back home. It's not like I have any long term plans or anything."

[st_arkintern]

"You could join the Avengers?" Peter offers. He's not really sure if it's a paying gig, but he thinks it has to be. It's not like Thor and Hulk and Captain America had time to do anything else.

[st_x5_494]

Alec blinked. "... Do you really think I'm superhero material?" Said as if, of course he didn't, what a silly idea.

[st_arkintern]

Peter nods sagely. "You could be, yeah."

[st_x5_494]

Somehow Alec felt like maybe Peter was being a bit too optimistic. "I don't think I'd fit in. I don't even have a name."

Okay, so he had his boxing name, but that was different.

[st_arkintern]

"Thor's called Thor," Peter offers helpfully.