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_x5_494]

He blinked. Alec didn't get that at all. "Weird? How about awesome? Money's the best."

[st_arkintern]

"It's different if you're used to living a different way," he says. "I'm still not entirely used to this place --" He waves an arm around at the rest of the room. "-- and I've been here for nine months now."

Peter looks at Alec, brows furrowed.

"It wouldn't be weird for you?"

[st_x5_494]

"Hell no." Alec was being completely truthful this time. "If I had money I'd have a big mansion and a pool. Big screen TVs. Silk blankets. All of it."

[st_arkintern]

"If Mr. Stark could give you that, would you be an Avenger?" Peter asks.

Back to the Avengers line of questioning.

[st_x5_494]

Probably the biggest deterrent was having to take orders from Tony Stark. "I don't know... I'm not big on following orders. I did that once and look where it got me."

[st_arkintern]

"Mr. Stark told me to leave the Vulture alone," Peter says, "But I still went after him."

Tony had tried to stop him, but had apparently underestimated Peter's strength of will. Peter couldn't imagine Mr. Stark would do that again.

[st_x5_494]

"Yeah, but if we all have to work together in some sort of -" Alec made another vague gesture with his hands, "-Kumbaya fight thing, wouldn't I have to listen to his orders?"

[st_arkintern]

"In Germany, half the Avengers fought against him," he says. "And me and Vision and Black Widow and Black Panther and War Machine."

Peter takes a breath.

"So I think it's okay to make your own decisions," he says. "Cap's team did."

[st_x5_494]

He blinked at Peter. Vision? War Machine? Maybe Black Widow sounded cool. Maybe. Seriously, though, who came up with these names? Alec clearly did not look impressed as he listened other superheroes.

"Wait, so... there are two Avenger teams? How does that work?"

[st_arkintern]

"It's kind of complicated," Peter says, because he doesn't really understand it because Mr. Stark really didn't tell him anything at all. "Mr. Stark just told me that Captain America was wrong and that he thought he was right and that made him dangerous. So I tried to stop him."

And didn't really do a good job of it.

"I got to fight The Falcon and Winter Solider, though. And Cap and Ant-Man," he says. "The Winter Soldier had a metal arm."

[st_x5_494]

"Ant-Man?" ANT-man?

Alec brought fingers to the bridge of his nose. Seriously, what the fuck was with these names? Did the Winter Soldier only fight in cold weather? Did people in Peter's world really think these names sounded cool? He was sure Max would also eye-roll at all of this. He really wished she was here so he could feel validated in thinking all this was lame.

Still, what Peter said didn't escape notice.

"So basically what you're saying is you went into a fight with 'he's wrong and he's dangerous' but you didn't ask what he was wrong about?" Fuck the metal arm, that's the part that bothered Alec. He had seen a lot worse than just a metal arm before.

[st_arkintern]

"Mr. Stark showed up to my house and he told May that I'd won a grant and he told me that he knew I was Spider-Man and he said he wanted to take me to Germany."

He should probably leave the part out about how he told Mr. Stark he couldn't go to Germany because he had homework and Mr. Stark insisted, because Alec would probably just make fun of him.

"When I got there, the only thing I knew was that Captain America had gone crazy. Mr. Stark came to my apartment because he needed my help, so --"

Peter swallows and looks down, suddenly embarrassed. He should have pressed him, but he was so happy that Mr. Stark had asked for his help (Spider-Man!) that at the time, it didn't really seem important.

Iron Man needed his help.

"-- so I helped him," he finishes.

[st_x5_494]

Stark was so many reasons why Peter was going to get killed. Alec did not like the man and he had never met him. In fact, he even preferred Ames White over Tony Stark and Ames had planted a bomb in the base of his skull.

He tried to summon Kitty and Max at that moment. Even Corbie.

Alec closed his eyes. Peter did a dumbass move based on faith.

"Next time... maybe you should ask some more questions." He opened his eyes after that.

See? Personal growth?

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah," Peter says, feeling embarrassed. He wants to tell Alec he was fourteen, as if that would somehow make a difference. He's pretty sure it wouldn't.

"Probably."

[st_x5_494]

"Can you just promise me one thing?" Alec looked at Peter with a more serious expression than before. "Can you at least promise me that here, you won't go do some dumbshit just to impress me or Star-face or that damn raccoon or anyone else? If you're going to do something it's because you need to and you ask for help if help is better than alone?"

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah," Peter says, looking up. "I won't."

And then he realizes that Alec might think it means that he won't ask for help.

"Do dumb stuff," he quickly clarifies. "I promise, if I need it, I'll ask for help."

[st_x5_494]

"Good." At least Alec felt a little better with that. "And also, that raccoon's not allowed in the room. I don't trust him."

[st_arkintern]

Peter frowns at that.

"Rocket's my friend," he says. "You can't arbitrarily ban him."

[st_x5_494]

"I can if I think he's going to kill me in my sleep." He'd seen that look before - maybe not in animal eyes, although Joshua's brother was close.

[st_arkintern]

"Is this because you punched Mr. Star-Lord in the face?"

Yeah, Alec. Peter knows.

[st_x5_494]

"Probably less to do with that and more to do with how I talked to him." Alec was not denying the face-punch. He stood by it thank you.

[st_arkintern]

Peter's frown deepens.

"What did you say?"

[st_x5_494]

He shrugged. "I don't remember the specifics." Which was a bold-face lie since he couldn't not forget.

[st_arkintern]

"You say something bad enough to tick someone off to the point of banning them from our room, and you don't remember what you said?"

[st_x5_494]

Alec sighed. "Alright, fine. He might of said some shit to me, totally failing to miss my point and hanging onto some bullshit line he thought I was talking about and I might have called him roadkill. And that he wasn't human and made fun of his height." Sort of, anyways. He implied Rocket wasn't a 'grown-up.' Also, the irony of Alec talking about human and not human wasn't lost on him.