Morning Run (Closed to Peter

[st_x5_494]

Alec believed Peter when he said he'd be up. He knew Peter would take the challenge seriously, too, because the kid had this wish to show people he could do things. He just hoped Peter was actually ready for the amount of running today - almost 50 miles - and that he could keep up.

He padded out of his room in jogging pants and a t-shirt and eyed the room. "Ready or not, time to get your ass kicked."

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah," Peter says, still sitting. "Definitely a Spider-Man thing. Along with summoning an army of spiders. I try not to do that often, though."

[st_x5_494]

"You should just be thankful you didn't grow legs or something. Most people don't find spiders attractive."

[st_arkintern]

Peter wishes he had a few extra legs right now, but it feels like they've already been idle long enough. Alec hadn't even sat down at all. Peter peels himself off the ground, pain racing up his right leg as he shifts his weight onto it. He ignores it and looks over at Alec.

"Ready when you are."

[st_x5_494]

"You're sure?" Peter had a lot of rest, so it should be fine, right? Alec wasn't entirely aware of what a normal person could and couldn't do and how much Peter's abilities would aid him either. "Alright. This time I lead though."

Alec started off again, the pace similar to what it was the first time he had started, before Peter had sped up. Of course, they'd have to pick it up eventually to make the four hour mark, but that's what the end sprint was for.

[st_arkintern]

Peter somehow manages to force his legs to meet Alec's pace. But before long, Peter starts to feel like a little kid in the back seat of a car during a long road trip. It makes him feel uncool to be wondering how much longer, especially since he's sure that Alec isn't even thinking about that at all.

And yeah, maybe it was stupid, but he really did want to impress Alec. He just doesn't feel impressive at all right now, especially when his legs feel both heavy and on fire all at the same time.

They're about another 20 minutes in before Peter feels his legs on the verge of buckling again. He reaches for the sleeve of Alec's t-shirt.

"Okay," he says, embarrassed. "We need to stop."

[st_x5_494]

Unlike last time, Alec stopped abruptly. He turned slightly to take in Peter's stance and sweat and general look. "Maybe we should call it a day for now."

[st_arkintern]

Peter looks wiped. He feels wiped. He was trying really hard not to look wiped because he didn't want to seem like he wasn't up to the challenge, but Peter's not sure how many more miles he can fake it, and he's pretty sure that his legs won't let him find out.

Peter lowers himself to the ground and presses his palms hard against the top of his thighs. There's nothing wrong with them beyond him obviously pushing himself past his limits; Peter just finds sometimes that if you press really hard against something that's hurting that sometimes it doesn't hurt as much.

Just sometimes, though. Other times it just makes things a lot worse.

"Sorry," Peter says, looking down at his legs. "I know you're on a schedule. If you need to keep going, I can catch up with you later."

[st_x5_494]

Alec rolled his eyes and crouched beside him, hands resting on his knees. "You know we're stuck at an Inn right?" He surveyed Peter's legs.

"How bad is it?"

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, but your four hour goal," Peter insists. He feels like he's bringing down Alec with his not-nearly-as-athletic-as-Alec's legs. Why didn't he work out his legs more?

"They're fine," he says, pulling his hands off his legs so he can shift them into a more comfortable position. "I just need a break."

[st_x5_494]

Alec shifted so he was sitting on the ground, legs up. "The four hour thing is okay because we'll end up back near the Inn. It's not an actual 'goal'. I don't make goals."

[st_arkintern]

Peter can't help but think that Alec's just telling him these things to make him feel better about ruining his goal.

"You don't have to do this anymore, so why do you do it?"

Even Peter's not sure why he asks it. Maybe it's because he thinks that there's got to be some sort of goal -- some sort of objective -- that Alec's not admitting to, even if it's not the whole four hour thing like Peter thinks it is.

[st_x5_494]

It was a good question and Alec wasn't actually sure he had an answer for it. He was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "Gives me something to do."

[st_arkintern]

Peter doesn't look convinced by this answer.

"There's other things you can be doing," Peter points out. "And it's not like you do any daydreaming, either." Which is one of the major perks of doing anything solo. Even when Peter was patrolling and there wasn't much to do, he'd find himself daydreaming about scenarios that would require his heroic intervention.

Peter lifts one of his legs into a V, then shifts it down flat again, as if testing out his leg. He really needed to get better at this if he was ever going to be able to come close to catching up to Alec.

[st_x5_494]

Peter really didn't understand conditioning, which was a good thing, really. Most of the people here who knew about his upbringing seemed to just understand. Not that Alec really understood why he did most of the things he did either.

"I'm just used to it." He shrugged and then frowned. "Why does it matter if I do this or not?"

[st_arkintern]

"There's nothing wrong with it," Peter says. At least he doesn't think so. "Do you get anything out of it, though?"

Other than, apparently, the ability to still feel something in your legs other than burning pain after running 30 miles.

[st_x5_494]

He thought about that question, even looking out at the desert before them for a moment. Maybe there was a part of him that felt like a 'good soldier' when he completed it.

"I want to be ready when shit hits the fan and we need to fight or escape." It was a tactical thing.

[st_arkintern]

"Nothing bad has happened since we got here," Peter says. "Outside of the Other-Worlds." Obviously they had problems there.

Peter presses his lips together, his brows knotted.

"Are you just always preparing for the next big threat?" Even when there isn't one.

[st_x5_494]

"Of course. Sometimes going to happen eventually. It always does. I think whoever's in charge of this place is waiting for all of us to get complacent and dull and then whatever the end goal is, we'll know it." Alec didn't think this was necessarily a free vacation. He felt there were pretty thick strings attached.

[st_arkintern]

"If they wanted us to get complacent, they wouldn't do things like open portals to other worlds or bring new people here," Peter argues. "If I wanted to launch some sort of secret attack on everyone at the inn for whatever nefarious purposes, I'd just let everything go on normally with nothing really crazy until I decided to do whatever I wanted to do. I'd probably give people things to do other than sit around and study and train all day because I wouldn't want people doing that."

[st_x5_494]

"Hope is a powerful thing." He glanced out at the expanse. It was part of it. You could see it going out forever. It gave you this feeling like maybe if you went long enough or fast enough you might get somewhere else.

"All these little things. Just a way to make people feel safe and distracted. Keep us guessing." Alec didn't trust the Inn at all. "I think it or whoever has exact control over who comes in and out and what the hell happens when we're here." Some big ass science experiment.

[st_arkintern]

"It could be that whoever's doing this doesn't have any nefarious reasons at all," Peter says, feeling irritated at Alec for reasons he can't really understand. "They could be helping us. It really all depends on how you look at it. If I weren't brought here, I wouldn't have met you or Liz or Piotr or Kitty or the Professor or anyone else. I can't imagine how meeting you guys wouldn't be a good thing."

[st_x5_494]

"And at some point either you'll leave or I'll leave or one of the others -" Not that he had any clue of who the Professor was. "And then your whole 'nice' theory goes out the window."

Alec briefly thought about Kitty when her boyfriend left or how Corbie was so sad about being stuck here for a year.

"The best prisons are the ones no one knows they're in."

[st_arkintern]

"Isn't just having met them enough, though? I mean, hasn't your life somehow been impacted positively by the people here? Would that really change if they left?"

Peter is really insistent on this one.

[st_x5_494]

"And if we go back and have no memories of this place? How would you feel if-" Alec actually stopped himself. He wasn't going to go there with Peter. The kid didn't deserve to think about it.

"You went through all this stuff and learned like, how to be a great fighter and then it's worth nothing when you get back?"

[st_arkintern]

"I already know I'm not going to remember," Peter says. That was definitive. "If I met Mr. Star-Lord here, I really doubt that I would be able to hide it when we met."

Peter at least was able to acknowledge that.

"It doesn't matter if I don't remember all the things I learned here as long as I was able to use what I learned to help people while I was."