Sock on the Door (For Peter)

[st_x5_494]

It was sometime in the afternoon when Alec returned to the room. He hadn't been back since he came upon a sock on the door and so he spent the night with someone else. He had to give Peter props for the amount of times the kid was using the sock, but he was slightly surprised every time he'd come in, take one look at Peter, and just know nothing happened. Alec often wondered what the hell was wrong with Peter since it seemed like they were both willing to get busy with one another, but at least he was having sex and at the end of the day, that was wall that mattered.

When he pushed through the door, he called out a 'hey! I'm back." In case Peter cared, which Alec knew he would.

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"They're all like, 33," Peter says. "I'm kinda the youngest superhero."

Peter can't imagine Natasha would ever be interested in him, and even if she was, that'd be weird.

[st_x5_494]

"Right, because somewhere else in the whole world there's probably not some mutant or other kid running around close to your age." He rolled his eyes. He got the sense that there were more superheroes around than most places.

[st_arkintern]

"If there are, they're probably not out about it yet," Peter says. "That doesn't really help my situation."

He wishes there was, though.

[st_x5_494]

"You know, you're really stubborn with the whole negative thing." Hello pot, this is the kettle.

[st_arkintern]

"I'm not negative. Just realistic."

[st_x5_494]

"Sounds like a lonely life." Especially since they had already established Peter wasn't going to remember anything and Liz wasn't in his reality. So basically Peter was planning on being alone for a long time or, more likely, until he did something stupid and died.

[st_arkintern]

"It's not lonely if you have friends," Peter points out. "You don't have a girlfriend, and you're fine."

[st_x5_494]

"I don't want a girlfriend. There's a difference." At least that's what Alec thought he felt about the whole thing.

[st_arkintern]

"There's a difference between want and need. I don't need one," Peter says. "I want another Tron sequel, but I don't think I'm going to get it and that's OK."

Maybe not OK, but Peter was going to leave with it.

[st_x5_494]

He frowned. "Did you just compare women to a movie?" Alec wondered just how nerdy Peter could really be.

"Alright, fine. You'll be alone all your life. Have it your way." He shrugged, maybe a little too much.

[st_arkintern]

"I'm not going to be alone," Peter argues. "I just told you I'd have friends. And maybe when I was older, yeah, there'd be another superhero woman I'd go out with."

Peter thinks about Black Widow again.

"Do you wanna see Black Widow?" he asks suddenly.

[st_x5_494]

Alec perked up a bit. "If she's hot, then, yeah." Maybe a little bit of him wished he could show off Max, but that was about it. He didn't need a picture of Logan or Joshua. He saw all of them clearly in his mind.

[st_arkintern]

Peter doesn't have any photos of Natasha on his phone, but he has one better.

Peter heads over his dresser and rummages through one his drawers. Before long, he fishes out his Spider-Man mask and pulls it on.

"Hey, Karen!"

"Hey, Peter. How are you doing today?"

"Fine -- I'll have to tell you about it later. Can you bring up the footage of Germany? Specifically whatever you have of Black Widow? And put it on pause, okay?"

"Certainly."

An image of Black Widow populated on the mask's internal monitor.

"I'm going to hand the mask over to Alec now. When he says 'play', just play the video."

"I'm looking forward to meeting him."

Peter doesn't know if Karen should look forward to this. "If he says anything weird, just ignore him."

Peter pulls off the mask and hands it over to Alec. "Karen'll show you the video."

[st_x5_494]

Alec held the mask out in front of him and blinked. He did not want to put it on. He was pretty sure he would look like a big tool. "Do I have to?"

[st_arkintern]

"If you wanna see Black Widow, yeah. I don't have any pictures of her on my phone."

[st_x5_494]

He stared at Peter for a long moment, then reluctantly lifted the mask over his head. "I'm I supposed to... say hi or something?" Which was a question directed to Peter than to Karen.

[st_arkintern]

Peter and Karen both start talking at the same time.

"Tell her hi!"

"Hello, Alec. Though it is not necessary to say hello, it is polite," Karen says pleasantly.

[st_x5_494]

Alec was uncomfortable. He was glad they were in their room so no one else saw this. "Uh... hi." It was just a computer though...

"Uh.. .can I see black widow?"

[st_arkintern]

"Certainly."

Clipped video of Black Widow starting with Peter's entrance display on the in-house monitor.

In the first scene, she's just in the background, looking in from behind Captain America. Even though Peter's eyes were likely not focused on her the whole time, the masks' cameras managed to capture everything -- not just what Peter was paying attention to -- in perfect clarity.

As soon as she's out of frame, the video abruptly cuts to another brief shot of her as Peter turns to look at the long line of other superheroes beside him.

Once she leaves the frame again, she's running in front of Peter. Then next to Peter. The video abruptly blips out as soon as she falls behind him.

"I was really hoping I'd get to meet her after the battle," Peter says. That didn't happen.

[st_x5_494]

When the video turns off, Alec waits a moment, then pulls off the mask when he was sure it was done. "She is pretty hot." And Stark definitely looked like a douchebag. At least his face was messed up. "There's really some guy called 'Captain America'?"

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, the guy in blue," he says. "With the A on his head."

Peter gestures to his forehead.

"There's a Captain America Fitness Challenge every year, too," Peter says. "In gym class. It's this thing where they see how many push-ups and pull-ups you can do." It was more than push-ups and pull-ups, but he figured that would give Alec enough of a picture.

Peter takes the mask from Alec. "You didn't say goodbye to Karen," he says, sounding almost sad.

[st_x5_494]

"Uh..." That tone of his voice made Alec pause. He glanced down to the mask in Peter's hand. "... bye, Karen?" He didn't think the mask would mind, it was just a computer program, right?"

[st_arkintern]

"I'll tell her you said bye later." He takes the mask back to his drawer and places it neatly on top of his folded suit.

"I might have a crush on her even though she's too old for me." Peter closes the drawer." "Natasha, not Karen," he quickly clarifies.

[st_x5_494]

"Well, yea. She's hot. I'd be concerned if you didn't have a crush on her." He sat back. "I bet she kicks ass really well too."

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, she's really good. I mean, I didn't get to see a lot of her in that fight, but I did get to see her on some old black-and-white CCV footage once that was posted to the Avengers subreddit."

Peter briefly wonders if there'll be threads about him on the Avengers subreddit once he's officially made an Avenger. Then he wonders if he'd want to read them. Then he realizes he's in the middle of a conversation with Alec. He turns around.

"There was another woman on the other team, but I don't know her," he says helpfully. "I haven't met any other woman superheroes."

Hopefully Alec now understands the dearth of women superheroes in his reality.