Room 227, Friday Late Morning

[whenshewasnice]

The nightmares had mostly stopped, and so had Natalie's super early mornings. That didn't mean she didn't still get a lot done before a lot of folks were even up, though. Like this morning, she'd already looked up all kinds of info she might need this summer for various things. And she'd talked to her mom on the phone about graduation and interdimensional travel. Her parents weren't scheduled to show up before tomorrow, both for work stuff and because Portalocity was being a pain. But her mother had said they'd come, and that was what mattered.

And after that, she'd hung Helen's collage on her wall. She actually kind of liked it, for all that it was unsophisticated, with crudely cut out figures from fashion magazines plastered all over each other, with red paint in places making them looking bloodied, and the words 'NOT THE EXPECTED' in big bold glittery letters on top of everything. It looked angry, almost. Natalie wasn't surprised by that. Helen had had a lot of anger in her.

Natalie had hung the collage on the wall next to extra bed. And now she stood with her arms folded, looking at it and judging whether it could stay. Maybe she'd let it be until she could see if the administration threw a new roommate at her.

[ooc: Open door, open post.]

Comments

[lockestheway]

Peter didn't bother knocking on the door because he was Peter, and frankly he had better things to do. He just strode in without a word of warning besides, roughly thirty seconds into his arrival, "I'm jealous. It won't be long before you can get out of here."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie didn't bat an eye at his entrance. Half the people she knew tended to waltz in like they owned the place.

"Technically, I probably already could," she replied, looking over from her art appraising. "I'm not sure if being present for the ceremony is actually needed."

[lockestheway]

"Planning to leave after the ceremony?" Peter asked casually. He didn't care much - they already had an agreement about work she'd be doing for him over the summer. But hey, small talk.

[whenshewasnice]

"No." She shrugged a shoulder. "Well, I might, but just for a few days at home. Fandom gets to keep me for at least the first term. TAing."

[lockestheway]

"Who are you TA'ing for?" Peter asked, hopping ass-first onto her bed. He bounced a little as he did so.

[whenshewasnice]

That Natalie rolled her eyes at. But mildly, and she didn't say anything about it. "Clint," she replied, finally turning her back on Helen's artwork. "Archery 101. So basically what I've already been doing with him for a while."

Which would explain why she wasn't going to call him Professor (or even Mr.) Barton or anything.

[lockestheway]

"Shooting things. Sounds like something you'd have fun with," Peter said cheerfully. "Do you get to come up with your own gruesome targets, or is it all just hit-the-red-bit-on-this-circle stuff?"

[whenshewasnice]

"We haven't really discussed anything in that much depth yet," she drawled. "But based on past experience, it'll probably be the latter. With some Danger Shop stuff thrown in."

[lockestheway]

"Well, that's boring," Peter commented.

Thank you, Peter. Nobody had actually asked you for your opinion.

[whenshewasnice]

"Says the boy who doesn't know how to shoot anything in the first place."

Well, that's what you got.

[lockestheway]

"With any luck, I won't have to," Peter said, flopping back on the bed. "If Bean manages to deliver me an army one of these days."

Mostly Bean seemed more insistent on exchanging pertinent information and copious whining.

[whenshewasnice]

"And if he doesn't?" Natalie wondered, going to her desk to put some stuff away. Art-hanging things.

[lockestheway]

"I'll have to hope some other despairing Battle School graduate wants to hitch their wagon to my star," Peter said, staring up at the ceiling, "Or it might not shoot all that high. Of course-- people are terrified of these graduates. If worst comes to worst, I might be able to play off that..."

[whenshewasnice]

"I'm sure you'll manipulate it to your advantage somehow," Natalie replied idly. "And Bean's still doing his thing."

As far as she could tell.

[lockestheway]

"Staying alive, that's what Bean does. And very successfully too," Peter agreed. "Achilles has his work cut out for him."

[whenshewasnice]

"Achilles," Natalie repeated, closing the bottom drawer, having put her things away. "Even his name makes him sound like a pain in the ass."

Mr. Moxy, awake from his nap, hopped onto the bed to sniff at Peter.

[lockestheway]

"Trust me, he is," Peter said, sitting back up. "What with the homicidal sociopath trying to take over the world angle..."

[whenshewasnice]

Mox was still going to try putting his paws on his thigh. For great kitty investigation justice!

Natalie snorted, leaning a hip against the desk. "Well thank goodness you aren't homicidal."

[lockestheway]

"Nobody takes orders from a serial killer," Peter said mildly - he hadn't spent so much energy working through his squirrel-torturing-control-issues for nothing. "At least not after they're found out."

Beat.

"Also, I don't really see the fun in killing another human being. Call me crazy."

[whenshewasnice]

"I think you'd find people take a lot of orders from serial killers," Natalie replied just as mildly, but only because that was just her basic tone. "It's just that we generally don't classify generals and such as that."

[lockestheway]

"There's a difference there," Peter said, shrugging. "Besides. The death of one is a tragedy--"

Yes, Peter, Stalin was who you wanted to be quoting to make this point.

[whenshewasnice]

"–– the death of a million is a statistic, yes, I know," Natalie replied, rolling her eyes. Having crammed European history for a final just last week. "It's still death. And ultimately someone's still responsible."

[lockestheway]

"Sure," Peter said, as he sat forward. "But that's the thing - the winning side gets to pick who. And it's a lot easier to be the winning side if you have an army. Thus bringing me back to my original dilemma."

[whenshewasnice]

"I'm not trying to fault you for anything," Natalie replied, while Mox got bored and jumped back on the floor again. "Just thinking out loud about semantics."

[lockestheway]

"I'm not offended," Peter said. Because really. It was Peter. If he was offended, she'd know about it. "But semantics only have power in politics to a certain degree. What's important here is that Achilles will kill out of nothing but personal feelings of petty vengeance."

[whenshewasnice]

"Which makes him oh so charming." Sarcasm was the answer to everything. She brushed stray strands of hair away from her face. "So if Bean manages an army, what then?"

[lockestheway]

"I'll have to prove I'm not going to use them for petty vengeance," Peter said.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie nodded as she pushed away from the desk. "Good," she said, wandering over to the bed. "Not really a topic I would have expected to be discussing the day before graduation, but I gave up on expecting ordinary things a while ago."

[lockestheway]

"Hey, if you want to talk about your test scores..."

Possibly Peter didn't quite get pre-graduation conversation.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie sat down on the edge of the bed and gave him a vaguely amused look. "Not particularly. They were excellent, and there's very little to talk about in that."

[lockestheway]

"Good," Peter said, "Because I don't actually remember what my last test scores were. It's not important anyway."

He cruised through what he bothered to take.

[whenshewasnice]

"It is to those of us who'll actually have to continue on with our education," Natalie noted with a shrug. "We can't all fall back on reeking of cologne and kicking chairs over."

If he'd thought she wasn't going to mention that... Why on Earth would he think that?

[lockestheway]

"Do we really have to talk about that?" Peter whined. "You looked like you'd been living in a weed-whacker."

[whenshewasnice]

"Yes, so I've been told," Natalie replied. Almost cheerfully. Because he was whining. "But at least I wasn't gazing soulfully at people."

[lockestheway]

"I had to take five showers on Monday just to get the cologne smell to go down," Peter complained. "Oh, and then Loki turned back and took his phone-- and my pants--"

[whenshewasnice]

"I would've thought you'd be more upset about the phone than your pants, to be honest."

Because he'd kind of been clinging to that like a lifeline.

"... Wait, was Loki the snake?"

[lockestheway]

"Yes," Peter said, eyeballing her. "Who else?"

Duh.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie shrugged a shoulder. "Last time he got turned, he was a fox. Like you."

She knew because Tara had been the one to care for Loki that time.

"I'm a little saddened I'm not the only snake around."

She wasn't that sad.

[lockestheway]

Peter rolled his eyes expressively and flopped back on the bed. "Either way," he said, "Talk about not important."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie made a quiet judgmental sound that was only half sincere. Maybe even less than that. "I also put in an application for valedictorian," she said. "But that's likely to fall on the side of unimportant as well, I'm sure."

He still got the honour of being the first to hear about it.

[lockestheway]

Peter gave that another shrug. "You'll get it," he said. "It'll look nice on your resumé."

[whenshewasnice]

"Probably." That wasn't why she'd applied, but it was a definite plus. She wouldn't deny that. "And my parents would like it."

That wasn't why she'd applied, either.