adarkflash (adarkflash) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-11-25 21:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: marvel comics, flash thompson, gwen stacy, harry osborn |
Who: Flash, Gwen, Harry
Where: An arcade
When: backdated to before Thanksgiving
What: Spidey kids get together to talk/hang/play games
Warnings: A little swearing!
The best thing about the arcade was that it made a pretty great distraction. The flashing lights, the tickets, the shouting and whooping over won and lost games all made him forget everything that was going on. The doctor had lost his mind. MJ, Gwen, Peter and him were all stuck in some weird square of jealousy and misunderstandings. Venom had a habit of showing up every time he felt aggressive or even mentioned Spider-Man. Nick Fury would blow him up if he found out that he was carrying Venom. Oh, and Harry’s dad could go totally fucking insane any day now. Okay, so maybe even a good round of Street Fighter couldn’t completely clear out his head.
Flash wandered around the arcade an hour or so before he figured Gwen would show up. Honestly, he was pretty sure the chances of her even stopping by were slim with all the drama going on. That was fine. It wouldn’t be the first time that Flash had to deal with all this stuff on his own. Don’t like being a lone wolf. Adam commented, which made Flash shrug without thinking. No one liked being lonely, right? And, it was easier to pretend he wasn’t with the football team and popular kids. Shit was a lot different now. He moseyed his way over to the skeeball to see if Gwen had shown up. He looked down the pretty much empty row of machines and then decided to just play until he didn’t have any money left.
Gwen actually ended up leaving the Osborns' before Harry. She'd heard his dad come in and call for him, and she'd snuck out when Norman had cleared the library. A text later (Meet you there.), and she'd hailed a cab to the arcade, foregoing public transportation for the quiet warmth of the cab interior. She wasn't really in a mood to be social, but Flash understood what was going on with Peter better than anyone, better than Harry, even, and she knew this had to bum him out too. When she was with Peter, it meant Mary Jane wasn't; now that was all messed up, and she was worried it would make it harder for him to control Venom. Despite how tough he acted, she knew he was really into Mary Jane.
When the cab stopped, she paid the fare absently, and then she wandered into the arcade. It was a geek's paradise, but it had never been her scene. She wasn't a gamer, despite her nerd status, and she looked around the dark space with the blinking lights in search of skeeball, which she managed to location toward the back wall. She tugged off the insulated cream coat she wore, and she draped it over her arm as she made her way through the machines, feeling way overdressed in her pleated skirt and sweater, but then she saw Flash, and she moved quicker and ducked up behind him. She tapped his shoulder. "You didn't tell me there was an arcade dress code," she told him from over his shoulder, and the teasing didn't actually make it into her voice. She put up a strong front, but she was pretty upset about things with Peter. "Oh, Harry's coming, and you're going to be nice. He and Peter had a fight."
Flash was on his way to a pretty average score for himself, but that of course meant way higher than the plebs who tried to take his skeeball championship. He smirked at Gwen’s voice, turning to give her a once over with a slow, judgey raise of the eyebrows. “Yeah dude. What did you think this was? A fundraiser for a Republican Senator or some shit?” His smirk turned into a full-on, semi-dorky smile though and it was clear at least that he was happy she was here and not totally crying all over his favorite video games. Even if she was still obviously upset. Well, they all were. Just in varying degrees.
He handed her the wooden, worn out skeeball to throw down the lane, seemingly not worried even if she didn’t get him any points. “Harry huh? Christ, Gwen. People are going to think you guys are tutoring me how to be preppy. Before you know it I’ll be joining the debate team and collecting dead butterflies.” Flash considered the former. “Though you know what, I’d be pretty great on a debate team. I could be the bulldog that just shouts shit about freedom and America.” Flash silently decided he’d also look baller in a suit. “But, yeah. I’ll be nice. Harry’s an okay guy. A little emo, but okay.”
"Shut up," was Gwen's completely ire-free retort, and she shoved at Flash's shoulder, pushing him aside with her hip when he handed her the skeeball. She turned it around between her fingers at first, not really making any attempt to throw the thing. She'd never played this kind of game before; the Stacys didn't do arcades, but the science behind it was pretty simple. She calculated angles, velocity and spin in her head. "Debate team and dead butterflies are lower on the nerd ladder than Bronies. Bronies are near the top," she said, and she threw the skeeball and landed the outer circle, which made her frown, because she knew she had all the science right. She tipped her head, looking honestly confused for a second, and then she focused on the matter at hand. "Peter told Harry about who he is," she explained. "Harry didn't take the fact that he'd been keeping it a secret very well." Which made her worry about everything they were keeping secret about Harry. She'd tried to tell him about his dad, about Goblin, but she'd gotten drunk, and they never made it to confessions.
“Too much spin on your wrist. Keep it straight, Stacy.” Flash said, all sports coach like he had been giving tips to would-be skeeballers his whole life. He put his hands in his worn out sweatshirt pocket and frowned a little. Yeah, the Spidey news was a pretty hard hit for him, too. But, Parker would never tell him the truth and it was better than idolizing someone that didn’t wholly deserve it. And, honestly? Just the thought of starting the Spidey fanclub skeezed him out a little. Flash thought he was way cooler than that, bronies and all. “Why do I feel like the group is split up now?” Okay, it wasn’t that suddenly. “MJ and Parker vs everyone else.” He sighed and then saw Harry walking towards them, giving him a head bob of recognition to show he could totally be friendly. Flash Thompson was different now, see? Well, sort of.
Harry'd never had a personal issue with Flash, not one that extended past the general harassments and dislikes here and there over the years. Perhaps the only thing that had saved Harry from any true bullying was the popularity factor, which had been a consistent factor through the entirety of his school career. Even if Harry was known for being something of a standoffish recluse and general better-than-thou asshole, being attractive while armed with a trust fund had superpowers of its own when it came to forgive and forget. Not that Harry was a bad guy, or even known for being a jackass like certain other elements of tonight's company.
Harry was naturally late. Gwen could have guessed this by the fact that Harry had gotten unexpectedly railroaded by his father's surprise arrival home, which then led to a shared scotch and a brief discussion about just where Harry was trying to take his life these days. Harry wasn't naturally paranoid, but it was a difficult conversation to have. He felt like any minute was going to be the one where his father unveiled the fact that he he knew Gwen Stacy was staying hidden away in the house. It never happened thankfully, and after a few more minutes, Norman Osborn was off to lock himself away behind the doors of his study for another long night's work. No questions were asked about where Harry intended to head off to, and soon enough he was in the backseat of a cab on his way to the arcade. The drive didn't do a whole hell of a lot to keep his mind from straying to Peter. The fact that Peter was Spider-Man. The fact that Gwen had broken up with Peter. It was a lot to process, but the wind whipping in from the open car window kept Harry from over analyzing much of it at all.
Inside the arcade, a quick text to Gwen deciphered their location, although it was Flash that he saw first. That little upnod of supposed friendliness that might have had Osborn quirking a brow and strolling past in patronizing ignorance on most other days of the week.. but tonight Gwen needed a distraction. His house couldn't be it. If she wanted the clanging and banging lights of the arcade, Harry wasn't going to question it. He wedged his hands down deep in the pockets of his jacket. The zip-up hoodie was rich cream with chocolate brown cuffing the sleeves and darkening the hood, which he shook back from his hair with approach. "There's an easier way to win, Gwen." Harry offered the knowledge while checking out the skeeball scoreboard and ticket tally.
Gwen was trying to figure out how to control the spin on her wrist when Flash said he felt like the group had broken up. Someone else might have just thrown the skeeball and tested Flash's suggestion that way, but she'd always been the type that tried to understand how and why, and it was what made this situation with Peter so frustrating for her. No matter how she turned it around in her mind, she couldn't find the answer to the equation. "Did something happen with you and Mary Jane?" she asked Flash once the comment had filtered through, because that sounded wrong, like she'd missed something. Peter being on a different team she could buy, especially with how things had been lately. But Mary Jane?
She was waiting for the answer when she heard Harry's voice, having missed Flash's nod of greeting in favor of trying to find that elusive missing bit of information. Harry's voice broke her free of the reverie for a moment, and she grinned and handed him the skeeball, her attention on his features clearly a questioning thing. She knew his dad had caught him, and that always had the potential to be a really bad thing for Harry. But no, he seemed okay, and she gave him a grateful look and a light nudge to his hip with her own. She threw her coat on the next lane over, and she sat on the edge of it, face turned upward. Flash still hadn't answered the question about him and Mary Jane, and she had a feeling she wasn't going to like whatever it was he had to say.
Flash was a little relieved that Harry was willing to not be a rich asshole for a couple hours and knew that it had everything to do with Gwen. The high school bully himself willingly agreed to tone down the asshole act for her, something he had only done for MJ maybe once or twice. Is that what friendship was all about? Giving up the one social barrier that kept you strong just to make someone feel better? Maybe he was spending too much time with bronies. He moseyed over a little to where Gwen sat as if to give Harry space to play and shrugged at her lingering question.
“She just won’t shut up about Peter. It’s annoying as fuck. You know they’re probably hanging out right now talking about us.” Flash sighed, and something reminded him that all three of them ended up in shitty places in the comics. “Even if they never hook up and you get back together with him, I don’t think it’s going to change anything. They’re like programmed to be together. Destiny or some shit. All of us are just getting in the way of the Peter Parker dream, man.” He said honestly, completely forgetting that Harry was not only Peter’s best bro, but that not everyone was as keen on conspiracy theories as he was.
The conversation between Gwen and Flash was something he'd been hoping to escape rather than slip back into. While it was upsetting for the other two that Peter and Mary Jane were so involved, Harry wanted to escape that. That's what he'd always been, the escapist. The first one to turn away or shut the door. Maybe it was something he'd learned from his father, all those shut doors. It beat the alternative, which was only reprimand and disappointment. While MJ was all fun and games, even she wasn't talking to him now, mad at him about things he never said and shit he couldn't help. Part of him supposed that it was for the best, what did he care anyway? Then there was Peter, who was supposed to be his best friend but had only been lying to him and avoiding him all these months.
None of it was what Harry wanted to think about or deal with, and it wasn't what he'd counted on when he'd followed Gwen here to the arcade. But oh well. He listened to Gwen and Flash, feeling a little outcasted by the conversation but only because he had nothing to add to it. It was the same tiring circle. Sighing, he collected one of the wooden balls from the return and hopped up onto the sloped lane in the designer tread of his sneakers. While Gwen and Flash lamented their situation, Harry quietly walked up the slope before ducking to reach his arm beneath the net. He tossed the wooden skeeball into the center hole to the glory of the machine. Bells and whistles, multicolored flashing lights. WINNER! Harry marched back down and hopped off the lane to the carpet of the arcade floor below.
Gwen had known Harry too long not to recognize his moody silence for what it was, and she watched him while she considered what Flash had said. "He won't stop talking about her either, but maybe they'll be happier now," she said, which she knew sucked for Flash, and maybe it sucked for Harry too. They both liked Mary Jane - more than liked Mary Jane. She had the sudden urge to apologize to both of them, but that wouldn't be fair to her. She wasn't going to listen to her boyfriend talk about another girl all the time; she wasn't that kind of masochist, whatever Peter Parker might think. "He wants to see me on Sunday," she added, standing when the bells and whistles went off.
She rolled her eyes at Harry, and she took the next skeeball in the ball dispenser. "That was cheating," she said, chastising outrage mixed with playful teasing, hipping him aside with a pleat of skirt. Still, she didn't like all that quiet, and she wanted to ask if his dad had caught him sneaking out or something. Or worse, if Mr. Osborn knew she was camping out there. She eyed them both, and then she threw the skeeball, using the spin Flash demonstrated and landing it right in the center. She turned while those lights blinked and the bells rang. "We should do something fun," she suggested. Her, the nerd, suggesting something fun; clearly the break-up had affected her more than she was letting on.
“He has to cheat. Not everyone has mad skill like I do.” Flash shrugged, cocking his eyebrow a little like he was pretty much the coolest guy in the arcade. Well, on a normal day that was a hundred percent true. A normal day six months ago and it was just law. Nerds would cower when he got to close or made too sudden gestures. Now, they didn’t seem to even notice him. Nerd word, apparently, traveled pretty fast. Part of him wanted to snap back into macho football jerk, but it was a little too late for that.
“Dude you’re in an arcade. Everything is fun.” Flash looked at Gwen like she was nuts, then turned to survey over all the machines. “Girls like ticket games. There’s a lazer tag in the back, but I don’t think you guys are pro enough for that scene.”
Harry smiled, and this time it wasn't paperthin, when he was accused of cheating. It was something that he remembered his father telling him at least once during some childhood sports tournament. If you weren't cheating, you weren't trying. "Sorry I don't have all day to spend at the arcade," he added blithely while taking a step back in order to allow Gwen her turn at playing properly. When she scored perfectly, Harry wrinkled his nose in playful annoyance. Like that was a surprise, Gwen mastered just about everything she set her mind to.
At the mention of not being pro enough, Harry gave Flash a blank expression. One that clearly said that he understood pro was a shortened version of professional, and just what did Flash know about that? "I'm up for anything," Harry finally said.. mostly because it seemed like the least Harry-like thing that he could say. Blue eyes shifted toward Gwen with a lifting twitch of one speculative brow. With her latest stint of late night drinking confessions and breaking into public property, who knew what fun for Gwen Stacy actually entailed.
Gwen gave both of them a look. She was fairly sure this wasn't going to a fighting place, but it was hard to tell with everyone all worked up the way they were. Despite the good show they were putting on, they were all bummed over something, and it was just like boys to want to play some game and one-up each other to make it better. But she wasn't big on losing, and despite her sweater and pleated skirt, she wasn't afraid of lazer tag either. "Don't," she said before Flash could get in a return quip, and she gave Harry that look that was usually reserved for Flash's bully moments. "And I can beat you both at laser tag," she asserted, because she knew a thing or two about aiming a gun. Being a Captain's daughter had included lots of trips with dad to work, and she'd always insisted he teach her everything he knew, because she'd always been the kind of kid who wanted to learn.
She blushed the tiniest bit at the speculative brow twitch from Harry, very much hoping Flash wouldn't notice, and very much hoping he wouldn't read into it if he did. She didn't respond to it, she just grabbed her coat and handed it to Harry, before turning toward the back of the arcade and the aforementioned lazer tag, where she intended to make herself feel better by cleaning the floor with both of them.
Flash grinned at them and turned to lead back towards lazer tag. Girls were always so sensitive about guy talk. It wasn’t like he was going to beat up Harry or anything like that. He was still popular and while Flash was slipping off that particular platform, he respected the law of the land. Out front of the laser tag, there was a small line of fellow teenagers and little kids. It was the eight and ten year olds that you really had to look out for. They were squirrelly and vicious, sometimes climbing up the arena walls just to surprise attack an adult. “Same team or?” Flash didn’t seem to care either way. He was still going to win, so what did it matter to him?
"Let's go against each other," Harry suggested while bumping playfully past Gwen in order to make his way between her and Flash. As Gwen had her own secrets, Harry didn't even think to bother with mentioning that the guy in his head had a half decade of field training and target shooting under his belt. Not that such things had a tendency to bleed through when one actually needed them, but it couldn't hurt. Especially considering that Harry and Dylan had more of a breezy, open air than most people and their alters, not that it pleased either of them. Because of this deep, ingrained connection, Harry knew about Dylan's intention to leave Las Vegas. He wondered what that meant for Gwen and himself.. and Peter too, of course.
Harry recalled that Gwen's other had left before too and that she'd simply been absent for some time. It wasn't something he wanted to worry or think about right now, and it really wasn't something he planned on bringing up to anyone. They all had enough shit going on anyway.. if tonight could just be a lighthearted night at the arcade, he couldn't ask for anything more. Harry kept Gwen's jacket tucked over his arm as they made their way through the short line. With a tilt and peer ahead, he saw the people before them strapping on vests. Even though he'd never played laser tag before, it didn't seem like a complicated concept. Mostly, he considered strategy. Gwen would be working out some algorithms with angles and probability. Flash would go charging through like a linebacker. While Harry didn't consider himself naturally stealthy, he did have a tendency to slip between the lines when it counted most. It seemed like the best method of attack.
Gwen was coming up with a million plans for winning, because that was just her way. From angles, to the dimension of the space, to the firing mechanism of the guns, to the size and height of the targets on both of them. She had no idea that Harry had concerns, and she was focusing on success, because excelling had always been the best way to deal with anything. It was like schoolwork without papers, which might have been the exact opposite of the point, but she didn't want to think about Peter, about everything that had gone wrong there from the moment her dad had died. No, right now she just wanted to finish at the top of the class in laser tag, and then she wanted to go home and hide under her blankets and wish the cook could make her some cocoa. Maybe she could sneak into the Osborn kitchens; she doubted Mr. Osborn ever went there. The countdown to start the game made her look up. Time to focus, if she wanted to win - and she did want to win.