RyCorp: Checking on Harry
Perry was withdrawn and quiet when he met Gwen in the deep shadows of the flower shop. He had on a gray hoodie he'd had for at least a decade, and his head was pulled all the way back inside it, like a particularly morose turtle. He didn't have headphones in, which was what he'd done back in the day when he didn't want anyone to talk to him, but that was the only piece missing. His expression was guarded and his eyes distant, and his only emotion was a trembling compress of mouth when he gave her a soft "hey" of greeting. That was all he said though, and he was grateful when she didn't say anything else either. He had trouble looking straight at her.
When they arrived, Perry recognized the guard too. He usually drove his aunt past this point, and he probably looked different outside of a vehicle, but they made eye contact and Perry nodded. Now that Harry's dad had heard from him, he was safer as Perry than as the Spider, even if he was caught. They made their way past, with Perry fastening the badge to one of his dangling hoodie strings, where he could conceivably "lose" it. His hand in hers was curled and loose, hot and sticky at first, and then rapidly disengaging as soon as they were out of sight.
He did look around at her room with interest, smiling in spite of himself at the welcoming pillow, before getting down to business. He'd gotten a look at where the cameras were, and he thought she was probably right as he scanned her paper of the tunnels. He folded it up along the lines and tucked it securely into his hoodie pocket, along with the scanner, before quite literally rolling up his sleeves. "I got this." He gave her a smile that was, at least, a little like the one he used to share with her. The old her. Real her. Whatever.
Perry looked up at the ceiling, bent his knees slightly, and sprang upward. He caught the edge of the vent lightly, and swung his sneakered feet up into a crouch on the ceiling, her up his down. Then he crawled through the vent, sliding easy and silent along the small space. He didn't need to consult the paper more than once as he navigated his way above the corridors, letting the hum of the ventilation and his extra senses tell him when someone was coming. Eventually he made it around one curve of the maze and stopped at a likely vent, squinting through the screen and slats to see inside.