"Pretty sure half the building heard it, mate, sorry," Pete answered, though he wasn't particularly bothered. Teens were teens, and they were going to fight. Even though this one seemed a little extreme, even for overly emotional adolescents, and his suspicions were confirmed as Vanessa began to explain. As she spoke, the pieces began to fall into place quickly enough to make Pete want to smack his forehead for not figuring this out much earlier. Now he remembered why that name sounded familiar, though he was used to either seeing her referred to as Copycat or simply "the agent." She'd been the inside source when he was at Weapon X. She'd been the one whose reports, once deciphered, had been passed along to him to compile and fit into a complex, overall picture. She'd also been the one he'd heard rumors about; he'd never thought the people in charge of Weapon X were the nicest folks, obviously, but even they managed to surprise him fairly often with how brutal they could be. And though he didn't know for sure, he could take a guess at how they had pressured Vanessa into taking the job, much like Black Air had done to Pete himself. He'd been like Vanessa at first too, lost and frustrated, until he forced himself to simply close his eyes and do what he was told, which had worked for a while. Then the shields had cracked and Pete found himself slowly losing anything that was still good about him, which was when he at last decided enough was enough. Hopefully, for Vanessa's sake, she was out and done with that life now before she got to the hardened operative phase and then had the inevitable breakdown.
"So you're the agent," he mused softly, intrigued by the flash of blue along Vanessa's cheeks. "Small bloody world, this. I, uh . . ." He trailed off, glancing up as though he expected Josh to burst through the ceiling and choke one or both of them. "I believe we've met before, in a way. Though you may know me as Winston instead." It was the name he'd used while working for Weapon X; it would have been easy enough for someone to find out his real name, but he preferred to work semi-anonymously whenever possible.