InsaneJournal

Who: Jane Foster and Peter Parker
What: Who's been using my lab?
When: BACKDATED, earlier this week
Rating: Red -- Discussion of medical issues

Web Fluid Version 7.8

The title stretched above Peter on the whiteboard as he scribbled another compound below it, swapping out one element on the list for another. He’d been at it in the lab for a few hours now, erasing and editing after his last attempt at an improved formula had fizzled into a useless liquid.

It was easier for him to focus here. He'd wandered onto this floor by accident one afternoon a while back, and he’d found it quiet and empty of anyone who might claim it ever since. Peter was, however, starting to wonder how accurate that assessment was when the ding of the elevator signified someone was getting out.

He leapt up to erase what he could, swiping away the title and the stupid little Spider-manesque figure he'd drawn next to it. The ingredients were still up, but there were maybe ways to explain that away, at least.

He looked a little like a deer caught in headlights when a woman - definitely not Mr. Stark or Happy like he’d been hoping - stepped out. She looked almost familiar. Even if this was somewhere he probably really wasn’t supposed to be, Peter didn’t want to startle her.

He rustled around with his papers and fidgeted, clearing his throat to speak. “Hi? Sorry, sorry, is this - is this your lab?”

Work for Jane had been hit or miss lately. Emphasis on the miss. She’d been able to do some work on her laptop in bed when she wasn’t too sick or sleeping but lab time was limited to her good days. Those were hard to predict and getting more rare.

Jane set her deli bag down on the work bench. She’d come from a doctor’s appointment and another round of bloodwork.She had to try and get at least a few bites of something down. Jane followed, taking a seat behind her lunch with a look of relief. That walk up from the elevator was exhausting.

“Yes. It is. How’d you get in here?” And why was this kid doing what looked like advanced organic chemistry? “These levels are meant to be restricted. You sneak away from a field trip or something?”

Peter slid one of his notebooks into his backpack, hoping still to make a quick exit even if that was looking less likely by the second. He really didn’t want to explain to Tony that he’d gotten himself escorted out by security for breaking and entering, so he was hoping the truth would do.

“Oh, um, the elevator left me on the wrong floor last week? I meant to keep on going, but they were doing renovations or something upstairs and it was just - loud, so…this was quiet.”

He still thought the woman looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. He’d come across plenty of people in the city doing the rounds as Spider-man, and yet he didn’t think that was where he knew her from. “I’m Peter. Peter Parker. I’m Mr. Stark’s intern. I’m…yeah, I’m not supposed to be in here, probably. I’ll definitely get out of your hair now.”

Tony had a tiny intern? This kid barely looked old enough to shave. The things she missed. Jane tucked her hair behind her ear. Thor had been putting in a few little braids. Something about her being a warrior in battle but mostly she thought have something to do made him feel better when she was laid up in bed.

“I’m Dr. Foster.” She shook loose the strands of hair that had come off and looked at Peter. “Did you mess with any of the equipment in here? Everything I work on is custom and I need to know if I need to reset anything. I don’t have a lot of extra time to check everything.”

“Oh, you’re…” That’s where he knew her from. Peter stopped in his tracks with his backpack slung over his shoulder, the realization overtaking his intent to scurry off as quick as he could. “You’re Dr. Foster? Like - the astrophysicist? We learned about you in school! This girl in my physics class last year did a project on your work with the Convergence. What you do is so cool.”

Peter was internally face-palming at his own enthusiasm, but Jane was at superhero status in his head. Regardless, he had to slow down. “No, no, I only used the whiteboard in here? I didn’t touch anything, I was saving the actual experiments for Mr. Stark’s lab. I was working on some chemistry stuff.”

He looked back at the board, wishing he’d had the time to erase it all now, but nothing was too suspicious. He was just a kid messing around; that was believable enough. Sort of. Glancing around the lab, he took in the scope of the impressive equipment in a new light. “…You built all of this?” He couldn’t help that curiosity from sneaking out.

Jane’s eyebrows rose. “You study theoretical astrophysics in science? Good school.” She looked pleased though and the smile gave Peter was much warmer. “I did a lecture at Columbia a couple weeks ago. Tony paid to have it streamed, the video’s out there if you’re interested.” She was supposed to give two more lectures but those were now TBD.

“I make all my own equipment. It used to be I was just a nutty fringe scientist chasing wormholes and couldn’t get any funding. Now it’s habit and I know it all works exactly the way I want. That or what I want didn’t exist so I had to invent it.”

Jane pulled a sandwich out of her deli bag. Her stomach swooped traitorously when she looked at it. </i>Please don’t let me be sick in front of this teenager.</i> There was an orange pill bottle in her purse and she took a tablet from that. “You want half a roast beef sandwich? I’m not going to eat all this.”

“Yeah, I go to Midtown Science and Tech? They’re all about STEM prep, so we get a little bit of everything.” Peter was quickly warming to Jane right back. He wasn’t in trouble so far, and he was getting to talk to a world-renowned scientist who’d done so many impressive things in her field. “I’ll definitely have to check your lecture out.”

Peter found himself studying one of the pieces of equipment, looking at the complexity with newfound appreciation. “That’s incredible. I get that, kind of? On a way lesser and way less genius scale. Making things from scratch because it’s not anywhere else.” Man, it was tempting to ask her for advice on his web fluid formula. Maybe he could work his way up to it if he thought up a believable explanation that didn’t get too deep into things.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to take your food, but - that looks good.” He gravitated towards Jane and the sandwich before he could help it. “I’ve been trying to find a good deli around here.” And Peter really wasn’t about to turn down a free meal.

Jane handed over half the sandwich and looked at her half with suspicion. Three bites. That was the deal she made with Thor. He wouldn’t take away a meal until she’d had at least three bites. She nibbled at a corner.

“Is that what that chemistry is? For school? It doesn’t look like something Tony’s working on. If you’re even really his intern.”

“Wow, thanks,” Peter said appreciatively, not hesitating before he took a sizable bite from the sandwich. “This is amazing.”

He almost choked on his food when Jane spoke, masking it with a long drink from his water bottle. “Oh, um. It’s…complicated? He gives me a lot of freedom on what I can do. So this is kind of more of a…hobby project?” Because Spiderman-ing around was, technically, just that.

“I’m working on this adhesive compound type thing,” he explained. The story might have some holes in it, but it was at least a piece of the bigger truth. “I was thinking I could change the formula to see if I could make it stronger - like the kind of strong that could hold injuries together or something like that.”

Looking at Peter’s formula was a good distraction from her three bites. The medication must have been helping because Jane took a fourth without realizing it. “I’m no organic chemist but some of the bonding agents seem intense for that.” She tried to extrapolate what the finished product might look like in her head and failed because she really was no chemist. Still Jane knew enough science and had been in enough labs to know that some of the compounds Peter had listed on the board were far above what might be expected in a nu-skin type product.

“Who are you really?” Jane raised her eyebrows at Peter. “If you were just a kid here to grab coffee and pad your college applications, FRIDAY never would have let you into my lab. Tony gave you high-level clearance and that means he trusts you. Why?”

All in all, Peter was a terrible liar. He’d only managed to get so far with keeping his secret with May through a mountain of excuses, but that probably wouldn’t work so well with Jane. She was already a part of the world of superheroes Peter had inadvertently gotten himself mixed up in; she was probably conditioned to expect the strange and unusual.

He set down the last bite of his sandwich and looked down at the ground, fidgeting. If Jane had a lab here, that must have meant that Mr. Stark trusted her too - and in that case, so did Peter. “Have you ever seen that…Spider guy? On youtube? Or on the news, like…Spider-man?”

He shrugged, scratching the back of his head nervously. “That’s me. In the suit and behind the mask and everything. It’s a long story, but this stuff-” He gestured to the whiteboard. “-is what I use to swing around with. I really was thinking I could adapt the same formula to act as a temporary fix for injuries. To hold stuff together, you know? I never know when someone might need that.”

Jane’s eyebrows rose into her hairline and her mouth formed a perfect O in surprise. “You’re a.. I mean that makes sense but you’re what, sixteen? That’s a lot.” Jane remembered back to herself at that age. She’d been obsessed with computer coding, building her own telescope, Star Wars expansion novels, and some truly unfortunate crushes. The greatest pressure in her life was a full load of AP homework.

“Are you okay?”

“It can get in the way of school sometimes? But it’s nothing like what the Avengers deal with. I kind of try to stick close to my neighborhood.” Unless he was clinging to the side of an alien ship and careening into space, anyway.

“Me? Yeah - yeah, I’m okay.” Peter gave her a smile that was somewhat relieved, realizing it felt good to let the secret out to someone like Jane. Spider-man and Peter didn’t often exist in the same space, and it was a burden lifted when they could.

“My aunt knows. And my best friend does, too. They didn’t for a while, so it’s way better now not being alone. Mr. Stark was actually the first one to find out who I was.”

Jane looked at this teenager and her mind went back to the moment in Puente Antigua when the Destroyer had backhanded Thor. As a mortal, he’d died in that moment, sacrificing himself and proving himself worthy. Jane hadn’t thought about that in years but something about the vulnerability of this kid brought it to mind.

“If you ever need anything: help, a place to go, or just somebody to talk to, come by the Asgardian warehouse. Thor’s always delighted to meet someone with a fun new power, and there’s always something in the kitchen, and kids getting into some kind of trouble. It’s there if you need a place,” Jane offered, hoping she wasn’t overstepping either with Peter or with Asgard. He was a kid she just met and as for Asgard, her role there was barely defined. Something close to honored guest. Respected due to her status with Thor but not one of them. Maybe it wasn’t her invitation to give but Thor would understand.

“Really? You’re serious?” Tony had given Peter a brief rundown of Asgard’s situation when he’d first arrived, and this felt like an honor he hadn’t earned yet. Outside of Tony and Ned, Peter wasn’t used to having allies. But the thought of having back-up if he needed - especially when someone like Thanos was still out there - was an idea that put him at ease.

Well, mostly at ease. He didn’t know how he would get through actually meeting someone like Thor without stuttering excitedly through it. “I’ll keep that in mind. I really will.”

As Peter finished off his half of the sandwich, his mind wandered to the places Jane studied. Places he had been. “I know this might be more on the biology side of things, but Mr. Stark probably has some soil samples picked up from my suit that you might wanna see? It’s from this planet called Titan. Which is an even longer story, but - I'm pretty sure he kept it."

“It is more biology but a spectral analysis of the soil could help tell us something about the planet and it's composition. I can show you how,” Jane offered. “Keep up your intern cover. And if you want to work in here just don't touch anything, okay?”