miles mckinnon 🕸️ peter parker. (hugger) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2019-06-27 02:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, * jamie, * kit, c: elias salazar, c: miles mckinnon |
WHO: Miles McKinnon & Eli Salazar
WHEN: Wednesday, June 27, 2019; Afternoon
WHERE: Salazar Industries
SUMMARY: Miles gets caught using company resources and he and Eli come clean about their shared memories.
WARNINGS: None!
Since moving to Dunhaven, Eli's presence at work was spotty, at best. He did work, of course, but often that work was done in the comfort of his home office. His office at work was also comfortable, of course, but he could generally get away with clothes of comfort when he was doing conference calls from home; at the office, he felt like he was expected to look particularly CEO and that usually called for a button up, at the very least. The meeting that he'd attended in person that morning had been with a potential future client and that had, in fact, called for him to look like a CEO. He'd worn the suit, the tie, the shoes that pinched at his toes -- and as soon as the client was gone, he'd ditched the jacket and tie and traded his shoes for a much more comfortable Converse. At least he was still wearing the dress shirt, even if the sleeves had been pushed up his arms in a decidedly more casual fashion than earlier in the day. The comfortable shoes were because he was planning on visiting R&D, which called for a little walking. He hadn't had a spare moment in the office to actually seek out Miles McKinnon, like he'd mentioned doing to Caty and his open afternoon meant that he had time to do just that. Before he could, though, Eli was interrupted by his secretary, announcing that one of the managers in R&D was there to see him. Though no meeting was scheduled, Eli wasn't one to turn someone away. The manager apologized for barging in, but made it clear that Eli's involvement in the internship program left him wanting to take advantage of his being in the office to get his opinion on a personnel matter. Not having time for guilt to form at that statement, Eli listened as the manager explained that they had noticed that morning that a few things had gone missing in various labs on the premises. He produced a list for Eli to look over and he did exactly that, his eyes reading over what the manager had thought were just random materials but, to Eli's mind, was soon recognized as an ingredient list. Somewhere in the background, Eli knew that the manager was still speaking. His mind was elsewhere, though, his brow furrowing as he recalled the Youtube videos, the apartment in Queens, and the suit that he'd made for a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Though part of him wanted to believe that it was just a coincidence, he'd been living in Dunhaven long enough to know that nothing was coincidence. As his heart clenched thanks to Tony as he considered Peter Parker, he tried not to get too excited. A silence stretched as Eli considered this, his attention only brought back to his office when the man on the other side of his desk cleared his throat in an uncomfortable manner. "I'm sorry," Eli apologized, his gaze ripped from the materials that had been taken from his labs. "Did you know who took these things?" "We think it was Miles McKinnon. He's an intern and his key card was used multiple times outside of his normal shift, all to gain entry into the labs with missing items." Miles McKinnon. Eli would never forget the name, not after he had already done so once and felt like a complete fool for it. He didn't know much about the kid, other than his resume and everything he had told him in their conversation on the Dunhaven network -- which, he had to admit, amounted to him knowing a lot more about him than he did most interns -- but it felt like he perhaps needed to know more. A lot more. Releasing a breath, Eli leaned back in his chair. "Is Miles working today?" "He is." "Can you send him here?" Eli asked, drumming the pads of one of his hands against the hard surface of his desk. "I'd like to talk to him myself." The man looked a bit puzzled for only the briefest of moments, before nodding. "Of course, Mr. Salazar. I'll have him come right up." Eli waited until the door to his office was firmly shut before he sagged backwards into his chair. Though he still didn't want to get excited, he felt it bubbling up in his chest. He didn't know if Miles was just an enthusiastic comic book fan or if something more was playing out in front of him. He also didn't know which he was hoping for. Less than twenty minutes later, Miles was being escorted to Elias Salazar’s office and, judging solely by the look on his supervisor’s face on the tone of his voice when he’d told the young intern to follow the secretary, it wasn’t for anything good. He’d barely had a chance to shoot out a quick text to Naomi letting her know that he was pretty sure he was coming home early because he was getting fired before he was being led through the halls, up and down staircases, and slowly marching toward his inevitable career death. He’d know he shouldn’t have used company resources to supply his own personal projects but there was nothing to be done about it now. The web-shooters were safely stowed away at home and that had to be enough right now. It had to be enough to make the blow of what was to come a little softer. Because it wasn’t just his career he was sure he was losing. He could always do something different. His degree and skill set was versatile. It may be the end of his environmental engineering and robotics days, but only in this industry. No, the worst of it was that he was going to be fired by Elias Salazar himself. The man he’d come to look up to more than he looked up to anyone else. His hero. The person he aspired to be. The reason he’d found himself on this trajectory at all. That, in and of itself, was enough to make Miles’ heart sink into the pit of his stomach. He wanted to cry. He wanted to turn and walk in the complete opposite direction. He wanted to go back in time and find himself in this office for a much more productive reason at least once before it was all over. This, he thought, was so much worse than falling into a hot pile of garbage juice. And then they were just outside the office with the fancy name plate reading Elias Salazar, CEO hung carefully on the door like, Miles mused, a bat signal or something. The door opened, Miles vaguely heard the secretary presenting him to the object of his admiration and hero worship, and then too soon he was alone in the office with someone he’d imagined meeting one-on-one under a much different context. Before Elias could even say anything, Miles got ahead of himself and started talking. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Salazar, sir. I was just working on my team’s project and I hit that point, you know, when you know something’s wrong with the input but you can’t quite put your finger on it. So I just thought that maybe if I worked on something else for a while maybe I’d just come back to it and I’d just know the answer. And, I mean, that didn’t actually work, you know? But then I also just started working on this throwaway project and I lost track of time and I didn’t even realize it was after ten and I’d missed like four calls, a face time, and I don’t know maybe twenty-three text messages from my wife because she thought I was maybe dead in a ditch somewhere. And I feel so bad, Mr. Salazar, sir, because I know I shouldn’t have been here so late working on my own project and also I should have called my wife even though I kind of do this thing where I get so focused on what I’m working on that I totally forget that anything else exists or that time is even, you know, existing at all. But I’ll pay back whatever resources I used! I actually have an itemized list of everything, if that helps. And I already asked my supervisor to adjust my time because I didn’t want to actually clock out at eleven when I wasn’t actually working working. And, yeah, I’m just so super sorry, Mr. Salazar.” Miles’ hands stopped animating his incessant dialogue, falling to his sides as he finally took a breath and had the mind to look sheepish. He shifted his weight between his feet and suddenly wished he’d dressed a little nicer today. Eli had only enough time to lean forward, the starting motion of pulling himself to his feet, when the words starting falling from Miles. He froze in the position for a few seconds, then leaned back into his chair as he waited for the younger man to wrap up -- perhaps waiting a bit longer than he'd anticipated he'd have to, but he was patient nonetheless. He tried to keep Caty's insight in mind, knowing that he was obviously more than just a boss to him, no matter how strange that still felt to consider. It didn't help that with every word that left Miles, Eli found himself increasingly more convinced that he was in the presence of Peter Parker. But even when he did finish, Eli found himself hesitating, as though afraid that as soon as he started to speak, Miles would start up again himself. Drawing in a breath, he finally pulled himself to his feet and started to walk around his desk, taking the piece of paper with the missing items with him. With his free hand, Eli motioned toward the open chairs opposite his own. "It's all right," Eli said, figuring that was probably the most important thing to say, if Miles's worries went in the way that Eli suspected they might have. "I've been there before. I have a workshop at home and there are nights where I won't even realize time passed until I start hearing the birds chirping as the sun rises. So, I get it." Pausing, he leaned against his desk, then let his gaze fall to the sheet of paper in his hand. "I'm just curious..." Eli's gaze popped back up to look at Miles. "What were you making?" It...was all right? Miles glanced quickly up at the man, eyes wide in surprise. He’d been expecting-- well, he wasn’t entirely sure what, exactly, but definitely something more akin to the disappointment that he’d sensed from his supervisor. Tentatively, Miles moved toward the indicated chair, listening to Elias even as his nerves made it nearly impossible to stay calm. Eyes still on Elias, he placed a hand on the arm of the chair and started to sit down, accidentally pulling the seat away from himself as his fingers accidentally stuck to the arm as he tried to pull his hand away. Miles cleared his throat and quickly freed his hand from the arm, stuffing it in his pocket as he sat down and hoping he’d been more discreet than he tended to have the capability for. And then Elias asked him the question he’d been dreading because he had no good answer. He couldn’t exactly tell the owner of a multi-billion dollar company that he was making superhero paraphernalia on the clock. It would raise too many other questions, especially considering where Elias lived. For the first time in a long time, Miles was at a loss for words. And he was about to do one of the things he really didn’t want to. He was going to lie. “Um,” he started, scratching behind his ear with the hand he hadn’t shoved into time out. “It was...rope. For spelunking.” Not exactly a lie, he figured. Just not exactly the truth. Eli considered Miles as he answered, again waiting for the avalanche of words that he thought were sure to follow based on the few interactions he'd had with him so far. It was immediately apparent that he wasn't being truthful -- or, at the very least, wasn't being entirely truthful. He couldn't really blame Miles for shielding the truth in any way; he'd have probably done the same. "Rope." Eli repeated the word slowly, still considering the explanation. He looked down at the list once more. "I suppose this could make rope," he conceded, listing his head to the side. "It's actually impressive, you know. You know your chemistry. The materials for what I'm guessing would have been the rope are fairly common, but if they were combined properly, well. It would be adhesive, but the tensile strength would be off the charts. That would be very helpful." His gaze rose again as he added, "...for spelunking." Before giving Miles a chance to respond, Eli asked, "What about the other tech that you used?" Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Elias Salazar knew Miles was lying. Miles could see it on his face, hear it in his carefully chosen words, read it in the way the cogs in his brain seemed to work through what little Miles had given him. He was sweating now and his knee bounced up and down nervously as he fought the urge to bolt under pressure. “It was, uh, you know, for the rope. With the idea that, um, you could use it to secure the rope to, um, your wrists? And the rope would, um, come out...from...the wristbands.” His traitorous hands, always acting out the words that tended to tumble from his mouth, made a good show of just how exactly the “rope” would extended from his wrists but Miles caught himself and quickly stopped doing it. He scratched his nose, looked down at his shoes and silently wished for a much quicker death than this. He couldn’t even let himself linger for too long on the fact that Elias Salazar had complimented his work, had called it impressive because the moment he let himself get too excited about it, all of his secrets would be laid bare. Surely he could keep a secret for more than a handful of days. As Eli listened, he became progressively more convinced of who Miles McKinnon was dreaming about. It was uncanny. How he spoke, his mannerisms, they all spoke of the Peter Parker he had seen both on large screens and in his dreams and memories. He still knew that it could have been a coincidence, but the hope that was bubbling up within his chest kept him from truly considering it. "Wristbands, I see," Eli replied, nodding as though considering this, too. What he was really doing was carefully choosing his words, trying to decide just how much he could or even should say -- though, the latter was probably that he should say nothing at all. The part of him that was the Tony Stark that had watched what became of Peter Parker and lived through five years without the kid didn't care about what he should be doing, though. Not if there was a chance that he was right. "So the rope would shoot out of them, then?" he asked, lifting a hand to rub at his cheek in what wasn't nearly as nonchalant a manner as he thought it was. "Like, say... web?" No, this was much worse than Miles thought. Elias knew…something. At the very least, he knew what Miles had been making and, if he knew that, what else might he have surmised? He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I suppose, um, yeah--” Miles started, scrambling to find purchase in his thoughts. He needed Naomi here. She was always good under pressure. She’d be able to tell him what to say or do, how to allay Elias’ suspicions. “Yeah, I guess, um, it could be used...like that. I mean, that’s not--” he hesitated, running a hand over his hair. “That’s not to say it, um, would necessarily be used like that? But given the components and...everything, I, um, can see how the tech could be, you know, applied in that way. But that’s just, you know, a possibility? Why-- why would anyone need, um, webbing, though, right? So it’s probably not, I mean, not really what any normal person would really being going for. With that particular material.” Eli could see just how uncomfortable Miles was with this conversation and he felt a pang of guilt at being the source of that. Standing up, he abandoned his perch at his desk and instead sat in the chair next to the intern. He wasn't sure if that made him more or less approachable, but he hoped it was the former. He sat forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees. "I'm sorry of all of this is strange," Eli apologized, face marked with sincerity. "It's just that I'm familiar with that list of items and it had me just curious." He paused, then ventured, "How long have you and your wife been living in Dunhaven?" A question that felt more like code at this point. Do you know about the oddities that came with living in the town? Familiar with that list of items. What did Elias Salazar know? Miles needed the answer, but he couldn’t ask the question, not without giving away way too much information. His brow furrowed at what felt like a too sudden change in subject. It felt like, well, a trap. It wasn’t his boss that was making him feel that way, he didn’t think, just the line of questioning. It was like he was one wrong answer away from shouting out I AM SPIDER-MAN, OKAY. “Um, a year in August, Mr. Salazar, sir,” Miles replied, shifting to face him. Right after the press release that had changed two lives in this room, but he didn’t say that. This was all weird enough without Miles mentioning that particular fact. "That's when I moved to town as well," Eli nodded. It was all too easy to think back on the day that he'd made the announcement that the company itself was moving -- it was also the first time he'd been visited by Tony. Releasing a long breath, Eli moved in his chair, sitting back and letting his hands meet to fold in his lap. He kept his eyes on Miles, considering again if he should say what he wanted to say. He could only toe the line so much and maybe, he thought, it would help to give an inch on his end. And so, he let Tony take the reins. "Remember when we were talking on the network about superheroes? Particularly Iron Man?" “I know,” Miles replied, then immediately shut up because he really didn’t need to cross over into stalker territory amidst the rest of this conversation. “I mean, I remember you doing the press conference on moving the headquarters to DC and I just kind of, you know, assumed that you moved around then, as well.” But that wasn’t what they were talking about and, as Elias pushed forward, Miles’ senses went into overdrive. This was dangerous territory and Miles knew he was about to buckle under the pressure, whether or not pressure had been the intended effect. “I, uh, yeah,” he said, nodding in what he hoped was a totally casual, nonchalant sort of way. “That was, you know, just a few days ago and everything,” he added, not mentioning the fact that he would probably always remember the day he’d had a straight up personal conversation with Elias Salazar himself. Nodding, Eli lifted his hand again to rub against his jawline. He'd forgotten to shave, he realized in that moment; that probably wasn't great given the client meeting he'd had just a short while before. Dismissing the thought, he focused on the situation in front of him and let his hands meet to fold in his lap once more. He glanced once toward the door of his office, as though checking to make sure his secretary had actually shut it. "I'm very familiar with Tony Stark," he started, one of his eyebrows curving as he looked at Miles imploringly. It was the only way he could hint at the larger situation without making a potential problem if he was wrong about all of this. One moment, Miles was sitting there in Elias’ office, mouth agape and eyes widening at the implication of what his words actually meant, and the next he was in his apartment in Queens. Tony Stark was sitting on the couch with his Aunt May and suddenly they were talking about some sort of grant he’d been given for which he’d never applied. Wh-wh--wh-what are you doing here? And then Tony was questioning him in the privacy of his room and Peter had never come so close to being found out before. Even in those first weeks of trying to figure out what he could do, he’d managed to never be unmasked. Now Tony Stark was here, in his room, and he’d seen the YouTube videos, and he’d found the disguise, and-- You’re Spider-boy? “I’m- I’m Spider-man.” Too late, Miles remembered who he was, where he was, and the fact that he’d said the words out loud. I’m Spider-man. Shit. It took every ounce of willpower that Eli possessed not to get to his feet and hug his intern. Tony's relief at seeing Peter, even in the middle of a giant battle, warred with Eli's knowledge that this was an employee of his and he shouldn't be hugging him. He also knew how the nature of the other lives were and there was a chance that Miles wasn't up to speed in the same way that he was. But even though he didn't pull him into the hug that he wanted to give him, the emotions still warred away on his face, the edges softening even more than usual and a smile forming at the very corners of his lips. "Peter Parker." The name escaped Eli on impulse, followed up with a soft laugh. His hand pushed through his hair as he sat up a bit straighter. "Of course you are. And you were trying to make your web shooters, right?" This conversation was really happening, wasn’t it? A half hour ago, Miles had been entirely certain that he was about to lose his job, and his career, that this person he’d looked up to for forever would hate him and now...now it was something entirely different. Elias Salazar was dreaming of Tony Stark. And Miles was dreaming of Peter Parker and, if he’d been in very different company, he might have actually cried at the revelation. Once again sporting a sheepish expression, he reached up and scratched the back of his head. “Um, no, not exactly. I mean, yes, it was, um, my web-shooters, but I wasn’t, you know, trying to make them. I, um, did make them.” The smile that had been only a hint at Eli's mouth spread into a wide one. He'd made them. Of course he had. The kid had managed to make them on his own with the supplies at school and what he'd found in the garbage. Why wouldn't he be able to make them in a lab full of ingredients and only the most recent tech available? What more, he'd been playing with the plans of making a suit of his own for weeks and months now; it was nice to know that he wasn't the only one with that particular drive. "That's awesome," Eli replied, because it so clearly was to him. "I'd like to see them, if you don't mind." It was odd, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind, to be asking for permission to see stolen property from his company -- which, of course, brought his mind to the whole reason his day had taken this turn in the first place. "And don't worry about having used the stuff from the labs. I'll talk to your supervisor and it won't stick with you or anything while you're here. I like experimenting from my R&D folks. That's the whole point, right? Just, you know, let me know if you're going to do something for personal use going forward." And finally, finally, Miles felt like he could relax. He was sharing dreams with his idol, Elias was impressed with his skill in the lab, he wasn’t getting fired, and he had tentative permission to do exactly what he’d thought would get him fired in the first place. This wasn’t at all where he’d seen this meeting going when he’d first been called to the office, but this was… awesome. “Wait, really? I mean, yeah! Oh, man, I can’t believe Elias Salazar wants to see my tech but, oh my god, that’s so cool. I left them at home since I promised Naomi I wouldn’t test them out until she made a few adjustments to them but, oh man, you could totally come by the apartment. We’re just at the Pine Ridge apartments, so it’s not too hard to get to. Not that I think you wouldn’t be able to find whatever address we lived at, just saying that it shouldn’t be too inconvenient. Except that I noticed you’re in dress clothes today? So if you’re like super busy or in meetings or whatever, it doesn’t even have to be today. Honestly, you’re totally welcome to come by anytime. And thank you so, so much for not firing me. Like I’m sure everything would have been fine because things happen but I really, really love this internship and I think I do a really good work and I really hope maybe one day it will be like a legit job or whatever I can get so I’m so thankful that you’re not like really mad at me.” He took a breath. Scooting forward to the edge of his seat, his hands went to the sides of his head as though trying to hold in all of the new information with which he’d just been presented. “Oh man, oh man, I can’t believe this is even happening, though. Like how long has this been going on? I just had my first dream on Sunday and my second one last night which is when I started working on the web-shooters, and then, well, I guess I just had another one, but it was nothing new since I did at least see that much of the movies. It was when Tony Stark showed up at my, I mean, Peter’s apartment in Queens? Wow, this is crazy. But also like crazy cool. Tony Stark, wow.” Eli watched as the words flowed out of Miles, his smile dampening only slightly as he bit down on his bottom lip. He remembered the conversation that Miles was referencing, when Tony had first recruited Peter and taken him to Germany. He'd developed a suit for him, too; just like that, the idea of that very suit began to form in his mind, though it was one more thought he tried to dismiss. At least for now -- he would revisit it later, probably in the middle of the night, without a doubt. "I know where Pine Ridge is," Eli started, revisiting something that was a bit more founded in the here and now. "My girlfriend lives there. Caty Norfolk? You might have seen her around." Rubbing his cheek, he ran through everything else Miles had touched on before adding, "I've been having the dreams for almost a year now. My first one actually happened when I did the announcement about moving HQ. I barely even knew that they were a thing and had only known that Dunhaven existed for a couple of weeks." Miles nodded a little bit too enthusiastically and, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he got to his feet and started pacing around his chair. “Oh my god, really? I was watching that press conference live, actually. I mean, obviously, I was, right? I had no idea. I mean, of course I didn’t. I didn’t even know about Peter, then. Or, I mean, I knew about Peter Parker as like a fictional character and all of that because I’ve watched like most of the movies and I read comic books, but you know what I mean, right? But, yeah, I’ve totally run into Caty before but like just in passing. She’s super nice. Do you think she’d want to see the web-shooters, too? Because I could totally text Naomi and ask if she could order something in for dinner if you wanted to come by tonight.” Considering that offer for just a moment, Eli cocked his head to the side. "You said your wife was adjusting them?" he asked. "Why don't you guys come by my house instead? I've got a workshop you guys could use." Eli didn't know exactly how to feel about the sudden shift in how he was viewing this kid -- if one could even call someone that was only a handful of years younger than them kid, but it was one more thing Tony was influencing. At first he had just been another intern that was enthusiastic about his work, someone that Eli had kicked himself over for not immediately recognizing. Now he was someone that was inspiring a hell of a lot of affection from another life that he hadn't walked, one that he had been willing to forget entirely at times. But so much of that world was filled with bad memories. This wasn't one of them. Miles stopped pacing, eyes widening yet again as though each new comment was even more wondrous than the next. For him, though, it was. This was like accidentally running into a celebrity on the sidewalk and suddenly becoming best friends. “Oh my god, Mr. Salazar, that would be kind of amazing, actually. But, yeah, she’s making some adjustments on them. Like please don’t take this as an offense because I think you’re pretty much one of the most brilliant names in technology, but Naomi is basically smarter than both of us combined and I figured she’d be able to make them way more functional than I could even with having way more experience with this sort of thing than Peter did. But we don’t have anything like an actual lab at home because there’s, you know, barely enough room for a dining room table and we figured that was the more responsible use of space, so I bet she would be over the moon to be invited to your place.” "There are all sorts of people in this world that are smarter than me, so no offense taken." As he spoke, Eli got to his feet and moved around his office again, opening a drawer and pulling out the first piece of paper he found, a business card. As he searched for a pen, he continued, "It took me some time to get to a point where I could have any sort of lab in my own home, so it's only a matter of time before you have one, too." Pen found, he scribbled his address on the back of it and then, after a second of hesitation, added his cell phone number. Circling around his desk, he held the card out toward Miles. "Dinner around 7?" Miles could only nod as he accepted the card with the address on the back and it was everything in him not to pass out on the spot. “Yeah, okay, yeah,” he started and then, because he couldn’t stop himself from doing it, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his boss in a hug. “Thank you so much, Mr. Salazar,” he said. After a moment, he realized what he was doing and quickly pried himself away. “Oh my god, that was so awkward. I don’t know why I did that. I’m so sorry, Mr. Salazar, sir.” Two hugs came to mind in the moment that Miles had his arms around Eli. First was in a car, which had brought about a quip from Tony. The second was on a battlefield during a reunion. Tony had hoped for more time after that hug, but there hadn't been. There hadn't been time for most things. As Miles pulled away and apologized, Eli smiled. "Don't worry about it. Just maybe don't hug me in front of the other interns. They might get jealous." |