Who: Alyssa, Ned, and Peter What: working on the treehouse Where: Alyssa’s and Damien’s property When: during the food falling from the sky Warnings: none Status: g-doc
Alyssa could confidently wield a sword, dress to impress, cook, play the violin, paint, create mosaics (with her own blood), fix a car engine, speak French and nonsense, and dance, but she’d never learned power tools. For many reasons which began and ended with Jeb finding solace in said power tools. And after he’d given up so much, Alyssa never wanted to take something away from him he enjoyed.
Which meant that she didn’t know much about building a treehouse. Alyssa did, however, recognize a good starting point involved borrowing books from the library and making a plan on how they wanted the treehouse to look. Thankfully, Damien understood the importance of Alyssa maintaining her relationship with Ned and Peter.
Today, she’d made strawberry rhubarb doughnuts and a pitcher of pink lemonade for the trio while they worked on said treehouse.
“I’m glad we finally have time to work on this.”
“Meh oo” Ned said with a mouth full of said doughnut because it was super delicious and if he was going to do some building, he needed to eat. He was more of a ‘build with electronics or Legos’ kind of guy, but Ned figured that a treehouse couldn’t be too hard, right? He’d played the Sims.
Swallowing, he spoke more clearly. “I’ve never had a treehouse. Probably because I live in the city and have no backyard, but I always thought they were cool. I wanted to like stash all my comic books in one and stuff.”
"Yeah, me neither." Even when his parents were alive -- back when Peter was really little -- their yard was too small for something like that. And even if they did, the little trees that dotted their neighborhood would have never been sturdy enough to hold a shoebox, let alone a treehouse.
"I just wanted a place no one else could go. I mean, I can kinda do that now with the spideypowers, but I didn't have that back then. “I didn’t have a treehouse because of where I lived, but my kids did.” Alyssa wanted nothing more than her kids to have a childhood full of nature and beauty. “Of course they fought over who got to use it at any point.” Not headache inducing, but for the most part her kids got along with each other. Funny how she remembered those things.
Alyssa took a bite of a doughnut. “I want a place we can go. Where we can hang out by ourselves, but obviously Liz and Melinda are also welcome.” She wouldn’t tell Kol no, but also Alyssa didn’t see her brother or sister wanting to be in a treehouse.
“So, I think the first step is deciding how we want it to look.”
“You mean like, should it be shaped like a pirate ship?” Because how cool did that sound? Though that also sounded really difficult - how did you even bend wood to make a curve. Magic, probably. “Maybe something cool, like two-stories? Or one and a half.. Which sounds more doable.” Ned just thought it’d be cool if they could go up to another section of the house. Of course, if it were up to him just building it by himself, it would probably end up with just a square room and that didn’t sound fun at all.
“We should have a pole to the ground for quick escapes.” A pause, then a frown. “Except I’m not very good at those? They always scared me on the playground.”
“We haven’t done it in a long time,” Peter said, in reference to the pole. “We should give it another try.” Both of them had changed a lot since their days back on the playground.
“I don’t suppose the fire department will let us test theirs before we consider adding one of our own.”
Alyssa listened to the two, obvious amusement on her face. She couldn’t help her feelings of thankfulness that her friendship with these two remained uncomplicated.
“Okay we are not building it to look like a pirate ship. None of us possess those skills.” She’d rather focus on straight lines and multiple floors.
“If we are that desperate to try, I could ask Damien to compel a couple firefighters to let us test it out once. But I would kind of like to try a different strategy first.” Mostly because she could only imagine Damien’s expression when asked.
“I bet we could manage two stories, though, with the right tools and help.”
Ned gave Peter a bit of a look. Maybe he changed a lot since then, but Ned wasn’t still very athletic. He was way smarter, sure, and he apparently had magic, but he wasn’t sure if either of those things would help him with a pole. And yet… he still kind of wanted to see. Even if he’d probably make a fool of himself. “Nothing to lose with just asking.” Probably.
“Hey, you know what I just thought? Okay like, Peter and I could figure out some cool mechanical stuff? Like maybe an alarm system or cool motion lights.” Ned thought that was definitely more in their wheelhouse.
“And we could probably make a prototype with LEGO -”
Suddenly Ned felt something fall on his head. He made a face. “Please tell me I didn’t just get pooped on?” He hadn’t. Unless you counted strawberry jam poop.
“No, doesn’t look like poop…” Peter reached out to wipe it off his friend’s cheek with his thumb, then investigated it. The consistency was very much like…
“Jam?” Peter gave it an experimental sniff, but he wasn’t about to taste it to confirm the facts.
Alyssa didn’t care as much as these two, given she’d been a mother and had seen her share of bodily fluids. When something landed on her shoulder, Alyssa used her finger and scooped it up to taste. “Definitely jam. But why is it raining jam?” The Red Queen glanced around and said, “Maybe we should finish planning indoors? You know, away from the sky releasing jam. But I think building a LEGO prototype would definitely help. Peter wants an Avengers A style bookcase inside.”
She grabbed up the doughnuts and lemonade and waited for the other two before she led them inside. By that point the sky looked ready to release a thunderstorm…of strawberry jam. “Couldn’t the Dome have chosen something less sticky?”
“You don’t think it’s really going to rain jam, do you?” He craned his head up to the sky instead of making for the house. It was part curiosity and part naivety - like surely he’d see the jam and be able to dodge it or something. When nothing happened, he looked back at Alyssa and Peter, opened his mouth to say something, and then had a powdered jam doughnut fall on his head. It left a circular poof of white in his hair.
“Hey! Wha -” This time a sprinkle doughnut fell to his feet. Without trying, he ended up awkwardly catching a chocolate doughnut in his arms. He was clearly contemplating it. “Think… it’s safe to eat?”
“Uh…” Peter pulled his hoodie up so it tented over his head. “I wouldn’t.” There was really not knowing how much they could trust The-Powers-That-Be here. Every time things seemed to be going well, they seemed to turn it around on them.
Alyssa didn’t care nearly as much as Peter, but that probably had to do with A) her love of chaos and B) her immortality. So, she caught a powdered sugar doughnut and took a bite. “Well, if this takes me out, tell Damien I died doing something I loved: eating doughnuts.” After a minute she shrugged. “It tastes okay enough, but mine are better.” Hers had the homemade touch and these felt very Dunkin Doughnuts.
“At least they probably can’t hurt things?”
Since Alyssa took a bite, Ned took a bite of his. He didn’t really stop to think if maybe it was safe for Alyssa and not for Ned who was a regular human, but she was right - disappointing. “Yours are definitely better - Ah!” Ned barely avoided a Boston Cream, but some of the cream splooshed out when it landed. “Okay, I vote inside before I end up buried in doughnuts.”
Peter covered his head with his arms to shield himself from the barrage of pastries falling from the sky.
“If we’re going inside, we might as well make our own donuts.” Maybe it was wasteful not to eat this stuff, but Peter just wasn’t chancing it.
“Well, we can make other flavours,” Alyssa commented with a grin. “I have doughnut molds and plenty of ingredients, which we can make while we plan? And yes, I vote inside.” The blonde watched as a black forest nearly missed her own head. “Okay, inside now.” She walked to her back door, and opened the door for the other two.
“This is the first time I’ve ever run away from baked goods.” Ned said as he hurried inside.