Who: Karolina Dean and Miles Morales What: Cooking and chatting Where: Coven House When: This afternoon Warnings: nope Status: complete
After her adventures in Oz, Karolina was glad to lie low and mostly keep to herself. Well, and spend time with Nico and Chase the Puppy. It was nice not being on the run here and having to constantly look over their shoulders for imminent danger, though the whole thing with the Accords was frightening. Even though she had good control over her abilities, she was grateful that her bracelet had shown up randomly one day on the nightstand. It relieved some of her stress when she went out and about since she didn’t have to worry that she’d start randomly glowing.
During her down time, she’d been watching a lot of cooking tutorials on YouTube and today she was attempting to make a bolognese sauce that she intended to share with her housemates if it turned out okay. If not, they’d probably end up with pizza or Chinese. Again.
She’d gotten to the fourth step, adding the wine and cooking down the meat until the alcohol evaporated, when she heard someone else enter the kitchen. Glancing over her shoulder, she smiled at Miles. They hadn’t talked a lot and she felt bad that she hadn’t made more of an effort to get to know him since he moved in.
“Hey, Miles,” she said. “If this turns out well, we’re going to have an amazing dinner tonight.”
*
Miles was still adjusting to being back in this world himself. He and Tandy had been living in Rohan in Middle Earth for months, and it was quite the adjustment to come back to living with modern amenities again. Also, the prospect of going back to live in a dorm and away from Tandy hadn’t been a good prospect either, so he had been very happy to accept Tandy’s offer to move into the Coven House (that’s what Miles was calling it anyway). They weren’t sharing a room or anything, but he did get to see Tandy everyday. Also, Peter was there too and he was his friend as well.
Nico and Karolina were nice to him too, but Miles still didn’t get to know them as much yet. And well, Miles appeared to have that chance when he walked into the kitchen (looking for a snack) and saw Karolina cooking. “Oh! That’s cool.” Miles didn’t mind Chinese and Pizza on repeat, but his Mom’s voice was somewhere in the back of his head that he needed home cooked meals. “What are you making?” Miles came to investigate.
*
“It’s called a bolognese sauce,” Karolina said, pronouncing the word carefully, having listened to several tutorials over the past few days. “It’s got meat and sausage and cream. If it comes out okay, I was just going to make a big pot of spaghetti to go with it.” That, at least, she was confident she could handle since it was only boiling a pot of water and paying attention to the timer.
She was pressing on the meat with her spoon as instructed and watching as it crumbled into smaller and smaller bits. So far, it seemed like things were going well and she was hopeful that she wouldn’t completely ruin it. “What are you up to?”
*
“Ooooh. So it’s like spaghetti, but with the meat in the sauce instead of meat balls,” Miles said at Karolina’s description. Well, that sounded good, so he’d definitely eat that. It would be good to have some carbs for his metabolism.
“Nothing much. I was doing some school work in my room, and I figured I needed a break,” Miles explained. In reality, he was only two weeks behind, but it felt longer because of when he was gone. But he was doing it all on his own, so he had to figure it out on his own.
*
With everything that happened back home, Karolina hadn’t gone to school in what felt like forever. “How is the school here?” she asked. Maybe she should consider continuing her education while she had the opportunity. She could probably get a GED and maybe take some entry level college classes, see what interested her to potentially study in the long run.
It was hard to imagine sitting in a classroom again though. She’d have to give it some thought. “You’ll be done for the summer soon, right?”
*
“Not sure about the actual school,” Miles admitted at Karolina’s question. “I’m doing self-study on my own,” he added. Which was fine at going at his own pace, but now he had to catch up to his pace after his few month break. “But I’ll probably take a break for the summer though. I can’t even believe it’s summer soon,” he realized even as he said it. “It was Winter when I got here.”
*
Karolina nodded. It made sense that he was doing a self study. From the little she knew about his life before coming here, it was as chaotic as hers and Nico’s had been and that sort of thing didn’t really lend itself to a formal education. “Yeah, me too,” she said. “Wow, I’ve been here more than six months now.” In some ways it felt longer and in some ways, it barely felt that long. Of course, she had also spent some time visiting the derelict version of Oz.
“Are you studying anything in particular?” she asked. “Or just going for a general diploma?”
*
“Do you miss home?” Miles asked when Karolina mentioned being here for more than half a year. He knew a bit about where Karolina and Nico were from because Tandy was from there too. Miles knew that was luckier where he was from. He had a happy family, a good school, and while he did choose to fight crime, he was relatively safe.
“Trying to keep up with my sciences: physics and biochem mostly, and math too. Trying to keep up with English Lit too but I’m getting to choose some of my own stuff to read. Books weren’t written by only dead white men, you know?” Miles joked.
*
“I miss my friends,” Karolina said. If the rest of the runaways were here, this place would be pretty close to perfect. The thought of introducing Chase to his puppy namesake made her smile and she had to wonder if Old Lace would be friends with the dog or try to eat him. “How about you?”
She stirred her sauce, double checking the recipe to make sure she knew the next steps and chuckled at his comment. “Are you sure about that?” she joked back. “I’m pretty sure that black people and gay people didn’t exist a few hundred years ago.” At least if you went by what was considered ‘classic’ literature.
*
“Same. I miss my friends, and my parents,” Miles admitted. “I even miss my school. It got better over the last year. And well, I miss getting to be Spider-man and stopping bad guys.” It wasn’t an easy life balancing being a superhero with school work, but it was fun.
“Or that’s just what they want us to think. It’s all a conspiracy,” Miles countered but laughed at Karolina’s joke anyway. “I was able to find some African Lit textbooks to help with my self study. All in English of course.”
*
The meat seemed to be reduced down like the recipe called for, so Karolina added the next few ingredients as she listened to Miles. “So, wait,” she said. “You’re Spiderman and Peter is also Spiderman? That sounds confusing.” She and her friends hadn’t really had the time or interest in giving themselves code names, though now she was curious what they would come up with given the chance.
She stirred in the new ingredients and glanced at the clock, making a note of the time. “I’ve thought about maybe signing up for some college classes,” she said. “Maybe in Psychology.”
*
Miles was used to half the people around here knowing him because another version of himself was here, or the rest of people not knowing who he was at all. Thankfully, talking about being Spider-man hadn’t gotten boring yet. “Yup we both are. Actually, there are two other Peters here too and they’re also Spider-man,” Miles explained just to confuse Karolina even more. “There was a Peter in my world and I took over from him,” he said, keeping it brief.
“Psychology sounds interesting!” Miles said about her choice. “You interested in studying people then?”
*
Karolina wasn’t exactly sure how that all worked and she also didn’t think she wanted to ask too many questions because that way was sure to cause a headache. “I think so,” she said. “You know, finding out that your parents were operating a sham religion and part of a cult that sacrificed teenagers makes you wonder how the human mind works.”
The words were said casually as she stirred her sauce, but the pain underlying them was still present, if faintly. She wasn’t sure if Miles knew all the details of what she, Nico, and their friends went through.
*
Miles frowned when Karolina mentioned her parents. He’d known about it but forgot about it until now. “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry about your parents. Nico had mentioned something about that before,” Mile explained. He definitely remembered the part about the sacrificed teenagers. That was crazy, having villains for parents.
*
“It was a lot,” Karolina admitted. “Changed my whole world view. I was… fairly privileged and honestly didn’t appreciate it.” She shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m happy with who I am now.” Getting that way took a lot of time and work, but it was worth it and she had vague notions of helping other people do the same by studying psychology and maybe becoming a counselor.
She glanced at her recipe and added the next batch of ingredients to the pot. The sauce was starting to smell really good and she hoped that was a good sign that it would taste good too. “How about you? Any idea what you might want to do in the future? Besides the superhero gig?”
*
“I’m glad you’re happy now,” Miles said. It must have been difficult to deal with having parents who were basically supervillains. He knew he was lucky with his parents. They might not have been the most well off, but Miles knew they were good people and they loved him.
He took a deep breath as he smelled dinner, and Miles was really getting hungry. “Well, originally I thought about being a police officer, like my Dad. He didn’t really want me to do that though. And now that I’m Spider-man, that’s not really an option,” he said as he considered something he’d been thinking about lately. “I got this scholarship to go to this great school back home, and they’re pushing me into the sciences. But, I thought maybe I’d like to go to art school too.”
*
The sauce would need to simmer for a while, so Karolina wasn’t ready to start a pot of water for the actual pasta just yet, which meant she had a little down time. She washed her hands as she listened to Miles, nodding in understanding.
“At least you don’t have to decide right away,” she said. “You could always sign up at the community college and take a bunch of intro courses.” That’s what she was considering doing.
*
Miles nodded and agreed. “I have another year of high school to go through first. If I’m still here that long… Well yeah, I’ll take a few courses too. It’s not like fighting crime is going to be a big option here. It’s a rather saturated business,” he joked. Not to mention the accords made it impossible to use your powers if you were unmasked, and Miles wasn’t sure he would risk it anyway being in a new place. “But maybe having the summer off could be fun.”
*
Karolina chuckled. There was an abundance of heroes around here, though the Accords did stifle their ability to do a lot of good. “We can do some fun stuff around here,” she said. “Game nights and movies nights and whatnot.” It would be almost like having the rest of the Runaways around.
Pulling a clean spoon out of the drawer, she scooped up a tiny bit of her sauce and held it out to Miles. “Want to be my taste tester?”
*
“Oh yeah, that would be fun! And there’s the beach in New Asgard too,” Miles added his own suggestion of what they could do for the summer. It would be fun. He was happy living in the old Coven house now, and hanging around other close to his age.
At the offer of the sauce, Miles nodded. “Yeah sure!” he leaned in, holding the spoon as he popped it into his mouth to try the sauce. “Mmm, yeah that’s really good!” Not that he would tell her it was bad, otherwise.
*
“Excellent,” Karolina said, beaming with pride at her success. “This needs to simmer for a while, so let’s plan on dinner in about an hour. I’ll send the others a message and let them know.” She had no idea if their other housemates were home or planning to be, but it would be nice if they could all sit down and share a meal.
She put the lid on the saucepan and turned the burner down to low. “I think I’m going to grab a quick shower before I have to make the pasta. See you soon!”