Re: front steps
She wasn't big on dwelling, so she found his suggestion that they exist in the present moment a logical one. He'd corrected his comment about alien life, and that was sufficient for her. She didn't have anything haunting her, and the only things that existed in the future were options, opportunities. Go to college in New York, verses college overseas, and that decision was ultimately about her relationship. Because she was crazy for Peter Parker, but her self-worth was way too high to allow herself to perpetually take a backseat to his superhero altruism. She was willing to share, but she wasn't willing to be less important. But she'd already had that conversation with Peter repeatedly, and he always dragged his guilt into the equation, and she thought her dad's dying words were totally some kind of excuse about commitment.
But her problems with Peter weren't anything new, and she was just holding out hope that this time things would be different. But, right, yep, keep it in the moment, Stacy! Because she wasn't even in Midtown, and she had no clue what streets Peter was slinging over. She wasn't even sure if future-her and future-Peter were together, and her curiosity about that could keep until morning. Right. "Science isn't a deep dark secret. Science is everything. Even you standing here, jerking that bottle away from me, is science. Your brain sends motor information from the cortex to the muscle fibers that are in the arm. Once that information reaches the neuromuscular junction, depolarization occurs and the interaction between actin and myosin myofilaments causes your muscle fibers to contract." Yep. There was that smugness again, a smile on her lips that reached cornflower blue and made her eyes brighter. "Reanimation is a little more complicated, even in rats."
She ignored his query about importance, and instead she concentrated on the people surrounding them, the tents, and the music. It was weird, but this place felt kind of different than home. It wasn't a scientific statement or anything, but the air felt tangibly different. His bow distracted her from her observations, and she laughed at his thank you. "You don't thank someone for telling you that you stink." Arms on his shoulders, and he really wasn't good at listening to the music and making his feet obey. She almost informed him all the ways music was just math, but then she realized it totally wouldn't help. "My notes say you should listen to the music." But she was smiling up at him, unconcerned and her face free of future worries, death, redheads, all of that gone for the moment.