Dustin (dustybunn) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-10-22 18:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: dustin henderson, ₴ inactive: peter parker 2 |
The lights in the drone blinked on, the nearly silent hum of the motor just barely audible. It took another second before Dustin’s face appeared on the laptop that was connected to the drone, and Peter grinned. “Viola! Here,” he said, turning the laptop toward Dustin. He’d already showed him the coding to control it, and the program was done. “If we did this right, you should be able to take it for a flight now.”
Dustin didn’t know which was cooler--the fact that they were making a drone that was capable of things he’d only ever imagined doing or that the person he was doing this with was Peter freaking Parker. He was used to weird things happening in his life now but in Hawkins the weird was usually accompanied by a lot of bad and the ending of the world. Vallo had monsters but none of it was quite like home.
“Let’s see what this thing can do!” he said, rubbing his hands together before typing in the code to get the drone to hover up off the table and toward the window.
It didn’t matter how many times Peter saw it, how many times he’d built and torn apart and rebuilt one of these, it was always a little nerve wracking to see if it actually worked. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until the drone overed off the table and he let it out.
“Yes!” he exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air. “Nice going, Dustin.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “Where did you want to take it? We should have enough power for about fifteen minutes of flight, I think.”
They definitely needed to work on lengthening the battery's time so it could fly for longer periods, but that could be worked on later. He maneuvered the drone so it could go higher, careful not to let it get tangled in the treetops that it hovered over. It took some skill to watch where it was going and pay attention to what it was recording. He was going to need to practice more to get better at it.
“Just around the block. I want to see how it does with hovering and changing direction.” Figure out if there were any more kinks to work out. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?’
“Around the block sounds good,” Peter said. “I was going to suggest swinging by Taurbucks, but honestly, it’s probably a better idea to make sure you’ve got a good understanding of the controls before you take it out into crowds.” Besides, he could go by Taurbucks himself later today if he wanted to see MJ.
“What kind of tech did you make at home? You’re from the 80s, right?” In the months since he’d arrived here, Peter had learned that the 80s of his own world had still had some pretty advanced technology compared to other worlds, even if things had seemed pretty basic compared to the 2020s.
Dustin maneuvered the drone past the trees and toward the buildings, working to curve around them. “I’ve made lots of things.” A lot of it was tinkering with parts and trying to see what he could manage but the tech available now was light years ahead of what he’d had back in the 80s. Especially anything computer related.
“Last big thing was a radio tower so I could communicate with my girlfriend, Suzie. We live in different states.” Without camp they might never get to see one another. “What about you?”
“No way! That’s super cool,” Peter said, wide-eyed. Part of him wondered why he didn’t just call Suzie, but honestly, interstate radio communication was way cooler anyway, so he coudln’t really blame him. If anyone had ever explained ‘long distance charges to out of State calls’ and ‘one phoneline per household,’ he would have been confused.
“I used to find old electronics that people had thrown out and I’d fix them up to resell then,” Peter said. “That was before the Spider-Man thing got, you know, really big. I didn’t have much time to build stuff after that. Between school and crime-fighting, I didn’t really have much time for tech stuff? But I sort of designed my own suit once. It was mostly with Stark Technology, so I can’t take too much credit for it. And not too long before I got here, I had to make cures for some of the bad guys in other worlds? Like, Doctor Octavious needed a microchip built so he could get his mind back, and there was this guy who manipulated electricity, so I built him a device to kind of remove that power.”
He was actually kind of proud of both those things. He hoped it had been enough to save them both when they’d gone back to their own worlds.
Dustin was pretty sure the ‘guy who manipulated electricity’ was Electro. He’d read the first issue when the guy had been introduced but it felt really weird to say something like that to Peter who was standing in front of him and not a character in a comic book. His mind still short circuited every so often when he remembered he was talking to people who’d been some of his favorite heroes. Thankfully that didn’t happen as often as it had at first.
“You work for him too, right? Tony Stark, I mean.”
Dustin swore either Peter had told him that or maybe it had been Lena before Vallo had sent her away. It was weird going to his internship without Lena or Alex around. He hadn’t known them long but he’d enjoyed working with Lena on different projects.
“Yeah, over at Stark Industries,” Peter said, cheerfully. “He’s different than the Tony Stark I knew in my world, but he’s still pretty great.” He frowned thoughtfully, regarding Dustin. “Is L-Corp still around now that Lena’s gone?”
“I haven’t really checked.” Between designing stuff for the race and school, Dustin hadn’t really had a chance to head over and see. He hadn’t really wanted to look toward that part of the city skyline to figure that out either. It made everything more permanent. “Cool about you working for Mr. Stark.”
“It is pretty cool,” Peter agreed, before falling into a somewhat tense silence, looking at the drone camera. It was hard to know what to say to people when their friends disappeared. There was some comfort, he thought, knowing that most of them weren’t dead, but that only went so far in filling the gap they left. “I meant what I said before, by the way. If you ever wanted to stop by Stark Industries, I’d be happy to show you around. I can even show you some of the things we’re working on. Mr. Stark won’t mind.”
There really wasn’t anything to say to fill in the gap. Loss was weird. Dustin had dealt with it on his own and with his friends but the loss of people here felt different than what he’d already experienced. He hadn’t known Lena that long at least. It probably would have cut even deeper then.
Dustin perked up at the mention of visiting Stark Industries. “I am available to do that whenever.” Well. “Except during school time.” He was keeping his days of skipping class for something really important. Not that visiting SI wasn’t, but considering what Vallo was like he had a feeling there would be more monsters soon enough.
“That’s smart. School’s important,” Peter said. There’d been a time when Peter had thought about dropping out of school so that he could do the superhero thing full-time, but it hadn’t actually been his choice when he had dropped out of high school, and… well, it turned out, that hadn’t been what he’d wanted at all. He wasn’t going to college now, but only because he still wasn’t sure that being Peter Parker was the best choice, not when he was Spider-Man.
“But I’ll take you any weekend. It’ll be great. Stark’s got stuff you’d never dream of. You’re going to love it.”
Dustin agreed and he liked school. Usually. When he wasn’t getting bad grades. He liked working with electronics even more than school but it was a nice taste of normal in Vallo to still be able to go. Plus his friends from home were all going, except for the older crowd.
“Cool. Can’t wait to see it.” And hopefully get to experiment with one or two things while there. “The others are going to be super jealous about this drone.”
“Oh, they’ll absolutely flip,” Peter said. He would have, if their positions were reversed, at least. He didn’t know if Dustin’s friends were as into tech as Dustin was, but they didn’t even need to be that into it, drones were just cool in general. “I’ll show you a couple more things before you go so you can really knock their socks off.”