om_main | Peter and Alice

Some more bonding between the best friend and the girlfriend.

Alice smiled when she spotted Peter's head above the back of the couch, apparently engrossed in whatever was currently playing on the TV screen. She was dressed casually today, flare jeans and a black sweater. "Hey, Pete," she greeted him with a grin, walking over to claim a seat on that couch. "How's it going?"

The program playing on the TV was about genetics, more importantly it was about current genetic studies and applications, and Peter was engrossed. It was fascinating, even if he had started watching it mostly for research, and he’d long since been distracted from taking notes.

Peter looked up from the television at the greeting and smiled, “Hey, Alice. It’s, uh, it’s going. It’s going. You?”

"Are they talking at all about us?" she asked curiously as she realized what the program was about, dropping beside him.

“Not so far,” said Peter, drawing his feet up onto the couch and crossing his legs under him. “I’m not sure if they will.”

"Isn't it stupid, making a program about genetics nowadays without mentioning mutants?" Alice asked with a slightly pained expression. It sure seemed stupid to her.

“It’s stupid,” Peter agreed. “Or willfully ignorant. I don’t know how many people, apart from anyone here, who’s studying mutant genetics, but you’d think they’d still at least mention mutants. It’s not like the next link in the evolutionary chain shows up every day.”

"Maybe it's an old rerun?" Alice offered, but whatever. People were stupid, what was new.

Peter’s scrunched up face would have been answer enough. “It was advertised as new.” Which was his main reason for watching it really. He wanted to see if anyone was doing genetic studies or experiments similar to Oscorp’s, or, even if mutants themselves weren’t expressly mentioned, if the recent knowledge of their existence would bring up discussions of cross-species genetics.

"Idiots, then," Alice summed it up nicely, and had no qualms distracting him from the documentary. It couldn't be that great, considering. "Anyway. How was your New Year's Eve?"

“It was fun!” Peter replied with a grin that said how much of an understatement that was. “How was yours? You went to that boat party, right?”

"Yes, and it was everything you'd expect a Sirius Black New Year's Eve boat party to be," Alice confirmed with a grin. Complete with empty rooms that locked and were well stocked in liquor, because Sirius was the very best host, apparently. "But don't change the subject I haven't brought up yet," she went on, smiling again, more softly this time. "I was totally about to ask about you and Kitty."

Peter felt a little…weird talking about the girl he was seeing to the girlfriend of the best friend he still kinda had feelings for. Could you not regret something and still have it be one of the top five mistakes you’d ever made? ‘Cause if so that was kissing Harry. “Um,” he said awkwardly, unsure what Alice meant. “What about me and Kitty?”

"Right, okay, none of my business," Alice backpedaled with a smile. She just hoped that was what he meant, rather than things had gone sour between them. They'd be great together.

“No! No,” Peter quickly amended, and clapped a hand to his forehead, laughing an abashed kind of chuckle at himself. “No, sorry. I just wasn’t sure what you were asking about us.”

Alice smiled at him for a beat, trying to gauge whether he really meant that, then figured that whatever, if he didn't he shouldn't have reopened the door to her question. "I'm definitely fishing for details that are none of my business, here. I mean, she asked you out. Or - in, I guess."

“Yeah, it was our second date,” Peter confirmed with a smile that could easily be described as smitten. “She had a party at her apartment. Illyana, Vance, River, and Doug were there too. It was a lot of fun.”

That smile was really too sweet, in a very dorky way, which was the way most things were when it came to Peter, Alice was learning. "Wait, there was a first date?" she asked, smiling brightly at the news, all of it - that it had been a second date, that it had been a date at all, and that it had been 'a lot of fun'. Not just fun, no, but a lot of fun.

Peter nodded, “Yeah, we went to that Italian place in Salem Center. I asked her.” He looked proud of the fact until a shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. “Well, sorta.” But, hey, it was a start, right?

“Do you know Kitty very well?”

"Not really, no," Alice shook her head, then paused, and smiled a little. "Not much at all, actually. We don't hang out with the same people." Kitty was younger, and a genius, and they just didn't have anything in common. Unlike her and Peter, who had Harry in common. "But she's clearly more than smart enough to keep up with you, and she's cute."

“I think it’s more I’m keeping up with her,” Peter replied, chuckling. “But, uh, yeah, she’s awesome. We should all hang out sometime. Me, Harry, you, and Kitty.”

"Sure," she easily agreed, smiling at the idea. "A double date. As long as you guys realize I will not follow if you start talking science." Well, maybe if they got started on quantum physics - thanks, Brian - but she was pretty sure he was the only genius around focusing on that field.

“We don’t always talk about science.” Peter grinned cheekily as, joking, he added, “Sometimes we talk about math.”

"Ah, I'm sorry, there's only one genius I allow myself to talk math with, and it's neither of you guys," she retorted with a playful grin, meaning of course Lydia. And only because of tutoring reasons.

Peter sighed and gave a troubled shake of his head, “Well, I’m fresh out of topics then.”

"This'll be the longest double date ever," Alice deadpanned, then broke into a smile.

“Maybe we should ask someone from Guinness to officiate,” Peter countered with, grinning.

"But time is relative, and maybe they'd have a blast," Alice retorted, then gasped as if completely shocked by her own words. "My God, was that a science joke?"

Peter clutched his chest and fell over as if dead. He grinned at Alice from where he was slumped into the couch.

Alice laughed, and grabbed a cushion to gently whack at him.