Nick and Peter, backdated to 2/10/15
Feb. 10th, 2015 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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om_mainNew roommates meet! Nick meets Peter, and Peter meets someone who hasn't heard of his heroic alter-ego.
Nick was already impressed by the fact that his family's lawyer had contacted him, and delivered his belongings to the school. Now it was just up to Nick to, well, move them in and get them settled in. Looking over the first load, which was a large suitcase that held his clothes and his Xbox One and his PS4, he knew that this wouldn't be the difficult stuff to unpack. His laptop bag, complete with the laptop inside, would be nice to have again. It was the odds and ends and boxes upon boxes of small things that the lawyer had sent along that held tiny, painful pinpricks of memory that he worried about unpacking. He'd do it alone.
He checked the card that had his room number and his roommate's name on it, and decided it would be polite to knock first. He was already nervous as hell, shaking a bit, and dressed in a simple blue t-shirt and gray jeans.
“Just a second!” Peter called out as he hopped about the room on one foot, trying to pull off a boot. He tripped over its mate before he could manage and fell back onto his bed. “Stupid boot. Just get off.” The boot popped free and, dropping it on the floor, he quickly wriggled his way out of the rest of his Spiderman costume. “One more second!” He webbed his jeans and pulled them over. Yanking them on, he hopped to his feet, buttoning them up on his across the room. He webbed a distressed, red tee and pulled it on just as he reached the door.
Opening it, Peter smiled at the boy on the other side. “Hi. Sorry. I was changing,” he said in a breathless kind of rush.
Well that was weird. Nick didn't pay much attention to it, though... Nick was wearing an old, beat-up Skillet t-shirt and baggy cargo jeans, but no shoes, simply because shoes weren't really a thing for his kind of feet. Nick blinked at the kid a few times. Really, no comment or crack about how he looked? Well, maybe this whole roommate thing wouldn't be so bad.
"Hi... I'm Nick. Your new roommate?" he clarified, lamely. He'd never lived with someone other than his parents, before.
Peter smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead, “Oh, right. Sorry, man, I forgot you were coming. Peter Parker. Nice to meet you, Nick.” He extended a hand, smile warm and friendly. “You coulda just come in. Mi casa es literally su casa.”
"N-no, it's okay. I'm new to this whole roommate thing away," Nick said, hesitant to offer him the furry hand that went to return the handshake. At least he could be mindful of his claws.
“I was too when I came here,” Peter said, stepping aside to let Nick in. “I got introduced to that one real fast. Speaking of, if you find any empty beer cans, or bits of squirrel they’re not mine.” He was joking. Mostly.
That just made Nick look around the room (well, his side of it at least) like something might jump out and bite him, or that he might step in something foul. "U-uh... are you serious?" he asked, nervously.
Peter held his thumb and forefinger a smidgeon apart. “My old roommate was, uh, well, he called himself a redneck, but I don’t know if it’s one of those cases where he can use the word and I can’t, or not. So...” He cleared his throat awkwardly and rocked on his feet, then gestured quickly at the room. “I mean, I’m sure he took everything. Just, you know, in case.”
"Yeah, I'll, uh... keep that in mind," Nick said, giving the air a sniff. Well, nothing smelled off-putting on his side of the room. So there was that, at least. "So, uh... what, uh, year are you?" he asked.
“Sophomore,” Peter answered as he stooped to pick up a boot. “What about you?” Tossing it onto the bed, he turned to find the other. He spotted it in the same place he’d last seen it--where he’d tripped over it--and went to get it.
"Freshman," Nick said, feeling just a bit deflated that he was rooming with an upperclassman. Still, maybe that was for the best. Peter seemed like a genuinely good guy so far, and Nick wasn't going to write him off just because he was a year ahead of him in school. He glanced over and narrowed his eyes slightly at the boot that Peter was in the process of collecting. Weird. Everyone had their own weird choice of wardrobe, Nick figured.
Peter tossed the other boot onto his bed too. “Cool,” he said, smiling at Nick. “Well, welcome to the school! I think you’ll like it here. Everyone’s pretty friendly.”
"Yeah, I... hope that's the case," Nick replied, vaguely, setting his suitcase up on the bed and unzipping it. His game systems were all on top, protected by a trio of thick sweaters, which he quickly removed, and he started to stack the two systems on his desk with the power cables and everything. "Do you game?" he asked, getting a bit more comfortable now that his hands were on something more familiar. "I play WoW, mostly, but I play other stuff too."
“Sometimes, but no WoW, sorry.” Peter pushed his costume aside and sat down on his bed. “I have an Xbox 360 at home. I like computer games better though.”
"Oh... like what?" Nick was more comfortable with putting the ball of conversation back in Peter's court, as Nick busied himself unpacking. Once he got to the clothes, Peter would see a lot of band T-shirts. Coheed & Cambria, Skillet, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Thousand Foot Krutch, stuff like that, a lot of stuff that he was probably too young to have come across 'naturally' while growing up.
“Um,” Peter tilted his head, thinking about it. “Broken Age, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Amnesia, Portal... Stuff like that. I replayed Myst a hundred times when I was younger.” He was really into the adventure, puzzle solving games. He liked having to problem solve his way through things.
At the mention of Amnesia, Nick cringed a little. "Eegh," he murmured, shaking his head. "Just the trailer for Amnesia gave me nightmares." Well, it looked like maybe outside of Portal, they wouldn't have much in common in terms of games. Well, maybe they would both like RPGs or something, but he hadn't mentioned any in his list. "What about older stuff?" he ventured. "Like, I dunno. Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights?" he asked.
“No, sorry,” Peter said with an apologetic smile. “I’ve played Mass Effect. Some, uh, some Dragon Age? I like RPGs alright, but I haven’t played many. There are probably people around who have though.”
"Mass Effect is really good," Nick said, a bit hopefully. "You should play some more of it. I wasn't... really into Dragon Age, myself. But... I mean, it's okay. Just.... you know. Gameplay." Nick shrugged. Well, there went his hopes of a roommate who would be his best friend forever. He turned around and plopped down to sit on his bed for a moment, taking a short break from unpacking. He was getting close to some memories, in that suitcase... he wanted to take it slow.
Peter nodded, “Yeah, maybe I will. I just haven’t had a lot of time for video games these days.” If anything though, he’d give it another go to try and cheer his new roommate up who looked really, really disappointed right now. He’d say ‘like a kicked puppy’ if the analogy didn’t feel wholly inappropriate and rude.
"Lots of school stuff?" Nick asked, curiously. "I... haven't been at a school that wasn't in my living room or kitchen since, well... I was seven, so. I don't really know what it's like here. Like, what to expect."
“Nah,” Peter said, shaking his head. “School stuff. Other hobbies. I’m into photography, spend a lot of time down in the lab...” He gestured at his costume. “And the whole Spiderman thing. The school work is the normal amount, I guess. Maybe a little less since they actually seem to realize we have more than one class, and a life outside of school. So, that’s a plus.”
Nick glanced to the costume, and raised a fuzzy eyebrow. "Spiderman?" he asked, not knowing what Peter was talking about. His news consumption had been relatively low, especially recently, when Spiderman would have actually been relevant and on the news.
Peter’s eyebrows jumped, surprised, though not at all bothered or offended by it, that Nick had never heard of him before. “Uh, yeah. Sometimes I put on a costume and swing around New York City fighting crime.” ...Wow. It sounded kind of ridiculous when said it out loud.
That made Nick blink a couple of times. "Oh... like... when Jean-Paul, Jeanne-Marie, Scott and Laura came to save me?" he asked, blinking. "Are you part of their team?"
“No, I work alone generally,” Peter answered, then added, “I don’t really know much about what Les X-quis, so I can’t say if they do what I do. I think they mostly work in mutant, uh, situations?”
"O-oh," Nick mumbled. Well, way to go, Nick, he figured. He figured maybe it was best to change the subject. "What kind of crime do you fight, instead, then?" he asked.
Peter shrugged, “Muggings, robberies, car theft... Anything I come across in the city really.”
For just a moment, Nick thought to himself "Where were you when I needed you, then?" But he immediately felt bad about it. He sighed. "H-have you ever stopped... stopped a murder?" he asked.
Peter immediately thought of Uncle Ben, and guilt twisted sharp and hard in his chest. “I, ah, I don’t--I don’t know. A few of the muggings had knives, and guns involved, and those could have ended badly, but there’s no way of knowing for sure.”
"Well, it's good that you stopped those," Nick said, nodding. "Y-you must be really brave. And really strong." Nick couldn't imagine ever having the guts to do something like that... even though part of him really wanted to help others.
“Thanks,” Peter said, appreciating it. He didn’t do it for the thanks or praise, but it was still nice to hear sometimes. “The strong is a mutation thing though.” He grinned and joked, “Before, I was lucky if I could do two reps with those five pound weights.”
That made him grin. "I've never really tried to lift weights before." He had no idea if he was stronger than your average human, really. "Usually too busy playing video games."
“Neither have I,” Peter replied, and then laughed. “It was just kinda hard to miss when I was ripping the hot/cold taps right out of the sink. And yanking doorknobs out of the door.”
That was a cringe-worthy thought. Nick didn't know it, but he was probably just as strong, he'd just come into his strength more slowly and hadn't had the abrupt surge and what-not. "Th-the most I've ever done is snap a PS3 controller in half while playing Demon's Souls," Nick murmured, chuckling.
Peter’s eyebrows jumped, “Like, with your hands? Or threw it at a wall and broke?”
Nick blinked at him a few times. "W-with my hands," he said, as if that was normal. His parents had certainly reacted like it was expected. Sure, they'd scolded him and all, but they had at least two replacements handy.
Peter’s eyebrows jumped again, “Wow. That is definitely stronger than average.” And he was kinda surprised that Nick didn’t know it, but that was another issue entirely. “You should find out how strong you are. It can be dangerous not knowing. If you hit someone, and don’t know how much you should pull the punch...” He trailed off, letting the implication hang.
"W-well, I'd... mostly just focus on not hitting anyone," Nick said, blinking. "I'm not that strong. It's not like I go around accidentally breaking things..."
“Except you accidentally broke the controller,” Peter pointed out.
"I-it was because I was mad, though," Nick said. "P-people online talk about breaking their controllers in anger all the time." Not necessarily breaking them in half, though he'd heard about that somewhere. Then again maybe they weren't being literal?
“It’s alright, man. Mistakes happen,” Peter replied, giving Nick a reassuring smile. “But, better safe than sorry, you know? I don’t think you’d ever mean to break something, but if you don’t know your own strength it could happen. Like what happened with me.”
"Yeah. I... I guess that's true," Nick said, meekly. It just hadn't seemed necessary, to him. But still. "S-so do they train you to fight crime, or is that just... something you took up on your own?" He wondered if the school was going to try to turn him into a vigilante...
“Ah, that was a me thing,” Peter answered, slightly chagrinned. “And it happened before I came to the school.”
"R-really?" Nick asked, surprised. "That's... kind of crazy," he said, then realizing that he might have said something that offended. "I-I mean, crazy like... unlikely. And... different." Yeah, because that was helping.
Unlikely was a good word for it. Different Peter wasn’t sure about, though. He wasn’t the only one out there fighting crime. Far from offended though, he just shrugged, “Yeah, it just seemed like the right thing to do.”
"It's just... really brave," Nick summarized, feeling better about that. Maybe one day, he could be like that. Maybe. He knew what he wanted to do with himself, more or less. But he'd need help along the way. But didn't everyone?
"It's strange, though, growing up and hearing about this place about every month and then finally being here," he added, stretching a bit before hopping up to start unpacking again. "I've known the headmasters since I was about nine. Doctor MacTaggart, too. They used to visit my parents all the time, before the school got built. They'd call from time to time, or one of them would stop by for coffee or tea. It was nice." Doctor MacTaggart was probably his favorite. She was just so nice to him, all the time.
“Wow,” Peter said. “That’s cool. So, you knew about mutants longer than most of us, huh?”
"I guess? I mean, I was obviously one by eight years of age," Nick pointed out. "It's kinda funny, though. I've known about the school probably longer than any of you, but I'm the newest one here."
Peter’s brow knit in confusion. He wasn’t sure why that was obvious. “Is that when you manifested?”
"O-oh. Yeah. Sorry. I... sorry." He scratched the back of his head, feeling embarrassed. "When I mentioned I hadn't been to regular school since I was seven or so, I thought it was kind of ... sorry." Man, he felt kind of stupid. "I guess I'm just used to being around people who know that." Nick was in the process of unpacking and re-folding a lot of band t-shirts, mostly Metallica, Coheed & Cambria, Thousand Foot Krutch, mixed in with some others.
Peter didn’t know why Nick was apologizing, so he just smiled. “It’s alright, man. I just figured you meant you were just homeschooled. I probably shouldn’t have assumed.”
Lifting his butt off his bed, Peter dug his phone out of his back pocket to check the time. “Sorry, but I’ve got to get going. I’m supposed to be meeting someone. But, I’ll be back around dinner. I can show you to the cafeteria?”
"I-I mean, I was homeschooled, but... yeah." Nick could only manage to shrug.
At the mention of having to go, Nick was a bit sad, but hey, it wasn't like his roommate could revolve his life around him. Besides, it would be a bit easier to get settled in if he had some time to himself. Nick nodded, looking over his shoulder and giving a lupine smile. "S-sure! I'm sure I'll be starving by the time I get myself unpacked..."
“Awesome!” Peter replied with a grin and he hopped to his feet. “I’ll see you in a bit, dude.” He gave a wave and then left the room, pocketing his phone as he closed the door behind him.
"Yeah, take it easy," Nick said, looking forward to the food and the company later on. Maybe, just maybe, this place would work out alright for him.
Nick was already impressed by the fact that his family's lawyer had contacted him, and delivered his belongings to the school. Now it was just up to Nick to, well, move them in and get them settled in. Looking over the first load, which was a large suitcase that held his clothes and his Xbox One and his PS4, he knew that this wouldn't be the difficult stuff to unpack. His laptop bag, complete with the laptop inside, would be nice to have again. It was the odds and ends and boxes upon boxes of small things that the lawyer had sent along that held tiny, painful pinpricks of memory that he worried about unpacking. He'd do it alone.
He checked the card that had his room number and his roommate's name on it, and decided it would be polite to knock first. He was already nervous as hell, shaking a bit, and dressed in a simple blue t-shirt and gray jeans.
“Just a second!” Peter called out as he hopped about the room on one foot, trying to pull off a boot. He tripped over its mate before he could manage and fell back onto his bed. “Stupid boot. Just get off.” The boot popped free and, dropping it on the floor, he quickly wriggled his way out of the rest of his Spiderman costume. “One more second!” He webbed his jeans and pulled them over. Yanking them on, he hopped to his feet, buttoning them up on his across the room. He webbed a distressed, red tee and pulled it on just as he reached the door.
Opening it, Peter smiled at the boy on the other side. “Hi. Sorry. I was changing,” he said in a breathless kind of rush.
Well that was weird. Nick didn't pay much attention to it, though... Nick was wearing an old, beat-up Skillet t-shirt and baggy cargo jeans, but no shoes, simply because shoes weren't really a thing for his kind of feet. Nick blinked at the kid a few times. Really, no comment or crack about how he looked? Well, maybe this whole roommate thing wouldn't be so bad.
"Hi... I'm Nick. Your new roommate?" he clarified, lamely. He'd never lived with someone other than his parents, before.
Peter smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead, “Oh, right. Sorry, man, I forgot you were coming. Peter Parker. Nice to meet you, Nick.” He extended a hand, smile warm and friendly. “You coulda just come in. Mi casa es literally su casa.”
"N-no, it's okay. I'm new to this whole roommate thing away," Nick said, hesitant to offer him the furry hand that went to return the handshake. At least he could be mindful of his claws.
“I was too when I came here,” Peter said, stepping aside to let Nick in. “I got introduced to that one real fast. Speaking of, if you find any empty beer cans, or bits of squirrel they’re not mine.” He was joking. Mostly.
That just made Nick look around the room (well, his side of it at least) like something might jump out and bite him, or that he might step in something foul. "U-uh... are you serious?" he asked, nervously.
Peter held his thumb and forefinger a smidgeon apart. “My old roommate was, uh, well, he called himself a redneck, but I don’t know if it’s one of those cases where he can use the word and I can’t, or not. So...” He cleared his throat awkwardly and rocked on his feet, then gestured quickly at the room. “I mean, I’m sure he took everything. Just, you know, in case.”
"Yeah, I'll, uh... keep that in mind," Nick said, giving the air a sniff. Well, nothing smelled off-putting on his side of the room. So there was that, at least. "So, uh... what, uh, year are you?" he asked.
“Sophomore,” Peter answered as he stooped to pick up a boot. “What about you?” Tossing it onto the bed, he turned to find the other. He spotted it in the same place he’d last seen it--where he’d tripped over it--and went to get it.
"Freshman," Nick said, feeling just a bit deflated that he was rooming with an upperclassman. Still, maybe that was for the best. Peter seemed like a genuinely good guy so far, and Nick wasn't going to write him off just because he was a year ahead of him in school. He glanced over and narrowed his eyes slightly at the boot that Peter was in the process of collecting. Weird. Everyone had their own weird choice of wardrobe, Nick figured.
Peter tossed the other boot onto his bed too. “Cool,” he said, smiling at Nick. “Well, welcome to the school! I think you’ll like it here. Everyone’s pretty friendly.”
"Yeah, I... hope that's the case," Nick replied, vaguely, setting his suitcase up on the bed and unzipping it. His game systems were all on top, protected by a trio of thick sweaters, which he quickly removed, and he started to stack the two systems on his desk with the power cables and everything. "Do you game?" he asked, getting a bit more comfortable now that his hands were on something more familiar. "I play WoW, mostly, but I play other stuff too."
“Sometimes, but no WoW, sorry.” Peter pushed his costume aside and sat down on his bed. “I have an Xbox 360 at home. I like computer games better though.”
"Oh... like what?" Nick was more comfortable with putting the ball of conversation back in Peter's court, as Nick busied himself unpacking. Once he got to the clothes, Peter would see a lot of band T-shirts. Coheed & Cambria, Skillet, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Thousand Foot Krutch, stuff like that, a lot of stuff that he was probably too young to have come across 'naturally' while growing up.
“Um,” Peter tilted his head, thinking about it. “Broken Age, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Amnesia, Portal... Stuff like that. I replayed Myst a hundred times when I was younger.” He was really into the adventure, puzzle solving games. He liked having to problem solve his way through things.
At the mention of Amnesia, Nick cringed a little. "Eegh," he murmured, shaking his head. "Just the trailer for Amnesia gave me nightmares." Well, it looked like maybe outside of Portal, they wouldn't have much in common in terms of games. Well, maybe they would both like RPGs or something, but he hadn't mentioned any in his list. "What about older stuff?" he ventured. "Like, I dunno. Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights?" he asked.
“No, sorry,” Peter said with an apologetic smile. “I’ve played Mass Effect. Some, uh, some Dragon Age? I like RPGs alright, but I haven’t played many. There are probably people around who have though.”
"Mass Effect is really good," Nick said, a bit hopefully. "You should play some more of it. I wasn't... really into Dragon Age, myself. But... I mean, it's okay. Just.... you know. Gameplay." Nick shrugged. Well, there went his hopes of a roommate who would be his best friend forever. He turned around and plopped down to sit on his bed for a moment, taking a short break from unpacking. He was getting close to some memories, in that suitcase... he wanted to take it slow.
Peter nodded, “Yeah, maybe I will. I just haven’t had a lot of time for video games these days.” If anything though, he’d give it another go to try and cheer his new roommate up who looked really, really disappointed right now. He’d say ‘like a kicked puppy’ if the analogy didn’t feel wholly inappropriate and rude.
"Lots of school stuff?" Nick asked, curiously. "I... haven't been at a school that wasn't in my living room or kitchen since, well... I was seven, so. I don't really know what it's like here. Like, what to expect."
“Nah,” Peter said, shaking his head. “School stuff. Other hobbies. I’m into photography, spend a lot of time down in the lab...” He gestured at his costume. “And the whole Spiderman thing. The school work is the normal amount, I guess. Maybe a little less since they actually seem to realize we have more than one class, and a life outside of school. So, that’s a plus.”
Nick glanced to the costume, and raised a fuzzy eyebrow. "Spiderman?" he asked, not knowing what Peter was talking about. His news consumption had been relatively low, especially recently, when Spiderman would have actually been relevant and on the news.
Peter’s eyebrows jumped, surprised, though not at all bothered or offended by it, that Nick had never heard of him before. “Uh, yeah. Sometimes I put on a costume and swing around New York City fighting crime.” ...Wow. It sounded kind of ridiculous when said it out loud.
That made Nick blink a couple of times. "Oh... like... when Jean-Paul, Jeanne-Marie, Scott and Laura came to save me?" he asked, blinking. "Are you part of their team?"
“No, I work alone generally,” Peter answered, then added, “I don’t really know much about what Les X-quis, so I can’t say if they do what I do. I think they mostly work in mutant, uh, situations?”
"O-oh," Nick mumbled. Well, way to go, Nick, he figured. He figured maybe it was best to change the subject. "What kind of crime do you fight, instead, then?" he asked.
Peter shrugged, “Muggings, robberies, car theft... Anything I come across in the city really.”
For just a moment, Nick thought to himself "Where were you when I needed you, then?" But he immediately felt bad about it. He sighed. "H-have you ever stopped... stopped a murder?" he asked.
Peter immediately thought of Uncle Ben, and guilt twisted sharp and hard in his chest. “I, ah, I don’t--I don’t know. A few of the muggings had knives, and guns involved, and those could have ended badly, but there’s no way of knowing for sure.”
"Well, it's good that you stopped those," Nick said, nodding. "Y-you must be really brave. And really strong." Nick couldn't imagine ever having the guts to do something like that... even though part of him really wanted to help others.
“Thanks,” Peter said, appreciating it. He didn’t do it for the thanks or praise, but it was still nice to hear sometimes. “The strong is a mutation thing though.” He grinned and joked, “Before, I was lucky if I could do two reps with those five pound weights.”
That made him grin. "I've never really tried to lift weights before." He had no idea if he was stronger than your average human, really. "Usually too busy playing video games."
“Neither have I,” Peter replied, and then laughed. “It was just kinda hard to miss when I was ripping the hot/cold taps right out of the sink. And yanking doorknobs out of the door.”
That was a cringe-worthy thought. Nick didn't know it, but he was probably just as strong, he'd just come into his strength more slowly and hadn't had the abrupt surge and what-not. "Th-the most I've ever done is snap a PS3 controller in half while playing Demon's Souls," Nick murmured, chuckling.
Peter’s eyebrows jumped, “Like, with your hands? Or threw it at a wall and broke?”
Nick blinked at him a few times. "W-with my hands," he said, as if that was normal. His parents had certainly reacted like it was expected. Sure, they'd scolded him and all, but they had at least two replacements handy.
Peter’s eyebrows jumped again, “Wow. That is definitely stronger than average.” And he was kinda surprised that Nick didn’t know it, but that was another issue entirely. “You should find out how strong you are. It can be dangerous not knowing. If you hit someone, and don’t know how much you should pull the punch...” He trailed off, letting the implication hang.
"W-well, I'd... mostly just focus on not hitting anyone," Nick said, blinking. "I'm not that strong. It's not like I go around accidentally breaking things..."
“Except you accidentally broke the controller,” Peter pointed out.
"I-it was because I was mad, though," Nick said. "P-people online talk about breaking their controllers in anger all the time." Not necessarily breaking them in half, though he'd heard about that somewhere. Then again maybe they weren't being literal?
“It’s alright, man. Mistakes happen,” Peter replied, giving Nick a reassuring smile. “But, better safe than sorry, you know? I don’t think you’d ever mean to break something, but if you don’t know your own strength it could happen. Like what happened with me.”
"Yeah. I... I guess that's true," Nick said, meekly. It just hadn't seemed necessary, to him. But still. "S-so do they train you to fight crime, or is that just... something you took up on your own?" He wondered if the school was going to try to turn him into a vigilante...
“Ah, that was a me thing,” Peter answered, slightly chagrinned. “And it happened before I came to the school.”
"R-really?" Nick asked, surprised. "That's... kind of crazy," he said, then realizing that he might have said something that offended. "I-I mean, crazy like... unlikely. And... different." Yeah, because that was helping.
Unlikely was a good word for it. Different Peter wasn’t sure about, though. He wasn’t the only one out there fighting crime. Far from offended though, he just shrugged, “Yeah, it just seemed like the right thing to do.”
"It's just... really brave," Nick summarized, feeling better about that. Maybe one day, he could be like that. Maybe. He knew what he wanted to do with himself, more or less. But he'd need help along the way. But didn't everyone?
"It's strange, though, growing up and hearing about this place about every month and then finally being here," he added, stretching a bit before hopping up to start unpacking again. "I've known the headmasters since I was about nine. Doctor MacTaggart, too. They used to visit my parents all the time, before the school got built. They'd call from time to time, or one of them would stop by for coffee or tea. It was nice." Doctor MacTaggart was probably his favorite. She was just so nice to him, all the time.
“Wow,” Peter said. “That’s cool. So, you knew about mutants longer than most of us, huh?”
"I guess? I mean, I was obviously one by eight years of age," Nick pointed out. "It's kinda funny, though. I've known about the school probably longer than any of you, but I'm the newest one here."
Peter’s brow knit in confusion. He wasn’t sure why that was obvious. “Is that when you manifested?”
"O-oh. Yeah. Sorry. I... sorry." He scratched the back of his head, feeling embarrassed. "When I mentioned I hadn't been to regular school since I was seven or so, I thought it was kind of ... sorry." Man, he felt kind of stupid. "I guess I'm just used to being around people who know that." Nick was in the process of unpacking and re-folding a lot of band t-shirts, mostly Metallica, Coheed & Cambria, Thousand Foot Krutch, mixed in with some others.
Peter didn’t know why Nick was apologizing, so he just smiled. “It’s alright, man. I just figured you meant you were just homeschooled. I probably shouldn’t have assumed.”
Lifting his butt off his bed, Peter dug his phone out of his back pocket to check the time. “Sorry, but I’ve got to get going. I’m supposed to be meeting someone. But, I’ll be back around dinner. I can show you to the cafeteria?”
"I-I mean, I was homeschooled, but... yeah." Nick could only manage to shrug.
At the mention of having to go, Nick was a bit sad, but hey, it wasn't like his roommate could revolve his life around him. Besides, it would be a bit easier to get settled in if he had some time to himself. Nick nodded, looking over his shoulder and giving a lupine smile. "S-sure! I'm sure I'll be starving by the time I get myself unpacked..."
“Awesome!” Peter replied with a grin and he hopped to his feet. “I’ll see you in a bit, dude.” He gave a wave and then left the room, pocketing his phone as he closed the door behind him.
"Yeah, take it easy," Nick said, looking forward to the food and the company later on. Maybe, just maybe, this place would work out alright for him.
