xp_logs | Not So Amazing, Warning (Reply)

Kyle pays ~~Spider-Man~~ Miles a visit to convince him to give up his missions for the good of his safety. Miles demonstrates that he's a terrible actor.

First chemistry quiz of the year was over, and the sophomore class of Brooklyn Visions Academy was taking a much justified extended lunch break out on the quad. Miles and Ganke had taken their lunches out to the edge of the quad near the front gates so they could relax under a large oak tree. It took quite a bit of self-control for Miles not to climb up and hang upside-down from it.

"No, it's simple," Miles said, stuffing another piece of his California roll into his mouth. "2, 6, 10, 14, 18 electrons. Keep adding four. Then each shell has as many orbitals as the shell number. So shell 1 has 1 orbital and 2 electrons. Shell 2 has 2 orbitals and 2 plus 6 electrons, 8. Shell 3 has 3 orbitals and 2 plus 6 plus 10 electrons, 18. Aaaand then it gets funky from there."

"Chemistry is the worst. Literally the worst." Ganke slurped his noodles and pointed an accusatory pair of chopsticks at Miles. "You were supposed to help me study! We have a deal. You get me through chem, and I cover for you."

"You wouldn't have to cover for me if you didn't always dispatch me like . . . like Zordon," countered Miles, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I freaking snuck into the police station last night to get their files on Jumbo. I'm pretty sure that's a felony."

"Yeah, but what would Tobey Mag . . ."

Several slivers of pickled ginger to the face shut up Ganke. "Don't even say it. I . . ." Whatever Miles was going to say didn't come out. The tingling sensation in the back of his head - a telltale sign of imminent danger - grabbed his attention. It wasn't the loud "holy crap, you're going to die if you don't move right the hell now!" spider sense like he felt when he actually fought people. It was something sneakier, getting ready to strike. Ganke opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but Miles held up his hand to ward off any questions.

There, just outside the front gate. The tall, hairy white dude was definitely watching them. A cop? No, couldn't be. Miles had stayed in camo mode for most of the infiltration. And he hadn't stolen anything, he only used his phone with a fancy camera attachment to take pictures of all of the documents in the investigation file, and then he'd left the folder on the desk where he'd found it. The 75th precinct was way on the other side of town, anyway. They couldn't possibly have found him.

Still, it wasn't every day that some honky came for him. Miles handed his lunch to Ganke and stood up. "Wait here, I'll be right back," he instructed. He approached the stranger with a posture that displayed more confidence than he actually felt. His spider sense wasn't ringing any louder, but he was still ready for a venom blast if it came to that. "Yo. Can I help you?"

Fricking pickled ginger. Kyle could still smell it on the kid, which meant it was all he could smell. Not that it wasn't hella creepy to try to discreetly smell out random kids but once in a rare while it told him something useful like "The kid secretes acid" or "This jerk spits lava.". All he was getting now was "This kid and his friend ate way fancier than he had when he was that age."

"Yo. Are you Miles Morales?" Funny how a question didn't have to sound like one though.

Miles crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. The guy knew his name. Holy crap. "Who wants to know?"

"Someone not dumb enough to attach their real name to their internet history." Well, smart enough to remove it after the fact anyway, with help. "My name's Kyle Gibney, I used to teach over in District X, so I'm not like, some pedo." Kyle explained. He was going to at least try to be straight with this kid, even if he started out smart-assed.

"Being a teacher doesn't make you not a pedo. And tracking me down online kinda does." The creepster was tall and buff, vaguely handsome in a sort of shaggy way, and didn't really set off any sort of pedo alarms. Miles's spider sense didn't ping that on him, either. If anything, it was quieting down now. "So what do you want, Kyle Gibney?"

"I wasn't trying you down. I was tracking down Spider-Man." Kyle said, firmly. "You just happen to be the guy whose name is attached to another internet thing that's attached to some other internet thing that's attached to Spider-Man's vine, so, you know, one plus one plus one is three." God damn he'd had to seriously spell it out, which was not going to end well.

Oh no. Miles's eyes widened in terror and disbelief. "You've got the wrong guy, then," Miles replied in a manner that was completely convincing and no one could possibly doubt at all even a little. "Spider-Man? Pfft, I couldn't be. He's, like, all buff and big and shit."

If the hitch in his voice hadn't given it away, the anxiety sweat Kyle could smell sure as hell did. Totally the right kid. "He's totes not. I mean dude might be ripped but I wasn't chasing him down to give him a job modeling, and he's just about totally your exact height." Kyle crossed his arms over his chest - carefully, because he'd ripped one shirt this week already doing that and this kid wasn't even his student. "Look, either you -are- that dude, or you know that dude." It so wasn't the other kid though. "And he's going to get himself hurt if he keeps up doing what he's doing and putting it on freaking ~Vine~."

Was this the guy who killed Jumbo Carnation? Did he watch Spider-Man's warning and now was coming around with a warning of his own? Miles's entire vocabulary of swears - which, admittedly, wasn't all that expansive - ran through his head in that instant. "Y-yeah, I still don't know what you're talking about. I'm not . . ." He glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to listen in, but lowered his voice, anyway. Totally inconspicuous. "I'm not Spider-Man. He knows what he's doing, anyway. Dunno why you're warning me about anything."

"Because this is a good way to get your dumb self hurt!" Kyle blew out his cheeks in a long frustrated huff. "Dude, I know you think that you - I mean, Spider-Man - knows what you, I mean he is doing, but this is how kids like you get hurt." Shit he didn't even have good scars to prove it. "I was you, like, eight years ago, and if I couldn't regrow most of my actual guts I'd be a really boring sad grave right now."

"I don't know about you, amigo, but he does know what he's doing. And he's making a difference. Crime rates are down all over Brooklyn because of him." According to statistics released by the NYPD on a quarterly basis, although that might have actually been the result of other NYPD anti-crime activities. But it seemed just as likely to be Spider-Man, right? Right. "He's making this place safer. Especially the parts where crackers like you don't live in."

"Oh god you're freaking hilarious." Kyle was so close to just letting this kid get his ass kicked, but fuck, hospitals were expensive and half of them were crappy to mutants and who knew if this kid was out to his parents. "I'm a cracker, you're a passer, and you have no freaking idea what you're doing and you're gonna get your damn self hurt, if not your buddy eating half your lunch over there." He had no idea if the other kid was eating half Miles' lunch, really. "How much is crime gonna go down if Spider-Man's corpse is all rotting in a dumpster somewhere because some asshat with a gun fetish decides to put a hole in you?"

"The he'll die doing the right thing," Miles replied with a conviction he didn't even know he had. "Haven't you seen the movie? 'With great power comes great responsibility.' Mutants - and I'm assuming he's a mutant because I don't actually know him - come with a lot of power. We . . . they have to use it right. You from around here? Then you know what happens when mutants don't use their power for good. Tobey Maguire would do it if he was an actual real-live mutant, too."

"Tobey Maguire is an actor, and he's... aw Jesus, seriously, you are like, what, thirteen? Do not go all 'this is my responsibility' and go out and end up dead. Look, yeah, we've got powers and yeah, most of us should do more, but you are a kid, and if you are from around here you know there are people who actually do the stuff you - I mean, Spider-Man - are trying to do and aren't in fricking high school." It was so hard to keep his voice level - and to not kick his own ass for being a hypocrite, but having been a dumb kid himself was half the reason Kyle was trying to keep this dumb kid from getting hurt.

"I'm fifteen," Miles corrected, as if those two years made such a substantial difference (which they totally did). "Who are you, anyway? Why do you even care why Spider-Man does what he does?"

"Look, I'm not saying that Spider-Man's wrong, just that he's way too young and has no backup." Kyle sagged a bit, and flexed his hands as though they were cramping - which they were, keeping his claws in enough that he wasn't 'scary hands guy' on top of 'nosy cracker' was uncomfortable. The hardass Pretend To Be Logan approach not working so well. "I teach kids like you, I was a kid like you, and you're going out there alone, and man, all I can hear when I look at your Vine account is how many times my mom and dad got called on account of me trying to do the dumb stuff you're doing now."

Miles frowned and looked away. His spider sense has gone quiet again, so this guy wasn't a threat. Maybe his concern was genuine. That oddly didn't make Miles feel any better, though. Good old Catholic guilt was rearing its head because someone was trying to help him and he had no intent on listening.

"You should go," he said, unable to meet Kyle's eyes. "They don't allow visitors during school hours and I'm not gonna get expelled from here an accounta you. Thanks for what you said or whatever, but go."

"Yeah, that's why I'm visiting instead of my buddy." Kyle said. "I got teacher cred at a private school down in Westchester." He nodded though. "but yeah, don't wanna get you in trouble when I'm trying to keep you out of it." He did not want to out this kid either - being dragged out of the genetic identity closet was a great way to end up hurt or dead, and that was totally the opposite of Kyle's goals. "Look, just - if crap goes down?" He dug a business card (that was so weird, having those at all) out of his pocket and held it out. "call. If I don't answer, someone else who can help will."

The Xavier School? Even Miles had heard of that place. So on the one hand, this couldn't have been Jumbo Carnation's killer. That was good. But it also meant that he and everything he just said was legit. That was bad.

The card went into Miles's pocket and he turned heel without another word to Kyle.

"Dude, what . . ." Ganke started when Miles returned, but Miles shook his head.

"Nothing," he mumbled, taking back his suddenly unappetizing sushi only to throw it into the trash. "I'ma go finish up the reading for history. See you there."