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Kai sneaks Lambert into the manor, and he's got both arms laden with grocery bags. "Inside and to the left," he tells Lambert. "The kitchen should be right there. Quiet! This is a surprise." He speaks in an exaggerated whisper. The kitchen is there indeed, and it's a nice kitchen. It's a nice house. It's a mansion after all.
Lambert has a backpack on his back, partly because there are a couple of things he refuses to cook without - his good knives, and his best pan, with the very expensive copper bottom to it. And partly because of, well…he leans into Kai and whispers "…is there a gift shop? I want to get a hat."
The kitchen, however, it not unoccupied. Like the half-civilized savage she is, Hope is standing in front of an open freezer, eating ice cream out of the container with a spoon. She doesn't even have the grace to look embarrassed when other people come into the kitchen, turning toward the pair with a quirk of her brow and the spoon in her mouth. "Whatcha doing?" she mumbles around the spoon.
Kai eyes Lambert. Then he admits in a loud whisper, "I don't know." He steps into the kitchen and, upon seeing Hope, he blinks a few times. Then he says, "Atta girl." Eating ice cream right out of the container is how nature intended. "Are you hungry? Is anyone else home?" He's speaking in a normal voice now that the jig is up. "Lambert, this is Hope. She stays here. I mean I'm sure she goes out and does stuff, but she sleeps here. I think."
Lambert waggles his fingers cheerily and he looks Hope up and down. Yes. Then he smiles and he says "Hello, I do think we have seen each other around. How many people stay here? I should know how many people you want me to make things for, Kai." And then he hisses at him "I would accept a t-shirt too."
"I'm always hungry," Hope points out to Kai with a faint smirk, closing the freezer door and hopping up onto the kitchen counter, continuing with her ice cream binge. "Hi," she waves to Lambert with the spoon before diving in for another mouthful. "I do sleep here. And stay here. Sometimes I help Tony in the lab. It's sort of complicated, but, you know. So is everyone here. I'm not sure who else is home," she adds belatedly.
.~{:--------------:}~.
"Hey, ask him where he's hiding his booze now," Kai says to Hope. Booze thiefs don't like to be discouraged! Just like engineers don't like going to their stashes to find them empty. To Lambert, Kai says, "That's a complicated question. I say we start making food and if people show up we'll make more. We can always reheat it later, too. I wish Bucky were around, I could ask him. I don't know where Steve is." He gives him a sharp nod at the mention of the t-shirt. Then he sets down the groceries on the counter. "I got about a dozen steaks. Do they keep well?"
"Yes, if they are good quality," says Lambert, who adds "There are so many things one can make with steak. So many, many things. We could make pastitsio, which will go further, and which will refrigerate well. That is like a greek lasagna. And when made with good steak, it will be amazing." He shifts into the kitchen, and Hope has gone quiet. Lambert flips down his pans and his good knives, and he begins to hum as he extracts some lavender and dandelions to put in a few little glasses "Always make your kitchen pleasant," he tells Kai "Let's continue to celebrate being alive!"
"They're the best quality the butcher had," Kai says. This is what happens when he's given unfettered access to lots of money. He buys a dozen high quality steaks on a whim. He continues to unpack groceries. This and that, that and this. There's fresh fruit for god-knows-what, potatoes, various cheeses. He has no idea what he wants, so he bought a little bit of everything. "Technically it's not my kitchen," Kai admits. "But it's pleasant!"
It's good he brought a lot. Because the pups are going to smell it and ….well, not come running. But come down to investigate later. Bucklings are crepuscular in habit, it seems, and active around dawn and dusk.
Buck himself was unaware of the shopping trip, for he's returning with some bags of his own in hand, only to stop in the kitchen doorway. "IS there gonna be a party I don't know about?"
Lambert continues to pretty it all up by sticking flowers in vases, and otherwise pottering around. He grins at Kai, and then eyes all the food coming out. This is going to take some work! And Lambert is ready for it. He begins to slice potatoes, very thin, his fingers working the knife effortlessly. As Buck arrives, Lambert looks up and says to him "…inevitably, at some point."
"I don't know about it either," Kai tells Bucky. "Hope's around here somewhere, Dunno about anyone else." There are at least a dozen steaks, so the pups won't go hungry tonight. Kai rearranges the flowers and asks, "What else can I do? Do you want a fruit salad? I could do something with the fruit. Maybe smash it up. Is that a thing people do?"
"Is all that meat spoken for?" Buck's longing is open and frankly wolfish. Blame the sorcerer. Blame his time spent as a beast in Svartalfheim. He gives them both an apologetic little grin. Puppies, they get hungry.
"You can start slicing apples, nice and thin," says Lambert to Kai. Everyone will be put to work. He has no idea what puppies they are thinking about, whatsoever. Or cubs. Whichever! Instead, he says to Buck "Do you want to sit down, and we will cook for you. Not…exactly. Kai wants us to cook all this food and then…" Hide it in the dumbwaiters? Which was it? "Chase…it?"
Kai shrugs and tells Bucky, "Loki's got a previous engagement, and I just felt like buying meat." He gets a knife and washes the apples. Then he starts slicing them thin. "I figure if you cook it, hungry people will show up. There's bound to be hungry mouths around here that need fed." He grins at Bucky. "Hey, where are your friends? Are they here?"
"They're upstairs," says Bucky, looking relieved. "I bet the scent of steak cooking will call 'em down. Red meat's a big thing with them." 'They' being the eight or so other Buckies that are currently living in the attic guest quarters under the roof. "They're very shy of strangers, though," he says, with a sigh.
"Who are you talking about?" asks Lambert of Kai and Bucky both, head tilted "There seem to be a lot of people living here." He is not quite human-looking, is Lambert - but then, few people are. The satyrkin works on making some sort of potato dish with herbs, salt, and cream, fresh ingredients being tossed lightly here and there. He relies on Kai's facility with knives to work for cooking as well. And then he comments mildly to Bucky "I did not know you lived here. This is the 'Avengers' Mansion, yes? Do you sell t-shirts? I would like a t-shirt!"
Swinging through the city, there's a thump as Spider-Man lands on the Avengers roof. He heads down the attic, pauses, stares at the eight Buckies, "… Hi." On his way down the stairs, he pulls off his mask, "Hey, guys? Did you know there's like an octolet of some guy in the attic—-" His voice trails off when he sees Kai and Lambert and them all being here without him having his mask on, "Shoot."
There was an important search for chocolate syrup and whipped cream to be had. Hope emerges from the pantry with both added to the top of her pint of ice cream just in time for a couple of new arrivals. "You've got to come back in, like, forty years for the t-shirts," she says around a mouthful. "Hey, Bucky. Hey, person."
Kai looks up from slicing apples. "Hi! Oh, wow. Yeah. This is awkward. Well, hmm. I'm an Avenger and Lambert here is usually too drunk to remember what's going on around him. Bucky here is a good friend of Cap's, and Hope lives here. I'm Kai, by the way." And there are the makings of a feast laid out, one which Kai and Lambert (mostly Lambert) are throwing together. After a moment's thought, Kai tells Lambert, "Actually, I think we don't have a gift shop."
"Uh, it's a long story," Buck says, as he puts away groceries. "Basically, when the Russians had me, they …..well, they aren't clones, but that's kind of the closest analogue. I…." It's clearly a bizarrely awkward subject, but Buck's trying. "Basically, they're kind of my brothers and kind of my kids. Most of them don't have much English, and they've been through a lot. Please, leave them alone as much as you can, for your sake as well as theirs. They are trained to kill and do damage."
Lambert looks up, and he tilts his head as Spider Man arrives. His ears flick back, and then forward, but there is no real recognition - or understanding there. Evidently Lambert is pretty out of the loop - which might be protection in and of itself. He waves, with a bright smile that shows a row of fanged teeth in his mouth, and then he says to Kai "What is awkward? What? What!" Sputter. Lambert shakes a knife at Kai, then grumbles as he shoves the potatoes into the oven, though he does look at Hope "…how. Do you know that?" he wonders "Are you a Sibyl?" And theeeeen Bucky says that. Lambert pauses, and he wrinkles his nose, and then he says "The fuck?" Given that he rarely swears…
"This place is weirder every time I stop by." notes Spider-Man, "I swear." He can't help but sigh in exasperation, but it breaks into a laugh a moment later, "Hey, are we cooking?" He waves around at the new people, but he blinks at Lambert. "Secret identities when you take off your mask expecting only to find teamies, but finding strangers, too. Awkward." He looks over at Bucky, and blinks, "Well, just so they don't get punchy at me. I'll leave them alone but I come in from the roof. That said." He shrugs, and grins, "I'll stick any to a wall who get punchy. They'll be safe and unhurt."
"I'm Peter." he adds after a moment.
"To be fair, so have most of the people in this house," Hope points out in regards to the Bucklings and their proclivities. She hops up onto the counter, poking at her ice cream with her spoon. "I mean, I haven't shot anyone in…" She tilts her head, looking upward. "Uh. A while." Hope is not a convincing liar. "I'm from the future," she explains to Lambert. "Whether it's this future or the future of another timeline is still…" Trailing off, she wiggles her hand from side to side. "To be honest, I'm more familiar with future futures than pasts. Hope," she raises a spoon to Peter.
Kai goes unfazed by the knife being shaken at him. He knows Lambert won't mess up his good knives. "You're in the manor now, pal," he tells the satyrkin. Of the Buckies, he says, "I want to meet them! I'll feed them steaks and teach them how to love. Not like that, get your minds out of the gutter." He continues slicing apples thin with no idea why he's doing it. "Lambert is a world class chef, and he's making us dinner. I bought meat." Lots of meat, from the look of it.
"You may want to considering coming in by a side window for a while, Peter," Buck admonishes, calmly. "And that's true, Hope. They haven't killed anyone recently, I'm trying to keep that winning streak going." A beat and he notes, "Hell, I haven't killed anyone recently." LAmb gets a shrug, spread hands, complete with the glimmer of light on the metal arm. "And soon, Kai. They're like….picture abused animals. Some worse than others. It's taking a while."
Lambert says mildly to the man in the costume "How do you change your scent, though?" He continues cooking, and he glances back at Peter, head-tilted "I mean, I know most humans are nose-blind, but most monsters aren't, heh. Though I admit I prefer the smell of wine to a lot of other things. Oh, and cheese!" He looks up at the ceiling, a little wistfully. Cheese. Ah, cheese. And then he says "Yes! Would you like to sit and eat? You tell me if there is anything you cannot have. Some poor, poor souls cannot eat garlic." A little sniff at that. So sad. And he is then stirring a bowl "Oh, if people get punchy, I will back off. I do not mind. Or I can trick them into punching me in the head, heh…future?" His eyes widen "…Don't tell me anything. I want to find it all out myself."
Soon those apples are going into a series of thin pans, with brown sugar, spices, and tiny pieces of candied lemon. And poor Kai, slave though he is, is handed steaks and a mincing machine with a crank "I want three minced, we'll serve the others rare…look at all those eggs! We could make icecream. Maybe they would like icecream, these poor children." He adds to Hope, randomly "I like your clothes."
Peter immediately brightens up at Kai's words. World class chef? He's got a teenager's appetite, times three considering he's half-spider. "Scent?" he asks of Lambert, blinking, "Wait, that's an idea. I will incorporate scent dampeners into the Mark 3 suit. I've got an internship with Mr. Stark, between classes at Columbia. I'm an inventor." He looks over to Bucky, "I can do that, but are you sure its needed? They can't hurt me." Overconfident or exactly confident enough? "I mean I _could_ use the front door. Its not a secret that Spider-Man is an Avenger." He grins back to Lambert, "Garlic is the best thing in the world."
"Thanks," Hope grins at Lambert, apparently finding the compliment not odd at all. Or maybe she's thanking him for not asking about the future. "Smart," she nods with a wave of her spoon, stirring the ice cream around the pint tub. Peter's mention of Tony gets a brief, curious look from her.
"Where is Stark keeping his booze, again?" Kai asks. He takes the crank, sets it up, and starts mincing. The steak. He looks like he would have to strongarm the crank, but he turns it without trouble. To Bucky, he says, "I'll be careful, when they're ready." He's a bit hangdog at this. He wants them to be ready now! He wants pick of the litter! "Lambert, why are we mincing this? I could've bought minced at the butcher." Isn't that how food comes? Pre-done by someone else?
"YOu know Tony Stark, eh?" Buck says, giving Peter a long look. "Well, you must be smart, if you've got him for a teacher." He asides to Lamb, "They love it. Some of them love sweets. I say kids, but they look as old as me. I'm not sure how old they actually are. I don't think they know."
Lambert says brightly to Peter "Yes, scent! But that is a good idea - or you can change it around, so that people get all kinds of wrong scents. Possibly nothing is best, it would make you harder to track. You are an inventor? Gosh!" He seems a great deal more impressed by 'inventor' than 'Spider Man', though it is distinctly possible that Lambert is not entirely sure who Spider Man actually _is_. Nevertheless, Peter's youth spares him the kind of lazy glances that the satyrling is giving Hope. He beams at her, and then he laughs as Kai objects "Because the taste is incomparable, and because I will add pork fat. You want this to be the best it can be." He…moves. Too fast in the kitchen, Lambert does. His hands are accurate, his movements swift, and he already has everything set up in lines, instinctively "Who is Tony Stark? Is he a drunkard?" Though as Buck speaks, his mobile face turns concerned "Oh dear. Well, I will make them some icecream. They should go for long walks in the sunshine and drink tea." Someone had a Greek grandmother.
"Mister Stark gets me some…" Peter names a long, scientific chemical name, "…in return for me working as an intern. Its used in my latest webbing formula, doubled tensile strength when the carbon bonds align when the webbing comes into contact with something." He considers a moment, goes and gets a spoon. He tosses it in the air and swiftly moves his hand, flicking his wrist with his middle finger touching the hidden button in his palm, and the grey webbing shoots out and sticks the spoon to a wall. "Each strand will hold two tons of weight before breaking now, and multiple strands will multiply the effect with my latest formula, as the bonds cross-connect." He glances at Kai and laughs, "Sorry, booze is not a secret the internship tells." But he _stares_ at Lambert at last, "Mister Stark? Owner of Stark Industries, one of maybe the top handful of intelligent people in the world? Inventer extraordinary? _Iron_Man_?!"
"He's a lot of things," Hope answers Lambert. "But yeah, he drinks too much. Which is why there's booze just about everywhere. Workshop is always a good place to check if you need it though." She hops off the counter at Peter's demonstration, walking over to the wall and leaving the spoon in her mouth as she plucks at the webbing material with one finger. "Huh. Cool."
Kai shakes his head and tells Peter, "He's hopeless." With a nod toward Lambert. "Lives in his own little world. I've never seen him pick up a newspaper or watch TV. It's just cooking all the time. Cooking, carousing, skirt-chasing. He's just not informed." He pats Lambert on the shoulder. "Your steak is minced," he tells him. Then he claps his hands with delight as the spoon is stuck. "Yay! I've never seen it up close!" He then washes his hands to divest them of meat bits, then says, "I'm just going to go downstairs to check on something real quick."
"Mr. Stark isn't a drunkard," Buck says, quickly. Sticking up for Tony. The webbiing intrigues him, and he wanders over to tug on it, with the metal hand. By way if experiment.
Lambert says to Peter mildly "I was in a little farm in Texas for a long time before coming here, and running a restaurant doesn't really leave you time to look at news at all - when I stop, I go to bed above my place. It's just very busy. And, er, my relatives don't do well with technology, so we didn't have a radio. I just…don't know a lot of the things everyone else does. But I don't think it matters that much, does it? There are millions of people I have never met!" And then he adds, soberly "The value of iron in a diet is very high - I am pleased for him - oh!" The webbing is stared at oddly "Goodness! That would make putting up lines to dry your clothes very easy!" And then Kai speaks, and Lambert nods, copping to it "It is hard to find time for idle things like reading when there are college girls." Lambert nudges Kai "Do not blow anything up." He nods to Bucky, idle "I'm sorry I said it. I don't know the man. I wonder if the webbing would be useful in cooking somehow. Like. Holding things for a sous vide…"
The webbing is very, very strong. Though it gives a little bit, its stronger then steel. Peter blinks at Lambert, and laughs softly, he can't help it. "Clothes lines? I used it to trap bad guys, to travel— I shoot it, and jump and swing, then shoot another strand, then another. It dissolves into a safe byproduct within eight hours or so. Long enough for the cops to show up and pick up the criminals I catch. I invented the first version of the webbing three years ago." He then looks over at Hope and Bucky looking at the webbing, and can't help but grin, "Well, I can't argue against cooking or carousing, though at skirt-chasing I'll leave you to it." He looks to Hope, "Does he? Mr. Stark runs one of the most successful businesses in the world, invents amazing things, contributes to society, helps everyone… all while drinking too much? Maybe the amount he can drink is different then other people."
"Tony's human," Hope shrugs to Peter, going back to her ice cream one more time before turning to hunt down the lid again. "So the amount he can drink is pretty much within human norms. He drinks more than he should. But he's an adult, it's his choice." Once the lid is back on the pint, she sticks it back in the fridge. "Also, honestly, he doesn't do much of the day to day running of the company. Which is for the best, because companies need attention, so it'd get rough when he spends three days straight in the lab."
Kai calls back to Lambert, "I'll try not to,." Then he slinks downstairs, awfully quiet suddenly. Into the workshop he goes. Goodness knows what he's doing down there, but Stark has yet to invent a lock the elf can't pick. Luckily(?) the workshop appears unoccupied just now.
"He's like his dad. He gets caught up in whatever new ideas he's working on," Buck offers as he goes rummaging in the fridge to come up with bottles of root beer. HE offers them around. "And yeah. He gets lost in that, so the actual day to day business does need to be kinna self-sustaining."
"I would like to invent things, but I think you'd have to have more focus than I have," says Lambert, without rancour. He knows his limits. Complex thought is saved for cooking. Lambert is still eyeing the webbing, curiously, and after a moment he says "I am happy to do all the skirt chasing for everyone else!" Lambert has by this point got five or six different items in the oven. Thin french apple pastries. A Greek lasagna made with thin hollow pasta. Carrots cooked with a bourbon and honey sauce. A big salad. He is eating the apple peels as he goes, and a lot of his movements circle back to the half-human washing his hands neatly at the sink each time. Then he starts to pour out bottled cordials over ice for little sweet drinks, he puts herbs in big jugs and adds iced water. After a moment he says to Bucky, distracted "Please start getting out plates. Are there blue ones? Blue is good. I need to make some pour on salad dressing - I will make icecream too. Mayonaise." Lambert pauses and says quickly "Oh! That sounds nice. Father and son bonding!" Though his voice is a little strained "Gosh, I'm glad I'm not like my dad."
Peter can't decide if he should be offended or not. He looks like he wants to. But there's root beer, so he takes it and twists off the cap without a bottle opener, showing no difficulty at all in doing that. He takes a long swig of the rootbeer, then looks over to Hope, "I don't know what my limits are, but I've completely failed to get drunk everytime I try." He sounds wistful at this, "Its a cruel joke. Get awesome spider powers— indestructability, super strength, climbing walls. Yay! Can't get drunk. Boo. I even tried pot once. Did nothing." But then there's food! And dutifully, like any polite kid, he rushes over— faster then should be possible, but not speedster fast— to where plates are, and pulls them out to set them around the table.
"It's okay," Hope smirks over at Peter. "It's more common than you'd think in the super set. Besides, what's the up side of getting drunk? Just leaves you vulnerable." She's definitely interested in all the food going on, heading for the silverware when Peter gets the plates to help set the table. She's not putting off the getting the food part. It all smells so good.
Kai emerges from downstairs and trundles back into the kitchen. He waggles in his hand an unopened bottle of scotch. "Jackpot," he says. He sets the bottle on the table and moves around Peter deftly to pull down drinking glasses. "Ooh, it's starting to smell good in here. Do you smell that? Old Bertie's a genius."
"I can't get drunk," Buck says, mock-mournfully. "Not without way more liquor than that. No point in wasting it on me."
"I'm never vulnerable." Peter glances over to Hope and gives a shrug and a grin, "The Spidey-Sense tingles whenever something is *about* to threaten me, and I move. So I'm never there when the threat is." He shrugs then, "The upside of getting drunk? Is not being the only one person not having fun when your friends go out drinking." He covers his glass, and nods to Kai, "No thanks. There's just no point. Its a waste." A sympathetic look is shared with Bucky.
"_Old_?" says Lambert to Kai "I'm twenty two!" He wrinkles his nose, and then he says "…wait. You people have trouble getting drunk? Kai. Kai, they have trouble getting drunk." He grins. Slowly. And then Lambert busies himself ducking to open the oven "Heh heh heh."
"If you're not having fun with them unless you're drunk, are they really your friends?" Not that Hope knows all that much about friends, but it does give her a pretty straightforward view of things. She also turns down the liquor, though for different reasons than the others. "None for me, thanks. I want to pay attention to all this food!"
"Drinking is never wasted," Kai says. "This is the good stuff. You drink it for the aroma, the sweetness, the sting. Don't get me wrong, the alcohol you humans drink might as well be water for all the good it does me, but it's got nuance and personality." Then Lambert starts laughing, and Kai eyes him. "You want to get them wasted on satyr wine," he says. "That's brilliant."
That has Bucky looking at Lamb very warily indeed. But then, he can hardly explain that the last time he got drunk, it was literally the Devil's fault. "….satyr wine," he says, slowly.
"My physiology is no longer human, after the spider bit me. I am incredibly hard to hurt, and heal really fast when I do. My theory is an incredibly accellerated metabolism…" Where Bucky is wary over 'satyr wine', Peter looks curious and interested. But foood. Peter glances over at Hope, "Its a… levels thing. If I'm sober and they're drunk, we're not operating on the same level. Already that's usually an issue because I'm thinking eighteen steps ahead in any conversation we're having, but I can dial that back if I try. We have fun together sober, but when *they're* drunk, me being sober is a buzzkill, you know?" But, fooooood.
Lambert's tail - a goat tail that shows that his pale hair is pale fleece elsewhere - wags in amusement as he pulls out the food and starts setting the table. Kai's work has assisted - and there are several very rare steaks being produced as well. Lambert says "That's why I drink. The taste, the various complexities. My sense of smell is excellent, and I really enjoy all of those nuances. People are similar. I like how people smell. What they do. When they've been working with something - or farming, and the smell of tomato leaves is still on their hands." And then he says to Kai, innocently "I am very civic minded." He is now starting to serve. Great portions of hot food, with piles of vegetables, with side glasses of water with herbs and a little home made cordial in each "Satyr wine," says Lambert mildly "So, I don't think of it in this way, but if you want, you could use the word 'magic' to describe it. I do not have that sort of metabolism." He pets his belly "But I don't get drunk easy - satyrs have a lot of tolerance. Satyr wine is something _different_ though."
"Yeah…I don't really know." Hope doesn't seem bothered by it, shrugging with a wry smile that broadens as her plate fills up. "I don't really- I mean, I didn't really grow up with a lot of friends. And still didn't really have many before I got here. Aaaand we weren't really going out and partying much." But after that, she falls silent in favor of digging into her food. Food!
Kai clucks his tongue and opens his perloined scotch. He pours two generous servings, one for himself and one for Lambert. He steals only the best. The flavor has a sweetness do it cut by a smooth burn and a hint of smokiness. "Yeah, but don't you make that super alcoholic stuff that I get wasted on? What's that?" He beams as he watches the food get laid out. "This is great! This is exactly what I wanted."
Peter takes some of this satyr wine, completely unconvinced its going to do anything, and takes a long swig. But food, Peter dives into eating food with enthusiasm. The 'magic' talk gets a look of skepticism from Spider-Man, but he half-shrugs: how can he really explain his condition? "So… Kai, you're an Avenger. What can you do? If I can ask. I'm strong-fast-durable-have-my-webs-and-spidey-sense. Oh and I can crawl up walls. Gravity, shmavity."
"Yes, I do. That is based on grain alcohol, I refine it and filter it. It's sweet, but it kicks. I also add a few other extracts." Fortunately for Peter, Lambert did not bring any of his satyr wine to the Avengers Mansion. GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT TONY STARK MIGHT DO. And yet, he leans in, and he says "Can you really do all of those things! That is very impressive. Is that from being, er, a mutant? I am never really sure how to tell…" Lambert settles down for a meal of his own "I'm pretty sure Kai exists to make everyone else look innocent by comparison," he grins at Peter.
Kai eyes Lambert. "Hey!" He doesn't protest more than that, though, because he is drinking expensive scotch stolen from a team member who has very clearly taken pains to hide it from him. He gathers up his tattered dignity and looks to Peter. "I'm strong and durable. I can talk to anyone who has a language to speak, and I can understand the same. I make illusions. Usually to look more human." He takes a sip of scotch, his eyes lidding. It really is good. "And I can play around with light and darkness. I also know a few water tricks. And knives. I have knives."
"I'm not a mutant. I was bit by a spider, an irradiated spider, and it… infected me, with what it was, and its venom spread its spiderness into me, transforming me. It happened when I was 14. I've been Spider-Man…" Man, ahem. "Ever since." Peter digs into the food, and when there's no obvious warming in the wine, he sets it down differently and goes for the root beer. Peter is alas no a connoisseur. He nods to Kai, "Sounds useful. I look forward to missions with you."
The food is excellent. As far as preternatural abilities go, most of Lambert's surround consumption of food and drink. He cooks like a five star chef, with little effort expended, supernaturally good when he wants to really try hard. Right now, the meal is homey, filling, and with a complex set of additional flavour profiles. Lambert says "Kai's brave too." He then says to Peter "That sounds. Odd. And painful. But you seem to be happy, yes? Happiness is good. Sometime, come by my place, Saganaki Restaurant. I'll make you half a dozen desserts. And I like to talk to people who have different experiences. I want to hear your stories." His tail twitches.
"He makes the best desserts," Kai tells Peter. He then beams. Lambert called him brave. "I look forward to going on missions with you, too. I love the web thing you do, and I hear the best stories about you. I keep most of my local stuff low-key." He laughs, for whatever reasons, and takes another drink of scotch. "But if I could do the web thing, I'd be all over."
"I like deserts." quips Peter, as any teenager ever would. "He, you want, I can take you flying, Kai. If you want to try out the web thing. I can take you swinging. Its… the most exihiliarating experience I can name. Its not really flying, but whoa, its so fun. The speed of the swing, the lift off, the fall, the reswing…" He looks to Lambert, and nods, "I'll come, but you have to keep it secret. That I'm Spider-Man. If people knew, my enemies— there's a lot of them— would come for my family."
"I do," says Lambert, pleased to be praised, and then he shoots Kai a dry look. Terrible pun. Lambert tilts his head, and he says "I would like to try that - but I think I'd be a bit too heavy for you. Kai is suprisingly heavy too. His flesh is very dense." And then he says to Peter mildly "I keep a _lot_ of secrets, it's absolutely fine. To be honest, I'm quite serious about such things. I don't really _enjoy_ being beaten up because I look like a mutant myself, you know?" He half-stands "I am going to go and take some food up for Bucky and those. Odd brothers. It sounds like he needs help." And he beams and then up he heads "Have a nice night!"
Kai's eyes widen. "Oh yes!" he says. "Yes, yes, yes, I want that!" He looks like a kid on Christmas morning who got both a new bike and a pony. "We can go flying whenever you want! Maybe you can give me a ride back to my place after you go to Saganaki. I work there, so you might see me there." Lamber gets side-eye when he calls Kai dense. "I'm durable," he says. "I'd like to see you stop a bullet." Then he gestures to one of the pans of apples and candied lemon. "Ooh, bring one of these to them."
Peter laughs softly, "I tracked my easy weight lifting at just over twenty tons, last I looked. I can swing and carry trucks. Its just a question of, like, not letting them hit anything. People are small and easy to keep from hitting things. Trucks, less so." He grins, but nods to Kai, "Sure, that sounds like fun. I'll come for dinner, — is there a private space where I can have my suit on since I don't swing without my suit? — then I'll take you home. It's a date." Pause, blush. "Err not like that." He shrugs slightly, "BUllets are a bit of a pain, they hurt. Not like dead hurt but hurt hurt." Then he looks to Lambert, but he's heading off, so Peter lifts a hand to wave.
Kai waves a hand and says, "Oh, I way a lot less than that. Bertie can lug me around if he has to." For some reason, they've tested this. "There's a courtyard made for strange people. Sometimes there's others there. Mutants, non-humans, homos, whoever doesn't fit in, you know? Sometimes it's empty. If it's too public, I bet Lambert would let you duck into his place. He lives upstairs." He grins broadly. Hee hee, it's a date. He glances to Lambert heading up with food. "He lives to feed people," he says with admiration. "If there's a party to be had, he's your man."
"Then we're all good. The only question is if I need to double-web the swing, if that whole desity thing is an issue. If you weigh more then a car? I just gotta take it into account. I'll come take you for a ride soon." Peter grins, and he has such an easy, infectuous grin. "I like the courtyard. I'm…its just. Its my Aunt. She's all the family I have, and I've been doing this for long enough I have a lot of enemies— I don't kill people— and they have friends. If 'Peter Parker is Spider-Man' got out, they'd go for my Aunt. She has no idea about this part of my life." He smiles then, "Hey, living to feed people is a good life as far as I'm concerned."
Kai shakes his head and says, "Nah, I don't weight that much. I weigh about twice what I look. Bert just doesn't have the muscle like you and me. He's pretty strong, though. Just, you know, not like us." He nods rather soberly when Peter mentions his aunt. "You gotta take care of your people," he says. "And the less they know, the better. I get it. I have mortal friends who are just better off thinking I'm some artist from London. I should be more careful, but it's easy to forget when your nearest and dearest can throw cars."
"For me, its… not quite the less she knows? I mean it is. If she knew she'd worry so much she'd nag me into not doing anything of this." Peter pauses, and then says gravely, "BUt my Uncle told me before he died 'with great power comes great responsibility'. I didn't save him, I failed to do that. I can never make up for it, so I save everyone else I can, and one day maybe I'll feel the scales are balanced." He then smiles slightly, "Hey, artist is fun. I'm not. I'm a science nerd. As for careful, its a question of context. I, uh, assumed the Avengers Mansion wouldn't have civilians."
"I didn't give any thought to Lambert being a civilian," Kai admits. "He's the chef. But don't worry about it, he won't tell. Not only is he discreet, it's not on his radar. The stuff he thinks about, you know what I mean, man?" The elf is a sensitive soul, though, and he gives Peter a soulful look as he says, "I'm sorry about your uncle, and I can imagine why your aunt would be so worried. You're so young." As if Kai looks any older. "The person I'm closest to knows about the Avenging, and his response is to summon the occasional dragon just to see if I can beat it." There was that dragon reported around the descending ball on New Years. It disappeared shortly after crashing to the ground, dead.
Young? Peter blinks over at Kai, "I'm 19. A sophomore, I go to Columbia, got a full scholarship." Getting a full scholarship to an ivy league school is a thing not lightly done. But, Peter says softly, "There was this thief. I didn't think it was my job to stop him, you know? Then he robbed my uncle, and killed him. Then I found him and it was *him*. I never wanted to kill anyone at all as much as I did then." There's a darkness that threatens to rise in what is largely a good, innocent guy saving the world, at that. But he beats it back… with a visible struggle. "Well does he want you to be ready to face dragons? I don't know that I could face a dragon, but maybe. If so I'd like to practice, and if I was close to someone who might one day face dragons, I'd want them to practice."
"Yeah, but she's your auntie," Kai says. "You could live three hundred years, you'll always be her baby." He shakes his head, drinks more scotch, and says, "Believe me, I know." He studies Peter, and there's a sharpness in his eyes that belies his frivolous nature. He knows pouring alcohol for Peter isn't the right gesture, so he slides more spiced and sweetened apples onto his plate. "He wants me to know how to fight dragons," Kai says. "Plus I think he thinks it's funny. He's a trickster god."
Peter goes all in for the spiced and sweetened apples, nodding his head, and he lets talk of his Uncle to fall away. He sighs a little, though. It has to come out that way. "The first I get, wanting you to know how to fight dragons. The latter? I don't at all." He is suddenly SO serious a kid, is Peter. "Thinking it funny. Why'd you ever do that? I mean, I don't question your friend, I'm just…" Peter shrugs, "I just want everyone to be safe."
"It's in his nature," Kai says. "He flourishes in chaos. It's like sunshine to a tree." Kai doesn't seem to mind at all. Rather, he has a rather fond smile playing upon his lips. "He's a lot more mellow than he used to be." He pours himself more of Tony's scotch. Stolen booze is the best booze. "I think, in his way, he wants to teach. I'm more worried about safety, myself."