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There are some places that one is drawn to, places that they grew up with that call to them whenever they come back home. The Candy Shoppe, weird as it is, has always been a place that Chris would find himself drifting through, particularly when he was feeling a little lost and wanted comfort in the form of brightly colored confections and chocolate. And so it was that he found himself wandering into the Candy Shoppe in search of something — not sure what, but something. It was strange being back, and a lot of things had changed — this, at least, was familiar.
Peter recently learned spells existed, there was a demon donkey and a Sorcerer Supreme involved, but he's still a Spider-Man of science. So to him, there's nothing weird about this place. Its got CANDY. He's out for a walk, taking a break from studying, but he carries his backpack with him. He's got a pair of dark jeans and a black t-shirt that is not quite fitted but…clings a bit. He's also rocking his hair since its not mussed from the Spidey Suit. But, anyways, Candy. He is drawn to the impending sugar high, and blinks when he sees Chris, "Oh, hey!" His tone is cheerful.
Aside from the strange amulet, Chris has very little experience with the arcane. The glassy-eyed counter-people give off a vaguely creepy vibe in that stepford customer service sort of way. He's got on a pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt along with a black leather jacket that he currently has his hands in the pockets of as he eyes the display. At first he doesn't notice Peter, but as soon as he hears his voice, he truns, and then shoots a grin in his direction, "Hey!" He lifts a hand and gives him a wave in greeting. "Oh right.. friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I forgot this was your neighborhood, too."
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"Ixnay onyay ecretsay identityyay." Peter grins and makes a hushing gesture, though he does come over and stand by Chris. "But yeah, I grew up a few blocks over… How you? Going for a sugar fix?" He smiles, then heads over to check out the contents. He doesn't even hesitate to get a box of fudge, though that doesn't appear to be all he's going to go for. "I'm starving, and figure…candy for lunch?"
Color suddenly flushes Chris' cheeks straight to his ears as he realizes what he just said and looks around furtively. The counter people seem to be blissfully unaware of anything other than their registers. Creepy. There aren't any other patrons at the moment. Still, he looks deeply embarassed. "Sorry," he says, ducking his head a bit. "So uh yeah.. I live here, too.. with my mom and brothers." He tries to brush past his faux pas, but that blush lingers even as he says, "Yeah.. used to come here a lot, seeing if some of the old favorites are still here."
Besides the fudge, Peter gets a bag and scoops out some candy corn and hot cinnamon little red candies. He then heads to the counter, "Its just me and my aunt." Peter is happy to let the mistake pass, with just a little bit of a firm look, but then an easy smile. "I have a weakness for fudge. And spice. And candy corn. I don't know what's up with the candy corn." He half-shrugs and smiles again.
"Candy corn is kind of terrible," Chris says with a bit of a laugh, though he does look sheepish at the firm look, shoulders hunching up just a little bit. He relaxes again though, and picks out some of the little red candies for himself, as well, and a bag full of mixed jelly beans, and a couple of those candy necklaces with pure discs of vaglue fruit-flavored sugar on a string. He takes them over to the counter and then glances at the fudge, and adds a small box of that, too, peanut-butter. "Man, I thought I could resist the fudge but I can't." He grins then and offers over his money to the cashier.
"Terrible in a way I love." counters Peter with a grin, "But those…" He nods to the jelly beans, "Those are horrible. Jelly beans were invented by Satan." After he hands over his money, he leads the way outside to settle on a bench out there. Then he pulls open his bag and gets the box of fudge— he didn't get the small one, either. "See, there is no resisting fudge. How is your mom and brothers?" he asks curiously.
Chris grins and says "Those are for my brothers." He follows Peter out and plops down on the bench before stringing one of the candy necklaces around his neck and pops a couple of the loops into his mouth. Around it, he says, "They're alright. They uh.. we're seeing how things go. Trying to make things better than they were before I left." He then grins a bit and says, "There is no resisting fudge. This is true."
"Better than they were before you left?" Peter tilts his head to the side to regard Chris, "Sounds like there's a story there." He pulls out a chunk of the fudge and pops it into his mouth. He purses his lips a moment, "For me, my aunt is all I have left from family. My parents died when I was little, car accident. My uncle…" His expression darkens, looking pained, and he shrugs.
"I uh.. got involved in a lot of stuff, and it kinda put them in danger, and got them hurt. I was angry a lot, and didn't know why.. and it was really hard on my mom, being without my dad, even if he wasn't the guy she thought he was," Chris says as he toys with the string a bit with one finger, twisting it around a bit. "I went out to the west coast for a while, to try and get better, and so they'd be safer." He looks over at Peter then, and leans over to bump shoulders, just lightly before straightening up at that dark and pained look, in a wordless expression of support, even if he's at a loss for the right words to say.
Peter nods his head slowly, "Was this anger about your amulet?" He nods to it, remembering how close Chris came to snapping the day before. "And did you get better? You're back, so I assume.." He gets another chunk of fudge, pursing his lips thoughtfully, "For me, when I got my powers, I didn't think it was my responsibility to use them. There was this thief, I could have chased, caught. I didn't. Well, that same thief I let go, he's the one who killed my uncle when he burglarized our apartment."
Chris glances down to where the amulet resides beneath his shirt, the chain visible around his neck beneath his newly found necklace of much tastier baubles. He nods his head at the question. "I'm.. more aware of what's going on now." He's a little circumspect about talking too much in public, but he does talk about it a little bit round-about way. "I wasn't real good at hiding, and people found out who they were, and they burned our house down.. with them in it." His brow furrows as Peter recounts the story about what happened with his uncle. "Oh, man," he says, feeling the gravity of that situation, and then lets out his breath in a whoosh. "That is .. yeah. I got lucky that I managed to help them get out.. but if I hadn't been reckless, and stupid.. it wouldn't have happened in the first place."
"I feel you. That's what the secret identities are for. I've made a ton of enemies in these last ten years, foiled lots of very bad people's very bad plans… if they knew where my Aunt was?" Peter shivers slightly, closing his box, and pulling open the bag and fetching a handful of the little hot cinnamon red's, popping one into his mouth. "You've come back so you have to have gotten better at control, and… your family has forgiven you?"
Chris nods his head and says, "That's why I don't talk about.. you know.. much, and only with certain people. There's a lot of risk involved." He then blushes and nods toward the shop "Sorry about that, in there." Then he says, "Yeah, I'm.. it still happens, but I'm better at biting it back, or at least, realizing when I've snapped and apologizing. I'm still working on how to dial it back. But before I left I was just.. mean.. and I'm not proud of that. I didn't even realize why. When I figured it out.. it started to make it easier to control." He says, "Yeah. Mom's got a rule. No more secrets. She was more pissed that she was completely in teh dark than anything else."
\"Don't worry about it, just like… you know." Don't do it again is implied but not said. Peter cringes slightly at mention of the rule, "I don't even know what Aunt May would think if she learned, if she'd be mad about the secret or that I was doing it. But keeping her in he the dark is still what I'm going to do, if only… it keeps her from worrying every night."
"Yeah," Chris says, "I know." He lets the necklace fall around his neck, a noticable gap from the several inches of candy he's consumed already. He says, "Yeah, I know what you mean. Believe me. That's how I wanted to keep it. Stuff just happened. It wasn't so much a choice."
Tossing back another of the little red candies, "Yeah, I get that. Plans go awry." He rises, and begins going for a walk down the street, "Let's walk. I live only a few blocks away if you wanna come in. While in college and not having much of a reliable job, living with my Aunt is keeping me sane."
When Peter gets up and begins to move, for a moment he seems uncertain whether he's just heading out or not, but when he is invited, he pulls himself up from the bench and follows along, catching up and falling in next to him. "Sure," he says. He's quiet for a moment or two and then says "Yeah, I need to find a job so I can help mom out. But I will."
Peter wanders along, offering one of the spicy little candies to Chris to see if he wants one, "Yeah, jobs are tough. I freelance at the Bugle, … mostly taking photos of myself for JJ to turn into me being a villain…" He sighs, long-sufferingly, "… but like, yeah. What do you do for fun when not Avenging?"
Chris accepts the spicy candy, popping it in his mouth and sucking on it a little. He tucks it in the side of his cheek and then says, "I like to run, swim. I like movies. I like to go to the library and just read and learn stuff, just because." He grins, "I like museums and just exploring places." Then he asks "What about you? When you're not sciencing or you know.."
"Hey, who doesn't like movies? And books." Peter grins and nods, "Swimming is good, too, and well… running not so much. Mostly because I can run really fast so if I'm running with someone it feels soooo slow." He shrugs helplessly, "I like museums, exploring… learning. Photography, inventing things. Acrobatics."
"I don't know," Chris says. "I'm sure that there's someone somewhere who doesn't, but I wouldn't want to be friends with them." He smiles a little sidelong and then chuckles about the running. "Well, I'm not.. " he gestures to himself, his body, "I'm just me, so I need to actually exercise to stay in shape, and running is one of those things I do." He glances over and says, "Yeah? I can do some, too.. but I mean.. nothing like I'd assume you can."
"Yeah the…" Peter glances around, "…spider physiology keeps my body at its peak state at all times, just naturally. Its totally cheating." He laughs softly, but then tilts his head curiously at the last, "Do some which? It wasn't clear which we're sharing."
"Oh, acrobatics.. a little.. like.. flips and tumbling and balance and stuff.." Chris laughs a little bit. "Sorry, that probably wasn't clear." He then says, "Yeah, that's totally cheating, but if it were an option — I'd tak it."
"Hey, you ever want to work on that… I actually do have to train that. There's a natural boost to stamina, strength and dexterity, but that doesn't automatically translate to acrobatic skill. Yeah, though, I'm pretty good at it." Peter grins a little shyly, shrugging, "I'd offer to bite you but in my experience the power isn't transitive, alas." He teases lightly with a flush.
"Yeah?" Chris asks, looking over at Peter and raising both brows. "I'd like that. Sure. I started learning out west, and I don't really have anyone back here to practice with so.. yeah." He smiles, and then for a moment he blinks at the offer to bite him, and his ears turn a little pink, and he stammers just a bit. "Oh, that's too bad…"
"Yeah, let's make a thing out of it." Peter nods his head quickly, grinning over at Chris, "Acrobatics practice and training. I have a regimen I've developed, though we may need to tweak it slightly since you can't jump as high as I can." He then nods, "Oh believe me, if I could pass this on… having a Spider Army would be great. But alas, we're out of irradiated spiders."
"Yeah, probably can't do a number of things quite as well as you can," Chris laughs, though it's good-natured and he doesn't seem to have any less confidence because of it. "Just due to strength and all of that alone. But hey, that just makes it more of a challenge." Then he laughs a bit and says, "Right.. irradiated spiders. It's alright. I've got a suit that can fly. It's not so bad as all that." His voice drops low when he mentions it.
"I would like to fly." Peter muses, amused for a moment, "I fall creatively and dramatically, which is almost like flying, but… not." Its generally hard for Peper to make people feel less confident, just because there's nothing really braggy or smug about him or the way he carries himself. "Plus blasters. I'd love to figure out how any part of that thing works."
"Sorry about snapping at you about it.. you can look at it. I'm not like that other guy. I'm not.. keeping it secret because I don't want you to know how it works. I just.. it's really easy for me to lose it, for it to be taken away.. and it is alive. You can't just.. take apart something that's alive. That's not right. So I'm.. careful about it, you know?" Chris says as they walk along. Peter seems to put him at ease. Makes him feel comfortable enough to talk about things.
"I'd never _hurt_ it, but I might be able to figure some stuff out by studying it… but the blaster, was that alive too? Could that be taken apart without hurting the suit?" Peter sounds a little worried at the prospect of hurting the suit; Peter doesn't actually _hurt_ people if he can at all avoid it. "If I'm not careful,…" he explains, "…everytime I fight someone, chances are, someone dies. I'm strong enough to stop a buss with my bare hands without breaking a sweat. Do you know how much force that makes? If I hit someone with it? So I always have to be very, very careful, because I don't want a trail of bodies left in my wake. I don't like to hurt people."
Chris nods his head and says, "You can study it." Then he says, "No, the blaster's a weapon. So, when I'm in there, but not really in there.. I just sort of know what sort of equipment that it has available, and I just.. kind of pull it out of wherever it's being stored and it's there. So the blaster, yeah, you could totally take it apart and it would be fine. It's not part of the suit." He then glances over and his eyes widen a little bit at the thought of that. "Wow. You could like.. bust someone's wrist with a poorly placed high-five. That's rough."
"Do you have extra blasters in that… otherspace?" Peter asks with a questioning look over to Chris, tossing back a couple little red candies again, "I couldn't _promise_ not to break one I took apart, though I'd try very, very hard, and I'm… smart." He flushes slightly. That was almost a brag. But he nods soberly then, "Easily, yeah. I have to always be aware. There's never any Peter's not in control situations, I can't get mad or whole buildings can come down around me." He pauses, "I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm good with the powers. I'm gifted— lucky, even. Its just, 'with great power comes great responsibility', my uncle told me as he was dying."
"Yeah, pretty sure that there's a bunch of weapons there. But I mean, I can check and see what I can sense next time I'm there, and let you know. And uh, I apologize in advance for any weirdness when I'm in there and come out. I swear, it's not directed at you. I really like you. You're.. really nice," Chris says with a lopsided grin, and then nods a little more soberly. "Yeah, that is a lot of responsibility. I mean, I found out I can do a lot of damage and.. that's part of why i wanted to learn more, to be able to be sure I'm in control. That's.. also part of why I'm with .. those guys," the Avengers, "So they can kind of keep an eye on me, make sure I don't lose my marbles."
"Okay, just as long as I'm not taking away something you might need later… I'd like to start the process of figuring out your suit by looking at one of the weapons. I mean, its different, but fundamentally, similar minds made both technologies. I think a certain understanding of the universe causes similar technology to emerge from its insight. As I learn what Mr. Stark knows, I'm starting to figure out how I'd make a suit like his if I wanted to — I don't, I rely on the Spidey Sense and reaction too much — but I'm starting to understand." Peter shrugs and smiles, though at being liked? He blushes slightly, "I'm not sure _nice_ is something actually positive to be called." He laughs and runs a hand over his face, "Stick with us, we'll have your back. Maybe… you say it messes with your aggression. Maybe we can help with that. That's biochemistry— my specialty.'
Chris walks along as they cross the few blocks toward where Peter lives, hands in his pockets and eyes mostly on the sidewalk as he listens, occasionally stepping between cracks just because. He nods his head and says, "That makes sense.. I mean, about similar technologies and all." Then he glances over toward Peter and asks, "What's wrong with being nice?" He says, "If you guys can help with that.. I'd really appreciate it. I really don't want to be an asshole.. or hurt anybody unintentionally."
Peter gestures briefly, to the cramped little apartment building, and leads inside. Up the stairs to the third floor, to a cramped little apartment, "Aunt May?" No answer.
"She's at work."
Peter then looks back to Chris, "WAnt a drink? And there's nothing _wrong_ with being nice, if its just… the primary thing someone thinks of me, I don't know." He shrugs, flushing slightly, "Makes me sound boring." He waves a hand, "I'll think about it. We can mix a mild fast-acting sedative with an acid, so it can be applied directly to the skin— don't let 'acid' scare you here, there'd be no damage, it wouldn't hurt, but the acid would penetrate the skin and bring with it the sedative. Then we put this all into a bracelet, and just figure out when to apply the sedative-acid solution. Maybe heart rate: the doses would be quite small, it wouldn't knock you out. Just talking about calming out the peaks."
"It's not the primary thing that I think of you.. it's just.. something that you are, as well as other things," Chris says once they make their way inside. He sort of strolls his way into the little apartment, shrugging off his jacket, and after a moment finding a place to tuck it out of the way. "Orange juice is acidic," Chris says with a grin. "I'm not afraid of the word alone. Now if you hand me something bubbling that drips onto the table and eats through it to the floor.. I might have a few questions." Then he nods as he listens and says, "That.. actually.. could help."
Peter considers that: can he be… nice? But other things? He decides to tentatively accept the proposal as possible. At mention of orange juice, he grins, "Okay, point. Some people just don't think of it. The acid is a carrier for medicine, its how topical medicine works to get through the skin." He gets two cokes from the fridge, twists off the caps without bothering with bottle openers— really, he's careful enough to not vaporize the sodas in his group, that extra care is easy— then heads over to the couch to offer one to Chris, "I don't know if it'd do anything for you in the suit— I don't quite get your … state of being … there, but it should be able to at least in theory help after you come out. I wanna help you."
Chris wanders over to the couch, accepting the bottle of coke and taking a swig from it before he collapses onto it, stretching his legs out and saying, "So .. I'm not really in the suit. My body isn't. My body is somewhere else.. it's like we swap places. I go wherever the suit is, and the suit comes to wherever I am.. and then the weapons come from the same place my body is.. but my consciousness is in the suit controlling it.. like I possess it, if that makes sense." He then smiles a little lopsidedly and says, "Thanks. I appreciate it. I'll take all the help I can get."
Peter eyes Chris a moment, then shrugs, sips his coke, then setting it down and folding his hands between him. "Huh. That's… I have no way of knowing if such a suppression bracelet would still work. Do you get… hungry when you're in this otherspace, if you're possessing the suit for too long." Peter's eyes are a bit distant, as he works through theories and predictions in his mind. The theories get ever more elaborate as he works through what little he knows and…extrapolates. Peter really is a genius. "I'm assuming there's some sort of telepathic link that is initiated as the position swap happens; at least, that's the ideal circumstances. You are still you, in your body, its just your mind is overlaid the control circuits of the suit. Thus you still haev… an active metabolism. You are affected by adrenaline— or sedatives— even though your body is not accessible. Its still a living body. The breathing thing raises a question, admittedly, with this theory."
"It's kind of like a stasis? The suit is kind of in stasis when it's there, and then I am when I'm there," Chris says and then he takes a deep breath and says, "I uh.. I could let you try it.. with the amulet. I mean, it's not .. bound to me. Anyone can take it and use it." Which is why he is pretty protective about even mentioning the amulet at all, let alone letting someone else touch it. But he seems to want Peter to be able to understand it.
"No." Peter's response is immediate, reaching over to grab Chris' arm and squeeze it— slightly too tight. Not too, too tight, nothings going to break, nothing exactly hurts, but its only barely not. "There's no way to know how it would react with my unique physiology; what if the instability was higher? I might tear through half the city. For me, control is too important, Chris." He ducks his head, looking slightly… bothered. "If your body is in a kind of stasis, then the bracelet may only help in aftermath, but even that would lead to a quality-of-life improvement, as you wouldn't be as relucant to swap with the suit. Does the aggression you feel in the suit, verses after you put it away, _feel_ similar?"
Chris's arm is grabbed and his eyes widen, not in pain, there's no hurt, just in surprise, and then he realizes why and he says, "Right.. no.. wow, yeah, you're right. That's a bad idea. A really bad idea. I was just.. thinking of understanding not.." He flushes slightly. "Sorry." Then he says, "So.. there's a lot of.. /noise/ in my head when I'm in the suit. There's all this communication going on and sometimes I get flashes of visions and things, and there's this.. almost music to it. It's hard to explain. But I feel more.. in tune with it, when I'm in the suit. Then, when I shift back to my own body, what's afterward is kind of like.. when something scares you real bad and adrenaline shoots through you and you can like, do anything, and then afterward you feel all weak and wobbly? It's.. like that except my brain feels wobbly and I still feel.. like I need to punch something."
Peter pulls his hand away suddenly as if Chris' skin burned, and he flushes at his momentary almost-lapse, "Sorry." he says suddenly, urgently. "You're not hurt?" he asks quickly, folding his hands together in his lap again, clasping them so tightly there's a bit of strain in his arms. Which means it would likely easily crush a car. "Right so the sensations are different; I'm going to operate under the theory that while quote-unquote in the suit your biology is not what drives the thought process modifications, but it is after. So, I think I can help with the adrenaline and aggression after. I don't think control while you're in is biochemical, then. What you're describing sounds like interface noise, …" Pause, "A bad connection, or a connection that doesn't exactly fit. Helping that would take more understanding. But one thing at a time." Yes, Spidey is a total nerd.
Then it's Peter's surprise that seems to surprise him, and he reaches over to lightly touch Peter's forearm, giving it a little squeeze, feeling how tense he is and knowing what sort of incredible strength is there, "You didn't hurt me. I'm okay." He tries to be reassuring. Then he listens as Peter considers what he's told him about the suit and the experience and shares some of his theory. "That makes sense. It's definitely trying to communicate but it's like I almost don't speak its language which I guess makes sense since it's alien technology."
The truth of the matter is, Peter goes on quasi-violent escapades every night practically, yet he abhors actual violence. He's a gentle guy. He relaxes a little at the squeeze, forcing his muscles into calmness. "Okay." he says softly, nodding his head. He's then thoughtful for a couple moments, "I'd like you to show it to that guy, Noh-Varr. He knows more about aliens then any of us. He might at least identify species— and he has half a ship, maybe in that ship is a language database, if he does recognize species. That can be how we start working on control while in the suit issues." He nods slightly, his mind racing as he formulates a Plan, "A two pronged approach, the biochemical reaction, and building an interface bridge between what is a human mind and what was the expected alien mind. I'm not promising anything soon, this will take some experimentation, but its a path forward for you I might work on."
Chris gives Peter's arm another small squeeze, and then a pat, and withdraws his hand when he seems to relax a little. Then he says, "I'm not sure how I feel about that guy. He's super weird, and not an Avenger, and seems to be out largely for profit. But.. maybe he can identify the suit and.. I guess maybe that might be okay." He's still very skeptical about the strange alien. "But, if you think it's okay.. then maybe."
"He's weird and weird and then weird on top of it." Peter nods his head in agreement, "And I don't trust his motivations at all, I don't know how I'd feel having him have my back. But … he's an alien, aware of the local galactic cluster if he's not lying. I'm not saying let him anywhere near your amulet, and if he tries to take it from you, I'll personally bend him just to the point of breaking." Pause, "In fact, for sure, none of this should happen without me being there to protect you if he tries to take it. But if he can identify it… your suit can't be the result of a one off thing. Even Mr. Stark is working on new iterations constantly. You don't make just _one_ of a thing. If he can recognize it, if he can — this is an ideal and I don't know at all if it is — teach us to speak the language it understands. It might change your whole world. I'm not saying trust him. I'll have your back if he tries something."
Chris listens to Peter, nodding here and there at various points. He says, "Okay, well, then we'll figure out a time, and I'll get in the suit and then he can take a look at it and maybe identify it. And if he could possibly teach us the language to talk to it then.. yeah, the possibilities there are definitely worth checking out. It could make a huge difference in what it does to my head if I could understand it." He plucks at the candy necklace around his neck and pops one of the rings into his mouth, chewing on it thoughtfully. "I mean, I'm sure there's more out there," he says sort of around it. "I don't figure it's the only one that exists. It's just the only one that I have seen."
"Oh, I know its the only one you've seen, that's not what I mean." Peter smiles and shakes his head, "I mean that since there's for sure more, its more likely he's ran into one before, is all. Unique things are very _un_likely for any one particular person to run into over time. That's all I mean." He purses his lips, looking intense as he thinks, "If its talking to you in your head, there's a possibility its expecting a verbal response, and perhaps part of why the aggression gets amped is because its not getting the response it expects."
"Maybe," Chris agrees easily enough. He has no way of knowing, and any of Peter's theories are possible. No reason to discount it out of hand. "My thought was it's just a suit meant for combat and so it gets in that mode and it's hard to just get back out of it again once it's over, or if there's nothing to fight to direct that energy toward. But, I could also see it as possibly the frustration of not getting the right kind of response, too. That's not something I'd have thought of."
"It's just an alternate hypothesis; one I hope turns out right only because if its right, you might be able to solve the problem." With that, Peter heads for the kitchen, "Want some milk? Milk with fudge just makes heaven more heavenly." He grins then, "But hey, thinking up hypotheses is what scientists do."
"Yeah, I mean.. I'd like it to be right because then maybe if I can talk to it, it won't keep messing me up, and that would be better than what it is now," Chris says, watching as Peter goes into the kitchen. He lets his head fall back and stares up at the ceiling, studying it while he thinks. "Milk sounds good," he agrees, not having yet touched his fudge, but the combination appeals. "Yeah." He looks over toward Peter. "Listening to you and Mr. Stark was pretty impressive."
Peter soon comes out with two tall narrow glasses, and he sets them both down on the table, then settles into the chair. "Uh, sorry if we left you out of it." He flushes slightly, "There's not a lot of people who I can talk to and they just always and immediately know exactly what I mean." Pause, "…which is not meant to imply I'm smarter then you or that you're dumb or anything but quite likely meant I'm kinda an egotistical jerk."
Chris finds the box of fudge in his bag and he sets it on the table, taking out a piece and popping it into his mouth before reaching for the glass of milk. He then raises both brows a little bit at Peter, and smiles a little curiously. He washes the fudge down with the milk with a little sigh of contentment and then says, "Well, I mean. I'm smart, don't get me wrong. But you and Stark are, in fact, way smarter than I am. So, I mean, that's just a fact, nothing to worry about." He grins good-naturedly, then. "It was cool listening to."
Peter laughs softly, then gets more serious, "I had another thought, too. A variation on the skin formula that could be used for a different purpose. A spray that when you spray on the wound, it gets sticky and then solidifies— like my webbing as it goes between state two and three. The hardened skin— and by the way I don't mean hard-hard, just solid— would be naturally antiseptic. More importantly, it would then seal any wounds, like glued closed. Then we provide a solvent for a surgeon to later dissolve a little of the skin at a time and repair any damage permanently. I have to talk to Mr. Stark about that."
Chris pulls of his shoes so that he can sit cross-legged on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and idly fiddling with the necklace around his neck as he listens, looking thoughtful. As Peter goes on, he grins and says, "Now that's.. really cool, and that could totally save people from infection and from bleeding out in the field, like cauterizing a wound but not permanently and still allowing it to be fixed later."
"Exactly." Peter nods his head slowly, "It could revolutionize what the medics are capable of doing on the battlefield. I figure if we had a little bottle in every soldier's kit, even before a medic gets to them, they can bind up their own wounds or a buddies. Save lives."
Chris grins a little lopsidedly and says, "Man, to just think that stuff up. That's pretty cool." He is definitely impressed as he considers the implications for that. "Could have it for EMTs too, so that when they get on the scene they can use it on the way to the hospital. I bet there's lots of uses for it."
"Yeah, EMT's, cops, firefighters… really, any of them could use to have some in their kits, even if its a 'just in case'. Now, I have to actually make it *work*." Peter says, though his tone sounds fairly confident, "And I have to get approval from Mr. Stark, too."
"Sure, but I mean.. You'll make it work. It might take some trial and error and stuff, but I don't doubt that if you want to, you'll get it there." Chris grins a little bit at that confidence. Then he picks up another small piece of fudge and nibbles at it, unable to resist the call of fudge.
"I appreciate the confidence." Peter snags another piece of fudge, tosses it back, then gulps down some milk, "So,…" He bites his lower lip, "When do you think we should do that fight-training-demo-thing for Mr. Stark?"
Chris grins a little bit, and then he fiddles a bit with his glass, turning it around in his hands, before saying, "Uhm, I dunno. I guess as soon as possible. Should probably show that guy Noh-Varr the suit too. Maybe we should invite him? Then they can both get a look at it at the same time and I don't have to put it on multiple times in a row? Or do you think that's a bad idea?" It's clear that he's not entirely sure how he feels about it, himself.
"That's an idea. Until we get you managed— or at least until I get you that bracelet I was talking about— we should probably minimize how many times you shift into the suit mode." Peter nods thoughtfully, folding his hands together in his lap after rubbing them on his knees, "Yeah, I think that's wisest."
Chris nods and says, "I mean, I use it when I need to, and where there's missions to be done. But just hopping in and out of it to show people.. should yeah, kind of be a once in a while thing for now." He smiles a bit and then takes a look around, and then says, "So, uh, thanks… for inviting me over, and for you know, wanting to help out with things. I really appreciate it."
Peter nods quickly, "Oh yeah, of course. Yeah I just mean unnessecary ones." He then shakes his head, waving Chris' thanks away, "We're teammates. The primary reason for this artificial skin projects is to cover Mr. Barnes' arm, so people don't gawk at a metal arm. We help eachother. Same thing, here. What's the point of being an inventor if you don't help the people who help save the world, to be better at saving the world?"
"Still, it's good to know your work is appreciated, right?" Chris asks. He finishes off the glass of milk and then gets up and takes it into the kitchen, rinsing it out so that the milk doesn't dry in it, and looks around to find the appropriate place to put it before setting it down again, apparently his mom's had some influence. He then wanders back over, tucking the box away in the bag.