damned_institute | Day 55: Courtyard [4th Shift]

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Day 55: Courtyard [4th Shift]

Talking with friends usually put Anise in a better mood, but the subjects that she, Guy, and Tear covered at lunch were so heavy that Anise couldn't help but feel weighed down afterward. It was hard to think and talk about the terrible things that came about from her lies. She wasn't going to cry, not now, but she felt like she needed a little space.

Fortunately, children were going out to the Courtyard today, and that sounded like a good, wide area where she could get a little alone time. The fresh air could help her mood, too.

When Anise reached the door, however, a blast of cold air rushed in at her, and all she could see outside was a blinding veil of whiteness. For a moment, she simply stared at the sight. She never saw much for snow at Landel's, but here it had already covered everything in just one day!

"You might need this," a soldier said, presenting a black jacket to her. The color and style really didn't suit Anise, but it looked expensive. She slipped it on, and while it wasn't as feminine as she liked her clothes to be, the lining actually had a nice feel to it. On the left breast, she noticed a name embroidered over it. It wasn't her name, but it was still kind of impressive that they personalized these things.

Outside, snow had settled onto every surface, like a big fluffy blanket over the ground. Anise walked along the path for a bit, creating a single set of footprints in the otherwise smooth surface. Once she was a fair distance from the doors, she diverged from the path (which was barely visible to begin with) and walked to the edge of the pond, watching the falling snowflakes disappear into the water.

It was a pretty sight, but it wasn't enough to completely take her mind off of Ion. Before long, Anise found herself wondering if it was snowing where Ion was, too. Maybe he was really far away, though...

[waiting for her boyfriends ♥]

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Lunch with Peter had been frustrating. Okay, no, frustrating hadn't even begun to cover it. Honestly, for the first time, she was glad for the age separation because otherwise she might honestly get to the point of tearing her hair out or punching him when he was already injured. Which, speaking of his injury … she'd probably need to begrudgingly make her way to the bulletin board to ask him if he needed help with that or something.

For now, though, she was just going to stick to fuming and brooding in her bad mood. She had every reason to be mad, though. Even if mostly she was mad because he was right and she was kind of blaming herself. It was a lie to say she was only mad at Peter -- she was mad at herself for not realizing that Peter wasn't Peter at all. But, what else was she supposed to expect? It had his face. It walked like him, it talked like him, it said what she'd expect him to say. It was --

It wasn't fair for her to keep holding it against herself, but she couldn't help it. It hurt to realize that she wasn't as infallible as she thought and that there were weak points in the one safe bond she had in this place. Not that Bella and Pete weren't safe, but … it was different with them. Very different. And with Peter acting like she was either psychotic or somehow missed the doppelganger being stitched up at the joints like some kind of freaky Landel-ian monster, it had only fed her fury.

And now she was supposed to just sit around outside doing nothing. Hang out. Mingle. Was mingling really encouraged by the lifeless soldiers that were ready to slam nightsticks or whatever into their faces at the first sign of dissent? There was a soldier at the doors ready to offer her a jacket -- black, and looking like it was baggy enough that it probably wouldn't be sufficiently warm to her. She reached up to begrudgingly and with no small amount of attitude snatch it from him, anyway.

Walking out into the blustering cold, she reached up to close a hand around the dog tags around her neck. Emma De Luca. D Class. She had memorized what was written on it during her time in the sun room earlier, but now instead of a clue all she could see it as was another brick in the wall of how bad this day sucked. The surprising light-heartedness of her time hanging around Stefan at lunch seemed so far away now.

Moody and determined to get some more time to herself to sort out the previous night and the mess she'd woken up to, she found herself a pillar and leaned against it, stuffing the dog tags into her uniform shirt and then cramming her hands into her jacket pockets. She didn't want to mingle. She wanted to figure out if there had been some sign, some tell that she'd missed last night with Peter's doppelganger that she'd missed, that might have somehow given him away. Self-flagellation until she could figure out a way to convince herself that there was no way she could have known.

Yeah. That might take some time.

[ primed for a catfight with a failbot ]

Brainiac 5 frowned at the jacket, not liking it any more than the uniform he was forced to wear, but accepted it regardless. It was, after all, cold outside and he knew he could do with the extra layer despite how much he disliked the clothing. He pulled it on carefully, ignoring the false name written on it - though really, it was interesting that they still used that when their new overseer was less concerned with hiding the true motives of this place - and looked around the courtyard. He was hoping that he could see someone he knew, like Peter or the Doctor, or maybe Aximili again, but he stopped when he spotted a familiar blonde girl not too far from where he was standing.

He was most of the way over to her, a determined frown in place, before he was entirely aware of what he was doing.

"Excuse me, Claire?" he said once he was close enough. He was fairly sure that would be her name, but then he supposed it was possible that Peter knew several blonde, suspiciously attractive girls. In which case he may need to find out exactly how many there were, so this wouldn't be a wasted conversation either way.

"You are the Claire who knows Peter, correct?"

It was the stiff voice that jerked Claire from her brooding. Or rather, rudely interrupted her brooding session, as she perceived it. After all, she wasn't exactly radiating feel good vibes (was she? that'd be really weird) and having him either not pick up on it or not care wasn't a great way to start this conversation. It went even further downhill when apparently he'd heard of her from Peter. She tried not to glare daggers.

"Yeah, we're close, I guess. Why?" The harsh edge of her why seemed to insinuate a continuation of is that any of your business? but she kept it out of her actual speech. And 'close' in and of itself was dispensed tersely and flatly.

They were supposed to be family. Family was more than just being close, but she didn't feel particularly close to him right now knowing that she'd been a total failure at recognizing that it wasn't him the previous night. Close was more sarcastically fitting for them right now than anything else, and maybe she was a little bitter about it. Which meant the last thing she needed was some stranger bringing it up.

Speaking of strangers … she finally looked over at him, expression something between appraisal and scrutiny. He was only a little taller than her -- a couple inches at most, and he had these weird looking … things? Marks? Whatever. But it looked like a bad tan line on his forehead and Claire seriously couldn't imagine what it'd be from, especially considering how pale he was to begin with.

Oh, they were close, were they? The Coluan tried not to seethe too obviously, though he was far from skilled at hiding when he was angry with someone, even after a few years to adapt to the concept of having emotions. Actual, organic emotions were different from his programs again, and sometimes he felt that the differences only made it more difficult for him to keep himself under control. His eyes narrowed automatically into a glare at the girl.

"Well I'm his close friend and I have the right to be concerned about people he's spending time with who may be a waste of time and a distraction at best. Especially when there are far more important things to be concerned about here."

It was, he could admit in the privacy of his own head and with a faint amount of guilt, a rather exaggerated reason; but the truth was that he wasn't entirely aware of why he automatically thought that Peter spending time with Claire was a bad idea. Just that it instinctively bothered him, much as it had when Clark was spending time with Alexis. And since she'd turned out to be bad for the Legion, it was entirely possible the Claire was bad for Peter as well.

He'd simply have to find a way to show Peter that.

"Excuse me?" At first, she was pretty sure she couldn't believe what she'd heard. She didn't even need to pick up on how pointlessly angry he was at her in order to feel her own blood heat up from frustration. The nerve of what he was telling her off for -- that he was telling her off at all -- was more than enough to set her off. He was speaking with her for the first time -- wasn't even positive that she was Claire -- and he had the audacity to try and tell her she was bad for Peter? She was his niece. She was the only thing in here that wasn't bad for him.

"Distracting him." She laughed a little harshly, shaking her head and finding herself entirely unable to hold back the curled sneer of her lip that accompanied her rising fury. "You think I'm distracting him. From what exactly? From that fact that we're all trying to get out of here?" She pushed away from the pillar she'd been leaning against, turning to glare at him more fully.

"Did you somehow miss the day of kindergarten where you learned to work well with others?" You'd think with such n extensive stream of questions, she'd stop to let him at least get a word in edgewise, but not Claire. She was too busy seething. "We all want the same thing. I'm helping him. I am doing everything I can to help him and you --" She pursed her lips in frustration, trying to hold back further retort, but she couldn't. Instead, she just exploded instead.

"Where do you even get off telling me that I'm just a distraction? You don't know anything about me. Peter hasn't even mentioned you, how am I supposed to know you're even his friend?"

"I don't think; I know," he answered immediately. "And, no offence, but you should leave the escape strategies to those of us who actually have experience in dealing with these kinds of situations. I'm sure you simply want to help-" From his tone, it sounded more like he was addressing an excited child wanting to help an adult than a girl roughly his own age. "-but you're likely to do as much harm as good."

He bristled at the comment that Peter hadn't mentioned him, and the insinuation that it was because he wasn't close to his friend, and his voice turned the level of cold that could only be described as 'glacial'.

"I'm his roommate, actually, and we're very close friends. If he hasn't mentioned me to you, it's likely more because he doesn't wish to jeopardise our work by involving... unskilled elements such as yourself. We don't always have time to keep an eye on those who can't defend themselves."

While the words were directed at Claire, they struck a deeper note with Brainiac 5 himself. It was part of the reason he was so determined to master the abilities restored to him; he wouldn't be a burden to be protected by others. No matter what it took.

If she was angry before, it was fury that was pumping through her veins now. He'd struck a chord and while he couldn't have known it, he was going to suffer the consequences. Claire was a lot of things, but she hadn't been useless in a very, very long time. She was working hard to learn how to defend herself. She'd taken care of Steven Canfield all by herself, and it would have been fine if her dad and Sylar hadn't intervened. She'd helped Bella fight that monster, and guess what? She had survived Sylar.

But, all of those reassurances didn't change the fact that at her core, it was an insecurity that she cut deep, and she took it out in a renewed sense of rage on Peter's friend.

"Right, his roommate. Because he had a choice in that." There was a snide edge to her voice, like she was mocking the word -- the assumption. All of it. Mocking him. It had been a long time since that tone had come out of her mouth, but she couldn't help it. Considering her own situation with Bella, it wasn't like she had much room to talk about relying on and becoming friends with them, but that didn't mean it was an automatic thing. People weren't your friends right away because you were stuck sleeping in the same room as them. She and Bella had built up their trust, suffered their trials. It wasn't a given. It was a process.

For a minute it seemed like she'd leave there, but she wound up and decided to go at him again, lip curling in a sneer as she tried to unleash her frustrations at him instead of bottling them like she had all day. Her blood was roaring in her ears, hot and loud, making her voice raise a little as she barked back at him.

"And for your information, I have plenty of experience with this kind of thing -- probably more than you do. I don't need you or Peter or anyone protecting me. I can defend myself just fine. So, you can take your unskilled elements and take a hike. I'll be sure and let Peter know you stopped by." Raising one hand in a wide gesticulation, she pointed off to another part of the courtyard, dismissing him -- or trying to, anyway.

"Sure you do," Brainiac 5 answered, sounding far more like he was pacifying an unruly child than actually agreeing with her. "Because the five years I've spent with the Legion of Super Heroes prior to being dragged here, travelling across the galaxy and aiding entire planets with their problems count for so little in the face of... what exactly is it you did, again?"

He didn't have to fake not knowing anything about Claire's previous life, since in reality he knew very little of her beyond what he'd learned from Peter, but since they weren't that different in age as far as he could tell, he doubted she had much more experience in 'this kind of thing' than he had. In fact, considering what he knew of human culture, it was more likely she had less. He was fairly certain that the age of majority was different in the past than it was in the thirty-first century.

"And to address your other point," he continued, and while Claire's voice rose to a more heated level, his dropped, becoming more distant and cold. "I know Peter better than you do I'm sure. Sure, we may not have had a choice to share a room initially, but since then we've become close friends and we've been through a lot together. So what makes you think that your friendship immediately invalidates mine? It isn't as though you have a greater claim. In fact, yours is technically the lesser of the two, so if anything I'll be the one letting him know you 'stopped by'."

He paused and added; "Assuming it's even worth mentioning at all."

It was his Legion of Superheroes comment that keyed her in to realizing she'd had the wrong Peter when it came to defending her relationship. All right, so maybe she didn't have much of a right to act possessive over the younger one, but -- But that didn't change the fact that she had ever right to defend herself and her relationship with him! Sure, maybe she didn't know him as long as this weirdo might, but that didn't mean she didn't understand him. So what if this guy was a hero, too -- he was obviously a crappy one if he was using it to go around bullying people.

"Oh, is this what they taught you in your Legion? Because if this is what it means to be a hero where you come from, I'd hate to live there. I don't care how many years you've spent doing whatever it is this Legion of yours does. You obviously haven't learned a thing about what being a hero means from it. You don't turn down help. You don't try and stop people from making friends or try and shove them away from people that they care about. And you don't sit here and treat someone like they're anything less than you are just because you don't like them."

Granted, maybe she was a little biased. Everything Claire knew about heroes was learned from the Peters and her dad -- biological, naturally. But that didn't change the fact that they were supposed to be good -- righteous. Not self-righteous jerkbags who decided that their selfishness came before other people. No, they were supposed to be selfless and honest and helpful. Friends. People you could rely on. This guy just made her want to punch him.

"A hero wouldn't be putting words in my mouth and picking fights. You're not a hero, you're just a bully with a complex." Maybe it was presumptuous of her. Okay, probably. But everything this guy had shown her so far only told her that he was worse than any of the cheerleaders she'd ever had to deal with. And she knew she should be more understanding, because anyone who'd spent five minutes on a cheer squad knew that this kind of bluster was covering up insecurity, but she couldn't stop her temper and she couldn't be expected to not rise to that kind of bait. After all, he'd been the one to confront her.

It didn't matter that he was Peter's roommate or his friend or from his world even. All that mattered was that he was wearing his hero badge like he'd earned it and he was proving here and now that he was nothing like what he claimed to be. It wasn't about how many galaxies he saved or how many burning buildings he'd run into. It was about treating people like people. Making them feel like their lives mattered. Inspiring them to be good, to be greater.

There was nothing inspiring about petty jealousy.

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Day 55: Courtyard [4th Shift]

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