Night 61: Meeting Room 1

[tightsofmight]

He had already been taken once. And Sora, having confessed to being here longer than anyone else in the joint, was probably exempt from both brainwashing and a night under the gentle knives of the terribly bored doctors at Landel's. So saying that he was not expecting a visit from an orderly just before the going got going and a demand to follow him out of the room was entirely accurate.

Except this time he wasn't sedated.

And this time the dude was just calmly walking him upstairs.

"So...I'm not being selected for population control, am I?"

There was a roll of the eyes and a less than gentle shove into a board room - which Peter had no idea existed, much less visited in the entire time he'd stayed here - and then the orderly took a silent station by the door. Peter just stood there, gaping.

The room itself was actually rather homey. The table was made of glass, the walls were painted in some kind of creamy not-so-white looking colour and speckled with happy little nonsense paintings, splashes and shapes in a variety of hues. There were water pitchers on the table. And little mints.

Peter frowned at them. Should he...

Yeah, he had just gotten dumped suspiciously into a room by his captors for none of the usual reasons and he was still in possession of his mental faculties. And yet his first thought was still that he wanted to swipe a candy mint.

Wisely, Peter decided against it, and trusted in his spider sense enough to take a seat in the chair nearest to him and stayed put there. This was...not okay. All joking aside, he was actually kind of terrified that he was getting singled out for something and he had no idea what the frick it could be. Once more, he swivelled to face his tour guide.

"Did I win a luxury cruise?"

Silence.

"Is this a PTA meeting?"

More silence.

"Am I getting a promotion?"

And still the constant stoicism. No worries. Peter could do this all night.

"Did I..."

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[tightsofmight]

Much like Jessica, Peter was taken aback, wide eyes and all. The orderlies were probably looking at carbon copies of the exact same expression right about now. But while Jess was instantly able to jump in, throw out a challenge to it even if she knew they had to accept, Peter was frozen to stone. He remembered how Scott had sunk down mid-sentence, clutching at a hand on his throat no one could see. Harvey's arm had bloomed bright red soon after. No one had seen what hit him. And all because neither he nor Indy had dared to start throwing punches.

"We'll do it," he said slowly. He looked up at the orderlies, steel in his eyes. "We'll do it."

If Jess wanted to keep fighting it, she would have to suck it up. Peter wasn't taking risks anymore. The cupboards in the morgue were filling up all too quickly as it was. Brainy might be gone, but he still had a lot to lose.

He squeezed her hand tighter and sent her a small look. Trust me on this.

"How do we start?"

[webline]

Jessica frowned at the look Peter gave her, knowing exactly what it meant and what he wanted. She knew Peter like the back of her hand, even if he wasn't the same with her. But for a while, she remembered everything he had ever said, done, smelled, tasted, everything. She knew he was going to say yes, she knew the only path she had was to trust him. That was what he wanted.

"You two will go through the door and be taken instantly to where your mission will happen."

One of the orderlies pointed to a door in the back of the room, Jess' gaze following the gesture.

"That's it?" She blurted out, hand squeezing Peter's instinctively. "We just walk through the door and we're there."

"You'll have to agree to the mission first, girl. You can walk through the door but if you don't say that you'll do it, those consequences? Will be dire."

Jessica's eyes narrowed and she scowled. This was ridiculous. They were walking her into a verbal contract, she knew it. The fact that they wanted her to say it explicitly, that she would participate was absolutely butt-nuts stupid. But nonetheless, she managed to spit out, "Fine. I'll do it. Let's get this over with."

And then squeezed Peter's hand again.

[tightsofmight]

He was silent throughout the rest of the interchange. His eyes flicked to the door when it was indicated and his heart kicked up a gear. This was stupid. He had no choice to play along, but he definitely knew this was stupid. And of course, it happened to be the one night he decided to take a break from the basement that some other cosmic force of suck would stroll along and hijack him for the night.

And it had to go and roll up Jess along with it. Peter seethed inwardly. It wasn't fair. She should be safe. She shouldn't be here in the first place, and now she was getting tangled up in his bullcrap all over the place and he couldn't guarantee anything for her anymore. He'd die if he woke up one morning and found out she'd gotten shanked by Grell or something worse. Literally, he'd die. He was already on his last legs around here.

In the end, she was agreeing along with him. Another squeeze to his hand. He returned it without thinking. "Thanks," he muttered under his breath. As if she had had a choice.

Then they both stepped forward and the real work began.

[To here.]