entrancelogs | (open) new york, i love you but you're bringing me down

Entry tags:

(open) new york, i love you but you're bringing me down

Who: Peter Parker (and open)
Where: Directly in front of the mansion or the Library
When: February 22nd, afternoon
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Peter Parker arrives and gets a bunch of eggs to the face. Then he makes a mess in the library with books because what is coordination when you have not slept?

note: I totally love both prose or action spam so feel free to send me your preference!

Option A: Arrival in front of mansion

Here's a thing Peter Parker has just discovered: eggs are painful when they slip into giant cuts on your face.

Also, it is really hard to see through the waves of egg on his face. The carton sticks to his hand. All the eggs have fallen out of the carton and landed on his face and around the ground underneath him. Yep. This is great.

Captain Stacy is dead. Dr. Connors is behind bars. Peter Parker gets to walk away from it all and go home like he didn't get into a huge battle with a giant lizard on top of a skyscraper, like he didn't get Gwen's dad killed in the process. All Peter wanted to do was get his Aunt May the eggs she kept asking for before heading back to her with more blood and scrapes and no answers. He bought the eggs and climbed a wall, and then all of a sudden, he's landed smack dab on his back with the entire egg carton shoved into his own face.

"This day... cannot get any worse."

He rubs at his face which also hurts and then sits up abruptly. The world spins because of it. He has a bullet wound in his leg. His face and chest are covered in scratches and bruises. The spandex is still on under his clothes. Peter blinks as his vision finally clears, and he abruptly realizes he is... not in New York City. It's too green for the area of New York City he had been in, and even if it was Central Park, he can't hear the cars. Where are all the cars? ...and why is there a... mansion? Kinda? Does he have a concussion? It's hard to focus.

It's with an abruptness he realizes he is not in New York City at all, but in... some place else with eggs on his bloody face.

He lets out a sudden huff of air, almost too exhausted to be as shocked as he could be.

"...just kidding."

This day just got so much worse.

Option B: Library

Once he has cleaned himself up but failed to like sleep so he's a little wired by lack of it after such a long battle, Peter Parker has decided the best place to go for information is always the library except he can't quite find what he needs here. His hair sticks up every which way. He has piled the books up so high that he has to narrowly dodge to avoid running into someone coming the other way.

Remarkably, only one book falls from the very top, and he manages to grab hold of it before it hits the floor... but then the rest of the books piled in his other arm topple over and land all around him.

He's not at his best spider-ness since arriving, still out of sorts. He presses his hand to his face. "...please tell me nobody saw that."

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Bonnie gives a heaving sigh and stops abruptly. That's about exactly the only thing he could say to get her to cease her very determined march to the greenhouse. She needs one more sigh before she caves entirely, though, pursing her lips in a last attempt to forgo being the helper again. To put herself first and not some kind of dense overly-questioning boy with big brown eyes and floppy hair covered in egg and blood who talks about lizard people as if they were just the Trump family.

OK, well in this case that actually kind of works.

"You're in a place called Wonderland." And because he seems like the kind of person who asks 500 questions, Bonnie puts a hand up to stop him from jumping in, just in case. "It's, like, another dimension. A world separate from yours-- and mine. And the other hundred-ish people stuck here."

OK. 499 questions to go, then?

Peter stops abruptly behind her when she stops and gives those two heaving sighs. Maybe it is because of the sounds of the sighs that when she turns, she will see Peter is wearing the most awkward, lopsided, Hi-i-i-i, thank you, please like me smile known to any universe. Whatever else may happen, the fact she can't leave him when he needs help means he knows she is a really good person.

Wonderland. Another dimension. Peter's mind races with a hundred or so thoughts as he tries to put together the logic and science of it all. It is nothing he has done much reading on before.

His mouth drops open, but the next question stays when she puts her hand up. Sometimes he listens well... "So how did we get brought here? One second I was in an alleyway and then I'm on my back in some other dimension? I mean, there's lots of literature behind alternate dimensions but no actual exploration of those yet with the current technology available in my world."

How is she to defend against lopsided smiles? This is very unfair and she's definitely going to have to bring this up with ... someone. Possibly Elena.

"Well, it wasn't actually technology at all. Wonderland runs on magic."

Silly boy. Tricks are for witches. Bonnie even displays her knowledge with a somewhat confident air, though the details beyond that still escape her. The out would probably be a lot easier if she had any idea how the in worked.

"And I'm not sure what kind, so if that's your follow-up question my follow-up answer is that I'm still working on it. Like, right now." By ... going to the greenhouse. "Look, I'm not trying to be mean, I've just only been here about a week. There are other people who have been stuck here for years that have better answers than I do."

And the vision of your lizard man was pretty freaky is the rest of what Bonnie wants to say but she'd rather just keep running on frustration instead of let a little fear seep in.

The lopsided smiles are truly Peter's greatest strength here. If he realizes it, doom is nigh, but he... has zero self awareness when it comes to that kind of thing.

"Magic."

Peter repeats it after to her. It is clear from his expression that he has never experienced actual, legit magic before. Magic. Magic brought him here. He can't work out science or technology but to wrap his egg-covered, bloody head around it at the moment... She does sound so confident. His gaze meets hers then. There is definitely something very impressive about her, her expression, everything despite the running earlier.

"...you know about magic. I mean, you know how to use magic and you understand it. A week's not long, but you were trying to figure out the answers in a secret way? Why is your looking for answers such a secret? I'll- I'll tell you one of my secrets if you tell me yours."

He smiles at her again hopefully this time, tilting his head to the side as he meets her gaze and bites down on his lip slightly. He looks the pure picture of awkward and harmless.

Every time Peter opens his mouth, there's a tumble of reactions in Bonnie's gut. The way he fumbles and recovers, yo-yoing her from defensive to empathetic and back again.

(She's lucky she had that double-shot espresso before sneaking out here, otherwise she would be exhausted already.)

After this particular ramble, Bonnie can't help it when her mouth drops open, one corner lifting up in a dumbfounded smirk. This is, she's finally hit her limit of dancing around this balance of helpful and secretive.

"Fine. I was about to go do something behind my best friend's back that's probably very stupid but could potentially help me get us both home." Bonnie's mouth snaps shut, then, fighting against the smirk. The guilt still weighs on her shoulders, but it does feel a little better to spit it out, at least. "Your turn."

Peter blinks when she seems to relent. He sees that dumbfounded smirk on her face, but he actually hadn't expected that to work. A tiny smile tugs across his own face as he lifts himself up on his tiptoes and then back down on the heels of his feet again.

"And dangerous." He fills in as if pointing out the obvious. If it is potentially stupid, it is likely dangerous, but he doesn't look like he blames her. Peter is the sort to do something stupid and dangerous if it means doing what needs to be done. It is why there is a little smirk pulling across his face now. "The Lizard Man was created due to genetically engineering with animals resulting in this formula and Dr. Connors tested it out too soon and the results with him were not great. And it was... my fault."

He releases a breath then, shaking his head as he bites down on his lip hard.

Kind of a big confession.

Her chin just out at his comment: really? But she stays silent, bent on hearing his own secret as promised. She doesn't sigh, or huff, either. Just manages as piercing a look as she can muster amid all of this awkward miscommunication.

And the desire to huff and sigh disappear as she processes his words. Honestly, it's not exactly the most ridiculous thing Bonnie had ever heard; and she even had the vision to lend some measure of weight to the story.

"You were trying to fix it." It's a simple statement, and a little more bought-in than Bonnie wants. She's skeptical but curious, and she can't deny that now.

It's a simple statement but a true one. He picked out the finished formula from his dad's stuff. His dad clearly did not want anyone to find it, but Peter was so desperate to follow the mystery- It was his fault, and he was trying to fix it but it was too late. Dr. Connors went to jail for something he did but had zero control over himself.

People died.

"Yeah," he says quietly, lifting himself up on his toes a bit before he settles back on his feet. "The Giant Lizard got really dangerous really fast, and usually, he was a pretty nice guy. Dr. Connors. A scientist who knew my dad."

In the freer parts of Bonnie's mind, where things are not always so saturated with the serious, there's a great joke about how in hell eggs were intended to help with this fixing business. It's a fleeting thing, left in the dust by other questions racing toward her mouth. Bonnie nearly always chooses them, the questions that guide her toward helping-- it hardly occurs to her that in whatever confines Wonderland has wrapped them in, helping is impossible.

"But-- you said it was your fault? You look like a junior in high school." Bonnie blurts it out before realizing it is possibly maybe a little bit hypocritical.

The eggs were totally separate, okay! It is all a long story. There is still definitely eggs in his hair right now which is already a wild mess of things. He releases a breath then with a tiny laugh when she blurts it out so openly.

"That's- It's kind of another secret so maybe when I tell you one, you want to offer me up one of yours? Like what that book is or how you plan on getting out of here?"

He swallows and even before she has agreed to give up anything of her own, the words tumble out.

"My dad. He was a big scientist into cross species genetics. When I was little, he packed up a bunch of his work and left me with my Aunt and Uncle and then... disappeared. His plane crashed with my mom and him, and not too long ago I found one of his formulas he obviously didn't want anybody else to find. I'm pretty smart with science and stuff, but it's not like I could've come up with that on my own. But I... brought it in even though he wanted it hidden for a reason, and it was what they needed to get that formula working. And I just- I gave it to Dr. Connors and that- that was that."

It was really, really stupid, and he is tired and worn. He is covered in cuts and bruises. A part of him, it feels really good to be able to tell someone all this. Someone who is working on secrets of her own.

"I'm sure you had a good reason." Though she doesn't sound sure. And it doesn't sound quite as statement-y as she had meant it to. He just seems so distraught that she can't imagine the guilt is fake.

It's not a secret that she offers, but Bonnie realizes she doesn't even know what to call this guy. She hefts the book into one arm and stretches her hand back out toward him, confident and ready to take more visions if she has to. They should probably have had an actual introduction by now.

"I'm Bonnie. Welcome to Wonderland."

Peter ends up shaking his head at the words. He didn't. The things they do define them, and he will always be defined by those first few moments where he made the choices he did.

He only aims to make better choices from here on out. Peter blinks a bit as she stretches her hand out back toward him. She is more confident than he is as he doesn't want to... throw visions at her again unintentionally, but-

"Uh. Peter. Peter Parker." Finally, he extends his hand to take her own, giving it a shake. "Hi, and... thanks."

"You're welcome. And, obviously I don't know your situation..." Bonnie lets her hand drop, and beckons Peter to continue on with her. Instead of a sanctuary from him, she'll make the greenhouse a safe place to repay his confession with her own.

"But I do know that sometimes it's hard to see the bigger picture. Even as a witch in a magical pocket universe." She lays the book atop a cart, opening its pages to reveal the looping script of Emily Bennett. It's a lot of information-- that Wonderland is something other, and that so is Bonnie. Peter's curious; he'll guide her with his own questions. She'll answer what she can.

Peter does follow after Bonnie when she gestures, and he is grateful she is not trying to run away from him this time. He stops as they reach the greenhouse, looking over at the book more openly now that Bonnie seems to be giving him permission to do so.

"...you're a witch," he says softly. He meets her gaze, because he understands that is a huge reveal. His gaze drifts over the pages of the book though he doesn't understand what is written there. He doesn't think he is meant to. It's clearly for witches if what she was secretly doing had to do with magic. "It's why you think you can get you and your best friend back. Magic brought us here. Magic would be what could bring us back. That's really smart. Also, definitely dangerous."

And he doesn't even know much about magic but he can figure that out. "What's this book?"

Bonnie does a lot of nodding; apparently Peter's not just curious and smart about science. At least it does the bulk of the work for her. She's just stuck on one little thing.

"It's called a grimoire. It's-- well, it's kind of like a cookbook for witches. This one's been in my family for a long time." There, the answer is out. Now she can get to her own piece of what the heckin' heck: "You're taking this really well."

Peter tilts his head to the side, looking at the book with amazement. It looks beautiful, and it is hard to imagine it contains spells within it like actual working spells. What the hell.

"So... being a witch runs in your family too. Did you always know about it?" He taps at the cart, keeping his hand far away from the strong, large but delicate looking book. He peeks right over her shoulder. "...well, I just defeated a giant lizard and got transported to Wonderland in the middle of an egg run. Hard to doubt magic being a thing when... y'know, I have no other explanation for. Everything. Except maybe I am hallucinating or having the most involved dream ever."

At that, Bonnie laughs quietly, nodding her agreement. His explanation is pretty solid, she can't fault him there.

"Well, I always thought my grams enjoyed telling stories over her wine a little too much. I have three others too: ones that belonged to other witch families. When my friend and I got here, we found this market in the back." Her voice grows quieter, and Bonnie glances at the door before looking back up to Peter.

"They had a stall with all these things from our world, and they didn't take money or anything. My friend doesn't want me getting more, but whatever the price really is, I can't just ignore this. The more I have, the more spells I can try..." She trails off; it's been difficult to disagree with Elena on the matter. This is Bonnie's job, especially in the business of magic that affects her family. She's got to justify the cost to herself or risk failing her duty as town witch.

Peter smirks in amusement at her answer about her grams and wine. His gaze drifts over to her when her voice grows quiet. His shoulders tense back as his mouth parts, and-

"You don't know the price."

It's said in a low voice. He shakes his head.

"What if it's not something you can afford to lose?"

Of course, if the positions were reversed, Peter would likely be doing the very same, but they're not. The cost is on her.

Ugh, good points are not what Bonnie wants to hear right now. Especially ones that match up almost exactly with Elena's own arguments. Bonnie chews at her lip, trying to figure out yet again how to react to the sheer panic and desperation that's seemed to settle itself into her chest since she arrived in Wonderland.

"What if not trying is worse?" Oh, what a weak argument that is. It's obvious Bonnie thinks so, if the way she rubs her hands over her face is any indication. "I just-- I don't know what else to do. We're stuck here, and it's the kind of problem I'm supposed to be able to take care of."

What is her worth if she can't protect the people she loves and cares about?

Peter doesn't bother to poke holes in an argument she knows is weak already. He does look half apologetic, because she-- It has to be exhausting. She has been in Wonderland for a week, but she has put the entire responsibility of finding a way out on herself.

"We all work together." It's answered quietly from him before he lifts his foot up to lightly brush it against her own with a tiny lopsided smile like a nudge in her direction. His gaze drifts up to meet her own. "You are clearly a powerful witch, but this does not all rest on your shoulders. You shouldn't have to make sacrifices which could seriously hurt you on the small chance it might work."

He doesn't know that is how she measures her self worth, but he would be terribly sad about it if he did.

Again, Bonnie isn't quite sure what to make of this situation. She's in a greenhouse, alone, with a boy who fights giant lizards and seems not only dandy with the fact that he's met a witch but is comfortable enough to say she's powerful.

Is he playing footsie with her?

Unfortunately Bonnie is just awkward enough that she's never quite been able to traverse interpersonal relationships with grace. (Where is Elena ~~or even Caroline~~ when she needs help?)

"Oh. Uh, I..." She scooches a step back, face flushing as she tries to make syllables into words that will make this somehow make sense. And not be awkward. "It's OK. I can't go now, anyway. Because my friend is probably looking for me. Right now."

Smooth.

Peter blinks abruptly when she scooches that step back, and he stares after her with his mouth parting like he has just become part fish. He shakes his head because he feels like he has missed something. He is just that lacking in self awareness to not realize-

Well, yes, they're-- This is-

She is-

A beautiful.

"Uh. Right. I don't want your friend coming after me... so you should find her, and I should-"

He gestures vaguely. It is primarily vague because he has no idea what he is trying to say with that gesture or what he should do only that she is scooching and he senses that there is-

Something. Right.

Oh god. Oh god. OK, she already panicked and clearly said the wrong thing.

"Oh god, I didn't-- I just--" Bonnie fumbles with her words for a moment, and the way she grabs up the grimoire isn't helping the situation any. If this had all happened, say, in the coffee shop that wasn't located inside a giant mansion that wasn't located in a tiny extra-dimensional space? Maybe then she could navigate this encounter with a little more grace.

She holds the grimoire a little tighter, takes a deep breath.

"I'm new. Being a witch, being here..." she starts, trying to express her point of view and lend perspective to her stupid words. "And you're so ... nice."

The last word comes out quiet, unsure. Bonnie's self-aware to a point, but Peter's the second person to just be nice to her here in Wonderland. And apparently she's having a minor freakout about how to deal with it. What do you want from Bonnie, eggboy? Bat your gorgeous brown eyes at some other witch, this one's not for sale!

Peter hesitates as she starts to fumble, but uh. He is the king of fumbling for real. It is something he is used to doing like all the time because words are really hard and social interaction is also really hard. It's why he hesitates, and he would not expect a beautiful lady like Bonnie to have that same issue of the awkward stumbling. He wouldn't imagine for a moment she would have reason to be nervous or uncertain, but he is so utterly understanding of it.

He bites down on his lip as she trails off like that in that quiet, unsure voice as he ducks his head (hair sticky and egg-y, he is like a hot mess right now).

Peter lifts up his head again just slightly, catching her gaze with a tiny, lopsided smile like it's okay.

"I can be less nice? I mean, anything to be helpful, which I realize might make my not-nice... nice."

He's gently teasing, trying to get her to relax a bit. Nothing to fear from this eggboy, Bonnie Bennett.

Well that sure isn't what she's expecting. Bonnie fights a grin, pushing an eyebrow up instead. She fixes her best are you even serious look on Peter now, astonished and maybe even a little annoyed. How does he keep doing that?

"That's not funny." But that smirk of hers seems to be winning out. The idea of Peter being not nice is absolutely ridiculous, and once again seems to shuffle him into the needing-guidance category. Enough that Bonnie stops gripping the grimoire like her life depends on it, and tucks her hair behind her ear. She waves him back toward the entrance to the greenhouse. "Come on. You have to be itchy under all that egg. You're probably going to start to smell soon, too."

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