[for Chase]

[daretodo]

It's bugging me. I mean, okay, there are about ten things bugging me at any given point in the day, but there's only one thing that's been nagging at me enough to keep pulling my focus away from my scavenger hunt for useful parts. Not for the first time today -- more like the fifteenth -- I find myself staring at Chase like he's some kind of puzzle.

Finally, I just give up trying to be discrete, peering at him openly through narrowed eyes.

"Something's different."

Comments

[apoorupbringing]

Chase craned his neck to look over his shoulder at Peter, pausing in his dutiful pounding out of a dent in an otherwise delightfully serviceable piece of metal facing.

"The hell are you talking about? Are you about to explain why you've been oggling me? Creeper," he added off-handedly, going back to task.

[daretodo]

He's talking, but I'm really not listening.

"No, no, no, something is definitely different," I mumble to myself, tapping my chin as I try to work it out. I swear to God, there's just been something off about him every time I've run into him these past few weeks, like he's been body snatched. I almost want to ask if he's my old buddy, the Chameleon, but it's not like he'd say yes even if he were.

"Did you get a haircut?"

[apoorupbringing]

"I haven't gotten a haircut in..." Chase stopped, squinting thoughtfully skyward.

"...I don't even know. I probably should, though, thanks for the reminder."

Not too short though, he thought, because Kate had a tendency to get a good grip, and he tended to enjoy it.

[daretodo]

"Okay, not a haircut... Have you been, ah, working out? Tanning? You've got a..." I trail off, trying to capture the right out of the air and failing miserably. "I don't know. But something about you's off. I know that much."

[apoorupbringing]

"You noticed?" Chase asked, beaming, turning in his seat to face Peter.

"I knew those pilates would pay off! And I did it all for you, Professor Parker!"

[daretodo]

"--don't call me that," I say, creeped out but undeterred.

Not that I wouldn't like to finish my Ph.D. at some point, but let's face it: that's never gonna happen here.

"Seriously, though, what is it, did you--" A thought occurs to me and I can almost see the lightbulb go off over my head. "Oh. Oh."

[apoorupbringing]

"'Oh oh' what?" Chase asked, casually slouching away and managing a look of extremely nonchalant disinterest.

"You are so weird."

[daretodo]

I hold up a hand to stop him, even if I don't really care about being called weird at this point in my life.

"Was it a girl or a guy?"

[apoorupbringing]

Chase looked over with wide eyes. He spent a pretty significant amount of time around the more canonically gay of the island's young population. Maybe he was getting a reputation.

"Yuhwhn- what? Dude! How is that the first question?! Girl!"

[daretodo]

"Aw, man, and here I'd been hoping you and me could start up a sweet, May-December romance," I joke, batting my eyes at him.

"Who's the lucky lady?"

[apoorupbringing]

Chase's mouth did a sort of pained, inverted pucker and he shook his head slowly at Peter for a moment.

"You dirty old man," he murmured, then cleared his throat and stretched a little, shrugging it off.

"You know the Young Avengers got their Hawkeye back?" He asked it as a way to cleverly segue into divulging Kate's identity as his lady friend with benefits, but realized belatedly that, having recently turned 24, his phrasing drove home that he was really the dirty old man in this scenario.

[daretodo]

My eyes widen a little.

"Who's the dirty old man now?" I scoff, shaking my head a little. "Jeez, isn't she-- What, sixteen?"

[apoorupbringing]

"Holy shit, she just turned nineteen, thanks," Chase shot back.

"So, you know, if I had graduated high school and gone to college and sucked and hung around for an extra year, we could technically be attending the same school right now. Hypothetically."

[daretodo]

"Or you could have graduated high school, gone to college, and worked on a graduate degree," I reply. "Same school, happier hypothetical future outcome for you. Nineteen's not so bad, I guess."

[apoorupbringing]

"...." Chase gave Pete a strange look. He didn't think anyone, in the history of his life, least of all his parents, had ever said anything so optimistic about his potential academic career.

"...yeah, or that coulda happened," he said, and kept most of the doubt from his voice.

"Anyway, she's 19 going on 40, y'know? Could definitely hand my ass to me, anyway."

[daretodo]

"Are you into that sort of thing?" I say, then immediately lift my hands, because: "No, wait, I actually don't want to know. So... What. Are you two an item, now, or was it just a one-time thing that you're still glowing about?"

[apoorupbringing]

"One time so far," Chase said, scrubbing a hand through his hair and looking at the ceiling.

"I think it's one of those perfect storms of being acquainted, capable, good looking and bored? So yeah, I lucked out."

[daretodo]

"I can safely say I've never been in one of those situations," I reply wryly. And chances are, I never will be, but I've more or less made my peace with that. I can barely stand my own company these days. I can't imagine some pretty lady would ever be bored enough to not bother looking elsewhere.

"Must be Tony's influence."