ArchivedLogs:Smoke and Fire

Smoke and Fire
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Peter, Sera, Gaétan, Desirée	2013-02-23 Peter saves some of Lucien's siblings from a blaze. Saving Lucien's mother turns out to be more challenging.
Location Somewhere in Queens...
THWP. Peter Parker has been repeatedly told: DO NOT DO WEIRD THINGS IN THE CITY. But Peter Parker is not currently doing weird things in the city--the SPIDER is. And... That totally doesn't count, right? He is being very careful. Instead of his usual red ski-mask and hoodie, he is wearing a *black* ski-mask and hoodie -- with the yellow goggles. At a glance, he might look like some unfortunate style-challenged bank robber, except he isn't anywhere *near* a bank... he's hopping froom rooftop to rooftop in downtown Queens. Occasionally, when one rooftop is too far away for him to reach, he lets loose with the web-shooter -- a light *THWP* -- and that gray line snaps out, catching hold of something. A pole; a building; a bridge -- then it's just a jump and a rush of wind as he swings to the next roof-top. It /really/ beats the bus-fare. And besides; he's just been itching to test out the web-shooters on _urban_ surfaces. The rooftop Peter sits on is quiet, or quiet-ish. There's sounds of a TV show coming loudly from one of the top-floor apartments, sounds of bad guitar playing coming from another. The neighboring building is largely dark, boarded-up and condemned though there's flickers of light showing dim through a couple slats that suggests people have crept back in to occupy it /anyway/. The building past that, a squat ugly apartment building that has /not/ been boarded up despite seeming in considerable disrepair -- a few of the nearest windows have been smashed and hastily re-patched with plastic -- has a good number of signs of inhabitance. There's lights in many of the windows. Yelling coming from one of the plastic-covered ones. A baby crying in another. Smoke drifting up from a window on the far side of the building from Peter. No smoke alarm, though. Just dark curls that smell somewhat more like burning plastic than like anything that /should/ be burning. It isn't long afterwards that windows start opening up. Someone shrieks. Other people just leave the building, milling around in front and kind of /eying/ the smoke like, hey, must be a Saturday night. Peter's just now paused to take a breather -- leaping and jumping from building to building is busy work! -- and soak in the sounds and sights when he catches the acrid taste of burnt plastic. And then there's the shriek -- and people leaving the building. Peter freezes. The first thing he does is jump to the edge of the building to get a closer look -- and go for his phone. 911. An instant later, he's talking to the operator -- giving them the address, mentioning there's smoke, possible fire. Politely declining the opportunity to give his name, then saying he has to go. They record those things, right? They might even track it back to his phone -- but he can just say he happened to be walking in the neighborhood. Heck, he /lives/ here-- He watches the people leaving the building, then looks back to the smoke. A thought occurs, spiraling about in his brain... it would be /really/ easy to just... He probably shouldn't, but... he's here, and everything, and the web-shooters /work/, and...! THWP -- right on the rooftop, angled to drop him at one of the open window ledges. Close to where the smoke's started rising, but not right at it. He swings -- aiming to land on the ledge and peer inside. Inside there is -- smoke. A lot of smoke! And an apartment, or at least the bathroom of an apartment at the window Peter has chosen, kind of murky in the smoky gloom. Somewhere inside the smoke is glowing fierce-hot orange-red. There are voices here, too, muffled through the window. A young child, perhaps, calling out somewhat panicked -- "Desi!" Coughing. Grumbling. A different voice, equally panicked: "-- The door's /really hot/." Down on the streets, one figure is hurrying /to/ the apartment building rather than away from it, pushing his way through the milling group of residents with a few hurried questioning words to the group. Whatever answer Lucien gets from them makes his expression draw in pinched and tight. He darts through the crowd, to the front door with its spiderweb of cracked glass, hastily fumbling for his keys. Ohcrapthat's a lot of smoke. Peter rakes his mind for what he remembers from fire safety awareness. He knows that smoke inhalation can get you *fast* -- and he might be strong, and he might be quick, but he's still got lungs and they work just like anybody else's. But the sound of those voices... Peter turns his head -- sucks in a snootful of fresh, night air -- and just *dives* into the room, rolling across the floor and bolting as fast as he can in the direction of those voices. As he goes, he starts yelling: "Hey! Hey! Keep talking! I'm coming for you --" The apartment inside is -- well, kind of a dump. There's mess everywhere, rust on the bathroom faucets, roaches skittering away from Peter's entrance towards holes in the bathroom walls. Past the bathroom is a living room, equally run-down, heavy water damage in the ceiling, its lone couch a saggy affair with some springs showing through, piles of old fast-food wrappers and cigarette butts littering the coffee table. Also, fire. It's started in the living room, evidently, where a woman, perhaps late thirties, early forties, lies on the couch, apparently unconcerned with the fire that is eating up a good majority of the room and licking its way into the kitchen. And unconcerned much else, unmoving, unconcerned with the panicked voices coming from the rooms adjacent. "Wait, what, who's there?" A girl, perhaps Peter's age, perhaps a bit older, is peering out from a cracked-open door, green eyes wide as she squints through the smoke. "Oh god who are you," is her first question, and immediately thereafter, "Over there -- the kids -- I can't get across." She's looking towards a door opposite, across the flames, which might very soon be less door and more kindling. "I'm here to help!" Peter shouts, and then he gestures to the girl. "I'll get them out!--" The woman on the couch catches his attention, but he's not sure how to respond to that. He gestures wildly to her at the girl with green eyes. "Can you--can you get her out of here?" he asks, but regardless of her reply, he's already moving toward that swelling surge of red hot flame -- clenching his teeth as he runs, and shouts at the top of his lungs: "WHOEVER'S IN THERE, GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR! I'M BREAKING THROUGH! THREE, TWO, ONE--ohGodohGod--" Peter *jumps*, hurling himself through the flames, twisting to sweep through them and *slam* his shoulder into the door as hard as he can--intent on, hopefully, splitting it apart and continuing on through into the room behind it. He just *really* hopes it's one of those cheaply made doors and not one of those really stout doors. Also, he *really* hopes whoever's on the other side moved when he shouted. The door is a Pretty Shitty Door. Even /before/ the fire got to it. It splits, splinters, caves in easily at Peter's slam. The room inside is a bedroom, somewhat; at least, it has mattresses on the floor that someone has clearly been sleeping on. There are children inside, two of them, one small boy who watches Peter with dark eyes narrowed and one even smaller child, perhaps four or five, in denim overalls and a blue long-sleeved t-shirt, huddled back against the mattress, coughing. "Who are you? Where's Desi?" The boy -- perhaps eight or nine -- is kind of reflexively standing in between Peter and the other child. "You don't look like a fireman. There's a fumbling rattle at the front door, keys turning in the lock, the door pushed open. Lucien has an arm wrapped around his mouth and is staring at the flames with abrupt wide-eyed panic. "Desi? Sera? Gae? Oh, fuck --" Outside the teenager is creeping out of her room, clinging to the wall as far from the flames as she can get. Possibly to stay out of the flames. Possibly because holding on to the wall makes her not lose her way through all the smoke. "Luci? /Luci/ there's some /guy/ he's getting the kids." She ignores the woman on the couch, heading for the door. Oh CRAP he forgot about his shoulder. Peter's mind promptly vanishes under that hot white knife that stabs through his left shoulder. The injury hadn't been bothering him because he hadn't been straining it -- even just roof-hopping wasn't enough to re-ignite it. He had gotten so comfortable that he had *completely* forgotten it was there -- and so upon using his shoulder as a *battering* ram, he's instantly reminded that, *YES*, there is still a hole in him, and *YES*, it hurts like ohGodwhy. Those few seconds he loses are precious, particularly when there's a roaring fire at his back and two very suspicious kids at his front. He lifts his head, groans, and pulls his mask up, exposing his face: "I'm not a fireman. I was just roof-hopping and I saw the smoke." The mask goes down, along with his goggles. "We need to get out of here," he tells them. "RIGHT NOW." And he promptly grabs the nearest piece of small, window-sized furniture and *SLAMS* it into the nearest window, attempting to shatter it open wide. And take a bit of the frame with it, maybe. OhGod his shoulder ohGod. "I don't think I can carry you," he tells them, shoulder still throbbing. "But I can lower you. I need you both to trust me, though, okay?" The boy looks at Peter, skeptically, but the roaring flames behind Peter apparently make him more inclined to trust, right at the moment. He scoots towards the now-shattered window, looking out to look down the five floors to the street below. "It's far," he says, in a smaller voice than his earlier challenging one, and then, "Did you see my sister?" His hand lifts, indicating -- someone. Someone taller. "Sera come here we have to go." The smaller child is coughing as she gets up, but she's trying to head for the /door/ rather than the window. "Where's Desi is she coming?" "She has green eyes, right? She sent me here. I told her to go, but after you're out I'm going to check back for her. What's the name of the older woman on the couch?" Peter wants to know, because he's going to need to rouse her, but he's also just trying to keep them talking, keep them active, keep them trusting him. He heard -- just barely -- the girl yelling for 'Luci' outside. He really hopes that this Luci person got them. If not -- he's coming back. He just needs to move very quickly. He goes straight for the window, looks outside, and starts mumbling: "Five stories, five stories, _crap_ I forgot. Okay slight change of plans." He aims and fires. *THWP* -- the thread splats somewhere on the street below. He clutches the cord and pulls, stretching the elastic-like material as far as it will go -- and tying it to the foot of the largest, sturdiest piece of furniture. It is stretched *incredibly* tight, but it shows no signs of breaking. "Okay, *both* of you put your wrists like this," he tells them, and he crosses his wrists together, fists clenched. "Quickly. This is going to feel really weird but it'll make *sure* neither of you fall off." Once they do it, he steps forward -- slightly adjusting the nozzle of his web-shooter -- and proceeds to fire. *SPLT* -- *SPLT* -- globs of glue splatter across their wrists, locking them together. Then, he's dropping down to the floor, showing them both his back. "Put your wrists around my neck," he tells them. "You first," to the boy. "Then her. I'm going to climb down but we need to move *very* quickly, okay? Also try not to touch my left shoulder." "That's my mom," the boy says, with a frown, /corralling/ his younger sister back towards the window. He is tentative about the wrists, but he extends his wrists as demonstrated, nudging his sister to do the same. When the webs splat against them, the boy shrieks. "/Cool/," says the girl, "Are you like a spider?" "Shh," says the boy, a little sharply, "we have to /go/." Though he seems decidedly uncertain as he puts his wrists around Peter's neck. "You're going to come back and get Sera, right? Sera don't /move/ okay?" "I am *exactly* like a spider," he tells Sera, before adding: "In fact, I am *the* Spider. Like, the best one." When the boy wraps his arms around his neck, he sucks in a breath, glances back at the fire -- the encroaching smoke -- and steels himself. He can do this. "I'll take both of you now. Sera, get on along with your brother. Spiders are *crazy* strong." Once the boy's sister gets on -- it'll probably be an awkward fit, with two kids dangling off either shoulder -- Peter grimaces underneath the extra weight, particularly the bit of it that's on his shoulder. But he's hopping up to his feet -- reaching for that cord -- and telling them both: "Both of you, close your eyes. Also, don't tell anyone I took off my mask for you. I am totally working on being all mysterious, and it'd _kill_ my credibility if people knew I was just a kid." Unless either of them say otherwise, he proceeds to snag that cord in his hand -- and *jump*. It's probably just a little terrifying, and involves a lot of screaming, wriggling, and OHGODMYSHOULDEROHGODOHGOD -- but as long as he's got his good arm on that cord -- Micah's sleek, well-fashioned gloves wrapped round the glue, letting him slip smoothly and steadily -- he'll keep that grip and slide down as if it were a particularly odd-angled fireman's pole. Sera seems /less/ reluctant to get on than her older brother. "Oh my gosh /cool/ are we going to slide /down/ that are you like a /superhero/?" She says this raspy and broken up by coughs, but excited all the same. "Mysterious? They're kind of ugly goggles," criticizes her brother, right before a "-- Oh god," as they jump. He clings tighter. Possibily slightly choking. Behind them the flames are spreading into the bedroom they have just vacated, eating up the table, crawling towards the mattresses. Out on the streets, there are still some gawkers. In the distance there are sirens. Lucien and Desi are heading out the front door, the girl's arm slung over her brother's shoulder. Lucien takes a moment, after bringing her outside, where he frowns at the door, clearly reluctant before going back inside. "Yes, we are, and yes, I am, and NNNGH YOU ARE CHOKING ME," Peter manages, sliding down that cord and doing everything in his power not to flail. He speeds the process up -- loosening his grip -- *just* to get down as fast as he can, because holy CRAP does this ever hurt. Once they hit the ground -- his knees bending, absorbing the impact -- he is immediately dropping into a kneel. "Offpleaseoff," he gurgles, and once they *do*: "Vinegar will dissolve the webbing. Otherwise it'll just melt in an hour. I'm going back for your mother." He *just* misses Lucien going in back through the front door. It occurs to him that he has absolutely *no* idea how he is going to get that woman out of there. His shoulder is hurting even *more* now; he is pretty certain he is incapable of carrying a grown woman out of that building, and he is also pretty certain she's not going to give him much help. But as smart as Peter is, he is also sometimes pretty stupid -- so, with no plan in mind, he *jumps* -- THWPT -- and starts running up the surface of the house, pulling himself back to the window he came in through first. Once inside, he's diving low and moving for the woman on the couch -- calling all the while: "Anyone else in here?!" There is someone else in here, now. Lucien is coming back in, or at least, standing in the doorway and /looking/ at the couch, arm held across his mouth and his eyes squinted through the gloom. He could go to it, really. The fire is largely in the parts of the room that are /not/ between the couch and the front door. But he isn't. He's just -- watching. As the fire burns closer to the woman. "Who are you?" he asks, somewhat muffled against the sleeve of his coat. "Did you get the children?" At the sight of an adult who *isn't* comatose, Peter briefly freezes. The pain surging up his shoulder *flashes* again, knocking him out of his brief bout of confusion. OhGod this hurts. He deigns to answer the second question rather than the first: "Two! A boy and a girl. There was another older girl though I'm not sure she got out --" He mistakes the man's hesitation for worry over the fire, and just barrels on: "Check in her room and see! After that, help me with this one -- I can't carry her myself, mucked up my shoulder!" He moves toward the woman, to see if he can rouse her: "LADY! LADY THERE IS A FIRE!" "Desiree is out. I brought her downstairs," Lucien says, and if he's worried about the fire he sounds strangely calm about it. Also calm: "I don't think she will hear you. She might be OD'ing. Thank you, for getting the children." He scrubs knuckles against his eyes, closing them for a long moment against the scratchiness of the smoke. "Did you say you can't carry her? You should go," he says, softer. "She is light enough for me to carry." Not that he is, in fact, moving towards her. "No, my shoulder is out, and okay, then I am getting the *heck* out of he..." Peter's words trail off; his head snaps round to stare at Lucien. Those pale yellow goggles hide his eyes -- only Lucien's reflection is flashed back at him. The words he just said -- and the tone with which he said them -- is only now sinking in: "You're gonna let her burn," Peter says, and there's a hint of fear in his voice. This is not how adults are supposed to behave. He looks back to her, then back to Lucien. And he starts intuiting things: Like how Lucien must know her and the kids. Like how the fire was _probably_ caused by her negligence. And like how this probably represents a pattern of behavior -- and Lucien sees an opportunity to end it. Or, at least, no reason to interfere with the natural course of things. But none of that knowledge helps Peter: "I -- please help me get her out," he says, a hint more desperate. "Trust me," Lucien says, quietly, "the world would not mourn." He's still leaning against the doorframe. Watching the flames with a somewhat detached expression. "You are in danger if you stay here. You've already played Good Samaritan for the night. The fire department will be here soon. I am sure they can take care of -- whatever is left behind." Ohman Peter is NOT ready for this. This is not something they teach you in SuperHeroics 101. "I--okay, I get that she must be an _incredibly_ terrible person for you to be okay with this, but -- I can't -- I _can't_," Peter says. "I can't just -- let someone -- _please_!" He reaches for her, trying to pull her up with his one good arm. His left shoulder lets him know this is a bad idea by way of a telegram consisting of the word 'PAIN' written over sixty million times. "You could." Lucien coughs, once, turning aside again but then looking back at Peter this time, rather than the fire or the woman. "You could walk out this door with me." His jaw tightens as Peter tries to pull the woman up. She groans, quietly, coughing too but largely just staying limp in Peter's arm. Lucien's eyes narrow, his fingers curling slowly into a fist at his side. "Those children you just saved, it would make their lives a world better." At Lucien's words, Peter's blood runs cold. It's as if Lucien has some sort of strange power over the boy -- for whatever reason, the teenager cannot _help_ but believe him. That the children outside will be better off if this woman dies. He _saw_ their bedroom; he _saw_ the squalor. He saw how unconcerned the children were with their mother -- and how unconcerned she seems to be with them. And while he can imagine excuses for all this terribleness, imagine reasons that make it _wrong_ to just walk away and leave her to burn -- somehow, Lucien's not letting him. The very idea seems to be breaking something in his head. "Please don't do this," Peter asks, and his voice is so tiny Lucien might not even pick it up over the growing flames. "I can't -- even if it'd make everyone happier, I couldn't -- I'm just a dumb kid," Peter says, as if this might make Lucien take pity on him. "I can't let someone die like this. Even if it's right. Please help me." He's still pulling at her, trying to rouse her, trying to shake off whatever she's on. "/Happier/." Lucien grits the word out between his teeth like a curse. The flames are licking closer. Part of the kitchen wall is collapsing. A tongue of flame curls up against the far end of the couch, where the woman's feet have stretched out. "Child," he says, less gritted, more /tired/, "Happier would be the children going to bed in /proper/ beds each night with /proper/ meals in them. Happier would be them going to school without having to worry about how to hide the bruises. Happier would be not /selling/ her own children to support her habit. This would make nobody /happy/. It would just be an end to misery so that there's room to even /try/." He is breathing slow, through his teeth, perhaps out of anger or perhaps because, well, the room is full of smoke. There's a long moment -- or maybe a short one made longer by the presence of the flames burning closer -- where he just watches. It's with a definite note of disgust that he steps forward, looping his arms beneath the woman's shoulders. "You are going to hurt yourself." Even through the mask, Lucien can see the things he's saying are hitting Peter like physical blows. He's sagging -- to the point that when the flames nearly lick at the woman's feet, he hardly seems to notice. Near the end, he makes a whimpering sound -- still tugging at her weakly. When Lucien finally reaches forward -- when he loops his arm under the woman's shoulders -- he groans with audible relief. "Thankyou," he says, and it sounds like Peter's *sniffling* under his mask. "I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm..." Soon, he just goes quiet -- the quiet only occasionally broken by pained, animal noises. His shoulder still hurts, but the throbbing pain is now playing second fiddle to something else. As he helps, struggling to pull the woman toward the steps, he says nothing; he doesn't know what he *could* say. Until, finally: "My name's Peter." And then: "Please don't tell anyone that." The woman is thin, and Lucien well-muscled; it takes him only a modicum of effort to lift her, and with Peter's assistance less so. Lucien's jaw is clenched tight, his eyes forward-focused as they move the woman out of the apartment to start down the flights of stairs. It's only after they've pulled her down one and then a second flight that he answers, a little scratchy-rough from the smoke: "Lucien. And thank you. For helping my siblings." "They're--oh," Peter says, realization hitting him as they continue down the stairs. And then: "That means she's--oh," he says, and then: "OhGod. I--" He shuts up for a while after that. Then, as they continue down the third flight -- tentatively: "The older boy said my yellow goggles were ugly." "Yes," is Lucien's only answer at first, a little clipped. He is very much /not/ looking at the woman they are carrying. He does glance over at Peter, though, as they head down the fourth flight. "I would not wear them to a party, I suppose," he judges at length, and then, "-- Gaetan is kind of a brat, though." "I like him," Peter confesses, and he seems relieved to have *something* to talk to Lucien about -- besides the woman they're carrying and the various miseries she's perpetuated. "I mean, there's a fire burning behind the door, and I smash it down and roll in wearing this outfit and--and the first thing out of his mouth is 'You're not a fireman'. Like -- he was _indignant_ about it." Peter grimaces beneath the goggles. "I, uh, webbed their wrists together. So they wouldn't fall. I told them to douse the glue in vinegar to dissolve it but they might forget." The fifth flight, now; the exit coming up. "You could get a firefighter's hat," Lucien suggests, with all evident seriousness. "For situations like this. A policeman's uniform if you have a mugging to stop. I suppose changing according to emergencies might, ah. Not always be feasible in, well, an /emergency/." He is breathing deeper, as they open the door, to the nearing wail of sirens and lights flashing in the distance. The deeper breathing just makes him cough again. "-- Webbed?" This seems to puzzle him. He is ignoring the milling gawkers, moving aside to -- evidently set the woman down right on the sidewalk. "That's--actually, uh, that's not a bad idea," Peter confesses, right before the doors open -- the rush of cool air, the milling spectators -- and the wail of sirens and flashing lights. Once they're outside, he pops his head out from underneath the woman's shoulders, staying near the door -- the presence of oncoming sirens seems to give him pause. He doesn't complain when Lucien moves to dump her on the sidewalk; it seems more than enough that he was willing to help her not _burn_ to death. The milling crowds get a wary eye beneath the goggles. "It's just, uh, industrial strength bio-adhesive paste -- it's how I get ar--I've got to go," Peter interrupts himself, and he lifts his good arm toward the nearest rooftop. "Um -- would it be okay if I visited them sometime? Your siblings, I mean. They seem pretty cool and--" He doesn't finish that thought. Regardless of Lucien's answer -- he suddenly jumps 5 yards into the air -- right in front of *everyone* -- and there's a sudden THWP as a length of gray cord connects him with a nearby rooftop. And then he's swinging -- soaring -- across the street, releasing the cord at the last moment to let himself *rocket* to another roof-top. And then he's just running -- hopping -- his throbbing, *burning* shoulder preventing him from doing much more. "They are pretty cool. I am not sure where they will be living after this. I imagine staying with me in Greenwich for a while --" But then Peter is swinging away, and Lucien's gaze lifts to watch him, eyes slightly wider. Not half as wide as Sera's, though, as she comes rocketing over to -- /try/ to throw her arms around him and fail, given that her hands are webbed together: "/Oh/ my /gosh/ we got /saved/ by a /real live superhero/ did you /see/?" She settles for leaning up against him, kind of fist-bumping her hands against his thigh. Lucien just drops his hand to rest on her head, eyes still watching Peter make his way away, his murmured reply lost in the wail of sirens as the first fire engines pull up to the curb.