Romanova

19

"Are you calling me a mutant, Mr Parker?"

"Well, that depends, Miss Stark, does it bother you?"

"If it did, what would you do?"

Peter smiled. "Absolutely nothing . . . mutant."

Morgan blew a raspberry at him.

"Really?" Cassie said, "in front of my salad?"

Nicole stuffed a few fries in her mouth to keep herself from laughing. Lana grinned.

"Shut up," Morgan muttered, waving her hand in Cassie's direction. "Anyway, you wouldn't eat a salad if we paid you."

"Depends how much you're paying. My best friend's father likes to spoil her and her friends on birthdays. Speaking of, graduation is coming up."

Lana laughed. "If we can catch up on all our missed work."

"There's time," Cassie said, leaning back and scrunching up the cheeseburger wrapper.

"It's May," Nicole said, "finals are next month. If we don't make it back, like, today, none of you are passing this year, and I'll be first year college again."

"Wow," Peter said, "lives on the line, been kidnapped, starved, bruised and cut, experimented on, and you're all worried about school?"

"Listen, Parker, I refuse to die before finishing my education. I will graduate out of spite."

Peter grinned at Lana. "Oh, I believe you. It's Cassie I'm not so sure about. She's the laziest."

"Clearly you weren't counting yourself," Cassie said, sticking her tongue out at Peter.

"What about El?" Nicole said, "what do you think is her kill switch?"

"We think it's a mental thing," Peter said.

"When Morgan and I were little, my mom used to sometimes put us to bed with these stories of hers. As we got older, she stopped telling us bedtime stories. I hated listening to them, so when I stopped hearing them, I kind if blocked it all from memory."

"We're thinking it was a subconscious learning. Not specifically the skills itself, but the theory of it. The way Ellie knew almost everything about the house. All those stories, they were probably true. The fail-safes, the cars, the gasoline, the back-up plans. Everything Ellie knows probably came out of those stories."

"Still doesn't explain the skills, though," Cassie said, leaning against the couch behind her and Nicole. "I mean, even if you know all the theory, without practice, you can't do anything."

"When El and I were seven, Dad sent us for martial arts training. In hindsight, it was probably because we never shut up at home and any kind of extra-curricular activity meant we'd be yapping elsewhere. I never picked it up, I didn't quite like all the kicks and punching and the work. It was around then that I got into hockey. I enjoy hockey so the work isn't really work, you know? Anyway, El picked up the training really well. She did it for about two years after, maybe two and a half. Maybe that's where she put it all into practice?"

"Why'd you stop?" Peter asked.

"Good at it, didn't like it."

"For someone so anti-violence, you're actually really violent."

Lana smiled. "Only when necessary."

"And how grateful we are for it," Cassie murmured, closing her eyes and tilting her head upwards.

"So now it's straight home?" Nicole asked.

"We've established that whatever's in Morgan isn't hurting her, so I say it's safe to head home."