stupidbutgood | (no subject)

It's okay, Jensen laughs at his joke even if he doesn't look up from the notes he's skimming. "I knew it!"

Sure, Peter doesn't look like a weird sex-murderer, but Jensen's been at the mercy of people who don't look like they'd be that dangerous and found out that looks can be incredibly deceiving.

He turns the page. "To hold me down while you torture and sex-murder me, obviously. Maybe to get a few licks in of their own." He's been caught more than once in the middle of doing something that required him to stay in one, usually central, location. It's meant he's the weakest link of any infiltration and, as such, has had to pay the price.

Peter wants to point out he doesn't really have friends but that's a depressing thought so he doesn't voice it.

"I do my best work alone, so no, I don't have goons." He shakes his head. "Pretty sure I can hold you down on my own."

He expects that statement to get a laugh because he still has that skinny, tall physique going on. He doesn't look like much of a physical threat at all. Jensen can't possible think of him as one given he's much broader and military trained.

"But now we'll never know because your friends spoiled my fun."

This time he does look up, cutting Peter a sideways glance and smirking at him but not refuting his statement.

"They're upsettingly good at that, all of them. Real killjoys."

It's true, Peter is tall and kind of gangly, but that doesn't mean all that much. What would be more surprising is if behind the physics nerd photographer facade, Peter was also hiding a secret proficiency in wrestling or jujitsu. That would be impressive. Jensen mostly just relies on brute strength when he has to, so it's possible Peter could overpower him. Theoretically.

There's no theory about it but Peter's not going to say anything about that.

"I think boring them with a detailed physics lecture is good payback," he says with a slight nod. "And don't tell them where to get the best pizza in Queens. That's always good to hold over people."

Their conversation is cut short by more students and the professor walking in. Peter sits up, immediately paying attention. He's a great student when he can make the effort. Other aspects of his life take priority though so his grades are average instead of exceptional.

But he still pays attention like a straight A student.

"Boring them with too-detailed screeds is my bread and butter. Usually it's my stats in WoW or how the Petunias are doing in their current league, but this will be way better."

Peter's body language shifts immediately when the instructor comes in and while Jensen's doesn't, he does slide back his borrowed notebook and shut his mouth. This is obviously important to his friend so he's going to do his best not to distract him or otherwise disrupt the lesson.

He'll even take notes like a good grad student, even if he is just pretending.

Peter will ask follow up questions about WoW but there's a lecture to get through.

It is, like all physics lectures, a lot of theories and formulas. There's a lot that goes on the white board and the slideshow to explain things. The professor lectures and lectures. Sometimes students interrupt with questions. Sometimes they're brushed off and sometimes they're answered.

Peter's notes are incredibly detailed.

But he also keeps glancing at Jensen to make sure he's actually enjoying this and not getting restless or bored. This stuff isn't for everyone.

To be honest, a lot of what's being discussed does go right over Jensen's head. He can follow along more or less with what's happening, but he knows he's missing so, so much. Still, he makes an effort to take notes as they go, as best he can, his spidery handwriting a mix of scribbles and shorthand. At one point he switches from his right hand to his left, stretching out his fingers and circling his wrist like he's working through an injury.

He doesn't ask any questions himself — he is curious, but he's trying not to draw attention to himself — but he tries to pay even more attention when someone asks for clarification on the off chance that their question makes something fall into place for him. It doesn't always work.

At one point he catches Peter looking at him and he winks at him.

There's probably a lot of background knowledge that Jensen is missing. Peter's impressed he's trying even though he doesn't really understand it. Why the effort? Why care? It's a mystery to Peter.

By the time class wraps he still has no answers for himself besides Jensen wanted to for some weird reason.

"So, how awful was that?" he asks him as he started to pack up his things. "Also, since when are you ambidextrous?"

There's a lot Jensen's missing, but he's doing his best, and even though he's only really understanding about 40% of what's going on, it's still interesting to be here and be experiencing what a grad school class really feels like. Jensen's only seen this sort of thing in movies! He dropped out of high school at the beginning of his sophomore year so he barely got any real education in person. It's fun to pretend, even if he doesn't really get it.

And besides, he genuinely enjoys learning new things, even if they aren't going to be all that useful in his daily life. Who knows, though. Maybe one day he'll need to know all about this for a mission and then won't the guys be surprised when he can just whip out an equation like it was nothing.

...Actually, they probably won't be that surprised, because he's done that kind of shit before, so. Whatever.

Twirling his borrowed pencil one last time, he passes it over to Peter as they start to pack up, handing him the notebook too since he has nothing to carry it in.

"It wasn't so bad," he replies with a little laugh, flexing the fingers of both hands as they get together to file out of class. "And ever since I broke my arm in seventh grade and had to write left-handed for months."

"The labs are better," he admits. "I get to do actual experiments. Model equations are good and you have to understand them but doing the science is always the best part."

But again, those labs are a lot longer and lot more technical and there's no way he could sneak Jensen in to those. And Jensen would be really lost then.

"I've broken my arm before but I didn't learn to write with my other hand." He skateboarded. He broke bones before he ever put on a mask and started fighting bad guys. "I just had really bad handwriting while I had the cast."

Now he can heal from broken bones in days. Hours for fractures. And they're harder to break in general.

"So, uh, pizza?" Peter plans on ditching the rest of his classes for the day.

It wasn't so much that Jensen broke his arm but more than he had his arm broken, but that's a distinction he doesn't like to make and definitely not when he's not actively trying to bring the mood down.

"Yeah, I had to keep myself occupied somehow and I decided it was a useful skill to learn. Which, amazingly, it has been! Eleven year old me was right."

He's managed to burn the shit out of his fingers or otherwise injure himself enough in the course of his career that being able to switch hands no matter what has come in handy more than once.

Not knowing what Peter's class schedule is like, he doesn't know that he's considering ditching. Honestly, he might not protest even if he did know, but since that's not an issue, he doesn't protest at all when he suggests lunch. Draining the last of his coffee sludge, he pitches it into the trash bin by the door as they file out of the classroom.

"Sure, man. I could eat. Is it close to campus?"

Peter thinks back for a moment. "Eleven year old me was helping my uncle fix the plumbing in the house and playing with my Aunt's Polaroid camera."

"Uh, no, we're going to take the subway. It's north of here. I know the way." Peter normally swings his way around when he wants to get places fast but he takes good old fashioned public transportation any other time.

He thinks about telling Jensen the best part of this pizza place but decides not to. It'll be more fun to surprise him.

"It's closer to where I grew up, actually." That's the neighborhood Peter knows best out of all of Queens. "I've been going to this place since I was in high school."

"Hey, that's pretty useful. Practical skills come in handy way more than you'd think."

Pooch is the handyman of their group, as well as their auto mechanic, and Jensen's always been a little jealous of his ability to just look at a problem and get his hands in it and fix it. Jensen can do that too, but usually only for a technical problem, which is only useful in a narrow arena.

He gives Peter a knowing look as they descend the stairs, bumping his elbow into his as they go.

"So you're telling me the absolute best pizza place in Queens is in the equivalent of your hometown? And you don't think maybe you're a little biased because of that?"

"Oh, trust me, I've done more fixing at my apartment than my landlord at this point." Peter is full of practical skills thanks to his uncle. He also loves technology but mechanical and electrical engineering are equally important.

He rolls his eyes. "I've had pizza all over Queens, okay, man? It's not a specific neighborhood bias. It's fact."

It's true. He's been all over Queens and other parts of the city. He knows many pizza places. Peter trusts he's got the best pizza. "And after you have a slice from there, you're going to agree with me and eat those words. Just like the pizza."

Since there's a bunch of students leaving the building there's no reason to fight to see who can open the door first.

"You should start writing up invoices and sending them to him, see if he'll pay you for the work."

Purposefully pretending like he doesn't believe him, Jensen nods slowly and makes an exaggerated okay at Peter as they go. He may think that there's no need to fight over the door, but that doesn't stop Jensen from taking a few long strides and pushing through the door, then holding it open for not just Peter, but a few of his classmates to file out.

"Alright, dude, I believe you." He doesn't. But he'll pretend he does, because he's a nice guy.

A couple of other students are just as surprised by Jensen holding the door open as Peter is. He really thought it wouldn't matter this time. Apparently, Jensen is more competitive than he gave him credit for.

"It's New York. He'd tell me I violated the lease and kick my ass out." Peter does not want to go back to living with his Aunt. She worries so much and watches a little too closely but Peter thinks she might know more than she lets on.

Peter heads towards a different exit of campus. It'll put them closer to the right subway line. "Have faith, young padawan."

Jensen scoffs at that, frowning. He's never rented an apartment in New York, hell, he's never rented his own apartment at all. When he was living with Julie before he enlisted, he hadn't really been thinking too much about what the terms of her lease were, and he definitely hadn't been doing unlicensed repairs at the time.

"Want me to tank his credit score?" That's a pretty safe retaliation, and Jensen's gotten good at fucking with people online in a way that can't be traced back to him. It helps to have friends in far-flung places. "I can sign him up for like a hundred credit cards and send them to randomized addresses all over the country, at least half of them will accept him no matter what and it'll take him months if not years to sort it out. "

Happy to follow him where he leads, like he didn't just offer to do something borderline illegal on a whim, Jensen trails after Peter as he heads down the street. "Alright, Obi-Wan, if you say so."

"What? No!" Peter holds up his hands and waves them back and forth. "No, no. It's not a revenge situation. As long as he never finds out what I'm doing it's fine."

Peter knows he can be vengeful. It's a dark part of his personality but his landlord hasn't done anything wrong. Peter's the one doing work when he shouldn't but he knows what he's doing and he knows he's faster.

"Dude, just don't worry about it. I've got it under control." Peter's life is totally all together and not on the verge of self-destructing. Really!

Does Jensen offer to do these sorts of things for anyone? It's wild but also kind of amazing. His Aunt's the only one who's fought that hard for him in years.

Unfortunately, obviously, Jensen can be a little vengeful, too. The Army has only cultivated that impulse. Now he knows lots of different ways to enact revenge on his enemies, although he does mostly restrain himself to the annoying and non-lethal ways. Those he mostly learned on his off-time. It turns out faceless internet friends are also really good at teaching ways to fuck up someone's life.

He holds up his hands placatingly.

"Okay, okay. No revenge. Got it."

But he does make a mental note to look up Peter's landlord now, just because he can. He's a curious guy! And, chances are, if he's doing things to make Peter's life difficult, he's probably also messing with his other tenants, too. It's just something to think about.

Peter's landlord is like any other landlord in New York City. It's the nature of the beast. He's making the best of it that he can.

"You know, the Army makes some sense now. You are a really protective guy." Peter can only guess at why Jensen's so protective but it's clearly a part of his character. Not really protective of himself though.

Peter can somewhat relate.

"The Army was a way to get off my sister's couch." As naive as a seventeen year old with all the baggage he already had could be, Jensen enlisted because he still, stupidly, believed that the US Army would defend democracy, freedom, and equality all around the world. It didn't take him too much longer to realize that he was in the wrong there, but by that point...

He's made his peace with his idiocy now. Maybe that's why he's so quick to leap to others' defense.

"And I'm not that protective!"

"Okay, but I think you also told me you wanted to do good," he points out as they descend into the subway. "So, like some of that must have factored in besides also needing a way out."

And yes, Jensen's protective no matter what he says.

Peter's paid attention when Jensen's talked. He remembers a lot of what he's said about how he ended up in the Army. He hasn't just focused on how awful the military treats Jensen.

"Hey, you need a subway card?" he asks. "We can grab you one."

He scoffs. "Well, who doesn't want to do good?" Even Peter, with his photography and his multiverse theories and his constantly defending Spider-Man, wants to do good. Jensen is firm in that belief.

At Peter's question, he pats his pocket where his wallet sits. "I got one on the way in, thanks."

He'd been tempted to jump the turnstiles, honestly, both because it looks like fun and also just because he can, but he'd restrained himself. And he's definitely going to restrain himself now, with his do-gooder friend along for the ride.

"I can name like... two different villains who have been a problem this week who definitely don't care about doing good." Peter speaks from deep personal experience. "Like one guy keeps trying to turn people into dinosaurs. He could cure cancer or ALS but no, he just wants to make people into dinosaurs."

God, Peter hates that guy.

No jumping the turnstiles. Peter does not want problems with the MTA. He wants to keep riding public transport without being a known entity.

"But I think you're right. Most people just want to do good or just live their lives without hurting anyone." Peter presses his card against the turnstile and slides through. "People are just people, you know?"

"Okay, but villains are a different story, right?"

Jensen doesn't point out that turning people into dinosaurs sounds awesome. Peter's right, the curing ALS thing should probably come first, but then after that... Dinosaurs are cool as hell, and becoming a dinosaur? Dope.

He fishes his transit card out of his wallet and swipes it like a good, law-abiding citizen, following Peter down deeper under the city. This is kind of fun, actually. Jensen's been all over the world, but he hasn't really been to New York before. Today has felt like he's been in a movie the whole day. What his life might have turned out like if many, many things had been different.

"Yeah, one thing you learn pretty quick when you start to travel is that people are just people all over the world."