milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Huh. Just one?" Down goes another donut. "What, was it a satellite exploding and scattering stuff in the air or Three Mile Island or something?"

Ah, the Seventies.

Barry shifts, just a touch uncomfortably. "Yeah. It was an experimental Particle Accelerator that blew up and cast a wave of dark matter across the city."

"Oh, so it's only in one place, then," says Peter. "Okay. There's mutants in a bunch of countries, but nobody ever heard of 'em before, I dunno, ten or fifteen years ago. No idea what set it off."

He's met mutants older than that, of course, but seriously, he's gone through all the newspaper archives at like five different libraries and come within a hairsbreadth of ruining a microfiche reader, and none of the newspaper articles or magazines he's seen mentioned people with actual genuine powers before that time frame.

"Pretty sure it wasn't dark matter, though. I never heard of that stuff before just now."

"Yeah, I guess it was kind of lucky it was pretty localized."

Working on his omelet while Peter talks about the rest, Barry cants his head.

"That's kind of weird. It does seem like there had to have been some sort of catalyst if there's no prior mention. But yeah, I doubt it was dark matter. It took a whole lot to generate the explosion and resulting wave and I don't think something like that would've gone unnoticed."

"Mom thinks it was something in the water," says Peter, who has acquired coffee from somewhere and inhaled another donut in the meantime. "Fluoridation or something. Or atomic testing. I mean, it's not like there's fallout all over the country or anything, but she thinks there was fallout all over the country and they're just not telling us. She's just guessing, though. You'd think there'd be way more mutants if that was it."

"It is definitely not fluoridation of the water," Barry says, shaking his head no, because he's heard all the wild conspiracy theories on that one.

Barry polishes off the omelet and receives his own donuts from Bar after she takes the empty plate.

Biting into one, he asks, "So are your parents mutants?" It would make sense if it was a genetic condition.

"Mom's not," Peter says. "Dad-"

He grimaces and wiggles one hand in midair.

"Never met him. Mom doesn't talk about him. Working on tracking him down. One of my sisters is, but she's just weird, she's not fast like me."

He nods, not about to press on what seems like a touchy subject regarding parents.

Instead, he focuses on Peter's power.

"Yeah, I saw you. That was-- pretty fast."

"I know, right?" says Peter. (Modesty is for other people.) "I was practicing running along the top of the creek. Turns out bridges count as doors when it comes to getting here."

Barry smiles, then his eyes widen.

"For real? I didn't know that... " Every door that has brought him here he's had to open, but if Milliways can grab a person at speed... that could get tricky.

"So then just like, any entryway could bring you here?"

He wants to reiterate that he saw Peter running, but that feels like an awkward thing to say.

"Well, if you're thinking about the place when you run under them or through them, yeah," Peter says. "Otherwise I'd be in and out of here every time I go out and mess with the cops trying to catch speeders."

Radar guns. Heh. They're funny.

"You have any metahumans that can do that kind of thing?"

Barry gives Peter a look and shakes his head a little.

"That's not funny."

On the question he gives another one of those shrugging head shakes.

"I uh-- well... " Okay, he can do this, and who better to test the being open about his abilities thing with than another speedster, right?

Taking a breath, Barry scratches at his shoulder then turns it into a finger tap against his chest and an awkward, "I maybe, do that kind of thing?"

Up go the eyebrows.

"'Maybe'?"

"Yeah... I have superspeed." There, he said it, please don't turn out to be a crazy supervillain, Peter. "I've heard of other speedsters, but I didn't know anyone else came here to Milliways."

Except for those who come with a plethora of powers, like Wonder Woman.

~~Don't be silly, that's his father.~~

"Huh," says Peter. "That's kinda awesome. Can't say I know any mutants with my kind of speed. How fast are you, do you know?"

Because if there's actually someone who can move at a respectable pace for once-

"Wanna race? Out back?"

Barry smiles, rubbing his hands on his jeans.

"Well, I cruise about three-fifty, but I've pushed it to over seven."

And he's been told he has the potential for much more.

Glancing at the back door, his smile grows wider and he nods. "Sure."

Peter's not trying to grin evilly, but it might look a little bit like that. This ought to be good.

"Sweet. Let's go see what the weather's like out there. Your choice of target. Just- not over the mountains. They're weird."

Barry nods, stuffing down a donut, then grabbing two more for the road (yes, it's a short trip out back, but the donuts will be gone by the time they're outside), and hops off his stool.

"What's weird about the mountains?" he asks, not having ventured up them yet.

"They're one-sided," says Peter. "I tried going over pretty much all of them at one point or another. Get to the top, move so much as a hair, and bam- you're coming down the way you went up even if you know for a fact you never turned. Happens whether you've pulled out all the stops or you're walking like a normal person."

"That is weird," he says with a full mouth.

"No kidding."

It's only a little bit rainy outside, and it's on the cold side, but this is Milliways. It's not likely to get much worse in terms of weather without something big going on.

"Okay, so... got somewhere you wanna see out here?"

The donuts are gone and Barry licks a smudge of frosting from his thumb before clapping his hands against his arms when they step outside.

It's chilly, and he's not so much a fan of the cold, but it'll be fine.

"I've heard there's like an ocean inlet?" And he hasn't seen that yet, either.

"Yeah, in... kind of that direction." Peter squints across the lake and makes an approximately accurate gesture. "Find it first, then race back? We'd be too busy looking for it for a race out to be any fun."

Barry looks in that direction, then gives Peter a nod.

"Sounds good."

Rubbing his hands together, Barry makes an 'after you' gesture, since Peter has a better idea of where the inlet is than he does.

Peter nods and sets off at a reasonably brisk walk. "Haven't been out this way in a while," he admits. "But somebody told me when I first got here that they've got giant squid in the lake. I have to wonder what the ocean has instead, if that's the truth."