Silence. Well, not quite. A summer’s day in New York means music, thus the gentle thrum of daytime radio fills the golden air. Everything’s honey-tinted, warm, rosy, peaceful. Each breath of air carries the scent of ice creams and joy and liveliness.
A scream. Then, a clatter. Several thumps follow, the screaming continuing. A cardboard box carrying two girls comes careening down a DIY helter-skelter. One young, wearing a red and gold mask - the other, a bit older, yet the light in their eyes is the same as they screech with joy, their worlds all a blur until, after a brief eternity, their cardboard track out of the 1st floor window comes to an end.
“Oh my gosh!” Cassie breathes, holding Morgan by the shoulders as they both giggle. Pepper shakes her head from her chair, turning to say something about safety to Hope, but pausing and settling for an exasperated look instead.
“Again!” Morgan beams, pulling up her father’s mask.
“Are you guys coming down? Morgan wants to go again!” Cassie yells. A hesitant voice yells back from the window.
“Uh- is it safe, Jellybean?”
“Nope!”
“Perfect!” A scuffle is heard from above, with a hushed pair of voices arguing back and forth. Cassie rolls her eyes and takes Morgan into the kitchen for a juice pop, telling her round two is postponed for five minutes.
Meanwhile, in the attic, Peter side-eyes his slightly larger cardboard cart with disdain.
“I-I dunno, it sounded cool when we were building it, but-”
“Dude! You’re spiderman! If the girls can make it down, so can you!” Scott wants to laugh at the situation. He refrains for Pete’s sake.
“It’s high! And steep! And- you said you did this before under house arrest?”
“Yeah! And this is the improved version!”
“Uh- y'know, maybe I’ll just stay up here, you can go down, and-” Peter seems hesitant, but not too scared. Scott decides maybe some creative persuasion wouldn’t go amiss.
“Pete-” he interrupts, looking the teen in the eye. “I’m not going until you get in that sled. It’s gonna be fine.”
“I’m not sure I want to…” nonetheless, Peter gingerly steps into the rather oversized box, not yet sitting down.
“Hey, Antoinette?” Scott turns away for a second, and scans the room. They’re alone. “Shit, she took my cart. We gotta go down together.”
“Are you kidding? That-” Peter sits down, gestures wildly to the makeshift rollercoaster leading outside, “-will not take both of us.”
“Ouch,” Scott remarks, though whether his engineering skills or his self esteem are under fire is unclear. He nudges their box to the edge, and clambers in behind Peter.
“No, no, we’re not-” the sled rocks back and forwards previously, Peter quickly freezing up to stop them going down the ramp. “I’m not moving.”
“You need to move, Pete. We can’t move unless you do.”
“Exactly!” He mutters, very happy with the fact that the cart’s slightly too far back for Scott’s shuffling to do anything.
“Alright,” There’s a sigh of resignation from behind Peter, and he wonders if he’s won. Unbeknownst to him, Scott is grinning like the Cheshire cat, with an idea creeping into his head.
“Hey, are you ticklish?”
“Yeah, why?” Peter’s too oblivious sometimes; a fact that many of his friends agree on. Scott considers this moment to be Exhibit A.
“Thanks for mentioning that little detail.” Scott wraps his arms around Peter’s midriff, immediately wriggling his fingers against the kid’s t shirt.
“Hehey! Hehey, wahahait!” Peter starts squirming instantly, leaning backwards into Scott to get away.
“Well, that looks promising!” Scott immediately changes tact, skittering over his sides instead, and- bingo. His victim scrambles forwards, giggling wildly, and the cart tips.
Down, down, and down they go, Scott still tickling Pete for the sheer fun of it. Cassie’s getting to the age where she’s ‘too old’ for such shenanigans, but he’s known Pete for a while now and is confident there won’t be any hard feelings.
“Scohohott!” Peter’s turn between mild panic and hysteria, trying to see past the kaleidoscope that is the garden when they suddenly skid to a halt at the bottom. Scott withdraws his hands, and smiles sweetly as Pete turns to glare at him. Morgan giggles from the stairs, juice pop in hand.
“Sorry, Morgan, Peter was scared to go down.”
“But it’s fun!” Morgan states matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, it is.” Peter grins, climbing out and sitting in between her and Cassie.
“Wanna go again later?”