"Riddle," Peter says coolly, "get out of my fucking sight before I bash your head in."

"It's not just kindness, Tom, it's friendship. You might want to read up on it, I hear Wikipedia is a good place to find information on broad common topics everyone knows about."

"May we all have such friends," Tom says, unhurriedly reclaiming his tray. "To calm us; to threaten our enemies; and to tell us where to find common knowledge that wasn't so common, back home."

He slides out of his seat and walks away.

"Oh, he wants me to feel pity for his awful upbringing, that's cute," Pete says, once Tom's gone. He's feeling unaccountably cheerful after that. He's really not sure how he's going to redeem Tom but he can't imagine that Literally Voldemort can't handle people being a little bit acidic towards him.

Then he pauses and looks at Peter. "Also, um. Sorry for not mentioning it before, I—wasn't trying to hide it, it just kind of didn't occur to me that you'd want to know, even though obviously you would. I mean, I want to know when my siblings have people interested in them, so..."

"You didn't expect the worst teenager in the world to tell me your business ten hours after it happened. I'd be miffed if you'd left it a week, but 'I kissed your brother' doesn't actually have to be the first thing out of your mouth."

"Yeah, I know, but... I also don't want to come off as playing with his heart, flirting with you, you know? I'm not sure if you'd have thought it but. I'm not. Playing with anyone's heart." Pause. "Maybe Tom's but he's fair game."

"I wasn't actually joking when I said flirting seemed like your main mode of communication. It sounds like you talked to Ed about all of this, and I told you already I'm not going to return the favor, so it's none of my business at all."

"'Return the favor'?"

"Flirt back. Kiss you. Whatever. I'm the hall prefect, this isn't Eton."

"Hmm, I'm afraid I'm too American to catch the reference," he says, temporizing a bit to think about how to say... "But as for the favor, I'll play it by ear. I may be flirty by nature but I mean everything I say."

"Eton's another public school. More... traditional. One of their traditions is fagging, where an older boy takes a younger one under his wing, protects him, tutors him, et cetera, in exchange for services ranging from cleaning his room to. Other services. It's rancid. They say they don't do it anymore, but my father's not convinced and I trust him more than Eton's public relations staff."

"...okay like that sounds hot as a porn concept but it sounds substantially less appealing as something that actually happens in real life in the year of our Lord 2023. I want to be your friend," and maybe boyfriend, "not to do any of that." ...though if Peter himself wanted to play that role, Pete has plot armor, and he'd be super willing to play along.

(Also he's, uh, noticing that he's starting to feel a little bit defensive and it takes only two seconds of introspection to identify it as the familiar panic of having another unrequited crush. And he specifically edited his superpowers in ways that would permit those to keep existing. So. He should. Probably be open to the possibility.)

(It's been less than a day.)

(That's never stopped him from crushing on someone before, has it.)

"I want to be your friend too. Which is why you can flirt with me relentlessly, and I won't do anything about it, except maybe blush and sputter."

"...friends can become boyfriends, too, and in fact I'm pretty sure it's better to date a friend than a stranger, so none of that 'I won't do anything about it'. Play it by ear, like I said, if you find yourself having feelings for me I will not have you going 'oh but we're friends I don't want to ruin our friendship', I refuse to be in a bad romcom plot. And I'll do exactly the same."

"But I am, actually, still in a position of power over you, which is more important than whether I think you're pretty and nice."

"...Peter this is high school. Like I very much hear what you're saying and agree with the general principle but this is high school and you're a hall monitor and unless the student's handbook was grossly misleading me I don't actually think you have the kind of power over me that would make me want to romantically or sexually please you to appease. ...not that I generally would, anyway, I'm very bad at doing what I'm told and my gut reaction to anyone trying to tell me what to do is to want to immediately do the opposite and that's landed me in detention a couple of times, but."

"...that's. I mean."

Peter stands up and walks over to another table, more full of girls.

"Su, am I having delusions of grandeur if I think the power gap between me and one of my underclassmen is -"

"Yes," says a different girl, without waiting for him to finish his sentence. "What are you talking about? Power gap - you're a boy scout leading other, slightly smaller boy scouts!"

"I'm being mischaracterized," says Hywel, whom the girl is determinedly ignoring despite proximity. "I'd like to see the Scouts that'd take me."

Oh so that's Sophie. Good to know. He'll chase after her later and figure out what her half of this arrangement's like.

For the moment, though, he will just chinhands and watch this interaction from a safe distance because he is loving where it seems to be leading.

"Hi Peter and Pete. Sophie's right but I might have said it more gently."

"Perhaps I'm resentful of how little power he does have over his underclassmen."

"That's me," Hywel adds unnenessarily. "Heya."