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WHO: Flash Thompson, Valeria Richards, and other roommates if they desire
WHERE: Residence #011
WHEN: backdated to...Wednesday April 16th
WHAT: World's youngest genius meets secret superhero
WARNINGS: Valeria Richards being a smartass. Possible mentions of cannibalism and the taste of brains.

[Flash would be a fool if he didn't admit he found some of this at least a little suspicious. And it's troubling; he hopes his family is fine, Betty, Harry and Liz and the rest of the crew. At least he doesn't have to worry about Peter, and he can forgive him for his weird behavior, lately, just for the sake of being glad to see him, and see that he's all right, and seems to be back to normal. They'll talk about it. Flash doesn't forget. But he forgives, when he has to, and no harm permanently done.

What's weird about it, though, is how normal it seems. Wake up, go to work, come home from work, sneak out at night and go patrolling. Except for the part where he lives with Tony Stark and the daughter of the famous Fantastic Four, and that seems surreal. Of course they're real people, but it's weird to think of them that way; who ever wants to imagine Tony Stark's weird-ass eating habits or the state of his bathroom? Not. Flash. Thompson. But his overwhelming impulse, as always, is to just be friendly, and though he's never wanted to be a father and been unwilling to take responsibility for a child, in the wake of his own disastrous family life...usually the only person home when he comes home in the afternoons, around and available, is Valeria Richards.

So he's determined to make a go at befriending her. If only because he's not sure how reliably Tony Stark and Peter Parker can go about, say, making sure she eats, and stuff like that. It doesn't occur to him that any contact with her tells her volumes about him; he can't really process "three year old genius" all that well, so he doesn't even think to worry about it.

He's far more concerned with keeping the secret of Venom from the other adults.

(He's not even sure he should tell Tony Stark, who learned it, if he doesn't already know yet.)]

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[Valeria and Valeria's notes are spread out across the coffee table and living room floor. While she's more than capable of doing everything in her head, she likes writing things down--and her handwriting's never going to get better if she doesn't practice.

She's filled sheet upon sheet with equations, holding her fat pencil like an adult, but concentrating on her penmanship so intently her tongue is sticking out a little...and she doesn't notice Flash wheeling his way over to make friends.]

[It's hard to imagine that, like this, he could sneak up on anybody. Maybe if he came down from the ceiling. But he's been keeping Venom on a tight leash, as much as it's discomforting to have it perpetually living in his skin, 24/7. It's better to do things this way.

It's not like he's making an effort to be secret about his curiosity. It's all on her if she doesn't notice until he's pulling up behind her, leaning over to get a look at...what he'd assumed would be pictures, or something like that.]

Whatcha up to?

[She starts a little when Flash breaks her concentration, her head jerking up at the interruption.]

Oh, hi, Mr. Thompson. I'm just seeing if this function retains its properties when generalized to Hilbert space. It has cryptographic implications.

[She twists around to look up at Flash and offers her latest page of calculations for inspection. Good luck if you don't have at least a Masters in math.]

[...oh Val. He was a sports guy, not a geek. This is gibberish to him, she'd be better off asking Peter to look at this stuff. But he's going to make the effort.]

For making or breaking codes?

[But he does know what "cryptographic implications" means. He's not a complete idiot.]

Making. It would strengthen public-key encryption...though not against non-linear computation, but that's a weakness of any encryption methodology that relies on factorization.

[Val doesn't generally dumb things down on the first pass, though she's learned to leave the numbers out of it when talking to a lay audience.

It's just as well the Marvel universe never developed Bitcoin. She'd have become a multimillionaire over the course of a few months.]

[Oh damn it, it's tech. Just because he knows how to use one doesn't mean that he understood a word of that. Hell, even Val(kyrie) can manipulate a ship's computer better than Flash himself.

But it's ok, because he's having trouble processing that she's actually serious about this anyway.]

...how old are you again? Because that sounds kind of...advanced, for someone who I don't think is even in elementary school yet.

I'm three.

[She has the patient air of someone who gives this explanation a lot.]

You do know who my Dad is, right?

[He's kind of a big deal. And also a supergenius, which is the relevant part of this conversation.]

Peter explained it to me.

[And yet, this is how Flash Thompson's world works. It doesn't matter if her dad is one of the greatest supergeniuses in the world, because she's three, and three year olds are just...three year olds.]

You're still three years old, though. This isn't kid's stuff. I'm not even sure this is most grown-up's stuff either.

[She squints critically at the nearest sheet of equations.]

This? It kind of is kid stuff. I might get a monograph out of it, but it's not like it's grad-level work. ...Well, maybe a Masters thesis, but that would be a total waste of effort.

[Point...not exactly understood, apparently. Val has very little sense of how normal people function.]

[Was that even English? There were certainly some words involved there, arranged in a sentence, but somehow, coming out of her mouth, they have failed to make sense at all.]

So...why are you doing this again?

[Val ticks her reasons off on her fingers.]

One, the potential cryptographic uses. Two, I like math. Three, penmanship practice.

[Well, there are a lot of letters in there. Most aren't from the English alphabet, though.]

Oh, yeah?

[Well, that gives him a better idea what to say. The last two, he can totally do that. Not that he was ever a math genius. Again, that's for Peter. But at least it's something he can reconcile an ordinary kid would say, and he gives the whole thing another look.]

...would it help if you had some of that paper with the big lines?

I use engineering paper for a reason.

[Val flips over one pale green sheet to display the grid printed on the back side, where it shows faintly through to the working surface.]

The lines won't show when I scan it and Dad's character-recognition program has better accuracy that way.

[It is only mildly disconcerting how she seems to have thought of absolutely everything. Just a little. Very little bit.

Even conversations with Peter on nerd stuff are easier than this.]

Is this really what you do for fun?

You do realize everything geared to my chronological age is intensely idiotic, right?

[Which doesn't mean she couldn't be into cerebral foreign films or something, but her emotional development lags behind her intellectual development, and the arcane reaches of math and science match her childish black-and-white thinking...at least until the time comes to apply it and her immaturity is thrown into relief.]

Everything, really?

[It does not entirely occur to Flash that things may have changed since his childhood, when things were not intensely supervised or intentionally geared towards protecting the children from anything that might ruin their innocence.]

[Val's definition of "intensely idiotic" is...substantially more inclusive than most people's, and she makes a face, wrinkling up her nose in disgust. One of the many problems of being three is that even your expression vast contempt is pretty adorable.]

It's all geared towards extremely basic systemization training like shape and color recognition, and teaching the important lesson of not throwing blocks at other kids.

[Val could kinda use some reinforcement on that last one, to be honest, no matter what she thinks.]

...Oh, and selling toys.

[About the only thing that could get her to start bugging her parents to buy her stuff she doesn't need would be the Particle Accelerator Power Hour.]

[It's kind of bizarre, hearing all those words come out of a little kid's mouth. He's sure she's right, because it sounds...well, it doesn't make sense to him, because he doesn't think about these things, but it sounds like something someone who studied these things would say. But it's kind of sad, that this is how a three year old thinks about the world.]

Val, are you actually having fun with this?

Well, yeah. What do you think I should be doing with my time?

[She is skeptical about Flash's ideas, whatever they might prove to be. There's very little chance she'll do anything he suggests unless it involves junk food or the feeling of getting away with something.]

[Ironically, it could involve both of those things. He'd certainly be able to think of something like that, that...in theory wouldn't be dangerous or inappropriate for a three year old.]

Well, for one, do you ever go outside?

When I need something.

[Flash, inside is where the lab facilities are.]

You don't know how to ride a bike?

[HE's beginning to sense a pattern here, and it has something to do with labwork.]

I know how to fly the Fantasticar.

[That is far superior to bikes.]

We don't have a Fantasticar.

[Providing you can get one. Which they can't. But they can get a bike. He thinks, probably, that she should be outside a lot more...]

Solvable problem.

[Val can totally build a Fantasticar. In the garage. With a box of scraps.]

Yeah? And what are you going to do in the meantime? I can't give you a ride everywhere.

[Even though he probably would, with more or less good humor.]

I can get myself places. I have Mom's powers now.

[If anything makes Flash's blood run cold, it should be the thought of Valeria Richards with the Invisible Woman's powers.]

It still would be good to learn. Just because you can do things one way doesn't mean you shouldn't figure out how to do them another.

[it's a really weird picture in his head, for sure.]

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we can probably leave this one yeah?