Sitting on one of the sofas in the peace room, Peter was reading the language book that the Ancient One had given him.
He had to say that the talks with her were not boring at all.
They were like conversations that made you doubt your own existence, or those that made you think very precisely, or see points of view very different from what you were used to.
Quite entertaining.
Getting up from the sofa, he stretched his back and heard his bones crack. It was very pleasant to be able to stretch his legs after sitting in the lotus position and then sitting on a sofa for quite some time.
After placing the book on the shelf, he was about to leave, but he paused for a few seconds. He was not worried about anyone reading it, as whoever did would likely find it more fantasy than reality. Even so, he did not plan to leave it there with the other books for long.
He would leave them there until he gained some runic knowledge. Once he did, he would put them in a safe place with several runic charms to prevent anyone from touching them.
Turning to his right, he touched the wooden part of the piano and debated mentally for a few seconds. In the end he approached and sat down, and his fingers found the keys without ceremony.
He played a song he had carried in his head for a long time, one that had resonated with him from a past life, a song about pain being the thing that builds rather than destroys, about being beaten down and choosing to rise.
His voice was low at first and then found its footing as the melody opened up around him, filling the peace room with something that was both defiant and genuinely felt.
While he was playing, he could hear the door being opened.
From the smell he detected, he knew it was the girls. He stopped playing briefly to turn around and look at them, and he saw faces of shock, amazement, and disbelief.
"Tu.... tu.... com.... com.... When?" May asked, or so she thought, because of the stuttering.
"What the girls and I want to know is when you learned to play the piano," Missy said. "We thought it was for decorating the room along with the other instruments, not for you to actually play it."
Turning around, he started playing the piano again and began to speak. "I learned to play the piano in four days a while ago," he said without needing to turn around to see the astonished faces the girls had. "The guitar took me three days. I also know how to play other instruments but they are not here. I was thinking of taking one of the rooms that are here and putting a music room."
"Could you show us?" Yuri asked.
He just nodded and gestured for them to sit on the sofa in front of him.
Susan sat at the far left, Yuri in the middle, and Missy at the far right with May on her lap. When May sat on her lap, she wrapped her arms around her waist and rested her head on her chest.
May put her arm behind her and started stroking her hair, which made him smile slightly.
When the girls sat down, he went to the bookshelf and took out a specific book. When he opened it, it had a fake cover, and inside were some headphones.
He took four, closed the book and put it back in its place. Then he went to another shelf and took a ukulele out of a cabinet. Finally, he went to the girls and gave each of them a pair of headphones.
When he finished handing them out, he left the ukulele on top of the piano, sat down, and talked to them.
"These headphones are in beta testing. They can listen to another language for a certain amount of time. The finished ones have already been sent to Abstergo. Susan, that is something I was going to tell you, but since you are here, I will tell you now."
Susan's face showed surprise at what he said. Unbeknownst to them, Cortana had materialized behind them and looked at him with a curious expression and her arms crossed. He winked at her without the girls noticing, causing her to smile at him.
With everything ready, he started playing some keys, and the melody began to form.
He played the first song for all of them, something with weight behind it, the kind of song that had carried him through his hardest stretches in both lives.
The kind of song that told the truth about suffering without apologizing for it. The girls listened through the headphones and their expressions shifted as the music moved through them.
When he finished, the girls applauded. Well, except for Cortana who could not, and he saw their amazed faces, which made him smile.
Getting up from the piano, he took the ukulele and sat on the floor in front of them. Then he started to play something different.
This one was gentler. Softer.
The kind of song that does not demand attention but earns it anyway. It was about wanting to give everything to someone without knowing exactly how, about searching for the right language to say something that words in any language kept almost reaching but never quite landing.
He sang it quietly and he did not look at the girls while he sang it.
He looked at Cortana.
He looked at her through a few of the lyrics and then glanced away, but the intention was legible enough.
A song about wanting to give someone everything, addressed to someone who technically had no use for most of the things the song described. He took a few seconds between verses and smiled at her, and winked.
Cortana's eyes opened.
A dark blue blush began to appear on her cheeks. She quickly understood that the song was not for the girls.
It was for her.
Which made the blush worse.
After finishing, Cortana disappeared without alerting anyone. It seemed his theory was correct.
Cortana was not simply an advanced AI.
She was something closer to a human created through zeros and ones. The memory machine had apparently had more uses than he had anticipated. It had practically created a human in the same way that Athena was said to have created her children through thought and intelligence combined with something of another person's essence, almost similar to the Powerpuff Girls, only without chemicals or magic.
Just a computer, the internet, and his intelligence.
"Wow! You are practically the epitome of the perfect man. Keep it up and I might reconsider joining this harem," Susan said as she stood up and kissed his cheek before leaving through the door.
The girls did the same, only instead of kissing his cheek it was on his lips, with an extremely passionate kiss from Missy and May.
Once they had all left, he packed everything up and took his books and went to the Spider-Cave to study as much as he could in the few days he had left.
He wanted to study the runes as quickly as possible so he could have greater security in the Spider-Cave and in the house.
He had to be careful about how many runic symbols he put in this place, since one of the warnings was that too much magic in a place of pure technology would end up being chaos. Dimensional energy could not be combined with electricity apparently The Sorcerer's Apprentice is not all hoax.
He could not wait to update his outfits with some runic symbols. These days were going to be extremely productive, thanks to the Ancient One.