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"I'm not really a shouter." He admitted to Pippa's joke, and then immediately cringed when she'd said he'd landed on her favorite. He tested his ankle again and it was seriously tender. Standing was okay, but walking... he just didn't want to try walking yet.

"Do you- uh- is it 'cause you eat it? Are all these eating plants?" Was that a dumb question? AJ tried to scope the garden again, but without turning or taking a step he was rather limited.

"I know plenty of stuff, but pretty much zero when it comes to plants." In case that wasn't already obvious, he freely admitted his deficiencies. AJ pulled a disembodied leaf from the cuff of his shirt sleeve and offered that, too, to Pippa. "Can you save it?"

"Just a couple of regular jerks." An undertone of laughter colored his voice when AJ confirmed her sentiment. With a wry shake of his head, he grabbed his book up out of the dirt and brushed off the dirty side. Unlike before, their sitting side by side without looking at the other was no longer a source of tension. He could probably go back to studying, but somehow it felt a bit less important after what had already transpired.

> ”Why don’t we start over?”

"Let's." He received her hand, surprised again by the presence of calluses. He was not, however, worried about the name mismatch. He had a bit of an incorrect nickname himself. "Ajeet Kapoor, but AJ is what everyone calls me. It's nice to officially meet you, Niko." He had to tamp down on several sly remarks about potential PR spin for this as well as their previous indiscretions.

"No drinks in this do-over so that's a much safer and smoother introduction." He had to joke somehow rather than let the atmosphere drop. They'd only just become... friends... of a sort.

Rather than letting go of her hand when it was appropriate, though, AJ found himself pulling Niko's hand toward himself so he could scope them out. Her hand was still soft, probably the world's best moisturizers were involved, but his calluses were catching on his as he brought her hand up toward his face. "What in the world are you doing to get calluses like these?"

She just sort of pursed her lips against his promises to make things right. That lit a fire in AJ's heart. Naw. He was going to make it better than alright. She would see. By the end he was going to turn this into a gay luxury space commune. Fall proof and self-watering. If he could scrape together the funds, that was.

Mostly likely, he would buy two tomato plants and a new pane glass.

But he still hadn't answered the question of how. AJ opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He found that he didn't have a good answer that wouldn't make him sound insane or dangerous. So... the truth then.

"I jumped."

She took his magazine! He looked over to give her a 'hey!' kind of protest look, but... she looked almost tired. He'd been expecting a fight and instead... Instead, he felt a total rush of guilt.

> ”I’m sorry.”

"No, I-" He wanted to say he was the jerk here, but she wasn't done and he desperately didn't want to cut her off. He tamped down on his feelings because his weren't the only ones. She was just gearing to lay into him. And he deserved whatever justice she would mete out.

Except it was all apology. If his jaw was hanging a little open and his brows were a little drawn, it was just the confusion showing. Never. Not ever once had someone in a position of privilege apologized to him. AJ settled back and looked out past his text book toward the open park and the natural beauty of the little slice of nature here. He'd thought he'd known a thing and in assuming he knew, now he was... he was the ass.

> ”I...also know why you did it,”

His attention snapped back to Niko.

"Maybe. But it was my choice. Between my word of honor with no known consequence and your... virtue. I was selfish, ultimately." He slumped a bit on the bench, totally forgetting that his medical text was laying across his knees. It thunked to the ground.

He had soil in his shorts and she was worried about why he'd been on the roof. Their priorities were vastly out of alignment. He tried to downplay it. No reason to freak out the normies. "It was a nice day. I'd planned to go underground to find one of those uh- what are they? Abandoned subway station tunnels? But it was too nice, so I decided I'd enjoy it better if I could stay in the sunshine. I work nights usually so I gotta be careful to make sure I go outside."

AJ realized that he was rambling when a tinkle of glass broke off from above and landed in his hair. Augh. He squinted up at the hole he'd made. That was going to cost him, he was sure. And he didn't exactly have extra funds laying around.

"Will that be difficult to fix?" He pointed up, as if she needed a reminder of which way he came from. He both did and didn't want to get up. She looked kind of scared and, while AJ wasn't tall, there was a difference between a guy on the ground and a guy who Koolaid man'd through a ceiling and then got up like it was nothing.

Okay then, time to show off how very not okay he was. AJ tried to brush himself off while not further adding to the cuts on his hands and tried not to further damage things around him as he made an attempt.

It was perfect. The sun was shining, the wind wasn't too bad up here, and the chill in the air kept him from overheating when he pushed off between walls and hoisted higher. He'd planned to go low today, maybe exploring some of the abandoned tunnels beneath the city, but the perfect weather had called him to climb instead. The wind in his hair made it feel like he was soaring, conquering, living.

AJ knew what he was doing was stupid. The ViewTube videos he learned from were probably mutants or doctored or... well, this just wasn't something a grown human man should do. But it was the only way he could defy the laws of nature. And it was good to feel his blood pumping, good that he could look at a wall that said "no entry" and just decide that it didn't apply to him.

Unfortunately, after a certain height, the handholds got a bit more risky. Thankfully, New York wasn't all one height and the buildings were close enough that even he could push off of one and land the next one, so long as there wasn't a street between them.

Man, that was a real bummer. Was he going to have to get down to cross the street? AJ surveyed his options and decided there was one angle he could try. It wasn't ideal, the building across the way looked like it had a glass structure on top. He found a protruding jump off point that would aim him across a single lane if he could somehow roll enough... slap the ground enough... stop himself before he bumped into the glass. It looked... possible.

He backed up and gave himself a full running start.

It almost worked. He made it across the street with ease. Actually, his problem was that he made it too far. He wasn't going to hit the ground in front of the glass structure, he was going to land right on top.

He slammed into it was a crack of what he hoped was only glass, and rolled and slid until he finally came to a stop on the ceiling of the glass building.

Did he... make it? AJ looked around. He seemed okay-ish. It was a little bit different landing than he'd expected. He carefully tried to stand, and regretted putting all his weight in such a concentrated area when the glass and his feet suddenly went out from underneath him.