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"It's okay. Sorry. Thanks." There were way too many responses to that, and they didn't fit well together at all. Persi shifted weight from one foot to the other again, and then shifted the glass between hands before reaching for the sketchbook. Maybe if he had it, he could figure out a reason to leave that wasn't rude, or maybe she would; at least, he couldn't leave while she had it. So getting it back would be a step toward ending the awkwardness.

Persi would have brushed his hair out of his eyes. Not because it was in his eyes, really, but just to have something to do as a distraction from the awkwardness. His hands were full, though, so he couldn't, and using the back of his hand would just be awkward itself. "I... don't think so... you didn't do anything wrong." There wasn't anything for her to make up for, and there wasn't anything Persi could think of for her to do, either way. Though he now felt bad for not thinking of anything.

He could, at least, figure out another requirement for escaping the awkwardness. Persi held up the glass enough to gesture vaguely with it. "I should take this back...."

So the cab driver had a bit of an ego. Really, who would have thought that a cab driver in New York City might have met celebrities? It was unheard of! Although they must have been pretty desperate for celebrities, if the cab had smelled the same at the time, and if the driver had been as unable to shut up as he seemed to be now. Though Cafas seemed not to mind the chattering, so maybe Persi was just weird about that. He was pretty sure that the smell wasn't his imagination, though.

Getting out of the cab was a relief, at least until Persi realized they'd have to walk. He really didn't want to walk anywhere right now, though he couldn't quite decide whether the walking or the cab was more annoying at this point. Stale air and talkative driver, or walking. Hard to decide, really, so Persi was sort of grateful that he didn't have to. Or have to pay for the cab, which he'd kind of forgotten to consider, and which kind of made him panic; Cafas probably would pay for the ride back, but if he didn't, that was going to be a problem. Persi could afford pizza, but taxis were questionable. He really needed to figure out how to find a job, only he couldn't figure out how to pretend he wasn't a mutant when they'd want to know where he lived and why he needed a job. He couldn't figure out a solution to that problem yet.

Persi's stomach did not growl when the door opened. At least, not loudly. He could probably believe no one had heard it, so if no one heard it, it didn't count. So it hadn't. Persi looked over the pizzas, decided, and then remembered to look back at the prices. Fortunately they were all fine. "Um... ham and pineapple, probably."

Persi's hair was still wet, but thankfully not dripping, by the time he got outside of the Mansion. And he wasn't shaking or dizzy or anything like that anymore; he was still tired, but only enough to make him very much prefer not moving, not enough to really effect him.

The awkwardness was having a bit more of an effect. Persi's mind was still spinning trying to sort out what to think about Cafas-who-is-apparently-not-a-brute. He was... well, not an asshole, apparently. Or at least not completely; Persi still thought he was that sort of asshole that isn't trying to make everyone miserable, but still does. But since he wasn't trying, he couldn't really be blamed for it, so... he wasn't an asshole. Which made Persi feel bad for being an asshole to him, but he couldn't exactly fix it, so the best he could do was ignore it and hope that there was an opportunity to make up for it sometime.

Aiden... was more confusing. He really seemed to be good at being confusing. Especially on that topic. If Cafas didn't hate Persi, then probably Aiden didn't, but he had made up the thing about Persi tearing a book, and Persi doubted Cafas had come up with that, especially since Cafas didn't hate him. And Aiden hadn't spoken to him the whole time. Not that Persi had said anything either, but still. It was confusing, and awkward, and Persi would be really glad when they found Cafas so that the awkwardness could stop.

"Pizza is awesome, it's just not healthy." Apparently they agreed about that. Sort of, anyway. Apparently Persi was paying a little more attention to the not healthy part, but it was still prettymuch the same opinion. Agreeing with Brute was really weird. Although Persi was pretty sure that pizza was not the most serious thing in this conversation, so apparently Brute had kind of a bad sense of humor too.

And... that was about where sense stopped. Persi did not have enough energy for this. He was pretty sure having enough energy wouldn't make it make sense, either, and that the way his head was spinning was mostly trying to keep up with way too much information, but still. He'd have preferred that he wasn't hungry (Brute had to point that out) and tired and sweating as well, though he wasn't as hot as he had been. It was still too warm. Probably less than it had been just because he'd now been standing here few a moments.

...When had he started staring at the ground?

Whatever.

Okay, so. Sorting through this. So... Brute was maybe not a universally horrible jerk like it was easy to pretend he was. Persi had been a smartass; he generally was. And he still wasn't sure exactly what had been going on with the riot stuff, but stress made sense. Persi had been stressed too, and sick of being interrupted, even if it was mostly for different reasons. And Brute was apologizing. Persi really, really didn't trust Brute or his apologies, but... it seemed genuine.

Persi would really like to not care about Bruce's family. It would be easier. And it wasn't the same, Persi's family hadn't tried to kill him. They would, but they hadn't, and they wouldn't bother with torches or mobs or anything like that. And being a mutant... probably hadn't broken Persi's family. It sure hadn't helped, it had made things worse, but Persi's family had been pretty broken to start with.

And Persi definitely wasn't using anything he learned to escape, if he could help it. At least, not from his family; he wasn't sure it counted if he was killed by someone else evil like it did if he let himself be killed by good people. Not that it was likely to make a difference anyway, since he ought to have gone with them when they found out... or, really, told them when he found out. That would have been the right thing to do. But he hadn't. Hopefully he could at least keep from making himself even worse than he already had, though, so Persi wasn't doing anything to escape his family when they found him.

Suicide... no. Persi was just... not going to think about that. Bad topic.

Damn it. Why did assholes have to be human? It was so much easier to just hate them.

Well. Fine. So apparently Bruce wasn't completely horrible. He was still wrong, but not completely horrible. "I still suck at sports things." And Persi was still staring at the ground. He tried to fix that, and ended up staring to the side instead. "And even if I didn't, knowing how to punch things isn't going to fix me." Persi was pretty sure nothing could fix him, actually, but even if it was possible, he was certain that punching people wasn't the way to do it. "And... I dunno your name."

That that comment was also a decision that Persi would stop calling Bruce Brute, and stop assuming he was one, was a detail that Persi was perfectly fine with the pink haired guy never knowing.

Oh. Right. Aiden. He was here. And thank God; Persi really needed a distraction now, even if he still wasn't convinced that Aiden didn't hate him. That did not make it any less of a relief to be able to turn away from Bruce to look.

...Was that snow?

Persi blinked, shook his head, turned, and marched off to get his shirt. He really didn't care where they were going, but this entire situation was way too much to stay in right now.

...The hell?

Persi forgot all about gratefulness, resentment and glaring in favor of staring blankly at Brute in complete and utter bewilderment. When had he eaten? What did that have to do with... okay, so it did have to do with exercise, but still. Why ask?

...And now that he had asked, when had Persi eaten? The blank look faded into a thoughtful one while he tried to remember. "I had breakfast...." Granted, he'd only had a piece of toast before his stomach decided it refused to let him eat any more, which was hardly a full breakfast, but it still counted. And anyway, Persi wasn't used to eating breakfast at all; he'd only eaten that because he'd hoped to miss lunch while he hid from Brute. "And I ate... something yesterday? I dunno, I wasn't paying attention." And the glare came back, as soon as he realized it was missing. "Why do you care?"

Now that sounded more like Brute. Persi's glare became more intense, and less wary. "Why'd you care about that either? Not like you have an excuse to hit me today." Yet, anyway. At all, now that Persi knew these dummies existed.

Persi paused on the way back to the dummy, in order to glare at Brute. Really? He had to do that? Sure, Persi was perfectly aware he was weak, but he still didn't like having it flaunted around in front of other people. Especially not more than it already was just from how badly he was doing. And there was the accidentally-on-purpose phrasing that called Persi stupid. Really, there were all kinds of reasons to glare at Brute for that comment.

...Getting to go easier was a relief. Which meant that Brute had done something nice, even if it wasn't for nice reasons, which meant that Persi had to be grateful to him. Persi didn't think that there was much of anything worse than humiliating him and forcing him to be grateful for it at the same time. He put up with it for a few minutes, then deliberately threw himself into trying to hit the dummy harder and faster and without pausing between the punches. It was exhausting, but he had some rage to lean on, and if he needed more he could always just think more about what Brute had said. And what he'd probably keep saying, if he was willing to be that horrible. And Persi was just doing worse, since he was focusing on... well, on exhausting himself, rather than on imitating what he was supposed to, and his side was starting to hurt, but he didn't care.

Hard light constructs. Because that was informative. It was apparently all that Brute was going to say though, and as long as it wasn't people, it didn't really matter.

Getting to stop running was a relief; Persi was already sweating and tired. It seemed a little early for that, but they were inside, and apparently Brute could basically mind control the room through the computer, so maybe he'd made it extra warm or the floor sticky or gravity higher or something. Or all of them; Persi would not be at all surprised by any of it. Either way, he was tired enough not to really react to the room changing.

The floor, however, was weird. Persi scowled at it as he started walking over, then sent a glare in Brute's direction while he tried to figure out how to walk on it. That didn't seem to be possible; every step just kept feeling weird.

The dummy... probably didn't have a mind. Even if it did, it probably wasn't Brute, so after a moment of eyeing it Persi gave up, and started trying to get himself to stand the way he was supposed to.

It turned out this was a lot harder without having unlimited rage to lean on. And Persi still suspected that Brute had messed with gravity or something. Within a few minutes he was even more exhausted; his arms hurt from it, and his hair was sticking to his face like it had been glued there. His clothes weren't much better, though it took a few more minutes for Persi to give up, back up a step, and pull his shirt off. He folded it to delay as long as he could, but didn't feel at all recovered before he had to go back to punching the... whatever the dummy was.