He sometimes has this dream - okay, it's more of a nightmare - where he's fighting the Dark Ace. He has it again tonight.
Only this time, he's winning, no question, and he's got the Cyclonian backed into the proverbial corner, and he's raising his blades for the coup de grace, the one final blow that'll finally defeat the undefeatable, when the Dark Ace looks up at him and starts laughing so hard he cries.
Laughing at his hair.
Aerrow wakes up with a jolt, then drags the pillow over his face so he can a) muffle his scream of frustration and b) smother himself and just get the humiliation over with. Please.
After a minute he realizes he's an idiot, and, resigned to being a lab rat, he swings his feet to the floor, gets up, and goes down the Condor's quiet, dark corridors to Piper's room.
He knocks and waits.
The door thunks open and she squints at him, rubbing one bleary eye. Her own hair is sticking up in some... different... angles. "Hm? What's going on?"
He's slightly distracted by jealousy - he remembers when his hair could look like he's stuck his finger in a light socket - but at least jealousy takes some of the sting out of the humiliation. "I've been thinking, and, uh... I changed my mind. You can go ahead and do... whatever it was you were talking about doing earlier."
She instantly looks ten shades more awake - alert enough to realize she needs to smooth down her wayward 'do. Which she does. "Really?"
He nods.
But of course she's not going to let him get away with the request completely unscathed. She fixes him with a mock-fierce glare: "What happened to 'it's a character-building experience'?"
He scrubs one hand through the sad collection of bristles on top of his head. "Maybe I don't want this much character?" he offers, trying to look pathetic and knowing it's not much of a challenge, these days.
Piper grins. "Okay," she says, relenting and standing back to let him in. "You won't be sorry - I know it's going to work. I just know it!"
Funny, because Aerrow just knows he's in trouble.