tangleweave

[tangleweave]

@morgansmornings (continued from XX)

The mall incident had been jarring, to say the least. Eddie didn't pretend to understand the hoops that Jayden and her higher-ups had to jump through to secure and recover the rest of the team, but it must have been costly for all of them to have been returned unharmed and evidently not even so much as interrogated. Paibok was particularly sour about it, and so was Marko. Cannon hadn't seemed to be affected in the same way, but he was more annoyed about having been swarmed by a trio of well-dressed gentlemen out of nowhere before having the opportunity to whirl up and kept insisting that if he'd had so much as just his helmet, things would have gone down very differently. Elektra, meanwhile, had been her usual ninja self and managed to evade the black-tie spook squad with no explanation given… and simply shown back up at HQ wondering just how long it would take Eddie and Jayden to catch up.

But she’d had no valuable information on the faceless agents that had come in and grabbed the other three. Evidently she’d been a little too busy evading them herself. She hadn’t even managed to score anything on how everyone else’s powers had been shut down.

Whether it was a device or some sort of metahuman ability, the nullification effect they'd all been made to experience had taken its toll. Perhaps here, Elektra had the advantage, since she had no special powers to speak of, but even without Venom's morphological abilities, Eddie was talented at disappearing into crowds and hiding in plain sight. Such skills had served him well in his old career. Hell, they had served him while he'd been on the lam. They were pretty much what had gotten him and Jayden out of the jam without also being swept up.

His intervention had been a sore spot in the debriefing. The question had come up why he would risk himself like that when it had already been demonstrated everyone else’s abilities had been compromised – and he’d given an answer that was honest enough. The disabling of their communications had indicated the team was the target right from the beginning; the bigwigs would want their trained asset back if at all recoverable.

The truth was a little more selfish. What the bigwigs did with Jayden mattered just a little bit less to him than what they would do without her. She was, for all intents and purposes, his sponsor. It didn’t matter that she seemed to be grooming him to be de-facto second-in-command. It didn’t matter if he’d earned the respect of his teammates (Cannon and Elektra were stubborn holdouts and he’d call them out as such whenever he damn well pleased). If something happened to her, Eddie was almost certainly doomed to get sent back into that sonic hellhole.

And he wouldn’t have been terribly surprised to learn that it was a factor the higher-ups were counting on.

Two weeks later and everyone was still nursing their pride… up to and including Jayden, who’d yet to say anything to him since they’d gotten out with their skins still on. A little odd, he thought, since she seemed the most impregnable when it came to ego. Hers was difficult to even bruise. Still, he’d done his best to offer her space, but the others seemed ready to shut that down – a collective effort, apparently, with just how quickly the rest of them had all paired off.

At first, he’d half-expected her to just scoff and walk away, rather than get in the ring with him. The other half of his expectation was what he got instead… her, ready to go, bringing everything she had to bear. And she’d been concise with her directions – at all costs, avoid revealing the symbiote’s presence.

An easy enough instruction, in Their estimation. They already had a fair amount of practice at the covert game. Venom could present as clothing, or He could simply lurk within Eddie’s bones and muscle. But it did mean that He couldn’t provide weaponry in the ways They were accustomed to. Gone were the terrors of a swath of obsidian tentacles, the wicked curve of a reaper blade, or the threatening head of a morningstar… not even lengthened claws to cap Eddie’s fingertips. Any production had to be covert, fluid, and not easily disarmed, otherwise the jig would be up.

Left strictly to pugilism, that meant a whole lot of dodging and weaving for Eddie, trying to get inside her range while she was whirling whips through the air and poofing from one spot to the next. He quickly realized he wasn’t as on his game as he ought to be, though that realization was brought on less by self-assessment and more by Venom noting Eddie would never give quarter to the others like this – not even Elektra.

And so They had leveled up Their game by beginning to produce knives of Venom’s essence into Eddie’s palm. Even a pseudo-whip to match Jayden’s monofilament marvel, though with a touch of Venom’s awareness to reach her – or at least interdict her own weaponry and drag her closer.

But even that strategy had its limits with what she could do to defend herself. Not even just her porting, which at some point Eddie began to think he was getting a handle on, but also her illusory ability, which wasn’t merely disorienting, but something he actually found a bit nauseating. Every time he took a swing he was certain would connect, it was like she’d spun him around in an office chair a hundred times, and his fist would swipe past her somehow. Venom was little help here. Their proprioception wasn’t in error – They were putting body parts precisely where They intended to, it was simply that she never was where she looked like she was.

And quite suddenly, there she was, bullrushing Eddie, from two different sides at the same time, in whatever way that was possible. And all Eddie could really do in the moment was let his body go slack and allow the tackle to happen, so that he could absorb and redistribute the impact of the attack – trying to meet it head-on was an exercise in futility, and bracing in the wrong direction would get him unacceptably hurt in the end.

And maybe, just maybe, this way They might have a handle on just how far away Jayden was from her illusory blinking.

What They didn’t expect was that her hands would grip Eddie’s head on the way down to the floor – nor that she would express abrupt and genuine concern for his well-being.

In that instant of uncertainty between them, Eddie became that much more aware of every sensory input surrounding them both. The heat and weight of the air in the minimal space between them. The scent of their exertion. The grip of her fingers around his head and her knees braced against his ribcage, her calves bracketing his hips.

The pounding of his heart, and the sound of her pulse racing.

The flush of her face and how her eyes were flickering up and down his…

A gravelly whisper resounded in the chambers of Eddie’s mind, and wrinkles vanished from his forehead just to reappear around the corners of his mouth with the crooked grin that took root and began to grow across his face. One hand slid up the center of her back, settling at the junction of her neck and collar…

And then abruptly, an inhuman shove at the center of Eddie’s back, like a coiled spring, catapulted them both to the right. In an instant, Eddie was atop Jayden, her back now pressed into the sparring mat, and what might have initially seemed an innocuous and gentle gesture of his hand at her collar was now a series of black tendrils extending from each of his fingertips, coiled fully and firmly about her neck.

Now Eddie’s smirk was in full bloom, the tip of his nose barely brushing against hers as the tendrils – for all intents and purposes, extensions of his own nervous system – reported to him the pace of her pulse and breathing. He could see her pupils dilating, and he knew if he looked hard enough, he might even see the stream of thought scrambling across her retinas like a ribbon crawl on a cable news channel.

Eddie let the moment stretch out into two seconds. Three. Four.

On the fifth second, he released the faintest scoff of a chuckle.

“Thanks for the lesson.”

The braid of tentacles withdrew its grip around her neck, and he sat back on his haunches, then got to his feet and held out a hand to her.

[tangleweave]

@heroesfromtheashes (continued from XX)

The bracelet left behind by his predecessor had come with a warning attached to it: DESTROY / DON'T USE. So naturally, the new web-head had chosen to disregard that warning entirely and put the bangle on to see what it could do.

He hadn't expected that it would bring him hurtling across time and space, only to deposit him right back in Brooklyn. Only... not quite the Brooklyn he knew. No mention of a Spider-Man here, though it was pretty easy to hear alley thugs tell of a Spider-Woman. As far as these mean streets were concerned, her origin was virtually identical to the lore that Spider-Man was familiar with: she'd simply shown up on the scene one day, bright and colorful and chock-full of quips and thwips, ready to take on bad guys and save old ladies.

He knew a Spider-Woman where he was from, too... but her tale was far different, to say nothing of her abilities. As far as he could tell from what the alleycats had to say, this chick slung silk, not energy blasts.

It was concerning, though, to hear that neither hide nor hair of Spider-Woman had been seen for some time. It was enough to make him go digging into what all was happening in this strange alternate version of his home. If there was no Spider-Man, then was there no Peter Parker? On a visit to the local library, that became a rabbit hole he soon wished he hadn't descended; because yes, there had been one, but now he was on the wrong side of the dirt. He found it interesting that here, Spider-Woman was being blamed by the NYPD for the boy's death.

Which gave him something of an awful twisting feeling, as memories that were not entirely his own came flooding into his consciousness. The NYPD had blamed Spider-Man for the deaths of Captain George Stacy and later his daughter, Gwen... whom he'd had a romantic relationship with at the time. He could still remember the anguish and despair like it was all still fresh.

But if Peter here was dead, what of the Stacys?

His line of inquiry brought him quickly to a recent news article – by Ben Urich, of course, because who else was crazy enough to write it? – about the apparent disappearance of both Captain Stacy and his daughter. The NYPD weren’t reporting even so much as the hope of any leads in the dual case, nor that it might be more than coincidence, given Captain Stacy’s notoriously moral stand against mob bosses and in-house corruption. Less reporting on the matter, he suspected, because there was no grieving wife and mother; Helen Stacy had died of pancreatic cancer several years ago, much as it had been where he was from.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Suspicion was that the so-called Kingpin of Crime was involved in the disappearance of the Stacys. That alone would have been laughed at by anybody from this realm; everyone knew (and as Spider-Man read it, so too was he informed) that Wilson Fisk was dead. Strung up in a mob hit, or so it had been said, and his huge carcass left out in the open for anyone to spot during the early morning rush.

The Kingpin was dead. Long live the Kingpin.

Except anybody who knew anything about crime family dynamics in the Five Boroughs knew that the power vacuum wasn’t going to continue standing empty. It was inevitable that someone was going to fill those shoes, mighty as they were… but whomever it was, they were doing even better at maintaining their anonymity than Fisk had during those first years. Not a single name uttered… not by shaking down one guy, or five, or a dozen.

But he did finally manage to score an address.

A warehouse full of thugs became a warehouse full of webbed bodies, shell casings, and failed bullets.

The metal pins holding the door hinges together sheared away with a swipe of each hand, and a moment later, the door was pulled away from the isolation room, flooding it with moonlight as backdrop to the muscular figure standing in the liminal space.

He peered into the inky blackness through the blank white eyes of his mask, and a familiar humming warble sounded at the base of his skull.

“Gwen?”

Spider-Man had come to save Gwen Stacy.

[tangleweave]

It was true enough, Bill supposed, that she needed prove nothing to him, nor should she have felt any sense thereof. Likewise, he had no requirement of her in that regard. The aggression with which she replied told Bill that Shiloh’s clapback was less about anything he had to say and more about her desperation in her search for something meaningful to her.

Still, it did not strike him as particularly useful for her to snap at him when his intent had been well-meant, and he took a moment to bite his tongue while he evaluated both the moment and the situation. If, for example, he had been bereft of Stormbreaker, then surely, he would spare no expenditure of force or will to seek it or set it free from whatever captivity might have befallen it. Whether or not the object of Shiloh’s search could bestow upon her the power of an Asgardian god was something else again, but in the end, it mattered little what her quarry could do – it was, of course, about how much it meant to her.

Even as he was taking that moment to analyze both Shiloh’s commentary and his emotional reaction to it, he noted that she was already in the middle of another ill-mannered retort when she abruptly cut herself off and mumbled something not quite audible. The sounds of grunting, straining, and clattering reached him far more readily. He chose to hold back any remarks or offers of help he might otherwise have extended, all the way to the moment he heard the noise of tearing fabric and an exasperated sound from the throat of his guest.

And then quite suddenly there was an old-style photograph lying just shy of his toes.

Shiloh’s outcry seemed less a matter of fury and more a matter of simple possessiveness. After all he’d barely had time to even react to its presence, let alone consider taking it up. But there was no avoiding the commitment of his ocular sensors to the object, and therefore no avoiding him seeing exactly what it was a picture of. Two people, both with wild red hair, looking very much alike – and one of them was certainly Shiloh. Perhaps the other was a relative? A sister?

Obligingly, Bill took a single long step backward and then settled on one knee, both hands placed atop the other while Shiloh exited the wreckage of her vessel. If she wanted no assistance and no interaction or contact with her picture, then that was precisely what she would get.

He considered trying to speak to her again, but his teeth stayed firmly clenched, his tongue settled against the roof of his mouth, and he realized that given her condition and her output, there was little he could say or do in this moment that could not be interpreted as some form of patronizing.

Nevertheless, as his gaze returned to the picture for a moment while she extricated herself from the wreckage, he found he could not quite hold his tongue for a moment of inquiry.

“Family?”

He calculated that it would not be a welcome subject for discourse just now, not with the way she was already growing accustomed to speaking to him... but the image and its importance to Shiloh had already given Bill a vital piece of information. There was someone in her life whom she treasured, and must be missing deeply. That, alone, inspired far more sympathy within him than her attitude had yet earned.

She was still a person who valued at least one connection in her life.

“Urgh!” War growled as she pulled off last the compartment door and found nothing. Her pretty face was firmly set in a scowl as she emerged from the ship.

The longer the search took, the more anxious she became. If the item she was looking for turned out to be torn, burnt, and/or ruined then fine. She’d deal. It would hurt like a bitch to have the photo be gone, but at least War would know one way or another. And that was why she wasn’t leaving that wreckage until she found out what happened to the picture. The only image she had left of her sister.

“First of all,” She huffed as she limped around him to another area where storage compartments could be. “I don’t ‘feel the need’ to demonstrate anything to you. That implies I care enough about your opinion to want some sort of approval or acknowledgement.” She was starting to get a little snippy. Panic and pain tended to do that to her. At least with the next area of the ship, the hull was already shorn back from the crash. War just had to kick a metal support a few times before she had enough space to duck into the hole.

“When I decide I want your help, I’ll ask for it.” She spoke loud enough that Bill would be able to hear her while she clamored around. “Until then if you’d stop trying to run up my tab I’d appreci-oh! Fuck. Please be okay…” The last sentence is said softer, with a little more desperation and a hope Bill won’t hear.

In the third compartment, tucked near the back and partially squashed under dented metal, her fingers brushed the durable fabric of her rucksack. War had to reach awkwardly to grasp the bag. A position that made entire torso ache. She ignored the discomfort and tugged.

The bag slid part way out before getting caught. She pulled her hand back to see what kind of state it was in and clocked some tears with singed edged. Still the bag was mostly intact. That meant maybe, just maybe, the picture alright. The frame was most definitely broken. But tucked safely in that frame, wrapped in a sweatshirt, and placed meticulously right in the center of everything else in the bag, the picture could be alright. With her heart starting to pick up it’s pace, War reached back into the compartment and tugged on the bag again.

It really was stuck. If she’d been more clear headed, less frazzled from nearly fucking dying in a spaceship crash and from the dull roar of pain all over her body, War would have been more thoughtful. She would have stopped to assess the situation. Tried to see if she could just open the bag and pull the photo out. Or she would have bent the metal out of the way to see whatever was snagging the rucksack. She wasn’t clear headed though. War was on a damned alien ship after having somehow survived what should have been a lethal crash, she fucking hurt everywhere, and she was so damn close to getting to the picture. War wasn’t thinking when she decided to just pull harder.

When the fabric of the bag, military grade and not at all flimsy, finally gave, it was with a sharp, sudden rip. War grit her teeth as she stumbled back. Her already wounded ribs were further abused by impact with metal siding.

Several items sprung out with the momentum of the tear. One bulky object barely missed War’s head but did manage hit the edge of the opening out to the hanger bay as it went. The fabric the object was wrapped in snagged on the jagged edge. Broken glass tinkled onto the floor, closely followed by the clattering of pieces of wood, as the picture frame rolled out of the sweatshirt. It’s fragments, and the slightly scratched photograph of two red headed girls, fell at Bill’s feet.

War, having whipped around when she’d processed what almost hit her, froze halfway out of the ship. Her breath caught sharply and her eyes locked on the picture. “Don’t touch it!” She meant to yell, to seem angry. Yet the demand sounded quite a bit like a plea.

[tangleweave]

Hey writers!

As of January 16, 2025, Microsoft has decided to automatically enable their AI service, CoPilot, on Word - even if you've previously turned off the service. They've also changed the process to disable it.

If you want to disable it again, go to:

Options -> CoPilot -> Uncheck "Enable CoPilot"

Hope this helps!

[tangleweave]

ICE raids are starting on Tuesday in Chicago.

Yell “ICE” and “LA MIGRA” to disrupt them. Notify people and use your privilege as a citizen to make ICE’s job as difficult as possible.

Fascism has been here. It’s just loud now. Time to be loud too.

[tangleweave]

Stephen's observation of the Goblin's maneuvering is silent in its bemusement, and he hates that he's impressed by the mystery man's capacity for adapting to what he's encountering. An inherent danger in attacking a spellcaster, as he's certain his opponent must know, is the considerable breadth of magical skills accrued by said spellcaster -- and the Sorcerer Supreme's capacity is only limited by his imagination. The Goblin would need to expect reprisal to come from literally anywhere and be prepared to confront or evade it.

Stephen loathes, also, how he must make the concession that if the magician's strength is his mind, then his weakness is his body. Stephen himself is physically fit, and far more so than most people his age, but he wouldn't call himself superhumanly nimble, nor exceptionally fast on the uptake. The Goblin is clearly on another level. His ability to react and compensate must match that of Olympians… and so it's likely a mistake to consider confronting him in a true match of fisticuffs. Something tells the sorcerer that his foe would augment such a match to his own advantage.

The burst of thick green fog gives him a moment's pause; clearly he cannot take the chance that it's toxic, and so he reconfigures his hand-shields into fan blades to drive the smog away from himself -- but only a moment later the blinking pumpkin bomb bursts through the smoke, hurtling straight for his face. And given that the last was a smoke bomb, there is little doubt this one is even deadlier.

The reaction comes more from the Cloak of Levitation than Stephen himself, allowing him to suddenly drop out of the air like a stone. Abruptly Stephen feels like a reckless dandy for having crossed his legs beneath him, and he lets out a shout of surprise and momentary terror -- is his fate now for his spine to telescope into his skull cavity?

But no -- the Cloak catches him, of course, only permitting him to drop a grand total of about forty feet in freefall before catching hold of his shoulders and sweeping him away from the explosion that had just gone off overhead. Bits of shranpel zip past his face and he can feel the Cloak faltering -- he'll discover later that the blast ripped holes through it, as well as portions of his shiftweave garb beneath.

His legs fall out from their folded position and catch him on the ground, and he casts his eyes up at the Goblin. The green-clad gremlin seems pleased with having forced Stephen out of the air, and it's abruptly an advantage the sorcerer doesn't feel all that okay having surrendered. A wide sweeping of both arms in circular patterns, fingers splayed just so, summons forth a barrage of dimensional discs that firstly tumble all about him like scales protecting a dragon, but then one by one they frisbee, hurtle, and pinwheel towards the Goblin in a series of pathways that he hopes are sufficiently random.

"I survived," he remarks, even as his discs continue to fly in bizarre patterns towards the Goblin. "Do I win something?"

Harry was not fond of physics back during his days at ESU, and he thinks he's even less fond of them now, as it's physics that make him have to think fast, before he's blown away or worse, blown into the ground: he would survive the fall, he's certain, but his pride would likely not. Not that it's doing too great, as he needs to crouch down and trust the magnetic clasps holding his boots to the Glider, losing altitude fast in a sharp drop to avoid the wind current.

He's still aware of the sorcerer's position, however: he doesn't need to look at him for that, not with his senses, and so everything is mostly under control as he rights himself... And then the sorcerer is not where he should be anymore, and the Goblin needs to look up because his senses are not made for magic and it's very, very clear now, with the way they can deal with a floating man but not with a teleporting one.

Alas, a teleporting man is still a man, and at this point in time, grabbing one of his bombs is an easy, practiced movement, as he bounces it lightly on one hand. An arrogant, apparently reckless gesture, but then again the bombs will not be live until the button is pressed... And this one will not explode, it's just a smokescreen.

"Well, the 'Big Bad Goblin' doesn't have the same flair." He concedes, as he presses the bomb, and thick, dark green smoke starts to flow around them both. Non toxic, but very much looking the part... And likely useful to see how vulnerable the sorcerer is as he casts, because there is soon an explosive bomb on the Goblin's hand, thrown now towards his foe.

"But it's okay." He grins. "Maybe I'll tell you if you survive."

[tangleweave]

Wanda moved to curl up beside Bill, resting her head on his chest. “Don’t get up…”

Whatever most might believe about Bill, he did in fact have his own resting quarters aboard Skuttlebutt, rather than simply falling asleep (or into low-power mode) in his pilot's seat. Those quarters existed not far from the bridge, so that he could make it there in a hurry if he was truly required, although Skutt was quite capable of handling herself even if he needed to navigate all the way up from the bowels of the mighty vessel. He'd given Wanda permission to access his room early on, should she happen to need him for anything.

It hadn't occurred to him then that a scenario like this might one day develop. But now? Well, this was hardly the first time that Wanda had found her way to his room, nor even the first time she'd snuggled up to him, seeking the simple but necessary comfort of physical contact.

He lifted one huge arm up to circle about her waist, and he craned his head to look down at her crown. "That would be an inconvenience to us both," he replied, perhaps a little unnecessarily, but the passage of words between his teeth at least emboldened him to speak more. "Are you all right?"

[tangleweave]

Stephen elected not to interrupt his guest's rush to obscure the study's windows, though if he had been asked, the Master of the Mystic Arts might have informed the other man that the windows did not necessarily report the truth of the Sanctum's interior; there were protective spells upon those, as well. Curiosity had its place, but prying eyes were just as nerve-wracking to the magically inclined as to the mundane, and the Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj were not prone to allowing their secrets to be so easily observed.

A swiping gesture of his hand and the door's locks, magical and otherwise, re-engaged themselves. Stephen arched an eyebrow at his injured guest as the black-clad man came back into the foyer, moving very much like a man on a mission beyond just the seeking of sanctuary. But his second eyebrow joined his first one midway up his forehead when the man tucked back his hood to present himself more fully.

"Murdock. I've heard your name before." Stephen lifted his hand to clasp the other man's, though his grasp was considerably more ginger than Matt's. "Don't you have a law practice? Interesting cover for a vigilante. I'm surprised more people haven't thought of it." With them both standing still, Stephen's gaze was able now to flicker across Matt's myriad wounds. "And unless I'm very much mistaken, you've been missing for some time, ever since the collapse at Midland Circle. But I get the impression you're not here to talk about any of that just now."

He cocked his head. "Who's tailing you?"

A simple black sweatshirt with the hood up and jeans was all he had to hide him from the members of the Hand pursuing him, knowing full well it was no where near enough. There was no hardened plates or cowl to protect him from a fall or their arrows. He was just as vulnerable standing Strange's stoop as he had been laying unconscious on the beach weeks before. Footsteps rounded the corner of the block and fear prickled across the back of his neck, he was running out of time...

With Strange's invitation, Matthew hurried inside without a second to pause for gratitude. "Lock the door." It was all he had time to afford before rushing through the foyer to the next room to pull the curtains closed on the tall windows. Satisfied no one passing would be able to see inside, he headed back to the foyer with long strides.

"Thank you for letting me in." A quick movement of his hand to push the hood from his head, revealing the extent of his healing injuries and exposing the entirety of his face. Lips pressed into a thin line and he held out a hand towards Strange, his gaze staring blankly to the side of his head. "We've met before but not with me looking like this. My name is Matt Murdock...I'm Daredevil."

[tangleweave]

"Hey, short isn't a bad thing," Peter returned. "It's not like I'm Dikembe Mutombo or anything. And if you ever decide to do a Demona costume, I'll double up with you and be right there with my Lexington."

He didn't really expect that she would take him up on the notion. When would she even get the time or resources? Living in a group home was hardly the sort of thing one bragged about, and the unfortunate truth of the matter was the level of stigma that information carried. One might assume, erroneously, that Tabby lived there because there was something wrong with her. And if one made the opposite assumption -- that it was a more stable and suitable environment for her than what she could have been provided by a parent -- then it would become a matter of pity.

And if there was one thing about Tabby that he knew without a shadow of a doubt, it was that pity was the single most useless, most offensive thing to offer her.

So instead he promised himself that if she ever expressed interest in taking him up on his suggestion, he would make a point of helping her develop the most awesome Demona outfit ever. Maybe the wings might not make her fly, but damn if he wouldn't be interested in learning how to bridge that gap someday. Maybe he might take some notes from Vulture's rig, if he ever got the opportunity.

When it came to cueing up his camera, he felt himself fall into a specific sort of comfort zone that he rarely made available for view to friends and family. Not precisely a defense mechanism, but neither something so passive as a trance, there was a certain calm that settled about his shoulders, bolstered his frame, put him into an element that brought out his passion. A challenge had been made of the moment and he wanted to meet it.

Her joke, though, draws a grin on his face beneath the shield of his camera, and a wry chuckle erupts from his throat. There seemed to never be a moment when she didn't have something on the tip of her tongue pertinent to the conversation topic. He'd invited it in order to get a more candid shot of her, a picture of Tabby in her own element, just as he was in his. There was no smile quite so forced as those presented in pictures taken for school, for church, or for dossiers. What were the chances that, should she ever go missing, she would be recognizable from those mugshots? (Then again, if taken against her will, it might not be unreasonable that she'd look precisely as miserable.)

It was at the moment that she uttered "be here" that he caught the shot he was looking for. Her lips tugged just so, allowing her teeth to show, her cheeks bunched up in a self-satisfied smile, her eyes caught in a specific slant because of that bunching. A photo without that smile would make her eyes look huge and perhaps even slightly wild, depending on the circumstance. He knew it wasn't her fault, but she'd spent years existing amidst a world that was less than kind.

A moment's pause as he examined the image on the digital screen, and he gave a satisfied nod. He'd been right to trust his instincts, both in guiding her to seek her comfort and in picking the exact moment that complimented her most. The angle he'd caught had lent the perfect gleam of sunlight on her face and hair.

Knowing as he did that she would want to see it, he leaned toward her and turned the back of the camera around to show her the image. "How's that?"

In the moment where Peter struggled to make words, her own lips twitched. Only the corners, forced back into neutrality quickly, and long before Tabby could say anything accidentally like how he made getting tongue-tied kind of adorable. Not that kind of adorable. Nothing that would make their close proximity suddenly awkward. It was the form which absolutely no teenage boy wanted to be called, reminiscent of a doddery aunt pinching their cheeks and calling them precious.

But that was still, undeniably, part of Peter’s charm. For Tabby, at least. She had known enough smooth talkers, always ready with the right words. Peter was sometimes messy and awkward and yes, sometimes fibbed, but he was blessedly real in all the right ways.

Also, he was a giant nerd, as evidenced by the gargoyle examples thrown out. Tabby nearly rolled her eyes, close to accusing him as such, except she did actually get the references. Admittedly cartoons were allowed on the communal TV more frequently than other forms of entertainment. Her defense one which would hardly stand up in the court of peer opinion. “That’s, like, a lot of short creatures you’re name dropping there. And Demona is a badass. I wouldn’t complain about looking like her.”

For all Tabby was mocking being offended, she couldn’t quite pull it off. Even less so when Peter pulled out his camera, handling it like a pro. The edges of adorable nerd fell away when he went into photographer mode. There, he was at ease. Confident and certain. Just watching the subtle shift softened Tabby in turn, content in seeing her friend, however briefly, in his element.

“I’ve always got bad jokes to tell.” Tabby’s hazel eyes turned upwards towards the sky, the way they always did when she stopped to give serious thought. A swift flick through her mental catalog pulled up something suitable. “Okay. What sound does a sneezing gargoyle make?” The standard pause before the punchline, looking a tiny bit pleased at herself for hitting the theme. “Stat-choo.” Tabby even mixed in the sound of a sneeze, animated in her comedic performance. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.”

[tangleweave]

In traveling the universe, Bill has borne witness to any number of remarkable things. People. Locations. Events. He's seen an uprising of a populace against brutal masters in which not a single blow was landed, nor a word uttered… merely the sight of the solidarity of the peasantry moved the masters to flee. He's seen binary black holes in a brutal, beautiful dance across the cosmos. He's seen a bipedal species that seemed to be made entirely of sentient crystal, entirely dependent on resonance for their ability to sense their environment because if they possessed any sensitivity at all to light, they would all be blinded by its effect as it ran through each and every one of them. Theirs was a language of infinite gentleness, of music so subtle and sweet it would bring even the foulest soul to tears.

But none of these compare to the utter angelic sweetness that is Beth. A woman he would never have known, save for a barrier-breaking tragedy that had shorn half her vessel into his reality, while leaving the other half behind for search crews to discover.

To think that two universes needed to collide for a single instant in time, in order for them to have and share this moment. To have and share themselves with each other.

He feels the skin of his shoulder grow rigid, gain textural definition, beneath her ministrations. Smooth at first, but then ridged, not unlike the subtle striations of fingerprints, revealing to Beth a design of his flesh that no soul beyond his creators has ever had the opportunity to witness so close. The lines and sweeping curves and whorls that adorn every inch of his skin are in starker relief as she drifts her tongue against it. It is as close to the human phenomenon of 'goosebumps' as his people have. And when her body arches up to meet his more fully, his broad chest likewise striates. His hand slides beneath the arch of her back to press between her shoulder blades while lis own tongue continues to lave against her. His teeth scrape gently along her skin as he lifts his head back, shifting so that he can nuzzle against the side of her neck.

The exertions of their games of chase have left them with only the barest modicum of attire; his form-hugging trousers are all that remain, his cape and armor having long been dismissed into his weapon, his greaves cast aside for greater mobility during his pursuit of her through the forest. His dusky bronze skin shimmers in the waning sunlight. Meanwhile, there is barely even a scrap of cloth about her -- a pale, oversized tunic worn specifically for the chase, one that had hung loosely about her to begin with -- to guard her modesty… and it is a scrap most easily brushed aside. Perhaps it is precisely because the article is so easily removed that Bill takes the utmost care in preserving the moment. There need be no rush to meet it, and so he enshrines it with torpid reverence, as his fingers slide carefully, delicately, beneath the hem to shift the garment up and aside.

He understands the dance. But he has never, himself, fallen into step. Every movement is made with the greatest precision, which he is certain will telegraph his uncertainty to her. Not about whether this is something he desires, nor whether he seeks this dance because she asked him to… though knowing Beth as he does, there is every chance in the world that such will occur to her of its own accord… but whether he moves too quickly, too slowly, too eagerly, too reluctantly, for any and every step he takes.

But what good is it to leave her to suppose all of these things, when he can simply communicate his misgivings to her? If this is how far they have come, what possible harm could there be in revealing his thinking to her? Surely lending voice to thought could only be a good thing, a proper thing, in this most intimate of moments, when all is meant to be made plain.

His confession escapes him on a breath between his teeth, through the gaps of his open cheeks.

"You would be my first." A brush of his knuckles against her cheek. "My only. I understand much… but I know little."

Both his hands shift now, to seek out and take hold of both of hers, and he draws them into place against his chest as he looks into her eyes. "I wish to know you, just as you would know me. And should you see fit to offer me guidance, it will be my gladdest purpose to satisfy every need you… we… have."

With that pronouncement, he rolls to one side, tugging her into position prostrate atop him. Offering her the fullness of his body, now, to lie upon -- to admire, to learn, and to be assured that he has no intention whatsoever of abandoning this moment.

@tangleweave {{xx}} The cold darkness between the seeds of a million suns hold a million terrors and those things of flesh and blood are the least amongst them. There is a certain song in that void that echoes a sour note deep within her belly, where her mana is the strongest, nourished by love that she bears outward for all things. It swirls with a destructive sickness. A madness that reeks of the Wyrm but is darker, more destructive. She cannot fathom of a name for it. She doesn't need to, not at the moment, not when they have a skin like Skuttlebutt to protect them as they glide through the permanent night. Within the ship there are many and varied lights; some glow softly with the ship's energy, Her electric blood and Her own song. Skutt is undoubtedly a Her, and She loves Bill. She was, if Beth understands correctly, to be a home, a companion, a help. There are times that Beth fears a kind of jealousy exists between them that could be detrimental to Bill but if it is there, it is truly hidden from her best efforts to see. Other lights come in small moments; Bill sharing various foods from various worlds, especially when Beth slowly began to explain her own culture. The glow of his eyes in the dim interior confines that remind her of nothing so much as her beloved lighthouse, or the fabled beacons of Gondor. She still remembers the odd little look that crossed over his features when she murmured sleepily that he was her phial of Earendil. Some lights are not so easy to see, especially when its the stones-in-a-river tone of his voice as she nestles against his chest as he recounts her the stories of his people and his world, bittersweet despite how he carries hope within him. Times like that, he becomes the mysterious Kal-El. The brightest one now is the velveteen nuzzle against her neck. He might not have lips as humans think of them but the caress is so ephemeral that she cannot think of it as any but the softest sort of kiss. One that draws the rush of blood from her pulse to beat against it. Her head cants to the side to accommodate him and to provide wordless encouragement. All these things provide a bulwark against the dark. And here, on this sun-dappled world, that has never known depredation or the spoiling rot that is mankind, Beth can believe that Gaia still sees her even so far away, that this is what makes the fight back home worth any sacrifice. Not just the beauty of the wilderness but the freedom that comes with it. Beth recognises a blessing when she sees one. She doesn't really mean this world whose name is yet hidden from her.

No chill settles in the pit of her belly when he takes a moment to contend with what it is exactly that she asks. Bill is entirely too noble to withdraw from her in horror. If his heart does not beat in the same space as hers, he will find a gentle way to withdraw from the situation but he would continue his quest to find a way to return her to her home. And she doesn't try to tip the scales in her favour, using subtle touch and even more surreptitious alterations of his pattern to incline him toward desire. She tucks the thought away in the back of her mind. Something to experiment with should he decide he's amenable to her request, and if he desires her in the future. Would she be more appealing to him if she were to wear the body of a woman in his culture? Would he wish her to draw her most amorous threads over him to enhance pleasure and need? Perhaps. But that, and she shivers a little at how readily the idiom writes itself in her mind, is putting the cart before the varenach. She half expects him to call upon his relic. That one imbued with the magick of Asgard that was gifted to him by the All-Father. This is one of her favourite stories. It has little to do with the Thunderer's comeuppance but more because it shows just how dogged Bill is in pursing what he believes is right, and causes a god-king to bow to him. If he asked her, Beth would be truthful. She sees him as the champion and the young man in his original guise. She would still appreciate and adore him if he were to wear any other skin or size or face. Such things matter little, though this one that he wears will always be the one she sees when she dreams. It is not the surface of him that has sparked all of her desire, the will to ask him to lay with her.

She leans into the hand slowly brought down to her face then turns enough that her own lips trail along his jaw. Her lids lower until they half-shade her gaze. The little brittle words that threaten to choke the life out of her when she thinks to say them seem to flow from him the way a stream meanders along the curves of its banks. It whispers through his breath balmy on her skin the way the breeze flutters through the branches of nearby trees and tickles the leaves.

His voice pours golden down through skin and muscle. Affixes itself to her bones and then seeps outward. She feels the answering desire rise up in response. An entire world history has made love songs from the words he speaks. The All-Tongue works its own mana and gifts her each and every syllable without effort and for this she is grateful. She curls her fingers toward her palm and drags the backs of her slim knuckles along the side of his thick neck. She trails along the corded tendons down to his shoulder where they unfurl and settle as if taking up a perch for a dance. Her body arches upward pressing her chest into his and providing a beautiful but perhaps not fully natural arch of her spine. Nails graze the curve of his hip. The uppermost portion of his broad back. There is no pain in this nor in the sudden sharp exhalation that escapes her throat.

Neither is it fully a surprise as such though perhaps it is close-enough kin. Beth knows well the comforts of cuddling up with each of her siblings, with her cabal mates. The reassurance and solace, the very power of trust and love and touch. She finds that in his embrace but it's different now. Gone is the familial succour that she's used to and is replaced by echoing current of voltaic joy in her blood. Followed by a ripple as she feels her body try to grow ever closer to his.

She buries her face into his shoulder as it is the easiest part of him to reach in this sort of embrace. In her belief that all things between them being fair, the kiss widens to permit her own tongue to slide out from between her teeth and she traces fanciful if aimless designs along his coppery skin.

[tangleweave]

Persuasion ~ Phil

[ A Test of Skill / Closed ]

{ Persuasion: 18 }

Agent Coulson had spent the fullness of a career in SHIELD learning the precise methodology behind approaching people. By this point, he knew virtually every kind, and had a better-than-decent bead on what one was liable to do in a given situation, with given environment, under given circumstances. Spycraft was a meticulous business, and he'd been under the tutelage of Nick Fury himself nearly since emerging from the Academy… and he would never have thought to ask for a different mentor.

But in the months following the Battle of New York, after his ostensible recovery from near death and then the frustrating stonewalling of his own investigation into what had truly happened… well, there was something to be said for not putting all his eggs into one basket. Another lesson learned from Fury -- the very man he was now attempting to circumvent.

Enter one Corinne Bailey. A barista to the eyes of the world… an occasionally useful asset in the eyes of SHIELD. A little bit tetchy, but for good reason, in his estimation; she had, after all, been fortunate to escape the whole Cross incident with her life. Anybody who came walking into her coffee shop that carried himself like he knew what he was doing was almost certainly going to get a suspicious look.

And that was only one element of the facade he would need to assemble. He would have to adopt a certain note of vulnerability, traveling beneath the waves of his ingrained self-confidence… not a shark slavering for a meal, but a dolphin seeking its pod. He would have to make a point of looking her in the eye and speaking softly, kindly. A little uncertainly, beyond the range of a SHIELD agent and more into the realm of 'just a guy looking for answers'.

Some thought had gone into his attire, as well, of course. He'd briefly considered donning civvies. It had become his impression that one could rarely go wrong in a hoodie. But that might offer her the wrong impression. If he was going to prostrate himself before her, it made less sense to do so outside the trappings of his employment, which had after all been the reason for his life continuing to this point in the first place. But he wasn't about to do it in a SHIELD vehicle. Lola was the way to go. Thus it was that he found a spot in a parking garage just down the block from the nondescript coffee shop that was Ms. Bailey's pride and joy.

When he passed through the front door, the sight that met Ms. Bailey and her staff assistants was that of someone who seemed to have taken the term "G-Man" and simply run with it to its most logical endpoint. A well-tailored dark gray suit, white shirt, gray silk tie, and aviator sunglasses which were tugged off his face with one hand, revealing hazel eyes with the faint crinkling of a squint not yet fully rendered away by the soft artifical lighting.

The moments that followed would be crucial in order for her to not try to rabbit out of the place. There were no other customers here just now, and that was a small mercy for everyone involved. Approaching with his badge and ID would be too aggressive a maneuver, and reaching into his pocket now might look like he was going for a weapon. No, best to order off the menu, toss her a little good faith as well as some business off the bat.

As he approached the counter, he offered a gentle smile and a nod of greeting. "Hi. I'd like to get a medium of today's special, and a ham and Swiss croissant, if you wouldn't mind?"

With context established, he was free to withdraw his billfold from his jacket… and along with the five twenty dollar bills he pressed to the countertop, his badge.

"And a few moments of your time, Ms. Bailey… when you have them to spare."

[tangleweave]

Everything, of course. The answer to that question was everything. Between the two of them, there was nothing that could reasonably be denied, and especially not in moments like this, when all they needed and all they wanted was more of each other. They were children of trauma, they were college students, they were superheroes enduring the banality of a mundane life outside the luchador costumes and niche technology they'd fashioned for themselves… in all other times, they were whatever the world expected and whatever the world required.

But in the here and now? All they were was all they needed to be: lovers.

Peter rocked his head back obligingly, letting Gwen tug his hair to draw him into just the position she wanted. Their tongues met as passionately and intimately as any other part of them, seeking an embrace that was clearly never meant to be released without the greatest of reluctance. He had barely even the opportunity to whisper her name before she had claimed his mouth as her own, and why not? Her groan of his name had been maybe all the coherent utterance required in the moment.

In times like this, they had learned, it was something of a balancing act to avoid causing damage to their environs. The first time after she'd gotten her powers that they'd made love, Peter had needed to replace his bedside table and his dresser, and toss out his bedframe altogether -- no amount of wood glue in the universe would have reassembled it, and it was debatable whether even the Infinity Gauntlet itself could have rendered it whole once more. They'd had to learn how to moderate their strength when entangled with one another, and in so doing they'd realized something slightly irritating: once they had begun, it was very, very difficult to take notice of exactly how much force they were applying to each other or anything else. As though their proprioception had simply gone out the window the moment they were in each other's arms.

Each time since then had taught them a little more about how to control themselves. In a space like this one, with tiled walls that aren't necessarily reinforced beyond wood studs, it's paramount to not use the full measure of their strength. Shattered tiles and ruptured plumbing would be a buzzkill, no matter the potency of their healing factors.

Even so, Peter did feel within himself the momentary urge to twist about and slam Gwen into the wall, turnabout being fair play and all. But no. It wasn't necessary. She was right where she wanted to be, and if he gave her a few more moments, she would be climbing up him like a tree. The setting notwithstanding, he was entirely inclined to allow that without challenge… and he showed it by letting his hands roam shamelessly across every inch of her he could reach. His palms slid down her spine and across her shoulder blades; they sloped down behind her backside and along her legs, then back up.

God, it was agony not being in physical contact with her. And holding her like this was the sweetest relief. How could they not be tangled up like this all the time? How could they not spend every waking minute just…

Just… like this?

The barbs in his fingertips caught against her skin, firming his grasp on her that much harder, and only then did he finally break the contact of their lips on trade for kissing her down her neck and along her collar, then back up again. He would have sauntered further down, but that would require their bodies to permit space between them, and he wasn't about to allow such a travesty.

He whispered into her ear. "Need you."

Gwen didn't hesitate to rock against Peter, her fingers caressing all over his body. The pull was always intense, whether they were just sitting close together or at their shared apartment. Even in the one or two classes they shared, she genuinely sat away from him, just so they could both focus.

"Peter." A groan against his lips, sliding her fingers carefully into his hair, gently tugging though she knew what he could handle. Her tongue licking into his mouth wanting more of him, his taste, to get as close as she could to merging their bodies. The feelings were damn near indescribable. What about them together was undeniable?

[tangleweave]

The locker rooms weren't co-ed. Come to think of it, Peter couldn't think of a single instance he'd ever seen where both men and women were permitted in the same showering space... and of course, he understood that there were several excellent reasons. If given time, he could designate all the ones that immediately sprang to mind on each finger and toe between the two of them.

But as the present moment was glad to inform him, there was no obstacle preventing Gwen from entering the men's locker room and finding him there. Which might be something of a concern to him normally, except it was already after 10 pm, and although ESU's rec center was a 24/7 establishment, less than a handful of students ever showed up here past 9.

It didn't mean they wouldn't get caught. But if the way she pounced him and pinned him to the wall was any indication, it was either so remote a possibility that they needn't worry... or in this particular moment, it simply could not matter less.

That last might have been true in any event.

The tile was cold against his back and shoulders as she pushed him against it, but he was assuaged by the feel of her fingertips brushing against either side of his neck. Peter wrapped one arm about her waist, while his other arm settled against the channel of her spine, fingers curling up and about her collarbone, and he met her fire with his own. His lips parted against hers as his nostrils became filled with her scent, and a soft groan erupted into her mouth as he tugged her against him, bare bodies in full contact from shoulder to knee.

It never ceased to amaze him just how quickly Gwen could turn his dial up from 1 to 100.

Gwen had meant to just wait for Peter, but well when she stretched her own spider senses and didn't find anyone else..? Having his hands on her body was too good to pass up. Blame it on the bite or just mutual need.. either way she stripped down and joined him.

Her lips immediately found his, pushing him against the wall, with a slight pant against him, sharing air. It was...sometimes... difficult to control the strength when the desire raged in her bones.

@tangleweave

[tangleweave]

@morgansmornings (continued from XX)

To hear the agent speak of respect was a bit of a surprise, given the circumstances under which they'd met. On the other hand, the fact that she'd sprung Them from the nameless facility in which They'd been caged was at least an indication she thought They were far more useful in action than cooped up behind shatterproof glass and subjected to experimentation. A wry smirk crossed his face when she made the purse dog analogy. "Good, 'cause We haven't seen a purse worth carryin' Us around anyway."

Then he tossed his head to one side and planted both hands on his hips. "I know a lotta kinks, an' work me enough you might even tease some outta me, but never heard'uh whatever it is you're talkin' about. Promise We're big boys around here. Even been known to get down on my knees and toss a prayer up like my mom might've wanted. But that's kinda risky business, askin' the Almighty to turn His eye towards you for a hot second. Never know what other gods an' monsters out there might be listenin' in."

The vulnerability in her mien gave Eddie a moment's pause, and his face cleared into something sobered. He'd expected her to keep up the hard-ass facade for a good while yet. After all, why not? She bore all the features of a high-powered busybody who ate, slept, and lived in the moral gray. But almost as quickly as his expression reset, it found its way back to something akin to wry amusement.

"Yeah, I bet you don't," he drawled. "Just think'uh how lucky you are to get even the illusion'uh choice in the matter." He crossed his arms over his broad chest. "But that look on your face says you at least got a taste of it, otherwise it wouldn't freak you out so hard. How's that even work, anyway? You spent all that effort to convince me you could hunt Us down if We bolted, only you got people above you who can do it even better?"

He swayed his upper body forward, as though looming towards her. "You even doin' this job 'cause you wanted it? Or is all your outside time spent between a doghouse an' a hole in the ground? 'Cause lemme tell you… We know what that's like, too. Sometimes it's even worse than havin' the walls all around you. At least in a prison, they make it clear that's what it is. They don't make you buy your own food an' pump your own gas like you're pretendin' to live."

He blasted a breath out his nose after a moment. "Okay, so obviously We got a lotta stuff to work out, here. I figure you don't have any mission details for Us just yet 'cause We should be focusin' on gettin' Our strength back up to par. Which is fine. We got a fighting form an' We wanna get back into it. When's the 'Get To Know Our Teammates' party? Can't just be you an' Us on this boat."

[tangleweave]

Sigyn's question feels like a redirection intended to perhaps save herself from the painful ignominy of examining a future without Loki in it in front of Bill. The Korbinite cannot necessarily blame her for wanting to shift the conversation. He had grieved his home long ago, but the loss of shelter and of family is still very much fresh to her. Moreover, his oathbrother seemed a little too willing to abdicate his birthright of leadership of New Asgard to Brunnhilde. It all spoke to a deep wound in the psyche of this shard of Asgard which still remained stubbornly in existence.

It would not be the same as the world they had lost to Surtur. Already the colony has become a refuge not just for Asgardians, but also for a variety of extraterrestrials. The governments of Earth have openly expressed as much concern and suspicion as they've expressed welcome and sympathy. The various attacks upon the world by alien forces -- first the Chitauri, then Thanos' Black Army -- had hardened the hearts and the resolve of humanity, especially as they'd been faced with their own helplessness and ineffectiveness while a handful-and-a-half of resplendently dressed warriors had succeeded where entire armies had failed.

Bill supposes it would be easy for those of Earth to believe that such circumstances are unique to their world… that the way of the 'superhero' is a singularly human phenomenon. But most humans have never visited other worlds, and believe the extraordinary aliens they meet to be a representative sample of their standards. A laughable prospect… after all, not every Asgardian is a god. Neither is every Korbinite genetically and cybernetically enhanced. Not all Kree are conquering imperialist tyrants, nor are all Skrulls malevolent super-saboteurs.

Most just want a home and an opportunity to live a life in peace. Such is the case on Earth… and everywhere else. And Stark's parting gift to the universe -- the Blip, as Earth is taking to calling it -- has proven to bring as much heartache as relief.

Bill's reply to Sigyn is somber. "There are a great many people who have returned to discover they have neither home nor family awaiting them. And, knowing as I do the pain of solitude… I will speak to Brunnhilde, and ask that I go forth with her blessing to collect those souls, and bring them here. For I can think of no second home more welcoming and more precious than Asgard… which, as the All-Father said, is not a world or a colony, but a people."

Sigyn sniffles and brings her hands up to wipe her tears as she ponders his question. She is silent for a very long time as she seeks the answer within herself.

"I. . . I don't know. . ." She says breathlessly. There has not been a day where Sigyn had ever wanted for herself. Her entire life had always been spent taking care of someone else. Whether that be her sister's, her husband, or her son's. Her life was always lived for someone else., now she had nothing and almost no one. Did she ever even have dreams?

"I suppose that's something I'll have to figure out in time," She says quietly, her head still resting on his shoulder. "What about you Bill? What will you do now?"

[tangleweave]

@brooklynislandgirl (from XX)

Beth's remark about the lucky people in the car he'd caught passes by without a need for him to either answer or rebut. Luck really had been the name of that incident, after all, as his presence there had been a matter of both probability and instinct, before he'd really learned how to attend and hone his spider-sense. In the years since, it has become as integral a part of him as any limb, any organ, any capacity for comprehending and affecting the world around him. If it were to flare now, he wouldn't even think about what to do, but allow it to guide his movements away from potential harm -- and by extension, sweep Beth with him. One hand would clutch her head to his chest, the other arm would be a vice around her waist, and he would leap away from the noiseless shriek of danger that curdles his blood, with all the proportional strength of his arachnid namesake.

But there is no danger here. There is only this moment that they get to share, a gentle minuet across the rooftop… a period of calm between the storms that he navigates in the form of his faceless alter ego. Largely thankless, and entirely pro bono. He doesn't accept money when those he saves offer it; that isn't the reason he does what he does. But if he's paid at all, it's in what little solace he can get from moments like this one.

Her teasing inquiry does throw him for a loop for just a second, and behind the fabric of his mask he lets out a soft bark of an appreciative laugh. He can't say for sure what he expects of Beth in any given circumstance, and that's probably as it should be -- but in one form or another, he's amassed an opinion of her as polite but shy towards strangers, and only humorous towards those she trusts to guard her dignity should she happen to misstep.

And he'll gladly reward her levity with his own. A quick glance downward at his resplendently-clad body and then a bob of his head. "I mean… look at me. You could say problematic undergarments are kind of my signature. I've even got a long-johns set ready for the winter."

The steps to their dance play out far more fluidly than he has any right to expect -- but that's far more for himself than for her. He already knows Beth is a learned and graceful dancer, and asking her to join him for one was the very definition of punching above his weight class. The only logical conclusion he can come to is that his own body is stepping up the game, trying to meet Beth where she's at rather than forcing her to come down to his level.

Her quip draws out another snicker. "Oh, c'mon now, do you really think your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man would feather the nest and plume the Beth?" he returns. Then he bobs his head twice, as if conceding the unserious charge against him. "Well, given the rep, I guess that's a possibility. Let's face it, I'm not on the guest list, I don't have a dime to offer for the charity, and somehow I still get to have this. The rate of return is already way outpacing what I paid to make it here. And after all that, I would definitely be the guy to screw it up by having two left feet."

He tilts his head, though, when she says she trusts him. And the question of whether it would be so bad nearly passes him by for the way her thumb strokes softly against his hip, a gesture she seems barely even aware she's doing. He needs a moment to catch up to the inquiry, and not for the first time he wishes she could see his smile more clearly than the minute tugs on the lower portions of his mask that might hint at one hiding there. "You'd have nothing but a soft landing. I'd make sure of that much."

The ebb and flow of her form as she moves is as the lapping waters at a beach… often neither seeking to drag him forth nor quite content to allow distance between them for more than a moment or two, but somewhere between swaying and rolling. Every movement she makes, he seeks to complement and complete; every step she takes, his feet somehow manage to find a place that maintains balance and grace. There is some instinct at play here that he can hardly identify… but it feels right.

When she closes ranks with him, and rests her cheek to his chest, his hands again move more of their own accord than by any conscious direction. One arm settles across her shoulders, while the other slants across her back and curls at her side. The music is quieter now, slower… something that needs no gross motor movement, but just a gentle sway that calls for no directed movement, no synchrony. It is the music of an embrace.

Is it the song that's actually playing downstairs? The funny thing is, he can't actually tell, which is odd, given his heightened senses normally ought to be able to catch the sound.

But neither can he tell, in this moment, just how much it matters.

"Am I, uh… am I keeping you… from anything important?"

[tangleweave]

Peter had no illusions that his attempts to deflect, defuse, and disarm social situations were anything more than amateur, even after all these years of doing it. He was more wise to the image he presented than he let on, but the fact was, quite simply, he didn't want to be good at lying to people he cared about. The burden he carried was one he'd chosen for himself... the only way he could see clear to honoring his uncle's memory, and atoning for the mistake he'd made in deciding not to get involved when the chance had presented itself.

But nobody else in his life had chosen that commitment alongside him, and there was no way he could ask them to without putting them in an utterly impossible position. How could he offer them that knowledge and then ask them to make a choice? The burden of his secret was his, and his alone. His mission would never meet with Aunt May's approval. She abhorred violence in any form, couldn't even stand to see wrestling matches or football on television, let alone any footage of what Spider-Man or the X-Men or the Avengers or any of a dozen other New York superheroes had done today. And then there had been Gwen...

Well. The NYPD still had a lot to say about what awful, undeserved tragedy had befallen the Stacy family at the hands of the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler.

All of which flashed through his mind in an instant between breaths, as Tabby made her case for honesty. And for just a moment, a fleeting passage of a second and change... he could feel his face faulting. The veneer, thin as crystal glass, cracking along the fault line that existed in between his eyebrows and alongside the vein in his forehead, down one side of his nose and to the point of his chin. Like his face was a mirror at which she'd just cast a stone.

But just as quickly, the lines of his face smoothed out, the mirror reforming itself, and one corner of his mouth tugged outward again. "You know, I've never seen the movie? But I've heard the first rule about Fight Club is you're not supposed to talk about it. So if I was in one, wouldn't I be breaking the very first rule by telling you?"

Yet another convenient sidestep, and with no more deftness to it than any other he'd ever performed in her presence. And there was exactly zero chance that she would accept that on its face, so rather than let that dangle in the air for her to challenge, he released a sigh and let his shoulders fall a little. "What’re you expecting me to say? I mean, we're _all_ going through something, Tabs. I got into a stupid and dangerous situation today, yeah, but it's not like that happens all the time. That's gotta happen with you, too, like at your job, doesn't it? But doesn't automatically mean you're gonna want to tell me all the sordid details of some drunk jerk trying to..." Then he held up a hand. "Actually there's a lot of ways that sentence can go and I don't like any of them, so I'll just leave that where it is. Just… I hear you when you’re saying I can trust you. So I hope you hear me when I say you can trust me, too. If there was something going on that I needed to tell you about, I would."

He gestured to the bruises and bandages on his body. “This’ll heal up, and probably faster than we think.” A light laugh escapes him. “Remember the year we met? Mr. Elledge said I had a split lip so often it was starting to look like a fashion statement. Ms. Robinson kept saying to send a search party for me in my own locker. I think my body got used to taking a thrashing from bigger guys. I don’t want you to feel like you’ve gotta worry about it. It’s already taken care of.”

He let that hang in the space between them for a protracted moment, his eyes fully set on hers to convey the earnestness of that last statement. Everything else might be various shades of gray, but there was solid truth in that his injuries were no threat to him, and would heal rapidly. Then his gaze flickered to the brown paper bag she’d dropped on the floor upon sight of him, and jutted his chin in its direction. “Whatcha got there?”

Maybe, just maybe, she’d be inclined to let the matter go and allow the change of subject.

As quick as anger could be to rise, without a worthy target for fuel, it had nowhere to go except fizzle into oblivion. Tension eased from Tabby’s shoulders as she took up Peter’s silent offer to visually inspect him closer.  Working at the bar was teaching her the difference between soft-tissue injuries that could be ignored and those which required retrieving the first aid kit for the patrons. None of them ever wanted a paramedic called, even while spitting out bloody teeth. Where Peter had picked up that same frustrating stubbornness, Tabby could only begin to theorize.

His attempt at a pacifying smile was met with narrowed eyes, though even that dropped into something more… begrudging and affectionate at the same time. “You and I have very different definitions of okay, Parker. But I guess it’s looking kinda like you’re not going to die from internal injuries so maybe you’re more in the category of semi-okay, which is gonna have to do.”

He’s lying. It wasn’t the first time such whispers had formed and fluttered in Tabby’s mind. She tried to shoo it away, akin to chasing cockroaches out of her apartment with a broom. But just like the nuclear-proof pests, the doubt refused to be so easily silenced. And it hurt. Tabby never begrudged people keeping their own secrets private. She had plenty of her own. Things she had skirted around, dodged and deflected from anytime Peter got close to the subject, admittedly yes. The difference was she had never bare-faced lied to her friend about anything.

Maybe that was the adrenaline crash getting to her. Something had clearly happened, even if Peter was fibbing about some aspect of his getting his ass kicked. Maybe it was a symptom of the familiar complaint that every time some psychologically damaged powered megalomaniacs came to cause problems, law enforcement went there and regular criminals had to be stopped by regular folk. Hadn’t there been something in Queens with that Crocodile Hunter wannabe? Wild how things didn’t even make a dent on the news or social media unless there was major property damage or double digits on grimmer statistics.

Accepting the lie was so gentler a prospect. So easier to sweep out the window along with the texts that didn’t get a reply for hours. Those canceled catch ups when she was already at the café. Tabby had blocked guys’ numbers from her phone for the tiniest of infractions but Peter… he always got a pass. For every overstretched government employed therapist the system had sent her to before turning eighteen, telling her that boundaries were important, that having expectations of people was important, Tabby couldn’t risk Peter deciding that she wasn’t worth it anymore.

“You’d tell me though, right?” The words broke loose, id beating ego. “I mean, if you’re in some secret weird underground fight club, that’s your business.” Breezy jokes barely covered a more vulnerable note. “But if you were going through something or in actual danger, you know you can trust me.”