Summary:Seeing a pegasus leads the hunted Spider-Man to a white-parapeted haven, and he joins Mirage for a slider dinner. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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Wednesday night. The air is chilly, and Spider-Man wonders if he should go the fashion route and have a summer suit and a winter suit. Right now, he is cold and hungry and a hot meal sounds like just the ticket. Welp, he's in Brooklyn, and he hasn't been to White Castle since he saw Hellboy and the Valkyrie with the pegasus. Oh, and the sorceress. Don't forget her.
He does spare a moment to imagine the Valkyrie, like a scene out of an 80's cartoon show, or maybe something closer to a detailed custom paint job on the side of a van.
And then he comes to his senses. White Castle DOES sound good, though.
He swung around towards the south and figured it would be a minute. At most.
And in the parking lot of White Castle is an unusual sight. Well, maybe not unusual to Spidey, since he's seen the winged horse before. He even got a ride the other night, so that's some first-hand experience. Brightwind, for his part, looks up at Spider-Man and nickers in a somewhat friendly way at the vigilante.
Dani, for her part, is inside, not wearing the armor and clad in just jeans and a button-down denim shirt, looking rather ordinary and not at all like She-Ra's black-haired cousin.
Spider-Man stops. He was trying to remember. He should be okay if it's a unicorn…no, those have HORNS, a pegasus has WINGS. Do your feckin' research.
He lands in the parking lot, tilting his head and regarding the winged horse. In the back of his mind, he was wondering what a DNA sequencer or even a mass spectrometer would make of a feather from those wings…
Nah. Brightwind? Yes, Brightwind was not a lab animal, and it seemed kinda RUDE to think of him as such. Best not to antagonize the magical flying creature. He'd seen what could be done by airdropped horse poop.
He waves for a moment, then points to the White Castle. "I'm…gonna go there. Okay. Nice…uh, meeting you."
He feels a little foolish as he opens the door to the White Castle, but smelling those sliders takes care of that.
Brightwind whinnies a bit at Spidey, and if a horse could look amused, Brightwind definitely does.
Meanwhile, Dani is just leaning against the counter, sipping a soda as she waits for the order. Then she blinks and grins as she sees, "Spider-Man! I didn't expect to see you again so soon. You feeling better?" She definitely looks less intimidating without the armor and sword, tilting her head at the webslinger.
Spider-Man blinks. She looks so…normal. Okay, bad word to use. She looked majestic on the horse. No armor, but there's still something…what was the word…ethereal? Nah, too delicate. Otherworldly? Yeah, that works.
"Uhm, hi, Mirage…yeah, I mend quick." About ten hours sleep, a couple of nightmares, and he's tip-top. "You look pretty good, too."
You Have Humiliated Yourself. Abort, Retry, Ignore?
"Sorry. That sounded weird. It's just you looked like something out of a sword-and-sorcery novel during the subway train thing, and…oh, gosh, I'm making a fool out of myself…"
"Hey! It's Spidey, guys!" That was Buddy behind the counter. "Hey, Spidey, your usual?"
"THANK YOU, BUDDY," he replied, saying it a bit too loud and not caring.
Dani grins, "If it makes you feel a bit more normal about it, call me Dani. That's my name after all." She shrugs a little bit, "My horse likes White Castle, and we don't have it in Boulder, let alone Asgard, so…"
She tilts her head, looking curiously at Spidey, "You are looking much better. I mean, not hurt as bad as you were before. That was really brave, by the way. I don't think I had a chance to tell you that."
"Dani…all right. you can call me Spidey, or even Webhead." Spider-Man smiles a little more easily.
Still…Boulder to Asgard is definitely "movin' on up," and he's never been to Asgard. Come to think of it, he's never been to Boulder, either, so in a way, they are equally mystical.
"Oh. Yeah, the subway train. Well, I had to do SOMETHING. There were eighty-two people in there. If I didn't do anything, then maybe I let eighty-two people die because I was a coward." He sighs. "One was horrendous enough. Eighty-two…" He doesn't finish the sentence. "So, it was just a matter of doing something over doing nothing."
Dani chuckles at that, "Well, coward is not what I would use to describe you. And I'm glad I didn't have to carry you to Valhalla that evening." She grins, "It still seems a bit surreal sometimes, growing up in Colorado then winding up in Asgard. But well… I guess the medicine my grandfather practiced actually was a real thing after all."
Spidey smiled under the mask. Dani can see the outline of it. "I've lived in New York City all my life. I'm a city kid. Guess I always will be."
Buddy steps up. "Spidey Special!"
Spidey looks up. "You're…actually calling it that?"
"Dad's idea." He holds up the white bag.
Spidey looks to Dani. "Is your food ready? Maybe we can eat out on the patio. I feel kinda bad leaving Brightwind out there with no one to laugh at…"
Dani grins, "Spidey Special? What is that, anyway?" She sounds curious, stifling a bit of a laugh, and then she pauses a moment. "Oh, he's fine. He likes watching the passerby almost as much as they like watching him."
She pauses, and grins, "Actually, I'm not a super-strong warrior maiden, though I can use the sword pretty well. I'm actually a mutant. Mostly, I speak to animals, though I can do some other things." Not very nice things, but she doesn't elaborate on those.
Spidey chuckled and held up the bag. "Twelve cheeseburger sliders, fries and a tall soda. I get pretty hungry at times." He pauses as Dani describes a little of what she can and can't do. "Well, you coulda fooled me. For a few seconds, there, I thought I got killed and you were taking me to heaven. Then I realized how much everything hurt and knew I was still alive."
He points to a corner booth. "You…want to talk over there?"
Dani smiles, "Sure, would love to." She takes her bag of sliders and sits down in the booth, setting her drink down on the table as she looks over at Spidey, "Guess you come here often, if they named a special after you. And well, if you're destined to go to Heaven, I'll try to make sure to escort you there." She then blushes a bit, "I mean, you know, you definitely deserve it, though maybe not anytime soon, huh?"
Spidey waits for Dani to sit before sitting himself, laying out the sliders in three lines. "Well, the owner's daughter got jumped a block from here. A local gang. They were about to do things unsuitable to say in a lady's presence, but I was nearby and decided to give them a little attitude adjustment." He looks thoughtful for a moment. "And an ALTITUDE adjustment, too. Twenty feet above a dumpster for an Italian joint." He shrugs. "Since then, they INSIST on feeding me whenever I come by."
Dani laughs at that, "That is glorious. I love it." She grins at Spidey, "Definitely a good thing for this city that you're here. I mean, I've only been here a few weeks since, well, I'm going to school upstate as Asgard, well, they don't have GED certification there, so I'm doing a bit of catchup." She smiles, "Then, well, I was thinking of pre-veterinary since communicating with animals comes in handy that way."
Spidey nods. "Yeah, I can see that working in your favor." He lifts the mask to nose-level to take a bite out of the first slider, MMMm-ing as he chews and swallows. "Oh, yeah. That's the stuff." He sips his soda, then looks to Dani. "That's kinda amazing, actually. Being able to talk to animals. I mean, I sparred with a Rhino and taunted a Vulture just this week, but that's not the same thing."
Dani chuckles, "Saw that in the papers, I don't think I can really get through to those guys." She smiles, "But yeah, I'm a mutant. Five years ago some people wanted to abduct me and make me do bad things, so instead my grandpa did some medicine in the Old School and sent me someplace safer. Which, well, turned out to be Asgard. Saved Brightwind, became a Valkyrie, and for the past five years I was doing that up there, until a mission brought me back here to Midg… er, Earth." Old habits are hard to break.
Spider-Man wants to ask her about Asgard. Tell her how that seems to elevate her above the workaday stuff he does.
He would, but the three police cars driving past at high speed, lights flashing and sirens blaring, that cut off that line of thought. He looks to the police cars, then to Dani, his mouth creased down in a frown before he yanks it down. "Sorry, Dani. Work calls, and it calls collect." He jumps up and says, "Uhm…give those to Brightwind!" He waves, then bolts for the door.
Buddy at the counter calls out, "Go get 'em, Spidey!"