Summary:Hod catches up with Silk to thank her for her part in helping him in the God Wars at Times Square recently. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Things in Helena's life are not what she wants them to be. She can't find a solution for the Nightfall, her almost-brother is alive but her parents are convinced he's going to try to kill her, and her dad is being framed for multiple murders. So with such looming topics unable to be resolved, she's putting some focus on things she can actually make better.
One of those things is helping the spiders with a few…basic hero safety topics. She put out a message to the spiders, with a time and a location, then got herself there a good hour early. At first she ate her packed dinner, but eventually she settled for getting in a little quality brooding time, perched on the edge of the rooftop as she watches the city below.
Had Helena ever seen a Spider in action? She gets to, now, as Silk - easily identifiable by her 'unique' costume begins to come into view, over the skyline as her weblines are cast with expertise, her body moving with grace that would earn all 10's from any judge at any Olympic event, and /damn/ the girl is fast - enough to keep up with almost any traffic that she might chase on the streets below.
As her web-slinging brings her to the rooftop designated, she is a good twenty feet in the air as she lets go and sails over the lip of the building to land effortlessly not too far away from Helena.
The young girl nods her head, "Blackbird." She remembered the other hero's name. "You wished to see me? You have information on these Nightfall?"
Helena's seen the spiders in action a little bit, but she's seen plenty of acrobatics. She might have a little bit of an attitude about them, thanks to one older brother with his own acrobatic gifts. When Silk comes flying through the air, she watches with those bright golden eyes, pulling down the mask across the lower half of her face when the other girl arrives.
"Not exactly," she answers with a small, wry smile. "Probably wouldn't just be me if that was the case. No, actually. I was thinking I might be able to help with a few things."
That throws Cindy off her guard and the intense focused brown eyes widen, just a little into something that speaks of some naivity when it comes to heroing. "Oh." Her voice changes a little. Her brow scrunches, slight confusion, maybe concern. "About what? I didn't make anyone mad at me at the meeting, did I? Or, maybe I didn't speak up enough? I didn't have much to offer. I am not like Spider-Girl or Spider-Man."
"I mean, not that I've heard of," Helena shrugs, smile easy. "And anyhow, there was a whole lot of not being helpful at that meeting, so you wouldn't be alone there either. No, it was more that…" She pauses, clearing her throat and rubbing a hand at the back of her neck. I kind of got the feeling you could maybe use a costume. Yeah?"
Relief is first in Cindy's eyes, then her jawline creases into what might just be a smile. "It's - a long story," she says, quietly. "And," she looks down at herself, "Well. Costumes cost money. And I never learned how to sew. So." She almost looks apologetic.
"But it works, for now. But - yes, really. I'd love a real costume. One that doesn't make me look like a walking mummy." She sounds slightly humored at that last, and shrugs helplessly.
"Good news, I have access to both money and people who can sew," Blackbird grins, reaching into one of the pouches at her waist to pull out…huh. A measuring tape. And a small notepad with a pencil built into it. "Works for now is fine and all, but, uh. Well. It's not super practical, really. That's gotta take a minute, right? Does it offer any actual protection? Sorry, stop me if I start getting too personal," she adds quickly. "But I saw Spider-Man's web shooters, and you don't move from the wrist like that. So I'm guessing you're a little different than he is."
Cindy blinks. "Web shooters?" She looks confused, cocking her head on one side. Apparently she and Spider-Man hadn't gotten that far, just yet. Or maybe he didn't want to share anything about his web-shooters with her, just yet, because, well, she offers, "His webs come from his wrists. Mine come from my fingers. So I would need fingerless gloves."
The girl then demonstrates by twisting her hand and shooting weblines from all four fingers and thumb onto the air conditioner. She lets the lines drop. She shakes her head, then, "You're not getting too personal. It's okay. Just don't ask me where I came from yet, and we're cool." She's not yet quite ready to talk about that with non-Spidery people.
"Hey, fair enough," Blackbird agrees. "I don't tell people where I'm from either." She tilts her head as she watches the demonstration of the webs. "Huh. Well, I guess it beats coming out of your butt," she winks, setting the notepad on the edge of the roof as she pulls out the measuring tape. "Mind if I take a few measurements? Make it easier to get the fit right, at least. Anything else to consider? You guys all seem to be pretty acrobatic, so I assume we're going for flexibility over strength. Increased body heat that needs to be vented?"
"I don't think so? But, it needs to not rip easily. I mean, I'm sure you already figured that out. But if I end up having to fight those Nightfall again or half of the criminals Spider-Man has fought, then …," she shrugs some ahd half-smiles beneath her lower-face veil.
"Can you make my costume black? And maybe red and white too? I should have my own look. And, this." She gestures to that self-same lower face viel. "Like a cool scarf or bandana. Something I could keep in my pocket and use in case of an emergency?"
She may or may not start to be getting excited.
Helena takes some quick measurements, jotting them down in her notebook as she nods along. "Yeah, for sure. No fingers. Black with red and white accents…" She lifts the mask that hangs around the front of her throat with a wry smile. "Yeah, these are handy," she agrees. "So if you get the webs from your fingers, I guess you don't get a lot of call to carry things. And you guys all seem to have the strength and stamina and durability down, so nothing to compensate for there. How about comms? Vision?" Batman obsessively researches people. Helena just…talks to them.
There's a distinct and obvious pause, as if Cindy were truly considering something. But, if Spider-Man has shown Helena his web-shooters, and has promised to work with them on other technology, she nods, slowly. A bit like her fellow spider-bitten, she wants to trust where she can. Nothing like Batman at all.
She peels back a fine layer of webbing on her wrist to show off the small gizmos and tech that make up the 'Spider-Comm' system that Peter and Anya created. "Just this. For communication if we need, amongst each other. Otherwise, I don't carry anything else with me. It's just me. And my skills. And, well, what I can do."
She half-smiles, "I really appreciate this. I'll have to figure out a way to repay you."
"Man, he makes nice tech," Helena sighs as she gets a glimpse of the comm. Envy? Admiration? Seriously, she says it the way some women talk about an actor's abs. "Okay, cool then, nothing to worry about wiring in on that front. And seriously, don't worry about paybacks," she adds, looking up from tucking away her notebook with a crooked smile. "I've spent…a lot of time watching other people get to do things and not really being a part of it. You guys all seem to be pretty cool. And you're doing good work. If I can help you out, why wouldn't I?"
She resumes her perch on the edge of the rooftop, raising a finger. "Ah, speaking of. If you can get hold of Spider-Girl - the one with the big black exo…thing? Could you let her know I'm trying to reach her too?"
Cindy nods, "I can," she agrees, easily. "Promise. You want to make her a costume too?" Curious.
She doens't press the issue of payback any further, but depending on how well Helena can read people, she's pretty much ignoring Helena's request to ignore it. Helena's going to get some kind of compensation, even if it takes her a few months to do so.
A pause, "If you want to meet me again you can just leave a note attached to the air conditioner. I'll see it. I'll check on my route."
"Mmmm, she doesn't seem to need much in the way of costume, so much," Helena shrugs. "But there's some other stuff we should talk about. You're watching your tracks, right?" she asks, glancing to the air conditioner as well to mark it in her mind. "I mean, you know. Being careful about your identity, making sure the bad guys can't follow you home, that sort of thing?" It's all second nature to her, but for all her dad talks about them having super-powers, they might not have an entire lifetime of being told how to keep things quiet.
Cindy gets quiet a moment, "I'm being careful," she says, and sounds earnest. "Working on getting a real home. But I have a safe place to stay, for now." She doesn't expand on that, and by her words and body language, doesn't seem she is really willing to. "I've not been a hero very long, but that's like, rule one of being a hero. You don't tell anyone who you are, except your closest of friends."
Or people who bust you out of your own bunker and are also Spider-People.
"Yeah, well. You might not have to go that far. It's a choice, one way or the other, and it's yours to make." Helena might feel like she's a little locked in on her end, with all the people whose identities she needs to protect, but she's seen both sides of the coin enough. "But until you make it, it's just important for you to be safe in general." She heard the 'real home' bit. But she also picked up on not wanting to talk about it. So she scribbles something down on that notepad, offering it over. "Secure line," she smiles faintly. "In case you ever need help with something you can't get from spider-people."
Silk reaches out to take it, looks at it gratefully. "Thanks," she says, once again earnest in her gratitude. "I —," a pause, as she seems to catch herself from saying something she feels she probably shouldn't and then follows it up with, "I hope we can be friends, Blackbird."
Helena grins, the expression friendly even despite that bright gold eyes and all of that black gear. "Me too," she agrees, holding out a hand. "Can never have too many friends in this business, right? Oh!" She pauses, looking a little sheepish. "Okay, so this is going to sound…weird? But. If you see someone who looks like Batman but isn't Batman, could you let me know? This whole thing in the news is as much BS as all the stuff about Spider-Man is. Batman doesn't kill. He never has. So whoever's trying to mess with him with this? They're at some other game."
Cindy pauses, frowning. SHe nods. She saw the news. Who -hasn't- seen the news? It's all anyone is talking about, and has been, for the last few days. It's EVERYWHERE. She asks a very important question. Just one. But, one very important, nevertheless. "How do I know if it's Batman or someone pretending to be him?"
"That is a good question." Helena grimaces, trying to work that one out. "He's doing something awful, like trying to kill somebody?" She'd know Batman in her sleep, sure. It's a little less clear for others. "He's…not stopping by to hand out overly cautious advice." That last one gets a faint quirk of a smile.
5rSilk looks uncertain at that, but nods. "I'll call you if I see any Batmans," she decides back. "And let you figure it out. I don't want to make a mistake and make the real one mad."
Then, she asks, "You need a ride anywhere?" Yeah, Blackbird. She just offered to take you web-slinging.
Helena grins slowly at the offer. It's definitely got its appeal. But she finally shakes her head, rueful. "Thanks, but I'm going to see if I can catch someone else while I'm in this part of town. Bit of a stretch, but it's not a conversation that's going to go smoothly with more people. And then I've got a costume to perfect."
"See you soon, then. Thanks, Blackbird." Silk nods, and then webcasts out from her opposite hand she'd previously shown to sling webs from, and she jumps, and is off, heading further down the city to patrol, protect, and keep New York as safe as one spider girl can.
The funny thing about being, well, Hod actually, is that generally it's easy for him to find things or people if he knows what he's looking for. He a knack for that, finding things that can't, won't, or ought not, be found. It's /such/ a knack of his in fact, that when it /dosen't/ work it's frankly a little disturbing. So now that Hod finds himself standing atop a high rise condo so new and currently unoccupied that even sitting atop it's flat roof with his feet dangling off in mid air, he can smell the chemical tang of newly dried paint and hardwood flooring finish.
Actually, even if he doesn't find what he's looking for, he kinda likes it up here. Maybe he'll buy one of the condos. There's a… peacefulness to being above all of the hustle and bustle below, a quieting of the constant bombardment he usually suffers at ground level. The air is a little cleaner, the breeze is decidedly nice, and while he can't see it he's pretty sure the view is fucking killer.
The building in question is built into one of those little triangular corner like sections of street that New York seems to summon into being with a will. It's a clean steel and glass structure so modern in it's styling that it would be boring to look at if it weren't so well designed with balconied condos and massive windows on every floor, simple black iron railings contrasting with the matte finished steel cladding. He sits on the very edge of the roof, behind him is the more 'people friendly' and to be expected garden area with lounging red wood chairs and pagodas, little grass sections with manicured landscaped mini trees and the like. But he chooses to sit on the very edge of the building, feet dangling idly, a flask pulled from inside his vest, opened, and raised to his lips for a heavy pull. Sometimes not finding someone you're looking for is okay too, right?
From across the way, Hod will see his 'target'. The person he wanted to find. She is indeed going to be found - swinging and slinging webs in a familiar manner that he observed in Times Square. Only this time - she looks very, very different. Not in the overall -style-. No.
But, the webbing-wrapped costume has been replaced with a -real- honest to goodness costume, mainly of deep black, offset with a chest of white with red spider-threads and a red lightning bolt in the midst of it all. Over her lower face, a red scarf done to hide and obfuscate her defining features.
Black hair sails behind herself as she zips forwards, slinging and sailing through the sky like a gymnastic pro until she lets go, and sommersaulting twice in the air lands just a few feet away from Hod, stuck against the side of the building.
"I know you," Silk says, "But we didn't meet. Not really. Hi." Her voice sounds warm. Friendly, even. As if she were talking to an old friend.
Hod will in fact /not/ see her. Nor will her recent costume make over have any impact upon him or his reaction to her at all. Which might be odd if one didn't know him… to be fair, Cindy would be one of those people. He pauses, flask half way to his lips, considering the sounds he's just heard, and he tilts his head to the side slightly, almost dog like, "I don't mean to alarm you," he says slowly and carefuly, as if he were speaking to someone about to commit suicide, "but you seem to be defying the laws of gravity by being attached to the side of a building. Or flying. But I think it's the former."
Silk reconsiders, eyeing the man with a scrutinizing eye. "No. I'm not defying gravity. Not like you think. I'm using arachnid attributes to cling to the side of the building." She crawls up the few feet to sit near Hod, but just enough away to give them both some personal space. She adds, "I'm glad you aren't committing suicide. You protected that poor girl from the jerks that were wrecking Times Square. And you even took one of them down. That was pretty amazing. And any hero like you, I'm glad is around. This city needs as many as we can get, I think, sometimes."
She resettles, getting comfortable and twisting her body just a little bit. "I'm Silk," she introduces herself. "Kind of new to all of this."
Hod spews a mouthful of rather nice bourbon out into the NYC air, a racking cough seizing him up a bit as he tries to clear his airways enough to choke out a laugh and a wheeze at the same time. "Hero!?" he splutters, coughing heavily twince more before taking another hit from the flask to help clear uh… his airways? Sure. We'll go with that. "That poor girl is some sort of vigilante badass, and whatever you do don't tell anyone that the world needs more mes. That's how you get smited in these parts." he offers a bit of a grin though, entertained none the less, his beard parting enough she can see a flash of white teeth behind it, "I'm Hod, I'm an old hat at uh, everything really. Except matching colors. I buy exclusively in monochrome for that exact reason." his gray/white/black ensemble backs up this claim. He offers her the flask, or his hand, it's unclear, in greeting, "Nice to meet you again Silk. No giant spider monster friend this time?"
Silk is cheerfull. "Nope. Just me. I'm just patrolling, and for once, nobody is going crazy, no runaway cars, no idiots holding people up, or holdups, or anything. And, you're talking about Spider-Girl. She's a friend. We're kind of all a little different. I can't do some of the things she can do, and she can't do some of the things I can do."
She considers, thoughtfully, "I guess even when you get crazy spider powers, there's something to make us all unique."
Then, her mouth twists. "That fight. I don't know all what was going on, but I was only trying to make sure they didn't tear the city down. Or injure people." She looks at Hod, watching him. "But you, and the man on the horse, the one who called you brother? You both seemed to know them. Will it happen again?"
Hod brow climbs over the rim of his glasses at that, "Spider people." he says flatly before turning to 'look' back out over the city, "This city is getting weirder every day." he doesn't sound disappointed by this on a whole, "Gods." he says in answer to the unasked question, taking another hit from the flask that Cindy apparently refused, "The gods are ramping up for war, that was akin to…" he seems to think for a moment, trying to come up with a good analogy, "Barroom brawl between rival sports team factions. Low level. Sorta getting the rust out."
His breath hisses out in a long sound and he nods his head, "Most likely. I'm working on that, a lot of us are, but it's complicated. Lots of history there, lots of grudges held by the sorts of beings that aren't good at letting go. Old Testament fuckers by and large."
Silk shifts again, perhaps restless. "Maybe - next time - if they want to fight, have them do it in the heavens?" She's seen a lot of weird stuff. Saw the Gods. She might not know them, but she can believe. Or, at the very least, believe that such people think they are Gods.
Quietly, she offers, "But if they come around again, me, and my friends, will do what we can to protect this place. It's all we have. And the people in it. I have this power, now. I never asked for it. And - it's given me nothing but grief," she admits, gently, honestly. "Until very recently. When I've been able to use it to help people."
She lets her words hang in the air a few moments, then continues, "I suppose we are getting to be a people, now. There are several of us. Through different circumstances. Maybe it's fate." That sounded more wry, humor, and less sincere.
She confides, "I grew up on stories of the Gods. Of Amaretsu, and Tsukiyomi no Mikoto, and of the Oni and Yurei. They were bedtime stories, and fantasy for me, when I was young. But we never believed in them," she confesses. "They were just stories. Passed down from our elders. Part of our heritage."
Hod smirks a bit, "Tsukiyomi is cool. Bit of a foodie and a neat freak, but cool. Late nights, saki until the sunrises. We had a good couple of months once before it all went to shit. I wouldn't worry to much though, the Shinto seem to have taken a 'wait and see' approach to the pantheon upheaval so far. I think they'll wait to choose a side until they're certain who will win. This is mostly a western conflict… mostly." he shrugs and tucks the flask away.
"Contrary to popular beliefe, the gods do not require your beliefe to exsist, and exsist they do. On the other hand, at no point in mortal history have there been so many heroes to help even the odds a bit, so hey, maybe any cataclisyms will be minimally… cataclysmic." he offers helpfully, then sighs, "Sorry. Doom and gloom is my default setting. Real talk? We're trying to cut this off at the pass. Trust me, this isn't how the world will end." he sounds very confident about that.
Silk looks at Hod for a long moment, trying to determine if he's kidding or not, and finally decides he's not. "You are very strange, Hod. But I think I like you," she finally concludes. "You are a kind man." Or God. If she's figured out the latter part on her own, or suspects it, she at least has the courtesy to not ask him if he is one.
"Will you do me a favor?" Silk seems genuine in her asking. "If there's going to be - trouble - will you leave a letter for me here? You can put it in a black envelope. I'll see it as a I patrol. That way, at least, my friends and I can help minimize the damage."
Hod seems surprised by something, an expression that doesn't seem natural on his face, and he quickly turns away to 'stare' out at the city as a whole, hiding his expression, "Becareful with all that hope, Kumo." he adds proper inflection to the Japanese word as if he were a native speaker. Prolly not that hard since it's a single word, but it's there none the less.
He reaches up with a fingertip to tap his glasses, "Not exactly literate in English." he points out, "I can write you a stirring poem in Runic and braile, but I'm betting you're not fluent in either." he offers that smile again, a flash of snow white amid all the dark beard, "If I have time, I'll fly a black flag here, something small, unobtrusive. Should let you know to be on the look out for something odd."
"That's all I can ask." She reaches out, touches his arm and squeezes warmly before letting go. "Thank you."
She wonders then, curiously, "Do you ever get the hang of it?" A pause, before she further explains, "I just keep worrying I"m going to make a mistake. That I'm not going to be good enough to live up to what others have done before me." Like, Spider-Man. Big shoes to fill, there. And this isn't something she'd confide, or talk about, to the others in her group.
Hod goes very still when she touches him, and even through her glove and his shirt sleeve she can feel a slight chill, just a bit, as if she'd brushed her fingers along the inside of a refridgerator wall. He's silent for a long time, a long long time in fact, unmoving, just sort of locked onto something over her left shoulder. After that pause, if she's still there, he speaks quietly, "Of course you'll make mistakes." he says simply, "You'll never feel like you've lived up to what others expect."
His words seem harsh and cruel, but his tone is devoid of judgement or glee, he's just matter of fact. "My mother-" he stops, breathes, continues, "once said that it's not about what you're supposed to be, it's about what you are." he reaches for his flask again, "Some of us fight what we are hoping we're better then that. But you? You're the real deal Kumo, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day we're going to sit on a rooftop like this and have a chat and you're gonna tell me about some spider-teen who's driving you nuts trying to be like you. You'll be fine. You'll fuck up. You'll never be what you think you should be. And you'll be just fine anyway. It's the one great thing about you hero types, you always rise higher." he clears his throat, "But in the future, you should know, I'm not one of you. And I'm not a nice man. Not really." another pause, "No one's ever called me that actually."
Silk may not known that Hod came up here, specifically, to look for her. But she does know something - or, at least, thinks she knows. "I can't tell fortunes. I can't even do the crazy things with technology that my friends can. But, what I do know? Is that you not only protected that woman, you put your own life on the line to stop the battle. And now, you're up here, talking to me, and making me feel better about myself when you could just walk away. Or tell me anything at all. Lie to me, even."
She looks at Hod, shifting one more time. Full of energy, but displacing it in those restless movements, rather than anything else. "But I don't think you are. Perhaps in the future you will not be, as you say. But today, and then, you are a kind man."
Then, she leans forward and kisses Hod on the cheek - through the cloth between her lips and his beard and skin.
"Thank you."
Hod stiffens again, the contact unexpected. Up here with the wind he can't hear her move very well, and her scent is carried away in another direction on the wind, so he had no warning. He just sort of sits there. His cheek was cool through her mask, much like her touch to his arm, and he raises his fingertips lightly to touch his cheek, "Yes." hrmph. "Well." ahem. "Don't keep your expectations this high. I actually came here to uh-" he puts his hand down hurriedly and looks SUPER STERN way to harshly for it to be genuine, "uh-thank you for distracting S-the woman. From the other day. I prolly couldn't have gotten that close if you hadn't stunned her first. Don't know what to get you people with your weird spider stuff, usually I buy booze or ice cream in gratitude. So um. Wanted to extend the ice cream or booze gift. What's your poison?" if one didn't know better, one might think he was nervous.
"You have … ice cream?!" Silk sounds far, far too excited. Like a five year old girl hearing the ice cream truck coming around. "Ohmygod."
It's only through sheer will she manages to steel herself some, and attempts to not look or sound nearly as excited as she actually is. "Icecreamplease…," pause, "And thank you."
Her turn to look a little sheepish. "I haven't had ice cream in … ages," she confides, without saying why. "THat would be divine." Pun not intended.
Hod quirks a brow at her. Huh. So… this he also didn't expect. She's just full of surprises. Seriously!? What is /with/ this town, he's not found so many interesting people since … What? London? Turn of the last century? "Not on me I don't." he admits, "But-" he pulls something from his pocket and drags a finger tip over it before offering it to her. It's a business card with the name and address of a mom and pops ice cream joint in Queens, on the back side of it are irregularly depressed little bumps. "This address. Next time you spot me from," he whirls a finger in the air over his head indicating the city's upper reaches, "swing on by and I'll buy you your body weight in frozen dessert." he promises.
"Deal," she agrees, rather gleefully. The card is slipped into a hidden pocket on her person - yay! Her new costume has pockets! Then Silk thinks back to what he -also- said, considering her response, "Someone had to stop her, or she would've hurt you. The other woman. And who knows who else? I'm just glad I could."
Hod nods his head, "Um, also, I feel I should point out the obvious here, but you realize that the costume doesn't really… help. With me I mean." he felt her mask on his cheek, it's the only way he knows she's wearing one, well that and the faint muffle of her voice. "But it might give people something to stare at in the ice cream shop, so if I were you, I'd bring a change of clothes."
"Hmm. You're right," agrees Silk, "I'll be sure to remember that." His statement gives her a few other ideas, which she doesn't touch on, just now.
The earlier statement he made hadn't gone unnoticed, either - that he'd come up here to find her. But once again, she doesn't pry. She only remarks, moving to stand now, "You are just lucky I do not weigh a lot. But, you'll still be surprised at the amount I can eat. I'll look forward to seeing you again."
Then, she says quietly, "Maybe, even if only for a short time, we can be friends, Hod. I'd like that." Again, she touches him, squeezing his shoulder with her small hands in a short, but affectionate gesture.
There's an offer coming, too. Said with a slight bit of impishness. "Want to take the Silk Express to the ground floor? Or you content to stay here a bit longer?"
Hod chuckles at that, "I have no idea how it happened, but I seem to be collecting young heroines as a cadre. I have a brother who'd be green with envy." Hod having made a lot of young attractive female aquaintences is completely new to him. One or two, sure, but the modern era is the only one he's ever been in where being blind wasn't a complete end to almost every conversation. With /few/ noteable exceptions. "Fair warning, my friends tend to get into trouble, lots of trouble. But I'm usually up front about it." he admits freely.
"What is the 'silk express'?" he asks curiously, "I know all about the Silk Road, but I was unaware it had an express lane…."
At that inquiry, Silk can't help but laugh. "Ah. Yes. No. Play on words," she explains. "I am Silk. I can take you down to the ground with a webline or two. If you'd like. Thus, an express way down to the ground." She can't help but smile under her mask.
As for the trouble? "Well. I get into a fair amount of trouble on my own. As you experienced. Then there is the Nightfall, too. But, that's another matter entirely. But, if you'd like to head down, I'd be happy to oblige. Or, I can leave you to contemplate the sky, or the universe, or this conversation as you see fit. I'll take no offense."
Hod stiffens, "I see word of that has gotten out." he says and his mood has suddenly taken a darker turn. "Um." he 'looks' around, turning his head this way and that as if surveying the landscape, "What the hell. I could use the short cut and now I feel a renewed sense of urgency in the realm of solving my-our-god problem." he pauses, "What do I do?"
"Just hold on, tightly. I will support you," Silk answers, in a gentle, matter-of-fact tone. "We're going to free fall a bit, but, trust me. I know what I'm doing. I won't let you fall." She waits for him to rise, and secure himself around her. "I'll count to three, then we jump forward. Then, just leave everything else up to me. Okay? Think of it like an amusement park ride."
Hod lets out a long breath through his lips vaugely reminicent of a whistle and then offers her his hand, securing it where ever she places it, "Just so you know, falling is not a great way for a blind guy to spend his time, but I get the gist. I have a sort of… similar thing. Sometimes." Usually he's not the trusting type, like seriously not, but he knows how he dies and it's not falling off of a building at the hands of a spider girl. He's going to be murdered by one of his brothers. That sort of knowledge tends to free up some space in your 'shit im scared of' mental inventory.
"Alright. We'll go down the slower way. But, it'll still be faster than the elevator, or walking," Silk coneeds, not wishing to discomfort her new friend.
"One. Two. Three." She jumps, and there's a moment of free falling before the sound of a webline being cast, a sensation of swinging forwards at a decent velocity and then they connect against the building, likely several floors below where they started.
True to her word, instead of doing the more swing-dow n at a fun and rapid pace, Silk more rappels down the side of the building more akin to a special forces team, casting a new webline here or there, but descending at a controlled rate so Hod isn't put too out of sorts, until her feet, and his, touch the ground.
"There. Down on the ground, safe and sound. Thank you, Hod. I will be looking for you, for ice cream," she promises.
Hod admits… repelling isn't something he's done in a very long time. And never with a woman he could fold up and fit in his pocket as his only means of support. He'd freak out about it he wasn't still a little off balance by the entire interaction so far. It was just supposed to be ice cream offers! This is very weird. This city is very weird. This lady is very weird. If he wasn't under /very/ real threat of being murdered or framed for /another/ murder by at least 2 camps involved in an attempt to end the world, he'd be intrigued.
Sadly right now he's mostly wondering if his contacts have kidnapped his target so he can 'question' them. Well. That and whether or not he's going to pull off the landing with dignity. Luckily he's sure footed, and hearing a street coming at you isn't that hard at all. He lands lightly and accepts his weight in balance, a grin on his face he didn't realize was there until his feet touch down and he quickly schools his expression again. "Yes. Well. Thank you, Kumo. I hope you have sharp eyes, I'm usually /very/ hard to spot."
Another arm suqeeze, "Well, I've got good eyes, and an aerial view, so, challenge accepted. Be safe. See you soon," Silk promises Hod. Then there's the sound of a webline and a few queries or questions from passersby of who the heck is Silk and why is she slinging webs like Spider-Man?
Then Silk is up, up and away — by weblines, and moving back through the city to go on patrol with the promises of another friend, and a future ice cream date. Life isn't too bad.