Summary:Three spiders meet for some White Castle. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
   |
White Castle in Brooklyn seems to attract people in costumes. It started with Spider-Man showing up, after rescuing the owner's daughter. In gratitude, they paid in the only coin that mattered—free food for Spidey.
Since then, others have showed up. Not looking for free food, but still showing up, and the owners now have a special discount in place. Any costumed vigilante/hero/etc. who could prove they helped someone that very night got 50 percent off their meal.
So, when Spider-Man steps inside, the people behind the counter, the cook behind the glass partition, and the owner's wife busing tables all wave and say, "Hey, Spidey…!"
Anya Corazon has never had White Castle.
This is an important thing to be noted, for when Spider-Girl swings down upon the entrance, her landing is less than perfect. She skips once, releases a webline, and pulls up short of the door, nose curling. "What… the…"
Hesitantly, the young woman opens the door not far behind Spider-Man, but her entrance is slower. She looks around, squinting at the bright light and white decor, and seems… utterly confused. Her nose sniffs a couple times, and she seems… uncommitted.
Spider-Man smiles wryly. "Welcome to the home of the slider - a small square burger. Good for a snack, for a party platter, or when you get very hungry. They serve all types, but my favorite is the cheeseburger sliders." He points to a handwritten sign posted below the counter.
SPIDER-MAN SPECIAL
12 cheeseburger sliders
Large fries
Large drink
10$
"It smells weird," Spider-Girl tells her counterpart, upon joining him at the counter. Her arms come up to cross over her chest, as she considers that menu dubiously, while trying very hard to ignore the smell. It's an acquired taste, like beer or Cincinnati Chili, and her first exposure isn't promising.
However, after perusing the menu for a moment, she smirks wryly. "Hey, can I get the, uh, Spider-Man Special, but with jalapeno cheeseburgers?" A side look is given to Spider-Man. "They can call it the Spider-Girl upgrade."
The guy manning the register, with a name tag that identified him as "Buddy," smiled. "You must be Spider-Girl. You must be really something if you're hanging with Spider-Man."
"Buddy, you're making me blush. You can't tell, but you are." Spidey did sound somewhat sheepish.
"Nah, man, we hear about Spider-Girl all the time from Miguel, one of our line cooks." He punches in the order, then says to Spider-Girl, "No charge. What do you want to drink?"
"I kinda stole his intellectual property without asking," Spider-Girl tells Buddy, smirking. "I'm obligated to, y'know, be his wing mate now." However, her attempts at being modest are quelled when she's not only recognized, but offered free food. "What, seriously??" The smirk is now gone, and she stammers for a moment. "Oh, uh. Sprite? Yeah, sprite."
From outside, the observant would hear a 'thwip', followed by another 'thwip', followed by someone landing — quite gracefully — on the roof. A moment later and Gwen Stacy strolls in; except nobody would know it, because she's in her Spider-Woman costume. So the black and white-clad hero, with blue 'shoes' (really just part of the onesy), a hood and a cool blue and red backpack, strolls into the place.
It's the first time she's been here, in costume — she really hasn't been doing much of anything in costume until recently — so she probably gets some confused looks.
"Hey guys," she greets her fellow spider-heroes, as she gets close. "Sorry I'm late. Had to take a detour to sort out a bit of a mugging situation. …Are we ordering already?"
Spidey nods, then looks to Buddy the cashier. "Buddy…meet Spider-Woman. One of the newest Spiders."
Buddy was making no secret of giving Spider-Gwen a careful once-over. "Uhm…wow. Different scheme, but…wow." He looked to Spider-Gwen, then the sign offering a discount to any costumed hero who can prove they fought crime. "Got any proof? You get your meal half-off."
Turning as Gwen enters, Anya grins at her. "Hola, amiga," she remarks, then smirks. "Did you get a selfie with the jerk? I'm gonna have to do that more often, this whole discount meal thing is gonna be great."
Her head tilts slightly back toward Buddy. "Hey, her eyes are up there." She points toward Gwen's masked face. "… ish."
If Gwen has any issues about being given a once over, she doesn't show it. (A seconds- or thirds- or fourths-over, however, might well be pushing it.) She adopts a kind of a blank look for a moment, before looking sideways at Spidey and Anya. "How… do you prove a thing like that, I really hadn't… ever thought about proving— OOOOHHHHHH."
Gwen flares her hands upwards and shrugs. "I'm new, honestly, I really never thought about… proving it. I'll just pay full price today man, no worries. But that Spider-Girl upgrade that my friend here was suggesting sounds awesome. And can I have a sprite, please?"
Buddy nods, putting together the order. "Twelve jalapeno sliders, large fries, large Sprite. Okay. I'm assuming you're paying cash?"
There were certain rules when providing services to costumes. For one thing, it's bad form to as for a credit card unless the person has a public identity, like that Hellboy guy.
Spider-Man looks around, then points to a table. "How about that one, you two?"
Its possible Anya might have just blown Gwen's chance of getting a pass on the discount. She's gonna have to make up for her lack of hot-head-to-mouth filter.
"Yeah, looks good to me," she tells Spider-Man, before asiding to Gwen, "Sorry shout that… it's not our fault costumes like this are ideal for aerodynamics."
Gwen pays with cash, as you might imagine, taken from a pocket on her backpack (and a very non-descript wallet that doesn't seem to have ID in it. Who wants to carry that?) With that all taken care of she follows her friends, and shrugs her shoulders to Anya. "No big deal," she replies, "I was planning on paying full price anyway. I'm sure I'll have it figured out next time."
She takes the seat, and nods to Spidey, "Seems like as good a spot as any," she affirms. "So what about you two, hmm? Web up any muggers or anything today?"
Spidey chuckles. "Actually helped an old lady across the street. She said the cars were moving too fast for her. With all the stuff I usually run into, doing a straight-up good deed was refreshing." She smiled to Anya. "I hear you're keeping Spanish Harlem pretty sewed up…or webbed up, anyway. Kinda quiet over there."
"Good thing too," Anya tells Spider-Man. "I'm about to get my BS, early, and… I got a job." She shrugs. "Trying to keep things balanced, y'know? Before I make those next big decisions." She's talking about grad school, but has learned to keep up a barrier in public. Nothing that could be traced back to her. "A lot of the real nasty characters have just gone elsewhere, like moved uptown or over into the Bronx. We're never gonna completely stop crime, but, if people are afraid to do that kinda shit in my neighborhood? Fine by me."
Gwen listens to her friends talking about the beats they look after, and rests her chin on her hands and elbows on the table for a moment. "…Yeah," she finally asks. "I've been meaning to ask you two about that. Keeping things balanced, I mean." She pauses, "I mean I already had a full life before getting bitten by that mischievous little presumably radioactive spider. It's not like any of that stuff has gone away or magically stopped. …How on Earth do you keep it all balanced?" She ahems softly. "Or… even not so much balanced, but not like, completely sideways?"
Spidey smiled to her gently. "Establish specific boundaries between this life…and your public life. I can rig your phone so that any messages from us can show up as a special message you need to use biometrics to decrypt. Also, start with definiing how many hours a week you can devote to it. You have noticed that you don't need to sleep as long as you used to, right?"
To this one, Anya deflects momentarily, letting Spider-Man answer. She only pipes up at the last part, and nods her head. "Sometimes I don't even need to sleep at all," she remarks. "Though… that's probably, like, part adrenaline. It'll catch up to me, and I'll need a full eight hours."
As for her own ability to balance things, she shrugs. "I'm actually pretty bad at it. I'm pretty sure my Abuela thinks I'm on drugs." She casts a brief look around, then lowers her voice to subvocalize, sending it over the Spider-Comm system. "I mean, she doesn't say a thing about Uncle Rico and his drinking, but she assumes I am a junkie. That's the biggest problem, hiding it from your parents." A pause. "Or.., your grandmother, drunk uncle and two cousins." She then looks between the two of them and adds, still subvocalized, "Yes, I have an Uncle Rico."
Just like Napoleon Dynamite.
Don't say it, either of you. That's the look in her eyes.
Gwen would never. And she doesn't. (Make a comment on Uncle Rico, that is.) "Actually, I have noticed that," she admits. "I can definitely get by on a lot less, and that's definitely handy, even if I sorta… miss sleeping in from time to time." She smirks behind the mask. "And don't worry, I actually know how to do that with my phone too, and I already have." Or course she has, her whole life is in her phone. "I stopped carrying my ID while I'm out super-heroing, too, which… I haven't decided yet if that's actually a good idea or not."
She pauses, and squints towards the kitchen. "Adding jalapenos to the Spidey Special must'a confused someone, food's usually up by now."
Spidey chuckles. "That's 36 sliders, 3 fries, 3 large drinks. And they know I drink cherry coke."
He looks around, then back to the two of them. "There's also a lot of 'homework' involved. To that end, I've put together a database connecting to the Spider-Comm system. In a couple of weeks, I should have a database all can add to, based on the yahoos we run into." He chuckles, then looks up as a young, pretty Italian girl walks over, expertly balancing two trays, one with their orders, one with their drinks.
"Two Spideys with jalapenos for the ladies…" she says as she places the boxed trays in front of Anya and Gwen. "And one Spidey Special for a special Spidey." She puts his in front of him, and whispers, "And if you ever change your mind…"
And then she is putting their drinks on the table before sauntering away with a slight exaggeration in her hipsway.
Spidey doesn't seem to notice as he places their drinks in front of Anya and Gwen.
"Wicked," Spider-Girl tells Spider-Man, grinning mischievously. Oh, she's gonna have fun with that one, especially coming up with nicknames for the wackos, building Spotify playlists for the clan, the whole nine. Her mind gears are spinning.
But not fast enough to not notice what just happened.
Anya looks between the young woman, then Spider-Man, then back to the swaying of hips, then back to Spider-Man.
"Seriously? Dude." She waves her hand in front of his face. "DUDE. Hombre. You kidding?" She leans in closer, whispering. "She… is… hot."
While Anya is busy keeping Spidey abreast of the situation, and just how hot the waitress is, Gwen is just sitting in her seat, covering her mouth with one hand and giggling. She shakes her head, and sits back, running her hand over her head and pushing her hood down around her shoulders.
"Don't even try, Spider-Girl," she advises at last, "It doesn't matter what super-senses you give him, there are just some things he's not going to notice." She shrugs lightly, tugging her mask up over the bottom of her nose (no lipstick today) so she can have a sip of her drink, and take a bite out of a slider. "Mmm. Delicious. …Anyway. The database upgrade sounds really useful, 'special spidey'. I—" she stops, and giggles again, "Okay, that's not going to get old anytime soon."
Spider-Man looks up, seeming puzzled. "Eh?" He looked over at the waitress. "Contessa? Yeah, she's a decent girl. Gets good grades, work part-time here. Real smart for her age." He lifts up his mask to expose his nose and mouth, then practically inhales one of the sliders. "Anyway, I'm working on it to be based out of a cloud server, but still able to save files locally. Oh, yeah…you also should start finding little hideaway spots where you can put supplies and whatnot around the city."
Confused isn't even the right word. Dumbstruck is more accurate. Anya looks between Gwen and Spider-Man, and behind her mask, her eyes are wide. "Yeah, and she totally has the hots for you," she points out to Spider-Man, before letting it rest. For now. And not without giggling a bit as Gwen calls him 'Special Spidey'.
For a moment, the young woman is fully distracted by the arrival of their food. She eyeballs it hesitantly, and perhaps, for a moment, she thinks that the two of them have lost their minds. "So, uh." She reaches out with a gloved hand, touching one of the sliders with a finger, as if it might come alive and try to eat her. "Why… exactly… are they called sliders?" She pulls the hand away, eyeballs her gloved finger, then decidedly slips another finger under her wrist, separates the Webdex, and pulls the glove off her hand. Black fingernail polish, unsurprisingly, is sported beneath.
"Base it off iCloud tech," she advises Spidey. "I hacked Siri, I can totally get you a clean copy of their auto-syncing code. Local, cloud, all in one." Because to Anya, ripping off the Apple Corporation to benefit vigilantism is no different than the story of Robin Hood.
"That's called a stash spot," she adds. "Well, that's what they call 'em in the hood. Usually for, you know, drugs and guns and drug money, but, yeah. Same concept."
The slider is finally bitten into, the benefit of having a mask that leaves her mouth and nose exposed. She chews on it for a moment, and the expression on her face is… well, it is confused.
"Rooftops," Gwen suggests automatically. "I mean… we can all get there. Shouldn't be too hard to make some hidey-places up there where we can stash stuff. Especially if you can rig up some lock-boxes or something where you need to be as strong as we are to be able to open them, or otherwise be able to demonstrate both your spider-ness and trustworthiness." She devours another slider, and mmmmphs, "These things are really good with jalapenos, I can't believe I never tried that before, with all the times I've been here. …Oh well, this is seriously a year of firsts."
Another slider falls prey to the spider. Gwen mmms and washes it down with a mouthful of sprite. "Or, you could call them Stash Spots, sure, but… maybe just not with us hiding guns, drugs, and dirty money, yeah?" She chuckles softly. "You hacked Siri, hunh? I'm impressed, I didnn't know that was possible." Another slider gets picked up, and Gwen looks at it, before looking back up. "It's because they're small and greasy, so they 'slide' into your mouth easily." She pauses, and coughs softly. "No, seriously." She pops the slider into her mouth as promised. Delicious.
Spidey looks to Anya. "Her? Nahh…she's just a good friend. Saved her from a rapist. It's probably just interest because of gratitude, but that's just infatuation." He continues eating, downing a second before saying, his voice becoming slightly wistful, "My Uncle…he got me hooked on these. Every time I brought in a good report card, birthdays, special events…me and my Uncle would come to White Castle. We would spend an hour here at least, eating, talking about stuff." He smiles wryly. "This place has some sentimental value for me."
"Well, yeah," Anya tells Gwen, grinning. "I'm just saying. The idea's been around forever." As to hacking Siri, she shrugs. "It's not that hard. It's how I coded Arana to respond to my voice commands. I've just recently upgraded her to be able to transfer voice commands to two guys as well. Basically my tech's sampling your voices every time you use the Spider-Comm, so that the voice command recognition system is always evolving." A beat. "But it's not AI."
Not yet, at least.
When Spider-Man explains the crush, Anya appears… crestfallen. "Oh. Well, yeah, that… makes sense."
She takes another sample of the slider, then shoves the rest of it into her mouth. The smell is starting to make sense and… almost magically… she begins to understand the infatuation. "Oh." She swallows. "Oh. That… that's… actually, like. Really good." She grabs another one and shoves it in whole, chewing madly.
"It is really good. Surprising, isn't it?" Gwen, too, appears rather bummed at the explaination of the crush; afterall, that's not something any girl wants to hear about, ever. But, that's what heroes are for.
"I feel like a bit of a rube next to you two," she adds, "I mean, I can almost make my phone clean the kitchen for me, but that's about it. I have no tech skills beyond that… and I'm pursuing biochemistry, so I'm not going to." She shrugs her shoulders lightly, "It's good that I know you two, or I'd probably be trying to do super-heroing in a white hoodie, a balaclava, and yoga pants."
Not that there's anything wrong with yoga pants. "What kind of stuff would you want to be stashing for emergencies? Besides the obvious? …Spare webshooters? Comms access? Painkillers?"
Spider-Man chuckles. "Don't feel like that, Spider-Woman. You have the benefit of two mentors…" He smirks to Anya. "…and as for what to stash? Spare cartridges, spare clothes, even a spare costume. Which reminds me, I should have a spare fabricated in a few days. Painkillers, FeBreeze, deodorant, hand sanitizer…you never know what you'll need. But scout out the place first, make sure no one else can get to it or even see it."
"It really is!" Anya retorts, and now feels kinda bad for giving Pete shade about liking White Castle. Even moreso than when he told her about his uncle. She shoves another one down her feeding pipe, and washes it down with some Sprite. "Biochemistry? Now that's rad, and it'll help offset our brains." She gestures toward Spider-Man with her drink. "Then again, he's probably as smart as you and I combined."
As for what to stash, she nods her head and adds, "First aid kits. Burner phones. You can find a bunch of good stuff in dumpsters. Arana, my drone? I built her entirely from dumpster diving around colleges and tech corps. They throw away perfectly good stuff, because they don't have a clue what 'sustainability' means."
She takes down another slider, and as she does, her left hand dances about momentarily, clearly punching something into her mask HUD. Then she goes quiet, reading something.
"According to Urban Dictionary, 'The term is derived from the way that they, um, slide right through your colon'." She then scowls at the both of them. "Am I gonna be stuck to the damn toilet after this, you guys!???"
To back herself up, she swipes her hand and sends the web page to both Peter and Gwen.
"Well I—" Gwen stops, and fortunately is not currently chewing anything, so she doesn't spew when she bursts into peals of laaughter from Anya's comment. "No," she gasps, rubbing her forehead. "No, you are not going to be stuck to the toiler, I promise. Whowever put that on Urban Dictionary is a twerp who's never had these things, seriously."
She shakes her head and sighs audibly. "Well, I'll tell you what, I'll see if I can put my biochemist pwoers to good use, when I've gotten past the stage where I'm cramming for exams about ketones." She picks up a slider and destroys it, "You know, put a few crossword puzzle books in those stashes too, just in case we're having a night that gets really boring while we're waiting for something to happen." Is she joking about that last bit? She might be.
"Also, I think you're going to have to compromise at some point, Spidey. There's these other people in town, you know… Avengers and stuff, or whatever… I'm pretty sure they can get anywhere we can get to." She pauses, and ahems. "Possibly more places. I'm pretty sure I can't get into SHIELD without permission. But now I'm just being facetious."
Spidey takes a long sip. "Yeah, about that…the odds of any of them finding my Spidey-spookers (interesting term) are very remote. Besides, they're dealing with threats to a country, or even the world. SHIELD has bigger things to deal with than street crime. That's why I step in. Somebody's gotta watch out for the little guy…or girl…right?"
He follows this philosophy with another cheeseburger slider. He really is hungry.
Anya breathes a deep sigh of relief. "Thank God," she answers, and goes in for another slider.
"Honestly, the one time I got involved with SHIELD, it freaked me out." Spider-Man will know what she's talking about, and she's not going to give Gwen a crash course in that shit show while they're eating food. Instead, she shakes her head. "Ain't healthy to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders," she remarks. "I mean, I do it. Too often. But I shouldn't. We can't be everywhere, all the time."
Gwen bobs her head, "Absolutely," she replies, "And I'm willing to bet they'd get that, but it's not really them I'm worried about finding our lockers. I mean, up until now you two have had me watching the streets, which if that's all this job ever is, I'll be perfectly happy. But." She picks up a slider and gesticulates with it, "Sooner or later there's going to be scary supervillains, right? Not everyone who gets powers is 'nice'. If the spider that bit me had decided to get Candace from eighth grade — remember her? — we'd have an evil spider running around, I'm sure."
Gwen takes two bites to consume the slider this time, and stops just short of licking her fingeres. "I don't… really want to work for SHIELD either," she adds. "Hey, silly question, do we just stick the word 'spider' in before or after everything to do with crime-fighting?"
Spider-Man hmms. "Only for comedic effect. Laughing villains are distracted villains."
Poof, another slider goes bye-bye.
"This is why you have people willing to help you. A network, as it were. There are going to be many times where you are facing someone more powerful than you. It's usually good to accept when you're in over your head. It will happen often.
He stops and ponders. "Unless you're Thor."
"Hey." Anya drops a half eaten slider and points at Spider-Man. "I'll bet even someone out there can beat up Thor. Don't… ever tell him I said that, but, y'know. No one is all powerful. He's just a little-g god, right?"
The slider is reclaimed again, and she shrugs. "I think the weirdest thing about all this, for me, is like… working with cops. Cops were a bad word in my neighborhood growing up. No one liked 'im. Not really. Now you see there are cops out there who actually want to help you? Even though every single thing about what we're doing is totally less than legal?" She grins. "Kinda cool."
"Yeah, well, just… don't tell my Dad, nevermind Thor." Gwen looks at Spidey, "I took your advice, and I tried to tell him, I really did. I just… I couldn't. I don't know how I could. He's spent so much of his life trying to keep me out of harm's way, I think if I told him right now that his little girl was out late at night, punching out muggers and terrorists and whatever else, I think it'd really… hurt him." She sighs, "So I'm keeping it to myself. Maybe I'll tell him eventually."
Gwen consoles herself with a slider, and a long, noisy slurp of sprite. "I'm pretty sure nobody is invincible," she adds. "Somewhere out there, I've no doubt that there's people who just… have what it takes to hard counter us. Or anyone else. …Hopefully we don't run into them, but hey, having your stashy spots might be a good start to bein prepared."
Spider-Man nods. "It couldn't hurt. Also, we have a few allies. Should you get banged up and you need to get healed up fast, call the contact named Angel (Thea). She's a biokinetic. Can heal very well, and quickly."
He looks to Anya. "I think it's because you wear a mask. When it comes to identifying you in a costume, you're a cipher. You can be anyone, so it's harder to pre-judge you. They have to fall back on what you do."
"Exactly," Anya tells Spider-Man. "And I'll vouch for Angel." She swings her attention to Gwen and says, "I got hurt real bad in this one… the second time I did something for SHIELD. Cracked both my radius and my ulna. She just like… I dunno how she does it, but she fixed them. My arms felt brand new in like… ten minutes. It was crazy."
Gwen is suitably impressed, and it shows with the way she makes that little impressed-frowny that people do. "I'm impressed," she confirms. "If I ever find myself in a situation where I've got broken bones and some bad guy has punched out all my blood, I'll make sure to give her a ring. Assuming I'm conscious." She scratches the back of her neck, "You know, a month ago, I would never have considered… Yeah I'm sure you two know all about that kind of thinking." She picks up a slider and eats it, chewing thoughtfully.
Spider-Man finishes another slider and nods. "Yeah. But we had to accept the present and move forward. So we strive to do better. I wasn't thought of much at first. Then the Bugle went after me. Then I was being actively hunted. Now, i'm even getting respect from the police. It's been a roller-coaster."
Spider-Girl laughs and reaches out a hand for Gwen's arm, giggling. "Tell me about it, sister. It's a total mind f…. ssscrew."
Ahem.
"I don't think I'll ever tell Abuela. Uncle Rico'd probably forget if I did. My cousins though…" She grins mischievously. "Yeah, I could totally tell them. They idolize me already, kinda been like a big sister to them ever since…" A pause, and she goes silent. "Well. Ever since the thing." The thing she can't talk about here and now.
Down goes another slider, now it's time to try out those fries.
Spider-Man opens his mouth to ask…but he can't ask about personal stuff now. Maybe later, when the occasional tourist isn't taking covert pics of them with their cellphone.
"I figured I should ask how you're managing the basic stuff, Spider-Woman? Any issues with the webshooters? How long does it take for you to go through one of them? And have you tried seeing how long you can do the webslinging thing before you get tired?"
"Divorce," Anya tells Spider-Man, recognizing that expression. It's all that needs to be said, for now, but the word alone can paint quite a picture.
Diverting her attention to Gwen, she says quietly, "Spider-Marathon. We should do one. For charity."
"I am totally down with Spider-Marathon for Charity. We should definitely see how much we can raise for children's hospitals." Gwen has been quiet the last couple of minutes, basically just destroying the sliders; there's none left now, and the fries are almost gone too. "I suppoe I should time myself sometime, but I can go quite a while with the webslinging before I get tired. I don't even *want* to take the bus anymore, I just bought a bus pass so I wouldn't have to explain why I didn't have one. …And the webshooters are fantastic, any deficiency right now is my own lack of experience, but I was down at the yard" That being Carl King's old place "and I drew targets on one of the walls so I could practice hitting things. I'm getting better."
Gwen puts her straw to her lips and slurps up the last bit of sprite, wiggling the cup around and getting the straw right down into the bottom. "Whelp. I guess I should go see if I can find another mugger." She pulls her mask back down over her face. "Let's do this again soon. You two are the best."