Summary:Eve, Zatanna, and Spider-Woman meet after that latter nearly face plants. Good times. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It's a pleasant evening in Brooklyn; not too cold, no snow, no biting wind, clear skies… and at the moment, no muggings in progress. Gwen Stacy is out and about, dressed head to foot in a form-fitting, mostly black and white outfit with a red and blue backpack, basically doing nothing more important than practicing her webslinging. She's getting into the rhythm of it, to the point that she's starting to not thinkg about it while she does it; not really.
Of course, as someone older and wiser might say, familiarity breeds contempt. Because this freshly minted Spider-Woman isn't entirely paying attention, she misses the corner of a building with a webline, and so instead of sailing around a corner she sails straight towards the ground. "What th-AUUGH!" A hurriedly deployed replacement does the trick; at least enough to save her from faceplanting straight into the concrete. It's not quite enough to avoid looking embarassing, however.
Zatanna is older than Gwen, and wiser too if you want to play linguistic games about the etymology of the word 'magic,' but she's never said familiarity breeds contempt. Or at least, she's never said it to someone plummeting at terminal velocity toward a concrete sidewalk. She looks up, startled, at the sound of someone screaming, and when she sees Spider-Woman plummeting, she doesn't hesitate. Anyone who sees her, sees her. She flings her hands up toward Gwen in a dramatic, McKellan-esque gesture of warding and shouts, "Llaw barg gnillaf na—" but cuts herself off when the gnillaf namow stops gnillaf. Well, that spared Zatanna some unnecessary exposure, anyway.
"Hey, are you alright?" she yells up instead.
Another webline stabilizes Gwen, so she's dangling upside-down, about eight feet up from the concrete. This, at least, she manages to make look graceful. Well… graceful-ish. She holds that position for a moment, then lets go; she does a flip mid-air, and lands lightly on her feet.
"Nothing bruised but my pride," she reports. "I'm still kinda new to the spider-gig." She shrugs; probably blushing behind her mask. "Trying to practice and get all my screw-ups and growing pains out of the way when I'm not busy trying to save someone's life."
Gwen pauses, and cups her chin with one hand. "I probably shouldn't have admitted that. …Oh well, not like you didn't see, anyway."
"Hey, Zatanna, I got the coff—,"
And then Eve sees the Spider-Lady, right there, dangling upside down above Zatanna and flipping down to land on her feet.
Eve stops, stares, and then sayus, "…huh. Well, okay." It's New York, after all. These things happen.
SHe is, in fact, holding a pair of coffees in her hands.
Zatanna considers this interesting turn of events, in which a masked vigilante drops down from a humiliating near-fall to converse with a witness rather than swing off. Not many masks would do that. Maybe it's not humiliating; maybe it's humbling. If so, it's important to nurture that sort of kind heart.
So Zatanna doesn't draw attention to it. She just nods and agrees, "Practice makes perfect." Demonstrating, she produces a playing card from her pocket, the queen of diamonds. She flicks its corner with the middle finger of her left hand and it turns instantly into the two of hearts, before, with a snap of her fingers, vanishing altogether, leaving Zatanna's hands bare.
"You can learn most of that trick on YouTube in two minutes, but it took months to get right," she explains as Eve runs up.
Gwen watches the trick intently; the eyes on her mask even narrow a bit, along with her real eyes behind them. "…Hunh," she observes. "Alright, I'm impressed. I know a bunch of people, including myself, who've tried to learn to do that sort of thing and never gotten it right." She shrugs, "Well, maybe I just gave up too early."
The Spider-Woman tilts her head to the approaching Eve, glances down at the coffee, then back to Zatanna, and puts two and two together. Well, more or less. "Your friend watched me almost face-plant," she explains to Eve. "Sort of a newby, these things happen… but you're right," she adds, looking back to Zatanna. "Practice makes perfect. And, thank you for not laughing at me."
"Oh yeah. I face plant all the time. Not in a cool costume, though," says the Goth. She likes the suit!
Then she's back to Zatanna and holding one out to her. Of course, face plant could have a different meanting for her.
Hands now free of cards, Zatanna accepts the plastic-capped cardboard cup and nods at Spider-Woman. "You're welcome, but I'm pretty sure you'd be allowed to punch anyone who laughed at you for nearly dying like that," she says dryly. "Someone who laughs at that is probably a serial killer anyway."
"Oh, god. I didn't even think about that part. I was all bound up in embarassment that I forgot to think about cranial trauma." Gwen scratches the back of her head, other hand rested on her hip. "Well. I might be allowed to punch someone who laughs at me, but it probably wouldn't be super good optics, yeah? Might make the police mad at me. I try to only punch muggers, terrorists, and super-villains."
The Spider-Woman looks Eve up and down once more, and perks an eyebrow upwards behind the mask. "I uhhh… you might want to work on your coordination a little," she suggests, "But if I ever see you about to faceplant, I'll try to catch you."
"Obviously, anyone who laughed at you is… a super villain. Obviously." Eve nods solemnlym then waves a hand dismissively towards Gwen's comment aobut her balance. "Oh, I just get dyspraxic occasionally." Well, that's one way of putting it. "Still, I totally have no idea who you are! I'm Eve." She has a sip of her coffee. "I need to know who to put on my super-hero bingo card at home."
Zatanna produces a smartphone from her pocket (with no magic flair, this time) and asks shyly, "And if it's okay, could we get a selfie? I get it if not, just… you know."
Dyspraxic? One of Gwen's cousins from out of town would call that a five dollar word. Gwen herself just makes a note to look it up later. "Right," she replies to Eve. She knows what she's talking about; totally. "And I'm Spider-Woman. Very similar to Spider-Man, just a girl instead of a boy, and a lot newer at this. …Seriously, don't get bitten by a weird spider unless you want your world turned entirely upside down."
Gwen looks at the camera, and her grin is evident in her voice, "Absolutely! Selfies are totally wicked. I'm on board." She quickly steps forwards, taking up a position between and behind Even and Zatanna, letting them be more prominent in the picture while she looks over their shoulders (standing on tip-toes a bit to accomplish this). "Alright, go for it!"
"Selfie? Awesome, sure!" Eve is fine with that idea, of course, and she aims to get into position. A glance at Zatanna sees her tempted, but not engaging, in putting bunny ears behind her coffee-companion's head.
Besides, it'd be painfully obvious. "No spider-bites. Got it."
Zatanna grins at Spider-Woman's advice. "Can confirm," she agrees, though it wasn't a spider she was bitten by, just a thing that… never mind, long story, and one better told while the sun is out. She settles in on Spider-Woman's side, flips her phone to horizontal, and aims it at them, assuming an expression of delighted surprise. "Can you give us a V or something, Spider-Woman? Great, now smile…"
She waits a moment, then nudges in Spider-Woman in the ribs. "No, I mean smile through the mask!" And when the joke lands, Zatanna snaps the shot.
Gwen obliges, throwing up a V with one hand; and then there's a laugh at the joke, which might be tough to see in the selfie, but hey, body language can speak volumes sometimes. "Perfect," she declares, smoothly retreating from Even and Zatanna's space. "Some things about this super-heroing can make it a pretty tough job, but meeting people like you two is definitely a perk. So, thank you for that."
Eve snorts at Zatanna's joke before she defintiely backs up a step and gets out of their immediate proximity. She smiles brightly, however, and has a sip of her coffee. "Welp, that's definitely goi8ng on my instagram." She glances towards Zatgnna with a hopeful expression, liting her own smart phone and giving it a little wiggle in an unspoken 'text me that, yo'.
Zatanna shows the selfie to Eve and Spider-Woman for their approval or mortification as appropriate. "I'll send you a copy," she promises Eve, then apologizes to Spider-Woman, "I'd send one to you too, but you—actually, no, I can get you one. I'll have my people upload this to my website and you can save a copy from your browser. Mistress of magic, all one word, dot com. Eve, let me know if you want to be shopped out."
"Yeah, secret identities don't work super well if you hand out your cell phone number to everyone you pratfall in front of," Gwen acknowledges. "But hey, that's a good idea! I'll definitely check out your site. And not just the photos." She stretches, lifting her arms up over her head, then extending them behind her back; she tilts her head to one side then the other, giving her neckbones a good crack.
"Alright, I think I've stood still for long enough, I need to go do another round of the back alleys and make sure there's nobody in distress. Thanks for being really cool people, you two, it was great meeting you. Hopefully I'll see you around, yes?"
"Yeah, it's going on my insta too, like I said, MorninGloryNYCLandscaping." She brightens up. Perkygoth is perky today.
"Also, she's got a point," she add. "Now, don't let us hold you up from having, like, kittens to rescue from trees or something."
Zatanna looks up from texting the photo to Eve (it shouldn't be that hard, but stupid winter gloves) to look obscurely disappointed at Spider-Woman's departure. "Alright. Hey, thanks for what you do. Jameson can get in the sea."