Summary:Anon and G go on patrol and encounter Gwen. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Since the numbers were exchanged, there's been a little texting back and forth between Anon and G. Not as much as there could have been, mainly because Anon just doesn't know what to say. But tonight, she's extending herself a bit more: she's offered to meet up and try patrolling together, tonight in the Bowery. They agree on a time and a rooftop, and then each go about their day.
When the time rolls around, Anon is there, in full costume. She paces back and forth… in part just to keep active, to keep her temperature up. Every so often, she buzzes, a super-speed shiver that warms her for a little while. The rooftop's above a real estate agent, and this corner of the Bowery is as quiet as it ever gets in a Bowery evening.
'G' is only a couple of minutes late in arriving, as she descends silently out of the night sky. She's dressed in… well, to call it a 'costume' would be overly generous, but she's clearly trying to at least make herself less recognizable. A cheap dark-grey hoodie of the sort one might find at Dollar General, with the hood up to cover her hair, worn with black jeans and black leather boots with chunky heels, and what looks like a pair of ski goggles with a silver-mirrored lens providing at least something of a disguise for her face. "Hi. Sorry, got a little turned around findin' this place. Hope I didn't keep you waiting long."
With that silent descent, Anon only notices G when she speaks up. That makes her whirl around sharply, and then she looks the girl up and down, smiling at her. "Not at all! You're right on time." The words come out well faster than they need to, a sign of her nervousness. She tilts her head, gaze finally settling on G's sort-of-masked face. "I'd, uh, been wondering what you'd end up wearing for this. So… patrol. Usually I just kind of wander around, keep my eyes and ears open, and dive in when I find something. I don't, um, plan it." She blushes, hands fidgeting in front of herself.
With a quick laugh, G replies, "Not as if you could. I mean, I'm not thinkin' muggers an' such take appointments. But I'm the new girl here. You lead, an' I'll follow."
Anon giggles under her breath. "You're right, but I mean, like… I don't pick out a route ahead of time, based on Most Recent Crime Statistics or whatever." She says that one phrase with enough dramatic intonation to make the capitals clear. The thought of being any kind of a leader makes Anon blush again, but she turns away and faces forwards. "Alright. Let's, um, head this way for now." She takes a breath, gets a good running start, and launches herself from one building to the next. She's gotten rather good at judging those distances — handy when you can't fly.
G follows easily enough, it being handy when you can fly when you're new to all this, and not sure where your partner is going. She's also not quite consciously realizing the way she's watching Anon from behind as she runs and leaps from rooftop to rooftop.
Well, it's not like Anon's costume is as all-covering as Rebecca's. That's part of the disguise — nobody would expect Celerity Carter to dress like that. But more than that, it's lightweight, streamlined, and doesn't drag her down while she's running. Minimum weight is important for a power set like hers.
While she runs ahead, Anon keeps glancing over her shoulder, back at G. She wants to talk. But she's still awkward, still shy, and still uncertain of just what to say.
Before the silence can extend far enough to become awkward, she's saved by the bell. Or, well, by the scream for help. It comes from down in an alleyway between two tenement buildings: a mugging in progress, by the look of the one victim and several aggressors, holding him still and going through his pockets.
…Until all of them, except for the one currently in contact with the victim, suddenly find themselves hoisted into the air by their own clothing, and pinned against the opposite walls of the alley. Hovering a few feet above the ground, G drawls, "Ain't you boys got somethin' better to do?"
"What the fu" That's roughly the chorus from those left floating in the air. The one left on the ground wraps his arm tighter around the victim. "Hey now, I'm warning you! Put my boys down, or this knife will OW!"
What knife? Anon has just rushed down the wall, into the alley, and past him, pulling the knife from his grip along the way. And the cross-breeze is enough to knock both men over.
The former knife-weilder doesn't stay down for long, though, as he quickly joins his friends, suspended by his own clothing, and up against, in his case, the end wall of the alley. As she hovers there, much of her concentration on keeping the muggers helpless, G gives Anon a look that clearly asks, 'So what now?'
Anon flushes at that questioning look. Don't look at her like she's an expert! She digs into concealed pockets to come out with a handful of zipties, and after a quick pass, she has all the muggers bound up, and turns to the man they saved. "Hey, you have a phone on you? We need you to call—"
The man screams and falls over himself as he runs back down the alley. "Keep away from me!" Someone, it seems, has issues with 'superhuman freaks'.
G calls out after the fleeding former victim, "You're welcome!" She shakes her head. "You'd almost think he'd rather be robbed."
Anon sighs, slipping her phone out of her pocket. "It happens like that sometimes. I'd like to say you get used to it, but I haven't yet." She instead takes out her own phone. "Give me a couple minutes here, I'll call it in." During the call, she masks her voice in a way that must sting her throat, and simply tells them about a mugging in progress at that alleyway. Once she's done, she looks to G. "We should get back up there, before they arrive."
Nodding, G rises smoothly back toward the rooftops. Flying, at least, she's had plenty of practice at. She touches down lightly on one where there's still a clear view of the alley, but they'll be out of sight of the responding officers.
Anon pouts with a little envy as she watches G. Flight mustb e so /nice/. Instead, she runs up the wall to join her there. "So… that's pretty much how it goes. I run around, I keep an ear and an eye out. Then I rush in, get the bad guys tied up and not going anywhere, and call it in." Though she nominally faces towards the alleyway, she keeps looking towards G. Her attention is uncertain, like she just doesn't know what else to say.
"Okay, lesson one learned. I gotta buy myself a bag o'zip ties," G says, with a smile and a laugh. "So what's the scariest thing you've run into? I mean, those guys were kinda easy. Either one of us coulda beaten them by ourselves. But there's gotta be worse'n a handful o'muggers to have t'deal with."
Anon half-smiles at hearing G's laughter. The question, though, makes her shudder. "Killer clowns," she says, without hesitation. "Eldritch killer clowns with bodies like rubber, freezing ray guns, and then they just… just… dissolved. That's the scariest. Only thing that comes close was when I fought, like, a big bunch of bees. Sapient bees. With a German accent and genocidal intentions."
G just stares for a moment. It's probably to Anon's credit that if almost anyone else had told Becca that, the next words out of her mouth would have been, "You're shittin' me." But in this instance, they are not. If there's one quality that Anon has left an impression of certainty about with G, it's earnestness.
So instead, her response is, "I'm so glad I asked. If'n I have nightmares tonight, it's gonna be your fault." She shakes her head, with a quiet 'I guess I asked for that' laugh.
Earnestness. From the girl who habitually lies to everyone around her about who she is, what takes up all her time, and even about her species. Ironic.
"You asked!" Anon says, throwing up her hands. "You asked what the scariest thing was, and I was in Central Park on a night near Halloween, and that… that happened! I didn't even go out looking for things that time, I was just in the area!" She huffs, cheeks puffed out. "So… does that mean I get to ask you a question now?"
"I wanna hear how you dealt with those, but yeah, fair is fair, your turn," G replies. "Ask away."
Anon says, "Wasn't just me," Anon says. "There were a couple other there. One could punch like nobody's business. I mostly just used their rayguns against them."
But it's her turn to ask a question. She brings her knees up to her chest, blushing. "This is a bit more, uh, personal, but it's been on my mind. Have you done much, um, kissing? At all?""
Her goggles might hide her expressive blue eyes, but they do nothing to conceal the color blooming on G's cheeks. "Um, yeah, I have. Mostly with boys. The one time with a girl, I really liked, though. I mean, I liked it with the boys, too, just, I mean… um…" She flails a little, verbally and with her hands, while part of her mind is trying to understand why she's even telling Anon all this.
Anon's cheeks glow warmer, but she just gives G a little nod. "O-Okay. I, um, haven't done much. Just did the f-first one recently with this new friend of mine. She" Subtly indicating that, yes, it was a girl. "talked about how… people act like kissing is such a big deal, when a kiss can be… just a kiss. Y-You know? And y-yeah, I liked it, so it's been kind of… on my mind." And she can't talk about this with others in her life, not really. Her mother doesn't even want her kissing boys.
Some might say, it never rains, but it pours. Other people, apparently, Just say things like "Stick 'em up!" and "Gimme that backpack, your jewelry, your money, or I'll shoot you, bitch." Such is what might be heard coming from the end of an alley opening into a side street not too far off; a man in a hoodie and baggy pants is busy pointing a revolver at a young lady, herself not very tall.
Gwen Stacy holds her hands up in the air almost lazily, and sighs audibly. "I don't think you want to do that," she comments. "I mean, really. You don't worry about going to jail?"
"Shut up and hand it over." The man pulls back the hammer on his revolver. "I won't tell you again."
"Sounds like time to get back to work," G says, as she launches into the air and heads in the general direction of the voices, peering downward until she spots the altercation in progress. Diving toward the scene, she's thinking ahead to her next move, but also thinking it's altogether likely Anon will beat her to it.
Anon hears it, too, snapping her head towards the sound. She's not sure whether to be sad or glad about the interruption. Now the conversation's going to hang over her head for a while. But… "You're right." She pushes back up to her feet. "I'll go around the back. Can you, like… put up a high-gravity field to keep any bullets from reaching her, if something goes wrong?" If any bullets come Anon's way, she's pretty sure she can deal with it.
A moment later, the golden-leotarded woman is in the alleyway, right behind the would-be mugger. "You really don't want to do that. Pretty sure that, yes, I am faster than bullets."
Gwen shrugs her shoulders. "Alright," she replies, "If you insist." She produces a handful of cash, mostly small bills. "That's all I've got on me," she adds, offering it up. "My backpack is full of textbooks that aren't worth anything to you, and my earings aren't real gold."
And right at that moment, while G and Anon are getting themselves into position, Gwen's phone makes a joyful little 'Beep-badda-bedeep!'
"PHONE." The man, who'd been about to leave with Gwen's cash, points his gun at her once again. "Now, bitch, or I— What?!" The man rounds to point his weapon at Anon. "Who the hell are you supposed to be? Get lost or I'll shoot!" He moves to the wall; and he's sweating, that much is obvious. Probably a first time offender, but he seems to have a firm grasp of how to hold a gun and he's got tactics downpat, as he immediately moves into cover. "Get the hell outta here," he snaps at Gwen.
Gwen, for her part, just raises an eyebrow and stands there. "Really?" she inquires. "You wanted me phone, now you want me to beat it when the cavalry's arrived? You need to make up your mind, dude."
It's about then that 'G' gets close enough to realize that she knows the 'victim'. (Shit. What if she recognizes me…? Screw it. I can't let that stop me.) She swoops down to hover just behind Gwen, and at the same time, a globular shield snaps into being with a rainbow shimmer of gravitic lensing, protecting both women from any ensuing gunfire. "Y'all should listen to my friend there," she says to the would-be mugger. "You done already lost, you just don't know it yet. Give it up already."
Anon looks at the pistol waving in her face. "Oh is that what that's for, and here I thought it was a novelty back-scratcher." But while she could go on bantering, she instead decides to get rolling. A knowledge of tactics is unlikely to help much against supersonic speed; she blurs around the man, tugging the gun from his hands as she goes past. She holds it carefully, keeping it pointed only at the ground and her finger well away from the trigger guard. "So… I haven't got lost. Are you going to shoot me now?"
The man never sees it coming; one moment he's taking up a tactically sound position, the next he's standing there with no gun. He looks down at his hands then back at Anon, and slowly puts his hands up in the air. "Okay, look, you win." His voice rises an octave while he's talking. "Okay look, do whatever you want to me, but let the girl go, she's innocent, okay? This was my fault, all my fault."
Gwen, meanwhile, has gone from staring down a mugger with a rather large caliber gun revolver, to standing inside a… bubble…? Well okay, stranger things have happened to her, but she's not commenting on that openly. "Hey, thanks for rescuing… wait a moment, do I know—" She stops, as the apparent mugger is talking, and that just makes no sense. "…Wait, what?! Since when is a mugger concerned about his victim over himself?" She glances back and forth between G and the people outside the bubble. "Rebecca?!"
There is one other detail, that Anon might just notice; the gun. It's actually not loaded. Not a single bullet in it.
Welp, not like she wasn't expecting that. "'G', Gw— Miss. As in 'gravity.'" Then she looks toward the mugger, after what he just said. "Wait, what? We're the good guys. Er, well, 'cept not guys… You know what I meant!" She's still looking at him, watching, still confused by his attitude.
La la la, Anon tries very hard not to hear G bumping into someone from her civilian life. She can't actively turn her ears off, but she can at least focus elsewhere. She has a basic level of firearm-safety knowledge, but she's not one to actually use guns. She just wants it out of the equation, and so she pops the cylinder open… and finds it empty. "Wait…"
She snaps the empty cylinder back into place, but keeps it pointed low. Now she feels bad. She sighs, turning to the not-mugger. "You must be pretty desperate, trying to mug someone with an empty gun. What's this all about?" She tries to approach it with a warm, understanding tone, to open him up.
Gwen is looking sideways at 'G', and smiles at her, where she stands inside the bubble. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone," she replies. "I promise. But if you want to continue being what the cops would define as a vigilante, you are going to have to work on that costume. You'd never defeat facial recognition software. …Or a beatcop who's got an average level of brains." She pauses, and smiles, having the good grace to blush a little. "But, hey, thank you for saving me!"
The man, meanwhile, has taken a step back, hands still up in the air. "I got bullets," he sputters, "They— They're at home, okay? I was gonna rob the convenience store down the road, but I lost my nerve, so I thought I'd better work up to it. I never wanted to hurt nobody. Just… figured a little cash and some stuff that's easily replaced—"
"My phone is NOT easily replaced!" Gwen interjects, "It's got my whole life on it!"
"Sorry!" The man raises his hands a little higher. "Look, I'm sorry, I am. I'm a veteran, I served in the Gulf. But veteran affairs cut me off, and I can't get a job, and pretty soon I can't pay rent. I'm not a bad person, I swear, I'm just… desperate."
"We'll talk. Later," 'G' says to Gwen, quietly, before listening to what the would-be mugger has to say. She looks to Anon, and even though her goggles hide it, it's not hard to imagine the questioningly-raised eyebrow behind the mirrored surface. As in, 'Um, what do we do now?' She knows her own inclination, but she's also feeling she should follow the more experienced heroine's lead.
More experienced? Not by much. Anon rubs her face with her free hand. "Fuck," she says. "I'm not going to lie, that is one shitty situation. But… doing this is much more dangerous than you'd think. There's no telling who might intervene… and not everyone in a costume is going to stop and listen like this. Some are just… quicker on a trigger than you, and don't leave the bullets at home." Or they'd literally bite his head off, or feed on his soul, or who knows what else. "I…" She winces, looking towards the other girls. "What do you think?" She doesn't even know how to handle her own financial situation, let alone someone with a veteran's worth of baggage.
"No problem, G," Gwen replies. "Whenever you're comfortable." She hooks her thumbs in the top of her jeans, and gazes out of the bubble at the guy standing in the corner with his hands up. "So… look. My vote? Let him keep the cash. It's not a lot, I'll be fine, and you can go get a burger or something, yeah?" She shrugs, "My Dad knows an officer at one of the other precincts who's got some friends who are in veteran support groups. Maybe they can find you something better than mugging?"
The man is still standing in the corner, hands in the air and generally cowering, but he's starting to calm down as it's becoming apparent that he isn't going to get beaten up or folded in half or anything. "No, no, I… I don't want to be a thief," he insists, holding out his hand to offer the money back. "And… And I'm sorry I called you a bitch." His cheeks flush a deep red, as he looks at Anon, "And I'm sorry I threatened you and your friend, I didn't mean it. You wanna take me to jail I'll go."
"It sounds t'me like this was all a mistake, an' probably one you're not gonna be repeatin'," G says, her voice calm and a bit gentle. "An' I don't see how puttin' you in jail is gonna do any kind o'good. So we're just not gonna be doin' that. No. You listen to this one, here. You go see her Daddy's friend's friends. See what help they can hook you up with. Sound like a plan?"
"Well, um." Anon shrugs. "No harm, no foul?" And bullets don't usually get the chance to cause her any harm, even if they were loaded. She turns the gun around to offer the handle back to him. "Maybe I'm just a bleeding heart, but… here. This is yours, as long as you don't try to use it like that again." She nods firmly to G, growing more confident at hearing the ideas echoed. "And it's not thieving if she gives it to you. Just call this a… a learning experience, yeah?"
Gwen Waves her hand, "Like the lady said, if I give it to you, you didn't steal it." She smiles pleasantly, "And I accept your appology. I've been called worse, I promise." She watches the gun being handed back, and ohs, "Right. So, go to precinct fifteen, talk to a Sergeant Williamson, and tell him Gwen Stacy told you that you oughta talk to him. He knows my Dad, like I said, and he's got some connections. And seriously dude, go get some McDonalds or something.
"Okay," The man puts the gun away in his pocket, and bundles his jacket up around himself, now just looking less the figure of a mugger and more just, well, kind of pathetic. "Okay. Okay. I'll do that." he looks at the money in his hand, and stuffs that in his pocket too. "Thanks, all… all three of you." He nods to Anon, and G, "You two, you're real heroes, right? I mean… you risked your lives to save her," he nods to Gwen, "And then you listened. And you young lady, you're way too kind,"
As the man is turning to go, Gwen stands up a little straighter. "Hey, wait a sec." When the man turns around, she nods once. "Thank you for your service."
G takes down her protective bubble as the man starts to leave. Really, she probably could have once it became clear that the man was no threat, and that there were no bullets present to be flying. "I think we just did the right thing," she offers.
Anon nods. "Me too. And, uh." She looks to Gwen. "Thank you for that. I couldn't have helped him like you did… and if anyone had reason to want not to help him it's you. You're the only one he really threatened." Because clearly, Gwen is the only non-superhuman individual here. "I'm Anon, and you've met G." Apparently, even met her as not-G. "What can I call you, Miss?"
Gwen chuckles softly, and shakes her head. "Nonsense, I just stood here and let you two do all the work. You're the heroes, I was just here as, uhh, an involved bystander." That's technical term. …No it isn't. "And, I'm Gwen Stacy. Just Gwen is fine, though." She smiles pleasantly. "It was great to meet you both, and I'm really grateful that you were here to jump in and save me, even if the guy didn't have any bullets in his gun."
"I'm glad it turned out like it did, and not, y'know, like him bein' a for-real badguy and all," G says, relaxing a bit more once the man has left. "And Anon's right, that was amazin'ly kind of you. I hope he gets the help he needs."
Anon shakes her head. "You were a very involved bystander. You were the one getting a gun pointed at you." She smiles at Gwen. "Good to meet you too. So, uh. Should we get going, G?" It's an honest question. She's never stuck around this long with a civilian before. Or at least, with someone she thinks is a civilian.
Gwen blushes softly, and waves a hand in the air in front of her. "The money wasn't a big enough amount to worry about," she points out. "I mean it was enough for him to go to McDonalds, like, four times. The gun part was pretty stressful, but it was over quickly enough. And hey, this is the second time in three months I've been saved by super-heroes, believe it or not, so that was cool." She smiles, taking a step back. "You two get going if you need to, go save someone else, yes? …Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime."
"Uh, right, maybe we will," G replies, blushing a bit with what she knows (and knows Gwen knows, and even suspects Anon knows) is an act put on for appearances' sake. "You're right, we should get goin'. It was nice meeting you, miss. Take care, an' I hope you don't run into any more trouble anytime soon."
Anon nods to Gwen. "Just as long as I'm not going too fast when we do. Because… 'running into each other' at high speeds… and… oh forget it." She shakes her head. "Though it'd probably be better not to run into each other like this. That would mean you're getting in more danger." At least, whatever she may suspect about Rebecca, she doesn't suspect anything about Gwen. "I'll see you up there," she tells G, and then the golden blur ascends a wall. She doesn't use a fire escape or anything. Just how fast do you have to go to ignore gravity like that?
Gwen chuckles softly, "Don't worry, I'll keep my wits about me in case a superhumanly fast superhuman comes speeding at me and I have to dive out of the way in a hurry." She winks, like she knows that's not the way that equation would play out, but hey. Gotta talk the talk at least. "I'll try really hard not to run into any more gun-wielding desperate veterans," she adds, nodding to G. "Or real criminals who actaully have bullets. But you never know what might happen. This is New York, afterall." She watches Anon ascend up the wall; her eyebrows rise, "Well then," she observes. "You'd better catch up." She winks at G. "Take care up there!"
'G' — or, well, yeah, Becca — chuckles nervously under her breath, as she gives Gwen a sheepish smile and a shrug. "We'll talk later, I promise," she says, before… rising silently into the air, and giving a wave.
Moments later, she's alighting on a rooftop near Anon. "Well, that was awkward," she says, with a quiet laugh and a shake of her head.
Anon half-smiles at Gwen. "You'd have to have damn fast wits for that. Have a good night." That's her last before she leaves.
Then Anon's already waiting up on the corner of the rooftop when G rises, looking out over the city. "Someone you know, I take it." She looks towards her 'partner' out of the corner of her eye. "You don't have to answer that. I mean, if you want me to know you just as 'G', keep things compartmentalised, I absolutely understand."
"Sure thing," Gwen replies to G, with a wink, as her friend rises up into the air. She watches her disappear after the other hero, before she turns and wanders off the way she'd been going in the first place; she'd actually meant to duck down that alley, but now it might just be… being watched. Hey, you never know. So she'll have to go find some other spot. She finds one, eventually; giving it a good few minutes before she ducks down a different alley and in behind a dumpster where there aren't any windows looking down at her. A minute later, with her backpack reversed and her street clothes stuffed into it, there's a soft 'thwip' and Spider-Woman comes webslinging out of the alley. "Well," she muses to herself, "A late start tonight, but it was productive and educational anyway."
"She's a friend," G replies to Anon. "We're in a band together." And at that point, she apparently decides any further details are unneeded, and possibly a bad idea if she wants to keep any shred of her secret intact. "I guess between how I talk an' that she knows me, it wasn't hard for her to recognize me."
Anon nods her head. "That and… your costume doesn't cover too much of your face. Might be a good idea to get something a bit more like mine — cover up the hair or wear a wig, get a mask which changes how the lines of your face look." She hesitates; they'd been 'interrupted' by the sound of that not-mugging, but now with that mutual secrecy so firmly established, she's not sure if she wants to jump back into the personal-but-not-identifying questions with a 'where were we'.
Nodding, G says, "I'll have t'see what I can do. I just kinda threw this together for tonight, an' I obviously need t'do better. T'be fair, though, I'm not sure anything woulda stopped Gwen from figurin' out who I am as soon's I opened my mouth." She laughs again, shaking her head.
Anon smiles, laughing almost silently under her breath. "Yeah, it's a bit… distinctive. Though from what I hear, not even pro spies really try to change their voices — they're going to slip up sooner or later, you know? And then the cover's blown." She stretches. "Okay, so. Want to just get back to running and flying around and see what other kind of good we can do?"
G nods. "Let's see if we can find someone who needs help who doesn't already know me," she answers, with a sigh and a roll of her eyes behind those mirrored goggles. "Anywhere you'd suggest?"
Just then, out in the distance, there's a screech, a crash, and a series of screams. "Oh hell," Anon says. "That way, sounds like." She blurs on ahead. She's going to need to learn either to do good recon and scouting, or to slow down and let others move in /with/ her.
The noise came from an overpass. A drunk driver had swerved out in front of a bus, and now both vehicles are left hanging over the edge. Anon wrings her hands, but there's not much she can actually do in this situation. Moving with great speed would just mean the car falls down really fast. "One man in the sedan, unconscious," she says. "A-And five in the bus, driver included."
Once she's airborne, G is pretty fast herself, though not as quick as the speedster. The bigger problem is keeping track of which way Anon went, though in this instance, it's not that hard to figure out. As she catches up, and Anon fills her in on the situation, she says, "I can handle the car. The bus is maybe a little much, but I can prob'ly at least keep it from tippin' off while you get everyone off of it."
Spider-Woman might've been headed the opposite direction, but that doesn't last when she, also, detects the sound of a serious car crash on an overpass. That's just a recipe for disaster. She rides a webstrand up to the apex of her swing like it's a ferris wheel before letting go, performing a complete change of direction without losing any speed, and heads right back the way she came from; now she's moving for real, bearing down on the situation as rapidly as she can manage. "Hang on, I'm comin'," she breathes as she rushes to catch up. …And before long, G and Anon might see a black and white clad spider on her way, moving like she means it.
Anon winces. "That's not ideal," she says. "But judging by the distribution of weight, you can move the car without risking the bus. That might even take some of the strain off that damaged bit over overpass, and give the bus a bit more time—"
Time for what? Well, time for another hero to come along. She notices movement up in the sky, and squints behind her mask. "Someone's coming," she says. "Black and white costume." She holds out an arm, waving it to catch the Spider-Woman's attention.
"Hope it's help. We could use some," G answers, before adding, "I'm gonna get the car." And with that, she flies quickly over to a spot above the stricken vehicle, where she hovers in midair as she concentrates for a moment. For a second or two, nothing seems to be happening — until the car starts to rise, gently, as the gravity controller carefully applies her power, gradually ramping up the force she's exerting until it's just enough. Once she's certain she's got it clear of the wreckage, G glides the car over to an undamaged section of the roadway, and gently sets it down.
Spider-Woman arrives just in time to see G taking care of the car, and to her mind it's certainly a good move. "Hi!" she calls out to Anon; and fortunately for her, talking through her mask alters her voice just a little bit. (Juuuuust a little bit.) She lands by the bus, and grabs hold of the bumper with both hands, giving a good, hard pull; and this is where she learns that she cannot, in fact, lift a bus; it's well outside of her range for that.
"I'll hold this as long as I can!" she calls to the other two heroes, and digs her heels in as she feels the large vehicle shudder when the car is moved. "…Might want to hurry!"
Anon looks on with wonderment as G levitates the car away. She'd expected at least some kind of light show, but instead… it's like gravity doesn't even see anything strange about moving in a different direction.
She also has only met Gwen the once anyway, so she's less than likely to recognise her off the cuff. Especially not with the major context change between 'could-be victim' and 'fellow hero'. "Hi. Five in the bus, counting the drive—" Oh god she's already lifting it. "G, help her!" Many hands (and psychokineses) make light work, right?
But at the same time, she's not going to hang back while people are saying to 'hurry'. She zooms in, blurring back and forth, carrying the civilians two at a time. She can handle more weight than you'd guess by looking at her, but she absolutely could not help in lifting a bus.
The car dealt with, G turns to her original plan of trying to at least stabilize the bus long enough for Anon to get its occupants out — but now she's not alone in that, and feeling much more confident it can be done. "Let's just hold it here until Anon gets everyone out," she shouts to Spider-Woman. "Then we can try to move it." She's still not so sure about the 'moving it' part, and would rather take that risk after there are no people inside.
And with that, she again carefully applies her power to shore up that part of the bus that's already over the edge, to help keep it from overbalancing and tipping off the overpass.
Spider-Woman has one job, right at this moment, and that job is simple: hold the bus. The idea of just holding it until Anon has removed all of the passengers and the driver seems to be a good one, and normally she might give a thumbs-up, but presently she's… busy, with both arms. "Sounds good!" she replies, "Anything you can do to—" She stops, as the bus feels noticeably lighter, but still keeps herself dug in with her muscles straining. "Much better, thank you!"
Thankfully, Anon doesn't keep them waiting. In the emergency situation, she doesn't even stop to warn the passengers — which leads to a bit of strange dopplering when one passenger lets out a sharp yelp. Super-Chipmunk-pitched coming towards the girls, then super-beefy-low-pitched once she's out of the bus and carrying the passenger elsewhere. Not terribly dignified, but it gets them out safely.
Repeat three times — you can't exactly take '2.5 trips' into a precarious vehicle — and they're all out and lined up. "That's the last one!" Anon says.
"All right! Let's see if we can move this sucker!" That would be G, shouting to the other two heroines, though obviously Spider-Woman in particular, her voice filled with enthusiasm and confidence.
That light show Anon was expecting before? It's arrived, as G exerts her power to its limits, and a rainbow aura of gravitic lensing encircles the vehicle's bulk.
The one saving grace, here, is that the bus has wheels. The big downer, of course, is also that it has wheels. So it can roll; but it could roll either way.
Spider-Woman is doing her level best to make sure it rolls the way that doesn't involve falling off an overpass, into traffic below. "On it!" she yells back; the strain in her muscles is just as evident in her voice. "C'mon girl," she mutters to herself, "What's the use of all those muscles if you can't drag one bus five feet with help?" So, she pulls; diggin her heels in isn't enough, so she switches her grip to grab the most available part of the bus's frame with one hand, then fires a webline onto a load-bearing bit of bridge with the other, so she can pull with both arms. And hiss with the strain while she's at it.
Anon, for her part, stays back with the passengers. "You're fine now. You're all safe. There's nothing to worry about." Most of them are still disoriented, but relief starts to rise as the reality of the situation sinks in.
Other than that, she just hangs back and watches, her eyes growing steadily wider. "Holy… shit…" she murmurs. They're still dragging the bus, but she can tell that they're doing it.
"Just a little… further," G calls out, the strain of her own effort — in her case, not of muscles, but of will, and of whatever impossible means her powers work through — evident in her voice. "We can do this."
Spider-Woman breathes heavily, feeling the mounting cost of unrelenting effort and pushing herself beyond her limits. She doesn't answer, other than to keep pulling on both bus and webline. The metal groans in loud complaint, much like the young spider is doing. She loops her webstrand around her wrist to shorten it, before she resumes pulling, in a display of maximum commitment to what she's doing. But, at least what G is up to is working; halving the weight of the bus makes it just barely within Spider-Woman's capacity to handle. Just barely.
Anon and the civilians watch with abated breath as the bus moves, just under the power of two super-women. G may note that this time around, the civilians they're rescuing don't seem so apprehensive; where their first 'beneficiary' fled from the mutants with even more hurry than he'd fled the muggers, now they all cross their fingers, clench their teeth, and send the most positive vibes they can muster.
"Almost there! We've… GOT… this…" The determination in G's voice is clear, as she digs deep for every ounce of will and power she can find. She's nearing her limit here — she can feel it, feel the finite limit of her power's output fast approaching. She's never pushed herself this hard before. She's never needed to, and back home, where she was trying to keep her powers hidden, there just weren't many opportunities to go discreetly moving ten tons of material with her mind.
This is it; Spider-Woman has pushed herself well beyond her limit, and now she's reaching her actual, total limit, like seriously, this is it. The bus lurches another couple of inches towards her, and she feels something just… tip, a little bit.
It's the signal that quietly says, 'This is good enough'. She lets go of the bus and her webstrand, and collapses down to one knee, just putting one hand back on the front of the bus to steady herself as she pants audibly.
"We got it," she gasps. "We got it!" she calls out, hopefully so G amd Anon can hear her this time. "Nice work," she adds.
And the civilians burst into applause. "Whoo!" one shouts. "The muties did it!" Well… his energy's in the right place, at least.
Anon comes up to the both of them. "Damn right you did it." One hand lies on G's shoulder, while she looks between the girls. "Uh, anything I can get for you after that? Orange slices or something?" Hauling that much weight must be hungry work.
G had landed on the bridge's surface partway through that, in part so that she could focus solely on moving the bus, and also so that even that small fraction of her power needed to keep herself aloft would instead be available for larger effort.
Now, she looks a bit unsteady on her feet for a second or two after releasing her grip on the bus, but she steadies herself well enough after that momentary uncertainty. It really wouldn't do for the gravity controller to fall down now, even if she has precious little of that control left in the tank at this point. "That sounds… really good," she answers Anon, with a grateful smile.
Spider-Woman breathes deep, and remains kneeling where she is for a long moment. "That was… heavy," she comments, as if that much wasn't completely obvious. Smooth, Gwen; real smooth.
Once she feels like her muscles are a reasonable amount of the way to no longer complaining about what she just did to them, the black and white clad heroine bounces up on top of the bus, and scurries along the top of it, to crouch on the edge closest to where Anon and G are talking. "That was a fantastic effort," she observes. "You guys rock, seriously."
Anon smiles at G. "Okay. There's a grocer a few blocks away which has a decently fast self-check-out; I'll get us some oranges?" She offers the question to Gwen as well as G, since the spider-woman must have used up a lot of calories putting her muscles to that amount of abuse. "Don't sell yourself short, that was amazing. I'm Anon, and this is G— it's her first night out." Unknowingly, she introduces herself to Gwen for the second time today.
"Hurry back." The words are out of G's mouth before she even considers who she's saying them to. May as well be suggesting that the ocean stay wet. But before that can really sink in, she's got something more important on her mind — actually meeting the heroine who she just moved a bus with. "Um, hi," she says, picking up from where Anon's introduction left off, and suddenly really feeling self-conscious about her seriously improvised costume.
Spider-Woman keeps catching herself doing silly things. Things like smiling at people, who can't hope to see it because she's wearing a mask. She thinks that through for a moment, and shrugs. "Hi!" she replies. "And… I'm alright, I packed some protein bars and fruit and… stuff. But thank you!"
"So uhh… what do I call the two of you?" Asking people she literally met ten minutes ago to introduce themselves again feels, well, weird. But secret identities require effort and vigilance to keep up. …And sometimes a serious level of inconvenience, but this doesn't fall into that category.
"None of us should be selling outselves short," she adds, "That was a group effort and we all put our best foot forward."
Anon smiles at G, turning to face away and get ready for her next dash. "Alright. I'll be back soon." She gives Spider-Woman a playful grin. "I am the expert in putting feet forward." And then she demonstrates, in a supersonic fashion.
That will actually keep her away — and thus, keep it just Spider-Woman and G — for a little while. Hey, it's not like she's going to just grab the fruits and run. Checkouts take time.
"Bein' here with you, I feel like a little kid playin' dress-up. Really badly," G says to Spider-Woman, with a laugh, but also blushing. "Like Anon said, this is my first night out doin' this, an' I just kind of threw together somethin' t'wear." Yes, she's nervous. You can tell because the Texas in her voice gets thicker.
"Clothes don't make a hero." Spider-Woman hops down off the bus, landing lightly and walking up to where G is standing, after Anon has departed… rapidly. "And honestly, my first day was some of the most stressful nonsense I've ever been through. Seriously, I didn't even have my webshooters for more than five minutes before I had to get into the thick of a big fight. You did great, I promise you." She rests her hands on her hips. Tell her, Gwen, goes through her mind. Fair's fair. So she stands there, looking at G, and trying not to be awkward, while she thinks it over, which is just… so awkward.
"So far, with Anon, I've gotten to stop one mugging where the guy who was bein' robbed sounded like he'd rather be mugged than have us rescue him, then another one where it turned out the 'mugger' was just this poor guy who was runnin' outta options, an' didn' even have any bullets in his gun, and now here I am havin' just moved a goddamn bus with you." She notably didn't mention the part about the second 'victim' being someone she knew, who her 'disguise' proved to be just about useless with. She's already feeling enough like she's underdressed in the presence of the sleek, smart, and sexy Spider-Wear.
And just then, Anon returns, with an orange. No, she hasn't sliced it — she doesn't have a knife with her — but she did dig her nail through the skin and peel it. She comes to a stop beside G and holds it out to her. "Here. You've, uh, earned it." Oh happy day, master has given Dobby an orange. Anon ducks her chin. "So, um. We've introduced ourselves; what can we call you?" If Spider-Woman's given her supranym, Anon wasn't here to hear it.
Spider-Woman chuckles softly, "Well, at least you were in full command of your powers while you were at it," she replies. "I was not. I got through my first day with a lot of encouragement and help from my friends." She rests one hand on her hip, and glances over towards the civillians, then back to G. "Hey, so there's something—"
And then, like magic, Anon has reappeared. "uhhh, yeah, I was just going to talk about that," she sputters. "Sorry. I've been going as Spider-Woman." She clears her throat softly, "I… Maybe that seems a mite uncreative, but I mean hey," she holds her hands up, "I'm a woman and a spider, so, seems to fit."
"Nothin' wrong with makin' the obvious choice," G comments, before adding, "Yeah, I've had time t'practice. Found out I had powers when I was 14. Spent the next four years figurin' out what all I could do and tryin' different things. Had to keep it all secret, though."
Anon keeps the orange in her hand, held up in front of G. Some small corner of her mind is curious whether she'll take it with a hand, or just levitate it into her mouth. "Since you were fourteen? Jeez. I only found out about mine six months ago." Denial and repression can do crazy things with the X-gene. "Spider, huh? Yeah, you definitely move like one. Did you do the costume yourself? It's neat. We could, uh, probably both use some advice there."
"I got bitten by a spider about three months ago." Spider-Woman shrugs her shoulders lightly. "Up until then, I was a regular girl, doing regular things, and basically just being normal and largely uninteresting. Then all of a sudden I'm just… different." she scratches the back of her head lightly, "It was kind of a thing. It still is a thing. I look in the mirror and I'm just… a totally different girl to who I was, y'know?" She pauses, and shakes her head to Anon, "I uhh… actually did not make this suit myself. I know a guy."
It's only about then, through all the fascination with talking to Spider-Woman, that 'Anon has an orange for me' finally lands in G's consciousness. "Thanks," she says, smiling a bit goofily as she takes the peeled fruit — in her hands! — and pulls it apart, popping a segment into her mouth. She then, as she's eating, holds the orange out first to Anon, then to Spider-Woman, wordlessly offering to share.
Anon smiles when she sees that goofy look on G's face. And gets her answer about just how she's taking it. When it's offered, she takes just one segment. "Me…" She shrugs. "This me is different, sure. But most of the time, day by day… I'm still the same as I was." She says it with a hint of bitterness in her tone. Still the same soup, just reheated. "Hm. Is this guy discreet? Because, I mean. 'Leotard with hood and mask' probably won't go that far during winter." Her body hums and vibrates for a second. Her version of shivering.
Spider-Woman waves a hand, "You eat it, I've got snacks." She smiles behind her mask, as she takes a step back from the other two heroes. "Can't turn off being a spider. It's not an on-off sort of thing, I just have to… I dunno, 'act normal' most of the time." She pauses, tugging her hood forwards a little. "I'll ask him. I mean, I sorta doubt he wants to be making hero costumes for all the city's vigilantes, but I'll check with him — probably depends what he's got for materials. …Don't worry, I'll find you again soon. Promise. …Been great meeting you two!" And with that, she turns and jumps over the side of the overpass, swinging off to the next crisis that no doubt will arise.
G watches Spider-Woman leave, and then comments to Anon, "Never mind a warm costume, I need to get myself a coat warm enough for the winters y'all have up here. Already been colder some nights than it ever gets where I'm from."
Anon grins at that. "And yet, it still gets crazy-hot here, too. In the meantime, I guess we'll just have to keep each other warm, hm?" Then she realises how that sounds, and her face turns red. Well, that keeps part of her warm, right? "U-Um, I mean…"
G breaks into giggles. "Can't say as I'd mind that," she says, though she's also blushing.
And that only makes Anon's blush hotter. "Um. Can we…" She points up towards the rooftops. "…g-go back on patrol now? I think I need to stretch my legs." And run away from the site of the accidental (?) flirting.
The duo return to roaming about, looking for more to intervene in, and by the time they've finished for the night, they've caught someone breaking into vehicles in a parking lot, prevented another mugging, and — yes — rescued a cat from a tree. And eventually, they return to the same rooftop where they began. "So… That was kinda fun," G says, smiling.
"Yeah." Anon smiles as she sits on the rooftop's edge. She'd needed to stretch her legs before, but now at the end of their patrol, they could use a little bit of rest. "A good—" She yawns, one fist held by her mouth while the other arm stretches out. "A good night's work. I've never gone out with someone like that before. It was nice."
"And I'm glad you were willing t'have me," G replies to that, as she takes a seat on the edge, next to Anon. "I never would've done this on my own. Thank you."
By this point, Anon is more comfortable with that proximity. She smiles a little as G comes so close — though she's still unsure just what to do with her arms. After a little fidgeting, she just folds them on her lap. "You're welcome, any time. And I hope there are more times than this. We can do a lot of good together, and…" She ducks her chin slightly. "…I like spending time with you."
Turning her head to look at Anon more directly, G says, "Feelin's mutual," her cheeks coloring just a little as she's saying that. Grinning, with just a touch of shyness, she asks, "So. Is this how people with powers go on a date?"
G giggles briefly at that, partly due to her own nervousness. "Well then, guess I just had my first date with a girl," she says. "An' if that's so, then I should tell you, I do kiss on the first date, when I really like the person I'm with."
"M-Me too," Anon says. Then realises that could have meant one of two things, and so she blanches. "I mean, i-it was my first date too! First date period." She takes a slow breath, and starts leaning in closer. Moving so gradually must be torture, to someone who sees the world at such speed. "Though I w-wouldn't mind the kiss thing, either. I should warn you, I've only ever kissed once. I don't think I'm very good at it."
"Guess it's my turn to be teacher, then," G replies, playfulness in her voice and her smile. In her eyes, too, but Anon can't see them behind that mirrored ski goggles lens. And then she leans to close the remaining gap, and gently bring her lips in contact with the speedster's.
Anon sinks into it on raw instinct, raw delight and desire. She doesn't have skill, but she makes up for it with enthusiasm — even if it may be a bit uncomfortable to crush her masked face in against those ski goggles. One hand comes up to touch G's hair, holding her close. For her, the kiss may feel like it lasts for minutes, for hours — who knows how long?
It's obvious to Anon that G is not new at this, even if her past experience is almost entirely with boys. And she deftly and subtly guides Anon along as the kiss progresses, letting the less-experienced girl set the pace, and determine just how involved things get between them.
Anon shifts this way and that, using the kiss as an avenue of exploration and experimentation as well as enjoying it for what it is. Her hand runs down G's back, nails curled and digging in, pulling herself in tighter. She shivers, a quick buzz—
And then pulls herself back, left panting afterwards. Her head swims — with the kiss, and with questions. Does this mean Anon and G are together now? What does that mean for Celerity and Rebecca? None of the questions come out aloud, but her eyes lock with G's, and she looks almost like a deer in headlights.
"Pretty good for a first time, or a second," G comments softly, smiling. That playfulness returns as she adds, "But like they say, practice makes perfect. An' I don't know why I'm botherin' keepin' these on with just us here, you've already seen my face." And with that, she pulls the goggles up with one hand, and leaves them perched above her forehead, against her hair.
Anon ducks her chin, her blush coming out in full force. "Y-You're pretty good, yourself." When the goggles come up, Anon smiles at the better view. "And so pretty. I…" Instincts tell her to flee, to hide, but she quells them. Instead, she gathers her hands at the small of G's back, pulling herself in closer. "Wh-What does this mean? Are we girlfriends? Friends who kiss? What about when we're, you know, not in the masks?"
"It means, we can figure all that out as we go," G answers, smiling, and blushing again as she adds, "An', thanks. You're pretty cute, too, 'least what I can see of you. But I understand if you wanna keep the mask on."
Anon keeps her face low. G understands; the guilt is all on her end. "Thanks. I… think I should keep it on. I have… reasons… for keeping it secret." Her family. Both protecting them, and protecting herself from them. She slowly withdraws, rising to her feet. Both hands fidget with her costume, as if it's not sitting right. "We should go. It's getting late, and we still need some sleep tonight."
Nodding, G says, "Yeah, I got work tomorrow, but not 'til the afternoon, so I can sleep in if I want. If we can do this again sometime soon, like my next night off, well, I'd really like that. Like, a lot."
Anon smiles at that. "Me too. As soon as we can." She dips forwards for a kiss — lingering just long enough that G can really experience it, and so a nicely drawn-out one from Anon's perspective — and then she's off like a shot, leaving a breeze to tousle G's clothing.
G watches as Anon departs, at least for as long as her eyes can follow her, and then stands there for a moment, before a slightly goofy smile forms, and she says, quietly, to no one but herself…
"Well, damn."