Who: Tandy Bowen and Miles Morales What: Pizza Date When: Backdated to March 16 Where: Garage | Pizza Parlour Warning/Status: SFW Status: Completed via Gdoc
Miles was nervous, needless to say. It’s not like the thought hadn’t crossed his mind that there were a lot of cute girls around, and maybe MAYBE Miles would be lucky enough to go on a date… but he was surprised when Tandy asked. And he liked Tandy … as in he liked her because she was cool. She was helping him with driving, and they were going to try to do martial fighting together. And well, she was definitely cute, so he was happy she asked him out. They’d agreed to wait in the garage and that’s where Miles was waiting. He’d managed to get an outfit together that made him look cool. At least if he looked cool he’d be alright. Right? Right. So Miles tried his best to look not nervous as he was scrolling through the netposts on his datapad.
The offer of getting pizza had at first been just meant to be a friend thing, but then she’d joked about it being a date and since then she’d started to think that just maybe it really was. Tandy had liked spending time with Miles so far and figured it couldn’t hurt to at least try out an actual date, if he didn’t mind.
She’d “taken care” of the bully at Court’s school and now headed back to meet up with Miles, dressed in a skirt and t-shirt with a hoodie thrown over the ensemble. As she stepped into the garage, the teenager glanced around, then smiled when she spotted Miles checking out his pad.
“Anything interesting on there today?”
Miles would have been more than willing to help Tandy to deal with the bullies at the school, but she seemed to be pretty independent and wanted to do that to her. Which was fine, Miles didn’t mind that. He liked girls who just did their own thing. And well, they were getting pizza to celebrate (and possibly as an alibi??)
Finally, Tandy was back! And Miles was totally not nervous. Nope, not at all. “Umm, maybe. Just skimming,” he said because any thought of anything interesting just immediately left his head. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah - up for driving?” She asked lightly as she tugged a set of keys out of one pocket that she’d snagged on her way through the garage to meet him. Some of the vehicles were kept pretty secure, but so far they’d managed a decent selection for driving lessons, and honestly she didn’t really care whose car they borrowed for a couple hours.
After tossing the keys over to Miles, Tandy smiled and headed for a nearby Honda that they’d used a couple times and he was at least familiar with at this point.
“Oh - well… maybe?” Miles said and was surprised by the offer but he was quick to catch the keys as Tandy tossed them to him. “You’re navigator then.” Especially since he didn’t know where they were going. But the car was one he’d driven in a few times already, so that was good, and Miles got into the driver’s seat. He turned it on and pulled out of the garage so he could get them to the main road. “Where to?”
“You got it,” she replied and climbed in. After they buckled, she pulled up the route on her phone to be sure of which way to go since normally she walked and took alleys and side streets. After a minute, she nodded up ahead. “Take the second left, then drive for a few minutes. We’ll be turning right eventually.” Putting her phone away again, she looked over at him and gave a faint smile.
“You’re getting good at this. Pretty soon you won’t need a teacher anymore.”
It was much easier driving out here than it was in the city. Miles pretty much had planned on avoiding driving all together, but having his license was something he wanted. And since it wasn’t as easy to swing to get around without tall buildings around, driving seemed to be the best way.
“Thanks,” Miles said at Tandy’s directions and took the second left. He smiled a bit bashfully at the compliment. “I don’t mind having someone to drive with though even if they’re not my teacher.”
“Is that your way of saying you want to do this again?” She asked playfully as she looked out ahead of them again. Their lessons had been fun, a nice break from the training that took place pretty regularly, and she’d found herself wanting to spend more time with him. All in all, she was glad she’d invited him to get pizza with her.
Pointing to a light up ahead,Tandy continued. “Okay so you want the second right and then it’s just a half a mile down the road.”
Miles quickly did a rewind in his brain to think about what he said for Tandy to ask them that question. He smiled though and looked at Tandy. “Yeah, I guess I am saying that. Definitely do this again,” he agreed.
He looked back over to the road as the lights were coming up. Miles followed her instructions, taking the right when she said, and it wasn’t long before they were finally at the pizza place. “So the important question now is… individual slices or a big pizza just for us?”
“Okay, great,” she replied, glad to hear it. When they got to the pizza place, Tandy got out of the car while contemplating his question. “Hmm. Individual slices means we can do something after this, and get our own toppings. A big pizza means potential leftovers, but if we want to do something after food it’d have to sit in the car. I vote for individual slices. You?”
Miles stopped as Tandy gave the reasons for both options, and he smiled when she seemed to be interested in doing something after pizza. “I second that vote for slices!” Mile agreed. He held the door for her into the pizza place (he could just hear his Mom’s voice insisting on it in his head). “Do you have any suggestions for something to do after?” Miles was curious about the toppings, but he’d find that out soon enough.
“We could go for ice cream, or catch a movie? Or both, or anything you want to do?” Tandy was pretty okay with going with just about anything, but was fine if he wanted to make a suggestion or had an idea. When they got into the restaurant, she went to the counter so they could order, and a few minutes later she sat at a table to wait with him for their food.
“We’re not in a rush, right?”
“I don’t really care what we do as long as I get to hang out with. And something fun. Fun should be included,” Miles admitted. He was kind of curious to see what movies were in the theater since he didn’t expect it to be anything he’d heard of. He sat in a chair next to Tandy’s when she picked their table.
“No rush at all! I’ve got all the time. And I’m driving, so we leave when I leave,” he joked and nodded. “So, what happened with those school bullies today? Or should I remain in plausible deniability?”
“Cool, we can decide when we’re done here,” she said as she settled in her chair. At his question about the bullies, she laughed a little. “You might want to keep up that deniability, but I promise I didn’t hurt them or anything like that. I just messed with them a little, and made certain they won’t be teasing or hurting anyone else at their school.” And if they did, she’d deal with it if she needed to.
“What would you have done?”
Miles was even more curious at the vague description, but didn’t push for more details when Tandy said he could keep up the deniability. “It wasn’t anything illegal, was it?” he joked but it did seem like Tandy only just gave them a good scare.
“Well… maybe not something as creative. Perhaps tripped them on some webbing strung across a hallway,” he shrugged sheepishly.
“Nah, of course not.” Well, not that illegal, at least, but she didn’t have to go into the details. Laughing a bit at his idea of just tripping them, she shook her head. “That’s great for like…a one-time thing. But if you’re not there every single day, it won’t really stick, you know? So sometimes you need to go a step further.”
Pulling out her phone, she pulled up movie times and held it so he could check out the listings too. “Anything look interesting to you?”
“You’re probably right,” Miles agreed with a nod and a sudden inspiration. “Maybe this is why bad guys don’t stop being bad guys,” he pointed out as he thought of his last year career as a crime fighter.
He leaned over to look at Tandy’s phone as she held up the movie time. “Watching movies here is kind of strange. Sometimes actors and franchises are the same, and then some are so completely different that I’ve never heard of him. “Maybe this one. I like action movies. But comedies are good too.”
She laughed a little at that. “Yeah, that might be a good reason,” she agreed, though she wasn’t sure that all bad guys stayed bad, but a lot of them did, too.
As they studied the list together, Tandy nodded in understanding about the actors and franchises, then stopped scrolling when he pointed one out. “Sure, that works. And it starts in like…45 minutes, so we’ve got time to eat our pizza before we head over.”
Miles laughed when Tandy agreed with him. “Still in the learning process I guess,” he explained with a shrug. Still, Miles didn’t see what he was doing as that different from the cops arresting people (though his Dad saw it way differently).
“Great, that’s plenty of time.” It wouldn’t take long before their pizza was ready, so they had time to hang out, eat and go watch a movie. And hang out some more. But then that nervous energy started to bubble up again as Miles struggled to think about what else to say or do. “So, what did you do before you came through the portal?”
“Like…for work?” She asked curiously as she looked at him and put her phone away. “I didn’t have a job. My friend and I were actually just kind of going around looking for people to help. That’s how I met Karolina and Nico, actually,” she said. “They needed our kind of help to rescue their friend, so we showed up and gave them a hand. How about you?”
Tandy’s thoughts didn’t even really think of school, at least not in her case. She’d dropped out a while ago, so it wasn’t her first go-to.
“Well… sort of. Work implies getting paid,” Miles shrugged but listened to what Tandy used to do. “Oh! You met them before coming here? So they’re from the same place and time as you?” Miles had yet to meet anyone from his own world and time. “Well, not to go through the whole origin story but… got bit by a radioactive spider, and when our world’s Spider-man was killed… I took over. So, my day to day was going to school and being the friendly neighborhood Spider-man.” Did he just make crime fighting sound really boring?
“Yeah, we are,” she replied, then waved a hand when their name was called for their order being ready. As their pizza was set down, she looked over at Miles while he told her what happened. “You mean Peter, right? So you’re from the future?” Did that mean that Peter was died sometime soon? Tandy hoped not, because he seemed like a cool guy.
The pizza looked good when it was brought over, and Miles immediately lifted his slice to take a bite. At Tandy’s question, Miles shook his head. “Yes and no. In my world, Peter Parker was Spider-man, but he was older than the Peter you know and looked different. He was blonde actually. I didn’t really get to know him,” Miles said and quickly tried to squash that memory of seeing Peter die. “And he wasn’t the same as the other Peter Parker who arrived the same day as me.” Miles had good practice trying to keep all the different Spider-men and women straight in his head. “But I am from the future though only by like a year.”
“That’s still all so weird. The different versions of people, I mean. I don’t know how anyone keeps it straight.” It had been bad enough back home with two Brighids, but Tandy tried not to think about that too much because it still hurt her head. Picking up her slice, she took a couple of bites, then lowered it as she studied Miles.
“How’s that future year?”
“Oh yeah, it’s definitely weird. There was a tear in the multiverse where I’m from, and I met five other versions of Spider superheroes then,” Miles explained just how confusing it could be. He took a few more bites of his pizza as he considered Tandy’s question. “I mean, it’s not bad. I liked my school better. My roommate and I became good friends, and he found out about me being Spider-man. The biggest issue I keep running into is how to fight crime, and still meet my curfew. I keep getting grounded. My parents don’t know about it.”
“It sounds like you need to get better at sneaking in and out of your dorm,” she said, before grinning. “I could probably teach you a few pointers at some point.” And with that being said, she took a few more bites of her pizza and glanced at her phone just to make sure they still had time to get to the movie.
“That would be awesome!” Miles agreed about Tandy teaching him how to sneak out. It didn’t really matter if he wasn’t able to use it. That just meant more ways for him and Tandy to spend time together. Miles continued eating his pizza while Tandy checked her phone. He checked his own too, and nodded to the door. “I think we have enough time to walk over to the theatre. We can get some popcorn if we’re still hungry.”
“That works for me,” she replied, before smiling and settling back to finish her slice so they could head out.
Once they were finished, Miles offered his hand to Tandy in a bold move (for him) as they headed out the door.