Who: Gwen and Joe Where: Castaway Cafe When: Wed. Afternoon Why: Meet up, prove abilities Status: Complete Rating: N/A
Once that address was locked in her phone, Gwen would follow her GPS. Of course, her route was far from normal. Already she would swing high into the air, and between the buildings. She even took a few rides on the top of buses. Anything to get to that location. Gwen was excited, since she rarely meet new people, so she knew Kitty would be proud of her right now. Once that address came into view, Gwen would smile. Only to come and swing high into the air. Her fingers clanged to the side of the wall of that location (not sure if it's a house or apartment). Once that window came into her view, Gwen would smile.
Soon that knock was given to that window as she felt blonde hair brush against her as she literally hung at the side of his home. Another knock was given as she would send Joe that text message. ~At your window~ With a smiley face at the end. He did want her to prove she wasn't talking shit about her abilities. What better way than to have her hang on the side of his place.
He was a little startled to hear something knocking at his bedroom window. It was a little freaky, actually. A moment later his phone buzzed in his pocket. A quick glance told him that it was Gwen who was knocking.
Seriously? The apartment he shared with his brother, Frank, was three stories up! How the hell was she out there? Joe went to the window and pulled open the blinds and, sure enough, there was a girl hanging on the other side of his window grinning at him.
Joe opened the window. “Gwen?” He asked, leaning out a little to get a better look at her. “Huh...so that whole spider thing...true facts, huh?”
When he came to open the blinds, Gwen was smiling brightly at him. She loved her abilities. When that window was open and he leaned out a bit to talk to her, she came to smile more at him. “Very true.” She added as she brushed her hair from her face due to the wind.
“Going to invite me in?” She asked as she noticed he was still talking to her outside the window. But once he moved, Gwen would flip inside his room and land on her feet. Fixing her shirt a little and dusting off she would come to look at Joe once again. “Hi.” She said as she came to properly introduce herself.
It’s not every day that you get a guest who comes in through the window. Hell, it wasn’t every day that said guest entered your home by flipping through the window with flourish. In fact, Joe could safely say that this was a completely new experience for him. He’d be lying if he said that the acrobatics wasn’t something of a turn on either.
“Hi, there,” he grinned at her. “You certainly know how to make an entrance.” He looked at her a little impishly, “Usually I’ve taken a girl out for a drink at least before they end up in my bedroom.”
Gwen laughed lightly at his little remarks. “Well, to be fair, I didn’t know it was your room. But what better way to prove what I can do, than showing you first hand?” She replied with another light laugh as she watched him and soon looked around his room. Blue hues came to look back at Joe for the moment.
“Don’t worry we can leave out the front door.” She said laughing a bit. Unless he wanted to go through the window. She thought, as she glanced to the window and than to him once more. Yeah, she could do it. IF he wanted to go out on an adventure of course.
An adventure that didn’t involve police custody was right up Joe’s alley that evening. He followed her gaze to the window and back. “We don’t have to use the door,” he said. “You wanted to show off what you can do, right?” That would be a fun story to share later. And it would be amazing to swing through the city like in the movies. So long as they didn’t fall to their deaths. But, hey, if Gwen seemed to know what she was doing. “Have you ever taken a passenger on before?”
When she heard him ask about passengers, Gwen smiled as she came to hold out her wrist. That webbing would be pulled out from a small scar like inprint as she came to get a good size of webbing. Gwen soon pulled Joe close to her. Hold on.” She replied as she wrapped that webbing around him and her. If he touched it, he would see that webbing was sticky but strong. Soon Gwen moved to the window, and before Joe could say anything, out she jumped with him linked behind her.
The feel of the wind against them as they free fell. But soon that sudden swing would be felt as they came up high into the air. The motion went on for a few minutes. Gwen’s laughter echoed. Despite getting her abilities a while ago, she was still amazed by them. Soon, they came to land on a rooftop as that webbing fell off Joe and she came to catch her breathe with laughter a bit.
Joe’s brows furrowed when he caught sight of the scar. He hadn’t been much of a comic book or superhero fan as a kid. He’d seen the recent movies as they had come out, and had found the expanded Marvel Movieverse to be fun, but not quite interesting enough to learn about the characters or their powers other than what he’d seen on the movie screen. He did know that Spiderman had gotten his spider powers from a radioactive spider bite, he had to have been living under a rock not to know that, and he wondered if that was how SpiderGwen had gotten her power as well.
He was just about to ask her when he suddenly found himself surrounded in an actual spider’s web. It would have been an arachnaphobe’s worst nightmare, to be sure. Joe wasn’t scared of spiders, per say, but there was something eerily prey feeling being wrapped in a spider’s web.
“Uh, Gwen…”
Before he could say anything more, however, the two of them were out the window and in free fall. On instinct, Joe’s mouth opened to scream in surprise, but the air was pulled out of his lungs and he wasn’t able to utter a single noise. He closed his eyes tightly and braced himself for the impact. This was not the way he had pictured dying - smashed on the pavement like road salsa. Only the expected impact never came.
The swinging motion was punctuated by moments of feeling as though he were suspended in air, followed by another feeling of freefall, only to be interrupted by an upward momentum. Joe opened his eyes and found himself literally swinging through the city in his web casing. It was an amazing way to see the city, punctuated by Gwen’s laughter above him. It was nothing Joe had ever even dreamed of experiencing in his life.
Joe dropped to his knees once they were on a distant rooftop and the webbing fell away. He panted hard, getting his wind back, although it had been Gwen doing all the work. “Jesus Christ,” he uttered between gasps. He looked over his shoulder to see how far they had come, before looking back at Gwen. “That….that was incredible”
Gwen couldn’t help but be worried at first. But once Joe said it was amazing, she smiled brightly. “Yeah, luckily for us I just got landing down.” She admitted with a cheeky smile for the moment. It was true, Gwen was horrible at landing at first. But with constant practice, she got the landing part just right. As well as the gliding. But she would come to look at Joe for the moment. “You okay?” She came to ask, as she had noticed he held his breathe when she jumped out the window.
But than again, she assumed it was also because she jumped out the window of his bedroom. Already she came to move towards him and held her hand out to help him up on his feet. “Too much excitement?” She teased at this point as she helped him to his feet.
Joe looked at her a little sheepishly, before he reached out and took her offered hand. “A little more than I was expecting,” he admitted. He let her help him to his feet. “I know I said we didn’t have to use the door, but I wasn’t expecting…” he paused and then laughed, “well, I don’t know what I was expecting.” He grinned at her. “That was fun. Do you do that every night?”
She came to laugh lightly. “Well, I wanted to prove to you I wasn’t lying.” She added with a bit of laughter escaping her lips. “Yup, every night. Making sure nothing funny is happening. You know?” She said with an even brighter smile on her features. “Wanna walk?” She asked to make sure he was okay. He seemed a little sick. But than again, she doubted he was use to flying through the city by web.
Joe laughed breathlessly. “You proved it,” he said. “I will never doubt anything you say again.” It was amazing to him that Gwen did this everynight. After finally catching his breath. He cast another look towards the roof’s edge, remembering the conversation they’d had over the Network. “So, you’re a real life vigilante,” he said. “Do you actually stop crime and stuff?”
The trip through the city via web had been exhilarating and the up and down motion had made Joe a little motion sick, but he’d recovered quickly. “Yeah, sure, we can walk a little.”
Gwen smiled and nodded her head at him. “Yup every night. My friend and I stopped a robbery a few weeks ago. “ She replied with a bright smile at herself. When he asked to walk, Gwen would nod her head. It didn’t take them long to get down to the ground from the fire escape. Once on the ground she would keep her hands in her pockets.
“Thinking about joining?” She asked as she knew he was a detective but he walked away from his job due to a certain case. Still, Gwen felt it the law wasn’t going to do something, someone else had too. Hence, why she always had cuts and bruises on her.
“Vigilantism?” Joe shook his head. “Nah, I’d make a pretty shity vigilante. First off I don’t have any special powers or abilities or shit like that. I’m also not loaded like Batman, so I can’t even make gadgets or stuff for myself.” He knew that wasn’t all it took to be a crime fighter. He understood Gwen’s sense of justice was what likely drove her and he found that very admirable. The legal system had jaded him, turned him bitter, but he himself couldn’t bring himself to take matters into his own hands. He knew his own temper. He’d probably end up killing someone.
He didn’t mention any of this to Gwen. They’d just met and he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression about him. “Glad to know that we got people like you out there keeping the streets safe, though,” he grinned at her. “Do you do the same thing when, y’know, stuff is happening?”
“Well depends on the stuff. Since the dreams began I was freaked out at first but after a while it felt normal.” She added with a bright smile over her features. She made sure to keep the pace steady and easy for him right now. “How long have you been in OC?” She came to ask as she brushed her hair from her face due to the wind.
“Before this, I tried doing an actual job. Journalism, and even played in a band for a while. But what I do at night, takes up so much of my time, I don’t really have time for the band as much and I now write small articles on line.” She added as she lightly shrugged her shoulders at him.
She came to glance at him for the moment and touched his arm lightly. “As for what I do.. I dunno, I just do it. Hard to explain. I don’t really have a plan when I do stuff.”
“Yeah, the Dreams kind of freaked me out too when they first started,” Joe sighed. “Even with all the advance warning I was given. Kind of given.” More like cryptically given. Still…
“I moved out here with my brother back in April,” Joe went on as the two of them walked. He appreciated Gwen keeping a steady, but easy enough pace so he could easily match strides with her. “We actually moved in on my birthday. Our mother wasn’t really thrilled with that, but,” Joe shrugged, “Frank got me a cake. “My brother’s a journalist, too. He works for one of the news outlets around here. I don’t think the job has turned out to be what he expected.” And Joe honestly felt bad about that. Frank had been so excited to get his first real job and it turned out to be nothing but being an errand boy and what stories he could get his hands on were being sniped away by one of his colleagues.
“Maybe he could do the on-line thing too.” Joe said thoughtfully. He looked at Gwen, “ Do you work for a news station or are you independent?”
He laughed a little. “You know, I usually never have a plan either. I just kind of go by the seat of my pants half the time.”
“I work for OC weekly. But if your brother wants a story, I think he should go out and get it himself.” She added with a small thought for the moment. “Hrm… Well.. I dunno what it would do to me but if he wants a breaking story he can ‘accidentally’ catch me stopping a robbery in the morning or something.” She added with a suggestion for him.
“Just ya know, if that was to happen obviously you can’t let him know it’s me. I do have to keep this a secret I told you because.. Well i dunno really I just did.” She said laughing lightly for the moment.
Joe laughed. “Believe me, Frank does all the leg work he can to get a story,” which was why the two of them had recently wound up in a police interrogation room not too long ago. He shook his head, “which makes it doubly frustrating for him when his stories go either ignored or end up getting poached by someone else. I’m a mechanic, I don’t really have that problem.”
He paused and tilted his head slightly at Gwen’s offer. “Really?” he asked, “you’d do that? Hm. A story like that could totally make his career at the station. As long as it doesn’t get snagged up by the goddamn asshole who likes to steal his stories.”
“Well the beauty of that is, IF that does happen and I read it and it’s not by your brother Frank, I will make sure Spider-Gwen makes a personal appearance at that news station to get the facts straight.” She replied with a bright smile “I like you Joe, you seem like a good guy and a good friend so I wanna help.” She replied with another smile as she looked in his general direction.
Gwen knew what it was like to struggle as a writer. But she didn’t mind her job being just online stuff here and there. Her real job was more rewarding.
Joe could have kissed Gwen. This could have be the opportunity Frank needed to launch his career and stop being the station’s errand boy.
Joe grasped Gwen by the shoulders, “If you could do that, I would owe you big time,” he told her, “Like, you don’t even know. And I promise, I won’t give away your secret identity. I know that’s important to you.”
That did complicate matters a little bit. Frank would want to know and Joe was a little concerned once he found out about Spider-Gwen, he’d want to know more about her. Joe was going to have to play this very carefully. He couldn’t lie to his brother, but he couldn’t quite tell him everything either.
Once Joe grabbed her shoulders, Gwen came to slow stop. She would listen to Joe and smile with a nod of her head. “I’ll keep you posted.” She added so he would be able to be at the same location as her when she was dressed as Spider-Gwen. “I know it’s gonna be hard. Keeping a secret. I had to do it in my dreams.” She replied as she let him know she’s been there. Least in her dreams anyways.