it's alright once you're in the air

[teamsad]

Who: Jessica Drew & YOU!!
Where: Alpha Tower & around LA
When: Mid-February, various times
What: The most awkward member of Alpha Force is back in town.
Warnings: N/A

Alpha Tower; day of Jessica's arrival
Jessica never liked going through the lobby - she has to deal with receptionists, avoid people, take elevators, all kinds of unnecessary annoyances. Instead, she takes the aerial route. The landing area on top of the building is meant for helicopters, but works just as well for flying superhumans, and the heat of the sun reflecting off the windows of the tower is more than enough to generate the lift she needs to make it there.

She touches down lightly, scans her handprint on the security pad beside the roof entrance and takes the stairs into the building... only to stops when she reaches the first common area. It's quiet. She's been here when it's this quiet before, but the silence seems heavier this time. Everything feels emptier. Maybe it's just the knowledge that the team's so small now...

"Is anyone home?" she calls out, still hovering near the door to the stairwell. "Hello?"

Beachfront; evening
Jess hasn't been able to fly for months. That's the nature of undercover work - you keep your head down, pretend to be someone else entirely, try not to wear your flashy superhero costume where other people can see you... Which is all well and good, except that she can't fly without hers, and she's been getting restless in Madripoor without being able to take to the skies.

Now that she has the chance to, she's taking advantage of the evening breezes off the ocean and gliding through the skies over the water, occasionally diving and spinning in ways that would probably send her plummeting into the Pacific if she lost lift... but it's worth the risk when she's been unable to do it for so damn long.

Eventually she lands on the sand, reclining on a dune (still in full costume) to watch the sun set as she catches her breath. Flying (or, really, gliding) when it's not part of your powerset is a lot more exhausting than it looks.

Comments

[teamsad]

Jess snorts softly, with a wry smile, as she pushes herself a little more upright. Some people would be bothered by the question. She kind of prefers it this way - too much attention makes her nervous.

"Not exactly, no. I'm on Alpha Force. But I've been out of town, and I... try to stay off the news when I can help it."

[cazamitad]

"Fair enough." She shuffles a little, awkwardly. "Sorry I didn't know you were on the team. I haven't really followed the west coast superheroes since I was like 10."

[teamsad]

"It's alright. I'm mostly backup anyway. Or I was..."

Now, she's a lot more prominent on the suddenly very tiny team. She doesn't quite know what to do with that.

"Where are you from?" She specified West Coast heroes, after all. It's hard not to notice the heroes around where you live, though, so...

[cazamitad]

"East coast," Araña says. It's not like she's the only kid to move from the east coast to LA in the past few weeks, and she's pretty sure most of the folks on the Watch and the muggers and crooks she stops think she's a dude, so it can't hurt to be honest, right? "New York. I didn't pay much attention to the team over there either, but they weren't as big a deal. I mean, when Captain Victory died, it was all over, but it's not as supervillain heavy out that way."

She sits down gingerly in the sand next to the older hero. "So what are you, Hawk Girl or something?"

[teamsad]

"Ah. Welcome to LA, then."

She snorts softly at the question, and shakes her head. "Not even close."

She lifts her arm so the gliding surface stretches out and the web pattern is a little easier to see.

"I'm Spider-Woman, at least when I'm on Alpha Force."

[cazamitad]

Oh. That is cool. Araña might be a bit jealous, no lie. Someone trained in the right things might notice how she eyes it - not just impressed but actually trying to figure it out, gauging the material as best she can and trying to figure out if it would be useful for herself.

She tries to make it look like she's just impressed, though.

"I repeat, qué chido. That must take a lot of practice to do right."

[teamsad]

Jess grins, maybe more pleased with the admiration than she should be. It's one of the few talents that's hers alone - sure, TRIDENT gave her the costume and CONDOR supplies her with replacements when she ruins one, but she learned how to fly on her own. There was no one to teach her, when she was the only person light enough that the costume would actually work.

"I took a lot of nosedives early on. Good thing I don't break easy."

[cazamitad]

"I can imagine," Araña says, eyeing the webbing wistfully. "Don't suppose it's something anybody with the strength and determination could do?"

...What? She misses flying. Sure, her version of flying was more 'swinging like Tarzan from building to building' than 'gliding on the thermals', but it was fun! One of the best parts of the job, honestly. And LA just does not have the architecture for it.

[teamsad]

"Um..." Jess tilts her head, lips pursed, and then smiles a little apologetically. "I think it would take a different kind of flight suit, at least. I weigh a lot less than most people because... weird spider genes and everything."

[cazamitad]

"Bah. Oh well, así es la vida, I will have to get along without my own super awesome glide suit." Which is a damn shame.

"Spider genes, huh?" she gets a secretive little grin. "Spiders are cool. Used to hang out with a bunch of people who thought they were basically the best thing ever."

Well, that's one way of describing WebCorps...

[teamsad]

That gets Jess' attention, as she sits straight up and turns a little more toward Anya.

"You did? Was it... Uh." She's never been quite clear on how secretive she has to be about this. She doesn't technically owe anything to the Spider Society, but she owes them, and they do like to keep a low profile. "Did you work with WebCorp? Don't tell me there are two groups of spider-obsessed people running around."

[cazamitad]

And that just gobsmacks Araña, because she was so not expecting a registered member of Alpha Force to know about WebCorps.

And she knows she's completely failed to make it obvious that Jess was right, so she doesn't even bother trying to deny it. "How do you know about WebCorps?" she asks incredulously.

[teamsad]

Jess shrugs, and looks down for a second, trying to figure out how to phrase it. She never even told CONDOR much about WebCorps, because it wasn't especially their business, but... she can talk to this girl about it. From that reaction, she's pretty sure she really does know them.

"They saved me. Seven... No, six years ago. They got me out of a bad situation. Wanted me to be their hunter or whatever, but that didn't work out."

[cazamitad]

Araña just stares for a moment.

It doesn't matter that this woman knows them, or was almost Miguel's hunter. She shouldn't say anything.

She could've been an intern. An office monkey. She could lie. Instead...

"You knew Miguel?" she asks, suddenly very quiet and very serious. This is important. She has to know. If this Spider-Woman knew Miguel...

She doesn't know what it means, but it's important.

[teamsad]

"The sorcerer?" She smiles softly. "I did, a little. He was nice to me."

When she was so young and terrified and betrayed by the people she thought were her family... He was kind and gentle with her, and he made her feel a little less like a terrible person, like she couldn't do any better than what she'd been made for. She always liked Miguel.

[cazamitad]

It was hard not to like Miguel, at least as far as Araña's concerned. Which makes her chest clench up.

Other than Tommy and sort of Nomad, she hasn't really had to tell people Miguel died. Okay, that's not true, she sobbed it over the comms to Nina when it happened, even as she was killing the people who killed him, but that hardly counts as she honestly barely remembers it through the blur. But regardless, Tommy and Nomad had never met the guy, it was just a bit of backstory, right?

But Spider-Woman knew him. Which makes this all the harder.

"I'm so sorry," she says, twisting her fingers together. "He... Miguel d-- the Sisterhood, they... he's gone. A few months ago." She won't cry. She won't. The fact that her eyes are glistening has nothing to do with unshed tears, really. "I'm sorry."

[teamsad]

"...oh." Jess goes still for a moment, nearly expressionless. She's never been good at processing death. She's not close enough to many people that it really hits her, and she's brought it to enough people that there's a sort of emptiness to it. She knows it means more to other people, but for her... She's sad, but not much more than that.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know, I haven't really talked to anyone from WebCorps in a while and..." She stares at the girl for a moment, brow furrowed. "Were you his hunter?"

[cazamitad]

"I was supposed to protect him," Araña says quietly. It's not an answer and yet it's all the answer. There's no one else in WebCorps, other than the Hunter, who would really be expected to protect Miguel. "It. I screwed up. I'm sorry."

[teamsad]

Jess has no idea how to respond to this. None. At. All. She stares out at the ocean again, setting sun and waves and literally anything but this crying girl who feels like she has to apologize to Jess for some reason...

"It's fine. You don't have to... I hadn't talked to him in forever." Ugh, people are hard. Emotions are hard. "I'm sure you did your best. I probably wouldn't have done any better."

[cazamitad]

She's not crying, Jess, honestly. Almost, but not quite. She smiles shakily, and a little sheepishly.

"Sorry. It's-- It hasn't been very long, y'know? It's still kind of. Processing." She rubs the back of her neck. "Um, I was, though. His Hunter. Araña, I'm Araña. ...Hi."

[teamsad]

"Yeah. I understand." Sort of. Ish. Jess looks back at her, a little cautiously like she still expects her to burst into tears.

"Arachne. Or. I mean. Jess. You can call me Jess."

[cazamitad]

Araña scrubs at her eyes a little, making the effort to get her smile in a more believable place. She's not gonna cry, it just was. Emotional.

"Cool. Nice to meet you." she shrugs one shoulder. "I mean, technically it's Aña, but um. I mean, it's been ages since I went by that, so..."

[teamsad]

"...so you just let people call you Spider all the time?"

Even Jess doesn't go by her codename all the time. That's a little weird.

[cazamitad]

Aña maybe sorta sticks her tongue out at Jess.

"It was the name I chose as the Hunter," she says, and shrugs. "Mamá always called me her arañita when I was little, and... Iunno. Papá was really the only person who called me Aña regularly after I turned 15."

[teamsad]

Okay, Jess can't argue with that. She can understand being sentimental - she still is, sometimes, and her parents were terrorists who experimented on her.

"Okay, well. I guess there are worse codenames to go by regularly. Like... Spider-Woman doesn't even sound like a name. Or Hawkeye. Or... whatever." She pauses. "What're you doing out here? Are you alone?"

Away from WebCorps, is what she means. She doesn't know enough about how they work with an actual Hunter to know whether they'd just let her go.