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

[cazamitad]

Araña's pretty impressed by the gliding, honestly, so despite the fact that chatting up an adult registered hero (because let's face it, she definitely is registered, if she's out like that in that outfit in broad daylight) is a bad idea, she does it anyway.

"Qué chido, that was gliding, right?" she asks as she approaches, barefoot with her shoes dangling from her fingers. "Not proper flying? You looked like what I figure hawks must look like, riding thermals and stuff."

What? She used to read. Animorphs.

[sunmedallion]

Celestia pours into the common area almost immediately, bringing with her warmth and sunlight and a metric ton of flowing pastel rainbow hair.

"Jessica!" she exclaims warmly, although the edge of wistful sadness isn't hard to miss – Celestia's never been amazing at disguising her emotions, and the loss of their teammates is still weighing heavily on her. "It's so wonderful to see you again, how have you been?"

[chapterfiveversenine]

Upon learning of Jessica Drew's return, Legion had pulled every file they were cleared to get (and a few they weren't) out of CONDOR's databases.

Jessica Drew (alias: SPIDER-WOMAN/alias: ARACHNE) is an interesting hero - one of many of TRIDENT's attempts to create a superpowered agent gone wrong. Legion has never met anyone with that level of experience with the worst side of organic science before.

"Jessica Drew," they say when they find her. "We are Legion, a terminal of the geth. We acknowledge your reintegration into Alpha Force."

They pause, and then add belatedly, "Hello."

[teamsad]

Jess noticed the girl approaching, but she hadn't actually expected her to come talk to her. Which is maybe silly, considering how the costume kind of draws attention, but Jess is the kind of hero most people don't recognize on sight. She's fine with that.

So she blinks at Anya for a second like she's waiting to make sure she's actually speaking to her before she nods. "It was. I can't fly under my own power, but I like to keep up with the fliers somehow."

[cazamitad]

"That's pretty badass." Araña buries her toes in the sand. Now that she's had the chance to tell Jess her gliding is cool, she doesn't really know what to do. She could awkwardly turn and leave, but that seems rude. "So are you new? I don't think I've seen you on the news yet."

[teamsad]

It's hard for even Jess not to warm up a little around Celestia, hard to feel out of place with that kind of welcome. She manages a tiny smile and steps away from the door, lifting a hand to give a small, awkward wave.

"Hi, Celestia. I've been... you know. The usual. Busy." It doesn't feel right to tell Celestia she's been working out her issues by beating up terrorists and lowlifes on the other side of the planet. They're all still alive - mostly - but it's not the kind of thing most real heroes do. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for... what happened..."

[teamsad]

Jessica jumps a little, hand coming up instinctively, though she stops short of actually venomblasting him. The Tower's safe - she's just been in the field too long, and is maybe a little too jumpy around strangers at the moment. She pauses a second, and then lowers her hand a little sheepishly.

"Uh. Hello." Pause. "We haven't met, have we?" It seems nicer than asking why are you here?

[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."

[chapterfiveversenine]

"We have not," Legion says. "This platform joined Alpha Force approximately one week ago."

[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...

[teamsad]

"Oh. Good timing, I guess." She shifts her weight, still watching the robot warily. "What's a geth?"

[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."