capeandcowllogs | Throwing yourself into your work is the best coping mechanism

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Throwing yourself into your work is the best coping mechanism

WHO: The Scarlet Spiders (

bornredy ) and OPEN
WHERE: All over the rooftops and alleyways of the City!
WHEN: Backdated to Saturday night
WARNINGS: Repressed angst
SUMMARY: With their genetically inherited crush ported out, the Spiders are "dealing" with it by patrolling almost non-stop. Clearly they need forced social interaction to get them out of their funk.
FORMAT: Whatever you want!

Each of the Spiders wondered which of them would be the first to break the uncomfortable silence that had been hanging around them ever since they suited up and left their apartment. Van and Patrick both assumed it would be Michael, but so far their leader had been non-responsive and, annoyingly, it seemed increasingly difficult to guess what he was thinking.

Two of the three brothers lagged behind the first, struggling to copy his movements as they swung through the skies of the City. There was nothing more embarrassing than webswinging around the wrong building and going in the opposite direction. After all, they were supposed to be professionals.

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It might have been dangerous for most young women to walk around this City when it was dark but Jan had been trained by Captain America and was also a mutant AND an Avenger, so she didn't exactly feel threatened. At barely 5'3" and maybe 100 lbs, she was a predator's dream. And so, she was approached by a weaponless teenager who demanded her purse.

Jan almost laughed. She had all of three dollars and breath mints in there.

Oh well. Guess she was skipping the gym tonight.

Pat noticed the woman and the punkish-looking youngster first. Which was odd, since normally he was the last of the trio to notice anything. He activated the suit's commlink. "Heads up, guys. We might have a situation."

The suit's cloaking system activated as Patrick swung onto the wall of the nearest building, clinging to the side and waiting for Van and Michael to arrive behind him. The boys watched and waited, preparing to snatch the mugger in a web the very second he tried to get violent.

The mugger went down easily enough-- clearly he was too high or drunk or whatever it was kids did these days-- to properly defend himself. Ridiculous. She might have used a little too much force when she punched him in the stomach so he would be sported a cracked rib or two. Well, maybe it would make him think twice about trying to attack people.

Jan took out her cellphone, debating if she should call the police or not.

Well, they didn't see that coming.

The Spiders decloaked and dropped from their hiding spot, landing in the alleyway. Van and Pat turned towards the...uh, "victim" while Michael kneeled over the horrible excuse for a criminal to make sure he was unconscious.

"Uh, this might seem like a silly question, but-

-Are you okay, ma'am?" They were impressed, but couldn't figure out why this lady seemed vaguley familiar.

"Jesus Christ! What are you-- a Spider-Man tribute boy band? Where did you just come from??" Jan really could not take this place. How many spider themed characters were running around here, anyway? At least five or six. Easy.

She ran her hand through her hair.

"I'm fine. This guy might feel a little sore in the morning, though."

They were only vaguely aware of what a boy band was. Enough to know that wasn't a compliment.

"We're the Scarlet Spiders, ma'am. We work for Tony Stark-"

"-And unless we're mistaken..." Van's eyes were narrowed behind his mask. "...You're the Wasp, correct?"

With a quick thwip, the mugger's arms were tied to his side with webbing. "Soreness will be the least of his worries," Michael said as made sure the web was secure. "We'll drop him off at the nearest station."

Goliath is always on patrol himself... and seeing three men in elaborate creature-themed costumes puts him quickly in mind of the Pack, the cybernetic criminals from his homeworld. There's also the possibility that they are robots not unlike Xanatos and his Steel Clan.

So the gargoyle gliding above them follows their movements, to see if they will lead him to their master... or if they'll commit some sort of horror that he will have to stop.

Healthy paranoia was a good trait of any good black ops expert, so it was unsurprisingly part of the Scarlet Spiders' Initiative programming. Despite that, it takes several minutes for any of the three to notice they have a tail - partially because because of positioning, but also because of their distracting personal issues.

They eventually do notice, however, and are a bit bothered by it. They're usually the ones doing the ~~stalking~~ tracking. The boys suddenly drop, falling fast before sending out new weblines, now swinging far closer to the ground.

Goliath isn't sure if they spotted him, or if they've just grown nearer to their objective, but he has to assume the former.

Still, he can't lose them, so he dives down lower himself, trying to regain sight of them - at least one of them, as he'd rather not have to try and take on all three at once if it comes to that.

Too persistent is the thought that runs through the Spiders' minds simultaneously. At least it confirms that they are being followed, which just means they have to ditch the bogey and figure out why he's so interested.

After swinging a bit longer, the three red-and-gold figures suddenly make a sharp turn around a small building. The trio disengage from their webs quickly and cling to the wall, activating the suit's camouflage as soon as they make contact with the brick. Time to wait and watch the reaction.

The winged creature soars out of an alley and sweeps upwards once he loses track of them, trying to catch sight of that armor. When that fails, he alights on the corner of a rooftop, taking a closer look at the buildings to see where they may have vanished off to. Through open windows, or doors, senses sharply and ears twitching to try to pick up any unusual sounds.

His brow furrows, as he can't seem to find a trace of them.

With their ploy a success, the Spiders could likely swing away and continue their patrol. However, their curiosity is peaked. They quietly crawl their way up the building to their target. They're not going to attack, just talk, but even negotiations should be performed from an advantageous position.

The only sense he can use to detect their presence is an instinctive sort of preternatural sixth one. A tingling sensation at the back of his neck that he is being watched.

His response is just as animalistic - his wings flare out, and he lets out a powerful roar, daring them to show themselves, or to scare them off if they see fit to try and attack him.

[ He watched with a peculiar expression from a rooftop, hands on his hips and brow raised, as the three of them tried awkwardly to get in sync-- this just looked bad, though. ]

HEY! [ He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. ]

COME ON, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER GUYS! I'VE GOT A REPUTATION AT STAKE HERE!

[That definitely got their attention. And amazingly, it worked for a second! The trio briefly swung in synch, riiiight over to the source of the voice.

A few seconds later, the Spiders landed on the rooftop.]

Sorry about that-

-we're not training to make you look bad or anything-

-Promise.

[ He puts his hands up ] It's cool, it's cool, you were just doing this... thing...

[ He hops awkwardly on one foot, lifting the other high in the air before stopping entirely to readdress them. ]

So, what, new suits or something? They're not chafing in the [ He whistles and points down. ] cause, you know, baby powder.

[ Awkward silence. ]

So, uh, what's up?

[Three eyebrows raise in unison underneath the masks.] Uh, no, nothing like that-

-it's just...

[Van trails off. The boys look to one another and then back to Spider-Man. Sort of. They're actually all looking in slightly different directions to avoid eye contact.]

-Nothing's wrong. [They are crappy liars when it comes to personal problems.]

{ The ] AHA! [ comes almost immediately, accompanied by a hard pointed finger in their direction. ]

So who is she? [ Again, his hands go back to his hips and they can maybe see the faint outline of an oh so smug face beneath the mask. ]

[Was it really that obvious? The Spiders shoot each other a look before turning back to Spider-Man.]

It...really doesn't matter.-

-She's not here anymore-

-And we're not sure about how we felt regardless. [Which isn't the whole truth. They know how they felt, but not if that was them or the feelings of the original. Being clones sucked liked that.]

It was still relatively early in the night, though sunset had already come and was mostly gone, the sky growing dark. But the City was the city, and the streets were never truly dark. Unless, of course, the power went out. Again.

But that night was not this night, and the bright lights made it easy to scan the streets, even with the naked eye: on the north end of one block, a woman and a man were arguing over who hailed the idling cab first; down the south way, a popular club already had a line out into the sidewalk for the fancily-dressed patrons waiting. Some shops were closing up, some still had patrons, but for the most part the sidewalks weren't that crowded, in this area.

A few blocks from that: a man in dark clothes was skulking (there was no other word for it) down the way, hands in his pockets and shoulders slumped with ill intent. He was walking quickly towards this destination: a street corner, at which a young girl—too young to be out after sunset, for sure—was comparing the signs to the screen of her cell phone, obviously lost.

If this was not a situation yet, it very quickly would be.

They should wait until they have a clearer idea of the situation. That's what their programming was telling them, but the Spiders had shirked it before and with how this was starting to play out? Yeah, standing by while a child was in danger wasn't going to work for them.

Patrick was chosen to "make contact with the civilian", as Michael had put it, his choice of words made it very clear why Pat was usually the one who handled situations that required a friendly personality. He swung overhead and landed on the side of the corner's lamp, sticking there while addressing the girl. "Hi there! It's dangerous to be out this late alone, you know."

As if on cue - because it was. The Spiders were, if nothing else, good about timing - Van and Michael dropped from the sky on either side of the man. Their words came closer than usual, in a far more intimidating tone. "Hello. We sure hope you weren't about to do something other than turn and walk home.-"

"-And we will be watching you for now on."

The girl, who had been preparing to cross the street, instead jumped and jerked back in surprise at the sudden voice from above her; in her fumbling, she nearly dropped her communicator (not a normal phone, it seemed), but held it close to her chest when she looked up at the first voice—and around at the second and third.

Jeez, Edgeworth was going to kill her if he found out about this.

The man now had his hands up, backing away from the other two not-Spider-Man-guys with a babble of 'not looking for trouble.'

Hoping that this wasn't going to wind up being some elaborately complicated kidnapping scheme, Ruka edged closer to the street lamp. She thought the uniform looked familiar (beyond the "looks like someone raided Parker's closet with spray paint" manner, anyway), but couldn't quite place it...

"Uh, th-thank you," she stumbled a little, still unsettled by the whole situation. "I guess I didn't notice."

A communicator. They hadn't noticed that from afar, but now that they have it made the situation a lot easier to handle. Patrick twisted around on the lamp, now talking to the girl from a mostly upside down position. "You're an imPort, right? I'm Patrick, with the Scarlet Spiders. We work for Tony Stark." We has aware of how...not particularly trustworthy that was for some people, but hoped it'd at the least prove he wasn't some kind of deranged villain. "If you need directions or a ride or something I'd be happy to help."

Meanwhile, the other Spiders proceeded to glare at the man behind their golden bug lenses. "Mister, you try and creep up on a child again-"

"-And trouble will find you."

While Ruka didn't like Tony Stark for her own reasons, she did recognize the name and title Patrick gave, and her tense shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Right," she replied; she assumed it was more of a guess based on how she looked than what she was holding, since she still hadn't met anyone native to this world with hair that naturally wasn't some shade of brownish. "So, those two—"

She turned to look over her shoulder again, where the remaining Spiders quite successfully cowing the man who had shadowed her. "—they're Van and... Em-something, right? You were the ones looking up vampires and the like."

Leaping from one rooftop to the other, Felicia took her usual care to stick to the shadows in spite of the constant incessant light from all the buildings. Such was life in the City -- or any city. She was used to not seeing stars.

She didn't have anything in her hands right now; not yet, anyway. She landed on the roof of a museum, looking over the roof to survey the area.

When someone surveys an area, they're probably not expecting to see three red and gold Spider-Man copycats webswinging their way in front of a museum.

Of course, since that's not expected, it's exactly what's happening right now.

Van noticed the figure on the roof first - being on lookout was his job for this leg of the patrol - and after quickly pointing it out to his brothers the group made a quick webline u-turn to go check it out.

She backed away from the edge of the roof, turning off the night vision on her goggles. What was that? And why were there three of-- oh.

Moving towards the roof grating, she frowned, putting her goggles and suspension cord away in her belt. Why did Spiders love making her job more difficult?

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Throwing yourself into your work is the best coping mechanism

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