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The Bird a Nest, the Spider a Web, Man Friendship.; 5/24: Early Evening (Angel/Jess)
Topic Started: Mar 29 2015, 11:54 PM (232 Views)
Angel Salvadore
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[Continued from Lumen Accipe et Imperti, via off-panellings]

Okay. Yeah, that was a door.

More specifically, it was Spider-Woman’s door. She’d checked with the Black Widow, and with Mr Just-Call-Me-Scott, so Angel was three times sure about that particular fact. Plus she knew that Spider-Woman was in there, on account of said checking. Plus she knew she hadn’t exactly been making with the coming out. For a while.

For a fucking while in fact, measured in metric.

Which… yeah, JD was fucked up to shit, that was the thing. Angel had been right by her back in DC, and then in that same fucking sterile grey morgue they’d moved Mel’s body into on Monday. Where Spider-Woman had had to Spider-Man. Peter Parker, the…

…yeah. Fucked to shit wasn’t even gonna be halfway to what JD had to be feeling right now, right?

So, here she was, and that was the door. She’d done the things she’d had to do - seen people. Two fucking eyes on everyone of the Dance she’d been able to find, or if not that, assurance from someone else who had been able to do it for the others. And Butters, who… yeah. Fucked to shit kinda might have fucking applied to him too, but he had people with him, and it sounded like right now JD didn’t.

Maybe she didn’t want them, either, but… yeah. Shit. That didn’t mean that she didn’t need someone.

She’d looked like someone who fucking needed someone. She’d looked like-

-the sound of something scritching along the floor broke up Angel’s thought like… well, like a fucking Sentinel had blown up all those statues and big grey stone buildings, but that was not the fucking point. Frowning, the winged girl looked around, then brightened (slightly) as she put eyes to the glowing red ones, and generally fangy face of her own personal slug stalker.

“Yo, Eany,” she told it, and unfolded her arms out of the crossed nerves thing she’d had them in, holding them out to the slug, which shuffled forward, gnashing all its teeth in the way Angel had come to associate with it wanting to look cute and needy so it’d get picked up.

Or maybe that was cute and deadly, come to fucking think of it. Either way, she stooped down slightly to pick it up, and as it nestled into the crook of her arm, cocked an eyebrow at it. “You back then?”

The red eyes kind of just glowed back at her, but Eany was more of a talker with his teeth anyway, and the teeth totally were giving her a heads-up nod. “All of you?” Angel asked, not like she was shading back to any extra concern or anything, but… yeah. People hadn’t come back today. Who the hell knew if that went for slugs too. Or slug boys.

Another tooth nod. Or… yeah, call it a fucking nod. Probably slugs wouldn’t be back without their Slug Boy, too. And that was… yeah. That was good. Not that she cared, or anything. Except for Eany’s sake, obviously.

Next question, then. “You wanna come with?” Angel added, cocking her head back toward the door then looking back to the slug. Not exactly sure of whether there was a nod that time, but hell. White people had support animals all the time, for bad shit happening. Right? She’d totally heard that somewhere. No reason those things couldn’t be tooth-filled stomach slug eating machines.

Or… well. It kinda made her feel a little better about this, anyway. So here went shit, and with her free arm, Angel reached over and kinda knocked on the door. Not very loud, but… like, JD could hear anything, right? She’d probably already heard her outside or something. If she was… up to that kind of thing.

“Hey, um…” the winged girl called softly, “You gonna mind if we come in?” Then, without waiting that long to hear, she kinda pushed the door open anyway, just to check.
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It was the ceiling again.

Hanging on the ceiling, crouched into a ball, arms wrapped around her knees with her hair hanging down. Hoping all the blood would rush to her head and...what? Drown out everything stuffed in there?

Yeah. Yeah, that would be good. There was too much. Too much in her head, too many things she couldn't keep herself from thinking about. Didn't like that. Hadn't ever liked that. The way that felt. How she never knew what to do with it. Why didn't they teach that, along with martial arts and how to stealth your way into a room? Then she could stop seeing it all over again, maybe. That piece of fabric with those familiar red and blue colors and that webbing design, poking out from under a pile of what used to be part of the National Mall. Peter. How limp he'd been. How light. Lifeless.

Peter Parker should never be lifeless. He'd been full of life. Full of things she didn't always understand (like 'spider senses', she still didn't understand 'spider senses', if they were spider senses, why didn't she have them? She didn't understand half his jokes, either, and now she probably never would), but full of life. He'd been too still and light and limp, and they'd put him...in that place. That cold, sterile empty place. Left him there. Left Peter there and he was dead and he'd still be dead tomorrow and the next day and the next.

Everyone else was okay. Jan and Scott and Natasha. They were all okay. Alive. It was good - very very good - that they were okay. She, Jess, was okay. She was alive, too, and here, on the ceiling, and-

Peter wasn't. Peter wasn't and how was that right? How? For her to be alive and here and not knowing how to do this, any of this, and he wasn't. He was the person who'd have known how to do this. Who'd have been able to tell her, to say it in a way that she could make sense out of, but now he couldn't and the former detective wasn't sure she could even pretend to know how.

Movement from the periphery of her vision had her turning her head. Chewie, slinking out from behind the nightstand. Glaring at her with a baleful look that made her think of Carol. Made her think of Carol way too much right now. She didn't need to think of Carol right now. Chewie didn't care, he just glared his special occasion glare (it was different from the everyday glare, after a while you could tell), stopped long enough to hiss at her again, then slink over toward the sofa/loveseat/whatever sitting thing that was.

"Oh, stop," Jess grumbled back at him. "I only tried to hug you once. Once! Get over it."

Chewie stopped long enough to growl at her with his injured dignity cat growl, then resumed his slinking, watching her suspiciously as he hopped up on one've the decorative pillows and curled up. Kept watching her, probably in case she made any too sudden movements his way again.

And, now, while she was getting all the unsympathetic Chewie verbal and visual accusations, there was someone just outside the door. She could hear that, even if she wanted to ignore it. The voice was familiar, but she tried not to notice it. If she didn't notice it, maybe it would go away.

Or not. There was knocking. Knocking, now, which meant they weren't going away and that was something else she didn't know how to do. Deal with people. How was she supposed to be able to deal with people, even people she knew, right now? Jess thought about that, and tried to ignore the knocking, and still didn't come up with a way she thought she could do that.

“Hey, um…” and that was Angel. Could she deal with Angel? That seemed like she might have a better chance than with general 'people', “You gonna mind if we come in?”

"I-" Spider Woman started, and then she was in and she was - what the hell was she carrying? "-no?" she finished, belatedly, because Angel and her...lumpy something she was carrying that made them a 'we' were there already. Or mostly there. Enough for her to see. "Come in, Angel. And...lumpy thing Angel is carrying." Was that a dog? A really, really ugly, irradiated, mutant dog?

Giving up her old on the ceiling, Jess dropped down and turned in the air so she landed on her feet, straightening up and pushing her hair back and motioning Angel in. Wait, no. Not a dog. A slug. One of Maggot's, but she didn't know which one. How did you even tell?

"Will...it..?" He? She? They? "eat the cat?" she asked, looking from the slug to Chewie and then back to Angel again, pushing the hair off her face and not quite sure if she meant that warily or hopefully.
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This was Angel Salvadore, asking her way in to the room of an Avenger she already had a decent-ass idea didn’t want anyone fucking in with her right now. Yup. Just checking that this was what she was doing, because she’d been pretty sure it was going to be a new height in ‘dumbass’ credentials (or.. yeah. Low might have been closer), and yeah. Exactly what she was doing.

Good thing she’d never thought she was smart, or Angel would have been wondering what the fuck she possibly thought she was doing right now. As it was though, she could just put it down to the fact she already knew she was dumb as shit, so doing something only a fucking idiot would do was practically expected, or whatever.

Whatever. Either way, this felt important, so she wasn’t waiting outside this shitty grey-ass door to hear some kind of ‘no’ that was probably coming to her question. Before she’d heard anything - or at least anything more than a single “I-“, (which could totally be the same thing as the fancy old-ass way of saying yes, yeah? Serious), Angel pushed her way through the door and into the room, telling herself that if it was really as out of line as it kinda felt, JD would have locked the thing.

Okay. She was in. She was in with Eany, and… where the hell was Spider-Woman?

“-no?” came her voice, but it was coming from somewhere that didn’t sound like a place a voice should come from. It took Angel a second or two to figure out where that was (probably because it was halfway hanging down from the damn ceiling but hey, she had wings and vomited acid and had weird insecty internal organs, so not gonna judge), but when she did, she looked up, trying to gauge how Spider-Woman was doing, only on the down-low.

“Come in, Angel. And...lumpy thing Angel is carrying.”

“Eany,” the winged girl supplied, lifting her arm a little to raise the Slug up a little so he’d be easier to recognize. Not that it should have been all that hard, since what the fuck else had that many teeth and three glowing red eyes?

Wait. Right. Yeah. Talking to a fucking Avenger. Did not want to know the answer to that question if she was talking to a fucking Avenger while asking it, because for all she knew that was every other Saturday, and twice in December. And yeah, that was not the point, or what she was hear about, which was to see how JD was doing. It was kinda fucking hard to tell though, with her upside down like that. It was still her, it was her face, but… yeah, how the fuck were you supposed to read one if it wasn’t the right way up?

As if reading her mind - shit, she hoped that wasn’t what was going on, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t, since, well, she hadn’t been kicked to the curb already, or put down in remedial loser-ville training rehab, which Angel was pretty sure would have happened if JD (or anyone) could actually read minds - Spider-Woman shifted all a-sudden. Droped down from the ceiling and then the next second was hitting the floor the right way up, so she must have flipped. Except that this wasn’t exactly a cathedral in here, with the ceiling, so Angel had an uncomfortable feeling that the dark-haired white woman’s head was now even higher above hers than it had been when she’d been hanging from the damn ceiling.

Well, whatever though. You got used to it, being a shortass. Kinda minor in the spectrum of dealing, and besides, JD was looking at Eany now.

“Will…it..?” Spider-Woman asked, giving Eany a bit of the stink-eye. Or maybe just the ‘what the fuck are you anyway?’ eye, plus the awkward white girl hair flipping thing when she finished that thought with, “eat the cat?”

“Huh?” Angel asked, blinking like a dumbass, because she had fuck all idea where that was coming from. Especially in a tone that try as she might, she couldn’t read for shit. At least until a second later, when looking around revealed that yeah, there was a big fucking cat sitting on the sofa. Not just any cat, either. The fucking devil-ass fucking cat from that apartment on Tuesday.

Oh. Yeah. The whole ‘kind of fucking mixed feelings’ that was coming through in that question made a whole shit-ton more sense now. For serious.

“Only if you want it to?” Angel kinda answered, and kinda asked. Then she shrugged, looking down at the grinning (well, toothy) slug that was nestled in the crook of her arm looking innocent, like he’d never even thought about it. She was calling bullshit on that, though, except not out loud in case JD came down on the side of ‘not wanting my evil best friend’s evil-ass Devil-Cat eaten’. “Eany’s alright,” the winged girl said though, all the same, hitching him up a little closer to herself.

He’d seen some stuff. And he was still sticking around. Not that she didn’t know it was fucked up weird that she was putting that on a slug, but… yeah. He was alright.
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Eany. Right. That was Eany.

How Angel knew it was Eany, Jess wasn't sure. All she could tell was that it was a red eyed, toothy, toothy slug thing that might or might not be glaring at her as Angel held it out so she could get a better look. But the winged girl seemed positive that's which one it was. So, okay. She could come in and Eany, who wasn't a lumpy, irradiated, ugly mutant dog (but was a...mutant digestive slug?), could come in and that'd probably be okay.

Angel...Angel she could deal with. she'd been there. She'd seen...

Chewie. Would Eany eat Chewie? Jess turned her head enough toward the cat, who was also glaring at her, and considered that. Would it be bad if it (he? she?) ate Chewie?

Okay. Yes. that'd be bad. Chewie was evil and bossy and...evil, but she didn't want him eaten by a slug-thing. Probably. So...she should check on that. With Angel. Who might know.

“Huh?” Angel asked, blinking, so that was probably a...no? No on eating Chewie. Yes. That should be a no.

“Only if you want it to?” Angel kinda answered, and kinda asked and she probably shouldn't be thinking it over again, but too late. Okay, no. Stop that, Jess. He was Chewie and he was evil, but he'd been Carol's (and she was evil now, too, and that's what she'd chosen to be and things would never, ever be the same again) and now he was hers. He could hate on her and growl at her and do his evil cat glaring thing, but he was hers to look after.

"Probably not?" Jess settled on, and if it still didn't sound like a statement more than a question, well, it'd been a day. A really...something...day. And Chewie was still glaring at her, but whatever. It was kind of familiar and Carol-like glaring, so it was weirdly okay.

Angel was shrugging and looking down at Eany. “Eany’s alright,” the winged girl said though, all the same, hitching him up a little closer to herself and Jess nodded, looking down at him. Yeah, yeah he was all right.

"He's...a good slug," Spider-Woman agreed, with a little frown because that didn't quite sound the same out loud as it had in her head. "Are you okay?" she asked Angel, since there wasn't anything she could do about the weird Babe brain flashes what she'd just said about Eany gave her. "I mean," she started, still frowning at herself. This was hard. Why was this kind of thing always so hard? It didn't seem like it was this hard for other people, "you know. As much okay as there can be? Are your friends okay?"

Probably not as much okay as there should be, but Angel was still...young. Not a kid. Spider Woman wondered if the younger woman had ever had a chance to be a kid any more than she had herself. Had a feeling she probably hadn't. So, young. No matter how much she might act like and seem like she'd seen and done it all. Or how much she'd been forced to see or do. She shouldn't have had to see any of it, or be involved in any of it. But sometimes you didn't get those choices, and today had been one of those days and she'd done an amazing job and she wanted her to be...as much okay about it as she could be. Even if that wasn't as much as it should've been.
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Oh. Yeah. That cat.

Yeah, okay, that made a whole lot more sense than being asked out of nowhere about whether Eany would eat a hypothetical cat. It also made the kind of wavering air in JD’s question, like she could have been happy with a ‘yes’ answer fit in with Angel’s view of sense, too. That cat was a fucking devil-ass beast. So while Eany might in general be a slug that didn’t just go around eating any old thing (at least not the important things), if someone wanted him to, well. Yeah. They didn’t have to rule it out, that was all.

Spider-Woman looked like she had to think about that one for a moment. She actually did think about it for a moment, in fact. This wasn’t some kind of weird coping shit, was it? “Probably not?” she said in the end, or maybe asked, while the Devil-Ass cat looked on, with a feline fucking expression that Angel was just about ready to swear said he knew exactly what every word in this conversation was about, and was. not. pleased.

Course, that had been about the only expression she’d seen on him. Or on any cat. So… yeah, who the fuck knew. Not her, but by this point, the winged girl was pretty sure that she did know about slugs. This slug, anyway, because who the fuck knew what was up with Meany? Eany though, he was alright.

That earned her a nod from JD, that was either agreement or just kind of bobbing along with the person saying crazy things in case they got crazier if you didn’t. Right now, Angel was having trouble getting a read on the tall dark-haired Avenger, as far as that went. As far as anything fucking went, in fact. “He’s…a good slug," Spider-Woman agreed, kinda cautiously.

Angel nodded, then kind of paused in the middle of that, hesitating when she saw the frown on the Avenger’s face. Okay. Yeah. Was this gonna be the point in a conversation where the person who was trying to act like they were way more together than they were ran the hell out of things to cover that up with, and started breaking? Because she’d seen that. Not with awesome-as-fuck, super-Avenger people, admittedly. But aside from the spandex, and the hair, and all that kind of looks stuff, JD wasn’t looking too much like one of those people right now.

“Are you okay?” she asked, though. Just like that. What now? Caught off guard, Angel kinda froze in her tracks. Not actually in her tracks, because she already wasn’t moving, but she blanked her expression on reflex, dropping her chin a little and raising Eany up a little more, so she could watch Spider-Woman without being obvious about it.

She was frowning. Which either made it some kind of ‘talk soothingly to the crazy dumbass bitch holding the giant garbage-disposal slug till you came up with a plan for how to separate her from it’ thing, or… something else? “I mean,” Spider-Woman continued, making heavy going of it, which didn’t really help to separate the possibilities any, as far as Angel could see, “you know. As much okay as there can be? Are your friends okay?”

“Oh,” Angel answered. Like a dumbass. A surprised dumbass who hadn’t actually been expecting that. Not from someone who she already knew was already dealing with all kinds of not okay for herself. “Yeah,” she added, kinda belatedly, but with a nod that hopefully would read as genuine as it was. “Yeah, I saw them. Or heard.” Which wasn’t the same, but would have to be for the moment, because there was other shit going on. Like this. And… yeah.

Another second's thought made the winged girl’s mind up about whether or not to go into the next level of detail about the only one of her friends that JD probably knew, so she went ahead and did it. “Butterball’s pretty cut up.” Fuck though. Now that she’d heard that out loud, that sounded like something else, didn’t it? Fuck. “Not, like actually, because of his powers,” Angel added quickly, shifting Eany over to her other elbow self-consciously. “He just heard the news, and… yeah.” She didn’t have to go out and say what news it was, or she didn’t think she did. What other new could it be? “He took it hard. He’s got people, though.”

Mr Just-Call-Me-Scott, at least. And maybe even Q-ball, who wasn’t exactly serious Class A ‘being-there-for-someone-else’ material, but who Emery seemed to like all the same, so so far it had looked like it worked better than you’d think it would.

Angel wasn’t about to go into those details though. Since it was out there - sideways slipping into being there, anyway - she was going to work on working that angle back to the point of why she was here. While she had it. If she could. “What about you?” she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the dark-haired woman, weighing what they were seeing as unobtrusively as she could.
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Okay, no. No, Eany probably shouldn't eat Chewie. Even if Chewie was glaring at her and had been glaring at her for the last half hour and looked even less happy now than he had before. Jess glared back, because he should know how that felt, and made a final, definite (maybe, possibly definite) decision of no on the slug devouring of Carol's evil, evil cat.

Eany was a...good slug, though. Okay. She could generally agree with that, even though he was, in fact, the only slug she was even marginally acquainted with and even if it came out sounding like that tall guy with the pig in the movie who played the engine inventing guy on Star Trek: The Next Generation that time. Was this what it was like when your brain just completely gave up and shorted out.

Jess decided that it might be, but there was Angel and she looked like she might be deciding that, too, and she'd been through more than enough crap today of her own. She'd been there, in DC, with all the destruction and with Pet-all of the rest. She didn't need the full on, Jessica Drew 'I don't have a damned clue how a normal person feels about or does things like this' experience. No. Nobody needed that.

Or asking them if they were okay, either. At least Angel didn't seem to want that, because she was trying to...hide behind Eany now? Was he supposed to be a shield? Some kind of offering? Because she already had a grumpy unhappy evil thing with pointy bits on it for shredding and Jess was positive - oh, yes, she was absolutely positive - that Chewie had all of that covered that she'd ever need.

Maybe she was just doing this completely wrong? She was probably doing this completely wrong, Spider-Woman decided, erring no the side of where the percentages usually fell. Because of course Angel wasn't okay. Who could be okay after that? But was she...as okay as whatever scale you measured okay by when nothing was okay allowed? And her friends. She'd been worried about them, Jess remembered that. Were they okay, too?

“Oh,” Angel answered sounding surprised. Maybe because there was something in that too difficult to get from her brain to off her tongue that actually made some sense? Jess was hoping for that kind of surprise, anyway. She could do that. She could hope. “Yeah,” she added, kinda belatedly, but with a nod that seemed real. So that was...good. That was definitely good. “Yeah, I saw them. Or heard.”

Jess took her own turn at nodding, because that seemed like the thing to do. She'd seen or heard about people herself. People that she'd wanted to make sure were still...here. Not like Peter, who wasn't here, even if there was a Peter-shaped body not that far away. Whatever had made it actually Peter was gone.

“Butterball’s pretty cut up.” Wait, what? The kid wearing the tablecloth? What'd happened to the kid with the tablecloth?? “Not, like actually, because of his powers,” Angel added quickly, shifting Eany over to her other elbow self-consciously and oh. Oh, okay. Not actually in pieces for some awful reason. Just...broken. “He just heard the news, and… yeah.”

Not the news. That wasn't what Angel meant. She meant The News. Capital letters, because that's how they were in her head. Standing out there, at the front of her brain, in big, glowing, neon capital letters. The News. The Spider-Man news. He'd wanted to be Peter's sidekick. Peter would've let him. He'd have let him and he'd have tried to teach him things and he would've, because he would've been patient and good that way. All the things Jess knew she'd never be herself.

Butterball. Emery. Did he-

“He took it hard. He’s got people, though.” That answered that question. That was good, too. He...everybody needed people. Jess nodded again, slowly, processing that and trying to ignore the evil, evil cat glaring at her back with a glare he had to have learned from Carol.

"Good. That's...I'm glad." Scott. He would probably keep a check on...Emery. That was his name. Emery. Jan...well, probably not. She-it wasn't a Jan thing. It might be a Nat thing, though, and the Black Widow would probably do that. "Everyone should have people." Right now, everyone needed people. For this.

Angel, she needed people, too, though Jess thought maybe the winged girl might disagree with that. But she had her friends, and the team. She had them, too, whether she knew it or not. She had Eany, apparently, and he was a little like people, if you squinted a lot and only looked at him from the corner of your eyes.

“What about you?” Angel asked, surprising her this time. What about her? Did she have people?

"Well, there's Chewie..." Jess started, then frowned and stopped as something told her that might not be the answer. Or the question. Was that the question? Wait, no. No, that wasn't it, was it? Angel was looking at her in a way that made her think that definitely wasn't the question. All intense and fixed. She was way too young for that look.

"I-yes?" the dark haired Avenger more or less guessed. Then paused and rethought and added, "No?" Another slightly confused pause. "Maybe?" Okay, now she'd covered all the possible answers. Blargh. Shaking her head now. Shaking her head in the hope that it would get something in there to make sense to someone, even if it wasn't her. Trying to shake the shadow of Peter and DC and that scrap of fabric, buried under a hunk of marble, out of the middle of everything, maybe. It would be good if she could do that.

"I don't know," Jessica admitted, dropping down on the sofa and making Chewie glare harder. And throw in a growl for good measure. Evil, evil cat. "I'm not sure I know what 'okay' feels like," she admitted, brow still knit and looking back over at Angel, "but I don't think this is it, even by my standards."

And they were pretty low standards, so she should've probably just gone with no.
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Yeah. Yeah, her friends, they were okay. Maybe not Butters, and telling JD that part didn’t exactly go the way Angel had wanted, probably mostly for no better shitass reason than because she hadn’t thought about what she was saying before she went and said it, but a few more words got that sorted out. Kinda. Still had to edge around talking about exactly why it was he wasn’t doing hot right now, when it was the same thing that was sitting like a couple of tons of invisible broken elephant in this room right now, but Spider-Woman caught on pretty quick to what it was anyway, so… enough said.

Or, yeah. Nearly enough, except it wasn’t anyway to fuck enough, just as it was, which the winged girl caught up to just as the dark-haired Avenger was opening her mouth to probably ask about that. Yeah, he’d taken it hard, like anyone who’d talked to him yesterday, or met him for more than thirty seconds could probably have guessed. But he had people.

That part seemed to settle JD a bit more. Or maybe subside was a better word for it, because it happened kinda slowly, the same way that water took a while to clear out of a sink when the pipes were half-blocked. There was a nod, though. So… there was that.

“Good. That's...I'm glad.” Spider-Woman didn’t exactly sound like that was anywhere close to true, but under the circumstances, Angel figured she knew what the dark-haired woman meant anyway. It was what you said. And there was glad, and there was the glad that meant you were just acknowledging a part of the world not sucking as much as it could have, and if there was a better word out there for that one, it was way beyond her dumbass vocabulary, so yeah. Glad would do.

“Everyone should have people.”

“Yeah,” Angel agreed, as much because it was also what you said as because she believed it. Not that she didn’t, in a general kind of way. Most people ought to have people, even if some people could get by without them if they didn’t. Like her. She could get by. Not that it was pretty, or smart, or any of that. But she could get by without.

She had practice, though. So that wasn’t a thing, plus it wasn’t even the question here. Not the one she was here to be dealing with, anyway, so without further bullshit (or at least no more bullshit than it needed), Angel got on with that part, and went ahead and asked JD how she was doing.

Or maybe she’d asked if Spider-Woman had people, the way it came out. Which, considering everything she already knew, about today and about what the Avenger had been dealing with this week, was kinda a dumbass’ question, but what the hell. It was out there now, no taking it back. JD seemed like she was going with surprise more than exploding into little pieces afterward, too, so… could have turned out worse, considering. “Well, there's Chewie..." Jess started, then frowned and stopped as Angel looked up further so she was looking a little more squarely at her as she lifted two skeptical eyebrows.

“Cats aren’t the same as People,” the winged girl pointed out. Then stopped abruptly herself as she realized what she’d said. After reflecting for a second what that might have sounded like to someone who (for all she knew) might be friends or whatever with the Furry Feline Baywatch special edition Avenger, Angel shrugged it away, and jerked her chin toward Chewie instead. “Well, that one sure as hell ain’t,” she amended. “Anyway, I meant are you-“ looking back at JD now, so there was no more way to get confused here, “okay.”

Yeah, there it was. Look of getting a clue, and remembering how shitty the thing that clue was a clue about, all rolled into one expression on JD’s face now. “I-yes?” the dark haired Avenger more or less guessed. Then paused and rethought and added, “No?” Angel waited, guessing the Avenger wasn’t quite done with figuring that out out loud for herself yet. ”Maybe?”

The winged girl waited another second, but it seemed like that one was the last piece that was going to be coming for the moment, so she nodded after that, adding a quiet, “‘Kay.” To say that she was listening, and that… yeah, it was okay. No one was asking anyone to figure out how they were feeling right now. Except, yeah, okay, maybe she kinda just had, except that wasn’t what she’d meant either. They’d work it out, though.

“I don't know," Jessica admitted, dropping down on the sofa which Chewie didn’t like too much, judging from the growl he gave. Or maybe he did like it, and growling was just how he showed it, who the fuck knew with that thing? He wasn’t easy to read, like Eany, who was rumbling softly in the crook of her arm, and generally giving every indication of a slug that was okay with his life right now.

Angel glanced down, just to check that, then back up to Spider-Woman again after. “I’m not sure I know what 'okay' feels like," [the dark-haired woman] admitted, frowning nearly as much as the cat was, but less with angry, and more with something that the winged girl was gonna put down as ‘lost’, “but I don't think this is it, even by my standards.”

“Yeah,” Angel replied, nodding again, “Guess that was kinda a dumbass question, really.” And she was kinda standing here in the middle of the room like a dumbass, too, which was something she could do something about, even if asking stupid-ass questions apparently wasn’t right now. That in mind, she half-stepped, half-sidled over to one of the other chairs in the room, and got to perching her butt on the arm, so she still had room to let her wings move behind her.

“Ain’t no one’s gonna expect you to be on the same page as okay after this,” she said, once she had her ass settled, and shrugged again. “Or even the same-” shit, what was the next size up from that? Well, here went whatever, “-book as it,” she finished, after only kind of a pause. It’d do. Or at least it’d be the closest she’d probably come to that right now, the way things were going.

It was a hell of a lot easier with the Dance. Hug Molly. Hug Veil. Slap G, or just wait her out till she remembered to calm herself the fuck down, either one. Spider-Woman, though… what the fuck had she been thinking, thinking she could do any good checking here?

Except, yeah. Everyone needed people. Even Avengers.
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There was...Chewie?

Who was still glaring at her and growling at her every time she got within ten feet of him, but that was...comforting in a weird way the probably would make people put her into therapy if she admitted it. It was Carol-like, though, and she couldn't talk to the real Carol and have her glare at her and tell her to pull her shit together so Chewie was close. Sort of.

Alright, no. Not saying that.

“Cats aren’t the same as People,” the winged girl pointed out which was something she should never, ever say in front of Greer but Angel looked like she might've figured that out already. Anyway, she shrugged and motioned toward Chewie, “Well, that one sure as hell ain’t,” she amended and Jess turned enough to consider the evil, evil cat. Alright, that was fair. “Anyway, I meant are you-“ And Angel was looking at her now, “okay.” Oh.

Oh.

Was she okay? Did other people have to actually stop to answer questions like that? Jess wasn't sure, but she had to and she did. It didn't help. Yes? No? Maybe? All of the above? Could she pick that as an answer?

Maybe she could, since Angel was nodding and giving her a quiet, “‘Kay.” Well...okay.

Because she didn't know. And while she was busy not knowing how she felt - other than confused and angry and...confused - she was going to sit down on the sofa. And be all of that there. Whether Chewie liked it or not (hint: He didn't like it at all). Did she even know what okay felt like? The kind of okay that most people meant when they said that? Did it matter? Right now, even by her own standard, Jess didn't think this was it. This wasn't okay. This was her, not being okay.

Well, there was that figured out.

“Yeah,” Angel replied, nodding again, “Guess that was kinda a dumbass question, really.” She was frowning again - there was definite frowning, she could feel it - as Jess looked over at the winged girl.

"No," she contradicted with a frown and a shake of her head, "No, it wasn't." Why would she think that? Everybody asked that question. It was a thing you asked people. It wasn't Angel's fault she, Jess, couldn't figure the state of her own okay-ness.

“Ain’t no one’s gonna expect you to be on the same page as okay after this,” the winged girl added, with a shrug, as she perched on the arm of the chair. “Or even the same-” shit, what was the next size up from that? Well, here went whatever, “-book as it,” she added and, well, okay. That was good. That sounded good, anyway.

She thought it was good so Jess nodded, still frowning a little as she thought that over. Was there a book of being okay? If there was, why in hell hadn't somebody pointed it out to her before now? "Yeah, I know." And she did. She really did know. Or she as least knew she was supposed to know and that was practically the same thing. "I really actually do know," she insisted, more out of habit than probably because Angel was actually arguing with her. "I'll find my version of okay again." She would, because what other choice was there and because Peter...he'd want her to. She knew that, too. It didn't help her feel okay, but she did know it. "I-" she started, looking over at the teenager and losing her words. Having to start again, "He - Peter, he- it shouldn't have been him," Jess finally got out, shaking her head again and green eyes going down to her hands, pale against the red of her stealth suit.

She should probably change soon.

"He was the most real person I've ever known," Jess added, lifting her head again and turning back to Angel. Maybe that wouldn't make any sense. Maybe it would. It was still true, either way. And the parts of her that were real, and were even a person at all, he'd been one of the people who'd had a hand in helping her find that.
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Shit, yeah, she’d done that. Asked someone who’d just found one of their friends not just dead but torn apart if they were okay. It was something you could say, sure. Until you stopped and thought about it and wondered what the fuck anyone’d expect as a response to a question like that ‘cept ‘hell to the no’. Then it started seeming like a dumbass question, didn’t it? No fucking question.

Angel said as much, but that drew her out a frown from Spider-Woman that the question itself hadn’t. The dark-haired woman looked up, and over at her, instead of down at her hands, or wherever the hell it was she’d been looking, and frowned right at her.

“No,” she contradicted with a frown and a shake of her head, "No, it wasn’t.”

She was looking like it was supposed to be some kind of no-brainer, or something, so while Angel’s eyebrow might have shaded up a hair or two, the winged girl shrugged and inclined her head in something that might as well have been a nod. Not gonna start an argument with an Avenger. Especially when it was JD, and especially when it was now. She didn’t think it was a dumbass question, then maybe it didn’t have to be.

Anyway, whether it had been or not wasn’t even the point, was it? The point now, or at least the one Angel saw here, was letting Spider-Woman know that no one was trying to tell her that the world thought she should be okay, or anything. No one was gonna be expecting that from her after this. Not even on the same page as it, or the same… book, or whatever the fuck as it.

The frown the dark-haired Avenger was wearing didn’t go away after that, but watching from her perch on the arm of the chair, Angel thought it might have changed. More like one that meant thinking than one that meant arguing, especially when JD nodded, too. “Yeah, I know,” she said, only not in a voice that sounded like that was anyone anyone who was paying attention could call it speaking truth. Figuring she probably did even so, Angel nodded, but the Avenger seemed to have caught up with herself anyway. “I really actually do know," she insisted, more like convincing this time, “I’ll find my version of okay again.”

Angel nodded, wondering as she did whether Spider-Woman had any idea that ‘personal version of approximating okay’ was pretty much all anyone ever got to. Something about the way the dark-haired Avenger had said it sounded like she didn’t, and for all she really knew, there might be some big badass Avenger reason for that to be actually true, so the winged girl wasn’t about to say anything about it. Either way, she didn’t have any fucking reason to doubt that it was true, because that was how it worked. People found a version of okay, in the end. Or they broke down all the way to the end, and that… that just didn’t seem like a fucking option for fucking Spider-Woman.

Even if she had just flipped over, just like that, to looking not much older than Veil, and lost as shit in the bargin. [i[“I-“ she started,[/i] looking over at Angel like she suspected Eany of eating the words out of her throat before she’d had time to say them, “He - Peter, he- it shouldn't have been him,” she said. That was what she said.

“Hell no,” Angel agreed immediately, looking back at her. Plenty of people on her own list of who it should have been in a place like that, getting done like that. Guards. Fucking SHIELD agents. The people giving the orders to both of them, though yeah, she’d picked up enough in the last few days to know that saying that out loud wasn’t going to be the right thing to do around JD. Didn’t matter, anyway. Point was, it shouldn’t have been Peter. It shouldn’t have been anyone who’d been minding their own fucking business. Or… yeah, okay, not that. Shouldn’t have been anyone who’d been trying to make the fucking load of shit that the world was into something that was less of a pile of shit.

Fuck, and would you fucking listen to her? Angel fucking Salvadore, talking like the world should have had some kind of fairness shit built into it. She’d been spending way too much fucking time around Avengers and people these last few days, obviously.

“He was the most real person I've ever known," Jess added, lifting her head again and turning back to Angel.

It sounded like something that meant something to the dark-haired woman. It really did. Except that was only in the way she said it, and not in the words themselves, which Angel heard, but couldn’t find the clue for, that would have let her translate that out of Avenger and into something a dumbass like her could understand.

“Heh,” she replied, twisting her lips into a smile that didn’t have any real humor to it at all. It wasn’t funny. Except in a sitting on the outside looking on in way. “Well, yeah,” the winged girl added, glancing down at Eany for a second and shrugging again, “I’ve seen the other people you hang around with.” Millionaire white girls who’d been bred to that shit, inventors who won Nobel prizes and who the hell knew what with their brains, spies and astronauts and terrorists. Hell, the mission today? JD had been on that with a Carny, a fucking demon sorceress, and whatever the fuck Gambit thought he was.

And a mutie girl who was treating part of someone else’s digestive like a fucking dog-in-a-bag, and yeah, she did know how fucking weird that was, too. Didn’t need to say it, though, Angel figured. If JD hadn’t realized yet that any of that was weird, there probably wasn’t any hope for telling her. “You didn’t exactly pick the right profession if you wanted to meet real people,” she did say instead, though, cocking her head to one side and regarding the older woman with a frank expression. “You know that.” She ought to, anyway.

None of which, now she’d said it, had anything to do with whether Peter was a real person or not. Just because no one else around this place was, didn’t mean he hadn’t been, so flipping her head over to the other side, Angel nodded. Little late maybe, but what the fuck. “He was one of them, though. For sure.” A real person. Who the fuck knew how he’d ended up in this fucking place. Well, maybe JD did, but… anyway. “It’d taken more than one of those suits to hide that.” Yeah, he’d been one of them, real and all that shit. Even a day and a half had been enough for her to see that.
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Was she making sense? Jessica wasn't sure she was making any sense at all, but Angel was nodding anyway. And Chewie was still growling, because he was offended by her existence on the planet and wasn't sure she was even making sense to her. But she thought she was. Maybe.

Even with the stuttering and the starting and stopping and hesitating before she finally got the words out. Not all the words, but some of the ones she wanted. Peter. It shouldn't have been Peter. It should have never been Peter.

“Hell no,” Angel agreed immediately and that was good. That meant it came out right. Mostly right. That piece of it, anyway. The piece that was that Peter should still be here. That they'd fought all this time, come all this way, done all of this and...he should be here. Right now.

No one had to tell her that wasn't how it worked. She knew that, too. She did. She knew that. Saying it wasn't fair would be stupid. This was life, life wasn't fair. Life was...a lot of things, including hard and confusing and sometimes even good, but it was never fair. But Peter. Peter Parker he'd...

He'd had 'unfair' all his life. He had, and he'd never let it take him over. He'd never let it stop him. Right now. If he was here, right now, he'd be telling her to do exactly that. Telling her to push through. Being optimistic. Telling jokes that she didn't understand. Jess knew it and could practically hear it and that didn't make it easier, it made it harder. Because she couldn't right now and she knew she was letting him down and he wasn't even here to poke at her relentlessly for it.

Real. Peter had been real. The most real person she'd ever known.

That...maybe that really didn't make any sense. Jess looked back over to where Angel (and her new digestive slug friend) were sitting. Was that a 'you're not making sense' look? It probably was, so maybe she should-

“Heh,” she replied, smiling but not really. “Well, yeah,” the winged girl added, glancing down at Eany for a second and shrugging again, “I’ve seen the other people you hang around with.” ...okay, yeah, that was fair.

"Now you sound like Peter," Jess told her, and that was okay. That was good, actually. It sounded like something he'd say and she didn't want to smile. There was nothing inside her that felt like smiling, but her mouth twitched up at the corners anyway. And...yeah, that was okay, too.

“You didn’t exactly pick the right profession if you wanted to meet real people,” Angel said next, head cocked to one side and looking...through her. Nobody her age should be able to do that, but Angel did and it was one of the things Jess actually knew. Where a look like that came from and how you usually got it. “You know that.”

A light frown formed between her brows. Pondering. Yes, she was pondering that. "I didn't actually pick it, it...picked me?" Spider-Woman proposed. It was close, anyway. A lab accident had picked her. Hydra had picked her and then Nick Fury had picked her. She'd picked other things, but it always came back to the costumes and the powers and -

"Yeah," she tacked on, cutting her own thoughts off and still ignoring Chewie and his growling and that irritated swipe he was taking at her shoulder now. Because she was ignoring him. "Yeah, I know that. It is what I picked." And it hadn't been a bad choice. She'd never thought it was a bad choice, even when everything had gone to hell. "It's the place I fit."

Maybe the only place, but it was a good place, whether it was fair or hard or...this. What it had been today. what it still was.

Then Angel nodded, but she wasn't sure to what. “He was one of them, though. For sure.” They were back to Peter now? That's who she meant, wasn't it? Whether it was that he was a real person or one of this group of people, it didn't matter. He was both. He'd known how to be both and still be him. Peter Parker. And he'd known who that was, too. “It’d taken more than one of those suits to hide that.”

Jess nodded. That was true. That was absolutely true. Raked her fingers back through her hair again. "He always was," she agreed, leaning her shoulder against the back of the sofa (still ignoring Carol's evil cat, yes). "He was...Peter. He-he made his own costume. When he was fifteen. His own web-shooters. He was...a sophomore in high school. When he started being Spider-Man." When that radioactive spider bit him. Instead of cancer or radioactive spider poisoning, he got super powers. He was a kid. Just a kid. A normal high school kid, with a normal family and...then he was Spider-Man.

"He did that. All by himself," Jess continued, green eyes tracking back to Angel, brows drawing downward again. This just... "He was alone, and people were afraid of him or they thought he was a menace and he just...did it. Anyway. He did it all anyway and he was already doing it when the rest of us showed up. He told me I could do this, when I didn't think I could. And-I don't know how to lose him. I don't know how to lose Peter. Not like this."

She'd lost people. A lot of people. But...she didn't know how to do this, not with Peter. She could...she had...figured it out with Carol. It had been hard and it had been awful, but she'd figured out how to lose Carol. And even Steve, but Peter...

She tried to think, to figure it out and it didn't work. It didn't work at all.
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Shit, now she sounded like Peter?

Nah, Angel decided, putting that down to JD being stuck in the midst of full on ass-broke mindfuck that came with wistful thinking. No way did she sound like a sweet-ass suburban white boy, let alone one that had also been an Avenger, or whatever the term he wanted was. But if it got a twitch of something that was like a smile out of Spider-Woman right now, which it was kinda looking like it had, she wasn’t going to argue, just move on with the point.

That was the one that felt like it needed saying, which was basically that it was no kinda surprise at all that JD didn’t know anyone more real than Peter Parker, Spider-Man, given the profession she’d picked. Kinda a no-brainer, as far as Angel Salvadore could see, because she had seen the other people around here.

The smile that wasn’t actually anything like a real smile faded away into a frown, but (kinda suprisingly, actually) the dark-haired Avenger looked more thoughtful than bothered. ”I didn't actually pick it, it...picked me?” she suggested, not very convincingly to Angel’s reckoning.

Not that she had any call arguing with that either, since she was just a dumbass piece of trailer trash mutie and all, none of which put her in a place to argue with a fucking Avenger, but if anyone wanted to ask her about it (which they shouldn’t, and wouldn’t), that couldn’t be how it worked. People who did this, and kept on doing this, and didn’t just run for the nearest lawless Island the first chance they could, like G had said those friends of the Snakes or whoever had yesterday. So Angel left it at a half-raised eyebrow (because she couldn’t quite get on top of her face quickly enough to stop that), and let JD have her own thoughts.

“Yeah,” she tacked on, after a little while’s silence, punctuated by half-hearted atttempts by that Cat-thing to swat down her shoulder. “Yeah, I know that. It is what I picked.” Angel nodded. Yeah, that was kinda what she’d thought. These people didn’t just happen into this shit randomly. “It’s the place I fit.”

Looking up again from a quick glance down at Eany, Angel surveyed the shiny-haired, super model super-powered Amazon person on the couch for a second. Then she nodded again. It was probably true. Where else would all these too good to be fucking true people fit, if there wasn’t a profession made for heroic people who could pull off skintight spandex?

Peter, though. Yeah. He might have had the second of those criteria locked down, whether he’d acted like it or not, but he was still one of them. Them being real people, which maybe wasn’t as clear she’d meant it to be, given the way Spider-Woman was looking at her after she’d said it, but whatever. He’d been one of them, one of the normal people that people like JD apparently didn’t know, whether he’d been able to pull off one of those fucking suits or not. And it would have taken more than one of those to hide it, too.

Spider-Woman seemed to get more comfortable about it all after that. “He always was," she agreed, leaning her shoulder against the back of the sofa whether the cat liked it or not. “He was...Peter. He-he made his own costume. When he was fifteen. His own web-shooters. He was...a sophomore in high school. When he started being Spider-Man.”

Smiling a little, not with much humor, but with some ‘what the hell else can you do’, Angel settled in a bit more herself, adjusting Eany, and reflected on that. Yeah, okay. Maybe he hadn’t been so much one of the real people either, then, huh? She’d… actually, she’d barely got into sophomore year when her back had erupted into a giant pussy mess, and she’d vomited herself into a coccoon, so no way to really cast stones about weirdoes here, huh? Yeah, moving on.

“He did that. All by himself," Jess continued, looking back her way, back into that troubled-ass infinity stare again, and no way to do anything about it. “He was alone, and people were afraid of him or they thought he was a menace and he just...did it. Anyway. He did it all anyway and he was already doing it when the rest of us showed up. He told me I could do this, when I didn't think I could. And-I don't know how to lose him. I don't know how to lose Peter. Not like this.”

There was even more of a ragged edge to her by the end of it. Even more than there had been at the start, or all the way through all of this. More like back in DC, right after she’d found him - his body, that was - when it had been scrabbling and shitty and all way too up close and soon to do anything about it.

“Take a breath,” Angel said now though, watching the older, taller woman closely. Keeping calm herself, because it didn’t seem like anything else was going to be any damn use to JD right now. “That’s how you’re gonna do it, because it’s what’s gotta be,” she continued, making her words steady, like they ought to be. Like there wasn’t any other goddamn option to take in the world, except to go along. “Take one breath, then another.” Wasn’t much in the way of advice, and she fucking knew it, but what the fuck else was there to say right now? Not that it was gonna be better. Not that JD did know, because how the hell would anyone? None of that seemed like it was going to help anyone any, let alone JD the way she was looking now.

“It ain’t something you have to have figured out all at once from right now, you know?” Angel added, after that, cocking her eyebrow a little as she looked over at the Avenger. Felt like that was just a reminder of things JD would already know, but hell, who knew. Sometimes everyone needed one of those, right? “You don’t gotta know how it’s gonna work,” the winged girl said. “You just have to keep taking those breaths.”

She might not know shit. But she thought she kinda knew that, at least.
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Where she fit. Yeah. This was that. The place she knew how to be, at least more times than she didn't, and that was more than she'd been able to say for a long time. About any place.

Angel was giving her a look, though. A look that said she was maybe measuring and weighing that and trying to decide if it worked. A look that was too old for her. One that said she'd had to figure that out too damned much in her life, and Jess didn't think it was all from being in a Camp. Wait, was she trying to get the slug's opinion, too? Did the slug get to have an opinion here?

Maybe it did, since it was Japh's personal (very, very personal) slug thing and...well, however that worked and, if Chewie got to have opinions (and he really, really had opinions), the dark haired woman guessed that was only fair. Anyway, they were talking about Peter, and not the evil cat swiping at her shoulder or the slug Angel was carrying like a toothy, toothy purse.

Peter, who'd always been a real person. Even though he'd started this at fifteen. Made his own costumes. His own web-shooters (he'd never tease her about those again, would he? Not ever again). He'd been a kid, a real kid. A sophomore in high school. And he'd been Spider-Man. And he'd done all that and there was a smile thing that wasn't really a smile on Angel's face that made Jess think maybe she was rambling now. Rambling and not making sense, but she couldn't seem to switch to another mode.

Because it was Peter and he'd done that. By himself. Alone, when he was practically the only one and people were afraid of him, or scared of him, or hated him. He did it anyway, before the rest of them got there. He'd been the one who'd convinced her she could do this. Be this person. Be a person, even though she'd tried that and it hadn't worked out very well. He'd made her believe that she could do it anyway and-and-

She didn't...know how to lose Peter. Not like this. Not this way. Not when he should've been here, when he should've walked away from this, cracking those stupid jokes he'd been making for years that she only half understood. When he'd put so much of himself into all of it.
And...it wasn't right. She should-she should've been there. She should've...done...

Something. Something that would've made Peter be here and alive and-and not someone else they'd lost.

And now she was rambling and sounding like a crazy person who was about to crack and Chewie was still trying to smack her on the shoulder and...arrrgggh.

Reaching up, Jess raked her fingers back through her hair, pushing the dark strands back from her face again.

“Take a breath,” Angel said now though, watching her and...being calm, like most people didn't know how to be calm. Especially when she went all this on them and god. Uggh. Pull yourself together, Jess. “That’s how you’re gonna do it, because it’s what’s gotta be,” she continued, and, okay, she could do that. Yes. “Take one breath, then another.”

Jess nodded and, yeah, did that. Concentrated on pulling the air in and pushing it out again. That was something she knew how to do. Just keep breathing. Even when you don't want to. Even when you think you shouldn't. What had her father called her, the only time she really remembered speaking to him? A curiosity. A scientific curiosity, and aberration, one that shouldn't exist.

But here she was, and Peter was gone and that still didn't seem right. It didn't seem right at all.

And she could almost hear Peter telling her that's how it worked, suck it up and get over it.

“It ain’t something you have to have figured out all at once from right now, you know?” Angel added, after that, cocking her eyebrow a little as she looked over at the Avenger. Jess nodded again, because it seemed like what she should do until she came up with something to say. “You don’t gotta know how it’s gonna work,” the winged girl said. “You just have to keep taking those breaths.”

There was that smile thing again. That almost smile thing that she sent Angel's way. "You really do sound like him," Jess told her again, waiting for Angel to give her one of those looks again. She was used to looks. Looks were something she got a lot. "He'd think that was great. And hilarious. And then he'd throw out some stupid, confusing quip and hang off the ceiling. I'm gonna miss that." There was a pause and a rethink and then she added, looking over at the teenager, "I miss him already, but that's okay, I guess. That's what's supposed to happen, isn't it?"

That part, Jess thought she got right at least. She got that just like other people. The missing.

And, in about two seconds, she was grabbing that evil, evil cat behind her. And she was hugging him and, yes, he was going to try to kill her, but she was doing it anyway.
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Alright. Alright, the wasn’t a flood of words pouring on out of JD’s mouth no more. There was breathing, like she’d said, and there was nodding too, like she’d kinda hoped, if only to get some sense that maybe she wasn’t just talking out her ass about nothing useful to Spider-Woman.

The dark-haired Avenger had even given up that nervy running through her shiny straight hair for a good ten seconds. Since she’d started talking. Angel decided that might be a good sign too, but she wasn’t quite as sure about the smile that followed once she’d finished what she had to say, about not knowing how it worked before it was happening.

It wasn’t like it was a real smile, or anything. But it was definitely on that kind of flavor, and JD had just been looking at her solemn and thoughtful and shit, and just before that she’d been all nerves and jangle and spilled over words, and before that… well. Not like there was a book of emotions you were supposed to have at this time, or any rule that said you had to stick to one, because life (and dealing) wasn’t like that, but in Angel’s experience (which didn’t include a lot of Avengers, admittedly), anyone who started skipping that quickly through the cycles could usually stand to be watched a little closer.

“You really do sound like him,” the older, taller woman said though, which hadn’t been at all what the winged girl had been expecting. She half-started, before getting a hold on herself, eyes widening then narrowing again while she tried to figure out if that was game, or just some kind of crazy.

Or just a thing to say? Could be that, could even be genuine, because it wasn’t like she’d said anything that took any kind of super power of special thinking to figure out. Telling someone to breathe and do it again could have been a Spider-Man trademark, for all she knew. Could be nothing.

“He’d think that was great. And hilarious. And then he'd throw out some stupid, confusing quip and hang off the ceiling. I'm gonna miss that.”

Relaxing unconsciously, now that the flow of JD’s words was trending away from her, safely into just Peter Parker, Angel shrugged, one side of her mouth twitching upward. “Well, I guess I could try to flutter up there, or something,” she offered, except not really. Maybe trying to guess at the kind of awkward white boy thing the guy might have said under the circumstances, since it kinda seemed like that was something Spider-Woman’d appreciate right now. “But that hovering shit is way harder than you’d think,” she declared off-hand. But it was true too - especially if you were trying to do it up by the ceiling that’d get your fool head cracked if you messed it up.

“I miss him already, but that's okay, I guess. That's what's supposed to happen, isn't it?” JD asked then, looking back over her with something in her gaze like she’d been trying to puzzle that out, and now wanted confirmation.

Angel tamped down an initial urge to shake that off, and wonder why the hell anyone, let alone an Avenger, was asking her opinion on that like they thought she might know. Being like that, it wasn’t going to help. Especially it wasn’t going to help JD, so instead Angel just nodded, like there was nothing weird about her opinion being asked about here, and said, “Yeah. Only people you don’t miss are the ones that don’t matter.”

And when that started, well, that wasn’t on any kind of schedule either. At least not one that she knew about, and since it probably wouldn’t help any to point out that she wasn’t no kind of expert here…

…okay, wait. The hell was Spider-Woman trying to do now? She’d picked up the Warbird Devil Beast, and she was… squeezing it?

Blinking a little, Angel stared at the scene in front of her, and kind of leaned in a little, even though she wasn’t really in any position to do anything about it. “Uh, yeah… okay,” she said tentatively, “You’d tell me if you were trying to commit suicide by cat now, right?”
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She sounded like Peter. Like Peter would've sounded, if he were here.

Angel didn't look...well, Jess wasn't completely sure what she didn't look, but part of what she did look, it at least, was uncomfortable. Part of it might be deciding if that meant she, Jess, had gone completely over the edge.

But she shouldn't be. Uncomfortable. Not with that. The part about Peter, not the part about her going over the edge since Spider-Woman wasn't completely certain she actually hadn't. Or wouldn't. Sometimes it felt like that might be easier.

The rest, though, Peter would've liked that. He'd have thought it was hilarious and he'd have made stupid jokes and quips she didn't understand while he was hanging off the ceiling by those webs he never shared. And she really, really wished he was here to do that. He should have gotten be here to do that.

And she wished that Carol's stupid, evil, team shredding cat would stop trying to ninja ambush her from behind. She could see him, he had to know that. Really. She could absolutely see Chewie doing that.

“Well, I guess I could try to flutter up there, or something,” Angel offered, seeming to have relaxed and maybe decided she wasn't in the presence of a completely crazy person as she shrugged that off like she tried to do with so many things, and with what looked like it wanted to be a smile. “But that hovering shit is way harder than you’d think,” the winged girl offered.

"It's okay. I don't think I really need you to bump around up on the ceiling," Jess answered with a considering frown, in case that wasn't obvious. It wouldn't have been obvious to her, but then other people weren't her (and that was probably for the best for the world). And...she missed him. Peter. She missed Peter already, but Jess guessed that was okay. That that was what was supposed to happen. Wasn't it?

Angel would know and so the dark haired woman looked her way.

There was a nod and she guessed that meant yes. That it was like that for other people, too, this time. Even for the people who really knew how to be people. “Yeah. Only people you don’t miss are the ones that don’t matter.”

Right now, she missed Carol, so she guessed Carol still mattered. It would've been easier if she hadn't. Annnnd not putting that in her head where she had to acknowledge it. No.

But Peter...

Jessica Drew took her own turn nodding at that. Thoughtfully and forcing her mind to slow down a little so it didn't just run the thoughts she was trying to have over under the spinning wheels.

"Peter mattered. He'll always matter." She'd always miss him. Not just to her. He mattered, and would matter, to almost everyone here. No one would forget him. There'd always be this Peter-shaped hole where he should've been. Even she didn't need someone else to tell her that.

And, okay. That. Was. It. It was on.

That evil cat. Carol's evil cat. She was hugging it. She couldn't hug Carol (nothinkingaboutthatnoooo), so Chewie was getting hugged by proxy. He was going to try to kill her, but she'd survived Rogue nearly sucking out her soul (and then trying to shrapnel them to death with exploding sink), she could survive this and she was hugging it.

So she did, before she could maybe fix whatever part of her brain had gone haywire and was thinking that was a good idea. And she was fast. She had...spider reflexes. Yes. Spiders were faster than evil cats, right?

This time, at least, they were as Jessica twisted around, snagged Carol's furry (evil, evil) cat around it's pudgy, unhappy middle, and hugged it to her chest. Yes. Yes she did. Paws pointing out (since she didn't have an actual death wish and liked her eyes and her face and other general parts that probably wouldn't be improved with slash marks) and ignoring that very surprised yet ominous, "Mwrrroooow!" of protest from Chewie.

Also the frantic cat flailing.

"Ha!" she announced triumphantly, squishing Chewie a little more (but just a little, because they'd gone to a lot of trouble to rescue him against his will and squishing him like a cat burrito someone stepped on would make all the bandaging and iodine and antibiotic ointment pointless). Spider reflexes! She was hugging the damned cat, even if neither of them liked it.

“Uh, yeah… okay,” [Angel] said tentatively, and Jess was pretty sure the winged girl was staring. Staring and blinking at the possibly crazy person hugging an evil cat. An evil cat that was a lot stronger, and a lot more squirmy and slippery than you'd have ever guessed for something that ate and slept and then ate some more ninety-five percent of the time. “You’d tell me if you were trying to commit suicide by cat now, right?”

"Chewie...needed a hug. It's fine," Jessica Drew insisted as she looked back at Angel over the head of a very angry cat that was yowling and trying to reach his paws behind his body to rake her face off so he could prove her wrong. "Oooof!" Spider-Woman added, managing a maneuver even she didn't know she could do to avoid a twisting, hissing, growling attempt to possibly disembowel her, through her face. "Really."

She'd had a horrible day. Chewie could suck it up for two minutes.

"Ow. Okay, ow, stop, ow!" Somehow, the normally sluggish furball of evil demonic cat managed to reach up and gain some kind of unholy purchase on her scalp. Or in her scalp. That was definitely in her scalp.

"Ow," Jess announced again, making a two handed grab for the furry, scalp-hanging menace that was suddenly slipperier than a greased trout. "Evil cat in my hair. Evil cat in my hair!"

Then Chewie used her scalp as a launching pad, shot out of her hands when she attempted to get a purchase on him to stop the escape and basically...aimed himself straight at Angel. That...hadn't worked out quite like she pictured.

Oh god, would Eany eat Carol's cat? Did she care if Eany ate Carol's evil, hug-phobic, scalp rending cat?
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“It’s okay. I don't think I really need you to bump around up on the ceiling," Jess answered with a considering frown, after she, Angel, had offered to do her best try at some kind of hovery, fluttery thing if the shiny-haired woman wanted some kind of more full service Peter stand-in to get through this.

Apparently that was a no, which was good, actually, because she’d got any version of that urge she might have ever had all out of her system trying to get out of that computer fan earlier today.

Shit. That really had only been today, hadn’t it? Weird. Seriously weird.

Not gonna go and say that out loud though, because JD already had a look like her thoughts were moving on, but maybe without giving her all the pieces of the map to where they were actually headed, and then she came out with saying that she missed him. Already. And guessing that it was okay, but she was kinda asking if it was, really, wasn’t she?

Angel didn’t think she knew a hell of a lot about just about anything, and she sure as shit didn’t think she knew much about what to tell Avengers, or spies, or anyone going through losing their friend, or little brother-person, in a way that was seriously fucked up. Except, well, yeah, that last one, maybe she did know something about. Because that wasn’t really an Avenger thing. In her experience, that was a person thing, and dumbass or not, she was one of those.

Yeah, missing him was what was supposed to happen. It didn’t have a standard schedule or nothing, she didn’t think, but it was supposed to happen, because the only way you were going to miss people was if they didn’t matter.

Right? It seemed pretty simple, from where she was standing. Or sitting. Or somewhere halfway, on this chair arm, and as she watched, there might have been the start of - yeah, there it was. There was a nod from Spider-Woman, like she’d checked it out real careful and it had scanned.

“Peter mattered. He'll always matter.”

Right. That. Except Angel didn’t have time to do much more than nod to that before there was some kinda crazy-ass flash of movement from the woman on the sofa, and when it resolved she had that crazy-ass Devil Cat around the middle and was apparently trying to squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste or something, while it made more of those crazy indignant cat noises it had been making in that apartment. The shit? The hell, she wasn’t just squeezing it, she was ha-ing all victorious and shit while doing it.

Fucksticks. JD kinda got on her own weird-ass modes of feeling, or thinking or whatever sometimes, she already knew that about the woman’s shiny-haired Avenger-assed self, but… this was… shit. Like, kinda something that made you feel like you needed to lean in a little, and kinda, maybe, step carefully around some shit, or something. Because what this looked like - or what it looked like most - was that Spider-Woman had suddenly taken it into committing suicide by cat, right, and… yeah, she might just go ahead and check on that, just inc ase she was missing something, or whatever. Yeah.

“Chewie…needed a hug. It's fine,” [JD] insisted, but she could insist all the fuck she wanted, she was still getting a pair of eyebrows raised back at her. Yeah, and there was that big ol’ river running down through Egypt, or whatever.

Still not convinced of what she ought to be doing here (okay, yeah, and more than a little wigged out by the idea of trying to intervene with that cat, after what it had done to Wisdom when he’d tried like a big damn fool to do pretty much exactly the same thing when Jess had snabbed it the other day), Angel kinda just perched, holding Eany in place in case he got any ideas, and watched the weird sofa gymnastics unfold. There was an ”Oooof!” along with a particularly twisty dodge of the claws, or the teeth, or any part of the rapid cat flail, and then a not exactly convincing, “Really.”

Yeah, JD didn’t actually expect her to buy that shit, right?

“Ow. Okay, ow, stop, ow!”

Fuck, had that cat thing got up onto the top of her head now? Maybe, even with what had happened to Wisdom, a little intervention might not actually be the worst idea ever?

“Ow,” Jess announced again, making a two handed grab for the cat while continuing her best traditions of stating the damn obvious. “Evil cat in my hair!”

Angel frowned, still leaning forward, not that that’d help, but still wavering on the actual commitment to helping out, since she was guessing that trying to come to rescue spitting vomit would only either go about as bad as that sounded like it would, or make JD sad all over again. “Can’t you like, tell it to flick him off? Like that ginger chick with the big dog does?” she asked. JD might have less hair than that one, but she had that class of hair, right?

Or nope, because she tried again to grab that cat thing with her hands - admittedly maybe sticky spider hands, but clearly not sticky enough this particular time, because he jumped and arrrgh-

“SHIT!” Angel yelled, as the cat went hurtling straight at her. Fly reflexes kinda kicked in a little and went to backflip her out of the way, but perching on a chair arm wasn’t exactly a body-approved take-off position, so instead she went more ass-over head without getting a lot of liftoff, losing hold of Eany as she did, then only barely managing to land in some kind of one knee kneeling thing that wobbled but just hardly kept her from tipping up on her side staright away.

“Ahh, fuck,” Angel swore to the floor, or maybe at the cat, who’d landed with special devil cat powers (or hell, maybe just straight up normal cat powers) neatly on the chair seat. Then “Fuck!” she repeated, louder and more urgently this time, as it dawned on her that now she’d let a probably freaked out, or maybe just angry-ass slug loose, and didn’t actually have the first fucking clue where he might have gotten to, because he was sneaky and slithery, like that.

“Okay, whatever you’re thinking in those teeth of yours, Eany, hold up, yeah?” Angel announced to the room, choosing to ignore the probably smug-ass look she’d be getting from the cat right now, and instead throwing JD a glance to check on whether she’d avoided full on getting scalped or wahtever in the process, while also trying to kinda look around the back of the chair. Awkward, but you could almost pull it off, if you tried. “The hell did you get to?”
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