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Post by Slim on Mar 30, 2021 4:28:52 GMT -7
Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not use your powers for personal gain. Thou shalt not blow your secret identity by having pizza with someone who had spoken to your superhero alter-ego like twenty minutes ago. Being a superhero meant following a pretty straightforward set of rules, and Ben Reilly was usually very good about that whole part of the job. Sure, he'd been in a committed relationship with someone that treated that second commandment like a suggestion sometimes, but in general Ben could be counted on to make decent decisions when the chips were down. Or at least, that had been the case before waking up from a three-year coma and having his world shattered.
All this to say, there in that pizza place, the lightly damaged hero picked the path of human connection over the safe choice of just apologizing and shuffling himself out of the restaurant. He shoved down that dread in his gut like it was a bothersome younger brother and took his seat at her table. "Last thing? Nah, the real last thing I wanted to do was put anchovies on this," he replied, gesturing with his pizza as he tried his hand at a joke to cover for the discomfort of this whole situation. "If it saves you from dealing with Kappa Gamma Jackass, I'm glad to help."
There was a beat of silence, an opportune moment to take a first bite of his pizza..but as he started to lift it towards his mouth, his companion posed a casual question, one that fortunately didn't seem to carry any hint that she knew he'd been the guy in a skintight suit and hoodie from earlier. "Right now? No, but.. when I was, I went to ESU. Physics major." Was it a lie if he remembered the classes, had clear recollection of every late-night trying to study that got interrupted by some supervillain crime spree? It had been Peter that actually was there in the lecture halls, but his clone retained those experiences pretty vividly.
"Thinking about going back at some point, but.." He trailed off, and switched gears. Focusing on himself was only going to increase the chances that he said something too revealing. "..What about you? I mean when you're not kicking chairs around." He grinned, and his mind suggested a follow-up that his mouth opted not to pursue. Or kicking supervillains in the head.
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Post by Super Chick on Apr 13, 2021 12:42:52 GMT -7
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There was nothing suspicious about the guy who she had railroaded into being her dining companion, so Maya didn't watch him with any kind of judgment. Or, at least none that was intentional. It was kind of a trained habit to watch everyone to try to gain insight into their character and intent. As far as she could tell, Maya noticed some nervousness emanating from the man but nothing that wouldn't be expected in his situation. A woman just pushed a chair out in front of him to get his attention. Most likely the guy thought she was making a pass at him. Maybe she was.
He'd made a joke, Maya assumed because she couldn't quite catch inflections in his voice but she did see a facial reflex to his words. A small smile accompanied his nervous look at the frat boys and Maya found it mildly endearing. He seemed unassuming and that was something the woman could appreciate. She further appreciated what he'd studied in college when he had attended. Good looking and smart, she thought to herself. It was a winning combination if she were actually looking for a relationship. Right now, that had to be on the end of her long list of things to re-establish in the city.
She was about to inquire why he paused when telling her he was considering returning to school but he preempted that by asking her about herself. Maya was flattered a little that he might think her a college student but the flattery only reached her eyes in response. "Well, I'm kind of between jobs right now," she admitted. "I actually just returned to New York after having been away for a while. So if you have any leads for employment, I'm all ears." she smiled knowing that her words were a joke that would fall on proverbial deaf ears, since hers of course were the literal kind.
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Post by Slim on Apr 14, 2021 2:38:52 GMT -7
As they started to talk a bit, Ben felt a bit of his earlier embarassment at not realizing that she was deaf starting to dissipate. He'd felt so bad in that moment when she'd had to tell him to lift the mask! Maybe on some level Peter Parker and Ben Reilly were hardwired towards intense pangs of guilt, few people could cringe inwardly more intensely that either of the two. Ben wasn't entirely sure how Kaine had managed to avoid that part of the Parker DNA, but he was envious. But anyway, the more they spoke, the more he realized that it was practically impossible to tell! Which was probably the intention, he knew.
Not that it was important at all, it was just a thought that skimmed across his mind in that moment. He focused instead on what she was actually saying, learning that she wasn't currently gainfully employed and had been out of town until recently. She made a joke about being all ears and Ben let out a barely perceptible laugh without thinking about it, not connecting the dots that it was a joke he wouldn't have got without knowing she was deaf. Instead, he was racking his brain trying to think of if he actually did have any leads on a job.
Depending on how you feel about breaking into jewelry stores, I might know someone..
But, in lieu of actual contacts, all Ben could really offer was commiseration. "I wish I could help, but I'm in a boat just like yours." He stopped short of telling her he'd been in a coma for a couple years. Because he didn't remember if he'd made a quip about that during the Shocker showdown, and he wasn't sure if it was common knowledge that one of the Spider-Men had been in a coma for three years. Did a clone hero even make headlines? Maybe not front page, but..
"We could always compete for that," he grinned, nodding towards a sign in one of the windows.
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Post by Super Chick on Apr 19, 2021 13:22:55 GMT -7
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Maya wasn't surprised by the guy's comment that he was also between jobs - aka. unemployed. It seemed a lot of people could be found looking for work whether that was in New York or other places of the country. Maya wasn't one to guess the myriad of reasons why people like herself and her handsome companion were jobless. Thus, why she wouldn't inquire. She merely took it as a stage in life and left it at that.
He motioned toward a sign in the window of the restaurant. Apparently the owner was seeking delivery help. Maya crinkled her nose and chuckled. "I could just imagine how the generous benefactor of my ivy league college education would react to me taking such a job," she replied with a grin. Her eyes took on a thoughtful expression as she considered how Wilson Fisk would take that, aside from the insult it would obviously be. After only a split second of thought, Maya added with a light chuckle. "Heh, maybe I should."
She dared to start eating her pizza again in the seconds after her joke. Wilson would indeed be frustrated at her "wasting her talent," but the reason Maya wouldn't attempt to take the job had little to do with him. The truth was, despite her instincts and natural affinity to pick up new skills, no matter how mundane or difficult, Maya hesitated riding a bike or trying to drive in the city. There was far too much going on here and her disability could actually become a handicap in that situation.
After swallowing her bite, Maya continued the conversation. She wiped her hands on a napkin and set it in her lap. "I'm Maya, by the way." The frat boys left the restaurant after seeing no empty seats, one in particular seemed disappointed that Maya had a guy with her. After they passed, Maya added, "Thanks again for sitting down. You're my hero." She didn't mention that she'd noticed the glances of that guy in the crowd. It didn't really matter anymore.
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Post by Slim on May 6, 2021 6:21:31 GMT -7
”Ivy league,” Ben repeated, the words accompanied by a light laugh, the kind that occurred when someone was clearly impressed. And though the burden of heroism was that the guy couldn’t always be as genuine as he wanted to be, this wasn’t one of those moments. He was sitting across from someone that could take out a heavy-hitting supervillain in one move, who likely had a diploma somewhere that was just as striking as her kick. His curiosity piqued at the word ‘benefactor’, it was the kind of word a mystery novelist might use to set the stage. A lot of people in the hero-game had benefactors in one way or another. Hell, Ben’s own ex probably fit that role, these days..
She took a second to actually start making use of the pizza she’d ordered, and Ben took that opening to do the same. It was pretty solid, maybe not quite the medicine he probably needed after the beating he’d taken, but solid nonetheless. A balm to his state of mind, if not to his bruised bones. But Ben was the kind of person that didn’t get too pretentious about pizza, he’d eat two day old room-temperature pizza if that was what was available. Growing up with a light wallet and a tight budget, he’d had frozen pizza more often than not, and so pickiness had never really developed.
Ruminations on the nature of ‘za gave way quickly to focusing back on his dining companion, as she introduced herself. He hastily cleaned off his own hands, assuming that she’d used a napkin in anticipation of a greaseless handshake, and he offered one across the table. “Ben,” he said, committing her name to his recovered memory. He glanced to the side as the bros took their leave, which left a lingering smile on his face. There was a slight internal flinch of panic as she casually tossed out the word hero, setting off a light bout of Parker Paranoia™ that maybe she actually knew what his deal was afterall. “Y’know, it was a huuuge hardship, but you looked like you were in need. So I thought to myself.. what would Jesus do?” Ben only -sort of- kept a straight face while equating himself to some sort of messiah for taking a chair offered by an attractive woman.
”But, yeah. Anytime!”
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Post by Super Chick on Jun 1, 2021 17:25:31 GMT -7
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Ben. it was a nice name; a common name but one with the connotation of gentleness and quiet. Maya didn't really know why she thought that or had any associations with his name at all, but it was the thought she had nonetheless. Maybe it was a good omen to have a name such as that? Maya wondered what imagery her own name might bring to someone but dismissed the thought as easily as it slid across her consciousness and assessed his handshake. That, too, had been firm but gentle. Maya determined then that Ben was a good guy. Call it his name or his handshake or simply that unseen aura that people talked about but, whatever it was, Maya relaxed a little more.
She chuckled lightly when he cited the tagline "What would Jesus do?" as a defense for why he sat down. Maya knew that she had put him on the spot to make that decision in the blink of an eye. That he sat rather than getting mad at her for nearly tripping her separated him from the "bro club" early on. Their conversation simply furthered her premade assumptions. His citation, though, did cause her some curiosity.
"Ah, so you're one of those types," she replied in jest. She smirked just to ensure he got the message that she was just teasing. She watched Ben with interest, though secretly so she wouldn't miss any verbal cues, too. "Then again, maybe you're not. But, if I've learned anything, talking about religion or politics is poor form on a first date. So, let's talk about something else. How about... What do you aspire to do for a living? Or is being a pizza delivery guy at the top of your list?"
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Post by Slim on Aug 20, 2021 2:48:00 GMT -7
Not that Ben kept a running tally of every joke he’d ever told (or the ones Peter told and he remembered), but the Jesus one hadn’t been among his best, just the best he’d been able to improv in that moment while besieged by the nervousness of sitting across from someone who seemed entirely capable of figuring out his secret identity if he so much as blinked wrong. But..she laughed! Kind of. A chuckle was a kind of laugh, and given the circumstances, he’d take it!
But like his ex, Ben was playing with fire. Not just because his whole hero-thing was at risk of being discovered, but because he’d given her an opening with which to land a bit of a counter-blow on him. She teasingly accused him of giving his heart and soul over to the holy father, which was almost equal to J Jonah Jameson accusing him of robbing banks in its accuracy. Sure, he sometimes had to go to church, but usually that was to hit a bell really hard to try and deal with a symbiote problem! Before he could protest too much, Maya thankfully pivoted to something a little less precarious, but just as substantial.
”Starting with a softball, huh?” he laughed, her question a bit more like a cannonball given his current lot in life. He was quick to respond, though the first answer he gave was the sort that hopefully bought him a little time to come up with something better, more real. ”I aspire to be.. on-time on rent,” he grinned. It sounded pretty basic, but as Peter and now as Ben, life sure liked to get in the way of a stable income, leading to many a grumpy landlord. He looked up and to the right, trying to see a future that he was happy with. When something came to mind, he met Maya’s eyes again.
”Honestly? I think I’d like to work in a lab again. Find a project that aims to do a little good, help out in some way.” Satisfied with that answer, he took another bite of pizza, accelerating his chewing as he thought of a followup almost as soon as he’d taken the bite. ”Pizza delivery guy’s a close second. What about you?”
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Post by Super Chick on Aug 29, 2021 17:11:24 GMT -7
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Maya paid close attention to Ben while he, at first, deflected with humor to her question. She gave a noncommittal light chuckle to his reply but became aware that it was a tactic to buy time for the real answer by the way he paused and looked beyond her. She ignored the instinct to look toward where his eyes had drifted and bit into her pizza while he thought. She didn't mind the silence that lingered between them while he contemplated. Rather, she was pretty comfortable just chewing and watching his face.
There was a faraway look to those hazel eyes, something whimsical and introspective. It gave Maya eluded to an intelligent mind and, likely, a soul with depth. she continued to take in his features. Dark brows currently furrowed in thought emphasized those thoughtful eyes while the lines in his forehead appeared to carve a path to illumination. A thick, blond mane lay over his head like a wind-tossed crown with dark roots, implying he likely dyed his hair due to their stark contrast. She followed the hair down the side of his face to his firm but soft jawline. His chin was not pointy and his lips not particularly full, but the effect held balance to her mind. In fact, as she watched him, Maya decided that Ben was rather handsome; Not striking beauty such as one might think of for some exotic models. Rather, Ben was more of the boy-next-door kind of handsome. Casual but potentially breathtaking for someone who had the opportunity to know the whole person.
Maya swallowed her bite of pizza and exhaled having engraved her first impression of Ben-the-Pizza-Hero into her memory. She would not soon forget his face and, if he was decidedly not a moron throughout the rest of this meal, perhaps she would ask for his number. After all, Maya needed some new friends in this city, people who weren't masked heroes, villainous father figures, or Sorcerers Supreme. Those people had their place in her life (some of them entirely out of it) and she knew how to find them if she wanted. But, right now, normalcy was her goal in New York. However, if her walk to this pizza shop was any indication, normalcy was not something the city planned to gift her.
At last, Ben replied stating that he thought he might like to work in a lab again and help people. Maya gave him a sweet smile as she filed away the word "again," noting he must be some kind of budding scientist. She was going to ask him about it when he turned the tables on her and challenged her with the same question. Maya set what remained of her pizza on the small paper plate and wiped her hand and mouth before speaking.
"To be honest, not everything I have dreamed of doing is within my scope of possibility, but I'm sure most people would say that," she admitted. "Of course, wanting to do something for a career and wanting to do something because you love it can often be two separate things. In my case, I always thought I might enjoy going into law but that was never on the table of possibility - which was fine because my passion lay more in the arts. In particular, I suppose that I will probably look more toward theater or perhaps going back to the ballet for work." Maya gave a shy smile and added, "It's surprising to most people, probably because I am hard of hearing, but I really do love music and all of its applications."
There, she told him a little secret. If Ben saw her as less of a person due to her handicap or in any way pitied her, then she'd forget she met him rather quickly. Of course, Maya didn't admit the full scope of her handicap because most people didn't understand how she could dance or play the piano if she was completely deaf and the truth was that Maya had little patience explaining it to them until she was invested. So, right now, ben was either going to hang himself with his next words, or he would prove his good character and continue to pique her interest.
As a new friend. It was all she could commit to.
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Post by Slim on Oct 13, 2021 1:19:21 GMT -7
The secretly bad-ass woman sitting across from Ben actually laughed at one of his jokes, which was about as close to winning the lotto as Ben would ever get, in his mind. Sure, he was a superhero that’d saved the city on more than one occasion, but that didn’t make him immune to a deep yearning for validation sometimes, you know? Especially when he’d miraculously returned from a coma only to find himself the runner-up in the sweepstakes of love. Even Tom Hanks in Castaway had felt the sting of that! For someone that had built a whole superhero brand on quips, he sure second-guessed them a lot. Didn’t help that Octavius and Osborn rarely laughed at them.
The real reward wasn’t the chuckle, though. It was Maya’s answer to his question. She was pretty open with her reply, and Ben genuinely enjoyed getting to know more about her. He wondered what she meant with the part about some things being out of reach, though that felt a little personal to ask about, and there was plenty of info that followed. It was interesting hearing that she’d put some thought into taking her talents to the world of law, which was a pretty noble pairing with the whole hero-gig, as Matt Murdock and Jennifer Walters had proven. She continued and explained that ballet, theater and music were where her heart lay, and Ben nodded in rhythm with her explanation.
As part of it, she explained that she was hard of hearing. It was not his first time being made aware of it, though he kind of had to play it off like it was. Even so, Ben was smart enough not to make a big deal about it, other than sharing some empathy for her experiences. ”People are.. I don’t know. They suck, a lot of the time. They can’t imagine experiences that aren’t exactly like theirs.” He shook his head, but didn’t want to linger on something so negative, and so he moved on. ”Theater, music, dance.. Three things I couldn’t do to save my life, but I love going to shows.” Though he’d been late to half of them, Peter had been to a bunch of Mary Jane’s performances, and developed an affection for that kind of stuff that had been passed on to his clone.
”So, you were a ballet dancer? What was that like? And what stopped you?” it was a bit of a straightforward question, but when the alternative was making a Black Swan joke, straightforward and sincere was definitely the better option.
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Post by Super Chick on Nov 19, 2021 13:56:26 GMT -7
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Maya watched Ben's face as he seemed to empathize with her concerning the judgment of others. She wondered what he might have suffered at the hands of others and their expectations or judgments, but she didn't ask. Most people were defined by outsiders who never met them strictly by their attractiveness or how they dressed. Others were defined by disabilities, such as the need for a wheelchair or mental impairments. It seemed, truly, not even those who had nothing obviously defective according to the norms of society were judged unworthy by someone at some point in their lives. Most often this happened in school, which in and of itself was wrong that it was so easily accepted as a natural, expected event that happened to everyone. The world was a cruel place to be sure. Thus, Maya didn't ask w3hat Ben may have suffered at the hands of others' unmet expectations or judgments of him. Rather, she gave a small smile of approval that he turned out to be a sensitive human being and left it at that.
Her smile grew a little as he admitted that he didn't see himself as capable of performing. Her eyes left his face briefly to flick over the rest of him. She'd noted he seemed to have a minor injury when he walked in, but beyond that, he seemed to be a perfectly fine and fit individual. Her eyes came back to his face as he asked her more questions. Maya sighed and sat back, her pizza was eaten now all but the crust. She'd dip that in the melted garlic butter to finish it off - eventually.
"Life," she replied with some resignation. "Things just ... came up." She shrugged, her numerous adventures and one-time death a memory she would not share with a stranger no matter how charming he turned out to be. Maya sat up a little straighter and looked at Ben, continuing her answer. "But I'm back now, and things will be better." Her smile reached her eyes as they seemed to see into someplace magical and far away. "As for what it's like, it's freedom. Dancing makes me feel like all the cares of this life are unimportant; that whatever was weighing me down has simply disappeared and I become a bird in flight, soaring across the floor and feeling nothing but air. There is no restraint. She leveled her gaze at him, still smiling. "It's exhilarating."
Maya picked up her crust and dipped it in the butter. She held it there and asked, "You said that acting and ballet wasn't for you, but have you ever gone club dancing? It can be just as liberating. Maybe more so since there are no instructors to impress."
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Post by Slim on Feb 7, 2022 0:12:17 GMT -7
Maya didn’t seem all that excited by the prospect of dipping her toes into the pool of past memories, or at least these specific ones. As a fellow costumed vigilante, his first assumption was that the intersection of hero and personal lives had resulted in a few disappointing drawbacks. Hobbies were often one of the first casualties of choosing this line of work, aside from wise uncles or loving parents. Maya didn’t linger on yesterday, pirouetting towards good thoughts instead. Ben smiled at her account of how dancing made her feel..because it was almost exactly how he’d describe the sensation of web-swinging high above the city’s streets.
”I can imagine. That’s how I feel when I make rent,” he laughed. A part of him internally winced, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to reveal that sometimes all that came out of his wallet when he opened it were little cartoon moths. It also wasn’t exactly true, because for the time being, his super-rich ex was keeping the lights on. But single-digit bank balances had been a Parker Staple™ for so long that it was hard to shake that feeling that everything could go away in a heartbeat. Ah well, if not owning a yacht was a dealbreaker, best to have that on the table now.
She brought up club dancing, which happened to be a bit more in his wheelhouse than ballet. “Oh yeah. A few friends and I used to go every so often. Though it’s been a while,” he explained. MJ loved to dance, which meant that Peter, Harry and Gwen lost more than a few nights to the club scene. The redhead had been the star, and Peter had largely just been thankful for the dim lighting. As Ben, nights like that had been a lot fewer and further between. A thought occurred to him like a lightning strike, escaping his lips before he could stop it.
”Are.. uh, you doing anything tomorrow night? Skill or no skill, I could use a little bit of that freedom you mentioned.” How he managed to shoot his shot in that moment, he might never know. Whether he should have or not? Different story. That’d be all-too-clear pretty quickly.
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Post by Super Chick on Apr 30, 2022 13:53:06 GMT -7
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Maya took a bite of her buttery crust after Ben cracked the joke about making his rent. He seemed like a very down-to-earth New Yorker, which wasn't particularly remarkable but was refreshing to Maya. After all, she'd been away for some time and what she'd left behind was far from common. Most of the people in this town she'd known seemed to be either superheroes or supervillains, her adoptive father being of the latter. Maya had taken on a lot to compensate for that, she thought. Maybe even allowing her need for vengeance to cloud her judgment at times. Of course, the people she was hanging out with had only encouraged that sort of thing. So Maya had taken the deep dive into hero-dom. Now, she was more or less taking a break from all of that - if it proved possible in this city. If the events of her punching a supervillain just trying to meet friends at a pizza parlor were any indication, it could be a struggle.
Her swallowing came at the proper time, keeping Maya from choking when Ben asked her out. Maybe she was rusty having lived in near solitude for the last several months, but it came as a surprise to her that anyone would desire to ask her out on a date. He barely knew her. Of course, in the same split second that she had the thought, Maya also knew that was probably why he felt like he could. He didn't see her as Wilson Fisk's daughter, nor as the heroine called Echo who had once fought alongside Avengers. He just knew a lonely woman whose friends had ditched her and was desperate enough that she pushed a chair out in front of him to keep him from leaving the pizza parlor. If anything, Maya supposed, she entrapped him and made the first move. She only hoped she schooled her features enough so as to not look as surprised by his question as she felt.
Tilting her head a smidge, Maya allowed a small toothless smile to cross her face. "Let me check my calendar," she replied. Maya dipped the other half of her pizza crust into the butter and looped it in her mouth to chew. She watched him as she did and when she swallowed she wiped her lips with a napkin and smiled more fully. He was so "boy-next-door" and kind of cute. "Yeah, I think I can swing it. Do you have a place in mind? I haven't lived in the city for a while and I'm not sure of the best places anymore."
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Post by Slim on May 14, 2022 17:14:46 GMT -7
One of the great tragedies of being (a) Spider-Man was that the innate danger sense that came with that powerset did exactly nothing to warn you if you were going to get hurt emotionally. Sure, it gave Ben a heads up when he was staring down the barrel of some thug’s gun, and sometimes it even warned him to dodge the bird flying right at him when he web-slung around the corner of a skyscraper. But it didn’t tell him when a joke wouldn’t land, or when someone you cared about had made some big life changes while you were in a coma. Summed up, it meant that his offer to Maya was a true leap of faith, with no way to know if he was about to gracefully swing through the complex scaffolding of dating or clothesline himself on a power line of rejection. Where was Madame Webb and her clairvoyance when you needed her?
When the words left her mouth, it was hard to read her until her lips started to form a smile, and not the kind that went well with ‘I’m flattered, but…’ She explained that she needed to check her calendar (A good sign!) and Ben maybe-too-quickly replied ”Yeah, of course!” He expected her to pull out a phone to do just that, only for Maya to casually go to work on the rest of her pizza crust. I am in hell. A dramatic thought given it had only been a couple of seconds, but such was the level of his investment in the outcome. Her subsequent broader smile washed away the fire and brimstone, and Ben visibly relaxed. Well, hopefully not too visibly.
She asked if he knew where he wanted to go, and yeah, that would’ve been a good thing to think of before asking her on a date in the first place. ”Um,” he began, a stalling syllable as he tried to bring Peter Parker’s memories to the forefront of his mind, sifting through them for the relevant experiences. ”The two we went with most were Flames and Paradiso,” he explained. ”Flames had better music but Paradiso was a little easier to get into. Oh, and Blood Rose, but I heard that place was a front.” A front specifically for the shady dealings of one Wilson Fisk, though that was never something Ben had managed to confirm, just a rumor he’d heard a couple times.
”I think I’d lean Flames, if that works for you? And what time are you free?”
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Post by Super Chick on May 21, 2022 1:08:24 GMT -7
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The relief was palpable when Maya agreed to go but the perceptive heroine opted to ignore it to help the poor guy save face. She liked that he seemed to really want to go dancing with her. It was just the kind of validation that she needed coming back to this city that held so much sadness and conflict for her. Sure, it was her hometown but not all memories were great ones, and Maya, as privileged as she had been under Wilson's care, felt like there was more bad than good in New York. She supposed that was one reason she had come back at all. The other reasons were even more complex and buried in her subconscious.
Ben started naming off places he knew of that offered dancing and Maya was on board with them until he mentioned the Blood Rose. She knew her features were not schooled enough to hide her reaction, but since he had added that he heard it was a front for something she planned to roll with that as her reason for the crinkle in her nose. "Yeah," she agreed. "Even the name of the place kind of gives it away, doesn't it?" Too bad it wasn't more obvious to her as a kid.
He suggested Flames as the place to go and Maya nodded in agreement. She looked at her now empty plate and back to Ben. "I'm free now if you are," she said. Then, with a shrug, Maya added, "My friends stood me up and I'd planned to be out a while tonight, so I'm good to go. If you aren't, then we can make it another night. It's not like either of us has a job right now, so we've got lots of time."
That wasn't to say she didn't have a lot to do, but since she'd just gotten back to New York no one had come knocking down her door to get her attention. Yet.
"In this economy, we probably shouldn't put that off too long, though."
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Post by Slim on Oct 15, 2022 17:01:21 GMT -7
As it became more and more real to Ben that he was asking Maya out to go dancing, alarm bells were starting to go off in his head. Not the usual brain spidey-sense that warned of incoming pumpkin bombs or cars becoming projectiles, but the kind of anxious warnings that he was really putting his superhero identity at risk by going on a date with someone who had just fought alongside him like an hour ago. That said, he laughed at her remark about the nightclub’s name. “Still a cool name, though.” he said, offhandedly.
At the suggestion that they go dancing tonight, every instinct told Ben to say that another night would be better. He was only a few dozen minutes removed from a battle where the Shocker’d tried to pummel his bones to dust, and the pain was very much still there as a reminder of that whole ordeal. But spending more time with Maya felt infinitely preferable to passing out facedown on the floor the second he entered his apartment so there really was only one choice here. “It’s either dancing or Bridgerton for me tonight, so yeah. Let’s dance.” Only time would where this ranked on Ben’s all-time list of best/worst decisions.
He cleaned his hands with a napkin, which he crumpled and dropped on the plate as they got ready to move onto phase 2 of the evening. Or..phase 3, counting the superhero stuff first. ”Flames isn’t all that close, I can get us a ride?” He offered, bringing his phone from his pocket. It was a bit of an older one, the one he’d had before the whole ‘coma’ thing happened. Given his finances, if this thing broke, he’d probably be in flip phone territory given his financial situation now.
The alarm bells were fading in favor of a growing sense of excitement. This short time hanging out with Maya was the first time he’d felt anything approximating normal or ‘good’ since his extremely extended nap. Now he just had to hope that the run-in with Herman Schultz was the only dose of Parker Luck™ he’d be getting today.
Tag: Super Chick
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