open | it's a magical feeling that noone's got a home

[bioenergy]

WHO: jessica drew and you.
WHERE: outside residence #12, heropa.
WHEN: an hour max after freddie's post on the network re: superheroes. (x)
WHAT: jessica drew sticks to a wall. still has nothing on spideypig.
WARNINGS: n/a

[ It freaks her out, a little bit. Aside from the obvious — the thing where she's been pulled, and she's wondering if it matters at all that she has been, or if time is the same here as it is there — this hero-outting stuff has never been her thing. It reminds her a lot of Steve Rogers. Who is... not the Steve that's here, if the network is right, and she hasn't been sleeping so she's definitely read a lot of it.

It's why she's here, actually. If 'here' explains why Jessica is currently covertly stuck to the wall underneath one of the windows in #12, listening in. Mostly, it's Freddie Lounds and her roommates talking about what a bad idea the post was. Which is— keeping a secret identity hasn't really been her main focus since she got out of San Francisco. But it all comes across as pretty bad.

Jessica scratches her nose. She looks down at the hand that she lifted up to glance at her watch. All green. It's been basically green since she got here, but everytime she looks at it she wants to pee herself with the sheer amount of relief she feels, which is a bad look for a superhero. It's a good thing she doesn't have her costume here. That, and the fact she lives in #13, which would be a handy excuse to have for wall-sticking to a house that's not her own?

She's pretty high up. At least the view is nice. The conversation, though, doesn't seem to be yielding any results, so Jess is considering abandoning the creeping. Coffee sounds kind of good, right? ]

Comments

open to anybody in the house + jess outside

[redhairring]

[ They are obviously in the middle of a very heated discussion while Freddie makes herself what must be the twelfth cup of coffee this evening. ]

Look, all I'm saying is that everybody here is all talk. What do people do whenever Lunatic makes a post to the network, they just sit around, twiddle their thumbs and say 'gosh, isn't that terrible!' Well it's the exact same thing here. They'll call me a bitch for a week, grumble and moan about things, but then the Hornets will go blow up a bus station and then they'll grumble and moan about that. People are--

[ and then Freddie stops, because she's got that distinctive feeling that you get when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Frowning, she looks out of the window. ]

That's weird. [ Because just for a moment, Freddie got a distinctive feeling like somebody was watching her. ]

[immigrantpunk]

[Jayden wasn't involved in the discussion, but he does abruptly appear from upstairs his room where he was smoking weed with the window open totally doing homework, brandishing a soccer cleat in his hand like a weapon.]

Dude. Dude. There's totally someone outside the window. I saw them.

[bioenergy]

[ Crap.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea. It had, in the beginning, because Jessica was thinking a lot about — about being a hero. She's suddenly thinking about how she doesn't have any business doing this, that the Avengers don't want her here, she doesn't blame them for not wanting her here. And she has to leap first into this.

Jess freezes underneath the window and closes her eyes.

Climbing down seems like it would make too much noise, but so would jumping off a brick wall into a dumpster? This is a bad idea, this is such a bad idea, but at least the reputable source seems to be someone who was smoking. Jessica Drew has that going for her. A guy who smokes a little too much weed.

Please believe that guy. ]

[redhairring]

[ As he enters, Freddie fans a hand in front of her face as if to say 'Jayden, I can smell you from here. But it's his words that give her pause. On one hand, why the hell would someone be outside the window? Jayden's stoned as shit, it's probably just a bird or something. But on another hand, she did just spill people's deepest secrets to the entire world. And on a third hand, she's from NBC's Hannibal. There is a very real possibility that if there is someone outside of the window, then they'll barge into the house, stab them both and then, she didn't know, cover her body in leeches as a symbolic statement gone wrong.

Better safe than sorry.

Frown on her face, Freddie reaches over to her purse. ] Look, it's probably just a squirrel. But better safe than sorry. [ From her purse, she pulls a tiny little derringer pistol. She's not a good shot. And she's not planning on shooting. But hopefully this'll scare off whatever sort of dumb kid's out there or something like that. ]

Hello? [ Freddie loudly calls out, as she inches closer to the window. ]

[immigrantpunk]

I'm high, I'm not blind. It's not a squirrel. It's people-sized.

[He stumbles the rest of the way down the stairs, still clutching the soccer cleat. His eyes go huge when he sees what she's removing from her bus.]

What the hell, when did you get a gun?

[The volume of his voice probably will undermine any sort of stealth Freddie is trying to employ...]

[bioenergy]

[ A gun. Okay, this is— not going well. (What did you expect, Jessica? It's not exactly like you could get away with doing whatever you want.) Jess holds her breath as if that's going to help her stay as still as possible, contemplating how she's going to get away from this. Okay. Jump or crawl. Those might be the two choices. Or blast Freddie Lounds with 'get the hell away from me' chemicals, which she doesn't actually have, and for some reason Jessica is definitely thinking about how Captain America would be so disappointed about this.

Thankfully, Jess is still underneath the window, a little in the blind spot. She inches her foot down. Okay, no crumbling brick. And then another. Jessica Drew has never wanted to be Squirrel Girl so bad in her entire life. She would trade so many acorns for this opportunity.

Thinks the girl, spider-crawling on her hands and knees down a wall. ]

[redhairring]

I've always had a gun! [ Freddie responded, just as equally loud and just as annoyed. Stealthy these two are not. She took a few steps closer towards the window, still holding the pistol. ] I write about serial killers, do the math.

[ To her credit, Freddie's pointing the gun towards the floor as she leans out of the window, trying to spot whatever the hell it was Jayden had spotted. ] Look, I'll only shoot if it's dangerous. Or...or you mess with me. [ She is not at all intimidating. ]

[immigrantpunk]

How come you have a gun but I don't?

[Yes, that is the issue he's focusing on right now. And oh right, they are supposed to be addressing the house intruder. ]

Yeah, she'll shoot and I'll beat you. [With a soccer cleat.] It's definitely not worth it, so you should come out.

[liverletdie]

[ It's funny, how the reminder of why it hits so close to home, could literally be just around the corner. Oh, he's well aware of the leak, and what the good Ms. Lounds has been up to. There's plenty of data. It seems, from the look of it, to be relatively consistent. There are people contesting some information -- and he was interested to see a second iteration of Spider-Man -- something ot be followed up on later, but for the moment...

Well, he was honestly out for a walk, nothing more than that. Which for Tony was nearly an event for how rarely it happened, but here he was, just walking along, minding his own business --

Well, snoops were easy to point out, when you had the great fortune to have a brain that operated faster than any normal human's should. His eyes snapped right to her, and instead of calling her out, he walked up to the closest fence, and crossed his arms over the top, leaning over it. Waiting to be noticed, and expecting that he would be.

Well, he did think highly of himself. ]

[bioenergy]

[ It takes Jess a little while. It's a little (a lot) easier to read, now she's not wearing her mask, the expression on her face. It's all— shock, really. Shock and worry and apology and a myriad of other things that really seem to be about guilt. Jess looks at her watch, then looks down at the fence. Looks at her watch. The fence. Pauses. Still green. Green is good.

A beat, and then she's making her way down, shuffling her way over to a pipe and climbing down it. She lands and seems to actually wait, for a moment, considering whether actually walking over is a good idea. (Nobody wants to see you, Jess. They don't even like you.) But it's also someone she recognizes, probably, so— ]

Hey.

[ Her body language doesn't exactly inspire. Hunched shoulders, looking at her not-watch, then glancing up. ]

Thanks for not calling me out.

[liverletdie]

[ He watched, carefully. Silently -- for once. Tony wasn't always the one to stay silent, so it was a miracle, but even so, he shifted, like he was thinking of saying something, but when she finally approached, he stayed quiet. At least she knew he'd been waiting, so that was likely enough to endear himself to her. She was... she moved differently than he'd last seen her, dropping Elektra off.

God. He breathed in, and he breathed out. ]

I didn't want to wake up the neighborhood. Hear anything interesting?

[ He leaned forward on the fence, alert, but the way he tipped his head back said she was free to join him on his walk, if she wanted. ]

[bioenergy]

Not really.

[ (Briefly, Jess considers making something up. She doesn't, though. Does that count as a win?) Again, there's that strange elongated beat of hesitance before she follows, falls into a stride that matches his. ]

She mostly said it all on the network. She thinks she did the right thing.

[ Jess shoves her hands into her jacket pockets a little more violently than strictly required. ]

[liverletdie]

Don't most journalists?

[ He asked, but he walked along anyway, slipping a hand into his pocket casually, but he didn't take it too quickly. He knew people like Freddie Lounds, but most of them knew when to keep quiet. When it was inappropriate. When bringing out more information would start a war just as surely as holding it back would. ]

She lacks foresight, if you ask me. It's a shame. I'd expect better. How long've you been here?

[bioenergy]

[ Jess looks at him sidelong. Her experience with journalists hasn't been as widespread as others — it's something she's mostly grateful for. Of course being Tony Stark would level out that playing field. ]

A few days ago.

[ Her hands are in her jacket, but she angles her hand so she can glance at the not-watch again, like some nervous tic in place of clearing her throat. ] I knew you were around. And Captain America. [ With the very clear undercurrent of knowing but not approaching. ]

[liverletdie]

Well, it's hard to not know I'm around, if you pay attention.

[ He didn't comment about this odd Steve, one he'd met before but this one had forgotten being here. Tony ran into a lot of that, these days, having been captured by the porter for so long. Few were exempted from ever showing up. ]

I'm surprised you didn't come say hi. Hiding something?