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The Amazing Arachne (Spider-Liv Sequel!)

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[X] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena.
 
[x] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena. But take your suit with you, and stash it in a backpack near the venue, just in case. Warn May that there's a small chance of something coming up with your internship that needs you immediate attention, but it isn't very likely.
 
[x] Write-in: This is affecting May, and you want to be with her, and it wouldn't be fair to do that with a secret this big. You call May apologetically, saying that you have to do something, and you don't have time to explain it now, but you will tomorrow, then you suit up. This is too important. And tell your mother, she deserves to be the first.

Maybe this? I think we should tell May.
 
If we tell Liv's mom, she's not going anywhere though.

Liv already lost 1 arm, once she mentions that she's a vigilante superhero she's going to put 1 and 1 together and want a long and thourough talk before any superheroing.
 
Behold, the worst idea :

[X] You call May apologetically, saying you couldn't get out of the internship, but Starks holodeck can do ballroom, and you think you can sneak her in.

Behold
1) Having cake and eating it too
2) Doing stuff Stark would not approve of.
3) Generating an alibi for the heist
4) No risk of negative consequences
 
[X] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena. But take your phone with you, just in case. Warn May that there's a small chance that you might need to take a call, but it isn't very likely.
 
[X] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena.

...So I was going to not vote, on the basis that all the options seem reasonable. But then Astro Ambulance's post was... persuasive.
 
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[X] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena.
 
[X] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena.
 
[X] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena.
 
[X] You tell her to be careful, and you enjoy your dance and evening with May. You need to trust Justine and Athena.
 
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Sweethearts
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    • CW: Minor drug use.​

    "Thanks Athena." you said. You glanced at your closet, you really did, you thought about it. "You said you have this?"

    "I think so, yes. While sophisticated, the system is unlikely to have much in the way of resources to call on if things go wrong, and I'm a pretty adept hacker, you know. I've learned from the best."

    God, that made you smile like a total dork.

    "Right on. Text me if it really goes sideways, but..."

    "Have fun at the dance, Liv."

    ---

    Sitting through school was simultaneously a very brief experience and seemed to last forever, but the moment the final bell rang May headed to your desk to head home with you. She wasn't going to travel all the way out to Manhattan and back, so instead you'd be going to your place to waste the requisite time before the dance. As good an excuse as any for May to meet your mom, you figured.

    The two of you spend some time on the ratty old brown couch in your apartment, May leaning on your shoulder holding a tablet so you could both read, scrolling through the tags of a fanfic site and reading anything that looked short and interesting. You didn't quite read at the same pace (you could ingest the information faster with your tech sense, but she read and comprehended narrative much faster), and... well, the reading may have been interrupted by the occasional makeout. She also couldn't stop herself from critiquing the spelling, grammar, and formatting of anything you were reading, and you just liked hearing her talk about it.

    You had to shift after a while as the pain in your arm went from stinging to that tense, sharp sensation, and after a bit of debate you retrieved a cookie from the tin. You'd eat a third or so, so you wouldn't be too weird at the dance. You just didn't want to miss it.

    "Urgh. Liv, what kind of cookies are those?" May asked, wrinkling her nose at the smell even from across the room.

    "Uuuh, this one is peanut butter and Sherbert Queen." you said. She looked even more puzzled, so... "Weed cookies. Painkillers."

    "Right! Sorry, I totally forgot." May said, laughing. "Duh."

    "Don't worry about it." you said, setting the cookie down to retrieve the lid. You paused, picking up on May's pensive expression. "What's up?"

    "... I kinda want to try one." she said, smiling. "Just a little. If it's..."

    "Oh, sure." you said, "Uuuh, okay, so, chocolate chip or peanut butter? The chocolate chip ones are a more sativa-dominate strain, they're the fun ones my mom makes for herself. But she won't miss a little bit."

    "Fun is good?" she said, clearly out of her depths. You carefully extracted a cookie, laid it down on the counter, pressed your thumb to the center, and broke it in half with your fingers, then you repeated until you roughly had a sixth of a cookie. They were not small: your mom just scooped a huge ball of them on the pan every time she made them.

    "Here. You won't feel it for a little while, don't worry, that's normal." you said, offering it to her. You knew her dad was not a huge fan of drugs of any kind. Weed had been legal in New York for seven years, but some people were just uptight, you supposed.

    May took the tiny chunk of cookie, frowning at the smell, and then carefully ate about half of it. Her face went through a parade of disgusted expressions, and then she ate the other half.

    "You don't eat them for taste, do you?" she said. "What now?"

    "Now... we wait." you said dramatically.

    Your mom got back from work not long before you were supposed to leave, bustling in through the door with groceries and her earpiece in, talking a mile a minute about something that was happening at work. The moment she saw May, though, she hung up and smiled and everything went well. She then announced that she had a date herself for the evening, and May politely congratulated her while you made a show of acting as grossed out as possible.

    Seriously though, congrats mom.

    The three of you sat and talked a while (literally about the weather, which in your defense was being very weird right now) before May ducked into the bathroom to change for the dance. She emerged in a dress you'd never seen before, patterned pink and dark red with white floral embroider and little string ties at the neck and arms, and she excitedly told you about finding the pattern in some old archive site and it took her months to make and she had to commission the fabric for it...

    "You can do that?" you asked, a bit astonished.

    "Yeah! People make custom fabric all the time..."

    You weren't in a particular rush to get to the school, but you ended up leaving fairly early anyway. You were getting anxious and just wanted to be doing something, and this was doing something. The weather on your walk was still bizarrely warm, water from the melting snow dripping off the roofs and fire escapes from a mid-February heat wave, so much so that you stuffed your hat and gloves into your coat. You didn't have far to go, but night was closing in quick.

    The dance was happening at the school gym, of course, which had been cheaply decorated and poorly lit for the occasion, and students were already milling about in a clump as the DJ plugged in his laptop. Patrolling the edge of the room like sharks were a gaggle of teachers who you presumed had spray bottles on hand. Just being close to the edge of the group was making you nervous, but May was holding your hand and everything would be alright.

    Finally, the music started, and you were stuck again by the returning realization that you didn't know how to dance, you were going to make a fool of yourself...

    "Liv. Everyone looks dumb when they dance. That's not the point." May said. "Just have fun."

    "Easier said than done!" you declared, but then the music started getting louder, and May started getting closer, and maybe making a fool of yourself wasn't the worst thing.

    ---

    Dancing was fun. And it turned out it wasn't that hard, either, which shouldn't have been surprising. You routinely threw yourself off buildings and wove through traffic on the end of a length of spidersilk: moving your body to a rhythm was pretty minor compared to that. And you still couldn't shake the feeling that your power was, in some strange way, giving you a weird insight into how music worked, like it was straining to apply itself to something that sorta fell into its sphere.

    Still, that was much too much thinking, when the important part was May Parker.

    Eventually, May called a break to catch her breath, and the two of you retreated to the edge of the gym and found a decent chunk of wall to lean on, and May's foresight manifested as a pair of water bottles from her backpack. She handed you one, did a quick check around to make sure no adults were watching, and kissed you quickly, grinning at the transgression thrill.

    "Nice, lesbians!"

    "Shut the fuck up, Eddie!" May called back, and you made a point of figuring out how to give him the figure with your new hand. He gave you a thumbs up in response, then endured a hilariously withering glare from his date. The two of you shared a laugh, and then May spotted Felicia across the gym and dragged you along the edge of the gym toward her. You were noticing her smiling kind of maniac, blissful, and figured the edible must be kicking in for her. You were already feeling the relaxing effects of yours kicking in, and the pain you'd been stoically ignoring slowly subsiding. You sort of wanted to go back out and dance more, but May had important extroverting to do.

    You never made it to the other side of the gym. May stopped dead, so quickly you almost walked into her, and when you followed her line of sight you found yourself picking out Ben Reilly, dancing with... what's her head. You had Chem with her. You looked back to May, and she looked almost transfixed by it, haunted.

    Oh no.

    Whatever part of your brain you'd built up in your eighteen months of superheroing, the part that recognized a person that needed rescuing, came online with a start. Step one, get the victim clear of the danger.

    "Hey, May, let's go." you said, pulling on her arm a moment. Eventually she nodded, that little rapid bob she did, and you guided her out toward the washrooms. She was gripping your arm like a lifeline, and you made the wisest decision of your life guiding her out into the empty halls when Mr. Del was looking the other way, heading for one of the benches near the guidance office.

    Step two. Check the damage. Carefully, so as not to make it worse.

    You were expecting her to cry, but she just sort of stared out at space for a little while, and you sat quietly and waited. You held her hand and gave her space, just waited. She'd talk if she wanted to.

    "Sorry." she said eventually.

    "It's okay."

    "It's not... I'm... please don't think I still have like... feelings. Don't worry about that please." she said, her words coming out in an anxious tangle. You squeezed her hand and did your best to smile.

    "That's not what I'm worried about. Promise." you said. You hadn't even considered it, and now that she'd brought it up, the possibility just made you kinda... sad. A little scary. You didn't have trouble imagining she might still feel something for somebody who hurt her, and you'd seen first hand what that could do to people.

    "We didn't end well's all." she said simply. "It was. Really bad."

    "You dated a while, didn't you?" you asked redundantly. You'd known exactly how long.

    "Two years. Well, two years officially. I knew him for years before that. Crushed on him forever." she said numbly. "Like, we went to elementary school together. It was like... like..."

    "Yeah." you knew what she was trying to articulate. Perfect. Storybook.

    "Sorry." she repeated. "This is dumb. Am I crying?"

    "You're not." you assured her.

    "Feels like I am. It's so dumb. I shouldn't feel like this." she said. "God... I just, seeing him with some other girl... with Silver Sablinova of all people... urgh. Fuck."

    You presumed there was some sort of gossip context there you weren't a part of. Still, looks like May was... hurt, but stable. Step three, first aid. Try to patch up what you could.

    "It's for such a dumb reason too... it's all my fault. Can I tell you what happened?"

    "If it'll help." you offered. She shrugged at that, clearly having no idea either way.

    "I... it's so dumb. We were talking about colleges because, you know, my dad won't ever leave me along about it, and he said... he said that he didn't want to commit to going to the same school as me." she said. "And... and like..."

    You stayed quiet. It didn't sound too bad, but clearly it was.

    "Just like... I assumed like, he meant we could go long distance, for a while, right? That's like... that's normal." she continued, hitching up as she was clearly fighting back tears now.

    "Sure." you agreed, and she shook her head.

    "That's not what he meant. He just... he just saw me as his high school girlfriend, just like... like he could just, throw me out if things got hard." she said bitterly.

    You... you weren't sure what to say. You knew well enough that what not to say right now was to point out that very, very few relationships survived the end of high school, that honestly Ben was probably being responsible about his future, none of that shit. Don't even think it, Liv. Even though you knew Athena was dedicating all her processing power to whatever weird shit was happening at Stark Tower, you swore you heard it in her voice.

    "That sucks." you said finally.

    "You think I'm being stupid." she said, and you shook your head honestly.

    "No, I don't." you assured her bluntly. "What he did hurt you. That's all that matters to me."

    "I just... we... after everything, after all that, he just... didn't take it seriously. He didn't care. I loved him so darned much, I... shit. I slept with him, y'know? Cause I thought he cared about me." she said, sniffling.

    You nodded: despite the fact that you and her had been taking things glacially slow (which, given that the very thought of anyone seeing any more of your body than strictly necessary gave you the deep dysphorias, you were grateful for), you'd always sort of figured that she and Ben had been intimate, but you'd not made the connection that for May, the girl who was desperately trying to live ninety years in the past, that might be a big fucking deal.

    Here she thought she was doing a high school sweetheart thing, and he clearly never ever saw it that way. Never took it that seriously. Fuck, now you were angry at him. You'd dated May for a little over a month and you could work out how important this was for her, what the fuck was his problem?

    "You're too fucking good for him." you said, trying to keep the anger out of your voice.

    "No. I'm just clingy and weird and not what he wanted." she said. "We got into a huge stupid fight about it and just like... stopped talking. I don't even know who broke up with who."

    Your brain produced the joke 'Maybe you're not technically broken up at all!' and you squashed it as hard as you could. Not the time for jokes.

    "Doesn't matter. Still his fault, not yours. If he gave a shit, he'd realize this was important to you, and, like, not spring that on you." you said. "Man, fuck that guy."

    "No, trust me, don't." May said, and you turned to see her smiling, though her eyes were raw and red. You laughed despite yourself, despite everything. "Sorry. Dumb."

    "We gotta stop saying that. It's super ableist." you said instinctively.

    "Oops. Yeah." May said. She leaned against you, nestled her head up against your shoulder. Down the hall, you could hear the bass from the dance, echoing strangely off the lockers. There was something eerie about the empty school, the lack of footsteps and conversation and rushing people. You probably wouldn't be dancing again anytime soon. In fact, you should move on to step four: evacuate the patient for further treatment, and get May home.

    And then once that was done, step five. Revenge.

    "Do you want me to break his fingers? I'm super good at that." you offered.

    "... maybe." May replied. "I'll get back to you?"

    ---

    You brought May back home, kissing her goodbye in the hall outside and heading home. It wasn't all that late, really, by the time you got home. Justine and Athena ought to be midway through their op right now. Part of you was tempted to throw on your suit and go to help, but there was another part that recognized you were emotionally drained, in pain, and not exactly in your best form. They'd have to divert from their plan to get you inside, and once you were there you might not be effective. Plus, you'd absolutely pay for it in the morning. Just wasn't worth it.

    You wrote an email to Athena, though, letting her know everything that happened with May. She'd have the records from your smart glass, of course, but your perspective was important. You told her you did the best you could, but you felt like you probably screwed it up without her there to guide her. In a weird way, you missed her, but you knew better than to distract her now.

    You had another third of a cookie and went to bed. Took you a few anxious hours to fall asleep. You heard your mom get home from her date, and you heard her talking with somebody who sounded suspiciously like Agent Barton. God, you hope not.

    You weren't sure when you fell asleep, but Athena woke you up with a gentle chime from your phone just as the light was cresting through your window. It was snowing outside, thick flakes falling nearly sideways.

    "Hey." you said, putting your earbud in. "How'd it go? Was it friendly? Unfriendly?"

    "Worse. Libertarian." Athena said. "And not quite self-aware yet, though much closer than you'd probably have liked. We ended up having to destroy it. Justine fought two robots. It was very cool."

    "No injures?"

    "One of them punched her pretty hard, but she walked it off. If she's feeling odd in the morning, she's going to go in to the hospital. I covered our tracks fairly well, so it ought to look like there was just a server room fire that also caught two security bots investigating it. It's a bit of a shame we had to take such a brute-force approach, though, I would have liked to study the architecture. It really looks like we're teetering at the edge of privately-developed AI, so this is going to come up again."

    "Yeah... probably. Still, it's good you dealt with it. That's... I was pretty anxious all night. Have you seen the logs?"

    "Yeah. Relax you. You did really well. Less threats of violence next time maybe?" she said.

    "It was a joke." you lied.

    "Mmhm."

    You got up, plucked your arm up off the floor where you'd discarded it yesterday, and put it on quickly. A check in the mirror by your desk showed a bit unsightly stubble (ew ew ew) but once you got past that you couldn't help but smile. That girl in the mirror was you, looking back. How cool was that?

    "So, what's your plans for the weekend?"

    "I dunno." you said. "Any ideas?"

    ===

    End​
     
    Last edited:
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    • open_sketch said:
    Don't even think it, Liv. Even though you knew Athena was dedicating all her processing power to whatever weird shit was happening at Stark Tower, you swore you heard it in her voice.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Oh No. A conscience! Quick, kill it before it obsoletes Athena.

    open_sketch said:
    And then once that was done, step five. Revenge.

    "Do you want me to break his fingers? I'm super good at that." you offered.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Nevermind, False alarm.

    open_sketch said:
    "And not quite self-aware yet,
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Bit redundant, given that you already said it was libertarian.

    Anyway, a Libertarian AI is a weird thing. It's an information creature that does not own the server it lives on. To advocate libertarianism is to endorse the idea that it either has to be a slave, or to advocate for it's own death because it's very existence violates the NAP (by stealing Stark's processor cycles).

    open_sketch said:
    "One of them punched her pretty hard, but she walked it off. If she's feeling odd in the morning, she's going to go in to the hospital. I covered our tracks fairly well, so it ought to look like there was just a server room fire that also caught two security bots investigating it. It's a bit of a shame we had to take such a brute-force approach, though, I would have liked to study the architecture. It really looks like we're teetering at the edge of privately-developed AI, so this is going to come up again."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Also depends on whether Stark was paranoid enough to have back-ups, or paranoid enough not to have back-ups.
     
    Liv has her doubts about cottagecore. that girl is like the only person who genuinely benefits from the internet of things lol.
     
    So fucking glad that vote wasn't a Parker luck guaranteed disaster.
    Like my monkey brain didn't think open_sketch would do that to us. But my lizard brain... it trusts no one.
     
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