(Untitled)

[molecularity]

WHO: molecularity & opennnn
WHERE: ALL OVER
WHEN: today (monday) & tomorrow (tuesday)
WARNINGS: uh... copious amounts of teenage angst??
SUMMARY: gwen runs away from home for a night before going back to her apartment. she left a note, though!!
FORMAT: i'm starting with a hideous amount of bracket teal deer because i am a rambly thing, but w/e is good. just

Comments

monday!! eveningish? in a park?

[technophantom]

[Ghost has tried to minimize his presence in the City, but if he could mastermind his operation from a tiny room in a basement 24/7, he would. He noticed her from just outside the park's south entrance, his telescopic lenses, his computerized suit, gave him a 95.5% probability it was the imPort, Gwen, he'd spoken to before on the Network.

The one Spider-Man had warned him to stay away from.

He floated in undeterred, made even more curious by the fact that she seemed to be alone. He called up a prior conversation, and he decided it was wiser to assume she was armed.]

Gwen?

/o/

[molecularity]

[ the closer it gets to nightfall, the more paranoid gwen gets when she stops to sit and recompose herself. she's fairly confident in her ability to knife and/or pepperspray the hell out of anyone who my try and creep on her, but there's still a little bit of worry.

which is why, when ghost says her name, she tenses up visibly and glares at him as much as she can. she recognizes him. and that's not exactly reassuring. ]

What.

[technophantom]

[though he had a considerable amount of time to think about what he was going to say, he finds himself lacking any appropriate social response, and falls back on ...asking the obvious.]

What are you doing here alone?

[molecularity]

I'm reciting The Canterbury Tales in my head. What the hell does it look like I'm doing?

[ it looks like you're sitting in a park being a mopey teenager who probably smells a little of fast food, gwen, that is not exactly a good thing. ]

[technophantom]

I'm not sure. [a beat, then, helpfully] Should I accompany you home?

[molecularity]

I don't need to be accompanied anywhere. [ pause ] Even if I did, I wouldn't ask you. You're supposed to be a bad guy.

[technophantom]

[another long pause, Ghost landing and lowering his arms to his sides. His voice, still computerized, stays perfectly even, perfectly calm as he evaluates her.] I am not your enemy.

[After another second, he sits on the ground in front of the bench, hands in his lap, and watches her with hunched back.] You're not sitting here for no reason. Did you have a disagreement with someone?

[molecularity]

Then why did [ there's the slightest hesitation ] Spider-Man say you were?

[ there's another pause and her expression shifts from angry and defensive to... something a little more flat. ] If I get into a disagreement with someone, I'm more likely to punch them than run off and sit on a park bench.

[technophantom]

[Ghost reads the hesitation as perhaps an unwillingness to incriminate her Avenger friend, and he tugs a little on one glove. Honesty is usually the best policy in these matters?] I am an enemy of corruption. Abuses of the system. Extortion, bribes, assassinations, imperalism, slavery, child labor.

[with some interest peaking, he breaks away from his usual M.O.] I see. You debate much like my old companion Juggernaut. ...is there something else you'd rather discuss?

[molecularity]

So you're the technologically savvy, super-villain version of a hippie? [ what the fuck even.

there's another moment of slight hesitation. on the one hand, she's not in a good state of mind right now, and her knee-jerk reaction is to loudly tell him she just wants to be left alone. on the other hand... she's a little lonely. compromise it is. ] Not really?

[technophantom]

[dead silence for a long few moments, and then a wheezy laugh, the first real laugh he's had that wasn't a half sarcastic 'heh' since Moonstone got ported out again. For some reason that strikes him as quite funny.] I am supposedly reformed. Or reforming. Mr. Cage isn't here to provide exact credentials for me. But ...cyber-hippie. Hmm. I like it.

[quiets again, trying to get a feel for the emotional atmosphere with limited success] I understand your reluctance. You have no reason to trust me. You stand to lose if you trust incorrectly, and the gains are uncertain. You don't need to trust me. Sometimes sharing information makes you feel worse.

[molecularity]

So you're doing like super-villain community service? [ she is so confused by ghost. that laugh doesn't really help things either. ]

That's... [ very weirdly put, but very true. and it hits a bit of a nerve, since she realizes at least part of the reason she's out here right now is because she doesn't really trust people. ] That's not exactly the best way to keep conversation going, dude.

[technophantom]

Exactly. [a beat, then, trying to give Spider-Man the benefit of the doubt] It could be his point on the timeline is from before my--'reformation'. It could also be he is from a world where I am evil. [though it's clear from his tone that he doesn't think that's a likely universe]

Hmm. You could discuss something divorced from your personal effects. ...Are you a fan of Chaucer?

[molecularity]

Don't- [ she makes a face and pauses as she tries to rephrase. ] Let's just... not. Talk about Spider-Man.

[ and then she hesitates for just a moment before answering his question ] Kind of? I like the Canterbury Tales but. [ shrug ] Dunno if I'd call myself a fan.

[technophantom]

Ah. [chalking it up that it might be related to Spidey, compliantly drops it--while he shuffles and reorganizes his internal views of her based on the restructuring of that sentence, all a process that takes less than a few seconds.]

The Monk's Tale? [a pause as he accesses information, then] So swift she was, she ran them down all spent; and when she was grown older she would kill lions and leopards, and bears too she rent, and in her arms she broke them at her will. Mr. Chaucer was perhaps an early feminist.

[molecularity]

You have it memorized? [ a pause as she mulls over that. it's not that weird, but she's not exactly used to other people knowing fourteenth century literature. ] I dunno. Chaucer could've just talked about her like that because it gives her downfall more of an impact.