(Untitled)

[daretodo]

"Masked Menaces!" the headline reads. "Costumed Caperers Could be Kinapping Your Children!!!" A picture of some poor slob dressed up in a frankly terribly Spidey costume takes up a good chunk of the page. The caption? "POISONOUS INFLUENCE: This man is clearly up to no good. Look at him

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[dogbitesman]

William stepped out of the compound and was promptly hit in the face with his own previous misdeeds. Being made of paper, they promptly wrapped around his face and he nearly tripped over before he tore it off.

Then he glared at it. This was one time where he was actually in favour for the usual uses of a used newspaper. They certainly weren't supposed to still be around.

Where had it even come from. He glanced around and then, finally, up. "Er," he said. "Don't do it, you have so much to live for? Possibly," he appended, fundamentally truthful to the end.*

*Except for the occasional day here and there, as evidenced by that damned paper.

[daretodo]

"What?" I call down, frowning slightly before I realize what it looks like I'm doing. Jeez, if I started throwing myself off buildings every time I read a bad review, I'd be dead a thousand times over by now. Well, if I didn't have any webbing, that is. Or superpowers. Or -- yanno, now that I think about it, I've thrown myself off a lot of buildings in my day. Just never with the intention of killing myself, which is probably the most pertinent thing about this entire scenario.

"I'm not -- oh, forget it. I was just trying to get the paper before it... Well, before it hit you in the face, actually."

[dogbitesman]

"Oh," William said, experiencing that feeling particular to reporters; relief that no one had died, and disappointment that he had no death to put on the front page.

He looked at the paper in his hand, which he had been absently crumpling. "...do you want it back?" he asked, with clear reluctance. "It's really not worth keeping."

[daretodo]

"No," I say with an almost disbelieving laugh. "That's sort of why I tore it in half." Shaking my head, I add, "Didn't mean to trouble anyone else with a rag like that, though. Sorry."

[callofkaren]

"What the--" Karen stopped short when she nearly got a face full of paper, and watched it flutter away past her on the path. She looked around in confusion to find where it came from, then finally looked up.

"Peter?"

[daretodo]

Giving Karen a very small and sorta embarrassed looking little wave, I call down, "Hiya. Er...sorry about that."

[callofkaren]

She gave him a wave back, then held her hand over her eyes as she looked up. "So, uh. Probably an obvious question, but...what are you doing on the roof?"

[daretodo]

"Would you believe me if I said it helps me think better?" I ask, blindly reaching behind me so I can hold up one of the books I have piled around me.

[segaboybrodie]

It figured.

With Brodie's luck lately, it figured that as soon as he had decided to head back to the compound to do another bookshelf check, he'd get hit by somebody's fucking GARBAGE. It fluttered to land on top of his head.

"HEY!" Brodie said, removing a piece of paper before bending down to pick up the other piece with his good hand. "It's called a GARBAGE CAN."

He glared upward to get a good look at the perpetrator. It was JUST LIKE those jackasses back home who threw their shit everywhere in The Mall. Not that the island was the sacred center of commerce that The Mall was, but there was something to be said for a little goddamn consideration.

[daretodo]

Okay, so apparently Loud and Obnoxious Guy wasn't one of the affected folks last week. That's just how he actually is. Ouch. I almost feel sorry for the guy.

"Do you not see me half hanging off of here?" I ask him, lowering my still outstretched hand so I can balance myself a little. One knee's drawn up towards my chest like I'm ready to spring myself up into action and my toes are curled over the edge of the roof. "I wasn't trying to throw out anything. Even if it deserves to be thrown out."

[segaboybrodie]

"Could have fooled me," Brodie responded, taking a closer look at the two halves and immediately recognizing the masked figure in the picture.

Well, holee shit, if Brodie didn't know any better, he would have thought that old J. Jonah Jameson had crash landed on the island and was up to his old Spider-Man slandering tricks.

...or that it was suddenly the seventies.

"Where'd this come from, anyway?" He asked, craning his neck up again.

[daretodo]

"It's local, that's all I know," I say, shrugging as I look down at the guy. This is a lot more awkward than it sounds, given how I'm sitting, here, but I manage. "Girl named Rogue showed it to me when it first came out but I wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind to really appreciate it until now."

[waltsnothereman]

When the first scrap of paper fluttered over her head, Wanda barely took notice. She heard it blow by, registered it on the periphery of her vision, but, well, she was busy. When another piece landed right on the book she was reading on the Compound steps, replacing a paragraph on the X-Gene equivalent in Savage Land Mutates with a picture of a Spider-Man who'd really let himself go, it was a little more difficult to ignore.

"Parker?" she calls, squinting upwards. "Come on, it's not that bad a picture."

[daretodo]

"Believe me when I say the accompanying article is," I tell my erstwhile partner in crime. Idly I wonder if she's as mortified as I am. "What, no side-ponytail, today?"

[waltsnothereman]

Taking a second glance at half of a headline, she gave a small snort before looking back up. "I'd think you'd be used to that sort of stuff by now, really. Surprsed you didn't jump years ago if you're that touchy."

At the mention of her fashion proclivities from a few days back, though, she gave a small wince. "On second thought, maybe I'll join you up there."

[wizard_errant]

"I wouldn't try it." Dairine usually tries not to hassle people who are on the roof. She's from New York, all you have to do to have some space to yourself is ignore anyone around you. But if it means they're likely to fall on their head or something, there's a time to speak up. "It's not that far down, but it'll hurt if you go head-first."

[daretodo]

"I'm not --" I start, then realize that that's not really the way to go about convincing anyone you're not trying to kill yourself. I could argue I have cause to after the past week, but the fact of the matter is, I've had worse luck in my day. And I'm not talking about 'oh, I lost everything in Vegas' sorta back luck, so much as I'm talking about 'my girlfriend was killed right in front of me.'

"The paper fell," I explain lamely.

[wizard_errant]

Dairine doesn't think he's trying to kill himself, just really close to falling and cracking his head open. She joins him on the edge, peering down over it. "Is it important?"

[daretodo]

"No, not really," I admit, shrugging as I settle back onto my haunches. "But I can't say I'm an advocate for littering."