7244/The Mean Streets-- er, roofs-- of Queens

The Mean Streets-- er, roofs-- of Queens
Date of Scene:	15 April 2019
Location:	New York City
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Black Cat, Spider-Man

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Black Cat has posed:
Another day in the Big Apple is coming to an end. The city of towering skyscrapers and neon signs is full of glittering panels of windows reflecting back the golden fall of the sun. A black-suited blur slings herself out of the financial district and towards one of the more homely boroughs of the city. It's full of memories, but she's in a good mood, the Black Cat. Far sooner than later, the jewel-struck curse of having a cat tail (no, that's not a belt about her waist, even if it doubles nicely as one and matches the fur accents on the suit) and tufted ears is nearly finished. One last meeting with one Doctor Strange and she'll be in fine showing indeed.

The wind whips through her loose pale-blonde hair as she indulges in some hangtime between thwips of her grappling lines, courtesy of her technologically-advanced cuffs. Another extension of the line and she curls her swing around one of the lower buildings of Queens. Executing a set of flips, she does a skidding landing on one of the many old brownstone apartment building's roof. Pushing her hair back from her face, Felicia wanders over to the edge and sighs in mild contentment. The twinkling of the light off the distant river is lovely.

Spider-Man has posed:
"Y'know, I'll cop to it-- I would have sworn someone photoshopped that picture of you," comes a familiar voice.

Spider-Man dangles inverted from the watertower, a webline gripped between hands and the press of the soles of his feet. "With the ears and tail and stuff. Something out of Japan maybe? They'll start calling you 'Neko-Chan' on the internet now," he offers, tone bright. "Something something 'cute kitty'."

Spidey pauses, rubbing a gloved finger against the tenting of his nose against his facemask. "I definitely wouldn't Google yourself, though," he advocates a moment later. "And yes, this is the voice of personal experience."

A grumble, mostly under his breath: "... I don't even *know* Deadpool."

Black Cat has posed:
The young woman straightens in place upon hearing the sudden and yes, shockingly familiar voice. Her jade-green eyes, gone wide behind the domino mask, then slit as she turns on her toes before settling again. The recognizable smirk of wry amusement is probably familiar enough from Felicia.

"I don't know Deadpool personally either, but if you're already tied up with him, buddy, there's no helping you." Her voice is just as sweet and warm as always. "You know how bad the Internet gets. And besides, this?" She plucks at the fluffing of white around her waist. "This is a belt, Spidey. Not a tail." With how her hair falls, there's no spotting to see whether or not her ears really are tipped in white fur.

"Skipping class again? No, wait, let me guess." Felicia's voice slides into something akin to 'Southern belle'. "You're being all friendly and neighborhood-like." Her hands rest at her waist now, her stance a comfortable contrapposto.

Spider-Man has posed:
"Well golly, you know, I just couldn't stand sitting in biology class another minute," Spider-Man replies. He affects a squeaky pubescent falsetto. "Also, school gets out at three-fifteen these days."

He rotates to a more normal orientation regarding the ground, dangling from the web wrapped around his wrist with no visible effort or discomfort and his legs loosely curled under him. His center of gravity is kept so stable there's virtually zero swaying with the motion, either.

"Are you moonlighting as a truant officer now, Cat?" he inquires, his tone normal and bantering again. "I'm not sure you're really cut out for civil service," he says with an affected note of whimsical hesitation in his voice. "Maybe the circus or something?"

"Or a mousecatcher," he adds, a beat later.

Black Cat has posed:
A small snort from the cat-burglar and she rolls those jade-green eyes, still as vivid as so long ago, and still lined in kohl behind the proposed anonymity of her domino mask.

"You still think you're funny, Spidey, it's adorable," Felicia schmoozes at him in a positively saccharine voice. "Did you grow yourself a girlfriend in biology class today? You always said it was boring." She turns away and steps up onto the edge of the building. Rather than leaving, however, she then sits herself primly on the ledge, fearless of the drop extending beyond and below her. A reach into the parted vee of her cat-suit, lined in silvery-blonde fluff from neck to mid-sternum, and she's pulled out a small leather back. What comes out of it sparkles as she holds it up to the sunlight briefly.

"Just lovely," comes the appreciative sigh of the tennis bracelet.

Spider-Man has posed:
"I would have, but there was this giant mess of abandoned morals in there," Spidey rebuts, easily. "I can only assume they were yours."

Spidey curls his legs and with minimal effort arcs smoothly through the air to cling to an antennae wire closer to Cat's seat. He spider-crawls around it then ends up in a low squat, oriented parallel to the rooftop. The spider-mask cocks at Felicia's ... assets as she digs into her lady's purse. Fingers flex once, forearms balanced on his outthrust knees. The white eyelenses narrow minutely at Felicia.

"See, here we were having a perfectly civil bit of banter, and now you gotta flash stolen goods in my face," he reproaches Felicia. "That's really going to put a crimp in our dialogue, you know. Can't you go five minutes without bragging about felony B&E?"

Black Cat has posed:
"Morals are so messy," mutters Felicia with a dismissive fingerish wave over one shoulder towards the hero. She then holds up each link of the bracelet up to the sun, accounting for the cut and quality of the gemstone embedded in the gold. At the admonishment, she pauses and glances at Peter. Teeth flash as she bites her lower lip fetchingly and then the first titter escapes.

Followed by another. And another. Until her shoulders are vibrating up near her ears and then she outright cackles. It's quite the sound.

"Oh, Spidey. I bought this myself. Here," and she reaches into her cat-suit again at her neck. A folded piece of paper is held out to him, tweezered between pointer and middle finger. "My receipt of purchase...since you think I'm incapable of treating myself."

Spider-Man has posed:
"Oh, gosh, thanks so much! I'll just walk right down there and take it from you," Spidey quips. He doesn't budge an inch. "And then you'll flash your ta-tas to distract me, shred me like a cat toy, and then run away laughing while I stem a bleeding injury." He tugs up his sleeve to his elbow, points at his forearm. "See that? Right there? Remember that? Four stitches and bactine. I *hate* bactine," he tells Cat. "It stings like crazy and I hate how it smells."

He tugs his sleeve back into place and with a casual motion that lacks any telgraphing, *twhips* a little blob of webbing at the receipt in Felicia's hands. Good aim, too, shooting to avoid catching her fingers in the *splat*.

"Not that I'm gonna take it on your good credit, either, of course."

Black Cat has posed:
There goes the receipt in a sharp //PAFT// of webbed impact, torn from her fingers. Felicia watches it fall to the ground far, far below, remaining silent and leaning out a little the entire time. It lands distantly in the raised bin of an open-top garbage truck. Off to the drump, bye piece of paper!

Peter gets a gimlet look. "You really make me want to come after you again and I don't mean nicely. I mean you and Bactine are going to have a date without me." Still...she's got this curl about her lips as if she knows something he doesn't...or perhaps the appearance of a cat found the cream.

Spider-Man has posed:
"Story of our life, Cat," Peter replies wryly. If he's intimidated by that gimlet stare, it doesn't show. "Just me, no you. No date. A bunch of PG-13 nudity and threats."

His head cocks to the side. White lenses flicker and adjust to the input provided by the setting sun and he shifts his position so he's sidelit by it instead of the light blinding him in the eyes. "It's like a really bad teen summer romcom." His voice turns to a dramatic, upbeat tone. " 'He's a Spider. She's a Cat. She mauls him every time she sees him, and he just can't seem to quit her. Coming this summer to a bunch of horny teens near you."

A palm pans across the air, holds. "Can't think of a good title for it, but I think I've got my dramatic voice-over down, yeah?"

Black Cat has posed:
Golf-claps greet his effort. Felicia sits ultra-primly, patting her fingertips to the back of her hand, her lips pursed. "It should be called 'Good Boys Are Boring'. Catchy, a little bit of alliteration, and it'll draw in those helpless, hopeless tweenies wanting to enjoy a struggle. Oh," and she goes dramatic of her own accord, her voice breathy and tear-striken. "The poor neighborhood web-head, how he pines for someone he simply can't have. He reaches, but oh -- " A pause for a clenched fist before her chest and forlorn sigh. Her jade-green eyes roll to the skies as if entreating some deity on high. "How he fails. Again...and again...and again."

Felicia pauses and shrugs to herself. "The script practically writes itself," she opines, back to her usual honey-warm tones. She takes a moment to close the tennis bracelet's clasp on her wrist and then holds it out again into a ray of setting sunlight. "Hmm...not as good as the other one, but it'll do."

Spider-Man has posed:
"I was raised to never date a girl you can't bring home for supper," Spidey says. He sounds amused. "Someone who'd need regular detours to the state penitentiary might make Christmas complicated," he informs Felicia.

"After that soliloqy though, I think you're wasted as a thief. You ought to get into drama. Move to New York. Then when you don't make it big, you turn to a life of crime and--"

He pauses, lenses blinking in thought. "Oh whoops! Did I just spoil your origin story?"

Black Cat has posed:
A tiny laugh. "You wish, Spidey. It's more interesting than most, but I won't waste your time with it. You don't care anyways." One last twiddle of her black-gloved fingers to make the bracelet twinkle and then Felicia sets her hands in her lap. She sighs and looks out across the city. The setting sun has burnished all surfaces in gold and even the river at a remove looks aureous.

"So. Other than sticking your webby nose into my business, Spidey, you have anything else important to do?" she asks, eyeing him with a lofty lift of her pert nose.

Spider-Man has posed:
"You wound me," Spidey protests, and puts a palm to his chest. "Nothing more important to do? Think of all the things I *could* be doing. Stalking Fisk. Putting Scorpion permanently in prison. Finishing my stats homework," he tells Cat. "Which, seriously, if you're any good at statistics, let me know. It's much harder than it looks. Numbers, and stuff."

He kicks off the post and vaults over Cat, landing in a low squat on the edge of the roof next to her. Well, 'next'-- out of arm's reach by a safe margin. He turns sideways and sits, legs dangling and propping his arms near his hips. "C'mon Cat, don't hold your origin story. I wanna know. Tell me about the Black Cat. What happened, were you exposed to interstellar radiation while holding a common household kitty?"

Black Cat has posed:
The high-and-mighty expression doesn't change a whit as Felicia watches him descend from on high to join her on the roof's edge. She shifts a leg up to cross the other daintily and then leans back on her palms. It brings her shoulders up coquettishly about her ears and exaggerates...well...boy, that cat-suit. The tumble of her hair is adjusted with a lazy flick of her hand as she looks away from him, back towards the river in gold.

"Numbers don't interest me unless they're a grand total. You know that, Spidey, don't play coy." She then shifts gears as her foot draws small circles in the open air. "Nothing special about me. No interstellar radiation, no science experiments...just a good set of genes and nice tech." Lifting up a hand, she gives the sudden display of sharp and silvery talons a fond smile. Another little flexion of her fingers and away they go again. "Very nice tech," she purrs.

Spider-Man has posed:
"That's not really an origin story," Spidey challenges with a good-natured ambivalence. "That's 'was born' and 'shops at Best Buy'," he observes.

"It's fine," he reassures Black Cat with a wave of his hand. Lenses look away in the distance, pan back so she's in his peripheral vision. "I guess I could come up with something," he offers, dubiously. "But it'd be terrible. Like... you're an extradimensional feline from a nearby dimension of cat-people, and you're their exiled queen seeking a means to return to your misplaced home."

He leans his head back, looking at Black Cat's profile and the countours of her lower back.

"Seriously, is that a tail though, or are you just going through a mid-career costume swap?"

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia shrugs insociantly at the line of questioning. "It might be a tail. It might not be. It might be a belt that matches the rest of my decor. At least one gentleman finds it charming," she informs the Spiderman lightly. A curl of her red-red lips and she glances over at him again.

"I'm glad that you acknowledge my status of royalty, however. It's gratifying despite the fact that I don't need a crown to know I'm a queen. Go ahead, tell the tabloids. You know they'll run with anything. You've got a new headline each week as is."