[for Felicia] he wore black and I wore white

[daretodo]

On those nights I go out in costume, not only am I careful to stick to low traffic areas, but I'm more careful still to make sure I'm not followed. Without my spider-sense to warn me, I can't rely on instinct alone to ensure I don't give myself away, but given that I tend to spend most of my nighttime 'training' high up in the trees, there's not much risk of being spotted until I inevitably have to make my way back to the ground -- intentionally, or otherwise.

Losing my footing on a branch slicked with ice as I head on down, I save myself from a concussion with a well-timed -- if not especially well-aimed -- webline shot up into a neighboring tree, sending me swinging just a few inches above the ground, my feet grazing untouched snow for the few seconds it takes before my webbing snaps, and I land on my back in an extraordinarily cold heap.

With a groan and a few choice muttered curses, I roll over to get up onto my knees, surprised to find an audience, though the glimpse I catch Cat's familiar white-blonde hair reflecting under the low light of the moon sets me at ease enough that I don't immediately make a bolt for it. Other than Mary Jane, there's no one else who knows I've started doing this again, and I'd really like to keep it that way, for her safety more so than my own.

Brushing myself off -- and boy, that's gonna hurt in the morning, I'm telling you now -- I do my best Alec Guiness impersonation by saying, "These so aren't the droids you're looking for."

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[daretodo]

I almost fall. It's about the last thing I'm expecting to leave her mouth, such a blatant reminder of my first wife, my unborn child. It's hard to think sometimes that I'm not even thirty and already on my second marriage. That I'm not even thirty and already I've lost a baby. I've suffered so many losses in my lifetime, probably more than anyone else I know, but even though I've moved on from them all, pushed through the pain and despair, every last one still hurts when I stop to think of them. Not all wounds are healed by time.

Yet Felicia mentions it so casually that I wonder if she even realizes what she's just gone and said. I'm too winded to ask. And so, caught entirely off guard, I do what I do best -- I make a quick exit. Letting myself drop from the branch, I do a flip in midair, landing in a messy crouch in the snow, and promptly shoot off a webline to get me out of here ASAP.

"Yeah, weird. Look, it's been nice catching up, Cat, but uh, I just remembered something," I say hastily, taking a running jump. "See you around."

[crossyourpath.livejournal.com]

Watching him flee like something has come up and decided to beat him up right then and there, Felicia frowns. This isn't exactly the most unsurprising end of a conversation, especially not between them.

Waving lamely after him, she wracks her brain for what exactly could have set him off. It's a second too late that it clicks how her lame joke could have sounded.

"Well then," she says to herself before jumping to another tree branch. Thankfully she's never been the anniversary celebrating type or this would have wounded her ego.