for winnebagos

[thefreak]

[ Moving to the city was supposed to be the beginning of a new chapter of Eddie's life. He had spent the past ten years being ridiculed by the rest of his school, between his interest in Dungeons & Dragons, his fashion sense, and his familial history. So graduating (a couple years too late, but better late than never) from high school and packing all his things up to move out of the hick town and into the big city should have been a turning point, should have led to much happier experiences.

Instead he's crashing with a friend of the family before his lease on his new studio apartment and before he starts his new job at the record store in town. He tells himself it's just until he can get his demo listened to by some A&R schmuck that'll sign him a deal and get him some radio play, but he's got the funniest of feelings that this is where his dreams go to die, once again.

His decision to go out that night was made impulsively. He should have gone to sleep, really, but he needs to get out of the apartment and get some fresh air before he snaps. He doesn't even have a destination in mind, nor is he really paying much attention to his surroundings. Why should he? The small town he's from was safe, and he's only ever been jumped when he dared to go to the whopping one gay club.

It's easy to understand, then, how he managed to miss the fact that he is very much not alone. It's easy to understand how, if he didn't have seemingly divine intervention at the exact right moment, Eddie Munson might have just been another casualty, another name in the paper, another statistic for the mayor to use for his re-election campaign. ]

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[winnebagos]

( it's just another night of patrol for steve. no one asks him to do these patrols; it's a task he's taken upon his own shoulders. he tells himself it's because no on else can do what he can, that he has the power to help people, so he should, even when certain people disagree strongly, and loudly. law enforcement call him a vigilante. tabloids call him a menace. but the people who know him—the kid whose bike he recovered from a thief, benny whose bodega he prevented from being robbed—they call him their friendly neighborhood spider-man. and at the end of the day, it's their opinions that matter.

the city is full of hidden dangers. it's nothing like the sleepy small town where he grew up, which is one of the reasons he moved out here in the first place. it's where he felt like he could do the most good, and if the tall buildings make for some exceptional web-swinging, that's just an added bonus. some nights he just finds himself swinging from rooftop to rooftop, watching young people stumble drunkenly out of a bar, listening to snippets of conversation from passersby, or sitting and admiring the twinkle of the city lights. it's impossible to see the stars from here. sometimes he misses that about his hometown.

but his eyes aren't on the lights tonight. after doing this for as long as he has, he's developed something of a sense for it. it's not the same thing as his spider-sense, which warns him of imminent and immediate danger to his own person, but it pings him to when something might be amiss. so when he sees a lone figure walking down an empty street, and another lone figure who looks tense and a little twitchy walking in the direction of the first person, he immediately clocks it. steve waits for another second, just in case he's off-base, and then—

there's the telltale glint of metal. the second person drags the first person into an alley, and steve climbs down after them. the mugger has his victim held at knifepoint against the wall. steve flips off the opposite building and lands soundlessly in the alley behind them. the mugger is making his demands (the usual, "give me your money, empty your pockets, etc."), but steve doesn't let him finish. in fact, he says— )

Let me stop you right there—

( —and shoots a web at the center of the mugger's back. he pulls, and the mugger flies towards him. steve dodges him with ease and lets the guy collide with the dumpster against the wall. )

I've definitely heard that one before. Seriously, is there a script you guys follow? You might want to change up the material. ( the mugger is half-sitting, half-lying against the dumpster, looking dazed. he's somehow managed to hold onto his knife through it all, so steve webs his weapon-wielding arm to the dumpster. ) It's getting a little stale.

( he webs up the mugger's other arm for good measure. then he turns to the almost-victim. steve is dressed from head-to-toe in a red-and-blue form-fitting suit that's covered in a black web pattern, a spider symbol on the chest. the red cowl covers his face, with two large, white eyes that catch a little of the light from beyond the alley. )

Hey, man. You okay?