itinere | Open | Are we too damaged now to possibly connect?

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the fever series: dani o'malley (jada)

Open | Are we too damaged now to possibly connect?

Peter has been here for a little over a week. At first he'd thought the whole thing was related to Spider-man. After doing some research, he's pretty sure it's not a Spider-man thing, and he's not sure what to do with that. It leaves him without much direction to go in. Last week, his spider-man suit had shown up in his apartment (which looks suspiciously like his room back in Aunt May's house). He hasn't really determined if there's any need for Spider-man here. So far, his week has been very quiet.

He's got mixed feelings about being here at all. Back home, he's still dealing with Gwen's death. He's just getting back to being Spider-man because whether Gwen is alive or not, New York City needs Spider-man. He can't get his father's words out of his head about those that have the ability to do something also have the responsibility.

Today, he's doing some directionless wandering, taking stock of the city. He's poking in alleys and abandoned buildings, opening doors and (when he thinks no one is looking) doing some fairly impossible wall climbing to check out spots that are high up. Come have a chat.

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The tallest building in Itinere is the apartment building. It's kind of a bad ass building actually, all gleaming glass and tall, the way it changes on the inside to suit the needs of the people here. Dani has yet to claim a room. She has a bunch of hidey holes all over the city though, places off the beaten path where she's stashing things away for a rainy day. Truthfully, she's like a packrat with things, only in a survivalist sort of way.

One of those hidey holes is in an electrical shed on top of the apartment building. She's stashed away food, blankets, a change of clothes, grenades, ammo, and more candy bars than you can shake a stick at.

Dani likes it up here. It's away from people. It's got a great vantage point, you can see for miles in any direction. And it's quiet so she can think. Did she mention that she likes that it's away from people? Cause she hasn't met anyone here she likes yet. Granted, she hasn't met anyone who likes her either and people have to like her before she likes them.

She's sitting on top of the roof, tanktop and jeans, her long leather coat and sword nestled just beside her. She has an iPod and earbuds are in her ears. She's softly humming the tune to MacLemore's Thriftshop and munching on a candy bar.

All is well and good until a guy comes up over the edge where there's no ladder. WHAT??? There are fae that can fly, but she seen no wings. "Hey! Criminy! How'd you do that? What're you doin' up here??"

It is a bad ass building, which is why Peter wanted to climb it. What he didn't expect was to find someone at the top of said building. Peter is much more social than Dani. He likes people, most of the time, but he does require time to himself sometimes. Like Dani, he generally prefers his solitude high up.

When he hears Dani, he freezes. He's accustomed to keeping his identity a secret and oh, he's not wearing his spider-man suit. He gapes a little and rubs the back of his neck. "I just--I-uhm---you know, I was out exp-ploring and I--I'm Peter Parker. Who are you?"

Yeah, that was a nice non-answer there, Peter.

As he starts speaking, she can see his lips moving but only hears the music thudding in her ears. She pulls the buds out of her ears right about the time he says the word 'exploring'. She could understand wanting to explore. But the guy, Peter Parker, has just climbed up a very tall building on the outside of it. In truth, it's kind of bad ass. Dani likes bad ass people... as long as they aren't as bad ass as her.

She stands, jean clad legs that go on for miles, wind whipping her long blazing red hair all around her, sun highlighting the multitude of freckles across her face and arms. Her face scrunches up against the sunlight and she steps over to the edge to look over. Yep. It's a long way down.

Looking back over to the boy, she pushes her unruly hair back out of her face. "Well, Peter Parker, I'm Dani O'Malley. Can't sweep stuff under the rug, double P. Not unless you got yourself a right handy broom." She makes a show of looking all around Peter to either side of him, up above him, down at his feet. Her hands rest on her hips, hips jutted jauntily to one side. "Well would ya look at that. Not a broom in sight!"

Dani shrugs, lips twisted into a grin. "Now, about you climbin' up the side of the building..."

Yes, he did just climb up the outside of a very tall building. It's actually something he does on a really regular basis. He wouldn't claim to be as bad ass as Dani. Spider-man might, but Spider-man is a cocky little bastard. Peter Parker is much more humble.

Yup. He noticed those mile-long-legs as well as that hair that's a little like a small sun. He's trying not to let it distract him and he does worry a bit when she goes to look over the edge. She's not going to try something stupid, is she? Like jumping off to see if he can catch her or something.

No, it seems as if she doesn't have any suicidal thoughts. Good. Her ramble makes him scrunch up his face in confusion. The accent throws him off to begin with. He's heard a few Irish accents in New York City, but hers is thick. Even if it weren't for the accent, her words wouldn't make any sense to him.

"Wh--whah? Pardon--I mean?" Yes. He's going to focus on the ramble and not the climbing.

Well, that's pretty cute the way he stumbles and stammers over his words. It almost reminds her of Dancer the first time they'd met. She'd been a lot for Dancer to understand to begin with. Dani is always a hundred percent on whatever she is at the moment. But then she and Dancer had become really good friends. Dani idolized Dancer. She crushed on him pretty hard. They were like two peas in the mega pod.

Speaking of crushes. This boy isn't all that bad to look at either. Her accent is a very thick brogue and she can't help that. She can play at an American accent, having basically been raised by a television set until she was eight years old. But in the end, she's Irish through and through.

Dani closes the distance between her and Peter, standing at about the same height as him, maybe an inch or two shorter. There's inches between them and still she leans in to look at his face, into his eyes. Her sidhe-seer senses reach out, looking for any glamour, any fae. Nothing.

"So you're human. But special, like me." She cants her head curiously to the side. "Do ya ken what a broom is?"

He does that sometimes. Okay, he does that a lot. He likes to think it's because his brain works faster than his mouth. It has a lot to do with his nerves as well. Dani has cornered him and he's anxious.

That would make him blush and stammer even more if he knew it. Oh the accent is amazing. He just doesn't always understand it.

He's six foot one and this girl is tall. That gets his attention as well. His eyes go wide when she leans in and he actually leans back a little. He's definitely not fae and he's not got a glamor on him, but he's got no idea what she's doing or what she's looking for.

His brow is furrowed up when she speaks and he couldn't be more the picture of confusion if he tried. "I---yea-yeah?," he finally says about the first statement. "Ken? I uh...a broom? Uhm....I think so? If ken means know or understand?" Color him entirely boggled.

"Course it means know or understand. You're a right bright one, you are!" Dani hasn't met any Americans before outside of Mac. Dancer was from Australia and Barrons and his men were something... other. Mac had had trouble understanding the Irish brogue too at the beginning. Eventually it became easier for her though. She even eventually started succumbing to saying the words criminy and crikey and bloody.

She remembers the first time she got Mac to say the word 'feck' and smiles. Then immediately frowns. Nothing is the same anymore with Mac, not since she learned that Dani killed Alaina. And why wouldn't things be different after that?

Feck. She hates that rabbit hole of thoughts. Jada lies at the bottom of that rabbit hole. Nobody likes Jada. Hardly anybody likes Dani, so she guesses they aren't all that different. She stubbornly forces herself back into the here and now.

"Y'know, sweep sweep." She steps back and makes a motion like she's sweeping the floor of the roof. "With a broom. It's you're doin' right now, not literally, of course. Metaphorically." Dani pauses, arms crossing over her chest as she looks him over again. "You got a big feckin' secret, eh? Well..." Her lips pull into a gamine grin, impish and playful. "I really like secrets."

He's taken aback a bit by her patronizing and gives her a look like 'seriously'. There's a cocky side to him that wants to tell her that he's a literal genius IQ wise, but he holds his tongue.

That's the way thoughts you try to avoid work: once you start they pull you down the rabbit hole. Peter had to work through them back home so that he wouldn't fall down that rabbit hole any more. Sometimes he gets caught in them, but for the most part he exised those demons.

He watches her, arms folding across his chest, looking her over the same way that she's looking him over. "It's a very personal thing, secrets," he tells her. "I don't usually share with girls I've just met."

She really doesn't mean to be patronizing. Dani thinks she's being amusing, really. But then, she isn't all that great with social cues either. That's what happens when you aren't really around people until you're eight years old. Everything is a television show. Life and the living of it, people and the interacting with them, are in technicolor and 3D. Everything has a laugh track.

If it helps, she would have said the same thing to Dancer and he's genius level IQ too, probably the smartest person Dani knows. Except now she knows Peter. For her own part, Dani never went to school. Everything she knows she learned from television. Then from Roweena.

"Why's it gotta be a big secret that you can sift?" Because surely that's how he got from the ground up to here. "Any fae can sift from over there to over here. But you're not a fae, are you? You're... somethin' else. Somethin' feckin' special, that's what you are."

Her face lights up. "You should be screamin' it from the rooftops. It's good to be special." She moves back over to the edge of the roof, holds onto the ledge, cants her head back and yells. "I'm the feckin' special-est of all the special there is!" She laughs, looks back at Peter. "Come on, Double P. Let the world have it."

It's okay. Peter is reasonably forgiving about things like that. He's a giant, awkward dork so he really has to be. Television is something that Aunt May and Uncle Ben limited in their house so much of Peter's time was spent with books.

School intelligence isn't the only kind of intelligence and Peter knows that.

"Sift?" The look he gives her isn't put on. It's pure and absolute confusion. He's got no idea what she's asking him. "No. I'm not fae. I'm...I don't know...English? Maybe Polish--I--I'm from New York." He sounds as baffled and confused as he looks.

He smirks lopsidedly at her words and ducks his head, flushing a bit. "It's not such a good thing back home," he tells her sheepishly. The way she yells makes him grin though. He shakes his head though and takes a step back, hands going into his pockets.

"New York? I've never been to New York. Someday I'd go there, if I live that long. See the Statue of Liberty and all them feckin' people crammed into that small space. I don't know how they do it, runnin' into each other all the time. Feck, I'd be one big walkin' bruise again." She looks back at Peter, rubbing her cheek with a ghost of a memory.

Freeze framing would be really hard with that many people. It's a good thing she's gotten better at the slip-stream.

The way he backs off from screaming makes her stare at him, head tilted. Her hands go to her hips as she tries to understand why it would be a bad thing. She considers him with fresh eyes. "You're not the villain of your story, are you? You seem more the hero type to me."

"It's an awesome city. You eventually learn how to get around. We all sort of make space for each other," Peter says with a goofy grin. "But hey, I've never been to Ireland. Or, you know, much of anywhere that wasn't New York." At one time, he was going to go to London with Gwen and then he'd killed her, which he is not going to think about right now when he's talking to a pretty girl.

Peter can only imagine. He spends a lot of his time swinging above the crowd in NYC.

He's not much of a screamer anyway? He just grins at her when she puts her hands on her hips and shakes his head at her question. "Nah," he scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. "I just try to do the right thing. Make my uncle and aunt proud of me."

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Open | Are we too damaged now to possibly connect?

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