2421/Music Time

Music Time
Date of Scene:	11 July 2020
Location:	Staten Island
Synopsis:	Spider-Man pays Andi a visit to reconnect with both Andi and Mania
Cast of Characters:	Peter Parker, Andi Benton

---

Peter Parker has posed:
It seems like ages since he's been here. The sign saying "TUNE IN" is the same, the windows and displays, everything.
But there is a different vibe here. He is not sure what it is. Oh, he still gets looks when he strolls in, but then again, he IS Spider-Man, and the costume attracts attention. He does relinquish the backpack, as long as they stash it securely.
Maybe it's because the person he is looking for is supposed to be here. He knows her much better since the last time they met here.
He has six records, sleeves, covers and all, nothing missing (because who trades in incomplete stuff?) out of the records his Uncle Ben once listened to. The Mamas and the Papas. The Beach Boys. The Jimi Hendrix Experience. And three separate Elvis records.
Hail to the King, baby.

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi is there. She's been there a lot lately, given it's the summer, there's no more school (and might not be again for her), and...well, there are other reasons.

She isn't behind the register today, or at least not at the moment. Instead, she can be found putting a variety of CDs in alphabetical order. Tedious work, but necessary for customers to find the things they're looking for. Can't have a place like this with everything out of sequence. Who'd find anything that way?

She happens to look toward the entrance just as Spider-Man is handing over his backpack, a bit of a buzz up front as phones come out and a few customers stop what they're doing to gawk. As for her, she merely stops what she's doing and watches. There is no sign of the symbiote in here, at the moment.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey glanced around as he walked up to the counter. Andi's easy to spot, she still has a distinctive look, symbiote or no symbiote. He places the records on the counter, and the attendant asks politely, "Uhm, cash or trade?"
"Trade, actually." Spider-Man smiles reassuringly, and some of that shows under the mask.
"This is, uhm, going to take a little while. If you want, you can browse or go to the pizza joint next door and we can text you when we're ready."
Spidey nods, rattling off the Spider-Comm number. "I'll do some browsing. Know where I can find a band called Skillet?"
"Metal Music, I think." The attendant looks left and right, then asks, "You're...not expecting trouble, right?"
"No, just trading LPs. Something does happen, I'll give you a heads-up."

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton lets Spider-Man work out his business with the guy at the register, who looks a little star-struck afterward. She might be seen to rub the side of her face as he turns away from the counter, and she lowers her head so she can focus again on the organization of music.

It's probably been a couple weeks or so since there's even been a rumor of someone seeing her, that being of course the thing she can now become.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods as he walks away, but the Spider-Comm does send Andi's phone a quick text.

<Want to join me for a slice of pizza?>

Andi Benton has posed:
That's another thing. Some of the stuff that's been going on, neither Andi nor Mania have been very responsive unless it's to say she's fine. No other details were forthcoming.

Then, the phone chirps to let her know she's got a message. Digging it out of a pocket, she thumbs through and pauses before sending back a response.

<Can we just meet out back?>

Then she calls out, "Robbie, I'm going on break now, so don't burn the place down or anything!" She heads for the break room, then through the door to the alley behind the buildings.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey sees the text come up on his HUD, and nods as if to himself. He was heading over to the pizza joint anyway...

A few seconds later, Spider-Man is resting on the wal overlooking the alley in the rear of the music store. Nothing so unusual - anyone asks, he's looking for someone in the street.

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton's dressed to her usual extent, mostly purples and blacks, cultivating a certain attitude to the appearance. She rubs an arm after stepping outside, looking around for the familiar costumed hero. Does she seem..apprehensive about something? Hard to say based on an initial glance, but she certainly does seem to have some reservations about lingering out here even if it's away from the main street.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey waves from the wall, about ten feet up by now. "Hey there. I wasn't sure if i should come by, but seeing money's tight and a couple of birthdays are coming up..."
He pauses, then continues, "...and I wanted to see how you were holding up."

Andi Benton has posed:
"I could ask you where you get all of these classic records from, but that's none of my business," Andi starts out saying, eyeing the wallcrawler from her spot below. "I'm..fine," she adds. However, the response and her body language reveals some evasiveness attached to it all. "You know, just making some cash, getting by." She stops short of asking the same of him.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man sighed. "They belonged to my uncle, may he rest in peace. They're just gathering dust, and they might as well go to someone who'll listen to them..." A pause. "And maybe I need the money, too. Leave us not gild the lily."

He observed her for a moment. "I get the feeling there's more going on? What's going on? It's just you, me, and a rat in the corner, only he's not the informer kind of rat."

Andi Benton has posed:
Frowning at the answer given anyway, Andi shakes her head. She didn't ask him for the details, but he volunteered them anyway and it gives her something to mull over. "Shit, that sucks. I guess if someone else is getting something out of them then that's good, but you're not, like, rich doing all this stuff?" Disbelief crosses her features before she turns to eye the rat. Upon spotting her, it skitters off immediately. "Nothing's going on," she answers, which is in a sense true, not just a way to avoid the questions.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey chuckles. "Nope. Screwed the pooch on my dream job, so I'm hustling to pay the bills. Just another working-class Man In Tights. And I'm not even Robin Hood."

He pauses, then decides not to pry too much. "Well, i'll take your word for it. But once again for the cheap seats, if you are dealing with anything and needs advice, or a sounding board, or someone to just vent at, let me know, okay? People vent at me all the time. Villains, too."

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton leans against the adjacent wall. Mania, however, would probably be perched up there too, but Mania is nowhere to be seen at this time.

"Sucks, man. I figured you'd have, you know, more endorsement money than you knew what to do with by now," she remarks, shaking her head afterward. "No..I mean, my dad's doing better and that's good, but I've kind of just been..keeping to myself with everything that's been going on."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "So you've been taking time to process it all, or is it something else?" He's trying to understand, so he stifles the urge to "hold forth" like he did in his valedictorian speech. Because, in many ways, he is not as smart as he thinks he is.

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton waves a hand as if to say yes, but also no. "Kind of? I mean, there's a lot I'm, or I guess we're still learning." This time, the 'we' is not exactly the same as Spider-Man's heard it out of her before.

Right at that moment, a shadow seems to form behind Andi. It's not. Instead, it rises over the back of her right shoulder, near her head, taking on the basic shape of a head of its own with those eerie white eye shapes along with the hint of a fang-filled mouth, sculpted into a grin. "We see you, spider." It fades back away again, gone, but the voice is distinct from Andi's own.

Now she's looking at him as if a big secret just got out.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man blinks. "Okay...THAT was new." He hadn't known the symbiote could do that. He wondered if it enjoyed startling him the way it did.
It probably did. People liked to startled him, he had discovered.

"Well...learning's good. Learn at the pace you are comfortable with. I really can't advise about it since I've never met anyone like Mania, but I can still do the normal friend stuff."

Andi Benton has posed:
"That was..the symbiote, not me," Andi says, keeping her voice low just in case anyone is near enough to overhear them. "It's not like I've met anything like that before, you know. Before all of this, I was just..normal. Nobody. But it likes to show itself sometimes, when it's safe to. It has its own personality," she tries to explain.

Just imagine the Mania side of her observing all of this with glee. "It wonders why I keep my job when we could be doing other stuff," she adds. "But it's learning about some of the music that's out there, too."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey nods thoughtfully. "That's a pretty big responsibility you have there, Andi. But I am sure you are up to the task. But there's no shame in asking for help. Frankly, I'd ask for it more if I knew more people." He rubs the nape of his neck. "You're Mania's teacher. You may not have asked for it, but we don't usually ask for these things when they are given to us."

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton bites her lip. "It..needs me. I've felt it strongly, like it can't deal with not having a..a bond, or a host. I don't really know anything about where it came from yet, but sometimes I get these little feelings or things in my dreams. It's not the only one out there."

This is a piece of news, without question.

"I'm sure you've had a lot going on with all of the stuff that's been happening, but we needed some time to..to figure some stuff out. I'm still practicing when I can, though."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man chuckles. "We're not exactly a clubhouse, dues-every-month kind of club, you two. You want help, you got it. You want space, you got it. You want time? You got that too...as long as, when you come back, you feel you are ready. A lot of people, me included, push too hard and too far. If you need balance in your life, no one is going to give you any grief about it."

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton gestures, a palm up. "I don't know. I mean, I'm pretty sure we could have done something, but I'm not sure people are ready to see us like..that," she says before amending, "or maybe we're not ready for people to see us. I don't know how they'd react. Some people don't think you're, you know, all good. I've seen some stuff, but I don't think they're making any sense." He's aided her so far, hasn't he? How could someone bad do that?

That blob forms again, this time over the other shoulder. "We like you, spider." Gone again.

Andi winces. "Don't pay any attention to that. It's not like that. I mean, you're not a bad guy. I know that. But..sometimes it wants to do things I'm not so sure about."

This time the voice of the /other/ is heard without it being seen. "We are doing better, Andi."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man hops to the street from the wall, standing in front of Andi/Mania with a casual stance. "One thing I've learned. What you do is who you are. And if you scare people? Show them that good people don't need to be scared of you by what you do. You'd be surprised how many crooks treat you when they know you're not going to just kill them. Or how many cops will choose to 'miss you' when they see you in the area where a criminal is webbed up." He smirks. "For a solid six months, the Bowery Boyz avoided operating in a certain area because I saved the leader's sister from a rival gang. Respect can come from places you never expect. But choose your code and live by it."

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton gives him his space, and for the time being the symbiote remains hidden away. She considers him and what he has to say, nodding slowly as she picks at a few strands of hair. "Honestly, I scare myself sometimes, so I know how easily we could scare others. But it can be effective, too." They don't even need to bring up the situation where she almost killed the ones who attacked her in the alley, back when Spider-Man showed up to help talk her down.

"Anyway, /I/ know you're doing good things. You helped save me, and then my dad too, and I know I've got this other part of me now and sometimes that's really confusing, but it's not all that bad. I'm never alone now."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "You're one up on me, then. That's good. Everyone needs friends who will stand by you. I have a few of my own, and believe me, they mean the world to me."

He glances around, then says, "Listen, there are a few things going around. Even though you are still working out stuff for yourself, you can still access the database, and I'll be around if you want someone to help you with anything. When you're ready...we'll do all we can to help you be the best hero you can be."

Andi Benton has posed:
"Is there anything else you wanted to test me on back at that junkyard sometime?" Andi wonders. At first, there was some reluctance to do any of that. Now, it might be getting to the time of showing off a little more, and testing her limits now that she's more comfortable with things. "And I know that sounds kinda weird, like I have a friend but it's all in my head and stuff, but..you know." He's seen it. Seen the symbiote, seen what Mania can do. There's every reason to try to keep that kind of potential power on the right side.

"Robbie's probably got things totaled up for you, so if you wanted to go take care of that soon..and I should get back to work, too. Having a job makes me feel like one part of my life is still normal," she explains.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "He texted me a minute ago, but I figured talking to you was more important. If you're asking my advice? Practice fine motor control. It can be difficult if you are very strong. I had to practice for a week and a half before I could open doors without ripping off the doorknobs without mishap. And if you don't have one? I can make a reversible backpack for you. All black for Mania's use, but any other color scheme for the normal side. Based on the same design as mine." He chuckles. "A good backpack helps in many ways."

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton waves the concern off. "I'll be okay. Dad's about to start working again, and we've had enough to get by in the meantime. I've been taking more hours, too. But I'll..keep all of that in mind. The backpack thing sounds kinda cool. Maybe it could have some eyes on it or something when I'm out doing Mania things," she imagines.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "Well, if you want to design it yourself, I can work with drawings and such, so, go with what you want." He stretched out, then says, "He might wonder if I take too long, Robbie...but I am glad you are making it work. So, I'm hoping you'll be in the swing of it. So to speak." He chuckles.

Andi Benton has posed:
"Yeah. I can do that. Draw something up, I mean. And keep practicing," Andi says. Anyone want to hazard a guess how many times she's sketched things with the symbiote in her artbook at home?

She waves him off. "Go ahead. I'm gonna hang out here a couple more minutes before I go back in. I'll try to look you up again soon, all right? And tell your girlfriend thanks for, you know, that night?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey nods. "Will do. Take care of yourselves."

He doesn't need to fire a webline, just hops 30 feet to the roof of the store, walks across, and drops down in front of the store.