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Midtown isn't exactly what one would call a 'low key' part of New York City. Business happens here. Empires are built in this place. Worlds (small ones) crumble beneath the fists of men (and sometimes indirectly women) who are just having a bad week and want to watch the world burn. Figuratively speaking. A hub leading to the rest of the city, Midtown can be a bear to try to maneuver through at times, especially when you don't need to be gawked at by anyone you bump into. Evening hits on a chilly autumn night, the temperature daring to dip now that the nights are getting longer.
From the subway entrance, Morbius pulls himself up to the surface like a million other souls who take pathways from one side of the city to the other. Hands hidden away into his pockets and head down, a beat up trilby dumped on top of his head with his ears tucked into it, chin down to obscure as much of his pale face as possible. The messenger bag slung casually over his shoulder only missing one of the front clasps and in fairly decent repair. Okay, he's not the picture of fashion or discretion, perhaps, but in New York City? Who's really watching?
His direction set southward down the sidewalk, veering smoothly between individuals still on the street tonight, the occasional paranoid glance over a shoulder or into an alley, or a pause at a wire-rimmed trash bin.
"She was an acrobat's daughter…"
The voice isn't loud enough to be heard by most people at street level. Pity, her voice isn't that bad.
"She hung by her teeth on a noose…"
The human/spider hybrid leaves the webline at the end of the swing as if fired from a circus cannon, arcing gracefully between the buildings.
"But one fateful day, her bridgework gave way, and she flew through the air like a GOOSE!"
Then she spots something that stops the music.
Tiff and Molly were just making a living, after all.
The guy Molly shanked is still sitting face up, his eyes closed. He was alive, but wouldn't be for very long.
"Jeez, only 200 bucks!" Tiff, a dirty blonde, looked to Molly the redhead. "What do you think? We hit another before the end of the night?"
"Yeah. What rotten luck."
"Gonna get worse," said a voice from overhead.
Everyone just has to make a living, isn't that so? Those who have to scrape by on their bellies at the bare minimum. It's what they do. And desperation will make you do stupid, terrible things. Stupid, terrible things that get you noticed by the wrong people. Or the right ones, depending on your perspective.
The shuffle of feet on the pavement dull the sound of whatever is happening between the women and their victim, wherever they may be, but there is a sense born into every person, developed or not, recognized for what it is or not, to sense when something isn't quite right. Morbius knows that noise. The prickle on the senses when something is amiss. Instinct. His feet slow and come to a drifting stop, the vampire's head lifts and turns on a bit of a swivel, trying to catch a sense of the direction.
The streak of a figure against the sky catches his eye, following the blur in a general direction. To the average eye, the tense figure vanishes in the blink of an eye with a flap of fabric and a dashing breeze through the streets as Morbius follows on the general wake of the hybrid. The voices in question clearer. $200? Jesus, to /who/ is that pocket change? Oh, right, midtown. Who the hell are they robbing, Warren Worthington?
Both women look up and blink, startled.
A woman in costume is hanging upside down over them, barely six feet away.
"Crap! It's t-the W-w-w-w…" the redhead stammers.
"WHITE WIDOW. Say it LOUD and say it proud. Now drop the knife and…"
Both women bolt, Tiff to the left, Molly to the right.
"Crud." She sighs, then goes after Molly, she looks easier to catch.
Morbius sticks close to the nearest structure, attempting to melt his figure into it to avoid gathering any attention. Then again, it may not be so much his stealth as the fantastic distraction of a woman in a skin tight, contrasting suit, mask and hood. Sanguine-swallowed eyes peer from beneath the brim of that hat, squinting in a moment of confusion after the initial shock wears off. What the hell is that supposed to be?
*"Ti ston kosmo?"* 'What in the world?' Morbius whispers to himself, the soft click of slightly nasal words tapping against the backs of his front teeth.
Not given much more warning than that, the assailants flee, separating immediately. At least their smart idiots. He slinks back against the building when Tiff bolts left and the lady in the suit goes sailing after the right. Tiff sails past Morbius and for an instant, he thinks about letting her pass, unabused.
'This isn't your fight.'
His inner voice loses that argument as Morbius' gut clenches and he steps out from the building, casually, sticking a foot out to try to kick the fleeing woman's leg out from under her and catch her shoulder in one sprawling wide hand. Minimal effort. Clean and neat, right? Surely this won't come back to bite him in the ass.
"Do not struggle," Morbius murmurs, his spindled fingers clutching the young woman's shoulder firmly. Clearly she should be easy to reason with. "It will be better for you."
Molly grunted as she jumped the railing. If she could reach the subway, she would be free to-
Something hit her in the back of the neck and suddenly she was a kitten being hauled up by its mother. She looked to see Widow reeling her in. She pulled out the knife, still coated with the darkening blood, and tried to cut herself loose.
It was like trying to slice a steel cable.
Then she was disarmed and pressed against the wall. There is a subtle hissing sound, and then Molly looked down to see herself covered in webbing and stuck to the wall.
"Don't go away." She heads back towards the alley.
She starts running when the screaming starts.
Tiff looks at the man who accosted her, then reacted as she normally would.
The blade came out and rose up to Morbius's throat.
"Back off or get cut, jackass."
A hand on her shoulder, a knife at his throat. It hardly seems fair.
Morbius keeps his head down, showing to the accomplice the top of his hat and the splay of dark hair brushing his shoulders rather than his face. A vulnerable position with a knife aimed at your throat. Until one gets a look at the hand swallowing up Tiff's shoulder like—well, like a pale spider with five legs. The curved nails tipping each of his fingers less like fingernails and more like retracted talons into his nailbeds. With a slow flex of his fingers, claws extend and prickle against Tiff's shirt, delicate and without causing harm.
"I promise you that you don't want to do that," Morbius warns softly. Cordially. He gives Tiff exactly three seconds to pull the blade away before he shoves her backwards, violently. Picking the woman right off her feet and back into the alley she ran out from moments ago. Don't worry though, a number of trash bins and stacked milk bottle crates to catch her.
Morbius looks into the alley, the brim of his hat lifting marginally, the lower half of his face visible for a moment; pale, sharp features, his lips bulging slightly with a number of teeth hidden behind them. In a blur of motion, Morbius rushes into the alleyway, past Tiff nearly faster than a human eye can follow, but instead of appearing in front of Tiff again, it's beside their victim that the man reappears.
Quickly assessing the stab victim's state.
Tiff was never much of a horror fan. So when the nails become talons and those eyes look at her, the bravado drains out like the blood from her face. She tumbles through the air to land against the dumpster. She is momentarily stunned, but the dark shape moving towards her taps into some primitive fear and she is rooted to the pavement she sits on.
The guy doesn't look good. No veins or arteries, but he caught it in the left kidney pretty good. If the hospital can extract it, he sshould be too bad off. The problem is sepsis. The small intestine is seeping bile into the body cavity. He needs an ambulance.
Then he can sense the woman in the costume coming up from behind him.
"Buddy, I sure hope you are trying to help him," the White Widow says firmly.
Firmly planted beside the victim, the two women who accosted him are no longer variables in Morbius' mind once they're out of his sight. Finding the source of the copious amount of blood surrounding the man, pale hands grip either side of the cut in the shirt and yank, tearing it with a short scream of fabric so he can get a better look. A grim press of his lips together, the weirdo works out the general trauma caused by the blade, pulling a dark blue handkerchief from his pocket and presses it firmly down on the wound.
Blood pounding in Morbius' ears, the /scent/ thick in the air, Morbius can hardly help himself as he turns his head and snaps back to the White Widow with a hard look, "No. I am looking for his wallet." The lightly nasal accent and soft click of certain syllables against his teeth sounds Mediterranean of some kind, even through the sarcasm. His face visible fully to her for a moment, eyes but a black pupil swimming in a ruddy red which seems to /glow/ mildly, Michael quickly schools himself with a shake of his head. Focus. "I apologize. He needs surgery. Immediately. Have you dealt with his assailants?"
The man turns, and then he is one solid Christmas tree of red nodal points. Gwen involuntarily takes a step back.
But she doesn't run, and that red fades to yellow immediately. By the time she takes out the radio, there's more blue in it. "Hello. I need an ambulance. Eastern alley, between 5th and 6th street, 500 block. He has…" She looks to Morbius, into those strange eyes, and she is not scared of him. She smells like…
She smells like steel.
"If you know, what injuries does he have? I can tell the dispatcher."
"Knife wound. Gastrointestinal perforation. Possible kidney puncture, I can't tell clearly." Morbius turns his face away from the skin-tight-garbed woman, hair falling like a curtain against his cheek. The recitation comes quickly, spitting out the words succinctly. "He will die from sepsis if they do not arrive quickly. I can pack the wound but the chance for infection—" He cuts off suddenly and tightens his jaw, breathing through the incident one ticking second at a time.
The Widow repeats what he says, then clicks off the radio. She cups her hands together, and there is a faint hissing sound.
Then Widow hands a thick clump of spidersilk that is practically dripping with isopropyl alcohol. "Here…use this. It could help."
Anxiously glancing back and forth between the vigilante woman and the man slowly fading away in the alley way, Morbius shifts on his knees, very possibly anxious seeming while he tries to hold onto himself by the skin of some very vicious looking teeth.
The sharp smell of the chemical makes him sniff and jerk his head away, recoiling briefly at the assault on his senses as it cuts through the tang of blood in the air. A jolted glance toward White Widow over his shoulder, the black of Morbius' pupils nearly completely swallowed by the eerie glow of red as it intensifies.
Doubtful for a moment, his hesitation is visible and ultimately overruled as a blood-stained hand extends and fingers twist, plucking up that clump of chemical-soaked silk and replacing his handkerchief with it. "Thank you," Morbius murmurs, packing the wound and applying pressure.
Widow nods, then cocks her head. Sirens. Far-off, but getting perceptibly closer. She looked around, spotting Tiff trying to crawl away, and webbed her to the street.
"Okay, Mr. Man, maybe i should take it from here. I don't know how you'd deal with a bunch of cops and EMTs askingggg a bunch of questions, but right now I'm the only major factor here and I know how to talk to them. Why don't you get out of here? I'll keep the pressure on the victim until they get here and then take all the credit." She chuckles. "I get along with them okay."
Sirens, as far off as they may be, Morbius can hear them as well while he stares through the stabbing victim more than he stares through him, holding it together stiffly. Rigidly, Morbius nods his agreement easily to the costumed vigilante, happily giving up the 'glory'.
"By all means, you're welcome to the…'pressing the flesh', as they say." His tone harsher than it was moments earlier, like a rasp tugging on splintered wood.
With a gesture, Morbius waves one hand toward the Widow in haste, carefully helping to fix her hands if he is able over the man's wound with a press of tepid (not cold, but tepid) palms over hers if allowed. This close, she may very well hear the soft sounds of slightly labored breathing sucked in and out from Morbius' nostrils before he presses back to his feet and stepping away. Hesitating for a brief moment, Morbius speaks again, stilted, "I apologize. For being rude." Fingers worry at his jacket hem slightly, leaving red fingerprints. "My name is Morbius. Good night." Trying desperately to recall his manners somehow in this screwed up situation
Rather than wait for a return, he winks away in a rush, seeming to practically vanish, but fading red footprints can be seen fading away down the alley. White Widow left in the alley, holding onto a thin thread of a man's life while his assailants struggle and rethink their life choices.