2012-09-12 Web, Line, and Sinker

Spider-Girl needed a break. A break from classwork, a break from cleaning out that disaster area outside the city... a /break/. So, on this lovely afternoon, she's all suited up and webslinging her way towards her old neighborhood: Harlem.

Spider-Girl drops onto a rooftop long enough to doublecheck the address on the business card given to her by Bethany Cabe. "This must be it," she muses, then digs her phone out of its hidey hole on her glove. She'll just call ahead. It's only polite. Most people just do that before they're visible from the window of the place they're headed.

Luke Cage was just stepping outside his little rundown house in Harlem. He always forgets to look up, like just about everyone else, and instead looks down as his cell phone starts to play the theme from Shaft. He pauses in his postage stamp of a front yard and answers Anya's call, "Yo, this is Cage."

"Mr. Cage! Spider-Girl. Big fan," comes the cheerful voice over the phone -- and, if he's paying enough attention, right across the street. "Bethany Cabe suggested I get in touch with you about throwing a monkeywrench into some pusher's operation. I hope that's cool."

Due to the car screeching around a corner a couple blocks away, he doesn't quite catch her voice. In fact, he jams a finger in his other ear so he can hear better. He's obviously about to roll his eyes at getting a call from 'Spider-Girl' until she drops Cabe's name, and everything else. He cocks his head, a crooked grin appearing, as he slowly looks up and turns to scan the roofs. /Right/ past Spider-Girl. No, he's not all that perceptive. He shrugs, probably assuming she isn't nearby. "Shit, girl, that sounds like fun. I got a hot lead something going down today, actually. Did you get any whiff of that? Supposed to be a deal in East Harlem."

"I didn't," Spider-Girl admits, but she doesn't sound sheepish. She sounds pretty psyched, actually. "I've been out of town. But if you want a hand, I can be there in..."

She doesn't hang up the phone. Just gauges the distance and leaps from the roof, landing lightly on a clear patch of sidewalk a few feet away from Luke. "...oh, nowish."

Luke just laughs. Perceptive? Not particularly. Jumpy? Definitely not. He hangs up his phone, and walks out to the sidewalk, extending his hand. "Hey, I'm a big fan of your work," he says, grinning. "Word on the street is that you're a Harlem girl. Couldn't get any more than that though." He shrugs, "Good for you, I guess. Nice ta meetcha."

Beaming, Spider-Girl tucks her phone away before reaching out to take the offered hand. "The rumor mill got something about a spider right? That's gotta be a first," she muses. "Nice to meet you, too. I have a couple of friends who want to pitch in, too, though they're..." Doing contract work they wouldn't give too many details about. "...outta town. Should be back in a day or two, though."

"Hey, the more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned," Luke says, "But what about today? You wanna check out that deal? I was thinking I'd let the money change hands, and follow Jax back home. Supposedly Jax knows all about Karl." Cage keeps walking to his car, parked just a few feet away, and rests his arm on top of the roof, leaning back. "Guess you wouldn't need a ride though." He smirks.

"Hey, if you're offerin', I'll take a lift," Spider-Girl grins, following Luke over to his car. "Then I can save my energy for the fellas we need to chat with, just in case."

Luke snap-points and double-clicks his key fob to unlock all the doors of his sedan. Hopping in the driver seat, he rolls his windows down, and pumps some old-school jams on the stereo. Turning to look at Spider-Girl as she gets in, he says, "We call this stealth-mode." He winks, and revs the engine. Apparently he's not going to ask her to put her seatbelt on. He sure isn't wearing one.

Once the doors unlock, Spider-Girl climbs right on in. She even buckles up without prompting, more out of habit than anything else. "I like stealth mode," she says approvingly, draping an arm out her window. Yup. They see us rollin'. They hatin'.

And honestly, they'll get a lot /less/ attention this way, in this neighborhood. It's the cops always cruising by in their quiet, tinted windows. Cage drives slow through the streets, waving at some kids sitting around at the basketball court because it's too damn hot to play until the afternoon. At the park in East Harlem, Cage pulls them in behind a line of tricked out cars, low-riders, pickups, et all. People are leaning and talking in small groups all over the place. Almost immediately a woman in a halter-top two sizes too small, and daisy-dukes that would have made Daisy herself blush, comes up to Cage's rolled down window. "Hey honey, you wa- Oh shit..." She recognizes Luke and immediately cruises on up to some of the other cars... at the other /end/ of the park. "Fuck. She said she was out after I laid out her scumbag pimp..." He shakes his head, but doesn't say anymore on that topic. Have to look into that later.

Right now, the main event is about to start. A yellow pickup-lowrider is pulling up around the corner, meeting with a classic, pearl blue El Camino. Looks like there's only one guy in each vehicle.

"Saying you're out is always easier than actually doing it," Spider-Girl notes with a frown, propping her chin up in a hand. Stakeouts, if they're anything like they are on TV, are boring. Boring as heeeeell. Maybe she should have brought some donuts. Then they could play Good Cop, Power Cop.

At least the wait isn't too long. Spider-Girl watches curiously, head canted slightly to one side. Not that she can hear anything from here. "It kills me that I don't stand out right now," she asides to Luke. "I have to look ridiculous."

Cage laughs and gestures at the people milling around. "You kidding? Look at these people," And that's pretty fair, really. People are sporting wannabe masks, face paint, wild hair, and every clothing style under the sun, except maybe suits. "You know how many gals in this town make a decent living dressing up like you for birthday parties and shit?" He chuckles and points. "That guy in the Camino. That's the one we want. That's Jax."

"Nobody ever asks me if I do bat mitzvahs," Spider-Girl says mournfully. Whether she would or not, man, at least /ask/. Right? When Luke points, she leans forward to get a good look. "So we're hoping Jax knows where this crap is coming from, right?" she asks, rubbing her hands together. "Or can at least aim us the right away to find out?"

Luke nods, watching intently as well. "Yeah, everyone says him and Karl are buds. But I haven't seen Karl anywhere. I'm hoping this dumbass takes us right to him, you know?" Cage grins when Run DMC's Tricky comes on his stereo and cranks it for a second, before turning it back down so Anya can actually talk to him.

"He probably will," Spider-Girl muses, drumming her fingers against the dash. "I mean, assuming he isn't dead in a ditch somewhere. Which isn't that far outside the realm of possibility, I suppose," she admits. See, this is why you don't turn to a life of crime. People in silly costumes might make light of your demise. When the music gets cranked, she doesn't mind -- but she /does/ reach over to crank it back up when Luke turns it down. You do not do that to Run DMC.

Luke Cage grins and gives the young woman an appraising look from across the car. Appreciates the classics, check. And to think he thought the youth today were all a lost cause. Then he nods when the guy from the truck is done talking to Jax and goes to get back in his truck. Cage had never killed the engine, and so just checks his mirrors, and gets ready to roll. Jax just sits there for a minute, probably counting bills, and then finally pulls away. Cage waits for a ten-count (his lips move while he counts silently), and then pulls into traffic and eventually a few cars behind Jax.

This is much trickier than tailing a car from the rooftops. You don't lose sight of them as easily from up there. But Spider-Girl's not the one driving, so they'll probably be just fine. Luke's done this stuff before. He's got a theme song. They're solid. So she'll just keep singing along to Tricky, drumming against her knees, and let the Big Guy worry about keeping Jax in sight. She, on the other hand, will watch for anyone who looks like they're joining the fun.

Luke is definitely intent on keeping Jax in view. But he also gets a little tunnel-visioned. Several traffic lights later, and both heroes can be pretty sure Jax hasn't spotted them. He /is/ a dumbass after all.

Unseen by Luke though, focused as he is, are three black, sleek sedans. Definitely Japanese makes, but all identifying symbols have been stripped... and so have the license plates - wait a minute! That's not legal! And since the perceptive spider is perceptive, she would probably even notice the black-on-black, embossed curling dragon on the back where the plates should be.

Good thing Spider-Girl is paying attention. Her singing trails off and she squints into the rearview mirror, making sure she's seeing what she thinks she's seeing, before she (reluctantly) reaches over to turn down the stereo. "Ruh roh, Raggy. Either we have a tail, or Jax has two," she notes lowly. "And they don't look as nice as us."

Luke rubs his jawline and checks his mirrors as subtly as possible. He rolls his eyes, "Fuckin' figures, right?" He slows the car to see what will happen, and even makes as it to pull over and park, but the three cars just maneuver right past them, and fall in behind Jax, none to subtly. Cage sighs. "You have to be kidding me. Spider-Girl, please tell me we don't have to /defend/ this scumbag, from these scumbags, just so we can track down that /other/ scumbag?"

"I think we might," Spider-Girl says mournfully, and she's already undoing her seatbelt. "But if they want him, too, maybe that means there's more than one person we can be asking some questions to. Silver lining, right?"

"Yeah, but Boss Sakamoto isn't going to tell these jokers anything. We'll have to go to him if we want to know more. The good news is that they probably want him alive." He shrugs, knowing that doesn't really give them much. Then he snorts, not really believing what they're watching happen. "So, Girly Spider. Tell me this. Did Jax just pull into that Taco Bell drive through? And did those two Yak cars just pull in right behind him? Looks like maybe the third went around to cut him off." He sighs, shaking his head.

"Maybe they all just really want some gorditas," Spider-Girl says brightly. "If they're cutting him off here... they're kind of stupid. Witnesses all over the place," she notes, and just like that, she's up and out of the car. Time to see if someone needs a punch to the head. Survey says: probably.

Cage pulls the car into the TB parking lot, and gets out, looking up to spot what angle Spider-Girl is coming in on. Lucky for the two of them, Jax pulled in behind a Suburban full of half a soccer team, and their order is taking for-EFFing-ever. They can also see the third Yak car ready to pull into position when the suburban pulls out. Cage walks up next to the tail Yak car and knocks on the driver side window. tink-tink-tink-SMASH. Oops. His fist goes through the window and grabs the front of the driver's shirt. And like a jack-in-the-box, that makes the rest of the guys in that car pop right out. Fun!

Spider-Girl's approach is similarly subtle, as her arrival is announced to the car behind Jax's in line by landing bodily on the roof. Did she just dent their car? That's a shaaaaaame. She drops forward to peer in through the windshield and beams cheerfully at the Yakuza goons inside. "I love your video games," she says brightly. "The claw machine minigame is, like, /crazy hard/."

Now why would saying something like that get a bunch of angry-looking men climbing out of their car with swords drawn? Some people, man.

Without gunfire to cue it, the scene doesn't really erupt with the standard Running, or the Screaming scenes like this should probably get. Instead, a bunch of young people come streaming out of the restaurant to cheer them on. "Yeah, get 'EM CAGE!" You GO Spider-Girl, you're best!" "Yeah! Spiderman sucks!"

Luke has just a moment to mentally blink at this last bit. Did she seed the crowd? That's cheating! But then the punching commences. For starters, Luke slams the driver's face into the steering wheel hard enough to trigger the air bag hidden inside, and knock him clean out. The rest of the guys from his car all draw wicked looking knives, and the one who road shotgun pulls out a long, curving katana. "Holy shit, Spider-Girl! This guy's got a sword!" Luke calls in mock terror.

"Anything but swords! My one weakness!" This is... not entirely inaccurate. Spider-Girl is not stab-proof. Or bullet proof, for that matter, but swords are at least a little easier to dodge. She whirls around to fire a line of webbing at the back of Shotgun Katana Guy's hand and gives a sharp yank to try and bash his hand against the open car door before he can take a swing at Luke. TEAMWORK!

Of course, then Spider-Girl is leaping from the roof of the other car to dodge a swing aimed at /her/, and she lands in a crouch nearby. "Spider-Man is actually a very nice dude!" she calls towards the onlookers, even as she twists and contorts to dodge the attacks coming at her from three armed thugs. At least they're not doing the ninja/s/ thing where they attack one at a time for no reason, they're actually kinda competent. She ducks a swing and delivers a swift, Spider Strength-y jab to the guy's nose, then darts to the side to round on the other two. "The Bugle gives him a really bum rap!"

Confused by the even-handed, nuanced response, the crowd resorts to just cheering on the supers. "Yeah! Nice one! Get 'em!"

"Look out!" And with the ease of tearing a sheet off a legal pad, Cage pulls the driver side door off and frisbees it at the pair of guys Spider-Girl is rounding on. One of them is knocked clean out but it only clips the other guy, making him drop his big knife.

Just then, the other two from his car 'sneak' up behind him and jam their knives into his back. Well, sort of. There's a metal on metal scraping sound, and Cage's shirt is ruined. He turns, incredulous. "Are you boys /stupid/?"

Spider-Girl doesn't need to be told twice. She hears 'look out' and she drops flat to the ground, balanced on her fingertips and toes, and watches as the car door goes sailing over head. Ooh. "That looked like it hurt," she admits, and then she's kicking up off the pavement and into a handstand, which she then uses to spring feet-first into the newly disarmed thug's chest. "You shouldn't run with pointy objects! You'll put your eye out!" Or hers. Either way, it's bad.

Spider-Girl turns to check on Luke, but he seems fine. With a grin, she plants a foot on the flat of the dropped katana, grabs the handle, and /yanks/. S'whatchoo get for using Hanzo steel for nefarious ends, sucka. Then she's checking to make sure Jax hasn't gone speeding off yet. They still need to talk to that guy.

Lucky for them, Jax is stuck in his car, with his driver door pinned against the Taco Bell. When the fight broke out, the Suburban took off like a soccer mom with a supers fight right behind her babies. And now, the third Yak car has pulled up in front of Jax, so he's going nowhere fast. He's still trying to crawl over to the passenger when the third car bumps his front grill. Looks like the only have a driver and a passenger though. And cue: The Running and The Screaming.

The driver bails out with an Uzi, and apparently Boss Sakamoto's no-fire order has been rescinded. He sprays the drive through area with automatic gunfire, and the crowd scatters everywhere. Looks like the inside of this place is completely emptied out.

Out of the passenger side, however, steps a very calm looking, forty something Japanese man wearing a short-sleeved trench coat. Apparently he likes it that way, because it shows off the dragon tattoos crawling up and around both forearms. Calmly, he holds out his left hand and flame erupts from it to shoot past Jax's car and completely engulf Cage, since they're on the same side of the cars. Uzi is on Anya's side.

"What the-!" Cage says as he rips the rear door off the car he's been abusing, to hold it up as a shield. Little too late, because his shirt is crispy-gone, and his skin even looks a little singed. "Are you crazy?!" He sounds not only incredulous, but mad now. Magic flamethrowers in /his/ neighborhood? Oh -no-. Nah uh.

Okay. Cage sounds annoyed, not injured. Spider-Girl won't worry about him right now. Instead, she picks up one of the mooks at her feet and gives him a good, hard throw towards the man with the uzi, and takes off after him at a dead sprint. It's not exactly a human shield -- she'd feel bad about that -- but hopefully, the guy won't try to shoot through him before she can get in close, grab the back of his head, and repeatedly bounce it off the roof of his car until he drops the damned uzi. "No! Bad thug! You didn't invite anybody to say hello to your little friend or anything! What kinda two-bit operation IS this?!"

The uzi thug just goes limp. A pounding like that is bound to have that effect. He drops, and the gun clatters to the ground at Spider-Girl's feet.

Cage rushes the Yakuza 'wizard', using the car door to take the brunt of the damage. When he reaches the guy though, and swings for a big hit, the wizard's other hand comes up, and the dragon on that arm glows blue as a hemispherical force field of some kind shimmers into existence. Good News: The flame thrower is off. Bad News: the shield is tough enough to be gouging out chunks of cement and drive-through wall every time Cage pounds on it.

That's not so good. Spider-Girl drops Uzi Boy to the ground and kicks the gun under the car, where it's less likely to be a problem; then she's vaulting over the trunk to come up behind the wizard. She inspects the semi-sphere of shield from behind, thoughtful and taking her time, before she takes a swift, short jab at the back of his head. POP.

Fwump! Apparently something about this guy a bit augmented. A punch that should drop any normal person ends up rocking the man's head forward, but doesn't knock him out. He stumbles to one knee, but swings his shield like a battering ram at Cage which actually /sends Cage flying/ to land in Jax's windshield. He looks functionally unhurt, but he does take some effort extricating himself from the mess.

In the mean time, the Yak is turning, lets the shield shimmer out, and unleashes a volley of arcing flame at his surprise attacker, trying to rake the air where she was standing.

That's not so good either. Spider-Girl eyes her first a moment before she watches Cage go flying, then darts her gaze back to the thug. Yipe. She somersaults backwards out of the way, darting behind the car so that she can get a good grip and... lift. "Hope you're insured," she grates out, before she plants her feet, pivots, and swings the Yakuza's own car at him like an oversized baseball bat.

And that seems to be enough to catch the man off guard. He followed Spider-Girl's rolling movements with his flame arm, and was completely not expecting to be hit with a car. He is thoroughly smashed against the drive-through wall, but he must be one tough sonuvabitch. He's out for the count, but still breathing, and not too bloody.

With a shuddering shimmy, the roof of the drive-through groans, complaining about all the abuse. By this point though, Cage is back on his feet, standing on the hood of Jax's car, and ready when the roof falls. He catches the biggest piece, causing the hood of the Camino to buckle in under his feet, but he looks stable enough. Can't be more than a ton of building material.

"Yank him," Cage calls to Anya, jerking his head back at Jax, still trying to exit his car.

"I feel like I owe Taco Bell an apology," Spider-Girl muses, dropping the car once she's sure the creepy magic guy is down for the count. She sprints the short distance to the other car and yanks the passenger door open and, without much preamble, reaches in to snag Jax under his arms and drag him out of the car. "Come on, fella. Let's move /away/ from the collapsing building, huh?"

Cage watches for them to get free, looks around to make sure no one else is nearby, and then hops down, letting the roof-and-stuff crunch onto the cars below. Without looking back he catches up to where Anya has Jax and keeps walking. "So. How about a jaunt back to my car?" The faintest hint of sirens can be heard in the distance. Normally Cage doesn't mind dealing with the cops, but today, it would just be seriously inconvenient.

"Wait! What about my stash?!" Jax asks, turning to look back at his crumpled car, while Cage hooks an arm under his.

"Do you really wanna be here when the cops show up?" Spider-Girl asks, jerking a thumb back at the destruction and, presumably, the stash, buried under busted-ass cars and what was once a lovely Taco Bell. She casts a quick look around for any remaining onlookers, trying to decide between the natural spider instinct of CHEESE IT IT'S THE COPS and actually explaining what the heck just happened.

"Uh... no. Not when you put it that way." He turns to point a finger at Luke though. Oh. This can't be good. "But you /owe/ me Cage. All my goods were in there. I'm dry now-" For some reason, Jax doesn't get to finish. Oh, wait, we know the reason. It's Luke's fist. Jax goes limp from the love tap, and Cage carries the man doubled-over from the belt, like a briefcase.

"Shall we head out, then?" he asks of Spider-Girl, nodding at his car at the street.

Spider-Girl actually bounces from foot to foot a moment before she nods and falls back into step. She has to remind herself that this is actually sort of a /job/. She's not used to that. "Yeah, there should be security footage and people to talk about how this isn't our fault, right?" Because it totally wasn't. It was all THOSE GUYS.

"Well, I'm pretty sure they'll pin it on Whizzy McFireFingers back there, but," he shrugs, making Jazz bounce, and skim the top of his head against the ground as they walk to the car. "But whatever. It's all good." It's only now that Luke seems to realize he got his shirt burnt off. Again. "Goddamnit," he mutters, tossing Jax in the back seat when they get to the car. Opening the trunk, he reveals a box of yellow t-shirts. There have to be at least 20 in there. He pulls one on, and slides in behind the wheel.

Spider-Girl entirely sympathizes. You know how much it sucks to only have /one costume/? She learned to sew /really well/. "That could'a gone worse," she tells him as she climbs back into the car, and yes, she buckles right back up again. "Could'a been inside when it collapsed."

You say, “Yeah, we're lucky all those peeps busted ass before it got too hot." He 'heh's softly at the unintended pun, but doesn't otherwise draw attention to it. It's not like anyone /likes/ puns, after all. "So you got any friendly places out here we can question this guy? I guess we could just drive around until he wakes up, too."”

Given the way Spider-Girl grins and turns to eye Luke, /she/ likes puns. She sees what he did there. "I do not have a Spider Cave, I'm afraid," she admits sheepishly. "I should really get one, one of these days. I usually just pick a roof with a good danglin'-view for this kind of thing."

Luke snap-points at the suggestion. "I know just the place..."

A few minutes later, they're rounding a corner and turning into the projects, surrounded by 10-15 story block apartment buildings. They aren't pretty, and lot of them are just hives of scum and villainy, but just as many have families trying to eke out a living. Either way, no one's using rooftops around here.

Jax is just coming around in the back seat when they pull up at curb, and Luke hauls him out by his belt again, apparently unconcerned by Jax's wakefulness. "Give a guy a lift?" he asks, staring up at the nearest roof.

"Hey, hey! You don't have to do this guys! Plus, I know you don't hurt people, so let's all just be cool, ok?" Oh Jax.

"Dude, did you not see me hit a man with a car? We hurt people all the time," Spider-Girl notes. They just don't /kill/ people. Difference! She offers Luke one arm as she fires a webline up towards the roof with her other. She'll do better than give a guy a lift, she'll give /two/ a lift. She'll even make sure the ascent is nice and speedy, too. Some people enjoy it, but Jax looks a little squirrely.

Once they're to the roof, she takes a step back and loosely folds her arms. Time to watch the big guy work.

Cage's eyes go big in the way one's do when they're really enjoying a roller-coaster. He narrowly avoids a ridiculous, 'Wheeee!' by the sheer amount of testosterone in his system, but it's a close thing. Once up top, Cage is perfectly happy walking along the edge of the building. Falling off is literally meaningless to the man. Well aside from being slightly embarrassed and having to ask SG for a lift up again.

Holding Jax out by one ankle, Luke makes a big show of this being his first day. "So, I forget, Spider-Girl - hold him by both feet? Or like this? And then, do I lean /way/ out, or just shake him a lit-"

"Ok ok! What do you want to know?!" Jax screams back at them. Well that was no fun at all, and the expression disappointment on Cage's face when he looks back at Spider-Girl is unmistakeable.

Spider-Girl does not laugh. No. That would be mean. She /looks/ like she's gonna laugh, which is mean enough, but she barely manages to hold it in.

"We're looking for somebody," Spider-Girl supplies helpfully, wandering a bit closer to the edge. You know, polite conversation distance. "You know a guy named Karl?"

The Cage crane ratchets Jax in a little closer to the roof, but now if he dropped the man, he'd just hit every window sill on the way down. "Yeah yeah yeah! I know everything about him, ok? Just lemme down!" This is probably the soberest Jax has been in months. Bad news: someone smells like pee now. And it isn't Luke.

Luke's lip twitches in grossed-outedness, and slowly backs up from the edge. "Ok then. So I'm gonna set you down, and you're gonna tell my friend here, everything you know. Where he lives, when he's home. The whole deal. Good boy." Cage drops the man on the roof of the building, within the lip of the edge so he doesn't roll off by accident.

Spider-Girl is nice enough to reach out and snag Jax by the scruff of the shirt so that he gets dropped rightside-up. The smell... well. She has done this often enough that she's gotten pretty good at ignoring it. That, and the mask hides the grimace pretty well.

"And then, once you've told us, you can go," Spider-Girl says, to sweeten the deal. "Unless you maybe wanna tell us why those yakuza-lookin' guys were willing to take down a whole restaurant in order to try and get to you, too. That might be useful to know," she muses, glancing up at Luke.

Jax proceeds to spill beans. A lot of them. All of them, in fact. All of the beans. He talks at length about Jax being a long time supplier and business partner, but he hasn't worked with him in the last couple of months. He also drops an address, and the fact that he's almost never there at night. He's usually at this club downtown, and he never comes home alone, even if he is a fat bastard. "The Yak's though? I dunno, guys, honest! Maybe the same reason you're after me? They want Karl too, for some reason?" He shrugs, looking genuinely unsure.

Luke glances back at Anya and raises both eyebrows in a 'that's all I got' kind of gesture. The signal he's heard enough at least, but it's up to her.

Spider-Girl squints. It isn't very effective, since her mask hides her eyes, but she does it anyway. Then, she offers up a simple, bright "Okay." Just like that, huh? Apparently, yes. Just like that.

She straightens and even offers Jax a hand back up to his feet. "If I were you, dude, I'd go to the cops," Spider-Girl says lowly. "If you can tell them some interesting, true stories about people like Karl, I bet they can do a lot to protect you from jerks like the ones you saw today. And they'll like you more if you go in yourself instead of makin' 'em chase you down once they find your stash in your ride. I won't always be there to hit the bad guys with their own car for you," she notes, patting him on the shoulder.

Jax grimaces, and looks back to Luke as well. "Hey, I ain't no snitch! Ok? I only talked to you because you /ain't/ the cops. And fuckin' Karl is probably in over his dumbass head. So maybe you two can pull his ass out of whatever mess he made." He looks like he might say more, but then decides to take his chances while not being held on to. He dashes for the door, quickly out of Cage's reach, but moving at glacial speeds as far as a web is concerned.

Cage shrugs and doesn't seem to concerned about letting him go.

Neither does Spider-Girl. "Go back to school!" she hollars after him, cupping her hands around her mouth to make it carry. "Make something of yourself, for pity's sake!"

Spider-Girl pauses and glances sidelong at Luke, then drops her hands back to her sides with a shrug. "What? Sometimes, they just need to be told."