😭 idk it seemed funny and people say its very "ny" like can you imagine johnny storm doing press for a movie and going on there. what would be his take. would peter go insane if he saw it
Oh, okay! I was just kind of confused lol I was waiting for something Spider-Man related to happen. I maybe agree that filming things on the subway IS disruptive but I probably would have just gotten off at the next stop and walked depending on my destination. I did like the guy yelling you gotta have a take. You always gotta have a take! You can't get caught on the spot!
But that's really cute though and it gave me an idea.
Cindy froze in the doorway. She'd been so close to freedom. Slowly, she turned and saw Jonah staring at her, a mad gleam in his eye. He pointed his cigar in her direction.
"I've got a job for you."
"Thanks for doing this, Johnny."
"No problem." Johnny Storm, all five ten foot ten inches of him, tucked himself neatly into a grey-blue subway seat like he did this every day. He was wearing flame-shaped sunglasses, sequin pants, and cowboy boots. His smile had to be insured for at least a hundred thousand dollars. The intern Jonah had saddled her with looked ready to faint, his hands trembling around the camera.
Cindy had a headache already.
It's what the kids are into, Analog! Jonah had said. They want to hear it from the mouths of celebrities, straight to the common man, right on the subway! So get on the filthiest train car you can find and get me some interviews!
First thing in the morning, Cindy was going to beg Glory to delete TikTok from his phone.
"What are friends for, anyway?" Johnny asked. This close, she could smell the cherry cola and gasoline scent of him, and she was afraid to ask if it was a new signature fragrance. "Especially friends with a new movie coming out that everyone's talking about."
Cindy wasn't actually sure everyone was talking about The Rawhide Kid 3: The Kid Rides at Sunset, but with a tagline like The Hides are Rawer than Ever, maybe they were.
She fumbled with her MetroCard mic, sparing a brief moment of sympathy for the Bugle's legal department when they inevitably got sued, and opened her mouth to ask the first in a series of questions Betty Brant had zealously pressed on her.
"So, Johnny, what's new for you -- oh no."
A shadow fell over them as a familiar face loomed. Bushy brows arched high as the straphanger schooled his face into a frown that did little to hide the spark in his brown eyes.
"Don't you two think you're disrupting the morning commute?"
"You're not serious," Cindy said.
"People," Peter said, raising his voice so the whole car could hear, not that anyone appeared to actually care, "honest, hardworking people, born without an unstable molecule spoon in their mouths, get on the train, they're going to work, and what do they have to put up with? Johnny Storm's opinion on whether it's polite to borrow a cup of sugar from your robot receptionist?"
Johnny grinned, sparks flying as he lowered his sunglasses.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the common man," he said. "Do you have a take for the lovely lady, disheveled stranger? Maybe you can tell her all about the mean rat that mugged you on your way down here."
There was a bruise blossoming across Peter's left cheekbone, but it didn't seem to bother him any. Cindy could vividly imagine all the different reasons someone might want to punch him in the face.
"It was a fifty-year-old man in a walrus costume, thank you," he said. "And yeah, you could say I got takes."
"I will give you five dollars to go away," Cindy told him. She watched in horror as Johnny slid his foot none too subtly against Peter's. "That's like two whole hot dogs."
"I got a rich boyfriend, I don't need your money," Peter said, his eyes tracking Johnny as he preened, before he slipped right back into his Embattled New Yorker persona. "I got takes about the state of journalism in this city."
"Ten dollars," Cindy said.
"And two bit celebrities should save their airheaded opinions for what's hot at Fashion Week," Peter said, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"Are you flirting right now?" Cindy demanded.
"You want to talk fashion, random stranger?" Johnny bit back, grinning with teeth as he reached up to grab ahold of Peter's jacket. "Did your mom buy this for you?"
Peter barked out a laugh.
"Oh, hot stuff, you know she did," he said. "They paint you into those pants this morning? Don't you think that's a waste of unstable molecules?"
"Did you two plan this," Cindy said.
"Call it the web of destiny," Peter said. In one smooth move, he grabbed the mic from her hand and pulled Johnny to his feet, wrapping one arm around him as the subway shuddered to a stop, his own feet anchored safely to the floor. "I've got a take for the Bugle, if you don't mind."
"Do whatever you want," Cindy said, slumping down in her seat. She gestured for the poor, confused intern to keep filming. "You always do anyway."
She gestured for the intern to cut the camera, but the poor kid looked frozen to the spot.
Johnny nimbly snatched the mic from Peter's fingers and held it up to his lips. He mouthed "sorry" at Cindy, not looking sorry at all.
"I think," Peter drawled out, his fingers tapping an impatient rhythm at Johnny's hip, "that J Jonah Jameson, our fair, failed, former mayor, should spend his time chasing actual stories instead of following up on the misadventures of Trixie the toy poodle who got lost in Grand Central and what D list celebrities think about fare hikes."
"D list?" Johnny said, his eyes dancing. He wrapped an arm around Peter's shoulders. "Does the D stand for--"
Cindy was saved by the train doors opening.
"I quit! I'm quitting!" she said, standing up. "And you can tell Jonah, Pete!"
"Happy to," Peter replied. He tossed her a lazy salute and, with the audacity of a man who had been able to lift a truck over his head his entire adult life, tucked his other hand into the back pocket of Johnny Storm's pants.
Cindy was going to become a supervillain. And she was taking the intern with her.
"Come on," she told the poor kid as they stepped out onto the platform. "I'll buy you a bagel or something."
And she'd send Johnny the bill.
"Hey, lady!" a voice called out, Queens accent so heavy Cindy could have drowned in it. "You work for the Bugle, right?"
Cindy turned around. There was a middle aged man standing behind her, wearing a Daredevil shirt and a Yankees baseball cap. He looked irate. Her intern looked terrified.
"We do," she said. "Do you have a take for the Bugle?"
"Oh, I got a take, alright," he said. "It's about that lousy Spider-Man menace always swingin' by my fire escape. I think he's peeping on my wife."
Cindy glanced upwards, then back at the intern.
"Roll the camera," she said.
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