And Momo's voice is the interrupt they need to jar them out of the freeze.

Hailey steals front, bursting into mad cackling. "Ahahahaha fucking suck it, Sable! This is justice! We're a fucking lefty now, justice for all my years dealing with you dorks getting to have a body that grew up right-handed!"

She twirls about, laughing and grinning. Her voice is ever so slightly higher and a bunch sharper, vowels held a bit tighter and tone losing some of Sable's almost-musical bounce and warmth.

"Oh, hello.  A pleasure to meet you - and Sable, I should have said long before now."  She doesn't seem all that surprised to see a switch like this.

She hums, considering something, and then speaks.

"...Ambidexterity is a good skill to have in our line of work."

Hailey looks up at Momo, smirking sharply. "Hiya. I'm Hailey. You've obviously deduced the last dork was Sable. Probably-important fact about me is that I'm fuckin' weird about touch, it hurts, makes my hands and arms cramp up. Weird exomemory reasons. Anyway, good t'meet ya. And yes, ambidexterity will be great. We'll need to train it a bit, but we've got a headstart from all those years of being a righty transplaanted into this lefty body now."

Oh, that must be deeply unpleasant.

"...I don't know if there's any way I could help with - whatever is going on with your reaction to touch - but if there is, I would most likely like to do so."

"Sweet of you." She tuts for a moment, looking away. "What I've seen so far is I gotta work through it for each person separately, and it comes from restraining the fight-or-flight instincts. It doesn't happen in fights, because I don't need to resist the urge to desk whoever's touching me, I can just swing, no cramps. Dunno if explaining the exotrauma it's about would help with ideas, but can if y'want."

"...If you were willing, it might help to have some idea of what seems to have conditioned the response.  But I think I might have an idea of that already, because you mentioned that it's your fight-or-flight response that's - hypersensitive.  So the idea, then, would be to render the person you're seeking to desensitize yourself to, unable to pose whatever threat that response sees."

Hailey gapes at Momo for a moment. "That... just might work. The thing I'm reacting to is memories of my uncle — mine, not Sable's — suddenly grabbing me and dragging me off to whip my back bloody. So if you couldn't move your arms, if you couldn't grab me, that might make the instincts shut up long enough for my hindbrain to learn you're safe."

"Would sitting on my hands suffice, do you think, or would we need something more - elaborate?"  ...She's fairly sure that there are people who do such things, even if she's been far too busy with everything to find out if she would like to be one of them.  She hopes that the Pirates do have practical experience...

Well, at least she knows her way around handcuffs for other reasons, if it comes to needing them.

"Think you'd need an actual restraint of some kind." Her cheeks flush faintly at the thought. "Technically I've always got some handy, now, though we don't know how comfy they are yet."

Her eyes land on the line of webbing lying on the ground, and then on her wrists.

"...So you do; I had been thinking I could make handcuffs, as another option - I have to make them for heroics reasons often enough.  But if you know how to tie someone up, and you'd prefer that...  Well, I've an open mind on the subject."

"Keys can get dropped, and while I can probably rip the metal of a pair of handcuffs, I can't imagine your wrists would have a fun time there. And we know the basics: a few knots, to check circulation, to fit two fingers under the ropes, to have a safeword."

"I can just make new keys if we drop them.  I've become quite good at picking locks, for that matter.  But if you know how to handle things with ropes, then let's do it that way, since we already have one available."

"...A safeword - like tapping out of a fight?"

"Yeah, like the standard check-in system is red, yellow, green, for stop, slow or caution, and ooh harder. Gets used for both domme checking in with the sub and asking, or just either party interrupting with a color."

While she explains, she gathers up the existing webline and examines it: it's textured and a little grippy on its own, but not rough or uncomfortable against the skin. Doesn't have much give to it.

"I, ah, I see.  I've never..."

"Well, I've been very busy."

"...Might I also propose that 'safeword' itself also be, well, a safeword?  Out of an abundance of caution, more than any real expectation, but I'm not sure the red-yellow-green will stick in my head in the moment."

...Might she touch the web, actually?  She just carefully reaches a hand out to wordlessly ask, not getting in Hailey's space.

"Yeah, that's also pretty common, as is using both."

She spreads her hands apart and holds it out, leaving plenty of room to get a good grip without touching hands.

"Might be able to vary the texture some, I think. This is a swing-line, sticky at one end and not the rest. Haven't tried for smoothness or comfort before, but who knows?"

She touches the line, and hums, considering.

"If you do just, a line of this, it should be fine - does it cut?  Or rather, what would we need to cut it?  In case that comes up."

"Swing-lines are mostly tensile strength, not shear, just enough shear strength to keep from failing against sharp objects in our path."

She moves her grip to a section near the end, hands about a foot apart. "Probably good steel shears would do it, but even if not, we're fine, 'cause while this shite has the tensile strength of high-grade steel cable," she starts pulling as she speaks, muscles in her arms and back tensing under the skin-tight material of her costume, tension increasing, putting more and more strain on it.

Until it snaps, a sharp pop sounding as the webbing fails, ends whipping outward for the barest moment before Hailey sharply pulls her arms down and away, keeping the ends from coming anywhere near Momo.

"We're stronger," she finishes with a grin.

"Oh my.  Yes you are."

The grin shifts to a sharp, almost dangerous smirk. "Wrists or torso, Momo?"

"Just, um, only my arms, please, to start with - I'm trying to not move faster than I would have, um, before all this happened, and - you're very pretty but I do barely know you yet.  Even though I do... Rather find myself thinking about things, after that display."

(...She was never going to get between Kiyuko and Ochako, unless they both wanted her between them, that happens sometimes, right?, but...  This isn't the first time she's had thoughts about strong ladies.)

There is a significant extent to which Hailey is taking refuge in audacity. It has been two years since they had a girlfriend and five since they tied her up and Momo is a lot more stuck with them she cannot screw this up.

So audacity.

"Probably," she starts, tying a bowline at the end of the rope, "if I get the rope on one of your hands before touching, the cramps while I finish the tie won't be as bad. And that'll shorten the time 'til they stop by giving me a headstart."

She steps closer.

"We don't have to do this today. Either way, this doesn't mean anything about what you're deciding."

"...I...  No, I think I have decided.  We don't have to do this today, but I want to, and you do too."

She offers up her hands.

"This is...  This is green, Hailey, as much as our entire situation is inherently yellow or even orange."

"I'm just trying to balance my raging crush with the knowledge that everything's fucked up and we need to be careful that you're not going to end up feeling like you pushed me into something I didn't want, whether or not I do want the thing."