Questions
The building spider-man chose to meet up at was... Charming?
An abandoned boating or fishing dock in the Southern most part of Brooklyn, normally the furthest away from home or the tower he goes is queens, so this was new territory.
The walls were cracked from water damage, windows shattered and light bulbs flickering like in a horror movie, although the dock itself looked relatively fine.
The wood stood strong against the waves, seaweed clinging to the supports but none washed aboard like they'd been cleaned.
They clashed together so much it looked unnatural, there were even boats sitting by the docks like they were waiting for him to jump in for a ride, the boats were surprisingly clean to.
The webhead landed on the railing next to him, his knees up with his hands grabbing the metal poles between them. Truely spider-like.
"This your place? It does look spider infested." Phantom teased smiling.
"Not mine, the guys inside."
"There are people here?"
The lights were on, but who'd be around this junk yard other than a couple kids his age?
"There was this lady a couple days ago who let me know about some drug ring, after interrogating a guy and putting a tracker on another I narrowed it down to here."
"Nice! Let's take the coke and get fucked!"
Spidey blinked leaning back a bit, his eyes wide in confusion as Danny failed holding back a smile.
"I'm fucking with you, let's kick these guy's asses"
He playfully punched Spidey in the shoulder, intending on flying up to a window to look inside Spidey stopped him holding his hand out.
"Got you a present," he smiled hanging Phantom a small green ear piece, matching his eyes.
"Hey cool! Uh I wont be able to go intangible with them though.."
"Yeah, I'll have to figure out how that works and upgrade them after this."
"Woah, you made these? Wait did you make your suit to?"
Spidey laughed, "nah this is way to advanced for what I can make, I have Tony Stark to thank for this."
That made sense, he just never thought of it before.
It did look like it had Stark written all over it, the same red, the amount of different web choices, that ai Spidey told him about.
It did remind him of that ai at the tower Friday.
Spider-man put his own earpiece on under his mask, quickly flashing a thumbs up before attaching a web to the building and swinging around to the back.
The two split up, peaking through the roof skylight he finnaly got to test his new gadget.
"Spidey?" he called out, getting a slightly loud response muffled by static.
"/$ /T W0Rk/Ng?"
"Uhhhhhh... Good news or bad news first?"
"G00d N3w$"
"It does work.. Kinda shittily though, maybe something went wrong with the wireing?" he wondered before continuing, "bad news, there's like twenty guys inside! And like a million crates of what I assume is crack.."
"$H!t... ¥0U $@!D y0u cAn F!gHT R|gHt?"
"yeah, I'm a natural"
"M33T mE !N$|d3"
The ear piece turned off, Danny sighed as he honestly winged that whole conversation since he couldn't understand shit.
He opened the window hanging his legs over, flying down shutting it silently and floating over the heads of unsuspecting assholes.
Spider-man sat on a metal beam above, muttering to himself counting the criminals.
"There's gotta be at least thirty, I saw some bring some stuff onto those boats outside and there's a locked hatch leading under the building with a couple more crates." he whispered.
"You can see through walls?"
He just pointed to the eyes of his suit, Phantom sensing a smug smile under his mask.
"Yeah yeah, so you just wanna take em out one by one or what?"
Spidey put a hand on his chin leaning down to get a better look, "I'll web them from up here, can you make distractions to separate them?"
Danny smiled, going invisible and visible again with a thumbs up as Spidey eyes widened.
"Dude that is so cool! wait how many other powers do you-" he blinked shaking his head, "I'll ask after- just go get em."
And get em' he did, anytime he pushed over a crate, knocked over a shelf or knocked on a surface, like idiots the criminals separated to investigate.
Spidey webbed them in the face first, keeping them silent while he webbed their ankles flinging them upwards and cocooning them like a real spider.
"They always look so cozy like that." he whispered sarcastically, hanging off of the webbed up criminal to hide over another in the rafters, doing the same to him as well.
One by one they were caught in the spiders web like flies, the sounds of muffled yells and struggling tied up criminals made him giggle a bit.
"Your like a professional," he said turning visible again next to Spiderman on the ground, who reloaded his web shooters laughing.
"Says you! Flying around all stealthy like, that invisibility is seriously insane! Can every ghost do it?"
"Pretty much, hey why don't we open one of these things and catch em in the act?" he pointed to a nearby wooden crate, spider-man nodding in agreement.
Picking up a crowbar from a table next to some rolled up papers he walked over, stabbing it between the edge and cracking it open.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
"Seriously!? There's no way-! Did they hide it!?"
"If they did we'll find it," he put a hand on Spidey shoulder, giving him another reassuring thumbs up.
Phantom let out a gasp, eyes wide as blue smoke seeped from his mouth, before spider-man could comment a loud metal clang from behind a pile of more empty boxes to the right of the door echoed throughout the empty warehouse.
Followed by silence.
They hesitantly looked back at each other and whispered.
"What the heck was that..?"
"The smoke or the sound?"
"Both!" he whispered panicked, grabbing Phantoms wrist.
Danny squinted through the dark, ignoring the tight slightly painful grip his friend had on him.
"It's my ghost sense, and that sound is definitely not Casper the friendly ghost.. We might have to fight our way out of here."
Phantom adjusted Spider-mans hand to interlock his, turning invisible stepping around the crates which moved and shifted ominously before being knocked over entirely.
The teenagers screamed, Phantom lunging at his friend to protect him forcing them both to the floor.
A small bark and the sound of paws, he flinched feeling a heavy weight on his chest, then reeling back as something wet glazed his face.
"Eugh!" he gagged, the dog continuously licking his face, his paws pushing them both down.
"Cujo! Why do you- ugh stop!" Phantom finally grabbed hold of the pup, lifting him up and sitting up right followed by a still shaking spider-man.
Spidey blinked a few times before it really registered in his head, he let out a long awe grabbing cujo from the ghost boy who immediately went to fix his sopping wet hair.
"Look. at. you! You're just the littlest thing!" he laughed at the dogs attempt at giving face kisses, the glowing tail wagging excidedly behind.
"Are you Cujo? That's your name? Yeah?" he coo'ed putting him down and petting his back."You're such a sweetie cujo! Yes you are! Oh Yes you are!"
"Were you rolling in a puddle outside? Ugh you smell awful." Phantom quickly floated to his feet, helping up his friend and picking up cujo holding him far away from his nose.
Spidey bent down to cujos level in his friends arms, taking the dogs ears and playing with them.
"Your a smelly little guy, huh?" he looked back up at Danny, dog ears still in hand. "Dude! First you have all these cool powers and now you have a ghost dog!? I have a billion questions!"
"Yeah yeah, I'll answer after we find the crack."
Cujo snapped his head around, tilting his little face with a weirdly serious expression, Danny assuming he just wanted to get down let him go, cujo sitting at his feet all polite like.
It wasn't weird for cujo to act serious at times, he was a guard dog while living so sometimes Danny accidentally says a trigger word without realizing.
For example, telling cujo to "watch" will activate him like a sleeper agent to stare at the nearest door or window, even pushing him won't make him budge.
"Right! I uh- got distracted.. Let's find that hatch!" Spidey stuttered.
The hero's walked to the back corner of the building together, the puppy following close behind, his little spiked collar jingling with every step.
Behind more empty crates layed the hatch on the ground, a large six number padlock holding it to the ground.
Phantom smiled to his friend, holding a finger gun up,
"There's one more power you don't know about yet." he aimed his finger to the lock, glowing a bright green and shooting an ectoplasmic Lazer melting it entirely as spiderman gasped.
"You can shoot fucking lasers!? I'm so jealous I want lasers to!" he laughed Whineing, as Phantom swung open the door, cujo quickly taking it upon himself to go first, his barks and steps echoing quieter as he ran.
"Cujo! Wait!" phantom quickly jumped down, Spidey rushing after him.
Down the rotting wooden ladder was a long sewer system looking hallway, full of doors to other rooms, at the end was the biggest metal door he's ever seen, a padlock with a blinking red light.
Along the walls were platforms, the middle was a sunken pit full of sewage running from behind the door to the actual system, the brown water was stained with something a bright green familiar tint.
After spider-man made a comment on the smell, Phantom stopped in his tracks, eyes glued to the water deep in thought as spiderman rushed past him up to cujo who stopped infront of the metal door.
"Where are you running off to little guy?" he giggled picking up the yapping dog, he seemed to dislike whatever that room had inside.
His eyebrows softened in realization as he bent down, his fingertips grazing the surface of the water feeling the thick yet smooth consistency, like watered down glue.
"Phantom,"
It created a thin layer around his finger, slipping off back into the pool below like slime.
The smell was lemony, burning his nostrils as he lifted it to his face.
"Phantom-" Spidey put a hand on his shoulder, Danny flinching in response and rubbing off the liquid into his leg.
"Sorry- My bad.."
"You know what it is?"
"Maybe.. But I can't think of why so much would be here."
Spider-man looked down at the water, Cujo wagging his tail while panting in his arms.
Phantom took Spidey by the hand, floating them across the water to the other platform where a wooden door stood locked.
He put his finger gun up to open it once more, spider-man got to it first putting cujo down and just ripping the metal lock in half with his bare strength.
"Jesus-" he stood surprised, even though he assumed his friend has some sort of super strength already.
Spider-man ripped open another crate this time without the need for a crowbar, four metal toxic waste canisters were stashed safely inside.
The ai of spider-mans suit warned them of a strange substance, leaking from a hole in one of the cans and slowly dripping through the wood and down the platform into the water.
Danny ignored the warning, his mind flooding with questions as his suspicion was proved correct.
"What is that?"
"It's ectoplasm?.. A lot of it."
"Like.. The ghost stuff?" he hesitated to ask.
Danny hesitated to answer, why? Why is it here? Why so much? Were the other crates full of these canisters to?
"Yeah.. It's what ghosts are made of, its actually something most don't understand." he explained.
"The uses of it never end, it's what ghosts use to protect their cores, it's a power source for powerful weapons, hell.. Some ghosts even eat it to regain energy."
Spidey paused staring at the glowing fluid, looking between it, phantom and cujo like he was waiting for something to happen.
"Man.. I just got like six more questions to ask you." he let out a small exhale,
Danny blinked shutting the can with a quiet metal clang, "I said I'd answer them, let's just look around and then we can go."
The last thing of notice was the metal door, the red light flicking on and then off, waiting for a moment before turning on again.
He planned on flying through it and unlocking it from the other side, but hitting his face against the metal and falling backwards proved that was impossible.
"Shit- what the hell?"
"You can't pass through?"
Phantom shook his head taking spider-mans hand, once on his feet Spidey gave him a "watch this" look and with a loud bang punched a dent into it.
It was barely an inch, after another, and another, his knuckles turned red as only a penny sized hole gave them a look inside.
Just darkness, what looked like silloettes of small empty cat sized cages, and an ominus arch that looked covered in dust.
"Just junk.." he shrugged standing up right away from the hole, it would take hours to actually get inside and after the many twists of today he didn't have the energy.
Of course he took the ectoplasm, for once he actually got to use the Fenton thermos as an actual thermos.
And of course he made a promise, to answer the millions of questions his new friend must have.
The teens found another empty rooftop, sitting with legs over the edge, cujo letting out a tired sigh with closed eyes laying in Spider-mans lap.
Before sitting Spidey took a look at the earpiece, the wireing was all screwed from him swinging around with it in his pocket.
"How many powers do you have?" he smiled asking,
Phantom scratched his ear counting in his head, "uhh, lasers, invisibility, Intangibility, flying.. So four pretty much" he shrugged, leaving out the 'turning-into-an-alive-person' power.
His friend turned his body more closely, lifting his mask above his nose like he normally did during these calm conversations.
"Okay, what about cujo? What's your story with him?"
"He tackled me one day and he never left me alone after that," he shrugged once more, remembering the part Spidey doesn't know.
"Actually cujo isn't always like this, sometimes he gets really big and scary lookin' when he's mad"
"Noted, don't make him mad," he scratched under cujos chin, his little tail wagging in delight of all the affection.
"Umm.. Oh, you said something about a ghost.. A ghost uhh.." he thought. "Core? Is that it?"
He nodded, thinking of how to explain something weird like that.
"Well... Every ghost takes on a different outer form, that's basically a shell for their core, who they really are. Me included, that's why ghosts show up as orbs on film."
Besides him, his core is inside his human body, which makes him more fragile but more powerful than other ghosts, his form is physical rather than spiritual.
"So it just looks like an orb?"
"I dunno, not like I can take it out and look." he teased smiling, leaning back holding his weight with his arms.
"There's another ghost thing you don't know yet, ghost obsessions." he said, "its why most ghosts will look and act like themed 1950's super villains."
Spidey leaned closer, making it incredibly obvious how closely he was listening, he could almost hear the mental notes he was taking.
It made him weirdly nervous, he never had to explain ghosts so deeply to someone before because the people he hung around the most knew already.
"So uh, when every ghost dies an obsession tends to form surrounding the last thing said ghost thought of or believed in.. Like a strong moral, or even just a big interest like writing or bugs or.."
"What's yours?"
He blinked, looking down over the edge for a moment, then back.
Did he even have one?
He's not necessarily a full ghost.. He has a core, he knows that, if he focused on it he could almost feel it inside of him.
But how would someone know an obsession? Something someone is so focused on nothing else matters, he doesn't have one of those.
Lots of things matter to him.
"Is that sensitive? Sorry-"
"I like helping, I guess." it sounded stupid when he blurted it out, he didn't even know where he got that thought from.
"Protecting people, or maybe just doing good things? I mean I am a super hero now like you,"
He looked flattered by that, smiling all wide with pink cheeks from the cold air.
“Hey uh, I sorta have a ‘sense’ of my own, it’s my spider sense” he looked embarrassed explaining it,
“Every time you’re around it tingles like crazy, even back at the warehouse when you were invisible.”
“You think I’d know why?”
“Not really,” he leaned back one hand still on cujos head. “Worth a shot though.”
The conversation grew quiet, he saw another question bubble to the tip of spider-mans lips, but he closed them looking away covering his lower face again.
"What?"
"I don't want to say anything like- rude..."
"Dude, I don't care, ask away" he smiled awkwardly, Spider-man looked more serious than normal.
"Did it... Hurt?"
"When you died..?"
He swallowed hard, phantom hadn't thought of that since it actually happened.
The air fell full of tension, was it awkwardness? Anxiety?
He saw his friend playing with his hands, his fingers rubbing each other gently, his thumbs circling up and down.
"It did for a moment, I guess... I remember the pain, my muscles tensing, how loud I... But then I didn't feel anything anymore."
He took a shakey breath, the wind picking up as the sky turned orange.
"It's like I stopped existing, like I didn't feel anything at all- I didn't see black I saw.. Nothing. And then I woke up as a ghost." he shrugged again.
He didn't mind, the question was a good one, if anyone had the chance to talk to a dead person that question had to come up at some point.
Danny didn't know why, but he felt like he had to Inturupt the silence, tell more.
"I died recently.. A little less than a year maybe."
"Phantom-"
He looked up, his friend putting a hand on his shoulder and then wrapping around his neck into a side hug, phantom hugged almost immediately.
"Are you okay? I didn't mean-"
Danny stopped him, leaning his head.
"I'm good."