Superheroe
He hated fighting for these reforms in Alchemax. Sure, it was better than when he had first started out as Spider-Man, but every single meeting in this place made him feel another gray hair appear on his head.
Dealing with the remains of the Public Eye was the worst of it, really. Unlike one of his own variants, as few as they were, his universe never had a President Doom, so the second SHIELD didn’t happen in his canon. What happened was the council instead trying to bring back a none privatized law enforcement, and the transition wasn’t great. It wasn’t just Alchemax, but at least he can actually have a say with this corporation.
It never got easier, and it was late afternoon when he finally left the building.
He blinked as he looked to the afternoon’s daylight, a scowl on his face as he adjusted his sunglasses.
A distant explosion was heard.
“¡Ay, coño! Now what!?” He growled as he ran towards the commotion, lifting his wrist as he heard the beeping from the gizmo. “Miguel! We got a situation in your universe!” He heard one of the many Peters called out. The hologram glitched in the lack of light.
“Oh no, I haven’t noticed,” he deadpanned as he ran onwards through the back ways of the block. A few presses of some buttons while in the shadows and unseen had him in his suit almost immediately. “Fill me in on the situation.”
“Halloween Doc Ock.”
“For the love of-! We have a system, people!”
The Peter sighed.
“Man, Peter B is right. You really are the only Spider-Man who isn’t funny. Fine. Earth-1031’s Doctor Octavius. Better?”
“It’s efficient!”
“Sending coordinates now,” Lyla popped up next to his head as flicked his wrist. The laser aim aided the accuracy of his webs as he swung up through the skylines. Looking toward the coordinates, Miguel’s brows furrowed.
The portal that brought the villain had just finished closing up, the long robotic arms of a technological monster righting itself up from the destruction of a school’s side wall. He sprung forth, trying to go even faster than before as the yells of the children rang out.
“Someone get Peter Parker from Earth-1031, now! This one landed right into a school!”
“Oh shi-! On it, boss!”
“Already getting the backup!”
“¡Vámonos, people!”
Devon Alejandro Borello Graves was not having a good time. First day of class started out simple until it came to first introductions.
“Alright everyone, move around the classroom and talk with your classmates while I finish setting up!”
It’d seemed harmless. Completely harmless, right? That was what he’d been thinking when he began talking with the kids by his desk, being careful to not say too much about his and Jacqueline’s living situation and circumstances.
He. Was. WRONG.
He was so wrong! He couldn’t have been more wrong than that time he mixed up ‘eskize m’ and ‘scusami’!
“Alright, now, if everyone could return to their seats, we’ll go around and pick people to tell us facts about our classmates and what we learned from socializing!”
Clearly, his teacher was new to kids or never met a quiet kid in her life. Some were nicer than others as she went about the room. Devon did his best to not look at anyone, as each student was called upon to say something. What if he had said something awful, and they’d repeat it? What if he gave away something that she shouldn’t have?
Slowly, he slid down in his chair to help hide himself. He couldn’t risk anyone looking at him right now! His eyes looked to the window, ignoring who was saying what about who now, wondering if he could manage sneaking out-
Wait, was that a robot arm coming towards them?
Devon grabbed his closest classmate and forced them down onto the ground as the metallic limb busted through the window.
The girl he had tackled down, a raven-haired girl named Mei if he recalled correctly, screamed as the window’s glass sprayed everywhere. The boy did his best to cover his classmate as chaos erupted around them. Looking back over his shoulder, Devon just barely caught another sight of the robotic arms before he felt himself get pulled away. He let Mei go to scramble for the windowsill, only to wince as the broken glass still there broke the skin of his palms.
His teacher’s screams pierced his ears as air rushed around him. He began jerking around, dangling upside down he tried looked to the owner of the arms. In the center of the metallic mess, there was a bulky man in a strange tacky green suit and a lopsided pumpkin’s head. His eyes widen before looking around and seeing the other people around that were being grabbed as the villain righted themselves up.
Devon twisted around, trying to keep calm. That’s what he had to be, right? Calm- his father would have probably thrown him into some situations like this when he got older, after all. The thought made him wince as more screams echoed in the air.
Everything was too loud, too bright. His palms still stung from the glass cuts.
He felt heavy as the strange villain moved about, shouting something he couldn’t hear. Looking towards his feet, he swore he had a lightbulb light up in his mind. The metallic grabbers were holding onto one of his boots! Maybe if he untied it, he could just drop down!
Trying to reach to his laces was harder as the villain kept swinging him and the other people around. Devon wasn’t sure who the other people who had been grabbed were, but the pain in his palms against the old laces was bad enough.
They felt like they were burning as he untied his boot, right as he heard something be thrown at the villain.
FSSSH!
FSSSH!
FSSSH!
CLANG!
Devon blinked as various strands of what seemed to be colorful webs wrapped about the arms. His eyes widened as the said villain yelled out, struggling his limbs out.
It was the worst time for his boot to be loose enough.
“AAAHHH!” The boy screamed got as he was flung through the air. The air sounded too loud as it rushed past him. He didn’t know where he was even flung to as he flailed about, arms outstretched to grab anything, anything! to save himself!
Red strands were shot out and tugged him back.
For four seconds, Devon saw only darkness.
Four seconds, it was just loud ringings in his ears.
Four seconds, he was plunged into… warmth?
Something grunted as gravity felt like it had just righted itself. He shook, blinking his eyes open- when had he closed them?
Large arms were holding him against a firm chest, the glowing bright reds against deep blues filling his sights before he looked up. The masked face of Spider-Man greeted him. His jaw dropped as he was set gently down on concrete. A quick look around confirmed it was the rooftop of a building, but his gaze went right back to the vigilante as the towering man stood back up.
“Right, stay here, we got this covered,” was all the masked hero said. Strands of red shot out from the man’s wrists back towards the chaos happening and took the man with them. Devon raced to the rooftop’s edge, his bloodied palms gripping the railing as he stared after Spider-Man.
No longer amid the chaos himself now, he could see the other heroes that looked like Spider-Man, more lithe version, webbing and trying to tie up the strange pumpkin-headed villain and getting the grabbed people to safety. Many of the suits looked cool, various shades of reds and blues, some with black, others with pale near white colors- but his eyes kept trying to find the one that had just saved him- the one he knew was the normal Spider-Man.
The red arm blades, the glowing red webs shot around- those made it much easier to spot him. Devon stood, eyes still wide at the scene. The shouting went on, but it wasn’t deafening anymore.
“I want more eyes on the civilians, people, get them out of here! Parker, Parkera, get the kids out of here!”
Devon never gave much thought to Spider-Man before. To him, it had been a figure his father would snarl at in the papers when the old man was around. Someone the family would have hated for impeding the trade, if they didn’t already.
“¡Chíngale!”
He never had many friends at school who’d be interested in the vigilante or the others. Never anyone he could talk to and form his opinion on one of the city’s guardians.
“Where’s that containment pad!?”
But as he watched the red and blue hero rip one of the robotic arms off and send the screeching foe down into a nearby alley, Devon knew he had his opinion now.
He hurried down the nearby fire escape, skipping steps to try and get to where the two had landed. It was awkward, trying to run with only one shoe on, but he didn’t dare consider where his other one was- not when he could see the final moments of a hero defeating a villain.
He coughed as he ran through the dust. Waving a hand to get through the cloud of dirt, his eyes squinted to find the glowing red of the Spider-Man’s suit. His eyes widened as he took in the scene.
Another metal limb was torn off, lying on the ground while its owner and Spider-Man continued to struggle. Devon quickly dodged into a side alley, peering around the corner as the two fought along the wall.
With two of the robotics limbs left, the villain seemed more in a panic, trying to get Spider-Man off his trail. Red webs continued to slow him down though as the fight kept up. Then…
Devon’s eyes widen as Spider-Man slammed the villain’s head into the wall, the pumpkin surprisingly much more durable than the regular melon. The villain’s neck was exposed, and in the bottom half of Spider-Man’s mask faded away to reveal fangs.
Fangs.
Fangs that dripped with a liquid.
Fangs that went into the villain’s neck.
Fangs that made the villain freeze up and collapse on the ground.
Maybe he would have been terrified if he were a normal kid with a normal childhood. Maybe he should have thought he just witnessed Spider-Man kill a guy. But in that moment, Devon could only utter one word.
“Whoa…”
“Whoa…”
Miguel’s mask immediately covered his mouth again, the eyes of his mask going wide as he whipped his head around at the sound.
He stared at the boy.
The boy stared back.
He glanced at the Doctor Octavius variant that was now paralyzed on the ground.
Oh shock.
“He’s not dead-!”
“Can you teach me how to be like you?!”
Miguel did a double take.
“What?”
“What?”
They stared at each other in further silence before Miguel stood up.
“Hold on, didn’t I tell you to wait on the roof!? Why didn’t you wait on the roof!? It was safe there!” He let out, trying his best to stay between the boy and the anomaly.
The boy didn’t seem to care much, getting closer with big eyes gleaming up at him.
“I saw you had fangs! Do they retract? You said he wasn’t dead, does that mean you got venom that knocks him out!? Are you actually half spider!? How can I be like you? I want to be just like you-!”
“NO! No, no, no! No, no, no, no!” He quickly picked the kid up, holding him at arms’ length. “No, you do NOT want to be like me, alright? Now you go back to your class and get your hands looked at- Oh shock, your hands!”
“Hey, boss, you got the- oh.”
Miguel’s head snapped towards one of the Peters, the one from Earth-1031, if he wasn’t mistaken, with the green and black coloring of the suit bright and colorful. Very suitable for a universe where everyday was practically Halloween.
“Fan of yours?”
“No-!” He began right as the boy yelled out “Si!” and clung to his arms. He sighed, bowing his head down. Great.
“… The anomaly’s paralyzed. He should be easy to transport back to your world, Peter.”
“Right-o, boss. Will send the report later. Good luck with the little fan,” Peter-1031 slowly waved, shooting a web out to pull the Doctor Octavius with him back through the alley. Miguel let out a long sigh before looking back at the kid, slowly putting him back down.
“Okay, okay, let’s get your hands taken care of first,” he kneeled down, searching through his hammer-space. Somewhere in there, he knew there should be some temporary bandages. “And when you get back to school, you don’t go running off after any more battles, got it?”
The boy nodded rapidly, holding his hands out as if he was receiving candy instead of bandages.
Shock, the upward cuts meant the boy probably had tried to grab the windowsill only to get sliced. The cuts didn’t seem too deep, but still. The boy’s eyes widen again as he pulled the bandages out. Miguel noted that were a bright apple-honey shade…. yet they seemed… fake? So did the red curls, the shade not at all matching the thick dark brown brows.
Actually, the more he looked at the kid, the more he swore he recognized him.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Huh? Oh,” the boy seemed to almost curl in towards himself now. So seeing Spider-Man bite a guy with big fangs didn’t scare him, but introducing himself did? “I’m… I’m Devon. Devon Graves.”
Devon. Couldn’t be that easy…
“Huh.”
The boy- Devon- looked up as he finished wrapping his hands. Miguel stayed kneeled, looking at the boy. ‘Who’d kidnaps a child and changes their hair and eyes, but not their first name?’ he thought. Devon’s eyes darting past him and momentarily panic was all the warning he got before he found himself knocked to the ground with a pounding on the side of his head.
“AGH! What the-!?” He scrambled up and shot his hand up in time to stop the combat boot from being swung down on him again. “What is your problem-! Jay Graves?”
“How the hell do you know my name, ya stannamabaych!”
There, standing above him, was the new girl from Alchemax Finances, wielding a thick leather combat boot with spikes. There was a fire in her dark brown eyes as she bared her teeth as she struggled to yank it back from his grip. Her hair was tussled and her cardigan only had one arm through a sleeve. A grunt left him as she pressed her foot down hard on his abdomen as she gave another yank to her weapon of choice. It caused his eyes to trail along her leg, noting the thickness in her calves and thighs beneath the tights.
Not the time to appreciate that, Miguel. Focus.
“Jay! Jay! Wait! No, he was helping me! He saved me!” Devon tugged on the loose part of her dark blue cardigan. ‘Jay’ paused, her eyes darting between Miguel and the boy rapidly. It was enough for him to yank the combat boot away and get up. He threw the boot onto the ground between them to make it even, holding his hands up to show nothing else in them for her to see.
The woman stared at him, taking a step back as she scanned his taller frame up and down. Her expression remained wary and cautious until she looked towards Devon. It was almost an instant switch as she kneeled down, grabbing and hugging the boy close.
“Dio mio! I’m so glad you’re safe! When I heard the school had been attacked-!”
“I’m okay, Jay, I’m okay! You should have seen it, though! There were so many Spider-Men and Spider-Women and the villain was this crazy robot-pumpkin-headed guy and-!”
Miguel stood awkwardly, slowly easing his hands down to rest on his waist as the woman feverishly checked over the boy. Something was… off here. The kid was certainly the missing kid, but there was more anxiety about having to say his name than being near ‘Jay.’ Dios, if anything, the kid seemed even more happy and excited to relay his tale of rescue to her. Then again, there were statistics about kidnapped children being by someone they’d normally trust…
He cleared his throat.
Immediately, the wariness was back in those honey-brown eyes as Miss Graves stood up, keeping Devon behind her.
“… Right… so, sorry about the boot to the head there, Mr. Spider-Man, but I’m just going to take my boy back to school and-”
“Your son calls you ‘Jay?’”
He watched her tense up even as Devon spoke up immediately.
“Hey, I can be mature and call my mom a nickname! I’m eleven- practically an adult-!”
“Vinnie, Vinnie, sweetie, remember what we talked about with stranger danger,” she interrupted. Miguel raised a brow as her hand gripped the boy’s shoulder. “Anyway… yes, my son calls me a nickname and all, not really your business. Again, I am… sorry about the boot and all, but I got it from here, so you can go on about with your Spider… Man... thing,” she grimaced, kneeling down to pick the boot back up.
He watched as she picked up the boot and guided the boy away, his eyes still narrowed.
With a shot of his webs, he heading up the nearest building, stalking across the rooftop. His eyes went down to the two retreating figures as the sound of the boy’s excited ramblings echoed up in the air. Behind his mask, his gazed stayed on the two until they were amongst the gathering crowd of citizens who were grouping up to check over each other. One student ran over to the Graves, a little girl with long straight black hair, and hugged Devon tightly. The boy was still in an excited state, and Miguel was more than sure he was still blabbering on about having been in the fight.
Jay, however, stood by. She was staying close to Devon, a hand constantly on the boy’s head as the teachers and officials hurried over to check on them. With her tense shoulders and guarded posture, the suspicions remained in Miguel’s head.
Looked like he was going to have a visit to some files soon.