Keeping Secrets
Following the tracker he had planted on the gangsters led him to the docks, where he found a man in regular clothes apparently tailing the same goons. They were probably reporting to someone else who spoke Spanish, but the question was who his boss was. -and it looks like there are others who want to know the answer to that question.
"Who are you?" he asked, looking down from the top of a shipping crate. He was not young, but not old either, and handled the shock as expected.
"Spider-Man?"
"Nice try," he said.
"My name is Ben Urich. Do you not know me?"
"Should I? I've heard of you."
"Sure you have."
The large white eyes narrowed. He thinks it's unusual that I don't know who he is. Has he worked with the real Spider-Man? Would he not have said something that more clearly presumed I know him?
"You work for the Daily Bugle," he said. "You're a crime reporter."
"You could have looked at a recent paper, I guess." It was like he was waiting for him to take the obvious answer.
"I'll be direct. I've seen you around."
He sighed.
"You've saved my life before. I'm positive I told you my name, and I heard your voice." He looked around. "There were a lot of things that added up over time. Once you got a cell phone, I called it whenever Spider-Man was doing something, and you didn't pick up."
I could tell him that I lost my memory if he is someone who has been keeping my secret voluntarily. At the same time, saying that I lost my memory might eliminate whatever trust he had in me. It would be an easy way for someone with similar powers to gain secrets from an ally of a local hero.
"That's probably a coincidence. I don't know who you think I am."
"I see. In that case, I can call you right now." He got out a cellphone and dialed the number, letting it ring once before he grabbed it with a web and pulled it to him almost reflexively.
"Peter?" he asked, looking at the contact. "The photographer? You think someone else working at that delusional hack's paper is the man who saved your life? You think there's a drop of compassion or honesty in the blood-"
"Spider-Man, what's... just tell me, has something happened? You're different."
"There's a lot that's happened. I need to know about this gang. That's why I came here," he said, tossing the phone back. "Who are they?"
"They report to this nonentity named Sanchez. He's just a glorified HR representative with a glock under his pillow." Glock must be a local slang word for a pistol.
"I figured they weren't at the top of the food chain. You're trying to figure out who is?"
"I'm following up on a theory. Have you heard of Tombstone?"
"Yeah."
"One of my contacts picked up a handwritten note from him. I think it was for Sanchez, originally, because it mentions a couple of other local gang leaders by their nicknames."
"So you're trying to connect it from the other end. This is dangerous."
"They know how much I know if they read the paper. I accept these kinds of risks by the nature of the job."
"I'll follow up on this lead about Tombstone. I'll be honest, Urich, I don't remember everyone I meet on the job. I've learned it's not always a good idea to get attached."
Though it was not a perfectly foolproof plan, he reasoned that if he could make it seem as if something had happened to Spider-Man lately, his change in character would at least appear reasonable; it would at least cross someone's mind that he had some reason for behaving differently. Fortunately, however, he did not have to worry about making a quick escape, as he had already been looking down from a shipping container. To make things easier, the flying machine was deactivated on a nearby rooftop.
After turning the maniac with the goblin mask over to the suits, he had taken the rocket-powered purple monstrosity and tried to figure out how it kept from turning over forward in flight, and essentially it maintained angular momentum through minute changes in the propulsion direction. It actually required incredible strength and balance to even use it at all, and fortunately he had both of those. I could steal the fuel for it from Oscorp, but stealing feels off, whether or not I'm trying to mimic the real owner of this mask.
As he flew over to a residential area with a phone booth, he could see it as justifiable to steal from his enemies, but only when he knew it belonged to them. If, for example, someone tried to kill him with a freeze ray, he could be quite certain that the armament was part of the villain's arsenal. If it was just sitting around in a lab in the company where it was being developed, then he could only steal it if the company itself was his enemy. It could be that they develop weapons for everyone, and some of them end up in the wrong hands. Even though I broke into the building, I barely did any research on what they do and who their clients are.
At the moment, however, there was other research to be done. Peter Parker was in the phone book right next to the number he had seen on Ben Urich's screen, and it seemed he lived with one 'May Parker' in Queens. Does he go between this suburb called Queens and the island every day? It has to be that he's walking in and changing when he gets there. I can't fly this machine over to the Parker residence; people would ask too many questions.
Powering it down and leaving it on top of the phone booth, he ran at a reasonable clip, finding he was going at roughly forty miles an hour, when he looked over at a car next to him. The driver stared back, a cigar falling out of his mouth. I might be noticed by people at the street level, but I make substantially less noise than I would with the flying machine.
When he arrived at the house, he saw that it was a small place, almost certainly bought decades and decades ago; there was no way that it was still affordable in such a location, not based on what he had seen so far. I need to change the costume. It's too brightly colored to sneak around in the dark. Glancing through the windows revealed a single occupant, senior, female, and crawling up the side, he came to another room, probably belonging to Peter himself. Looking around, he found a drawer with a false bottom, and in it were more cartridges of the same fluid in the launchers on his wrists. Fortunately, I haven't needed to use these to any great extent. I imagine I could reverse engineer it, but I need a lab space.
It seemed financially sensible for Parker to live with his mother or whoever May Parker was, but it was incredibly risky. If she did not already know that he was Spider-Man, there was a spectacularly high probability that she would find out, and then she would never sleep again, whether or not she had a heart condition. I could move his rudimentary chemistry equipment. It seems he has no other possessions of value. That, in itself, was concerning. If his cell phone was still lying around somewhere, and not in the room, then it was almost certainly with his clothes. I doubt he has a dedicated locker for putting away his things; he probably makes a bag out of the adhesive fluid like I did. Based on what I saw when I used it, the fluid should break down over time.
He went back to the city, back to the place where he remembered waking up. At the very first moment, he did not detect any brain damage, even though he knew it healed quickly, and that was probably because of how sharp his senses were at the time, and still were. He must have named himself Spider-Man because of his incredible strength and his early warning system; there is some evidence that spiders can detect motion from the highly sensitive hairs on their bodies, though that's only the largest varieties.
It occurred to him as he got close enough on the flying machine that he could see someone standing on top of a nearby building. It's another costume. It could be an ally of Iron Man, waiting for me to reappear. Perhaps I can simply say my bit and leave. They already know that I reappeared in order to fight that maniac in the green suit. Looking down at the flying machine as he approached, he saw that there were several unexploded bombs that he could launch with the touch of a button. I expect the enemy was excited to use those on me or the bystanders if he got the chance.
"Spider-Man. We were wondering when we would see you." It was a blonde woman in a blue and red suit with a gold star. Interestingly enough, she seemed to not need a mask, nor did she have any concept of privacy, since she was going through his phone. If she doesn't need to disguise her identity, she's probably powerful. "It seems you have a missed call from someone named 'Ben from work'. Who's he?"
"There are those of us who like our secrets." I don't have the weaponry to take down someone like her.
"Oh, is he someone special?"
"All innocent civilians have a right to be left alone," he said.
"Oh, so you're the jealous type."
He could not discern whether she was joking or not and had an even harder time caring, so he asked if she would like to help him test his newly acquired explosives. She only just started to say that she had very little doubt the explosion would do anything to her when he fired. Though it seemed she did not expect it, from the way she was blinking while standing next to a pile of singed clothing and holding a broken phone, she was unharmed.
"Wow, you really ruined your stuff," she said.
"I missed," he lied. "I need to work on the accuracy."
In reality, he had been trying to destroy the information pertaining to his secret identity. He had no idea of what that unmasked metahuman wanted, or whether she was even on the same team as Iron Man, who was still someone he did not exactly know or trust. Most importantly, as long as Peter Parker wanted his identity to remain secret, he was going to do his best to guarantee that he got his wish. He did not see the costumed figure following him, but he still took several turns around buildings before he could be sure he lost her. I'll have to find out what her abilities are at the very least.
It was something of a given that even if heroes had similar enough values to work together temporarily, there were going to be enough differences of opinion between them to where they were going to retreat back to their own cities as quickly as possible. The bare minimum they needed to fight on the same side of an apocalyptic event was a shared belief that maybe the planet should not be destroyed; this did not translate to being friends. As he touched down on a back street across the waterway again, and deactivated the flying machine, he looked around for a basement, though really anything climate controlled would do. It's going to be more than what I have on me if I want it legitimate. I should go to a struggling business with a proposition instead.
For that, he resumed the guise of Matches Malone, once the machine was safely hidden, at least for the time being, since it seemed like he was in a part of the city that had less traffic and fewer prying eyes. Looking in a handful of basement windows, he was lucky enough to find one that seemed to belong to a luxury car repair shop. I suppose this is where all the wealthy go for their services. It felt unfamiliar, though he knew a fair amount about the cars themselves; he could even competently take one apart and put it together again. Though he had not been under the impression he had been a mechanic before being Spider-Man, it at least meant that he had not been inside a shop, at least not recently. It was difficult to say what he had never done, and what he simply did not remember.
I would hope I at least knew one person I could trust.
"Whaddaya want, pal?" the mechanic on hand asked when he was looking around. "Who's got a lambo to repair at this hour?"
"By my calculations, your business is not doing well."
"Oh yeah?"
"Based on the numbers on your signs, I can tell you have adjusted prices three times in the last few weeks, first down, then up, and then down again. I doubt this could be attributed to market fluctuations. There are no vehicles in your garage, but from the oil on the ground, they left recently. You've been making sales, but you're not retaining much after the work is done."
"What's my problem? You one of those wacky wiseguys who goes around telling people their problems?"
"You don't have one. You're an honest man. There are repair shops that exaggerate problems, or even make problems worse. You don't need to change the way you do business, you just need a loan for advertisements. Having customers testify about their experience with you will attract more interest." He extended a stack of about ten thousand.
"What's the catch?"
"Take a vacation. I've got something I want to work on for a while. I think two weeks should cover it." He looked around some more. There was a calendar with more circled dates than not; it looked like it had been reused for several years. "It appears you need one."
"I'll take it. It's all the same to me if you want to do something sneaky here; just don't burn the place down."
"I'll do my best," he promised.
"You're from outta state, aren't you?"
"Ah, you can tell. Well, I wouldn't worry about it. The customers who have been complaining about your prices probably were as well."
"Jeez, what a wise guy," he said before tossing a set of keys. "Have a look around if you want. I'll be out tomorrow morning, first thing."
"Pleasure doing business with you."
Whatever I was before becoming Spider-Man, I must have made a fair few deals.
He moved the flying machine into the garage after its owner went to sleep and checked the books to make sure his supposition that the mechanic was honest was correct. It complicated things that he had to part with a fair bit of his funds in order to make the exchange, but he could find that tough guy working for Fisk in the park again if he looked, and he could get back to a handful of other businesses the minute he had a new cellphone. It was somewhat unfortunate that he had to destroy Parker's when it could have been wiped and used again, but with advanced systems of data recovery available, the consistent recommendation for information security was the physical destruction of the drives, and he doubted he could have recovered it from the mysterious costumed heroine.
As soon as the machine had a tarp over it, he decided he needed to go to sleep as well, though it would be something of a challenge to locate Miss Brant again, not that she expected him to be back for another round. At the moment, he was not entirely sure that she did not recognize him, and that complicated things. He had not been intending to sleep with one of Parker's coworkers, though he had not been intending to return to work either, so really it hardly mattered. I can do something nice for her down the road if I start feeling bad about it. I can also deliver information about the criminal underworld to Ben Urich if he wants it, though I'm sure he has other contacts.
It was distasteful to be working with anyone working for Fisk Enterprises, but he could put up with it as long as he was working to take Fisk down at the same time. He tossed around a few more ideas before going to sleep on a cot that he found, taking off the suit and sleeping in his costume, trusting that he would wake up earlier than the mechanic. No one is going to bring a car in before seven in the morning.
When he woke up, it was just before sunrise, and it was strange to him, when he thought about it, how he had apparently trained himself to sleep for only a few hours at a time. I could get something done as Spider-Man before making any other appearances. I need a dedicated backpack or something to store my suit. It was not going to look as good as it would if he stored it on a hangar and gave it a weekly dry-cleaning, but there would come a time that he could afford that. It was actually a pretty negligible expense when he considered how much he could be making.
Checking to see the coast was clear before leaving, he thought about the longer term. It was entirely possible that the mechanic would return early, and he could not afford for any ally of his to come under fire because people were tracking the flying machine back to the auto repair shop. There is a limited time I can use this place as a base for more reasons than one. It would have been pointless to suggest a longer vacation.
Ideally, he would move to an underwater base, something that he could move around, and launch the flying machine from under the water, but that presented even more challenges than just the expense of the operation. Maintaining a public identity as Spider-Man seemed non-tenable as long as he operated in New York City; he had too many enemies and the fact that his enemies had public bases of operation ultimately meant that the public was on their side, even if there might be some grumbling about it. It was akin to trying to set up a military base in a hostile nation.
And yet, it seems unwise to retreat.
He knew that he could probably find something resembling an ally somewhere out there if he looked around long enough; if there were heroes operating in the light, then it stood to reason that the world was not entirely unwelcoming to them; there would at least be a few who would be sympathetic to his problems. At the same time, it would be nearly impossible to sort out the trustworthy ones from everyone else. Did I ever trust anyone?
Arriving in the city in time to rescue a few people from a burning building, he found that he could make quick work of it with the flying machine, and against some of his inclinations he was finding that the webbing was a useful tool for moving debris. Fortunately, it was just a small fire on a few floors, and he had little doubt that it would be contained, and when he assembled the workers on a nearby building, they did not inform him of anyone else who was still trapped; one even volunteered to take attendance to make his job easier.
It surprised him an average citizen would not only be so helpful, but so trusting of a man in a costume.
"I think it's super cool that you're reusing that glider," someone said as he carried him to the top of a nearby building. "It's probably more convenient than having to swing from different buildings."
"That's it," he said.
"Webs are still cool, though."
When it came to changing up Spider-Man's general branding, he was less concerned. There was basically no way to completely replicate his behavior, and if he could pass it off as a slight change in personality, he could be reasonably certain that no one would find out that they were actually different people. It did, however, make him wonder what Peter Parker was doing in his own life, whatever that was.
He tied the flying machine up in a back alley when he changed, purchasing a backpack along with a few other things to maintain his hygiene. At a drugstore he found himself reaching for a razor, but he remembered it hardly mattered, because no one could see whether or not he had facial hair under the mask. If anything, developing a five o'clock shadow would only further distinguish him from his secret identity, who would have been clean-shaven when he was last seen. This is what I have to do to protect his associates. It makes sense that they would start missing him at his work, and if he had people who knew him by his real name, they would wonder where he went at the very least, and May Parker would be on that list. If she knows anything about his other job, there could be trouble- should I write her a memo to explain that I'm away on business? Is that even something Peter would do?
As he walked to the park, he lamented destroying the phone once more. Though he knew who his secret identity was, he knew nothing about his private life. Who had left messages apart from Ben Urich? Did Miss Brant also know more than she was letting on? He knew he could stage Parker's death, but that would cause problems if he ever went back to his own body, however it was that they switched, and he was reasonably certain that was the issue; Spider-Man had not been lying in a casket when he moved into the body, so it stood to reason that he was still alive somewhere; it did not feel as if his own life had come to an end. There is nothing in this city, where I know that I did not live, to indicate that the cause of the problem was over here. Was the cause of the problem on my end? Should I be looking for incidents of body swappers in other places?
Where?
"Ah, Malone, pleasure to be doing business with you again. Oscorp stock fell; glad we sold our holdings- don't care if you had anything to do with that. I got a hell of a raise."
"The pleasure is all mine, Hammerhead. That is what they call you down at the docks, I heard."
"Funny thing, you goin' down to the docks. It's almost like you know a thing or two."
"Go ahead and keep telling your boss that you're beating it out of some punk in a plaid shirt with rolled up sleeves."
"Eh, it's about the same. He knows I've got informants and all that. So what is it this time?"
"How much do you know about Spider-Man?"
"The boss hates 'im, why? Honestly, I don't know much else; he's just a distraction most of the time. Not really a problem for most of our operations."
"Well, do I have news for you. There's another company that's about to go down."