Whoops!
Peter rode the emotional high from the board meeting for the rest of the day. It didn’t matter how tired he was before, he was practically electrified afterwards. Those employees who had the good fortune of dealing with Peter that afternoon claimed they got a sort of secondhand high off of him after just being in his vicinity. By the time dinner rolled around, Peter was actually vibrating with unspent energy so despite protests from his fellow Avengers (he’s not an Avenger, just a trainee, of sorts), he suited up and went out for a Friday night patrol.
Peter’s excess energy transferred to Spiderman in the form of sass. Every criminal, no matter how big or small the crime, was treated to some Grade-A epic quips delivered with the energy of a toddler jacked up on Pixie Stix. Everything was going swimmingly, until it wasn’t. It was half past midnight, and Spiderman was dealing with a simple bodega robbery when he heard screaming from a couple of blocks away. Since he’d already webbed up the robbers and was just waiting on the store owner to call the police, Peter waved goodbye and swung off to try and see who needed saving. Hopefully, he’d get there in time.
Peter landed on a rooftop overlooking a darkly lit alleyway. The stores on either side were closed up for the night and the dumpster was overflowing with the detritus of nearby New Yorkers. He looked down into the alley and saw three men in a half circle around a petite, twenty-something woman who was cowering against the dirty wall. He paused for a second to try and see what the men were trying to do, but they didn’t say anything, just continued to close in on the young woman. Peter jumped off the roof and landed silently behind the center thug. The woman’s eyes widened and a look of relief spread across her face. The men immediately whipped around to see what was behind them. Welp, so much for the element of surprise.
“Hey, guys! Aren’t you a little old for Halloween? I mean, props for some really authentic Creepy Guys costumes, but you’re taking this whole ‘persona’ thing a little to far, don’t ya think?” Peter took advantage of their confusion and struck before they had time to regroup. He shot a web at the wall up above the men and slung himself into the first guy, probably the leader. He was around 6’ with a short, military cut to his light brown hair. A scar ran across his right cheek giving him a menacing appearance to go with his aggression.
GI Smoe, as Peter started to call him, hit the ground with a thud and grunted out a quiet “Fuck,” as he struggled to shove Peter off him. Not wanting to wait around for the others to coordinate a counter-attack, Peter sprung off of the leader and dove between the two remaining thugs. As he crossed between the two men, he did his best starfish impersonation hitting both men in the crotch and face at the same time. Cheap shot, but effective.
“Sorry about that guys, but bad behavior warrants a time out,” Peter kept talking while he drug the men together and webbed them to the wall. “Just hang out here while we wait for your babysitters to come and collect you. Thanks, guys! It’s been real!”
Once that was settled and he’d called the cops, Peter turned to see if the woman was still there. She was, but she was already on the phone talking to what seemed like a boyfriend.
“Yea so these guys were harassing me and stuff and this weirdo came outta nowhere are beat them up…. Yeah, I know! Kinda, creepy right?…I mean was he, like, following me or something? How did he know where to find me?… Well, now he’s just staring at me, which definitely doesn’t help with the creepy factor….Yea, I’ll meet you at that coffee shop on the corner of 5th and Lex… Alright, bye.” She hung up the phone and started towards the mouth of the alley. She glanced back over her shoulder and yelled, “Thanks, helpful weirdo!”
Peter stood there, stunned as she turned the corner and headed off down the block. He desperately hoped that he misunderstood and that lady wasn’t actually more creeped out by him than by the trio of guys who attacked her. How did she not recognize him? He’s got like a million followers on twitter! He’s famous on YouTube! (Sure for his fails, mostly, but c’mon!) After staring at nothing for a few more minutes, Peter shook his head and started climbing the nearest vertical surface. He needed to get up to a rooftop to swing away. Preferably to an area where people acted appropriately in these situations.
Just as he was looking around from the top of the wall for something new to get into, Peter heard a faint, but insistent buzzing sound. He paused and tried to identify which direction the buzzing was coming from, but it sounded like it was all around him. Peter looked down at the ground and noticed a bunch of medium, dog-sized black things running back and forth in a semi-organized pattern. He stood and watched them to see if there was a method to the madness, but they didn’t do anything but run back and forth. Almost as if they were searching for something. With a sigh, Peter jumped lightly from the edge of the building and plummeted towards the ground. When he got within a few feet of the pavement, he shot a web up and out and slowed his descent, landing in his infamous crouch. Sure enough, he heard clapping and cheering as he straightened up. He didn’t know why the internet (and people in general) were so obsessed with his more spider-like habits, but everyone always loved when he crouched down for some reason.
While Peter was debating this in his head, the creatures had grouped up to form a ring around him, set back about two feet from the nearest creature. Peter looked around and noticed this and began to worry that the thing these creatures were searching for so diligently was more of a who than a what. Mainly, him. His theory was proven true not five seconds later when a large, scorpion-shaped man stepped out of the shadowy alleyway across the street from where Peter was surrounded. On closer inspection, it was some sort of mechanized suit. Huh, he must be friends with Rhino.
“Hello, Spider-Man! I was hoping to catch you out and about tonight!” When the scorpion man started talking, the creatures started to close in on Peter. He looked around for a clear path out, but there were no gaps and the odd, bulbously shaped creatures were starting to stack on top of each other in the urgency to get to Spider-Man. Peter wasn’t too concerned, he could still just swing out of there, but he didn’t really want to stick around and see what they were attempting to do. “Oh, how I’ve looked forward to this day! The big, bad Spider-Man brought down and destroyed! Oh what a glorious day it will be!”
“Um, dude, not to be a party-pooper or anything, but I’m not down and I’m definitely not destroyed. Don’t count your chickens before they roost… or hatch… or whatever. I’m sorry, my brain is still trying to push past the fact that you sound like a preacher in front of his church. Who do you think is listening other than me?” Now the blob-like creatures were less than a foot away and had stack almost two feet into the air. They were swaying slightly with the forward momentum and were still making that strange buzzing sound. It sounded almost like cicadas in the summer, but it was the middle of September in New York.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Spider-Man, your doom is imminent. And I am speaking to a congregation of sorts. My creatures are sentient and are always listening to me. They are my most loyal subjects and live to serve.” Oh, well that’s alarming. Time to get out of here.
Peter shot a web at the building across the street and jumped in the air over the first wave of creatures. As he tried to swing away, the wall of creatures lurched towards him and dragged him back to the ground. Wow, that is soooo not good.
“Dudes, we don’t touch people without their consent!” he muttered, while struggling to stay upright against the creatures trying to shove him towards the ground. Peter was worried. He was trapped. Held down by faceless blobs that, upon closer inspection, seemed to be less creature-like and more like masses of light-sticking void. Not ideal. His only hope was to keep this pseudo-villain monologuing while he came up with a plan to escape. There was always a chance someone came to rescue him, but that would be another layer of embarrassment on an already loaded out shame sundae. His Parker Luck would surely contribute to make the rescue infinitely worse. Gods forbid Captain America show up to “help”in all of his star-spangled glory, Tony would never let him live it down. On top of that, he would probably get another live showing of one of Cap’s infamous PSAs.
Peter continued to struggle as the other non-insect based super started talking again, “Now that I have a captive audience,” Peter groaned at the bad pun, hoping his quips didn’t sound as lame as that just did, “let me explain why I’m here.” Woohoo! Monologuing without prompting, his favorite. Now if he could just get some of these void blobs off of him, he would handle this in time to meet Harley for their date. Unfortunately, he wasn’t having any success with that part of the plan. Harley was going to kill him if this doofus didn’t get the job done first.
Peter tuned him out and tried to just muscle his way out of the trap; he didn’t have much success, just a slight lift of his shoulders. So he could shrug, great. That was going to be really helpful when this lunatic tried to kill him. Peter could just imagine the Daily Bugle headlines for tomorrow “One Pest Exterminates Another” or something catchier, he was a little too distracted to be clever. It didn’t seem to matter much, though, because the insectoid was winding down. He would have to get out now, or he would be done for.
Just as Peter was resigning himself to his inevitable death, he heard a high-pitched squeal and someone scream, “HI, BABY-BOY! Oi, Prickly dude! Let go of my sweet cheeks before I have to unalive ya!” Oh joy, Peter was saved! But at what cost?