chapter 1
Peter had finally found it. Doc Ocks evil lair . In hind side it was pretty obvious. Seeing as he knew Ock’s identity and it was pretty easy to find the address of a famous scientist. In his defense there had never been any real need to. Ock showed up and caused some trouble once every few months. He’d kick her ass to jail and she’d escaped within a week. As weird as it sounded it was a nice routine. Anywho, he had found her secret lair. It was located a few minutes’ drive away from Alchemax hidden in the surprisingly big forest. He hadn’t exactly had time to research what it looked like but he imagined a cool fortress with spikes and an octopus logo. Maybe it was guarded by Ock bots that could shoot lasers or missiles.
He was heavily disappointed when he arrived at the source of all octopus based evil. It was just a normal house! How was he supposed to have an epic mission impossible moment when there weren’t any lasers?! There should at the very least be some guards! Ugh this was going to be the most boring super-hero breaking ever! He sulkily started climbing closer to the boring building. Because while he was extremely disappointed he still had a job to do. “With great power comes great responsibility.” He reminded himself.
Okay so the good is was that the evil lair (which might just be a house) wasn’t as lame as Peter first thought. The bad news is that he was now being chased by Ock bots repeatedly yelling intruder. He just hoped Doc Ock was a really deep sleeper because he was decidedly not ready to fight her in her own territory. He really should have listened to May and have rested before he went on his mission. But he had been in a rush okay! He had to steal the goober so that he could stop the collider thingy that Kingpin was building.
Apparently sleep deprived spiders made horrible decisions because he had run straight to Ock’s bedroom. If she hadn’t woken up already she would soon. And…. Yep there she was in her full eight-armed glory. Wow! did she sleep in her costume? Peter knew from experience how hard it was to get in one in a hurry. Though Ock had a more armor based costume so it would be unfair to compare the two and- Oh sh*t that was close. He should really start paying more attention to this fight. He had probably missed the monologue. Oh no wait. She was still going.
“You dare enter my home you insolent arachnid?! I will rip you to shreds and feed you to live tarantulas for this! You will pay for defiling my territory like this! I can accept you breaking into my lab but this is where I draw the line! Prepare for your doom!”
Good, he hadn’t missed anything important. Just the usual death threats. Though they were a lot less original than usual. Maybe she was just tired. He jumped out of the way of some more attacks and started trying to web the extra arms to the wall. As expected that didn’t work. Peter honestly didn’t know why he kept doing that. You’d think that after the third time he’d either make a stronger web formula or stop trying. Nope! He was a stubborn spider. Were all spiders this stubborn? That would explain why they kept making webs in places where he’d removed them. No! focus Peter you’re drifting off again!
“Hey doc. I was just in the neighborhood and thought. Why don’t I pay good ol’ Ock a visit. I should have called ahead. I know, horrible manners.”
This caused Ock to get even angrier. That was good because with Ock angrier usually meant sloppier. “Wow Ock! I didn’t know you slept armed. Get it? Armed!”
The fighting continued for a while. With Peter trying to get Ock’s tentacles tangled and Ock trying to kill him. Something was off though. Normally the Ock-bots would’ve arrived by now to help their master, but there weren’t any. Peter had thought that there would be even more Ock-bots than usual since they didn’t have to fly all the way there. He knew there were some because they were the ones that had alerted Ock. It was like they had all disappeared when Ock had arrived. Oh god they weren’t invisible were they?! No, no they couldn’t be. His Spidey-sense would alert him if they were.
But then where were they? He couldn’t think of a reason for them to be somewhere else. Unless they were protecting something else! Of course! They were protecting Ock’s super-secret hidden base! He knew there would be a cool evil lair! He just had to find it! With this in mind he started to run in the general direction he had seen the Ock-bots fly off to.
The house was like a maze. To be honest Peter had absolutely no idea where he was going. He was just running with no direction because he didn’t know which hallway the Ock-bots had gone into and he couldn’t check them all because there was a supervillain right behind him. He decided to just switch between going left and right every time there was a turn. Man this house was big. Turns out crime does pay because there was absolutely no way a scientist could afford this place, not even a famous one. The random turn plan was going pretty bad seeing as he was now in what looked like the kitchen. No one did evil in the kitchen! (Although that pasta one of his coworkers had made could be considered criminally bad.)
While he was internally complaining Ock had caught up to him. The kitching was a lot larger than the hallway they had been fighting in earlier which gave Peter an advantage. It also had a lot more knifes. Peter knew from experience that if push came to shove Ock would use anything to get the edge. So that wasn’t good. Ock apparently wasn’t desperate enough for knifes yet because she went straight for him. Ow that hurt! He kicked her in the stomach when she got close enough. That caused her to fly into the wall. When he noticed she wasn’t unconscious yet he ran over to knock her out and restrain her.
His Spidey-sense started ringing when he was right in front of her. At first he thought this was because he was so close to one off his greatest enemies, but upon closer inspection he realized the feeling didn’t come from his dangerous foe. It came from behind! Peter turned just in time to avoid a frying pan coming right for his head. the frying pan was followed by a bunch of plates and more pans. He started searching for the source of this attack only to find there was no one there.
So invisible enemies were a thing. There was no other explanation. No matter how smart Ock was there was no way she had cooking gear that could attack him. Who would even design such a thing!? At least his theory from earlier was correct. His Spidey-sense did alert him to invisible foes! That was good to know. It seemed that the invisible danger had run out of thing to throw at him because nothing was flying past his head. he turned to check on Ock and was happy to find her still stuck to the wall.
What was strange though was the look on her face. Instead of the smug slightly unhinged grin he was expecting. He saw a look of absolute terror. In any other situation this would make Peter feel slightly smug. Right now it was very worrying because he had thought this was her doing. Apparently not! Just his luck! There was a dangerous invisible entity attacking him and he didn’t even know why! Well dangerous was a bit of an exaggeration since it hadn’t landed a single hit. Maybe it was a ghost! Peter was a man of science but ghost weren’t even the weirdest thing he’d seen this week.
Oh crap the ghost had grabbed a knife! God this was the worst thing he could think of happening. Ghosts weren’t supposed to use knifes! They were supposed to throw furniture at you and make the lights flicker! Why did this have to happen to him! To make things worse he didn’t even know who’s side the ghost was on! Sure it was attacking him but it could be just attacking anything in sight. The ghost apparently couldn’t teleport because he saw the knife floating towards him. In any other situation this would be hilarious.
Suddenly something unexpected happened. The ghost started to kind of flicker? It was like something was turning it on and off. It would flicker between visibility and invisibility fast enough that he couldn’t make out any distinguishing features. He did notice however that it was small. While he had earlier assumed the thing was hunched over. He could now see it was just that tiny. Oh god was it a ghost child! That would be so sad! It could also be a demon. He remembered from a Buzzsight unresolved episode that demons could only show themselves as children. But demons didn’t need knifes right?
The thing had stopped walking. Apparently it had noticed the flickering and was trying to stop it. Peter could make out a high voice mumbling to itself. It sounded like a nervous kid. He wasn’t close enough to make out the words (Seriously this kitchen was huge!) but he imagined it was similar to that time Peter couldn’t stop sticking to the wall of his room. That was weird. So maybe the kid was new to the whole ghost thing. Deciding to just take pity on the kid, Peter started to walk towards it. It probably wasn’t that dangerous. It hadn’t really harmed him yet and now it just looked terrified.
That seemed to have an effect. Though not really the one he wanted. The kid stopped flickering immediately and was once again fully invisible. It raised his knife higher. Peter noticed the knife was trembling. He hadn’t been close enough to see earlier but it was clear now that whatever this thing was. It was probably way more scared than he had been of it. Peter held out his hand in a universal sign of peace. Palms open for the kid to see that he didn’t mean to harm it. He tried to smile comfortingly but that was kind of hard with his mask on.
He kept his voice low and soft “Hey kid. You wanna tell me what you’re doing here? I promise not to hurt you. I don’t know why you attacked me but I’m sure we can figure something out. Why don’t you just put the knife away and then we can talk, Okay?”
This seemed to get an reaction. The knife lowered a bit and the kid started to flicker again. Peter was now close enough to make out some things. It seemed to be a boy in his early teens, with dark skin and curls, and big eyes. Those big eyes were filling with tears. The boy looked indecisive. His eyes kept switching between looking at Peter and at Ock. Something suddenly clicked. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
“Hey kid is she making you do this?” Peter asked worriedly. This caused the boy to flinch. That was answer enough for Peter. “You don’t have to, Il protect you. I can make sure she never touches you or your family again. Just let me tie her up and we can out of here. You’ll never have to see her again.”
The boy flinched again, looking over at Ock. She looked positively furious, but was apparently still to injured to move. The kid had also finally stopped flickering and was now fully visible. He somehow looked even more terrified now. Tears streaming silently down his face. Peter took another step forward to comfort the kid. Maybe hug him if he didn’t get stabbed first. Suddenly his Spidey-sense started ringing like it never had before. It wasn’t the sharp sense that came with danger. It was something different , something better. The kid looked extremely confused. At that moment Peter knew. Peter was no longer alone.
“you’re like me!” Peter said in awe. He was giddy with joy. Finally someone that could understand. Wait. Was that why Ock had taken the kid? Oh no, now he had to safe the kid! Spiders stuck together. Well, not really. Spiders were actually quite solitary creatures, but that didn’t matter! He’d teach the kid everything he knew! Was this what having younger siblings was like?!
“I don’t want to be” The kid replied. Was that anger? Peter hadn’t expected that. Sure being like him was probably the reason the kid was kidnapped in the first place, but shouldn’t he be exited? The kid seemed to gain confidence with his anger, though he still looked more scared than anything. He raised his knife and looked at him with hate in his eyes. “You hurt my mom!” The kid yelled, and jumped to stab him. Peter easily dodged it. “You hurt my mom and you still pretend you want to help me! I hate you!” The kid screamed with tears in his eyes.
Now Peter was just plain confused. He didn’t hurt innocent people. Sometimes civilians got caught in the crossfire but that hadn’t seriously hurt anyone in years. Maybe Ock had manipulated the poor kid. She could be very convincing. Peter jumped up the wall and tried to look as harmless as possible
“Look kid I don’t know what Ock told you but I promise you that she’s lying to get you on her side. If you’d just listen to me- Wait stop!”
The kid had stopped trying to attack him and was now running towards Ock and trying to free her. Ock had a weird mix of worry and relieve on her face. Wait was that love?! Peter didn’t know Ock could feel love! At that moment all the Ock-bots flew in. They were beeping louder than usual if that was even possible. They kept yelling something Peter couldn’t quite make out over the beeping. It wasn’t the usual danger or attack though. Not even the new intruder they should be saying. Oh! They were yelling protect! Well that didn’t make any sense! Unless. The kid was the thing they were trying to protect! There was no secret lab! Just the kid.
The kid had managed to break Ock out during Peter’s revelation. Apparently most people didn’t have the decency to wait when your opponent was thinking. He didn’t attack them during their monologues, the least they could do was wait during his internal ones. Never mind. So the cavalry had arrived and Ock was free. The odds weren’t really in Peter’s favor. In any other situation Peter would have made a strategic retreat by now, but he couldn’t just leave the kid behind! Even if he wasn’t a fellow spider.
It looked like he didn’t have a choice though. The kid had turned invisible again and Peter’s Spidey-sense was ringing to loudly for him to pinpoint the kids location. Also one of his most dangerous enemies was attacking him. Priorities. Peter looked around the room. There was no way he was going to win this fight. As much as it pained him he was going to have to leave the kid behind and come back for him later. No way in hell was he not rescuing the kid later.
Peter jumped towards the window and waved. “Nice meeting you kid. I hope our next conversation involves less knifes!” He winced. That was definitely not his best joke, but he was in a hurry and really tired.
With one final wave he jumped out of the window and web-slinged away into the night. Internally panicking and resolve to call May as soon as he got home. She’d now what to do.