PB Hates ABBA
“Right, we’re going back. This is terrible. C’mon, gang, let’s blow this universe.”
Noir started to turn back to the Pod, to stalk off with his hands in his pockets and his head down, when he heard PB call out again. Shit. Wade.
“They’re singing ‘We’re All in This Together,’ Peanut Butter! My dream of a theater career is coming true!” Wade spun down the street and Gwen snorted, putting a hand on her hips. She turned to Miles and Peni and shared a look he’d seen on amused kids’ faces when a boozehound started dancing around in the middle of the road, drunk as hell. Except, unfortunately, Deadpool was sober as could be, and was currently moving toward a huge mob of guys and dames in the middle of the park.
“Should we… follow him?” Peter Porker asked, dejected. Noir could tell by the tone that the cartoon had resigned himself to the fact that he was about to have to drag an overexcited mercenary back like a kid from a candy store. Noir gave the alleyway a final, fond look, then turned and stormed into the sunlight, cursing under his breath.
“Better keep ‘im from killing himself.” Noir muttered. Toward the end, something tickled at his throat. He coughed to shake it. Spades, it was hot out here. He expected some of the singers to give them the side-eye, as they were all in Spider-suits in broad daylight, but not one of them turned as the posse hurried down the street, conspicuous as a couple of mob bruisers at the mayor’s gala.
Noir fell into step beside Peter without realizing it, speeding up in synchronization as Wade dragged PB into the open, ecstatic. He tried not to look at the short man on his left and scanned around for danger, checking the kids, the roads, even the air. It was spooky how oblivious everyone in this universe seemed, now that he thought about it.
Each and every person singing was off in their own little world, jazz or showtunes or whole other types of music Noir couldn’t place. One was even singing a song Noir recognized from his own time: “Over the Rainbow,” a real nice song from a picture show. It was sung by Dorothy, right?
Somethin’ like that. He wondered if anyone in the future remembered that movie. It was nice. He’d only seen a part of it, but it was nice.
Pretty ironic that it was about rainbows, in his colorless world.
He stumbled, and a hand to his chest helped him up.
“Woah, Pinkerton! Watch out for the curb!” Peter said, looking up with a half-smile. It made a dimple on his cheek stand out. Noir nodded, grateful for the mask that hid his expression, and continued.
“Pinkerton?” he asked, amused.
“Nevermind. It’s a reference. A detective.” Peter explained. They were almost at the park, now, and Wade was giving the dance routine his damnedest, that was for sure. And Noir knew damn well what Pinkerton was—a buncha assholes. He was going to give Ham a history lesson once this was over.
“Focus! We’ve got a theater geek to… extract.” Gwen said. She caught up to Noir and Peter and folded her arms as she watched Wade perform a kick flip and spin an irritated PB.
“You think we should just… let him? We can wait until the song is over.” Miles said. He was humming along to whatever it was, eyes focused on the posse of dancers gathered, executing moves in perfect unison.
Really perfect unison.
Despite the fact that the crowd in the park was full of different people, different heights and sizes and colors (so many colors), it was almost hard to tell them apart. Wade, despite all of his flexibility and skill, stuck out like a sore thumb. Unease scratched at the inside of Noir’s head and he tapped Peter on the shoulder.
“Huh?” Peter asked. He’d been watching, too, his eyes slightly glazed. The ex-pig shook his head and coughed, as though clearing a puff of dust from it, and blinked.
“I was about to say, the dancers over there are kinda putting my… ah… Spidey-senses on alert. Something’s weird about ‘em.” Noir said.
“I think you’re right.” Peter shivered a little beneath his hand, which still rested on the man’s shoulder. “Something’s out of whack. We should get Wade out.”
“The song has a good beat. I never noticed that before.” Gwen said. She started to take a step toward the dancers, drumming her fingers on her leg, then jerked back so quickly that Noir had to reach out and steady her.
“I didn’t mean to say that!” It was almost a shout, and both of the Peters pulled away from her in surprise. Gwen looked angry, and frightened, even under her mask. She shook her head out and breathed heavily, hands on her knees.
“Whaddya mean? Are you alright?” Peter asked. He rushed to steady her, twitching as he helped her to a stable position. Still unused to being a human, probably. His mask was slightly askew.
“Fine. But I didn’t mean to say that. There’s something weird about this universe.”
The three turned to find Miles and found him stepping toward the group, openmouthed and smiling. Gwen swore in a way that would make ladies in Noir’s time faint and pulled him back, shaking him slightly. His eyes took longer to clear than Gwen’s, and he looked woozy, as though awakened abruptly from a deep sleep.
“We’re aaaallll in thiiiis to--wait, what?” he said. He snapped awake a moment later and put a hand to his throat, horrified. “What was that? I don’t even know the words to that song!”
“Bad things are out here.” Noir turned to the park, and his stomach dropped. Wade and PB were in perfect sync with the other dancers, now, and singing a hell of a lot better than they had before. It was a proximity thing, he guessed. Hearing the singers made you one of ‘em.
“Peni, got any more info on--Peni?” Noir asked, spinning around. Neither she nor her robot were behind him. Peter turned next to him while Gwen spoke to Miles, and Noir heard the other man groan.
“This is bad. Can we agree that this is bad?” Peter said. Noir didn’t even have time to nod before he was scanning every street, every alleyway. A flash of red vanished around a corner and he started out, only to be jerked back by his coat. Peni. She was in trouble.
“Lemme go!” he called. He turned to find Peter with a hand on his coat.
“Hey, hey, what about the kids? And PB and Wade?” Peter asked, eyes darting to the park. Another song was starting up.
“We got a kid in trouble!” Noir said, continuing to walk forward despite the weight.
“You guys find Peni!” Gwen called, putting a hand on Miles’ arm. “We’ll get Wade and PB out. I have earbuds I use for tinnitus that I can use to blast white noise and drown stuff out. I can be immune.”
“I’ll just, uhh, stuff something in my ears. That’ll work, right?” Miles asked. Gwen shrugged.
“Alright, solid. Now come on, Peter,” Why’d he invite Peter? What possessed him to do that? The moment on the pod earlier? With the hand-holding and all? “We’ve got a kid to catch.” Noir pulled his coat away and beckoned the man on, eyes narrow beneath his mask.
“Alright!” Peter said, satisfied. “B Team’s back!”
The two of them set pace and ran off, around the corner, leaving Gwen and Miles at the threshold of the park.
---
Static. That was all Gwen could hear.
She gave Miles a thumbs-up and watched him give one back, small pieces of fabric torn from his hoodie making lumps in his ears under the mask. Not a perfect solution, but a decent one. They’d have to be in and out.
The music from the park was “Mamma Mia.” Gwen vowed to burn all copies of that song back in her universe. A few of the louder notes occasionally managed to needle their way through her blasting scratch of white noise, burrowing high and saccharine. She wasn’t a fan of disco.
She gave Miles a fist bump of solidarity and moved into the park, where there were no obvious speakers despite the music clearly playing at max volume. PB executed a perfect grand jete, which Gwen knew very well wasn’t possible for him ordinarily. Wade did the same--granted, he could probably do that ordinarily. She was almost jealous of their form, but it had to be a result of this weird happytime universe.
At least she wasn’t hypnotized.
The fact that she was still totally lucid made it clear that disco fever was contracted by noise--somehow. Maybe it was subliminal messaging? Whatever the cause, fighting her way toward Wade and PB was proving difficult. The dancers moved to block her path as she went, smiling down at her with half-empty expressions. Had this planet been normal at one point?
It was downright eerie, watching them sing to a song she couldn’t hear. She looked to Miles and found him in the middle of a circle, trying to dart out. A flash of invisibility, and he was through, catching up to her in a rush of speed.
He started to say something, then remembered her headphones were in, and simply pointed. Wade and PB were just in front of them, hands together, arms outstretched. Her heart ached. PB might’ve been hypnotized, but man, he looked happy. She shoved thoughts of her own Peter, the one who’d died fighting her, from her head, and moved on.
She could tell by the sudden change in movement that the music had changed again. Wade spun PB around effortlessly and carried him for a moment, smooth as a Broadway troupe. Miles tried to tap Wade on the shoulder and failed, ducking as the man’s elbow soared over his head.
Gwen stretched a hand out to web PB’s hands together, and an arm came down on her head. An earbud fell loose.
“I CAN’T SEE ME LOVIN’ NOBOOODY BUT YOU--” PB crooned. Gwen felt her toe point unbidden and slammed the earbud back in, frantic. Her fingers started to splay and rebel in time to the music until the white noise was back completely. Spidey-sense warned her and she ducked as another arm lashed out in the place her head had been.
She spun and saw a crowd of dancers growing thicker, hemming them toward the center, with PB and Wade oblivious. Gwen felt sick in the pit of her stomach.
It wasn’t just dance fever. It was some kind of dance… zombie virus, and her friends were falling victim. The people in this universe wanted to spread it.
Man, that sounded stupid when she really thought about it.
“There has to be a speaker,” she said, to herself. A man did a flying leap toward her and she grabbed his leg, bringing him to the ground in an ungraceful arc. He looked dazed, and momentarily lucid, before the music took hold again.
She caught a flash of dark mechanics and spun, peering into the throng.
The woman just behind that man. She had a black box wired to her chest, blaring the music for all to hear. It seemed to echo from every surface, charging the air. The woman herself looked entranced, unaware of her actions. She began to melt into the crowd.
“MILES!” Gwen shouted. She turned to find her friend fending off a tap-dancing child, who snatched at his mask with glee. She swept by and webbed the child to the floor. The girl began to wail, and Gwen was especially glad for her earbuds, which swept away the cries on a torrent of noise.
“MILES!” She called again. It was just loud enough for him to hear in close quarters. He looked confused, and frightened.
“ZAP--” Gwen made a twitching motion with her hands to illustrate. “--HER!” She pointed to the speaker-woman, whose face was still stretched into a paper-doll stiff grin.
It was only a moment before Miles understood. He started to run, before a flying spin took him to the ground. Gwen pulled him up by the arms just before a heel came down on his head and pulled him close as he tried to move toward the woman, movements jerky and desperate.
“CAN’T MAKE IT OVER THERE! THERE’S NO WAY I CAN GET OVER THESE PEOPLE’S HEADS! THERE ARE NO BUILDINGS TO SWING FROM!” his voice was barely audible above the headphone static. Gwen gritted her teeth and glared at the speaker woman, a plan bubbling in her mind.
“MILES, CHARGE UP! I’M GOING TO THROW YOU!” she said.
“WHAT?” he said, incredulous. Gwen had already hoisted him over her head before he could protest, and his eyes sparked with blue lightning, more out of bemusement than preparation.
“ON THREE. ONE--” Gwen saw PB stumbling toward her from the corner of her eye and felt ice in her chest.
“THREE! JUST SAY THREE!” Miles yelled.
“THREE!”
And she threw him, just as PB pulled off her headphones. A calm washed over her mind and she lifted her hands, pulling into third position--
A deafening crackle. Miles shouting “I’M SORRY!” A sudden silence and sputtering. The feeling of warm numbness leaving Gwen’s brain in a rush, leaving her clear-headed but cold.
Other people fell out of step, stumbling over their own feet, confused. Wade jolted out in the middle of a backflip and landed on his face with all the skill of a wingless duck. PB was, ironically, one of the last to go, and was still looking at Wade with heart-eyes for almost ten seconds after. Gwen didn’t give herself time to wonder what that was about, and instead snatched up her headphones, switching them off and sprinting over to Miles.
The woman he’d zapped was looking around, eyes blurry, muttering “whuh?” and “who?” to the crowd.
As Miles apologized on repeat, Gwen picked up the speaker and slammed it to the ground, dropping heels on it until it shattered. The dancers from the park all murmured, frightened and worried. So this was a normal universe, like Peni had said. They’d just been a victim of some kind of… music… attack.
That sounded incredibly stupid. Even for a hokey villain-of-the-week. She snorted to herself and shook her head, then felt guilty. Peni could be hurt. Heck, Wade or Peter could have torn something on those ballet moves. There were more people out there, probably with their own personal speakers. Maybe the villain had wired into the local radio station and requested it. Who the hell knew?
People began to move back from the wreck. Some called people, worried, and were sent to voicemail. A man shouted a warning as one person got a reply: her friend, singing into the phone. Someone swatted it to the ground before it could infect anyone else.
“Wow, alright! Wasn’t expecting a dance virus. Can you blame me?” Wade said, pushing himself up so that he could meet the spider-peoples’ eyes.
“Yes. Yes, we can.” PB said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’d recovered, and was currently helping a sheepish mercenary to his feet. “I am completely going to blame you for dragging me into a forced rendition of an ABBA song.”
“Focus, people. We’ve got a B-Team to find.” Gwen said. She lifted an eyebrow beneath her mask as PB quickly released Wade, looking embarrassed about something. What had he been singing to the guy, again?
“Right. Again, ma’am, I’m so sorry. Please be careful!” Miles said to the woman he’d zapped, who assured him that she was alright a few times before asking “Are you guys new Spider-Men?”
“Gotta go!” Gwen said, leading the others away and breaking into a run.