DocTachyon

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Does anyone have any designs on Sportsmaster? I've got an idea or two for him, but I figured I'd give someone else the chance to snap him up first.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

So far I'm looking to tie together the "business world" and tech sides of one of these games, just as other people in the past have looked to establish the "magic/magick/magik" side of these universes.

I've always liked how each of the most brilliant minds of the Marvel and DC Universes have kind of had their own corners of expertise and their own differences which have made them their own people. From Pym's instability, to Reed Richards insatiable need for knowledge and discovery.

Ted Kord's genius has seldom really defined him in most works and he's often a Batman-Lite business head/gimmick inventor who has amazing potential and has had issues of focus which have been his biggest obstacle when discovering that potential. He's almost "too human" to be the person he could really be. So I wanted to explore why that's the case, and wanted to give Ted something that other geniuses don't tend to have in order to better differentiate his mind from other Marvel/DC geniuses... hence the perfect eidetic/photographic memory thing.

In terms of influences, I've probably poached and pinched a bit from a lot of the previous similar games in the past. The L-Pad reference in the first post quite blatantly came from one (or many) of @AndyC's runs on Superman in the past, which I expanded out with naming it's video chat software as LLL. A lot of this will be reflecting back other events in the business side of this combined universe as we saw with how @Sep's Iron Man stuff has directly impacted K.O.R.D. The character of Mike Ross from Suits will impact a lot of what's come with Ted's perfect memory and using a brilliant but raw mind to dominate a new profession as well as my own class clown experiences in my own schooling, which probably impacted my decisions far more than I'm even willing to admit.

I'm stealing from everywhere! Even obscure places you wouldn't think about! I'm taking it! It's like an homage only more blatant and hacky!

@Hound55

Honestly, you, me, @Inkarnate, and @Sep could probably afford to have a chat at some point about the nature of the competition between our tech moguls -- Osborn vs. Kord vs. Luthor vs. Stark, and that.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Well we're almost a week into the IC and already on our third page so out of curiosity, what are the driving factors and influences in your story?

@Lord Wraith

Well, for me, this is more or less my second time in one of these games, my first time was UOU, which I more or less treated as a little experiment, but now I really feel like I'm in a position to start stretching my legs. UOU is certainly giving me a lot of inspiration for how to handle it. In particular, how much planning and organizing was done for that game, so now I have a big ol' spreadsheet detailing what subplots come up when and chronicling the posts I need to make for this arc. Also, big shout outs to @HenryJonesJr's spectacular Spider-Gwen for giving me some inspiration on how to start approaching translating Spidey from comic to prose. Overall, just shout out to everyone from that game; I feel like in a lot of ways, just about each and every poster influenced my style just a bit in some way or another, from Morden's careful characterization to Uni's bombastic action. It's all just about getting a bit better at this whole "writing" thing every day, and somehow, the climate of these games has a way to pushing me to try and reach for it.

In terms of particular character inspiration, I'm taking a lot of cues from the Spiderverse movie, Spectacular Spider-Man, and the 90s Spidey cartoon. Spider-Man has meant a lot to me more or less since I was born; I have this vivid memory of being young and terrified of Doc Ock at the theaters when Spider-Man 2 came out, but I kept daring myself to look back at the screen so I could root for Spidey. In a way, it's kind of a story I've been thinking about since I was a kid: what if Spidey had the symbiote from the start? How would it come to change him, his relationships, his villains? I just hope I can live up to the promise of the premise!

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

<Snipped quote by Lord Wraith>

Then we could have a Fantastic Four!

@NinaDivine

I mean, Spider-Man's on board. @Morden Man, care to join us?

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

SPIDER-MAN: THE DISTANCE

Issue 3

---

New York City, NY

---

Jameson’s article had come out faster than Peter expected it would, pumped into the heart of the city and then outward to its fringes. “Man-Spider Attacks Bugle Office, Assaults NYPD”. A sterling review of his first real endeavor, and they couldn’t even get his name right. At least paintbrush-head nailed the hyphen. Still, he had to spend the last God knows how many hours swinging through the streets and making double sure people knew what his real name was. If Jameson wouldn’t speak to him, maybe the city would.

Peter swung and released, switching hands and trying to cram the rest of his egg and cheese sandwich into his mouth, tracking it with half-lidded eyes. He tasted the wax of deli paper and hacked out a cough, wrenching a turn around the Manhattan Municipal Building. The tendrils of his mask snaked back around his mouth and he dropped a dozen feet, pulling a saliva-stained strand of paper from his mouth and letting it catch on the New York Wind. Gross. Another webline dragged him back into the sky and he was flying again.

He landed on a rooftop and pushed off of it, sailing clean past the flagpole he aimed for. Nuts. A web shot back out from his wrists and he hung there like a limp fish, listing in the gentle breeze. His sigh turned into a yawn and he pulled himself up, hand over hand, back to the top. Get it together, Parker. You’ve still got all of Harlem to look through. Joy, joy, joy… The neighborhood spread before him in a grey-brown haze, struggling out of the swirling miasma of the cracked streets below. Every building slumped into the next, devoid of any definition but for the inky blackness that swirled between them, crackling and bubbling and...

Peter shook his head and rubbed his temples, willing the sleep out of his system. The hard edges and definition came back to the place, solidifying out of the darkness. He let his breath go and focused on the rhythms of his costume. Tendrils of black fiber interlaced with one another, infinitely dense yet impossibly fine, all prehensile. They stood up all across his body, quivering in the biting wind. Through their vibrations, he began to feel it all coming in. The brickwork of the building behind him, lacing down and outward to the painted concrete a hundred feet below him. This was his web, spreading in and around him as he waited, focused, waiting for anything to trip his Spider-Sense. Somewhere at the edge, he felt the fringe of some grander presence, with a kind of gravity to it, dragging on his fibers, pulling him closer. It felt cool and metal and warm and fleshy all it once. It was legs and arms and a grand throne suspended in some network of webs, and -- Peter’s senses flinched all at once. Two blocks away, due north, brush of gunmetal against elastic waistband. Screams. There.

The twang of the flagpole echoed through the neighborhood as Peter threw himself into the air, firing two webs and slingshotting himself a half block ahead. He was a spider, skittering ahead and squeaking across dirty windows as he closed on his prey. He was silhouetted against the black concrete, a deep blue hoodie pressing a gun into the back of a passerby. He hadn’t heard Spider-Man yet. Good.

The suit sprang across the concrete as he landed, cushioning the fall and sending spikes of force deep into the earth. Before the mugger had time to turn around, Peter was upon him, throwing him into the air and following, dragging him on a webline; higher, higher. Peter put his whole body into it, flinging the crook up ahead and stumbling, but running up the building all the same. Spider-Man was on the edge of the rooftop and the gunman hung in the air, a dark stain against the shining beauty of the moon.

Then he was falling. Peter snatched him from the precipice of death, hand snapping on the man’s collar. The fabric ripped and he fell further inches, and then he dropped again, his scream blasting Peter’s eardrums. Goddamnit. He forced his eyes open and webline snapped to the man’s back.

“Oh God, oh Jesus, I--” The gunman stumbled over his words and pinwheeled in the sky, kicking at nothing.

“Shhhhh.” Peter said, again rubbing his temples. It felt good to close his eyes, just for a moment. “People are sleeping, man.” He pulled the thug up, bit by bit, as he swung and grasped wildly at the hair of webbing between him and death.

“Are-are you that, that...?” He was breathless, straining, eyes locked on the stark ground beneath him.

”Yeah, Amazing Spider-Man, jazz hands, blah blah.” Peter mumbled. He the webline to the edge of the building, crawling down to get a good look at the man. Huge, white, featureless bug eyes met his pair of dull browns and he squirmed, trying to wedge his way further back into the window. His piece had been lost in the climb, now probably shattered somewhere down through a hundred yards of freefall. Peter found himself staring into the cheap fabrics of the man’s coat, mesmerized by the simple patterns of the man’s coat, deeper and deeper and darker and -- his eyes shot open, and he sucked in a breath.

”I probably need to get through a lot of these tonight, so, yeah. Don’t make me, I don’t know, drop you or something. That’s what that Bat-dude from Gotham does, right?” Spider-Man stifled a yawn and tapped the man on his forehead and he jerked back, slamming his head against the glass.

“Don’t kill me!” He screamed. Peter blinked slowly, tuning out the screams and focusing on the weight in his eyelids. A response fought out of his consciousness.

”Just… Just keep your pants on. Guy robs a wrestling tournament a few days ago, shoots an old man on his way out. Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious, I just want to send him a postcard.” Peter groaned.

The robber shook his head back and forth, “No no man! No! That’s Tombstone’s racket, I don’t fuck with that!”

“Tombstone, I keep hearing that name. Spooky. Am I gonna have to fight Boris Karloff in a graveyard or something?”

The man looked at Spider-Man, as if for the first time. His skin was clouded, somehow darker than black, with impossibly long thin lips twisting into a smile that curled beyond the edge of his face and up into the very back of his jaw, rippling open to a mouth of jagged teeth that poked out at every angle. Eyes the color of curdled milk pierced through the lenses of Spider-Man’s mask, staring back at the boy beneath.

“Pe-ter Parr-ker.” Fluid the color of death drained from the man’s mouth and Peter jerked backward, stumbling down the wall, fighting to keep his grip and yet staggering, falling. He slammed a boot through the plate glass as he tried to regain his footing, scraping at the wall with his hands.

The thug flinched and closed his eyes as the sound of breaking glass erupted, trying to hide his head in his chest and throwing up his arms to cover himself. Everything was normal again. The thug was curled into a ball, backed as far against the window as he could be.

The suit vibrated around Peter, gradually coming to a halt as Peter fought to uncurl the balls his fists had wounded themselves into, going back up the sheer glass of the wall. One foot at a time. What was that? He was dimly aware of a buzz against his skin, his phone pressed tight against him in the fabric of his suit.

“I uh… I gotta take this. Take five.” A web sealed the thug’s mouth shut and Peter crossed onto the rooftop from the side, pulling his phone out from a web of cascading fibers. He answered.

”Peter?” May’s voice shook and crackled over the receiver.

“Uh, hey, Aunt May. Sorry I--”

“Oh thank God! Peter Benjamin Parker, where have you been?”

“Just uh… Just catching some air, May, I--”

“I’ve been worried sick!”

“May, it’s just a little--”

“It’s been three days Peter! I’ve been calling Anna Watson and Captain Stacy and I’ve been fighting like hell to get on the phone with Norman Osborn!”

May’s voice faded into the background of his thoughts. Three days? Impossible. He’d only been out… How many criminals had he shaken down? How long had it been since…?

”--and with that Spider-Man character on the loose! You’re coming home this instant, young man! Where have you been!?”

”I -- I’m sorry, I... Uh. It’s uh… It’s a long story, Aunt May, I--”

“No excuses, Peter! And with your Uncle in the hospital, I--” Peter could hear her shaking her head over the line. “We’re going to have a long talk when you get home. Right away.”

“Okay… I’m almost home. I’ll see you soon. I love you.” Peter couldn’t feel the words coming out of his mouth as he ended the call, not waiting for a response. Three days. Three days. It felt like hours. He thought back on it, crawling through the docks, swinging low through Hell’s Kitchen as the sun crested over the horizon. Three days, gone. Three days less for Ben. And nothing to show for it but a name. Tombstone.

Seventy-two hours of Spider-Man… Where does the time go?

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Since I haven't said my plans in the thread proper;

If I want to be done I'm looking at posting about once every two days, maybe more depending on how my crossovers go. I might end up cutting out bits and pieces of my plan here and there, but it really depends. I might end up being a little late on tomorrow's post, but we'll see.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

SPIDER-MAN: THE DISTANCE

Issue 2 -- From Peter’s Playlist; I Think We’re Alone Now

---

New York City, NY --- The Daily Bugle Building

---

The Daily Bugle had never been a paper of particular repute. In Ben’s words they were mostly two-bits, preying upon the stories and hardships of the working person to string together a rag just barely strong enough to get pity purchases. A paper that would never rise out of the shadow of the New York Times, or even The Daily Planet over in Metropolis. There were no Pulitzers out of The Daily Bugle. Yet still, the Bugle’s investors gave it enough strength to have its own building, a blazing pillar of neon red against the black of the night, proclaiming a half-hearted message of ‘freedom of the press’, or something like that. It was a towering monolith to slipshod reporters everywhere, and unfortunately, it was the one place Peter Parker had to be tonight.

He crawled along the brickwork, fingers tracing the inlays and channels of it was he went, trying to make sure he was on the right floor. With his luck, he’d wind up smack-dab in the middle of the security office. He crept up the side, checking each window for signs of a floor number inside as he passed.

”Finally! Half worried I was gonna run out of floors.” Peter mumbled to himself as he stuck his fingers to the plate glass. He could feel it in all its detail through the fabric of the suit, every minute imperfection in the surface of its construction. It felt raw and uneven to the touch, and improperly seated in its housing, by the way it jiggled underneath his fingertips. One push and the window crashed silently into the thickly carpeted editorial office.

Peter flipped off the windowsill and onto one of the plaster pillars supporting the few floors above this one. It was an ocean of cubicles stacked high with keyboards and reams of paper, spilling over with pencils and multicolor sticky notes. There was one light source in the far corner; a corona of blue monitor screens and ancient mounted Tube TVs playing a half dozen twenty four hour news channels. Peter dropped from the pillar and began snaking between labyrinthine cubicles. Editor’s office. A fine place to start.

The office was separated from the rest by a thin wall of wood-framed glass, and all was silent but for the steady din of sleepless newscasters. Can’t turn these off when no one’s here? Save the planet, man. The door was frosted glass announcing the editor of this department, “Jameson, J. Jonah; Local News”. Peter tried the handle and popped the lock as he twisted, forcing the door across the carpet.

“Anyone home? The Spider-Scouts brought thin mints.” Spider-Man said. There was a flash of movement in his retinas and he was on the wall, scuffing the craquelure wallpaper and aiming both hands at the slowly turning swivel chair that sat before a network of interconnected monitors. No Spider-Sense again? Thing really must be bugging out on me…

“I hope you have cash in that kooky costume of yours, those locks aren’t cheap.” The man that turned to face him had salt and pepper hair that stood up like a paintbrush, and thick bushy eyebrows that gave shelter to two eyes that shone like burning coals in their darkness. He had a thick block of a mustache, and one hand on his wireless mouse, with the other on the meanest cigar Peter had even scene, unlit, with its end chewed to hell and back.

“Woah, picklepuss! Why are you here? They won’t let you shave that dead rat off your face without a hundred hours’ overtime?” Peter’s shoulders slumped and grinned beneath his mask. At least he doesn’t keep a gun in that desk. “Spider-Man assaults working stiff.” Great way to get my name out there.

“You’ve got thirty seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t call the police.” The reporter rolled his eyes and turned back to his monitors. He jammed his cigar between his teeth, stabbing at the gel caps of his keyboard. Peter tapped his palm and a glut of webbing stuck Jameson’s hand to his keyboard.

“Christ, the nerve of you to--” Jameson’s response was cut short as another glob nailed his other hand to his desk.

“Shh, Spider-Man talking now.” Peter dropped to the floor and his suit receded across his leg, revealing the battered copy of The Daily Bugle pressed to his thigh. He threw it onto Jameson’s desk. “Old man gets shot and left for dead. Bugle are the only ones to report on it. What do you know?”

”You think I remember every story that passes across my goddamn desk?” Jameson spit the cigar out in a cloud of spittle. It bounced across his desk. Peter shook his head.

“It is your byline, Triple J, and I don’t think you’re at the age for dementia just yet.” Peter dropped to the floor and knelt beside a neglected file cabinet, buckling under the weight of the dozens of folders stacked atop it. Peter sorted through them, tossing them into the trash as he went.

“So? You think I’m gonna help some webhead punk like you that muscles his way into my office?” Jameson grunted. He strained against the webbing, his feet dragged on the cheap carpet as he tried to gain leverage.

“Well, I was just gonna search your office, but why go without your pithy commentary?” Peter said. He turned from the folders and zipped to the ceiling, considering Jameson as he sat upside down. The man’s neck veins bulged as he fought the webbing, struggling with every ounce of his muscle. “The faster you tell me what you’ve got, the sooner you can see your whole paintbrush-head family.”

“Murder rates are up fifty percent this year, and I have more assholes like you flying around this city every goddamn day -- I don’t even know who the hell you are. You expect me to remember how some no name took a bullet?”

Peter’s hand cracked against Jameson’s desk and the corner splintered into a shower of sawdust. “Say that again. One more time.” Peter felt a tickle across the back of his mind, ice brushing his head. Is that…? No. No way.

“I’m not afraid of you. You go viral swinging around for five minutes and suddenly you --” Peter focused as Jameson droned and the sensation grew in his skull, spreading across his senses, at once unifying and dividing them. Hairs prickled on the back of his neck. Spider-Sense. His eyes flashed out the window, scarcely detectable from this height, but Peter saw the pulse of red and blue.

“What did you do?” In an instant Peter was on Jameson’s desk, scattering a hurricane of documents. Jameson howled, rocking back as far as he could in his seat.

“You really thought I didn’t already call the cops? Amateur. NYPD’s shitting themselves over the chance to grab a freak like --” Jameson was silenced with a burst of webs before he could finish and Peter closed his eyes, reaching out with his sense. The tendril fibers of his suit tuned and resonated, searching for a way out. Thump of jackboots up stairwell, safeties being released outside, rustle of equipment behind cubicle walls… Perfect, they already rolled out SWAT.

Peter opened his eyes and saw the PA microphone astride Jameson’s desk. His eyes flitted across the room, back to the file cabinet. “I really hope you don’t need that for anything.”

***

“Hold position…” Voices crackled over NYPD closed comm channels as SWAT officers tightened their grips on their rifles. Over response for a B&E, sure, but the promise of a bag and tag of a live mutant or meta-freak? The bureaucrats wanted a win, and by God would the NYPD deliver. Armor rustled as the officers shifted, double checking armor and munitions. They were sheltered behind and beneath desks, automatic rifles poking out from cubicles tracked the figure that bobbed and weaved inside the editorial office. Another squad would be up the stairs in moments, and then they could --

Four speakers situated at the corners of The Daily Bugle’s 42nd floor began to thump, in steady time with a drumbeat.

“What the hell is --?” The plate glass of J. Jonah Jameson’s office exploded behind the force of an steel filing cabinet, launched through the glass and exploding into fine metal shrapnel across the pillars strewn about the office.

“Contact! Contact!” Rifles chugged through their magazines as a black and white specter emerged from the shadows of Jameson’s office, swinging through the air on white strands of webbing. Spider-Man landed like a bomb, sending chipboard particles flying in the air as he grabbed an NYPD officer by the collar, hauling him up and webbing him to the ceiling.

The unit was already in chaos between themselves, diving between cubicles and ducking under each other’s gunfire. Peter pulled a monitor off of its housing and flung it like a frisbee, it exploded across the chest of the nearest officer and he was gone again in the shadows, barely revealed by orange bursts of gunfire.

“Guys, I swear this song was supposed to be White Wedding! I promise!” Peter’s voice was almost lost to the report of the gunfire and the thump of the beat, bullets trying to find him amid the office space and whizzing off into random directions.

“Where is he?” A stapler detonated into a million pieces against a riot helmet and another officer fell, slumped against a pillar.

“I can’t see shit!” Peter was a tornado through the newsroom, slinging tight packages of OfficeMax goods and laying high tensile weblines, clotheslining cops as they ran in the madness.

“Hold this.” Peter launched an officer from the skyscraper with a shove, the man dropped three stories before catching on a hair thin strand of webbing, but Peter was already gone, webbing another SWAT officers hands together and bowling over another pair with his body.

“Hey! Backup is cheating!” A steel door flung upon as more officers piled into the destroyed office, trampling over paperwork and the dropped forms of their friends as they hit cover and thumbed their safeties. Peter flicked his wrists and the stairwell slammed shut with a gout of webs, smashing back a half squadron of SWAT goons.

Peter was in the air again, webbing cops to printers and walls as he ducked and dived through the gunfire, weaving between the bullets as if they weren’t there at all.

“I’d love to stay boys, but I’ve gotta run. Early Spider catches the worm!” Peter slid beneath a cubicle and pounced up and over one of the last officers, thrusting into a front flip off of his shoulders and through the plate glass of the Bugle’s window, into the cool New York air.

The bursts of shots died in the background as Peter swang, webline to webline, faster and faster, further and further.

No leads? Check.
Hatred of the news? Check.
Property damage? Check.
Assaulting the cops? Check.
This superhero thing is working out great…

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Well, we're certainly off to one hell of a start.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

SPIDER-MAN: THE DISTANCE

Issue 1

---

New York City, NY --- Thompson Memorial Hospital

---

Ben’s room at the Thompson Memorial was smaller than it had any right to be, jammed into the corner of the Eastern wing, a room as far away from the bustle of personnel and people with quality medical insurance as they could find. A bundled mass of machines, all constantly blinking and churning out reports, lay in a mess around the room, jammed wherever they could fit to keep Ben Parker alive just a few minutes longer. The two seats in the room were awkwardly together against the back wall, chair legs competing for each other’s space.

Peter in one, May in the other. They’d been told a while ago that the worst of it was over, for now. Nerve damage to the spine, probably permanent, unless Stark came out with some new “revolutionizing gizmo” again. Peter never laughed at their jokes. May always looked up at them with those big, sad eyes of hers whenever they did it, trying to cling on to the hope in their jargon. Not understanding. May’s hand was around his now, white knuckled and bony as always. She stared at the rise and fall of Ben’s chest, but her eyes were glazed over, her mind somewhere else. When Peter looked at her he could only see the age in her face. Past the grief and the tracks of tears, all that was left was her years spent with Ben; walks through Central Park, long swims down at Coney Island beach. Now the wonder was how Ben could get up the stairs to his own bedroom. If he woke up, anyhow. When he woke up.

Peter shifted in his chair and the noise cut through the whir of medical machinery, hard scrape of plastic against cheap linoleum. May started in her seat and Peter gave her hand a squeeze.

“I-I'm sorry Peter dear, I…” May shook her head.

“S’okay, Aunt May. My fault. Sorry.” Peter’s thumb circled the back of her hand. ”Listen, I uh… I think I’m just gonna go outside and catch some air, okay? I’ll be right back.”

May nodded slowly and turned back to her husband, clasping her hands together and receding even further into herself, if that were even possible. Peter stood and winced as he unclenched his hands. He didn’t realize he’d been doing it that hard. Still, to think that some sonofabitch had shot his Uncle and was now doing this to his Aunt, and was… Peter’s fingers dug back into the bruise on his hand and he swore under his breath.

The room’s door closed behind him and he sucked in the stale, reprocessed Hospital air. It wasn’t much better than the stuffed up room, but it was something. The hall was silent, spare for the echoed clack of the receptionist’s mechanical keyboard and the steady hum of the white fluorescent lights. Peter dropped into one of the felt chairs outside and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. How long had it been, now? Three, four days? They weren’t expecting him in school for a while at least, but every day he couldn’t get away from the hospital was another day the shooter had to hide himself from Peter. From the police. From Spider-Man. He grabbed the arms of the chair and squeezed. Useless just sitting here and... And watching him. Peter needed to be out there, doing something, finding the bastard that… Three sets of shoes coming down the hallway. Peter tensed. Already he was up on his haunches in the chair, and he could feel the suit gurgling below the surface, waiting to spring across his body in an instant.

What was it? The killer coming to finish the job? Their steps didn’t have the cadence of the Doctors, and he and May were the only family Ben had. They were nearly to the bend now, Peter’s biceps swelled underneath his shirt and he pointed his hands forward. He reached out for his Spider-Sense and felt nothing, no chill across his mind. Suit on the fritz? Maybe. Either way, just a second now, and…

”Gwen?” Peter realized his mistake and all the fight went out of him. His balance gave and he dropped forward. His chin cracked against the linoleum. ”Ow.” Through the haze of the vague pain travelling up through his chin, he could make out the three of them; Gwen, Harry, and MJ.

“Geez, Pete! Over excited to see us?” Harry Osborn’s smile went from ear to ear as Peter tumbled, awkwardly trying to find his footing and right himself again. His arm was around MJ, she laughed as Peter finally established himself on two wobbly legs. Gwen stood before them, rubbing her hands together.

”You know me. Excitable is my middle name.” Peter rubbed his chin as the pain faded into a background throb and his friends reached him. Gwen threw her arms around him and pulled him in close. Her hair smelled like strawberries.

“Hope you’re doing okay, Peter…” Just as quickly as she’d hugged him Gwen began to pull away from him, blushing. “Sorry.”

“Uh, thanks, Gwen…” Peter patted her on the back and tried to seperate himself from her arms. ”It, uh… It means a lot, actually. What brings you guys out all this way?”

“We’re here to see you, tiger.” MJ said, untangling herself from her boyfriend and going to check on Peter herself.

“We’re, uh, all fine here now, thanks. How are you?” Peter crossed his arms and the words tumbled out. Same old stupid Parker with his foot in his mouth, right? MJ and Gwen looked him up and down while Harry shot off a text on his OsPhone, which he deposited in his back pocket before joining the girls.

”Just been missing you in school, bud. Bet even that jackass Flash is, even if he won’t tell anyone.” Harry didn’t know it but his grin was just like his Dad’s, wide and thin. He always looked like he’d just gained the upper hand. MJ swatted her boyfriend’s shoulder and reached out to take Peter’s hand.

”What Harry is trying to say is that we care about you and just wanted to check up on you.” MJ squeezed his hand and plunked down into the seat he’d just been occupying. Gwen tentatively touched his arm.

”How’s Ben?” Peter pulled his arm away and into himself, scratching at the back of his head.

”He’s uh… He’s hanging in there, yeah. Hanging like Luke in the Wampa den, but… Hanging.” Peter sighed. He looked at Gwen and she looked right back at him. Her big blues were unblemished by tears or sleepless nights over a hospital bed. No, she was just Gwen Stacy. Peter looked away. His hands were balling again. ”Have you heard anything from El Capìtan about Ben’s case?”

Gwen smiled but she looked down, shaking her head. ”I’m sorry, they didn’t put Dad on it. Said he was too close to it. They said the department was putting their best people on it, if that means anything to you.”

”Okay.” Peter nodded again and again. ”Okay.”

”Pete? You’re shaking.” Harry started.

”I’m fine, Har. I’m good.” Peter jammed his hands in his pockets and looked away. He tried to focus on his breathing, on his heartbeat, anything to calm down, but all he could hear in the back of his mind was the steady gurgle of the suit. Waiting. Wanting.

”Peter.” Gwen’s hand on his shoulder. ”I know you want to be strong. For May. But we know… I know what it’s like to lose someone, okay? You can talk to us.”

Peter bristled, every muscle coiled together and prepared to pounce, but Peter just focused on the cadence of Gwen’s voice. She was right, deep down Peter knew that. They wanted to help. But Spider-Man wanted something else.

”I appreciate it guys, really, it’s just, uh…” C’mon, Parker, think! he was never good with excuses.

”If you want us to go, we’ll go, but…” Harry scratched at the non-existent stubble on his chin. ”I just… I unno, it might be better for you if we stayed?"

MJ pulled Harry into a sideways hug as he sat and she looked up at Peter. ”You don’t need to do it alone, Parker. You’ve got May, and you’ve more than got us. Any way we can take the weight off a little?”

Maybe I don’t have to do it alone. But Spider-Man does. Peter massaged his temples. ”Look, I can stick around a while longer but, uh… I think I just need to get my mind off things. By myself, that is. Sorry. Maybe I’ll play The Old Scriptures V again, or something.”

”That works. They just released Byerim on the Os-Homes.” Harry said.

”Thanks for staying awhile, Pete.” Gwen sat and patted the empty seat next to her.

I just hope I don’t regret it…

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

This is the anarchy that swells before the logjammed gates of a universe's creation...

Also known as Pre-Black Friday Crowds...

@Hound55

12+ Users and 3 guests can't be wrong!