Hound55
Crimson Flame
Simple Unicycle
Qia
Skai
Issue 8
New York City, NY --- Midtown High
11:30
The only reason Peter knew he was in lunch period was from the clock, every tick punctuating another pulse of pain from his shoulder. With every twitch of the second hand and spark of electricity in his nerves his eyelids forced themselves back open, coasting on what meager sleep he’d gotten.
No more playing chicken with the X-Men on school nights...
Peter’s notebook was splayed open over the particle board of the cafeteria table. Every line was filled with pseudocode in handwriting that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be small and dense or huge and loopy. It was ostensibly a worm to get inside Police servers remotely, once he’d finished analyzing everything in his case files, but the way the letters swam in Peter’s vision was not inspiring great confidence. Even if it worked, there was still the matter of sneaking into Connors’ lab on a half hour of shut eye to actually analyze the evidence. Connors had always told him to embrace ‘guerilla science’ as he called it, but Peter imagined that guerilla forensics was frowned upon.
His lunch was laid out in a tray before him, some mix of frozen chicken nuggets and an orange substance that probably wasn’t poisonous, but Peter wasn’t keen on finding out. Altogether it looked like a pool of toxic sludge, festering and rising and… What?
And he was back again. That was the one thing that weighed on his mind since meeting the X-Men. It was like there was a shunt in his mind, like one of the ones they’d put in Uncle Ben during one of the surgeries. It was just little, little moments, spots of… Blankness. Darkness, maybe. A kind of indescribable absence. It came and went so quickly, Peter could hardly say whether they happened it all. All he had was the chill across his back and goosebumps up and down his arms. He felt like an alien in his own skin.
His hands came up and he rubbed his thumbs against his closed eyelids, elbows pressed against the table. He focused on the texture of the pocked surface of the table through the cotton of his shirt. The drum of kicks against linoleum and plastic forks across metal trays. The steady throb of his shoulder muscles, a second heartbeat against his skin.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
“Peter?”
Peter jumped up in his seat, metal legs of the table rattling against the ground. There was Gwen, holding her tray in both hands. Her blonde hair was held back today with a thin black headband that he couldn’t remember if he’d seen before. His eyes settled on hers. They were blue, like the ocean. Then he caught the blush on his cheeks and looked back down.
“Uh, hey, Gwen.” Peter shifted in his seat, suppressing a yawn. Gwen sighed through her nose and slid into the seat across from him. The cafeteria was beginning to fill up now, waves of other kids returning with their food across the lunchroom. Gwen looked him up and down, and bit the inside of her cheek.
“Pete, as your friend? You look like shit.” She said.
“Really boosting my self confidence.” Peter grumbled. He reached for the tray in front of him with the wrong hand. His muscles twanged against each other in protest and he recoiled, setting his jaw and bringing the arm back in towards his chest.
“That’s what I’m here for.” Gwen said. She stirred the orange goop in her tray. Peter pulled his food in with his other arm and poked at the nuggets. They were lukewarm, shrunken little balls of chicken inside breaded skin that was just too big for them. Something about them made his stomach turn and he pushed his little pile aside. He looked back up at Gwen half-lidded. She supported her head with one hand and stirred with the other in tight, practiced circles. Something was missing.
”Hey… Where’s Harry?”
“Peter! He’s helping Norman -- It’s the expo tonight. You guys have been talking about it for weeks.” Gwen said. Peter closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with both hands.
“It’s tonight? Oy vey. I just want to sleep.” He complained.
Great, I get to analyze shell casings running on fumes and in a hurry. With my luck, the results are gonna show it’s lizard DNA...
“A little restless for your first day back?” She joked. Peter leaned forward into his hands. He felt his palms against his eyelids.
“Had to come back sometime, right?”
He opened his eyes, hands shielding him from the light fixtures bearing down on the cafeteria. Motes of it shone through between the gaps between his knuckles, like a thousand eyes staring back at him. He gulped and moved his hands back down his face, settling forward in his chair. He felt hairs rising on the back of his neck and swallowed hard.
“How’s the, uh, song coming along?” Peter scooped up some goop with his spoon.
“Good, so far. We had to call off practice tonight, though. Apparently something happened at the station last night, and Dad wants some quiet to deal with it.”
Oops. Peter laid his spoon down on the tray and swept his notebook closer to him, closing it as casually as possible.
“Ouch.” He took his utensil up again, picking at the brussels sprouts the lunch lady had dropped onto his tray. “I’m uh... I’m sorry about Saturday, by the way.”
Gwen stopped stirring to move a strand of hair away from her eyes. She looked up at him. “You’re under a lot of stress, Pete. When my Mom, y’know… I understand. It happens.” Gwen shrugged.
“Thanks, Gwen. Really.”
“How’s he doing?”
Peter rested his chin on his hand. “Coming home soon, next couple days. Can’t wait for May to burn up some casseroles for us.” He smiled.
“Oh, God. Remember how we used to have Horror Movie Night? Every time, ‘you kids want my casseroles? I found a new recipe!’”
Peter laughed and choked back a grunt as his shoulder rolled in its socket. Sneakers squeaked across the floor and he glanced sideways. Flash Thompson’s girlfriend was walking between all the middle tables, as was her custom, talking to Rand Robertson and Kenny Kong from the football team. She saw Peter looking and cracked a smile. She gave him a little wave and turned back to talk to Artemis Crock from girl’s lacrosse.
Gwen fiddled with her spork, spinning it around like one of her drumsticks.
“Where’s Flash today?” She wondered aloud.
“Ugh. Really not prepared to deal with him today.”
“I’m not sure he’d need to do much. You look about ready to keel over anyway.”
“At least I could get some shut eye if he socked me.”
The lunch bell dinged, rapid brrrrring of metal on metal. Something in his stomach shifted and he bit his tongue as bile rose in his stomach. He forced it back down and swept his notebook off the table, trying to maneuver it into his backpack one handed.
Gwen stood and took Peter’s tray along with hers, stacking them on top of each other. She shouldered her backpack.
“See ya, Stacy.” Peter offered a fistbump. Gwen knocked her knuckles against his.
“See ya, Parker. Take a nap for me, kay?”
***
7:00
The numbers blazoned in the darkness of Peter’s room, the only illumination but for the subtle rays of moonlight trickling in past his cheap plastic curtains.
“Sev’clock…? Eh… Fi’ more minu…”
Seven O’clock, huh? Seven-o-clock, Seven-o-clock, Seven-o-- goddamnit.
Peter was off his bed in a tumble of sheets, smacking against the carpeted floor with a hard thump. He wrestled in his cocoon of sheets, trying to shove a hand out without tearing through them. He passed the blanket, the comforter -- there! Black fabric instantly laced up his arm and his fingers found the center of his palm. A glob of webbing smacked the switch and the bedroom was awash with light.
“Ow, ow…” He squinted in the light as he worked, worming his way out of the blanket burrito layer by layer. He threw the last layer off and stumbled forward, his head smacked into the doorframe and he grunted, pushing off as the fibers of his costume traced up his chest.
He pulled the nodule of web from the switch, taking a nice chunk of facade plastic with it, and shoved it back into the fabric of his suit for reabsorption. He shot again with his other hand and pulled himself up with a strand, settling onto the bed as the mask closed around his face.
The room was small, dominated by a wooden bed Peter had outgrown some years ago, that made long mournful creaks if you sat on it. The carpet was hidden beneath mountains of t-shirts and groves of unwashed socks. A desk rose out of the chaos of clothing, a small brown thing weighed down by an army of papers and bargain bin video games askew across it, plus Peter’s craptop with the cracked screen.
In the corner was the bookshelf, slumped against the wall like a particularly unimpressive leaning tower of Pisa. A random combination of studies and novels with broken spines stuffed it to its breaking point -- Connors’ studies, laminate Stark Expo photo albums, Star Wars novels, and a book or two about Lex Luthor or Charles Xavier hidden away somewhere in the menagerie. And, between a metabiology textbook and a bound compendium of Fox Tech Readers, was a slim faded green binder marked “PARKER SHOOTING CASE + EVIDENCE”.
It was in his hands as soon as he’d fired the webline, he tucked it under his shoulder and reached for his nightstand for his --
Wait a minute. Where’s my…? The flash drive was missing. Goddamnit. Buried somewhere under Fort Shorts or Hoodie Keep, certainly.
Great, all hope of actually reading police data buried in a B-52’s shirt.
7:17
Ten minutes later he had produced it, a little grey flash drive covered in white tape, with “GOOBER” written on it in big letters. It had probably meant something to him when he wrote it, but that memory was gone in the haze of his dreams. His eyes went back to the clock. He swore.
At this rate my spider-science project is gonna make me miss the expo…
As if on cue, his phone chirped in the background, and the ringtone began: “S-A-T-U-R-D-A--”
Right now, Harry? Cmon, man… Peter pulled it towards himself with a web, as his mask unmade itself, slinking down his face. He thumbed ‘ACCEPT VIDEO CALL’.
Is that…? Beside Harry’s signature haircut that was sculpted to his head, was a man Peter had only really seen in magazines and Gizmodo articles: Ted freakin’ Kord.
“I -- Harry, what? I…” Peter blubbered.
“Cool, right?” Harry said. His grin was plastered across his face. Peter hadn’t seen him this happy since the time that MJ ‘toooootally said yes to pizza, dude!’. “This is Mr. Kord! I was just showing him the stuff I messed with on Byerim.”
Ted Kord was a little heavier than Peter imagined, he looked almost like he was wearing something else under his clothes. He had wrangled a tousled mop of hair into something presentable and wedged himself into a suit, but Peter saw something unmistakably Kord in there, that light in his eyes, even the little gut the tailor hadn’t managed to hide.
Holy shit.
“It-uh, it’s an honor, Mr. Kord!” Peter said, taking extra care to keep the camera from tilting down and showing the white spider on his chest. He swerved the camera around, trying to settle the background on something hopefully more becoming than an old Pockobeast poster.
"It's an honor to meet you too, floating teenage head -- ah there we go."
Peter brought the camera down another inch, moments after the suit rushed down his neck, hiding at the edges of his collarbone. He tried his best smile.
“Pete, spit something out, man! You’ve wanted to meet this guy since we were kids.” Harry said.
“Y-your work is fascinating! I didn’t think we’d see a solar panel that’d get that close to the S-Q limit this decade!” Peter stammered.
"Yeah, well... it's a pity we won't be seeing too many more for a while. Should have them available for order if you have an in with the Space Program. Sorry, still a bit of a nerve there. But you know how it is. Gets seen in a space mission, some kind of demand comes out of it, then maybe we'll get a lot more. It's a frustratingly slow process, progress." Kord’s eyes stayed firm on the camera as he spoke, undivided attention.
“Right? That’s what Doc Connors says -- I mean, uh, my science… Instructor?” Peter stumbled over his words.
Hi Mr. Kord, this is my bedroom, here are my Pockobeast posters, and, oh, here’s my spider costume! And the name of the scientist whose lab I’m about to break into!
“Oh yeah, Mr. Kord, Pete’s got an internship with the Curt Connors -- isn’t that cool?” Harry said. Kord perked up at the mention.
"Curt Connors? Even I know that name and biochem isn't generally my thing. Keep your head down and your nose clean and something pretty good might come from that. Learn what you can from a man like that."
“Yeah! I mean, that’s the plan."
“Well, what kinda stuff does he have you working on there? A teacher like that you want to make the most out of your extracurriculars.”
“Uh, well, we’re looking at medicinal applications of metabiology, kinda. It’s based on what we can recover of the old Captain America serum, and combining it with lizard DNA to try to graft their healing abilities into the human genome. Er, it was lizards, initially, but we’re heading in more of a stem-celly direction now. It’s… It’s really, really cool, honestly.”
"Wow... so a lot more advanced and practical than growing broad beans in jars, huh? Amazing opportunity for a young kid. That's actual work, there's a lot of that Super Soldier Serum stuff going on in the biochem field these days. There's a Ted Sallis guy down in the Everglades trying something similar with plants instead of lizards. Heh. Hey! Maybe Curt got the idea from seeing the gators down there, huh?" Kord talked with his hands, gesturing out of the camera’s vision. Harry stretched his arms forward, trying to catch the swings of his arms, but Kord kept absently moving closer, framing his face in the camera.
“Heh. First gators, then lizards,” Harry cut in, “next thing we know it’ll be spiders, or something. Hell, maybe that’s how we got a Spider-Man.”
“Um, yeah! Maybe…” Peter felt his suit creeping up the back of his neck, hairs standing on end. He set his jaw and willed it down. You will not out yourself as Spider-Man to Ted Kord.
"You two are from New York. You ever seen him?" Ted’s eyes drifted down from the camera as he spoke, settling on the image of Peter further down the phone. He was the right height, build. Age, too. Peter coughed.
“God, I wish, seeing him swing around like that. How d’you think he does it?” Harry said. Ted’s eyes glided off of Peter and back to Harry as he spoke.
"I don't know. I mean I've seen him. Once. I've got some theories. A friend of mine has some theories. But they're just that, I guess.Though I gotta say… My friend’s theories? They’re not off too often."
Peter had that question himself -- it might be useful to find another way to produce the webs, maybe to increase staying power, or stopping power for that matter. Maybe it had something to do with his diet. “They’d need high tensile strength. Prolly woven at the microscopic level, if I had to take a stab at it.”
"Well, my friend's first thought was a spray dispersal system that fires a resin polymer over a chemical silly-string like chain, solidifying it in the process... Me, I was thinking more broadly, like he's found some kind of fluid that solidifies on contact with the air. Then he threw in the possibility that maybe he's a mutant. Which, I don't know, doesn't seem right for him to me. Maybe I'm crazy. That said... bunch of these X-Men kids jumping around roughly his age. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they inspired him. It's science, kids. Wisdom is knowing what you don't know."
Great, I’ve got a squad of super geniuses thinking over my powers; I’m sure my secret I.D isn’t far behind...
“I’ve always thought that wisdom is the ability to keep ahead of the competition. Through experience, of course. Something even K.O.R.D could learn from, I’m sure.” Peter heard Norman Osborn’s voice from somewhere offscreen. Harry’s face twisted for a moment, before returning to a half smile. His eyes didn’t crinkle.
“Why, Norman? What are you up to?” Ted Kord grinned cheekily.
“I, uh, might need to call you back, Pete.” Harry whispered, drawing the camera away. “Will we see you at the expo tonight?”
Peter’s eyes went to the clock.
7:25
“I’ll try my best, Har.”
***
8:02
The ESU Biology Lab was different at night, defined by sweeping shadows cast in through the skylight and the steady glow of reptile cages embedded in the walls. If Peter listened close he could hear them moving, tiny feet and fat bodies sliding past ground cover of wood chips and dirt. Lab tables stood in lonely assembly, clean of beakers or chemicals, instead lying dormant for the next day’s work.
Peter descended on a web, spiraling down from the skylight that dribbled in moonlight and the quiet night air punctuated by the trills of crickets and sounds of distant cars. He dropped and landed on the tables, balanced on the balls of his feet. He moved forward, rocking his body into each step as it came, bounding between each table and making for the microscope bay, embedded in the far wall.
In moments the case was laid out before him, three collected shell casings lain out before him, plus a smattering of dollar bills dropped from the loose bag of the robber. He hung upside down as he worked, tweaking an upper knob of the microscope.
First things first… Examine casing material. He reached for the first casing, examining the way it reflected the moonlight, a clean brown shine to it. Short of a chemical analysis and spectrogram, likely brass -- oxidizes under extreme heat. Like that produced by a gun fired in rapid succession.
He remembered. Three dull thuds breaking out against the blistering sound of New York traffic. Smack of flesh and cloth against pavement. His eyes flicked to the report. Eyewitness statements backed it up. There was a photograph attached, the stretched white flesh of Ben’s chest and stomach, punched clean through twice. There was so much blood. One grazing shot, running a fine gutter across Ben’s side. Peter shuddered and pushed the photo aside.
Okay. Breathe. He counted his teeth with his tongue. Just… Okay.
He put the first casing down and reached for the third.
Sweat might’ve been oxidized along with the brass in the heat of the chamber, leaves a definable trace -- a fingerprint, burnt into the surface. He turned the bullet over in his hands. It was old, probably touched without gloves, given the goons manhandling the case.
Could do to be dipped in solution… But maybe I could still extract the shooter’s DNA from sebaceous oils...
He was a whirlwind around the lab as he worked, jumping between tables and pulling bottles of chemicals as he worked, mixing and tapping at readouts and machines.
Okay that’s… Probably too many DNA samples. Take me weeks to test them all. Have to hope for a print.
In moments he was back in the bay, twisting the casing under the microscope, looking for the fine detailing of a fingerprint pressed into metal. There, ridges towards the bottom. It was only partial, but it’d have to do.
He slid the case back into its folder and pressed it against his chest, subsuming it into the costume. He had the impression of the print. He slid forward, across linoleum and over a table as he went to a hub of ancient computers, blocky grant-given iMacs taking up space in the back.
9:45
Peter jammed his flash drive in and went to work. He could feel the pulse in his fingertips as he typed.
Prints are returning multiple matches in the NYPD database… Narrow to released convicts.
204 Results.
Hmm… Add Keyword: Tombstone.
0 Results.
What? Okay, remove keyword… Narrow to larceny, robbery.
59 Results.
Okay, getting somewhere… History of violent crime?
14 Results.
Closer… Connection to organized crime?
13 Results.
Only one odd man out? That means… Peter reversed his query. One name blazed at the top, in tremendous, blocky white letters.
“CARRADINE, DENNIS.”
"I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.” The plastic of the mouse cracked in Peter’s grip. The mugshot attached was grainy, riddled with artifacting errors. He could make out a mop of blond hair, a shit-eating grin… Peter skimmed further down the file.
“EMPLOYMENT: JANITOR; THOMPSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL”
What? That can’t be right. This whole thing can’t be right -- unusable mugshot, no connections, no -- Peter felt it before he heard it, the sudden rush of air into the lab and the sound of a hand groping for a lightswitch.
He was halfway to the skylight before the lights flared to life. He recoiled, throwing an arm over his face.
“Vhat the hell are you doing here, Spyder?” A familiar voice greeted him. Morbius? Why’s he here? Peter looked down, across the laboratory. Jet black hair slicked back to his head, evolving into a rolling wave of locks that fell to his shoulders, cloaked in a black faux leather jacket.
Well, no one else would willingly dress like that much of a tool.
“I could ask you the same thing, chuckles.” Peter rotated to look at him, huge white bug eyes coming to meet the unpolished green of Morbius’s. He seemed unphased.
“I’m calling the police, insect.” He moved for the beige telephone mounted to the wall.
“I wouldn’t do that, Archduke Ferdinand.” Peter shot a hand forward to stick Morbius to the wall. Fingers lanced out to tap his palm, but the suit acted. A line of black sludge launched from his wrist, blasting through the air and crashing across Morbius’s chest. He rocked backward, slamming into the wall as the goo expanded, spreading across his torso and planting him firmly against the painted cinderblock of the wall.
“That’s… New. Impact webbing. Er, uh, sludge.” It popped and fizzled over Morbius’s body, a thin layer of blackness holding him back with impossible strength. The scientist wrestled with it, straining against it and pushing off the wall. He cleaved at it, taking off handfuls only for them to drain from his hands and reconstitute into the whole.
“You monster!” Morbius hissed.
Well, we call that a job well done in the Spider-Man household. Guess he can sit up there and think about why you shouldn’t just announce that you’re calling the cops. Or about the glory of Markovia, or something stupid like that. He made for the skylight.
“Keep your pants on, I’m pretty sure it’ll come out in the wash. Use extra detergent… probably the whole bottle. Uh, toodles!” A webline arced from his hands, and he swung into the night.
A new lead and a new power… Maybe this whole Spider-Man thing is working out for once.
