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Teen And Up Audiences
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No Archive Warnings Apply
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Fandoms:
Parahumans Series - WildbowSpider-Man - All Media TypesSpider-Man (Comicverse)Marvel (Comics)Marvel 616Marvel
Relationships:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver & Peter ParkerPeter Parker/Mary Jane Watson
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverPeter ParkerLisa Wilbourn | TattletaleBrian Laborn | GrueColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantDragon (Parahumans)Sophia Hess | Shadow StalkerThomas Calvert | CoilEmily PiggotDanny Hebert
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Cross-Posted on FanFiction.NetCrossoverAction/Adventure
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English
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Published:2026-05-07Updated:2026-07-30Words:60,582Chapters:14/?Comments:255Kudos:390Bookmarks:136Hits:13,105
Tangled in a Stranger's Web
CHPrime
Chapter 12: Chapter 8: Taylor
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
All the teachers acted like I should have been happy.
The trio was suspended. My next two weeks would be free of them trying to make my life hell just because they could. For once, everyone else at school was happy to ignore me because I wasn't interesting, instead of because they couldn't be bothered to do anything.
My dad tried to talk to me after the meeting with Blackwell. He said something about not giving up, and how he would find a way to make things right, and he was going to get me transferred to Arcadia or Imaculita or any of the other schools in the city.
I saw Mister Parker standing in the hall on Wednesday morning, talking to Mister Gladly. He tried to catch my attention with a brief wave. I ignored him, and he gave up. Mister Gladly patted him on the shoulder.
By Thursday, he hadn't bothered to try to speak to me again.
I drifted from class to class and back home. Sometimes I took notes. Sometimes I stared off into space, bracing for a spitball or an outstretched leg or an old-fashioned punch in the ribs.
They never came.
I did get to sit alone in the cafeteria for the first time in forever. No one bothered me. No one even looked at me. I kept waiting for Emma's gaggle of friends to come over and start shit. To start whispering about me, or do anything in those bitches' names.
They didn't. At most, they just shot me a hateful glare. But they left me alone.
I wondered if this was what normality was supposed to feel like. A dull drudge through a dull place that didn't care who I was or what I did. Things happened, but not to me, and not for no reason. But I was overwhelmed. After everything Blackwell failed to do, I was beyond anger. I was…I didn't know. Numb.
I didn't have much time to go to the loft and be with the Undersiders. State troops were starting to trickle into the city to try to contain the gang war. School students functionally had a curfew, and PRT officers with guns were stationed in front of the school every day. It cut down on the fights between the ABB and the Empire kids between classes.
But it didn't stop the same kids from skipping school entirely. By Wednesday, nearly every Asian student, not just the ones who wore ABB colors, was absent. Most teachers didn't even bother to call their names during roll call.
Lisa said it was fine, and we were trying to lay low now anyway. We shouldn't be trying to make trouble and let everyone else fight so much that they would forget we even existed or that anything ever happened at the bank. It was a reasonable plan. I knew that. Anyone could see it was the smart play.
But as I sat outside in a lonely corner next to the school fence, listlessly eating a ham sandwich during lunch period, I couldn't help but bristle.
It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. None of this should be happening. It was all wrong. It couldn't—
"Hi, Taylor." A sickly sweet said from behind the fence. "How are you doing?"
I turned. Standing behind the chain-linked fence was Emma, wearing the same sickly sweet smile she always had when she was plotting something cruel.
"Emma." I spat. "What are you doing here?"
"Just checking in." She gave a fake laugh. "Even if I have two weeks off, I don't want you to start getting lonely. I am your only friend, after all."
I could feel my blood boiling, but I refused to rise to the bait. "You were suspended."
"Same difference." Emma shrugged. "What's it matter to you anyway? You made your feelings clear, Taylor. You don't like me anymore, I get it. People change. But why'd you have to make up all those lies about my new friends and me?"
My fingers curled into my palms. "I didn't lie. I kept records. I can prove—""
"And look how much the school believes you." Emma smiled back. "It's like I said. We were just trying to have fun with you. Madison is devastated that you took it so wrong."
I forced myself to not react. She wanted me to snap, and I refused to give her the satisfaction. I could feel a hornet's nest a block away. I thought about making them attack her, but I thought better of it. I was better than her. "Go away, Emma. Leave me alone."
"Don't worry, Taylor. You've made yourself perfectly clear." Emma said. "You won't be getting any trouble from me."
I blinked and tried to spot the lie. Emma was still smiling at me like nothing was wrong. She usually tried to put more bite into whatever vicious attack she plotted, but I couldn't see her angle here. What was she trying to pull? Had she really come all the way to school just to—
It happened so fast I barely understood what was happening. One second, I was standing in front of the fence staring at Emma. The next, I was gasping for breath as my face and my shoulder was being smashed into the chain-link, and my glasses fell to the ground.
Of course, I could still see Emma in perfect clarity. Her horrible smirk hadn't moved a centimeter.
I tried to scream or call out for help. I didn't think it would have changed anything, not really. I suppose I did it out of habit.
But that didn't matter. A hand shot up and grabbed my mouth, squeezing my lips closed in a painful vice grip. With my nose being squished by one of the chain links, I was having trouble breathing.
"Listen closely, bitch." Sophia's voice growled into my ear. "If you want to survive the rest of the school year, you're going to do exactly what I tell you, understand?"
I gasped, but Sophia dug her fingernails into my arm hard enough to draw blood. "You've cried to the teachers, to the principal, to your dad. None of that has done shit. You got us put on time-out. Whoopdy-fuck, you gave us time to catch up for finals. Your one win in two years, and you haven't even touched us."
"That's not—" I tried to struggle free. Sophia slammed me back into the fence.
"So here's what's going to happen." She continued. "These two weeks are going to be over sooner than you know. And then we're going to come back, and I don't want to deal with your shit. Everything is going to go back to normal, and you're going to be the loser who gets slapped around when we feel like it and who doesn't give any lip. Because as fun as a free week is now and then—"
"I'll stop y—" I tried to say. I got punched in the back for my troubles.
"Don't interrupt, you little shit." Sophia hissed. "That's the exact sort of thing you want to avoid doing from now on." She made a point of shoving my face into the fence again, forcing me to stare at Emma, who was still watching with her perfectly photogenic grin, like she was posing for a yogurt commercial or something.
"Because—" She had to pause as a police siren started up, maybe a block away. "—If you step out of line once, if you get one more bright idea about any of this, we will personally make sure everything you've felt up till now was a fucking cakewalk, you understand?"
She released me long enough to grab me by the shoulders, spin me around, and push my back up against the fence. I think she wanted to stare me down or punch me in the mouth to see if her point was getting across.
All the better. Nothing could make my blood boil more than watching Emma watch me get my shit kicked in with that smug little smirk on her face.
"I said, do you understand, you fucking loser?" Sophia snapped. "What are you not going to do, Hebert?"
I could feel the hornets swarming. It would be so easy to have them attack Emma and Sophia. It wouldn't have to be all of them. Just one or two or a dozen each.
"Speak, you dead-eyed freak." Sophia's hand rose dangerously.
"Y-you're…not supposed to be in school." Was all I could manage in the moment. She would have had to have passed through a security checkpoint. They should have known she was suspended.
Sophia snorted. "Tells you something about how much Winslow gives a shit about keeping us down, right?" Her grip on my shirt tightened. "And how much they appreciate you making their lives harder."
"I—you don't—" I started. I craned my neck, looking down the street to try to see anyone who could help me. The school was supposed to have PRT officers patrolling the school, but why wasn't there anyone here—
"Oh. My. God." Emma suddenly chirped up. "She's crying."
"I'm…I'm not—"
"Ohmygod, that's hilarious." Emma giggled. "Seriously, Taylor, it's just a joke. Why do you have to take everything so seriously?"
Sophia's lips curled upward, and her grip loosened. "Jesus, it usually takes more to get you this riled up." She joined in Emma's laughter. "Keep going, and we'll get bored of you, Hebert. Good job."
I took my chance and bolted towards the main hall. Sophia let me run away, still laughing.
I ran through the halls, not caring who saw me crying or what they would say. And of course, no one said anything. Why would they? I was Taylor Hebert. This was my natural state of being. A weak-willed crybaby, raining on everyone else's parade.
I needed to get out of here. Out of the suffocating walls that were probably full of asbestos and lead, away from the teachers who didn't give a shit. Away from Emma and Sophia.
I was about to try and bum-rush my way through the security guards, but a cracked-open door made me pause. It was Mister Parker's office.
He had said he would listen to me. That he'd let me hide with him if things got bad. He'd gotten the ball rolling the first time and gotten the trio suspended, for all the good it did. He would know that Sophia was breaking her suspension, and Emma probably too. Plus, I probably had bruises. Those couldn't be faked. He'd have to listen.
I poked open the door and found it empty.
No jacket on the chair, no note saying he'd gone out to lunch. Looking over his desk, I couldn't even see his backpack or anything. Just an empty chair in an empty room.
The wide-open window completed the picture. The clearest bit of symbolism I'd ever seen.
Taking the hint, I backed off and started trudging towards the main doors. There was only a single PRT officer there, eating a bagel or something out of a brown paper bag. He was the same guy who had waved me in all week.
When he looked up, I didn't see a single spark of recognition on his face.
"I need to go out." I said as I held up my school ID. "For lunch."
He fumbled with a handheld scanner, which beeped against my card. "Where?"
"Buscema's. The deli." It was twenty minutes away. Lunch break had thirty minutes left. Any competent guard should have caught my lie instantly.
This one just shrugged. "Okay." He waved me through without a second thought.
Outside, I glanced up and down the sidewalk. A few guards were standing around, but they all seemed checked out, even with their visors on, even with a police siren in the distance. Except for one on the far end, who was talking to someone.
It was Sophia, standing outside the chain link fence. Somehow, she had gotten out of school before me, when she shouldn't have gotten in the first place.
Because the rules didn't apply to her.
It was hard to tell, but I knew Sophia was flashing a plastic smile as she chatted with the guard. I couldn't see his face, but I could just tell he was nodding along. Probably laughing at her awful jokes, too.
And of course, Emma spotted me. She turned and gave me a happy little wave. Like nothing was wrong in the world.
I marched away as fast as I could. I could feel the wasps racing towards those bitches. If I had stood there for ten more seconds, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from stinging them both to death.
More police sirens started up. The PRT troops around the school didn't do anything. They didn't even try to stop me.
"I'm going out to stop this gang war."
"Taylor, think about—"
"I can't sit by while Brockton is destroyed!"
"I know, it sucks, but if we take a step back—"
"NO." My denial came out louder than I intended it to. But I didn't regret it. I had sped towards the loft and was standing around with the rest of the Undersiders.
"I can't fucking take it anymore." I said. "We're supposed to sit around and do nothing while the empire and the ABB burn down—"
"Yes." Lisa stressed. "Taylor, we're villains. The PRT still has warrants for all of our arrests. Plus, the empire is looking for an excuse to increase our bounty after Bitch—"
"They had it coming." Rachel growled.
"—Nonetheless, we can't risk pissing them off unless we want their undivided attention after they win. And finally, Lung is still furious after everything you did to him, so—"
"I know. I heard the tape." I snapped back. Lisa's grimace got worse. "That just means we have even more reason to do something now. If we can show we're strong, that means the PRT and the empire will think twice." I paused. "And we'll have helped save the city and stopped the gang war. That's two victories for the price of one."
"Taylor—what you're saying, it's insane. We can't just—"
"Then you all take a vote! I'm done sitting around, watching the PRT fail at everything! I'm going out to do something!" I shot a glare at Lisa. "It's like you said: they're useless. Unless we want to live in a smoking crater, we have to save ourselves."
Lisa visibly flinched and looked at me with a worried expression. I couldn't care less if I hurt her feelings right now, even though I would have been terrified to do that even an hour ago.
Ever since the meeting with Blackwell, I had been numb. Now, after Emma and Sophia showed their faces, I was furious.
"I'm voting yes." Rachel said, which surprised me. And Lisa, given how wide her eyes got.
"I—really?" I couldn't help but ask.
Rachel shrugged. "I'm tired of waiting. More tired of waiting for something to blow up near the shelter." Her grimace returned. "Hookwolf got too close on Tuesday."
"We're just jumping into this? No long, drawn-out debate?" Alec drawled from the couch. "Okay, I vote no. Let the ABB and the Fourth Reich beat each other up. They'll get sick of it eventually. Besides, this is an absolutely insane time to try to make a move. Our boss hasn't tried to make us do anything, and he knows what's up." He glanced at Lisa and Brian. "He hasn't told you to tell us to do something, has he?"
"No—" Brian said, before being cut off by Lisa.
"Of course he hasn't. Which is why we shouldn't do anything!" Lisa exclaimed. "We've survived this long by staying under the radar. The bank changed things, but that doesn't mean we should run off and get caught up in this clusterfuck! Let it calm down in a week or two, then we can actually pick a target without having to deal with the very real possibility that goddamn Purity or Oni Lee or whoever decides to strafe the place!"
"I'm not talking about stealing something, I want to—"
"I know what you want, Taylor. And it's an even worse idea." Lisa interrupted. "The ABB and the Empire Eighty-Eight are on a warpath against each other. They're not going to care that we aren't involved, or that we are supposed to be in a truce, they will kill us, no questions asked. It's going to Bakuda all over again. And that's not mentioning the Protectorate, who are absolutely desperate for a win right now. If they find us, they will gangpile us so fast it will make your head spin!"
"I don't care!" I snapped back. "I'm sick of living in this fucking city where we sit back and watch capes burn everything good and decent down! I'm sick of having to deal with them getting away with everything!"
"I know, I know. But jumping into danger is stupid." Lisa countered, before quickly adding: "And it could get all of us killed, not just you. Plus a bunch of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire."
My lips pressed together. I hadn't really thought of that. "But—"
"Besides, this is a democracy. And we haven't heard anything from our tiebreaker vote." Lisa turned to look at Brian. "How about it?"
Brian's face was unreadable, but I felt my heart sink. Ever since meeting him, he always came off as a cool, calm, and collected sort of guy. He always looked to Lisa for help with our plans, and didn't like going off half-cocked.
And I just ran in, screaming that we needed to do something, without a single actual clue as to what that was supposed to be. There was no way he was going to side with me.
It would sting, but it wouldn't matter. I was done sitting on the sidelines. I had to do something, and if the Undersiders wouldn't help me, then I would work with the heroes. Armsmaster was a dick, but he wouldn't be able to turn down my spying powers, especially now that I could partially hear things through my bugs. Not to mention—
"Taylor's right." Brian said flatly.
I blinked, then blinked again. "What?"
"We have to do something." Brian repeated. "Kaiser's going to burn the whole city down, and the PRT is fucking useless, just like they always are."
"I—" Lisa didn't quite squawk, but she rapidly looked between the two of us, and her face did something unpleasant. "Guys, listen to me, I know we're all upset, but—"
"The ayes have it. End of discussion." Brian cut her off. "Now we have to figure out what exactly we're doing, and how we can hit Lung."
"...I'm sorry, I must have misheard you, Brian." Alec popped up from the sofa and sauntered over to the kitchen area where we were all gathered. "Because not only did you decide that we're getting involved in this stupid war, but now we're going to go against Lung instead of the Nazis?"
"We got into this mess when we started fighting Lung, and Taylor took him out. Kaiser's fighting to take him out once and for all, and won't stop until he gets a win. It's the best option." Brian was keeping his voice level, but I could feel it straining.
Rachel snarled. "So we should just roll over and do what they want? Pussy—"
"Don't start. Not after the frying pan you threw us in with your unannounced dogfighting stunt." Brian snapped. "The next time you deliberately piss off the biggest gang in the city, run it by me and Lisa first."
"I just figured that you'd have more concerns about…you know." Alec's eyebrows wiggled. " Doesn't it piss you off that we're doing the empire's dirty work? Why not let them bleed out against Lung? We might even be able to—"
"I forgot. You, Lisa, and Rachel aren't from around here, so this might be lost on you." Brian suddenly interrupted. "But the Empire Eighty-Eight can't be beaten. Not by anyone."
"Giving up j—"
"Shut up." Brian's voice snapped, and his expression grew tense. "They've been here for almost thirty years. They've outlasted every other cape gang in the city, and nearly every other cape gang on the East Coast. They've made it through a decade of fighting Butcher, a visit from the fucking Slaughterhouse Nine, and killing that New Wave hero in her own home. Every time they lose a cape, two new ones crawl out of the fucking gutter to take their place."
"And the cops, the Protectorate, and the PRT are all happy to let them fester just so long as they don't make too much noise. They aren't going to do a god damned thing, because if any of them cared, Eidolon or Legend would have come here years ago and wiped the floor with the bastards regularly lynching people in a major American city."
Alec's expression shifted into a frown, but he didn't comment. Bitch was looking away, and Lisa wore her usual troubled expression.
I wasn't really sure what to say to that. I knew all this intellectually. I had overheard some of the Black, Asian, and Latino members of the dockworkers' association say basically the same thing over the years. But to have it all laid out like that right in front of my face…
I wanted to think that heroes were here to save us. But why hadn't they stopped Kaiser? I could understand other gangs falling through the cracks when there were so many crises, but shouldn't the government have stepped in a long time ago?
"So no, we are not going to take the fight to the Empire. Yes, I hate every second of it. But Lung is beatable. The Nazis aren't. That's the shit sandwich we've got to eat." Brian exhaled sharply. "That doesn't mean we're going to run into this half-cocked. We have to start with recon if we want to get anything done. This afternoon, before things get real noisy once the sun sets, we're going to sneak around Lung's territory and find a way to gut the bastard."
He turned to me. "Taylor. Do you still have the bugs that you took him out with that night?"
"Um. Yes." All the really venomous insects liked to hide in the dark corners of society, but I knew where to find them. And now that I actually knew what I was going to do, I wouldn't panic like I did on my first night out.
"Good." He turned to the rest of the team. "We're going out in two hours. Be ready. We're going to find where Lung is hiding, and then we're going to take the bastard out."
As it turned out, searching through buildings was pretty boring. Especially when we also had to keep a low profile. Even more so when you couldn't quite tell what you were sensing.
"Anything?" Grue asked as we hid in an alleyway a block away from the latest warehouse we were casing.
"Three or four guys. I think." I was still getting the hang of listening through my bugs. It was even harder to do when you didn't understand the language. "They're speaking…I want to say..."
"Saamnang na muoy?"
"Keat nowte min ttuol yk chamleuy te lngong."
"Yeah, pretty sure it's Vietnamese."
Tattletale sighed. "Lung likes to talk in Japanese, or sometimes Mandarin. He isn't here."
You would think that, between Lisa's and my powers, we would have easily tracked down Lung. But given all the chaos caused by the empire and the fact that Lung had to respond to them, things were difficult. Plus, given that we planned to take Lung by surprise before he could ramp up, we really didn't want to get caught in the crossfire, so that limited our options. We mostly tried to stick to the afternoons, which made moving around difficult when we didn't want to be spotted. It was already Saturday, and we hadn't found anything.
"Alright. That does it for this block, then." Grue grunted as he scratched Angela's ears. "Let's move to the next one. Lisa, where are we going?"
"Let me think…" Tattletale muttered. "Let's try the warehouses down by David Street."
"Didn't Purity burn those down on Monday?" Regent asked as he twirled his sceptre in his hands.
"Yeah, but Lung might be using it as a base. It's a decent location, and he might be betting the Empire won't hit the same target twice."
It was solid enough reasoning, so we got on Bitch's dogs and started our ride over the roofs. Normally, we would have had to do a lot more to dodge traffic, but it felt like we were running through a ghost town sometimes. The docs had gotten eerily quiet, and there was very little foot traffic, if any at all. I saw some cars driving out, but they never returned. On Friday, I saw a cop car drive through some of the main streets, going ten miles over the speed limit and zooming away towards the safer parts of town.
Even still, we had to be careful. This was still Lung's territory, and if he or Oni Lee caught sight of us before we were ready, things would get ugly. Even when we were stuck in the middle of this unnerving silence, we had to play stealthily.
Thankfully, we hadn't been caught yet, as it seemed most people didn't make a habit of looking up. We found our next crevice to hide in, and I got to work checking the ruined warehouse. It was big, with maybe a dozen rooms and an exposed roof in the center. A single, tall chimney stack was still standing, maybe two stories high, the kind you would see on the covers of Dickens novels. From what I could sense, there was a lot of intact furniture, but no people, yet.
"Nobody." I said after a minute.
"They might be out to lunch. Let's give it a few minutes, and then take a look inside." Tattletale said as she popped open her phone.
"You've been saying that an awful lot these past few days." Regent drawled.
"It's called detective work, dumbass. The movies cut out all the boring parts of stakeouts."
"I know that, but I figured we'd actually see some action by now, between Skitter's bug-hearing and your super-sleuthing."
"What do you care? You don't want this fight in the first place. In fact, you've been complaining enough that I figured that you'd have gone home by now."
"Well, now that we've started this suicide mission…" I tuned them out. Lisa and Regent had been having this argument for a while now, and neither of them ever gave any ground. If anything, they seemed to enjoy the argument. Probably took their mind off everything.
Bitch just sat around and ignored the noise, tending to her dogs. Though that wasn't totally true. She was also our lookout, constantly glancing around and checking the corners of the alleys were were haunched in. Grue was doing the same thing, if a little less noticeably.
But Regent was right. This was getting pretty boring. At the start, I had been excited because we were finally going to do something, but reality had set in pretty quickly. We hadn't seen a single sign of Lung or Oni Lee. On Friday, we had spotted Rune and Purity ferrying Stormtiger and Cricket, but they were far off in the distance, and more importantly, people we couldn't get away with attacking even if we could.
It was numbing and frustrating, and the constant arguments didn't help matters.
But it was better than being in school. A lot better.
"Still no one?" Grue asked.
"Yeah."
"Okay. Let's poke our heads in and see what the cops ignored." He pushed off the wall, and we all made our way into the building.
The police tape covering the blown-out entranceway had already fallen to the ground, occasionally fluttering in the breeze before giving up and falling back down. The inside was just as run-down: debris everywhere, covering an already dust-filled room full of broken machinery and old, rotten wood.
"Look at the footprints." Tattletale pointed to another room in similar disrepair. "Lung's gang was here, maybe a month ago. "A mix of sandals and dress shoes. Probably some low-level guys and some middle-management."
"So another waste of time." Bitch grunted.
"It means we've crossed another place off the list."
"Ooh, we've got a list now?" I could feel Alec's eyebrows quirking under his Regent mask. "Where is it? Can I see it? What's left to do? Is there a treasure once we've crossed everything else out? Are we there yet?"
I sighed. This really was dragging on. I thought things would be simple, that we could charge in and take the fight to the gangs, but it felt like all we were doing was running around in circles.
Grue seemed to have the same opinion as I did, given the sigh that escaped his helmet. He'd been just as fired up as I on Thursday, but he'd been almost totally quiet for the past day.
"H-hey." I said, not really sure what I was doing, but Grue looked up. "S-sorry for…um…I don't know, I thought it would be easier than this." I kept my bugs perked up to make sure nothing was coming for us. It was hard at first, but I was surprisingly good at multitasking with my power.
"Don't worry about it." Grue sighed. "Even if Lisa's usually got a place cased in under an hour, these sorts of things happen. We're trying to track down a needle in a haystack that explodes every now and then, after all."
I laughed, but it came out more like a groan. "Sounds about right."
"I said it's fine, no need to blame yourself." Grue said. "I think this is doing us all some good, no matter how much Alec complains. Anything to get us out of the rut we were in."
"Yeah…" I tilted my head. "If you don't mind me asking…you aren't usually angry. But on Thursday, you were really upset. Did something—"
"An explosion went off outside my sister's school." Grue answered quickly. His voice strained, then he relaxed, if only a little. "No one got hurt, but…"
Someone almost did. The police barely noticed it. Things like this shouldn't happen.
Grue turned his head towards me. "I guess it's the same story for you?"
I shifted on my feet. "...More or less."
He put a hand on my shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. "It was kind of stupid to jump into the gang war like this, but we're in it now. We'll find them and stop this." He was trying to project certainty, and I wasn't sure if he succeeded, but it made me feel better.
"—like you're making us run around in circles." Bitch growled across the room.
"I am not!" Tattletale protested. "Majority rules, so I have to keep you all from running into your deaths! I've been keeping us safe, yes, but—"
"I dunno, Tats. You've already used that excuse yesterday."
"Excuse me for not gift-wrapping Lung for you in the middle of an all-out gang war, fucker!" Tattletale snapped back. "I swear, you ungrateful…"
"Tattletale's right, guys." Grue said with a jerky, almost forced shake of his head. "Don't bite each other's heads off. Kaiser's constantly on the move, and so is Lung and the PRT."
I agreed. This was harder than I thought it would be, but Tattletale wouldn't intentionally waste our time. She was a friend and agreed to come along with us even when she was outvoted. Her power was strong, but it didn't—
"I hate to interrupt, but you guys do know that having a loud argument in the middle of an abandoned warehouse is, you know, loud?"
My head jerked up in surprise. Squatting perpendicular on the long chimney and staring down at all of us through the hole in the roof was Spider-Man.
"Hey, kids." He gave a jolly little wave. "Fancy meeting you all here."
"How did you sneak up on us?!" I demanded. Nothing had triggered my bugs, but somehow he'd gotten through my net, and they were even on the roof. Did he have some insect powers he wasn't telling us about, like his Spider-Sense? Did it let him sneak through—
Spider-Man pointed behind himself, directly up into the sky. "I was on top of this chimney, waiting for something to happen, and admiring the view. The half-sunk cargo ships really add to the ambiance here." He shrugged. "You forgot to look up, that's all. Happens to newbies all the time."
…I wasn't sure what to say to that.
"...He's telling the truth?" Tattletale muttered. The rest of the Undersiders were uneasy and getting ready for a fight, though Spider-Man continued to look unbothered.
"You wanna tell them again, psychic girl?"
Tattletale's brow furrowed. "He's not here to fight us." She sighed. "Unless we force the issue."
"Right in one." Spider-Man hopped down off the chimney and into the center of the room, looking totally unbothered. "Still, it would be negligent of me not to ask what you're all doing here. There's a gang war around these parts, if you haven't heard."
I rolled my eyes behind my mask. Did he think he was funny? Nonetheless, honesty had been the best policy so far. "We're going to find Lung and bring him in, and put a stop to this."
Spider-Man tilted his head. "Really? Even with all of us heroes running around trying to put out the fires? Are you sure you don't want to leave this to the professionals, while you all have felonies hanging over your heads?"
"They've been doing such a good job so far." Grue growled out. Darkness was pooling at his feet.
"You fuckwits have been failing. About time someone taught you how to actually do your job." Bitch growled.
I couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. Here we were, trying to do good, but this so-called hero was getting in the way. He'd probably say we weren't ready for this, or that he didn't want us to get hurt, despite the regular explosions and rolling through Brockton Bay.
All the better, then. If he wanted to try to stop us, I was more than happy to prove him wrong. We'd started a fight the last time we met, but now that we knew his tricks, we could—
Spider-Man shrugged. "Okay."
I blinked. Everyone else seemed confused, too. "...What?"
"I started fighting crime when I was your age. It would be a bit hypocritical of me not to let you take your shot at saving the city."
"...And…you're going to let us?" Grue asked, disbelief evident in his voice. "Even if we are criminals?"
"You're not the ones burning down shops." Spider-Man answered.
"But you're…Oh, motherfucker." Tattletale groaned. "You're going to be hovering over us the entire time."
"I figured showing you the ropes would be the gentlemanly thing." Spider-Man shrugged again, approximating innocence. Badly.
"We don't—" "Just trying to arrest us—" "—steal the credit—" We all started protesting at once. If this went bad, it would go really bad. We couldn't let Spider-Man tag along with us too closely. He might discover some secret which would lead to us all getting arrested. I couldn't let that happen—
"I, for one, am all for this plan!" Regent loudly announced, catching all of us off guard. Even Spider-Man seemed surprised.
"Not that I don't appreciate the vote of confidence, kid, but why are you so happy about this? The rest of your friends are looking at me like I'm a root canal."
"Because a Brute putting himself between us and a dragon, a suicide bomber, and a legion of nazis is going to do wonders for our chances of survival." Regent gave him a short thumbs-up. "Can you make sure to give me a lightsaber before you kick the bucket, old man? And when you start haunting us as a ghost, can you cut to the chase and lead me to your way cooler mentor to teach me all of your secrets?"
Spider-Man was slumping again. "I'm not that old, you're just still in diapers."
"That just makes it worse for you, doesn't it?" Regent shook his head sadly. "After our last meeting, I was thinking about calling the police when you splooged me with your sticky white bodily fluid."
A dreadful silence fell over the air as we all stared at Spider-Man. In fact, I lost contact with some of my bugs on the perimeter.
He groaned. "Real clever, kid. Never heard that one before. Firstly, I'll have you know that my web fluid is a chemical formula, and my body doesn't make it—"
"Oh, so you're so old and busted you can't even do the one thing every spider can do?"
Some more bugs were dropping out of my control, but that happened sometimes when a streetwasher drove over them. Plus, I was having trouble looking away from this disaster unfolding.
"Look, if you could just let me finish—"
"I know what you say to your dates, but as you just explained, you need a special formula to do that for you."
A terrible silence descended over the room again as Spider-Man froze in place, still staring at Regent, who just crossed his arms and looked unimpressed.
Someone snorted. I realized that it was me giggling.
Finally, Spider-Man spoke up. "...I really don't like you, kid."
"Good, maybe that will keep you from pointing your sticky stuff at me again." Regent managed to pout behind his mask. "If you can even try. At your age, it can be hard to keep up with me."
"How do I get out of this?" Spider-Man looked at Tattletale. "Psychic girl, please tell me—"
"See, you've got Parkinson's! Look at your fingers twitching!" Regent shouted, and indeed, Spider-Man's hand twitched unnaturally.
"Are you actually—" Spider-Man groaned. "Are you really using your powers to try and win this—this fu—this freaking trainwreck?"
"No, that's another cape." Regent answered. "And I am totally not doing anything. You're just old." Spider-Man's hand twitched again. "See? Parkinson's. It's really sad, old man."
"I'm not—!" Spider-Man began, and his hand twitched again. "Stop doing—" Next was his leg.
"So sad."
I couldn't stop myself from laughing again. Even Bitch and Grue seemed amused at Regent's antics. It was horrible, but after the week I had been having, I could appreciate some good slapstick.
But that didn't stop me from noticing the next wave of bugs dying. And it wasn't one or two. It was a lot. And all of them were in a building.
I turned to look at Tattletale, who already had a weird expression on her face—odd, I thought this sort of thing would be funny to her too—and the second we made eye contact, her face paled.
"Everyone, get down—" She started.
Spider-Man instantly snapped to attention. "Hit the far wall!" He yelled, and before we knew what we were doing, we were running. One second later, the wall we had been closest to exploded.
When the dust settled, I could see a large, reptilian head covered in the wreckage. Outside, I could barely make out two giant sets of legs covered in armor, and the unmistakable silhouette of Kaiser standing atop a writhing mass of metal.
I breathed in. This was bad. This was very bad.
Then it got worse.
The dragon's eyes snapped open, and by some cruel twist of fate, instantly locked onto me. The vertical slits narrowed, and a loud, phlegmy growl rumbled out of Lung's throat.
"HYOU." The dragon-man growled. Fire was starting to puff out of his mouth, and I could already feel the sweat creeping up my back.
Spider-Man had already jumped in front of me. "Nuts." He swore.
I used more colorful language.
Notes:
Once upon a time, I saw some people argue Spider-Man shouldn't have organic webbing because of the sex jokes. I never understood why having it be mechanical made it any better.
A bit of a delay, unfortunately. Sorry about that. Life happens, and two chapters a week was probably a bit too ambitious to keep up. Plus, I made the mistake of looking to see if Oblivion Remastered was on sale, and before I knew it I was knee-deep in mod lists, and had unburied a half-completed Skyrim fic from a few years ago, and started a brand new one and help me I'm falling into another dead fandom—
Not to mention Fire Emblem long and short fics. Alas, next chapter should be out sooner (famous last words, I know), hopefully by next week. It's funny, I kind of dread fight scenes, but I seem to write them quickly enough. Until then.
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