Disclaimer: I do not own Spider-man or any other Marvel character herein shown. They're the properties of the original creators as dictated by official documents, whom you can find out more about in Wikipedia or something. Stan Lee, Marvel Comics, Steve Ditko, etc.
The Unseen, Bonnie aka Repulse, and Nhaca, as well as the plot related to them and that alien race, are original by me, but of course they're set in the Marvel Universe so I still hold no rights to them.
Rating: T for a bit of violence. I censor profanity like they would in a comic.
PART 2: Let's not mess up
He crouched on the ledge of a building, far away but not so far he couldn't still discern the place he had failed that day. He was far enough that he couldn't discern which members of the x-men were there – they had arrived meanwhile – but he was close enough to pool his thoughts with the aid of the scenery. It helped to look at the things you were thinking about.
The beams had been blue, and not at all small. They were, as the teen's wound had evidenced, as wide as a man's chest. They could apparently be fired at a rate of one every second, which was a lot slower than bullets, but still fast enough that most wouldn't be able to dodge.
The teen said he had received his powers from an entity from the skies but that could be anyone. Anything. He said alien but far as Spider-man knew, the teen had not even seen the face of his benefactor.
Meanwhile, the attacker, whatever it was, was invisible, impervious to his webs and tracker, which meant to both chemical and magnetic, which meant it wasn't a surface per say. Maybe a kinetic shield? Unlikely, he had been able to web those in the past, it was definitely some type of shield, and one that was also cloaked.
He sighed.
I should talk to Tony about this. But he didn't want to, the less one could feed the man's ego, the better.
One of the x-men looked around, reminding him they might have some way to spot him so he begrudgingly jumped back and flipped backward. He dropped off the building the opposite side, swinging away.
I should leave this to them, he thought momentarily, but they don't know the kid was actually not one of them, they didn't witness the attack. So I could tell them?
He didn't see that working out too well. Moreover, it wasn't a mutant issue so he didn't want to involve them, especially since they used far too many kids in their teams.
I can handle it.
He turned a corner and caught someone running after a mugger. He shot a web at the man's hand, sticking it to the ground, and kept going.
Probably.
He increased the frequency of his patrols. If there was something going around empowering people in the open, there was a chance he would catch it. After two days, he decided instead to invest in active surveillance: hidden cameras around open-aired public spaces that didn't see a lot of people. It took him a whole day and cost him a few months' worth of salary, but you couldn't argue with results.
The very next day, he watched the recording of a young woman having the…experience. A bright light, an unintelligible language, her agreeing and then being knocked out. The girl then received a projection of some kind, becoming the victim of an emitter he didn't recognize. It all made him feel terrible about not having been there.
Whatever it was, it waited for her to wake up, offered more unintelligible speak and then whatever was producing the light rose up into the air and vanished. Left behind, she looked over herself confused. She grasped at her head in a pained reaction and then something pushed out against the air and toppled the camera out of the tree branch he had left it on.
Is it the same power?
That was by far the least relevant question, however. Had Janko, the Latino kid he had failed to save, been attacked because he was telling Spider-man about his encounter?
Or did I just arrive there when he was already about to be attacked? And if that's the case, why?
Regardless of the answers, his main priority was to find her. He executed his virtual machine, which he used to connect to Avengers headquarters through a backdoor port he had one day left there, and then used a backdoor Tony had for connecting to S.H.I.E.L.D. systems. He didn't know whether Tony knew about his or not, it didn't really matter.
He could certainly find out if he looked but hacking was something Iron Man wouldn't expect of Peter.
He had a face-recognition program, S.H.I.E.L.D. one, to run on the image he had from the girl. Meanwhile, he put in an instant lasagna into the microwave.
He ate it while going over the girl's social network profiles, discovering her workplace. Content, he ran his cleanup subroutine, which would clear the residuals of his connections in the Avenger systems. Tony's connection cleaned up on S.H.I.E.L.D side.
He hopped to the side and opened the closet, but frowned at only having one suit there.
Forgot to put the costumes to wash, argh. He was running out of spares.
Shrugging, he got dressed, brushed his teeth, and left.
It will be different this time.
He left his home towards her workplace, which was on a different part of the city. He had to hurry if he wanted to see her arriving.
Alas, she didn't show up. He wondered if she had simply not updated her social networks, but then it occurred to him she might have stayed home due to what happened to her.
That makes sense. A normal person won't just go back to work after something like that.
Still, he staked it out in the hopes he would notice something out of place, in the hopes the invisible foe was there.
At a certain point, though, he got hungry, so he webbed down to a nearby block and walked up to a hot-dog place. The man was startled to see him.
"S-spider-man?"
"Hey," he waved in a friendly greeting, "gimme one with everything."
"You're gonna pay for it, right?"
"Do you ask everyone that question? Or just people in tights?"
"Ain't got nothin' against tights, my man, just masks," he joked back as he prepared his hot-dog, Peter gave a small laugh and handed him 10 bucks.
"That's fair enough, sir."
He handed Spidey the hotdog.
"Your change's—"Peter had already left. He sat, ate the hotdog, and then waited to see if maybe she would work the afternoon. She didn't.
I can go to her place but if I'm the reason Janko was attacked, she might get attacked too. Plus, I don't really want to stalk the girl, I'm too old to claim that's not creepy.
Memories of all the times he had stalked a girl rushed into his mind, making him feel pretty bad. He had always had an ulterior reason, it wasn't like…
Argh.
He didn't want to think about it so he left for her home address.
It was an apartment building, of course. It took him a few minutes to find out exactly on which floor and room she was on, but he did find her. At that point, he couldn't but give a big sigh. He was about to do something he had never done before, but he had no other clue as to how to keep her out of harm's way. At that point, she probably didn't know the danger she was in, if he tried and talk and explain the situation, the whole thing might develop as it did with Janko.
He looked around a bit nervously. Was the invisible enemy around? Watching him? Waiting for him to make a move?
All the more reason to just get it over with.
No talking.
She didn't have any windows open, he couldn't blame her for that after what she had experienced. But he refused to wait until she was about to die, he was going to beat the danger to the punch this time. And if that meant a broken window, well, he could afford that much.
He webbed the wall and pulled himself. On the way, he webbed the window and ripped it off its hinges, all while leaning back. The window flew over him as his body entered her apartment feet-first. He landed and deftly bent forward into a standing position, jumping at her to try and reach before she could use her powers. She still managed, however.
A kinetic wave blasted outwards as she frowned in pain, but she had not been quick enough. Spider-man was sent to hit the wall, but he quickly got up, putting back the sedative in his pocket.
"Whu?"
She stumbled as he got up, he didn't walk or slow down in any way, he leaped at her again.
"Spidermuh?"
He caught her as she was about to fall, threw her over his shoulder and ran back to the window, only to realize she wasn't exactly dressed for outside. She had a care-bears sweater, which was fine - if embarrassing - but it was huge on her, stretching down to her knees, so she was only wearing underwear as far as her legs were concerned. That wouldn't do for outside.
Augh.
It was ridiculous he cared about that. Feeling like a laser was about to come out of nowhere, he frantically stormed through the apartment, trying to find clothing. He quickly retrieved the clothes that were left hanging on a chair, a shirt, jacket and some jeans, most likely from the previous day, and then a blanket that was left unattended on a couch. He wrapped her in that, always nervous, looking around perturbed and worried that his spider-sense would flare up.
He quickly left through the window with the woman and a change of clothes wrapped in the blanket, over his shoulder.
He jumped out and swung away, trying not to be seen.
No lasers. Nothing but the overbearing shame of having just kidnapped someone.
Part End: Thank you for reading, please consider leaving a review if you have the time.
Next up, we meet up Bonnie and learn more about what this invisible menace is all about, or at least as much as she knows :). Hope you enjoyed it.
Also don't worry, the story is fully written. Next update will go up next week, God willing.