Hello again everybody! Sorry about the wait (again). Hopefully with school starting back, my sis and I can get into a better routine. But anyway, here you go! THE LONG AWAITED SPIDEY MEETS RAPUNZEL CHAPTER! Enjoy! :D

Chapter 4: In which Spidey meets his match (almost)

Why wasn't she moving?

Spider-man could see the drivers getting frustrated, and some even a little violent. Then he saw why.

The tip of the girls hair was caught under one of the wheels. She was tugging frantically, and it was obvious that she was afraid of the vehicles.

He checked his watch, 9:50 p.m. He wasn't sure he had enough time to handle this one, but he couldn't leave it alone and didn't have time to call Aunt May and tell her he'd be late.

A car horn sounded and he made his decision.

Spidey swung down and landed on the hood of the car.

"Back up, she's stuck!"

The driver stared in awe for a moment at the hero, and then obeyed. The girl immediately tumbled backward and fell, but sat straight back up, her eyes the size of baseballs.

"PASCAL!" she screamed, and Spidey suddenly heard an infuriated and slightly muffled squeak under his foot. He immediately lifted it and picked up a small green chameleon, who looked furious enough to devour Spidey alive. The traffic light turned red and he heard a few drivers cuss.

"GIVE HIM BACK!" The girl jumped to her feet, pointing at the lizard.

"Sorry, I was too busy keeping you from getting run ov-whaaa?!"

A glossy blonde rope suddenly curled around his wrist, and WHIP! He was sailing towards the top of a light pole, for the first time in his life not by choice. He found himself dangling over the street, one arm tied to the light and the other still clutching the chameleon, who was wheezing and steadily turning blue.

He stared at the rope holding him, and followed it back to the girls head. He realized what happened and looked at the girl, impressed. That took a lot of strength.

"Give him back, you ruffian! You thug! You keep your sharp teeth away from him!" The girl was obviously trying to be frightening, but Spidey could see now that she was shaking. She bounced when a driver near her slapped his horn three or four times, and Spidey could see that she was on the edge of tears.

"Sharp teeth? Who - what - no! Look you've got the wrong idea." He swung back around the pole and landed lightly on top of it, easing his grip on the gasping lizard.

"Don't move!" she shouted. She lifted the strip of hair that still held his hand, awkwardly bracing her bare feet. "I'm in control here, and-and-I'll pull you down if you don't give him back right now!"

Even as he grinned at her claim of "control," Spidey realised he didn't doubt she could pull him down - or would, for that matter. Three more cars joined the huge chorus of honking as the light turned green again.

Just then a gruff man leaned out of a truck window. His face was red with fury.

"GET OUT OF THE ROAD!" he roared at the top of his lungs.

Spidey shot a web at the corner of the nearest building.

"Brace up!" He yelled. The girl's jaw dropped, staring at the web.

"Wha-AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Spidey had swung down and scooped up the girl, handing her her green friend. But all the hair! He shot out an expanded web and caught it all in a sticky net, yanking it after them.

"LET GO!" the girl screamed, terrified. Spider-man felt scrambling on his arm, and suddenly four little claws were clinging to his face. The chameleon unleashed a chortled roar that was not at all intimidating.

"You sure about that?" he yelled to the girl over the whipping air.

She looked down, and he could have sworn she turned as green as her pet. "DON'T LET GO, DON'T LET GO, WHATEVER YOU DO!"

"Up to you now! Hang on, blondie," Spidey yelled back, grabbing his webbing with both hands, the web holding the girl's hair slipping out of control. "I need both arms to get us both up!"

The girl instantly clutched his neck. "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?!"

"I'm trying to help you! Now will you just calm down!?"

He swept up and landed heavily on the top of a building, dropping the girl and pulling the green attachment off his face. He panted. He hadn't taking into consideration how heavy seventy-five feet of hair could be. "Now look-."

The girl had tumbled in a golden mass, then sat up straight, clutched her limbs, felt her face, and laughed almost hysterically.

"I'm alive!" she said, then raised her arms and shouted, "I'M ALIVE!" She whipped her head towards him and lumps of tangled hair hung in her suddenly terrified face. "Stay away!" she squealed as she scuttled a few paces away, tripping herself in her hair. "I'm-I'm not afraid to hurt you!"

"Whoa, hey! Calm down, you won't have to. I'm on your side!" Her big, frightened eyes were fixed on his costume, and realized the problem.

"Look," he said, taking off his glove to reveal bare skin and his web-shooter, "I'm a person too."

She looked at his hand, and slowly, slowly, the fear trickled out of her eyes. She glanced at his face, her face open, vulnerable, scared, but beginning to understand. She reached out slowly, her slender fingers trembling as she just barely touched his skin. Her fingers were ice cold, and any irritation Spidey had suddenly melted. He opened his hand, an offer of help. She hesitated, then put her hand in his, letting him help her to her feet when-

"Ooomph!" her hair caught underfoot and yanked her to a stop. "Ow! Hang on...get-through-ow! oh come on-hey!" she said as she kept getting caught in her hair and the sticky threads that had broken.

Spidey grinned under his mask. "Tangled?"

"In webs." The girl looked at him, curiosity suddenly pouring into her face. "Like, spiderwebs."

"Don't worry, they dissolve after an hour. Until then you'll just have to deal with it." He realised he still had the chameleon in his other hand and he gave it to her, being careful to handle it gently.

A relieved grin spread across the girl's face, and she held out her hand to her thoroughly irritated, scrambling companion, who turned and blew his tongue at Spidey before scuttling into a nest of hair on the girl's shoulder. For the first time, Spidey got a good look at her.

She was almost his height, maybe a few inches shorter. Her eyes were huge and green and curious as she stared at him, a little harder than he was comfortable with. She was slender, but Spidey had no trouble imagining that she was stronger than she looked. A scraped up, dirty pink dress hung limp at her ankles, and pooled all around in a wadded mess of web was more hair than he had ever seen in his life.

"Thank goodness you took it easy on him," she said, patting her pet's head.

Spidey grinned. "Well, you know..."

She looked up, giggling. "Not you. Pascal. You could have been killed, you know."

He stared at her, unable to speak for a moment. "You're kidding, right? I almost killed that thing by accident. If I were actually trying to hurt him, he'd be lizard squash by now!"

The lizard rolled his eyes and puffed out his chest, giving the girl a "can you believe this guy?" look out of the corner of his eye.

"No he wouldn't," the girl replied, swelling with pride for her pet. "He had everything under control, I'll have you know. Pascal here killed a huge spider that was going to hurt me when I was five, and he's been my bodyguard ever since. Anyway, he helped me capture you after that business with the silver beetles, when you stepped on him."

"Captured me!? How exactly do you figure that I'm captured?" he jerked his glove back on, never taking his eyes off her.

She bobbed her head at the hair still wrapped around Spidey's wrist. A mischievous look came over her face. "Oh, just that. I could let you go, you know. Are you going to behave?"

"ME!? You're the one who's been misbehaving! You walked into the middle of a busy intersection and let a gorilla loose! What have I done? Oh yeah! SAVED YOUR LIFE!"

"Well, keep up that attitude and you're going to end up with a permanent bracelet, mister." The girl cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "And anyway, those maniacs in the shiney honking beetles were the ones causing trouble. As for the bo-billa, he was trapped and I had to save him. What did I do that was so terrible?"

Spidey stared at her in half surprise and half amazement that someone could know so little.

"You thought-? okay first of all; those are called cars. They're a lot faster than they look and as long as they stay on the roads and we stay off them, nobody gets hurt. Second; its a GOrilla and its a dangerous animal and needs to be kept in a cage or else people get hurt. Now do you see the pattern here? Because of your actions you were putting yourself and other people in danger. That's where I come in. Unlike some people I help the community by... say... keeping dangerous animals where they belong and saving people from turning themselves into road kill!"

The girl's green eyes were wide a saucers, and the hurt was plain to see.

"I didn't...I didn't realize..." She dropped her eyes and twisted a strand of hair around her fingers.

"Yeah, I noticed that," he studied her for a moment, then added sarcastically, "Something tells me you're not from here. What's your name?"

That seemed to hit on something. Suddenly, the girl's face turned suspicious, and she backed up a step, a frown darkening on her face. "Why should I tell you?" she replied. "I'm in control, so I'll do the asking. Who are you?"

"You can call me wall-crawler, web slinger, Spidey, vigilante, human spider, web swinger," then with a tone of disgust so low she couldn't catch it, "some call me public menace," then back to his original show voice, "but most call me Spider-man." and then with the flourish of someone who'd obviously been in show business before, he did an effortless backflip to a nearby pipe, and sat on it in a crouched position. He then stared at her as if expecting applause.

She stared back for a moment, surprised, then grabbed another handful of hair, keeping a good grip on the one that held his wrist, and braced her feet. Well, at least she was treating him more seriously.

"What kind of a name is that? And what are you? That kind of agility...I'm not the best judge in the world, but I don't think its normal." She looked him up and down, taking in his red and blue suit, and her face screwed up. "And what's with your clothes?"

"Of course it's not normal! They're show clothes." he paused and looked far-off for a moment, then added, "or they were."

"And, anyway, why should I believe you?" The girl took a challenging step forward, Pascal growling, a tinge of fear behind her eyes just present enough to make her more determined. "Mother warned me about your type. You're a ruffian, aren't you? Or a thief, or a thug, or something?"

"No! How hard is this for you to process!? I'm a good-guy! Where are you from, anyway? You don't know anything!"

Suddenly she looked hurt, like he had struck some old wound. "Well, excuse you! I may not be the most experienced girl in the kingdom-"

"Kingdom?"

"-but I can see rudeness well enough. I don't know why you keep assuming that YOU get to ask all the questions, mister Wall-Slinging Human-Crawler Spider-Thing Person."

"It's Spider-man."

"Whatever. I don't have to tell you anything I don't want to. Now if you'll excuse us," and she patted her pet comfortingly, "we have a shimmery mirror-thing to find. I'm going home."

"I think you're forgetting something."

"What!"

Spider-man lifted his wrist with the silky gold strip around it and pointed.

"Well, I may just keep you with me, to see that you stay out of trouble."

That was the last straw. Spidey shot a web at her other wrist, the one that wasn't holding her hair. "Two can play at that game, hot-head."

She glared up at him and then pulled with all her might on the hair that held his hand.

He fell forward off his pipe and face-planted into the paved rooftop with a thud. She took her chance and tried to rip off the webbing on her wrist, but he grabbed her leg and pulled it out from under her, causing her to fall backward into her hair.

Before Spidey was on his feet again a furious little chameleon pounced on his face and proceeded to violently gnaw at his mask. Spidey stood up, pulled him off by his tail and tossed him a few yards away where he landed in a Mcdonald's takeaway bag.

The delay was only a few seconds, but it was just enough time for the girl to jump back up. She snapped her hair like whips, trying to wrap one of them around Spidey's legs, but he was dodging them like a pro, and she was running out of breath.

Suddenly she flung her hair out to grab something, and before the young hero knew what happened a large red brick landed harshly on his foot.

"Owwww! What tha-"

Spidey hopped on one foot, holding the other in his hands. Then she wrapped another strip of hair around his ankle while he was in midair and tripped him.

"Alright, enough fun and games!" He shot a webb ball at her face and her hands instantly went to it, but not in time.

"Owwww!"

Now Spidey had the upper hand and flipped behind her, grabbed her hands, clapped them together, and pulled them up as high as was safe. She doubled over, wincing in pain.

"Now listen here," he said, "I get the feeling you're not from around here and you don't know the rules, so I'll give you a chance. But you'd better face the fact that you're going to learn the rules and obey them, because otherwise I will not hesitate to send you to jail. And if you aren't sure I can, then just go ahead and try me. I promise that you'll find you're not as powerful as you think. You got all that, Rapunzel?"

And just like that, the struggling stopped. The chameleon poked his head out of the takeaway bag and stared at him, jaw dropped. The girl slowly looked up, her eyes more terrified than he'd ever seen them.

"You know...my name?"

Her name!? HER NAME!? He had just been calling her the first thing that came to his mind, like he always did, but now she was saying it was her name? What did that even MEAN? He didn't know, but he did know he had something to use against her now.

"I'll tell you how I know if you untie me." Spider-man let the girl go and she stumbled forward, gasping in relief. She rolled her shoulders then took hold of the hair-covered wrist he held out to her.

She picked at it a moment, re-focused, turned it this way and that, then looked up at him, despair written all over her face.

"I can't." She tugged on the hair again as if to show him it wouldn't budge, but her entire focus was on him.

That's when he remembered something. He suddenly pulled back his glove and looked at his watch in horror. His curfew had been at 10:00 p.m. It was now 10:45.

How would he ever explain to Aunt May!?