Like Fathers, Like Son
Laughter echoed through the fake graveyard he'd built inside an empty warehouse in lower Manhattan.
Spiderman spun around, trying to pinpoint his fishbowl headed foe in the fake fog that surrounded him. "Olie-olie-oxen free!" he called out.
"Even at six on one I couldn't beat you," Mysterio said, "It was a hard lesson, but one I accepted... eventually. But do you know what other lesson I learned?"
"That crime doesn't pay and you'd be better served by putting your talents to legitimate uses?" Spiderman asked hopefully.
Silence fell in the warehouse for a moment before the hero and villain both burst out laughing for nearly a minute.
"That was a good one," Mysterio admitted. "What's next, you'll offer me a hostess fruit pie?"
Spiderman slid a hand into his belt and pulled out a cherry fruit pie.
"I... seriously?" Mysterio asked.
Spiderman laughed. "You caught me as I was finishing lunch, so I had it on me."
Mysterio laughed. "Go ahead and eat it, I have a five-minute monologue to go through and with your mouth occupied you won't be able to interrupt me," the villain suggested.
"I do like throwing you off your game... but I am still hungry," Spiderman admitted. "What the hell, go ahead, I'll listen."
"Thank you," Mysterio said before the sound of rustling papers was heard and he restarted his speech, "Even at six to one-"
Five Minutes Later...
"-but a baker's dozen!" Mysterio finished with a laugh as thirteen of the graves split open, cryotubes filled with the exact same figure... but one.
"He looks half baked," Spiderman said as he pointed at the half-filled Spiderman's outfit.
"He isn't even tall enough to reach the program emitters," Mysterio agreed, "but to be fair, I bought all this second hand, so a few errors are bound to creep in.
"Program emitter?" Spiderman asked.
"Brainwashing headset," Mysterio explained, "It just seems so bland a description."
"I'm not sensing any danger," Spiderman said, walking to the closest clone and checking for a pulse. "He's dead."
"What about the others?" Mysterio asked anxiously.
"Let me check," Spiderman said, going from coffin to coffin. "Looks like... I think it was the program emitter, because some of them have blood leaking from their masks."
"Well... fuck," Mysterio said. "Pardon my language, but I'm a bit upset."
"Completely understandable," Spiderman said, "I'm probably going to cuss up a storm myself when I accept the fact that I'm going to have to dispose of them."
"I... hadn't thought of that," Mysterio said. "I'm going to split now, my plans ruined and... and bye."
"Bye," Spiderman said, waving at one of the cameras and wondering who to call. "Hawkeye owes me a favor..."
Avenger's Mansion
"Barton here," Hawkeye answered his phone as he opened the fridge and looked inside.
*indistinct muttering from the phone*
"Ah hey, Spidey, what's up?" He pulled half a dozen items out of the fridge and piled them on the table.
*indistinct muttering from the phone*
"Seriously? Well... I can call Fury and he'll send a cleaning crew. Nah, I can't guarantee that, but the last half a dozen times they ended up pacifists or tortured loners who only showed up to rescue people and brood." He assembled six different sandwiches while talking on the phone.
*indistinct muttering from the phone*
"Well, maybe a little, but seriously, there is actually a Steve Rogers clone who did that, it was adorable," Hawkeye said with a grin.
*indistinct muttering from the phone*
"Opened a portal to a world that lacked a Captain America and pushed him in," Hawkeye said, frowning as he saw all the sandwiches had vanished. "Funny thing is, it was still the eighties there, and he changed his costume, grew a mullet, and called himself Nomad, it was the funniest thing I've ever seen."
*indistinct muttering from the phone*
He made another half a dozen sandwiches, keeping one in hand and grinned as a red-faced Quicksilver appeared, sticking his head under the faucet in the sink and gulping down water. "I'll take care of it. Later!"
"Hah!" Hawkeye crowed before taking a bite of his sandwich.
"I switched your sandwich with one of the others as well," Quicksilver rasped out with a grin.
Hawkeye's face turned red and he gasped out, "That's the price of doing business, still worth it!"
Ten Minutes Later...
Spiderman waved as a nondescript RV disgorged half a dozen agents to collect the corpses of his clones. "Remember, no resurrecting them as revenge obsessed villains."
"That hasn't happened in over three years," Johnson, the agent in charge, assured him, "and the guy was completely incompetent."
"That's a bit reassuring," Spiderman said. "So, what are you going to do with all of them?"
"Some bits are used for biological research, a fair amount of your organs will be used for organ donations, and what's left will be cremated and buried at sea," the agent explained.
"Organ donation?" Spiderman asked, surprised.
"Cloned organs have a lot less wear and tear than ones from your average adult and while the whole spider thing may make tissue matching a bit more selective, they make up for it by being more robust," he explained, in far more detail than Spiderman felt comfortable knowing about.
"You guys dispose of a lot of Spider people clones?" Spiderman asked doubtfully.
"You have no idea how often we have to shut down illegal cloning labs filled with altered humans that were going to be used as shock troopers," Johnson said, shaking his head.
"We got a live one!" someone called out as he ducked, just avoiding a thrown SHIELD Agent.
"You'll never take me alive!" the small figure in the too large Spiderman outfit yelled, before yelping and diving behind a tombstone as bullets tore up the fake sod in front of him. "I take it back! Take me alive, please!"
"Everybody, hold your fire!" Johnson called out. He turned to Spiderman. "I thought they were all dead."
"I didn't check the half formed one, I figured it was dead or it would have finished maturing with the others," Spiderman explained.
"Come out with your hands down," One of the agents ordered.
"Why down?" an agent asked.
"Web shooters," he replied.
"Sooo... who are all you people and why were you trying to put me in a body bag?" the clone asked cautiously, as he crept out from behind the fake tombstone.
"Mysterio's attempts at brainwashing killed all the other clones," Spiderman explained. "You're the only survivor and the fact that you survived is a surprise considering you're probably like a half-baked biscuit under the costume."
Johnson winced. "While probably a fair assessment, that's the least tactful way possible of getting the point across."
"Hold that thought for a second," the clone said before pulling out the waistband of his costume and looking down. "Nope, I'm good."
"Seriously?" one of the agents asked, while keeping his gun trained on him.
"Seriously," the clone replied while slowly removing his gloves. "Just removing my web shooters, stay calm."
"Careful, I know all your tricks," Spiderman warned his clone.
"Actually, you don't," the clone disagreed, removing the web fluid capsules and putting them in a compartment on his belt.
"Genetic memory means you only know what I know when the sample was taken," Spiderman said smugly. "He used the Jackal's tech, I know all its ins and outs."
"Contaminated sample," the clone countered. "I didn't develop as fast because the cloner had to work with twice as much data, thus not really a clone... I have two dads!"
"I have no response to that," Spiderman said.
"Who is your other... donor?" Johnson asked.
"One of the earlier Mysterios," the hybrid clone replied. "Not sure who has the costume and equipment now, but he probably used the blood that got on the costume when we... erm, when Spiderman and... Daddy Mysterio fought."
"What do we do now?" Spiderman asked. "I mean, he's not an evil clone of me, or Mysterio for that matter, but he has all my memories which makes me a bit leery of simply letting him loose. Any ideas?"
"Having a criminal for a father is not a crime, nor is knowing a bunch of secrets," the hybrid clone pointed out.
"Actually, the law is deliberately flexible on people knowing state secrets," Johnson pointed out. "While we can't put you in prison, we can hold you indefinitely."
"Normally, that may have been possible," the hybrid clone agreed, "but you are overlooking one critical piece of information."
"And that is?" Johnson asked curiously.
"Don't give him a straight line," Spiderman groaned.
"This," the hybrid clone replied and snapped his fingers, vanishing from the warehouse.
"Oh, that Mysterio," Spiderman said, recognizing the teleport ability.
"For the record, I'm pretty sure he would have teleported away even if I hadn't given him a straight line," Johnson said. "Well, he's your problem now, we have all the others ready for disposal."
"Fair enough, remember to grab all the gear so the new Mysterio can't pull this again," he replied.
"Already on it," Johnson promised.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Hello Francis," Deadpool said cheerfully as the clone appeared in a beat up apartment.
"What? How did I get here? I'm not Francis!" the clone quickly denied before grinning. "Hey, that's right, I'm not Francis! I can be whoever I want!"
"Well, you're not 'the' Francis," Deadpool admitted, "but that's easy to tell as you have all your limbs attached."
"Hey!" Not-Francis complained, his memories of fighting Spiderman and losing a leg still close to the surface.
"No, not that Francis and I said limbs, not just half of 'A' limb, drama queen," Deadpool said with a chuckle.
"How do you know all this?" Not-Francis asked nervously, seriously weirded out.
"I read the notes the author makes while doing research, what little there is of it. Anywho, my teleporter is on the fritz so I have a weird alien teleporter catch field set up so I can teleport home and not end up having to walk everywhere," Deadpool explained.
"I understood some of that," Not-Francis said slowly.
"He's full of it," an old blind woman said as she entered the room. "He was hoping to catch one of the of X-Men, that's why he's got it set up."
"One, it's the easiest way to send Siren her Christmas present, and B, you suck," Deadpool told her.
"Better than you ever will," the old woman said with a smirk. "Being blind has heightened my other senses, allowing me to do things you can only dream of!"
As the two began to seriously argue about what effects blindness would have on the ability to give head, Not-Francis slowly edged towards the door. His spidey-sense wasn't warning him of anything, but he was pretty sure it didn't protect his sanity, just his body.
"A better fitting costume is in the bathroom," Deadpool called out, before Not-Francis could make his escape.
"I have to pee anyway," Not-Francis muttered, pulling up his sagging tights and walking down the hall.
As the door to the bathroom closed, the old woman turned to Deadpool and asked, "Ok, what gives? You are never this nice or generous."
"I got a deal going with Destiny," Deadpool said with a grin. "I do a little favor for her, she does a little favor for me."
"Helping the kid is your favor to her I'm guessing," she said.
"For not being able to see the nose on your wrinkled old face, you really hit the target sometimes," Deadpool noted.
"And for having the gift of sight, you still manage to piss everywhere but in the bowl, but then having a baby's dick is one of the cruelest handicaps and must make it nearly impossible to aim," she snapped back. "So, what's the favor she's doing for you?"
"I told you that in confidence!" Deadpool snapped out. "Besides, its grown back from being cut off and is back to full regulation size once more!" He glared at her for a moment. "Don't roll your eyes at me old lady. Despite their pearly white surface, I can tell."
"And the favor?" she asked, ignoring everything else he said.
"It involves Siren, a kiddy pool full of lime jello, and my favorite sexy wall crawler," Deadpool said excitedly.
"Did you remember to include yourself in the request?" she asked with an evil grin.
"Of course I did! What kind of idiot... I have to go do something, be right back," Deadpool said before standing up. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and quickly rushed around the room, rearranging all the furniture before departing.
The blind woman shook her head and cursed as she ran into the coffee table on the way to the kitchen. "What an asshole."
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Not-Francis, but possibly Peter, examined his costume in the mirror. It was a green and purple Spiderman outfit with black highlights and a few of the more useful Mysterio toys built into its armored mesh.
"Crazy or not, this is some quality work," he said, experimenting with the different settings on the built-in goggles. The blacklight setting made him cringe as he saw an army of stains covering every surface. Then he noticed someone had 'written' something on the wall.
"Examine your face in the mirror," he read aloud and considered it for a second before scanning the bathroom for electronic devices. With the exception of the webcam in the shower, set right in the open, it looked clear and the mirror wasn't a two-way mirror, so he took off his new mask and found himself staring in shock.
He knew he was a composite clone of Francis and Peter, but until this moment it hadn't really sunk in.
"I am a handsome... kid," he finished with a frown. While the combinations of features from the two men had turned out favorably, giving him Francis' ice blue eyes, high cheekbones, and broader shoulder along with Peter's full head of thick hair, heavier jaw, and thankfully smaller nose, there was no doubt the face in the mirror wasn't even old enough to get a learner's permit.
Putting back on his mask, he turned and got a look at the doorknob. With a shudder, he turned off the blacklight setting and crawled out of the window, leaving the bathroom locked behind him.
Ten Minutes Later...
*BAM* *BAM* *BAM*
"Hurry up in there kid, my back teeth are floating out here!" the old woman yelled.
Typing by: Abyssal Angel
