The Opposite of Carnage
Alan wasn't quite sure why Emma had been so opposed to visiting Taylor in the hospital. She hadn't wanted to back in January, either, and he hadn't made her at the time, but he felt that it was important this time. He had known that they'd become distant in the last few years, but... Or perhaps it was because she didn't want to see her friend in the condition she was in because when Emma had finally agreed to come, she insisted on having her friend Sophia come along for emotional support. Regardless, Danny was an old friend and this had to be Hell for him, Taylor being in the hospital for the second time in one year, and Alan felt the need to be there for him at least for a little while.
And so Alan led two teenaged girls through the hospital to a private room in a certain ward, finding a brown haired and bespectacled man slumped in a chair next to a too thin girl with dark hair, who was unconscious in a bed in the middle of the room, with a tube in her mouth and more tubes and wires attached all over her body. Visible under her her hospital gown was a thick layer of bandages on her right shoulder. There was a standard push-up window at the far end of the room.
"How are you holding up?" Alan asked his old friend.
"About as well as I can," Danny said. "They've got her stable, but they don't think she'll wake up until after the poison's been cured."
"Do they know what it is?" Alan asked. He new the base details, Taylor had had a bad reaction to something and passed out in the hallway. Sophia and Emma had found her and got her help in time. Sophia seemed a bit odd afterward. Alan knew that she was a Ward-he'd helped her get into the Wards, and she and Emma had met when she'd rescued Emma and himself from some gangsters a few years ago. Having saved a life in her civilian identity had to be strange.
"They think it's some kind of parahuman made poison," Danny explained, "a PRT representative was by earlier. He said that they suspect some mad villain of poisoning random people but they're not sure. They either need to get a sample of the poison to make an antidote or get Panacea to take a look at it and Panacea didn't come in today."
Alan blinked. "Daniel, you're lying to me."
"Alan-"
"Danny," Alan interrupted, "I'm a divorce lawyer. Half my job is catching people in lies while helping to make sure that other people don't get caught in lies. We've known each other for how long? I know when you're lying. What's really happening?"
Danny grimaced "I can't say."
From the corner of his eye, Alan saw Sophia roll her eyes. She was a Ward who'd helped save Taylor-had she been told the truth? Before he could question either his friend or Emma's, his attention was drawn to the sound of an opening window.
A short figure, covered head to toe in a shiny costume of gold and marbled dark blue with a long black ponytail poking out the back of her all-covering mask, climbed in through the now opened window and flipped in, landing on her feet with a soft thud. Alan's attention was drawn first to the strange emblem on her torso-an oval with eight sharp lines heading out from the sides and twisting at right angles-two to each shoulder, two to a side framing her abdomen, giving the impression of a spider. An instant later, however, his attention was drawn to her face as her mask literally melted and parts of it oozed up her nose and into her ears and eye sockets. It was actually quite disturbing to watch.
"Okay," the little Asian girl in the creepy slime costume said with a hint of annoyance. "Some guy called 'The Chipmunk-Hunk' broke Chitter out of her cell half an hour ago saying something about needing her to save the Squirrelverse from the Hawk-People, so asking her about where the Bad Boyz are isn't gonn-ah shoot!" It seemed that the girl had just noticed that there was more than whoever she was expecting in the room.
"That's the girl you were asking me for help with," Alan said. Something about help with the legalities of fostering her. Alan hadn't asked questions at the time, even though it was quite strange, but... "If she's the new Ward, then Taylor is-"
"Weaver," Sophia interrupted, "The kid's Cuddlebug, we're all on the same page, we can stop dancing around it?"
Cuddlebug visible sniffed the air, then turned towards Sophia. "Hello, what's your name?"
"Sophia," she said bluntly.
"You sound like you knew that Taylor was Weaver before now," Cuddlebug said, "and I know she didn't tell you, so when she wakes up I'm telling her that you're Shadow Stalker. Now we're all on the same page."
"I don't know what-"
"All of my senses are improved to superhuman levels." Cuddlebug interrupted while pointing to her nose. "Including smell. You and Shadow Stalker smell exactly alike." The girl's costume shifted and changed color and texture until she was dressed in a light blue t-shirt, with a strange red circle emblem on her sternum, a matching knee-length skirt, black leggings, and sneakers. "So, my name's Ashley. I've met Mister Barnes but I don't know who you are?" The girl half-said-half-asked Emma.
"Emma."
Alan sighed. His daughter still looked distinctly uncomfortable with this whole situation. Though to be fair, everything was a lot more complicated than he'd been led to believe.
"Okay, from the top-"
"Weaver got bit by a blue spider-lady at the bank and Panacea messed up when she fixed her," Ashley said quickly, "and now we either need to get Panacea to fix her mistake or find the spider-lady to make an antidote and there are a lot of spiders in here."
Everyone jumped. Alan hadn't noticed it at first, but there were, in fact, a large number of spiders in the room, clustered in the corners.
"I-I need to leave," Emma said suddenly, before rushing out of the room with Sophia following after. Alan sighed, but Emma would be fine with just Sophia for a while.
"They don't... seem to be causing trouble," Alan said in reference to the spiders.
"Taylor's power is bug control," Danny explained. "she might have called them in a dream, or..."
Alan noted that the girl, Ashley, was rubbing her temples. "Did anyone ever get ahold of Panacea?"
It was Danny's turn to sigh. "Not yet."
Alan pulled out his phone. Carrol Dallon, alias Brandish, worked at the firm he was a partner of. She was a friend.
He dialed, she answered. "Hello?"
"Carrol, it's Alan."
"This isn't a good time."
"I know, but it's an emergency. I know that Amelia doesn't normally do requests, but-"
"Not you, too. Look, Panacea needs to rest and recuperate after her ordeal at the bank. She will return to healing when she's good and ready."
"Carrol, trust me," Alan began, "I more than anyone know what it's like to want to protect your child after something horrific happens, but there's a life hanging in the balance and Panacea might be the only one who can save her."
"Alan, Panacea isn't responsible for the lives of every sick or injured person in this city. She does what she does out of the goodness of her own heart, but if it might be unnecessarily harmful or stressful for her than she'll have to stop for a while. I'm sorry, but..."
"Just talk to the girl's father for a minute, please." Alan handed the phone to Danny, who held it carefully.
"Um, hello Mrs.," he said into the receiver, "ugh." Over the next few minutes, the expression on Danny's face changed from depression to confusion, to anger, back to confusion, to shock, before settling on horror. After a few moments, Danny hung up the phone and carefully handed it back to Alan.
"Someone who I think is Glory Girl took the phone midway through the conversation," Danny explained in monotone. "According to her, the Dallon household hasn't been right for Panacea for some time and they hit some kind of breaking point after the incident at the bank. Panacea ran away from home last night, and Brandish has been lying about it to protect New Wave's image."
Alan didn't know what to say about that.
The sound of movement drew the two men's attention back to the still open window, where Cuddlebug, back in full costume, was preparing to climb back out the window.
"Where are you going?" Danny managed to ask.
"She got bit trying to protect us," the girl said, her voice now distorted somehow, "so I'm going to go find either Panacea or the Spider."
"As-Cuddlebug, that's not really up to you."
"It's our fault that she's hurt," the girl said, "so we've got to take responsibility. It's what Spider-Man would do."
And then she jumped out the window.
Danny sighed again, and Alan had to ask: "Why did she start referring to herself in the plural, and who the hell is Spider-Man?"
"It's a long story."