Had anyone else been in the room, they would have been impressed with the way the window slid open and Specs crawled through, closing it behind him, all without a sound. He sat on the edge of the bed for a second, his shoulders shaking silently as he stared down at his hands, the material that had covered the fingers and palms shredded to nothing and blood and dirt coating the skin beneath. The view was slightly obscured by the scratches that covered his eyepieces, and he sighed and pressed his index and middle fingers to each and pulled.

The glue holding them in place tore almost immediately. Specs threw them aside halfheartedly, finding the seams where his gloves ended and pulling them off. He stood, tossing them in the wire-mesh trash can on his way past the desk, and dug through his closet. At length he found a bizarre ensemble consisting of cargo pants, a silver compression shirt, and a black leather jacket with a stylized letter R on the back. He ignored most of the costume and instead dug through the jacket's pockets until he found a pair of black gloves. Once upon a time, they had been heavy-duty work gloves, all nylon and leather with carbon-fiber knuckles, but the fingers had been cut off and replaced with a much thinner material. He grabbed the gloves and started towards the door, but paused when he saw his reflection in the mirror on the back of it.

His costume was soaked with sweat and pockmarked with small holes; the spider on his chest was obscured by a large stain on the right side of his chest. His whole posture was slumped and miserable. With his eyepieces gone, his eyes were clearly visible—bloodshot with sweat, the surrounding area red and puffy, framed by black vinyl rims that flared up in the top corners. He crossed back to his dresser and plucked a pair of goggles from where they lay on top of some handwritten notes, slipping them over his mask. They had wide lenses, designed to fit over a pair of glasses, and covered the holes where his eyepieces would have been perfectly. Plucking the clip-on eye loupe from its spot in front of the right lens, he tossed it back on the dresser before leaving the room and crossing over to the bathroom.

His web-shooters were strapped to his wrists with a pair of wide, black leather straps. He pushed each trigger back into the body of its shooter until they clicked before washing his hands. He counted off twenty seconds under his breath as he scrubbed. If he let himself, he feared, he would go full Lady Macbeth and blankly scrub for almost an hour. Shutting off the faucet, he was midway through toweling off his hands when his flitting, breathless mind landed on the sight he had momentarily glanced at just before entering the bathroom. He stopped and stepped out of the door, down the hall and into the main room.

The other Spiders were currently sitting around in the main room, with the exceptions of Lucky and Ollie, who were in the kitchen segment on the other side of the island counter. The TV was on, a generic action movie dancing across the screen, and there was the smell of cooking pasta in the air.

"What the fuck?" he breathed, but it was enough to get someone's attention.

"Oh, there you are, Specs," said Teresa, getting up off the couch and walking around it towards him. "Quick question—what's the plan regarding street clothes?"

Specs stared at her blankly for a few seconds, his head tilted slightly. The goggles had tinted automatically when he had entered the brightly lit room, but she could feel the bafflement he practically radiated. "Hall closet has some of Gwen's old things…" he mumbled, a thumb drifting over his shoulder. "You, Scarlet, and Honeybee can wear those."

Teresa nodded and started down the hall, brushing past him. The flinch he gave in response was something of an overreaction, but he continued staring at the room at large. Drawing himself up to his full height, he said, enunciating clearly, "TV Off!"

There was a pause, and then the screen went black. The two people who had sat watching it started, and Drake looked back at Specs. "Dude!" he said indignantly.

Specs ignored him, turning towards the windows. "Windows to 85% Opacity!" As the windows darkened until you could only faintly see the city outside, Specs' goggles faded until you could see his eyes behind them. They were glaring. "What the hell are you all doing?" he demanded.

"Making lunch," called Ollie from where she sat on the island counter. "You want some?"

He looked at her quizzically. "Not…not interested." This was a lie. "Right now, we've got bigger fish to fry. Those four…things are still out there, and we've got no idea where they went!"

"You're saying they survived having a building dropped on them?" Drake asked.

"Yes, that sounds pretty much exactly like what I'm saying," Specs snarked, storming towards the kitchen and shrugging his backpack onto one shoulder. He unzipped it and pulled out the fragment of green metal, which he held in Lucky's face. "What is this?"

Lucky leaned away, staring not at the metal, but at the boy holding it. "…I dunno. What is that?"

"It's a piece that came off of that one robot. Wazzzpinnatorr." He did a poor imitation of the Transformer in question's voice. "Found it in some rubble that looked like something had dug its way out from beneath. Trail led to a nearby sewer entry. Scarlet said you guys had a pretty good idea of what those things were, so you should know something about this alloy."

"Oh. Well in that case, it's kind of an organic metal." Lucky shrugged at the look Specs gave him at this comment. "There've been studies ever since we made official first contact. The full disclosure is post-doc level, and I'm still going for my bachelor's. But I know it's made of metallic 'cells', it has DNA or something like it, and the carbon content is surprisingly high. It can repair itself, so long as it's connected to the Transformer's Spark."

Specs lowered the fragment, twirling it between his hands and taking a deep breath. "Ooo-kay. I think I can work with that. But enough talk—we've got to go after them and stop them from doing something like this again." He dropped the piece onto the counter, walking around the island and grabbing a soup can out of the pantry on his way past. "And we need to move now!"

Scarlet walked up to her boyfriend's interdimensional counterpart.

"Specs, listen to me. You were there at that fight. You know that right now, we are in no state to go up against three Transformers and some psycho who's got the same powers as most of us. If we move now, we might as well submit our obituaries beforehand, because there's no way we're coming out alive from that sort of fight. We need time to rest, collect ourselves, and otherwise kick back and recover."

"We don't have that kind of time!"

"We do. If those things managed to survive that collapsing building, I'm pretty certain they're preoccupied with recovering as much as we are. You saw Waspinator fall to pieces— even if the other three managed to get out with nary a scratch (and they probably didn't), they're going to need time to put him back together."

Specs opened his mouth in protest, but Blue raised his hand as if to say 'Let her say her piece first'.

"Which brings me to my next point. Yes, we need to find the bad guys and soon before they decide to do an encore. Now, you said that the trail ended up in a sewer?"

"Yeah, it did." Specs stopped as he stuck a thumb to the top of the soup can and ripped it up, folding it back. Giving Scarlet a glance as he pulled his mask up to his nose, he put the can to his lips and began to drink it down.

"You maybe wanna heat that up?" Lucky asked, his arms folded as he leaned against the counter.

"It's fine like this," Specs muttered, then finished chugging the can and tossed it into the sink. "The problem is, the water got rid of the trail, and there were five different tunnels they could've taken. I tried to pick up any vibrations, but by the time I got there, they were long gone."

"Basically," said Blue, "you're saying we've got no idea where they went or how to find them. That's another good reason we should rest up and take a breather for the time being- we can't afford to be out on a wild goose chase. Our best bet is to take stock and wait for them to make a move. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's our only real option here."

Specs narrowed his eyes at the others. "You're all forgetting something. Yeah, those four probably aren't in any shape to go after us either. But any time we take for R&R, they'll be doing the same." He sauntered away from Scarlet and towards the center of the room as he pulled the black gloves on, tightening the Velcro strap at the base of each. "And when they're done recuperating, they'll try again. And then," he said through gritted teeth, "this exact same thing will happen all over again, we'll be back at Square One, and the only difference is that more people will be dead! If we move now, we—"

"Specs, calm down," said Scarlet, stepping after him. "Freaking out over what they might do won't change the fact that none of us is in any state to make a move now. You were there at that fight—we're all pretty frazzled both physically and mentally. And against Transformers, we can't afford to be frazzled."

"Um—Specs?" Teresa said, stepping back into the room as tenderly as if she was entering a minefield.

He ignored her, focusing exclusively on Scarlet and shifting into a slightly more aggressive stance as she approached. "Newsflash," he snarled. "They know my name! Best-case scenario is that they walk up to my door, fling it open, and reveal that I'm Spider-Man to the entire world!" He turned as if on a pivot to look at Lucky, then at Blue. "You. Are. Me," he hissed. "You know why that would be a disaster."

Scarlet began to open her mouth, and he pivoted back to her, throwing up a finger.

"Keep in mind, that's the best possible outcome! The more likely outcome is that they go trying to bait me out again—threatening my parents, or Aunt May, or-or something even worse!" He stopped talking, but his breath was loud, and it filled the room. "They need to be stopped," he concluded. "Right. The fuck. Now."

"But you just said you have no idea where they went—"

"I said the trail went cold. There's a difference, dammit. And you guys—you haven't even tried looking for them! You can't say it can't be done before you've even tried, especially not if it's life or death for god knows how many people!" He paused, but his jaw was flailing under the mask as he looked around. "I—I know people who can help! There's this girl who can talk to animals; maybe she can get all the rats and pigeons in the city to look for them! They went through the sewers; maybe I can talk to the homeless community and see if anyone heard anything! It's about lunchtime, so some of them are at the various soup kitchens around New York; I can go to the two or three nearest the disaster zone and see if I can get pointed in the right direction!" He dug his phone out of his bag. "Hell, I can set my phone to notify me when relevant keywords pop up in the news! There's got to be something!"

Teresa cleared her throat loudly.

"Specs, calm down," Drake said. "You're not being rational—"

"Not being rational?! No, I suppose I'm not. Those…creatures killed a hundred and four people looking for me! 104 people, all on me! On all of us! THIS CANNOT HAPPEN AGAIN! And here you are telling me to calm down?!"

Scarlet stepped towards him again, reaching for his shoulder. He flinched violently and pulled away, but his focus was now entirely on her. "Specs, listen to me. You're afraid that the bad guys will kill more people if they don't find them. You're probably right, and that sucks, but we can't stop that from happening. We can't save everyone."

Specs froze. As Scarlet continued to talk, he gradually pulled himself up to his full height, which probably would have been a sufficient warning had he been taller than five-foot-six.

"Those robots? Lucky and I know about them because we've seen something similar called 'Decepticons'. One day, they attacked New York City and made what happened today seem tame in comparison. Tell me, Specs—have you seen an entire apartment block simply disintegrate with a single blast from a fusion cannon? Or Iron Man, Rescue, and War Machine forced to fight their teammates because one of the 'Cons managed to hijack control of their armor? Or your own loved one being shot in the back by a laser blast fired by some robot condor? Or the Fantastic Four and what few Avengers still standing making what could very well be their last stand against three colossal robots each made up of five to six of the same giant robots that've been kicking everyone else's ass? Sometimes…you can't save them all."

It was only here that Scarlet realized that Specs had gone unnaturally still, his breathing suggesting his teeth were clenched. "No," he said, in a voice that sounded like grinding gears, "I haven't seen any of that. But you—have you ever seen a—a person's mother, or brother, or friend cradle a corpse and just…scream? Until their voice broke and all they could do is hold their loved one and—and refuse to let the paramedics drag them off? Have you seen the light leave the eyes of people you know?! People turned to charcoal and hamburger?! Have you—" and here he stopped, his jaw working as he looked down, his breaths laced with sobs. "Have you seen people look up from the bodies and scream curses at you? 'How could you let this happen?' 'You did this!' 'You're just as bad as the Goblin—'" He broke off, practically sinking to the floor, muttering under his breath, "(Rhino Shocker Electro Scorpion menace menace menace menace—)"

Scarlet's eyes gradually widened as she saw Specs break down. Hesitantly, she reached for him, not sure what she was going to do, but the second she touched his shoulder he gave a scream and shoved her back. Her back hit the couch's backrest hard enough that something audibly cracked inside it.

Specs' eyes were suddenly dead focused on her, his pupils mere pinpricks and his entire body shaking. He had started crying somewhere in there, and his eyes trembled as tears continued to force their way out; but it was a rare sight to see something that was simultaneously soaked and wreathed in flames.

Specs took one more deep, shuddering breath, and then his voice was flat and rough. "When you write off those bodies at your feet as 'oh well, can't be helped,' are you trying to find a way to live with yourself?" he asked. "Or are you giving yourself permission to not try as hard?!"

The entire room went silent as the grave. Everyone's stares turned to Scarlet as she stood back up. She seemed to fill the entire room ad her eyes lit up in pure rage.

"Okay, how dare you—"

"HOW DARE I?!" Specs' shout rattled the blacked-out windows. "Those fuckers are still out there, and you are SITTING ON YOUR ASS making SPAGHETTI!"

"We KNOW they're still out there!" Scarlet screamed back. "It's just that right now, we can't afford to run in half-cocked and get ourselves killed! For all we know, they're trying to bait us into a trap!"

"THEN WE SHOULD SPRING THE TRAP! IF THE CHOICE COMES DOWN TO US OR—"

"SHUT UP!"

Specs and Scarlet both froze an inch a way from ripping the other's head off. Gradually they stepped away from each other and turned towards Teresa, who had stepped forward and was holding a bundle of fabric.

"Specs," she said, letting it unfold and holding it by the shoulders, "what is this?"

What it was, was a red, white, and black spider-themed superhero costume, clearly tailored for a feminine form. Specs stared at it, his eyes wide, and the off-red eyepieces of the mask stared back.

The realization hit Scarlet like a ton of bricks. "Oh my god," she said, looking from the unitard to Specs. "Your Gwen."

Specs didn't even acknowledge her comment—it wasn't out of rudeness so much as a genuine failure to realize she had spoken. One shaking hand had risen to his mouth as his breath hitched. Ever since that morning, Scarlet had assumed that this iteration's Green Goblin had succeeded where hers had failed in his attempt to kill Gwen Stacy. But as she stared at the suit, sewn in a very similar pattern to Specs' own, then at the boy breaking down in front of her, it wasn't hard to understand why he hadn't seen fit to tell her the whole story. And while Specs probably had never been a bubbly extrovert before his Gwen's death, she thought she could see a tipping point here.

Perhaps Specs could see it too. He took another breath, one that was probably meant to be calming, and looked around at the other Spider-Men. The tears were coming fully now, and the fire in his eyes had gone out.

"Don't wait up," he muttered, then turned back towards Teresa and vanished into a blur.

Teresa barely dodged something nobody could see as Specs reappeared on the other side of her, screeching to a stop just outside his bedroom door, and vanished again into it.

"Whoa!" Scarlet started after him, followed by Blue, Teresa, and a few bees. She sprinted into the bedroom just in time to see Specs hop out the window and up the opposite wall, moving faster than she had ever hoped to. "Wait—Specs—Peter—"

By the time she got to the sill, he was long gone. The honeybees that had come with her flew out the window like a shot and over the top of the neighboring building. Gradually, her tensed shoulders relaxed, and she moved away from the window and off the bed.

"Jeez, he's fast," Teresa muttered.

"Yeah. He's also damaged," Scarlet said softly. "I hate being right. He's gonna get himself killed going up against those four."

"You okay?" Ollie asked.

Lucky snapped to attention, shaking away the thousand-yard stare that had set in during Scarlet's recollection of the Decepticon attack.

"I'm hanging in there. Let's just say that Gwen, Goliath, and Kamala are good listeners."

"Who're they?"

"Gwen…well, in my iteration, she's a roommate with me and Scarlet. Blonde hair, about Specs' height, cutting blue eyes- nice girl when you get to know her. She serves as 'Mission Control' back home."

"And the other two?"

"Kamala…your iteration might not have her. She's from Jersey City, we met when she helped save me from becoming a greasy smear on the pavement when I went up against the Vulture the first time around…she's some kind of shapeshifter like Plastic Man if you've read those comics. She's a sweet kid, and I do mean 'kid'- she's only sixteen. As for Goliath…again, your iteration probably doesn't have him, but he's a gargoyle from medieval Scotland who got turned to stone for about a thousand years. We met when I helped save one of his buddies from an outfit called the Pack, and he's a great guy."

"How so?"

"He's…well, he comes off as wise when you talk with him. He's supportive, but he's not afraid to give you a kick in the pants when you need it. And judging from Specs' little near breakdown, a kick in the pants might not be such a bad idea."

As if on cue, Scarlet, Blue, and Teresa wandered back into the room. The former shook her head. "He's gone."

"Poor guy…he needs help." Honeybee said.

"Yeah. But those bees…were those yours?"

Honeybee sat up straighter. "Yep," she said proudly. "If he gets in over his head, those guys will come back to me and let me know exactly where he is. It's sort of my version of spider-sense."

"That's not how spider-sense works at all," Blue said bluntly.

Scarlet elbowed him. "Useful, though," she said. "I only hope they'll get back to you before he's dead."

"12 gauge autoloader. .45 long slide with laser sighting. AR-18 automatic. And an Uzi 9 millimeter." Arachnolord said as he examined his purchase at a gun store in the Narrows.

"The handguns are on a waiting period. As for the rifles—"

The clerk noticed Arachnolord slip behind the counter

"You can't do that!"

Arachnolord smirked.

"Watch me."

The clerk barely had any time to react before Arachnolord snapped his neck like a twig.

"Chat!"

"GAH!" Sophia Sanduval jumped, whirling and clutching her chest, as the voice behind her suddenly blurted her nickname. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she took a deep breath as Specs took another step into the kitchen.

"Stop doing that!" she gasped. She looked over at the sliding glass door to her apartment's balcony, which had apparently opened without a sound. "What's going on? If you're coming to me, it must be bad."

Specs nodded slightly. "Yeah. You see the news today? The building collapse caused by those robots?"

Chat grimly nodded.

Specs looked down, rubbing the back of his neck. "I need you to check in with the local wildlife. See if they saw those robots. I—" He paused, looking up at her. The light coming in through the windows was enough to darken his goggles slightly, but she could still see the muted desperation in his eyes. "I need to know where they went. I've got to stop them."

Chat bit her tongue. "I'll ask, but—well, don't get your hopes up." She stepped around him and onto the balcony, looking around and then at the next, lower, roof over. "Hey," she called to a pigeon perched on the parapet. It looked up at her. "Could you come up here, please?"

The pigeon cocked its head and ruffled its wings before obeying. It settled on the edge of the balcony, looking at her and bobbing its head as though nodding.

"I have some sesame seeds in the kitchen," Chat told it, gesturing towards the sliding door. Specs was now leaned against the frame, foot tapping patiently. "I'll get you some in a second, but first I need you to tell me something."

She pulled out her phone, beginning to type something into its Search app, when a gloved hand slowly eased another phone into view, an image of Blackarachnia already on screen.

"Thanks, Spidey," she said, taking it. "What happened to your gloves?"

"They got shredded. Could you go faster?"

Chat rolled her eyes, showing the image to the pigeon. "Have you seen something like this today?"

"Coo?"

"No, not the phone. The image on the phone. Have you seen a huge spider-robot-thing at any point today?"

The pigeon stared blankly at the screen, then tried to peck it. Chat moved the phone away, then said, with a note of urgency, "Please. I know it's a weird question, but think. Have you seen this thing?"

The pigeon looked up at her—the look would have been thoughtful if pigeons were in any way intelligent. After a second, it turned around, fluttering its wings in the general direction of the Narrows, then back to her expectantly.

Chat shrugged, leaning against the balcony rail and giving her peer his phone back. "She says she saw this thing coming out of one of the sewer cave-ins in the Narrows. Near the docks, I think."

Specs nodded, folding his arms. "Great. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Could you hand me the sesame seeds? They're in that dish on the counter."

Specs followed her finger, firing a webline at the dish in question and yanking it into his hand before giving it to her. As she pulled off the lid and it hung off the side of the dish, stuck there by the edge of the web, he muttered, "sewer cave-in near the docks. That's not that specific. Which dock? And half the sewer is caved in over there!"

"I don't know what you were expecting!" Chat defended, holding out the dish for the pigeon. "You have more than you did, right?"

"Yeah, I do." Specs leaned closer to her, giving her an incredibly stiff one-armed hug. "Thanks, Sophia. I've gotta go."

As Specs vaulted over the balcony rail, falling towards the next roof, Chat called after him, "I'm calling the others!"

"Do not call the others!" he yelled back, walking backwards across the roof to continue facing her.

"This sort of thing is why there are others to call! I'm calling Tyrone and Tandy!"

"Oh, yeah, because vitality-draining ethereal knives are going to do so much against giant fucking robots! Tyrone and Tandy are gang-busters, Chat! They go up against these bastards, they die!" By now Specs had reached the edge of the roof. "Don't call anyone! I know what I'm doing! Please!" He turned and leapt to the next roof, and just like that he was off.

Chat threw her hands up in frustration, watching him go. Her thumb indecisively circled her phone's screen, before she noticed a few honeybees drifting next to her hands. She squinted at them for a second, then her eyes went wide.

"Oh my god," she breathed. "You're sentient."

The bees buzzed and rose to eye level.

"Yes, I can! It's a—" she made a vague gesture towards her own temple. "It's a mutation. I think it's some kind of low-level telepathy. Were you following him?"

They buzzed once. One of them drifted around the other.

Chat looked at where she had last seen Specs, then back at the bees hurredly. "Well, tell her what I told him. Narrows. Caved-in sewer section by the docks, got it? As fast as you can. Spider-Man's not ready for a fight like that, either."

"No control/walk right into coals to feel the pain!" a stereo played in the background.

Arachnolord mentally hummed along with the song as he tended to his work in a far corner of the warehouse, namely converting the Uzi he had taken from the gun store into a fully automatic weapon. He'd always liked the Uzi back home, back when he'd been rising through the ranks of his New York's underworld…back when he finally answered the question of what to do with the shackles that were his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. On a nearby workbench sat several short sections of steel pipe, an immense quantity of cotton balls, containers of concentrated sulfuric and nitric acids, potassium nitrate, and several boxes of nails.

"It's just about time he showed up," he decided. "You tin cans going to be ready?"

"No. We're still trying to put our cohort back together—" Blackarachnia replied.

"Wazzpinator knows you're just screwing around with him! Otherwise Wazzpinator would be whole again by now!"

"Well, you try doing this without a CR chamber!"

"Whatever. I'm going out to find Parker."

"Well, what's the sitrep?" Blue asked as the bees returned.

Honeybee concentrated as her helpers gave their report.

"The bad guys are in someplace called the Narrows—more specifically, a caved-in sewer section by the docks. And Specs is headed there as we speak."

Lucky winced.

"We need to go after him. All of us."

"Even Ollie?" Blue asked.

Scarlet turned around.

"Ollie, you said you were with your iteration's GI Joe. Can you handle yourself in a fight?"

"Yes, ma'am! Especially since my webbing's electrified!"

"We are not bringing Ollie along! She's just a kid!" Lucky piped up.

"I've gone up against my universe's Cobra and the Brotherhood of Mutants."

Lucky threw his hands up in frustration.

"Fine. You can come along, but if I tell you to get out of the way, you need to get out of the way."

Ollie saluted again, and Lucky turned to face the others.

"Let's go save Specs' bacon," he said.

Notes from Courier:

-Lucky's mention of "something like it [DNA]" refers to CNA (the Transformer equivalent of DNA).

-The song playing in the background when Arachnolord's working on his guns is "Burning in the Third Degree" by Tahnee Cain and the Tryanglz. It was one of the songs playing in the club "Tech Noir" in the first Terminator movie.

-Speaking of Terminator references, the scene with Arachnolord in the gun store is an homage to that film.

-Apart from the pipes and nails, the materials Arachnolord has at that workbench are the essential ingredients to make nitrocellulose, aka guncotton.

Notes from Brackets:

-That costume Specs was digging through in his closet was a Ricochet costume. In the comics, Ricochet was one of the four Slingers-alternate identities that Spider-Man cooked up when he was framed for murder, later adopted by other characters. In Earth-61610, Specs uses the identity sporadically, mostly when he needs to do dirtier work.

-The little "fine like this" exchange is another reference to Rorschach.

-Sophia "Chat" Sanduval is a character borrowed from the Marvel Adventures line of comics in the 2000s, where she's a mutant with the power to talk to animals.

-"The others" refers to the other underage vigilantes in New York City, who Nick Fury has collectively convinced/blackmailed into being a loose team that answers to SHIELD. They're not official, because that would be illegal, but if they were Chat would be the head of the group. Tyrone and Tandy are Cloak and Dagger.