Chapter 28
Spider-man crouched on the side of a building with Supergirl and Korra on the street below, ready to attack the four members of the Wrecking Crew: Wrecker, wielding his trademark indestructible crowbar; Thunderball with his ball and chain; Pile-driver and his huge fists; and Bulldozer with a metal dome helmet.
"Alright team," Spider-man said, "Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the Red Dawn!"
"Uh, why are you talking like that?" Korra asked.
"It's King Theoden's speech...from the end of Two Towers."
"Which two towers?" Supergirl asked.
"The second Lord of the Rings movie." Spidey said expectantly. The girls looked at each other and shrugged. "You've had over three months to watch movies and TV and you haven't gotten to the Lord of the Rings trilogy?!"
"Hey, give us a break." Supergirl said.
"Yeah, we just finished Breaking Bad." Korra added.
"No, this is unacceptable." Spidey said, "I have failed you once again as team leader. But as your leader, I demand that we spend the entire day marathoning the trilogy."
"Ay!" Wrecker shouted, "You gonna stand around or is you gonna-"
"No time for your nonsense!" Spider-man said, spraying a wide blast of webbing at the Wrecking Crew. "Korra, break open that fire hydrant and cover these guys in water. Supergirl, frost breath 'em."
The girls quickly did so, and the super villain team was subdued in seconds. Korra metal bent the hydrant back shut. Spider-man hopped down beside her and extended her staff, then shoved it back in her arms. "Quickly hobittses! It's time for movies!" the Web Head swung away towards their apartment while the police swarmed in to arrest the criminals.
"Hobittses?" Korra repeated as she jumped and got on her glider.
"Pretty sure he's referencing the movie." Supergirl said.
The girls landed on the balcony to their apartment a minute later. Peter was in his room, already half out of costume and fishing through his belongings for the DVD set. Supergirl flew into her room and came out three seconds later in shorts and a T-shirt. Korra just took off her boots and hopped on the couch.
"Alright, here we go." Peter said, carrying the DVD's into the living room. "I own the extended edition, but since that's like twelve hours, we'll only go with the standard edition."
"Twelve hours?" Korra said, "For three movies?"
"Yes." Peter said, "They are epic and cannot be contained by standard movie running times." he took a seat next to her in the middle of the couch.
The microwave beeped. "I got the popcorn." Kara floated over the back of the couch and sat on the other side of Peter. He pressed the play button, then leaned back and put his arms around the girl's waists. Korra and Kara exchanged looks out of the corners of their eyes, then pulled away as casually as they could.
Two and a half hours later, and completely engaged by the fantasy movie, Kara had forgotten this slight awkwardness and sat sideways on her seat, legs over the side of the couch and back against Peter's shoulder. It barely took him a moment to move his arm around her.
Kara stared down at his hand for a moment. This was weird. Peter had always been rather shy about her or Korra leaning against him or resting their heads on him. Yet, for some reason now he was- her face turned red. Peter was drawing circles around her belly button with his index finger.
"I, uh...have to use the bathroom." Kara said, trying not to dash out of the living room. She locked the bathroom door, then stared at it for a moment. This was...not exactly a bad thing, she couldn't deny her affection for Peter, but he was acting so out of left field that it caught her by surprise. This was the same guy that tried to leave the entire building if he knew she or Korra was about to take a shower.
Kara thought of the best way to handle this, and while she found no good answers, she decided that it was probably a poor decision to stay in here and risk making it even more awkward. She left the bathroom, thinking she would stay in the kitchen for a few extra minutes making more popcorn, only to be stopped dead in her tracks. Korra was leaning her head on Peter's shoulder, while he wrapped an arm around her like a regular couple. Kara's hands balled into fists. One minute Peter was trying to get hands-y with her, then the next he's all over Korra. Was he really just a pig this entire time and was only acting like a nice guy to get them to lower their guards?
All three of their phones went off at once.
"Armed robbery." Korra said, "It's my turn to get the low level crime, so I'll be back in a few." she put her boots on and walked out onto the balcony with her glider and took off into the city.
Kara couldn't help but glare at Peter for a moment. She turned around and pretended to flip through her phone. Maybe Pete wasn't really acting weird, Korra didn't seem to think anything of it. Maybe it was an Earth custom she was unfamiliar with, perhaps to do with the New Year since it was only a day away.
"Nice to have the apartment to ourselves isn't it?" Peter said from behind her.
"Y...what do you-" Kara couldn't finish her sentence before Peter's arms were around her, his chin on her shoulder. She made a fist, this was clearly not some strange Earth thing, this was Peter being a jerk. Before she could turn around and punch him through the window, his phone went off.
"Hm, Jonah want's pictures of the action. Can't blame him." he said with a smirk, "Guess I better catch Avatar." he quickly stripped down to his costume, put on his mask and web shooters and jumped off the balcony outside.
A red glow emitted from Kara's eyes. She had been a few seconds away from melting his face with her heat vision. To think she actually trusted him. Bought into the whole notion that he was a good guy and genuinely wanted to help her and Korra. She took a few minutes to cool off and think of how to handle this. When she reached for her phone, she got a text from Peter.
Hey, sorry about...whatever all that was. Not sure what I was thinking, maybe just some leftover weirdness from being mind and symbiote controlled. I promise to try and not be so weird when we get back.
Well that made sense...sorta. Peter had acted strangely for about two days after he attacked the Avengers and Fantastic Four, but it was mostly him just staring blankly at a wall or something for minutes at a time. At any rate, Kara convinced herself he was still the Peter Parker she had known for months after coming into this world.
Nearly half an hour later, Spidey and Korra landed on the balcony and entered the apartment.
"Hey guys, how'd it go?" Kara asked.
"Pretty good." Korra said, "Just two guys with knives, no big deal."
"And I still managed to get some good action shots." Peter said, walking into his room, "Nothing Jonah will drool over, but enough to keep my status as the number one guy to go to when you want superhero pictures. Or at least I'm in the top five guys...top ten at the worst."
"Well good, I was thinking about making spaghetti for dinner." Kara said, "Any objections?"
"Not from me." Peter said, coming into the kitchen.
"Better you cooking than me." Korra said, "You're actually getting good at it."
"Well I've had a lot of practice." Kara said, turning around to gather the ingredients from the pantry. "And I know I change my favorite food every week, but Italian is probably-" she turned around to see Peter pressing Korra against a wall and passionately kissing her. The shock caused Kara to job a jar of tomato sauce.
Peter's head jerked around at the sudden noise, when he turned back to Korra his face grew bright red and his eyes widened, as did hers. He jerked back and stumbled a few steps backwards. "I...I-I n-need to go." he grabbed the pieces to his costume and sprinted out to the balcony and jumped off before he even bothered to put them on.
In Avengers Tower Tony Stark, Beast, Wolverine, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, the Thing and Human Torch were all gathered in one room for a game of poker. Spider-man burst into the room with a glove and boot missing, and his mask on sideways so that the left lens was over his right eye.
"Smart people!" he yelled, "I need you!"
"Spider-man," Beast set his cards down and stood, "what is the-"
"Stop making words and make science! Lab! Now!" Spidey webbed Beast and Stark and pulled them towards him. He then sprinted down the hall, carrying both over his shoulders.
"...huh." Captain Marvel said.
Spider-Woman picked up Stark's scattered cards. "Hah! I knew he was bluffing."
The distraught wall crawler set the two scientists down in Stark's lab. "Web Head, you want to explain this at all?" Tony asked.
"My brain is wrong!" Spidey yelled, "Fix it!"
"You can say that again." Johnny Storm flew into the room. "But even Tony Stark hasn't made a vaccine for being a loser."
"Gimmie a week." Stark said.
"Ay webs, what's the big idea?" The Thing said. He and the other Avengers started entering the lab.
"No!" Spider-man lunged to the control panel and slammed it shut before Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman could walk through. "No girls allowed!"
"Bug, you want to tell us why you interrupted me cleaning house?" Wolverine asked.
"I'm being mind controlled again!" Spidey said. He straightened his mask and put on his glove and boot.
Everyone in the room exchanged looks. "You are not exhibiting any of the characteristics of someone being controlled." Beast said. "You appear distraught, but as of yet you have neither stolen anything nor attempted to assault anyone."
"That's because whoever is doing this doesn't want me to do any of that, they want me to ruin my team!" Spidey said.
"Web head," Tony said, "Why don't you calm down and explain to us everything that's happened. Start from the beginning."
His nervous instincts told him to deflect inquiries into his personal feelings with a joke either about the 'beginning' being the Big Bang or the beginning of his life, but he pushed that urge down and got to the main issue. "A few days ago I started feeling...weirdly about Korra and Kara. Like, you know...romantically. But it's not the weird way I normally think of them, and girls in general, weird in a totally different way. And it's been building since then and today I gotta little, I don't know...hands-on-weird, and-and..."
All around him the Avengers were holding in their laughter.
"What? What is it? Is there something on my mask?"
"Aw, our little bug has grown up." the Thing said.
"Yeah, for someone who calls himself Spider 'man' I thought you would already have hit puberty." Johnny Storm said.
"What?" Spidey said, "No! This isn't like that! This is-"
"'Course it is kid, calm down." Wolverine said.
"Spider-man, what is happening to you is perfectly natural." Beast said, "Your body is going through changes that at first may seem-"
"I'm eighteen!" The wall crawler shouted, "I went through all that years ago! I'm telling you, someone is doing something to my brain! I was all over Korra and I couldn't-"
"Hah!" Johnny Storm said. "I knew she'd be the one you'd go after! Iceman owes me fifty bucks." he pulled out his phone and began to text, but Spidey webbed it out of his hands.
"Will you people listen to me!" he shouted, "I was just mind controlled, like, a week ago, and now I'm doing weird stupid things that I can't control! Please help me!"
"Hold on gentlemen, there may be merit to what out spider friend her has to say." Beast said, "His life has bee filled with events that are odd, even for the likes of us. Lets run some blood work and a scan or two just to be sure."
For the next few minutes, the Webslinger was put through a number of tests, including being hooked up to a machine while a very confused Spider-Woman stood in front of him to test his reactions to her. As he awaited the results, his body was tense, despite his best attempts to relax.
"Well, it seems you were correct Spider-man." said Best, "There was an outside source acting upon your judgment. But it wasn't mind control. Not strictly. Your blood has a number of pheromones in it that are designed to induce matting desires in adolescent primates."
"Hah. Knew I wasn't a crazy pervert... Just a regular one." Spidey mumbled.
"Where would you say your strongest urges occurred?"
"Hm...they only really ever happened at the apartment." Spider-man said, "Also, please don't call them 'urges'."
"Then I would imagine that whoever is responsible for this planted the pheromones somewhere in your place of living." said Beast.
"Okay, so can I get a lady Avenger to go scrub the place clean?" Spider-man asked.
"That wouldn't be the best idea." Tony Stark said, "The pheromone is primate exclusive, not gender exclusive."
"Oh." Spider-man said, "...oooooh."
"Hey."
Everyone present turned to see Supergirl holding her cape wrapped tightly around the head and torso of Korra.
"Can you smart people fix this?" she asked. The Avatar wiggled and squirmed inside the cape.
Johnny pulled out his phone, but again Spidey webbed it out of his hands.
Beast held the smelly formula under Korra's nose. She coughed a few times, then went still. Her face suddenly turned bright red and she looked to Supergirl. "Kara, please tell me I wasn't-"
"You were."
"And why weren't you?"
"Cuz I'm an alien." Supergirl said, "Different biology."
The restraints around her wrists and ankles released and she sat up. All around the Avengers looked at her. Fighting the urge to curl into a ball, she slid behind Supergirl. "I will give you all my worldly possession if you will break a hole in the wall and take me home right now."
"You know Spidey," said Tony Stark with a grin, "With all the violence, and sex that's being forced into your life, I'd almost say that whoever's behind all this is trying to make a prime time TV show out of you."
Wolverine and Beast exchanged looks.
"You don't think..." Beast said.
"Stark, you still got that sketch a' the guy that made Thor attack Webs here?" Wolverine asked.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Send it to Xavier and have him ask some of the X-men." Beast said.
A white oval portal began to appear in the lab. The same one that had opened before Korra could access the Avatar State, and the same man, Adam Warlock, stepped out of it.
"There is no need." he said, "The one responsible for bringing these two girls to this universe is as you suspect, Mojo of the Spineless Ones."
As promised, another chapter this week. Hope you enjoyed it, even if it was sort of forced shipping. Also the humor was a bit forced, but I figure Spidey is probably at his most concerned for females he likes, so to me it made sense for him to slam down on the panic button and run around like a chicken with it's head cut off, trying to solve the problem.
