Chapter 29
The warehouse was quiet while the men carried crates out of the gray van. Suddenly a man dropped one of the crates, and four automatic rifles fell onto the floor. Everyone froze.
"Idiot." one of them whispered, "Do you want that 'S' chick to hear us?"
Before any of them knew what was happening, a small section of the roof was destroyed and the ground was struck with such force that the men were knocked into the air. A huge whirlwind spiraled around the room, powerful enough to whip the men up in it and slam them all into a wall. The only conscious one among them reached for one of the dropped rifles.
Supergirl picked the man up by the scruff of his collar and slammed him into the wall. "Please, give me a reason."
The man slipped into unconsciousness and the Girl of Steel let him fall to the floor and turned to Korra.
On a strand of web, Spider-man descended from the ceiling. "So we're not going to calm down by counting backwards from ten then? How about from a hundred...thousand? Maybe a million?"
"This isn't funny!" Supergirl yelled, "We just found out that we were ripped from our homes to be the entertainment of some sort of fat, inter dimensional Jabba the Hut thing!"
"At least you were able to resist those pheromones!" Korra explained, "I just tried to make out with every member of the Avengers!"
Spider-man couldn't help but tense up. Should he address his kiss with Korra now or later? Or maybe just ignore it and hope everyone would forget about it? The latter. He was definitely hoping for that latter option.
"When I find this guy, I'm going to tear him in half!" Supergirl said, hands balled into fists and shaking with anger.
"Not if I get to him first." Korra said, in much the same posture, "I'm going to learn blood bending just so I can tear out his organs!"
"I'm going to melt his skin with heat vision!"
"Metal bend his chair and beat him to death with it!"
"Throw him into the moon, then throw the moon into the sun!"
"Water bend an entire river right up his-"
"Or..." Spidey interrupted, "Or, maybe we could not do any of those awful sounding things and do something to calm you two down a bit."
"And what exactly would that be?!" Korra couldn't help but aim her anger at him.
"Um...let it go?" Spidey said, "Let it go. Turn away and slam the door? Here I stand...in the, uh...light of day?"
"Did...did you just quote...?" Supergirl said.
"Wow...you are such a dork." Korra smiled.
"A dork who just diffused the tension in the room." the Webslinger said triumphantly, "Stupid jokes for the win. Gah!" he fell to his knees, clutching at the back of his head, "Ow, what the Hello Kitty was that?!"
"What? What's wrong?" Supergirl asked.
Spidey was looking around the room frantically, "I...I don't. My spider sense flared up. Worst it's ever been, but only for half a second." he waited a few more moments before calming down. "Whatever, let's go home."
There was a ringing in his ear as Spider-man forced his eyes open. His vision was blurry to the point he couldn't even tell what was in front of him, but he knew he was face first on New York City pavement. His head surged with pain as he tried to roll himself over. Its was just about the only thing he could feel. Like a floating head on the sidewalk.
Fire was all around him, and through the ringing in his ears he could hear screaming and yelling. A figure he assumed was Korra stood a few feet away, sending element after element down the street. Supergirl was on her hands and knees beside him.
"Kara! Kara, you need to take Spidey and get out of here!" Korra yelled in between attacks.
"N-no..." Supergirl muttered, rising to her feet but hunched over with her arms hanging, "m' fine, jus...I can help."
A green light engulfed her and she yelled in pain.
"STOP IT!" Korra yelled. When the attacker failed to comply, she bent all of the surrounding fire into a massive inferno. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"
The light vanished and Supergirl fell limp on the ground. Spider-man felt like his legs weren't his to control as he desperately tried to get to his feet. Korra's inferno disappeared, and a tall figure in a dark green cloak walked through it with a blue light around him dissipating. She sent out a flurry of every element available, but they only slowed the cloaked attacker down.
"You are fortunate that I want you alive, and that most of my armament was spent on planning for your friend." The voice was familiar, but Spider-man was struggling to hear past the ringing in his ears.
Korra stomped the ground and the street split. The pavement below the cloaked figure rose off the ground, but then a green light rushed down the man's legs and the chunk of concrete fell back to the street.
"Oh, I did make a few preparations for you." the figure said.
Loose strands of hair hung in front of Korra's sweaty face while she huffed and panted. She had thrown everything she had at the assailant while Spidey was unconscious. The cloaked figure raised his hand and fired a blast that Korra dodged easily.
"Hm, one can never fully calculate the enemy's spirit." the cloaked man said, "But one can calculate their likely actions." he pointed his hand at Spider-man and Supergirl.
Despite all his effort, the Wall Crawler could barely force his legs to bear his weight. The man's hand lit up as he prepared to fire a blast. Korra stomped and the street shot up between Spidey and the man, who instantly adjusted his aim and blasted the Avatar. Korra yelled and fell to the ground unconscious.
With every ounce of strength he had left in him, Spider-man stood and jumped over the concrete Korra had raised up. He was immediately slapped in the side of the head by a metal gauntlet and fell to the ground. He rolled over, but had his throat stepped on by the cloaked man.
"Beneath the heel of Doom." Spider-man's vision finally focused enough for him to see the metal mask of Dr. Doom. "How befitting of one of your name and stature. I will kill you before this is through, insect, but not yet. First I want you to know that I will be draining away your friends very life force. I want you to feel helpless as there is nothing you can do to stop me. And most importantly...I want you to know that it was you...who helped me do it." with a stomp of his boot, Spider-man was out.
He awoke with a start, Sue Storm looking down at him.
"Calm down Spidey." she said.
"The girls!" he rasped, "Korra, Kara, where...where are they?"
"Spider-man, you need to calm down." Sue said, "You have a mild concussion and multiple lacerations and contusions."
"I...Doom." he said, "It was Dr. Doom, he used magic and some sort of chi disrupter...where are they? Where are the girls?"
"Please. For your own good, calm down and lay still." she forced him back down with a psionic shield.
"Right..." he knew he couldn't overpower the Invisible Woman's shields, so he decided to play along for now. Taking in his surroundings, he was mask-less in the Avengers Tower infirmary, where it felt like he had spent most of his time nowadays. When next he spoke, he had steadied his breathing and heart rate to as calm as he could physically make it, but his temples felt like they were being pounded from the inside. "Sue, where are Kara and Korra?"
"We've got people working on that." she said, "For right now, you just need to rest here while I try to fix you up."
Somehow he knew that meant they were in Latveria. The Avengers wouldn't be stopped by the borders of his local embassy if he had attacked out in the open like this, but they wouldn't risk a full scale invasion of a foreign country without permission from the U.N.
"Sue, I'm sorry." Spider-man said. He barely gave the Invisible woman enough time to raise an eyebrow in confusion before he webbed the chair behind her and pulled it close, taking out the back of her legs and forcing her to into the seat. With his other hand he webbed her eyes, then spun the chair to the left.
"Spidey! Stop!" she tried to clamp a shield down on the exit, but instead destroyed a bed against the wall as the Webslinger grabbed his mask and sprinted out of the room and searched for the Avengers.
He shot a web at a door switch and turned sideways to make it through the parting doors as fast as possible. Something almost as solid as a wall halted all moment and sent him stumbling backwards.
"Man of spiders, you should be resting." said Thor.
"Oh, hey big guy." Spidey said, "You wouldn't happen to be up for a raiding party would you? Know how much your people liked a good pillaging."
"My people are Asgardian, not Vikings." Thor said.
"...I stand by my statement." Spider-man said. "So yes or no?"
"I assume you mean to assault Doom's castle." said Thor, "I would gladly join you in saving the young maidens, but we must await word from the men in fancy suits before we can attack."
"Yeah, sure, totally. On a...completely unrelated note, is Hulk around?"
"Spidey," said Iron Man, "If you want to wait in here with us, you can."
Thor took a step back and Spider-man walked into a room crowded with Avengers. Captain America was on the phone with someone, and there was a large flat screen TV covering the news of the event, but almost all eyes were on him.
"So he's not even denying it?" Spider-man said looking at the news report.
"No." Iron Man said, "But what he, and a number of other world leaders that have a special kind of hatred for the United States, are doing is making an argument that the attack was only intended for Supergirl and Avatar, who are technically not U.S. Citizens."
"I don't see how that matters, he blew up half a street block!" Spidey exclaimed.
"Actually, your girls did most of the damage when they saw you go down." Captain Marvel said, "How did you not see the attack coming? Did he find away to get around your spider sense?"
"I'm pretty sure he found a way to shut it off." Spider-man said, rubbing the base of his skull where he usually felt the advanced warning, "Before the attack, it spiked like crazy and I haven't felt it since."
"Look, Webs," Wolverine put a hand on his shoulder, "We're going to get your friends back. It's just a matter of time."
"They might not have time...Doom's using the Power Transferal device." Spider-man said.
"What?" Iron Man said, "How do you know?"
"Because he said I helped him."
"So Doom's been in on all of this?" Wolverine said, "Working with Mojo?"
"Mojo needed a villain," Captain Marvel said, "Why not one that could cause a lot of trouble and had a lot of reasons to hate the Web Head already?"
"Steve," Iron Man said, "Tell the President, or whoever they've got you talking to now, that if we don't hurry, Victor Von Doom is going to be neigh indestructible with the power to bend the four primal elements with his mind."
The room broke out in murmurs and speculations of how to handle the situation. Spider-man looked around for allies. Captain America, Black Widow, Iron Man, and Hawkeye, all one time government agents. If they went with him, it would be like a government sanctioned attack.
Then there were the powerhouses in Thor, Captain Marvel, Hercules, and The Thing. Any attack from them would just stir up the 'Too powerful to be left unsupervised debate'. And of course there were the assassins in Spider-Woman and Wolverine which would only make it look like the Avengers had put a hit out on a world leader.
He was the only one in the room that could go. He had little official ties to the Avengers, and none to the U.S. government. No one could really prove he was acting on anyone's account but his own.
"Are you okay?" Spider-Woman asked.
"I...yeah, just need to lay down for a bit." Spider-man shuffled out of the room in the direction of the infirmary.
"Sir, North Korea would make a threat against us if we pointed a telescope at them." Captain America said on the phone. "I really don't believe they would back up that threat, there's been no indication that they've had any relations with Latveria before this."
"Gonna gut this pig once and for all." Wolverine said.
"I know it ain't supposed ta be our style," said the Thing, "But you'd be doin' the world a favor."
"Sir?" Jarvis called. "I have an unapproved Quinjet ignition in the hangar."
The room fell silent.
"Where's Spider-man?" Iron Man asked.
"Oh shi-I thought he was going back to the infirmary!" Spider-Woman exclaimed.
"Jarvis, shut it down!" Iron Man said.
"I cannot. I am receiving no feedback from the a fore mentioned craft."
"He tore out all the equipment?" Captain Marvel asked.
"Can he fly that thing on his own?" Wolverine asked.
"We're not going to find out." Iron Man said, "Jarvis shut the hangar doors and lock them."
"I'm sorry sir, but I am once again unable to comply." the T.V. feed cut to the camera in the hangar, showing that the open doors had been webbed top to bottom."The craft is launching, sir."
"Oh sunuva- Alright, we've gotta..." Iron Man looked at the faces of his fellow Avengers, "Figure out an excuse for why an 'unmanned' aircraft is heading towards Latverian airspace."
"Accidental launch after we already put in the autopilot navigation?" Captain Marvel said.
"Hm...I'd buy it." Iron Man said, "Steve?"
Captain America looked at him for a moment, then turned his attention back to the phone call, "Mister Secretary, I've just been informed that we've accidentally launched one of our aircraft towards Latveria. It's unmanned and being guided along a pre-established trajectory. We'd like to ask that you put out the request for it not to be shot down, we'll retrieve it once this mess is sorted out."
So there are a few people wanting the Web Head to get a power boost, but I have to ask, doesn't that take away from the character a bit? I mean, his whole thing is about being the weak nerd who is outmatched, but is tenacious and clever enough to be victorious. Looking at his rogues gallery, he doesn't back a number of super powerful lunatics, but there are a few guys that Spidey can't beat by conventional means. Electro and Sandman he practically can't touch, Vulture and any of the Goblins can just fly over the buildings he swings from so he has to lure them down low, and there's Rhino who barely feels his punches. I just like Spider-man's power level where it's at and was wondering how many people agree/disagree.
