Author's Note: I own nothing.
7 A Bit of Backstory
It didn't take much convincing to get this Spiderman to listen to her. He introduced himself as Spider-Punk, she introduced herself in kind as Spidergirl. He and his two bandmates, as they introduced themselves, led her to a bunker near Queens. Neither of the bandmates seemed to trust her very much but Spider-Punk seemed to at least want to listen to her. They sat down in what could only be called an interrogation room. But no one had put cuffs on her yet. Spider-Punk sighed.
"Start at the beginning, how come you're like me?" Piper sighed and tapped the spider symbol on her chest, the nanobot suit retracted, leaving her in the dress she'd worn to her graduation. It wasn't exactly overly fancy but it was a bit much for the circumstances. It was a bright emerald green dress with short sleeves and just a little bit of sparkle. Way too fancy for what was by all appearances an Osborn ruled world.
"Well that's a bit of a long story. My name's Piper Parker. I'm from New York, but not this New York. The one I'm from never had Obey Osborn flags." Spider-Punk nodded.
"Yeah, we're working on those. So you're from another universe?" Piper nodded.
"Oh good you're familiar with the concept." Punk laughed and pulled off his mask.
"More than I'd like to be. My name's Hobie, Hobie Brown." He stretched out a hand and Piper shook it. Under the mask he wasn't at all what she'd been expecting. He was rugged, though he couldn't have been a day older than twenty. His dark skin shone with a few small scars, though they were all pretty minor. His deep brown eyes had the look of someone who had seen far too much in their lives. "But really though how'd you wind up a spider?"
"Come on Harry! It'll be so much fun! You can't tell me you're not excited!" Piper bounced in her bus seat, almost losing her glasses. Harry snorted.
"In fact I can, come on you wouldn't be excited if we were on a field trip to your dad's work." Harry pointed out. A derisive laugh echoed from a few seats in front of them.
"Puny Parker doesn't have a father Osborn." Flash laughed at his own joke. Harry nearly rose from his seat but Piper caught his arm.
"It's not worth the fight Harry." She shook his head at his friend as she straightened her glasses. It didn't take long for the bus to pull up to Oscorp. They were greeted at the door by one of the receptionists who smiled at them directing them to pick up their badges. Piper and Harry stuck close together through the majority of the tour. That was until they reached the DNA research level. Piper had a special interest in this level, having recently become friendly with Dr. Bruce Banner when the scientist and the rest of the Avengers had moved into Stark Tower.
"We're doing some fascinating research here, recently our scientists have developed a set of six super spiders, by combining and enhancing the DNA of these spiders we hope to utilize them for the betterment of mankind." Piper leaned in closer to the cases.
"What good can a spider do for mankind?" Harry asked under his breath. Piper frowned.
"Um doctor?" She called out to their current tour guide, one of the scientists on this level. The scientist smiled.
"Yes?"
"There's only five spiders in these containers." The scientist frowned at Piper's words and stepped over to the containers. Her frown grew deeper when she spotted that Piper was right.
"One of the other scientists must have taken it out to work on it." She commented, though there was frustration under her words as if she was often left out of decisions like this. She stepped away from the containers and over to a projection set up. "If you'll all gather around we'll watch a quick presentation." Piper stepped over to the group, only to trip over Flash's extended foot. Most of the group laughed as the chaperon halfheartedly reprimanded Flash. Piper scrambled for her glasses, without which she was basically blind and didn't spot the spider crawling near them. It leapt onto her hand as she finally grabbed them and shoved them back onto her face. As she made to stand a sharp pain lanced into her hand and she swore under her breath. Glancing down at it she spotted a spider on the back of her hand. She shook her hand sending the offending arachnid flying.
"But it was too late, it had already bitten me. Three years later here I am." Hobie nodded.
"Damn, that's… not how it happened to me." He commented lightly.
"How'd you wind up a wall crawler?" Piper asked. They had migrated from the interrogation room to something that served as a kitchen, it was a bit sparce but for a bunker kitchen it could have been worse.
"Well when Osborn was elected president…"
"Wait Norman Osborn was elected president! That's messed up." Piper commented.
"Oh, so you've met him?" They both laughed lightly. "Yeah, it went bad fast. He rolled back a bunch of environmental protections and ended up using the East river as his personal radiation dumping ground. I got bit by a spider who'd been exposed. Decided to do something good with it. We got him out of office recently, but there's still a lot of damage to work through. His V.E.N.O.M. Agents have gone totally rouge." Piper shuddered at the mention of Venom.
"I'm guessing your Venom isn't a parasitic symbiote?"
"Well Osborn and his cronies didn't call it that, but that's pretty accurate. They're not too hard to beat, they don't like noise." He patted a guitar strung over his shoulder. Piper laughed.
"Yeah, mine doesn't like noise too much either, though chemistry is better for beating mine." Hobie shrugged.
"That's never been my forte. I'm more of a music man." Piper nodded.
"Nothing wrong with that." She took the water bottle he handed her. "I'll be honest though, I'm sort of glad my Norman Osborn just turned into a bloodthirsty insane monster. I really couldn't picture him as president." Hobie raised an eyebrow.
"You sure there's a real difference?" Piper snorted, nearly sending water spewing across the kitchen.
"Well you're not wrong." But before they could say more alarms began to blare. The girl from before, Hobie's drummer, stuck her head around the corner.
"We got a sighting of something big downtown!" Hobie nodded and pulled his mask back on. Piper tapped the spider symbol hanging around her neck and her suit blossomed into place.