Story cover art is by MisconToku, who you can find on Newgrounds.

A/N: Sorry it took so long! This chapter was a monster to get right. It took a whooole lot of editing but I'm finally happy with it! I'm gonna TRY and get these out every two weeks in future but don't panic if it ends up taking another month!

Chapter 9: 'Heart-Shaped Box (Part 2)'

Aunt May wasn't happy, "You still haven't explained why you came back early from school."

I dragged my uncle's black and yellow toolbox out from the cupboard under the stairs, "I told you, I panicked."

"Your spider-sense doesn't just activate for no reason. We've tested it thoroughly. We can even estimate its maximum effective distance. Incidentally the maximum distance isn't even a tenth of the distance from here to Mason Banks."

"I don't know why it flared up, but it did, okay? It just did."

She crouched down beside me, "Peni, what happened? Are you being bullied?"

Yes, but that's not why I came back.

"No."

"You know how important it is to attend school properly."

"I already know everything they're teaching me."

"Peni-"

"Aunt May, please, you don't have to explain it again."

"You can't keep skipping school like this."

"I have to protect the city. New York needs SP/dr."

"New York has an entire police force to deal with crime, Peni. It's not your job to get everything. The only place you have to protect is-"

"Oscorp, yes, I know. I don't see what makes it so special."

"Oscorp built your mech."

"Dad made the mech, they just took the credit."

I opened up the toolbox. I needed a special kind of nanobot, a neuronal nanite. Neuronal nanites are nanobots with a very specific function: to connect one gizmo to another, so that they can communicate wirelessly with zero latency. They can also, if you have the know-how, allow a machine to directly interface with an organic brain without the need for wires or headsets; a bit like telepathy, but between people and machines rather than people and other people. You'd think something that cool would be ubiquitous nowadays - I mean it's, what, the 32nd century? But unlike other nanomachine technology, you can't just casually buy brand new neuronal nanites. The company that produces them has a complete monopoly on the market, so they charge sky-high prices for anyone wanting in on the action. That means only the most high-end products get to enjoy the benefits neuronal nanites offer. Of course, the manufacturer doesn't have to worry about such prices. They can produce as many nanite-heavy products as they want, cos the nanites are actually ridiculously cheap to make. The company's name? You guessed it: Oscorp.

Can't believe I used to think Mr. Osborn was a nice guy.

"Peni are you even listening to me?"

I looked up at Aunt May. She had her arms folded.

"Sorry…"

"I know it's been difficult for you since your father passed away. I understand that fighting crime helps you. But there's a limit. There's a point where it becomes an obsession."

"What's the point in having the mech if I can't use it to help people?"

"You were never meant to have it."

"But I do."

"Yes, you do."

"And I enjoy piloting it. SP/dr and I make a great team."

"I'm not saying you're doing a bad job. I'm just saying you need to rethink your priorities-"

"I can't just let bad guys hurt people, Aunt May. I need to… I need to-"

Make sure that what happened to Dad never happens to anyone else. Ever.

"I know, but you need to go to school, too."

"I don't need to go."

"You do need to go, and if you skip again… I'm going to ground you. Completely. No mech, no crime fighting, nothing."

It felt like a weight had been dropped down into my stomach, "You can't be serious."

"I'm serious. You've been such a well behaved girl that we've never needed to punish you. Ben and I considered grounding you when you skipped the first time, but I told him you were just hurting. I accepted that you needed space, that you were still grieving. But then you never stopped."

"If I'm not out there, people are gonna get hurt, or die."

"You're not god, Peni. You can't save everyone. No more skipping. Not for anything less than an Oscorp alert."

"But Oscorp never gets alerts!"

"I know what I said."

"Aunt May, please-"

"That's final. You can go out and fight crime after school, but during school hours you stay in school. Understood?"

I huffed, "Fine, not that it'll teach me anything useful."

"It's not all about classes. You know that right? You need to make friends, too."

"Where are your friends?"

She paused, "I… we… stay in touch. Work is very demanding at the moment-"

"That's what I thought."

I picked up the toolbox, which was still hanging open, and carried it out to the star-lit backyard without looking back at Aunt May.

I should just tell her the truth and let that stalker try and-

"No! No…"

She could never know the truth. Whoever this person was, they were smart enough to break into the house and leave a message under my pillow without tripping a single alarm. They could easily get to Aunt May.

'There is no escape'… that's what it said.

Even my room wasn't safe. Nowhere was safe. I had no place to hide, and no one to tell. As my feet crunched on the twigs and dead grass at the back of the yard, I closed my eyes and promised myself:

I'll get through this, one way or another. I'm not alone. SP/dr is with me. Dad is with me…

I opened up my mech's entry hatch and stepped inside. It was time to check for bugs - and not the eight-legged kind.

That stalker was listening to me somehow. My words… maybe even my thoughts.

I hadn't considered that the neural amplifiers could've been tampered with. They were old and frayed, the exact same ones my dad used when he piloted the mech. They'd needed replacing for a long time, but I could never bring myself to do it. I'd tweaked so many things, but those glorified headphones… somehow when I wore them, it was like his hands were over my ears, like he was still there in the cockpit with me. One time they got dragged off my head in the heat of battle. There I was, motion sick and dizzy on the cockpit floor while some mad scientist in a power suit threw me off the George Washington Bridge. It nearly killed me - would've got me killed for sure in fact if I hadn't accidentally crashed into a tour ship on the way down (an expensive but life-saving mistake). Even then I didn't replace them.

I could probably leave them as they are. No way anyone could mess with these.

Except this person could. They already got into my room and stalked me all through the school without being noticed. My first thought was that they'd hacked my phone, but I checked it and couldn't find any malicious code.

Either they're in the mech… or they literally read my mind.

I'd seen and read about lots of incredible things, but never had I heard of a mind reader outside of Professor Xavier, and there was no way it was him stalking me… right?

I reached around behind the amplifiers, to where the wires trailed into the back of the seat. The whole thing had to go.

Need to fix the seatbelt too…

SP/dr crawled down my arm and onto the top of my hand.

"Careful, lil' guy, I'm gonna be doing a whole lot of DIY and I don't want you to get hurt."

He didn't seem afraid as I started cutting open the back of the chair with a hard light knife. I uncovered the full length of the neural amplifiers' wiring, right down to where it connected up with the rest of the mech's infrastructure. The heart of the mech was the sync engine, of course, but in the floor was a kind of electromagnetic junction where information could be transferred quickly and easily between systems. That part didn't need to change, but if I wanted to replace the amplifiers, the wiring had to be removed.

I carefully disconnected each wire from its socket and coiled them up around my arm. SP/dr sat on my shoulder, watching the action. Once I'd collected up all the wires I gently detached the headphones from the pilot's chair. They really were beaten up.

You've seen a lot, huh?

I brought them close to my face. I thought maybe they'd smell of him, but they didn't. They just smelled of plastic. With a heavy heart I gave them a little kiss, then I put them in my backpack. Even if I couldn't wear them in the mech, I could still keep them with me.

I'm not abandoning him. I'm just making his design even better. He'd want this.

That's what I told myself as I crouched down and dragged out what was left of the old seatbelt. Like the neural amplifiers it was clearly never intended to be used beyond the prototype phase. It was tech so old even the Millennials had it, just some fabric with a rudimentary brake system. I needed something better. Something modern. I whipped out my phone, ignoring the sense of dread that burned in my throat as I unlocked the screen, and opened up the schematics for a gravity-based anti shock system. Simply put, the electromagnetic energy that kept the mech's limbs in place could be rerouted to hold me in place in the event of a crash - or at least, that was the plan.

"It should be fine… I think."

After I was done fitting the new 'seatbelt' I downed a can of cola (it's always good to have a few lying around, just in case) and started installing the nanite receptors. Nanite receptors, like nanites, were pretty small. They had only one function: to relay patterns sent to them by nearby nanites. Hardware that relied on nanites usually came with built-in translators to make the whole process easier. The human brain wasn't so simple. The mech wasn't so simple, either. To get neuronal nanites to work with something organic you had to train them. You had to teach them to recognize the unique patterns of your specific mind. It was even more complicated in my case, cos I had two minds to work with, which could either make it easier, or a lot harder.

"There."

The receptors were installed in the floor. There was no need for another receptor array because the second receptor was literally my brain. The information would, if everything went right, go from my brain, into the receptors, then into the mech and thus SP/dr's brain. The code to carry that out was all there in the mech, the sync engine was still exactly the same. If the nanites were co-operative, syncing with SP/dr would (in theory) be silky smooth. If they were co-operative…

I hope I'm remembering Anna's instructions right.

Aligning a human brain with nanites was one of the last tricks my old tutor Anna taught me before I joined Mason Banks. Nanites behaved a lot like neurons in the brain. All they did was carry a charge - the actual information was conveyed through the pattern the charge formed in its journey across the neuron cloud. You needed to reinforce the connections you wanted, and ignore the ones you didn't. You needed to ignore when the machinery you were hooked up to started to go wrong, and focus only on the desired outcome, and you needed to do it over and over again. That was when you were working with just one brain.

I took a couple packs of nanites out of Uncle Ben's toolbox. I needed enough to convey complex information quickly. Once released, they'd float around the cockpit and respond to my thoughts. Immediately.

"Alright SP/dr, time to get in your cockpit," I said as I opened up the tiny hatch that led to his specially designed arachnid-friendly cockpit. When we were both in position I cracked open the first box of nanites. They rushed out in a cloud, flickering and sparkling like translucent fireflies.

"Wow…"

Gotta do the second box now.

I released the second swarm of nanites and they quickly dispersed and settled till not a single one could be seen inside the mech. I sat in my chair.

"Well that was easUUHHHHHOWOWOAHHH!"

My mind dipped in and out of the mech. One moment I could feel my human arms, the next I was numb but for SP/dr's mechanical feet. My field of vision expanded and contracted wildly so that from my perspective I was watching the starry sky and the smooth metal floor of my mech at the same time.

Focus.

I closed my eyes and thought about the feeling I had that morning, the feeling of soaring through the air, the wind against my synthetic limbs. I felt my consciousness drain out of my body and fill the mech. I could feel SP/dr within me, a warm feeling in my chest, a tickle of tiny hairs on my arm. He was there. He was me. We were together.

We were one.

Yes, this is it.

I opened my eyes. I saw my cockpit. I saw the trees bristling in the wind in the backyard. I felt the stillness of the air in the mech, and the cool rush of the breeze outside, simultaneously. It was like I was two people at once. Normally that'd be a sign that the sync had failed, but somehow… somehow it felt right, more balanced. SP/dr's mind was as present as my own, as if our bodies had overlapped without splicing our consciousnesses.

That probably did mean the sync failed. But it wasn't a bad feeling. I could get the nanites to correct it, to make it like it was before. As that thought entered my mind I could tell SP/dr would be happy to go along with that.

Hang on. Let me test something…

I stood up in the cockpit and opened the entry hatch. I walked out onto the grass, staring at my aunt and uncle's house. I could still feel the mech's limbs. In my mind's eye I could see myself, standing by a tree, looking across to the house. I tried walking further. The feeling got weaker. I walked about ten paces before finally I couldn't feel the mech's limbs anymore. I half expected to faint, like what normally happened when I got suddenly disconnected from SP/dr. But I didn't faint. I didn't even feel woozy.

I turned and look back at the mech. SP/dr shone an emoji smile at me. I waved at him, and he waved back.

This might actually be better. Like, a lot better.

I ran up to the mech and hopped back in, immediately feeling SP/dr's mind sidle up to my own again. It was like putting on a coat, or a backpack. As soon as I was in range the entire mech was in my consciousness again.

"Amazing…"

I still needed to check for bugs. Checking everything manually would take forever, and I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't miss something small. The only way to know for sure would be to let my mind sink into the mech and feel for any differences.

Leaning my head back against my pilot's chair, I relaxed the muscles in my arms and legs and let my mind wander. I watched SP/dr (the spider) appear before me. He attached little strands of web to my hands and started gently pulling me down, down, down. My feet became numb. Then my knees, my fingertips, my thighs. As my stomach disappeared I started getting new sensations - the pressure of web fluid inside my arms, the tension of the magnetic joints holding my metallic limbs in place. Soon all I could feel was the hum of the mech's electronics. My human body might as well not have existed. It was like before, but much deeper. With the old 'headphone' amplifiers I still had an awareness of myself. Now I'd really become SP/dr.

I drifted along as he guided me through all the little bits and pieces of the mech.

Is this what you feel when you get in your cockpit? I asked him in my thoughts. Though he spoke no words, I felt him say, Yes.

We checked every inch of the mech together, but nothing was out of place. If the stalker really had hacked the mech, they hadn't left any evidence. That, or my hunch about the old amplifiers was right.

It doesn't matter how they did it. They're not gonna get another chance. I'll be watching.

I'd already set up cameras in my room, just in case. I wanted to cover the whole house, but I still needed to keep it a secret from Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Until the stalker was caught, I had to assume he (or she, or whoever it was) could carry out his threat.

[Tell them, and they die]

The stalker hadn't messaged me since I got home.

Is it someone from school? I thought as I went back inside the house with SP/dr on my shoulder, Maybe it's that teacher…

The new teacher was suspicious, but I was with her when one of the messages arrived.

It could be more than one person. It's not hard to fake a phone number.

"Peni!" Aunt May said cheerfully as she sprung at me from round the corner, "I thought we could have some of those veggie burgers you like tonight."

I staggered backwards in surprise, "Aunt May! I didn't… wait, veggie burgers? I thought Uncle Ben hated those?"

"He does, but he won't be back till late."

"Why?"

"He's working on a project. It's top secret."

"Even from me? I literally protect the place."

"You can never be too careful."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Yes, but-"

"But I can't know? That doesn't seem fair to me."

"I'm sure Mr Osborn will tell you about it eventually. Anyway, the veggie burgers, I couldn't get any cheese to put on them but I've got the lettuce."

"No lettuce."

"It's good for you."

"It's gross."

"At least try it. This lettuce is meant to be extra tasty. It's a genetically modified blend of six different lettuces, plus a little jalapeno pepper, to give it a kick."

I sighed, "If I promise to try it will you let me go to my room?"

"I wasn't stopping you," she explained as she stepped aside.

"So I don't have to try it?"

She smirked, "You still have to try it."

"Fiiiineeeee."

"Honestly, you're the only vegetarian I know who doesn't like vegetables."

The hand-written note from the stalker was still there, under my pillow. I had to move it soon, or Aunt May would definitely find it.

No one can know… anyone who knows is in danger.

I pulled out the note: THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM ME, PENI PARKER. Just looking at it made me feel numb.

Need to hide it.

I stowed it under my mattress. Not perfect, but good enough for now. I pulled my phone out of my backpack. Still no new messages. I scrolled through my contacts, thinking of what I'd say if I called them.

Anna, have you ever been stalked before?

Yeah right, like I could be that direct. If I said something like that it'd be as good as putting a crosshair on her head. I started shaking as it sunk in that the stalker had been in my room. They'd had a free run of my entire house, and no one had even noticed. They could've messed with my bed, saw my photos of dad… my underwear.

Please god don't let this person be some kind of pervert.

I still had Dad's old number in my phone. I'd barely ever needed to call it before.

What would you do, Dad?

I could almost hear his voice in my head. He would've believed in me, I knew that much. He would've trusted that I could beat this stalker.

I do have one person I could talk to…

Daredevil. He was there when my dad died, but it's not like we were friends or anything. We just both happened to be fighting the same gigantic dinosaur monster when everything fell apart. I never expected him to come find me months later, while I sat eating lunch on top of a skyscraper. I didn't expect to cry as much as I did, either. In the end he gave me his number and said to call if I ever needed him. It'd been maybe two years since that meeting, and I still hadn't called him.

Maybe now's the time.

I hovered my thumb over the 'dial' button, then-

"Peni! Dinner's ready!"

I hesitated, my voice stuck in my throat. Then I switched off the phone.

"Coming!"

Daredevil would have to wait.

"Is it the lettuce?" Aunt May asked me as I prodded the green leaves littering my veggie burger patty.

"The lettuce is fine."

"You haven't eaten any of it yet."

"It looks fine."

Why would someone wanna stalk me? Do they read Gene Pop?

"You haven't gotta try if it you hate the idea that much."

I picked the burger up, "I'm eating it, okay? Please stop worrying."

The school has top notch security. Even if they snuck in via a window there are cameras everywhere and heat sensors and everything. You couldn't just waltz in. You'd have to be a staff member. So how did the stalker know what I was eating for lunch?

I grimaced. The lettuce was nasty. Aunt May noticed.

"That bad?"

I forced the offending vegetation down my throat, then quickly downed half a glass of soda to cleanse my mouth.

"It's awful," I replied.

"Okay, you can take the rest out. We can try carrots again next time."

"In a burger?"

"No. Unless you think that sounds good?"

"Definitely not."

They must work there. It's the only thing that makes sense. I know my phone wasn't hacked. Or at least, I think so… there was no malicious code, but… no, the phone definitely wasn't hacked, I shouldn't doubt myself. The phone is clean, the mech is clean. I don't think the house is bugged, either - not that I've checked it. But they couldn't have bugged it before breaking in… unless they broke in a long time ago and just waited till now to tell me. How many times have they been in my room without me knowing?

Suddenly I heard a ringing in the hall, shrill and piercing. My whole body jolted in surprise, making me drop my burger onto the plate. Aunt May gave me a funny look, then went to answer the holophone.

"Hello?"

I don't know what I was expecting. There was no reason for me to believe that the stalker would call the home phone rather than message me surreptitiously. But nonetheless there I was, frozen in the dining room, waiting to hear some deep, intimidating voice tell me I was already too late, that Uncle Ben was dead. I couldn't even bring myself to peek round the corner and see who it was.

Thankfully I didn't need to.

"May, I think I left my toolbox at home," came Uncle Ben's voice.

"I could've told you that."

"You knew?"

"You always leave it here."

"…I do?"

She laughed, "Ben Parker, what am I gonna do with you?"

"I always end up with a toolbox when I get here, though."

"That's mine, honey."

"Oh…"

"Don't worry, I can send you whatever you need via the transporter."

"Well, if I've been using your toolbox I don't even know if you have the thing I need."

"A tool's a tool."

"It's not a tool I'm looking for. I had some nanites in there. Brand new."

"Can't you get more from lab storage?"

"Mr. Osborn's the only one with the passcode. You know that."

"What about Toomes?"

"He has the same access I do."

"Really? I thought if Osborn would trust anyone with the code it'd be him."

"Well, you know how it is. He doesn't really do trust. Not after what happened with Anna."

Nanites, huh… like the ones I used in my mech…

I picked up my burger and tiptoed to the edge of the kitchen. My aunt had her back to me, and Uncle Ben wouldn't see me clearly via the holographic connection. I could sneak out before Aunt May asked any awkward questions.

"Peni, did you see your uncle's nanites in that toolbox you took?"

Too late…

"Uh, nope! Didn't see any nanites."

Uncle Ben sighed, "Where the heck did I put them then?"

Aunt May stared holes into my head, "I'm sure we'll find them eventually, Ben."

That meant trouble for me. I stuffed as much burger as I could into my mouth till I looked like a well-fed squirrel, then I dashed up the stairs. As soon as I got into my bedroom I tore off my day clothes, threw on my PJs and jumped into bed. Aunt May couldn't lecture me if I was asleep.

She'll never fall for it.

Luckily for me she never came upstairs, and as exhaustion set in, even my worries couldn't keep me awake. With SP/dr resting peacefully on my forehead, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

An alarm pierced my dreams. I could hear it in my head, feel it between my ears.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

My eyes snapped open. The room was pitch black but for the dim glow of my phone. Red light. The color of danger.

"What the…?"

Then I saw it. ALERT LEVEL 3: a direct attack on Oscorp HQ.

"Wha-!?"

I pushed myself up and jumped out of bed, SP/dr scurrying into the safety of my tousled hair as I quickly changed into my uniform.

"Who the heck would try and attack Oscorp HQ!?"

I yanked my bedroom door open and rushed down the stairs. The mech's domed window gleamed faintly at the back of our yard as I stomped through the grass. I opened it up and hopped in. Immediately the nanites went to work, amplifying the existing psychic connection between SP/dr and I till our consciousnesses overlapped and fell perfectly in sync. Two minds in perfect balance.

They say two is better than one.

And they were right. Inside the mech was where I belonged, not in some classroom or stuck at home. This was what I was meant to be doing. It was Dad's dream, and now it was mine.

"Let's go, SP/dr!"

We, not I, we activated the jet thrusters in our feet, and rocketed into the sky.

"Wooohooo!"

Down 21st street we went, weaving between cars and darting around the neon billboards that jutted out of each and every shopping tower. It was like charging head-first into a rainbow. Amidst the technicolor chaos I saw the Shikishima Building, like a glass knife cutting into the sky. We closed in on the intersection. 21st Street became Astoria Park Street. I turned, aimed for the Shikishima Building. SP/dr took charge and shot a web line onto the skyscraper's glass face. We swooped in, skimming past the crystalline glass, and cannonballed down the road towards Hallets Point Watchtower. The tower wasn't big enough to get us over the river by gliding alone, but with a bit of momentum…

SP/dr calculated the best spot to web and guided my hands as we approached the tower. It was an angular building, like the old Washington Monument from pre-crisis times, but much bigger. The police used it to monitor communications in the city, a fact I knew thanks to overhearing Mr. Osborn chatting with his buddy Adrian Toomes.

Can't believe Aunt May wouldn't tell me what Uncle Ben was working on.

My stomach rumbled.

Breakfast will have to wait, buddy.

What even was the time? In my hurry I hadn't even thought to check. Whatever. It didn't matter. New York City never slept, whether it was day or night. I reached over and found my bag of candy as SP/dr webbed us to the watchtower. Together we pulled ourselves in, gave the rockets some extra thrusting power, then at just the right moment cut the web.

"YES!"

We shot over the river like a bullet. We were headed straight for Yorkville, but we needed to be in Midtown. My phone buzzed in my backpack.

"Why's the alert going off again!?"

As I pulled it out I saw it was Aunt May calling me.

"Peni, where are you-"

Suddenly I realized we were on a collision course with a very sturdy looking statue. If we didn't act fast we'd crash into it.

"Can't talk right now Aunt May!"

SP/dr placed a crosshair on the optimum webbing spot and I shot the line, feeling the web fluid blast out of my metal wrist as if it were my flesh-and-bone arm. We swung and whooshed up between the skyscrapers just in time to avoid disaster.

"Peni!" Aunt May yelled.

"I'm on my way, alright!? I'm going as fast as I can!"

I hung up, stuffed the phone in the backpack and dropped it between my legs.

"God, do they have no patience? I bet Mr. Osborn put her up to that."

He's such a dick. I bet he won't even thank me when I turn up.

In spite of my anger I hurried towards Oscorp HQ. It hadn't been attacked in almost a year - the last time being when Rhino tried to take his grievances with the city's AI-controlled police system straight to the source. He messed up the entire ground floor before I stopped him, but he was an outlier. A lot of people wanted to get to Oscorp. Business rivals, drug cartels, hackers and underworld engineers. Oscorp had its fingers in lots of pies, and everyone wanted a piece. But as hated as Oscorp was, most people weren't stupid enough to mount an attack right on the most heavily guarded property in NYC. Even the president didn't have the kind of equipment Oscorp had. To actually break into Oscorp HQ nowadays you'd need a small army.

And, as I swung down the ever-congested mag-lane on 59th street and Oscorp Tower came into view, that's exactly what I saw.

"No way…"

The street was swarming with soldiers. Like an army of ants they flooded through the tower's security gate and towards the main entrance. We had no time to lose: immediately I cut my web line and crashed down into the fray. They were all around us, yet somehow not a single one of them was coming up on the mech's sensors.

It doesn't matter. I can see them with my eyes. Our eyes.

SP/dr redirected the mech's magnetic energy to our fists. I cracked my knuckles, got into position, and started punching. I swung my arms wildly into the fray, but no matter how hard or fast I punched, none of my strikes seemed to hit. They were always just a few inches too far away. I thought about using the rockets.

No, not on people. At close range like this there's no way they'll survive.

I heard an explosion above me. I looked up and glass was raining down from one of Oscorp Tower's upper floors. Fire streamed out into the night sky, searing orange against pitch black. Then I saw it. Like a spider, crawling out of the window and down the side of the building. It had four legs, long and stringy. In the middle of the legs was what looked like a human. No… not a human…

Is that an android?

My question was answered when a familiar voice hissed through my comms system.

"We meet again, Peni."

My throat closed up.

"O…Otto?"

The man who killed my father. He was destroyed in an explosion. Or at least, I thought he was.

He couldn't have survived. There's no way. We destroyed him. He died, he-

"I'm back to finish what I started."

He leapt off the wall and charged at me. Without thinking I fired off a round of rockets. He disappeared into the throng of soldiers.

"Damn it!"

But the rockets kept on going. With nothing to stop them they ripped into Oscorp Tower and exploded in a thunderous ball of fire and smoke.

I'll worry about that later, for now-

There he was again, in the corner of my vision. I span around. SP/dr scanned the crowd but Otto was as invisible to my scanners as the soldiers were.

"Show yourself, Otto!"

He did, launching into the air and hurling his mechanical tentacles in my direction. I fired another rocket but it missed again.

"How!?"

Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light in front of me. I covered my eyes. SP/dr took over, scanning the area with the mech's sensors. Sure enough they picked up enemy units, and lots of them. The soldiers had finally decided to take me down. I felt SP/dr reassure me.

You're right. We can do this.

And so we pushed forward. Using SP/dr's vision, shown to me in my minds eye, I punched through the soldiers. This time the punches hit, and hit hard. With just a single strike the soldiers went flying across the street.

"Are you really gonna make everyone else do your dirty work, Otto? Too afraid to fight a twelve year-old girl one on one?"

"I have no desire to waste my time crushing insects. Osborn will pay for his crimes, and you will not stop me."

I reached the Oscorp Tower entrance. Though my eyes were still closed, I could tell through my spider-sense that there weren't any threats nearby.

Did he run away?

"Where are you hiding, Otto!?"

He laughed, "Open your eyes, child. I'm right in front of you."

I opened them and sure enough there he was, a metal man hooked up to four cybernetic tentacles. His eyes glowed molten red in the darkness. From what I could see he didn't have a mouth, or ears, or any human features at all save his artificial voice, which was still full of the same cold arrogance I remembered from years ago.

I gritted my teeth, "I'm not letting you get away this time."

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice."

He started to fade away into a cloud of smoke.

"NO!"

I fired all the rockets I had left right at him. They passed through the smoke and coiled together as they closed in on the front door. When they exploded they exploded simultaneously. The force sent me flying across the street, through the air, straight into another skyscraper. I fell down and crashed face-first into the road. Somehow the glass didn't crack. Nor did my new electromagnetic seatbelt, which was trying its best to pancake me against my pilot's chair.

"Ugh…"

The comms crackled into life again.

"What is the meaning of this!?"

"…Mr. Osborn?"

He sounded angry. Really angry.

I pushed the mech upright and saw more soldiers. Except these soldiers had the Oscorp logo on their armor.

"You better have a damn good explanation for blowing up half of my building!"

I couldn't believe my ears. He was criticizing me for defending his company?

"You sent the alert! Look at all the soldiers I took out for you!"

"Yes, my soldiers! Oscorp soldiers!"

"They were shooting your building!"

"No, YOU were shooting my building! The alert woke me up! I expected a super-villain, instead I got one of my own goddamn employees!"

I could feel myself start to sweat, "You need to chase Otto. He's back. He's the one that brought the soldiers here."

"What the hell are you talking about!? Peni, Otto's dead. There are no soldiers here apart from our soldiers. What about that do you not understand!? You're lucky you didn't kill anyone!"

"I know what I saw!"

"Nothing! Nothing is what you saw!"

"Look at the security cameras! He was right there!"

I heard a frustrated intake of breath, "He wasn't."

"I told you, check the cameras!"

"I don't need to. The security guards had a front row seat for your nonsense."

"But… there weren't any security guards…"

I started to feel dizzy. As I looked out of the mech's window I saw the soldiers I'd defeated strewn across the road. Sure enough, every one of them had the Oscorp logo on their uniforms.

That's impossible… I saw them attacking the building… I saw Otto.

I held my head in my hands.

SP/dr, help me. What happened? You saw them, right?

He did. He saw them just the same as me. But then again we were psychically linked.

How…

A knock on the window startled me out of my introspection. It was Aunt May. I didn't open the hatch.

"What are you doing here?" I asked through the mech's speakers.

"What are you doing here young lady? One minute you're fast asleep, the next you're blowing up Oscorp?"

"There was an alert."

"We all get notified of an alert, Peni. There was no alert."

"I'm not lying!"

"Peni-"

"I'm NOT lying! There was an alert! Do you really think I came here and did all this for no reason?"

"Just open the door."

Suddenly the soldiers all moved aside. One by one they saluted as someone made their way through the path they'd opened up.

Ugh… great, now Mr. Osborn is here in person…

He banged the mech's window with his fist, "Open the hatch this instant!"

Realizing that I had no choice, I opened the hatch. I braced myself for him to storm in, but he just stared at me.

"Get out here. Now."

I did as I was told, releasing SP/dr from his separate cockpit and placing him gently on my shoulder. As I stepped out onto the cracked and beaten sidewalk and felt the humid air on my skin, I thought about what Aunt May said just a few hours earlier.

I can't afford to get grounded. If I had to go without the mech, I don't know what I'd do…

But it looked like that was exactly what was gonna happen. Mr. Osborn glared at me silently, arms folded, fury radiating from every inch of his being. Aunt May was the same, maybe less angry, maybe more disappointed.

It's not even my fault.

When he spoke it was through gritted teeth, "Do you know how much it's gonna cost to repair this damage?"

I looked down at my feet. I wouldn't even know where to begin answering that.

"That's easily a million dollars worth of repairs, assuming the equipment inside the floors you blasted wasn't totally destroyed."

"I didn't mean to-"

"You didn't mean to!? What did you intend to happen when you fired explosive rounds at my building?"

"I had to stop Otto."

"Look, Otto was never here. He's dead. Long dead."

"I know what I saw."

He sighed in exasperation. Aunt May crouched down to my level, "Peni, why did you do all this?"

"I got an alert on my phone, I swear. It woke me up."

She looked at me, serious and focused, the city lights sparkling in her eyes like distant stars. For a moment it felt like she was looking inside me, like she could read my mind.

"I believe you," she finally said, "but the fact is, there was no alert. If you'd waited, if you'd just listened to me when I called you, none of this would've happened."

She was right. But at the same time…

"If you believe me, then you know he's out there, right? I wasn't imagining all that."

Before I could say any more she pulled me in for a hug.

"The mind is a strange thing, Peni," she said softly, "it's easy to make mistakes when you're tired and stressed."

I pushed her away, "I'm not crazy."

Mr. Osborn cleared his throat, "May, can I have a moment?"

He took my aunt aside while his armed entourage watched over me. SP/dr watched Mr. Osborn from atop my shoulder. I could feel his rage.

Don't worry about him, SP/dr. It doesn't matter what he thinks. We'll get to the bottom of this, one way or the other.

When they came back I already kinda knew what to expect. That didn't make it any easier, though.

"From now on," Mr. Osborn began, "you are banned from piloting the mech without supervision from Oscorp staff. You will allow my staff to monitor your movements while on duty, and you will obey any commands they give you."

"You've gotta be kidding me!"

"Where possible I'll put your Aunt and Uncle in charge, but you will answer to whoever I appoint to look after you."

"That's not fair!"

He pointed his finger right at my nose, "You don't get to complain! You do as I say or you'll never pilot that mech again."

"It's my mech!"

"It's mine. You're merely renting it. May, take her back home. I have some phone calls to make."

Aunt May grabbed my hand and started dragging me to her car.

"Wait! What about the mech?"

"It'll be waiting for you at Oscorp tomorrow."

"But I ride it to school!"

"Mr. Osborn wanted to keep it for tonight. If I pushed the issue he might have taken it away from you forever. Trust me, this is for the best."

"This is so unfair."

"We can talk about it in the car," she said, but as soon as the door closed behind me any conversation that could've been had was stifled by a suffocating silence.

I leaned the side of my head against the backseat window as we floated away. I was so tired. I wanted to cry. SP/dr climbed onto my cheek and stroked the little hairs on my face with his legs. It tickled, and for a moment I smiled, even as bitter tears began to work their way down my face.

It's not fair. I did my job, didn't I? I thought I was meant to respond to Oscorp alerts.

But those soldiers were wearing Oscorp uniforms. I basically beat up Mr. Osborn's security staff. No one else saw Otto, either.

He looked real. Sounded real…

Did I really imagine it? The possibility swam through my mind as we glided across the Queensboro Bridge, away from Manhattan and into Long Island City. The more I thought about it, the more my stomach churned with anxiety. If I could imagine that, what else could I imagine? What if I ended up killing someone because of something I saw?

No… I would never kill anyone.

If I did imagine it, then how? I've never hallucinated like that before. Then a thought occurred to me.

That guy the other day… the one who disappeared after I caught up with him… did I imagine him, too?

No, the police were chasing him before I was. The radio said it loud and clear: he was stealing from Bellevue.

What was he stealing? Did he steal hypnotics? Did he… use them on me?

Impossible. There was no way someone could drug me. I was in school the whole time after that car chase. Although the stalker did get into my room without me noticing…

The stalker. The stalker did this.

I checked my phone. No new messages.

I know you did this. I just don't know how.

I wiped my eyes. Suddenly I didn't feel so guilty.

"I know I'm not crazy."

Aunt May looked over her shoulder, "Did you say something, Peni?"

Oh crap… I said that out loud.

"No… nothing…"

It was almost 3am. That's what my phone told me as I stared once again at Daredevil's phone number.

I should sleep.

There was no way I was gonna be able to sleep, and I knew it.

I should call Daredevil.

Except it was the middle of the night. I rolled onto my back and sighed.

I'm letting the stalker get to me.

And now it wouldn't be just the stalker. Once the news sites found out I half blew up Oscorp they'd be all over it like a fungus in a petri dish. I swiped over to the Spacebook app.

Don't do it.

I clicked. Immediately my screen was inundated with fake pictures of me gleefully punching my way through unarmored security guards. One of them was even holding a donut.

"At least that part's accurate…"

I can't leave it like this. I have to do something…

I swiped back to Daredevil's number again.

"The stalker couldn't hurt him… right?"

Right?

I tapped the call button. It rang once. Twice. Suddenly anxiety surged through me, ice cold, filling up my lungs, weighing down my stomach. I quickly hung up and dropped the phone onto the bed, my hands covered in sweat.

I can't get him involved. I can't get anyone involved. It has to be me. One way or another, I have to do it on my own.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled the covers up to my chin and wrapped my arms over my chest.

I can do this. We can do this. SP/dr and me, we-

The phone buzzed and I jerked so hard in surprise that I threw half the bed covers off of me.

I don't wanna know who that is.

But I had to check. I picked the phone up again and unlocked the screen. One new message from an unknown sender.

It's him.

The message simply said, [Can't sleep?]

"Leave me alone!" I hissed, and in a blind rage threw my phone across the room. It thumped into the wall, leaving a crack in the paint, then clattered to the wooden floor. The phone was undamaged.

"Stupid titanium casing."

I heard footsteps from across the hall.

"Peni? What happened?" came Aunt May's voice through my door.

I managed to force myself to reply, "N-Nothing! I just… dropped my phone."

"Go to sleep, sweetie. You've still got school tomorrow."

"I know…"

I stared at the phone. It buzzed again. And again. I dragged the covers over my head and buried my face in my pillow.

Then the phone started ringing.

"No no no no no no no!"

I quickly snatched it up and answered it, "Hello?"

"Peni?"

I lowered my voice, "…Daredevil?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah I, it was a mistake, I accidentally called, it's nothing, it's-"

"It's three in the morning and you're still up."

"I sleep late."

"You sound anxious."

I heard Aunt May moving around in her bedroom.

"I'm fine," I whispered, creeping back over to my bed, "I swear."

He paused, "…okay… if you're sure-"

"I'm sure. Don't worry."

I hung up before he could say any more. The house fell silent. The little mail symbol at the top of my screen told me I had two new messages. My fingers were leaving sweat-prints all over the phone.

"It's gonna be the stalker, isn't it?" I said to SP/dr, who was resting on the tip of my nose. My chest felt tight. I noticed that I was holding my breath.

"It's just a text message," I sighed, "just words on a screen."

With a trembling finger I opened up the messages. I didn't expect what I saw.

"Cindy!?"

[Hey Peni, I can't sleep. You up?]

It was her all right. I scrolled back up through our chat history just to be sure.

It's her.

Any relief I felt vanished when I read her second message.

[Something strange is happening to me… I know it's late but I…I can't tell anyone else. I'm not sure I can even come into school like this…]

I replied, [What's wrong? Are you okay?]

Immediately she started typing a response.

[For a while now I've had these wrist pains. I figured it was just cos I was gaming too much or something, you know? But then after I got back from school… I don't know how to explain it, but it's… this stuff came out of my hands. Like string, but sticky. I couldn't control it. I got it all over my desk. I tried to wipe it off but I couldn't get rid of it]

[Oh my god]

[It was nasty. But… then it all just kinda dissolved a few hours later. Am I going crazy? What's wrong with me? You don't get anything like this, right?]

I swallowed air, [No, nothing like that]

Cindy's got… powers?

I typed another message, [Do your parents know?]

[No.]

[Do you want them to?]

A pause, then, [No]

I rolled onto my side, [Do you wanna walk to school together tomorrow?]

[Walk to school…? Why?]

[I know a place that might be able to help]

[For real!?]

[You'll have to get up early though]

[Peni, have you seen the time? I'm not gonna be sleeping tonight]

I laughed. She was right. I probably wasn't gonna be sleeping either. SP/dr crawled down onto the bed and perched himself beside my phone.

"Is it me, or did life just get a lot more complicated all of a sudden?"