Chapter 7

Wow, COVID-19 is affecting us more than I expected. I thought sci-fi novels had taught us to prepare for the worst with these things . . . And somehow, now that my university has switched to online coursework for the rest of the semester, I feel like I have less time to write than ever. This is not a good time.

And I also forgot to make some mysterious comment about last Friday being the 13th. While the real world is having bad luck, poor Pete is too. We're getting to the climax (or maybe a climax . . .?)

Peter surveyed the city through the lenses of his mask.

It was up here, towering above the streets, crouching in the cool air but still with the glass of his goggles between him and everything else. It was up here that everything was clear.

Peter admitted he felt better behind the mask. It wasn't because of the mask though, at least, not exactly. It was the lenses that comforted him. He had grown up wearing glasses after all. Putting on the mask reminded him of easier days when he had only dreamed of doing something this great. He had imagined it, not quite like this, but he had imagined general scenarios, witty statements, changing the world for the better.

Putting on the mask wasn't really like stepping into another persona. For him, it was more like coming home. He could be the person he had dreamed of being. The mask broke the barrier that had restrained him back when he thought he was just another nerdy nobody. It was an unleashed version of Peter Parker.

That's what he was relishing now. That feeling of identity, of being Peter Parker. He didn't really know how much of him was Otto Octavius, but being Spider-Man was definitely not from him. It was entirely Peter Parker's idea.

Peter sighed. He wished that conclusion was perfect, but he was ignoring something. Reading the files Octavius had left him showed that Octavius also had a similar desire to be great. Everything he had hoped to do would have been grand and life-changing. And then he had strived to reach those goals.

But Octavius had lost his way. He had lost his moral compass, instead heading straight for whatever would bring him glory. He no longer cared what he did so long as people knew he did it.

And Octavius certainly hadn't imagined dialogues of witty banter in his youth. His speech was bland, whereas Peter's was full of phrases he'd been stocking up since he had learned about puns at the age of seven.

"Yo, Spidey, we got a hot one near Stuyvesant!"

Peter squinted at the bright flying light that was Nova. "Cops say 'we got a hot one'. We're not cops."

"So? We catch bad guys like cops. Our costumes are our badges."

"Our costumes are many things, but I don't know if respectable is one of them."

"Just come on."

Letting himself fall, Peter swung in the specified direction. It was strange. Somehow, in the days since he'd humiliated himself at Harry's party, he'd felt better about everything. Conversation came easier to him. But now everyone else sounded strained around him.

Yes, Peter understood he had made some bad choices that night. He had nearly exposed his secret. He had nearly hurt Flash. Who knew what else he might have done if Sam and Ava hadn't intervened?

Yet mingled with the guilt and the shame, there was peace. It was like he had finally gotten through the worst of whatever sort of funk he had been in. He finally realized that he had let his connection to Octavius disable him worse than Doctor Octopus had ever been able to manage. His friends had been right. It didn't really change anything.

But gosh, Aunt May was right; he was hardheaded sometimes. It had taken such a potentially disastrous situation to make him realize something that they'd been telling him all along.

Peter flipped to a landing on a streetlamp, surveying the street. The Trapper was rushing down the road, arms laden with bags of money and a massive glue gun.

This was going to be an easy day.

Peter waited patiently for the rest of his team to arrive at the scene before shooting a web at the Trapper's feet. He fell flat on his face. Peter snorted before he spoke into his communicator.

"Nova, Danny, and I will distract him. Ava will sneak around and take him down. Luke, you'll free us if he glues us. We're not going to get trapped this time."

The affirmatives came through as Peter jumped down in front of the Trapper. Ava took a position behind the Trapper. Peter shot a web at the bag of cash, securing it to the ground.

"Hey, Trapper, long time no see. I didn't know you were still sticking around New York."

White Tiger's head didn't tilt the way it usually did when she rolled her eyes at his puns. She hardly gave him her opinions now. Peter knew she felt guilty for sending him over the edge that night. He had tried to tell her that he was the only one responsible for his own choices, but that hadn't helped. She had said something about being tired of his responsibility spiel. Peter hadn't known what else to say.

The Trapper groaned. "I shoulda known it was you. Why can't some other hero pick on me for once?" He pushed himself up fairly quickly for a man with a large vat of glue on his back, shooting wildly before he even looked up. His gun was shooting more glue than usual, making it harder to dodge. The Trapper had apparently tried to improve since he had last terrorized the streets. Such relentless ambition would have been admirable if it hadn't still resulted in him being the Trapper. No logical person in their right mind would try to be a supervillain with a glue gun.

Although, now that Peter thought about it, he went around as a superhero with sticky webs. Maybe he wasn't entirely in his right mind now, but he had considered himself sane when he first became Spider-Man.

God, all these similarities between him and villains.

He was just going to focus on this confrontation right now.

"We pick on all bad guys. That's just how things work," Sam said as the volley slowed. He flew in close and charged up a ball of energy. "You should have thought about that before you became a bad—Oh, come on!" A glob of glue covered his fist before he could shoot. The momentum pushed his arm up, sticking his hand to his helmet.

Peter laughed. "Hey, you've improved your aim, Trapper. You came so close to gluing his mouth shut."

"I was trying to glue your mouth shut!" Trapper snarled. He turned his gun on the rapidly approaching Iron Fist, catching one of his feet to the asphalt.

Peter grimaced. "Oh, in that case, you're as awful as ever."

"You're the absolute worst!"

"I am rubber, you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!" Peter taunted back, snickering at his own joke.

He'd been dying to say that since their last fight.

"Wow, real original, Web-Head," Nova said from the entrance to an alley where Luke was trying to separate his hand from his head. "By the way, this glue doesn't melt, and it's not coming off."

"That's 'cause it's not glue!" Trapper announced proudly. "That's a new polymer! It needs high heat and pressure to melt! You're not getting out of it in regular atmospheric pressure!"

"Thanks for the info. Powerman, squeeze the glue while Sam melts it! That should do the trick!" Peter called over his shoulder.

The Trapper snarled and redoubled his rate of fire. The glue (polymer, whatever) was starting to splatter everywhere. This was exactly what Fury had warned him about the first time. Ava was about to make her move though, so as long as he kept the Trapper focused on him, things would go smoothly. Besides, his spider-sense made it easy to dodge the shots.

Spluuurpp!

Of course, it didn't often foresee where he stepped.

Peter pulled on his leg, but it was stuck fast to the street. He looked back at the Trapper. Ava was already on the Trapper, swiping at the reservoir of glue on his back. She punched a hole in it and ducked down, swinging her leg around to kick him off his feet. She succeeded, but found her own leg stuck to the Trapper's. She fell with him.

"Did you cover yourself in glue?" she asked incredulously.

"It's polymer!" The Trapper propped himself up on an elbow and aimed the nozzle at her.

To Peter's relief, Nova swooped in then, blasting the gun out of the Trapper's hand. He grabbed White Tiger, lifting her up so the Trapper was dangling upside down. Peter took the opportunity to web the Trapper's hands together. Nova let White Tiger down then, working to separate them. Luke came in to help. It didn't take long for them to free Danny and Peter too.

"Nice going, Web Head. You dodged all his shots only to step into it yourself," Sam snorted.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Says the guy who had his fist glued to his head."

Sam acted mostly the same way around Peter, but there was one small difference since that night. He almost seemed to have a little respect for Peter now, as if getting yourself blackout drunk was a rite of passage in his eyes. But then, it might be. He had spent several years around the questionable role models that were the Guardians of the Galaxy.

"There's definitely less collateral damage today though," Luke said. "The Trapper may have a weird taste in weapons, but at least we don't have to chase him around like Batroc."

Peter didn't really remember, but Luke had helped carry him back home that night. He had also been a great listener. Luke was the most unbiased person Peter knew. When Peter didn't want to burden May with everything, when he didn't want Sam's unhelpful comments, Luke was the only one he was really honest with. Luke hardly batted an eye no matter what dark thoughts Peter threw at him.

"I just can't believe he put glue on his clothes," Ava commented. "Why would he want us to get stuck to him? He's not nearly strong enough to drag us along. And we could have just stuck him to the ground if we had known."

Sam shrugged. "I don't complain when the bad guys make our job easier."

"It makes our job more annoying," Ava argued. "We try to predict what they do, but we'll always be surprised if they go with the most illogical choices!"

Danny nodded sagely. "Never argue with an imbecile. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."

"Thank you, Iron Fist," Peter said. "See? That's why I try not to argue with Nova."

"Wait, I don't get it," Sam said. "What experience does the imbecile have?"

Ava snorted. "Exactly."

Danny had always been their resident Giver of Wise Advice. Peter hadn't always bothered to decipher his words. He hadn't always been able to, if he was honest. But now that he had spent a lot of time in his head, he understood and appreciated Danny's words a lot more. Danny always knew exactly the right phrase to say. In fact, now that Peter was paying more attention, he realized that Danny sometimes had wit to rival his own. Some things he said were very well disguised jokes and sarcasm. It was to be admired that he said it all with a straight face.

The police were already beginning to arrive by the time they left. It was a Saturday, which was one of the team's busiest days. They patrolled most of the day, and were on call for the rest of the time. But it never really felt like work. They were a bunch of teens running and jumping around a city stopping crime. People played video games like that for hours.

It was pretty enjoyable if you ignored the danger some villains posed, but truly dangerous villains didn't come around often.

They stopped for dinner at some point as the sun set. It wasn't as late as it sounded. Winter was approaching. It was always Peter's least favorite time of year. It was cold and night came far too early. Going on patrol in the winter was just awful. No amount of thermal spandex or night vision goggles made it any better. And winter meant midterms too. It just was not a great season.

But night was pretty good. Nights were alive in New York, and the extended hours of darkness really made the winter shine. That's why it was always a unanimous decision to rest on a rooftop after dinner. They would sit and chat for a short while, the city lights twinkling all around them. If they chose a tall enough building, the lights would be a dazzling sea below them. If they chose a shorter building, like tonight, then the lights became a starry sky all around them.

It was the best part of their weekend patrols.

It was a shame it was also the shortest part.

"Where do you guys want to head next?" Peter asked as he joined the others in standing and stretching.

"Let's go down to Times Square," Sam suggested.

Ava shook her head. "We go there all the time when the Christmas season starts. We should patrol Central Park. There's still a lot of people going through there."

"What about the new path along the Hudson ?" Luke asked. "That's been getting a lot of tourists."

Peter considered the options. Aside from the Trapper, it had been a fairly slow day. The best plan was probably to split up and—

He froze.

He didn't yell the word, or whisper it, or splutter it. He just said the answer to the question in his mind.

Was he seeing what he was seeing?

"No."

Danny looked curiously at Spider-Man. The rest of the team looked confused too. Peter rarely shot down their suggestions just like that. He usually chose one of them, or at the very least made a compromise. He always found balance. That's what made him a good leader.

It was always hard to tell with their masks on, but Danny had a feeling that Peter wasn't looking at any of them, but past them. There was a change in energy too. Peter had quickly gone from relaxed and easygoing to as tense as Principal Coulson when he spoke about the school budget.

This would not be the first time that one of them saw something awful before the rest of them.

Danny turned around, eyebrows raising.

An Octobot was peeking up at them from the edge of the roof.

"No," Peter repeated, voice growing harder with every word. "You're not supposed to be here. What do you want?"

The rest of the team turned as they realized Peter wasn't addressing them. Luke and Sam stepped forward menacingly. Ava hung back. Danny thought she looked almost more tense that Peter, as if she had also been dreading such an encounter.

The Octobot stood taller on its four tentacle legs. From its single green eye, a three-dimensional image was projected in front of it. The figure was hardly a third of its original scale.

Doctor Octavius flickered before them.

"I had assumed you would realize the benefits of my alliance by now," he said disappointedly. "I am here to save your life after all."

"You say that like it's so altruistic," Peter responded coldly. "But you still think I'm some sort of extension of you. You're just here to save yourself. News flash: I'm not—"

"Will you stop acting like a victim of a nonexistent crime?" Octavius snapped. "If it makes you feel better, this also concerns the world's safety as well. Honestly," he huffed. "I may consider myself integral to humanity's future, but I am not so naïve as to think I am the center of the universe."

Peter scoffed, folding his arms. "Right, so what's got your panties in such a bunch?"

"Just another plot for world domination, if you're interested."

Dear readers, I have a question. Now that Otto is back in the picture, where would you like to see him end up? Should this be a redemption fic? Or should he remain a cranky old villain? I'm willing to go either way.

I wish you the best of health! If you're stuck at home because of the virus, thanks for reading this story to beat the boredom!