Welcome back to our weekly scheduled program! Another, much more exciting chapter headed your way :) We get a new character and our villain for the rest of the story! Get ready for some action, quips, worried Tony, and a hint of whump on top 😈
No trigger warnings! Just stay safe and have fun ❤️️ 💛💚💙💜
Chapter Two: Triple J
"Ring ring, Team Spidey is complete and your personal Guy and Gal in the Chair are at your service! How may we be of assistance on this fine December afternoon?" Ned prompts when Peter's suit is online. Peter swings in the general direction of The Daily Bugle.
"What's your hourly rate? Just 'cause I'm a superhero doesn't mean I'm made of money," he jokes back as Karen silently highlights the optimal route.
"No exceptions and no substitutions," MJ chimes in. Peter openly laughs while Ned decides to sigh dramatically instead.
"That was the perfect opportunity to make a Genie reference. Y'know, 'no substitutions, exchanges, or refunds!'" Ned easily quotes.
"Except for the fact that you're plagiarizing Aladdin. But sure, let's just ignore the fact that Disney will sue us," MJ counters, then gives her attention back to Peter. "The cops aren't on scene yet. Seems like The Daily Bugle is going through a rough patch, too."
"Rough how?" Peter inquires as the tall, former Goodman Building now housing The Daily Bugle newspaper company comes into view. Luckily, the building is barely five minutes from the Tower and Peter doesn't have to sit through afternoon traffic.
"Papers aren't selling as well as they used to. With technology slowly taking over mankind and all," MJ explains bluntly. "Who needs a newspaper when everything is digitally archived on a pocket computer? Turns out they're next best option has been..." she trails off as she finishes reading the information off the screen, "you." Peter's lenses widen.
"Me?" he repeats, not quite understanding what he has to do with any of this.
"Yeah, you. Well, not Peter Parker you, but, like, Spider-Man you," Ned clarifies
"Apparently they've been trying to nail a good photo of you for a while. Hasn't worked. Their front pages usually consist of blurry, blown up photos of you swinging through the air." As MJ finishes relaying the information, Peter lands near the front doors of the building.
"Great, I'm flattered," Peter responds sarcastically. "So, we're just gonna assume they're throwing a fit because they couldn't get a picture of my good side? Oh, by the way, the front doors of this place were smashed out of existence." The once glass doors have been reduced to broken shards strewn across the ground.
"I tapped into the security cameras, looks like some crazy dude in an armored bodysuit is attacking some workers in the...editorial offices on the eighteenth floor," Ned cuts back in with his useful information. Peter immediately shoots a web from each of his wrists and starts propelling himself up the side of the building.
"Looks like we're going up, Karen," he says as he speeds upwards.
"I see. I have highlighted which window you need to go through, according to the surveillance," Karen informs as a window not too far above Peter becomes outlined in a vibrant, electric blue.
"Thanks! I was worried I was gonna have to start counting windows." Karen also pulls up the security footage on Peter's HUD so that he can see what's going on.
"There are multiple workers on that floor, but the suspect doesn't seem to be focused on them. Instead, the suspect is swiping employee desks out of the way with their tail." Peter almost loses grip on his webs at Karen's choice of words.
"Excuse me?" Peter questions, dumbfounded.
"Their tail?!" Ned exclaims, his eyes wide with shock. MJ, being the most perceptive, asks for clarification.
"A fake tail or...?" she prompts.
"It's unclear," Karen answers with a tinge of regret.
"Great, we either have a mad scientist playing with robotics or the science experiment gone wrong. Place your bets now, folks!" Peter keeps his voice lighthearted to prepare for the upcoming fight. When he lands on the outside glass of the 18th floor, he engages Droney. "Okay, Droney, we'll go in together. Can you scope out the room to get me some better info? See if you can get a facial recognition on who the bad guy is and what he's after. Ready?" Droney hovers at Peter's eye level and beeps in confirmation. Peter nods before leaning backwards and kicking through the window. The glass shatters around him and he lands on the carpeted floor in a wide, combat-ready stance. Droney flies above him to get farther into the room.
The room is in absolute shambles. Desks have been pushed out of the way, with some even being flipped. Papers are scattered across the floor and multiple computer screens have been broken. In the center of it all is a man with wide, crazed eyes. He has on a full-body, metallic mesh suit composed of what looks to be layers of metal and leather. His face is obstructed by a green mask with orange tinted lenses over his eyes. But what immediately catches Peter's eye is the seven-foot-long, mechanized tail. It has what appears to be a sharp blade at the end, but there's no telling what the thing could do.
"Sorry, man, but you're gonna have to wait for the Sunday paper just like everybody else," Peter quips, glancing to the top corner of his HUD display as Droney scans the apparent villain's suit.
"You!" the man exclaims with so much disgust that it catches Peter off guard.
"Woah, how'd I manage to piss you off?! We haven't even introduced ourselves yet!" Peter makes sure none of the employees are in his way before shoots a web to a broken computer and swings it at the villain's head. "I'm Spider-Man, and you are...?" As Peter finishes, the villain's tail instinctively blocks the oncoming computer.
It breaks apart on impact.
The man doesn't even flinch, but he smiles deviously.
"Scorpion, you freak." Suddenly, the self-proclaimed Scorpion leaps toward Peter with lightning speed. Peter's Spidey Sense barely has the chance to warn him before Scorpion is tackling him into one of the wooden desks. The impact knocks the wind out of him, but it's not enough to dampen his sarcastic spirits.
"Hey, didn't your parents ever teach you that name-calling isn't nice? This isn't how you make friends," he warns before kicking Scorpion off him. Scorpion easily recovers and regains his confident posture, then the end of his tail morphs into some sort of gun... A sickly looking liquid rockets towards Peter, but he manages to pull a half of the broken desk he landed on as a shield. As soon as the goop hits the desk, it starts to fizzle and eat away at the wood. Acid?! Peter thinks in disbelief. Before he can question it aloud, Karen says,
"It appears to be some form of highly corrosive acid. I recommend not coming into contact with it." Peter scoffs, throwing the broken desk at Scorpion.
"Never woulda guessed! Thanks for the tip!" After he hurls the desk as a distraction, Peter shoots a Web Grenade in hopes of restraining the villain. As soon as it makes contact with chest plate, it beeps before exploding and covering Scorpion in a thick layer of webbing. "I know newspapers are boring, I get it, but there's no need to go attacking the company. We all have to make a living. Leave an angry tweet like everyone else," Peter provides sweetly. Without so much as blinking, Scorpion breaks out of the webbing with a single flex of his muscles. The webs fly apart and scatter across the floor. Peter blinks in surprise. "Well that's never happened before."
"It'll take a lot more than some puny spider webs to stop me," Scorpion announces with a smirk. He's a lot stronger than any other villain Peter has faced thus far and they both know it. Scorpion's tail speeds towards Peter once again, attempting to swipe at his torso. Peter, however, manages to jump to the wall in order to avoid the blade that has replaced the acid canon.
"Awe, thanks for the encouragement," Peter once again quips. He shoots a Taser Web to rebuttal, banking on the fact that Scorpion's suit seems to be made mostly of metal, but Scorpion blatantly dodges the webs and sprints towards Peter. How's this guy so fast?!
Peter goes to leap to the ceiling, but the scorpion tail darts to wrap itself around his torso. It whips him out of the air and he's sent crashing through a wall and a set of glass doors before tumbling to the floor.
"Holy shit, are you okay?!" Ned's voice questions frantically through the comms. Peter jumps to his feet, no worse for wear.
"Yep, never better," he groans. "Do we have any info on this guy yet?" he asks the team in general.
"Be careful," MJ orders, "but yeah. Your drone got a partial facial recognition; eighty-six percent match with a guy named Mac Gargan. Criminal record." Making progress feels encouraging but foreign to Peter, considering it took them weeks to figure out Mysterio's identity.
Peter shoots a web from each wrist to propel himself back at Scorpion, his right leg extended to kick the villain right in the jaw.
"Droney also confirmed that the tail is mechanical," Ned adds. "It's steel and cybernetically-controlled. It automatically responds to Scorpion's thoughts."
"As if there weren't any other reason for me to be at a disadvantage," Peter mumbles, flipping out of the way of Scorpion's fifth armored appendage. "Seriously," he says louder, "where do you psychos get the brains and money for this tech?" With inhumanly fast reflexes, Scorpion deals a harsh punch to Peter's gut before his tail knocks the hero off his feet. Peter manages to roll out of the incoming, blade-wielding tail that tries to skewer him, piercing the carpet instead.
As soon as he's about to make another quip, the tail's blade retracts and acid gushes out. Aimed at Peter. He jumps to the ceiling, but some of the acid splatters onto his shoulder and quickly eats through the fabric of his suit. It starts to burn his arm, but he's able to bite back a gasp.
"Your suit has been breached. Chemical burn sustained," Karen informs with slight worry.
"Doesn't seem like you're being very careful," MJ points out in a scolding tone to mask her anxiety. Ned, however, doesn't mask anything.
"Peter, pay attention! You could get hurt!" his best friend frantically warns.
"I hate to tell you," Scorpion speaks up, "but you're bound to lose this fight no matter what you do. The scorpion is the natural predator of the spider."
"Yeah, but so is, like, every bird ever," Peter argues. The villain bounds up to the ceiling beside Peter, punching through its drywall to create a grip for hanging on, and grabs Peter with his free hand. Then he lets go of his grip to make them both fall.
Peter desperately tries to break free of Scorpion's grasp, but the man's grip is exceptionally strong. Scorpion slams him into the floor, causing his vision to blur slightly. He can hear his friends' worried voices, but he tunes them out in order to focus. As the tail speeds towards him to strike with the blade, he grabs either side and pushes against it. The tail blade closer to his face as he fights to push it back, then quickly moves his head out of the way before it sticks into the carpet.
"C'mon, you seriously can't be working this hard just to get tomorrow's headline. Why attack some old newspaper company?" Peter questions as he shoots a Taser Web up at Scorpion's chest. The electric shock forces Scorpion off of him and makes him take a few steps back, but his tail quickly cuts through the web.
"My life is ruined! Everything's ruined! And it's his fault!" Scorpion screams with a hoarse voice and a...green tint to his face? Before Peter can dwell on it, Scorpion fires acid around the room in a blind rage. Peter's Spidey Sense sends the familiar tingling sensation down his neck and he whips around to see acid flying towards some employees. Without hesitation, he sprints to them, shooting two Splitter Webs to pull the four workers out of harm's way. Instead, the acid hits the filing cabinets they were cowering near only moments prior. The acid immediately starts corroding away the metal.
Chills envelop Peter's shoulders as a warning, but not soon enough to outdo Scorpion's speed. The mechanical tail wraps around Peter's body, pinning his arms at his side with crushing force.
"You must be confident or some kind of stupid to turn your back on the person you're fighting," Scorpion threatens in a low, dangerous tone, then his tail begins to squeeze harder. Peter tries to move his hands to shoot a web, but his muscles won't cooperate under the pressure. He drags in harsh, painful breaths but it feels like his lungs are about to burst and his ribs about to explode. His vision is overtaken by swirling, black splotches and he tries not to think about Homecoming night while his body feels as if it's imploding. He can panic later. Right now, he focuses on wheezing out an emergency command.
"Activate...Darth Sidious Protocol..." Peter breathlessly orders Karen. On command, the entire suit becomes electrified. The electric current envelops the outside of the suit, leaving Peter unharmed but causing Scorpion to yell out in unexpected shock. Since his suit is made mainly of metal, the conduction is instantaneous and Scorpion is forced to release Peter. The villain's tail drops a barely conscious, oxygen deprived Peter to the ground as Scorpion reels from the electrical jolt.
Peter gasps in much-needed breaths and tries to blink his vision back to normal. His suit's power momentarily goes out as it works on an entire system reboot after using such a large surge of energy. The room spins and he's disoriented, but he isn't crushed so that's a plus. His muscles shake from the oxygen deprivation, yet he forces himself to stand nonetheless.
Unfortunately, Scorpion recovers quicker. As soon as Peter gets to his feet, Scorpion's tail rams into his side and sends him careening into another set of filing cabinets. The metal cabinets give way with a loud crash, but somehow painfully cushion Peter's impact. All of them dent around his body and the wall behind him cracks. The only positive aspect is that these aren't the filing cabinets that were doused in acid.
Peter groans and coughs, but by the time he gathers his senses, Scorpion has already disappeared through a window, demolishing it in the process. Finally, the suit flickers back to life along with the voices of his friends.
"Peter, can you hear us?! Peter! C'mon!" Ned's voice shouts in Peter's ear, sounding like he's been trying to get his best friend's attention forever. His yelling almost completely covers up MJ's equally panicked but quieter voice.
"Parker, I swear if you die I'm going to kill you. I'm not handling Ned during the holidays alone. Get your ass up," she orders. Well, who is Peter to ignore MJ?
"Yeah, I'm fine. Everything's fine," Peter reassures, clearing his throat when his voice comes out raspy. Droney flies up to Peter, beeps twice, then settles back into the suit's emblem.
"Don't scare us like that, dude! MJ and I were freaking out!" Ned shouts just as loud as before while Peter shakily gets to his feet.
"He was freaking out, not me," MJ clarifies. Peter notices that some of the employees are staring towards the now two shattered windows while others are recollecting themselves from what just happened.
"You were freaking out too!" Ned directs his argument at MJ, sounding betrayed.
"I think I'm good, no worries," Peter says as he rolls out his left shoulder.
"Karen, physical report," MJ orders just in case.
"No broken bones or hemorrhaging detected," Karen patiently answers. Peter rolls his eyes at both of his friends' over exaggerations and stiffly walks towards the office that Scorpion seemed so determined to get into. Glass crunches underneath his feet as he walks between the doorframes that he was sent flying through. Honestly, the room is underwhelming. It's just a typical office with a desk, a computer, framed newspapers hung on the wall, a box of cigars resting on the desk beside a picture frame, and a name plaque. The framed picture on the desk is of a happy looking man and woman. The name plaque, however, catches his attention more so. Peter picks it up and reads to himself, J. Jonah Jameson...? That's a lot of Js.
"What the hell are you doing in my office?!" a voice demands in an aggravated holler. Peter whips around to face the enraged person, seeing a middle-aged man with intense eyes, brown hair with white walls, and a...not so fashionable, thin mustache.
"Oh! Um, I'm Spider-Man! And I'm guessing you're the person who has all the Js in their name?" Peter points out like he had in his head. The man narrows his eyes in scrutinizing judgement.
"The name's J. Jonah Jameson! Not that I owe a vigilante like you any kind of explanation," Jameson grumbles while glaring. Peter tilts his head, mechanical eyes narrowing slightly.
"What'd I do?!" he asks defensively. "I'm pretty great at what I do! Just...not so great today, but I'm a one man show! I'm doing the best with what I've got, man."
"We're here too," MJ cuts in matter-of-factly, but Peter ignores her as Jameson continues to shout.
"You're nothing but a criminal! A menace! You don't have a clue about what you're doing!" With each insult, Jameson takes a firm step forward with an accusing finger pointed towards him.
"Peter, Tony is calling you," Karen announces as Tony's contact picture shows up on Peter's HUD.
"Put him on hold," Peter mumbles before giving his attention back to the angry man. "Um, Jameson, sir, listen-"
"Not to mention a vandalizer!" Jameson continues to scrutinize Peter by interrupting him.
"I didn't vandalize anything! I came here to help!" Peter defends himself. This psycho has to be joking!
"My entire editorial room is in shambles! A mess! Because of your two-bit heroism!" Jameson insults. Peter blinks in disbelief at the shouts, mainly because Spider-Man's heroic efforts were insulted.
"I didn't do all that!"
"What about my window?! Those are copper coated!" Peter glances back to the shattered windows, one of which he swung through to get inside.
"Okay that, that was me. But, technically speaking, you have..."
"One thousand and twenty-two," Ned cuts in to feed Peter the answer he was looking for.
"One thousand and twenty-two other windows!" Peter repeats to prove his point. Two measly windows aren't much of a loss!
"You swung your spandex covered ass into my building through my window breaking my glass and trashed my office!" Jameson's voice rises, causing Peter to flinch slightly at the volume.
"But-"
"You better hope you have some good money in that fancy suit!"
"I wasn't-"
"Because I'm gonna sue your ironclad benefactor so fast I won't have time to put it on the front page!" Jameson snaps, driving his point home.
"Tony Stark is going to push the call through if you don't answer in the next thirty seconds," Karen chimes in to inform again.
"Sorry, I gotta go! Sorry about the window, too! I'll make it up to you, JJ!" Peter assures as he jogs to the broken windows.
"Stay away from my company! I don't want you anywhere near it! If I see that damned mask again, I'll call the cops! And don't call me that!" Jameson continues to shout.
"Do you prefer Triple J then? I can do that! See ya, Triple J! Nice meeting you too!" Without giving Jameson a chance to explode at the most likely undesired nickname, Peter pencil dives headfirst through the window he broke and starts to swing back towards the Tower. "I have to call you guys back. Mr. Stark is probably freaking out."
"Not a problem, dude," Ned reassures.
"If he had a good head on his shoulders like he always preaches about, he would've grounded you by now," MJ states in a monotone voice. Peter draws his eyebrows together, not understanding what she's getting at.
"What? Mr. Stark can't gro-"
"Contact name 'MJ' has disconnected," Karen interrupts. Of course MJ hung up.
"Why does she always have to be the first to hang up?" Peter questions his remaining friend.
"It's an MJ thing," Ned reasons simply.
"Well, I gotta go before May kills Mr. Stark and Mr. Stark kills me. See you tomorrow."
"Later, Peter." Once Ned has hung up, Karen immediately takes Tony off of hold.
"Hey, Mr. Stark..." Peter laughs nervously, but tries to lighten the tension nonetheless.
"Did you just put me on hold for the last three minutes and twenty-eight seconds?" Tony inquiries, his voice chillingly calm. "'Cause last time I checked, a teenager who is given a multi-million dollar suit answers the calls of said person who gave the teenager a multi-million dollar suit." His voice has shifted from calm to utterly impatient. "Do you know what I had to listen to, Parker?"
"No..." Peter answers, his cheeks flushed.
"Your worried aunt calling to scream my ear off about her missing kid, who was supposed to arrive home twenty minutes ago." Tony takes a few steadying breaths to reel back in his temper. "Your Last Line of Defense was triggered. So lay it on me, Parker. What happened?" Peter takes a few moments to collect his thoughts.
"So, Happy was driving me home, right? And all of a sudden I get this alert on my phone that says some... thing is attacking The Daily Bugle! So I was like 'sorry Happy, gotta go!' And he was probably grumpy about it, but that's okay 'cause he's always grumpy. Then I swung over to the building while talking to Ned and MJ and-"
"Kid!" Tony interrupts. Peter slams his mouth shut.
"Hm?" Tony rubs his forehead and exhales slowly.
"Short version."
"Right! Got it!" Peter nods vigorously even though Tony can't see it. "Um, big new villain with a mechanical, cybernetic scorpion tail. Self-named Scorpion a.k.a. Mac Gargan. Dude beat the crap out of-"
"Language."
"-Me. He got away. Then I got yelled at by a grumpy, old, newspaper guy." Peter believes he hits all the major takeaways from the disappointing battle.
"Great, another clown parading around New York thinking they own the place." Tony sighs, recollecting his thoughts. "Are you okay at least? Not hurt?" he prods awkwardly. He's still getting used to the whole caring thing, but the concern still causes Peter to smile. For once, the teenager answers honestly.
"Small chemical burn on my shoulder and I'm a bit tired, but besides that I'm good." Tony snorts at the kid's minor diagnoses.
"Sure, and Banner knows how to flirt with women. Just like I can cook. Get back to the penthouse and we'll get you checked out. I sent Happy to get May, so look forward to that."
"Wait wait wait," Peter says with a smirk hidden under his mask. "Did you just admit you're bad at something?" he clarifies. Tony boisterously laughs as if it's the most ridiculously impossible thing ever conceived.
"Not on your life, kid. Swing faster and get here already." With that, Tony ends the call and Peter can finally breathe. The thought of having to listen to one of May's lectures suddenly makes Peter want to go another round with Scorpion instead. Unfortunately, he continues his swinging back to the Tower and readies himself for the long, scolding conversation from both May and Tony that he knows he's bound to get.
WELCOME SCORPION TO THE FAMILYYYY! I'm sure he'll be a model citizen and not cause anymore problems at all :)
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