SPIDER-MAN
a fanfiction by Chipolata
[Chapter 2]
"Hey! Hey kid. Wake up!"
Spider-man opened his eyes, and looked about, dizzy and slightly confused. He turned his head and looked at Vegeta.
"Wha? Where? What happened? Ugh, I feel so weak..." Spider-man muttered.
"That guy tried to shoot you, but I managed to get you out of the way before it hit you. Then I kinda felt weird so I sat down for a while. When I got up again, he was gone." Vegeta explained.
Spider-man sat himself up against the wall behind him and put a hand to his spinning head. He was just about to make a parting comment, when a fragment of an earlier conversation floated by.
"Wait. You said you felt weird?" Spider-man asked.
"Yeah. What of it?" Vegeta shot back.
"And you touched me? Physical contact? When you got me out of the way of the bullet, however you did that..."
"Uh huh. Now that I think of it, I probably should have just caught the bullet, would have so much trouble..."
"You're not kidding!" Spider-man said, panicking. "Do you know what that ray was supposed to do?! It was built to erase my Spider-Powers!" He yelled at Vegeta. "But Evans, that guy, he changed it! He... he... Oh my...You..." He broke off, upset.
"What? What did Evans do? What about me?" Vegeta asked.
"He adjusted it...so the next person I touched...he meant for himself...but the next person I touched..." Spider-man couldn't bring himself to say it.
"What?" Vegeta demanded.
"My Spider-Powers would be transferred to them...meaning you... you... you..."
There was an uneasy silence in the factory.
"Where do you live?" Vegeta asked.
"Huh?" Spider-man asked.
"Where do you live? I'm gonna need some explanation, and my place ain't the best place for privacy, especially when my wife's home..." Vegeta explained.
"I live in New York. I said I was coming over here to complete an assignment." Spider-man told Vegeta.
"New York. America right?" Vegeta thought for a second. "Shouldn't take too long. You'll have to show me where, though, I haven't been to New York."
"Not too long? Oh, wait, you can fly, right?"
Vegeta grinned.
Minutes later, Vegeta was powering his way towards the Big Apple, Spider-man in his arms.
"That house. Yep. Okay, land outside, I need to change."
Spider-man guided Vegeta down to the ground. When they landed, Spider-man ducked into a bush outside his house and put his 'normal' clothes on. When he came out again, there was only Peter Parker.
"Let's go in, then. You'll meet Aunt May. She's lovely, but don't say anything that gives away the fact that I was Spider-man." He said to Vegeta, who raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Peter opened the door, and walked in. Vegeta followed and closed the door behind him.
"Aunt May! I'm home again! Aunt May?" Peter called.
"What's this?" Vegeta asked, handing Peter a piece of paper.
"A note from Aunt May! It says, 'Dear Peter, I got so lonely without you around the house I went to go stay with a close friend of mine. Call me when you get back. Aunt May.' Oh, guess that solves the problem of where Aunt May is, and how we're gonna get some privacy." Peter read to Vegeta.
"Peter? Your real name is Peter?" Vegeta asked.
"Oh, oops! I forgot to introduce myself!" Peter smiled. "My name's Peter Parker. C'mon, I think I've got a lot to explain. It's best we talk in my room."
They went upstairs.
"As I said, my name is Peter Parker. I go to college at the moment, and I have a part-time job at a newspaper."
Peter stood in the middle of the room. Vegeta sat on his bed.
"Back in High School, I was in science class, and the science teacher did an experiment involving a spider and a radioactive laser."
"Let me guess, the radioactive spider bit you." Vegeta cut in.
"Yep. It hurt like hell. Anyway, the spider bite did something to me. I could cling to walls, I had the relative strength of a spider, and I had this strange sense that warned me of danger. Being a bit of a scientist, I developed a fluid that dried to look like a web, and some shooters to shoot it. I made a costume, and voila! Spider-man was born."
Peter took a sip of the hot drink he'd made. Vegeta's remained untouched.
"So, back in the factory, what was all that about?" Vegeta asked.
"Well, as you can imagine, as a crime-fighter I've picked many enemies, one a certain crime-lord known as the Kingpin. The Kingpin is very rich and very resourceful. He picks up lots of scientists who've just gotten the sack, promising wealth or safety or something. That Dr Evans guy, he was an ex-employee of Capsule Corp..."
"What? But my wife is the daughter of Dr Briefs, who owns Capsule Corp!" Vegeta exclaimed.
"Really?" Peter cried. "Bulma Briefs? Your wife?"
Vegeta nodded.
"Wow. Small world. Anyway, I've noticed a pattern with all of the people Kingpin picks up: He always demands that they destroy me, or, now, you..." Peter continued.
"Me?" Vegeta asked, confused.
"Yes. Like I said at the factory, the laser was built to transfer my powers to the next person who touched me. And that was you, right? You said you felt weird." Peter explained.
"Well..." Vegeta cautioned.
"How about we try an experiment. Jump and cling to the ceiling. All you have to do is want to cling, and then place your hands and feet on it." Peter said.
"Okay..." Vegeta said, uneasy at the thought.
Vegeta stood up, then made a little jump, placing his hands on the ceiling. To his surprise, he stayed there. He lifted his feet up, and put them on too. He had his back to the floor.
"Hey, I can cling!" He exclaimed.
Suddenly he got this intense feeling of danger, sharp but not painful, in his head. 'Watch yourself!' It told him. 'You're about to be hit!'
Vegeta did a fancy move which landed him clinging to the wall. He turned and saw Peter in the middle of the room, holding the computer chair above his head.
"Wow!" Peter cried. "You moved faster than I could see!"
"You were going to hit me with a chair!" Vegeta accused.
"Not really. I was testing your spider-sense." Peter explained.
"But how did you do that? Move so fast?"
"As I said in the factory, I was trained to. I'm a Saiya-jin warrior, and one of the best, too." Vegeta told him.
Peter put down the chair, and moved to his wardrobe. He pulled out a back-pack, and tossed it onto the bed. Vegeta got down from the wall. Peter pulled out a bundle of cloth, which Vegeta recognised as several Spider-man costumes. He also pulled out a box, and a pile of papers. These he placed on the bed with the bag.
"You're going to need these. These are spare costumes, you'll need them, you'll be surprised how many I go through a month. In the box are web-shooters and web-fluid capsules, and the papers explain how to make the web-shooters and the fluid, in case they get wrecked or you run out. I guess you're not going to move to New York just to be Spider-man, but if you could give me your number so I could call you, and maybe we could find a way of getting you here quicker, when there's trouble..." Peter explained.
"What? Me? Spider-man? I can't do that!" Vegeta cried.
"You have to! You have the Spider-Powers now, don't you?"
"But...can't we give them back to you?"
"No, you destroyed the machine, remember?"
Vegeta couldn't believe it. Spider-man? Him?
Peter shoved the packed bag into Vegeta's arms. Vegeta stared at it. His hands were shaking. Peter walked up to him.
"Good luck, Spider-man."