The Man In The High... Shoes?

Stilt-Man... Yeah, this guy's real too. Just like Plant Man and The Kangaroo. Hit up Google if you don't believe it. This shit's real, fool. Well he's technically one of Daredevil's villains, but don't let that distract you from the awesome power of his slightly elevated height. Stilt-Man means business.

"Could you kindly put your wallets and valuables on top of the nearest car for me before you run away? It's a little difficult to bend over in these things." Stilt-Man decreed.

Usually, Peter would vault into action immediately to save people from danger...but come on. It's Stilt-Man. What was he going to do? Fill people with the anxiety that his precarious wobbling might soon culminate in him tripping over and crushing someone? Spider-Man emerged from an alleyway, not swinging or anything. Just walking. That's how sick of this he was.

"Hey! Can we...hurry this up? I got somewhere to be!" Peter called, cupping his hands around his mouth in an effort to allow the sound waves of his meek voice to reach Stilt-Man's superior elevation.

The villain stopped in his tracks and peered over his shoulder. "Oh. It's you. Where's Daredevil? I was expecting Daredevil." He said, sounding incredibly disappointed.

Peter webbed the sack of personal belongings that Stilt-Man had within his grasp and quipped "Probably sitting in his apartment with a bowl of popcorn, listening to me deal with this rubbish."

"What?! I can't hear you, I'm a little high up!"

"I...I-I said he's probably sitting in his apartment with a bowl of popcorn...listening to you annoy me!" The webhead called with an additional teaspoon of volume added to satisfy the towering troublemaker.

You like that one? 'Towering troublemaker'? Just came up with it on the spot. Well, I guess all writing is something you come up with on the spot... Why is the narrator suddenly rambling like this, you say? Maybe because Stilt-Man became very upset with Spidey's last remark and decided to kick him with one of his spindly legs, and presenting that action in a cool, impressive way is hard. Obviously, the wall-crawler jumped clear of the attack but there are only so many ways you can say 'Spider-Man evaded the kick' before you need to recycle things, and let's not do that. It's only chapter 8, some of the good adjectives and verbs need to be saved for later on.

Just as the absolute stupidity of this situation started to dawn upon our masked hero, a blur of black and white suddenly jumped onto the scene yelling "Never fear, Protonslaught is here!"

Silence echoed through the air, and then with a loud scoff Stilt-Man said "Really? That's what you went with? How original."

"Oi! Shut up." The leather-bound woman huffed. "I'm not the one wearing high heels."

The towering villain gasped, utterly insulted, then muttered "They're not high heels...they're stilts."

"Yeah, have you ever seen stilettos? They're like tiny stilts." Protonslaught argued with a confident flick of her platinum blonde hair. "So you're wearing high heels."

Spider-Man groaned. He did not want to deal with two idiots at once. Especially not now that he was almost twenty minutes late for work. "Sounds like you guys are having a really interesting conversation, you can handle him from here right?"

Protonslaught seemed to stand a little taller at the request for help, and for the first time...well ever, he saw her smile. It was lopsided and her nose crinkled in response to it. "No need to worry, Jizz-hands. I got this."

Now, usually Spidey would have made some gesture of disapproval, whether it be an elaborate eye-roll beneath his mask or a terrible comeback, but this time he was so incredibly anxious to get to Dr. Connors' lab that her stupid nicknames didn't bother him.

Protonslaught took a deep, very obnoxious breath and held her hands out in front of her. Spider-Man was half expecting a banana to fly out of her sleeve but instead an icy chill flittered through the street. The ground beneath his feet froze, cracking and hissing, until it was solid ice. In fact, the entire road was completely frozen over.

Spider-Man stared, pointing at the ground as if it were as inconceivable as a gaseous alien lifeform. "W-What do you even do?"

The girl, who had meant to make the ground slippery but certainly not turn it to ice, gave a sheepish laugh. "If you knew, it wouldn't be any fun."

The webhead huffed. There was no fun in this at all. He wasn't too affected by the ice personally because, well, he was sticky...he could climb up walls and stand upside down and do basically anything else that involved adhesion. However, the citizens in the area weren't so fortunate. There was screaming, yelling, and a lot of tire screeching as people and vehicles alike slid around on the ice.

Spidey facepalmed. He should have seen this coming...

Amongst the crowd of voices, grunting as they all tried not to fall on their asses, Spider-Man heard a baby crying. He looked to his left and spotted a mother holding her child, slipping around and trying desperately to find something to hang on to.

Spider-Man hurried towards the distressed mother and steadied her before she could plummet to the ground. He glanced at the sniffling baby as if it were a ravenous monster and murmured "Why isn't that thing in a pram?"

The woman gestured behind him and towards the very object of discussion. It was skidding away on the ice at such a speed that anyone that tried to grab it would have been dragged along with the damn thing. "Hm, I dunno, buddy. Maybe because it's over there?" She snapped.

"Oh, right, sorry..." Peter rubbed the back of his masked head nervously. "I-I'll just go get that for you."

Spidey sighed deeply as he once again regretted everything. The pram slid away gently as the webslinger leapt forward like a flea. However, as if it would ever be that easy for him, Peter's brain burned within his skull. His Spidey-Sense was tingling. Yeah, 'tingle' makes it sound like it would feel good but it doesn't. It's kinda like when you get all shivery and you writhe like a weirdo for no reason at all, only difference was that you knew for a fact that something bad was going to happen afterwards.

As time seemed to freeze for Peter, he saw two cars in his peripheral vision; both drifting out of control. One was about to bust in from his left, and the other from the right. If he didn't move quick, he was going to be made into a spider sandwich. The two drivers would also plough straight into each other and die or something. Imagine that for a second. A spider sandwich. Gross right? Yeah it's pretty disgusting. Now you're going to check the next sandwich you have for spiders.

Peter pressed his right foot onto the front fender of one car and pushed it with a teeny tiny fraction of his strength whilst simultaneously webbing the back wheel of the vehicle; the engine only spun the rear axel, so this would hopefully stop the thing from going any faster. The sedan slid slowly into the base of a traffic light, causing very light damage to the front of the car but nothing serious. He then turned his attention to the other one, which was on a intercept course for his face.

"Okay...okay...I'm gonna Superman it. I can do it. Yeah. I-I can do it." Peter muttered, slapping himself in the face and flexing his shoulders. The car got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

Travelling at great speed, the car slammed into Spidey, who roared in exertion as he tensed his arms to fight against the object's momentum. After several seconds of gritting his teeth, the car floated to a halt, and the webhead didn't let another second go to waste. He bounded once more, and landed right in front of the pram. "God...let's not do that again."

In the background, as he retrieved said pram, he could hear the girlish squeal of Stilt-Man as he wobbled to and fro.

Protonslaught laughed in triumph. "Give it up, Stiletto-Man. You gotta fall eventually."

It was at this very moment that Spider-Man recalled how terribly every single situation ended whenever she showed up. It had been a clear mistake to ask her for help...one that he wouldn't ever repeat.

Like the outstanding citizen that he was, the webslinger returned the pram and prevented a few more collisions; all the while Stilt-Man was still struggling to keep his balance. Seriously, it was getting ridiculous...he just refused to fall.

Then, finally, there was an almighty 'crack' and 'crash' as Stilt-Man was sent tumbling to the ground. When Spider-Man turned his gaze towards the scene he found that he had not only fallen, but the metal stilts he wore had completely snapped off. How was this possible, you may ask? Well, Peter could only assume that Protonslaught's attempt to create an icy veil over the road also froze his stilts. It created something called a 'cold snap'. Below a certain temperature, all steel switches from being deformable to being brittle, as increasing cold weakens the connections between crystal grains. Though...something told him that she didn't know any of this, and that it had just been pure coincidence.

As Spidey looked closer he discovered that it wasn't just the metal contraption that had broken, but the villains legs were also forced in unnatural directions. "My legs!" He whined as if he wasn't just about to rob dozens of people. "She broke my legs!"

Protonslaught huffed. "I'll break a whole lot more if you don't shut up."

Again, Spidey would be a little annoyed by her blatant disregard for human suffering...but he was so incredibly late for work. More than anything, he was just confused. Since he'd known Protonslaught, she had thrown a tire, created a banana peel, and turned the ground to ice - all seemingly out of thin air. Did that make her a magician or something? He honestly had no clue.

Then it hit him like a volleyball to the head...which Peter had quite a lot of experience with. "You don't have any idea how to control your abilities, do you?"

Protonslaught's entire body tensed. "O-Of course I do! You think I turned the road to ice by accident?!"

"Yes." Spider-Man answered simply and the girl gulped.

"That's ridiculous. I totally meant to do this. Actually, everything I do is on purpose, always."

"So, you broke Stilt-Man's legs on purpose?" Spider-Man murmured sceptically.

"Y-Yeah! Well, he can't get away if his legs don't work..."

It was sound logic, but said in a tone so anxious that it became clear that he was right. She didn't even know what her own powers were, and for some strange reason she had decided to use them anyway.

"You're evil, lady!" The stiltless Stilt-Man whined in pain. All things considered, he was taking it pretty well. The villain shifted his arms beneath him, and instinctively Spider-Man aimed a web directly at his torso. It pinned him to the ground, and Stilt-Man stared at him in absolute disbelief. "Wh-What the hell?! My legs are broken, remember? I can't escape!"

Spidey shrugged. "Can never be too careful."

The villain looked like he might argue, but then a scent caught his attention. It was strong...so strong, in fact, that it triggered his gag reflex. He retched, but then like the curious human being that he was, he started sniffing the air again to find the source of such a smell. Stilt-Man narrowed his eyes at the webbing that trapped him on the ground then leaned forward to sniff it. "O-Oh my god, is that bleach?!"

"Yeah, it's the secret ingredient." Spider-Man quipped. "Don't eat it."

Like an excited bunny at the prospect of a freshly grown carrot, Protonslaught jumped to Spider-Man's side and grasped his right hand in hers. "How do these things work?"

Spider-Man frowned beneath his mask, watching as she flicked the web shooter then prying his hand away. "I doubt you'd understand even if I told you-"

It was at this moment that Protonslaught's gaze met his, and her eyes beneath that domino mask caught him off guard. They were...familiar, somehow. Almost maddeningly so.

There were already plenty of poems and stories comparing blue eyes to the electric sky or the unyielding ocean, but Peter wasn't much for poetry. They were, instead, the blue of his childhood Star Trek blanket; or, alternatively, they were bluer than Neptune. Not that the planet was naturally blue to begin with. It was actually the methane in Neptune's upper atmosphere that absorbed the red light from the sun and reflected the blue light back into space. That's what made it look blue. He was fairly certain that wasn't the case for her eyes, but still, they were pretty damn blue.

"What the hell are you looking at, Arachnid-Boy?" Protonslaught huffed and all of Spider-Man's most bewildering thoughts were eradicated. Her eyes reminded him of someone, but she acted more obnoxious than anyone he had ever met. Maybe with the exception of Flash Thompson.

"Wish I knew." Spidey retorted, hitting the device in his hand and swinging onto a nearby street lamp. "You can clean this up, right? I'm kinda late for something."

"Hey! Don't dump this on me! Maybe I'm late for something too!"

Without even acknowledging her last statement, Spider-Man flung another web, at a building this time, and swung out of sight. He left her to deal with the pain-riddled criminal howling in the background. After all, she was the one that barged in and broke his legs...and at this stage Peter was even more late for work than usual. Dr Connors really wasn't going to like this.