Hello there!
Welcome to next Issue of Spider-Verse I: When I Swing By.
Hope you'll enjoy and now to the review.
Sandford9687: It's inspired a lot by the movies, but the first 5 issue's are pretty much build up before I'm going to spice things up.
Now story time.
The sun had started to set on New York, as most people in Arclight Tower where packing up to head home for the day, which was fine with Aiden.
The halls where nearly empty with a few people of the cleaning crew doing their work. With no one looking, he sneaked into Applied Science, where he saw no people around. It seemed doctor Octavius had gone home early it seemed, as normally the man would be working long after work hours was over.
He walked over to the machine he was looking for, the Fabricator. It was a prototype of what Gwen described as a super 3D printer, which with the right programming could create nearly anything one could think of.
Placing the parameters and the program into the machine, as a soft zooming sounds came from the now closed metal coffin closed as arms inside began to work on the project. He stood there waiting for it to finish when he was startled by the sound of a voice behind him.
"What are you doing?"
He turned on the spot, to look into the blue of Gwen, who was standing there with her arms crossed under her chest and a amused smile on her pretty face.
"What?" Aiden said surprised, having though that most people had gone home, "Why are you here?"
"A bit of overwork." Gwen said walking closer to him.
"Yeah, but this is Applied Science." Aiden pointed out, "Your an intern at Bio Science."
"Doctor Octavius was nice enough to let me in when I told him I wanted to get a look at the Fabricator." Gwen said standing next to him, "I guess your here for the same reason right? Taking a peak at the Fabricator?"
"Uh yeah." Aiden said as the girl stood next to him, trying to act casual.
"It's pretty. Think about what you can make with this." Gwen said looking from the machine to the teen, "Peter told me what happened at his place with the burglar. That was a very brave thing you did. How is your arm? Shouldn't it be in a sling or something?"
"I'm a quick healer." he said quickly, flexing his arm to show it was alright, "Still a bit sore but it's fine."
"That's good." Gwen said with a smile, "Say... How about we go grab a burger or something after work?"
"I-I would love to." Aiden said with a shy smile just as the Fabricator stopped humming, indicating it was finished with it's project, "But I promised Pete to work on a project this afternoon. Can't really delay it."
"Oh... I see." Gwen said, sounding disappointed but if she was, she quickly bounced back to her usual self, "He talks a lot about you. Only positive things, I promise."
"Luckily." Aiden said with a laugh, "Rain check on the burger?"
"Sure." Gwen said with a two finger solute, "See you later, Aiden."
He waved at her as he watched her walk out and the moment the door slid close, Aiden turned around to press a button to open the metal coffin. And inside he found his suit waiting, and him barely able to contain the excitement.
After few modifications to the mask, giving it a connection to his phone and allowing Peter to contact him and see through it's lenses. Aiden stood on top of a sky scraper staring down on the city in his new suit.
His suit had a large red spider covering his upper body and his arms with silver webbing, his lower body covered in black. His red boots also had silver webbing, his red mask had a one-way lenses he could look out of them but nobody could look in.
"Okay, Okay, I can do this." he said peeking over the side of the building, the cars driving there looked like many colored ants.
Taking a deep breath, he turned around and walked a few feet from the ledge.
"No... No... I can't do this. This is crazy!" he whispered to himself, trying to hype himself up, "No, no. This isn't crazy. I got these powers for a reason! It's just... It's just a leap of faith!" before suddenly turning on the spot and bursting out into a sprint.
By the second the edge came closer and closer, much faster than he had anticipated and too soon he found himself reaching the ledge and he leaped up in a backflip and off the roof.
Wind blew past him as gravity pulled him down to the concrete pavement down below. Extending his hand, he shot a long string of silver spiderweb to a building. With it sticking to it, he took a hard grip before he swung with great speed through the air.
Letting out a yell of pure joy, this was the greatest feeling he ever felt. It was the complete sense of freedom. He shot another web as he let go of the other. Touching down against the side of a building, he ran along the side turning at the corner before pushing himself off with his legs.
He swung through the skies of New York when he spotted a robbery at a nearby store. With a quick shot of his web, he pulled himself down, quickly taking out one of the masked men knocking him out on the pavement.
With a flying kick, another one was send flying backwards into a wall, where he slid down to the ground and remained still.
Another robber attempted to hit shoot him from behind, but he was warned by his spider-sense, dodging the bull in midair. He retaliates with a powerful kick, sending the robber flying backwards through the window of the store.
He continues the attack by using his sideways moment to spin around in a full moon kick, sending another one into the ground. One of the robbers attacks with a crowbar, coming at him with a wide swing, but he easily ducks under it, shooting two strings of web before pulling him down to the ground. He jumps up to knock him out with a knee to the chin.
With all the robbers dispatched, he picked up the duffel bag of money before throwing it back into the store where the frightened owners had been looking on during the entire fight.
Giving a two finger salute, he shot a web before swinging away as he heard sirens of the police coming towards the store.
Later that week in the downtown area of Manhattan, inside the NYPD Headquarters, where the Police Captain, a dyed by the wool cop with years of experience under his belt was walking to the exit of the precinct with one of his officer's. A young female of Asian descent. While still one of the newer detectives, she had shown a lot of promise.
"We got a description?" Captain George Stacy said, inquiring about the spider-themed vigilante case that had been the talk of the town ever since last week..
"Not really." Detective Yuriko 'Yuri' Watanabe said, looking at her notes, "Because he wears a mask."
"A mask?" Captain Stacy said with a raised dark grey eyebrow.
"Most of his victims are suspects with serious rap sheets." Detective Yuri said as they walked out of the building, "The Daily Bugle calls him the spider vigilante."
"Okay, he's not a vigilante." Captain Stacy began, "He's an..."
But before he could continue, a noise came from above them. Looking up they saw a familiar criminal named Flint Marko having his upper torso wrapped in spider web while hanging from a string with the other end sticking to the overpass.
"Help me, somebody!" Flint Marko shouted.
"Dude!" Peter said during a late afternoon as he and Aiden walked through a hall of Arclight Tower two weeks after Aiden's big debut as a vigilante, "Have you seen it!?"
The brainy friend held up his phone, showing him a news article made by the Daily Bugle, all about the 'Mysterious Spider-Man'.
"I know." Aiden said with a grin, reading over the article, "Isn't it great! Shame you can't get any credit."
"What?" Peter said surprised.
"Your my guy in the chair, the same guy who fixes my tech." Aiden pointed out, "You do like twenty percent of the work."
"Twenty percent? How generous." Peter said with a laugh, "So are you coming to my place after work? We still need to..."
"What? Oh, I can't." Aiden said suddenly looking up, "I am going to eat something with Gwen. I already blew her off once, can't really say no this time."
Suddenly loud voices filled the hall, making the two teens turn to the commotion inside Applied Science. The two walked over to see a tall and thin man, looking rather like a bird of prey, standing over the short an rather timid but kind head of Applied Science, Doctor Otto Octavius.
"...I blame you for this!" the tall man shouted, "You told me to bring my magnetic air transport system to Arclight. You arranged the meeting with Thomas Arclight."
"I-I know." Dr. Octavius said, "I had the best intentions..."
"What's going on?" Aiden spoke up as he and Peter entered.
"Aiden. Peter." Dr. Octavius said concerned upon seeing the two.
"You!" the man said, turning to Aiden, "Your father studied my ideas and rejected them! Then announces Arclight tech flight four months later!"
"Aiden has nothing to do with it." Dr. Octavius said quickly, "I apologize Mr. Toomes but..." but he stopped when he felt an hand on his shoulder.
Thomas had arrived, flanked by two of Arclight Security. "No need to apologize Otto." he assured his friend, "Neither you nor Arclight Corp. has nothing to apologize for."
"Nothing to..." Toomes said in anger, "Arclight! You stole my work!"
"Listen old buzzard, we rejected your designs because we would be announcing Arclight tech Flight, and it already looked to much like our own designs." Thomas said calmly before turning to security, "Please show Mr. Toomes out of the building."
"Good news." Toomes said to Octavius as he was grabbed by the arms, "I don't blame you anymore." before he was escorted out.
When the door closed behind the two security personnel and Mr. Toomes, Thomas let out a deep sigh before turning to the much shorter man, "You okay, Otto?" he said concerned.
"Y-Yeah, I'm fine." Dr. Octavius said, the mild mannered man was quite shaken by the confrontation, "It could have escalated more if it wasn't for Aiden and Peter."
"Good to hear it." Thomas said, patting Dr. Octavius before turning to the two, "Thanks, Aiden and Peter." before he turned around to get back to work.
That afternoon as the sun began to set over the city once again, Aiden was walking home with Gwen before he would go change into his suit and go on his patrol for the night.
"Okay, I have to agree." Gwen said with a smile, "Mick's has the best fries."
"I know. I figured you liked them..." Aiden said with a roll of his eyes, "You ate half of mine!"
"I couldn't help it! They where so good and you had such a huge portion." Gwen said with a sheepish smile, "Seriously, you eat enough to feed an army."
"What can I say? I'm a growing boy." Aiden said with a laugh, realizing she did had a point. Ever since he had been bitten his metabolism was through the roof, while it would stand to reason the exercise he was now getting would increase it, but it shouldn't have increased by this much. Maybe it had something to do with the organic webbing his body was now producing.
"Let me make it up to you! How about..." Gwen said as she began to think, tapping her chin with her index finger, "I invite you for dinner at my place? Not trying to sound too smug..."
"Too late." Aiden said with a smile.
"Hey! It's not smug if it's justified." Gwen said with a grin, "I'll have you know that I am an excellent chef! My dad says so."
"If your dad says so, then it must be true!" he said as they walked past a kiosk.
He turned around to find that she had suddenly stopped walking. He joined her and he found her staring at a newspaper from the Daily Bugle with the front being covered in a unclear photo of Spider-Man, credited to one E. Brock.
"So Aiden." Gwen said suddenly, "What's your thoughts on the Spider-Dude?"
"I think it's Spider-Man." Aiden corrected her.
"How would you know?" Gwen said with a shrug as they began to walk again, "They haven't got a clear picture or video, so how do they know it's a man?"
"That's a good point." he said with a nod, "Maybe it's a cute Spider-Girl."
"So Aiden, I notice you have been running a bit late these last two weeks." Gwen said as they arrived outside the apartment of her dad, "Both for work and school. Where are you all that time?"
He had a quick memory of the feeling of swinging through the tall buildings of New York, the speed of it. The thrill of coming in and stopping a robbery. "You know..." Aiden said, trailing a bit off, "Places."
"Right, going places." Gwen said with a shrug at his vagueness, "So... About dinner?"
"You where serious about that?" he said surprised but smiling, "Sure, just send me the date."
And that's the fifth Issue, with Aiden now finally becoming Spider-Man, hope you enjoy.
Many thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, favorite and follows this story.
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For now I wish you all a fantastic day and I hope to see you people next time. Bye for now.