Arachne
A WORM/Spiderverse story
by Tangent

Taylor started pulling off her costume after shutting the window and drawing the curtains closed. Given how her hair felt, she took a sniff of her mask before tossing it flawlessly into her hamper as she deftly stepped around her bed and hit the light switch by her door. Some adjustments were going to have to be made. Maybe another layer or two of thermals so she wouldn't have to work up a sweat to keep warm while on patrol. And next time she was going to try wearing her hair between layers instead of letting it rest next to her skin under her thermals.

Oh, and she was definitely going to either make or invest in a better sports top, because the one she had worn under her costume tonight just wasn't going to cut it.

Huh... Almost all of the webfluid cartridges she had taken with her last night were totally spent. She was going to recharge them all anyway, of course, but it might be a good idea to make and prepare some more before going out on patrol again. Which was another expense to keep track of. Sure, the stuff was cheap to make, but she didn't want to go through the household supplies she used to do so too fast either, or dad would start to notice. Sooner or later. Maybe.

Grabbing her bathrobe and shrugging it on, Taylor headed for the bathroom to take a hot shower before actually going to bed, glad that her father tended to be a fairly sound sleeper.

Speaking of sleep, she intended to sleep in that morning since it was Saturday. Which was another reason she had decided to go out on her first patrol last night rather than the night before.

Black Arachnia slipped back into the window of her bedroom at her father's apartment, stripped off her costume, dropping it on the floor with the rest of her dirty laundry, and flopped bonelessly across her bed.

A moment later, Aisha got up, trudged over to the window, and shut it firmly before returning to bed and curling up in the covers to get rid of the winter chill.

The night, in her opinion, had mostly been a bust.

Still, she had finally gotten her web pistol to fire at least three shots in a row before it misfired again, so that was something.

"Thanks again, young man."

"No problem, sir! Glad to help!" Greg grinned under his mask as he lifted the spare tire into place with one hand and set each nut into place before tightening them.

"Mind if I ask what you're calling yourself? You know, so I can tell my grandkids that I met the new hero in town?"

"Not at all, sir. I am Spider-Guy, the Human Arachnoid!"

"That's quite a mouthful."

"Well, it's a work in progress. I was also thinking of calling myself Wolf Spider."

"I wouldn't recommend that in this town, son. Stick with Spider-Guy. That's a name that'll go places. Trust me."

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

Placing the damaged tire in the trunk of the car, Greg watched in satisfaction as the old man drove away.

Two actual muggings stopped (after the first, rather embarrassing, misunderstanding), and now a bit of roadside assistance. Not to toot his own horn (too much) but not too shabby for his first night out.

What the hell, he still felt wide awake, and it wasn't like he had to go to school in the morning. May as well continue his patrol!

Parker set aside his mechanical pencil, shut his notepad, and yawned as he got up from the writing desk in the M/S observation cell that he was currently residing in whenever he wasn't being escorted by someone. Just another few weeks of putting up with this shit before they relieved the restrictions, then he'd be making his big public debut as Webb.

Hopefully with his fully armored costume approved for use by then.

Ah well, at least he'd be getting a decent head start on his gear before he hit the streets. Nothing like having a Tinker lab and budget right out the gate. Granted, most of it seemed to be variations of webfluid and how to dispense it, barely even qualifying as Tinkertech considering that it was all reproducible without his input as long as whoever did so understood what they were doing.

Hell, the one thing he had designed so far that qualified hands down as pure Tinkertech right off the bat were the adhesion tires he had come up with, as he was the only one who seemed to understand how to get them to work properly. Sort of. There were still a few kinks to work out before the failure rate dropped to acceptable levels, but he was sure that he'd be ready to produce a finished working set of tires by the time the weather warmed up and the Spidermobile that PR virtually demanded he design once he had floated the idea to them was completed.

Heh. He had always wanted a supercar ever since he had watched Speed Racer and Knight Rider while growing up.

Anyway, time for bed.

Taylor slept late into the morning, comfortably bundled in cozy flannel pajamas, clean blankets, and a comforter.

Aisha woke up to pounding on her bedroom door. "What? What? I'm up!"

"I'm just letting you know that you're going to be on your own for breakfast and maybe lunch," her father called through the door. "Somebody dropped a safe on my car last night, and I'm riding with the tow truck to the autobody shop. I'd have woken you up earlier, but I didn't want you underfoot while the insurance people, police, and PRT were all taking pictures."

Crap, that had been her dad's car!?

The sun had already been up for just a bit once Greg finally snuck back into the house.

Fortunately his folks always slept in on the weekends.

Dumping a can of soup in a measuring cup and setting it to heat up in the microwave, he briefly went to his room to remove the recognizable portions of his costume before returning to the kitchen.

The rest of the night had pretty much been a bust, but he was mostly happy with the first part.

Greg Veder fell asleep at the kitchen table, his soup barely even half finished.