ARACHNE
A WORM/Spiderverse story
by Tangent

Taylor was still getting used to eating in a cafeteria again. It was... nice. To not have to live in fear of being harassed or bullied that is, even if she was still slightly unnerved by the experience. It helped that Bobbie would come to sit with her once she had gone through the lunch line, but those first few minutes until she arrived still left Taylor feeling... skittish. As had quickly become her habit, she had chosen to sit at a mostly unoccupied table apparently not chosen by any of the current cliques, and had placed her bookbag on one of the seats beside her, with one of her homework assignments from the morning classes in front of her as she ate the packed lunch she brought from home.

PB&J this time (strawberry jelly), lightly toasted and diagonally cut, because a girl couldn't live on wraps alone.

"May I sit here?" a boy asked, causing her to jump slightly.

"Uh, sure! Hi, Rich." Taylor relaxed, not feeling the odd tingling sensation in her mind that she had come to associate with threat detection.

Rich set his tray down across the table and took the seat beside where Bobbie usually sat. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

"That's okay."

"Hey, Tay Tay, Richie!" Roberta greeted as she set her tray down and slid into the seat next to Taylor. As opposed to across from her, as she had done previously. "Tay Tay, you should totally buy lunch here tomorrow! It's tacos again! Can you believe it? Taco Tuesday is really a thing here! And they're sooooo gooood! Not at all like the disguised mystery meatloaf Winslow tries to pass off as, well, everything!"

"Roberta, please, no reminders," Rich protested. "Some of us are trying to eat."

"I'll try the cafeteria food here, if you promise to stop bringing up the cafeteria food there," Taylor offered.

"You will not regret it, Tay Tay. Seriously, they really do make a good taco here. Almost as good as what Daddy makes at home when he's in the mood. I'll have to see if I can invite you guys over next time Daddy feels like making them again!"

Aisha had yet to try any of the cafeteria food at Clarendon, since it was so easy for her to slip out and grab a bite off grounds while invisible without having to waste her lunch money. Sure, Brian probably wouldn't approve, but there wasn't much he could actually do about it, was there?

Now where to eat this time?

Without really thinking about it, Aisha reached out and tugged on the back of some guy's coat as he was having a pointless argument with somebody over his cell phone, preventing him from stepping out onto the street just as a car sped by. The man looked around in confusion, wondering who had just saved his life.

Half a block later, Aisha stepped into an unoccupied alley, dropped her invisibility, and checked the wallet and the wad of bills she just lifted. "Looks like lunch is on you today, Mr. Osborn. Huh... I wonder if he's related to that old singer?"

Greg bit into his hotdog, enjoying the pleasant fact that it wasn't tinted green or grey, nor did it deflate or taste like anything a hotdog shouldn't. Not that all the cafeteria food back at Winslow was bad, really. Or at least not as bad as everyone made it out to be. You just couldn't trust the hot dogs. Or the pizza. Or the Salisbury steak. Or the meatloaf. Or...

You know what? Maybe Winslow's cafeteria food deserved its bad reputation after all.

"Hey, Pete?"

"It's Webb while I'm wearing the mask, Harry. You know that."

"Sorry," Osborn apologized quickly. Normally he wouldn't make that mistake (but then again, normally he wouldn't be able to - Parker was the first hero he actually knew the identity of).

"Now what did you need?"

"Have you made any progress on how to get past Ghost Spider's cloaking power?"

"I have some ideas, but we won't really know if they work until they're actually tested against Ghost Spider. Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm pretty sure the little creep picked my pockets while I was out on the burger run. Got my wallet and the money everyone gave me for their orders!"

"Ouch! You sure it was Ghost Spider?"

"Unless Oni Lee has taken to pop-n-go pickpocketing while stopping people from getting hit by cars, yes."

"Let me guess: You're dad saw you walking down the street from his office and decided to try to talk you into accepting that position at Oscorp again."

"Yeah. He's still mad I chose to follow you into the PRT back when Gwen..."

"Please don't bring that up again. I love my wife more than anything, and couldn't imagine marrying anyone else now, but it still hurts to think about how Gwen died to that lunatic."

"Speaking of Mary Jane, she wanted me to let you know that she's going to be down in Boston for a fashion show. She should be back before your public debut."

"Okay."

"And to remind you once again that you'll be sleeping on the couch for getting yourself into M/S lockdown for being stupid."

"Harry..."

"Although she said she might just join you on the couch on your first night back if you stay here much longer. Remind me to sit somewhere else next time you guys have Liz and I over."

"Wouldn't help," Webb relpied, the auto-emote lenses forming 'smiley-eyes' to reflect the smug smirk he had under the helmet.

"One: Eww! Two: next time we're eating at my place."

After school let out, Taylor swung by her home to drop off her books and change into her costume.

Well, most of it anyway, as she left off the mask because she was just going to be putting her regular clothes right back on over top of it before grabbing the fanny pack she had prepared last night and a small plain backpack she used to use back in elementary school. Which should be just big enough for her to stash her civilian clothes in when she did the Superman thing later, once she figured she was far enough away from the house.

Dad wouldn't be getting home until well after regular business hours were over today, so it was the perfect time to take some of her Tinker notes (copies only, not her actual hero journal!) to Oscorp as Arachne to see if she could make an arrangement for the use of one of their labs.

Aisha climbed halfway up the cinderblock wall to the little cubbies she had made way up and out of the way where nobody would be likely to see (let alone reach) them. Invisibly, of course. Partly so nobody would be able to see her stripping down and changing into her costume, but mostly because a fringe benefit of her no-see-um power apparently included not freezing to death while naked outside in the middle of January.

Honestly, after watching that weird couple do their kinky thing in various hiding spots, she was still wondering how they hell they hadn't frozen to death yet, no matter how active they had been. Not that is wasn't anything she hadn't seen her mom do with any of her stupid boyfriends back at her apartment, but at least they kept it inside.

Really, all Aisha had been looking for was a good place to stash her costume where her Dad couldn't find it and Brian couldn't (try to) tell her not to go out and mess around if he saw her with it on back at their supervillain lair. Well, and maybe some pimps or dealers to roll for cash. She definitely didn't want another peep sho…

"OH, COME ON! DON'T YOU TWO EVER STOP!? IT'S THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING GOD DAMNED JANUARY FOR FUCK'S SAKE! AND IN MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING DAY THIS TIME! WHEN THE HELL DO YOU TWO SLEEP!?"

The half dressed exhibitionist couple looked around wildly for whoever was yelling at them even as they ran off, attempting to carry what they had already stripped off of one another as best they could.

Black Arachnia dropped down from above and poked through the scattered articles that remained behind. "Didn't even leave any good drops, the jerks..."

Greg whistled absently as he worked on the waldo harness he was building from various parts he had scavenged here and there. Nothing anybody would miss, he was sure, since the properties were long since abandoned. The control interface was tricky to figure out, and he had finally had to resort to sketching out diagrams of how the circuit boards for the neuro-reading control interface showed actually be laid out. Mostly because without those notes to refer to, he had been having to either scrap or rebuild several such components he needed already.

"Okay, test number... whatever. Not like I'm actually keeping track of these," he mumbled to himself as he clipped the temporary interface receptors to the straps of his goggles and put them on. A moment later, the half finished arms of the waldo harness waved at him at his command.

"YES! Nailed it on the first try!" Greg stated triumphantly, ignoring all the previous failures.

That was how it worked, right?

"Okay, now if this works, we should be seeing an image of..."

"I know how a sonar works, Webb," the lab tech stated irritably. Sure, what Webb was making was most likely going to have a higher resolution than normally possible for an open air acoustic based system, but the general principles involved were already well understood. And he certainly didn't need to hear about it again for the fifth time running.

"Sorry, sorry! Used to teach science in a high school back in New York."

"And you shouldn't be telling me things like that either. I'm not your handler. Not only do I not need to know - I don't want to know."

Arachne dropped down in front of the main doors of Oscorp's Brockton Bay headquarters, landing in a perfect three point superhero crouch on her toes and the fingertips of her right hand before standing up and straightening out. Squaring her shoulders, she opened the door and walked in, approaching the reception kiosk.

"May I help you?" the receptionist asked (left hand hovering near the panic button hidden under the counter).

"Um..." Arachne's confidence seemed to flow out of her as her shoulders slouched and she poked her index fingers together. "I understand that Oscorp sometimes comes to arrangements with independent Tinkers?"

"Oh, sure!" the receptionist smiled, picking up the handset and already dialing a number from memory. "You're the first Tinker to come to us in Brockton Bay, so Mr. Osborn will want to speak with you right away!" After a short discussion over the phone, she hung up and continued. "Just sign in on the registry with your hero name, and here's a special visitor's pass that will allow access to the fourth floor labs. Mr. Osborn will be right down to meet you in lab three shortly. Just follow the signs."

"Thank you!"

And with that, Arachne headed for the elevators, feeling giddy about how right things were going for her.

Things were definitely looking up!

Sophia smirked grimly as she rested the juvenile hall infirmary. It had taken picking fights with the biggest, meanest bitches in here several times, but finally one of them had managed to damage her special restraints enough for them not to shock her when she tested her powers while nobody was looking. Okay, so she had gotten her teeth rattled (and maybe a bit loosened), and she was sporting some decent bruises for her trouble, but she was as good as free now.

She wouldn't leave right away, of course. Better to wait until it was dark out so as to better take advantage of the stealth her powers gave her. Maybe bring Emma with her if she could figure out a way to do it, but if not it wasn't any big loss to leave her here.

But once she was on the streets again, Hebert was going to pay for putting her back in Juvie. Clements too, for turning on them. And maybe a bunch of the other assholes back at Winslow while she was at it.

All Shadow Stalker had to do was hit a sports store and gear up again. And none of those stupid ass blunt bolts either - razor-head tips all the way! And lots of them. Maybe some good combat knives while she was at it...