Peter Parker sits at a desk in his room, laboring over some small electronics. He's found pieces here and there, bought some with the "allowance" his roommate Elektra insists on giving him, and been given other pieces from the likes of Reed Richards and, surprisingly, Hank Pym.
It's work he's familiar with, which frees his mind to think. And dang, does he have a lot to think about.
-Flashback Yesterday-
"Sorry, I think I had some New York pollution in my ear", Peter, dressed in his dark Spider suit with his mask in one hand, makes a show out of cleaning his ear with a pinky from his free hand. "Did you say 'godmother'?"
Elektra, in sweat pants and tank top stained with sweat and cleaning supplies nods and plays the message on the answering machine.
Matt strolls in drinking a glass of water from the kitchen and pays particular attention to the message, focusing all his super senses onto the words coming out of the box.
After the message plays, the Greek and the geek turn to him and wait to hear his analysis.
After a moment of thought, Matt turns to the pair. "It's strange. I didn't hear any noise pollution."
"Rock n roll?", quips the younger man, clearly nervous as to where this may lead.
"No, there was no outside noise. No cars, no animals, no people. I can usually hear the neighbors or a tv. Some honking or maybe a pigeon near a window. All I heard was machines."
"Machines?"
Elektra hands Peter the paper she was writing on earlier. "That makes sense. The number I had traced led to the industrial district."
Peter sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Right", his words sound disappointed, "evil lair?"
"Likely. I'll ask Misty to poke around, see if she can't dig anything up." Matt finishes his glass and turns to put it in the sink.
Elektra turns to the younger man slipping off his gloves. "The name sound familiar?"
"Can't says it does El." With his glove off he takes a close look at his left web-shooter. It's been acting wonky here lately. Maybe he'll take a look at it soon. "My parents were, 'out of town' a lot so they could have named someone outside the country as my godparents. But..."
"Why now?" Matt finishes the thought exiting the kitchen once again.
"Yeah", Peter takes the shooters off his wrists. "I mean, with everything going on, after all that I went through, is it just me or is the timing of her call really fishy?" He turns to look at his roommates with one brow raised.
The other two agreed with the paranoid man. It was strange. It was agreed that Peter wouldn't make contact with this woman until she has been throughly checked out.
Even though he agreed with their caution, Peter was still disappointed. Another link to his parents, someone like family he could talk to, it was too good to be true.
Unfortunately, given his history, it probably was.
-End Flashback-
Thinking of the supposed godmother brought to mind Aunt May. This has been the longest he's ever gone without speaking to her, not including when they thought she was dead.
After finishing some maintenence on his web-shooters, he turns to another project. It was about the size of a touch screen phone, except a bit thicker.
Aunt May. He's been keeping tabs on her and was glad that she seemed to be doing so well with Jay. And he knew Uncle Ben had to happy for them too.
Uncle Ben...
Was that a dream, or some sort of vision? Whatever it was, it got him out of his funk. What was he thinking then? It was best not to dwell on it and move on. He could still feel his uncle's fist connecting with his face.
His whole life lately didn't seem to make sense. Depression, anger, failure, why did all that seem to stand out so much? The body swap must still have him rattled. He still has nightmares...
Shaking his head to clear out the darker memories, he refocused on his work and goes back with the screwdriver.
Maybe he should get in touch with Doc Strange, see if he's carrying around any bad mojo. It wouldn't be the first time Doc had to remove some bad luck off of him. Odds were, it wouldn't be the last either...
Wait.
No...
Maybe?
But when?
From Felicia? Or someone...
Scrambling out of his seat he goes to his closet and grabs his black costume. Throwing it on the bed he starts to strip out of his civies.
His Spider-Sense hits him a second before his door is thrown open and he reacts without thinking.
"Guys! Little privacy here!" Peter shields his lower torso from his roommates with his costume.
Elektra pulls some gym shorts off the top of her head and glares at him. Matt pokes his face back in the doorway after dodging the thrown t-shirt. "Everything ok? We heard some banging."
Peter motions them out of his room and when the door closes he finishes suiting up. "Yeah, everything's fine. Just had a thought", he tucks his top into place and goes to grab his web-shooters.
Elektra turns to shoot a look at Matt, and either by pure luck or some application of super senses, he shares the same look with her.
She clears her throat and goes to open the door again when a fully dressed Spider-Man rushes out.
Ninja's and lawyer's reflexes had them jump apart to avoid a collision, not that the abilities of the younger hero would have allowed him to crash into them anyways.
Following the costumed man into the kitchen they try to get more answers.
"So", Matt asks awkwardly. "A thought?"
"Yeah." Spider-Man turns to the other two, eager to share this with them. "I think I'm cursed."
Seeing Elektra's disapproving stare, Spidey quickly elaborates. "No, I mean literally cursed. I mean, I've fought just about every lunatic from here to the Negative Zone, and even some from there. I've fought evil scientists, aliens, and voodoo priestesses. And some of them were completely off their rocker. You ever fight White Rabbit? Anyways, I've stopped bad dudes from doing weird stuff. And on more than one occasion, I've been mutated, depowered, aged, and even cursed. I was stuck with Black Cat's bad luck aura for awhile once."
Seeing where this was going, Matt filled in the blanks. "So you think you got that bad luck again?"
"Maybe. Maybe something else. There's enough weird mystic stuff out there and way too many bad guys who use it for me to narrow it down." Jumping to the ceiling, he opens the sky light and prepares to leave, "so I'm going to am expert."
Before the other two could speak, Spider-Man takes to the New York sky once again.
-Baxter Building-
"Are you sure? Ok, ok, thanks again." Jennifer Walters writes down the info and puts her cell in a pocket.
Standing up from her office chair she sees Ben Grimm standing in the doorway.
"In a hurry greenie?" Ben cracks a rocky smirk and sips his can drink.
"May have a lead on some bad business going down." She reaches him and pushes him out of her (temporary) office. "That thing Matt asked me to look in on. I could use some muscle, you in?"
Chuckling in laughter that SHE would need extra muscle, he follows her down the hallway. "Sure, I replaced Johnny's hair gel with cake frosting an hour ago and now I'm bored."
-Elsewhere?-
"Just take one for the team so we can use his machine" rumbled a frustrated voice from under a red and black mask.
"I would if we even played for the SAME TEAM", came the equally annoyed response from an attractive redhead standing across from him.
The other three of their party just stood aside and watched. They, a young male and two females, looked eerily similar, much like siblings, if not for the auburn hair tint and mass of shifting tentacles of one of the girls.
"Look Peter-" "Do NOT call me that", the angry "Not Peter" interrupted the redhead with a glare. Returning his glare they stood silent for a few moments.
At some unseen signal, the woman and 3 teenagers quickly put their masks back on. The still fuming man followed their lead.
A second later, a door in the extravagant room they stood in opened and in came the familiar armor and cape of this country's ruler. He stood before the group and turned to the curvy form in red and blue.
Standing confident and projecting as much charm and power as he could, he addressed her, "it is now time to dine with Doom, miss?"
"Oh", trying to sound as sweet as possible, "just call me Spider-Woman."