Pros and Cons of Anonymity
Disclaimer: Premise and characters belong to Marvel, I'm just playing with them.
Chapter Seven: Hero with Bad Press
Happy stood in the hall outside of the meeting room where the SHRA committee was meeting, the suitcase armor handcuffed to his wrist. After the earlier attack he wasn't taking chances or trusting the building security to watch over Pepper while she was on the premises. He kept himself amused by engaging in a staring contest with one of the other bodyguards until the meeting concluded. It was late in the afternoon when the doors opened and the delegates filtered out. Happy fell into step beside Pepper. "So, any great strides forward in your last meeting before maternity leave?" he asked.
Pepper gave him a noncommittal smile while they were out in public. When their car pulled up Happy gave the driver a friendly nod, subtly making sure it was the right guy, before opening the door for Pepper.
She let him offer her a steadying hand as she leaned down to get in, her belly making her balance questionable even during everyday activities. "We're making progress in prohibiting any sort of mandatory service from the Enhanced, Nelson and the ACLU have that aspect firmly in hand," she said once he'd gotten in and closed the door after them. "Registration of the Enhanced, on the other hand, always ends up being compared to gun registration no matter how many times we repeat that many of the more recent Enhanced didn't choose to have powers and removing them isn't as simple and non-invasive as seizing a gun. Deciding a person is too irresponsible to be trusted with powers once they have them is going to be a very ugly, messy business and it's a can of worms we can't avoid. Once a person is registered as having power you the next logical step has to be demanding proof that they can control their powers. Ensuring a fair definition of 'under control' is likely to be as every bit as problematic as deciding what to do with the ones we decide shouldn't have powers."
"You kick anyone hard enough and they're gonna react," Happy said. He took off his suit jacket and tossed it on the bench beside him then signaling the driver to leave.
Pepper nodded, "Bruce wouldn't let the Hulk out over a car backfiring, even given the number of times he's been shot at, but go after him with a bat and everyone within miles could be endangered. Is that because Bruce's control is insufficient to be allowed around normal people or do we have to recognize that even though his fight or flight reflex is extreme he still has a basic right to defend himself?" She grinned ruefully, "I keep telling myself to remember that whatever we pass my name should be the first one on the register and that I have to get the law written accordingly. But then it hits me that admitting that I'm still being affected by Extremis could provide a clue that Nettie inherited it and I don't know that I'll ever be ready to give her name to any organization that's ever wanted a super solider serum. If there's the slightest chance they'd try to make her into a lab experiment, I can't risk it. Even beyond protecting my daughter, I don't want to be the one to point the current research trend toward fetal experimentation."
"What are you going to do if she gets some of the blow 'em up side of Extremis?" Happy asked. "It's going to be hard to hide if she lights her crib on fire when she doesn't get a bottle or a diaper change fast enough."
"Not to mention dangerous," Pepper agreed. "Hank helped Dr. Cho build a suppressor that works on me, so it should work on her too. I told him I didn't want to test my control while in labor, which is true enough. If he guessed the other reason I needed it before Nettie was born-"
"Goblin incoming," the driver warned them.
Happy had only a moment to glance out the window. "Brace yourself!" he shouted.
The Goblin tossed a shaped charge beneath the front left wheel and flipped the car onto the sidewalk.
Pepper gasped as the seat belt cut into her. Her eyes burned and a golden glow filtered through her clothes and the taut skin of her stomach. She clung to the seat belt, trying to get her weight off her stomach, her breath coming in pained pants.
Happy released his belt, he landed on the car's roof with a grunt. Then, crouching on the inverted roof, he reached up to supported Pepper. She released her belt and slid into his arms, for a heartbeat she clung to him before pulling back into the more sheltered front corner of the compartment. She ran her hands over her belly, hushing her unborn daughter.
An explosion rocked the car. "No backup coming, the Avengers are on a mission," Happy muttered to himself. He unlocked the suitcase then glanced at the floor overhead and hesitated. "I can't armor up in here," he realized.
Pepper activated the gauntlet in her bracelet and blew off the door for him. The Goblin's deranged laughter rang out over the sounds of screams, honking horns and twisting metal coming from the street.
"Stay here," Happy said. He crawled out, drove his hands into the unfolding armor and stood pulling it to his chest as the Goblin swooped back for a second pass. Pulling his gun, Pepper's driver and second bodyguard stepped in front of Happy and unloaded the clip at the Goblin, protecting Happy until the armor was active. Nimbly the glider shimmied from side to side, evading the shots. The Goblin plowed into the man at full speed, slamming him into the side of the car. "No, no," Pepper whispered as she saw him collapse outside her door, a puddle of blood forming beneath him. Then she heard the familiar whine of repulsor fire.
Happy was grimly silent as he fired one hand then the other in quick sequence.
The Goblin dodged one bolt only to fly into the path of Happy's follow up shot. The impact knocked the Goblin from the glider to land in an undignified heap in the street but he quickly rolled back to his feet. "Lets see how you handle this Understudy," the Goblin hissed angrily. He tossed a translucent caltrop into the street at Happy's feet.
A flash of purple light enveloped the armor just as Happy charged up the repulsors. The gauntlets exploded, throwing Happy backwards but he lurched back to his feet. Cradling his hands against his chest he staggered back toward the car, trying to get between Pepper and the Goblin.
Pepper cast an anguished glance from Happy to her still glowing stomach then she wrapped his discarded jacket around her body and set herself to run. She blew the other car door off and scrambled out on all fours.
The Goblin went after her and Happy tackled him. As they grappled Happy realized that the Goblin's green skin was some sort of heavy, rubbery body-armor. Happy reached for what he now assumed was a mask but with his injured hands that gave the Goblin an opening to squirm and kick his way out from under Happy's bulk.
The Goblin called his glider back and leapt on it as Happy lunged for him. As he zoomed past Happy to go after Pepper again, Happy triggered the boot repulsors and launched himself at the Goblin like a missile crashing into the glider and sending them both falling. "Persistent," the Goblin sneered as he triggered another of his caltrops, "but dumb." Like the gauntlets before them, the boot repulsors exploded. The Goblin took a moment to bend over Happy and yank the arc reactor out of the suit before he could recover. "Without Stark, Iron Man is an empty shell soon to be doomed to obsolescence."
Bumped and battered by the stampeding crowd, Happy's jacket pulled tight around her to hide her glowing belly, Pepper ran for the cover of one of the buildings lining the street. The Goblin bounded through the crowd after her, brutally knocking people out of his way. He caught her sleeve, Pepper's momentum spun her around and spilled her to the ground. The Goblin took a moment to stand over her grinning menacingly. "So little whore, what are you going to do now?" he asked.
A line of webbing caught the Goblin in the middle of the back as Spider-Man swung overhead. He yanked the Goblin into the air and away from Pepper. At the apex of his swing Spider-Man let go of the webline holding the Goblin and sent him rolling across the roof of a building almost half a block away from Pepper. The Goblin slammed hard against a bank of air conditioner unit, denting the metal but still regained his feet quickly. "All my enemies, conspiring against me," he sneered.
Spider-Man perched on the low wall at the edge of the roof. "Or I just have a problem with people who attacking pregnant ladies," he said.
The Goblin looked past Spider-Man and chuckled evilly but the webslinger flipped over the returning glider before it could ram into his back. "Your luck won't last, Bug," the Goblin sneered as he leapt onto the board.
"It boomerangs? How's that fair?" Spider-Man whined. He sent a line of webbing at the Goblin in a bid to yank him off the glider again but only caught the satchel slung over his shoulder. Spider-Man pulled back sharply and ripped the bag away. "Cool! I've got your weapons," he declared when he realized what he'd done.
"Thief!" The Goblin shrieked diving at Spider-Man, who lightly twisted away.
"Keep-away! I know this game," Spider-Man taunted. He shot out a web-line and swung away from the building, the Goblin close behind. "Captain Stacy," he muttered into his comm, "I've got the Goblin right on my heels. Where do you want him?" He let go of the web-line early and threw himself in another direction, while the Goblin zipped past.
"We're evacuating a parking garage twelve blocks north of your location," Stacy replied. "Getting him inside will limit that damned glider."
Spider-Man glanced over his shoulder. "Hey Mean-Green! I'm gonna take your toys and reverse engineer them!" he threatened.
The Goblin overshot Spider-Man again, his glider releasing a cloud of purple smoke. "Too bad I've already seen your tricks," the Goblin laughed as Spider-Man's webbing suddenly dissolved.
Spider-Man fell over a dozen feet before managing to catch himself on the side of a building. As the Goblin circled back he tried to make another web line only to have useless glop the consistency of oatmeal sputter out of the contaminated canister. He dodged to the right and the window shattered beside hm as the Goblin tried to knock him off his perch with the glider's backwash.
The webbing in his other web shooter was still good. Spider-Man swung across the street and quickly replaced the contaminated canister with a spare. The next time the Goblin buzzed him he cut the webbing before the smoke could follow it back to his gear and the chase was on. Spider-Man ran across rooftops and occasionally the vertical faces of the buildings, ducking and dodging the Goblin's glider. He only used his webbing in short bursts to keep it free of the weaponized smoke spewing from the glider.
Spider-Man flung himself behind gargoyle. The Goblin veered away a moment too late. His glider clipped the statue, showering the street below with chunks of stone. While the Goblin fought for control Spider-Man swung into a narrow alley, clearing the length of the building in seconds. The Goblin quickly caught up, swooping down on him the moment he was out in the open. Spider-Man let go of his web-line, free falling for a beat before flipping around a flagpole and risking a quick web-line to pull himself in a new direction. The flagpole snapped and the webbing began dissolving almost immediately but Spider-Man was already falling, flying toward his next handhold.
Another block and the garage was in sight. Spider-Man doubled back, swinging around a column then sprinting for the garage. "We're set up on the third floor," Stacy said. Spidey shot a line to the neighboring building and swung himself upwards. The Goblin's smoke cut the webbing again. Spider-Man tumbled through the air. He got a hand on the wall of the garage and scrambled upward, ducking inside once he hit the third floor. There Spider-Man found a ring of police cars waiting. The officers rushed into position. "Spider-Man, behind us!" Stacy shouted.
"Gotch ya!" Spider-Man leapt up, sticking to the ceiling for a moment before throwing himself into the center of the ring of cars. The Goblin was only a second behind. The officers opened fire, their bullets knocked the Goblin to the ground, his glider sped on to embed itself into one of the cars.
Cautiously the officers came out of their barricade and approached the downed Goblin.
Spider-Man received a split second's warning. He leapt over the cars and started pouring webbing on the glider as the Goblin laughed. The glider exploded. Spider-Man's webbing contained the worst of the shrapnel but a moment later the car it had been embedded in exploded as well, then the one next to it. Still clutching the Goblin's satchel, Spider-Man was thrown through a concrete column. The officers scrambled for cover. In the chaos the Goblin vanished.
Ambulance sirens filled the air. Smoke rose from a number of destroyed cars. People wandered around with stunned expressions, many of them sporting visible injuries, as the EMTs tried to round them up. More sirens echoed up and down the route followed by Spider-Man and the Goblin during their running battle.
Three EMT's hefted Happy onto a stretcher, armor and all. His hands and feet were covered in bandages. He tried to sit up but one of the medics held his shoulders down. "Just tell us how to get you out of this armor so we better treat you." Nearby, another medic covered covered the driver's body with a sheet.
On the other side of the street, Pepper sat against the tire of a car her knees pulled up as much as possible huddled under Happy's suit jacket. Her head was bowed but her outstretched hand was steady, the glowing repulsor in her palm warding everyone off. "Ma'am, please let us check you over," a hovering EMT pled. Pepper shook her head without raising her eyes, she bit her lip to hold a pained moan back.
A police officer came over, he gave the EMT a questioning look. "I think she might be in labor," the medic said quietly. "But she won't let me get close enough to check."
"That's Virginia Potts," the officer observed. "If anything goes wrong…"
"I'd rather not get blown up because she's too far in shock to recognize help," the EMT hissed.
Eyes turned toward the sky, mouths dropped open as Iron Man landed near Pepper with more precision and none of the flare that characterized Tony's maneuvers in the suit. Pepper let herself be picked up and Iron Man blasted off, heading back for the Tower without a word.
At the parking garage twelve blocks away firefighters struggled to keep the blaze contained to the one building. Every now and then a hollow boom would announce another gas tank had exploded.
Captain Stacy, a bandage wrapped around his head, clothing covered in soot stood in front of a dazed Spider-Man and seven other injured officers, consulting with the Fire Chief. While they spoke a fifth body was carried out of the burning building.
Spider-Man sat on the ground clutching the satchel he'd snatched from the Goblin as if his life depended on it. He vaguely remembered being hauled out of the burning garage on Stacy's shoulder while the man shouted orders to his men. As he stared up at the sky, Spider-Man saw a news helicopter circling overhead.
At Stark Tower an Asian teenager in grubby clothes with a duffle bag slung over his back stood quietly on one side of the lobby. At the receptionist's desk Dr. Cho was giving orders to the highest security officers on site, "We are the closest medical facility. My surgeon is already scrubbing up and ambulances will be arriving in minutes. I need two elevators reserved for EMT use and a clear path through the lobby. You can't waste time checking ID's!"
The teenage started making his way over.
"We'll need to lock those elevators so they only go between the lobby and the medical floor," the security officer decided. "I'll station guards at the stairwell and send extra personnel to both levels. I won't compromise the Tower security more than absolutely necessary."
Dr. Cho noticed the teen, "Amadeus! You actually came! I didn't have to call out the private investigators!" she exclaimed hugging her son.
"Well your new digs aren't going to be boring, I can see that," Amadeus said. "Want me reprogram the elevators? You know I'm faster than anyone they've got on staff."
"How rude!" FRIDAY declared from the speaker on the receptionist's desk. "You haven't even been introduced and you want to put your grubby fingers on my intimate bits."
Amadeus blinked. "Um, Amadeus Cho at your service. And who might you be?"
"FRIDAY, I run this building and I'm entirely capable of taking care of Dr. Cho's request without having some dirty little boy messing around in my code. Boss-Lady's enroute, Doc. And Nettie's scorching the paint on the armor. I think she's in a hurry to get out."
"I have to go," Dr Cho said. "FRIDAY could you give Amadeus access to my apartment? Amadeus, please be there when I'm done?" She left before either could answer.
"Well, I guess that tells us," Amadeus commented. He headed for one of the other elevators, "I could use a shower I guess."
The elevator started up under FRIDAY's control. "I could have told you that, even without laying olfactory sensors on you."
"And you call me rude," Amadeus replied.
FRIDAY brightened and dimmed the hall lights to guide Amadeus to Dr. Cho's door then unlocked the door for him. "I call it like I see it," she sniffed.
"Aww you make like I'm some ham-handed amiture asking to mess around under your hood. I'd make it real good for you," Amadeus cooed.
"My little sister is being born, I don't have time for you," FRIDAY announced. She sounded flustered.
Amadeus chuckled, "Is talking with me taxing your processing speed?"
FRIDAY responded by blowing a raspberry.
Dr. Cho met Pepper and the Iron Man armor on the penthouse balcony along with Marlena. As FRIDAY had warned, the paint on the armor was blackened and peeling where Pepper's stomach had pressed against it while the front of Pepper's shirt and Happy's jacket had been reduced to ash. The glowing form of the child was visible through Pepper's skin. "I can see from here that she's positioned correctly," Dr. Cho observed as the armor provided a supporting arm for Pepper to lean on. "Now we just need to see if Dr. Pym's power suppressor works."
"It better work," Pepper ground out.
Dr. Cho shrugged, "If not we just break out the industrial rated oven-mitts. Let's get you to the delivery room."
"How about we deactivate the weaponry first?" Marlena suggested noticing that Pepper still had her repulsors charged.
Pepper looked down at the gauntlets on her hands as if surprised to find they were still there. She nodded shortly and they folded away back into bracelets. Marlena stepped forward to offer her a supporting arm as they headed inside but Pepper only clung to the armor more tightly.
May Parker glanced around uncertainly as FRIDAY directed her to one of the Tower's private entrances and took her up to the medical floor.
Through an open door she saw Peter, still in his costume, sitting on an exam table leaning woozily against the wall. "Spider-Man," the nurse said holding up a thinner-looking version of his mask with open eye-holes. "I've been given a protocol for treating you. Can you switch your mask for this one? We need to take an X-Ray of your skull to make sure you don't have any fractures and your mask has metal wiring in it."
"I can do that," Peter said. He reached for the mask but missed, his vision slightly off. A distressed squeak escaped May and Peter saw her. "I'm good," he told the nurse firmly while looking straight at May.
The nurse put the new mask in his hand, "I'll be right back to help you change your clothes," he said and left the exam room closing the door behind her. May stood, back pressed against the wall and tried to be inconspicuous. As promised the nurse returned a few minutes later with a hospital gown and a wheelchair.
While May watched the closed door she wondered how she was going to inconspicuously managed to follow them when the nurse took Peter to get his X-Ray. Then Captain Stacy walked up. He nodded when he saw her and quietly handed her a visitor's badge. "I got a call that you were here. Go along with my story," he said then knocked on the exam room door.
"Yes?" the nurse asked, poking his head out after a moment.
Stacy showed him his badge, "Captain George Stacy. It's department policy to have a representative stay with Spider-Man in case of any legal issues." He gestured to May, "This is May Parker, she'll be staying with him until he's been discharged." May took a notebook and pencil out of her bag and put on a calm professional air.
"Whatever, just stay out of the way," the nurse said distractedly. May sent Stacy a grateful look behind the nurse's back.
As the hours passed the hall outside of Pepper's delivery room filled up.
First Marlena and her kids arrived, following right behind Pepper. Once the siblings realized that nothing was going to happen quickly they both got out their phones. Harley called Hank Pym and the two of them began speculating about the Goblin's tech and what he might have done to make the repulsors on the Iron Man armor explode. Mercedes curled up against her mother's side and called Cassie, keeping both her and her parents updated about Pepper and the baby. "Dr. Hank's thingy worked," she assured them. "Everything's good."
Then, an hour later, Happy arrived in a wheelchair. The skin on his hands and feet looked new and delicate after having undergoing Dr. Cho's regenerative treatment. "I couldn't keep him in bed but don't let him out of that wheelchair," the attendant warned before leaving.
"How's she doing?" Happy asked.
"Eight centimeters dilated. She's almost to the hard part," Marlena said.
"Almost?" Happy wondered hearing a pained shout from the delivery room.
Six hours after the attack Vision arrived, his cape still singed from the Avenger's mission. "Colonel Rhodes will be here shortly," he announced. "He is being debriefed about the Goblin situation."
Twenty minutes later Rhodey rolled in, followed by Spider-Man and May. "How's Pepper?"
"Doing fine," Marlena said. "We're expecting the baby any time now."
"Police have anything to say about the Goblin?" Happy asked.
Rhodey groaned "What we've come up with is we're basically fighting Tony's evil counterpart. OsCorp stole Tony's IP to build that damned glider but this guy didn't just steal his gear from Osborn. He's sharp enough to design something to counter both Tony's repulsors and Spider-Man's webbing. Now he might have been involved in the glider design and working on understanding the repulsors for years but if he'd had anti-repulsor tech at gala three weeks ago he would have used it. Worse yet I doubt he'd ever seen the webbing before September, in just a couple months he found a reactant that turns it into so much mush and a delivery system. Which means not only is he smart, he's got the resources to fabricate what he designs quickly. Probably not a disgruntled ex-employee but someone who has access to OsCorp's labs right now."
"Have the police found a suspect?" Vision asked.
"I called in favor and got OsCorp's military liaison to look over the list Osborn gave the police. We narrowed it down to five names: Dr. Otto Octavius, Melati Kusuma, Phineas Mason, Herman Schultz and, of course, Norman Osborn himself," Rhodey said.
"So what's next?" Happy asked, "send Vision or Captain Marvel against him? Aggressively, so he doesn't have time to develop counters for their abilities?"
"I'm not throwing in the towel yet," Spider-Man stated. "I've got one of my contaminated canisters to work from to keep him from taking out my webbing again and we've got these," he held out two of the caltrops.
Harley fell on them like a starving man at a buffet. "I'll show him obsolete!" the younger teen exclaimed.
"Stacy turned them over to SI for analysis after cataloging them," Rhodey said.
Pepper's hair was drenched with sweat and her eyes bruised from squeezing them shut too tightly when the contractions hit. "Tony?" she looked around the room with a panicked air. Then her gaze settled on the armor she relaxed fractionally.
"Alright, push now," the midwife assisting Dr. Cho instructed.
Pepper flung her hand out and caught the armor's gauntlet as the next contraction hit.
"There's her shoulder, you're almost done. Just a little more."
"You said that ages ago!" Pepper accused glaring at the woman furiously.
"One more push," the woman replied calmly.
A baby began to cry, "There you are beautiful," the midwife said. "Let's cut the cord and get you to your mama."
A moment later the wailing baby was laid on Pepper's chest. She curled her free hand around the baby's back, never releasing the armor.
"Okay, just the afterbirth left," the midwife told Pepper, "One more push."
The look Pepper sent the woman was pure outrage, "One more! You keep saying one more! Use a fucking dictionary!"
"You were past the point of no return months ago," the midwife replied blandly. "Now you've got to get the afterbirth out, one more push."
"Hate you," Pepper declared. Then she looked down at her baby and her expression softened. Dazed from pain and exhaustion and not totally rational she tugged at the armored hand in her's pulling the suit closer, "Cheating Tony, today I get to crush your hand if I feel like it," she murmured. "Now stop scanning your daughter and take that off so you can see her properly."
"There's more bleeding than there should be," the midwife said, waving Dr. Cho forward.
A slight, blond man with fierce scowl stormed the waiting room. "I want to know who was piloting that second armor and I want to know right now!" Everett Ross exclaimed. "Colonel Rhodes and Mr. Hogan were both accounted for and NO ONE else is licensed to use that armor!"
"Director," Rhodes calmly lied. "You've seen me summon War Machine, haven't you? That's all that happened. Pepper went into labor during the Goblin attack, she summoned the armor and then sent it back to the tower after it picked her up."
Ross opened his mouth to argue more, but the door to the delivery room opened and a nurse stepped out carrying a small, pink wrapped bundle. She smiled, "May I introduce Antoinette Evelyn Stark, born at 5:29pm on December 13, 2016. She's six pounds, four ounces in weight; nineteen and a quarter inches long. Now who has first dibs on holding her?" And Ross stepped back, a small smile gracing his face as he allowed himself to be forgotten.
For a moment everyone was frozen then Rhodey slowly rolled himself forward and held up his arms. The nurse rearranged him a bit then settled Nettie against his chest. "Hey there. You can call my Uncle Rhodey," he said. Nettie wriggled a hand free of her blanket and reached for the source of his voice with a little squeak. "Oh, look at you, all wide eyed and curious already," he cooed. "Of course you are."
"Let me see!" Mercedes demanded leaning on the arm of Rhodey's wheelchair while Harley tried not to look too interested as he leaned over his sister's shoulder. Nettie had thin wisps of dark hair on her head, big blue eyes and squished up red face, a delicate looking choker adorned with blue gems graced her neck. "Hi baby!" Mercedes said. "Look, she's smiling at me!"
"My research indicates that when a baby this young appears to be smiling it is more likely gas," Vision said using that as an excuse to get a closer look at Nettie himself. He smiled and reached out to let her curl her hand around his finger.
"Look at her little fingers, they've got fingernails and everything," Harley said, forgetting himself.
"I'd hope so," Happy said.
Marlena gave the nurse a worried look, "I wouldn't think Pepper would be willing to let her out of sight this quickly."
"It's nothing to worry about," the nurse assured them. "Just a little tearing. Ms. Potts was quite forceful that, since Nettie was out she wanted pain-killers before we did any more poking around."
Ross quietly let himself out of the waiting room. 'Probably best that she did call the armor,' he thought to himself. 'Be a damn shame if anything worse had happened to Potts or Tony Stark's kid."
Spider-Man, Bringing Lagos Home
The Daily Bugle By: J. Jonah Jameson December 14, 2016
Yesterday, in events chilling reminiscent of last spring in Lagos, the streets of New York were rattled by multiple explosions. Dozens more were injured by falling glass and rubble as Spider-Man and his foe fought their way across our city. This morning thirteen are dead and over forty injured, innocent bystanders caught up in a reckless battle between a masked vigilante and his arch nemesis.
The fight spanned nearly fourteen city blocks leaving devastation in its wake. Randy Paul, age twelve and his mother were walking home from a dentist appointment when a shower of glass falling from twenty stories above ended his life. His is only one of yesterday's tragedies, precipitated by a self-declared 'hero' who still refuses to sign the Sokovian Accords because of the technicality that he claims to be a citizen of this country. Of course we have to take his word for that as he's hardly going to provide a birth certificate.
Notes: Phineas Mason, the Terrible Tinkerer and Herman Schultz , the Shocker are both engineers while Melati Kusuma, aka Komodo is a geneticist. In my AU all three of them plus Doctor Octopus are still pre-origin story.