Publisher's Note: 6/15/14 Sun.
I would like to apologize for the bad errors that appeared for this chapter last night, I just simply published it right away without checking, and since it was really I just went to bed right away since I was tired. Well the problem is fix. So enjoy your chapter.
CHAPTER 38
December Brings Unexpected Gifts
You spent Black Friday and the following week working on projects and shopping.
You begin work on your gift for Felicia- other than a brand name one as well, you're making her some grappling bracers. Web-swinging's pretty dangerous and only your Spider-sense makes it relatively safe for you. The blueprints are already done, but it'll take a few trial and error runs before you're out of prototyping and build the final, perfected, product- another week.
You also decided to spend time with some friends and family. You spend time with Stella during this week, showing her around Andes courting her while she goes shopping in the crowded streets. She's thinking about picking up a hobby, but she hasn't decided on anything yet.
You manage to also spend some time hanging out with Mary Jane Watson. She's awkward and weird, but you figure you'll get into this videogame and cartoon culture thing she and Harry were into. And it's pretty cool. You guess- OG GOD GIANT ROBOTS. And models. You're in. Stella often comes and joins in, but you notice that Mary Jane seems to relax more around your all but adopted sister.
You've also been putting extra time in to help Flash. You've noticed he's in a bit of a worse mood after the holidays, but he apologizes. He doesn't seem like he likes to talk about his family life much, either. It's a bit worrying, but Flash does concede something to you. "Look, Peter, I'm thinking of what to do when I get outta School. I could try for Football scholarships, but I was also thinking of the military, too. Not sure what to do, yet."
You manage a good date with Felicia- seems like she's back to her usual self, but she seems a bit lost in thought. When you ask her about it, all she does is give you a mischievous smile.
The papers are noting Spider-man's absence, Uncle Ben comments one morning. Well it has been a month since your last spotting after taking down the HobGoblin.
You spend your week of working finishing up the bracers, making sure that they work, and safely at that, others don't have your spider-sense, after all, and it'd be best to make sure that nothing goes wrong for the person you made it for.
Especially after the last gift you gave her.
Spending time, you stress test and abuse a pre-production models as much as you can to see if any problems come up. By the end of the week, it's as durable and tested as it will ever get with the tools you have.
In the meantime, you've done some work out as Spider-man- and making sure everything was up to snuff with that was a pain on its own. You had to remake all of your webbing and clean the costume, and then make sure nobody notices that you're doing all of this. Stella's really helpful for this, but she's a bit put out that you're busy.
But you look into the Sandman thing. You keep an ear and an eye out, but you're not much better off finding anything out, even in your red and blues. You do, however manage to stop and string up some thugs trying to grab some lady, but nothing on the Sandman, yet. Well- except for one thing.
There's no way a normal person could commit those crimes.
You work on a new type of webbing. A stronger type of webbing. It's much harder for anything to remove with brute force tearing, but it's still weak to cutting when dried, though it requires more effort.
And whilst you work on that scientific wonder, you've also made yourself busy in the meantime. You went and braved the elements and winter shoppers with Stella and went Christmas Shopping. You picked out gifts for people that you think they'd like.*
You hang out with Gwen, and after a bit of prodding, get her to go see Sue Storm at the end of the week, while you hang out for a bit with Johnny, who, while managing it well, is still more than a little stir-crazy. Seems like he's been experimenting with his powers in a room DOOM's built for him, with little other than spending time on the internet or reading. You manage to do a bit of sparring with him, as bad at it as you used to be, at his insistence. He's not able to hit you, but it seems like he burned out some of his energy.
Meanwhile, Gwen has gotten Sue's number to talk with, but you were also handed a letter, which you were told was the location of Dr. Spyral. As you wrapped up this hang out, you talked some more with Gwen- seems like she's been up to stuff in the meantime.**
After you part ways with her, you see an old man in a red suit with a black overcoat and hat sitting on a bench by the park you walk home by. He nods at you as you pass by and he stands up- effortlessly moving his heavy looking metal cane to his hand as he walks closer- his hair's silver, but he seems to have aged well. He matches pace with you as you grow a bit nervous.
"You've put things in motion. Things that cannot be undone. This is as much as I can help you right now."
He hands you a manilla envelope, embossed with what looks like a wheel before turning at a street intersection and vanishing into the crowd.
You've yet to open the folder, but the week's still young.
You look into the envelope's contents, carefully, and pull out several heavily redacted reports, but the stuff left untouched is the interesting part. It talks about S.H.I.E.L.D. and Charles Xavier's agreements- though about what, you're not entirely sure, along with things such as the theoretical existence of the 'X-gene' that people are born with that might awaken. It's above your head biologically, but it seems like a thorough look into things- there's a mention that it is unrelated to some sort of incident in Egypt sometime around 1987, but that part is left to mystery in the redacted black lines, there's also a reference to the cold war.
You look up the image, or rough paint version of it, in your image search, but all you get are is a spokes wagon wheels as results.
Seems like that's how far this clue goes. Maybe.
Letting out a sigh, you continue work on your modifications to your webshooters before you go meet Doctor Natascha Spyral You make revolving cartridges to make sure you can switch between normal and strong webbing on the fly.
After fixing it up, you grab the letter from her future self and head to meet the Good Doktor.
You decide to play it safe and go in as Spider-Man. While you may have trusted the Doktor in the future, but right now you're meeting her from 20 years ago. She can be completely different than who she turns out to be. A lot can change in that time after all.
Your first impression, as you head to her residence at night, is worry. Seems like she's in the possession of an old insane asylum, which has been renovated- it's still in service as one, it seems.
You head in the front door, which is unlocked- there's no visiting hours listed, so you head right on in. There's a nurse at a check-in station, he smiles at you as you approach. He's a big man with short hair.
"Hello, sir. How can I help you?"
You clear your throat and give your friendliest attitude. "Ah, yes. May I see Doctor Spyral, please?"
The nurse frowns and stares at you before shaking his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that… without an autograph!"
He smiles at you as you nod. He steps out from behind the desk with one of those old Polaroid camera and takes a picture of the both of you, his arm around you shoulder before you sign it as 'Best Wishes from your Neighborhood Friendly Spider-man!'
The man smiles and puts the picture away. "Um. Do you always have that camera with you?"
The man nods. "Yes, I always have a camera to take pictures with. It's something I do for my daughter. She's sick you see, so I often try to take pictures of things for her. This job's a new thing for me, though."
The man looks a bit embarrassed. "Oh, but you wanted to see Doctor Spyral. She's down the hall on the left on room six, here's your pass. It's nice for someone to visit her, I hear she doesn't have many visitors."
"Nice to meet you mister…"
"Baker, sir. William Baker."
The man smiles at you and shakes your hand before handing you a pass. You head on down as the man waves you off.
Opening the door, you see a woman in what looks like a mess- well, a mess that's also a lab, maybe? She's wearing a coat, and he's currently drawing on her face in marker lines in a mirror. She pauses as she sees you in her mirror.
"Ah, yes, can I help you?"
The woman smiles at you, lines over her face- her skin is pale and her hair is a messy, pale straw color.
"I have a letter for you, Doctor Spyral."
This woman... she lacks the german accent and robotic parts. Was this how she used to be?
"Not to be rude, but could I get some identification?"
She pauses and raises an eyebrow before smiling and applauding. "Ah, good. Somebody who knows the proper way of doing things."
She fishes around in her pockets before pulling out an identification card and showing it to you- it does indeed say Natascha Spyral. You hand her the letter as she re-pockets her ID. She raises an eyebrow. "Not what you were expecting?"
You shake your head. "No. I expected someone more… German."
She looks at you before laughing. "Oh, god. If Otto could see this now, he'd blow his top. Yeah- that's a thing I do to piss him off, sometimes. You're also probably curious why I'm here- institutionalized, right?"
Yeah. There is that.
She shrugs. "I'm actually free to go at any time. I've just put myself in here in case my planned surgeries go wrong. I was about to prepare for it, soon enough."
She points to the lines on her face. "What… exactly were you going to do?"
She points over as you see a silver, robotic jaw sitting there. "I was going to surgically remove mine and replace it. It's a risky procedure, and one that's likely not to succeed without complications, but I never do something to a patient without making sure it works first. Ever."
Her resolute face points the letter at you before she pauses and opens it. Seems like there's a lot there to read. At least several pages worth.
You stay put and wait, deciding to only glance around. However, the room's an absolute mess.
You can't help but look in disgust as undergarments and food lie around everywhere as you notice a smell through your mask.
One of B.O.
You hold your breath and wait for her to finish.
Minutes pass
C'mon.
C'mon.
C'mon.
She finally finishes reading through and turns back to you a little unnerved. "This is my handwriting and that… I don't understand but then again, I expect I probably won't, anyway. I thank you for the letter though, it was very informative. Was there anything else?
You pause. "So, you know Otto Octavius, right?"
Her face becomes that of a scowl. "Yeah. I know the right bastard. I helped him design things and then he took the credit and humiliated me in front of my peers. If I could get my hands on that fat bas-"
She clears her throat and tries to look polite. "But, yes. You could say I know him. He even made the joke I should be in an insane asylum, so I took him up on that offer."
There's a wry grin on her face as she gestures around. "So, was there anything else?"
"Uh, yeah. I'm actually a bit of a scientist myself, I built my webshooters, after all, and I was curious if you'd like to collaborate sometime- but I suppose with that history, you'd probably not want to, huh?"
She runs a hand through her own short, messily cut hair before nodding. "If you want me to work with you- I'll need three things. A lab, a contract, and to know who you are."
She stares at you as a sly look crosses her face. "Then again, my mother does always complain about how I don't have a man yet, so I'd gladly work if you signed some marriage papers."
She smiles at you before bursting out laughing. "Just messing with you, kid. You're too young for my tastes, right now, according to this letter- didn't say who you were, but it said you were young. Look, seriously, though, get me an interesting enough project or hire me on. That's the only way I'd work for you.
"So, unless you're planning one of those two, I'm going to have to ask you to leave for now."
There was always something from the hard drive- the arc reactor, that could be used to gain her interest, couldn't it?
You shake your head.
No.
"Afraid I'm going to have to go, Dok. But is there a way I could keep in touch, in case that changes?"
The Doctor nods and eventually, after looking around, hands you a business card. "This is my phone, so if you need to reach me, call this."
You give her a nod as you pocket the card and turn to leave. Before you leave, you pause and turns back. "By the way, Doc? This room's a really unsanitary place to be doing operations. You should clean up, and probably shower."
Her eyes widen as she glances around as you head out- a pillow hitting the wall in front of you as you leave.
"I-I AM KNOWING THAT! IT IS STATEMENT OF… OF REBELLION! YOUTH LIKE YOU WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND!"
You leave as you hear her yelling, her accent slipping, not german, but to something else. Russian, maybe? You leave and wave at William Baker as you head out, as he wishes for you to have a nice night.
Nice guy, him.
You head out and decide to patrol around for a bit before heading back- while making sure you aren't being tailed. Switching back to Peter Parker, you head down the winter streets as you deal with terribly large amounts of people rushing around, doing last, last minute shopping.
You glance around, but other than that, there's nothing to see.
You barely manage out of the way of a large man in an overly star-decorated coat and hat, who seemed to be carrying large amounts of large, wrapped presents. The man nods thankfully at you before heading on as you hear a young woman yelling at him to hurry up.
He continues on his way, into the crowds.
Well, that certainly could have gone worse.
Regardless, you should probably go ahead and head on home.
Christmas Eve shopping is hell.
END
To Be Continued…
Publisher's Note: 6/15/14
I made an error in the Publisher's note in chapter 30 when responding to Romez about Peter and Felicia's ages as well as when is Peter's birthday , it's already been fixed in order to not confuse others catching up to the coming chapters. Peter and Felicia's ages are the same, they are both 17 still in their teens. Since there weren't any birthdays found for Peter, only speculations, Cosgrove just made it August 15th, the current year in the story is 2013 about to go into 2014. By having read this chapter you can guess what month we are in.
Equipment: For on now I will write down Peter's equipment that he has on in person or owns in the end of each chapter.
Equipment:
**Limited Police Information: Peter Parker now has access to police logistics and information (limitedly) through Gwen Stacy. If you need to find out anything the police know on minor matters, she can tell you. More classified subjects are above her level.
*-Assumed that Peter gets respectable gifts
STRONG WEBBING INVENTED. This thick substance is able to go through your webshooters, but just barely. It also requires more use per cartridge, meaning that you have less usable- not advisable for web slinging unless larger cartridges are in use.
(Fake) Glasses- Hides the fact that your sight is now perfect to the unaware.
Hard drive- a removed computer hard drive. Contains files left by your father.
Richard Parker's Bag - Has a lock on it. A bag that belonged to your father- holds blueprints and notes on his works, as well as a warning.
Web Shootersx2- Roughly made, but they do the job. Each one can fit six cartridges- has rotating cartridges that can change between webbing types.
Web fluid (6x)- Six cartridges worth of regular webfluid.
Strong-web-fluid- Six cartridges worth of strong webfluid.
Spider-man costume (Durable) - You can't wear it under your clothes, but it reduces both your agility bonus and the damage you take by one. It does, however, boost your fellowship bonus by one in the costume.
Spider-man costume (sonic-proofed/Agile)- It's too thick to wear under your clothes, but your agility isn't decreased. However, you can't hear anything while in this costume and it can be sweltering during warmer months, but it should protect you from the Hobgoblin's Sonic Laugh.
[Equipped] Spider-man Costume (Stylish/Agile)- It's a light, thin material that allows you full mobility. However, it offers you no extra protection. You're friendlier looking, so fellowship rolls to those not hostile increase by three. This costume also offers you no protection from the cold- better wear some thermals or you might get frostbite... everywhere!