NATIONAL CITY: 10 YEARS AGO (PRE-CRISIS)
"I did things in my life I'm not very proud of..." Peter tried his best to explain. "Every hero has that moment. That one moment they feel they made the wrong decision...they didn't carry the one and made a mistake. My mistake cost the life of my best friend..."
In a giant warehouse, Peter was currently waking up after a giant explosion sent him flying across the room. He pulled off his mask, which had been destroyed in the explosion. The entire iron suit was a metallic red, with the spider emblem, eye lenses, bracers, and boots being golden. To match, the suit bears a blue arc reactor in its chest as well as repulsors on its gauntlets and boots.
This is an older model of the nanotechnology suit he would soon have. Getting back up, feeling he had bruised his legs in the attack, he found the cure inside a syringe. He has been working on this for months...trying his best to save his friend. His head was injured, but he tried to listen for his senses to tell him where Hobgoblin was coming from.
His head buzzed, but it was too late for Peter to dodge the pumpkin bomb that came down from behind and exploded. Peter was sent flying, his metallic arms splitting off from his suit because of the constant blasts. Peter sent skidding across the scorched ground and caused his head to bleed.
"I thought we were friends, Peter." Ned's voice echoes throughout the air as he came down and landed in front of Peter and ditched the glider.
"You're not my friend anymore," Peter stated as he got back on his feet and spat the blood in his mouth. "My best friend is dead, and I'm going to avenge him, by stopping you!"
"Have fun with that," Ned stated as he punched Peter, sending Peter slipping backward.
Peter reacted as Ned went in to attack by webbing the rubble and trapping Ned inside. Taking this as the only opening he is going to get, he took the syringe and tried to go in, only for Ned to tackle him through the web and begin to strangle Peter.
"Your morality, Peter. That's why you're weaker." Ned mocked as he tightened his grip. "It's choking you!"
Peter then took his opening and stabbed Ned with the syringe. It sent him tumbling backward, giving Peter a moment to get back up. But to Peter's shock, Ned fell to his knees, getting weaker from the antidote inside, but looking pissed.
"It didn't work." Ned chuckled as he pulled the syringe out and tossed it. "You thought you could just cure me, and I'd go back to normal?" He tried to get back up, but Peter (as a precaution) put enough tranq inside to take himself down. "This is temporary."
"Until I can find a solution that'll work, yes," Peter confirmed.
"You can try," Ned said with a grin. "But we both know I won't be in a cell for long. I'll be out. And I'll go after your aunt...your girl...everyone you know and love." Peter started to get worried and knew he would hold his end to that promise. "I'll kill everyone who ever loved you! AND I WILL KILL THEM A-"
Before he had the chance to finish the statement, Peter grabbed Ned by the neck and twisted. With his body being weakened by the sedative, Peter was able to twist and kill him.
Peter stood there as Ned's body fell to the ground. He couldn't believe what he did and dropped to his knees, letting out an ear-piercing cry of pain and terror of what he did. A few moments later, the DEO finally showed up and Hank saw Peter crying over the body of his friend.
"That's how things played out in one reality...then Crisis came. And things changed."
NATIONAL CITY: (POST-CRISIS)
In a giant warehouse, Peter was currently waking up after a giant explosion sent him flying across the room. He pulled off his mask, which had been destroyed in the explosion. The entire iron suit was a metallic red, with the spider emblem, eye lenses, bracers, and boots being golden. To match, the suit bears a blue arc reactor in its chest as well as repulsors on its gauntlets and boots.
This is an older model of the nanotechnology suit he would soon have. Getting back up, feeling he had bruised his legs in the attack, he found the cure inside a syringe. He has been working on this for months...trying his best to save his friend. His head was injured, but he tried to listen for his senses to tell him where Hobgoblin was coming from.
His head buzzed, but it was too late for Peter to dodge the pumpkin bomb that came down from behind and exploded. Peter was sent flying, his metallic arms splitting off from his suit because of the constant blasts. Peter sent skidding across the scorched ground and caused his head to bleed.
"I thought we were friends, Peter." Ned's voice echoes throughout the air as he came down and landed in front of Peter and ditched the glider.
"You're not my friend anymore," Peter stated as he got back on his feet and spat the blood in his mouth. "My best friend is dead, and I'm going to avenge him, by stopping you!"
"Have fun with that," Ned stated as he punched Peter, sending Peter slipping backward.
Peter reacted as Ned went in to attack by webbing the rubble and trapping Ned inside. Taking this as the only opening he is going to get, he took the syringe and tried to go in, only for Ned to tackle him through the web and begin to strangle Peter.
"Your morality, Peter. That's why you're weaker." Ned mocked as he tightened his grip. "It's choking you!"
Peter then took his opening and stabbed Ned with the syringe. It sent him tumbling backward, giving Peter a moment to get back up. But to Peter's shock, Ned fell to his knees, getting weaker from the antidote inside, but looking pissed.
"It didn't work." Ned chuckled as he pulled the syringe out and tossed it. "You thought you could just cure me, and I'd go back to normal?" He tried to get back up, but Peter (as a precaution) put enough tranq inside to take himself down. "This is temporary."
That's when Peter heard someone running and saw Spider-Man (Peter-1) coming in with another syringe. "Spider!" He then tossed the antidote to him, Peter figuring his counterpart must've figured out something was wrong with the antidote.
Peter caught the second syringe and stabbed it into Ned's neck, hoping that it works. Ned fell over again, and Peter watched his facial expressions change from one of anger and happiness to one of shock and horror.
"Peter?" Ned asked, shocked at what he had done as he looked around at the fire and destruction surrounding the three of them. "What...what did I do?"
Peter smiled as he kneeled and held onto his friend. "It's gonna be okay, Ned. It's going to be okay."
Peter-1 swung over and landed next to the two of them. "You okay?" He asked Peter-38, noticing the wound on his head. "That looks bad."
"No, I'm fine," Peter-38 promised. "I've had head injuries before."
"Oh, good," Peter replied, happy to see that he was able to help. "Nice catch, by the way."
"Nice throw," Peter-38 replied.
"Eat your heart out, Gym Teacher," Peter-1 commented with a smile.
The DEO then finally arrived and swarmed around them. Hank saw that Peter was able to save his best friend, with the help of the Spider-Man from Central City.
"I thought it was done. I thought I destroyed the Hobgoblin...then this happened..."
"Can the Spider-Men come out to play!?" The cry from the Hobgoblin asked as he came swooping down and sending several razor bats flying in their direction.
Everyone reacted differently, as half of them dodged the attacks coming in from the sudden surprise villain, followed by some of them shielding those who couldn't move out of the way fast enough.
Sadly, for the Kryptonians though, it turns out that the blades were embedded with Kryptonite to slow them down. As they worked on getting the kryptonite out of them, the spider-themed heroes all shot webs out, including Maggie using her powers, to shoot at the glider.
They were holding him back with all their might, but it only ended in his favor as Hobgoblin spun around and cuts all of their webs and flew away, cackling the entire time.
But then they discovered that it was all a distraction.
A distraction for Ashley to escape.
A distraction so he could make his move.
A distraction for everyone.
The moment he flew away, they were met with millions of tiny projectiles falling from the air that looked like glowing lights.
And that's when they all knew what was falling on them.
Pumpkin bombs.
"Run!" Peter-38 cried in terror as he raced to shield everyone he could as the first bomb hits the roof, causing an explosion to cripple the roof.
"May Parker died because of me...because the Hobgoblin was still out there. Whoever it is has waited twenty-five years to exact their revenge...but I'm going to stop him."
PRESENT-DAY:
Peter and Kara were in Lena's labs once again, looking over the results for their second baby coming soon.
Lena was checking on the process of their new arrival coming soon.
"You two have yet another perfectly happy baby," Lena informed her friends. "Are you looking into the gender this time around?"
Peter and Kara looked at one another, thinking about it, and knew this time around they didn't want any more surprises.
"This time, we wanna know," Peter confirmed as he held Kara's hand.
Lena then took another look at her results and smiled. "Well...looks like it's a boy!"
Peter was shocked to hear that and looked to Kara, who had a smile on his face. "Look at that! You're gonna have a son."
"A little Kara and now a little Peter," Lena said with a chuckle and looked nervous. "Both of them."
"Wait, did you say both?" Kara asks and becomes afraid. "A son and..."
"And another daughter," Lena said with a sheepish smile.
"Twins." Peter was shocked to hear. "Is this some cosmic joke?" He couldn't believe one single kid, now he has twins.
Peter Snow-Parker would be bursting out laughing if he was here right now.
"Twins." Kara couldn't help but smile and then immediately turned to panic. "Oh, god what does that mean?"
"I can't tell right now, but right now there are two theories," Lena said as she started to think. "One, this could possibly slow down the birth process." She then sighed, looking at her results. "But from the results, I see here...the more likely one will be it could speed up the birth."
"How fast?" Peter and Kara asked, both of them looking at the already formed bump that wasn't there the other night.
Lena did a few rough calculations in her head and got a rough idea. "A few days. A week from today. Possibly even Friday."
"Three days?!" The couple cried in shock.
"And I thought I had super speed," Kara commented as she looked down at her swelling body.
Peter seemed to have found the news a little too shocking for him to handle as he fell to the floor and fainted.
"You might wanna call in some backup." Lena was sorry to say.
"We are gonna need time off." Peter sighed and knew Anjelica was going to take up time as a hero for them. Even asked Anjelica to team up with her.
Anjelica and Roberta were back at her place, seeing the place filled with all of her old baby stuff and a few new things her parents had to get. She had already called in a favor for Cisco and asked him to design a suit for Roberta that would fit her.
"Thanks for helping me out with this," Anjelica said as she got dressed in her suit. "My folks are going baby crazy with this whole thing and want to keep me as safe as possible."
"Well, after kicking that weird super-space cop guy, I think it's a cool thought being a superhero," Roberta said as she stepped out of the bathroom in her suit. She wore a red, white, and blue uniform with small wings on the facial mask and a large "A", symbolizing America and also having a place where her hair could come through. This entire suit could easily be mistaken for Captain America. "But I think that this is already taken."
"Well, right now that position has a vacancy." Anjelica reminded her. "Ohh! I almost forgot!" She then reached into a case and pulled out a shield that was painted in a familiar red-white-and-blue pattern with a five-pointed star design in its center. "The finishing touch to the suit."
"I thought the shield was missing?" Roberta recalled that nobody had any idea where the shield went after Morg'Ann went missing.
"The original one, yes," Anjelica confirmed. "But this one used to belong to Captain HYDRA. We just had it redesigned to fit the new user."
"Really?" Roberta asks and looks to see when she closed her fist, the shield would close and stick to her arm. "Sweet. I can get used to this."
That's when CB-23, a BB-astromech droid with a spherical chassis, feminine programming, and red-blue plating that Cisco sent them, came rolling in.
"When did you guys get one of those?" Roberta asked in shock.
"With the comms down in Central City, the guys thought that it would be better if we had a way to communicate without relying on phones for private conversations," Anjelica explained their reasoning. "Also, I have always been jealous of them having one. Had Cisco make it while we were in town when he was making your suit."
Then CB-23 bleeped a bit, giving off a message that Roberta didn't understand. "What'd she say?"
"There's a known associate of Taskmaster who's been spotted entering National City." Anjelica translated for her. "Aunt Alex has been tracking his movements for a while, and seems to have found us an opening."
"Then let us get to work," Roberta stated as the shield reformed around her arm. "This is gonna be fun."
CENTRAL CITY:
At the Snow-Parker household, everyone was starting to wake up. Everyone here was already late starters, all but Peter. When Tina got up, she walked down the halls where she heard her sister/clone in the shower as she made her way into the kitchen and found her mother cooking breakfast.
"Morning, honey." Caitlin greeted her.
"Hey." Tina greeted and sat down on the island to talk with her mother when she noticed someone wasn't there. "Where's dad?"
"He got up early, so he and Ashley went out for some early shopping and breakfast. Promised to be back by noon." Caitlin said with a smile, knowing Peter was gonna use this time to really get to know Ashley and bury the hatchet for them. "So... what did you think about Ashley?"
Tina shrugged. "Meh. I've known her for a small time in school, but she was a troublemaker then, most likely a troublemaker now." Then a thought came into her mind that her mother might know why her dad took her in. "Why the sudden interest in this girl? I mean, did dad wake up and realize one new daughter wasn't enough, he needed another?"
Caitlin sighed as she tried to finish breakfast for the rest of the family. "It's best that your dad explained to you when he is ready."
Peter and Ashley were both sitting down on top of P.A.R.K.E.R. Industries and finished watching the sunrise. The two of them have breakfast sandwiches they picked out and were enjoying their time together.
Ashley and Peter had just finished their shopping, getting Ashley some basics for her room. Getting a bed set ready to be delivered for her, a few dressers and other furniture pieces, as well as a few posters she had her eyes on.
His daughter is a Flash fan. Ouch. Yet again, not like he thought she would be a Spider-Man fan.
"This is nice," Ashley said as she breathed in the early morning air. "I was always the earliest riser in the orphanage, nobody else would get up this early."
"Yeah, none of the others are early risers either," Peter confessed with a shrug before taking a bite of his sandwich. "On occasion, they're early risers. But only on a green moon. Which, I've seen once."
Ashley looked shocked to hear that and laughed. "No. You're lying."
"When I met John Constantine. Halloween night. The whole city was turning into werewolves because of some mystical object." Peter said as he gestured to the whole city. "My first introduction to real magic."
"Must've been hard. Out there on your own." Ashley commented, looking out of the city.
"It was once." Peter sighed, remembering how he was the one and only superhero in the world before the accelerator. "While I am thinking of this, what if we did something about the Black Cat?"
"What do you mean?" Ashley wonders.
"Like...maybe using your powers for good?" Peter asked her.
Ashley scoffed at the idea. "No, they wouldn't accept me."
"They didn't really accept me at first." Peter reminded her. "Why not give it a chance?"
Anjelica sighed and saw there wouldn't be much harm in giving it a small shot. "Where would we start?"
Peter smiled and knew it was going to be a lot of work, but their relationship would be stronger for it. She was abandoned by her mother, finally getting the chance to know her father, but there were many problems to overcome. One of those is the fact he has to tell the rest of his kids the woman who they're sharing a house with was...'responsible' for May's death.