Chapter 5: Hissy Fits
I just realized that I've been calling the LMDs "chameleon bots". I hope this didn't cause much confusion. I think my mind got stuck on a fan fiction I read once, The Stupendous Spider-Trio by Beau Jakson. It's no longer on FFN, but you can find it on AO3 I think. Ah, fun times. I can call them LMDs from here on out, although it'll probably take me a while to fix the names in the last few chapters.
Pink Lemonade: Thank you so much! I'm also the type to reread my favorite stories, so the fact that you find this worthy enough to reread has made my day!
Fury kept Peter on the bench for nearly a week. All those nights were spent in training, getting Peter adjusted to his new eyesight. He kept arguing that it was hardly any different. He was just a little more sensitive to light, and the new tinted lenses in his mask fixed that pretty well. But Fury didn't buy a word of it. And honestly, neither did Peter after their second training session.
He was maybe a little teensy bit more sensitive to movement too. It really wasn't anything major. In fact, it was hardly noticeable. Until there were a bunch of robots moving around. Then it was hard not to notice how his vision seemed to focus on everything that was moving. Every single LMD was suddenly in sharp relief while the background blurred slightly, as if he had the selective focus of a high-end camera. It was actually kind of helpful. More helpful than being easily blinded by the light for sure. His only issue was that it took a few minutes after the adrenaline stopped pumping for his vision to go back to normal, which meant he couldn't properly see anything not moving for a little while.
There was also the issue that he had made the mistake of looking it up, and now he knew that it wasn't really a side effect from the physical changes to his eyes. Jumping spiders actively focused their gaze towards moving objects to aid in hunting. It was his brain that was instinctively doing the same.
Peter mused that he really needed to stop Googling these things at this point.
In any case, it wasn't until Friday night that the team went on their first patrol. And it would have been a perfect day back on the streets if it hadn't been for the Goblin. Originally, they weren't even supposed to deal with villains of his caliber yet, but they didn't really have a choice when the Goblin actively sought them out. He literally said that he had missed Spider-Man for the last few days, which . . . Peter wasn't sure how to feel about.
On one hand, it was nice to feel wanted. On the other, Goblin.
Sadly, the day only got worse from there.
For one, the Goblin was so absolutely happy to see Spider-Man that he decided to focus every single one of his attacks on the wall crawler. On the bright side, this had allowed the team to gang up on him while Peter acted as bait. Unfortunately, he couldn't dodge everything, so now their first patrol in days was cut short while Peter got bandaged up. It was mostly a lot of minor cuts and bruises, thankfully, but one nasty hit with a street sign seemed to have fractured a rib. Peter winced with each breath he took as he waited for Doctor Connors on one of the examination tables.
In Peter's defense, that street sign had been headed right for a civilian in the street. Peter had jumped in just in time.
"Is it bad?" Luke asked from where he leaned against the countertop. Ava sat on it beside him.
"Do you really think Pete will ever answer that question honestly?" she said rhetorically. Peter stuck his tongue out at her.
"I'm honest! Just because I usually just have minor injuries—"
"Oh, like that time you got that huge gash on your head that you insisted was just a bump?" Sam asked. He lay hovering in the air, looking at his phone.
"Head wounds always bleed a lot so they look worse than they actually are," Peter argued.
"Pain is not always directly related to the physical state of a wound," Danny mentioned. He sat on the floor, meditating, but of course he was still paying complete attention to what was going on around him.
"Well, yeah, but I have high pain tolerance. I think we all do at this point."
"Fair point," Luke conceded. Ava punched him in the arm, not that he really felt it.
"As if you're one to talk," she said with a snort. "Your skin is literally impenetrable."
"Not completely," Luke pointed out. "But pretty close, yeah. Another fair point."
"Guys, it's so awesome!" Sam exclaimed, floating into an upright position. "Someone caught practically the whole fight on video and posted it! I look so cool!"
Everyone gathered around him. A few months ago, Danny and Ava might not have cared as much, but that had quickly changed once they got to school. Having to deal with the effects of the public's opinion of them, they now liked to be in the know. It told them what to expect to hear at school the next day so nothing caught them off guard.
It was amazing the sort of crazy conspiracy theories people could come up with.
This particular video seemed like one of the more positive ones. It took a few seconds for Peter to be able to see it well. His vision was still in 'moving focus' mode. The blurriness reminded him of when he had needed glasses, which was annoying but comfortably familiar. After blinking several times, he noticed it was captioned 'Spidey's My Hero'. It obviously wouldn't end up featured on the Daily Bugle news hour, but it was heartwarming to see.
The video was fairly well done. Whoever had shot it had had a steady hand. The entire team could be seen fighting against the Goblin. A few seconds in, Peter recognized the angle the video was taken from, and he knew what was coming. Sure enough, Spider-Man came hurtling towards the camera, intercepting the fast blur that they all knew to be a flying stop sign. Peter was suddenly reminded of the sharp pain in his chest, but he then was distracted by something he hadn't been expecting.
Landing on the ground in front of the camera, Spider-Man hissed.
That might not have been so surprising. Some people did hiss in pain after all. But that wasn't a human hiss. That was an animalistic hiss, more like a cat's or a snake's.
"I hiss like that?" Peter asked with a frown.
"Yeah," Sam answered instantly. "You didn't know?"
"No! You mean I do that a lot?"
"Not a lot, exactly," Luke clarified. "You usually do it when you're in pain or you're fighting."
"When I'm fighting too?! How long have I been doing that?"
Ava turned away from the video to look at him. "Ever since we've known you. You seriously never noticed?"
Peter felt his cheeks start to burn. "No. I mean, I kind of knew I made sounds when I was hurt or frustrated, but I thought it was more like a normal hiss. You know, hiss, like, hsssss." He clamped a hand over his mouth. He had meant that to sound like a normal hiss, and while it didn't sound as strange as in the video, it certainly wasn't normal.
Ava snorted, lips quirking into a smirk. "You really never noticed?"
Luke took the opportunity of revenge and gently pushed her. "Lay off him, will you? Sam is still under the impression his singing voice sounds angelic."
"You guys just don't appreciate true talent," Sam said, sticking out his tongue.
"Music, like all arts, lies in the eyes—or ears—of the beholder," Danny said neutrally, although he too was grinning.
Everyone but Sam chuckled.
"But you're lucky then," Ava said seriously to Peter, bringing the laughter to an end. "I mean, it doesn't sound as strange as you seem to think. It's only when you're really in pain or you're really angry at the bad guy that you go into full hissy fit mode, but you could have been doing it at school without even noticing. You haven't though as far as we've heard, so don't worry."
"Wait, back up. When have I done it to bad guys? And why don't they ever say anything? And—and 'hissy fit mode'? Really?"
"You hiss at Goblin a lot, and Doc Ock," Sam said, stopping the video and returning to floating in the air. "Probably 'cause they're like your biggest arch enemies. You also hissed at Batroc that one time we chased him for nearly half an hour."
"I think all the usual villains are pretty used to it by now," Luke explained. "Like we said, you've done it since the beginning, so it's definitely not a new thing."
Peter was just feeling better about it when Sam added, "Yeah, I mean, you are Spider-Man, right? The public already expects you to be spidery."
Before that statement could make Peter self-conscious, it made him curious. "But do spiders even hiss?"
"You're a disgrace to all spider-kind," Sam deadpanned.
"It is not common knowledge that spiders hiss though," Danny said. "Only rare tarantulas are capable of it after all."
"So you guys researched this, and you never thought to tell me." Peter paused, licking his lips. "Do I—do I sound like those tarantulas?"
Ava shrugged. "We thought you knew. But yeah, you kind of do. It's a natural response to being scared. I hiss sometimes, especially when Kraven's around. Hissy fits are normal"
"Okay, I guess that makes sense. I just—Wait a minute, back up again. You keep calling it a hissy fit! You need to stop that if we're still going to be friends."
Ava shrugged again, smiling innocently. "Well, that's exactly what it is, right?"
"You literally hiss when you're super upset," Sam elaborated. "How can we not call it a hissy fit?"
Peter glared at them all. "I just can't get over this. You guys not only knew about this, you researched it and you apparently talk about it behind my back by the name 'hissy fit'. How exactly did I not hear about it before?!"
"Hear about what?"
Everyone whisked around to find Dr. Connors coming into the examination room, tablet in hand.
"Pete's hissy fits," Sam explained before anyone else.
Dr. Connors's lips formed an understanding 'o' shape. "I see."
"You too?!" Peter asked miserably.
"Well, it never came up in any of your physicals. Not even in conversation," Connors said apologetically.
Peter pouted. He would have continued arguing, but the pain of his probably fractured ribs was coming back after the brief distraction. "Just patch me up, Doc. And maybe we should go over how doctor-patient confidentiality is supposed to work."
Connors smiled. "Of course, Peter."
On the bright side, they had done all the Googling for him this time.
Hello Speter! Phoebe greeted as he took her terrarium (or Jungle Box as she called it) out of the closet. She was already scuttling happily from one end to the other like an excited puppy. Not that Peter considered her a pet at this point. With each day that passed she learned more words and showed further depths to her psyche. She was more like a curious two-year old than a puppy in training. Of course, Peter had essentially zero experience with either, so the comparison didn't help much.
"Hey, Phoebe. How was your day?"
Great! Phoebe sleep. Phoebe eat. She prodded the empty carcasses of the crickets Peter had given her earlier that day.
"I'm glad to hear you got some sleep." It had quickly become apparent that Phoebe, like most spiders, was nocturnal. Her current level of energy was a testament to that. "Are you still hungry?"
No. She wiggled all eight legs. Phoebe . . . Phoebe feels . . .
Peter waited patiently for her to organize her thoughts. She was getting better at using more words, although her grammar was lacking. Phoebe couldn't quite grasp the concept of pronouns and interjections and the like. And trying to explain it made Peter realize how weird the English language was. 'I' meant himself when he used it, but it would mean Phoebe if she said it, and anyone else if they said it. Phoebe was having trouble remembering when the meaning changed.
He suddenly had a lot more respect for English teachers.
But Peter had no doubt that Phoebe would get it eventually. He was starting to keep track of her progress in a notebook (he was far too aware of Shield's tech team to trust his electronics), and she learned more each day. It was very rewarding to watch her progress. If it weren't for his current heroic career goals, Peter might have been tempted to become a teacher. And maybe he still could; Shield was planning on starting a real 'hero high school' with old superheroes as the teachers. He could already imagine himself standing at the front of the class, shooting webs to grab any ringing phones or other contraband items.
New career goals: become the Ultimate Spider-Man, then become the Ultimate Teacher.
Phoebe feels stuck.
Peter returned his attention to her. Phoebe usually said that when her limited vocabulary failed her. "Okay, no worries. You can show me what you're thinking."
No. Phoebe feels stuck.
That gave Peter pause. "You feel stuck . . . you . . ." He eyed her jittery movements. "Oh, I get it! You feel cramped. Confined. You want to stretch your legs."
Yup!
"But I thought your Jungle Box was big enough for you," he said hesitantly. He already knew she wanted to get out. She had expressed a similar sentiment yesterday, but he had distracted her. Yet, if this was going to be a recurring desire, he would need to address it sooner rather than later.
Jungle box great! Phoebe want Speter box. Phoebe want run!
"You want to explore my room."
Yup!
Peter sighed, running a hand through his hair. He wasn't exactly in the mood to keep such a close eye on her tonight. What he really wanted to do was check exactly how many videos out there showed Spider-Man hissing. But . . . he couldn't really deprive Phoebe of proper exercise forever. And if she got larger soon, she would hardly be able to move around much in her Jungle Box. He hadn't been able to buy the largest terrarium because he had to fit it into his somewhat small closet. "Well . . . all right. But only for a little while. You have to promise me you'll stay in my room, you know, my box." His lips quirked up at the term. "And you can't hide anywhere that I can't see you. And you have to promise to come back into your Jungle Box when I ask. Is that clear?"
Joy! Phoebe promise!
Hoping the spider's fairly perfect track record continued, Peter opened the top and lifted her out of the terrarium. She crawled up his arm to briefly nuzzle his cheek before jumping onto the desk. She scuttled all around, feet making a pitter-pattering sound as she went. Then she came to the edge. This made her waver for only a second. Then she clumsily started pulling silk out of her rear.
"Are you making a safety line so you won't fall?" Peter asked curiously. He debated if 'no web-making' should be on the list of rules next time. He really didn't need his room to look like an abandoned dungeon full of cobwebs. He already knew what a pain it was to clean up strong webbing.
Phoebe giggled. It was more of a feeling than an actual sound, but that just made it harder for Peter not to smile.
She carefully began climbing down. When she got to the floor, she released the silk and stepped onto the floor. Taking a few probing steps on this new carpeted surface, she was soon running all around.
Peter slipped out of his desk chair to sit on the floor. The movement hurt his ribs (which had indeed been fractured just as he had predicted). This time he noticed when a small hiss slipped past his lips. He was probably going to be hyper aware of hissing for a while now.
He watched Phoebe for several minutes. After it was apparent that she was following the rules perfectly, he pulled out his phone. The hissing thing really was bothering him. Of course, he supposed it was akin to how your voice always sounded different in videos. If he thought about it that way, it made sense that he hadn't noticed. It had almost sounded normal to his own ears when he consciously hissed back at the Helicarrier, even if that's not what it sounded like in the video. But he also wouldn't mind knowing other things, like exactly how many people had viewed such videos.
(Essentially, how many other people had known about it before him?)
So Peter searched YouTube. To his relief, there weren't many videos of him hissing, only around five. Most of the time he did it because a particularly painful blow, just like his friends had said. Then he saw an example of the other scenario. It was one of the first times they fought Taskmaster, who was easily one of the toughest and most frustrating bad guys because he was a literal copycat. That video was one shot by the Daily Bugle, so naturally it showed Spider-Man getting beat up. It was after Taskmaster interrupted several of Peter's puns with punches that he finally hissed. Taskmaster hardly batted an eye, so Peter was left to conclude that the villains really were cool with it.
And if the villains were cool with it, then he might as well be too.
What that?
Peter looked down to find Phoebe climbing onto his lap. She was staring at the screen.
"That's my phone. It lets me look at a lot of pictures, videos, and other information. People can talk to me on it too," he answered, ready for the many questions that were likely forming in her mind.
Phone. Video. That video?
"Yes. That's . . . that's a video of . . . " Peter briefly wondered if Phoebe could be trusted with his secret before he realized that not only was he the only one who understood her, but she had already seen him in his spider suit. "That's me as Spider-Man."
Speter? Her thoughts were laced with skepticism. Peter frowned.
"Yeah. Don't you remember when we first met? I was wearing that suit. I'm Spider-Man. You know, the whole 'I'm part spider' thing. That's the entire reason why I'm even able to talk to you."
No, Phoebe thought . . . she trailed off, finishing her thought in his head with an image of the webs coming out of his wrists followed by an image of her own webs coming from her behind. Peter blushed, chuckling.
"I get it, you're wondering why my webs work differently than yours. That's because I don't really make them, at least not in my body. I make them in a lab. And I use machines to shoot my webs. Here, look."
He stood to retrieve his web shooters from his backpack. He let Phoebe stare at them for a minute before he showed her how they worked. She startled with the thwip sound, but wiggled her legs happily when Peter proceed to dangle on the line upside down.
Speter-Man!
Peter snorted. "Right, exactly."
Phoebe jumped up, reaching for him. The first time, she only brushed against the top of his head. The second time she stuck. Once she was secure, Peter gently began swinging back and forth.
What that?
Peter looked up to where one of her legs was pointing, which meant he looked down to the floor. He had left the videos playing on his phone. The current one was of him swinging through the streets.
"You mean when I swing? Yeah, I know it's not really a spider thing. I mean, I jump and run and climb too, but swinging is just so much fun." He looked at Phoebe out of the corner of his eye. "Huh, I guess you can't really swing."
Okay, she said, although Peter could sense her disappointment. She was curious about his mode of travel. Thinking quickly, he came up with a solution.
"Well, maybe you can't swing on your own, but that doesn't mean you can't swing at all. Give me a second."
Peter raised one hand to shoot another artificial silk thread at the ceiling, stretched it to the appropriate length, and attached the other end to Phoebe's back.
"There, now you can practice swinging kind of like I do."
Giggling again, Phoebe eagerly pushed off of Peter's face. She travelled around the room in an arc, nearly smacking back into him, but he caught her.
"Careful. If you can learn how to land right, you'll be able to use your momentum to jump off harder. It takes careful timing though."
Phoebe tried again, and again, and again, and she laughed and giggled the entire time. Peter really couldn't blame her. He had the same amount of fun swinging. After nearly half an hour, she was too tired to continue, although she had nearly gotten the timing right. Peter rewarded her with more crickets, which she ate hungrily. And maybe Peter ate a handful himself. It was late, so he didn't want to disturb his aunt just so he could have a massive late-night snack. Besides . . . he may or may not have been nibbling on Phoebe's crickets for the entire week, and he may or may not have noticed that they satisfied his hunger better than chips or anything short of a full-blown meal really. And this may or may not be due to his body's need for a whole lot of protein.
Also, he may or may not be running out of crickets after he had gone back and bought three more small buckets from Finbar's store the other day.
He promised Phoebe he would buy her more tomorrow, but he wasn't sure if she heard as she fell fast asleep. Peter also started to doze off before someone called his name from downstairs.
"Peter! I need your computer magic!"
He dropped to his feet, heart suddenly pounding. "MJ! What are you doing here? Could you give me a sec?" He heard her rushing up the stairs, so he quickly shot a gob of webbing to lock the door.
"Sure!" her voice came from the other side of the door. "Sorry I just came out of nowhere, but I think I messed something up on my computer. I tried to use the solutions online, but I don't speak technology like you do. Aunt May said you were still awake, so I came as quickly as I could."
"Right, no problem. Let me just—ah—tidy up."
"Classic teenage boy," MJ muttered wryly.
Peter put Phoebe back into her Jungle Box, which he in turn put back into the closet, throwing an old jacket over it. Phoebe complained mildly, but seemed to grasp the urgency of the situation. Then Peter scooped up the remains of their snack and stuffed his web shooters away. He had to jump up to the ceiling to pry off the webs without pulling the paint along with it. His ribs ached with the fast movements, but he made sure not to make any sounds. Then he gave the room a once over to make sure all evidence of spider stuff was hidden. He came very close to opening the door before he remembered his contacts. He fumbled a little, but got them in place. Out of precaution, he put on his recently acquired veneers too. And at last he pulled the webbing off the door to let his friend in.
A glance at the clock told him he had managed all that in about a minute. Not bad.
"Hey," MJ smiled at him. "No days old pizza boxes lying around now?"
"Nope," Peter assured her, keeping his breathing as steady as possible.
She cocked her head. "What's that in your hair?"
Running a hand through his hair, Peter found spider silk stuck to fingers. He panicked internally. Phoebe must have placed it there when she crawled onto his head. Thinking quickly, he said the first explanation that came to his head. "Uh—silly string. Sam came by earlier."
MJ nodded understandingly, red hair bouncing. "You know, he gave me one of those fake snakes in a can gags the other day. And I didn't suspect a thing until it was too late. He has such a good poker face."
"I know, right? So what's wrong with your computer?"
MJ pulled her laptop out of her bag. As she explained what she had done, Peter's heart continued to pound, and he couldn't help but feel like he had just dodged a bullet.
Kraven was furious at himself. Because this time, he had no excuse. It was all on him.
He had waited all week for Spider-Man to show up again. There had been absolutely no trace of the wall crawler for most of the week. At first, Kraven had wondered if the monstrous changes had come back or been permanent. That would have been annoying though, because Kraven would have had to break him out of some top-secret Shield base for him to do any damage. But then Goblin finally baited Spider-Man out of hiding. And Kraven had been waiting ready in the wings, so he used the opportunity for everything it was worth.
It wasn't worth much.
He should have known the Goblin was too rambunctious! He should have known Spider-Man was moving around too much! He should have waited! Shouldn't have overestimated his aiming ability! Shouldn't have wasted most of his supply of that poison . . .
In the dim light from his tortoise shell lamp, Kraven counted the remaining vials and darts. He slammed his fist against the table, cursing how trigger happy he had been. There wasn't much poison left at all. Not enough to use recklessly like he just had. He needed a proper plan.
He did not need Taskmaster's help again.
But yet . . .
Kraven set the vials carefully aside and pulled up his laptop. He knew Taskmaster had jumped into a new scheme already. Kraven naturally refused to be a part of it, but he still had the message, still had the info.
Maybe he wouldn't work with Taskmaster again, but that didn't mean he couldn't use the man. If there was one thing Kraven was good at, it was traps. And this was just the thing to attract Spider-Man's attention.
The hunt continued.
Facts:
- Jumping spiders use their smaller eyes to detect motion so their two main eyes can focus on the right things. I imagine that, currently, Peter's more complex human eyes are capable of doing both jobs at once.
- Some tarantulas can hiss. They actually make the sound by rubbing two hairy appendages together since they have no vocal cords. But I think I'll let Peter use his vocal cords for the sound. For now . . .
