Over a month has passed since Emma had the babies, and since then, things have been great for them. They have a wonderful family and a happy life, but at the same time, Noah feels empty. Putting away the mask was a smart decision but the thrill of being the Arachnid, it's gone, and it's left this gaping hole inside Noah. He can feel the problem gnawing in his bones and the voice in his head calling him to take back the mask.
"Noah?" Emma called him out of his deep thoughts, "I need you to set the table."
"Yeah, I'm on it." Noah shook away his thoughts and focused on the table.
Noah went over to the kitchen to fetch the plates, utensils, and bottles for the kids. The table wasn't too hard to set up. It's just the two of them and their twins. Emma was bringing in the kids, putting them in their high chairs.
"So, how's working with Peter and Octavius been?" Emma asked while feeding Josh and Anna. Noah remained silent, lost in his thoughts again.
Hardly touching his dinner, Emma tapped her husband to get him back into reality, "What?" Noah asked.
"You're dozing, honey. Everything okay?" Emma asked with concern in her words. Even Josh and Anna were looking at him. Their eyes melted his heart and gave him a smile.
"I'm okay, I just… A lot of questions are running through my head, and none of them are easy to answer."
Emma took Noah's hand, "Whatever's going on, you can tell me."
The struggle is written on his face, and Emma can see it clear as water. He won't tell her, but he's yearning to put back on his Arachnid suit, "If you made a change in your life, a very big change, and it just leaves this big hole in your life, what do you do? Fill it with something else, or what?" Noah explained rather cryptically.
"You mean those late nights you used to have?" Emma asked.
"N-no no, I mean, I'm a father, and when I think of that part of me that's gone, it makes me feel like I can't be a father." Noah covered his answer to Emma's question.
"Noah, whatever's eating you right now, you can't keep holding it in yourself. You need to let someone in on what's going on." Emma answered honestly.
Noah nodded in agreement, "You're right… I'm not sure where to start."
"Maybe you can talk with someone who understands what you're going through. Peter has been there for both of us. You can trust him." Emma's words struck Noah hard because she's right. Peter has been there for both him and Emma.
"Yeah, I'll talk with him tomorrow at work." Noah smiled a little.
"Or you could call him now." Emma offered.
"Ok, you win." Noah smiled as he stood to take out his phone.
Noah held the phone, hoping Peter would answer on the other end, "Hey Noah, what's up?"
"Hey Pete, I need a favor. Can we meet at Mick's?" Noah asked.
"Yeah sure, I'm wrapping up a quick thing nearby. See you in a few minutes?" Peter sounded rather exhausted over the phone.
"Peter, buddy, you okay?" Noah asked.
"I'm fine. Just finished up right now. I'm heading to Mick's now." Peter sounded like he was struggling over something.
"Okay, I'll meet you there." Noah smiled as grabbed his coat. One of many awful things about retirement is no web zipping. Since he couldn't use web shooters, he had to take a cab, which is appalling.
Waiting at the booth, Noah twiddled his thumbs for Peter to arrive. The Short Order Cook, Mick arrived with a plate of fries and two sodas.
Shortly after, Peter arrived with a smile on his face.
"Hey buddy." Peter approached.
"Mi hermano!" Noah stood from his booth and gave his friend a grisly hug.
"Everyone needs friends like you two." Mick praised the two.
Peter and Noah took their seats, and started digging into their fries.
"So bud," Peter said between eating fries, "What's got you down?"
"As you know, a lot of responsibility fell on my shoulders, but I never told anyone I had to tear a part of myself to devote myself to Emma and our kids. Problem is, that part of me left an empty void in me, and I can barely explain this to Emma. She can see it all over my face, and I can tell. I'm like a stranger to her whenever this side of me comes out. I can barely comprehend the idea of telling her all of this, and it's hard enough to tell you, man." Noah unloaded everything to his friend and some to the cook that was overhearing bits and pieces. His hands started shaking to his own revelation.
Peter stopped eating the French fries in absolute awe at what his friend had thrown at him, "Noah… I had no idea." He knew his life was traumatic, but to see this side of his best friend it's like he barely knew him for a moment.
"Remember that saying my uncle told me?" Peter asked his friend, "With great power comes great responsibility."
"I remember, though I'm not sure what power I have right now." Noah responded rather negatively.
"The strength it took to unpack everything you told me, and to rip apart this piece of yourself for your family? You're a true paragon buddy." Peter gave Noah a stern look to show the truth in his eyes.
The last time he heard that word was from Spider-Man. He called him anything but a paragon.
Suddenly out of the blue, Mick came out with a fresh hot pepperoni pizza, "On the house boys."
Then after Peter got a text, "Ugh hey why don't you take that to go and give it to my friend Noah, I actually gotta go." Peter said after reading the text.
"Okay then, but just so you both know, even heroes aren't perfect." The words from Mick gave Peter a moment of pause to listen, "Take Spider-Man and the Arachnid, for example. Those two have been at it for years. A year ago, I saw the two of them doing their regular antics in the streets. Spider-Man was throwing a manhole lid at the Arachnid, but he dodged it and caught it like BAM! You'd think Arachnid was throwing it back to Spider-Man but I know what I saw. If Arachnid didn't catch that sewer cap, Spider-Man would've hit those innocent people I was walking beside, and Spider-Man knew it." The legendary Mick told the old story to both Spider-Man and the Arachnid. A fond memory for all of them.
"That story actually made me feel better, Mick, Thanks!" Noah needed to hear that.
"There's a hero in all of us, even the Arachnid has his moments, I can tell." Mick grinned with pride.
Peter would argue back, but knowing the last time he saw the Arachnid the cook was not wrong. There was some good in the Arachnid.
"I have to go, Noah, glad you're feeling better. I'll call you when I'm done with what I got. See you tomorrow at work." Peter had to rush out of there.
"Tell you're wife I miss her. You, her, him, MJ and Harry. You guys were always good to each other." Mick praised the young father.
"Yeah we are." Noah smiled.
Leaving with the pizza, Noah hailed for a nearby cab.
Returning home, Noah found Emma alone with a glass of wine, "I managed to put the two to sleep." Emma sighed in exhaustion.
"Spider-Man has nothing on you. I'm married to the one and only, Super-Mom." Noah laid the pizza on the coffee table and dropped on the couch beside Emma.
"Even superheroes need their support." Emma wrapped her tired arms around her man.
"And?" Noah pointed at the pizza.
"Oh c'mon, sweetheart isn't it obvious?" Emma kissed Noah's cheek.
"I'll get plates, you pour yourself some more wine." Noah cooed.
"That's my Big Bear." Emma cooed as she filled her glass and Noah brought two paper plates, and a bottle of Scotch. Knowing her "Big Bear", he would take the bottle straight up so he left the shot glass alone. She was right, she knew he didn't need another glass.
Before she would take another sip of her favorite wine, she hesitated for a moment to hear what he'd say to her.
"I know the secrets I have are hard to tell you, and I have a lot of baggage to sort through, but I… I am hoping you'll trust me to go through this before I can show you. Just know everything I've been doing… was to make sure you and our kids have someone to look up to when things would turn hard." Noah confessed to Emma.
"It's because of you I could be my own person. To think for myself without my family's shadow over me. My parents wouldn't dare take Josh and Anna if something were to happen to us. I trust you Noah to be the father and husband for all of us. So long as you promise you'll find a way someday. Don't make us wait for you, Noah, we need you." Emma spilled her own baggage on her husband in return.
"I promise." Noah kissed her wife.
The moment they believed each other, a cry was called. The twins are needing attention.
"Don't worry I'll take care of them." Noah stopped Emma from standing.
"I love you." Emma praised.
For the next few weeks, Noah could hold himself easier, working with Peter and Dr. Octavius, but a part of him still yearned to put the mask back on. As hard as it was, having his friends beside him made his retired life worth it.
"Peter, Noah, good to see you both." Octavius entered the lab, "We have our grant review next week, how's our prosthetic coming along?"
"Well Doc, we're just about ready to give it another test run, wanna get set up? Pete's running through the neuro-prosthesis schematics. Should be done-" Noah suggested.
"Got it!" Peter cheered loud, "We're ready to give it a test. Noah thanks for your input on the CPU. This should work now."
"Let's get started, boys." Octavius was sincerely happy at the progress. Hooking himself up to the wires and linking his neural band to the prosthetic.
Noah kept his eyes on the monitor for any anomalies in his prosthetic, while Peter kept an eye on Otto's vital signs.
"Ready to go, sir." Peter gave the thumbs up.
"The connection's green. Ready when you are Doc." Noah called.
Hooked to all the wires, Octavius raised his left arm. Shortly after in a flash, the prosthetic raised itself.
"We're doing it!" Peter cheered out in a whisper.
Noah just stood in awe at their work. A smile of pride slowly painted his face.
Unfortunately, the monitor was showing off a slight error which instantly caused a big malfunction, "Wait wait, we're losing control." Noah and Peter noticed the arm was starting to shake in sparks, Pete cut the line."
Peter rushed to cut the connection on his end before any serious damage was done. Peter went to check on Octavius while Noah checked over the prosthetic.
"We're getting closer, and we saved the room from catching fire again." Octavius sighed in relief as Peter unhooked the wires from his harness.
"I'll need to calibrate the circuit connection again, the power is unbalanced again." Noah went over to the tablet.
"I'll go test our next material specs." Peter added going to the spectrograph.
"I'll look over the results of the neural connection while I brew more coffee for us." Octavius said.
A few minutes of work, Peter joined Otto with his own mug of coffee. Noah was the last to finish his review.
Finishing his evaluation on the schematics in the circuitry for the prosthetic, Noah joined Otto and Peter in the lounge. Taking a swig of his coffee, Noah pulled out his audio recorder, and began his log, "Entry log twenty-three. It's been months of consecutive hours working on our prosthesis cybernetic limb, we've had slow progress, but promising all the same. The amount of power the prosthetic needs to maintain a perfect synchronization with the neural transmitter has proven a vast amount to process, but as I stated we've made slow progress. Its projects like these where the long game is needed, but our grant funds are not matching the expectations of our project, but we're making progress nonetheless. End log. Noah closed off the recording.
Peter and Otto remained quiet as they listened to Noah's log and sipped their coffee.
"In moments like these. Science before emotions." Noah spoke facts.
"I like him Peter, thank you, thank you both." Otto was humbled.
"Still, the amount of power it takes to replicate a human limb is proving to be a real challenge. The only way to extend the current amount of power is to make a bigger limb, but a human arm can only grow so much." Noah dropped his head in complete defeat.
"Unless we were to go the other direction?" Peter realized, "Instead of making the consumption of power to this prosthetic bigger we need to make it smaller."
"Like how they shrunk the size of computers. I see what you're saying. We'll need to get this written down and planned." Noah added.
"Excellent work you two, we need to get this idea written and planned as soon as possible. Peter, Noah, you two get started on drafting the thesis. I'll draw up some plans." Otto stood from his seat and dashing straight for his personal office.
"A solid thinker, that one." Noah complimented their boss, Otto, over to Peter.
"To be honest, even you could learn a few things from what he has to offer this world." Peter praised.
"Please, a mindset like that, man you won't learn as much from him as I can." Noah argued back.
"Is that a challenge?" Peter sneered.
"Maybe." Noah gleefully hinted.
"I swear this competition between us has never ended." Peter realized.
"It's how we get our best ideas from each other." Noah took a sip of his coffee.
"Our best ideas from each other, reminds me of when Spider-Man and I met." Noah remembered a time he had back in highschool as the Arachnid.
8 Years Ago
In his first week with his powers, Noah was wall crawling, running, and jumping from building to building. Doing so with his powers made it easy but damn it was still exhausting to do. There's word of an illegal drug deal going on in midtown, and Noah bet there'd be easy cash to loot. Taking a water break, Noah caught his sense on a nearby web slinger. Arachnid pulled down his mask and looked to see Spider-Man zipping across the city block.
"Woohoo!" Spider-Man yelled in excitement.
Watching Spider-Man swing across several stories with his web devices, and remembering the Drug deal? A rather slimy idea came to Arachnid's mind, but it'll kill two birds with one stone.
Taking a glass bottle Noah found on the floor, he used his entire body like a pro and threw the bottle over at Spider-Man. Fortunately to Noah's surprise the object was caught by Spider-Man. Noah was rather proud of himself.
Spider-Man landed at the same roof to see another guy in spandex similar to his own, "Umm, you drop this?" Spider-Man looked down and up on this guy's look. The suit was rather similar to his own, black was the primary color and a bright green spider logo.
"I'm sorry Spider-Man, when I'm not playing baseball, I'm working on my cosplay. What do you think? Eh, nevermind. Some of my teammates caught wind of a drug deal not far here. I'm worried they might be getting a taste, try not to hurt'em too much if it comes to it, okay?" Noah put on a convincing act for Spider-Man.
"Ugh, thanks, and don't worry I'll make sure your friends are safe, and… Nice cosplay." Spider-Man complimented.
"Ugh hey, how do you get your eye lenses to move like that?" Noah asked sincerely.
"Built in facial monitor, it's a lot easier to make than it seems. Anyway, thanks for the tip." Spider-Man answered and hopped off the building making his way to the drug deal.
As soon as he was gone Noah smirked underneath the mask, "Sucker! Can't believe he fell for that… Built in monitor? Gotta look into that later." Noah jumped over to the nearest building and rushed his way over to the drug deal.
"So this is the good stuff?" One of the customers asked.
A full group of men armed with pistols, a few automatic rifles, and a few customers were armed as well, but not as much.
"Now hold on, when we make a sale we deliver but we need our end of the bargain. Show me the cash?" The dealer asked.
One of the customers brought in a case full of Benjamin's. Unfortunately the men behind the dealer suddenly had their weapons webbed right out of their hands by Spider-Man.
"Excellent, a pleasure doing b-" the dealer was interrupted by a hard punch from behind. Knocking him out cold.
"Hey guys, do any of you play baseball? I could use some pointers on my swing."
"The Spider-freak! Kill him!" The head customer ordered his men to shoot, but Spider-Man was faster using all his web tactics all the thugs and dealers have been apprehended. Little did Spider-Man know that another quiet, and sneaky Spider was hovering right under his senses.
"Seriously guys, you should take a more healthy-" a few gun shots from above the terrace startled the web slinger. Up above he looked to see the same man in the black suit from before with one of the guns he webbed. Firing off a couple of more rounds at him, Noah landed a hard punch to Spider-Man's left cheek sending him rolling hard to the ground on his back.
Spider-Man was dazed by the sudden punch, this was certainly unexpected for him. Who is this guy? "Oh no no no." Noah teased as he saw Spider-Man try to pick himself back up to his feet, "You're not going anywhere, Spider-Man." Noah planted his boot on the big Spider's chest as he held the gun to his face. Spider-Man knew he was at this guy's mercy.
"So… An internal monitor for facial recognition, that's pretty cool, you know as much as I'd love to rip off that mask, that's not what I want. What I really want… are those." Noah lowered the gun and shot him in the left side of his stomach.
"AAAUUUUGHHHUUHHH!" Spider-Man cried in pain. The next thing he saw was the butt of the pistol smacking the side of his skull. Sending him into a harder daze.
"You'll be fine, just patch it up and you'll be back to normal in about two days." Noah unhooked Spider-Man's web shooters.
"Elegant design, better than I thought. I'll take your advice on those lenses later tonight. Anyway thanks for the web shooters, but I got places to be and loot to plunder. Speaking of which." Noah used Spider-Man's shooters to zip the case of money.
"They say crime doesn't pay, but… c'mon!" Noah showed Spider-Man the case.
"Who… are you?" Spider-Man groaned.
"My Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Say hello to your Unfriendly Neighborhood Arachnid." The Arachnid used his new web shooters to zip out of the crime scene with the approaching police sirens.
Zipping his way over Central Park to return to base. In his lab Noah analyzed every detail and broke down every function in Spider-Man's web-shooters and the fluid itself.
After recording every detail in his experiment, he was ready to put them to the test.
"OK, let's do this," Noah pulled out his model of the web-shooters and clamped them around his wrists. Three metal targets, and two new web shooters. Unlike Spider-Man's web fluid. Noah modified his webs to fire green webbing. Spider-Man's web fluid laced with Arachnid's venom caused the targets to melt.
"Alright, Venom Shot is a success. This'll make poisoning targets easier. Good thing I loaded a specific amount that will only hurt for a short time." Noah was very ecstatic about his new toys. Putting Spider-Man's web shooters over his ever-growing fortune of cash.
"Nice little trophy," Noah said.
Later that night, preparing to go out on patrol for more easy pickings, Arachnid walked out of his lab with web-shooters and a new cowl. Popping out his phone to check his new eye lenses, giving himself a wink, "That is so cool." Arachnid winked the other eye.
Noah cheered as he zipped up to the best city in the world, "Say hello, New York, to the Arachnid!"
Present Day…
"Hey Noah. You alright?" Peter called his friend out of his daze.
"Sorry, going through a fond memory." Noah shook off.
"Was I involved?" Peter asked
"No, not really." Noah corrected.
"Let's get started on our thesis." Peter shrugged his friend's shoulder.
"Let's go." Noah stepped from his seat, and the two friends started working.
