The Flies Around Me

by Xross-33

Uncle Ben and Aunt May died when I was in sixth grade. Since then life had been anything but easy. I was always the weakest, most easily taken advantage of. No one was looking out for me so I had to find my own way to survive. After that spider bite though now I'm the strongest. I'm DONE struggling DONE surviving. Now the world is going to need to survive me. I am the Spider man.

8. Puppet strings

"Awkward…" Both Costa and his men are too shocked to move. Not surprising as I just pulled his buddy out of the car and jumped in. I casually put my arm over Anthony's shoulder as if we're just two buddies hanging out, "You guys might want to put your guns down, unless you're absolutely positive you won't hit your boss here."

They look to Costa questioningly, "Do what he says, I wouldn't trust you mooks to hit the broad side of a barn. Or not hit it in this case." Looking disgruntled they shelve the guns. Costa takes a second to slick his hair back, seemingly trying to regain his composure. "You're the one who attacked the police station, the Widow or something?"

I strengthen my grip on his neck and pull his head closer, "Aw come on man, it's the Spider. I've only been all over the news." Keep my voice light, attitude playful; no point in showing them how nervous I am.

"Yeah yeah, whatever." This guy has some serious balls to brush me off like that. "So what can I do for you Mr. 'The Spider.'"

This next part is going to be fun. "Well that's easy, just hold on for a bit."

"Hold on?" Before he or his men can react I kick open the door to still moving car and leap out over traffic with a screaming Costa in tow. Costa grips my arm for life as I use my web shooters to swing up over the streets and on top of a near-by building. Costa falls to his knees with a thud as I land gracefully behind him. His face is pale as he looks at me before turning and vomiting off the side of the building. When he turns back to me his face is pale. "Please just tell me what this is about! I didn't do nothing to you I swear!"

God is he going to beg? This is pathetic. "Listen, Anthony. I think we both know what's going on here. You didn't do anything to me, I've got nothing against you personally."

He breathes a sigh of relief before reaching in his jacket and pulling out a wad of cash. "A job then right? Whatever they're paying I'll double it! Hell if you bring me the one who called this hit I'll quadruple it I swear, I'm a man of my word!"

The begging is really getting on my nerves. I take the wad of cash and throw it on the ground. "So am I." He starts scrambling backwards until he's perched near the edge of the building. He glances back perhaps hoping to survive a jump. Then he realizes that we're about twelve stories up, with only the cold concrete below. I grab him by the throat and hoist him up above the street. He goes into full on panic, sweat racing down his face, his arms clawing at mine, kicking and screaming. It's so pathetic, so pitiful.

I know what happens if I don't do this, Fisk will be furious, he'll lash out at me, and probably at Kitty, but still I've never killed anyone that didn't try and hurt me or my friends first. I don't have a choice.

I almost jump when a loud bang rings through the night, out of reflex I yank Costa back over the edge and crouch down. That was louder than any gunshot I've ever heard! I scan the roof tops across the street, activate the zoom and night vision features on my helmet. Over two hundred yards away I'm able to make out a figure crouched on a building holding what looks like a sniper rifle looking in my direction. An assassin? Was that shot for me? I give my self a once over making sure that I wasn't hit and in shock or something. While I'm completely unscathed in my check I happen to see a pool of red building up behind me and see Costa motionless. I cautiously walk up to him and see that the entire area where his left eye was is now just leaking crimson.

I suppose somebody just did my job for me, it would be rude to not say thanks. I turn and see the figure already packing up, but I'm already on the move. I don't swing directly at them, I go around hoping that my new 'friend' here doesn't see me coming. Just as I'm about to land on his building my danger sense goes off and I yank hard on my web just barely traveling over the blast from some explosion. I'm thrown off balance as a bullet bounces off of my helmet, it throws my neck back and I land on the rooftop in an ungraceful heap. My ears are ringing, even with this vibranium helmet it still hurts to get shot. When I look up it's into the barrel of a gun, and holding the gun is a man in his mid thirties with an angry look on his face. He looks armed to the teeth with a black trench coat surrounding the ominous white skull on his t shirt.

There's no way I'm getting taken out by an old man. I kick off the ground into a handstand kicking his gun in the process. I use my arms to jump, flip into the air and gracefully twist my body to dodge his second shot. I'll be damned If I get shot twice! I twist my body to kick at my attackers head only for him to dodge at the last second. I land in a low crouch both web shooters at the ready as my new friend's pulls a second gun from underneath his coat. "You're pretty quick for an old man."

He scoffs but the frown never leaves his face. "And you're not too bad for a kid." His voice is gruff like he'd spent all night smoking, and from his accent he sounds like a New Yorker, although it doesn't sound too heavy. "You're not one of Costa's guys are you?"

I wish he could see me rolling my eyes. "Oh yeah, I totally work for him, he likes for his employees to dangle him ten stories in the air."

He stands up a little straighter, and moves his hand from what I assume is a holster underneath his jacket, to instead place it in one of his many pockets. "Then I have no beef with you."

Maybe he doesn't, "You shot at me!"

He shrugs and pulls a cigarette from his jacket. "Don't feel special kid, I shoot at a lot of people."

I stand up, straight as well, although still cautiously with web shooter aimed at him. "Who just shoots at people, what are you a mercenary?" He certainly has the gear for it.

He pulls a lighter from his other pocket and cups his hand over his cigarette before taking a long drag. "More like an agent of justice." Oh great he's crazy. There's a crazy man who happens to be armed to the teeth not five feet away from me, great. "They call me the Punisher. What about you kid? You're no assassin. I watched you for almost a full minute before I took my shot, you weren't going to kill him. "

"I was before you shot him!" Seriously, crazy, stupid, and armed that's the lottery of terrible traits to be found in a random stranger.

"If you were going to kill him you would have done it already, clearly some one else is pulling your strings. Who?"

Pulling my strings? I work for the Kingpin, I get that, but the idea that I'm a puppet being led around for someone's amusement. That's something else entirely. "I am no ones puppet."

He shrugs, "Regardless, any enemy of the Costa family is a friend of mine." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a black business card. "This is a dark road you're walking down kid. In a world like ours you make allies where you can." He holds the card out to me expectantly. I use my web shooter to yank it from his hands, and he rolls his eyes at me taking another long drag from his cigarette. "Call it or don't, I couldn't care less. I'm planning on being in town for the next couple of weeks, after that don't count on me answering."

He turns his back to me and continues disassembling his sniper rifle. I just don't get this guy. "Why give me this? What do you stand to gain from helping me?" No matter how I see it this doesn't make sense, with this number I might even be able to find him, figure out who he is. You don't just give your number to everyone. "I haven't given you any reason to trust me."

He chuckles as he closes his sniper case and stands up. "As long as I can breath I can fight. It's not that I trust you kid. I'm just not afraid of you." I can feel myself getting annoyed as he begins to walk to the fire escape. "Maybe you can fight me, maybe you'll win. But if you can't get your self to kill scum like Costa, you sure has hell can't kill me."

I consider going after him, showing him that he's wrong, but I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that he's right. Regardless I have a job to finish. I connect my phone to the helmet and redial Fisk. "It's done."

I groggily lift my head from my desk in English. As some bothersome individual speaks it at me.

"You ok buddy? You look like crap."

Surprisingly I'm looking into the face of Harry Osborne, I didn't even know he was in this class, and I still don't care. "Late night."

His face sours for a moment. "Were you at MJ's party? I heard it was 'amazing'." He says with no small amount of disdain.

I raise an eyebrow at that, "I wouldn't go if I was held at gun point." I was but that had nothing to do with it. "I take it you weren't there either?"

He shakes his head slowly, "It would be awkward after our breakup." Silence, crushing awkward silence. Luckily I'm saved by the teacher walking in.

Halfway through P.E. I'm resting on a bench after my laps drinking some water when the coach walks up to me. As is usual for me now, I'm finished far before the rest of the class without even breaking a sweat. "Peter I've noticed that you've made some significant improvements since the start of the season." Great where is he going with this, I hope it's not a drug test. I almost chuckle at the thought that I might not even test as human. "Have you ever considered joining the track team?"

Oh this is much easier to deal with. "Not interested."

I turn back to my water hoping that he gets the message and leaves.

He doesn't. "Peter, I don't know what work out you've been doing but you are fast." I roll my eyes at that, "We're talking scholarship fast, maybe even a full ride. But no one is going to offer it if your not willing to show them."

"I said that I'm not interested."

"But Peter-" Ok now I'm getting annoyed.

I stand up from my bench, to look at my coach eye to eye. "Drop it." Our gazes meet for a scant few seconds before he backs down, like Gwen's aunt when I met her. I

can't help but to grin.

When I get to the cafeteria, it's to the welcoming smell of meatball subs. Possibly the most edible thing they serve here. Katherine is behind me scrolling through her phone. We had just sat down with Kitty across from me when she holds her phone out to me.

Her face looks sullen. "Peter have you seen this?" On her phone is a video taken from some bank security camera that got leaked. People are walking around normally when suddenly the room fills with smoke. Twenty seconds later when the smoke clears all the civilians are on the ground while several figures enter the frame. There are only a few of them, five in total. Two stick out though: the first because he's crouched on all four's and even through the terrible quality of the camera his skin looks sickly. The second because he floats above the rest almost regally. He wears a red a purple outfit with some sort of armored helm. All in all a very imposing figure. He's speaking but the video has no sound but I can guess from the way that the people on the ground squirm that he's not saying anything reassuring. He then raises an arm and the camera begins to shake. The back wall of the bank explodes causing even more smoke to cover the screen. When it clears a giant metal container, what I assume to be the banks vault, is floating off screen. The mysterious figures gone and many of the civilians buried in rubble. "This was two days ago in Nevada."

I hear a chair scraping the ground and look up to see Gwen sit down next to Katherine. "Are you guys talking about the mutant attack?"

Mutants, that explains why Kitty is so anxious. "Were they all mutants? This is the first I've heard of it." Not surprising seeing as my schedule hasn't left much time for searching the net.

Gwen nods opening her lunch box. How she can eat a packed lunch on meatball sub day is beyond me. "Eight people died in the attack. There was no sound on the video but one person later that day recited everything that they said." Gwen pulls out her phone and scrolls for a second before pulling up a news report I assume. "When the smoke cleared I looked up to see a man floating above us, all dressed in purple. He said: 'If there are any mutants among you, rise up! We are of the same breed.' A moment of silence. 'I am Magneto, master of magnetism, and we are the Brotherhood of mutants! Heed my words humans; your time is coming to an end. It is time for you to make way for your betters behold my power!' There was a cloud of dust as he raised his arm and I nearly shit myself when the entire bank vault burst from the wall. I couldn't see him but I could still hear his voice through the smoke screen. 'I tried to do things the nice way I offered you my hand once. Now you will know only fear.'"

Something about that message and his words bother me. "Why did they steal the money? From that account it sounds like they were trying to send a message not rob a place. Also why some random Nebraskan bank?"

Gwen shrugs, "Who knows what those psychos are thinking, it's scary to think that there are people out in the world with so much power. From the other accounts underneath the strange clothes they looked normal too. To think that mutants could be anywhere. It's frightening."

I see Kitty stiffen out of the corner of my eye and look down at her sandwich. "I mean they're not all bad right?" I may not have liked Bobby, but I can't imagine him doing terrible things like that, like me. "The Fantastic four seem to be good guys." They were in the news at least once a week for some, I'm sure, exaggerated heroics.

"I'm more of an Iron man fan myself." I almost jump as Mary Jane speaks from the seat beside mine. How the hell does she manage to do that?

For once Gwen doesn't instantly snap at Mary Jane. "The number of people with superpowers is increasing exponentially. Most are isolated, like Captain America or in small groups like the Fantastic four. This brotherhood is scary because they're all mutants, and there's evidence that their numbers will only grow if they were to all unite Magneto's threats alluding to humanities extinction might not be far off."

"What about the X-men?" Our eyes turn to Katherine as she speaks for the first time since Gwen sat down. "There hasn't been much about them but I've been following forums about them. Apparently they're a group of Mutants dedicated to doing good."

That sounds a lot like what Bobby was trying to recruit us for. Mary Jane raises an eyebrow, "Why haven't we seen them yet if they're out there? Shouldn't they be fighting the Brotherhood or something?"

Katherine answers shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "They are, but some people say that they're super covert, like they have this stealth plane that they drop out of. There have been sightings of them all over the U.S. and even a few in the E.U. Just no pictures yet."

Closing her now emptied lunch box, Gwen looks at Kitty skeptically. "I hate to agree with Watson," From the look on her face she really does, "But if this group does exist and they really want to help why would they be being so secretive? Wouldn't they want to assure people that they were helping?"

Kitty looks from Gwen to Mary Jane before finally settling on me with a pleading look in her eyes. Why am I being drawn into this? But with a sigh I speak anyway. "Maybe they're too scared to show themselves." Kitty gives me a pointed look. Another sigh, "What I mean is that with all the anti mutant sentiment from this Brotherhood they might be worried that people will take their aggression out on them." Katherine mouths a thank you to me and I roll my eyes, I honestly don't know why she cares so much.

"Explain to my why I'm doing this again?" I ask as I pretend to struggle with the weight of this drum set.

After school just as Katherine and I were about to head home, Mary Jane stopped me and asked for some help moving something. Seeing as we had decided that being friendly is better that openly antagonistic as I was before I groaned and sent Kitty on ahead.

Of course Mary Jane answers me without a second delay "Because apparently they needed it for a physics demonstration and forgot to put it back, and I have band practice in ten minutes."

"Band Practice? I thought you wanted to be an actress or something?"

She just shrugs next to me, holding cymbals while I have every drum in the set stacked in my arms. "I have hobbies, don't you?"

Considering that my hobbies entail swinging around at night bashing heads in and breaking into the police office once. "Not really."

"Shame." She holds open the music room door for me. "If you're looking for something to do we could use a bassist."

I set the set down on the ground next to the other instruments. "I think I'm good. Need anything else while I'm here?" I really, really want her to say no.

She gives a little wave as she starts to stand up the drums. "I got it from here." She flashes me one of her sincere smiles. "I'm good. Thanks Tiger."

I almost stick around to ask her shy she chooses to call me by that nickname but decide that it's not worth the chance of being talked into some other menial task.

I took so much self control to take the bus home rather than throw on my web shooters and swing through the streets. The real reason that I didn't is because there's no way I could fit my helmet in my backpack and I'd rather not swing around Manhattan unmasked.

So it was with great relief when I finally arrived at the top floor of my building and unlocked the door.

When I walk in I immediately notice an opened box on the floor. Odd seeing as Katherine finished her unpacking just the other day. I walk over to it and see that it's empty except for a small piece of paper. Just as I reach down to grab it I hear a voice by my ear, "Boo!"

Immediately I jump from the ground onto the nearby wall eyes searching for the hidden intruder, heart going a thousand beats a second. Where are they? My eyes scan the room, seeing no one but myself. I would think I was loosing it if the voice wasn't so clear, no way I imagined it. Maybe my ears then, I close my eyes and still my breathing listening. I hear something, focusing harder I hear… giggling? Familiar giggling. "Katherine?"

It sounds like it's coming from the couch. The giggling turns to full on laughter and I open my eyes to see that the couch is indented as if some one was laying down. I focus on the area and am able to make out a figure, that's not quite invisible. Easy to overlook at first it's almost as if I'm looking through clear water. I reach a tentative finger out and poke to feel cool leather. The form shimmers and reveals a figure dressed entirely in black with a large hood over the head and a mask covering the nose and mouth. The giggling stops and the figure pulls the hood and face mask down to show a grinning Katherine. "You found me."

I release the breath I hadn't realized I was holding and take a seat on the couch next to her head. "It wasn't easy though." I take another look at her suit and notice the seamless craftsmanship, it looks tailor made for her. "Fisk?"

She nods, "Yup, It's like super cool!" It came with this long instruction manual though, I was going through it but when I read that it had active camouflage.."

"You had to try it out on me." Her grin is all the answer I need. I feel the hood and frown. "Doesn't feel bullet proof. No helmet?"

She shakes her head, "I think the idea is that I don't get shot. Besides," I'm suddenly filled with the same cold feeling as usual as Kitty phases through me to sit on my other side. "I'm practically bullet proof anyway. You worry too much."

I'm about to retort that she worries too little when suddenly the television clicks on and I'm surprised to see Fisk's face appear on screen looking smug. It takes a second before he speaks, "I trust you're enjoying the suit Ms. Pryde?"

"Wow, I didn't realize that the T.V. was like a computer! Thank you for the suit Mr. Fisk, it's awesome!" Katherine is looking at the screen amazed while I'm much less impressed. In fact I'm down right pissed off. He's spying on us. I searched this place up and down for camera's and found none. The thought that despite my best efforts he's been watching us at his leisure is unsettling.

My eyes narrow at the screen. "I assume you have a job for us Mr. Fisk."

If he's offended by my rudeness he doesn't show it. "That is correct Mr. Parker. You two will meet me here at midnight tonight. It is time to put your skills to the test."

"What will we be doing?" I don't see any reason to meet him if he can tell us now.

His laugh does nothing to alleviate my annoyance. "Ha, you'll understand when you get here Spider, I have a few other associates I would like for you to meet. Their assistance will be necessary for the coming operation. I shall see you both tonight."

The screen cuts off right as he finishes. Nothing he said was a suggestion, or advice, or even an offer. They were orders. Tonight Katherine and I are going to Fisk tower to meet with unknown people to do an unknown job. The business card in my back pocket returns to my mind. I'm starting to realize that I might not be as in control of the situation as I'd like to believe. I don't take well to being strung around like a puppet.

I'm sorry, I though for sure that when summer started I was gonna be turning out chapters left and right. Then summer started and I did nothing but play video games. Apparently writing fan fiction is just my way of not paying attention in school. So with no classes to ignore I did other things. Not that I don't find it fun, I just find other games more fun.

Good news though, I'm back in school and I have a 3 hour astronomy class that I am so ready to ignore. So I guess my season of Fanfiction is starting again!

Tell me what you think about the chapter! Any feed back is appreciated!