Spiders 11

When I wake up the next morning, it's on the floor of Katherine's room. There are still boxes around from the few things she's yet to unpack. From my spot on the floor the suns rays are shining directly on my face, which must have been what roused me from my slumber. The clock reads six twelve in the morning, school doesn't start till seven but after last night I really think that I deserve a day off anyway.

I sit up from my position and see Katherine's bed empty. 'She's up already?' I sigh and stand up, stretching in the process. 'With how she was handling last night I guess I should be surprised if she slept at all.'

I make my way to the kitchen area to see Kitty sitting at the table with a bowl of oatmeal fully dressed. I grab a box a cereal, a bowl, and milk and move to sit across from her. Her hair is disheveled and her eyes have deep bags underneath them. She hasn't looked up at me since I entered, her eyes have remained firmly locked on her full bowl of oatmeal which I'm beginning to suspect has long gone cold. "Morning Kitty. When did you get up?"

She still doesn't look up, with one hand she starts stirring her oatmeal with a spoon. "I didn't sleep much. Kept having nightmares."

From her tone I can tell that she's not in the best mood. "We don't have to go to school today. It's alright to call in sick. Honestly I'd really like to stay home today."

She stops stirring her oatmeal and stands from her seat. "Stay if you want. I'm going to school." A clear dismissal. She doesn't look at me as she moves to grab her backpack and walk out the door.

After accepting what she did, she's angry at me. Everything that happened yesterday was my fault. I can't really blame her. I can't just leave her though. With a sigh I also stand to grab my school stuff, I'll go just to keep an eye on her, even if she doesn't care.

[School]

Somehow I manage to stay awake in English, I can really feel the stress of the last few nights start to pile on me. I don't think I've slept decently this entire week.

Not feeling like participating I mostly sit on the side in P.E. while the rest of the class plays a game of basketball.

I had hoped that Kitty would be in a better mood by math but wasn't surprised when she showed up as sullen as in the morning. The bags under her eyes are harder to make out though; I think she covered them up with makeup. Despite my efforts to talk to her, the entire period I only get one or two word responses from her.

With the period over the two of us walk our usual route to the cafeteria. It being the dreaded, 'mystery casserole' day doesn't to anything to lift our spirits. The line is slowly moving in front of us and I can almost see the dwindling supply of pizza getting smaller as more people opt out of the casserole. "Do you think we're going to get stuck with mystery lunch?" Kitty just shrugs, and I frown. I didn't think that her behavior would affect me as much as it has been. I had assumed that I would just deal with it until she returns to normal, but her attitude is starting to get to me. I miss the Kitty that was full of energy and happiness. I'm regretting my actions more than ever.

When the two of us sit down with our mystery casserole's its not long before we're joined by Gwen, who sits next to me and across from Katherine. She set's her boxed lunch on the table before glancing at the two us suspiciously. She looks at Kitty and then at me. "What's up with you guys? Another loud party?"

I feel bad lying to one of my three friends but I'm not exactly about to tell her about the night we had, "Yeah. It was… rough."

Katherine responds while pushing her casserole around on her tray. "Yeah…"

Gwen looks a bit taken aback by Kitty's lack luster answer, "Riiight, well you guys should probably talk to the manager. I'm sure there's something you can do. I'm surprised they didn't get shut down after the first night where they must've kept half the building up."

Shut down huh, I actually manage to smile a bit, "Actually I went and talked to them. I think that that's the last party they throw."

"Good." Mary Jane casually slides into the seat next to Katherine. "Because I'm not sure how long people are going to believe that the two of you were up all night working on a project." Her grin is almost predatory, "That's two you owe me bye the way tiger."

I roll my eyes, "And just what exactly could you possibly want from me?"

"Besides Watson." Gwen to the rescue, "Isn't helping with rumors just something that friends do? Since you two are trying to be more friendly shouldn't his thanks be all the reward you need?"

"Ah, ah ah." MJ wags a finger back and fourth. "I think that you're underestimating the amount of work I have to go through to keep these-" I cover my ears out of reflex as a loud alarm cuts off Mary Jane.

Everyone starts looking around while cautiously standing up. It's more likely that someone pulled the fire alarm as a prank rather than because of an actual fire. I stand up from the bench to almost fall over again as the ground shakes beneath us. Is this an earthquake? By now most students are standing up and the teachers in the cafeteria are starting to ushers students to the emergency exits. Our group of four starts to make our way over when there's another tremor and the whole room seems to shake.

The fire alarm shuts off and the room is filled with a strange silence as the formerly blaring siren is silent. There's the tell tale click of the P.A system as another tremor racks the room. They're getting more frequent. "My apologies." That is not our principal's voice, the voice is dry and raspy echoing all over the halls. Something's not right here. I can't tell if it's my danger sense or my own instincts. Regardless I move to stand closer to Katherine, just in case. "There are so many buttons here took me a while to get the right one." Another tremor. "But let's get down to business."

There are several screams as the far wall and doors explode inward blasting the whole room with dust. I'm forced to cover my eyes to protect them. When I finally look up I see a single figure standing at the impact sight towering over the rest of the student body, a huge muscular figure wearing a grey skintight suit with a large horn coming from the top of his head. Katherine and I share a look. 'Rhino!' The entire crowd is sort of cowed into silence by his hulking figure; no one moves a muscle and the room goes silent with the exception of the loud speaker.

Rhino raises his hand to his ear, and mutters something as he scans the crowd of students. 'Just what is he looking for?' The speakers continue, "Ah it would seem that my ally has arrived! Ladies and gentlemen, meet Rhino, I'm sure you recognize him from the news. Now as for why we're here, relax we aren't going to kill all of you. We are looking for someone specific, help us and the rest of you can go home tonight happy to be alive. If not then well, I guess we'll have to kill everyone won't we?" I see Rhino grin at the prospect, I never liked him, "Now give us, Peter Parker, and Katherine Pryde and we'll be on our way."

I feel as if my stomach has turned to lead inside me. This can't be happening! How? How do they know us? The not only know our names but where we go to school? And why? Why are they here?

It's at this moment that I remember something Fisk said to me as he was gloating before Kitty came to my rescue: "You know I had prepared for you killing me?" Prepared, I've had too much on my mind with Katherine to really give anytime to what he said. This must be it, his failsafe to get back at me if I betrayed him. I'm still paying for my mistakes.

Mary Jane and Gwen both seem to freeze in place and stare at Katherine and I wide eyed. This could not possibly be any worse.

The voice on the loudspeakers, keeps talking, "Now before you get any stupid ideas about protecting your fellow students before you know all the facts. For example, The villain that's been all over the news as of late. The Spider, he fought NYPD, a few weeks ago and even the human torch a few days ago. Who would believe that he could ever be puny Peter Parker."

Gwen and I lock eyes, I can tell that she doesn't want to believe it. She's silently asking me for confirmation that everything that's being said is a lie. I can't give that to her. Tears begin to well in the corners of her eyes and she takes a step back from me, it hurts a lot more than I thought it would. If I had known that making friends would be this painful I would have tried much harder to turn Katherine away, and Ignoring Gwen. I'm surprised when I look over to Mary Jane and instead of a similar reaction she's motioning towards the emergency exit. "Peter!" No one can hear her whisper-yelling over the loud speaker. "Grab Kitty and get out of here." I look over my shoulder and see Kitty looking at me for direction. Us leaving is probably the best solution. Hopefully when they see that we aren't here they'll go look for us else ware instead of wasting time attacking. At least I hope that they're that logical. It's better than the definite casualties from if I tried to fight Rhino here. I reach over and grab Katherine's hand and start to lead us over to the exit. Mary Jane places her hand on my shoulder and gives a light smile. "That's three you owe me. Be sure to come back so I can cash in."

I give her back a grin and a nod. I won't forget this. As we creep through the crowd, most are too focused on the speaker or the hulking figure of Rhino still standing in the crater of the wall. If you look behind him you can see the holes in all the walls that he had to run through, to get to this point going all the way out to the street.

As we near the emergency exit, the sinking feeling in my gut, I turn my head to glance at Rhino, and see him smirk as we make eye contact, oh shit. Kitty almost trips as I break into a full sprint still dragging her behind me. The crowd becomes suddenly aware of the situation as Rhino lowers himself into a stance, horn forward. I can hear people screaming and scrambling out of the way as Rhino shoots off towards us. I glance over my shoulder and see him advancing like a grey rocket.

We need to go faster! Barely thinking about it I yank Katherine forward and lift her off her feet. My danger sense goes off, and I can hear Rhino right behind me. "No one can run from RHINO!" With Katherine in my arms I leap into the air just in time to see Rhino pass underneath me, a second slower and we'd have been gored on that horn of his.

With my powerful jump we're still sailing upward towards the ceiling. I'm sure Kitty wants to make sure no one got hut because of us but right now we have much bigger problems. "Kitty! Ceiling!" She looks up just in time to phase us through the cafeteria ceiling so that we land on the roof.

Hopefully we've got a minute or two before Rhino or the loudspeaker man figures out we're up here. I take a second to set Katherine down, and put on the web shooters that I keep in my bag. What I wouldn't give for my helmet right now though.

"Peter, where are we going?" Now that we're free of everyone's gaze I can see the panic in her eyes. "We can't just run away Peter, Gwen and Mary Jane-"

"Will be safer the farther away we are!" It's the reason that I don't feel any guilt over running away. "If we try and fight them here people will get hurt. Our best chance is to run and hope that they follow us. They're making threats assuming that we care about what happens to them. If we run they have nothing to gain by hurting them. We just have to make it look like we don't care."

Katherine looks at me skeptically, "Do you care?"

Really? We do not have time for this. "Of course I do! You aren't the only one with friends down there. Now let's go so that we can protect them. Once we get our suits, we can see about dealing with Rhino."

My danger sense goes off, I dive forward and push Kitty down in time for a blast of orange looking energy to pass over us. In the direction that it came from is a man wearing a yellow padded body suit underneath a red tunic and boots with thick gauntlets over his arms, both of his hands are raised with visible waves of heat around the gauntlets. "Stand Still!" The voice is the same as the one on the loud speaker. His gauntlets hum slightly just before my danger sense alerts me again, I grab Katherine and leap off the side of the building just in time to dodge another wave of energy.

While in the air I move Katherine to my back so that I have both hands to swing. "Keep an eye out, phase us through anything I can't dodge." I can't see her but I can feel her nod into the back of my shirt. I glance down at the road and can see Rhino following us from the ground. The gauntlet guy is still shooting at us from the roof, with no success, so I'm going to assume that he can't fly. "We're heading straight home to suit up. Get ready to phase us through any buildings, we need to get there as soon as possible."

[Home]

Using Katherine's abilities we were able to lose Rhino and that other jerk pretty fast. Currently we're suiting up but I really want to get out of here as fast as possible. I have no doubt that those creeps know where we live. I'm wearing my suit with my helmet in my hands when Katherine walks out of her room in full costume. I should put on the helmet, I can see the scratch on the side where it deflected one of Punisher's bullets; it's already saved my life once. However, 'the only thing I can do is continue to roll on the ground clawing at my helmet' I'd rather not. I look up when Kitty puts a hand on the helmet. Her own hood and face mask are down. "You don't have to wear it anymore. Not if you don't want to."

She's right, it's not like I need to protect my identity anymore. With the Internet I bet all of New York will know who I am within a few hours. Katherine is holding a duffel bag filled with our essentials. Clothes, toothbrushes, as well as spare webbing that I had made. I hand her my helmet and she puts it into the bag.

I take a moment to look around the room. All of our stuff is thrown about in our scramble to grab the things that we need. We both understand that we won't be coming back here. I look around at the extravagantly furnished penthouse. To think that I'm about to leave the best home I've had in years. I feel as if a dark shadow is being cast over the happy parts of my life. "Peter!" Kitty's voice pulls me from my thoughts to realize that the shadow I was imagining is not just figurative. The entire room is lamp shaded in darkness, there's a huge cloud around our entire floor.

Something isn't right, the cloud isn't stagnant, is constantly moving, rotating around the floor. I reach for Katherine's hand, while still staring out the window, when I focus on the cloud and really take advantage of my enhanced vision I see what about it disturbs me, the entire cloud is made of sand. "Kitty, down!"

My danger sense goes off as soon as the words leave my mouth and the windows burst around us, Katherine quickly reacts and the empty feeling that I'm getting used to fills my body as we phase through several floors. We stop at the first floor where we can't see the sand through the window. The apartment that we stop in is empty and Katherine immediately latches on to my back with the duffel still over her shoulder as she phases us through the window.

"There you are!" I have to double take as I look above us at the sound of the voice and see a like seventy-year old, green, birdman speeding towards us. Why does the weirdest stuff happen to me? My danger sense goes off and out of reflex I yank hard on my current web in time to dodge a barrage of feathers that shoot out from the birdman's wings. "None can escape the Vulture!"

Katherine looses grip with one hand and flails a bit behind me before regaining her grip. "Kitty you okay?"

I feel her nod into me as I continue to swing away from Vulture, the Sand cloud seemingly hearing Vulture has ceased it's assault on the building and is drifting towards us, perfect. "He hit the bag." I look behind us and can see out clothes, and toothbrushes as well as my extra web fluid and shooters. "I managed to your helmet." I can feel the vibranium helmet pushed up against my back.

Another glance at my back and I can tell that Vulture is gaining on us. Where the hell are the fantastic four now? Half of the villains in new york are on my ass! I swing around a tight corner to dodge another blast of feathers, a fist of sand swings from around the building straight at us. With no time to dodge I thank my lucky stars that I met Kitty as she phases us through it.

This is ridiculous! Vulture is too fast to get away from and I don't even know how to fight back against Sandman. It's probably only a matter of time before Rhino and that other jerk catch up too. We need an exit strategy, I only have so much webbing, we can't run forever, we need help. I grab my phone from my pocket in between webs and hand it to Katherine. "Kitty, dial the three nine two number in my recent calls!"

With her arms wrapped around my neck it takes her a few seconds, she holds the phone to my ear as I swing and after one ring he picks up. "Figured you'd be calling." The grizzled voice of the punisher comes through over the line. "I heard about the Kingpin, didn't think you had it in you. I assume that you're calling for help. With birdman and sand cloud?"

"I just need you to get them off of us!" I kick off of a building and let the razor sharp feathers hit the concrete.

"I've been watching. You two are all over the news. Lucky for you no one can get a good angle on your face." As if it matters anymore. "Keep going north and head low over the bridge. I don't know about Sandy but I can get the bird off of your back."

"Thanks."

He almost laughs, "Don't thank me kid, you owe me one. I don't work for free." Why do I always owe people?

Punisher hangs up and Kitty moves the phone from my ear. "Who was that?"

Kitty phases us through several feathers that I wasn't going to be fast enough to dodge. "A friend."

"That I didn't know about?"

I really don't want to do a Q&A right now. "No you didn't know about him. Why because I didn't tell you. I'd be happy to share more but can we please discuss this when there aren't maniacs trying to murder us!" She doesn't say anything after that.

We reach the bridge in only a few minutes and I pray that Punisher was able to make it in time to help, I follow his instruction and swing fast and low over the bridge, I'd wanted to avoid this because here the cables are the only things I can swing from limiting my mobility. But I really don't have any choice but to rely on his help right now.

I'm half way over the bridge with Vulture's cackling not far behind me when a gun shot rings through the air. I glance back and see Vulture spiraling out of control towards the ground, great one down, two to go.

Figuring out how to evade sandman is another matter entirely, how do I get away from someone who can travel as a cloud of sand. It's even more troubling to think that somehow two nights ago he managed to evade both the thing and the invisible woman while I was tied up with the human torch. "Peter, take the next left."

Katherine's voice surprises me, it's been a few minutes since she's said anything. "Where are we going?"

I swing down the street that Katherine wanted me to. "Just trust me" I don't question Katherine is one of the few people that I do trust, and with this sand cloud chasing us if she has a plan I'm all ears. "Take a left through the alley, land on that roof there."

"Wait you want us to stop? Sandman is right behind us!"

"Do you trust me?"

After all I've put her through my trust is the very least I owe her. "Alright." I swing us to the roof of an ordinary looking building downtown. Kitty get's off my back and we turn together to face the encroaching sand storm. "What's the plan?" I do a quick check on my webbing and grimace to realize that I've got at most two hundred feet left.

She grabs my hand and her presence is somewhat comforting. "Don't move." I look her in the eyes and see her absolute confidence in this. All right guess it's time to put my trust to the test. My danger sense goes off but I ignore it, Katherine wouldn't trick me, I'm going to trust that she knows what she's doing. There's pressure like someone is holding my arm before it feel like the air around me shifts. My vision is a blue blur for a second before it finally clears, and when it does I'm not on the roof anymore.

Katherine and I are still holding hands, but we're standing in the aisle of some sort of plane, it's air conditioned, and has two rows of seats on either side of us. Even from the inside I can tell this is no ordinary plane, maybe some sort of private jet? There are a few individuals facing us all dressed in similar black and gold uniforms. The first is a girl that looks only a few years older than us with orange hair, on the other side of the isle is a tall looking man wearing some sort of visor, just from his stance I think he's the leader. Immediately to my right is… Bobby. That must mean that these are the group of mutant heroes that he tried to recruit me for. Great.

[End]

Now that the Fisk arc is over let's start the X-men arc! You had to have seen this coming, I've been hinting at it since the third chapter. Not to mention that I can't just skip over it since Kitty is a main part of the story.

I got a few mentions about a possible symbiote arc, so here's what I think about that: There is no way that I can leave the symbiote out of this story, it synergizes with this Peter so well. There probably won't be a 'Symbiote arc, just because I can't see Peter minding too much, I've been trying to justify why he would ever get rid of it. Point is don't worry, I've got plans.

Tell me what you liked, Tell me what you didn't all reviews are welcome

Thanks for reading!