10 Chapter 10

I am broken out of my musing by Felicia. she is talking to me again. "So, come on. I told you about myself, so tell me about yourself. I might just come across Spider-Man one of these days, and maybe I will tell him about the curious encounter I had with someone who looked exactly like him. I am sure he will- AH!" My hand is wrapped around her throat and pressed down hard, constricting her breathing and turning her face red.

She can still breathe, but just barely, and I know that if I were to squeeze just a little harder, I could completely cut off her airway and stop her breathing forever. To have such power in your hands is intoxicating. I can feel myself getting absorbed by it. Suddenly, Aunt May and Uncle Ben flash through my head, and I quickly shake my feelings away and slightly loosen my grip around her throat to let her breathe easier.

With the newly found oxygen making its way into her lungs, she begins to look less ruddy, and her arms suddenly move up and grasp around my arm. I ready myself for another battle with this woman- "Harder." -She pulls my arm further in to press against her throat, and I quickly release my grip and jump backwards away from the redfaced woman who is panting heavily.

Massaging her throat, she smirks naughtily at me and sits up a bit to right her position on the sofa, not at all showing any anger at my actions. If anything, I would say that she is disappointed that I removed my hand from her oesophagus.

"So, are you gonna tell me or not? Or do you wanna go back to choking me? It is up to you, really." She casually says, acting like I wasn't just choking her within an inch of her life, which catches me flat-footed as I am unsure of what to do in this situation.

I am also warring with the contradicting thoughts and feelings inside of myself, with one half of me thinking that I should either take her up on her offer or get rid of her for the sake of my future in this world, while my more heroic half is vehemently against it not wanting to harm someone even if it is for my own sake. I need to sort out this had of mine and reaffirm just what kind of person I am now instead of pussyfooting around and being indecisive. If I do this at the wrong time, I could very quickly end up dead.

"I am a clone of spider-man." Ah, it just slipped out of my mouth. Goddamn, you stupid Peter side, you just knew that my more cynical half was probably going to kill this woman because I sure as shit did not want to tell this woman anything about my background, especially because she is a cat burglar and a thief which obviously means she is untrustworthy and that I can not trust her as far as I can throw her because I can throw her quite far, at least three city blocks. I don't know what I would have done in this situation.

I definitely did not want to tell her anything, so chances are I would have ended up physically confronting her, and I don't know how far I would have gone, especially with the sly threats she was making me. So I guess that my Peter side probably did the right thing. What would she do with that information anyway? Probably best not to think about that. What's said is said, and now I am just going to have to deal with it and move forward. I really need to get my head in order.

"Oh, a clone?" She says, and I wait for her to continue, but she doesn't. Instead, she just reaches down, picks up her glass to take another sip of her red wine, and relaxes on the couch with her legs rising to rest on her coffee table.

She languishes on the couch like I didn't just tell her I was proof of one of the most researched subjects in the world, that my literal existence would make kings and representatives of nations all across the globe drop everything they are doing in the hopes of acquiring my body and the secrets of cloning held within my body.

"I-Is, is that it? No, how is that possible? No, who in the hell made you? I-I am a clone, a copy of Spider-Man made on the whims of a mad scientist, and all you can say is, oh, a clone?" I-I am a... What is wrong with this woman? Is that the correct response when confronted with such a mind-blowing revelation, human life fully cloned and copied, an entirely new separate life created from someone else's cells? Someone took the role of god and put something new onto this Earth, and it is not even an average human that was cloned, but a superhuman and all she can say is, oh.

"Hm, what do you want me to say? Oh my, a clone of Spider-Man! Just think, if I can discover the secrets of cloning from his body, then I can continuously clone thousands of Spider-Men and create a Spider-Army. With such an army, I can take over New York, nay, the entirety of planet Earth. And then I can live out the rest of my days as the empress of Earth, having my Spider-Men continuously attend to my every need and having weekly orgies with them. Is that what you expected? Well, sorry to disappoint, but I am delighted with my current station in life. I enjoy looking out for only myself, and it seems like my happy life would be seriously upset if I took such actions, though I am quite curious about your origins, so just so I can avoid him in the future, but who was this mad scientist?"

"O~kay, the orgy part was unnecessary, but I think you made your point."

"Really? I thought that was the most crucial point. If you rule the world, you will obviously have orgies. It is just a matter of fact." I shake my head at her words. I mean, if I did rule the world and I had no one trying to upset my rule, then yeah, I probably would have orgies, but that is just a fantasy. I would also probably try to keep my distance from a touchy subject like cloning. If everybody knew you had all the secrets of cloning, you probably wouldn't get any time to yourself.

"You don't have to worry about the mad scientist. He is most likely dead, and if he isn't, you just have to keep your distance from Spider-Man, don't get too close to him, and you will be fine. As for my origins, well, I am a perfect clone of Spider-Man down to the very last cell and memory, though I am more jaded than he is, which is to be expected with me being an artificially created life. Brewed in a test tube."

Felicia lets out a laugh. "And I was a C-Section. What's your point? There are quite a few test-tube babies in the world. Just because you were made as an exact copy of someone and were probably aged up doesn't mean you are any different from them. Seriously, stop bitching. As far as I can see, you have just been given a fresh lease on life with none of the previous commitments, not to mention you have a superpowered body, make the most of it and enjoy life instead of complaining about it. Also, you have all of his memories and the same body, right? I can tell that you have that same juicy rump, but are you the same everywhere, or are there some differences?" She seriously confuses me, this woman.

Why can't she just stay on one topic instead of switching every which way and continuing to catch me off guard? I hate it even more since she actually makes some good points apart from some of the stuff she says, which tells me that she obviously doesn't have much of a background when it comes to scientific subjects.

"As I said before, I am a perfect clone of Spider-Man. You can basically think of it as a different timeline. You know how in Back To The Future, they go back in time and change the past, which creates a separate branch of the future. It is kind of like that. My memories are basically the same as the originals up until I woke up in that massive test tube. At that time, I had branched off and become an entirely different existence completely separate from the original. It would make a lot more sense if I could use some visuals. Do you have a chalkboard or something?" That is about the best way to describe how my and the other Peter's existence correlate together.

But that doesn't even consider the appearance of my other memories from another world. Also, our existence didn't separate when I came out of a test tube, but when I emerged from the top of that smokestack, but I don't want to tell Felicia about that.

"Nerd. But I get it. I don't need any visuals, so stop with the medical mumbo jumbo. You are the exact same until that point, so that means he looks exactly like you do under that mask." I... did not think about that when I was explaining things, crap baskets. I am the exact same as him except for my newly blonde hair, so I have just basically fucked him over even though that was the one thing I did not want to do. I just wanted to leave this city and leave Peter and Aunt May and everybody behind to live their lives without me.

Still, I have just basically revealed his identity to one of the criminals Peter confronts weekly. Though Peter is not exactly famous, and there are probably a thousand people in this city that could look similar to him, it is perhaps not the end of the world if she has an idea of what she looks like. I plan on leaving, and my image will slightly fade from her mind afterwards, so she will most likely not find him anytime soon, and if she does, that will be his fault and not mine.

"He lives in a city of millions, and he doesn't exactly stand out. You would be hard-pressed to even find him, you would be looking for a random white dude with blonde hair, and you are definitely not gonna run into him when he is out of costume. So it honestly doesn't matter if you know what he looks like. the chances of you running into him without his underoos is a billion to one." I say, leaving in the red herring of Peter having blonde hair though I can't do much in the way of my other features.

Hopefully, if she begins to search for him, that will become a crucial part of her search criteria, which will eliminate Peter from her searches even if he looks the exact same as me. People can be dumb like that sometimes, hiding in plain sight, as it were.

"Hmm, well, I don't particularly care. I was just wondering if he is as good-looking as you are. Also, I just wanted to confirm that I wasn't flirting with some weird guy. you can't always be too sure who you are dealing with or who it is under the mask, after all." She says while shrugging before grabbing the TV remote and resuming her show, leaving me awkwardly sitting there, not knowing what to do. I honestly didn't know what would happen when I followed her here, but I expected something else instead of just sitting here and watching her drink wine and watch a comedy.

I sit there and watch the comedy with her for a while as she just sips her wine and laughs at the show, but eventually, I get tired of just sitting here and not doing anything. I need to be doing something to better my situation, and this is clearly not it. I let out a sigh and got to my feet, knowing that I at least gained something here, which was a new perspective on life. Walking towards the balcony, I at least know that I have some kind of idea of what I want to do with my life, and that is whatever I want to do. At least Felicia gave me some-

"Hey, where are you going? Sit down and watch the show. if you're hungry, I have some snacks and stuff in the kitchen." She calls out to me, stopping me from heading onto the balcony, resuming my life, and getting away from whatever weird little pitstop this was.

"I'm going, Felicia. I appreciate your help, and your words did help me in some way, so thank you. But I need to go now. I don't have the luxury to continue wasting my time here. Goodbye, Felicia." I resume my steps, hearing her pause her show once more and get to her feet, but I don't let that stop me as I get to the glass doors and place my hand on its handle. I go to put-

"Ben did you not even listen to what I said. So you don't have the luxury? I literally just told you to start being selfish and enjoy yourself, but I suppose I can understand some of your aversion to that being who you used to be. But maybe this will change your mind, you only have whatever is on your body right now, and that is it, don't you? I have connections and can help you get identification and whatever else you need. And if it is money you need, well, I can help with that too." She gestures to the pile of jewellery and cash on the table, which does catch my eye. After all, I was just trying to steal it from her less than an hour ago.

"We can deal with all that stuff tomorrow, though, for now. You can sleep on the couch, or if you prefer... You can join me in my room. my bed is big enough for two." She slinks over to her door and presses the handle down before pushing it open and leaning sultrily against the doorway with one hand caressing the other side of the doorframe, inviting me into her room to spend the night.

I am... I really need to sort my head out.