CH22: Escalation and Relocation

"Hm," I said. "I'm starting to believe I didn't think this through."

I was on foot in a car chase. I was waving in the wind like a fucking flag, stuck to one of the cop cars just by a single web line. The guy escaping the cops was a Cape called Overdrive, who I vaguely recalled had the power to enhance vehilces, as showed by the flaming monster truck he was currently riding. A few cops had tried shooting me, and while none of them hurt me, there was a hole in the hood of my costume. I was also late for school.

"Yeah, definitely could have used some more planning on this," I admitted, climbing up the web line and sticking to the roof of the cop car. The cops shouted some very rude comments to me, but I ignored them in favour of jumping onto the next car, again and again until I was near the front of the stage.

I almost went to close one eye before I realized the stupidity, and I just focused. "Okay, got to aim... this... right!"

I shot a web, and it stuck to one of the few outside parts of the monster truck that wasn't burning. With a victorious laugh, I started climbing my line.

Now, here's some context for all you boys, girls, and more at home. After the Laura Road Trip (as we dubbed it in the Parker Household), the Daily Bugle started talking about all those cars I stole, all those pockets I picked, and that one anti-mutant rally I fucked up. They called it "a corrupting crime spree" and me "a dangerous lunatic and a menace to men and women of every age".

I was bizarrely proud of those titles, and I tried to print the online article to have it framed in my new room, but May and Ben forbid anything related to the Daily Bugle near their home.

The point is, my already shaky reputation took a nosedive, and now police officers actively gunned for me.

"I'm going to shoot at them," one of the cops that wasn't driving told his partner, opening the window and leaning an arm out. "We either hit Spider-Man or Overdrive, it's a win-win."

Pun fully intended, of course.

I looked around. If he shot, the odds were that the bullet was going to go wide and hit a civilian, but of course, they were cops, so they didn't give a shit.

Without looking, I shot a web at the gun before he could fire, and I pulled it out of his grip and into mine. I crushed it just by tightening my grip, let it fall, and climbed the rest of the way to the truck.

"So, how'd that work out for you?" the shooter's partener asked.

"Shut up."

I finally made it up to the monster truck. Except for a few loose spots and the windows, the whole thing was on fire, so I stood on the back window, stuck two web lines on it, jumped away, and slingshot myself back inside the car.

I took a breath and let it out in a long groan, while Overdrive whipped his head around, switching betweem looking at the road and staring at me.

I kept groaning, mostly for comical effect, as I rolled my neck and stretched my arms.

Finally, I settled down and relaxed.

"Hey," I said.

"Um, hi?"

"Nice truck you've got here."

"Thanks."

"Yeah," I made a show of looking around. "I don't mean to alarm you, but it appears to be slightly on fire."

"Uh, yeah," he nodded, eyes glued forward. "It's on purpose."

"I see," I moved to the front and sat opposite to him. "I'm Spider-Man, by the way."

"I know," he said, and I could feel his wince. "S-sorry, it's just... I'm a big fan, and I'm a little scared because you're, y'know, this big scary spider-ninja."

"Ah, don't worry about it," I put my feet up on the deck. "Overdrive, right? It's nice to finally meet you."

"You heard of me?" he said, like I just told him he won the lottery.

"Sure." I shrugged. "I'm Spider-Man, I know everything."

I didn't, but I wanted the rumors to start.

"Oh, come on," he scoffed.

"You got your power because some wannabe crimelord gave you nanomachines, you used to be a racetrack driver, and you agreed to the deal because you secretly want to be a hero," I rattled off. Honestly, it was just stuff I remembered from that one comic, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, but the important part was getting the right reaction.

"Holy shit," he whispered. Bingo.

"Right," I nodded. "So, tell you what: you give me information on the guy that gave you those nanomachines, and I talk to some contacts of mine so you can be a hero. Sound good?"

He pulled over so fast he almost crashed the car.

"Ah, Mister Fletcher," Mrs. Green, the math teacher, greeted me when I rushed into the classroom. "Getting a late start on the- oh dear Lord, what happened to your face?"

"Hm?" for a panic-filled second, I wondered if I forgot to put on the illusion ring, but I felt it on my middle finger when I brushed it with my thumb. "What are you talking about?"

"There's a scar on your face!"

I blinked. I'd completely forgotten about that. "Oh, that! Yeah, I fought the floor and the floor won."

"He means he tripped!" Peter shouted from the back.

"Sounds cooler when it's a Clash reference," I grumbled as I walked over and sat next to Peter.

Mrs. Green shook her head and kept going, and I leaned over to whisper at my friend, "What'd I miss?"

"Two whole assigments, I'll pass them later."

I gave him a thumbs up and pretended to focus on the class. Under the table, I pulled out the notebook where I kept my notes on the New York underworld and opened the latest page.

Overdrive told me he'd been given the nanomachines by some douche calling himself Mr. Negative. I couldn't remember much from the comics, except that he debuted sometime after Brand New Day (may the comic book gods forgive me for invoking the name) and had a cool design. I couldn't even remember his powers.

Overdrive said that he was, as said by the charming Mr. Negative, 'a pawn in expanding his organization into New York City'. That meant three things:

1) Negative already had a whole-ass criminal organization set and ready to go somewhere near New York.

2) He was a Guy With A Plan, never something good to face.

3) This was going to have me distracted all day.

Which it did, so I had basically no notes by the time Lunch rolled around.

"So, I asked around," Gwen said, sitting down next to Peter while Flash sat next to me. "And pretty much half the school thinks you're in a gang or something."

"Huh," I said, through a mouthfull of shitty spaghetti. "Who'd you ask?"

"My other friends?" Flash, Peter and I all gave her confused looks, and she rolled her eyes. "Just because you all have no social life outside this circle doesn't mean I don't either! I have a life and shit! I play in a band!"

"You play in a band?" I swallowed my mouthful of pasta. "Dude! When do you play? Can I go?"

"You want to go to a concert?" Peter asked. "You hate loud people and closed spaces full of them."

"Yeah, but there's booze at concerts," I said. "I can just get drunk off my ass and everyone will be more likeable."

"Well, we don't play much," Gwen said, ears turning a bit red, "But Betty thinks she can get us a gig at this club called 'The Bar'. You ever hear of it?"

The Bar used to be a simple hole-in-the-wall beloved by criminals due to the staff's policy of discretion, known only as The Bar Without a Name. Eventually, the amount of blood money spent on it allowed the owner to expand it into a night club. The clientel was still mostly villains, but now they came in out of costume. It was a good place to find work, organize heists, launder money, get shit-faced, and (according to Electro) get laid.

I'd been five times just that month alone, moving undercover as just another civilian looking for fun. Thanks to it, I'd foiled thirty-two different heists and one team-up between Electro and Stilt-Man that would have been surprisingly succesful if their plan had gone off without a hitch. It was without a doubt, a festering hole full of the criminal scum of the city.

"Yeah, it's a nice place. Some of the guys from my gang go there." I said, giving the blonde a meaningful look.

Gwen's eyes widened, and she nodded. She got the message.

"Right, I'll tell Betty it's got the gangster's seal of approval."

Or maybe not.

I'd text her about it later, I just wanted to finish-

[Twelve drones, sailing through the air towards us]

-dammit.

"Something wrong, Jake?" Flash asked.

"I have to go to the bathroom," I left the fork on my plate, and power-walked away.

On the way, I recovered my bag from my locker. As casually as possible, I pulled a fire alarm without breaking stride towards the bathroom and marched into an empty stall. I changed into my super suit, and waited while I heard the students and faculty leave the building, complaining about the sprinklers that went off with the alarm.

'I mean, maybe it's just one of those stupid drone races,' I thought, trying to be optimistic. 'Maybe there's not some kind of coordinated attack-'

[The top part of the drones opening up, and several rockets sailing towards the school even as the drones kept approaching]

God dammit.

I smashed through out of the stall, and ran through the empty hallways, using my clinging powers not to slip on the wet tile. I whipped my head around, trying to hear or feel anyone still inside the school.

[Dude, should we go?]

[Nah, some asshole just pulled the alarm to be funny]

There.

The doors would have taken me too long, so I just smashed through several walls and one floor until I smashed through the door of the workshop classroom, where students were encouraged to dick around with wood and saws and make shitty sculptures out of plywood.

In there, I found two idiots sniffing glue, holding a tarp to avoid the sprinklers.

"Whoa," one of them said, gaping at me. "That's a boss Spider-Man cosplay."

I just sighed, stuck two webs to one of the nearest metal tables, pulled it over to hold it as a shield facing away from the two drugged-up idiots, and waited.

The rockets impacted the front of the school, immidiately destroying the walls with loud explosions I felt reverberate through the school and my bones. The front of the school collapsed, and the druggies looked around, scared. "What was that?!"

"Stay down!" I shouted back, and they did, hands covering their head. The sprinklers were still going. "I'm here, there's nothing to be scared of."

The front walls finally finished falling, and more rockets sailed into the school and destroyed more of the school.

The workshop was around the back of the school. Our part of the school only got the last three missiles.

I had a brief second of thought I saw a rocket crash into the wall right next to where there wasn't a door anymore.

'That was lu-'

"Oh shit," Peter whispered, looking at the armed drones as the sound of the final explosion finally ended. "I think I left the stove on."

"That's what you're worried about?" Gwen asked him. "I left my homework!"

"We left our friend, you dicks!" Flash shouted. "Jake was still in there!"

Gwen and Peter exchanged a quick look, before wordlessly agreeing to play along. They weren't really worried for him, but it'd be pretty suspicious to Flash.

"SHIT!" They screamed in unison.

Slowly, the drones drifted over. The one at the front was painted black with green lines, while the rest were plain white. They had cubical bodies, with two 'wings' coming out of the sides.

A robotic voice blared from the one at the front. "SURVIVING STUDENTS LOCATED. COMMENZING ELIMINATION."

The top of the drones closed as the rocket launchers folded back in, and the bottoms of the sides opened and twin miniguns unfolded from there.

Before the first shot could ring out, the half-melted remains of a steel table sailed at incredible speed and smashed through three different drones. The students and machines all turned to see Spider-Man, with two known druggies hanging from his shoulder, flipping off the drones.

"I don't know who's operating these, but whoever's there? I want you to know you just gained a very special place in my shit list." He said to the drones.

"SPIDER-MAN LOCATED. COMENCING ELIMINATION."

The hero jumped away from the bullets, gently left the students on the ground next to the gathered students, and jumped forward, shotting a web to the side, catching a large chunk of concrete, and swung it around, smashing through three drones.

"Yeah, Spider-Man!" Flash cheered. "Fuck 'em up!"

"Why are you all still here?!" Spider-Man shouted back, jumping high and pulling a drone down with a web line to kick it to pieces. He threw the chunks at one other drone's wings, which got stuck and sent the careering into the ground. "Go somewhere safer!"

The group started walking away, but Flash stuck back.

He saw Spider-Man move so fast that his eyes almost couldn't follow, as he caught a drone with his webs without looking, tossed it into another drone, bound them together with more webs, and used them as an improvised flail against another two drones, leaving the four things torn to pieces.

There were only three drones left, the black one that'd spoken before among them.

"Awesome," Flash whispered. The whole time, bullets had rained down around the Spider-Man. But the Cape had simply danced around the gunfire, moving with supernatural grace.

"Flash, come on!" Peter hissed.

Flash waved him away, while Spider-Man caught the last two white drones with a web line each, and smashed them together.

"Easy, peasy," Spider-Man said, wiping his hands against each other as he turned to look at the black drone. "So, you're the one that's been manually controlled?"

"Well, you're not as stupid as you look, at least," The drone buzzed, sounding more human than it previously did.

"Thanks," Spider-Man drawled, sounding unimpressed with the mysterious villain's manners. "You got a name?"

"My name isn't important; my mission, on the other hand, very much is."

"Oh, well, if you want to monologue at me..."

"Nothing so bland. I merely wished to thank you for making it so easy to locate you." A brief, wheezy laugh came through the drone. "Had you not called yourself a '16-year-old smartass from Queens', it would have a lot harder to track you down."

Flash blinked. Spider-Man was their age?

The Cape had stilled, and when it spoke, it was in a growl. "How did you hear that?"

"I won't bother explaining my genius to a simpleton like you. I made a machine, and it let me hear you from a safe distance." The miniguns on the drone closed in, and the bottom opened. Flash couldn't see what came out. "Now, where were we?"

Spider-Man jumped away, but what came from the drone was a shockwave of sound that cracked concrete and sent the Spider-Man flying, screaming and clutching his head in pain. It wasn't aimed at Flash, and he still felt like throwing up.

Still, he moved as quietly as possible, grabbed a chunk of debris, and threw it at the drone. It fell with a big dent on its back, and Flash approached it, holding another chunk of school.

"Uh," he said, trying to come up with a good one-liner.. "The debris is mightier than- no, uh, this is the weight of a good edu- no, that's lame."

A web stuck to the chunk of debris, and smashed it into the drone. Flash followed the web with his eyse, and found Spider-Man walking over.

The hero crouched over and examined the destroyed drone. He picked up a small camera, and glared into it, before crushing it in his fist. He stood up and looked at Flash in the eye.

Eugene 'Flash' Thompson was petrified. He was Spider-Man's #1 fan, and now that he was in front of the hero, he couldn't think of anything to say.

Spider-Man looked down, and Flash realized the hero was stretching a hand forward.

"Oh!" Flash shook the hero's hand, trying to impress him with a firm grip.

Spider-Man nodded approvingly (squee!) and started walking away.

"Wait!" the hero turned around, and Flash swallowed. "My friend, Jake, he didn't come out of the building."

The hero looked towards the debris, and nodded. Then he pointed at the group of students, which was still walking away.

"Right, I'll go," Flash smiled. "It's great to meet you, by the way. I'm a huge fan."

Oh god, why'd he say that?

Spider-Man tilted his head, but he seemed amused. Flash blushed, and rushed away.

Well, that was embarrassing.

'Damn sonic weapons,' I thought, searching through the rubble for my school bag. Once I found it, slightly torn and with all my civilian clothes covered in dust, I grinned. 'Perfect.'

I changed into them away from public eye, dropped the last bit of unharmed wall on myself, and climbed out.

"Ow," I groaned, but limped away to where the students had been. Hopefully, I looked like I'd been in an exploded building.

After some teachers thanking their lucky stars that everyone was there, parents were called and we got sent home.

"So, what now?" Ben asked, once the Parker family had gathered in the living room. Laura was carefully applying a bandaid to my finger, where I had a hangnail. I told her she shouldn't bother, but it had little cartoon dinosaurs on it, so I let her do whatever.

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised if this is related to Mr. Negative," I said, scratching my little sister's head, while she tried to look serious as we talked. "I'll ask around the network, see what I can pull up."

"That's good," May nodded. "Ben and I will see what we can do about school, so you two won't have to repeat the semester after they fix the school."

"I'll start working on improving the web formula," Peter said. "I think I can make some changes to the Web Bombs, make them tougher and stuff."

"I'll help Peter at the lab," Laura chimed in, rushing to get her miniature labcoat.

I smirked in satisfaction. I had this shit in the bag.

"What do you mean, nobody knows about the guy?" I asked James.

"Exactly that," he shrugged. "The only thing I could find is that he's based in New Jersey. It's out of my jurisdiction."

"Out of your- Jersey isn't exactly in Europe, James!" I pointed out.

"You think I talk to people from Jersey?"

...

"You got me there," I admitted. "Fuck."

"Yeah," James nodded, taking a drag from his cigarette.

We were meeting on the roof of his bar. Duke was covering for him.

Or maybe he worked with him? I seriously had no idea what Duke did for a living.

"So, what now, boss?" James asked.

I shrugged. "I can't let this asshole just come over and do as he pleases, but I need to get near him to put him down."

"You mean...?"

"Yeah," I said. "I need to go to New Jersey."

James patted my arm comformingly.

Peter and I had been treating the whole blown-up-school thing like an extension to our holidays, and had been playing Poker in the living room when May and Ben arrived victorious from dealing with the school board.

"The students will be sent to different schools," Ben explained. "As it happens, the one Jake's going to is in New Jersey."

"How'd you manage that?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Thanks to the money from the Spider-Man copyright and May's own stubbroness, it was a breeze."

Said stubborn old lady smacked his arm.

"Problem is, we only got so far," she continued. "Petey's headed for a different school here in Queens."

"That's fine," I said, feeling very much not-fine. "I can manage on my own."

"I'll still help you out," Peter complained. "I'm going to make you a bunch of Web Bombs and cartridges so you don't run out when you can't swing back for more."

"Good thinking," Ben said. "By the way, Jake. The school board asked us to mention to you that other schools might not be so lenient on you 'wanton violence'."

"Wanton means 'without purpose'." I pointed out. "I always have a reason for punching people."

"We said that," May nodded. "And then they kicked us out."

Ah, family. Truly, life's greatest treasure.