Peter Parker swung across the Manhattan skyline, fully dressed in his red and blue Spider-Man costume. He was running late for work, of course. Thankfully his boss, Doctor Otto Octavius who was head of the science division of Oscorp, was very understanding and just glad to have access to Peter's mind. He'd been working there for a couple of years now, it helped in his moonlighting as Spider-Man for sure. He could test out chemical compounds to create new webs. He could use the lab to strengthen the materials for his suit, design the eye pieces using some of the breakthrough tech from Oscorp's military designs. After all, science is what pushed those things forward.
He landed in an ally hastily changing, dancing around as he struggled to pull his pants over his suit. He tripped over a garbage can, assuming that would draw attention, but in typical New York fashion, no one batted an eye in his direction. Once he finished buttoning his shirt, he made his way from the alley, stuffing his web shooters case into his decoy eyeglasses case, then walked to the glass doors at the front of the Oscorp building.
"Morning, Pete," a beautiful blonde girl with shining blue eyes, wearing a pink and white flowered sundress and a lab coat, said as she smiled at him. "You have something on your shirt."
"Figures," Peter looked down, seeing a mysterious slime on the bottom of his shirt right where he fell over the trash can.
"Don't worry, this should help," the girl said, pulling a small bottle of stain remover and a tissue from her purse. She then sprayed it, and gave him the tissue so he could wipe his shirt. To his surprise, it came right off.
"Thanks Gwen," Peter said as she smiled warmly.
"How was the date with MJ?" she asked, as Peter hung his head.
"I missed it," he sighed. "I lost track of time."
"Always working," Gwen said as she opened the door, waiting for Peter to walk inside. "If you don't take time off you're going to drive yourself mad."
"If you only knew the half of it," Peter said with a sly grin.
It wasn't long before Pete's long time best friend, and Gwen's current boyfriend, Harry took notice of them. His light brown hair was slicked back, his suit jacket ruffled, and his button down untucked. Harry was very clearly the rebel opposed to his sharply dressed father's image plastered on the monitor behind him. He held three cups of coffee, and wore a rebellious grin.
"Cutting it a little close, aren't you?" Harry teased, as he handed a coffee to each of them.
"Traffic was terrible," Peter sighed, shaking his head, as Gwen raised her brow looking at him. She clearly had her own thoughts but didn't vocalize them, instead looked to Harry.
"So are we. We're presenting in twenty minutes and you still have to prepare!" Gwen fussed.
"Gweny, I'm the owner's son, what could possibly go wrong?" Harry asked nonchalantly.
"Fire both of us?" Gwen said as Peter laughed.
"Don't stress so much," Harry rolled his eyes. "Good luck Pete. Otto was on a warpath with Cal earlier."
"Perfect," Peter moaned. "Good luck on your presentation. I'm sure it'll be just fine."
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"In other news, Spider-Man's webbing ended up gumming up a crane and causing it to malfunction. Luckily no one was injured when the arm collapsed, but it's just another piece of evidence that that wall crawler is a menace! A public disruption!" J. Jonah Jameson's voice echoed across the lab to Peter's dismay. "Thankfully, our brave leaders in congress may have come up with a solution. It might just help us out with all of those masked vigilantes running around our great state. We'll have more for you at twelve."
Peter's nerves were already high. They were working on some advanced chemical compounds. The effects seemed to be disorientation, something along the lines of a military strike, but Peter wasn't exactly sure. They weren't ever privy to the information anyway. Just to make sure it worked. After all, Oscorp worked in various fields, and right now the focus was military might. You had to thank all of the mutant insurgents for that. Mr. Osborn had promised to equip the police with things that would level the playing field against powered individuals, and they were being forced on every level to deliver, non-lethal at least.
Red lights flashed, a loud warning rang out. Peter looked around nervously. "All Oscorp employees remain calm. The building is on lockdown. There is an ongoing riot in the streets due to meta-human insurgency. Repeating." Peter clenched his fists, looking desperately for a way out. He needed to be out there. Spider-Man could help with this.
"Calm down Mr. Parker," Otto's voice startled him. "We're safer than the President in his bunker in this building."
"I'm just concerned for the ones out there," Peter said with a frown.
"Guess we'll have to hope it's handled quickly," Otto said as Peter fidgeted nervously at his desk. He was determined to find a way out. He couldn't just sit idle. It went against his very nature.
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Mick saw smoke pluming over the city as he searched the runway for a place to quickly land the quinjet. He'd seen mutant riots before, but nothing like this! The city looked like an actual war zone! He pulled his mask on, tapped his earpiece as then ran out seeing several agents waiting for him by the building.
"Ma'am, we've got eyes on Agent Recluse!" One called out as Mick approached.
"Who's running the Op?" Mick asked, holding up his left wrist with his monitor on it.
"Agent Hand is Oversight, but there's several squads involved," the agent explained, tapping a device to Mick's monitor, then Mick's earpiece sprang to life with calls for help and various other problems. "It's really bad. We're still waiting for Agent Johnson's team to get here."
"Thanks," Mick said as the men nodded at him. Mick then ran into the hangar, seeing only cars and SUV's left. He shook his head. It would be easier just to use my webs, he thought. He scanned the frequencies on his wrist monitor, hoping to locate his team as he sprinted out into the chaos.
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Steph split her escrima, blocking strikes from a girl who could wield fire from her hands. She backstepped, staying careful not to lose track of what was around her. Her mind was in hyper-focus. Steph sidestepped, missing a large pile of debris, while the girl stumbled, which was the perfect opening. Steph took advantage, swinging upwardly, slamming the girl in the jaw with the weapon in her right hand, then kicking her to the ground. She quickly slammed the two ends together, squeezing the trigger as electricity sparked from the end, slamming it down on the girl as her body convulsed while she screamed out.
Steph relented her attack when the fires on the girls hand dispersed. Her eyes shot up to see a man with a beast-like fast charging at her from the side. She knew she didn't have time to react, she she braced for impact. Instead the man crashed on top of the fire girl, his legs wrapped with ropes, and a small arrow holding them together.
"You good?" Alex asked over the comms.
"I didn't need your help," Steph muttered.
"You're welcome," Alex snickered. "BlueJay looks like he could use some help. Better hurry up!"
"Then why don't you help him?" Steph barked.
"Teleporter. I might shoot BlueJay," Alex said without thinking. "Come to think of it, let me take aim."
"I'm on it," Steph sighed. "Any signs of Recluse?"
"Nothing yet," Patten replied. "I know he's coming. Stay focused!"
BlueJay slammed the staff into his teleporting assailant. The girl's hood flew off, showing her bright red hair. She vanished into a cloud of smoke, then appeared behind BlueJay, blasting him with a wave of purple energy. BlueJay crashed to the ground, as the girl's eyes began glowing purple, with purple mist swirling around her hands.
One of Eclipse's escrima slammed into the girl before she could blast BlueJay again. Her gaze shot to Eclipse and she snarled. She lunged at Eclipse, both hands embracing the shadow-like energy. Her energy blades slammed into Eclipse's single escrima, the girl's attacks relentless, faster than anything Stephanie had ever dealt with, eventually disarming her and knocking her to the ground. She reared back to impale Steph, when webs wrapped around her, jerking her into the air. In her surprise, she vanished, Recluse landing in front of the downed Eclipse and BlueJay.
"It's about time you showed up," Eclipse said as Recluse helped her up, then helped BlueJay.
"Sorry, it's a mess," Recluse said panting.
"Is that perfume I smell?" Eclipse sniffed near Recluse, who backed away.
"Seriously?" Alex's voice rang over the comms. "We leave for a few days and he hooks up with a chick?"
"That's not-" Recluse stammered, looking at Eclipse who he was certain was heavily judging him under her goggles. "Mind your business, both of you. We have work to do."
"You will explain this later," Eclipse sneered.
"You're a kid, I'm an adult," Recluse grunted.
"When a man gets lonely," Alex started in.
"Can it Hawk," Recluse grunted once more. "Where's Pat?"
"He was called off to a bigger fight near something called the Battery," Eclipse stated.
"Dang it!" Recluse yelled, then webbed the two assailants the Eclipse and KnightHawk fought prior to the ground. "That's all the way across the city! Steph, Jake, grab on, we're getting up high. Alex keep up. We're going find our team and figure out what started this nightmare!"
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Patten handcuffed the rebellious mutant he'd just dropped with his SHOCK pistol. Several more were battling with other SHIELD agents. The whole area was in an uproar. The fierce redhead legend, Agent Natasha Romanoff slid under a hulking mutant, firing several small darts from his wristbands, then the man dropped to his knees as his body flashed red. Behind her an arrow exploded into a net, trapping a purple skinned mutant boy with sharp claws, and a woman with spikes across her body.
"How many more are there?" Patten asked as he was beginning to feel the fatigue of all fighting.
"I don't know," Natasha said, reloading her wristbands with supplies from her belt. "I knew there was unrest in the city but that comment about the registry sent them over the edge."
"Registry?" Patten asked as Natasha nodded.
"You know how officials get when there's unrest. They want to overstep and create oversight. This one official suggested creating a mutant and inhuman registry. You're standing in the outburst," she stated.
"Problem is, this kind of attack seemed too coordinated. Almost like the comment was just the easy out," Clint Barton commented as he slid down on a zip line arrow.
"You don't think there would be this many Meta's in a city this big naturally?" Natasha asked with a skeptical grin.
"That get along?" Clint asked sarcastically. "Not a chance."
A burst of wind and ice shards flew by them, causing the three to shield their faces. A towering person encased in armor of ice let out a roar as they smashed through a building. Patten and Clint shared a look of confusion of how to handle the situation, as Natasha simply shrugged it off, rushing straight into the fight. Before they reached the monstrous snowman, something flew from the top of a nearby bodega, slamming the beast in the head, knocking it off balance, ricocheting back. A person jumped from the roof, his red, white, and blue gear highlighted by the streetlights as he caught the shield in mid air, then used it to brace his landing, shattering the ice armor of the person.
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Sam walked off the set after a red hot breaking news section where her and Lois had been covering the New York riots. It was hard watching all of this unfold, it was harder trying to remain unbiased. She hated the idea of Meta's going insane, it made the public more uneasy than they already were about Meta's. It also haunted her like a deep dark plague. For her, it was a never ending nightmare, always right under the surface ready to drag her back down. Samantha Lane was one of them, her powers sedated by some miracle bracelet that her best friend's father put together. The problem was, if she ever got caught without it, her deep dark secret would be exposed. Everything she'd worked so hard for would crumble.
"Hey Sammie," a short haired man walked in with a camo shirt, pants, combat boots, a saber holstered on one side and a pistol on the other. He had a small cup of coffee in one hand and flowers in the other. "Busy morning, huh?" He asked, kissing her cheek.
"I'm honestly surprised you haven't been called out yet," Sam hugged him, taking the coffee and smelling the flowers.
"We're on call, just waiting for White House clearance. Commander is livid," he said as Lois walked in.
"Davis?" Lois grunted. "Shouldn't you be scrubbing Talbot's boots or something?"
"How many times do I have to apologize to you?" he looked quite flustered as he met Lois' furious gaze.
"Depends, where's my coffee?" she eyed the cup in Sam's hand.
"Office desk, I made sure to knock first. I even had Marle go in first," Davis said as Sam and Lois laughed.
"No word on a deployment?" Lois asked as Davis shook his head.
"Last we heard, and you can't repeat it; they're giving Xavier's monsters and this black ops group a chance to shut it down and limit the casualties before we come in weapons hot," Davis replied. "What about Super-boy or whatever. Any words from him?"
"He's not involved," Lois said firmly. "He's had his hands full with his own drama. Ever since New Mexico he's been keeping a very low profile."
"Good, one less vigilante on the streets," Davis scoffed. "All these powered people running around, their masks. If they'd just come clean like Tony did, perhaps people wouldn't be on edge like this."
"What if they're afraid people would hate them more if they knew their secrets?" Sam asked as Davis and Lois looked at her curiously.
"I love how optimistic you are," Davis kissed her. "I better get back before anything goes down. You know how the Boss gets if I'm late."
"Be careful," Sam said with a smile.
"Get a room," Lois teased.
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The scene at the Battery was surreal. A man wearing black and red armor was bending metal and fighting alongside a team, fending off several mutants Mick recognized from Xaviers. They were clearly fighting as two opposing forces, which brought confusion to Mick. Patten was in the middle of the fray, alongside BlackWidow and Hawkeye. Alex and Jake had jumped in fighting against a man wearing a blood red hood and black leather cloak and a young girl wearing a black hood that seemed to have claws much like Wolverine, Steph was busy trying to fight off the girl with purple energy blades. Yet it was Mick's lack of focus that cost him severely.
A swift kick slammed him hard in the back of the head, he crashed onto the roof, spinning to face his opponent despite the visual haze. He saw the pale white and black outfit. She looked almost ghostly, she moved with extreme precision and grace. Mick went to move, and she shot webs at him, catching his right hand to the ground. He clenched his fist as the woman approached him. Electricity burned through her webs, freeing him, which clearly surprised her when Mick lunged. She back-stepped, but it wasn't quite fast enough. Mick's enhanced speed gave him the edge, grabbing her arm and sweeping her legs out from under her.
She landed harder than Mick intended, but clearly wasn't deterred by it. She wrapped her legs around Mick before he could move, then used momentum to throw him down. Mick recognized this training. It was a mix of military and police takedowns, the kind of things he learned from Barbara Gordon. He shot webs at the girl, narrowly missing her face, but it was enough to get her off. A thunderclap caught both of their attention, both looking toward the battle raging near the harbor between the mutants.
"Outlaws, let's go. We've had enough fun for one day," a deep voice called out as the girl in the black and white outfit gave him a peace sign, then backflipped off the building. Mick ran to see a purple portal dissolving as Alex, Steph, and Jake all looked just as frustrated as he did. In the distance the fighting seemed to be dying down, much to his relief. He jumped down, landing beside Steph who had a couple nasty cuts in her uniform and on her cheeks, with both Alex and Jake equally bloodied.
"Outlaws?" Mick grunted. "What made them leave?"
"Guess they had enough getting their butts kicked," Alex wiped the blood from his mouth.
"Or they don't want to be on the losing side," Jake suggested.
"Probably both," Steph exhaled in exhaustion.
Mick and his team finally caught up to Patten, when he learned that Xavier's team was fighting a man calling himself Magneto whose main goal was to bring the mutants together to show them that they'll never be safe, and that he could help them lead a revolution. Thankfully SHIELD's intervention, as well as the X-Men as they were now calling themselves, quelled most of the fighting.
"Your team did good work out there," Coulson said as Mick nodded as a brown haired asian woman walked up wearing a black bodysuit with silvery trim on it and metal gauntlets.
"That should be all of them," she said, looking at Mick. Her brown eyes seemed to see straight through his goggles. "Anything else you need from my squad before we head out?"
"Nope," Coulson said with a smile. "You and the Secret Warriors did great too."
"How many covert teams do you have under you?" Mick asked as the woman smirked.
"Classified," Coulson said with a grin. "By the way, have you two met? Agent Johnson, Agent Bellouve. Or would you rather use the code names?"
"Nice to meet you," Agent Johnson held out her hand, as Mick pulled up his goggles then shook her hand. "Guess I'll see you in the field?"
"Yeah, probably," Mick said with a nod.
Patten brought the kids to get checked by a SHIELD approved facility before they left New York, mostly to make sure there were no fractures due to some of Alex's severe bruising on his ribs. Mick took this time to unwind as high up as he could find. Being in this city was almost nostalgic for Eagle Crest, except the cold. It was colder here. He closed his eyes, waiting for a message from Patten, when he could've sword he heard someone calling him. He looked around in the dark to see a man wearing a red and blue body suit, a silver spider strewn across his chest mixed into a net of webbing.
"Spider-Man, I presume?" Mick asked as he stood up to greet this man he'd heard about from Black Cat.
"Other Spider-Man," Spider-Man said, although his voice was a little higher pitched than Mick imagined.
"Recluse," Mick corrected, pointing at himself with his thumbs.
"Good, because I don't think it would be good branding if we both went by Spider-Man," he quipped. "You'd think I'd have put that together with the brown and the strange marks on the abdomen and cephalothorax."
"Eh, it's not like I make it a point to run around your city. I'm more of a Tennessee guy myself."
"That makes sense why I never met you before," Spider-Man said, as if he'd been bothered by this for a while. "How'd you end up like this, if you don't mind me asking?"
"LuthorCorp field trip gone wrong, what about you?" Mick laughed.
"Oscorp field trip funnily enough," Spider-Man snickered. "What's up with these science corporations and their gene splicing right?"
"Gotta have the next medical advancement I guess. Although, LuthorCorp's was more of a spider accidently infected by a terragen experiment and bit me. At least that's what they claimed to my parents. Who really knows anymore?"
"Terragen?" Spider-Man asked, looking at Mick curiously, which was humorous as if his mask's eyes truly moved to match his facial expressions. "So-"
"Yes, I'm inhuman," Mick admitted.
"It doesn't matter to me," Spider-Man said with a shrug. "My Uncle taught me not to judge people based on what the bias is. Inhuman, mutant, or accident, you use your power to help people, and that's good enough in my book."
"I've always believed you don't need a reason to help someone," Mick said as Spider-Man nodded.
"I like that. It's close to how my aunt and uncle raised me," Spider-Man said as Mick smiled, then pulled his phone from his pocket.
"Duty calls," Mick said with a shrug.
"One more question," Spider-Man reached out his hand as if to catch Mick. "Organic webs or do you have a web shooter like these?" Spider-Man showed the two devices on his wrists.
"Organic," Mick flipped his wrists over, showing the marks on the edge of his wrists.
"I thought so," Spider-Man pumped his fist in excitement, causing Mick to chuckle before he stepped off the roof's edge.