Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Sunset of a Spider
Otto easily brought down Morales as he noticed an alert from his Spider-bot controls. It almost distracted him enough that he almost made him not see Parker getting his robotic body free of the webbing.
“Please, Otto, you can end this. Prove everyone wrong, do the right thing!” Parker pleaded, making the Superior Spider-Man want to gag, but he knew he needed to act fast, or the alert would be for nothing.
“Very well, Parker. I can rest easy knowing I proved my superiority. Seeing how even if I destroy you, I’d also need to deal with Morales or risk having him hound me or drag others into this. I better not regret showing you this mercy,” Otto replied, having to resist rolling his eyes as the former Spider-Man seemed taken aback for a moment.
“You won’t, Otto, I promise!” Parker said as he moved his mechanical form closer, the blue eye glowing brighter as it focused the mental ray toward Otto’s head.
Both felt the swapping processes pull them toward their older forms; Parker looked a little unsteady as he regained his mental footing, allowing Otto to enact his plan.
“Threat to creator still detected, commencing neutralization,” Otto said in a more robotic voice, moving to use the mechanical arms to grab the restored Spider-Man, intentionally moving clumsily to allow the boy to escape despite still getting used to being back his body.
“Wha…what’s going on?” Spider-Man asked, not knowing Otto was smirking inside the security robot’s CPU as a new but familiar voice spoke instead from above the hero.
“That’s what we want to know, Spider-Man!” Iron Man coldly said as Spider-Man and Otto looked up to see the armored hero floating above where the two had been fighting and Black Widow, Captain America and Ms. Marvel cutting off one end of the alley.
Before Spider-Man could process what was going on, the giant green mass that was the Hulk soared through the sky and landed between Otto and Spider-Man, grabbing the young man by the wrists with enough force to crush both the Spider-Bot controls and web shooter with ease and make Spider-Man scream in pain.
‘And this is why I am superior to you in every way, Parker! Sadly, I had to forsake my rightfully deserved body to prove it,’ Otto thought as the Avengers moved in.
“P-please stop!” Spider-Man cried out, almost sobbing at the rush of pain as Hulk crushed the gear on his wrists. Web fluid and the solvent were most likely mixing together, so a greyish-white liquid flowed through the green hero’s hands instead of a sticky mass trapping the two together.
Hulk raised an eyebrow at this before looking into Iron Man and said, “I thought you said he was tougher than before. The kid’s being pretty soft at the moment.”
Iron Man snorted at this before landing on the ground and heading over to the pair while saying, “The kid used a decent attack plan to distract both us and AIM while he got the mental device. Do you think he would not play wimp to get you to let him go?”
As Hulk mulled that over, Captain America stepped in and said, “Enough! We came here to get to the bottom of why Spider-Man shifted to such aggressive and manipulative methods. There was no need to give Hulk the signal to apprehend him!”
“Um…Cap? Do you see an unconscious second Spider-Man who was the one to let us know the start of this shift in the original? Plus, how he fought us to avoid getting a few simple scans? Giving Hulk the signal probably saved us a lot of trouble,” Iron Man countered while Black Widow stepped toward Otto’s robotic body.
“You’re a Horizon security bot; why are you and the other Spider-Man here?” the super spy asked, ignoring Spider-Man’s attempts to get speak up through the pain.
“Creator sought to reason with his former mentor, but the mentor attacked. I was brought to assist the creator if combat occurred. Permission to take creator to safety to recover?” Otto faked being a robot, making Spider-Man realize what would happen.
“No! Don’t let him go!” Spider-Man cried out, trashing about until Iron Man fired a spray from his gauntlet.
“Knock it off, kid. A little ethyl chloride should take the fight out of you!” Iron Man said as the spray took effect and Spider-Man felt his strength leave him. The young man had never considered such a simple method could be a possible weakness for him, compared to all the more advanced tech against him in the past.
“No…Miles…” Spider-Man weakly whispered as Black Widow gestured for Otto to leave with his friend, knowing that unless he could explain what was happening, Otto would have a new body and Miles would be lost!
At the same time, Ms. Marvel looked at Captain America and said, “Cap, I still don’t like this. I’m all for trying to get Spidey to stop being a jerk, but this is all a bit extreme.”
Before the super-solider could respond, Black Widow scoffed and said, “You need to stop being so soft-hearted, Ms. Marvel. We all agreed on an intervention once we had a chance to review not only the incident with AIM, but his massive assault on the underworld. A power vacuum is forming and now we’ll need to focus attention towards it if we want to keep the damage to a minimum.”
‘Ock, what have you done while I was away?’ Spider-Man thought weakly as he tried to get his strength back. He needed to save Miles, before it was too late!
“Embrace me!” a booming voice echoed in his head, making Spider-Man snap to attention and look for the source.
“Embrace?” Spider-Man asked aloud, confusing the Avengers.
“What else was in that ethyl chloride, Stark?” Black Widow asked, thinking her leader had created a cocktail of chemicals over the single one.
“Nothing! I wanted to weaken the kid, not make him high!” Iron Man stated defensively while the other Avengers looked skeptical, not paying much attention to the confused Spider-Man.
“You wish for the power to survive? To stop the one who would steal the gift I bestowed? Then let go of the man and embrace the spider!” the voice boomed again and in chemical-induced weakness that fogged Spider-Man’s mind, he did as it asked. He let go of himself and gave into the voice’s demand.
Spider-Man then began to thrash about again, but this time like he was in pain, making Hulk struggle to keep the boy’s wrists in his grasp.
“Hulk, stop hurting him!” Ms. Marvel called out, thinking the green rage machine had increased his grip’s strength to cause the pain-filled screams.
“It's not my fault! I don’t know what caused…what the in the world?!” Hulk started to say as he tried to keep his hold on Spider-Man, only becoming horrified when two new arms burst out of Spider-Man’s sides!
Both were furry brown things with three claw-like fingers, the two original hands quickly changing to match the new pair and Spider-Man’s feet also altered their shape. Two talon-like toes took over the front of the foot. The last visible change was the portion of the mask covering Spider-Man’s mouth burst open with a pair of mandibles, the new mouth letting out an inhuman shriek as the creature broke free of Hulk’s grip.
The spider creature took off in the direction Otto took Miles, only to be knocked off course by a unibeam from Iron Man.
“Iron Man, are you trying to kill him?!” Ms. Marvel exclaimed in horror that her leader’s first response was to use his most powerful weapon on Spider-Man, which got her glare from the older Avenger.
“I know what I’m doing, Ms. Marvel! You were not there when Black Widow turned into a spider creature. The form might be different, but as far as I’m concerned, the boy should be able to take more than that!” Iron Man shouted at the polymorph, who shrank away due to being intimidated by his anger.
“Stark, that’s….” Captain America started to bark at his friend’s attitude towards their teammate until a web line struck Iron Man in the back and yanked him towards the monster version of Spider-Man.
Once Iron Man was within reach, the creature used all six arms to begin pummelling the armored Avenger, forcing the other Avengers into action.
Black Widow fired her widow’s bite at the monster, but the electricity seemed to have little effect and when Captain America threw this shield at the creature, it caught it and tossed it at Hulk’s face before the green monster could attack.
“Well, I guess we need to do this the old fashion way. Hope you don’t splat easily, Spider-Jerk!” Ms. Marvel said, and she increased the size of her hands and brought them together in a clapping motion, only for Spider-Man to cease attacking Iron Man and use all six arms to halt the two palming coming on either side.
Ms. Marvel shrieked as Spider-Man jumped toward her, using the two middle arms to grab her and upper and lower limbs to web her up before securing her to a wall.
“We’re coming, Ms. Marvel!” Captain America called out as the others recovered. Even Iron Man managed to keep his systems going despite the beating Spider-Man’s new form gave him.
But before the Avengers could close in again, Spider-Man leaped to the rooftops, leaving only Iron Man who could pursue, but everyone knew how that would end, given Spider-Man’s new form’s level of power.
“Call the Avenjet, Iron Man. We need to find Spider-Man and we can’t risk fighting him in anything less than a group,” Captain America instructed while Hulk tore Ms. Marvel free of the webbing.
“Um…guys…why did Spider-Man beat Iron Man up, but only web me? We both attacked him,” Ms. Marvel asked as she picked some of the webbing out of her hair, making many of the Avengers think that remark over.
“You asking why a monster is acting randomly?” Iron Man pointed out, still upset over Ms. Marvel questioning his use of the unibeam.
“I’d rather focus on why Spider-Man is transforming now, a year after Spider Island. Perhaps this is why the sudden change in attitude happened, a sort of earlier sign of the transformation?” Black Widow cut in before anyone overthink the different levels of aggression toward two attackers.
“Widow, you think I would not check for unusual chemicals or mutations? The kid was clear!” Iron Man stated with his arms crossed, not liking how people kept questioning his scans.
“Like how you detected how I and the rest of New York would mutate further into Spider-monsters?” Black Widow pointed out calmly, though many winced at the burn the spy gave Iron Man.
‘Mental note, trap Natasha in her room and call it a malfunction when people ask what is going on,’ Iron Man thought as the Avenjet appeared overhead.
-
He hunted for Otto and Miles back with Spider-Man but could not find the pair. Worse, his spider-sense detected danger and soon was attacked by several strange robots, not knowing they were Otto’s spider-bots.
Spider-Man roared as he lashed out with his claw-like hands destroying each attacking machine, not knowing Otto had sent them only to stall possible pursuit, not knowing how this precaution would allow the Avenger to catch up.
As the Avenjet’s back ramp opened and the aircraft spun to point it toward the transformed boy, Captain America said to Hulk, “If you can keep Spider-Man pinned, go for it. But if not, try to avoid hurting him more than necessary. We’ll assist as soon as we can, Hulk, once we find a place to put the Avenjet down.”
“Won’t need it, Cap. The runt caught me off guard when he first transformed, but now I’m ready for him!” Hulk stated with a smirk before leaping off the aircraft and into Spider-Man, who was finishing off the last of the spider-bots.
“Why are they attacking him?” Ms. Marvel asked in confusion, getting a gentle tap on the head from Black Widow's nightstick as the view of Hulk and Spider-Man engaging ended with the Avenjet turning for a stable landing point.
“Don’t let minor things distract you, Kamala. We can worry about why the spider-bots are malfunctioning after we contain Spider-Man,” Black Widow instructed, though all that did was add to a building question in the polymorph’s mind. Why were they shutting her down any time she questioned something?
-
Spider-Man barely turned in time to bring all four arms to black the flying form of Hulk, his spider-sense warning him of the powerful hero, though the Hulk was slowly forcing him to his knees once the pair skidded to a halt on the roof.
“If you're still in there, kid, word of advice. Back down. You got nothing on me now that I’m ready for…you?” Hulk started to say confidently until he felt Spider-man push back and begin rising back to his feet.
Before Hulk could regain his advantage, Spider-Man shoved him back, putting the green giant off balance long enough to fire webbing into the Hulk’s eyes and run for the farside off the roof like he was planning on making a run for it.
“Not happening!” the voice Iron Man called out before a barrage of missiles flew toward Spider-Man, detonating before impact and releasing a large amount of familiar gas.
As the cloud of ethyl chloride enveloped Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel looked worried and asked, “That won’t hurt him, will it? That's a lot more than back in the alley.”
“Oh, for the love of…who’s side are on, Ms. Marvel? I know what I’m doing!” Iron Man barked out, but before anyone could respond to his outburst, a web line fired out of the cloud and snagged the billionaire.
“Not again!” Iron Man screamed out as he was yanked toward the cloud. Shorty flew back out after a loud bang was heard and Iron Man’s helmet was shattered from the blow that Spider-Man had delivered.
“Hulk, clear the cloud! We can’t see him!” Black Widow ordered and Hulk quickly did a thunderclap to clear the area, only to find Spider-Man gone.
“How?” Iron Man asked weakly, still looking dazed from the hit, the other Avengers also looking confused at how the boy shrugged off so much of the chemical. No one thought to look to the street below and noticed a manhole cover out of place.
-
In the sewers, Spider-Man weakly stumbled down the path, his form reverting to human again.
“What…was…that?” Spider-Man aloud asked weakly before falling towards the sewer water; as he passed out, a portal opened in the direction of his collapse.
-
Miles groaned as he woke up in a strange lab, heavily restrained to a table, the security bot that housed Peter’s mind towering over him.
“Pete? Where are we?” Miles asked, confused as the focus lens began to power up.
“Parker is not here, Morales. And thanks to both of you, I lost my new body. Time for you to make it up to me!” Otto’s voice stated coldly, Miles screaming ‘No!’ as the lens fired its blue light at his head.