Chapter Text
“It’ll be dangerous,” Peter said.
Gwen raised an eyebrow. “You know that makes at least half of us more likely to say yes, right?”
Miles shuffled his feet. It wasn’t like he went looking for danger. It tended to find him. And Spider-People in general, so it was unfair that Gwen was looking pointedly at him. She should have been looking at Hobie, really, who was leaning casually against his guitar and didn’t look at all deterred by the prospect of danger. For his part, Hobie said, “Don’t pretend like you’re not excited too, Gwennie.”
“It’s also a long mission,” Jessica added. “Two weeks away from home. Maybe more.”
“Well,” Miles said, “it’s summer for me. So maybe I can spin it to my parents as a summer camp?” He tried to think of a way that he could explain a two-week disappearance to his parents. Knowing them, they’d definitely want to know what kind of camp it was, how Miles had found it, who was running it, how much it cost, what kind of reviews it had, if there—
So maybe Miles couldn’t do this mission.
Before he could say anything, though, Peter waved a dismissive hand and said, “Oh, don’t worry, we can definitely get good cover stories for whoever’s family isn’t aware.” He paused. “Which of you is that? Miles for sure…”
“Me,” Pavitr said. “My aunt and uncle still don’t know about the whole—” he gestured fwip-fwip with his hands “—y’know.”
“No problems here,” Hobie said. He didn’t even bother looking at Peter or Jessica as he said it, instead staring off into the distance at the actually very close wall. But somehow he managed to look casual and also very cool while he did it, and no, Miles definitely wasn’t jealous. Or curious. Or interested in learning how to replicate it.
“You already know about everything with my dad,” Gwen said. Which had been an adventure. Showing up to Gwen’s home universe for a visit, getting attacked by an anomalous Vulture, and then seeing Gwen’s dad try and arrest her hadn’t been on Miles’s bucket list, but it’d happened anyway. It had all worked out in the end, though, and now Gwen could go on Spider Society missions without having to make excuses to her dad.
Unlike Miles.
“Uhhh…” he said. “Are you sure you can get a good cover story?”
“Oh, totally,” Peter said. He bounced Mayday in his arms. “We’ve got, like, half of Spider Society working on this. Spider-Byte’s got your back. I’m thinking about a science organization interested in offering you an all-expenses paid two-week internship through your high school?”
“Yeah, about that. Why is this so important, anyway? I mean, it’s just a Green Goblin, right?” Miles asked. There were some multiversal constants in the Spiderverse, and Green Goblins were one of those. In addition to Vultures, Doc Ocks, and a few other recurring characters. Like Prowler, which still hurt to think about. But less these days, and not every Prowler was Uncle Aaron.
There was a universe where Hobie of all people was the Prowler, which was weird as hell. That universe still boggled Miles’s brain.
Green Goblins came around a lot causing chaos and destruction, but they usually didn’t do anything too dangerous. And a team of Spider-People could take the average Goblin down easily.
Jessica and Peter shared a look. “Well,” Peter said. He coughed awkwardly. “I think Mayday needs to be burped. Jessica, you want to take this one?” Without waiting for a response, he started patting Mayday’s back. Mayday, who very clearly did not need to be burped, grumbled and tried to escape the swaddle she was trapped in.
With a sigh, Jessica turned back to Miles and his friends. “We can’t catch him,” she admitted. “He’s raided Alchemax in at least a dozen universes by this point, and every time, he’s managed to escape capture. So we’re tracking him down in his own universe.”
“Alchemax?” Gwen said. “Like, caused the multiversal boom that originally caused the Spiderverse to cross webs and all in Miles’s universe, Alchemax?”
Jessica nodded grimly. “This Goblin is from Earth-928, which is in the year 2099. He has access to much better baseline technology than most anomalies. And considering there’s an Alchemax in the Goblin’s home universe—which he hasn’t attacked yet—he can’t be planning anything good.”
“Whatever Alchemax is up to is no good, either,” Peter added. He’d given up on fake-burping Mayday and was now letting her use him as a makeshift climbing gym. Miles stifled a laugh. “928’s Spider-Man has been missing for several months now, and the last time anyone saw him was fighting some Alchemax goons.”
“So you want us to break into Alchemax?” Pavitr said.
“Or fight the Goblin?” Miles added. He balanced on the balls of his feet and swung his fists at the air, miming a fight.
Peter snorted. Jessica, not bothering to hide it, laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “We’ve got other Spider-People in the field for that. Like Peter and myself. The only reason you four are even being told about this—”
“Bloody autocrats covering up the truth,” Hobie muttered.
“—is because we need someone who could reasonably pretend to be a high schooler in order to infiltrate Alchemax.” Jessica placed her hands on her hips and surveyed them. “Which the four of you actually are, unlike most Spider-People.”
“There are other teenagers in Spider Society,” Pavitr said. “Why us?”
Miles shot Gwen a glance out of the corner of his eye. He could see her looking back with a small grin.
“Don’t let us rush you,” Hobie said. “Why is it, huh?”
“Yeah, Jess,” Gwen chimed in. “I thought you saw us as loose cannons?”
Miles knew where this was going. With his best expression of innocence and curiosity, he added, “We’re honored to be picked, really, but we just don’t get why…”
Peter rolled his eyes, but it was affectionate. “Sure, you don’t understand. You’re really gonna make me say it?”
Miles stared back pleadingly.
“Just cut to the chase, Peter,” Jessica said. “You’re the best team we have for this, alright? We can’t send anyone like Peni because she can’t reasonably smuggle the SP//dr mech into Alchemax. Some universes’ differences are too noticeable, like Noir’s.”
“And?” Pavitr said. He was the best at playing dumb out of all of them, but his eyes were sparkling with well-hidden mischief.
Jessica let out a long breath. “And you work well together, and you’re all smart, competent teenagers. Happy?”
There was a round of cheers and high-fives which Miles happily joined in on, patting Pavitr on the back and receiving a fist-bump of his own in return.
“Kids,” Peter muttered. “Can’t believe I ever thought having one of my own was a good idea.”
In a mock baby voice, Gwen said, “Awwww, but you wuv us.”
“Just… be on your best behavior, alright? Alchemax is dangerous. The last thing we want is any of you getting hurt,” said Peter. Mayday had progressed to crawling on the walls while Peter held a child leash tightly in his hand. “Again. This is completely optional. And dangerous. Did I mention dangerous yet?”
That wasn’t stopping Miles, and from a glance around, it wasn’t going to stop any of the others. “Sign me up,” he said. “But, uh, about that cover story…”
His mother had given him several compliments while he packed, gushing over how proud she was that he’d been selected by such a prestigious and exclusive research lab for an internship, which was a little awkward. Since there was the whole ‘Margo and Peni made some fake but impressive-looking web pages and news articles and then emailed Visions about inviting Miles’ issue, but it was sort of legit, right? Miles was going on a two-week trip to a research lab. And he was invited because of his personal skills. And he was going to learn awesome stuff, especially considering this was an Alchemax from 2099 and they had to have some really cool stuff.
Margo had assured them all that the cybersecurity for the raffle had been significantly less than the firewalls on Alchemax’s internal servers and that there was no way anyone had noticed her rigging the results. And yeah, Margo was also from a pretty technologically advanced universe, but what if Alchemax had noticed? What if they showed up and were immediately arrested? What if someone realized that Arthropoda High School was very fake and not actually an ultra-selective and secretive private school that had luckily won the raffle to tour Alchemax’s premises for half a month? What if—
“Welcome to Alchemax,” the blond business guy said. He smiled. It was very obviously fake.
Peter offered back a smile that looked equally insincere. “It’s such a pleasure to be here, Mr. Stone. Kids, say ‘thank you’ to Mr. Stone for taking time out of what I’m sure was his very busy schedule to welcome us to Alchemax.”
As one, they chorused, “Thank you,” even Hobie, though he stared at the ground and scuffed his shoe. Miles figured they were all a little nervous. He was just thankful Hobie hadn’t said something about fascist corpos and blown the whole mission from the start.
“Oh, it was my pleasure,” Mr. Stone said. “I wasn’t busy at all.”
With a high-pitched laugh, Peter said, “Well then! It’s an honor to have the CEO of Alchemax personally greeting us.” The last few words were said through gritted teeth and with a very pointed stare at the four teenagers.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Stone,” Pavitr chirped. That was good. He was the friendliest of all of them.
Miles waved.
Mr. Stone stared back with poorly hidden distaste, which made Miles wonder why he’d even offered this raffle in the first place. He was the CEO, right? Assuming that meant the same thing in the future, surely he had the authority to retract the offer. Maybe it was a PR thing. But Mr. Stone could’ve just let some subordinate handle greeting them and never even seen them himself if he hated kids so much.
Or maybe he just hated Miles in particular. That would be his luck.
“Wonderful to meet you all,” Mr. Stone said. “Ah, yes, have I introduced you to Mike yet?”
Miles had been so caught up in his own thoughts and worrying about Mr. Stone that he’d completely failed to notice the presence of a second person standing slightly behind Mr. Stone. When the person—Mike?—moved, Miles didn’t quite jump, but it was a close thing. Judging by everyone else’s reactions, they hadn’t noticed Mike either.
Which was weird, considering all of them were superheroes who had been in combat, had enhanced senses, and generally didn’t just. Not notice an entire person. Some security guards were flanking Mr. Stone, and Miles had noticed them, but somehow, Mike had just slipped his mind.
“Mike will be your guide and chaperone for the next few weeks,” Mr. Stone continued. “He’s our top geneticist.” He smiled, seeming more genuine this time, yet scarily shark-like. “Not to mention my son.” With that, he clapped a hand on Mike’s shoulder, who just continued to stare blank-faced. Or, well, Miles thought he was staring.
It was hard to tell, considering Mike’s eyes were covered by sunglasses. And he was wearing an overly large turtleneck that practically reached his chin, which didn’t seem like professional attire, but Miles supposed CEOs’ sons got away with that sort of thing.
“Hi,” Mike said. “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you, but it’s not.”
Mr. Stone just laughed. “Oh, Mike, such a joker. You’re the one who asked for this, don’t forget,” he said, wagging a finger in Mike’s face. “Remember, this is a reward. Try to enjoy it!”
Dragging around a group of teenagers instead of doing cool science for two weeks didn’t seem like much of a reward to Miles, but honestly, Mike had probably gotten his position through nepotism. Geneticists were supposed to wear lab coats and stuff, right? And it was weird that Mike was Mr. Stone’s son.
Though maybe Miles was being too fast to judge. A turtleneck was fair casual wear if someone knew they were being a tour guide and not a scientist for the day.
The sunglasses still made Mike seem like a jerk, though. Seriously, who wore sunglasses indoors?
“Winston, you watch Mike, okay?” Mr. Stone said. With a nod, one of the bodyguards broke away from him and stepped over to Mike. Winston was also wearing sunglasses, but they were connected to some metal on the side of his head, and there was some metal showing on the visible parts of his skin. Miles was pretty sure that Winston was a robot or a cyborg or something.
Okay, that was cool. And an acceptable excuse for sunglasses inside.
Mr. Stone wandered off, and Mike turned to their group with a sigh. “We’ll be spending a lot of time together over the next two weeks, so I’d like to at least know your names.”
“This is Pavitr,” Peter said, patting Pavitr on the back. Pointing to each of them in turn, he continued, “Gwen, Hobie, Miles. Our top students. They’re all very excited about this trip. And I’m Peter. Nice to meet you, Mr.—” he broke off, seemingly realizing that calling Mike ‘Mr. Stone’ as well would get confusing quickly. “Mike?”
Mike winced. “Not that,” he muttered. “I hate being called that. Miguel is fine.”
“Miguel, then,” Peter said easily. “This is my cue to head out, kids.”
Miles had known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. And in his opinion, it was actually pretty suspicious that Alchemax didn’t want any adult chaperones from the school coming along. Even if they were providing a chaperone and guide of their own in the form of Miguel.
Especially in the form of sunglasses-wearing-probably-jerk Miguel, actually.
“Bye, Mr. Parker,” Gwen said.
“Parker?” Miguel said with sudden interest. “Peter Parker? Like the Golden Age Spider-Man?”
Peter twitched. With a barely visible strain that went unnoticed by everyone besides Miles, he said, “Well, my last name happened to be Parker, and my parents were big hero fans. You know how it goes.”
Miguel winced. “I do,” he said. “Twencen fans, hero fans…” And it seemed like he was speaking from experience. Twencen? Twentieth century? Whatever his issue was, though, he shook it off after a moment and said, “But yes, I’ll have to ask you to leave. Don’t worry, your students are free to contact you at any time.” He gave a polite, closed-mouth smile. “Security thought adults were more of a corporate espionage concern than the students. Not that I’m allowed to show you any of the truly restricted science, but still.”
“Oh, no worries,” Peter said easily. “I get it. We have to protect our teaching curriculum too. So many competitors out there, y’know?” He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “See you in two weeks, kids! Call me if you need anything. Or if you get bored and want to talk to Mr. Parker,” he said with a wink. “Don’t break anything, don’t do drugs, and don’t get in trouble.”
Don’t reveal your powers went unsaid.
It would be fine. All Miles and his friends had to do was find a good opportunity during their two-week stay in order to plug one of Peni’s mini spiderbots into Alchemax’s internal servers. He figured they could do that in a few days, tops. And then they could enjoy the rest of their trip.
It’d practically be a vacation.
The moment he was out of sight of the Alchemax building, Peter let his smile drop. He didn’t take off his teacher-y suit and become Spider-Man, though, because from the research they’d done on Earth-928, the Public Eye was always watching. And the Public Eye—practically the cops, but with even fewer limitations and morals than most—worked for Alchemax.
Instead, he called Margo.
As he sat on a bench, Margo’s hologram flickered to life in front of him. “Peter!” she said. “That took you a while.”
He laughed and leaned back against the bench. “Oh, teenagers, you know how it is.” Margo was a teenager too, but since she practically lived in Cyberverse, she could easily adjust her avatar to look like another teacher. Archetype? That was what they called avatars here, Peter thought. “So, what’ve you got for me?”
Margo yawned. “Not even a little detail on Alchemax? C’mon, Peter, you’re so boring.”
Managing a tight-lipped smile, he said, “I’m just worried about leaving the kids on their own. Those four can get into a lot of trouble.”
“I’m sure they’ll be on their best behavior,” Margo assured him. Which didn’t mean much, since half the time she was the one enabling them. Or working with them. Peter had been the unfortunate target of more than a few pranks. “But whatever. Remember that guest speaker you wanted me to track down?”
Peter nodded.
“Well, I think I’ve found a good option.” She stared him in the eye, communicating the silent truth. “Honestly, for a Cyberverse class, it doesn’t seem like there’s any better options. He went silent for a few years, but he recently popped back up on the radar. And from what I hear, he’s the best there is.”
“Who is it?” Peter asked.
“Firelight.”