2013.06.06 - Spideys!

Wall Street. This is where Americans come to conquer Benjamin Franklin and the almighty 100 dollar bill. People in suits mill about with their coffee and cream, eating bagels without cream cheese and thinking about their evening exercise routines, because when you make this much money you want to preserve your life a lot more than Ma and Pa on Main Street.

Nothing is amiss at first as Roxanna Duresky is talking upon her cell phone making her way towards the corner. The conversation is about business and 'being in the black,' 'avoiding the red,' derivatives, bulls and bears, and a bunch of other things that this writer isn't really an expert on.

Her daily routine is to hail a cab, which she's about to do before a white van pulls up. Three masked men wearing black grab Duresky, pull her small frame into the car, and slam the door. With a squealing of the wheels, the van pulls into a right hand turn, heading west.

Within minutes, the police scanner is full of chatter. And the police scanner is how Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, keeps track of these sort of street-level scenarios.

As soon as his handheld, makeshift, self-created radio comes to life, Peter begins inward-whistling a tune and going through his backpack to get some of his materials. Suit; check. Mask; check. Webshooters; check. Camera? Of ultra importance now that the family's bills are starting to pile up even more than usual-check.

Within a few moments, Spider-Man is now swinging through the air and, like the van, is headed west.

Scanners? The Spider, really, isn't that sophisticated, still far too new at the game. He was just running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop in his homemade costume, climbing one wall and jumping down to the next. His path takes him to a street corner, and he's crawling down the building to sneak his way across the street that's too big for him to jump. That is, until he spots the van. The fact it's driving so erratically, and by a masked man, is what catches his attention. He leaps from the wall to land on the van as it speeds past, sticking to it like he stuck to the wall. A second later, he says to himself, "Ok... now what do I do?" He starts crawling towards the front windshield.

The large thump that lands on top of the car, let's the driver and the three other masked men know they've been caught. Presumably by someone of a super-variety. *BOOM!*BOOM*BOOM*BOOM* Suddenly, the roof of the car is being littered with shotgun blasts as the men inside do their best to end whatever threat is above them once and for all.

Luckily, The Spider has figured out what that tingling means by now. With a yelp, he does a quick backflip, then rolls to the side, then rolls forward as he dodges the bullets coming from the van. "Ohmanohmanohman.." One of his rolls takes him to the side of the van, and he becomes nearly invisible, except from above as his camouflage can't quite keep up with the ground speeding past below.

"Did we get him?" asks one of the gunmen to another. "Think so."

"Whew," says the driver. "That was close."

The fourth has a gun to Miss Duresky's head, as the van jets across the city. They're headed west, and trying, it appears, to get on the expressway to Gotham, and New Jersey.


 * Splat*

Another bug hits the car, this time the windshield. And this one is wearing blue and red. "Ya see," he begins, talking to no one in particular. "I left my wallet at the truck stop near Pawtucket. If you could spare a dime, or even better, give a ride, I'd really appreciate it." The words would sound serious, if they weren't said in such a quippy style and obviously accompanied by a smile underneath that spider-mask.

"Spider-Man! Get him!"

One of the shot guns blows out the windshield, and luckily for this particular spider, his senses were also working. He's now on the roof, as the van sways too and fro.

Spider-man? Awesome! The younger Spider doesn't really take the time to say anything just at the moment, though, crawling forward to the driver-side window. He reappears just as he's trying to punch through the window and, if he can, apply a quick touch for his venom sting to the driver's arm. "Hey, don't forget about me."

The touch from the Spider does as intended. The driver is fine at first, if a bit miffed that he has been bitten.

But eventually he goes groggy, then falls unconscious. The van swerves uncontrollably, much to the shock and concern of Spider-Man. "Whoa Nessy! Easy girl!" he says from atop the van. But as the driver slumps against the wheel, the van takes a turn towards a light pole!

Oops. "Ok, bad idea." From his position by the driver's window, The Spider reaches in to try to grab the wheel, and veer it off from the lamppost and hopefully towards a longer path for it to slow down.

The sharp turn right, then left, throw the van into a treacherous and precarious path, and the van pulls up on two wheels. The force takes the center of gravity up and over itself as the van slams down on its right side and begins a slide-stop on the street. Desperately, Spider-Man's finger digs into the metal of the roof as he tries to hold on. His feet catch the ground amid the sparks and they move very quickly in an attempt to keep up with the speeding vehicle. The Spider, meanwhile, is pulled uptop of the overturned car.

The Spider lets go of the wheel as the van starts to tilt, and once he's on top he holds on to the edge of the window to keep from being thrown off by the crashing deceleration. Once it stops he crawls quickly to look for Spider-man, "Are you ok? I'm so sorry, that so wasn't the way I thought that'd go."

Spider-Man nods at the guy who looks fairly similar to him. "It's okay. We gotta get that lady."

But before the pair can do anything, the back door bursts open and one of the gunmen is holding a pistol to Duresky's head.

Well, similar as a guy in a ski mask with sewed on sunglass lenses and a racing suit with hand-drawn spider-webbing in the red parts can look, anyway. The Spider looks quickly towards the back door as the gunman and hostage come out, freezing. Then he seemingly starts to disappear again, blending into the background. As soon as he's camouflaged, he starts to make his way around behind the gunman, if Spider-man doesn't save the hostage first.

Inwardly, Spider-Man is pretty surprised about this new, young hero and his disappearing act. But, Spiders gotta stick together and the elder one thinks he knows what the younger one is doing. So, he tries to stall.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!" Spider-Man says, holding his hands up. "Before you do anything, hear me out. How do you put an elephant in a Safeway bag?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" the gunman says as he wriggles with Duresky.

"An elephant. You know." Spider-Man throws and arm up and makes an elephant trumpet noise. "How do you put one in a Safeway bag?"

"I have no idea, Spider-Man."

"Take the S out of Safe, and the F, out of way."

The gunman stands, and tries to get the joke. "There is no f in way."

"You're darn right. There is no effin' way."

The Spider is short, but he's also incredibly fast. He appears mid-leap as his hand wraps around the gunman's gun and, twisting so the gun is pointing away from the hostage, smashes said gun back into his face, then twists acrobatically mid-air so he can kick the gunman away from the hostage while still keeping his powerful grip on the gun.

The trick works like a charm. The gunman goes flying, Duresky is free, and the Spider is standing holding the gun.

"Wooha!" Spider-Man says, as he does a little dance and holds his hands up to high5 the Spider. "Spiders 1, Badguys 0." He holds a hand up to brace Duresky, and things are looking pretty good. The men in the car all seem to be unconscious.

Peter turns nervous, however, as the police sirens approach. "Well, guys, I'd love to stay, but the fuzz is not such a big fan of the ole Spider-Man if you catch my drift."

The Spider lands on his back, but uses momentum to take him into a roll that carries him back to his feet. "Wow... I just did that?" He puts the gun down quickly as soon as he hears the sirens, and looks to Spider-man, "Wait, I want to ask..." He pauses and glances towards the sirens again and says, "Nevermind, it can wait." He jumps to a nearby wall to start scrambling up. He, it appears, has no webbing to help with his escape.