2014.04.28 - Spider-Men, Again?

"Too tedious; grunt work; no; sounds like fun but I'd quickly bore of it; no; way, way overqualified; no..." the voice is of a man with a muddled accent. A trained sociolinguist might know that he's lived in Manhattan and Salem Center, spending a significant amount of time with someone from Mexico City, Dublin, and Manchester, England, but how many sociolinguists are there out there, and especially outside the 64th floor.

You see, that's where Miguel O'Hara, better known as Spider-Man, is crouching, upside down, on some architectural precipice shaped like an Eagle's head. He's currently reading the Daily Bugle, which has a photograph of Spider-Man on the cover, not him, the other one, and an editorial by someone named J. Jonah Jameson. He's currently flipping through the want ads. His mask is pulled, to reveal his neck, chin, and mouth, but not his nose. Reaching down, or up, depending on your perspective, he grabs a McDonald's drink and bends the straw so he can suck some of the milkshake down.

Dang there sure where a lot of spiders. Some days Spider-Man was shocked there wasn't some new villain out there called 'The Exterminator'. There was a guy for literally everything else, seemed like an untapped market. Not that he needed more bad guys to punch.

Currently Spider-Man was dangling underneath a Hellicopter, also riding upside down and hanging from a web-line as he received a quick transport around the city. Hey, this stuff doesn't grow on tries! It's made it in lab, and super pricy yowch.

He doesn't notice the new Spider-Man nearby, as zooms by on his borrowed ride, several streets away.

Spider-Man was just sitting there, under a stone Gargoyle, reading a newspaper and enjoying a milkshake when he heard a helicopter flying several blocks away. Looking up from his paper, he sees the unauthorised passenger, and snaps his fingers, "Spider-Man!" he exclaims. Standing, still upside down, he folds the paper and webs it to the eagle. Then he picks up his milkshake and fires off a web line, negotiating the buildings. He has to alternate which hand holds the milkshake, so he's constantly changing one hand with a web line, and the other with his milkshake. As he closes the distance, he takes a few sips of the milkshake. Where do you think the web line comes from, it's biological and he has an insane metabolism.

Spider-Man looks up when he sees the similarly dressed heroswinging. And clearly a Spider. ANOTHER ONE!?!?!?

Underneath his mask Spider-Man's eyes nearly bulge out of his skull, "Woa driver my stop is here!"

He launched a web line towards a nearby building and perched on the side. When the other Spider-Man catches up Spider-Man slaps himself on the side of his face, "Shouldn't have pulled that all-nighter. I'm seeing me. Well sorta. Hey is that a milkshake?"

The other Spider-Man reaches the nearby building, landing on somebody's balcony. He peeks in the window, "Oh good, nobody's home," and tries the latch. What luck, it's unlocked and the patio door slides open. Of course it's unlocked. The balconies on this building are spaced too far apart for any normal human to be able to reach. "Why don't you join me, we should talk. And yes, this is a milkshake. I'm not usually the type to share, but since it's you, want some?" He takes a sip while standing on the balcony, next to the open door, to show that there's nothing wrong with it.

"Hey!" He hurries in after the other Spider-Guy and quickly looks about. "There is a Spider rule, no breaking and entering, unless someone is in trouble. Don't think that's going on here. But hey nice place."

He pointed his finger at him, at the moment his Spider-sense was pretty chill, "Alrighty then Lucy you've got some 'splanin' to do!"

"Breaking? Did you see me break down the door? It's unlocked. We're just entering. That's got to be completely different. And besides, but butt is cold. New York's much colder than I remember it," thanks to runaway climate change, he never had to wear thermal undies under his suit. "I'm thinking of having a word with the mayor, but I hear he's a weirdo. Did you know he tried to ban large cup sizes?"

Now, standing in the living room of some random person, he sits down on the couch, "See, I'm from what you would call the future. I could give you a lecture on temporal mechanics, but I don't feel like spending an hour in some random guy's home, so it'll be easier on the both of us if you just accept that." Pulling out what looks like a regular phone, he goes through his calendar, "Okay, today's August 21st, 2014. Somebody named McHale Grand-lund is going to score for the Minnesota Wild five minutes and eight seconds into overtime tonight. Check that out on your time, not mine, and feel free to place a bet on it, I'm sure you'll get amazing odds. Now, where was I?"

"But!" Fine. Ten minutes Spider-Man decides, they would be fine for ten minutes right? If the owner walked in he would claim they both spotted the same bug and things got out of hand. That sounds weird.

He perched on the edge of their arm rest, and looked the guy over. "It's not pronounced-ok that isn't important right now. So are you saying you are a...Spider-Guy from the future?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes underneath, "One more Spider and I've got bingo."

Spider-Man lets the other Spider-Man deal with the ramifications of what he's said, and what he's doing, and what he's about to do. "Try to keep up. I don't know you, I'm not related to you, my powers have nothing to do with yours, except they look and seem like yours. They should, I designed them that way. You were, are, kind of my hero." He plays that straight, in a deadpan voice. "In a way, my becoming a hero is an homage to your work. But now, I'm here." He doesn't sound like he wants to explain why or how he came to be here. "And I thought I'd say hi."

You know normally that sort of news would frighten an 18 year old boy like Peter. Or man, whatever. But news like this pops up more and more. Instead there is a silence in the room before he continues, "Cool."

He slid off of the couch and stepped over to this other Spider, and reached out to shake his hand, "Then consider me flattered. Little freaked out but mostly flattered. What should I call you? What should other people call us if we are in the same room?"

Miguel has done his homework. Spider-Man has been around for a couple of years. He's been involved in countless battles, a lot of them, reading between the lines of the Daily Bugle, were pretty far out there. He figured the kid could handle it, and it seems he can. Getting up off the couch, he offers the other Spider-Man what's left of his milkshake, "Good, and names... I went by Spider-Man, but you're Spider-Man, so how about the Spider-Men? Hey, if there can be a couple of Green Lantern's, Captain America's, and Flash's, why can't there be Spider-Man's?"

"Spider-Man A, Spider-Man B. Spider-Bro (actually another spider took that one). Spider 2.0." He laughed and shook his hand firmly. This Spider-Man had seen a little too much in his years in tights. But he could handle this. Hopefully, the shake could help. He lifted up his mask slightly to slurp, "Pleasure to meet you then, Spider-Man. Oh!"

He reached into his belt underneath his shirt and found a business card with just a number on it and a spider doodle, "Ever need a team-up, vent, milkshakes feel free to call or text. If I don't answer I'm probably in a fight. You know how it is."

This new Spider-Man is the same height as the other one, but he's a bit older and a bit bulkier. He has a firm grip, not that either one of them could hurt the other that way. But super strength or not, some people still have a weak or limp handshake. This guy doesn't. "The pleasure is all on this side of the mask." But then the card is offered, and the other Spider-Man reaches for his phone, which beeps when the card is nearby. It seems it has some kind of an active scanner. Spider-Man presses a few buttons, and a message will pop up on the number provided. All it has is a smiley face, but it looks like a Spider-Man symbol smiley face. "And now you have my number."