Adult-FanFiction.org : Comics

When Spidey Met Oracle	By : littleblackduck Category: zMisplaced Stories [ADMIN use only] > Spiderman Views: 37996 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: The Spider-Man universe and characters are owned by Marvel. The Oracle universe and characters are owned by DC. I make no profit from this work. This is a sequel to "When Spidey Met Batgirl." I think you should read that first, but that might just be

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
CHAPTER FOUR: Sinister / Secret
The Secret Six were a sextet of hired thugs who took some of the nastiest assignments Oracle ever heard about. She first became aware of them during the Battle of Metropolis. The Secret Society of Supervillains had orchestrated a worldwide prison break, breaching every supermax on the planet. Barbara had done everything in her considerable power to contain the situation, but with the Justice League in shambles at the time, it'd come down to recruiting every second-tier good-guy she could find.
It was the Secret Six who passed on a crucial bit of information to her through Green Arrow: The whole point of the prison break was so the Society had an army to take down Metropolis. While Barbara was a Gotham girl through and through, she understood that if they could take down Metropolis -- the city of Superman -- it sent a message to the world that they could do anything. So, while Superman was busy dealing with one more in a series of infinite crises, Oracle, with the help of the Martian Manhunter, had been busy coordinating a desperate defense for the City of Tomorrow. Since her hands were full at the time, and they stayed out of it, Barbara had decided to give the Secret Six a pass.
Oracle didn't cross paths with them again until she sent the Birds on a mission to the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijani. The Six included a lot of Bruce's former sparring partners, like Thomas Blake a.k.a. Catman, a Dark Knight wannabe whom she was pretty sure Huntress had a crazy thing for and Floyd Lawton who went by the nom de guerre Deadshot when he was outfitted with wrist-mounted pistols. Barbara had actually worked with Lawton years ago, during the dark old days of Oracle's beginning when she was with the Suicide Squad. Back when the Birds ran into that deplorable duo in Azerbaijani, they were working with Peter Merkel, Jr., the son of the original Ragdoll who'd taken his father's mantel as the depraved and horrifyingly flexible contortionist, as well as Scandal Savage, daughter of the immortal caveman-tyrant Vandal Savage. They were rounded out by Dr. Harleen Quinzel, the Joker's onetime psychiatrist turned demented moll who went by Harley Quinn, and Knockout, the former fury from Apokolips.
The Secret Six had been dangerous then, but they were known to change up the ranks fairly frequently… Barbara wasn't sure what had happened to keep Scandal out of the field, but considering Oracle still hadn't managed to sort through the tangled web of their financial transactions, everything indicated that the tech-savvy Ms. Savage was still in the picture. The last time Barbara had checked, The Six consisted of Catman, Deadshot, and Ragdoll, now joined by the mysterious Jeanette, Bane -- the savage warrior poet who once broke Batman's back, and Lori Zechlin, a young occultist who could borrow the powers of the world's sorcerers as Black Alice. From what she was seeing at the LexCorp warehouse, it seemed the teen sorceress had been replaced by goddamn Deadpool.
Since that bad op in Azerbaijani, shutting them down had been on Oracle's ever-expanding to-do list, but it wasn't until she found out that Lori, a troubled teen meta Barbara once recruited into the Birds, was working with them that she really started digging enough to find out just who was pulling their strings. Because the Secret Six often found themselves at the beck and call of the mysterious "Mockingbird," their anonymous benefactor who generally left them to their own devices and vices until they were needed for something particularly shady. Barbara knew it was Mockingbird who'd sent them after Doctor Octopus and his crew, but she didn't know why and it didn't really matter. Because what Oracle did know was Mockingbird's identity, and that made all the difference today…
*
Octavius was vaguely aware of this so-called "Secret Six" -- metahuman mercenaries with an ever-rotating roster that managed to maintain a few key players like Catman, Deadshot, and that depraved pervert Ragdoll. Not too dissimilar to his own dirty half-dozen, except their grand mastermind, Mockingbird didn't have the stones to fight beside them as he did with his lackeys. Otto didn't know when Deadpool had joined them, but it certainly wouldn't stop him…
"Oy with the exposition already!" Deadpool shouted. "Didn't you just cover this? And do we really have to hear everybody's life story and their feelings about their life story followed by their feelings about everybody else's life story? What's the damn point? Continuity? Nobody's reading this crap for the intricate plotting! So, if we're not all stripping down for some nasty fucking, let's at least make with the gratuitous fight scene already!"
Nobody had any idea what he was talking about.
"Dibs on dirtbag!" Deadpool yelled, taking the initiative as he tossed a grenade at the Sandman. "You've got to give the people what they want! Sex and violence, motherfucker!"
The warehouse exploded in chaos.
"Why did we hire motor mouth for this gig again?" Catman asked, dodging the charging Rhino with a somersaulting leap.
"An unfortunate mix up with my underworld contact," Bane replied backhanding Mysterio. "I asked her to arrange for Deathstroke's services and she made a mistake for which she's been properly chastised."
"You know, I actually get a lot of work that way," Deadpool mentioned as he ducked a sandblast to fling a brace of shuriken at the Chameleon. "He's Slade Wilson. I'm Wade Wilson. Nudge nudge, wink wink, oh what a coinky-dink!"
"Just as well," Deadshot muttered, forcing Electro to take cover behind the titanium pile under a barrage of pistol fire. "Me and Slade don't really see eye to eye…"
As his minions battled these intruders, Doctor Octopus turned back to his incomplete transportation device. "Leave the fighting to your teammates, Mr. Dillon," he ordered Electro. "You haven't sufficiently charged the power supply."
"This wasn't part of the plan, Doc," Electro said, converting into raw energy before he entered the battery. "You didn't say nothin' 'bout Luthor hiring metas to protect his goods…"
"In the immortal words of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, 'No battle plan survives contact with the enemy', Maxwell," Doctor Octopus said, working to assemble the control panel. "The others just need to hold them at bay until we transport the titanium…"
"Mockingbird's intel was right on the money," Deadshot announced, turning his fire on the rampaging Rhino to no apparent effect. "Let's grab the mark and move on to a paid gig."
"Who the hell's Mockingbird?" Deadpool asked, dodging the stampede.
"I fear that remains a bit of a mystery," Bane said. "Suffice it to say it has proven best that we follow his orders."
"How can you not know?" Deadpool demanded. "Don't you mooks read your own book? I swear, you're going to be so glad I'm one of the Secret Six now…"
"You're not part of the team, Deadpool," Catman insisted. "We just contracted your services while Black Alice deals with some family issues."
"Makes sense I guess," Deadpool sighed, unsheathing two katana as he leapt toward the distracted Doctor Octopus. "Having a major magic mover like her out of the picture while you guys deal with a fairly low-level threat like these losers almost makes this fight plausible," he muttered, slashing at a tentacle Ock had torn away from his delicate construction work to fend Wade off. "But it'd be hotter if she was here!" Deadpool asserted, as the tentacle snapped one of his swords in half. "Especially when the hot supervillain sex orgy goes down. We're swinging a lot of wood here. Total sausage fest, you know?" Deadpool continued vainly trying to hack away at the attacking tentacle with his other blade, completely missing the fact that another was coming right for him. "I'm not saying I want to fuck a barely legal goth girl, but, um, I totally want to fuck a barely legal goth girl!"
"I don't follow," Ragdoll remarked, even Merkel's twisted mind not nearly demented enough to follow Wilson's insane sense of logic as he watched Ock's second tentacle smack Deadpool right in the head with enough force to fracture his skull.
"Low blow, writer-dude!" Wilson sputtered to no one in particular, as he crashed into a crate full of LexCorp's patented quick-dry cement. "Despite the konk on the cabeza, I'm totally lucid right now and that Ragdoll crack's completely unfair!"
As his shattered temple began to reknit, Deadpool looked up to see Jeanette -- the Secret Six's white-haired, hot-bodied banshee being overwhelmed by the swirling clouds of the Sandman. "Guess I gotta do everything around here," Wade grumbled, grabbing a bag of concrete as he unsteadily pulled himself upright. "Here's hoping saving the only chick on the team gets me first crack at that pussy," he muttered, tossing the bag at the choking vortex of the Sandman before grabbing a shotgun and an uzi from the arsenal strapped to his back. A shotgun blast tore into the cement sack as it entered the dust cloud while a few dozen carefully placed shots with the uzi set off the sprinkler system above. The water and concrete mixed into the Sandman's dusty eddy until it was a thick, ever-slowing column of brownish-grey muck, settling in a circle around Jeannette's unconscious figure. "Damn," Wade whistled, looking down at the ample cleavage on display. "What is it about a passed-out broad with a nice set a pipes?"
"Nice use of your boomstick, Mr. Wilson," Ragdoll chimed.
"Heh," Deadpool smirked. "You sound like Dennis the Menace."
"Yeah, great job, 'pool," Deadshot murmured. "Too bad you couldn't do it before he took out our heavy hitter."
"I'm just doing my part to help with narrative flow!" Deadpool insisted. "If two of the more powerful fighters are conveniently neutralized, there's that little bit less for the protagonist to pull off when you throw him in the mix of a six on six fight. It's still shoddy writing if you ask me."
"What the hell are you babblin' 'bout, Wilson?" Deadshot asked.
"Nothing, Headshot," Deadpool replied.
"Shut it, Red tool," Lawton retorted.
"Bed pot."
"Med drool."
"Fed tot."
"Ped ghoul."
"Girls, girls, girls, you don't have to fight!" Spider-Man shouted, crashing through the skylight. "You both have just ridiculous names."
"Pretty sure he's here for you, Wilson," Deadshot said, firing at the webbed wonder. "Spidey wants his look back."
"Says the guy who's totally biting his wrist-mounted doo-dad routine," Deadpool countered, peeling off a burst of AK fire in the wall-crawler's general direction that came dangerously close to hitting Ragdoll as he scrambled away.
"Might try actually aiming, Deadpool," Deadshot suggested.
"Aiming's for suckers who don't bring enough ammo," Wilson replied as the two of them poured on the gunfire. "And seriously, is holding a gun really that hard, Floyd?"
Spider-Man leapt over their heads to safety, unfazed by the constant spray of artillery. Dodging bullets was easy. Over the years, he had found a lot of problems with his spider-sense. It only warned him of the most immediate danger, for one. Peter'd been living with Harry for years, and it hadn't peeped once about his roommate until Harry was actually wearing that Goblin suit and it still didn't work on Venom, but gunfire? Kid's stuff!
That gave him time to take in the scene. He was counting nine or ten different baddies. Besides the guy with the lead-shooters and that nutcase Deadpool, he recognized a handful of the usual knuckleheads like Rhino and Chameleon. Then there was the brown and beige Bat-fanboy, the biggest luchador wrestler he'd ever seen, and a disgruntled Ronald McDonald with bendy-straw limbs. He couldn't tell if it was exactly a free-for-all, but they weren't all working together. That was a relief. It was much better if he could try and play them against each other than if they were all ready to dog pile him.
When Spidey spotted Doctor Octopus working away in a corner, he got a pretty good idea what was going on. Ock had tried this trick a couple weeks back -- promising every super criminal he could find their heart's desire if they'd follow his instructions and nabbed Harry's newborn son. At the time, everyone thought Norman was the kid's father, because the elder Osborn was the kind of guy to fuck his son's fiancée on the sly, but Otto had clearly moved on to new schemes.
"Still trying to work with a veritable cast of thousands, Doc?" Spider-Man asked Octavius, landing on a stockpile of shiny metal bars encircled by eight hastily constructed emitter-towers. "I thought you learned your lesson from that epic fail with baby Osborn: Supervillains don't play well with others."
"As ever, you look but don't see, arachnid," Doctor Octopus sighed, his tentacles working to carefully calibrate the control console as he turned his attention to what Spider-Man had worked out was the battery for Ock's machine. "Mr. Dillon, I am quite certain you've stored more than enough power for the device to operate. Would you mind dealing with this nuisance while I finish my work?"
"My goddamn pleasure, Doc," Electro said, bolting from the machine with a crackle of static charge. "I've been amped to the max, but you keep treating me like the friggin' energizer bunny instead of power incarnate!"
"Aw crap," Spider-Man muttered, his spider-sense screaming as he jumped up as fast as he could. He knew he couldn't avoid Electro's blast, but if he wasn't grounded, he might survive it.
White hot heat and the sensation of being thrown back quickly followed. It wasn't the first time Spider-Man had been electrocuted. Not by a long shot. A few years ago, Mary Jane had found Peter some kind of balm that worked wonders on contact burns. He'd been through seven cases so far. Just because it happened a lot didn't mean it didn't still sting.
As he hurtled through the warehouse, Spider-Man didn't quite have the wherewithal to avoid any of the bullets that were flying between Deadpool and the Rhino. Luckily he didn't have to, because they went wide well past him, because like Wilson had said earlier, aiming was for suckers. The web-head did, however, snap to when his spider-sense warned him about a knife Catman was throwing at Mysterio, managing even to snag it out of the air as he tumbled past, presumably saving Beck's stupid life before he landed in a circle of wet cement next to an unconscious platinum blonde in black leather. Spider-Man's heart skipped a beat. No. It wasn't Felicia… Not unless the Black Cat had switch to a whole Victorian dominatrix motif without telling him. His danger-sense howled, and he leapt without looking, narrowly avoiding another lightning strike from Electro before he smacked into a heavy shelf.
"Spider-Man?" called a fuzzy voice in head. "Are you okay?"
"So far, off to a bad start, Oracle…" the wall-crawler groaned, picking himself up.
"What the hell just happened?" the hacker asked him. "There was some static over the comm-line. I thought that I lost you."
"And I thought you said you'd have eyes on me from the security feed," Spider-Man said.
"I'm working on something else," Oracle explained. "Besides, you're the big time superhero. I thought you could handle it."
"I'm sorry, maybe you want to be the one going toe-to-toe with, like, a dozen different bad guys at once?"
"You have no idea." It was hard to tell with the voice distortion crap, but there was almost something mournful about Oracle's reply.
Spider-Man turned to see just what he'd crashed into and smiled. It was an industrial-size spoil of copper wiring. He looked back toward the battle, taking it all in. People often asked him what spider-sense felt like, and somehow, he'd never quite found the right words. "Tingle" didn't really do it justice. Sometimes it was just a vague sense of dread, at others it was a raging ice cream headache. But every once in a while, it was like the world slowed down just long enough for him to see everything he needed to do to survive -- a brief moment for Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man to work out his next move…
"Okay," he thought out loud. He had to deal with Doctor Octopus, a mystery machine that needed a massive amount of power, and something like ten other bad guys, but he had copper wire and a carbon steel knife he'd pilfered off some Kitten Crusader. So, yes. He could do this. "If you want to fight supervillains, tell me this," Spider-Man said to his enigmatic ally while he cut a long length of wire, "how long would it take you to gain access to this building's electrical grid?"
"I was plugged in about fifteen minutes before you got there" Oracle told him as he sheared off a few inches of isolation from each end of wiring with the blade. "Why? What are you thinking?"
"If I can lure Electro into the system, how long do you think you could keep him bouncing between circuit breakers?" Spider-Man asked as he wrapped the exposed copper around the blade.
"Normally that would depend on how long it takes him to figure out he's powerful enough to override what I'm up to," Oracle explained, "but that's a LexCorp property, so any power surge will initiate a highly randomized sequence of circuit switches that should flush him out of the facility completely. It's called a Livewire protocol."
"I could kiss Luthor's shiny bald forehead," Spider-Man beamed, carefully jamming the other end of the wire into the first electric outlet he could find. His spider-sense tingled. Electro was coming at him again.
"I'm sorry, Max, you're just too powerful now," Spidey bluffed. "I've got no choice!" he cried, flinging the knife at his foe.
"You should have tried this when you had the chance, Web-head!" Dillon roared, going electric so the knife would pass through him harmlessly.
"Gotcha," Spidey smirked as Electro made contact with the exposed copper, drawn through the conductive wiring into the outlet.
Spider-Man figured that even with LexCorp engineering on his side, it wouldn't take Dillon long to work his way back into the building. He had to work fast.
Bane and Rhino were the big guys. The faster he took them out the better. He didn't want to run himself ragged mopping up the small fry before it became a contest of strength, but that wasn't a realistic option right now. Not with eight other guys to worry about. The best he could do right now was keep them out of his way. Lucky for Spidey, the two of them were locked in some kind of macho-man grappling match at the moment. A liberal application of webbing just where Bane was holding Rhino's massive wrists did the job. That should keep them stuck together for a while. Plenty of time for a fun and fast supervillain rendition of The Defiant Ones, maybe, but Spider-Man had other plans. A leaping somersault between the two behemoths gave him ample opportunity to web them both in the eyes. Spidey didn't even look back as he swung away. The sound of shelving crashing onto them was more than enough to confirm that they were effectively neutralized for now. He was ready to move on to the two Dead-heads.
This was going to be a little trickier than the usual jump between two guys shooting and dodge so they take each other out -- an oldie but a goodie, but in this case too lethal for Spidey's particular brand of crime fighting. Pulling this off was going to take some finesse and the usual amount of mockery.
"Hey, Dead-Eyed Douche!" he shouted to Deadshot from across the warehouse. "Is it me, or are you completely incapable of hitting a moving target?!"
"I'm more of a show don't tell guy," Deadshot drawled, turning on the spot to take aim on the bounding wall-crawler. Spider-Man was already tagging Deadpool -- who was tangling with Mysterio on the other side of the warehouse -- with a web-line before Deadshot started shooting. A hard tug on the web yanked the Merc with a Mouth up off his feet and into the line of fire between the web-slinger and his gunslinging foe. Lawton watched Wilson take five in the chest before continuing his sprawling trip to the other side of the room where he collided with the recently returned and all too corporeal Electro.
"Fast little fucker, ain't ya?" the sharpshooter was saying as he turned back toward Spider-Man. As if to underline his point, the web-head was already leaping at him to deliver one of the hardest haymakers Deadshot had ever received. Nobody ever gets that close to me, he thought just before he passed out.
Despite the fact that he spent so much of the last ten years punching people, Spider-Man didn't consider himself a violent person. But it was times like this when he realized he was probably kidding himself. Punching Deadshot had felt really good. And it was the moment he took to revel in that satisfaction that allowed Ragdoll to get the drop on him. His danger-sense had barely prickled before he found himself ensnared in an impossible tangle of limbs.
"You've hurt poor Floyd," Ragdoll said. "And you just killed that delightfully grotesque man in the crimson and coal."
"You mean Deadpool?" Spidey asked, desperately flailing around to pick this strange little man off of him. "He'll be fine! Haven't you heard him blather on about that vaunted healing factor of his?"
"I thought he said 'peeling' factor," Ragdoll murmured, tightening his grip around Spider-Man's torso, eliciting a grunt from the wall-crawler as his ribcage strained near the point of breaking.
There was no getting around it. If Spider-Man wanted this monkey off his back, he was going to have to do something drastic. Something like a running flip smack into the nearest wall. He just managed the leap before Ragdoll had worked his way around his legs, and the collision came with a sickening thud that left them both on the floor in a heap. Ragdoll went limp underneath him, and Spider-Man took his first unhindered gasp of breath in what had felt like an awkward eternity.
"Yes, breathe deep, Arach-knight," came a boisterously sonorous voice, as a thick patch of murky green fog crept toward him. Spidey could make out two figures approaching him through the haze. It didn't take long to recognize them as the self-proclaimed masters of disguise and illusion. "But how can you be sure it's only simple air you take into your lungs and not the malevolent, mind-bending mystery mist of Mysterio?"
"Dial it back, comrade," Chameleon sighed. "That's a bit over the top… even for you."
"I'm going to give you idiots ten seconds to get out of here," Spider-Man said, rising to his feet. "Just consider yourselves lucky I've got bigger fish to fry."
"You dare presume to make demands of Mysterio?!" cried the illusionist. And the Chameleon was right. He was laying it on much thicker than usual. "Spider-Man, beware! For even now, our grand deceptions have robbed you of --"
However he was planning to finish that overwrought speech, it was cut short by the crunch of shattered glass as Spider-Man put his fist through that stupid plexiglas helmet. Spider-Man had fought Mysterio enough over the years to have worked out just the right amount of pressure to smash through the dome and make contact with his face without knocking magic mystery moron's head clean off his shoulders. It was another one of those little joys Peter came to enjoy in the course of his spider-career. He was mildly surprised, however, to find the feature-less mask of the Chameleon instead of the bowl-cut mop of Quentin Beck slumped under the busted bubblehead.
Spider-Man glanced over to see the other Chameleon shaking his head. "I told him to rein it in," the double murmured. "He completely blew the gag."
"Wait, you guys switched costumes?" asked an incredulous Spidey. "That was your big play?"
"Sleight of hand and misdirection are Mysterio's forte, web-slinger," the faux-Chameleon bellowed in an amplified voice as a smoke screen swirled up all around him. "Unfortunately there wasn't a lot of time to set up anything nice and elaborate. You weren't expected." Once the mist cleared, the true Mysterio stood revealed in a second costume, complete with that dorky little fishbowl.
As much as he wanted to, Spider-Man didn't waste time bursting his bubble. He just threw the unconscious fake-Mysterio into the real one, hard, and they collapsed in a limp human pile. This was exactly why he'd actually offered them the option to just walk away. While both of them had certainly found ways to turn Peter Parker's life upside down in elaborate schemes that'd push him right to the edge of sanity, this wasn't an elaborate scheme situation. This was a street fight, and for all of their gee-whiz technical expertise and Smerdyakov's better than average hand-to-hand skills, these guys were still just guys.
At the same time, Mysterio's gas had managed to screw up his spider-sense before, and while Spider-Man was pretty sure that this green mist was just a smoke screen -- there wasn't that acrid tang he'd come to expect from Beck's regular hallucinogen -- it was now very possible that he'd just lost a major advantage… Spider-Man was so worried about having lost his danger-sense he almost missed it when it suddenly tingled.
He just barely cocked his head in time to dodge the first knife. He was just running clear of the fog by the time the second whizzed between his legs. The third blade grazed his shoulder. It was a flesh wound, but deep enough for blood to spurt onto his costume. The web-head didn't even have the time to try to patch it up with some webbing before he found himself dodging three knives at once, and he still hadn't even seen whoever was throwing these things.
Hell, even when Catman did eventually attack him in person, Spider-Man took two kicks to the head before he realized he was in an actual fight. If things kept going the way they were going, he wasn't going to last another five seconds, which is why Catman was so shocked when the wall-crawler dodged what should have been a sternum shattering punch to the solar plexus by flipping over his head and delivering a sharp elbow to the base of his skull.
"Guess you're out of knives, huh?" Spider-Man mused, blocking Catman's subsequent attempt at a spinning back kick with his wrist.
"Just tired of wasting 'em on a punk like you," Catman said, throwing a wild punch as he turned that the wall-crawler ducked.
"Suuuure," Spidey said, tagging him in the chin with an uppercut. "You know, it's okay to admit when you've been outclassed, kitty-cat."
"I once took Batman, chump!" Catman snarled, thrusting a knee toward Spider-Man's chest as he fell back.
"Took him where? Cotillion?" Spider-Man asked, catching Catman's foot and swinging him around in a full circle before sending him pinwheeling sideways. "Is that why you guys wear matching outfits?"
Thomas Blake prided himself on his combat prowess. Unlike so many of the brawlers he went hand-to-hand with, Catman didn't follow any style. Once someone fell into any particular pattern, it was that much easier for him to counter. That was kind of the problem he was having with this spider-jerk. If he had any training, he clearly hadn't paid any attention to his instructor. This guy was all over the place, a super-powered spaz with strength and reflexes and some uncanny ability to predict Catman's moves.
It would have driven Blake absolutely nuts if he knew that the web-head was doing all this with his eyes closed.
Spider-Man absolutely hated fighting this way. It just felt too reckless, too overly confident. But over the years, he'd learned that there were times when his eyes were only going to slow him down and there were some battles he could only win by giving himself over to his spider-sense. The only real risk here was restraint, because while on a moral, intellectual level, Peter Parker had the utmost respect for the sanctity of human life, this sixth sense of his worked on primal animal instinct that valued survival at all cost. Especially when he was mad, and this asshole was pissing him off.
Thrown over Spider-Man's shoulder, Catman twisted around in midair, managing to land in the manner one might expect: on his feet and ready to pounce. He was leaping right back at the wall-crawler when a web-ball the size and heft of a softball beaned him square between the eyes, stunning him.
By the time the stars finally cleared, Spider-Man was holding Catman up by the stretchy lapels of his cat costume. "Where is she?" the web-head demanded. "Where's the Black Cat?" Before Blake had the chance to say anything, his spider-sense went crazy. He threw Catman into the nearest wall, as he jumped back from an 80-foot long piece of tungsten steel tubing smashing down toward him at 4000psi of pressure.
And just like that, Spider-Man was fighting Doctor Octopus. The two of them had been enemies for Peter Parker's entire adult life. The tentacles might change, but the tactics rarely did. Honestly, Spidey was almost glad to be facing off with Octavius. Ever since Oracle had contacted him, in the back of his mind, there'd been this creeping suspicion. There was just something about this voice in his ear that was a little too reminiscent of the Master Planner, let alone the Master Programmer -- two aliases Doc Ock had employed before. But if Oracle was Octavius, then he probably wouldn't have sent him here, or helped him contain Electro, right? Unless that was part of the master plan...?
Come to think of it, though, he hadn't heard from his mysterious new friend since well before this fight with Doctor Octopus had started…
"Oracle?!" he shouted, evading three striking tentacles with a series of back flips.
"Trying to work here, Spider-Man," came the response.
Octavius hadn't said anything, but Spidey wasn't quite sure how this new octo-rig of his worked. It was completely possible that ol' Otto could have two conversations at once.
"You're not working on killing me right now, are you?" he asked, taking a blow to the gut from one of Ock's arms.
"No, I'm working my way through a surprisingly secure government firewall," Oracle explained. "And why would I try to kill you? Wait… Are you asking if I'm Doctor Octopus?!"
"Maybe kinda sorta," Spider-Man groaned, grappling with a tentacle that was wrapped round his throat.
"And what have you decided?" Oracle asked.
"Still working on it," Spidey gasped, wrenching himself free from Ock's stranglehold.
"I'm not Doctor Octopus," Oracle sighed. "I am, however, too busy to talk right now. I gave you villains to banter with. Doesn't that get me a few minutes peace?"
"Geez," Spider-Man muttered. "I honestly cannot remember the last time I got this much animosity from someone I'd just met." He thought better of this as he leapt at a tentacle. "Actually, I can," he corrected, seizing hold of the arm, "but I suppose that dynamo daredoll had her reasons…"
"Goodbye, Spider-Man," Oracle blurted before the line went dead.
What the hell was that about? Spider-Man wondered, launching himself toward Doc Ock. But he didn't have time to worry about that. Right now, he needed to focus. Guided by his spider-sense, he actually managed to dodge dozens of attacks from all eight of Octavius' tentacles, batting them away as he made his way closer and closer to the man himself.
Spider-Man was just within face-punching distance when all eight tentacles smacked him at once, throwing him crashing into a crate.
"No," Doctor Octopus said, making his way toward the transporter. "No. I will not be drawn into this battle, arachnid. This confrontation is beneath me. I have ambitions far beyond this petty feud between us."
"I know what you mean, Doc," Spidey replied, pulling himself out of the wreckage. "In my free time, I've been scouring the city for the best burger in New York. People keep saying Corner Bistro, but I don't know. You want to try Shake Shack with me when we're done here?"
"I've already concluded my business," Octavius informed the web-head as he activated the teleportation array. There was a bright, blinding flash, and when it faded, the titanium alloy was gone. "Make all the funny little jokes that you want, Spider-Man. I've won here today."
"But we both agree that I'm funny, right?" Spider-Man muttered, still rubbing spots from his eyes.
"Time to withdraw," Doctor Octopus said to his minions, which is when Spidey realized just how many of his recent dance partners were back on their feet. "We've acquired all that we need. Chameleon and Mysterio, collect the Sandman. Electro, if you would, please fry the delicate circuitry of the teleportation device. There's no time to disassemble it or carry it with us, but I would hate to leave our enemies with the benefits of my brilliance. I'll attend to the Rhino."
As Chameleon gathered as much of the grey, gooey remains of the unconscious and unconstituted Sandman into the folds of Mysterio's cape, Octavius set to the task of separating Bane from the Rhino by simply bracing the Rhino with six of his arms and tugging on Bane with two. Eventually, the Man Who Once Broke the Bat was torn free with a sickening double pop that could only mean his shoulders had been torn from their sockets. Then Doctor Octopus tossed Bane to the side like trash.
Spider-Man wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but if Doc Ock was still in command of an army of supervillains, Spider-Man definitely needed to deal with it. Just when he was about to go after them he was reminded that they were only half of the equation...
"Let them go," Oracle ordered. "I need you to stick with the others. It's the only way we're going to find her."
Spider-Man hesitated. "But if you are Doctor Octopus…"
"I'm not Otto Octavius!" Oracle insisted. "If Octavius knew who you were, would he be talking to you or attacking everyone you love, Peter?! Like your Aunt? That supermodel you used to live with? The staff at the Bugle?"
"Okay, okay," he replied, now worried in new ways. Oracle had been oddly specific about the plan of potential attack… And Doc Ock had once almost beaten the Black Cat to death…
"If we're going to find Felicia, you've got to beat the Secret Six," Oracle insisted. "I can't do this without you."
That got him focused again. "I trust you," he said, as Octavius and his cronies made their escape. Though he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to convince Oracle or himself.
"You're letting Doc Ock get away?!" Spidey heard Deadpool shout behind him. "What a goddamn waste! A little mecha-tentacle rape action between the good doctor and that passed out Oliver Twist extra might have gotten us some more reviews! These fanfic readers can be perverted little puppies…"
"You're a sick man, Wilson," Spider-Man said. "You need help."
"I got all the help I need, Pleasantville," Wade said. "I'm not the yokel who came here all by his lonesome."
"I'm not sure you have all of our best interests at heart, my darling Deadpool," observed the recently revived Jeanette, heading their way, "but I do so hate a true red-and-blue hero."
Spider-Man glanced around. It wasn't just Deadpool and the platinum blonde. It looked like everybody was conscious again. Bendy the Clown... Deadeye Dick... The Goddamn Catman… Even the larger-than-life luchador.
"Where is she?" the wall-crawler demanded as they closed ranks around him. "Where's the Black Cat?"
"You're babbling nonsense," Ragdoll giggled. "We've no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't lie to me!" Spider-Man said.
"Sorry, dear, but Mockingbird didn't say anything about a Black Cat," Jeanette insisted. "Just wanted us to grab the Chameleon."
"What?" the wall-crawler wondered.
"Face it, bug boy," Deadshot said with a smirk. "You might have stopped us from completing the mission, but you're still getting played just like everyone else…"
Spider-Man decided he'd worry about his less-than-trustworthy partner later. Right now, he had six pissed-off villains to put down. "Give up now and I won't hurt any of you," he told them.
"Like your chances, do you?" Catman asked.
"Kinda," Spidey said. "I kicked your ass, didn't I?"
"You may have had some spectacular luck combating Blake, Little Spider," Bane said, striding toward the wall-crawler as he popped both of his dislocated shoulders into place without even wincing, "but you never really faced me."
"Bring it, Nacho Libre."
*
As she watched the Secret Six set upon Spider-Man over the LexCorp security feed at her outpost in Washington, Amanda Waller couldn't believe how poorly this operation had gone. She'd anticipated the web-head as a potential problem where the Sinister Six was concerned, but she thought her squad could have swooped in and grabbed the target before that ridiculous wall-crawler became involved. She certainly never expected he could take on two teams single-handed.
It wasn't supposed to go down like this. All she'd wanted was Dmitri Smerdyakov.
Amanda knew she had a reputation for collecting supervillains. When she first proposed the idea for Task Force X all those years ago, three different branches of government had told her how crazy she was, but she knew better. The world had changed. This metahuman/mutant crisis wasn't just going to go away. You could toss them in jails, hoping you could build prisons strong enough to contain them, or you could put the bad seeds to work. You just had to give them the right incentive. Like the possibility of parole and explosive bracelets rigged to blow if they didn't follow orders. Whatever it took.
Waller didn't want the Chameleon for his deep-undercover skills, though they could certainly be an asset. She wanted Smerdyakov because he'd spent the last thirty-something years working for the lowest of the low all over the world. The man's head had to be full of the kind of secrets that could root out America's enemies. When she'd learned the man was working with Otto Octavius, Waller figured it was her best chance of snapping him up. Alone, the Chameleon was a fart in the wind, but saddled with some outlandish supervillain crew he was just another jerk with a gimmick. If the Secret Six couldn't handle that, what good were they?
"I'm guessing things didn't play out as expected, Amanda," a distorted voice said through the speakers of Waller's computer system. "I know how you hate it when a plan falls apart."
To her credit, Waller never doubted for one minute who had hacked her system. "What do you want, Oracle?" she asked wearily, knowing the embedded microphone in her computer had been activated. "Looking to get your old job back?"
"No thanks," Oracle said. "I've outgrown you."
"Well that's gratitude for you," Waller grumbled. "When I met you, you were nothing, 'Amy'. A sad, bitter girl in a wheelchair with some programming experience and an ax to grind. I saved your life. I took you in. I taught you not just how to survive, but how to thrive in this world, and this is the thanks I get, 'Ms. Beddoes'?"
Barbara winced in her chair. Deep down, she knew Waller was more right than wrong in this case. When she decided to start her new life as Oracle, she wanted to start as far from her old haunts within the superhero community as possible, so she leant her services to Task Force X. You didn't get much further from the Justice League than Amanda Waller's ragtag band of barely reformed supervillains and government spooks. Barbara's time working with the Suicide Squad under the alias of Amy Beddoes had been her baptism of fire. As much as she wanted to see herself as James Gordon's daughter or the Dark Knight's protégé, there was a part of her that would always be Amanda Waller's best student. Dad and Bruce had taught her everything possible about fighting crime in Gotham City, but Amanda had shown her what it took to keep the world in one piece.
After the Squad disbanded and Oracle branched out on her own, there'd been times when she'd had to be ruthless to get the job done. She had to cross lines. She liked to tell herself she'd only done what Batman would if he'd been pushed like she had, but the truth was that she did things Bruce Wayne never would. She hated to admit it, but she'd done the kind of things Amanda Waller would do, and she'd done them for the same reasons Amanda Waller would do them… Because they had to be done.
This is why Barbara couldn't help but wonder if she'd taken the wrong tact with her erstwhile mentor. "I remember everything you taught me, Amanda," she admitted. "You used to say that the most important thing was to recognize a threat when you saw one and to keep tabs. And I know exactly how capable you are of doing so..."
"You trying to get me wet, Oracle?" Waller asked. "Sorry. You're not my type, girlie. I'm going to ask you one more time... What do you want?"
"I need everything you've got on Norman Osborn," Barbara said steadily. "Everything. His financial records, your intel on his secret facilities from before his H.A.M.M.E.R. days, all footage from the surveillance details I'm sure you had on him and all his properties. The works."
"Or what?" Waller asked. "Spider-Man's already blown the op, and I don't care if he takes down the Secret Six and runs them in. The whole point of using them is that they're expendable. You've got no leverage, Oracle."
"This was never about Spider-Man tanking your mission," Oracle explained. "All I really need is for him to tell Floyd Lawton just exactly how long you've been Mockingbird. Then we'll see how well Deadshot reacts. If he's anything like me, I don't think Floyd's kept all this distance from the Suicide Squad because he loved being attached to your puppet strings. Or have you forgotten the last time you tried to get him back on the team? Put one in your chest, didn't he?"
Barbara realized just how much of a gamble this was. According to Waller's files, she'd recently ordered a new psychological work up on Lawton. There was every possibility this new psych profile had determined Deadshot was actually willing to deal with his former handler.
There was a long pause over the line, as Waller considered her options. There was that mission in Skartaris coming up. That meant she needed Lawton and his fellow goons for a little bit longer. And all a goody-two-shoes like Oracle would do with her information was help hammer a few more nails into Osborn's coffin and nothing would please her more. Waller had met her fair share of corporate moguls sidelining their way into government appointments, but Osborn was a whole different story. It certainly didn't help that his stepping stone to the directorship of the highest intelligence agency on the planet had been running the Thunderbolts initiative -- an obvious rip-off of her now de-sanctioned Task Force X. The smarmy prick had gotten everything Waller had ever worked for by peddling a gussied-up version of her idea… When a strong black woman led the charge, it was brash and unseemly. When it was a rich white man, it was daring and innovative. What did she care if Oracle wanted to beat a dead horse?
"It's not like the Osborn intel's worth anything anymore," Amanda said eventually. "Giving it to you is a little better than dumping it in the trash, but don't try something like this with me again, Oracle. You're not going to like how it turns out."
"I don't doubt it, Dr. Waller."
*
It took Spider-Man all of sixty seconds to put down the Secret Six.
Taking on Bane had been easier than expected. Yes, Bane was strong. Yes, he was cunning and ruthless. But the guy had just spent the last twenty minutes wrestling the Rhino only to have both of his arms nearly torn off. Spider-Man leapt up over the big bruiser's head, planted his hands on both of his shoulders and squeezed. Bane screamed out in agony. The web-head wasn't proud of the fact that he'd specifically targeted the man's injuries, but it's not like these guys were going to play fair.
Landing on his feet behind the behemoth while maintaining his grip, Spidey tossed the big lug into Catman, pinning the fearless feline fighter under Bane's massive girth before webbing them both to the floor.
His next couple of web-shots were for Deadshot's wrist-pistols, because without his guns, Lawton was harmless and Spider-Man knew he needed everything else he had loaded in his web-shooters for Ragdoll.
He was still webbing up the contortionist when Jeanette smacked him in the face. She packed a hell of a wallop. Spidey hadn't expected that. One of the many things you had to learn in the superhero game was not to judge by appearance. Hell, Peter had filled out over the last decade, but when he started out he'd been all of 105 pounds soaking wet. Even back then, he could lift a car over his head. With that in mind, Spider-Man didn't see any choice. He hit her back with everything he had, sending her sprawling into a shelf of industrial pipes.
That just left Deadpool.
"Uh, is that whole 'give up now and you don't get hurt' thing still good?" Wilson asked when the wall-crawler turned toward him. "Because I really don't want to put any holes in you if I'm not getting paid for it."
"I was going to say the same thing," Deadshot agreed. "You gooped up my guns for nothing, web-head. And Ragdoll wasn't gonna hurt you. Hell, we were only here to grab the man with no face."
"Don't worry about me, my dear Mr. Lawton," Ragdoll chimed from within his thick cocoon. "It's like a viscous hug! I feel so delightfully sticky!"
"But the big guy and the dark kitty…" Spider-Man started to say.
"Oh, I'm sure Bane and Blake still wanna tear you apart," Deadshot sighed. "Those two have anger management issues. Probably comes from all that macho code of honor crap they believe in. The rest of us just want to get paid. Jeannette attacking you was a bit of a surprise. She never did like bullies, though."
"I'm not a bully!" the web-head protested. "I'm the good guy here."
"Didn't know the good guys were smacking the ladies around now," Lawton mumbled.
"Um, she hit me first…?" Spider-Man weakly suggested. The gunslinger kind of had him there.
"Well, it's been a hoot and a half, but I think I'll be going," Deadshot said, walking toward the exit.
"I can't let you do that," Spider-Man told him, reloading his spent web-cartridges.
"I was afraid you were going to say that," Lawton sighed as the wall-crawler webbed his feet to the floor.
"How awesome would it have been if the Secret Six vs. Sinister Six fight had been in the sixth chapter of this thing?!" Deadpool asked, apropos of nothing, as Spidey webbed him up shortly afterward. "My bet? Writer-boy has pacing problems. I wonder if he always blows his wad too early…"
Deadpool was all too familiar with the chronic shame of premature ejaculation.
"What?" he cried out. "I am not!"
He also had a tiny penis.
"I swear," Deadpool muttered, "if I wasn't fictional…"
Spider-Man was still trying to puzzle out just what Wade was talking about when there was a static burst from the comm-link.
"You done?" Oracle asked.
"Just about," he replied a bit coolly. "These guys didn't take Black Cat, did they?"
"I never said they did, Parker," Oracle said. "But I have the information I need to find her now."
"How did you get that from this?" Spider-Man asked. "That doesn't make any sense!"
"The less you know the better."
"Right," he grumbled. "I'm not allowed to know anything, so you played me."
"Maybe a little."
"That wasn't the deal!"
"We don't have a deal!" Oracle insisted. "If I could be doing this with anyone else, I would! Really! You're the last person on earth I want to deal with!"
"What the hell is the matter with you?!" Spider-Man demanded. "What is this… this hostility I get from you, Oracle? You're the one that got Black Cat into this mess! You're the one that lost track of her! I'm just trying to get her back and I've done everything you asked me to! All you've done is lie to me!"
There was no immediate response, which left Spider-Man plenty of time to realize that he'd just gone on a bit of a rant in front of the undesirables.
"Trouble in paradise," Deadpool murmured to Deadshot.
"Shut the fuck up," Floyd hissed back. "I got a good idea who he's talking to, and we don't want any part of it..."
*
Barbara was watching the upload from Waller's server with one eye while seeing Spider-Man's agitation from the LexCorp feed with the other. He was obviously pissed and deep down she knew he had every right to be.
"You're right," Barbara finally told Spider-Man. "I've been stressed out and I haven't been fair to you."
"To say the least," Spider-Man muttered.
"It's going to take me a while to analyze the data I've just received," she continued. Knowing Waller, she'd need to thoroughly comb the files for spyware first. "I'll get in contact as soon as I've pinpointed a location."
"Sure you will," Spider-Man said. "What am I supposed to do until then?"
"Well, the first thing I'd do is get out of there," Barbara told him. "Three different federal agencies are on their way, and while I'm not exactly sure what your legal status is in a post-Osborn world, I doubt it's that good."
"Point," Spider-Man said, leaping toward the window through which he'd made his grand entrance. She switched to a view from one of the external security cameras at the warehouse and watched him swing away.
"Second, I'd get some rest," she suggested. "Wherever this intel leads us, I doubt it's going to be as easy as this."
"Right," he sighed, "because this was a walk in the park."
"I'm guessing you're going to try to track down the Sinister Six instead."
"I may have tagged Rhino with a spider-tracer," Spider-Man admitted.
"Well good luck with that," Barbara said. "Oracle, signing off."
*
The spider-tracer chase was a bust.
Spider-Man went out of his way to double time it after the signal only for it to lead him all the way to the Shake Shack on Columbus Avenue.
"We've been expecting you," a slightly perturbed burger boy told Spidey when he walked into the place. "Some lady said to give you this." The kid handed the wall-crawler a shack burger and a strawberry shake. Spider-Man noticed his spider-tracer had been placed on the tray as well.
"Nice to know ol' Otto's got a sense of humor," the web-head murmured.
That's when one of Doc Ock's Octo-Bots popped up out of a trashcan and attacked him. Spider-Man destroyed the nasty mechanical monstrosity. It was a short fight, but after the thing with Harry's baby, he knew he needed to check himself for one of those new octo-tracers Octavius had whipped up. He found two and smashed them both before he decided to swing home and take Oracle's advice about getting some rest. Hell, maybe he had time to shower and change into a fresh spider-costume. One with fewer rips and tears and bloodstains on it. Spider-Man was almost back at the apartment before he realized he hadn't been there in four days and really didn't have the time to risk running into Michele…
Just as the sun started to set somewhere over the Hudson, he dropped down on an East Village rooftop to catch his breath and eat his dinner. Hell, he wasn't going to let a good burger go to waste. It's not like Chameleon, Mysterio or whoever made the order could have told the cook staff to poison it, And even if they had, his spider-sense would warn him. Besides, he hadn't eaten all day!
Even with his hunger sated, Spider-Man still felt uneasy. Everything just felt off right now. He needed to talk to someone. So he pulled out his cell phone.
There were times Peter wished his Aunt May still knew he was Spider-Man. That cloud of disappointment which loomed between them after he dropped out of grad school had finally lifted when May knew why his life was the mess that it was and she had been a great comfort to him in times of web-headed trouble. But as good as it'd been for him for her to know, he knew it was better for her that she didn't. And it had never been more important to put May's need first. Unfortunately, that meant that when he needed to go to someone who knew him completely, there was only one person he could call…
"Hey, MJ," he said when she picked up. "It's me."
NEXT: The Other Women
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

When Spidey Met Oracle