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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
- 5
- 6
- 7
CHAPTER SIX: Tinker, Tailor, Huntress, Spider
All administrative substitutions modules were programmed to believe that they were, in fact, the Administrator, Norman Osborn: Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. with the exception of one: Administrative Substitution Module #14.
The Administrator himself had given the retooled life model decoy this gift of self-awareness two months earlier, taking time from his busy schedule to modify its programming and enhance its offensive capabilities in secret.
"I've never had much luck with children," the Administrator had informed the automaton during one of their clandestine, late-night sessions. "I blame myself, of course," he went on to say as he fit new hand-units into ASM-14's wrist sockets. "I was a very weak man during my firstborn's formative years. Soft. By the time the goblin formula woke me up, forcing me to realize that I needed to take what I wanted in life, poor Harry had already grown into an indolent man-child. As for the other two, they're barely worth mentioning. The gene-damaged whelps just have too much of their mother in them..."
ASM-14 had no response to this confession. While it was not programmed to feel pain, it had been programmed to pretend to feel pain under the right circumstances. As such, its audio vocalization processor had been disabled to stop it from screaming.
"Please don't misunderstand me," the Administrator continued. "You're little more than a thing to me. I don't feel any paternal affection for you any more than I think of my old glider as my child. But given the great disappointments in my life, it's nice to craft something in my own image that I might finally take some pride in."
And so, ASM-14 was unique. The robot took no satisfaction from this distinction. It wasn't programmed for vanity any more than it was programmed for pain. By the time the Administrator had completed the upgrade, the vast majority of ASM-14's emotive response subroutines had been deleted in order to make room for its new operating directives and defensive systems, to say nothing of the design schematics for the Deimos Engine.
Building the machine was practically ASM-14's greatest priority. The Administrator had also commanded it not to kill -- with one, singular exception -- which meant that in the event that someone posed a threat to the completion of the device, the automaton was to detain them until the Administrator could determine their ultimate fate on a case by case basis. ASM-14 had been instructed to disable its internal WiFi connection, as it was imperative that the android wasn't accessible to potential hackers and data thieves while it assembled the equipment.
Principle construction had been completed shortly before the female identified as Felicia Hardy, alias Ashley Moon, alias Black Cat had set off the proximity alarms in the Multivex lobby. If ASM-14 hadn't been in the process of charging the Anti-Metal core -- a delicate process which, if done incorrectly could have destroyed not only the Deimos Engine but the android as well, to say nothing of the entire building -- it would have apprehended the trespasser right then and there. Unfortunately, in the time it took to verify core stabilization, she had left the premises.
ASM-14's subsequent apprehension of the woman had been conducted according to protocol. Tracking her to that edifice in Chelsea had been a simple enough matter. She posed very little physical threat to it. Since her capture, the former life model decoy had attempted on an hourly basis to make contact with the Administrator via the secure number he'd provided, but it had yet to receive a response. By ASM-14's assessment, it was too dangerous not to incapacitate the prisoner. Between her resourcefulness and the quantum probability fluctuation field she generated while conscious, there was an 84.3% chance that she would have become a hindrance in finishing the machine on schedule. ASM-14 had sedated Felicia Hardy, alias Ashley Moon, alias Black Cat six times in the last 24 hours. Further sedation might imperil her health. If the Administrator did not answer it soon, the automaton would need to alter its methods of detaining her. Fortunately, by the time ASM-14 calculated she would next regain consciousness, the machine should be functional.
ASM-14 was in the process of synchronizing the Deimos Engine's operating parameters when the proximity alarms went off. Once again, it found itself in the middle of crucial work while an intruder breached the facility. It could not afford to interrupt its work to deal with this trespasser either...
If Administrative Substitution Module #14 had been aware of such a concept, it might have concluded that this was just its bad luck.
*
Helena Bertinelli had gone through a number of different costumes during her time as the Huntress. It wasn't all that uncommon really. Everyone in her rarified field of crime-fighting had at least tweaked their outfits a bit. Hell, most of them had made a complete wardrobe change at least once, but eventually they tended to settle into their own iconic look. When Superman switched to that red and black shield after the war with Imperiex, everyone was just waiting for him to go back to the good old red and yellow. Same thing when all of the X-Men ditched their spandex tights for those sci-fi biker gang outfits a few years back. Personally, Helena didn't think she had quite reached that particular level in her career, and when you got right down to it, she really hoped she wasn't wrong. She hated to think anyone thought that the Huntress just wasn't really the Huntress if you couldn't see her belly button.
It wasn't her fault. Not really. She hadn't designed the damn thing.
Back during her dark old days, she'd been in New York on a mission of the mob-vengeance variety that dovetailed with a case the Black Cat was working. After they'd mopped the floor with the Maggia, in a rare bit of polite girl-talk on Huntress' part, she'd complimented the Cat's costume. "I know everyone says you're just copying Catwoman, but I remember you were rocking the black leather thing when she was still sporting the purple spandex," she remembered saying. That's when Black Cat had insisted that Huntress meet her tailor, Leo Zelinsky.
Apparently the guy was a sartorial legend in their circle. He was the garment guy for the New York superhero in the know. Before she knew it, Huntress was being dragged into his shop. He was a sweet old guy, really, but clearly a bit of a letch. At least that was her impression based on the sketch he presented to her. The short sleeves and thigh high boots that left her arms and legs exposed were quite a departure from the costumes she'd crafted on her own, but not all that different from anything Wonder Woman or Black Canary would wear. But the cut-away torso that bared her midriff? That was something else entirely.
"It's a little revealing," Huntress observed.
"If you've got it, flaunt it!" Leo insisted. "And honey, you've got it in spades!"
The Black Cat was right there beside him, nodding her approval in that slinky catsuit with the plunging, fur-festooned neckline. And for the first time in her life, Huntress hadn't wanted to be rude. What did it hurt to take the costume back to Gotham? Didn't mean she had to wear it. But a month later, on a lark, she put it on, and that night she ended up saving Batman's life. And it felt good. Like this crazy little costume was her lucky charm. And Gotham got pretty hot and sticky in the summertime. Who wanted to be draped up to their neck in a thick, kevlar-weave through weather like that? And was it really anything worse than what the Phantom Lady wore way back in the day? Hell, Black Canary's "iconic costume" was a set of bunny ears and a cottontail away from being a Playboy bunny outfit…
How could she have anticipated the storm of controversy that would ripple through the world-saving crowd at large over this new outfit of hers? It started with a fairly innocent comment from Black Canary when Huntress first joined up with her and Oracle. But it slowly became apparent to Helena that there was a certain element of the superhero community that thought this new costume was a joke. She'd even happened upon some website polling whether her new uniform was dumber than Power Girl's. Power Girl's! Even that little brat Cassandra Cain had dissed the suit to her face… while wearing the Batgirl costume Helena had made! Which is why, Helena being Helena, she'd kind of adopted a "fuck their judgment" attitude about the whole thing. When it was time to be Huntress, she went to her closet and grabbed whatever costume she felt like wearing at the moment, and if that meant a bare midriff, that meant a bare midriff.
But there were times she hated that outfit more than anyone else. Parachuting out of a plane at 10,000 feet on a cool autumn night? That was one of those times.
I swear it was warmer in Canada, she thought to herself, the wind chill raising goosebumps on her bare skin as she vowed for the four-hundred-and-twenty-first time to burn this suit when she got home.
Other than the threat of exposure, the airdrop to Multivex's corporate headquarters in the Chrysler Building had gone off without a hitch. Huntress managed to touchdown atop one of the gargoyles that extended from the 61st floor. Not bad for a woman with no formal skydiving training. "I stuck the landing, O," she said into the fresh communicator she'd gotten from the Aerie One. "Where am I going from here? Please say down..."
"No such luck, H," Oracle responded. "Multivex is housed ten floors up from your current location."
"Delightful," Huntress muttered, retrieving climbing equipment from her utility belt. "Okay," she said as she started to scale the building, "I know you've hacked into the security system. Tell me what else I can look forward to here, Gordon."
"More bad news," Oracle sighed. "The cameras have been disabled. I'm trying to get thermal imaging from a satellite, but it's going to be another couple of minutes before it's in position."
"This just gets better and better," Huntress griped, finally reaching the nearest 71st floor window. Using a laser cutter from her belt, she made her way into the building, careful to maintain the voided glass so she could reinsert it with foam sealant. Huntress made her way through the surprisingly empty window office to the hallway. Helena had never really done the whole corporate drone 9-to-5 grind, but there was something weird about the place. It had everything you'd expect from a small corporate office. There were all of the desks and chairs and cubicles, but no one had any plants or pictures or other assorted tchotchkes. There were none of the tiny personal touches. She checked one of the work-cubes, and sure enough, none of the computer equipment was even connected.
Huntress had worked with Oracle long enough to know what was going on. It was just enough visible accounting to convince anyone who didn't care enough to look that there was a legitimate company working here.
"I finally got the thermal scan," Oracle told her then. "Other than you, I've got two heat signatures."
"I know it's pretty late, but I don't think anyone's been here for quite some time, O," Huntress reported. "There's something bad going down."
"Agreed," Gordon confirmed. "I'm guessing -- well, hoping really -- that one of our hot spots is the Black Cat and the other's our Big Bad."
"Okay," she said. "Where do I go?"
"The most active heat sig is in the big office at the northeast corner," Oracle said. "I'd say start there. Chances are that's the guy we need to worry about."
Huntress moved as slowly and quietly though the facility as possible. During all the years she'd been vaguely associated with Batman's clan, she'd never exactly mastered that stealth ninja crap they did so well, but she used to hunt growing up. She had some idea about how to avoid alerting your prey.
"Who am I looking for?" she asked in a hush.
"I still haven't quite worked that out," Oracle said, and Helena could tell that Gordon was stressed. "Whoever it is, he looks just like Norman Osborn."
"That H.A.M.M.E.R. asshole?"
"No, the other Norman Osborn," Gordon sighed. "What have we been doing all week?"
"Don't get snippy with me," Huntress hissed, taking corner-cover as she peered through the glass walls of the big corner office. From what she saw, there were still none of those human touches that she thought to expect, but there was heavy equipment in place. The type you'd use for delicate machine work. And while all the other desks had been clear, the big oak one in there had piles of paper. She could tell because there was someone pouring over them all. But he didn’t look like the infamous Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. Not unless Norman had taken to wearing red and blue spandex. Not that it was completely out of the question.
"I found someone, but it isn't Osborn," Huntress whispered into her comm. "It's your old boytoy…"
"Nightwing?" Gordon asked, confused. Even that wouldn't make sense. The former Boy Wonder was still acting as Batman in Gotham, wasn't he?
"No, no," Huntress clarified in a whisper. "I think I found the one guy you talk about other than him. What's Spider-Man doing here?"
"Craaaap," was O's only reply.
So this is him, Huntress thought to herself. Oracle's great one night stand…
Since Lady Blackhawk joined the team, every month or so, Zinda forced the Birds of Prey to go down to some seedy bar in Gotham where everyone knew her name -- and it was never the same place -- for what she called a mandatory you must get drunk R & R night. Gordon had refused to join them the first couple of times. Helena got it. Babs could handle anything the world threw at her, but that didn't mean she liked venturing out of her comfort zone. The way Helena understood things, Gordon had always been a stay-at-home daddy's girl type until the Batgirl thing drew her out of her shell. But after a while, Zinda went on a rant about team morale and how it was with the Blackhawks back in the day that finally wore Barbara down.
By the end of each of these outings, they'd always start in on what was essentially a themed story contest... "Who's you're biggest supervillain crush?" Zinda would ask, or Dinah would tell them about the time she slipped on the fishnets right in the middle of a Gotham City riot while frightened Gothamites ran past her in the middle of the street and everybody would then talk about their craziest costume change. Something like that. Gordon, who'd always been a bit of a lightweight, had described her "worst superhero team-up" with a T.M.I. recount of meeting Spider-Man and him jizzing his pants with her on top of him. A few months later, when Helena admitted she once cut up one of her old costumes to use as a swimsuit, Babs decided that the stupidest risk she'd ever taken with her secret identity was the time she let the stranded wall-crawler spend the night in her house back when she was still living with her dad. The second half of that same story started a new round of "Weirdest One Night Stand".
After enough of these get-togethers, it'd become somewhat apparent to Helena and everyone else that Gordon's night with Spider-Man was one of the more salacious adventures in her Batgirl days. It was especially obvious when she was drunk. Babs got oddly specific about things like position, girth and speed. Why she only ever talked about this Spider-guy after a few drinks had become a point of debate for the Birds when Oracle wasn't around, and the general consensus had settled somewhere around Nightwing being her soulmate, but Helena had fucked him herself and she wasn't convinced. He was a fantastic lay and all, but nothing to never talk about another guy for, which is why she always wondered about the nature of Gordon's weird thing for this Spider-guy.
And now, as she was took aim at the wall-crawler with her crossbow, the mystery only deepened. He looked much scrawnier than the Man Wonder for sure... and who was he kidding with that costume? If you needed a full face mask, you were obviously covering a truly tragic mustache or terrible acne scars…
"Huntress, whatever you do, don't draw a weapon on him," Oracle ordered.
"Why not?" she asked, setting her sight on Spider-Man's head.
"Because he'll sense it."
No sooner had Oracle said that than Spider-Man turned, looking directly at Huntress, despite her concealment in the shadows.
"Fuck!" she shouted, firing the bow in reflex.
He dodged the bolt in a flash, and then he was leaping toward her. "Bad move, lady," he said.
Her instinct kicked in and she deflected his charge, flipping him over her back. She quickly reloaded the bow and almost had it leveled at his head when there was a distinct thwip as he leapt up to the ceiling and she found her weapon gummed up with goo.
"Did you just skeet on my crossbow?" she asked, confused.
"What the--" he sputtered from his perch above her. "No! It's a web! Spider! Web! What's wrong with you?!"
"Can we not do the typical hero-on-hero tussle based on hastily jumped to conclusions?" asked a voice over both of their comm-links. Huntress noticed the sudden drop in pitch. Babs had engaged the distortion filter.
"Oracle?" Spider-Man said.
"Spider-Man, meet Huntress," Oracle replied. "She's part of my team."
"You have a team?" he asked. Helena could tell he was checking her out, even if she couldn't see his eyes. "Is it like a Charlie's Angels kind of deal? Because if you need a Bosley, I'm between jobs at the moment…"
"Huntress, the Amazing Spider-Man," Oracle said, ignoring him as she concluded the introductions. "He's working this case with us."
"Oh, am I?" Spider-Man questioned. "Seems like I never did get that call you promised. In fact, it kinda looks like you sent in a sub."
"Would you believe I've had some equipment failure tonight?" Oracle asked.
God, Huntress thought. Spidey-guy's lame wise-cracking's infective… "Please," she scoffed. "If anything, you're the sub, Spider-guy."
"Huntress, is it?" Spider-Man said. "I've heard of you… You're a Gotham girl, right?"
"No, I'm a Gotham grown-ass woman," she replied.
Sure, Barbara fumed within. You've heard of her, but Oracle? "Who the hell's Oracle?" She needed to focus. "How did you find this place, Spider-Man?"
"Thereby lay a frustrating tale of staggering genius," he replied, "but I doubt we have the time..."
Spider-Man had been making his way downtown when he figured it out. The only way to web-swing to New Jersey was along the goddamn George Washington Bridge, which was in the opposite direction, and while he was certainly willing to push past the memories of all the ugliness he'd faced there in order to get to Felicia, the truth of it was, that'd still put him twenty miles from the Multivex plant -- a twenty-mile stretch with maybe three buildings tall enough for a decent swing. No. His best bet was a bus coming out of Port Authority, or maybe even taking the PATH train. Peter had spent enough time downtown when he was working at City Hall to realize the PATH was the Newark commuter's conveyance of choice…
It was something about coming to this realization just as he was in view of the Chrysler Building that made him realize his mistake. He was heading to Newark because he'd been thinking of Osborn as the sneaky fuck hiding his weapons caches in dark, dank corners, and it didn't get much darker and danker than Jersey as far as this native New Yorker was concerned. But after Norman had gotten the kind of legitimacy that Nick Fury and Tony Stark enjoyed when they were in charge, wouldn't he have done the same now that he could? Since he'd gotten into this thing with Oracle, Spider-Man had been so focused on all of Osborn's hidey-holes, because so much of the problems Peter had in the Green Goblin's wake -- like Harry's stint as Norman's successor, or the rise of the Hobgoblin, or Menace coming onto the scene -- had sprung out of some idiot stumbling upon one of Norman's secret lairs... But everything Hand had told him had suggested too much oversight for Norman to just slip away and hide out in one of his bunkers. There were too many demands of his time. Newark was the skuzzy, old school Green Goblin option. But one of Manhattan's greatest Art Deco masterworks? That's where the Iron Patriot would hide.
And the last date on Felicia's appointment calendar had been car service to Grand Central Station, right? That was right next to the Chrysler Building! Seriously, taking the PATH to Newark was ten times easier than taking a train from Midtown Manhattan. Hell, Peter was pretty sure Grand Central didn't even go to Jersey. Hell, if you had car service, why not just take the car over?
So he decided to check out Multivex corporate headquarters, where he found everything conspicuously empty until he found the strangest corner office he'd ever encountered. Peter had worked for a few big wigs in his time. Jameson, obviously... Ted Twaki at TriCorp for a hot second... Even Tony Stark before that Civil War crap... None of their offices had looked like this. This wasn't the posh digs of a titan of industry. This was a workshop, and from the handwriting scrawled all over the plans strewn about the desk and the faint whiff of Old Spice and Brylcreem, it was a workshop that had belonged to Norman Osborn.
Spider-Man poured over the various write-ups and schematics he found. There were blueprints for the Super-Adaptoid, Amazo, and Psycho-Man's control-box; analysis of Doctor Alchemy's Philosopher's Stone and translations of Diablo's research; an expansive work-up by Praxis Research and Development about something called the Medusa Mask. It was all over the place. There were reams on the chemical research of Dr. Jonathan Crane and Zoltan Drago, but it'd all been marked out and discarded. Spidey was trying to remember who they were and what they had in common when his danger-sense tingled. That's when Lady Hawkeye showed up and Oracle deigned to speak to him again.
"From what I can tell, Osborn was using this place to build something," he told Oracle once everyone had calmed down. "He's got designs for everything from combat AI to matter manipulators and chemical inducers for emotional response..."
"Huntress, can you send me copies of Osborn's notes?" Oracle asked.
"Sure," she said, taking a small device from her utility belt and holding it over the desk.
"What is that?" Spider-Man asked, still clinging to the roof above her. "Some kind of high-res portable scanner?"
"It's an iPhone, smart guy," Huntress sighed, snapping a few pictures.
"Right." Peter had been meaning to upgrade his cell for a couple of years now, but that'd require him to pay his bill with some regularity…
"Spider-Man, I'm pretty sure it's only you two and the Black Cat in the building right now," Oracle told him. "Just grab Felicia and get her out of there. Huntress and I can handle dismantling whatever Osborn's been up to."
"How, exactly, do you know it's only us?" Spider-Man asked. "There aren't any cameras in here."
"If you must know, I've got access to thermal imaging from a Latverian satellite that's supposed to keep tabs on the Baxter Building," Oracle explained.
"Would that pick up something like a S.H.I.E.L.D. life model decoy?" he asked.
"It might or it might not," Oracle said. "LMD's are designed to simulate a human life as much as possible. That includes generating a heat signature, but I suppose if you didn't want it detectable for some reason… Wait. What does that have to do with…? Oh. Oh, for fucksake! They had Osborn LMD's running around after the Skrull invasion?!"
"My sentiments exactly," Spider-Man muttered. "And with the modifications he could have made to this one, I'm thinking you guys might still need me on this one."
"Negative," Oracle insisted. "Your priority is getting Felicia out of this mess. If I recall correctly, that was our deal. Huntress can handle herself."
"Oh sure, now we have a deal," he said, dropping down to the floor. He had to remind himself that he'd only gotten into all of this to rescue the Black Cat. "Fine."
"Based on the building plans, she's in a maintenance room in the center of the floor."
He only hesitated for a moment before running off.
"Wow, O," Huntress said once he was gone. "Couldn't get rid of him fast enough, could you?"
"The biggest power expenditure's occurring a floor above you, in the building's crown." Oracle obviously didn't want to talk about it. "Eight months ago, H.A.M.M.E.R. commandeered those floors for 'operational training' by a directorial order I just found hidden within a proposal for a refined intelligence-sharing initiative between H.A.M.M.E.R. and Checkmate. That's where this Osborn LMD's most likely to be."
"Great," Huntress muttered, making her way toward the stairwell. "More climbing..."
*
Barbara had come to an important decision: she was going to wrap up this op, then she was going to bed. She'd ignored it long enough, but it was clear to her now that she'd pushed herself past her limit. Part of her wondered if this newfound desire to heed the warnings she'd been ignoring all day were based on some desperate hope that she might wake up later to find all of this had been a bad dream... but the rest of her couldn't worry about that. She had to finish this business with the Black Cat first.
She was sifting through the pics Helena had sent, trying to get some sense of what Osborn had been planning, but it was too much... Adaptive robotics? Analytical breakdowns of psychoactive relics? Pico-terrestrial technology? Barbara hated to admit it, but she didn't understand the broader implications of most of Osborn's notations.
The AI plans were easy enough to figure out. Norman had obviously upgraded the LMD design for rigorous combat. And given the name of his little pet project, it was obvious what his intention was. Believe it or not, a gal who went by the handle "Oracle" knew a little something about Greek mythology. Deimos was the god of terror. So Norman was trying to make some kind of panic-inducing machine. It made a sick sort of sense. Osborn had earned his appointment out of fear. The whole world was afraid of the Skrulls, and he fired the shot that put them down. A certain undercurrent of terror was just what he needed to maintain control of his empire…
Then why discard all the chemical research by Scarecrow and Mister Fear? Granted, deploying a chemical formula presented its fair share of problems, and Bruce had developed a fairly simple antidote years ago, but how did research on transmutational minerals and Microverse tech solve any of that?
It wasn't until she found the compositional analysis of the Medusa Mask that it dawned on her. Last she had heard, Psycho-Pirate's emotion-projecting mystical artifact had been destroyed, but clearly not before somebody had successfully determined the atomic structure of the minerals that made it up. Maybe with that information and enough resources… But you'd need a huge transmitter… like the spire of a major metropolitan skyscraper…
When she realized what Osborn had designed, her heart leapt into her throat then dropped down into the ass she hadn't felt in years. She'd tried to leave this in the hands of an operative she barely knew?
In her defense, the vast majority of Osborn's secret ops were simple, obvious power grabs. Mass manufacturing Tony Stark's Iron Man armor was a no-brainer. So was reverse-engineering Thanagarian spacecrafts in Star City. But designing a machine that would keep the east coast in a state of mild terror was a cut above. She should have realized how big this project was. Not just because it was the only file she couldn't recover when the self-destruct worm went off. It was also the only project that was located in the New York City area.
This is what happened when you became a "big picture" kind of person… sometimes, you missed the tiny details that told you what the big stuff really was. When Barbara was Batgirl, she was dedicated to Bruce Wayne's mission to save Gotham City. Making his hometown a better place had become Batman's reason for being. During her time with Task Force X, she realized that trying to stem the tide of crime and violence in one major city was putting a bandage on a cancer. The world was bigger than Gotham. Barbara had always considered that epiphany as part of her growth. Every time she'd left to live somewhere else like Metropolis or Platinum Flats, she'd felt like she was stepping out into a larger world. And she was. Even now that she was back in Gotham, she still saw the city she'd once defended as one part of the problem. It meant more to her than she'd been willing to admit before, but she knew that Gotham City could fall and the world would keep turning.
Her mistake in dealing with Osborn was assuming that he felt the same way about New York. Only now did she realize the reason that there was only one of his special projects within 100 miles of Norman Osborn's stomping ground: this was the one that really mattered to him. Even the assault on Asgard had happened 1,500 miles away from the Big Apple. The Deimos Engine was the one that'd keep him in power. Orange alert on a subatomic level…
This was it. This was the big one. She almost wanted to call Spider-Man back in on this, but no. She'd been through worse with the Birds. Helena could do this...
Right?
Oracle broke into Helena's audio feed just as the Huntress was entering the crown of the Chrysler Building.
"H, this is bigger than I originally thought," Gordon said. "You might be facing a modified Amazo unit."
"Those are the killer robots with Justice League powers, right?" Huntress replied.
"Yes," O replied. "I've been tracking Multivex's shipments in the last six months, and it doesn't look like they had enough funding for the complete upgrade, but I just wanted you prepared."
Huntress stepped out into the center of the floor, where she saw the Osborn life model decoy working calmly at a large computer construction.
"Operational parameters synchonized," the robot announced out loud. "Deimos Engine is primed. Initiating final status check."
"Sounds like I made it in the nick of time," Huntress whispered. She'd meant this for Oracle, which is why she was surprised when the LMD turned on the spot to address her.
"You have breached a secure facility," the android said. "In accordance with H.A.M.M.E.R. sanctions, you will be detained until the Administrator assesses your threat level."
"Not gonna happen, robo-cornrows," Huntress replied, drawing her crossbow.
She'd barely set her sight before it was coming at her. This thing was fast. Not Flash fast, mind you, but swift enough to duck a well-aimed hit. She barely managed to dodge his follow-through.
"Jesus, O," she muttered. "What is this thing?"
"You're facing a highly advanced artificial construct built for battle, H," Oracle informed her. "But whatever you do, do not deploy the EMP. We can't risk damaging the device he's built until we know how it works."
"Couldn't if I wanted to, O," Huntress said, as the LMD turned back for another attack. "Used it in Halifax, remember?" She tried the laser glass cutter, but whatever this 'bot was made of, it was tough enough to resist it. She could cut through the artificial skin just fine, but the droid barely noticed. She was just returning the cutter to her belt when the Osborn dupe clocked her. "Shit," she muttered when she found herself on her back with this thing standing over her.
Glistening needle-points extended from its fingertips as it slowly bent down. "Despite your non-powered stature, sedation has been deemed necessary to detain you," the robot informed her. "Due to your ineffectual threat level, it is your choice whether you'd prefer a gas inhalant or intravenous injection."
"Well fuck you, too," she murmured.
Huntress was just about to slide herself past his legs when the android's pin-prick fingers were thwapped with grey gunk. She glanced up to see Spider-Man clinging to the ceiling.
"Well as I live and breathe, Norman Os-bot!" the wall-crawler gasped in mock admiration, dropping down toward the robot. "I've just been dying to meet you!"
"Primary Objective engaged," the automaton said as six razor-sharp claws popped out between its knuckles. "KILL SPIDER-MAN."
"Uh, you weren't supposed to take that so literally," Spidey gulped, helpless at this point. It was all just a matter of gravity now and he was coming right at Os-bot's waiting Wolverine knock-off claws.
"Who the hell taught you to fight?!" Huntress asked, sweeping the distracted robot's legs and knocking it over. "You never attack from that high up!"
"I always attack from high up," Spider-Man said, landing next to her. He tried to help her to her feet but she brushed him off. "It's almost my entire schtick…"
"Well do you always announce yourself when you're trying to get the drop on somebody?" Huntress asked. Os-bot was rising to renew his attack.
"That's the rest of my schtick!" he told her as the LMD charged him.
"How are you not dead?" she wondered out loud. Os-bot blew right past her, targeting Spider-Man.
"I don't know," he replied honestly, leaping clear of its claws and up over its head. "Semi-charmed kind of life?"
"What are you still doing here, Spider-Man?" Oracle asked. "I told you to extract the Black Cat!"
"And I was gonna 'til I got the tingle," he said. "Never ignore the tingle!"
"Ugh," Huntress groaned. "Is this a perv thing?"
"By the way, you're welcome," he told her. His spider-sense screamed and he jumped just as fire blasted from Os-bot's eyes. "Oh, yay," Spider-Man murmured. "It's got heat vision, too."
"Is it a steady stream or concentrated bursts?" Oracle inquired as he flipped to avoid a series of subsequent flares.
"What does that matter?" he asked. "Hot flaming death is hot flaming death!"
"It's concentrated bursts," Huntress reported. "What are you thinking, O?"
"If it's limiting its use of the heat vision, then I doubt the LMD got a full Amazo-tech upgrade..."
"We're calling him Os-bot," Spider-Man told her, still dodging the blistering barrage. "Not that a cool nickname's made him too cuddly…" Guided by his spider-sense, the web-head could easily stay out of the line of fire, but he was trying to stay mindful of this stupid Deimos machine at the same time. He'd hate for a well-dodged heat-burst to set it off, but he was running out of safe places to go. When one scorching shot seared particularly across his chest, he found himself leaping to the one space his danger-sense told him was safe: behind the Huntress.
Spider-Man was crouched eye-height with her high, tight ass before he realized what he'd done. "I'm sorry," she said. "Are you actually using me for a human shield?"
"What do you want from me?" he asked. "I don't think Os-bot's allowed to flambé you…"
"You're telling me Osborn programmed this thing to only kill you?" Huntress scoffed. "Why would he do that?"
"No comment," he muttered. As far as Spider-Man could tell, what people failed to realize about Norman Osborn was the very simple fact that the man was insane. Throughout his dark reign, while the New Avengers were still hiding out and trying to fight the power from the shadows, Peter's teammates would regularly ask what Osborn's motivation had been behind any certain action he took. Because the Green Goblin was one of Spidey's guys after all, wasn't he? Didn't the web-head have some special insight?
"Why would Osborn rename S.H.I.E.L.D. something like H.A.M.M.E.R. when he doesn't even know what it's supposed to stand for?" Luke had asked him.
"How could Norman think Bullseye looks anything like me?" Hawkeye, er, Ronin, asked a few days later. "I've got a much better physique…"
Both times, Spider-Man's answer had been the same. "Because he's out of his pumpkin-loving gourd!" And both times, they got pissed at him because they thought Peter was just giving them the brush off or not taking things seriously. But no, he was trying to impart to them something they clearly were struggling to wrap their heads around… They were used to busting on hoods who wanted gangland territory so that they could have money and power, or alien armadas who wanted to conquer Earth to use as a strategic staging ground to launch a new assault in a millennia-old conflict with some other alien armada on the other side of the galaxy. They weren't used to dealing with a guy who was just plain bonkers-ass crazy and now had the keys to the kingdom.
Osborn becoming "Top Cop" wasn't like when Lex Luthor was President of the United States, with Luthor's massive ego and vendetta against Superman. It was more like if the Joker was running the Justice League. No logic. No rules. Just madness and blood...
"Warning," Os-bot said to Huntress then. "You are currently in collusion with the terrorist threat known as Spider-Man. If you fail to stand down, you will be executed. You have ten seconds to comply."
"He's all yours," she said, stepping aside.
Spider-Man didn't even get to blurt out a confused "What?" before he had to duck another heat blast. He looked over at Huntress to see her snag a baton from the folds of her cape. With a click, it expanded into a bo-staff which she swiftly used to smack Os-bot across the face, right in its eyes.
The android stumbled back, clutching its face in a pantomime of pain. "Severe damage to ocular blast units," it announced evenly before turning toward Huntress. "Your termination has now been authorized."
"What kind of ordinance are you packing, Spider-guy?" Huntress asked, blocking a claw strike with her bo. The fact that Os-bot only hacked through half the width of the staff instead of clean through confirmed Spider-Man's suspicion that its claws weren't actually made of adamantium. "Plastic explosives? Flash bangs? Tactical tasers?"
"I have web-shooters," he answered, pelting the android with a barrage of web-balls to no apparent effect. "Oh, and a spooky belt light that shines a picture of my face."
"And you're on the damn Avengers?!"
"Two different squads even."
"Semi-charmed kind of life, huh?"
"Told ya."
Another berserker attack from Os-bot snapped her bo-staff in two. Huntress was just about to use her limited eskrima training with its two halves when she suddenly found herself lifted up off her feet as Spider-Man swung toward her on a web-line.
"What about you, Kravenista?" he asked, as they swung around the crown in an arc. "I saw you with a crossbow. What kind of trick arrows are you packing?"
"Trick arrows?"
"Yeah, like boxing gloves or bolos or maybe an electro-static stun. I might be able to use that to reboot his drive…"
"I know what trick arrows are, you moron," she said, "I just don't use them. I'm an adult."
"Oh god," Spider-Man groaned as they landed at the other end of the room. "You're one of those street tough, kill-happy vigilantes, aren't you?"
"I'm working through it!" she hissed.
While Oracle was still trying to make sense of Osborn's diagrams, her operatives were going at it like an old married couple -- or attractive, twenty-something actors in the second act of a romantic comedy -- and alone in her tower, Barbara suddenly felt a weird pang in her chest.
"Come on, kids," Oracle said to them both. "We avoided the whole hero-on-hero fight, didn't we? And in New York City, too! That's almost unheard of! Let's just jump ahead to the titanic team-up portion and call it a mission…"
"Sorry," Spidey mumbled as the decoy rounded on them.
"That order's a little more jokey than I'm used to hearing from you, O, but heard, understood, and acknowledged," Huntress agreed before glaring at Spider-Man. "It's got to be you who's making her talk like that," she fumed.
Her? So Oracle was definitely a woman?
Os-bot took advantage of this momentary distraction, zipping at Spider-Man at top speed and throwing Huntress out of its way, sending her spiraling right through a window.
"Huntress!" Spider-Man shouted, hitting the android with a wad of impact webbing -- a variation on the theme cooked up by Ben Reilly during his Scarlet Spider days. His clone had been more than willing to share the formula, and Peter always loaded his web-shooters with the stuff, but rarely used it. Mostly because he still wasn't exactly sure what it was supposed to do. It didn't help that he'd never quite mastered the recipe the way Ben had. Basically, impact webbing was supposed to make a big, goopy mess and that's what Spider-Man needed right now...
Don't be dead don't be dead don't be dead, he silently begged, peering out the shattered window over Lexington Avenue. His spider-sense flared, giving him just enough time to duck the grapple-bolt that flew into the building and lodged itself into a load bearing wall. A moment later, Huntress tumbled into the room on a high-tension wire.
"I thought you didn't do trick arrows," Spider-Man teased as he helped her to her feet.
"It's a bolt with a jump line," Huntress said, brushing him off. "Not much of a trick…"
"You got another one?" the web-head asked as Os-bot tore itself free of the webbing.
"Damn right I do," she said, reloading her crossbow.
The robot's newfound freedom had come at a cost. Ripping through the impact webs had stressed its shoulder joints to their limit. Sparks shot from its rent and warped sockets. Spidey obviously needed to use that impact webbing more often. "You want left and high or right and low?" he asked Huntress.
"Right and low," she told him. "High attacks are your thing, right, Spider-guy?"
"Har har."
Spare me the playful banter, Barbara internally moaned.
While an unbidden image of Peter and Helena raising a happy little brood of impulsive, dark-haired little rugrats appeared in her head, the Huntress and Spider-Man were working in tandem like a dutifully dynamic duo. As the wall-crawler leapt left, the woman one of the deadliest martial artists alive had dubbed "Iron Owl" somersaulted to the right of the life model decoy. Spider-Man shot off a webline that tagged Os-bot's wrist while Huntress's grapple-bolt punched through the palm of its other hand. They swifty secured their lines to the sturdiest points possible -- a support strut for him, a thick bit of railing for her -- before attacking in tandem. Huntress tackled the robot's legs while Spider-Man's leaping kick caught it in the chest. Between the two of them, it was just enough force to tear it free of its damaged arms.
"Critical system error," Os-bot observed. "Engaging WiFi to access Deimos Engine remotely."
Behind them, the device stuttered to life.
"That's a bad thing, right?" Huntress guessed.
"Engine ignition in 90 seconds," the robot announced, and the requisite amount of time appeared on the machine's display screen and started counting down.
"Definitely a bad thing," Huntress muttered.
"Don't worry, I got it!" Spider-Man told her, smashing his fist clear through Os-bot's head. If punching Deadshot hours earlier had felt good, caving in Norman Osborn's face -- or a fantastic reproduction of such -- after all these years had been positively cathartic.
"Please tell me you didn't just do what I think you did," Oracle said.
"What's the problem?" Spider-Man asked. "I beat up the bad guy! That's what I'm good at, remember?"
"Was it absolutely necessary to destroy the head?!" she groaned. "I had almost hacked his hardware through the WiFi! We could have known exactly what this thing was doing and how to stop it!"
"When you put it that way, I feel like kind of an idiot."
"Let's just blow this thing up and go home," Huntress said, fetching some putty explosive from her utility belt. It was a school night and she had classes to teach in the morning. Somehow she doubted Spider-guy had any idea what that was like…
"Not a good idea," Oracle told her. "The device has a charged Antarctic vibranium core. That can liquefy just about any metal with a fifty mile radius. The last thing we want to do is set that off in midtown Manhattan."
Huntress put away her plastique. "What do we do, O?"
Barbara's mind was racing. She was at a complete loss here. With the robot's router destroyed, there was no way she could access the Deimos system online, and even if she could, she wasn't sure what good that would do. Sure, she knew what the engine was supposed to do, but that didn't mean she understood how, exactly, it was supposed to do it. She had managed to piece a digital schematic together from Osborn's notes, but it might as well have been written in Kryptonian. Barbara was a smart cookie, but this involved a level of applied science that was frankly beyond her. She needed more time... Hell, she needed a doctorate in physics, to boot... She needed... She needed the guy who'd achieved the highest scholastic average in the history of Midtown High.
"You've got to shut it down, Spider-Man," Oracle told him. "Now." Barbara spent so much time providing tactical direction and technological support to the people in her life that she forgot sometimes that she wasn't always the smartest person in the room.
"Sorry," said the man who had two IQ points on her. "Must have left my trusty sonic screwdriver in my black costume..."
"You're not fooling me, webs," Oracle said. "I know for a fact that despite what you say and do most of the time, you're not an idiot. You're a goddamn genius. You can do this."
"Oh god, you're trying to flatter me," Spider-Man murmured, rushing toward the device. "People only do that when they're absolutely desperate…"
He shook the cobwebs from his head and tried to focus. "Right, okay. Just got to beat a ticking time bomb. I've done that loads of times. It's almost a cliché at this point. Time for my big brain hero moment, right? Like you said, I'm a goddamn genius. Tested and everything. But if anyone has any suggestions, I wouldn't be too put out…"
"Can't we just unplug it or something?" Huntress asked uneasily. The few times she'd heard Gordon talk about Spider-Man, scientific wunderkind had never entered the conversation.
"Worth a shot," Spider-Man said. "Oracle, can you cut the power to the building?"
"Absolutely." No sooner had she said it than the entire room plunged into darkness… with the exception of the device's display screen, which was now counting down from thirty-seven seconds.
"Must have an independent power source," Spidey mused. "And if you're going to go to the trouble of having an independent power source, you're going to bury it as deeply into the machinery as possible. We don't have the kind of time to find out…"
"Thirty seconds," Huntress announced.
"Exactly my point," he murmured with an eye roll you could see despite his mask. "Right then... Anti-metal core. Might neutralize it if we had Wakandan vibranium, but that's all been rendered inert…"
"Twenty seconds," Huntress said.
"Not really helping," he chimed, attempting to reset the machine's timing mechanism. It didn't work. Os-bot had installed a TylerCo chronometer. No beating that.
"Ten seconds," Huntress replied. "I don't know if your boyfriend can do this, Barbara."
"Barbara?" Spider-Man repeated. Something clicked in his little webbed head.
He realized he'd suddenly solved the wrong problem when Huntress was tackling him. "Hit the deck!" she shouted as the countdown concluded and the engine fired up, humming to life.
"We're not exploding," Huntress observed, her face mere inches from his on a heap in the floor. "Why did I assume this thing was going to blow up?"
"I could have told you that wasn't going to happen," he told her. "My spider-sense would have warned me if the thing was going to explode…"
"What's happening?!" Oracle asked, panicked.
"The building's vibrating…" Spider-Man said, more to himself than anybody else.
"The device is active," Huntress reported. "But I don't know what it's doing exactly…"
"It's generating a calibrated harmonic acceleration field to break down and recombine the molecular structure of all the steel within its operational radius, effectively transmuting it into an element similar to whatever makes up the Medusa Mask, sweet-tits," Spider-Man explained, stroking her cheek.
"Did you just call me sweet-tits?" she asked, batting his hand away.
"They certainly look it," Spider-Man moaned, squeezing her breasts now and grinding his crotch into her pelvis. God! He was hard!
"What the fuck?!" Huntress shrieked in disgust, pushing herself off of him and onto her feet. Was this just his weird kink? Get a superheroine on top of him and start dryhumping away?
"Like you're not into it," he said, standing. "Your costume's got a tummy window!"
Huntress didn't even get the chance to whip out a response before he was heading her way. "Back off!!" she shouted, drawing her crossbow.
"Spider-Man, what are you doing?" Oracle asked over the comm.
"Shut up, Batgirl!" Spider-Man spat. "I'm done listening to you!" Huntress fired at him.
"Spider-Man?" Oracle said as he swatted the bolt away. "Peter?!" He wasn't responding at all. "Huntress, what's happening?"
"He's freaking out!" Huntress screamed, dodging to the left as Spider-Man jumped her. "I don't know what's wrong with him!"
"It's probably the machine," Oracle explained. "Spider-Man's powers enhance certain animal parts of his brain and whatever this thing does, I think it was meant to stimulate those same synapses. It's a fear engine, right? Is he running away from you?"
"I wish!" Huntress replied. "He's… He's coming on to me!"
"What?!"
"I swear, if you don't do something, O, I'm going to have to kill this guy!"
"Hold on, Huntress," Oracle said. "I'm on my way."
"Can you repeat that, O?" Huntress asked, desperately fending him off, but there was no response. Just a click. Did Gordon just say she was coming here?
NEXT: Birds Do It...
- 5
- 6
- 7
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When Spidey Met Oracle