CH5: Caper (heh).

The look on my face must've been damn scary, even despite the mask, because James seemed nervous.

"I'm not mad at you, James," I forced a calm tone on myself. "I'm pissed because someone died using this shit."

"Uh, right, whatever you say, man." James let out a heavy breath. "Still, you're a scary motherfucker when you're mad."

I sighed, and forced the tension off of my shoulders. "Sorry. Where were we?"

"Right, the super drugs," James handed me a manila folder and spoke as I thumbed through it. "The stuff's called 'Cape', you know, like people like you? Basically, it's super strength, super speed, and super cheap. Or at least that's how they sell it."

"'They' as in…?"

"'They' as in no one I know." James shrugged. "I'm just a bartender, man. I did, however, find out that most of the people that sell this are connected somehow to this guy, Allen Marks."

"And he's what, a pissed-off chemist?"

"Nah, nothing so exciting. He's just an old politician." After a second, he added, "He's corrupt, obviously."

"Obviously," I agreed. "Well, I'll look into him. I assume there's a starting point in here?"

"Obviously," James said, copying my tone.

"Don't start; we obviously won't be able to stop until tomorrow."

"Obviously, I didn't start this."

"James, come on," I said, smiling and laughing a little.

"Hey, there's the Spidey I know. I thought I'd lost you to brooding."

"Not quite there yet, man."

"You think I should kiss her when I see her?"

"Huh?" I looked up from my phone, surprised. "Were you talking to me?"

"Yes," Peter said, clearly irritated. "I was asking if I should kiss Gwen when I come in."

"Let me think," I leaned back. Well, in this universe, she seemed slightly more likeable than her original characterization. Actually liked Peter, and treated him right on their date yesterday. But she was still a popular girl, and she might be under pressure.

"Let her make the first move," I decided. "If she kisses you, you should do so from now on. If she doesn't, but looks like she does, wait until you're both alone. Same if she acts and looks like she doesn't even know you."

Peter thought it over as he opened his locked and messed around. "That sounds good to me. How're things with Marks?"

"Annoying," I growled. "The guy's security is tighter than a nun's anus."

"Sorry I can't do much, but you know I'm not much of a hacker," Peter shrugged. "We really lucked out with Frisk's security, and I really think you need something better than a burner phone for protection when you're Spider-ing around. What I did with your signal just makes anyone that tries to tap in listen to the Piña Colada song and see that you're in Hawaii, and I seriously doubt it would stand up to someone like Doom."

Was that exposition?

"You might be right," I scratched my chin, half-lost in thought, when the bus pulled up. Before we got in, I said, "It's not like they hand out pre-prepared phones for wanna-be heroes, though. And besides, I fight drug dealers and muggers, not magical megalomaniacs."

"Aren't you fighting super-drug sellers, now?"

"Totally different, Pete," I mutter, walking in and nodding at the bus driver.

And that's when my day started going downhill in the most spectacular way.

"Hey! If it isn't my favorite quitter!" a muscled, brown-haired asshole wearing a short-sleeved black t-shirt called, smiling at me like we were old friends.

Immediately, I glared at him as hard as I could.

"Brooks," I growled. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Somewhere as far away from me as humanly possible, perhaps?"

Alec Brooks was the bane of my existence before I became Spider-Man. After I took up the webs, he was demoted to being the bane of Jake Fletcher's existence.

When I realized that the skinny kid I played at the park with was, in fact, Peter Parker, I decided I would do everything I could to support him once he became Spider-Man (best laid plans, eh Jake?) and thus, as soon as it was physically possible, I started exercising.

I joined a Muay Thai gym and worked my ass off to be in tip-top shape.

And then, this cocky little shit two years older than me starts mocking me for being the youngest member (even though he was the second youngest) and decided to bully me every day I spent at the gym.

And we all know how I feel about bullies, don't we?

Long story short, we hate each other and bruised up the other in more than one occasion. Whatever obsession Flash had for picking on Peter, Alec had the same for me. With other bullies, it was just regular-old standing up for victims.

Alec made it personal. He focused on me, insulted anything that I liked and demeaned any accomplishments I made. I hate to admit it, but every time he made nothing out of something I'd done that I was proud of… it really stung.

Luckily, my Spidey Sense had become a great tool for avoiding people I don't like.

Still, the asshole persisted. He especially liked to remind me of how I quit going to the gym. He thought it was because I was scared. It was because I could kill someone if I got too heated up in a fight.

"What's the matter, no smart answers?"

"Smart answers would go right over your head," I replied, going over to an empty seat and dropping myself down with a huff.

"Dude, just piss off," everyone's head, including mine, snapped to look at Peter, who was frowning at Alec. In all the years I'd known him, I had never heard Peter stand up to someone like that.

"Ooh! Look, Penis Parker stood up for his-"

"HEY!" and now everyone turned to look at Gwen Stacy, who had stood from her seat and strode over to hold Peter's hand- HOLY SHIT! "You got something to say about my boyfriend?"

My jaw dropped, Peter's eyes widened, and I heard someone whisper 'what the fresh fuck'.

"You're dating this loser?"

"You're so dumb that the only insult you could come up is Penis Parker?"

I chuckled. Okay, I take everything back, Gwen Stacy is awesome.

Alec bristled, "Why you little-"

"Okay, Homer Simpson, listen," I stood up as I talked, making my way to stand next to Peter. "If you think too hard about why someone wouldn't act like a total piece of garbage, you'll blow your brain out, so let me make this easy for you to understand.

"You either leave my friend and his surprisingly cool girlfriend alone, or I'll smack the shit out of you so hard that you great-great-grandchildren will wonder what the fuck they did to deserve being in so much pain."

I smiled benevolently, "Are we clear?"

Alec sized me up for a second, and in a rare moment of intelligence, backed down.

Peter and Gwen followed me back to my seat.

"Surprisingly cool, huh?" Gwen asked, smirking and raising an eyebrow.

I shrugged. I turned to look at Peter and gave him a thumbs-up.

Peter explained, "He approves of, uh, our relationship."

"Gee, thanks," Gwen rolled her eyes. "What is he, your overprotective mother?"

"More like an overprotective older brother," I muttered.

Gwen blinked. "Wait, are you two actually related?"

Peter and I looked at each other. I put my headphones on and Peter made a so-so gesture.

When we arrived at the school, the doors were smashed in and everyone was standing outside. Police cars, ambulances, and a couple of fire fighters were standing around, trying to keep peace.

I stared at the scene, before shrugging. "Well, apparently we don't have classes today. You guys wanna get pizza?"

Peter turned to stare at me, but I flicked my eyes over to Gwen, and realization painted his features.

Gwen probably noticed, but if she did, she played along. "That actually sounds great. There's a nice place around here."

We headed off, before I said. "Wait, I just remembered I have a thing in a place. Later."

I ran off. Luckily, Gwen would think that I was just a shitty wingman.

Which is wrong; I'm the best damn wingman ever.

I quickly pulled out my mask from my bag, stuffed my civilian clothes in it (revealing my suit underneath (Sidenote: I always wanted to do that)) and swung back towards the school at top speed.

I landed on a police car, scaring the crap out of two officers.

"What's the situation?" I tried to make my voice slightly deeper. I probably sounded silly.

"Uh, we think it's kind of like a school shooter situation?" the policeman looked nervous.

"What do you mean 'kind of like'?"

"The 'shooter' isn't using a gun, he took this pill-"

"He's using Cape?" I turned glared at the smashed doors. "Are there any officers in there?"

"A few, they just went in, but-"

"Get them out of there. That pill he took gave him powers. I'll take care of it." I slingshot myself through the entryway before the officer could reply.

I made a three-point landing before breaking into a sprint, focusing on my hearing.

[In the distance, metal screeched and a shrill scream pierced the air.]

There. I ran as fast as I could, breaking the floor under my feet and taking advantage of my natural grace and wall-crawling abilities to cut corners.

Within seconds, I was running towards the scene- GOD DAMMIT!

Of course! Of course it had to be fucking Flash Gordon!

I mean, don't get me wrong. Flash wasn't the shooter.

He was standing, back to the wall, as a short boy with acne and thick square glasses approached menacingly, clutching a warped locker door in his hand.

He reared a fist back and was about to splatter Flash's head against the wall, when I attached a web to his elbow and held it back.

He looked at me over his shoulder, and Flash took the opportunity to run away. When he passed me, he nodded, but I ignored him.

"Don't do this, man," I frowned. "I don't want to hurt you."

The guy smiled cruelly and shook off my web- what.

How in the name of Odin's epic pectorals did he do that?

He threw the locker door at me and I barely had time to dodge.

The boom it made on the way to the place where my head had just been was pretty alarming.

I looked back, saw the door go through several walls before exiting the building, then back at the kid.

"Okay, not gonna lie: that was as awesome as it was terrifying."

His smile widened and he jumped forward. I barely had time to get on the ceiling before he hit me.

He crashed into the wall, but looked okay. He turned back, but couldn't find me.

'Okay, he's crazy strong. That's the obvious answer. Which means it's probably the wrong one. Come on, what power lets you do all that crazy stuff? It could be aerokinesis, but that doesn't seem right, he's doing direct contact.' I hid on the ceiling and analyzed him as he looked around for me. 'Plus, it looks like his intelligence went down. He hasn't said anything, and aerokinetics aren't usually dumbed down. Wait, he shrugged off my web, maybe that's the clue?'

I slowly walked to be behind him, still looking at him with narrowed eyes.

'What power lets him act like he's got super strength, but also lets him shrug off something stuck on?'

Suddenly, it hit me.

'Tactile telekinesis, of course!' I resisted the urge to snap my fingers as I soundlessly landed behind him. 'He's like Superboy. How do I kick his ass then?'

11% of a plan appeared in my head, and I decided to try it out.

I grabbed him by the neck and, before he could retaliate, I smashed him through the floor.

See, the thing about a tactile telekinetic is that they're pretty much covered in this impenetrable skin-tight aura of control.

They can lift anything with a finger, shoot themselves at stuff, analyze objects with a touch, and so on, and so forth.

Basically, they have impenetrable armor against all physical attacks. And I had nothing but physical attacks.

Now, I could probably electrocute him, or burn him, or something. But I didn't want to. I wanted to knock some sense into him and understand where he got his bottle of Cape and why he did something so stupid.

So I had to take a shot in the dark and see if his power worked like I thought. I wanted to see if I could overwhelm his armor. I needed to hit him with too much for him to hold back.

But it needed to be constant and at the same time from different sources.

He landed on the floor below, completely fine, and looked up to glare at me.

"Meep-meep," I said, before blowing a raspberry and running away.

Behind me, I heard him jump through the floor.

Good, come on and follow me, you big stupid lug.

I ran away, hoping from the ground to the walls to the roof and to the ground, being unpredictable as I hopped around, looking for a good place.

There, the gym!

I grabbed a desk from a classroom with a web, pulled it towards me, and then broke through a window with it.

"Come get me, dumbass!" I jumped out and swung through another window before landing in the middle of the gym.

A detached part of me noted how much property damage I was indirectly causing for the school.

"I'm sorry officer, I didn't mean to damage the building so much," I chuckled, hoping that I had cancelled classes for at least a week. "I definitely didn't mean to trash the stupid gym, where the coach keeps bothering my friend and I."

The Cape user smashed through the roof and landed in front of me, glaring and huffing from exertion.

"Jeez, how long do the effects of that stupid drug last, anyways?" I asked, walking around him. "I mean, you must've taken that like an hour ago. All for one guy, I must add. I know Flash's an asshole, but still, it seems a little excessive."

"Not… just… him…" he seemed to struggle to get the words out. He was shaking his head, like there was a noise only he could hear.

"Oh, and he can talk!" I pulled off my hood (how the hell did it stay on through that whole chase?) and titled my head sideways. "Now, what did you mean by that?"

"All of them… every single… one…" he shook his head, and I noticed a little drool leaking from his mouth. Was that normal? Was Cape supposed to do that to him? "No one… did anything… they all just watched…"

"I'm pretty sure Jake Fletcher didn't just watch." I realized how stupid doing that was just after I did it. I had pretty much just confirmed any possible suspicions that I went to Midtown.

"Fletcher… isn't always… there." He growled, before leaping at me.

Naturally, I jumped over his sloppy tackle.

As he pulled himself out of a crater of his own making, I moved quickly.

I attached several long webs to the top of the bleachers, ran as fast as I could up the wall, and waited in the middle of the roof for the Cape user to crawl back.

Fun fact about Midtown: the bleachers were constructed after the gym was finished. They weren't attached to anything.

Now, consider this:

On one side, you've got a few dozen tons worth of metal tubes and plastic seats. They are impossible to move for most people.

On the other side, you've got Spider-Man; who in one universe rated as the fourth strongest hero in Marvel after The Thing, Thor, and the fucking Hulk himself.

And there, in the middle, there was this punk-ass tactile telekinetic with almost no experience using his powers.

The results were as expected.

Once he was in place; I pulled on one of the webs I'd attached and let half the bleachers fall on him.

He barely bothered to lift a hand when he saw them coming, thinking it was nothing.

Speaking as someone that had tried to lift the bleachers before, let me tell you, those sum'bitches are heavy.

The cape user was soon in a squat, using both hands to hold up the bleacher, and cracking the floor under him.

Between the seats, I could see that he was grinning cockily, despite how heavy it was. He could handle that much.

Then I threw the other half of the bleachers on top of him.

A scream of pain was torn out of his throat, and I winced under my mask as I dropped myself in front of him.

A faint shimmer was on his hands and back as he held back the bleachers like Atlas. His knees were shaking, and I could see his eyelids fluttering and getting closer and closer.

I used two web lines to shoot myself back, not letting go as I took a few more steps back, and aimed.

I shot myself at top speed and smashed feet-first onto his stomach. We were out from under the bleachers before they crashed, and we smashed through a wall.

We landed outside; me in a graceful crouch, him in a sprawl.

I walked calmly over as he vomited himself into unconsciousness.

"For the record, I was open to a dialogue about our ideologies, instead of kicking your ass." I reached into his pocket and sure enough, there was a bottle of bright red pills.

"Hm, now where did you get this?" I muttered, looking the bottle over. I walked away, not quite willing to swing away just yet. "How is this related to Marks? What does a corrupt asshole have to do with street-level dealers? There's obviously a shadowy organization behind this, but which one? Could this be a HYDRA scheme? This could be some weird, stupid way to test out a new attempt at the Super-Soldier Serum. Then again, HYDRA's not the only player interested in that…"

So many questions, not enough clues... the fact that I suddenly got shot in the leg didn't help make my day get better.

I was halfway through a double take when I hit the ground and I realized that my leg was bleeding.

"What in the effervescent FUCK?" I asked, face down in the mud.

"Thought you could get away, freak?" I rolled over, gasping in pain when I briefly put weight on my wounded leg, and stared at the SWAT ass-hat holding a rifle. "I saw you standing over that kid. You think you can just roll in and beat up-"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" I calmly interrupted.

The asshole blinked, as if surprised that he was getting shouted at for shooting someone.

"You shot me in the fucking leg, you cunt-basket!" I sat up and stared at the bleeding hole in my leg. "WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?"

"Y-you were, uh, terrorizing-?"

"Terrorizing?! Did you not see the video where I stopped a crime lord?!"

"So, you're not, uh, some kind of imposter?" he winced.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, focused through the pain, and spoke in a strained tone as I worked to keep my mind.

"Listen. I'm going to swing away. I'm going to work to get rid of the Cape drug. And if I ever hear you shot another hero in any part of their body, I'm going to shove my hand up your ass, I'm gonna grab your lungs, and I will pull them out."

The SWAT officer was shaking.

"Did I make myself clear?"

"VERY CLEAR, SIR! IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN!" He screamed shrilly.

"Good," I put some webs on the hole in my leg. It didn't go out the other side, so that meant I also had to rip a bullet out of my body.

I struggled to my feet, flipped off the SWAT guy, and swung away.

I needed to get patched up, and I only knew one place I could do that without questions getting asked.

One of the things I did in preparation for Peter becoming Spidey was joining a first-aid course. Aunt May gave me some tips, since she worked as a nurse, so in total, I felt I was pretty prepared to help out my friend in case he ever came home bleeding.

Now that I was Spider-Man, there were some problems with my brilliant plan.

For one, it's easier to pull bullets out of someone else than out of yourself.

For another, the only fully-stocked first-aid kit I knew of was kept in the Parker home bathroom.

Thus, I was forced to crawl in through the window, grab the kit, and drop myself in the bathtub as I took off my suit and with it, my web bandage.

"Oh, sure thing, me," I muttered, preparing the tools I was gonna need. I grabbed a pair of tweezers and made to pull out the bullet. "I'm just gonna get a tight suit, and I'm gonna go out and fight crooks, and while I'm at it, I'm gonna get shot by some SWAT asshole, because I don't have anything better to do with my time."

I grit my teeth, and slowly removed the bullet. I almost screamed, but I managed to get it out and dropped it on the bathtub.

"Jesus baby shit," I cursed. Briefly, I had a bizarre moment of introspection where I realized what I was doing, and what my state was.

I was sitting on a bathtub in my best friend's bathroom, operating on myself while bruises from the night before where still fading. My suit, which was sitting on the toilet's lid, had a prescription bottle full of super drugs in its pocket.

This was pretty much going to be the rest of my life, wasn't it? I couldn't turn away from being Spider-Man, so that meant that this was going to be the rest of my life. Doing what I could to keep myself alive, having only a handful of people to talk to and confide in.

I never felt as small and helpless as I did in that moment.

It took me a while to snap out of it and stop staring at the bleeding hole in my leg like an idiot. I stitched it up and was bandaging it when someone knocked on the door.

"Jake, sweetie, is that you?" the kindly voice of May Parker asked.

"Uh, yeah," I was freaking out. "I'm just, uh, I'm just using the bathroom for a sec, hope you don't mind."

"Are you okay? You sound pained."

"Uh…" I finished wrapping the bandages. "Yeah, I'm just dandy."

"I'm coming in."

Wait what?

"What? No, wait!"

It was too late. I hadn't locked the door, and it was on the other side. Nothing kept May from seeing me, or the red-stained bandages on my leg, or the Spider-Man suit on the toilet.

… Or the mask on my face that I forgot to take off.

May stared, and I stared back.

"I'm just gonna point this out," I deadpanned, "For all you knew, maybe I just had really bad diarrhea."

"WHAT THE F-"

"Honestly, we should have seen this coming." I muttered.

I was sitting in the living room with Ben to my left and Peter to my right. Ben looked a bit tired, while Peter was wringing his hands nervously.

The latter had been called over from his unexpected date with Gwen by an apoplectic May Parker. For the last five minutes, the kindly woman had been yelling her head off; ranting about how irresponsible and stupid this whole thing had been of us.

Finally, she had stopped to recover her breath, which gave me the chance to say that we should have seen the whole thing coming.

"How so?" asked Ben.

"We're not exactly great at keeping secrets," I shrugged.

"I dunno; we kept this one for about four months. That's gotta count for something."

"Four months? Has it really been that long?"

"Yeah, you started after that field trip to Oscorp, right?"

"Right, after that, I went for a little while without shooters, then after you-know-what, Peter joined, and then I went against Fisk for a couple months…" I leaned back. "Wow, time flies when you're a vigilante."

May finally finished regaining her breath. "You knew?!"

Ben nodded.

"How could you let him do something so-?"

In unison, Peter, Ben and I recited: "With great power, comes great responsibility."

May stopped. She took a second to consider those words, and all that they meant for the Parker family.

Eventually, she fell on a loveseat and sighed heavily, "Fuck."

I realized that this was the most I'd ever heard her swear in a single day. This was kinda sad, because she only said 'fuck' twice.

"So," I coughed into a fist. "This might be a bad time to mention this, but I'm gonna be away for a while. This whole Cape business is worse than I thought, and I gotta put a cork on it."

"Cape?" asked Ben. "As in, a super powered individual?"

"No, as in the drug that made your average teenager into a raging lunatic with powers." I pulled the bottle out of my pocket (May had reluctantly let me put it on since it was kind of everything I had to wear, but she made me take off my mask). "Someone's been moving the stuff around, and all the dealers are related to this guy, Marks. So, I'm gonna pay him a visit."

"Why are you going away for a while? That sounds fairly simple," Peter said.

"Well, I'm pretty sure there's a shadowy conspiracy behind this, so I'm gonna have to spend a lot of time punching secrets out of people." I blinked and turned to look at May. "Uh, sorry, I probably shouldn't-"

"I'd rather know what you're getting up to than not," she interrupted.

We sat in silence, before she spoke again.

"Can you promise you'll try to be safe?"

I considered, before nodding. "I can, yes."

"Okay," she took a deep breath, swallowed, and sighed again. "Okay, go be a hero. Damn Parker philosophy had you from the first day, I know better than to try to keep you away from it. And I know you can't promise you won't get hurt, but-"

"May, I swear that I'll do my best to stay safe."

She blinked repeatedly, and I realized she was holding back tears.

She nodded jerkily.

"Okay."

I walked over and kissed her forehead, before pulling my mask from my pocket and putting it on.

"Peter, Ben," I nodded at them. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

They nodded back.

"Give 'em hell, Tiger." Ben said.

"I'll keep looking over the Cape sample you got me, see if I can find out more about it."

I smiled, and I limped up the stairs before swinging out the bathroom window.

I had a job to do.