Chapter 2: Fixin' a Sandwich
I don't own Spider-Man and The X-men, please support the official release
She paused after she entered, swinging the door close behind her.
She wasn't sure what she was expecting. Beer cans every which way, maybe? She did expect it to be dirty, the main area seemed clear, but the edge of the apartment where dirt gathered gave her the suspicion that the cleaning was a rushed job. Either the person didn't care or was too rushed to care, not that she was sure either one mattered. But the word that came to her mind was "small."
As she looked around, she got the sense that it was a small rectangular apartment that was slightly divided into two rooms by two half walls that left the middle open. Looking at the walls, maybe it was supposed to be a part of bigger apartment and someone turned it into it's own small apartment?
To her immediate left was a wall that the door banged up against, on it where hooks with coats on it and an umbrella.
Directly in front of her, from the bit of porcelain she could see from the slightly ajar door, was a bathroom enclosed in it's own little room. It looked like the apartment was built first and the bathroom was added later on as an after thought-or at least thats the impression that enclosure gave her. It didn't match the apartment's walls or design.
Beside the bathroom, to the right, were wooden boards built into the bathroom wall that held towels, soap, and what seemed like a dry rack that held a few utensils, a bowl and plate and some cookware. To the right of said wall was a kitchen sink the dry rack drained into(maybe put there cause the plumbing was there?). Attached to the sink was an electric coil stove with two burners, both the sink and stove had cabinets underneath them. To the right of the sink/burner seemed like empty space (likely where you cook from) followed by the half-wall that also had wooden shelves attached to it that held spices and herbs and oil.
Directly to her right is were plastic shelves with food stuff like rice and canned beans, and a fridge and some sort of wooden cart with a toaster-oven and a cutting board. The fridge was white but going yellow, it was an old model that looked like two block, the top small one being a fridge. The cart looked crude and handmade, but seemed functional and had a trashcan built into the side. On the halfwall on that side of the apartment were shelves with more food stuff, like bread and some veggies that had seen better days.
Rogue first went to the bathroom. She lightly kicked the door open.
"..Wehhhhhh, definitely a guy who lives here," she let out, mildly disgusted by the state of the bathroom. It had a mirror, small sink, trash bag hanging off the wall, toilet and toilet paper, and a small tub in need of scrubbing with a shower and shower curtain. It was definitely not cleaned regularly.
She looked to the fridge-her stomach growled and she walked towards the fridge right a way. The fridge was covered in magnets. It was like the guy collected them or something. There was no rhyme or reason to them.
She opened the first fridge and–
"...What in the…" It was loaded with stuff that was clearly not food. "How do you even pro-nounce these?" Rogue asked herself as she read some of the labels on the containers. "Ah was expectin' beer, maybe a coke-sprite or a coke-dew, but…what is all this? Insulin? Nah, that can't be it," she wondered out loud as she squinted at some of the items. Then her eyes found mayo.
"Yeah, it'sa guy, who else would just mix everythin' together?" She muttered as she pulled out the mayo bottle, praying it wasn't spoiled or contaminated.
She turned to the plastic shelf and found some bread. She cross her fingers…and found no mold! With a smile she opened it up and pulled out two slices. She looked at the toaster-oven on the wooden cart. It was the kind that had a physical timer on it. Looking more closely, it plugged into the cart and on the side that she hadn't seen were collapsible vacuum cleaner and steamer attached to plastic clamps drilled into the cart.
"This thing has it's own power?" she wondered, then shrugged. If it worked it worked.
She turned on the toaster oven, pushing the dial back enough to toast the bread and slipped the bread inside and placed the mayo on the cart.
"Haven't had tomato and mayo sandwiches in ages."
Her eyes turned to the shelf attached to the halfwalls. She spotted tomatoes and moved to grab one. She noted that the wooden shelves didn't match the walls or the floor. They definitely had a DIY feel to them.
"We're these from pallets?" she wondered as she looked the wood. Her daddy, before he punted her to the curb, worked in warehouse and she got familiar with pallets and pumptrucks pretty fast. She also got familiar with what some of her daddy's friends did with the mountains of unwanted wooden pallets, basically whatever they didn't want to pay for. a tailgating party. Looking at the shelves, she found herself enjoying it, unaware of how much she missed seeing stuff like that.
Rogue blinked, and shook her head.
"No point reminiscin', not no more," she told herself.
She picked the most plump one she could find and was about to move to the seasonings to find black pepper when her eyes caught glimpse of the other room past the halfwalls. She was stunned.
To the left, passed the other halfwall that kept the "kitchen" separate was one of those "L-shaped" desk with a hutch and…. No. that wasn't it.
She dropped the tomato on the cart before she walked up to the entrance of the other room, noting two large windows and the floor beneath having an window ac unit that wasn't installed….and her jaw dropped.
"Jiminy CHRISTMAS!" she let out as her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she approached the set up.
It was three desks. One was a small corner desk that perfectly fit the corner of the halfwall and wall, followed by one long desk that perfectly took up the space along the half-wall, and regular desk that took up the rest of the free space along the apartment's wall and held a hutch. The hutch had plastic drawers with various tools and cases with wires, nuts, and bolts. The table had various objects, wires, nuts and screws, plastic that shrinks with heat, stuff half built and stuff being pulled apart. There was some magnifying glass, some sorta gooseneck tool to hold things and place, soldering iron and fan, and tons of other tools. Beneath the desks were different filing cabinets. It was a mess but there was sorta logic to it, hell if she knew what it was.
The halfwall had tons of wooden shelves bolted in with more stuff and even some fancy tiny 3d printer that didn't look so fancy anymore along with spools of plastic. On the wall beside the window was a corkboard with a giant map of new york with various pins and sticky notes tied together.
The thing that took her attention was all the monitors on the desk, yes, plural! The guy had like 5 monitors, 4 tiny ones were squished together to look like a giant screen with the last big and wide turned vertically-
"Wait…are these from laptops?!" She let out in shock.
The big one still had the logo of which laptop it was apart of, the others looked too small and fragile to be sold alone. They all looked more like someone scavenged them and gave them new life. As she took a better look at the set up, the whole thing looked like it was held together with electrical tape, a teeny tiny computer or motherboard-some plastic thingy with blinking lights, and a dream.
In front of the screens was a mechanical keyboard and mouse with a worn down body. Beneath that corner desk were two big desktop computer cases, the kind of thing that was white, bulky, and from a different era, like before social media was a thing.
Curious, she tapped the mechanical keyboard and the whole thing sprung to life.
"Huh, guess he didn't turn it off. And that sure ain't vista," she muttered to herself as the thing loaded, flashing through a few different screens with texts she didn't understand before it booted to a desktop home page she's never seen before.
"Pfff, of course," Rogue let out as she rolled her eyes. The background is a spider logo. Of course the guy facing eviction liked spider-man.
There were tons of files and application on the computer, all with labels she didn't understand, and moving the mouse showed that she could move the mouse between the four conjoined screen to the lone vertical one with ease. And the mouse, it felt really reactive to her movement.
"Who in the world is this guy," Rogue asked herself as she played with the computor…then she looked to her left.
The last corner of the apartment, the right side, was the sleeping area that currently had the office chair. The office chair looked well worn and ducked tapped in certain areas. There was a twin size bed(unmade) that rested on top of a bedbox that had four drawers(two on top of two), the thing took up the entire wall between the halfwall and the backwalls that had the two windows.
"That makes fixing beds harder," she commented.
There was a dresser by the bed that doubled as a night stand that had a few picture frames and chargers on top. On the other wall was a plastic wardrobe and small shoe rack. That wall had pictures and a diploma. The wall with the bed just various stickers
Curious she went to go read the name that was on the diploma.
Rogue froze.
"N…no," she shook her, "no no nononoNO," she said as she backed away.
The name on the diploma read: Peter Parker.
Peter PARKER.
"Tha-thats coincidence! Gotta be! Ain't no way, right? I mean Miz Parker is a sweet ol' lady! Ain't no way her kid is someone who regularly…ah…." She turned to look at the picture by the bed. There were three people, one was an old guy on the larger side, a kid who was probably Peter, and the last one was sweet ol' Miz Parker.
"...Fawk." she let out. "Ugh, fuck!" she let as her hands ran to her head. "FUCK!" She shouted in frustration.
She growled in frustration and kicked the chair away and walked back to the kitchen.
She stopped by the entrance, felt for the half wall that separated the bed from the fridge, and slid down on until she was sitting on the floor. She quickly hugged her knees.
"Ah didn't wanna go to feast cause of ol' Parker, so instead, AH broke into her son's apartment! Good going Rogue! Fuck!"
She took a few deep breaths as she came to terms with her situation.
With one last deep inhale, she exhaled deeply.
"Fuck…" she softly let out as she kept hugging her knees. "This can't possibly get any worse. It just can't." She told herself while shaking head. She blew a raspberry.
She sat there for a bit and just…contemplated the day she had. She let out a mirthless chuckle.
"At this point, the only way this could get any worse is if the spider-man fixed his way on in 'ere."
She froze when she heard the sound of one of the windows being opened. She quickly slid away from the edge of the half wall.
She heard a grunt as well as feet beating the floor.
"Huh? Did I leave it on? " She heard a very familiar voice let out.
She peeked around the corner and had to cover her mouth keep from gasping.
AH WAS JOKING! Rogue shouted in her mind in horror as her heart started racing!
It was Spider-Man!
It was Spider-man who crawled in! He was standing away from her looking at the computer, typing with only his left hand.
Wait, what did he say-Rogue's train of thought was cut short when he used his left hand to peel the mask off his face. She froze. She couldn't see his face clearly, but it matched the picture she saw. She was in Spider-Man's apartment!
He moved his left hand to his mouth and bit down and pulled the glove off. Then he pulled a phone from somewhere on his costume and it rung right away. He answered and seemed to put it on speaker.
"Hey, Yuri, you okay?"
"ME?" a voice said through the phone, "I'm not the one who got shoulder checked by the Rhino!" she said. "Are you doing okay?"
For the first time, Rogue noticed that Peter-Spider-man, the guy's right arm seemed to be webbed up, almost like a makeshift sling.
"Could be worse, doesn't feel broke, just not in the right spot. I can fix that with some effort."
"Jeeeeeez," Rogue heard the woman let out. "And what's with the sinister seven being back."
"Six, they're back down to six. They really love that alliteration. Mrmm," she heard him groan in pain after poking his right arm.
"You sure you're okay?"
"I'll be fine, Yuri. Did you find out who those guys were, the one working with the Sinister Six."
"I…yeah, they go by Friends of Humanity, some sorta Prohuman group."
Rogue's eyes went wide. The brotherhood, and even the X-men, had run-ins with them. They were bigots and didn't seem all the bright, and yet they were always well supplied with stuff. Made hitting them lucrative.
"Really? They didn't feel friendly at all what with the futuristic guns blasting everything, pretty far from being pro human if you ask me."
"They're an extremist group who fear mutants. Honestly, after the Brotherhood of Mutants attacked a few weeks back, I can't say their fears are unjustified." Rogue had to bite her bottom lip when she heard that, scowling through it. "Ah! Not that I, you know, I like you, i mean not like that, i mean-"
"It's fine Yuri, I'm not offended," Spider-man said as he typed more stuff into his computer. "Besides, I don't think I qualify as a mutant," he said which made Rogue blink.
"Wait, really?" Yuri asked, echoing Rogue's own thoughts.
"Yeah. After the brotherhood attacked, I read up on mutants. Thankfully, Willy hasn't underfunded the public libraries, yet. Did you know there's a school nearby that helps them out? The principal there wrote a book on the subject and from what he wrote I don't exactly fit the bill. It's an interesting read if you got time to kill."
"I'm good, I'm more concerned about how and why an extremist group ended up working with the sinister six."
"I hear ya, Otto's a lot of things, but he's pretty picky about who he works with. I think I have a lead. I've been tracking break-ins where people had that symbol the not-so-friendly friends use, I just sent you the data I have," he said as he took off his left glove. "Chameleon sorta gave the game away. I think they're gonna try to spread everyone thin before they hit a big target."
"Oh great," Yuri said sarcastically, "they're gonna run NYPD ragged. And these sites…that would explain why the feds are in town."
"Right? If I had to guess-"
DING!
At that moment, the toaster oven rang, loudly. Rogue froze. She forgot she put the bread in there! Not to mention the tomato and mayo were on the cart! She quickly edged away from the entrance again as silently as she could, but she heard herself.
"...Yuri, I'mmmm gonna have to call you back."
"Huh? Wait what-"
She heard him hang up.
She heard his footsteps move closer and end right by the entrance. Meaning he could see the bread on the cart's counter, along with the mayo and tomato.
Rogue's heart was racing, she could feel the adrenaline start to kick in.
"Whoever you are," she heard Spider-Man say, "I'm warning you, tonight is not the night you want to tango with me. If you head for the door, leave right now, that'll be the end of it. I won't chase you. But, if I walk in there, and you attack me, I can't promise what's gonna happen."
Rogue slowly, and as silently as she could, pushed herself to her feet and stood up. Her gloves were already off, so she pulled back her sleeves. She didn't want this. She didn't expect this to happen. She was avoiding him. But she doubted she could just run. She wanted to, but she saw too much. She doubted it'd be that easy. Instead, she chose to fight.
Nothing was said.
Neither of the two wanted to make the first move.
The apartment was silent, and the scent of toasted bread was now hitting her nostrils, maybe his too.
She looked up, almost expecting him to crawl in from the ceiling.
But as far as she could tell, he was still where his footsteps ended.
He's got busted wing in a sling, his mask is off, and his left hand has the glove off, two areas ah can touch, Rogue thought to herself. Unlike before, when they were in a wide open space and he was covered head to toe, she had better shot when he couldn't just runaway and she could actually touch him. But…that's assuming he didn't web her to the ground.….
She swallowed a wad in her throat, and committed.
She turned and moved while punching her left hand out, bait. With any luck he would go for it!
Faster than she could react to-his left hand shot forward to grab her hand like a loaded spring! As she moved, she saw him, saw his face. He must've recognized her because his facial expression ran from confused to HORRIFIED in an instant!
He didn't grab her, but the momentum carried his hand forward and made contact with her skin just bellow her wrist. It hurt, the impact did push her hand back a bit, but it made direct skin contact. It was far more than a light pinky brush she did earlier. It was more than enough.
Her ability activated and light flashed from the point of impact!
She felt herself swell with power as Spider-Man's knee's buckled.
"Wait-" he began.
But she did not.
She could hear it, hear her momma's voice from when they explored her mutant abilities. Her ability was like live wire waiting for the right connection to be made, and her momma taught her to temper it-make it dull enough to not run wild like it did with her first kiss. She remembers how her momma said she should use it. How she should've use it on Miss Marvel.
With newfound vigor and strength, she gripped his left hand with her right hand at a speed that matched his! He couldn't dodge her grip even with that weird sense of his that she was newly made aware of-which explained a lot. Light flashed from his hand as she sapped the strength out of him, at that moment, she stuck her left palm to his face.
"Ah," she began, "take everythin!" She shouted as she let her ability run wild!
The lights from the points of contact shone strong and bright! Her powers drained spider-man, he couldn't move, he couldn't react. He stayed conscious longer than most, weakly struggling against her power, but he too fell to her ability. And she fell on top of him and continued to drain him of everything. Unlike when the brotherhood attacked the avengers, he was all alone, there was no one here to stop her.
She kept draining him, feeling her body react in a way she never experienced before, not even with Miss marvel and her weird body!
She stopped.
She was on top of him, knees on the sides of his chest. He…was no longer conscious, heck he was barely breathing. With ease she didn't know possible, she shot up to her feet. She looked at her hands.
Her body swelled with power loaded with vigor. She smiled as she enjoyed the sensation, even let out a little chuckle, it was incredible! But when she looked down, that joy left her lips.
She saw Peter's face, the son-no, nephew-of Ol Miz Parker, unconscious. And she drained him without restraint. When her mutant ability manifested, it was when a boy she liked kissed her, and that innocent kiss left him unconscious for three days. But Peter….
"...fuck…" she let out as a wave of guilt rushed through her. Then, her vision began to blur, and something started happening to her body!
"Whaaaaaaa…," she let out before she fell to the side, unconscious.
The two were down and out cold, the last of the light from outside disappeared, and the phone rang and left unanswered in the silent room as the scent of toast wafted throughout the small apartment….
Tap
Tap
Tap tap tap
"Oh hey, new person!"
Rogue looked away from the phone, lightly lifting her head to see a guy with long blond hair an clock shadow. He seemed to be carrying a plastic basket of laundry and some detergent. When he spoke, he spoke with aussie accent.
She went back to fiddling with the phone. It was small for smartphone with a third party operating system centered around privacy, but it worked well enough. A little small for typing on the screen, but it was mostly meant to be casted on other devices.
"Ah the silent type, eh? No worries. You can call me Freddie!"
Tap Tap
Tap
Tap tap tap
"Well, it's Frederick Myers, but my friends call me Freddie."
Tap
Tap
Rogue didn't pay him any mind as she read a news article she found online.
She heard the man sigh as he went about doing his load of laundry.
"So, you single?" he asked.
"..."
"Oh sorry didn't mean to be so forward, it's just, you're pretty attractive and I figured there's no harm shooting my shot," he said as he looked her up and down. All she had on was a white t-shirt that didn't fit and left her navel exposed, and pair of dark shorts, with her hair mostly wrapped up in a towel, and a pair of sandals, "And I'm not hearing a no."
Rogue looked up and glared his way.
He put his hands up in defense but smiled.
"Hey, no harm asking, right?"
Thankfully the dryer buzzed, signaling it was done. She stood up, ignoring him. It was an old dryer that took quarters instead of a card like the new ones, each floor had pairs of 2. Two washers, two dryers, some old utility sink the washers drained into, and two chairs, all in a small room by the stairs.
"Oh, you with Peter?" He asked as he pointed at her basket. It was a basket that was pretty much two baskets plastic welded together, red and blue.
"..."
"He's a guy on this floor, uses a basket like that, towel too now that I think about it. Caught him wearing only that once in here. He was hoping no one would catch him like that cause he was outta of clothes ha ha ha. Nice guy but an airhead-but! He always lends hand, you know, when he's around. He's a reporter or something, so he's out of the houssssssse…pretty much all the time, now that I think about it. And when you make a date, if he's not late he's just blowing it off, you know? The guy's, like, always late for everything, that's his default. I think that's why his last girl left him. Boi, she was a hottie too."
"..." Without a word, Rogue picked up the basket with her clothes.
"Like one time-OH, ah, got a spare quarter? I'm one short."
She pulled a quarter from her pocket. She nestled the coin beneath her thumb and pointer finger and, without looking, flicked him a quarter as hard she could.
"OW! Jeez! That Hurt! Um, thanks? I guess? I mean, maybe you could kiss the bo-"
She slammed the door shut with the back of her foot and made her way back to Peter's apartment.
She looked around, made sure she was alone. She was about to enter the code to the door before she paused.
She crunched her eyes and looked behind her. It was empty.
She looked around, but she was lone. She was sure of it.
Confused, she shook her head and entered the code and quickly entered the apartment.
She let out a sigh of relief after the door closed behind her.
She leaned on the door and took the apartment in, again. Her vision was sharper, but looking at it with new context was like having fresh eyes dipped in nostalgia. She didn't think much of the place at first, maybe a little inventive. But now, after taking from Peter, she saw someone doing the best they could.
She knew who Freddie was talking about, not her name per say, but she knew who it was. The woman Peter dated, shes the reason the apartment looked like someone tried to make a home here. Rogue had memories of the place being sparse, take-out boxes everywhere-even a rat living in a corner Peter had somewhat domesticated. And of course, half built gadgets and gizmos everywhere and he'd just sleep wherever he got tired-at times webbing things towards him when he needed it. It was more of an oversized teenager's room than an adult's apartment! And he just…lived like that.
That changed when that woman came into Peter's life. She made changes for the better. She made him feel like he had a place in his apartment. Like it was more than just a place to work or rest his head. She also helped Peter organize everything into it's own place. Even the rat had a place in the apartment, in a hamster cage, before it passed away from being overweight.
When they broke up, Peter fell back on old habits, but still tried to maintain the same living standards from when they were together. Rogue frowned at that.
"Ah've done gone and ruirnt that, didn't ah?" She muttered.
She took a deep breath blew a raspberry and set the basket down, and slid it close to the entrance of the other room with her right foot. It slid across the floor like puck on ice without tilting over. She smiled at that. She wasn't sure how super her strength was now, but it did feel great. And then she felt bad after remembering why she got it.
She walked to the cart that was now by the kitchen.
The cart has its own power station that Peter made. He saved up and bought the power cells online and linked them in a chain in a plastic shell, connected them to a small controlboard-a bms (battery management system), put in fans, voltage regulators, unique plugs, an external port to plug stuff in, and then encased it all in another plastic box-it all went over Rogue's head in spite of Peter's memories. The end result was a heavy but neat looking box mounted inside the cart. On it's own it could run a fridge for 2 days if it was fully charged, suffice to say it holds a lot of power. Peter even had a folded solar panel he salvaged from a project the Mayor scrapped, that way he could hang the thing out the window to charge the cart if he didn't need power right away, it was stowed away inside the cart.
Originally, Peter just worked wherever there was a socket he could plug stuff into. Most of the time he'd sit or lie flat on the wall while he had stuff on the floor and just worked until he couldn't. At times he'd make scaffold or something with his webs to hold things. But when he was dating, it was pointed out that he could make a better solution.
The cart and the three desks in a corner were the solution. It gave him more options of where to work than just being next to an outlet, and gave him place to organize stuff. He was skeptical at first, but it showed results in him actually getting stuff done instead of constantly searching his apartment for things and leaving a mess of webs everywhere.
"Thank goodness he's house broken," Rogue muttered.
At the moment she had a few veggies in the toaster oven, a wooden cutting board with a few tomato and mayo sandwiches she made earlier. On the stove was a pot of boiling water and cubed soup stock she found, and pan she used to make grilled cheese. She was REALLY ravenous when she woke up. She ripped the floors and damn near tripped over Peter's body to wolf down a tomato and squirt mayo in her mouth to wash it down. She nearly choked on the toast from how dry it was.
After scarfing what she could, she…wasn't sure what she thought she was doing. But she did her best anyway.
The veggies looked roasted enough. She pulled out a bullet blender from inside the cart, ignoring the other appliances in there(including a toaster with a circuit board on it), put it all into the tiny blender, moved over to the pot and carefully poured some of the broth in. Ignoring the heat that would have had her reaching for a mitt a few hours ago, she blended the whole thing until she got nice pale red liquid. She poured that mixture back into the pot. She grabbed a spoon and tasted it, walked over to the fridge, got the last bit of remaining milk and poured that into the soup.
"Not bad," she said after tasting it again with a small smile. Then she frowned as she grabbed her right arm with her left hand. "Does taste even matter?"
She ladled some of the tomato soup into a bowl, happy it wasn't boiling, and moved to the other room. She stopped by the entrance, took a deep breath…and moved to the computer, trying very hard not to look at the bed and the person who occupied it. She placed the bowl down and fiddled with the pc, telling herself the soup was still hot-knowing the wasn't the reason she hesitated.
She wasn't a tech wiz by any stretch of the imagination, she still isn't after she took from Peter, but she had more context, a better idea of what she was doing. For whatever reason, she didn't have Peter's complete whole life story, though she definitely felt she took it. It was a fight to 'remember' stuff from Peter. Some came easily, though, enough to let her use what Peter made with relative ease and follow along with the instruction he has written in different notebooks, other times its like remembering what she had for lunch ten years ago. Thankfully, for better or worse, the guy documented his process and wrote up procedures for himself to follow, even his code had helpful notes in it.
She was impressed by his solo operation, in addition to his physical map of Newyork, he had a map of New York on his pc with stuff he tracked, including construction. Apparently he had an API-a protocol-that connected the program he used to some open-source database to keep his map up-to-date. Someone used it in some block game server to make an accurate version of the city for some reason, Peter tried it and liked what he saw. He also loaded that same map onto his Head's-Up Display in his mask-she didn't know that was a thing. He also kept track of crimes that seem to have a pattern…like say a couple of assholes in a coma left in very visible areas(her doing), also stuff that concerned him like sightings of Screwball and White Rabbit seen working together, and of course, what the Friends of Humanity were doing and potential places to look for them.
Rogue blew a breath from her nostrils. She felt the bowl of soup and found it warm…no excuse. She went to a site Peter used, some local podcast, tuned in and stood up. She picked up the soup, and turned to face the bed and the person lying on top of it.
Peter was there, looking like Snow White waiting for magical kiss to wake up only dressed as Spider-Man.
She swallowed hard and moved towards him. She grabbed the computer chair and sat on it.
"Ah…Ah made you somethin'," she said warily. She felt like he was about to jump out of bed and attack her, but she knew that wasn't the case. He didn't even react when she popped his right shoulder back in. And yet, it felt like he could attack her.
"Tomato soup, cause…you know…" she said, "and Ah…cleaned your place too…well," she looked a the floor where she woke up. Her hand, before she realized what she was doing, was stuck to the floor board. In her ravenous state she wasn't thinking straight and just…ripped up the floor boards. "Best ah could anyway. Sorry about the deposit…so… Ah…Ah just…" she sighed. "Nevermind."
She reached for the gloves she left on his dresser, ignoring the missing a chunk(she didn't know her new strength) and put them on, and then grabbed a spoon.
She gently and carefully sat him up and began to spoon feed him soup. She's done this before for others in the Brotherhood. It took a lot of practice on living people to not let her powers run wild, it wasn't much but some control helped her. And when someone was down longer than a day because she couldn't reign in her power, it fell on Rogue to look after them, an extra stick to motivate her to do better. She'd put a bit of soup in the mouth, tilt the head back, massage the throat to get their body to swallow. The process was easier now with her new strength and, to her relief, Peter did swallow. She was thankful, otherwise she'd have to feed it…the other way.
It was a long and slow process and Rogue listened to the radio as she fed Peter.
"Mark my words! This has Spider-Man written all over it!" A man, J. Jonah Jamison Jr., Peter's Freakin' boss, said. Rogue wasn't sure how he was able to make Peter's hero name sound like pejorative like that.
"I dunno-" The host began.
"Exactly! And that's exactly why you brought me here! You and these influencers you like to bring on don't know, but I do! These terrorist are one upping each other because of Spider-Man! Hell, I'm sure he is part of the Brotherhood of Mutants, ruining the good name of all mutants in this country! And now, the maniac drew in other maniacs who want a piece of the Brotherhood, only instead, they've carving up New York into pieces! And wouldn't you know it? They teamed up with the other yahoos Spider-man unleashed in this city!"
"That's not fair though. Spider-Man has put all them behind bar and he does lend a hand to law enforcement in several documented-"
"Oh wise up, would ya! Spider-Man has beaten New York's finest black and blue before! Hell, one time he beat the director of a homeless shelter near the brink of death!"
"Hold on, back up," A different guest speaker said, she didn't recognize her but her voice seemed familiar. "Weren't those cops convicted for crimes they committed while working for the mob? And didn't that director step down before going to court over allegations of luring homeless women and-"
"Is that the bar, Miss Jane!? Is being accused enough to get the death penalty in the eyes of you OnLiNe iNfLuEnCeRs!? Really now!?"
"Wha-don't put words in my mouth-I didn't say any of that! I just pointed out how you misreprese-"
"-Oh please, you may as well have! For that mememing clickfarm thing of yours to viral the web!"
"I-I don't think you know what any of that means," the host meekly said.
"So what, is your solution to turn a blind eye to crime," Miss Jane asked, exasperated.
"I'm saying PROSECUTE these bottomfeeders. I'm saying: 'tell the cops, follow the law, and give them their day in court!' If you have what we in the REAL world like to call EVIDENCE, then hand it to the police, get victims out of harms way, and not take the law into your hands! Otherwise we get maniacs thinking they can do whatever they want, and its this kind of enVIRonMENT Spider-Man creates! It's why we see MORE lunatics enter this city! Not less! Lunatics like the brotherhood and the anti-mutant crowd! For goodness sake, our own maniacs have their own name, the Sinister Seven!"
"A REAL journalist would know their back down to Six, at times even five," Miss Jane said.
"WELL BULLY FOR US!"
"I-I think it's time for a break," the host nervously said before they cut to commercial.
"How can ya work for that guy?" Rogue said with a mild look of disgust. The guy had it out for Spider-man, and the way he weaved reasonable concerns into his argument made it hard to call him out on some of the bs that was clearly his opinion rather than a factual observation.
The phone beeped a few times, just a series of texts this time. Rogue took off a glove and read them, it was from Someone named Betty B.
Betty B.[Peter I'm srs, if ur ok pls txt Jonah and let him know ur ok (•᷄- •᷅ ;)]
Betty B.[He's about rdy to start calling every hospital for u]
Betty B.[Again!]
"Huh, maybe that's why," Rogue said before setting Peter's phone down. She fed Peter the last spoonful of soup. And sighed, ignoring the ever growing number of calls Peter's phone was getting, various people too. Seeing all the different people reach to see if he was alright….
"... Ah really didn't mean to do this, you know. Ah just…reacted and ah, Ah did what my momma trained me to…."
She said as she looked down at Peter's comatose form. She sighed with a frown.
"There's no point explain', is there?"
Then she scrunched her eyes and whipped her around.
Nothing.
"Ugh, ah must be goin' crazy!" She didn't know why, but once in a while, it felt like someone's eyes were on her.
She took a deep breath again.
She looked at Peter's form. He was…just a guy, if she passed him by the street she wouldn't really give it a thought. Not bad looking nor a model, just an average guy. He kept his brown hair short, but left enough to play around with into different hair style and looks like he shaves regularly. If he tried, she was sure he could be heart stopper, but he was more concerned with being in costume.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled as she pulled the towel off her hair..
"Sorry Peter, but the brotherhood needs me."
It surprised her how much noise it made. In a corner underneath Peter's corner desks, was a small Air compressor Peter got for cheap at a garage sale as a teen and maintained it. It's what he used to get his webfluid into the cartridges. She turned it off and set it aside.
She was both right and wrong about his webs.
Rogue looked at the small cartridge and marveled at it's weight. It had heft for sure, but it was thin and chic and held LOTS of what Peter calls "webbing fluid". It's body was smooth without being slippery and it looked professionally made. The material was strong enough to hold a lot of pressure in a small package and not blow up even if it took damage. It was also easier to store and carry in Peter's utility belt that he had under his shirt-turns out his "uniform" wasn't a onesie.
She set it down and looked at her hands. She clapped them together and started rubbing. She wasn't sure how or why, but she sorta willed her palms to sweat. And almost instantly, silk started to clump together, like glue, and using the ability to stick to things, she was able to focus on certain points in her palm and fingers, and pull the silk apart. Thin gossamer-like strands were stretched between her palms. Using her fingers she was able to quickly manipulate the strands to form a Cat's Cradle.
Peter sorta "sweats" silk out of his palms and turns them into webs. It wasn't the most convenient thing in the world. Given time, fluids, and protein rich food, he could form a human-sized web, a thick one, which he found interesting, but not what wanted. He didn't initially know what he wanted to do with his abilities when he first got them, but he knew he could be more. So he studied the silk he produced, experimented in breaking it down and combining it with other enzymes and chemicals. He sold what he could as a teen, reselling stuff he got offline and secondhand stores, and collecting and turning in cans for cash. He even did underground fights at an abandoned wrestling ring. And after spending many nights tinkering and experimenting, he arrived at his current webbing formula.
Rogue marveled at the jacob's ladder in her hands, before she squashed it in her palms, and rolled it into a tiny ball of silk, and tossed it into the trash. She eagerly grabbed the cartridge, slid on Peter's old Mark V Webshooter, his most comfortable and simple iteration, and inserted the cartridge into the mount.
It had three parts: The Trigger, the Actual Webshooter, and the Cartridge Mount.
The trigger was basically a red rubber tube with a bulbous end thick enough to break but thin enough to press. Said end is nestled on the palm of her hand in a spot where her middle and ring finger could easily reach without straining while the rest of the tube ran down her wrist, beside the actual webshooter, and connected to a trigger on the side of it. The bulbous end stayed in place with a comfortable wide band that ran diagonally down her palm-bisecting her thumb and pointer finger. Inside the tube is one of Peter's first webfluid formulas that found new use, a webfluid that acted like a more sensitive version of silly pudding or oobleck where the fluid acts as a solid under pressure. With a gentle squeeze to the bulbous end, the liquid inside would be pushed down the tube and press against a mechanical trigger-moving gears that indented a valve core to open, release pressure, and shoot out webfluid. Anything stronger than a gentle squeeze, like forming a fist, clapping, or grabbing onto a web line, would just cause the liquid to harden and not cause a misfire.
The webshooter is just a long nozzle roughly the size of a chapstick that shape the webfluid, it had two adjustable gears, and it rested just below her wrist to not impede her hand's freedom of movement and connected with the cartridge mount. It was the most complicated aspect of this specific webshooter design. The gear in the back of the tube controlled flow, how fast webfluid shot out. The gear in the front, past the spanner, was the nozzle itself-it controlled the nozzle's diameter, allowing Peter to control how wide his webs came out manually. Peter made it from recycled watches and took the bronze spray nozzles from some manual sprayer. The nozzles gets worn down a lot but are easy to replace.
The last part, the cartridge mount, sat halfway down her forearm and connected with the webshooter. It was held in place with a band. It was built so that multiple cartridges could be loaded onto the mount, allowing Peter to go pretty much most of a day without having to swap cartridges. It's why Rogue picked it over Peter's Mark VI Webshooterswhere it actually combined the cartridge mount and webshooter together and the rubber tube was thinner and had a thin steel backing plate rather than a band to hold it in place-making it easier to put on and off when he worked his way through college-the downside being he had to replace the cartridge far more frequently-it being designed for shorter stints as Spider-Man rather than spending all day in costume.
Rogue swallowed a lump in her throat, walked up to the entrance of the room, aimed down to the coat rack, pinky and pointer pointing out in that hand sign Spider-Man is known for, aimed, and gently pressed the rubber "ball" trigger on her palm.
THWIP!
Rogue still jumped, but she had a smile on face as her web hit the wall with noticeable Bang. She can testify from personal experience, getting hit with one of these web shots hurt.
Two more quick presses!
Thwip thwip! Bang Bang!
Rogue laughed a little and loosened the nozzle, being careful not to undo it, shooting another web.
Twhip!
This time rather than a quick small impact, a wide net was shot-a little slow and ended up on the floor rather than on the wall.
She moved her hand to the other gear by the central valve, and adjust the flow to be faster and nozzle to a be a touch tighter.
Twhip!
This time a smaller-but wide-net hit the wall with a noticeable impact.
Rogue smiled.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
A series of pounding coming form the wall startled her.
"Hey! Quit dicking around!" she heard muffle voice shout from the wall she was shooting.
"Ohmph, right, people live 'ere." she moved closer to the wall and shouted: "SORRY!"
"SHUT UP!" the voice shouted back.
"Jeez, said ah was sorry," Rogue muttered. She adjusted the two gears, slower flow rate and tighter nozzle.
She aimed up, still keep her other arm on the gear near the valve, gently pressed the trigger for thick but slow rope of web to light hit the ceiling-her other hand quickly reducing the flow rate. She held down and let the rope build and get longer before she lightened the pressure on the trigger aimed at a different part of the ceiling while increasing the flow rate to max and pressing down on the trigger again-briefly so that the tail end of the web stuck to the ceiling with noticeable impact. The end result? A swing made from a rope of webfluid.
She tested the swing with a quick pull before sitting down and enjoy it. Part of her was worried she made the rope too long, but it was just the right height. She kicked off and laughed in amazement as she swung.
"It's so easy to use," Rogue marveled as she looked down at the webshooter. Anyone not in the know would think he produced web naturally like she originally did, but people who did know about the webshooters didn't know he sweated silk in his palms. It was his back-up plan in case he got captured. It also meant anyone who tried to recreate Peter's webfluid would run into a wall from not having his secret ingredient, which she now has. And the webshooters themselves were awesome!
The Mark V iteration of Peter's webshooters was easy to understand even without his technical know-how. The mechanism was basic hydraulics and pneumatics, and it was easy to maintain and replace with over the counter stuff. Adjusting the nozzle and flow speed was just a matter of play and experimentation. It wasn't perfect, there were a few known issues that happened from time to time, and huge downside was any adjustment to the webbing had to be done manually with one hand assisting. It's why Peter kept improving the design and making newer versions, like his current Mark XII Webshooters that was built into his gloves with electrodes, battery, and a tiny computer loaded with lines and lines of code that even made Peter question how he got it to work at times.
He automated the process he used to do manually. The webshooters were different, smaller and sleeker thanks to some sort of spinnerets at the end of the nozzles to shape the web into whatever peter needed. It also didn't activate unless he does that hand sign in some shape or form with an override for emergencies. His thumb's position determined how narrow or wide he wants the web to come out. And the pressure from his middle and ring finger pressing the trigger determined the flow speed of the webfluid. These two features allow Peter to make minute adjustments on the fly! From the outside perspective, anyone would think it was all his power!
And that's not all, the souped-up gloves also allowed him to use a virtual keyboard connected to his phone. Whatever was displayed on his phone was casted onto his Heads Up Display in his mask. With his gloves also connected to the phone, he could type in the air which had it's own issues, but it allowed him to surf the web, read the news, access apps like his map of new york or the camera app, or just watch videos without having to take his mask off. The lenses that made up his Heads Up Display were just Augmented Reality goggles the Daily Bugle got to review(Peter wrote a pretty comprehensive piece), and Jonah let him keep it-to which he repurposed into his mask. That was another thing about Peter.
"Peter Parker you are one resourceful man," Rogue said to herself, "So…why is rent an issue?"
It made no sense to her.
The rent was ridiculous high, for sure, but Peter should've been able to deal with it. It was clear that outside of his powers, Peter was not only a hardworker, he was smart and driven. He had many different skills, including sewing, and yet the rent was always late. And, while she didn't have the full picture, she was pretty sure that near the end of his underground fighting career, he was making more money then than he was now. So why did he give it up? That was the other thing, Peter was the only person she drained completely, but, why was she having issues just recalling stuff from his life? It was like something was actively stopping her.
"Somethin's not adding-"
Crac-SNAP!
Rogue let out a cry of surprise as the rope ripped from the ceiling mid swing! She fell on her butt and back, banged her head against the floor, and then something hitting her head!
"OW! Dag nabbit! Where da hell's that spidey-sense? Ow!" She let out as she nursed her head. Apparently she had ripped something off the ceiling with her web. "Ah know ah aint that heavy," she muttered as she looked up as she shook dust out of her hair.
"Oh, he definitely ain't gettin' that deposit back…." she said as she looked at the damage.
BANG BANG BANG!
A series of loud taps came from beneath her, shocking her to her feet.
"Sorry!" she shouted down.
"FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST! SHUT UP! I'M TRYING TO MAKE A HAM BLAST HERE!" Peter's neighbor from earlier shouted.
"Ah didn't need to know that! Who just announces that?!" Rogue shouted in exasperation.
Rogue double checked everything she had in Peter's Backpack.
His notes, the how-tos he made for himself, some stuff he made for himself that she couldn't buy from the store, and an old laptop he kept inside a box wrapped in two layers of heavy duty aluminum foil(a back-up in a faraday cage). She also put in Peter's gloves with the Mark XII Webshooters. She also took the designs he was still working for his Mark XIII webshooters, something he could attach magnetically onto a bracelet and disguise it as a smartwatch when he was in his civies. She also packed snacks and a water bottle.
She was dressed in her usual attire, dark green body suit, brown overcoat, white scarf, and had her hair done up a bit. She also had the Mark V Webshooters equipped in each arm and fully loaded with web fluid. She tied her shoes on. Double checked that she did what she could. And lastly, turned off the lights.
She attempted to put Peter's mask on, but her hair was getting in the way.
With a light grimace, she ripped the top portion of his mask.
RIP
She put it on, slipped her hair through the top. She booted the Heads Up Display and rubbed her hands together before running it through her hair to keep it out of her line of sight..
"Natural gel," she mused.
She picked up the backpack, and moved to Peter's sleeping form. She pulled out all the cash she had and placed it on his dresser-a meaningless meant all things considered.
"Ah'll make a call when I'm outta the city," She said, "Ah'll try to remember your Ex. You probably prefer someone who already knows about ya, right? Could you imagine if it was your boss who found ya-the gasket he'd blow?" She joked a little.
Silence was all there was.
"Ah truly am sorry, ya know. But my people need me, and, well, a lot of us mutant need all the help we can get, ya know? Just…Ah'm not gonna use these abilities for personal riches is what ah'm sayin', kay?"
She moved to the window, slid it open, and stepped out.
She looked back at Peter.
"Goodbye Peter, sorry you had to meet someone like me."
She stuck to the walls of the building, and slid the window shut.
Author's Note:
It surprised me how long this chapter took. I'm glad folks are enjoying what i wrote, i do try to respond to reviews and dms here and on AO3 as best i can, if you didn't get a reply pls don't take it personally, sometimes I don't get an email about it and find out later when I look into the app.
In terms of the whether i prefer webshooters or Peter's webbing going internal, i prefer the former as it shows off Peter's intelligence, but I did see a short video that argued that Peter should have natural webbing otherwise he could just be another iron-man in an high tech suit or something. I wasn't fully convinced by that argument, but i did like the idea that he leaned in on webs because its what's available to him and it kinda fit with where I want to go with Rogue's power and her characterization on why she believes Peter got his powers.
For those of you who read the breakdown of stuff, sorry if it was too nitty gritty with the details, those of you who are engineers or CS pros who understand this stuff better than me-I apologize for any inaccuracies, and for those of you who read the description of the Mark V Web shooters and thought it sounded a little too familiar-it's basically the webshooter from the 60's cartoon. For those who want a better idea, look up "spider-men: origin supercut" on yt.
For MJ, I liked the idea of her being an influencer, a cool middle between model and reporter.
Whelp, have a great rest of your day or night!