Chapter Text
This was supposed to be easy. Supposed to be.
For crying out loud here! He had not only managed to give himself more power through his minute experiment at his apartment, but he’d also gotten pretty used to this whole portal thing!
All he had to do was find a functioning Collider and get it ready to go, which he did!
He’d locked the annoying spider-people out, he’d sent all the other scientist outside so there would be no interference (and well, there didn’t need to be the possibilty of creating another Spot, right? Or getting someone doing their job killed, yeah that as well he supposed), and he, not to toot his own horn or anything (but also to totally toot his own horn because he’d graduated top of his class for your information), knew precisely how to activate it!
He just… really wasn’t expecting for some… British punk version of spider-man to burst through by using a guitar. Like. Seriously? How many of these people were there? And how did they all seem to know the specifics of where he was?
Hm. Actually, that was pretty interesting if he thought about it. He absently ducked away from one spider-man and then from the next, sending absent remarks back at them while he thought about inter-dimensional conversations.
Or at the very least, communication. Would that be more so the technical term? Dimensional communication or dimensional conversation… actually dimensional conversation sounded kind of stupid.
Okay. So was there just some kind of network with all these spider-people or something? Is that how they kept showing up everywhere… though the British one in particular was getting on his nerves.
He said as much as one fist closed around his spider-man’s throat, glaring at where the punk had landed, “I can’t with this guy.”
A kick, or maybe punch, he couldn’t tell because, well, he hadn’t been paying attention to the guy, caused him to go flying back. The Spot would be gritting his teeth if he still had teeth… though thinking about it, he didn’t really have teeth now did he, oh that was realllyyyy weird to— his hand caught on something to his surprise as he stumbled back.
“What in the—“ He tripped over something or the other, going falling back as something gave, the Spot just barely managing to catch himself with a portal, reappearing back near one of the control consoles.
His heart was racing— er well, metaphorically???— when he noticed a bit of fabric in his fist. Oh, huh? “What is…?” Oh, it was a mask…? The Spot raised a figurative brow, “Uh, who’s is this…?”
He looked up to see all the spider-people frozen in place, heads looking between him and— OH. “Oh.”
He had just… unmasked spider-man. Oh! OH WAIT! He was about to toss it back before stopping himself, looking at spider-man as spider-man looked from him to his currently stolen mask. Spider-man… was a lot younger looking than he had anticipated. Like yeesh. He was a lot younger.
He broke the silence with an awkward laugh, “Wow. So… uh, that just… wait, how old are you…?”
Spider-man blinked a few times, apparently stunned before stammering, “Wh—hey give me my mask back, man!”
The Spot just hummed, ducking away as the spider-woman tried to snatch said mask from him. He reappeared, leaning against one counter-top as he looked back at his spider-man, “Okay, but seriously, how old are you…? Like… I don’t know, 13? 14?”
“I’ll have you know I’m 15!” Spider-man tried next to lunge at him, attempting and failing to reclaim his mask. The Spot simply fell back into another portal. Though he wouldn’t be lying if he said that he was… pretty thrown off at the moment.
Like seriously!? 15! He'd been fighting a cocky teenager this whole time? Really!?
“Don’t you got better things to do… like school or something?” The Spot paced down a line of computers, sending away this dimension’s spider-man into a nearby wall when the guy tried to land a kick to his back. At this point using these portals had become incredibly natural, just giving a lazy gesture here and summoning a well-placed portal there.
“Would you just— oh my god, shut up!? I am perfectly capable of being spider-man and that’s that okay!?” The guy looked incredibly flustered, running a hand down his face with all the exaggerated annoyance one would expect of a teen.
“I wasn’t critiquing,” the Spot hissed as he got side-swiped by the punk-spider, sending a few portals that the annoyance unfortunately managed to shake. “Oh would you— stay still!”
He sighed, teleporting himself into a chair. He gave an absent gesture and sent the spider-people to the other side of the room so he could have a moment. Though oh, he’d be such a liar if he tried to say he wasn’t also just trying to show-off his much more attuned poweress. Sure, he wasn’t the best when it came to physical fighting, and he was going to have several bruises after all this mess, but hot damn if he hadn’t gotten the hang of these portals!
It was quite fun— his attention was brought back as his spider-man hurried to try and grab the mask from him once more. The Spot just teleported away again.
“This brings up a lot of questions actually.” He held up the mask as he spoke, gesturing while he walked backwards, using portal after portal to redirect punches. “I mean, I really did not expect this, are you really just running around— wait, what about your family? Do your parents or guardians know you’re in a whole other dimension!?”
“That is none of your business, hey, can someone please get my mask back, Gwen—“
The spider-woman— Gwen apparently— glared over sharply. The Spot watched, sending his spider-man away, turning around and nearly having a heart attack when he came face to face with the punk-spider. He backed up a few steps before gesturing at the spider-punk now, “How old are you…? Are you 15, too, or something?”
The spider-punk snorted, “No, are you, ey?”
“I am very clearly an adult—“ he was startled by a brush of air passing him by, the mask being torn from his grip. The Spot turned just in time to see the local spider-man swing by to return his spider-man’s mask. Ugh. There were way too many spider-people here to keep track of, “Okay, seriously, I just, I thought you were like, a lot older, so this is kind of weird if you ask me, and I’d say I kn—“
“Can we please stop talking about my age and just get back to kicking your butt!?” The mask was tugged back over an increasingly flustered-looking face. “Please?”
The spider-woman seemed tired of everything, giving the spider-men (and even the Spot himself) each a very, very disappointed type look. Or at least she seemed incredibly disappointed, the masks made things a bit hard to read at times. “…I don’t even know what to do with you guys right now…”
The Spot gestured at her sharply, other hand placed on a hip, “Well, now that you’re speaking up, you don’t sound much older than him! Are you all just teenagers, are all spider-people just… this is making me feel very, very weird. And I would greatly appreciate answers or something!”
The local spider-man spoke up, perched on an adjacent countertop, “For your information, I am very mature for my age!”
He dragged his hands down his casually non-existent face, “I… I actually can’t right now. I just. I need a moment I swear.” As the heros gave him quick glances, the Spot simply turned and warped out of there.
He needed to get like a coffee or something. Just. What the hell?
~
Miles stared at the spot that the Spot had been before vanishing into one of his portals. He blinked, blinked again, and then turned to the others, mouth gaping as he tried to come up with something. He managed a cheap stutter, “Did… did he just leave… in the middle of a fight?”
“I guess so! Another eas—“
Everyone’s head swung towards Pavitr, “Wait, don’t—,” “Hey, wait, wait—,” “Ay, mate—‘“
“—y day for Spider-Man!”
A loud blaring alarm began to echo above, heads swerving up before several computers and devices startled to flash warnings and error alerts.
Gwen facepalmed.
~
When the Spot returned, with a coffee in one hand and a bagel (sue him, he liked them okay) in the other, he was met with three teenagers having a crisis while the other one just strummed and tuned his guitar.
Nothing major seemed to have happened except for the security having gone off, there were a few scientist working away on some of the computers, seemingly recalibrating the machine, though everyone seemed to give pause when he re-entered.
He just casually took a sip of coffee, “Oh. So. You all are still here. Cool, I guess.”
His spider-man pointed at him, “You left during a fight!”
The Spot shrugged, gesturing with the bagel, “Remember when you left during our fight in Brooklyn? Because I certainly do.”
“Wow, really!” His spider-man pinched the bridge of his nose, “I clearly caught you, fair and square.”
“And then I escaped,” he shot back, “And then you came back so technically the fight hadn’t really ended. But sure, it wasn’t like you were being incredibly cocky and ignoring me the whole while.”
The local spider-man turned to his spider-man with a disapproving shake of his head, “That is kind of rude.”
He nodded sharply, giving his spider-man a pointed look, “That’s what I said! It was very inconsiderate.”
“I— I was running late to something, okay? So—“
“Whatever. What did you guys do, restart the machine or something?” He turned to the nearest scientist, the woman shrinking back with wide eyes. The Spot sighed, “Oh, so this weirds you out but the three new spider-people in the room are okay?” The woman still said nothing and he would be rolling his eyes so hard right now if he could.
With an absent teleport and another lazy sip of his cup, he checked the main computer, ignoring the way the spider-men and spider-woman readied themselves as though to contuine their fight. The Spot really just… his whole thing had been thrown off and he just wasn’t in the mood anymore.
“Yeah. You did restart it, makes sense. Sure. So—“ He was cut off by a kick to the back of the head, nearly falling flat on his face if he didn’t throw up a quick, startled portal. “Jeez! I was in the middle of—“ he paused, looking around himself. Oh, great where had he… was he on the roof?
He looked about and cursed seeing his cup gone, his bagel thankfully still intact. He tossed it into his face and took a minute to calm himself. Big inhale, slow exhale— Ugh.
Teenagers.
He opened a portal, slowly peering his head through just to be met by the local spider-man’s colorful mask. “There you are, hi again!”
The Spot looked about, “Uh-huh… where the other three go…?”
“Oh, you know, uh,” a shrug, “After you I think and well Hobie might’ve gone to get some biscuits! Though you’re back now, so.”
“Mhm…” He had no clue who the hell Hobie was but okay. “Uh. Are you not going to punch me or…?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Preferably not,” the Spot leaned his elbows out the portal now, “So, uh, nice to meet you?” He held out a hand, “Johnathon Ohnn, or the Spot, I don’t care right now what you use.”
This spider-man stared at his hand a moment before giving it a firm shake, cheerfully replying, “I’m spider-man.”
“Would have never guessed… okay, so… I think I’m just going to uh, go home now, so… sound good?”
“Alright! Another win for spider-man then!”
The Spot wouldn’t be lying if the teen wasn’t amusing to talk with, so with a weak shrug, he yielded. “Sure thing, kid— er, spider-man.”
He slowly sank back into the portal and vanished entirely. He… he was going to go take a nap or something. There really wasn’t any point in his plan now.
Sure, was he still incredibly irritated and annoyed with his universe’s spider-man? Well, duh, but also… it just felt awkward that he knew he’d be trying to kill some random teenager?
So, well, okay— he may have not been the most ethnical person or anything like that (to be fair, big villains had some of the best funding for their labs and they were very casual when it came to regulations; not enough to actively be threatening to the lives of those working for them but enough where they probably should have not gotten away with as many safety checks as they had) but he was a bit eh about actively hurting kids.
Okay so maybe there probably would be a lot of collateral damage with his whole rain hell upon the city and spider-man’s loved ones, but it wasn’t personal. But… attacking and targeting a specific teenager in a personal gripe was iffy at best.
Also there was the high possibilty that he could just have taken himself out with his previous plan. The Spot would not be lying if he said he hadn’t really cared about what would happen to him if it meant he could even have the chance at some wonderous revenge, but now? It just had sizzled out.
Which, on one hand, there went all his current plans for the day; but on the other, less of a chance he’d maybe cease to exist or something crazy like that.
The Spot pinched the area above his face’s hole as he slipped between dimensions, this day had decided to take such a weird turn.