"I don't think that that's true, Peter," Harry said into his phone while sitting at his desk. He was holding the phone in-between his ear and his shoulder as he used his hands to finish fixing up his mask.
"I'm telling you, the matrix is real!" Peter insisted.
"I have to ask, why on Earth do you think the matrix is real?" Harry sighed, rolling his eyes.
"I was cleaning the dishes and then through the window, I saw this cat walking past my house and then a little while later I saw the same cat walking in the same direction! That's deja vu!" Peter said, sounding panicked.
"Has Agent Smith popped around to greet you yet or what?" Harry snorted with amusement. "I am fairly confident that we're not in the matrix."
"How confident?" Peter asked in a hopeful voice.
"Like ninety percent sure," Harry answered.
"Really?"
"Actually it was eighty-eight point seven but I've just rounded it up to ninety," Harry explained. "Anyway, how's everyone doing?" Harry asked.
"Fine, for the most part," Peter said, sounding relieved to know that the likelihood of him being attacked by the agents from the matrix was fairly low, at this point Harry honestly couldn't tell if Peter was faking the whole thing or not. "Uncle Ben's boss is being a bit of a dick to him, but other than that, he's okay."
"I keep telling your uncle that if he ever needs a better job he can try and apply to Oscorp," Harry pointed out.
"He's not really fond of taking charity from anybody," Peter replied.
"It's not charity," Harry rolled his eyes once more. "It's an offer to get himself some valid employment at one of the most famous companies in the world. Do you really think that my dad is ever going to intentionally allow an unqualified man into his company? At best I'd be able to just speed up the job interview process and I can't even promise that. He'd still have to actually prove himself capable. Just talk to him."
"I'll try, but he's stubborn," Peter sighed, knowing that that conversation wouldn't go well. "Anyway, how's the mask coming along?" He asked curiously.
"I'm just about done," Harry replied. "I got to go now, Pete, I'll call you later."
"Okay, see you later," Peter replied.
"You too, watch out for the agents," Harry couldn't help but add.
"Wait, what?!" Peter managed to get out before Harry cut off the call.
"As far as masks go, this ain't that bad," Harry said as he put his phone down and picked up the mask, Harry stared at it for several long seconds before he placed it around his head and stared at the small mirror on his desk.
The mask was a red colour that was the exact same shade as the red of Harry's costume, it also possessed the same black spider-web lines that Harry's suit had. Once combined with the suit the lines should look like they were all connected, the eyes were made up of two photochromic lenses from a pair of glasses that Harry had brought, meaning that in daylight they would change colour and become black, though they should be clear at night.
The foldable helmet also meant that the shape of Harry's face wouldn't be recognised, and Harry was also able to fit in a small microphone inside to alter his voice. It wouldn't really give him a voice like Batman, but it would alter his voice slightly.
"Testing," Harry spoke, hearing his voice. The pitch of his voice was a bit lower and it did sound slightly more robotic than usual but not so much that he actually sounded like a robot. "That'll do."
All in all, it wasn't the best mask that Harry thought he could come up with, but it wasn't bad for a first attempt. Especially given that Harry didn't exactly have as much equipment or materials as he'd like. Though, with that being said, Harry fully intended to come back and improve it and his suit in the future. But for now, it was time to give it a test run.
"We need backup!" A rookie police officer yelled into his radio as he and his partner drove after a group of criminals.
The day started off as normal as any other day for him, giving a few people speeding tickets and mostly just dealing with a few minor problems. But then, that all ended up changing when four thugs decided to break into a bank, assault several employees and drive off in their car. If that wasn't enough, then he was pretty sure that they just hadn't insured their car just as an extra middle finger to the law. He had been placed with an older policeman named Jack, who clearly knew what he was doing and was a devil behind the wheel.
Unfortunately, that didn't mean much when you couldn't get close to the actual criminals. The two in the backseat of the car had machine guns and were happy enough to fire at them whenever they got too close, meaning that they had to stay back to reduce the risk of civilians getting shot, not to mention themselves. Though with the way that the getaway driver was driving, it likely wouldn't be too long before a fatal crash occurred.
"We need to stop them quickly!" He hissed to Jack.
"Don't worry, rookie, we'll get them," Jack said confidently as he kept his focus on the car in front of him. "This isn't my first car chase, boy, with the number of years I've spent serving in the police force, not much surprises me now."
"Hmm," He let out a sigh before grabbing his radio. "Where's that backup?!" He yelled.
The words had barely left his lips when all of a sudden he caught something in the corner of his eye, a red and black blur zoomed past the police car before ascending high into the air. He blinked when he took a good look and realised that it was actually a person, this new arrival shot something out from his arm, it looked a lot like a white piece of rope, he grabbed onto it and swung in the direction of the speeding criminals. The young officer turned to look at his older partner who looked absolutely stunned by what he had just seen, though to his credit he was still driving perfectly.
"You surprised by that?" He couldn't help but ask.
"A bit, yeah," The older cop answered in a shaky voice.
"Whoo!" Cheered Harry as he released his web and shot another before swinging after the car. He released his web and allowed himself to fly forwards until he reached the building on his right, he ran along the side of it before leaping off it and landing hands-first on top of a lamppost. He pushed off the lamppost with ease, shooting himself several meters into the air before he shot out another web. Given the speed at which he was swinging, not to mention the lack of traffic in the air, he easily began catching up to the speeding car.
"What the hell is that?!" The driver of the getaway car yelled.
Unfortunately for him, he never got an answer as Harry landed on top of the car a moment later. Harry reached into the open backseat windows and grabbed the thug on the right before tossing him out of the car, a quick web shot from Harry caused the man to end up hanging from the top of a lamppost by his legs. All of a sudden Harry felt a tingle in his head, without thinking about it, he leapt to his left to avoid the bullets that quickly shot through the car roof and would have hit him had he not moved.
"What the fuck?!" The backseat thug blurted out when he saw Harry sticking to the side of the car.
"You guys should really be wearing your seatbelts," Harry said before he reached in and yanked the gun out of the thug's hand with ease before he grabbed the thug and tossed him out of the car, allowing him to land harshly on the floor. "Ooh, that guy definitely broke something." Harry blurted out upon seeing the thug's landing. "Stil, at least he's not dead, eh?" He added to the other two before he jumped back on top of the car and hopped onto the bonnet of the car, landing just in front of the front passenger. "Now, I consider myself to be a fairly nice guy, so I'm going to give you both a chance to stop this car and surrender," He said in a cheerful voice before staring at the driver. "I suggest you take it." He hissed at the driver, Harry was slightly surprised by his voice as it sounded like he had almost descended down into parseltongue, something that surprised Harry since he hadn't tried to speak it in years. He made a mental note to try and find a snake later and check if he still had it.
"Back off freak!" The front passenger yelled, reaching for a gun. He had barely pulled the gun out when Harry webbed it and pulled it out of his grip.
"You don't want to stop?" Harry asked, aiming his wrists up into the air and sticking his feet to the bonnet. "Fine, I'll stop the car for you." He shot a web line from each webshooter, the webs attached themselves to nearby buildings. Suddenly the car ground to a halt, the driver continued to press the accelerator while Harry was trying to keep the car from moving by pushing it back with his feet and using the webs to keep himself in place.
"Keep going, man!" The passenger shouted.
"I am!" The driver shouted back, pressing as hard as he possibly could on the accelerator. The driver continued trying to accelerate until eventually, the car started to tip over with the back part of the car going up into the air.
Harry leapt off the car with a backflip and landed on his feet just as the car flipped upside down, he reacted quickly enough and caught it, lifting it into the air with the driver and passenger still inside. He couldn't help but notice all the people on the sidewalks on either side of him, they were all staring at him, not that he was surprised given that he had just stopped a car, flipped it over and was now holding it up along with the two people that were still in it.
"Excuse me, sirs, can you please exit the vehicle?" Harry asked in a professional voice, shaking the car as he did so.
"Holy shit!" The driver blurted out as he fell out of the car, followed by the passenger.
"Thanks," Harry said appreciatively before he turned around and dropped the car behind him. Truthfully, Harry was glad that he had managed to catch them during one of those rare moments when there wasn't any traffic. This would have made the traffic much, much worse. "So, I'm your local superhero," Harry stated matter-of-factly as he turned towards the two criminals and began webbing them up. "I bruise, capture, occasionally injure bad guys and antagonise them in every way I can think of. I do home visits, I'm fairly cheap and I even work weekends." He stopped once he was satisfied that the criminals were fairly webbed up. "Feel free to tell your friends about me."
"Who are you?" One random stranger asked, recording Harry on his phone along with nearly everybody else around them.
"Who do you think?" Harry asked, gesturing to the logo on his chest. He was about to say more when he heard the sound of the police siren, letting him know that the police had gotten close. 'Oops, better go.' He thought to himself, not in the mood to be questioned by the police, he could just tell that that would get messy quick. He turned and jumped several meters into the air and shot out a web before he began swinging away.
If one was currently looking for Norman Osborn then they would be able to find him sitting behind his desk in his office at Oscorp. The billionaire was meticulously reading through and signing several documents, hoping that he could get his work finished quickly as he still wanted to read through the report that Doctor Jeffries had left for him. According to the summary that he had gotten, Doctor Jeffries apparently thought that the design was brilliant but could be improved upon.
In truth, Norman hoped that the good doctor was right since the idea of having flight like Toomes had was fairly attractive to the billionaire. 'If only Toomes wasn't such an idiot,' Norman thought to himself. 'If that old fool had simply been capable of working with others then there's no telling how much better this technology could have been right now.'
A knock on the door interrupted Norman's thoughts, he let out a small sigh before calling whoever it was and telling them to come in. A second later his receptionist, Linda, walked in whilst holding several documents in her arms.
"I am sincerely sorry for disturbing you, Mr Osborn," She said quickly, sounding apologetic. "but there are a few more documents that I have for you to sign." She added as she gently dropped the documents on his desk.
"It's fine, what's a few more documents when I'm already dealing with so many," He said with a roll of his eyes.
"By the way, sir," Linda said, shifting slightly. "Um...there's something I think you should see."
"What?" He asked impatiently. Instead of answering, she picked up his TV remote and turned the TV on. Norman resisted the urge to sigh and decided to humour her, he watched as the TV turned on and she found a news channel.
"In today's news, there have been reports of a new vigilante swinging around the city, and I do mean actually swinging," A female news reporter said. "This morning a group of criminals in a speeding vehicle were being chased by the police when all of a sudden a masked man quite literally swung in and attacked the criminals. Pulling two out of the car, throwing one of them roughly onto the ground, causing him minor injuries, whilst the other was left attached to a lamppost but was otherwise unharmed." A video of the criminal that was webbed to the lamppost appeared on the screen, Norman couldn't help but lean forward and give his full attention to the screen just as the video changed into a video of the car being stopped. "Quite a few people managed to capture video footage of the vigilante catching the last two criminals by actually catching the car itself," The reporter continued as the video now showed the car being held upside down by the vigilante. "This amazing display of strength may seem quite unrealistic but I can assure viewers that the videos have been tested multiple times. There are in fact people wondering if this person is not the same person that had been involved in stopping the Vulture's attack on the billionaire Norman Osborn. This would hardly be the first super-powered individual in our history, that title belongs to Captain America, but that does not make it any less impressive. Could this new arrival be joining the likes of Iron Man and the Hulk? Signalling a new age of heroes?" The reporter asked before the screen switched to show a fat man with balding hair that looked like he was in his late forties.
"Honestly, it was amazing!" The man blurted out excitedly. "I was just walking my dog and next thing I know, this red and black guy's holding a car over his head. It looked like he was straight out of the cover of 'Action Comics No 1'! Unbelievable man!" He added with a grin before the screen changed to show a brown-haired man in a business suit.
"This is the last thing we need," The man sighed deeply. "Iron Man was one thing, okay, Iron Man was one thing. But then you add that green freak into the mix and now this? I mean...what's next huh? Flying women?"
"There are many divided opinions as of the moment," The reporter said as she appeared back on one half of the screen with a picture of the vigilante taking the other half of the screen. "Though as of the moment it seems the majority are happy with this new arrival. There has been no official word on him yet, not even a name, though that didn't stop people from trying to make one. So far he has been called 'The Human Spider', 'The Spider' and even 'Spiderman'. And not just from those around during the chase, there were several muggings stopped today and the witnesses that reported their attacks all said they were saved by a masked man and gave very similar descriptions of their saviour, all of which sounds a lot like our car stopping vigilante. It is truly amazing how much impact one person can create in a single day."
"Indeed," Norman murmured, staring at the screen with an unnerving focus.