Boy Falls From the Sky 3/3
Fandom: TSN
Pairing: Eduardo/Christy, Mark/Eduardo
Part 2
Now
Eduardo watches Mark write a cheque to the Winklevii, resisting the urge to break through the window and beat up the latest pair of Winklevii clones Divya has chosen as his personal guard.
He follows Mark home, sitting on the balcony of Mark's new hotel room as Mark checks his plane tickets, does some work on Facebook and plays around with the tracker device.
When Mark goes to bed, Eduardo goes home.
Then
The road was blocked off half a mile from the bridge. There was a barricade of police cars keeping people away and beyond that was a stack of civilian cars, piled like bricks in a wall, held together precariously by webbing and lurching violently with every breeze. Some of them still had people trapped inside.
Eduardo left his clothes in the back of the cab and ran towards the chaos, keeping to the shadows so the police didn't see him and start shooting. There was one cop at the side, holding his gun in shaking hands. Eduardo climbed up the wall silently, jumping off and spinning to pin the man against his own cop car, and pressed a gloved hand over the man's mouth. "If you try to call out," he warned. "I will knock you out. I'm here to help."
The cop nodded, eyes wide and scared. Eduardo pulled his hand away. "How are you here?" the man asked. "If you're here, who's on the bridge?"
Eduardo closed his eyes and counted to five until the urge to hit something-anything-faded slightly. "Has she been saying she's me?" he demanded. "Did none of you think that Spiderman was unlikely to be a girl?"
The cop looked over Eduardo's shoulder as though hoping someone else might come along as any moment to rescue him. "Um," he said. "She has your powers and she's wearing the same kind of costume and there are webs all over the buses."
"See, that's where you should have found a problem, because I don't kidnap school buses because I'm not a crazed supervillain." There was the sound of another explosion from the bridge. He had to be quicker. "Tell me the situation. She's already blown up two buses?"
The man swallowed. "Three, we think, but none of them had people in. There's a hostage negotiator trying to talk to her but she doesn't seem to be listening."
Eduardo nodded absently. "Yeah, that sounds like Christy."
The cop's eyes widened. "You know her?"
Something else exploded, and dust rained down on them over the car-barricade. "She's my girlfriend," Eduardo said, before he slammed the cop's head into the car, knocking him unconscious. He climbed over the top of the police car and started scaling the pile of civilian cars.
"You there!" A second police officer shouted through a megaphone. "You on the barricade, get down and get back before someone gets hurt."
Great, Eduardo thought as the police fired a warning shot over his head and a car hit the pile from the other side, sending it tumbling like jenga. Way to go telling her where I am. He jumped from car to car, staying away from the falling vehicles as best he could before diving forward through a gap and landing in a roll on the far side.
Christy was standing in the centre of the bridge, surrounded by five school buses all locked up with webbing and full of children; their faces could just be seen, pressed against the window in various expressions of panic. Christy was wearing a black costume with identical markings to Spiderman's own design but in white, and instead of a full face mask she only wore a plain black band around her eyes.
"Hello Spiderman," she said into a police megaphone. "Nice of you to finally join us."
"Christy!" Eduardo shouted, over the noise of screaming children, the police negotiator and the burning husks of school buses scattered around him. "Christy, you have to listen to me!"
"How about you listen to me for a change? How about you pay attention to me? I do all this and you're still only here for these children, still finding strangers more important than your own fucking girlfriend."
Eduardo wondered if normal couples could fight without anything exploding. "Okay, okay, so how about you let all these people go and then we can head home and talk? Just you and me."
"Hah. Like we'll even get through the door before you have to go running off to a mugging or a hostage situation or to Mark back in Cali-fucking-fornia. Why is it that instead of dating you I seem to be dating Spiderman, a website, an asshole and an entire fucking city? Everyone is more important than me, aren't they? Every single fucking person."
"Miss Spiderman," the hostage negotiator shouted, clearly not knowing any better than to push into the middle of a couple arguing. "Perhaps you and your partner could move this argument elsewhere."
Eduardo and Christy both turned to him at the same time. "Shut up," Christy said. "And throw him your megaphone, I can't hear him properly over all the sirens."
"This megaphone is police property and I can't-
Christy kicked one of the buses, sending it through the side of the bridge and plummeting towards the water below. The megaphone landed at Eduardo's feet, and Christy shot out three webs to catch the bus inches above the waterline. "Much better."
Eduardo raised his megaphone slowly. "Pull the bus back up, Christy. Pull the bus back up and then we can talk."
Christy looked at him, then kicked a second bus off the other side of the bridge, catching that one too and transferring the webs across to one hand. "You know," she said. "These are all pretty heavy. I think I may drop one at any moment. Maybe you should shoot some more webs to help me out, I think it would make you a pretty terrible superhero if you didn't. It would be almost like you were my accomplice."
Eduardo could feel the stares of all the police watching turn on him. Under the gloves, his webbing gloop was sticking to his sleeves and getting all over his hands. It was no use at all.
"Spiderman," a child screamed from one of the buses. "Save us!"
"Yeah Spiderman," Christy said into her megaphone, bouncing the buses up and down. "Save them."
Christy was holding up two buses in one hand which meant that in spite of her claims that they were heavy, she was stronger than Eduardo.
"What are you waiting for?" the negotiator shouted.
Eduardo spun on his heel and wished looks could kill. "How about I go stand up there yelling inane shit and you save the children? Does that sound like a plan? No? Okay, so shut up and let me think." He turned back to Christy. "Okay, you've got what you wanted. You have my complete, undivided attention. What happens now?"
Christy sat on the bonnet of an abandoned car. "Now you can tell me the truth about you and Mark. If I believe you, the children are safe. If I think you're lying, they go in the river."
Eduardo blinked, for a moment convinced that he'd heard wrong. "You have blown up three buses, taken five more captive with their passengers and you are going to kill fifty children just to find out if I cheated on you with Mark?"
"That's not a no."
"I did not cheat on you with Mark. I have never cheated on with you anyone. Spiderman's relationship status is single because I did not set up Spiderman's facebook page. Mark is incapable of being interested in an actual human being and I think he hates me. You, Christy, you are my girlfriend and I am worried about you. I went to California to sort out our finances for the future so that we could keep the apartment and keep fighting crime and I did not sleep with anyone. I am sorry I ignored your forty seven texts but I was a little busy trying to stop Mark from going into business with a supervillain." He took a step forward, finally remembering to breath. "Now can you please pull the buses up so we can go home."
Christy looked at him for a long moment. "I don't believe you."
Eduardo snatched at the nearest car and threw it at her head, running after is as fast as he could. When she ducked to avoid it the webs slipped through her fingers-Eduardo threw himself forward into the gap and reached out his fingertips to just grasp the very ends of the webbing.
The buses kept falling, naturally. Eduardo was pulled right to the edge of the bridge and had to brace his legs against the concrete.
He ducked on instinct and a moment later the same car went flying back over his head, spinning past the suspension cables and down into the river. It only just missed the boat that was working its way ever so slowly down the waterway to get underneath the two suspended buses. Eduardo could feel his arms being slowly pulled out of their sockets, his legs straining against the concrete sidewalk.
"Why don't you just admit it?" Christy shouted as Eduardo ducked a second car. "You like Mark, you like him more than me, he's better in bed than me. Are you ashamed?"
Eduardo gritted his teeth, watching the boat inch underneath the bus. The driver raised one hand to make an 'are you okay' gesture. If Eduardo had any free hands, he would've made a rather less polite reply.
"See, I think you were just using me. You wanted some nice normal life to come back to in New York and you used me to get money for the apartment and for food."
The driver held up one hand flat then waved down. Eduardo didn't waste time analysing what it could possibly mean; he dropped the lower bus directly onto the deck, waited a moment for the boat to steady and then dropped the second one. It landed half on top of the first then fell on its side on the deck.
Christy's foot caught Eduardo around the back of the head and sent him flying into one of the other buses, denting the side and throwing a group of children into their neighbours. He couldn't feel his arms, the soles of his shoes were worn through and Christy was coming after him, tossing the megaphone off the side of the bridge. "Is that it, Eduardo? Am I your pathetic attempt at a normal life?"
Eduardo curled up, reaching into his left boot. "I am Spiderman," he bit out. "There is nothing normal about my life." Then he flipped to his feet and slammed his fist towards her face. Christy's hand closed around his fist and again threw Eduardo toward one of the other buses. However, this time he managed to flip around in the air and Eduardo's hand came out of his boot with a syringe clutched tight in it.
"What's that?" Christy demanded. "Is that from the box in your apartment that Dr Jones gave you? Is it a performance enhancer?" She shot a web out and tugged the syringe from his outstretched hand. "Or adrenaline? I know he was working on something for you. I thought I destroyed it all but I suppose if one vial escaped it couldn't hurt to try."
"Don't," Eduardo said.
Christy snorted at him and pressed the needle into her arm, pushed the plunger down and sent the liquid into her skin. "So what is it?" she asked, tossing the spent syringe to the side. "What was he working on?"
Eduardo let himself drop off the edge of the bus, his feet tangling up beneath him to send him sprawling to his knees. "I took that at the same time as the gloves and webshooters," he explained, slowly as he got his breath back. "Back when he still didn't know if I was in this for the long term." He pushed himself slowly back onto his feet, leaning heavily on the bus for support. "He gave me the shooters to help me fight crime, and that vial in case I ever decided to give up." He almost wished she could see his smile. "It was the cure."
Christy's eyes widened, her mouth falling open as she scrabbled at her arm, squeezing the skin as though she could somehow force it out. "You can't do this to me!" she screamed. She tried to fire web at him but could only manage short limp strands that faded out quickly and landed like worms on the tarmac before they could reach him. "I'm your girlfriend, you can't treat me like this!"
Eduardo limped over to her, blocked her two punches easily then knocked her to the ground. He tugged the mask off her face, held her down with one hand and her kicks were barely noticeable landing on his back. "You are seriously crazy, Chris. Like, to the point of being actually unwell and I think you should mention that to your lawyer because you are going to need a lawyer when I let the police through the barrier and they come to arrest you."
He reached up to tug his mask off his face so she could see his expression very clearly. "You are going to prison, Chris. You are going for a long time and you won't have powers or any way to escape." Eduardo crouched over her, tore her sleeves up and retrieved his webshooters from her wrists, where the last drips of web were drying up on her skin. "Also, I'm breaking up with you."
Now
Mark is sitting in the corner of the bank vault, typing quickly on a borrowed laptop. He looks up when Eduardo smashes the door open with one of the rhino/human hybrid's heads and doesn't bother to hide his smile. "I thought I'd see you again."
Eduardo tosses rhino-boy aside and stalks into the vault, grabbing Mark and flinging him across his shoulders. "If you got yourself kidnapped just so you could see me again before you left, I swear to God I will kill you myself."
"It wasn't intentional," Mark says, closing the laptop and pushing it between them as Eduardo turns and storms out of the bank. "It just happens."
"What do we do with these?" asks a very nervous looking bank clerk, kicking the unconscious body of a rhinoboy that's blocking the doorway.
Eduardo kicks out one of the glass windows. "Call the police," he offers. "Burn it as an offering to the god of rhinos. See if I care." He fires a web at the opposite rooftop and swings until he reaches Mark's balcony. "Does anyone know you're here?" he asks, as Mark opens the unlocked balcony door to step inside.
Mark shrugs. "No one's kidnapped me from here yet. Do you want a beer?"
Eduardo should go and see if anyone else needs to be saved. He ducks inside. "Okay."
"I was thinking," Mark says, holding out an open bottle. "About the people who are after us."
Eduardo takes a long drink from his beer. "You don't need to think about them. I'll keep fighting them and maybe one day I'll find their hide out and blow up that damn cloning machine and then they'll be too scared of actually dying to attack either of us anymore."
"But it doesn't have to be one day," Mark says. "It could be today. People keep kidnapping me and you keep interrupting them before they can get me to their final destination. If you just wait until I get there then you'll know where their hideout is and you can go swooping in to rescue me."
Eduardo takes another drink. "If they see me following, they'll just lead a wild goose chase until they can get me off their tail and then you'll end up in their base with no idea where you are and then they'll kill you without anyone being any the wiser." Mark doesn't look particularly terrified by this. "They'll steal Facebook first," Eduardo snaps.
Mark hesitates, but presses on. "You wouldn't have to follow." He holds up his wrist where he's wearing a watch Eduardo doesn't recognise. "Your tracking device, I planted it in here. You just follow the signal right to me, do your superhero thing and we're both free to-you know."
"Go our separate ways and never see each other again," Eduardo provides. It does sound like a nice conclusion, but the plan is stupid and risky. "Do you know what would happen if Facebook's CEO got killed?"
Mark shrugs, staring down at the cap of his still sealed beer. "Half my shares and the company go to Dustin, god help them; and the other half go to you in the hope that you'll buy yourself somewhere halfway decent to live."
Eduardo stares at him for a long moment, then drains his beer. He is far too sober for this conversation. "You're giving half your shares to a guy in a fucking mask? You really don't have any friends, do you. No. The answer is no. You're not putting yourself in danger, I'm not letting you risk it. I'll sit here all night if I have to and drive you to the airport tomorrow myself."
Mark nods slowly. "I thought you might say that," he says. "That's why I brought you in here."
"What, so you could spend the whole night trying to convince me to change my mind?"
"Oh," Mark says, in the tones of one who hadn't considered that previously but is now realising it would have been a good idea. "No, I drugged your beer."
Eduardo stares down at the dregs of his beer. "You fucking shit-" he manages, before he loses control of his legs and crumples to the floor. The bottle slides out of his hand, rolling across the floor.
Mark crouches down, pressing a tiny computer into his hand. "You can track me on this. I don't know how long the drugs will last, the internet had no idea about the effect they'd have on Spiderman so you should probably come as soon as you wake up." He bounces on his toes for a moment. "I don't actually want to die so, uh, please come?"
Eduardo can see Mark's feet as he stands up and walks away but can't actually move to do anything about it other than tighten his fingers around the computer in his hand.
The door swings shut on Mark's flip-flops.
Eduardo swears loudly and loses consciousness.
Then
Eduardo slept on the plane, the new airport security safe webshooters pinching his wrists, and arrived in California around midnight. He caught a cab to Clarium Capital, used his improved night vision as a guide when climbing up the 80 storey building.
They had a highly advanced alarm system that he'd memorised the schematics of before coming, but it was all designed to stop people forcing the windows or doors. On the tenth floor a janitor had left the window open-presumably thinking no one would be able to climb that high. Eduardo rested in the hallway, folding his trousers, shirt and jacket into the rucksack he'd taken on the plane and pulled on the mask, gloves and boots instead.
Peter Thiel's office was on the thirtieth floor. Eduardo took the elevator up and used a credit card from his wallet to pry open the office door. No alarms sounded.
He had clearly been over-thinking this particular adventure, or simply over-estimating the amount of effort Sean would put into keeping his nefarious plans a secret.
Of course, Eduardo had long suspected Thiel and Sean were working together. All he had to do now was go through Thiel's papers until he found the Plot.
He looked around the office; it was filled with stacks of papers, bulging folders and filing cabinets. Eduardo cracked his knuckles and started reading.
Now
Eduardo wakes up slowly. For a moment he's groggy, can't think where he is or how he got there. Then his fingers tighten on the tiny computer in his hand and his eyes blink away the blur to see the bottom of the drugged beer bottle where it rolled across the floor.
He's alert in an instant, hitting any buttons on the computer until the screen lights up and shows him a map of who-fucking-knows-where with a tiny blinking red dot that is presumably Mark that asshole.
Eduardo should leave him there. He should throw this fucking computer in the nearest bin and leave Mark to get what he deserves. Dustin can take over Facebook and turn it into a giant farmyard for all Eduardo cares and Eduardo will get Mark's shares which would be enough to retire on. He could hire a fucking army of superheroes to protect New York with Mark's Facebook shares.
Mark left Spiderman his Facebook shares. He didn't leave them to Peter-that jerk-or Sean-that asshole. He didn't even cut his losses and leave all of them to Dustin to spend on cakes and ponies.
He left them to Spiderman, because Spiderman lives in a shit apartment and is running out of money and saves people all day every day for no reward. Because Spiderman saved Mark and kept watch over him and hung out with him, drank his beer and let him talk.
It had always taken so much effort to be Mark's friend, but Eduardo had never stopped trying.
He looks down at the computer in his hand. Zoomed out, it pinpoints Mark's location in the downtown warehouse district.
"Fuck," Eduardo says loudly, then throws himself off the edge of the balcony.
Then
Peter Thiel arrived at nine, when Eduardo's eyes were blurring and his back was aching from sitting in one position for hours going over numbers like he hadn't had to since revising for his fucking economics finals.
Thiel's eyes widened when he saw Spiderman spinning in his office chair reading a sheet of figures, but to his credit he didn't flinch. "Suzanne," he called, leaning back out. "Why is there a-"
Eduardo shot two feet of webbing slamming fast as a bullet into the wall beside his head, and raised one finger to his mask in the international gesture for 'shut up.'
"Never mind," Thiel finished. "Fetch me some coffee, would you?" He stepped into the office, letting the door swing shut. He turned back to Eduardo. "Spiderman," he said. "I thought New York street crime was your speciality."
He was definitely more henchman material. Eduardo lifted the sheet of paper he was reading, turning it around so Thiel could see it. "This was right next to your shredder," he commented. "Along with this whole pile here. Do you know what this is?"
Thiel swallowed. "It looks like records of financial dealings between this company and some of its clients. Of course, we respect our clients privacy but if you are conducting an investigation into any of them we will do our best to-"
Eduardo shot webbing over his other shoulder. "This is all the evidence of various embezzlement scams you've been running as the head of this company. Also your plans for the Case Equity investment into Facebook." Eduardo placed the page on top of the small pile. "You really thought you could steal that much money without anyone noticing?"
Thiel took half a step forward. "This is ludicrous. If you don't get out of my office right now I will be forced to call the-"
Eduardo used the chair as a springboard to leap forward and pin Thiel up against the wall with one arm so that the man's feet dangled five inches off the floor. "Sean Parker," Eduardo threw at him. "You put the money back where it should be, keep Facebook's finances secure and tell me how Sean Parker is involved, I'll let you go. I know all your plans, if a single cent goes missing from any of your companies in future I will know about it and don't even think you can hide from me."
Thiel was trembling now, eyes wide and darting and he was scared enough to be listening. "I'll cut you in," he said. "Seventy-thirty and we'll get away clean, I promise."
Eduardo slammed him against the wall hard enough that the shelves rattled. "Sean Parker," he said again. "Tell me everything."
Thiel stared at him for a long moment. "Sean Parker, as in, president of Facebook Sean Parker?"
Eduardo threw him across the room. "Sean Parker, as in asshole Sean Parker; as in evil bastard Sean Parker; as in conspiring with you somehow Sean fucking Parker." He flicked the lock on the door just as someone tried the handle from the other side. "You will tell me every single thing he has told you, everything he told you to do, anything you know about his plans."
"Mr Thiel?" the assistant shouted from the other side of the door. "Are you alright?"
Thiel shook his head desperately as Eduardo stalked closer. "There's nothing, I visit occasionally. He sets up meetings, he has ideas for the site, he owns seven percent of the company, that's it I swear. Everything... less than legitimate is on that pile and it's done, I'm done, please don't kill me."
Eduardo snatched up the pile, riffling through it for the millionth time but it still didn't contain Sean's name or references to anyone who might be connected to him. "Sean isn't using you? You're not working for Sean?"
"I swear, I swear, cross my heart and hope to die. Please, I have a family."
Eduardo pulled his rucksack close with one foot, shoving the papers in behind his clothes. "If I find out you're lying to me, I will come back. If you touch anyone else's money, I will come back. Do you understand?"
The door was shaking on its hinges, letting out a loud thud as something heavy hit it from behind. "Mr Thiel? Mr Thiel!"
"I understand," Thiel stammered, cradling his arm as though it might be broken. "No lies, I swear. No more scams, no more nothing. God, you're supposed to be a superhero, how the fuck do you know about this."
"I'm an economics major," Eduardo said, smashing the window with a coat rack. "Bitch." He leapt out as the door splintered into fragments, tugging the bag over his shoulders as he swung through the streets.
He needed a drink. A drink, food, and possibly a long sleep before he had to change and head on to the Facebook offices and all he'd managed to ascertain was that Thiel wasn't in league with Sean.
Which obviously begged the question 'who was?'
Now
Eduardo smashes through the roof level window of the warehouse Mark's tiny red blip has led him to and lands in a crouch on a rough concrete floor in the middle of a crowd of at least three hundred Winklevii clones.
He somersaults over three punches and a kick and decides that in future he will scope out all hostage situations beforehand. "Mark?" he shouts, staying in the air by jumping from Winklevii head to Winklevii punch. "Mark, are you in here?"
"Spiderman?" comes a shout and Eduardo spins around to see Mark chained to a wall at the far end of the warehouse. There are at least two hundred Winklevii between the two of them. "The clones are Winklevii," Mark shouts. "As in, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. And the evil mastermind behind the whole thing is-"
"Divya Narendra," Eduardo finishes as he fires a web up vertically so he can hang onto the bottom of it and stay two meters above the hoard of Winklevii clones. "I told you I knew."
Something closes on his foot and he looks down to see the clones stacking themselves on top of each other to reach him. He slams one boot into his assailant's face and shimmies further up the web, swaying from side to side in an attempt to get a swing going.
"You are an idiot, by the way," he shouts to Mark. "And I hate you and I seriously considered not coming." He has enough of a swing to fire another web and leap for it, getting him further across the warehouse toward Mark and sending the Winklevii pile topping as they try to lean after him.
"This was a stupid plan," Eduardo continues, "and we are both going to be killed and it will be all your fault." He swings again, trying to get higher on the next web because the Winklevii up ahead are getting the idea and starting to pile up in preparation. "Are you hurt?"
"No," Mark says. "They want me to sign a contract giving them all rights to Facebook. They want to rename it Connect-2-U. Obviously I said over my dead body."
"However," says Divya, stepping out onto a raised platform at the edge of the building flanked by a host of five Winklevii. "We thought Mark's dead body would be entirely inconvenient." He makes a gesture and one of the Winklevii pulls out a gun. Eduardo instinctively curls into a ball to present a smaller target but the shot misses him entirely.
For a moment he thinks he just got incredibly lucky.
Then he falls, the useless half of web falling from his hand as the Winklevii snatch at his arms and legs, holding them out of the way so all he can do is struggle and his webs shoot out through the crowd to hit the wall or the floor. The Winklevii holding the gun re-aims, this time making no secret of the fact that the barrel is pointing directly at Eduardo's struggling chest.
"So, Mark," Divya says. "Sign that contract or your good friend Spiderman will get a bullet right through that masked head of his."
"I settled, I gave you your money," Mark shouts. "You guys just have no idea when to let something go, do you?"
The first bullet lodges in Eduardo's leg and he has to fight the desire to cry out. He can feel blood pooling on his suit and the bullet is pressing in his flesh stopping the wound from closing so he can't kick with that leg, can't put his weight on it.
"Tell you what, Divya," Eduardo shouts through gritted teeth. "You let me go, I'll get you your signature and then I'll kill Mark for you. I'll even take my mask off to do it. That should appeal to your sense of the dramatic."
Mark is staring at him, as though waiting for some sign that Eduardo is lying.
Divya lowers his signalling arm slowly, taking half a step closer to the edge of the balcony. "Aren't you supposed to be the hero of this story?"
The grips on his arms are loosening. "Don't you read my press?" Eduardo asks, forcing his voice to stay casual. "Anyway, you of all people know I have reasons to hate Mark Zuckerberg. If someone I hated was in trouble, I wouldn't save them."
Mark's head jerks back up, his eyes finding Eduardo's face in an instant, the unspoken question etched into every line of his face.
Divya waves a hand and the Winklevii release Eduardo, letting him get to his feet and stretch out his arms. "And why should I trust you?" he asks, coolly.
Eduardo swallows. "You have your sniper pointing a gun at my head," he says. "Worst comes to worst, you kill both of us. It can't be that different to your original plan."
In the quiet of three hundred clones breathing in perfect unison, Eduardo can hear Mark's chains clinking and Divya's fingers tapping a slow, regular rhythm on the rail of the balcony. "Fine," he says, after a long moment. "If you can get him to sign the contract, he's yours to kill. If you can't, I'll shoot you both. How does that sound?"
The Winklevii are parting between Eduardo and Mark like a sea and Eduardo limps between them, horribly aware that the exit is behind him and he's moving further and further from his way out.
Mark's feet are chained level with his head. Eduardo looks up to see the bottom of Mark's flip-flops and the hems of his cargo shorts.
He shoots a web straight up and starts to climb slowly.
"Whatever I've done to make you hate me," Mark says. "I'm sorry."
Eduardo swings upside down, putting his wounded leg level with Mark's free hand. "You're just saying that so I won't kill you. Sign the contract."
Mark's mouth curves into a half-grin. "You're not going to kill me," he says, scrawling something across the bottom of the piece of paper.
Behind them, Divya claps his hands together in delight. "If I didn't hate you so much, Spiderman, I might suggest we go into business together."
"How do you know?" Eduardo asks Mark. He released the web with one hand to reach for the bottom of his mask, rolling it up slowly over his chin.
Mark's fingers press against the blood on Eduardo's leg, sliding into the bloody hole. "You came," he says, leaning as far forward as the chains allow to press his lips against Eduardo's.
The angle is surreal-what with Mark being chained to a wall and Eduardo being upside-down-but Mark's lips are warm and soft against Eduardo's own, and as they kiss the bullet that had been in Eduardo's leg falls from Mark fingers to the floor. The kiss breaks slowly, leaving Mark grinning an idiotic grin while his fingers are covered in Eduardo's blood and Eduardo thinks he might be grinning just as stupidly back.
Because this is Mark and it will never work and they're surrounded by three hundred evil clones, and Mark as just signed over Facebook and they're both about to die.
"Wouldn't be much of a hero if I didn't," Eduardo says as all hell breaks loose.
Then
The lawyer-the same lawyer as before, Eduardo remembered-placed the contracts in front of him and Eduardo had been about to laugh before he realised that nobody else was. No one had so much as made eye contact, not even the lawyer who pushed his pen across the table then stood back so Eduardo could read.
He was shaking by the end of the first page, by the time he'd scanned the second he felt sick. He could see his father's face, could hear what he would say and was saying it all over and over in his own head. How could you be so stupid? Don't you think? Call yourself a businessman, you're not fit to run a hot dog stand.
"What is this?" something of Spiderman must've echoed in his voice because the lawyer actually took half a step back, staring at the table as though it might leap up to protect him.
"Well, as you know we had some new investors-"
Eduardo raised the contract, inches away from pinning the lawyer against the wall and punching him to within an inch of his fucking life. "What is this?"
The lawyer gulped, glancing over Eduardo's shoulder.
Eduardo wanted to blame Sean, he was burning to blame Sean but Mark. Mark must have approved this. Mark was CEO and all decisions like this would have had to go through him. Eduardo wanted to scream, to hit something, to pummel some supervillain into the ground until he couldn't even think anymore.
"If you'll let me-"
It must have been Mark. Mark had done this. Eduardo turned on his heel to see Mark sitting at his laptop, headphones blocking out the whole fucking world because nothing in it could possibly ever compare in importance to that of the fucking code he was working on. Mark typing some fucking shit about how to betray his only fucking friend and Sean leaning there next to him like some kind of bodyguard.
Maybe Sean wasn't the supervillain, maybe it was Mark. Maybe it had always been Mark. Maybe Eduardo would be totally justified in killing Mark because Mark was an asshole and at some point Eduardo must have made some kind of decision because he was pushing through the doors and storming through a crowd of people who didn't dare to even look at him.
"Mark!"
Sean took half a step forward because he didn't know how many different ways Eduardo had planned to kill him. "He's wired in."
Like Mark was some fucking robot that Sean could plug it and make it do tricks. Like he was some kind of money making machine spewing out code to get Sean his seven fucking percent to spend on hookers and crack. Eduardo wanted to smash Mark's face and shatter Sean's ribs and he settled for grabbing the laptop out from under Mark's fingers and smashing it down.
It broke into an almost satisfying number of tiny, unrecoverable pieces. "How about now? Are you still wired in?"
Mark's fingers hovered for a moment in the air as though he couldn't quite understand why he wasn't still typing. Then he looked up.
"You issued 24-million new shares of stock," Eduardo said and he could hear his voice shaking, his hands clenching into fists at his sides so they wouldn't reach for Mark's neck and a tiny part of his mind wishing Mark would deny it. Just deny it, misunderstand it, act like he had no fucking clue and it was all Sean's fault and then Eduardo could just kill Sean and be done with it.
But Mark's face was shut down and he didn't quite meet Eduardo's eyes. "You were told that if new investors came along-"
It was like fighting ravenous trolls, how the second always stayed hidden until they could deliver the perfect punch right into your gut. "How much were your shares diluted, how much were his?" He could see the answer in Mark's eyes, the flash of triumph in Sean's.
"You signed the papers," Mark said, like that was all it was. Like a lawyer didn't write the papers, Mark didn't approve the papers, everything comes down to the fact that Eduardo fucking signed them.
"You set me up." Oh God, it was so clear now. All those months Eduardo had spent saving people, trying to make New York a safer fucking place, trying to work out what Sean could be up to and all that time it was Mark. Mark making plans and pushing forward.
What did you mean get left behind.
"It's gonna be like I'm not a part of Facebook."
"It won't be like you're not a part of Facebook," Sean said. "You're not a part of Facebook."
"My name's on the masthead," Eduardo said. He was still talking to Mark, Mark who was ignoring him to the best of his ability, probably thinking about all the code he'd just lost and how long it would take him to redo.
"You might want to check again."
Eduardo froze, actually froze his mind whirring without him for a moment while all he could do was stand there and stare at Mark's unresponsive head. Thoughts ran from his head from 'what a good joke' to 'you are going to die and no one will hear you scream.'
None of them helped. No one was joking, and he couldn't kill anyone. "This is because I froze the account," he said-stupidly-because they were still staring at him and maybe if he said it out loud he could start believing it.
"You think we were going to let you parade around in your ridiculous suits pretending you were running this company?"
Eduardo turned on him, focusing all his anger at this one fucking thorn in his fucking side and for a moment he didn't care if Sean was a supervillain or not. "Sorry," he threw like a punch. "My Prada's in the cleaners along with my hoodie and my fuck-you flip-flops you pretentious douchbag." He wasn't entirely sure if he was talking about Sean or Mark or both. He really didn't care either way.
Sean took half a step away from him. "Security's here. You'll be leaving now."
Eduardo was tempted-sorely tempted-to show Sean just how effective his precious 'security' would be against Spiderman by beating them to a pulp, and then beating Sean and Mark and-fuck-anyone else who got in fucking range.
But what difference would it make? Mark wasn't even looking at him, distracted already by code and by Sean Parker's amazingness and whatever the fuck else. "Tell me this isn't about me getting into the Phoenix," he asked Mark's back. "Tell me this isn't-" He'd barely even gone there, never found out of he'd made it all the way because he'd missed so many initiation ceremonies out saving lives.
But Mark didn't know that. He's been so obsessed with those damn clubs and Eduardo had never even tried to explain that there were more important things. But a finals club, all of this over a fucking finals club? No, this had to be personal and the only think Mark cared about was Facebook. Facebook and the users of Facebook and the reputation of Facebook.
He swallowed, remembering Divya Narendra's smug grin."Is this about the story with the chicken?"
If only Narendra could see them now. "I bet what you hated most is that they identified me as a co-founder of Facebook, which I am. You better lawyer up, asshole, because I'm not coming back for my thirty percent. I'm coming back for everything."
Sean looked over his shoulder at the two security guys. "Get him out of here," he said, like the two bodybuilders had a hope in Hell of taking Eduardo anywhere he didn't want to go.
Mark didn't look up. There was nothing else to be done here. "I'm going."
"Hang on," Sean took a step closer, a tiny hint of a self satisfied grin on his face as he tugged a check out of his pocket. "I almost forgot, there's your $19,000. I wouldn't cash it though, I drew it on the account you froze-"
Eduardo drew back his fist to smash Sean's smirk to a thousand tiny pieces and felt a jolt of satisfaction as he watched Sean flinch away.
He flinched away from Eduardo. Not even from Spiderman, from Eduardo because when it came down to it what the fuck was Sean Parker? A few lucky breaks and a smile he practiced in front of the mirror.
I'm Spiderman, Eduardo thought as Sean took a stumbling step back as though he still expected to be punched. Bitch.
Eduardo laughed. "I like standing next to you, Sean. It makes me look so tough."
He didn't look at Mark again, just turned on his heel and let security follow him out like bodyguards to royalty.
For the first time it occurred to him that Sean couldn't possibly be a supervillain. He didn't have the balls.
Now
The cloning machine burns blue and green. It's pretty, in a 'thank god that's over' kind of way and they sit on the roof of a neighbouring building to watch it. Mark's flip flips are knocking against Eduardo's red and blue boots as they hang in mid air. Eduardo folds Divya's contract into a paper airplane and tosses it carefully down into the flames.
Mark rests his head on Eduardo's shoulder and Eduardo's arm falls casually around his waist, like one kiss in a high pressure situation means they're dating now. Eduardo cares less than he probably should. Mark doesn't seem to care at all.
"You're an idiot," Eduardo says, in case this one sinks in where the last thousand or so haven't. "And if you ever drug me again, I will kill you."
"Hmm," Mark says, which notably isn't 'of course Spiderman, whatever you say Spiderman.' "We got them though. Most of them anyway."
Divya had escaped, sadly, in a helicopter with the last two Winklevii clones. Mark had shouted something about going after them but Eduardo didn't want to chance the propellers, and anyway, two Winklevii he could deal with. "Well, we won't win the Olympics without them," he offers.
"Isn't using genetically enhanced evil clones against the rules?"
"Since when did you care about the rules?" Eduardo says, squeezing Mark's side to indicate that he's joking. Mark's face is strangely relaxed, his guard low enough that there's a small smile on his lips, as though he could be happy right here on a roof at dawn with a guy in a mask.
It's almost like being back at Harvard, back before Facebook, Facemash, even before Erica; and Eduardo is suddenly reminded of seeing a curly haired kid asleep at a laptop in the corner of the library, of walking over to shake his shoulder and check he was okay.
They were friends. At one time, they were friends.
"So what happens now?" Eduardo asks. "Are you going back to California?"
Mark shifts a little closer, getting more comfortable. "I suppose," he says. "It's about time I went home." He glances up and asks, "What about you? Where's home for you now?"
Eduardo looks down at him. Mark is leaving in the morning, and all the papers for transferring money to Eduardo are signed and sealed. Settled. "Singapore," he says. "Allegedly."
Mark stiffens ever so slightly as Eduardo knew he would, but he doesn't look angry. He just tilts his head to one side as though searching for something. Finally he quietly murmurs, "Wardo?"
Eduardo reaches up with one hand to tug the mask off. He shakes out his hair and starts choking on the heavy smoke, the weight of it throwing him into a coughing fit that almost rocks him off the roof and distracts him enough that he doesn't notice the hand slapping him on the back for a long moment.
He blinks tears out of his eyes, gasping for breath, and turns to see that Mark hasn't recoiled or run away screaming. If anything, his smile is wider. "Wardo," he says again when it is clear Eduardo is going to survive. "You're Spiderman?"
Eduardo closes his eyes, expecting Mark to have gone by the time he opens them. "Yeah." He manages a weak smile. "Well. You always wanted to know what I was doing in New York."
His eyes are startled open by the weight returning to his shoulder as Mark resumes his original position, this time with his eyes closed as though he's thinking of going to sleep right there. "I thought you'd gone back to school," he says. "I thought-if you chose school over Facebook it had to mean you didn't care and that made it okay."
Eduardo tugs off one of his gloves and rests his fingers in Mark's hair. "Why would I go back to school?"
Mark looks down at his hands. "For some reason 'he's not here, he must be Spiderman' just didn't occur to me." He trails off. "If you had said-I thought you just didn't care." He sounds so earnest, and Eduardo knows this is probably the closest he is going to get to an explanation and an apology.
As far as Mark knew, Eduardo was studying and occasionally beating up Sean.
Eduardo sighs. "I was going to tell you," he says. "I was just waiting for a time when you weren't completely 100% focused on Facebook."
Mark has the decency to look slightly abashed. "Oh."
"Hey Mark," Eduardo says, fingers teasing lightly through Mark's hair. "I'm Spiderman."
It's the closest thing to acceptance that Mark is going to get, but Mark seems to understand because his mouth twists into a lazy smile.
"You don't seem all that surprised," Eduardo says. It's either that or 'why aren't you leaving?' and for some reason he doesn't want to prompt Mark to leave.
"I kinda guessed," Mark says, and Eduardo almost pushes him off the roof in surprise before he clarifies. "Well, I didn't. But I thought." He worries his lip between his teeth and Eduardo remembers kissing those lips, the faint taste of red bull and twizzlers mixed in with something inherently Mark. "Just, things you did. Nothing specific, but I couldn't look at you without thinking of, uh, you." His hand rests lightly on Eduardo's leg. "I wasn't sure. At all. Chris said I was projecting. Like, I've only ever really had a crush on two people so my subconscious decides they're the same person, starts projecting Eduardo's characteristics onto Spiderman and vice versa. You don't want to know what Dustin did."
"Why?" Eduardo asks, to distract himself from 'only ever had a crush on two people' and suddenly wishing he could pull the mask back on to hide the red of his cheeks.
Mark shifts around until his head is in Eduardo's lap and he can stretch out across the roof top. "Suffice to say, nothing rhymes with 'Spider-Wardo'."
Eduardo laughs. "Is it bad that I miss him?"
"Crazy," Mark says, finding Eduardo's hand through touch and not letting go of it. "But I wouldn't say bad." He pauses. "You're a shareholder now, you could come back. Sean's gone, mostly."
Eduardo's laugh dies as quickly as it came, but he supposes they have to get this over with. "I thought Sean was a supervillain," he says, and it sounds so ridiculous saying it out loud that he can't believe he didn't doubt it sooner. "All my senses were on red alert when he was around. The way he talked, the way he smiled, the way he acted. It all screamed supervillainry."
"Oh." Mark opens his eyes to see Eduardo looking down at him. "Was he?"
"No," Eduardo says, disappointment ringing through it. "He was just your average asshole."
Mark nods absently, eyes drifting shut again. He doesn't seem at all surprised or insulted to hear Sean being called an asshole, possibly he was intelligent enough to work that out for himself. Eventually. "Well, Divya was a supervillain and the Winklevii turned out to be evil clones so I guess you can be forgiven for being suspicious of anyone."
He's got Eduardo yawning now too. "Christy went crazy, blew up three school buses and held about fifty school children hostage because she thought I was cheating on her with you."
Mark raises his eyebrows. "Really?"
"Yeah." He goes back to threading his fingers through Mark's hair. The warehouse flames are fading out to the normal yellow now; whatever mysterious chemicals that made cloning possible have burnt out. Mark's breathing levels out, becomes slow and steady to the point where Eduardo is starting to wonder what time his flight is and whether he should be woken up.
It's almost like they're back in Harvard; Mark with a nine am class and Eduardo looking down at the tousled head-calm, for once-and thinking whatever he's supposed to be studying can't be that important. Not really.
Only ever had a crush on two people, flitters through Eduardo's mind again echoing with the taste of Mark's lips and Mark's asleep so he could just lean forward and-
Mark's eyelids flicker open just as Eduardo starts to tilt forward. "Someone arranged a cab from the hotel," he says, looking around as though a clock will materialise from thin air. "I should get back." He sits up, and Eduardo's lap is suddenly full of nothing but cold air.
Mark glances over his shoulder with a tiny smile. "I should've known it was you," he says as Eduardo picks up his discarded glove and his mask, pulling them back over all his bare skin.
Eduardo raises his eyebrows questioningly while Mark can still see them.
Mark smiles. "Anyone else would have given up on me by now."
And if that makes Eduardo beam like an idiot, his mask is already pulled down so no one has to know.
Then
He burnt the papers he'd taken from Thiel's office. If the man wanted the screw over Facebook, let him fucking try. He finally went though the one closet, tossing all of Christy's clothes into a bin bag along with the old webshooters, any torn or bloodstained costumes, and the box that used to contain the spider antivenom.
He threw away all his school notes from Harvard, the suit he'd worn to sign the first contracts and the ones today, the silk scarf he'd bought for Christy but never had the chance to give to her.
He turned on his cell phone, jotted down Dr Jones's number and then he threw that away too. Economics text books, cracked mugs, the stupid hat he'd been wearing when Mark first approached him with an idea.
He went through three bags, taking them all down to the garbage round the back of the building before letting himself collapse on the bed, reaching out with one hand for the police scanner.
'Armed suspects at grand local bank, send reinforcements. Repeat, send reinforcements.'
He hooked the mask on his index finger as he swung out the window.
Now
They land on Mark's hotel room balcony. Mark's case is still unpacked, Eduardo's empty beer bottle is still lying on the floor. Mark steps through the mess, picking up his replacement laptop and sliding it into the bag. "The room's paid up to the end of the week," he says, looking around at the mess instead of at Eduardo on the balcony. "If you need somewhere to stay."
No one is actively gunning for him right now, as far as he knows, but Mark's suite is still infinitely bigger and nicer than his apartment. "Thank you." The words are awkward in his mouth, he doesn't know how to breach the subject of the kiss or Mark's hand in his or the way Mark looped his arms around Eduardo's neck and hung on from the front for the first time, leaning his cheek against Eduardo's shoulder.
He doesn't know how to say that he liked it. That he doesn't necessarily want Mark to leave just yet.
There's a sharp rap on the door. "Mr Zuckerberg, your car is here."
It's so strange to hear him called 'Mr Zuckerberg.' Mark with his hoodies and his flip-flops, clutching the strap of his laptop bag as though it's the one constant in the world.
"You should go," Eduardo says at the same time as Mark turns to say, "Why though?"
"What?" Eduardo asks.
Mark bites his lip, looking down at the suitcase. "Why?" he says again. "The suit, the heroics. You're trying to save an entire city and it just seems... why?"
Eduardo can't help smiling a little. "I looked after you for two years," he says. "New York had to be a piece of cake in comparison to that."
Mark looks surprised, and a little pleased as he turns to go down to his taxi, back to California, and finally out of Eduardo's life.
"Mark," Eduardo says, before the door can open. Mark turns back. "If you get kidnapped again, call me."
A hesitant smile touches the edges of Mark's mouth. "I don't have your number."
Eduardo crosses into the room, snatches a biro and scrawls his number across Mark's arm. Mark smells of unwashed hoodie, Winklevii and brightly coloured smoke. Eduardo doesn't move away. "Or if you're not kidnapped," Eduardo says. "You could still call."
Mark reaches up, fingers brushing the bottom of Eduardo's mask.
Somewhere behind them a very harried bellboy is knocking on the door calling Mark's name. More importantly, Eduardo's mask has fallen to the floor and his fingers are twisted in Mark's hair, Mark's mouth open under his and full of so many possibilities.
The Future
There is a henchman pointing a gun at Eduardo's head. The Villain of the Week-Eduardo can't remember her name but there are a lot of snakes around so he's guessing something with a whole lot of sibilants-claps her hands together. "Ssso, Ssspiderman," she says.
"I get it," Eduardo interrupts before he can go any further.
Apparently unused to being interrupted mid-speech, Sibilants hesitates. "You... get it?"
"Snakes," Eduardo says. "You have a lot of snakes, your thing is snakes, you're the Incredible Snake Girl or whatever. Please stop hissing at me."
"The Snake Charmer," the Snake Charmer says, bending down to let something green and scaly slither onto her arm. "Remember that name for it will be the last one you ever hear." She sounds a lot more confident when she's delivering death threats. Good for her. "Now, put down your weapon before my assistant is forced to shoot."
She had far too much fun with the word 'assistant' for Eduardo to even think of taking her seriously. Unfortunately, her assistant is a seven foot bodybuilder and the gun is real enough. Eduardo drops the baseball bat at his feet and kicks it away from himself, sending it spinning across the floor in their direction.
"Now," she says. "I think you will put your hands on your head and not make any sudden movements while we tie you up."
Eduardo watches the bat spin between them, coming to a halt at the feet of the figure with the bag on his head tied to a chair behind them. "Do you?" he asks. "Because if so, you really don't know me very well."
A warning shot slices through the air above his head. "You do not know me at all," she hisses. "But if you did you would know not to cross me. You should know when to give up, Spiderman. This is not something you have faced before."
"Actually," Eduardo says.
"We do this a lot," says Mark, pulling the hood off his head and swinging the bat hard into the side of the henchman's head.
He has to stand on the chair to do it, but Eduardo will save the mockery for a moment when they're not both surrounded by poisonous snakes. "So," he says to the Snake Charmer as Mark pounds the bat threateningly into his palm. "I think you should put your hands on your head and not make any sudden movements while I tie you up. Mark, what do you think?"
Mark is looking down at the snakes, suddenly realising how close he is to a venomous death. "I think we should do this quickly," he says. "And then there can be pizza."
Not quite the snappy one liner Eduardo was angling for but still... pizza.
*
They leave the Snake Charmer tied to the chair with webbing, though Eduardo has to carry Mark on his shoulders until they're past the snakes. Mark flicks the blades he used to cut the ropes back into their hidden compartments on his watch while Eduardo texts an 'anonymous' tip-off to the police, who totally have his number on file.
"I thought the hero was the one supposed to get the cool gadgets," Eduardo says.
Mark finishes clicking his watch back together. "Clearly this means you are my sidekick," he says. "Don't worry, sidekick is a very reasonable position."
Eduardo punches him lightly on the shoulder. "I don't think heroes should sleep with their sidekicks, it just seems so inappropriate somehow-"
"Partners," Mark interrupts. "We can be partners." He thrusts out a hand imperiously and Eduardo takes it, gloves fingers pressing against Mark's skin. "So, the Fantastic Four," Mark says, as though their phone conversation hadn't been interrupted by his kidnapping and Eduardo's 6 hour plane journey. "You really think they could work out?"
"Well there are four of them," Eduardo points out. "I know New York is big and all but there's been one of me for years and I've managed. They got radiation from some comet, I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention. Hey, did I tell you that Reed offered to pay me a salary? He even said he could backdate it from when I started, that is one rich scientist."
"What did you say?"
Eduardo grins over at him. "I explained that I had an independently wealthy boyfriend who was perfectly capable of keeping me in the manner to which I have become accustomed. Obviously I used those exact words." He tugs Mark back into the alley where he left his clothes and tosses his mask on the ground, leaning in to kiss Mark properly. Mark doesn't hesitate, lips parting and tongue darting out and Eduardo is pulling him closer, pressing in close, wishing the Spiderman costume was easier to get out of.
"So," Mark says, slightly breathless, as Eduardo moves away to find his clothes. "You're saying you could retire, set up shop somewhere else." He manages to wait all of five seconds. "I hear California is nice this time of year."
Eduardo tugs off his mask and gloves, dropping them on the ground and reaching for his trousers. "Really?" he says. "I don't know, I was thinking Florida, maybe Miami. Or Europe, I hear good things about Euro-"
He's interrupted by Mark kissing him again, pressing him back against the wall of the alley and sliding his hand down Eduardo's side like he knows just how fucking uncomfortable the suit is when you have a boner.
"We should go on a date," he says, moving away with a taunting smile. "Give the Fantabulous Five a test run for the night. We haven't been on a date since I got captured by giant spiders that one time."
Eduardo tugs on his jacket, resting his arm across Mark's shoulders to head out the alley. "So you mean one of those dates where you take your laptop, I take my police scanner and we both bail before the end?"
Mark is grinning like an idiot, but he nods. "I know an Italian where you pay when you order."
Eduardo stops. "Mark, why are you smiling?"
Mark glances at him and turns faintly pink. Blushing and smiling. Maybe he was poisoned by snakes, perhaps Eduardo should be calling an ambulance.
"You told Reed I was your boyfriend," Mark says.
"No," Eduardo protests, pushing him away though he can feel the same stupid smile touching his own face. "No, you do not get to pretend like I'm the one who made this relationship official. Not when you hacked into Spiderman's Facebook page to change the relationship status months ago."
Mark tries for 'innocent' but the grin keeps poking through the cracks. "I don't trust that Gwen Stacy," he says. "Always being abducted by aliens or nearly falling off the edge of buildings. You can't trust a girl like that. Don't leave me for a girl like that."
Eduardo laughs and kisses him right there in the street for everyone to see. Okay, so, there's only really one old guy on a bench nearby, but it's the gesture that's important. "I promise," he says. "My point stands."
"Fine," Mark says, but doesn't stop smiling.
Eduardo elbows him in the ribs. "You're worrying me, Mark. Stop being happy about the fact that we're dating, damn it."
Mark turns and positively beams. "You're coming to California."
Eduardo could say that he hasn't decided and he really likes French bread so he's thiking maybe-but they both know how ridiculous that is. "For a trial period," he says. "I mean, maybe the Fantastic Four won't be able to take it. I wouldn't say I had absolute confidence in Reed and they came with their own supervillain which they might need help to handle so-"
Mark reaches out to press his hand over Eduardo's mouth. "You're coming to California."
Eduardo sighs, but when he reaches up to tug Mark's hand away he is grinning just as widely back. "Yeah," he says. "I'm coming to California."
Pairing: Eduardo/Christy, Mark/Eduardo
Part 2
Now
Eduardo watches Mark write a cheque to the Winklevii, resisting the urge to break through the window and beat up the latest pair of Winklevii clones Divya has chosen as his personal guard.
He follows Mark home, sitting on the balcony of Mark's new hotel room as Mark checks his plane tickets, does some work on Facebook and plays around with the tracker device.
When Mark goes to bed, Eduardo goes home.
Then
The road was blocked off half a mile from the bridge. There was a barricade of police cars keeping people away and beyond that was a stack of civilian cars, piled like bricks in a wall, held together precariously by webbing and lurching violently with every breeze. Some of them still had people trapped inside.
Eduardo left his clothes in the back of the cab and ran towards the chaos, keeping to the shadows so the police didn't see him and start shooting. There was one cop at the side, holding his gun in shaking hands. Eduardo climbed up the wall silently, jumping off and spinning to pin the man against his own cop car, and pressed a gloved hand over the man's mouth. "If you try to call out," he warned. "I will knock you out. I'm here to help."
The cop nodded, eyes wide and scared. Eduardo pulled his hand away. "How are you here?" the man asked. "If you're here, who's on the bridge?"
Eduardo closed his eyes and counted to five until the urge to hit something-anything-faded slightly. "Has she been saying she's me?" he demanded. "Did none of you think that Spiderman was unlikely to be a girl?"
The cop looked over Eduardo's shoulder as though hoping someone else might come along as any moment to rescue him. "Um," he said. "She has your powers and she's wearing the same kind of costume and there are webs all over the buses."
"See, that's where you should have found a problem, because I don't kidnap school buses because I'm not a crazed supervillain." There was the sound of another explosion from the bridge. He had to be quicker. "Tell me the situation. She's already blown up two buses?"
The man swallowed. "Three, we think, but none of them had people in. There's a hostage negotiator trying to talk to her but she doesn't seem to be listening."
Eduardo nodded absently. "Yeah, that sounds like Christy."
The cop's eyes widened. "You know her?"
Something else exploded, and dust rained down on them over the car-barricade. "She's my girlfriend," Eduardo said, before he slammed the cop's head into the car, knocking him unconscious. He climbed over the top of the police car and started scaling the pile of civilian cars.
"You there!" A second police officer shouted through a megaphone. "You on the barricade, get down and get back before someone gets hurt."
Great, Eduardo thought as the police fired a warning shot over his head and a car hit the pile from the other side, sending it tumbling like jenga. Way to go telling her where I am. He jumped from car to car, staying away from the falling vehicles as best he could before diving forward through a gap and landing in a roll on the far side.
Christy was standing in the centre of the bridge, surrounded by five school buses all locked up with webbing and full of children; their faces could just be seen, pressed against the window in various expressions of panic. Christy was wearing a black costume with identical markings to Spiderman's own design but in white, and instead of a full face mask she only wore a plain black band around her eyes.
"Hello Spiderman," she said into a police megaphone. "Nice of you to finally join us."
"Christy!" Eduardo shouted, over the noise of screaming children, the police negotiator and the burning husks of school buses scattered around him. "Christy, you have to listen to me!"
"How about you listen to me for a change? How about you pay attention to me? I do all this and you're still only here for these children, still finding strangers more important than your own fucking girlfriend."
Eduardo wondered if normal couples could fight without anything exploding. "Okay, okay, so how about you let all these people go and then we can head home and talk? Just you and me."
"Hah. Like we'll even get through the door before you have to go running off to a mugging or a hostage situation or to Mark back in Cali-fucking-fornia. Why is it that instead of dating you I seem to be dating Spiderman, a website, an asshole and an entire fucking city? Everyone is more important than me, aren't they? Every single fucking person."
"Miss Spiderman," the hostage negotiator shouted, clearly not knowing any better than to push into the middle of a couple arguing. "Perhaps you and your partner could move this argument elsewhere."
Eduardo and Christy both turned to him at the same time. "Shut up," Christy said. "And throw him your megaphone, I can't hear him properly over all the sirens."
"This megaphone is police property and I can't-
Christy kicked one of the buses, sending it through the side of the bridge and plummeting towards the water below. The megaphone landed at Eduardo's feet, and Christy shot out three webs to catch the bus inches above the waterline. "Much better."
Eduardo raised his megaphone slowly. "Pull the bus back up, Christy. Pull the bus back up and then we can talk."
Christy looked at him, then kicked a second bus off the other side of the bridge, catching that one too and transferring the webs across to one hand. "You know," she said. "These are all pretty heavy. I think I may drop one at any moment. Maybe you should shoot some more webs to help me out, I think it would make you a pretty terrible superhero if you didn't. It would be almost like you were my accomplice."
Eduardo could feel the stares of all the police watching turn on him. Under the gloves, his webbing gloop was sticking to his sleeves and getting all over his hands. It was no use at all.
"Spiderman," a child screamed from one of the buses. "Save us!"
"Yeah Spiderman," Christy said into her megaphone, bouncing the buses up and down. "Save them."
Christy was holding up two buses in one hand which meant that in spite of her claims that they were heavy, she was stronger than Eduardo.
"What are you waiting for?" the negotiator shouted.
Eduardo spun on his heel and wished looks could kill. "How about I go stand up there yelling inane shit and you save the children? Does that sound like a plan? No? Okay, so shut up and let me think." He turned back to Christy. "Okay, you've got what you wanted. You have my complete, undivided attention. What happens now?"
Christy sat on the bonnet of an abandoned car. "Now you can tell me the truth about you and Mark. If I believe you, the children are safe. If I think you're lying, they go in the river."
Eduardo blinked, for a moment convinced that he'd heard wrong. "You have blown up three buses, taken five more captive with their passengers and you are going to kill fifty children just to find out if I cheated on you with Mark?"
"That's not a no."
"I did not cheat on you with Mark. I have never cheated on with you anyone. Spiderman's relationship status is single because I did not set up Spiderman's facebook page. Mark is incapable of being interested in an actual human being and I think he hates me. You, Christy, you are my girlfriend and I am worried about you. I went to California to sort out our finances for the future so that we could keep the apartment and keep fighting crime and I did not sleep with anyone. I am sorry I ignored your forty seven texts but I was a little busy trying to stop Mark from going into business with a supervillain." He took a step forward, finally remembering to breath. "Now can you please pull the buses up so we can go home."
Christy looked at him for a long moment. "I don't believe you."
Eduardo snatched at the nearest car and threw it at her head, running after is as fast as he could. When she ducked to avoid it the webs slipped through her fingers-Eduardo threw himself forward into the gap and reached out his fingertips to just grasp the very ends of the webbing.
The buses kept falling, naturally. Eduardo was pulled right to the edge of the bridge and had to brace his legs against the concrete.
He ducked on instinct and a moment later the same car went flying back over his head, spinning past the suspension cables and down into the river. It only just missed the boat that was working its way ever so slowly down the waterway to get underneath the two suspended buses. Eduardo could feel his arms being slowly pulled out of their sockets, his legs straining against the concrete sidewalk.
"Why don't you just admit it?" Christy shouted as Eduardo ducked a second car. "You like Mark, you like him more than me, he's better in bed than me. Are you ashamed?"
Eduardo gritted his teeth, watching the boat inch underneath the bus. The driver raised one hand to make an 'are you okay' gesture. If Eduardo had any free hands, he would've made a rather less polite reply.
"See, I think you were just using me. You wanted some nice normal life to come back to in New York and you used me to get money for the apartment and for food."
The driver held up one hand flat then waved down. Eduardo didn't waste time analysing what it could possibly mean; he dropped the lower bus directly onto the deck, waited a moment for the boat to steady and then dropped the second one. It landed half on top of the first then fell on its side on the deck.
Christy's foot caught Eduardo around the back of the head and sent him flying into one of the other buses, denting the side and throwing a group of children into their neighbours. He couldn't feel his arms, the soles of his shoes were worn through and Christy was coming after him, tossing the megaphone off the side of the bridge. "Is that it, Eduardo? Am I your pathetic attempt at a normal life?"
Eduardo curled up, reaching into his left boot. "I am Spiderman," he bit out. "There is nothing normal about my life." Then he flipped to his feet and slammed his fist towards her face. Christy's hand closed around his fist and again threw Eduardo toward one of the other buses. However, this time he managed to flip around in the air and Eduardo's hand came out of his boot with a syringe clutched tight in it.
"What's that?" Christy demanded. "Is that from the box in your apartment that Dr Jones gave you? Is it a performance enhancer?" She shot a web out and tugged the syringe from his outstretched hand. "Or adrenaline? I know he was working on something for you. I thought I destroyed it all but I suppose if one vial escaped it couldn't hurt to try."
"Don't," Eduardo said.
Christy snorted at him and pressed the needle into her arm, pushed the plunger down and sent the liquid into her skin. "So what is it?" she asked, tossing the spent syringe to the side. "What was he working on?"
Eduardo let himself drop off the edge of the bus, his feet tangling up beneath him to send him sprawling to his knees. "I took that at the same time as the gloves and webshooters," he explained, slowly as he got his breath back. "Back when he still didn't know if I was in this for the long term." He pushed himself slowly back onto his feet, leaning heavily on the bus for support. "He gave me the shooters to help me fight crime, and that vial in case I ever decided to give up." He almost wished she could see his smile. "It was the cure."
Christy's eyes widened, her mouth falling open as she scrabbled at her arm, squeezing the skin as though she could somehow force it out. "You can't do this to me!" she screamed. She tried to fire web at him but could only manage short limp strands that faded out quickly and landed like worms on the tarmac before they could reach him. "I'm your girlfriend, you can't treat me like this!"
Eduardo limped over to her, blocked her two punches easily then knocked her to the ground. He tugged the mask off her face, held her down with one hand and her kicks were barely noticeable landing on his back. "You are seriously crazy, Chris. Like, to the point of being actually unwell and I think you should mention that to your lawyer because you are going to need a lawyer when I let the police through the barrier and they come to arrest you."
He reached up to tug his mask off his face so she could see his expression very clearly. "You are going to prison, Chris. You are going for a long time and you won't have powers or any way to escape." Eduardo crouched over her, tore her sleeves up and retrieved his webshooters from her wrists, where the last drips of web were drying up on her skin. "Also, I'm breaking up with you."
Now
Mark is sitting in the corner of the bank vault, typing quickly on a borrowed laptop. He looks up when Eduardo smashes the door open with one of the rhino/human hybrid's heads and doesn't bother to hide his smile. "I thought I'd see you again."
Eduardo tosses rhino-boy aside and stalks into the vault, grabbing Mark and flinging him across his shoulders. "If you got yourself kidnapped just so you could see me again before you left, I swear to God I will kill you myself."
"It wasn't intentional," Mark says, closing the laptop and pushing it between them as Eduardo turns and storms out of the bank. "It just happens."
"What do we do with these?" asks a very nervous looking bank clerk, kicking the unconscious body of a rhinoboy that's blocking the doorway.
Eduardo kicks out one of the glass windows. "Call the police," he offers. "Burn it as an offering to the god of rhinos. See if I care." He fires a web at the opposite rooftop and swings until he reaches Mark's balcony. "Does anyone know you're here?" he asks, as Mark opens the unlocked balcony door to step inside.
Mark shrugs. "No one's kidnapped me from here yet. Do you want a beer?"
Eduardo should go and see if anyone else needs to be saved. He ducks inside. "Okay."
"I was thinking," Mark says, holding out an open bottle. "About the people who are after us."
Eduardo takes a long drink from his beer. "You don't need to think about them. I'll keep fighting them and maybe one day I'll find their hide out and blow up that damn cloning machine and then they'll be too scared of actually dying to attack either of us anymore."
"But it doesn't have to be one day," Mark says. "It could be today. People keep kidnapping me and you keep interrupting them before they can get me to their final destination. If you just wait until I get there then you'll know where their hideout is and you can go swooping in to rescue me."
Eduardo takes another drink. "If they see me following, they'll just lead a wild goose chase until they can get me off their tail and then you'll end up in their base with no idea where you are and then they'll kill you without anyone being any the wiser." Mark doesn't look particularly terrified by this. "They'll steal Facebook first," Eduardo snaps.
Mark hesitates, but presses on. "You wouldn't have to follow." He holds up his wrist where he's wearing a watch Eduardo doesn't recognise. "Your tracking device, I planted it in here. You just follow the signal right to me, do your superhero thing and we're both free to-you know."
"Go our separate ways and never see each other again," Eduardo provides. It does sound like a nice conclusion, but the plan is stupid and risky. "Do you know what would happen if Facebook's CEO got killed?"
Mark shrugs, staring down at the cap of his still sealed beer. "Half my shares and the company go to Dustin, god help them; and the other half go to you in the hope that you'll buy yourself somewhere halfway decent to live."
Eduardo stares at him for a long moment, then drains his beer. He is far too sober for this conversation. "You're giving half your shares to a guy in a fucking mask? You really don't have any friends, do you. No. The answer is no. You're not putting yourself in danger, I'm not letting you risk it. I'll sit here all night if I have to and drive you to the airport tomorrow myself."
Mark nods slowly. "I thought you might say that," he says. "That's why I brought you in here."
"What, so you could spend the whole night trying to convince me to change my mind?"
"Oh," Mark says, in the tones of one who hadn't considered that previously but is now realising it would have been a good idea. "No, I drugged your beer."
Eduardo stares down at the dregs of his beer. "You fucking shit-" he manages, before he loses control of his legs and crumples to the floor. The bottle slides out of his hand, rolling across the floor.
Mark crouches down, pressing a tiny computer into his hand. "You can track me on this. I don't know how long the drugs will last, the internet had no idea about the effect they'd have on Spiderman so you should probably come as soon as you wake up." He bounces on his toes for a moment. "I don't actually want to die so, uh, please come?"
Eduardo can see Mark's feet as he stands up and walks away but can't actually move to do anything about it other than tighten his fingers around the computer in his hand.
The door swings shut on Mark's flip-flops.
Eduardo swears loudly and loses consciousness.
Then
Eduardo slept on the plane, the new airport security safe webshooters pinching his wrists, and arrived in California around midnight. He caught a cab to Clarium Capital, used his improved night vision as a guide when climbing up the 80 storey building.
They had a highly advanced alarm system that he'd memorised the schematics of before coming, but it was all designed to stop people forcing the windows or doors. On the tenth floor a janitor had left the window open-presumably thinking no one would be able to climb that high. Eduardo rested in the hallway, folding his trousers, shirt and jacket into the rucksack he'd taken on the plane and pulled on the mask, gloves and boots instead.
Peter Thiel's office was on the thirtieth floor. Eduardo took the elevator up and used a credit card from his wallet to pry open the office door. No alarms sounded.
He had clearly been over-thinking this particular adventure, or simply over-estimating the amount of effort Sean would put into keeping his nefarious plans a secret.
Of course, Eduardo had long suspected Thiel and Sean were working together. All he had to do now was go through Thiel's papers until he found the Plot.
He looked around the office; it was filled with stacks of papers, bulging folders and filing cabinets. Eduardo cracked his knuckles and started reading.
Now
Eduardo wakes up slowly. For a moment he's groggy, can't think where he is or how he got there. Then his fingers tighten on the tiny computer in his hand and his eyes blink away the blur to see the bottom of the drugged beer bottle where it rolled across the floor.
He's alert in an instant, hitting any buttons on the computer until the screen lights up and shows him a map of who-fucking-knows-where with a tiny blinking red dot that is presumably Mark that asshole.
Eduardo should leave him there. He should throw this fucking computer in the nearest bin and leave Mark to get what he deserves. Dustin can take over Facebook and turn it into a giant farmyard for all Eduardo cares and Eduardo will get Mark's shares which would be enough to retire on. He could hire a fucking army of superheroes to protect New York with Mark's Facebook shares.
Mark left Spiderman his Facebook shares. He didn't leave them to Peter-that jerk-or Sean-that asshole. He didn't even cut his losses and leave all of them to Dustin to spend on cakes and ponies.
He left them to Spiderman, because Spiderman lives in a shit apartment and is running out of money and saves people all day every day for no reward. Because Spiderman saved Mark and kept watch over him and hung out with him, drank his beer and let him talk.
It had always taken so much effort to be Mark's friend, but Eduardo had never stopped trying.
He looks down at the computer in his hand. Zoomed out, it pinpoints Mark's location in the downtown warehouse district.
"Fuck," Eduardo says loudly, then throws himself off the edge of the balcony.
Then
Peter Thiel arrived at nine, when Eduardo's eyes were blurring and his back was aching from sitting in one position for hours going over numbers like he hadn't had to since revising for his fucking economics finals.
Thiel's eyes widened when he saw Spiderman spinning in his office chair reading a sheet of figures, but to his credit he didn't flinch. "Suzanne," he called, leaning back out. "Why is there a-"
Eduardo shot two feet of webbing slamming fast as a bullet into the wall beside his head, and raised one finger to his mask in the international gesture for 'shut up.'
"Never mind," Thiel finished. "Fetch me some coffee, would you?" He stepped into the office, letting the door swing shut. He turned back to Eduardo. "Spiderman," he said. "I thought New York street crime was your speciality."
He was definitely more henchman material. Eduardo lifted the sheet of paper he was reading, turning it around so Thiel could see it. "This was right next to your shredder," he commented. "Along with this whole pile here. Do you know what this is?"
Thiel swallowed. "It looks like records of financial dealings between this company and some of its clients. Of course, we respect our clients privacy but if you are conducting an investigation into any of them we will do our best to-"
Eduardo shot webbing over his other shoulder. "This is all the evidence of various embezzlement scams you've been running as the head of this company. Also your plans for the Case Equity investment into Facebook." Eduardo placed the page on top of the small pile. "You really thought you could steal that much money without anyone noticing?"
Thiel took half a step forward. "This is ludicrous. If you don't get out of my office right now I will be forced to call the-"
Eduardo used the chair as a springboard to leap forward and pin Thiel up against the wall with one arm so that the man's feet dangled five inches off the floor. "Sean Parker," Eduardo threw at him. "You put the money back where it should be, keep Facebook's finances secure and tell me how Sean Parker is involved, I'll let you go. I know all your plans, if a single cent goes missing from any of your companies in future I will know about it and don't even think you can hide from me."
Thiel was trembling now, eyes wide and darting and he was scared enough to be listening. "I'll cut you in," he said. "Seventy-thirty and we'll get away clean, I promise."
Eduardo slammed him against the wall hard enough that the shelves rattled. "Sean Parker," he said again. "Tell me everything."
Thiel stared at him for a long moment. "Sean Parker, as in, president of Facebook Sean Parker?"
Eduardo threw him across the room. "Sean Parker, as in asshole Sean Parker; as in evil bastard Sean Parker; as in conspiring with you somehow Sean fucking Parker." He flicked the lock on the door just as someone tried the handle from the other side. "You will tell me every single thing he has told you, everything he told you to do, anything you know about his plans."
"Mr Thiel?" the assistant shouted from the other side of the door. "Are you alright?"
Thiel shook his head desperately as Eduardo stalked closer. "There's nothing, I visit occasionally. He sets up meetings, he has ideas for the site, he owns seven percent of the company, that's it I swear. Everything... less than legitimate is on that pile and it's done, I'm done, please don't kill me."
Eduardo snatched up the pile, riffling through it for the millionth time but it still didn't contain Sean's name or references to anyone who might be connected to him. "Sean isn't using you? You're not working for Sean?"
"I swear, I swear, cross my heart and hope to die. Please, I have a family."
Eduardo pulled his rucksack close with one foot, shoving the papers in behind his clothes. "If I find out you're lying to me, I will come back. If you touch anyone else's money, I will come back. Do you understand?"
The door was shaking on its hinges, letting out a loud thud as something heavy hit it from behind. "Mr Thiel? Mr Thiel!"
"I understand," Thiel stammered, cradling his arm as though it might be broken. "No lies, I swear. No more scams, no more nothing. God, you're supposed to be a superhero, how the fuck do you know about this."
"I'm an economics major," Eduardo said, smashing the window with a coat rack. "Bitch." He leapt out as the door splintered into fragments, tugging the bag over his shoulders as he swung through the streets.
He needed a drink. A drink, food, and possibly a long sleep before he had to change and head on to the Facebook offices and all he'd managed to ascertain was that Thiel wasn't in league with Sean.
Which obviously begged the question 'who was?'
Now
Eduardo smashes through the roof level window of the warehouse Mark's tiny red blip has led him to and lands in a crouch on a rough concrete floor in the middle of a crowd of at least three hundred Winklevii clones.
He somersaults over three punches and a kick and decides that in future he will scope out all hostage situations beforehand. "Mark?" he shouts, staying in the air by jumping from Winklevii head to Winklevii punch. "Mark, are you in here?"
"Spiderman?" comes a shout and Eduardo spins around to see Mark chained to a wall at the far end of the warehouse. There are at least two hundred Winklevii between the two of them. "The clones are Winklevii," Mark shouts. "As in, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. And the evil mastermind behind the whole thing is-"
"Divya Narendra," Eduardo finishes as he fires a web up vertically so he can hang onto the bottom of it and stay two meters above the hoard of Winklevii clones. "I told you I knew."
Something closes on his foot and he looks down to see the clones stacking themselves on top of each other to reach him. He slams one boot into his assailant's face and shimmies further up the web, swaying from side to side in an attempt to get a swing going.
"You are an idiot, by the way," he shouts to Mark. "And I hate you and I seriously considered not coming." He has enough of a swing to fire another web and leap for it, getting him further across the warehouse toward Mark and sending the Winklevii pile topping as they try to lean after him.
"This was a stupid plan," Eduardo continues, "and we are both going to be killed and it will be all your fault." He swings again, trying to get higher on the next web because the Winklevii up ahead are getting the idea and starting to pile up in preparation. "Are you hurt?"
"No," Mark says. "They want me to sign a contract giving them all rights to Facebook. They want to rename it Connect-2-U. Obviously I said over my dead body."
"However," says Divya, stepping out onto a raised platform at the edge of the building flanked by a host of five Winklevii. "We thought Mark's dead body would be entirely inconvenient." He makes a gesture and one of the Winklevii pulls out a gun. Eduardo instinctively curls into a ball to present a smaller target but the shot misses him entirely.
For a moment he thinks he just got incredibly lucky.
Then he falls, the useless half of web falling from his hand as the Winklevii snatch at his arms and legs, holding them out of the way so all he can do is struggle and his webs shoot out through the crowd to hit the wall or the floor. The Winklevii holding the gun re-aims, this time making no secret of the fact that the barrel is pointing directly at Eduardo's struggling chest.
"So, Mark," Divya says. "Sign that contract or your good friend Spiderman will get a bullet right through that masked head of his."
"I settled, I gave you your money," Mark shouts. "You guys just have no idea when to let something go, do you?"
The first bullet lodges in Eduardo's leg and he has to fight the desire to cry out. He can feel blood pooling on his suit and the bullet is pressing in his flesh stopping the wound from closing so he can't kick with that leg, can't put his weight on it.
"Tell you what, Divya," Eduardo shouts through gritted teeth. "You let me go, I'll get you your signature and then I'll kill Mark for you. I'll even take my mask off to do it. That should appeal to your sense of the dramatic."
Mark is staring at him, as though waiting for some sign that Eduardo is lying.
Divya lowers his signalling arm slowly, taking half a step closer to the edge of the balcony. "Aren't you supposed to be the hero of this story?"
The grips on his arms are loosening. "Don't you read my press?" Eduardo asks, forcing his voice to stay casual. "Anyway, you of all people know I have reasons to hate Mark Zuckerberg. If someone I hated was in trouble, I wouldn't save them."
Mark's head jerks back up, his eyes finding Eduardo's face in an instant, the unspoken question etched into every line of his face.
Divya waves a hand and the Winklevii release Eduardo, letting him get to his feet and stretch out his arms. "And why should I trust you?" he asks, coolly.
Eduardo swallows. "You have your sniper pointing a gun at my head," he says. "Worst comes to worst, you kill both of us. It can't be that different to your original plan."
In the quiet of three hundred clones breathing in perfect unison, Eduardo can hear Mark's chains clinking and Divya's fingers tapping a slow, regular rhythm on the rail of the balcony. "Fine," he says, after a long moment. "If you can get him to sign the contract, he's yours to kill. If you can't, I'll shoot you both. How does that sound?"
The Winklevii are parting between Eduardo and Mark like a sea and Eduardo limps between them, horribly aware that the exit is behind him and he's moving further and further from his way out.
Mark's feet are chained level with his head. Eduardo looks up to see the bottom of Mark's flip-flops and the hems of his cargo shorts.
He shoots a web straight up and starts to climb slowly.
"Whatever I've done to make you hate me," Mark says. "I'm sorry."
Eduardo swings upside down, putting his wounded leg level with Mark's free hand. "You're just saying that so I won't kill you. Sign the contract."
Mark's mouth curves into a half-grin. "You're not going to kill me," he says, scrawling something across the bottom of the piece of paper.
Behind them, Divya claps his hands together in delight. "If I didn't hate you so much, Spiderman, I might suggest we go into business together."
"How do you know?" Eduardo asks Mark. He released the web with one hand to reach for the bottom of his mask, rolling it up slowly over his chin.
Mark's fingers press against the blood on Eduardo's leg, sliding into the bloody hole. "You came," he says, leaning as far forward as the chains allow to press his lips against Eduardo's.
The angle is surreal-what with Mark being chained to a wall and Eduardo being upside-down-but Mark's lips are warm and soft against Eduardo's own, and as they kiss the bullet that had been in Eduardo's leg falls from Mark fingers to the floor. The kiss breaks slowly, leaving Mark grinning an idiotic grin while his fingers are covered in Eduardo's blood and Eduardo thinks he might be grinning just as stupidly back.
Because this is Mark and it will never work and they're surrounded by three hundred evil clones, and Mark as just signed over Facebook and they're both about to die.
"Wouldn't be much of a hero if I didn't," Eduardo says as all hell breaks loose.
Then
The lawyer-the same lawyer as before, Eduardo remembered-placed the contracts in front of him and Eduardo had been about to laugh before he realised that nobody else was. No one had so much as made eye contact, not even the lawyer who pushed his pen across the table then stood back so Eduardo could read.
He was shaking by the end of the first page, by the time he'd scanned the second he felt sick. He could see his father's face, could hear what he would say and was saying it all over and over in his own head. How could you be so stupid? Don't you think? Call yourself a businessman, you're not fit to run a hot dog stand.
"What is this?" something of Spiderman must've echoed in his voice because the lawyer actually took half a step back, staring at the table as though it might leap up to protect him.
"Well, as you know we had some new investors-"
Eduardo raised the contract, inches away from pinning the lawyer against the wall and punching him to within an inch of his fucking life. "What is this?"
The lawyer gulped, glancing over Eduardo's shoulder.
Eduardo wanted to blame Sean, he was burning to blame Sean but Mark. Mark must have approved this. Mark was CEO and all decisions like this would have had to go through him. Eduardo wanted to scream, to hit something, to pummel some supervillain into the ground until he couldn't even think anymore.
"If you'll let me-"
It must have been Mark. Mark had done this. Eduardo turned on his heel to see Mark sitting at his laptop, headphones blocking out the whole fucking world because nothing in it could possibly ever compare in importance to that of the fucking code he was working on. Mark typing some fucking shit about how to betray his only fucking friend and Sean leaning there next to him like some kind of bodyguard.
Maybe Sean wasn't the supervillain, maybe it was Mark. Maybe it had always been Mark. Maybe Eduardo would be totally justified in killing Mark because Mark was an asshole and at some point Eduardo must have made some kind of decision because he was pushing through the doors and storming through a crowd of people who didn't dare to even look at him.
"Mark!"
Sean took half a step forward because he didn't know how many different ways Eduardo had planned to kill him. "He's wired in."
Like Mark was some fucking robot that Sean could plug it and make it do tricks. Like he was some kind of money making machine spewing out code to get Sean his seven fucking percent to spend on hookers and crack. Eduardo wanted to smash Mark's face and shatter Sean's ribs and he settled for grabbing the laptop out from under Mark's fingers and smashing it down.
It broke into an almost satisfying number of tiny, unrecoverable pieces. "How about now? Are you still wired in?"
Mark's fingers hovered for a moment in the air as though he couldn't quite understand why he wasn't still typing. Then he looked up.
"You issued 24-million new shares of stock," Eduardo said and he could hear his voice shaking, his hands clenching into fists at his sides so they wouldn't reach for Mark's neck and a tiny part of his mind wishing Mark would deny it. Just deny it, misunderstand it, act like he had no fucking clue and it was all Sean's fault and then Eduardo could just kill Sean and be done with it.
But Mark's face was shut down and he didn't quite meet Eduardo's eyes. "You were told that if new investors came along-"
It was like fighting ravenous trolls, how the second always stayed hidden until they could deliver the perfect punch right into your gut. "How much were your shares diluted, how much were his?" He could see the answer in Mark's eyes, the flash of triumph in Sean's.
"You signed the papers," Mark said, like that was all it was. Like a lawyer didn't write the papers, Mark didn't approve the papers, everything comes down to the fact that Eduardo fucking signed them.
"You set me up." Oh God, it was so clear now. All those months Eduardo had spent saving people, trying to make New York a safer fucking place, trying to work out what Sean could be up to and all that time it was Mark. Mark making plans and pushing forward.
What did you mean get left behind.
"It's gonna be like I'm not a part of Facebook."
"It won't be like you're not a part of Facebook," Sean said. "You're not a part of Facebook."
"My name's on the masthead," Eduardo said. He was still talking to Mark, Mark who was ignoring him to the best of his ability, probably thinking about all the code he'd just lost and how long it would take him to redo.
"You might want to check again."
Eduardo froze, actually froze his mind whirring without him for a moment while all he could do was stand there and stare at Mark's unresponsive head. Thoughts ran from his head from 'what a good joke' to 'you are going to die and no one will hear you scream.'
None of them helped. No one was joking, and he couldn't kill anyone. "This is because I froze the account," he said-stupidly-because they were still staring at him and maybe if he said it out loud he could start believing it.
"You think we were going to let you parade around in your ridiculous suits pretending you were running this company?"
Eduardo turned on him, focusing all his anger at this one fucking thorn in his fucking side and for a moment he didn't care if Sean was a supervillain or not. "Sorry," he threw like a punch. "My Prada's in the cleaners along with my hoodie and my fuck-you flip-flops you pretentious douchbag." He wasn't entirely sure if he was talking about Sean or Mark or both. He really didn't care either way.
Sean took half a step away from him. "Security's here. You'll be leaving now."
Eduardo was tempted-sorely tempted-to show Sean just how effective his precious 'security' would be against Spiderman by beating them to a pulp, and then beating Sean and Mark and-fuck-anyone else who got in fucking range.
But what difference would it make? Mark wasn't even looking at him, distracted already by code and by Sean Parker's amazingness and whatever the fuck else. "Tell me this isn't about me getting into the Phoenix," he asked Mark's back. "Tell me this isn't-" He'd barely even gone there, never found out of he'd made it all the way because he'd missed so many initiation ceremonies out saving lives.
But Mark didn't know that. He's been so obsessed with those damn clubs and Eduardo had never even tried to explain that there were more important things. But a finals club, all of this over a fucking finals club? No, this had to be personal and the only think Mark cared about was Facebook. Facebook and the users of Facebook and the reputation of Facebook.
He swallowed, remembering Divya Narendra's smug grin."Is this about the story with the chicken?"
If only Narendra could see them now. "I bet what you hated most is that they identified me as a co-founder of Facebook, which I am. You better lawyer up, asshole, because I'm not coming back for my thirty percent. I'm coming back for everything."
Sean looked over his shoulder at the two security guys. "Get him out of here," he said, like the two bodybuilders had a hope in Hell of taking Eduardo anywhere he didn't want to go.
Mark didn't look up. There was nothing else to be done here. "I'm going."
"Hang on," Sean took a step closer, a tiny hint of a self satisfied grin on his face as he tugged a check out of his pocket. "I almost forgot, there's your $19,000. I wouldn't cash it though, I drew it on the account you froze-"
Eduardo drew back his fist to smash Sean's smirk to a thousand tiny pieces and felt a jolt of satisfaction as he watched Sean flinch away.
He flinched away from Eduardo. Not even from Spiderman, from Eduardo because when it came down to it what the fuck was Sean Parker? A few lucky breaks and a smile he practiced in front of the mirror.
I'm Spiderman, Eduardo thought as Sean took a stumbling step back as though he still expected to be punched. Bitch.
Eduardo laughed. "I like standing next to you, Sean. It makes me look so tough."
He didn't look at Mark again, just turned on his heel and let security follow him out like bodyguards to royalty.
For the first time it occurred to him that Sean couldn't possibly be a supervillain. He didn't have the balls.
Now
The cloning machine burns blue and green. It's pretty, in a 'thank god that's over' kind of way and they sit on the roof of a neighbouring building to watch it. Mark's flip flips are knocking against Eduardo's red and blue boots as they hang in mid air. Eduardo folds Divya's contract into a paper airplane and tosses it carefully down into the flames.
Mark rests his head on Eduardo's shoulder and Eduardo's arm falls casually around his waist, like one kiss in a high pressure situation means they're dating now. Eduardo cares less than he probably should. Mark doesn't seem to care at all.
"You're an idiot," Eduardo says, in case this one sinks in where the last thousand or so haven't. "And if you ever drug me again, I will kill you."
"Hmm," Mark says, which notably isn't 'of course Spiderman, whatever you say Spiderman.' "We got them though. Most of them anyway."
Divya had escaped, sadly, in a helicopter with the last two Winklevii clones. Mark had shouted something about going after them but Eduardo didn't want to chance the propellers, and anyway, two Winklevii he could deal with. "Well, we won't win the Olympics without them," he offers.
"Isn't using genetically enhanced evil clones against the rules?"
"Since when did you care about the rules?" Eduardo says, squeezing Mark's side to indicate that he's joking. Mark's face is strangely relaxed, his guard low enough that there's a small smile on his lips, as though he could be happy right here on a roof at dawn with a guy in a mask.
It's almost like being back at Harvard, back before Facebook, Facemash, even before Erica; and Eduardo is suddenly reminded of seeing a curly haired kid asleep at a laptop in the corner of the library, of walking over to shake his shoulder and check he was okay.
They were friends. At one time, they were friends.
"So what happens now?" Eduardo asks. "Are you going back to California?"
Mark shifts a little closer, getting more comfortable. "I suppose," he says. "It's about time I went home." He glances up and asks, "What about you? Where's home for you now?"
Eduardo looks down at him. Mark is leaving in the morning, and all the papers for transferring money to Eduardo are signed and sealed. Settled. "Singapore," he says. "Allegedly."
Mark stiffens ever so slightly as Eduardo knew he would, but he doesn't look angry. He just tilts his head to one side as though searching for something. Finally he quietly murmurs, "Wardo?"
Eduardo reaches up with one hand to tug the mask off. He shakes out his hair and starts choking on the heavy smoke, the weight of it throwing him into a coughing fit that almost rocks him off the roof and distracts him enough that he doesn't notice the hand slapping him on the back for a long moment.
He blinks tears out of his eyes, gasping for breath, and turns to see that Mark hasn't recoiled or run away screaming. If anything, his smile is wider. "Wardo," he says again when it is clear Eduardo is going to survive. "You're Spiderman?"
Eduardo closes his eyes, expecting Mark to have gone by the time he opens them. "Yeah." He manages a weak smile. "Well. You always wanted to know what I was doing in New York."
His eyes are startled open by the weight returning to his shoulder as Mark resumes his original position, this time with his eyes closed as though he's thinking of going to sleep right there. "I thought you'd gone back to school," he says. "I thought-if you chose school over Facebook it had to mean you didn't care and that made it okay."
Eduardo tugs off one of his gloves and rests his fingers in Mark's hair. "Why would I go back to school?"
Mark looks down at his hands. "For some reason 'he's not here, he must be Spiderman' just didn't occur to me." He trails off. "If you had said-I thought you just didn't care." He sounds so earnest, and Eduardo knows this is probably the closest he is going to get to an explanation and an apology.
As far as Mark knew, Eduardo was studying and occasionally beating up Sean.
Eduardo sighs. "I was going to tell you," he says. "I was just waiting for a time when you weren't completely 100% focused on Facebook."
Mark has the decency to look slightly abashed. "Oh."
"Hey Mark," Eduardo says, fingers teasing lightly through Mark's hair. "I'm Spiderman."
It's the closest thing to acceptance that Mark is going to get, but Mark seems to understand because his mouth twists into a lazy smile.
"You don't seem all that surprised," Eduardo says. It's either that or 'why aren't you leaving?' and for some reason he doesn't want to prompt Mark to leave.
"I kinda guessed," Mark says, and Eduardo almost pushes him off the roof in surprise before he clarifies. "Well, I didn't. But I thought." He worries his lip between his teeth and Eduardo remembers kissing those lips, the faint taste of red bull and twizzlers mixed in with something inherently Mark. "Just, things you did. Nothing specific, but I couldn't look at you without thinking of, uh, you." His hand rests lightly on Eduardo's leg. "I wasn't sure. At all. Chris said I was projecting. Like, I've only ever really had a crush on two people so my subconscious decides they're the same person, starts projecting Eduardo's characteristics onto Spiderman and vice versa. You don't want to know what Dustin did."
"Why?" Eduardo asks, to distract himself from 'only ever had a crush on two people' and suddenly wishing he could pull the mask back on to hide the red of his cheeks.
Mark shifts around until his head is in Eduardo's lap and he can stretch out across the roof top. "Suffice to say, nothing rhymes with 'Spider-Wardo'."
Eduardo laughs. "Is it bad that I miss him?"
"Crazy," Mark says, finding Eduardo's hand through touch and not letting go of it. "But I wouldn't say bad." He pauses. "You're a shareholder now, you could come back. Sean's gone, mostly."
Eduardo's laugh dies as quickly as it came, but he supposes they have to get this over with. "I thought Sean was a supervillain," he says, and it sounds so ridiculous saying it out loud that he can't believe he didn't doubt it sooner. "All my senses were on red alert when he was around. The way he talked, the way he smiled, the way he acted. It all screamed supervillainry."
"Oh." Mark opens his eyes to see Eduardo looking down at him. "Was he?"
"No," Eduardo says, disappointment ringing through it. "He was just your average asshole."
Mark nods absently, eyes drifting shut again. He doesn't seem at all surprised or insulted to hear Sean being called an asshole, possibly he was intelligent enough to work that out for himself. Eventually. "Well, Divya was a supervillain and the Winklevii turned out to be evil clones so I guess you can be forgiven for being suspicious of anyone."
He's got Eduardo yawning now too. "Christy went crazy, blew up three school buses and held about fifty school children hostage because she thought I was cheating on her with you."
Mark raises his eyebrows. "Really?"
"Yeah." He goes back to threading his fingers through Mark's hair. The warehouse flames are fading out to the normal yellow now; whatever mysterious chemicals that made cloning possible have burnt out. Mark's breathing levels out, becomes slow and steady to the point where Eduardo is starting to wonder what time his flight is and whether he should be woken up.
It's almost like they're back in Harvard; Mark with a nine am class and Eduardo looking down at the tousled head-calm, for once-and thinking whatever he's supposed to be studying can't be that important. Not really.
Only ever had a crush on two people, flitters through Eduardo's mind again echoing with the taste of Mark's lips and Mark's asleep so he could just lean forward and-
Mark's eyelids flicker open just as Eduardo starts to tilt forward. "Someone arranged a cab from the hotel," he says, looking around as though a clock will materialise from thin air. "I should get back." He sits up, and Eduardo's lap is suddenly full of nothing but cold air.
Mark glances over his shoulder with a tiny smile. "I should've known it was you," he says as Eduardo picks up his discarded glove and his mask, pulling them back over all his bare skin.
Eduardo raises his eyebrows questioningly while Mark can still see them.
Mark smiles. "Anyone else would have given up on me by now."
And if that makes Eduardo beam like an idiot, his mask is already pulled down so no one has to know.
Then
He burnt the papers he'd taken from Thiel's office. If the man wanted the screw over Facebook, let him fucking try. He finally went though the one closet, tossing all of Christy's clothes into a bin bag along with the old webshooters, any torn or bloodstained costumes, and the box that used to contain the spider antivenom.
He threw away all his school notes from Harvard, the suit he'd worn to sign the first contracts and the ones today, the silk scarf he'd bought for Christy but never had the chance to give to her.
He turned on his cell phone, jotted down Dr Jones's number and then he threw that away too. Economics text books, cracked mugs, the stupid hat he'd been wearing when Mark first approached him with an idea.
He went through three bags, taking them all down to the garbage round the back of the building before letting himself collapse on the bed, reaching out with one hand for the police scanner.
'Armed suspects at grand local bank, send reinforcements. Repeat, send reinforcements.'
He hooked the mask on his index finger as he swung out the window.
Now
They land on Mark's hotel room balcony. Mark's case is still unpacked, Eduardo's empty beer bottle is still lying on the floor. Mark steps through the mess, picking up his replacement laptop and sliding it into the bag. "The room's paid up to the end of the week," he says, looking around at the mess instead of at Eduardo on the balcony. "If you need somewhere to stay."
No one is actively gunning for him right now, as far as he knows, but Mark's suite is still infinitely bigger and nicer than his apartment. "Thank you." The words are awkward in his mouth, he doesn't know how to breach the subject of the kiss or Mark's hand in his or the way Mark looped his arms around Eduardo's neck and hung on from the front for the first time, leaning his cheek against Eduardo's shoulder.
He doesn't know how to say that he liked it. That he doesn't necessarily want Mark to leave just yet.
There's a sharp rap on the door. "Mr Zuckerberg, your car is here."
It's so strange to hear him called 'Mr Zuckerberg.' Mark with his hoodies and his flip-flops, clutching the strap of his laptop bag as though it's the one constant in the world.
"You should go," Eduardo says at the same time as Mark turns to say, "Why though?"
"What?" Eduardo asks.
Mark bites his lip, looking down at the suitcase. "Why?" he says again. "The suit, the heroics. You're trying to save an entire city and it just seems... why?"
Eduardo can't help smiling a little. "I looked after you for two years," he says. "New York had to be a piece of cake in comparison to that."
Mark looks surprised, and a little pleased as he turns to go down to his taxi, back to California, and finally out of Eduardo's life.
"Mark," Eduardo says, before the door can open. Mark turns back. "If you get kidnapped again, call me."
A hesitant smile touches the edges of Mark's mouth. "I don't have your number."
Eduardo crosses into the room, snatches a biro and scrawls his number across Mark's arm. Mark smells of unwashed hoodie, Winklevii and brightly coloured smoke. Eduardo doesn't move away. "Or if you're not kidnapped," Eduardo says. "You could still call."
Mark reaches up, fingers brushing the bottom of Eduardo's mask.
Somewhere behind them a very harried bellboy is knocking on the door calling Mark's name. More importantly, Eduardo's mask has fallen to the floor and his fingers are twisted in Mark's hair, Mark's mouth open under his and full of so many possibilities.
The Future
There is a henchman pointing a gun at Eduardo's head. The Villain of the Week-Eduardo can't remember her name but there are a lot of snakes around so he's guessing something with a whole lot of sibilants-claps her hands together. "Ssso, Ssspiderman," she says.
"I get it," Eduardo interrupts before he can go any further.
Apparently unused to being interrupted mid-speech, Sibilants hesitates. "You... get it?"
"Snakes," Eduardo says. "You have a lot of snakes, your thing is snakes, you're the Incredible Snake Girl or whatever. Please stop hissing at me."
"The Snake Charmer," the Snake Charmer says, bending down to let something green and scaly slither onto her arm. "Remember that name for it will be the last one you ever hear." She sounds a lot more confident when she's delivering death threats. Good for her. "Now, put down your weapon before my assistant is forced to shoot."
She had far too much fun with the word 'assistant' for Eduardo to even think of taking her seriously. Unfortunately, her assistant is a seven foot bodybuilder and the gun is real enough. Eduardo drops the baseball bat at his feet and kicks it away from himself, sending it spinning across the floor in their direction.
"Now," she says. "I think you will put your hands on your head and not make any sudden movements while we tie you up."
Eduardo watches the bat spin between them, coming to a halt at the feet of the figure with the bag on his head tied to a chair behind them. "Do you?" he asks. "Because if so, you really don't know me very well."
A warning shot slices through the air above his head. "You do not know me at all," she hisses. "But if you did you would know not to cross me. You should know when to give up, Spiderman. This is not something you have faced before."
"Actually," Eduardo says.
"We do this a lot," says Mark, pulling the hood off his head and swinging the bat hard into the side of the henchman's head.
He has to stand on the chair to do it, but Eduardo will save the mockery for a moment when they're not both surrounded by poisonous snakes. "So," he says to the Snake Charmer as Mark pounds the bat threateningly into his palm. "I think you should put your hands on your head and not make any sudden movements while I tie you up. Mark, what do you think?"
Mark is looking down at the snakes, suddenly realising how close he is to a venomous death. "I think we should do this quickly," he says. "And then there can be pizza."
Not quite the snappy one liner Eduardo was angling for but still... pizza.
*
They leave the Snake Charmer tied to the chair with webbing, though Eduardo has to carry Mark on his shoulders until they're past the snakes. Mark flicks the blades he used to cut the ropes back into their hidden compartments on his watch while Eduardo texts an 'anonymous' tip-off to the police, who totally have his number on file.
"I thought the hero was the one supposed to get the cool gadgets," Eduardo says.
Mark finishes clicking his watch back together. "Clearly this means you are my sidekick," he says. "Don't worry, sidekick is a very reasonable position."
Eduardo punches him lightly on the shoulder. "I don't think heroes should sleep with their sidekicks, it just seems so inappropriate somehow-"
"Partners," Mark interrupts. "We can be partners." He thrusts out a hand imperiously and Eduardo takes it, gloves fingers pressing against Mark's skin. "So, the Fantastic Four," Mark says, as though their phone conversation hadn't been interrupted by his kidnapping and Eduardo's 6 hour plane journey. "You really think they could work out?"
"Well there are four of them," Eduardo points out. "I know New York is big and all but there's been one of me for years and I've managed. They got radiation from some comet, I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention. Hey, did I tell you that Reed offered to pay me a salary? He even said he could backdate it from when I started, that is one rich scientist."
"What did you say?"
Eduardo grins over at him. "I explained that I had an independently wealthy boyfriend who was perfectly capable of keeping me in the manner to which I have become accustomed. Obviously I used those exact words." He tugs Mark back into the alley where he left his clothes and tosses his mask on the ground, leaning in to kiss Mark properly. Mark doesn't hesitate, lips parting and tongue darting out and Eduardo is pulling him closer, pressing in close, wishing the Spiderman costume was easier to get out of.
"So," Mark says, slightly breathless, as Eduardo moves away to find his clothes. "You're saying you could retire, set up shop somewhere else." He manages to wait all of five seconds. "I hear California is nice this time of year."
Eduardo tugs off his mask and gloves, dropping them on the ground and reaching for his trousers. "Really?" he says. "I don't know, I was thinking Florida, maybe Miami. Or Europe, I hear good things about Euro-"
He's interrupted by Mark kissing him again, pressing him back against the wall of the alley and sliding his hand down Eduardo's side like he knows just how fucking uncomfortable the suit is when you have a boner.
"We should go on a date," he says, moving away with a taunting smile. "Give the Fantabulous Five a test run for the night. We haven't been on a date since I got captured by giant spiders that one time."
Eduardo tugs on his jacket, resting his arm across Mark's shoulders to head out the alley. "So you mean one of those dates where you take your laptop, I take my police scanner and we both bail before the end?"
Mark is grinning like an idiot, but he nods. "I know an Italian where you pay when you order."
Eduardo stops. "Mark, why are you smiling?"
Mark glances at him and turns faintly pink. Blushing and smiling. Maybe he was poisoned by snakes, perhaps Eduardo should be calling an ambulance.
"You told Reed I was your boyfriend," Mark says.
"No," Eduardo protests, pushing him away though he can feel the same stupid smile touching his own face. "No, you do not get to pretend like I'm the one who made this relationship official. Not when you hacked into Spiderman's Facebook page to change the relationship status months ago."
Mark tries for 'innocent' but the grin keeps poking through the cracks. "I don't trust that Gwen Stacy," he says. "Always being abducted by aliens or nearly falling off the edge of buildings. You can't trust a girl like that. Don't leave me for a girl like that."
Eduardo laughs and kisses him right there in the street for everyone to see. Okay, so, there's only really one old guy on a bench nearby, but it's the gesture that's important. "I promise," he says. "My point stands."
"Fine," Mark says, but doesn't stop smiling.
Eduardo elbows him in the ribs. "You're worrying me, Mark. Stop being happy about the fact that we're dating, damn it."
Mark turns and positively beams. "You're coming to California."
Eduardo could say that he hasn't decided and he really likes French bread so he's thiking maybe-but they both know how ridiculous that is. "For a trial period," he says. "I mean, maybe the Fantastic Four won't be able to take it. I wouldn't say I had absolute confidence in Reed and they came with their own supervillain which they might need help to handle so-"
Mark reaches out to press his hand over Eduardo's mouth. "You're coming to California."
Eduardo sighs, but when he reaches up to tug Mark's hand away he is grinning just as widely back. "Yeah," he says. "I'm coming to California."