Jump 186: Spider-Man - The Animated Series

Jump 186: Spider-Man - The Animated Series

Location: New York City, 1990
Age: 23
Identity: Hero
Drawbacks: None

[Free]      Secret Identity
[100/1000]  Blindsight
[300/1000]  Spider Bitten
[400/1000]  Cat Burglar
[Free]      Spider Accessories
[1000/1000] JumpCorp

Ah, we're running in the nineties again! Fortunately, this means I can do all the crazy nineties things to the hilt, like inheriting a megacorporation, going off and being trained by ninjas, and let's be real here if my background was any more similar to another property I'd have been bitten by a radioactive bat rather than a spider. Except this isn't Gotham, so the brooding can be kept to a minimum while getting wrapped up in all the crazy local events. And occasionally paying a visit up north to Westchester, because crossover episodes are the best part of things. Except when they are the worst things.

Still, most of the issues that let me cross between the two of them were low-key. Spider powers exist, sure, but the only time they came up - at least early on - was when I was caught in an attack by a Sentinel on a mall and I pulled some improbable maneuvers to escape and pull someone else to safety from a pillar that was falling toward her. A cute southern girl, a redhead with a streak of white in her hair. A brief check to make sure she was okay was done, and I thought nothing more of it.

But I'd accidentally brushed against exposed skin without having certain other out of context powers active.

I didn't notice anything amiss as I made myself scarce and the X-Men came out of the woodwork, because I had enough energy that it was a drop from an ocean. Let's be honest - if I permitted some energy vampire to feed on me, they'd likely be sated until the world crumbled to dust. In her case? In addition to feeling like she'd just drank a pot of coffee from the brief contact, she got glimpses of another time, another world. Too blurry to understand, but massive wars, massive ships. As she would learn later, the War In Heaven.

I did not come across her for a year after that point. Instead I was juggling assorted problems that being in this universe would naturally bring up, such as 'why are Sentinels even a thing, aren't they American citizens, do you have an arrest warrant for them' and 'why are power inhibiting collars a thing and who the heck is making them'. Though the answer to both was, less than surprisingly, the Mutant Control Agency. Why the heck did this even exist? That's a fantastic question, and the answer to that was a boatload of bribes and blackmail. Mostly by Henry Gyrich.

And so I did what any responsible citizen would do. Bought a couple of congressmen, made sure the media was given plenty to sing about (for once, something in the Daily Bugle that wasn't Spider-Man!), and petitioned to get the MCA shut down. Though I had other options that some didn't - for example, meeting directly with Magneto in civilian attire for us both, ignoring his subtle flexing of his magnetic powers, and asking him to keep his activities dialed down a few notches while I did more work in the background to try to make a better world. When I was leaving, he criticized about whether or not I was a mutant - either I was a surprisingly open-minded human, or a mutant pretending not to be one. With a shake of my head, I told him it wasn't that simple; that I was just a man who had lived through wars, and did not wish to see this world consumed by one regardless of who won.

So of COURSE on leaving the restaurant I would run across the woman I'd thought I saved at the mall, along with two friends of hers. Another redhead, though that was no southern belle, and a dark-skinned beauty with white hair. Apparently I piqued their interest, as they had a brief hushed conversation before they approached me. And so, I introduced myself, and a brief conversation was had. I recognized them as X-Men thanks to news reports, though I did not know them well enough to know them personally. And so I offered to meet Anna-Marie for coffee on a future day, were she available.

Gambit was, of course, lurking in the distance. He and Rogue had a recent falling out, and he was doing the thing that people did in the 90s cartoons, following the people they were having an active disagreement with. Somehow he overheard everything, elected to be suspicious, and elected to follow for the lunch date on the following day. Sadly, he did not actually hear what was discussed as he was stuck outside the coffee shop, but he was rather unhappy with the conversing and flirting over coffee and muffins. Not to mention the kiss on the cheek that Rogue got at the end of it, without any apparent ill effects.

Sucks to suck, Remy. Maybe you'll have luck with a woman who doesn't see you as literally her only option and who keeps coming back to you after repeated breakups. Though there was the issue with Galactus coming by the Earth, which kind of shook up a lot of things and briefly put a lot of issues on the back burner.

Things being what they are, of course, I got wrapped up in a bit of New York's insanity after that. The Black Cat broke into my penthouse apartment after she'd staked it out and found me waiting there, despite that she had seen me walk out literally minutes before. I told her, of course, that it didn't matter how I had done it, only that she was trespassing and that she needed to leave. When she took violent exception to this, because of COURSE she did, I assisted her in making an exit via one of the windows. Fortunately, Spider-Man just happened to be swinging by and caught her on the way down, but that put me in his crosshairs. Because of course it did.

The Black Cat apparently elected to attempt some thieving of jewels the night after her failed attempt to steal ... whatever she was hoping to steal from my apartment that was likely not even there, and I ensured that once she'd come through the skylight, that I was waiting for her inside. Being obscenely rich (see also JumpCorp, and the fact that I merged it with all the other follow-the-jumper-around corporations) meant that I could buy out the gallery, and I'd put out a cat themed display simply as bait for her.

Naturally Spider-Man came to stop her from breaking in, a three way fight ensued, Spider-Man was surprised that a seemingly ordinary guy in a white business suit could fight on par with his other opponent, and somehow or another it ended up in a running battle across rooftops. The burglar let slip that the Kingpin was the one who wanted her to get some paperwork from my apartment; I laughed and let her know that I wouldn't keep anything like that in my apartment, instead locked up in an anonymous safe deposit box and good luck finding that.

Naturally, the next thing to do was to schedule an appointment for a meeting with Wilson Fisk. It was... surprisingly amiable. I was, after all, a relative unknown who'd come into New York with a massive company, and he was concerned that flashing massive amounts of money would disrupt a great deal of things, including the crime rate. We laughed, over an Italian lunch, shared amusing anecdotes, expressed frustration with New York City's vigilante issues, and I expressed to him that I was keeping everything strictly above board; what happened under the table was simply not my concern, and I trusted that the city could take care of itself. After all, as Felicia Hardy had found out, I certainly could take care of myself.

Eyebrows were raised; of course he knew who she was, but there was seemingly no way I should have known. But then, being who I was, I had made it my business to know who hides behind the mask, whether they be spoiled rich children, educated professionals, or poor schmucks trying to scrape together enough to survive week-to-week. My concerns, I explained to him, were much larger than that. New York was a strange place fraught with danger at times, but the world at large was much stranger place with danger in the same accordance. And I was ensuring that my holdings were in the right position to make sure the globe kept spinning, and the everyman kept happy and ignorant of things like, say, the shadow war between mutants, the idiots in Hydra running around, or other idiots who like to travel through time to do stupid things. Or the megalomaniacs who want to conquer the world for kicks.

We ended up parting on cordial, if not entirely friendly, terms. The Black Cat still broke into my apartment again, though. Repeatedly. She could absolutely not figure out how the devil I was still there when she saw me leave, or when she'd put a tracker on me. Only to later find that the tracker was on some random person that was jogging in New York... or, inexplicably, on Spider-Man at one point. (If she only knew the power of clones...) She did, eventually, give up. But it was only necessary the one time to prompt her removal via the window; eventually it got to be so commonplace, that I'd just cook some pancakes for her.

This became a minor issue later, after I'd gone out with Rogue on a couple more dates. Nothing more awkward than a partner from a budding relationship coming out of the bedroom in the middle of the night, only to find a cat burglar complaining petulantly about her lack of pancakes. Though explanations did come, and things calmed down after. But the growing relationship meant that I ended up getting dragged into dealings with mutants much more often than the insanity in New York - though there was still a good portion of that - and there was a heck of a lot of craziness going on. They dealt with some aliens, Jean Gray was dead (and Rogue was less than happy when I said she'd probably get better - and confused when I told her it wasn't a joke), and things just got increasingly weird. Interplanetary shenanigans, interdimensional shenanigans, anti-mutant racists, some twit trying to freaking resurrect Apocalypse, and of course Mister Sinister. I ended up involved increasingly more with that, and while I ended up playing down my abilities, there was definitely enough that they suspected (but could never confirm) that I was a mutant.

And then Rogue asked for help, because apparently Professor Xavier was dying. And if I really was a mutant, because... she'd seen what was in my head. In the mall when the Sentinel attacked, she'd seen a flash of endless fields of war. On our date, before I had thought to shield myself from unexpected tactile telepathy, she'd seen briefly a thousand faces in a thousand restaurants ranging from medieval to inhumanly advanced. And so... I explained to her who I was. I showed her some of what I accomplished. What I could do. The hidden dyson shell around Earth, and the arcane theotech that ran through it.

"I was born a man as ordinary as any other, Anna-Marie," I told her, cupping her cheek. "I have come far, and am quite literally divinity, but unlike some on this world... I never forgot where I came from. I usually try to step lightly, and not tread on others, for if I solve a world's problems then others are made the lesser for it. But Charles Xavier... he shall be healed. Well, technically he just was a few moments ago." I paused, and added, "Though we're currently negotiating whether he wants to walk again, or whether he wants to... ah, apparently he's aiming to spend some time with his girlfriend. But there's another issue."

She looked at me, asked what. And so I continued, "I have been wrestling with something. You have seen the worlds under my purview. When I travel, they come with me. I have considered adding your world to it... and I should point out that I rule very few worlds directly. I'm more than happy to leave them to their own devices, though I might make an exception for Henry Gyrich, how he got the bribes together to get out of prison I'll never know. Bigots aside, though? There are... problems coming. There are greater threats out there than Galactus," I said, an arm sweeping toward the night sky. "Existential threats that will wipe out everything, more than just this universe. I can't save the entire galaxy. I could save the Shi'ar, and I will ask Lilandra if she desires the same. And... I'm going to see if I can save this world, too. Because if I don't, it's going to disappear with no way to save it. I've helped deal with similar threats already - and there's another coming in '98 who I am going to obliterate so Spider-Man doesn't have to - but the multiverse is still destined to be wiped out."

This was a less than ideal thing in her eyes, understandable accusations were thrown, and there was only one thing that could be done under the circumstances. Xavier, now that he wasn't suffering from a bullet wound any longer, implored the mutants who were rioting to calm themselves. Not via a television address, but with Cerebro, so that they'd know the truth rather than merely rejecting it. Magneto travelled from Genosha to Westchester with all haste, to meet with him; I arrived very shortly after with a still-angry Rogue, dismissing the other incarnation of myself who'd already been present, and... between Xavier, Magneto augmenting Xavier's power, Jean Gray acting as a telepathic relay, Rouge physically touching me, and the Gem of Cyttorak augmenting all three of them, they were able to see into my mind. An unexpected guest in attendance was Jubilee, who had snuck in - she'd find later that instead of merely shooting fireworks from her fingers, she became capable of firing and controlling whole bursts of plasma that could range in power from harmless to the force of a bunker-busting bomb.

The five of them got to see it all. Every last detail. The world through my eyes, beyond mere human perception. The worlds that had preceded this, which seemed initially like twisted funhouse mirrors, then more and more different from their own. They saw empires that stretched across galaxies, magic that gathered across dimensions, skies without sun and the bizarre adventures that took place therein. Powers locked in mortal combat across the realms, worlds that fought off doom, worlds overwhelmed with survivors amidst the fallout. And in the end, they saw a galaxy in flames... and then the War in Heaven that preceded it.

As the connection faded, I told them, not unkindly, "There are wonders and terrors beyond belief, beyond the veil of this universe. But the powers behind the machinations of your multiverse? I literally cannot explain them without simplifying down to nonsensical terms - but they absolutely will destroy your world along with countless others. I know this for truth, because I have already seen it happen, and they have done it before. This is the sixth multiverse. A very similar one may come about one day, but before that happens, you will be as if put in a box and disposed of in the cold ground. And in the million ages to come, you will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again, your children unborn, only an idea, a potential that could never come to be."

"I must save you from destruction."

Of course the battle after that was legendary, stretching across the eastern seaboard before going overseas, hitting Genosha before entering Europe on the way to Asia. No matter what they'd seen and what I'd done for them, they still couldn't wrap their heads around it without thinking that I was somehow going to steal their world. Which... was technically both true and false, but I at least was able to guide the battle to unoccupied locations for the most part, and ensure a minimum of collateral damage considering that literally everyone seemed to be fighting. The X-Men? Of course. Magneto's Brotherhood? Can't let the X-Men have all the fun. Spider-Man? From start to finish. The Insidious Six? Surprisingly, yes. SHIELD? Unsurprisingly. The Fantastic Four? Definitely. The Avengers? Some of them tag-teamed so brief sleep could be gotten. Dr. Doom? Well, we did pass close enough to Latveria, so of course the Doombots and the good doctor himself joined in. Even Omega Red and a couple of pesky time travellers (read: Bishop and Cable).

The battle ended in Norway, south of Oslo. The heroes, surrounding me in an empty field, ready to strike. I'd seemingly been backed into a corner. Except... honestly, I knew what the capabilities of everyone present were. Rogue had been juiced-up from having skin contact with me while I showed her and the other four my past, but even that boost was starting to fade. The rest were flagging, staying in the fight via pure willpower.

The battle ended, because I chose to end it.

"So I think we ought to take a lunch break, since I'm pretty sure none of you have eaten much in a good long while," I told them. To be honest, I think they were a bit unsettled that I was still wearing my business suit, that it still looked as if it were fresh, and that the only few times I'd bled it had been mere scratches. Not that SHIELD's attempts to hit me with munitions, conventional or unconventional, had achieved any of that; the only attacks I'd truly felt had come from Rogue, Thor, Wolverine, the goddamn Silver Surfer (what was he even doing here?), and a single lucky hit from the Shi'ar who had fortuitously arrived thanks to Xavier and Magneto sending out an SOS.

This caught them flatfooted. Further dialog was had - misunderstandings were had, but I was both the businessman in New York who was dating Rogue and a god, and shut up, Captain America, now is NOT the time to complain about a certain carpenter that I'm not even trying to upstage. Once again, I tried to explain the whole thing. But how do you tell a fish that its tank is going to break? How do you convince it to let you put it in a new tank? I pinched the bridge of my nose, raising my voice. "Look. I'm trying to simplify this, and I'm trying to do this to help you guys. Some of whom I HAD been on good terms with a week ago, and I hope to fix that because I promised someone that I'd take her to the Prospect Park zoo while her nephew was in class, and she's honestly just a sweet old lady who deserves nice things."

The peanut gallery spoke up again, and I expressed my frustration. "Look, multiple things can be true at once. I am not limited in the way that humanity at large is - mutants or not, you're still all humans, so don't start, Erik. I have been alive for millions of years. Even as we speak, I have been talking to world leaders across the globe, trying to explain the threat that's looming - because I'm not going to take your world by force, you deserve more respect than that, but when it comes there will literally be no time to say 'maybe we were wrong'. It's just going to be someone turning out the lights- I see you over there, don't you dare try with the fastball special while we're having a discussion or I will stop playing nice and shove that Canadian where the sun don't shine."

I exhaled, snapped my fingers, and a series of picnic tables appeared along with a veritable feast. "Okay, look- no, you ass, it's not poisoned. I have been cooking for the last couple hours, I just teleported it all here. I'm still the same person I was last week, literally nothing has changed except I'm actually telling you about the problem that's coming instead of trying to figure out how to put it into a language you'd understand. Literally the clearest way I could put it is, your universe is a cartoon on television, there are a few dozen different cartoons, they're all based on different comic books, every so often the editing staff decides there's too much cruft and they restart the series from a blank slate. Your universe hits the cruft phase in about three years, subjectively speaking. From the outside perspective, it's already happened, and I have SEEN it- of course I couldn't stop it."

A few heroes had chosen to grab food, but very few, and I continued talking. At this point several of me were trying to explain to different groups. "Look. If someone sees a tree get struck by lightning, are they going to be able to stop it? No, at best they can save what's burning- no, Storm can't stop the lightning Jubilee, it's already happened and the tree is burning." I snapped my fingers, pointed at Thor, "THANK you. Yes. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. It's the equivalent of a multiversal Yggdrasil being struck by lightning from beyond. Though in this case it's more akin to... if Yggdrasil were a drawing on a piece of paper on the table over there? It would be as if an actual bolt of lightning struck it. The source of the event is beyond comprehensible space-time, even between dimensions. And I'm here, watching the paper burn, hoping I can save a few cinders because most of the tree is already burned."

I exhaled, the 'me' that had been fighting them sitting down at one of the tables and grabbing a burger. "If you all want to declare me some villain, then that's fine, it won't matter in a few years anyway. The shell is proof against universe-destroying things. But nothing that isn't a part of it will be, and it will leave before your universe pops like a soap bubble-" I palmed my face, "No, Tony, the shell has nothing to do with any of it other than BEING here, it didn't break anything when it came in and it won't break anything when it leaves, being hung over is not an excuse to be a complete ass." I started on a second burger. "It isn't my duty to save your world from the universe's destruction, but I thought I would offer the option. You all... heroes and villains alike, don't get to decide the opinions of everyone on the planet. I'm not a military threat - if I wanted to, I could quite literally send out more warships than there are sophonts in the Milky Way and conquer the local galactic cluster, and the fact that I have not done that  should tell you all you need to know. Hell, if I wanted to conquer the Earth without it looking like it were me, I'd have called some of Kerensky's kids and let them stomp around in their mechs."

More decided to eat, SHIELD having contacted those it was still in touch with, confirming I had been briefing the president and vice president of the US and that I was now talking to their legislature. And Chernomyrdin and the Duma, in Russia. And Queen Elizabeth II and the Parliament of the UK. Most governments, actually, with only a handful not disclosing that they were meeting with me or had already met with me.

"I've done this many times before, and I am very adept at it," I told them. "I don't need to conquer through force of arms, unless it's to make a point. The only point I chose to make here is, the only ones that can affect me are those I choose to. But I won't save anyone who does not wish to be saved, generally speaking. Not to say I am going to ask every person, because it would be very rude to relocate a world and leave someone floating in space, but... the more general sense. No man is an island, after all. Except Tiamut, but I don't think he's here... maybe. If he is, then he'll be left behind, you really don't want your earth ending up cracking like an egg so a baby Celestial can come out of it."

I shook my head a small bit, stood up, and opened a technicolor portal. "Look, I'm just... I'm done. I hid the fight behind a perception filter, so other than SHIELD and Latveria almost no one realized there even was a fight, but I need to deck Wakanda in its collective schnozz later for choosing to punish the world by not releasing the cure for cancer among other issues. On a related note, I've released the cure for cancer at cost, and it's not the Wakandan version. You guys can go when you want, that rift in space will take each of you to a place you consider home. Or somewhere you consider safe - hideouts and safehouses and whatnot. Except Thor, I think Heimdall would find it rude to have me teleport you, so it'll take you to the Avengers mansion."

My assorted selves departed as well, and the last of myself ... stopped. And went over to Rogue, who was visibly conflicted. Standoffish, and with the other X-Men.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Rogue. I am sorry that things have come to where they are, truly I am. I may be a divinity, but I did not come here to play god. I just want to save people from something that can't be fought," I told her, then paused and cracked a grin. "But, woman, you have a mean right hook." She laughed, despite herself, but the grin faded shortly. "If you don't want to see me again, I understand. If that's how you feel... I will hope you might change your mind, but I won't try to talk you out of it."

Frustrated, she shook her head, even as she stepped close to me, conversation dropping. This wasn't for the team's ears, after all, no matter how much certain ones might eavesdrop. "It ain't just that. I thought you were my age. You, you're millions of years old. Me? Not even thirty What kind of relationship could we even have?"

I smiled a bit, shook my head, and took her hand. "After a while, beyond a certain point age stops mattering. It was never about how old you were, or what your powers were, or what you looked like... though I maintain you are beautiful. It was who you are that made me fall in love with you. It's your heart."

"I... I don't know," she said, shaking her head. Turning it away. But not pulling away.

I closed my eyes for a long moment, then nodded. "I understand," I told her. My arms went around her, and hers around me, but she didn't turn back to me. My lips met her cheek for a moment, before I whispered in her ear, "In a thousand years, I'll still love you, Anna-Marie. Day or night, no matter when or why, I will always answer when you call on me."

We disentangled, stepped away. I walked toward the portal. Gambit said some pithy remark about people not being what they seem while putting a hand on her shoulder, and she slapped it away none too lightly as she walked away. The rest of the gathering began to disperse, though many chose not to trust the portals and made their way home via alternate means.

In the wake of this all, the news had nothing to say. Perception filters held. World leaders held conferences. In time, they reluctantly agreed - and noted the benefits of other worlds to trade with, to say nothing of new lands to colonize and exploit and new technologies to gain. And so this Earth was added to the shell. In addition to that, so did Asgard after much deliberation - and the Shi'ar empire's holdings joined as well, after having made it clear that they could leave in the future if they chose to, in a universe that was not damned as this one was. It did not happen right away, but it did happen in time. After all, this permitted their empire to escape the Phalanx, as well as other hostile powers, without leaving them any resources to take for themselves. The ultimate fuck-you.

As for me?

I didn't hear from Rogue again for a while. Almost half a year. Some forgotten mutant hate group had gotten their hands on some Sentinels and sent them after Xavier's mansion while X-Men while they were putting out fires somewhere - issues caused by the same group, unsurprisingly - and with the heavy hitters away, they asked for the aid of anyone who could help. Being who I was... and the fact that Rogue was one of the few who knew what I could do... she asked for my help. And so I subverted the Sentinels and sent them back after the ones that had tried to use them to attack a mansion full of kids. And the X-Men learned an important lesson about security while missions are ongoing.

She and I spent a good amount of time together, after that incident. Our relationship, before the battle, had been looking positive. Now, it was rocky. We didn't have disagreements, not really, but there was simply... too much for her to handle. At least she was able to get her abilities under conscious control, as well as getting a stronger sense of self versus the memories of others in her mind. Due in no small part to having a front row seat to thousands and thousands of years of my own memories.

But it was no less painful when we broke it all off, ten years to the day that I had arrived in New York City.

Bit funny that heartache doesn't ease up terribly much after all these years, isn't it?