Ben was the only physical adult among them. Kaine, the big one, was next oldest, maybe eighteen physically, near a head taller and built bigger than the rest, although his high strength meant he was scarcely less graceful, only heavier. He looked rather Neanderthalic, a prototype for a super-soldier tweaked for less brains and more strength, which he was woefully aware of.
Terry was the most unfortunate of the lot, being literally part-spider, complete with mandibles, multiple eyes, and six arms. He was also the most unstable, and without the Totem power going through him, would have been quite dead from the stress on his body.
‘Jessica Drew’, promptly renamed Jessica Drew Parker, was the most successful of the batch, just gender-switched, the copied memories only making her less mentally sure of herself and easier for a telepath to manipulate. They’d actually had a full identity made up for her and ready to be impressed on her by a telepath, but Peter and Ben and the girls had gotten to them all first.
There’d been two other Parker-clones, one so spiderized as to have bristling fur and a spider’s head, and another unstable, half-made one. Both had degenerated before they could be saved.
Ben shot a hand up. “We want to go after Osborn!” he called out, and drew nods all around from the others.
“No,” DiDi stated firmly, and their eager and vengeful expressions all crumbled. “Silk, Webs, and Peter are taking care of that, and they are much better at it than you are. You, on the other hand, are going to be covering for them while they are doing that. So, you take care of their problems, and they are going to take care of yours.
“This might be hard to swallow, but remember everything you are and what was done to you was actually revenge against Peter.” They all tilted their heads and digested that sourly. “Peter isn’t the kind to take things personally, but all of you are literally copies of him; used, abused, enslaved, and abandoned. He’s taking this all VERY personally.” DiDi met each of their proud and eager eyes, and they were the first to look away.
“On to the first orders of business, then. Ben, you’re the oldest and with the most complete set of memories, which means you’re the most well-adjusted and you’ve established yourself the best. So, you’re the big brother here, and you’re in charge. Of course, your little siblings are just as rash and impulsive as you are, so good luck.”
He forced a smile as the other three chuckled despite themselves.
“Kaine. You are officially being re-named to John Kaine Parker.” He blinked despite himself. “You’re already established as Kaine mentally, that’s fine, but there’s no way we’re going to let a name that is synonymous with betrayal of family be your first name. Since you’re the little guy, Little John is your inspiration, and he was always the best hero in Robin Hood. You’re being named after him.
“John Kaine Parker is going on your birth certificate. Congratulations, Little John!”
“Uh, thanks?” His deep voice was a little gruff as he thought that over. “John Kaine Parker. Huh.” He slowly managed to smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I like that a lot better, DiDi!”
She nodded once to him. “And let us all be perfectly frank here. You were made to not be as smart as the rest of your family, because they wanted strong and dumb. They didn’t get it. You aren’t dumb, you’re still smarter than ninety-nine percent or more of humanity with that 140+ IQ of yours. Your problem is that you’ve got the implanted memories of a world-class pasty-faced geek nerd genius, instead of a genius bruiser.” He blushed despite himself, and the other three all looked away, doing the same.
“Also, you’re six months old, just like your siblings.” He flushed despite himself. “You are being assigned to Ben Grimm, who is also much smarter than he looks, and can teach you all about genius bruisering. You can’t match your siblings in raw brains in what you all know and I know that will frustrate you, so you need to find your own specialty to excel in so that doesn’t weigh on you.
“If nothing else, your enhanced Attract will lead to great Tremblesense, and you can be an unrivalled high-end construction engineer, a maker instead of a designer. Let them design stuff, and you figure out how to help them make it, and then do so, and I think you will all be happy.”
“Okay,” he grunted, frowning and thinking about that. “Mr. Grimm gonna be okay with that?”
“Already asked him. He’s been dying to have someone responsible and strong enough to help him with maintenance for like, forever.”
John smiled despite himself. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that!” Maintaining some of the most highly-engineered stuff in the world wasn’t a job for idiots.
DiDi’s eyes turned to the unfortunate Terry, who instinctively tried to look away, but that was hard with all the eyes. “Terry, I’ve already cleared it with the Xandarans. Your body is too unstable, and any excessive amount of trauma is going to destabilize you and kill you. We are not going to let you mope around like a shadow waiting to die. Peter’s already donated the blood, we’ve done some tweaking on it so you don’t end up looking like him, and we’re going to transfer your mind and soul into a new body that’s not making ready to kill itself. That all good with you?”
“Yezzzzz maa’aaaaam!” he replied instantly, struggling with the mandibles in his agitation.
“Telepathy, Terry,” DiDi said gently. “I can understand you perfectly.” He calmed down at her soothing tone. “Three days from now, you’re going to wake up Terrance William Parker, and you can start about leaving those instilled memories of Peter behind, and making up your own.
“You’re still not allowed to run away, and May and Ben are looking forward to meeting you for Sunday dinner.”
He drew a great raspy sigh. “Thaaaaaank youuuu,” he whisper-chittered.
“Jessica Drew Parker, she who gets to be the little sister.” DiDi turned on her with an arched eyebrow as the genderbent clone flushed. “You... have a crazy good chance.” DiDi nodded at the door behind them. They all turned around as it opened, and Natalia Romanova stepped inside.
Instant red on the cheekbones as hormones did their things looking at her, something DiDi was quite aware of, and used pheromones to make sure it didn’t apply to looking at herself.
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“Young Miss Parker,” the Black Widow smiled at her as their eyes met. “The Great Bear Himself expressed interest in how one of the Spider Totems might go through the Black Widow training program.” The jaws of all four dropped despite themselves. “It would take you away from your family for a few years, but when you return, you will be a Black Widow... if you can endure it.” Her green eyes sparkled with the challenge.
“You know they all wear red, right?” DiDi asked Natalie slyly.
“A Red Widow might well be the first of the Powered who go through the Program, a standard for the rest of them,” Natalia agreed smoothly.
DiDi could see Jessica’s face was flushed at the thought. “And don’t worry. You’re still going to be having dinner with Uncle Ben and Aunt May at least every week, and for most of you, every day.” The new Parkers all blinked despite themselves. Information that their Uncle was the Molecule Man was also not something that could be recorded without his permission.
They all deserved their own time and recognition with Ben and May, not Peter’s memories of those times. Sunday dinner is when ALL the Parkers would get together, as well as the other Spiders if they wanted to, and their significant others.
Peter had proposed to Red Emja not too long ago, and she was out there with him now, hunting down Harry Osborn, Sr. That madman’s little cult of Scryer mystics and fanatics wasn’t going to stop them from finding him, that was certain.
All of the mutates who’d been spider-treated, the Vatted spider-minions, and nineteen of the demonized civilians had died during the whole Spider-Clone Saga thing, along with over five dozen of Osborn’s own scientists, technicians, and mercenaries. There’d been blood sacrifices of more Parker-clones to Summon the spider-demon, to the tune of a number nobody really wanted to know. It was driving Peter and the others on their hunt, and the Scryers weren’t able to stop them.
Osborn had had the satisfaction of killing Peter Parker dozens of times...
Oscorp itself had collapsed under the weight of the lawsuits descending upon it now, the video proof of Harry Osborn’s doings, the money trail hitting the papers, and the Green Goblin being Osborn fleeing the scene once unmasked. The Baxter Foundation, Ferrus Tech, Grimm Materials, and Stark International had all swooped in on it like sharks, and they now had controlling interest in the company.
Max Midas had made an opportunistic play, too. When he committed his money, there’d been a run on three of his companies after accounting irregularities came to light, and he’d lost control of some of his tried-and-true consumer goods production. Rather than stay in business with Wakanda’s Sovereign Fund, he’d swapped out his Oscorp shares at half price and taken back control of his conglomerate.
It was like someone good at stock markets and finances was watching all that stuff.
Nelson, Murdock, and Walters’ legions of forensic accountants were now swooping in and laying out just how Osborn had manipulated the company and drained many of its accounts for his own purposes, their money-tracking and unfortunate leaks of privileged information no less aggressive than the manhunt of the Spiders. DiDi was spearheading the hunt for the actual money, which not incidentally was leading the Spiders around the globe after Osborn.
Osborn would probably make a stand in Central America somewhere, as that seemed to be the center of the Scryer cult. He was a billionaire, certainly wasn’t going to give up all that stolen money, and following the money was something that was going to lead right to him. If that meant the Spiders had to break into an underworld bank or the private banking systems of select institutions, then they were perfectly happy to do so at this point... and they were amazingly good hackers.
Also, DiDi had been informed that stealing back whole ‘bricks’ of dollars and Tribal scrim and Russian rubles was incredibly entertaining and satisfying.
“I’ll do it!” Jessica blurted out. Her thoughts were probably somewhere between making out with a Black Widow and being one, but whatever worked, DiDi mused.
“Then come!” Natalia said in a no-nonsense tone, and DiDi promptly whooped and clapped to cheer her on as she hesitated at the suddenness of it. The boys quickly joined in, and Jessica smiled despite herself as she hopped to her feet and hurried to the side of the Black Widow.
The boys watched her go a bit enviously, and then turned back around to DiDi after the door was closed.
“Your memories of working here are incomplete, largely because anything concerning me isn’t in there with you. Peter’s been participating in the crazy shiznit going on here for ten years now. Memories or whatever, you don’t have his experience working here, and you don’t have the kind of training I’ve been putting him through for that time period.
“You all can do the same things, and you know little brothers always learn faster than big brothers, so you’ll catch on quick. Telepathy will help loads, but downright experience is going to be the best teacher.”
“Which is where I come in!” Bespectacled and blue-furred, Hank McCoy ambled into the room on cue, waving at the trio as they all turned to look at him. “We’re going to start with dumb things like schedules and patrol routes, and you all working out where you think you’ll all fit in. Terry, I can read your mind if you project, so don’t worry about talking, just use sign language or wave for attention.
“I know you all have some memories of the place from Peter, but I’m not showing him around, I’m showing you around.” He grinned broadly, showing his fangs, his cultured voice putting them all at ease. “Ben, John, Terry, let me show the fabulous Parker boys around the Baxter Building. Call out any changes that need to be explained, as there’s likely been a lot of them...!”
Sweeping them up cheerfully, the Blue Beast herded the new Parkers out into the corridor, regaling, cajoling, and teasing them all at the same time. They fell for it helplessly, fellow genius acrobat, fellow genius bruiser, and fellow not-human as he was.
DiDi watched them go, nodding to herself. Little John would fill a nice niche between Ben Grimm and McCoy as far as tech support went, perfectly balancing hands-on and brains-on. Ben was going to be a different kind of Spider, having more focus on Artifice in combat than the others. Terry would fall in with the Baxter Annex kids given his physical age, once he lost the mutations forced upon his DNA.
The Spider-Clone drama wasn’t done, but Harry Osborn Senior wasn’t going to get away, and if that meant a Black Widow had to put him in a forgotten hole and apply True Death to ensure he stayed dead, clones or no clones, then that was what was going to happen.
Powered Widows. DiDi shook her head as she headed for her office. The Black Widows handled a lot of espionage stuff here on Terra, headed up by Natasha Romanova, THE Black Widow. Yelena headed up the White Widows, who worked with the Alternity Watch teams. A Red Widow branch would be something interesting...
Also, all the nasty cloning tech had been snaffled up and was being examined, any advantages integrated into Alliance tech. Reality treated clones far better than Duplicates and Clones, after all, and for some reason Grandfather Anasazi was letting the empowerment hold. The key thing was avoiding that dreaded Vatted tag that limited you to Six... but a Miracle could buy that stuff off, if needed...
They could pump out literally unlimited amounts of Spider-clones if they so chose. That wasn’t going to happen without Peter’s permission, as they were his memories, but they could DO it.
The fact all that didn’t carry over to some mystic elixir, empowerment, spell, or formula was because Grandfather Anasazi had to approve all the upgrades, and they just didn’t work without Him giving the nod. All those people who wanted spider-powers, the Vatted mutant things, and so forth had no chance of being a success. The fact four clones had survived was probably due to Grandfather’s curiosity about what would happen, more than anything else, and he’d rapidly gotten bored with the lack of novelty beyond those four, given how unstable and degenerate the rest had rapidly proven to be.
Which didn’t mean the drama had ended. Apparently, there was now a young kid in Harlem bouncing around with spider powers, and J. Jonah Jameson’s niece was a mutant with spider-themed powers. Terry was going to be in good company...