Tarantula (Spider-Man)

Me Time

   Harry makes quick work of Valerie’s living room, gathering up the small pillows on the couch and throwing them on the ground. Then he takes the blanket on the couch and spreads it out over the pillows.

“And what exactly are you doing?” she asks him as he works feverishly.

“We are going to build a fort.” he explains, “Now, help me bring over those chairs.”

Valerie reluctantly brings over one of the two dining room chairs into the living room space. Harry picks the blanket back up, spaces out the chairs, and throws the blanket over the chairs. He puts the pillows inside, and gets another blanket from Valerie’s room to use as a bottom surface for their fort,

“Ta da! What do you think?”

While rather simplistic, Valerie smiles at the thought of a few blanket and some pillows serving as the base of their operations, “I...I like it.”

“Yes! Now...uhm...how about we watch a movie...inside the fort?” he suggests, gesturing to the TV.

“Alright, I can make some popcorn.” she chimes in.

When Valerie opens up her cupboard and gets out a package of microwavable popcorn, she also notices the powdered cocoa she’d just gotten at the supermarket, “I can put some hot chocolate on the stove too if you’d like.”

Harry smirks, “My, Valerie, you’re turning out to be quite the sleepover host.” he turns on the TV, then gets up and turns off the apartment lights. The apartment becomes completely dark except for the glow of the TV.

“Wow...it got dark fast. Say Harry, I’m going to get a flashlight in my room, okay?” Valerie tells him.

“Okay.” he calls out somewhere in the darkness.

Valerie opens the door to her room and steps in, feeling around the walls for the light switch. When she finds it, she flicks the switch, but the light doesn’t come on. Odd, did the bulb go out?

She hears the door creak, before it shuts completely. There’s no draft in the room, is Harry trying to pull some kind of prank?

“Surprise!” Deadpool jumps down from the ceiling and latches onto Valerie, knocking her to the ground. He whips both of his katana blades out and holds them to her neck, “Nothing personal babe, it’s just that to get to Harry, I knew I had to take you out of the equation.”

Valerie throws her right leg up one hundred and eighty degrees, kicking Deadpool in the head. His grip loosens and Valerie jumps away, sticking to the nearest wall.

“Hey, hey, calm down will ya?” he asks, launching himself at her with his swords swinging. Valerie leaps out of the way just in time, knocking Deadpool into the corner of the wall, “I’m not gonna kill ya, I’m just gonna tie you up while I kidnap ol’ pretty boy.” Valerie shoots several strings of web at him, sticking Deadpool to the wall.

“Is everything alright in there?” Harry asks from outside.

She turns her head to the door, “Yeah...just having some trouble finding my flashlight in the darkness. I think the bulb’s out in my room.”

She looks back over to the wall where she stringed up Deadpool but all that remains and several loose strands of webbing. Just then, two red-clad arms grab her neck and pull her upward. Struggling for air, Valerie grabs at his over-muscular arms, but to no avail.

“Shh...go to sleep...go to sleep...go to sleep little baby-”

Valerie throws her legs up, her feet landing on Deadpool’s shoulders, grabbing his arms, she jerks them upward, causing them to twist at an unusual angle. Wrapping her feet around his neck, she pulls up, choking him.

Using his arms as leverage, Valerie steers him toward the window. Knocking it open with her head, she leans Deadpool over the edge overlooking the street below.

“Hang on...you’re not going to kill me, are you? Aren’t you suppose to be...I don’t know, a role model for teenaged girls? Or at the very least a self image fantasy?”

Valerie contemplates whether or not to kill him, firstly, she could hardly believe someone’s life depended on her judgement in the first place. Yes, Deadpool is really annoying, and yes, he will most likely come back if she spared him, but, is it worth it taking a life to ensure he never does?

Valerie bends her torso backwards so that she can reach the length of rope attached to Deadpool’s utility belt.

“Hey...that was suppose to be for you.”

She ties one end of the rope to Deadpool’s foot and the other to a small notch on the windowsill. She backflips off of Deadpool, and makes a full rotation before kicking him in the back with both feet, knocking him off the edge. He goes flying down toward the street before the rope reaches its end, causing him to swing back towards the building, crashing into one of the windows below.

“Oh...hey Stan.”

“Why, hello Wade.”

Valerie closes the window and retrieves the flashlight, walking back out into the living room and shutting the door behind her.

“What was that?” Harry asks, turning away from the TV, “I swear I heard someone talking.”

She shrugs, “I heard it too, must’ve been the neighbors.” she looks over to the TV to see that it’s not turned to a movie, but rather to the news, where a panicked reporter is standing in the middle of the nighttime street. The camera view keeps shaking, moving violently from left to right, as if it’s searching for something,

“We’re here live at the scene where Spider-Man just swung by, and it looks like he’s heading directly for the Oscorp building, where a giant lizard monster just entered the building.”

So Spidey’s off fighting the Lizard again? No big deal, hopefully nothing happens to the Oscorp building though.

“Man...I leave this city for a few years and look what I come back to.” Harry comments, his eyes glued to the TV screen.

“It’s crazy, has New York crime really gotten that bad?” she asks, sitting down next to him.

The camera cuts from the live footage to stock footage of Spider-Man and Tarantula, “As you can see, Spidey usually has his lady friend Tarantula around, but she’s not here with him tonight. Think there was a break up Whitney?”

Whitney Chang smiles at the camera from her newsdesk, “Well Dan, I think Tarantula wants to strike it out on her own. Us ladies don’t need a man to identify them.”

Harry changes the channel, “Ugh...those news reporters are always so fake.”

“What do you expect? They’re probably reading off of a teleprompter.” Valerie figures.

“At least there’s the Betty Brant show, she’s cool.”

She raises her eyebrow, “And yet you missed the episode I was on?”

He nearly jumps out of his seat, “You were on the Betty Brant show?! Why didn’t I see that?”

“Eh, you can’t catch it everyday.”

There’s a knock at the door, and Valerie gets up to answer it as Harry serves the hot chocolate and popcorn, getting out some cups and a bowl. She opens the door and the moment Deadpool’s slightly battered suit appears, she shoots a web around his mouth, and kicks him back with her right foot, sending him flying off the edge of the apartment building staircase railing, falling to the ground as she slams the door. Harry turns around, “Who was that?”

She smiles, “No one.”