When you see yourself in a crowded room, do your fingers twitch, are you pistol whipped?
This was a great plan. Fantastic plan. Jessica Drew, you're a star. Truly, you are the crafty version of Spider-Man, new and improved and with wiles.
They're not really feminine wiles. They're just wiles. The art of being wily. And it was going great, sarcasm aside, until a few minutes ago. Let's recap: wily Jessica Drew -- that's me -- keeps an eye on Roxxon Industries, a suspicious science and technology company of the kind that like to do things like steal the blood of a superpowered teenager and create clones for their own nefarious purposes. People do these things. Companies do these things. I know this, because I'm one of them.
A clone, not a nefarious company. I'm a clone. They took Peter Parker's DNA, and they messed around with it, and they grew a female version of him in a tank, where I woke up one day with all of his memories. All of his sense memories of being a boy. That wasn't confusing at all. They tried to mindwipe me, I escaped, it was a whole thing. Now I'm trying to keep them -- or at least, someone exactly like them -- from doing the exact same thing. Hence, the watchdog (watch-spider?) routine on Roxxon Industries, which was actually kind of boring right up until the building exploded and then some kind of alien thing followed me home and blew up my apartment, which I guess is why people are reluctant to let teenagers have apartments. They explode. The apartments, not the teenagers. Well, them too, I guess.
None of that is the crafty part, by the way. In case you couldn't tell. The crafty part was when I posed as Dr. Julia Carpenter, young prodigy, formerly of the Baxter Building's program for young geniuses, no paperwork on file because of that tidal wave that struck New York a few months ago and ruined everyone's paperwork, and a lot of lives. Infiltrate, discover who's responsible, and blow this thing wide open. They'd never see it coming, especially since I've got Spider-Man waiting in the wings.
The less-than-crafty part was, as mentioned, a few minutes ago, when they asked one question and figured out I wasn't from the Baxter Building. The old 'Layla here used to work there, have you heard of her?' routine. Nice job seeing through that, Miss Crafty. Things got a bit awkward then. Lots of questions. Who am I, that's one. What was I doing there, did I have powers, did I know they were also secretly working to bring down Roxxon. I tried a few of my own, tried to figure out what the hell was going on, but they were understandably cagey with the girl with the fake identity. A lot of that. A lot of talking, mostly them talking, until I made up the mind.
I sprayed them all with webbing and ran for it. Good, solid, reliable thinking. That's where I am now. Running. I hit the door, knock down the guards behind me, run.
And then the entire wall from the room I was just in explodes as something -- is that the Hulk?! No, it's not. Does the Hulk have a cousin?! -- punches it down.
"Son of a-" I throw some more webbing. It's like throwing- well, it's like throwing a spider-web at an angry man. Nothing. Doesn't even slow him down, certainly does not stop Cousin of Hulk grabbing me by the head, oh god, this is going to hurt.
He slams me into the ground. It hurts. That's all it takes. Vision goes fuzzy. I hear that Layla Miller girl that faked me out talking on the phone, naming me as their saboteur. If my head didn't feel like, oh, I don't know, a gamma radiated monstrosity pounded it through the floor, I'd complain about that accusation.
As it is, I black out instead.
They're not really feminine wiles. They're just wiles. The art of being wily. And it was going great, sarcasm aside, until a few minutes ago. Let's recap: wily Jessica Drew -- that's me -- keeps an eye on Roxxon Industries, a suspicious science and technology company of the kind that like to do things like steal the blood of a superpowered teenager and create clones for their own nefarious purposes. People do these things. Companies do these things. I know this, because I'm one of them.
A clone, not a nefarious company. I'm a clone. They took Peter Parker's DNA, and they messed around with it, and they grew a female version of him in a tank, where I woke up one day with all of his memories. All of his sense memories of being a boy. That wasn't confusing at all. They tried to mindwipe me, I escaped, it was a whole thing. Now I'm trying to keep them -- or at least, someone exactly like them -- from doing the exact same thing. Hence, the watchdog (watch-spider?) routine on Roxxon Industries, which was actually kind of boring right up until the building exploded and then some kind of alien thing followed me home and blew up my apartment, which I guess is why people are reluctant to let teenagers have apartments. They explode. The apartments, not the teenagers. Well, them too, I guess.
None of that is the crafty part, by the way. In case you couldn't tell. The crafty part was when I posed as Dr. Julia Carpenter, young prodigy, formerly of the Baxter Building's program for young geniuses, no paperwork on file because of that tidal wave that struck New York a few months ago and ruined everyone's paperwork, and a lot of lives. Infiltrate, discover who's responsible, and blow this thing wide open. They'd never see it coming, especially since I've got Spider-Man waiting in the wings.
The less-than-crafty part was, as mentioned, a few minutes ago, when they asked one question and figured out I wasn't from the Baxter Building. The old 'Layla here used to work there, have you heard of her?' routine. Nice job seeing through that, Miss Crafty. Things got a bit awkward then. Lots of questions. Who am I, that's one. What was I doing there, did I have powers, did I know they were also secretly working to bring down Roxxon. I tried a few of my own, tried to figure out what the hell was going on, but they were understandably cagey with the girl with the fake identity. A lot of that. A lot of talking, mostly them talking, until I made up the mind.
I sprayed them all with webbing and ran for it. Good, solid, reliable thinking. That's where I am now. Running. I hit the door, knock down the guards behind me, run.
And then the entire wall from the room I was just in explodes as something -- is that the Hulk?! No, it's not. Does the Hulk have a cousin?! -- punches it down.
"Son of a-" I throw some more webbing. It's like throwing- well, it's like throwing a spider-web at an angry man. Nothing. Doesn't even slow him down, certainly does not stop Cousin of Hulk grabbing me by the head, oh god, this is going to hurt.
He slams me into the ground. It hurts. That's all it takes. Vision goes fuzzy. I hear that Layla Miller girl that faked me out talking on the phone, naming me as their saboteur. If my head didn't feel like, oh, I don't know, a gamma radiated monstrosity pounded it through the floor, I'd complain about that accusation.
As it is, I black out instead.