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orangeoctopi7 · 5 years

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A Familiar Hero

Part 1

Part 2

Seeing the Spider Man in action, Ford’s previous theory that this was a visiting extraterrestrial seemed ludicrous. His every movement, his posture, even his voice exuded familiarity. How could he be anything but human?

But at the same time, how could any human do these things? The Spider Man disarmed two gunners before either of them could fire, pulling the guns out of their hands without even closing his fingers around them. Their male attacker swore, and in one swift motion tried to stab the Spider Man. No one could have seen that coming, and yet the Spider Man pulled away and to the side, easily dodging it as though the assailant had clearly telegraphed the move. He retaliated with a powerful left-hook, knocking the man to the ground like a sack of potatoes. When he turned his attention to the woman, she was already running back out the alley-way. The Spider Man shrugged, obviously deciding chasing her was not worth it. He picked up the man like he was nothing more than an awkwardly shaped sack of flour, and not a sack of flesh and bones coming close to thee hundred pounds.

“What were you idiots thinkin’?!” The Spider Man demanded. “Are you trying to get yourselves killed!? I’m lucky– I mean you’re- you’re lucky I was nearby. What would I have– uh, what would you have done if I wasn’t here?”

The two researchers were too stunned to say anything. They just stared at him with slack jaws.

“I-I gotta dump this guy someplace the cops’ll find him.” He made to leave.

“It’s really you!” Ford blurted out, finally finding his voice. He thought they’d be lucky if they just got to see the Spider Man, and not only had he saved their lives, he was talking to them now!

“You… you know who I am?” The Spider Man tugged nervously at his mask.

“Of course I do! I’ve been following you since the beginning!” Ford grinned. There was something nagging at the back of his head, something about that familiarity, but he was too excited to stop and really think about it right now.

“Wait, seriously!?”

“Ah, well, not literally following you!” The researcher backpedaled, realizing that may have come off as stalkery. “But ever since that first article I found in Peculiar Pennsylvania, I’ve been following every publication and story about you I could find! I can’t believe we were lucky enough to find you!”

“You’ve been looking for me?”

“Well, just since you were sighted here in Portland, it’s the first time there’s been a sighting near enough for conducting a search to be feasible.”

“But… why? Why would you bother lookin’ for me?”

“Are you kidding? You’re amazing! All those people you’ve saved, all those criminals you’ve apprehended, you’re a hero!”

The Spider Man made a sound half-way between a laugh and a sob. “Ford, you really do still care!”

The second Ford heard the Spider Man say his name, that nagging familiarity in the back of his head clicked into place, and he realized who he was talking to just a split second before his brother pulled off the mask.

“Stanley!?”

Stan’s expression of euphoric joy quickly dropped to annoyance. “You said you knew who I was!”

“I was talking about the Spider Man! I know all about the Spider Man!”

“Well obviously not, if you didn’t know he was me!”

“What are you even doing here?”

“What am I doin’ here? What are you doin’ here!?”

“I already told you, you knucklehead!”

“What in the name of Charles Babbage is going on here!?” Fiddleford finally shouted, interrupting the brothers’ argument. “Why does the Spider Man look like you? How do you know him!? This ain’t some, I dunno, shape-shiftin’ sorta thing-a-ma-bob, is it?”

“…Oh. Right. Sorry.” Ford apologized.

“Yeah, that’s another question, who the heck’s this yahoo?” Stan demanded.

Ford gestured towards McGucket, “Stan, this is my research assistant, Fiddleford McGucket.” he then pointed to Stan, “Fiddleford, this is my twin brother, Stanley.”

The two of them just stood there, looking the other over.

“I thought you said you hadn’t talked to yer brother since you was a teenager.” McGucket eventually said.

“I hadn’t, until just now.”

“Well, ain’t that just the craziest coinky-dink you ever heard of.” Fiddleford gave a low whistle.

“Research assistant, huh?” Stan scratched the back of his head with his free hand. “What, uh, what’re you studying?”

“You”

“The Spider Man”

McGucket and Ford said simultaneously.

“Huh. Well, uh, you want me to, I dunno, pose for a photo or somethin’?”

“Yes!” Ford said quickly. “Mask on, of course.”

“An’ then I can dump this guy someplace the cops’ll find him.”

“And we’ll go our separate ways.” Ford nodded.

“Really!?” Fiddleford exclaimed, “We jus’ randomly ran into yer brother who ya haven’t seen in over a decade, he saves our lives and turns out to be the very cryptid we came here to study, an’ yer jus’ gonna go yer separate ways? Jus like that?”

“There’s a reason we haven’t spoken in so long, Fiddleford.” The young researcher said stiffly. “Besides, I’m sure Stanley has his own life to get back to

Stan harrumphed, folded his arms and looked away. “Yeah. Yeah, sure I do.”

They walked a few blocks until Stan found a dock he said the Coast Guard frequented. McGucket asked him to pull his mask back on and Ford took a few pictures, one of the Spider Man carrying the unconscious man like he was nothing, and a few of him climbing up the warehouse walls. Unfortunately, Ford didn’t get the thrill out of it he’d been expecting. Maybe it was because all the pictures were posed. Maybe it was because, now that he knew who the Spider Man was, there was no longer the thrill of the mystery.

“…Thanks…” Ford said awkwardly when they were done.

“Don’t mention it.” Stan grunted in reply.

McGucket glanced between them, his expression stuck somewhere between perplexion and annoyance. “Well, I guess we’d better head back to the hotel.” He finally sighed.

The two groups had walked maybe ten feet away from each other when Stan turned around and shouted. “Wait! Uh… how far’s your hotel?”

“Downtown, just off the interstate.” Ford replied. “Why?”

“You yahoo’s aren’t gonna walk that whole way yourselves, are ya?”

“We’re taking the bus.”

“That’s still far enough you two could get mugged. What’s the point of me savin’ your lives if you just go an’ get in trouble again?”

“I-is that likely?” Fiddleford stammered nervously.

Stanford sighed in irritation. It didn’t matter how likely it was, because now that the idea was in Fiddleford’s head, the inventor’s anxiety would latch onto the possibility and send him spiralling until he would jump at any little sound or movement.

“My car’s parked not too far from here. Lemme just give you guys a lift back to your hotel.”

Ford sighed. “Fine.” For Fiddleford’s sake, he told himself.

***

“I thought you said your car was close!” Stanford complained ten minutes later.

“It is close, if you can climb straight up an’ over buildings.” Stan defended.

“Well how much further is it?”

“Uh, I think another block.”

“You think?”

“Hey, I don’t usually take the street!”

Ford huffed. “It would have been faster to head for the bus stop.”

“Yeah, and you would’ve wandered through the roughest part of town at 11pm.”

Fiddleford shivered and took a step closer to Stanley. “Let’s talk about somethin’ else! Say, this gives us a chance to ask ya some questions, Stanley! Like, uh… how d’you stick to walls?”

“Uh… I don’t really know. I just sorta think about it, I guess.”

“Well, how’d you know that thug was gonna pull a knife on ya?”

“I dunno, sometimes I just sense danger.”

“How would you describe this sense?”

“I don’t know, ok? It’s like tryin’ to describe colors to someone who was born blind. Look, I don’t really get how my powers work, ok? I just know that they do.”

“Ok, that’s fine.” Fiddleford assured him. “I can ask some different questions. Like, hmm, where’d ya come up with that nifty outfit?”

Stan laughed awkwardly. “Heh, what, this? Just some stuff I’ve slapped together from thrift stores, honestly. Like, these pants’re just workout sweats. They got pockets an’ fleece linin’ and everything. I got another pair that’re lighter for the summer. An’ the mask? Got it at a yard sale in Mazatlan. Just cut some eyes out of an old black basketball jersey I picked up at the same time. Don’t really remember where I picked the gloves up at, probably some bargain bin at like, Walmart or something. And they gave me the coat at this homeless shelter I stopped at in Denver.”

“What?!” Ford exclaimed, turning to face his brother suddenly.

“What?” Stan repeated innocently.

“You said something about a homeless shelter!?”

“Oh! Ha!” Stan forced a laugh. “Did I say homeless shelter? I don’t… I don’t know why I said that. What I meant was– Look, there’s my car!”

Sure enough, across the street behind a gated chain-link fence was the familiar red El Diablo Stanford remembered from his teenage years. It even had the old STNLYMBL license plate. They reached a gate that was closed not with a chain and padlock, but a stout copper pipe bent around the end of the chain-link fence and the side of the gate. Stan grabbed the pipe and unbent it as easily as a normal person would unbend a paperclip. He pulled the gate open wide enough to allow the car to drive out and motioned for the two friends to enter.

Stanford struggled with a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts as he got in the car. Stanley had been in a homeless shelter!? No, no, Stan said that wasn’t what he meant! But he was obviously lying, wasn’t he? Or maybe not. Maybe Stan was helping someone else get to the homeless shelter? Stan was the Spider Man, and the Spider Man helped people, after all. And even if Stan had spent some time in a homeless shelter, it was his own fault, right?

“Hey, uh, sorry it’s such a mess.” Stan apologized, quickly grabbing as much junk as he could out of the front passenger seat and shoving it into the trunk. “I don’t normally give rides.” He moved to the back seat and shoved everything to one side, trying to make room for someone to sit back there.

“You go ahead and sit shotgun McGucket.” Ford insisted. “I’ve at least lived in Stan’s mess before.”

“Hey, I don’t remember you bein’ any cleaner!” Stan protested.

McGucket chuckled. “Yer cabin was a disaster area when I showed up, even fer a bachelor pad.”

Ford rolled his eyes and got into the back of the car without further comment. Sure, he often got so caught up in his research that he forgot to clean, but at least he didn’t leave his clothes laying around in the back seat of his car! Or towels or toothbrushes or… was that a pillow? Then it dawned on him: Stan had been living out of his car. He really was homeless!

The young researcher immediately tried to rationalize things. It made sense, really, with what he knew about the Spider Man. The Spider Man had been traveling all over North and South America, moving from one city to the next, with little rhyme or reason, never staying in one place for too long. It made sense that the Spider Man would live out of his car if he was traveling around so much! …Or was he traveling around so much because he had to live out of his car?

Ford was about to ask his brother if he was homeless, but McGucket beat him to the punch with another question.

“So how’d ya come to be the Spider Man?”

“Well, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to become a superhero, I can tell ya that much.” Stan replied. “It kinda just happened. I got spotted by a few obsessive nerds like my brother here, sent a few jerks to jail, saved some innocent people, and the next thing I know I’m hearin’ AM radio shows and readin’ obscure articles about my exploits, callin’ me ‘The Spider Man’. And, y’know, I decided to just run with it.”

“Ah. Suppose that makes sense.” McGucket nodded. “But I mean, how’d ya come to have these powers? Obviously ya weren’t born with ‘em, or else Stanford woulda known about ‘em.”

Ford perked up, listening intently. He’d been wondering that himself, but hadn’t quite had the courage to ask. He had an uneasy feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.

Stan stared Ford down through the rear-view mirror for a long moment, almost as though he expected his brother to say something, before finally answering. “What, y’mean the almighty genius Stanford Pines hasn’t figured it out yet?”

“Enlighten us, Stanley.”

“It’s drivin’ you crazy that I know something you don’t, isn’t it? Y’know, I might just revel in this moment a little longer, really let it sink in.”

“Stanley!”

“Alright, alright, fine, but only ‘cuz your friend here’s on the edge of his seat.”

Fiddleford was indeed giving Stan his full attention, a notebook and pen already in hand. “Golly, I wish I had my portable computer with me. Ah well, go on!”

Stan took a deep breath and fixed his brother with another hard look through the rearview mirror. “My brother ever tell you about his senior science fair project?”

“Uh, only that it was an unqualified disaster.” Fiddleford murmured awkwardly. He knew it was a touchy subject for his friend.

“What on earth does that have to do with your powers?” Ford growled.

“Just lemme finish! Anyway, Ford had genetically mutated a bunch of spiders using radiation.” Stan explained. “An’ it was winnin’ all the awards! Best in the school, best in the district, the works. Once it got to state, it got the attention of some big wigs from this fancy school called West Coast Tech. They wanted to offer Ford a full-ride scholarship if his project lived up to the hype when they came to see it. And I… I was scared ‘cuz my bro was movin’ on without me an’ I was statin’ to feel like I was gonna be stuck in Glass Shard Beach forever. I needed someone to blame, so I blamed the spiders.”

“Ahah!” Ford exclaimed, “So you admit it! You sabotaged my project!”

“That’s not what I said!” Stan defended.

“You blamed the spiders, so you smashed their containment unit and killed them all!”

“That’s not what happened! It was an accident!” Stan pleaded.

“How do you accidentally smash a containment unit?”

“Just hear me out!” Stan shouted, slamming on the breaks as they came to a red light. Ford glared at him, and McGucket just watched them both like they were a particularly volatile mixture of chemicals just waiting for the right activation energy to explode.

“Like I said, I was mad.” Stan continued. “And I blamed the spiders. I went into the gymnasium and ranted about everything I was feeling to them. I shoulda talked to you instead, but I didn’t. Once I was done gettin’ all that off my chest, I slammed my fists down on the table to let off some steam. But I hit it too hard. The containment unit tipped off the table and cracked open when it hit the floor. I picked it up right away and tried to cover the crack with my hand to stop them from escaping, but one of the spiders bit me. It startled me, so I dropped it again. And I guess the shock of gettin’ dropped twice in such a short amount of time must’ve killed ‘em or something.

“I shoulda found you and told you right away, but I panicked, and I was already startin’ to feel weird. My vision was swimmin’ and I had a killer migraine, the kind where you feel like all your senses have been turned up too high. So I ran home. After that… well, you remember.”

“I don’t.” Fiddleford reminded them.

“When the representatives from West Coast Tech arrived, all I had to show them was a broken glass globe full of dead spiders.” Ford growled. “I looked like a fool in front of the people I was supposed to get a scholarship from! And what’s worse, when I returned home, Stan tried to shrug it off like it wasn’t a big deal! Like it was a good thing I missed out on the scholarship because now we could go treasure hunting like we’d dreamed of when we were kids! And he had the gall to fake sick so Dad wouldn’t kick him out! Not that it worked.”

“I wasn’t faking it!” Stan insisted indignantly.

“And I still don’t understand how this has anything to do with your powers!” Ford glared at Stan through the rear-view mirror.

“You seriously still haven’t figured it out!?” Stan huffed exasperatedly. “What kind of idiot genius are you?”

“I’m not seein’ the connection either.” Fiddleford admitted.

Stan rolled his eyes. “I get bit by one of those radioactive spiders. Right after that, my vision starts swimmin’ an’ I get a headache like my senses got turned up.” He repeated. Still all he got were blank stares. “The next morning I realized I didn’t grab my glasses when Dad kicked me out. But I didn’t need ‘em.”

“Because you never wore them anyway?” Ford asked flatly.

“I didn’t need ‘em 'cuz I didn’t have eyesight problems anymore!” Stan corrected. “An’ less than a week after that, I started stickin’ to stuff! All my powers developed within a year of that day I got bit by one of your spiders.”

“Sweet sarsaparilla! Stanford, this is unprecedented!” Fiddleford exclaimed, “Do ya still got the notes on them spiders? Imagine if’n we could replicate these results!”

The inventor continued to prattle on excitedly, but Ford was barely listening. He’d just been presented with evidence that completely changed his world-view. Whether or not Stan had been lying about the 'accident’ at the science fair, this was proof that Stan hadn’t been making up his sudden illness. It hadn’t been an unsuccessful attempt to garner sympathy, it had been the early stages of a major postnatal genetic mutation. And that meant Stan had gone through all these probably horrifying changes alone, with no idea what was happening to him. And probably homeless.

Ford was struck with a sudden sense of guilt. All these years he’d held a grudge against his brother, but now he realized Stan had just as much a reason to hold a grudge against him! But… could he really have made any difference? He imagined what would have happened if he’d known his brother was really sick; if he’d tried to stand up to their dad. At best he would have been sent to his room, and at worst he would have been invited to join his brother on the street. No, he couldn’t have changed things then… but maybe if he hadn’t held a grudge for so long, if he’d tried to reach out to his brother as soon as he left home himself, maybe he could have helped his brother then.

“Alright, we’re downtown near the interstate.” Stan said as he stopped at another stop light. “You two see your hotel from here, or is it further down the road?”

“It’s that one with the big green sign.” Fiddleford pointed to a building to their left.

Stan pulled into the drop-off zone and parked in front of the door. “Glad I could help you two get back here safe. I know it’s hard for you, but try not to get into any more trouble for a while.”

He was rolling up the window and putting the car back into drive when Ford made a split second decision.

“Stan, wait!” He raced forward and grabbed the closing window.

Stan stopped cranking the window up and shifted back to park. “What?” he asked apprehensively.

“I-I think we could have a mutually beneficial situation here.”

“English, Sixer!”

“W-we could help each other! You’ve gained remarkable control over your powers on your own, but you don’t really understand how they work, correct?”

“Yyyyeah….” Stan said slowly, not quite catching on to where his brother was going with this.

“Think how much more you could do if you learned the ins and outs of what your body can do now! There might be things you’re not even aware you’re capable of yet! And even beyond your powers, we could help you become a better crime-fighter! Fiddleford’s a real whiz with gadgets, and just a while ago I was working on a device I couldn’t quite get to work, but I think it’d be perfect for you.”

“You… you want me to come back with you guys? So you can do experiments on me?” Stan asked warily.

“Not like that!” Ford assured him. “We’d just like to study you and run some tests…. Ugh, there really isn’t any way to make that sound better. What I’m trying to say is, I wouldn’t ask you to do anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable with.”

Stan still looked skeptical.

“And you’d have some place to stay! I might even be able to pay you if the grant committee accepts my proposal for another research assistant.”

Stan sighed forlornly, and for a terrible moment Ford was afraid his brother would turn him down, but instead he asked. “What time are you leaving?”

“Around 11am tomorrow morning.”

“And where is it we’re going back to?”

“Gravity Falls, Oregon.

“Never heard of it.”

“Well, most people haven’t. It’s a small logging town in the backwoods.”

“Alright. I’ll meetcha back here at 11 tomorrow an’ follow you back to Gravy Falls.”

“Gravity Falls.”

“That too.”

Ford tried to stop himself from grinning. “Thank you, Stanley.”

“Yeah, well, I’m only goin’ so I can keep an eye on you an’ your scrawny friend. Last thing I need is a postcard from Ma sayin’ you’ve been eaten by bigfoot.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Stanley, the largest prey a Sasquatch will bother with are beavers.”

Stan quirked a small smile. “See you tomorrow, nerd.”

#Gravity Falls #Fanfiction #Spiderstan AU #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #Fiddleford Mcgucket #spider Stan au #My writing

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