The ability to bullshit

“Lyla, give me the update on anomaly-813.”

“The signature is all over the place, but it’s definitely concentrated somewhere in HQ.”

Miguel turns on her with alarm. “It’s here? Since when?”

“Since about twenty minutes ago. Didn’t wanna interrupt your brooding.”

“Where did it come from?”

Lyla scrolls lazily through her holo-phone. “Mm, Earth-1701, I think.”

Miguel grits his teeth. Hours of debriefing, multi-layer strategies, paperwork and assessments and clean-up crews, teams sent out for damage control, all a total waste of time because of Buddy. He should’ve known something was up when Buddy wasn’t around for the last two meetings.

“It’s coming your way.” The energy signature takes up the entire central quadrant. This thing is huge, and it is dangerous.

“Put everyone on alert.”

He watches the signature move haphazardly around the digital map, though it appears tethered to a central point. Just what is it doing? He zooms out, recenters the map to follow the pattern, but there isn’t a pattern in the traditional sense, a pattern of movement, rather, it’s a pattern of timing. The back and forth, twirling motions, it’s almost like it’s—it’s dancing.

Laughter and music filter into the lab, grating on his ears. He picks out Buddy’s distinct warble, something he’s been tortured by anytime he passed by the shop, Parkedcar’s Morse-code-like honking, and most disturbingly of all, LEGO Spider-Man, one of the most professional Spider-men Miguel has had the pleasure of working with, killing it on a harmonica. How can they play around at a time like this?

All but two of the party dies as soon as they see Miguel. 

“Man, you were right! This place is dope!”

“See? What I tell you? Now who’s up for an encore?”

“Buddy.” Miguel practically chews the name up and spits it out.

Buddy pops over Parkedcar’s hood. “What’s up, boss? You wanna join in?”

“What I want is to know who that is and what you’re doing with him.”

Asad notices it first. The dead silence. The static on his skin. The way his brain fizzles and thrums like the wires of a machine. They’ve crossed into territory they shouldn’t, and the only thing he can do is smile. “Is this a hazing for the new kid on the block?”

And then Buddy notices it too. The building pressure. LEGO tosses his harmonica. Parkedcar dims his lights. The rest of their musical number backs off. They’re in trouble, so what? It’s no sweat. They planned for this. “That’s Ruddy! He’s Spider-Man from Earth-129118. You know the story. Being sucked into a portal, thrown into another dimension. That sorta thing.”

“Buddy, this was the anomaly I was talking about. He’s been staying in your dimension the whole time?”

Well, maybe they didn’t plan for this specifically.

“You’ve mentioned a bunch of anomalies, you sure you haven’t mixed them up?”

There are plenty of things Buddy told Asad (as Ruddy) before they hopped in that portal—there are others just like him, everyone at HQ would love him, it’s dangerous for him to hang out too much in Buddy’s dimension, and Miguel would explain why that is.

That being said, or rather, thought, what Buddy left out, not on purpose (the guy probably didn’t think it was relevant), was the super-computer and the Big Boss’s bigger brain. The digital map is blown up nice and wide behind Miguel, highlighting a giant fluctuating yellow energy signature with one red pointer in the dead center of it. That red pointer is sitting exactly where Asad stands.

Asad can foresee how this is going to go. Buddy is a good guy, a real good guy, the kinda guy you’d take home to your folks and they’d adopt him as their own and from then on you never know what people are talking about when they say their parents hate their spouse because you’ve already started to suspect your parents love Buddy more than you, kind of good guy. Compared to Asad, he’s a saint… well everyone’s a saint compared to Asad, but Buddy, moreso. Which means he can’t lie to save his or Asad’s lives.

Asad—or Ruddy—throws an arm around Buddy, flashing a million dollar smile to a face that looks like it hasn’t smiled in fifty years. “Don’t know what an ah-naw-muh-lee is, pal. Is that a good thing where you’re from?”

“No.” Even though Ruddy is as tall as Buddy and Buddy is tall as hell, Miguel still towers over the both of them. What are they feeding him, damn! “It is not a good thing.”

Ruddy throws a look at his companion. “Buddy, you didn’t tell me he was so congenial.”

Buddy snorts. Dammit, wrong timing, Ruddy.

“Funny.” If that was supposed to be a laugh, then why did it sound like he killed it with his teeth? Yeah, Miguel doesn’t find this amusing, because he doesn’t have a sense of humor like the rest of them. The way he’s glaring at the pair of struggling-not-to-laugh Spider-men turns him into the straight man of the comedy scene, and that is hilarious. Until it’s not. Until the agitation begins to show on his face.

Buddy tries to direct attention off Ruddy. “Well, I finally got my very own alternate. Cool, right?”

“Great. Now there are two of you, so you can give me double the headache.”

“Hey Miguel, check this out.” Lyla blinks around Ruddy. Those are some pretty colors. Her energy reader is flashing alerts left and right and this energy signature is getting hotter by the second, which means this anomaly’s gearing up for something dramatic. She may be AI, but she can’t help fizzling excitedly. “My bets are on the anomaly.”

“As if I don’t have enough to deal with—of all the reckless, irresponsible things you could’ve done, you led the anomaly to our headquarters. What were you thinking? I was worried about Gwen and Miles, when evidently I should’ve been worried about you.”

“Hey man, you better watch it. And get your finger outta my face.”

“How could you be so selfish? You’ve endangered everyone here and across the multiverse, and for what, some worthless anomaly? Grow up.”

“I said,” Buddy warns, “get your finger outta my fucking face.”

Miguel leans down to Buddy’s eye level. “And what will you do if I don’t, [asshole]?”

Uh-oh, time to step in.

Buddy has probably never talked himself out of trouble. Ruddy’s willing to put big money on Buddy using his fists to get himself into and out of a tough spot, which is fine for a guy who’s straight-laced and wears his heart on his sleeve, but that’s not who Asad is, so despite there being an obvious path for Ruddy to take, he doesn’t think he can win if it came to blows with Miguel and he’s not going to bother trying. There are easier avenues to travel down. Every chump here is a bleeding heart.

Ruddy shoves his hands in his pockets and puts on a dejected expression. “You guys don’t seriously think I’m dangerous, do you? Do I look like the kinda guy who’d do anything bad?”

A beat passes.

LEGO Spider-Man is first to speak up. “I don’t know, Miguel… Are you sure? Usually the anomalies are more malicious than this.”

“This doesn’t feel right, man,” Ben stews, flexing his biceps deliciously. “My heart’s crying like the rain at the thought of Ruddy being a heinous villain—auhh!”

“Are you all buying this act?”

“It’s not an act!” Buddy clenches his fists. Sure, Miguel’s right about him spending a lot of time with his friend whose name and face keeps changing, but it’s not like he was trying to hurt anyone. He can’t forget just how many opportunities Ruddy had to hurt him and didn’t. That’s proof enough. “Ruddy’s one of us!”

Peter Parkedcar honks loudly, and Dr. Borne backs him up with a whoop. A multitude of Spider-people of all shapes and colors and sizes begin to protest. There’s plenty of anomalies in the universe, how could Ruddy be one of them? He feels exactly like Buddy, and there’s no way Buddy’s an anomaly, so neither is Ruddock “Ruddy” Rackam! If being an alternate makes someone an anomaly, then they’re all anomalies!

Miguel pinches the bridge of his nose.

When it came to the topic of Miles Morales, they all agreed to keep him far away from Spider Society, as the threat to their existence was obvious. Oh, how Miguel misses the simpler times when the people under his command followed sound advice instead of cutting their hearts open and bleeding all over the place. They’re going to force his hand, and they’re not going to like it.

Miguel goes to his computer to type something, before pulling up a projection. The sky turns pitch black as the street swallows up the city. Entire blocks disappear in the blink of an eye, and the only thing left is the shadow of a dimension. “Earth-822, remember that, Buddy? Half the planet’s off limits after it was turned into a glitchy nightmare.”

“How about Earth-901b? It had a Spider-Man.” The projection changes with the push of a button. Spider-Man punches the living daylights out of the Vulture, but his last punch sends him through a rift in space. The last thing on the recording is his confused face bathed in bright light. “Until he slipped through an interdimensional tear that opened up onto the Broadway-Seventh line.”

Once again the projection changes. Miguel is backlit by fire. “Earth-1001 was enslaved by Earth-666’s Mephisto and now they wish their worst problem was global warming.”

The projection shows a scared child huddled in the corner as a spider approaches. “After an interdimensional rift opened up in a playground, three-year-old Benjamin Barnes fell through it, and now Earth-779’s Spider-Man is a toddler, instead of Peter Barrett Parker.”

Miguel’s eyes glow in the darkness. “Should I go on, or do you get the point?”

“Fuck you, man, this is bullshit and you know it! You’re acting like you have solid proof he caused every single one of these collapses!”

Miguel sighs, pitying Buddy for a half second. He knows what it’s like to be convinced things will work out, only for them to fall apart around you, so he knows what Buddy’s going through; this is denial. Thankfully, Miguel knows how to deal with denial.

You push.

“His energy signature was present in every dimension where a collapse happened. You can’t be this blind, Buddy.”

“You don’t know what he was doing there, you don’t know if he meant it to happen!”

And push.

“His intentions don’t matter, the end result was a disruption of canon events and it cost people’s lives.”

“He didn’t know any better, but now he does, so that changes things, doesn’t it?”

And push.

“Even so, he has to be held accountable for the damage he’s already done.”

“And you’ve elected yourself judge, jury, and executioner? Eat shit.”

There are plenty of things Buddy told Ruddy. Of course, there are plenty of things Ruddy did not tell Buddy. He knew there were others like him, he doubted anyone at HQ would love him, and he’d already figured out it was dangerous for him to be in other dimensions. He couldn’t care less. He’s not going back to New Baghdad unless he’s dragged back kicking and screaming or in a body bag.

But Buddy doesn’t need to know that.

Ruddy cranes his neck. “Not that this isn’t interesting stuff, but I don’t really care for dick-measuring contests, so can you hurry up and register me already?”

That little—he still thinks he’s getting away with this?

Miguel nods, acting as if he’s pulling up the registration module. “Remind me, what dimension did you say you were from?”

“129118.”

“Lyla.”

“There’s no Spider-Man on Earth-129118.”

“Thank you.”

Well shit.

Miguel is on him.

The first thing he’s hit with is pain, lots of it, searing pain in his shoulders and arms like being struck with lightning that brings him down, and when his shoulder blades meet the tile, his Spider-Sense goes haywire. It doesn’t take a genius to know he does not want his back on the floor in a fight against Miguel, until he tries to get up and pushes those talons deeper into his skin with a cry. They’re hooked so deep, they scrape bone. One is jammed in the joint. What is that it’s brushing against? Ligament or nerve? Too many sensitive structures there. Shit. He’s vaguely aware of a commotion happening out of reach.

Darkness swallows his vision. Something glints. He faintly hears Buddy shout “Don’t let him bite you!” and instinctively shoves his hand up into Miguel’s face just as he recognizes those glinting things as teeth. It barely stops him. Ruddy’s fingers and palm take the brunt of the damage, shaking with the effort of holding Miguel back. Blood streams down his arm and drips onto his face, but if he thought the talons were bad, then this—his veins dilating with fluid, pulsating visibly, filling him with dread and an impending sense of doom—is so much worse, and his heart pounds in his ears as the strength in his arm begins to fail him.

Despite how close those teeth are to his face, Ruddy grins.

“What the shock are you laughing at?”

It may look like Miguel has it all—super strength, super brains, super speed, super durability, heightened senses, gorgeous hair, venom. Too bad he’s missing something vital.

“While I usually love games that involve biting”—Ruddy shifts into a hamster and scurries free—“at least buy me dinner first, babe!”

With the sudden imbalance, Miguel falls flat on his face. “Aargh! You—!” But he’s not on the ground as long as Ruddy would’ve liked. The force of his footfalls feel like earthquakes to Ruddy’s tiny paws. “How are you moving right now?”

“With my feet!”

“[That’s not what I meant, jackass]!”

Though talons swipe at him left and right, thankfully the lab is littered with electronics and other junk, giving a hamster plenty of places to duck and hide, unlike Miguel and his incredibly toned body, whose momentum only works for him until he misses his mark, and then it’s working against him, forcing him to finish his arc right through a support beam. And there are people who say bigger is better. It’s about how you use it!

Finally breaking free of the Spider-Man pile-on (Thanks a lot, guys! Where did all that ‘Greased Lightning’ camaraderie go?), Buddy plants his foot in Miguel’s face and sends him flying. Just before he grabbed hold of Ruddy, good going!

“Do you have a plan or are you stalling for time until you make one up?” Buddy catches up to hamster Ruddy and reaches down.

Ruddy allows himself to be scooped up into Buddy’s gloved hands. “Who do you think I am, some kinda schmuck that flies by the seat of his pants?”

“Well if that bar fight in Belmont taught me anything—shit!” Buddy ducks as a web pipe bomb flies past his head. It explodes behind him and entangles a gaggle of Spider-men.

Peter Parkedcar zooms out ahead of them from a hidden runaway. Aw hell, either Buddy took a wrong turn and ended up back at the lab, or Parkedcar hit the throttle so hard he warped through space-time, which Buddy is pretty sure Parkedcar cannot do, though he stores that away as a modification he’ll try later because it’d be hella cool if Parkedcar could do it.

Ruddy slips his head through Buddy’s fingers and rests his grubby little hamster hands on his chin with a grin (do hamsters have chins? It is super weird seeing a hamster act so human). “Right on time.”

Shit, Parkedcar’s blocked off their path completely. Buddy hits the brakes, shoes squeaking as he stops. “I don’t wanna have to hurt you, Parkedcar!”

They stare each other down like they’re in a Western movie (it’s high noon somewhere). Buddy cranes his neck. Parkedcar revs. Ruddy yawns. Buddy doesn’t wanna damage that shiny newly-installed frame but it’s looking like he’s got no other choice. Then Parkedcar makes a move. Buddy flinches—Parkedcar’s doors swing open like he's spreading his wings for takeoff. Smoke nervously stutters out the exhaust.

“I already told you—” Ruddy wiggles out of Buddy’s grasp and shifts into himself again. Though Buddy’s seen this transformation a handful of times already, it doesn’t get any less cool watching Ruddy’s body stretch and twist like clay, as if by some invisible hand. “I always have a plan.” He’s in the passenger seat in the blink of an eye, motioning for Buddy to hurry up. “And Belmont was a fluke!”

Parkedcar honks impatiently, though there are plenty of Spider-men that say there’s no difference between happy and unhappy honks, Buddy insists there is, just like there’s a difference between Parkedcar’s excited and threatened revving. There’s always a twang that shouldn’t be there; that’s how Buddy knows this honking is hesitant. This honk sounds a lot like he wouldn’t be doing this if he had a choice.

Buddy dives into the driver’s seat, cracking his knuckles. As soon as his hands make contact with the wheel, his tattoos extend out in thin wires, inserting themselves into the engine and the battery, and now Buddy has total control of Parkedcar; man and machine become one, or something pretentious like that.

“Fine then, Belmont was a fluke. But what about Fishkorn and Poletown East and The Eye—”

“Oh shut i—AAH!” Parkedcar explodes into his acceleration.

“Whoops!” Buddy laughs.

“Watch it! People’s faces melt off at that speed!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works, but speaking of things not working the way they usually do,” he veers out of the way of another web pipe bomb, “how’d you rope Parkedcar into this?”

Ruddy doesn’t miss a beat. “I planted a bomb on him.”

Energy blasts coming left and right. They hit everything from infrastructure to tech to other Spider-people, but Buddy handles Parkedcar like he’s an extension of himself, with all his agility and flexibility, and he’s more durable too.

“Very funny, you prick. Now be real.”

A missed beat.

“Ruddy.”

Another missed beat.

“C’mon man, you never tell me what’s going on in your head, and now you’re making up some bullshit about a bomb? Even if you had one, when’d you have the time to plant it?”

They hit a support and start driving downwards, hopping from beam to beam. Clean linoleum is replaced with dark iron and glowing emergency lights; they’re in Nueva York’s gutters now, and their pursuers have been lost in the pressurized steam.

“During the musical number,” Ruddy says matter-of-factly. Buddy hates it when people state things matter-of-factly. It makes their faces extra punchable.

“No way.”

Ruddy laughs dryly. “We’re sittin’ on it. All I gotta do is press the big red button and—”

This can’t be real. Ruddy (and all his other identities) do a lot of questionable things. He tricked a little old lady into thinking he’s her long lost husband who returned from the war and conned her into signing over her entire inheritance to him. He convinced a gunman that his real targets should be corrupt government agents, which resulted in the fatal shooting of a famous politician. He got himself and Buddy banned from three different casinos because of all the cheating, only to reveal he made off with the cash anyways, and the cops were on their asses for three whole days. But there’s always a line…

…What is Ruddy’s line?

Parkedcar honks. There it is again. That sharp tone, now mixed with a prolonged fade-out. Electricity in-between circuits discharging in small distressed bursts. It’s got Buddy breaking out into a cold sweat.

Ruddy cheats at every game they’ve ever played, but when it’s just them—

—he’s usually cracked by now.

Oh my God.

He’s serious.

“What the fuck!? What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you—did you know this would all go to shit?”

Ruddy shrugs.

“Jesus Christ! A tiny spark could set a bomb off, and I just pumped Parkedcar full of energy! You thought driving too fast would melt your face off, well I got news for you, pal, blowing up will definitely melt your face off!”

“Aw, are you scared?” Ruddy jeers. “Anyways, it all worked out. We’re outta Dodge.”

Buddy brings Parkedcar to a stop. “We’ve got about thirty seconds before Miguel locates us, so before you fuck off, you are going to tell me where the hell you put that bomb.”

Ruddy takes his sweet time getting out of the car. He dusts himself off, fixes his hair, hums the song they’d sang together what feels like ages ago. It might as well have been. And Ruddy thought he’d made some friends. Well, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t really think that. As good as his luck is, it’s never that good. Buddy was right, Ruddy knew before he ever stepped foot in that portal that meeting Miguel would be a disaster, but he thought oh what the hell, Buddy’s a good guy, he wouldn’t purposely lead a friend into a trap. 

And that’s the problem, now isn’t it? Buddy didn’t know a trap was waiting for him. No one did, no one but… Asad—or… Ruddy. Both. Whatever. Point is, everyone gets caught eventually. Now he’s made a ton of enemies. Well okay, a ton more. Would’ve been nice if this place was as great as Buddy said it was. Would’ve been nice if he’d had one more day to enjoy the feeling of—well, whatever that was. It isn’t important.

Ruddy enters some coordinates into his keypad and opens up a portal against the grimy wall.

“Hey! Wait a sec, where’s this bomb?”

Parkedcar honks forcefully, as if saying yeah, what gives?

Laughing, because all he really can do is laugh, Ruddy turns around, hands in his pockets. “You’re not gonna find it under the hood.”

“So where the hell is it?”

“I don’t think you’ll find it, period.”

“What—”

Ruddy tosses the “detonator” at Buddy. “Catch!”

“Oh shit—Ruddy what the fu—uuuuh-huh? This is just a shitty piece of plastic!”

“Heh heh, yup. Looked real though, didn’t it, Parkedcar?”

Parkedcar gives a confused honk. Buddy’s mind kicks it into overdrive. But Parkedcar believed it, so it must’ve been true, right? Unless—

“I told you I always have a plan.” Ruddy backs up until his feet are touching the edge of the portal. 

Buddy tosses the detonator aside, the truth of the situation beginning to dawn on him, and he almost looks relieved, or is that vindication? Don’t smile too hard, dude. Ruddy didn’t prove Miguel wrong. He didn’t prove he’s a good person. He didn’t prove anything at all, except that he’s a damn good liar.

“You son of a bitch.”

“There was no bomb!” Ruddy laughs again. “See you later, Buddy.”

The portal closes behind him.

It’s raining. He’s in an alley, somewhere in-between a dimly lit convenience store and a shuttered bike shop. The coordinates were typed in at random. He’ll figure out where he is sooner or later. The destination rarely matters. All that matters is he’s alone.

This is how it always goes. He’s used to it. He’s made peace with it. He’s learned to find comfort in it. All he has to do now is take a deep breath. Hold it until his lungs are burning and then let it all out, and with it, let out those feelings he has no right to feel, which make him heavy, which make him weak, which make him want things he has no business wanting.

When he’s not feeling anything anymore, when he becomes empty and heartless, when he stops aching at being nothing more than a worthless anomaly—

Asad slides down the wall and wraps his arms around his knees.

And lets his eyes fall closed.