When Spidey Met Oracle

"That was the last of the horseradish, asshole," Parker sighed as he started pulling together another culinary masterpiece. "Are you really so dense you don't get that I'm mad at you right now?"

"What for?"

"She was naked," Parker practically blubbered. "I saw Supergirl naked in my kitchen."

"Oh man, I'm just... I'm so sorry you had to see that, Pete," Johnny consoled, putting a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. "Be honest with me: Are you going to be okay?"

"You're a dick," Parker complained, batting his hand away.

"I think I've found my calling."

"Being a dick?" Peter replied. "Yeah, I think you nailed it."

"I know what I should be doing for this big super-science concern Reed started up in my honor!" Johnny said.

"The Future Foundation?" Peter rolled his eyes. "This ought to be good..."

"I'm going to catalogue the sexuality of aliens."

"Of course you are."

"You'd be surprised by the subtle differences between human girls and girls that just look human."

"I probably would be," Parker agreed.

"Did you know that despite the many physiological similarities between Kryptonians and humans, Krytonian girls don't grow any hair around their pubic region?" Johnny asked with a smile.

"Please, don't make me an accomplice to anything the two of you did," Peter said. "I don't want details."

"And they've got three clitorises... clitori... Is it clitorises or clitori?"

"It's 'clitorises' in English, but in Latin, it's 'clitorides'," the nerd verified.

"One of them's exactly where you'd expect it to be, and the second is on the opposite end of the vaginal opening, just at the edge of her taint," Johnny continued. He knew that no matter what Pete had said, the guy was just dying to know. "The third one? The third, my friend? It's internal. Like, just inside the va-jay-jay on the lower side... if she's not reverse cowgirling. Man, I wish I had a chalkboard or something so I could draw you a diagram..."

"I am so glad that you don't," Parker sighed. "Pretty sure I begged you not to give me details."

"Don't you get it? This could be my thing!" Johnny told him. "I could be the sex science guy for the FF!"

"Oh right," Peter laughed. "You're going to be the cosmic-powered Alfred Kinsey."

"What's so funny about that?" Johnny asked.

"Do you even know who Kinsey was?"

"I know who Kinsey was," Johnny snorted.

"Really?"

"He pioneered the field of sexology," he answered.

"I guess you do know who Kinsey was," Parker conceded.

"I saw that flick with Qui-Gon Jinn," Johnny explained. "I was kinda dating this film studies major at Metro College when it came out and she dragged me to it."

"A girl was involved?" Peter gasped. "I'm just so surprised..."

"Whatever," Johnny shrugged. "Are you telling me that there's absolutely no need for that type of research within the Future Foundation?"

It wasn't a question as much as an accusation. The more Pete paused to think about it, the more he obviously felt his response was due some consideration. "Maybe," Parker admitted. "If it was done the right way..."

"That's what I thought," Johnny smirked. "Just make sure you tell Reed and Sue that."

"Kinsey didn't start all that research just to have sex with his subjects," Peter muttered. "Not at first, at least. And that certainly doesn't mean I want my apartment used as Sex Lab One. I took the spare key back for a reason."

"Yeah, well, if you don't want people flying into your place, don't leave the skylight unlatched, genius," Johnny replied. "And come on, somebody should be getting some in a great place like this."

"I only broke up with Carlie three months ago," Pete said. "Let me get over it... Not that my sex life is any of your business."

"It could be," Johnny insisted. "Especially once I start my sextra-terrestrial case studies. Everybody knows about you and Spider Skrull Lady..."

"I'm not talking to you about this anymore."

"Hey, give me a break, man. I think I've been pretty cool about you breaking the bro code when you started dating Cooper..."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, buster bug boy," Johnny fumed. "I had dibs on Carlie."

"What the... How do you... WHAT?!"

"She was my date to Aunt May's wedding," Johnny reminded him. "You were there when I asked her, remember? It was after I beat Doctor Octopus when he took mental control of the city's machinery."

"After you beat Doc Ock?" Parker scoffed. Sure, maybe Spidey had done a lot of the boring part, matching wits with Octavius, but the Human Torch had been the one who burnt up all those stupid rob-octopi.

"I did all the work on Carlie, and you just swooped in and reaped the benefits," Johnny insisted. "Over my dead body, no less!"

"I started dating Carlie before you went missing," Peter corrected.

"See? You're just digging yourself in deeper, dude."

"You stole my date to that wedding!"

"And yet you showed up with the hot Latina roommate anyway," Johnny recalled. "Michele, right?"

"This is what I don't understand about you," Peter mumbled. "You can't remember to load the dishwasher, but you never forget a woman's name..."

"Whatever happened to her?"

"She moved back to Chicago," Pete sighed.

"So you broke that poor chica's heart, too, when you snaked Cooper right out from under me."

"The only thing I broke of Michele's was the lease on that apartment," Parker asserted.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, you heartless, heartless scoundrel."

"You know what, Storm, I give up," Pete shrugged. "If you want Carlie's number so you two can resume your star-crossed romance, I completely understand and won't get in your way."

"Well, I'm not like you," Johnny assured him, seriously suspecting the sincerity of Parker's apology. "That's your ex-girlfriend and I wouldn't do that to you, pal. I respect the code."

"Sure you do."

"If that same policy applies to Mary Jane, though..."

"I will kill you," Peter said flatly. "I will end your life."

"Kidding, man, jeez," Johnny laughed. "You're all tense and frustrated over nothing. I wonder why that is... Maybe somebody needs to get laid?"

"Sex isn't the solution to everything, Johnny," Pete said. "It's rarely the solution to anything."

"How are we friends?!" Johnny asked.

"I ask myself the same question," he replied. "Constantly."

"It's time for you to get out there again."

"I don't want to talk about this," Parker whined. "At all."

"You can cut the whole 'I'm just prudish, perfect Peter' routine with me, webs," the Torch sighed. "We both know it's just a matter of time before the old Parker luck drums up a whole new unbelievably hot chick that's way too good for you, you lucky so-and-so."

"You're the only person who thinks it works that way."

"Because I've seen it in action!" Johnny insisted. "Me, I've got to work for it. Charm them. Granted, it's not that hard because I've got so much to work with, but you? You just bumble around with your mopey, geek-ass, Scientific American-loving, bookworm routine and the hotties just can't help themselves."

"Yeah," Peter sighed. "That's exactly how that works."

"Sue keeps telling me that the Symkarian Consulate's been pestering the Future Foundation with invitations addressed to Spider-Man for a state dinner in his honor," Johnny remarked. "Ben says they've got the same problem at Avengers Mansion."

"What's your point?"

"Silver Sable really wants to see you..."

"I'm busy," Peter said, carefully placing a pickle.

"Too busy for a fancy meal?"

"Silver probably just wants to butter me up for one of her shady merc jobs."

"Or maybe she just wants to butter that cock, stud," Johnny suggested.

"Nobody talks like you in real life," Peter groaned. "Nobody."

"You should go for it," Johnny insisted. "She's Eastern European. Eastern European chicks don't have nearly as many sexual hang-ups, Pete. The number of Latverian girls I could tell you about... Whew! Ms. Sablinova's gonna open your eyes."

"Stop it."

"I'm talking next-level kink. Bondage maybe. Bring dem web-shootahs fo' sho, playa!"

"Johnny."

"You're going to need some real toys, too," Johnny informed him. "You have a cock ring, right? If not, I got a guy..."

"I am begging you to stop."

"Peter Parker, you are wasting your awesome years!"

"I think I'll live."

"Fine! I give up!" Johnny relented. "But before I leave you to another action-packed night here all by your lonesome, tell me true, Pete, for my own piece of mind: What is the man who could have everything waiting for?"

"You're going to have to explain that one..."

"The one thing I always liked about you was that you've always been as big of a screw-up as me," Johnny told him. "Even after I learned you were this big brainiac like Reed, your life was still just this huge mess. It made me feel like I wasn't just wasting my potential, because if a guy like you hadn't figured it all out, maybe it wasn't so bad that I hadn't either. But you're on the right track now. You've got the big job at Horizon. You've got money in your pocket. You're getting it done, son. So what's stopping you from getting some tail? Are you telling me that pulling my life together means I have to live like a monk? Because I won't do it!"

Parker didn't say anything for a while. He just quietly finished cutting a slice of tomato to top his sandwich. When he was done, he held it out toward Johnny. "If you warm this up for me and don't eat it, we can hang out tonight," he offered. "I just got Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid from Netflix."

"Blu-ray?"

"Like you said, I'm getting it done, son."

It wasn't an invitation as much as a challenge. The more Johnny considered it, the more he realized his response was due some thought.

"Yeah, all right," he eventually agreed, graciously deciding to drop his whole completely valid argument.

Maybe it was finally time to just accept life as he knew it now. After all, if anybody could go to hell and come back unscathed, it was Johnny Storm, but even the Human Torch could only push things so far...

CHAPTER TWELVE: Getting Down to Business

Even in the ancient days when the Titans ruled the world, the strands of eternity had long been the dominion of the Moirai.

And even now, as both the Warrior Princess of the Amazons and the Lion of Olympus could attest to the various superhero teams they had served in this modern age, even the mightiest mortals of earth were still mere marionettes whose strings were pulled by the Fates of myth.

Clotho, the spinner, spun out the thread of every lifeline, while Lachesis, the measurer, divined the length of each and every human life until Atropos, who could not be turned, snipped that bit of cord when the time had come so it could be woven into the great Tapestry of Destiny.

In the last few millennia or so, however, bored by the seeming fickleness of their collective choices, the Fates had decided that there would be mortals privy to their weaving... Seers and prognosticators who may walk and warn worthy heroes of their woeful pattern in the infinite knitting of the Kindly Ones... Perhaps even change it if they proved righteous...

Despite her rather presumptive choice of nom de guerre in her post-Batgirl career, Barbara Gordon was not such an oracle. In all honesty, the Moirai were a little put out by her decision to declare herself as such, especially since her choice to do so was borne of an outlandish belief, despite all evidence to the contrary, that this foolish slip of a girl -- so much like that pompous Athena -- was somehow in charge of her own fortune... That with enough knowledge she could serve the purpose of the Fates herself.

As it so happened, Julia Carpenter -- the second heroine to call herself Spider-Woman before she decided to champion the cause of good as Arachne -- had actually been the most recent mortal vessel to be blessed with precognition. Julia could glimpse the vast, thrumming Web of Life interwoven within Destiny's Tapestry when they saw fit for her to do so. That this new Madame Web had a passing resemblance to the Gordon woman had never escaped The Fates, and they delighted in this irony the same way they delighted in making Carpenter attendant to the ever-evolving providence of Peter Parker, the current warden of The Web... The same man whose lifeline would intersect with the specious Miss Gordon's when she least expected or wanted... as they had decreed long before either of them had been born.

Even their chosen seer could only get some fleeting sense of the breadth of the intricate machinations the Kindly Ones had outlined for Barbara and Peter, but on one particular morning, Julia got a brief flash of how The Web might bind them together once more:

Barbara Gordon was coming to New York City. If she met Peter Parker in the thirty-seven hours she spent on the isle of Manhattan, it would pervert the course of Spider-Man's life inextricably.

If this happened, it would occur on a Wednesday. In the few months Carpenter had possessed the intermittent clairvoyance Cassandra Webb had passed on to her briefly before Kraven the Hunter's deranged wife, Sasha, killed the elderly psychic, the new Madame Web had noticed that the big things -- the things she tended to be warned about -- always seemed to happen on Wednesdays...

What struck her this time was the unwavering conviction that she couldn't do anything to change things.

Usually, Madame Web was presented with some vague notion of one precious moment that she could advise Spider-Man to avoid or realize or choose that could render the outcome of greater events. Most times, somehow, there was something that the two of them could do to re-weave The Web, but this time the Fates were clear...

You cannot alter this anymore than he, three old and timeless voices whispered in Madame Web's mind. Whether the Spider will meet the false prophet is ours to decide, oracle, and afterwards... Oh! Afterwards...

*

Barbara couldn't explain the sense of dread she felt as she rolled through the doors of Horizon Labs, but it had settled heavily upon her shoulders and showed little sign of lifting. It certainly couldn't have been any misgivings she harbored about Max Modell or his scientific hub at New York's South Street Seaport. As far as she knew, they were beyond reproach. So Barbara had to assume it was because she just hated business stuff. And why wouldn't she? Business stuff sucked. If she'd been looking to juggle high-finance corporate concerns, she certainly wouldn't have chosen library sciences as a major in college. At the same time, she probably wouldn't have ended up living with her dad again right after she graduated, either. The tragedy in all this, as far as her singular undergrad business class instructor had seen it, was that Barbara had the mind for it.

That didn't mean she liked it.

Once she'd fallen under Batman's financial umbrella after he'd finally accepted her as Batgirl, Barbara gleefully figured she'd never have to worry about any of that ever again. Her father had been vehemently opposed to her pursuing a law enforcement career within either the GCPD or the FBI, but in the Dark Knight's sponsorship of her as the Dominoed Daredoll, she'd been able to realize her life's ambition. Barbara Gordon was solving crimes and saving lives and decided right then that she'd never use Bruce Wayne's money for rent or personal expenses. No, that had been earmarked for the Caped Crusade. She figured her job at the library would cover all that other stuff anyway, and if Batman was providing her with crime-fighting equipment, what else could she really need?

Again, she'd been young and not nearly as smart as she thought way back then, but looking at the way things were now, given the Batman, Inc. business model, Babs couldn't help but figure she'd sparked the notion of franchising the brand way more than Dick Grayson ever had.

Things had changed for Barbara after the Joker's assault, of course. The Wayne Foundation had been adamant about paying her medical expenses and anything else to get her back on her feet, so to speak. Officially, this was all out of respect for her father, a dedicated public servant to the city of Gotham, a man and a family that Bruce Wayne believed in -- but Barbara could tell that Batman felt guilty, and she could only allow that to go so far... After a while it all just felt too much like charity to a girl who'd known the risks going in.

And so, that fantasy of ignoring the financial side of life died the death of all impetuous dreams of youth... Especially when her focus shifted to data mining and analysis. WayneTech had some great cutting edge stuff if your focus was swinging from rooftops or taking down psychotic killers in non-lethal ways, but if you wanted pure processing power maintained by high frequency dual-bus architecture, there were better options. Better options she wasn't going to ask Bruce to pay for. So Barbara learned how to manage her money so she could fund her new crime-fighting endeavors, but it still never became something she particularly enjoyed.

And it certainly didn't mean she was prepared to negotiate a deal of this scale with Horizon.

When she first ventured out to build herself up as Oracle, it was always under the sly guise that she was just trying to build a killer home set-up... not much of a lie then, when you thought about it... At the levels she initially found herself wheeling and dealing, that was the kind of thing you could get a fellow techie at some retail outlet to respond to in a positive way. There was always that thrilling sense of one-upmanship.

"You're going to try to use the new Horizon Nth-alloy heat sinks with a Digitronix processor? Well, how about I knock 20% off if you tell me how that works out for you..."

Now with this ro-bat upgrade project, Lucius Fox had her bidding on software for an entire multinational conglomerate. That was different. That was pure competition. There wasn't much wiggle room for awe in this kind of negotiation. It was all about stopping the next guy from beating you, right?

"WayneTech wants to license my software for their marginally-sanctioned, non-profit defense contract?" she could imagine Max Modell, the big wig at Horizon asking. "What kind of returns are we going to see on that investment?"

It didn't help that this robot-batmen thing had been a back burner project for Barbara. Lucius had been all gung ho about setting it up a week after he first mentioned it, but then serious business got in the way. Internet 3.0 was just barely prepped for general release and then all hell broke loose for Batman, Incorporated. The press had finally dropped the whole "Batman of Manhattan" thing -- even though Barbara knew that Bruce still hadn't found one -- but by that point, their private war with Leviathan had escalated.

Bruce, Dick, Tim and Damian had been lured to a seemingly abandoned oil tanker on international waters that turned out to be Doctor Dedalus' ultimate death trap: an elaborate spider's web to ensnare even the Batman's untiring, leathery wings. The four of them would have probably been left at the bottom of the ocean if Oracle hadn't been able to launch a fleet of ro-bats to lift the sinking ship out of the murky depths.

So, as one could imagine, the presentation for Modell had become one more thing Barbara was scrambling to piece together when she wasn't busy with serious Batman, Inc. business or her missions with the Birds of Prey. And in those few free moments she did have to work on it, Barbara was so focused on perfecting the software patch and developing a business prospectus -- which wasn't really her strong suit -- that she'd never gotten around to re-familiarizing herself with Horizon Labs as a whole.