<div style="text-align: center;">((I think it's about time we get this party started, yeah?))<br/><br/>((Fair warning: I have NaNoWriMo and other things going on plus RL. Sorry if I'm a bit slow.))<br/><br/>((Also, JD...that thing we talked about...I'll wait for the first round or two of posting before doing it, I think.))</div><br/><br/>The hum of machinery was distant and low, mere background noise in the darkness of the mostly quiet laboratory. The woman’s eyes darted this way and that as she struggled against the stainless steel band that bound her to the table. She didn’t know where she was and she didn’t<span style="font-style: italic">want</span>to know. Whatever she was doing here, she had to get<span style="font-style: italic">away</span>. She had to get<span style="font-style: italic">out</span>of this place. She could feel the vibrations of the machinery, hear the servomotors grinding, smell the sulfuric crackle of electricity as the air burned…<br/><br/>Her sense weren’t just hyperactive. They were far beyond those of anyone on Earth. That was her mutation. But they didn’t help her here. They didn’t open the shackles that held her or lead her out of the room that confined her. And when brilliant light flooded the place, her eyes and skull were in agony from the sudden blindness that she experienced. Heightened senses weren’t always a boon. The footsteps she heard were like a dozen elephants trampling her ear drums as the man walked down the stairs. He crossed the floor, humming a merry tune as he arranged some tools on a tray. Then he turned to her with a smile. She looked at him only with fear.<br/><br/>“Y’know,” he told her in a somewhat pleasant voice, “you should be lucky that I’m doing this. If my mentor were here, he wouldn’t be quite as…non-invasive.”<br/><br/>The man’s grin widened as he adjusted his glasses. Then his smile was gone, and he sighed.<br/><br/>“Of course, I’m just an assistant…”<br/><br/>His creepy, cruel smile returned.<br/><br/>“But one day soon, I’ll be in charge…”<br/><br/>It wasn’t an encouraging thought.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><br/><br/>This city was not a place for the faint of heart. It was a vile, corrupt, crowded, noisy, and overall<span style="font-style: italic">bad</span>place to live. But for more than eight million people spread across the five boroughs, it was home. Some of those people were buried under the bodies of those society had cast away in favor of raising the unjust as gods; some of them were the gods themselves, bolstered by Benjamins and swimming in the fetid swamp that was what they considered a scourge against their superiority. Then there were<span style="font-style: italic">literal</span>gods in this city, and that was a whole other issue.<br/><br/>But for the heroes stuck in between it all, a little peace could sometimes be found.<br/><br/>Cheryl Blaine found that peace in the current owner of Stark Industries, one Maria Stark. Cheryl called her Pepper in private, for that was her middle name but she preferred Maria; she accepted it in private, though. Private meant bed. Bed meant fun things. And fun things meant…<br/><br/>“Waaaahoohooooooo!”<br/><br/>If there was one thing she loved almost as much as Maria, it was web-slinging. Sadly, her spinnerets just happened to be in her mouth - which was kind of creepy but also kind of fitting. But a quick hand and a sharp eye were all that was needed for her to grab a string of web and fly through the skies, dodging those who thought she was a villain while proudly showing off for those who knew she wasn’t. She darted between the buildings now, swinging like a spider dangling from its web. Getting through New York City traffic was nothing when you had natural webbing, and she had<span style="font-style: italic">plenty</span>of that.<br/><br/>Didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy it, though. What was a commute without a little fun?<br/><br/>On the plus side, she didn’t spend<span style="font-style: italic">all</span>of her time planning her girlfriend’s parties. She only had them once a week (usually). She got paid forty hours’ worth, though, and she helped Maria out with other stuff as well. But for right now, she was just enjoying her morning swing.