30 Minutes Or It's Free (M+/F)

[TamatoaShiny123]

Like many teens, Miles Morales needed a summer job to save up money. He found a part-time job at Harlem Pizza Co. on 116th Street. For the most part, the first day wasn’t bad; Miles learned to twirl the pizza (without accidentally launching it onto the ceiling with his super-strength), apply toppings, and operate the dishwasher. However, near the end of his shift…

“One of our drivers called in sick and we’re already short-staffed,” Mister D’Angelo (Miles’ boss, an old Italian man) explained. “I need you to deliver a pizza to 160 Manhattan Avenue, Apartment 3D.”
“But I don’t have a license, sir,” Miles told him.
“Well, you better get walking. Our policy is ‘delivered less than 30 minutes after you place the order, or it’s on us’. And the money we don’t make comes out of your paycheck, got it?”
“Yes, Mister D’Angelo.”
“Good. It’s a twenty-minute walk from here and he placed the order eight minutes ago. We just pulled it out of the oven and put it in the box. Grab the box on the left and deliver it.”

Miles walked over to the table, picked up one of the two boxes, placed it in the delivery shoulder bag, and walked out of the pizzeria. He was figuring out the best route to walk and make it on time when he got an idea. He walked a few buildings to the left, where there was a pile of garbage bags. He made sure no one was looking, then pulled out his stashed-away backpack, which had his costume inside of it.

“Miles Morales might not be able to make this delivery in time,” he muttered to himself as he ducked into a nearby alleyway, “but I know who can…”

oOo

Minutes later, Miles found himself in his costume, swinging through the city with the delivery bag slung over his shoulder.

“Man, this is easy,” Miles said to himself. “I can deliver this baby in no time and get my costume off before Mister D’Angelo can even think of cutting my pay!”

By now, Miles was in Chelsea Village. He was about to pass through when something caught the corner of his eye. It looked like a group of men dragging a struggling woman near the edge of one of the rooftops. He quickly swung in for a better look.

Miles swung to the side of the building and stuck to it. He pushed the delivery bag against the side and pinned it against the side with a few web blobs. He then crawled up the side and peeked his head up to see what was going on: Black Cat (aka Felicia Hardy) was being dragged towards the edge of the rooftop. She was tied up with rope, with her wrists boxtied behind her back. More rope went around her shoulders, waist, ankles, and knees. She had a white rag with a knot in the middle acting as a cleave gag. While there were seven men there (each wearing pinstripe suits and packing Tommy Guns), the person dragging her was the towering Michael Marko, aka Man Mountain Marko.

“You’ve gotten in the way of one too many of the Maggia’s plans,” he growled at her. “Now, we get to learn if cats can land on their feet…even if they’re all tied up!”

“Grr…lmm mmm gmm!” Felicia shouted into her gag, struggling in Marko’s grasp.

Marko pulled something out of his back pockets. It was Felicia’s claw-tipped gloves. He laughed and placed them back in his back pockets. “You ain’t gettin’ out of those ropes, especially without these gloves of yours. Silvermane personally requested these as a souvenir of you goin’ splat against the street pavement in about five seconds.”

Miles checked his watch. He had ten minutes to deliver the pizza. He’d have to act fast if he wanted to both save Black Cat and make the delivery on time. He activated his camouflage ability, sprang up behind one of the goons, and spin-kicked him in the spine. He crumbled to the floor, cursing in pain. The goon next to him noticed this and knelt to check on his fallen comrade. “Freddie, what happened?”

Miles crept up next to that goon and tapped him on the shoulder, transferring some Venom Energy into him. “Hey, buddy,” Miles whispered, “you got the time?”

The confused goon whipped around before the Venom kicked in. He let out a pained cry before crumpling to the floor, convulsing in pain. This got the attention of the other goons and Marko. “Someone’s here!” Marko bellowed.

Miles turned visible. “Sorry to interrupt, guys, but this building has a strict ‘no tossing people you hate off the rooftop’ rule. I’m merely an enforcer of that weirdly-specific policy.”

“It’s one of the Spiders,” Marko told his men. “Light him up!”

“‘One of the Spiders’?” Miles repeated with fake indignity as he flipped around the bullets the goons started firing at him. “I have a name, you know! It’s Kid-Arachnid!”

Miles fired two diagonal web lines at a pair of goons that attached to their chests. He pulled his arms out, sending the goons crashing face-first into each other. “Actually, that name isn’t official yet. I’m between that and ‘Shadow-Spider’?” Which do you like better?”

“I think I like the name ‘Dead-Spider’ best,” one of the goons said as he started firing at Miles from behind.

Miles leaped in the air to avoid the gunfire and shot several web blobs that jammed the gun’s barrel. “I wasn’t asking you, pal,” Miles replied as he landed and immediately dropped the goon with a left hook. “I was asking your boss!”
“I was thinking along the lines of ‘Dead-Cat’.”

Miles looked up to see Marko flinging Felicia off the side of the building. Miles quickly sprinted to the edge and leaped off the edge. The two remaining goons followed and fired at him on his way down, but Miles fired off four web blobs, two that jammed the guns’ muzzles and two that landed on their faces, blinding them.

Miles grabbed Felicia in his arms and swung both of them to the other side of the building. He placed Felicia against the wall and pulled her gag out. “Are you OK, Miss?”
“I’m fine,” she replied. “Here, untie me!”

Miles checked his watch. Eight minutes left. “Sorry, I don’t have time to,” he sheepishly explained as he pinned her against the wall with a few web blasts. “Just sit tight. I got this.”

“Hey, wait!” Felicia exclaimed as Miles caught one of the blinded goons with a kick to the face on his way back up to the rooftop. He then shot a web line that attached itself to the other blinded goon’s chest. He pulled that goon into a jumping knee to the chin. This left Miles and Marko the only ones standing.

“Hey, big guy, I’m in a bit of a time crunch,” Miles announced. “Is there any way you’d be willing to quickly and peacefully surrender, emphasis on ‘quickly’?”

Marko responded by charging at Miles, arm reared back.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Miles sighed as he flipped back from Marko’s punch. While Marko had a foot and over a hundred pounds on Miles, Miles had the speed advantage. This allowed him to keep flipping back and create distance between him and his foe.

Miles charged both fists with Venom Energy. He got in close to Marko, ducked a right hook, and connected with a Venom Punch to the left cheek, then another Venom Punch to the right cheek. Marko fell to the floor, seemingly out.

Miles took a second to catch his breath before standing over his foe. “I did it…with six-and-a-half minutes to spare!”

Mile’s Spider-Sense suddenly went off. Before he could determine what it was warning him about, like a scene out of a horror movie, Marko’s eyes shot open. He sat up, using his long reach to grab Miles by the throat.

“Stupid insect,” Marko growled as he stood up and pulled Miles into a clothesline with his other arm. “It’s gonna take more than two little shocks to put down Man Mountain Marko!”

With Miles floored, Marko grabbed the Tommy Gun from one of the fallen Maggia goons and began to walk towards the edge where Black Cat was still stuck below on the wall. “Here, kitty-kitty…”

Seeing this gave Miles an adrenaline rush. He pulled himself up, shot out a web line that went over Marko’s shoulder and attached to the gun, then pulled the gun out of Marko’s hands, which landed off to the side. “Sorry, but this building also has a strict ‘no using old-timey machine guns to wipe out your enemies while on the rooftop’ rule. I probably should’ve brought that up before your guys started firing at me. Where did you get those, anyway? The 1920s called; they want their firearms back.”

Marko charged at Miles again. This time, Miles was able to duck under the clothesline, waited for Marko to turn around, then fired several web blobs into his foe’s eyes to blind him.

Miles knew how to end this fight. As Marko pulled at the webbing to uncover his eyes, Miles focused all of the Venom Energy inside his body. “Hey, Marko,” Miles called out, “you say two little shocks aren’t enough to put you down?”

Marko continued to try and unblind himself, not seeing the orange electricity that was now surrounding Miles’ body.

“Then I’ll just have to give you…”

Marko ripped off the webbing. Without looking, he instinctively charged toward Miles.

“One big shock!”

Miles unleashed a burst of Venom Energy from his body. It rippled through Marko’s body, who let out a cry of agony as he was sent flying across the rooftop, landing near the edge. The fallen goons who had been in the burst’s radius writhed around the ground.

Falling to his knees, Miles took a minute to catch his breath, exhausted from unleashing that burst of energy. When he recovered enough, he walked back over to Marko. After making sure Marko was truly unconscious this time, Miles flipped him over and retrieved Black Cat’s gloves from his back pockets. “I guess the end of that battle was…electrifying, to say the least.”

Miles groaned, glad that his foe wasn’t awake to hear that self-admittedly bad quip. “Sorry,” Miles said as he webbed Marko to the floor, triple-layering the webs to ensure his foe wouldn’t break out with his strength, “that was a lame one. Next time we fight, I’ll come up with a much better ending quip, I promise.”

After webbing down the other Maggia goons, Miles crawled down to where Felicia was still stuck to. “They’re all taken care of,” he told her. “What happened?”
“I went to the building, expecting to meet a client for a potential job. Instead, they ambushed me. Now can you get me down from here?”

Miles checked his watch. Less than four minutes to go by this point. “Crap! I’m so sorry, but I have to go!”
“What?! Why-”
“I’ll be back in ten minutes to get you down and clean up that mess on the rooftop, I swear!”
“What about my gloves?”

Barely thinking, Miles placed Felicia’s gloves into her mouth, forcing her to bite down on them if she didn’t want them to fall to the street below. He then ripped the delivery bag off the wall and swung away. Unable to voice her distaste for her current situation, Felicia could only look on with a grimace…

oOo

Miles traveled the rest of the delivery route at lightning speed. Fortunately for him, there was an open window that led to a hallway on the apartment’s third floor, letting him jump inside. He dashed through the hall, scanning the doors for Apartment 3D. Finally, he came across the correct apartment.

“Thirty more seconds, Joan,” he heard an elderly man’s voice say from inside the apartment. “Then, it’s free pizza for us!”

Miles knocked on the door. “Harlem Pizza Co, sir!”
“Aww dangit,” the voice grumbled. “Give me a second. I need to grab my wallet.”

As he waited, Miles casually looked down and realized he was still in costume with no time to change out of it. Hearing the man’s footsteps approaching the door, Miles placed the pizza box on the floor and camouflaged himself. Right after he did, the door opened.

The elderly man (wearing dark shades) looked around before noticing the box on the floor. “Huh, I guess the delivery guy dropped and dashed,” he said before smiling. “Hey, if there’s no delivery guy to give the money to, I guess this means this pizza is free after all!”

Miles slapped his forehead with frustration as the man picked up the box and closed the door. As he tried to figure out what to do next, the man opened the box from inside his kitchen. “Hey, this isn’t my pizza!” he heard the man exclaim. “Where are the anchovies I ordered?!”

Miles groaned, realizing he must’ve grabbed the wrong box at the pizzeria to deliver. “I’m so getting fired, aren’t I?”

[ninterz]

What a fun story.

“Grr…lmm mmm gmm!” Felicia shouted into her gag, struggling in Marko’s grasp.

Was that a Catwoman reference?
If so I really loved it