//------------------------------//
// Cat's Out 
// Story: Along Came A Spider 
// by Onomonopia 
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With gritted teeth Spiderman slid open the window the top room of Coco's boutique, slipping inside before collapsing to the ground. Pain flooded through his eyes as he pulled himself up and staggered against the wall, using it for support as the effects of the poison still burned through his veins.

'Fortunately for me Parker seems to have a healing ability along with the rest of his infernal powers,' Otto recalled as he pulled the mask off and staggered through the hallways, waiting for his spider sense to begin blaring incase someone decided to try and find out his identity. The place seemed quiet enough and he managed to make it back to his room without too much hassle. He fell onto his bed and closed his eyes, each breath coming in with a pained sound.

'Well today has been a complete and utter failure,' he thought to himself after an hour of pained rest, using his incredible will to push himself up once more to his hooves. He slipped out of the Spiderman suit, but to his annoyance the suit fell into three pieces when he laid it upon the bed. The bottom half was more or less in one piece, but the top half was practically shredded in half.

"Wonderful. I have that to add to the rest of my problems," Otto grumbled as he glanced at the mirror to see that the bleeding across his chest had indeed stopped, but the wound was still raw and fresh. "And I highly doubt that any of my excuses will work on Coco, as foolish as she can be. Perhaps I can sneak by her and raid that first aid kit that she has used on me...if I can keep this infernal pain from consuming my every thought."

Calculating the risk and figuring that he had a higher chance to succeed, Otto slipped off into the building. He remembered vaguely seeing the medical kit in the same room where Coco worked and he was gambling on her not being in her main place of work at the moment.

'After all, a smart person would be out speaking with the police about what happened and...I believe I have found a flaw in my plan,' Otto realized as he pushed open the door to the boutique and found Coco hard at work at the other end of the room, looking down over a sewing machine that had many different fabrics beneath it. Using what stealth he had Otto began to move across the room, spying the white and red kit leaning on one of the counters.

"So how did it go?" Coco asked him when he had made it about halfway across the room, her words stopping the scientist in his tracks. For a brief moment he waited with baited breath, wondering if she would turn around to see what had happened to him. "Come on, you race out of here with that crazy talk of yours and now you're going to stay quiet? That's not fair," she added one with a smirk, but she never looked up from her machine.

"It...did not go well," he admitted with as much control over the pain in his voice as he could make, slowly beginning to move towards the kit once more. "In my desire to...see justice done, I forgot a very crucial detail. I do not know where Cherry Bomb is. As such, I raced around for a while aimlessly until I realized my folly and returned here."

"Is that what happened?" Coco asked with a small nod as she continued working, Otto thanking his luck as he inched closer and closer to the kit. "Y'know Otto, I can't figure you out."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you just said that you raced out in all that rage because you wanted to see justice done. Justice, I take it, against Cherry Bomb and what we think she did."

"Of course. Why does that surprise you?"

"Because honestly, I thought that you hated me," Coco admitted and despite his desire for the kit, Otto stopped in place for a moment. "You constantly mock my beliefs and goals, act like you're the boss around here and disregard my words completely and keep picking fights with the only other pony I can trust. With all that evidence, I'm sure that a genius like you could see why I came to that conclusion?"

"Coco..." Otto began as he realized that her words were true, causing Otto to sigh as he opened his mouth only to be silenced by a hoof that Coco held up.

"You don't need to apologize. Just because I've seen the bad doesn't mean that I haven't seen the good as well," she continued on, causing Otto to raise an eyebrow in confusion. "You did scare off Cherry that one time and you helped out the kids at the college. Not to mention that despite everything I said previously, you have helped me and my business. And that rage you felt towards Cherry when you found the state this place was in was genuine. You're a tough nut to crack."

"I...am that way because it is safer if you do not know that much of who I used to be," Otto said, trying to make sure that he kept out any details. "I have done many terrible things in my life that I wish to...move on from."

"You mean your life as a supervillain?"

Otto's heart stopped in his chest at Coco's words and for a long minute there was only silence between the two of them, broken only by the sounds of the machine sewing through fabrics. She then moved what she was working on to the side before picking up a number of ribbons that she began to shift through.

"I may be naïve and kind Otto, but I'm not an idiot. I've picked up on the hints that you've been unintentionally dropping," Coco clarified in a voice that was devoid of any of the usual cheeriness that Otto had become accustom to hearing. "And all of them point to you being a supervillain."

"How...?"

"First hint: the way you act. You constantly believe that you're better than everypony else and bark orders to us, like we're your minions. Then you get infuriated when we can't keep up with your brilliant schemes," Coco began without looking back at Otto, whose face was pale from both what he was hearing and the loss of blood.

"Of course, you might just be a jerk and not a villain. Hint two: your hatred for heroes, or in this case the spider," Coco continued on. "In Equestria, there are very few ponies that hate the Ambassadors of Harmony for their heroic actions. There are a few that do, but you take it to a whole other level. You loath the Spider, to the point of where you won't hear anything good about him. My theory is that the Spider is the hero that stopped you when you tried your take over the world scheme."

"You...are not wrong," Otto admitted, though he had different reasons for hating the Spider she was talking about.

"Final hint: You know how to build a giant robot and why building it is a bad idea. Who does that besides supervillain?" Coco asked as she turned to face Otto with a smile, but the smile faded when she saw the horrible damage that had been done to him. She gazed for only a moment before she raced over to the kit, picking it up before walking towards the stallion. "So, how does my theory sound to a genius like yourself?"

"It sounds like I haven't been giving you the credit that you deserve," Octavius admitted to her as she pulled out the disinfectant and bandages. "But now I have a question of my own. If you were able to deduce that I was indeed a supervillain in my past, then...?"

"Discord once tore down all of space and time to create a land of chaos, yet now he is one of Fluttershy's best friends. Starlight Glimmer actually went back in time to change the fate of Equestria several times and now she is a student of the pony that stopped her," Coco cut him off as she began to bandage his wounds, taking care not to make them too tight. "It's like I told you when we first met Otto, here in Equestria most of us believe in second chances."

"You were mean and cold, but I also saw the kindness in you when you stopped that attack on that pony. Despite everything that you've done...there's good in you, isn't there?" This time Coco looked up at Otto as she said this and despite wishing to Otto found that he could not tear his gaze away from the mare. "And I've seen the regret in your eyes whenever you speak of the past. You truly regret the things you did, don't you? So what changed you?"

"...the very same person that I hate. The Spider," Otto admitted in a near whisper. "To make a long story short...he taught me that with great power comes great responsibility and that I had a responsibility to use my gifts to help the world. Though in the end, I was blinded by my own arrogance to truly help others and couldn't even do that much right."

"I see...do you want to talk about the long version?" Coco asked, but when Otto replied with silence she nodded with a somber expression. She then finished wrapping up his wounds in silence before returning the supplies to the kit as she rose, returning to her station. "That's alright. As long as you're trying to make up for what you've done, I won't pry."

"You are a very kind soul. I have been unjust to you in my actions and words," Otto admitted with a bitter taste in his mouth before he looked down to see that his bandages weren't exactly applied by an expert. He corrected the positioning of the bandages before he walked over to Coco, slightly surprised to see that she was working on a new dress design. "Why are you so hard at work when there is a thief out there that stole your previous work? You should be seeking her out and reclaiming what is yours."

"Let her keep my old dress," Coco replied with such an intense rage that Otto was not certain this was the same mare that he had been talking to just a few moment earlier. "She wants to use that design so badly she can have it."

"But what about the competition?" Otto inquired.

"Don't you worry about that. I've worked up a new dress that improves upon my previous one in every single way," Coco replied as she picked up some drawings next to her with one hoof and showed them to Otto, who glanced over them with intrigue to see models that seemed to take her old idea and improve it further. "Imagine the look on her face when her model walks out with my dress and then Sapphire Shores comes out in a look that surpasses it in every way. She'll never be able to show her face again."

"So instead of exposing her now for her crime, you instead are waiting for when everyone's eyes are on her before completely decimating her chance at winning," Otto figured out and an evil smile from Coco told him that he had pieced it together. "For such a kind face and voice, you hold within you a darker side. Are you sure that you yourself were not a supervillain in your past life?"

"No, but I've sometimes wondered what kind of villain I might have become if Rarity and her friends hadn't helped me," Coco put forth before she slammed the items on to the table and resumed her work. Otto looked down at her with interest before he glanced around at the rest of the store, which was still in shambles from earlier. Deciding that he owed it to the mare, he walked over to where a broom and dustpan were, taking them both within his hooves before he began to clean, leaving the mare to her work.

"So...you do know the Spider, right?" Coco eventually asked the break the silence, after Otto had picked up about a third of the ruined area. "He was the hero to your villain, right?"

"You are correct. I know the Spider far more personally that practically anyone else that I have ever met," Otto confirmed for her, though he was intrigued that she would bring it up after she promised not to pry. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I was just wondering...what it's like to be a hero," she said, but Otto picked up that she was more thinking aloud than she actually was talking to him. "To save the lives of citizens, stopping villains and trying to balance your regular life with your superhero one. Can you imagine what that must be like?"

"It is a thankless job that only the strongest of souls can manage," Otto said before he could stop himself, causing him to glance over at Coco after he had spoken to see she was looking at him with interest. "There is a reason that not everyone with powers or genius is able to be a hero. Because not all of us are heroes deep down inside. No matter how hard we try to be," Otto added in a near whisper.

"Maybe. But I'd like to think that all of us could be heroes if we really tried hard enough," Coco said with a small smile as she gazed out the window at the sky, leaving Otto to shake his head slightly at her naivety before he resumed sweeping the floors. "Hey Otto?"

"What?"

"Do you think the Spider is cute beneath that mask?"