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Elevate(d Upon Dragon Wings)

Summary:

Nearly a year after the events of spider-verse, the spider gang find themselves captured and turned into living experiments by Doc Ock. She wants revenge for what they did to her super collider, and the best way to get it is to degrade them to simple minded lizards and study them.

The thing is, they aren't actually simple minded. They have retained their human minds, and must hide their intelligence until they grow big enough to escape.

Now they have to navigate the world in unfamiliar bodies while also trying to do their jobs as spider people.

Notes:

Just a warning: My update schedule is very infrequent, and I update as I write. I'm not the best writer, but I try my best! Hope you enjoy!!

Chapter 1

Notes:

The ships aren't very there in this chapter, but they will be appearing soon if I manage to write that far without losing interest!

Chapter Text

"Everyone shut up, you're gonna scare him!" Gwen snapped, and the bickering paused as the final egg almost finished hatching. Small, chick-like chirps emerged from inside when the cracking stopped, presumably so whatever was inside could catch its breath.

"You can do this, Miles..." Peter B. urged him on and the group watched anxiously as the cracking noise started again. The hatchling inside gave one last push and split the egg in half, rolling clumsily onto the floor of the cage in a slimy pile of black and red scales.

"Gross, is that what I looked like?" Peni grimaced, having been, previously, the last to hatch.

Ham raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "If anyone has the right to be complaining, it should be me! I've had to sit through every one of your nasty rebirths."

It was Peter's turn to grimace. "Don't call it that." He said sharply.

"Ah, so you fear the truth, like everyone else. Good to know." Ham said, unnerving everyone. They were all quickly distracted by panicked chirps.

"Hey, hey, hey, calm down!" Peter said quickly and in the most soothing tone he could muster, and Miles snapped his head up to meet his white, pupilless eyes through the bars of the cage above him. He gave another startled chirp and Gwen sighed in understanding.

"Take your time, you'll find your voice eventually." She said, and Miles turned his hornless head to look at her in the cage to his right. She also had white, pupilless eyes, but they had just the barest trace of blue, undetectable unless you really looked, and were rimmed with dark pink. She was built like one of those raptors from Jurassic Park, save for a feathered tail and arms, along with a more draconic head and a thin muzzle like a fox. Two large, black, spiraling horns swept back from her head. A great, white, scaly hood was draped over her neck and head, partially covering her eyes and looking a lot like the one that was on her suit, but the fringes on this one had a thick, dark pink border. The inside of her hood was also dark pink, and had many turquoise veins that formed a spider web pattern.

The rest of Gwen's body was mostly white, but she had two pairs of black wings on her back, along with black feet up to the ankles and broad black and white stripes on her tail. The claws on her feet her turquoise, reminiscent of the ballet shoes that were part of her suit. The feathers on her arms and tail were differently colored as well, the inner feathers being dark pink and the outer turquoise.

"It's not as hard as you think. It's right there, already programmed into your head. You just have to find it." Gwen continued.

And so Miles did. He settled down as comfortably as he could on the cold metal bars with his six legs, and closed his eyes. The others, wanting to help him, started up conversations so he could become familiar with the way they spoke and know what to search for.

"Hey, did you know that acapella is just boneless music?" Ham asked suddenly, "And that if you stack two lasagnas on top of each other, you'll get one lasagna? Speaking of, lasagna is spaghetti flavored cake."

"Excuse me, what," Peter rose an eyebrow, slightly perturbed.

"See?" Ham said to Gwen and Peni, gesturing, "I told you, he fears the truth."

The pair nodded wisely, playing along. "He just doesn't get it." Gwen sighed exaggeratedly.

Peter opened his mouth, but Noir stopped him with a shake of his large, broad head. "Don't respond, it only encourages them."

A series of chirps, whistles, warbles, and growls came from Miles, starting soft and slowly building up as he tried to form words until he finally was able to say, "Like this?" A random chirp interrupted his sentence, much like how static would cut through a transmission between two walkie-talkies. "Can you understand me now?"

"Yep!" Ham said.

"Nice job, Miles!" Peni smiled. Miles looked over at her in the cage on Gwen's other side and his eyes widened. Everyone else besides Gwen had six legs, but Peni had eight. She was built like one of those Asian dragons, with a long, serpent-like body, no wings, and a rather soft looking black mane around where her neck met her shoulders and fur running along the length of her spine and ending in a tuft at the end of her tail. She was mostly light grey, with two nearly white rings around her neck, muzzle, and tail. Two large, shockingly pink ram horns sat curled on each side of her triangular head. Unlike the others, though, she actually had normal looking eyes, with brown irises. She wasn't nearly as long as those Asian-style dragons though, being more easily compared to a ferret than anything else.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Peni tilted her head before blinking in understanding. "Oh, yeah, I missed out on the wings. I've still got eight limbs like everyone else though! And I've got a nice little pouch for SP//dr!" She sat back on her hunches to show him her soft belly and the little spider that helped pilot the SP//dr Mech poked their head out of the near invisible pouch lip to wave a leg at Miles before disappearing again. "These horns are pretty cool too. All in all, I'm not very upset about not being able to fly, one of you will just have to carry me when we make our escape!"

"Escape?"

"Don't be stupid, Miles," Gwen rolled her eyes (or, at least, she might have, it's hard to see eye movement when there's no pupil or iris), "You really think we'd just sit down and act like the pretty little lab rats Doc Ock made us into? No, as soon as we're big enough, we're busting out of here and stealing back all our webshooters and interdimensional traveling devices."

"And I'm going to delete all of her files on us, so she can't do anything with them after," Peni piped up.

"Don't they already know all that though? There's so many videos of us fighting and using our powers online. What good would that do?" Miles asked.

"As far as they know, we're just a bunch of dumb lizards. We plan to keep it that way."

"Huh." Miles sat down. "I'm gonna be honest, this is a lot to take in. You said Doc Ock was the one who did this? How? I thought she died when she got hit with that semi."

"We did too," Gwen nodded, lashing her feathered tail in agitation. "But here we are. We should have never had let our guard down!" She cursed, "We should have known she would want revenge, but we didn't, and now we're stuck here in bodies that aren't our own, locked up in cages!"

"Don't beat yourself up over it, doll," Noir shook his huge, dark grey, heavily scarred head soothingly. "Guilt gets you nowhere, believe me, I would know." He paused, staring off into space, presumably thinking about the horrors where he had learned that lesson that the other spiders couldn't even begin to imagine. "None of us knew that Doc Ock would be back, and while we can't do much at the moment, we can plan and sit back until the opportunity arises."

There was a few seconds of silence where everyone took in what he said.

"Damn, Noir," Ham said, bracing his front feet against the bars inbetween the two on the other side of the isle from the rest of the group. "For someone that barely peeps a word normally, you sure do make a mighty fine pep talk!"

"Uh, thanks?" Noir said, unsure how to react. Ham responded with a thumbs up. Well, as close as he could get to one with only two claws on each paw, but it was the thought that counts.

Miles flexed his retractable claws for a second, already bored. He had no idea how the others had spent months stuck here and weren't out of their mind with boredom yet.

He was struck with a sudden thought. "Hey, why haven't you guys started glitching yet?" He nodded at Noir, who was about the size of a horse. "He couldn't have hatched that size, you've obviously been here awhile."

Gwen shook her head, hood flapping back and forth. "We don't know, but Peni said it could be because of our transformation. Our bodies, cells, and atoms were completely broken down and rebuilt, so we're guessing that somewhere along the way we adjusted to this dimension."

"Sweet," Miles chirped.

Without warning, the lights in the room shut off, engulfing them in near complete darkness, save for the moonlight that filtered through the two large windows on the wall to Miles' left that was void of any cages and opposite to the door.

They all blinked at the sudden lighting change, their eyes adjusting almost instantly. Miles trilled questioningly, thrown off his rhythm enough that he forgot to use his newly discovered language.

"Lights go out when it's time for bed and most of the scientists are heading home for the night." Peter explained, curling up under a lightless heat lamp and looking to the world like a slightly oversized, scaley red and blue cat. He yawned, and a large pair of semi-transparent fangs that weren't visible before extended out from where they were folded behind his normal teeth. Miles stared for a moment before shaking his head wearily. There were weirder things in the world to be confused about, and hatching from the egg that currently sat in a pile of fractured shell in the corner was one of them.

He settled down in what looked like a miniature cat bed under his own heat lamp, and looked down at himself in disgust. "How am I gonna get all this goop off me?"

"Just lick it off," said Ham, also getting into his bed.

"Ewww, no!" Miles looked appalled at the idea.

"It's the only way! But sure, don't lick it off. Continue to live with bits of afterbirth stuck to you, if that's what floats your goat."

"You don't have to lick it off, Miles," Gwen sighed, nudging the edge of her blanket with her snout before ducking under and getting comfortable. "Stop messing with him, Ham." Porker didn't even have the sense to look even slightly ashamed, just smug. "One of the scientists will clean you up tomorrow, they're surprisingly friendly and gentle."

"Only because we're one of a kind and Doc Ock will kill anyone who ruins one of her experiments." Peter scowled bitterly.

"It's a small mercy, but one I'm glad to have." Gwen nodded and then yawned. "Goodnight, everyone." She murmured sleepily.

A chorus of 'goodnight's or some version of it rang around them, and Miles fell asleep to the gentle breathing of his Spider Family.

* * *

His wake up was not so peaceful.

When Miles finally woke up from his deep sleep that took over after he used most of his energy to break out of the egg, he opened his eyes to see a giant hand reaching toward him. He immediately flung himself backwards into a corner, hissing loudly. The hand flinched and pulled back, and a human out of sight chuckled. "The hatchlings always react like that the first couple of times you get near them, don't worry, newbie. They're all bark and no bite. Until they feel threatened enough to actually bite you, then you're screwed."

Miles was hit with a sudden sour scent, very clearly coming from the younger human. Huh, so he could smell fear. Good to know, but extremely weird.

"W-why would I be screwed?" The younger man asked anxiously, very poorly hiding the fear in his voice.

"All of the other Spider Dragons have extremely venomous bites, and try as we might, we can't find an antidote. It also doesn't help that the damn lizards won't cooperate when we try to milk them of their venom. Everyone who got bit because they were stupid enough to ignore their warning signs died minutes later. This one could be even more dangerous, it probably looks more like a snake than the rest of them for a reason." There was the sound of nails scratching facial hair stubble. "Just get the egg shell out, I'll handle the lizard."

Miles could smell the sweat on the younger man's palm as he hurried to get the pieces of egg shell out while also trying to avoid getting in striking range. He decided to take pity on him, and stopped the hissing, but kept his lips parted in the barest show of teeth. Just because he pitied him didn't mean he had to let his guard down.

"Why'd it stop?" The man's voice trembled, and his hands shook as he desperately scrabbled to grab the smaller bits of shell. "Is it gonna bite?"

"It might," the older man answered vaguely.

That probably isn't very comforting, Miles thought with vague amusement.

This was quickly erased when a larger, calloused hand that smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and hand sanitizer grabbed him around the middle, pulling him out from the (relative) safety of his cage. He squawked indignantly, wiggling and thrashing.

"Oh, quit it," The man sighed, clearly not in the mood to deal with this shit. "This isn't fun for me either, ya know."

"Wait, shouldn't you put it in the carrier like procedure says?" Called the younger man.

"Oh, shove the procedures," he called back, annoyed.

The man pushed open the door with his free hand and began walking along several unfamiliar hallways. Miles stopped squirming to stare and take in the new sights and smells, flicking out his tongue like a snake. The man glanced down at him curiously. He may be grouchy, but he was still a scientist at heart.

"Now, I know you can't understand me but I still feel obligated to warn you that you probably won't like the person I'm taking you to. Maybe because your feelings and instincts about her have translated over from when you were human, or cause she has a tendency to manhandle her living experiments, but your buddies definitely don't like her so I'm guessing you won't either." He blinked when he saw that the small, rodent sized dragon was giving him his full attention, almost like he was taking in what he was saying. "Huh, smart lizard."

The man stopped at a seemingly random door and rapped his knuckles against it. Miles' heart dropped when he heard the voice that told them to come in. His suspicions were unfortunately correct.

"You're two minutes late, Greg!" Doc Ock called in a sing song voice, back turned. "Time is knowledge, and you just wasted it!"

"Sorry," Greg said, not sounding sorry at all, "The intern got cold feet cleaning out this little guy's cage, took longer than I thought to get him to do his job. Seemed to be scared of of the subject. Can't imagine why, its been a lot less aggressive and a lot more cooperative that its friends are." Greg held Miles out for Dr. Octavius to see, and he sat on the man's open palm, fidgeting nervously, and rightly so. This was the mad scientist that wanted to watch his friends slowly die in the most painful way as their cells decayed purely because she saw no moral or ethical boundaries and wanted to see what and how it would happen.

Greg was right about the manhandling, because as soon as Doc Ock saw him, she was grabbing him, forcing open his jaw to look at his teeth, pulling out his wings, examining his retractable claws, and everything in between.

It was only then that she finally set him down on a table in the middle of the room. She snapped her fingers a couple times quickly, demanding that Greg get a wash cloth and some water to clean the gunk off the hatchling. Once his scales were shiny and clean, she continued observing him and getting data, pulling out measuring tapes, magnifying glasses, and everything else she needed.

She pulled out a notebook out of nowhere and began taking notes rapid fire, so fast that Miles jerked his head back and blinked in shock, all while she muttered to herself, poking and prodding him.

Jeez, lady, ever hear of personal space? Miles thought sarcastically. He then proceeded to squeak when he was flipped over onto in back.

"Still male..." Doc Ock said under her breath, and if he didn't have scales, Miles was sure his face would be bright red. He didn't have time to linger on his embarrassment, though, as he was flipped back over and a variety of dishes were shoved in his face.

He looked at the food and salivated a little, realizing how empty his stomach was. He sniffed cautiously at the fruit first, hoping it wasn't drugged, and sunk his teeth into a blackberry, the juice dribbling down his jaw. He'd always loved fruit, but now, it tasted a little bland. Having the taste buds of a carnivore wasn't very fun after all. A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he twisted his head quickly in that direction. There sat a dish of wiggling mealworms. The still human part of his brain grimaced in disgust, but his lizard brain practically wagged its metaphorical tail in excitement, instincts taking over. He slowly stalked toward it, eyes locked on the prey, until he was in striking distance.
Miles shot forward, sharp teeth slicing easily through the worm's exoskeleton as he snapped it down. He snatched up a couple more, then looked towards the last two dishes, that were filled with red diced meat and quail eggs respectively. His lizard brain recognized that the food was already dead, so it let Miles take control this time, which he was grateful for. He didn't want anyone thinking he didn't have manners.

The meat was surprisingly good for being, ya know, raw, but Miles found himself hesitating at the eggs. How was he supposed to go about this? He knew that he was meant to eat them, his instincts told him that much. He'd seen videos of snakes swallowing eggs whole, was that what he was supposed to do?
It couldn't hurt to try, except it could, it really could. It would hurt so, so much if that wasn't the case and he had an egg the size of his head halfway down his throat with nowhere to go, but at this point, why not, with him stuck here for the foreseeable future. At least it would be funny.

He opened his jaws as far as he could around the egg, and his lower jaw dislocated in a way that felt natural. His neck muscles constricted as they guided the egg towards his stomach, where it sat heavy in his gut.

Huh, I was right, Miles thought. He felt extremely full, and all he wanted in that moment was to lay under his heat lamp and sleep for a month. Doc Ock had other ideas though, and shoved the fish dish under his nose when the small dragon made no attempt to continue eating.

Miles turned away from it in disgust, "Lady, that's not gonna happen." To Doc Ock, it sounded like an irritated grumble and snort. She continued to insist that he eat the fish as well, so Miles sighed and grabbed one of the small silver fish with his teeth gently. Miles glanced up at the Doctor uncertainly with his pupilless eyes and, when she continued to stare expectantly, tilted his head back once more to let the slimy fish slide down his throat and into his stomach.

Only it didn't.

With the weirdest sensation he'd ever felt, the fish seemed to go down a separate tube that branched off his esophagus, and into what felt to be a second stomach.

Doc Ock clapped her hands together excitedly, pulling away the x-ray device she had been holding up to him. "Amazing! No other animal known to man has a pseudo-stomach, and now we suddenly have six specimens with it in our lab? Not to mention this one's ability to unhinge its jaw. I absolutely must test this further!"

Miles' heart sank. Looks like he was gonna be here awhile.