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Chapter Text

Act 1

Chapter 1

Limits of Possibility

- - -

Kingdom of Latveria

Victor hummed after the doctors finished their assessment of Susan Storm’s medical condition with a hint of disappointment presented in his tone. His eyes focused on the X-ray visuals sorted and tabled along one another on the holographic projector inside the long hall vacant of any castle servants except for a single android that Victor himself replaced the inner section’s staff members with after the recent infiltration from the Symkarian spy.

“…if I were to authorize this procedure, Doctor Amir,” the Monarch started, grimly averting his eyes toward the nervous pair of the best surgeons his money can buy across the long table “Can you affirm my worries that no harm will befall Susan?”

“The thing is, Your Majesty,” Doctor Amir started nervously, looking at the monarch with hooded eyes “This will be the first ever for this…experimental procedure to be applied to a living subject. I cannot, in good conscience, say that there will be no turbulences or mistakes during the operation—”

The drumming of Doom’s fingers upon the wooden surface was enough to silence the stammering doctor “I have no interest in consoling your lack of ambition and drive, Doctor Amir. If you are not confident enough in your expertise, then I suggest you relinquish any investment I have trusted upon your reputations and name to catch the first flight out of Latveria comes morn.” His sharp eyes then turned toward the other expert in the room with a quirked eyebrow “Do you share his concerns and mental limitations, Doctor Oorun?”

The other surgeon swallowed a lump of saliva down her throat, alternating her eyes between her fellow expert and the man who hired them with more than they could ever make in a year, “I’m…afraid so, Your Majesty.” She meekly replied, gaining a stoic glare from across the table with intense weight suddenly thrust upon her shoulders, each cell in her body screamed to get out of the room before bad things happened, but the monarch never moved an inch or expressing any temper; he only shows cold anger hidden so well beneath a veil of benevolent disappointed smile.

“In that case,” the Emperor of a warring nation slaps the tabletop firmly before making a stand, draping his fur cloak over his shoulders dramatically before turning towards the private entrance, stopping just at the handle and turning his face sideway to address the uncertain doctors he left behind “Safe flight tomorrow, both of you. I shall send Bernardt to your quarters at the break of dawn.” Finished with his farewell courtesy, Victor swept the hem of his cloak into an arch as he spun on his heels and exited the hall.

Victor treks the hidden corridor leading to the secret chamber where he relocated Susan’s incubation chamber, and enters the pristine room with a biometric scan.

The golden-haired woman floated around inside the tank, giving off a peaceful façade belying the deadly ailment she harbors within in the form of an unknown parasite that appeared to be melded with her spinal cord, her lungs, and her heart, presenting a challenge seemingly impossible to solve for the weaker minds, but said the challenge was a mere hiccup in his eyes.

Resting his palm against the reinforced surface of the glass tube, the cold inside seeped into him followed by a sense of longing.

Her electrifying skin.

Her intoxicating touches.

Her sweet lips.

He shall experience them again.

“Hang in there, Susan,” Victor whispered to the unconscious woman, hoping it would breach through her comatose state “I swear on my father’s grave you will be free again.”

Metal clangs reached his ears from behind, prompting the monarch to look upon the interloper who happened to be one of his android servants; number 13 to be exact. “Salute, Your Majesty.” The speech sounded smooth, almost devoid of the synthetic lilt many struggled with, yet a slightly stunted pronunciation can be heard to a strained ear “I have come with a request.”

“Speak, 13.” Victor regained his composure and stood tall, hands joined behind his back, the cloak swept to one side.

“Lady Storm requested your presence at the inner garden, and said she has some urgent matter to discuss.” The android relayed with a stoic and steady tone, finished with a little bow.

Victor sighed shortly, feeling a tinge of annoyance at the way Dame Mary Storm seems to get it in her head that she’s the one who runs things here. But alas, he complied with a hint of reluctance. “Inform her that I shall be there soon.” The android obliged without question and stayed stationary for a moment before perking up in its spot “Good. Now, I need you to stand guard here; if anyone dares enter this room without me in their company, terminate them.”

“Of course, Sire.” The android bowed politely and entered the inner section of the chamber, spun around with its back facing the tube and its front aligned with the entrance.

“I believe you are looking for me, Lady Storm?” the monarch greeted the older woman with a charming tone and wide smile, his cloak folded and draped on his arm, sauntering into the beds of flowers littering the inner courtyard. “Has something been bothering you?”

“Oh, no! Victor!” Mary Storm waved off his artificial concern with a little laugh, with a hand covering her mouth and everything, and then patting the seat alongside her on a shaded bench overlooking the Doomstadt’s intricate fountain “Come sit with me for a moment, dear; I have something to ask of you.”

The gall! Victor thought with a fake smile on his face, then did as he was requested, sitting down next to the mother of the woman who captured his heart “What is it?”

Mary intentionally let the silence fill the space between them, looking out at the articulate sorting done expertly to the combination of florae before her eyes, breathing in the earthly scent “…Tell me about what you remember of my husband, Victor.”

Doom quirked his eyebrow at the strange request, noticing the game of control enforced upon him by the Dame, yet made no effort to openly rebuttal against the daring challenge, looking away at the statuesque likeness of a dragon atop the fountain instead, before speaking “He was a brilliant scientist. Taught me everything I know at that age, nurtured my intelligence like none ever could before.” He elaborated with a hint of nostalgic recollection “And through him I met Reed Richards, as you know. Sir Franklin seems to have a knack for bringing brilliant minds together.”

“Yet he failed miraculously with his family,” Mary commented with a hint of resentment “Jonathan turned rebellious, and he was barely home to properly address the disgrace that runt brought upon the household; prostitutes walking in and out of the estate as if it was a brothel, hundreds of his vagabond friends pranced about like our house was a lavatory.” A flash of disdain dashed across her face “If that’s limited to himself, I wouldn’t mind cutting him loose like I would a rabid dog once he’s of age, but he had to corrupt Susan in the process. He turned her against her family, against me.” She breathed out heavily, hands coiled into fists, shaking with tremendous force, then released with a sigh. “After Franklin died, I had hoped that they would see the errors of their ways, and return to the right paths…instead, Jonathan coerced his sister to be a runaway, leaving the family and me behind.”

Victor kept his silence, looking at the old Dame with analyzing eyes.

“Alas, I admit to being a part of their thriving survival in their youth; without my interventions, Susan and Jonathan might come crawling back sooner.” the prideful smirk gracing her lips disgusted him, yet he kept a stoic face “And now here I am, swoop in for the rescue once again for my ungrateful children!” the Dame exclaimed dramatically with a tinge of a smug on her face, now averted her eyes to the monarch at her side “Thank you again, Victor, for offering your aid in the time of needs.”

“As I said before, Lady Storm; It’s the least I can do.” Yet, if you’d be so kind as to leave Latveria, I would be a happy man. Victor mulled with a fake smile.

“I know.” Mary Storm said, and fully turned towards him now with a determination burning behind those greyish-blue irises “Your Majesty, I have asked you of this before,” the title coming out of her mouth sounded peculiar to his ears, yet he listened on “but would you be willing to consider a marriage between my daughter and yourself?”

- - -

New York City

“Johnny, can you get here real quick?” Peter asked into the comms as he dropped from his parabolic arc into a pounce, rushing over to the crew of firefighters and volunteers struggling against a pile of concrete blocking the road.

“Don’t you think I have enough on my plate?”

“I got about two minutes before the drones show up, pal.” Peter retorted and greeted the familiar faces briefly before taking the bulk of the debris by himself, slotting his body underneath and pushing hard with his legs.

“I’m busy; Ben should be closer.” The Human Torch dismissed with a huff before cutting the comms.

“Needa hands?” the deep voice of the stone giant reached his ears.

“Yep! 6^th Ave and W 55^th Streets intersection.” He grunted into the comms, exerting more of his super-strength.

“On my way.” The veteran pilot replied and soon he heard the thunderous steps coming closer until a pair of rotund legs stopped in his field of sight. “Wassup, Spidey.”

“How ya doing, Mister Rocky?” Peter teased back and immediately felt the strain on his legs lifted along with the debris when Ben Grimm pushed it over his 7-foot-tall head.

“Getting a lil sweaty,” the gentle giant replied with a hearty laugh and tossed the debris onto the sidewalk as coordinated by the firefighters on the scene “Beats being stuck inside the Baxter by a mile, though.”

“Glad to hear that—Oh, shit! Here they come.” Peter kick-flipped himself off the road and saluted everyone quickly before shooting an elastic webbing at the nearby building “I’ll make a roundabout; can you guys sweep the 6^th down towards Midtown?” he inquired to all, and they simultaneously nodded.

“Goodluck, Spidey!” the firefighters waved the vigilante off as he swung away, evading the pack of OSCORP drones hunting him through the city since he came back to work on search and rescue with GRU and Damage Control alongside the three superhumans from the Siege. “I dunno why they couldn’t just give the guy a break.”

“Military bullshit; no offense.” One of the volunteers started and apologized to the stone giant who just laughed it off.

“It’s fine, man; military do be like that.” Ben elaborated and looked towards the direction mentioned by the Web-Slinger earlier “Comin?”

“Do you guys drink on the job?” one volunteer asked, jogging after the rest following the Moving Mountain leading them like a battering ram.

“You want a straight answer or some honesty?”

“Your pick.”

“Technically this is not an official duty, and nobody would notice a can or two.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” The volunteer smiled widely, then averted his attention to the giant before them “Big Guy; you drink?”

“Coz!” Ben replied with a smirk, feeling a bit at ease around the group.

“My nephew got a bodega up around W 46^th near Little Brazil; maybe we can detour a bit and haul a twelve or two of not-so-cold ones.”

The group trudged on with casual chuckles sharing between them, giving a sense of normalcy to the stone giant.

“We should be able to coordinate a better effort if our heavy vehicles can use this intersection and these streets,” Reed said to the gathered group of GRU and Damage Control officials “I have some working prototype models that we could modify, but I will need all of the mechanics you can find.”

“The modified energy sources you installed for our vehicles are a lifesaver, Reed; we can pretty much do a continuous operation without refueling for the next week.” One of the GRU friends of Susan appraised the Smartest Man, but Reed simply shook his head.

“The ease of modification should be credited to Miss Takeda and Mister Parker; without their unorthodox minds, each modification might take about a day instead of a few hours.” The CEO/Founder of the company proudly stated.

“I know Julia and her rebellious approach. The Parker guy I’ve never heard of before,” The official said and looked at the remaining vehicles waiting for deployment “But I must say, you might have found a diamond in the rough.”

“I know so, Nathan.” Reed sincerely replied, “Would you believe me if I say that Mister Parker matched my test score?”

“From your younger years?!”

“Yes.” Reed announced proudly “Give him time and resources; the young man might even surpass me one day.”

“Such a compliment, coming from you.” Nathan looked down at the pattern proposed by Reed again, looking for alternatives that they could achieve without delay.

“It’s more of a recognition that he needs,” Reed said, thinking back to the Thinktank Program he participated in back in his early teenage years under the tutelage of Sir Franklin Richards; Susan’s and Johnny’s father, comparing his experiences to the young vigilante “if he could be more focus on improving his intelligence, the limits of possibilities for mankind might be reaching a new height in our times.”

“Huh. Seems like you’ve found yourself a little mini-me to nurture after all.” Nathan commented with a chuckle, then his eyes fell upon the strange fabric that his friend was wearing “Say, what is this suit you are wearing?” having witnessed the suit stretched and retracted along with Richards’s limbs was…an experience, to say the least.

“Following our physical changes after that horrid incident,” Reed grimaced, thinking back to the haunting modulated voice of Doctor Octopus as they were thrashing in agony, baked under the intense Cosmic Radiation “I had come up with a way to accommodate for each of our…mutations to be as comfortable as possible. Case in point; Jonathan Storm can light himself on fire, a process which would leave him naked after the fire was put out. This fabric can adapt to extreme changes such as that.” Reed inflated his arm to demonstrate the Adaptive Fabric’s capabilities “In the next decade, RAC will commercialize it outside of spacefaring and exploration.”

“And superheroing.” A voice not muffled by a mask greeted them from behind, prompting the two to look back at the newcomer in a red polo and black cargo pants “Sorry for being late, Mister Richards; I was struck in some traffic.” Peter quipped at his boss, and averted his smile at the GRU official “Peter Parker, sir.”

“Nathan Goldstein.” The official responded in kind “I’ve heard good things about you, Mister Parker; it seems like tardiness might be the first negative trait that comes to mind?” the GRU official averted his inquisitive eyes at the Smartest Man, who shrugged his shoulders with a hint of a smirk.

“Richards Aerospace has flexible work hours; creativity blossoms with freedom and times.” Reed commented lightheartedly, and handed a rough draft of a recent modification to the newcomer “What do you think?”

Peter took the plan and studied it momentarily, roaming his eyes over the engineering aspects while simultaneously coming up with mechanical approaches. “…I think I can make it work, but I’ll need more all-terrain tyres.”

“I can get them for you,” Goldstein chimed in, fishing a phone out of his pockets “Know a guy in Cali, Reyes, I’ll coordinate a procurement and transportation with him.” With that, he leaves the two geniuses alone.

“…How’s it looking?” Reed asked as he studied the placements of water pumps installed around the city’s edge to clear out the remains of the tsunami as fast as they could.

“It’s getting tiresome to constantly change locations every two or three minutes, but at this rate, we might be able to clear all the debris within a week.” Peter elaborated on his viewpoint of web-swinging around the city earlier “Any words from SWORD or SHIELD yet, Mister Richards?”

“There are some rumors about a bidding contest in a day or two; they planned to build a facility in the middle of White Sand to contain him.”

“Ambient humidity; how the hell did they come up with that?” Peter inquired sarcastically “…we have to look into the explosion sooner or later, Mister Richards. We were both there. Also, Jared Gryphon’s sudden disappearance after that?” the vigilante pointed out with a thoughtful frown “I know they are connected, but I still can’t make a lick of sense about it.”

“What we need is a thorough investigation,” Reed replied, sighing deeply “I promise, Peter; after we dealt with restoring Manhattan, I will offer RAC’s aid in the investigation of the Atlantic explosion to the UN. We’ll clear your name.” the Smartest Man Alive offered a sincere encouraging smile.

“Will it sound horrible if I say I think that can wait until after we get Sue back?”

“Not at all,” Reed replied quickly “We’ll rest easy knowing she’s back and safe with us.”

Peter hung around a little more, then cleared his throat before the question stuck inside his chest made itself known “How did you meet each other, by the way?”

“Any specific reason prompting this inquiry?” the Stretchy Man (dubbed lovingly by the Spidey Squad) quirked his eyebrows inquisitively at the vigilante.

“It might sound weird, but Sue never told me anything about her life before we met.” The Arachnid confessed with a sad smile “I only know about her achievements and academic works, and that she has a loveable jerk as a brother.” He listed with a hint of a chuckle “Other than those things…nada.” When they were truly alone, Peter dislodged the new pair of Web-Shooters from the bracelets and disassembled them with precise successions, doing maintenance and refits as needed.

Reed cast a curious glance over the pieces of equipment that truly show how adept Peter Parker is as an inventor; the components are easy to replicate and fabricate, but the assemble and unique techniques involved still present a challenge to anyone who tries. “…We met through her father, Franklin Storm.” The vigilante averted his attention to the Smartest Man Alive beside him, listening closely to what Richards had to offer. “In 2012, after the Chitauri army wreck Manhattan, which gifted the world with the Avengers, the group that would later become the World Council was desperate to have a team of strategists in the hope that their combined intelligence would be enough to prevent another total defeat like that for humanity as a whole.” Reed paused and sat on the plastic chair near him, leaning back with a sigh “I was around 18…back then when Sir Franklin and some agents approached me in my dorm and escorted me to a secret facility in D.C. along with some other bright minds that they could get their hands on; one of them was Victor.”

Were they using the Zola’s Algorithm? Peter mulled internally, and another thought popped up; Was my d—Doc Ock and HYDRA involved with this too?

“We were tested, excruciatingly, through unforgivable mental challenges. Ten became six, and six were reduced to three. Our numbers dwindled until there was only Victor and I left.” Reed breathed out, closing his eyes, and sighed heavily “He was a bastard.” Richards admitted with a grim chuckle “Unreasonably cruel and demanding all the time, always putting us on deadline after deadline with his unreachable expectations. A pro in sweetened you up with empty praises to manipulate you into his way of thinking.” Reed finished heavily, inhaling a big gulp of air till his chest inflated like a small-sized balloon. “…He introduced me and Victor to Susan after one of his monthly home visits.” Reed continued, looking over the plans and reports on the table “We shared a quiet dinner. Victor was so enamored with her, but so was I. She was quietly brilliant. Demure…”

“Is she though?” Peter interjected with a confused expression regarding the adventurous and confident Susan Storm he knows and loves on his face, but then he let out a sheepish smile “Sorry, Mister Richards,” rubbing the back of his neck and letting out a chuckle, Peter signaling Reed to continue.

“I understand,” The Smartest Man Alive waved his apology off with a lighthearted smirk “She was, but then, things changed...” he trailed off and contemplated a little, taking a deep-seated breath before letting the converted air out through his nostrils “Sir Franklin sadly passed away in 2016, when Helmut Zemo planted a bomb at the Vienna convention.”

“From your story, I thought you wouldn’t be as affected by his passing,” Peter commented with a curious gait on the hint of sadness lining Reed’s face.

“…Being under the man’s tutelage was…horrible.” Reed explained, “Yet, somehow he felt like a father I did not have growing up.”

“Oh? I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be. My genetics donor is still alive…you know what I mean?” Richards questioned with a flat thin smile.

“Oh! I…yeah. I get it.” Peter replied as a flash of a man with a scarred face and a glint of mania in his eyes came to mind.

“Sadly, we shared that as a similarity,” Reed let out a grim chuckle, stretching his wrist to lay his firm hand on the vigilante’s shoulder, giving the younger man a reassuring squeeze “I don’t have the details,” Reed returned to the topic they were discussing before “that’s a privilege shared only between the siblings, but after the Snap, when Victor and I were looking for talents to form the company we ran into her again. She’s more…confident. Adventurous. Liberated.” Reed sent him a knowing look that made Peter nervously laugh “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Johnny had a major role in bringing that side of hers outward.”

That speculation laid by Reed made Peter feels more like a shitbag for mistreating the Human Torch.

Who is he to be that possessive about the man’s sister like that?

Johnny just did what anyone would have done; he’s just looking out for his family.

- - -

Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters | 2028

“Jean?” a voice called for her, but she ignored it and concentrated on diving deeper through the neural network within the Cerebro.

“Jean?” it called again; this time clearer of the person behind it. She tuned out the surroundings and leaped over the edge beyond what she would usually scour in tasks that related to the affairs of mutants. It was seemingly impossible to isolate anyone in particular out of the hundreds of thousands who harbored thoughts about the masked vigilante.

“Jean?!” the voice became louder. She ignores it.

“Jean!” a touch on her shoulder breaks her concentration, leaving Jean with a rise of frustration as she whips her face to the one who interrupts her mission.

“What?!” the redhead inquired with a fiery wrath, half a mind to levitate the person with telekinesis.

“You’ve been going at it all mornin',” Anna-Marie reasoned, looking at the redhead with worried eyes “Ya gotta eat, Sugar.”

Jean calmed her breathing and let out a long sigh, finally allowing herself to notice the soreness and fatigue collecting inside her brain. She nodded and let Anna-Marie take her wrist toward the shutter door and out into the lift shaft, ascending through the depth until they reached ground level. “Any progress?” the Mississippian asked as they exited the shaft into the staff-only section of the main building. Students as well as newcomer mutants scattered around the premises.

Since Magneto’s daring expose of their existence to the world during the crisis in Manhattan, young and lost mutants started showing up at the Mansion daily; the past few nights have been restless for her as well as Professor Xavier when the voices keep waking them up in the dead of night.

“He’s too well-known as Spider-Man; good or bad, reputation is reputation. There are just too many minds thinking about him I can hardly differentiate the nature of the thoughts.” A few exist here; one from Kitty, another from Illyana (albeit a bit more hostile). And me. Jean thought with a tinge of confusion. It couldn’t be that I was attracted to him, there’s something more to this…intrigue than simple lust. The telepath huffed under her breath with a quiet curse, feeling the heat on her face. I’ve met him before, and nothing was there other than simple scientific curiosities, why now all of a sudden?

“Jean?” Rogue prodded her on the shoulder with a curious expression. “Ya still here with me, hon?”

“Yeah! Of course!” The redhead squeaked a little before managing to compose herself “Just…stray thoughts.”

“Ha.” The Southern Belle let out an interesting noise, and then a glint of mischief dashed across her green eyes, compelling a teasing grin to grace her lips “Don’t tell me our mighty Marvel Girl fell into a spider’s web?”

“What?” The redhead exclaimed with confusion.

“Ya’ve been lost in thoughts a lot since Spidey paid us a visit.” Anna-Marie lays on it a bit more “Was there something goin’ on when y’all had a lovely date on the lake?”

“No.” the redhead answered, albeit harboring a hint of reluctance behind it “Nothing is going on between us!”

“Ya sure ‘bout that?”

“Marie; I did not have feelings for Peter.”

“Ahm saying none ‘bout no feelings, Jeanie; Ahm talking ‘bout the fact that the guy’s a real cutie under the mask!”

“Sounds like you are the one who was caught.” Jean dismissed and trudged on towards the mess hall.

“Ah mean, Ahm not against the possibility.” Anna-Marie glides along with the redhead, nursing a teasing smirk on her face “That Spider-Man suit o’ his left little to imagination from what Ah saw; maybe he’s something ya lack in ur middle-age life?”

“I’m only four years older than you; we are old enough to be his mom!”

“We are still young and firm, so what’s ur point?”

“You are being ridiculous.” Jean shook her head with a grin and let out a chuckle “Besides; I don’t wanna break Katherine’s heart.”

“Ha! Ya just admit ta have thought about it!” The Southern Belle exclaimed triumphantly, and a wide grin appeared.

Jean rolled her eyes with a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. They took a plate each and decorated theirs with plenty of food from the buffet, relocated to a staff table near the window to the backyard.

“Back onto a more serious note, though,” the Mississippian started while chewing on roasted baby corn, “It’s not too much for ya, is it? Ah dunno a lick about using the Cerebro, but Ah guess it’d be more complicated looking for a human than mutants, yeah?”

“Yes,” the redhead finished her chew before answering “the X-Gene altered the pattern of the broadcasting electromagnetism from our brains, Hank capitalized on that property after he studied Charles’s and my telepathy to build the Cerebro back in 1985. Using the arrays to identify a human, albeit mutated by Cosmic Radiation, was not a fun trip.” Jean groaned and kept stuffing her growling stomach with as many nutrients as she could to help her body repair the damaged neurons spent using the Cerebro; Charles Xavier’s explicit disregard of that fact during the period she got Snapped stands as a great example in the way his body was shutting itself down in response to the tremendous stress.

“Make sure ya take some rest then; It’d be hard ta find some Prince Charming to wake ya up.” Anna-Marie commented with a hum, but then a glint of mischief dappled her face again “Or…” Then the Southern Belle mimicked Spider-Man’s most recognizable gesture with both hands, eliciting a scoff from the redhead.

- - -

The House

Gwen breathed in the clean air of the waterfront where she took her father on a little stroll after lunch, she couldn’t bear seeing him being cooped up inside the house.

“Gotta say, honey; this is a bit embarrassing,” George commented as he was in a wheelchair that his superhuman daughter was hauling around like a weightless sack of feathers “Weren’t you always the one who’s got on my back and tell me to go where?” he teased with a smile, wanting to cheer her up but Gwen just chuckled along without her usual retort.

She set the wheelchair down along with him on a cape at the wide curve of the Parker Road where they can see the distant silhouettes of Pea and Columbia Islands ahead of them. The vast ocean enveloping them gave off a peculiar sense; most of her life she was used to the confine of commercial ships and tourism boats constantly muddling up the Hudson and Upper Bay, but there were some beautiful memories there like that time she saw a pod of whales after the Snap like a cruel reminder of the goods that can be borne from evil.

“I know what’s eating you,” George started after a while, looking at seagulls flitting above their heads and hunting in the water ahead of them “I had them too; we were investigating a murderer that was terrorizing the city. We tailed him for months, going from one corpse to another, the press dubbed him Manhattan’s Ripper after a few more were put into body bags.” A grimace tugged at the corner of his lips and a throb jolts up from his casted leg “We were going at it from every angle, running through every source and informant we can find, but it wasn’t enough to stop him before another half a dozen were killed.” He took his daughter’s hand and gave it a firm grip, announcing his presence to her like he always did whenever she wanted reassurance or advice or just someone to be there for her “We get him eventually when he slipped up, but not before he started going after a detective working on his case; Jim Morrigan…when we get to him he almost dies from blood loss, the bastard hammered his arm with a sledgehammer…” George stopped as he heard a gasp from Gwen, and continued after a moment of rest “Morrigan was one hell of a fighter to keep himself awake until the EMT arrived.”

The calls of seagulls and lapping waves filled the space surrounding them, both looking ahead into the horizon and letting the time flow away into oblivion.

“If we could’ve just figured out the bastard’s plan earlier, Morrigan would still be a detective, and all those innocent lives wouldn’t be lost…” George trailed off without casting his eyes on his daughter but felt her strong grip tighten just ever so slightly.

“…If I can sense that bomber earlier—"

“Gwendolyne,” he called her by the name that he proudly picked for her on the bedside by her mother’s exhausted smiling form inside the hospital “You can’t afford to dwell on the what-ifs. Because if you do, then it means the deaths that happened teach you nothing.” He delivered unlike a father but rather a police captain, too familiar with this type of shaken morale from the rookies and even experienced officers throughout his service years.

Gwen let out a chuckle with an exhausting exhale before showing a sad smile on her face “Thought you’d go with the ‘have faith in the Lord’s plan’ with me.”

“I’ll leave that to your mom.” George mirrored the smile on his daughter’s face, albeit he was a bit brighter. “You are a hero, Gwen.” the petite superhuman circled and gathered him into a bear hug from behind, hiding her face at the side of his face. He raised his hand and rested his palm on the top of her sunflower mane, patting softly with affection and reassurance. “I’m proud of you.”

They spent another hour just enjoying the serenity of nature before heading back to the house for George’s medications.

“Hey! Where were you guys?” The Iron Man, Harley Keener, waved at them with a screwdriver between his canines and grease smearing his face.

“Just a lazy stroll on the shore,” George answered before Gwen set him down along with the wheelchair, then he dredged the contraption towards the demoted Avenger “What are you working on, son? Hope it’s not something that will blow the house sky-high.” The recovering Police Captain jabbed lightheartedly, which elicited a scoff from the Tennessean.

“You listened to Parker’s baseless criticisms too much, Captain Stacy,” Harley pointed out without taking his eyes off the equipment that he’s been working on since the break of dawn “If anything, out of the two of us, I’d say he messed the inventions up more than I did by a total of 0.03%.”

“…that’s hardly a difference?” Gwen chimed in with a confused tone.

“But still a difference!”

“…yeah, now I see why you guys used to be besties.” The petite blonde delivered with a chuckle and a shake of her head, turning towards her father “You wanna go inside now, Dad?”

“I wanna see an Avenger at work for a bit, honey. You go ahead.”

“Say Captain; what do you think about a jet-powered wheelchair…”

The two’s conversation died down behind her as Gwen made her way through the threshold into the living area where Harley’s and Kate’s belongings were scattered atop two mattresses that each slept on at night. “Harry?” she yelled for her brother, silence. Gwen huffed a little and headed for the fridge, looking through the remaining groceries inside with a sigh “Definitely gotta get back on the mainland.”

“You called?” Howard poked his head down from upstairs looking at her with an inquisitive gaze.

“Yeah; thought you didn’t hear me.” Gwen closed the lid and relocated to the cabinets next to do accounting.

“I didn’t; Aña do.” Then he descends to the ground floor, heading into the kitchen “What’s up?”

“You prepped dad’s meds?” she inquired and heard a groan from her brother.

“I…might’ve forgotten to do it.” He answered with a nervous smirk.

“…Get to it.” Her demand came with the narrowed glare that has been ingrained into his brain since 2018; a telltale sign that she means it.

“Sir, yes sir!” he mimicked an Army marching straight for the fridge to do as requested, eliciting an affectionate scoff from his sister as well as getting his hair ruffled when she strode past him to the living area “You feel better?”

“Huh?”

“You looked like you’ve been storing a big load of diarrhea these past few days, sis; I’m worried.”

“Ew!” Gwen exclaimed with a laugh. And then sighed deeply before answering his question “…I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders and Howard just nodded along, returning to sorting the medications for their father. “What did you guys do upstairs?”

“Oh, just playing games; Iron Man just turned the second bedroom into an arcade room, it was awesome!”

“Mario Kart?”

“I was just introducing Aña to the international treasure that is Mario Bros, classic edition.” Howard delivered with a refined lilt mimicking a French restaurant manager. “She jumped into the ravine about ten times now, but very enthusiastic about it.”

“Maybe I’ll check this arcade room out some other time,” Gwen fished a leather jacket off a rack and draped it over her shoulder, “You see the keys?” she asked while looking around.

“Where are you going?”

“Mainland shopping; any request?” Gwen replied, looking around until her eyes landed upon the keys laid on top of a shelf next to the front door.

“A hot guy?” Howard cheekily replied with a lighthearted cackle.

“Hah! Why don’t you try your luck with Iron Man?”

“Hawkeye said he’s dating your boyfriend’s high school sweetheart; kinda messy already.” What was lacking is a ‘duh’ “And I don’t even know if he swings that way.”

“Want me to broach the subject?” she offered.

“I can manage on my own, but thank you, sis.” Howard shooed her off without taking his eyes off the medications. “Now get going!”

Gwen headed for the boat and waved goodbye to her dad on the way, until Kate Bishop showed up from the back of the house, startled her a little at how quiet the archer’s footsteps can be. “Oh, hey! I’m gonna go shopping, need anything?”

It took Kate about half a minute of contemplation until a decision was made “Actually, I’m just gonna tag along; you okay with that?” the archer questioned with a hopeful smile.

“You have to be gentle, especially with that proportional strength of a spider!” Kate gripped the rail of the boat like her life depended on it. Her raven hair, despite being bundled into a ponytail, flits along with the rushing gale that clashes into her and the petite blonde on the steering wheel.

“I’m getting used to it!” Gwen replied amidst the deafening wind, firmly sticking her feet to the floor with the, theoretically, bio-electrostatics adhesion effect of her being. “Okay! Okay, I think I got it!” Gwen finally steadied the boat enough for the last stretch heading for the pier where Peter parked her family’s SUV. The boat miraculously received only a single bump with the wooden pole before coming to a stop. “Piece of cake.” The Spider-powered petite woman shrugged her shoulders with a sheepish grin.

Kate glared at her with stray strands of hair clouding her face. “Yeah. I see that.” The sarcastic lilt was not lost on the receiving end. After a moment of recollection, Kate threw the noose at a post with inhuman accuracy befitting the most recognizable aspect of her superhero’s moniker, and they made their way toward the parked car amid few glances of recognition aiming at the demoted Avenger.

“Was it always like this when you are in public?” Gwen asked after getting into the driver’s seat and Kate closed the passenger’s door.

“With the staring?” the raven-haired asked, receiving a nod of confirmation, then chuckled “This is nothing compared to when the New Avengers were announced.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that.” Gwen recalled a crazed period the internet went obsessively head-over-heel for the legacy successors of Iron Man and Hawkeye a few years back and of course, the fandoms that stemmed from the trio of the New Avengers “and months later Spider-Man became public enemy number 1 for a whole different reason than Jameson wanted it to be.” The sunflower-blonde teased, implying the dating history between her boyfriend and the archer. Kate nervously chuckled along as the SUV started gaining a steady speed on the asphalt road, heading for the city.

“What are you cooking tonight?” the archer started a question as they pulled up into the parking lot.

“Braised pork. Mashed. Roasted Saba. Seviche. Grilled veggies.” Gwen listed as she approached a trolley, leading the archer into the wholesale store, feeling the chilled conditioned air breezing onto her skin.

“Gotta say, that’s an impressive list. If you ask me, I will just go with a pot of Mac n’ Cheese and call it a night.” Kate lightheartedly replied with a smirk on her lips.

“That… kinda sad.” The sunflower-blonde cackled.

“Pete was totally into it; Lemme tell ya.” The recollection escaped her mouth before Kate could contemplate the meaning of it, she froze up and cast a curious glance at the blonde who just responded with a scoff before continuing along the produce aisle. “I should just stop—”

“Not really,” the blonde shrugged “I mean, the press broadcasted you guys kissing each other for the whole world to see.”

Kate stopped in her tracks and contemplated the tone of voice a little before following the petite superhuman again “…you are not…mad?”

Gwen sighed, looking at the trays before her without sparing a glance at the raven-haired taller woman “I guess I have to reiterate this more than I thought I would.” She groaned to herself before picking up a bunch of cilantro. “I’m not a jealous girlfriend type, Kate; Pete is a big flirt as you may know, and I would already go insane with how he and Cat are around each other almost every two nights.” Then she picked a pack of tomatoes to add to the cart “You saw how that Kitty girl looked at him, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Thinking back to when the guy just brought home a woman who clearly has a crush on him to a dinner with his girlfriend’s family along with his ex-girlfriend; Jameson might be on the right track calling him a Menace after all. “Do you think he knows?”

“That guy?” Gwen scoffed “Of course he knows; dude figured me out the moment I asked him about an internship!” she chuckled “I mean, I wasn’t exactly subtle about it either; pretty much everyone in my friend group knew about my tiny little crush on ESU’s resident Dork since he won an argument against a professor.” A fond smile appears at the corner of her lips, softening her face. “Anyway, to answer your question,” Gwen stopped and turned a little to the side to look at the raven-haired archer “No. I’m not mad about the kissing; I would be if it was kept a secret. That’s lying, and I hate liars.”

That must be why he doesn’t keep being Spider-Man a secret with her. Kate thought.

“And I draw the line at sex.” The additional criteria made Kate drop a pack of crisps onto the floor with a cough. “So, don’t worry; you are still in the clear.”

They had a small and quiet chat along the small circles made around the meat section until they stopped at the butchery when Gwen continued with the topic earlier “By the way, why did you decide to give it another go?”

“…You didn’t know?” Kate asked almost in a whisper, looking at the clueless face of the petite blonde.

“Am I supposed to? It’s your decision, no?” Seeing a hint of darkness clouding the archer’s face, Gwen stopped and fully turned towards her.

Kate took her sweet time contemplating the next sentence for over a minute, making Gwen start to get impatience until the raven-haired took the blonde along with the trolley into a more vacant slot before letting out a sigh “When Namor came, he challenged Pete for a deathmatch.”

“…I might’ve tuned out a bit back there,” Gwen admitted, thinking back to the gut-wrenching wait she and her family had to endure while the surgeons were working on her father’s injuries. “The same guy who kidnapped Sue? I mean, before someone else did it again?”

“I guess? He said he’s a King of Atlantis, and since Pete allegedly bombed his home,” Kate did an air quote “So, with him staking a flood of the city into the pot, Pete had to take it…” Kate trailed off.

“But the city did get flooded…” Gwen inquired, completely confused, but then a flash of realization blipped inside her head after a concerned look shone on the raven-haired archer’s face. “Oh, no…”

“Namor was just too much for him; the bastard took on Thor and the Hulk! What could a Spider-Man do with that?” Kate recalled after a moment “When Namor came back with a grin…it felt like I was being strangled.” The archer produced a sad smile, leaning against a metal pillar behind, and crossed her arms “Like the world just collapsed into dust. Like time itself stopped. My brain kept replaying the memories. The times he played with Lucky in our room. The dollar joint he took me to on our first date. His smart-ass way of one-upping Keener in their shared workshop. His soft voices at night. His touches…” Kate stopped herself and deviated from the tone “You ever felt like a hope reenter your life again? That’s what it felt like when he swooped me away from danger again.” Kate smiled.

“I do.” Gwen replied after a beat, harboring a nostalgic look on her face “I lost my parents in the Snap,” she stated simply with a flat smile, garnered a gasp from the raven-haired archer “So, yeah; I know how it feels like when hope returns.”

The two shared an understanding silence between them for a while, almost forgetting the goal of being here in the first place.

“But I think we have to look more into the Symbiote; saving him from dying one time could be a happy accident but with the second time? I doubt it.”

“Agreed.” Kate nodded, rubbing the bridge of her nose “You should have seen him with those arms; they creeped me the hell out with how similar he was to…Doc Ock.” Mentioning the mad scientist sent a shiver of dread down her spine. “I get that Rhodey’s death made him angry, but Pete was never this brutal.” That single flash of his menacing eyes still clings to the back of her mind.

The look of worry and deep concern shared between them.

“Gwen Stacy?!” the calling came from behind while the sunflower-blonde and the raven-haired women were loading their groceries into the trunk of an SUV. The one with the called name craned her neck a little until her eyes landed on the familiar face of a chocolate-skinned woman with wild curls she did not expect to see so far from Boston.

“Janet?” Gwen greeted her roommate with confusion and a slight startle “What are you doing here?” she approached her Harvard senior with a sheepish grin “Look, I’m sorry if—”

“It’s not a big deal!” the woman enthusiastically cut her off with a wavering hand “I know the situation was…rough for you back there.” Then she cast her curious eyes onto the curious third party “Who’s this?”

“Tabitha; I’m her cousin.” Kate offered with a corporate smile, shaking hands with Janet.

“Janet; I’m her roommate.” She announced with a thumb pointing at the petite woman, then averted her eyes “I’m visiting my dad.” Janice answered, then narrowed her eyes “Are you gonna go back to the uni?”

“Maybe; I have to take care of some…family matters first.” Gwen forced a smile. Looking alternatively between Janet and the SUV “We should get going, it’s gonna be late for the dinner.” She announced and urged Kate to continue their task, then averted her eyes to the curly-haired woman “I’m sorry, Janet, but we have to go. Maybe we can meet some other time if you are still around?”

“Oh, okay; you still got my number?”

“Yeah.” Gwen nodded, and the curly-haired woman started walking toward what was supposed to be her car “Say hello to your dad for us!”

“What’s the rush?” Kate inquired; the use of her alias was just a standard issue that was ingrained.

“…Spider-Sense tingled a little when she was near.” Gwen replied after a distance was put between them and Janet “I don’t know what set it off, but…”

“I get it,” Kate replied and hauled the last package into the trunk, closing the door “You have her last name? I can look into it a bit.”

Janice sat on the driver’s, looking at the pair from afar with a fading smile and a harsh glare aiming at the raven-haired woman “The hell is she doing here with Hawkeye?” whispered to herself, she fished a burner out of the pile and punched in the numbers while her free hand discreetly draw a pocketknife out of her jacket and toss it into the cupboard with a huff “…It’s B. I got an eye on the Princess…negative; there are complications present…fucking Hawkeye acting like her bodyguard, that’s what I’m talking about!” Janice groaned annoyingly at the person on the other end “No. That’s too much spectacle…I will get her, just need to be a little bit more careful.” Her eyes locked onto the SUV that was being started and pulled out of the slot “…can you run—” she recited the plate for her conversate partner, memorizing any distinct details she could before the vehicle left the parking lot. “I’ll call for updates.” Janice cut the line and breaks the phone in half, leaning her head back with a frustrated sigh “This shit just getting more annoying.”

- - -

Undisclosed Warehouse

Jessica took another swig of her flask before a creaking of the steel door behind her sounded, revealing the gruff visage of Frank Castle behind it. “Took your damn time, Castle.” The Punisher retired, grunted in response, and stepped aside allowing her passage before closing the door behind her with another grunt. “Want some?” she offered him the flask, but he just spun and led her into the dark hallway. She followed him for a minute until the space expanded into an empty room with a single chair situated at the center underneath an industrial spotlight, cooking the beaten shooter in its yellowish ray. The windows were plastered with old newspapers and black paints, one corner housed a hammock and a camping cauldron over a small fire, possibly a black coffee by the smell alone. The only lacking decoration would be a rack of rifles and shotguns and it would’ve looked like the hideout she accompanied the Kid and Daredevil into back when Castle was still active inside Manhattan.

The brutal vigilante himself was covered in a long black coat most associated with his appearance but the white skull body armor was nowhere to be seen. “Got something for me?” the former Navy SEAL inquired, casually stuffing his mouth with a can of MRE while looking alternatively at her and the prisoner.

“Not much; just some old doc.” Jessica fished an envelope out of her jacket and tossed it to him, Castle caught it without looking and quickly opened it for the content inside “Ben ‘Lester’ Pointdexter,” while the name was spoken, the Punisher roamed his eyes through the single document in his hand “Sounds made-up, and probably is; that was from the Expose back in 2014.”

“SHIELD?” The gruff veteran inquired without taking his eyes off the paper.

“Yep.” The drunkard P.I. answered, scratching the back of her head “Aside from what seems to be a resumé for Fury’s little band of misfits, there’s not much else about him.”

“What do you think? HYDRA or Avengers?” Frank stopped eating and set the can down, pointing the folded parchment at the beaten man on the chair, quirking his eyebrows.

“Could be both,” Jessica answered with a shrug “From what Spidey and Horny told me,” the nickname for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen elicited a short chuckle from the Punisher “He has some insane accuracy when firing a projectile or throwing things.”

“So, a knockoff version of Hawkeye?” Frank inquired again, prompting a shrug from the dark-haired woman.

“If that’s the case, I’m leaning more on HYDRA.” Recalling an idea that Spider-Man has been putting inside her head one night after she got a broken arm and the Arachnid volunteered to keep her company with some superhero animations and shits, Jessica let out a hum “…like a counter-Avengers team or something?” She averted her eyes to be met with Castle’s and a groan escaped her throat “Just throwing ideas around, dumbass.”

“You spent too much time ‘round the kid, just like Red.” Frank commented, picking the can up to finish his dinner “He tells jokes now, you know how weird that is?”

“He’s actually funny when he’s not punching someone,” Jessica replied, shrugging her shoulders with a pursed lip, recalling the drinks they shared once in a while. “He spilled anything?” she motioned to the prisoner, but Castle just shook his head.

“I can only do so much without maiming the guy, and I don’t fancy a lecture from the kid or Red anytime soon.”

Jessica just stood there when the Punisher opened a second can, hearing a low growl from her stomach the second the whiff of the MRE hit her nose. “Can I get some of that?”

“Knock yourself out.” Frank grunted with a hint of a smirk and threw a spare can at her “Twist the base and wait a minute.” He instructed her quietly as she found a spot to sit down.

- - -

The House

Peter and Gwen got the dishes this evening after everyone dispersed to do their things.

“How’s the work today?” Gwen started after drying the first dish, looking sideways at her boyfriend with a hint of a smile.

“Same-o, same-o,” he replied, storing another on the rack “Mister Grimm helps a lot in clearing the 6^th Ave. Johnny and his pals saved a dozen of survivors from the debris. Mister Richards commissioned another caravan of all-terrain trucks for me to keep busy.” He listed with a stunted smile that dropped quickly “…it was too much, Gwen; the flood destroyed almost 60% of ground-level buildings and landmarks, and almost two-hundred thousand were reported dead…” he sighed heavily and felt her smaller hand pressed into the small of his back as her head landed onto his arm. Finally, a sincere smile escaped from the dark clouds hovering above his head.

In Gwen’s mind, this is almost too much like a scene from some cheesy Rom-Com; them being in a house, quietly doing dishes together like a normal couple as if both don’t have superhuman strength hidden within every fiber of their beings. As if they don’t share a supernatural awareness that can warn them about incoming danger from any direction. As if their hands and feet could not stick to any surface that they wanted them to. As if there were no regrets or unforgettable lives perished before their eyes still haunting them with every breath.

It's almost like he’s not a superhero, and she’s just a nerd who loves biology.

She felt a feathery touch of his lips and warm breath brushing on top of her head and snuggled in closer.

A quiet intimacy that they last experienced almost a lifetime ago.

For Peter, it felt like a time when he still thought his parents were dead, and he was the last Parker in the world.

Now, he has a little sister who’s probably older than him thanks to a certain purple nutsack-chinned alien warlord’s quest for absurdity.

Now, he has a father who has gone insane by his doing, who destroyed lives like they were nothing but toys to him.

Now, she’s not the only one he cares about anymore.

Now, he’s lost another piece of his heart to an unknown fate.

Now, he felt lost.

They found themselves stumbled into the dark bedroom without a single word exchanged, their eyes closed from the outside world and noses brushing against one another as their lips desperately sought the well of comfort hidden within the other’s core. His hands mirrored hers roaming onto the powerful underlying muscles that made them, unraveling the tensions and sores in them with the warmth from their hypermetabolism. Spider-Senses guided them away from falling over small and scattered objects on the floor to the bed, falling over with Peter’s back bouncing softly on the mattress and Gwen’s light frame straddling him.

A sound of thwip sent a glob of webbing at the doorknob and glued the wooden pane to the frame before the Web-Shooters were discarded in a hurry by Gwen’s shaking fingers followed by his plaided shirt that was practically torn off his body under her superhuman strength.

He carded his fingers through the side of her golden crown, relishing the silky texture and her electrifying skin. He tore at her oversized tee like it was just tissue paper and palmed the perky mounds of flesh with firm grips, kneading a quiet moan out of the petite blonde trapping him under her lustrous gaze, she arched her back like a contortionist and grinding her pelvis against his growing hardness.

Gwen felt as if she was being prodded with electrodes the way their bio-electrostatic skin interacted with one another the way his calloused palms sent a gentle shock wherever they roamed, leaving goosebumps in their wake. She enjoyed the attentive massage for a while before leaning forward and diving back in to capture his parted lips, poking at his wiggling tongue with her own, moaning into one another’s breathing, and felt his palms trailed down to her slender waist gripping for dear life, pulling her flush against his hip thrusting in wanton.

Peter whined a little when Gwen retreated her lips, but hummed in approval the moment she planted suckling kisses down the side of his stubbled jaw and then his neck down to his sternum, trailing ever so lazily down the ridges of pronounced muscles until her ragged hot breathe brushing over the hem of his sweatpants. He moaned and arched his neck backward after Gwen palmed the rigid girth underneath the fabric, caressing and squeezing it in that rhythm he longed for.

Gwen tucked the pants down until the excited rod sprung to attention out of its confinement, a glint of precum glistened under the intruding moonlight from the window. She dapped her tongue against the slit and lathered the entire head with expertise, before taking half the length into her salivated depth in one fell swoop.

Peter groaned in euphoria as his hands instinctively rested on the sides of her head, carding his finger through her hair for a better grip to guide her into a desired pace. He felt Gwen’s fingers raking into his thigh, finding a purchase before allowing him to plunge deeper into her throat, embedded to the hilt with long strokes accompanied by gurgling noises.

Gwen started applying more suction inside her mouth while pressing the length of her tongue expertly along Peter’s throbbing shaft. Her neck started gaining some strain from the repeating up and down motion, soaking his balls with excess saliva as her hand started fondling them with a feathery grip.

Peter’s hip raised from the mattress as a climax approached, his hip piston his cock out and in of her submitted mouth, occasionally grazing the back of her throat in the chase of release that clouded his mind. Her hands gripped his clenched butt cheeks firmly as he thrust upward for the last time before flooding her esophagus with searing hot cum while growling with guttural sounds as he press his groin tight against Gwen’s welcoming lips.

Gwen pressed his lower body into a tight seal with her hands and superhuman strength until the spasm subsided and Peter leisurely retreated his still-hard cock out of her mouth, glistened with a mixture of fluid, glimmering in the moonlight. She swallowed the overwhelming load down into her stomach with a hum before taking the throbbing cock into her mouth again and cleaning it with enthusiasm.

“Damn…” Peter raggedly whispered with a flush face; his slurry eyes partnered with a lopsided smirk directed at her mischievous face “…I really needed that.”

“Obviously.” Gwen retorted, biting her lower lip before crawling up his laid body, raking her electrifying fingers up to rest under his chin, diving in for a peck on his lips that Peter welcomed adoringly “…ready for the next round?”

“I should be the one asking that.” Peter retorted with a smirk and with his superior strength flipped Gwen’s lithe body until her apex was propped up against his face as her head laid softly onto the mattress. He chuckled at the way she waggled her cute little butt before diving in to sink his nose into her moistened slit through the thin fabric of her yoga pants, drawing a mewling moan out of the petite blonde as she squirms around in her upside-down position. Peter drag the flat of his tongue against the soaked fabric and emphasized his attention onto a perk bud of her clit, flicking it expertly with occasional suckling.

Gwen curled her core until she can pull Peter’s face flatter against her sensitive pussy, finding more and more sensational touches provided by the interaction of their sticky skins, until she whined before tearing her yoga pants off for easy access for her boyfriend’s silver tongue.

Peter plunged his tongue into her velvet alcove, lathering up her sweet spot with the tip while his thumb circled a pattern on the bundle of nerves, drawing out more and more incoherent voices from her agape mouth. A moment later, he tease his thumb around the entrance of her anus, eliciting a sharp yelp from the blonde, then he plunged the thumb into her tight canal and Gwen came almost immediately. Peter did not retract his face from her pussy the whole ride until Gwen relaxed from trying to crush his skull between her thighs.

“…you know what, Bishop?”

“Hm?”

“I’m starting to miss the soundproof walls of the Compound.” The Tennessean chuckled into the living area where they were laying on their respective sleeping bags, his eyes cast upward in the general direction of the battlefield sounds coming from the upstairs bedroom. “Damn, that’s one way to show both of you are both superhumans.”

“Oh, shut up Harley!” Kate groaned groggily with annoyance and stuffed a pillow over her head with a grunt, trying to fall asleep.

The creaking of the bed was deaf to their ears as both synchronized in a chase of ecstasy. Peter clamped his hand over Gwen’s mouth while the petite blonde clasped both of hers onto his, receiving the abandoned pounding session deprived of the usual cautiousness associated with their love-making back when her body was not as resilient and strong as his. In and out, in and out, Peter draws squirming squeaks from his girlfriend as he increases the depth and force of his thrusts, bottoming out until his tip pressed against her cervix with brutal succession, yet Gwen gritted through it and just enjoying the primal sensation accompanying his aggressive assaults.

Gwen locked her ankles behind his back and pulled him in deeper, biting on his hand to stifle her guttural moans and grinding up against his piston hip, gaining closer and closer to an orgasm. She released her hands from Peter’s mouth as her boyfriend pounds with a frantic rate, desperately slamming his glistened and slicked shaft in and out of her vagina, stimulating her even further as he dives in and sinks his teeth firmly against her jugular to keep his grunts from escaping. Her world crumbled with an incoherent scream when Peter bottomed his penis into the end of her posterior fornix and he sinks his entire being into the velvet pocket as his sperm unloaded with an exhausted groan, flooding her vaginal canal and seeping out onto the grey mattress underneath them. Her body went into a spasmodic orgasm alongside him.

They pant in one another’s arms, breathing in the hot air emanating from their cardio bodies and relishing in the rapidly drying sweat glistening all over their skins, rubbing and lathering into one another as Peter kept rocking his hip into her still.

Gwen sighed with satisfaction and affectionately kissed the side of his neck as her fingers raked through his disheveled hair, massaging the scalp like she wanted to ease the stress collected inside his brain “Tomorrow’s gonna be awkward.” She whispered as Peter finally relented but refused to disconnect their groins from one another and instead gathered her lighter frame inside his caged arms, laying on his side her still attached, and buried his nose into her messy hair, breathing in the afterglow and residue musk.

“Any ideas? I’m thinking of a sparring session.” He quipped with slurry words and a yawn, seemingly spent because of their superhuman lovemaking session. “I love you.” He mumbled and nuzzled into her chest, resting in her embrace.

“I love you too,” Gwen replied with a soft smile, hugging his messy hair tighter against her chest.

- - -

Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters

Jean clutched the headboard of her bed so tight her knuckles turned white, ragged breathing filled the room as well as her stifled moans and mewls. Her hands roamed her sweaty and almost naked body with the linen of her nightgown pressed tightly into a second skin.

That was not what I expected when trying out a new method. The omega-level telepath internalized with an afterglow she received from her unintentional spying on the Spiders during their intense lovemaking; She could have retreated at any moment but decided not to. With the laborious failures to differentiate Susan Storm’s mind out of millions, she theorized about a method to trace the specific mental pattern associated with a more…intimate connection between the vigilante and the biochemist.

And what better way than to analyze Peter Parker’s and Gwen Stacy’s brainwaves when they are expressing that same pattern?

And now she’s hot and bothered. Her mind experienced the satisfaction accompanying a sense of orgasm emanating from the petite blonde, yet her physical body felt nothing remotely closed. It’s conflicting, but not something Jean couldn’t manage on her own.

I’ll try again tomorrow. The redhead told herself before her hands slit across her perky breasts and passed her navel until the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs was brushed so tenderly it draws a mewl out of her lips, writhing and squirming underneath her mercy.

Chapter Text

Act 1

Chapter 2

In The House of Hope

- - -

Symkarian Rebel hideout

“…that’s stupid.” Felicia shook her head and leaned back from the roundtable, ridiculed. “Might as well just march over into the capital with our hands tied and a royal decree announcing our surrender as well as accepting our role as a vessel state.” The platinum blonde pointed out towards her half-sister with narrowed eyes.

“I’m down with the Cat Bimbo.” Teresa chimed in from her spot with a sing-song voice, lounging on a crate and eating grapes.

Is this shit run in the family? Felicia huffed at the title given by the little sister of her friend, and reverted to the gathered generals surrounding Sylvia Sablinova “There is more than one way to secure those supplies.”

“Oh, do tell!” Sylvia was frustrated “I didn’t know you had experience running guerilla tactics. Enlighten me.”

Felicia huffed at the mocking tone coming out of her half-sister, waving it off without a care, clearly seeing the stress of the dwindling supplies for the rebels that got to her head “I may not have led men as much as you did, if ever,” she rested her palms on the table, leaning forward, staring deeply into her half-sister’s turquoise eyes “but I am the best thief you’ll ever meet. And this?” she pointed to the regional map on the table with markers and pins “Is nothing but a disastrous heist in the making. If you are as smart as you want everyone to believe, Sylvia, you’d do well to listen.”

“Boom!” Teresa added from the sideline with a chuckle, enjoying the exchange a little too much.

Felicia glared at the spitting image of the vigilante but crazier, and the Chameleon just shrugged in response. Averting her eyes to the silver-haired rebel leader, Felicia sighed, “Do we know where they get their supplies from?” After wording the question, she looked around the roundtable for anyone who wanted to add any information.

“There are small settlements around this region,” one of the generals, Gratis, pointed out a small circle taking up about a ten-mile radius in the Southern region of the Latverian-Symkarian border “Mostly farmers, but due to the desolated nature of our soil, the majority of farmland stretched into Latveria.”

“Humor me a little, then; what happened if the previsions from these settlements turned out to be…spoiled or lacking?” Felicia inquired, casting her emerald eyes on every person present at the table, then landed them on her half-sister.

“…A small squadron or a platoon will be sent, depending on the severity of the crime. They will act as the Von Doom’s hammer in rectifying the misbehaviors of their subordinates.” Sylvia stated with a hint of realization on her face, looking back at the second daughter of her late mother.

Against the voice inside her head telling her not to do it, Felicia averted her eyes toward the little sister of Spider-Man who is here as a proxy for SHIELD to maintain the relationship between them and Symkaria; a diplomatic implant, if you will. “How are you with a squadron?”

“Eh. It might be a little challenging, depending on what type of soldiers are sent in, but I’ve got no complaints so far.” Teresa replied with a shrug, “But if you want it clean, I need more time.”

“How about no casualties?”

“…you are kidding.”

Felicia shook her head.

“Don’t tell me you are afraid to disappoint a little spider in the faraway land?” Teresa teased with a smirk, sprung up, and leaned forward excitedly “Aww. Did Wilson Fisk’s little princess fall in love with his enemy?” the Chameleon crawled a little towards the platinum-haired woman “Lil Kitty Cat caught in the Spider’s webs?” the teasing was delivered like a nursery rhyme.

“Specs of the containers?” Felicia averted her attention with a groan, looking at the generals and Silver Sable, ignoring the assassin’s jab “Wood? Composite?”

“Most likely composite crates,” Sylvia replied, “Victor Von Doom is no stinge when it comes to budget spending; especially the one he siphoned from our family’s treasury.”

“If this keeps going, I might consider going back to being a thief, you know?” Felicia teased with a lopsided smirk, then returned to the topic at hand “I assumed they won’t be going over 60 kilometers-per-hour for their convoys?” the generals and Sable nodded, but Teresa just shrugged her shoulders with pursed lips. “This is the passage they will take?” they nodded again.

“What do you need, aside from using the Chameleon to secure the disguises?” Silver Sable concluded and inquired.

“…a lot of hoes and shovels. Some guile tarps. And the exact list of supplies we need plus the same amount of spoiled goods for replacements.”

- - -

The House

Gwen stirred awake with Peter’s arm securely locked her in place across her midriff, gathering her naked back flush against his chest, his steady warm breaths brushing her golden hair. She hummed and pressed further into him, feeling his hold instinctively constricting along with her shifting form with a quiet protest in his throat rumbling within his chest.

“Pete?” she whispered his name with a fond smile, hearing a grunt as an acknowledgment “I gotta pee.”

“Do it tomorrow,” he grumbled like a sleepy child, sinking his face further into her hair, and tightening his hold.

“Come on, I don’t wanna wet the bed.” She pushed and finally, he gave, releasing her from his arm as he slowly opened his eyes with a pout. “Just so you know; you are not that cute with it.” She playfully jabbed at him, and Peter clutched an imaginary pearl around his neck.

They shared a laugh as Peter watched Gwen pick his discarded shirt off the floor, mesmerized at the contour of her body against the Moonlight, “…Damn,” he muttered dreamily under his breath, roaming his hungry eyes all over Gwen.

“See something you like?” the sunflower-blonde giggled as she reached the door, looking back over her shoulder and wiggled her shapely hip enticingly.

“I couldn’t even begin to pick a favorite.”

“Charmer.”

“Can’t help it.”

“Want anything from downstairs?” she opened the door, hanging around the threshold.

“Water would be nice,” Peter replied with a sleepy smile, laying his face on the pillow once again.

“Comin’ right up.” The sunflower-blonde waved and started making her way out into the second-floor hallway.

“Thanks, babe.” Peter sang from inside with a yawn.

Gwen was about to descend the stairs when she heard fainted button clicks coming out of the room where Harley Keener had turned into an arcade haven, according to her brother’s statement. Stopped and listened, she heard quiet exclaims from the inside through her enhanced senses and produced a fond sigh before opening the door to reveal that her brother and Aña were still up and gaming despite the hour on the clock. “What do we have here?” she inquired, resting her hands on her cocked hip with narrowed eyes.

“Shit!” Howard exclaims and quickly sets the controller down after pausing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on the monitor. “Hey! Thought you were asleep.”

“Same here.” Gwen retorted, crossing her arms and looking at the sheepish grin on the little Latina’s face aside from her little brother’s “It’s waaay past your bedtime, Aña.” Her voice softened and the scold dissipated a little.

“Can we at least get till the end of this stage?” the adorable little thing pleaded with a wide smile.

“…fine.” Gwen relented with a lighthearted huff and made for the hallway again. “I better not hear you guys in this room when I’m back, got it?” She squinted her eyes and pointed her fingers at the duo.

“Yes, mom! / Si, mama!” both simultaneously answered with a giddy tone before getting back to the game as Gwen left with a shake of her head, graced by an affectionate smirk.

She descends the stairs to the bathroom and quickly gets rid of her full bladder before making her way towards the kitchen. But as she neared her destination, her eyes met with a pair of widened blues coming from the living area, framed by the parted black hair of Kate Bishop. “Oh! Did I wake you up?”

“No.” Kate dismissed with a scoff, for a moment before a hint of red touched her face with a cough “…maybe?” a knowing look shared between them, and Gwen immediately felt the room increase in temperature in an instant.

“Fuck…uh…” the sunflower-blonde started with a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck and avoiding eye contact “We kinda…forgot that there are people in the house too…”

“Evidently.” Kate encouragingly replied with a flat smile, and a thumbs up “I mean, get it girl! You know?” Kate snapped her finger with enthusiasm, so much that it stirred the Tennessean in the other sleeping bag.

“Wha…”

“Go back to sleep, Harley!” the archer demanded in a whisper, squinting her eyes at the disturbed sleeper as if to will him back into slumber, which seemed to be working as a quiet snore started coming back. “So…good night?”

Peter stirred awake after he sensed a brush of hair on his face, eliciting a smile on his lips as his hand quickly automated toward the side of Gwen’s face just to be confused by the different shape that prompted him to open his eyes. He met with a pair of blues, as usual, yet of a different shade than that of the petite blond. This one harboring uncertainty underneath a glint of longing and yearning, and the veil falling around them is black, not golden.

“…hey.” The usually confident voice meekly uttered the simple greeting with a sheepish smile as she stared down from above.

“Kate?” he had to voice her name in confusion and quickly propped himself up by the headboard, looking at the woman again to confirm his sight “Something’s wrong?”

“Aside from the fact that she had to sleep downstairs last night?” Gwen’s voice came in from the door as a latch could be heard, and soon a water bottle was tossed in an arch aiming at him “Nothing’s wrong.” The petite blonde wears a soft smile on her lips and eyes, closing in on the bed while shedding the shirt out of her body, letting the Moonlight sear an image into their eyes.

Kate was awestruck at the silky skin covering the entirety of Gwen Stacy, curving in all the right places and perfected by five tattooed rings of black on her left arm and a single scar of a bullet wound on her abdomen. Her golden hair plays a glimmery façade with the silver light of the celestial body in the night sky, casting a mirage of a nymph before her eyes. “Uh…” Kate tried to form a coherent response to the generous display but failed miserably in her stupor, unable to stop admiring the smaller woman’s body as her eyes kept roaming to the patch of soft fur with a palette that matched the crown of gold on Gwen’s head, enticingly inviting any who laid their eyes upon to plunge in and rest atop.

“So,” the sunflower-blonde whispered with a smirk gracing her lips as she descended ever so slowly onto the stunned raven-haired woman, tracing her finger under the beautiful archer’s chin “We can talk logistics in the morning; if you can get up,” Gwen whispered against Kate’s gasp and took the taller woman’s earlobe between her teeth, nibbles ever so softly to elicit sweet moans.

Peter let out an approval hum and laid back on the mattress, discarding the blanket as Gwen lightly pushed Kate on top of him with a little yelp of surprise coming out of the archer. “Last chance,” Peter said while snaking his arms around Kate’s familiar waist, hugging her tight against his chest with a warm smile “In case you wanna back out,” with a lifted eyebrow he loosened his hold a little, just enough to allowed strength of a normal human an escape, but Kate lays there with an increasingly happy smile upon her face as her hands come up to cup his face between them, grazing the callouses born from thousands of drawing arrows on braided strings, caressing his cheekbone with the lightest of touches.

“…I’ll pass,” Kate whispered against his lips and descended upon it like a starving vulture, devouring everything he had to offer with an awakened beast, her hands retrace the skin and muscles of his neck and chest once again after so long. Every steel-like fiber reacted to her touch the same way she remembered, and his hand slid under the hem of her PJ to trace a trail of goosebumps from the contour of her hip up until it cups fully at her left breast, kneading lovingly with just enough force to render her nerves a writhing mess under his electrifying skin. Sitting back up, freed from his arms, Kate let the petite blonde who approached her from the back pull her PJ over and discard it into the pile on the floor, exposing her tanned skin against the lazy glow of silver.

Toned muscles from extensive physical training lined beautifully into a mesmerizing map under her skin, contrasted stunningly with supple and soft mounds under Peter’s attentive palms. Battle scars dappled here and there from many run-ins with death as well as Yelena’s brutal sparring with live weaponry to harden her reflexes and muscle memories. A pair of lips peppering kisses along the crook of her neck and deft fingers caress her arms, arching Kate’s back into a bow and pressing at the woman worshipping her from behind. Underneath her heated core, she felt Peter’s throbbing hardness pressed and slotted perfectly between two swollen lips, and she ground out of wanton onto the superhuman trapped under her weight.

“You are so fit,” Gwen whispered against the archer’s ears, her hands started replacing Peter’s atop Kate’s firm breasts, tracing the almost similar electrifying touches all over the mounds of flesh. Kisses descend upon the beating pulses in random patterns, suckling the tender flesh between her nibbling teeth, and tasting the salty taste with light dabbles of her tongue. “So firm,” the sunflower-blonde crooned sweetly as her fingers captured the perky nubs and gave them a soft pinch, eliciting an endearing moan from the raven-haired woman.

“I have to stay in shape—” Kate’s cheeky reply got interrupted by a sudden yank that tore away her short as Peter lifted her whole body like a pillow to be planted onto his face, pressing the steaming canal over his mouth, sending a jolt of electricity throughout her body and rendered her weak at the knees. “Oh, God…” she whined and quickly found her love handles at the headboard, gripping her knuckles white as he began enthusiastically eating her out. With powerful thrusts, Kate ground on Peter’s face while her lips were locked with Gwen’s in a breathless train of deep and hungry kisses, pulling and pushing one another for dominance.

“Almost forgot how beautiful you are…” Peter whispered with slight disbelief into the still air, looking down at the unusually shy Hawkeye trapped between his arms on the mattress, her illuminated face flushed with excitement and eyes glazed with arousal. He slowly lowered his lips until they touched her collarbone and traced a trail down towards her chest, taking on erected bud between his teeth to be gently nibbled and tugged to draw out the honeyed moans that sing music into his ears. His hands landed on the curve of Kate’s waist and her unattended breast, kneading so lightly as to not unintentionally hurt her. He traced his electric fingers on the valley that is her body like a cartographer braving the new frontier marking a map until her calloused fingers rested firmly atop the soaking crevices before ushering his middle finger as a daring pioneer into the velvet cave.

With familiar touches and paces, Kate quickly arched her back into his unrelenting rhythm that pulled her closer and closer to the edge, again. “Pete—” Her exclamation fell into the abyss of ecstasy as the wave of overwhelming pleasure crashed into her core and soaked the mattress again. She curled her body up and gathered Peter’s strong body into her arms, clinging to him as she rode off the orgasmic bombardment on his still-pumping finger with a breathless grunt.

With a smirk, Peter traced his soaked finger up the contour of Kate’s body and rested it softly against the archer’s gaping mouth until the raven-haired sensually took it into her warmth with a mewling whine, tasting herself on his skin. “…good girl,” He whispered with a raspy voice as he lined his tip at her entrance, nudging the twitching labia.

“Good girl?” Gwen recounted with a grin on her face, looking at the raven-haired mess sucking her boyfriend’s, their boyfriend’s, finger like a lollipop. “My, my…”

Peter smirked at the blonde and slowly entered Kate’s familiar walls, parting the fleshy canal until the head grazed against her throbbing cervix with a sigh, resting his forehead against hers to breathe in the mingled air coiling between their mouths. He starts moving as Kate clenches her muscles around his intruding probe, in and out firmly but slowly, mindful of the strength he shouldn’t exert on her fragile body.

Gwen crawled around until her face mirrored the archer’s euphoric one, lazily capturing the whimpering moans escaping the agape lips into her mouth, swallowing the needy and wanton cries into her stomach and letting them root deeply inside her core. At the same time, her hands roamed the contour of toned muscles underneath the sun-kissed skin mapped with shallow scars.

Kate gasped again as Peter started gaining speed on his hip, thrusting with deep strokes as his grunts filled her ears while her arms snaked around his muscled neck seeking permanent purchase to brace the constant rocking motion. Her nails raked into the flesh on his back drawing pearls of blood as his intensity increased tenfold, ramming into her soaking folds with reckless abandon, reaching to the deepest depth and retracting to the shallowest opening in repeated rhythm, moans, and grunts mingled into an incoherent song lulling the night away.

Without warning, Peter buried himself to the hilt with the final thrust, embedded to the bottom of Kate’s welcoming folds, pushing against the valley of flesh surrounding the ectocervix and releasing his accumulated ecstasy, flooding the fleshy walls with longing and glee. He collapsed onto her heaving breasts, grunting with each spasm and contraction, pumping the archer full to the brim.

- - -

The Baxter Building

“Why are you still up?” Ben asked the grimacing Johnny Storm as he wanted to feel the chill night of New York City but found an unexpected companion instead. The Human Torch kept his quiet and locked his conflicting eyes on the peculiarly quiet city below from the railing, confident now in his control over his powers.

“…Did I make a mistake, Ben?” the dirty-blond whispered with a heavy heart, looking down at his upturned palms “Did I just condemn my sister?”

“It couldn’t be that bad, Hotshot.” The stone giant approached at Human Torch’s side, leaning over the railing near the younger Storm “She’s your mom, right?”

“You do not know our mother,” Johnny chuckled darkly “…did Reed ever tell you about Dad?”

“…Bits and pieces; Reed’s not a very talkative type outside of whatever discoveries he got his hands on, y’know?” Ben smiled mellowly with a chuckle “Knew each other for almost half a decade by now, I barely got through whatever wall he put up around his life.” The stone giant cast a glance at the man at his side, sighing “There’s a single person I can think of if you want to know something about Reed; Victor Von Doom.”

“Ridiculous name, if you ask me; won’t even be able to not sound threatening,” Johnny commented. “…I remember, though, that on rare occasions my father did come back home for a rush dinner…” A bittersweet smile touched Jonathan’s lips with a dark shadow clouding his eyes…

“What do you think of Reed Richards, dear?” Their father casually addressed across the table to his wife and ignored him and Susan on the sides.

“The lanky, nervous boy?” Their mother countered with her own, “Frankly? I have no comment; I have not spent nearly as long a time in his presence as you did, Husband.” The Dame replied similarly while continuing with her exaggeratedly expensive risotto.

Almost longer than you’d spent around your damn kids. He thought with a snort, which drew the attention of their mother almost immediately.

“I have taught you more times than abundant about table manners, Jonathan!” her disappointed tone, which he had familiarized with since the age of twelve, grated on his nerve on how pompous she was in expressing each syllable out loud. “You are a Storm! Start acting like one!”

“Mary,” Their father firmly spoke, eyes bearing into the fuming dame, “Practice that which you preach.” The criticism lessened the apparent anger on their mother’s face a little and effectively shut her up, but now… “…Anything worth sharing with the family in your mind, Jonathan?”

“No,” he felt himself quickly reply, but then a cold claw started raking his back from the disapproval glare coming from their father “…sir.”

“…Such a waste,” the quiet comment never slipped through anyone at the table, and he had to tightly grip the fork and the knife in his hands to keep from lashing out against the huff of air escaping their father’s nose while doing so. “Well,” and that was all the span of acknowledgment he would be given for the night, like usual, as their father returned to a discussion he started with their mother: “The boy has…potentials and promises.” He kept his mouth shut, enjoying the dinner as she should while listening in on whatever topic Sir Franklin Storm decided to be important tonight. “The brightest of minds I’ve ever met! Truly holds a bright future in his hands if he keeps nursing that dedication.”

“I sensed a ‘ but’ coming?”

“There are some aspects of a great man that he lacks, as of right now, but be assured that I will guide him to the best of my abilities.” The conviction in their father’s voice detested him.

He was never this determined about me.

“What about the other boy? Victor?” Their mother interjected with a barely hidden glint of excitement in her eyes.

“I would say they are equals; Victor, however, possesses more ambition than the Richards boy.” Then, he saw the eyes of their father and turned to his sister, “Susan.” The call tears Susan’s eyes from her plate “Pack for a few days, will you? I want you to meet Reed and Victor.” Not even an ounce of consideration for his sister’s decision was there, only their father’s demands existed “Am I clear?”

“…Yes. Father.” His sister’s meek and solemn voice reached his ears with an underlying plea for help.

A request he won’t be able to answer.

Not now.

“…I hate that kind of family gathering; having to sit and listen to how my parents, our parents, scheming on how best to use my sister to strengthen our family; viewing her merely as a prize for men to win over with fortunes or influences.” The air spiked in temperature for a brief hiccup before the cold wind washed away the residue of anger emanating from the Human Torch “And now, here I am, entrusting her into that woman’s hands…”

Ben hummed deeply, lost for words.

He didn’t have a happy childhood with his estranged family either, yet he’d never faced the kind of travesty Johnny and Sue had to endure with their terrible parents. After a long stretch of silence, Ben chanced a firm pat on Johnny’s back without a single utter.

“Get some sleep in; we have a lot of work tomorrow.” Ben turned and headed for the door after a while with a yawn.

“…Ben?”

The call stopped him, and the stone giant looked back at the blond who still dangling his legs over the railing, quirking his eyebrow.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, kid.” He hummed and waved before entering the dimly lit top floor and heading for the lift.

Johnny sighed deeply and looked at the City struck by misfortune, once again, with a scoff at the ridiculousness of it all regarding New York City; a cultural hotpot where everything mixed into a cesspool of uniquely endearing chaos. He averted his eyes down to a phone in his hand, contemplating whether or not to attempt a call on his mother for the hundredth time tonight.

- - -

The House

Through her body’s conditioning through extensive training under two of the strictest spymasters and assassins on Earth, Kate stirred awake. Her blue eyes were greeted by the veiled sunlight seeping into the bedroom through the filter of a laced curtain at the window, casting its warmth onto the entanglement of limbs and messy hairs that are the three of them on the bed.

Gwen Stacy snores with a contortionist’s prowess as her feet are up the headboard and her head nuzzles against her stomach on the left.

Peter’s feet dangled off the foot of the bed as his face buried into her lower abdomen, snoring with a muffle into her skin and tickling her softly with his short stubbles.

She carded her fingers lightly through Peter’s brown locks, untangling some knots and smoothing the slight curls the man had going for him. The image differed only in the addition of a sunflower-blonde woman into the picture rather than just the two of them.

Looking at the petite superhuman at her left, Kate fell deeper into her decision last night. This is…something. The archer roamed her eyes on the buttoned nose, the faintest hint of freckles, the soft and desirable lips, the supple neck down to her pronounced collarbone, the small but perky breasts, the toned abdominal muscles developed through the Spider mutations for better acrobatic feats and flexible core.

Such a deceivingly delicate and fragile flower.

The scene of the petite blonde jumping onto the belly of a malfunctioned Quinjet and then tearing the Gatling gun off with only her bare hands still sears into her mind, recalling the bewilderment and awe she felt back then of witnessing another Spider-person in action.

Hearing a growl from her stomach, Kate carefully dislodged herself from the Spiders and looked at them with a joyous smirk before making her way out into the upper-floor hallway toward the staircase.

“Bruh.” Harley groaned as he saw Kate trying to be discreet as she descended from the upstairs floor with disheveled hair and a glow to her that was not hard to deduce the origin of “Seriously? Just the second night?”

“Shut uuup,” Kate rolled her eyes with a hint of a smirk on her lips, heading for the fridge while Harley glared at her with narrowed eyes. Downed a whole bottle in one drink, she sighed with satisfaction for the refreshing stream cascading into her empty stomach “Did you make anything to eat, Mister Early Bird?”

“I thought you ate enough protein?” he teased with a chuckle at Kate’s middle finger and pointed at the kitchen island “Made some bacon and eggs.” He heard a mumbled thanks from the kitchen and reverted his attention to the customized laptop, typing in rapid successions with his eyes darting from left to right following the lines of inputting codes “So, how was the rite of passage into the Parker household?” he heard a slight choke following by a cough from the archer that elicited a laugh out of him.

“Stop being a nosy schoolgirl, Keener,” Kate said while stuffing her mouth with the greasy goodness.

“Fine, fine!” Harley replied with a lighthearted laugh, then averted his eyes from the laptop to the staircase “Is Parker gonna come down soon?”

“I dunno,” Kate replied with a quirked eyebrow “Why?”

“Something we’ve been working on,” Harley announced and gestured for the raven-haired woman over to the couch. When Kate reached the spot beside him, he showed her the tablet with a rendered model “It’s an artificial intelligence-assisted microbial nanomachine.” The demoted Avenger said to another while linking the laptop to the TV over the hearth “Parker came up with the idea of repurposing Doc Ock’s nanites that he used to blind you with,” he elaborated with an apologetic look for the mentioning of the foul name “Without Karen or Friday, we’ll have to integrate their central control units to Edith.” Harley added and then pulled up a simplified demonstration of how the procedure would be carried out “Mister Richards’s hypothesis about the parasite—”

“Dude, stop right there.” Kate raised her hand “I think you better wait for him to come down here for the in-depth explanation.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Bishop; you are at least smarter than a high schooler.” Harley shot her a sarcastic flat smile.

“I mean, I don’t wanna hear your annoying voice explaining this for the second time when Pete shows.”

Harley gasped at her deadpanned delivery with a dramatic flair “How dare you?! I was an honorary lecturer at MIT!”

“And thank God I don’t have to sit through that torture like those poor souls.” Kate let out a smirk and finished her breakfast, quickly washed the dish, and downed another bottle of water with a hum. She let the moment breathe a little more before clearing her throat “...How are you holding up? With Rhodey, I meant.”

Harley exhaled heavily through his nose and resting the back of his head against the couch, looking up at the ceiling with narrowed eyes “…Like shit.” He breathed it out shakily, the milliseconds of frames playing before his eyes still burning in his brain, aimlessly trying to solve it like an unsolvable puzzle “I was right there, Bishop. The Iron Man, an Avenger. I was right there with the best techs that can counter pretty much anything the universe might throw at Earth again…but I couldn’t even save anyone other than myself.” A sniffle sounded, but none dared to comment on it “…what a fucking superhero.” Harley spat the word like a foul plague, a grimace lining his eyes. “…Now Morgan, Pepper, and Happy lose another loved one…all because I wasn’t good enough.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, I know.” He scoffed, thinking back to the revelation that Nick Fury withheld information about the Skrulls from the Avengers for years “…all we can do is make sure that we save as much as we can to make up for the ones we couldn’t.” he prayed into the still air between them, loud enough for her to hear “but even so, being…there, looking at him just a second before the bombs goes off…” he cursed quietly and rubs his hands on his face violently, pressing the palms deeply into his eyes as if trying to chase away the image of Colonel Rhode’s smeared remains seared into the floor. He took another minute of silence before breathing out the frustration and casting his red-rimmed eyes at the archer in the kitchen “You going to Philly?”

“Of course.” Kate smiled sadly “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“…what’s cookin’ in here?” Peter prodded Gwen lightly on the side of her head while the petite blonde lazily and absentmindedly traced her nails on the punctured scar over his heart.

“…Kate told me…” Gwen started, tilting her face upward a little to stare into his warm hazel eyes with her hooded sapphires “That Namor announced to everyone he killed you before the tsunami flooded the city.” She rests her chin and the left side of her face on his chest, softly brushing his bare skin with warm breaths “Be through with me; what happened?” her eyes turned inquisitive and demanding.

“The report of my death was…greatly exaggerated.” He attempted lighthearted humor, but Gwen was not having it. The promise they have made with one another rings inside his ears.

‘We don’t lie to each other, no matter what.’ Was the pact they’d made after his night out with Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes and just before he decided to follow through with a visit to Ben’s and May’s graves (and with the information about how she once had an affair with a married man? Let’s say he kinda figured out the source of that mentality and knows better than to not respect it)

“…I guess…” he started, trailed off with a deep breath, and sighed heavily with a confused frown on his face “…the last thing I remember was him punching my gut through; I remember some my vertebrae exploded outta my back…” upon hearing Gwen’s gasp, he softly guided her hand down to his scarred stomach, wanting to tell her that he’s still here, still alive.

The Symbiote might heal the crater there but it’s nothing compared to Logan’s or Sabretooth’s healing factor.

There is a scar to prove, just like the four others that were left by Richard Parker’s villainous and uncaring intelligence.

“I fell on the street and my skull cracked like a watermelon…things that were supposed to happen did happen; shits, piss, tears, last breathe and all that…” he felt Gwen’s fingers clawing and cling to his flesh, hearing her heartbeats hastened rapidly, “The Defenders got my…body up to a roof; JJ said these black webbings spewed and wrapped themselves around my body.” He raised his hand and stared blankly at it, trying to see through the skin “Then I just got up in a black suit,” he said and willed the Symbiote to the surface, wrapping its abyssal tendrils over his entire body, encasing himself inside a cocoon of darkness that quickly change its appearance to match the image he’s thinking about.

The sudden change in sensation sends Gwen springing up from his body onto the ceiling, but curiously her Spider-Sense lays dormant still. The petite blonde glared with a bewildered look on her face, her toes and fingers sticking firmly to the surface as her eyes narrowed at him.

“Sorry?” he sheepishly apologized with a grin “Good reflex, though.” And she dropped on top of him again after he reabsorbed the black suit. “I mean, I might be getting a bit self-conscious…”

“It’s not that.” She retorted with a curious glare “The texture was kinda…” Gwen let the goosebumps run over her entire body with a cringe, miming the sensation instead of verbally communicating. “Anyway, don’t ever do that again.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” he saluted with Gwen lying atop, looking down at the fading startle he’d unintentionally caused. “So, as I was saying. I woke up after the third day—” a hand swatted at the side of his head, drawing out a hiss “Ouch!”

“There are topics you should learn not to joke about with my parents around,” Gwen narrowed her eyes at him with a smirk.

“Suddenly she became a pious Christian,” Peter mumbled with a playful roll of his eye. “Okay, so, I woke up wearing the Black. My Web-Shooters were destroyed from the fall, but...” He trailed off while extending his hand to the side before motioning it as if he was pressing the trigger of the Web-Shooter to send out a line of black webbing at the window “…looks like the Symbiote had that covered.” With a flat smile against Gwen’s surprised expression, he released the gesture, and the strand of black retracts.

“…I’m gonna auction you off to Area 51.” Gwen recovered after a full minute of awestruck “My family will be living in the Bahamas while the Government can study you and maybe give us annual paychecks for keeping you with them.”

“I love smart women,” Peter sarcastically played along with a groan and a roll of his eyes but harboring a lighthearted smirk “Can I have a fully-decorated cell?”

“I’ll put it in a contract.” The sunflower-blonde cackled along with him, and they lay with one another in their arms, looking at the increasingly shinier Sunlight filtered through the curtain “So, after each time you…died,” Gwen whispered in a raspy and shaking voice “The bond between you and the Symbiote seemingly growing stronger.”

“Ah ha.”

“That’s…disturbing, Peter.” She looked at him, concern lining her face “This goes beyond what we know about xenobiology or even symbiosis!” she got up, airing her perky breast out at the morning breeze, looking down at him with alarm mixed with excitement “We have to study it!”

“Hold your lab equipment, Nerdy Stacy,” he grabbed her waist and let out a little laugh “I will gladly lay down on a bed for you to explore me all you want—"

“After we found Sue and saved her.” Gwen finished for him with a more heartfelt smile gracing her lips “We will get her back, Pete,” she emphasized and dived in to plant a soft kiss on his lips, cutting off any protest or self-doubt about to escape his mouth, cupping his stubbled jaw between her hands, caressing the face of an amazing man whose greatest enemy is none other than his lack of self-esteem. “…Trust yourself…” she whispered pleadingly against his parted lips.

“…any question?” Harley finished the presentation in front of the family, including the unofficial addition of Aña Corazon who looked upon the 4D demonstration with awe in her eyes. “Yes, Mister Healthcare student?” he pointed at Howard with a professor tone, eliciting a groan from Kate on the small couch with Gwen.

“Um, how do we know that this,” the younger Stacy sibling gestured towards the enlarged interactive model of the hypothetical medical nanomachine “amazing concept of an AI-assisted Microbial Nanite will work in a human body, let alone a mutated one like in Doctor Storm’s case?”

“I second his inquiry.” Helen Stacy, also a scientist herself, added with a nod.

Harley harbored a big smile on his face, satisfied “Man, I love talking with smart people.”

“Hey!” the archer protested with a pout.

“Well, that’s a very understandable concern,” Harley ignored the fellow demoted Avenger’s smoldering glare and addressed the mother and son duo “See, in most cases, this kind of experimental method will have to be evaluated and sanctioned, and yada, yada, yada…” He trailed off, looking at the archer with a questioning glance, and continued after she gave a little nod “Luckily, we already have a living and healthy subject with us here.” Harley gestured at the archer, drawing the attention of the Stacys (except Gwen) towards the raven-haired woman “Back in the Siege of Manhattan,” Harley made an air-quote “Doctor Octopus got his hands on Kate…suffice to say that before Parker could get to her, the Madman had already blinded her with a type of specially-crafted nanites that degraded her optic nerves.” As he was relaying the information, he noticed that Kate absentmindedly rubbing her wrist, around the area where Doc Ock restrained her with nails hammered into them “the same type of nanites that we repurposed to reconstruct her optic nerves at the end of the Siege. As you can see, she’s now fully recovered and can still shoot a fly’s wings off twenty yards away—”

“Twenty-five.” The archer jutted her chin proudly despite the slight PTSD episode brought up by the mentioning of Richard Parker’s moniker and the way her brain pictured the torture that her eyes couldn’t see back then.

“—without issues.” Harley huffed with a grin on his face, directing at the guffawed Stacys (again, except Gwen) “Any more questions?”

“How soon can you mass-produce them?” Questioned the vigilante.

“If I reprogrammed the unfinished and unpatented armors into fabricators…I’d say about three days with enough resources.” With that, the Spider nodded with a hum.

- - -

GRU Temporary Crisis Medical Center, Mount Sinai Morningside

“Morning, Sunshine!” Christine Palmer announced with a joyous tone as she led a nurse into Stephen Strange’s cubicle, parting the curtains to let the morning sun in, receiving an annoyed groan from the injured Sorcerer on the bed. “It’s time to take your meds.”

“Can I discharge myself and just get out of here?” Strange chuckled sleepily back at the doctor while shifting a little for a more comfortable position on the adjustable bed, feeling the tugs of various IVs and monitoring contraptions hooked to his arms and chest, letting out a dry cough.

“Sorry, Stephen; I know you hate hospitals.” Christine teased and directed the nurse to carry on with her task, looking at the untamed beard and hair on the usually neat neurosurgeon “How are you feeling today?”

“Like I’m being skewered, but less painful than three nights before.” He answered with a smirk, letting the nurse do her job “but I have to complain about the suture job; it’s sloppy.” He gestured to the trio of closed wounds on his chest where Namor’s trident almost took him out.

“I can open the OR and let you redress them yourself after we are done with thousands of patients waiting outside.” The redhead friend of his retorted with a chuckle, looking through the check-up report from her nurse for a little while and sending her away, leaving only herself and Stephen in the cubicle “Sorry about the not-so-spacious room.”

“I understand,” Thanks to a late-night visit from Wanda Maximoff yesterday, he was brought up to speed with the situation and the devastating destruction left behind by the King of Atlantis’s rampage.

“We were out of town when the tsunami came,” Christine smiled, readjusting the drop rate on his IVs and other contraptions while looking at him “SHIELD called me in after the Avengers dealt with the Atlanteans. I thought…”

“I’m fine,” Stephen smiled back at her, looking down at the stitches. Just then, the door swung open to reveal a bob of reddish-auburn hair of Wanda Maximoff poking her smiling doe eyes into the room with a basket full of fruits, draped in her civvies with her hair covered by a beanie. “Good morning, Miss Maximoff.” Stephen smiled and greeted her, ushering the Scarlet Witch into the room as Christine cleared her throat before standing up.

“I should go check on the patients; good to see you again, Miss Maximoff.” The surgeon nodded to the auburn-haired woman before stopping at the entrance, looking back at Strange with a mischievous glint in her eyes, shooting a thumbs up at the eye-rolling Sorcerer before leaving the vicinity.

“You look better,” Wanda commented, taking a seat where Christine occupied earlier, and began peeling an orange for the injured man on the bed “How are you feeling?”

“Better now,” Stephen answered, smiled softly against her curious eyes, and let out a slight chuckle at the dash of scarlet briefly colored up her cheeks. “You?” his question insinuated another inquiry, one that Wanda caught on almost immediately.

She sighed deeply, brows furrowed with turmoil and uncertainty. Her fingers picked two carpels out of the sphere before offering them to the quiet Sorcerer. “…The face. The voice. The eyes…they are Viz’s.” she started, eyes hooded and biting her lower lip softly, then she picked another two for herself, squeezing every bit of juice out of them between her teeth before swallowing the fiber-rich pieces down “But his…soul was not there.” She said with a wavering in her voice, threatening to fall over the edge into despair. “I thought I’ve moved on. I thought I’d been at peace with having this void beside me for the rest of my life…but…”

“…I understand…Wanda.” It was one of the rare occasions that he would dare call her by her name, always felt like some kind of intrusion, a crack in the walls they are supposed to have erected against one another regarding the nature of their acquaintances; him being her mentor and guardian, and she as his pupil as well as ward. “I understand.” He said and gave her a reassuring smile, one that he hoped she would be able to wear herself.

- - -

SENTINEL facility

“Run a thorough diagnostic,” Richard commanded the Vision, moving around with limited-function mechanical arms under the watchful eyes of Nick Fury from the platform above.

It took the restored Vision around a full minute until the glazed eyes returned to be bright again “Automate functionality nominal. Motor functionality nominal. Central control unit functionality nominal.” The red-skinned Synthezoid calmly reported without a hint of emotion in his tone.

“Excellent.” Doctor Octopus addressed casually, then split one of his arms into their pre-programmed quadruple strands form to be used as his substitute fingers to punch in various combinations of keys on the terminal’s keyboard. “Would you mind running the rest of the scheduled check-up on units 001 through 012, Miss Trask?” his question directed to the young robotic specialist and his lab assistant with a smile “You might detect errors easier than me.” He emphasized the underline appreciation and praise for her to notice.

“Certainly, Doctor Parker,” Olivia replied with a wide grin, elated, and continued the task immediately with a more attentive approach than the Mad Engineer.

Richard then looked up at the director of SHIELD above them with an inquisitive quirk of his eyebrow, then noticed a gesture of the One-Eyed Ghost implying for him to follow into another chamber of the facility. “I shall take my leave,” he started and turned a little to the side to look at the ginger robotics prodigy “We will be discussing the integration of the Adaptive Matrix after I’ve returned.”

With Olivia’s nod of acknowledgment, Richard leaves the staging chamber using two of his improved mechanized arms as prosthetic legs.

The muscle atrophy and nerve damage are becoming more and more troublesome, Richard deduced internally, finding that even just closing his fist requires more effort than it normally should.

When he reached the room, his eye fell immediately on the single occupant who was not Nick Fury awaiting him inside; her hair was reddish copper with black lipstick painted on her lips, dressed formally in a business suit and pants, carrying an air of authority about her.

“Doctor Reinhardt.” The woman greeted and offered her hand to him with a flat smile on her lips, her piercing green eyes bore into his inquisitive ones “Leona Hiss. Acting Director Thaddeus Ross’s liaison.”

There’s not even an ounce of fear in her eyes… Richard noted with a curious smirk, then extended one of his arms to take the offered olive branch “I must commend you, Miss Hiss, you are quite foolishly brave to share a space with me without security details.”

“Oh,” Leona exclaimed with a chuckle, and then discreetly produced a cylindrical device out of her breast pocket, pressed it, and waited for a moment before continuing, “I wouldn’t necessarily need to worry about that, now would I; Herr Reinhardt?” the accent, or rather the fake one, dropped almost too smoothly to be replaced by an articulated German lilt.

“…Ophelia?” Richard addressed with a little surprise dashing across his face “You—”

“Discretion, Doktor,” Leona, or Ophelia, tutted at him “Arnim Zola’s device might be miraculous, but nothing in this world is perfect…yet.”

“…the Mirage Transmitter, I presume?” his words came out one thing, but his demeanor expertly mimicked another to go along with the distortion device Ophelia had just deployed to the security systems of the facility specifically located inside this room. “What a tricky little trinket you have. I assume the Kraken cylinder that was able to curiously make its way into my quarter earlier was one of your handiworks?”

“We had thought you never found it, with the lack of communication and everything.” Ophelia chuckled along “Still too hung up on bygones, I see?”

“Alexander Pierce betrayed me, Sarkissian,” Richard spat the names with equal venoms “To save himself he branded me a scapegoat!” the expertly suppressed anger rises “What makes you think I would be considering this proposition?”

“The Kraken might be…tactless in his actions, Herr Reinhardt, which is why I must implore you to consider this offer.” Ophelia kept to her spot, playing along with whatever Zola’s Mirage transmitter might be showing to the CCTV footage instead of what was transpiring at the moment “The blind ambition of Alexander Pierce had compromised us so tremendously in the past decade; our cells were almost wiped clean from the planet’s surface after the failure of project Insight. Our ranks diminished in numbers, whether by apprehension or execution, but it was not hopeless, yet.”

Richard quirked his eyebrow at the woman.

“HYDRA was once a mighty beast, Herr Reinhardt; we were at the pinnacle of the world! We have everything within our grasp. None dared challenge our reign.” Ophelia continued, a grimace of disdain gracing her face, “Heedless ambitions of the ancients won’t be ideal anymore for the New World Order. With your Sentinels and the Vision, HYDRA will rise again.” Her green eyes locked onto him, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips “Return to your glory, Herr Reinhardt,” she offered her hand, extending it in the confidence of Zola’s capabilities. A smile graced her sharp eyes, boring into the husk of a man before her.

In Ophelia’s grasp, an item presented in its clutch and dawned a look of surprise on Richard’s face.

A mask. Red in color.

Resembling a Skull of HYDRA.

- - -

The House

“Whatcha doin’?” Gwen poked her head over his hunched shoulders, looking down at the top of the desk where Peter was busy with something that turned out to be a pair of disassembled Web-Shooters with each component picked apart and sorted neatly alongside one another.

“Routine check-ups and maintenance,” her boyfriend simply replied and felt her arms looped around his neck, the warmth of her cheek resting against the side of his head as he leaned into it with a smile slowly forming at the corner of his lips “Wanna give it a try?”

“There’s about an 80-point wide gap between our IQ points,” The sunflower-blonde moaned with a pout.

“Yeah, and here I am, still able to keep up with you in biology; what does that say about some numbers?” he replied and felt a light brush of Gwen’s lips against his cheekbone “Come on; it’ll be fun!” he insisted and eventually the petite blonde relented with an exaggerated groan before relocating her lean and lithe frame to a spot across from him. “Okay, let’s start on the basic components that you can find in almost every hardware store…” he started a crash-course lecture to her about how he picked and modified each part and the assembly order as well as the required force to keep them in place using hinges instead of superglue or fasteners like he used to with the first models when he was a teenager. “…Now that we have the base frame, we begin on the awesome part. So, this one requires a bit of gymnastics to get done.” Peter then moved the specialized components to the relative center of the table “Commercial pressurized carbon dioxide canisters weren’t enough to shoot the Web-Fluid within the optimal range that I usually swing. I used to pair or triple them to compensate for that. Still, it made the shooters too bulky, and the capacity-per-additional weight ratio was abysmal, not to mention it bumps into walls and whatnots a lot.” Then he presented her with a silvery flat canister “Tony came up with an earlier version of this hyper-pressurized capsule; in fact, Felicia and Kate used a similar model in their grappling hooks.”

“So, this is Stark Tech’s patented?” Gwen quirked her eyebrow at him, inspecting the pressurized canister with careful eyes.

“Not necessarily,” Peter replied with a smirk “I said he came up with an upgraded version before the airport in Germany fiasco thingy. Not to shit on the man’s grave or anything, but his design was…a bit lackluster and…unsatisfying.” A proud smile graced his lips “So, I had to do a little tweak before I got to the airport. I introduced the canisters to a very low temperature that helped compress the pressurized Co2 even more, then forced two canisters into one with some elbow grease. The super-chilled and potentially explosive canisters could retain their supercritical conditions for about an hour or two at most, but I already tapped out with half an hour to spare by Gi-Ant-Man.” He chuckled as Gwen immediately set the canister down after the word explosive left his mouth “Don’t worry, now I’ve reconstructed each canister’s molecules via an electromagnetic forming process, it can easily withstand the internal pressure.”

“You sure about that?”

“It’s the same type of canisters I used every day, Gwen; that one survived an eight-hundred feet drop.” He gestured to the one she’d deposited earlier. “The canisters might be the strongest component inside Web-Shooters.”

“…I’ll take your word for it,” Gwen shot him a nervous flat smile.

Then he guided her through the assembly process, connecting and calibrating each crucial part with precision and care, wasted two Web-Fluid cartridges, and spilled the semi-translucent super-polymer all over the workbench until Gwen showed a triumphant grin on her face with her first pair of Web-Shooters in her hands “I got it!” the glee in her eyes brought warmth into his heart, enjoying the genuine happiness on her again was a breath of fresh air compared to her survivor’s guilt. Gwen offered them to him, but Peter just shook his head with a fond smile.

“I can’t use them.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Gwen curiously inquired, lowering her hands as well as her excitement.

“You didn’t.” he reassured her, “but the mechanism configurations weren’t tuned to me.”

Gwen produced a quiet ‘huh?’

“These two,” he gestured at the equipment in her hands “were adjusted for you.”

Seeing her doubt, Peter circled to her side, wrapping the adjusted Web-Shooters around her wrists “…your fight with the Beetle to keep Aña safe. Saving your dad. Saving those people on the bus…” he started, avoidant of her searching gaze, securing the equipment in place. Then, with a simple touch, he deployed the nanotech gauntlets onto her arms, covering from her wrists to just a couple of inches before her elbows, fitting to her form with the reprogramming that he had done earlier before she came.

Gwen quietly inspected the equipment on her arms with conflicting eyes.

“You remember your graduation speech?” Peter whispered into the still air between them. He saw her head lightly nod “You’ve become that, Gwen;” he lifted her chin up, wanting to lose the sense of the surrounding world in those sapphires again “For Aña and for the people that you saved.” He caresses her cheekbone lightly, smiling sincerely as he speaks the next sentence from the deepest depth of his heart “…Hope.”

Chapter Text

Act 1

Chapter 3

Turning Pages

- - -

Colonel James Rupert Rhodes’s Funeral

The Ride to Philadelphia National Cemetery was very…tense and awkward.

The sedan housed four honorary carriers for the Colonel’s coffin together, excluded from the other four US Air Force officers joining them at the cemetery.

The veterans, who were seated opposite them at the back of the vehicle, were the Cosmic Avenger and the Falcon. They were decked out in their formal uniforms, complete with decorated ranks on their jackets and service caps.

Carol Danvers glued her solemn eyes to the passing scenery beyond the confines of tinted glass, refusing to address anyone with her in the cargo.

Sam sits uncomfortably next to her and alternates his eyes between the young superheroes across from him, especially at the vigilante whose outfit seems normal and appropriate for a funeral service except for the red Spider-Man mask over his face “Don’t you think that’s a bit, I don’t know, too red for something like this?”

“Funerals don’t always have to be gloomy and sad, right?” Peter retorted lightheartedly, “The public knew about my connection with Rhodey when I was an Avenger.” The vigilante declared with determination, “It would raise more suspicion about some random dude joining you guys than a simple curiosity about my odd choice of clothing, don’t you think?” then, his eyes turned to the blonde aviator that is still keeping her eyes away from them “…You looked great,” he chanced a casual tone at her.

“…Thanks.” Carol took a minute before replying without looking back.

The car halted at the gathering of officers in front of a decorated coffin with the USA flag draped over it, situated on a platform at the back of a hearse. The officers dressed just like Sam and Carol, all a part of the US Air Force. The veterans from the Avengers quickly familiarized themselves with the squad, leaving Harley and Spider-Man feeling out of place.

“About the things that she said back then,” Harley started, motioning for the blonde Captain, the only woman joining the carriers.

“Yeah,” Peter replied, grimly “You get a ping on him yet?”

“Nope.” The demoted Iron Man shook his head “Fury’s practically a ghost when he wanted to.”

“What about the thruster trails of the Sentinels?” Peter inquired, adjusting his tie a little “Any luck?”

“Unfortunately,” The Tennessean replied with a sigh “The trails were all dissipated within the first few hours; that’s saying something for the type of energy sources that they used.”

“Experimental?”

“And I think we knew where that came from.” Harley added, “Remember that black ops Bucky and Sam joined Yelena in at the Sahara?” He looked to the side and saw the red mask nod. “I didn’t have the full picture, but from what Karen siphoned out before they shut her down, it was that they were there to retrieve some kind of a radioactive element from there.”

“…the Eye of Sahara?” Peter inquired with a surprise.

Harley nodded “Apparently there was a document collected by HYDRA back in the 1940s about their discovery of an ancient civilization site. Fury sent them to secure the isotope, and I guess that’s how they managed to supplement the energy requirement for the Vision.” Harley then stopped for a beat before reiterating “Or should I call it Sentinel Prime?”

“It’s too Transformer-ish if you asked me.” Peter replied, falling into deep thought “…some archaeologists theorized the Eye to be the origin of Atlantis, or at least the Sea People’s before they relocated beyond the Pillars of Hercules.”

“And according to you, the underwater Pripyat-junior was not that far off from Plato’s estimation.”

“…You think there’s some connection there—”

“Hey, come on!” Sam called for them and interrupted the brainstorming between the supergeniuses. “Time’s up.” The others were already positioned at their posts, leaving two vacant spots on the left for them opposite Carol and Sam at the front.

Sam and Carol led the civilian participants in unloading the casket from a wagon with the officers, methodically and quietly as the Honor Guards started their ceremonial tunes that filled the silence field. With sharp movements and barely a single word spoken, Peter and Harley strictly followed the others as they gripped their respective handlebars before lifting the casket in sync with the others; Peter and Carol specifically had to minimize their superior strength to not mess up the ceremony. The drums and trumpets started, and Captain Marvel took the lead, beginning the march towards the vacant excavated spot that was prepared to be Colonel Rhodes’s final resting place, each step thuds heavily into their hearts, resurfacing sadness and guilt, but they had to keep pushing.

Unfamiliar faces passed by, and Peter could only deduce that they attended because of who Rhodey was before the Avengers. The front rows, however, seated mostly the people he recognized. The Avengers, the ones that attended, took the left side front rows while Pepper and Morgan were with the parents and family members.

The casket was carried until lowered along with the drums onto the platform, and the flag was folded neatly before being offered to the parents amidst quiet wailing from the mother as the father held her upright, supporting his grieving wife.

Pepper hugs Morgan tightly against her chest while patting the little girl’s back softly to chase away her cry as her tiny arms reach out toward the portrait.

Looking to the side, he saw Harley gritting his teeth with a closed mouth, his fists clenched tightly the knuckles turned white.

Carol looked at the exchange from afar with pursed lips, a grimace lined her face and refused to take her eyes off the grieving mother.

Sam stood stoically, showing only resilience and respect for the fallen friend.

Bucky, decked in his US Army Captain ceremonial uniform, stood quietly with his hands joined at the front and his head hung low.

Clint silently stood with his eyes hooded.

Thor puffed out his chest and stood tall, only a hint of a smile grazing his lips.

Bruce Banner quietly looked at the exchange with a sad cloud over his head.

Kate lowered her head with her hands clutched at the front.

Roaming his eyes out of curiosity, he noticed more faces among the crowd.

Maria Hill hung around the back with a pair of shades on, her face still and devoid of any noticeable emotion as always.

There’s Michelle, clearly attended as a representative for the United Nations, took a spot furthest from anyone out of her preference to observe more than interact.

Thaddeus Ross was seated among the generals, looking calmly at the gathered crowd and focusing on him more than once. At his side, there’s a woman whom he recalled being one of the faces and names that Susan listed as her team back in the GRU days; Elizabeth Ross, the Acting-Director’s daughter.

The funeral carried on without anything exciting, thankfully, and the casket was lowered into the Earth around an hour after that.

“You’ve got some cojones showing your face here, Spider-Man.” The Thunderbolt greeted as he intruded on the private gathering between the Avengers and the vigilante.

“Well, hello there, mister Acting Director!” Peter emphasized the title with a mirthless smirk under his mask “When will you be voted out from the office? I have to make sure I order the flowers just in time.”

“You punk.” Ross huffed, looking at the Avengers with demanding eyes. “Why are all of you just having a conversation with him? Arrest Spider-Man!”

“It’s Rhodes’s funeral,” Bucky pointed out.

“Show some respect,” Sam joined in.

“Tis the foulest of transgressions to disturb such a ceremony, and the King of Asgard heed no command,” Thor added.

“If you are comfortable with ruining the Avengers’ publicity, be my guest,” Carol jumped into the fray.

“I’m not an active member.” Harley pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Demoted here.” Kate joined in with a smirk.

“House arrested.” Doctor Banner gestured towards his ankle.

Rage filled Thaddeus’s face, but he couldn’t do anything more than that and spun around to march away without another word.

“Thanks, guys.” Peter breathed out a relief sigh, looking at the group surrounding him.

“I’m not looking forward to brawling it out with you around the innocents, Man of Spiders.” Thor replied with a hearty laugh “We would be laying waste to the whole cemetery!” and the God of Thunder slaps him on the back firmly with his godly strength, stumbling Peter forward a few steps.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed with a chuckle. Then he saw Carol depart from the group and decided to follow her until they reached a secluded shade under an oak where the Cosmic Avenger stopped, turning her whole body around with a saddened look on her face.

“…What you want?” The blonde asked without looking at his face, or mask, casting her hooded eyes to the side where they landed on the small gathering of family members around the new headstone as the veterans and officers already left the cemetery. “Got any more shit to throw at me?”

“…Look, Carol,” Peter started after a deep sigh, pocketing his hands and casting his eyes away from her too “What I said back then…” he trailed off and kept biting his lower lip, trying to come up with something more profound or well-out, but eventually decided on the simplest of them all “…I’m sorry I took my anger out on you. It’s not your fault that Rhodey was dead. Fury was the one to blame in all of this.” he finished, then looked up at her, seeking those eyes with a silent plea. Without any inkling of a response, Peter nodded silently to himself and started making his way back to the group, but then Carol’s voice stopped him.

“It sucks,” the blonde whispered into the air, letting out a grim chuckle. “You know how it feels when people say you only bring death and destruction everywhere you go?”

“…I do,” Peter replied, surprising the Cosmic Avenger. He looked upward to the sky, trying to gaze into the Heavens to see if it was there, hidden among the stars “I know guilt won’t go away,” He looked back at the staring Captain with a saddened and apologetic smile “I’m sorry for adding to that,”

Carol looked at the man behind the mask for a long while, contemplating her mind on him, until eventually,

She returned the smile with softened eyes. Both glance upon the unending field of green lined with rows and columns of headstones as the last remnant of the braves and the bolds among them.

- - -

Symkarian-Latverian border

Teresa crawled her way through the dense jungle surrounding the small village on the outskirts of Perselus, the southernmost province of the Latverian-occupied regions surrounding the Doomstadt at the central governing state. The population is made up of refugee Symkarians and Sokovians mixed to form a semblance of a community under Doom’s ruthless occupation campaigns aiming to assimilate the surrounding countries under the Latverian Empire.

She contributed so much to the latest changes in the Upper House members within Doom’s court: a couple of assassinations here and there, occasional defamations and sabotaging, et cetera.

Things she doesn’t want to remember, just to achieve what the Rebels wanted to be done.

She shook her trance away and advanced onward, targeting a stray group of two at the back of the village, possibly doing a casual patrol while the main forces were overlooking the extortion. The one on the left usually took off to the edge of the forest about a minute before circling back to the post, and the one on the right did the same on the opposite side. The Chameleon mulled and fished a non-lethal knife out of its sheath around the back of her belt, the blade coated in a thin layer of specialized grease mixed with tetrodotoxin and other components to boost its effectiveness beyond nominal. One minute max, I have to account for everything, or I’ll be a Swiss cheese. Teresa then connected an additional compartment to the blade, introducing the calculated amount of voltage into the metal, turning it into a close-combat taser. It would’ve been easier to just kill them. She annoyingly internalized before closing the distance between herself and the unaware soldier from behind him without even a single snap of a twig to betray her advancement and strike the taser at the base of his jaw where the strap of his helmet was not covering.

The soldier spasms and has a seizure throughout his body for that gap of four to five seconds, rendering him unable to produce coherent or audible noises as the cut introduced the tetrodotoxin component into his bloodstream, and he falls onto the ground in a matter of seconds. Paralyzed.

Teresa reloaded her toxin by sheathing the blade into its scabbard again as she began stalking the patrolling soldier by matching his steps and pace until she reached the optimal range to deliver another precise stab to the soldier’s neck that rendered him paralyzed on the ground without a peep. “Two,” Teresa reported into the comms and advanced to the next group as ruffles of footsteps approached from behind alongside six of the Rebels following her to execute their plan, dragging the two soldiers into the bushes to strip them of their gears.

Teresa observed the soldiers for a moment before donning her morpho-polymer mask on her face and changing her appearance to a random villager before showing herself out of the jungle with her head hanging low, striding with a casual pace, heading towards the incoming soldiers.

“Állj meg ott! (Stop right there!)” the soldier on the right yelled from his position, aiming both of their assault rifles at her center of mass.

“Ne lőjön! (Don’t shoot!)” Teresa exclaimed convincingly with expert control of her voice, stood in place, and showed surrender.

“Mondja el, mi a dolga! (State your business!)” the one on the right added, disengaging the safety of his rifle with narrowed eyes.

“Éppen gyűjtögetek, az anyám beteg. Kérem, engedjen át. (I'm foraging, my mother is sick. Please, let me through.)” She pleaded with a wavering voice, keeping her eyes on the ground while the rifles were still trained on her. “Az elmúlt néhány napban rengeteget köhögött. Kérem... (She's been coughing up a storm for the past few days. Please…)” she bowed lowered, joining her hands in the front and begging them with calculated gestures.

The soldiers kept her in their crosshairs for a little while before lowering their guns and whistling to her with a hand gesture, signaling her to carry on. “Ne bolyongj egyedül az erdőben, veszélyes. (Don't wander alone in the woods, it's dangerous.)” one of them informed her with a firm tone and started to pass by her with them on either side.

“…I couldn’t agree more,” Teresa replied in English and threw a toxin knife into the right-side soldier’s calf before jumping onto the left one’s back, wrapping her legs around his arms to keep them in a lock while her arms snaked under his chin to apply pressure and prevent a yelp or a call for help. It took her around half a minute of constriction until the soldier fell onto the dirt, with her clinging to his back, and passed out. With a swift movement, Teresa detached and dislodged the knife from the first soldier to cut a shallow wound into the neck of the knocked-out soldier to introduce the tetrodotoxin into his system, paralyzing him under record time.

The Rebels followed along and repeated the process as she pushed on to acquire the last pair of her requirements.

“How’s the supplies?” Felicia inquired after the switcheroo was a success and the infiltration units left the area along with Doom’s soldiers.

“Enough for another quarter or so,” Sylvia replied after rechecking the stocks for the third time. “And what will we do when they send another platoon to punish the villagers?”

“Assuming that the new platoon won’t include the same units as today, we stand to gain more opportunity to plant more moles inside his ranks,” Felicia replied, snatching a piece of jerky out from the opened crate, chewing casually on the salted strip “…we have to play it slow, let the wound fester a bit. If we do anything too drastic, it might tick Doom off, and the moles won’t be of any use.” The domesticated burglar shrugged, finishing a jerky in her hand, and strutting away towards the Humvee as the others began loading the supply crates for transportation. “Hmm…I can really use a Chili dog right now…” Black Cat mumbled with her eyes glued to the sky.

The Rebels caravan made a detour at the village to retrieve the Chameleon before trailing the hidden path back to their base.

Felicia caught a stray glance from Teresa before they entered the bunker, but the Chameleon avoided her eye contact before heading off to her chamber.

“Felicia,” her sister called, and Black Cat spun around “A word?” Silver Sable gestured to a secluded corner away from the others. “…Your plans,”

“It’s the best I could come up with, Sis,” Black Cat replied, leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed, “I once robbed this shipping magnate who had a little vacation in SoHo, one of my first big gigs, I picked each little trinkets, leaving the valuables behind just to give him a test. He immediately rotated his whole security team and contracted a new security system contractor afterward, and all the best ones in the city are the ones owned by Wilson Fisk.” The platinum-blonde let out a smirk and a shrug “Suffice to say, he was fleeced dried in a week; nobody knows who’s the thief or how they got in. I got a cozy chair in Fisk’s roundtable for that.”

Sylvia chuckled softly at the story and the apparent attitude her half-sister showed, “Do you think Doom will buy it?”

“Hard to say,” Felicia sincerely answered “I usually studied my targets for days or weeks before executing a heist. That way, I’m sure nothing will be out of place.” She displayed a flat grin “This time? I have nothing on him; how he thinks. How he reacts to things. His weaknesses. His behavioral pattern.” Listing casually with each finger “The man’s a goddamn mystery despite being a public figure; how’s that?!”

“I don’t see you having any problem with the Spider’s?” Sylvia crossed her arms with a hidden smirk, observing the body language.

“That guy?” Felicia scoffed with a chuckle “Eh, he’s not as mysterious as everybody thinks; actually, he’s really simple.”

Sylvia quirked her eyebrows.

“He’s…Spider-Man.” Felicia shrugged with a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, confident that her answer sums up the person that is Peter Parker.

“Very informative.” Sylvia teased.

“Ugh, it’s not a college essay.” Felicia waved her sister off and started walking towards the quarters, dying for a shower “See you at dinner.”

Felicia walked past the small air vent designated as a smoking area inside the bunker, to be met by the Chameleon leaning on a pillar with a cigarette between her fingers. Her eyes were glazed and locked at the rectangular cut of the sky above her head. The billow of smoke ascended lazily, dispersing among the high-passing breeze and disappearing completely.

Their eyes met again, and this time, she held it as the distance had been reduced step by step until they shared the proximity inside the small cubicle without a single word exchanged. Felicia cast her eyes down toward the cigarette with a quirk of her brow, inquisitively, and it seems Teresa got the message and reluctantly produced a new one from her breast pocket before offering it like an olive branch toward the Black Cat.

They shared a quiet rhythm of inhaling and exhaling toxin smoke for a minute before Felicia started, following a cough “What’s eating you?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m an inquisitive person,”

“Isn’t that bad for cats?”

The conversation dies after that, only smoke moves as both contemplate what to do next.

“Come on,” Felicia tried again, flicking the cigarette’s butt into a grating’s slot covering the leisure stream below them “I can tell you are not friends with anyone here—”

“Really? What gave it away; my charming personality?”

“…I know that look,” Felicia replied after a moment, voice serious and a bit…sympathetic.

Teresa was confused at the tinge of vulnerability showing underneath the confident and nonchalant surface of the infamous thief.

“I know when bad memories resurfaced…” Unknowingly, Felicia started picking at the thumb’s nail groove with her index, trying to ward off the haunting of demonic chortles and disgusting hands that roamed her body.

It’d made her want to flay herself.

She used to sit on the bathroom floor under streams of boiling water just to feel washed and cleaned.

It took her…years to be able to look at herself again.

For her to not see a broken doll staring back with haunting eyes…but not completely.

Sometimes, in moments of weakness, the broken doll will be there.

She’ll always be there, hanging around like a festering parasite.

That’s the only thought she is certain of in life.

“…Let it out,” Felicia whispered “Find someone who would listen, and talk. Even if you have to speak in silence.” As Felicia was about to leave, Teresa sighed heavily and rested her forehead against the railing.

“…I hate it here.” The Chameleon mumbled to herself. “…I was ten, and instead of running around without a care in the world, I had to run obstacle courses.” Teresa recited her childhood, “General study replaced by in-depth Anatomy 101, especially how and where to hit. Where to cut and how deep to get different results. Advanced interrogation…” her face twitched, “Infiltration. Disguise. Architecture. Demolition.” The brunette’s arms crossed upon the railing, hunching her shoulders. “Next thing I know, Sable’s daddy dearest assigned me my first mission,” her voice cracked a little with a grim snort “posing as a hooker for one of the Latverian generals.”

Felicia listened in silence, captivated by the tragedy and lost for words.

“They search every nook and cranny before you can get past the gates. I couldn’t even sneak a needle in.” Teresa regaled it like a casual conversation at dinner, “I got into the sick bastard’s room…I had to…” a stutter made itself known. Felicia unknowingly reduced the gap between them, “…when he was distracted, I grabbed the letter opener and cut his head off.” The tale ends so abruptly with a mirthless chuckle escaping her quivering lips, but then she tensed up as her torso was wrapped by two arms circling from the side. Black Cat's hug tightens as she exerts some resistance to try and wiggle out.

It took her a while until the sobs couldn’t be contained anymore, and she let them explode without a care in the world.

Teresa breaks into the embrace, pouring her broken heart out against the rushing stream.

Felicia hums a lullaby softly and caresses the head of the crying woman, rocking her lightly back and forth to help Teresa ride out the heartbreaking wails.

Sylvia stays hidden in the shadows as she watches her half-sister console one of the victims of her father’s ruthless cruelties with disgust on her face.

- - -

The Baxter Building

“…Mother.” Johnny leaned against a translucent glass overlooking the city of Manhattan from the top of the Baxter Building, “Where did you take my sister?”

“Such a lovely way to greet your mother, dear,” Mary Storm’s voice sarcastically replied from the other end “Alas, Susan’s and mine whereabouts is none of your concern. Be assured, Jonathan, that I have her best interest at heart.”

Your best interest would be more precise. Johnny mulled with a seed of anger, groaning into the microphone “Mother. I have to know where she is.”

“She’s with me. She’s fine, Jonathan. That’s all there is for you to know.”

“I deserve more,” Johnny gritted out, a grimace lining his face “I’m the one who cares for her.”

“Insolent little child,” his mother’s biting venom seeps through the satellite link “I had allowed you two too much, and look where it ends. No more, Jonathan, I shall retake my responsibility as your mother once more.”

“I will not allow it!” Johnny gritted “You will not—” The line was cut before he could finish the sentence, and Johnny let out a frustrating roar into the sky “Fuck! You greedy cunt!” he screamed into the phone and crushed it between his flaming fist when Mary refused to answer any more of his calls, disintegrated the device within millisecond against the intense heat.

After he had cooled himself down a little, the glass door behind him swung open, and his eyes were met with the curious face of Julia rushing out of the cubicle with a fire extinguisher in her hands “Nathaniel reported a temperature peak here, thought—”

“It’s nothing, Jules.” He exhaled the last heated air out of his breath and braved a casual smile on his face “Just a little exercise,” he snapped his finger with a smirk, summoning a ball of flame to dance between the cage of his fingers before putting it out “Nothing—”

“Quit your act, Johnny.” Julia sighed, setting the extinguisher down near the door, and walked out to the windy balcony with her shoulder-length dark hair fluttering from the high wind “Talk to me.”

“It’s truly nothing—”

“I’m not a stranger, Johnny,” Julia scoffed, taking a step “I’m your friend.”

“A friend?” Johnny quirked his eyebrows at her with a knowing smirk.

“Let me rephrase,” Julia chuckled, looking at him with determination “You are a friend.”

“…right.” The sandy-blond mutated human nodded with a hint of disappointment behind his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by worries “I’ve…majorly fucked up.”

“No shit.” Julia casually nodded.

“Don’t you supposed to disagree with me?” he attempted a tease.

“But you did it, Johnny.” Julia cackled mirthlessly, “You called Mary!” the senior engineer made air quotes to emphasize the ridiculousness. “Sue was like a stolen trophy to her; what the hell do you think she would do when she got her hands on it again?! You two ran away from home together to escape that woman,” Julia came up to glared fiercely into Johnny’s evasive eyes “Her friends are here, Johnny!” She jutted her fingers roughly against his muscled chest “She is loved!” Julia coiled her fists around the collars of his adaptive fabric suit “You just had to let the only person in the whole fucking world who saw her as nothing but an object take her away!” Julia yanked him down with a gritting snarl “And now? You’re whining about it?! Gimme a fucking break!” she pushed him away forcefully, glaring daggers at the younger brother of her closest friend.

“Jules, that’s enough,” Ben called from behind, his sad eyes captured by the intense scene.

“No, it’s not! Ben,” the Japanese-American woman furiously added “This idiot,” she pointed at the sandy-blond without looking back, “sold his fucking sister!”

“Pumps the brakes there—” Johnny attempted to defend himself, but failed miserably as Julia cut in.

“Mary’s gonna sell Sue to the highest bidder,” she made sure Johnny heard every word spoken clearly “Maybe you’ll get some changes after your sister becomes someone’s pet?” The engineer sarcastically bites with seething venom.

“Julia!” Ben called again, firmer.

“It’s the truth!” Julia yelled, frustrated, “And he fucking knew it!” she pointed her finger directly between the Human Torch’s eyes.

Johnny quickly leaped over the railing and lit himself on fire before zooming away from the Baxter Building.

- - -

Reading Terminal Market

The rustling of people coming and going envelops the entire area. Verbal advertisements and chatter filled the air alongside a chaotic combination of smells emanating from fresh produce, fresh foods, and the Afternoon heat of Philadelphia.

On the roundtable, there are various types of enticing foods making up a small feast.

“MJ—” Peter started.

“Don’t,” Michelle cut him off, “It’s not like there’s something left for you to salvage here, Spider-Man.” Her veiled venom stung at his core, but Michelle ignored the physical flinching exerted by the superhero by continue picking her sandwich. “We were both stupid kids, especially me—”

“MJ,” Peter cut her off in retaliation with a huff “It’s not—” he stopped himself, sinking into his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh “I had to keep you safe from being around me.” Peter revealed with a grimace, “You almost die. The Green Goblin would have killed you if Peter-3 wasn’t there.”

“I chose to be there,” Michelle retorted.

“I know.” Peter replied with a sigh, “That’s why I had to take myself out of your life.”

“Here we go, my savior!” the sarcasm drips into the air “Doing things without anyone’s opinion again because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone!” she spread her arms dramatically around herself.

“That’s not fair!”

“Abandoning me wasn’t fair!” MJ retaliated heatedly, “I know Boston is like a three-hour drive away, but I’ve never seen you once; never!” she pointed an accusing finger at him “Not a call. Not a text. Nothing!”

Peter opened his mouth as if to retort, but only silence made its way out.

“I thought it was the coolest thing ever, you know?” Michelle continued without looking up from her plate, “My boyfriend’s a superhero!” she let out a dry chuckle “…but I couldn’t even remember who you are under that stupid costume.” She averted her eyes to stare into the white lenses across the table “Every time you got hurt, I was worried…until I gave up.” Then her eyes cast to the side and fell upon the approaching duo of Avengers with drinks for the table; her eyes locked onto Kate Bishop before alternating toward Harley Keener, “…You’d moved on, and so should I.”

“…I’m sorry...”

She remains avoidant and ignores his words, focusing on the rustling people instead.

- - -

New York City

His eyes roamed the papers and pictures dotted all over the gigantic redwood tabletop situated at the center of the penthouse while weighing his body into the cushioned chair with a hard seat; it’s good for posture and overall health.

“My apologies, Mister Fisk,” his secretary called from the private line “Your guest is here,”

“Send her in. Thank you, Claudia.” The mountain of muscles encased inside a pristine customized white suit and a purple shirt hummed into the phone as he kept his eyes on the task. As he finished with the last required signature for the current document, a buzz from the door announced the presence of the guest, and Fisk casually pressed the button to disengage the electromagnetic interlocking mechanism. The face of a woman with shoulder-length brown hair and an unpleased look comes into view.

Fisk let out a tiny smirk before getting up from his chair and approaching the woman who relocated herself to the couches at the side, overlooking the city through borderless panoramic glass decorated with a bucket filled with ice surrounding a carafe of Pinot Noir. “A bit earlier than planned, Doctor Varanasi?” The Kingpin greeted her with his corporate smile as he poured the red liquid into a glass for her as an offering, which she took with a hum. He gestured for the doctor to take a seat before pouring himself one, finally sitting across from her after a little sip “How’s the ride here?”

“If it’s not the sea of cars clogging up the roads, it’s a city-wide disaster that makes life difficult,” Doctor Varanasi replied, taking down the crimson nectar to a third with a single gulp as the sarcasm mixed with the winery taste on her tongue. She averted her eyes towards the mountain of a man across the liger carpet “You wouldn’t have that problem, would you?”

“I’ll admit that I have some…privilege over the majority of the people here,” Wilson nodded and set his glass down before leaning onto the couch, loosening the last button to give himself more comfort while sitting. “But that is not what we are here for today, Doctor Varanasi.” Then, he picked up and handed a document to her with a concerned look “I must acquire your expertise on this.”

As she flipped and read through the contents, her expression turned more suspicious and dubious over time until the doctor set the documents down on the table and finished her wine with a heavy sigh. “…What is the meaning of this, Mister Fisk?”

Wilson only smiled coldly in return.

- - -

The Baxter Building

“Here’s his man cave.” Julia gestured to the small corner where Peter relocated every modified equipment required for his vigilantism to keep them isolated from the rest of RAC operations “Nathaniel already registered your biometrics from before, just scan the prints here,” she indicated to the reader at the side with a smile. “I gotta get back to the main lab; don’t set anything on fire, okay?”

“Got it,” Gwen nodded then gave her boyfriend’s senior and supervisor a wave. “Thanks, Miss Takeda!” the Japanese-American turned the corner, and Gwen averted her attention towards the sliding door that separates Peter’s closet from the rest of the company. She palmed the scanner to open the door, revealing the dimly lit quarter filled with half-finished equipment and devices lining the shelf and the bench, the fabricator she saw him designing his suit on before situated to the right and taking up that half of the quarter. She took a first step into the room and prompted a veil of light to shine from above, passing through from front to back.

“Scan completed.” The monotonous voice announced as the door shut, “Welcome, Gwen Stacy.”

“Nathaniel?”

“Yes?”

“Um…” Gwen looked around, seeing husks of Spider-Man’s face mask printed from polycarbonate into frames that would hold up the shape of the mask while providing basic protection against blunt force trauma. “Can you turn the fabricator on for me?”

The machine whirred to life as the rectangular lid slowly opened to reveal the full-size horizontal interface that lights the whole chamber up under its icy blue glow.

Gwen approached the holo-interface and then navigated until she found the folder suspiciously named ‘S.W.’ and opened it. It contains rough hand drafts of suit variations sorted and categorized by style, features, and color palette. “…I guess the form-fitting nature was just to achieve maximum efficiency against air resistance and drags.” The sunflower-blonde mumbled to herself and kept filing through the almost two dozen suits Peter had spewed from his overclocking brain. Looking down at herself, she pursed her lips with a smirk. “Good thing I don’t have a massive rack.” After a full review, Gwen picked some elements from the roster of the suits into a new project. Taking a folded paper out of her pants pocket, she unfolded the crayon art made by Aña during their short stay at the Brooklyn Hospital Center with a fond smile on her face.

“La Araña!” the little girl exclaimed proudly when she asked about it after she found her so focused on the artwork with some of the evacuee kids in the main hall.

The design was simple, but striking in visuals.

All-white primary palette with black as the secondary; it’s almost a replica of Spider-Man’s.

That’s his brand, though… Gwen thought as she looked at the giant spider wrapping around the torso of the drawing. Maybe something less…obvious? The sunflower-blonde hummed as she laid the drawing face-first into the scanner pad and let the fabricator reconstruct the data into interactive components. After a moment to let the quantum computer process things, she can pick apart Aña’s design of aspects that she finds unappealing and adjust it until the final design comes to fruition.

She has the all-white design as a primary while the blacks have been reshaped to cradle her breasts like a corset, which is tapered to just above her diaphragm. Two claw-like stripes started at the underside of her collarbones and ended just shy of the humerus. The overall pattern originated from the back where it shows a resemblance of a spider hugging onto her back with its legs. The Web-Shooters are matte grey by default. Her photosensitive-reduction lenses were rounder and encased inside frames of white.

It’s…depressingly bland. Gwen mulled internally with a huff and then noticed the unfinished coloring on the paper…

She quickly tested the idea out and soon, a smile tugged on the corner of her lips at the addition of hot magenta.

How about… Gwen drags the hoodie in to complete it.

“Begin the fabrication,” Gwen commanded, and Nathaniel beeped in reply before the fabricator slowly closed.

“Hello, GRU crates…” Gwen whispered into the dying Sunset as she flattened herself to an inactive flare tower of one of OSCORP’s abandoned industrial facilities in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, looking down at the aftermath of GRU’s restoration effort after the flood and the group of ten that looks nothing like volunteers if assault rifles and shotguns on them were any indication to go by. “Guns and suits…if I didn’t know that the Maggia was basically non-existent now, I’d say this is one of Hammerhead’s old crew.” She remembered the similarities from her snooping fest at Yuri’s apartment; it was during the Five Years that she and Howard crashed with the now-police captain to save their money; she got bored and decided to raid the criminal profiling collection that the supercop copied from the archived. “It would be great if I can—oh, that’s why he has Edith.” Gwen mulled to herself and shot a line of webbing to another tower before swinging in a pendulum down to the closer spot where her enhanced senses might be able to pick up something.

Without an integrated AI in her suit, she has to rely on classic reconnaissance.

“…to the warehouse quick before someone sees us!” the burly guy roused the others with his booming voice, hands comfortably resting on the HK-416 strapped to his torso.

“Why do we have to do it on that fucker’s turf?” the lanky one exclaimed, eyes looking up towards the sky and around, eyes widened in anticipating fear.

“Daredevil don’t play in the lights!” the burly leader countered, kicking the lanky guy’s butt a little to urge him “We have another hour before he shows. Get going!”

That accent… Gwen sighed, shaking her head. Yuri’s gonna be livid if this gets to her. There are exactly eighteen of them, four gunmen with hopefully semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, while the rest are focusing on logistics. At least, that’s the amount she can see; there’s always a possibility of blind spots. With quick calculations, Gwen did a ballpark estimation that a simple web shot consumes about 1.5% of the overall capacity in each cartridge, and then she reloaded both Web-Shooters to maximize her effectiveness. With her bio-electrostatic fingers and feet, the White Spider (she knows…it’s kinda last minute) crawled her way around the warehouse to the back and got her eyes on two guards stationed at each corner of the building.

Classically, a Spider would jump down with quips and bad puns dealing feet and fists to them in a shock-and-awe tactic.

But she’s not gonna rely on her abysmal expertise in martial arts and fast-paced CQB.

Instead, Gwen noticed the lapse between them that created an opening that allowed her to somersault forward from the wall, align her Web-Shooters with hopes and prayers, and then shoot two globs of webbing at the first guard’s mouth and hands. The webbing landed squarely on their intended targets, surprising the guard with a muffled yelp of confusion.

Gwen shoots another line that expands and wraps around his ankles, pulling with limited strength and knocking him out with a fall. The thud and metallic clang gain the attention of the other guard, which prompts Gwen to quickly deliver four shots at his mouth, hands, and ankles. She instinctively shot a line of webbing to the nearby spot to reel herself in like a speedball to connect a midair roundhouse kick to the side of his head. Making sure both were tied to the ground with a layer of webbing, the White Spider jumped onto the roof of the warehouse softly, mindful not to make a sound, and scaled the edge towards the conglomerate at the front.

They are too tightly grouped, she mused, looking at the non-existent opportunities to pick them off one by one like this, then she saw the surrounding mess of debris and totaled cars and barrels. Or…

“Don’t lose it—” the burly leader’s sentence was cut by him being yanked away so quickly the others were able to register what’d just happened.

Gwen utilized her power jump, and in the middle of an arch, she shot a web line at one of the remaining mobsters, then proceeded to give him the same treatment with her superhuman pull as she landed on the side of a tower, obscured from view.

“It’s Webhead!” some yelled, and the commotion started, clicks and clacks of safeties being disengaged filled her ears as her heart raced. “Check the back! Everyone spread out!” the commands reached her ears and Gwen decided to get a vantage point to plan her next move.

“Matt?” Foggy looked at his friend with a confused expression after the blind lawyer had just stopped himself mid-sentence with a tilted head. “Hello?”

“…gunshots.” The stubble-faced man with red sunglasses whispered to be discreet and quickly grabbed his foldable cane to make his way to the door of the diner.

“Wait, wait!” Foggy grabs his friend’s wrist to prevent that from happening, demandingly glaring at the blind man “Are you crazy? You’re just gonna up and run to a gunfight like this?!” he hissed just to be considerate.

“Spidey’s out of town,” Matt apologetically declared, and pried his arm off easily “Looks like I’m gonna have to work an early shift.” He smiled flatly at his law firm partner and long-time friend, then produced a bill from his pocket “Take out?”

“Yeah, I’ll throw 'em in the fridge.” Foggy sighed and leaned against his seat as Matt suspiciously effortlessly made his way out of the diner.

“Where’s Matt?” Karen’s voice inquired from the back as she returned from the bathroom.

Foggy replied by mimicking a pair of horns on his head with his fries, eliciting a snort from the blonde.

Using her powerful muscles, Gwen zoomed around the covers with blinding speed, webbing up and yanking the remaining Hammerhead goons without them being able to pinpoint her location, trying in vain to shoot randomly at anything that moves. Why did Pete always have a problem when dealing with them if we can do the same thing? Gwen mulled with confusion as her amateur efficiency in Spider-illa warfare proved to be more than enough to take down a group of armed men alone. Peter Parker has been doing this for almost a decade, so there’s no way he’s clumsier than her. Is he an Adrenaline junky— Her train of thought got interrupted by a sharp pain of a projectile grazing her side, tearing into the newly fabricated super suit, and drawing blood. Her flow was interrupted as well and Gwen collided with a cement bund wall, knocking the air out of her lungs. Listen to the screams of Spider-Sense, Gwen quickly relocates herself out of harm’s way to regain her composure.

There are three left standing, the rest were either knocked out or pinned down by webbings, scattering all over the area.

“Where the fuck did he go?!” one of them frustratingly shouted, reloading another magazine into his gun and chambered the first round. “I’ll fucking take your head as a homecoming gift for the boss, Bug!”

“Geez! Hardcore much?” Gwen hissed against the throbbing on her side, but the pain started to recede after a little rest as a form of her mutated physiology’s contribution. She struggled a bit but eventually managed to spray a layer of synthetic webbing over the graze; despite the non-severity of it, the risk of infection was there.

“Spider-Sense only warns you, so if you lose focus or the tingles are too overwhelming, you’ll get hit.”

As the throbs died down Gwen rose to her full height, looking down at the indicators reading 12 and 15 percent on each Web-Shooter with a huff. Reloading new ones and stalking along the warehouse, her Spider-Sense increases its intensity the more she gains closer to the edge facing the remaining goons. At least one of them looks this way. The sunflower-blonde concluded with a sigh, looking around for anything she could use to her advantage.

“What the—” the goons yelped in surprise followed by a tight ‘bonk!’ like something’s colliding with him.

“You’re not supposed to be—” the other started but got the same treatment, followed by a thud as he fell to the ground.

Gwen listened and trusted the Spider-Sense, rushing out to be greeted by the sight of Daredevil in his new suit engaging in one-sided hand-to-hand combat with the last goon using only his studded fists as his batons lay near the knocked-out goons. She watched as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen delivered precise strikes that were so impressive like he’s playing Whack-a-mole on a human body. With the final hook that landed squarely against the man’s jaw, the goon spun like a wind chime before falling to the ground.

“Who are you?” the Man Without Fear inquired with skepticism in his voice, his posture stiff but relaxed at the same time, giving off a dangerous sense “And what are you doing here?”

“Um…” Gwen started, her voice cracked a little, then recomposed enough to form a coherent response “I’m friends with Spider-Man.”

“Clearly.” Daredevil sarcastically gestured to all the downed Maggia remnants around them with a scoff “The second question’s still there.”

“I ran into some GRU guys half an hour ago,” Gwen relayed, walking up to the marked crates to check their manifestos “They were ambushed and fleeced by a group of thugs. I followed the general direction and found them here.” She answered, making sure to slightly alter her voice just out of precaution. “These are foods and medical supplies that should reach the people who are taking shelters and seeking aides, not to be stored here and turn a profit later.”

“That’s quick,” Daredevil commented.

“It’s the simplest motivation.” White Spider shrugged.

“…you look inside the warehouse yet?” Daredevil started pointing his thumb at the building.

“That guy,” Gwen gestured at the last goon to be knocked out recently “was the gatekeeper.”

“So, you’re his sidekick?” the Devil of Hell's Kitchen inquired curiously as he led the other Spider-Person into the vacant warehouse, listening to any out-of-place noises that might reach his ears.

“No,” Gwen replied with a scoff “Just because we have similar powers doesn’t mean I have to be around him 24/7.”

“Whatever you say,” Matt smirked and refocused his echolocation to roughly map the interior out. “Any ideas?”

“Maybe it’s just a simple warehouse they’re gonna repurpose into a contraband storage?”

Matt quirked his eyebrow and fished his staff out before tapping at the floor forcefully, producing a hollowed sound from underneath.

“Or there’s some creepy basement underneath it.” Gwen quickly pointed out.

“Stay still,” Daredevil demanded and palmed the floor before tapping his staff in a rhythm to make a sonar model of the trap door in his mind. “…a standard hinged door, open outward.” He concluded, pointing his finger at the corner to inform the superhuman “A single hinge that direction, about two feet long.”

“So, we open from here?” Gwen stands opposite the mentioned component before latching her feet onto the edge of the trap door, shooting two web lines onto the H-beam support over their heads. “Can you tell me how thick it is?”

“…roughly half a foot.”

Gwen nodded and shot another pair of webbing before clutching two in each hand, “around 3,900 pounds…” she muttered and braced her leg muscles before pulling on the webs to use her body as leverage in pulling the latches underneath the concrete out of their places. Daredevil stepped away to give the Spider a space to work with her superhuman capabilities.

The steel slab groans and finally gives under tremendous force, breaking the concrete slot with the bent latches. She detached her feet and took a step back to bend down, using her hands to pry open a gap before opening the basement entrance with a sweep of dust and debris. “Open Sesame!” the spider announced with an excited tone.

They ascended the stairways after Gwen bent one corner of the trapdoor to prevent it from fully sealing the entrance. The two treks until the way opened into a decent cavern lined with medical equipment and an opaque cylinder at the center, connected with various cables and tubes. “Some kinda incubation chamber…” Gwen muttered to herself as her eyes roamed the items and equipment, especially at the central cylinder that ticked off her Spider-Sense.

“For what?” Matt asked, confused at the irregular heartbeats he detected from the cylinder as well as a nervous rhythm produced by the Spider.

“Doctor Frankenstein’s Monster?” Gwen offered with a shrug, then mitigated towards the only terminal inside that she could see, studying the UI a little before clearing the veil off the cylinder to reveal a face she’d never thought she’d be seeing outside of some big arrest news or in court.

“What is that?” Daredevil asked, noticing the accelerated pace of the Spider’s heart rate. “What’s inside?”

“…Doctor Frankenstein’s Monster,” Gwen answered, barely above a whisper, lenses widened as they took in the visual information of the mountain of a man floating inside the cylinder with tubes hooked to his body.

Metallic armor plates have been fastened and screwed into his skin.

His entire lower half was replaced by bionics.

His head has a metallic dome that takes half of the surface area with stitch marks lining the jagged flap of skin.

And that face, there’s no mistaking it for someone else.

“…Joseph Martello,” Gwen whispered the name and Daredevil tensed immediately.

- - -

East Harlem

“…Is that all, Davon?” Alonzo Lincoln asked, calmly, nursing a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

“Yes, sir.” His henchman answered with a shivering voice, avoiding eye contact. He looked up with a glimmer of hope “I’ll hunt them down and—”

Tombstone shut him up with a finger over his mouth, then he took a single swig of the whiskey before getting up from his chair. Approaching the scared man with a shark smile. “Davon, Davon…” he stopped before the bowed henchman and cradled his face with his rough hands, firmly dictating the man to look up “There were twenty men with guns at that warehouse, and a single Spider managed to take all of you down.”

“But sir, it’s like a ghost! We couldn’t even see it before half of us were taken out. If we know—” his protest, or excuse, got shut off because of Tombstone’s hand that covers his mouth, leaving Davon in a state of pure panic; the tales about their boss’s brutality are like ghost stories.

“A ghost, huh?” Tombstone grinned menacingly at the description. “That’s all you have to say? A ghost beat y’all up?”

“Sir…”

“Sh…” Lincoln shushed his pathetic henchman before gathering him into a hug, nesting their heads against one another at the side, patting his back like cooing a child “You must be so afraid of ghosts…so much that…” with quick succession, Tombstone draw a revolver; a silver-plated .357 Smith and Wesson with black ivory grip, cocked the hammer and fired a single bullet against Davon’s head inward into himself.

The gunshot echoed inside the room as bits of brain and broken skull scattered all over the small sphere around them with only him left standing, Davon’s headless and twitching body slumped to the floor.

“…you forgot about what I would do to failures…” Alonzo finished with a grimace at the viscous grime clinging to the side of his face before picking a deformed hollow point off of his unscathed skin.

Two men rushed into the room with their guns drawn but soon holstered them upon seeing that their boss was unharmed.

“Get this shit stain out of my office,” Tombstone commanded casually before relocating himself to the nearby stand where a half-full bottle of Tennessee whiskey was situated. “…Fucking incompetence…” he sighed after another swig, then fished a phone out of his breast pocket, punched in the number “…Kincaid. We have a problem.” Tombstone said calmly with gritted teeth, looking out at the dying sunset over Manhattan’s horizon.

Tombstone grunted, squeezing the tumbler until it cracked and broke under his invincible skin, scoffing a little as he released the crumbled mess onto the floor “We’ll see about that…Ghost.” Alonzo smirked at the corner of his lips, satisfied with the title he came up with to identify the new threat to his reign over New York City.

Chapter Text

Act 1

Chapter 4

Promises

- - -

Doomstadt Castle

Victor stares down at the mystic circles and polygonal shapes that he had just drawn onto the stone floor of his late mother’s chamber which has been kept tidy on regular. With runes carved into the walls and baubles decorating the room, this is the best place he knows of to perform magic.

In fact, in the whole country, he knows of nowhere else that possesses the same intensity of arcane energy as this small quarter of nostalgia and fleeting memories.

Magic…

Something he’d never thought about since Franklin Storm had harshly demonstrated how much he detest it in his scientific-dominant worldview.

He’d been berated for trying to connect with his mother through them…No, not berated.

Beaten.

The phantom pain returns whenever he even thinks of reciting a simple incantation.

Clenching his fists tightly, Victor took a deep breath before concentrating his mind, taking a step into the center of the circle before sitting down with a straight back.

Control the breathing, clearing the mind.

Control the breathing, clearing the mind.

Control the breathing, clearing the mind…

Victor’s consciousness falls into a state of serenity. The energy flow around him manifests in his mind, outlining the room with glowing veins. Behind his eyes, he sees them flow around like snakes interacting with solid objects in their paths, shaping the reality visible only to the eyes of the flesh.

Spreading his arms to the sides, Victor calls upon the energy circulating the room into himself, charging up like a battery. With sufficient energy stored within himself, Victor starts conjuring spells with hand signs and gestures, drawing sparks into thin air, shaping the fabric of reality like a canvas.

House of Morpheus. This will do. He mentally acclaimed and finished the fractal symbol with his glowing emerald sparks.

He sinks deeper and deeper into the realm of the minds, searching for a spark of familiarity that exists within his castle, and zeroes in on that flickering ember. His immaterial hands reached into the crack and grasped its jagged edges firmly before prying it open to allow himself into the mindscape of Susan Storm.

He enters a quaint and sunlit living room, rows of trophies and framed pictures line the mantle of the hearth, decorated to be worthy of a noble’s household. Sir Franklin Storm stares back at him with an unpleasant smile while his hands cradle a little tyke so…distantly as if he’d never wanted it.

His eyes flit through the remaining frames that were retelling a loveless childhood the tyke had lived through until she had grown into the face he can somewhat recognize; the sad eyes of Susan Storm stared blankly at the camera, standing at her father’s side as the man show genuine joy for the first time at another babe cradled in his arms. Mary Storm, forever an elitist in posture, proudly looked at her little family with a cold smile.

Then, he noticed a presence veiled behind an unusual barrier, emanating curiosity and caution. His sharp eyes search the room until they land on a curled-up teenage girl with blonde hair pressing herself into a dark corner, the residue light in the room reflects on her piercing Sapphire orbs so brightly in the shadows. Victor sighed a relief sound, “Hello, Susan.”

- - -

Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters

Jean opened her eyes with a gasp, a smile lightly gracing her lips as she detected a slight spark that she was looking for, but it was like witnessing a riptide in the sea of crashing waves. She called up the terminal and quickly browsed through the recent logs of her telepathic scan hooked with the satellite networks that can also pinpoint the origin of the highlighted mind; that’s how the Professor and Magneto used to seek out potential mutants in the early days of the Institute; herself included.

“46.436396, 20.127001. But, the ping was too weak to be considered as an exact point of origin,” Jean muttered with a frown, letting out a sharp huff of air before cataloging the first spot onto the map with the intent of triangulation.

She quickly returned to meld her mind with the Cerebro’s arrays and spread her consciousness again with a sparking hope.

- - -

Statue of Liberty

Johnny had been hanging around here since Julia practically called him the worst human being in her anger.

Looking down at his hands, shaking, he couldn’t hold back the tears sizzling away from the intense heat produced by his body in a state of heightened emotional turmoil.

“Johnny, what are you doing?” His sister, poor Susan, asked in confusion as he had been dragging her by the wrist for the past half an hour into the midst of midnight, away from the mansion and into the unknown. “Answer me, please?”

“We are leaving, Sue.” He simply answered her without looking back, “And I’m taking you with me.”

“But Mother would—”

“Screw the hag!” he roared quietly against her, stuttering his sister’s steps a little “I refuse to let that woman bid you off like a prized pony.” He stopped as he felt Susan’s struggle lessen a bit, turning his fiery eyes to glare into her with the honesty he always harbored for her, the only one she had ever experienced in the viper’s den that they called home. “I’ve kept my silence and watched her treat you like an unfeeling doll for far too long, Susan.” His voice quivered a little, recalling the years that he had witnessed his sister’s smile fade into the background. “I’m sorry for being a horrible brother, but I promise with the remaining breath within me that I will not let you down ever again.”

The silence stretched before he felt Susan’s cold hand resting on the side of his face and he leaned into it as if seeking warmth. Then, the sight he’d never thought would grace the world again was seared into his eyes by the fading moonlight.

His sister smiled tearily, without a hint of sadness behind them. Her piercing blue eyes glazed over with welling tears, and a tiny chuckle escaped its suppressive prison.

“Bloody hell…” he muttered and absorbed the heat back into himself before laying on his back with a heavy sigh, covering his eyes with his arm.

- - -

On the way back from Philadelphia

Kate looked with worried eyes at her quiet boyfriend next to her seat on Bishop Security’s chopper, whereas the Tennessean decided to stay with the Rhodes and the Starks for a while longer, leaving the two of them alone. To be honest, Michelle Jone’s sudden change in behavior towards him might contributed heavily to the reluctance.

She pressed the button to enter a private channel linked to his earphones before speaking while her hand reached over to cover his fidgeting one “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He smiled forcefully into her eyes and flipped his hand to lace their fingers together. Peter let out a soft chuckle before turning his sight to the scenery beyond the cargo after the glare he received.

“I saw you did it enough times to recognize the signs, Pete,” Kate replied with a sad smile, tightening her hold of his slightly bigger hand, then resting her head on his shoulder, she let out a hum “Wanna talk?”

“…I fucked up with MJ,” Peter finally relented with a slouch on his shoulders, resting his jaw against the top of Hawkeye’s head, breathing in the lavender scent clinging to her skin and hair “It’s a miracle she didn’t kick me in the nuts.”

“Totally believable,” Kate indulged in his attempt to lighten up the intensity around them “…You never told me what happened.” She raises their joined hands and caresses his skin softly “I wasn’t a nosy girlfriend…”

“But…?” he teased a little, whispering against her scalp.

“To leave you brooding like this?” Kate emphasized with an index finger poking playfully at his face “That’s a tea I want a sip of.”

“Ugh! Women!” he playfully retorted with a snort, and he could tell that the raven-haired beauty just rolled her eyes in response. “…We were supposed to go to MIT together, before the Incursion…before May…” he swallowed that lump in his throat, yet the sadness usually accompanied the resurfacing memories of May Parker was doused by the doubts and distrust. “After the Curse, I couldn’t go to Boston on my last twenty dollars…but I should have at least kept my promise. Instead, I ghosted her.”

“Oh…” Kate retreated a bit, but her hand was still laced with his. “That’s…yeah. That was a dick move.”

“Tell me about it…” Peter sighed and closed his eyes, leaning the side of his head against the window, wanting to rest his eyes.

Not five minutes later, his phone rang, and with a groan, Peter answered it without looking at the contact. “Hello?”

“Can you come to the Baxter?”

It took him about five seconds before a name came up from his mental archive “Mister Richards?”

- - -

The Baxter Building

The chopper landed without issues onto the helipad atop the Baxter. Peter dropped with a simple hop from the cargo onto the concrete flooring, squinting his eyes against the whirring storm caused by the rotating blades. “I’ll call you!” he yelled to her, and Kate nodded before informing her pilot to take the VETO vehicle off and head in the direction of the unaffected part of the city. He then jogged towards the private lift that connected to the top four floors separately from the commercial ones of the building and used his biometrics to unlock the sealed slide to reveal a peculiar knock-off version of Wall-E looking up at him from inside the elevator’s shaft. “Oh! Hi?”

“Good Evening, Peter Parker. I am a Humanoid Experimental B-type Integrated Electronics!” the conglomeration of advanced technological marvels greeted him with its metallic-shaft arm stretched to offer a handshake; with a hand made up of light-weight material skeletal structures.

“That’s a…mouthful.” Peter accepted and shook hands with the small android a little before walking into the tube. “Humanoid…H…E…B… How about…HErBIE?” beeps and whirs sounded from the robot and after a moment of contemplation the android produced a ‘ding!’ noise chirpily as it swayed side to side expressing a semblance of joy. Mister Richards is way better at programming than me. He mused as he witnessed the closest to an ideal example of artificial intelligence before him. “You like it?” he inquired about the obvious with a smirk on his lips.

“I am! I am HErBIE!” the robot replied happily, synthesizing an appropriate tone of voice into its speech pattern “Thank you for shortening my name, Peter Parker!”

“You’re welcome, HErBIE.” The superhuman chuckled in response.

The ride took about a minute more before Peter and HErBIE got out of the shaft into an open space where Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were having a quiet conversation with one another at the other end of the floor, with a peculiar figure dressed in a form-fitting suit with prominently-white contrasting with black sections hugging her lean and petite frame (not assuming as the shapely waist and wide hip gave it away) before the side profile of the maskless face greeted him with a familiar smile.

“He’s here,” Gwen announced and waved to her boyfriend, urging him over in her white super suit.

“Aww,” Peter greeted his girlfriend with an apprehensive look and confusion, eyes roaming from head to toe, taking in the design until they locked with a graze at her side, courtesy of a bullet. Gwen at least had the decency to address and treat her wound, unlike his stubborn self, “I thought you’d go with a couple-suits theme.” He pointed out her color scheme playfully and lightly touched the pinched gash. The sunflower-blonde flinched a bit at the prickle of discomfort shooting up from the stapled wound “What happened?” his voice softened and laced with concern, which warmed Gwen’s heart despite the lack of prolonged injuries on her person.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Gwen replied and dragged him along to the other two. “Ran into some of Hammerhead’s men in Hell’s Kitchen. They stole supply crates from a GRU caravan and transported them to this abandoned OSCORP warehouse.” the blonde regale her story. “They’d guns, and I guess I wasn’t nimble enough to dodge all of them,” she gestured to the treated wound “Anyways, Daredevil showed up, and we came across this,” she finished with a motion of her hand towards a still image siphoned from her phone, showing a tubed Hammerhead floating inside what seemed to be an incubation tank.

“Was there an unknown movie adaptation?” Peter joked with furrowed brows, taking in the picture with a grim look. Then he cast his eyes up toward the Smartest Man and the Stone Giant, seeking opinions in addition, “What do you think?” he asked all of them.

“Extensive unethical surgeries. Illegal bionics grafting. Also, wild guess, experimental chemical enhancements.” Reed listed while rubbing his bearded chin, crossing his arms without taking his eyes off the tablet’s screen. “To put simply, it’s a Frankenstein’s Monster.” The Stretchy Man averted his eyes with a defeated smirk at the petite blonde, who pursed her lips in triumph. He returned his curiosity to the other superhuman “Except,” he raised his finger, faltering the smirk on the woman’s face “Technically, Joseph Martello is still alive.”

“Nitpicker,” Gwen addressed, then shifted her demeanor into a more serious one. “I can give us more details if we can get our hands on the lab, but I’m still on Harvard’s scholarship. So, we’ll have to do this by the books.”

“Which is where we ran into some obstacles,” Reed added. “OSCORP has been trying to monopolize the retrieval and research on Hammerhead and the underground lab,” then, the Stretchy Man harbors a smile on his face “I will contact Miss Walters and let her work her magic. Don’t worry.” The last part was addressed to Gwen Stacy.

Peter looked around with a confused expression, then he cleared his throat before speaking, “So, um, since you guys got everything under control.” He gestured toward Reed and Gwen “Is there anything I can do?”

“There is,” This time, it was Ben Grimm who replied. “Since Reed and your girlfriend will be occupied with the ol’ knucklehead. I think you can help me with something more…mechanical.”

“Can I name it?” Peter was awed at the experimental hybrid aerospace craft that was the biggest contract RAC had ever secured from NASA to date.

“Over my dead body.” Ben chuckled in response before tossing the fire-retardant overall to the Wall Crawler “Put that on, kid; company’s protocol.” The stone giant foregoes the protective gear himself, relying on the nature of his altered physiology instead, but doesn’t forget to put on welding goggles.

After some small talk and directions, the two spent almost an hour on their respective tasks before Peter started talking “Hey, Mister Grimm?”

“Wassup?” The Thing replied with his groveling voice, focusing on his welding job.

“What’s it like being an astronaut?” the genuine curiosity in his voice drew a hum from the giant.

“Lots of headache and puking, kid,” Ben playfully replied, finishing the section with a satisfying hum. “Months of intense training and preparation just to be shitting your pants on the lift-off.” he moved to the next spot before rechecking his welding machine’s setup and started working on it. “But nothing beats the first time you look out the port. It makes you think, you know? Just how small and insignificant we are compared to how big the rest of the universe is.” Ben hums a tune in his throat, remembering it to be one of his fellow crew’s favorite songs when he was first stationed on the ISS all those years ago.

“It also made you appreciate life more, ironically,” Ben continued with a chuckle “When even a single loose screw can kill you, you start to cherish every moment to the best of your abilities because it might as well be your last.”

The conversation died down after that, leaving only the sounds of them working to fill the assembly area.

At least, until Spider-Man decided to break the ice again, “…I always wanted to go to space, to see the wonders around us.”

“Didn’t you already?” The Thing referred to the Invasion back in 2018, where Stark later made public the list of heroes who fought alongside him and sacrificed their lives on Titan; one among the names was Spider-Man, who bravely and foolishly went into a fight none asked him to. Ben looked at the young man before him and found it mindbogglingly absurd that a sixteen-year-old Peter Parker willingly put his life on the line to enter an unwinnable fight against an alien Warlord alongside other superheroes. The kid must have either unbridled craziness, or an incomprehensibly noble heart.

In the short period he had known him now? Ben can confidently say that the man possesses both, and that might be one of many reasons Susan Storm was drawn toward the Arachnid.

He’s a true noble at heart, and sensitive people can sense that. In some cases, even attracted to it.

A rare find in this day and age.

“Eh, I guess in a way.” Peter scratched the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle. “But that Space Donut wasn’t actually designed with sightseeing in mind, though. It was like a vertical twin of the Derelict Ship in the original Alien; enclosed, functionality-focused, simple, and bland as hell.” Peter finished with the current compartment and moved to the next. “Titan wasn’t a vacation spot either; it’s a heap of ruins as far as the eyes can see, and the moon that Chinny pulled from orbit to throw at us fucked it beyond salvation.” The retelling was delivered like a schoolyard bully story rather than a frightening experience to Ben’s amusement. “Unlike our beauty here!” Peter enthusiastically gestured both hands towards the unfinished craft before them. “I know it’s just a replica of the Benatar, but look at the utilities! Six crew quarters, 15 square meters of usable space each. Two toilets. Two showers. On-board adaptable laboratory for Mister Richards and Sue to research whatever they might wanna be doing rather than spacewalk. And most essential of all; the kitchen!” Peter spun and smiled brightly at the stone giant “Wouldn’t be a trip without homecooked meals, right? And we already have a badass pilot who’s also a fantastic cook with us!” Peter gestured at the stone giant.

“I know you’d be focusing on the important things.” Ben played along with a hearty laugh.

- - -

Symkarian Rebel Hideout

“Princess.” A voice called from beyond the slab of metal that separated her quarter from the rest of the bunker.

“Yes?” Sylvia answered without lifting her eyes from recon reports and

“Your guest is here.” The person outside informed her, and it took Sable a moment to unlock the door.

Sylvia averted her eyes from the coming figure after closing her report; her sight followed a man in a black fur-collared coat reaching just above his knees, covering a wine-colored turtleneck underneath. The man smiled politically at her before relocating himself toward the single cushioned chair opposing her desk, seating himself with grace.

“You took an interesting location to hole up in, Princess Sablinova.” The man greeted and criticized her at the same time masterfully with his smooth tone and a polite nod of his head.

Sylvia sighed before returning the courtesy, “Baron Zemo. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Reasons of States, of course.” The Sokovian noble replied, opening a bottle of brandy before pouring himself a glass and another for the host. “But first, a toast?”

Sylvia produced a quirked eyebrow at him as a question following his proposal, which the baron chuckled amusedly.

“Come now, you don’t assume I have no knowledge of what transpired around here? Give me some credits.” He took glasses in each hand and got up, cautiously approaching the desk. The silver-haired royalty huffed a little before taking the offering; her bare skin touched the leathery texture of his glove. “Quite a daring plan, planting moles inside Von Doom’s army.” He clink their glasses together before taking a swig after her with a hint of a smile on his face. He sets the glass down on her desk with a firm thud before staring into her cautious eyes with a sharp smirk “Pray tell; how long do you think they will survive?”

“Is there a purpose to your visit rather than casual talks, Baron?” Sylvia groaned and leaned forward, her eyes sharpened and rising frustration enveloping her presence “If not so, I’d like you to stop wasting my time.”

“Patience’s a virtue, Princess. Patience is a virtue.” Helmut retorted casually before taking the empty glasses back to the side table and sitting down on the chair once more. “I am here to remind you about a proposal which I made years ago. Can you recall?” There’s a hint of mischievous dashing across his face.

A grimace graces her uniquely attractive features.

“What says you, if I am to reveal a sleeper cell that I have also planted among Victor Von Doom’s army as well?” That gained a doubtful look from the silver-haired woman. “I’ve always been an advocate of the fact that a rotten foundation is what brings down an empire.”

The air tensed.

The silence is palpable.

A smirk of the baron met with a scowl of a princess.

Until Sylvia breathed out a frustrated sigh of defeat before giving Zemo a nod as an answer to his query.

“Excellent,” Helmut got up from his seat and approached the desk again, this time coming closer to Sylvia than before. He knelt on one knee as his hand produced a silver band intricately crafted into a shape resembling a thorny vine that would encircle someone’s finger beautifully. “Princess Sylvia Sablinova of Symkaria,” Zemo delivered her title like sweet honey “Would you accept this ring as a symbol of unity?” he hovers the band in front of her wavering hand, teasing the tip of her ring finger.

“…I do,” Sylvia firmly stated to the room and felt the cold metal slowly and intentionally gracing her skin until it set firmly at the base of her ring finger like a shackle enclosed around a proud lioness’s neck.

- - -

Mindscape

“Hello, Susan.” Victor’s voice softened and a smile made it to his face.

The girl looked attentively at him with a spark of curiosity behind her eyes “Are you here for Father?” the innocence squeezed at his heart. “I can fetch him for you if you’d like?” A tiny smile graced her lips.

“He is home?” Victor replied, straightening his back and looking around with a surprised gait.

“Of course, silly!” Susan chuckled along with a reply, looking at him as if he’d just told a funny joke “Where else would he be?”

Victor slowly averted his eyes from the framed pictures and back to the blonde before him with furrowed brows. Judging from her age, this should be around the period when Sir Franklin had already started the Thinktank… he observed quietly to himself and decided to say nothing more. Then, after he had seated on the cushioned chair paired with an intricate side table where a porcelain kettle sits upon a small warmer. He took the liberty to serve himself a cup while Susan stood there with her unrelenting smile “…If you’d be so kind, then.”

“A moment!” Susan begins to depart but then stops herself and looks at the man sheepishly “Whom should I say are here to see him?”

Victor chuckled a little and set the half-full cup down neatly, “Victor. Victor von Doom.”

“Just a moment, Mister von Doom!” the young Susan skipped away and disappeared around the corner before Victor’s eyes focused on the framed pictures again.

Odd. He commented internally before taking a leisurely moment before footsteps reached his ears from where the golden-haired teen went, revealing a smiling figure of Sir Franklin Storm led by his hand following his joyous daughter.

“Here he is, Father!” Susan announced with a grin, gesturing her hand in his direction, sparkling eyes looking up adoringly at the intimidating gentleman that is her father. “Victor von Doom.”

“Very good, dear,” Franklin replied with a warm smile before patting Susan’s golden crown affectionately. “Go to your mother in the kitchen and bring us some cookies, would you?”

The teen nodded enthusiastically and was about to turn in the direction as instructed before the sound of a hand being slammed onto a hard surface boomed inside the living confine startled her. “…Mister von Doom?” the question came with a wavering voice.

“This is not real,” Victor announced, more to the owner of this Mindscape than to himself, “It’s a fabricated dream, Susan.”

“What are you saying?” she asked while her father stood silent.

Victor stood up and approached the duo with determined eyes locked onto the teen, “It’s an illusion created inside your brain, Susan. It’s a self-sustaining mechanism that you’d unknowingly deployed upon yourself in a moment of dire stress.” He knelt before her and took both her shoulders under his hands, gripping firmly. “See through it, wake up.” He demanded while averting his eyes towards the smiling Franklin Storm with disdain “He is not your father.”

“Nonsense…” she weakly protested, trying to wiggle out of his hold.

“He is not. You have to know,” he pleaded calmly, thinking back to the man he knew the aristocrat to be “This is not Franklin Storm.”

“He is!” her voice gained volume yet depleted slowly of its conviction.

“He is not.” With a flick of his wrist, Doom summoned the framed pictures he’d spied earlier to leisurely hovering before them, picking the first to show her “Even from the moment you were born, he’d never shown love.”

“That’s not true…” Susan trailed off, confused and desperate, looking up at the smiling man next to them just to see him unresponsive to the accusation.

Or anything in general.

“He’s my father,” Susan says with a quivering voice “He loves me!” she roared, and Victor felt a substantial push slammed into his body; must be her force-field being manifested. “Your lies cannot change that!”

“I’ve only ever spoken the truth, Susan,” Victor replied, regaining his posture “I know your father; he only saw you when he realized you can be of use to him.” He said with sadness in his voice, “But he’d never truly loved you.”

“Lies!” Susan pushed forward and sent the monarch flying into the wall behind him, pinning the king of Latveria flat with her invisible construct. “Stop insulting my father!”

“You know…” Victor grunted, finding it hard to strain against her tremendous exert of power “…better than anyone…” At a disadvantage inside someone else’s mind, he could only pray the woman holds mercy in her subconscious: “…what is true…”

Still, with attuned awareness, Victor noticed a slip in her barrier and quickly fired a bolt of greenish lighting at the smilingly stoic Franklin Storm, shattering the mirrored imitation into shards.

“No! No—” her cry interrupted as the shards surrounded her like a bladed tornado, circling her in its storming prison. Her eyes glazed over, and suddenly, he was forced out of the Mindscape.

Victor gasped at the sudden surge of mystic energy within him due to the abrupt dispelling of the House of Morpheus runes. He grunted against the headache and pushed himself off the circle into a stand, quickly tracing his way toward the secret chamber housing the comatose body of the biochemist.

Quickly getting inside, he disengaged the veil film before the tube and revealed a sight that brought a pained smile onto his face.

Those blue eyes opened widely, frantically looking around with confusion.

Chapter Text

Act 1

Chapter 5

Feline Intervention

- - -

Doomstadt Castle

“How is my daughter?” Mary Storm asked without looking up from her lavish plate filled with excellent fine dining elements worthy of a queen’s treatment.

“I managed to restore her consciousness,” Victor simply replied, deciding to be honest rather than straining his brain trying to be unreasonably coy “She’ll be needing more tests and scans before I can confidently say she’s out of the woods, so to speak.”

“That’s excellent news,” Mary commented and finished chewing before continuing “Now, we must discuss the ceremony.” She averted her eyes to look at him across the long table with a hint of triumphant.

“A ceremony?” Victor stopped cutting into the lamb and glared at the aristocrat opposite him “Now?” he inquired, a hint of disbelief and ridicule graced his eyes.

“What’s better time shall we discuss it?” she challenged him and set her utensils down, joining her hands on the table’s surface before a smirk made its way onto her lips. “Better yet, I think we should be discussing this in Susan’s presence as well.”

This woman… Victor mulled furiously. Not even an ounce of care if she’s all right or not, the only thing that exists in her mind is how useful Susan is. As he observes the obvious truth, his fondness and affection for Susan only grow stronger.

“So that she can voice her preferences for the venue and such. A mother wouldn’t want to impose on the most memorable day of her daughter’s life.” She took a sip of the Symkarian Sangreal with a satisfying hum.

Susan floats alone inside the dimly lit secret chamber, her body now encased inside a more complimenting compression suit provided by Victor von Doom rather than the flimsy ceremonial garb of Atlantis. Her eyes flit alternatingly between the barren room and the giant monitor showcasing the scan results of her body and the parasite inside.

It wraps around my spinal cord and internal organs quite possessively. She observed with furrowed brows, studying the real-time sonar image. The throbbing motion of its body must be connected to that foreign mutagenic agent in my bloodstream. Yet, the transmutative process seems to be in a stalemate with the already mutated cells inside of my body.

The structure of its CNS (central nervous system) is nothing like a nudibranch, though. Almost resembling a vertebrate… a realization hits her, and a hopeful smirk graces her lips, looking intensely at the highlighted conglomeration of neuron activities that made up a glowing spot at the valley between the parasite’s rhinophores, where most organism’s brain would be located. Theoretically, the appendages and sinew-like structures sprouting from its body will be rendered limbless and, hopefully, release their grasp the moment I destroy the brain…but how? And what about the open cavity procedure? Is there an automatic surgical robot in here? She cast her eyes around and landed on the stoic guardians lining the wall surrounding her tube. Each artificial being is in hibernation and bears a façade of something she remembers from her scarce visits to the Doomstadt along with Ben and Reed regarding the Company in their early days as a ceremonial death mask of Victor’s late father, the unfeeling face made of cold and lifeless metal.

I won’t put my trust in them, but if I am to direct them to do a surgery, I must do so during the state of anesthesia when my thoughts would be pretty much suspended in place…unless…no, that’s too much of a risk already without considering the critical shock I would surely be experiencing. She weighed her options with her frantic mind…

‘I think these powers are here for a reason,’ Peter’s encouragement given to her brother entered her mind, and even the vague recollection of his voice gave her a mental boost. She closed her eyes and stretched her hands forward, concentrated against the constant whir of the machines in the chamber. ‘Let it out,’ His words continued to ring inside her mind as Susan felt a rush of power at her fingertips, a wave of goosebumps traveled across the entirety of her skin from the prolonged suppression like usual. Embracing the unexplainable nature of her powers, Susan surged forth the construct in her mind, ‘Visualize it.’ She did so by miniaturizing the construct inward into herself, mindful not to solidify its outer shell in consideration of its intricate properties. She felt a slight jolt of electricity running through herself as the force field contacted her muscles and fat underneath the skin, passing with precision through the chaotic map of her vascular system until the sonar showed a ring of glowing outline caused by the manipulation of electromagnetism that was the base of hers and Jonathan’s powers. ‘Control it.’ Like the man himself ushering her on with his ever-encouraging words, Susan took a deep breath and hardened her invisible construct after spreading its edges around the approximate location where the invasive parasite took residence and cocooning it inside her force field.

She felt a series of sharp, numbing pains shoot around inside her chest cavity as the force field slotted itself, by her command and precision, to the atomic gap between her internals and the parasite, cutting it off from its source of sustenance. Gritting her teeth with a muffled grunt, Susan strengthened the integrity of the construct and started compressing it through sheer will, crushing the parasite slowly into a drawn-out painful demise.

‘The will to do it is the most important thing,’ Peter’s voice ringing inside her head and Susan followed it like a gospel, crushing the parasite into an ever-smaller sphere until finally, the sonar showed no sign of the foreign invasive organism as its existence has been compressed so tightly into a solid ball no bigger than a pellet. With a reinforced will, Susan reshaped the tiny but condensed force field coating the pellet and elongating it into a sharp needle before forcing it out of her chest cavity with a pained grunt, using all of her mental capability to avoid damaging any internal organs in the way. The needle finally made its way out through the valley between her modest breast, and a trail of crimson followed it out of the millimeter-wide hole she’d made within herself, the condensed material made up of a super-compressed organism sinks hastily to the bottom with a satisfying clink.

In the throes of relief and triumph, Susan accidentally gasped and inhaled the sodium chloride solution inside the tube, choking herself from the rapid detoxication made possible by her domineering radiated cells neutralizing the mutagenic agent at a rapid rate.

Alarms started going off from the monitoring system reading her vitals.

“What is that?” Mary inquired curiously about the frantic alarm while Victor quickly got up from his seat and sprinted away, leaving the confused Dame at the table.

It took him nearly a minute to navigate the pathways into the secret chamber and he opened the shutter door with haste to find Susan clawing at her throat inside the tube, looking at him with panic and fear, eyes reddened and bulging.

With glances, Victor cast his eyes to the monitors and found an odd sight showing the disappearance of the parasite within her. With quick thinking, he commanded the computer to siphon the solutions out of the tube in rapid succession and Susan weakly clawed up the shear surface to access the increasing space steadily being filled with fresh air. A loud gasp in desperation for air reached his ears and Victor quickly forewent the procedure to forcing the swing sealing lid open with telekinesis, prying it off its hinges, and flung the slab of metal frame encasing a pane of thick reinforced composite material into the wall behind him with a loud crash. The fair-haired bio-chemist stumbled out through the opening while heaving in the air as if going to hyperventilate. He zoomed in and lessened her fall with his waiting arms and let her soak back pressing into his chest as he held her firm.

Tearing the intricate cloak off his back, he draped the weighted blanket around her to counter the chill air inside this sanitized chamber as Susan instinctively clutched it as if her life depended on it.

“You are a miracle, Susan.” Victor sincerely stated and a smile graced his lips as he looked at the pale face of the woman who was submerged inside the water for longer than any human ever did regaining its lovely shade of life.

The woman gets into a coughing fit and blinking her eyes irritatingly at the burning sensation. “I—”

“Save your strength,” he cooed and parted the damp hair off her face, revealing the façade haunting his dreams.

Just then, the Dame stumbled upon the scene with an audible gasp “Susan!”

When she saw her mother coming into focus, a hint of rage dashed across her face before she recomposed herself and averted her eyes to look at Victor, pleading, “Get me…out of here.” The underlying meaning of her plea registered within him, and the monarch nodded.

He gathered the covered and wrapped body of hers into his arms, light as a feather, and proceeded to stride past Mary Storm out into the corridor leading to the main building.

“Victor?! Where are you taking my daughter?!” the Dame started taking a step after them, but a Doom bot appeared from its station in the wall to block her path. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I suggest you wait in the main hall until Sire deemed it appropriate to address you, Lady Storm.” The synthetic voice rang out, demandingly, as its eyes glowed dimly in the shadows. The Dame tutted and had to comply as the bot led her into a different part of the Doomstadt.

Susan, in her moment of weakness, decided to purchase support around the back of the monarch’s neck while the side of her head nestled tiredly in the crook of his neck as he carried her with steady steps into one of the guest chambers lining the long building. He kept on until they reached the Selene suite at the end of the hallway as two Doom bots stood guard and promptly opened the doors for their master and his esteemed guest.

Victor trekked the short distance until he reached the bedside and set Susan down before pushing the cover away, allowing the woman to weakly get herself under the warmth. He softly smoothed the stray hair that plastered to her forehead away with a solemn smile, “Take some rest.”

“I’m sorry…about the cloak…” the golden-haired woman whispered tiredly, gripping the cloak as if to unwrap it before his hand stopped her from doing so.

“Nonsense, Susan. I have servants and attendants that can take care of it once you feel better,” Victor smiled at her and felt a weight lifted off his heart at the softened expression gracing her face. His palm rested against her pale face as his thumb caressed her pronounced cheekbone due to the onset stage of malnourishment caused by the parasite’s distress response. “Rest. I will have the maidens bring you a change of clothes and breakfast tomorrow,” he said with finality and smiled softly again at the little nod of her head and a sigh leaving her nose.

“Thank you…Victor…” she slurred out before drifting off to the realm of dreams, breathing in the dry air.

He sits with her until late into the early morning before retreating himself to his chamber.

- - -

Manhattan

A ring of her phone roused Janice up from her sleep, eliciting a frustrated groan from within before she angrily accept the call with a slurry huff “Who the fuck called me?!”

“…Janice…” the tone of voice and the special way her name was pronounced chase the cloud of sleep off her head as the Beetle sits up straight like being electrocuted with a cattle rod.

“Daddy?!” she blurted out, almost choking “I’m sorry for—”

“I’ll let it slide, this time,” Tombstone coldly informed her without a noticeable change in his tone, “I need you in Manhattan,”

And that was all she needed to be here at the end of Willis Avenue Bridge before turning right into Harlem. It took her almost as long as the drive from New Rochelle through the cramped road lined with cars and tents of the people who got hit by the aftermath of the flood the hardest. Global Relief Union, or GRU’s personnel and vehicles filled the walkways on both sides with volunteers and authorities working together in tandem.

Finally, she reached the unappealing warehouse on foot after parking her car four city blocks away out of precaution, the guards at the front quickly recognized her and promptly signaled the inner doorman with a specific pattern of knocking. Janice walked past them inside the warehouse, silently greeting the doorman with a nod, and proceeded into the inner hallway leading through an open space where a dozen of her father’s henchmen lounging about playing board games or sharing a drink between themselves. At the end of the hallway exists a T-intersection with the wooden door bared of any label at the center opposite her while the duo of rooms on either side have scribbles describing the purposes of their existence. A rappel of knocks drumming onto the hard surface of the left-side door revealed a grunt of acknowledgment from inside, and Janice promptly twisted the bar knob to get inside.

“You took your time,” Alonzo Lincoln greeted her coldly, his eyes never left the pile of documents on the desk as he leaned forward a little to study them behind a pair of glasses. “Any stalkers?”

“None,” Janice smilingly replied, then took a seat on the couch to the right, crossing her legs while leaning back into the cushioned foam. “How are you doing, Daddy?” as she breathed in the air, a lingering mingled scent of iron and gunpowder irritates her nostrils.

“Could be better,” Tombstone replied, finishing up the current plan he’d reviewed multiple times prior and stashed the optics into his vest’s breast pocket. “Kincaid told me you ran into some…obstacles?”

“Kate Bishop was with the Princess; I couldn’t risk involving an Avenger’s death.” The assassin with wild and untamed curls of black locks reasoned as best she could, sincerely and precisely as preferred.

“Hmm…I understand.” Alonzo got up from his chair and approached the couch, taking a rectangular bottle of single malt from the iced bucket as his daughter promptly took two tumblers in her hands, offering them to him while Tombstone twisted the cap open. “However, I think I have another job that requires your…talents more than that here.”

“Oh?” she sits up straighter, feeling the weight of the couch shift as her father sits near, their glasses nursed in their hands as his sharp and demanding eyes bore into hers.

“Simple job, an extermination of pests, if you will.” He explained vaguely, enjoying the veiled nature of the conversation “There’s a warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen that belonged to me until recently a little Spider decided to crawl in and mess with some decorations.” He then took out a folded paper and handed it to her.

Janice confusedly took the parchment and carefully unfolded it to reveal a jagged sketch of a masked vigilante, similar to Spider-Man but not at the same time. “Another one?” her father nodded at the question with a grunt.

“It might as well be the same one that botched your job in Boston,” He retorted with a clear disappointment. He looked at her, expectantly, without a hint of affection she sought after.

“…I’ll get it done, Daddy,” Janice announced with a confident smirk, hindered a little by the lack of encouragement.

- - -

Peter detached from his web in a downward arch before latching his sticky feet and palms on the side of a borrowed GRU truck Nathan Goldstein allowed them to be used as a transport for the incubating tank housing the altered body of Hammerhead towards the Baxter Building. A thud from the other side of the truck averted his attention and he met with Gwen in her white spider suit taking a similar landing as his with albeit less grace and confidence in her powers. “Oops!” she exclaimed against the rushing wind, clawing her fingers in an attempt to purchase a more secure grip on the metal hull.

“Don’t panic!” he yelled encouragingly “Focus!”

Gwen, under her white mask and magenta-rimmed eyes, nodded frantically and eventually relaxed her hands. “Okay!” her unsure tone elicited a snicker out of him.

“Relax, Gw—” he cleared his throat with a startle, “Spider-Woman. The adhesion force is more than enough to keep us in place.”

“You sure?” she inquired loudly, mindful to compensate for the fleeting stream of wind that might deafen their voices.

“I once stuck to a spacecraft reaching escape velocity from Earth’s gravitational pull,” he retorted with a little smug, “So, yeah. I’m pretty sure.” He decided to demonstrate further by sticking to the truck with only one hand, effectively doing a handstand. “See?”

With that visual affirmation, Gwen gradually relaxed her muscles until the strain was almost gone and she was still firmly attached to the metal hull. “…okay.” She let out the breath unknowingly being held and looked up to see her boyfriend repositioned to sit casually on the flat plane of the cargo, offering her a hand. Gwen took it with a lighter mind and felt herself being pulled towards the vigilante in red and black, playing a vivid contrast to her color scheme.

“Better?” he asked coyly, the outline of a smirk shown under his red mask.

“I guess,” Gwen replied with less nervousness, sitting down beside him and looking ahead in the direction that the truck was heading. “You do this often?”

“Escort mission?”

She only nods.

“Only when there were enhanced criminals involved, but not sitting on top of the truck like this.” He craned his neck and cast his eyes to the surrounding buildings, pointing for her like a tour guide “Usually I’ll just swing along at a distance, so if something happens, I can jump right in.”

“Now I see why at first the police weren’t your fan,” Gwen smirked as she addressed him. “You trail alongside them as they are doing their jobs, jumping in when bad situations happen. Not only do they have to do more paperwork because of your involvement, but the public image also went to hell when they had to rely on your interventions to get the job done.”

“That’s…yeah, I guess.” He slumped playfully and Gwen chuckled heartily before nudging his shoulder with the side of her head as she rocked from side to side. “But it worked out in the end, right?”

“After Damage Control offered to cover collateral damages, sure.”

“Yeah, Rhodey came in clutch with that one,” Peter replied with a sigh. He felt a hand firmly planted on his back, caressing a soothing pattern into his skin through the Adaptive Fabric, dawning a sense of appreciation inside his chest.

“So, what’s the plan, Spider-Man?” Gwen started after a short recollection of his solemn mind.

“Usually if there would be an ambush, the attack should be from the front for non-sensitive equipment or cash,” he reasoned with his experiences with a concerning tone “But, assuming whoever there will be knows of the type of transport inside the cargo, they might be from around the back, trying to stop the truck without totaling it or risk damaging the merchandise.” As he elaborated, he looked at the receding scenery behind the moving truck. “You get the front; I’ll watch our flank.”

Knowing better than to challenge him regarding something she’s more inexperienced in, Gwen complied as she crawled towards the helm, trying to spread the unnatural spatial awareness that is the most abstract aspect in her arsenal for any hidden threat in the scenery. Soon, a caravan of engine whirs reached her ears along with a stir of Spider-Sense and Gwen snapped her eyes toward the general direction with disbelief and confusion “Now?!”

“Shoulda guessed…” Peter grunted annoyingly at the incoming flock of OSCORP’s weaponized drones, dubbed lovingly as the Sparrows regarding the avian species’ preferable palates including spiders. He quickly activated the comms inside his mask “Mind if I play with the birds a bit?”

“Be my guest!” with her confirmation, Spider-Man jumped into the air before reeling himself into the leading drone with a powerful slingshot kick that destroyed it in one strike. Gwen watched on as Peter nimbly maneuvered himself around the drones with a couple of webbing shots and superhuman agility, taking each down with decisive strikes until the truck turned a corner and only the sound of a small explosion could be heard with her enhanced ears.

 The ride would be relatively uneventful for her since the collaboration between OSCORP and Thunderbolts doesn’t expand from their mutual goal of apprehending Spider-Man…if not for the sharp scream of Spider-Sense coming from her right and instinct dictated the Spider-Woman to get out of the hyper-velocity sharpened rod of steel zooming in to where she was mere instance ago, embedding into the composite material with its force. Gwen quickly whipped her face toward the direction before Spider-Sense blared again and forced her to get out of the trajectory with instinctive contortion, yet lacking more refinement one of the rods managed to graze her outer right thigh, drawing blood. Then she saw it.

The familiar glowing angular eyes and the violet exoskeleton gained speed and lessened the distance between them. Two outstretched arms aiming at her in general with gauntlets.

The Beetle had, somehow, followed her and Aña from Boston.

With a lapse in her focus, Gwen almost didn’t evade another railgun-propelled rod aimed at her center of mass. Spider-Woman pirouetted out of the trajectory with a quick snap of her wrist aiming the front of a Web-Shooter locked onto the speeding Beetle before completing the circuit with her middle and ring finger firmly pressed onto the trigger, sending a stream of synthetic webbing as retaliation; feeling a slight taut sensation, Gwen quickly grabbed the webbing within her fist and pulled with superhuman strength to deviate the Beetle’s trajectory to the side.

Janice tutted annoyingly as she was about to clash with the metallic hull of the truck before managing to tuck herself into a ball in the hope of letting the paddings and composite materials take the bulk of the impact, and also trigger the automated folding mechanism of her wings. A loud thud sounded from where she was slammed into before another ‘thwip’ came and a taut line of webbing connected to her jetpack before a pull was established and she was yanked away again.

Gwen, capitalizing on her superior strength, uses the weight of the Beetle at the end of her webbing like a kettlebell and swings the exo-suited assassin around, gaining more momentum with each revolution before releasing her grip to propelling the Beetle into the building at the side. “Spider-Man?! The convoy’s being ambushed!” Gwen yelled into the comms, trusting Edith to deliver her message to the more experienced vigilante who was occupied with the relentless drones.

“A little bit occupied here, Spider-Woman—Oh, I know you!” Peter’s voice grunted through the comms, and a huff made its way through before he added “Keep them off the convoy as long as you can!”

Gwen huffed in annoyance after her eyes fell upon the speeding form of the Beetle tailing the truck again, she quickly rushed to the front and knocked on the driver’s window before it rolled down “Can we go any faster?”

“Not possible, ma’am; the load was too heavy.” The driver answered with his eyes never once left the road.

“Damnit…” Gwen cursed under her breath and maneuvered her body out of the fired bolt onto the roof, lowering herself into a crawl to minimize the available targets. “Guess I’m doing this!” Gwen pounced into the air with a planned corkscrew to follow the warnings of the Spider-Sense, evading the valley of bolts that can shatter bones as one already did to Officer Morello of BPD. Following her intuitions, Spider-Woman aimed and shot a line of webbing at a streetlight nearby to create a pivot before delivering a heavy double kick into the rushing Beetle’s helmet, missing the center by an inch but connected firmly, nonetheless. Using the face of her enemy as a springboard, Gwen pushed with both feet and introduced a gap between them before latching another web line on the truck, reeling herself in to stay with it.

Spider-Sense blared again as Gwen dodged to her left before a tackle came from behind, and blindsided her unnatural awareness using a feint attack. The Beetle quickly established their superior techniques in hand-to-hand combat as several punches, kicks, and elbows connected to the superhuman’s ribs and sides kneading her like a dough. Gwen gritted through the substantial amount of pain ramming into her body from the lapse of Spider-Sense caused by the surprise, but eventually, she could somewhat follow the attacks and deliver a series of decent counters utilizing her superior brute force against the mechanical enhancements of the assassin. Both women exchanged blows and counters for a moment before the Beetle decided to sneak in some close-range projectile with her twin railguns. Several spiked bolts shot high and low, grazing and missing the superhuman in their struggle on top of the moving truck.

Gwen strained herself almost to the limit trying to incorporate every Judo and Jiu-Jitsu move she’d ever learned under NYPD and Yuri Watanabe’s tutelages to try and keep up with the trained fighter opposite her, culminating injuries, albeit shallow and inconsequential, over time. The only advantage she had was the Spider-Sense, but that requires more attunement on her part to be as fluid as her boyfriend. Utilizing her stronger and more resilient muscles, Gwen decided to change her tactic to tank whatever she could while looking for a slip-up or opening that the Beetle might be unknowingly presenting during their scuffle.

A fist came from her left, so she instinctively evaded to the right just to be clocked squarely in her jaw by a blindsiding uppercut following the feint jab. Losing her balance, Gwen got tackled and flipped with an impressive Taekwondo throw into the metallic roof of the cargo, knocking the wind off her lungs. Spider-Sense screams deafeningly in her brain, and she manages to keep her face from being caved with a piercing bolt that goes through the hull into the space inside of the cargo. Spider-Woman wraps her legs around the Beetle and pulls her closer before shooting a spray of webbing into the assassin’s face with her free hand gripping the protruding antenna firmly, and delivers a strong push kick dead at the assassin’s stomach, knocking them back and down on one knee.

While the Beetle clawed at the webbing to tear them off, Gwen rushed in with superhuman dexterity made possible by the level of Adrenaline circulating her system to flip overhead and land behind the assassin in one smooth transition before delivering a spinning roundhouse kick at the side of their head, sending the Beetle stumbled to the edge of the cargo’s roof.

Before falling over, Janice desperately sprung claws out of her gloves to find a purchase on the cargo, pulling herself up again before shooting another bolt at the superhuman who managed to piss her off thoroughly. She continued to rain all of her remaining bolts at the woman before gaining a closer distance than before, capitalizing on the apparent fact that the white spider was lacking in martial arts. She jabbed to distract the superhuman before discreetly activating the taser surface on the knuckles and diving in to focus her barrage on boxing and MMA.

Jabs. Hooks. Straights. Feints and Uppercuts.

Everything had been squeezed out and some were successful at connecting with the inexperienced vigilante, a moment later it seemed like the assassin might be gaining an upper hand as the Spider started getting slower in responses and subconsciously making a retreat rather than pushing for a win.

Cakewalk. Janice thought with a sadistic grin as she intensified her assaults, mindful of the last pair of bolts chambered inside of her gauntlets.

Gwen gritted her teeth through the relentless attacks she has been on the receiving end of, guarding more than trying to retaliate out of instinctual uncertainty in her ability to do so. She was never a fighter of any pedigree; she only knew the basics but never participated in a death match against someone who was, clearly, determined to kill her like this. The strikes felt more painful as the number of hits culminated until she stumbled over a ridge of the cargo onto her back.

“Pathetic.” The Beetle jeered with disdain and smug before aiming the barrel of railguns at the superhuman’s chest, mindful not to miss the killing shot. A sense of danger tugged at the back of her mind, but Janice was a little bit too late to address it as a powerful kick connected to the side of her head, almost dislocating her vertebrae as she plummeted off the roof and crashed into the wall of a building there.

In her slowed perception, Gwen saw Peter land in a crouch where the Beetle previously was with his lenses narrowed dangerously into thin slots, betraying his mood. He shot himself off the truck with twin web lines and slammed his knees into the Beetle so hard it dented and cratered the wall behind the assassin. He webbed the slumping exoskeleton-wearing criminal up inside it with the rest of his web fluid before depositing a small device on top of it, then he shot a web with the other Web-Shooter that still housed some synthetic webbing to land gracefully on the roof. He rushed toward her as she was getting herself up, her heart racing inside her chest, rattling around like a caged animal.

“Gwen?!” he gathered her face between his hands, glaring worriedly to gauge if she was responsive or not “Gwen, talk to me.”

“That was too close,” She uttered with a raspy voice, groaning a little from the bruises on her ribcage courtesy of the murderous beatdown she’d received recently. “Ouch…that motherfucker was not playing around.”

Peter let out a sigh of relief before resting his forehead against hers, breathing in the air surrounding Spider-Woman with a slight quivering. “You alright?”

“I think my ribs are cracked,” She hissed between winces of pain as she tried to move, “Ooh…that was a nasty beatdown.”

“Stay still, okay?” Peter touched the side of his mask, “Edith.” He simply commanded and the AI who is well-attuned to his commands did a bio-scan immediately. “Several hairlines on the fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, and eleventh ribs.”

“Great…” she cooed at the sharp jolt of pain shooting up with the bumps on the road that the truck went over.

“They will heal in about an hour, don’t worry.” He encouraged her as best he could.

“How in the hell did you do it every night?” Gwen meekly winced, opting to just lie down on her back.

“Mostly I just had to,” he replied with a little chuckle, then his Spider-Sense went off again as the whirs of another flock of Sparrow drones turned a corner, pursuing him “If only I get a nickel for every weaponized drone that I’m taking out…” he frustratingly grunted and looking down at his female counterpart with apologetic eyes “You’re gonna be okay, Babe?”

“Yeah…I’m fine. Just gotta…lie down a bit.” She gave him a thumbs up and Peter leaped in the air again and started attacking the led drone with a devastating uppercut that tore his fist straight through the composite hull, destroying the inner electronics.

Spider-Man reeled himself into the second drone using his remaining webbing as a slingshot before kicking the hunk of composite parts away to the side, hurling it into the streetlight pole at an accelerated speed, folding the drone in half. He palmed his hand on the third to execute a scissor kick to the fourth and the fifth before crushing the hull under his overwhelming grip force. Throwing the third into the sixth drone like he was Captain America, Peter used the chance to pop out the emptied cartridge from his Web-Shooter but had to contort his way out of the ramming seventh drone, taking a nosedive down towards the streets before abruptly disrupting own momentum with a shot of a web line to arched to the side into a pendulum, sending himself higher over the flock where he twisted and sprouted the Symbiote tentacles armed with jagged sword-like tips and pierced the remaining drones with deadly precision without covering his iconic suit in a layer of abyssal shadow.

Peter latched one tentacle to the truck before it made a turn and pulled himself into the moving vehicle with his prehensile appendage. “How long do you reckon until they send another flock for me?” the tentacles receded as he walked toward Gwen without addressing the Eldrich-like alien organism living in symbiosis within his body.

“With your luck? Five minutes top.” Gwen extended her hand for him to pull her up, and his hand naturally snaked to rest at the valley of her waist, firmly keeping her against his side. “I think I’ll take you up on that deep-tissue massage, Pete…” Gwen said with a groan, feeling like a battered Piñata,

“Fu…ck!” Janice groaned painfully at the ache all over her body just from a single strike lovingly given to her by the male Spider, if not for the paddings and armors provided by the Beetle suit, she might have already been dead or permanently paralyzed by now. “Yep! That’s broken ribs…shit!” She tried to move but found the webbing too resilient and elastic to pull apart with her limited movement. Looking to the side, she saw the Arachnid swing high into the air above the flock of drones before spurting four black tentacles out of his back, lancing the remaining drones like shish kebabs. “What the fuck…” she exclaimed in bewilderment. Seeing the truck turning a corner, Janice wrestled with difficulty to activate the comms around the collar of her chest armor. Not long after that, a black van pulled up and quickly cut her down from the trap before speeding away from the incoming sirens of NYPD.

- - -

Doomstadt

Susan fluttered open her eyes to the ray of sunshine filtering in from the window casting its warmth at her face. Looking around the room she found a couple of handmaidens, surely sent by Victor, standing quietly at the doors awaiting her awakening. The sore and aches dissipated overnight, thankfully, and the comfortable warmth of Victor’s cloak had deepened her sleep.

Feeling well-rested, Susan sat up and stretched against the chill air circulating the suite before beckoning the maidens to do what they’d been instructed. They helped her get out of the compression suit and in a warm bath, then she’d requested a little trim of her long hair until her golden mane rested just shy of her elbow. Next was the breakfast, and Victor had never been stingy with the quality ingredients and exquisite tastes as she filled her growling stomach with some of the menus she'd never even seen or tasted before despite the mind-boggling extravagance practiced by her mother in her childhood. Being led to a partitioned alcove, Susan decided to let the maidens pamper and stuffed her inside an intricately white flowery dress with a blue bodice gilded with golden threads into a symbol of the Von Doom family crest.

She’s much preferring a simple shirt paired with a pair of trousers, but alas decided to indulge the monarch’s theatric tendency a little as he’d awoken her from an eternal slumber.

A collection of jewelry crafted from silver and gemstones has been offered for her to choose from, ranging from earrings to headdresses. Susan sighed and picked a necklace depicting a star weaved inside a basket of silvery vines, mainly to blend the gauze covering the exit wound of the condensed parasite on her chest away from passing glances.

As she seated and let one of the two dress her hair, she proposed a question “Can I borrow your mobile?” the handmaiden showed a little surprise on her face but then smiled apologetically into the mirror.

“Apologies, Milady, but we do not have them.”

“Oh. That’s unfortunate.” The biochemist grumbled to herself; she wanted to contact Peter or Gwen as soon as possible. She felt a light tug on her hair when the maiden was finishing up the last braid and decoration, then they retreated with a low bow towards the doors.

“Susan!” a voice calling her name came from the side, and it took every ounce of will inside herself not to flinch at it.

I’ll give you hell for this, brother… she mulled and reluctantly turned towards the source to be met with the woman she had thought she would never have to lay eyes upon ever again. “…Mother.” The title said with such a distance that the Dame approaching her shows displeasure on her aged face.

“Come now, Susan,” Mary Storm exclaimed, keeping a smile on while closing the distance between herself and her estranged and runaway daughter “Is that a way to show your gratitude?”

“I believe I’ve shown you plenty in my youth,” Susan dismissively answered and was about to continue on her path toward the garden when her mother’s hand wrapped tightly around her arm, keeping her in place. “…Let go of me.”

“It pains me to see how low your brother has dragged you to his level.” Mary Storm hissed with seething venom, tightening her grip. “My precious little girl…” she attempted to coerce her daughter similar to when she was just an impressionable girl again, but found an invisible barrier preventing her hand from touching the side of Susan’s face, and a moment later her fingers were forced to release its grip by a growing force field expanding out of her daughter.

“Don’t you dare,” One of the four mutated demanded calmly while she was maintaining the force field with an iron will “Jonathan is a better family than you’ll ever be. Do not insult him!” Susan glared at her mother with a never-before-seen ferocity and a hint of hatred. She caged her mother inside a prison of invisible construct before taking off towards her destination, ignoring the muffled shouts and calls from behind with red-rimmed eyes and a threat of brimming tears.

She reached a room where one of the maidens informed her about, supposedly Victor’s study. Susan dared a rap of knocks before waiting for any acknowledgment inside, and soon the doors swung open by two robots gripping the handles, revealing the monarch standing over his desk and fashioning a look of deep focus, unaware of her presence as of now. She coughed audibly to gain his attention, and the frown on his face dissipated masterfully after their eyes were met.

“I see you’ve been up and about,” Victor greeted her warmly and motioned her to the side table as he rounded the desk to approach the same area. “You look quite stunning, Susan.” He complimented her breathlessly before taking her hand and holding it until she was seated comfortably on the cushioned couch, then he took a seat next to her, separated by a foot of gap between them.

“Thank you,” Susan replied with a tired smile, taking a deep breath before addressing the monarch “I would like to say that I am grateful, and if there’s anything I can do to repay the debt—”

“Nonsense,” Doom cut her off with a lighthearted chuckle, waving his hand dismissively. “Although, you might be inclined to know that I am aiming to celebrate your recovery in the next three nights with a gala, if you don’t mind, of course.”

“It’s a bit much,” she teased, “but I would like to attend.” Susan smiled at him and saw joy painted across his face.

“Excellent.” He commented, then a mischievous grin tugged at his lips, “and you can repay me by honoring me with a dance when the time comes. What do you say?”

She’s not stupid.

She knows that although she’d made it clear to the public at large that she’s in a relationship with a Peter Parker already, Victor von Doom will always try to pursue her when he sees fit.

For him, the answer to come might sound like a spark of hope.

But to her, it is just a friendly gesture aiming to show the gratitude she felt for his dedication to saving her from an unknown fate.

“Of course, Victor. I’d be glad to,” she said with a reserved smile, hoping he would not read too much into things.

A hopeless endeavor, one might say.

“…Does her presence here irritate you in any way?” he inquired, implying to the Dame. “If so, merely say the word, and I will have her escorted to the Little Palace at once.”

Susan huffed a stunted chortle, looking at the monarch with a hint of sadness “…I see you’ve had the chance to get to know her better?”

“Unfortunately,” he replied with a smirk. “So?”

“…It’s…fine, she can stay.” the golden-haired woman replied with a resigned hum “She might throw a tantrum otherwise.”

“As you wish.” Victor nodded, sitting in silence and enjoying the side profile of Susan as she cast her blue eyes outward to the distance scenery outside the confined of the Doomstadt and his study.

Her round and expressive eyes, a pair of sapphire stars hidden partially underneath a veil of thick and long eyelashes, harboring deep-seated sadness and pain.

Her nose was the embodiment of perfection, shapely and sporting just the right amount of curvature to it.

Her lips, full and inviting, are often painted with caring and warm smiles that can brighten even the darkest corner of the world, beckoning those who gaze upon them to seek the sweetness within. A sweetness that he craved and longed for, almost to the point that self-control felt like a restraint crafted by the gods themselves to keep his hunger caged.

The teasers and glimpses she had bestowed upon his soul back when a certain Peter Parker was not in the picture left him with a burning desire that he’d never thought possible.

He must have her.

But Susan was not a mere tramp he could take without a care in the world.

She deserves utmost respect, and he will not violate the trust established between them throughout years of acquaintanceship. It will be too harrowing a price to pay for a gratifying satisfaction.

He must earn her love.

In any way he can.

“Victor…” Susan started, slowly turning to look at him, and Victor felt like an eternity was lost in those sapphire blues. “I was wondering if you could somehow let me borrow a mobile?” the question came with a plea.

“A phone shall be brought to your quarter shortly. Please wait.” A Doom bot informed her and closed the doors, leaving Susan inside the suite alone.

She quickly shed the bodice with a sigh of relief before taking a seat near the window, overlooking the bustling town outside of the castle’s walls. Thin smoke rises from the chimneys of numerous households, carrying the smell of life through the air. She was captivated in a trance, so much so that she didn’t register a rustling sound as someone clad in black dropped softly from the ceiling.

It was not until the faceless figure leaned on the windowsill near her that Susan noticed the stranger with a startle, almost hurling a barrier at the person out of instinct if not for that sultry giggle at the expense of her embarrassment.

“Wish I had a camera with me,” the woman under a faceless mask lightheartedly commented before hopping to sit on the windowsill, dangling her legs leisurely. “Enjoying yourself?”

“…Black Cat?” Susan inquired, confused and curious as to why the infamous thief, who seemed to be at the receiving end of her boyfriend’s bias when it comes to criminals in his vigilantism, is here of all places “What are you doing here?”

“Will you believe me if I say that I was boring?” Felicia retorted with a smirk and pulled the mask off her face, revealing the tight bundle of her platinum hair and a bared face devoid of any makeup to be smeared by the compressing fabric “Breaking into and trolling around inside von Doom’s house sounds like fun, and some of the decorations look mighty profitable, too.” Felicia then averted her eyes at the stunned blonde before showing a mischievous smirk “What about you? Already fed up with Spider?”

Susan furrowed her brows irritatingly as her eyes narrowed dangerously, glaring dagger at the teasing feline before her. “Wouldn’t you like that to be true, Miss Hardy?”

Felicia only chuckled amusedly at the animosity shown, waving the defensive bite off before, “I’m not judging! I mean, the guy’s a king!” she gestured towards their surroundings, pointing and motioning for the lavish decorations lining the suite’s interior. “Somebody can live like a queen here!”

“That somebody would not be me!” Susan exclaimed heatedly, furiously, and defensively. “I do not seek wealth and monetary satisfaction, Miss Hardy. That might be an unearthly concept for you, I fear.”

Wow. She’s pissed. Felicia mused internally with a surviving smirk. What is it with you, Spider? The platinum-blonde proposed a question, partly to herself. “Whatever you say,” she raised a conceding gesture before looking out the window as well, confusing the blonde further. It took Felicia another minute before she continued speaking, “You trust Doom to keep his words?”

“What?”

“About giving you a phone?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Really?” Felicia looked at Susan with ridicule “You are telling me that someone like Victor von Doom would waste a substantial amount of his treasury on you out of the kindness of his heart?”

“He might have a different idea about the extent of our companionship, true, but it does not mean I am compelled to reciprocate the feelings he harbored for me.” Susan firmly retorted chin jutted high and eyes sharp with determination, allowing the Black Cat to challenge her again.

Daring anyone to doubt her devotion. Daring anyone to question the resilience of her love.

Eventually, Felicia saw the unbreakable resolve behind those eyes and relented, signaling a defeat with a little chuckle. “Alright, alright. Message received.” Then, Black Cat produced a device from behind like a magician's sleight of hand, presenting it to the confused woman, “A satphone, just in case.”

Susan took the device in hand with unsure movement, curious about the Cat Burglar’s intention. She carefully inspected the phone with occasional glances at the platinum-blonde until the question could not be tamed anymore: “Why?”

“For information,” Felicia blatantly replied, playing a grin upon her exquisitely beautiful face “I want to know what Doom is planning. Some kind of gathering? Where his generals and ranking officers might be attending?” Black Cat followed with a set of leading questions, urging the biochemist to play along.

“Why the sudden interest?” Susan hesitantly countered, looking at the woman before her with apprehensive eyes.

“Family matters.” Felicia allowed that much.

“…So, it’s true,” Susan said after a moment of recollection, “You are related to the Symkarian royalty.” She thought back to the revelation she’d read from her boyfriend’s text almost a lifetime ago.

“What’s left of it.” Felicia shrugged. “The only Sablinova left is my half-sister, and we need every advantage we can get our hands on to keep my mother’s home out of Doom’s grasp.”

The silence stretched for a while, with Susan weighing the satellite phone in her hand and Felicia sitting in anticipation, waiting for an answer.

“…He’s planning a gala.” Finally, Susan breathed out the information and averted her eyes to the town below again.

“What’s the occasion?” Felicia, intrigued and elated, shifted a little in her seat to lean closer. Then, she saw the other girlfriend of Spider-Man turning to mirror her stare, harboring a tiny smirk on her lips with a quirked eyebrow. “…Oh! Damn! Talk about a grand gesture!” the comment finally managed to elicit a short laugh out of the blonde. “When?”

“In three days.”

“Hmm…” Felicia hums, contemplating, “It might be a bit tight, but I think I can manage.” Then, Black Cat flipped over the windowsill to crouch against the outer wall, looking at the blonde with a smirk again “Just a little favor; If you call him, tell him to land in Caransebeș. I’ll take care of the rest.” Without giving the blonde time to stop her, Felicia leaped backward into an arch before shooting her hook to the nearby rampart and swinging away.

Susan watched as the lithe frame of Black Cat disappeared from her sight and contemplated the choices that she had made earlier with a sigh. Quickly, after a minute of recollection, she punched in the number and waited.

Ring…

Ring…

Ring…

Her heart started racing, thinking Peter might not pick it up due to the unfamiliar contact.

Her breathing hitched at the slight click sound, signifying an acceptance. Then… “Hello?”

She took in a deep, ragged breath, feeling a grip on her heart.

“Um, hello? Who’s this?” His voice sounded out groggily with a hint of playfulness, “Look, I already have an insurance plan. I don’t have a car to get its warranty extended or something. So, if you agree to try and come up with something new, just call me again in an hour, okay?”

“…Peter?” She whispered with a quivering voice. The other end goes silent almost immediately after a sharp inhalation of air that can be heard; she can almost feel the disbelief laced within it. “Peter? It’s me, darling.” Susan squeezed out with a single joyful tear running down the side of her face.

“…Sue?” her name rolling off of his tongue was the final push, and Susan started sobbing quietly in tremendous relief. “Sue?! Susan?!” there’s a commotion on his end, almost like he tripped over something.

“Yes. I’m here,” she replied, tearily with a smile, biting her lower lip to stifle a whimper “I’m here, Peter.”

“Where?! Wait, more importantly, are you okay?” he grunted and sounded like he was untangling himself from whatever it was he knocked over “Are you hurt? Is the parasite still inside? Are there any concerning physical changes? Is—”

“Slow down, love,” Susan couldn’t help but giggle along his ramble, deeply touched. “I’m fine, and the parasite has been dealt with.” She took a deep and refreshing breath, feeling a renewed hope entering her chest. “As to where I am in Latveria.”

“Latveria? Isn’t that...”

“Do not get any funny ideas,” she reprimanded him playfully, sensing the direction his racing mind might take him. “Victor helped me regain my consciousness, and I am his guest, but nothing more.” She firmly addressed, demanding.

“Alright.” His answer came a bit hesitant, but Susan let it slide, “I’m gonna book a flight to Latveria now,”

“Wait,” she stopped him and heard his hum of curiosity before speaking, “Caransebeș.”

“Caran—what now?”

“Caransebeș; it’s an airport. Felicia Hardy asked me to inform you that you should head there instead.” A mumble came, likely him talking to his AI assistant.

“That’s almost three hours away from Latveria.” He commented with utter confusion.

“She sounds…adamant for you to follow her instructions,” Susan added, her brows drawn.

“Huh. Maybe she just wanna get some dates in?”

“Peter Park—” she lowly hissed, practically hearing a playful smirk gracing his lips.

“I know, I know. Just kidding around.” He playfully replied, his voice also lightened as if a mountain had been lifted “Imma look for a flight to Romania as soon as possible.”

“You go do that, Mister Parker.” She giggled softly, teasing him with the tone she adopted earlier when he interned with the company. “…I miss you.” She quietly prayed into the sunlit breeze.

“You have no idea…” he whispered to the intimacy between them. “I love you, Sue.”

“Me too,” she smiled warmly into an empty spot, imagining him standing there.

“You loved yourself too?” he joked, finding the stress washed off his mind little by little.

“I will hang up right now.” She retorted, grinning joyously.

“Please don’t,” he cackles and pleas, “Can you hold a little? I’m gonna get Gwen.”

“You are in Boston?”

“Nope. The Baxter.” He replied simply before another round of shuffle and ruffle entered the connection.

“What is she doing at the Baxter—” Susan grunted as a screeching scream entered her ear, and the phone got fried in her hand. Soon, an explosion sounded from nearby, followed by commotions and shouts, orders being barked, and confusion filled the air.

Susan quickly throws the satphone out the window as the latches on the doors creak, just before the monarch marches inside, looking alarmed and concerned, casting his worried eyes her way. “Susan, are you harmed in any way?” he approached her quickly, his eyes roaming her for any injuries.

“No, Victor. I’m fine,” she replied, brows furrowed curiously “What happened?”

“An attack. From the Symkarian rebels.” He said breathlessly, checking her for injuries all over again for the second time. “They took out the communication center.”

“Oh, that’s horrible!” Susan gasped, concerns lining her features “Anybody get hurt?”

“Possibly the soldiers stationed there and the technicians,” Victor growled, a flow of rage coursing through his entire being. His fists clenched tightly, shaking from wrath. “I apologize for barging in like this, but I have to make sure you are safe.”

“I understand, Victor,” Susan replied with an understanding nod. Nevertheless, Doom apologized again for failing to provide her with a functioning phone, as every communication device in Latveria was now rendered useless. In her mind, she thought back to the seed of mistrust planted carefully by Felicia Hardy regarding the lengths that Victor von Doom might go to prevent her from contacting the outside world.

Chapter Text

Act 1

Chapter 6

Unheard Confession

- - -

The Baxter Building

“Sue?” he asked through the statics that greeted him from the other side of the line. “Sue?! Can you hear me?”

Just then, Gwen, out of her super suit, walked towards him with a frown on her forehead after catching the name of her de facto girlfriend, whom they had been trying to discover the whereabouts of for the past few days. “Sue? She called?!” she jogged to his side and noticed the alarming look in his eyes, glaring into the phone like he was trying to interrogate it for information. “Peter?!”

“She—what the hell happened on her end?” he grumbled and ignored the petite woman for a moment “Edith?”

“Possible causes: bad reception. Dead battery. EMP attack.” The AI summarized for him.

“Peter? Did she call?” Gwen closed the distance and took his arms in her hands, shaking him lightly.

“Yeah, she did, but…I was about to get you for a little catch-up, then the line went to hell.” He shrugged with a grimace, displeased with the situation.

“Anything I should be worried about?”

“No. No. She said the parasite was removed, and she’s almost fully recovered now.”

“Oh, thank God!” the blonde exclaimed with relief, then she noticed the lingering look of suspicious adorning her boyfriend’s face “Pete, what’s up?” Gwen cupped his face between her palms and craned his neck so that their faces mirrored “Come on, tell me.”

“She told me who got her out of the country, or more accurately, who her mother contacted for the transport.” He replied, eyes narrowed.

Gwen urged him quietly with her eyes, caressing his cheekbones with her thumbs.

“…Victor?” Reed Richards exclaimed in a bit of disbelief.

“That’s what she said,” Peter confirmed, looking at Ben, Johnny, Julia, and Gwen.

“I should’ve known…” Johnny grumbled under his breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Of course, out of all the people she would call upon, it has to be her number 1 option!”

“Number 1 option?” Gwen asked, confused.

“Of people whom my mother wanted Susan to marry,” Johnny chuckled grimly, “Stretchy here was on the list too, but I assume the promise of royalty smelled more wonderfully to a bloodhound like her.” The Human Torch motioned his thumb to the CEO before commenting with a scoff.

Gwen was taken aback by the animosity the sandy-blonde mutated man directed towards his mother.

“Hmm…” Reed started calmly, shushing everyone up. After a moment of anticipation and uncertainty, the man spoke, “I can try to contact him, testing the water a bit.” He glanced at the hotheaded brother of Susan as well as the Arachnid-themed superhero boyfriend of hers. “Do not do something rash, please. Latveria might be a small country, but its influence is nothing to be scoffed at.” Then, the Smartest Man Alive excused himself to do just that, leaving the rest of the gathered there.

“…Can you fly us there?” Peter promptly inquired at Ben Grimm, devoid of any playfulness often associated with him.

“You are asking If I can fly you over a dictatorship country whose airspace is the most notorious NFZ so you can rescue your girlfriend?” the stone giant quirked his brows.

Peter shrugged his shoulders with pursed lips.

Ben took half a minute before grinning and letting out a hearty laugh, patting the superhuman firmly on his back. “Of course I can! If you have an unregistered plane that can accommodate my weight, that is.” The Thing informed with a smirk.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?” Julia firmly put a stop to the conversation, pointedly looking alternatively between Ben and Peter. “You might be one of the shareholders, Ben, but if Doom saw one of our employees, even yourself, trespassing into his country without documented permission? We all might as well start looking for a new job.”

“So, it’s a free game for me, right? Ya know?” Peter mimicked his most recognizable gesture.

“You are the bigger problem, Mister Parker,” the amount of displeasure in her tone made him cringe “Whether you show your face there with or without your mask, Doom’s gonna leverage the shit outta that.” Julia fully turned toward him, getting closer by a few steps, “If Peter Parker got caught? The best-case scenario would be you getting fired immediately. Worst case? You’ll be imprisoned and become a persona non grata to your own country; not even the CIA will be able to broker a deal to get you out of Doom’s dungeon.” She elaborated with the utmost seriousness, making sure to keep eye contact with the vigilante. Seeing little shift in his resolve, Julias sighed with a shake of her head, “If Spider-Man got caught, and he discovered your civilian identity? This company’s fucked. Thaddeus Ross will swoop down like a starving vulture upon us for harboring a fugitive vigilante and aiding your illegal activities. I don’t know if Jennifer Walters will be able to win that kind of case against the UN, but I won’t let you risk the livelihood of our employees on this.”

“…we are talking about Susan here,” Johnny added, disbelief painted on his face.

“Victor is not holding a grudge or have a personal vendetta against her, Johnny; he’s in love with Sue.” She countered with a stern voice, “She’s in no grave danger; in fact, I’d go as far as saying she’s the safest under Doom’s protection.”

Johnny wanted to protest again, but he couldn’t come up with anything.

Before anyone could add anything else to the debate, Peter casually unclasped his ID and handed it to Julia, rendering the woman confused. “Consider it my resignation,” and the vigilante strode to the elevator without another word.

Gwen quickly jogged after him.

Leaving the others behind to deal with the fallout.

“What are you gonna do now?” Gwen questions as they are riding down the shaft alone. “There’s a house you haven’t completed the construction of yet.”

“A house is nothing without people that make it a home,” Peter said, looking down at her with soft eyes, “and I still have you for a sugar mama.” He chuckled as Gwen swatted at his shoulder playfully.

“This is just you going to rescue your other sugar mama, right?”

“More or less; she’s loaded.”

“But seriously, Pete,” Gwen shifted her tone from playful banter into a calm one, “Richard Aerospace was your dream job,”

“But it’s not the most important thing in my life.” He replied simply and to the point.

The sincerity and devotion within compel the sunflower-blonde to kiss him so deeply that time almost seems to stop.

As they exited the elevator at ground level, a streak of fire arched from above outside of the building, and soon, the flame dissipated, revealing the figure of Johnny Storm waiting for them. Peter and Gwen quickly strode to the revolving door and got out before coming face-to-face with the Human Torch.

A moment of anticipated silence befell them, stretching out like an eternity.

“That was one hell of a move, Parker,” Johnny commented stoically.

“If she sends you here to convince me—”

“My sister meant that much to you?” The Human Torch interrupted with a calm and demanding voice.

“Wha—of course she is!” Peter was confused for a bit before passionately replied, determination and sincerity emanating from within. “I love her, Johnny!”

- - -

Bishop Security

“…you wanted me to what?” Kate, in her unfamiliar business getup, asked from behind her desk at her visitors, two of whom she had become intimately familiar with recently and the third party whom she knew as her trainee in the Avengers.

“Giving us an unregistered plane,” Peter regaled with his shit-eating grin.

“Your boyfriend and I are going skydiving over Latveria, a team bonding activity.” The Human Torch added.

“…Are you hearing this?” the demoted Avenger looked at the sunflower-blonde with disbelief.

“For the record, it was his idea.” Gwen pointed at their boyfriend.

“I run a security company! I don’t have a smuggler’s plane on my speed dial!” Kate retorted with an incredulous look.

Peter only glared at her with a look that said, ‘Really?’.

It took about a minute before Kate sighed in defeat, quickly jotting something onto a post-it note before handing it to her boyfriend, whom she shares with two other women, one of whom might be the catalyst to this strange request. “It doesn’t come with a pilot.”

“You are the best!” Peter leaned in and planted a kiss on her forehead, causing the archer’s cheeks to burn slightly.

- - -

JFK International Airport

“Can I go to a confession booth before we take off?” Peter jabbed after Johnny managed to get the engine started.

“I’ve got this, Parker!” Johnny exclaimed with a nervous laugh before rechecking everything for the third time.

“Please tell me you flew a plane before.” Peter pleaded, tightly gripping the bar above his head that it almost gave under his superhuman strength.

“Of course I do! For about five minutes each trip.”

“…We are gonna die.” He nodded to himself frantically, squeezing his eyes.

“Oh, shut up!”

- - -

The Baxter Building

“That’s quite extreme,” Reed commented, looking at the ID of Peter Parker sitting on top of his desk with Julia and Ben on the chairs opposite his seat. “What do you say?”

“It’s his choice,” Julia replied, shrugging her shoulders with a sigh.

“This way, the company won’t be facing any repercussions from Victor,” Ben added, crossing his arms with a tiny smirk “Kid’s got some balls.”

Reed let out a deep sigh, picking up the ID card with the vigilante’s candid, inspecting it with attentive eyes. “It’d be a shame to lose his talents…” then, he set the card down before looking up at the pair before him “I will consider it, but let's keep the position open, just in case.” The Smartest Man Alive got up from his seat and picked a lab gown from the rack, draping it over his shoulders before addressing the AI. “Nathaniel, please set up a level 3 clearance for Gwen Stacy and redirect her to Susan’s biochemical lab. We have work to do on Joseph Martello.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Come on, folks; that incubation tube won’t be opened by itself.” He ushered his senior engineer and mechanical engineer with a nod of his head, signaling them to a private elevator inside his office.

“Thank you for the opportunity, Mister Richards,” Gwen quickly asserted after the trio walked out of the elevator as she was hanging around outside of the lab, waiting for them.

“It would be wasteful not to utilize your expertise on this, Miss Stacy,” Reed replied with a polite smile, gesturing for her to take the lead inside. “Benjamin and Julia will take care of the mechanism; your role is to be our biology specialist and my assistant. Understood?”

She nodded.

“Very well,” he clapped his gloved hands together, casting his eyes to all of the occupants “We will not be leaving this room until lunch.”

- - -

Symkarian Rebels Hideout

Felicia quirked her brows in curiosity after walking on an absentminded Sylvia leaning over the railing overlooking the lower level of the bunker, yet the item that caught her eyes was the silver band clasped firmly around the base of her ring finger on the left. She doesn’t think her half-sister wears any jewelry.

Curiosity (might) killed the cat, as they say.

“What a piece, sis!” Felicia sauntered to the silver-haired woman’s side, sporting a wide grin, nudging her in the shoulder “Who’s the lucky guy? Or girl? Whichever you prefer?” Black Cat jutted her chin toward the intricate ring.

Sylvia only gave her a long and hard sigh before staring out onto the small army fighting for their motherland again.

After a moment of uncertainty, Sylvia spoke, “…Baron Helmut Zemo.”

The name felt like a baseball bat swatting at the side of her head; of course, the baron’s name was a well-known one, especially after he had single-handedly almost destroyed the Avengers from the inside all those years ago. “Zemo?”

“Yes,” Sylvia breathed out again in uncharacteristic defeat, “He paid me a visit earlier and later proposed.”

“And you say yes?” Felicia was confused, to put it simply.

“We have been fighting with Doom for years before you joined, Felicia,” Sylvia started. "Symkarians are fierce warriors, but we can only do so much before loss becomes the only constant.” She plays with the silver band again without even a hint of joy on her face. “Sokovia might be a recovering country, but their soldiers under Helmut’s leadership are what we need to shift the scale.”

Ah, a political marriage! Felicia thought, her smirk dissipated slowly upon realizing the underlying turmoil plaguing her maternal half-sister. Sensing the discomfort, she chanced a hand softly on the small of Sylvia’s back, which the ruthless leader of the rebels accepted without a protest.

“It’s the most logical choice; my displeasure means very little against the future of our people.”

Felicia leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder, and her arm relocated to gather the silver-haired woman into a side embrace. They stayed like that for a spell of serenity.

“What about the ceremony?”

“Still waiting for him to arrange the location,”

“Hmm…” Felicia hums as an idea pops into her mind, prompting a smirk “I think I have the perfect venue for you.” Black Cat finished with a mischievous glint in her eyes before leaning in to whisper her findings and proposal.

- - -

Time Skip, of course; we don’t want some 15-hour flight filler, right?

- - -

Caransebeș Airport, Romania

“What are we doing here three hours away from von Doom’s castle?” Johnny asked, leaning against the smuggler's plane, munching on a protein bar while his sister’s lover purchased a platform on the craft to act as a lookout.

“Aside from avoiding his AA guns?” Peter retorted with a scoff, “A friend told me they will be our guide through this beautiful European landscape.”

“A friend? I thought your acquaintances were confined inside Manhattan and consisted mostly of criminals or costumed crazies.”

“Ha!”

They waited another half an hour before a lone car entered Peter’s enhanced sight. “Someone’s coming.”

“Friendly?”

“…Maybe.” The Arachnid replied after listening to Spider-Sense for a moment. Out of caution, he discreetly deployed his Web-Shooters and loaded them in preparation for whomever it was behind the wheel. It wasn’t impossible for things to go sideways at the last minute.

Not more than five minutes, the car graciously pulled over to their position, presenting the driver’s side with a tinted window. The door swung open, and a woman got out of the blue box, gathered her hair into a beanie, and her red or dark lipstick was nowhere to be seen. Peter almost didn’t recognize her if not for those sharp emerald eyes. “It’s good to see you again,” He approached and gathered her into a hug, which Black Cat reluctantly reciprocated with a dramatic huff. “How’s the vacation?”

“Deadly.” Felicia retorted before retreating from the embrace but still keeping one arm around his waist, enjoying the inhuman warmth of his superhuman body. Then she averted her eyes to the other man at the side who curiously and intriguingly stared at her “It’s rude to stare.” She teased with a hidden smirk.

“Oh! My apologies!” Johnny nervously chuckled, smoothing his hair and clearing his throat before offering his hand for her to shake “Jonathan Storm.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Felicia shook it politely before flashing him a smile, enjoying the tint of rose on his face. Then she averted her eyes back to Peter “How’s the trip?”

“Wouldn’t say no to a bed right now.”

It took them not more than ten minutes before Felicia pulled up to the parking lot of a hotel. Ever the prepper, Felicia had already booked their rooms for the night: one for Johnny Storm and one for herself and the vigilante.

Peter protested at first but relented after Felicia glared at him.

The suspicious comment from his lover’s brother wasn’t helping either.

“Ah! Finally!” Felicia announced dramatically as she entered the rented quarter without any of her bags, as the vigilante had gallantly offered to hold them for her. She plopped onto the bed with a moan “Holy shit, I miss fluffy beds!” she practically melted into the mattress and pillows while Peter set their belongings up on the table. “Can you put a small bag in the bathroom? Thank!”

“I’m the one who took a fifteen-hour flight here, Felicia.” Peter protested playfully with a chuckle and did, as asked, settle hers alongside his on the sink. Next, he checks the water and the boiler before returning to the main room. “It’s warm, in case you wanna take a shower.”

“Why? Curious?” she teased from her position, smirking while lying on her stomach with a mischievous glint in her captivating green eyes. Her platinum hair fell like a veil around her shapely face.

Peter just laughed it off while taking his bag and carrying it to a sizable spot on the floor, picking at Felicia’s curiosity.

“What are you doing?” she sat up on her knees, looking at him with a tilt in her head.

“Making my bed,” the vigilante answered without looking back, calculating where to put his makeshift pillow on. A cough from behind prompted him to turn around, and he saw Felicia looking at him with an incredulous look on her face, motioning for the queen-sized bed she sat upon.

“There’s plenty of room?”

“Oh, I didn’t want to, um,” he started, gesturing his hands around awkwardly “Intrude?”

“Come on now, Spider. We’ve already slept in the same bed.”

“I was drunk back then.” He pointed out.

“And I survived the night, so what’s the hangup?” Felicia retorted with a chuckle. Then she pats the mattress firmly “It’s cold, especially if you sleep on the floor.” her voice softened, not seductively but just genuine. “As you said, you already sit in the same position for fifteen hours.”

“…Are you sure?”

“What? You are nervous around me?”

“I just—” He started a beginning of a rant.

“I know you are, Peter,” Felicia softly called him by his name with a tired smile, finishing the sentence for him without wording it out, patting the mattress a little. “I trust you.”

It took him about a minute before giving out a sigh and approached the bed, sitting stiffly before slowly falling onto his back, letting the fluffy pond consume his body.

“See? Better than the floor.” She teased him by poking at his nose a little with a small giggle.

He turns and locks eyes with her, then, for the first time since they’ve known each other…

He notices how beautifully Felicia’s eyes shine in dim lights.

“So,” Felicia started, jolting him out of a trance with a tiny smirk at the corner of her lips, “What’s the plan?”

“Maybe I can just walk in through the front?”

Felicia scoffed despite knowing he’d just joking around “That might work with your other suit,” then she got up from the bed and approached the built-in closet before producing an ironed and bagged suit for him with a quirk of her eyebrow.

“We’re having dinner tonight?” Peter joked, sitting up.

“I don’t eat after 7,” the platinum-blonde retorted lightheartedly and retraced her steps to the bed, extending the item forward as an offering. “Mind trying it on? Although I think I’ve got your measurements right.”

“Ya know, if you wanna see me shirtless, all you’ve gotta do was just ask nicely.” He took the offering and headed into the shower before coming out with the suit jacket perfectly fitted to his torso. He inspected it with an appreciation purse of his lips, “Are we filming a new 007 movie?” he teased with a horrendous English accent despite spending time around Susan and her brother. Felicia sauntered towards him with a deliberate sway to her hips before stopping just a few inches to adjust the tuxedo. He couldn’t help but recall their first meeting, where she lovingly kneed him in the crotch.

“We,” she emphasized, humming slightly with satisfaction at the adjusted tuxedo before looking up slightly through the slight difference in their heights, “are going to attend a gala celebrating your possessive girlfriend’s stay at the Doomstadt.”

“He’s doing a gala for that? Man, how the hell would I ever top that?” he grumbled playfully, breathing in the faint aroma on her skin.

“I don’t know, sometimes that’s a bit too much for a girl, you know?”

“Educated guess?” he teased, enjoying her small laugh.

“Female intuition.” She retorted.

“…I can hear you hyperventilating against the door, Johnny.” Peter averted his attention from her searching gaze to address the curious Human Torch with a distractive chuckle, “A little bit of privacy, please?”

There’s a cough coming in from the outside before a whistle sounded, fading away towards the stairway.

“Cute; making sure his sister doesn’t get cheated on,” Felicia commented with a smirk before spinning around and heading for the shower, carelessly undressing herself, prompting the vigilante to yelp in embarrassment and turn away.

“…What’s that?” Peter asked curiously as he was drying his tussled and damp hair while walking out of the shower, a towel clung to his lower body, his body covered in steaming mist.

Black Cat looked up from the plan on her lap at him with a teasing whistle and a wiggle of her brows, eliciting a snort out of the Spider. “Doomstadt’s layout plan.”

“How…”

“Let’s just say giving your girlfriend a phone was a little detour.” She cut in before he could finish.

Peter plopped onto the bed after he got a shirt and a pair of shorts on, leaning against the headboard slightly behind Felicia’s sitting form, and looked over her shoulder at the plan. “That’s a big castle.”

“His family’s a bunch of show-offs,” Felicia commented with a grimace, “Being a dictator had many perks; one of them is that you can crunch any project you want without being scoffed at or reprimanded for it.” She read through everything again before concluding and pointing her finger at a vacant spot near the East side of the castle, “There’s an adjacent here that didn’t get accounted for in the revision.”

“Female intuition again?”

“Our spy reported a visual dissimilarity,” The platinum-blonde replied, knocking her knuckles on his forehead without looking for the snippy remark. “She’s practically described the whole damn castle in a 3D model for us.”

“Wow! Sounds like someone got very good eyes.” He commented, curious at how immediately tensed Felicia became.

“…or photographic memory.” She whispered, folding the plan and taking a deep breath before turning her torso around to look at his confused face. “Sylvia made a deal with SHIELD for supplies and weapons, in exchange, Fury wanted a proxy to keep a tap on the whole operation for him.” His confusion lingers, waiting for a clarification. “…he sent The Chameleon.”

The Arachnid went rigid, lost for words, and confused. He took the deepest and longest breath he’d ever done in his life and let the information sink in before opening his mouth wordlessly, he closed it and opened it again with a shuddering breath “…Teresa’s with the Symkarian rebels?” Felicia nodded without a verbal reply. “Son of a…” he stopped himself before spewing the word, taking another deep breath, trying to calm himself down; in hindsight, he might feel a slight stirring deep from within in response to the intensity of his anger. “…Is she alright?”

“Sort of,” Felicia replied, shrugging her shoulders. “She can take care of herself, that’s for sure…but mentally? Too many ghosts, you know?”

“…yeah…” he responded and went into another round of contemplating silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Felicia sighed deeply, looking away from him, focusing her eyes on the moon outside the window. “…because she’s useful to our cause.” A gasp from him made her cringe with a grimace. The silence stretched between them, signifying a forming chasm.

“So, what? You just wanna air it out to justify your actions?” the cold in his question cuts into her. “She’s my sister, Felicia,” the warmth often associated with her name spoken by him was nowhere near. “I deserve to know!”

“It’s not—”

“Anything else you kept from me?”

“No…”

“Was keeping me in the dark somehow an entertainment for you?!”

“No!” she exclaimed quickly, turning to face him with turmoil. “No…” she reached for him, but the angry Arachnid got out of bed before she could.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” he explodes with a primal roar, the shockwave of his bark reverberating around the suite. His fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white, drawing blood that dropped onto the tiled floor. “Was it Fisk’s idea or yours to get close to me? To get inside my head? To make me care about you and let my guard down so he can take me out?”

“Peter…”

“I bet you guys got quite a show, huh?” he ranted on, ignoring her plea. “Watching Spider-Man and the Black Cat?! It’s fucking hilarious, right?!”

“Peter,” she got up from the bed and took a step toward him, but he took one away. “Will you just listen?”

“Oh, you came up with a script already?” he retorted with a bite. “Where’s the camera? I bet Willy gave you one to film this, right?” he gestured around the room, a hurt and menacing grin plastered on his face. “Ya know, Willy? If you wanna see me so much, I’ll personally pay you a visit when I’m in town!” he spoke to the air like a madman.

Felicia, despite the dread shooting up her spine, decided to close the distance between them and took a stand in front of him. She knows he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

He was not a violent person, just angry.

She cupped his face between her palms firmly and forced him to lock his wild and teary eyes with hers, ignoring the pain from his grip on her wrists as he tried to pry her off. “Peter, please, listen to me.” She pleaded sincerely, and his struggle somewhat lessened. “Teresa hasn’t killed anyone; I’m making sure of it.” She couldn’t help but rectify that assumption, “This?” she motioned in the space between them with a sad smile “It’s real.” She tightened her hold while Peter lessened his. “I didn’t get close to you for some nefarious plan,” she said with a weight that had been lifted off her chest, finally admitting something. “Please. Believe me.” She whispered with a wishful heart, caressing his cheekbones softly with her thumbs.

“…I—” he started, chokingly, eyes hooding “I don’t even know if I can trust my childhood memories anymore…” he said with a threat of a broken heart, finally letting the suppressed frustration out and surrender to his instinct, resting his forehead in the crook of her neck. “My dad’s a HYDRA…my little sister…” he sobbed quietly “Were Ben and May even my family?” his question rings hollow in the suite. “Don’t…” he pleaded, then completely unable to form anything more, so he just gathered the lithe frame of the platinum-blonde firmer against himself, using her presence as an anchor for the time being.

Felicia wished she could provide him with the answer that she did not have. Instead, she finds herself patting the back of his neck and the middle of his back soothingly, silently cooing him in her arms. She couldn’t find a word, so she just planted a chaste kiss on the side of his head, wanting to calm him down. “I won’t…” she offered with a grimace, conflicted.

A rumble of knocks sounded from the door, followed by a muffled call from Johnny Storm. “Everything all right in there? What is happening?”

“It’s nothing,” Felicia answered the concerned call.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes!” she hardened her tone a little.

“I’ll…be across the hall.” The Human Torch relented, retreating into his room.

“…come to bed,” Felicia softly whispered against his ears after the tremors stopped and her nightgown practically soaked from the shoulder down to her midriff; it’s a saving grace she packed only blacks. “You needed rest.” She added and let out a mirthless smile at his nod. Then, as easy as leading a lost puppy, Felicia dragged the exhausted superhuman with her back to the mattress, climbing onto the springy surface before he did so. “I’ll get the light, okay?” she got out to the other side after he gave her a nod and quickly darkened the suite with only a lance of moonlight parting through the veil of darkness. As she settled back down onto the mattress, she gathered the broken vigilante into her arms again and placed his head on her chest, hugging him into her body with soft pats on his head, lulling him to slumber.

Soon, a tune she remembers vaguely to be the one her father would often sing for her at night plays from her lips,

Le ciel bleu au-dessus de nous pourrait bien s'effondrer

(The blue sky over us may well collapse)

Et la terre pourrait bien s'effondrer

(And the Earth may well collapse)

Je me fiche que…tu m'aimes

(I don't care if you…love me)

Je me fiche du monde

(I don't care about the world)

Tant que l'amour inondera mes matins

(As long as love floods my mornings)

Tant que mon corps tremble sous tes mains

(As long as my body trembles under your hands)

Je me fiche des problems

(I don't care about problems)

She hums along as his breathing becomes steady. She paused for a while, unsure of the underlying implications even if her audience of one might not even understand all of it.

Eventually, Felicia found the courage to push forward, embracing it with her beating heart.

Dans le bleu de l'immensité

(In the blue of all immensity)

Dans le ciel, plus de problèmes

(In the sky, no more problems)

Mon…amour, crois-tu que…nous nous aimons ?

(My…love, do you think…we love each other?)

Dieu réunit…ceux qui s'aiment

(God brings together…those who love each other)

She whispered the last note with a quenching in her heart, her hold on the man in her arms tightened, yet it seemed to not be a bother at all as he had already fallen asleep with a slightly less frown on his forehead. “Bonne nuit, mon Araignée…” she whispered into his scalp, nesting her face there as she closed her eyes, unsure of what tomorrow would bring.

Chapter Text

Act 2

Chapter 1

Sin City

- - -

Manhattan

“…are we gonna be doing a staring contest for the rest of this afternoon?” Kate started, leaning against the backrest of her executive chair, narrowing her eyes inquisitively at the Russian sitting openly opposite her on a smaller chair with her arms crossed. “I have a meeting.”

“Just call Duquesne and let him cover for you like usual,” Yelena retorted, narrowing her eyes as if she were reading Kate like a book; an open one at that, despite the training she hoped would at least stick around more than the following hour of the lesson.

“I’m not doing shifts at the Compound anymore, Lena; I don’t have a reason not to show up.”

“You know so little about business, Katherine.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’d rather run on rooftops and play superheroes with your boyfriend back then.”

“I’m a fast learner!”

“We both know I have to explicitly reiterate every lesson to you three times over for you to get it.” Yelena countered calmly, stood up, and leaned forward with her hand resting firmly on the desk’s surface. “You are dismissing me.”

“Now you’re reaching—”

“Are you worried that I’m here to ask about your new boyfriend’s location?”

“I don’t have a new boyfriend!”

“Everybody saw you and Parker kissed during the tsunami, Katherine; it’s to be expected that you’d already be jumping back into his arms days after that.” Yelena hides her grimace masterfully, “Look. I am here today because…”

“Are we going to have to wait any longer?” John Walker, the U.S. Agent, moaned after a yawn as he lounged against the backrest of a couch. His replicated shield sits cozily against the armrest.

“You have somewhere else to be, Johnny Boy?” Yelena teased from her position, leaning against a southern pillar of this grandeur office, crossing her arms and observing the rest of the roster that Thaddeus Ross has been running around collecting like trading cards after the Flood.

Next to Mister American to his right was the Quiet One, the one who faced Spider-Man and managed to hurt him on their first bout, quite impressive. The silvery hood partially obscuring the ballistic mask shaped and formed in resemblance to a skull almost made her call them a Knock-off Punisher if not for the exact model and configuration of a foldable recurve bow that they used in combat and the techniques shown so far that gave her a dead-ringer on Natasha. Taskmaster, that’s the callsign she read about them on the dossiers Ross provided for her as his liaison for the Thunderbolts. No personal records or anything was there; they were like ghosts, and it bothered her.

She knew one of these ghosts that even the Red Room and most intelligence agencies around the world didn’t know anything about—the Winter Soldier.

That was possible because of HYDRA, and it keeps nagging at the back of her mind.

The three of them perked up and looked in synchronicity toward the swung door as the man who called them here finally arrived.

“Sorry for the delay, everybody.” Harrison Osborn walked into the room and closed the door after himself before approaching them, shooting his hand forward along with a polite smile. “Harry Osborn.” He introduced himself to her, and Yelena saw no reason not to return the gesture.

She shook his hand firmly and nodded, “Black Widow. " Then, the boy billionaire turned to his next target.

“Captain John Walker.” U.S. Agent greeted him next, proudly.

“…I respect it,” Harrison said casually at the silent treatment he got from Taskmaster. Then, she watched as he sauntered to his desk before pushing some buttons to darken the windows.

“Mister Osborn,” she called without a second thought “How can we be sure there won’t be another explosion in your building?”

“That’s a bit of a low blow, considering the bomber can do metamorphosis.” He retorted with a flat grin. “But don’t worry, my department has the best available techs to isolate and detect Skrull invaders.”

“So, you got your hands on Spider-Man’s tech?” she asked, keeping a smirk hidden.

“Improved upon it would be a better terminology…” he retorted with his eyes focused on her “…Miss Belova.”

His daddy’s Norman Osborn, after all. It makes sense. She shrugged, motioning for the heir to continue with the meeting…

“…they are coming for him, Katherine,” Yelena grumbled under her breath.

“Tell me something I didn’t already know about,” Kate sighed, leaning back into her chair and twirling a pen between her fingers.

“Ross has pulled all stops for this. CRUD and Thunderbolts will focus their efforts and resources on the mission to hunt down and arrest Spider-Man. The Avengers will be banned from entering New York City unless in direct response to category-4 or direr threats.” Yelena looked up at the archer, who was sporting a grimace “Since you two are demoted and not resigned, Thunderbolts and CRUD have authorized permission to arrest you. You will be spending your sentences in the RAFT under maximum security.” She saw the look of disbelief on the raven-haired woman, and it pains her a little that she had to be the messenger for this. “As for the Defenders…”

“Thank you for coming here,” Harry addressed the press. Casting his eyes discreetly to the script that rested on the podium. “I’ll try to keep it short because NYPD has more important things to do than providing security for my silly speeches.” He joked a little, gaining complimentary chuckles from the sea of people before him. Harry cleared his throat a little before continuing, “Preceding the tragic flood and the Skrull alien invasion on the city, The World Council had issued an arrest warrant on the vigilante Spider-Man on the alleged charges of stealing Avengers property and involvement in the Atlantic nuclear explosion, which resulted in the deaths of local wildlife as well as potentially contaminating the surrounding area with dangerous radiation.”

“A catastrophic event that OSCORP’s Research and Development department will be working alongside the world’s greatest minds at Stark Technologies and Richards Aerospace Company to repair the damage as soon as we can. However, Secretary Thaddeus Ross, the acting director of the Avengers, has promised to keep the will of the Council onward.” He locked eyes with the press, “Starting today, right at this second, New York City is a restricted zone. Enhanced Individuals are not allowed to express their powers without facing prosecution, and any attempt at hindering our effort in the apprehension of the vigilante Spider-Man will result in legal charges.” The commotion started almost immediately, rounds of chatter and gasps rolled back and forth.

“…Might as well speak in German…” Jessica grumbled under her breath. Looking around the sea of people she uses as covers. She slipped out of the crowd and quickly took a cab to a location she had texted the Defenders about. Jessica navigates the distance with a series of power jumps and occasional hiding as the Sparrow drones patrol the sky, looking for Spider-Man. Finally, she reached her destination at what’s left of the northern area of Central Park, devastated by the tsunami. Global Relief Union volunteers and members work alongside one another in clearing the debris and accounting for damages, some unfortunate animals at the zoo who couldn’t make it out of their pens died within its confine. As of this moment, she waited on the southern side of the central garden, sitting on the edge of the vacant sea lion’s exhibition with an earbud.

“I assume we are here because of the news?” Daniel Rand’s voice entered her ear, and in her peripheral, she saw a homeless-looking man casually taking a seat on the Eastern side of the exhibition, looking around slowly out of caution.

“Or maybe you just wanna have a drink?” Luke joined, probably taking the West.

“Don’t tell me you got another restraining order,” The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen tapping his cane from the North, taking a seat like the others.

Jessica waited for another minute before looking back over to the rock formation, hoping to see a familiar red-and-black spandex-wearing vigilante perching there, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Spidey?”

“Off states, family’s matter,” Matt replied, folding his cane and taking his shades off, staring blankly ahead as his ears analyzed the volunteers chattering among themselves in case there’s unwanted attention about to be spared at their gathering “…what the hell is happening out there, Jess?”

“Beats me, Murdock.” The P.I. groaned with frustration, cradling her head between her hands, wanting to just take a swig of her flask now. “Can you do anything about it?”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll look into it.” The Blind Lawyer replied with his phone weight heavily inside his jacket.

“I doubt it,” Danny interjected, coughing a little, “OSCORP is ruthless with an army of lawyers. I know you’re good, Matt, but your firm won’t survive going against them.”

“What about yours?” Luke inquired.

“Two-thirds of the firms representing Rand Enterprise are also on Osborn’s payroll, dude.” The Iron Fist replied with a grim chuckle. “The best we can do is build a case and try to find a loophole in their plan. Exploiting it.”

“I’m with him,” Matt added, nodding solemnly. “This is something we can’t punch our way out of.”

“That’s funny, coming from you, Horny.” Jessica jabbed playfully and chuckled at the blind ninja’s annoyed groan.

They sat there, enjoying the eerie silence of their surroundings of Central Park for the first time in their lives.

“…Castle got that one to talk,” Jessica reported, finally taking out a flask to take a swig. “Motherfucker’s one hell of a tough cookie, lemme tell ya.”

“Is he dead?” Luke asked, unsure.

“He’s alive,” Jessica replied, hearing Murdock’s sigh of relief, eliciting a soft smirk out of her. “Although Castle hauled about half of NYPD’s armory with him.”

“…I’ll keep an eye on him,” he heard Jessica cackled at the words and couldn’t help but chuckling along. His heightened senses caught an incoming projectile in an arc before he casually shot his hand out to intercept its trajectory, feeling the rectangular shape of a burner phone in his palm.

“Number 3 speed dial,” Jessica simply answered his wordless question. “In case you wanna have a midnight dinner date with him or something.”

- - -

The Bar With No Name (New Location)

Karen sat alone at the bar, nursing a glass of wine while rejecting several criminals who’d approached her since she came in, hiding her hair under a hoodie.

“You got some interesting idea for a meeting place, Ma’am.” A voice called, and she let out a huff before calling the bartender for him as he sat beside her. “Beer.” He ordered and took his cap off of his head, smoothing his tussled hair a bit.

It’s a familiar style, with the thick beard obscuring the lower half of his face.

“I don’t know any other bar you like,” Karen retorted with a reserved smile, sipping her wine as she turned a little to the side, facing him. “Good to see you again, Frank.”

They silently enjoy the proximity of one another, letting the night be carried away by muffled chatters and stuttering music in the background.

Eventually, Karen urged him to follow her with a tray of chips to a more secluded alcove, away from prying eyes and ears. They sat across from one another as she studied the Punisher again after so many years.

“I take it you got my contact from Red?” he asked, chewing on a couple of chips between his molar, looking at her freckled face framed inside a golden veil of her hair.

“Would you believe me if I say I opened a Yellow Pages?” Karen retorted, leaning forward, trying to look at the man across from her. “Why are you back, Frank?”

Castle quirked one of his eyebrows at her, “You say it like I’m unwelcomed here.”

She chuckled softly, taking a sip. “Well, it’s not that much of a surprise, right? I mean, look at what you did before you just…disappeared.”

He breathed heavily.

Inhaling the mixed chaos of gunpowder and blood.

So much blood.

His hands shake a little from all the recoils and kickbacks of the rifle, the shotguns, the pistols…

Grimes sticks to his skin like glue, slick with blood and congeal, cuts and bruises adorning almost every inch.

A moan sounded from somewhere among the pile of bodies inside the warehouse, and like a well-oiled machine, he discarded the emptied magazine to load another and the last in, chambered the first round with one smooth motion. He aimed, but before his trigger finger could do what it does best, the barrel of the gun was yanked away along with the entire firearm, signaling the arrival of one of the most prolific vigilantes in New York City.

Those pair of curved half-circles shine their starkly white contrast to the shadows surrounding the superhuman. His rifle was there in the Arachnid’s hand, and it got crushed under the unimaginable force exerted, like crumbling a paper bag. “That’s enough.” Spider-Man’s voice came up cold and seethed with controlled anger; the whites narrowed dangerously.

Frank knows he can’t fight back against this one. Unlike Daredevil, the kid got real powers, superhuman in every single aspect that made up a person.

Luke Cage has impenetrable skin, but physics still applies to Harlem’s invincible man. A well-placed high-caliber round against the side of his head, and he’ll be down.

Iron Fist can’t hurt you with that glowing fist if you shoot him by surprise.

Jessica Jones? She’s just as malleable as anyone. She might heal faster than average, but a fatal injury can still kill her.

Daredevil? He’d beaten the Devil before.

But the Kid?

No.

The first shot is the only shot you’ll ever take; then, he’ll be in your face in the blink of an eye.

If you’re lucky, he’ll joke with you a bit, getting you annoyed and distracted, and then he’ll knock the lights out of you with a single hit.

Spider-Man’s not as sharp as Red, but the superhuman strength and agility compensated for that.

He thought he saw something similar inside the Arachnid, but no.

Spider-Man still has that one thing he abandoned a long time ago—Hope.

Hope that people can do better. Hope that people can change. Hope that they will find the courage within themselves to at least give it a try.

That’s the thing that connects Spider-Man and Daredevil. Blinded by optimism. Drunken on ideals.

Another sound came from the other side, and he looked in that direction to meet a silhouette sporting a pair of short, spiky horns, eyes red under the reflected light.

“Jesus…” Spider-Man hissed, horrified, looking at the bloodbath as the Arachnid dropped silently to the floor. “I should’ve been faster…”

He scoffed at the comment. “Not like you being here would’ve changed much, Kid; these scums would still be scums, and I’ll still be shooting ‘em down.” His counter drew a displeased glare from the superhuman.

He doesn’t care.

They are dead. The Russians. Every. Single. One.

He knows that killing them off means so little to deter any who will take up the scraps and rebuild the shitty trafficking ring again and again and again.

But if so, he’ll be back and kill every single one of them again, and again, and again…

If they are here to work with the police and send him to prison, good, there are too many scums behind bars that are in dire need of his tender care. Depending on the location, he might be outnumbered by hundreds to one, but he sure as hell won’t lie down without taking as much of them down with him.

Rykers will be an obvious choice, and he has a plate full of Red’s and Spider-Man’s half-ass works waiting for him inside.

Instead of letting Spider-Man webbed him up, he saw Daredevil stop the young vigilante with a simple gesture. He looked at the Man Without Fear in confusion.

“What’s up, Red?” he heard a smug in his voice, “Wanna do the honor?” he spread his arms to the side, inviting the brawler to make the first move.

“…This has to stop, Frank.” That’s not Daredevil talking, no…

That was Matt Murdock.

“All this bloodshed and corpses lining the morgue.” The Daredevil motioned to the horrid scene. “It has to stop.”

He knows.

Deep down.

Matt Murdock still believes in salvation.

Even for someone like him.

It was almost comical.

Almost made him cackle.

Instead, he kept his silence.

And looked back at the dull eyes hidden underneath the mask of the Devil.

“It has…to stop.” Daredevil breathed heavily, handing a burner to him. “…Your friend gave it to Karen, and she asked me to give it to you.”

He looked down at the device, but all he see is a certain face.

Always hopeful. Always looking at him with the innocence that he doesn’t know how to interpret or understand it.

‘I want there to be an after! For you!’ her words rang inside his head.

“DD?” Spider-Man interjected but stayed in place.

“It’s okay, Spidey,” Daredevil replied simply.

He looked long and hard, thoughts running around like an unleashed beast rattling inside a cage.

Finally, he reached out and took the phone, pocketing it without saying a word.

And he started walking away, leaving the vigilantes behind.

Before he was out of earshot, he overheard the last of the conversation between Red and Spider-Man.

“…you believe in second chances, right?”

“…yeah. Don’t know why I did that.” Karen mirthlessly breathed out, finished her wine, and sighed deeply. “I should’ve set you up for an arrest; Nelson, Murdock, and Page might get on the news.” She ended with a chuckle, signaling the bartender for another refill.

“Yeah, you should…” he let out a quiet laugh, chugging half of the second bottle down, relishing the bitter taste scalding his throat. “…Thank you, Karen.” He looked up and couldn’t help but mirror her smile.

They sat in silence for a while longer before she was on her fourth, and he stopped at the third.

“…what are you doing here?” she started, set the glass down, and leaned forward on her elbows. “Why are you back?”

Without hesitation, Frank fished a photo out of his jacket and tossed it on the table. “About a week ago, that bastard was impersonating me,” it might be the trick of the lights, but he might have seen Karen relax a little after that. “He’d been shooting up Kingpin’s and Tombstone’s men, citing them to a full-on war with one another.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Karen whispered, “Kinda curious why the shooting suddenly stopped,” she looked at him with a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Anyways,” he continued, taking the last chip into his mouth, leaning forward as well “We are kinda on an investigation, seeing who he’s working for or with. Figuring out what they wanna do next.”

“So, typical Tuesday?”

“…I guess.” He answered with a stunted smile.

- - -

Linwood, New Jersey

Madani entered the room and immediately felt something out of place.

Her eyes scanned the room dimly lit by a streak of moonlight. Everything is in the same place she left them in this morning, except for one thing.

A vase with a single stalk of white lily has been relocated to the windowsill instead of its spot on the kitchen island.

She quietly reached for her pistol, deftly disengaged the safety, and propped it up into a *center axis relock; it’s harder for an opponent to get in range to disarm her before a shot can be fired.

“Your support hand’s kinda lower than it should be, Madani.” A voice came from a dark corner where her barrel was aimed at. Slowly, the face of a man she never thought she would be seeing again came into view, illuminated by the silvery glow of the night. “Cozy house.”

Dinah released a breath she had held inside with a scoff, engaged the safety, and locked the door before relocating herself to the kitchen island while keeping the interior dark. “Rocking the lumberjack aesthetic, huh? Castle?”

“I kinda like it, ya know?” Frank retorted, eyeing the folder on the coffee table as a signal for the CIA agent. “Got a shopping list I needed some help with.”

Madani took a cold bottle of water out of the fridge and drank half of it in one go before approaching the folder, picking it up with a curious glint in her eyes. “Is this somehow relating to the rumors about you getting back into the field back in Manhattan?”

“Kinda.”

She opened it and fished out the singular paper inside, with a candid photo stapled to it. She looked at the Punisher with inquisitive eyes before hopping onto the countertop and started reading. After a while, she looked up from the document and stared at him “…Poindexter? A name and a photo? That’s all?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged and got up, heading for the door. “No pressure.” He let out an uncharacteristic smirk before walking out of her house, leaving a confused and frustrated CIA agent alone with the file.

* CAR or Center Axis Relock system = a firearm fighting stance developed by Paul Castle (d. 2011) of Sabre Tactical to be used in limited space for better firearm retention, such as from inside a vehicle. It was loosely incorporated into the shooting style of John Wick in the John Wick franchises. *

- - -

Rykers Island Penitentiary

“The best I can do is ten minutes, Mister Fisk.” The man walking in front and leading the mountain of muscles clad in a white suit and deep purple shirt said, beads of sweat lining his forehead.

“That’s plenty of time, Mister Hoffman,” Kingpin replied calmly, a gemstone-tipped metallic cane firmly grasped within his hand.

“Make sure we are not disturbed, please,” Wilson demanded, and the warden nodded before leaving him inside an isolated containment cell. The tall and bulky crime lord looked further into the darkness at the corner of the cell and spotted a pair of dimly green eyes staring back at him with hatred. The intensity of which elicited a smug scoff out of him. He traced steps closer to the one hidden in the shadows for a few feet before he stopped, firmly hammering the butt of his cane down onto the concrete floor. “How are you, Mister Kasady?” Kingpin greeted with malice and disdain, looking at the pair of burning hatred mirroring back. “Comfortable? I’ve arranged this very cell just for you.”

Silence.

Good.

Fisk clapped his hands, and the single light bulb above their heads shone its piercing spear to chase away the darkness, revealing a gruesome and pitiful sight; the inmate was chained, stripped bare, and bruises and cuts lined his malnourished body. His hair was collected into a mess of clots and gunk left behind by various bodily fluids that were sprayed and dried on his person. Kasady shielded his eyes from the light with a low growl.

The smell is horrible. Repulsive even.

Which, to be honest, fits with the scum quite nicely.

“Sadly, Mister Kasady, I’m on a schedule today,” Kingpin said while taking off his suit jacket, folding it neatly before stabbing his cane into the wall to be used as a makeshift rack. He then fished a pair of gloves out of his vest, putting them on with grace and practiced ease. “Such a shame.” He announced and started wailing haymakers into the chained prisoner with sadistic glee on his face.

Each thud draws a spittle of blood and a weak groan.

Left.

Right.

Right.

Lower right.

Uppercut.

Left hook.

Right hook.

Jab.

Jab.

He reeled the last before shooting his fist in a straight right, embedding into the prisoner’s face, knocking the back of his head against the brick wall, and putting a little dent into it with a splatter of blood. The body slumped limbless but never reached the filthy floor, for the chains kept him levitated, his hateful eyes rolled to the back of his skull, and wheezing gurgles sounded from the broken face.

Wilson stepped back, degloved, and crumbled them into a ball before tossing it to the pile at the side, where various items were lying around, including some used condoms. “How long have you been in here, Mister Kasady? Two or three years, I take it?” calming himself down, Fisk took the jacket and draped it over his wide and gigantic body, buttoning casually while sporting a menacing smirk. “More years to go through, I suggest you try to settle in.”

Kingpin made it to the door, but before opening the metal slab, he looked back at the inmate again with burning hatred in his eyes. “…Consequences, Mister Kasady, is a vicious beast.” He said coldly, opening the door and taking a step out of the threshold, he stopped and added without turning back, “It’s a pity you did not have the mind to think of that before you assaulted her.” Fisk grimaced and got out of the cell.

- - -

Hellfire Club

Emma sits in her study for a while, wanting to be away from the constant music and chatters inside the club for a change. She leaned forward on her elbows, blue eyes casting at the smartphone laid atop a pile of financial reports and records, contemplating.

Eventually, defeated by curiosity, the White Queen picked up the device and quickly perused through the contacts before calling an unnamed number that she recognized.

The line rang a couple of times before a bleep sounded against her ear, and a groggy voice greeted back incoherently. “…Felicia?”

“Wha…who?”

“Your boss, dear.” The world-class telepath amusedly clarified, leaning into the cushion of the chair with a hum, “Don’t tell me a little vacation was enough to forget me.”

“…Emma?” the name finally came, yet the voice was still sleepy…with an additional groan from a deeper tone than her little kitten. “Why are you calling me at this hour? Something going on at the club?” there, a ruffle sounded from the other end, and what sounded like a grunted effort to push something heavy out of herself coming from Felicia.

“Are you alone?” she teased, suddenly feeling like a gossiping schoolgirl again.

“What’s the matter?” the masterful dismissal elicited a chuckle out of her a bit.

Emma chuckled a little and poured herself a shot of bourbon, enjoying the bitter bite before continuing, “I’m curious, when will you return?”

“Missed me?”

“It’s rather dull here without your constant insolence and sarcasm.” The telepath jabbed with a playful note. Then, she heard the sound of a toilet getting flushed, an event which elicited a grumble out of Felicia and a Cheshire grin out of her. “Felicia Hardy, is that someone I heard?”

“Give me another month or something,” the Black Cat quickly deviated, “Talk later,” and the line was cut.

“Girls,” Emma commented with an amused chuckle. The Pristine Perfection got up from her desk and took the flimsy coat draped over the couch in her arms, covering her ivory and flawless skin just enough to entice and invite searching eyes, the Queen descends upon the main hall of the club where those who couldn’t care less about how the financial loss they are facing from the disaster might affect their livelihood, the only certainty in their minds is that the club provided luxurious and alluring distractions.

She graced some of them with a corporate smile and lazily strolled through the sea of shallow minds surrounding her, drinking the sea of simple ecstasy, feeding from the collective of desires like forbidden nectar from the Apple of Hesperides.

The intensity is intoxicating.

She danced among them.

Flirts and laughs among them.

Enjoy their companies and superficial attractions.

Bathed in it.

Drunken by it.

Seeking the elusive spark of warmth that will not be diminished in the dawn of sunlight.

- - -

Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters

“I am glad you shared this with me, Jean,” Ororo said encouragingly with a touch of an amused smirk gracing her lips, her stormy-blue eyes cast at the redhead across from her.

Jean had approached her and said nervously about a conversation she wanted to have, so Ororo followed the telepath to a central fountain of the backyard garden where no one would interrupt them, intended to lend an ear for one of her oldest friends.

The unexpected topic, however, caught her a bit off guard after the redhead confessed about her growing interest in a certain Arachnid-themed vigilante.

“Don’t talk like I’ve just confessed a crush, Ororo. It’s not.” Jean groaned, craning her neck backward, and kept her eyes on the leisurely racing of the clouds above. “It’s just a simple curiosity!”

“Your demeanor says otherwise, sister.” The Windryder pointed out, smiling with a toothy grin, motioning the tip of her index at the ginger’s face. “A dashing blush might be hard to notice, Jean, but it’s there.” Ororo poked the telepath on her cheek with a giggle. “But just to keep it civil, I will take your word for it.” Storm leaned forward, thinking about Spider-Man and the short time they had spent around each other before the disaster that befell New York City. “After all, there is a possibility that your curiosity might not be based on carnal instinct. James and I ran into Peter before the bombing at OSCORP.” Ororo looked at the telepath and gestured to the side of her head, which Jean deduced the meaning immediately before touching the area with her fingertips.

The images flooded her mind, images of a crawling figure covered in darkness. Its stark white leaf-shaped eyes and spider symbol on its chest betrayed its identity.

Jean watched in horror as the creature, who she couldn’t believe to be Spider-Man, snarled its mouthless growls as prehensile strands sprouted forth from its back with hooked tips, spreading themselves like a twisted reflection of an angelic halo.

Eldritch in appearance.

And terrifying in presence.

This is not the Spider-Man everyone knows.

This is something else.

Something dangerous.

Something…ancient.

Something the fire inside her churns just by having the fading presence touch her mind.

Jean jolted out of the trance as a muffled scream of the fire inside her core rang inside her ears, shooting a headache up her head.

She collapsed onto the ground, writhing in agony, as the surroundings started smoking and catching fire.

Her blood-curdling scream shakes the entire garden, and Ororo hissed at the ambient heat transferred to her skin through air molecules. Shooting her hands up toward the clear sky, Ororo surged forth her powers and changed the meteorologic property of the air above the garden, calling forth dark clouds, and soon, a downpour of piercing rain cut through the heat that Jean’s thrashing body put off, water vapors rises from the telepath’s glowing skin and dissipated in the humid air. “Jean?!” she called, but her voice was drowned out by the redhead’s screams. “Jean!” she could practically feel the air molecules getting more and more excited by the uncontrolled waves of telekinesis.

If this keeps going, the Omega-level telepath might as well disintegrate the whole mansion and its denizen during her unconscious torment.

Ororo decided to call down a bolt of lightning, destroying the nearby small tree, hoping that the commotion would gain someone’s attention as she was not confident enough to let go of the rainclouds. Soon, a tinge of sulfur reached her nose, and Ororo breathed a sigh of relief “Kurt! Get Charles and Bobby here, now!” there was no verbal reply coming from Nightcrawler, but she could tell he heard her command via another intense smell of sulfur usually accompanying the spirited mutant’s usage of his teleportation.

Soon, the air felt colder, announcing the arrival of Iceman as the puddle of bubbling water around Jean started solidifying and turned into a bed of ice. “Keep going at it, Miss Munroe,” the young mutant gritted as he exerted constant waves of his thermos-kinesis onto the environment, fighting against the overwhelming heat coming off of the redhead.

“Set me down near her, Mister Wagner.” Charles’s alarmed voice cut through the downpour.

“Are you sure, Professor?”

“Jean’s telepathy is more potent than mine; it’s by nature’s designs that she couldn’t be influenced, but a direct contact might give us a chance.” With a bit of reluctance, Kurt eventually sets the crippled professor down near the screaming telepath, feeling the heat even through the rain and his furs.

“Be careful, Professor,” Nightcrawler yelled as he took a step back from the telepaths.

Charles, gritting through the searing heat slamming into him, reached out and palmed Jean’s forehead, pushing against the psychic barriers he’d taught her to construct permanently inside her mind.

“What the hell happened?” Logan asked his chocolate-skinned queen, leaning against the doorframe of the woman’s room opposite his. On the queen-sized bed lies the exhausted and unconscious body of Jean Grey. Ororo looked back at him with worries and guilt in her eyes, so much so that Logan couldn’t help but enter the quarter and quickly got to her side, planting a reassuring kiss on the side of her head, which managed to dissipate some of the frowns. “Ro?”

“…we were talking in the garden about Peter Parker,” the name put a funny twitch onto the burly man’s face, eliciting a weak chuckle from her. “Jean told me that after his visit, the thought of Peter often occupied her mind, just like Kitty’s,” she added with a smirk.

“Fucker’s too dangerous ‘round girls,” Logan commented with a scoff. “I take it she didn’t just collapse because she misses Webs, right?”

Ororo nodded and breathed a heavy sigh before elaborating, “No. I agreed with her that there was something…strangely curious about him. So, I invited her to witness that thing we ran into.” She looked at him, and it took Logan a few seconds before a realization hit.

“That slimy thing?”

“Yes. And somehow, seeing it in my mind sets her off.” Storm glanced at the sleeping redhead with confusion and sadness in her eyes. “She was convulsing. Screaming on the ground and almost burning the whole garden.”

“Ah, that’s why it looks like a Storm passed through our backyard,” Logan cut in with a smirk, eliciting a quiet giggle from Storm regarding his little wordplay, keeping his rough and calloused hand firmly on the goddess’s shoulder, caressing a soothing pattern onto her flawless skin. “So, Chuck dealt with it?”

She nodded.

“…there’s gotta be some way to get rid of that.” He added, looking with worried eyes at the woman whom he had yearned for without hope for years. The love subsided, as now he has a wonderful woman in Ororo, but the care and attachment to the redhead will always be there, just like it will for the others in the mansion.

They are almost like a family to him.

“I hope so as well, or at least a way to let her control it.” Ororo breathed out tiredly, leaning into Logan’s muscular front, basking in his inhuman warmth. “…I don’t agree with the way we are keeping her oblivious to these episodes.”

Logan kept his silence and tightened his hold on Ororo, bathing in her floral scent and tender skin.

“Mind if I join you?” a voice called from behind, prompting Rogue to avert her eyes from the moon.

“Coz not, Sugah,” the Southern Belle replied with a smile, patting the spot to her right as the petite teen casually phased through the rooftop. “Can’t sleep?”

Kitty nodded quietly and took a seat. Drawing her knees into her chest and resting her chin on them, hugging herself with a cloud of confusion over her head.

“Kitty?” Anna-Marie called, looking at the Deerfield girl with curious brows, poking her a little on her arm. “What’s eatin’ ya, Hun?”

Kitty didn’t immediately answer but just let out a sigh before nesting her face between her knees, hugging herself tighter like she was getting weary of the chill air.

“…I guess,” the petite teen started, unsure, “I don’t know what to do.”

“…with college?”

“No, I got that covered already,” the teen huffed a little, shrugging her shoulders. “A full-ride Com-Sci scholarship at MIT.” There’s a hint of pride in her tone, deservedly.

“Congrats!” the Mississippian exclaimed with a surprised glee, nudging the girl with her elbow smilingly, “Ah know ya got it in ya, girl!”

“Thanks.” Kitty smiled at the enthusiasm and support shown by the Southern Belle, but it died a moment later. “…I don’t know what to do with this…crush.” Pryde gestured inwardly into herself, putting a curious mirth on Rogue’s face. “I mean, like, Peter’s a cute guy and all, and he’s smart and funny and kind, and he’s a superhero too, but that’s not the point…”

Anna-Marie held her smile while listening to Kitty ramble on and on about the Arachnid with familiar frustration and confusion.

Everyone got them once or twice in their hormonal years.

An uncertainty regarding their attractions and the unknown paths they will be forced to take.

She’d them once as well, decades ago, back when she was just a teenager too.

Sadly, hers ended with a comatose boy, her almost first boyfriend, whom she unknowingly harmed by the awakening of her mutations.

“I mean, look at the women he surrounded himself with! Susan freaking Storm?! Kate Bishop?! Gwen?! They are, like, so pretty! How am I supposed to compete with them?” the girl pouted and keeled into herself, huffing frustratingly. “I’m just Kitty Pryde…”

“Who’s a valuable member of the X-Men,” Anna-Marie started with a smile, reaching her gloved hand over to pats softly on the petite girl’s head, soothing her. “Kitty Pryde, who can walk through walls and kick asses.” A smile returns to the girl’s face. “Kitty Pryde, who led the kids to a rescue mission when the adults needed help.” Anna-Marie pats the teen’s head softly before retracting her hand, gazing up at the moon again, seeing its brilliance dimmed a bit by passing clouds. “Ya got more than enough to compete with anyone, Sugah, not that you have to in the first place. Chin up and go get it!”

“…Thanks, Rogue.” Kitty smiled and leaned her head onto the Southern Belle’s shoulder a bit.

Down below, under the shade of a tree, Remy looked up with a dreamy eye at the Southern Belle on the edge of the roof, the glow of moonlight somehow made her even more beautiful than she already was. He hums and leans back against the tree, feeling the barks biting into his back.

“You know you are being a creep, right?” a voice greeted him from behind, which startled him a little, yet Gambit kept his good eye locked on Rogue, not wanting to avert his attention.

“Says the girl who’s hounding another girl like a shadow most of the day,” he retorted back at the woman. “Playing bodyguard?”

“Just strolling around,” Illyana dropped from the branch onto the grass quietly and rose to full height as she looked at Gambit with an incredulous look on her face. “Why aren’t you up there talking to her?”

“The same reason as yours, Mon Ami…” The charming thief retorted with a smirk, chuckling along with the Russian’s scoff. “…they deserve better than us,” he whispered to the night, the statement and sadness within resounding deeply with the younger Rasputin near him, keeping themselves frozen in deep thoughts and heartaches.

- - -

Undisclosed Warehouse

Frank couldn’t wipe the tinge of a smile off his face.

Talking with her again felt like a breath of fresh air.

Karen Page might be one of the very few people who he can sense that they genuinely care about people.

Even a cold-blooded killer like him could see that.

She’s too good for this Sin City.

As he neared the entrance of a warehouse where he’d been holding the imposter inside for days now, Frank noticed an anomaly above the metallic frame of the entrance.

The CCTV he’d put up there was destroyed, sporting a sharp, rectangular hole that pierced through its housing.

He quickly and quietly drew his Colt .45 out from the IWB holster and disengaged the safety in one smooth motion. With the phosphorescence iron sight trained on the entrance, Frank cautiously advanced to it with his ears honed automatically through years of practice to detect even the smallest of sounds coming from inside. Using the gap around a removed bolt, he looks through and sees only darkness inside, confused.

A whistling sound came from behind as a couple of glowing blades embedded into the metal slab near his head. It startled him, but muscle memories compelled his body to do a full spin and jut his pistol outward to the general direction of the attacker before firing a series of shots, following the swift silhouette moving from the open area to a cover nearby. Frank sprinted a short distance to find himself one as well, keeping the end of his barrel trained on the cover, ready to fire another shot if whoever was there decided to show themselves.

Four left.

His eyes kept alternating between the attacker and the door, fearing someone might burst out of it and caught him by surprise. Frank gritted his teeth, reminded of his hellish tour in Afghanistan, where he was surrounded and has been dealt a shorthand.

A clattering came, and he moved his gun in that direction before firing a shot.

Three .

Anticipated a retaliation, The Punisher rolled forward just as another glowing dagger zoomed in on his previous spot, surely would’ve embedded into his face if he stayed there. He kicked off into a sprint and decided to flank the attacker, wanting to diminish his enemy’s numbers as fast as possible. As he rounded the corner, his eyes caught a glimpse of white and fair hair rushing away into the open, he hastened his steps and managed to emerge from the maze of crates and industrial wastes in time to identify his attacker.

She, as her lithe frame would suggest, rushed away from him and aimed for another cover at the other side of the ramp. The attacker was dressed from head to toe in white. White beanie, white bomber, white sweatpants, hell, even her shoes were white. Frank aimed and caught her in sight, but a hesitation stopped his finger from pulling the trigger. The window of opportunity slipped by, and the girl or woman spun on her heels to throw another dagger at him.

Taking a high risk, he swings his arm down in interception to the incoming projectile, knocking the solid object to the ground. He quickly crouches and takes it in his hand before rolling forward and sidestepping into another cover.

Looking at it, a puzzled expression crossed his face.

The knife, or more accurately, the dagger, was made of a translucent material that was lighter than steel, which glowed in his hand and was wickedly sharp to the point that the edges cut shallowly into his skin just by holding it.

In hindsight, Frank didn’t notice that the alcohol in his system had been purged.

Flipped it into an icepick grip in his left hand, Frank quickly ejected a magazine and loaded a full one into the handle, making sure to tuck the discarded one into his pocket. Taking a few deep and short breaths, Frank rushed out of his cover and went in the opposite direction he saw the dagger-throwing girl run toward, wanting to get a drop on her.

This is some superhuman shit, just my luck .

He quickly but thoroughly scanned the area, keeping his pistol in CAR grip, relying on his hand and eye coordination rather than taking an elaborate aim for perfect accuracy. “Come on out, girl! Let’s talk!” he roared to the space, but no sound replied. “We ain’t seen each other before, and if you’re not one of Kingpin’s or Tombstone’s, we are cool!”

“So why did you still have your gun on?” a voice came, almost melodic in tone if not for the huffs evident from her running around.

Even Murdock won’t be this out of breath so easily. It’s either she’s not as super as the others, or she has little training. The Punisher deduced silently, eyes roaming the area with cautious sway, his index finger hovering outside of the trigger cage. “You attacked me, girl, forgive me for being cautious!” he heard a clattering again from his right but quickly moved to the left with a hidden smirk. “Get to the top of the pile and stop throwing these glowsticks at me, I promise not to shoot!”

“How can I trust you?!”

“Sometimes ya just gotta take a leap of faith!” Frank got out to the open and turned around, gauging the situation for a bit before ejecting his magazine, but not without slipping a round from it before letting it fall to the cement ground with a loud clang. “Your turn!” he waited, with a chambered round sitting eagerly in anticipation for the hammer. He got one shot; it was a big gamble, but he didn’t want to chase her all night if he could help it.

“Drop the last round!” her demand put a smirk on his face. He pulled the slide back, but instead of letting the round fly off, he kept it in place and dropped the one in his hand.

“Clear!” he announced, eyes alternating between the middle of the pile and the top, waiting.

Soon, the glowing figure climbed to the top in her all-white getup, seemingly illuminated by the moonlight.

Yep, a supes alright. Frank thought to himself, looking at the girl with attentive eyes. “Who are you?”

“I am the cleansing blade of justice.” The all-white girl announced, puffing her chest.

“Quit that shit and tell me who you are, girl.” Frank scoffed amusedly at the conviction in which she’d just uttered something so ridiculous it might as well come out of a fucking cartoon. “Are you some new vigilante running ‘round Manhattan I didn’t know about?” He asked despite thinking otherwise; there’s no way someone like this wouldn’t make at least some headlines alongside the Defenders.

“…Who I am is not important, Frank Castle,” the girl dismissed and produced a set of daggers out of thin air before throwing them around his feet, seemingly intended for them to convey some message. “Inside the warehouse, you will find a not. Do as written.”

“Sounds more and more like some kinda cult bullshit,” Frank commented with a chuckle, “Look, Miss Cleansing Blade or whatever the hell, I don’t have to do anything anyone tells me to do, alright? So, if you’re not here to be some crime lord’s lapdog, get lost.” He said with a hint of frustration before turning around and heading for the entrance.

“What if it has something to do with Amy Bendix?” the name stopped him right in his tracks.

Castle slowly turned around, anger permeating through every fiber of his being, the grip on the pistol groaned under suppressed rage. “…The fuck you say?”

“Read the note and follow the instructions, and you will see Amy Bendix again.”

Frank roared and quickly snapped his pistol at the glowing woman without hesitation or second thoughts and pulled the trigger, surprising her.

But before the bullet could pierce through her face, a pool of darkness manifested itself in front of her, swallowing the lead projectile into its unending void before a silhouette of a man appeared, draped in a flowing black cloak. He stared at them in confusion and disbelief, coexisting alongside a burning rage within. The cloaked figure gathered the glowing lady in his arms, and they imploded into themselves before disappearing from the scene, leaving an angry Punisher alone.

“…Fuck!”

Chapter Text

Act 2

Chapter 2

Sin City, Part 2

- - -

Manhattan

Gwen shot off the end of the pendulum with a bit more expressive movement, familiarizing herself with the web swinging as time went by.

It’s easier than it looks if you have the privilege of Spider-Sense and unnatural equilibrium, of course. At the end of her forward roll, Gwen shoots another web line at the nearby building; the act requires more experience than she currently has to execute flawlessly. Spider-Sense didn’t help with this, however, and she had to rely on instinct and rough estimation about where and when to latch the synthetic polymer strand to start a swing to prevent herself from kissing New York City’s street below at such a blinding speed. She corkscrewed herself through a triangular space of a flag post before running on a horizontal line against the wall, shooting herself off like a bullet at the end of the surface, twirling around expressively like a performing ballerina; at least with what limited moves she remembers from her childhood before textbooks and TED talk episodes were getting more interesting than ballet.

That dork might be doing on-the-fly calculations while he’s swinging; how is that fair, God? Gwen thought to herself with a roll of her eyes, aiming towards the sky above. He has the brain and the brawl and is also cute!? That’s a bias if I’ve ever seen one!

“O heavenly Father and Lord, I was just kidding.” She sheepishly apologized to the moonlit sky after a distant rumble of thunder sounded from afar. “Please don’t go Old Testament on me; I don’t even know if I can dodge lightning.” Just to be cautious, though, Gwen lowered her traversal plane to surround herself with metal and conductive materials as much as possible.

Her thoughts naturally go back to the evening earlier…

“…GR-28?” she heard herself asking in confusion, not about the component's origin but its presence in Hammerhead’s system.

“You knew of this?” Reed Richards inquired, quirking his brows from across the 4D bench that was full of biological data and toxicological reports.

“Sort of,” she replied, averting her eyes from the holo-projection to the stretchy man. “Some old reports of it got on my desk back when I was an intern, but the research itself was terminated by the board before production.”

“Reasons?”

“Despite its versatile and beneficial properties regarding bio-engineering and genetic treatments, GR-28 was a wild card: It was too perfect as a crucible for CRISPR treatment because it was so infectious, and the replication rate was insanely high without severe negative effects in the short-term exposure.” The geneticist explained at the best of her recollection “but, there’s a problem.” She saw a hint of realization in the scientist’s eyes.

“With a substantial number of replication and division, they start to evolve, so to speak,” Reed added, and she nodded, “and depends on the rate, which, according to you, was quite fast, we’ll be facing a pandemic and fighting a losing battle against an ever-evolving retrovirus that will be almost impossible to study.”

“That’s why OSCORP terminated its development,” Gwen added, casting her eyes to the previous screen again. “So, seeing it here? It’s concerning.”

She decided to trace it to its source, that’s why she’s now perching in front of the OSCORP tower in the middle of the night, wearing her Spider-suit. “There’s gotta be some clues left inside Doctor Octavius's old office,” she mumbled to herself and touched the side of her mask, calling up Edith. “E?”

“Yes?”

“Any suggestion about an entrance into the building?”

“Aside from the lobby?” the AI sarcastically retorted with a tinge of amusement in her tone; it was almost uncanny and fascinating how advanced Edith had become in the year that they’d known each other. “Peter usually went for air vents on the fifth, fifteenth, and thirtieth floors.”

“He trespassed that often?” Gwen inquired, jumping off the roof she was on and starting swinging toward the skyscraper.

“ESU’s chemical supplies were often lackluster in the synthesizing of web fluids, and he couldn’t afford to buy them from suppliers themselves. So, more than a couple of times per month, Peter would slip inside the building and get what he needed, which were basic enough that the company wouldn’t even care to investigate their depletion.” The AI replied, and Gwen could even imagine Edith would be shrugging her shoulders if she had a physical body. “Our little Spider was quite an avid burglar himself, back in the days.”

“Huh, is that why he was so comfortable connecting with Black Cat?” the sunflower-blonde commented as she latched onto the cement wall and started crawling upward.

“He’d never confided anything regarding Felicia Hardy with me,” the AI replied, feeling like a chat between friends, “but from what I gathered, he might feel a strong connection with her because she was the only person who remembers him from before the Incursion.”

“Oh, yeah. I kinda forgot about that fact.” Gwen replied, finally reaching the fifteenth floor. Testing the integrity of the air vent duct cover, she was surprised that the rectangular lid was held in place by a set of springs instead of fasteners. Opening it and getting herself inside the cramped space, Gwen started quietly crawling through the distance, with Edith occasionally acting like a navigation system for important turns and elevations. “What was he like? After the Incursion?” Gwen whispered curiously.

“Peter tried to keep going with a brave face, but I noticed chronic depression and anger management issues.” Edith regaled with her synthetic voice, “He sometimes lashed out at criminals that he was apprehending, but never severe enough to leave permanent damage.”

So, this behavior is not a new development. Gwen remarked to herself, trying to build a case regarding the symbiotic organism that bonded with her boyfriend.

“Soon, its frequency lessened after he was asked to form, train, and lead the New Avengers Initiative under Nick Fury’s request. I…think keeping busy and teaching others positively affected him.” The AI sounded…uncertain for a moment there, but Gwen was so engrossed in trying not to make a sound that she missed it. “Having them around, Harley and Kate, made him somewhat revert to his old self again…I think humans called it companionship.” Edith curiously worded the term.

“Loneliness changes people,” Gwen added. “Thank you for being there with him.” The sunflower-blonde said to the AI, and the synthetic consciousness was lost for words for a long time.

She silently dropped from the air vent onto the familiar floor of the biology lab, making sure that nobody was around, and making her way toward the main terminal at the center of the lab. “Cut the cams,” Gwen demanded, and Edith complied immediately. “Okay…” she mumbled, navigating through the recognizable UIs and system until the last firewall prevented her from entering the archive. “E, can you…”

“Consider it done,” the AI replied, and it took a couple of seconds before the restriction faded away, giving Spider-Woman full access to OSCORP’s database. “It’s almost pitiful how easily I was able to crack their codes.” She sounds…bored.

Can an artificial intelligence even get bored? Or was she just mimicking human emotions and expressions via years of regular exposure? She wouldn’t know, though; computer science was not the topic she was particularly fond of.

“If I were to move illegal and unorthodox virus around one of the most bustling cities on this side of the world, how would I do it…” she mumbled to herself, looking through logs of the company’s hundreds of trucks and transports per day, also going as far as checking the international portions as well. “…Nothing out of ordinary…but If I am Norman Osborn…I would be keeping my cards as close to my chest as possible…” She narrowed her eyes and changed the keyword to Upstate, NY. “A single truck coming and going from an estate there shouldn’t be suspicious, considering the shipment of essentials for their CEO, but the frequency here…four times a week? That’s too immature for someone like Norman Osborn to forget his shopping list.” Gwen pulled up the records, and soon, the data on the screen showed dates, times, plates, and contractors.

The contractors, however, consisted of three companies, and one of them caught her eye. “Either there are some specific shops in Hell’s Kitchen that Osborn wanted to exclusively buy all his essentials from like he’s in some kinda contract, or it’s—” Her words caught in her throat as the sound of latches being disengaged came from the twin doors at the entrance of the room. Without much time to think, Gwen aimed upward and jumped with her superhuman muscles to latch onto the ceiling in a crawl, sticking her feet and palms against the hard surface while holding her breath, hoping that the person wouldn’t hear her panic.

From the upside-down position she lays, Gwen spied a figure of a man walking into the office, sporting a head of waved red hair and some strands of white stylishly adorning his head. His dress suit is of a muted green palette with a deep purple shirt completed with a reddish-gold necktie. His face contorted into anguish, with danger emanating from his body like radiation.

Norman Osborn is here and pissed off beyond imagination.

I can’t even escape through the shaft without making a noise. Gwen mulled, pressing her stomach flat against the ceiling.

“What?!” Osborn roared into the phone after he picked it up just as the second ring was about to commence. “…reschedule it to 4 PM.” His voice lost its edges a little before a long sigh escaped his mouth, he leaned back into the cushioned executive chair, “What a bunch of imbeciles…” he silently groaned through his gritted teeth, massaging the bridge of his nose. He then picked the phone up and took a deep breath while waiting for the other end to pick up, “Good afternoon, Doctor Varanasi…Yes…How is a dinner at Masters’s sounds to you?” he paused, then a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips “Good! I’ll send Francis to pick you up around 8…See you later.” And he put the phone down with a glint in his face.

But not of someone who’s secured a date.

It’s of someone who has just achieved another goal.

- - -

The Masters’s | Upper Harlem

“Welcome, Miss,” a woman, one of the owners, greeted her with a corporate smile and motioned for her to follow into the vacant restaurant, saved for a single table where the recognizable face of Norman Osborn sat in waiting for her arrival with a casual smirk adorning his face. “Have a seat, please. Mister Osborn had already ordered for the both of you.”

“It seems you come prepared, Mister Osborn.” Doctor Varanasi sarcastically said as she softly took a seat that the CEO of OSCORP pulled out for her with a muttered thank you. “But it’s rather strange, however, that we would be meeting here instead of some lavish restaurants.”

“What can I say? You cannot taste the true Manhattan in expensive food, after all.” The red-haired man replied lightheartedly before taking his spot across from her, straightening his back, and raising a glass of wine. “But fret not, Doctor Varanasi; this wine is from my vineyard in Tuscany,” he joked and urged her to take a glass as well. The swirling crimson liquid plays off the decorated lights while both enjoy the depth of fermented grape juice.

Well, you sure as hell aren’t stingy with closing the whole restaurant, Mister Osborn. Gwen muttered internally under layers of heavy makeup and a black-haired wig, scrubbing plates and utensils clean in the kitchen while honing her superhuman ears to eavesdrop on the pair.

“…Have you come to a decision?” Norman asked after wiping the delicious sauce and grease off his lips, eyes looking up at the Indian woman across from him with a quirked brow.

“Must we discuss that in here?”

“This is the safest place you’ll find,” Norman replied with a mirthless grin, impatience rising behind his green eyes. “Speak.” His tone chilled immediately, draining the warmth around the cozy room; even the food tasted sourer after that.

That’s…not a conversation about bioengineering or anything remotely close to Hammerhead… The Spider-Woman mulled confusedly while multitasking, tilting her head as Doctor Varanasi continued talking with Norman Osborn about various related topics and subjects until, ultimately, she could deduce the reason for their meeting. Some kinda genetic disease, but not something I’ve heard before.

“Newbie!” a call came for her from behind, prompting Gwen to stop her train of thoughts and craned her neck with inquisitive eyebrows.

“Yes?”

“Take this to the table!”

“But I’m not—”

“Take it to the table, damn!”

“Okay! Geez…” Gwen exclaimed with a huff and quickly took the plates from her hands before exiting the kitchen, reminding herself to pretend a struggle just a bit to accommodate her petite stature without betraying her superhuman strength. She cleared her throat and approached the table, listening in on their conversation all the while. “Mister Osborn, Doctor Varanasi,” she greeted them as a server should, with a curt bow before presenting their plates to them on the table, “Please, enjoy.” She smiled underneath a facemask and was about to retreat into the kitchen before a call sent a hot needle up her spine.

“Miss Stacy…” Norman casually addressed her with a glint of triumph in his eyes, boring a hole through her facemask and occasionally glancing at the black wig with a smug. “I thought you’d be at Harvard.”

“I’m sorry, Mister Osborn, but I think you’ve confused me with someone else.” She bowed, hiding her face.

“Do not insult my care for my employees, Miss Stacy, especially for someone as promising as yourself, even though you were merely an intern.” His tone was demanding and dangerous, contrasting with the warm smile on his face. “Join us, please. I’d like you to meet each other.” He motioned with his hand to a vacant spot to his right while calling the staff to bring another chair in for her. “My treat.”

As soon as she got rid of her apron, Gwen sighed defeatedly before taking the wig off and settled herself down on the addition chair, alternating her eyes between OSCORP’s ruthless CEO and a well-known geneticist.

“Doctor Varanasi, this is Gwen Stacy; she’s the only one who completed her internship for Curtis Connors.” Norman introduced her with a convincing smile, aiming at the geneticist.

“Oh?” The Indian doctor quirked her brows, averting her eyes with curiosity towards the blonde. “You must either be very talented or very resilient to survive Curt’s unforgiving standards.”

“I can assure you she’s of the former,” Norman interjected before she could speak for herself. “To be honest, I have been meaning to offer her a position; OSCORP Biotech would be very lucky to have her.” Norman casually said, drawing a surprised expression on the blonde’s face. Then, the Connecticut man averted his eyes from the Indian woman towards the petite blonde. “What do you say, Miss Stacy? A secured biologist position at my company as soon as you finish your Master’s degree?”

What’s he playing at? Gwen internalized confusedly.

Then, it hits her like a bat to the head, recalling their interaction at Doctor Connors’s exhibition long ago.

“…you wanna use me to get close to Peter.” She stated, matter-of-fact, devoid of any uncertainty. Her face hardened, eyes narrowed and sharpened, glaring at the CEO.

Norman allowed a hearty laugh to fill the intense air around the three of them, shaking his head with a hint of a smirk while taking a sip from his wine. This left them in an anticipating silence. “Please, give yourself some credit, Miss Stacy; not every good thing in your life happens because of your association with Peter Parker. I could probably sway him over to my company if that’s the case; after all, I’ve heard he recently resigned from RAC out of his own volition.” Norman said with a hint of satisfaction. “The details interested me none, however, but it makes me wonder if this has anything to do with Doctor Susan Storm’s reclusion from the public eyes?”

Gwen scooted her seat back forcefully, anger rising against the nosy implications coming from the CEO, eliciting an annoying fit of chuckles from the Connecticut man. “I have better things to do.”

“Aside from spying on me, you mean,” Norman cut in, face still harboring a grin, but his eyes turned cold and calculated, boring their penetrating glare into her. “It’s not an acceptable thing to be doing, especially for one relying on a university’s scholarship such as yourself, Miss Stacy.” The words made her stop, and Gwen slowly turned towards the red-haired man who managed to instill an inexplicable dread and revulsion by the cloak-and-dagger nature he often operated in, as well as the recount she’d heard from her boyfriend about his maniacal counterpart from another reality. “A scholarship that, I might add, relies heavily on OSCORP’s charitable donation for years now.” He drums his fingers on the table’s surface in a rousing rhythm, harboring a triumphant grin on his face. Then, he motioned for the seat where she’d just gotten out of. “Maybe we can discuss the terms of conditions where I would not withdraw that donation in the near future? What do you say?”

Gwen looked at the man who, despite having no superhuman capabilities and not an ounce of the insanity, still managed to be as dangerous if not more according to the stir of her Spider-Sense.

With a reluctant huff, the petite blonde returns to her seat just as the food arrives and quietly picks the famed burger apart while listening to Norman Osborn’s obnoxious conversation with Doctor Varanasi, which has been masterfully steered away from whatever they were talking about before her exposure. Glancing at the staff to the side, Gwen noticed the looks of apologetic shame on their faces and sighed in defeat.

- - -

Frank stood at the edge of a waterfront, black coat and hoodie covering his face and body against the chilling wind and prying eyes. His hands tucked inside the pockets, with the right one loosely gripping around the handle of a .45 as his eyes and ears roamed the scenery for a courier as informed. At a distance, a group of Jazz musicians congregated around a campfire, playing a chaotically melodic tune of a song his distant memory recognized to be Sinnerman by Nina Simone into the air surrounding this part of town, keeping their morale up high while getting through a devastating disaster together.

Oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

The Punisher scanned each person with trained eyes, noticing distinct gaits in their movements for any potential danger planted by the motherfucker who sent those superhumans to extort him with a threat to Amy’s life.

He leans on the railings to limit the approaches.

Don't you see me prayin'?

Don't you see me down here prayin'?

Then, on the right, he saw a pair coming out of the shadow.

The man walking closely behind was a fucking nobody to him, not even a known criminal, but the woman at the front leading them toward him stirred a raging fire inside his chest.

Amy Bendix, the girl whom he last saw almost a decade ago, walking stiffly, showing the sign that there is something pressed into her back, forcing her to keep walking. His grip on the handle tightened, and he was ready to take a risky shot that might save her, but he was keeping a calm posture for now. He watched as the pair grew closer and closer until they stopped about a dozen feet before reaching his location. The smallest hint of relief passed over Amy’s face when she recognized the man waiting for them on the waterfront, mostly through his familiar presence and posture.

“…Have you come with the offering?” the man behind Amy asked, voice cold and calm, pressing whatever it was in his right hand harder into the woman’s back, eliciting a short yelp.

“You’ll get your deal when she’s here, with me,” Frank indicated to the spot beside him with a tap of his foot, eyes alternating intensely between Amy and the man behind her wearing a long greyish coat. “Or you can scrape his smears off the floor yourself. Your pick.” As he played his ultimatum, Castle slipped his left hand out of his pocket with a detonator and a dead-man’s switch in hand, wiggling it at the negotiator sent by whoever it was controlling the two superhumans that had ambushed him earlier.

Amy’s eyes widened in surprise at the way the Punisher was casually gambling her life, yet it was weirdly familiar in a way.

Frank Castle was not someone who would let an enemy take advantage in a confrontation, not even if someone’s life depended on it.

He just had to come out on top, like always.

And, strangely, and begrudgingly, she kinda gets it.

This way, even if the bastards who kidnapped and are now using her as a bargaining chip play a bluff, it would be a lost-lost bet as nobody wins anything.

A shot to the back might be fatal, but maybe she’ll live; modern medicine, you know? With the GRU around helping the rehabilitation effort of the New Yorkers, she’s in good hands.

It’ll hurt like hell, though.

But that’s something she’s willing to bet on, yet she hesitates because of the look Frank is giving her.

A plea.

Something she’d never seen before on him.

So, she stayed put, letting her trust in the man before her take control of the situation.

“That won’t be happening, Punisher,” the man behind her gritted. “Hand him over, and we’ll give you yours.”

“Ya see, buddy?” Frank leaned back against the railings, intentionally shifted to line his right side with the best trajectory for a quick draw at this distance, and hoped beyond hope that Amy would be intuitive enough to get the message. “I’ve been dealing with scums and crazies like you and yours for years. I studied them. Hunted them. Killed them.” He emphasized each sentence with burning anger and hateful glee, tightening his grasp around the textured handle even more. “One damn thing I learnt from all them corpses is…that ain’t a single one of you was ever an honest type!” he roared and Amy, thankfully, took the cue by lurching forward and get down to the ground with a forceful movement, surprising the man behind and got out the hailing rounds coming from Frank Castle’s direction. A sharp pain shoots up from her right shoulder, but Amy keeps her head down and rolls away from the line of fire, letting the Punisher take care of business as usual.

The Jazz band screamed and scattered away as the bullets started flying. Yet, it ended all too soon as the Punisher landed a fatal shot in the man’s center of mass, destroying the internal organs with a hollow-point, mangled up the flesh, and sent a wave of deadly shock into his system. He collapsed with a writhing seizure, coughing up foaming blood as his lungs were destroyed and his heart desperately beating in a futile attempt to keep him alive.

Frank kept his pistol trained on the downed man and quickly approached Amy, who was still lying in a fetal position on the cement floor. “Kid? You hurt?” he averted his eyes for a second to address her and firmly squeezed her shoulder. “Amy? Talk to me!”

“You guys done cowboying?” she asked with ragged breathing, adrenaline coursing through her entire body, and her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. She heard a chuckle coming from the Punisher.

“Sounds like you’re fine,” Frank added and noticed the limp on her right shoulder with a slight grimace. “We gotta get outta here.” He said and quickly helped her up, albeit with a sharp yelp of pain from the woman. “Stop whining.” He playfully chided her, receiving a glare.

With almost too much ease, Frank led Amy through dark alleys and secluded corners of New York City, avoiding the police and CRUD patrols until they reached the safer part of Harlem, deep within Luke Cage’s territory. He keeps the pressure on Amy’s injured shoulder, ignoring her muffled winces, knocking on a black door without a number on an apartment.

She should have been here.

The door creaked open as the occupant inside peeked through a small gap between the door and the frame with a shocked expression, her eyes widening at the recognition her nightly guests brought. “Castle?!”

“Kid got shot.” He simply answered her unsaid question and motioned for the grunting woman on his arm, “Ya know how it is.”

“Sorry for a surprise visit, Miss Temple.” Amy apologizes with a sheepish grin.

“You should’ve gone to a hospital,” Claire Temple sighed heavily before stepping to the side, allowing the two a passage into her apartment. “Fill me in?” she voiced at the Punisher after directing the injured woman to the dining table and heading into her bathroom for a kit.

“A nine mill, single wound, right shoulder,” Frank answered as curt and informative as possible, still pressing the wound even though Amy protested painfully. “Through.”

“That’s good,” the Night Nurse returned with a pair of nitriles covering her hands and a face mask, bringing along a tray of medical essentials. “Means I don’t have to do some caveman surgery.” She jabbed a little before shooing the Punisher away and starting the treatment. Frank relented and relocated to the window, looking out with cautious eyes.

“Must be nice, living all dry and high up here.” Castle attempted a small conversation, which only elicited a tut of annoyance from the nurse. “The city doesn’t feel the same, it’s…quieter.” He said while scanning the calmer street of Harlem, now filled with tents and sleeping bags of the survivors migrated from downtown away from the devastated landscape where the Atlantean hits.

“Being hit with a tsunami would do that, especially if it flooded almost 60% of the whole city.” Claire retorted, starting the suture while having Amy bite down on a fold of gauze to keep from screaming and biting her tongue. “It’s getting crazier by the day,” she breathed out, finishing up the entry wound. “Back then, I thought watching Luke tanked a whole magazine, or seeing Jones punching through a concrete wall, or watching Danny summon the Iron Fist was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Now there’s Spider-Man, Tombstone, Fisk, Rhino, shape-shifting aliens, and now there are Atlanteans? It’s surreal, sometimes. It’s like this hellhole of a city attracts them.”

Frank kept his silence.

- - -

“The Punisher betrayed our agreement.” The glowing woman said quietly into the phone, connected with the person on the other end, as she was standing atop a building overlooking the scene below of policemen and EMTs circling the area where a shooting had happened earlier tonight. Lying there amid the outline of white spray paint was their friend, one of the devotees among their ranks. “Amish is dead…he shot him.” Her voice cracked and wavered, and the swirls of shadow lightly enveloping her arms like a caress, consoling her. “…Yes, father. We’ll see to it.” She answered with a heavy heart, and the line went silent. “This is horrible, Ty.” She spoke to the wind and thin air surrounding her, but not long after that, the transparent matter around her took shape and a silhouette of a man cladded in a long black cloak appeared like an apparition behind her, the jagged hem of his cloak covering her glowing figure, absorbing the excess light like a starving wolf. The glow surrounding her dims steadily until she looks just like a normal girl again, with fair-blonde hair cascading downward to rest on her shoulders, and her glowing white eyes gave way to a pair of pale blue orbs. She hugs herself like the cold gale irritated her, the immaterial nature of the cloak gives little insulation. “Amish doesn’t deserve this.”

“Don—don’t blame y—yourself, Tan—Tandy.” The man cloaked in darkness, now tangible enough to be observed, stuttering out wanting to comfort her as best as he could, lowered himself at her side into a crouch, a hand landed firmly on her shoulder, purchasing as much physical contact as possible before time ran out. “Th—The Punisher’s a ba—bad guy, there’s nothing we ca—can do to change someone like th—that.”

“He got cut by my dagger, Ty.” Tandy, as called, looked up with confusion in her eyes at the dark-skinned man whose body slowly started to be immaterialized again. “He should be volunteering somewhere now, or even taking the clothes, or changing his ways…not walking around killing people again; good people!” She gestured weakly below at the body lying inside a white outline. “I don’t understand, Ty; how did my powers not work on him?” She looked down at her palms, calling the light daggers from her fingertips, absentmindedly playing with them.

“I d—don’t kno—” Ty’s answer got cut mid-sentence as his body completely immaterialized into a flitting silhouette, gulping the rest of the sentence in silence. He noticed that after a moment and got visibly upset at himself. Then, with clear difficulty, they started communicating with ASL, as they had to do so many times before.

‘I don’t know, Tandy. We don’t know how our powers work, it could be that there’s a lapse.’

‘The sinners we’ve dealt with before would suggest otherwise, Ty.’

‘They are just thieves and thugs, not a psychopathic killer like him.’

‘My light cleanse darkness from their hearts.’

‘That’s what Father told us.’

‘You questioned him?’

‘It’s better than blindly trusting someone.’

‘But I trust you!’

‘And I do the same, but it’s different with him. He’s a stranger, Tandy.’

“A stranger who took us in and gave us food, beddings, and a place to stay?”

‘I’m not ungrateful, far from it. I’m just saying that maybe—’

“Ugh! I don’t wanna talk about it.” Tandy abruptly cut him off with a dismissal wave of her hand and stood up, stretching a little before pointing down at the body of their friend with a determined look. “We have to get him back with us.” And with a reluctant nod from the immaterial shadow of a man draped in a cloak, Tandy sent a couple of light-daggers at the lightbulbs and the sirens, darkening the scene saved for the dim glow emanating from her photonic constructs.

While the commotion started and all of the officers and technicians down below frantically looking upward to the source of an ambush, Tyrone drifted silently towards the corpse of a man named Amish before covering his cold body inside a blanket of void, then he consumed himself and the corpse into the spiral darkness, vanishing from sight.

Soon, he materialized again at her side and let the cold, breathless body of Amish gently falls to the hard cement of the rooftop where Tandy immediately kneeling with a turmoil in her face, eyes watering as she took in the framed agony left on his face from the hand of a killer like the Punisher.

“…I’m so sorry, Amish…” Tandy whispered against the wind and started sobbing quietly, laying her shaky hand softly upon his lifeless eyes and slowly closing them.

- - -

Gwen dropped onto one of the Chrysler’s eagles with a huff and perched on the metallic avian for about a minute before she unintentionally crushed the metal beak of it under her superhuman grip as anger fumed through her body. Tucking the hem of her white mask up, she breathed a frustrated groan out to the chilling air of the night.

Her hand fished a hard and rectangular-shaped business card of Norman Osborn out and flipped to the blank side. “That slimy prick…” Gwen mumbled to herself, fighting the urge to just tear the piece of crispy paper apart and scatter it in the high wind, but the unbearable conversation she’d had earlier with the CEO of her former employer rang in the back of her head.

“…I believe you have had a curiosity about a certain medical procedure, or rather an aspect of one, that was involved in saving your life not that long ago, Miss Stacy,” he looked at her with that pair of falconoid gaze that sent shivers coursing through her body. “A rather experimental and expensive aspect that shouldn’t be accessible to anyone, much less you.”

She remembers her blood boiling.

“The Semi-Blood; such a fascinating miracle by Doctor Morbius. With a right hand guiding him, there will be a bright future ahead of us all.” Norman’s eyes pandered towards her, and a slight smile spread across his face, sending a shiver down her spine. “I’ve invited him over to my estate this weekend. Such an opportunity won’t come so often, right?”

She kept her silence.

“You are welcome to join; there will be many bright minds conglomerating there, sharing wisdoms and ideas, and it would be a shame to not giving you that opportunity.”

“What’s the catch?” She sneered with dripping venom. “Mister Osborn?”

“Now, now. Wasn’t that a bit hostile?”

“It’s the hot sauce.” She countered immediately, internally cringing at the ridiculous reasoning. Then, she forced a smile onto her stoic face. He just chuckled while shaking his head.

“To answer your question, yes, I do have an agenda.” He looked and made sure she finished her burger and then produced a business card from his jacket and a pen from the table, quickly scribing a note onto the blank side. “Get inside and ask for a lady named Cynthia; she’ll take care of everything.” He said and took a moment to finish the note before handing it to her. “The number below is one of my drivers; call him after you’ve finished with Cynthia.”

“Finished?” Gwen ignored Doctor Varanasi’s curious gaze and kept her confusing glare on Norman Osborn.

“A dress, Miss Stacy. It is to be a prolific event, after all.” He replied, smirking at the corner of his lips.

Gwen breathed out and tucked the business card back into the suit’s hidden pocket, massaging the bridge of her nose and her forehead firmly. “…Edith?”

“What is it?”

“Can you…get inside Metro-General’s database, look for my case; a surgery.”

“May I ask, why?”

“…Needa confirm something.” She whispered with a grimace.

It took the advanced AI about five minutes before a beep came through. Gwen called the data up on the HUD integrated into the lenses and read through extensive medical records related to her GSW and the following surgery, as well as the procedures adopted. “…Semi-Blood’s not something my insurance covers, at least not until Michael Morbius patented and commercialized the formula for a few years before…so, if that’s the case…” she whispered with a sour taste on her tongue, her eyes roamed the letters until it landed on a particular name of a company that granted her case a special allowance under the guise of a new employee’s insurance policy.

- - -

Frank sits and listens to the background classic rock from the jukebox inside Josie’s while nursing a half-full bottle of beer in his hand, his back facing the entrance. Soon, a clicking of heels reaches his ears and he raises his bottle as a signal without looking back.

The woman with curly black hair and olive skin silently took a seat on his left side with a pointed look and crossed her arms around her midriff. “Is this your way of apologizing for breaking into my house?” Dinah Madani greeted him with her trademark quirking eyebrows, “Vodka, thanks.” She aviated a little to order a drink to one of Josie’s girls, then returned her demanding face to the retired Punisher before her. “By the way; that fucking shootout earlier? Stupid.”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead calling a woman here for a drink, agent,” Frank replied with a scoff, taking another swig before chewing on roasted peanuts from the tray. “Also, I didn’t break anything to get into your house; give me some credit.”

“Fine,” Madani retorted and leaned against the stiff recliner, gesturing with a nod. “What’s the occasion?”

“Hear anything about the guy that was dead? A name? An address? Any associates?”

“It almost sounded like you are back in the game,” Dinah pointed out.

“Might as well be,” Castle gruntled, emptying the rest of the bottle and leaned away from the CIA agent “Whoever these fuckers are, they used Amy like some…some bargain chip, Madani; I ain’t letting it slide, not this.” He growled lowly, eyeing the hand that was rested on the table, anticipating whether she will flip or not. “It’s personal.”

“I don’t give a shit if it’s personal, Frank,” Dinah pointedly glared at him, her eyes burning with rising irritation “I gave you an out once, that’s it! No Punisher. We’re done!” she growled, “You know how fucked my career is? I can’t afford to let you slip away a second time. Either Langley will kick me into a super-max for the next decade, or I have to deliver you on a plate myself, and frankly,” Dinah chuckled grimly at the accidental pun, “I would do it in a heartbeat.”

- - -

The House

Kate moored the boat and anchored it to the pier around eight, exhausted from the board meetings all day. She dropped Harley off at Brooklyn Stark Technology, following the forced relocation after the tsunami, and the Iron Man decided to spend some nights at the Eco-Compound up north to sort through the company’s investment crisis following his demotion from the Avengers.

“Another week of this? Come on—” She was about to finish her whine when her eyes cast onto a figure leaning against the back porch pillar, looking at the moonlit water at a distance. The silvery light betrayed the golden mane of the petite woman, exposing their identity. “Aww, you shouldn’t have.” Kate greeted lightheartedly at Gwen Stacy, the de facto mistress of the house, and quickly ascending the steps.

The weak and heavy smile made its way onto the blonde’s face, faltering the archer’s pace a little. “Hey,”

“…you okay?” the raven-haired athlete added as she stopped near the mulling petite woman, searching the veiled face for any indication. Is she missing Pete or Doctor Storm? The Bishop’s heiress kept the question inside, not wanting to assume anything out loud.

“…I don’t know…” the superhuman whispered to the wind, keeping her eyes locked on the light show on the wave’s surface. “…I guess, in a way.”

“Wanna talk?” The raven-haired man sits on the railing as well, separated only by a wooden pole. “I had to listen to logistics and numbers all day today, please,” Kate added with a small chuckle, intended for it to lighten the air a little.

“Nah, you already went through enough torture,” Gwen replied with an attempted deviation tactic, smiling a smile that didn’t survive a trek to her eyes. “You don’t wanna hear me whining the rest of the night away.”

“Try me, Gwen.” Kate quickly retorted with a sincere smile, hugging the pole and leaning in closer. “Contrary to what the news said, I have good ears too.” She attempted another.

The blonde looked at the Avenger on her right with a quirked eyebrow, studying the displayed sincerity on the woman’s distinguishable and shapely face under the silver light with her enhanced sight; she thought Kate Bishop would have a perfect face, yet in this proximity she can spot a few blemishes and shallow scars marring the honeyed skin. It humanized her a bit, but the fact that this woman can shoot an arrow at a microscopic spot from a few hundred yards away will always be otherworldly.

Yet, that sliver of altered perspective allows Gwen to see Kate Bishop not as a superhero who is so far out of reach but just another woman.

And it dictates her to pull down a wall she didn’t know she had put up since her trip to the Big Apple earlier today. “I spied on Norman Osborn today.”

“Huh?”

“Long story short; the bioengineering procedures done to Hammerhead have some traces of a compound named GR-28; it was supposed to be OSCORP’s artificial retrovirus designed as a CRISPR crucible agent,” Gwen started while shimmying a bit, “it was supposed to be the future of genetic engineering until something went wrong, I guess. I don’t have the details, but the virus worked a little too good; it can, in theory, evolve at a mind-boggling rate due to its accelerated cellular-replication rate.” She noticed a look of mild confusion from the archer and let out a small huff of amusement before clearing her throat “Cells get damaged and aged in every second that passed, so they compensate that loss by a process called Cell Cycle; there are G1 for growth, S for DNA synthesis, G2 which is a preparation phase for cellular division, and M for mitosis or cellular replication.” Gwen listed by counting down her fingers.

Kate slowly nodded, trying her best to follow the impromptu biology lesson of this evening.

“Now, through faster cell cycles, GR-28 can potentially be indestructible. A fast-evolving virus that we can’t study if a pandemic started.”

“Dibs on the katana,” Kate interjected with pursed lips after a moment, followed by Gwen’s little, amused chuckle.

“Thought you’d go with a crossbow.”

“I’d probably need to grow a beard and be in a biker gang before that.” Hawkeye retorted lightheartedly.

“Maybe we can go pick up Michael Rooker to be your gruff brother, too.” Gwen jabbed with a short laugh before the silence rushed back in, albeit with less intensity than before. Then, the petite blonde huffed an air into the night and averted her eyes toward the veiled moon above. “I don’t think a zombie virus is possible.”

Kate sensed the superhuman biologist trailing off and couldn’t help but look at the way the silvery glow of the celestial body played with her features- pretty features.

What is it with short blondes that attracts her so much?

“Anyway, someone must’ve used GR-28 to introduce the mutagenic agents into Hammerhead’s body to prepared him for further experimentations,” Gwen continued, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips at the way Kate is studying her “and with how only OSCORP knows about its existence, I decided to…get to the root.”

Then, she regaled the archer with a short version of her interaction with Norman Osborn.

“Ugh! And I thought the Duquesnes family was bad.” Hawkeye scoffed with utter disbelief at the businessman’s actions in the blonde’s story. “I mean, I kinda tolerate Jack enough, but the rest of his family? Especially that little shit? I wished I can use some of them as a target practice.” The raven-haired sharpshooter elaborated dramatically, “But this Osborn guy? What a guy!”

Both laugh along into the silence of the night, accompanied by faint waves crashing into the shoreline, cutting through rocks and creating small riptides.

“So, are you gonna attend this thing?” Kate opened the bottle after a long while, leaning into the pole nearest to the blonde.

“I don’t have a choice, Kate,” Gwen sighed, shoulders slumped and head dipped lower. “I’ve always wanted to study at Harvard like…like Sue; she’s my idol, you know? She’s so smart, and her contributions to the science world are nothing short of amazing. I just wanted to be like her, making a difference through what I love.” Gwen looked at the moon’s reflection on the wavering surface. “It still confuses me sometimes that I had a chance to get to know her so…intimately like this, you know? And that was partly because I know Peter.” She breathed heavily in exhaustion. “The Amazing Spider-Man. He fought in a battle that saved the universe when he was seventeen! He’s a third in ESU only because he had to cut classes to make money or save people’s lives, otherwise, the one who graduated with a valedictorian degree should have been him, not me.” Gwen breathed a grim chuckle, shaking her head. “…why would they still be with me if I’m just a nobody?”

The question left her lips, and the night held its answer, kept hidden and contained in the depths of uncertain hearts.

- - -

The Baxter Building

“Lemme ask you somethin, Reed.” Ben started after setting a stainless-steel cup down on the blocky railing of the building’s penthouse, overlooking the city below. The strong aftertaste of a Kentucky Bourbon burns still in his esophagus as hard work and contributions deserve at least a moment of respite once in a while. He looked at the man whom his question was aimed at, lounging on the recliner with his body unnaturally stretched like a sack of heavy water.

“Shoot,” the Smartest Man Alive toasted with a tinge of a slur in his voice, indicating the onset of intoxication.

“…why did you let things between Suzie and Spidey happen?”

“…‘Let things between them happened’? What do you mean?” the Stretchy Genius craned his neck like a snake to look at the stone giant.

“You fancied, or rather fancy her still; I see it from time to time, even if you are trying not to let it show.”

Reed chuckled shortly before taking another swig with a deep exhale, “I’ll admit, there’s still some…unresolved feelings left, but…I couldn’t.”

Ben quirked his brow, or the ridges where they are supposed to be, quizzically, without a word.

“She chose to be with Peter, Ben; that’s the most important thing.” Reed looked upward to the partially clear sky courtesy of the city’s damaged utilities and infrastructures. “Spending time under her dad’s tutelage gave me some ideas of how her childhood might have been like. Funny, I would even say that I lived through her childhood as well.” Reed said with a grim tone, recalling unpleasant memories. “…Nathaniel wasn’t exactly a dad most of my childhood, he’s more like a…well, really I was more like a lab experiment to him than a son,” Reed grumbled and emptied the glass in one swig, grimacing at the intensity of hard liquor burning in his guts. “He had this idea about perfecting what Heinrich Himmler started with the Lebensborn program; everything I did, ate, read, listened to, or even played, were all calculated and planned excessively by him.”

“…I’m his Magnum Opus, not because I was his son, but because I can become what he’d envisioned. An undeniable living proof.”

“So, I guess…in a way, I’m happy with how things turned out,” Reed added after a moment.

“Huh. I don’t get you smart people.” The stone giant scoffed and refilled their respective containers. “But I guess Suzie’s choice is not so bad.”

“That’s something we can agree on, old friend. Not bad, indeed.” Reed replied with a nod, looking at the City That Never Sleeps, standing proud even after the absence of her steadfast sentinel.

- - -

Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters

“…that’s not something I’m familiar with, sorry,” Illyana uttered after a minute of recollection, trying to remember the daemons she’d seen and known in Limbo to match the description that Storm provided regarding the red-haired telepath’s recent outburst.

When Ororo Munroe and Logan asked for her help earlier, she’d thought Peter Parker, or Spider-Man, was now experiencing a demonic possession of some kind, which could explain her uneasy feeling around the Arachnid’s presence.

Looking around, she noticed Kitty’s shoulders slumped and a look of worry crossed her freckled face, “…but I’ll see what I can find.” The petite mutant perked after that, which also brought a fluttering sensation into Illyana’s stomach, akin to someone somehow swallowing a whole army of butterflies.

“What can we do for you?” Logan, ever practical, asked while nursing an unlit cigar between his canines.

“Some provisions would be appreciated; there’s a possibility that my physical body will be affected by the instability and distortion between realms.” The blonde Rasputin replied, and the Wolverine nodded before signaling for Shadowcat to go get the survival pack from the Danger Room storage for that.

With her phasing mutations, Kitty was able to go and come back in under a minute with two packs of the requested items. “It’s a bonus!” the Deerfield teenager announced as she presented them to the Swordsmaster.

Illyana harbored a smile on her lips as she was about to take the items, but it was replaced by a surprised joy after the brunette abruptly gathered her into a bear hug, nuzzling the ponytailed head under Illyana’s slightly taller chin.

“Thank you,” Kitty whispered as she felt the Russian go rigid as a wooden doll at the sudden contact but smiled softly after a pair of hands envelope her into a hug as well.

“Все для тебя, куколка…” Illyana replied in her mother’s tongue with a deep inhale of air before summoning the Crimson Guard armor over herself while taking a step back away from the others, then manifesting Soulsword into her grip, a protruding energy blade pointed upward in an angle. The ginormous blade itself is almost weightless, made out of pure energy derived from the essence of her soul. “I’ll be back.” She announced with a thumbs up, especially to the woman that unknowingly had a firm grip on her heart. Then she swung the armament through the air, cutting the fabric of reality, and slipped through the dimensional rift.

“…did she just Terminator us?” Kitty inquired after a moment with quirked eyebrows and a playful glint in her eyes.

- - -

Sanctum Sanctorum

Stephen shot awake as an intense sensation bombarded his trained mind, forcing him to get up from a slumber inside the study and quickly limping towards the main hall with the Cloak of Levitation lazily flowing along.

“The lanterns are lit…” Strange noted to himself and quickened to the hall as fast as his recovering body would allow. Stretched his arm to the side, The Sanctum Master summons the replica of Gleipnir to his hand while closing in on the distance between him and the uninvited guest who possesses immense magical energy. As he drew closer to the distorting source, his steps stuttered when the visage of the intruder came into view.

Her flowing golden hair was parted in places by the metallic crown of sanguine crimson forged by otherworldly material that gave off a menacing aura. Her striking blue eyes were framed inside a demonic armored mask depicting a likeness of a snarling ogre. The entirety of her body covered the segmented full-body armor of the same material and palette as the crown atop her head, resembling that of a snake’s skeleton, with spikes adorning her shoulders and arms and thighs.

The visage was not the perpetrator to his shocked stutter, however, but the armament clasped firmly in the hand of the person.

The legendary mystic weapon, the Soulsword.

A weapon is forged by splitting one’s soul and molding it into the core of the armament, binding its blade and the wielder’s life into one.

A deadly gamble so few were determined enough to partake.

And as of this era, he knows of only one person who would possess both the Crimson Crown of Limbo and the Soulsword, as foretold in the Book of Vishanti.

“It’s an honor, Sovereign of Otherplace,” He stopped and bowed to the young sorceress, “Queen of Limbo.” Stephen Strange rose to his full height before clearing his throat and addressing her again with a more casual tone, “Illyana Rasputin, welcome to the New York Sanctum.” He stood with his hands joined behind his back, holding the mystic relic out of sight to show some hospitality.

“Greetings, Master Strange,” Illyana bowed in kind, storing the Soulsword by sheathing the entire thing into her chest, sending it to its resting place at the center of her soul. “I have come with a request.”

“Of course,” Stephen replied with a chuckle. “May we discuss this urgent matter upstairs?”

“…that is troublesome.” Strange relayed after a while, rubbing the apex of his trimmed goatee. A cup of honeyed mead rested idly in front of them both, while the Queen of Limbo leaned against the backrest after reducing her armor to only her left arm. “I’ve never heard nor read about an entity similar to what you described, but if this information holds, drastic measures are to be prepared.”

“It is true, Master Strange; my friends would never lie.”

“The doubt I expressed was not aimed at you nor your sources, Illyana, but rather at the scarcity of knowledge this library contained about such a thing.” Strange waved his hands around to indicate the vast circular room filled with shelves full of old tomes and scrolls as well as artefacts dating back to the beginning days of Kamar-Taj. “This could only lead to two conclusions; either this entity is a newborn—”

“Or it’s so dangerously ancient that the mere knowledge of it threatens the stability of reality.” Illyana breathed with a raspy voice.

Strange only nods in agreement with a grim look, his mind already running rampant, finding a solution to this dire problem.

The best option is to analyze Spider-Man as soon as possible…

“Anyways, I shall leave the Earthly matters to you,” Magik announced and stood up, stomping her foot once to summon the Stepping Disc underneath, readying herself for a trans-dimensional long trip. “Maybe there’s some old wretched left who knows something about it.”

“Good luck, then. Illyana Rasputin.” Stephen bowed again as the glowing ring steadily ascended and consumed the Sorceress Supreme of Limbo.

“To you, as well, Sorcerer Supreme.” She nodded before the Crimson Guard covered her face under its protective layer, and Magik disappeared from reality.

“That title belongs to Wong now, but eh.” Strange shrugs, and quickly drops down to enter a meditation, searching for Spider-Man’s consciousness.

- - -

Illyana stepped down from her trans-dimensional traversal power, and a shudder ran up her spine the very moment an intense sulfuric air of the hellish realm invaded her nostrils, searing the mucus membranes inside.

The twisted branches of the dead trees adorned the landscape, just as she disdainfully remembers, veiled in blurry shadows cast by the blinding glow of the Soulsword. Tiny hellish creatures scattered away from the searing shine, scared of the alien glow in this darkened land basking under the muted light of its Black Sun. She treks along the twisted path leading to an imposing palace made of The Old King’s husk—an ancient being felled and turned into a palace—with a grimace as echoing cries reach her ears.

Cries of a lost child scared hopelessly in a strange land. The haunting sounds she didn’t remember to be so deafeningly sorrowful when they were reflecting off the walls of her cell.

Illyana took a reinforcing breath, straightened her back, and marched on toward the hollowed carcass.

The entryway of the castle still bears the ruin she’d left all those years ago, with the steel gates cut cleanly in half diagonally by the newly forged Soulsword as she was looking for an escape. Charred bones of daemonic legions lined the hall, fallen to her wrath.

Scorched marks on the walls.

Craters on the floor.

Holes here and there where the legions of Belasco’s loyalists swarmed in with intent to kill.

When she arrived here by the cruelty of fate all those years ago, Limbo was filled with generals and warlords under the Cruel One’s rules. When she broke free of their sadistic imprisonment, only the harmless ones were left alive.

They titled her the Queen of Limbo, ruler of a desolated ruin.

That’s the story they’ve been instructed to spread, a tale of a crazed golden-haired witch who wields the legendary blade. Laying waste to the once-fearsome daemonic army of the Cruel Sorcerer Belasco.

But, there’s someone else living here.

Or, rather, something.

Illyana approached the Black Gates and kicked them open, revealing the destroyed throne room she’d once cowered in at the foot of Belasco’s chair, a prized trophy of his twisted reign, a child of prophecy foretold to bring glory and bloodshed.

“…Darkchylde…” a raspy and dried voice sounded from above, and Illyana cast her piercing eyes toward its origin with hatred.

“...Have you come…to release me…daughter?”

“Cease your treacherous tongue, foul daemon!” Illyana roared and slashed the air ahead of her with the glowing blade, then an arc of mystic energy was hurled forward and landed near the hanging figure above. The blackened chains pierced and wrapped around the daemon, looping around its crooked neck. “Dispel your trickery, or taste my wrath!”

The daemon tutted its forked tongue and reluctantly complied, abandoning the illusion of a horned man with waving hair to assume its supposed appearance; a starkly-white face with no eyes and nostrils, only twisted grin remains.

“Questions I sensed within, Darkchylde, so out with it.” The Hanging Daemon urged her in its maniacal tone, writhing around playfully in its confinement. “Riddle me, Ruin-Bringer! Enlighten my torment, I shall dare!”

Chapter Text

Act 2

Chapter 3

Sin City, Part 3

- - -

Darkness.

It’s the only constant he's known for a while now.

He felt nothing, not even the sensation of this void on his skin.

He floats, for god knows how long.

Until that sparkle came to life, from so far away he’d thought it was a figment of his desperate imagination.

Yet, she is there, in front of him. So close he felt something for the first time in a long time as her blinding light bathed his skin, revealing the body he’d long forgotten he had before.

He reached for her like a lost lamb, and she did the same.

Her golden mane spread weightlessly in the immaterial sphere of shadows.

Her eyes reminded him of the clear sky he saw when he was young, when he was so carefree and contented with his little life at home, with his mother.

Her soothing voice cut through the viscous darkness like a hot knife through butter; it sounded almost like a scream after what felt like an eternity of silence.

“Don’t cry, " she said with that beautiful smile, illuminated by the radiance within. Her hand touched the side of his face, and the darkness crumbled.

But not before a screeching cackle sounded from the deepest depths.

Tyrone jolted awake, sweating, and hyperventilating as his heart beat so rapidly from the cold grip that nightmarish laugh had on his heart. He felt the cold air envelop him against the midday sun, ramming its scorching rays onto the building’s exterior. He sits up properly with a heavy sigh, rubbing the residue of slumber off his closed eyes.

“Ba..d dre…ams…?” a distorted voice sounded from the side, and he craned his neck towards it with a hint of a sad smile gracing his lips.

She’s there, barely tangible and almost imperceptible in the spear of sunlight parting through the worn and ragged curtain, with only part of her face remaining outside of the revered shine.

“Just b-b-back then, T-T-Tandy.” Tyrone replied, slouching his shoulders a little, looking down at the crumpled cloak on the floor. “Y-Y-You shouldn’t help me.”

He regrets his words as soon as they leave his lips, the instant that Tandy’s sad smile turns into a soured grimace.

“I c…an’t leave yo u there alone!”

“But mayb-b-be you wouldn’t—”

A rap of knocks sounded on the wooden door, cutting the conversation short before the pane would swing open, revealing a dark skin middle-aged man wearing a warm smile stepping softly into the room, alternating his eyes between the black teen and a specter of a blonde girl without a hint of confusion in his brown eyes. A shirt of pale palette was contrasted by the midnight color of his long coat, resembling that of priests.

“The Faithful are here, my children.” He informed them with a deep, melodic voice, ushering them with a gentle motion of his hand. “Come and greet them.”

Tyrone nodded silently while Tandy forced a flickering smile onto her face; then the priest excused himself and stepped away from the threshold, leaving the two in uncomfortable silence.

- - -

Hell’s Kitchen

“…Are you my mailman?” Jessica asked with a grumble in her coarse voice, her face filled with disbelief at what she saw through the eyehole. “Please tell me I have an overdue delivery of a forty-five round to my head.”

“Quit yapping and open the goddamn door, Jones.” Frank groaned in frustration and kept rapping his knuckles on the pane of tinted glass.

“I didn’t have enough vodka on dinner, so this better be important,” the Alcoholic Super Joan Jett grumbled against the doorframe before grabbing the doorknob and twisted it, albeit a bit too forceful due to her intoxicating mind, “shit…” she breathed tiredly before pulling the door inward to be greeted with the permanent scowl on the Punisher’s face looking back at her. “Need some extras? I sell ‘em about twenty a piece.” The dark-haired superhuman pointed her thumb back at the board behind her, which was peppered with explicit photos she took of her clients’ unfaithful spouses in their secret affairs.

“Cut the crap,” the brutal vigilante pushed past her into the main section of Alias Investigation’s office/her crappy apartment, and quickly took a pen and paper from her desk, then handed the scribbled note to the confused P.I.

“…’a cleansing blade of justice’? What kinda bullshit is this?” Jessica alternated her red-rimmed eyes between the piece of paper and the Punisher. “Trying out a new motto?”

Frank scoffed with a hint of a smirk before shaking his head. Then, he produced a solid-light dagger he took from his encounter with the superhuman duo earlier, and tossed it at the curious P.I. “Someone, a girl, blonde hair, dressed in all white, threw it at me.”

“What—sonuvabitch!” Jessica cursed colorfully after the wickedly sharp blade cut into her flesh, just by grabbing it with a little too much pressure, but the other effect was more prominent in her mind. “…my hangover’s gone.”

“Some kinda superpower, I think; fits the phrase,” Frank added, leaning on the worn desk that produced a concerning creak. “What’s your rate?”

“That’s a bold question, mister.” Jessica countered with a sarcastic lilt.

“I meant looking into this girl.” Castle sighed with an annoyed huff. Then, he pulled a wad of cash out from his pocket, throwing it casually on the desk.

Jessica snorted with an amused grin before setting the dagger made of light down on the cabinet’s top, taking a seat on the old sofa, facing the Punisher. “I need everything you can remember…”

“…I’m not your booty call, Jessica,” Yuriko grumbled after her well-earned coffee break was interrupted by the uninvited appearance of the superhuman private investigator, who purposefully slotted herself in the same booth to block the only escape.

“It’s not like I wanna eat out a workaholic, stressed-out sushi,” The raven-haired, alabaster-skinned woman retorted with a fake smile, “I’ll let you get back to your break, just tell me what you know about…”

“…why are you here?”

“Looking for someone,” Jessica replied with a mirthless smirk.

“Well, this ain’t a police station.”

“Cut the crap, Damian; you owe me.”

“Jessica Fucking Jones—” her sarcastic greeting was cut short by a choke of surprise as her back slammed into the wall behind, a slender but strong forearm pressed into her larynx. “…Always…a pleasure to…see ya!”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, and answers,” the Investigator growled lowly with sharp and narrowed eyes, “Look into that thick skull of yours and tell me what you remember about a girl, twenty at best, blonde hair, about ye high, dresses in white, preaching something about retribution or justice.”

“You gettin' kinky—” a slap came with a thunderous sound, drawing blood from the unwilling informant with a moan of pain.

“Answer. The fucking. Question.”

“…well, what do you know?” She muttered under her breath with a grimace, looking up at the old and worn metal plaque, reading “Saint Agnes Orphanage; kinda surprised it’s still standing after that kingfisher dickhead.” The building, sporting a new coat of paint with the remnants of flooding seawater, maintained most of its structure and still stands like a solid beacon in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, like a lone angel planting its feet firmly in a pandemonium of evils. Jessica scoffed a little before pushing the gates open, and her ears were immediately bombarded by various sounds going on inside: utensils clanking, children's cheers, adults talking among themselves in whispers, and muffled prayers coming from the inner sanctuary. There were also the smells of various cooking meals, disinfectants, a variety of alcohols, and hard liquors that she recognized with a concerning speed.

“Are you hungry?” a small voice came from her left, and it took Jessica a failed attempt to realize that the person uttering that inquiry was a child. Looking down with a curious tilt in her eyebrow, Jessica was met with an Asian girl, she wasn’t sure of which heritage, mirroring her gaze with an offering of a strip of jerky in her hand, half-eaten. “You are thin. Eat.” She wiggles the jerky a little to emphasize her honest observation.

“…what are you? My mother—”

“Can you take this to your aunt for me, Nun?” a raspy voice of an older woman came, and a nun appeared with her strict posture and a stinky eye glaring at the raven-haired woman who was about to be mean to a little kid. “Cindy should be upstairs now.”

“I can, Mother Maggie!” the little girl announced and forced the leftover jerky into the private investigator’s hand before sprinting off with the package she was entrusted to be a courier for.

“What kinda name is Nun?”

“It’s Korean, for Snow,” The nun declared with a disapproval tinge remaining on her face, looking at the P.I. from head to toe. “This might be a shelter now, but it’s still an orphanage, Jessica Jones; try to be a bit more polite?”

“You know who I am?”

“It’s hard not to; your reputation around here is quite…colorful.” The servant of the Lord added, then she spun and gestured for the superhuman to follow her. “Come, we should speak somewhere more secluded than out here.”

“How did you—”

“Someone like you wouldn’t be here to offer a helping hand, right?”

Jessica opened her mouth to protest, but she had to close it with a huff when no single sound argument came to mind.

She kept quiet and shadowed the nun deeper into the orphanage, wondering which cubicle lining the long hall was once a haven for the angst teenage Matthew Murdock. Mother Maggie, as she was called, led the superhuman investigator into a secluded chapel underneath the orphanage, where Jessica’s attentive eyes caught faded marks of bloodied fists contrasting with the shadow-veiled statue of Saint Agnes at the center, with a scratched painted mark covering her eyes.

“Should we take an oath?” Jessica uttered after a tense minute.

“Ask your questions, Miss Jones.” Mother Maggie sighed and took a seat by the statue, looking pointedly at the P.I. “As a servant of the Lord, I should not lie to you.”

Jessica snorted and sat atop a bench opposite the nun, “In my experience, Maggie, shouldn’t and wouldn’t don’t usually hold the same value.” The P.I. fished for her notepad inside her jacket, flipping through the pages with intense eyes. “Since the cat’s already outta the bag, I will cut to the chase.” She stopped at the collection of notes she’d gathered before coming here and took a moment to conglomerate everything in her head before starting, “…I’m looking for a blonde woman, young, possibly not over 20, wearing whites.”

“That hardly narrowed down the list—”

“Oh, and she looked like this ten years ago.” Jessica cut in with a photo held between her index and middle fingers, a dash of a smirk painted her lips at the shock displayed on the nun’s face. “I’m no forensic, so I don’t know what she might be looking like now, but your face should be the same, sister Maggie.” The P.I. wiggles the photo of Maggie and the other kids in front of the Bronze Bull, dated 2018, with a red marker circling a young girl with a white hoodie and a bright smile on her face. “Thou shalt not lie.” The raven-haired alcoholic finished with a daring grin.

Maggie followed Jessica Jones’s movement like a curious cat, seeing the investigator stand up and stroll to the statue before placing the photo between Saint Agnes’s palms, positioning the rectangular piece to directly mirror her eyes. The raven-haired superhuman returned to her seat and crossed her legs with the notepad ready on her lap, the other hand clasped casually around a pen. “…I can only tell you a name, one which was given to her a long time ago.”

“I’m all ears.”

“…what kind of nun named a kid like a pornstar?” Jessica scoffed to herself after the third repeat of the noted name she got from Sister Maggie a while earlier, the thud of her combat boots tapping against the filthy cobblestones of Hell’s Kitchen aimlessly, waiting for a spark in her head for the next lead.

Homeless people, both before and after the flood, lined the streets in camps and Temp-Tents, looking at her in passing before the raven-haired P.I. turned a corner into an alleyway out of random, keeping her eyes on the notepad with furrowed brows; she knows the borough like the back of her hand, after all.

Tandy Bowen…I will probably have a better chance of finding a vintage than an actual person. Jessica snorted internally as her feet alternated on the brick passageway, cutting to another city block. Out of pure boredom, Jessica hoisted her camera up and pointed the lens at a bunch of people gathering around in a small circle with two acoustic guitars and a makeshift drum fashioned from a bunch of old tin cans. A small smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, dictated unknowingly by the resilience. ...the blade of justice… Jessica regales the phrase that led her down this rabbit hole once again, and thinks about it more thoroughly than she did when Frank Castle walked into her office with a wad of cash as a motivation that she needed to get out on the street again, chasing a girl who can throw a dagger made of hardened light.

Sounds like zealotry, like some kinda cult; and there are a lot of cults here in Manhattan. She looked around, her eyes counting the skyscrapers and ruined buildings, painted with cracks and watermarks.

There’s the Church of Humanity. Pride themselves on hating anything that wasn’t human; bunch of xenophobic assholes, cranked to eleven. She mulled and locked her eyes on the tallest roof in the area, confused in herself for even searching the skyline for him despite knowing that he was out of town.

Since this girl probably fits their criteria on the hate train, I doubt she’s with them. Jessica continued her trek towards the next informant she hoped would shed some light on this goose chase.

Then, who would want to leverage the Punisher for themselves?

Fisk? No, that bastard lost too many assets and resources to Castle’s rampage; no way he’ll consider using him.

Tombstone? The guy’s a ruthless motherfucker, but he’s more of a hands-on mob than this.

Maybe this is someone new, someone influential enough to convince two superhumans to work for them…blackmailing?

Jessica continued her trek with running thoughts, eyes casually taking in the recovering city surrounding her path. GRU volunteers equipped with Richards Aerospace’s advanced gadgets, accelerating their efforts tremendously, lessened the estimated time of Manhattan’s rehabilitation process by more than half.

Although among volunteers and government officials, there is also an army of CRUD’s task force agents scattered about the boroughs, looking for and ready to capture the city’s symbol of hope.

Symbol of hope? Jesus, I’m getting too sentimental. Jessica scoffed at herself, but not without a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

- - -

The Osborn Mansion

“I hate skirts,” Gwen mumbled under her breath with a tinge of frustration while her free hand kept fidgeting with the tube of expensive fabric encircling her body.

“Wholeheartedly agree,” Kate chimed in from the side with a smirk, clutched inside a pair of pants and a cropped jacket of deep royal violet, complementing her shiny raven hair cascading down one side of her shoulders. “You look great, though,” she added with a whisper after taking in the petite frame artfully displayed through the formation and style of the jade-colored dress.

“I think everybody can tell when I’m wearing this.” Gwen scoffed at the uncomfortable tightness enclosing her body, limiting her maneuverability.

“That’s why,” Kate trailed off and briefly turned away to have a conversation with a mustachioed man who wears his salt-and-pepper hair in slicked-back curls, sporting a confused expression before showing a fatherly smile and handing the archer a drape that was earlier wrapped around his left shoulder. “I am the de facto fashion designer of the New Avengers!” the raven-haired, taller woman announced with a skip in her step and circling the drape around Gwen’s snatched waist, covering her lower half from practically airing the blonde’s dump truck out to the gathering guests. “By the way, that’s Jacque Duquesne; my…legally step-father? Guardian? A weird uncle? Anyways, that’s Jack.” The sharpshooter pointed her thumb at the gentleman and returned his small wave of the hand from their positions.

“He seems like a…chill guy.”

“You can say he’s weird and a bit suspicious at first, I thought of that too; I almost called the cops on him when he was dating my mother.”

“What?”

“The guy acted like a mafia in movies! And he loves swords! I was panicking, okay? Worried about my mom and all.”

“I guess…what changed?”

“…found out mom was working for Fisk,” Kate relayed with a guilty look dashing across her face. “Remember the crazy guy fighting a bunch of thugs with a saber at Rockefeller on Christmas 2024?” she looked and saw the superhuman nodded slowly “Yeah, that’s him; turns out he’s just a rich aichmomaniac who’s pretty good at fencing and watched too much The Princess’s Bride to the point where he subconsciously grow a beard that looks like Inigo Montoya’s.” The archer elaborated with a fond smile.

“I don’t know, Bishop; I think he needs to let his hair grow a little bit more, first.” A voice came from behind them, and both turned to be greeted by a gala-ready Harley Keener, smiling at them with a smirk, hands in his pockets. “And change his weapon to a rapier, too.” He bowed a little as customary requires, taking Kate’s and Gwen’s hands respectively to lightly touch his lips as a form of greeting. “Elizabeth. Miss Stacy.” He snorted at the twitch on Hawkeye’s face as he called her by her middle name as a tease.

“What are you doing here, Harley?” Kate asked and motioned for the dirty-blond engineer to join their ranks, relocating to the vacant spot nearby.

“It’s a party full of nerds, Bishop; where else would I be?” he shrugged it off with a scoff, taking a sip from the flute of champagne in his hand. “And I kinda wanted to see Michael Morbius in person; some say he looks like a vampire because of hemophilia.”

“That’s bullshit.” Kate scoffed.

“He has another genetic disorder, not hemophilia; most of the symptoms look the same, but there are variations to them that exclude him from being called a hemophiliac.” Gwen droned on for a bit and felt a bit nervous when both Avengers quietly looked at her with quirked brows. “I helped my brother’s essay? Morbius’s condition is an interesting topic,” she offered sheepishly and let out a giggle after the others chuckled along.

Just then, a fourth came in, clad in a shimmering golden dress that complements her slender and tall figure, a mob of wild curls spread out behind her head like a halo that plays beautifully with her deep autumn honeyed skin. Her sharp eyes were framed masterfully by black eyeliner, and her lips were sporting a deep burgundy coat.

The stunner glided towards the group with a curious look in her eyes, mainly aiming at the short blonde among the group of superheroes. “Harley?” she called for his name, and the Iron Man turned with a warm smile towards her.

“Michelle,” he said her name like a poem, smoothly ushering her over before resting his hand around the small of her back and motioning for the other two within the small gathering they are in, “I’m sure you know Kate Bishop, but let me introduce you to another good friend of mine. Gwen Stacy.” He gestured at the petite blonde, and the woman briefly shook hands. “Miss Stacy, this is my girlfriend, Michelle Jones-Watson.”

“I saw you on the news,” Gwen started after their hands retreated from one another, “UN, right?”

“Assistant Secretary for the World Council, yes.” The tall woman with a supermodel figure replied, with a huff, “Now, I’m just a chaperone sent by the UN to keep an eye on the Thunderbolts' activities in NYC.”

“That’s why you are here?” Kate interjected; her eyes scanned the room again with a new notion. “To keep an eye on Thunderbolt, or Bolts?” The question harbored a tinge of skepticism, which the curly-haired woman detected quite easily.

“Don’t worry; Thaddeus Ross made sure they are not to be leisurely about it before the apprehension of Spider-Man.” Then, MJ produced a tracker app from her phone, showing dots of pings scattering around the geological vectors of New York City; three in total, with initials of BW, UA, and TM. “Latest tracking nanites, injected into their bloodstream. Accurate to a few inches.”

Kate narrowed her eyes at the Tennessean at the side, who shook his head in objection.

“It was a tech provided by OSCORP, not Stark Tech.” Michelle declared, stashing her phone inside her clutch.

“Wow, I thought your name was Michelle Jones, not Amanda Waller,” Kate commented with venom, hiding a grimace as best she could.

“There’s no explosive involved.” MJ casually replied with a hard face, visibly displeased with the implication delivered by the archer. “Just for safety and precaution.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep, MJ.”

“Okay, I think I have more people to mingle with,” Harley announced to cut the tension with a forced chuckle, and quickly escorted the tall woman away from what seemed to be a heated argument about to erupt. “Nice seeing you guys!”

Gwen waited until the narrowed eyes of Michelle Jones left their vicinity, then she finally uttered a curiosity that’s been plaguing her mind, “What’s that?”

“Nothing.” Kate replied with a toothless grin before exchanging her glass of wine with a new one, placing her hand on the crux of the blonde’s waist, guiding her, “Come on, there are some snacks over there!”

“Dad! Hey, I wanted you to meet—” Harry started as he ushered a redhead on his arm to follow him towards the grimacing man standing imposingly at the other end of the room, but he was met with a raised palm as a sign to stop.

“…Barnabas, please escort Miss Watson out of here, and make sure she will not disturb the guests.” Norman calmly demanded, locking his eyes on the sea of scientists and inventors on the other side of the one-way glass separating them from his guests.

“As you wish, Master Osborn.” The middle-aged man bowed a little and politely approached the confused Mary-Jane before urging her to follow him out of the Observatory with whispers.

“Harry?” the red-haired woman called for him, but the butler’s steps were unrelenting, dragging her further and further away from the fuming anger of the Patriarch.

“MJ—Dad?” Harry called for her but stopped and quickly turned towards his father with a hint of anger rising within; like this, they are without a doubt a father and a son. “What are you doing?!”

Norman made sure the butler and the woman were out of the room before breathing heavily, taking a swig of his bourbon, and setting the crystal mug down with a firm thud. “…I gave you everything, Harrison. A chair at the company I built. Wealth beyond a peasant’s wildest dreams. Some would call me a kingmaker, and graciously thank me for it, but you…” The wild, fiery eyes of Norman Osborn averted from the mingling crowd to his son, burning like a searing beam. “…instead you waltz in here with a fucking nobody on your arm, prancing her about in a gathering like this?!” Norman affirmed with a hard tone and took the last gulp of the burning liquid, then suddenly he threw the crystal mug onto the floor, shattering it into a million pieces; some even bounced off the hardwood pane and cut him on the back of his hand, but he was too furious to even notice the sting. “You know how much I’ve sacrificed?!” the roaring question echoed through the Observatory, almost shaking the entire room.

“What are you talking about?!” Harry countered with almost identical fire, standing his ground, “I got in just like everyone else; through proper channels—”

“Don’t make me laugh!” the fuming man cackled mirthlessly, almost sounding maniacal in the raspy undertone. “Do not tell me you are stupid or naïve enough to even think that there’s no nepotism involved in your employment?! OSCORP retains its integrity by only acquiring the best, Harrison! It hurts me to admit this, but you are a fucking disappointment!”

“Dad…”

“Do not interrupt me!” Norman pointed his finger at the heir to his legacy, “Keep your mouth shut and listen well, boy!” he approached the stunned son of his and grabbed Harry by the back of his neck, dragging him along to the forefront of the Observatory glass with inhuman strength. “Look at her! You see that broad?”

“…Stacy?”

“Yes…Gwen Stacy. A brilliant biologist in the making…” out of his peripheral vision, Harry noticed an impish grin plastered on his father’s face. “She’s to be your date for tonight.”

“But—” his protest was cut short, and a strong hand descended upon the left side of his face, silencing him immediately.

“I said, DON’T INTERRUPT ME!” The voice that came out of his father’s mouth sounded alien to him, but Harry thought it was a contribution of his ringing ears more than anything.

“Am I making myself clear?!” Norman shook his son by the collar of his shirt, “Answer me, Goddamnit!”

“…Yes…sir.”

A sadistic and satisfying smile descended upon the fuming man’s face before he let go of his son, smoothing the expensive tailored suit to be presentable enough to his standard. “Good…good.” With a firm pat on his son’s shoulder, Norman pushed and urged Harry to go out and do what was expected of him.

After a while, unseen to anyone, a hint of confusion painted across Norman’s face.

“On your six,” Kate announced quietly as she poked Gwen’s side, demanding the blonde’s attention at the approaching man with a turmoil hidden in his face.

Gwen spun around to be met with an apologetic smile from one of her ESU’s friends, and this one was the most popular of them, “Harry.”

“Hey, Gwen.” He waved nervously at her, averting his eyes a bit at the raven-haired woman, “Miss Bishop.”

“Mister Osborn,” Kate replied in kind, “I hope you are not here to arrest me for using my superpower,” the sarcastic archer indicated towards her eyes with a challenging smirk.

Harry’s nervous smile turned sheepish and a bit apologetic before he returned his attention to the blonde’s curious face. “Gwen, I have a question.” He uttered and taking a deep breath after the petite woman responded with a hum, “Would you be my date tonight?”

The question garnered several reactions:

A surprise from the Archer, and a confusing silence from the mutated blonde.

“Um, Harry—”

“I know, I know…” the Young Osborn cut in with a frustrated huff, trying to keep his composure.

Gwen noticed the spike in his heartbeats, yet she couldn’t be sure of where it came from.

“It’s just…” Harrison started quietly before sparing a passing glance towards the undetectable observatory window; his father surely is looking with expectations. “Just for tonight, please?”

Gwen followed his eyes, seeing nothing, yet the faint rings of Spider-Sense confused her even more. Looking back at the heir before her, she saw a plea in his eyes, as well as noticing the concealed patch of reddened skin on his cheek, like a slap was made by someone who instilled this fear she saw.

It took her seconds for a conclusion to come, and she breathed out a frustrated sigh before quietly nodding her head back at him and offering her hand, confusing Kate at the side.

She averted her eyes toward the Archer and silently mouthed the name of the person she’d deduced to be the source of this unnecessary mess. Kate seems to be acute enough to understand the situation, but not before firmly squeezing her shoulder as a parting gesture, taking off to find her surrogate father among the elites at the gala.

“Just for tonight,” Gwen stated as she let one of the few friends Peter has made in ESU lead her through the event, even going as far as hooking her arm through his.

“Thank you, Gwen.”

“You'd better come up with something if this gets out to Pete.” She jabbed with a forced smile as one of the scientists greeted them, well, mostly at Harry than at her.

“A friendly reunion?”

“We hardly spoke outside of classes or me lecturing you in biology, Harry; I don’t think that will work.”

“Come on, I know Pete; he’s not the jealous type.” Harry declared with a confidence she knew came from a place of friendship. “Besides, it’s just a gala.”

“Which we are here as dates.” Gwen pointed out with a firm squeeze of her hand on his bicep, careful not to forget about her superhuman strength. “And I don’t think the Daily Bugle will spare the details.” She jutted her chin at one man in particular, dressed in a cheap suit, playing with his cufflinks. “I remember him from the City Hall; Eddie Brock.”

“Is that the one where the name Peter Parker hits the top chart?” Harry reminded her with a quirked brow.

“The very same,” Gwen forced a nonchalant grin, “but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”

“Anytime a Storm made something public, people talk,” Harry retorted, “but, yeah, Jameson loves cheap news.”

“What do you think? ‘TROUBLE IN PARADISE?’”

“How about… ‘EXPANDING THE ROSTERS!’ huh?”

“Ha!” Gwen scoffed and let Harry guide her through the sea of unnamed and notable people. “…you okay?” She drops her voice a bit when they are surrounded by fewer people than before.

“…of course I am?”

“Harry,” Gwen chanced a light touch on the noticeable sore on his face, drawing an untamable hiss from the taller man. “This is—”

“It’s nothing.” Harry cut her off with a hard smile, unintentionally clutching her hand in his. “…please. We should enjoy the night.”

Gwen contemplates a bit before solemnly nodding her head and returning the gesture in kind, squeezing his hand a little to convey her unspoken words.

They conversed with many of the attendees on various subjects; some within her interests, and some within her date’s.

After a pleasant round with a lot of drinks and science puns being thrown around, Gwen excused herself from her date’s side to the ladies’ room with a tipsy gait.

“Let me—” Harry started, quickly placed his flute down on the tabletop, but the petite blonde’s raised hand stopped him.

“I’ll be fine, dude. It’s not my first drunken adventure, anyway!” she slurred a little due to the high concentration of alcohol in her system and quickly made her way towards the destination in mind.

“Note to self: slower metabolism,” Gwen mumbled as the effect of alcohol persisted longer than she had ever seen on the other Spider. “Still, Spider-Sense works perfectly fine!” she exclaimed a little as her body narrowly avoided crashing into one of decorative vases lining corridor leading to lavatories, but— “Oops!” due to her high heels, Gwen misstep and about to fall face-first into the luxurious tiles of the Estate’s floor if not for a strong hand clutching around her wrist with a surprising strength; to the point that her enhanced muscles underneath yielded and a jolt of pain piercing her entire arm. Looking up through the slight haze caused by the alcohol in her bloodstream, Gwen noticed the most unusual trait her savior had on that sharply feminine face.

A head full of long and luscious white hair, braided tightly into a tiara above her brows.

With a pair of amber—almost golden—eyes, looking down at her like a curious tigress.

“…Be careful…” an emotionless tone that burst forth from the woman’s mouth, grates her spine. A creepy smile formed on the taller woman’s lips, one that was also fully expressed by her sharp eyes.

“Thank you, um…?”

“Alecia,” The woman smiled and released her from the strong grip, leaving a numbing sensation where her fingers were. “Alecia Solasiré.” The woman bowed a little with a playful smirk, offering her dainty-fingered hand forward.

Gwen reluctantly took it with a curious note, noticing now that the woman’s skin was colder, but that might just be a trick of her intoxicated mind. “Nice to meet you, Alecia.” Gwen managed through a hiccup with a giggle and released the woman’s cold hand from her grasp, “Thank you again for saving me back there.”

“Of course…” The taller woman with white hair raised with a quirked eyebrow, glancing at the petite blonde with a smirk.

“Oh! Sorry!” Gwen exclaimed with an embarrassed chuckle, “Gwen Stacy.”

“Gwen Stacy.” Alecia traced each syllable with perfect mimicry of how she pronounced it; if she were not drunk, Gwen might have noticed also that it was too perfect. “I would love to meet you again, in the future.” And Alecia charmingly led her hand towards her dark lips, to brush a feathery kiss on the petite one’s knuckles.

“…I would like that…” Gwen replied with a sluggish tone.

“Till then,” Alecia bid her farewell and gestured toward the restroom. “I think you have somewhere to go?”

“Oh! Right!” Gwen quickly shook herself out of stupor and skipped to the restroom. Before entering the doorway, however, she takes another look at the spot where her savior was once again, just to be met with an empty space, “…That’s a quick one.” She muttered to herself with a shrug before continuing with her detour.

“…Why are you creeping around?” a masculine voice sounded from behind, announcing the presence of its owner to her sensitive ears.

“Sightseeing,” she replied with an annoyed sigh, before turning partially to the side to look at the man with similar white hair approaching her with an equally annoyed look in his eyes. “Why are you back here? I thought Morbius was about to go on stage?”

“Exactly why?” the man replied with a scoff, then nodded his head as a gesture for her to follow him. They walked alongside one another for a moment before the man decided to break the silence with “What caught your eye?”

“A little Spider,” Alecia answered with a grin, “clueless and naïve.”

“Hmm…sounds delicious,” the man also sported a similar grin, which made them almost identical.

“Patience’s a virtue, brother,” Alecia playfully reprimanded him.

“True that, sister,”

“Anyways,” Alecia changed the subject, while panning her eyes like she was looking for something, “What’s the word on the Boston operation?”

“The Cabal ensured that we can expect the first batch in about a month,” he replied as they returned to the main hall. When Michael Morbius was about to go on stage, he nursed himself with quite a struggle on the Blackwood cane decorated with a silver dragon cradling a bloodstone at the top. “Sometimes I wonder, how can they claim to be the Earth’s dominator?”

“Ain’t that their most prominent aspect?” Alecia gestured to the gathering of people in front of the stage, clapping their hands like a bunch of mindless drones, “…a blinded conviction of fools.”

Her brother scoffed with an amused smirk before his golden eyes were glued to the spotlighted figure with a sickly hunch to his movement.

“…My esteemed guest!” Norman Osborn announced with a wide grin, gesturing his hand towards the sickly man tracing his steps up the ramp with a shaky cane and a tired smile. The makeup applied couldn’t hide the bags under his exhausted eyes. Osborn quickly jogged to the terminally ill doctor as a public show. “Glad to finally meet you, Doctor Morbius…” Norman trailed off to a whisper before discreetly showing a trinket under his coat, depicting a limbless dragon chasing its rear end, forming a symbol of infinity. “I’m certain that this is the beginning of a fruitful relationship.”

“…Yes…Of course, Mister…Osborn.” Morbius smiled with a renewed glint in his eyes.

“Please,” Norman lightly tapped the doctor’s back with a calculated chuckle, “call me Norman.”

“Alright…Norman.”

“Good. Good,” the Connecticut billionaire helped Morbius to the podium, then turned his corporate smile towards the audience, “Please, welcome, Doctor Michael Morbius!” Then he gestured with both hands at the doctor before excusing himself from the stage.

Morbius took a good minute to compose himself and restrain the urge to let out another painful coughing fit; his knuckles turned white from the intensity of his grip. “…Good evening, everyone,” he started with the most stable voice he can mustered, “it is…an honor, to be here, tonight, looking at all of you; my kindred spirits. People who takes it as their responsibility…to create a brighter future…for all of—” a rebellious croak escaped his tremendous but failing will, splotches of blood stained the back of his hand and the hem of his shirt’s sleeve.

“Sorry…” he continued with a tired chuckle, “Create a brighter future for…all of us.” He gestured his crooked hand as a sign, and the projector started with a hologram in the space between the stage and the front row audience. “The greatest obstacle to human discoveries… is ourselves. Deceases. Aging. Some say…that they are nature’s failsafe to keep us—” another bloody cough escaped, “—in check. Evolution is chaos, with an intention: to give us flaws. Limitations. All to upkeep the…cyc—cycle of l—life.” Morbius takes a few steps forward, “A paradox in which we…have proven tim—time and time again, that we are—capable of surpassing it through…determination and commit—commitment.” He paused involuntarily for a coughing fit that made him keel over on the stage, clutching the cane so tight it would have broken if not for his weak muscles.

“Doctor Morbius?” Norman exclaimed with a concerned voice, quickly taking steps to get onto the stage while the doctor tried to stabilize himself using a cane and the foot of the podium. “Medic!”

“No—no. Pleas—please…” Morbius raised his trembling hand to stop the CEO from offering him any help; instead, he quickly reached inside his pocket to produce a silvery cylinder onto his sweaty palm. Morbius took a deep breath before pressing the tapered end of it against the side of his neck, letting the warm metallic surface rest above his jugular before pushing his thumb into the other end, eliciting a suppressed wince as the epidermal needle penetrated the skin and muscles underneath, delivering the substance contained within.

His back arched, and his hands clenched into fists as a groan escaped his throat. A burning sensation was slowly building up within his core and soon spreading throughout his whole body, becoming less intense, like a warm shower instead of a house fire.

“Doctor Morbius?” Norman decided to get close and help his guest of honor up on his feet, eyeing the syringe for a moment with a glint of curiosity shining behind his greenish pupils. “How are you feeling?”

“…I’m fin—” A stifled croak escaped his expanding trachea, gaining a more significant amount of oxygen in his breath to sate his burning lungs. “I’m fine, Mister Osborn. Thank you.” Morbius gestured his hand for the CEO to back away while bracing himself on a cane, trying to get up on his own feet in front of the concerned crowd. Michael then looked at the gathering scientists with a pair of clearer eyes as the onset of a world-shattering migraine receded into a dark corner where it always lurks, “Sorry for the inconvenience,” he smiled with a hint of rejuvenated vigor, “as many of you might be well aware…I was born with an incurable genetic disorder. My blood is poison to me. My internal organs followed by the time I turned 15.” He greeted the sympathetic eyes and pity glances with a less trembling smirk. “Let’s continue, shall we?”

“What was that?” Harley asked and received a shrug from Michelle. Soon, he heard a clicking of heels come from behind before craning his neck to the side a bit to get a glimpse of who it was, just to be greeted by the slightly tipsy Gwen Stacy walking closer, her eyes occasionally casting around the room for someone. “If you’re looking for Osborn, he’s by the stage.” The Iron Man smirked as he gestured his hand towards the direction of the heir of OSCORP.

“No.” Gwen scoffed and kept looking, stopping just a few feet from the couple; the sight of them left her unsure how to feel about her boyfriend’s former-best-friend-and-former-superhero-teammate arm in arm with also her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, who technically got dumped by him after she forgot about who he was, and Spider-Man was a no-show. It’s a strange image, to say the least. “Where’s Kate?”

“She said something about Osborn’s antique collections.” He replied and quirked his brows as he saw the blonde was about to depart after a curt nod, “He’s gonna make a speech?” and pointed to the stage.

“I can probably guess what the speech is about,” Gwen offered with a mirthless chuckle, looking between Morbius on the stage and Norman Osborn. “See you, Harley, Michelle.”

“…What’s with her?”

“What do you mean?” Harley reverberated while his eyes caught the lean figure of Harrison Osborn making a beeline after Gwen, scoffing internally.

“…I dunno, but…when she looked at me, she lookss…nervous?”

Oh, right. Harley faked a snort to deter the smart woman on his arm from her curiosity; threading that old yarn now could’ve destroyed the fabric of reality.

Figuratively speaking, of course…he hopes.

A beep resonated upon his right wrist, prompting Harley to look at the stylish Imitatium red-and-gold Starkwatch there that shows a contact number of the Sorcerer Supreme with a question mark; like the new AI he has created, he took the initiative.

The sense of pride and sliver of uneasiness washes over him, but he dismisses the prompt and returns his attention to a curious Michelle, “I’m sure it’s nothing, MJ.”

“Yeah, sure.” Despite her keen perception of reading people’s body language, Michelle decided to go along with the bullshit spilled out of the Avenger’s mouth.

“Caught your eye, that one.” Her brother teased after Alecia craned her neck following the direction of the petite blonde, quirking his brows a little after he inhaled the air, and a smirk made its way onto his angular face. “Oh, I get it.”

“Just a little longer,” Alecia smiled wickedly as her golden eyes tracked the blonde’s movement, “Just a little longer…”

“Hey, Gwen?!” Harry called for her as his feet alternated in continuous rhythm to keep up with the petite blonde’s surprisingly swift strides. He waved as she stopped and looked back at him with a quirked eyebrow, before slowing himself to a normal pace to catch his breath, “Man, you can walk!” the Osborn heir scoffed through his struggling intakes of air, and smiled a little at the confused woman. “What are you doing here? Doctor Morbius is making a speech.”

“I’m just looking for my friend.”

“Kate Bishop?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“I mean, isn’t it strange that suddenly you are friends with two Avengers? Like, since when did that happen?” Harry sent a nervous chuckle to let Gwen know his question formed from pure curiosity, “I meant no disrespect or anything, alright? Just curious.”

Shit. She never thought of that before.

Associating with Susan Storm and Reed Richards is one thing; they work with her boyfriend, after all.

But Iron Man and Hawkeye?

“Uh…” but before she could come up with some convincing excuse, a clattering noise and animalistic growls reached her sensitive ears and sent a shiver down her spine, along with awakening the stirs of Spider-Sense.

“Gwen?”

“Shh…” she shushed Harry with a raised finger, craning her neck a little to the side, trying to gain a more preferable angle for the sounds, which are becoming louder and clearer. “…hear that?”

“Hear what?” Harry answered honestly, unable to comprehend the reason for his dates’ sudden distraction.

“That,” Gwen whispered and started taking steps in the direction of the sounds, completely tuned Harry’s presence out of her focus, ignoring the fact that the Osborn’s heir follows her towards the source. “What is it…” Mumbling to herself, Gwen crept closer to what seemed to be a path leading to the main restroom at the back of the mansion.

“What’s going on? Where are we going—Gwen?!” he tries to keep up with her but fails. How did she walk so fast? Harry internalized but kept a sturdy pace behind her as a sense of primal dread slowly and discreetly crept up his spine.

As they draw nearer to the restroom, the strange commotions can now be heard by even Harry’s ordinary ears; it sounds like a mix of a recorded tiger’s growl mixed with a distorted tape used in the Jurassic Park movies for the dinosaurs. Squelching sounds come next, but what disturbed Gwen to the point where her steps faltered would be a tang of iron in the air she inhaled.

Blood.

The hair on the back of her neck stands at attention like a platoon of well-trained marines.

Goosebumps wash over her entire body.

“Hello?” she uttered with a whispery voice, cautious in her steps, creeping up to the closed wooden door when a tang of unpleasant odor reached her nose, irritating the receptors in her nostrils like a knock-out hook. “Ugh! What’s that smell?” commenting to a confused audience of Harry Osborn, Gwen pushed further and hesitantly hovered her hand on the doorknob, but a sudden spike in the back of her brain from Spider-Sense froze her in place.

“Gwen—” Harry tried to gain her attention again, but felt like he was yanked away by a speeding truck just as the wooden door exploded with a blood-curdling roar and a clawed hand twice the size of his head shot out from inside and ferociously grabbed at the air where his head had been just half a second ago.

The sideways roll ended with the petite frame of Gwen straddling him while her panicked eyes locked in the direction of the restroom, prompting him to follow her gaze to be terrified by what emerged from the ruined doorway.

A monstrosity with scaly skin hunching with an intimidating height of more than double his. An elongated snout housing rows of hooked, sharp fangs decorated by a sheen of viscous sanguine film, with torn flesh and skin dangling around its gaping maw. An uncanny pair of black, beady eyes focuses on them with primal hunger. Boney fingers fashioned with hook-like talons spread out to the sides, ready to pounce.

Not giving him time to process what has happened, the monster lunges at them with blinding speed, just for Gwen to roll them to the side away from the trajectory of death, like a well-choreographed scene where actors trained and practiced together for months and know their cues frame by frame. His vision blurs as he is pulled around by the petite woman like a ragdoll, following her whims and reflexes to keep his head on his shoulder and away from the Lizard’s fanged maw.

Suddenly, he felt yanked from behind as one of the Lizard’s elongated claws caught under his designer belt, creating a brief tug-of-war between the monster and the blonde geneticist until, in a haze of chaos, his eyes caught a blur of Gwen’s frame twisting around him like a ballerina to deliver a corkscrew kick dead on the Lizard’s snout, drawing a spurt of blood and staggered the giant hybrid backwards like she’d just drove a truck into it.

“Run!” Gwen demanded without giving him a chance to protest and dragged him along like he weighed nothing more than a fluffy pillow. From behind, his hairs stand at their full heights when the thunderous screech of the monster deafens his ears, almost rupturing his eardrums. Gwen faltered in her pace and fell to the floor, clutching her head between two hands with a soundless scream.

“Gwen?!” One hand still covering his left ear, Harry rushed to her side and clutched her taut shoulder with the other, gripping it firmly to gain her attention, “Gwen, we have to go!”

My head will explode! Gwen wails internally as the sudden jolt of overwhelming pain rammed into her head. Heightened senses sucks!

“Gwen?!” Harry calls again as she’s still cowering on the floor, clutching her head. Looking sideways, he saw that the monster was creeping up on them with torturously slow pace, and what could be interpreted as a smirk on that deadly mouth. “Shit—GUARDS! Anyone!? Help!” his screams and sudden movement seemed to trigger the cold-blooded creature to spring into action as it started gaining more velocity towards them. Without much consideration, he gathered Gwen into his arms and hurled both of them to the side, avoiding the Lizard’s sharp claws by a hair, gaining a long but shallow gash along his side. “Ugh!” As they fell, he did his best to shield Gwen’s body against the hard cement floor, resulting in a sharp pain in his elbow as it collided with one of his father’s Ming dynasty vases.

“Goddamnit…” Harry groaned with a struggling huff of breath as he nursed his dislocated elbow by gripping onto his own shirt, while his free arm reached for Gwen’s cowering form and firmly grabbed her upper arm, trying to drag her along with him. “Come on, Gwen! We needa get outta here!” but the only response he got was pained grunts as her hand kept covering her ears.

I can’t hear anything! Gwen panicked to herself while gritting her teeth through the lingering pain. She felt the force tugging on her arm and made a conscious decision not to stick her feet or any part of her body to the floor, allowing Harry to drag her away from their imminent doom.

“HELP!” Harry screamed with a hoarse voice, occasionally looking back over his shoulder at the advancing Lizard on their tails, spreading its claws. “HELP!” he cried again and increased the pace of their struggling jogs. Just as hope seems to be diminished by a cruel gust of wind, one command reaches his ringing ear: “Get down!” and is followed by a whooshing sound of something cutting its path through the air.

There’s a painful scream coming from behind, but Harry keeps pushing against his natural instinct and gathers Gwen into his arms before attempting another roll forward, just in case. Another whoosh flew past them, and another scream came, telling him without the need to look that someone had come to their rescue.

At the end of a roll, he cradled Gwen’s head in his hand and quickly looked up at their savior to be met with none other than Kate Bishop, decked out in what he remembers to be his father’s antique Mongolian archery collection from one of the displays. She nocked the third arrow on the bow and released it in a quick succession without sacrificing the miraculous accuracy of the shot associated with the moniker of Hawkeye.

“What’s with her?!” Kate asked without taking her eyes off the thrashing monster, gripping another arrow from the hip-quiver with practiced grace.

“I don’t know,” Harry answered with utmost sincerity, confused as much, “but we need to go!”

“Speak for yourself,” Kate let out a grim chuckle and a frustrated huff, glancing at the cowering blonde with concerns in her eyes before switching her hardened glare towards the Osborn’s heir. “Get her to the main hall and tell Keener about what happened. Have that MJ chick call in the Thunderbolts or whatever the hell—” she paused for a brief moment to line a shot and embeds another arrow into the Lizard’s nostril where it should hurt “—they are calling themselves.”

“But,” Harry protested, but already heaving Gwen off the floor onto his good shoulder, ready to leave, “What about you? I don’t think—”

“Dude,” Kate replied with a mirthless smirk, albeit lacking her usual confidence, “I am an Avenger.” And she is quickly gaining a closer distance between herself and the Lizard while releasing a storm of arrows with pinpoint accuracy to any vulnerable spots her sharp eyes can find on the monster. “Go!” She slides with an arrow already nocked, aimed within a heartbeat, and released after a flashy spin on her knees.