Chapter Four: Conflict
The mood in the room instantly shifted from one of fear to barely restrained panic as the crowd realized that they were now trapped with no escape but for a sixty-story fall to the pavement below with three hostile, armed men. Gwen could barely hear over the combination of ringing in her ears from the spray of gunfire and her own thunderous heartbeats, but she forced herself to focus her attention on the armed men. She could imagine her father's voice in her head, reminding her, as he always had: "Be a good witness. Remember the little things." Of the three men, it was obvious that the one who had spoken was the leader of the group by the way he snapped orders at the others. The second man wore a thick pair of glasses, completing the stereotype that he was the "brains" of the operation, though he looked no less deadly than the leader. The third man at the back of the room was turned away so she could not see his face, but even at that distance, she could tell that he was quite short- possibly even shorter than she- and the most heavily armed.
So, the boss, the brains, and Tiny, she thought to herself, mentally rolling her eyes: she was beginning to think like Peter.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the leader of the strike force shouted as he took a step toward the crowd, "we apologize for the intrusion, but I'm afraid we require a few minutes of Dr. Martinez's time. You do not need to concern yourself with who we are, except that we are heavily armed and are most certainly in charge of this situation." He glanced at his watch. "Now that the biological alarm has been activated, we have five minutes before the police respond- four if that coward who ran calls it in- but it is our intention to be gone in three- without hurting anyone." He turned to face Dr. Martinez. "Assuming everyone cooperates, of course." He reached into a pocket on the side of his vest and produced a small portable hard drive, which he held up for the scientist to see. "Access your research files, doctor, and copy them to this device."
The silence grew more absolute as the crowd held their breaths, seemingly as one, waiting to see how he would respond. The doctor shook his head, his hands trembling with anger. "No," he whispered, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and began again, more firmly this time. "No, sir. This is my life's work; I won't just hand it over to a bunch of thugs with no regard for what I'm about to accomplish here."
The gunman sighed. "I understand completely," he said patiently. Then he raised his rifle and shot him.
The doctor crumpled to the floor, blood pouring from the wound in his side, his face slack with shock. Mr. Ratha, who was closest to him, tried to catch him and dropped to his knees beside him to help him cover the wound to slow the bleeding. Screams rang out across the room and the smallest gunman fired several shots to quiet the crowd again. Gwen began to move instinctively towards Dr. Martinez to help, but the leader raised his gun toward her, threatening her to back away.
"You stay there, sweetheart." His gaze moved to Miles, still crouching, ashen-faced, by the computer. "Intern Miles Warren," he read off his nametag, "can you access the files I want?"
Miles nodded nervously, almost dropping the hard drive when the mercenary threw it to him without warning. With shaking hands, he started to connect the drive to the computer when Mr. Ratha said to him sharply: "Don't do it, Mr. Warren."
The gunman snapped his attention back to Mr. Ratha and Dr. Martinez. "Do you want to mix your blood with his?" he asked, jerking his head toward the bleeding doctor. Ratha shook his head once, dropping his gaze to the floor now smeared with blood. "Then shut up." He turned back to Miles who had stopped to watch the exchange. "One minute and thirty seconds remaining," he warned him, angling his watch toward him. "Do it fast, or she will be next." He waved the gun carelessly in Gwen's direction again.
Miles swallowed nervously and nodded, avoiding Gwen's angry glare as he leaned down to connect the hard drive and begin the download. His hands were still shaking violently and he could not manage to plug in the device.
"I'll take care of that," a voice called from the shattered window. A silvery string of webbing flew into the room, snatching the hard drive from the shocked intern's hands and disappearing out the window, seemingly into nowhere. The room fell completely silent as the three mercenaries exchanged confused looks. Gwen turned her head away from the mercenary so he would not see her small smile and tucked herself more securely against the concrete slab in anticipation of what was to come. Without waiting for orders, the short man left his position at the back of the room to slowly advance toward the window, leaning out over the edge and glancing up toward the sky. Something flew down from above him, grabbing his vest and pulling him out the window and up out of sight. The man screamed as he was dragged from the room, but his cries fell silent the moment he disappeared from view.
The whole event happened in a matter of seconds, leaving the entire room in a stunned silence and a few members of the crowd began to edge nervously away from the shattered windows. The second gunman tucked the computer tablet back into the pouch on his vest and took a few steps toward the window, raising his gun, to investigate what had happened to his partner as the leader shouted at him: "Get away from the edge!" But the warning came too late.
Spider-Man swung into the room, his feet connecting sharply with the unsuspecting man's chest, sending him flying into the counter behind him with a crash and knocking the gun from his hands, which slid across the shattered glass and teetered on the edge of the ledge. Peter dropped to his knees, anticipating the bullets that came flying toward him as the leader took up the offensive, and threw out a web at each of the remaining gunmen, obscuring the second gunman's glasses with one web and catching the leader's rifle with the second. He tugged sharply on the web connected to the lead gunman's weapon, catching the man off-balance and causing him to fall forward, hitting his head on the edge of the computer console. Peter ducked as the rifle flew past his head and clattered to the floor somewhere behind him and turned to face as the second man pulled his glasses off his face to clear his vision and jumped to his feet to rejoin the fight.
"Surprise!" he muttered under his breath, taking in the scene.
"His vest!" Gwen called to Peter over the cries of the crowd as they attempted to escape the path of the emerging fight.
Peter quickly examined the man's vest as he charged toward him and noticed the edges of what appeared to be a thin computer tablet. He side-stepped the man's wild punches easily and delivered several of his own, forcing the man toward the concrete pillar where Gwen crouched.
"Move!" Peter called to her and she ducked out of the way just as he forced the man against the wall and secured him in place with several well-placed webs. The man cursed angrily in a language Peter did not recognize before the masked hero stepped to him and knocked him unconscious with a single blow. Peter yanked the tablet and it's Velcro casing from the man's vest as he hung limply in the webbing and turned back to check behind him.
"You want to take care of this for me?" Spider-Man asked, tossing the tablet to Gwen.
"You want to take care of that?" she shot back, easily catching the tablet as she stood and nodded at something behind him.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw one of the hostages creeping forward from the huddled crowd toward the abandoned gun Spider-Man had taken from the lead "Sorry, no guns for anyone today," Peter called, aiming a large glob of webbing at the gun, securing it to the floor before the lawyer could pick it up. He turned back to Gwen and, grabbing her free hand, spun her out of the way as the sole remaining gunman- the leader of the group- having recovered from the initial attack, lunged toward them. Gwen followed his movement easily and quickly ducked down beside Miles as she inspected the tablet's screen.
Hand-fighting had never been Peter's favorite form of confronting criminals, but it seemed to be the large man's preferred method of communication. He was a natural brawler; Peter was a natural ducker. He had, unfortunately used most of his webbing in securing the second gunman and had not had time to grab fresh packs from his bag in his frenzied hurry to change. Peter did his best to avoid being hit in an effort to let the man tire himself out. He only needed to keep the man busy until Gwen could open the doors and clear out the hostages. In the background, over the muffled nervous sounds of the crowd as they pressed themselves further away from the fight, obviously feeling braver about moving away now that two of the armed individuals had been neutralized, he could hear Gwen and Miles arguing animatedly about how to use the tablet to operate the doors. After several long moments and more than a few near misses with the mercenary's fists, Gwen exclaimed: "Got it!" and the door locks released, allowing the heavy doors at the back of the room to slide open again. The crowd needed no additional encouragement to clear out of the room as quickly as possible, nearly causing a stampede as the line bottle-necked next to the door.
Spider-Man's attention had been split as he watched the crowd evacuate the room and his opponent took the opportunity to reach into his boot and pull out a wicked-looking combat knife. Peter narrowly avoided a slicing blow as he leapt backwards, taking a moment to consider his options. The other two gunmen had been successfully removed from the situation quickly and with minimal effort, but the final man was ready to put up a much greater fight. It was becoming obvious that this was one bad guy who did not shirk going to the gym and therefore would not be tiring any time soon. The room was now empty, save for the three interns, Mr. Ratha and the injured doctor. Their escape had been cut off by the fight in front of them and now they were trapped until Spider-Man could diffuse the situation. He had to act fast before the man turned his attention back to the civilians in the room. It was time to do something a little more drastic; something that defied all logic, something that anyone who has ever been bullied would know not to do.
It was time to piss off the bully.
He threw himself into a tight back flip, allowing his feet to connect with the man's chest, sending him sprawling backwards toward the shattered windows. The man fell, slicing his hands and forearms on the fragments of glass that littered the ground. Blood instantly began gushing from the cuts, some of them deep, making his hands slippery, forcing him readjust his grip on the knife.
"Oops," Spider-Man said innocently, cocking his head to the side in a silent challenge.
The sole gunman growled angrily, jumping to his feet and taking a running start at Peter, but he never came even close to reaching his target. Peter shot a web behind the man, using the last of his supply, latching onto the rolling table, which he jerked forward, knocking the man off-balance.
The sudden motion of the table caused the metal canister containing Dr. Martinez's samples to fall, hitting the floor with a resounding clang before it began to slowly roll towards the open window. Before Peter could react, he saw Gwen spring forward to catch the canister, clutching it to her chest. The mercenary tripped over the legs of the table, smashing his forehead against the edge of the table as he fell. Blood streamed into his eyes as he made one last pathetic attempt to grab for his knife that had fallen from his grasp, but Peter kicked it out of his reach, stepping over the man and punching him once more, knocking him unconscious.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to the five people in the room. "Is everyone all right?"
The interns nodded mutely in reply, turning their attention to their injured boss. In the ensuing silence, the wail of arriving sirens echoed into the room through the windows, alerting them to the arrival of the police.
"Good. You two," Ratha snapped, rising to his feet. He pointed imperiously at Miles and the third intern, "help me with him." The two interns hurried to his side and helped lift Dr. Martinez, who had fallen unconscious in the final moments of the fight. "Get him to the lobby so the paramedics can get to him easily. He needs to be taken to the hospital immediately."
"I don't think you should move him-" Peter began.
"The police will be here in a matter of moments," Ratha said curtly, "and will be all too interested in your involvement here today. You should go- now." He glanced at the interns again. "Move him!" he snarled as he turned to face Gwen. "And I'll take that."
Gwen had barely paid any attention to the exchange, looking far more concerned about Dr. Martinez. She watched intently as the other interns struggled to lift him from the floor and carry him out into the hallway to wait for the paramedics to arrive. "What?" she asked absently, gazing down at the canister in her hands. The door slid shut with an automated hiss as the two male interns left and Gwen and Peter were left alone with the irate businessman. "Why?"
"That is top-secret, high-security Oscorp property and is too valuable to be left in the hands of a pretty high school intern in the middle of an active crime scene- now give it to me!" he snarled, snatching it from her hands and forcefully shoving her to the ground, where she narrowly avoided cutting her hands on the glass that was still scattered across the floor.
"Hey," Peter protested angrily, clapping his hand down onto Ratha's shoulder to stop him. From the look on Gwen's face, he knew he was not the only one who sensed that something was very wrong with the whole situation besides the man's sudden outburst of violence.
His hand had barely connected with Ratha's body when a strange thing happened: the man ducked under his outstretched hand, spinning and striking Peter with skill and power no one could have guessed he possessed. The blow landed in Peter's stomach, forcing him to take a step back and knocking the breath from his lungs. Ratha used his advantage to grab Peter's still-outstretched arm and twisted it, pulling him off his feet and throwing him bodily over his shoulder.
Peter recovered enough from the shock of the attack to twist his body as he flew through the air, landing on his feet a few feet from where Gwen lay. He was forced into a back flip to avoid Ratha's wide swing as he continued his onslaught, landing inches from the edge of the broken window. Peter could feel the updraft caught between the tall buildings of the city tugging at him, threatening to pull him over the edge, and he nearly lost his balance. As he rightened himself, he saw the man reach into the shoulder of his jacket to produce a small pistol, which he pointed at Spider-Man.
"Okay. That was surprising," Peter said, freezing momentarily as he stared at the gun, mentally weighing the risks of being pulled over the edge of the building with no webbing against potentially being shot at point-blank range.
"As was your intervention, I assure you," Ratha said, pulling the hammer back on the pistol. "Not that it matters now."
Peter's muscles tensed instinctively as Ratha's finger tightened around the trigger. Before either of them could act, a metal tray swung out of nowhere toward Ratha's hands, knocking the gun to the floor before swinging up to catch his head with a resounding clang. The businessman crumpled to the floor immediately, dropping the metal canister, which rolled to a stop at Peter's feet. Gwen stood over the man's body, still brandishing the heavy metal tray menacingly.
"Nice shot," Peter said sincerely, taking several large steps away from the edge to stand beside her. "You know how you said I'm pretty good at finding trouble?"
"Yeah?" she asked breathlessly, not taking her eyes off of the unconscious man at her feet.
"You're not so bad yourself."
"Oh, my God!" a voice exclaimed behind them. Peter looked over his shoulder to see Miles had returned and was standing in the open doorway, gaping at the nearly empty lab before him. He was flanked on either side by half a dozen heavily armed police officers wearing body armor. "Gwen, you- you attacked- do you know who you just- why did you do that?!" he sputtered as the police quickly filed into the room to secure the area.
Gwen glanced at the tray still in her hands and dropped it to the floor with a deafening clatter. "I- He-" she started to explain, but Peter help up his hand to stop her and knelt down to get a closer look at the unconscious man.
"Actually, I think she may have done you all a favor," he said thoughtfully, reaching out to tilt Ratha's face into the light.
"Hold it right there, Spider-Man!" several police chorused, aiming their weapons at the masked vigilante.
Peter ignored them. When the Oscorp executive had fallen, he had hit his head on the floor, causing the skin at his temple to, apparently, tear open. There was no blood; Peter could see instead a sliver of what appeared to be white plastic beneath his skin. He reached out to prod the wound with a gloved finger. The police were still approaching, guns raised, but most of them were now paying more attention to the strange injury Spider-Man had discovered.
"What is that?" Gwen breathed, stepping forward to take a closer look.
Peter gingerly pulled at one of the raw edges of flesh as the police gathered around him to observe his investigation. The thick, rubber-like substance offered some resistance at first, but pulled away smoothly. The false face pulled away to reveal a second mask made of a thin, white plastic beneath, covering the imposter's true face. The sight was so bizarrely grotesque- a blank, white face covered in realistic-looking flesh that had been peeled away and now hung limply off the edges of his face with a wig that dropped off the top of his head- that the police, Miles, Gwen, and Spider-Man all froze alike to study it for a moment. Peter stepped back from the unconscious man to allow the group to better observe the spectacle.
"If that isn't Mr. Ratha…" Miles began stupidly, trailing off into silence.
Suddenly, the eyes beneath the mask flew open and narrowed in anger, focusing on Spider-Man and then the police officers who were closing in around him. He must have surmised from the shocked looks on their faces that he had been found out. His hand slowly reached up to his face to feel the exposed plastic of his inner mask.
One of the police officers holstered his weapon and stepped forward, a set of handcuffs jangling in his hand. "Buddy- whoever you are- you're under arr-"
The masked man reached into his pocket with his other hand and pulled out a small device before Peter could move to stop him. He pressed a button on the side and tossed it at the nearest cop who caught it instinctively.
"Get down!" Peter yelled, jumping to his feet and tackling Gwen, pushing her behind one of the counters as he squeezed his eyes closed. It was a flash grenade, which he recognized from too many hours at the start of his crime-fighting career spent researching non-lethal weapons he might use. It went off seconds later, emitting a truly deafening bang and a flash of light that burned Peter's eyes through his eyelids. His ears ringing and his vision swimming before his eyes, Peter rolled off of Gwen and looked around wildly for the imposter who had vanished from the spot where he had lain just moments before.
"Enjoy that mask while you can, Spider-Man," a voice called. Peter spun toward the distorted sound, almost losing his balance, and squinted into the bright sunlight to see the man attaching a hidden loop on his belt to one of the zip lines left by the gunmen hanging in the window. "Anonymity belongs to me." The man leapt free from the building, immediately dropping out of sight. Peter stumbled to the edge, fighting against his mutinous sense of equilibrium, to see that he had already disappeared into the gathering crowd below. He wondered vaguely if the man had had a second mask with him to use to escape through the crowd unnoticed.
Behind him, the others were recovering more slowly than he had: the police officers and Miles, who had been closest to the stun grenade, were still lying on the ground in a daze and were only just beginning to struggle to sit up. Peter hurried back to Gwen, who, thanks to himself and the counter, had been shielded from most of the blast. She had already pushed herself into a sitting position and accepted his outstretched hand to allow him to help her pull herself to her feet. She swayed wildly for a moment, her balance affected by the grenade as Peter's had been, and clutched at his arm for support. He flinched away and her eyes went wide with understanding.
"Sorry!" she said, a bit too loudly as she released him, realizing she had accidently grabbed his injured arm, anchoring herself to the counter behind her instead. She made a face and glanced at the police, who were paying no attention to them. "Sorry," she repeated, more quietly this time. She looked around as if struck by some sudden thought, hair whipping over her shoulders as her eyes searched the room. "The canister! He took the canister with him!" she exclaimed angrily.
"Well, at least I know you're all right," Peter quipped, but she ignored him, still distraught over the loss of Dr. Martinez's formula.
She glanced over his shoulder to see that the officers were beginning to recover. "You should probably go," she whispered, though still loudly.
He nodded, pressing something into her hand as he gave it one final squeeze before he took off for the ledge at a run.
"Hey, wait!" a cop called after him.
"Sorry, boys- gotta go!" he called to them, jumping up to catch the edge of the side of the building. "Oh, and when you get a moment, there's a fellow attached to the side of the building who might need some help getting down." And he pulled himself up and out of sight, disappearing over the side of the building.
The sound of heavy boots filled the room as a second group of police came running into the room. A small group of them broke off to check on the injured officers while the rest fanned out to secure the room. An officer Gwen recognized from her father's precinct hurried over to her. "Are you all right, Miss Stacy?" he asked and she nodded her reply. "We'll get you out of here in just one minute, I promise."
She nodded her thanks absently, her mind racing to make sense of what had just happened. Something crinkled audibly in the palm of her hand and she turned her body away from the police officer by her side to see what Peter had pressed into her hand. It was a small piece of paper folded into a square. When she opened it, it simply read:
"Your roof. Nine o'clock. Sorry I had to run."
"What's that, Miss Stacy?" the officer asked, glancing over her shoulder.
She smiled and dropped the note into the pocket of her lab coat. "Nothing. Just a note from my boyfriend."
A/N: Chapter five will be up soon- scout's honor!