Author's Note: So here is a little Halloween present for everyone who has enjoyed this story.
Yes. I know it has been five long years since I last updated this story. A lot has changed in that time for me, professionally, personally and emotionally. I had ideas for this story but as I looked at where I was heading, I realized I was just modifying Earth-616 canon, inserting Rogue with an original symboite into existing story lines. While it's clear that the potential in changing existing storylines to fit Rogue's new status would be interesting, it didn't feel like I was being original. That I wasn't being creative enough with what I had and I knew I could do more but at the time I just couldn't see how. So regrettably I let the story stay where it was but I did not abandon it as I hoped to have some way to continue somewhere down the line.
Then along came Spider-Verse. Seeing how that played out helped reinvigorate me, gave me a new direction for this story. That I shouldn't treat this Earth as being 616 but rather its own Earth among many different Spider Earths, where I could be much less restricted on what happens with its overall future. I have been working bit by bit over the last three years to get a sense of where I want to take this story from start to finish. I don't have all the details down, but I do know where I am going and where I want to end up. This world will now be designated as Earth-1981.
I will say that updates will be unscheduled. I don't know when I'll be putting chapters out but I am working on this story again. Although my current source of inspiration is also a reason I'll be infrequent in updating: Spider-Man for Playstation 4.
Lastly, a shout out to Marcus Lazarus, my partner in this story who over the years has listened to me, been my sounding board and helped out with scenes in the past and hope to continue into the future.
So without any further delay...
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man. Marvel owns them both.
The Rogue Symboite
By: David Knight
Volume 3: A Spider, a Widow and a Digger
Chapter 1: Re-Debut
New York City.
A city of eight million people, a city that is always active, its people on the move. There are lawyers, doctors, firemen, police officers all with their own jobs to be of public service to the community as of now.
But for the future, there are students. Many young people come to New York to begin their collegiate futures at one of many different institutions, and many taking various directions.
The first example young woman named Renee Washington. Currently, she was working towards her degree in Criminology at NYU by writing on a paper discussing the mob during the 1950s. She had been using various sources for her paper and was reading into 'A Brief History of the Gangland Wars' on an obscure tale on the Nevada mob in the late 50s': The Vegas Thirteen.
The story of the Vegas Thirteen is a piece of unsubstantiated lore dating back to the fifties. The story involved a meeting of the some of the most powerful Wise Guys from New York and Nevada.
The meeting was called at the height of the struggle between the Mafia families fighting for control of the Vegas casino, money laundering and prostitution business. It was to be a Bosses' Night out, to resolve the conflict peacefully. Seven bosses, seven lieutenants, all unarmed.
It was only as the dinner began that they noticed only six bosses were present. Missing was Morris Forelli, from New York. Since his trusted lieutenant, George Sims, was present, the rest were unconcerned, assuming Forelli had simply been delayed.
They did not know that Forelli had discovered Sims was working for one of the rival families, and had helped arrange a recent hit on one of Forelli's sons. To say the least, Sims was out of favour, and Forelli was out of patience.
The result, according to Mob word of mouth, was the biggest hit of its kind since the St Valentine's Day Massacre. Six leading Mafia figures and their lieutenants, plus Forelli's consigliere, wiped out in one night, in one bold move.
But the Mob had learned a few lessons since the last time something like this was attempted. They wanted no evidence that could be printed in newspapers or magazines. No photos. No witnesses. No bodies.
Forelli's men carried the bodies out of the Golddigger Hotel and Casino and transported them across the Nevada desert, well off the beaten track. The story suggests that the bodies were brought to a pit dug by earth movers in an isolated part of the desert, far from cities or roads, and Forelli's men proceeded to pile the bodies into a mass grave once used for illegally dumping chemicals from several factories.
Here ended the careers of some of the most notorious members of the New York and Nevada crime families. Men raised in blood, who understood only violence, and whose lives ended in a shower of bullets. Their bodies were left where no one would ever find them, with only the whispers of their conscience, and the rage of their souls, to keep them company. For the Vegas Thirteen, it was the end of their story.
While very interesting to Renee, especially given how Forelli was one of the most powerful and oldest of New York's mob bosses, there wasn't enough to this story to give proof to what he had done. While the book said it was Forelli, it was based on the author's opinions, beliefs and rumours acquired over the years. If there had been proof, Morris Forelli would have been behind bars decades ago, which guaranteed that she couldn't include this as a source, even if it was interesting to speculate on what could have been.
Next, there is a grad student at Empire State University named Gregory Samuels, working towards a degree in nuclear physics, was reading an article that had recently come out of Nevada.
In a move designed to keep United States military assets at peak readiness, the Pentagon today announced a return to limited testing of high-energy weapons.
"We're looking to gather data on the new technologies we've developed and the degree they may maximize the amount of energy output involved, giving us bigger yields and smaller payloads," explained General Maxwell Sinclair, Pentagon Liaison. "We'll start out with underground testing using what we call pocket devices, small enough to have no effect or environmental impact outside a very small part of the Nevada Desert. No fallout, no seismic damage. Our first test will be with a pocket gamma bomb; we don't anticipate any problems."
"We believe that gamma rays may have been crucial to the development of life on Earth," explained UCLA's Dr. Henry Davis, a leading proponent of gamma ray research. "And from that dark, barren emptiness, came life. That process was set in motion when gamma rays struck the pre-organic compounds and chemical soul of primordial Earth. Then, as God said on the seventh day… 'let the good times roll'."
Gregory shook his head, as to him, gamma radiation was like Pandora's box. Look at Dr. Bruce Banner and his transformation into the Hulk. All the stories that have gone on about him over the years and the government still wanted to play around with it? That was a definite bomb ready to go off. Putting the article away, he had classes to attend now.
And finally, there are students that aren't of the typical kind; those who are learning to be superheroes under the guidance of another more experienced hero.
Or at least in the case of Anna Marie Adler, known to her fellow X-Men as Rogue, it was re-learning how to be a hero when the power set you had for years is no more and for the ones you have now, you're being shown the ropes by someone who has similar abilities.
She sat in a local coffee shop that she had come to frequent in the last four weeks since returning from her 'African Safari'. She hadn't had any chocolate since landing in Africa originally and during the entire drive back to civilization after Shathra had been taken care of there wasn't any available chocolate in sight. It wasn't until halfway through the drive back, Rogue felt that Jade had been getting 'cranky' for lack of a better word. She had known her symboite to be energetic and active since their bonding, but this was the first time that Jade had ever sounded annoyed for any length of time. It was not a fun experience for at all. Rogue decided that once she got got back to New York, she would make sure her symboite never went a day without chocolate if only to avoid a repeat of 'Cranky Jade'.
Fortunately for her, the airport she and Peter used to return to New York had a Starbucks. Seeing the list of coffee available, she ordered up a mocha coffee, hoping where would be enough chocolate in there to satisfy her till she actually could get actual bars. To her surprise, Jade went from frustrated to... well the best Anna Marie could compare her symbiote's reaction to was like the kid who got what she wanted on Christmas. She literally felt that much joy coming from Jade, so much so that she had just felt her being blissful and simply enjoying herself, not bothering to speak to Rogue at all until after they were on the plane, ready to return to home. The first words Jade said to her were that she wanted to try different types of coffee when they got back, especially chocolate flavored ones.
Right now, Anna Marie was sipping on her caramel mocha, which had become something of a personal favorite for both host and symboite. She could feel Jade humming in the back of her head as if she were in nirvana. She really hadn't been much of a coffee drinker, hell she hadn't been that into eating chocolate so much, but habits change when you have an alien symboite bonded to you.
Small price to pay for all the benefits, Anna Marie mused. It had been nearly two months since Madripoor. Two months since she could touch people with her bare hands without worrying about sucking the life out of them. Two months of having only one voice other than her own in her head, no longer having to worry about the echoes of those she absorbed remaining in her mind to occasionally come to bother and affect her. Jade took care of all of that. The peace of mind she had now made it so much easier to think of herself as Anna Marie. When she had told Peter her name back in Africa, it had been the first real step in settling in as Anna Marie Adler. He still called her Rogue along with Anna Marie, but to everyone else she had come across since returning to New York, it was simply Anna Marie. It felt like Rogue would become a name only her friends would know to call her.
Of course with the recent good fortune in her life there were also the bad. I never thought Ah'd miss flying in the air as much as I do. Anna Marie mused. After spending years with Ms Marvel's powers permanently a part of herself, not having them was still strange but had been managing to deal with it. Webswinging would never truly replace how it felt to her to soar through the air as she once did, but it was a close second. She finally managed to get her instincts not to go as if she was flying.
And of course there were her old teammates, the X-Men. They had told her to take all the time she needed to sort out her issues with Jade, and she was doing that, but the truth was she just hadn't kept in regular contact. Not that she really could with her squad mates in the Xtreme Team. All of her information about her team came from Logan, who had become pretty much her point of contact with the X-Men as she tried to deal with her situation while he did what he could to keep her in the loop, especially in regards to her latest team.
According to Logan, once Storm had healed from her near fatal injuries from the mission in Madripoor, she took back command of the team and they were currently on a mission with no open communication. There were departures however; Davis Cameron had opted to simply disappear from the team shortly after she left with the Fantastic Four to be examined for her condition, apparently motivated by his now clear revulsion of anything that didn't look outwardly human, even his own sister Heather who underwent a physical change due to her Shi'ar heritage. Despite the fact that her relationship with her brother had essentially been destroyed, Heather had decided to leave the team, along with Neal, to go and find him. Despite the brevity of their time together, Rogue hoped the best for her.
As for Remy, he took leave from the team as well. He told Logan that he needed to take time to himself and that he was heading back to Louisiana, looking for time to adjust just like Anna Marie needed time to adjust to her situation with Jade. However, Gambit wasn't just adjusting to her choice to stay bonded to Jade but she was surprised to learn that Remy's powers had become unstable after the mission in Madripoor. Most likely reasons were due to the fact that Khan used him as a power source to open up portals for his invasion army and Vargas nearly killed him. Since he couldn't trust himself to be of use during missions, that had made it all the easier for him to choose to leave.
Feeling the hum in the back of her head go a bit higher she frowned. That's being petty.
Oh I'm sorry. Was he not the one that delivered an ultimatum to us and wanted me extracted from you as quickly as possible without considering what that would mean for either one of us?
Even so, feelin' glad that his powers are not functioning properly, that's not right. You know how Ah've felt about certain aspects of the powers Ah've lost.
... yeah. You're right, Jade sighed, giving Rogue the impression of a scolded child. I know you care about him, and I should care about him too, but it's hard for me to do so because all I see when I think of him is the look in his eyes when he wanted me gone.
Rogue shook her head. Jade had been soured on Remy ever since his horrible first reaction to Jade, but given how symboites were generally viewed after everything Venom and Carnage had done since Battleworld, she could understand the reaction. But whatever their relationship would become going forward, it was up to him to make the first move. That much she had made clear in that hospital she had last saw him in.
In the here and now, Anna Marie was trying to find herself a job. She may have millions of dollars now available to her, but she still wanted to work to have something to do when she wasn't getting trained by Peter. When she told him she was staying in a hotel, he had somehow convinced her to come stay with him at his apartment. She had decent enough skills to work as a mechanic, but it seemed that no one was hiring at the moment.
Just take money out of your bank account, give him the money and say it's from work.
That's cheating and Ah don't wanna do that, Anna Marie thought back to her partner. She hadn't even told Peter she had money to spare. He didn't seem like the type to accept charity. If anything he was more likely the one to give to charity, even if he had nothing to give but himself. At least he had accepted her welcoming gift. It made things a lot easier for getting in touch with one another when need be.
And the moment Anna Marie wasn't just sitting the coffee shop just to satisfy Jade's newfound want for various mocha coffees. She had asked Logan to reach out to someone she knew that he knew. She needed to speak to her.
Looking at her watch to see it was the scheduled meeting time, Anna Marie looked towards the entrance to the coffee shop and saw exactly who she was waiting for walk in. A woman with shoulder length red hair, dressed in simple outfit of dark pants and a black shirt under a brown leather jacket.
Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow. An agent of SHIELD and an Avenger. "Thank you for comin."
"When Logan reached out to me and said that you wanted to see me, I honestly wasn't sure what to expect," Natasha remarked, taking a seat facing Rogue. "Especially given your unique set of circumstances."
"Please don't tell me SHIELD knows about this," Rogue sighed, as if her obtaining a symboite had become the worst kept secret in the superhero community.
"Director Fury knows, but he's currently keeping the information to himself and those of us who are both SHIELD Agents and Avengers," Natasha informed her. "He's choosing to listen to Reed Richards' report which details his examination of you and your symboite. He concluded that the two of you weren't a threat to the general public."
"Ah bet the fact that Ah was depowered in Madripoor when Ah nearly died also had something to do with his stance," Rogue stated.
"Can you blame him?" Natasha asked, as if it were rhetorical. "Every other symboite that has been encountered has been hostile, whether due to the host or symboite's intent. Yours is the first non-aggressive we've ever encountered. Could you imagine what could have happened if she had turned out like Carnage and you had the full spectrum of powers you had at the time?"
"Yes Ah can. Believe me, Ah know how bad it coulda been for me," Rogue let out a sigh. "Jade and I have come a long way since Ah first found out. But just because Ah'm in control doesn't mean Ah got the best grip on them. Ah'm getting some help from someone with similar abilities."
"And since you're here, I can already gather which hero you are getting help from," Natasha said with a slight upturn of her lips. "How is that going?"
"Well…"
The day after returning to New York from Africa...
As Rogue stood on the top of the skyscraper that Peter had selected as the location from which to begin her first official web-swinging lesson, she couldn't stop a brief, irrational shiver of fear from spreading through her body as she looked out at the sight before her.
It was a crazy thing to be feeling, of course- she'd flown several hundred feet higher than this and always been OK- but that was back when she'd had access to Carol's powers on a regular basis; even after she'd stopped being the person who'd enjoyed taking the powers of others, she'd always loved the freedom that Carol's power of flight gave her.
Now… for the first time in years… she didn't have that.
All she had was just a living costume that could do a few spider-themed tricks and help her control her powers better.
Just a living costume? Jade's voice said in her head, sounding almost hurt at the comment. Rogue, that's hardly fair; I can't help what I am-
Jade, Rogue countered, a slight smile on her face as she spoke to the symbiote, as much as Ah appreciate having someone tah talk to-
"Rogue…" another voice- this one not inside her head- interjected, prompting her to glance back to where Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, was currently standing beside her, his arms folded and a smile faintly visible under his mask as he looked at her, "are you here to talk with Jade, or are you here to learn from the master web-swinger?"
"Learn from the master," Rogue replied, smiling back at him apologetically.
"Good," Peter said, before his expression (Presumably) became more serious under the mask as he stared at her. "Now, the first thing you need to remember here is that your webbing provides you with some advantages and disadvantages compared to mine; you can produce it just by thinking about it- I've got to hit the palm of my hand with my fingers to trigger it; it flexes certain muscles in my wrists- and you're less likely to run out mid-swing, but, at the same time, you can't use too much webbing at once or it'll weaken Jade."
"Really?" Rogue asked, looking at Spider-Man- she found it easier to think of him as Spider-Man when he was in 'teacher mode' like this, even though she'd learned on the way back that Peter was currently working as a teacher himself- in surprise. "Yah know that for a fact?"
"Oh yeah, it's how I beat Venom the first time," Spider-Man explained. "After he'd webbed me to a bell with the intention of having the clanger flatten me, I got up to the top of a church tower and kept on cutting his web-lines until he pretty much collapsed from lack of… well, suit, in absence of a better term."
"Really?" Jade asked, taking over briefly as she looked at her current… partner, she supposed was the best possible term… in surprise. "I never knew that could happen."
"Well, in all fairness, Venom had used a nigh-on ridiculous amount of webbing beforehand, so it's probably not a major issue, but given the kind of villains you tackled with the X-Men, I figure we should be prepared for everything," Spider-Man clarified.
"Huh?" Rogue asked, taking control back from Jade once again- really, it was kind of disturbing how easy it was becoming for her to do that- as she looked at him. "What do yah mean by that?"
"Well, let's face facts. You go up against alien invasions and bad guys who could blow up buildings many times over, and you've spent a fair portion of your career with the good guys basically running over them as if you were a bullet train, with no problem whatsoever," Spider-Man replied. "And before you say no, I've seen footage of you flying in air and barrelling over more than one bad guy, which you could do because you could fly and you had Ms. Marvel's strength behind you."
"…Point," Rogue nodded in resignation at him. "Ah guess Ah need to go back tah basics…"
"To a point," Spider-Man nodded. "I mean, we've obviously got more to work with than if you were starting over from scratch from what I've heard about your power level in your early days, so you're not exactly a total rookie, but…"
He shrugged. "Well, if we're going to work on getting you back in the game, we need to start somewhere I don't think you've ever been."
"Namely?"
"The average crook," Spider-Man confirmed, indicating the streets below them. "Let's see what we can find."
"'The average crook' is it?" Natasha asked with some amusement in her voice.
"Better tah get used to lowered levels of strength on small time criminals than going after someone in his rogue's gallery like Rhino or Electro," Rogue explained. "When Ah'm out swingin' through the air on weblines Ah don't have mah old instincts tryin' to come out to tell me to fly while in mid swing. Finally feel like Ah've gotten used tah mah new physical limits… to a point, anyway."
"While that is good to hear, I am just curious about one thing. Logan never said the reason but I gathered even he didn't know: why did you want to see me, Rogue?"
"Ah need your permission."
Natasha blinked. "What on earth could you need my permission for?"
"Obviously Ah can't just go around in my X-Man uniform, swinging up web lines in Manhattan; it just doesn't work. When Ah first went out web swingin', Ah had Jade create a basic costume to hide my appearance that would make sure no one would think it's me or would obviously connect to the X-Men. If this is going tah work long-term, Ah need a code name to use; somethin' that would reflect the both of us, me and Jade. Ah thought about adding a symbol, just to further sell the new look, and then Ah saw it. Ah just figured before Ah went out and started using it, that Ah would ask yah, since you're the first to carry this name in our line of work."
Natasha waited for a moment for Rogue to go on but she did. But Natasha took into account what she had been told and sure enough she knew now why Rogue was asking for her permission. A genuine smile formed on the Black Widow's lips. "You have my permission. However," the smile turned into a smirk that had the Southern belle a bit surprised. "I have a request of my own for you."
Meanwhile, across town Spider-Man was thinking over recent developments.
Once he and Rogue had returned to New York, he'd tried to call MJ to explain the situation with Shathra now that the spider-wasp-woman thing had been dealt with, but he'd just been constantly put through to her voice mail. He was trying not to think about it too much, telling himself that she was just busy getting her new/old acting career back to action after the way her modelling contract had fallen apart while she was 'dead', but the way she'd been crying during that last talk while Shathra was giving her 'conference'…
Still, as much as he recognized that having Rogue around was probably going to give his wife even more to worry about in terms of their relationship, in a semi-weird way it was almost a relief to have something to distract him from those concerns. After seeing so many other spider-based heroes and villains popping up after him, ranging from the various Spider-Women to the other symbiotes, there was something refreshing about the fact that he was able to give one of those heroes some instruction in their abilities, as opposed to watching Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter or Mattie Franklin do things their own way while trading on his name (he didn't expect royalties or anything, but people did associate him with them even though he had no real connection).
As he did a quick mid-air flip to keep himself in practice, the wall-crawler mused that Jade was actually proving to be surprisingly easy to talk to. He'd never really 'spoken' to the original symbiote the way Brock sometimes seemed to be talking to it when they were bonded (even if that was mostly just noticeable because he was calling himself 'we'), and Carnage was obviously just nuts whether Cletus was on his own or with his Other, but it was actually becoming easier to tell when Rogue was the one talking to him and when Jade was exerting some kind of influence.
He wasn't ready to completely sign off on the idea that she could be trusted, but there was something to this new symbiote that made him at least want to trust her, which was more than he'd had from any other symbiote to date…
"Help! Someone Help!"
And just like that inner introspection is over due to damsel in distress, Peter thought as he switched direction and followed the sound of the scream, expecting to find a woman in trouble with some crook about to do unspeakable things to her.
Instead as he neared the rooftop he heard the noise, he saw not two people, but the outline of a single person within the shadows. As he landed on the rooftop, that person came out into the light; a white-haired man in a suit, in his late forties, standing in the shadow of a chimney, a boombox radio in his hands.
"Lamont?" Spider-Man stared in surprise. "What the hell are you-?"
"About time," Lieutenant William Lamont of the NYPD said to the costumed hero. "I wondered when you were gonna show up."
"You did this to get my attention?"
"It's not as if I have any other way to get in touch with you," Lamont groused as he turned off the radio. "You know, I had Daredevil, Thor, and half of the Fantastic Four pass me by before you showed up."
"And you still waited for me over them?" Spider-Man smiled. "I'm not sure if to be flattered or embarrassed."
"I don't know them; I know you," Lamont clarified. "One costume in my life is plenty, thanks."
"Fair enough," the wall-crawler replied, deciding to save on the jokes right now; if this was leading to where he thought it was, it would be best not to provoke this man too far just in case. "So where are we going?"
"Best if you see for yourself," Lamont confirmed.
"Can you give me anything for definite right now?"
"It's weird," Lamont said, sounding slightly impatient.
"Well, if it's weird enough for you to call me in on this, then I want some help," Spider-Man said as he went to his belt and, much to Lamont's shock, pulled out...
"Seriously? Now you have a cell phone!" Lamont asked, annoyance far more evident this time.
"Hey. I'll have you know this is a new addition to my arsenal that I only just got last week," Spider-Man returned. "And yeah, you're right, you should have a way to contact me, so I'll give you the number later; right now, I need to make a call."
As he could hear Lamont grumbling in the background, Spider-man could only shake his head, grateful for Rogue actually getting this for him. Having an unlisted cell phone for use as Spider-Man so that certain people can contact me… Yeah I really should thought of this sooner.
If only to have avoided the embarrassment of Lamont's earlier method of getting a hold of him.
"Well, Ah can't say Ah wouldn't mind doin' it," Rogue said, Natasha's request was actually one that could help her out. "When?"
"Give me your number so I can let you know directly," Natasha said to her. "I just need to make sure I have the time freed up and not worry about Director Fury suddenly calling me up."
"Yeah Ah'll-" Anna Marie began only to hear her own phone go off. Looking at the number calling her, she laughed slightly. "Speak of the devil."
"I take it that's him," Natasha observed, taking out her own phone. "We should make this quick then."
It took less than a minute for them to exchange numbers and Rogue to leave her money to pay for her coffee on the table before she left the coffee shop. Even as she walked into an alleyway, she listened to Peter as he gave her directions as to where to meet up and to come in costume as they would not be alone. There would be an NYPD Lieutenant with him when she got there.
Well then, we got her permission, Jade replied, eagerness in her tone. Can I proceed?
Anna Marie nodded, smiling as she felt the symboite cover her body. She couldn't wait to see Peter's reaction to the new addition to her suit.
"Well this had to have been some part of party," Spider-Man said deadpan as he looked over the destruction of the building in front of him.
"The handprint over here pretty much confirms its one of your kind," Lamont stated, shining his light over the spot.
"'One of my kind'?" Spider-Man repeated, not liking how that sounded at all. Granted, he and Lamont had only worked together once so far, but when he'd approached the man because he was genuinely concerned about missing street kids, Lamont saying something like that felt a bit off to the wall-crawler. "You mind explaining what you meant by that remark Lieutenant?"
Lamont let out a suffering sigh. "You know what the worst I had to worry about when I started this job thirty years ago: armed bank robbers and a serial rapist. Now, we live in a world where people with powers we thought could only live on in our imagination through a comic book or television, are now part of our everyday lives."
He turned to look back at Spider-Man. "There are days that I think the world would be much better off if every costume or superpowered person on the planet vanished and the world was it was when I started my beat. That people wouldn't have to worry about destruction like this and the days or weeks that it takes to fix it only to see it be destroyed all over again."
"Lamont..." Spider-Man started to say only for the police officer held his hand up.
"But I've come to accept that the world has changed and wishing for it to go back is foolish. We have to do our part to make this city safe and maybe if we can all finally get our heads out of our asses, we can get it right for a change," Lamont finished, shaking his head as he chuckled. "Not even close to sixty and I'm starting to ramble."
"Hey. It's your city as much as mine. You're free to speak your mind. If there were more cops like you Lamont, maybe things would be easier for those of us with powers trying to make a difference," Spider-Man assured him. "So, back to business. What did you want to show me?"
"I had my people take the impressions off this and get them over to the lab for fingerprint analysis," Lamont said, indicating a steel girder with a hand imprint on it. "We checked every active perp file and came up empty. Then we did a search on the inactive files we keep on guys who are presumed dead or missing, but don't know for a fact. Sometimes guys we think are dead come out of hiding behind fake names and surprise us. Sure enough, we found a match. This thumbprint over here? It belongs to a mob enforcer named Santo Castellani."
"So if you know who this guy is-"
"See, this is what happens when you don't let people finish what they're saying. You always like this?"
"Go on, fine, whatever…"
"So yeah, we know who Castellani is," Lamont continued. "First problem is, he was last seen in 1957, and he was thirty-two years old at that time. That'd make him-"
"Seventy-seven."
"You're doing it again."
"Sorry, it's a math thing. I can't help myself."
"Second problem is…" Lamont continued, shining the light on the girder again. "The fingerprint on the index finger belongs to Jimmy 'Little Man' Desanti. Also considered dead or missing, and I'm not telling you how old he was when he disappeared in '57 because I can't handle you and the math thing at the same time, but-"
"Wait a minute…" the wall-crawler said, beginning to be concerned about this development. "Two fingerprints, from two different guys, on the same hand? That's not possible."
"That's why I called you," Lamont confirmed. "Well, that plus anybody who can do this to a hunk of steel is probably a little outside my range."
"Gotta admit," a new voice cut in, "All those together creates something you don't see every day even in this business."
Lamont and Spider-Man turned around towards the sound of the voice a woman swung down from a webline to come down next to them. Lamont recognized her as costumed woman that had been reported to be working with Spider-Man recently, ever since television broadcast with that creature that had tried posing as Spider-Man's lover. The green and yellow suit and the red hair were dead giveaways. Only now there was the white widow spider symbol over her chest, but unlike Spider-Man's symbol (which faced upwards), hers was facing downwards.
"Your back-up?" Lamont glanced over at Spider-Man.
"That's her," the man confirmed.
"OK," Lamont said, before turning back to the new arrival. "So do you have a name now? Like Spider-Woman?"
The costumed heroine shook her head. "Nope. There's more than one person already running around with that name, and calling myself that would be just lazy writing." She looked straight at Lamont, holding her hand out. "I'm the Jade Widow."
"Lieutenant William Lamont, NYPD," he said shaking her hand. "Jade Widow, huh? Well, that's… unique, to say the least."
"So, anything else on this guy?" Spider-Man looked at Lamont, concluding that the best way to deal with Rogue's new identity was to act like it was normal.
"Yeah, two things," Lamont answered. "First, one of the witnesses heard him, 'Tell Forelli the boys are back in town'. Second thing is, he's green."
"Green?" Jade Widow asked.
"Green," Lamont confirmed. "As in, it's not easy being."
"Huh. Well, at least a guy like that isn't going to just throw on a coat and blend in," Jade Widow stated. "I mean someone walking around with green skin, how can you miss him?"
"What do you plan to do?" Lamont asked them.
"For now, we'll just go through the city. You got my number," Spider-Man answered, shooting a webline towards the ceiling. "You call us or we call you. Either way, I think this is going to be a very interesting night for all of us."
"Later Lieutenant," Jade Widow said as she shot her own webline and followed her partner out of the building and out towards the city.
Lamont shook his head once more as he saw the two leave. Clearly, he was right about one thing; this was going to be an interesting night to say the least.
"Ah gotta ask, this isn't typical when dealin' with the supervillians ya normally deal with, is it?" Jade Widow asked Spider-Man as they began swinging through the city.
"Eh, I'll be able to be better weigh in once we actually confront Not-Kermit the Frog and know what we're up against," Spider-Man returned, looking at his partner. "By the way, 'the Jade Widow'? You made a crack early about not using the Spider-Woman name for your identity; don't you think the Black Widow is going to-"
"Ah just finished having coffee with Natasha when ya called. She's gave meh her blessing."
Spider-Man blinked behind his mask at that. "Since when are you and Natasha BFFs?"
"We aren't. Ah asked Logan to set up the meeting," she replied as she landed on a rooftop so they could have their conversation on solid ground instead of mid swing. She temporarily dissolved the mask to show her face to Spidey. "Look, we hadn't been using a name for ourselves yet. Just calling ourselves Jade in this costume felt more like it was her instead of equal. And seein' as how we're being taught by ya, we wanted to at least pay homage without just outright stealin' from ya."
Before Spider-Man could say anything he saw the slight shift in body language as she spoke again, this time without her southern accent. "Plus I really don't want to copy off Grandpa, no matter how cool that white spider symbol looks."
"And that could be getting into the question of whether you're ripping off Julia as well," Peter noted with a slight smile.
"Point," Jade observed. "Surprised she's never complained about it to you, really…"
"Eh, with the gloves and the half-mask it probably works out as different enough to make no odds," Peter shrugged, wondering what it said about Rogue and Jade's dynamic that he was actually able to notice the difference between when Jade had influence and when it was mainly Rogue doing the talking. The accent was the most obvious, but Jade seemed to be a bit more casual about the current experience, where Rogue was trying to be more professional…
His moment of reflection was interrupted when they heard sirens from a fair amount of police cars passing by the building they were on top of.
"Well, I think that's our cue ladies," Spider-Man said as he looked back to Rogue. Within seconds Jade reformed the mask over Rogue's face and changed her host's hair, which went from short brown with the white stripe to a shade of red that reminded him of MJ's only going all the way down her back with so much more volume. "You know this might sound trivial, but does that even feel like it's your hair Rogue?"
"Ah get the majority of it is just a part of Jade, but yah, it just feels like a part of meh," Rogue gave a sheepish grin. "And honestly, Ah kinda like that little trick."
"Yeah well, just be careful if Medusa ever files a lawsuit on you," he joked before shooting off a webline.
"Assuming she bothers about that after that kinda thing after that hairspray campaign I heard about," Jade Widow added, her accent fading away as she swung away after him. It wasn't more than a couple of minutes till the police stopped in front of a nightclub, one where they could see even from the outside a major disturbance. Through one of the windows, the Jade Widow noticed a large figure hitting one of the support beams. And this guy definitely did not look human. "Guess we found Not-Kermit."
Spider-Man didn't even hesitate, and Jade Widow was only a few milliseconds behind him; as the two of them landed on a couple of nearby support pillars- with Spider-Man's already being slightly damaged from the creature's earlier assault-, they each extended a hand and launched a line of webbing at each of the creature's hands to yank it slightly back. Whether or not it would have stopped the thing before them was uncertain, but it accomplished the main goal of halting their new foe's rampage towards a small group on the stage as he turned to look in their direction.
"We had complaints about the noise," Spider-Man said casually, smiling at the large green figure- and God, did he hope that the green didn't mean what he thought it meant- before them as it turned to look at them, revealing what seemed like layers of overlapping green skin around its chest and head, as well as one glowing purple eye that was balanced out by an empty socket on the other side. "My partner and I thought that we should check it out."
"No kidding?" the figure replied in a deep, rasping voice that sounded like it hadn't been used for ages. "I'll do something about that… after I rip off your legs and beat you both to death with them."
"Cheery guy, aren't you?" Jade Widow commented, looking him over with a slight shake of her head before she narrowed her eyes in confusion. "And who are you anyway?"
"Who'm I?" the creature repeated, looking back at them in surprise. "Forget who I am; who the hell are you two?"
"Hey, yo!" one of the civilians that the creature had been about to attack yelled from behind him. "That's Spider-Man and… and the new missus!"
"So she's like Spider-Woman right?" another civilian asked.
"What?" Spider-Man and Jade Widow both said, looking over at the speakers instantly.
"We're not together!" Jade Widow yelled, indicating herself and Spider-Man with wild hand gestures. "We're just friends, got me? We're friends!" She looked over the second speaker personally. "And I am not Spider-Woman, there are already three of her. I am the Jade Widow."
"What she…" Spider-Man began, only for the large green guy to turn towards the nearby bar counter and dig his hands into it.
"I don't know who you two are," he growled as he looked at them with his one good eye, "but if you want a fight…"
Then, right before their eyes, he hauled the entire bar counter off the ground, spilling drinks and chairs all around it. "Let's go, punks! Digger's in town and we're gonna have fun!"
To Be Continued...