"I'm on the top of the world, looking down on creation, and the only explanation I can find…" It was a testament to the elated mood that Spider-Man had been in for the last several days that he found himself singing along to one of Aunt May's favorite songs—and conversely one of his least favorite songs—while swinging high above Wall Street.
It couldn't be helped. It had been a solid week since his encounter with the symbiote, and his life had, for the most part, gone back to something like normal. Granted, MJ was still slaving away at a Broadway show that she no longer had a solid role in, and the police had been slightly more wary of their friendly neighborhood web-slinger since the incident on the Queensboro Bridge. But in the same breath, Mary Jane also seemed to be somewhat relieved that wasn't tied down to Les Mis anymore; thanks to the false information Eddie had fed The Daily Bugle, most people believed that the black-suited Spider-Man had been a murderous impostor, and Peter's relationship with his co-workers had smoothed over, Carlie Cooper being the possible exception. Although Peter honestly didn't lose any sleep over the squeaky-voiced trainwreck's habit of avoiding him in the halls now.
He launched a line to a gargoyle outcropping, swung high and let himself fall in a full three-sixty somersault before coming to land on the ledge of one of the many economic buildings on West 40th. Like clockwork, his phone vibrated against his skin, and he fished it out of the pocket lining of his costume.
"This is Up Late with Spider-Man, what are your musical dedications and requests for the night?"
MJ snorted on the other end of the line. "God, tiger, you are a laugh riot."
"I'm also great and mending my own socks. What's up, baby?"
"The opposite of down."
"Geez, we're quite the comedic couple, huh? A regular Ricky and Lucy."
"Hm, stand-up comedy. Might be a great fallback career. Hey, did you hear the one about the only thing Spider-Man can't do that a spider can?"
The hero in question narrowed his eyes behind his mask. "I think I missed that one, but I'm guessing the answer has something to do with his girlfriend likely having to pay the rent solo for a little while."
"Ooh, burn," MJ said with a heavy, frat boy affectation. "Oh, let me get some burn ointment for that solar burn." She sobered up, however, and added, "You'll be good getting dinner ready for yourself tonight?"
"I don't know. Swanson's Hungry Man dinners are so complicated, what with the pre-heating and the oven and the oy."
"Remember that conversation we had a few days ago about putting the Yiddish back where we found it?"
"Yeah, yeah." Spider-Man took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the late afternoon heat. The mercury had been steadily increasing since the big rainstorm; he'd been running his suit through the laundry every other night on patrol. "Don't worry, baby. I'll make do. Besides, with you out of the house I can finally watch the New Westminster Dog Show without feeling like I'm emasculating myself."
"Heaven forbid that ever happen," MJ said teasingly. "Love you, tiger."
"Love you too." He hung up.
It had been a quiet few days. Patrolling the streets had been a perfect release for him after so long feeling trapped by his own skin. Things in the Big Apple had been quiet for the most part. The Avengers were busier than ever, and even when they weren't, there were places like Hell's Kitchen where rumors had persisted of a new masked vigilante. In truth, Spider-Man was grateful for the reprieve that the extra help was giving him.
He went into a free fall off the ledge of the office building, savoring the rush of adrenaline. Then he fired a web, pulled himself out of his dive, and had just decided to head for home along the stretch of FDR Drive, when the violent blare of his spider-senses made him pull up hard.
So much for the reconstituted chicken cutlets, he thought. He peered down at the street below, the sounds of screaming and squealing tires filling his ears even from his great height and distance. And as he went into a fast swing, he saw what it was that was causing the commotion: a heavily armored transport van was careening down the Brooklyn Bridge, swerving to keep on course. Spider-Man swung onto the top spokes of the bridge, and felt his heart sink when he was the block letters printed on the side of the iron-grey vehicle: Ravencroft Prison.
"Mama always said," Spider-Man mused to himself as he swung towards the truck, "that nothing good ever came from a maximum security prison." Despite his glib attitude, he knew even before he landed on the front hood of the truck that things were far worse than they appeared. Sure enough, the inside of the front windshield was splattered with blood, and he was quite certain that the three tough looking men now operating the careening vehicle weren't up to the standard set by Ravencroft's transportation department.
That, and they were all wearing the standard jumpsuits of the prison's inmates.
"Hi!" Spider-Man waved at the driver and his two cronies. "I'm gonna ask you fellas real nicely to pull over to the shoulder and surrender."
In response, the truck jerked violently to one side. Spider-Man, adhered to the steel surface of the hood, sighed.
"Fine. Do it the hard way." He crawled towards the windshield; the thug sitting passenger side pulled out a gun—from where, Spider-Man really didn't want to think, although he did catch sight of the prone and bloodied form of another body slumped against the side of the front bench.
An argument broke out between the thugs. Spider-Man knew that the windshield was bulletproof, and that firing through it would likely result in an even messier surprise for the three goons. One of them turned back and shouted something through the grate in the wall. Over the howling of the sirens, rush of wind and the screams of the terrified pedestrians, Spider-Man could just hear what the thug was saying: "BECK! YOU GOT ANY MORE TRICKS?"
Spider-Man cocked his head to the side. "Beck? Hm. Funny you should mention that. Did you guys know that in the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey?" And with that, he dug his fingers through the industrial grade steel shell of the hood, and violently jerked the speeding truck to the side. The right passenger skidded against the girders of the bridge, sending sparks through the air.
The driver let go of the steering wheel in sheer shock.
"Shit," Spider-Man hissed. He attempted to keep the truck on course, hoping to avoid the many, many people and cars attempting to speed away from the wayward vehicle. There was a bus behind him, one that he could see quite clearly was empty. Gritting his teeth, the web-slinger shot a line to the back of it. Through sheer inertia he steered the armored truck across the length of the lane. With a resounding crash, it collided with the edge of the divider.
Spider-Man felt his teeth clack together, but he'd luckily gotten the worst of the situation under control. He smiled through his mask at the stunned stupid expressions of the three murdering hijackers. Sirens blared close-by. The NYPD would be on the truck in no time.
Smirking, Spider-Man hopped off the front of the truck, webbed the doors shut for good measure, and swaggered towards the back. He could already hear the inmates due for transport yelling and banging around the inside of the trailer, but they wouldn't be going anywhere.
The double doors at the back burst open. Spider-Man rolled his eyes. These crooks were setting themselves up to be reigned in by the cops. He was fully prepared to give them a stern talking-to when a violent cloud of purple smoke erupted on the street behind the armored truck.
A flash of familiarity crossed the wall-crawler's memory; he narrowed his eyes as he crept through the sudden fog. He could see shapes in it, and beyond the shapes, the cavalcade of flashing red, blue and white lights of at least a dozen police cars and cruisers.
Before the smoke cleared, Spider-Man saw what appeared to be a small army of orange suited crooks standing on the road. There were at least a hundred of them, all of them carrying weapons of various sizes. One of them even had a woman by the neck, a pistol against her temple.
Coiling his muscles, Spider-Man leapt into the air, and onto the underside of a steel girder. The police squad alighted from their cars, holding their own weapons on the crowd of Ravencroft escapees.
But something didn't add up, and it didn't take the keen-minded wall-crawler a long time to figure out just what that was: there were too many inmates fanning out over the bridge.
Certainly too many to have fit into the inside of the armored truck.
"Never heard the one about how many spree killers you can fit inside a clown car," Spider-Man muttered. There were still a few inmates trickling out of the back of the truck. From his vantage point, the web-slinger could also see through the front of the wrecked vehicle. They were trying to find a getaway, and somehow they were using the hostage situation below as a screen for it.
Gritting his teeth, Spider-Man shot a score of webs at the roof of the truck. He slammed the ends to the beam of the bridge. Even if the crooks somehow managed to get the armored car started, they wouldn't get very far.
Turning his attention to the hostage-takers—what felt like the umpteenth crises of the kind he'd dealt with since Christmas—Spider-Man sought out the terrified woman clutched in the bulging arms of a rough looking thug. The wall-crawler still had the element of surprise on his side, and the more damage control he could do, the better.
He shot a line of webbing at the top of the woman's shoulder.
It went directly through her and onto the ground. The police guard gasped, but none of the Ravencroft inmates made any move. Something clicked in Spider-Man's mind, and at the same time, he noticed a very familiar figure alighting from the back of the truck along with several others.
Beck.
Mysterio.
"Oh, you have gotta freaking be kidding me," Spider-Man said.
Some sort of unfortunate, mutually disdainful telepathy seemed to link Spider-Man with Beck. The man looked up, snarled something at one of the tangible inmates. The next second, Spider-Man found himself leaping from steel beam to steel beam as the really real crook opened fire with a semi-automatic.
They wanted a getaway, and they were using one of the oldest magician's tricks in the book—misdirection—to pull it off. And judging from the fact that several of them were already climbing over the edges of the bridge, they didn't mind having to swim for their freedom.
A shock of shaggy ginger hair caught Spider-Man's eyes as he free fell from yet another volley of bullet fire. Dread like he'd never felt before seeped through him, along with a hot, furious anger.
Cletus Kasady was one of the fleeing convicts.
Snarling, Spider-Man swung to the side of a girder, and launched a web at Kasady's legs. The serial killing scum gave a scream of surprise. The wall-crawler jerked the line backwards, sending Kasady flying through the air and right towards him. He saw the pale, almost yellowish-green of the monster's eyes, reached back a fist and knocked him out flat cold. Kasady dangled pathetically from the line of webbing attached to the side of the bridge.
Satisfied, Spider-Man dropped to the pavement. There were more goons running from the armored truck, but Spider-Man couldn't tell which were real and which were Mysterio's illusions. He ducked, weaved and, at times, managed to lash out at a corporeal crook, but it wasn't enough. There were too many, and already Spider-Man was quite sure that the transport truck had been cleared of New York's worst offenders.
He leapt for the roof of the armored truck, and peered down at the scene before him. Several of the crooks turned, pointing firearms of just about every make at him.
"Sorry, but I really don't have time for—
The quip died in his throat as the brute squad opened fire. Cursing, Spider-Man jumped for the side of the bridge and began to swing around them. As long as he had their attention away from the police officers…
You know what would have been good about now? He thought as he swung into a double spiral to avoid yet a hailstorm of bullets. Something that was capable of reading my thoughts. Something that lived on my skin, symbiotically if you will.
It was petulant, but he couldn't help it. He'd come to depend on the symbiote's abilities, and now, as much as he hated to admit it, he was slightly rusty.
Spider-Man landed on the beam above the supine and bewebbed Cletus Kasady. The bullets stopped; the crooks, those who weren't holding the police force in a tense standoff, glared at the web-slinger.
"That's right!" Spider-Man called to them. "You hit me, you hit Ginger Spice here. And I know that's the last thing that you—
A bullet whizzed past his ankle.
"Hey! What happened to the criminal code of loyalty that Orange is the New Black tells me so much about!"
"We don't give a shit about that freak of nature!" One of the goons below roared. "He's sick!"
"Tell me about it," Spider-Man fired back. He glowered at Kasady, who was still ostensibly unconscious. "I honestly don't know why I give a damn about him right now."
"Let him fall then," another one of the crooks yelled. "Nobody's going to miss him."
Besides his wife, Spider-Man thought. Carlie Cooper would likely have an arrhythmia if anything perfectly just happened to her precious Cle. He wanted to take some degree of vindictive pleasure in the image, but he couldn't. It wasn't Carlie's fault that Cletus Kasady had sunk his filthy claws into her vulnerable heart.
There was a police chopper whirring around the bridge. Finely attuned spider-senses warned the web-slinger of the impending projectile a split-second too late. He looked down just as he saw the smooth, ebony shaft of what appeared to be an arrow slice through his web-line. Kasady's body fell to the street below, and Spider-Man was too stunned, and also too aloof as to the wellbeing of the bastard who'd ruined Eddie's life, to do anything but stay stuck to the bridge and look on with his mouth slightly open.
"Robin Hood?" He muttered.
The air on the street below thrummed; several more arrows were fired onto the pavement at the feet of the army of both real and illusory criminals. A moment later, bright purple smoke filled the street, and several of the goons went down coughing.
Spider-Man looked to a spot behind the line of cops and saw someone standing on a sleek black SUV—somebody wearing an armless black leather uniform, and a pair of burgundy tinted tactical glasses. The man held a compound bow in one hand a quiver of arrows over his shoulder.
"What's up, bug!" Hawkeye loaded another arrow.
"No!" Spider-Man yelled. "Stop, they're not—
But it was too late. The Avenger let the bolt fly. Cursing, Spider-Man swung down from the side of the bridge, soared over the heads of the criminals and snatched the bow from thin air. There was something small and red and flashing attached to it.
"Oh that is a bomb," Spider-Man said. He flung the lethal projectile from him and over the edge of the bridge. It exploded in a ball of fire the size of a watermelon.
"What the hell are you doing?" Hawkeye yelled. "Hey, are you one the bad guys? 'Cause I've been seeing some stories on the news lately and—
"They're not real," Spider-Man said, coming to rest on the roof of a police cruiser. It was the perfect vantage point to speak not only to the well-intentioned Avenger, but also to the squad of police. "One of the crooks was a guy I took down a while back. Name of Quentin Beck, also known as Fish Bowl Face, or the great Mysterio."
Hawkeye looked grimly at the goons on the bridge who hadn't passed out. "How can we tell which is which? There's gotta be at least a hundred of them out there."
"Look for the balls," Spider-Man said.
Hawkeye stared at him flatly. "Excuse me?"
Spider-Man pointed at the road at the feet of the holograms. Just visible beneath their shoes were the glass spheres that Beck had used in his illusions. "We get those broken and this little light show is kaputski."
Hawkeye nodded. "Target practice, huh? Sounds like a real gas."
"You deal with these idiots," Spider-Man said. He looked back down to the river. The crooks were still kicking their way across the waters of the Hudson. Had it been any other time of year and they'd have been frozen to the bone by now, but it was early summer in the Big Apple. They could swim as far as the Jersey Turnpike and then from there, who the hell knew?
Hawkeye grabbed Spider-Man by the elbow. "You're not going out there stag, buggo. I can fire farther and faster and with a bigger back of tricks than you. Let the boys in blue know what's going on with those pretty little picture balls and we can rope in the crooks together."
"Wow, are you asking me for help, Mister Avenger?"
"No, I'm asking if you want to work together."
Which is probably something we both should have been doing from the word go, Spider-Man thought. He glanced back at the line of silent illusions. There was no telling how long Hawkeye's knockout gas would work on the flesh-and-blood goons. And if they didn't act quickly, there was no telling what Beck and the others swimming for it would do once they reached land.
Spider-Man held out his hand. Hawkeye grinned and grasped it firmly.
It took only a quick word to the commanding officer on site. The squad aimed for the glass spheres along the street, and the circling police chopper was given the all clear to fly Spider-Man and Hawkeye over the Hudson, Spider-Man holding onto a line of webbing and Hawk Eye clinging to his waist.
"On your six!" Hawk Eye shouted. Spider-Man swooped deftly. The Avenger fired an arrow outfitted with a stun gel at the back of an orange jumpsuit. The crook froze, and Spider-Man shot a line of web to him, plucking him from the depths of the river and threw him onto the side of the bridge, sticking him with a blob of webbing.
"When I woke up this morning," Spider-Man said as they continued to pursue the swimming crooks, "this was the absolute last thing I ever thought I'd be doing. Not that I'm going to go complaining about it, mind you."
"I'd hate to think I was being a burden," Hawkeye said.
They continued their pattern of stunning and webbing the crooks. It was almost too easy, the force of the waters the heavy jumpsuits worn by the fleeing criminals weighing them down.
But there were still those who had gotten to land, Quentin Beck among them.
"Hey Hawkeye, how are you with thrill rides?"
"Are you talking about amusement park rides or my life in general?"
"Good answer." Spider-Man narrowed his eyes. The chopper was circling low over the side of Roosevelt Island. There only a handful of crooks now treading water, too exhausted to carry on. Spider-Man could already see the few who'd made it to land wreaking havoc. Beck and at least four other goons had taken a group of pedestrians hostage already.
"I'm going to throw you through the air now," Spider-Man said.
Hawkeye's blank faced "what" turned into a scream as the web-slinging hero made good on his word. He used his full force to fling The Avenger from him, then hastily splayed a sturdy web at a space between two buildings. Hawkeye stuck to the radial of the webbing, and Spider-Man could only wonder how many expletives the other hero had uttered during his abrupt flight through midair.
He needed Hawkeye as the element of surprise in this.
Spider-Man landed with a heavy thud on the roof of a bus that had been left parked on the side of the road. The hostage takers rounded on him instantly.
Beck seemed to have elected himself the leader. He glared at the wall-crawler.
"Soy un perdedor," Spider-Man said with a smirk. Beck snarled and motioned to one of the crooks flanking him; before the thug could open fire, Spider-Man jerked the semi-automatic out of his hands. "Aw, what's the matter, Mister Mistopholes? You not a fan of your musical namesake?"
"I'll kill you!" Beck snarled.
"Fat chance. You're outstripped, unless of course you've got more of those magical little television testicles in your back pocket."
"Try anything," Beck said, "and we'll open fire."
There was no doubt in Spider-Man's mind about that. One of the crooks closest at hand was pressing a Beretta into the jugular of a woman with long, chestnut hair. It was a complete and utter repeat of the scene on the bridge, only this time the stakes were higher because both criminal and hostage were real.
But again, Spider-Man had the upper hand. He looked to Hawkeye; sure enough, the Avenger was already lining up a volley of arrows. He'd been biding his time, getting a feel for how many thugs they were dealing with before letting loose. Spider-Man had to hand it to Hawkeye—he was a good a tactician as he was a shot.
"You're really listening to this guy?" Spider-Man had to bide a little more time, just until Hawk Eye opened fire. "Beck? Really? He's a failed stage magician with a crappy code name."
Beck growled and threw what appeared to be another illusion sphere Spider-Man's way.
"You threw a PokeBall at the wild Spider-Man!" The web-slinger caught the orb and crushed it between his fingers. "Oh no! It broke free!"
Some of the crooks gave up the ghost at that moment. Sirens were wailing from down the Roosevelt Island Bridge—they knew they were licked, and freedom was too tantalizing to sit and be part of Beck's grudge match. Relinquishing their hostages they fled, but a second later dropped like flies as Hawkeye's specialized stunning arrows hit them.
It was almost too easy. A moment later, the rest of the crooks with their hostages hit the criminals remaining. The one holding the brunette woman grimaced, but due to his immense musculature, didn't go down with Beck and the rest.
Spider-Man tensed, ready to spring into action.
The hostage in the brute's arms snarled, stamped on his foot with her high-heeled shoe, and then dug her elbow painfully into his side. The crook loosened his grasp; the woman squirmed out of his grasp, looked him square in his ugly mug and kneed him right where the sun didn't shine.
"Ouch!" Spider-Man winced, a moment of fleeting empathy passing along his brain and certain sympathetic parts of his own anatomy.
Hawkeye sliced through the webbing that held him with one of his arrows and landed with surprising ease on the street below. He hurried toward the scene as more police officers converged, but before he could so much as get out the quip that Spider-Man was sure he had forming, the brunette hostage had flung her arms around him in gratitude.
"Thank you!" She breathed. "Geez, this city really is as dangerous as people say."
Hawkeye looked mollified. "Just doing my job as an Avenger, Miss—
"Laura," the woman said, extending a graceful hand. "And hey, don't sell yourself short. You're one of the only Avengers whose ever gone out of the way to save my sorry little self."
Spider-Man rolled his eyes, but couldn't help the smile that graced his lips. It was perfect hero-damsel one-oh-one, something that made him feel immediately homesick indeed.
He made to swing away from the scene, but before he could, he heard Hawkeye mention him.
"I had plenty of help, though." The Avenger nodded in Spider-Man's direction. "Hey, leotard! Where do you think you're crawling off to, huh? Don't you wanna sign autographs?"
"Not my style. If you want my picture, you can check out Eddie Brock's work on
The Daily Bugle's homepage, though."
Hawkeye approached him as the cops converged.
"Seriously though. You were a big help."
"Big help?"
"Hulk-sized, as a matter of fact." Hawkeye was surveying Spider-Man as if he were a specimen in a laboratory. "Y'know, we're not exactly full up on our roster. And I could sure as hell use a sabbatical." Hawkeye looked over his shoulder at Laura, who was still watching him with breathless gratitude. "Why not drop off a résumé at the tower?"
Even though they'd known each other for less than half-an hour, Spider-Man already got the sense that Hawkeye had a remarkably low bullshit factor.
An Avenger.
It was something he hadn't even considered, and he could have almost kicked himself over it. He'd wanted to be at odds with them for so long, the grips of his petulant spiral blinding him to the fact that he could have teamed up with Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
He and Hawkeye had made a very kickass team.
But he'd already made a promise to himself to take it easy. Mary Jane was still waiting for him, as was every aspect of his civilian life.
"Tell you what," Spider-Man said. "I'll put my name in at the temp agency, and if ever you need me, I'll probably be at the scene of some random carjacking or bank robbery. Or, y'know, maybe put a light on the roof of the Empire State Building in the shape of a spider and call me forth."
Hawkeye grimaced. "What kind of backwards pageantry is that?"
Spider-Man shrugged. "I read it in a comic book once. Catch you on the flipside, Mister Eye." And with that, Spider-Man swung away from the scene and back towards the Queensboro Bridge, feeling oddly rattled.
Most of the crooks had been apprehended; all of Beck's illusions destroyed. But one look at the commanding officer's face told the wall-crawler that things weren't entirely as hunky-dory as they seemed.
"We weren't fast enough for all of them," the captain said grimly. She looked out over the bridge with a deep regret that Spider-Man knew all too well. "Whatever Hawkeye used was strong, but some of them were only playing possum."
Swearing under his breath, Spider-Man looked out over the wreckage of the armored car. He could see red splotches of blood on the ground.
"Any fatalities?"
"No," the captain said. "Just some bad injuries. I'd say we lost at least half of the ones on the pavement. It's going to take some serious digging to figure out how this happened in the first place, and who it was that we lost."
Spider-Man felt his radioactive blood start to go cold.
The spot where he'd let Cletus Kasady fall was vacant.
The captain seemed to be reading his thoughts. She sighed, ran her hands through her short, spiked dark hair. The lines around her eyes and mouth grew more pronounced; there was sweat covering her smooth, dark skin.
She'd do George Stacey proud, Spider-Man thought.
"They're out there somewhere," the captain said. "Hopefully they've got enough sense to lay low."
"I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt," Spider-Man said. He fired a line, gave the captain a nod and swung away from the scene, dread coiling through him like a python.
He was going to go home. He'd promised MJ, after all. But before he stopped in Queens, he planned on heading to Eddie's apartment, just to make absolutely sure.
If Cletus Kasady had escaped on that bridge, then New York City was going to be in for a hell of a time.
A/N: Sorry for the delay between chapters. I've been a little involved with my dog of late. She's been having terrible nightmares and my vet thinks that she's just chasing squirrels but I think they're chasing her. I've been taking her to an animal psychologist for some holding therapy and she's doing much better now.
This chapter might seem like a departure from the narrative, but it is actually quite important, as you'll see. Let me know what you think, even if it's not entirely glowing!
