XXXVII. Curtain
The next day, Harry was finally back in school. He caught flak from pretty much every teacher in his morning classes for having played hooky so long that week. Many of them suspected, quite reasonably, that Harry's recent absence was due to the fact that the "boy executive" had lost his position at Oscorp. Certainly, none of them would ever have guessed that he'd really been spending all that time on re-engineering the goblin-armor, adjusting to his new performance-enhanced physiology, and training himself in the use of his new gear.
At lunch, Harry spotted his friends sitting at one of the out-of-the-way, corner tables in the cafeteria. They were huddled rather closely together, Peter and MJ on one side and Gwen on the other, whispering to each other in low tones. Harry smiled to himself and joined them, taking a seat next to Gwen. It was good to finally be in on the secret. "Hey, guys."
"Hey, Harry," said Peter and MJ both.
"Osborn," said Gwen with a nod. "How's it going?"
"Fine," said Harry.
"Are you sure?" pressed Gwen. "No… side-effects? Y'know: blackouts, 'roid-rage, giggling insanity?"
"I'm fine," said Harry again. "Really. Honestly, guys, you don't have to worry about me. I'm not gonna snap and go postal on you or anything. It's not like I'm suddenly the Hulk now."
Uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Harry looked around awkwardly and coughed. "Oh, God; you guys actually know the Hulk, don't you?"
"Dr. Banner is an old colleague of my dad's," said Peter. "He's cool."
"And super-nice," added MJ. "You know, when he's not all, 'grr, smash'."
"Plus, Tony Stark hooked him up with a pretty sweet pad," said Felicia Hardy, who suddenly appeared, carrying a tray of food. She was wearing a miniskirt and blouse that were, perhaps, a bit too chic even for the in-crowd at Mitdown High. She set down her tray, plopped herself into the seat next to Harry, and prodded the Salisbury steak with a fork. "Is public-school food always like this?"
"It's usually worse," said Peter. "Enjoy Salisbury-steak-day while it lasts."
"Felicia!" said Harry. "What are you doing here?"
"Yeah, I thought you went to some fancy all-girls school downtown," added Gwen.
"Oh, it's kind of a long story," said Felicia. "After all that crap that went down between my mother and the Kingpin, she never did get any of the blackmail money back. So, we had to make a choice: either keep sending me to the academy, or keep supporting the Hardy Foundation. I told mother I didn't mind going to public school, as long as I could get into this one."
"So you go here now?" asked MJ. "You go to school with us?"
"Looks like it," said Felicia. "Mother still had to pull a few strings, what with public school districts and all that, but… it was worth it to be able to hang with you guys. Now I can feel like I'm really part of the team." She turned to Harry and flashed him a winning smile. "By the way, I hear you're joining the squad. Looks like we can't call it 'Spidey's Angels' anymore."
Harry choked on his chocolate milk, trying not to snort any up his nose as he laughed.
"You laugh," said Peter, "but I was starting to feel outnumbered."
"By three beautiful women?" scoffed Harry. "Poor you!"
"We could always even the score by tracking down Eddie Brock and asking him to join up," suggested MJ. Peter and Gwen both tossed French fries her way, causing MJ to recoil back and put up her hands in defense. "Okay, okay, bad idea."
After that, the conversation turned back to Gwen's little date with Johnny Storm last night, and the time that she, Peter, and MJ had spent afterwards at the Baxter Building. They'd consumed copious quantities of buttered popcorn and watched Chuck Norris movies. It had been a blast. And Gwen was definitely still into Johnny Storm.
Gwen was just getting around to making fun of Peter and MJ for having spun a webbing-hammock from the ceiling so that they could cuddle during the movie last night, when another familiar face, also belonging to a new student at Midtown, emerged from the crowd. Unlike Felicia, who had known she would run into her friends here, this new girl had no idea—and the look of shock was evident on her face. In fact, when she saw Peter and the others sitting at that cafeteria-table, she nearly dropped her lunch-tray. "Oh my God!" said Kitty Pryde. She was still staring, open-mouthed, even as she sat down next to MJ. "You guys go here? Oh my God!"
"Kitty!" said MJ, surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, um… it's kind of a long story," said Kitty.
"When is it not? said Peter. "So let's hear it: why aren't you at the X-School?"
Kitty shrugged. "The school's closed down for a little while. There's some stuff going on with Logan, and the Army, and this weird place up in Canada… I don't really want to get into it. But I have to keep going to school somewhere in the meantime, and my mom still lives in Queens, so basically… this is my school. I go here now." Kitty laughed and started eating her lunch. "I rode the school bus this morning and everything. It was so normal that it actually felt weird."
"That is a bad sign, when the normal things in our lives start feeling weird," said MJ.
"Tell me about it," said Kitty. Then she noticed Harry for the first time and whispered, "Um, is he… you know…?"
"Yes, I'm in on their little secret," said Harry. "In fact, I just, um, joined their 'club'."
Kitty paused for a moment and pondered Harry's words. "You mean, you have…" she lowered her voice to a tiny whisper, "you all have powers?"
Harry and Felicia both nodded.
Kitty suddenly grinned and turned to Peter. "Does this mean you're taking on new members? Or do I have to go through tryouts first?"
"Whoa, slow down there, fangirl," said Gwen. "If everybody knows that you're one of the X-Men, you can't just join our squad. Then any old chucklehead who goes here could figure out our secret identities."
Kitty smiled. "But I can do the secret identity thing too! That's why we have codenames. Mine was Shadowcat."
"Wait, wait," said Felicia. "No. Just no. The squad can't have both a Black Cat and a Shadowcat!"
"Why not?" asked Harry. "It's already got three separate spiders."
"Yeah—in a way, that would actually make us more thematically unified," said MJ.
"I can make a costume with a mask and everything…" said Kitty in a coaxing voice.
"Um… we'll talk it over later," said Peter. "This maybe isn't the best time or place." He pointed; Kong was coming toward their table.
Kong sat down next to Kitty and mumbled a lazy, "Hey, guys." He started eating. Nobody said anything as Kong stared into space for several seconds, chewing on bad cafeteria food. He glanced over at Kitty; then he went back to eating for about half a second before doing a double-take and staring at her again, now stunned by sudden recognition.
"Um… can I help you?" Kitty asked.
Kong realized that he was staring at Kitty, slack-jawed, with food still showing in his mouth. He gulped it down and said, "Y—you're Kitty Pryde, right? You're one of the X-Men!"
Kitty visibly shrank in her seat. Her shoulders slumped, and she let her head fall into her hands. "Great. Well, it only took me going here for about two seconds to get recognized."
Kenny held up his hands and whispered, "Hey, hey, relax, it's not like anybody else will notice you, not if you don't go, like, 'phasing' through stuff."
"Then how did you recognize me?" asked Kitty.
"Oh, I'm just, like, way into super-heroes. A lot more than most people," explained Kenny. "Seriously, I'm a huge fan of yours! So I promise, I won't spread it around—I won't even tell my best bro, Flash."
"That's… real nice, I guess," said Kitty halfheartedly.
"I'm Kenny, by the way," he said, offering his hand.
"Kitty, but I guess you already knew that," she replied, shaking the proffered hand.
"Yes, I did," said Kenny with an oddly knowing twinkle in his eye. He wouldn't let on, of course, but he really loved the fact that he went to high-school with Spider-Man. Having a mutant around now too (and a cute, girl mutant his age, to boot) just made things ten times cooler. Someday, of course, he'd have to tell Peter and MJ and the rest that he'd figured out their secret from a bunch of stupid, little clues—seriously, they were really terrible at hiding their secret identities—but for now, he was content to humor them. And anyway, Flash was still completely clueless. For now, it was his own secret to keep, and he would do anything within his own admittedly meager power to protect that secret, for the sake of the heroes he considered his friends.
• • •
The renovations and repairs to Fisk Tower had been expensive. (The Punisher had been quite thorough in his quest to demolish the building's interior.) Hell, buying Fisk Tower from Fisk Enterprises had been exorbitantly expensive. But as far as Roderick Kingsley was concerned, it was worth every penny. With Fisk out of the country, someone had to step in and run things, after all.
He walked across his newly decorated, top-floor office and over to his brand new teak-and-mahogany desk. There was still a bit of paperwork that he had to see filled out and filed with the city before Fisk Tower could officially become Kingsley Tower. He hit the buzzer on his desk's intercom and called for his assistant. "Jason, could you come here please?"
Jason Macendale walked into Kingsley's office. Jason was a wiry, handsome young man with reddish hair that he kept slicked straight back—he felt that it made him look more like an executive than a confidential secretary. "Yes, sir?"
"Have you filed the rest of the building permits with the city?"
"Yes, sir. The construction crews will be here tomorrow to finish the remodeling…" he smiled and added, "and to put your name up on the side of the building."
"Excellent," said Kingsley. "That will be all, Jason. Excellent work today; feel free to take the rest of the day off."
"Thank you, sir." Macendale slipped out of the office and quietly left.
Kingsley leaned back in his chair and turned it about, so that he faced the window and was able to gaze out over the cityscape. Wilson Fisk was a coward, and Norman Osborn had been a fool. A putz, a schmuck, a complete bastard—and now Osborn was dead and Kingsley was happy. With the competition out of the way, he was free to reign. The time had come for a new Big Man of Crime.
The time of the Hobgoblin had arrived at last.
• • •
Alistair hadn't bothered to attend his father's funeral. He had loved his father dearly, of course; but he had no truck with superstition and no need for empty ritual. It wasn't rational, to his way of thinking, to spend any time mourning the dead. The dead didn't care; mourning was for the living. And if you could actually get up and do something, rather than merely sitting on your hands… well, Alistair Smythe more than most knew the value of action over idleness. He'd been forced to sit in a chair for most of his life.
But no more.
In a secluded warehouse, somewhere in the South Bronx. he'd set up his laboratory. Most of the completed Spider-Slayers had been destroyed in the Punisher's attack on his father's production facility. And as far as anyone else knew, the entire Spider-Slayer program had perished along with Spencer. But the old man had performed one final act of paternal grace for the sake of his crippled son: with his dying breath, Spencer had activated one of the Slayers and instructed it to carry Alistair away to safety. This one Spider-Slayer was the only remaining working model—the last working piece in all the world of Spencer's brilliant robotics technology.
And now Alistair would use it for his own purposes. He sketched blueprints, he coded software, and he hacked into Stark Industries databases. He laid careful plans and labored away at a singular goal: how he would turn these glorious robotics into something far greater—into cybernetics. One day soon, this machine and Alistair Smythe would become one and the same entity.
One day soon, Alistair Smythe would make himself into the ultimate Slayer.
• • •
Thanksgiving Day in the Parker household would likely always and forevermore be fraught with feelings of loss—the absences of Ben Parker and Mary Jane's parents would be felt acutely, muting the otherwise celebratory mood. But May Parker felt that it was her duty to give her young charges a holiday worth remembering, as well as a day off from loss and hardship. While the kids sat in the living-room watching the parade on TV (none of them particularly enjoyed watching football), May finished up in the kitchen. After a moment, she called out to Peter and Gwen for help setting the table and putting out the food.
"Oh, my," said Anna Watson, when she saw the spread laid out before them. "Honestly, May… three turkeys? Isn't that a bit… much?" And there was a great deal more than just turkey: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, extra stuffing, dinner rolls, casseroles, everything that one might imagine for a traditional thanksgiving dinner was present, but doubled or tripled in volume.
"Oh, I just get so carried away in the kitchen at this time of year," May dissembled. "But it's important to keep up traditions, and I—oh, no! Peter!"
"Yes, Aunt May?" Peter peeked his head into the kitchen.
"Peter, I've forgotten the cranberry sauce! Can you—?"
"Sure, no problem," said Peter. "I'll just swing by the corner store and be back before you know it."
"Thank you, dear," said May.
Peter went back through the living-room, past where Harry and MJ were sitting and watching TV, and over to where his hat and coat were hanging by the front door.
"Want us to come along?" asked MJ.
"I won't even be ten minutes," said Peter. Then he left.
After that, May decreed that dinner couldn't begin until Peter returned. And so Anna, Gwen, Mary Jane, and Harry were all forced to endure the wonderful, appetizing smells that now came wafting out from the dining room and filling the house. Two minutes after Peter had left, Harry's stomach growled loudly.
"Super-metabolism?" whispered MJ sympathetically.
Harry answered with a glum nod. He'd been trying to hold out all day. It wasn't going well.
Another agonizing minute dragged by… and then the doorbell rang.
"Well, that certainly was… quick," said May, who went to answer the door. She opened it up, and her heart leapt up into her throat.
There, standing on her front porch, was Richard Parker, wearing a fedora and trench-coat. He took off the hat, offered May an apologetic smile, and said, "Hello, May."
May turned as white as a sheet and screamed at the top of her lungs, pointing at the dead man—the living ghost—standing before her. Stricken, she stumbled her way back into the living-room, where Harry and MJ helped her sink down into an easy-chair. Gwen and Anna were also drawn into the living-room by May's hysterics, where they too could now see the man standing in the front doorway—a man who looked very much like a grown-up Peter Parker.
"Who's that?" asked Gwen, even though it was kind of obvious to her that he was some relative of Peter's.
"I think it's Peter's dad!" said MJ, who was now also on the verge of freaking out.
Richard Parker walked into the room, knelt down by May, and said in a deeply contrite voice, "May, I can't even begin to apologize for everything I've done—everything I've had to put you and Peter through—but believe me when I say, I've had to stay away for good reasons. Spy stuff that Mary was involved in when she was still with SHIELD, stuff that I can't really—"
"No!" shouted May sternly. "No, don't you dare give me that, Richard Parker! How dare you try and come waltzing back into our lives, now of all times, when we—when your son has been through so much? Do you even have any idea!?"
Harry Osborn had been watching all of this with some measure of suspicion. Finally, he stood up, walked over to Richard, and grabbed him from behind.
"What are you doing!?" cried Richard in surprise. He struggled to break free from Harry's grip, but was futile.
"You're not Pete's dad," said Harry.
"He's not?" asked Gwen.
MJ gasped, and her eyes widened. "Oh my God! Gwen, don't you remember what Felicia told us about the Chameleon impersonating her dad?" As she spoke, Harry was already peeling away the Chameleon's mask, revealing underneath his paste-white, surgery-flattened face. When May saw that, she looked as if she were about to faint; and Anna looked as if she were going to throw up.
"What in the world is going on here?" demanded Anna.
"That's a good question," said MJ, who marched up to the Chameleon. While Harry held him fast, she grabbed one his arms and twisted, hard. "What do you want with the Parkers?"
"Chyort voz'mi," the Chameleon swore in Russian. "What do they feed you American children to make you so strong!?"
"Wheaties," said Gwen, who marched up to the freelance spy and gripped his other arm. "Tell us why you're here, before I decide break somethin' off!"
Anna Watson stared, dumbfounded as her niece and the other two kids manhandled the famous supervillain. The Chameleon writhed in pain and struggled against the super-strong holds, but it was to no avail; he gave in. "All right, all right. Richard Parker worked for SHIELD close to twenty years ago; he was involved in super-soldier research—"
May gasped and stood up from her chair. "And you wanted to fool us, so that you could—? Oh, shame on you!" She slapped the Chameleon across the face.
"Aunt Anna, can you please call the police?" asked MJ. "We can sit on this asshole until they get here."
• • •
A short while later, Peter returned home with a grocery bag containing four cans of cranberry sauce. He went in through the front door and found everybody sitting around in the living-room, all waiting for him—except that there was now one extra person in the room, pinned flatly to the floor. Mary Jane was sitting on him, holding him down.
"Is that the Chameleon?" asked Peter in a deadpan voice.
"Yup," said MJ.
"Did he come here dressed up like my father, trying to steal his research?"
"Yup," said MJ again.
"Have you called the police?"
"Yup."
"You need any help holding him down?"
MJ shook her head. "Nope."
"Okay then," said Peter. "Aunt May, I brought cranberries!"
• • •
Once the police had come and gone, taking Dmitri Smerdyakov with them, Thanksgiving dinner proceeded like normal. Well, almost like normal. Peter, Gwen, Mary Jane, and Harry all piled their plates high with prodigious quantities of food, especially protein—lots and lots of meat. May had set out three turkeys, one baked and two fried, and it looked as if they would all three of them disappear entirely before the night was over. There wouldn't even be leftovers.
Anna Watson was positively amazed at the amount of food that these teenagers could pack away. Even Mary Jane and Gwen—they were eating as much as the boys. "Mary Jane, is that… a fifth helping of turkey?" she asked. She didn't sound as if she were chiding; she was merely astonished.
MJ nodded while her mouth was still full and swallowed. "We, uh… we need lots of protein. We work out."
"It's a pretty intense routine," added Gwen, patting her now-full stomach. "You know how it is. Gotta keep that girlish figure."
Their dinner-conversation was interrupted by the ringing of a cell-phone. Aunt May was scandalized: "Who didn't turn their phone off? This is family time!"
"Sorry; sorry," said Gwen. "It's mine. It's Johnny."
"I'm kind of surprised you didn't invite him over," said Peter.
"Well, you know, he's got his own family to spend the holidays with," said Gwen. "But he did promise to call, so…"
"Go on, then; I'll let you answer him," said May. "You're excused."
"Thanks," said Gwen, who bounced up from the table and answered her phone on the way back up to her bedroom.
"Her boyfriend, I take it?" asked Anna.
"Yeah," said MJ. "They've only been dating for a little while, but it's definitely getting serious."
"He's a really sweet boy," said May. "Very charming. I don't believe a word of what they say about him in the tabloids."
"The tabloids!?" echoed Anna. "Is he some kind of celebrity, then?"
"Yeah," said Peter. "Some kind." He shot an annoyed look over at Aunt May, who realized that she'd slipped up a little bit and blushed.
Mary Jane shook her head, embarrassed. At this rate, it would only be a matter of time before Aunt Anna found out their big secret. But she still wasn't ready to face that ordeal, for that would mean explaining to Anna how and why Philip and Maddie had died, including the part that she herself and played in that fiasco. MJ couldn't deal with that, not yet; so for the time being, Anna Watson would have to remain safely out of the loop.
• • •
The rental car pulled up to the front of the Plaza Hotel in Pape'ete, Tahiti. Hammerhead got out of the back and opened the door for Wilson Fisk, who climbed into the car and waited. Hammerhead and several hotel porters loaded his luggage into the trunk. Once they were finished, Hammerhead slammed the trunk shut…and then, much to both his great astonishment and Fisk's, the car's engine revved, the tires squealed, and the car raced away with Fisk in the back. Hammerhead was left standing there alone in front of the hotel, utterly confused.
In the back of the car, Fisk rapped a meaty fist on the tinted divider between the back and front seats. "Driver!" he shouted. "You left my assistant! Driver, pull over at once!"
The driver flipped a switch. Slowly, the privacy-screen descended, and Fisk now saw the back of the driver's head. The driver looked at Fisk in the car's rear-view mirror and smirked. Underneath the chauffeur's cap, Fisk could see bleach-blond hair, sunglasses, and a thick yellow moustache. The driver slowly pulled the car out of traffic and came to halt on the side of the road. But then he made no other move.
"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Fisk.
"Oh, Wilson," said the driver in a deep, sardonic voice. "You're always so melodramatic about everything." He removed his cap and his sunglasses and turned around in the driver's seat to face the Kingpin.
Even with the moustache and the blonde-in-a-bottle dye-job, there was no mistaking that face. Fisk gasped, "Norman!? But—you're supposed to be dead!"
"Well, you know," said Norman Osborn with a chuckle. "'Rumors of my demise,' and all that jazz…"
"What do you want?" asked Fisk.
Norman replied, "Get comfortable, 'Willie'. We need to talk business…"
• • •
On the rooftop of Avengers Tower, Nick Fury stood and watched, arms crossed. Bruce Banner and Betty Ross were there, as was Steve Rogers. Tony Stark was inside, pouring drinks for himself and Pepper Potts. In front of these distinguished heroes and scientists, Peter Parker—the amazing Spider-Man—and his team stood assembled and ready. Mary Jane, the Scarlet Spider; Gwen Stacy, Spider-Woman; Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat; Harry Osborn, the Gray Glider; and their latest member, Kitty Pryde, Shadowcat, who now wore a black-and-gold uniform with a mask that had cat-ears resembling those on Felicia's costume, but which also sported the same style of white "lucha libre" spider-eyes as Peter, MJ, and Gwen.
"Well?" said Peter. "What do you think?"
"The Spectacular Spider-Squad…" said Fury, stroking his chin. "Hm. I don't know…"
"Oh, come on!" said Gwen. "We're already ten different kinds of awesome! You know we can do this thing."
"Dr. Banner's report says that double-oh-zee is unstable," countered Fury. "Leads to unchecked aggression and eventual madness. How do we know that Osborn won't snap?"
"How do you know that he won't snap?" countered Harry, pointing at Bruce.
"The kid does have a point," said Bruce. "And for the record, my report said that the compound was potentially unstable. It might not have the same detrimental effects on Harry that it had on his father."
"I think they're ready," said Captain Rogers. "They just need… a little guidance. And maybe some discipline. Some training. And a little structure in their lives. They need to finish their educations; college might be a good idea for all of them—"
"Okay, okay, I get it!" said Fury, waving his arms to calm everybody down. He took a deep breath and pronounced, "Fine. I'll make it official. Your little Spider-Squad gets to be a real super-team, officially supported by both SHIELD and the Avengers Initiative. But I want to make this clear: it does mean that you're going to have to take on missions for us, from time to time, for your country and for your planet. That means following orders. Can you all say that you're prepared to do that?"
"Yeah, I think so," said Peter. "Right, guys?" The others all nodded in affirmation.
"All right," said Fury. "In that case, the first thing we have to do is call a press conference and get this out on our own terms, before the media catches wind of it. Mr. Stark will make the arrangements. I expect all of you to be here tomorrow, 5 PM sharp, in your costumes and masks, to greet the press. Am I understood?"
"5 PM is dinner-time," said Peter. "I'll have to ask my aunt."
"She can be pretty strict about that kind of stuff," added Gwen.
"Can we make it 6?" added MJ. "I have drama club."
"I don't know if I want to be on the news," said Felicia. "What if someone recognizes me and calls mother? She'll positively die!"
"Maybe you just need a better mask?" suggested Harry. "Something with more… ah… coverage." (Felicia had already modified her new costume to show off her impressive cleavage, and Harry hadn't really been able to take his eyes off of her ever since.)
Kitty was positively giddy at the prospect of a press-conference. "Ooh, I hope there's a photo-op! We could use the group-shot to make posters and sell them to fans on the internet—"
Fury turned and walked away from the chatting teenagers. As he left, he called over his shoulder, "Fine, I'll make it 6, but don't be late!" Then he went inside, shaking his head the whole way. What kind of crazy kiddie-team did I just authorize?
The members of the Spider-Squad, meanwhile, said their goodbyes to Bruce, Betty, and Steve, and then took off from the rooftop. Peter and Mary Jane each spun a web, Peter with his right hand and MJ with her left, so that they could go swinging off together holding hands. Gwen jumped into the air after them and shot two organic web-lines out from her fingertips, letting out a joyous "whoop!" as she swung off. Felicia dove off the side of Avengers Tower and let herself freefall for several seconds before she fired her grappling-line. And Kitty jumped onto Harry's glider-board, holding onto him from behind as he flew off after his friends. The six heroes, the Spectacular Spider-Squad, sailed off into the sunset, fearless and ready to face the next villain that might be crazy enough to try and pull something in their city—and the city of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and so many other heroes—the one and only Big Apple.
THE END