September 7, 11:30 PM
The trio stared at the villains, who are all ready to take them out at any second. Punisher wasted little time and fired multiple rounds at them. Shocker quickly used his gauntlets and repelled the bullets.
"Any other brilliant ideas?" asked Spider-man. Punisher just grunted at his question while Barracuda threw a few incendiary grenades at them.
The three heroes all dodged the grenades, separating the three. Punisher confront Jigsaw, who fired his tommy gun at him. Spider-man's spider sense alerted him of the danger, but he didn't have time to help as he was confronting both Vulture and Shocker. Raven also had to deal with Barracuda's PKM machine gun, so she too couldn't save the Punisher. Punisher got riddled with a hail of bullets. The Punisher stood still and turned to his attention towards Jigsaw. He glared him down as his wounds quickly healed. Without saying a word a pulls out a Kabar knife got into a fighting stance.
"You're a bigger fool than I thought, bringing a knife to a gunfight." said Jigsaw.
"You seem to misunderstand the situation." said Punisher. He charges after him and just absorbed the pain from the bullets. He slices his arm dropping his gun, "This is not a fight," he then kicked him in the gut and Jigsaw threw a left jab which Punisher countered with an arm drag, "this is a surgery," Punisher then leaps on top of him and presses down his knife against Jigsaw's throat, "And I'm the surgeon."
As the fight between Punisher and Jigsaw was happening Raven used her magic to shield herself from Barracuda's attack, at the same time she contacts the Titans to let them know where they are and that they are in danger. She slowly pushes back the shield and since Barracuda was too into his assault to notice what was happening, Raven used her shield flying towards him, slamming him against the wall. He slowly gets back up and throws a couple of pineapple bomb at Raven. She used magic to shield herself and the explosion knocked her back. She then creates a giant bird claw and grabs hold of Barracuda and slams him down to the ground, knocking him out.
Spider-man was having a tough time handling the other three villains. He is doing everything he can to dodge both Shocker's and Vulture's attack, at the same time he was webbing up Cinderblock to stop him from doing more damage.
"Would you hold still you annoying pest?" said Vulture.
"Now, Vulture if I did that where's the fun of me punching you in the face and webbing you up." said Spider-man.
"What are you..." before he could finish Spider-man punches him in the face and then webs him up.
"See how much fun that was?" said Spider-man. He looks over and sees Punisher about to stab Jigsaw, and reacts immediately by firing a webline and yanking the knife out of his hand. Punisher looked over at Spider-man with a death glare over what he just did. That momentary distraction gave Jigsaw enough time to punch him off.
"What in the blue hell are you doing?" growled Punisher.
"Stopping you from killing." His spider-senses went off, and held on to Punisher and rolled out of the way as Jigsaw fired his tommy gun at them. Spider-man fired his webs, trapping Jigsaw. Spider-man then leaped forward and punched out Jigsaw.
"He was mine, I had him." said Punisher.
"No you didn't. You were about to kill him!"
"I'm fully aware of what was happening."
"Then you should know that you are no better than him and the Kingpin!"
"You're one to talk! You broke into jail, and killed a random prisoner." Before they can continue, Raven got in between the two to stop the bickering.
"You okay Raven?" asked Spider-man.
"I'm just fine." They look over at the other remaining villains getting ready to attack. Spider-man's spider senses goes off and instinctively wrapped his arm around the two and dodged, multiple gunfires. He looked over to see who shot the gun, and to his shock it was Harry.
"Harry!? what are you still doing here?"
"II lost my dad and my best friend because of you." He fires only one shot at Spider-man. Everyone expected Spider-man to dodge, but he didn't. He just stood there and looked down, placed his hand on his lower left abdomen and he looked at his hand and saw blood. No one saw this coming. Everyone was caught off guard as Harry with tears in his eyes continues to pull the trigger despite being empty.
"No..." said Raven in a low voice. Punisher quickly punches out Harry.
"Well will you look at that, the wallcrawler gets taken out by some punk with a gun." said Shocker. He powers up his gauntlets to take out everyone. But, he gets hit by a bombardment of starbolts.
"Raven I got your message and I came as quickly as possible." She then sees Spider-man on the ground bleeding. "OH MY...SPIDER-MAN ARE YOU UNHARMED?"
"Where are the rest of your team?" asked Punisher bluntly.
"Nightwing is in Gotham meeting Batman and his new partner, Cyborg is helping Titans East, and Beast-boy finished his homework, but had personal business back at Jump city. I'm the only one here."
"Starfire take Spider-man find help immediately. I'll take Harry home, and Frank round up everyone here, and I better not find out that there were reported three deaths." Before the Punisher could protest, Raven gave him her own death glare, and he reluctantly agreed. Starfire picks up Spider-man and as they take off, Spider-man looks over at Raven.
"Is...is she crying?" thought Spider-man, he then looks up at Starfire who also has a very concerned look on her face. "Hey Star...I..."
"Don't talk please save your strength, I'm taking you to the hospital immediately."
"No don't...there's someone else...a good friend of Daredevil, and Luke Cage. She's one of the best." Spider-man then tells her the location of the person and she flies immediately there.
They arrive at the location, it was a six story building and Starfire was floating by the fifth floor window. Spider-man knocked on the window and two saw a brown-skinned woman opening the window.
"Hey Claire." Said Spider-man weakly.
"Hey Spider...Oh my god you are bleeding. You are definitely bleeding." Said Claire.
"Yeah 'tis a flesh wound, you think you can help me out?"
"Quickly bring him inside and put him onto pot the table, we don't have time to waste." Starfire brings him inside and did what Claire told her to do.
"Who is she?" Asked Starfire.
"A good friend of a friend, she heals us without the worry of losing our secret identity. Answered Spider-man. Claire comes back with l of the necessary supplies, and begins right away. She sterilizes the bullet wound with hydrogen peroxide, and with a with a sterile needle probes for the bullet. Once she found it she looks up at Starfire.
"Okay I found the bullet, take these tweezers and gently spread the bullet wound so I can properly retrieve it." She then turns to Spider-man, "How did you get shot? I thought you were untouchable with your spider-sense."
"When all the bad guys come after you as you making sure everyone safe and making sure the psycho ally doesn't kill everyone, one would tend to lose track of a stray bullet.
"Do me a favor and lose that sense of humor of yours." Said Claire.
"Only if you promise you get one." Joked Spider-man. Claire pulls out the bullet and wraps him up.
"This psycho you are talking about, you are not talking about the Punisher are you?" Asked
Claire.
"YOU KNOW HIM!? Ow ow ow." Shouted Spider-man as he wounds opens up a bit.
"Try not to get too worked up, you don't want to reopen that wound." said Claire
"Could you please tell us more about him?" asked Starfire. Claire turned her back to them for a second to think. To Starfire and Spider-man she looked very hesitant to answer, as if she was trying to hide something. She then turned around and gave them her answer.
"Both Punisher and Daredevil are going to hate me for this. Punisher is who you would imagine he would be; angry, obsessive, and damn near psychotic. But, after hearing what he went through it is almost understandable why he does what he does."
"That is?" asked Starfire.
"His family was gunned down in front of his eyes by the Maggia family." said Spider-man.
"You know!?" exclaimed Claire.
"I've heard from a reliable source. But it still doesn't justify what he does."
"I know it doesn't, it's just...From my time talking to him I can tell he is just child who is hurting and tries to ease the pain by killing."
"You talked to the guy?" said Spider-man as he slowly got up.
"Yeah before he got his healing factor, he frequent here a lot. I guess he got the healing factor because he got sick of me lecturing him all the time." chuckled Claire. The room went quiet for a bit. "Well anyways that should be just it for now, take it easy for a couple of days and that wound will heal up just fine."
"I don't think a gunshot wound heals that fast." said Starfire.
"Trust me, this isn't the first time I patched up someone like your friend here." Spider-man got back up and the two made their way out, until Claire called out one last time.
"Spider-man before you go after Punisher, try to see things from his point of view. Like I said he is just angry and confused he needs a lot of guidance." pleaded Claire.
"What makes you think I can help him?"
"Call it a hunch, but you two are more alike than you know. You might be the only one who can reach to him." Spider-man doesn't respond and just leaves the apartment. He tells Starfire that he is heading back home to rest for the night. He arrives home to find Aunt May still up looking furious.
"Hey Aunt May, sorry I'm late I just had work to do and yeah gotta go wash up and sleep."
"Get back and have seat." shouted Aunt May. Peter winced at her booming voice and turned around instantly.
"What's wrong Aunt May?"
"Six months. For six months you've been coming home late, and sometimes I find you hurt."
"It's nothing I swear."
"Don't give me the whole it's nothing stuff. Not only you've been coming home really late, but for summer you disappeared without telling me where you were, you know how worried I was?"
"But I told Jonah..."
"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME SOONER!?" Peter surprised by her outburst remained silent.
"As of this moment, you are grounded. The only places I expect you to be at are home and school; nothing else. And you are to be home no later than 8PM, any longer there will be even more consequences."
"But Aunt May..."
"No buts, spending time outside with your friends, doing whatever you want is a privilege. That privilege must be earned back. Do I make myself clear."
"Yes."
"Good, now off to bed I will see you in the morning." Peter walked away dejectedly, leaving behind Aunt May who was almost ready to cry.
September 8, 9:00AM.
Harry was still in his bed recovering from what had happened last night, taking a day off from school. His mom was at work tending to all of OsCorp business, leaving Harry by looked at his phone and scrolled through numerous texts from Peter, asking if he was put his phone down and ignored them all. The only thing on his mind was how close he was to seeing Spider-man die. He hears a doorbell ring, and gets out of his bed to open the door and sees a man in a fine suit wearing glasses.
"Good Morning Harry, I hope you are doing quite well this morning considering all that happened last night."
"Ah yes I'm doing okay so far, how are you doing...Mr. Wesley was it?"
"Please call me James, I hope everything went well as we hoped it did. If you don't mind." Harry lets him and they sit at the dining room table.
"No, a few bad guys showed up and wrecked the place. Everything happened so fast I don't know what happened."
"Haha, well that's quite alright, though I hope our services were to your satisfaction."
"No it wasn't. He still lives." said Harry with an angry tone.
"Who might you be talking about?" asked James Wesley.
"Spider-man, there is no word of his death. I know got at least one bullet in, and yet he is still out there."
"That's quite unfortunate that things turned out like this. So I take it that you are not satisfied with our services?"
"I hired you guys to kill Spider-man, and I won't pay you until he is dead!" screamed Harry. James Wesley looked unfazed, and almost looked furious.
"Now Harry you should be careful how you address both my employer and I. Do not treat us any small timer. As you know we are not someone to trifle with."
"You guys don't scare me, I'll take you and everyone down with a single phone call to the police." Harry was expecting Wesley to at least wince at the last statement. Instead, reaches for his suitcase and plops it on top of the table. Harry started to get a little nervous, a million thoughts ran through his head and he feared the worst. But out comes a tablet.
"Wh...what is this?"
"Let me show you something." Wensley turns it on, and on the screen was Harry's best friend Peter Parker at his locker.
"Why are you showing me an old video of Peter?"
"Oh no this isn't an old video, this is live. Now do you see this man right here?" he points to one of the janitors. "If we're being honest here, I do find his methods quite...unpleasant. But such are the times we live in. Give us a wave Mr. Rumlow." The Janitor waves his hand getting a few strange looks from the students.
"Wh...why are you showing me this?"asked the terrified Harry.
"Now I understand you are unsatisfied due to unforeseen circumstances. But we do not tolerate any disrespect from anyone. You will want to continue with our services so I went ahead and charged you extra." Harry was about to protest, but Wesley stopped him immediately. "Now, Now before you make a fuss, I want to remind you that if you refuse to pay for our services then I'm afraid that Peter will have to pay for it instead."
"Fine...I'll pay." Wesley with a smile on his face gets up and proceeds to leave.
"Oh by the way, I almost forgot to leave you with one last message." Harry looks up with a his eyes that lost all life. "The Kingpin looks forward to more opportunities with the OsCorp in the future."