Hello my sweet readers,

I really wanted to just check in with you all and see how you are all doing with the state of the world right now. Please do use this opportunity to review on this "chapter" (sneak peak III) to let me know how you are doing. Are you isolating? Are you safe? Are you healthy?

As you know I'm a cancer survivor so I take all of this super seriously, and while I'm still working, it's only 2 days a week and I am not interacting with patients, I just work with insurance paperwork. Other than work, I am isolated at home! My family and I are healthy and safe. I was just telling my friend that all of this craziness we're going through feels like the world after Thanos snapped. It seems like half the world is missing. Remember how Natasha had video conferences with her friends from around the world like some sort of zoom call? Trying to have some semblance of normalcy?

We're holding our breath waiting for things to change and it's just... stuck? In this weird state of existence? And we may have trouble handling it because we're used to these movies and such skipping all the hard times and jumping to a "5 Years Later" title card. That's why this feels so strange. It's before the smash cut. My friend replied that it's even more relatable: Those that aren't working and stuck at home are "blipped" out. When we come back to the world it'll be weird and it will take getting used to. Essential workers, medical care/first responders etc, they are still around, struggling with the new way of life, and they are aging the full 5 years. I feel like we can't be the only 2 Marvel fans in the world that feel this way, haha.

It's giving me a lot of time to write, and while I am prioritizing original works right now, I'm also working on Avenge the Departed II, which is going to be called: AVENGE THE FALLEN. So far ten chapters in, between 2-5 'Point of View' sections in each.

THERE WILL BE A THIRD BOOK, AND I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN SOME CHAPTERS FOR IT. It will be called: AVENGE THEM ALL. So this will officially be a trilogy, and part 2 will deal with a lot of the fallout from book 1, as well as build up anticipation for some of the threads and villains of book 3.

Again, please let me know how you are all doing, and please enjoy this third sneak peak as a little quarantine gift to you during this crazy time.

With love,

Pip

...

Peter Parker

I can't help but swing my arms a little as I walk. I am about to see my girlfriend. My girlfriend. I still have a hard time believing that I'm in a relationship - like, dating someone - a girl - officially. Someone as cool, and beautiful, and badass as Michelle Jones.

It seems like it's a little too outside of my league; someone like her. And yet she not only likes me, she admitted to falling in love with me. While my life was still hell.

We sort of missed out on that initial romance thing, me being afraid for my life most of the time, and she had a lot of homework. Typical obstacles.

But then it was summer. I got reacclimated to normal life. Moved into Avengers tower. We spoke, hung out, and ate together regularly. She started looking for internships, and I hovered, emailing her job postings and showing up at her bedroom window with an iced drink and a kiss.

"You've got to stop popping into my bedroom window like this," she finally hissed one night, "When I tell my parents we're dating you can start using the front door."

But she hadn't told her parents yet, and she was being vague about why. But I had a feeling it had something to do with her parents hardcore personalities. After all, they were the ones who pushed her into nursing in the first place.

Today, I'm meeting MJ for coffee and studying. She's back in school for the fall, and still looking for a good internship. I promised - I promised - I wouldn't distract her while she read her thick, horrible textbook on the human nervous system. Distraction meaning kissing her neck while it's bent at a bad angle, as she tries to process the information and slinks lower and lower in her chair.

But I didn't promise I wouldn't distract her when she took a break, got up for water, or paused to look at her computer, or…

"Psst."

My spider-sense sings under my skin with shrill hesitancy.

I'm not being threatened - but someone is dangerous.

I whip around and look around me.

Typical crowded Manhattan street. Tall, reflective windows in the older brick buildings bouncing the bright, ice-cold autumn sun.

"PSST!"

I zero in on the direction of the sound. A portly man with a duck-dynasty type of beard, a beanie, sunglasses, and dark, mustard-colored Carhartts. He's reading a newspaper and sitting on one of the cement-block barriers between the sidewalk and the edge of a small park with old growth oaks towering overhead.

I shiver in my jacket, not recognizing the man. I walk towards him stiffly.

"What?" I ask shortly.

"H-h-hey, Peter," says the man, lowering the paper ever-so-slightly.

I know that voice.

No.

No no no no…

...

Bucky Barnes

I've been getting to know one of Shuri's many, many assistants, a man close to my age named Josef. He's very kind. He doesn't look at me like I'm a petri dish.

He asked me if I had any interest in American baseball. I said I did, and he began to explain in great detail how the last Red Socks game went. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was all about the Yankees, being born and bred in New York. Boston can kiss my ass.

"I'm longing to get out there and play some of it myself," Josef went on with a laugh, "But my friends, you see, they prefer our own sports, nothing from the colonizers."

"Ahah," I had laughed uncomfortably. Longing. Only the first trigger word, and one that would unlikely be followed by another one.

But my brain went into a strange overdrive. My ears began to ring at such a high pitch, I wondered if there was a chemical spill nearby.

"Josef," said Shuri. "Did you check the batons we sent out for testing?"

"Ewe," he replied, "I'm afraid we have more work to do before our King's upgrade is ready for ulwandle. Too much salt, I think. They all come back - rusted! I cannot work with them in that condition."

The ringing increased, even worse. Then I wondered - maybe I'm not just having a ringing ear because of some boomer World War flashback shit, despite the fact I'm completely entitled to it. Maybe the ringing is my brain - resetting.

Erasing itself.

"Stop," I said out loud to Josef. Holding up a hand for a moment. "Stop."

Shuri looked at me bewilderedly. "You don't have to shush him, I asked him a question!"

The ringing got louder. I could barely hear her, all I could see was her mouth moving. I take a step back from both of them. "I don't want to hurt any of you," I mumbled, almost incoherently, stumbling backwards.

"James, you are not going to hurt anyone," Shuri assured, taking a step closer. She snapped her fingers at Josef, and with a knowing look, he stepped away from us both. Everyone else was ceasing their work and looking up, some curiously and some with fear.

"Stand back," I snarled at her. "Don't come any closer."

"You are not going to hurt me," scoffed Shuri. "You're just - having a little migraine, maybe."

What if the pitch increases till all I hear is this - this screaming in my own head and have no memory of who any of them are? What if I have some embedded order from Hydra that I don't know about? Some dormant command to murder T'Challa should I ever find myself here? To kill anyone who comes too close and feels threatening enough?

How can I protect them?

I need to protect them. I need to protect them right now.

"James, you look right here now!" Shuri waves her arm, trying to catch my attention. "You're not the Winter Soldier any more. This is all just noise. Memory noise. You aren't going to hurt anyone here."

The ringing grows completely unbearable. It's too loud. Any second now and I'll forget why I'm here, or who my new friends are.

Not going to hurt anyone here, huh? What if I just take myself out of the equation?

I turned and with every ounce of power I could muster, every enhancement and hard drive of muscle and bone, I plunged my head into the soft stone wall of the lab.

I heard the crunch of rock and briefly tasted sand and blood before losing consciousness.

...

Wade Wilson

"Christmas came early, hot stuff," I throw down a file of surveillance photos onto the conference room table. Bruce and Natasha lean forward to take a look at the pictures.

I grin cattily at Agent Madani. "You should come over more often."

"Why?" she asks suspiciously.

"Because files don't usually show up on our doorstep like this. It usually takes a lot more butt licking."

Madani shakes her head with disgust. "Nothing just shows up on a doorstep." She taps her finger on one of the pictures that slid loose. "This is from the hard work of my ground team. They went over the bodies of your felled Russian mobsters with a fine tooth comb. While they had little to identify them in the grander scheme of things, one of them had an address saved on the Maps app on his phone. And these," she opens the folder, taps another picture, "Is what my people have been photographing for the last six hours."

"I'm sorry you hate Christmas," I answer, sitting down across from them.

"Tony Stark said he'd be here," Madani reminds me. "Why isn't he?"

I throw up my hands. "Am I my Iron Brother's Keeper?"

"He's with Peter," Natasha answers dryly.

I give her a look and swipe my finger across my throat. We should use our Fancy Names in front of the Feds.

"And how is Spider-Man doing?" Madani asks casually.

"Wow, lady, you couldn't even wait a day before checking the index," I scoff. "Just skipping the foreplay and getting right to it."

Agent Madani relaxes in her chair, folding her hands across her stomach. "That's why it exists. So that we don't have to waste our time." She looks at Natasha. "How is he?"

Nat raises an eyebrow, a brief read trying to determine if Madani is sincere or not.

"Don't worry, Nat," I say. "I already looked up her likelihood of inevitable betrayal and how many seasons she's signed up for. And my bullshit meter is quiet right now."

"Thank you, Wade," Nat snaps at me, returning her attention to Madani. "He's not okay. Stark is taking care of family first. Otherwise, he'd be at this meeting right now."

Madani checks her watch. It's 9 PM. "I don't mind waiting."

"Won't your houseplants miss you, though?" I ask.

She doesn't bother responding. Wow, she's harder to get a rise out of than I thought she'd be. She seems like a woman with a lot of buttons. She might as well be the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. Or the world's most time consuming jacket.

...

...

**END OF THE SNEAK PEAK 3 OF THE SEQUEL**

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