Death Wishes, and Rocket Science

Now playing: Say It Ain't So/Weezer

Summary: Nightmare chases after the Staten Island Ferry in hopes of salvaging her plan to catch Vulture before Spider-Man.

I wanted to skip school on Monday so bad. But I knew if I did, Madison would get a call, I'd get detention, and all because I didn't want to see a certain somebody.

It wasn't worth the trouble of dealing with the repercussions just to avoid Peter. I had one lie, and that was I was late and missed attendance, which would only fly with Madison once. So, in the grand scheme of things, I decided it would be better to save that one for a rainy day when I really needed it.

As it turned out, the universe was working in my favor. Peter wasn't in Chemistry that day, so I took his absence to mean he wouldn't show up for Yearbook at lunch.

Peter had definitely talked to Ned, though, because our only conversation that day were awkward hellos as we passed each other in the hallway on the way out of Chemistry.

I was heading straight for Yearbook, and felt pretty good about showing up with the Decathlon pictures, until I passed the Home Ec room and Nitara jumped out in front of me.

"Woah," I said, startled. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you," Nitara said, slightly more hyper than usual. "Have you seen the news?"

I studied Nitara's face. Her eyes were wider than ever, and she gripped the sides of my shoulders with a surprising amount of force.

"No," I said. "From the five minutes since we were in Chemistry, no, I can't say I've seen the news."

Nitara yanked me into the Home Ec room.

I had been in here more than my fair share of times, because Nitara always wanted an opinion on this, or my thoughts on that, or whether I thought this pattern was best with these colours. I much preferred photography. I was fine with us doing our own things at lunch, because clothing and design had never struck a chord for me in the tens of times Nitara forced me to evaluate her work.

The room had sewing machines all along the wall in the back, and the teacher's desk sat in the front corner, vacant as always. But that wasn't what caught my attention this time. On the projector screen was a news channel, which wasn't uncommon for the room to have. The shocking part was what was happening on the news.

"The Staten Island Ferry?" I questioned, watching the breaking news coverage. "Wait-"

On the large, albeit fuzzy, projector screen, the ferry was shown nearly falling apart from a helicopter camera, and there was a commotion on the deck.

"It's Spider-Man," Nitara gasped, staring at a quickly moving red and blue flash on the screen.

That, I could care less about. Spider-Man worked the day shift around Queens, that I knew. I was more concerned about the second, darker flash on the screen.

"It's Vulture," I seethed. "Shit! What if Spider-Man is trying to catch him?"

If Spider-Man did catch Vulture, I wouldn't get my perfect takedown and lock the only person who can connect me to Nightmare away for good. If Spider-Man didn't get Vulture, he would probably go down trying, which would also stop me from getting my perfect takedown, since Spider-Man himself was sort of an integral part of the plan. Find the warehouse, wait for Vulture to leave it, take Spider-Man with me to take Vulture on, beat him, then use the warehouse as evidence to lock him up for life.

This was bad.

"It's fine," Nitara said. "It's fine. Um… it's not fine."

I had to get over there. I was out of the door in a flash, and I could hear Nitara shout as I bolted down the empty hall at top speed. I had to intervene. Now was too soon to put the plan in action. It was premature, and details were still all over the place. We didn't even know what kind of arsenal Vulture had since we hadn't found the warehouse. And now Spider-Man had put that all in jeopardy.

I rushed outside. Yearbook was out of the question, and it didn't look like I would be back in time for my next class. I guess today was my emergency-excuse day, after all.

Unlike the halls at school, the sidewalks were exceptionally busy, and I pushed past my fair share of strangers as I raced home. What was usually a twenty minute walk was whittled down to a seven minute sprint by the time I got to my apartment, where I took the stairs three at a time all the way up to the fourth floor.

The door was unlocked, and I nearly banged it open before remembering that Madison had the night shift tonight. She would be sleeping right about now.

I inched the door open to stop the worn wood from creaking, and shut it behind me. It was a good thing it was unlocked- I had left my key at school. There was no time to grab it, and it was a gamble whether or not I would have had to waste double the time it would take for me to grab my key if the door was locked and I would have been forced to use the recycling bins and fire escape.

I entered my room and stormed through my closet. Nightmare shirt, mask, pants, shoes. I stripped what I had on and threw on my new ensemble, nearly forgetting to swap my maroon gloves for my black ones. There was one thing left- my hair was straightened.

I rushed out of my room to the kitchen sink and turned the tap on. I took a gulp of air, then ducked my whole head underneath, until all my hair was wet. Standing upright and turning on the tap, I hoped that one, I didn't just wake up Madison and that she was about to walk in on me dressed in all black like a goddamn burglar, and two, that the water my hair dripped onto the floor would evaporate before Madison woke up and left her room.

I grabbed a green jacket of mine and cracked open my window, stepping out with soaking wet hair, which I could only hope would dry into my natural curls en route. I had my lunch money still, which was just a bundle of tip money I had snatched from my wallet that morning in a rush- I could take a taxi. Hastily, I tied my mask around my waist and did up my jacket. Now, I simply looked like a regular person with soaking wet hair. I couldn't use my trails on open water, so I would have to improvise when I got there. The thought of that made my stomach churn, because improv was hardly ever on my side, but it was my only option if I wanted to intervene.

If it came down to it, I could interfere with Vulture's arrest- if Spider-Man managed to defeat him- once I could get close to him. I couldn't let Vulture go to the police now. There were still too many loose ends, and if the only way to tie them off was by letting Vulture go, so be it.

I hit the ground from the fire escape a little too hard, but I neglected to use the recycling bins in an effort to save time. Waving down a taxi, it seemed, was the difficult part, because I counted four that passed by with people inside already before I hailed down an empty one.

A short woman rolled down her window at the curb. "Where to, sweetie?"

I swung the door to the back open and hopped in, ignoring her sweetie comment. "Staten Island Ferry port," I said. "As fast as possible."

The driver popped some gum and adjusted her mirror before leisurely rejoining the traffic on the road. From her calm demeanor, I figured she had no idea what was currently happening on board the ferry.

Twenty minutes that I couldn't afford to lose had passed before we neared the ferry port. It was as I suspected. Sirens were blaring from emergency vehicles of all sorts fifty feet outward of the port. The taxi stopped halfway down the last street, due to the roadblock by the first fire truck.

"Holy shit," the taxi driver muttered. "Kid, are you sure this is where you need to be?"

"Positive," I quipped, and leaned forward, stuffing all the money from my pocket in her hand and crawling out of the back seat. The reader at the front said thirty dollars, and I knew that it was equivalent to what I had brought from my most recent tips, so I figured she could keep the change.

Normally, I was a tightwad, but right now, time was money.

I ducked between a line of storage containers and dumpsters. The whole port smelled like fish, and it was times like these that made me hate having heightened senses. I wriggled off my jacket and, reluctantly, tossed it into the open dumpster closest to me. I was going to have to explain that one to Madison later.

My hair was turning damp, especially in the sun. I wrestled through the tangles to put on my mask, and once it was secure, used a trail to climb upon a roof of a storage container. They were around ten feet high, and once I was up there, I tried to keep the noise to a minimum as I army-crawled on my stomach to the far edge where I could see the pier. As long as I lied low, no one should've been able to see me.

In the distance down the river, I could see the annoyingly fluorescent orange boat emitting smoke from the middle. I hoped I wasn't too late.

Why were there no rescue boats being sent out yet? Helicopters littered the air above the water, but besides a few boats already circling the disaster, none were leaving the port to join them. How would they evacuate the boat?

I shuddered. If that boat sunk, Vulture could fly away, if he were still able, but Spider-Man had no means of escaping over the water.

Suddenly, a thought hit me.

Peter was Spider-Man's photographer.

Peter wasn't in class today.

Spider-Man was on the ferry.

Did that mean Peter was there too? Jesus, what kind of a mess had he gotten himself into?

He can't swim, Ned had said back at the hotel in Washington. If Peter really was on that boat, did he not realize that he'd be in extreme danger not just from being near Vulture, but by being near open water? I was starting to think more and more that Peter Parker had the worst death wish I had ever seen.

Here was yet another reason I needed Spider-Man to buzz off from Vulture. Peter was with him. When I had talked to Spider-Man as Nightmare, he seemed so aware of the consequences of this job. Why did he allow Peter to just follow him around to crime scenes for a few extra bucks? With Nitara, I was careful. I didn't bring her to places I thought Vulture would be at, and I certainly didn't bring her anywhere where the general environment posed as a threat.

I couldn't even talk to Peter as Diana, or else he would think I was trying to intervene with his life again. I couldn't as Nightmare, or there was a chance that he would recognise me, even with my hair and mask. Up until this point, I considered myself lucky that Peter hadn't shown at the places where I had operated with Spider-Man- not only was it dangerous, but yeah, there was a big chance my identity would be blown.

What if Spider-Man brought Peter to the showdown with Vulture, if they even made it out of this alive? Would he be that stupid and go?

Yes. He probably would.

After watching the ferry for another minute, a figure rose into the air from the boat. From a distance, even with my eyesight, it was a bit of a blur. I couldn't distinguish the shape until there was a small flash of green light near the top, and the wings spread out wide as he took the skies.

No.

But my eyes hadn't deceived me. The figure was, without a doubt, Vulture, and he surpassed the news helicopters and soared towards the shore. In other words, he was headed straight for me.

Did that mean Spider-Man had failed at trapping him? Was he okay? Was Peter okay?

I tried to calm the flurry of emotional thoughts that ravaged my brain as Vulture was getting closer with every second I lay on the storage roof. I needed a plan. Fast. God, I hated improv.

The situation was the same, though. He was making his escape, and it was likely the end of whatever mission he had gone on. That only meant one thing- he was heading home.

All I had to do was follow him.

I could try and take the rooftops again, but I wouldn't be able to keep up with him after four blocks, max. Option two was, like last time, grab on to him and let him take me with him. The problem with that was that if I made myself obvious, he wouldn't take me to his warehouse. He'd just do his best to kill me and get me out of the way.

I couldn't hold on to the gamble that Spider-Man had injured him in their fight. For all I knew, Vulture could have gotten the jump on the hero and come out scotch-free. I was dealing with an able and angry adversary.

I had to go with the rooftops. They were my best bet at chasing him without being detected, because even if I didn't follow him all the way to his hideout, I would know the general direction and where to look.

I raced to the nearest building I could find that had a means of scaling it with my trails. Vulture was soaring through the sky, albeit a tad crooked, and slower that how he appeared the night of Liz's party. Spider-Man must have at least done a number on him.

Was he retreating?

That was the best-case scenario, but I would ponder it later. As of right now, I had my back to a small water tank on the roof of a seven-story, and was waiting for Vulture to make a fly by.

In the meantime, I fumbled to get my phone out of my pocket, and managed to use the touch screen (with some help from my nose) to speed-dial Nitara. There was something she could do for me to help, even without going near the action. I wished Spider-Man were here to take notes.

No one answered. Frustrated, I made to put my phone back in my pocket, but before I could, it began to vibrate.

"Hey," Nitara whispered into the line. "What the hell is up?"

I skipped the preamble. "Where are you?"

"In the hallway," she hissed. "I just left Harry alone in woodshop to take this. If he chops off his finger, it's your fault-"

"I need a favor," I said, and Nitara groaned.

"What now?"

"I need you to break into my apartment," I said, cringing silently at Nitara's upcoming reaction.

"Can it wait until I'm out of school?"

"No."

A moment passed. "D," she said, her voice wavering. "This better be good."

I heard shuffling on the other end of the line, and the creaking of doors opening. Nitara must have left the building. "What do you need there?"

"You can go through my window, it's unlocked, just climb up the recycling bins below the fire escape," I rambled. "I have to go pretty soon, but you can just text me what I need. Remember the map we made the day before Washington?"

Nitara scoffed. "Uh, the one you made me sprint from Starbucks to make when I was hungover? Yeah. I remember."

"Good," I said, much happier than Nitara wanted me to sound at her comment. "It's in the bottom drawer of my dresser underneath all my jeans and stuff. I need you to send the addresses of the locations of the warehouses we ticked off that are abandoned on there. Remember? We used the butterfly stickers?"

"I remember," Nitara repeated, and from her uneven breaths, it sounded like she was running. "You want me to send every fucking address? Don't you have them written down somewhere else?"

"I need specific ones," I said, eyeing the sky above me for any metallic movement. "I'm kind of tracking Vulture right now? I'll call you back when I narrow in on him, but for now, just get to my room and have the map ready. I'll call you back."

"You're insane," Nitara said. "I'll be waiting."

"I love you," I breathed. "One more thing. Madison is home, so you might want to take it back onto the roof."

"WHAT? Your sister is home? D, if she catches me, I-"

Above me, a chunk of silver flew past. It was so low in the sky that I could see the details of his armour.

"You'll be fine. She should be asleep. I gotta go," I quipped, and in a flash, dashed out from behind the water tank faster than I ever had in any track and field sprint. Vulture was flying parallel to the buildings, which meant I had less of an obstacle course to follow him on. Just a lot of running, grappling, trails, and jumping over traffic intersections that was arguably, the most exhilarating and annoying part of rooftop travel.

I was correct on betting that Vulture was going to be going full speed ahead, because he never looked back once. On top of that, I was probably the last person he'd expect to be followed by at this time of day, so I had the element of surprise if he did happen to look back.

Travelling by trail during the day was an interesting dichotomy compared to at night. In the dark, with my black clothes, I was hidden, while my trails were blazing attention whores. In the daytime, it was the opposite. The phosphorescent violet of the trails didn't stand out as much in the sunlight, but wearing all black was kind of like saying, hey, look at me, I'm a criminal.

Which I wasn't. I was a vigilante. There was a difference. I was like the cannibal of criminals. There was no better way to take them down than to do it myself, even if I was breaking the law to do it.

I was on Vulture's trail for the better half of fifteen minutes, and as the time inched on, my stamina left me while his tank of gas kept him on cruise control. I cursed the limits of my stupid mortal body. Why didn't I get super speed, or something less weird than what I had? I felt like God's guinea pig of a cosmic joke. Here's some superpowers, but they're hella weird, and not even that totally useful when you chase criminals. You'll never keep a low profile. And by the way, they'll practically split your life in half and ruin your relations with everyone you've ever loved.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed forward.

I kept up with Vulture for another couple miles, even when he was becoming unidentifiable in the sky even to my exceptional vision. I didn't let that keep me from running after him, even though by this point my breathing was audible and ragged, and my lungs felt like they had been doused in gasoline and set aflame. I finally stopped, though, when Vulture dropped a hint. We were at the edge of Brooklyn when he pulled a left and dipped down into a less urban part of Queens. Or was it still in Brooklyn?

Either way, there was no possible way I could continue chasing after him, so I caved in to my body's request to fall to my knees. I took a few minutes to learn how to breathe normally again, then fell onto my back and stared up at the cloudless sky.

This was a good thing. He never even saw me, and now I had a general idea of Vulture's base.

My mind snapped back into gear once this thought crossed my mind, and I remembered why I was on the ground in the first place. I had just gained another piece of the puzzle. Whipping out my phone again, I dialed Nitara. Without a doubt, she would have retrieved my map by now if she successfully got past a sleeping Madison.

"You son of a bitch," Nitara answered.

I closed my eyes as the sun dipped towards the east. "Hey."

"Hey what? What are you even doing? Can I have some context now? I think I deserve to know why I had to break and enter into your-"

"It's not breaking and entering," I sighed. "I gave you permission."

"If Madison caught me, you'd probably never see me again."

"But I take it she didn't."

Silence. Then, a mumbled no.

"Okay." I took another few seconds to catch my breath. "So, I called you earlier waiting for Vulture to come from the ferry. He did and I have literally no clue what happened to Spider-Man, but I think that Peter was there with him."

"Why would you think that?"

"He wasn't in Chemistry," I argued, thinking about the stool next to mine that was empty much too often. "I think he was photographing for Spider-Man."

"That would make sense," Nitara muttered, and I heard her flipping through paper with wind in the background.

"Hey, are you on a roof?"

"Yeah," Nitara said. "You?"

"Also on a roof. I just lost track of Vulture."

Nitara sighed. "So, what? You don't need the map after all? Are you kidding me, D? Are we back at square one?"

I smiled. Nitara didn't give me enough credit. "Not quite. Right now I'm in between Brooklyn and Queens, so I need you to do something for me on the map."

"I'm listening."

"Cross out any abandoned warehouse that we had listed south of the edge of Brooklyn and Queens."

There was some more ruffling as Nitara adjusted the map. "Okay, now what?"

"Now cross anything out that's seven to eight miles inland from the coast. I kept up with him for five, but he gained extra traction. I could still see him after that."

"I got you," Nitara confirmed, and I heard the clicking of a pen on her end. "So, this means Vulture's not in any of these places?"

"Correct," I said. "And from the distance I just gave you, can you draw a five-mile squared circle from the coastline and edge of Brooklyn?"

Nitara went quiet. "You want me to what?"

"It's not rocket science," I said, resting my hand on my glabella. "Find the line between Queens and Brooklyn on the coast."

A wavy okay sounded from the speaker.

"Good. Now follow that line for about eight miles inland, and when you do, draw a five-mile diameter of a circle expanding from that."

"I think I got it. Not all of us are geometry geniuses, you know."

"Again, it's not rocket science," I reiterated. "But now you have your circle. How many warehouses have we marked off in it?"

Nitara paused a moment to inspect the map, and I heard her take a puff of air.

"There's one."

A small smile crawled onto my face. That would save me time checking out other places. "Copy down the address," I said giddily, getting back on to my feet. "That's our next stop."

I arrived home later to the infamous unlocked door, and the map back in my dresser drawer, with many failed attempts of a circle drawn before one was drawn in the correct place with an arrow labeling it as so. It was around the time I normally got back from school, so I went to check in on Madison to find her bedroom empty.

Sometimes she started the night shift earlier in the afternoon. It made sense that she would have left and accidentally have left the door unlocked. But as I left her empty room, I nearly slipped on the trail of water from my hair that, although considerably smaller than it had been earlier, was still enough to pose as a hazard. Madison would definitely have noticed it, and she definitely would have gone to the trouble to clean it up, even if it meant being late.

So, what? Had she not been home all day?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our landline with a blinking green light coming from the answering machine.

I had no clue why Madison had either left for work early, or just deserted the place, but I was glad it was in time to miss the phone call from the school. Feeling pleased with myself, I deleted the message.

As much as I wanted to jump straight back into Nightmare to scout the warehouse I now had the address of, I had to put it off for yet another responsibility. On my bed, I had laid out my work uniform. Vulture would have to wait.