It was the middle of January and some time had passed since the administration or rather the reign of United States President Tony Stark had come to an end and a US election had been quickly held. While the impeachment hearing ended, the US Congress allowed former Vice President James Rhodes to act as acting President until the inauguration of the new President who had previously served as Secretary of Education for a previous administration. It was tough and it was the word of support from Captain America that allowed thing sto go as smoothly as it could be.
Still there would be ramifications as riots from those who hated the regime of President Stark and were demanding a public execution and the loyalists demanding his release. The new Secretary of the State was working with the UN along with Coulson the director of the restructuring SHIELD in order to try and repair the damaged reputation of the US as well as help the countries of the world to rebuild. Captain America Steve Rogers and his new bride Natasha Romanoff the Black Widow had taken a vacation for their honeymoon as while there was work to be done; even Captain America needed and deserved a rest once in a while.
Though no one doubted that he would be putting his head back into working as soon as they returned.
It was at night in New York near a subway station and another consequences was that the criminals of the world had come out in the woodwork and now the authorities were working overtime to try and maintain order with SHIELD and the Avengers lending their assistance. Peter was out as Spider-Man during the night helping to catch robbers and looters with his web for the police with Janet and Sam (who was the acting leader of the Avengers).
The officers looked hesitant to trust them and one was angrily muttering about how the Avengers let Stark destroy the country in the guise of 'saving' it; trust needed to be rebuilt and this was what Peter dealt with for most of his Spider-Man career. They gave more criminals to the officers as Peter muttered "It seems that President Stark scared the criminals into submission with his authoritarian ways and now that he has been locked up; they are now crawling out of the shadows..." Peter didn't know exactly how to feel about that.
"As bad as Stark was; his policies did keep the criminals in line out of fear of retaliation." Janet admitted before shrinking down as there were some masked criminals trying to shoot at her allowing Sam and Peter to take them out for her.
"Bringing him down was the right call but this is consequences that you have to accept when you bring down a dictator. Stark at least had the resources of a country and the ability to create advanced firepower that he didn't have to worry about ramifications so much, plus he had a group of our most powerful members happy to be his muscle." Sam said as he flew down to disarm some more criminals allowing them to be caught by the police.
There were some congratulations to them and then there was an African American man in a subway worker's uniform and orange jacket come up to them clapping saying "you know what I think? You Avengers are alright, especially after you got King Stark off the Iron Throne." He offered a hand to Peter who hesitatingly took it as the man said "Mr Parker; been a long while since we last met!"
Peter looked dumbstruck as he tried to recognise the man's face, "Sorry have we met before Mr..." Peter asked hesitatingly as the man sighed while the other PDNY officers came closer.
"Aaron Davis; a career criminal who mostly dabbled in cat burglary. He finished his latest sentence months ago and you put caught him in your 2nd year Spider-Man." Officer Stan Carter explained as Peter had trouble remembering it but he guessed that he must have caught too many criminals for him to count.
"Yeah, it was a real embarrassment when after H-Day, it finally dawned on me that I got my butt handed to me by a teenager." Aaron laughed as Janet found it amusing and Peter decided to be nice.
"Well then... How is life treating you?" Peter asked as Aaron smiled.
"Decided to finally take the chance to go legit and managed to find this job on the subway, I am thinking that soon my brother and sister in law will open up to inviting me to their house now. He's a cop and he probably told his co-workers over there all about me and that's how they recognised me at sight." Aaron said pointing to the officers who still didn't look happy to see Aaron.
"Captain Morales definitely didn't want to talk about his criminal brother being out in the streets and how he is apparently turning over a new leaf. Taking his wife's surname was probably done to distance himself from you Mr Davis." Stan remarked as Aaron came up giving Stan his phone.
"Do you mind if I get a picture with you? I think a picture with New York's hero might convince them faster and I can see my nephew soon." Aaron asked as Peter decided to pose with him while Stan humoured him by taking the photo giving the phone back.
Sam then got something from his communication link and said "sorry to break up this reunion but I am getting word that there is a break in at a Stark Industries facility, was owned by Roxxon before Stark tore them apart." Peter then said goodbye to Aaron as the three Avengers then left.
The new head of Stark Industries was working hard with the company helping to fund financial aid around the world and trying to save its image. With how they had taken over Roxxon and Oscorp with the energy power around the world, it would be even more disastrous to let it fall and the new government had been close to seizing all assets.
They got to the facility and they spotted the frantic head of the facility coming up to them saying "we found guys trying to hack into the servers but then we had gotten word that a figure had broken in and stole our NuForm sample." He then pointed to a figure climbing up a nearby building trying to possibly escape. Janet asked what is NuForm and the man explained "we created it when we were working for Roxxon, we were trying to reverse engineer Vibranium but we had created a potential power source instead. It was incredibly unstable but Mr Krieger wanted to go about building a NuForm power plant as soon as possible before H-Day. After President Stark had the company seized, we were to keep it here until further notice because it was deemed too dangerous to try and dispose of it."
The three Avengers showed disgust at Krieger and Roxxon for go about these plans and a reminder that Tony had done some good early in his Presidency. They gave chase to the figure with Peter climbing up sending webs at the direction of the figure with Sam in the air firing at him and Janet likewise sending blasts towards him.
Finally it hit the figure sending him down and dropping the NuForm in a small containment bubble with Sam catching it but he found some sort of electric blast coming his way that he kept dodging it and until it hit and messed with his circuits causing him to drop it.
"You alright Sam?" Janet asked concerned as she had just noticed with her focus on the figure.
"Will be just fine and my sensors need to reboot and the NuForm fell..." Sam said as Peter caught the figure as they landed on the ground but the figure then got him off striking with the claws put into his suit with Peter's Spider-Sense helping him to dodge.
They got a good look at the figure in a black bodysuit with dark purple plating around it, green lines and a green symbol on it with a dark purple helmet with black shadow around the eyes. "A different look but is that you Hobie?" Peter asked hesitatingly thinking the suit looked familiar but ended up having to dodge the figure striking at him. He managed to start webbing up his claws and striking hard with punches and kicks with the figure having to be distracted trying to dodge blasts from Janet and a flying kick from Sam got him down enough for Peter to give him a punch to the gut.
"This guy is using a similar suit to an old foe turned friend called the Prowler." Peter pointed out thinking of Hobie Brown a young man using his gift with creating gadgets to become a costumed criminal known as the Prowler but he had convinced him to turn legit and had even helped him out on occasion.
"The NuForm is gone and his buddy probably took it after firing me with that blast." Sam said looking agitated as PDNY officers came to handcuff and arrest this new Prowler who started laughing.
"I am working solo, heard about NuForm from a disgruntled former employee and decided I could make a fortune selling it. To help me get started here since I am new around these parts. Whoever had taken it was probably whoever it was who distracted the workers at the place trying to steal it for themselves; it allowed me to take it myself." Prowler said in a familiar voice and they didn't look like they totally believe him.
"Well let's see who this really is, Scooby Doo style!" Peter said as he went and took the helmet off leaving the three Avengers stunned and confused to see the smirking face of Aaron Davis.
"A part of me was really hoping you were sincere about wanting to turn your life around Aaron." said an angry looking PDNY officer with a goatee and glasses shaking his head.
"So still a cop here as well are you Jefferson?" Davis said smirking sounding more mocking in his tone than before.
"Wait a minute, you were with us near the subway when we heard about the break in! Did you teleport and change your clothes? You even had your picture taken with me!" Peter said butting in confusing the officer as well as the other PDNY officers.
The man then checked something on his phone seeing a social media alert with his brother Aaron seeing the photo that had been taken. He then called Aaron's number and was stunned when it picked up and they heard him say "hi Aaron... I just wanted to call because I just saw your photo and it's cool that you had your picture taken with Spider-Man. I may see you later..."
"Surprising, the Jefferson that I knew hated superhumans and vigilantes like Spider-Man." Davis said laughing enjoying the confusion around.
"Look this is out of the wheelhouse, maybe we could get back to you at your fancy tower or the Triskellion place to find out the deal with this guy with my brother's face and voice." The officer named Jefferson asked them and they nodded.
"Your brother did mention you and... Wait, there was a mention of you taking your wife's surname so... You're birth name was Jefferson Davis?" Peter asked hesitatingly as he figured it out with the others nearby being uncomfortable but Davis found this amusing.
Jefferson sighed as he said "trust me, I never knew what our parents were thinking with my name either." The officers then began taking Davis into custody as the three Avengers decided they could try and see if they could find who stole the NuForm before going back to the tower.
While this had been going on in San Francisco; Jennifer, Hulk and Loki had been sent to help restore order there as well. Seeing 2 Hulks helped scare the rioting criminals allowing them to be taken in and they had heard that Creel and Macpherran had been spotted making robberies around the city so they were hoping to catch them. "Isn't this just fun my Avenger comrades?" Loki asked after capturing some criminals with magic traps.
"I don't think I will ever get used to that pointy helmeted clown being with us now..." Hulk said with Jennifer agreeing with him, even with his help it was tough getting used to the villain that caused the Avengers to assemble in the first place. They would rather have Wanda to help but she was helping in another city. Dealing with having to help calm the streets down certainly made Jennifer busier than she already was when she got back to work as a lawyer with no shortage of cases for her firm.
A nearby police officer looked freaked out and said "there are corpses found at the jewellery store a few blocks down. Their heads eaten as if Venom was back and it's around the last area where Absorbing Man and Titania were spotted." This alarmed Jennifer and Hulk who knew of Venom and his reputation.
The Venom Symbiote had been locked away inside the Triskellion and Eddie Brock had been apprehended helping the Thunderbolts army in the final battle against Tony so the Symbiote must have found another host. San Francisco would know about Venom since this was where Venom acted as their self proclaimed 'Lethal Protector', if the Punisher had an alien Symbiote instead of firepower.
They got there inside with Jennifer feeling like it was a horror movie with the corpses around but then they found Macpherran and Creel putting sacks of stolen jewel together but then a dark red circle formed around them with them falling into the ground before disappearing. "This... Is concerning..." Loki muttered in thought as Macpherran and Creel noticed them and went to attack.
Creel swang his ball and chain weapon at Hulk who caught it and swang him around before throwing it with Creel landed in a thud before absorbing a steel bat so he could go into the attack again. Macpherran angrily tried to punch at Jennifer but she dodged while smirking as she taunted "remember when we last met Mary, how you talked about you were on the government's side and I was the fugitive. How well did that turn out?" This infuriated Macpherran and made her punches sloppier so she continued on "plus what you said about wanting to take me home as your pet, I'm flattered but you could have saved us all a lot of trouble years ago if you had just asked me out..."
After this she got so angry she was unable to focus as some strong punches send Macpherran flying to the wall. Jennifer smirked but then a dark figure lunged at her pinning her to the ground and it was a monstrous large bulking black creature with white holes for years, sharp teeth in it's mouth along with a long tongue, it looked like it had tendrils and a white spider symbol on the chest. "Spider-Man's rebound and I shall savour your taste as I eat your flesh. He took everything from us so we will take what he has left!" The creature said spitting out at Jennifer before Hulk managed to punch the creature away and it faced them.
"First of all I am no one's rebound, second of all I am going to have to take like an hour long shower to get the ooze off me and the spit off my face and thirdly: I take it you're the new Venom." Jennifer said glaring at Venom who then lunged at Jennifer only for her to dodge and launch right into Creel who snapped as he threw Venom off. Jennifer had Macpherran coming up to charge at her and so she grabbed Creel's ball and chain and swang it so it hit Macpherran in the head making her groggy with Hulk punching the distracted Creel as he went to try and help his wife.
Loki who had been watching noticed Venom getting up and started using a spell to mimic sonic sound making Venom yell in agony (for sonic sound was a weakness of the alien Symbiote' race) and come apart so they could notice the face of the man with the Symbiote and so Jennifer had her eyes widen when she recognised Harry Osborn. Then there was a dark red mist as Parker Robbins appeared in his dark red hood and cloak.
"Clearly our Cabal will have to work on our teamwork but for now, we have sources for funding. We shall meet again Avengers and let you find out that there is a new Kingpin in this world and he is the Hood here to champion for those victimised by your self-righteous actions." Robbins said before he disappeared in red mist along with Macpherran, Creel and Venom.
"So great, there is probably a new villain team and you know anything about a Hood?" Hulk asked Jennifer as she shook her head unhappy that they had gotten away plus knowing Peter will have to know about this. Loki looked in thought and Hulk noticed as he said "you have something to say Pointy Hat? If you know some then please share it with your teammates, I bet it's hard having teammates to work with and not minions or fellow villains that you intended to stab in the back later before they have the chance to do the same to you."
"The dark energy from their teleportation and radiating off the man calling himself the Hood, feels demonic... I suspect Mephisto..." Loki muttered and they didn't like the sound of this.
Back at the base of the Guys; Castle and Micro had retrieved the NuForm, "was afraid that things would have gone south when the place's servers were harder to hack into than I was prepared for. However it worked out in the end thanks to the new gun here!" Micro said as Castle showed off a gun weapon that Petey had put together from parts that they had scrounged together. Would send out an electric blast with an effect similar to a small EMP blast but would only have enough charge for one blast and needed to be powered by an old car battery that they had gotten and Petey had gotten working again.
Petey was studying it and warned them saying "don't go celebrating just yet, I will need to do a lot of testing and looking it over. The Roxxon guy said that it was unstable but in theory, once we learned how it works and around the weaknesses it could be used as a new power source for your suit Sarge. Be warned there is still a chance that this thing is too dangerous to use, there is always a risk that this could end up just killing us before it kills any Avengers."
"Should it come to that, we can find an alternative Petey and let me know when you have enough findings to present to us." Sarge told him before facing them. "I call this a win here today but we should always be prepared for anything that could happen, counting on lucky breaks will only get us so far. This however proves that we can pull off victories on this Earth like we had done on our old own. Remember we may never go back to the Earth that w came here from so this Earth is our home now and we should treat it as such. The Avengers almost destroyed the Earth before and they must be stopped before they have a chance to do it again." Sarge told them as they got up and did a salute with Sarge making the same salute to them.
"To think that I was once Sergeant of an entire platoon and yet this is the finest team that I have ever been a part of, ready to do the impossible." Sarge said with a smile as he then went to work planning their next move.
The Avengers had gathered together at Avengers Tower along with their new SHIELD liaison Clay Quartermaine as they had debriefed everyone at what had happened to them. "So let's review: a thief got away with the NuForm, there is a 2nd Aaron Davis here who tried to steal the NuForm using a similar suit as the Prowler, there is a new villain group calling themselves the Cabal being led by someone with demonic powers and it includes my former best friend who was really angry at me last time we met and is now the new host of Venom. So much for this year being easier than the last..." Peter said looking like he was about to faint.
"Well this Aaron Davis could be a Skrull, a Space Phantom or a clone like the Thor one or the Gwen Stacy." Janet pointed out looking apologetic towards Peter for bringing her up.
"I ask all of you not to freak out as I know that if we stick together and keep ourselves prepared; we will get through this and prevail in the end and I know it. This Cabal is not the first team of bad guys wanting to challenge the Avenges and we have dealt with forces out of this world before. I am speaking as a man who spent time last year as a fugitive from a government regime that pretty much taken over the whole world. Get some rest and once we have more info we can start planning about what to do about these weird things going on." Sam said as they got up and started going to their rooms but Sam walked up to Peter and Jennifer.
"Peter, I understand that Osborn was your friend but will you be alright? You definitely was put through the emotional ringer last year so tell me if you need time off like Steve has." Sam offered as Peter shook his head.
"I will be fine Sam but thanks for asking, I will say if I think that I will need a rest. Besides even if I wanted to rest I don't think Venom would let me as he can strike without setting off my Spider-Sense." Peter told him and Sam nodded as he then allowed him and Jennifer to leave to their room.
"You really meant what you said to Sam there? You are not going to start blaming yourself for Harry becoming Venom?" Jennifer asked him with concern but Peter shook his head.
"No... I understand that he was in a difficult situation running a failing company with the stigma of his dad being known as the Green Goblin but he was in favour of using me to get to Stark, wanted me to throw away my morals to support a fascist regime and he put his own fiancé at risk for a procedure he was warned that wasn't safe. My sympathy for him can only go so far, now he was left to his own anger that brought Venom to him and now he has to be stopped." Peter answered as Jennifer was glad that he was taking it better than he could have.
"I don't envy you for all the times you had to deal with Venom and you should be commended for having done so and beaten him before. If he had licked me with that disgusting tongue then I would have barfed chunks..." Jennifer muttered looking disgusted before entering their room together in the Tower. They got their superhero uniform off and were now in their underwear with Peter in purple boxers with a white line down it and Jennifer wearing a red bra with a black spider pattern along with a dark blue thong. Something that Janet had made for them as a Christmas present.
Though without the electric tricks in the game; Prowler here uses the suit from the Spider-Man Miles Morales game.