answers to reviewers questions or statements:
CRUDEN: Yeppers.
Harbinger of Kaos: Maybe.
whitewhale63: The only real issue I've ever had with Ultimatum was just how random a lot of those characters deaths were. Like Daredevil's, or Wasp, or even Strange's came out of nowhere and then they had to kill Wolverine and reduce him to a charred arm. Also, what the hell happened to Namor after it was all said and done? What Grimm just leave the guy in that tank thing to stare at 'Doctor Doom's' body?
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel characters seen, mentioned or used.
"So you do this every night? You just go out and... do this?"
"More or less" Peter shrugged as he found himself free falling towards the road busy street below from two hundred feet up before shooting a web line out and using it to swing further down the block.
Iso was quiet for a moment as she watched, from Peter's point of view, as he swung through the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan "It looks... fun"
"It is, most of the time" Peter admitted with a chuckle as he landed on the side of a building and quickly sprinted across it before leaping off at the corner and shooting another web line out "Though I tend to avoid going to low to the ground"
"Why?" Iso asked.
"Cops" Peter said with a snort as he shot another web line out to swing from "Half of them seem to think I'm a Mutant and the other half think I'm some kind of super villain"
"Super villain?" Iso echoed with confusion "Why do they think that?"
"A few nights back I accidently ruined a... what'd Selene say it was... oh yeah, some kind of Sting Operation thing. It looked like some kind of arms deal or whatever between what I thought were terrorists and some of the Kingpin's people and I sorta interrupted it and started throwing punches and kicks around" Peter said with a sheepish grin "Turns out the terrorist guys were undercover cops and I may have accidently crippled one of them"
"I see..." Iso stated before some shuffling could be heard on her end "Do you normally break up these criminal activities"
"Usually, yeah" Peter admitted with a nod as he landed on the ledge of what he thinks is some sort of church or cathedral given the size of it compared to that weird little church he saw back up in Westchester "Part of it is to give the Kingpin a headache for helping Maximus with stuff. Another is because it'd leave a bad taste in my mouth if I didn't do anything while another..."
"While another what?" Iso asked.
"While another part of me thinks it's fun" Peter grinned as he scanned the busy streets below with his lenses magnification setting.
"You think running around fighting bad people is fun?" Iso said with a giggle.
"Yep" Peter nodded before he remembered something "And the human's media has kinda given me a nick name or whatever because of what I've been doing"
"Really? What is it?" Iso asked, a little eagerness in her tone.
"Promise you won't laugh like Selene did" Peter said.
"I promise"
"It's..." Peter made a show of looking around to make sure there wasn't anyone close by, which there wouldn't be given he was on the roof of a really big church, before whispering "They call me... Spider-man"
"..."
"..."
"...Hehehe"
"Heeeey you promised not to laugh!" Peter whined before he shot another web line out and used it to swing down a random street that led towards Times Square.
Fisk's tower was just a few blocks away from Times Square, overlooking the city's Central Park. Given that it was close to ten in the evening, the party that Fisk was hosting at his penthouse was in full swing and the man's office will be, hopefully, lightly guarded. This was of course, assuming that Fisk didn't increase the security for his party by pulling from what he assumed was another secured location that he owned.
"Sorry, sorry, it's just... Spider-man?" Iso said between fits of giggling "Rather on the nose isn't it? Given what you can do"
"Well I was gonna go with Orb-weaver but there's a Mutant that's already coined that name and I didn't wanna look like I was copying him... even though I'm waaay cooler than him" Peter huffed.
Seriously, Orb-weaver was literally a guy that happens to look like a walking human spider thing that creates webs that aren't even made from actual silk. If anything it's bioluminescent mucus that he regurgitates from his mouth... which is completely different from what he can do!
"And while we're on the topic of interesting names, why Iso?" Peter asked as he swung high over New York's ever flowing traffic, flipping through the air in ways that'd make every gymnast in the world red with jealousy.
"I used to play around with Isotopes when I was younger" the Inhuman beauty admitted in a fond tone "I was always trying to find new things to make or play with and people just started to call me Iso after a while... against my wishes, but I've just come to accept it. It's more flattering than some of the other names people called me"
"You ever get any crap from people?" Peter asked with a frown.
To his knowledge, no one ever outright tried to bully him when he was a child, Medusa's wrath being a lovely little deterrent. Part of it stemmed from being isolated from the rest of Attilan after he was taken in by his aunt and uncle while another was stemmed that people either pitted or sympathized with him in regards to his birth parents deaths to harass him.
"Nothing a bit of uncomfortable blood pressure built up in their frontal lobe couldn't fix" Iso teased.
"Ouch" Peter winced at the thought of experiencing such a feeling.
Iso chuckled at this "There's worse places I could've used my powers"
"I believe you" Peter snorted as he saw Fisk's tower up ahead.
It wasn't the tallest of buildings in New York, but it was definitely in the top five, and in Peter's mind, just screamed shady budy guy with how nice it looked. Peter landed on the edge of a office building of some sort with a large billboard, one of the new ones that showed a video add rather than just being a giant cardboard image, resting on the ledge and casting a soft glow on the rooftop. Peter stuck to the shadows created under the billboard and it's support beams and used his mask's magnification to observe Fisk's base of operations.
Most of the office lights in the tower were off aside from a few here and there, but Peter saw no signs of anyone working aside from a few shadows of what he assumed was just a roving security guard. Peter glanced towards the bottom of the tower to see if it's security was any heavier there before concluding that Fisk must've pulled more people from here for the party he was hosting.
'Hopefully he's pulled any Inhumans, Mutants or other super powered beings he might have on his payroll too' Peter thought before he heard Lockjaw's barking in the background of Iso's end.
"I'll... I'll be back in a minute, I hear Lockjaw barking a lot" Iso said with a bit of concern in her voice.
"Probably hungry still... I swear he's gonna be as fat as a walrus one day and not even his teleporting it gonna be able to help his big harry butt move" Peter shook his head at the Inhuman canine's appetitte.
"Than perhaps it's time for a change in his diet, or maybe to stop spoiling him every time he gives you the look. You know which one I'm talking about" Iso teased.
"By all means, soon to be wife of mine... always wanted to be the fun parent anyway" Peter said with a grin.
"I can be fun!" Iso insisted.
"Making a grown teleporting dog eat his vegetables and have a more healthy lifestyle? Oh yeah, real fun" Peter said.
Iso made a grumbling sound as she stepped away from the computer to go and check on Lockjaw, leaving Peter alone to study Fisk's tower.
He's swung by it enough times to have a good idea of it's floors layout, the Kingpin's office was towards the top, just a few floors shy of the rooftop-
*BING!*
*BING!*
'Ugh, who's calling at this time?' Peter thought as he saw a message window appear on his lenses' HUD that showed it was Ororo that was calling him all the way from Japan at this hour.
'Huh, wonder what she's calling about... really hope it's not another Brotherhood of Mutants thing or Logan went and got himself in trouble and needs help' Peter thought as he accepted the call "Uh, hello?"
"Hey Pete" Ororo said with obvious excitement.
Peter could faintly here a lot of cheering and yelling in the background, a part of him briefly wondered if it was for deaths of Ororo and the others or if the screams of joy were in favor of the X-men.
'Ororo seems a little too happy to be in some kind of hell-ish situation but you never know' Peter thought with a shrug before asking "What's going on over there? You getting chased by a mob or something?"
"More of being swarmed" Ororo chuckled "Turns out Japan might be our biggest fans on the planet"
"Must be nice" Peter said with a grin as he scanned the floors above and below Fisk's office carefully for any signs of guards or some kind of security system installed, like cameras or sensors.
"It's a nice break in the 'your going to all burn in hell cause God hates you' crap" Ororo agreed before her tone took on a more flirtatious tone "Shame your not here with us. There's quite a few girls in the crowd that seem to be big fans of yours since their waving signs with hearts and your spider on them"
"Alas my disposition to be a a cool lone wolf that's wrapped in a air of mystery compels me to not be there. I'm liking Logan without all the body hair and smell of cheap cigars and whiskey" Peter snickered as he prepared to infiltrate Fisk's office and find what he was looking for "What about you? How you doing?"
"Lonely" Ororo sighed a little dramatically "My sex life has dipped since you left. I guess what they say is true, about not knowing how good your getting it until it leaves"
"What about Hank?" Peter asked with a frown "I thought you said you were gonna try something with him now that I'm no longer within reach"
"We did, but it was... it was like kissing your own brother, or sister in his case" Ororo said with a grumble "Plus there's this girl he's been talking to online so we decided to... well just wait and see what life has in store for us I guess. Though I did offer to be his wingman if this girl he's talking with doesn't pan out and to take him out with Colossus for a night on the town. Though I hope it does, rather not have to stand around and watch two of my teammates scoring while I'm all off on my lonesome"
"Poor Ororo, most powerful and one of the most beautiful members of the X-men and she doesn't have me fawning all over her when an entire country sounds like it loves you. What a horrible life you must be living right now" Peter teased.
"Just wait until I'm back in the States mister" Ororo warned with a grin in her voice "I'm gonna find out where your hiding and sick a storm of something fierce on you"
"It's a date" Peter chuckled before he remembered how this whole night started and sighed "Uhh, look Ororo-"
"You've found another girl, haven't you?" Ororo said with a deadpanned tone.
"...Two, kinda" Peter winced.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" Ororo groaned with an audible slap on her end, likely her forehead "You see, this right here is why I didn't want you leaving! The moment your out of my sight, women will start throwing themselves at you and sinking their claws and teeth into you faster than Logan cat get at a steak!"
"Well one of them I was kinda with before I met you and the other is... yeah, the other is kinda complicated" Peter said as he rubbed the back of his head "Look, how about we talk about it in more detail when you get back? This doesn't seem like the kind of thing you talk about over the phone"
"Fiiiiiiine" Ororo grumbled "But answer me one question"
"Shoot" Peter said as he jumped off the root's ledge and raised an arm to shoot a web line out to swing towards Fisk's building with.
"Do either of them have a better vage than me?"
"W-What?!" Peter stammered before he realized he accidently let go of his web line and quickly shot another one out to catch himself before he plummeted to the ground below.
"I mean are they tighter than me? Wetter, what? Oh don't act all scandalized, like you men never ask a girlfriend of yours if your a better lay or have a bigger dick than her ex after you meet them" Ororo said with a snort.
"...I'm not having this conversation with you" Peter shook his head as he swung towards Fisk's tower.
"Oh my god, they are, aren't they?" Ororo stated.
"Look we'll talk about it when you get back to the States, but right now I'm in the middle of something kinda important so I'm gonna have to let you go" Peter groaned.
"Peter if you hang up on me before answering my very legiteament question, I swear I'll sick Logan on yo-" Ororo began before Peter ended the call.
"Sorry for the unexpected hurricane your about to experience Japan, but I gotta focus" Peter said as he landed on the side of Fisk's tower, just a few floors below where the man's office is.
Just in time for a series of gunshots to shatter the glass.
Peter blinked in surprise at this and carefully crawled up towards the now open window and peered inside to see what was going on. He half expected to see the Kingpin himself there despite hosting a party tonight, maybe executing someone that either crossed or failed him. Hell he even entertained the idea that the big man just got whacked by a ambitious employee of his. Instead Peter was greeted to the sight of a young red head, dressed in a white blazer, black pants and heeled boots, hiding behind the Kingpin's desk while several of his men stood on the other end of the room shooting at her.
Well they were actually shooting th table she was using for cover, but you get the idea.
'Talk about a hostile work environment' Peter thought as he ducked back down before a stray bullet hit him.
Well tonight was just going in all kinds of the exact opposite direction of what he was hoping for. And if the shattered computer he briefly saw lying on the floor by the woman's feet back in the office was anything to go by, Peter won't be getting any information out of it unless he found whatever server it was hooked up to and take that.
'Which is bound to be somewhere else in the building, probably behind even more security. And I'm pretty sure Fisk's been informed on what's going on now, so he's likely sending more people this way to kill that woman for... well doing something I guess' Peter thought with a frown as he considered his options.
He wasn't just gonna sit around and let that woman die, but at the same time he had no idea just wo or what that woman was. For all Peter knew, she was some child raping sociopath that likes to drink. Or she could've simply been a unusually attractive woman, like sweet mother of the Kree she was a gem from what he saw, who had simply walked in at the wrong time and was now on the verge of being 'silenced' by Fisk's people.
'Ugh, what I wouldn't give to have Jean here at the moment' Peter thought with a sigh.
Annoying as the woman's attempts to read his mind were, she could at least let Peter know if he was about to save someone that'll stab him in the back the first chance she gets.
"Oh well" Peter said with a shrug before he leaped up and into the office and landed on the bullet ridden desk in a crouch.
Fisk's men froze at Peter's sudden appearance while the red head cowering behind the sturdy office furniture stared up at him with surprise. No one said a thing as the two opposing sides stared one another down, or rather Peter stared them down while Fisk's people gaped at him.
"You know, I had something witty to say but I just forgot it" Peter said after a few tense seconds "You guys mind if I redo my entrance real quick? Five seconds, promise-"
"Waste the Mutie fuck!" one of the gun men roared before he and his companions aimed their firearms at Peter.
"Or not" Peter said dryly as he turned and reached down to grab the startled red head by the shoulders before leaping out of the office just as the first rounds erupted from Fisk's goons.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" the red head screamed as the two fell towards the streets below.
"First time free falling from a skyscraper I take it?" Peter asked with a grin as he pulled the red head close to him before shooting a web line out and used it to swing away from Fisk's tower as a few of the man's men continued to shoot at Peter and his passenger.
A few stray shots flew past Peter but his erratic swinging and speed, and that trust old sixth sense of his, made scoring a hit on him at this point next to impossible. Still, he'll give them credit for still shooting at his general direction despite now being over a block away.
"Man, they really want you dead lady" Peter as he let his spider-sense guide his movements, where to aim a web line that'll take them out of the line of fire before it finally faded as the immediate danger passed.
"Apparently they took my request for a raise rather badly" the red head teased, her demeanor taking a odd one eighty from what it was a moment ago.
'Yeaaah, that's not a bit odd at all' Peter thought with an unseen eye roll.
The pair swung through the various buildings that made up Manhattan before Peter found a reasonably safe looking rooftop to set down on. His red headed passenger saw this as well and was already adjusting her hold on the man so that she could let go the moment they landed.
"So... what do I call you?" Peter said as he set the woman on the ground and watched as she began to quickly remove the blouse and pants she had on to reveal a form fitting black body suit with a red hour glass shaped symbol that took up a good portion of her torso "Uhh, Widow-gal?"
"Black Widow" the red headed woman said with a annoyed frown, her accent carrying a slight eastern European tint to it. Her emerald green eyes flickered up and down Peter's form for a moment "I suppose your this Spider-man I've been hearing rumors of"
"I like to think I've elevated myself from rumor to word on the street if you catch my meaning" Peter said.
"No, I don't" Black Widow replied with a snort as she eyed Peter up and down again "Still, not bad... not bad. You have a adequate color pallet at least"
"Uhh, thanks?" Peter said with a raised brow.
Not the weirdest compliment he's ever heard.
Peter watched as the Black Widow withdrew a small flash drive from a small compartment built into her boot, which Peter now saw was part of the woman's body suit, and gave it a quick once over to make sure it wasn't damaged.
"I'm gonna assume that's why those guys were shooting at you" Peter nodded towards the flash drive.
"You could say that" the Black Widow said as she placed the flash drive in a small compartment on a slim black belt she had wrapped around her waist before spared Peter a brief glance "Also, thank you for the save, though it was un-needed. I would've been fine"
"Yeah, you cowering behind a slowly disintegrating desk really had those guys fooled" Peter said sarcastically.
"I was about to deal with them before you arrived and saw fit to drag me out a window and free fall a hundred feet" the Black Widow replied dryly.
"It was ninety seven feet, get it right" Peter snarked.
"Be that as it may, thank you. Now if you excuse me, I must be going" the Black Widow said as she turned to leave before Peter shot a web line out and caught her wrist with it, causing her to freeze.
"Sorry, but I kinda need that data you have" Peter said with a sheepish grin underneath his mask as he did his best to not feel a bit intimidated by the dark glare the Black Widow was now sporting "Or at least a copy of it. You don't mind if I get a copy do ya? I kinda need it for what I'm doing"
"Oh, and what's that?" the Black Widow asked with a perfectly raised eyebrow.
"Uhhh... it's classified?" Peter said with a sheepish laugh "Like really classified. Top secret"
"Well I suppose it's a good thing I have a security clearance above Top Secret, hmm?" the Black Widow teased with a ghost of a smile.
"It's triple, double, triple top secret" Peter cleared his throat as he gave the web line holding the Widow's hand a little yank "So uh, can I please have a copy?"
"Now what could Fisk have that would be of interest to a... person, such as yourself?" the Black Widow asked, her accent, which Peter recognized as Russian, becoming a bit more noticeable as she began to slowly approach Peter with a sway of her hips "You can tell me, I can keep a secret. After all, we're both spiders, yes? Spiders must stick together in these trying times"
"Uhhh" Peter sounded as the Black Widow placed both her hands on his chest and began to gently glide across it.
"I think she's trying to seduce you" Iso suddenly whispered through the man's built in mask commlink, it seemed she was done helping Lockjaw with whatever was bothering him "I suppose she thinks batting her eye lashes and laying her accent out like that will make her seem more charming"
"It's working..." Peter responded quietly.
"Oh?" the red head said with a amused look on her face, unaware of Peter's conversation.
"I-I was thinking out loud" Peter stammered as he reached up towards the Black Widow's hands and gently grabbed her wrists... which he now realized had some sort of odd device attached to them, and slowly lowered them back to the woman's side "Look, um Miss Black Widow, I just need a copy of what you got, you can keep the original for... whatever it is you want with it. After that, we can go our separate ways"
"What if I don't want to go separate ways?" the Black Widow said coyly "What if I like being around you? I hear it's mating season for spiders"
"I heard, but considering you've taken to basing yourself off a spider known for it's habit of cannibalism of it's sexual partner, I'm gonna have to regretfully decline your proposition" Peter said with a sigh of mock sadness.
"I only eat what I don't like" the Widow teased with a wink as she slipped her hands out of Peter's and reached up to wrap one of her arms around his neck while the hand of her other arm came to sit in the space between his neck and shoulder and a leg slowly rose up to rest on the man's hip in a suggestive manner "I don't bite... hard"
"I'd prefer you not bite at all, I'm a wee bit sensitive" Peter said before his hand suddenly reached up in a blur and grabbed the wrist of the Black Widow.
"And fast too" she remarked in a blank tone.
The wrist Peter was holding belonged to the hand she placed between his neck and shoulder, a small pair of protruding points emerging from the odd wrist device mounted on it stopped mere centimeters from his neck, a steady stream of electricity flowing between them.
"So are you" Peter nodded slowly as he kept his grip on the Black Widow's wrist firm, just shy of uncomfortable "I almost wasn't fast enough to stop your... Widow bite"
"Few can" the Black Widow smirked, though her eyes were cold, empty "Release my hand"
"Will you give me a copy of the data you retrieved from Fisk?" Peter inquired.
"Will you release me if I do?" the Black Widow asked, her smirk gone and her face as cold and as barren as the tundra of her homeland.
"If I get a copy of that data, I have no reason to keep holding you" Peter responded as he felt a faint tingle at the base of his skull.
"That's not a clear enough answer" the Black Widow pointed out as the tingling at the base of Peter's skull began to steadily intensify "Just because you don't have a reason to keep holding me doesn't mean that you still won't"
"So I guess we're at an impasse, my dear Black Widow?" Peter asked.
"It seems we are Spider-man" the Black Widow nodded before a slight motion of the arm wrapped around his neck caused a small blade to emerge from a hidden sheath located under her wrist.
She attempted to stab the back of Peter's neck but the wall crawler pushed the woman back before her blade pierced his suit and brought his foot up and gave her a hard kick to the stomach that sent her flying across the roof. The Russian woman let out a series of vulgar expletives in both Russian and English as her body skipped across the roof's surface before her body went over the edge.
"...Crap!" Peter said as he quickly rushed towards the ledge and prepared to jump down after the woman before he noticed something odd.
He no longer heard any loud bilingual cursing nor did he see the woman falling towards the streets below when he peered over the edge. Peter blinked and quickly looked around for signs of the woman, perhaps she grabbed a window frame and was simply holding her body close to the side of the building. Peter made a clicking sound whti his tongue before he heard a series of car horns and tire screeches and looked in the direction of the commotion to see the Black Widow's figure gliding just a few meters above the ever flowing traffic of the Big Apple with the help of some sort of odd fabric stretched out between the underside of her arms and sides before she landed on the back of a box truck. The Russian woman rolled across the truck's top before she came to a stop in a kneeling position and turned to glare back at Peter and raised her hand to give him a hand gesture that Logan usually gave him when he thought he wasn't looking.
"Well she seemed... pleasant" Iso said after a few seconds of silence, having watched the whole thing unfold in a manner of minutes.
"I was thinking confusing" Peter said with a shake of his head as his adrenaline began to die down "I've never met a woman that sent off so many mixed signals like that before. I mean one minute it seems like she's interested in me, the next she wants to put a knife in my neck, and the one after, she wants to do both. Than it's back to wanting to stab me"
"I don't know, I got clear signals that she wanted to shoot you before you kicked her off the rooftop" Iso said with a smile in her voice.
"Wouldn't surprise me if she did" Peter said with a shrug before he glanced down at the 'Widow Bite' that the red headed woman tried to zap him with.
He hadn't realized that he had accidently torn it off her wrist when he kicked her away until he was watching her glide towards the truck below. It wasn't badly made, a bit over designed in some areas but not bad overall in it's function and compatibility.
"Well at least I got something from her" Peter sighed as he attached the device to his belt and turned to head back to Selene's pent house.
"What do you think the odds are of seeing her again?" Iso asked.
"With my luck, probably high" Peter answered with a snort.
...
"Fucking bastard" Natasha Romanova snarled as she glared at the roof that she was kicked off of with a glare as tther truck she was riding on top of turned down a random street and cut her sight of the building off.
With a sigh of frustration she glance down at the wrist her Widow Bite was taken from and frowned at the tears in her body suit, and the dull throb of pain emanating from it. It was going to cost her an arm and a leg to get a replacement, though if she played her cards right and got the head of the newly formed SHIELD, General Nicholas Fury, to accept the flash drive of data on Wilson Fisk's dealings with the renegade Mutant terrorist, Maximus, she might be able to acquire a replacement.
And perhaps, a cozy spot in the budding international security agency.
'But first I need to meet with the man' the red head thought with a sigh as she reached up to tear away the 'wings' of her body suit and tossed them over her shoulder and let the wind carry them away... right into the windshield of a taxi right behind the truck she was on.
Natasha couldn't help but smirk at the sound of the taxi's horn and tires screeching as she settled on the edge of the truck and waited for it to slow down enough for her to comfortably hop off and make her way towards where the Triskelion was being built in the bay. She already had her pitch to Fury memorized, as well as her plans of escape in the event Fury declines her request to join SHIELD and instead try to eliminate her.
After all, she may or may not have been directly responsible for the events that led to the man losing his eye a few years earlier when he was stationed in the Middle-East. And the eventual divorce between him and his wife at the time, and the demotion that followed...
Come to think of it, it's probably best she doubly make sure she's expunged her name and associated alias from a few select databases she has ways into, just to be safe.
...
And done.
Next chapter, Date night... interrupted.