Peter Parker's perspective:

"You-you're pregnant?" asked a stunned Peter.

"What do you think 'blue' means?" asked MJ. "Because we're not talking politics."

"OK," Peter, intimidated by this turn of events. "OK. How long is it going to be?"

"What kind of question is that?" asked MJ tensely.

"What do you mean?" Peter reacted defensively.

"'How long is it going to be,'" MJ quoted him almost mockingly. "In other words, 'How long until I've got to take care of a baby?'"

"That's not what I meant," Peter insisted. "I need to know how long we have to prepare. OK, maybe that's not the whole story..."

"More like it was a pretext," snapped MJ.

"I'm sorry this scared me," said Peter.

MJ smiled. "Show no fear against Doctor Octopus or Carnage, but what gives you cold feet? An unborn infant."

Peter had to chuckle himself. "We'll figure this out, one day at a time."

"That's what I like to hear," MJ said, kissing her husband.

"For now," said Peter, "I wonder how the genetics are going to work."

"Yeah," said MJ. "What this kind of kid will look like is unpredictable. But we knew this going in."

"That's not what I meant," said Peter. "I was mutated by radiation and the bite of a spider. It's what gives me my Spider-Powers. How will this work? Will our boy or girl have my powers, have weaker powers, be an ordinary person, or given how progressive human evolution is, be even more powerful? And if so, can we ensure that this child grows up to use these powers right? If nothing goes wrong in childbirth because of my unique DNA?"

MJ paused. "I have no idea, Peter."

The Punisher's perspective:

Another day in the war on crime. It was a war Frank Castle had been fighting for many years, ever since that fateful day in Central Park in which his wife and children had been shot dead by the mafia.

It was time to get back into action. Frank entered his armored car and once again became The Punisher.

Let criminals beware - for their lives!

Peter's perspective:

For Peter Parker, having gotten his wife pregnant was a big deal.

He had not asked Dr. Curt Connors about what it was like to be a father. He and his wife and son were still emotionally shaken from Dr. Connors' recent transormation to The Lizard. Peter had thought it best to leave well enough alone.

So Peter went through the workday. He had a second job coming. This job was a refuge of sorts. No pregnancy issues, no parental worries, no fear of all the variables that come with the child of a superhero.

Peter smiled as he hid in an alley to put on his Spider-Man costume. For now, all he had to worry about was catching criminals.

Hydro-Man's perspective:

It had been a few days since Hydro-Man had used his water form to sneak into a box in prison that was taken outside. From there, it was a simple matter for Hydro-Man to leak outside the box and escape.

Hydro-Man was in a restaurant known as the Le Grande Pad, pelting the customers and waiters with water blasts and aqua fists!

"Havin' a good time, robber barons, daddy's boys, goldiggas?" laughed Hydro-Man as the various people he was insulted fled the restaurant in terror.

A few security guards took shots at Hydro-Man, but the bullets passed through him like the water he was partially made of.

"Sorry fellas," gloated Hydro-Man, "But you can't stop me no more than you can stop heavy currents, waterfalls, or your need to sleep." He made that last point by extending his arms to knock out the guards.

Hydro-Man walked over to the cash register and forced it open. Plenty of cash. But it was not the money that interested Hydro-Man the most. It was fun.

The Punisher's perspective:

The Punisher arrived at the Le Grande Pad and his navicomputer showed him a car speeding away. The Punisher eventually caught up to the car but was surprised when it stopped. Punisher hit the brakes as well.

A man exited the getaway car with a sack, presumably containing stolen money. This man gave The Punisher a "c'mere" gesture with his free hand.

Punisher came out with an automatic shotgun strapped to his back. He held an assault rifle in his hands.

"What are you plannin' on doin' with that?" asked the robber. The Punisher paused. Was this man suicidal? Or was he up to something?

The Punisher let loose with bullets into his opponent. No effect.

"That your best shots?" asked his opponent. "Here's mine."

The Punisher was knocked over by a blast of water. This blast pinned him to the ground after that, and was drowning him. Straining every muscle, The Punisher was barely able to escape the blast. Despite a bit a fatigue, he knew to quickly draw his auto shotgun and fire. This seemed to destroy his opponent from the waist up. For some reason, the disembodied lower half of his body still stood. Watching the body reform itself seconds later explained why.

"Now you've gone and made me mad," said the super-criminal before extending an arm to punch The Punisher.

Spider-Man's perspective:

The Amazing Spider-Man had finished his first bust of the day when MJ had warned him by phone that Hydro-Man had terrorized a restaurant. Tracking him down led The Web-Slinger to see him and The Punisher slugging it out.

Spider-Man paused for just a second. While many considered The Punisher to be one of the good guys, Spidey had too many ethical issues with how he did business to agree. So Spider-Man considered just watching until there was a winner. Fortunately for The Punisher, he was not that kind of person.

But unbeknownst to The Punisher, Hydro-Man was invulnerable. The only chance was to shock him. So Spidey carefully gauged the street and walked over to the right place before punching into the ground. As he expected, there were cables to grab.

After tearing the cables apart, Spider-Man dived at Hydro-Man with them and gave him a jolt. Unfortunately, he had seen this coming just in time to start moving before the electricity struck. His movement enabled him to avoid a square touching of the cables. He was still weakened enough to be persuaded to get his bag of money and run.

Spider-Man checked on The Punisher. "I'm fine," said the man in black. "What I want to know is why you let him go?"

"I thought you might be hurt," said Spider-Man.

"You thought wrong," frowned Punisher. "Now he's going to cause more trouble. All because despite your past experience to the contrary, you assumed that just because I'm not a freak means I have to be babysat."

Some gratitude. I'm regretting saving him already.

"Would you prefer I hadn't come at all?" asked Spider-Man.

"I see your point," The Punisher softened his expression just a little. "I'll go a step further. I apologize for the overreaction. Perhaps we can stop him together."

"That's better," Spider-Man smiled under his mask.

Hydro-Man's perspective:

Hydro-Man was a few blocks away. He blasted away in a rage. He had been humiliated. Ever since he had become Hydro-Man, his reputation for toughness had been of greater importance to him, yet he had run away.

The worst part was that he felt that he could have taken Spider-Man and The Punisher by himself if The Wall-Crawler had not done what Hydro-Man considered to be cheating. Hydro-Man would show them what it was like to mess with him.

Spider-Man's perspective:

Spider-Man and The Punisher were in the armored car after Spider-Man had explained Hydro-Man fully to The Punisher. Punisher looked at his navicomputer. "I thought finding him might be a challenge, but it looks like he's not far away." The Punisher pointed to a lone man not too far from the crimefighters.

"How can you be..." Spider-Man then corrected himself: "...No, anyone else wouldn't stick around this close to the destruction Hydro-Man's been causing. He's waiting for us"

"So the easy part's over," said The Punisher. "Can we stop him?"

"I just beat him once with electricity," said Spider-Man.

The Punisher shook his head. "He'll be prepared next time."

"He's not that smart," Spidey grinned under his mask.

"I wouldn't bet on it," cautioned Punisher. "I know these blue collar guys. I was a marine. They may not be intellectually bright, but they do have sharp instincts. We need another way." He paused, then offered, "Don't smaller bodies of water dry up over time?"

"Yeah," said Spider-Man. Being a scientist, he would know. "But Hydro-Man is a large mass of water."

"But he's used a lot of it," said The Punisher.

"Yeah, he has," Spider-Man got the point. "And knowing him, my humiliating him's gotten him to expend even more of his watery substance to make up for his bruised ego."

The cold-hearted Punisher showed no sign that found that funny. "I've got a napalm gun. I think I can take him down with that, but he'll have to wear himself out some more first."

Spider-Man's heart sank. "You mean we've gotta take him head-on?"

"I'm afraid so," confirmed The Punisher. "The napalm gun has to work right away or he'll knock it away and destroy it."

"In that case," Spider-Man decided the timing may be now or never to ask the question he had been saving: "Mind if I asked you what it was like to see your wife give birth?"

"As a matter of fact," frowned The Punisher, "I do."

Twenty-two seconds passed with no movement or words from either. "It was the happiest day of Frank Castle's life," said Punisher. "I would give anything to get that back. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yeah," said Spider-Man. They raced to the spot the navicomputer showed to be Hydro-Man's location.

Sure enough, Hydro-Man seemed to have waited for them. "Took you bums long enough!"

"Hey," quipped Spidey, "Better late and prepared than on time and unprepared."

The Punisher took a shot with his automatic shotgun. This time Hydro-Man was not even momentarily affected. Spider-Man chose to deviate from the plan. The Punisher admitted that it was iffy. So The Web-Slinger punched his fist into the ground again to rip out some wiring. This time he needed to be on-target to shock Hydro-Man into unconsciousness.

Or not. A Spider-Sense warning enabled Spider-Man to toss the cables just before a water blast floored him. Otherwise, he would have been a living light show. The water blast had been separated from Hydro-Man's body, but stunning Spider-Man enabled him to follow up with a continuous blast.

A shot from The Punisher lopped off the blasting hand to free Spidey. "You all right, Spider-Man?" asked Punisher.

"Yeah," Spider-Man recovered. So it was back to plan A.

"Not for long," said Hydro-Man. "I hate how bad you made me look. Prepare to die." He increased to the size of his fists and extended both toward his opponents. Spider-Man dodged three times. The Punisher was hit on the third try.

"You OK?" asked Spider-Man, running towards The Punisher.

"Yeah," said The Punisher. He lowered his voice to a whisper to explain, "Body armor."

"I'll give you guys credit," said Hydro-Man. "You don't go down easy. But I don't go down at all. And Punisher, I don't think you know this, but I can turn into anything." Hydro-Man demonstrated by transforming into a large watery lion and spraying water on Spider-Man and The Punisher.

"Good thing he seems to want to show off," whispered Spider-Man, "Because I don't think we could otherwise last much longer if he shot to kill. And, yes, it's ironic of me to talk about showing off."

"Don't panic," advised The Punisher quietly. "I think he's starting to tire."

"Wishful thinking?"

"I told you about blue collar instinct. Mine tells me that he's wearing himself out... I hope."

Sure enough, after awhile longer of this, Spider-Man felt the force of the water weakening. So he took advantage of this by diving into Hydro-Man to tear him apart.

Of course, this only bought a bit of time. Running back to The Punisher, Spider-Man whispered, "Time for napalm yet?"

"Let's hope so," whispered Punisher. "We won't last much longer." Spider-Man concurred. They were getting soggy from all the water that had hit them.

Hydro-Man reformed. He was huffing and puffing. "That's it. I think it's time to put an end to this."

"Agreed," said The Punisher as he seized his napalm gun.

"Don't you ever learn?" grinned Hydro-Man. "That dumb thing can't hurt me."

"Watch what you say about the lady," warned Spider-Man. "She's got a long memory."

The Punisher blasted Hydro-Man with napalm. He began screaming in pain, something he had not done in years. In time he was reduced to a puddle.

"I think he's dead," Spider-Man lied. His Spider-Sense told him different, but he had no desire to have to stop The Punisher from killing. "We did it."

"Take care of your child when you take off that mask, Spider-Man," urged The Punisher. "You'll be ashamed for the rest of your life if your boy or girl dies before you."

"I only asked about your kids out of curiosity," Spider-Man attempted a cover story.

"Sure you did," said an unconvinced Punisher.