If it had been anyone else in his incredibly stylish spider-boots they'd have been in danger of serious injury when crashing through a window like this. The moulding would have broken bones and the glass would have left them lacerated and possibly bleeding out… this wasn't a movie after all. It was him though, so when he punched through the fixture like it was so much tissue paper he knew the pain from going through the frame would pass quickly, and though he could feel the sharp edges slice through his suit and skin he knew that the bleeding would stop almost instantly. His costume, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. If he had lost much more of it he'd look like he was wearing an off-brand 'Sexy Arachnid-Guy' halloween costume.

It would have been nice if it had stopped there, if he passed through the window and quickly fell to the floor in a roll, ready to find his feet again and launch right back outside, but that wasn't happening. Spider-Man's momentum carried him all the way to the long dining room table decorated in celebration of Nana's 89th birthday. He slid along the table taking the cloth covering festooned with candle and cake designs with him. With some effort he managed to get himself stuck to the table which lurched forward as it threatened to pull his arm free of his shoulder.

Nobody screamed, the entire room of about twenty people simply stared in shock as he sat up rubbing at his shoulder. He felt something squish beneath his rear as he positioned himself to stand, causing him to grimace with the realization that although Nana might have one hell of a story to tell, she no longer had a cake. No one was hurt thankfully, the lurching table hadn't creamed any innocent octogenarians since nobody had been at the head of the table, but there was a woman seated nearby glaring balefully at him with a face so craggy he wouldn't have needed spider powers to climb it.

"You Nana?" He assumed. Morlun had seemingly disappeared for the moment, a little bit of apology while he let his head clear couldn't hurt, could it?

"No." Her voice was a warped violin, tremoring and discordant. "That is Nana." She pointed with a crooked finger to a tiny woman with her slender shoulders wrapped in a shawl, clearly delicate, but her eyes were wide and bright with excitement. He walked towards her, keeping an eye on the window in case his new 'friend' decided to make an appearance. Another woman, younger this time, with the face of someone who had just bitten into a lemon rose to her feet as if to guard her against this ragged ruffian who had quite literally just crashed their party but was shushed and waved away by the guest of honor herself.

"Hey, Nana." He was trying to inconspicuously stretch his knee, he'd pulled something in the tumble and if he didn't take care of it now he knew it would only get worse. "I am really sorry about this. There's a guy out there and he threw me and I am super glad nobody got hurt but wow I feel terrible about dropping in like this and-" Nana cut him off with a high-pitched laugh that put him in mind of the Wicked Witch of The West and a smile like Dorothy's.

"Son, if this is my last year on earth then you just made it for me. The only thing that would make it better is if you started a little dance number." She slapped a knee, pleased with herself as she watched Spider-Man self-consciously rub at his midriff where his costume had been torn away. "Would you believe I let these old fogies talk me into playing bridge and drinking mimosas all day?" She scoffed at the idea, "I might be old but I ain't dead enough to enjoy that just yet!"

The craggy faced woman he'd mistaken for Nana chimed in, unbidden. "Oh, come now, Nana, you love bridge!"

"I'd love it if you stopped being so damned boring, Mavis." She shooed a shocked-looking Mavis away, "Now get out of here, you're ruining the mood. The night's almost over and I'm trying to bag myself a bonafide superhero."

Peter was as impressed with the old woman's attitude as he was horrified by what she was saying. "Nana, I want you to keep going on with your bad self but you'll be going alone, I don't think my wi-" She was a cool old lady, but giving away too much information wouldn't do anybody any favors. "... Partner would appreciate me leaving her like that." He'd still said too much, he must have taken a harder knock than he'd figured.

"Well ain't that just a shame," Her laugh was a creaky door hinge. "We coulda been beautiful, kid. We coulda been beautiful."

Peter was about to reply with some witty rejoinder praising her beauty and wit but a shape moved outside the broken window and it clicked in his mind that the keening of emergency sirens had been getting steadily closer since just after he'd burst through the window. As reality crashed back into harsh focus he realized that he was wasting time here and being in this room put every woman's life in danger, even Prune-face's. Wordlessly, he walked to the window he'd entered through and looked outside, searching for any sign of Morlun but there was nothing. Had he just imagined the movement out there?

Peter realized that he was looking out onto the wrong street when a crash came from the other side of the room as Morlun revealed himself through the opposite window, almost looking like he was crouching as he expertly leapt through it without so much as brushing the moulding.

"You bring tragedy to all you meet." Almost casually he snatched a woman by the shoulder as she turned to flee from his entrance, her face contorted in pain as he tightened his grip to keep her from running. "Just as you have today." His eyes started to burn red. "I require sustenance, and if you will not give yourself to me then I will find it elsewhere." An elongated croak escaped from her lips as a shimmering, the kind you saw on the pavement on really hot days, appeared where his hand was clamped around her and started travelling up his arm. Spider-Man didn't know what he was talking about, didn't know what he was doing, but one thing he was certain of was that this wasn't good.

In a flash he was across the room, a dropkick from almost ten feet away connected with Morlun's chest as he went after the man's fingers in an effort to pry them away from his captive's shoulder. He'd expected more resistance, a struggle, not for the fingers to peel away this easily and for Morlun to go right back out the way he came in. He more than brushed the frame this time. Not wanting to give the guy even a second to get back in here and put more people in danger he followed, managing to land another punch as he saw the crimson fade away from behind Morlun's eyes. Amazingly it had an effect, Peter could see the nose he connected with compress like it was the car in the driver's safety video he'd been forced to watch in high school, spraying blood down Morlun's face and all over Peter's gloved hand. Morlun cried out in a voice like a tectonic plate, deep and grinding and earth-shaking, before lashing out wildly with the back of his hand and sending Spider-Man rolling for a good thirty feet.

Spider-Man was quick to jump back onto his feet, ready to press his advantage and keep the pressure up. He'd finally drawn some blood, it would be a good idea to keep doing that until Morlun stopped fighting, but as fast as he was ready, Morlun was gone without a trace. He looked up, down, and side to side, a high-stakes game of Where's Waldo, but Morlun was nowhere to be found.

"What's the matter, big guy?!" Disappointment bubbled in his gut with the knowledge that Morlun had run off the moment he'd started to make a dent in him. "Can't take a punch?!"

The police were almost here, paramedics would hopefully be along with them. It was time for Peter to make his exit. He leapt upwards, swinging away from the paperwork and irritating questions but not before throwing a regretful look behind his shoulder.

"Happy Birthday, Nana."

—

Morlun was feeling sensations that were new to him or, if not new to him, then old beyond even his vast memory. A burning lingered deep inside his chest and if he sat and allowed it to wash over him he could feel his teeth clench together and his hands follow suit, curling up into tight fists capped with whitened knuckles. It wasn't familiar but it also wasn't unpleasant. If he could harness this feeling, let it drive him forward, he'd be able to do anything he wanted. Even teach the errant spider he'd been hunting just how futile his fighting was. He wondered if anybody had ever felt this way before he had.

There was another sensation though, and this one was as far from pleasant as could be. It was all hot and cold at the same time, pulsing in time with the same rhythm that he let lull him into his endless sleep. It was in his chest, his head and back, his face. His face, Morlun felt hot air slip between his teeth as he gently prodded at his refined nose, larger now than it had been, and far more delicate. Breakable, even. Morlun remembered something another prey animal had said as Morlun sat next to him, drinking the life energy away from his broken body as it lay on some dirty road. They had spoken in different tongues then, but the meaning was conveyed all the same.

It hurts.

Morlun had never been hurt before, had never been struck hard enough or cut deep enough to feel more than a passing acknowledgement that it had happened, but now he hurt. Morlun was almost grateful to The Spider for having brought this new old thing to him, but still, The Spider would experience it many times over. Morlun had never been wrathful before, but the other sensation, the one that caused his lip to curl into something he was unable to recognize as a snarl, drove him to be so now. It would no longer be enough to simply break the avatar's spirit so he could devour his essence, he would make him beg for every last piece of The Spider to be ripped from him, would make him express his regret for having made Morlun wait so long to feed. Then, in his mercy, Morlun would finally devour everything that the avatar had ever been. Something trickled down Morlun's lip, when he went to wipe it his hand came away red, something else new to him.

"Count your final moments, Avatar," The unrecognized snarl curled upwards into a smile. "You'll soon come to curse them."

—

Spider-Man wasn't entirely sure what time it was when he finally crawled through the window into Peter Parker's run-down apartment. That wasn't all that unusual, he'd had a lot of late nights while living here doing everything he could to keep his mind off of Mary Jane and what she was doing. What was unusual was how he didn't even bother to take a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, and how instead of dropping gently to the floor as to avoid drawing any more attention from his neighbors than was necessary he collapsed halfway inside as whatever fumes he was running on finally gave out.

He wanted to lay there and breathe, slowly in, slowly out, for just a few minutes. Just stay right here on the floor and drift off and deal with all of these problems whenever his internal clock decided it was time for him to do so. It would be too early, it always was, there were never enough minutes in the day for Peter Parker to deal with work, with friends, with lovers, and, god forbid, sleep. That's what he was going to do, he decided, he was going to sleep until there was no more to be had and whatever happened in those hours happened. Through the floor below him he could hear Mrs. Baker had clicked her television on, it was loud, for some reason people were actually laughing along with Jimmy Kimmel instead of at him. He must already be sleeping then, because that was too absurd for reality. What would he dream of next?

His eyes snapped open, he didn't need a mirror to know they were bloodshot. Kimmel was on, it sounded like his show was coming to an end. He didn't watch a lot of television, especially the awful late night stuff, but he knew that meant it was almost half-past midnight. Grunting in frustration that he just didn't have the time he needed, either now or ever, he grabbed the closest thing at hand and threw it. It was with some sadness that he saw it had been a handful of raspberry cookies from Ezekiel's gift basket he sent sailing through the open window and out into the night sky. He spent a few seconds punching angrily at the open air before finally pushing himself up to his feet again. The pity party and a nice, long sleep were coming to him, he was owed it, but now wasn't the time for that.

Now it was time to get to work.

First thing to do was take inventory: The costume was definitely a write-off, he knew his way around a thread and needle thanks to his Aunt impressing on him just how a sewing ability could come in handy for a man, but he wasn't a miracle worker. Off came what was left of the mask, really just a funny hat with integrated goggles at this point, followed by the gloves and shirt that were both shredded almost beyond recognition, and finally the boots and tights. The boots seemed like they'd live to see another day, but there were a number of long tears in the tights that would only widen further with more stretching. The boots stayed on the floor while the rest of it was bagged up together, he knew he'd need to burn them to minimize anyone else getting their hands on them but that could come later.

There was a tiny pin-prick sized LED flashing red on his web-shooters letting him know that they were basically tapped on fluid, it was a miracle he'd even made it home in all honesty. He slotted a new web cartridge in and gave it a visual inspection. They were scuffed and scratched but still seemed in working order, that much was good at least. Groaning, he bent down and untied the bag he'd haphazardly stuffed the shredded uniform into, giving a quick test fire into the bundled fabric with each unit. There was the satisfying THWIP noise and a good hard impact from both, neither flow nor velocity had been affected, or if it had then not to an extent he could notice without tools to measure them.

Now that he knew his gear was in working order, he pulled a spare uniform from the false wall he'd built into the closet when he'd first moved in on one of his good weeks, and chucked it on the couch. He could air out a little first, he wasn't rushing off headlong into danger this time, doing so had a time and place but this entire situation called for a bit of thinking. He lifted his arm and tilted his head, giving a sniff, actually airing out might not be enough, he was going to need a shower. He stood there for a moment, staring at the drawn blinds as he wondered if he had time for one right now before deciding it might help him clear his head too. He set up his drip coffee maker and set it brewing before heading into the shower for a bit of scrubbing and a lot of thinking.

When he emerged fifteen minutes later, smelling more like a masculine Irish waterfall and less like sweat and wet copper he still didn't have a plan, but he had a good idea of where he could start. For the second time he pulled the bagged bundle of clothing up and opened it, sifting through dirty clothes and dried webbing until he found what he was looking for: His glove, stained with blood the color of old rust. Gently, he touched a finger to it, grimacing as it came away tacky. It hadn't dried completely, good. Now he had things to look for.

His eyes widened as he looked around the apartment and the various nondescript cardboard boxes, all unlabelled, stared back at him accusatory. He'd had a plan when he'd started packing these all up, the things he'd bothered to unpack during his time here anyway, hadn't he? That was before a building fell on him and he met the proverbial immovable object though, before he'd signed the rights to a Spider-Man movie away, before- Before everything, it felt like. How could he be expected to remember everything now?

At first he tried to be gentle, going box to box and giving each a light shake in turn, trying to gauge how heavy a box with a microscope in it would be, how much it would rattle. Unfortunately for him most of them were on the heavy side and rattled a lot, each one having multiple items thrown into it and none very delicately packed. He hadn't had a plan at all when he'd started, had he? The time for kid gloves was over, he started tearing boxes open, throwing the soft stuff wherever it landed and doing his best to be a little more gentle with the heavier, more breakable things. There was a crash of glass behind him, he snapped around, expecting to see Morlun, or Scorpion, or Rhino, or some other stupid person he was going to have to punch and punch and punch until one of them couldn't fight anymore, then winced when he saw that it was a small snowglobe his Aunt May had given him maybe eight years ago. Okay, he'd have to be a little bit more gentle with the breakables than that, he supposed.

Despite his resolution to be more gentle with the contents of the boxes, the apartment still looked like a tornado had dragged the contents of an entire Louisiana trailer park inside within twenty minutes. His entire life, close to 30 something years of belongings and experience, covered the floor, the counter, the couch alongside other, now empty boxes. Trying to make his way around was like walking through a minefield, but instead of exploding in a puff of shrapnel and mist, he'd break something that was somehow important to him. At least he'd managed to avoid breaking any more snowglobes. The thing he was looking for was, of course, the box he'd left for last. For a moment he'd worried that maybe it had already been moved out or been thrown away or disappeared into that strange dimension that things tend to disappear into when you're moving, but no, he'd found it tucked safely in a hard case and cushioned by clothes he hadn't worn for a decade: His microscope.

It was a hobbyist model that had run him just shy of $500, not the most expensive piece of equipment he'd ever used, but it still had a hell of a magnification range. He pulled it all to the kitchen counter, where the bloody glove still sat limply, and cleared a space to set it up. He carefully scraped some of the blood from the glove, watching it chip away in small sheets, onto a specially prepared slide and hoped none of the chemicals he was using were too expired. After casting one last suspicious look around the apartment to make sure there were no lurking superhumans waiting to lunge at him while his attention was otherwise occupied, he flicked the unit's lights on, smiling in satisfaction when the bulb sprang to life. The thing still had it, and one way or another he was going to prove that he did too.

Now this was interesting. Peter had been expecting that there would be more than just standard human blood cells showing up, after all he wasn't only dealing with an unstoppable, superhuman tank of a man with an arm like Roger Clemens at his best, but had also been swinging through the city, so he'd been ready for general contamination in the blood sample. He had not been expecting every single cell to be dancing around like this, blood cells should only last outside the body for a maximum of about two hours, and while he was pretty sure it had been longer than that since he'd finally landed a solid hit on Morlun, he'd still expect some if not most of them to die by now. But no, they were not only moving around quickly and angrily, as if they were on the hunt for something, that was the only living thing he could see. You'd typically see some kind of microbe or bacterium swimming through the shifting soup he was looking at, but there was nothing. Just the blood and some non-organic pieces of detritus like dirt. Had the city suddenly gotten very fastidious about the air quality? He doubted that. There had to be something else at play.

Eyes still pressed to the eyepiece, he felt around in a small leather pouch that had been packed along with the scope until he found what he was looking for: A long, narrow stainless steel probe. Casually, although with a touch of shame, he ran it across the countertop. He knew there'd be no shortage of microscopic life there, cleaning had never really been on the forefront of his mind while living here. Slowly, carefully, he lifted the plate and tapped the probe against the glass slide, spreading filth with each tap, then returned his eyes to the viewfinder, stifling a gasp as he watched something both amazing and terrifying take place.

Initially they all just sat there, floating in their chemical soup as though it were some kind of lazy river at the world's tiniest water park, until one of the little lifeforms made the mistake of getting too close to a blood cell. Just a single blood cell, but almost as one they all converged on it, there was a flash of red light, faintly visible even against the bright bulb the microscope used, and then the bacterium... deflated, until it had shrunk down to nothing. Peter's mouth hung open in shock as he watched the now visibly buzzing blood cells turn as one and spread across the slide until they found more bacteria to, there was no other word for it, feed on. These tiny, undying blood cells, completely independent of the body that had spawned them, were hunting.

Peter had no idea what to make of this, with how hard it had been to hurt Morlun physically and now finding out that hardiness not only made its way down to the cellular level, but also that his instincts as a hunter did as well? How do you deal with that? He spun around on the flat bar stool, leaving the microscope and its bad news behind him and rubbed at his eyes.

"Okay, Pete, this is fine. This is new, but it's fine." Steeling himself, he slid back around and stuck his face back into the microscope. Okay, if the blood was weird then it was time to find out what made it that way. He had a feeling that this wasn't a fight he could win on nothing but speed and brute strength. Luckily he had more going for him than that. He was preparing to zoom in further when a realization hit him: This blood wasn't human, not entirely. There were clearly human cells there of course, swimming merrily to and fro, but there were others that were larger, smaller, shaped somewhat differently, some of them even looked like… His eyes went wide, he'd spent enough time doing practical in college to know that those were definitely frog blood cells. There, he was certain, was pigeon and turtle as well as numerous other types of animals all floating in harmony…

He'd noted the lack of uniformity before, but had dismissed it as much less important than the fact that the little bastards were still alive, but this had been staring him in the face the entire time. He was tired, but he was certain he'd remember if he'd punched a fish recently, but sure enough, there were fish blood cells in there too. He leaned back fast enough that he had to scramble not to fall off the backless bar stool and laughed to himself. No wonder this guy seemed like such a superhuman, he wasn't actually human at all, at least not entirely.

The why and how of that could wait, he had the blood, he knew it was hardy, but now it was time to figure out how to make it less so. He turned and rummaged through a bag that had been packed away with the microscope, hearing the various glass bottles clink against each other as he pulled them out one by one until he found the one he was looking for: 91% isopropyl alcohol. For a moment he was worried whether or not it would still be any good, having been packed away for so long, but the slight struggle even he had getting the bottle open followed by the strong scent of cleaning supplies that assaulted him put him slightly more at ease as he sucked some up in a small eyedropper and introduced it to the sample.

Returning his eye once again to see what happened, he was somewhat disappointed to see that nothing had changed at all, the teeming cells may as well have been swimming through plain water for as much damage as the alcohol did to them. He bit his lower lip as he let an idea marinate, normal blood cells would have started to pop by now, but he already knew that this was not a normal situation, not even for him. He also knew that he hadn't even managed to get Morlun to so much as flinch until he'd started doing the spooky glowing thing, just like the microscopic blood cells had done when they'd devoured the other tiny life around them. A word sprung to his mind unbidden, 'Consume', and with it came an idea.

He really hoped this was going somewhere, he glanced up from his work and read the clock, he'd already been at this for longer than he was comfortable with. He knew Morlun could track him even if he didn't understand the mechanics behind it, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he showed up again. He reached the metal probe and swirled it around again on the countertop, then returned his eye to his work again, bringing his zoom out and refocusing before he brought the tip of the probe in, trying to keep his hand as steady as possible. There it was again: The flash of crimson and the uniform swarming towards a meal, but this time things were different. The blood cells movement through the alcohol slowed then stopped entirely, then they began to discolor, changing from bright red to a rusty brown that seeped out of them and into the surrounding fluid before, apparently, dying entirely.

He leaned back and stretched, smiling triumphantly as he fought the urge to shout his success at the top of his lungs. It was possible that he'd just found a path towards victory, but he knew he wasn't there quite yet. Besides that, Mrs. Baker on the next floor didn't appreciate raised voices and he was already worried that her broom would burst through his floor after the last time he'd gotten excited. He stopped himself from falling backwards off the chair and cursed himself for buying stools without backs, vowing never to buy another one no matter how good a deal the flea market vendor offered him. Steadied, he drummed his fingers on the countertop, stopping when he remembered how many germs he'd managed to pick up off of it with a few scrapes of the probe and went over what he had.

There was something about Morlun, whether mere physiology or something more esoteric, that made him impossible to damage unless he was… He thought back to the way the microbes had simply sucked the nutrients from the other microbes until they resembled nothing more than dried husks, remembered the feeling he'd had of having everything he was drained away by the taller man, what else could it be but feeding? Of course once he was feeding he was open to attack, but if all he had to do to revert back to a state of invulnerability as to stop feeding then it was nothing more than a waiting game for him, wasn't it? If Peter was only going to be able to get one or two shots on the guy then he'd have to make them count. Morlun hadn't shown his face again yet but it was up in the air whether he was taking time to heal or if he already had and was already on his way here. He'd been able to track him down at will, even when he was bumming on a rooftop. He knew he wasn't bugged, he'd run the RF detector he'd unearthed in his frantic microscope search over himself and the bag of ragged clothes twice, nothing triggered it. Maybe it had been the Spider-Phone, but if it had been then Morlun had discarded that little trick when he'd crushed it, and while he wasn't exactly fond of the guy he didn't think he was stupid. There had to be some other method he was using, some non-traditional method of tracking that could lead right to Peter that he just wasn't seeing. Morlun could be outside at this moment just waiting for the right moment to strike, when he was getting ready to shower, sleep, talk to someone, or maybe even right…

NOW!

Peter spun, getting ready for the door to be kicked down and reveal the pale, imposingly tall brawler but there was nothing. He shook his head and wished more than anything right now that his spider-sense was working again. With it he had the reaction of a hummingbird on speed, without it he was just jumpy. It didn't help that he didn't know what he was dealing with. Morlun was fixated on him, he'd learned that much, but what would happen if he won out? Would he be the dog who finally caught the car, unsure of what to do next? Or would he find a new obsession, someone else to follow to the ends of the earth until that one was dead, and then on to the next and on and on… He knew someone smarter than him would probably take care of him eventually, lock him in a pocket dimension or trap him in stasis or something that Peter just didn't have the resources or time to deal with right now, but how many would die before that? And not just die but be consumed by a 7 foot tall man with, he had to admit, really solid fashion sense. If he only had one or two hits before Morlun clammed up again, Peter couldn't just hope they were hard enough and let it go at that, he'd have to make sure that they left a lasting effect on him. Something that would make him really think twice about nipping out for a snack ever again. Somehow, he didn't think rubbing alcohol was going to do the trick here but he had something in mind that just might. It definitely didn't evaporate as quickly.

He turned to the computer and brought up a new browser window, while he only had one item on his shopping list it wasn't the kind of thing you could pick up at Wegmans.

It took him less time to find what he was looking for which, while helpful right now in this very specific moment, did leave him a little bit worried. He was dressed again now, the lights were off and it was time to look both ways before hurling himself out the window, but as he was getting ready for his leap a breaking news alert sounded from Mrs. Baker's television downstairs. It was muffled, but he managed to glean the gist of it: A tall, pale man had taken hostages at a bar just outside of Queens demanding that Spider-Man show himself. Peter clenched his jaw, Morlun hadn't exactly tried to limit casualties but he hadn't gone out of his way to cause them either, this behavior was new. Obviously breaking his nose had changed their dynamic and not for the better. He sighed, leaned out the window to make sure no bystanders were looking upwards, then pulled on his mask and jumped. This was a snag and it was timed awfully, but at least it was on the way to his destination.