Hello, friends! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! For Christmas this year, Santa Tweak-23 brings you a NEW CHAPTER! Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this, I really do. We're getting close to the end of this one here, friends, so get ready for some more chapters to be coming quick and fast. As always, please read and review, as I greatly appreciate it.
Disclaimer: All characters owned by Marvel.
Chapter Seventeen
"I don't like this, Stephen," Carol said, her eyes locked on May at the elevator, the older woman pacing with a cell phone.
"Which part?" Strange asked, his arms crossed over his chest. The golden eye medallion glinted in the tower's fluorescent lights, his flowing red cloak floating over a chair in the corner.
"She's a civilian," Carol replied.
Strange cocked an eyebrow. "And May isn't?"
"Not like this."
"Like what?"
Carol sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We don't know what she knows," she said. "She might have known everything. Or nothing." Carol gestured toward the elevator, her voice raising in volume. "The less she knows, the more we're revealing. This is not a stupid woman, Stephen."
The elevator dinged, and May reached down to shake hands with their guest. The pair conversed for a moment before stepping through the double glass doors of the conference room and approaching Carol and Strange.
"Anna Maria Marconi," May said, extending her hand in a wide, inclusive arch, "This is Dr. Stephen Strange, and Captain Marvel."
Strange gripped Anna Maria's hand. "Miss Marconi."
"Doctor Marconi," she replied.
"Ah," Strange said, releasing her hand. "Doctor. My apologies."
Anna Maria turned to Carol, her hand extended. "Ms. Danvers," she said.
Carol's lips twitched upward. She knew this was a mistake. Her gloved hand wrapped around Anna Maria's, careful of how much pressure she exerted. "Nice to see you again," she said.
They separated; Anna Maria unbuttoned and removed her coat. "I'd say I almost didn't recognize you, but…"
She trailed off, walking past the heroes to place her coat on the wooden table. "Don't worry, May filled me in on everything," she said. "After what Peter told me… it made a lot of sense."
Carol looked to May, but the older woman was watching Anna Maria and Carol couldn't catch her eye. She wouldn't have told her Peter's identity. There's no way.
"I mean, Peter's been missing for over a month," Anna Maria continued. "And Spidey getting nabbed not long after that? It's not a coincidence."
With a sigh, Carol thanked God for Matt Murdock and his ironic sense of foresight. In her panic to find Peter, she'd forgotten that Spider-Man still needed to be seen stopping criminals; Daredevil, however, had not, and had taken one of Peter's spare costumes out into Hell's Kitchen a few times, just so Spidey was still visible.
"Yes, Peter has been working with Spider-Man for some time," May said. "Of course Spider-Man would attempt to find him. They're friends."
"And get caught by what's left of the Sinister Six in the process," Anna Maria said. She pulled a chair from the table and sat down. "So I hear you have something for me to look at? I don't know how much help I can be, though."
May stepped forward, dropping copied pages from the back of Octavius's journal. She spread them out with her fingers, showing three. "I thought you might recognize these," she said.
Anna Maria picked up the top page, scanning the writing with her fingers. "This is my short-hand," she said.
Strange approached them, looking over Anna Maria's shoulder. "Your what?"
"My short-hand," Anna Maria replied. "I'm a chef in my spare time, but I use physics and chemistry to perfect my recipes. This script is the short-hand from my cookbook."
Carol had to stifle a laugh at the insanity. Their lead from Octavius's little basement of horrors—the one that was supposed to lead them to Peter, that was supposed to help them rescue him—was from a cookbook?
"Give me a little time to translate this," Anna Maria said. "Shouldn't take more than a half an hour."
"If you'll excuse me," Strange said, "I must contact Wong; don't want some dimension-hopping demon to breach our world while I'm busy here, after all." He stepped out of the room, leaving the three women around the table.
Anna Maria scribbled a few words. "How did you notice this, May?" she asked without looking up from her work.
"Oh, surely you recall the dinner you cooked for Jay and…" May paused, swallowing hard against a heavy breath.
Anna Maria set down her pencil. "Oh, May, I'm sorry. I didn't even think—"
"It's alright," May said, raising a hand. "We find my nephew; once Peter is safe, I can grieve."
"Still," Anna Maria said, writing again, "I'm sorry. And yes, I remember the dinner now. You were so adamant about trying to help, but when you looked at my cookbook…"
May laughed. "I said it looked like Peter's work, the kind of thing I couldn't understand even when he was in high school."
The pencil scritched along the paper. "I'm amazed that you recognized this from that glance though," Anna Maria said.
"It wasn't all that," May replied. "Just a guess."
The older woman approached Carol. "I'm going to go lie down," she said. "I suspect that whatever's coming next, I won't be of much use." She walked through the glass door, and Carol was alone in the room with Anna Maria.
Carol pulled out a chair and sat down. The sound of the pencil rang through the room, drowning the hum of flowing air. "I want to thank you for coming in to do this," Carol said, if for no other reason than to interrupt the thrumming.
The pencil kept going. Alright, I guess it's gonna be like that, then. Carol leaned back, crossing her legs and throwing an elbow onto the back of the chair.
Anna Maria's head popped up, and she looked to Carol. "Sorry," she said, "Got lost in the work." She glanced at the paper again before setting the pencil down, then sighed. "I should've recognized you when you came to the apartment that night."
Carol's eyebrows pulled together, and she shook her head.
"There weren't many pictures of the two of you together, but there were a few," Anna Maria said. "Social media lets nothing die, after all."
Carol breathed a quick breath through her nose. "Well, you know…"
"I'm guessing Spidey introduced you?" Anna Maria asked.
In spite of herself, Carol had to smile at the irony. "Yeah, he did."
Anna Maria nodded. "I saw the Bugle story about you heading into space. But again those few pictures… without seeing you in costume, it's just… hard to recognize."
"I get it," Carol said.
"Anyway," Anna Maria said, the pencil gliding across the page again, "This was the least I could do. Really." Another few moments passed, the two sitting in silence. "I guess this has been kind of difficult for you, too," she continued. "First your old boyfriend going missing, then your teammate."
Carol sighed. "Spidey's more than a teammate. He's my friend. But yeah."
Anna Maria wrote on, setting the first copied page to the side. "I met Spider-Man a few times, briefly. He saved my life once. Peter—" she cut herself off, dropping the pencil again to twist her wrist a few times. "Octavius, I suppose, mentioned him occasionally as well, though it was always with praise, strangely."
If she keeps going down this road, she might start to figure it out. "He was playing the role, probably. Peter's been making gear for Spidey since they were in high school. He couldn't just change his perspective on a whim."
"But he could've sabotaged the equipment," Anna Maria said. "Put a bomb in Spidey's web-shooters or something."
Crap crap crap crap… "With forensics like ours? Tony would've noticed something like that in a metallic heartbeat."
Anna Maria settled back into her chair, her eyes turned back to her translations. "I guess you're right," she said.
Carol pushed another sigh through her nose. She slid the finished page across the polished wood and held it up—something for her hands to do, so her brain wouldn't have to. She knew that Peter had been gone long enough that any hope of his survival was gasping for air. The only chance was in Octavius's obsession; even with Peter's televised torture a week prior, the only thing that could possibly keeping him alive was Doc Ock's desire for Peter's suffering before dying. Jay's death was evidence enough.
The fact that their only lead was from out of a cookbook, well…
"This is impressive," Carol said, setting the paper back on the table. "You said you're a chef?"
Anna Maria hummed an affirmative. "It's a hobby. I'm a scientist at heart, but I love food." She set the second paper to the side, sliding over the final one.
Carol gave a light laugh. "I always wished I could cook; I never learned. Peter and I were both big junk foodies—I'm pretty sure we kept Jake's hot dog stand on 38th in business during the winter last year."
A small laugh rose from the other woman, and Carol was surprised at how genuine it sounded. Her smile faded, however, as Anna Maria's fingers traced over the words she'd written and her eyes seemed to stare through the table. "I wish I could've known him," she said. "The real him, I mean. From everything I've heard, from May, and you, and even some of our employees who used to work with him at Horizon, he was a great person." Her hand moved from her translations to the copied pages of the journal. "Not someone who was capable of… all this."
In that moment, Carol realized what had happened to Anna Maria. Yes, Peter had been taken, and Carol had lost the man she cared for.
But for Anna Maria, the man she cared for had never been there at all. She had believed herself tutoring Peter Parker, cooking dinners with Peter Parker, having sex with Peter Parker.
All a lie.
Anna Maria was just as much a victim of Octavius as Peter was.
Carol reached across the table and took her hand. "I'm sorry for what happened," she said.
"Hey, don't worry about me," Anna Maria said, her smile half-hearted but warm. "I'll survive."
"You're going to do more than that," Carol said, giving her hand a squeeze. "You're going to live."
Anna Maria looked away for a moment, then turned back to the pages. She wrote another few lines, then slid her translations across the table. "There," she said. "It's finished, though I can't say what it is. I mean, it looks like a grocery list to me."
"Grocery list?" Carol asked, taking the paper from her.
"Yeah," Anna Maria said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, "A grocery list for some serious construction."
Carol looked down at the translations. Heavy duty concrete and steel, thick glass, powerful adhesive sealants; Octavius was definitely building something, but she had no idea what. "Well, if he's doing construction," Carol said, "Then it's fortunate we have an expert on hand."
XXXXXX
Fifteen minutes later Carol was standing in the workshop with Strange, Jessica, Cage, Thor, May and Anna Maria, watching Tony fiddle with a holograph of the various components in Octavius's list. "This doesn't make any sense," Tony said, tossing another pile of translucent hard light concrete into the corner. "There must be more to the list or something, because there is not enough material here to build anything substantial."
"What could it be used for?" Jessica asked.
Tony ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his head. "I'm not entirely sure," he said, the hand in his hair flopping back down to his side. "The glass implies some kind of windows, but its thickness—the materials used to make it—it's more than bulletproof." He gestured to the holographic rectangles in the corner. "I'd say he was putting it in some kind of vehicle if it weren't for the concrete. I don't know where that stuff fits in."
Anna Maria approached the blocks. "Can you show their chemical makeup?" she asked. The materials appeared before her, blue lines attaching the list of components to one of the translucent blocks. Her hand rested on her chin as she scanned the words, her finger tapping against her bottom lip. "This stuff is dense," she said after a moment. "Looks to be designed to withstand tons of pressure."
"That still doesn't explain why there's so little material," Strange said.
"No, it doesn't," Tony said. "The pessimist in me wants to say Ock built some kind of crazy prison cell, but there's probably too much material for that."
Thor stepped forward, his eyes shifting between the glass and concrete. "What if the villain's design was not to construct," he said, "But to restore?"
Tony's face brightened. "Repairs! Oh my God, he's making repairs!"
With a gesture the holographs disappeared, replaced with a simple list of the components. "Ok, what do we know, what do we know," he said, his voice low. "Concrete, glass, sealants… you said everything was rated for high pressure, right?" he asked, turning to Anna Maria.
"The concrete was, for sure," she said, "I didn't look at the rest, though."
Tony turned back to the hologram. "No big deal, I got it," he said. "Jarvis! Give me chemical breakdown of the glass and adhesive sealant, please."
"Oh, you say 'please' now, sir?" came the A.I.'s accented voice, seemingly from the room itself, as the list of the components' chemical structure appeared.
"Shut up," Tony said.
Anna Maria moved closer, her eyes flashing back and forth over the words. "Same thing here," she said, "rated for high levels of pressure."
"Could mean space," Cage said.
Carol shook her head. "That doesn't feel right. Not for a guy like Ock."
"She's right," Tony said. "These may be pressure treated, but they're not 'vacuum of space' pressure treated."
"And look here," Anna Maria said, pointing to a pair of elements in the adhesive. "These two together would make the adhesive—"
"Water resistant," Tony said. "He's underwater." His fingers flew over holographic keys, and a moment later a map appeared before them, showing the ocean off the coast of Guatemala. "Right around here is the underwater base he was using just before he died," he said.
Thor's grip tightened on Mjolnir's handle. "Where he controlled us," he said.
Tony nodded. "I can check into shipping reports in the area to see if there have been any unusual shipments—"
"That's not it," Carol said.
The group turned to her, Tony's eyebrows pulled together, his mouth agape. "How do you know?" he asked.
Carol stepped forward, her eyes focused on the map. "Jarvis," she said, "Can you pull up the locations of all the known bases used by Doctor Octopus?"
The map changed to a section of the Northern Hemisphere, with several dots in and around the New York area. "How does this help?" Cage asked. "You just pulled the map out, not narrowed it down."
A sigh pushed out of her nose, her lips pressing into a tight line. "Show us the bases in the New York area, please."
Ten to twelve red dots popped up around the five boroughs, most inside Manhattan itself, with one or two in Queens and Brooklyn.
And one sitting in the middle of the East River.
"There," Carol said. "That's the one we're looking for."
Tony glared at the dot like it had offended him. "Where in the hell did that come from?"
"This underwater base was used by Dr. Otto Octavius," Jarvis said, "At the time alias 'Master Planner,' to gather and contain a radioactive substance called 'ISO-36.'"
May gasped, and the group turned to her. "May?" Strange asked.
"That substance," she said, "It saved my life once."
"That was Peter; he—" Carol glanced quickly at Anna Maria. "He figured out that you'd been exposed to some kind of radioactivity, and that ISO-36 could purge you of it. He asked Spider-Man to retrieve it from the 'Master Planner,' who turned out to be Doc Ock."
She remembered when Peter first told her this story. He'd said it was one of the most harrowing and dangerous fights of his early career as Spider-Man, the first time he'd really tested the limits of his powers. The ceiling of the underwater base had collapsed on top of him, the freezing waters of the East River slowly pouring into the room. With the ISO-36 only feet from him, Peter had somehow found the strength—through the increasing water pressure, the cold, and his own growing fatigue—to lift the ceiling and save his aunt.
"It was one of the first times they worked together," Carol finished.
"One question," Tony said, his index finger raised. "What makes you so sure that this is the base we're looking for and not the one Ock's used much more recently?"
Carol pointed to the map. "The transmission," she said, nodding to the map. "When Spidey took out Chameleon. You said you traced it to within the five boroughs, right?"
Tony nodded.
"Well I don't think they'd have moved him too far," she continued. "They probably needed special facilities in order to keep him contained."
Tony stroked at his beard, his lips askew.
"This one is closer," Jessica said. "If it's not the one in the city, we can go check out Guatemala."
The wall behind Tony opened, and he turned around to step into his armor. "All right," he said, "Jarvis, upload the location to my armor. And someone call Steve."
The map changed to a picture of Cap's Avenger's ID card, which was quickly replaced with an image of the man himself. "Have you found him?" Steve asked.
"We think so, Cap," Cage replied. "Everything good out in San Fran?"
"We're just finishing up," Steve said. "I'll get the Quinjet loaded. Where are we meeting you?"
Strange pulled on his coat. "Back at the Tower, Captain," he said. "Spider-Man is still in the city. We believe Doctor Octopus is hiding out in a base beneath the East River."
Steve ran his hand over his chin. "Underwater base, huh? All right. We'll be there as soon as we can."
The image faded, but Carol was already heading for the door. "Carol, wait!" Tony called. "We should wait for the others, go in full force."
Her eyes flashed white-hot, and she snapped back on her heel. "I know where he is, Tony," she said, her voice thick. "And I'm not waiting another second. You can follow me, or wait. I don't care. But I'm getting him back."
Carol flew out through the doors, the glass shattering as they struck the walls.
"Dammit," Tony said. "Everyone into the Quinjet. We're not letting her do this alone."
XXXXXX
Carol thought back to Peter telling her the story. "I found an entrance in a blind alley on the docks, between a pair of warehouses. There was a tile that opened a hidden door in the wall."
But he'd needed his Spider Sense to tell him where to go. And she didn't have one.
So she did what any woman in her situation would do: she smashed the floor in every alley she came across until she found the switch. The dock workers weren't happy, but they could get over it.
The hidden door opened and closed too quickly for her to enter the first time. But now she knew where it was. So she kicked it down. If nothing else, the others would be able to follow her trail of destruction.
Carol bolted down the tunnel. She could feel when she passed beneath the river; the air around her felt tighter, pressing against her like a bandage wrapped too tightly against a wound.
Large metal doors loomed at the end of the corridor, and Carol slammed through with her shoulder, the doors spinning away from the hole she left in the wall.
The room she entered was large and domed, with round vents circling near the top of the dome. A column bisected the room in the center, presumably lending some stability to the structure. Scorch marks and patches of sand marred the metal floor, and webs wisped in the moving air from the vents.
And then she saw Peter. Lying on his side, near the column.
"Oh, no," she said, her voice the sound of metal scraping against concrete. "No, no, no!"
Carol ran. She felt as though the river outside had flooded the room, her legs were so slow, but she ran.
And he was in her arms.
His body was torn and burned, and almost nothing remained of his suit; blood crusted against the side of his head where it had run freely from his ears. He was too gelatinous and stiff at the same time, too there and very much not.
His face was gone. What remained of his mask was blackened and fragile.
"P-Pe…" Carol couldn't say his name through the tears.
Not again. Please, God, not again.
Michael had been stolen by Mystique. Mar-Vell by cancer. Simon by his own ego and ignorance.
And now Peter.
Her hand trembled as she placed it against the side of his face. She rested her forehead against his and let the tears fall uninhibited.
Carol thought back to the day she met him. His face was buried in a computer, and he'd tossed her a "Hello, lady," without looking up from it. She'd only gotten that because Mary Jane had ordered him to.
She'd thought he was a jerk.
Who knew she'd fall in love with him?
A howl tore free of her chest, and it felt like the last sound she'd ever make. Part of her thought that might be okay, to just lie down next to him there on the metal floor and never get up again.
But a much bigger part of her welled up with a fury she'd never known before.
Octavius.
Power barreled through her body, power that she hadn't felt in… she couldn't remember how long.
And as fire flared through her hair and her skin flushed bright red, she looked down at the corpse of the man she loved with one thought pulsing in her mind.
Blood.
A/N: I don't usually do these author's postscripts, but I thought it might be necessary for this one. Some of you might be upset with me. THE STORY IS NOT OVER. PLEASE trust me. I wrote this story specifically to be a response to how terribly Marvel in general and Dan Slott specifically handled the Superior Spider-Man story arc, while fitting it into my overarching "Doomed" trilogy. I'm not finished yet.
Not by a long shot.