"Colonel Jameson, are you sure you don't remember anything else?"

"I've already told you what I know," the man insisted, his tone much more defensive and fearful than normal. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"We just want to make sure that there is nothing else that was missed," his commanding officer replied.

"We were on course for the landing, when somehow that thing got free, probably during the initial accident," John explained, his tone growing more fearful as he reminisced once more about the ordeal. "It came over my space suit, and that's when I blacked out. Next thing that I knew, I was waking up in the hospital."

The man let out a light sigh, seemingly trying to settle his nerves.

"Look, Colonel..."

"We just want you to know that we are all wishing you a speedy recovery," the man interrupted before his partner could finish. "Please, if you need anything, let us know."

Bidding the Colonel farewell, the man walked out with his coworker, who confronted them as soon as they were out of sight and earshot from the clearly still shaken up Colonel.

"Why were you giving up so quickly?" the man asked.

"You saw the same man that I did, didn't you?" he answered, gesturing back in the direction of the room. "That man is one of the happiest and most joyful people that I've ever met, but even more than that, one of the most courageous. He may joke a lot, but when it's time to get serious, he faces any challenge that needs to be met head on. That's not the same man that's in that hospital room right now."

"What's your point?" his coworker asked, confusion on that man's face.

"My point is that whatever happened to him on that shuttle traumatized him," he clarified. "Even if there is something that he doesn't remember right now, pressing him is only either going to put him even more on the defensive or cause him to shut down completely, him and his partner."

The man's coworker took a step closer to him, his eyebrows pointed upward.

"If we don't get answers about that life form that they supposedly found, it's going to cause even bigger problems," he explained, "especially for them. We don't have time to coddle them; we need answers, now."

"What we need is for Colonel Jameson to get better," the man countered. "Besides, do you have any idea who his father is? He may be retired from the newspaper business, but he still has a lot of influence. Do you have any idea what will happen if he comes after us, especially in a lawsuit?"

"He can't possibly expect to win," his coworker replied dismissively.

"Maybe not, but I guarantee you that he's going to make sure the whole world knows about it, and the last thing that we need right now is for a lot of outside attention to come onto this situation," the man explained.

His coworker looked away, seemingly considering what he just heard.

"What do you suggest we do?" he finally asked.

"Let the Colonel go home," the man replied. "The other one too. As for us, we study what happened at that crash site, and we pour over every piece of information we can until we figure out exactly what happened to that potential life form...and where it ended up."

Peter stepped out of the taxi, closing the door behind him as he observed where they had arrived at: Mick's, a pizza shop that had gradually shifted its menu to become more Italian over the last year, though thankfully they had retained the fries that he considered the best in the city.

"I know, you're surprised," Eddie, who was walking in front of him, spoke up. "I just figured it would be good way to kick off the celebration of the Parker-Watson wedding! That's why today, the meal is on me."

Peter stopped in his tracks, prompting Eddie to pause as well, turning around.

"What do you want?" Peter asked.

"What do you mean?" Eddie questioned, coming back a couple steps in Peter's direction.

"It's just that usually when you buy me lunch, it's because you want something," Peter explained. "The fact that it's here of all places tells me that it must be something that's really important."

"Come on, man," Eddie said, his tone one of forced casualness as he slapped Peter on the arm with his hand. "Can't a guy do something nice for his best bud?"

Peter's eyes narrowed in Eddie's direction, who soon dropped the façade as he rolled his eyes.

"I'll explain inside," he assured Peter. "Just...come on."

Peter did as he was requested, the two of them going inside and picking a booth to sit at. After observing the menus and placing their orders, Eddie spoke up.

"I need your help."

Peter could feel his eyes narrowing again.

"With what?" he asked, leaning back against his seat.

"I know that I said that I was taking a break from the whole crime lord story, but I think I just got a new lead," Eddie explained. "Maybe a big one."

Peter wasn't sure how to react to this news. On the one hand, he'd been relieved when Eddie had recently opted to set aside his growing interest in the criminal underworld, even if it was likely primarily to please his wife. However, if he really did have something new, it could obviously help his spandex-wearing alter ego out.

"What is it?" he finally replied.

Eddie reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a folded-up piece of paper. Opening it, he set it on the table, pushing it up towards Peter, who brought it closer still to himself to examine it more thoroughly.

"LTL?" he questioned, looking back up at Eddie. "I'm not following."

"I'm still not sure as to the significance of it yet," Eddie explained as he repeatedly tapped his finger against the paper, "but my gut tells me that these are either the initials of whoever our new kingpin is or the name of some new organization. We just need to find out what or who."

"Where did you even get this from?" Peter questioned. Eddie proved much slower to answer this time, even to the point of that Peter noticed him visibly swallow in nervousness.

"I met a guy."

"A guy?"

"I don't know much about who he is, but he called me out of the blue the other day, promising answers," Eddie explained. "I think he used to run with the new crime boss, whoever he is."

"Oh my goodness, Eddie," Peter exclaimed, leaning back against his seat. "What were you thinking? For all you know that guy could have been someone whose operation you'd exposed before and was trying to take you out!"

"You don't think I thought about that the entire time between when he called me and when I went to meet him?" Eddie fired back. "I knew that it was a risk, but some things are worth it, such as putting away whoever this 'LTL' person is."

Their conversation was momentarily interrupted by their server bringing the two men their food. Even as the woman walked away, Peter still couldn't find the words to respond to Eddie about the matter, opting instead to run his hand over his face.

"Okay, what else did this guy tell you?" he finally asked. "Is there anything other than this?"

Eddie shook his head.

"We, uh, might have been ambushed before he could say anything else."

Peter quickly sat up straight.

"Ambushed?"

"Well," Eddie said before glancing around, lowering his voice as he put his hand over the side of his mouth. "Shot at would probably be a better way to describe it."

Well, this just took a turn.

"Are you okay?" Peter questioned even as he was still trying to process that his best friend got SHOT AT last night.

"Yeah," Eddie replied somberly. "I managed to drive the shooter away, but not before my contact got hit multiple times. He couldn't even speak; these three letters were all he could write before he was gone."

"Wow," Peter muttered, leaning back more slowly this time. "So, you think that maybe this was a gang rivalry thing?"

Eddie shook his head.

"The way the guy talked, he seemed...I don't know, bitter I guess, like he'd been betrayed by this guy. He even went as far as to say that he 'turned his back on who he really is.' I think he was honestly trying to rat him out just to spite him. As petty as that is, it makes me think that this lead is even more legitimate."

"That makes sense," Peter said with a nod as he took a couple fries off his plate to eat. One of the things he'd observed about criminals in all his years patrolling the streets as Spider-Man was that they tended to be incredibly petty if they at all felt betrayed or got greedy. He could recall specific instances of them behaving this way even after he webbed them up, such as last week when he'd strung two together and one of them had proceeded to rant to the other one about how he'd "set off that alarm like an amateur."

"Look man," Eddie said, "I just need your help in figuring out who this guy is. Who knows, maybe you'll even get one of your perfectly timed pictures that often come in handy in situations like this."

Peter glanced down at his sandwich as he considered his friend/coworker's request.

"Alright," he said. "I mean, even if I say no, you'll still go after this story anyway, so I suppose I might as well at least try and watch your back."

"Thanks man," Eddie replied.

"Mm," Peter muttered as he chewed his most recent bite of food, swallowing it before continuing: "before we proceed though, I'm going to take the liberty of assuming that Anne knows that you're back on the trail?"

Eddie's ensuing silence proved incredibly telling.

"You haven't told her?"

"I haven't even brought up what happened last night," Eddie explained. "I just said that I was working late and tried to make it sound boring. I plan on telling her; I just know that she worries about me, so I don't want to get her even more concerned than she already is."

"She must be really concerned if you felt that you couldn't tell her right away," Peter remarked. "I thought you guys told each other everything?"

"Usually we do," Eddie said. "It's just...she doesn't always say it, but I can tell that she worries about me even when she doesn't say anything, and I'm talking about even long before this whole thing."

"I know what you mean," Peter concurred as he finished swallowing his most recent bite of food, grabbing his drink. "I know that M.J. worries a lot too. Sometimes she lets me know it, but at the same time, I know that she holds back sometimes. She's strong, stronger than she gives herself credit for."

"Anne's the same way," Eddie said. "I'm a guy who's usually pretty confident in how to handle this whole life thing, but there are still some days where I seriously don't know what I would do without her by my side."

Eddie then lifted his large glass of water.

"To being lucky enough to end up with the best that womankind has to offer."

Letting out a light huff of air through his nostrils, Peter grabbed his glass to oblige his friend.

"I'll drink to that," he replied, gently clanging his glass against Eddie's before taking a sip of his water. It wasn't by any means a conventional toast, but if it was good enough for his best man, it was good enough for him.

"Oh, and speaking of which, I also wanted to talk about some of those ideas I mentioned for the bachelor party," Eddie spoke up.

"Oh boy," Peter muttered, bracing himself for whatever crazy ideas that Eddie had in mind.

Hammerhead pulled up his sleeve, glancing down at his watch. He observed that the time was six fifty-nine, which meant that his and his boss's clients should be there within a minute if kept to the schedule. He was not one to appreciate being late for such a thing, a feeling he and his boss shared in equal measure. They both understood that how seriously those who worked for them treated even a simple rendezvous would tend to reflect how seriously they would take their jobs overall, which meant this first meeting would likely be quite telling.

No sooner had he lowered his arm back to his side than the door to the building opened, with three figures entering the premises: a smaller individual carrying a staff, a bigger man who looked almost inhumanly large, and a more average sized gentleman who carried what looked like a metallic lasso on his waist. The three came up to him, with the average sized one speaking up for the group.

"I presume that you are this 'Hammerhead' that we corresponded with?'

"I am," he affirmed.

"My name is Jackson Brice, but you can call me Montana," the gentleman replied in a western accent before turning to his peers. "The smaller guy we call Fancy Dan, and the big one here is Ox."

"Thank you for coming, gentlemen," Hammerhead said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his phone. "You're on, boss."

Setting the phone down on the table, the other three men glanced down.

"Thank you, Hammerhead," the man on the other end of the line spoke up. "Gentlemen, allow me to get right to the point: there is a pest in our city, one who has been a plague on all levels of the underworld ever since he first showed up on the scene years ago. He was also largely responsible for taking down my predecessor, Wilson Fisk. Simply put, he is the one that the world knows as 'Spider-Man.' The three of you were brought in for one purpose and one purpose only: to squash this pest by any means necessary. Once this task is complete, you will all be rewarded handsomely for your efforts. Are there any questions?"

"No sir," Montana replied.

"Very good then," the man replied. "I will await word that your task is complete."

After that, the three men took their leave, with Hammerhead remaining there, his boss still on the line.

"And what of our other matter?" the man spoke up.

"I've already got a crew heading there tonight," Hammerhead replied. "Don't worry boss, by the time the boys are through, that reporter won't be coming after you ever again."

Buckle up, everyone...

Thanks again for all the love and support! Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!

"In peace I will lie down and sleep, for You alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalms 4:8