(Note: For Spider-Man, this takes place after the "Hollywood" arc; quite possibly in the early Carnage arc, with all those weeks that were skipped through.)
ULTIMATE MELEE
CHAPTER 2
"Spider-Man, you fool! You shall never defeat me!" Mysterio screamed with a menacing laugh. "I am simply too powerful for you!"
"We'll see about that!" Spider-Man said heroically. With a giant leap, Spider-Man flew towards Mysterio with lighting-fast motion, striking him hard in the stomach. The impact was too much for Mysterio, and he fell off the bridge towards the river, and his doom.
"Oh, thank you, Spider-Man!" the damsel in distress said. "You're my hero!" She ran over to him, lifted off half his mask, and embraced him with a long and passionate kiss.
"No, I can't do this," Spider-Man said, backing off. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. Mysterio came to here to distract me from my ultimate target: Doc Ock. I must leave now. I have no choice."
"Will I ever see you again?" the girl asked.
"You can count on it," Spidey said, and with that, he jumped into the air, shot out his webs, and began swinging away.
"That was one of the cheesiest things I have ever seen in my life," Gwen Stacy, looking up at the screen, said out loud.
"Shhh!" all the people surrounding them in the theater room ordered.
Peter Parker, who sat to her right, softly said, "I am so freakin' embarrassed." He watched in horror at how unrealistically they portrayed him on screen, and worse than that, making a large amount of money off it. The Spider-Man movie now had the biggest opening weekend ever. It was only in the third week after its release that Peter had decided to finally see it.
"Come on Peter," Mary Jane, who sat to his right, whispered. "It's just a movie. They don't know the real you. If they did, it would be accurate and much better film."
"Not with this acting, it wouldn't," Gwen Stacy said loudly, once again provoking the audience to ask for her silence. Unfortunately, it was too late for that to take effect. The usher had arrived next to Gwen's aisle seat.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you keep up these disturbances," the usher said.
"Gladly," she said, standing up and walking away. To make her grand exit, she yelled out, "THIS MOVIE SUCKS ANYWAYS!"
As soon as Gwen left the auditorium, Peter turned to Mary Jane and asked, "Do you want to get out of here too? I can't stand another minute of this thing."
"Yeah, sure," Mary Jane said, although with a small hint of regret in her voice. Together holding hands, they left the theater.
When they got outside, Gwen was nowhere to be found on the street.
"She'll be alright," Mary Jane says. "She knows her way back to your house." With that, they started to walk down the road back towards the Parker's house.
It was five minutes later when Peter started to feel uncomfortable. The evening setting of his Queens neighborhood looked normal enough around him, but he could still sense something wrong.
"Let's pick up the pace," he told Mary Jane. "I don't want Aunt May to get too worried."
"Yeah sure," Mary Jane agreed.
They continued walking, and even though he did not turn back to look, he could sense some footsteps behind him. Peter grew nervous.
Someone was following them.
"Mary," Peter whispered, "I want you to get ready to run if you have to."
"What?" she asked.
Letting go of Mary's hand, Peter quickly turned around on guard, to see who it was.
"It's about time you guys noticed I was here," Gwen said from behind them.
Relief spread through Peter; everyone was safe.
"Um, Peter...," Mary Jane said.
"Yeah?" he said, turning back around.
But now there was somebody else standing not too far in front of them.
"Parker?" Captain America said. "I'd like a word with you."
Nick Fury returned to his comfortable office in the high tower of the Triskelion with a lot on his mind.
As soon as he entered, he saw someone already in there.
It was Hawkeye.
"Can I help you, Clint?" Fury asked.
"How'd the interview with Banner go?" Hawkeye asked back, apparently ready to avoid the subject of what he was doing here.
"Banner denied that anything ever even happened," Fury answered. "Claims that he doesn't remember a thing."
"You did run a lie-detector test, right?"
"There's no point in it. The man has so many flashes of anger that it's impossible to tell when he's lying or when he's just pissed off at the question we asked him."
"So where do we go from here?"
"There's not a whole lot to do, truthfully. All we can do is keep Banner locked up right now. Perhaps tighten security, but that's it."
"That's it?! There's a conspiracy going on here! The era of time that Banner was gone from the Triskelion has no video recollection from our cameras! And nobody knows what the hell has happened to Banner's security guards. They just left their posts, Nick. We need to know why."
"All we can do now, Clint, is find Parker. He's the only lead we've got right now."
"When are we sending the search party out for him?"
"It's already been sent. Steve should be in Queens by now."
"You sent Cap? Just Cap?"
"Yeah? Why?"
"Well, you're dealing with Spider-Man here. What if he fights back?"
"Why would he?"
"Nick, we both know how thrilled he gets when we interrupt his life."
"I'm sure he'll feel better with S.H.I.E.L.D. keeping an eye on him than the Hulk showing up his doorstep."
"You think Drake and Parker are somehow connected? That Banner will look for Parker just like Drake?"
"We can never be too sure. That's why we're alerting Parker of the situation."
"Hypothetically, if the Hulk were to show up in Queens, who would you send it to take him out?"
Nick Fury raised one of his eyebrows and asked, "What is this conversation really about, Clint? Why are you here?"
Hawkeye sighed and said, "I want to know why you sent in Stark to knock out the Hulk when I was already there? Why did you change the plan?"
"Iron Man's laser beams were more suited for that mission," Fury replied. "There was a higher success rate. After all, we've got data on how to break down the Hulk's DNA back into human form very efficiently. No hard feelings, but it was just a better gamble than using your arrows."
"I see," Hawkeye said indifferently.
"Hey, man, I know you and Natasha and the others sometimes feel like you're 'secondary' compared to Cap and Thor, but you have to realize that you're just as important to this team as they are. After all, who did we send in to take out the Hulk when we unleashed him during the invasion?"
"That's not a fair comparison!" Hawkeye exclaimed. "You were ready for that situation! You sent me in there because you knew that if I failed, there was Captain America as well as another entire freakin' army there ready back me up!"
"Not true, Clint. Not true at all."
"I don't care!" said Hawkeye. "I just want you to know; next time you have me ready to do something, I can do it. I'm your man, and if you need something done, I'll get it done."
And with that, he walked out of Fury's office.
"So what's this webbing made out of?" Captain America asked, removing strands of it from his chest that Peter had shot at him by reflex when he had first seen him.
"It's a secret," Peter said.
"You know I can take this to the S.H.I.E.L.D. labs, get it analyzed, and it'll be on sale at Wal Mart by next month," Captain America said, smiling.
"Impressive," Peter said, horrified at the idea of everyone in the world having access to his webs. He and Captain America were now onboard a helicopter flying them toward the Triskelion. It all happened so fast, and Peter couldn't recall if he had even agreed to this.
"Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy have been left with explicit instructions to alert your aunt that you are spending the night at a friend's house," Cap said.
"Which friend would that be?" Peter said, his mind failing to come up with a single name besides Mary and Gwen.
"The one who goes by the name of 'Kong,'" Cap replied. "By the time we reach the base, I will provide you with a mobile phone to contact your aunt and inform her of this as well."
Peter groaned. That cover-up was going to fall apart. Big time.
He would have argued that this wasn't a good idea if something else hadn't crossed his mind at that moment.
"Wait a second," he said jumping up from his seat. "How exactly do you know that Gwen Stacy knows I'm Spider-Man? You could have showed up there asking me to come to S.H.I.E.L.D. and she wouldn't know what to think."
Captain America remained silent.
"Don't tell me," Peter said, finally realizing the truth. "You guys have been spying on me."
"Son, do you know how many enemies you have?" said Cap. "Your life has more danger involved with it than most of the members of the Ultimates. There is so much risk to it that keeping an eye on you is an important task for S.H.I.E.L.D. You know too much, kid."
Although he was angry at this fact, he did understand Nick Fury's reasons for doing it. He sat back down and argued about it no more.
"Alright, so it's time to explain why you need me," Peter said. "And I swear, if it's about Norman Osborn again-"
"It's not about him."
"Otto Octavius?"
"Not him. We melted his metal arms."
"Is it anyone of the guys who forced me to attack the White House with them?"
"Enough with the guesses," Cap said firmly. "It's the Hulk."
"What?" Peter said, confused. "What do I have to do with the Hulk?
"Let me explain the situation," Cap said. "This morning, the Hulk unnoticeably slipped out of his containment space in the Triskelion and appeared in front of Xavier's School for the Gifted. The two X-Men, Cyclops and Storm, were sent out to deal with him, but he was offering no threat to them at all. Instead, he kept yelling out the name of Bobby Drake, the young mutant known as Iceman. We unleashed Iron Man to deal with the Hulk, and he successfully tranquilized him. On the way back, the Hulk muttered a certain name."
"Mine?" Peter asked.
"Precisely. You, as well as young Bobby Drake, are not in any way connected to the Hulk, but for some reason, he has requested to see you both. Now, we cannot ask Bobby Drake for help in solving this mystery, but we were hoping that you would lend us a hand."
"What can I do?"
"S.H.I.E.L.D. has previously constructed a dome made of walls so thick, that not even the Hulk will be able to penetrate though them."
"I don't get it," Peter said. "What exactly are we going to do here?"
"Well, I want you to know that we will do everything we can to make sure that you remain completely safe," Captain America said, with a promising look in his eyes.
"But...?" Peter inquired.
"But what we're going to do, if it's okay with you, is we're going to put you in that dome, drop the Hulk in, and see what happens."
"My fellow mutants," Professor Xavier began, sounding as professional he could. "It is now apparent that it may not indeed be possible for the Ultimates and our team of X-Men to co-exist peacefully. This morning's act of trespassing on our school grounds is potentially the final proof that S.H.I.E.L.D. is not completely secure with our existence. While I am not seeking to use force and violence on our nation's government, today's events may have been the foreshadowing of a war that is yet to come. I have come to a decision that I still doubt and very well might end up regretting, but it may well be the only way we can get some answers to the mystery that has appeared upon us."
The X-Men listened carefully and patiently to the professor's words in his office. A tone of seriousness had flood the room since he began speaking, and they knew that tonight's decision would influence what trials they would meet in their lives for the following days, or possibly even weeks.
"The mission that I have planned out will be a dangerous and risky one," Xavier continued, "but I believe it is the only way we can find the key to why the Hulk was calling out Bobby Drake's name this morning. Tonight, we must infiltrate the Triskelion and retrieve Bruce Banner."
TO BE CONTINUED...